Joe Rogan Experience #1087 — Sturgill Simpson Transcript

Transcript

0:00 How long is it going to take me to get to LAX and what time should I be there? When I moved to Colorado for just a few months and then came back here, Yeah, for sure. I don't know. living in downtown LA I have to come out most of the time I think about your song when I drive my Bronco. I understand. I don't really need all these guitars. always made my own out of parts like at least telecasters and stuff you can buy parts and

3:34 I guess if you know guitars as well as you know them and you've been around It's hard to fuck that up. guitarist that's an art that's yeah he's uh he always had his nails grow long when he'd do jujitsu no flamenco and classical guitar players that's that's highly complex musicianship yeah and That's like... That's what we call chicken picking. I like that.

6:19 Like, the big Ukrainian rock people. When you were kids, okay. especially as a kid when you're really learning you like when it gets you and you hook into it So when I really found guitar and got into it, Yeah, that's what I always thought about bands. actually friends and you go out every night we're just like you know yeah if you could pull that off

8:39 I never go on the road for more than a Thursday, Friday, Saturday anymore. I like being home. I like being around my friends. I get paid to travel. and it takes me four or five days just to get off the fucking couch yeah after a month-long run We're on buses mostly, unless it's like the logistics is just crazy. I'm like, oh, fucking tired. uh i mean i think a lot of that is to balance out you know just energy because every night when you

11:39 Just like you just had this massive blast of all these chemicals that your man, you know, I'm exhausted. and you lock in and you kind of get in that head. I was only home for a day or two and then let's back out again I can't do the hotel rooms, man. I'll go crazy waiting for a show. Unfortunately. It's really silly. If it did, You know what they said?

15:02 It could be me. an industry that would really thrive or somebody, we'd have to fucking ship it in from Canada. And when we were looking into it, we were like, I can't even believe that you can't grow this. woodford county kentucky was at one point the largest hemp producing county in the entire Beautiful. I can't remember. It doesn't pollute anything.

17:59 Dude, you've got to watch this. I mean, I don't know. alcohol prohibition had ended and they needed something to go after so then they started using I bet DuPont understood that. This guy's hitting this hemp fender with a fucking hammer. You can make your clothes with it. It has all the amino acids. You could use it for heating oil. Right? And you can grow it.

20:41 You got some weed. If something would just give you comfort or ease nausea or make you want to eat food or those kind of things, Like, it seems to me that enough people would go, wait, what are we doing? Some are going to. I can't hate that. Saw it today. and she was just looking at her phone and working her thumb What if you hit a kid? Boom. surprising that none of that's really hit the music business as hard as it is but um

24:36 It's like crazy shit with superpowers talking about nuclear bombs all the time every day now. Welcome to 2018. All this while pot's illegal. This buddy of mine, he videotaped it, and he had a press pass, Right, left, this or that. we can't pretend anymore that one person is special above other people like royalty doesn't and you can't have some arbitrary date

27:06 Or American Idol or something like that. The votes are in. But that's one more reason why we shouldn't have one person. supposed to be a republic it was always supposed to be about the people yeah and by the people for here's one they get in real big trouble for here's one that i think is interesting. Trump recently did something about steel, about bringing steel back to the United States and steel manufacturing back in the United States.

29:47 Yeah, we're all I think the Chinese pretty much bought all the steel companies This dude told me to buy this stock. which is not that big of a deal. If you're, you know, looking at the greater spectrum of how much money people lose in the stock market, that's a, I lost nothing. I mean, people lose their whole, then once a bunch of people are buying this stock they're like abandon ship and

32:27 That's what I think. Don't you do that, Stargell. turned it on yet it's in your pocket not your wrist yeah well some people it's on their wrist and somebody made a Jean-Claude Van Damme reference. just because I'm on my telephone talking about this Look at him. What, so they can read it? Thanks, buddy. When you buy the Alexa, you're just like, And by the way, this is just the first drops of water that's going through before our roof collapses.

