Name: Joe Rogan Experience #564 - Sturgill Simpson
Uploaded: 2014-10-21T00:09:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #564 - Sturgill Simpson' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2014-10-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #564 - Sturgill Simpson' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2014-10-21. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #564 - Sturgill Simpson

the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day
fresh off the road sturgill simpson ladies and gentlemen thanks for doing this
man i really
appreciate it yeah man you kidding me yeah i'm here you're here i you know
i had heard about your music from several people online i don't remember who
made me take the plunge
and download your shit like a bunch of people had recommended you i had shooter
jennings on and
along those lines like people said like hey man if you really dig shooter jennings
you got to check
out sturgill simpson right and so somewhere along the line i downloaded uh i
think it was uh
well i downloaded two cds but the uh turtles all the way down song that was the
first song i heard i was
oh shit this guy's doing something unusual you're doing some psychedelic
country music man you're
you're mixing shit up in a very bizarre way um yeah i just i i don't know i
grew up listening to
everything so but uh when for whatever reason if i go to write or sing a song i
can only do one of
two things that's either you know sing country or bluegrass is what i primarily
grew up on so uh
uh i don't know the the first record i did was a very traditional country
record in terms of
thematical and lyrical elements and uh i've said this before but it's true i
just i reached a point
where it was like i'm i'm very happily married i'm i'm sober you know for for
the longest period and
and just so drinking songs and heartache and all that wasn't something that i
was particularly very
excited about tackling again you know right so do you feel like you have to
like hit certain themes
if you're doing country music because it just sort of falls into that it it
seems to be somewhat
self-restricting in a lot of ways it hasn't evolved very much even since you
know 60s or 70s
right there were periods that are very dated now like 70s and 80s country you
can hear the production
values and it just there's nothing time you know even some of the most timeless
singers
that ever that ever played the music the records that they made got subjected
to these
really bad taste choices so right it just doesn't stand up um so i don't know
date my producer is a
really close friend of mine dave cobb who actually did shooters first couple
records um shooter's a
buddy he's a good dude love that dude yeah very very sweet such a cool guy to
hang out with too
yes um dave and i just kind of you know i i came to nashville about four years
ago almost five now i
guess and i just i knew more than anything what i didn't want to do and um and
i met with dave shooter
actually i think told him one night we were all at a billy joe shaver concert i
didn't know any of those
guys and uh they were sitting upstairs it was like shooter and jamie johnson
some other cats and dave
and uh apparently shooter was like hey man you see that guy right there and he's
like he's like
it's the best country singer in nashville so the next day somehow my manager
got an email from dave and
we had lunch and i was like all right he's from georgia we both loved the same
records growing
up i just kind of feel like i know this dude i can work with this guy right and
there was nobody in there
because i paid for both albums entirely by myself or like dug a big giant hole
of debt
wow and then how much does it cost to put on an album the first one um i i
thought when i was doing
it this may very well be the only time i ever get to do this you know right and
i wanted something that
i could be proud of and something my family could be proud of for once you know
what i mean i just i knew
it had to be right i couldn't compromise in any way and um there was a certain
sound we were after so dave
he said well let's just get the guys that played on those old records and yeah
let's
fucking let's just do that you know i didn't know how the game worked right
right so then i'm looking
up and next thing you know i'm in the studio there's like this guy's like pig
robbins who
pretty much invented country piano he played on i think his first session was
with george jones on
white lightning and what a fucking name yeah he's on he played on blonde on
blonde yeah he's this old
blind pig robbins pig hargus pig robbins what a great fucking name god that's
an american name
yeah man actually he could probably be english too english we had a lot of the
pig because he i mean
he toured with everybody he played on patsy klein records and wow records and
wow so you know and i knew
when those sessions ended i knew that i had absolutely done my best because i
had to you
know these guys would just bust your balls in a second you know and uh so we i
feel like we sort of
cleared my throat with that one and and then lo and behold a year later i i
found myself a musician
where i was going to get to make another record i was like all right well maybe
i'll this one will
be a little bit more selfish or self-absorber for me so we dave and i
incorporated a lot of other
elements of i guess sonic templings you don't normally hear in most country
music and that gave me the
freedom to kind of go out there with the themes as well so um i was doing a lot
of reading at the time
um always had like weird you know uh we'll get there but uh
i don't know man it was the most the most truly inspirational group of songs i
feel like i've ever
written because it was just from such a fresh place you know maybe that's why
the record's done
it's very unique you know it's very unique in that you it has a lot of country
sound to it but
like that turtles all the way down song i mean who the is doing songs about
mind expanding consciousness expanding drugs in country music i mean that's
just not being done but
it's still like really good country music like i i like a lot of country music
you know then i even
