Micky Braun – Life on the Road with Micky & The Motorcars

[Music] Lo, [Applause] crashing. [Music] Hearts get broke, tables turning. Welcome back to the Rugger Revival podcast, the home of the UK's country, Americana, and Roots music community. We are your go-to platform that supports independent and emerging artists across the globe. And don't forget to check our new website at www.the rugger revival.com. Um, I'm joined again by my hostess with the mostess with his everchanging cowboy looks who loves to impersonate Zack Top and I have to put this in and Tina Turner on a Friday night. It is our very very good friend TJ. What's your message? Why'd you do that? I asked you to pick from a soundboard, but you didn't. Anyway, anyway, it's TJ. How are you, mate? I'm all right, mate. We We were just saying before we came on that I'm suffering slightly with uh the heat and everything cuz I'm old and fat and Yeah. Yeah. Us English don't do well with the uh any type of sun. I stuck my head out the window for about five minutes earlier, hence why I've got a hat on now because my head is like bright red like a a beetroot. So, uh, other than that, I'm all right. Yeah. Like a balloon. Good. It's nice to have you. Um, and, uh, anyway, so I'm going to move on. On tonight's show, I've got the pleasure of introducing this show. Um, the only way to describe him, we're in the presence of a living legend, the one and the only Mickey Brawn from the incredible band Mickey Motorcars. Uh, and I will tell you what TJ's been saying about the other side of the names later on, but we'll go into that as part of the game. Mickey, the only way to introduce you is going to say, "Mickey, you are so fine. You're so fine. You blow our mind." Oh, Mickey. Cuz we can't do that song cuz it's copyrighted apparent. How many songs have you heard that Mickey? Oh, I've heard it a couple times over the years from uh people, but uh it's uh yeah, it's been around for a while, but it wasn't as good as that. That or Mickey Mouse. I don't know why nobody goes with Mickey Manel, but uh for whatever reason. Anyway, Wiki, welcome to the Rugger Revival uh podcast. Um how are you? I'm great. I'm uh I'm doing really well. I got the uh the weekend off, which is not very uh normal for us musicians to have the Fourth of July weekend off here in the States, but uh I do and uh I'm going to go down to Cape Cod with my family and uh hang out down there. Brilliant. Well, it's it's great to have you on and thank you for taking the time to be with us today. Um Mickey, if I can just ask you, we know you've got a huge following over in the States. Um, but for our UK and European audiences, can you introduce yourself and tell the listeners who you are and how you describe your style of music, if you wouldn't mind? Yeah. Um, I'm Mickey Braun, uh, the founding member of Mickey and the Motorc Cars. We've been together for 25 years and, um, we have 11 records out and, uh, a couple of those are live records. One of them was actually recorded live over in Germany years ago, but um, we've been together. We are a country rock band is what we used to call ourselves when we first started. And then along came this thing called Texas Country. And uh they basically uh took us in as a uh founding members of the Texas Country Red Dirt Country um group of uh many many different bands and musicians over here in uh that are kind of based all over the United States now, that style of music. But uh the majority of the people are based out of Texas or Oklahoma and um or got started there anyway. So anyway, yeah, kind of a uh a rock and roll band from the 70s meets uh a country band from the late 50s. And you smash those together and you you kind of get that that Texas country rock, alt country sound. And uh um for the masses out there, you would find us probably under Americana and all the good vibes in between, Mickey. All the good. Yeah, all of them for sure. Yeah. Now, uh I have the honor of starting this show as I've said already. Um look at TJ's little face. He's fuming. Bless him. Anyway, um so I'm surprised Mickey didn't recognize him. Uh because at the last one of your last performances, uh TJ was the one that was throwing his knickers on the stage. Um cuz he was so excited to get you on and so excited to have you on Rugby Revival. Um but I'm going to start off by asking you the best question that I love to ask all of our artists is, uh you've got such a a rich history. You've got such a rich um history of talent um in your family as well. Tell us where did it all start? Where did it all begin? If you wouldn't mind showing where you grew up, what you've done up to present day. Absolutely. Um, I started uh playing music when I was five. Uh, started getting on stage with my uh my dad. He's a musician. We grew up in uh the state of Idaho and uh it's kind of cold uh mountainous country where we grew up. So, in the winter time uh we lived off the grid. I had three older brothers and uh all we did pretty much in the winter time was play music and uh build snow forts and uh and then sit around the fire and play more music. And then in the summertime we had a family band and we toured for uh for nine years as uh Muzzybrun and the uh Braun Boys and we kind of just toured all over the place. who were on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson a couple times and uh played a lot of fair circuit stuff kind of a lot of rodeos, things like that. And uh we played western western more western swing kind of style music, country western. And uh so we did that for nine years and then uh my two oldest brothers, Cody and Willie, they moved to Oregon and started a band called Reckless Kelly. And uh me and my brother Gary stayed back in Idaho and worked on building houses and worked on ranches and stuff for a few years. And then eventually Gary and I moved down to Austin, uh Texas as well and had our band started in Idaho. We all moved down there 25 years ago and started seeing if we could uh you know cut the mustard down there and not get kicked out of too many bars too fast. And I think we I guess we pulled it off somehow. I don't know how, but I guess we did. That's that's brilliant. And and like I said, such a rich history of of everybody together. What was it like being together on the road? You know, all of you together all the time. I mean, nine years you were you said you were traveling around for. What was that like? Um, well, like I said, we're not together anymore. Um, yeah, fair enough. Read between the lines, Ronnie. Yeah. No, it was actually it was a lot of fun. We were kids. We were We were touring in a in a suburban and my mom was pretty much our our tour manager and she uh our our wardrobe as well. She she made all of our our outfits and uh our shirts and scarves and dressed us all up like cowboys, which we were. So, uh we all picked different instruments and I was a bass player, my brother Willie was a drummer, Cody was the uh multi-talented fiddle player, uh mandolin guy, and uh my dad played rhythm acoustic. And then my brother Gary played uh harmonica. and uh he could never really make up his mind until he was a little older of what he wanted to tackle. He's now a phenomenal guitar player and a great harmonica player still, but uh at the time he he jumped all over the place. He was playing accordion for a while and piano for a while moving around. He was all over the place. But uh anyway, being on the road together was it was pretty fun. We were we all get along really well still to this day. We all still work together on records together. We uh collaborate all the time. We tour a lot together and uh just in general have a lot of fun working as a as a family and uh we do a festival in Idaho every year as a group and um so far uh nobody's left the family and nobody's killed anybody yet. So I think we're think we're doing okay. You're doing well. Yeah, absolutely. And and sounds like living the dream, you know. That's that's exactly what it should be like and and enjoying it with your family as well. So, thank you for sharing that. I I appreciate it. Absolutely. Um just Mickey, just in the early years, just one last question for me. What was the sort of what was your influence, musical influence? Um who would you who you normally listen to? Who would you like? Um anybody out of out of the blue? Yeah, absolutely. When we first started, we were like I said, we were traveling together. So, dad basically was running the the stereo up front and it was tapes back in the day. So, um he he kind of kicked us off with a lot of Everly Brothers and um the the Beatles were the more rock and roll stuff that we were listening to. The Beach Boys wrote more on the rocking side and uh I would say the more country songwriter influences were Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keane and uh Steve Earl was a big one for all of us and um John Prime was probably that's a that's a big group that dad liked and mom was riding shotgun and she liked Merl Haggard was her fave and uh you know Don Williams that kind of stuff. So, it was it was very uh very country and singer songwriter kind of driven stuff and you know little Bob Dylan mixed in here and there for the a little more folky stuff and Emmy Lou Harris, Graham Parsons, Fly Burrito Brothers, all of that was our biggest