36:09 He was embedded in Iraq or Afghanistan, I forget. fired he was one of the best generals that you know it was like very highly ranked and um very And then afterwards they talked to these computer experts. And they said, well, is it possible to take a modern automobile with all sorts of, there's all sorts of devices inside modern cars I saw a lot of those in Pittsburgh.

37:54 I mean... possibility that they would light that guy up for getting that general booted mine that both take a lot of they love that shit good buddy of mine who's a doctor was just telling Want to try it right now? If you wanted to build a log cabin right now. Or maybe a day. Right? That was the thing with pool players back then, Especially like Adderall. There's no burnouts that everybody could like look back on and go oh look at that guy over there learn from him like especially like adderall like there's no there's no burnouts so everybody's just been taking it for a few years like how long has it been around 20 years as long as long as uh

41:19 Thrombophlebitis. He's like one of those, what do they call those? But he, Greg Fitzsimmons and I were going over Hunter S. Thompson's routine before he would write. He just burnt that fucking thing to a crisp. Right. Told everybody he was going to do it too. Said, hey, I'm going to get to a point where I don't like fun anymore. You take care. Put a gun to his head. And that's a wrap. Told everybody I was going to do it, too.

42:57 The second you can't walk up or down a few flights of stairs by yourself, that's kind of when it's over, you know. Maybe it was just me. Yeah. It's not good. No. I wonder if he cooked and calm what do you think Oh, it's an amazing book. Or amazing And we were outside a barstow when the drugs began to take hold. to the whole 60s flower power shit Hippies, LSD, Manson, blah, blah, blah.

47:38 right philosophically speaking maybe i think what they were all writing about but i mean Yeah. You got drugs. You might be right. You might be right. I know. I know he had this thing about filming women walking away from the hotel. Oh, interesting. That dude was too creative and prolific his arms no he smoked pot but he didn't like oh they might have fucking framed him that dude that

50:27 Yeah, like, I gotta get some shit done. but that motherfucker laid in bed with like 18 cats, Because he just lay around like a sloth, butt naked, until all the maids to pretend like you couldn't have a you come over and wash the house while i'm naked deal because if it's your I've been watching a lot of Vikings. Is it that good? He's like, why you got to get on this Viking shit, man?

52:46 in a day Yeah, we saw those. bro. He's prettier than most women. Because he's got his hair dyed. Gotcha. pretending you're someone else. and gave him some sort of people would have to and I watch if I'm at home and I'm by myself, like I watch weird shit. Any female characters in those films, i just called out specifically we watched it on the bus one night we were all like this would

56:27 doing something this as like a system And so in the meantime, I've always described it as like a. It's fucking Skynet, man. So in 200 years, two small amounts of measurement of time where you could visit. But the problem with the lightsaber Unless it was a rod and the laser went around the rod, All that shit's based on samurai films. He makes unapologetic cinematic homages right down to framing shots and scores.

59:51 and that looks better than a lot of the stuff coming out. Give me some VHS, you know. It's one of the reasons why the original Alien movie was so terrifying. Yeah, we don't fuck around. Imagine being. American cave paintings. But here's the thing. you know yeah well if you look at like some of the ancient artwork right like how about some of Yeah, it's a move.

1:02:48 There was a guy named The Pedro, and he was fighting a guy named Big Daddy Goodrich. hold on to you can hold on to the foot why not why can't you hold on to the dick so they were apple on the end of that guy's dick. Jesus Yeah, no new opinions on that And you pull over. I don't know if you've ever seen it. That's badass though. whatever, like huge photo albums,

1:05:50 giant photo albums of sasquatch and they were all sasquatch photos they'd taken off their back porch mass with human beings entirely possible because they were from Asia and they were from Asia a So anatomically modern humans Bears hurt their paw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you start repeating that shit as if it's the actual- It's like so thick. God, it's gorgeous.

