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SkiP HappEns Podcast
Faith, Family, and Foot-Stomping Rock: The Gail Bird Journey
and we're live, we are I'm flying high above the sky, never coming down oh yeah you're gonna love this.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody and welcome back to skip happens, the podcast where I dive deep into the stories behind the songs and the people who make them. These guys are gonna go.
Speaker 3:What are you doing?
Speaker 1:to my song. You're talking over it, but no, no, we're going to get back into it here in just a moment. But tonight I've got something very special for you from the Unfinished Songs and their college days in Charleston to nearly a quarter of a million streams this past year alone. Gail Bird is who they are called. I'm going to find out where they came up with Gail Bird. Let me tell you. They've been building a harmony-driven, soulful sound that lifts people up and reminds us of all the love. That love is worth fighting for, even in the messy real-life moments. We're going to find out about those too. I'm sure they've got stories. We all do. Their music shines a lot of marriage, family and faith, and their performances run the gamut from foot stomping rock to intimate harmonies, creating that magic moment where a packed room feels like a living room. It's cool. Thrilled to welcome them to the Skip Happens podcast. I know Josh is there in the blue shirt and we got Sean in the hoodie. Vigael Bird hey guys, how are you?
Speaker 2:Hey Skip, we really appreciate you having us on tonight.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm so glad you reached out, Josh, because since you did that, I've been doing some research on the band and what you guys have been doing. It's phenomenal. But we're going to go back a little bit. First of all, where are you right now?
Speaker 2:But we're going to go back a little bit. First of all, where are you right now? We are in Holy City Music, which is a studio here in Charleston. It rivals anything that you've ever seen in Los Angeles, nashville, new York City. What an incredible place. But what's even greater than all of the technology and everything that's been put into this place is the person and the people behind it, which is run by Matt Cyclone, which is an incredible guy that I think understands music more than anybody that I've ever met, which is just what draws everybody in.
Speaker 1:And who would have thought of that, though, which is just what draws everybody in, and who would have thought of that, though? I mean being in where you are right now. You're saying that this studio is much better or maybe it's got all the more in the way of toys and everything than you see in Nashville or LA, or even maybe in Texas Wow, that's great. I would have never imagined that, can you? What are some of the groups that come through there?
Speaker 2:Through Charleston. You know, one of the biggest bands that's come through here that's called Charleston Home is a band called Need to Breathe.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And called this home for a long time, you know, had some studios here in Charleston, did a lot of work and their families wanted to be in a beautiful place and their families wanted to be in a beautiful place. They wanted to raise their children in a beautiful place. And I might be a little biased, but I think we live in one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world. This is an incredible place. I spent half the day on the water today on a Boston whaler with my wife, melissa and our youngest, bethany, watching dolphins swim by, you know, just passing by old warships and all sorts of different stuff, and just enjoying how incredible it is to live here in a place that everybody wants to come visit.
Speaker 1:I love that I may be passing through there this weekend. I'm just giving you a heads up.
Speaker 2:We'll take you out on the boat.
Speaker 1:I have a daughter in Virginia and then we might spend a you know a few days in the outer banks, so that'd be incredible, yeah.
Speaker 2:Another artist that's caused Charleston home is a guy named Brandon Lake.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:He's got hard fault hallelujah playing all over the country radio right now. Brandon is from here. I think we my, my wife went to high school with Brandon and then one of our producers that Sean and I've worked with was one of the writers or producers of Hard Fault Hallelujah, and so there's so much talent here in this city. Chandler Moore is another guy from here. There's North Palm Worship is located here in Charleston. They're taking over in. The North Palm Worship is located here in Charleston. They're taking over in the contemporary Christian and worship world. There's a lot of talent in this city, and who wouldn't want to come here to record an album or to make music?
Speaker 1:Wow, I had no idea. And I talked to a lot of artists and I've been in a lot of places, but I had no idea. No idea at all. You're right. So I'm trying to think here If you go through Charleston, you can see the port, right, I mean, it's right there. I'm just trying to. You're there, so I get it, but I'm trying to think as we drive south and we do that almost every year, that's going to be this weekend. Either one of you can you take me back to those college days in Charleston where those unfinished songs you know like and how did they involved into what Gail Bird is today? First of all, wait a minute, I'm going to hold it Time out Gail Bird, how did that name come about?
