Nashville. Scratching the surface.
Emmy award winning songwriter Andrew Rollins and songwriter and broadcaster Alison Craig talk about the songs, the songwriters, the highs, lows, heartbreaks and beyond of Nashville.
Guests give their insight into the process, the town and the highs and lows within.
Andrew has 9 songs on Nashville The Show and a million stories to tell.
Find out where and how some of the best known songs in the world were written.
Meet some of the extraordinary people who are working and living there now.
40 years of songwriting experience and he lays it bare.
Subscribe to Nashville, Scratching the Surface and be sure not to miss a thing.
Nashville. Scratching the surface.
Ep. 6 Nashville Star Charles Esten aka Deacon Claybourne joins the podcast for The Christmas Special
Text us here - we would love to hear from you
Andrew and Charles (Chip) have written dozens of songs together. Their friendship is long and close and so this is an exclusive conversation where you will learn a lot more about the star of Nashville, his background, where he started, how felt auditioning for the part of Deacon. We hear of his true loves; his family, pianos, Nashville, LA and Edinburgh and we play I Wont Cry For Christmas their beautiful Xmas song...and a lot more besides. Buckle up...it's a cracker!
Spoiler Alert. If you are not up to speed with Nashville the series there are storylines discussions which may reveal plot lines you havent yet heard!
https://nashville.buzzsprout.com
Hi, and welcome along to Nashville Scratching the Surface. My name's Allison Craig.
SPEAKER_01:My name's Andrew Rollins.
SPEAKER_00:And we've got a very special episode for you today. One of your oldest friends, Andrew.
SPEAKER_01:One of my oldest and dearest friends and one of my favorite people, Charles Eston, who everyone knows him as Deacon Claiborne, on the television show Nashville. So he was had a show called Outer Banks, which ran for four seasons, I think. It's our Christmas special.
SPEAKER_00:It is our Christmas special. And you two actually wrote a Christmas song, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01:We did. I won't cry at Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's great. Well, I reckon we can, with your permission and Charles's permission, maybe play a bit of it.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And then maybe play the whole thing at the end. Here he comes.
SPEAKER_01:Hello. Hi. Hey Chip, how are you? I'm fine. How are you doing? I'm feeling good. Good, good. It's good to hear it. Good to see you. Good to see you. This is Allison. Allison is a huge fan.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Tini E. How are you? I'm great. Thank you very much. How are you?
SPEAKER_02:I'm doing very well. I'm um doing very well now that my friend Andrew's doing very well.
SPEAKER_01:Allison lives in Scotland, in Edinburgh. Ooh. Yeah. Edinburgh.
SPEAKER_00:Edinburgh. Yeah. So uh I know you're heading over here at the beginning of next year, which is great.
SPEAKER_02:We are. Will you come see us?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, try and stop me.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think I will. By the way, love Scotland. Edinburgh is my favorite. No, no, no, no. There's no place like Edinburgh.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I love the way you actually see Edinburgh as well, because a lot of people. Is there?
SPEAKER_02:There's nowhere like it. Andrew, it's just unbelievable. We just What's the castle up at the top of everything that you know?
SPEAKER_00:Edinburgh Castle right in the center. That's what it's called.
SPEAKER_02:It's called the Edinburgh Castle. Yeah. That's a great name for it. And uh down from all the streets. There's even a place, Andrew, called Deacons. It's a famous N'erduel who actually was very well respected in the community. And that they found out is at night he was robbing everybody blind. If that's not the most deacon thing you can think of. Am I right? You know what I'm talking about, right?
SPEAKER_00:Deacon Brody, I knew exactly where it is. It's like 100 yards from the castle. Yeah, absolutely. Slap bang in the middle of it all.
SPEAKER_02:So you I will definitely go back there. I always go there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh well. It's a yeah, it's a good bar. I'll meet you in there for a pint.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, for sure, for sure. Allison's uh and her husband have three restaurants in Edinburgh. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02:Well then I have to go to one of those for sure. That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well, put us in touch. Uh and so we can uh I can find out where those are. That'd be great.
SPEAKER_00:Great. Very close to Deacon Brody's, funnily enough. Is it really nearly literally it's about a three-minute walk? Absolutely. It's just off the Royal Mile.
SPEAKER_02:So let me ask you, there's three. The restaurant you're talking about. What year was the building, the restaurant you own, and you're talking about right now near Deacon Brody's. What year was that built?
SPEAKER_00:Well, do you know it it's medieval, so it's old. I can tell it is crazy. And uh the the actual it's got some uh stone arches like that, and they were actually originally the stables for the people that were living in Edinburgh Castle. So, you know, the obviously we've done them up since then. There's no remnant, of course. Yeah, but yeah, so it's a really old, really old building.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we think we know old, like Andrew's that we're in LA, and like we go, this this building was built in 1914. Everybody's like, oh then you go to the UK, this was built in seven.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's a joy to to have you on on the podcast. Uh thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. See, I'm showing all the swag in the background there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no serious, absolutely. I'm still waiting for my album to come.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I did I will okay. Patty, did you hear that? All right, we'll get you that. Um, by the way, this I just realized this. See this? The Beverly. Deacon, after Raina died, bought a bar, which is a thing an alcoholic shouldn't do, probably, but he named it after his sister who had died as well. And it was called the Beverly. And one day before we left, I just saw one of these on the bar and I just grabbed it. So I I still got that. I got my swag all over.