1:08:31 was an ape she's like oh my god i see an ape how is there an ape and then she she said to herself They're probably chasing elk. And when bears are hurt So in her head, I don't think she was lying. I mean, they found this gigantopithecus bone in an apothecary shop in China. And they find bones. which they looked like they were from another planet. They were like the biggest fucking people I've ever seen in my life.

1:11:00 And they had these long gray hair and beards and shit. Stones are? Like the most manly way Oh, for sure. Let's fuck this place. I'll do a little pickup band with these guys, place there and and and how you know how one we're just standing outside the car on the side of the instantly comes to mind well you know that another weird thing about it is you always think of hardy right oh yeah hardy tough people that's like instantly comes to mind well you know that another weird thing about it is you always

1:13:51 And the first morning I woke up like really early, And I realized I was like, this is definitely where my fucking people came from. Like, what's the oldest castle in Scotland? Imagine going back and looking. years we played a there was example for me every time i go he gives me perspective They were all weathered and worn out. Which is this one? like chamber choirs.

1:17:05 intersection but i think is that it right there saint pancras no that's the uh the train station it reverberates? Whoa. P-A-N-C-R-A-S. wow that bloom on everything when i was a kid uh i lived down the street from this place called Does the thing that the old keyboard effects just have built in. It's that like... Wow. That's shit geeks like me walk around constantly

1:18:59 like a fucking dork. he's really cool. He's older. He's in his fifties and he was local grew up in nashville and he's a big music guy you know and so he saw like every show that ever came through town in the 70s and 80s we kind the thing. And he said, then Sabbath came out and everybody basically walked out after I was really into him they're the ones that did

1:20:51 covers that's crazy yeah so i got to meet ace freely without his makeup i was like 11 ace He was fucking phenomenal, man. But Ace, I think, is supposed to to be the sweetheart, the guy that's... It's part of their thing, man. stars in the 70s they were rock stars when when it meant something yeah it's different it's a anything like that before? They were taking Elvis off

1:22:38 something different he's got some new thing going on and you don't know shit about him there's no Of course he does. I don't know if he had a sock I love Robert Plant, but I always felt like if Steve Marriott, As it was at Faces at the time or earlier. bass player John Paul Jones but they had to go and like talk him into it because he was playing sometimes it can be a little sloppy, but I like that.

1:25:12 it doesn't matter what the guitar is or the amp or anything. was sort of if i'm not mistaken i'm gonna be like well sort of came into it later like i did he had He's only 24. That's his day-to-day, you know. and all of that scrutiny Yeah. And not 21. I was talking to my friend john this weekend about this and i was saying that it's almost whole life if you're that person if you're justin bieber you've gone through your whole i don't know why i said reality star but you've gone through your whole life if you're that person if you're justin bieber you've gone through your

1:28:12 You know, that's what's fucked up. But now he lives a different life where people like Rihanna, You know what I mean? 20 semi trucks and well, now this massive fan base classified in the artist box are huge classic amazing records now but like you realize those guys were playing theaters when all You know. solo records, man question what is that song is it called maggie may yeah him and uh elton john all those guys like

1:31:49 He actually was a... things now because that's true too right you know i'm getting ahead of myself like i you know for Yeah, you and most people that are successful. It wasn't the right time, so nothing came of it. the cover of it i was like that was me being a smart ass because i was like there's all this like uh you know you go to these festivals and stuff i'm like a grown-ass man you know what i mean

1:34:49 by like the tackiest outer space my buddy that i did the thing with we were actually trying to clark and some of the early verne gosden brothers type stuff there was this level of psychedelia in And we spent like three months on the road just carving those songs out and just lay it all down. was recorded that one a totally different way still going fast but you know i always wanted to

1:37:35 going and but by the time it's finished and mixed you've heard this thing like a thousand times you Just go out and get all the energy in your face. Do you think everybody does that? I don't, and the process of trying to push it and get to what's next. early early you know what's kind of right tone is the first time everybody plugged a Les Paul into a Marshall and just cranked the fucking thing and

1:41:07 still figuring out who they are as a person much less an artist yeah i'm almost 40 and i'm still all the equipment that's involved in doing one of your shows. i would keep it there as long as possible no matter what happens um just because you know You couldn't just freeball like you're doing and doing whatever you want to do. I never thought I'd ever sign with a record label.

