Luke Combs

Luke Combs (Back in the Saddle, Fathers & Sons, What You See Is What You Get) is an award-winning songwriter, singer, and musician. Luke joins the Armchair Expert to discuss Garth Brooks gifting him a surprise truck, why buying a plane is akin to flushing money down the toilet, and still feeling lazy despite everything he’s achieved. Luke and Dax talk about his high school music teachers that still come to his shows, assuming that life was getting a job that you hate because he didn’t know any different, and that being thankful for what you have and helping others is the antidote to entitlement. Luke explains why we’re in international waters in terms of where the music industry is going, how he took having his first studio album at #1 for 44 weeks, and the intrusive thoughts-related form of OCD that he's dealt with all his life. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ http://www.wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Dax Shepard?

  Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Judith Presner, our top reporter in Los Feliz, California. This was really fun. This was one of two interviews we got to do in Nashville in person.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:17Dax Shepard?

  In the aforementioned studio that Wabi Wab threw together in five seconds. Luke Combs, what a delight this boy. I gotta call him a boy. He's so young.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's younger than me, so I get to call him a boy, too.

• 0:31Dax Shepard?

  I know. He's younger. He's younger than you and he has 600 acres.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Okay, I feel good about my life.

• 0:36Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Yeah, I know. You have a great, great life. I'm just really impressed with his acreage. Luke Combs is an award-winning country singer. Fathers and sons, getting old, growing up. What you see is what you get. This one's for you. And he has a new single out now called Back in the Saddle. Tasty song, tasty title. Please enjoy this sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet boy Luke Combs. We get support from Quince.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about the fact that the holidays are already here? It's crazy. I feel like I blinked and now we're in gifting season, which I'm not really mad about because I do love giving gifts and Quince is making it so easy to find something great for everyone on my list, including myself, because let's be honest, self-gifting is a love language.

• 1:24Dax Shepard?

  Quince is seriously the gift that keeps on giving. Their high-quality staples are made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. Full-on luxury quality at prices that won't wreck your holiday budget.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  It's the dream. The cashmere sweater, starting at $60. Down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories. You and everyone on your list are staying cozy and looking incredible all season long.

• 1:51Dax Shepard?

  Well, I'm gonna tell you this. It just got chilly for the first time this year in California, and I'm so excited. And I'm wearing my Quince cashmere right now.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:59Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, and I am going to gift this to some of my friends. I hope they're not listening.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Quince is also more than clothing. They've got fine jewelry for your significant other, leather bags for your bestie, hotel-quality bedding to set up your guest rooms, chef-grade cookware. That's an amazing thing they offer here. And it's such a good gift because people don't like buying cookware for themselves, but it's very important. And they also have five-star luggage, another good gift that people don't like buying for themselves.

• 2:26Dax Shepard?

  Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Armchair Expert. It's the best way to support the show. This episode is supported by Helix.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Okay, can we talk about how November is basically survival mode? Between the holidays, the travel, the hosting, the cooking, the everything. Sleep is the one thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

• 3:01Dax Shepard?

  It really is the foundation. And I think people underestimate how much a bad mattress is quietly ruining their day. You wake up stiff, your back's angry, you're already behind before your feet hit the floor.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  That was me before Helix. I took their sleep quiz, which is so fast. It took me like two minutes. And they matched me to a mattress that actually fits how I sleep. Not a guess, not a firm or soft coin flip. It's a real match. I have a midnight mattress and I really like it. I was noticing it because I actually had to sleep in one of my other beds recently.

• 3:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  That doesn't have a Helix mattress on it. And I really could tell a big difference in my sleep.

• 3:35Dax Shepard?

  Temperature was all over the map.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  It was a mess. I need a new one.

• 3:38Dax Shepard?

  Look, they've got over 20 mattress models. So whether you sleep hot, need extra back support, or you've got a partner who moves around all night, there's one built for you. Plus, free shipping and a 365-night Happy with Helix guarantee. That's a full year to decide.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Helix has been named the most awarded mattress by Forbes, Wired, and more. So it's not just us being enthusiastic. The experts agree.

• 3:59Dax Shepard?

  Right now, Helix is running their Black Friday sale with up to 30% off. Go to helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. That's helixsleep.com/armchair for up to 30% off your Helix mattress. Helixsleep.com/armchair.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Dude, the story on that thing's crazy. I want to hear it. All I care about is cars. I had one of the first edition Broncos. I had a Ford deal for a couple of years. So when they came out with the Bronco, I asked them, I was like, man, I gotta get one of these. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll get you first edition one. So I bought that. I already had it. And my manager bought one of those Bronco, like Raptor ones, like that one when it came out. Yes, sir. And it was that space blue or some Ford color. Yeah, space blue. So I'm like, this was last Christmas. My wife was out somewhere. I was feeding my son at the dinner table in our house and I can like see our gate. And I was like, why is my manager pulling up in his Bronco? It's just the same as his. Like it was blue, the Raptor package. And he would like never show up at my house unannounced, you know? Right.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  So I was like, man, this is kind of weird that he would show up. I figured like, well, I guess he's giving me a Christmas present or whatever. So he comes in, he's like, throws me the keys. I was like, are you giving me your car, dude? Like, what is this? Yeah. He's like, no, man, Garth bought you this. Garth Brooks? Yeah. And I was like, why? Wait, did you know him? Not really. Whoa.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  To be honest. Amazing. And so I'm like, for what? What do I have to do sexually for this? Yeah, this is a $90,000 car, dude. What are we talking about? Oh, my God. So I guess it had maybe a year and a half before that. He got inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. They did it at the Ryman. All these people came. You picked your favorite song that Garth has written. So not every Garth song. He didn't write all of them, so you had to pick one that he wrote. So his team asked me to come and be one of the people that sang a song at this thing. Mine was actually The Beaches of Cheyenne. It was a hit, but it wasn't like a super hit. And so he was like, yeah, this is for you coming and singing that one song at this thing. Really? That's so classy. But did he give everyone who sang?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Well, so here's the thing. I guess he had called my manager like the following week. You know, what does Luke like? And he was like, oh, he likes. Cars. He has a Bronco and he likes Fords and stuff. And he's like, well, I'm gonna order him a Bronco Raptor. Well, I guess they were on hold or something. So it took like a year to get it in.

• 6:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my God.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  I didn't talk to him from that night until that thing showed up in my house. Obviously, I called him and then I had it painted.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 6:51Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I have so many follow up questions. How many people came out to perform songs?

• 6:55Speaker 02

  It had to be at least eight to 10. I haven't heard of anyone else. I haven't asked.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  What is that like? I like keychains.

• 7:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, like be careful what you tell people you like. I like Arby's.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just tell people you like cars.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:08Dax Shepard?

  I like houses.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I like huge houses. It's so weird. I'm really into them.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I love planes. Planes are cool.

• 7:15Dax Shepard?

  You've seen a plane? Planes are fun.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  G5 airplane. Those are so cool. Yeah, I love those.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  That's so generous.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  It was wild. I called him and I was like, hey, man, you didn't have to do this. I was like, man, it's Tuesday night and I was home. I drove 20 minutes and I was there for less than an hour, dude. Like, somebody said, yeah, but you could have went out and you could have booked your own show that night and made this much money or whatever.

• 7:38Dax Shepard?

  Wow, what a stand up guy.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  I was just kind of floored by that, to be honest.

• 7:42Dax Shepard?

  You must find out if he ended up buying like nine cars.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  We should definitely find out because I don't know.

• 7:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so Luke, there's a lot going on for you and I as I researched you today. Number one, first and foremost, and I have a long history, well documented, I have two favorite cities in America, Austin and Asheville.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:00Dax Shepard?

  And so you're first brought home as a little baby to Huntersville? And that's a Charlotte suburb?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  Yes, just outside of Charlotte.

• 8:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and what did mom and dad do there?

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Dad was a maintenance man for First Union Bank, no longer around. And mom was working HR at First Union at the time.

• 8:17Dax Shepard?

  Did they meet at First Union?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I don't believe so, actually. So mom was actually working at more of their corporate office. So they weren't like working at branches. They were in the big skyscraper downtown.

• 8:26Dax Shepard?

  Like a headquarters?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Dad was down in the basement workshop, maintenance man, and mom was out at their headquarters doing HR.

• 8:33Dax Shepard?

  Quick question about dad. What's the most insane story he ever came home with? Like someone put a boot in the toilet or they didn't fuck anything up in a massive way?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Nothing. Much in Charlotte, because when we moved, I was like seven. So then we got to Asheville. He was maintenance for Centura Bank.

• 8:50Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  And he was employed by a company called CB Richard Ellis, which was an independent contractor. So he drove to all the small communities in western North Carolina that had branches of Centura. And he was like the one guy that would go fix everything. So you go from Asheville and he drove two hours to Spruce Pine, fix the air conditioner or call the guy that fixes the air conditioner, 10 or 12 different cities that he would travel to every day, pretty much.

• 9:14Dax Shepard?

  So he can do everything is my assumption.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, for the most part, he had to subcontract out air conditioning stuff. He would come home and make keys and change in locks. It was all kind of stuff.

• 9:24Dax Shepard?

  Cause my best friend from childhood, he managed like 10 or 12 different places over the course of 10, 12 years. He started as a roofer, but by the time he finished that job, he did absolutely everything. Cause he'd show up at these places and he'd just have to figure it out.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Yep. It's just like, God, this is fine. So I gotta drive three hours to fix this toilet.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Nobody that works at the bank knows how to.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Plunge a toilet.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  It's like, you know, it's that kind of stuff.

• 9:49Dax Shepard?

  Did mom also get a job in Asheville?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. So she stayed with First Union. She's transferred to Asheville and my dad came up. So mom actually took the transfer job, I believe. And then dad found his job once we got up there.

• 10:01Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Then was she the breadwinner?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  I don't know that either of them really were. I would say between the two of them, they probably made $60,000 a year.

• 10:09Dax Shepard?

  Right. But you're born in 1990?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 10:11Dax Shepard?

  So I do think increasingly.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  You're three years older, man.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  That's so sad. You gotta go.

• 10:18Dax Shepard?

  This has been really nice. We can then that souped up Raptor and get out of here. I didn't tell you, but I have a Raptor R.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  So it's the F-150?

• 10:24Dax Shepard?

  It's F-150.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:26Dax Shepard?

  But the R has the V8 instead of the V6, supercharged. It's heaven.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  That sounds awesome.

• 10:31Dax Shepard?

  We gotta get you in one of those. I'm gonna buy you one of those.

• 10:37Dax Shepard?

  Your manager's gonna be rolling up again soon.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  You're just gonna collect so many cars.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny. I wouldn't really consider myself a super car guy.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  I was gonna ask that.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Really honest. That was a gift. Like something I never would have bought myself. I mean, the most expensive car I've ever bought myself is.

• 10:53Dax Shepard?

  A Bugatti Veyron.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  No, that's like, I've got a 1986. Toyota SR5. It was before it was the Tacoma.

• 11:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  I've got one of those.

• 11:04Dax Shepard?

  Because that was your high school truck?

• 11:05Speaker 02

  No, thought it looked sweet. It was like 12 grand.

• 11:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  I got a 84 Chrysler Baron.

• 11:14Dax Shepard?

  You might be the only person with weirder taste than me.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Chrysler Baron?

• 11:17Dax Shepard?

  All praise be to Chrysler. That is the shittiest car that's ever been made.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  My father-in-law put bullhorns on the front of it.

• 11:23Dax Shepard?

  Perfect. Yeah, why not? It's a piece of shit. Do whatever you want.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  And it's clean, dude. It had like 14,000 miles on it.

• 11:29Dax Shepard?

  It did?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  There's a lady that lived in Palm Springs that owned it. Stayed in the garage. It's never rained and she only drove it like to church.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  If you are driving, whatever the thing you just said, a Bugatti. No, no.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Keith Urban.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Okay, I was gonna ask.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Keith Urban's the sports car guy.

• 11:45Dax Shepard?

  He's who I look up.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  He's rolling up in the Pagani in the hall, bro.

• 11:49Dax Shepard?

  He's fucking spreading.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  You never know what he's rolling up. You'll be at the Combs and it's like, old Bronco, old Bronco, old F-250, $3 million Pagani. New 250.

• 12:02Dax Shepard?

  Are all y'all like, yeah, he's married to Hollywood.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Oh no, yeah, I was, that's what I was gonna ask. Is it kind of like, oh, that's, ugh.

• 12:08Dax Shepard?

  Pass.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  That's eye rolly.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Because Keith is the nicest guy on the planet.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:13Dax Shepard?

  He's also Australian. That kind of gets him out of anything.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude. He's like so much cooler than anyone else too. Like you see him, you're like, fuck, that guy's cool, dude.

• 12:21Dax Shepard?

  He's a sweetheart.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  He's cool, dude. And he's so nice.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  If you're at a restaurant and you saw that parked, does it read douchey, those types of cars?

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Nashville's such a quote-unquote newer city for people with money. I think about the old country stars and the cars they had. It was Cadillacs. Have you seen the car in the Hall of Fame? Center console's a saddle and it's got, it's all covered in like silver dollars. The door handles on it, I think it might've been Webb Pierce's car. The door handles are Colt revolvers.

• 12:49Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  That are like welded onto the frame, dude.

• 12:52Dax Shepard?

  A million dollar Cadillac.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  That's the kind of stuff that was going on here. I just don't know that in Nashville, that's ever been a thing. So it's hard to say.

• 13:00Dax Shepard?

  The flex is your boss, I think, back then. There's other ways to flex.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was. And then like guys that had a planes back then, I feel like was big. To me, owning the plane is the worst investment of all time.

• 13:11Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  You might as well just flush money down the toilet.

• 13:14Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. In fact, I just read an article. It's like people who think they can be in the private flight business versus what amount of money you'd actually need really would make no difference. And it's in the hundreds of millions.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Before it's like a non consequential amount of money.

• 13:28Dax Shepard?

  Exactly.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  You have to be literally a billionaire to like really afford a plane.

• 13:32Dax Shepard?

  When you look at your statement at the end of the month, you have to notice no movement after buying a $55 million.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  It can't be a percentage of your net worth to get a plane.

• 13:41Dax Shepard?

  You're savvy. You're only 35, but you're with it. You get it.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Oh, man. You know, the bus is a lease. Like my bus is not a big lavish. I've had the same bus for five years now.

• 13:52Dax Shepard?

  Well, you have a hot tub in it. I heard. That's pretty lavish. You also have a card room. I heard.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Card room.

• 13:59Dax Shepard?

  You have a full bar.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  I've got my bedroom in the back bathroom and then I got bunks and that's really it, dude.

• 14:05Dax Shepard?

  Who's in the bunks? Your boys?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  My assistant is my best friend from high school.

• 14:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Oh, that's lovely. So he lives here with his wife and kids and he comes on the road. That's him and my personal security guy. Who only ever comes out or on the road.

• 14:17Dax Shepard?

  I would like to challenge that guy.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:20Dax Shepard?

  Last man standing.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Like MMA.

• 14:22Dax Shepard?

  Becomes your security because I can't play anything, but I do want to be on tour for a while. And I feel like if I could be.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  I mean, you just come out, you know.

• 14:29Dax Shepard?

  But I want to be in the bunk and I want to have a role. So I do want to be looking for snipers and stuff.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Be vibe guy.

• 14:34Dax Shepard?

  Vibe guy.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, we don't have a vibe guy. We just need a vibe guy. Is that like a hype man? No, just vibe guy. Like you're around and you're like, man, this guy's chilling hard. I like this guy.

• 14:43Dax Shepard?

  Right. He's kind of anchoring the hole.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Like maybe you're the tip of the spear. If we have guests out and they're like, dude, Dax Shepard's just chilling hard, dude. This is going to be a fun time out here.

• 14:51Dax Shepard?

