After Nashville
A call in / interview style podcast discussing entertainment industry topics. Hosted by Darrell D White & Jack Anthony Christopher
After Nashville
From Branson Billboards to Broadway Truths: Mike Walker on Success, Karaoke, and the Business of Music
We sit down with Mike Walker to honor Nashville’s legacy, compare it with Branson’s stage craft, and tell the truth about karaoke, covers, and the business behind a music career. Along the way, Mike shares the heart behind his new single and the values that keep him grounded.
• respect for Music City and its legacy
• Mike Walker’s career path across Nashville and Branson
• new single It’s Been a Ride and why it matters
• karaoke as training vs industry stigma
• tracks vs live bands and arrangement discipline
• originals vs covers on Broadway
• residencies, venues, and quiet red tape
• lost industry hangouts and what they meant
• talent shows, streaming, and the end of monoculture
• failure, work ethic, and showmanship
• treat your dream like a business
• faith, family, and staying the same on and off stage
• time as the most valuable currency
You can find me on Facebook and at mikewalkermth.com (site under rebuild). My new single is called It’s Been a Ride—find it on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music. If you want to support my music, check it out and share it. You can find us at After Nashville—we have a group and a page.
The creators and team behind After Nashville hold the deepest respect and admiration for Music City USA. We have been and always will be passionate supporters and fans of Nashville's vibrant culture and unmatched musical legacy. Our podcast is not intended to disparage or criticize Nashville in any way. Rather, it serves as a platform to explore and share the diverse experiences of those who have pursued their dreams in this extraordinary city. While our discussions reflect only a small fraction of the countless perspectives of people who have walked Nashville's magical streets, one undeniable truth remains. Once you've experienced Music City, it leaves an indelible mark on your heart. Nashville, Tennessee, truly is one of the best places on earth.
SPEAKER_01:Watch it up from Tupelo, becomes a king one day. Let it down in Georgia, sitting on the dock of the bay. NASCAR driver number three, the best there's ever been. Or with nothing, or a silver spoon in your mouth. Ain't no rhyme or reason how it all plays out. When you walked in the train, you're working down. Everything steps together. You gotta take the chip turns.
SPEAKER_07:Who do we got here? Mike Walker. Wow. The singer and superstar out in Branson. Am I correct? That's right. I would back off on the superstar thing. Hey man, I was out in Branson, and I'm gonna tell you, every corner I turned around, there was a damn billboard of you. I've never had a billboard of me. Yeah. I like to paint over them.
SPEAKER_05:That was you? I was like, man, who the hell hates Mike Walker this much? Yeah, I I did mustaches and all kinds of good stuff. So I can still see you're a liar.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, this is eight. We briefly you know bumped into each other and Branson. God, how long has it really been since we hung out? 20, 30 years?
SPEAKER_05:And I got a confession to that was back, that was back when the when the fiddling steel guitar bar was still around.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah, definitely. That's how I met you. And to be honest with you, I don't hopefully this won't embarrass you, is that you were the first person, because I had just barely moved to Nashville. You had a deal that and you had a song out of the radio, and you were like the first celebrity that I ever met. Really? Oh yeah, man. I'll never forget walking you to your your car. I felt like I was germing you. Never germed anybody ever again.
SPEAKER_04:Well, man, I'm just I was always, I always have been and always will be just a little redneck from Jackson, Tennessee.
SPEAKER_07:We're gonna extend a lot of these topics that we were talking about in the last episode.
SPEAKER_04:Let me tell you this real quick. Okay, I got a brand new single out. It was my first secular single since If There's a Chance to Say I Love You and The DreamWorks deals. This is my first song out. It's on YouTube, Spotify, all these different entities. So uh make sure you check it out. It's called It's Been a Ride, and I wrote this uh for my wife as an anniversary present, and then I went and recorded it, and man, it's it turned out to be a really cool song. It's a it's an anniversary song.