influences. Uh is that a picture of Joshua Tree in the background by the way? the Joshua Tree Forest behind you, Ronnie. Buff your head, mate. Yeah, is it? Yeah, it's me. Sorry, I was like, where is he? I was I was just thinking I was talking about Graham Parsons and and that's where that's where they that's where they burned his body was out in Joshua Tree. So, that's a wild story that was, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to admit something, Vicki. I'm going to admit something. I I picked that picture up in that we've got a store called The Range over here which does like cheap pictures and and portraits and whatever else and I thought, you know what, I really like that. I want it. So, I'm glad you mentioned it and I'm glad you you said it. So, I have no clue what it is. I have no idea. I love it. I tried to lie and it didn't happen. So, you you got a good eye for art, my friend. Well, thank you. I've camped out there before a couple times uh with the whole band and going through California and uh we've done photo shoots in that desert and it's it's really beautiful out there. If you ever want to go see it in person, you should check it out. It's badass. One day. One day I'll definitely do that. One day he'll know what he's got on his wall. Maybe one day. I definitely know him because we talk about him all the time. I have no idea about that. But yeah. Yeah. Random. Yeah. Why not? It's fun. Yeah. But uh yeah, I guess as we got a little bit as we started getting older, we all had our own Walkman, you know, stereos that we could eventually ended up being CD players, but uh we started listening to our own stuff. And that was more when we started getting into like some of the the stuff that my buddies were listening to was Pearl Jam and and Metallica and you know a little bit harder rock and roll [ __ ] which we you know you eventually you kind of have to do what your listen to what your friends are listening to. I mean none of my buddies wanted to sit around and listen to Merl Haggard you know. So, uh, you know, that's where kind of some more of the rock and roll started coming in, AC/DC and and just started getting a better idea of, you know, what what rock and roll and country could sound like together. And, and of course, when you do that, you're going to run into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers without a doubt. And uh so obviously huge influence and uh the Eagles, anybody that was doing a lot of harmonies and uh putting putting rock and roll music behind good country sounds was definitely the direction that I I always focused on for the most part. And I think it was just because country music is it for me was easier to play just because I grew up playing it. But it didn't necessarily mean that it was easier. It just felt easier for me. So, I kind of gravitated that way. But I wanted to be I wanted to be able to put on more of a rock and roll show. And I didn't realize that you could be a rock star like uh Zack Top if you uh just stood there and sang and played like a like a badass. Yeah. Oh, the energy I could have saved myself. But always the greatest showman, honestly. Oh, I love I love show. It's one of my favorite things. Absolutely. Favorite parts of doing this. Otherwise, I I wouldn't be doing it. It's definitely 50% for me. Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing that, Mickey. I appreciate it. Now, I'm gonna stop talking and stop waffling and uh put you over to TJ. I think you were waiting for me to start coughing then, weren't you? Just to hand over immediately. So, uh, is he is he in pain? Cuz I'll hand over now. Yeah, you can see my face has gone bright red. Yeah. Time to hand over to Terry. Yeah, there we go. Anyway, u Yeah, welcome to the podcast, Mickey. It's uh it's great learning about your your background and your family history. And me and Ronny were scouring the internet like we always do with any guest that comes on. And um you know, actually, I mean, for yourself, there's you've got your own Wikipedia page, which helps. Um, but you've also got the brawn brothers reunion.com which uh gives you a a real kind of in-depth uh understanding of where it all began with your your granddad, your dad and how things have kind of progressed there. And this is where you've got your um your gigs coming up this year on the is it the 7th of August I think? Um yeah, the uh 7th, 8th and 9th. So, seventh and eighth one something like that. I mean, I'm jumping ahead second weekend. That's right, man. And I I'm jumping ahead massively on my list here, but it just came to mind and I was I was just kind of going through things in terms of the lineup and it's incredible. Apart from, you know, yourselves and uh your brother's brand, Reckless Kelly, you've got Cody Canada and the Departed, American Aquarium, Silverado, the Wilder Blue, Tina Honey, it just goes on and on. I thought, wow, what a event that must be to to go to, but also to to play at. So, uh, so yeah, are the tickets still available should people want to kind of log on and buy buy what they want? Yeah, you can, uh, you can just go to the brown brothersreunion.com or you can go to our Facebook page, which is the Brown Brothers Reunion. Uh, I believe we have an Instagram page, all the socials. Um, we have a link off of our website. Uh Reckless Kelly has a link off of their website, but if you just type in Google Bron Brothers Reunion and it'll it'll bring it to the website and then from there you can uh check out the the lineup, see who's playing every day, see what the uh accommodations are that are left. It's a very remote area in Idaho. So, I highly recommend uh making sure you have your the accommodations that you want before you book your airplane ticket if you're coming from over there. Well, it's your your hometown, isn't it? Is it Chalice, how you pronounce it? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. So, that's amazing. And you mentioned that you lived off grid, so uh yeah, I can imagine the the remoteness uh where that is, but it looks incredible, mate. And I think anyone that gets to go and get tickets to to to see the show uh is certainly on our bucket list now for next year, mate. So, uh fingers crossed we can turn out, mate. But, um yeah, so go and get your tickets, guys. Um but yeah, I mean, in terms of uh you coming on the show, Mickey, um always give it a shout out to our mates that kind of hook us up and and you know, do some of the leg work of getting these podcasts done because it's not easy. Um so, Mr. Steve Talbo is a good man. Um, he mentioned that you guys are, what did he say to me? Red dirt royalty, I think he mentioned. And I, I read between the lines. It was almost saying behave. You, you and Ronny, behave. Treat him well. We always treat. I've just ruined that now, haven't I? All right. Have I ruined one of your segments? So, um, so really appreciate it, mate. And, uh, we we know your music really well. Um, so we're big fans at the ranch. We must, you know, smoo those guys every single week on every podcast. But uh even like last week and even today um you cannot listen to the ranch longer than an hour without hearing Mickey and the motorc cars and then like I was listening today straight afterwards Reckless Kelly. So uh you are super loved on that station mate and you're obviously doing a fantastic job on the Texas scene. So tell us about the Texas scene uh Mickey. How how were those kind of early days kind of playing playing the scene and kind of integrating into it? Um it was uh to be honest with you I think we I mean we were really I was 20 years old so we were young and um we had had the band together for about a year a little over a year when we moved down to Austin and um so started the band when I was 19 and uh anyway it was pretty wild because we got there and my brothers had been there for six years already. So, they were already very well established in the Austin, Texas music scene as far as that goes. But, it was them and uh Ragweed was kind of just making big waves in in and around everywhere that they went. And uh Shannon Canada took us on, Cody's wife as uh our manager when we first got to town. So, she threw us on opening for for Ragley all the time. And then of course our booking agent was in with Reckless Kelly guys. So he was putting us on opening for them all the time, which ends up, you know, eventually you're opening for Jack Ingram and Pat Green and um you know, Robert Earl, all those great great guys that were just pretty much very established and grow growing, but also just massive crowds for what we were used to playing to, you know, 150 people was a was a packed house for us, you know, and usually the venues we were playing, it was a packed house, you know, small little bars and uh playing for three or four hours a night and mainly covers. I only had written about enough for an hour, hour and a half worth of music that was original stuff. So, it was um and the first few years just went by in a blink of an eye. It was a whirlwind. We just went went along with whatever Shannon told us to do. And we've if we had to drive for 13 hours through the night to get to the next state and the next town and just cuz it was opening for somebody to get in front of a lot more people than we would be if we stayed and