Craig Morgan Brings Us to Tears: Not a Dry Eye in the Room

Throwback Thursday (Originally aired: 11/30/25) Bunnie sits down with country music legend Craig Morgan for a powerful, emotional, and unexpectedly uplifting conversation. Craig opens up about his journey from growing up in Kingston Springs to serving in the Army and attending the elite Korean Ranger School—experiences that shaped the man and the musician he would become. He shares intimate memories of his humble beginnings, his first hunting trip with his mom, and the moment he realized music was his calling. Craig also reflects deeply on his faith, the loss of his son, and the resilience that carried him forward, along with the unwavering support of his wife, Karen, throughout their 37-year marriage. Craig reveals the incredible story behind his viral hit “The Father, My Son.” Written spontaneously at 4:30 AM and never meant for anyone to hear, the song took on a life of its own after he recorded it with Sonya Isaacs—eventually skyrocketing to number one on iTunes across all genres and landing him appearances on Ellen and Fox & Friends. From family and faith to farming, hunting, and the unexpected twists of his career, Craig’s humility and gratitude shine through in every story he shares. This is Craig Morgan like you’ve never heard him before. Craig Morgan: Website https://www.craigmorgan.com/ Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Dumbblondepod

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

• 0:11Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on? Hello babies, welcome back to another episode of Dumb Blonde. I have a Tennessee legend sitting on my couch today and I couldn't be more ecstatic about it. Mr. Craig Morgan, how you doing?

• 0:25Speaker 01

  I'm good, not legend, but good.

• 0:27Bunnie XO?

  I love how humble you are, but honestly, you are a legend. Like, the things that you've accomplished, the life you've lived when I was studying you last night, my husband was so excited, he's like, "Do you want me to write the podcast for you?" I was like, "No." He's like, "You don't understand," and he was like telling me all these like little cool stories. And we called Loba and Loba told us a couple of cool stories. And it was just really cool to learn about you and the man that you are. And you're just a, you're a beautiful soul.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  I'm just a blessed individual. And you guys know, you, you may not know, but we love you. We love Jelly. I love that, I tell people every night on stage, I tell the story about him telling the story about Almost Home on the Opry. And I tell them, "Go look at that." And I talk about how, when he told that story, he was talking about what that song meant to him and everything. But what he didn't know, and what both of y'all continue to do today, is when he was telling that story, he was moving me. And you know, somebody who has been doing this for a while, and he, he just, it motivated, it excited me to see that we have such good spirits in our people, in our human race, in spite of our history.

• 1:39Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  And I love that. I love that neither one of you have shied away from that. And I think you're, both of you are such an inspiration. And I say that every night. And I, and I badmouth anybody, not badmouth, but I will protect and stand up for the both of you until the day I'm gone. I believe y'all are doing good things for not only yourself, but other people. And I'm not just saying that, so.

• 2:00Bunnie XO?

  I appreciate that.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Again, go look at my shows, I say it every night.

• 2:03Bunnie XO?

  No, we appreciate you so much and the love is returned. Like, we love you and your wife so much. I think your wife is just- A badass, if I'm allowed to say that. I think she's amazing.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  She's a badass.

• 2:13Bunnie XO?

  And has stood behind you. And I love that she's from Texas too, because I'm from Texas. So I love that.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  If I hear one more Texas thing. You Texas girls, but they do, they do make them pretty down there.

• 2:26Bunnie XO?

  Listen, we're proud of where we come from, okay?

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Yes, you are.

• 2:30Bunnie XO?

  But let's talk about you. So I was, I was really surprised to learn that you are, you grew up in Kingston Springs.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  I did. I was born in, in, at General Hospital in Nashville.

• 2:40Bunnie XO?

  That's crazy. Like you're a lifer.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yep. Graduated from Chedum County High School, went to MTSU before I joined the army.

• 2:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's amazing. Growing up here, do you think Nashville is completely different than what, the Nashville that you grew up in?

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Oh, it's two different worlds.

• 2:57Bunnie XO?

  Which one?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  For me, anyway.

• 2:59Bunnie XO?

  Which one do you prefer?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I mean, there's, there's, there's wonderful aspects about both. I'll be honest. You know, I'm not that guy that's so set in my ways that I'm not willing to accept. You know, technologies, advancements and all these things. But I absolutely love, love, love my privacy and, and the woods and nature. So much so that, you know, we bought a place in Alaska. We live up there during the winter.

• 3:25Bunnie XO?

  What part?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  I'm about halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks. I'm, I'm nine miles from the closest road. You can, there's no road to get to me. You can't ride a four wheeler or drive a vehicle, wheeled vehicle to where I'm at.

• 3:37Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing. And actually, Jay and I, whenever we were kind of like rekindling our marriage, we went to Alaska. And we were driving to Fair. Yes, and we were driving to Fairbanks. And when we were driving to Fairbanks, we got to see the northern lights flash in front of us.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Did y'all see them?

• 3:53Bunnie XO?

  They could see them. I couldn't see them.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  I got pictures. It was absolutely amazing.

• 3:58Bunnie XO?

  Do you get to see them in Alaska also, all the time?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yes, regularly.

• 4:02Bunnie XO?

  Is that not like?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  So when you drove, y'all drove from Anchorage to Fairbanks?

• 4:05Bunnie XO?

  Yes, and we went to the springs that were out there. It is beautiful out there though, like Alaska.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  But when you drove up there, you drove by my place almost.

• 4:13Bunnie XO?

  Okay, so.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  Because there's only one highway that goes up there.

• 4:16Bunnie XO?

  What made you pick Alaska?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Uh, I'd been going up there for years for, back when I was in the army, I would make trips up there because of the installations and visit. Uh, doing my job and, and then moving forward fishing and hunting and stuff like that. And I've always just loved, I mean, it's the last frontier.

• 4:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  I love, I'm a survival guy. I love putting myself to the test and the limits and always thought, man, someday I'd like to be able to have my own place where I build my own cabin with my own hands kind of thing.

• 4:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  And so I just finally made the jump, you know, and did it like.

• 4:51Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing. And I think it's so beautiful out there. I think we'll probably end up, you know, in Montana somewhere, like getting a chunk of land to just hide away from everybody once we're ready to retire too. I think retiring in isolation is the best thing that you can do for your soul.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 5:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I, I think you need that even, even like right now where we're at, we're working. Uh, I, I do a lot of shows, but when I go up there, uh, my, my son, we have a business up there. We ended up turning it into a bit of a business. Uh, but he, his philosophy that we talk about is sometimes you need to disconnect to reconnect.

• 5:29Bunnie XO?

  Hmm. I love that.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  And it's true. You get up there and man, you separate yourself from all of these things that separate us from each other. And you find yourself coming back together in a way that you can't hear.

• 5:41Bunnie XO?

  Hmm. I love that. And I'm going to take that with me and I'm going to tell everybody that like you have to disconnect to reconnect. Like that makes so much.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Hashtag Jerry Lake.

• 5:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 5:50Bunnie XO?

  I love it. So doing research on you, I read that your mom used to take you hunting.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:57Bunnie XO?

  Okay. Where, where was dad? Was he in the picture or was this?

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. My, my parents, uh, actually my parents were married for my, most of my young life. They divorced when I was 18, but I was already at, you know, 18 and going into college, you know, I have younger siblings that affected differently. Obviously they were younger. Uh, but they were together the whole time. My dad worked and he did hunt and I would hunt with my dead son.

• 6:20Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  But my very first hunt was with my mom.

• 6:23Bunnie XO?

  That is so savage. Cause you, that's the only reason why I asked where your dad was is because normally you talk about hunting with your dad, but to hear hunting with your mom, I was like, dude, that's straight savage. Like that's so cool.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  I mean, and she was. Uh, both my parents were both employed. Uh, they, you know, we, they were both the, the hunter gatherer. They both did, I mean, their roles were very equal for the most part. Uh, they both did the work. They both cooked. They both did everything around the house.

• 6:52Bunnie XO?

  Ah.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  I mean, my dad was kind of the fix it guy, you know, and my mom was the, she did most of the cooking and stuff. My mom could, I can remember going in the house and there not being any food. I was not a, a wealthy child at all. We were lower middle class at best, but I can remember coming in for school going, there ain't shit in here to eat. And I'm starving to death. And my mom would come in and cook dinner and he'd be like, where did this come from? You know, but she was able to make stuff out of nothing.

• 7:19Bunnie XO?

  That is so cool.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  It was cool.

• 7:21Bunnie XO?

  Can you take me on that first hunting trip? Or like, what about your first kill?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Did you just ask me to take you on your first hunting trip?

• 7:27Bunnie XO?

  Well, I mean, I would like for you to take me on my first hunting trip.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  God, April, I'm taking you turkey hunting. It's going to change your life.

• 7:33Bunnie XO?

  Oh my gosh, I'm so scared. I don't know if I can hurt a little animal, but I'll go.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  You don't have, you don't even have to shoot it. I, I want you to experience the interaction between a male gobbler, a mature male gobbler. And it is one of the most unbelievable things because when you go turkey hunting, it's a lot like elk hunting, except, you know, they're obviously a lot smaller animal.

• 7:57Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  But there's an interaction that takes place that defies nature. Because what normally happens, and I'm going way into a lot of detail.

• 8:06Bunnie XO?

  No, I love it.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Or when they're in heat, so to speak, uh, it's in the spring. So when they're wanting to breed, the gobblers will sit up in the tree in the morning and

• 8:17Speaker 01

  I know y'all have heard turkeys gobble, right?

• 8:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. You do it so good.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  What they're doing is they're telling all the hens, I'm over here.

• 8:23Bunnie XO?