songs that are even like a song that's sort of a classic song with all those
themes that you talked
about before like drinking a heartache if it's well done i still really like it
you know absolutely no
i mean if it's if it's if it's pure yeah and honest and it's great music i just
didn't feel like i had
anything to offer there right right right right yeah um the sound though is uh
i think people are
starting to accept that not not even starting to accept but sort of for a long
time country got
classified amongst a lot of young people as being like a dumb kind of music you
know and unfairly so
and i think that as some young people started getting into some of the other
country like
getting into some johnny cash songs for instance you know you start going oh
this is country too
okay well you you can't say johnny cash songs are dumb you just can't i mean
they were just
he had too much crazy going on in those songs you know it's undeniable there's
a lot going on in
between the lines oh there's a lot going on in a boy named sue yeah i mean just
think about that song
i mean he had some great songs and then he did the highwaymen and that was an
interesting song too like
that thing that he did with willie nelson and uh who else was it was it christopherson
yeah
was it wayland yeah and they did this this crazy song about reincarnation that
to this day if you
never heard it um go go find that song the highwaymen and uh it's uh this
really wild song because it's
all different different verses sung by a different guy like willie will sing
one verse and then johnny
comes in i fly a starship oh my god that's a good fucking song it's just whoa
well you know weirdly
it and it's it's so it's funny to me the country has this really rigid
perception by the public yeah i
mean all the if you look back at any of of the really good great country
singers they were all bat
shit man i mean it was just like some of those colorful weird characters to
ever walk through american
history you know so i mean it for me it's not really much of a stretch i didn't
feel like i was really
going out there too far um you know what it is man it's southism it's like
racism towards the south
it's like thinking that anybody who has a southern accent's got to be a moron
thinking
anybody who's singing country songs they've got to suck that's it's what it is
it's an urban form of
classism like we you look at that style of music and they automatically some
some people did for a
while but i think guys like shooter guys like you you're you guys are opening
up and honey honey band
does a lot of country type sound uh i think a lot of people are opening up
people's ideas of what that
sound really is and you hear a great song it's like god damn it that's a great
song it doesn't
matter if they got a banjo playing in the background you can't tell me that
song didn't
you up right you know i think i think people are starting to realize like there's
it's just good
man there's just good there's good disco songs man okay you ever heard kiss i
was made for loving
you it's a good goddamn disco song i don't give a what anybody says i'm not a
kiss hater man
i love the monkeys when i was a kid dude the monkeys had some good songs i don't
care if they're
you know neil diamond wrote half that shit did he really yeah that's why the
songs are so
great man oh wow that makes a lot of sense wow that's incredible i like neil
diamond songs i
fucking said it i fucking said it i don't care what he's doing with his hair i'd
like a goddamn
neil diamond song any day yeah man that was a genius there's and i think when
you expand your horizon
sort of open up your ideas of musical appreciation like i've tried really hard
with a lot of stuff
and it just can't catch like every few months or so i try with jazz i'll throw
some coltrane on and
i'll be like i'll be in my car and then five five minutes in i snap i just can't
take it anymore
and i'll throw some kid rock on or something just just to turn it the other way
i just can't do it
it's probably the only music i never got into like i like hillbilly jazz but i
don't uh like i don't
know like charles mingus and guys like that maybe i can listen but even in
brief doses because i just
prefer like a melody you know yeah i like a song a good song i think one thing
that it's good for i like
jazz at a bar like if you're having a couple drinks and some jazz is playing in
the background it's not
like a very recognizable song it's just interesting music it's interesting like
background music
but as far as it being my main focal point you know not really maybe i'm wrong
maybe maybe i need to
find the right stuff what do you listen to i tried a bunch of different shit
felonious monk i've
tried some cold train i've tried obviously they're great musicians i mean there's
no denying they have
skill but it just doesn't grip me in any way i don't know what it is you ever
uh bitches brew by miles
davis yes yes that's a pretty killer pretty killer um i can do i can get down
with that yeah i mean
there's some riffs that i i really enjoy for a long but i can't like sit like i
can sit and listen to the
same leonard skinner album maybe like three times in a row you know but it's
very hard for me to listen to
the same jazz stuff over and over and over again i just i don't know whatever
it is i'm missing it woody
allen's got it and i'm missing it you know there's there's a saying are you
gonna go play jazz until
the money runs out yeah i'm sure well we were in uh just in philadelphia i was
in philly on friday night
and we passed by the jazz bar and we thought maybe we should go after the show
go see some jazz
never did it no no we thought about it it's one of those things i always say i
should do i've never
said that i've never found myself let's go hear some jazz so how did you get
into singing country music
was that what you've always sang or did you do around with other forms of music
first uh yeah well
actually i didn't really have a choice both my grandfathers played um you know
well actually we
were in eastern kentucky where i'm originally from everybody's really plays
music but it's it's what
you do after work you know really yeah my mom's