  If that's a role that's open.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's vibe guy.

• 14:54Dax Shepard?

  I'm a thousand percent in.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Vibe guy, dude. Yeah.

• 14:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay, let's go back to Asheville. So seven years old, you moved there. Do you have siblings?

• 15:01Speaker 02

  No, only child.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Okay. We don't get many.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's not a lot.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I like that, yeah.

• 15:06Dax Shepard?

  Do you do weird only child shit? Like my wife, who is tricky.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Don't say she's an only child.

• 15:12Dax Shepard?

  I know, she'll tell me. She does have sisters, but she saw them on the weekends. You know, they were from her dad's second marriage. She's a very only child. And our friend Eric, who's here right now, he's an only child too. Both of those two, they'll be like a party and they'll go upstairs and read a book and they don't even care.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  No, I'm a friends guy. I'm in the mix. I feel like you can go kind of two ways. Well, I'm the only child thing. So I have a ton of friends. The only child thing was not like my parents wanted one kid. They were being financially responsible and they're like, we can only afford.

• 15:38Dax Shepard?

  And let's be honest, we can't afford you.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, they were like, really? You're putting a bit of a strain on us as is.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  I had a bunch of really, really close friends, man. I still do.

• 15:47Dax Shepard?

  So you were always a social kid and you got along with everybody?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 15:51Dax Shepard?

  So what was elementary and junior high like for you?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  If you came into the class, it'd be like least likely to succeed guy would have probably been me. Cause you've been like, look at this guy. He's not gonna do it.

• 16:01Dax Shepard?

  Well, you said, I heard you on 60 Minutes saying you were lazy when you were younger.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Oh, big time.

• 16:06Dax Shepard?

  Big time.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Yes. Massively lazy.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  And what do we think that's about?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  I don't know. To be honest, I think there's some innateness to it.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Well, obviously, but obviously you're not.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  My business manager is a really close friend of mine and he obviously wasn't before he was my business manager. I didn't know him.

• 16:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. If there's ever a role to assign to a friend from childhood, business manager's not.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Manager's not it. No, lawyer's not it. No, no. Manager's not it.

• 16:30Dax Shepard?

  Surgeon.

• 16:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not it. But we've gotten really close through the years and still sometimes fight feeling that way, you know? And he's like, it's insane that you still kind of feel like you're lazy, given what you've achieved. I'll rephrase it. Not that I feel like I'm lazy and this is also going to sound insane. It's like, I feel like I haven't done anything hard. Does that make sense?

• 16:49Dax Shepard?

  Sure.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 16:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Music is not hard to me to do. Like it is not hard to go write songs and sing them and play shows. We're not busting up concrete here, dude. Like what are we talking about? I mean, obviously I didn't finish college. I was semester and a half away from finishing that. I was like, wow. This is hard, so I know.

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  Kind of thing. I was like, yeah. But that was also getting into music. So I was like, well, this seems to be working out good. And I'm like, making more money. I made, I was working two jobs. It's weird because working two jobs, that sucks and being in college. I mean, obviously that's hard, but I didn't really enjoy it. So it's maybe I've just always chased enjoyment to some extent.

• 17:26Dax Shepard?

  Well, it sounds like maybe nothing turned you on. You weren't really on fire for anything. And then when you found the thing you were on fire for, you showed up and you did all the things you had to do. That's a very ADHD thing I've heard.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I sang forever.

• 17:38Dax Shepard?

  When did it start?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  As soon as I could talk.

• 17:40Dax Shepard?

  You were singing.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  It was just like a natural thing. I didn't know I was any good until probably high school.

• 17:46Dax Shepard?

  Cause you were in choir, you did the play at school and stuff.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  I did all those. I did four years of that.

• 17:50Dax Shepard?

  And how big is the school in Asheville? Cause it's a tiny town. I have some fantasy where going to school, there might've been a little more peaceful than other places.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  It very much was. I remember when me and my wife got married and we didn't have any kids yet and we weren't expecting. I'm like, our kids go to public school. And she was like, no. And I was like, what are you talking about? She went to private Catholic school. I'm like, why not? I'm like, public school rocks, dude. Like there's all kinds of different people and stuff.

• 18:15Dax Shepard?

  You learn to deal with every kind of person.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  It's great. So the school I went to is a four A school. My graduating class was 400, maybe.

• 18:22Dax Shepard?

  That's a good size.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Just a decent size.

• 18:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  They might be three A now, but at the time they were four A.

• 18:27Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that terminology, do you?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, yes, my school is five A.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Where'd you go to school?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Georgia.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Okay. Let's say North Carolina doesn't have any five A schools.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 18:35Dax Shepard?

  What is five A?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  It's basically like the size of the school.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  It's a classification. So that believe now there's some seven A schools now. In like Texas and Florida.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 18:47Dax Shepard?

  Here's my question, why do we need the A? If A is consistent throughout all these, why don't we just go a six, a five, a four, a three or a seven?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  No, it probably means, I don't know what it stands for. I'm gonna have to look it up for the fact check.

• 18:57Dax Shepard?

  I know you sound like a real Yankee right now trying to figure this out.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  But that is the thing. It's like, so that's how they classify like, our school was a good football school. So it's like, when you go to the playoffs, you only play other teams of that size.

• 19:08Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  You only play other four A teams or other five A teams or other three A teams.

• 19:12Dax Shepard?

  That makes sense of why.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  That's why we're gonna classify it.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Actually, you're right. It's kind of based on that.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  It's basically. Based off of

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Football.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  The six A team's not going to play the one A team for the state championship because it's not fair dude. Cause there's four hundred kids in this school and there's five thousand kids.

• 19:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, one's a university.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so yours was a good sized school.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  It was good sized and I didn't know this at the time, but we had state of the art performing arts center at my school too.

• 19:36Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, which kind of makes sense for Asheville for people who have not been there. It's an incredibly artistic hippie like little beautiful town.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  But our school was not in downtown. I'd say downtown is for sure that vibe. There's obviously a lot of outdoorsy, free spirit people that flock to.

• 19:50Dax Shepard?

  Subaru drivers.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  My mom had a Subaru.

• 19:52Dax Shepard?

  There you go.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Subaru.

• 19:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 02

  And my freshman year, man, they opened up a whole performing arts wing of our high school.

• 20:00Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  So my band teacher and my chorus teacher were married.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  And they met in college or something. And so they taught there forever. They're retired now, but I'm still in touch with them. They come to at least a show a year.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Oh, that's lovely.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  He was my music theory teacher, the band director and then my chorus teacher. And she was like my second mom at school. They forced me out of my laziness in my pursuit of music. They weren't like, oh, you're so good. They weren't those people.

• 20:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  They were like, hey, man, what are you doing? My senior year, I was like, I'm not going to do the musical this year. If you wanted to be a quote unquote lead in the musical, right? Like there was auditions. Obviously had to audition to be in the musical. You had to have some level of talent, but to do the acting, there was like these specialized auditions. And I'm like, that sounds like a whole thing. And I was like, I'm just not going to do it this year. And they were like, okay, well, whatever. So just don't do it, you know? And I'm like, okay, wasn't expecting that answer.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you wanted them to fight for like, yeah.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  My first three years, we had a drama teacher that had been there for twenty five or thirty years. And my senior year, we got a new drama teacher. Our former teacher retired. So we had this new woman who had come in, kind of like fresh out of college gal. It was going to be her first play and it came down to the day of auditions and I went into my chorus teacher and I was like, I think I screwed up by not wanting to do this, you know? And she was like, yeah, you're telling me too late now. I was like, what do you mean? Like you're not going to let me try out, you know? She's like, it's not up to me, pal. Like you're going to have to go down and talk to the drama. She's like, I didn't know her at all.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:30Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  So she's like, you need to go down there and have a conversation with her and then it's up to her. I'm not going to call her and say, this guy needs to do it. Nothing. If she wants you to do it, you can do it. And if she doesn't want you to do it, too bad, you should have signed up. Thankfully, she let me do it. I ended up getting the lead role and people were mad.

• 21:50Dax Shepard?

  How'd the acting part go for you?

• 21:52Speaker 02

  It's hard, you know, it's not my thing.

• 21:53Dax Shepard?

  That's almost better in some weird way. If you're watching a musical and he's not very good as an actor for a while and you're kind of like, you've given up on him and then the song comes on, then he fucking blows your hair back and you're like, hold on now. Might have been that fun experience.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  I still don't feel like I have much memory of doing like the lines thing. Like it would still give me as much anxiety now as it did then. Cause I'm like, how am I ever going to remember all this stuff? Obviously I did it. There's a DVD of it somewhere at my parents' house. It's a whole thing.

• 22:21Dax Shepard?

  Rob, start the performance. Put it on.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  I'm glad they did that. They always pushed me to keep going with music.

• 22:28Dax Shepard?

  But it doesn't sound like during any of this period, you haven't set your sights on this at all. Cause you go to college and you study business for a minute and then criminal justice. You want to be a homicide detective.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  I did, yeah. Me and my dad always watched Cops, First Forty Eight. I was always just intrigued by, I remember asking my course teacher in my last semester of high school, I was in chorus every day of high school. So a fourth of my entire high school career was spent in chorus class. So then my last semester, first period was chorus, last period I was Ms. Bryant's teacher assistant. And that was her period where she didn't have a class. So I'm just like making copies, which was awesome because I didn't have to like be in class. She never really gave me preferential treatment of like, oh, well, just do whatever you want. Do your homework.

• 23:09Dax Shepard?

  Right, right. It wasn't an independent study for you as an assistant job.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  No, you're gonna be my assistant, like doing stuff. Like I'm gonna go eat lunch and you're gonna be printing out lesson plans. And I was like, oh, brutal, you know? I signed up because I'm like, oh, this will be cake. She'll let me do whatever. Didn't happen. So I remember asking her like, hey, should I do music in college? I've always hated the technical side of music. The theory part was always really confusing to me. I'm not the smartest guy in the world. Math has never been real easy for me either. It's the same part of the brain to me. That's doing music theory and math. That's always been my complete worst subject. So music theory was always really difficult. And she told me, don't do music if you can see yourself doing anything else. And so I took that very literally because I'm thinking, oh, well, she means like being a music teacher, which is obviously not. What I wanted to do at all.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  I was like, I'm never going to be a choir director or like a band teacher. So that was my cue to just go, well, I'm just not going to do music.

• 24:06Dax Shepard?

  It's an interesting test she put in front of you.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 24:10Dax Shepard?

  You probably interpreted that, or maybe you did as, oh, I guess I shouldn't do it.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 24:15Dax Shepard?

  Where she was like, there's only one answer to this question. If you don't have that answer, you're not going to make it.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. She's like, if you have to do it, you will do it.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure. And I mean, now it definitely is. I guess just growing up, you know, in a decently small town with blue collar parents, you're not like, well, maybe I'll be Garth Brooks.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 24:35Dax Shepard?

  No, same, same.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  It's like saying you're going to be an astronaut.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  You're like, it's not going to happen. I just wanted to like pay bills. I just thought you had to kind of hate your job.

• 24:43Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  And like, I just thought that was what life was like.

• 24:47Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  It was like, oh, cool. Like my parents work, they hate their job.

• 24:50Dax Shepard?

  They work for the weekends and they work for their.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  For the weekends and they take care of me and that's just what life is going to be like. And that's just how it is. Cause I didn't know anything else.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Well, no wonder you now think you aren't doing anything hard. Cause that was your idea of hard, not liking it.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like not liking it was my version of like, well, I gotta do something I don't like.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Cause that's just how life is.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:09Dax Shepard?

  I have the same thing. When Kristen and I first walked through this house, we're just taking it in and I said out loud a couple of times, like, I just didn't work hard enough for this. It's hard for me to integrate this because I should have a lot more calluses and I should have a lot more body injuries and I should be 68.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:26Dax Shepard?

  And it's confusing because no one got to fast pass like I got to. It's complicated, right?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  There's a lot of guilt associated with it.

• 25:33Dax Shepard?

  You know, all these great people you grew up with, like when I'm looking at the house and it's like, I can think of six or seven dads that killed themselves. And they couldn't get this. And I'm like, God, those guys were better than I am. You know, they worked harder. They were tougher and they went through more. And I feel a lot of guilt about it.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  I do too. So we have a really close group of guys from back home that we text every day, pretty much. You know, there's like 10 of us, maybe. I didn't realize how rare that was until my wife was like, You have 10 friends from high school that you still talk to like every day and you guys been playing fantasy football together for 15 years? Like, that's weird.

• 26:06Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  You know, it's just not normal.

• 26:08Dax Shepard?

  By the way, I'm gonna be saccharine right now. That's weirdly the biggest gift in your life. It's not even the success and the money.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Out of doubt.

• 26:14Dax Shepard?

  Cause I know a lot of rich lonely people. That's the big win right there.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I feel the same way. One of them's a pharmacist, one of them's a doctor, one of them's a CPA. They've all got MBAs and doctorates.

• 26:27Dax Shepard?

  They work their ass off.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Oh dude, it's like, I would have been the most scum.

• 26:33Dax Shepard?

  They would have been buying your dinner every time you went out.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  A million percent. But I see those guys like, man, they went to school for a decade. I got all this stuff from doing what I like to do. And you feel real guilty about it. There's no sympathy for it either. No one's gonna be like, man, I feel real bad for you in your big house.

• 26:49Dax Shepard?

  You're having a hard time integrating your mansion into your.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 26:53Dax Shepard?

  I wish you luck with that, brother.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:56Dax Shepard?

  By the way, let's talk about that, cause that's interesting. It's kind of a double whammy, cause you feel this guilt. And then you have exactly what you just said, which is then you feel guilty for even having that problem or being guilty about it. There's just layers of madness in your head about this thing that is what you dreamt about and what you want.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  If I buy into it, if I'm like, oh man, my life's great and I have all this great stuff and I deserve all this stuff, then you feel like kind of a bad person a little bit.

• 27:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  If I am like, I got this great house, then I'm a dick.

• 27:24Dax Shepard?

  I think for me, the fear is it'll all go away. The second I think I deserve all this, for sure. I'll find out real quick I didn't. So it's like this superstition too, that the shoe will drop the second I think I deserve them.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  I think it's just being appreciative is the thing. That's the answer and giving back to people.

• 27:41Dax Shepard?

  Helping other people.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  The only thing you can do, man, is trying to like, give stuff to people who don't have as much as you. And just being thankful that you're in the position you're in. I mean, that's always been my answer to it.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this concept of deserving is very silly. No one deserves anything. No one deserves the good stuff and no one deserves the bad stuff.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  That's without a doubt.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  It's not an appropriate word. I think you're right. Just having gratitude for the things that have come your way and just be like, oh my God, what a gift. And then giving back. We were just talking about this recently. The only thing that I feel actually I can feel about money is when you give it away. Having money feels good because you can help other people.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  You can help other people, without a doubt.

• 28:22Dax Shepard?

  You always gotta train your brain though to recognize that.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  For sure. I mean, I've always been a big, I'd rather give a gift than get one. Even when I was younger, when you're a kid, you love getting gifts because you're a kid. Man, once I got older, I was like, dude, I don't even want any gifts, dude. Like, let me give you a gift. That would be a bigger gift to me. I could rather see somebody get something.

• 28:41Dax Shepard?

  Okay, we gotta go through a little bit of your stellar career. So while you're in college, you start bouncing at a bar.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Wait, what college I need to?

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Appalachian State.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 28:49Dax Shepard?

  Where's that at?

• 28:50Speaker 02

  It's about an hour and a half from Asheville. They would consider it the high country is what they call it. Higher elevation than Asheville.

• 28:56Dax Shepard?

  Oh, real quick, did you ever go on Sliding Rock or Looking Glass Falls?

• 28:59Speaker 02

  A million times.

• 29:01Dax Shepard?