SPEAKER_07:Wow. And I will get all that stuff on my website and see if I can push as many people to you as possible. What was the dream for you in the beginning? To be successful. Now, successful or to be a superstar?
SPEAKER_04:Successful. I think I think um at a young age, man, I started at five years old.
SPEAKER_08:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:You know, I started performing at five. So, and and I when I started out, I did nursing homes. So I was always in front of a crowd. Um, and and and it just kind of excelled from that point to bigger crowds, bigger audiences, but it's it was never different for me. Right. Um just being able to perform in front of people. And uh, of course, when I started out, I was a I was an Elvis impersonator at the age of five years old to about 13. And then that's when I discovered country music, and I started chewing on that gum for a while. And then uh once I lost, you know, a little bit of that flavor, I tried uh a little bit of rock and roll and a little bit of blues, rockabilly. I mean, I just tried to, you know, I I just uh absorbed a lot of different uh styles of music. Um I tried opera and I spit that gum out completely at the first taste. And then um then jazz. You know what I never really I I can appreciate jazz, but I don't I don't really like sitting and listening to it. I think I think my biggest dream was to be successful, uh being able to do what I love to do for a living. And you know, uh pretty much I've I've been able to do that. So, you know, I guess everybody's individuality of of success is different because some people some people's dreams are bigger than they're ever able to reach because they keep setting the bar higher and higher and higher. I think if you're okay in your own skin, think your your success is in the eye of the beholder and you being the beholder. You can't let anybody else tell you what success is. I think you have to do that for yourself and and be okay with whatever that success level is for you. Because if you think you're successful, it doesn't really matter what anybody else thinks.
SPEAKER_07:When I met you, I was blown away sitting in uh the audience having a beer at a karaoke. Yes. Afterwards, I got talking to you, and that's when I realized that you had a deal on DreamWorks. DreamWorks, yeah. And I was like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_04:I was by the way, by the way, I wasn't supposed to be doing karaoke. I know, and you and you told me that. And I changed I changed my name too to Johnny, remember? Oh yeah, I definitely do. Everybody everybody remembers me as Johnny instead of Mike, because I was I was incognito. See, that's the thing about karaoke that people don't realize for singers, especially if you're known for singing certain things. It's fun to get out of your comfort zone. So every now and then I'd I'd like I want to sing some skid row. Right. I want to sing some, you know, I want to sing some Ozzy. I want to sing some Guns N' Roses, I want to sing some of the stuff that I grew up on, the Bon Jovi, the Journey, uh, all that stuff that I really love to listen to. Um, or even even in the older set, you know, even some older artists and stuff. But you know, karaoke is is not only something for people who never had the experience to get up in front of an audience, they just like to go out and have a good time. And that provides that for them. But on the singer side, it's also a training mechanism. Because if you have a bar full of people, okay, and you've never been in front of an audience that much, take, for instance, these people that are talented and they're and all their friends say, You should get up here and do this song. Well, who's gonna recognize the fact that they got a good voice if the audience don't know who they are? So they get up and they sing a song. They get incredibly they get an incredible applause, they get a lot of support from the audience, and everybody's wooing and hollering. What does that do to the person's self-esteem that never knew they had the talent?
