Name: Oliver Anthony on the Unexpected Success and Backlash from "Rich Men North of Richmond"
Uploaded: 2023-08-30T17:18:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Oliver Anthony on the Unexpected Success and Backlash from "Rich Men North of Richmond"' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-08-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Oliver Anthony on the Unexpected Success and Backlash from "Rich Men North of Richmond"' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-08-30. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan experience
And you're gonna have to deal with that soon because I guarantee you there's
gonna be some people that are making some CGI
Oh, there already are. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. What is that? I'm sure there are.
Yeah, I haven't kept up with a lot just cuz um, you know, I'm doing
so
Anything social media related right now or anything any internet presence I
have right now is coming from me off the phone
Just like before everything blew up. So I haven't invested the time to like
look at everything circulating
but I've people like friends and family have sent me stuff and some of it's
pretty funny, but
you know, they've got all these different AI remixes of the song with different
voices and
Overlay different faces and all and it's it's funny to see where it's gonna go,
you know, that is funny
Yeah, you're gonna have to deal with that. My daughter sent me some
advertisement. She goes did you do this advertisement? I'm like, nope
Yeah, that's not really my voice. Yeah, like is my day after the day after
things blew up
One of the towing companies had had an ad on Facebook that had it wasn't really
me
But it was a red beard and like the side profile of sunglasses looking out the
window. I'm like, okay
How dare I guess I've made it anyway?
That's when I realized like people are already ripping things off and what's
crazy is like every shirt that I've worn anywhere in public
there's
so there's a there's a organization that I've
I'm not like officially
Related to or in any way have done anything with but it's a friend of a friend
in the neighborhood. It's called nets with vets
And they take out veterans with PTSD and let them go deep sea fishing and so he
asked me last minute
Just to wear his shirt at one of the concerts and do you know now?
There's like 1500 listings online for counterfeit nets with vets shirts and so
the organization reached out like hey
Are you like making shirts ripping us off?
It's like it's not me
So it's like this is it's a weird it's a weird thing. I've already experienced
a lot of that stuff not so much on the AI side
But just I don't know the internet's just such a rowdy place, you know. Oh, it's
so rowdy
The world's a rowdy place. It is and maybe people bring maybe people bring
their
their best and their worst on the internet like
I've always tried to stay off social media as much as possible, but I've
learned very quickly that like Twitter and Facebook and stuff like you
You you see comments and feedback from people both overwhelmingly positive that
maybe you wouldn't get in a personal conversation
But also like overwhelmingly negative. Yeah, you know, yeah, people just use
that as a vent that just they just take whatever seething
Hatred they have inside of them. They're like, oh, I'm getting that guy with it
You know if you had a song just about love that resonated like that
It would be almost impossible to hate you
but you have a song where you're talking about how people are fed up with shit
and
It obviously resonated. I mean, I've seen songs go viral
But that's pretty bananas, son. You should your shit went to the moon right
away and
God, I'm not sure who sent it to me. I have to find out who sent it to me
Because it's one of those things where like once one person sent it to me then
it was like dozens of people were sent
Yeah, it it's funny because originally that song wasn't in my it wasn't really
even in my top five
Not normally the type of song I've written songs with similar messages
But as far as that sort of like I guess anthem format is what people are
calling it's like an anthem like that's not something
I would normally write but uh, but it's an unlikely anthem
Yeah, insane times
It would be an unlikely anthem. Yeah
I had no idea that that song would react the way it did at least in my case
I think the one thing that's helped me to is it
So my singing isn't the best but I've never had any like vocal lessons or
anything
So the way I sing is just the way I sing and so like I think even the same way
with her and other people
It's like it's maybe rough around the edges. It could be a little pitchy or it's
you know
You're not using the right part of your face when you project and whatever and
so like on paper things aren't quite right
But to the I guess to another human it's like it sounds like it sounds right
because it's it's it is it is what it is
You know, it's authentic. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's any right way to do
anything
I mean, there's like you see it in
everything
there's a person who
Violates the rules and they're the best at it
And then and then the rules almost morph into whatever that is like
It's funny like with music. Yeah music has
Country in particular but music in general has gotten way too wrapped up in
like this algorithm of how many beats per minute
It needs to have and how many verses and how they need to be layered and it's
like they've almost created this sort of like
Industry standard like OSHA rulebook of how music needs to be performed
And so like you can only do that so many thousands of times before people are
like, okay, what else is there?
