Tommy Emmanuel is a legendary acoustic guitar player from Australia, where he has received some of the nation's highest honors, won Grammy, ARIA, and IBMA awards (amongst others), released 27+ records on labels such as Sony and Columbia, and began touring at the age of 6. We talk to Tommy about his endless enthusiasm and drive to experiment that has kept him inspired and learning through his almost 65 year career, how he bucks genre traditions (and because of that, label constraints), being vulnerable with your audience, studying the art of stagecraft, and a whole lot more.
Tommy Emmanuel is a legendary acoustic guitar player from Australia, where he has received some of the nation's highest honors, won Grammy, ARIA, and IBMA awards (amongst others), released 27+ records on labels such as Sony and Columbia, and began touring at the age of 6. We talk to Tommy about his endless enthusiasm and drive to experiment that has kept him inspired and learning through his almost 65 year career, how he bucks genre traditions (and because of that, label constraints), being vulnerable with your audience, studying the art of stagecraft, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:12] Michaela: And I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are nearing the end of the second year of our podcast. No sign of stopping. So happy to still be here. And thank you for being here with us.
[00:00:22] Aaron: Yeah, if you've listened to our show before and know that you already like it, we have a few quick asks for you before we jump into today's episode.
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[00:01:23] Michaela: And one of the things we really pride ourselves on with this podcast is that we are not music journalists. So we don't think of this as an interview per se, but more of a conversation as though we're just hanging around at the kitchen table and sharing with each other what are the honest realities of what it is to build a lifelong career around your art.
[00:01:44] Aaron: Yeah, which is a crazy thing to do, as we all know. And so we've basically boiled that down to focusing on what is within our control, our mindsets and headspace and tools that we found to stay sane and creative while building a career around our art. And that has been distilled down to the underlying question.
What do you do to create sustainability in your life so that you can sustain your creativity? And today we got to ask that question of child prodigy, guitar, virtuoso, Tommy Emmanuel.
[00:02:11] Michaela: Yeah. Tommy Emmanuel is. one of a kind. He started playing professionally by the time he was age six. He was touring full time with his family. He is what you would probably call a guitar phenom. He's from Australia. He's been nominated for Grammys, IBMA, ARIA awards. He's performed with massive bands, Barry Gibb from the Bee Gees, Air Supply, Men at Work.
He's one of those. musicians that you're just like your brain is wired differently than the rest of us because he is so incredibly good and endless energy.
[00:02:48] Aaron: Yeah, endless energy, endless positivity, gratitude. We talk about all of that and It's one of those conversations that just, feels nice to absorb both the content and the tone and all of that. So without further ado, Here's our conversation with Tommy Emanuel.
[00:03:04] Tommy: Thank you for being here. I don't know if you remember, but we've met. The three of us on Kayamo.
good
[00:03:10] Michaela: Because
[00:03:11] Aaron: we had breakfast together multiple times because we had our 18 month old daughter with us and you were always the only one up as early as we were
[00:03:22] Tommy: yeah. Well, I'm an early bird, six o'clock in the morning I'm up. Well, what's going on? You know?
[00:03:28] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:03:28] Michaela: Most of the other musicians on the boat were not. So, I remember we had a couple of nice conversations over oatmeal and fruit as. Our daughter ran around.
That's right. Yeah. Oh, how wonderful. I really enjoyed those cruises. I really did. They were just something completely different. And each time I got to meet different artists that I didn't know about. it's really where I met Molly Tuttle and where I met Sierra Hull and, lot of different people Paul, uh,Thorn.
[00:03:58] Tommy: Dawn.Thank you. Yeah. just jamming with people and having fun, you know, when war and treaty were on day we go back to that room after, you know, at night and they get on the piano and we jam and seeing, and,seeing at the top of your voice.
it's so good for you, you just don't get the chance to do that so often.
[00:04:18] Michaela: No. And it's like summer camp because you're together for a full week, which rarely happens for so many musicians. Maybe on a tour together or a festival is a day or two, but that's what's really nice about that, uh,
[00:04:31] Tommy: You get time to talk and hang out and all that sort of stuff,
[00:04:35] Aaron: We didn't
[00:04:36] Michaela: that much because we, we're
[00:04:37] Aaron: chasing a kid.
[00:04:40] Tommy: were doing the, you were being parents. I defy any. military tank to come between me and my kids.
And you have, one of the things we were talking about, you have three children. IsI have three daughters and two granddaughters.
[00:04:53] Aaron: Wow.
[00:04:53] Tommy: Scarlett, Scarlett had a sixth birthday, day before yesterday.
[00:04:58] Michaela: Amazing.
[00:04:59] Tommy: the oldest granddaughter and then the,my younger one is Georgia.