played it, you know, some little hole in the wall. We we'd get in the van and I'll ask drive all night long and get there and play for 25 minutes or 45 minutes. And sometimes we'd play two or three shows a day at different towns. We'd just kind of hop around the the scene and start out opening a festival in one town and then go play the mid-after afternoon at another festival and then close down the night with a three-hour gig at a at a honky tonk or a dance hall and then uh and then get in the van and drive four hours back to the house because we couldn't afford hotel rooms. Wow. My god. And uh so we did that for the first 24 years. And uh we did that for a long time and then uh you know we we eventually started establishing our our band was you know getting more and more wellknown enough to where it didn't make sense for us to to be opening for people all the time. And uh obviously the bigger bands we still love still love opening for and would go on the road as much as possible. But um we did finally get our feet uh firmly firmly on the ground to where we were headlining most of the shows we were playing and uh you know drawn our own crowd had our own people which ironically were all the people that we met and saw us while we were opening for all those other people. So it was a great tactic uh that uh Shannon got us out there in front of the masses and uh it helped us out a shitload in the end. It's It's really been great for us to be able to uh to tour um year round and uh we've always had a hard work ethic. I think we got that from my my mom and dad. Just same deal. They made us if you get a gig and you say you're doing it, you're doing it. There's no there's no getting out of it. You better be in you better be in the hospital if you don't walk on stage that night. So, we've uh we've only had we've never had to cancel a gig. Thank God, knock on wood, uh for any ailments. So far, we've we've had to cancel a few due to uh weather or, you know, flights cancelling or whatever. We've had to cancel a few just by not being able to make it to the show, but we've we've never canled one that we were sitting in the town that the show was supposed to be at. On you, mate. And and may that continue for a long time. And uh so basically for any upand cominging artist to kind of get to where you you've just got to drive thousands of miles for 24 years and maybe you'll get there. Maybe you won't. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to lie. It helps out with the uh the songwriting Yeah. aspect of it. You uh you see a lot of [ __ ] out there. You're not going to learn it sitting on your couch watching YouTube. I can tell you that. No, I can imagine, mate. It's we we always kind of um amaze me and Ronnie every time we speak to to artists in the in the US particularly because you know the amount of hours you spend on the road in the UK you know if we spend longer than 3 hours on the road you end up in a seat so you know you got the wrong of land so we're still trying to wrap our heads around that and the fact that Texas is so big you know when we speak to our friend and you know he compared it to the size of France bloody hell I I just you just don't realize how big things are so um it's crazy It's crazy how big it is. It's uh you can when you're driving in from south coming in from Louisiana and uh you cross into Texas says welcome to Texas and then the next sign you see is El Paso, Texas 768 miles. Wow. Is that disheartening when you just start your uh your trip to the next gig? That's when you hope to God that you're not on your way to El Paso, Texas. But um yeah, no, it's it's a lot of fun. The other the other great thing to to trickle back to what you were asking about uh just getting started out was um we were we were lucky enough to actually open for a lot of those bands that were they were bands that were willing to tour the United States and a lot of the Texas music scene bands. their bread and butter was all in Texas and they were their offers were big big shows and festivals and they they didn't want to tour outside of Texas because they they would go somewhere for an offer for $600 a night where they were making thousands and thousands of dollars probably just selling t-shirts by just staying in Texas. But the bands that we link linked up with like Ragweed and uh Reckless and guys like that, they were they were willing to hit the road and get out far far beyond uh where we probably even should have been going at the time. But um you know, we we all were doing the same thing at the same time and and they were doing so much better than us. And thank God they were kind enough to let us tag along and give us their extra hotel room every once in a while for a shower and [ __ ] like that. But uh it was I would like to say the the picture that I'm painting was really rough, but it was so much goddamn fun that we didn't we didn't care. I mean, we had a blast the whole time and and uh it I wouldn't trade it for the world. I learned so much about the US and so much about the road and and people just in general and all over parts of the United States and um I don't think that uh I would you're not going to I like I say I don't think I could learned any of any of that by reading it out of a book. So it's it was a really really fun time and now that we've been doing it for so long I get to go back and and now I'm seeing old friends all over the place. So it's a lot of fun. Fantastic, man. And yeah, when I was checking out your your kind of tour schedule for the rest of the year and and what you did last year, you're right in what you're saying. It's it's not just exclusively Texas. You you're you're literally all over the States and you know, um it's it's it's not unique as such, but it it's a lot of people spend their time, like you say, just exclusively touring Texas because they can, because the state's so big and because it pays the bills. But uh so it's amazing to see and I'm guessing that's where you kind of built your pockets of fan base. So it's not just Texas, it's all of these other states where over time, you know, you've you've got these fans and you know, it's accumulated to to this amazing kind of place that you guys are in now. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're leaving on uh the 16th, flying out to play in Spokane, Washington, and uh and then we go up to uh Seattle, then down to Portland, Oregon, and then uh and then we're down in running through California for four days, and then got a few days off and uh gonna fly back here to Boston. I'm living in Boston, Massachusetts with my wife Ally and my daughter Hattie. And uh they'll love it here. We're having a good time. I've been here for seven years almost now. Fantastic. Um, it's a whole another learning experience out here, too. You know, I've moved from Idaho, which is far west, and then lived in Texas for 20 years, and then uh out I've been out here for a while and splitting my split my time between here in Austin. The band's still in Austin, so I fly back there a lot and that's where we leave to go on the road. So, this is my home base now, but I uh I still got my place in in Austin. Superb, man. So, that's about 2,000 miles. I was checking the distance and I thought, so you must be racking up the the air miles and uh Oh, yeah. thing, man. So, what was the reason for kind of moving over to northeast uh Boston? My wife uh is from here and um I flew up here because it was Maine was the last state that I'd ever been in and uh I I'd met her at uh our festival and we'd been hanging out and talking on the phone a lot and I just told her that and she was like we'll fly up here and let's go up to Maine. I'm like in an hour and a half from Maine. I was like all right. So, I flew up to hang out for a while and uh we cruised over to Maine and hung out there for a couple days and then we just basically started dating and never never looked back. The rest is history. The rest is history. But I I really do love it out here and I I haven't got to spend too much time out here. Uh we were always on the road just touring through. And you know, you don't get to you don't get to go check things out when you pull into a town at at 5:00 in the afternoon and play a show at 10:00 and leave at 3:00 in the morning. So, you don't really ever get to see much. So, I've been having a ball running around out here. And it's a little bit more like over where you guys are at where everything's a lot closer. You can you can run through three states in one day out here, no problem. Yeah. makes life uh a bit easier. Although the traffic over here is a bit bit crap sometimes, but uh yeah, that's all we can moan about really. So, in terms of like all of the places that you've been, you know, um you must have one or two can't say favorites because other people get upset, but like in terms of venues or or arenas that you've played, what have been the kind of the standout ones that you can recall? Um, some of the the coolest ones. Um, obviously I love playing uh the reunion in Idaho. It's a it's just a it's it's not just because it's our festival. It's because it's just it's home to me and it's the best uh the best crowds that we have every year for that come out. And um we always have a few thousand people. The weather is always nice. It's just a comfortable place for me. So, that's probably my number one place. Um, Texas has got uh numerous places. Um, I've I've always liked playing Green Hall uh down in Green, Texas. Uh, that was just one of the first first big places that was so well known by everybody that we got to crack into and and then eventually got to headline. And it was like a one of those stepping stepping stone venues for us. And we just did a show there the other night uh for our CD release run and uh had it sold out before we got there. And it it's just one of those places that it's it's magical. I'm wearing a hat right now. Sweet. And then Colorado. We played a lot of great places in Colorado. I got to uh I got to get up on stage with my bros when they opened for Turnpike at Red Rocks. So amazing. I I haven't played it as Mickey and the Motorc Cars, but I have got to sing on the stage twice. So, uh I I consider it off my list as far as place, but I still want to do a show there. I would love to be able to actually lock in a lock in a real show there and get to be able to say that the band played there. And I'd just love to play. What a beautiful, magical place. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, we've had some guests um on previously that have played Red Rocks and it's just just the pictures that you see are just incredible. Um it's like nothing else that I've seen anywhere else. Um yeah, it's it's amazing. I would love to go. So, let's dive into your music, mate. So, we we've asked you loads of kind of obstacle questions already, but uh about the music, let's let's dive into that a little bit more. So not many bands last the course, you know, in terms of 25 years, man. So congratulations first of all for for still going, still having it strong and, you know, still still leading the scene um in terms of what we're seeing. So you know, in terms of your, you know, being young 20some guys, you've obviously got your goals and your ambitions set out at the early kind of days of that. Do you think you kind of achieved what you had in your mind, surpassed it, or do you think there's still stuff that is is kind of lingering that you want to do? Um, I think there's there's still stuff out there. You know, I'm I'm definitely still driven to to want to um accomplish a lot more as this band. Um, but as far as goals that I set, I never, to be honest with you, I didn't think that we'd still be rocking around as Mickey and the motor cars at 25 years later. So, that's an achievement. And but there was there's some goals that that kind of slipped past us that I was a a large goal was to be playing the big, you know, major amphitheaters or the stadiums and like that was that was the the vision at a at a 20-year-old mind, you know, was to be on all the the late night shows and be the big stars and have, you know, 12 buses on the road and the huge crews and and that stuff that never that never came around for us. Um, and the older I've gotten and the more I've been around people that that has happened for, it looks like a real pain in the ass to be honest. So, to be where I'm at, I'm pretty pleased. I can still go to the grocery store, be left alone to some degree, but yeah, exactly. But I still get to make music and I still, you know, I still get recognized going through the airports and [ __ ] sometimes. But uh for the most part, I get to uh I get to be a civilian and also get to do whatever the hell I want to do when I want to do it. So, in one hand, I think I might have dodged a little bit of a bullet there. And uh in the other hand, I I would like to still accomplish getting out and playing uh some bigger tours with maybe some other bands and uh still getting to experience some more of that. Um, we did did some opening shots for some some pretty big bands. So, we have we have been on the stage with some pretty big guys and and done a lot of touring with with that stuff. We got to go out with Willie Nelson for a pretty good stretch of time and that was back way back in the early days and uh that was a lot of fun. They taught us a lot and uh and we've been out with Dirks Bentley and just a bunch of people over the years. We've played with It's funny when I start thinking about it, I'm like, "Oh my god, I guess I have done more than I thought." But uh yeah, I suppose life kind of go kicks you so fast, isn't it, with what you're doing. You're always on the road, you're always playing, but then when you say that time to reflect, like you say, that the people that you've been playing with and you know, in the in the scene with, it's absolutely incredible. I I saw Willie Nelson was still gigging last week. Um just I can't believe it. He must be almost 100 years old, that guy. Yeah, he's in his 90s. It's amazing. Yeah, he's amazing. He's one of those guys. He's uh he's the uh he's the icon, you know. He's the He's the one that everybody, you know, sets their I don't know, they should set their goals to to be, you know, cuz he's it's amazing. They're still out. They're they're they're not just out playing two or three shows a year, too. They're touring. I mean, they're still just on the road. They're playing one night, two night, three night, four night, take two nights off, then one, two, three again. It's pretty impressive that he's doing it at that age. And uh it's just and still awesome. I mean, he's not it's not like he's he's putting on a bad show either. He's still going out there and putting on a hour and a half, two hour show. It's pretty incredible. It is, mate. Yeah. And I think he's playing with Bob Dylan. Sorry, Ronnie. What were you saying? No, I was I was going to say he hasn't changed the way he looks at all from the age of his 15 to what he is now. He hasn't He's still got the same hair and everything else. He hasn't changed. Uh and he's still got the same guitar. What's his secret? Yeah. Yeah. It's just unreal. Trigger. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. He's got he's got a great show. uh he takes his he's the the Willie Nelson family band tour and he's done it quite a few times but this year he's got he switches it up kind of throughout the year he does a small little run with people but yeah he's got Bob Dylan and turnpike trouidors I saw on one little stretch which is awesome and uh I think they do them in in little baseball stadiums around in different different little towns but they also do uh you know festival style stuff but uh yeah it's it's a pretty wild uh wild group of people that he he has run with him on those those tours. So, it's it's pretty it's pretty fascinating to see who's who's always going to be on it. But, I saw they're going to be up here in this neck of the woods uh here pretty soon, but I'm uh unfortunately I'm on the road and and uh won't be able to go. I was looking forward to it. Bummer, man. Bummer. That's um so go back to your your own songwriting, mate. So, you know, 25 years, it it's uh when you think about the early songs that you wrote, you know, and I suppose this young 20some guys, the the types of songs you're going to be writing then, maybe about girls, and the stuff that you're doing then is going to be very different to, I suppose, the songs that you're writing now. When we get to our age, we've got a wife, kids, and and and that sort of thing. So, how how has your your songw writing and your sound evolved in your opinion from those days to to kind of where we where we are now? Um, I I would say just in general, um, the songwriting is improved on my end. just I think I think about lyrics a little bit more and I think about, you know, the structure of the song and the integrity of the song and where it's going to go before I get too far ahead of myself and and um and sometimes that that is a a huge help uh because you can really kind of lay out a map for what the song is is going to be like and you can and really make it make sense to the listener. And then other times, I guess it's kind of a falter because sometimes when it's just coming out onto the piece of paper, it ends up some of the best [ __ ] you get, you know? But, um, I definitely I think my my writing has matured a lot over the years from the beginning days of not just I mean, I listen back to some of the the stuff that I wrote at the very beginning. I'm just like, "Wow, couldn't couldn't come up with a better line than that." uh that's that's what you decided to stick with. But uh I've changed a lot of those lines over the years, too. Like down as the the years have gone on, I've I've sat down and gone, "No, that's just such a such a stock, horrible, horrible line." And then I've just unfortunately it's already on the record, so there's nothing I can do about that. But it doesn't mean I have to sing it doesn't have to sing it live every night. It's uh always makes me laugh because I'm like if if you start writing a song now about you know chasing girls living that sort of rock and roll life does your wife kind of look over and think what's going on Mickey what you doing man who's Tabitha exactly it's just a fictitious name you know it's one of them name that's how many Tabithas have you met I didn't even know it was a name so um It's definitely it is funny. I have I've had you know she she knows I'm a songwriter. She knows I have to this is what I do for a living and I have to