You know, well people like that too. That's the thing. There's a lot of damn
people
There's a lot of people the problem
I think a lot of people is they want you to like what they like and
If you don't like what they like what you like sucks
It's it's funny like that man. It's we we're so tribal we we are we are tribal
with our cell phones
You know, we're an Android or PC, you know
It's like we're so weird. We're so weird, but we're like that with our musical
taste. We're like that with our
Cultural sensitivities or our cultural sensibilities rather like with the way
we feel about life and how life should be
We want everybody to kind of think along the ways that we think it's it's very
strange and
When a person like yourself gets labeled a right-wing left-wing fanatic like
right out of the gate
Both both in like a week and a half and yeah, at least I know I'm doing
something right like to me
They're looking for your Biden campaign contributions now. They're going
through your fucking taxes
The whole thing is so bonkers man
Like can't they just accept that you made a great song and people enjoy it?
Yeah, why does it happen? You know, why do people have to attack? Well, I think
it's just for whatever reason I've been there's
I'm the subject matter the last couple weeks and I and you know in everyone's
defense. I probably haven't
I've waited for this opportunity, I guess to really have a real conversation
with somebody about whatever it is
I am so people are just trying to find
Who's this Oliver Anthony guy and what is he and where does he work and who did
he vote for and what's his family like and y'all?
because they want to sort of build this
image of whatever it is that the person behind the song represents for better
or for worse people who agree with it want to
You know, I don't know. It's it's really funny to watch on my end
Because obviously I know what's true and what's not and so like just even what
I've skim through of people sending me like
Like this like singing at the Super Bowl
Like how many people have formed an opinion about whether or not I should be
paid to sing at the Super Bowl
Like I'm not singing at the Super Bowl. That's just something somebody made up
But you know, there's there's been hundreds of hours of people's time wasted
probably talking about all these little like things
That don't even exist. It's just somebody made them up and put them on the
internet and so I'm just letting them ride
I think they're I think it's I think it's great
I just think it's great like that at least the last couple weeks
I've been able to entertain everyone and get everyone's mind off like all the
all the other horrible stuff that's going on in the world right now like
Uh, at least everybody can have a good laugh, you know, so well, I mean
It's it's a subject of discussion
So like everybody is getting involved and and somehow or another became
cultural and then there was uh dwight from the office
Oh, yeah
He chimed in that if he was gonna write a cultural anthem. What did he say
something like he wouldn't write about
Overweight people on welfare. He would write about billionaires and their taxes.