Speaker 2:All right, so I'll take credit for that one. So my name is Joshua Gale and grew up playing football, playing sports, basketball, baseball. We play soccer every morning, still at the gym and on the football field. I had a very loud, obnoxious dad, uh and um. So, uh, everyone in you know sports calls you by your last name, so Gail was that name. Uh, but I had another nickname from my family called Jay bird. Uh, cause I did not like to wear clothes. I honestly think people only wear clothes and sitcoms Uh and uh.
Speaker 2:I think one of the funniest sitcoms was was here a couple of years ago where the guy just was in his underwear as soon as he got home, Um and uh, trying to think of the name of the show. But um, you know. So my dad would yell come on, jay bird. As loud as he could. As soon as your friends and your coaches here Jay bird Bird. They think it's kind of funny. And so then it morphed into let's Go, gale Bird from everybody. And then so played football all the way into college at Charleston Southern University.
Speaker 2:That's how I ended up in Charleston was playing football, but then discovered that I loved writing music more than I loved playing football. Uh, it was way less political. Uh, it was. Uh, people were a lot more kinder, uh, in music than they were in sports, especially collegiate sports. Um, and so then I began writing music, uh, and I can kind of segue into uh started writing this song by your side, uh, and uh started writing it with another girl named Abby, um, who's now Abby Jones, and uh, she was at the university of Tennessee, Knoxville, and um, she had come down to Charleston with some other friends. We wrote a song, and I was really struggling with this transition into this chorus, this melody, uh, and, through some other friends, ended up at an apartment on Meeting Street, right King Street, King Street. Yeah, and was that your second apartment or your first one? So that was your first floor apartment.
Speaker 3:Second floor.
Speaker 2:I feel like you had a first floor apartment I might have Okay, how many? Apartments did you have Sean?
Speaker 3:So, this was when we were in college, so every year you're switching around.
Speaker 1:You Sean Sean this was when we were in college.
Speaker 3:So every year you're switching around, you're moving around. I got you. Yeah, josh was at a school a little bit up towards North Charleston and I was downtown at the College of Charleston and so, yeah, downtown Charleston met up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what people don't understand is the College of Charleston is not one campus. It is spread out through the entire peninsula of Charleston. So Charleston's one big peninsula and it was spread out so you could be on campus over here and live way over here on Bull Street or Meeting or King, you know it's all these historic streets, cobblestone streets, everywhere it floods like nobody's business. You know all this stuff, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and so I ended up at this guy's apartment playing this song and he's like, hey, why don't you try this? And this guy heard something that I didn't hear. It worked so well, it changed the entire song so quickly. The rest of the song came in. It was like holy cow, I think it was. This was my actual first co-write um of with somebody else who has like a production producer mindset, that hears melodies, that sees structure, that just can pull all these things out. And then also we realized I think we can write music together and so we'd meet up when we could, being at two different. We're about 20 minutes apart our universities, and College of Charleston is actually one of the only colleges in the United States that's actually a university but it goes under the name of a college.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And so we would meet up as much as we could, We'd play music, We'd have fun and stroke up a friendship and continue to play music throughout college and then after college. And then we played around, did as many gigs as we could, had a great time. But when you're young and broke it was a huge deterrent. In Charleston the music scene was a little bit different. You can make a little bit of money if you're playing bar gigs from 9.30 to 2 am.
Speaker 1:It's a tough life.
Speaker 3:It's a tough life.