SPEAKER_07:Karaoke in general, my friend, I believe should be everywhere. I think they ought to, somebody ought to step up and make a karaoke bill. Actually give a chance for people to be discovered. But I know this, and the industry won't tell you, but I've been around enough of the industry in Nashville that if you get labeled a karaoke singer, they won't even give you a second look. No, that's that's just that's ignorant. Even though we had separate views, you are now making me start to change my mind.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean, it's it's just ignorant because I mean, talent is talent. Listen, talent is talent. And you it if you have an ear for talent, you have a lot of people in the industry that put labels on things.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And then once you label it that, then it becomes a demonstratory thing. Uh you know, if if you use it as a joke or as a punchline or whatever the case may be, then it's no, you're not being it's kind of like conspiracy theory. You know, it that's a great label, but it downplays the realism of what conspiracy theories are, which was created when JFK was assassinated, so people didn't know what really happened. Now we're finding out that all the conspiracy theories just about are true. So is that to say that just because somebody labeled it that to downplay it doesn't mean it has any less valuable entities to it. So I mean, people who are in the industry can hear whether or not a person is tone deaf or not. Can't hear that, then they shouldn't be in the industry. Right. I've been dabbling in in producing and and writing and in all aspects of the industry for years. And you know, it it blows my mind how people can just brush somebody off because of one thing. Right. It takes all of those things to make a well-rounded singer. You have to be able to sing the songs that you you know, what if you're out there on the record exec says, Hey, why don't you sing this song? Hey, why don't you sing this song? Well, what if you're not versatile enough to sing those songs? You can use the karaoke thing to diversify yourself. You can go out and sing all these songs, man, like the drop of a hat. They got the words on the screen, which is what everybody does in the music industry now. I mean, what concert do you not go to where they're reading a teleprompter? Right?
SPEAKER_07:It's glorified karaoke. Yeah, and I was back doing comedy shows and I was, you know, doing all these jokes about this. I, you know, I wasn't trying to be a green trusher or whatever. So I went over to these karaoke bars and I took their five best singers that they had, and I put them as my opener, and I put them with some of the best musicians that were playing with all these major acts. Put them on the stage with them to do their songs. And they they they taint, man. It was like because it was like totally different from singing to a track than singing to a real person that's backing you up.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, most definitely. I can attest to that too. It's completely different when you have a band and when you do with tracks. I still do both. Right. I do both still. When you sing with karaoke, you sing with the musicians. Right. When you're singing with a band, the musicians play with your singer. It's completely different. So if you sang with a track, getting to know your songs. I mean, I have this trouble all the time because for instance, when we put this other show together, I had to listen to all these different singers and learn the songs in their arrangements. But when we started doing them live, we did our own arrangements of the songs where we wouldn't make them as long. You know, we'd cut them, we cut them short, we'd short them out a little bit. Because we know we can't do a seven-minute song, we turn it into a four and a half minute song or a three-minute song, you know, just to get to the next song, whatever. Just to cut out some of the some of the stuff. When you're rehearsing those songs and you have to use a track, that causes a little confusion. You're not doing your arrangement, you're doing the original band's arrangement. When you're learning that stuff, then muscle memory kicks in when you go to your band, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, where am I at? Right. You see what I'm saying? If you're writing original music, it's different. Uh cover bands and original bands are completely different.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. That's what kills me about Nashville is that there's not that many original places to do your music. They they there's not, man. You go down on Broadway and the club owners will not let you play originals. That's stupid, man.
SPEAKER_04:I think that should be Nashville's big thing. I mean, that's the that's the capital of the world for songwriters and and singers. I mean, why would you not want to go somewhere and hear something fresh instead of the same stuff you can hear?
SPEAKER_07:When I played down at Legends Corner, I did both. Right. And they and they some of them do both, but they are uh encouraged to uh play what you know the audience wants to hear, not their original. That's a travesty, man. Yeah, it's slowly changing, especially like people like Eric Church. I worked at his bar when it first opened, and uh I hope people follow suit for what Eric Church did is that he built you know his bar and he actually put a mini rhyming on the third floor. And he actually did like I think 30 resident shows there in his theater. Wow. But he owns his bar. All these others are just bars like licensing these bars, and all these people think, oh, I'm gonna go to Luke Bryant's bar, you know, I'm gonna see Luke Bryant. You're not gonna see Luke Bryant. And if you do, he's just gonna step in there and do like a song. I when I moved to Branson for that short time, that was why I was confused of why Nashville, you know, all these stars keep bringing up, you know, these license bars instead of putting together uh a residency, a theater type stuff. You know, and it's not there. And I'm always kind of curious if maybe they're getting blocks from like the Grando Opera. And it's like, hey, no, there's only room for one of these type places.
