28. Fine Bourbon and Great Country Music with Dustin Collins

You know, that took away their livelihoods. They didn't have no place to sell their grains of stuff.

I mean, Barstown, where I'm from, the entire economy is based on bourbon.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. Turn around, there's bourbon there.

You know, I was gone from Barstown 10 years, and I was back home. And, you know, I never go out home. If I'm home, I like to go home home. But we went out and about in the city of Barstown the other day. And I remember when I grew up in this town, the only thing to do was sit in Walmart parking lot and drink bush light in the back of a truck.

That was it. That was all we had. And now there's like five bars there.

Like there's these bourbon runs and all this. I was like, it's like a bourbon gallon bird down here now.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. Hey everyone, this is Jim and you are in for a real treat. Our guest today is rising country artist Dustin Collins. He's a Bardstown native who currently lives in Nashville. His song Cold Dead Hands topped the Billboard Hot Singles chart at the number one spot. His album, It's Been A While, debuted at number one on the Billboard Heat Seekers chart for South Central US and landed at number 25 on Billboard's country album sales chart. With popular songs like Cold Dead Hands, The Barn, and I Like To Drink, it's no wonder Dustin's music is on fire. But wouldn't you know, Dustin loves his bourbon. So he and Mike sit down at Baxter's 942 here in Louisville, each sharing a bottle, as Dustin hammers out a few hits on his acoustic guitar. You definitely don't want to miss this episode as they chat about bourbon music and everything in between. We'd like to thank Baxter's 942 again for hosting us. We hope you really enjoy the show.

Hey, this is Big Chief, and we're down here at Baxter's 942 in Louisville, Kentucky, and we got Dustin Collins with us today. Dustin, how you doing? I'm doing good. So you brought us some special stuff today. What'd you bring us? A little bit of Makers, Mark. Makers, man. Now, Dustin, where are you from? I'm from Bartstown, Kentucky. And tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, Other than being from Barstown, I pick guitars and write songs for a living and live in a van down by the river.

Live in a van down by the river. Hey, that's not a bad way to live, really. With four other guys. Well, I don't know about all that now. You got a big song out right now. What's that song?

It's called, I like to drink. It's fitting for where we're at right now, I think.

Well, that's fitting for the Bourbon Road, I think. Hopefully everybody else thinks that. Well, let's get straight into our pour of this Makers, and then we'll talk about Makers a little bit, all right?

All right.

I made sure we didn't mix our glasses up. I gave you a Kentucky glass, since you're an old Kentucky boy. I got a Coast Guard glass here.

Well, that struck me as strange too. You're in the Coast Guard in Kentucky.

There's a big old, there's a big river down there called the Ohio River.

Oh, well, yeah. I forget y'all do that too. Last time I seen the Coast Guard guys, we were packing up a bunch of helicopters and putting them on a boat in Galveston Bay.

Oh man. Military out loads. Yeah. So tell us your relationship with makers.

Well, my grandmother drank Maker's Mark my whole life. And growing up in Barksdale, it's a whiskey-poor place. They ain't got no whiskey over in Barksdale. But all we could get our hands on, mostly, was that $7 Evan Williams. Oh, man. And it was bad. We'd go get them pints, and we'd tell you a little bit about Oh, KMF earlier, a little bit of that, but we drink at, we got Evan in 7-Up. It was terrible. It's nothing bad to the fine folks over there. Evan Williams, y'all do a great job, but old black label in 7-Up is not the way to go. It'll dry your mouth right out. And everything else. But Makers Mark, man. I got into my dad's makers mark one day when he went home and I was like, that's good. I like it with everything. If you're going to make a cocktail, you're going to make anything like that old fashioned, anything out of makers, it just goes well with about everything because it's so sweet.

But there's no doubt about that. That's that weeded whiskey. I think it's got that little sweet taste to it still. You know, that wheat brings out that sweetness, that caramels and stuff. So how do you drink your your makers?

I mean, I just little, little, little tab water in there.

Yeah, that's not a bad way to drink it. I like to drink mine just straight up neat.

I like it that way too.