Yeah, there is nothing funnier
Than millionaires talking shit about billionaires
There is nothing funny funnier about millionaires pretending these billionaires
are out of touch. Oh, yeah
And then you know take take dwight from the office down to west virginia
You know take him take him through those coal mining countries take them
through those places in appalachia
Where people have extreme poverty. Yeah, and pills have ravished
Those areas take them through there and it's everywhere. Yeah, the sad thing is
it's it's everywhere now. It's not
You know, it's funny people right off the get-go I guess because it was radio wv
that posted the original video but
Like i've never once advertised myself as being
Necessarily from the mountains my grandfather grew up in western part of virginia
in the mountains, but i've i'm from farmville, which is technically piedmont
but even in
Throughout rural virginia that poverty is a big issue and drugs are a big issue
and I mean
It's not just even in the rural areas and you go into downtown richmond or any
downtown anywhere for that matter
It's like it's almost like um, yeah, these problems exist everywhere now that
are and I think I mean obviously
They are because that's why the song resonated the way it did the problem for
me was um
Well, I knew that I needed to do this like I knew I needed to
I procrastinated with music a long time. I mean i'm 31 i've been playing guitar
and singing on and off since I was a kid
Like my grandma was in a band years ago, and so like little I remember as a
little kid what got me interested in all of it was
Going, you know dukes of hazard when I was a kid
I was like five and I used to sit with my grandma and we'd sit and watch dukes
of hazard and watch waylon jennings pick that guitar
Of course. I had no idea who will and jennings was but that just like I just
fell in love with that and uh
So grew up listening to like that 70s country and she loved all the old stuff
like the 50s and 60s and
Even in the 70s even you know janice and all that and so like she really
introduced me a lot into music when I was a little kid
And so like I just kind of held on to it, but never
Never pursued it the way I should and then i'd play at a bonfire party or i'd
play it
Whatever. It's a friend's house and everybody's like man. You got to do
something with this
You're you know, you don't want to waste this talent
You've got and whatever and that would almost make me feel even shittier
because i'm like, oh, man
I suck like i'm such a piece of crap for not doing something with this and
So yeah, like when I was outside of work, it's like I would just
I would just i'd drink i'd get just absolutely stoned and I would just sit
around and try to think about anything
But what it was that I really needed to be doing which was like
And so and it's kind of like funny
But that's ended up what kind of sparked me into like writing all these songs
and doing all this stuff because it's like I
I don't know just like with you probably with some what you do jujitsu or
whatever. It's like for me
Songwriting is it gets my head like you said getting your head clear, you know
because that's all you can and i
Songwriting is interesting for different people
But i've now that i've been in it
I guess i know that i've been in the industry for two weeks and i've talked to
like
Now that you've been in the industry and conquered it
Now that i'm an industry expert
It's like some of the other musicians i've talked to like the people i've
looked up to over the years
They experience this too, but certain people when you song write it's a very um
It's a it's dramatic like
Do you write all your own songs yeah, but it's it's have you been accused of
not writing your own songs very early on yeah
Because since my state i guess it's not even my stage name it's oliver anthony
music and so it's supposed to represent music
From you know oliver anthony music as my my grandfather and so he grew up in
the 30s in the mountains and used to tell all these wild stories about
How life was back then but the music's just sort of a characterization of like
That period in time and those people you know and that's
So yeah, when when so your real name is not all yeah christopher christopher
anthony luster is my real legal name
And so that's what's on like like if you look up the songwriting decide this
thing is oliver anthony just in
Well, it's like I said I have it. I just had the the youtube channel listed as
oliver anthony music
um
Just because like that's sort of that's sort of the the demeanor or the
Like I said the character I was rep like that older virginia style music like
If you if you look if you go on youtube and you look up that type of music from
back then like those old recordings of people like that's
That's what I just love that type of stuff. Do you think you're gonna keep that
name?