SPEAKER_04:You know, it's man, you know what? The the red tape and the and the and the stuff behind the scenes and a lot of these entities is absolutely real. Right. You know, we don't we can't in Branson, as close as we are to Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, all these places, there's only certain places that you can put casinos. And you know that that they cannot put a casino in Branson, Missouri, because Kansas City and St. Louis has got the monopoly on them. So that I mean there's there's there is some there are some truths to those things, man, as far as the governmental things that go on behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_07:Right. Well, let me just I'll just ask you this. What's the biggest difference that you found between performing in Branson and performing in Nashville?
SPEAKER_04:It's two different entities. I think it's completely two different entities. You know, you got your party crowd that goes to Nashville, and the people that are in Branson, they don't have the facilities like they do in Nashville for the party atmosphere.
SPEAKER_07:No, I think there's like two.
SPEAKER_04:Maybe. And they all close at 10 o'clock. Right. You know, here. In Nashville, they go to a four. So so that's really a party place. Branson's not a party place. It's it doesn't have that mentality here. They go to shows, they pie their tickets, they come to see the shows. After they get done with the show, they go get something to eat at Applebee's and go home. Because the show's here start early, though. See, it's from 10 o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night.
SPEAKER_07:Well, the bars at Nashville open at 10. Everyone on Broadway.
SPEAKER_04:It's a different clientele. I think it has a lot to do with the clientele.
SPEAKER_07:And they actually let kids in until 6 o'clock, which I think is like, what in the hell? You know, why aren't we? That's insane. Why would you ever bring a kid into a bar? I don't care what hour it is. It's still a bar. You brought a baby to a bar. When I was working. Do you remember that? Yeah. I can't tell you how many times as a security guard when uh door guy that they would be bringing their kid. You know, I see a kid, you know, the parents with a with a stroller, and I knew how loud it was gonna be. And I go get an earbud.
SPEAKER_03:I'm only gonna be a minute.
SPEAKER_07:But it's like, you know how loud it is in here? I mean, babies are so sensitive. I mean, you're you're about to damage your kid of something that they're not even gonna remember, you know. You might have a picture.
SPEAKER_03:Or you see them, or you see them come in with a stroller and their baby's got these headphones on their sound games. It's gonna be okay. It's here and gonna be good.
SPEAKER_06:Never really the the the best uh people in the world that I see doing this. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03:They're like uh grandpa's out in the trap.
SPEAKER_07:We're gonna take turns. We spent our money on uh on our vacation. We just didn't have room for a babysitter.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that's it. Yeah, things have changed quite a bit, man. Yeah, Nashville is totally a different town. Now I haven't been to Nashville in so many years, man.
SPEAKER_04:I I don't even I think the last time I was there, this is the God's honest truth. I was there in uh 2010 was the last time I was at set foot in Nashville. And I was there for Ronnie McDowell's birthday party. He was 60 years old at that at that time. And um I was there for his birthday party, and uh after uh before the birthday party, I met Joel Brentlinger at Demo's.
SPEAKER_05:And they closed that place down, by the way. Are you kidding me? No, that was the most decent place to eat in that town. It's the best place, man.
SPEAKER_07:Best place.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my god, their chicken and rice soup.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. That was my first job.
SPEAKER_04:I still can taste it, man. I can still taste it in their classical lasagna. Oh my god. Yeah, right after the phabics.
SPEAKER_07:Their bread. Oh my god, their bread was.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, their bread was amazing.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that that breaks.
SPEAKER_03:We want demos. We want demos.
SPEAKER_07:Now they still have locations, you know, for you know, like in Murfreesboro and stuff like that, but the the iconic one, the one that started it, yeah, it's it's been gone now for uh two or three years.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it's like on Lyle. They had the Longhorn there. How many people went to the Longhorn over there on Lyle?
SPEAKER_07:The complete industry. Everybody, yeah, the whole industry.
SPEAKER_04:Now it's a now it was a pizza place. Or it was when I was there. I don't know what it is now.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's it's changed so many damn times. I mean, hell, they tore down the fiddle and steel and put up a hotel.