SPEAKER_00:That's stolen goods, absolutely. That's a nice piano, is it? A piano piano. Is what it's a nice piano behind you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, oh yeah. This this one. This I this I tell you what, the story behind this one is when I was in Los Angeles, very, very near to you, Andrew. I went to a church in uh North Hollywood on um Magnolia, right at the underpass there. And every day after church, I would we'd go to the hall where everybody would meet and uh talk afterwards, have a little food and uh fellowship. And there were one, two, three. There might have been five pianos in that room, two against the wall, three against the wall, and two grands. And just over the years, every time a piano wore out in the church, they would just wheel it over into the fellowship hall. And I was always playing on this one. And then one day Patty and I bought our new house um over on Addison Street uh in Van Ryze, and our pastor very kindly surprised us with this piano. He said, You play that more than anybody else. I want you to have that. So it was in our home there, Andrew. And then when we moved here, we brought it here. So um I got it here. One other quick story. We haven't even started. I I can never shut up. Um perfect guest. When Deacon, um Andrew, you wrote you were on This Town, right?
SPEAKER_01:I wrote This Town.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's what I mean. You were one of the writers, yeah.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. That um piano that Deacon plays it on, and Scarlet's beside him on a banjo. When it when the show finished, they had like a big sale of anybody that wanted anything, and I knew I had to have that piano. So I bought that piano. But I already had this, and this fits the wall better, and that was a smaller spin it, I guess they call it. So I had that in the basement down where I have my some of my music stuff. But then my daughter and her now husband moved into a place over in the nations, and when they showed it to me, I walked in and I saw that wall, and I was like, So, right now, my daughter and her husband, both singer-songwriters, have Deacon's piano right there, and they both use it all the time, and it's gone into writing their songs and everything. That that's just really special to me. So, thanks for thanks for that, Andrew.
SPEAKER_01:That's um great song. You know, um uh Allison, I'll tell you a little bit about when I met Chip.
SPEAKER_02:Um was it the real bluebird or the one that we built?
SPEAKER_01:The um sound the one at this studio.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the one we built at the sound stages. Allison, I don't know if you've heard this, but for the pilot episode, I believe just the pilot, we were in the bluebird. We later we went back to the bluebird for sure, but we knew that it was going to be central to the story and that therefore we would not be able to take over the bluebird as much as we would need to, the actual bluebird. It's uh very important work to do. So they built a uh a faux bird FAUX up at the sound stages. But when I tell you it was an exact replica, I mean it. I mean they they they photocopied all the eight by ten headshots from all the ages on the wall, yeah, and they put them exactly where they were, everything was exactly where it was. Uh, Erica Wallems ran the place, stood at our door in the same way she stood at the bluebird door. We had Jimmy the bartender, was our Jimmy the bartender at the bar. It was it was extraordinary. So you came along to one of those tapings. Do you remember what I was singing or what we were doing?
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't remember what it was, but then afterwards we met. We walked out to the parking area where all the trailers were. Sure. The airstreams, I think most of them were. They looked like airstreams.
SPEAKER_02:And um, Connie had the airstream. We uh it was nice. That was hers. Oh, that was hers. We all had uh we all had regular uh Winnebago types, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right, and uh we you and I started talking, and I said, Um, well, do you write? And uh you said yeah, and I said, let's get together and write. And the next day we got together and wrote. Yep, yep, yep. And I the first song we wrote, I was trying to remember this. I think it was um we wrote it with Jada.
SPEAKER_02:Um was it um was did we write it at my house with Jada? And was it um uh I won't fall in love with you tonight? I won't fall in love with you tonight. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's a gorgeous song. Deacon and Raina should have sang that song. It was beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it was. I've sung it over years with Jada, and it's perfect. Of course, she's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but um yeah, and Chip and I have written, I think, 20-some songs, um uh, which none of made it to his album. Uh no, no uh no thorn in my side with that. But no, um Chip is such a dear friend. The last three years that I've gone through all of this, the medical issues I've had. Um Chip has been such a a friend. Uh even came out to LA um and we had lunch or breakfast, I can't remember, but um he's one of those uh people that has made such an indelible impression on me.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and well, right back at you, Andrew. That's just uh there was a sympatico instantly. Yeah, and uh it's kind of shocking that none of them were on the album. Believe me, it's as shocking to me as it as it is to you. You know the process, though. You you're getting in there and you're not like, well, I need to give one to this guy because we've written 20 and we're so great. And then also ultimately I think songs are scenes, and an album is a movie, and you can have the greatest scene in the world, but if it doesn't fit with the movie, if it doesn't go behind this scene or before that or into the movie, I play them all the time. Um and Andrew has a great gift. First of all, I he's just a great songwriter, but he and I really um we've we've written in every way from that upstairs here with them. We've written um on um down on music row, and we wrote one night a song, and man, here's another one that I really thought Nashville uh would have been great, called The Other Side. And we it was they were telling us that we knew that Raina, spoiler alert for anybody out there that's not cut up on their Nashville, do that. All right, Raina, yeah. We lose we lose Raina in uh season uh what season is that? Season five. And um uh we just had a bottle of bourbon, a backyard with a fire going. We I'm I'm never we wrote it outside, just sitting on chairs around a fire, just sipping on a nice bourbon, and um it's just as beautiful and heart-wrenching as you can get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, it's it's one of my favorites. Absolutely. That in the the one that we wrote uh on that piano with Emily West. Um Walls. Walls.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that I forgot about that's the most recent, actually. I gotta pull that one back out again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, they're gonna they're gonna get released one way or another, for sure. Some of these they have to. And then I'll tell you, my favorite song that we've written is the one we wrote for um possibly that show that your fan friend is producing, um about sobriety. Oh, one more day.
