0:00
The new LinkedIn hiring pro can't undo your last hire. The lone wolf.
0:04
Who you thought was a good collaborator because you didn't have the right candidate insights.
0:08
But once you hire them, it was all hoarding info, declining meetings, and howling at the full moon?
0:13
But LinkedIn hiring pro can go deeper than just the resume to find you a perfect fit.
0:19
By using insights from the LinkedIn network to give you a short list of best fit candidates.
0:24
Hire right the first time with LinkedIn hiring pro. Post a free job today at linkedin.com/quality.
0:29
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:52
Let's get into it. Our guys today have got a special guest on the show. His name is Gabe Wick.
0:56
So he has been a part of the Nashville, Tennessee creative scene for over 25 years at this point.
1:01
He's worked in film, video, and the publishing world. So he actually joined Thomas Nelson publishing
1:05
in 2002. And they were purchased by HarperCollins in 2011. And he's been the VP of creative services.
1:11
Their creative services group for a very, very long time. And he spends most of his time on the
1:16
audiobook side of things. So this guy produces around 900 audiobooks a year. And when we talked
1:23
in this interview, you know, just a few years ago is it was less than half of that. But audiobooks
1:27
are absolutely, absolutely exploding. And one of the books in one of the projects that we talked
1:31
about is this right here. This is called country gospel. So you're actually seeing this. These
1:35
are actually CDs in a case, but you can get the digital version as well. But these are country
1:39
music stars from yesteryear and from today, reading the New Testament of the Bible. Okay.
1:45
And so I'm actually going to read through who is on this project. And then I want to talk about
1:48
this interview because it was very interesting. So we had Rory Fiek, Charlie Daniels, Hillary Scott,
1:52
Cheryl White, Sharon White, Randy Owen, Carly Pierce, Tracy Lawrence, Linda Davis,
1:58
Neil McCoy, Ricky Skaggs, Lauren Elena, Josh Turner, and T.G. Shepherd. And so that I actually
2:04
read them in the order of how they were reading different books of the Bible. And so it was such a
2:08
cool project like whenever I found out about this, I was like, yeah, that'd be really cool to kind of
2:11
talk to who was behind this. And so that's exactly what we did. But to be honest with this interview,
2:15
guys, we've flowed a lot. Like I literally just have this pad sitting here and I'm writing down
2:19
all these questions that I hadn't planned to ask. But we talked about the evolution of publishing.
2:23
We talked about the evolution of ebooks and how people thought ebooks were going to take over
2:27
and how it's actually not really done. So it kind of like petered out at one point,
2:30
but also just about audio books exploding, why men don't read books and why they really should,
2:34
how publishers are kind of looking at different men's groups and things like that and how they
2:38
can target them. But then we talked about Johnny Cash quite a bit. So as you guys know, I've talked
2:43
about on the show quite a bit. I'm a Johnny Cash fan. You know, I've always kind of liked his music
2:47
or I found him in high school and I've kind of gone back and listened to his backlog. He's just
2:50
such an interesting guy. He's one of those guys like if you could go back and talk to anybody from
2:54
history, he'd be, you know, on my short list of people I'd want to talk to. But you know, he,
2:58
Johnny Cash worked on this project where he read the New Testament of the Bible. That is one of my
3:02
prized possessions was whenever I got that as a gift. And he actually knows people that worked on
3:06
that project. So we talked about some behind the scenes, Johnny Cash stories. We talked about a
3:10
book that Johnny Cash wrote that he worked on the audio version of. So that was really interesting.
3:14
But then in maybe one of the best parts of this entire interview is he told me a story about
3:17
Charlie Daniels, because I told you, Charlie Daniels is part of this project. He's reading the book
3:21
of Mark, but the timing as we're talking about this project during the interview, I'm like,
3:25
wait a minute, Charlie Daniels died. And I think he died like before they started this project,
3:30
like how did that work out? You guys have got to listen to this story about Charlie Daniels and
3:34
how they got all that squared away. But I mean, we talked about Josh Turner and how, you know,
3:39
how he's really big in this space and how they were able to kind of get him even as,
3:44
you know, as famous as he is and as successful as he is, get him to sit down and do this and
3:48
how he was so excited to dig into the scriptures and do those different projects. I asked him
3:51
about Hillary Scott because obviously Lady Antebellum, they changed her name to Lady A and was that
3:55
weird. And he kind of gave us some interesting behind the scenes looks on her and also her mom
3:59
and kind of the type of people that they were. You know, we talked about future projects and
4:03
there's some spoilers that he kind of gave up at the end because I kind of, you know, I kind of
4:06
force it in a very, very nice way. But there's some really, really cool projects that Gabe is
4:10
working on right now that are going to be for the audio book space. And so guys, this was such a
4:14
cool conversation because I told him off there, I was like, Hey, we're just going to weave and kind
4:17
of figure out where it goes. And we weaved into and out of some really, really cool subject matter.
4:21
So I think you guys will really, really enjoy it. So without further ado, let's get into it.
4:25
Gabe Wicks, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
4:29
Man, thanks. Glad to be here. Well, I already to you, those of you just listening to this,
4:33
this isn't going to make any sense. But I've already complimented you on your Pearl Snap shirt,
4:36
which, hey, you've lived in Nashville for like multiple decades. So if you, I guess what percentage
4:42
of your wardrobe is Pearl Snap shirts? Because I'm sure it's significant.
4:46
Probably more than my wife would like me to have. It's a good, it's double digits for sure.
4:52
Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, we're going to get into a lot of the work that you've done
4:54
while they're in Nashville, because obviously has a lot to do with the country music scene and
4:58
just the publishing scene, all kinds of different things. But something that you just mentioned to
5:01
me, and I was like, wait a minute, let me record. And then we'll talk about it is you were kind of
5:05
going through our backlog of our show. And you notice that John Eldridge has been on here a lot.
5:09
I think he's been on here more than anybody else. He's a personal mentor of mine. I love that guy.
5:13
Just love what he's done for the men's ministry space overall. But I guess you came from the
5:18
Thomas Nelson side of things. I think you were with Thomas Nelson in the early 2000s. Obviously,
5:23
John has put out several books with Thomas Nelson. But you're saying that you've worked a lot with
5:27
him on video projects and different things. So I guess tell me about how you got connected with
5:31
John. Yeah, my first couple of years at Nelson were mainly in the marketing area. And I was doing
5:37
a lot of video production for the company. And so that meant doing a lot of our book trailers.
5:41
And John was, man, he was red hot. At that point, he had kind of, I mean, Wild at Heart was already
5:48
out. And Sacred Romance was already out. And so he was kind of hitting that full stride. And so
5:55
we were putting a lot of money into his marketing efforts. And so one of the first times I worked
5:59
with him was a lot of fun. I got to go out to Colorado for a few days. And we actually rented
6:04
a castle and filmed him and Stacy on the grounds of the castle. And it was, I was used to shooting
6:10
video. I mean, that was what we typically had done in Nashville. And that was like, man, we're
6:14
going to shoot this thing on film. We're bringing out 35 millimeter. We're going to do this thing
6:18
like they would do it in Hollywood. And it was a blast. I had fun working on it. I had just had
6:23
my first son. And I asked him for advice on raising boys. And the first thing you said was,
6:28
let them blow things up. Hey, you got to let boys get dirty. Like, I've got a two year old and a
6:34
seven month old, both boys. And so like as of the recording of this anyway, and you know, they're
6:38
to be clear, they're boys forever. As of the recording of right now, those are their ages for
6:44
any of you thinking that we're doing the whole gender fluid thing. Yeah, you're going to miss
6:47
out if you haven't listened to the show before. But that's the thing that whenever you look at
6:51
stuff from guys like that, it's like, no, you have to let your kids kind of blow some stuff up. You
6:54
have to let them get hurt. And you know, having that conversation with my wife, it's like, look,
6:58
I'm watching him. And I know what he's doing right now is dangerous. But it's not dangerous
7:02
where his life's on the line. Because if his life's on the line, you swoop in there, you protect
7:06
him. But otherwise, like, he needs to take care of business. I mean, just a week ago, he was running
7:11
down the street. And she's like, I'm afraid he's going to fall. I'm like, Oh, he's definitely
7:15
going to fall. Like he's, he's running and he can barely run right now. He's definitely going to
7:19
fall and wouldn't you know it? Three seconds later, he fell skinned his knee really, really bad.
7:23
And you know, he kept running and then he skinned it again. It's like, Hey, he's going to be fine.
7:28
Like this is good. Like this is just kind of a good learning experience. But so I guess when
7:31
you were working with John in those early days, kind of tell me about where he was at mentally
7:36
with a lot of the stuff he was doing. Because again, that was 20 years ago, he's coming off this wave
7:40
of momentum with, you know, these seminal men's ministry work of all time, which is wild at heart,
7:44
you know, kind of what was that like? Because some people that have watched John for a long time
7:48
are like, Oh, he's kind of chilled out or he's getting more poetic in his latter years. And it's
7:52
like, I feel like he's been the same guy the whole time. Yeah, I don't see a huge difference in John
7:57
then versus now, honestly, I think he's, he's gotten, he's gotten more challenging in his theology
8:05
in recent years. I think he was kind of, he was hitting a note back then that was kind of an
8:11
everyman kind of note. And I think anyone that that would listen or read to it could resonate.