SPEAKER_04:I know, man. That just that blows me away. That was that should have been deemed a history place. I mean, how many nights did me and Toby sit in that round booth by the by the bar?
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, how many times did Cletus T and Jay DeMarcus come in there? I mean, we were all the only ones in there sometimes. Exactly. And then John Michael Montgomery used to come in there. But that was the little hidey hole that people of with the in within the industry came in to get away from the crowd so that we could go out and have a good time.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah. I I couldn't name it. We'd be here for hours of all the celebrities that were.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, Eric Church, I don't know if you know this or not. I don't know if you were there that night. There was one night I I came into the fiddle with with Toby and Jody. And we came in and we sat down at that back area because Toby and I were really close. We we I didn't like go to his house or anything. You know what I mean? We didn't go, but we would hang out all the time in Nashville. And it wasn't on purpose, it was accidental. Like he would just show up on the nights that I would be there, and then he'd invite me over to sit with him, and we'd just hang out all night. There was one night that we came in at about 6 or 7:30. I'll never forget this my entire life. And I look over, and you know where the stage was. There's a long table that sat right next to the stage on the other side of it. And over there they had balloons and all this stuff set up on the chairs, and it was dark in there. I couldn't really see. All I could see was a dude that was sitting with his back toward the stage facing the other direction. I'm trying to think of her name. Lynn. Was it Lynn? Lynn Lynn Bryant Bryant. Lynn Bryant, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She walked over there and then she came back over to us and she said, You know who that is over there? And I said, No? Is that Singleberg Humperding? And I went, What? I mean, that's just not a name you you you solidify with Nashville and all. Oh, and he had he he heard that this place was a place that he could go without getting mobbed or anything like that. And he was having a birthday party for his daughter there, who was like 20-something years old. And yeah, all these people coming in, and I don't know how many, I think Ann Margaret came. Oh, everybody came. Um I mean, I I remember all these people. But he invited all these celebrities to to the place because that was the place to go for celebrities.
SPEAKER_07:It was.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, John Michael Montgomery came up and sang backup with me on crying.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly. And they don't have nothing like that in Nashville anymore.
SPEAKER_04:There's not a place, I and and and that that was that was my hangout for on purpose.
SPEAKER_07:Definitely.
SPEAKER_04:Because I knew we could just go in there, there wouldn't be any kind of media people taking pictures or or any of that stuff. We wouldn't have any problems whatsoever. And that was that was a place that the celebrities could go in and let their hair down and just be who they are without having to wear this stupid facade for people to be judgmental. And I think that the problem we have in society today is that there are too many shows that give the audience the ability to judge somebody to whether they make it or not.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:It's not industry driven anymore. Right. It's society, and I think that there's some validity to that in certain areas in certain ways. Back in the day, you know, you had your record execs, you had your AR people that had a lot of control over the radio and what got put out and all of these things. Now you have all these streaming formats and all of that stuff. And that bothers me about that. Sorry. Uh the thing that bothers me about that is the fact that are you in an elevator? You have no I I'm I'm helping some people off of it now. Hang on a minute. I'm gonna take their bags to the room. No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_07:That's what I did in Branson. I I was a concierge at one of the resorts, man. So I get it, man. Oh, yeah, that's cool. You know, hard times are Branson, so you gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding. I'm sitting in my car.