SPEAKER_02:One day, I love that song. That song too. Yeah, you can see we're our biggest fans, Allison.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was gonna ask when you have a relationship where you met uh and very quickly you wrote e-song or songs together. I mean, it's it's very visceral, isn't it, when you're writing a song together. So you find out a lot about each other very quickly, I imagine. Um, so you're instantly, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it reveals a lot. Um and you have to have a certain amount of grace for people because sometimes a song will pull you into a place where you're not arguing. I don't ever recall arguing over anything, um but where you're both feeling something and you're both trying to make yourself known. And and generally, what I've always found is it's sort of like the current of the river, the current of the water isn't just equal across the whole stream. There's places where it's stronger, and then there's an eddy over here. And during a riot, there'd be times when you're just sitting in an eddy and you're not feeling the current, but the person you're with feels the current more strongly. And I think I think great riders are great at going, he's feeling the current right now more a little bit more than I am, and going with the guy or gal in the current. And um, and we both do that. And Andrew just um he's very easy to get along with, and but he's first of all, another thing I love about Andrew is his musical sense and the the way he plays things on guitars. He screwed me up before because his tuning and his guitar playing is so good that it I can't I've had to learn these new tuning, this new tuning of his and play it. I have to, you know, if if I'm in a writer's round, I gotta retune this whole guitar because it doesn't sound as good. Once you've heard Andrew play it, it doesn't sound as good with just a regular A or a regular D. These changing, uh these jangly changing notes are just they're part of these songs, and and and they really hit me. That's the sweet spot. So um I have to I have to learn he's made me a better guitar player by just trying to learn these things.
SPEAKER_01:I I did a video one day. Chip called me and he goes, I need the tuning that you use on it was a song you were gonna do that we wrote with Lala, I think. Yeah, yeah. And so I I sat down and made a video and I showed him each chord, showed him how to tune it. But the you know, the thing I want to talk about.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna give it away to guitar players, CGCG C G D.
SPEAKER_00:There you are. Solid gold.
SPEAKER_01:But um is um as a songwriter and uh one of my favorite and and uh wait a second, sorry.
SPEAKER_02:Uh any good guitar player knows I just said seven notes.
SPEAKER_00:Notice I didn't.
SPEAKER_02:It's C G, C G C D. There's no G. Okay, anyway, go on. What were you gonna say now, Andrew? That's just I was gonna get it. I was not right.
SPEAKER_01:The um uh you know, we hit it the way we write, you know, there's people you write with and and you just let go, let's go have lunch, because this isn't gonna work. I've had that happen with like really well-known songwriters in Nashville. But every person that I would bring in with Chip, there was a sympatico immediately, and this uh mutual admiration kind of thing. Marcus Human, who uh every time I talk to him, have you guys written at all since you and I've written wrote with him? Uh yeah, we have a song on my album.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry, uh you asked. Yeah, Marcus is fantastic. Marcus is another one like you that brings in amazing beginnings, amazing ideas, amazing guitar that uh it takes a song. Then maybe if you guys just strummed it in a regular D or a regular G, you'd be like, I've kind of heard that before. Um, and that can easily happen because there's only so many chords, especially in country. But these inversions of these chords or these new voicings of these chords will take a chord progression that might otherwise sound, yeah, I heard that and make it brand new. Even though when you write the chords down, it's it's what we're all doing, but it sounds so ooh, and uh I that that's one of the things I love, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um have you written with Chuck Cannon?
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01:I've written with Marlo. The next time I come, I'll I would love that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We'll we'll put that together.