  Ah, come and get it, come and get it.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  And so what we do is we go over and sit up on the ground and we pretend like we're the prettiest girl in the neighborhood.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  And try to piss him off so bad that he's willing to leave his harem and come to us. And so when you do that, you've caused him to do something that he doesn't normally do. And when he comes in, he does this thing called spitting and drumming. He goes.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  And when he does it, the vibrato, you can frickin feel it in your body. You'll be sitting, I'm not shitting you, you'll be sitting there and you hear that and you feel the, and you, it's like a Harley Davidson racking off way in the distance.

• 9:05Bunnie XO?

  I'm coming, I'm coming with you.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  It's a life-changing experience.

• 9:08Bunnie XO?

  I'll probably end up bringing him home with me, but I will definitely.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  You ain't gonna bring him, if you bring him home, we gonna bring him home mounted.

• 9:14Bunnie XO?

  Oh no. Alright, we'll think about it, but I'm definitely, we have to go.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  We're gonna put some lead in the head.

• 9:20Bunnie XO?

  That would be so fun to even vlog that.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  But then you have the best meat that you've ever eat in your life. It's grain, it's not grain-fed, corn-fed, it's grass-fed. It eats insects. It's a wild animal. You know the Butterball turkey that you buy in the store? That turkey is about 12 weeks old. In order for a wild turkey to get that same size, it takes about two years.

• 9:41Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  That's the difference.

• 9:43Bunnie XO?

  Wow. So it's just all the stuff that they're feeding?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  It's all natural. And I'm a, I'm a huge, like I'm a, I'm a huge, huge food freak.

• 9:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Like I'm a big fast-er. My wife and I eat one meal a day.

• 9:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, you guys do the OMAD? It's called one meal a day OMAD?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what it's called. I have, I literally just have a fast app. And I only do that because if I feel like I'm a little hungry, I look at my app and go, oh, it's only been 16 hours. I can wait two more hours, you know?

• 10:07Bunnie XO?

  What's the longest fast you've ever done?

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Uh, like, I want to say maybe 48 or 50 hours.

• 10:14Bunnie XO?

  How do you feel after, you know, the first 24 hours?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Better than I felt, uh, after I ate.

• 10:20Bunnie XO?

  Super clear, super just?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Never, never better.

• 10:23Bunnie XO?

  Never better.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  I run every day. Uh, in fact, this week I'm doing an 18-mile road march with a 25-pound rucksack in under four and a half hours.

• 10:33Bunnie XO?

  Craig, that's insane.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And I'm 61.

• 10:36Bunnie XO?

  I was just about to say, for somebody your age to be as witty and sharp and in shape as you, it's, you're like a different breed.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Not, well, anybody can do it, though.

• 10:46Bunnie XO?

  You think?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  There's no question.

• 10:48Bunnie XO?

  What's the secret?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  You gotta have the mental capacity. You gotta have the intestinal fortitude to tell yourself. We've been lied to our whole lives. We truly have. And I think if you need encouragement, or I call it assistance, you call it whatever you want. Whether it be the Ozempic or any of that stuff to get you on the right path. I encourage anybody to at least get there. That's why I talk about Jelly all the time. He's such an inspiration. Because that's hard. It's hard.

• 11:19Bunnie XO?

  He fasts. He fasts a lot.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  But it's hard for anyone to lose weight, but it's really hard when you have so much weight to lose.

• 11:28Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  It takes so much work.

• 11:31Bunnie XO?

  It took two years. A lot of people think that it happened overnight because they don't see him every day.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  But look at him two years later. And I can see him healthy. I see him running around. I remember two or three years ago when he would walk out on the stage and be out of breath. And so I just love him. I love, I talk about him all the time. But I believe in, I believe in fasting. I believe in prayer. I'm a big believer. I'm not a great Christian, but I'm a big believer.

• 11:58Bunnie XO?

  Do you think the fasting helps you with your prayer and your spirituality?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I would say my prayer helps me with my fasting.

• 12:04Bunnie XO?

  Oh, gotcha.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  But, but what happens, the only reason fasting came about, that Christ, or the Christian community

• 12:14Speaker 01

  integrated or started fasting was so that when you had a desire for something, whatever it may be you're fasting from, instead of going to that, you go to prayer. That's what fasting was really all about. It wasn't about losing weight. Losing weight is a byproduct of the spiritual gain that you get.

• 12:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  But, but I mean, honestly, for me, it's the health, you know, both spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, everything. The better your body is, the better all those other things are gonna be. I tell people that all the time. But understand that none of those things are gonna progress without pain. Whether it be hunger, whether it be heartache in your mental, you know. Life or love life, whatever.

• 13:01Bunnie XO?

  How do you keep your joints and your muscles and all of that from, you know, like age take, I'm in my forties and I can feel it sometimes. So I know like when I

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Exercise.

• 13:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, just exercise every day.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  And I'm not a, I'm, I don't go to the gym every day. In fact, I very, very seldom ever go to the gym. My wife kind of jokes about it. She's like, well, you should go to the gym and work on your abs, you know? No, I do work out. I work outside.

• 13:26Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Like come spend the day with me and then tell me I need to go to the gym. You come spend the day with me and then you'll be like, man, I, I hurt more from working today. I mean, we ran two miles of fence day before, yesterday before I went into town to do the Opry. Uh, barbed wire fence, you know, I got cows, I got, we do all the same. But a person who works like that and does that physical labor.

• 13:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, and you're picking up logs and it's, you know,

• 13:54Bunnie XO?

  That's crazy.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Kind of like deadlifting a little bit here and there. And if you do enough logs, you know?

• 13:58Bunnie XO?

  Listen, I did my first farm work about six months ago. We even filmed it and I couldn't believe it. I was like, no, I burned like four thousand calories that day. I was like, no wonder farmers are hot, dude. Because they're like, they're out here just, you know, shoveling stuff, hay, everything. Like it was crazy. So I have a newfound respect for the farm life because I'm doing it now.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  It's a hard life.

• 14:21Bunnie XO?

  No, it is.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  It's a very physically demanding life.

• 14:23Bunnie XO?

  But so rewarding.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Very.

• 14:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, like it's so rewarding. So let's talk about your military career because, you know, at eighteen, you enlisted into the US Army and you became an emergency medical technician. I had listened to you on Tracy Lawrence's podcast and you tell this story about eating a live chicken with all of your friends because you guys were in some sort of like,

• 14:49Speaker 01

  We were in the Korean Ranger School.

• 14:51Bunnie XO?

  Yes. Can you tell me that story, please?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, in the Korean Ranger School, there's a two week portion of that nine week course. I think it was actually 10 days. Where you go through a POW encampment scenario.

• 15:10Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  So you've basically been captured and they place you in the camp and your objective is to escape from the POW camp.

• 15:17Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  That's what you're told and all you know, you don't know anything except the experience that you're encountering right then and you have a location as to your safe house, the place you're trying to get to.

• 15:30Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  So if you do get outside of the camp, you gotta get to there. But what you don't know is all of these little communities that you're running through, all of those local Korean people are paid good money if they turn you in. So if they see someone from the camp, I mean, they're literally, they do patrols to look for people trying to get out of the camp so that they can get rewarded.

• 15:51Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Uh, and we escaped, myself, uh, two other Americans, uh, one other American and two, uh, Katusas, which weren't Korean Army, they were, uh, they're what they call Korean uh, augmentation to the United States Army. So they're Korean nationals that work in the US Army that are stationed in Korea. So they're assigned to my unit, even though they're Koreans.

• 16:17Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Uh, but instead of going through the Korean Army programs, they go through the US Army programs so that we have that international relationship thing happening. Uh, but we escaped and we got out. Well, we're running, literally, we weren't 200 yards from the little encampment and we realized at this point that people were following us and they were trying to turn us in. So I told them that we can't stop and it was about two miles from where we were. Now, mind you, we probably hadn't eaten in four or five days. The only thing we had eaten was bugs that we caught and the rice that grew up through the pens that we were being kept in.

• 16:56Bunnie XO?

  What kind of bugs were you guys eating?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Anything that flew in there died.

• 17:00Bunnie XO?

  Really? Just anything?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  I couldn't even tell you the stuff that I ate.

• 17:02Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  And I can tell you, like, it seemed like it tasted good. I just remember it tasting good.

• 17:08Bunnie XO?

  Cause you're so hungry.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  So hungry.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  And you did, you did physical activity for two hours every morning and two hours every evening. So they just absolutely drained you.

• 17:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. And on no food. I mean, of course, you're just tapped out.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  And they were extremely abusive to the Koreans, even the katusas.

• 17:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Uh, like if we would be doing pushups, they would come and push us over and kick us over. But they would at a full kick, kick the katusas in the stomach and lift them up off the ground.

• 17:36Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  And those guys would land on their hands and feet and just keep doing pushups like nothing happened.

• 17:41Bunnie XO?

  This is like something out of a movie.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It was, it was just like a movie. The whole time, that's what I kept thinking. It's like one of them damn Vietnam movies.

• 17:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  I mean, we even had the pajamas and the whole bit.

• 17:49Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And we were disgraced, you know, they, they, they acted like they hated us as Americans. Uh, anyway, back to the story, we're running through and we come across these chickens and one of the katusas yanked the chicken up. He grabbed it and we just kept running. And while we were running, he was plucking this chicken and he would hand it over and each of us. And we were trying to get this chicken. Finally, one of them got its neck wrung. But I promise you, before that chicken's heart stopped beating, we were all taking chews out of it.

• 18:16Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  And it was good.

• 18:19Bunnie XO?

  You are just, I, I could sit here and listen to you talk all day and these stories are insane. At 18, you know, enlisting into the army, where was your heart at with that and what encouraged you to do that?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  When I first went in?

• 18:32Bunnie XO?

  Yes, sir.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Um, you know, honestly, I was, I grew up in Kingston Springs and I'd kinda, I was, you know, in college, that first year of college, I, I was actually not even in college yet. I was at, uh, uh, Texas TSU.