SPEAKER_04:But but anyway, the you know, like you have American Idol, you got America's Got Talent, you got the X Factor, you got Britain's Got Talent, you got all of these, all of these entities out there. Do you think those shows help or hurt the industry? It depends. I think it goes both ways because the industry has changed so much because of downloads and streams, you know, when all that stuff happened with Napster and all of that stuff, it just kind of changed the entire industry. For the good or for the bad, I don't know. Because I know things have to evolve. The problem with with everything right now is that everybody, there's not a specific star. Everybody's a star.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:If you have the platform to do it, so I think your days of the superstar, like Garth, all of these Elvis. I mean, you you gotta think back though, but in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, there was three stations other than cable, right? And everybody watched those. You had millions of people that just watched that one show and they got what they got. That was the pop. Because once those people saw you, then they went to the no store the next day and bought your records.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Because they just discovered you. Now you there's not enough time in the day to discover everybody.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:They're just not. So the the focus, I look at it like this. Back when I was in school, there was contests, and you either got a trophy because you won, or you didn't get one before if you lose. Right. Now you don't have any incentive to win because everybody wins. Right. They don't even keep score anymore. Right. You know, because they don't want to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. That builds character. You how what other incentive do you have to make yourself better if you don't have failures? Right. You have to have failures to win. It's got to inspire. I mean, I'm gonna use this as an example because it's the truth. It's like the Rocky film, Eye of the Tiger, man. You gotta have that inside of you to be able to get into those levels. You have to level up. You can't just sit in mediocrity your entire life. You have to raise above. If you have that talent and you have the ability, I don't care what your talent is, you can be a trainer of horses, you could ride horses, you could be a singer, a guitar player. But if everybody gets a trophy, what incentive do you have to make yourself better?
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:What does that create? It doesn't create ambition, it just creates the fact that you're not gonna get your little feelings hurt. Right. When you know what? When I was a kid, my mom and dad had punishments that they don't even allow today.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:And I think that that's a mistake. When I used to get a whipping, I deserved it.
SPEAKER_07:At the time I didn't think so.
SPEAKER_04:You know, now that look my I knew it at the time. I knew. I knew.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Because I did I made stupid choices.
SPEAKER_07:Okay, maybe I knew, but I didn't like it.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I didn't like it either. But but the thing is, Daryl, we have to level up.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_04:We have to learn from mistakes. But the thing is, is if if everybody gets a trophy, what do you learn from that?
SPEAKER_07:Not a damn thing.
SPEAKER_04:You don't learn anything. I think as a society, I think so worried about everybody's feelings that there's no room for improvement. Right. And I think that's why we are at a situation right now with everything, not just politically, not just musically, but with everything. You know, your work ethic counts. I don't care what color you are, right? I don't care what where you're from. If you have a good work ethic, you should be rewarded for that.
SPEAKER_05:Right. Most definitely.
SPEAKER_04:You shouldn't be able to call in. You shouldn't get a job based on the color of your skin. You should get a job based on your skill set.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:And if I'm a better singer than somebody, then I should be rewarded for that.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Not it's not a popularity contest.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:It shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_07:And here's what I think, man, is that it might be hard for some people to hear is that everybody, including myself, goes to Nashville and they tell everybody they're here to follow their dreams. I, you know, have this huge dream and dream, a dream. I want to explain to people, nobody cares about your dreams. What you need to be doing is treating yourself like a business because people will invest in a business.
SPEAKER_04:You are absolutely 100% correct.
SPEAKER_07:And you need to come to Nashville to get into the business, not to follow a dream.
SPEAKER_04:Or at least I wish that I had the business sense. I wish I had the business sense back then when I had my record stuff going on. I wish I had the business sense then that I have now. Right. Because I think I think it would have been different. I would have made some different choices, I would have done some different things had I known. But instead, I let somebody else do my business. They were in it for themselves that didn't have my best interest in mind. They had their best interest in mind, and you were a byproduct of what their business was. You were the new product on the shelf, they still own the store.
SPEAKER_07:Exactly. Man, thanks for giving us such an inside view of both Branson and Nashville and the industry because you, I mean, you lived them both. And it's hard to be able to find somebody who was successful in Nashville and successful in a place like Branson and been able to self-promote, be a star without a record deal, man. Because everybody knows who the hell Mike Walker is. I cannot mention your name in any circle, and they go, Oh my God, you know, I know him. My hat goes off to you, man. I mean, you you are a very unique and not only talent, a great person. I think that that's why the success for you has happened.