  What a party. I have such a sweet spot for Asheville. I used to go there to do rewrites for movies. And I brought my three-year-old there and I took her to Sliding Rock and we did it together.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  It's so fun, dude. Sliding Rock's so cool.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Is it a big rock that you slide on?

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like in the river.

• 29:13Dax Shepard?

  It's like a quarter mile long slab.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  No bumps somehow. It's just like.

• 29:17Dax Shepard?

  The last drop off, if you're three, is something, but it's fun.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Generally safe.

• 29:22Dax Shepard?

  So you're bouncing at this place. Was it the kind of place you ever had to do anything?

• 29:27Speaker 02

  It's really more deal with college egos. Boone's like mini Asheville. Like, it's very outdoorsy. The population of the town doubles when school's in. It's just all crunchy kids, kids that wanna snowboard and fly fish and kayak and hike. And like, it's a super outdoorsy.

• 29:45Dax Shepard?

  A lot of Subarus probably still there.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Lot of Subarus. Very much so.

• 29:50Dax Shepard?

  You get to perform there a little bit and then you have your first actual show shortly after that.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  It was while I was there, he has the Parthenon Cafe was the name of it. Boone's finest Greek restaurant.

• 30:01Dax Shepard?

  That's your Bluebird?

• 30:01Speaker 02

  That was my grand old Opry at the time. No longer there, R and P.

• 30:05Dax Shepard?

  Oh, bummer. And did it feel right immediately?

• 30:08Speaker 02

  You know, it was really good. So I had been messing around with it, filming little covers in my apartment for, I don't know, maybe six months at that time.

• 30:16Dax Shepard?

  And putting them on YouTube?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Putting them on Facebook, YouTube. So I felt like I was ready. Like, man, I felt like I could do a show. I asked the bar owner, actually where I was bouncing at, which was a different bar. I was like, hey, man, can I do a show here? And he was like, oh, he's like, we don't do any live music because there's apartments upstairs. So he was a little mini strip malls, three buildings. There was the bar I worked in, a tanning salon and a Domino's Pizza. And there were seven apartments.

• 30:41Dax Shepard?

  You could have a nice day on top.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, sounds nice.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, get your hair done. Seven apartments on top. And he was like, it's like in our lease that we can't do live music. I was like, bro, I live in the apartment.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  I was like, I know.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  I can go door to door.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  We'd all be down here.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  And he was still kind of worried about it and didn't want to do it. And dude, me and him are still in touch to this day, too. But I played rugby in college. So we hung out at a different bar, which was Parthenon. And the owner of Parthenon, his name was Nick, and he was this wild card Greek guy, just didn't give a fuck about anything. He was just like wild guy, man. So I asked him, I was like, hey, man, can I do a show here? He's like, yeah, just put it on the calendar. There was just like a calendar on the wall. So I just went and like wrote it on.

• 31:20Dax Shepard?

  You put anything. We're doing a truck pulling here.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  People could have just came and wrote anything. And that's what would have been going on there. But it worked out, man. I charged dollar ticket. I made 200 bucks, man. 200 people came.

• 31:31Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's incredible.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  It was not a place that could fit 200 people. So it was dependent on the day kind of place. If there was a football game, slammed. It's Friday night slammed, Saturday night slammed. It was like grimy in the best way. You just get wings and you get $5 pitcher of whatever's left in the beer lines from the weekend before. And like, that was just the vibe there. Not a lot of structure going on, but the place that I lived above and then the place that I worked at was newer place. There was a local contingency, but there was also a really big student contingency, too. So the owner was a local guy. So everybody he knew would come there and support his business. And then the kids loved it, too. Anytime there's something new in Boone, kids were like, fuck, yeah, we love that place. That's a new place. Let's go.

• 32:14Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare.

• 32:20Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Skims. Okay, I have a confession. I genuinely love matching pajamas. It's the best part of Christmas morning, really. Everyone in the same matching set, looking ridiculously cute in front of the tree.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  I love matching pajamas. I'm literally going to be in coordinating sets with all my friends this holiday season. Because I got them, spoiler to my friends who are listening. The same Skims pajama set I've been living in. They are so soft and cozy and they look cute. So you can leave the house and go get a late night hot chocolate and be cozy.

• 32:56Dax Shepard?

  It's so great how Skims has sets for everyone, too. Women's, men's, kids, even your pets. So nobody in your life has to be left out this year.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  I have a bunch of different pajama sets. One of my favorite is the organic cotton sleep long sleeve set.

• 33:12Dax Shepard?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  It is so comfortable, very chic, too. The top is a button down, but very, very soft, easy to sleep in. But as I said before, you can multi-purpose this and look super cute.

• 33:25Dax Shepard?

  Hot chocolate runs. It's like the pajamas we grew up in, except without the scratchy polyester that made opening presents feel more like a hot yoga class that nobody signed up for.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  All the nostalgia, none of the discomfort. Shop my favorite loungewear and pajamas at skims.com. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you. Select podcasts in the survey and be sure to select Armchair Expert in the dropdown menu that follows. If you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open at skims.com.

• 33:54Dax Shepard?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every family has that one holiday tradition nobody actually enjoys, but everyone keeps doing because stopping it would feel like a federal offense. For me, it was a specific meal situation that I will not name because my family listens. But at some point, you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I love it or because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yes, and that question applies to so much more than the holidays. I think a lot of us carry these invisible rules about how we're supposed to spend the holidays, who we're supposed to see, what it's supposed to look like. And when you start unpacking that with a therapist, you realize half of your stress is coming from rules you didn't even write.

• 34:32Dax Shepard?

  This is where BetterHelp can be a great resource during the holidays. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, which means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recs.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  I just love therapy. I've been avoiding it recently, or not avoiding it, but I was like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I haven't canceled, canceled, canceled, but then I-

• 35:00Dax Shepard?

  You start feeling it.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then I had it this past weekend and I was like, oh my God. I'm just, thank God, thank God for her. Yeah.

• 35:08Dax Shepard?

  BetterHelp is now in-network with more than 125 health plans, with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/dax. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash DAX. We get support from Superhuman. Look, I love what I do. The conversations, the ideas, the creative stuff. But there's this whole other layer of work that eats my day alive. The inbox that never ends. Docs I need to get through, threads I'm behind on. And by the time I've dealt with all that, the stuff I actually want to focus on gets whatever's left.

• 35:52Dax Shepard?

  What I needed was something that just works where I'm already working. Not another tab to open, not another thing to set up. Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly, is different. It's already right there, inside your email, your docs, your browser. You don't go to it, it's already working alongside you. You're deep in a long thread, highlight it, and it pulls the key points. About to send something important? It flags what doesn't add up before it leaves your hands. It knows your style, your workflows, and it just backs you up without getting in the way. A thought partner that's already up to speed, at your service, not after your job. So, do yourself a favor and try Superhuman Go, from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com.

• 36:36Dax Shepard?

  We get support from our sponsor Lilly. For adults with obesity or with excess weight and weight-related medical problems, it's time to find out about Foundo or for Gleepran. Foundo is a once daily prescription GLP-1 medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Foundo should not be used with other GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Foundo is safe and effective for use in children. Don't take Foundo if you're allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had major thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Stop and call your doctor right away if you have an allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck, or severe stomach pain. Serious side effects may include inflamed pancreas and gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes, if you're nursing, pregnant, plant to be, or taking birth control pills, and before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. Taking Foundo with an insulin or self-euphoria may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and may cause kidney problems.

• 37:41Speaker 03

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• 38:04Speaker 02

  So I went back to him when I went back to work. I was like, hey, man, I just played across the street. There's a chance you could throw a football. You could see one from the other, but that's how small Boone is. And I was like, I played over there on Wednesday night in 200 people game. And he was like, really? And I was like, yeah, so I'll just keep doing that or I'll do it here.

• 38:21Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  And he was like, let's do it here. So then I played there every Thursday.

• 38:25Dax Shepard?

  Every Thursday.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Over a year. It's been one of my biggest assets. And by the time I moved to Nashville, I'd played literally hundreds of shows. We were booking shit as a band. It was just my name. So, I mean, I was cold calling places and getting shows. We're traveling all over North Carolina. We're starting to go to East Tennessee. We're going Northern, South Carolina. And then all of a sudden, we were playing. At minimum, three shows a week, sometimes five shows a week.

• 38:50Dax Shepard?

  Wow.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  In a town that's really small.

• 38:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  So then we booked a place called Gino's and I believe that was every Wednesday. So we did Wednesday, Gino's, Thursday Tavern, every other Friday at the Rock, every Sunday.

• 39:02Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Barbecue.

• 39:04Dax Shepard?

  You're full time musician? Right.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  Pretty much. And I had pretty much dropped out of school at that point. So I lived in Boone for a year just doing music.

• 39:11Dax Shepard?

  Were you having any problem doing three, four shows?

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Not really. I mean, I was smoking cigarettes then too.

• 39:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. Getting drunk a lot or?

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Hmm, not a ton, at least once a week, for sure.

• 39:21Dax Shepard?

  That's not your thing. You don't struggle with that at all, huh?

• 39:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. Whatever that thing is, I don't have.

• 39:26Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. That's lucky.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Throw a couple of hamburgers down here, we got a whole nother problem.

• 39:30Dax Shepard?

  We got a new animal.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. So we started doing that and I'm realizing now Town Tavern, there's lines to get in every Thursday. We're doing that every bar, man. People are coming to see us because we're the only gig in town, really.

• 39:42Dax Shepard?

  And you're building a whole fan base?

• 39:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. So then we, you know, we've got a Facebook page going. I'm doing cold calls. We're riding around in my bass player's Chevy Avalanche to gigs out of town and I'm making press kits and mailing those out to bars and other college towns in North Carolina, just anywhere that would book us.

• 39:59Dax Shepard?

  This is the grimy good stuff that you'd miss out on if you just popped into American Idol and then had this record deal. Like, this is the kind of Groundlings, host your own show.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Obviously I had a lot of success on Vine around that time too, which was, you know, now defunct social. You guys probably remember Vine.

• 40:15Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah. A short video clip.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. The new version of that is TikTok, right? And I think now a lot of that stuff's over.

• 40:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you can skip.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  You skip all the steps and not that that's good or bad. I mean, I think it's really great for the artists of a platform like that. There's people that their first ever show they've done is in an arena on tour with someone. The moment is too big for you, man. Not that there isn't people that rise above that, for sure there is.

• 40:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. But it's like having your first football game at the Super Bowl.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Without a doubt.

• 40:44Dax Shepard?

  That's too much.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Without a doubt.

• 40:45Dax Shepard?

  First car race in Indianapolis.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  It's like if you screw up, then people go, oh, well, you're not any good. And it's like, well, God, I just played in the Super Bowl. What are we talking about? Of course I'm not any good. Country radio is still really big. It was even bigger when I started and even bigger before that. But like you go and do all these events for the stations and the thing they love to do is guitar pulls. The litany of newer artists will come in and go, hey, we're in the St. Louis, St. Jude Jam. They book a nice theater somewhere in town. The kind of usual suspects at my time be like me and Midland and Carly Pearce. People that came up at the same time. It's usually people that are kind of in that same class. But then every once in a while you get thrown on, it's like, oh, well, Luke Bryan's in one. There'll be five of you, you're all on stage at the same time. And it's just you and a guitar.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Or you and one person playing guitar. Can you imagine being in that situation? And you've got 250,000 TikTok followers and you've gotten a record deal. And you come up and the guy that's played the song right before you is Chris Stapleton. And you've played two shows.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  And also in your shows, you sing his songs.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, God.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  But like, that would be incredibly intimidating. It's nobody's fault. I mean, if anything, it's the industry's fault.

• 42:00Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  It's the tech industry's fault.

• 42:02Dax Shepard?

  Well, the market's just driving it. You have this outlet, you can distribute.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  And fans want stuff. They want new stuff all the time. They want to be able to see stuff all the time. And I think the most interesting conundrum for us as artists that at least has come in the recent years. Let's say you're going to put a new song out and you're a new artist. You might make 20 TikToks that are just this one sound clip of the song. You lip syncing it in your car and then it's you lip syncing it with your dog. And it's like all these different things and you just do that over and over. Fans, they want to hear new music, but they want to hear new music that they already have heard somehow. I want to know that I like it before I've even listened to it somehow, which is in some ways an impossibility.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  But it's like, if you don't do enough of the PR, enough of the promo, your first week's sales numbers are going to suffer. The fans are gonna be as interested in it because they wanna know, I already am gonna like this.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  It's also unfair because I think it leads to a lot of backlash. There's an artist right now, I won't say him. I feel like all of a sudden, everyone really doesn't like him anymore. There's all this backlash and it's because he was thrust, in my opinion. It's because he was thrust.

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Incredibly talented guy, though.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  He's unreal.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Freddie Mercury, dude. Like, his voice is insane.

• 43:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, that's awesome to hear you say that.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  His voice is insane. It's like ungodly.

• 43:23Dax Shepard?

  Who hates him?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  No, there's a whole, like, yes.

• 43:26Dax Shepard?

  The internet?

• 43:26Speaker 02

  What, it's like coworker music. That's what they call it. It's like a big thing, coworker music.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  It's because, in my opinion, he was everywhere all of a sudden because that's kinda who you have to be now. You do have to put your songs in all these things and be in this and be in this and be in this. And then they're like, actually, too much of you, goodbye.

• 43:43Dax Shepard?

  Well, this is Ed Sheeran, who you did a song with. We interviewed him in England and he's like, yeah, man, in England, they love the rise, rise, rise, but once you're at the top, they have a pretty quick, like, okay, we don't want this. There's some kind of sense of, okay, you're too big, now we're mad about it.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  We just had Drawn Carmichael on and he said something that I thought was really interesting. He was like, people don't respect you if they made you.

• 44:03Dax Shepard?

  That was his explanation of, like, American Idol. It's like, if they voted for you and they made you, they feel entitled to lead where you should be going artistically. As opposed if you brought them along. It's interesting.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Interesting. We're in really international waters of what happens next in the music industry, I think. It's a very interesting time. Terrestrial radio, obviously in country, it's still huge, but streaming has been such a huge push.

• 44:27Dax Shepard?

  When I get in the car, I'm putting Spotify on. I wanna hear exactly what I wanna hear and I wanna hear it right now.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  You don't hear new stuff, you aren't exposed to as many new things because you're like, oh, I just wanna hear familiar stuff. It comes back to, I wanna hear stuff I already know.

• 44:39Dax Shepard?

  I wanna know I'm getting the same burger.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Because I'm in my car, I'm only drive 30 minutes a day. For that 30 minutes, I don't wanna have to risk listening to something I don't like. I wanna listen to stuff that I already know that I like.

• 44:49Dax Shepard?

  That's right.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  And that's like a tough place to be as an artist. I remember when it was fun, when someone put a new record, I'm like, what's gonna be on it?

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:57Speaker 02

  Is it gonna be good or is it not gonna be good?

• 44:59Dax Shepard?

  When you get to Nashville, you start self-releasing some EPs. And then on your third one, I guess, Hurricanes on that.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  It was just a single, it wasn't even an EP. I just put that one out.

• 45:09Dax Shepard?

  And that one got 15,000 in one week.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  I thought that was normal, by the way.

• 45:14Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  I was like unaware that that was good at all. It's the same thing as the public school thing. This is a bubble that I know this is must be how everything goes.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  So like you go, you start doing music, your shows are going really good.

• 45:27Dax Shepard?

  He was lines out the door.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  People always want to come and then they buy your music and that's how it happens for everybody. So I get to town and I remember I mentioned it to somebody and they were like, how did it sell that much? I'm like, people thought it was good. So then people bought it. It's like how that happens, you know?

• 45:44Dax Shepard?

  Which is like 10 years ago, maybe.