8:17
And I think he's, as he's matured, he's written a lot more, he's kind of been honing more in the
8:24
different parts of his theology as he's gone along. And so, you know, that's, that's great. I mean,
8:29
it's, it's, I think he's kind of developed his travel a little bit more along the way. The first
8:34
time I worked with him, it was interesting because it was the first time he'd done something with his
8:38
wife in a book that was working on captivating at that point. And I think everything he'd done,
8:44
you know, before that had all been very, very much men's focus. And then all of a sudden,
8:49
here's one that's got a lot more to do with couples. And it was fun to work with him alongside
8:54
of her. Well, there's an important point in there as well, Gabe, to where it's like, okay,
8:59
if you're in the public eye for any length of time, and I mean, I started this podcast in 2017,
9:03
and that's not nearly as long as, you know, John Eldridge has been on the publishing scene,
9:06
you're going to go back and look at things that you've written or that you've said and be like,
9:10
uh, like, you may just disagree with him or you may be like, what a stupid way to say that. Like,
9:15
you would say it so much better now, but like, it's always good to kind of give people an idea of like,
9:18
okay, you can evolve on issues, you can kind of develop. And you can also own some of the things
9:22
that you used to say that was like, yeah, that was just abjectly false. Or hey, I just, I disagree
9:26
with what that looks like now. So, you know, we went, you know, we went and dove right into some
9:30
of the stuff you did in the publishing world. But let's kind of go back to the early 2000s. So
9:34
you're with Thomas Nelson, you know, that was eventually acquired by Harper Collins. But you've
9:39
been in this, this creative film publishing space for a very, very long time. Most people listening
9:45
to this don't work in that type of an industry. So I guess what drew you to that industry? And I
9:49
guess what's kept you there? Because that's the other thing is most people nowadays have 15 different
9:53
jobs and five different entire fields and you've kind of stuck with this one. It's always evolved.
10:00
And the minute I get bored with it, something changes about it, which has been great. But yeah,
10:04
I think I've always been drawn to it. I got into video work in high school. It was something that
10:10
I kind of did on the side. I grew up in this church that had a youth pastor who was kind of a
10:15
frustrated director and producer. And he talked to church and investing in a studio and a bunch
10:21
of gear. And so some of us that were kind of drawn to it got to spend a lot of time down there
10:26
after school at nights working on video projects. And so I got a kind of deep baritone voice early
10:33
on. And so he was like, "We need you for some voice over stuff." So I started going into the
10:37
studio and recording voice over. And I was like 15, 16. And then learned a little bit more about
10:42
producing and got into it. And so that was, I never intended on doing it for a career. I went to
10:48
school thinking I was going to teach. And that just didn't happen. I ended up my first job by the
10:54
grad school. I got stuck into the video production firm here in Nashville. And that kind of started
10:58
the whole thing. So I did that for years. And then I got into the publishing world through the
11:04
same thing and did video within the publishing world. And then about 2008, I started doing audio
11:10
books for Thomas Nelson along with some of the video. And then over time that's grown to now
11:16
audio is pretty much my main thing. I don't really do video so much anymore. I've got a team that
11:20
works on it. But it's audio has kind of become the next great friend here.
11:26
Okay, so let's talk a little bit. I do want to talk about kind of this audio book revolution
11:30
as it were. But I do want to talk about just the evolution of the publishing industry
11:34
from the early 2000s to now. So let's just look at this last couple of decades, because everyone
11:38
talks about news. I was trying, okay, used to go to the newsstand on the corner to buy USA Today
11:42
or New York Times or Wall Street Journal or something like that. And now you can get that online or
11:47
you can just get the free stuff on Twitter or whatever. And I know publishing has had to really
11:51
adjust how they've basically presented their product to the market, because especially now
11:56
people used to get their, you know, entertainment from opening up a book and reading it. And now
12:02
we have 15 different streaming services on our Roku, we can just click on one, and we can watch
12:06
seven seasons of some show. And that's our entertainment now. And like it seems so slow and old school
12:13
to just sit down and open up a book. So talk to me a little bit about what you've seen, because
12:16
that's what I've seen from the outside kind of being a young and in this whole deal. But what
12:19
have you seen from your end? Yeah, it's, I'm a real skeptic about a lot of these kind of things.
12:25
I was, I remember sitting in a meeting in about 1999, my first publishing job, and listening to
12:32
a guy talking about ebooks. And yeah, he was kind of this doom and gloom. Oh, the ebooks is going
12:38
to be the new thing. We're going to throw all of our print away. And this is good. And I'm sitting
12:44
there to, you know, as an early 20s guy, listen to that and thinking, this is ludicrous. There's
12:48
absolutely no way. And that, you know, that's ended up being true to some extent. Ebooks have
12:54
been a thing, but it's, it kind of hit a plateau and never really grew above that. But I take that
13:00
kind of attitude really towards anything where they say, Oh, well, this is the future of publishing,
13:05
and this is where it's all going. I don't think it moves quite that fast. The, you know, when people
13:12
have talked about, well, it's all going to go green, or we're going to be buying books by the
13:15
chapter. Yeah, well, something that's going to happen. But I haven't seen that really happening.
13:19
We're taking off yet. People think podcasts are going to replace audio books. I don't think that's
13:26
the case either. You know, I think it's a one one feeds off the other. I think there are two
13:31
stripes of the same media. I think that at the end of the day, it's about content. If we can create
13:36
good content and we can bring voices into the market that people don't necessarily hear otherwise,
13:42
or maybe not as many people hear otherwise, that's the whole relevance of publishing.
13:46
And how it gets to you is kind of irrelevant. You know, I think right now I'm excited that
13:50
digital audio is having this moment, because I like the media. I like working in that medium.
13:55
But you know, that may not be the thing for terribly long either. I think the indicators are it's
13:59
going to be around for a while. But at the other hand, you know, people still buy print books. People
14:04
are going to still buy print books that there's a, I'll be honest, you know, if I go for something
14:10
I want to consume at home, I'm typically picking up a printed book, which is weird because I work
14:15
in digital audio. But there's there's this artifact quality of that book in your hand that is still
14:21
relevant and still a personal thing. You know, if I drop it in the pool, it doesn't cost as much
14:27
as if I drop my iPhone. Right. Well, so that's the funny thing because I've talked about on my
14:31
show a lot and we'll get into kind of men and why they don't read here in a second. But I basically
14:35
exclusively read for my iPad. And the reason is the reason is now because, you know, I'll get these
14:41
advanced copies that are in PDF version from the publishers. And so I only put them on my iPad and
14:46
I can take my notes and it's all really, really well and good. And I can read in the dark without
14:50
having to turn a light on and all that kind of stuff. And even before that, I would just read e-books
14:53
and things like that. But for me, it was the convenience of, okay, I'm, you know, somewhere running an
14:58
errand and I've got 15 minutes to kill. Well, I can't be like, Oh, dad gone. I left my, you know, book
15:04
on the nightstand. It's like, no, I've got my phone and I can just pull it out and I can read
15:08
a chapter or two while I'm sitting there waiting. And so it was the convenience of it. But man,
15:12
there are so many people that they want the tactical, not tactical, I guess I would be tactile,
15:17
like feeling the book in their hand. They want to feel the pages. My wife, I don't know what you
15:21
would call this. She's like a paper file like she loves different types of paper and the weights
15:25
and in the texture and all that. Like we can't just buy Christmas cards. We have to buy Christmas
15:30
cards with this way to paper with this type of finishing blah, blah and all that. But that really
15:34
does go into the publishing side. I know people that are nerds about what is it type setting? Like,
15:38
you know, the, the gaps in like, you know, because the type said on this book in that book, there'll
15:42
be the same amount of pages, but there's way more words in one versus the other. That's where I've
15:46
kind of feel like that we're all we are with this whole thing is like, okay, if you like the convenience
15:51
of the e thing and having all your books in one place, great, you've got that. But if you want to
15:55
have tomes and tomes all around you and you want to be surrounded by books, you can do that as well.
15:59
Now, no one's going to want to help you when you move, right, because they're going to be
16:02
looking at all those boxes of books and be like, I screw you, you can do that on your own. But
16:06
now let's go in and get into talking about men. So Gabe, every time I talk to a publisher,
16:11
whether it's either the two that we've named here on this podcast or all the other ones,
16:14
which will remain nameless because they're not part of this conversation. They tell us the same
16:18
thing. Men do not read books like they don't buy hard copy books and read them. They certainly
16:25
don't read them if they're Christian men. And so that's why a John Eldridge type, he is the anomaly
16:30
of anomaly. It's a sell over a million copies of Wild at Heart. Doesn't even make sense. I've talked
16:34
to guys, you know, offline that are kind of in this space, I'm like, why don't you write a book
16:39
specifically for men? And they're like, dude, I would love to my publisher would never go for it.