• 18:49Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I guess it's college. I was going to EMT school. And I just felt like, you know, I was drinking and doing the normal 17, 18 year old thing, you know? Um, but I, I seen all these advertisers, advertisements. I remember seeing be all you can be. You know, go to other places and, and. At the time, I was a volunteer fireman at the fire department. So I think there was always something in me that wanted to do other things. And I love helping people. And I'm not saying it, it sounds super cheesy when you say it.

• 19:23Bunnie XO?

  No, it doesn't.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  But I mean, it really does. To me, it does. When I say that, it sounds like you're going, oh, and I love helping people.

• 19:29Bunnie XO?

  No, not at all. That's where your heart is, that's your spirit.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  But I love, I really enjoy helping people.

• 19:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  I mean, and, and, you know, being on the fire department, I always felt like, you know, you felt heroic. It felt like that night, you know, and it made, you always thought, I always thought the girls would think it was cooler, you know?

• 19:47Bunnie XO?

  Most firefighters are really hot, though.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  So I seen all those commercials and I thought it'd be an opportunity for me to go do something else and, you know, maybe get some of college money. You know, like I said, we weren't, you know, we weren't wealthy by any means. We didn't have a lot of money. So I thought I'd get free college money and, and free hunting clothes too. So it'll all be, it's a win-win.

• 20:07Bunnie XO?

  Take me into that boot camp, because the army boot camp is wild. Like, how were you, were you just like, what did I do? Like, the first week that you were there?

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Honestly, it was like you said earlier, the whole scenario, when I recognize it now, at the same time I see myself sitting in the barber chair, I remember movies of when the, you know, where the guys were in the barber chair getting you know, that really does happen.

• 20:34Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Like, oh, God, I know he just cut my freaking head. I had to. I gotta be bleeding right now. That's what it felt like.

• 20:40Bunnie XO?

  And you can't show any emotion.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  No, no, you just sit there and get your haircut. And I remember, I was, I went to the BASIC and AIT, which is your advanced individual training, which is your job training.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Under one program at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and I remember, and we got our, when you're going through reception, when you first get there.

• 21:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  There's a drill sergeant comes in, he's not nice, but he's not like over the top. Get the vogue over. You know, he's like, all right.

• 21:08Bunnie XO?

  It's not like you see in the movies.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Right. Today, there's parts of it. You don't get to that part till later.

• 21:13Bunnie XO?

  Oh, they save it, they save it for you.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Hey, you're going, today you're getting haircut, you're gonna get your TA 50 issue, you're gonna do this, you do this. Tomorrow, your drill sergeant for your unit, for your training unit will be picking you up. And you go through all these motions and you're thinking, and I remember thinking, it's not that bad. It's really not that bad. And then we finished up in our drill sergeants for our training units show up and that's where the movie started.

• 21:39Bunnie XO?

  Oh, no.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Just like, what is wrong with you? You know, and at this point in my life, I had never shaved, not one time.

• 21:46Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  I just didn't have any facial hair.

• 21:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  I didn't have to shave. So every morning, they told everybody, you had to shave, you had to brush your teeth, you had to, I mean, it was like teaching a 12 year old. They made sure you did everything. Well, I wouldn't shave because I didn't need to shave.

• 22:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  I didn't have no hair.

• 22:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  You know, and I'll never forget this drill sergeant come running up to me in formation. And my real last name is Greer, you know? And he said, Greer, did you shave this morning? There was no hair in your razor. I said, drill sergeant, I do not have. I didn't ask if you had any, I asked if you shaved. I said, and he had my razor. And I said, no, drill sergeant. And he took that damn razor and he scraped it on that concrete sidewalk and he said, shave.

• 22:29Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 22:34Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I shaved, didn't know nothing but skin came off.

• 22:39Bunnie XO?

  Oh, no.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I cut myself like eight or 10 times and stood there and bled in formation.

• 22:43Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my God. And if you don't do it, you get punished, right?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, yeah, back then it was different.

• 22:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  You know, back then, I'll be honest and I'm, yeah, I'll just be honest. It was different back then.

• 22:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  They were making, you know, our new secretary of war said it in a speech recently. We do ugly things in the military.

• 23:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  And you got to be prepared in both mentally, physically, and every aspect to be able to do those ugly things.

• 23:09Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  To bad people that want to hurt Americans.

• 23:11Bunnie XO?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  And that's what I remember feeling that then as a, you know, 19 year old kid going, gosh, man, this is what this, this could happen, you know? I could be in Vietnam and somebody would make me shave with a bad razor. You know, you just don't know what's gonna happen.

• 23:31Bunnie XO?

  No, that's crazy just to even have to go through that at such a young age. What would you say was the defining moment in the army that changed you for the rest of your life?

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Probably Panama in 1989 during the conflict.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  There were things that happened there that made me realize, you know,

• 23:56Speaker 01

  we don't control things and no matter how good you are at what you do, there's things that will, that affect it that are beyond your control.

• 24:05Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  And you get us in combat and any veteran that's experienced any form of combat at all would, I think would attest to this. You have a sense of appreciation for life, so much so that you are not scared to die. And you don't even know it. For me, the whole time, all I can remember, even in Panama in 1989, thinking, what I am doing will prevent people at home from ever having to do anything like this again.

• 24:34Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  When we were in Iraq, all of our soldiers that were there would tell you, what was happening there prevented that thing from happening there, happening at home.

• 24:44Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  And then September 11th, you know? That was, you know, and that was as big an event as that was in our country.

• 24:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's miniscule to the, what they have planned or what they would love to do to, to us as Americans.

• 24:59Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to say thank you for your service too and for everything that you've been through.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  It's the greatest privilege of my life, greatest honor.

• 25:07Bunnie XO?

  Thank you so much for it. So while you were in the army though, is when you kind of started writing music, because didn't you write a song about Panama, actually, that was in some of your lyrics? I remember hearing a song where you talk about losing your brother in the war and, I mean, like your brother that was in the army and, you know, you just go on this journey with it. What inspired you to start writing music while you're out there? Was that an outlet to channel all the trauma that you were going through?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I, I, I want to be real careful. I don't want to, I don't want to identify it as trauma.

• 25:38Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  And I'm not going to say that it wasn't.

• 25:41Bunnie XO?

  Right, I get it.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  I may be in a bit of denial.

• 25:43Bunnie XO?

  Right, it's okay, it's okay.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  But for me, I don't know that music was an outlet as much as it was a way for me

• 25:53Speaker 01

  to, to communicate with other people.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I'm a, in groups like this, I do really well. I don't like the big 60,000. When we do those shows, I'm nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I can't hardly stand it.

• 26:10Bunnie XO?

  You would never know that.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  But, but you know, smaller groups, I love that. And I love talking to people. I love hearing people's thoughts and I love affecting people's attitudes. I love having the ability to make someone who might be feeling like absolute shit that they smile.

• 26:28Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Or I love knowing that I can make someone think of something special and they tear up. And that's what music did for me. It gave me that. And in the army, when you had time down, for me, it was just a way to, to kill some time. Uh, I, you know, I wasn't a songwriter then. I was writing songs, but I wasn't really a songwriter. I don't think I really, uh, started really writing songs until I came back home and started writing regularly and with great writers and, and understood the, the, the schematics behind writing.

• 27:02Bunnie XO?

  The art.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, the art form. And, and once you, I think it's a gift. I do believe that. I think anybody who writes has a special gift. But that doesn't make them great songwriters. They have to perfect that gift, you know? And you have to work at that gift. And I think that's, that's could be said with any gift that God gives us. No matter what your gift is, you, you should work at that and be grateful for it and use that gift for the betterment of others.

• 27:26Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. Do you remember the very first song that you wrote while you were away? Did you write when you were younger at all?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, I did. Uh, my dad moved to Texas, uh, once to, for a job, a company he did, and I went down there with him for a summer. And, uh, I remember sitting around the guitar, literally did it just to impress the girls. There was a couple of girls and so I thought it was cool. But I don't even really remember that first song.

• 27:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  That one of the first songs that I remember writing was the one I wrote when I was in airborne school.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  And the government had, uh, Congress had passed a bill allowing the test platoon. The test platoon were the first jumpers ever to jump in the United States Army. Hence the name test platoon. First guys ever to parachute out of an airplane.

• 28:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  So they were coming to the airborne, while I was going through airborne school, they, we, they were gonna do the banquet at Fort Benning, Georgia. And so, uh, I was calling cadence pretty regular, you know? Boom, boom ba dum, boom, boom ba dum, boom. And we'd be running, you know? C one thirty rolling down the strip. Y'all seen people write?

• 28:36Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  And the whole platoon seat repeats?

• 28:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  I was doing that. And one of the guys come up and said, uh, one of the instructors said, hey, you do a great job at cadence. They just passed this deal, Congress. The eighty second airborne choir is coming. They need more cadence callers. You're gonna do that. Like, I didn't have a choice. He's like, you're gonna do it. I'm like, cool. So every evening when we would get finished with airborne school, I would go to my room and pick up my guitar. And I saw, I, I literally asked everybody, what's the test platoon? We did our research and I found out that Red King was a man who was the first enlisted man ever to jump out of an airplane. And he talks, he talked about it in, in his story. He landed on his ass and he, that was the big thing. I jumped out of the plane and I landed right on my ass.

• 29:21Bunnie XO?

  And lived to tell it.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and so there was all these great stories. So I sit in the barracks one night and I just started playing this. Boom, boom ba dum, boom, boom ba dum, boom. And so I wrote this song. Uh, hey, uh, um, hey, Red. Let me see where you're at. Hey, Red. Cause he was gonna be at the banquet. Let me see where you're at. They said you were the first enlisted man to jump. Tell me, did you really land on your arm, Mr. Red? So I played that for the instructors and they went, the colonel needs to hear this. I'm not making this shit up, y'all. This is my life. This is how dumb my life has been.

• 30:00Bunnie XO?