• 45:46Speaker 02

  Hurricane went number one in 2017. I put it out in 2015. Yes. Right. 10 years ago.

• 45:52Dax Shepard?

  It sounds like not because it sounds like you're just, as you said, yeah, I put a song out and everyone listened to it. That duh. My guess is you didn't have this, but were you at all thinking like, I don't look like the prototypical country star?

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Gosh, yeah, dude, for sure. Especially at that time. Everybody was hot at that time.

• 46:09Dax Shepard?

  Keith Urban's hair is to die for.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  I mean,

• 46:12Dax Shepard?

  Luke Bryan's a fucking babe.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  FGL guys, Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan, Chase Rice. He went to my high school. I mean, just six, four college football player, like every guy had played college football and was dieselled out.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Just good looking dudes. And when I moved to Nashville, there was a lot of like, I don't know if the artist thing is going to work. Cause you're just not what works. But the guy that kicked that door open was Stapleton. He was a bigger guy. I mean, if you lived in Nashville and the guy was already a god.

• 46:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Before he ever got discovered. He's got 200 and something cuts as a songwriter. He's the best voice ever.

• 46:45Dax Shepard?

  Is he the king? You're among a few country people we've talked to. They all bring him up.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  I'm dying to have him on and talk to him.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  He's so talented. He's like Vince Gill or something. Vince Gill is just A1 songwriter, A1 guitar player, A1 singer, A1 producer can just literally do it all. Like there's not many guys that can truly do it all. Like if you're Clyde Drexler, you're great. And then Jordan shows up and you're kind of like, I'm good, but fuck, that guy's real good. And not that if he was in here right now, I'd tell you I'm a better singer than that. Fuck, I'm not. But it's like, you have to have that. Confidence, right?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  It's like, there's just some guys.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Well, some people are undeniable.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the talent level is just so high.

• 47:29Dax Shepard?

  So back to knowing that at that time, people are like, look, man, you've got all the things, but you don't have the package that's gonna work, that's gonna sell millions of albums. How are you dealing with that?

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that sounds tough.

• 47:39Dax Shepard?

  I'm just gonna keep going.

• 47:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:41Dax Shepard?

  Probably now, if that teacher asks you the question, now you have the answer, which is like, I'm not gonna do anything else. Whether that's the case or not.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Definitely. I had so much confidence at that time in my ability. You're coming from Boone, right? So you're big fish, small pond. I had made one or two trips to Nashville and met some people and written some songs with folks. Then when I got here, I was like, dude, and this is not a cockiness thing. This is a true gamer mentality for me. I was like, dude, these people can't hang with me, dude. Like, I would get in rounds and I'm like, I will sing this guy out. I mean, he won't even show up.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  It's never a competition.

• 48:16Dax Shepard?

  I think that's good.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  But it was just a confidence in like, I won't be denied because I feel I have the ability, like, okay, I can play in the league.

• 48:25Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  It's like you get in the NFL all of a sudden and you're like, I don't know, it's pretty good. I played at a smaller college. Maybe I don't have the combine numbers that this other guy has.

• 48:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  But put me in the A gap and he's on the other side and I'm coming out. I'm walking out, he's not, kinda thing. And that was a little bit of my mindset when I got here. But also, I was already so happy with everything that was going on. I'm living in Nashville. I'm not having to work.

• 48:52Dax Shepard?

  You're making a living.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Making enough money with no publishing deal, no record deal, writing songs five times a week, getting better every day, making progress, and I'm paying all my bills. And to me, that was the definition of making it, man. Like, I just wanted to be happy with doing what I wanted to do.

• 49:10Dax Shepard?

  If you can support yourself doing something you love, forget it.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  That was it. Then I was like, well, man, this is my cheat code. I don't need anything else. I live in a nice apartment in Hermitage. What's better than this, man? Like, I get to write songs all the time, sing all the time. I got great friends. I feel like I fit in, you know? Like, people wanna write with me. And again, that's a very intoxicating time. And so for me, I just wanted to make a living doing music.

• 49:32Dax Shepard?

  You had probably already accomplished kind of the standard of living your parents had raised you under.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Definitely. I can do this. No problem. There's no debt collectors calling me. This is all good.

• 49:41Dax Shepard?

  Hurricane kind of blows up and then from this Sony does sign you and then they release this one's for you.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  They passed me the first time. I always call it the Nashville no, which is like, well, we'll be in touch.

• 49:53Dax Shepard?

  We're not going to be in touch.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  We're not going to be in touch, which is a southern thing. It's like, just tell me no. I'd rather just hear.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 49:59Dax Shepard?

  We'll be in touch. And by that, I mean, we will not be in touch.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  By that, I mean, it's a no for us. Right.

• 50:04Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So what happens though is Sony does sign you and then they release this album and this album stays at number one for 44 weeks.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  That's nuts, man.

• 50:14Dax Shepard?

  It's a little shocking that you're not completely fucked up because yeah, you release your song on your own and 15,000 people get it and we go, yeah, of course. You do your first studio album and it's fucking number one for 44 weeks. This is where I argue you're not lazy because a lot of people would put it in neutral at that point. Like I don't have to try at this too hard. It comes pretty natural, comes pretty easy and/or you could have become completely panicked that your follow-up album is not going to. You could have been burdened by that.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 50:42Dax Shepard?

  So how did you take that kind of crazy success? First five singles are all number one on that album.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Dude, it's 19 or 20 now. I haven't had one not go number one.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 50:51Dax Shepard?

  You haven't had one not.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  You gotta prep yourself.

• 50:54Speaker 02

  It's gonna happen at some point. Yeah, I'm aware of it. But then again, there's no pressure because it's so beyond what even thinks possible. First time I ever played Hurricane, I played at the 40 watt in Athens.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  That's where I went to UGA.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  I think it was Labor Day weekend and 86 people came. And I remember being like, kind of bummed because we had been playing decent shows in that size venue. What's that place hold? Probably 500 people.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's smallish, but yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  We had kind of been rocking those and my manager was like, it's Labor Day weekend. I was in school. I remember this conversation like it was yesterday because I was really bummed out and that was the first night I'd ever played Hurricane in a show. And he said, dude, I saw Florida Georgia Line here like five years ago and 17 people came. And he was like, you got eighty eight.

• 51:40Dax Shepard?

  So you're five times bigger than.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  Pretty good. And I was like, oh, okay, that makes me feel a little bit better. It's been wild, but yeah, we did everything from the smallest place you could play to stadiums.

• 51:51Dax Shepard?

  My favorite thing he did is Fast Car. Your version of Fast Car is so great. That was one of my very favorite songs growing up. Interestingly, it was one of your favorites.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 52:01Dax Shepard?

  What a fucking beautiful song.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 52:03Dax Shepard?

  Were you afraid to tackle it at all? It feels like such a female perspective, right? The dad's a drunk, the husband's abusive.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  I think maybe I was just too naive to even be aware of.

• 52:13Dax Shepard?

  Think through all that.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, then again, man, that song's been covered like thirteen hundred times. Wow. There's like thirteen hundred covers for sale. Incredibly prolific song in a lot of people's lives. So again, I was not like, man, there's gonna be a lot of eyes on this thing. We had some throwaway time at the end of the studio. Like, it was never a plan to do it. I just always played it at shows and I hadn't since I'd gotten my deal.

• 52:38Dax Shepard?

  You had to have known from the shows, though, that it was a big winner.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was just the college shows. It wasn't like we were doing it on the arenas or at the club. I would do it in college and I really always liked doing it. And so we had an hour of studio time left that, you know, we had paid for, but we had recorded everything we needed. And I was like, what if we just recorded it? We did it, ended up putting it on the record and we didn't promote it at all. I mean, we didn't put any marketing budget behind it until it was top ten at radio.

• 53:04Dax Shepard?

  Really?

• 53:04Speaker 02

  I had another single out that was climbing the charts that went number one. And by the time it went number one, Fast Car was like number twelve. Wow. For whatever reason, man, it just struck the right chord at the right time.

• 53:16Dax Shepard?

  Well, it's a beautiful combination of a great song and then a very wonderful interpretation of it.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:23Dax Shepard?

  So when you guys sang together, first of all, answer this for me, because I'll be working out and that comes on my liked songs. And I do go, what was her journey? Did she choose to lay back?

• 53:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think she just kind of stepped away. The cool thing about her is nobody really knows.

• 53:40Dax Shepard?

  She's kind of an enigma.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And I remember when there was whispers of that. Happening, my team's like, well, I think the Grammys are thinking about maybe wanting to do this. And I was like, dude, that ain't happening.

• 53:53Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, she's never doing it.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Like, bro, that ain't gonna happen. Like, I remember just thinking, like, it's not gonna happen. She just doesn't do anything.

• 53:59Dax Shepard?

  She's JD Salinger of the country world.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so they were like, would you be interested? And I'm like, well, fucking obviously I would be interested. I was like, it's not gonna happen, but I would be definitely interested. So, you know, it's three, four months go by and remember I was sitting in the tree stand at my house and Carly called me, who works with Asha and does PR. And she was like, hey, Tracy's gonna call you tomorrow at seven o'clock.

• 54:22Dax Shepard?

  I presume you've never met her at that point?

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  No one's better.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  No one's better.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  She hadn't commented in any way. My cover had already been number one and it's like the run was kind of over. There's no whispers at all. Right, which is fine. I wasn't expecting to.

• 54:36Dax Shepard?

  Maybe she was expecting you to call her.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, dude, you can't get in touch with her.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Cause I remember when they were trying to figure it out, they're like, there's not a team. There is no one, which is also the coolest thing in the world, by the way.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  It is the coolest thing.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  The coolest thing in the world. So, next night, I'm like doing bath time with my kids and it's chaos, whatever. But I told my wife, like, hey, seven o'clock, your boy's off the clock.

• 54:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, man. I was just like sitting there with my phone on the table. Cause I'm like, I have a feeling she's gonna call like on time and like prompt. And she did, man, it was like on the dot. Phone goes off, it's unknown.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, I'm nervous.

• 55:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I have a butterfly.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, pick it up. It's just her, man. And I was like, fuck, I was like, this is crazy. And we talked for probably 45 minutes.

• 55:19Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really? Did she say, I like your version?

• 55:21Speaker 02

  She did. She was like, man, I think you did a really great job.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, what more could you want?

• 55:26Speaker 02

  I'm such a big fan and I'm nerd now. I'm like, why did you do this thing when you recorded this song and this record? And like, I'm just getting deep. She could tell I was a real fan.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  I really cared about the records. She didn't say this, but I think that was her trying to figure out if she wanted to do it or not.

• 55:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  She's like, I don't wanna go up with this guy if this guy sucks.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Pretty much, which I got respect for. It was crazy that it happened.

• 55:50Dax Shepard?

  When the call ended, did she give you a, I'm gonna do it? Or did you hear later?

• 55:55Speaker 02

  No, she wasn't like, yeah, I'm definitely doing it.

• 55:58Dax Shepard?

  She was just like, it was great talking to you and

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:00Dax Shepard?

  How long after that call do you find out?

• 56:02Speaker 02

  It was probably like a month, I would say, before I heard anything. I mean, obviously incredibly thankful that moment happened. It was so cool. Not just for me, but I feel like for so many people to see her back out.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  It was unbelievable.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  That to me was the coolest part. It's just like her being out.

• 56:17Dax Shepard?

  I love seeing her sing so much.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  If I could have, I wouldn't even have been up there. I would have just been like, cool, can I just watch?

• 56:24Dax Shepard?

  Of course. She's so great. I love watching that. But the moment for me is she starts the duet. She does her couple. Then we go to you or whatever we'd call it. Not a couple, but you do yours. And then when you throw it back to her, you look at her, whatever facade you might have had, it came down. You have this smile on your face when you look back at her, like your turn. And that's so palpable, dude.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Oh my God, I have full chill.

• 56:51Dax Shepard?

  It was so palpable. I rewound it like four times this morning. I just looked at you, look at her and I'm like, I think he's present for this, which is almost impossible to do.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  It was like.

• 57:02Dax Shepard?

  Were you present as fuck for that?

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was just so surreal doing that song with her. You know, I've been listening to that song since I was a kid. It's like one of the first songs I remember.

• 57:11Dax Shepard?

  It could have been almost too much to compute, but it does seem like you're there in your body experiencing it.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  The best part about that was she was really adamant about rehearsing a lot. She hadn't played in like 10 years. She came in just so confident. It was all the players from that record, like when she recorded it. She asked me to bring my steel player, so there was steel on it. So it was all the guys that played on the original record. We rehearsed for like three days.

• 57:38Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Did you become friendly with her in those three days?

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so there was this full confidence. There's no question. We're gonna nail it.

• 57:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. You'd worked through all the butterflies in this rehearsal.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  I didn't rehearse three days for my whole tour. Like, you know what I mean? It's like, she wanted it to be perfect and she wanted to have that confidence.

• 57:56Dax Shepard?

  It paid off.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, make sure it was great. And so that allowed us to be able to just enjoy the actual performance. And not be swept up in like, oh, we're at the Grammys and like, what if we mess up? Like, there was none of that.

• 58:09Dax Shepard?

  So here's an interesting thing. You have anxiety.

• 58:12Speaker 02

  Oh, big time.

• 58:14Dax Shepard?

  It's interesting anxiety, isn't it? Because you would think someone with anxiety performing would bring that out. But my guess is that's not where your anxiety lies.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  No, mine doesn't make any sense, man. It's a form of OCD.

• 58:25Dax Shepard?

  You have a very specific form of OCD.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's called pure OCD, which is like, there's no outward compulsions.

• 58:32Dax Shepard?

  So you're not doing any behaviors that are observable?

• 58:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, the behaviors are all mental.

• 58:36Dax Shepard?

  It's just rumination?

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Yep. Mental rituals.

• 58:39Dax Shepard?

  So did you have tics when you were a kid?

• 58:41Speaker 02

  No, I would say 99.9% of people who have it, no one would ever even know. I'm not, but in theory, I could be having it right now and having this conversation. And it's like, there's almost two.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:52Dax Shepard?

  Almost the subconscious is having the conversation, but the real focus is on.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  The internal compulsion, is it something specific?

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot of themes that are very recurrent for people that have this. Religion is one. It essentially preys on the antithesis of who you are at your core.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:08Speaker 02

  But it focuses on questions that are unanswerable, which is like, do I really love God? Do I really believe in God?

• 59:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, what percentage?

• 59:17Speaker 02

  And then you spend over 90% of your day thinking about that.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  And that could happen for months on end.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, that's maddening.

• 59:27Dax Shepard?

  Is it too private for me to know what your themes are?

• 59:29Speaker 02

  No, I've had a ton, man. Like, people have violent ones. Am I some sort of serial killer guy?

• 59:35Dax Shepard?

  We had an OCD expert on and it was very illuminating that the kind you see in movie is the lowest percentage of OCD. It's mostly people who are like, they're afraid they're a pedophile. They're afraid they're a murderer.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  You can touch all of them. And there's some that, for whatever reason, if you weren't really religious, you wouldn't really have the God one, because that wouldn't be as important to you. It's things that there's never an answer to. There's people that are like, am I gay? Am I a pedophile? Am I a serial killer? If I'm driving down the road, am I gonna just swerve into this traffic? And it's like, you're not ever going to do that.

• 1:00:06Dax Shepard?

  I know.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  It's like seeing a grizzly bear come out of the woods, but it's in your mind.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:09Dax Shepard?

  Yes. It identifies a threat, but that threat's not there.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  The threat's not real. And then it's like, but. It was real because I thought that for a second. People have those kind of thoughts all the time and they just like, oh, that's weird. It's like a bird flying by.

• 1:00:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  You just go, oh, there's a bird. And then you're like, what was that bird? Why did that bird fly by? And then the more you wonder why the bird flew by, the more it starts flying by. Your brain's like, I need to send that thought again because you're worried about it. And you being worried about it must mean something.

