by Bobby Bones
Till he woke me up one morning
I’d never been so glad that I got to go fishing with my dad
The autobiographical song didn’t fit with the goofy tone of the rest of the album. Not a joke to be found in this one. So I considered giving the song away, if I could find a recording artist interested in it. But that didn’t feel right because of the nature of the material. It was Gordon Kerr, the president of our record label, Black River Entertainment, who encouraged me to keep the song. “If you could have anyone in the world sing this song with you, who would it be?” he asked me. It took me about two seconds to come up with my answer. “Garth Brooks,” I said. Then I laughed at myself. Garth is THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME. Why would he sing a song I wrote on a record that I was putting out? He wouldn’t—that’s why.
Gordon told me that it wouldn’t hurt to try. So I sent “Fishin’ with My Dad” off to Garth Brooks, thinking I had about as much chance of getting him to sing it as I had of learning to fly. Eventually Gordon called me into his office. He told me that Garth Brooks had heard the song and it wasn’t really what he expected. He appreciated me sending it to him and that . . . he would love to sing on the song! It took me a second to catch up. Garth Brooks was going to sing this deeply personal song of mine for real.
Channeling my emotions through my work is what has made me successful. That’s the essence of the connection to my listeners. I need them as much as they need me (probably more). Radio isn’t about the music, because you can get music in a hundred places. It’s being able to feel like you’re with your friend. Wherever I go—Madison, Wisconsin, Sacramento, or Tampa—people come up to me like we know each other. They spend two, three, four hours with me every morning, so in a way they do. It’s a huge investment in me, and I’m grateful for it.
But that tendency of mine to shove all my energy into professional endeavors doesn’t enhance my life. I recently spent a whole month where between station events, Raging Idiots shows, and charity dates, I was not home for a single night. And I was relieved, because I don’t really know what to do with free time. If I do get a day off, I just hang out with my dog, go for a run, and watch Netflix. Other than that, I’ve got nothing.
My excuse for not building a social network is that I work too much. The guys on the show are all my friends, but unlike me they’ve actually developed lives outside the show. Even Lunchbox got married. Dang! Sometimes I get jealous that Amy, Eddie, and now Lunchbox (dang, again) have humans that they really care about. I mean, I know they care about me, but not as much as they care about those other people. It’s like there’s a whole other level of caring that I’m not in on, a hidden level to Mario Bros. that I haven’t quite got to yet, and I can’t seem to find the cheat codes to get there.
I like to be alone and need space, but I’ve begun to feel a slight tug toward wanting to belong someplace or to someone. Christmas is the worst for me. Last year I decided on a whim to leave the country for the first time in my life. I was in New York right before the holidays and completely untethered by family or friends. So, two days before Christmas, I decided to hop a flight to London. I have a buddy whose dad is a cabdriver over there, so he drove me around a little bit. I got carsick sitting in the wrong side of the car, looked at some old buildings, ate a bunch of scones, and hopped a flight back. It was fine.
More than somewhere to go, I want someone to go places with. I’m in my thirties now and ready to find someone who makes me get out of my comfort zone, do things that I don’t think I want to do but then once I start doing them, I realize, This isn’t so bad. This is actually kind of fun.
Oh hell, I’d love to find someone to spend my life with, okay! Although I have let four or five wonderful women who I was stupid not to hang on to slip right through my fingers, I’d love to get married, or not married. I want to find that person I can have kids with and leave the door open when I go number two. I don’t know if it’ll ever be in the cards for me, but I sure hope so.
I know it has to start with saying “I love you.” The only living creature that I’ve ever said “I love you” to is my dog. I know. It’s sick. In my defense, Dusty has been sleeping with me since he was a puppy (he’s thirteen now). He’s most comfortable whenever I have a body limb laying on him, so that’s how I sleep—on top of him. He accepts me as I am; even though I roll around and yell and kick and do everything while I sleep, he’s used to it. I am able to love my dog because I know he’s not going to leave me. He’s not going to declare, “You know what? I think I’ve had enough of you. I’ve moved on.” Dusty doesn’t have a choice. He’s got to eat, and I’m the one who feeds him.
I don’t like the fact that I’ve never said “I love you” to a sentient being with free will, but now it’s become a thing where I don’t want to waste it. I want to save it, like one of those Duggar girls saving her virginity for marriage. That’s how big a deal the words have become to me.