So, uh, you started out, uh, out in barstown, Kentucky. That's where you're from. And that's obviously the bourbon capital of the world, but you play country music.

Yeah. Uh, well, I like to say we play both kinds of music.

Country and Western.

I've seen a couple of your interviews.

Yeah, Country and Western. I've said that to a couple of guys that worked for me before. I said, hey, we only play two kinds of music in this shop. And they'd be like, what's that? And I'd be like, Country and Western.

I think it's from the Blues Brothers. I don't know if you've ever seen the Blues Brothers. They're in the good old boys. We only have two kinds of music in here, country and western.

That is true. That is from the Blues Brothers. So, when did you start playing music?

I've been playing guitar since I was like 9 or 10 years old. So, it's coming up. I've been doing it about 20 years. 20 years. For being 31, to be doing anything 20 years is a long time to me. Oh yeah. I didn't really start singing though. I lost probably 25. Most everybody was like, stop singing. Not very good at it. And I just kept on and kept on because I mean, you know, It's like anything singing is you get good if you practice at it and you just got to find your voice of what you do and try to stick to it. And I've heard from every record producer in Nashville to Kentucky that your accent's too thick or you talk weird or something awful. And more recently I heard from somebody that said, your songs are a bit too country for country radio. Oh man. And then so you try to write some songs that are more contemporary for the contemporary radio. And then sometimes you write those and you just don't end up liking them. And you're like, well, now we're back to square one. You can find a balance between what you like and what you want to play and where your heart is and then what you're trying to accomplish musically and what you're trying to accomplish in your career. You got to find that happy balance and that's music in general and trying to have a music career and yet be an artist.

Now that you're early stuff, I listened to some of your early music stuff and that was, was that other people trying to push their hands in your music and stuff?

I'm not really heavily suggest things. So I, I'd, I, I, what I'd do is end up writing a song. We'd be in, end up in a production or whatever with the producer and then the, you know, the producer is going to put his spin on it. But if you hear me play those songs like acoustic, you know, those come out, you know, three chords and Three chords and the truth, that's all you got. And then you go in the studio and they start changing the music and kind of directing you towards another way. And we're about to start, I think it's my third full studio album we're about to start. Just started writing songs for it. We got a new producer. Guy had several big top 40 hits, early 2000s, late 90s. Great dude, Jeff Bates. who did Long Slow Kisses, one of my good buddies and one of the best writers in country music to this day, learned from some of the best. And now he's teaching me what he knows and getting into the studio and working with him. And I told him in this next record, let's make a hardcore country music album.

So your family did music too, right? They were into music.

Yeah, my dad and my uncle, they did an album in the nineties and wrote a bunch of songs and were songwriters and my mom sang in church.

What about your grandma? You said she had some of that whiskey too.

Oh yeah, she played guitar too. My grandma died when I was very young. I was probably 10 or 11 when she passed away. From what I hear, that's who I most like.

You still got that. You can remember her singing though and stuff.

Oh yeah. I remember singing and playing and, and you know, seeing all the pictures and stuff like that and my mom and everybody says, you know, you know, you're just like your granny.

That's, that's good that you have those memories still though. Um, so. Whenever you started playing, you graduated from high school. What'd you do right after high school?

I joined the military. I was right out of high school, was in the army for four years. Well, thanks for your service. Yeah, you too, my man. Thanks. And went down to Fort Hood, Texas for a little while, mecked on some helicopters.

And that's my home territory right there, down near Fort Hood. Oh, Colleen. Well, I'm from a little bitty place called Event, probably about 60 miles west of Fort Hood, almost Lampasas, Texas.

I know where Lampasas is. There's a creek or a little river or whatever runs right through there. Lampasas River, yeah. Yeah, we go down there and go fishing all the time.

Yeah, the Lampas River is probably by my parents' old place. It's probably a mile away.

We drive through some of those small Texas towns and I've been all up through Texas playing music and all that good stuff, but it's like a storybook of what you expect a small Texas town to look like.

Almost like Lucanbach, right?

Yeah. I don't know. Just some of the, I went up to Amarillo one time. It's good long drive from Colleen. Oh yeah. And that whole drive, you just get to see all of Texas. You get to see all my like, cause there's so many, it's such a big place and so many different kind of the geography changes as you're driving through it.