Oh, that's our daughter's name. Yeah.Ah! Great. Well, Amanda my, my eldest daughter, chose those names,
[00:05:11] Aaron: Are they nearby?
[00:05:12] Tommy: no, they're in England.
I get to see them as often as I can.
the reason I'm home right now is I broke three ribs, three and a half weeks ago when I ran out on stage in Toronto. but the beautiful Massey hall and I'm running around and they wave into the crowd and I start skipping sideways, bang, I went straight down on my arm and I held my guitar out of the way like that.
And I just hit the ground full force and I cracked three ribs and uh, I,I carried on and I finished the show. and then I went straight to the hospital. I was in absolute agony trying to breathe and just trying to function. And,they saw the,in the x ray that the ribs were cracked so I was able to carry on and I did five more shows, five more nights.
And then on the last night I came off stage and suddenly sneezed and I broke all the ribs.
[00:06:06] Aaron: Oh no.
[00:06:08] Tommy: I broke the ribs by sneezing.
[00:06:10] Michaela: God.
[00:06:14] Tommy: So anyway, I've been, I'm in recovery here and I'm,I'm a lot better. Today's been a really great day. And so I'm feeling that I'm starting to really heal, you know?
[00:06:26] Michaela: okay. Your home, Nashville is home for you now?
[00:06:28] Tommy: yeah,
[00:06:29] Michaela: Okay. Same with us. Yes.
[00:06:33] Tommy: too.
[00:06:33] Aaron: We are, yeah.
[00:06:34] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:06:36] Tommy: I could have come over to your studio instead of going through all this.
[00:06:40] Michaela: yeah.
[00:06:41] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. do you want to get to work?
[00:06:44] Tommy: you came to mind because you started so young and it seems like you haven't stopped. earlier and I was thinking about this stuff cause we've been talking about my next tour in Australia May next year. And I'm having my birthday on the last day of May. birthday is May 31st. And I'll be 70. I've been playing the guitar for 64 years. I've never done anything else.
It's an interesting thought how does a guy get to my age and play as much as I have and still be enthusiastic about it? I am. I'm more enthusiastic about playing than I've ever been. And I want to get out and play more than I ever have, I'm very lucky like that. I was born that way. I wake up in the morning going, holy smoke, let me at it. It's another day, I think, Because I'm a grateful person. I wake up happy and grateful for what I have and where I am. And if you could have told the younger version of me 45, 50 years ago, that I would, the stuff that I've done in my life, I would have never believed it.
When I can look back on it now and, It's like, holy smoke,I didn't plan that. It just came to me, you know, and I think that's kind of how the universe works, I've got some kind of gift and I don't know exactly what it is. But when I play people get happy.
And that's why I play. but I discovered that early, I think by the time I was 10 and we'd been on the road for four years, I had started moving around the stage. I found the courage to talk, even though I was self conscious about my weedy voice.
And I was fascinated by clever comedians, by people who were funny and who had great timing and all that sort of stuff, and people who constantly surprised the audience. That's what I was interested in knowing. everyone from, Groucho Marx, the Marx brothers through to, comedians and the show hosts that I saw.
who I got to, travel around with a, whole bunch of other artists we were playing intense in those days. I would watch the host of the show and be fascinated by him more than the other musicians, I wanted to be entertaining and funny.
and make people laugh and
when you distract people you,you bring down their walls come down before they know it, I walk out on stage and wave and say uh, stuff like this piece I'm going to start with, I've performed this in front of the Prince of Wales.
the Duke of Edinburgh and many other pubs, you know, and it's the last thing they expect me to say. So that's a way of disarming people, you know, any mistakes I make are all on purpose and stuff like that,
[00:09:36] Michaela: we got to see you play, within the last year just, Hopping up for a song with Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams they were on the podcast and then when they came to town we came out to see the show
[00:09:47] Tommy: All
[00:09:48] Michaela: When you go on stage, it's not just that you are technically an incredible and impressive guitar player.
It's also who you share as yourself on stage. It's your energy. It's that you look like you're having so much fun. And I do think some of us are just wired that way, but have there ever been times in your life That you've lost that a little bit, that maybe other things in life were happening or Did career stuff ever an ambition ever get in your mind? Or has it
[00:10:19] Tommy: Oh,
[00:10:20] Michaela: really,
I'm very, I'm very ambitious. As in, I'm anxious to see how I can grow as an artist. if you examine what I do, you play the guitar. You've never had any lessons. You don't read music.