Yeah, I mean
I mean a lot of people still call me chris and i've posted on social media call
me whatever
I mean i've been called a lot worse than either of those things
But yeah, it'll it'll stay oliver anthony music and definitely yeah
It's a it's a it's a special name and it's a special name to me not only
because it was my grandfather's name
But it's it's sort of like to me
It reminds me of how much how different things were back then but
He was born oliver anthony, but everybody called him anthony growing up and so
like he always thought his name was anthony oliver and
Last name engel and so like it wasn't until he was in his 60s and going to
retire
He realized that his name didn't match his birth certificate
So he had to actually change his legal name when he was in the 60s, but it's
because he thought his name was anthony oliver
Yeah, and so his whole life, but his legal name was and so it's yeah
His parents named him so it's just like but all but all the paperwork back then
was so scattered up because
A lot of people were illiterate and of course documents weren't
Tracked as well as they are now, you know, and so it's like yeah
There's people in the family that have a different spelling and it's the same
last name
But the few letters are different and stuff
It's just kind of cool like but he just he just thought that was crazy
He had to change his name when he was 65 so he could draw his retirement
All because his social security and everything was under a totally different
name, but that's crazy
It's just special to me. Um, he was he's like the only other one in the family
like me
Most of our families like average height six feet and under but he and I were
both, you know
6'6 redheaded left-handed
Like I just I don't know in a lot of ways. I just, uh, I thought it was special
to kind of respect him
He passed away in 2019 and that's kind of when I
I guess that's when I first kind of adapted the name for the music. I didn't
really get serious with anything until
Probably a couple weeks ago, probably until I think I uploaded the first
original
Like like when I was when I decided I was in it to win it and I really wanted
to make this thing happen
Um, it was probably about it. Yeah, probably may of last year when I uploaded
ain't got a dollar
Or it might have been rich man's goal was the first one I uploaded on youtube
But that's when I decided like all right, I'm I'm doing this thing
But yeah, so you were just smoking too much weed drinking too much and just
procrastinating. Yeah, yeah
Yeah, and so that and you know, like
Anxiety is is definitely something that's underestimated. You know, I used to
laugh about not laugh about but I used to just not really understand
When people talked about mental health and anxiety because everyone gets
stressed out over stuff
And so you think of anxiety as being just like this normal phenomenon everyone
deals with but
Your your mind can really put you in a dark place to where that thing it just
like
It just holds on to you like a yeah, you know, and it just
Makes it very difficult for you to do anything
And so yeah, I spent at least two years of my life almost constantly just
having what felt like just a knot right here
Just just wrenching at me. Well, that's especially true for people that are
pursuing a non-traditional life
You know with that doesn't have any guarantees it's it's a wild life to try to
be an entertainer like to just to
Choose to try to make it in this wild world of people that are singing
And making songs and you want people to pay attention to you
Like do you know how many people are singing how many people can sing?
How many people are recording things and now with youtube and the like how many
people are putting stuff up on the internet?
For other people to enjoy it. It's a lot well idea that you're gonna stand out
So that you're filled with anxiety just because of that because you're this
future's uncertain. Yeah, I think for me a lot of it
a lot of the anxiety came from me just
feeling like I was running out of time

Oliver Anthony on the Unexpected Success and Backlash from "Rich Men North of Richmond"

The Joe Rogan experience
And you're gonna have to deal with that soon because I guarantee you there's
gonna be some people that are making some CGI
Oh, there already are. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. What is that? I'm sure there are.
Yeah, I haven't kept up with a lot just cuz um, you know, I'm doing
so
Anything social media related right now or anything any internet presence I
have right now is coming from me off the phone
Just like before everything blew up. So I haven't invested the time to like
look at everything circulating
but I've people like friends and family have sent me stuff and some of it's
pretty funny, but
you know, they've got all these different AI remixes of the song with different
voices and
Overlay different faces and all and it's it's funny to see where it's gonna go,
you know, that is funny
Yeah, you're gonna have to deal with that. My daughter sent me some
advertisement. She goes did you do this advertisement? I'm like, nope
Yeah, that's not really my voice. Yeah, like is my day after the day after
things blew up
One of the towing companies had had an ad on Facebook that had it wasn't really
me
But it was a red beard and like the side profile of sunglasses looking out the
window. I'm like, okay
How dare I guess I've made it anyway?
That's when I realized like people are already ripping things off and what's
crazy is like every shirt that I've worn anywhere in public
there's
so there's a there's a organization that I've
I'm not like officially
Related to or in any way have done anything with but it's a friend of a friend
in the neighborhood. It's called nets with vets
And they take out veterans with PTSD and let them go deep sea fishing and so he
asked me last minute
Just to wear his shirt at one of the concerts and do you know now?
There's like 1500 listings online for counterfeit nets with vets shirts and so
the organization reached out like hey
Are you like making shirts ripping us off?