Definitely does. I had one person told me that before when I was in the military, he was like, Texas is just a desert. And I was like, well, maybe you need to go to Texas first and see what, what it's all about before you say that.

Hill country is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

It is. But to us, you know, both me and my wife are from Texas, but we live here in Kentucky now. And I'll tell you what, I just, I think the, the grass here, the trees, everything's just so green and lush and we'd love it. We live out there in Shelbyville and man, I couldn't love it more.

Shelby feels nice. I like that whole area out there. I mean, I'm partial to Bardstown, Bloomfield, New Haven, Nelson County. That whole area is home. And every time I come back, it's just like, I'm so happy to be there.

Plus they got this mighty fine brown water here, right?

Yeah, there's plenty of that. There's plenty of that.

Maybe it's a good limestone and stuff. So you're working on helicopters in the army. Were you sitting in an army?

I sang in the barracks a little bit, but I was more focused on, uh, you know, soldering and doing that, that whole deal. And, and basically I was so young and, and wasn't even focused on playing guitars.

Was you drinking a little bourbon then? I might've been. A little bit of military special.

What? Yeah. What's that? That's that bottom shelf stuff. Oh, class six. Oh yeah. Oh, class six. You ever drink any 10 high? Uh, no.

That's from Barton's.

We drank Jack Daniels.

Jack Daniels. Oh, that's that Tennessee whiskey.

And you know, ever since I got out of the military, I have never drank Jack Daniels to this day. It's like, I don't know. Some people say they like that with tequila. They have a bad day on tequila. They won't touch it no more. Every time I look at a bottle of Jack Daniels, I get creepy crawlies up my neck. I don't want no part of that.

Let's keep you that way. Let's keep you drinking this, this good bourbon right here. So you get out of the army and then, uh, you know, um, what do you do then?

I moved straight to Tennessee, straight to Tennessee, to Nashville. Yeah. And, uh, interestingly enough, I wasn't very good and, uh, was told by a manager buddy. And I said, uh, bub, you need to go home. He said, um, this ain't gonna work out for you. So I packed up all my stuff and I came back home. And he told me, he said, you need to get you a band, work on your singing, work on your playing, work on your writing, get you a fan base, go play in the bars, go do all this stuff. So I did. And it took me another Almost 10 years to come back to town and I'm glad that we gave her a second run and really buckled down and put in the hard work. That's what it is. It's all work. You didn't give up though, right? No. I started writing and writing and writing and writing my own songs and putting all my work into that. It's like I tell some of the younger kids coming out and playing is play every single stage you can put yourself on and every chance you get to sing one of your songs, you sing it to somebody. I've learned throughout the years on some of the tours and things we've got to do is always make it about the people that come to see you and the people that are willing to spend their money to help you out because that's what the fans do. When they buy a record, when they buy a t-shirt, they buy anything. That's directly putting gas in our tank to get us down the road to the next stop. It's paying for a song to get recorded. It's paying for something. And when you put your fans first and you put the people that want to see you succeed first, you will be successful.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. So what was your number one, like, so you, you come back to Kentucky, you perfect your craft. I would call it, you know, drinking a little bit of this bourbon, you know, maybe that, maybe that's what helped you out with that success is, is, uh, drinking some of this bourbon here.

So what there is no doubt in my mind, bourbon has had a profound experience on my life.

I think anybody that drinks it would say that probably about the half of that last record.

And you know, at least three fourths of this new record.

There's nothing wrong with that. So you come back to Kentucky, you perfect your craft, you put in the work, you put in the miles, you're playing little bitty honky tonks here and there. And so what was your first big hit?

We had a song called Cold Dead Hands, which was a second amendment song that kind of ticked a lot of people off. At first, we had let another boy cut it and it got major traction, but they didn't have really the outlet to actually push the song out there. The National Rifle Association had called us and said, hey, we'd love to help you out with the song. We've got to get a good recording of it and get it out there. So we went in the studio and we cut this song called Cold Dead Hands. I mean, it couldn't have come out better. And we ended up uploading it to the sites and stuff. And it's got over a million streams in a couple months there. And the NRA started putting us on some of their show dates and let us play big lineups and stuff. We played down there at the World Congress Center. And the headlining act that night was Hank Jr.