write stories and I have to you know if you're writing as much as I've written over the years you you'd have to be a complete fool to think that I've had that that much success in love and lost love. But nice to think though. Yeah. Well, you know, a boy can dream. Oh, definitely. And then you've got your self-titled album. Um, I believe it's your 10th album, isn't it, that uh released? Yeah. Yeah, I was counting through and I don't know if I included the live albums in Germany and at Billy Bobs. I guess I did. So, I think this is your 10th U album, which is incredible. Uh, not everything's on Spotify either, um, as I discovered. Uh, and I'm glad I did more more research. So, it went all the way back. And where where can people find like your older songs and how how can they kind of play those ones besides kind of buying the CDs and the old school method? Man, to be honest with you, I think that we we as a uh a band and a company need to to get in and and re-release a lot of that stuff because we did being those CDs were um you know, they're 20 years old, 24 years, 23 years old. So, um I think a lot of that we just kind of discontinued. We still have probably thousands of them in CDs in a warehouse somewhere. But as far as, you know, like you say, nobody has CDs anymore. So, I think that we really need to uh to sit down and and figure out which ones are on Spotify or on whatever the the way to get a hold of them on online. Uh because I I really don't know what's what's available and what's not. Believe it or not, I don't go buy my own music. So, I I'm glad you said something. I might have to bring it up in the next meeting. Yeah, you should, mate. I think it'll be good to kind of go all the way back and, you know, for people to to listen and, you know, we've been to a few gigs recently and u, you know, we've supported artists over in the UK and and touring and things like that. And uh vinyl has made a massive kind of resurgence over the last few years, you know. Is that is that a thing at your gigs as well where people wanting and signed vinyl and and stuff like that? Yeah, 100%. We um we're selling more more vinyl than we're selling uh I think I think we probably going to sell probably like four or 500 CDs and where we used to sell four or 5,000 the first week, you know, and now everybody's just downloading it. But uh off off the stage, yeah, vinyl is it's flying. It's it's uh it's in demand so much that we had to order it. Uh that was the first thing that we had to get accomplished as soon as the record was uh mastered and ready to go to pressing was we kind of had to almost uh base our uh CD release or our record release around when that vinyl was going to be done because it gets backed up and then if they have a glitch or anything like that. But it is they're so backed up that um it's uh it's yeah it's that in demand I guess is the the best way to put it. Cool mate. Cool. So um I'm going to hand it back to Ronny. I've got a fly attacking me in his studio. I don't know if not not you this time. I had like monster fly coming in last time but it's a nightmare. I need to start dusting more in his studio. It says a lot about me. But anyway, as I was saying, uh I think it's over to Ronny. So, I've been talking a lot. Um but I think now Ronny's been got he's got some burning questions to ask. No, I've I've actually got to do one thing that TJ told me to do. So, bear with me. Wasn't me that told him to do this. [ __ ] you. And I almost wore my Dodger hat. So, I got a confession, Ronnie, to make. Yeah, I know. I know. You set me up. I know. As usual. Funny. I'm now looking around see how close my Red Sox hat is. So, uh I always test Ronnie to see if he reads anything or notices to text us. Yeah. And he said, uh, oh, he's a he's a a massive Red Sox fan. Massive. Yeah. And uh I just said, well, have you got Yankees out? You know, I'm sure he said he's a a Yankees fan. Yeah. So that's awesome. Um that's it's funny. I uh I grew up a Dodger fan and uh living out here I've I've obviously watched the Red Sox a ton and um it's it's been a lot of fun. I like the uh the rivalry uh with the Red Sox and Yankees. It's it's been in my family my whole my whole life. My dad's a Yankee fan. My brother Cody's a Yankee fan. My mom and uh my brother Willie are both Red Sox fans. And uh me and my brother Gary were Dodger fans. So we have had uh we're a baseball family and uh uh it's been fun. I got to go to the World Series when uh the Dodgers uh played the Red Sox. Got to go to one game here at Fenway and uh it was funny. I was I got the tickets through the organization. So I I had to wear um I had to wear we were sitting behind home plate. I had to wear a Red Sox uh shirt and uh I was wearing a Red Sox shirt and hat, which I'm fine with because I love the Red Sox, but I did wear Dodger socks just just to hold it true. Yeah, but it was kind of great. It had my two favorite teams were playing each other in the World Series. It was awesome. And then uh last year was the Yankees and Dodgers. So that was also uh that was really fun. And I never didn't ever think I'd I'd get to uh get to see both of uh both the the Dodgers, believe my my family's other teams. So, I've now got to see it and um guess we just need to go back and and beat the Red Sox one more time and we'll be we'll be even Steven. Absolutely. One of the goals. So, you reckon Ronnie should burn that hat live on live? I mean, do it now. I'm not saying I'd burn it, but I mean, just toss it out the window, maybe. Yeah. If it accidentally flew off your head when you were driving down the road with the window open or something, that would be by accident on purpose. Yeah, you know, maybe accidentally set it in the oven or something like that. I'd have the police knocking on the door going, "Why are you burning something in the back garden?" Yeah. What? nothing. Anyway, oh Mickey, uh we have a playlist. It's exclusive for all of our listeners, uh and all of the artists that we meet, uh on here and on the road and all that sort of stuff. So, I wanted to know, could you choose two songs out of your list of your songs that you'd like us to add to this playlist so that people can see and hear what you do? Um, I would say for be a little more versatile, I would do like uh once in a lifetime girl, which is a ballad, kind of a a train beat shuffley song, and um that's more country. And then I would play something to be on the other end of that. I would play um Bloodshot and that I would those two songs kind of and then you can take those two songs and pretty much go anywhere in between. You're going to find that sound. Awesome. And it at least gives you an idea of how country it can be and how rocking it can be. Perfect choice. Perfect choice. only because the choice that I made on my list was one that you just made. So, it's a perfect choice. So, that's it. Excellent. Rodeo. Rodeo girl. I was going to say all week. Awesome. I love that. What was What one was on your list that was the same? Bloodshot. Bloodshot. Yeah, on mine. Yeah. I'm doing it again. Who you talking? I think you're looking at him. We'll get used to it in a bit. Anyway, yeah, Bloodshot and Rodeo Girl was on my list. So, um nice, perfect, perfect choice. Um so, I want to talk to you about the rugged revival community. I lost my my place then. Give us two seconds. Um and what we tried to do with Rug Revival is we started it as a community. Um, and as you know from our introduction, um, it's about the roots, Americana, and country all together. And what we try to do is every time we interview an artist is we try and, um, see if that artist has got anybody that they want to shout out, if they've got any emerging talent, if they see any emerging artists or bands that are sort of going around just to give someone a bit of a shout out on here and give them an opportunity to to see how how great they are. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you guys ever heard of uh, Caitlyn Buts? Yeah, man. I'm just kidding. Uh, no. You know, I always Sorry, I'm a real smart ass. Well, it deserves us, right? I always um No, I'm trying to think of some some people that are they're that are really uh killing it right now, but um I always kind of lean towards my buddy Jason Edy. He's been around for a really long time and I'm sure you guys have heard of him, but uh for those of you that are listening that haven't heard of him, he is probably one of my faves out there. And um and then same goes for Jeff Crosby. uh do a lot of co-writing with Jeff and uh Gary does a lot of co-writing. Willie does he's he's probably our our family coowwriter is who I would put him as uh on the list. He's he's written a lot of songs with all of us and he puts out killer albums and his band is hot as [ __ ] and um they they tour more than more than we do by a long shot. They they are the the quintessential still in the van every single day going somewhere band. And uh for those of you that haven't heard of Jeff Crosby, that's that's who I would that'd be actually the top of my list to check out. Perfect. Definitely go listen to him and and you know it will be I I'll get TJ to do some shout outs as well to to help people to to listen to him. And if you haven't heard of Caitlyn Buts, then perhaps just go on Spotify, have a