[00:10:34] Tommy: and you, want to be traveling the world playing concerts? How's that possible? I don't know, but all I know is that's what I want to do, right? So how did I get there? I build it one brick at a time. I started wanting to be a songwriter when I was about 12 and I listened to every record I could get hold of and especially the songs that I thought were great songs by Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, Carol King, Chris Christopherson, And then all the country music stuff and. Of course, I listen to guitar players as well, but mostly, I'm still fascinated by songwriting. It's my greatest passion. even though I don't write words, I'm not locked into any one thing.
you can't put me in a box and say, Oh, that's this. You know what I mean? Because you look at my yearly, schedule, you'll see, I play blues fest, bluegrass festivals, country music, CMA things, Americana, jazz. I play all sorts of festivals, and I play the same music at all, just, I play my music.
And because, to me, I don't say I'm one thing or another. It's just music, it doesn't have to go in that box. I don't want to be in that box. When people say, what style are you? it's R and B, it's blues, it's country, it's pop, it's jazz it's a bit of everything, so how do you describe it? It's just music,
[00:12:08] Aaron: I've observed that at least in more recent times, it being so multi or genre fluid, I guess you could say, makes it a little more difficult for people to grab onto because people need that category to be like, Oh, this is how I should relate
[00:12:25] Tommy: Well, I've been
dropped from labels because they said, we don't know how to market you. You know what I mean? Go to someone who specializes in what you do. I'm talking about, Sony and EMI and the big labels.
I'm not going to try and do something just to fit into a label.
Forget that. I'm not interested.
[00:12:43] Aaron: yeah, that's exactly what we're gonna get at It was likedid that ever slow you down or did that ever? Become part of the calculus on the career side. Obviously not on
[00:12:50] Tommy: On the career side, I mean, there were things like, I did an album with an orchestra and my band and an orchestra, it was a classical gas album came out in 95, and it was a major success. And it was just to try something different. I wasn't going to just play classical tunes on a steel string and acoustic guitar with an orchestra.
I still played all my own songs. You know, and, and I had arranger do all the arrangements and all that stuff, I did do the gully WGS cake, walk by Debussy. but, you know, I played it. I played it like, you know,you know, All that stuff. And I played classical gas rodrigo's Guitar de Aranjuez,
so there was some familiar classical kind of tunes for people, but we played them in a very kind of pop way, people loved it. that was,Move to do something unexpected out there in the world of My career, I guess you'd call it and really worked and then Itoured with a string quartet a bass player and a drummer and We had a great time, I've also done touring where I've had another artist like Rodney Crowell or Pam Rose, different singers have come on the road with me and they've opened and then I've done my bit and then we worked together andI've always tried to mix it up so people can see me.
In a different situation,
[00:14:23] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:14:24] Aaron: With that orchestral record, was that a project that you conceived of and then had label support and you just basically were like, hey, X label, we're doing this and they got behind it? Or did you conceive of the project, ideate and make the project and then find a home for
[00:14:40] Tommy: well, I think it was a bit of both. my friend Peter Carpenter from Sony in Australia, he's head of A& R and he was always pushing for me to do something like that, that they could get on radio, a powerful version of a famous classical song. you know, So I did Rodrigo's guitar concerto, I did it with a band.
And then we overdubbed the whole orchestra on it. And then I redid the lead part, so it was like really dramatic. It got a lot of air play. So, We saw, okay, that's another way we can go,
[00:15:13] Michaela: did you feel any pressure to recreate that after, or is that, for you, has it just been like that was a creative
[00:15:20] Tommy: I did, I toured the album, but I, I decided to just do a string quartet, So what I did to make the night special, Was the String Quartet opened the show with Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the audience loved it. And Nigel Kennedy's version of the Four Seasons was a big record for Sony as well.
It was a perfect timing,and then we did all the songs with my drummer and my bass player me playing acoustic guitar. I rewrote the string parts. So they were a bit more like keyboards things rather than just the orchestra parts because an orchestra is big, so we had to compress it down to cello, viola, two violins.
we made it more structurally strong behind us, and then that was a lot of fun.
[00:16:09] Michaela: That sounds really fun. Yeah. I'm curious because you started touring and playing so young. Like whenever I, research it's always like, you're the youngest professional guitar player ever to have lived that you were gigging professionally by age six. so that in my mind, as someone who did not experience that, that would be like, your identity is so intertwined with, your profession, but also your passion of guitar and music.
Have you ever had times where you felt like you needed to be intentional about like, wait, who's Tommy outside of this?
[00:16:45] Tommy: I've had people say that to me. I've had people say, are you a different person? and the answer is simple. I am the same person no matter where I am. When I'm on stage, I'm the same guy who's talking to you now.
I've never had to do a search inside myself to see who I am.