It's like it's not me
So it's like this is it's a weird it's a weird thing. I've already experienced
a lot of that stuff not so much on the AI side
But just I don't know the internet's just such a rowdy place, you know. Oh, it's
so rowdy
The world's a rowdy place. It is and maybe people bring maybe people bring
their
their best and their worst on the internet like
I've always tried to stay off social media as much as possible, but I've
learned very quickly that like Twitter and Facebook and stuff like you
You you see comments and feedback from people both overwhelmingly positive that
maybe you wouldn't get in a personal conversation
But also like overwhelmingly negative. Yeah, you know, yeah, people just use
that as a vent that just they just take whatever seething
Hatred they have inside of them. They're like, oh, I'm getting that guy with it
You know if you had a song just about love that resonated like that
It would be almost impossible to hate you
but you have a song where you're talking about how people are fed up with shit
and
It obviously resonated. I mean, I've seen songs go viral
But that's pretty bananas, son. You should your shit went to the moon right
away and
God, I'm not sure who sent it to me. I have to find out who sent it to me
Because it's one of those things where like once one person sent it to me then
it was like dozens of people were sent
Yeah, it it's funny because originally that song wasn't in my it wasn't really
even in my top five
Not normally the type of song I've written songs with similar messages
But as far as that sort of like I guess anthem format is what people are
calling it's like an anthem like that's not something
I would normally write but uh, but it's an unlikely anthem
Yeah, insane times
It would be an unlikely anthem. Yeah
I had no idea that that song would react the way it did at least in my case
I think the one thing that's helped me to is it
So my singing isn't the best but I've never had any like vocal lessons or
anything
So the way I sing is just the way I sing and so like I think even the same way
with her and other people
It's like it's maybe rough around the edges. It could be a little pitchy or it's
you know
You're not using the right part of your face when you project and whatever and
so like on paper things aren't quite right
But to the I guess to another human it's like it sounds like it sounds right
because it's it's it is it is what it is
You know, it's authentic. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's any right way to do
anything
I mean, there's like you see it in
everything
there's a person who
Violates the rules and they're the best at it
And then and then the rules almost morph into whatever that is like
It's funny like with music. Yeah music has
Country in particular but music in general has gotten way too wrapped up in
like this algorithm of how many beats per minute
It needs to have and how many verses and how they need to be layered and it's
like they've almost created this sort of like
Industry standard like OSHA rulebook of how music needs to be performed
And so like you can only do that so many thousands of times before people are
like, okay, what else is there?
You know, well people like that too. That's the thing. There's a lot of damn
people
There's a lot of people the problem
I think a lot of people is they want you to like what they like and
If you don't like what they like what you like sucks
It's it's funny like that man. It's we we're so tribal we we are we are tribal
with our cell phones
You know, we're an Android or PC, you know
It's like we're so weird. We're so weird, but we're like that with our musical
taste. We're like that with our
Cultural sensitivities or our cultural sensibilities rather like with the way
we feel about life and how life should be
We want everybody to kind of think along the ways that we think it's it's very
strange and
When a person like yourself gets labeled a right-wing left-wing fanatic like
right out of the gate
Both both in like a week and a half and yeah, at least I know I'm doing
something right like to me
They're looking for your Biden campaign contributions now. They're going
through your fucking taxes
The whole thing is so bonkers man
Like can't they just accept that you made a great song and people enjoy it?
Yeah, why does it happen? You know, why do people have to attack? Well, I think
it's just for whatever reason I've been there's
I'm the subject matter the last couple weeks and I and you know in everyone's
defense. I probably haven't
I've waited for this opportunity, I guess to really have a real conversation
with somebody about whatever it is
I am so people are just trying to find
Who's this Oliver Anthony guy and what is he and where does he work and who did
he vote for and what's his family like and y'all?