Man, that's kind of my wife probably got a big smile on her face. That's kind of my teeth in country music was when I was growing up. Hank was big, Oboe Cephas, he could sing, right?

Yeah. And well, it was cool. It was like, I thought I was going to get to meet Hank and all that stuff. And I was like, when can I meet Hank? And they were like, no, you can't meet Hank. But we did get pit passes and we were in the very front row to see Hank that night when he performed. Cause we performed earlier that day and we got to play with a lot of cool cats and we've done that show three or four times. And every time they have it, I'm still this day firm support and NRA and I don't care who knows it and I'm not going to backtrack like a lot of people would and say that I'm not because I believe that the constitution was founded on the second amendment.

So you served your country, right? Yep.

And I wrote the song, I'm in every word of it and a lot of people in Nashville would have me go back and recant what I say just to get a little extra press and extra magazine here or there.

When you start taking away people's rights and stuff, that'll just keep taking stuff away. They remember, you know, bourbon, it almost killed bourbon when they took away alcohol in the United States. And actually it probably killed a lot of people in Kentucky and took away their livelihood. Um, cause that's a lot of Kentucky, not only the people that were making bourbon, but the farmers that were producing that corn and that wheat, you know, that, that took away their livelihoods. They didn't have no place to sell.

Where I'm from, the entire economy is based on bourbon.

Oh, there's no doubt about that. You turn around. There's bourbon there.

You know, I was gone from Barstown 10 years. And I was back home and, you know, I never go out home. If I'm home, I like go home home. But we went out and about in the city of Barstown the other day. And I remember when I grew up in this town, the only thing to do was sit in Walmart parking lot and drank bush light in the back of a truck. That was it. That was all we had. And now there's like five bars there. Like there's these bourbon runs and all this stuff. I was like, it's like a bourbon gallon bird down here now. And it's done such good stuff for our community and started to build that up. And I'm proud to be from where I'm from. And you know, I love all the people down there and bourbon has done for them what You know, a lot, a lot of places don't, don't get that, you know, bourbon is a special thing and it comes from one place.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's uh, you want to play that cold dead hands for us?

Yeah, we can do some cold dead hands.

There's a rifle in my closet, made in 1893. Carved on a barrel that says Winchester Company. It's been passed for generations. I've been told to use it well. It's put food there on the table. It ain't never been for sale. There's people on my TV telling me what's right from wrong. Not one damn gun of mine has ever pulled the trigger on its own. From my cold, dead hands It's about you and me Ain't no redneck thing Why don't you understand? You can bitch and moan all you want And get my gun from my cold, dead hands There's an amendment to a paper Up in Washington, D.C. Ratified and voted on by folks like you and me It's made it through the ages It guarantees it's country free You can bet your bottom dollar It ain't ending here with me From my cold dead hands It's about you and me Ain't no redneck thing Why don't you understand? You can bitch and moan all you want You're getting my gun From my cold dead hands

So yeah, I noticed your old glass is empty. So we'll take a break. We'll fill that glass back up with something special. We'll talk about that a little bit. What'd you think about that at Makers today?

I think about it like the same time I drink it every day.

I like it. Now you taste the caramels in there and that wheat.

Oh yeah, that's, man, to me it's like, Makers is out of all the whiskeys. I could be, seven or eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 whiskies in. Somebody gives me a glass of Maker's Mark. I know that's Maker's Mark. And that's what I like about it is it's so distinct from everything else that you drink. And it's just, to me, I mean, it's even the color, like you can almost look at a glass of Maker's and that's Maker's Mark.

No doubt about that. Well, folks, we'll be right back and maybe we can get Dustin to play us another song.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building hand-crafted rustic furniture. Family-owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled woodcrafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rot and termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter.

So we're here with Dustin Collins and we poured a second pour and I brought us some Stag Junior. Now Dustin, you ever had a Stag Junior before?