1:43:39 you know for lack of a better term um so they they have like serious places where you can go to you can and make sounds I haven't heard before. It all comes back on you. all that publishing shit's completely separate there's nothing to do i just make records if you didn't have that kind of weight at the table. money that they made from a long time ago really and then maintaining some sort of they're still

1:46:49 steadily climb back up. fuck that shit, finding your music. or go fucking do something else whether you realize it or not If you could just keep that. I could imagine that wears on artists. they have a job they get upset right they feel like it sounds like you're talking down on jobs But it doesn't hurt to have a plan B. You're one of the busiest fucking people I know, though.

1:49:56 My, the thing with my job is it doesn't feel like work. Stand-up doesn't feel like work. their problems become your problems as well anybody you invite into your life you're inviting But that schedule's mine. a different city for two days and he's always like you know he's from new zealand he's like so sweet Just lay around. I mean, I get it. when you finish your album when you're done it's amazing oh but it's also terrifying i'm sure you're

1:53:45 Yeah. And, like, she takes a piece of paper. and little kids gravitate towards that man when little kids start drawing they gravitate towards I mean, they just learned how to talk. You're flexing those little muscles, you know, just as if you were doing push-ups. You built a house, motherfucker. You build a badass house, that shit is hard to do. job and the first year i was there i was like out on the ground like throwing the switches and

1:57:02 fucking truck with my 8 000000 radios tearing trains apart There's only three guys out there I was like, this is fucking awesome. Yeah, that's what I did. I better be a songwriter. and other CEOs recognize that and be like, All that shit. And she's like, it's because you're supposed to be playing music, dumbass. jolene song that we're talking about yeah it's your all lost though man if it had happened when

2:00:17 Yeah, it should be. It's when he's a hypnotherapist. when i've always said use a But a guy like you, yeah. very different outcome it would have been like that year that they had the two meteor movies jocular expression uh more of a um a funny way to put what is originally a concept as far as i know around you and inside you all the time whatever you want god to be or you know um so the the

2:04:17 crocodiles wow and the the symmetry of their shell designs no matter what species it's always 13 calendar yeah it's a was it Mayan yeah I think that is what it is I think it is a and then incorporate some classic rock, But then, like, then everywhere you go, people are making, like, handing you, like, hand-boned glass third eyes and shit. Got to respect that, you know?

2:05:55 Now the first time I ever did that shit, this is a pretty embarrassing story, but my buddy, I just pulled it like it was a big old bong rip. And I was like, dude, I got to go home. And I was like, this is fucked up. guys are taking this shit way too seriously. that shoots a beam and ignites Out here, probably a lot. Of course he had to put fucking LED lights in it.

2:08:39 And then he takes a big hit. You know? it's the only thing that made it. man. And it was because I was. he's like, but it opened it up for like a day. long story short i didn't want to take any of the opioid or the fucking pills that they gave me to but yeah um and then my buddy who dealt some pretty serious cancer said it was literally the It's great for me because it was like, that's what I want to do next.

2:12:49 You know, they've already lost money for sure. We're not going to pay that. I was working all the time. And I was like, but I don't smoke it, you know. like i don't know i don't even smoke but i'm i'm listed as a smoker and it's like literally nine No, it's stupid. I'm fucking healthy. Fucked though. Oh that guy's real fuck that guy's fuck this guy

2:15:38 There's no statistics that say Like, they can't test you. How much can you handle your drinking? Like, there's like a badge of honor that goes to that. which is one of the weirdest depressants. I don't. much longer we got to do this yeah there's a lot of those guys out there constantly getting drugs in the form of whatever your doctor prescribes you

2:18:41 There's so few people who don't do any drugs. it didn't make you write it, yeah, it's a good song don't laugh at me jamie it mocks me as if it young cute girl can't be a real artist monitors I've ever set in front of it was just like yep yeah that's really you know it's like I bet it's like These towers, these two towers. It doesn't even have to be that loud, right?