listen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She's doing great. Oh, she's blowing up massively. And she she seems like she's a good laugh as well. Um Yeah, she's great, man. We had we've been doing shows with her for a long time and we had her up at our uh festival a year before last and uh it might have been last year, I can't remember. Either way, been doing a lot of shows with her over the last few years and she is she's a cut up man. She's she's exactly how she seems. Just kind of a fun fungo going and uh great musician and just good. If you can open any doors, Mickey, to get Caitlyn on the show, we'd uh appreciate it. Are you joking? The message we've done so far. Well, you guys were a pretty good time. I think she'd eat us alive. Uh but you know, they're a good time. Delete them. Delete them and block them. Yeah. So talking about emerging artists, Kenbur um if we had uh if you had an opportunity to give some advice to any emerging artists or bands after your time, your experience and what you've done, what would you what would be the top three bits of advice you give them? top three would probably be uh I would say really make sure that you're ready to go uh play live shows before you go out and start playing live shows if you have the opportunity. It's good to start playing in little little honky tonks and whatnot, but you're not really going to do yourself any favors if you're if you're horrible. And that doesn't mean that you're horrible. It just means you're you're not good enough for people to really give a [ __ ] about you yet. So, I would say make sure you you feel comfortable on stage and feel comfortable with the songs and feel comfortable with the musicianship. That would be number one for me. If I could go back, I probably would have spent a little more time uh woodshedding with the band and practicing, rehearsing, getting more solid before getting thrown in front of a lot more people than I thought I was going to right out of the gate. So, I wish I would have been a little bit better at my skill then than I was when I got started. So, that's one. Number two, I would say try and make sure that it's it's a big thing. If you're going to be a touring artist by yourself or band, doesn't matter. The people that you surround yourself with, you got to know that you're going to be around them just like you would a husband or wife or partner or whatever, you are with these people 24 hours a day for the majority of the year. So, if you're signing somebody up, you better either be willing to deal with their [ __ ] or or do your homework or they better be one of one of your best friends because it's a you're around people the same people on a regular basis. So, I would I would keep an eye out for that right out of the gate. And um I would say number three is I I would steer away from getting the tattoo until after you've been together for at least 10 years. Are you saying you've got a Mickey and a Motorcars tattoo? I do. Where where is it? Dare I ask? It's on the the lower part of my back. On it on his ass. Uh yeah, I got to tell you what, the O is not really a tattoo. Um it's it's on my calf. It's on my right calf and it's just the uh the M logo. Love it. Oh, Mickey, I wish I wish I had some of that advice before I started this with TJ, let me tell you, cuz all of them points we've just hit. Um anyway, Anyway, right. Uh, moving on. So, thank you for that and fantastic advice. Amazing advice from a pro. So, you heard it here first. There you go. Um, now, guess what we've got, TJ? Guess what we've got now? We've got the gossip section. Oh god, this is my favorite bit. Obviously, you know, we've we've had a few artists on. We've done a gossip section. Um, Kerry Lick was our last artist on on this show. Now, yeah. Um, I will read out these questions and I'm gonna I'll let you guess whether we had a conversation with Kerry or not about it. So, this question is courtesy of Kerry Lick, who smashed her appearance on our last show. If you were stranded on a desert island with some form of playing records, what would it be? With who playing what? the the records. If you were if you were on a desert island, what record would you would you most likely have? What would be your favorite? I would probably have uh real animal Alejandro Esco. Interesting. Is that going to lead into what is this leading up to, bro? Next question, what and how many shows can Kerry Lick open for you going forward? And then the third question, would you tour the UK with Kerry Lick and when? Anyway, um on a side note before you answer them, I want to know one more question from me. What is Mickey's top three goals? My top three goals. Got top three goals could be three, six, nine months, 12 months, 16 years, whatever you want. Well, number one goal is to uh stay on the road. Always continue to uh play music on the road and entertain. Uh, second goal is to keep the band happy, keep my family happy, and that usually alludes to me being happy. And I would say the last goal would be to be a major league baseball player. Still time. You can still play for the young. I was I was as good as two Major League Baseball players right now. There's still the chance. Well, I'm sure we'll come back in a very short time and you would have done all three to be honest. Uh so then we can come back and talk about it if you'd if you'd want to come on again. I don't think you would, but Oh, I'd love to. I'm having a blast. Good. Good. Um that's that's it for me. You'll be happy to know. That's it for me. I'll let you answer the Kerry Lick questions uh after this bit. Yeah, whenever you want to answer them and we'll get some dates. Um TJ, over to you. Well, yeah. I mean, Carrie Lick was meant to leave us a voice message that we were going to play to you, Mickey, you know, being your biggest fan and the fact that she wrote a song with uh the Mickey car's name in it, you know, her latest single. So, yeah, bit disappointed in her, but we still ask the question. Starruck. Starruck. She was. She was, mate. You still got it, Mickey. You still got it. But, uh, excellent. So, are we playing a game, Ronnie? I don't know. Have we got one this week? Yes, we have, actually. So, it's not It's not enough for me. Um, so, well, you haven't done the You haven't done the theme tune yet. Let me gives me time to find it first. I've forgotten what we're doing. What theme tune are we playing this week? Banjos, do you remember? No. What you saying? Hold on. Hold on. Oh my god. Hold on. Tell me wh which one is it? The yee-haw one. No, that's at the end. Do you remember? For God's sake. What is the matter with you? Honestly, let's just go into it. Forget the theme tune. Let's just go into it. Well, Mickey, you're very dis you'll be very disappointed in that cuz it's it was Buck Owens that done the theme tune before. Um I know it. Hold on. Hold on. This one. That one. Buckaroo. There you go. Um, right. So, the game today is going to be truth or lie. Um, and it's going to be TJ against Mickey. I'm going to guess who's going to win it. Um, so round one, bananas grow on trees. Truth or lie? Mickey, over to you. True. True. TJ. True. Yeah. I'm just going to copy a lie. Yes, they do. They grow on giant herbs that look like trees but technically aren't. Round two. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. TJ, me first. Go on. Yeah, I'll mix it up. Why not? No, I'd love it to be. Uh, I'm going to say lie. It's actually true. What? Would you believe it? Scotland fully leaned into the mythical creature life. Round three. NASA has a plan for what to do if Earth is contacted by aliens. Is this true or false, Mickey? A false. TJ, I'm going to say true because they love aliens and all that [ __ ] out there. TJ's up one. TJ's up one. Woohoo. There's some protocol, but it's vague and mostly involved. Scientists arguing or do. Maybe they know more about Mars than we than they're letting on. Absolutely. Conspiracies. Round four. The moon smells like cheese. True or false, Mickey? False. TJ, true. How would you know? You're absolutely right. It's lies. Absolute lies. Astronauts say moon dust smells more like burnt gunpowder. So, less brie, more barbecue. We'll do two more. Two more and then you'll be happy to know we're over. Um, round five. Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender. True or false, Mickey? TJ, false. I'm going to go against the grain. Mickey, you're absolutely right. It's true. Uh, before becoming president, he co-owned a bar called Berry and Lincoln. There you go. Round six. A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. True or false, Mickey? True. TJ, I think I remember doom scrolling and I saw that as true. Pretty sure you are both correct. TJ is on two. Mickey, you're on three. We'll do one more. Sharks can live in fresh water. True or false? You asking? Yeah, Mickey. Sorry. Uh, I'm going to say uh true. TJ, false. Mickey, you're absolutely right. You won. It is true. Sort of. The bull shark can is basically the Jeep Wrangler of sharks. So, there you go. Play the banos. No, play the yee-haw where. Okay. So, forget the Tonight Show and stuff like that. You've been on the Rugged Revival, mate. You know, this is the height of your career so far. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And Mickey, you won that. So, um, well done. Congratulations. You will get a buttered cactus, buttered cactus trophy in the post. You listen to the Kerry Link show, you'll understand. Um, I love it. CJ, over to you. Right. So, is it like a a melted butter cactus now? Yeah, sort of. I I I'll have to try and find the picture for you, but we we do talk a lot of [ __ ] I we we promise you there's only a few more questions, mate. Um before it descends into absolute chaos, but uh but in terms of, you know, things coming up, you know, we we've seen your tour schedule uh for the rest of the year, which is around the States and you've got your your awesome um Brawn Brothers reunion in August that we spoke about. Do you have any uh plans at any stage to come to the UK? That's the question we always love to ask. Um, you know, the answer, the answer is true. Um, yes, we do. We don't have anything uh in the mix as far as dates on the line, but um I really do want to get back over in in that neck of the woods uh sooner than later. And to be honest with you, it's probably going to be sooner than later because we usually do it in between uh records. So, since we just put one out, I can only imagine that uh we'll probably be looking at something hopefully next year. And um that's my that would be my goal. And if for some reason I can't get over there full band, I might even try and do like a little shooter over there just acoustic by myself or run over there with my brother Willie or something like that. And uh and kind of pop around for 10 days, play some shows and then uh it's not nearly as hard to do from uh from Boston, you know. It's a little bit easier. It's about half halfway to Boston or halfway there from Texas, but uh when you when you live here, it's it's really not that not that bad. So, I'm hoping to get over there, like I say, uh maybe maybe early early spring or something like that. We're going to write that down, mate, and then check in back in. But if you need uh two old overweight roadies, me and Ronnie are your guys. Uh perfect. So, keep us in mind for that, dude. But, uh, got good. Any one of you can drive. Yeah, Ronny's got a huge truck. Actually, we've we've actually got the rugged revival truck. I was looking for a driver. There we go. Ronny's your man for that. Absolutely. But, uh, on the flip side, mate, um, me and Ronnie might actually be heading out to Texas uh, this year. Yeah. So, for the very first time, the Rugged Revival might be on tour. Uh we're just sorting the logistics of it out and it probably be later in the year around October time we're thinking. Um that's smart. Hopefully it's a bit cooler then because I hear it's just like you know with burn to a crisp or just you know exploding brutal but at the same time um you know it it really doesn't start cooling down until midocctober. Uh so it'd be a good time to come late October but depends on where you're going. They do have AC in every building there. So that is a good one nice thing about the United States is we do have a lot of air conditioning. Yes. What a treat for TJ that will be profusely sweating in every shop and looking an absolute mess. But uh yeah, that's awesome, man. So we I think it'll be around the kind of Dallas Fort Worth area, but we're going to try and get about as much as possible uh in the time frame that we've got. probably a week or so. Um, nice. But if you were to pick one or two things that that you think we should experience while we're out there, what would be your kind of go-to um things? Um, well, if you're you're going to be there obviously for music, if you're in the Fort Worth area, I forgot to mention this place, but Billy Bob's uh Texas where we recorded our live album years ago. Um, it's still one of the uh I would say one of the most uh interesting cool places to see uh a music show. Basically, it's it's amazing. It It just blows your mind when you walk in the door of the place how enormous it is for a dance hall vibe. I mean, it's it's like walking into the biggest honky tonk bar, which is exactly what it is that you can imagine. But it's I mean, holds thousands of people and um they got a rodeo arena inside the bill. I mean, it's just it's everything you could kind of try to picture in your head, but uh it's you you don't believe it until you see it. So, if you're in that area, go down to the stockyards. Stockyards is worth checking out regardless. Great food. They uh they run the Longhorn steers down the uh the main street every day and that's kind of fun to watch. They have a gun chewed out and it's pretty pretty kind of a cool western vibe. Um and it's I don't know, it's a great place. And if you're over in Dallas, um there's all kinds of great places. There's always great shows at the Granada Theater, which we just played there, and there's great food everywhere there. Barbecue, obviously. If you're going to go back to Fort Worth, what I was talking about Stockyards, go up to Cooper's Barbecue. Uh they're right there behind Billy Bobs, and that's my my favorite barbecue up there. Awesome. In that neck of the woods. And if you have time to get down to Austin, I highly recommend you take a trip down and spend a night running around Austin because there's some great shows. And uh what a great live, it's the live music capital of the world. So, you can always go find some really fun stuff and hit Steve up on that and have him shoot me a line. I can uh send you guys an email or whatever to uh the places that I would go check out on the night that you're going to be there cuz there's some some pretty good gems on off nights that uh you can always check out. And also again back to the barbecue and the the text, the food is is worth the trip. Amazing. Oh, we appreciate you mate. You know these uh Ronnie, are you writing these down mate? That's uh I am. Yeah, I am. We've got to I mean I want to go to stockyards anyway. I was I was emailing Ronnie with these these clothes shops because we got to blend in Mickey. So Oh yeah. I was thinking like pearl snap shirts, these massive cowboy hats like the biggest hat. Yeah. Yeah. I assume that's what everyone else is wearing. So it would be like Dumb and Dumber turning up and you know AB. It's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I know. You'd be surprised how well you'll uh you'll fit in. I was going to say you could tell us anything just to get us back for the Yankee set. So, uh, we'll take it with a pinch of salt. Yeah. Yeah, mate. But, is there anything else that you want to plug that perhaps we haven't covered on the show already? Anything else that you're doing? Anything else that where you're going? What do you want to say, mate? Man, really, honestly, I've just enjoyed being on the show with you guys, and I think we have covered pretty much everything with the new record being out and um, we're just kind of doing our normal tour schedule. So, if anybody is over in the States and you guys want to check out our our schedule, just look up Mickey and the Motorc Cars and uh it'll all pop up and be able to see where we're at. And if uh you come out to a show, try and come up and let me know that this is this is where you found out about us. I'll get a I'll get a good laugh at it. You heard the man. Go check it out. Well, Ronnie, you're so good at closing the show, mate. I will uh hand over to you to um Vicki, I I I wanted to tell you that um it's been an absolute pleasure and it's been an honor to to have you on the show. Thank you so much for putting up with us uh because I know it's been mental at some points. There's been some random questions put in there, but you know what? It's been an absolute laugh and I'm I'm so happy that you come on uh to join us. I do want to end with some comments that I always try to to search some comments from social media. um that some of your fans leave for you uh on all different sites and all different platforms. Um so if you wouldn't mind, I'm just going to go for some comments. Um so one is uh there's something in the way Mickey sings that makes you feel like he's been through every line and he probably has. Um but that that reminds me of what you just said in the last few comments saying, "Yeah, do you think I had that that many breaks?" Um Mickey Brawn doesn't chase trends, he chases truth, and you hear it in every note. Some artists perform. Mickey connects. Whether it's a dive bar or a festival stage, he makes the whole place feel like a living room. He's not just writing songs. He's archiving the little heartbreaks and hopes we all carry around. Mickey's voice has this dust on the dashboard warmth. You put on a motorcar's record and suddenly you're home. There's a grit to Mickey's delivery, but there's tenderness in it, too. Like a worn leather jacket that still smells like cedar. He writes like a poet and plays like a brother. You don't just admire Mickey Brawn, you trust him. And that is all the comments that absolutely just describe you. Everything there is just you're you're an incredible showman. Uh your band is incredible. Um and thank you very much for joining us. So we'll do a last toast if that's all right. Got a cup or something around you. Soft drink, booze, whatever you got. So we like to raise a toast to the grit, to the grind, and to the revival. Cheers everyone for listening and thanks Mickey. Cheers. Cheers.