My whole adult life, everyone’s said, “Eventually you’ll find the right person.” It’s eventually now. I know by now that I’m not going to just meet “the right person” and butterflies will appear in my eyeballs and my untrusting soul will turn into light. I’ve been around (well, sort of, at least by a hermit’s standards). If it were going to happen, it would have. I’m smart enough to know it’s not an “it” thing but a “me” thing.
There are a lot of things other people do easily that are murder for me—like saying “I love you” or paying my bills. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a debtor. I overpay my bills all the time. So if my cell phone bill is $87, I’ll pay $110 in order to build up a credit. That way if I’m ever poor again—scratch that—when I’m poor again, I’ll have a couple of months to bounce back. Recently I had to hire a business manager, because now in addition to doing the radio show and the band I also have a TV production company and clothing line. The first thing she noticed were all these credits on my various accounts, from electric to water to my cell phone. After I explained my rationale, she turned to me and said, “No. Just no.” Although it made me nervous, she cashed out all of those credits. It still makes me nervous. I’ll always be a poor person, even if I have money.
But I stopped overpaying my bills, and that’s progress. It might be slow, but I do think I’m moving toward my other goals, such as being more vulnerable and positive. I’m still way too skeptical of everyone and have trouble trusting, but I’m better than I used to be.
As to my goal of being more optimistic, I’m also much better at it than I’ve ever been before. A big part of that has to do with the fact that in everything I do I surround myself with positive people. But just as with finding love, I know that the real transformation won’t happen by some external event or other person changing me. It has to start from within.
I used to discuss my general predicament with happiness a lot with my therapist. As I said, it wasn’t that I was depressed; I just never got out of being sad. Even when something good happens to me—like winning an award or becoming the country’s number one country morning radio show—I kill it by thinking about the next bad thing that is surely right around the corner.
My therapist suggested that when I get good news or something cool happens to me, I should take thirty seconds and let myself be happy. To set aside half a minute and make it a moment. At first it was weird and strained, like flexing a muscle you’ve never used before. But after a while it got easier and I found more and more little moments to enjoy.
When the Raging Idiots signed a record deal with Black River Entertainment in the spring of 2015, it was a dream come true for me. I never, ever thought I would be in a band that was on an actual legitimate label. My natural inclination was to immediately suffocate my happiness by imagining all the different ways I was surely going to screw this up. Instead, I took myself out for a chicken-fried steak at Cracker Barrel. I didn’t think about whether I was going to succeed or fail. I just enjoyed that steak. And that was it. I had my moment, and I moved on (then I was sure the Raging Id
iots were going to fail).
As much as possible I’m trying to enjoy right now, because as my high school football coach Vic Gandolph says, “Every day is a good day.”
Now, I know you are thinking, Wait, everyday really isn’t a good day. No, it’s not true in a literal sense. But while I was in Mountain Pine, Coach beat it into our heads that every single day was an opportunity for a good day. While doing up-downs for seemingly hours at a time, Coach would yell “EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY!” Trust me, at the time it didn’t feel very good.
When I returned to my high school to speak at graduation, Coach Gandolph showed up even though he doesn’t work there anymore. He gave me the ball that we had given him my senior year, and we talked for a bit. I told him that it was only recently I understood what he meant by his mantra.
It’s all about the choice and the chance that comes every morning when each of us rises to face a new day. Like yesterday, when I received the call that the television talk show, the one for which I survived about forty-five auditions and ten thousand different panels, didn’t get picked up for a pilot. It’s a bummer that I won’t be on TV, but out of the experience I made a new and important friend: Deion Sanders.
Or today, when I woke up at 3 A.M., did the radio show, worked on this book, had a TV production meeting, walked Dusty, went to rehearsal for a sold-out charity show with my band the Raging Idiots, worked out, sound-checked at 4 P.M., walked Dusty again, performed with Carrie Underwood at 7 P.M., did press until 2 A.M., and raised a ton of money for St Jude.
Right before I go to sleep I’ll look up at the Mountain Pine sign—Pop. 772—above my head and know that all I’m allowed to do in my life makes for some pretty long days. Still, I wake up every morning ready to start pushing buttons again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank Rebecca Paley, who led me through the entire writing process.
Thanks to Carrie Thornton, my editor, for trusting me, guiding me, and most important, for being patient with me through the process. Thanks also to all the crew at HarperCollins and Dey Street Books.