SPEAKER_04:Here's what I attribute to my success as a person. I treat everybody the same. I don't care if you you're a superstar, I don't care if you're a homeless man. I treat everybody the same. And I think it has a lot to do with my belief system. Music's my job, but it doesn't make me who I am as a person. Right. I take the hat off when I get off the stage. And even when I'm on the stage, I'm the same person. I don't change my persona because I believe that as a person, my talent, I'm gonna do what I do. I'm gonna provide entertainment for whoever's in the audience. Between the songs, I'm not gonna be um well, listen to what I have to say. This is my platform. No, that's stupid. I'm just gonna be myself. I'm gonna be that rugged redneck from Tennessee. That's who I am as a person. But first and foremost, I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:I believe in what I believe, and I stand firm in my beliefs. So I'm not gonna let anything change that. Secondly, I'm a great husband. I want to be a great husband. I strive to be a great husband. Second, third, I'm a great father. I want to be remembered as a great father, too. And then I want to be a great son to my mother. That's the four things that mean the most to me as. A human being because you can't take any of this crap with you when you go. The focus has to be on something.
SPEAKER_07:Can I give you a suggestion? Have you ever thought about running for president? Because God, I don't know. Oh my God. Yeah, okay. I'm starting a new campaign right now. Mike Walker for president. And let's get this. Let's get this.
SPEAKER_05:Please don't start that crap.
SPEAKER_04:Right now, I live, I live in an area right now where you cannot get to my house unless you follow me.
SPEAKER_05:I have to come and get you.
SPEAKER_07:And he's not talking about the people.
SPEAKER_04:I live in the woods, man. I live I live in the woods, brother. That's where I like to be. That's where I feel most at home. Politically, I don't believe in parties. I think parties are for kids. I don't think you can be either or or any party and govern the country as a whole, as a unit. Because it's it's a people as a whole. It's not just one side, it's all sides. And you have to understand every walk of life, you know? It's like being a dad. Although that all my kids came from me and my wife. They are absolutely 100% different human beings. So you have to parent them differently. My 10-year-old, her problems that she has at school don't seem like problems to most people, but they're her problems. Right. And they're just as important as my problems. My problems are bigger. Yeah. I see them as bigger. But her problems are just as dear to her as my problems are as dear to me. And if you don't listen to your kids and try to help them through their situations that they have, even though they're they're trivial, they look like something, oh yo, you'll get over it tomorrow. No, that's not how you handle that. You talk to them. You gotta talk to your kids, man. You gotta understand that. Because my 10-year-old has different problems than my 12-year-old, and my 12-year-old has different problems than my 14-year-old, and my 14-year-old has way different problems than my 22-year-old. They're completely different human beings. I think that that's how that we have to be as a as a unit, even in the industry. I mean, bring it back to Nashville. Who do you see out there, Daryl, that has it? And you know what I'm talking about. It. That means they have they have the entertainment value on stage. They and I'm so sick and tired of people getting on stage and looking like they just got out of the homeless shelter, I can die. If I'm buying a ticket, if I'm paying to come and see somebody, I want to see spectacular.
SPEAKER_08:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Because my money's worth it. I work hard for my money. So if I'm taking it and I'm spending it, and you know what the most valuable thing we as humans have?
SPEAKER_07:What's that money?
SPEAKER_04:Time. You can chase a dollar all you want to, and you can replace that dollar. But one thing you can't replace is time. So I say to people all the time, choose how you spend your time wisely, because it's the only thing that's absolutely 100% yours to spend, and it's the only thing that you'll never get back.
SPEAKER_07:Time, time is a huge deal. Well, man, I have enjoyed this conversation so much that I just realized that of how much time's went by, and I I'm gonna ask you here soon. Let's pick this all this conversation back up and do a part two with Mike Walker. If not, just make a segment of different bonus shows of Mike Walker, because man, this was this has been awesome, man. You have taught me so many things.