16:43
They would never put marketing dollars behind a book that is targeted at men or specifically at
16:48
Christian men, because it just won't sell any copies. What's your read of that? Because obviously,
16:53
you're in the audio book space and I know a ton of men do audio books because when they're on the
16:57
work side or when they're on the road, that's a way that they can get a lot of content in. That's why
17:01
men listen to so many podcasts. That's why men consume so many audio books. But again,
17:06
that's just what I've seen on my side. I don't do this professionally. What have you seen what
17:09
your read on it? Yeah, I think there's a there's an interesting, you know, kind of conundrum about
17:16
this because we we're still publishing more men than women. I mean, if you if you look at our front
17:21
list catalog, it's going to skew more male. And yet we're very cognizant, the fact that the majority
17:26
of the consumers are female. Yeah. And that way, as long as I've been in this business,
17:31
that's the stat I've heard every year I've been in it, you know, and a lot of times you get you
17:36
talk about, you know, about John's books. There's plenty of evidence that a lot of those books were
17:41
bought by women for men. Right. And we know for sure that's a that's a big like Bible publishing
17:48
is a big part of of what Harper is about. Bibles are almost exclusively bought by women and and
17:54
Bibles are predominantly bought as gifts for somebody else. You know, and there's still an awful
17:59
lot that that happens every year. It's a it's a huge part of our publishing, you know, work that we do.
18:04
But yeah, it's it's funny. I think that and this is just anecdotal, but I can tell you among among
18:11
my male friends, I feel like we buy occasional books. We're given a lot more books and we we
18:19
probably go after a lot more content, you know, ourselves that is not something we have to, you know,
18:26
be given or that we have to go buy ourselves. I think a lot of us are going online for content
18:32
or listening to podcasts or listening to radio or listening to satellite. And we're going after
18:36
our content that way instead necessarily picking up a book unless someone hands it to us. Yeah, I
18:41
would say as well with that is again, men connect shoulder to shoulder women connect eye to eye.
18:49
That that's kind of typical. And so you can also be in yourself when you're in a book,
18:54
like you can kind of look at yourself and you can put yourself into the story. Whereas men,
18:59
if they're going to do that, it's probably going to be in a movie, like an action movie,
19:03
they're going to see themselves in First Blood, they're going to see themselves in the incredible
19:06
Hulk or whatever movie that they're watching. And maybe personality wise or wiring wise,
19:11
you don't see that as much with women. But I guess what I what I would ask and I know you've
19:15
asked yourself this question. I know you've been part of meetings that this question has been asked.
19:19
But how can we get more men into actually reading books? Because I heard a great quote from a friend
19:24
of mine years ago, it's like, there's two types of people in this world. There are guys that read
19:29
and then there are morons. And like, that's just kind of where it is. Like, I talked to these men
19:33
who they haven't read a single book since high school, right? They didn't read any of their books
19:37
in college. They haven't picked up a single book. And they always blame, Oh, you know, I'm working
19:40
or I've got family. But for the most part, it's like, they'd rather play video games. They'd rather,
19:45
you know, binge Netflix. They'd rather look at porn and masturbate. They'd rather do something else
19:50
and then to feed their brains. And I'm talking not just with fiction, just with, you know,
19:54
stories that are just for entertainment. I'll talk about nonfiction, like real world,
19:58
you know, anything theology or history or any type of entertainment in the nonfiction world.
20:03
What can we do to convince more guys? Hey, this is certainly worth your time.
20:06
Yeah, you're you're you're hitting some of this near and dear to me there. I think it starts young.
20:12
I think it probably starts in high school. And, you know, I started getting into this idea of
20:19
wanting to teach because I wanted to teach I wanted to teach literature. And I didn't kind of get that
20:25
idea until I went to college. And the reason was in college for the first time I was reading things
20:30
I wanted to read. You know, you go through all this curriculum, middle school and high school,
20:34
where they're telling you these are the books you're supposed to be looking at. And I, you know,
20:38
grant there's stuff that's kind of in our literary canon that everybody should have some exposure to.
20:43
And if you don't, then you're kind of ignorant. But on the other hand, you know, if you really
20:48
want to capture, you know, a boy's attention, he needs to be reading something that actually
20:54
hits him where his interest lies. And if he gets into the habit of actually reading something
20:58
because he likes that subject matter, he'll keep doing it. I've got my 18 year old is not a reader.
21:05
Yeah. And I part of that is that it's just his way he's wired to some extent. But part of it too,
21:11
is I looked at the stuff he was reading growing up. And you know, it was the standard assignments
21:17
that you'd expect in middle school and high school. And, you know, shame on me. I didn't do a great
21:21
job of putting a bunch of books in front of him when he was younger, because he was more focused
21:26
on other things. And I was trying to encourage that. His younger brother, who's about to pretend,
21:31
loves to read. And I think part of it is because I'll give my wife credit. She was a lot more
21:36
instrumental in making sure there were books around that were things in his interest areas.
21:42
And so he started picking those up. And, you know, after a couple of years of that, it became a habit
21:46
with him. And he'll, you know, he'll still gripe if we try to make him read. You know, it's, you
21:52
know, you can't say, all right, you've got 30 minutes to read in time now. But if you have it
21:57
around him, it's something that the cover screams, this is something that you like already, he'll
22:02
pick it up and want to go through it. And, and I don't think schools do that. I think there's,
22:06
there's no freedom in what, what kids are told they have to read right now.
22:10
Struggling with weight loss? Prolon's five day fasting mimicking diet is a clinically developed
22:15
nutrition program designed to promote fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Developed at USC's
22:20
Longevity Institute, it assists the body in entering a fasting like state that helps reset metabolism
22:26
and target visceral fat. In just five days, Prolon offers a science-backed approach to weight loss
22:31
without extreme restriction or guesswork. Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe
22:36
at prolonlife.com/now. One thing that I think is interesting as well, and that's, that's a great
22:41
word for, for dads, especially to make sure that there are those books around. But part of it is
22:45
modeling as well. Like if you're, you know, if you're not good with your money, if you're out of shape,
22:50
if you don't read and you want your kids to do all those different things, your excuse can't be,
22:55
you know, do as I say, not as I do. Like eventually that's going to kind of run its course. So
22:58
dads, they need to see you reading. They need to see you digging into things. You need to read the
23:03
books with them, right? And y'all can talk about it together. You make yourself so available
23:08
to your son in a very interesting way whenever you can lay bare your opinions about a classic
23:13
novel or about something that's specific to, to their interest. But I would say as well,
23:17
with a lot of dads out there with a lot of people that don't like to read, I think they feel like
23:22
the juice isn't worth the squeeze. That's why we put a book list on our website. It's 100 books
23:27
every modern Christian man should read list. Okay. And if you just throw a dart at this list and hit
23:32
one, I guarantee you that book is going to be valuable to you. That's why we've curated this
23:36
list. We take books off. We put books on like it's, it's kind of a rotating list of sorts.
23:41
But it's like, guys, there are resources out there for you. But it's weird how people catch the bug,
23:46
though, isn't it? Because Gabe, I didn't read any of the books in high school. Like I, I cheated on a
23:51
lot of my tests. Like, you know, because I didn't want to read the book or I would just read the
23:54
spark notes and hope to God, the tests the next day had something to do with the summaries that I
23:58
read because I just didn't want to read the actual physical book. But here I am now, this year I'm
24:03
going to read well over 50 books. Like that is not great for me in my brain because I read so slowly,
24:08
it takes a ton of time for me to do that. But I've gotten so much value out of reading these,
24:13
these different authors in their different opinions. So do you feel like for a lot of guys, they just,
24:17
I don't know, they'd rather tinker with something in the garage or go to the shooting range or
24:21
something like that, because they just don't think it's going to be worth it for them?