I have not, not until

Not till today. Not till today. Little, little hot.

Yeah, it's a little hot.

It's still, I can still taste that caramel, uh, kind of roast toasted marshmallows in a little bit. Still got that pepper on the back and like somebody's punching in the mouth.

I like the after aftertaste is really good. And it's really, um, this is like, like peppery and a little hot, but

I don't know. I like it. I like it. It leaves you wanting a little bit more, right?

Yeah. It's like, yeah, that's kind of hot and it's a little strong, but it's not so bad that you don't want to take another drink.

Yeah. That's a good thing about bourbon. You know, you could, you could set it, let it set for a little bit and take another sip of it. It might taste a wholly different stuff.

They don't fool with your nose either. Like a lot of that hot bourbon get up in there. So, uh, some, like if you drinking bullets, sometimes I get too hard to pull off bullet and get up my nose.

About half green, but, um, that's that ride in that whiskey.

Yeah.

So Dustin, so you, you started to, you cut your first music, you're working with the NRA and stuff and you're, you're starting to get a following and then what happens after that? What do you, what do you do?

Then we released our first actual record through a record label. We partnered up with Colt Ford and Montgomery Gentry's label, Average Joe's Records out of Nashville. We put Cold Dead Hands, a few other songs that are written and stuff on a brand new record, which Man, we weren't expecting the album to be, we expected it to do well, but we released it on my birthday, 2018. And on my birthday, I woke up and checked the charts. I think I got up at nine o'clock in the morning and started checking charts. Nothing. I was, uh, beyond disappointed. I was, I was like, man, well, we didn't, we didn't hit none of the charts. Well, my publicist manager started calling and was like, Hey, the secondary charts are rolling out and, um, they're going to release country music chart noon. Turns out we had charted number one on the Heatseeker chart, which is a new artist that had not charted on a main chart before. So we hit number one on the Heatseeker Southeast chart, number eight on the US chart, and then the Country Music and Independent chart came out, and we were at 25 on the Country Music chart and 22 on the Independent Albums chart. I kind of like melted in the floor after that, that that's where we landed and we had just got off tour with Aaron Watson probably a couple months before that. So the whole whirlwind of everything that's just happening all at once and then the music videos were coming out and I went from a small town kid without a music career, without much of anything, just playing in bars and stuff to where now we're getting invited to do stuff like this and getting to make the music we actually really, really want to make and getting some respect from some of the guys in the industry and getting to write with a lot of the guys that I've dreamed about writing with and getting to do a record with one of my favorite artists of all time. a record with Jeff coming up and I was gonna play y'all song that we've got wrote for this new one here in a little bit. But it's just been a whirlwind of an experience over the last year and a half, getting to come back and play shows like we're gonna play tonight here at Baxter's. We started, this was the first big downtown venue in Louisville we ever got to play and it's not a big room. But when you come in here and it's packed to the gills and people are singing your songs that you wrote, it means the world to me to get to come home and play stuff like this.

I bet you probably end up coming back here for the rest of your career just to come pay them for some respect, I guess, right where you cut your roots at, right?

Yeah. This has been a big place for us. It's been a big, uh, We opened up for a lot of acts in here. Q1031 over here, the radio station's been great to us. Got to do a lot of their Wednesday night queued up shows. Been talking with them about doing our own queued up show here. Real soon, whenever we release, I like to drink to radio. And it's been a... It's been a wild ride, and this room right here has been a pretty fun time for old Dustin, bud.

If these walls could talk, I probably wouldn't want to be sitting on this couch right now. If they could talk, you'd have to give them a subpoena, because I don't want to hear none of them. They plead the fifth. So your song, I Like to Drink, that kind of was a Southern, I guess, summer song, right?

Well, it's a funny story. I have this buddy, we're gonna name his name. He knows who he is, and if he hears this, he's gonna know who he is. He likes to drink.

Everybody likes to drink, I think.