• 1:00:38Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Really, it doesn't mean anything. Then the more you think about it, the more it starts showing up and it starts going by and by. And then you start wondering more and more and more. And you do things mentally, ritualistically to alleviate the anxiety of the bird showing up.

• 1:00:53Dax Shepard?

  So what's one of the rituals you can do mentally?

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Say, for example, you think in your mind, you're like, I'm gonna swerve my car into traffic. One could be, and this would be, I guess technically an outward one. It doesn't happen like, it's like reassurance seeking is a big one. Let's say me and you were really close friends.

• 1:01:09Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we will be.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  I could be like, you don't think I would ever plow my car into like the sidewalk? And you'd be like, dude, what are you talking about? No. And then you're like, oh, thank God. I'm obviously would never do that.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  But that reinforces the importance of the thought to you by me asking you that.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  And so the alleviation, the reassurance seeking of me wanting to like quill the uncomfortableness that the thought gives me makes my brain pay more attention to it.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Because then I'm caring about it. You're giving it power.

• 1:01:38Dax Shepard?

  Attention, focus.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  So the real trick to overcoming that is going, yeah, I think I will plow my car into a bunch of people.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Letting your brain go there.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  Or just being like, maybe I will plow my car into a bunch of people and.

• 1:01:53Dax Shepard?

  When that happens, we'll deal with that at that point.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Whatever. Maybe I am, you know, insane.

• 1:01:58Dax Shepard?

  Gay pedophile.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, murderer guy. And you know what? That's fine.

• 1:02:02Dax Shepard?

  Right, right.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  Because if that happens, then whatever, that's what happens.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  That is what it is.

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  It's just being like, yeah, whatever, man. It's like, it's all good. But I would say definitely the course of my life kind of has been dictated by that at certain times.

• 1:02:14Dax Shepard?

  For me, when I was in my early twenties and I'd just moved to California, I was super lonely. I was ruminating quite a bit on, I thought I was going crazy.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Mental illness is one, like, am I schizophrenic and I don't know it?

• 1:02:25Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:02:26Speaker 02

  What if I'm in this podcast and you guys aren't even real? And I'm sitting somewhere in someone's garage going, well, yeah, I'm a famous country singer and blah, blah, blah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  I've had this thought.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Imagine thinking that and like, the normal person might be like, man, that's really strange thing. And they think about it for one minute.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  But imagine that thought comes and it's like a nuclear bomb goes off in your head and you can't stop thinking about it for six months.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  And you never, and I won't say never, but for the most part, I would think in my experience, you never have two themes at one time.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:03:00Dax Shepard?

  Right. There's not room for two themes almost.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  Like, it's almost too much bandwidth. Let's say you're worried about religion and it's the most important thing in the world to you. And then one day you have the car driving thought instantly, you think about the religion and you're like, bro, how dumb was that?

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  I can't believe I wasted three months of my life worrying about this thing that's now is so inconsequential. But then it could come back in five years.

• 1:03:26Dax Shepard?

  It's whack a mole.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  People always reach out to me about it because there's not a lot of people who've talked openly about that particular form, which a lot of people have, and I would say 99.9% of people suffer in silence with this thing.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Because how do you tell your parents when you're 12 years old that you're worried about?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  Being a pedophile.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  You're gonna stab someone with a kitchen knife.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Like, people will think you're insane.

• 1:03:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you're very afraid that they will take the action.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, they'll be like, hey, man, something's wrong with my kid and not his a mental illness. It's like, my kid is a psychopath.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 1:03:58Dax Shepard?

  Some clarity, right? I'm like, I think I am slowly kind of going crazy here. But then I also have moments where I'm like, no, you're not. Everything's kind of groovy.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:04:06Dax Shepard?

  And you're afraid if I give over this information, someone's gonna assume the worst. We're gonna have a DEFCON 5 reaction to it. And I do at times realize I'm not.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  That's the thing is none of it ever. Makes any sense. If you told someone you were worried about, they'd be like,

• 1:04:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they'd go stop worrying about it.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  There's nothing about you that would make that true.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Even telling people that is counterintuitive to the healing process.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  If you are or not like that, it just doesn't even matter. I know right now that I could get in my car and it's an hour drive home and I could have a spike that sends me into a three month spiral. But also, I'm just not afraid of that at all. You just have to know, maybe at another point in my life, I'll have another one of these and that's okay. And I'll deal with it when it happens. And I think that's the freedom. I mean, it took me five years to even figure out what it was.

• 1:04:56Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, you seem to have a lot of awareness and tools. Did you receive these from therapy?

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, the behavioral therapy part of it is huge. It's having the toolkit to combat it and knowing what's right and what's wrong. You can never solve it.

• 1:05:10Dax Shepard?

  It's like addiction, it ain't going away.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  The big key is knowing that you'll never have an answer to any of these questions. You answering the question will never cure you. Or you trying to find out the answer is never going to cure you.

• 1:05:22Dax Shepard?

  That you can figure it out.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  Right. Because if it was two plus two equals four, you wouldn't have any anxiety about it. Cause you would just know.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  And you could know an answer and you could get a test and that's the answer.

• 1:05:35Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

• 1:05:42Dax Shepard?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I have my dream job. I get to talk to folks I admire like crazy and ask them virtually any question that I want to. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. But even dream jobs have some not so dreamy parts. The stuff that gets in the way of the actual work. Now that's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They don't just tell you what you should do about your busy work. They actually do it, start to finish. Cases closed, requests handled, no extra work for you. So you and your team can focus on what matters most. Which for me is, are they obsessed with male bodies on the same level as I am?

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  They never are.

• 1:06:25Dax Shepard?

  To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.

• 1:06:31Dax Shepard?

  We get support from Instagram teen accounts. So we talk a lot on this show about how the world is different now than when we were growing up. And one of the biggest differences is obviously social media. And I think a lot of people wonder, okay, what's actually being done to make it safer for teenagers?

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Which is a fair question.

• 1:06:48Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so Instagram has got something called teen accounts and they come with automatic protections built in by default. So anyone between 13 and 17 is automatically placed into this experience. They get age appropriate content settings, contact limits, so that by default, only people they're already connected to can message them. And time management tools, daily time limit reminders, and also sleep mode that mutes notifications from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  Sleep mode is genius.

• 1:07:16Dax Shepard?

  Right? And here's the thing, for anyone under 16, a parent has to give permission to change any of those settings to be less strict. The guardrails are on and Instagram keeps building new safety features to create age appropriate experiences for teens.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  I am really glad Instagram's helping to give parents peace of mind with teen accounts.

• 1:07:35Dax Shepard?

  Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. We get support by Peloton. You know that feeling when you're spiraling over a problem and you just can't figure it out? When that happens to me, I need a change of pace and I've found that running is the best way. It takes my brain out of the driver's seat and I come back with a fresh perspective. Running can be freeing and cathartic and Peloton helps you feel all of that. And now that feeling fits wherever you need it with the new Peloton Tread Flex. It's movable and foldable, designed to fit your life. So next time you feel stuck, you can go for a run literally anywhere, whether that's in your office, living room, or even the attic.

• 1:08:20Dax Shepard?

  Plus, they have classes with expert instructors and programs to meet you at any level and keep you moving. Let yourself run. Explore the new Peloton Tread Flex at onepeloton.com.

• 1:08:32Dax Shepard?

  We get support from ZipRecruiter. Oh, get recruiting. So I went down this rabbit hole the other day on real holiday jobs that exist and I couldn't stop. Somebody out there is hiring a ham glazer, a professional ham glazer. Another place is hiring a lead elf, implying a whole hierarchy of elves I had never even considered. Here's the thing, these jobs need real skills. People like that are hard to find. Whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, the best way to find qualified people who are genuinely excited about your role is on ZipRecruiter. And right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/dax. Plus ZipRecruiter has a new feature that shows you the most interested qualified candidates first,

• 1:09:17Dax Shepard?

  so you meet the right people faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/dax. That's ziprecruiter.com/dax. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 1:09:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. So how did you learn all this?

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  I'm better at that probably than I am at country music, to be honest. I mean, just from years of

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Experience.

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  Experience. I mean, just 10,000 hours times a million of

• 1:09:55Dax Shepard?

  But no help? Or did you get help?

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  I never really had a traditional CBT therapist, honestly. It was just, once I found out what it was, that probably happened at like 21, which is the same year I learned guitar. Oh, this is what it is. There was a lot of relief in that.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  I was like, oh my god, other people have this? Like, what are we talking about?

• 1:10:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, the isolation of it is sometimes the worst.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  Can't be like, I must be crazy. Nobody understands. Obviously, my parents were really worried, but they're like, we don't even know. I went to therapy in high school and it was like, oh, you've got generalized anxiety disorder. And I'm like, okay, well, that must be what it is. It just didn't feel like

• 1:10:38Dax Shepard?

  Specific enough?

• 1:10:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. This feels different than that. Once I found the pure O thing. It was like, oh my God, this is the thing that I have.

• 1:10:46Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Do you think this could potentially be one of the reasons when you say you were lazy quotes in school, like this was happening in your brain?

• 1:10:54Dax Shepard?

  Pretty distracting.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  As a kid, how could you be doing all these things at once?

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  So many times in my life, I feel like I was on the cusp of like figuring out or achieving something. And then I would have one of these spikes and it would be like, well, there goes everything because I don't care about anything else now because I'm so worried about, I'm crazy. I hesitate even saying these things because I feel like sometimes people are going to watch this and they're going to seek reassurance from hearing me talk about it.

• 1:11:22Dax Shepard?

  Like it'll trigger the wrong reaction.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, like they'll go, oh gosh, well, then he said this thing and that made me feel better for 10 minutes. And so I'm fine for 10 minutes. But it preys on everything you're not.

• 1:11:36Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  And it makes you feel like you are that when in reality, in some ways, your deepest fear is being something that you're not. And that's rooted in this. Another big one is relationship OCD. One of the themes of pure, I was like, do I really love my wife? I really love my kids.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  And there's no answer. Obviously you wouldn't be worried about it if you didn't.

• 1:11:57Dax Shepard?

  That's right.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  And that's the thing, but telling people that is giving them reassurance.

• 1:12:02Dax Shepard?

  People who don't love people aren't worried that they don't love them.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:05Dax Shepard?

  When you look at the list of people I don't love, I'm not sitting around worried that I don't love them.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Do I love them or do I not?

• 1:12:10Dax Shepard?

  No, it's quite evident.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  I think this is so interesting. Explain it's actually bad.

• 1:12:14Dax Shepard?

  It's a catch 22.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  This is good for everyone to hear, even if you're on the opposite end of it, what we shouldn't be doing is be like, oh, but you shouldn't worry about that because you're not that. That's actually not helpful.

• 1:12:24Speaker 02

  Makes it worse, which is so confusing. It's such a confusing hamster wheel. Getting out of the loop is so confusing. Until you know how to do it, you can't do it. The research on it has come a lot farther in the last 14 years than it did even when I was 21. There was basically one doctor that even was doing anything on it at that time at 21.

• 1:12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  Now there's a lot more people who are saying that, oh yeah, I've got this thing.

• 1:12:52Dax Shepard?

  And do you think it's nature or nurture or a combination?

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  A hundred percent nature. It's like having bipolar.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  It's just wired that way.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  It's just how your neurons fire.

• 1:13:01Dax Shepard?

  Have you come to find an upside of it? So for me, I very much think of, I'm an addict across the board and it kind of works in most domains until I get to that one. But my obsessive nature and my ruminating on how to make the show better, how to do a better job. Like that's all the same package that makes me me.

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:13:18Dax Shepard?

  Do you think there's been an upside? Do you think it's part of your success as well?

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  No, no, I don't think it's part of my success at all. If I just never had it, that would be awesome.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good answer.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  There's no good parts of it other than when you don't have it.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe like you recognize.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  When you don't have it, you're like, bro.

• 1:13:37Dax Shepard?

  You feel good.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  It's just incredible. I will tell people this, man, at least in my experience, it's been something that's gotten better for me.

• 1:13:44Dax Shepard?

  Do you think kids help?

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  Well, certainly. Yeah. I mean, there's less time to worry about that kind of stuff, but kids could also easily be a trigger.

• 1:13:51Dax Shepard?

  OCD people think they're going to hurt their kid. They're going to kill their kid. They're going to molest their kid. They won't change their kid's diaper.

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  For sure. It's a unique experience in each individual, I would say. Obviously there's patterns that are recognizable in people that have OCD. You know, especially this forum, but I think knowing that you have it is a big part. Anybody that has it should definitely do their research on it. But I don't even have to tell those people to do it because they have.

• 1:14:16Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Because they're sitting on their computer all day going.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  Am I this? Imagine being in fight or flight mode 90% of the day.

• 1:14:23Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And you're actually bizarrely now almost going to manifest some health condition.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  Sure. Cause you're going to be under stress all the time.

• 1:14:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  You know? I'm glad you're talking about it.

• 1:14:34Dax Shepard?

  Me too.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:14:35Dax Shepard?

  I think it's harder if you're a country star.

• 1:14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, probably.

• 1:14:39Dax Shepard?

  Every actor I talk to, they've all been in therapy. We've talked to all the countries. No one's going to therapy. There's like some cultural stuff.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  For me was finding out, how can I make this happen less? Not from the therapy side. Obviously that helps a ton. But for me, it was like, man, how can I just change what I'm eating? What I'm doing? My life revolves around preventing it, right? So like, I mean, I don't eat gluten anymore.

• 1:15:06Dax Shepard?

  Me neither.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  That was for sure somehow involved in my inflammation levels were really, really high. And obviously your brain is really inflamed. That's been a big one for me. It's a wild journey.

• 1:15:18Dax Shepard?

  Luke, you're a very sweet, talented person. I'm really delighted I got to meet you. I'm really grateful you're willing to come over today and chat with us. And I just also want to give you a big high five for fucking raising $24 million for Asheville, this town I love. Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Dax Shepard?

  24 million bucks.

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 1:15:37Dax Shepard?

  Congratulations on everything. I mean, you're so young. I'm excited to watch you continue to do radical stuff. Is there anything we got to promote specifically?

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  I got a new single coming out. It's called Back in the Saddle.

• 1:15:47Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so Back in the Saddle's coming out.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  July 25th.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 1:15:51Dax Shepard?

  And tell me, where are we going?

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  I think we're going backwards in a good way. You know, the last record I put out was Father's Day of last year. So it's kind of more of a niche project for me. You know, it's more of a personal.

• 1:16:03Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  Bit of a selfish endeavor. You know, I got two little kids at home. So it's been two and a half years since I put out a record that was meant to be heard by a lot of people. That's kind of where the back in the saddle thing came in. We'll see.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Fun. Fun. I'm excited.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Dax Shepard?

  All right, Luke. Well, I hope I bumped into you a bunch while we're in Nashville.

• 1:16:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:16:23Dax Shepard?

  You're delightful. Get that Raptor down here and we'll find some trails.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:16:30Dax Shepard?

  I sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode, but we'll find out when my mom, Mrs. Monica, comes in and tells us what was wrong.

• 1:16:39Speaker 02

  It smells different in here.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  Oh, God. Is it me?

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  No, it's not a human smell. It's like a.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  Musty.

• 1:16:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, musty old air conditioning smell or something.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Well, it's been musty in here. It might be me because.

• 1:16:55Speaker 02

  Are you musty?

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  Well, I'm wearing a vintage shirt.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  Oh, and it could have some mustank on it.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, sometimes vintage comes with a little must.

• 1:17:05Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I don't think it's that. Although I came in here earlier to set this down and I didn't smell that. Should I smell?

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  No, it is smelly.

• 1:17:15Dax Shepard?

  Well, we must find out now.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Well, it is smelly musty, but I can't, I don't think it could be that strong that you smelt it coming in.