Speaker 2:But we also found a lot of joy in playing music at churches. Gospel music is near and dear to our hearts, and so Sean ended up playing one church and I was playing at a different church, and so we were kind of investing in that world. And then, around that same time we were performing, we had a show at a place called the Hippodrome, which is this old, incredible theater right on the harbor, giant stadium seating, bmw, leather seats. It was just the most incredible place and I think it was never meant to be a concert venue. It was a theater turned into a concert venue. All this kind of stuff, uh, no longer exists, um, and we might've been one of the last performances there. And, um, there was a woman I was dating, um, which was Melissa.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask, but go ahead, You're going to you're, you're reading my mind, my next question here, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:There's never been anybody else. No, and Melissa, I didn't even know she could sing. We actually reconnected at a funeral. So you've heard of wedding crashers. Well, I was a funeral crasher Not really, but I was playing a couple of hymns at a funeral. We had a mutual friend in college who had lost her baby and she asked me to come sing some hymns at a funeral. We had a mutual friend in college who had lost her baby and she asked me to come sing some hymns. Well, I knew Melissa in college at Charleston Southern, but we never had eyes for each other. We knew each other somewhat through other friends.
Speaker 1:Just an acquaintance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I saw her and I was just blown away. It shouldn't be the place that you're blown away by a woman's beauty, but it it was. That day, um and um, we were in the strange place called Orangeburg, south Carolina. It's right in the middle, it's up and coming in South Carolina, but, um, right outside of Columbia, south Carolina, where the, where the Gamecocks are, university of South Carolina, and saw her and I could not shake her and get her out of my mind. She left right after the service.
Speaker 2:I went to the reception and all I could think about was this girl and her friends were like Josh, what are you thinking about? I was like man, y'all. I saw Melissa today and I can't stop thinking about her. And they were like man, you should call her up. I was like, yeah, you think so. Y'all ask her if it's okay if I call her. So they gave me her phone number and I called her up and she was in nursing school. She had left. She graduated with me, had a degree in psychology, went on to nursing school. She loves people so much she wanted to do whatever she could to serve people and be with people in their hardest times. And she's in nursing school. She gets a voicemail from me. She doesn't call me back for two weeks, uh.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd be going like. Well, I guess she doesn't give a darn about me to move on, but no, you waited. That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I waited, uh, uh, she finally called me back. I'm like what in the heck? She's like sorry, I was studying for tests, it was uh, it was a lot uh. But she said I wanted to honor you and give you a call back and, you know, got her, got. Her schedule had made me, made me wait another two weeks to take her out. Um, and I had a bird on my shirt. Didn't know it, but she, her and her family loved birds. They had an affinity for birds. They always had a bird on my shirt. Didn't know it, but her and her family loved birds. They had an affinity for birds. They always had a bird. Growing up they had birds. When we met, took her out to one of the most expensive restaurants in Charleston, did not know that she would order a bowl of the she-crab soup, plus the whole flounder special, plus a side salad, plus a special drink, everything. And I'm like, okay, I'm eating a salad tonight.
Speaker 1:And uh.
Speaker 2:I had enough to pay for the dinner, but I knew that I didn't have enough that was going to cover the tip that went along with it. So I signed a tip, knowing it it probably wasn't going through when. I you know, when we went on and she asked about dessert and I was like, hey, you know, my favorite thing is a Frosty. I don't really care for Frosties, but 99 cents feels right, it tastes good.
Speaker 1:Head over to Wendy's. Get yourself a Frosty.
Speaker 2:So we went to Wendy's. I went back to that restaurant the next day, borrowed $20 from my roommate, made sure it got to the right person in that section Great 82 queen, great experience and a bird actually flew over us as we were eating and real close to us it was in a courtyard. It was really cool. It was just more affirmation of this whole bird thing yeah, that's a sign you know it was and she had a blast.
Speaker 2:She asked me if we could go on a second date. On the way of dropping her off at her house, I told her absolutely so.
Speaker 2:The rest is history. But I had no idea she could sing, and it wasn't until we were married later on that I heard her singing and I was like, oh my gosh, you can really sing. I'm not even trying to flatter you, I already married you. You got some some anointing, you got some pipes and uh.