24:24
Yeah, I think it requires some effort that they're not going to put into it. I think it's, you know,
24:29
if you're, I'm not, look, I'm an old car guy. I got two old cars out in the garage. I love
24:33
working on old houses. If you gave me a choice between grabbing some tools and working on that
24:38
or sitting down with a book, I'm going to grab the tools, you know, because that's something I
24:42
know gives me a release and I enjoy it. And I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something with
24:46
my hands. If you can get that same feeling that you accomplished something, I think that's one of
24:51
the things I think guys want to accomplish something. We want to feel like, you know, not that we've
24:55
necessarily fixed something, but that we actually can step back from something we put time and go,
24:59
yeah, that that came together, or I did that or whatever. And I think you, if you're reading the
25:05
kind of thing that the end of reading it, you have that same sense of satisfaction that I actually
25:10
accomplished something by doing this that I better, I understand something. There's some questions I've
25:15
got answered now or it's piqued my interest in something else. That's where you win and that's
25:21
where you're willing to make the effort to do it. I think you've got to be really careful with the
25:26
material that you decide to read. I've got a stack of books on my nightstand that were recommendations
25:32
from people. There's probably 30 books there. I don't think I'm going to get through many of them
25:36
because it's like someone said, oh, you need to read this. Hands me a book. I'm in the publishing
25:40
business. People give me books all the time. And I'm not going to be rude and say, no, I'll never
25:45
take a look at that. No, I'll take it. No, I'll blow my nightstand. Periodically, my wife's like,
25:50
you need to clean some of that crap off the nightstand. I will read the first chapter and go, yeah,
25:54
I just, I can't get into this. The subject matter is not really intriguing to me. And so it sits
26:00
there. And I think if I were to invest the time, I've tried a few times, like frames of written
26:04
books. And I hope not them get me on this because there's fear that they're like, oh, now I want
26:10
to read my book. And I've tried and I'll get three or four chapters in it. But like, if I invest the
26:15
next couple of nights and reading this, I'm not going to be the better for it. It's just kind of
26:18
going to [inaudible] me off. And I don't want to be dishonest to me and go, Oh man, your book was awesome.
26:23
Well, see, you're a better man than me because I have this horrible, no, it's not a horrible,
26:29
you know, trade. It's actually really good in a lot of ways. I have to finish things. So even if
26:33
the movie's terrible, I have to finish it. Even if the book is awful, like probably the worst book
26:38
I've ever read, it was a 600 page novel. I think it was called, I think it was called the librarian
26:43
or the, I can't remember, it was this dude that was trying to find Vlad Dracula, like in modern
26:47
day or something like that. Oh, the historian or it was something like that. It was atrocious.
26:52
And it was never good. It never got good. Like spoiler alert, when they found Vlad Dracula in real
26:57
life, the guy pulled out a gun and shot him, right? And that was it. That was the whole thing. We
27:01
spent 598 pages trying to find this guy. And then he just finds him and kills him. But I have to
27:06
finish it. So even if it's a turd saying which I have to eat the whole thing. And so like that's
27:10
the thing that for a lot of guys, if you're going to, I guess get a book for somebody or give them
27:15
a recommendation, make sure it's pertinent to them and not to you. Because don't recommend the book
27:19
to them because you liked it so much. And your friend who's nothing like you. Like why why in the
27:24
world do you recommend that book to him? Like give it give him something that would kind of be in
27:28
his wheelhouse that would be kind of in or near him. Now, before we get into this latest project
27:33
that I really want to talk about, I want to just talk about audiobooks in general because I was
27:37
reading in your bio and I read in the bio before this interview started. 900 or so audiobooks are
27:43
what you and your team produce every year. Well, first of all, how like how in the world does that
27:50
happen? Because like, you know, it takes a long time to read these things. And like, even if you
27:54
got a professional actor, you know, they got to keep their pipes good to go to read through this
27:58
entire book, you know, tens of thousands of words. But I don't know, that seems like so many books.
28:04
And you're just one guy on one team at one publishing house. Are audiobooks really that big? Are they
28:09
really becoming like this overwhelming hegemon in this space? They absolutely are. And that number
28:15
three years ago would have been about 400 titles. That's the kind of growth that we're seeing. And
28:21
the reason is half of my job right now is going back and recording stuff that we published 10,
28:27
15, 20 years ago, that at the time it wasn't worth putting it out an audio. Because if you did,
28:33
it was going to be on cassette or it was going to be on, you know, a stack of 20 CDs. And it was
28:38
going to be so expensive when I was going to buy it. And it was going to end up being remainder
28:41
and going to landfill. And now because of the onset of digital audio, the game has changed. And
28:49
now really anything that you've got that you can record is worth recording. So, you know, of that
28:54
900 this year, about 450 to 500, those are going to be things that are probably 10 years old up
28:59
to 25 and even 30 years old. But yeah, it's a huge volume. It's a lot of stuff to go through.
29:06
Well, I mean, I feel like that's exciting. And I feel like in this may be a good thing for the
29:11
men's space as well is like they've I think men feel like if they listen to a book that it's cheating,
29:15
which to a degree it is because if you say, Hey, I read that book, it's like, Nah, you didn't,
29:19
you just listen to it. But it doesn't really matter how you consume it because of those 50 or so books
29:24
that I've read so far this year. I think three or four were audio books, but I was on long road
29:28
trips. And as opposed to just, you know, going through my normal podcast, it's like, Hey, I'm
29:32
going to consume that like I'm in the middle of like a 23 hour long book on Theodore Roosevelt.
29:38
And it's one of three books. And like I'm loving it because they're really digging into the detail
29:43
on Theodore Roosevelt. And it's like, I'm never going to have that amount of time just working
29:47
around the house or mowing the lawn or something like that. But on a long drive, like that's a
29:51
great way to get in this content to kind of feed our brain and to be entertained. But we've done
29:56
all this setup to really get to something that just came across here recently. And it's this,
30:00
it's country gospel. So if you guys are looking at this on the screen, it looks like it's a bunch
30:04
of CDs in a package. And that's exactly what it is. But the cool thing about this is this is the
30:11
country music stars of yesteryear and today reading the New Testament of the Bible. And so I actually,
30:18
I actually read through the names in the interest. So I won't go into that. But I will ask some
30:21
specifics about some of these folks. But the cool thing about this game is one of the greatest gifts
30:26
I've ever gotten my entire life. I actually got this from my in-laws before they were my in-laws.
30:31
This is just when my wife and I were dating at the time, they got me a copy of Johnny Cash
30:35
reading the New Testament. And I, you know, I'm still kind of obsessed with Johnny Cash. But
30:40
especially at that time, I was very obsessed with it. You know, this is where before streaming
30:44
and YouTube and all that. And so, you know, it was the box set and it was expensive. And I was like,
30:49
oh my gosh, I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford this thing. And then they got it for me
30:52
for Christmas. And oh man, like that was like the coolest thing. And even to this day, when I,
30:56
when I study the Bible, if I'm passively studying the Bible, I'll hit that. And I'll just turn
31:01
that on and I'll listen to him reading through his, you know, his voice. And it's just absolutely
31:06
incredible. So with this one, you've got a bunch of different artists that are reading the New
31:11
Testament. And these are people that I'm assuming are believing the words that they're reading,
31:15
which, which is a good thing, because you don't always get that from a voice actor that is reading
31:19
a particular book, especially if it's more of a Zondervan type of book. But for you, I guess,
31:24
how did this type of project even come, come along? You know, how did you guys figure out,
31:28
hey, this is probably going to be a good thing. And obviously you're there in Nashville.
31:31
So it seemed like you were the perfect guy to maybe pull this off.
31:35
This was, so I just finished 20 years working at Harper/Nelson before that. And in 20 years,
31:42
I've never, I've never actually pitched a project to a publisher before. I'm on the service side
31:49
of the business. I record things for people or film things for people or that's what my team does.
31:53
But we don't really get into the content creation part of it so much. But this was something that
32:00
had been on my mind for years. Like you, I love that Johnny Cash recording. That's,
32:06
I know people in the Nashville studio community that worked on that project back in the day.
32:12
Johnny, there's, there's some great stories that come out of those sessions. I mean, he was,
32:16
he was so driven. I've talked to one of the engineers that worked on that. And he said,
32:21
Johnny would come in and he would read all night. It was, which is unheard of. People
32:25
didn't do that. I mean, usually when I'm working with an author, if I get four or five hours of
32:30
reading out of them, that's a good day. That's a great day. And frankly, after four hours,
32:35
they start to sound like somebody else anyway. He kind of needed to stop because, you know,
32:39
just getting all dragged out. Johnny was doing seven, eight, nine, 10-hour sessions on this thing
32:46
because he was so driven. He had to do it. And I love that recording. And it almost went out of
32:51
print. And thankfully it didn't. But the back in, back in 2004, I had a chance to talk to the
33:03
Bible publisher about, Hey, let's not let that thing go out of print. Let's, let's digitize it
33:07
and try to get it out in digital audio, which was very new at that point. And that worked. And so
33:13
that's one of those things has been kind of a perennial seller in our back catalog. And it's
33:16
always struck me that, you know, we've, we've got so many great contacts in country music. Why
33:21
don't we do this again? And, and so I, I approached his arm and publisher, Melinda Balma, his friend
33:29
of mine. And, and I said, you know, if I'm just thanking spitball in here, I can come up with 15
33:35
names of country artists that we've worked with in different contexts, whether it's promotion or
33:39
we've done their book or whatever. I've been, if we went back and talked to them about reading
33:43
audio, Bible, some of them would go for it. And she loved the idea and said, okay, go pursue it.