Well, and the entire song, the, what's it, got a back slap hug and a listen-bub. He's from Eastern Kentucky. So he starts to drink, and he'll get wild, and he'll drink Grey Goose and Sprite until it's gone. He'll, he'll smack it back real hard. What are you doing, Bob? What are you doing? And he'll tell you the same story 14 times. You sure that song ain't about me? It quite possibly could be, but the person I'm talking about is he's been a, he's been a real good friend to us in the band. He, and I thought it was someone write a song about you. He said, no, you won't do it. He said, you won't do it. I said, yeah. So I sent it to him. He said, we have got to record this song. It's gotta get recorded.

And it turned out to be a number one hit.

It's not a number one yet. Um, it's, it's done well. I think he got half a million views in two weeks of putting the music video out there.

That's a, to me, that's, that's number one to me. It's number one in my heart. I'll tell you, I'll tell you right now.

It's done real well for us. We're, we're pretty happy with, I like to drink. It's been a good one. Can we hear that? Yeah, I can do that. I haven't done it very much acoustic.

I might like a bus slide on a Saturday noon. Sitting on this boat dock drunk sure ain't hurting you. I might take a trip and never leave the farm. When that big red sun starts singing low, break out the bottles and guitars. I like to drink and I like to float. Grab a wrap load up tight, tight and throw in a little rope. I mean, well, I'm just wild as hell, ain't no wheel laws getting broke. I like to drink. goose and sprite get me right take me ten feet off the ground press and repeat on a children's song until the party comes around a back slap hug and a listen bug might be all you get from me rev up your boats pull up your floats cause everybody's family I like to drain Grab a wrap, blow it up tight, tight, and throw out a little rope I mean, well, I'm just wild as hell, ain't no real ones getting broke I like to drain, and I like to float I got some dead body ass from a thirty-pack rack of cold beer in the sun When a lady swim by and see my George, she know the boo is come undone. I like to drink, I like to float. Grab a wrap, put it tight, tight, and throw out a little rope. I mean, well, I'm just wild as hell, ain't no wheel loans getting broke. I like to drink, drink, drink, drink. And I like to flow.

That's awesome, man. I know you wrote that song about me now. It's a good one. So you cut that song. You're starting to start to make a little bit of money. You still tour, but the hard work doesn't stop, does it?

No, no, no, it sure does not. I mean, and I put that behind my team, my PR guys, my management, my label guys, everybody that goes to work every day for me, I love them to death and they work their tails off. My band, who you'll meet later this evening, hardest working bands in country music. These boys are day in, day out playing and trying to help us go further.

I see, you know, to me, it sounds like, you know, as long as you put the work in, you know, and, you know, you had somebody tell you before that you're too Southern, you got too Southern draw or too of Kentucky or that bad accent that we used to have. I had somebody.

Kentucky's coming around here. Like we got Sturgill, we got Stapleton, Todd and Childers. There's a lot of good bands out here and we're going to do some shout outs here. We've got a little Jericho Woods band y'all want to check out. A little, uh, Grayson Jenkins y'all or him.

Kentucky's got some great music. Great music right now, yeah. Great. You probably listed about five bands right there that we listen to all the time and stuff. And if we get to go see somebody, we feel so privileged just to go see them and stuff. And I always tell somebody, hey, man, you should go see this guy before. They're like, how do you find these acts? And I'm like, I just listen. I just listen to good music, and I try to see what what's coming out, what's coming up new and who's coming out, right?

The thing you gotta do is just go to shows. And people are so, I guess, so scared to go out anywhere these days and want to sit on tail, watch Netflix, whatever they're doing out there, Googling up stuff. You know, as good as any video that we've ever done sounds, It's not as fun as coming to the show. If you come to the show, you will have a good time. Even if you don't like the music, you're going to have a good time. I will make sure you have a good time. Cause I will act like a, you know, some kind of crazy heathen hillbilly and we're going to have a good time. I don't care. If you come to my show, I guarantee you that you're going to have fun. At least laugh. You will at least laugh once.

Now do you play music for your family and stuff?

Oh yeah. We, we all, we have bonfire still when you get wild.

There's nothing wrong with that. We got, we got, that was back down on a farm, right? We got a little bonfire down there and right by the Creek and put some music on and probably a little bit of bourbon flow on a couple of beers. You know, that's a good time with my old dog Woodrow. You know, that's, that's the way to live right there.