I know exactly who I am.
my buddy, Randy Goodrum, a great songwriter who wrote, You Needed Me and Oh Sherry with Steve Perry and, really great writer. And we wrote a lot of songs together. And we were driving back from a studio one night and he said, you make this so easy for me because I'm used to people being difficult because they don't know what they want they are.
They're all, trying different things. He said, I'm amazed because you know exactly who you are. When you play, you go, this is Tommy and then that's no one else. This is who I am. and that's my voice, so there are things that I don't do that well people will try to book me to come and play a slide solo like George Harrison on their record.
And I'm no good at that. I've tried it. don't like my own playing that way. I can do it, but I just know that it's not good enough. So I always tell them don't call me to play that style. He is the person to call, get that guy. as much as I love that style of playing, I'm no,good at it, but call me to play on.
Anything else I'll give it my best shot,
[00:18:18] Michaela: Do you think that you just came out of the womb that way as someone who is just this is who I am? Or do you think that was a product of the way you grew up, where your family, everybody, it was so centered around
[00:18:30] Tommy: combination of that and I think also that Definitely my brother and I my closest brother phil who passed away in 18 He knew exactly who he was and what he liked and what he wanted to play he could play 15 different solos for you on this record if you want it, we've always been that kind of open ended musicians.
we'll always go for it. like a lot of times if I play on someone's record, I'm going for first take, that's my goal. I'm going to get it the first time. If I don't, there's usually something wrong, people who asked me to do things 50 times drive me crazy, so I know when, when Barry Gibb was doing the Greenfields album with all the different artists here, he wanted me to play on how deep is your love.
And I was so honored. I love Barry. He's been a dear friend to me since I was a kid. but the producer Dave Cobb. So we're in RCA studio a.
And it's all live up, so I'm sitting here, the piano player's right there, the bass player's sitting beside me, and Barry is standing right there, singing live the drummer's in the drum booth.
I start the song off, and then Barry comes in. I know your eyes in the morning sun, right.
[00:19:49] Michaela: Mm-Hmm.
[00:19:49] Tommy: I get a little solo in the middle and all that. And so the first take was so beautiful and Barry sang so great. And then Dave Cobb got us to do 14 more takes. Just keep going.
[00:20:03] Michaela: Mm-Hmm.
[00:20:03] Tommy: We finished the song and then he says right, let's do another one. And we go straight into it 14 times.
[00:20:10] Michaela: Oh. mm-Hmm.
[00:20:11] Tommy: That's how some people work, you know, I was amazed because the guys played so great, but Barry sang his heart out in every take, you know, it was beautiful, but I definitely wouldn't work that way. I would get a good take and then I'd say, let's get one more and if we need to fix anything, anybody put your hand up.
If you need to drop in, you know, but I did it and it was fine, but I don't particularly like work in that way. my album which has 17 original songs. was broke living in England, got a pregnant wife and friend of mine loaned me his studio for free in Germany.
And I flew over, I recorded the whole album in two, three hour calls. And it's probably the best album I've ever made,
[00:21:00] Michaela: do you, have you worked with Joe Henry ever? He, He's a. producer and songwriter and he talks about how he's like,I work fast. especially if we're working on small budgets, then like we want to get the best players and we work within two days. We're not going to do 60 takes of a song.
It's like, let's go. interesting to hear people's different perspectives on that. Cause some could say well, I'm not, Warmed up yet. And so I have to get there and other people are like the magic happens in the beginning and that's
[00:21:29] Tommy: I get asked a lot by people. It's like, when do you start warming up for the show? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, at 6am, I wake up, I'm ready to go. How do you explain that to people? You know,
[00:21:43] Michaela: you're seem like someone who's just wired in a very specific way That is like made tohave endless enthusiasm
[00:21:51] Tommy: Well, I want to get on with it and do the best can, you know, and I love, I love having fun. it's the same deal like when I do a show, I never have a set list. My lighting director, Zach, he's always saying, so what are we starting with, you know, what he needs to know, because he knows he's not going to get a list.
My sound man's the same, what are we doing? I'm going to start with this and then I'll do that. they'll look at each other and go Well, we won't be doing that then, I'll change my mind or something, you know. Just follow me, the only time I use a list or work out a show beforehand is if I got to work with other people, because they need to know what's going on. When I play solo, I'm free. I make my mind up what I want to start with. Usually the best thing for me is I've got some new songs that the audience haven't heard yet, start with them, to surprise my audience,
[00:22:43] Aaron: that's interesting. feel like I hear people say start with something that people know, to invite them in and then, three songs in, then you hit them with the new stuff.
[00:22:51] Tommy: can do that as well. I experiment a lot, I was younger,
I used to come out and hose the hell out of the audience, just like five major fast in your face songs to start the show and people are like, Oh my God, you know? And so, I kind of don't do that now.