33:48
See, you can get. And so that's kind of how it started. It was, it was really who we already
33:54
worked with. Who do we have a relationship with? And from there, it snowballed. From there, it was,
33:59
you know, I would be in the, in the studio with one of the artists and we'd record and
34:04
at the end of it would be sitting around talking about things and I'd say, Hey, who else do you
34:07
know that should be on this? Oh, I would want you to get this, this, this, and then they'd,
34:12
they'd give me their phone numbers. And it was, it was funny. I didn't ever have to go through an
34:17
agent really for anybody. I didn't have to go advertise. We were looking for talent. It was,
34:22
it was all word of mouth. And this is, this is a town where people know people. You know,
34:28
it's all very networked. And though I've never been in the music side of the business, I've,
34:33
I've definitely rubbed shoulders with people who are. And so it doesn't take that many phone calls
34:39
to get in front of the right people and get the right phone numbers. And this just a matter of
34:43
where they interested. But, but the goal was we wanted people who actually did believe this,
34:47
like you're saying, there's, there are plenty of people in the country music world who are not
34:52
people of faith who would have loved to have been on this just for the publicity. And we didn't want
34:58
this. We wanted folks that actually, they actually walked it. And I'm, I'm pretty proud of who we
35:03
ended up getting on here. I, I would stand behind any of them and getting to be within each of them
35:08
personally. And kind of hear their testimony and their stories. We're working. It kind of helped
35:13
validate all that. Before we get too much further into that, you mentioned some Johnny Cash stories.
35:19
Okay. And you may have told, told them all, but are there any other Johnny Cash stories? Because
35:23
again, this is just for me. I don't even care if my audience cares. Like this is for me. I'm
35:26
being completely selfish right now. Are there any other interesting Johnny Cash stories either
35:30
coming from working on that New Testament project or anything else? Because I'm all ears for anything
35:35
cash. All right. I'll tell you my favorite Johnny Cash story. Let's go. All right.
35:39
So I've, and I've, I've heard several over the years, but this one I got kind of directly from,
35:44
from a good source. I worked on John Carter Cash, worked on his book that he wrote about his mom
35:51
where after she passed. And, and so he had a friend of the family, got a Mark Stilper, who was a
35:57
kind of a country music historian who worked with them on preparing that manuscript and kind of
36:02
researching the history. And I got to work with Mark quite a bit during that project. And one day,
36:07
we were driving out to John Carter's house. John Carter lives right next to what used to be Johnny
36:13
Cash's house, the, the, the one that burned, you know, several years ago. But it's the one that
36:17
you see and walk the line that's learned by knows about. So John Carter's right next door to it.
36:22
And we're driving out there. And, and we're about to start talking to John Carter about filming him
36:27
for a promotion on his mom's story. And, and we pass by this peer. If you ever seen Walk the Line,
36:36
there's a, there's a scene where he kind of crashes a tractor off the end of the year, right next to
36:40
okay. Well, that peer is still there. And, and so Mark Stilper starts telling me a story about
36:47
that peer. He said, one time I was here at Johnny's house, he said, people knew that Johnny had an
36:53
appreciation for, you know, for handcrafted, finally made things. And they thought he was probably a
37:00
gun enthusiast. And so fans would send Johnny guns. And it happened all the time. And, and he said,
37:06
people didn't realize Johnny actually really didn't like guns. He was, he could appreciate
37:10
the craftsmanship. But he didn't, he didn't like the idea of guns. And so he said, he was there and
37:18
someone had sent Johnny this beautiful, he thought like a, you know, pearl-handled cult. This is gorgeous,
37:24
gorgeous handgun. And Johnny took it out and looked at it and admired it. And he said, oh, that's,
37:28
that's beautiful. And then he walked down to the pier and threw it off the end of the pier and said,
37:33
you're never going to hurt anybody. Oh, no. And, and according to Mark, he said, you know, if a
37:41
diver went off the end of that pier, he'd probably find 20 or 30 pieces just like that at the bottom
37:46
of the lake. Because that's what he'd do. He'd look at me, toss him in the river.
37:50
Well, after this, you can go ahead and give me the location and I will get my scuba certification
37:55
and be like, Hey, these are technically all Johnny Cash's guns. And I'll have my own personal
37:59
collection. So you talked about all the people that you're able to get for this country gospel
38:04
thing. But I kind of want to know who are the people that you wanted that you didn't get? Because
38:08
there was one name, there was really only one name that came to the top of my mind that would
38:12
have been an interesting person to hear. And that was Vince Gill. And maybe that's because it's the
38:16
O.K. and me or something like that. It would have been interesting to hear him. And you know,
38:20
you're not going to see, you know, a lot of people in this lineup that are huge right now.
38:24
These are maybe people like back in the day, like, I think one of my mom's favorite people ever was
38:28
Neil McCoy. But of course, you know, Neil McCoy's not making platinum records today, those types of
38:32
things. But is there anybody that you didn't get that maybe you were close to or that you really
38:35
wanted? But maybe wasn't, you know, interested in the project or anything like that?
38:39
Oh, the first two on my list were Charlie Daniels and Ricky Skaggs.
38:44
Okay. And you got them?
38:46
Got both those guys. I kind of felt like I, you know, I checked those off the list.
38:49
Really wanted to get Dolly Parton that that was nice. And talk to her people about a little bit.
38:57
And it just, it just wasn't something she had the time for at that particular point. We,
39:02
when we ended up recording all this was a little weird and it worked out for some people, but not
39:07
for others. I got the green light to do this project probably December, January, right around
39:15
end of 2019, beginning of 2020. So we're going to start production about April, May of 2020.
39:22
And of course, the world changed in March of 2020. And so suddenly,
39:26
Nashville studios are closed for one thing. And you couldn't actually book a session.
39:31
There are a few people that decide to open back up kind of into the spring, beginning of the summer
39:37
we started getting some sessions. But even then, it's, it was really weird. You know, it'd be like,
39:42
I'm in the control room and the engineer 20 feet over here and everybody's masked up and the artist
39:47
is over here in the sound booth. And the three of us will never be in the same space. You know,
39:52
it's just, it was surreal how you had to go about what normally is a very kind of personal
39:57
kind of process. It helped in some cases because no one was on the road either.
40:04
So there were people like Hillary Scott. I don't think Hillary Scott would have ever had time
40:08
to do this. We're not going to get me. But because all of a sudden, she has no show dates,
40:12
she was able to come in and give us a few days buying a microphone. But then there's others that,
40:17
that be like, I really wanted Bill Anderson, Bill Anderson, an oldest surviving member of the
40:24
opera. He's kind of like one of one of that last of that generation. And initially, he agreed to,
40:30
to be on the project. And, but, you know, as that was when we all thought the pandemic might last a
40:36
few months and then we'd get back to our normal lives. And so we were kind of banking on that.
40:40
But as it drugged on, you know, about a year into it, he finally just said, I just don't feel
40:45
comfortable. I don't feel comfortable. He was just, he really was just kind of hold up in his house,
40:50
which I get. And we'd already lost a number of people in country music at that point.
40:55
So, so yeah, there was a disappointment. I didn't get him, but it actually worked out because he,
41:00
he was going to read the book of Revelation and kind of wrap up the whole thing. And I'd
41:05
already gotten T.G. Shepherd on board, but he was going to read something else earlier in the New
41:09
Testament. And gosh, I had no idea how amazing T.G. Shepherd is as a narrator. The guy just,
41:16
he has pipes that don't quit. And just a total joy to work with. And so when,
41:23
when Bill bowed out of it, I called T.G. the next day and said, Hey, would you like to come
41:28
back in and read Revelation? He said, Oh, yeah, I'd love to. And it worked out great. I mean,
41:32
there's, we still got someone who kind of, you know, represents an earlier generation of the music,
41:39
but just knocked it out of the park with a delivery of it. Yeah, that's awesome. I have a
41:44
question about a couple of people that you brought up. But the first one is Charlie Daniel. So obviously,
41:48
he's one of the larger profile people, obviously of this entire project. But he's not with us
41:54
anymore. You know, he passed away a while ago. But I guess my question is, is it haunting
42:00
to hear Charlie read, because he reads the book of Mark, is it haunting to hear him read that?
42:06
Because I will say this, I became a Johnny Cash fan during the American recordings that he did,
42:12
you know, later on in his life. And then I went backwards, you know, to the Sun recordings and
42:16
kind of worked my way through. And I used to work for the guy that's the, I don't know if
42:21
I can name this band. But anyway, he's he's a, he's been a longtime manager for this very,
42:25
very big band out of Oklahoma City. And he owns like, terabytes and terabytes and terabytes of music.
42:32
And most of it's like in CD form, actually. And one day he just walks by my desk and he puts a
42:37
stack. And these are not like with the actual cases, we're talking about the skinny cases,
42:40
a stack of Johnny Cash albums on my desk and says, have fun. And so I got to like really
42:45
develop and read through his biographies and all that. And so I guess for whatever reason,
42:49
whenever I listen to Johnny Cash reading the New Testament, it's not haunting. It's because I'm
42:53
still so giddy about Johnny Cash, because I'm just a fan of his life and how crazy it was and how
42:57
he became an ordained minister at one point. He actually wrote a novel about the Apostle Paul,
43:01
you know, called Man in White, which is fantastic, which I have a copy of downstairs in my library.