  That's not dumb. This is so much lore crag. You have no idea. This is awesome.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  So the commander comes down. This is a colonel and I'm, you know, this little private. And he says, private group, let me hear this thing, this song you're writing. So I played it for him. He said, I want you to come to the White House every evening after class, uh, uh, after, or every day after your, uh, tasks are completed and work on this song, you're gonna sing this at this banquet. I'm like, Roger, he said the 82nd Airborne Choir is gonna back you up. They're gonna come in and I mean, I'm nobody, y'all. I'm just, I'm not in the army. I was gonna be a paratrooper. That's all I wanted to do is jump out of planes, be in the army and kill bad guys. And, and I'm doing this, but again, this is God. This is the way God does stuff, man. He'll get you even when you don't think you want to be a part of it, you know?

• 30:45Bunnie XO?

  I know. He's been working on me and my husband unexpectedly.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  I go up there and I write this song and I sing it at the Test Platoon banquet. And the 82nd Airborne Choir comes marching in, boom, boom, ba-dum, boom, boom. And they sing it and I play the song. A cassette tape of that song is in the museum, uh, in Fort Benning, Georgia.

• 31:03Bunnie XO?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  But I was in the army and I didn't think nothing about music then. I was just doing that to get over.

• 31:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  I mean, cause every time, instead of having to stand in line to go up to the tower to do my 250 foot tower jump, that put me in the front of the line. I would go do my jump, front of the line, do my jump that day, do my extra stuff I had to do. And then I would go set up the White House and work on this song like I was something special.

• 31:26Bunnie XO?

  Ah, but you were, you had a talent and God was using you to bring a smile to those soldiers faces.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  What was special about all of that, that no one would know, would consider special, except for us, was my parents couldn't be there when I graduated. You know, they both worked, which wasn't a big deal. You know, I didn't, I didn't feel bad about it. It ain't like I was the one guy soldier over there like this, you know? I didn't really care. Um,

• 31:55Speaker 01

  back then they did what they called blood wings. When you got your wings, they would stick them right there and then they pound them in your chest. I mean, the little needle's only about quarter inch, but they would pound them in your chest. It was a, you know, badge of honor, so to speak.

• 32:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Uh, my parents couldn't be there. And since I did that, Red King, who was the first enlisted man ever to jump out of an airplane and Colonel Leonard B. Scott, who wrote the book about Vietnam, Charlie Mike, who was the commander of the airborne school, gave me my blood wings.

• 32:22Bunnie XO?

  Oh my gosh. So it was like full circle. Cool.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, again, even then, when that happened, I thought, yeah, whatever the commander and some old guy gave me my wing. And then you look back and go, my God, man, you know.

• 32:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  You think about the first guy who ever jumped out of an airplane with a parachute gave me my blood wing.

• 32:41Bunnie XO?

  That's insanity.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 32:43Bunnie XO?

  That's so cool. Can we talk about what on earth made you want to become a paratrooper? I am scared of heights. You get me in a plane and try to push me out of there, I'm clawing my way back in. What was it like jumping out of a plane for your first time?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't remember much. I had a migraine so bad I couldn't see.

• 33:02Bunnie XO?

  Oh, gosh.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  My eyes were closed for most of the jump. Everybody says your first jump's a night jump, no matter what time of day you do it.

• 33:08Bunnie XO?

  Cause you're just closed, your eyes.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  They're static line jumps. So you're basically following the guy in front of you and then you step off the aircraft and the wind blows, you know, your drawers up your ass and then, and then your parachute opens, you know, and then you just fall to the ground. Do what they call a dynamite PLF parachute landing fall, land on the balls of your feet, calf, thighs, buttocks, buttocks and push up muscle. All five muscles. So you basically just fall down and get back up, pick your shit up and run.

• 33:35Bunnie XO?

  Craig, you're so cool. I don't even think you realize how cool you are.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  No, I'm not cool.

• 33:40Bunnie XO?

  No, you're so freaking cool.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I promise you, I'm not cool. Ask Karen.

• 33:44Bunnie XO?

  I love Karen and we're going to talk about her. Actually, let's, we'll fast forward and talk about her and then we'll circle back to your faith. Cause I was, I was going to talk about your faith next, but let's talk about Karen because she seems to keep you in check. Can you take me?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  You got no idea.

• 33:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. I love the fact that you said that Karen doesn't like any of your music or listen to any of your music. I'm the same way with my husband. Like I am the same way, but I have called all of his hits, all of his number one hits. I'm like, that's gonna.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  She's the opposite.

• 34:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I heard you say that. And I think that's.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  If my wife likes something, oh shit, I don't know if we should record this.

• 34:19Bunnie XO?

  I love that though. I feel like that's a good balance with a musician and his wife is like, you don't want somebody who's like, yes, yes, yes to everything. You want somebody who's like, you can do better, you know, because I feel like it pushes you. Take me on the journey of you meeting Karen and how you guys met.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Uh, I was stationed at Fort Campbell at the time. Um, unbeknownst to me, she was looking at going in the army, but she was in Tennessee, visiting her mother, who was married to a gentleman that my mom knew. They worked together.

• 34:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Uh, and my mom said, hey, and I just got out of a relationship. Uh, and my mom said, I got this girl, you're gonna love her. And I'm like, I ain't got time to meet no girl. I'm killing bad guys, man. And we're fricking on our game. I mean, at that point, I was, you know, a young E5 and just life was, I was smoking it. I was doing great things, I felt like. I ain't got time. Um, and my mom, one day I went to see my mom. She said, I'm over here at this address in Dixon. And I go over there and low and behold, it's Karen's mom's house. And, and my mom said, go in there and, and meet Karen. She's in there. I'm like, oh my gosh, she done set this shit up. And I fell for it. And I remember I stepped around the corner going, yep, she's cute. I could do this.

• 35:32Bunnie XO?

  I love that though.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  But even then, I wasn't really looking for a relationship, but, but I thought, you know, I'd love to maybe get to know her a little bit. Maybe we can date. I, I mean, I was really just wanting to, you know, watch a movie with her.

• 35:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Call it what you want.

• 35:47Bunnie XO?

  Now, hold on Craig, say Netflix and chill.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Say Netflix and chill.

• 35:50Bunnie XO?

  Netflix, you wanted a Netflix and chill.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanted a Netflix and chill.

• 35:56Bunnie XO?

  What was it about Karen that made you, after you guys had started dating and you guys Netflixed and chilled, what was it about her that made you say, you know what, this is the one that I want to spend my life with?

• 36:05Speaker 01

  Um, she had confidence.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  I loved her confidence, uh, but I also, she had a ma- uh, uh, um, I gotta be careful. She had a maternal air about her. She had this beautiful, you know, you can just see a person who cares for people.

• 36:24Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  She had that and you could see it. I could sense it. I mean, I'm, I'm gonna tell you, we only dated for a few months before we got married.

• 36:32Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  And that was thirty seven years ago. We've been married thirty seven years.

• 36:35Bunnie XO?

  That's so awesome. Jay and I-

• 36:36Speaker 01

  It's been like twenty of the best years of my life.

• 36:39Bunnie XO?

  Oh my gosh, I love that. Jay, I love that you said thirty seven years, but only twenty have been good?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:44Bunnie XO?

  I'm like, oh, I love that. That's a good, that's a, that's a good ratio. Um, Jay and I got married a month after we met, we met.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:51Bunnie XO?

  And we've been together going on ten years. I feel like those, I feel like those work, that works.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  We grew up together.

• 36:56Bunnie XO?

  Literally, and that's what I was just about to say is like, you guys married so young. What was that like growing up? Like you guys have been through everything.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  She has, uh, you know, uh, we learned a lot together. Uh, there were, there are struggles, just like with any relationship.

• 37:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  But you know, we, the, for us, it was a commitment and, and we said, and she knew she was marrying a soldier.

• 37:17Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Uh, so she was prepared for that. Um, uh, there were times that situations and things happened that I don't think she was prepared for.

• 37:26Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Uh, when I was in Panama, uh, a unmarked or a marked government vehicle pulled up at, she was with, she stayed with her dad while I was in Panama. Uh, and a army vehicle pulled up to the house and she would not answer the door.

• 37:41Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  She just knew that they were there to tell her that, you know, I had not made it, that I had died.

• 37:46Bunnie XO?

  Oh my gosh.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  But, but she lived through that experience. I mean, you know, I didn't die, obviously.

• 37:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  But for her to be standing in that house.

• 37:57Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I can imagine.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  And to think- The man that I love has died and they're here to tell me. You know, that's, I mean, yeah, that's heartbreaking.

• 38:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  And, and you know, think about the women and men that have been in that position that had to answer that door and that did receive that message.

• 38:15Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  I mean, it's heartbreaking. But anyway, I say all that to say she's, she's confident. Uh, she's not, she's a beautiful lady. She's very ladylike, but she can get dirty ass Texas on you quick too. You know, and just be mean as shit.

• 38:31Bunnie XO?

  I feel like you like that though.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  I love, I love our relationship and we've learned how to argue.

• 38:37Bunnie XO?

  You have to learn how to argue. Yes.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  You gotta know how to argue.

• 38:40Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  It's, I think it's okay. It's okay to disagree. It's even okay to, I don't want to use the word fight because it leaves the connotation that, you know, you're physically doing something.

• 38:50Bunnie XO?

  Oh yeah, no, no.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Uh, but sometimes you gotta fight stuff out a little bit.

• 38:53Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Uh, and, and we've learned how to do that, you know, uh, we've seen this thing where this woman says she comes in the door and she's like, I'm 50%.

• 39:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  So you gotta pick up the other 50% today. Or I'm 20%, I'm in no mood for your, your shit. So you gotta be 80% on the good side.

• 39:13Bunnie XO?

  I love that. I'm gonna start using that with my husband.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  When we're really pissy, we'll both look at each other and, and it's happened to Cup Town where we both go, I'm 20%.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  And then you laugh and you go, okay, let's, let's calm it down and let's figure this out. Yeah.