SPEAKER_00:So do are you a uh are you a residence of Nashville, Charles?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes, ma'am. I uh we uh came here second season. I moved here the first season. You don't lose your family on the first season of a television show. Um but at the second season we came here. We're by now we're in Brentwood, and um you know we're not planning on going anywhere. We love it here. I'm very fortunate with the life I get here. I'm heading off to play the grand old Opry again tonight. Um great when I get to do that, is that's probably the sweetest part of the sweetest thing bequeathed to me by Nashville, only in close competition with my beautiful dog Blue, um, who I also got from the show. But um, really?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's lovely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So um I'm a lucky guy, and we we uh we were never anybody that uh we were not uh LA haters at all. We raised our family there and we're happy to have done it, and we love when we get to go back. My son lives there and a bunch of our friends, but um uh we we just like it here, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, yeah. And you do a lot of live. I mean, obviously tonight, as you say, you're out the grand old Aubrey, and but you're always touring from what I gather. You're always playing live. And uh does it give you a great deal of energy? Because you always have a smile on your face and you always look like you're right, you know, you're just loving life, really.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, I just saw this thing that kind of uh yeah, forever you say about social media or something, sometimes you see uh something and it makes you go, Wow, they said that very well. And I can't remember the full thing. But the gist of it was what a blessing it is to be exhausted doing something you always wanted to do. That you doing so you doing your dreams. And that's where I am. Is it a lot sometimes? We just flew back yesterday from Sacramento and had a couple things this morning. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that I was a semi-working actor for a lot of my career, and that was a blessing because that meant I really got to raise the kids. I got to be around of all. Remember, there'd be a show that I it was up me and the other guy, me and the other guy, and then he got it. I can always remember thinking immediately, well, one more year with the kids. Um, and that was always true. And I said to my wife, I go, Well, maybe, maybe when the kids are all set and they don't quite need me as much, they're a little older, then uh maybe it'll happen then and I'll be damned.
SPEAKER_03:That's sort of just what happened.
SPEAKER_02:So a lot of this came to me older in life, especially the opening up of the music. I've always played, always written. I have, to be honest, probably gave up on performing. Um, I I thought, you know what, I could probably write. I think I'm a good enough writer that maybe I could write for other folks. Um and uh in the end, though, the the Nashville program, whether it was starting at the Bluebird or the Ryman or the Grand Old Opry, it opened up everything for me so that I I do get to do this, and I get to do it in absolute close relationship with my wife, who runs everything and makes it all happen.
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic.
SPEAKER_02:So the fact that that we get to do that, it's one of these deals where my job and my my passion overlap. So yeah, sometimes it's a lot, and sometimes you get tired, but uh there'll be time to sleep later. For right now, we're just making the most of it. I'm very grateful.
SPEAKER_01:And tell Allison a little bit about how you started out, your your entertainment career.
SPEAKER_02:Well my goodness, I was I've had a couple, we're coming up on the end, by the way, of my um Love Ain't Pretty tour. That the um the album right there. Um it's been about two years since it was released.
SPEAKER_00:And congratulations, because that that I that was your first in well, it's an independent album, you've had it out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I always said, like the other day I go, I'd like to uh like to talk a little bit about Love Ain't Pretty, which is my most recent album. And I said, by most recent album, I mean my only album.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that seems extraordinary, actually.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it that's been the fun part of these tours. I've noticed it slowly as I'm going, especially the last couple where it's just me and a guitar and a piano. And I started off talking about what this means to me, how this is the center point, and how long it took to get to it. And I noticed it slowly but surely it started with me talking that I was a songwriter from a very young age. And the proof of that is in third grade, my elementary school had a contest for who could write the school song. And they told us to take a Disney song and use that tune and put words to it. So already they were teaching us copyright infringement. Um Disney, it wasn't me. I was in third grade, don't come after me. But um, I wrote a song to the tune of It's a Small World, uh called It's a Great School, after all. And so like remember the course we it'd be Maury is a great school, and they'd all yell, yeah, Maury is anyway. I remember very clearly that it won, and that so from then on, after the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner, they would sing the Maury School song. And hearing a couple hundred kids sing something you wrote was indelible.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And crazily enough, years later, you know, I played Buddy Holly and that musical when I was in my early 20s. Years later, I went back to my elementary school because they asked if I would come talk to the kids and play on the guitar. And I'll be damned, they were still singing that song. And so that was an early taste. Then I was always writing songs on my own. I remember my grandmother uh passed when I was a freshman in in college, and I wrote a song that did what a great song can do, and and it captured essences of her, things that by now I probably would have they would have faded a little bit. But because of that song, it can really lock something in. And I just sing that song or play that song, and she's there again. So that I learned the power then. So when I then in college, I was in a band, and uh in that band we're mostly playing, 80s covers, R E M, U2, the replacements, the Ramones, the you know, all these things. But I started saying, well, what if I wrote one myself? And I remember on piano, I wrote a song um that was about our college, specific references to this bar, that bar, this beautiful place on campus. And lo and behold, on campus, it'd be everybody knew it. And everybody would sing along and dance to it. So more and more super addicted to that. Um, by the time I left college, the band members, my friends, these dear brothers of mine, fraternity brothers, they went all off into the world to do their thing, to be doctors and lawyers and such. And I mean it literally. We have doctors, we have a doctor, we have some lawyers.
SPEAKER_00:What were you studying?
SPEAKER_02:Say it again.