That's it, man. I say, if you, if you don't. If you're not doing whatever it is you're doing in life, if you're not doing it for your happiness, it's just never going to work out. You know, bourbon makes people happy. Music makes people happy. Do those things because if you spend your whole life waiting, it'll be too late. You wake up, you'd be gone.

Now you're out on the road and stuff and go in different States. Do you ever taste any bourbon from other States or?

Well, here's where opinions might differ. As far as what I understand, the definition of bourbon whiskey means it has to be made in Nelson County, Kentucky. It's got to be Kentucky or it's not bourbon at that point. It's bourbon flavored whiskey.

We probably got some, we probably got some doubters out there, but from our listeners, cause we got listeners, all of, we got listeners from Australia and Japan and this old man that grew up next to me, he worked at Jim beam for years and years and years and he had a pretty bad list.

I love him to death. He, he passed away. He's one of the best people I knew. He had three fingers. He worked at Jim beam. for 36 years. And I asked him how, I said, Tommy, how'd you lose your fingers? He said, a turtle bit them off. I said, what? He said, a turtle bit them off. And he goes turtle noodling. He goes and grab turtles out and he eats them. But he worked at Jim Beam and he told me, he said, it can't be bourbon if it's not from Kentucky. And a man that got all of his fingers bit off by a turtle tells you that it's not bourbon unless it's from Kentucky. He's got to be right.

We just did an episode with a guy out of Colorado Springs. He's 291 distillery. And he said, Hey, I don't want to make a Kentucky bourbon. He said, I make Colorado bourbon. And I said, well, I'm glad he's like, I don't want to, he's like, you can't re recreate what they do here in Kentucky. And I'd almost have to agree with him, man. I'm going to tell you, some of the best juice in the world comes from right here out of the creeks here, out of the streams here, out of the grain from here in Kentucky. It's a special place. And I think most people, it's like the Mecca of the whiskey world. Even Scotch, you know, they make, they reuse those barrels and that's just, that's just use whiskey, use bourbon.

I like Scotch. I'm a Scotch guy. I didn't get into Scotch until probably the last two or three years. I got into a little bit of Glenn Levitz. Must be that bourbon. I like that 18-year McKellen.

It gets a little good.

But as far as bourbon whiskey, if you're going to ... the cream of the crop of whiskey, I like Blanton's. Blattons, that's a good night right there. It's good, even pour. If I'm not drinking Maker's Mark, I'll be on some Blattons or Woodford or something similar to that. Anything that's Kentucky. And anything that's Kentucky, it's just my, it's, I get down there to Tennessee. They will drink his Jack Daniels. Well, Jack Daniels got this new thing. I don't want none of it. I said, I ain't even trying it, which is really closed minded of me alcohol wise. Cause I ought to sit down and be like, you know, drink the Jack Daniels and then tell them Kentucky stuff's better. And I hope the Tennessee people are listening. Cause by God, big blue nation all the way. And, and bourbon whiskey comes from Bars town. I always say free whiskey is the best whiskey. That's the kind I like. And as far as beers go, cold and open will suffice because I like to drink.

So you're fixing to cut a new album. What are you doing for that?

Man, we're going to get as traditional as we can, get back to storytelling and singing songs, three chords and the truth about my life. You know, and I'm really wanting to explain my life and growing up in the country and really getting a little more personal in this album than I have in previous projects and really trying to get it out there. Anything towards your service? No, we don't really have anything like that. It's mostly about my divorces. Oh man.

Can we hear something from your new album?

Yeah, this new song is called Heaven Knows.

Between a shot glass and revival, Jack Daniels and the Bible. This old bar is still in her prayer See her face up in the neon's Lord knows ain't all my demons Pull me back and she just won't be there Heaven knows That I've tried to be the man I need to be As the story goes I'll be here right back on my knees saying girl could you forgive me please but heaven knows only heaven knows Between the good days and the bad Some were happy, some were sad Some days were ecstasy Love don't mix with drinking Drinking don't mix with drugs It always clouded up my thinking So heaven knows That I've tried to be the man I need to be And as the story goes I'll be here right back on my knees Saying girl could you forgive me please I'd like to say I'd lay it down to you We both know that probably isn't true But heaven knows Only heaven knows

Brand new tuner. So when you're, when you're recording those songs, you guys got a bottle in the studio?