Speaker 2:But come to find out she had been told by a boy when she was younger that she should never try to sing. Uh, she was terrible. Well that, when you're a little girl and you know you're susceptible to stuff like that. Well she, she kept her mouth shut. Uh, it took a long time for me to pull it out of her. She started singing with me at church and then the rest is history. You can look her up, melissa Gale, and you will see some incredibly powerful worship songs coming out of her that will show you what it really means to be somebody who sings authentically. They could care less if they were behind the curtain, still singing like they don't want to be in the spotlight. Has such a heart for that, you can tell she's like a really incredible person and beautiful inside and out. So then you know, years down the road, it's still bothering me that Sean and I never finished recording any of the music we couldn't afford to.
Speaker 1:We recorded one song. This is the stuff from college, right?
Speaker 2:From college? Yeah, we recorded one song.
Speaker 2:His parents paid for half the song and somebody else from Texas paid for the other half. And we got it produced. It was a great song and we released it. It's You'll Come Home and we re-released it last year. But I called up Sean. I was like hey, sean man, what do you think about getting back together and trying to finish what we started? A little bit, man, I got some extra money right now, let's do this. And so we started.
Speaker 2:We booked some studio time with Holy City Music the best in town and just went in the studio and Sean, in genius mind, produced everything. He could just see things that no one else could and pull things out. He knew where every instrument would sit, you know, and what frequency, and he just knew all the things. It's like if you're ever building a company, you hire to your weaknesses. Well, like I don't know where the weakness is. So he was like everything that you know, that was way better than anybody else could be, and we had so much fun. It was like it was such a joy, it was an outlet, it was something incredible. And then we brought Melissa into the mix and Sean's like oh man, she can sing and it was incredible. And so then we kind of became Gale Bird when we had to come up with a name. And we never argued, we just didn't have any other, better ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was good you know I got to tell you when I heard Gale Bird, when you emailed me and then I started looking into it a little bit, I'm going who would name the group Gail Bird and it gave me the feeling like I had to look into this a little bit more. Now it's like when I read about you guys and what you're about from family and faith and marriage and all that, it was just like wow. So now I get it. And marriage and all that, it was just like wow. So now I get it. And now I get it even more that we're sitting here tonight and it's a great, great story how it all happened. The bird was a sign. I mean getting back together with Sean and you guys working this out, that's a sign.
Speaker 3:You got something.
Speaker 1:You've turned that page and you're bringing back that music.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. So we're sitting with Holy City Music. We finished this EP and after that some of the songs start to perform pretty well. As far as getting streams and getting different things and getting some traction, and as far as live performances, live performances go, um, man, we kind of put something together. It was really special. Um, seeing this guy shred a guitar, uh is just one of the coolest things in the world.
Speaker 2:Uh, we have some really talented friends, uh, that a lot of them came here from Nashville during COVID uh and said, hey, you guys want to play some music and they're like man, we miss it, you know, come on. And so we put a band together doing some really cool stuff. My brother-in-law plays with us, some guys from church, one of our best friends, phil, and so then Holy City Music and Matt approaches us and said, hey, listen, I want to offer you guys an opportunity to sign a recording contract with us, and here's how much and here's what your part is you got to write more songs than you've ever written before in your entire life, and then we're going to choose six over the next year and then we're going to release those with everything we've got and you guys are going to go play and you're going to try to get as many shows and as front of many things as possible, and this past weekend we played um um ETV, which is kind of like our PBS station here in South Carolina.
Speaker 2:We played we did a performance on a really, really cool show. Uh, that's like um, um 1940s radio show called shortwave kitsch, uh, and it's, it's like the live performance is kind of something like Saturday Night Live there's skits and then there's the musical performances throughout. So last month it was a couple guys from Hootie and the Blowfish who also all live here in Charleston.
Speaker 1:Yes, that I know I was going to ask about them too, but keep going. You're like taking the questions right out of my eye.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then this month was us and we had a blast. Everybody in that theater world, everybody that was there downtown loved it and we just got excited Like, hey, I think we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, but the journey didn't look like everyone says it should. You can get on social media and this says, hey, if you follow these five steps, you will be successful, guaranteed. And I'm like, why discount God than the way that he says, hey, if I wrote something about your life, I knew everything about you before you even existed and I had this will for your life. Why would your story? How boring would it be if your story looked exactly the same as everybody else's? Why can't I be super special and make your journey just as incredible to where you don't have to spin wheels all the time, you don't have to go through the same hurdles that everybody else does?