Thanks to my iHeartRadio family. There are lots to name, so I won’t even try to list them all.
Bob Pittman, thank you.
Rich Bressler, thank you.
Rod Phillips, thank you.
Jennifer Leimgruber, Julie Talbot, and Darren Davis, thank you. To my manager, Coran Capshaw, who read this book and sternly told me what was worth getting in trouble for and what wasn’t, thank you.
To my manager Mary Forrest Findlay, who read this book and told me I was going to get in trouble for everything! Ha ha. Thanks!
To my literary agent, Alan Nevins, and my radio agent, Paul Anderson, I really appreciate you guys. To Jay Shannon, you’re always my dude! Thanks to Charlamagne Tha God and Kennedy for being great friends but even greater professional influences.
To Amy, my cohost forever and one of my best friends in life. Thanks for keeping me in rails.
Special thanks to John Mayer for making the album Continuum.
Also, a big sad hug to the Counting Crows for making lots of great music that makes me sad.
Thanks to all of the great Nashville artists who I’ve mentioned in this book. And who have really helped my love for Nashville grow.
I love Arkansas and the Razorbacks.
I love Austin, Texas,
I love my dog, Dusty.
To _______, thanks for marrying me and making me the happiest guy ever. (Still waiting to fill that blank.)
To every listener who has let me ramble on and still continues listening. Without you guys, this wouldn’t exist.
#FightGrindRepeat
PHOTO SECTION
My little sister and me. I was probably around twenty-five in this picture. Or five. Probably five, but I could be wrong.
That’s a cute kid. And I bet there are a lot of socks in those gifts around me.
I was in ninth grade at this time but still hadn’t grown yet. It was football game day, so I had to wear a tie. Also, check out my sweet mullet.
I won a poetry contest in fifth grade. The first lines of my poem were “If I had a wish, there would be world peace. I’d stop all the wars, there’d be no more deceased.”
I was a five-star wide receiver recruited out of Mountain Pine High School. And by “five-star,” I mean, very mediocre.
I had sweet bangs. I also did all the school announcements. But mostly I had sweet bangs.
HOLY CRAP.
I GRADUATED COLLEGE.
THE FIRST PERSON IN MY FAMILY!
A Polaroid of my mom, my sister, and me. My goatee was rocking. Don’t hate.
Here I am about to go on Fox News to talk to one of my best friends, Kennedy, on her show. I was in Austin, but she was in New York.
My band, The Raging Idiots, onstage with Lindsay Ell.
On the air during my show with my producer Ray at my side. Ray is one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever met, and he first started with me as an “illegal” intern. He wasn’t getting paid and didn’t even get school credit, but he still showed up every day. For a year.
Eddie and me before a Raging Idiots show. We have no preshow routine. Someone basically just yells, “YOU’RE ON!”
With Amy, my cohost and one of my best friends in life. She is one of the greatest humans and makes a pretty good Price Is Right model in this photo.
Freaking Garth Brooks came in and sang whatever I wanted. Then he gave me his guitar. I don’t geek out much anymore, but it was the GOAT! Greatest of all time!
Seriously. I love my dog, and he loves me. And I loved Home Alone 1 and 2, but why did they make 3?
Luke Bryan. Good dude. Great musician. Fantastic performer. I wish I could say something bad about him. Let me think . . . Nope, I still can’t.
Carrie Underwood. I mean, that’s an iPhone pic and she still looks perfect. She’s been a great friend to the show and to my band The Raging Idiots.
My town put up this sign. It was one of the coolest moments of my life.
The great thing about radio is that you can, for the most part, wear whatever you want. Even stupid-looking tank tops.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOBBY BONES hosts The Bobby Bones Show, a morning radio program that is in national syndication with Premiere Networks (owned by iHeartRadio). Nationally, it is the biggest country music morning show in America, with an estimated audience of nearly five million listeners. Bobby has appeared in films, and on television and records, and he tours with his band Bobby Bones and The Raging Idiots. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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CREDITS
Frontispiece photograph by Eddie Garcia
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
All insert photographs are courtesy of the author.
COPYRIGHT
The names and identifying characteristics of some of the individuals featured throughout this book have been changed to protect their privacy.
BARE BONES. Copyright © 2016 by Austin Bones, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-241734-3
EPub Edition MAY 2016 ISBN 9780062417367
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