• 39:29Bunnie XO?

  I love that. You've said that Karen has, um, never told you no when it comes to your big dreams. What's an example of a moment where her faith in you changed the course of you guys' life?

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Uh, this, this business right here. When I was at Fort Polk, Louisiana, I'll never forget, and I had 10 and a half years, I was over the halfway mark in a, in a, in the army. So in nine and a half years, I would have retired and she and I would have lived semi-comfortably.

• 39:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  You know, not, not that military retirement is the best there is, but at least you have some guarantees, you know?

• 40:03Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Uh, and, and I, without sounding sexist or anything, I think a woman that marries a man, stability is a big part of that relationship for her.

• 40:13Bunnie XO?

  You wanna feel safe and you wanna feel stable.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  You know, you want a bit of a fail-safe. And that, I was her fail-safe. And I'll never forget coming in the door and telling, sitting down with her and going, I talked to the commander today and I think I am going to go try this music thing. And, and, and she was like, okay, what does this entail? What are we doing? I'm like, well, we're gonna move to Nashville. Uh, I said, that's when I told her, I'm gonna stay in the reserves. And if it don't work in a year or two, I'll come right back into active duty. I don't lose my rank, I don't lose in any time in service. Uh, and we'll kind of just pick up where we left off and, and, and I'll, I'll retire. And I said, chances are it's not gonna work anyway, but I, I agree with the Colonel when I thought, damn, I should try it. You know, and she's like, all right, let's go, at least we'll be home. You'll be close to home.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, she was very supportive. Now, if you ask her now, she'll go, oh, I cried for a month.

• 41:05Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  You know, she, she hated it when we left the army. We had such a wonderful life, not that we don't have a wonderful life now, but

• 41:13Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  you know, at that job in particular.

• 41:16Bunnie XO?

  It was, yeah, it was like a scheduled, you know, you knew what to expect.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, the only problem with that job, which is the problem, and that's not a problem, it's the reality of being in the military is at any minute, you can get the phone call and you're gone.

• 41:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  And there were times in our life when I was at Fort Bragg, the phone would ring and I'd walk out the door and I'd say, I don't know where I'm going and I don't know when or if I'll be back. I love you. And that's it. And she might not see me for 24 or hear from me for 24 hours. It might be seven or 14 days.

• 41:46Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, you just don't know.

• 41:48Bunnie XO?

  You gotta be a strong woman to be able to handle that. But shout out to the Colonel who encouraged you to chase your dreams. Like, that's really cool, too.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  It was very cool. Uh, to this day, he and his wife, his wife, back when we had fan clubs, was the first president of my fan club.

• 42:03Bunnie XO?

  I love that. That's, you've had a ton of full circle moments.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Still, still to this day, there's some, they're like parents to us.

• 42:12Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  We love them to death, but he, I'll never forget, he sat me down and he said, look here, I think if you stay in the army. You will be the Sergeant Major of the Army someday, if you decide you want that. I believe you have the, you will, you could do that. You have everything in order. He said, but I also think you have a very special gift that you should at least try. And he's the one told me, go in the reserves. If it don't work, you come back. You don't lose nothing. And I'll see you.

• 42:35Bunnie XO?

  I love that. I love that, because in those moments when you're making a huge decision like that, it's so good to have somebody give you, like, not only the pat on the back to be like, it's gonna be okay, but also the encouragement.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the honest advice.

• 42:49Bunnie XO?

  And the honest advice, yes. So let's talk about this music career. In 2000, you released your debut album, Craig Morgan, on Atlantic Records. Take me on that journey.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  It was awesome, uh, first record deal. I, I was literally in Nashville riding, uh, finished up a writing session and was headed back. And I got a phone call, um, from a guy named Brian Schweitzer. Uh, and he said, hey, I'm Brian Schweitzer with Atlantic Records. Uh, I just got a song. And I, in my head, I'm going, and I said, what's the song? And he told me, and I knew that I'd pitched that song to John Michael. And I thought, shit, I'm getting a John Michael cut. This is awesome, you know, because he's on fire.

• 43:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Like, this is gonna be great. I could use a good cut, you know? The money would be great. Um, and he said, uh, yeah, can you come by the office? And I said, yeah. And he said, where are you? I said, I'm in town. And I was actually on Interstate 40, almost to Charlotte. And I, I cut across the interstate. I had an old Jeep. I cut across the interstate in my Jeep and I went back. And I was there in like 12 minutes. And I went upstairs and he and Al Cooley were sitting there. And he said, uh, man, we love this song. And he said, would you, uh, um, do you have something else that you've written? I said, yeah. And, and again, this whole time I'm going, I'm getting a freaking John Michael cut. They want more songs. I mean, this is awesome, you know, finally.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Um, and he says, would you sing something? I had this song called, uh, uh, Everywhere I Go. And he said, uh, can you sing, uh, I need a guitar and he goes, yeah, yeah, we'll get you a guitar. He said, just sing it. I'm like, well, it's, it's really a piano song. You know, and so at this point I'm going, this is really, it's getting weird. You know, I'm not sure why they're asking me to sing a song that they've never heard and they've, you know, that do you, and I wanted to say, did you like the other song for John? But I just didn't know what was going on was, you know, so, so I started singing this song. Everywhere I go, you're going my way. In the dark of night, in the light of day. And he said, stop. He said, I want to offer you a record deal. I swear to God.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And I went, all right, yes, sir. He said, uh, can we get a letter of intent to your manager? And I said, yes, sir. He said, well, here's my number. Uh, give it to your manager, call me. I said, Roger, no problem. I'm still in the army.

• 45:07Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And so I go out and I'll get my Jeep and I called Phil, Phil Billy.

• 45:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  And I said, Phil, I just left Planet Records and they want to offer me a record deal. And he said, shit, that's awesome, dude. Uh, cause you know, we were writing together and playing together a little bit. And he said, uh, and I said, but they asked me about my manager and I don't have no manager. He said, well, we better find one.

• 45:30Bunnie XO?

  That was my next question. I was gonna be like, who was your manager?

• 45:32Speaker 01

  I didn't have one. So we spent like four hours talking to everybody we knew. And finally they hooked me up with this person, uh, Kristy Fortner. And so I said, hey, I need a manager and I need it tomorrow. And she said, yeah, I'm on board. Uh, and she came on board as my manager for, for quite some time, that first year or so. And all I did that first year, that was in like October. In January, my first single came out called Paradise that you alluded to. Which is odd because when I wrote that song, like, I didn't want people, I didn't want my buddies in the military to think I was trying to take advantage of my military career to, to have success in the music business.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  So I didn't want to write about my military, but you know, I just wrote the song and they loved it and they thought it would be a good single. And so we did it anyway.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  And, uh, Yeah, so I did that for a year, but I didn't do any shows.

• 46:27Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Like, real shows.

• 46:29Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  For 12 months, all I did was radio shows. Back then...

• 46:35Bunnie XO?

  And that's kind of the way to get in, though.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, back then it was the only way to get in.

• 46:38Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Uh, we didn't have TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. We didn't have none of that stuff.

• 46:43Bunnie XO?

  You literally have to go, I tell a lot of people this, in the country realm especially, I've said it with my husband, you have to court the radio.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 46:50Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Courting is the word.

• 46:52Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  We would court them, and by courting them, it meant me and my guitar player would go to the radio station in the morning. They would bring in a bunch of listeners. Their record label would pay to feed all those listeners. I would play for all those listeners, and they would kind of read the room and see how it went. I did that for a year.

• 47:08Bunnie XO?

  Oof.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  A year.

• 47:10Bunnie XO?

  Non-stop.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  There was times when Phil and I would leave Dixon and head, he tells the story better than I do. He says we were in my old Jeep and we're headed to the airport, and he said we got the Bellevue and my Jeep started jumping. Coo-coo-coo-coo. And he said, I looked at him and went, "Oh shit, I'm out of gas." I said, "You got any money?" He said, "I ain't got no money." I said, "Shit, me neither." We were literally hoping to make it to the airport to get our per diem from the record label so that we would have gas money to get home.

• 47:35Bunnie XO?

  Oh my goodness.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  I mean, that's out, we both had other jobs in between doing this radio shit. And I was doing the radio stuff every, I mean, every week.

• 47:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  It was just non-stop. Uh, and I'm not complaining, I'm bragging. It was, it was the best thing that happened to me.

• 47:50Bunnie XO?

  It's hard work and people don't realize that.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  But it gave me so much, uh, it gave me a great deal of passion for our industry, and I love, you know, it is the music business.

• 47:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  And I learned a lot about the business side of it, and I made a lot of friends.

• 48:03Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I met people that I otherwise never would have met.

• 48:05Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Uh, and radio friends, you know, but, uh, but that's what we did.

• 48:10Bunnie XO?

  Tell me about the first time that you heard your song on the radio.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  In Dixon, on, uh, WDKN, a little AM station. I had taken it in and played it for them.

• 48:20Bunnie XO?

  Mm.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Uh, and they put it on before the record label even sent it out, uh, to have it, you know, to start working it.

• 48:26Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I just, you know what I remember thinking? I remember thinking, "God, I hope, I hope KDF and WSM and everybody else sit down and plays it."

• 48:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Cause I don't think that many people listen to WDKN.

• 48:38Bunnie XO?

  Did you feel like at that moment that you had made it? Or did you, were you like, I have more work to do?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  I'll be honest with you, buddy. I've never felt like, I never felt like I made it until 2008.

• 48:48Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  And I had three top, uh, three number ones at that point.

• 48:51Bunnie XO?

  What was the pivotal moment that made you feel like?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  When they said, would you like to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry?

• 48:57Bunnie XO?