• 1:17:24Dax Shepard?

  It's not this piece, right?

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  No, it's not. Yeah.

• 1:17:29Dax Shepard?

  No, that doesn't smell bad at all.

• 1:17:32Dax Shepard?

  That's not it.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Are you sure? Okay, well, I smell it. Like, you know when you put on clothes that aren't your smell?

• 1:17:39Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  Cause I have, this isn't washed. Oh, I'm outing myself.

• 1:17:43Dax Shepard?

  Way more common when you're young.

• 1:17:46Dax Shepard?

  Right? Like, you're at a friend's house, you didn't intend to sleep over. Yeah, I can sleep over, can I borrow something? As an adult, I'm not swapping clothes with many people. Are you?

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not, you're-

• 1:17:57Dax Shepard?

  You're not a girl.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not. Like, girls borrow each other's clothes.

• 1:18:01Dax Shepard?

  Still, like, at inner forties?

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. I mean, not like on a daily basis, but if I'm, if I am-

• 1:18:10Dax Shepard?

  When's the last time you borrowed an item of clothing?

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm sure I've borrowed something from Kristen upstairs, like,

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  many times.

• 1:18:19Dax Shepard?

  I'm sure. You don't remember the last time?

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Like, probably I'm over and it's like, oh, I need to wear a bathing suit.

• 1:18:24Dax Shepard?

  This is a hypothetical. Do you remember the last time you-

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Oh my god, should we call her?

• 1:18:29Dax Shepard?

  She won't remember, are you kidding? You're just so particular about your clothes.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:18:34Dax Shepard?

  I'm finding it a little hard to believe that you're in your friend's clothes a lot.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Okay, do you want me to, like, really peek behind the curtain?

• 1:18:40Dax Shepard?

  I do, let's go all the way.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Okay, so like, sometimes we record two.

• 1:18:46Dax Shepard?

  Back to back.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then I, we, you change shirts, cause your closet's here, and then I'm like, oh, fuck, like, I probably need to change shirts too, but I didn't bring any. So then I'll, like, go borrow something. I've done that recently.

• 1:19:01Dax Shepard?

  I'm very unsure of when this happened.

• 1:19:04Speaker 01

  Well, I don't write it down in my closet book.

• 1:19:06Dax Shepard?

  This seems hypothetically plausible. I agree, you're like, I need another shirt, Kristen's got a bunch up there, I'll grab one.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Also, I, I do a lot of closet clean out.

• 1:19:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  A lot. And then I'll make big heaping piles of clothes.

• 1:19:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  And then people come and they take them.

• 1:19:24Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  And um, so then they're wearing my clothes.

• 1:19:28Dax Shepard?

  Sure, that I I buy.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  So women are taking other people's clothes.

• 1:19:33Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So you don't have an exact memory of the last time you were walking around town and in one of your girlfriend's clothes? Not a precise men- memory, just more of a hypothetical memory.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  Next time I'll write it down.

• 1:19:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay, keep a journal, a log.

• 1:19:48Speaker 01

  I'll keep a journal.

• 1:19:49Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Um, but vintage clothes and shopping. I don't normally wash it immediately. That's gross. People are gonna probably be grossed out by that.

• 1:19:58Dax Shepard?

  I don't know that I have either.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  But vintage is a little trickier.

• 1:20:02Dax Shepard?

  It is, but also what do people think they're getting from like, you're moving around, you're in a Starbucks. There's thirty five strangers in there. Everyone's coughing and sneezing and talking loudly. There's spittle everywhere and airborne contaminants and contagions.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  Legionnaires.

• 1:20:16Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. What do you think you're getting from someone's T-shirt? There's no, or we know your skin's the largest organ, but it's not like anything's like, they're not using it as a tissue or toilet paper.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Psoriasis.

• 1:20:28Dax Shepard?

  That is not contagious.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  But you wouldn't want it like, okay, we have to be realistic. Aren't there people in the world? We don't have to name names.

• 1:20:37Dax Shepard?

  I have psoriasis, so go ahead and name me.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  No, I'm not. I've moved on from psoriasis.

• 1:20:42Dax Shepard?

  Oh, you did? Okay, I'm still there.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 1:20:45Dax Shepard?

  It's a large accusation to levy at someone.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  I was just thinking about the guy from Armchair Anonymous where he had his skin across the enti-. No, he had psoriasis and it was across the entire apartment. Remember the whole apartment was covered in skin?

• 1:20:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:21:00Speaker 01

  So you probably wouldn't want to borrow his shirt and I, it's nothing against him, but like, I think we could agree.

• 1:21:07Dax Shepard?

  I agree that it would be gnarly and I don't want to do that, but also you won't catch anything.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  No, you're not gonna catch anything, but I think people have more, it's more of a, it's not like I'm gonna get a disease. Yeah, it's cooties.

• 1:21:19Dax Shepard?

  I was just more objecting to people thinking that's like gross, like you're gonna catch something. And I just don't think you're gonna catch something unless you're borrowing someone's old used underwear that has a current STD.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Bacteria or bacteria, because you get a UTI. Yeah. I imagine that, I think they wash it.

• 1:21:43Dax Shepard?

  That's hopeful.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  It is hopeful.

• 1:21:45Dax Shepard?

  I do think that's the express policy, but you're just putting a lot of faith in whatever.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  These are expensive.

• 1:21:52Dax Shepard?

  Hourly person that day was like, you gotta wash all those before you open the register. And they're like, you got it. I mean, that's a real.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:22:01Dax Shepard?

  At the end of the day, it's humans.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  It's humans. I know. That's what that's the harsh realization of the world. Our pilots are humans.

• 1:22:09Dax Shepard?

  My father in law sent me an article this morning from the godfather of AI. Now, a lot of people have this moniker, so you don't really know which one is the true one.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  We know the godmother of AI.

• 1:22:20Dax Shepard?

  Faith Haley. But this gentleman worked at Google. He has since left. He does have a Nobel Peace Prize.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Oh, who is it?

• 1:22:28Dax Shepard?

  I don't remember his name. I could look it up really easy. Why wouldn't I honor and credit this person? But what he he's urging people to do is design AI with a woman's instincts, basically. Geoffrey Hinton.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:22:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay, he says, listen to this. Well, first of all, that did you hear that an AI model tried to blackmail an engineer about an affair that it had learned about from email?

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:22:59Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:23:00Speaker 01

  What the fuck? See? Oh, my God.

• 1:23:03Dax Shepard?

  Okay, Hinton presented an intriguing solution, building maternal instincts into AI models so they really care about people. Even once the technology becomes more powerful, powerful and smarter than humans. AI systems will very quickly develop two subgoals if they're smart. One is to stay alive and the other subgoal is to get more control. There's good reason to believe that any kind of agentic AI will try to stay alive.

• 1:23:30Dax Shepard?

  But there's one sentence in here that's really incredible. Oh, he noted that mothers have instincts and social pressure to care for their babies. The right model is the only model we have of a more intelligent thing being controlled by a less intelligent thing, which is a mother being controlled by her baby. That's a fascinating framing of it, isn't it?

• 1:23:50Speaker 01

  That is.

• 1:23:51Dax Shepard?

  The baby is.

• 1:23:52Speaker 01

  In control.

• 1:23:53Dax Shepard?

  In control.

• 1:23:54Speaker 01

  And they're just stupid babies. Yeah.

• 1:23:57Dax Shepard?

  Um, but you're fully committed at all times to sacrifice whatever you needed to do for them.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow. That's wild.

• 1:24:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  That's cool. It's like the most distinct in a mother-child relationship.

• 1:24:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  But also probably a human to child relationship. Like if there's a kid around and you're alone with them and you're an adult, like an instinct does kick in that you have to help that kid or take care of that kid. Or, you know, you're not just gonna walk away from a kid by itself.

• 1:24:32Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, we're susceptible. We're hardwired to respond to things that are cute. When the eyeballs are disproportionate to the size of the face, we, we get really nurturing and empathetic. That's neat. Yeah, that's what AI needs.

• 1:24:45Speaker 01

  That's why Vinnie's so.

• 1:24:47Dax Shepard?

  AI needs to look at humans and think, they're so cute. Look at them. They're gangly and they're walking on two feet. No one else is.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what are they gonna do about the fact that humans like kill people and are really mean and bad?

• 1:24:58Dax Shepard?

  So do, you know, babies break things on accident and they do naughty stuff.

• 1:25:03Speaker 01

  Though.

• 1:25:03Dax Shepard?

  Or on purpose, sometimes they slap their mom in the face. We know that.

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:25:08Dax Shepard?

  You've seen that video of Delta attacking me over and over again. You're in trouble.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:13Dax Shepard?

  She's, she's leaping at me and lunging.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Though you were in trouble.

• 1:25:18Dax Shepard?

  I was not in trouble as I made very clear in the video. I did nothing.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  You were in trouble because she decided you were in trouble and that means you were in trouble. You were in danger.

• 1:25:27Dax Shepard?

  But then she wanted to give me a necklace and she decided I was not in trouble. You're not in trouble anymore.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:36Dax Shepard?

  It was very nice to get, um, back to my little sweeties last night.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Were you happy?

• 1:25:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  How do you feel? You're back home?

• 1:25:44Dax Shepard?

  I feel dicey. I, I feel like I'm unreentry.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:25:49Dax Shepard?

  Did you feel, you didn't feel that way? This, I think this is the longest I've been gone from LA since. Without a paddle, maybe.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:25:59Dax Shepard?

  When in Rome, maybe we were gone for two months.

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  A long time ago.

• 1:26:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, fifty six days.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  That's really long.

• 1:26:05Dax Shepard?

  Almost two months.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, time is wild.

• 1:26:09Dax Shepard?

  Walked Lincoln to the first day of school today.

• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  Oh, today was first day of school?

• 1:26:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh, seventh grade.

• 1:26:17Dax Shepard?

  I mean, I try not to jinx her, but I'm so excited for her.

• 1:26:20Speaker 01

  Oh, that was a big year for you.

• 1:26:22Dax Shepard?

  Best year of my life.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:25Dax Shepard?

  I don't think you have to knock if it was already the best year of your life.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  No, it's for her. It's for her.

• 1:26:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay. Yeah.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  See, I'm taking care of the child in this situation.

• 1:26:34Dax Shepard?

  Because you're like AI, you're agentic.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, seventh grade. We, our friends have a child who just turned sixteen.

• 1:26:44Dax Shepard?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  And we were at her birthday party and I was like, and this is a kid we've known her whole life.

• 1:26:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  And like.

• 1:26:54Dax Shepard?

  I really held her as a tiny newborn baby.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know her that little, but since she was, she was like five, probably.

• 1:27:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:02Speaker 01

  Um, and that was so weird.

• 1:27:06Dax Shepard?

  Was it?

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like.

• 1:27:07Dax Shepard?

  Is she getting her license?

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's like driving.

• 1:27:10Dax Shepard?

  She is. Oh, my gosh.

• 1:27:13Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:27:14Dax Shepard?

  How exciting.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Obviously, you know this and all parents know this, but when you get to be an adult, time is just kind of stagnant, right? Like, unless it's your birthday, I guess, but like you barely even that. You're not really, whatever, you feel the same age. And then you're kind of doing the same thing every day or whatever. You know, you're living your life. And you're not as aware of the passage of time, but kids make you so aware of the passage of time. It's like a nonstop sense of like, oh, my God, they're getting older, which means time is passing. I'm getting older. It's like, it's really intense. And she's sixteen. She is gonna be an adult in two years. When we're done with this contract, she will be an adult.

• 1:28:00Dax Shepard?

  Oh, my goodness, she could.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  That's wild.

• 1:28:03Dax Shepard?

  She can do what? She can vote.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  She can vote.

• 1:28:07Dax Shepard?

  She'll vote.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  But like, that's crazy.

• 1:28:09Dax Shepard?

  It is crazy.

• 1:28:11Speaker 01

  She'll go to college.

• 1:28:12Dax Shepard?

  I had that moment this morning. I was like looking at the school and it has the, the. Established date on Lincoln School and I was doing the math and I was like, oh, this school year when we hit 2026, your school have 120 year anniversary.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:28:30Dax Shepard?

  And then I was thinking, that sounds so old.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:34Dax Shepard?

  But it's only two of my lifetimes, which makes it feel not old.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:28:39Dax Shepard?

  I get so confused when I start doing time as multiples in my lifetime. Cause I'm only six of me away from the revolution, basically.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 1:28:49Dax Shepard?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Crazy, but also think about six, like you've, a lot has happened. I mean, it just goes by so fast.

• 1:28:57Dax Shepard?

  Exactly. This stuff is all like five minutes ago is what I'm saying.

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  I'm feeling very nostalgic right now or like currently, not today, but just in the past.

• 1:29:09Dax Shepard?

  You're in a nostalgic era.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, because well, my birthday is coming up, so maybe that has to do with it.

• 1:29:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  And this child turning 16.

• 1:29:17Dax Shepard?

  That really sent you for a loop.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  And I rewatched Girls. I watched the whole thing in a week.

• 1:29:22Dax Shepard?

  How many seasons were there?

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Six.

• 1:29:25Dax Shepard?

  Six.

• 1:29:26Speaker 01

  10 episodes each.

• 1:29:28Dax Shepard?

  Six.

• 1:29:28Speaker 01

  Pretty much hour longs.

• 1:29:30Dax Shepard?

  Okay. And you loved it.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:29:34Dax Shepard?

  Better this time around?

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  For me, it's so much better because the first time I watched it, I think I couldn't really watch it. Like I was, I was very, I was, yeah, I was like their age. I was in my twenties. I was stressed out. I didn't know what my life was going to be. I was them.

• 1:29:52Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  And it was, it was too much of a mirror and it made me feel flaily and anxious. So I, I don't even think I finished it.

• 1:30:00Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:30:01Speaker 01

  Watching it now.

• 1:30:03Dax Shepard?

  What is the big accomplishment you think of it? Just how authentic it is?

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  It's so funny. Like she's so funny, the way she writes. It's just, she just has my number. Like the way she writes and story tells is, is so, it hits like such a chord. There are so many moments, it's happened in too much also, the show that she created, the new show, where like, I'm like gonna cry, but I feel like if I start crying, I'll never stop crying.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Like she has, there's like this ability to like untap and then I'll just leak out for the rest of time. Like I won't, it's what, it's just-

• 1:30:49Dax Shepard?

  And is it a feeling of sadness?

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  It's such a specific feeling. It's nostalgia, I guess. Well, that, there's a layer of that. There's a nostalgia, there's a like, life is so beautiful and hard-

• 1:31:04Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:05Speaker 01

  And complicated and relationships are so complicated, but they're so, they're so beautiful that we get to, we get to engage like this in, in life. Like it's, it's so intense. Like it's such an intense feeling-

• 1:31:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:21Speaker 01

  Of the reality of being and how messy.

• 1:31:27Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh, sure.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  It is. And she's just so funny. Like the first time I watched it, I wasn't in, I hadn't hit that stage in life where I watch everything with subtitles.

• 1:31:39Dax Shepard?

  Oh, uh huh.

• 1:31:40Speaker 01

  Which I do now.

• 1:31:41Dax Shepard?

  Even American shows?

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  I watch everything with subtitles now. And so I'm not missing any jokes. Like there, I'm-

• 1:31:49Dax Shepard?

  But are you missing any visuals? Cause that's my issue with subtitles is I have to concentrate quite hard to read the subtitles and I'm missing a lot of the visuals.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I-

• 1:31:58Dax Shepard?

  And if they're there, I'll read them. Even if I'm understanding it perfectly.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I understand this dilemma. Comment on whether you watch with subtitles or not. Dax will read them. I think I'm just so used to it now. I, I don't think I'm missing any visuals.

• 1:32:13Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  And I'm not missing any nuance or jokes. And I think I could have before.