I,the first half hour of my show is pretty much boom, boom, boom, you know?I tend to see the show like having ups and downs and, some quiet bits, some loud bits, some fast bits, some slow bits, some stories. And all that sort of stuff. When I was younger, I used to just play the hell out of everything and, sometimes if I see a video of myself 20 years ago, I'm doing stuff that I could not dream of doing now, those abilities have long gone.
They've left the building, so have to find other ways. And I did experiment one time because. I remember when I started really building a crowd in Sweden, I got to play the big halls there and it was beautiful. And on my second tour, I came out, it was in Gothenburg and I started the show with a ballad and the audience loved it.
And they went nuts at the end of the, this ballad. And I thought, see, even that works.
I love that approach of just trying things out. You know, Just let's just try something different and see what happens then. why should we play it safe?
Let's fly our kite, That that. I love if you do what you've done. You're gonna get what you have,
I was wondering if you have or could share any experiences where you just fell on your face, where you tried something new and swung for the
Three weeks ago in Toronto.
[00:24:29] Aaron: Yeah. Amazing.
[00:24:33] Tommy: mistakes like this, I haven't done enough research about the place I'm playing. And so I'm in Barcelona and I've got a fabulous crowd and the night is going so great. The audience are unbelievable. Spanish audiences are amazing. And during the day that day we flew in from Madrid.
And at the airport I bought a postcard cause it had a big heart and it says, I heart Espana, right? I love Spain. So in the middle of the show, when the crowd would just given me so much love and they were like hosing it out, they were great. I held up this card, no response. Very much like I thought, what the hell? You know, After the show a local guitar player who's a dear friend of mine, Pedro Javier Gonzalez. He says to me, Tommy, this is not Spain. I said, Barcelona? He said, it's Catalonia.
[00:25:27] Aaron: Uh. We hate the Spanish. Yeah. So I learned the hard way.
Yeah, very quickly.
[00:25:37] Tommy: they said, the Spanish stole everything from us.
Our culture, our architecture, our this, our that, Catalonians were here first. The Spanish stole everything from us. So Barcelona is in Catalonia. I didn't know that. No one ever told me that. So you know, that was like, how much egg can I wipe off my face? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:59] Michaela: yeah.
[00:26:01] Tommy: the same thing in England, if you're from Newcastle, you're called a Geordie, we played in Sunderland, which is 20 miles from Newcastle. So, I'm thinking, are in the north. So I come out on stage and say, Hey, Geordie's a thousand people boo me because Geordie's are only Newcastle. They hate the people from Sunderland because they're across the river. they're, They're the competition, this is how stupid the human race is, but this is, this is what happens, and that's the kind of mistakes I'm talking about,
[00:26:39] Tommy: I don't back down from it, it's just like, I would never say boo. It's the same thing when I was a little boy, anybody from South Australia, we are from New South Wales and then you got Queensland at the top there. So my mother was from Queensland and she's like South Australians, snobs, blah, blah, blah.
You know, like all this stuff. she didn't know anybody from South Australia. She's just behaving like her mother and father did, you know, it's see, the human race is so messed up. it's unbelievable.
[00:27:12] Michaela: Yeah, these divisions that we create and lines and all that stuff. But I love those stories because it shows us, you're living out loud and openly ignorance is considered such like a negative word, but like, you know, Ignorance just means we don't know
[00:27:30] Tommy: Yeah. I
[00:27:30] Michaela: know what we don't
[00:27:31] Tommy: found out the hard way.
[00:27:32] Michaela: So you could have been informed with a little more kindness, but I think it's beautiful that like you show up on stage with, enthusiasm and love for those people. And then you're, told, no, we're the wrong, the wrong people.
[00:27:46] Tommy: Yeah. Well,I love the fact that I need a relationship with my audience. I, I need to be open and vulnerable and honest with my audience. The same as I am with you or anybody else. I need to be that way because that's who I am. my ex wife, she used to tell me, don't tell people so much stuff.
Just be quiet. Don't say anything. if they ask you a question, just do a short answer. Don't tell them all this stuff because you're letting them know too much. and she would never open up especially, you know, It's probably why we're not together now but, but we still get on great and I still love her and she's a great lady, but part of me wishes just drop all your defenses and let me know who you really are, so there are times when
I'll be out playing to the audience and if I'm quiet and
[00:28:43] Michaela: huh.
[00:28:44] Tommy: and telling stories,I always tell the audience, I always say, I'm just quiet tonight. haven't told you any stories and I haven't done any jokes that's how I feel tonight, and I just be real about it, the thing that's asked of me a lot by people is do you ever have a bad night?
it's just not magical and you can't get, you know, I say, yes, I do. I go out there expecting it to be wonderful, expecting the magic to be there, right? But when it isn't, You better have some good songs and good arrangements to play and play them with all your heart because if you're,go to improvise and you're, taking the audience with you the ideas are just not flowing, then you better just concentrate and play as best you can because even on your worst night, you're still going to have some good songs to play.