  And I, when I saw that it took eight years for you to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, I was like, that's amazing, you know? Because some people it takes longer, some people it was shorter, but like that, I don't know. I just feel like for you, hard work has always been a testament of your journey. And it showed, you know, eight years of working your butt off in this industry. And they finally were like, come see, you know, come be a part of the circle.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  I'll be honest, when they asked, when the Opry asked, I mean, it hadn't got to a point where I was, you know, telling management like, have I done some, I didn't, I wasn't aggravated that I wasn't asked to be a member.

• 49:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  I was more concerned that I had done something that would prevent me from becoming a member.

• 49:34Bunnie XO?

  So you were kind of stressing like, why is it taking so long?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  What have I done?

• 49:37Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  It wasn't, you know, I deserve this because I never felt like that. Even today, when I step in that circle, it's like, it's one of the most humbling experiences. And I'm so grateful for it. But I was, I always felt like I had done something that would prevent me, them from asking me. Because I had the hits, I was touring, I was, you know, doing all of those things.

• 49:57Bunnie XO?

  Also, you're a Tennessee boy also.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  Yes, and I'm from Tennessee, you know what I mean? Everything, but again, it, it was God's time, not mine.

• 50:07Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  And when it did happen, it was a amazing thing, but yeah, so.

• 50:12Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel like being in the military, um, helped you handle the pressure of the success of being in the music industry?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  No question.

• 50:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  No question.

• 50:21Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Uh, I was a very hard driving NCO. I, I, I would pay money right now to have some of my guys from my teams sit down here and talk to you because they would tell you, you know, yeah, he tried to kill me, he made me do 300 pushups because I told him my shoulder hurt. You know, I was just real hard charging.

• 50:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Uh, but I also knew what size his underwear was. I knew what his wife's name was. I knew what his kids' names were. Uh, they, you know, I took care of my people and, and it, it teaches you a sense of gratitude for how fortunate we are. I had the privilege of going to third world countries before, you know, to countries most of my friends couldn't even enunciate. And going in and seeing things that get, when I would come home, just be in tears almost, but you know, like even now, when I go to Alaska and I bust my ass to get to the cabin in the middle of the winter, sometimes getting stuck, a trip that shouldn't take over forty-five minutes, sometime taking six hours. And then you get in there and you get that fire built and you sit there with a glass of wine.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  And you're like, man, God, this is the most perfect moment. But that moment, like I said earlier, would not be that perfect had it not been for the pain that I went through to get there. Uh, and that's what I felt like with the opera. It felt like, you know, it was perfect. And, uh, and I don't deserve any of this. I will tell you that. I don't deserve any of this.

• 51:45Bunnie XO?

  You do.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I'm, I swear to you, I don't, I didn't, this was not my dream. I, you know, I'm buddies with Blake, you know that.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  I see, I see guys like Blake that he loves it so much.

• 52:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  He, as a kid, he stood in front of a mirror with a brush, he says. He tells those stories, you know?

• 52:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Uh, people that want it that much and work so hard for it. You know, they, they do deserve that. I'm not saying I didn't work for it, but it was never my, I worked for it because I had wife and kids. I had bills to pay.

• 52:19Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Uh, it was never my dream to stand on stage and do that.

• 52:23Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Now that I do it, I praise God every night, man. Before the show, after the show, I get on and have a glass of wine and, and literally almost cry every night going, what did I do?

• 52:37Bunnie XO?

  And you pour your soul out. You're an amazing, I've watched you like on stage and I just, I think you are an amazing performer. And it's because it comes from your soul. Like you can tell that you are there for the people and not just for the applause. Like you're there to move people. And I mean, of course, everybody that's your fan sees that also. So when you say that you don't deserve this, I truly feel like, you know, I hope one day you realize how much you do deserve this and how much you have changed a lot of people's lives because of what you do.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Well, I get paid. You know?

• 53:10Bunnie XO?

  I mean, we all love a little cash on that.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  It ain't like I'm doing it for free.

• 53:13Bunnie XO?

  Right, I get it.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  But I always thought about this the same way, kind of my service in the military. I got paid.

• 53:19Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  And I do a bunch of stuff with a bunch of veterans at different times. And I love sitting down with these guys and I'll never forget it. We was out at my place in Alaska and had a group come through, a paid group came through of veterans. And I was there with them and they were talking about, and we had an old guy there, 74 years old. He said, he don't tell the veterans thank you. And these veterans, and these are all tier one operators. I'm talking about Navy SEALs, Delta Force, CIA. These are hard chargers. These are guys that, you know, kill more people than smallpox.

• 53:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Real bad dudes. And they all looked at him and like, why? You know, not that they were offended, they were just curious, why? And he said, I never served. I don't know what it's like. I don't even, he said, I don't feel like I deserve it. I thought, holy shit, man. You know, he didn't think that he felt like he had the privilege to tell us thank you. He said, and it was like, holy cow. And one of the guys that was there, F-18 pilot, CIA, tough dude, super sweet man, said, when P. I used to say thank you, but it feels weird as a soldier saying thank you. I get paid to eat snakes and shoot bad people. You know, I can't really say thank.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  He said, he started saying, it was an honor. It's a privilege. And I feel the same way about this occupation. You know, when people say, man, that song meant everything to you. It's an honor and it's a privilege for me. I believe that.

• 54:46Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Let's talk about your faith because you are rooted in faith. What was your first memory of faith and how did that like shape your life?

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. Faith and Christianity and there's a lot of different.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Descriptions and elements of that. It started with me early as a kid. My parents took us to church. We got out of church at times, got back in the church at times. But when I was in the army, we would go to church. And when my wife and I came home, it was important to us to raise our children in a church family.

• 55:24Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Uh, so we met a group of people that we just, we just fell in love with and we became part of that church family. And we were going to church Sunday, Sunday night, Wednesday, had the potluck on Thursday, Bible study on whatever other day, you know? It was, it was just what we did.

• 55:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Uh, but my spiritual walk has been something of a book in and of itself.

• 55:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I grew up in a Southern Baptist family.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Stayed Southern Baptist my whole adult life. Uh, experienced things in the church that made us feel uncomfortable there. So we thought we would go over here and try the Methodist. We tried this.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Before my son died, he and my youngest son and my wife were going through a program at the Catholic church called the R C I program.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  And it's the rights for, uh, Christian and something. It's about, the Catholic church is different than a, any other, uh, former Christianity.

• 56:19Bunnie XO?

  I was Christian as a Catholic and we grew up a little bit Catholic before we went to Southern Pentecostal.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Karen was going through this program and she would come home and tell me these stories and I'd be like, we're going to end up getting divorced. You're in this damn cold.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  And she would tell me something, I'm like, that's not true. That's not what the Bible says. And she says, it is. And you know, study it, read it. Uh, I'm not, I'm not going to tell you, I'm just going to tell you, this is it. Here's this. And I started studying. In doing that, I, I, when Karen would tell me things, I would remember from my other studies. So I started doing a lot of research. I spent about a year and I got so engulfed in it that I, I remember going to that same program a year later that they had gone through. And the very first night I sat there crying, thinking, I have been a Catholic my whole life and I didn't even know it. And it just hammered me. And I just did not want to let another minute of my life pass without trying to be the best.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Christian person that I could be.

• 57:25Bunnie XO?

  I think you're a great example of Christianity because you don't judge people and you don't, you also don't push your faith, you live your faith.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  I say all the time, I'm not, I will tell you this, and I went through a great program in that Baptist church that I still love so much and those people called Experiencing God, and it taught me something that humbled me, humbled me. And there's a portion in there where we're all sitting there and we're talking about doing God's work. You know, as Christians, we all try to do God's work.

• 57:55Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  And that book and this program said, "We cannot do God's work," and it struck me and I thought, "How can we as Christians say that we can't do God's work? That's what he put us here for." And it's like, you started studying again, you realize, "That's not what he put me here for." Only God can do God's work. God asked two things from me, "Love my neighbors and love Him." And when you focus on your relationship with God and not all the other stuff, God will do great and wonderful things through you, and I believe that with every fiber of the tummy. And I apply that same philosophy in my relationship with Him to every aspect of my life.

• 58:32Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  My music, if it's meant to be a hit song, it will be, as long as I'm working and doing everything that I can to try to make it hit and focusing on my relationship. If He wants it to be, it will be. If He don't want it to be, it ain't gonna be, and it's in my best interest.

• 58:46Bunnie XO?

  I love it. It's so beautifully said.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Not easy to accept. Not easy.

• 58:50Bunnie XO?

  Oh, trust me, I argue with God all the time. I'm like, "Are you sure?"

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:54Bunnie XO?

  I'm like, "God, just let me do it one more time."

• 58:55Speaker 01

  You may not.

• 58:57Bunnie XO?

  So, not to bring down the, you know, the mood, but you did touch base on losing your son.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was a "really God?" moment.

• 59:06Bunnie XO?

  Right, and that was my next question. Somebody who is so rooted in faith, do you ever find yourself sometimes being mad at Him for that happening?

• 59:14Speaker 01

  No, I can't say that I was mad at Him. I would not question, but question. You know, like that, "Really, God?"

• 59:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  You know, I thought, phew, you know, you would say.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  As a Christian, I really thought, you know, I mean, I know I made mistakes. I've done things wrong, but I thought I was doing pretty good.

• 59:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  And you know, and you think those, you know, when you're doing pretty good, you know, bad shit shouldn't happen to you.

• 59:42Bunnie XO?

  To good people, especially.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Not the way it works, though. I don't believe that, and I know that, and I knew it then. But I was selfishly going, I'm a little better than most people who were saying that. You know, I mean, really, I was probably be being, I'm just being honest, you know, being true. I was arrogantly going, but I really did live better. You know, I really was trying, you know, and then I'd see my sin and go, well, maybe I didn't try as hard as I should have. But I, as, as I worked through all that, I realized God was never punishing me. He never was, and, and I don't believe for one second that God took my son. I do not believe that. I believe the devil did it.

• 1:00:22Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  And I do know that God could stop him, and he didn't for some reason. And what I have to accept is that that happened. And a lot of people seek out the reason why God let that happen.