Speaker 3:Well, and the truth is we can't. We're both married, we both have kids. He has four kids, I have two To some degree, that's something we're not going to ever sacrifice. So we can't do the normal grind that most young musicians would do. So we kind of had to find a different way, and that's been really cool to see, kind of along with how almost magical this coming together was From my perspective.
Speaker 3:I had a job, full-time, I was working somewhere, and it wasn't the best environment for me, so I was slowly pulling away, and it was in that time when Josh approached me about starting something up with a band. So I was already planning on heading towards freelance music stuff. And so the timing with that, the timing with the holy city music coming in it, it really was pretty special to see it all come together and and so it's been a good journey for us, I think, not only to be uh like expectant and excited about what could be next, but also patient, because there have been lulls through through different seasons over the last year where we had a little bit of momentum and then it kind of seemed like it dried up for a second and then it'd jump again. So it's just been different, I think for us, which has been exciting.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a whole different path what you guys are doing than so many others. You're doing your own thing and you're also making time for the family, which is so very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, we thought you know why pioneer something you know I think back of. You know Lewis and Clark, you know they some of the greatest pioneers, but they lost everything in this pursuit.
Speaker 3:One of them one of them.
Speaker 2:one of them took his own life. The other one had so much PTSD didn't know what to do with so many. Many people had so much. At what cost are you going to pioneer? Are you going to leave your family behind? I see a lot of people you see Luke Combs coming off the road right now saying, hey y'all, I need to go home right now and be with my wife and my children and watch them grow up, coach their baseball team, coach their soccer team, all these different things. They're writing songs about the life that I already live, you know, and dreaming about why would I give this up to go the opposite way, you know. You'll see another guy, a bass player for Need to Breathe. He said his daughter was calling the phone, daddy, and so he was like hey, y'all, I got to make the hardest decision of my life. I need to take a break from the band and go home for at least a year. And how admirable is that to the thing?
Speaker 2:you love the most, but you're going to. It's like having these values in order God, family, and then you know God, your marriage, then your children and your family, then your career and everybody. You know all this different stuff and it's like we don't want to pioneer something. If somebody else has something, else has to die in the process and we don't want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. What is, what's the secret to connecting so deeply with your listeners? I know you've got probably close to 8,000 music lovers that follow you right now, which is pretty cool. What is, what's the secret to connecting deeply with those?
Speaker 2:So when we get together to write, we'll do some song mapping and some stuff, and obviously I've got 13 years of marriage under my belt you bet 14. So we're not writing as young 20-year-olds anymore. Right, right, we've been through some stuff and Sean's family is incredible. But Sean has been through so much, some different stuff and so we're pulling from Sean's world. I didn't grow up with an incredible example of parents and God put some other incredible men and women in my life as parent figures. But sometimes I'm shooting from the hip and I really screwed up bad.
Speaker 2:I'll tell Sean something at the gym and I'm like dude, I got to write an entire apology letter. I got to write a new song today because I didn't realize that my words mean more to her than anybody. I said something really stupid, right Gosh, I got to keep. If I don't keep trying and I don't keep investing in trying to be better as a husband and a dad, then I get complacent. And if I don't keep trying and I promised my wife to keep trying and keep trying then all of a sudden I roll back into complacency and everything's fighting for our attention. Yeah, yeah, I know I hadn't taken a day off in two weeks. I know I work too much, I know this, that and the other and all that. What do you need? How can I Just asking the questions and then saying it the song I still do that Sean and I wrote together I mean, that was a great writing session.
Speaker 2:But then I told Sean, I think I say things to my wife sometimes and I might have thought it, but I never said it. And then she's saying hey, I don't think I understand how you feel about me. And so one night Melissa came to me and she said listen, I don't know how you feel about me at all and I'm wondering if you could go back in time, would you even ask me to marry you, if you could just undo it? She was so in a terrible place because of my inability to say how I felt I made a new rule for myself.
