Name: How Waylon Jennings Influenced Travis Tritt's Life & Singing
Uploaded: 2021-03-05T22:32:51.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Waylon Jennings Influenced Travis Tritt's Life & Singing' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Waylon Jennings Influenced Travis Tritt's Life & Singing' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-03-05. Transcript available.

Hey Theo. Hey Travis. Hey man, this is Josh. Southern Indiana. Travis, seen you
in concert a couple times.
Always remember the tribute to Waylon Jennings. Tell me how he influenced your
life and your singing.
Thanks man. Gang gang. Gang brother. And I'll tack on to that question. Thank
you for the question man.
And I love you brother. Thank you for submitting that.
And, um, yeah, you kind of got accepted by like the, you got that, that dirty
thumbs up from the bad boys in a weird way, you know, which was, what was that
kind of like, you know, and I guess what role did kind of Waylon play in that?
And, um, yeah.
Waylon told me that first time I met him, he, um, I was getting ready to leave.
We came into the dressing room. We were playing a show together at the Omni in
Atlanta.
And, uh, and you're younger than him by how much I know that, but by a lot.
Um, 20 something years, 30 something years.
So do you, is it like when you were spending time with him, is it, I mean, it's
almost like, it's like a seventh grader being around a ninth grader, I'm
assuming.
And he was a hero of mine. I mean, I loved everything about him before I ever
met him. I loved his singing voice. I loved his songwriting. I loved his guitar
picking. I loved everything about him.
But one of the things I loved about him was he was not afraid to do things his
own way.
And, um, he sat me down in his dressing room that first, that first time we
ever met.
And he said, listen, I've been, listen, Hoss, I've been hearing all the stuff
that they've been saying about you in Nashville and on these radio stations.
He said, let me just remind you that everything that they are saying about you
now is exactly what they said about me and about Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash
and Hank Williams Jr.
And David Allen Coe, all, he just goes down the list. And he said, let me ask
you a question.
He said, um, are you still selling records? And I said, yeah. I said, man, I've
been lucky. Everything I've done so far, sold platinum or better, a million
copies are better.
And he said, well, are you still drawing people into your shows? I said, yeah,
man, we're playing huge arenas and they're sold out.
He said, listen, those are the people you should care about their opinion
because all these people in Nashville, they're saying all this stuff about you.
They get their, their music for free. He said, these people that come out there,
he said, those are the people that work hard 40, 50, 60 hours a week to put
food on the table for their families.
Yeah. And he said, and they're willing to spend a certain amount of that hard
earned money to buy your music every time you put out new music.
And occasionally they'll splurge for a concert ticket to come see you when you
play in their hometown.
He said, those are the only people that matter. And as long as you're pleasing
them, which you obviously are to hell with all the rest of these people.
Yeah. And man, that was like an epiphany for me.
And it also, it took a tremendous amount of weight off of my shoulders because
I realized at that particular point, Waylon and all the rest of those guys that
were labeled as outlaws.
They got that label by simply doing the same thing that I was doing, which is
just wanting to do my music my own way and do show my influences, all my
influences, which were very widespread.
I grew up, country was always my center, George Jones, Merle Haggard.
That was my center. But I also grew up loving the Allman Brothers, Leonard Skinner,
Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels.
And then, of course, the Eagles in Boston and Fleetwood Mac and, you know, all
this other stuff.
And then blues. I was always a blues fan, still am.
Your voice has a lot of it, man. When I listen to some of your tunes, I'm like,
man, this reminds me.
There are moments where it goes into a guy like a light gospel, you know what I'm
saying?
Or a light. It takes me through, like, the different neighborhoods that were,
you know, adjacent to the neighborhoods I grew up in.
It takes me through. There's just, yeah, I can really, I can feel some of that,
man.
Well, Mississippi, man, I mean, that's so much great blues stuff came out of
there, you know, and that's one of the reasons why that was always a staple.
If you take bluegrass and if you take blues and straight ahead country and
southern rock and mix all those together and then sprinkle a little bit of
southern gospel over the top of it, that's me.
Yeah, gospel, baby. That's me.
Looking for the Lord, man. That's like Jerry Clower. He ended up being a pastor
at the end of his time, I think.
Yeah, I think so.
He was a preacher at the end of his time.
I think so.
Here's a picture right here. Will you go back to that, Sean? Here's a picture
of you and Mr. Jennings right here. Is it kind of interesting to see this photo?
Oh, yeah. That was the first time we met.
Really?
That was right before we had that conversation that I just told you about.
And was he like, did he carry himself like an outlaw?
Oh, he did.
He had that Jesse James vibe a little, huh?
His give-a-shitter was totally broken.
Yeah.
He didn't care.
Dude, that's awesome, man.
Yeah, man.
To have that moment right there.
Yeah, that was the first night.
And did he have any traditions that you noticed kind of backstage or what was
kind of, did he have any?
As far as traditions, I don't, you know.
Were you allowed to spend time with him backstage before the show?
Yeah.
Or did he kind of like to be by himself or did he?
No, he was always really good about, you know, anytime I was around.
He and I, we, Waylon was one of the kind of people, if he liked you, he lets
you know it.
And one of his favorite sayings that I remember was, because a lot of people,
they would talk about,
man, when you do this many shows, do you warm up or do you, how do you prepare
for a show?
Waylon's favorite answer to that question was, I get up off whatever I'm
sitting on and go out and play music for people.
That's what I do.
And that answer alone just gives you an idea of what his, his, his, his, he was
just cool, man.
Yeah.
A cool guy and a guy that was just, you know, wanting to do his kind of music
his own way.
And that's what he was going to do.
And he didn't give a shit what anybody thought about that.
I love that.
Hope you enjoyed that video and you can watch another and you can watch this
one.
You can watch this one.
Different options, different choices.
Some guy just brings you a one option, not this guy, two options.
Watch one, this one or this one.