SPEAKER_00:What were you studying at college?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, um the word true economics was what I they told me, and told everybody I wasn't studying that hard. Thank God I met my wife, she was also studying, and it she took amazing notes, and she would get mad because uh I would use her notes and get a slightly better grade, and that would really um, but she stayed with me nonetheless. In any event, though, when it was done, I didn't know what I was gonna do. Um, I'm certain if they had been up for it, uh it would have been that. But uh, this hootie lost all his blowfish and didn't know what he was gonna do. So in that moment, what's funny is if I just realized this recently, if Nashville had been a show that was on before then, I would have gone to Nashville. I know I would have. I know I would have. It just would have been like, oh, that. Um, but I didn't know anybody there. And I wasn't even, to be honest, I wasn't even that much into country music. I started in country. All I listened to. I mean, I was into it in terms of I listened to Layland and Willie, and I listened to it, but what I was playing and what I was writing was more rock. Then in LA, I never stopped playing or writing. I was I played Buddy Holly real early, was my first job. So so that's a little rock with a little country twang. Two and played that for about two years in front of the Queen, played at the White House. So that was a whole lot of me doing what I knew, the music, while I learned what I was wanting, which was the acting. And then later, right from that, I got on Whose Line Is It Anyway, the improv show where I was making up songs off the top of my head, which to this day is far harder than sitting in a room for four hours and getting to write it with somebody else. That's why this never seems that crazy difficult to me. And uh um, but then it was, as I said, I started drifting more into the country world. A friend of mine named Jane Bach, great songwriter here in town. She went back and forth to LA in the way that Andrew has for years. And I met her, and she and I wrote a bunch of songs together that they got better and better. I really enjoyed them and really liked them. And she invited me twice to sing at the Bluebird. Twice I had to cancel because I got acting work. And at that point, I was like, when am I ever gonna get to go to Nashville? I don't think it's ever gonna happen. And God laughed, and I got a script that said Nashville, and off I went. And the next thing I knew, I was playing Deacon Claiborne, sitting in the actual Bluebird, playing a song with Pam Tillis, and um, and then this whole thing opened up and all these things that I dreamt of, but sort of not specifically. They're there's it's a bigger dream than I had in my heart or mind.
SPEAKER_00:And um Do you remember the do you remember the Nashville audition? Do you remember the moment you found out you got the rule?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was not easy. It was a long, it was a long, difficult road. Um they knew they they really wanted to get the guy, and at that point, I had never been the bang-on lead of something. I had a lot of great roles on great shows like The Office or Enlightened or Big Love or ER, things like that, but generally they were arcs on these shows, which I always thought was harder because in some ways it's easy to just go get lucky and get one show that becomes a smash hit. There was really only one or two auditions that would do that for you, and there now you're famous. I had to start brand new every time and get on ER. Now I had to get on the office. Now, so every time you're proving yourself to a new uh producer. So even though I wasn't getting those things in my heart, I said, Yeah, but you're getting time with the kids, you're learning, you're doing it, you're you're you're doing it again and again. So finally, on comes Nashville, and I go, you know what? All those guys that always beat me out at the finish line, I don't know if they know how to play guitar, I don't know if they know how to sing, I don't know if they have ever written a song. And so I felt like I really had a real shot at this. And um I went in there and I played a country song that I'd written with Jane for Deacon and played that as part of my audition. And um I've told this before, but it's so great. I I did a couple scenes first, and then I did the song. By the way, years later, Callie Curry, who is our creator of the show, she's Oscar winning for Thelma Louise, that screenplay. And um, she told me years later, she goes, Do you know what we uh interviewed hundreds of guys? Do you know you were the only person that used a guitar stand? And I was like, Wow. And I remembered I'd had one of these little tiny ones that folds up so it can go anywhere with you. And so I came in there and I opened up my stand, my and I put my guitar in it, and then I did my scenes. She said that, you know, her she's married to T-Bone Burnett. So you know, guitars are not just things you bang around. These are holy relics meant to make sacred, you know, stories. So she said half the time she'd be watching somebody do their scene, and she'd be looking over at that guitar that's about to fall off the wall, slide down the wall, or come off the table. So I don't know, I don't think that's why I got it. I'm just saying years later, it's funny the little things you don't even know. So anyway, I I did my scenes and I and I sang my songs, and when I went to walk out the door, Hayden Panachera was there, going, she'd sort of been listening at the door, and she could not have been more kind or more supportive. She goes, That was so great. And I was already a big fan of hers from Heroes. And then as I was walking away after meeting her, I said, I'll see you on the set. I had no idea, but there was a lot more auditioning to come, including the offer to somebody else, to somebody uh famous who uh at who passed at the time.
SPEAKER_00:And can we ask who that is, or is it a sort of secret? Can I ask that it was, or is it a secret? Whoever it was will be kicking themselves, obviously.
SPEAKER_02:But um uh, I don't know that it was. It was just not the right time for him. It was um let's call it a secret. I mean, it might be okay. Fair enough. Can't blame you for not. I don't know. I don't know, but the point is there were many, many bridges to cross and many mountains to, you know, and rivers to fjord before I got there um to Ford. And I but by the time I did, I remember showing up on the and and and there's Hayden. She goes, I'll see you on the set. Uh very, very well. So it was no short journey, but uh good things shouldn't be. It was a good it was a good hard one.