Speaker 2:It was like say everything that I'm thinking about my wife and then double that. And so when we sat down to write this song I Still Do we thought about the first day Sean was in my wedding. He played the piano as I walked down the aisle. It was how he loves us, but Sean's version and it was just incredible. And the ceremony was incredible.
Speaker 2:But before we even got to the altar, my brother was my best man and he's had his vices and he got stuck on a sand bar on a boat up in Ballhead Island, north Carolina, and he got stuck on a sandbar. His wife was my wife's hairdresser, so she didn't show up to do Melissa's hair. He didn't show up as my best man, oh my gosh. And then when he did show up, he was late. The guests had been waiting in this prayer chapel in this old Baptist church in Southport. Southport's a beautiful place. It's where they film a bunch of movies like Safe Haven. It's just an incredible place and it's got to be on your travel list. And Sean's kind of playing piano more. We're all sitting around. It's awkward. I'm hurt my brother didn't show up to hang out all day. He shows up in a silver bow tie. Well, we're all wearing black and he shows up. I remember my best man was late and all the guests had to wait. But in all that stress, seeing you in that dress took my breath away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I told my wife. I was like hey, listen, I will never regret marrying you. I agree with younger me more now than I ever would. And only God could have seen that this was going to be incredible and that we were met to be together. As stubborn as we are, we were perfect for each other. And so Sean, all of a sudden, he's so creative with words, minivans, tell me your favorite line.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my favorite line, that next one. Now, with minivans and mud on the floor, life's messier than ever before, but one look in those eyes reminds me why I said I still do.
Speaker 1:Dude, wow, wow.
Speaker 2:So we're writing that song. I mean it's flowing in that writing room. That day it was like something was special. When you write a song, sometimes you have to fight through it and you come back and you visit it you find the melody you write a hook and everything else falls into place. But that day was something special.
Speaker 3:That was nice yeah.
Speaker 2:But we knew we had something that other people needed to hear. Baby, I always agree with you on that that guy was a genius, that younger me was a genius.
Speaker 1:We don't give him enough credit.
Speaker 2:I know he heard from God and I know God had a hand in it, because you're way more beautiful than you know, absolutely, do you?
Speaker 1:um, you follow your streams? You have like a quarter of a million streams and I mean and growing. There's the music you're putting out and and I would imagine you see that it makes it. Maybe it it may be I'm trying to think of the right words here uh, more demanding on you, but you don't want to go too far, as you said before, because you know your priorities are God family. You know that that's in the way it should be, or God family, you know and the way it should be. But with a quarter million streams and growing, how has streaming changed the way you release and promote your music.
Speaker 3:It's changed a lot. I think one of the big things that's hard for us as writers is it kind of changes the way we have trajectory of like we might have a song that we just love, but it might not be the right season for it or it might not be the one that we feel like will gain the most traction, and so what we've kind of had to do at least I have had to do is disassociate this online presence, the streaming side, with our local audience, because we can still be playing all those songs for the local audience and we can make that intimate and we can make, you know, do our best to really engage them. And I think that's one area where we are really trying to grow is more local opportunities within original music, within larger live events, but then doing our best to still, you know, really put forward our best foot with our online presence. So I don't know, I feel like I have to kind of just separate those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get that. I get that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a good reminder. I listened to another podcast you know it's not as good as skip happens, but it's called the.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's called the 10 year town.
Speaker 2:It's called 10 year town with Troy Cartwright and, um, he brings on a lot of guys, some that you've never heard, but they wrote your favorite songs. And one thing that remains true is no, you don't have to sell your soul and you don't have to sell everything to then like sell out and and make it and then go and and be a vagabond and travel around and like give up everything to be successful. But what you do have to write is a million songs to find the one, and we do. We do feel like a um, you know, with the record label and things like that, you do feel a pressure of like I gotta be a good steward of what I've been given here. Like we got to write, we got to get together to write. We may be exhausted I coach all the kids' sports. You know we're involved in our church communities and our families and all that kind of stuff and everything's wanting your time, but we have to carve out that writing time to say like we got to steward this really well. And so we, you know we try to write as many as we possibly can, um, so that something comes out of it, uh, which is pretty challenging as well as like trying to do the family time plus make that car. If you don't carve the time out for writing, it doesn't happen. And and um, thankfully sometimes.