43:06
But I produced you for that one. Listen to what's that? I produced the audiobook of that. You should
43:11
list it. It's great. It's fantastic. We're going to go back to that. We're going to go back to that
43:14
immediately. We're going to keep, we're going to keep finding stuff to go into. So let's go back
43:17
to Charlie Daniels. So like for whatever reason, it feels funny hearing him read that because there's
43:23
almost this reverence because he's just not here anymore. And again, that's a guy that kind of had
43:27
a rough life in a lot of ways. And then, you know, kind of you found Christ and all that. So it
43:31
doesn't feel that way for you since you actually worked with him on the project. Yeah, it makes
43:35
me smile to listen to it. Charlie was the first person that I told the publisher we'd be able to
43:41
get because we'd done his book. I'd worked with him on some other promotional stuff. I'd worked
43:47
with him a couple of times at that point. Just loved working with the man. He just, he was funny.
43:53
And he was, he was really bright. And the, the first time that I met him, he was, it was actually
44:01
his birthday. And it was, I think he was 78 or 79, somewhere in that range. And his, his staff had
44:08
made him a birthday cake. And so we were out filming at his, at his office. And on a break,
44:14
he starts passing around slices of his birthday cake. And I was trying to lose some weight,
44:20
failing at it, but I was trying. And he comes over me and hands me this big piece of cake. And
44:24
I said, I, Charlie, I'm sorry. I just, I'm trying to watch it right now. I'm not going to do that.
44:29
And he, he reared up and he said, boy, you don't want my cake.
44:36
Yes, sir. I'll take two slices right now. Right. But he, you know, I, I'll never forget the first
44:42
time I worked with him after he'd had his stroke and he had a massive stroke. And when he shook
44:47
your hand, you still thought this guy could put you on the floor. Yeah, 80 something year old. He's
44:52
just, he's just strong as a bowl. But, but he was so much fun to work with. And I, I knew he would
44:58
do it. And so, so he was kind of like the instant checkbox. Yeah, we're going to get Charlie to read
45:04
this. And then between, you know, having that conversation and then ging the green line on the
45:08
project, he died. And, and so, you know, his, his agents, a friend of mine, I had lunch with him,
45:16
shortly after that. And I said, man, let me talk about this project I was going to call you about,
45:21
because Charlie would have eaten this up. And he, he sat there and said, you know, he actually
45:27
recorded his own audio Bible. Like, really? Well, yeah, he did. He said, we've got the whole thing
45:34
in the can. It was never edited. And he said, there's some problems with it. But, but he did it.
45:40
And he said, he was anyway, we could make use of it. And so, so well, you know, the problem is that
45:47
we're, we're doing this in the new international version. And so that's, you know, the chances
45:51
that he read the thing in the NIV or he said, no, he read it in the NIV. Wow. Okay. All right,
45:57
let's let's figure out how to make this work. Well, the, the problem was that Johnny or Johnny,
46:02
Charlie had, had done this using his own personal Bible, which was like a 1982 copy of the NIV.
46:10
Okay. Beth, the NIV is it's always being updated. And you can only, you know, buy use of your license
46:18
with the, the company that actually owns the right. So you can only record or print the most up-to-date
46:23
version, which was pretty different than what Charlie had read. But we spent months on this and
46:31
decided that we were going to make it work. So we, we took Charlie's recording. And then we,
46:37
we took his recording of his autobiography that we had done a few years before. And we started
46:43
looking for all the sounds and the words that we needed. And so before it was all said and done,
46:48
we had created the book of Mark with kind of this Frankenstein of those two recordings.
46:54
Wow. It worked great. The amazing thing is you can't tell. You can't tell at all. You can't tell
47:00
it all. Every verse in the gospel of Mark on that recording has at least two edits.
47:05
Some have as many as eight. You'll never hear this. But, but I, you know, I, that makes me
47:12
smile to listen to it now, because I think, I think he would have appreciated that. He would
47:17
have loved the fact that we had that challenge. He was a, he was a tinkerer. He loved to work on
47:23
stuff. I had the pleasure of just sitting with him and talking about gear for a couple hours one
47:28
afternoon. And it just, his knowledge of how it worked. And, you know, oh yeah, I bought that
47:33
amp 30 years ago at a pawn shop in Atlanta. Here's how, you know, it's that kind of thing. And so I
47:38
think the, the notion of having to put all these recordings together to make the gospel of Mark
47:44
would have appealed to him. That, how many people know that story? That is incredible. Like, I had,
47:49
I had no idea. You should print that somewhere on this thing. Like, you know, it's in there. It's,
47:54
there's, there are interviews at the end of each of the book. Oh, okay. Yeah. I didn't listen to those.
47:59
And so Charlie of course wasn't able to give us an interview, but I got to interview David Corlou,
48:03
who was kind of his right hand man for most of his career. And David kind of explains the whole
48:10
story. And we talked about how it all came about. So yeah, we debated not including it in there because
48:15
that that was just kind of like, well, you know, do we really kind of want to spread the word that,
48:20
that Johnny, I keep going Johnny. Yeah, we'll get to Johnny again in a second.
48:24
Do we want to talk about the fact that Charlie didn't sit down and read this word for word as
48:28
you're hearing it? And then we all finally said, no, the story's too good. Oh, yeah. The fact that
48:33
it actually worked and it actually sounds good. And it's still Charlie reading every bit of it.
48:38
Yeah, that's, that's cool as we're talking about. Hey, I'm super going to co-sign that like,
48:42
I had no idea. And it was cool enough to see Charlie Daniels's voice doing this,
48:45
but knowing the whole backstory that he kind of already did that, because as you were talking
48:49
through the timeline of when this project was, was put out there, I was like, even in my head,
48:54
before I was like, I was going to ask you about Charlie Daniels anyway, but I'm like,
48:56
wait a minute, like when, when would he have recorded this? Because like, you know, anyway,
49:01
so that that's all very, very interesting. But let's go back to this thing that you just kind of
49:04
slid into a conversation with a big Johnny Cash fan. So you did the audio. So I guess to anyone in
49:10
the audience, tell them what man in white was, because obviously everybody knows that Johnny Cash
49:15
was the man in black that was part of his thing, part of his persona. I've kind of taken on that
49:19
a little bit. Every time I go speak, I wear all black partially because it's easy partially because
49:23
I sweat and people won't be able to see it, but partially because that's like the Johnny Cash
49:27
style. Like it's just, you know, black from head to toe head to toe and you don't have to think
49:30
about it anymore. But again, yes, he became an ordained minister and he wrote this book, but
49:34
kind of give us the backstory in the book and then kind of going into the audio version.
49:37
So it's a fictionalized account of the book of the story of the Apostle Paul. And it was something
49:44
that there's kind of a pet project of his for years. It really took him a very long time to
49:51
write it. And mainly because he rewrote the thing several times. He would, he'd write a draft of it
49:57
and he'd share it with a friend of his. And of course, he knew people everywhere. And he,
50:02
and he knew a lot of writers and he knew a lot of people in ministry. And every time he would
50:07
share it with someone, he'd get feedback and he'd go back and rewrite the thing again. And so it,
50:12
you know, who knows how many actual iterations of it there were. The, we published a print version
50:19
of it. I feel like it was before he passed. So it was probably late 90s that we published it.
50:28
But it wasn't put out an audio. And that was something that we had the opportunity to do it.
50:34
It's probably been, it's been seven or eight years ago now, but it was years after he had passed
50:42
that the decision was made. Hey, let's see if we can put this out on audio. And thankfully,
50:47
I was able to get web Wilder, who is another great in the country world and one of the best
50:54
voices out there, either, you know, speaking or singing. And he was, he was just thrilled to be
51:00
asked to do it. And so he, he lent his pipe. So that project did a fantastic job.
51:04
Well, I have so many more questions about that. But for the love of God, we're going to be here
51:08
all day. So maybe I'll ask you later because we're becoming fast friends. So, so this is kind of
51:13
an interesting question because obviously having Hillary Scott, you mentioned her earlier, she's
51:16
part of the trio Lady Antebellum. But that's kind of my question is, I know that they turned off a
51:23
large portion of their fan base when they officially changed their name from Lady Antebellum to Lady
51:28
A. Now, anyone who's been a Lady Antebellum fan, because I've told people before, that was kind
51:32
of like, with their first album, like my dad was listening to it at his house one day. And I was
51:37
like, this sounds pretty good. And I hated country music at the time. And so that's always kind of
51:41
been one of my like guilty pleasures was Lady Antebellum, for whatever reason. And I know that
51:46
they're their fans just kind of called them Lady A. And I think that was like their fan club was
51:50
like the Lady A fan club or whatever, because most people don't know how to spell Antebellum.