because they want to sort of build this
image of whatever it is that the person behind the song represents for better
or for worse people who agree with it want to
You know, I don't know. It's it's really funny to watch on my end
Because obviously I know what's true and what's not and so like just even what
I've skim through of people sending me like
Like this like singing at the Super Bowl
Like how many people have formed an opinion about whether or not I should be
paid to sing at the Super Bowl
Like I'm not singing at the Super Bowl. That's just something somebody made up
But you know, there's there's been hundreds of hours of people's time wasted
probably talking about all these little like things
That don't even exist. It's just somebody made them up and put them on the
internet and so I'm just letting them ride
I think they're I think it's I think it's great
I just think it's great like that at least the last couple weeks
I've been able to entertain everyone and get everyone's mind off like all the
all the other horrible stuff that's going on in the world right now like
Uh, at least everybody can have a good laugh, you know, so well, I mean
It's it's a subject of discussion
So like everybody is getting involved and and somehow or another became
cultural and then there was uh dwight from the office
Oh, yeah
He chimed in that if he was gonna write a cultural anthem. What did he say
something like he wouldn't write about
Overweight people on welfare. He would write about billionaires and their taxes.
Yeah, there is nothing funnier
Than millionaires talking shit about billionaires
There is nothing funny funnier about millionaires pretending these billionaires
are out of touch. Oh, yeah
And then you know take take dwight from the office down to west virginia
You know take him take him through those coal mining countries take them
through those places in appalachia
Where people have extreme poverty. Yeah, and pills have ravished
Those areas take them through there and it's everywhere. Yeah, the sad thing is
it's it's everywhere now. It's not
You know, it's funny people right off the get-go I guess because it was radio wv
that posted the original video but
Like i've never once advertised myself as being
Necessarily from the mountains my grandfather grew up in western part of virginia
in the mountains, but i've i'm from farmville, which is technically piedmont
but even in
Throughout rural virginia that poverty is a big issue and drugs are a big issue
and I mean
It's not just even in the rural areas and you go into downtown richmond or any
downtown anywhere for that matter
It's like it's almost like um, yeah, these problems exist everywhere now that
are and I think I mean obviously
They are because that's why the song resonated the way it did the problem for
me was um
Well, I knew that I needed to do this like I knew I needed to
I procrastinated with music a long time. I mean i'm 31 i've been playing guitar
and singing on and off since I was a kid
Like my grandma was in a band years ago, and so like little I remember as a
little kid what got me interested in all of it was
Going, you know dukes of hazard when I was a kid
I was like five and I used to sit with my grandma and we'd sit and watch dukes
of hazard and watch waylon jennings pick that guitar
Of course. I had no idea who will and jennings was but that just like I just
fell in love with that and uh
So grew up listening to like that 70s country and she loved all the old stuff
like the 50s and 60s and
Even in the 70s even you know janice and all that and so like she really
introduced me a lot into music when I was a little kid
And so like I just kind of held on to it, but never
Never pursued it the way I should and then i'd play at a bonfire party or i'd
play it
Whatever. It's a friend's house and everybody's like man. You got to do
something with this
You're you know, you don't want to waste this talent
You've got and whatever and that would almost make me feel even shittier
because i'm like, oh, man
I suck like i'm such a piece of crap for not doing something with this and
So yeah, like when I was outside of work, it's like I would just
I would just i'd drink i'd get just absolutely stoned and I would just sit
around and try to think about anything
But what it was that I really needed to be doing which was like
And so and it's kind of like funny
But that's ended up what kind of sparked me into like writing all these songs
and doing all this stuff because it's like I
I don't know just like with you probably with some what you do jujitsu or
whatever. It's like for me
Songwriting is it gets my head like you said getting your head clear, you know
because that's all you can and i
Songwriting is interesting for different people
But i've now that i've been in it
I guess i know that i've been in the industry for two weeks and i've talked to
like
Now that you've been in the industry and conquered it
Now that i'm an industry expert
It's like some of the other musicians i've talked to like the people i've
looked up to over the years
They experience this too, but certain people when you song write it's a very um
It's a it's dramatic like
Do you write all your own songs yeah, but it's it's have you been accused of
no