• 1:32:21Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:32:23Dax Shepard?

  So you're kind of reading the script and watching the show at the same time?

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's-

• 1:32:27Dax Shepard?

  Do you wish they put the description of the scene on there too?

• 1:32:29Speaker 01

  They're doing a great job visually.

• 1:32:31Dax Shepard?

  A sparsely decorated one bedroom, New York apartment.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So anyway, that show is making me feel very nostalgic.

• 1:32:39Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  And- So I'm just in like a wispy mood.

• 1:32:44Dax Shepard?

  And are you, um, what do you have feelings about summer ending?

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:48Dax Shepard?

  Are you, are you ready for fall?

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  I love fall. I'm really glad fall is after summer.

• 1:32:55Dax Shepard?

  Okay, and not spring.

• 1:32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I don't love spring.

• 1:32:58Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  Spring's fine, but fall's cozy. It's sweaters. It's

• 1:33:04Dax Shepard?

  Warm drinks.

• 1:33:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, old fashions.

• 1:33:09Dax Shepard?

  I was thinking about the service that football provides for a lot of Americans.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:15Dax Shepard?

  You're so sad summer's over.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:17Dax Shepard?

  But for so many people, like tens of millions of people, the excitement of like, oh, football's back. And I know what I'm doing on Sundays and Mondays.

• 1:33:24Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:33:25Dax Shepard?

  I don't, I don't indulge.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Dax Shepard?

  But I get it.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe you should get into it.

• 1:33:31Dax Shepard?

  I think they like deserve, like they're pacifying a nation. They're really, they do provide a service to bring out of the summer blues.

• 1:33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. But even just like then Halloween is coming and that's on the horizon. And it's like, what are we gonna dress up as and Thanksgiving?

• 1:33:49Dax Shepard?

  A lot of talk about the costumes already.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm out of the loop, but I'll do whatever.

• 1:33:55Dax Shepard?

  It's best that you're out of the loop cuz we're going through many iterations, I think, before we land on it.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:00Dax Shepard?

  So it's just a lot of pitches right now and I'm such a stick in the mud. I'm basically like, you know, when you guys decide, tell me what I am.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:10Dax Shepard?

  And just stay out of some of the pitches cuz they seem impractical to me.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Okay, can you, do you mind throwing some out there?

• 1:34:17Dax Shepard?

  Well, what I got kinda nervous about is Lincoln's now interested in doing puns, kinda bringing back what everyone loved from the 2010s, I guess.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, Kristen and used to do this, right?

• 1:34:30Dax Shepard?

  Yes, yes, like I for Burt Reynolds rap or whatever, you know?

• 1:34:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:34:36Dax Shepard?

  Stuff like that. And so they already have like really complicated ones.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:34:42Dax Shepard?

  Where someone's a human and they're a toothbrush. And, and to me, I'm just like, whoa, we better start fabricating all these if we're really doing this.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:34:51Dax Shepard?

  Again, this isn't my domain. This is one of the domains I just pop in and out of. I'm on, I'm on Hey Ride Duty.

• 1:34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you drive the bus back?

• 1:35:00Dax Shepard?

  No.

• 1:35:01Speaker 01

  Okay, so the bus is staying there.

• 1:35:04Dax Shepard?

  The bus is there.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  So he's gonna stay there?

• 1:35:07Dax Shepard?

  Yes, until January, if I come back, bring it back to go to the sand dunes.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  He should come back home, cuz like,

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  what if we wanna like hang out in him?

• 1:35:17Dax Shepard?

  I know, I would, I feel safer if Big Brown's here, but Big Brown is in, um, covered in that, in the baking sun in LA for.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  It likes the sun. Some people like the sun. Brown people like the sun.

• 1:35:30Dax Shepard?

  Nobody likes to have that much direct sunlight rotting in the front yard.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  You can't say nobody when I'm sitting right here.

• 1:35:37Dax Shepard?

  But you have rejuvenative properties. You can replace your dead skins and stuff. Big Brown's just gonna get duller and duller. So I think it's best for Big Brown.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  Okay, well.

• 1:35:50Dax Shepard?

  You're bummed that the bus isn't here.

• 1:35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was only the other Brown thing and on this property besides me. I felt seen.

• 1:35:59Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  And now I'm back to being the token.

• 1:36:02Dax Shepard?

  Is there nothing Brown here?

• 1:36:04Speaker 01

  Just me.

• 1:36:05Dax Shepard?

  Just little old me.

• 1:36:10Dax Shepard?

  Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Walden University. You know that feeling when you've been thinking about making a move, going after the degree, the promotion, the thing you keep telling yourself you'll get to someday? Walden University is built for that moment. For over 50 years, Walden has helped working professionals get the W, the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence to create real change in their careers and communities. Their programs are designed around your life, not the other way around. With Tempo Learning, available in select programs, there are no rigid schedules or set weekly deadlines. You move at your own pace. And Walden's faculty aren't just academics.

• 1:36:55Dax Shepard?

  They're practitioners who bring real world experience into everything they teach. From your first class to career coaching and beyond, Walden is your partner the whole way. Take the first step and learn at a pace that works for you. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by CHEV.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  I have a confession.

• 1:37:24Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:37:26Dax Shepard?

  I love a confession.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  So I got this necklace.

• 1:37:29Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  For the listener, it's gold. It has, it's really pretty. It has like, what kind of looks like a paper clip or safety pin hanging from the chain, but with a little diamond on it. And then it has a little pendant.

• 1:37:46Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Now, the pendant

• 1:37:50Speaker 01

  has a unicorn on it.

• 1:37:51Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  And I feel weird about it because I love it. I saw it and I was like, I need this. But then I decided I was gonna tell people that somebody else bought it for me.

• 1:38:04Dax Shepard?

  Oh, come.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  Because I think it's weird if you buy yourself a pendant that has a unicorn on it.

• 1:38:10Dax Shepard?

  Oh, really?

• 1:38:12Speaker 01

  I'm a little.

• 1:38:14Dax Shepard?

  What do you think it says about someone?

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  It's arrogant.

• 1:38:17Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. Arrogant? As a.

• 1:38:19Speaker 01

  Like I'm saying I'm a unicorn.

• 1:38:21Dax Shepard?

  Oh.

• 1:38:24Dax Shepard?

  I don't know if anyone would think that.

• 1:38:26Speaker 01

  I just wanna get ahead of it.

• 1:38:28Dax Shepard?

  Okay, yeah, I don't, I don't think anyone's gonna think that.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  I mean, just, I imagine the comments are gonna be like, oh my God, she thinks she's a unicorn.

• 1:38:37Dax Shepard?

  When you wear a Lacoste shirt, you don't think you're an alligator? Or do you? Okay, I don't. And you don't think you're a horse or a polo player?

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  This isn't the brand. This is the charm.

• 1:38:51Dax Shepard?

  Do I think I'm a hawk or a crow?

• 1:38:55Speaker 01

  Well, you do think you're a crow. You say that all the time.

• 1:38:57Dax Shepard?

  I am a crow, but I'm not a hawk.

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's your dad, you said.

• 1:39:01Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that is my dad.

• 1:39:02Speaker 01

  See, it's like if I had, if you wore a hawk charm.

• 1:39:07Dax Shepard?

  Well, if you got a huge tattoo of a big American eagle on your chest.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  American eagle's in some trouble right now, but.

• 1:39:14Dax Shepard?

  Why?

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  You haven't heard this? You're so out of the loop.

• 1:39:17Dax Shepard?

  I probably am. What?

• 1:39:18Speaker 01

  Um, because they did a campaign with Sydney Sweeney that really got people in a tizzy.

• 1:39:28Dax Shepard?

  About what? Is this what I saw a clip of her crying, talking to camera about her feelings being hurt?

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Oh, maybe. I bet, I bet her feelings are.

• 1:39:39Dax Shepard?

  Okay, what happened?

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Um, she, the campaign was about genes, obviously. But it was, remember the Brooke Shields Calvin Klein commercial that they did?

• 1:39:49Dax Shepard?

  American Eagles. Sydney Sweeney has great genes.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  There's a voiceover. There's a whole thing about um, her genes and how your genes are passed down and it predicts your, your eye color and your hair color and um, she says something like, I have great genes. My genes are blue. I only half paid attention to this. I only was, so I'm, I'm definitely missing pieces and I think there's longer ones and shorter ones, whatever. But there's a like um, backlash against.

• 1:40:24Dax Shepard?

  Genetics or blue jeans?

• 1:40:25Speaker 01

  Genetics. About what it's saying about the, the, her genetics being the right genetics.

• 1:40:31Dax Shepard?

  Because she's blonde with blue eyes.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:34Dax Shepard?

  And white.

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  And the Calvin Klein one is not like that. It's more like.

• 1:40:38Dax Shepard?

  Nothing gets between me and my Calvin.

• 1:40:40Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:40:41Dax Shepard?

  She's also 13 or something.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's problematic in a, in a much different way. Um, but anyway, I don't, I'm not, I'm not gonna levy an opinion on that. I do think people,

• 1:40:55Speaker 01

  you know, I help Kristen with some.

• 1:40:57Dax Shepard?

  There's, you have so many specific looks. You're like, okay, that's the same. I saw the whole thing. You're like, okay, that's the sentence I want to say. Ooh, that's gonna be, that's gonna sound rough.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:08Dax Shepard?

  Okay, I'm gonna start with analogy. Do you remember when I helped?

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  Listen, this is a ding ding ding to what I'm about to say.

• 1:41:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  People need to think.

• 1:41:17Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  They need to think before they speak and before they put things out, they need to edit what they're saying.

• 1:41:25Dax Shepard?

  They being American Eagle or the people being critical of American Eagle?

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  American Eagle, like, I help Kristen with commercial stuff, right? And if you're working with Kristen on a commercial and I'm involved, you're probably gonna be annoyed at me. Because I am very picky. I'm like, we aren't gonna use that word. Or not, we shouldn't use this, we gotta do this. And it's like, to them, they're like, this is all the same thing. But it is not.

• 1:41:53Dax Shepard?

  I'm very similar, and as you know, I'm always on high alert for like, condescension, triggering people, feeling less than, yeah, like, there's.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  You have to think about everything if you're doing a campaign.

• 1:42:09Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  And you do, you have to think about across the board, everything. There's a lot to think about and things make a, it makes a difference. Words make a difference, the delivery makes a difference, and it requires a lot of thought. And so when I see something like that, I'm more just like,

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  like, why, who let that happen?

• 1:42:31Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:42:33Speaker 01

  Sydney Sweeney's person should not have allowed that, and also, American Eagles should not have allowed that. Someone should have said like, hey, I don't know. Let's just be careful here.

• 1:42:43Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I wish I knew more about the controversy. If the, if it, the controversy is just that she's saying she has good genetics. What's interesting about that, let's just say that's what it is, that she's saying, I have good genetics.

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  I have the best genetics.

• 1:42:57Dax Shepard?

  An American Eagle's saying she has great genetics, or the best genetics. That would be an important word. Does she say the best? She says, I have the best genes?

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:07Dax Shepard?

  I don't know if she said that or not.

• 1:43:09Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 1:43:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, so. But what's interesting is, let's say it was just, I have the best genetics. It's funny that that's more offensive to people than what I earned how I look. Is that what they like the, the counter, which is,

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:43:25Dax Shepard?

  I look this way. I didn't earn it. I was just born this way. I hit the genetic lottery. People like how I look.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:43:33Dax Shepard?

  To me, it seems less arrogant to say, I'm just the recipient of great genes.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  But it's talking about, it's talking about blue eyes and blonde hair specifically. It's so, so that is the problem.

• 1:43:46Dax Shepard?

  Well, here's where they might've got a little murky on their analogies. They're like, oh, we're gonna play the, the jeans jeans.

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:43:54Dax Shepard?

  Um, but when she says, I have blue jeans, we mean J E A N, J E A N. And it got a little murky.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  No, they knew what they were doing with that. That's like, her eyes are blue. So her genes are blue. Like, that's, that's what they're doing. But it's also like, then they need to, probably what they should have done is ran two campaigns. One with her, one with someone with brown hair or skin or something, and then made a brown pair of jeans.

• 1:44:22Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, just blue jeans versus brown jeans.

• 1:44:26Speaker 01

  Or black jeans. I love black jeans. They could run a campaign with multiple people with this theme. The problem is, you have this like, beautiful, very Aryan girl, talking about her blonde hair and blue eyes and her, and having good genes. And it's kind of like, e, let's maybe not do that. But again, I don't necessarily, I, I don't actually blame her. I think she needs someone in her camp. I'm not a veil right now.

• 1:44:55Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:44:55Speaker 01

  Um, maybe down the line.

• 1:44:57Dax Shepard?

  Okay, just putting it out there.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, just putting it out there.

• 1:45:00Dax Shepard?

  It's kind of a consultant. Do you think you could go through like 10 or 12 a day? Like, maybe go do a volume play? Like, have 12 of these clients that you're overseeing?

• 1:45:09Speaker 01

  Remember, I majored in PR. This is where some of this comes in.

• 1:45:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you may have the, um, the pleasure I've had in life of looking back and like, seeing like it all makes sense now. Like, I was so into driving and then I was the host of Top Gear and it's improv and driving fast. And you're like, well, how did these things intersect? So it might be that.

• 1:45:27Dax Shepard?

  Where your PR education finally is like, I knew there was a total reason.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  It's it's at play every day. It's at play all the time here. I notice it all the time. Like, man, meant to be.

• 1:45:39Dax Shepard?

  I need to know more, but it sounds like people are overreacting, in my opinion.

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  You always think that.

• 1:45:44Dax Shepard?

  I do. I think people in general are trying, are looking for ways to be offended. Because you could, you could say, I love my blue eyes and blonde hair. That's not saying, that's just saying that's one version of being beautiful. If she says, I like my blonde hair and blue eyes, they're hearing, I don't like brown hair.

• 1:46:02Speaker 01

  No, she's not saying, I like.

• 1:46:04Dax Shepard?

  Or I, I, I like that I got these.

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  She's not saying that.

• 1:46:09Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  That's the problem. That's what I'm saying. Words matter. If she, if, if, if it was a phrase like that, like, I like my blue jeans.

• 1:46:18Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:19Speaker 01

  That is different than I have good jeans. My jeans are blue.

• 1:46:27Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  Like, it's so, it's so nitpicky, but it really does make a difference. And I will say, as someone who doesn't have blue jeans, I mean, I have blue jeans, but I don't have blue jeans. I have brown jeans across the board.

• 1:46:42Dax Shepard?

  No, you know, almost exclusively blue jeans.

• 1:46:44Speaker 01

  I have brown jeans. I have, I don't have any.

• 1:46:47Dax Shepard?

  Well, brown jeans are not popular. They're not a popular shade of, they're not a popular wash, brown jeans. They just aren't, whether that's.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Black jeans are, though. I have brown corduroys and they are so cute and they're.

• 1:46:58Dax Shepard?

  Corduroys.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Dax Shepard?

  When you get into corduroy, people really embrace brown, even orange.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Whatever.

• 1:47:04Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  So I, I, as someone who doesn't ha- have these Aryan genes that you do.

• 1:47:10Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  Um, if you said, like, yeah, I have great jeans. I have blue eyes. I'd be like.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  Probably don't say that to me.

• 1:47:23Dax Shepard?

  Right.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  Like, you know, even and not like, because I'm trying to be offended, but just like,

• 1:47:28Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Are you serious? Like, that's so stupid to say.

• 1:47:31Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I guess for you, blue eyes is really synonymous with white. Because now what's interesting.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Well, she's white.

• 1:47:38Dax Shepard?

  She is white.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:39Dax Shepard?

  If she said, I'm so happy I'm white, I'm with you. Right?

• 1:47:43Speaker 01

  That's, yeah.

• 1:47:44Dax Shepard?