51:54
They don't even know what Antebellum actually is. But you know, you know, with all the stuff that
51:57
happened in 2020, and George Floyd and the riots and everything, everyone got really, really sensitive.
52:02
They weren't the Dixie chicks anymore. They just became the chicks, which is somehow not offensive.
52:05
So we'll see how long that lasts. But then Lady Antebellum, they officially changed their name to
52:09
Lady A. And I remember thinking to myself, what an unforced air. Like, I don't think anybody is
52:14
thinking that those three artists and the rest of the band are playing at KKK rallies. And they've
52:19
got a bunch of neo Nazis in the front row and skinheads in the back. Like, I thought it was
52:23
an unforced error for them. And again, that was probably the label making those decisions. I doubt
52:28
the band was sitting there like, Oh my gosh, what do we need to do with our name that we picked from
52:32
the beginning? But did that strike you as odd when that happened? Because well, to be honest,
52:37
the first time I saw her on here, I immediately thought, Oh God, why'd they rename their band?
52:42
That was like my first thought it was such it was just such a weird thing to me. So I just want to
52:45
get your read on it. Yeah, I'll just I'll shoot from the hip on it. It's not something I had a
52:50
conversation with her about the I got to work with her for the first time on this project. And also,
52:57
her mother Linda Davis was Linda was actually the first person I think we recorded for the project.
53:02
And the thing that hit me about both of them, there are two of the kindest people I've ever met.
53:10
Honestly, there's there's a warmth about them that is just, you know, it's so authentic.
53:17
And and just very kind, they make you feel like you've known them for years within 10 minutes of
53:24
talking to them. And there's a sensitivity there. I think there are they are. These are people who
53:30
are very in tune with their fans. They're very cognizant of the fact that people look to them.
53:37
And you know, it was role models. They're very serious about their faith, deeply serious about
53:42
their faith. And they're very serious about their image. And so, you know, my mind that all probably
53:47
had to do with it. I don't know if it was a label decision or if it was a band decision. But
53:52
when all that went down, you know, the there's just so much scrutiny happening in country music in
53:58
general. There's there's always going to be a little bit of attention between traditional and
54:04
modern. They had just gotten into the operate, which you don't get much more traditional than that.
54:09
And, you know, I think probably all that all that the timing just kind of came together to
54:15
point where they felt like they they needed to react to the times and be a little more sensitive
54:23
about something that probably didn't offend their fan base, but may have offended people that weren't
54:28
part of their fan base, but they were part of the greater community. I don't know. I can't speak on
54:32
their behalf, but I can tell you just from what I've seen of their character, that wouldn't surprise
54:37
me. All right. Well, we'll leave that one there. So when I looked at this initial list of artists
54:42
that we're going to be on here, obviously, you know, Hillary Scott, because of her profile on how big
54:46
Lady Antebellum is I'm calling them Lady Antebellum. I don't care if I get canceled. Like, you know,
54:50
I was like, that's a really cool get. You know, obviously, like I said, you know, Charlie Daniels,
54:54
that's really neat. You know, for my mom's sake, Neil McCoy, that was such a cool thing. And Tracy
54:58
Lawrence and some of those other ones. But there was one name that stuck that stood out to me for
55:02
several reasons. And that was Josh Turner. And so the first reason why it stood out to me is because,
55:08
I mean, the dude's got the most silky bass voice, like it's such an unbelievable voice when he sings.
55:16
And then when he talks, it's just like that as well. But 10 years ago, this summer, actually,
55:20
I worked for Major League Baseball kind of it's a long story, but we would have artists come through
55:24
all the time. And one of the artists that came through was Josh Turner. He came and did a tour.
55:28
And so I'm kind of giving him this tour. And then he had some downtime and we had a pool table.
55:32
And so he and I played pool. And if we had a nice back and forth game of pool, and we're
55:35
just chatting the whole time, there's some nice pictures of us having a good time. And, you know,
55:39
I guess you could ask him the next time you see him who won that game, you know, I don't want to
55:43
brag or anything like that. But it was just such a fun time because most of the people we met were
55:47
really, really down to earth. Like these were not people that were wanting to be weighted on hand
55:51
and foot. Yeah, they had sold millions of records or yeah, they had done some incredible things on
55:55
the baseball diamond, but they were just regular people at the end of the day. And I always remembered
55:59
that about him. And so even even in those days, I didn't give a crap about country music. And I've
56:03
kind of developed more of a taste for certain parts of country music later on. I'll never be
56:08
like the Florida Georgia line guy or like the, you know, any of those types of kind of country.
56:12
For whatever reason, that just doesn't really agree with my palate. But Josh Turner, I think his
56:16
first big, I got a long black train in his first like major hit was like it basically was like an
56:24
exposition of the gospel. And like this is being played on country radio and it's all over the
56:28
place. So this guy's never seemingly been shy about his faith. And here he is working on this
56:33
project. Obviously his voice is incredible. So talk to me about Josh Turner and how all that kind of
56:38
came to be because he seemed like a guy that would be downright giddy to do this because he read
56:42
first and second Peter, first second and third John and Jude. So what was it like working with him?
56:47
Josh was great. I've had some interesting convergence over the years. My wife has known him actually
56:55
since college. They went to church together a long time ago. And so she knew him before he was
57:00
big. And then we published his first book several years ago, which was a great book and did well.
57:09
And I actually got to work on the audiobook for that one. And so, you know, he was a very early
57:17
target that we had as far as somebody we weren't on the cast. And the kind of the guy that I really
57:24
spitballed all the ideas off of initially was Rory Feat. Rory's become a friend of mine over the
57:28
years. We've published him several times. It's tremendous human being. And talking to Rory about
57:34
who should we be looking at? The first person that came to mind for him was Josh and their buddies.
57:39
So we kind of hit Josh from all these different sides, all these people that knew him. And it
57:44
wasn't a very hard thing to convince him to be part of it. It was harder to get access, you know,
57:49
to have to get time with him. But, you know, once he got into it, he's, Josh is one of these guys
57:56
that is just a consummate professional. It's, you know, there are people who wanted to come in
58:01
and sit around and shoot the breeze for an hour. And then we'd record some and then we'd, you know,
58:07
they'd want to talk about stories. And a lot of them hadn't gotten to be around people much,
58:11
you know, for months, pandemic. So they were, they were enjoying being back in the studio
58:15
and getting to chat with folks. And then there were some that just that came in and was like,
58:19
all right, game face on, we're going to get this done. And Josh is one of those. I mean,
58:22
he just, he sat down ready to go. And I don't think he was in the chair five minutes before we were
58:28
rolling. And he would just absolutely motor through it and did a fantastic job. He was one of the most
58:33
error free readers that we had. There were very few things I had to make him do a retake on.
58:38
But yeah, he's, it's funny as, as commanding of a voice as he's got, when he's reading, he's
58:47
actually kind of quiet. He still has that just amazing baritone. But, but it's, it's, you know,
58:53
you have to turn the level up on a little bit because he's, he's actually a little soft spoken.
58:59
And, but man, just talk about somebody who takes him seriously. I mean, this is, he,
59:04
he wanted to read those books. They, they actually, he got onto the project early enough that he had
59:10
a choice of which books he could read. And so that was what he wanted. And they, you know,
59:15
it was very evident they spoke to him. And it was something that he had a personal tie to.
59:19
Yeah. Now, Josh was, Josh was a pleasure. I hope we get to work on something else with him.
59:25
That's fantastic. So you, you mentioned errors right there. And so I, I know a lot of people
59:29
that are in the publishing space now and obviously you're, you're very prominent in the audio book
59:33
space. And it's like, you know, I kind of make fun of myself sometimes because when I read long
59:37
passages of books or of articles on this, on the show, I'll mess up and I just keep going. Like,
59:41
I'm not going to stop and edit and do all those different things. But I've always thought about
59:44
because I get hit up about, you know, writing books and doing all those different things. And
59:47
so that's probably a part of the future. And like reading the audio book myself and my two
59:51
main concerns. Number one, I have kind of a weak voice. And so if I talk like this for very long,
59:56
like this excited ginger anger voice thing, it kind of gives out after a little bit. I don't,
1:00:01
I can't talk all day. And the second thing is like, gosh, you mess up and at the end of a sentence
1:00:05
and you had good momentum going into that sentence. So as a producer, how do you deal with that? And
1:00:10
like how, you know, hesitant are you to tell this person who's literally giving you their time to do
1:00:16
this project and all that to be like, Hey, excuse me, can we go back, you know, one minute and do
1:00:20
that? Like take me through that whole process of how you deal with mess ups. It does vary by
1:00:25
individual. We we try to punch at it, which which means that you let them go ahead and finish the
1:00:32
sentence or finish the phrase. You've heard the mistake, you know, it's back here. And if I can,
1:00:38
if I can get them to go back and just read with themselves that same passage, then chances are we
1:00:45
can lift out just the word or phrase or part of a word that they botched. And we can just very
1:00:49
seamlessly put that in. If someone's got the momentum, I don't want to stop them. I definitely
1:00:54
want to let them continue. There's nothing worse for their confidence than to literally stop the
1:00:58
mid sentence. I've seen producers do this. I've never understood why. Oh, no, no, no, stop right
1:01:03
there. No, I can't do it that way. Because the minute you do it, they've, they've, you've kind of
1:01:09
shaken their confidence. Yeah, make some nervous. It does. And after two or three times, they're,
1:01:13
they, you can tell a noticeable difference in how they read. They just they get more timid.