SPEAKER_00:And um it's almost like the screenwriter could have written it with you in mind, given your history and given, you know, I mean, in terms of well, that's that's first of all, that's very kind, but um but also in a sense it's true because they wrote the pilot without knowing me, yeah, but that's the only one they wrote without knowing me.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So as the longer you're in it, the more they do have you in mind when they're writing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:For instance, there are a couple things like uh I started calling Raina Ray. I just shortened it to Ray, like because I didn't want to say Raina every time, and I did I don't need I don't know if I meant to do it. I didn't go, I'll call her Ray. I just started calling that um I'll see you later, Ray. And and then I noticed they started writing that. My grandfather was from Buchanan, Virginia, which is just a little over the Tennessee border, not that, not that far. It's about halfway to DC from Nashville. And um he had a rich mollify uh deep southern southern accent like that, Virginia boy. And he called people Darlin all the time. How you doing, Darling? So Deacon, Darling, Darling, I don't, I don't know what I don't know what we're gonna do tonight. You know, so he did a lot of darlings started just slipping into it, and then I noticed they started to type a lot of darlings along the wild way and putting in a and sometimes they just you would have I'd have trouble understanding how something why it was there, what it was meant. And they were always really great about that. I think great writers know, hey, it's what I said about the current before. This actor's feeling a current, he's feeling drawn a certain way, and this is not moving him, this is moving him. And so one time, I'll I'll give you an example. Uh, there was a scene where Deacon is cleaning his gutter at his house over on Bosco Bell in in Germantown, not Germantown, in East Nashville. First of all, I love that. All praise to the writers that who when have you ever seen a guy just cleaning his gutters? So Deacon's up front of ladder, cleaning his gutters, taking leaves out. And Avery comes around because he's dating his niece Scarlett, and they have some little interchange, and then an Avery goes, huh? And Deacon goes, What? And he goes, I'm I'm sorry, just I never thought you liked me. And Deacon goes, What are you talking about? I like you fine. And then um, later in that same episode, he's doing a scene with Scarlett, and she says, You never liked Avery. Deacon says, Fine, I never liked him. And I didn't know much about Deacon at this point, but I did know this. He told you what he thought. He wouldn't say one thing to one person and one thing to another. Either he didn't, so I'm saying all this on a conference call to uh a bunch of writers on a speakerphone back in LA. And I go, so he's either got to like him and say so to everybody, or he's got to not like him and tell him to his face. And then I said, but more importantly, what I like him, I don't like him. I go, what was this, seventh grade? You know, and I said, What am I what am I supposed to do? And I said off the top of my head, I go, what am I supposed to do? Hand him a balloon every time I see him? And uh, and they said, Okay, we understand. And then I got the script back, and she saw him, she said, You never like to ever go, I can don't. What's everybody? What am I supposed to do? Hand him a damn balloon every time I see him? Great. And then stuck that in the scene. And immediately because social media was around at that point, you started seeing people, what am I supposed to do? Hand them up. There's just something about it that rang uh true, rang real. And that's because they were writing from me of my opinion.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you you inhabited the characters to an extent where it must have been difficult to, you know, decide where you stopped and deconstared and the other way around when you're so.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, people always ask, you know, what do you what is your acting in terms of your method? How do you cry? What gets you there? And I think there was so much of it is just identifying fully with this character, not having here's your character, and here's you commenting it always, but you're just in it and you're in the place. And Andrew knows that affected my songwriting greatly. Again and again, I will stop a song and go, what are we saying here? And like you I think that might be one of the marks of my songs, is they re-like dialogue a lot of the time. Like our line, our song Um The Other Side. It's there's nothing I'm not saying it's not poetic or not beautiful or something like that. We but it's real, it's something somebody would say, and that especially works with country music. So like I'd say, you and I have always been together a million years before we ever met. And we both know we'll stay this way forever. And and it just sounds and then it goes, but sometimes we forget. So it's it's all these things that you're saying that if it doesn't feel like I'd say it, it it sort of falls out of the song. That's that's where Andrew would ever see me sort of my bat getting up a little bit, like, I don't know, let's just make it simpler, simpler, more something you say, right, Andrew? And you write that way anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the you know, the thing about uh Chip is is he does write a good songwriter writes a story. You know, and like he said, an album is a movie. Yeah you know, and uh a song is a scene from that movie and that's you know what uh I love about the way Chip writes. And and the thing that's great, it's like I I was talking about um a couple weeks ago, Allison, how I love to learn from other songwriters. And me doing this for as long as I have I love it. It doesn't matter if it's a young songwriter or an older songwriter. Um when I started writing with Chuck Cannon, I learned so much about the the truth. You know, speak your truth in a song.