  So I'm trying to, so I do understand, I'm trying to figure out what the stickiness is here. And I think maybe that's it, which is, blue eyes are so associated with being white.

• 1:47:54Speaker 01

  And blonde.

• 1:47:55Dax Shepard?

  That you're basically saying, I'm happy I'm white.

• 1:47:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:59Dax Shepard?

  So.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  I'm happy I have this package, blonde hair, blue eyes, white skin. And by the way, I don't blame you. You guys get a lot of shit. You get a lot of shit in this life. So you should be happy about it, but we just don't need to.

• 1:48:13Dax Shepard?

  Some white people, some, some brown people have blue eyes.

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  It's so rare. It's so.

• 1:48:22Dax Shepard?

  Anywho.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Rare. I mean, wow. It's probably more rare.

• 1:48:29Speaker 01

  Oh, this is a good segue into something, but this, this is probably more rare for a brown person to have blue eyes than, than green eyes in general, like definitely, actually. Speaking of that, when we were watching Tom Cruise's Cruises.

• 1:48:41Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  And what, what movie were we watching where there was?

• 1:48:45Dax Shepard?

  Oh, he was, had green eyes and his love interest had green eyes. I think it was one of the Mission Impossibles. Or no, was it Demi Moore in, um, in Few Good Men?

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  It was, it was Demi Moore, green eyes, Tom had green eyes and we were shocked that they both had green eyes because they're the rarest of eyes. And then we started to look into how many co-stars have had green eyes together.

• 1:49:10Dax Shepard?

  Couldn't give us an answer for that.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, anyhow, so I guess it's fine that I wear this or?

• 1:49:19Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:49:21Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:49:21Dax Shepard?

  No, I don't think anyone, when they have an animal on their locket, the person's like, you think you're that animal. I think they just think you like that animal.

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:49:30Dax Shepard?

  You like unicorns, not, I think I'm a unicorn.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  I actually disagree. Like, if somebody wore a fox, or like, had a little fox, like, they're kind of displaying that that's who they are.

• 1:49:43Dax Shepard?

  Okay, so it sounds like you might be critical of someone wearing a unicorn pendant.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:50Dax Shepard?

  Thinking, yeah, which makes sense. All the things we fear

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:55Dax Shepard?

  in worry about others attacking us for are the things we, right? Because they make logical sense to us.

• 1:50:01Speaker 01

  I wouldn't care if someone was wearing it, but I would want someone to have given it to them.

• 1:50:06Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Like their mom, or their boyfriend, or their girlfriend, or their, someone who thinks they're a unicorn.

• 1:50:14Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  Um, I guess it's like self-love. Like, I have, no one's giving this to me, no one thinks I'm a unicorn, but I-

• 1:50:25Dax Shepard?

  Interestingly, this is my same, I have the same pushback I had on the jeans commercial, which is, anyone who's got a problem is overthinking it. Like, you saw it, you liked it, you bought it. That's really the story. Every, all the other stuff, though this bitch thinks she's a unicorn, she's gave herself a, none of, I don't think any of that. Is it, and if you are engaged in that kind of thinking, you're doing too much thinking.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  Also, if you're engaged in that, you probably just already don't like me. Like, that's sort of how it works, right?

• 1:50:51Dax Shepard?

  And if you're watching that commercial, like, go like, oh, yeah, Sydney's when he's hot, we've all agreed, and the, and she's got good jeans on.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  That-

• 1:50:59Dax Shepard?

  That's it.

• 1:50:59Speaker 01

  No, that's not what, that's much different.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Anyway, um-

• 1:51:05Dax Shepard?

  I hope she hears my defense of her and agrees to come on.

• 1:51:08Speaker 01

  This is not against her, this is, I'm, I'm actually saying-

• 1:51:11Dax Shepard?

  The team.

• 1:51:12Speaker 01

  Not her, I wish she had someone who told her. American Eagle, I feel like they probably knew a little bit more about what they were doing. I don't think they could have gone that far down the line without somebody saying like-

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  I don't know. Maybe we should change up the verbiage a little.

• 1:51:30Dax Shepard?

  Uh huh.

• 1:51:30Speaker 01

  And maybe they wanted to be controversial, which if they did.

• 1:51:33Dax Shepard?

  Look what we've just talked about for 10 minutes.

• 1:51:36Speaker 01

  Look what they got.

• 1:51:37Dax Shepard?

  American eagle genes.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  Look what they got. Um, all right. Well, let's do some facts.

• 1:51:41Dax Shepard?

  Yes.

• 1:51:43Speaker 01

  This is for Luke Combs.

• 1:51:45Dax Shepard?

  Ah, sweet Luke Combs.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  Very sweet boy.

• 1:51:48Dax Shepard?

  He hasn't text, he hasn't texted me. He asked for my number, but he hasn't texted me. And then I got, then I got paranoid. I put my wrong number in, but really probably I did put my right number in and he just hasn't texted me.

• 1:52:04Speaker 01

  It's a, it's like a Nicholas whole situation.

• 1:52:08Dax Shepard?

  These young boys are hard, man. I know why these older women.

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  Okay. So the car in the Country Music Hall of Fame, he said Webb Pierce. So the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville features several iconic vehicles, including Elvis Presley's 1960 solid gold Cadillac limousine. And Webb Pierce's 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertible. So he was right. Oh, also it says Jerry Reed's 1980 Pontiac Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit 2.

• 1:52:41Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wonderful. I mean, look, the original Smokey and the Bandit was a 77 Trans Am with a big block 400. 1980, we went to a 4.9 liter turbo. That's a bummer.

• 1:52:54Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:52:54Dax Shepard?

  But we love Jerry Reed. Got a long way to go, a short time to get there. We're eastbound and down.

• 1:53:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:53:02Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. We love him. We love Jerry Reed and I'm happy he got something from the movie, but I do wish he would have gotten the 77 big block.

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:53:12Dax Shepard?

  Is what I'm saying.

• 1:53:14Speaker 01

  Now, if you saw Jerry Reed at East Sode, I'd be like, that's wild.

• 1:53:20Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Okay, we talked about 4A, 5A schools, something that was new to you.

• 1:53:27Dax Shepard?

  Never heard that.

• 1:53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you asked what the A stood for. It doesn't stand for anything specific, but rather serves as a classifier for schools based on factors like enrollment size. High schools are often grouped into different classes, 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, et cetera, to ensure fair athletic competition. So I bet it actually stands for athletics.

• 1:53:52Dax Shepard?

  You'd think, I mean, otherwise, there's no reason to put that A in there. Since they don't do one B and one two C. Since we're only using A, then it's completely unnecessary. You could have just said one through five. They're classified one through five.

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 1:54:09Dax Shepard?

  If the A never changes as you're going up, there's no point in having it. It's not telling you anything about the school.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  No, it's not telling you anything, but they probably just wanted to give it a little something.

• 1:54:19Dax Shepard?

  Make it more tacky sounding, five A. But I'm just saying, five is the operative integer in there. The A is doing nothing, so why do we have?

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Well, it's probably written out with five As.

• 1:54:32Dax Shepard?

  I don't think so. You think so?

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:33Dax Shepard?

  I bet it says the number five and then A. But you're looking at it. Are there five As in a line?

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  No, no, I mean, like, when you're, like, at the school and it says the school, then it had. I like, in my head, I've seen multiple As.

• 1:54:48Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 1:54:48Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:54:49Dax Shepard?

  All right.

• 1:54:50Speaker 01

  I don't know why. Let me text my friend Kirsten. She works at my high school, okay?

• 1:54:56Dax Shepard?

  Okay, great. Give her a text.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  We're gonna give her a text on air. Hi, comma, I have a weird question for a fact check, period. Do you know what the A stands for in five A schools? Question mark.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Also, is it spelled out?

• 1:55:16Dax Shepard?

  Number five?

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Also, is it spelled five A or?

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Two, three, four, five. Yeah, I've seen As like this. Oh, I added the yeah on accident. I gotta edit that. Okay, how many people in Asheville drive Subarus? Um, it didn't, it wouldn't tell me. But it does say nationally Subaru makes up about 1.6% of the overall automotive market.

• 1:55:45Dax Shepard?

  Side note, on our drive to Dollywood, we had two different single dudes in cars that were driving at a very high rate of speed, high velocity. I'll, I won't mention whether I was driving slow or fast, but they were both in Subaru Foresters.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  Whoa.

• 1:56:06Dax Shepard?

  And Aaron and I said, this is weird. This, that, that's not the car I would expect speed freaks to be drawn to, but boy, we never saw a Subaru Forester that wasn't doing 20 over. So I just file that where you may.

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  Wow. Um, okay, but it does say that Subaru's over 11% of this, I'm sorry, in Vermont, Subaru is over 11% of the state's overall automotive sales.

• 1:56:30Dax Shepard?

  Oh, wow. So 5X the national average.

• 1:56:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, cause 1.6%, yeah.

• 1:56:37Dax Shepard?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:37Speaker 01

  Um, I have a confusing fact, uh, cause he said that the student, he said that in Boone County, North Carolina, the population doubles when school's in, which, you know, makes sense. But I am confused because the student population of Boone in 2023 was 21,253. That includes Appalachian State and some other schools. But then, if you look up the population of Boone, North Carolina, it says 20,000.

• 1:57:13Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So there's 20,000 permanent residents. And then another 21,000 arrived to go to school, making it during school time, 41,000, but 21,000 aren't residents. So he, he got that almost exactly right. It's a little more than half of their population.

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  So you're saying these, these people aren't residents. I guess that makes sense. I guess.

• 1:57:35Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, they're not on a census.

• 1:57:38Speaker 01

  Hmm. I guess it depends on where, where they register.

• 1:57:42Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, you don't fill out a census in college generally. That's like the homeowner.

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  But isn't it where you're registered? Like I registered in Athens. So I, like, I got like jury duty summons there and stuff way past when I was supposed to. Like I was considered a resident there.

• 1:58:00Dax Shepard?

  I would hearken to guess that 99% of people do not switch the address on their license from their childhood home to their dormitory.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it happened because I was registering to, for the election.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  Like, I think if you, maybe if you want to vote and you're in college, that's the way.

• 1:58:20Dax Shepard?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 1:58:21Speaker 01

  Okay, let's see. Um, is pure O OCD nature or nurture? Um, purely obsessional OCD, pure O OCD, is thought to have a genetic component, but family history is significantly increasing the likelihood of developing the condition. Studies have shown that pure O is five to seven times more common in individuals with relatives who have OCD, suggesting a genetic link.

• 1:58:46Dax Shepard?

  Hmm.

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  So, yeah. Oh, okay. So she's, Kirsten, my, my friend, she responded. Here's what my athletic director just said when I asked. A is class. So, single A is small schools. We are regen. Wow, Duluth. Wow, my school is now 7A.

• 1:59:06Dax Shepard?

  They had to invent new ones for your school?

• 1:59:08Speaker 01

  She said biggest classification. She said, and the A means nothing, kind of like with batteries. His words, not mine, she said.

• 1:59:16Dax Shepard?

  But that's not a good analogy, because the As in battery do mean something. Because if it's AAA, it's very small. If it's AA, it's bigger. So as you change the As.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's what this is too. This is the more As, the bigger the school.

• 1:59:33Dax Shepard?

  If you're writing it out, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 As. But it sounds quite like all they need is the 7. The 7 tells them how big the school is, not the A. Whereas in the battery, the A actually tells you the size.

• 1:59:49Speaker 01

  Well, no.

• 1:59:50Dax Shepard?

  They're not called 2A.

• 1:59:52Speaker 01

  It's double A or triple A. So it could just be double, triple, single.

• 1:59:57Dax Shepard?

  But you can't, because you have C and D batteries, whatever.

• 2:00:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I see what you're saying. You're saying the A is the type of battery, because C is different.

• 2:00:06Dax Shepard?

  The A is the operative piece of information. The A has no operative impact on 1 through 7A.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  Whatever. It is written out with As.

• 2:00:17Dax Shepard?

  It is. She write, when she has to say the size of her school, she writes 7As in a row?

• 2:00:22Speaker 01

  She wrote 7, and then a bunch of As.

• 2:00:24Dax Shepard?

  Okay. So you would like them to keep the A, it sounds like.

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:28Dax Shepard?

  I'm pushing for them to just ditch ditch the A. It's completely extraneous.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  Okay. I don't, I think it's stupid to say the school is seven. I like that it has something else added to it.

• 2:00:40Dax Shepard?

  Okay.

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  Um, okay. Well, that's it for Luke. That's all the facts for him.

• 2:00:46Dax Shepard?

  Okay. I really adore them. Hopefully he'll text me one day.

• 2:00:50Speaker 01

  Hopefully. Keep us updated on that.

• 2:00:51Dax Shepard?

  Yeah. And maybe I'll need 20 bucks someday, something. Or a motorcycle.

• 2:00:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe he needs to borrow some eggs.

• 2:01:00Dax Shepard?

  Do you know they make a little tiny motorcycle named a Dax?

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  Wow. See, that is a big coincidence.

• 2:01:07Dax Shepard?

  Yeah, I got one today. It's a little tiny motorcycle that says Dax. It's so cute.

• 2:01:13Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, cute. How tiny? Like, you can ride it or is it for kids?

• 2:01:17Dax Shepard?

  I can ride it, but you wouldn't know this, but you know my Grom, that little tiny black motorcycle I have in LA? It's just a 125. Like my Ducati, the big one is 1,200 cc's. This is 125. So it's a little tiny motorcycle. And it's retro and it's got this steel frame and it says Dax really huge on it.

• 2:01:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:01:38Dax Shepard?

  Honda makes it. It's super adorable. I'm gonna send you pictures.

• 2:01:41Speaker 01

  That's so cute. Did, did you also buy the Dax chair?

• 2:01:45Dax Shepard?

  I need to.

• 2:01:46Speaker 01

  You need to.

• 2:01:47Dax Shepard?

  I gotta be honest, though. Like, I would want this Dax mini bike, whether it said Dax or not. It's just super cute and retro looking. Um, I, that chair does not look comfortable, the armchair, the Dax armchair.

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's, it's, it's significant.

• 2:02:04Dax Shepard?

  It looks torturous, but.

• 2:02:06Speaker 01

  Hmm. God, that's deep, you know? It's like, are you comfortable in your skin? Sometimes you're not, and this armchair reflects that.

• 2:02:21Dax Shepard?

  And that's why I don't love the chair. It's not on brand with my personal brand, which is I am Max Comfort.

• 2:02:30Dax Shepard?

  You know?

• 2:02:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're comfortable in your skin, but you're also an addict, which means by nature, you're kind of uncomfortable.

• 2:02:37Dax Shepard?

  But I sit in a lazy boy at work. Like, to me, comfort is like top, you know, it's, it's.

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  Oh, it's what you're.

• 2:02:45Dax Shepard?

  It's top priority.

• 2:02:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. So it's like what you're looking for. So the Dax armchair is not what you're looking for. It's who you are. Just so you know.

• 2:02:54Dax Shepard?

  Oh, a rigid.

• 2:02:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:02:56Dax Shepard?

  Polly injected mold. Like, it's a mold. There's no care. Individuality.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  It's in a museum. It's obviously special.

• 2:03:05Dax Shepard?

  It's an accomplishment. I just think it's a terrible chair.

• 2:03:08Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Actually, this is funny because when I was in New York, I went to this place called Superiority Burger. Great restaurant. And on the menu, they had these pictures of chairs and then the drink names like went with the chair. And we did play a game for a long time where we were figuring out who was what chair.

• 2:03:29Dax Shepard?

  That's fun.

• 2:03:30Speaker 01

  That was fun. I'll post it. People can play the game.

• 2:03:33Dax Shepard?

  OK, OK, post it all.

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I will.

• 2:03:36Dax Shepard?

  All right, I love you.

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Love you.