So that's what I do when I'm having a bad night where, my mind is not steady or, or that sort of stuff. Then just go into playing songs that I know are good songs. And I know this arrangement really works and I don't have to talk. I don't have to, create a lot of fun. I can play seriously.
if the audience want to know, then I will tell them. I'm struggling a bit tonight because I'm not a robot. I'm a human being and I have good nights and bad nights and we're all the same. We just won't admit it.
[00:30:10] Aaron: these cruises to bring up Kayamo again, have you ever met Steve Pultz on one of them?
[00:30:14] Tommy: Yes, of course.
[00:30:15] Aaron: Yeah, so Steve was a guest and he said the same thing. That when he's having an off night or when he's nervous or something like that, he just tells the audience.
[00:30:23] Tommy: That's exactly right.
[00:30:24] Aaron: I'm scared to be here.
I'm nervous, you know, and I'm a little shaky and I messed up that song and all that. owning it instantly makes him okay. You know, It's putting him back in the driver's seat and owning, you know, and being in control. And then he said it's counterintuitive, but it actually draws the audience in.
They want you to succeed. They want you to have fun up there.
[00:30:41] Tommy: that's exactly what I tell people when I'm teaching at places like Berkeley and I get asked that question about. Do you get nervous? And what do you do when you get nervous? You know, And this is what I say, I feel really sorry for people who have bad nerves.
I said, I do not suffer nerves, thank God. But the best thing I can tell you is that if you are nervous, you better talk about it straight away. Tell the audience. I'm nervous but make sure you say, but I'm going to do the best I can. And I said, they are not the judge and jury out there.
They want you to do well. And particularly if you're willing to tell them that you're nervous. they will be with you a hundred percent.
that's what we're like, the human race is like that. Look at anything happens out there, people rally and people rally for each other help out.
And it's the same thing with, with an audience, you know, when I fell, three weeks ago and broke my ribs. And I struggled to get up because I was in such pain and I couldn't get a breath. The audience immediately knew that this wasn't a stunt.
people started singing out, go slow, take your time.
[00:31:55] Michaela: Mm They knew it. got to my feet and got to the microphone. I was going, trying to get some air in. And I said, I don't normally do my own stunts, you know, and that's how the show started.
Well, I think, it's one of the reasons we wanted to start this podcast was because we wanted to have more, disarming open conversations with people because we feel like, especially in, our generation and younger and with social media, really seeing, that's what we were noticing of this real disconnect between not only what artists, what we might put forth on stage, but what we're trying to put forth on social media where that's the world that we have to operate through.
And then we'd have conversations with friends in our community and be like, wait, this is really different than what we're all acting like. And is this helping each other? everybody has a different approach to their artistry and their performance style. But I personally am very attracted to people like you or like we had Kevin Kinney from Driving and Crying on here and people that are just Don't put up a farce.
Don't put up like a, I'm this performer or I'm a rock star in this way. that's great too, but, I'm not someone like you that I feel like has just known who I am from the start. It's taken me a long time and, I've, I just felt like I was a performer that heard from people like, don't talk so much.
Don't share so much of
[00:33:24] Tommy: yeah.
[00:33:24] Michaela: And it took me a long time only in recent years to be like, that doesn't feel good though. And so I think I have to be the way that I am, which is to, overshare and
[00:33:37] Tommy: know, it's up to you to find the balance where, you
[00:33:40] Michaela: Yeah.
I don't think it's oversharing. Others can say it's oversharing, but it connects you to people. The people who then are drawn to you are very drawn to you and you have that deeper bond with an audience when you're truly yourself versus when you're trying to act in a way that you think you should to gain or entertain in my opinion and observation.
[00:34:02] Tommy: I've been around some artists that were hugely successful, big stars and knowing that they have to watch what they say, because
people are just waiting for anything at all that they can blow out of proportion and bring that person down. remember when, I was touring with John Denver in 1988.
And John was such a beautiful man. He was a beautiful person in every way. Anyway, there was a TV show called The Midday Show, which I did a million times myself. they dedicated the whole show to John. The whole hour was for John Denver and for him to talk. He never sang or anything. He just talked about his life and about the different charities he works with and all that.
Check this out. They introduce him and he sits down with the host of the show and and the host Says we want to show you a bit of footage and get your reaction and what it was was There was some big music festival on in chile in the country of chile and it was It was a very terrible regime that was running the country it was military, dominance in the country and there were people who were wanting to go to the show and the police were, because they didn't have a ticket, they were dragging them and kicking them and beating them and they were, being, horrible.