SPEAKER_00:I guess that's why an audience then will resonate so much, isn't it? Because you're seeing things that they felt themselves, whether they could be a good thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's the thing. I I'm what you're talking about is I've I've say that literally in my shows. That first of all, you come to this town and I thought I was a guitar player, and then you come to this town and you and I'm I'm not a guitar player. I thought I was a singer, I come to this town. I'm not, I'm not really a singer, not like that guy. And and but the thing is with those things is that whatever else that the what do I have over them is I have me. I'm me. That's the that's the only thing about me that they don't have. They can they can beat me in literally every other way. But so that's why it's so important to stay true to who you are. If you're if if if you're faking being somebody else, well, there's clearly somebody else that's better at that than you. It's that person. So um what I've often said is with me, it's never about perfection. I'm not, I don't even aim at it because I don't have a shot at. It's about connection. I aim at connection because I got a shot at connection. And connection happens in that room with the darkness and the lights and the stage. But I gotta tell you, it doesn't happen in that room if it doesn't happen in this room or in the room that Andrew's there. That's where you're going. What is it that resonates? What moves me? What is this? Can be clever and funny or whatever, but does it really get me? And I learned a whole lot of that through Nashville. The power of music, but the power of those scenes. And what I learned is Deacon was the guy that more than any other went through the most things always. Deacon, there was a fate, there was a famous British actor, I don't remember which one it was, but later in his career, his his agent called him up and said, I got a role for you, but it's not that much money, not that many scenes, not that many lines. And uh, and the actor said, I don't I don't care about that, dear boy. Let me ask you one question. Do I get to suffer? Yeah. And the agent said, But that question tells you it because why does that mean? If you say, Do I get to suffer? It means do I get to be a human being?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Do I get to feel these things? And Deacon had so many categories of pain, whether it was his addiction that he was battling from every day of his life, whether it was his loss of his one true love, whether he just lost her in the world or he lost her into the next world, whether it was the cancer battle that he fought, whether he lost his sister, whether it was it's just on and on and on. And what I found is these are all points of connection. So people would come up to me and go, it's and it's wild because you become this confessor to a mass of people that would net that walk up and say to you, My father was an alcoholic too, and and it was hard for a long time, but he did what Deacon did, and he got into recovery. And it was, and and they share these parts of your life, of their lives, and that's the connection, and that's and so once you've written in that arena, in that area, it's hard to I I don't know if I ever could avoid it. That's that's the only stuff that really matters to me. Now I'll write a fun drinking truck song or something like that, but that's part of it too, because that's like we can't always be feeling every damn thing. Sometimes you want to just laugh away, you know, laugh, jump from it. So so um that's a big part of all of it, and um I'm I'm grateful. Um, and that's the kind of song Andrew, that's why I think he might he was in the top couple of people that wrote songs for the show. There's there's a handful that we got the lion share from, and Andrew's one of them, and that's because of those songs. Interesting thing about Nashville is T-Bone always said that they weren't aiming to imitate country radio. If you listen to it, I don't know how many country radio songs were on that at all. It's this other genre, this Richard Deeper thing, no offense, country radio, but you don't play me anyway, so forget you. Um so um, in any event, my point was that there's some song when writers go to write, they're all trying to write that hit. They want to write that banger, that number one, and and some of them just do one after one. But there's a whole group that, yeah, they can do that, but sometimes you get in the room, and that's just not what's coming. What's coming is this thing that's maybe even a little more deep and a little more real, and but you know that ain't gonna get on a cut. That's not and but they write it and they write it from their heart, and it's and it's soothing. There's no thing that actors in movies would say, one for them, and that's the big Marvel thing, one for me, and that's the legit heartfelt indie film. So I think that happens in writing too. And what happens is the show Nashville came along, and we said, Hey, you know, all those songs that are just a little deeper, richer, and aren't going to get on radio, and everybody went, Yeah, we go, give us those. And and we were there for had access to this pool of emotion that was there for the taking. You know what I mean, Andrew?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was it it was so great because it was about it was about songwriters. That show was about songwriters.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, I got it. We gotta say the name Frankie Pine, who was at the forefront for bringing everybody in and finding these songs and making them happen. Of course, T-Bone produced the music and then Buddy Miller um did, and Tim Lauer, they were big on it. Um so Frankie was uh John Solaire at ABC. The fact that we the fact that they got music that pure and that independent and put it on network television week after week, I will always say that the music was the the most indebable part of the show and the part that never faltered, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and it was um, you know, it's it was great because it it was very honest. And Frankie is one of the most it's hard to find gracious people in the entertainment business. I mean that sincerely, and you know that. You know, and and Chip, we were playing a gig at the Bridgestone Arena, and I don't know if you remember this or not, but after the show we were gonna go get something to eat, and we were backstage and we walked out, and there were like 150 women, which Deacon's fan base was women, um, and he just took the time to sign, I think about 150 autographs, and every time I've ever performed with Chip, the grace how graceful and gracious he is with his audience and his fans is something and Randy's like that.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's very, very kind. I actually have to say that I found a lot of kindness and graciousness in Nashville. I think I think there is a bit of a culture of kindness. Um, and when you come here and you see somebody like Vince Gill and and and the way he is with folks that want a uh a piece of his moment, you know, like to spend some time with him or the charitable events hello. And you know, there's so many others uh like him in this town. I mean, my goodness, Dolly. I just the way she gives of herself, the way she's authentic, the way she's graceful in any meeting. Um that that really moved me and impacted me. And I just, I don't know, it's just I think some of it is that it came to me later in life. It's I understand the meaning of it. I understand I've been around long enough to know that sometimes this, especially with those Nashville connections I was talking of, there are moments where I really gotta get here, I gotta get, I gotta sound checked. But the person starts sharing with me about his wife that passed. And in that moment, you know that's gonna have to wait. Whatever it is, I can't be go, oh, I'm real sorry to hear that. Uh blessings, you know, I can't you can't. You sort of have to just because this is everything to them in that moment. Uh, I mean, we can have a whole other podcast on whether fame makes any sense or what part of it is real or what part of it is healthy. I don't know, I don't know those answers. I just know that for some people that they will keep they will hold that with them for a long time. And not because of um, I'm any great thing, but just because they know me, the character meant a lot to them, the songs meant a lot to them, and it's a moment that share that with that person. So, yeah, what else are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's lovely, absolutely lovely. I mean, it's um it's been a total pleasure to to talk to you, to hear your story, to anticipate your tour, which is going. I know you're touring the states and then you're coming over to Europe and the UK, and yes, ma'am. Do you ever rest?