Speaker 2:You know, I put a guitar in every room in the house house there's an Ed Sheeran little baby Martin in the girls' room and there's a ukulele in the baby's room and there's another guitar in my son's room and there's a guitar in the bedroom and everywhere I'm at I see a guitar and I'm like I got to pick it up, I got to play it. That guitar is just so pretty. I got to see what comes out. And sometimes I'm singing lullabies to my children and a song comes out of it and my daughter's like dad, that's it, keep going. I think I got an idea too.
Speaker 2:My oldest daughter, june she's a songwriter, luke's a drummer, he hears beats, he wants to jam along. And my second youngest daughter, anna. She can hear things and loves to sing and dance and she inspires me to write a bunch. And how kind and wonderful, incredible she is. And I'm just surrounded by inspiration. There's just never a dull moment, there's never a lack of emotional inspiration or anything when you're surrounded by four kids who are trying to figure out how to navigate life, which is a lot different than when we grow up.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely I can. Does it look like your kids are going to follow in your footsteps and your wife's? I mean, if there's an instrument in every, every room and you pick it up, you play and your daughter's going? Dad, that's it, Dad, I know. Yes, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my oldest daughter and my wife have led several Sundays together at church in the main service. Beautiful, my daughter. We're actually seeing we have something called Family Day coming up this coming Sunday, which is where we have combined everybody in one service. We pack everybody in this giant building and then after that we go to our county park and we take over that county park and there is about 30 different nations represented at this church. It's something only God can do. Where you've got every Latino nation, you've got Asians, black, white, hispanic.
Speaker 1:It's everybody.
Speaker 2:It's everybody under one roof and I'm like only God could do this. And then we go eat and we've got empanadas, we've got hot dogs, hamburgers, tamales and which there's like 20 different types of tamales depending on which Latin nation you get it from and it's the most incredible potluck that you've ever been to in your entire life.
Speaker 2:But for family day, my oldest daughter and my wife will lead a song together and it's incredible, it's beautiful. My daughter, you can tell she gets it. She's got stage presence as well. Kind of for me, I'm more the stage presence type person. My wife is the gifted one and it's like she gets a little bit from both. Then, yeah, Luke is an incredible drummer. He picked up the. I got him the Questlove Pocket Kit Lugwood drums with the vinyl cymbals and everything.
Speaker 2:I was like you're not going to get a crappy set and forget about it. I'm going to get you the best drum kit and you're going to be incredible. But he's that self-driven kid. He's the best pitcher. Everything he loves to do, he sinks his whole life into it.
Speaker 1:You have to remember a lot of that is coming from you and your wife and the people you go through life with. I mean, it's how you bring them up and that's how they get their courage and their passion and their dedication to do certain things. It's because of you, exactly, and their passion and their dedication to do certain things it's because of you, exactly. How do you balance your faith-based themes with the mainstream appeal? How do you balance all that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question and it's something we discuss a good bit, because it's core to who we are and our identity but, it's also something that we don't want to limit our audience.
Speaker 3:So we try to navigate that very thoughtfully and so a lot of the time we kind of feel like we've found at least for this season a little niche. We really feel like we've struggled and we've fought for our marriages and that seems like you know, that's definitely something that you know we would never deny that God was a big part of that. But it's also an opportunity that we can hopefully help give some other people some encouragement and you know it's something that is worth fighting for. So, you know, being able to help raise other people up and hopefully encourage them in a way that maybe doesn't necessarily have to have all of the language that might turn someone off, that isn't of the same faith, you know, I think we try to find that balance.
Speaker 1:Try to find a balance, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Everyone's invited to the party. I'm thinking about the things that God cares about a lot. God cares about marriage so much. He was the first institution. I mean he, he showed us what marriage looked like. He um, he calls the church the bride, you know, and he's the bridegroom and and so like. If it's really important to him, it's really important to me and and uh, it's worth fighting for. You know, I look at the statistics and they break my heart. Skip, you know, divorce is up and rising and it's just infidelity, all these different things. They break my heart. Sean probably wrote most of the song, but wrote a song called Roses. Don't hold your roses till the funeral. Take every chance you've got to tell her she's beautiful and we're about to release a song at some point, but we put a little demo out on our Instagram because it was very timely for where we're at right now and to tell your family you don't know if you're guaranteed tomorrow. You just don't.