Sometimes, sometimes it depends on how early in the morning we have, we draw recording time.

I guess if you drink that whole bottle, you probably not going to get too good of a recording out of it though.

No. And they generally like to keep me off the, uh, off the juice, off the, uh, papols cough medicine. But there's been times, you know, in the studio, we play with some great guys, Justin McCallin and stuff. These guys are, they are some fire musicians. And basically the way it works is we cut, my band will cut some demos and we'll cut them up the way we want them.

Then we got to pay the guys that can lay it down better than we can.

We pay them to play what we played over top of it.

Just for time's sake. How long is it going to take you to record that entire album?

We're still writing and we're going to be recording, we're starting the first recording of the first song this month. We're taking our time to get this right though. So we're, we're up and out of the new record done by spring of next year.

Any bourbon songs on there? Oh yeah. There's a couple. So our listeners are going to love that.

I think we got one called, uh, she's got her boots on and I think there's some bourbon in there.

Little bourbon in there. Well, where can our listeners find you at on social media?

We're on Facebook, backslash Dustin Collins Music, on Twitter, DustinCollins88, and Instagram at DustinCollinsMusicOfficial.

And what about your music? Where can we find your music?

iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, anywhere that music is sold online. You can find it at averagejoesrecords.com. You can find our record. You can get an autographed copy. You can get one with a t-shirt. You can get one with a koozie. They will mail it to your house.

And what about so I think this episode comes out in about two weeks. Where can our listeners go to watch you in concert?

Coming up, our season's coming to an end, but we got a show coming up in New Haven, Kentucky. I got a couple things in Nashville, Bowling Green. You can check out www.dustincollinsmusic.com backslash tour. And that shows all of our shows where we're going to be, I think we're going to do a Christmas concert here. And a lot of my energy is going to go into that. We don't play a whole lot in December and November's hunting season. So for all of that, I understand that. So that guy, there's two weeks that we just kind of take off and disappear. And I turned my phone off. Don't listen. Nobody's trying to get a hold of me.

So you do something special on social media. I notice you about once a week, you'll you'll play somebody else's music.

Yeah. When we do show announcements, I mean, we've got enough videos of our songs out there. We just keep on sharing those. So it's like it's cool to get to play some of your favorite songs on Facebook and stuff that your fans request. So if you want to hear a song, you know, holler at us on there. And, uh, whether either I'm on there or social media ladies on there and, um, they'll refer it to me. If you got our inbox, send us a message or send us a comment or a like or something and say, Hey, we'd like to hear you cover this song for your show announcements this week. And when we announce our shows for the weekend, that's kind of a fun way to do it. Do a little cover tune after we tell everybody where we're going to be playing that week.

I love that. I love that artists will get on there and play a couple songs of maybe their favorite artists and stuff. And I'll sit there and listen to it. sometimes my wife's probably like what the heck are you what are you listening to but to me that's the purity of uh that's an artist right there cutting some music they don't get no more raw than uh y'all don't know if i'm wearing pants or not that's that's the craziest part we're just showing camera from here up

We're right in the living room. Just a flannel shirt and some underwear. Yeah, you got to throw on a shirt and a hat and sing a little bit of Skynyrd sometimes.

Well, folks, if you're out and about and you get to see Dustin play, you should come out and watch him play. It was just an awesome experience to sit here in Baxter's tonight and listen to him play. Dustin, we appreciate you being on the Bourbon Road. And hopefully we'll have you back one day when you're number one in the charts and getting AMC awards and stuff.

I hope so.

So you can find me at OneBigChief on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook and on Instagram at The Bourbon Road. You can go to our website, thebourbonroad.com, and you can find our episodes on almost anything that plays podcasts. Go to iTunes and listen to us. Leave us a review if you like us. We'll see y'all down the Bourbon Road.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.