SPEAKER_02:We we do rest, um, but when we are home, we just luxuriate in it. But we don't really rest. We we came home, and for us it's a it's a really enjoyable thing to we went out in the backyard, you know, Andrew, by that fire pit. We planted a whole bunch of hydrangeas, just she and I, and some shovels and going to get soil and everything. So just taking care of doing the more domestic stuff like that. Um, we love doing that. And and to be honest, a lot of the jobs we get to rest. I'm getting ready at the very beginning of December. I think it will be my fifth time to go to Hope Town in the Bahamas. And yes, there will be three writers rounds on a uh Friday night, a Saturday night, and a Sunday afternoon. But the rest of the time, you're in the Bahamas. So you get some time to rest then. Also, I am a nap ninja. I can sleep anytime for anywhere, for any amount of time. I can take my phone and I can set it to eight minutes, put the alarm on, and when the alarm goes off, like in my dressing room, I can come out of the deepest sleep. And I think that has blessed me and helped me a long time. Um also I even sleep on tour buses and the whole like when we're touring over in the UK and and over in Germany and uh Switzerland, I will be able to sleep on that bus. I'll be out like a light. So that definitely you know what I would love? I'll ask you, we'll send you uh the um the graphic so you can uh I don't know when this comes out, but presumably before we tour in January.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's coming out in Christmas. You are our Christmas special.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, Merry Christmas, everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Andrew, have we written a Christmas song yet? We wrote uh I won't cry Christmas. Of course we did. I knew it. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, that is a good song, brother. Um, yeah, play that one here. And while you're playing it under it, put my tour dates for uh the UK.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, oh, and come back afterwards and tell us what the Estons are doing for Christmas this year because we'd just love to know what you're up to.
SPEAKER_04:It's a cold December evening. I'm sitting up the tree and doing all those Christmas things you do. Sings are merry and bright ours should be, but the song's already gone, so we best be messing Christmas tea for a won cow Christmas, the coldest winner ever been wish I didn't know that I was missing over Miss O without your kiss but I won't cow Christmas I used to take that to the ranger. I put her up on top just to be not staying down to your state, but a walk out Christmas, a walk christen.
SPEAKER_00:And where are you spending Christmas? What will Christmas Day be like in the Eston House?
SPEAKER_02:Well, Christmas will be in Florida with my wife's uh beautiful family uh that we love so much. Um, and then we'll be doing New Year's back here. I'm actually just found out I will be holding down at the Bluebird Cafe, New Year's Eve, two shows at the Bluebird Cafe. Um that's great. Is that amazing? Is that where else would you want to spend New Year's? I'm very excited about it.
SPEAKER_01:Who's doing that with you?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I don't know yet. We're we're finding out I got I got the asks out already, but uh look at him. Look at him, man. I don't know if we have enough songs together, do we, Andrew? I'm not sure. No. Okay. Well, we'll know by then. We'll we'll see. Um I I I've already I've already made the asset, and you'll understand when when when it comes through, but believe me, uh I I would love to have you there. So we'll we'll figure this out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well thank you so much for doing this. And and uh you Alison, you can see why he's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, your energy, although I'm many thousands of miles away, is clearly just wonderful and positive and lovely. So it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, thank you, Alison. Um, thank you both. Um I'm I get tired of hearing my own stories, and uh you've been very grateful.
unknown:Great.
SPEAKER_01:Give a big hug to Patty, please.
SPEAKER_02:We'll do, absolutely, brother.
SPEAKER_01:Take care, guys.
SPEAKER_00:Great to see you. Bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that was Nashville scratching the surface with Andrew Rollins and Charles Est and Andrew chatting to one of his bestest pals. Wasn't that nice to hear them shoot the breeze? We will be back next month with another cracking episode. So remember, if you enjoyed it, share and tell your friends. Till next time. Bye.
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