1:01:17
They, they start making a lot more mistakes. It's, if, if you convince them they're screwing up while
1:01:23
they're doing it, they'll deliver that to you. And it'll just, it'll just get worse and worse. And,
1:01:28
and I've had some that we had to ban on the project because they got two or three chapters in.
1:01:33
And, you know, and they felt like they were doing such a poor job that they just said,
1:01:38
I can't keep doing this. So yeah, you have to be careful that there was, there was one artist on
1:01:43
this project. And I, I won't, I won't say who it was, but it really threw them that we were
1:01:49
reading from the NIV because this is someone who grew up reading the King James, that's what they
1:01:55
know. And, and they were a little taken aback that we weren't going to let them read from the King
1:02:00
James. And then as they got into it, every diverse, they would put a word in that wasn't right because
1:02:06
it was the word they knew from the King James version. And it's like, oh, it's not what it says.
1:02:11
We'd have to go back and do the retake on it. But it's, yeah, it's, it's funny. You, you, you
1:02:17
definitely let them go as long as they're willing to go and keep the momentum before you want to
1:02:21
interrupt. All right, that, that's awesome to kind of hear that because again, I know
1:02:25
some people probably lead, read a little bit out of time because maybe they want to give a
1:02:28
lot of energy to it. And I guess to that end, I always like for whatever reason, again, I haven't
1:02:33
listened to a lot of audio books, but for instance, 12 Rules for Life is read by Jordan Peterson.
1:02:38
And I love that because Jordan Peterson doesn't have the most pleasing voice to listen to.
1:02:42
It's Canadian kind of cracky, you know, those types of things. And it's like,
1:02:45
but he's reading it. And at different points in the book, he guys, he's actually getting upset.
1:02:49
And you can hear that in his voice. Now, if there had been a professional, you know,
1:02:53
silky smooth audio book reader, would it have been as good? Maybe, like, you know, would have been
1:02:58
good in some ways, but like you want to hear the author actually read it when it's nonfiction.
1:03:02
When it's fiction, you want somebody that can do the different accents and kind of carry people
1:03:06
along and do all those different things. But from your perspective, when it comes to nonfiction,
1:03:10
are you always defaulting to wanting the actual author to read their words? Are the
1:03:15
authors actually like excited? Do they want to read their own words? Or would they rather be like,
1:03:19
look, I'm the writer. They're the talker. Let the talker talk. What does that look like?
1:03:23
That's actually changed a lot. That that's the biggest change in my world over the pandemic
1:03:30
that is stuck. Pre-pandemic, I would say probably 40 to 45 percent of our front list books were read
1:03:36
by the author. Now it's pushing more like 90 to 95 percent. And I people had more time to do it,
1:03:45
you know, in 2020 and 2021. And so it kind of stuck. And I think part of that too is the
1:03:51
literary agents out there have decided that this is something that we should be doing.
1:03:57
Now you get a lot more contracts where it's in there that their client is going to read.
1:04:01
And that's fine. I think for a lot of books, it makes sense. I think if you've got an author who
1:04:07
can deliver that content and they seem authentic and they have a voice, it doesn't have to be a
1:04:12
professional voice. It doesn't have to be that pleasing of a voice. As long as their voice
1:04:16
doesn't get in the way, it's fine. The minute their voice gets in the way, that's a problem.
1:04:22
And that's a really difficult conversation to have. And it happens. It happens, you know,
1:04:28
as me books what we do, it's going to happen sometimes that you've got an author who,
1:04:32
for whatever reason, no one has told them, you got this really awful voice. Or, you know, some of
1:04:41
the more painful ones I can recall, I've had a few that were dyslexic. And they get into the
1:04:48
booth and they can't finish the sentence. And more than not, once you sit down, talk to them
1:04:53
about it and say, look, you know, this isn't working. They'll say, yeah, my agent said I need to do
1:04:58
this or my wife said I need to do this or my church said I need to do that. You know,
1:05:01
someone told them they need to do it. And they believe them. And then they got into it and realized
1:05:06
they really shouldn't. Yeah, I could see that being rough. That's always an awkward conversation
1:05:12
tab when you kind of bring that up with somebody. But it's like, gosh, can we have some levels of
1:05:16
self awareness here? Like if the first time you ever hear that you can't sing, is that your
1:05:20
audition on American Idol? Like that's a problem. That means you're surrounded by a bunch of people
1:05:24
that hate you, that they let you go on the show and absolutely embarrass yourself. Well, we'll make
1:05:28
this last question of the day because I know you got stuff going on the rest of the day today. But
1:05:32
let's talk about future projects. What are some things that have got you really, really ginned up
1:05:36
some things that are, you know, in the offing maybe for, you know, for 2023 or even beyond that? And
1:05:41
I want spoilers. Okay. I want you to tell us about stuff that may even get you in trouble. That's
1:05:46
how far I want us to go. Because if you hung with us for this entire hour of the interview,
1:05:50
let's get a payoff here. Oh, man. Okay. Gosh, I wish I had, I wish I'd made some notes about this.
1:05:57
I'll tell you one that that we've got coming that that I'm very excited about. If you're familiar
1:06:04
with the, there's a English theologian I meant to you, right? Of course, yeah. Right is a fantastic
1:06:10
writer. But no one ever really hears him, you know, unless they see interviews, it's he's not
1:06:15
the kind of guy that you get on an audio book very often. He has actually worked out his own
1:06:22
translation of the New Testament, which is based on, I mean, it's based on good scholarship,
1:06:28
but we just got through recording him doing that in the UK. It's fantastic. It's absolutely
1:06:34
fantastic. So that there's a spoiler there that's not coming out for months. You can't even pre-order
1:06:40
told probably mid next year, but that one is going to be really, really good. There are,
1:06:47
we've got some authors who typically don't read their own that are getting more interested in
1:06:52
getting in the studio. Max Lakatos, our biggest author, has been for decades. And Max is, I think,
1:07:00
only narrate two of his books in the past. But I know for sure he's going to do his next one,
1:07:05
which is kind of exciting for us because we don't usually get to get him in the studio.
1:07:09
So yeah, there's, I'm trying to think of any good dirt. I don't have any good dirt.
1:07:15
You know what, I sprung that on you here at the end, right? I never give anybody my questions
1:07:20
before him, but I'm literally just spitballing all these random questions. So we've got each
1:07:23
other's email. So you can just email me as you think of dirt and stuff like that. I will just
1:07:28
know it and I will just feel so satisfied that no one else does be like, yes, I know this information,
1:07:33
but you gave I really appreciate all the access today and you kind of letting us weave into and
1:07:37
out of a bunch of different subjects. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get
1:07:40
off your chest? No, that's fine. I really appreciate the time and, and you know, get your get your
1:07:45
listeners to go out there and buy that country gospel product. We really want that new testament
1:07:49
to getting a lot of fans. Absolutely. Guys, that is going to be in the show notes in on Amazon. You
1:07:53
can get the, you know, digital version that you can download or you can get it like this. I mean,
1:07:57
to be honest with you, if this isn't in Cracker Barrel, this is like the most Cracker Barrel thing
1:08:01
possible because you're literally buying it in CDs and you got folks that love to listen to it on
1:08:04
their CD players and all that. But Gabe Wicks, thank you so much for coming on a Dauntoed Life
1:08:08
Man's podcast. Pleasure. Thank you. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Gabe Wicks,
1:08:13
but before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life. Our
1:08:16
mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that for just spiritual, mental,
1:08:20
and physical resilience. So the only link I've got for you today, I've got a link to country gospel.
1:08:24
That is the whole thing that we spent most of the interview talking about. But again, on Amazon,
1:08:28
you can buy the audio version that comes through via like streaming or whatever that service is,
1:08:32
or you can actually get the physical CD. So this might be a really cool gift for someone in your
1:08:36
life that's maybe a little bit more old school. They really like the CD version or something like
1:08:39
that. It's really, really a fantastic gift. Thank you guys so much for listening to the show. We do
1:08:43
appreciate it. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive
1:08:47
five star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you should
1:08:50
me an email to info@undaunted.life. That's i-n-f-o @undaunted.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on
1:08:56
Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content
1:08:59
like this coming your way. Just go to www.undaunted.life and as always, we want to thank the band August
1:09:05
Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song
1:09:09
"Cutting the Ties," which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording of their album Leveler.
1:09:13
The links are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
1:09:19
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:09:49
[Music]