SPEAKER_04:It's just common sense stuff and certain things that happen that are on lower levels that we need to look at. Right that makes everything else be able to level up. Right. You know, and I think it starts with being yourself, being comfortable in your own skin, and not being afraid of being politically correct all the time because hey, listen, I don't care if black, red, green, purple are politically incorrect. And if I see the color and I see that it's purple, it's purple.
SPEAKER_07:The green would kind of freak me out because that means we'd be invaded by aliens. So I'd be all the other colors, green.
SPEAKER_04:Or it could be it could it could be on a lower level, brother. It could be your grass.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, but I just smoked that.
SPEAKER_04:See what I did there?
SPEAKER_07:So, anyway, so to wrap this up, give us everything that you are doing and want to promote right now, and how we can find these shows.
SPEAKER_04:I do a lot of traveling still. I'm still on I did a summer tour this year. I I was all over the United States, really. It was I've been in Wyoming this year, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon. But I mean, it's just all over. So my website is mikewalkermth.com, and you can get on there. You can't get on it right now because it's the site is being you know redone. Eventually it will be on there. And then you can Facebook me. I'm on Facebook, man. I'm easy to get to. I got three or four different Facebook pages because I I try to keep in contact with everybody. Some of those places that you can get on and create one of those Facebook pages where it's like a fan page or whatever. You can't actually message back people. And I like to message people back, let them know that I appreciate them. And you can find me on there. And my new single is called It's Been a Ride. And you can find it on YouTube, it's on Spotify, Apple Music, all of these things. If you want to support my music, it's been 25 years since I've released anything secular. I've had several hits in the gospel and the inspirational, the country inspirational stuff on a lower level. But I had a number one song called The Ultimate Veteran that was pretty big, and then I had What If You're Wrong. I wrote a song for my uh wife prior to that last one. It was a song like because I almost died, and I thought I was gonna I was 12 hours from dying, and I thought I was gonna die. So I wrote a song and it went to number two on the charts. It was a pretty daunting thing. Anyway, if you get a chance, check out some of my stuff.
SPEAKER_07:I'll put links up to all of them, man, on our websites.
SPEAKER_04:I'll send those to you.
SPEAKER_07:You can find us at After Nashville. We have a group and we have a page. So uh, so yeah, let's stay in touch because there were so many things I didn't even get to to talk to you about because uh man, I I was sitting back here just blown away. A lot of interviews that I do, people are I wouldn't say nervous, but it doesn't go as smooth and as great as this one. And I think that the audience needs to hear more from Mike Walker, man, and anything I can do to help promote and get you back there where you are on the top of the charts, man, because you are somebody that ever since the first time that I met you, and I knew that you were gonna be huge, man.
SPEAKER_04:I appreciate that. I really do, I really do appreciate that.
SPEAKER_07:And it's an honor to know you, man. And thank you again for taking time with us tonight. God bless you and your family.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thanks, Daryl, and we'll look forward to speaking with you again. Uh that's all, folks.
SPEAKER_07:You have a great night.
SPEAKER_02:Thinking back to our first memories as I watch you sleep. It's amazing how far we've come, and it's really hard to believe. We've had some laughs, we've cried some tears, and we're still in love after all these years. Baby, it's been around Yeah, we seen it all. We've had our sheriffs, we've had some fun. Yeah, we've both been scared We suffered through some losses that wasn't fair I'm so glad it's been you there by my side Yeah, it's been alright I wonder where we'll go from here. I guess only time will tell. How many of these last years are left in our fairy tale? We have the will, we'll find a way. Those that tell our story we'll have to say. Yeah, it's been around here, it's taken it off It's give us chills, we've had our feel, we've had our share of thoughts, we've had some fun, yeah. We both been scared We stopped with first and losses that was the place. I'm praying you can look into my eyes. I say you love me too it's been around Yeah, we've seen it all Cruised around and milted times We've crushed into the world, we've gone to fest, we're taking it alone Sometimes to take the right path You're gonna have to play the toes I'm so glad to be able to die.