And there was footage of people being kicked and hit at this concert that John Denver was giving for free, he didn't know anything about that, but they showed a bit of an interview with him on local television and he was like, Oh, I'm so happy to be in this beautiful country and blah, blah, blah.
And of course he didn't know anything about all this other bad shit that was going on. and then they came back to him like mate to make him look bad,
[00:35:52] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:35:53] Tommy: why would you do that when this regime was doing this and blah, blah. he just looked at the host, eye to eye.
And he just said, first of all, I'm insulted by this piece of film. And I had no idea any of this, blah, blah, blah. And I was sitting in the green room with his manager. And I'll just never his manager said that's it. We are never ever coming on this station again. And he went out there and he let him finish the show.
That's it. That kind of stuff is what people want to do because it's controversial. It's something that I have no time for. That's why if people ask me questions about, Oh, what's going on in America since Trump and, or, and who did you vote for?
And I said, that's my business. I'm not going to tell you,
[00:36:38] Michaela: Yeah, everybody has their own approach and also it's unfortunate, like,The greater your success and fame, probably the harder it is to really be
[00:36:47] Tommy: absolutely. I'm, I'm sure that, I mean, that's why I'm really happy with, my life and where I'm at. When I come off the road, I'm the invisible man, you know, I go anywhere I want and do anything I want
and I love it I can go anywhere. nothing would be worse than if I was, Michael Jackson and couldn't go anywhere,
[00:37:07] Michaela: Oh my gosh,
[00:37:08] Tommy: that'd be awful,
[00:37:09] Michaela: Do you feel like other than when you're injured and are forced to have recovery time, do you have to have your own recovery time after being on tour and expending so much energy? Do you have those in out experiences?
[00:37:23] Tommy: When I've worked hard on a tour, I come home, I'll probably get a nap every day, I'll start to sleep deeper, all that sort of stuff and get my energy back, you know, get my,health as good as sometimes, especially, when you're doing a lot of traveling and then, You know, I'm here to work.
I'm here to do this show. That's all that's on my mind. I gotta give my best at 8 o'clock tonight. That's all I think about when I go on the road, I walk out of this house and go on tour. I go to work. I'm not a tourist. I don't want to be looking around at, this church and that Monument and blah blah blah.
I can do that another time. I'm here to work, When I come home, I walk around and say hello to my neighbors and walk around the neighborhood and get in my car and drive Do stuff go to the supermarket Cook, all that sort of stuff and do things at home that I want to do have a very quiet, low key life
but normally when I'm, off tour, I'm usually going to see family, I got three daughters and one daughter is in Australia and the other two are in England. there's always a lot of traveling involved.
[00:38:29] Aaron: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:38:31] Michaela: Wow. Did you raise your kids in England?
[00:38:34] Tommy: my first daughter, Amanda, she was born in 88. in Australia.
we moved to England in 98, so she was 10 when we moved. And then my second daughter, Angelina, she was born in England. And then my third daughter, Rachel, was born here in Nashville.
[00:38:54] Michaela: Okay. Nice.
[00:38:55] Tommy: Amanda and Angelina and my grandchildren, Amanda's two daughters.
They're in England. Rachel's in Sydney going to school. she's nine.
[00:39:05] Michaela: Oh, okay. Nice. we're almost towards the end, but I'm just so curious how it's been with a family and having a life on the road, primarily, and what that balance has been like.
[00:39:17] Tommy: It's hard. It's hard. But, I'm always in touch with my girls. Always.
[00:39:23] Michaela: hmm.
[00:39:24] Tommy: know, raising a family. I've been blessed with wonderful women in my life good mothers and all that stuff.
I've been divorced three times, and it's just,
I can't not do this, and I remember when I got divorced in 2002 and I decided I should move here to Nashville from England. I had to call a family meeting, and I said just flat out, I'm working hard and I'm touring a lot and I know that I'm away a lot, but this is how it is.
This is what dad does. Okay, this is why you're living in a nice house and going to a nice school and mommy's driving a nice car Because dad goes out and does all that work, you know So I can't not do this The other thing is is that this is what i'm born to do and i'm not going to stop, you know So I had to just say it flat out, and everyone was okay about it, it's still hard and I don't know Any way of making it any easier, my biggest problem is that things just keep getting better.
[00:40:30] Aaron: Yeah, well,you know, it's something that we talk, we have this conversation a lot because we have a daughter and we're raising a family and a lot of our guests are at a stage in their life where they have a family as well. And, It's hard because we're all self employed, essentially, right?