• 1:00:37Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Was it so that all those kids that got baptized after my son died would get baptized? Was it because of this? Was it because of the charity that was established in his name? That's going to help all these kids? It's going to affect it? I don't do that. I can't.

• 1:00:51Bunnie XO?

  It'll drive you crazy.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Because you'll chase that shit forever, and all you're doing is looking for justification. And for me, there is no justification.

• 1:00:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  He's gone, and it is, that's it. My youngest said it, we just have to live with the suck for the rest of our lives. And we miss him, but my faith in God will not waver.

• 1:01:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Amen.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  But it doesn't mean that you don't have bad days, you know?

• 1:01:16Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean that, I, I think it's okay to, I think there's moments in your life where you're, you're, you're supposed to question him.

• 1:01:23Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  Sorry. I think that when you, it, it's tough, you know?

• 1:01:31Bunnie XO?

  I'm so sorry, Fred.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  No, no, it's okay. Ah, okay, I got this. I think when you question God, your faith grows because he educates you.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes it just takes really shitty things. I mean, you know, I, I read, my wife just read a book about a lady who she lost, we lost Jerry. She lost her husband and two kids all at the same time. I mean, there's people every day losing multiple siblings.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  You know, it, it, so.

• 1:02:07Bunnie XO?

  Can I give you a hug?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, absolutely. Sorry.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  No, no, I don't know. I don't want to make anybody upset. I want to encourage people. Uh, that's like the damn song I wrote. The Father, My Son, and the Holy Ghost. When I wrote that, I'd never had any intentions of anyone ever hearing that song.

• 1:02:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  But I know that God wanted people to hear that, the stories that I have heard. When that song, when we released it to the, to the platforms, you know, we didn't even go to radio with that song.

• 1:02:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  We didn't go to radio. It became the number one most downloaded song in the history of music of all genres four times.

• 1:02:53Bunnie XO?

  That's God.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  That's God.

• 1:02:55Speaker 02

  We're gonna dial you guys in real quick.

• 1:02:56Bunnie XO?

  Sorry, when we get up and sit back down, the cameras kind of. I just couldn't not hug you, you know, in that moment.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:04Bunnie XO?

  We all need a hug sometimes, you know?

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, we do. And we should not be scared to hug one another.

• 1:03:10Bunnie XO?

  No, I'm a hugger too. I love that.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  I am too. I tell my friends I love them. Uh, I gotta, you know, I got buddies that, you know, grew up in homes that didn't. I grew up at home when both my parents hugged us and told us they loved us every day before we went to school.

• 1:03:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  You know, before they, in fact, my parents both went to work before we went to school.

• 1:03:29Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  So they would wake us up and get us up and feed us and get us ready. And me being the oldest, I was kind of in charge of getting the younger ones to the school bus and such. But they would hug us and tell us they love us, you know, kissed us, you know? And my wife, she's super weird though. She's like a lip kisser.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  My wife, like my buddies come over and she's like, oh, you know, he's like, you've met him twice. Oh, she kissed him on the lip and I'm like, oh.

• 1:03:57Bunnie XO?

  I'm too OCD for that. I can't do that.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  I mean, women don't understand dudes though, you know?

• 1:04:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  You kiss a dude on the lips and he's like, oh shit, we did it.

• 1:04:07Bunnie XO?

  Can you repeat?

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  We're gonna have a baby.

• 1:04:10Bunnie XO?

  Can you repeat for me what you were saying before we had to fix the cameras go? Because I think in that moment where everything was so heavy and you know, we all were crying a little bit. That was just such a beautiful testament of what God can do. You said it was the most downloaded song in all genres and it wasn't even supposed to hit the air.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  It wasn't, I never intended for anyone to hear it.

• 1:04:30Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  In fact, that song, it's one of the few songs I've ever written in my life that when I wrote it, I wrote it from top to bottom, exactly the way you hear it today.

• 1:04:39Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  No, no, no went back and changed this line like we do normally.

• 1:04:45Bunnie XO?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Verbatim.

• 1:04:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Word for word, note for note. And, and so I tell people, God wrote that song. And I, and I was downstairs, it's 4:30 in the morning, my wife was still asleep upstairs. But I know she hurt me a little bit, you know, and I was crying and, you know, just pouring it out. And, and I'm sure it was therapeutic. I'm sure that there's psychologists or psychiatrists that would say, yeah, that's one of those very therapeutic moments. You obviously use them. Like, I'm, I'm not that guy.

• 1:05:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  I'm the, I'm the hot stove guy philosophy. When something hurts, freaking stay away from it, you know? You just don't go back and keep touching the stove.

• 1:05:25Bunnie XO?

  I get it. I'm the same way.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  But that song, God, it was, I knew that he wanted me to do it and, and it happened. And so I finished it and I just came upstairs and everything's good. And then I went back down there and I had recorded it and I listened to it on my little recording thing. And, and I thought, oh my gosh, what have I done, man? And I called my daughter and I said, I wrote this song. I want you to hear it. She's a writer, you know? That's not what she does professionally. She sells drugs professionally, but.

• 1:05:55Bunnie XO?

  Sells drugs?

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  She's in pharmaceuticals.

• 1:05:57Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gosh. I was like, crack, heroin?

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I played it for her and she was crying and she said, Dad, you've got to put that, you've got to record it so that we have that. It's so good. And I said, well, I don't want everybody to hear this, though. I'm just not ready for this. So I didn't even call Phil. Phil and I produce all my records. We've been producing my records together for years.

• 1:06:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  I didn't even call Phil. I didn't call all our normal band studio guys. I called different people. I didn't call my normal background. I called Sonya Isaacs. And I said, Sonia, I wrote this song, and I knew that she had lost a baby. And I said, I don't want to upset you, but I want your vocals on this. I think you need to be the one singing this. I'm telling you, this is the way God, all these things happen. Went in this little old studio, recorded it, and ended up playing it for my management folks. And they let the label hear it. And the next thing I know, they're saying, okay, listen, we won't go to radio, but let's at least put it out to the socials.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  I said, all right, you know, we'll do it. I went to Alaska, and I was up in Alaska, and service where I'm at wasn't real good at that time. Still ain't real good until I turn Elon on.

• 1:07:22Bunnie XO?

  That's Starlink.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I don't like to turn it on because we only have solar and generators, so it sucks up the solar power. But anyway, I got into an area where I had service and my phone went nuts. You know, all these messages and phone. And I'm like, what the hell? And I noticed one from Blake, and I was like, well, that's weird. Because I hadn't texted him in like two weeks.

• 1:07:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  And it usually takes him a lot longer to respond than two weeks.

• 1:07:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  And he had called me and had texted me, and I went to his texts and he said, call me ASAP. And I thought, oh, shit, someone's hurt. I really thought something was wrong. So I got to where I had service and I called Blake first because, you know, he's the only one. All these guys had sent me messages, you need to call us, you know, it's important, whatever, you know. I'm not doing music shit this week. And I called Blake and he said, dude, if you, if you talk to your managers, you know what's going on. And I said, I got, what are you talking about? Is everything, I said, is everything okay? He said, man, I got your text. I got the song and I listened to it. And I said, and at this point, I literally had forgotten that I sent him the song.

• 1:08:30Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  Blake had lost a brother.

• 1:08:32Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  So I wanted him to hear that song. And I said, are you talking about the, the elk? I had sent him a picture of an elk I killed. And he said, no, dumbass, the song. And I said, oh, oh, the song, the father's, my son. He goes, yeah. He goes, dude, it's gone viral. It's about to be number one most downloaded song on iTunes. And he said, you need to call your managers. I said, all right, I'll call them. I'll call them. I said, did you see the elk? He said, man, call your people. He said, Ellen DeGeneres is talking about your song. Uh, Kelly's talking about it. Everybody. He said, you need to call your folks, man. So I called them and they said, hey, we're gonna get you on all these, all these people want you on the show.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  They want to talk about the song and talk about your spirits and, you know, it's helping people.

• 1:09:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  It's healing people. I said, okay, yeah, sure. I'll be back Monday. And they said, no, Ellen wants you on Thursday. I said, I can't do Ellen on Thursday. I'm gonna be in Alaska. I said, I love her.

• 1:09:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  And I've, I'd love to be on her show, but I can't come home early, bro. I'm sorry, y'all.

• 1:09:43Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  And so I said, book whatever you can book starting Monday and I'll be there and I'll do whatever anybody wants me to do.

• 1:09:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Uh, and that's what happened. And then I went on the Kelly Show. Uh, and it again flipped and became the number one most downloaded song, all genres after that show. I went on Fox and Friends and again, it flipped and became the number one. But again, here, it was a song that no one was supposed to hear. A song that,

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  all of these things that happened, you know, and, and I am in no way, no way comparing myself to any biblical figure. I'm not doing that. But I'm just saying, God takes the, the things that aren't supposed to work and makes it the, I, I mean, I talk about y'all all the time. I'm just saying. I'm not saying that you weren't supposed to work. But I mean, he's not a pretty man to me. I mean, and you're, you're super cute.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  And so people see it and they're like, really? I'm like, no, really, it's true.

• 1:10:42Bunnie XO?

  It's my baby.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  It's true. She loves him and he loves her. God takes things and does beautiful and wonderful things with it.

• 1:10:49Bunnie XO?

  Well, God takes broken things and does beautiful.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  He does. He does take broken things.

• 1:10:54Bunnie XO?

  Thank you for telling us that story and thank you for going somewhere that, you know, is uncomfortable.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  It's a hot stove.

• 1:11:00Bunnie XO?

  I really, it is, and I really, really appreciate that. So let's move on into your legacy and then I've already kept you for like an hour and a half. So I'm gonna end it with this, but after.

• 1:11:11Speaker 01

  I've been trying to get on your show for fricking six months.

• 1:11:13Bunnie XO?