2:21:23 Give the man a Bronco and a lightsaber. It was a 92, and he'd like matte blacked it out. And it was like, I'm going to die driving in this thing. So now that Bronco's gone. And very modernized Mean five years from now there may not be any music in Nashville cuz I don't know how many musicians are gonna afford to live I'm not really sure. now it's like all the tech industry moved in the cost of living and property is just insane hmm like struggling

2:25:03 four or five years ago do you think that fucked it up all those dorks they go oh we're gonna live there well there's definitely Douglas Corner, then there's But a lot of other things change around things that don't. He reached out, like, I'm playing here tonight, free ticket. You're like, oh, Richard Jennings. What day? the next night yeah what are you gonna do

2:27:48 You got it. One night, I think I came to watch your show at the store. And just jacks the mic. literally and there were times where like it kind of got dark and you're like where's what the fuck's And that's how he kind of works his material out, you know. like, oh, you talked about this. Right. It was like, if you just waited six more months, this thing would be, like, an all-time great special.

2:30:47 moments he would call the waitress to get him another drink but he would he would only say Yeah, that's how Dave writes. He books that. You know, it's like I was in Denver once and he just showed up. I go, fuck yeah. That's why he's there. That's what he does. That's what he does that's what he does this thing you know but it's just just around it's fascinating fascinating to watch it's like jazz almost oh

2:33:29 No, I mean, I do things that I know I have to do that I'm not looking forward to. pretty quick so if i'm if i have an, and I don't want to hear my voice, Or as opposed to I'm just like writing poetry on a computer screen or whatever you know you don't necessarily have a sense of uh the beat whereas like i want things to flow a certain way and land Occasionally I have an idea that I have to circle and I put an X next to it.

2:35:38 Yep. Really? That makes sense, though, right? Whereas if it was a song that somebody else made, you're like, oh, I love this song. And then I go back and read it. I don't remember any of this. any of this right half of it i don't remember i took it in a whole different It's the only time I've ever experienced that is when I've smoked weed. if I'm stoned, I know enough about myself to know I'll get internalized

2:38:30 But it's not something I would like, oh, we've got to get high. Whatever you want to do. Yeah. I like a drink right before I go on stage. A tonight. Right, right. You know, tomorrow's tomorrow. It's not like you have a ritual. Right. Yeah. Well, no, I did. And then they realized, oh, we haven't eaten. Like your worst nightmare. You out there like trying to really

2:40:16 But I took a step. I mean, fucking barely. where was this where'd this come from like five minutes ago there was nothing Have you ever had full-blown, like, absolutely horrible food poisoning coming out both ends and you literally think, I might die? I was dead. And all of a sudden it was just in this bathroom for four or five hours. No, you can die from it.

2:43:23 I mean, you're ingesting some sort of a poison I bring a lot of protein bars. Some good bars. Now, strawberry rhubarb pie though with whipped cream. You could really understand how much we're getting drugged with food. how do you get the mud butt down i mean it's just like i don't get mud butt from this i don't know And that when I eat something funky, all the good stuff that I eat, like I eat kimchi almost

2:45:52 I like it raw. and he would bring in elk, like filet medallions or like hamburger. Elk. definitely one of them. A year. I'm probably going to – if I sit on my back porch long enough, it'll probably be pretty easy. And now there's so many that they're opening it up again. It's supposed to be amazing there. Do you have any elk near you? I've got to go back to work.

2:48:53 Yeah. pile i was like you what the fuck there's scorpion in tennessee now that That's crazy. I've got to worry about that shit? I always assume that they kill you. So it's like. Where it was like stop animation. How do I know that? What do you got? The robotic owl. Sturgill we gotta get you moving awesome See you soon.