But there are people that are CEOs for companies, other kind of higher level positions at companies, where they travel just as much and they're not potentially chasing their passion,
like we are. doing what they think they should to be able to these bills and all of this and they're gone just as much.
So being in a position where you can demonstrate and demonstrate.Living in your integrity and chasing your passion and doing that, when all of traditional, capitalistic viewpoints of what a career is and providing for a family is when you're working against that is a really powerful thing to
[00:41:17] Tommy: Exactly. I think the way I make it work is this girls and boys, when I go on the stage, it's absolutely 100 percent I'm there totally for the audience, I give it 100%.
[00:41:31] Michaela: Mm When I'm granddad, I'm a hundred percent granddad. When I'm dad my daughters, I'm a hundred percent dad. like, if I go to meet Angelina, she's 25 she's in English. She lives with her, boyfriend in a flat in a inner city in London. And so I, catch the train. And I say, okay, I'll be there at Starbucks at this time and her and I meet together and we'll sit there for like three hours and she'll show me stuff on her phone, photos she's been taking because she loves taking photos, And we'll spend that quality time and there'll be nothing else, I won't talk about my tour or my, what I'm recording or what, unless she asked me, but mostly it's just, it's all about what's going on in her world, I'm giving her the best I can of, her father, and I might do that three times during, a week, I'll catch the train in, meet her, we'll have some quality time, and then I'll get the train back and then home to read for the little ones, for my grandkids.
[00:42:36] Tommy: all I do when I go to England is I'm dad and I'm granddad, and that's it.
[00:42:41] Michaela: Yeah, there's kind of always this like accusation and probably also stereotype of the rock and roll lore of, absent fathers and that mothers aren't even a part of the equation. A lot of the times we talk about this a lot and I've dealt with it of,
it's a whole other world of a mom deciding to, Be a touring musician.
And how are you going to do that to your kids? And how are you going to do that at all? But, my dad was a submarine captain in the U S Navy. So he was, especially my younger years, he was gone for sometimes six months out of the year and no communication, no FaceTime. No email, we had a mail drop we would like record on a cassette tape and write letters and maybe get a letter once or twice and That's a hard way to grow up I have a great relationship with my dad.
I love my dad. We're very close. he's a great father, still is. And my mom, I remember years ago, I think we were, when we were getting married and talking about a future and a family and I was like, but you know, it's so much more selfish as a musician To choose to go on the road and leave your family behind.
And my mom was like, who's to say that your dad's decision wasn't selfish?
[00:43:53] Tommy: Yeah. Mm hmm.
[00:43:56] Michaela: Respectably and as a duty because it's service and he's sacrificing. And, you know, and my mom was like,but He also loved it my dad talks about being on a submarine. It was like summer camp with hundred of his best buddies yes, they're doing serious work, but like, my mom was like, don't be fooled everything we choose to do is not solely either a sacrifice. Selfless or selfish and enjoyable. There's mix of all of it.
[00:44:28] Tommy: kind of grew up with so many perfect families on TV shows. Mom does this, dad does this, and the kids are like that, and it's not real life at all, my father, was such a brilliant mechanic, he could have had a really high paying job with a company like Caterpillar Tractors or whatever.
He was such a specialist. in diesel engines and diesel things and all that, but he gave it all up so that we kids, band could travel and get somewhere, try to have success as a band. You know, we were little kids we sold the house bought two cars and a trailer and a tent and all that.
my parents sacrificed everything for us kids. my dad died when I was ten, and my mother really raised all of us, herself, she was amazing. it's just how that life worked out, all I say is that, if you can't be with them all the time, you stay in touch, but when you are with them Make sure that you're really present and one of the things I love about my life and the way I am when I'm with my kids is that I'm absolutely present, That's important because There's a lot of emotions and there's a lot of things going on Like every family and you got to not start drinking or, smoking dope or whatever, because it's all too much.
got to be present and open and honest, you know, it really works, all I can say is I'm doing the best I can and that's it,
[00:46:01] Michaela: that feels like a. beautiful full circle of presence in everything you do. And a really wonderful way to
[00:46:07] Michaela: wrap up this hour that we got
[00:46:08] Tommy: I can tell I've worn you out. Uh,
[00:46:12] Aaron: No, we try to be respectful of everybody's, day.
[00:46:15] Michaela: Yeah, we tell people we're, tight on our time, so we don't take advantage of everyone.
Also, I'm, I'm, actually seven months pregnant. So sitting in one place for an hour, my back starts to hurt.
[00:46:27] Tommy: you're so you have all my sincere admiration.
[00:46:31] Michaela: Well, a note on
[00:46:32] Tommy: kids. Thanks for having me.
[00:46:34] Aaron: All right. Thank you so much. All right. Bye.