  Oh, listen, you can come back anytime you want. You come here anytime you want.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  We love you.

• 1:11:19Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  We share it all the time. When someone says something bad about you, my wife gets real fricking Texas. I tell her, I have to remind her, you know, you have grandkids now. They can see that. You know, you can't put F, question mark, question mark, K, and they don't know. They know.

• 1:11:34Bunnie XO?

  I'm telling you, me and Karen are a lot of like, and the, and the Lord is working on my mouth. Let me tell you, but I love a good clapback. So tell Karen I appreciate it. But after everything, the uniform, the stage, fatherhood, loss, who is Craig now?

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  I'm all of those things.

• 1:11:52Bunnie XO?

  Still.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I think that's been the biggest issue with my, with, if you look at my music career and it's been an amazing career. I mean, I'm still here. Everybody said, you know, the reality is I should have left 10 years ago. I shouldn't have. And by left, I mean, I shouldn't have had the success, but God did. I want this to happen. I've tried, I tried to get out. My manager will tell you, five years ago, I said, I'm retiring. You know, I've got these other businesses that are doing great and, and, and, you know, and I want to do this. I want to do that. But God does something every time that shows me that he still wants me here. And so as long as he wants me here, but I am all of those things. And it makes it really hard for a management company or a record label because I don't wear a cowboy hat.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  I'm not a one straight line. This is what I do and this is who I am kind of guy.

• 1:12:40Bunnie XO?

  Not a one trick pony.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  I am not, and I'm not going to subdue to that in order to be more successful at any one of those things. What I do strive to be the best I can be is, is a dad, a husband, and now a grandfather. A brother, a son, and a friend.

• 1:13:01Bunnie XO?

  I think that's beautiful, Craig.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  Those are, those are top. Everything after that is what you really have to work hard to, to do so that you can be the best you can be at those five things right there for me.

• 1:13:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  You know, I work very hard at my job. I work very hard at, at the businesses that we have outside of this with my friendships and everything. But I do it so that I can be the best husband, father, grandfather, brother, son, and friend that I can be.

• 1:13:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. And I said it when you first walked in here, that just reading about your story, you're a beautiful soul, but being able to sit here and talk with you the past hour and a half, I'm just in love with you. I'm in love with your family. I'm in love with everything that you represent. And I could only hope that Jay and I could be like you and your wife as we age and.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  You're already there. You guys are inspiring so many people. I love it when I get on stage at night and I talk about y'all and, and when I say y'all's names, the crowd goes wild.

• 1:13:54Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  And that means they love you and they respect what you're doing. And I tell people all the time, you know, I, I'll never forget, I'll never forget, you won't remember this, but Jelly had made a post, I don't even remember what it was, and there was a preacher who went off on him, "You can't say these things," and then tried to claim to be living a Christian life. And I thought, man, how arrogant of you. And I never, ever, ever, ever.

• 1:14:27Bunnie XO?

  I clap back.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Let me say that again. Ever, ever, ever respond to texts. I mean, to these messages.

• 1:14:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  Because all it does is just, you know, it's like you get into this never-ending bullshit. What I do is just let everybody else do it. And they'll do it. They, they do it amongst themselves. And then it goes away. But I, I remember it. That hurt me that someone from the Christian community was judging a man that I knew, that I found to be good. And it like.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  And you, you had made a comment and, and then I, I'd like, I told Karen, I said, I can't not do it. I'm like, lest ye not judge, you don't even know this man, you know? I'll never forget the first time, even.

• 1:15:16Bunnie XO?

  I want you to know, I do remember that and I do remember you sticking up for him.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  One of my closest friends and, and, and, and I think he would tell you, he's a good, one of the greatest Christian men I know. Even he said one time, because we, we were at a show, can I curse on him?

• 1:15:32Bunnie XO?

  Of course.

• 1:15:34Speaker 01

  I already did a few times, but we were at the show at that bowling place. Brooklyn Bowl.

• 1:15:41Bunnie XO?

  Oh, Brooklyn Bowl.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  Oh, it was that stupid label thing.

• 1:15:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  Remember?

• 1:15:44Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Uh, and I love the label. I do. I love those folks, but.

• 1:15:47Bunnie XO?

  Yes. Shout out Loa and Brooklyn.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Hundred artists, but I'm, Jelly was about to go on and y'all were all outside. And Jelly said, Craig, would you pray for us? And I said, yes. And there was like, I don't know, 1,200 people back there.

• 1:16:02Bunnie XO?

  If it's my husband back there, yes, he's got his whole underarms.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Which I loved, uh, and I got one more Jelly story for you.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  And I said, yeah, I'll pray. And everybody's arms and it was just, I had not, the love was so good. And it was pure and clean and innocent and honest. And I finished my prayer and Jelly said, that's the way you [bleep] pray right there.

• 1:16:29Bunnie XO?

  My husband will cuss in his prayers.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  We gotta separate him just a little, Jelly. Just a little, bro.

• 1:16:37Bunnie XO?

  That is so my husband.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  You know what? It, it didn't hurt me. It didn't bother me. Well, in fact, it made me love him because he was being who he was and it was honest and he meant it. And, and I think sometimes we, we, we try so hard to be this semblance of what we think other people think we should be, that we ignore truth and honesty and fairness and kindness.

• 1:17:02Bunnie XO?

  And non-judge, non-judgmentalness. Like, I feel like the church now is so judgmental and we could talk about that for hours, but I just feel like our job as people who love Jesus is to show people what unconditional love is. And that's all I want to do.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  Your neighbor and love him.

• 1:17:20Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  When you're doing those two things, you, everything else is where it's supposed to be.

• 1:17:24Bunnie XO?

  Yes, sir.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:26Bunnie XO?

  Craig, thank you for sitting here with me.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  No, thank you.

• 1:17:29Bunnie XO?

  I appreciate you so much. And anytime you want to come back here, you have a VIP pass to come and sit down. We will get you in ASAP, sir.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  We're gonna have you guys out. Do you eat meat?

• 1:17:39Bunnie XO?

  I do, yes.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:17:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you're taking me hunting. I gotta go see these turkeys.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  I know. Well, there's a difference in hunting and eating meat.

• 1:17:46Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Like, my son eats meat, but he, my youngest, but he won't hunt.

• 1:17:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  He, like, he cries when, when, when I poke the cow to try to get it to go through the fence. I'm like, you, you don't know, he don't even feel that hard, you know? He's so sensitive about animals. He just loves it.

• 1:18:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  I, I killed a coyote that was chasing the, my donkey the other day.

• 1:18:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  And he's like, I know it had to die, but I just hate to see it.

• 1:18:10Bunnie XO?

  You're like, how, you're like, how are you my offspring?

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And no, no, he's, you know, he's like, they have a cat and, and a dog. And I'm like, listen, when you hear them howling, you at least need to come outside and make some noise, because they will, they will eat your cat.

• 1:18:21Bunnie XO?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Take it and drag it away and eat it.

• 1:18:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  And he's like, no, you know, like, yeah, shoot the coyotes.

• 1:18:28Bunnie XO?

  Promise me you'll come.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Anyway, I, I say that because if you do, I, we have the best Black Angus beef.

• 1:18:35Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yay.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  And we'd love to have all of you come out and we'll have a, a state night and...

• 1:18:41Bunnie XO?

  What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Our kids are, my wife, y'all, she gets so anxious. My kids said, Mom, we're going, we got friends coming in this day. She said, no, don't give a shit what you're doing. You're coming to my house Thanksgiving Day. And you're coming. She put her foot down. And so this Thanksgiving, all the kids and all the grandkids, everybody's coming in.

• 1:19:00Bunnie XO?

  I love that. It's gonna be beautiful. Well, we're right down the street. We have land out there.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  That's where you got the cow. The long-haired one, it's here? I'm getting one. The last time I bought cows...

• 1:19:10Bunnie XO?

  You have to. Yes.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Shut up.

• 1:19:13Bunnie XO?

  Right now, and they're gorgeous. They're, they're the offspring of my cow.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  I literally went to the cow sale, uh, when I, I don't know, when I bought my, last year.

• 1:19:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  And they had two. And I'm like, gosh, man.

• 1:19:24Bunnie XO?

  You should.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Do I go in now?

• 1:19:25Bunnie XO?

  They're the best.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:19:27Bunnie XO?

  The sweetest timberman.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  But my donkey, my little tulip, oh my lord.

• 1:19:31Bunnie XO?

  Oh, tulip. I have two donkeys too with them.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  I know. I see you, I see you posting.

• 1:19:35Bunnie XO?

  No, they're great. I'm telling you.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  She is so sweet, y'all.

• 1:19:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  And the people I bought her from, they said, oh, she's mean. That's why we're getting rid of her. The first time, they delivered, and I was out on the road, and I come in, and I pulled through the gate. She come running up. I'd gotten out of the buggy. She come running. I thought, oh, shit. They said she's mean. She come, she put her head in my chest.

• 1:19:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  And I was like, you gotta be kidding. And now, like, the kids go up, and she'll, she'll lower herself.

• 1:20:03Bunnie XO?

  Oh. She just needed some love.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  That's it. My son will go out there. He lives on a house on the farm. And he'll go out, and he'll put his arm over her and walk her from the far side of the, from another barn, it's, I don't know, a quarter mile, all the way to the feed barn.

• 1:20:18Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I love my, my Donkey Nova. She's the sweetest. She just comes, she's like this silent little creature. That just, until she doesn't want to be silent anymore. But like, if she wants to move, like stealth-like, I'll literally be sitting there, and all of a sudden, her mouth just comes over my shoulder. And I'm like, how did you get behind me without me hearing you?

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  And she's protected, probably.

• 1:20:38Bunnie XO?

  So sweet. Oh, yeah. So sweet. Thank you, Craig.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna get out of your hair.

• 1:20:43Bunnie XO?

  Thank you, guys, for tuning into another episode of Dumb Blod. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.