Keep listening

Related Episodes

Anna Victoria

Inside North Carolina's Appalachian Music Scene | Anna Victoria

Anna Victoria joins Camden for an honest conversation about growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, discovering her voice as a songwriter and navigating life as an independent Country and Americana artist. We talk about learning to perform live, protecting her voice, finding confidence on stage, the influence of Appalachian music and artists such as Luke Combs, Sierra Ferrell and Dolly Parton, balancing music with motherhood, and the challenge of staying creative in a world driven by social media. It's a thoughtful conversation about music, family, creativity and staying true to yourself while building a career in independent music. Chapters 00:00 – Introductions, Weaverville, childhood. 02:00 – Singing, vocal health and beginning her musical journey. 06:00 – The pandemic, booking gigs and developing as a live performer. 09:00 – Coping with distractions, confidence and performing. 12:00 – Appalachian influences, Luke Combs, Sierra Ferrell, Dolly Parton and mountain songwriting. 15:00 – Family life, being a stay-at-home mum, social media and balancing music with everyday life. #lukecombs #sierraferrell #dollyparton Subscribe to The Rugged Revival. Share it with your friends. Support independent music! Listen to the full podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wnHcgA73o1aiiKaz882vH?si=30aabdaa220a4628 Follow The Rugged Revival: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theruggedrevival/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theruggedrevival Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094507520679 Website: www.theruggedrevival.com Email: ruggedrevival@hotmail.com

14 July 2026· 22:27

Ben Morrison

The Brothers Comatose: Ben Morrison on 18 Years of Music, Family & Touring

Ben Morrison of The Brothers Comatose joins the Rugged Revival Podcast for an honest conversation about nearly two decades ...

9 July 2026· 51:23

Pat Reedy

Pat Reedy on Busking, Nashville & Building a Country Music Career

Pat Reedy joins Camden to discuss leaving construction behind for country music, busking in New Orleans, life in Nashville, ...

7 July 2026· 22:43

Mike Tod

Keeping Traditional Folk Music Alive in Nashville | Mike Tod Podcast

Mike Tod joins Camden to discuss traditional folk music, Canadian roots, life in Nashville, forgotten songs, unusual instruments and why preserving musical history still matters today.Originally from Canada and now based in Nashville, Mike explores the stories behind traditional songs, the connections between folk music around the world and how old music continues to influence modern artists. We also discuss his unique "Crankenstein" instrument, musical curiosity, collecting songs from the past and the importance of keeping traditions alive for future generations.Chapters00:00 Introduction00:00:30 Growing Up in Canada00:02:20 Discovering Music & The Crankenstein00:04:10 The Story Behind The Crankenstein00:05:20 Drones, Folk Traditions & Ancient Music00:08:10 Learning Guitar & Performing Original Songs00:09:40 Accessing Traditional Music in the Digital Age00:11:20 Researching Music History00:12:10 Playing The Crankenstein Live00:14:00 Creating Atmospheric Sounds & Live Performance00:16:00 Traditional Songs & Musical Origins00:17:50 The Artists Influencing Mike Today00:19:20 Studying Philosophy & Creative Thinking00:22:00 Horror, Heavy Music & Folk Culture00:24:00 Scottish Heritage & Family History00:27:10 Final ThoughtsSubscribe to The Rugged Revival. Share it with your friends. Support independent music!Listen to the full podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wnHcgA73o1aiiKaz882vH?si=30aabdaa220a4628Follow The Rugged Revival:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theruggedrevival/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theruggedrevivalFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094507520679Website: www.theruggedrevival.comEmail: ruggedrevival@hotmail.com

23 June 2026· 27:13