Speaker 1:There's no guarantees in life.
Speaker 2:No guarantee. So the things that are close to the heart of God are close to us and it doesn't have to be. You know it's storytelling, you know.
Speaker 1:Do you realize that everything that you guys are doing and the songs you're singing and the songs, sean, that you're writing, with everything going on in the world right now, it's a very scary place here, there, everywhere. This is what we need. This is what we need. This is what we need. We need to tell each other how much we love them, how much we care. We need to stick together. We need to do all that. This is the music that's going to do that. You know, I mean, I love all different genres of music, but when I listen to some of your music and knowing what it's about and how it's faith-based it's about and how it's faith-based, it's like, yeah, we, we need more of this and we, well, we need a lot more right now. And so you guys are in a very good spot. Just, you know, go one step at a time. But wow, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um, I wasn't gonna ask you. I kind of, uh, lost my place, you kind of blew me away with some of the stuff you were saying. I'm like what?
Speaker 2:drives us.
Speaker 1:Wow, I see that.
Speaker 2:It has to be something that drives you. This is not easy, skip. No, you're putting yourself out on a platter and everybody's going to pick it apart and then, all of a sudden, nobody's going to show up, nobody's going to buy your T-shirt, nobody's going to call you up and say, hey, you should write more music today. I think this is pretty incredible. What you're doing. There's nothing that's going to feed you, there's no dopamine rush at any time that's going to pick you up and keep telling you to go.
Speaker 2:It is something that you had to hear. You have to know that this is what you're called to do or you're not going to do it. The motivator behind you and behind me personally, is that I'm in a broken world that needs hope and I can put that in a song. I can do this. Don't put it on a t-shirt, put it in a song and then be able to encourage somebody. Call somebody that hears the song on the way to work and they're like man, I didn't go to bed happy last night with my spouse. We didn't make up before we went to bed and then the sun rose and we were still angry and I need to call her and just suck it up and tell her I'm sorry, and just swallow my pride. I need to you know, or she needs to say you know what he needs to feel more respected.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding Because I've been there, my friend. I've been there, we've gone to bed angry and you wake up the next day and you're still angry. That's not the thing to do, though.
Speaker 2:No, but what if a song you heard on the radio said man, I need to suck it up and go apologize to my wife before I do anything?
Speaker 1:else Makes you think about it.
Speaker 2:Everything else can wait. She's the most important thing 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that motivates, us a lot yeah, let's talk about your shows a little bit. Um, you're described as, uh, these shows are described as everything, uh, from foot stomping rock to intimate harmonies. How do you build a set list that moves between those two extremes? How do you do?
Speaker 2:that sean is actually, so I know I can brag on him a lot.
Speaker 1:I think you're both pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his mind works so wonderfully. He's composed entire orchestras and choirs and parts around just some incredible performances. He can see an entire show and know how it's going to work together and where the instrumental fits, and then what, what is going to be the perfect, high and the perfect. And we know that we're creating moments as well. We're not just creating songs, but I'm going to let you speak into that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a big thing for us is we. We try to customize the set list for the environment of the show.
Speaker 3:So, regardless of you know where we're going to go, we're going to play our music but we can alter it in ways that match the environment. So, like one of the places we play, it's kind of this like outdoor rusty barn and it just brings in the best music lovers and everyone's got some different lawn chairs spread out over the grass and there's a bunch of Rusty Kids toys in the bag. It's the oddest place but also the coolest venue I think we've ever played at. We've had the privilege of playing there a couple times Ondaw Green, just out past Mount Pleasant, and Eddie White's out there. He's a great, great guy.
Speaker 2:He's a dentist who loves music so much that he's dedicated the last 20 years to putting on this what's called a barn jam.
Speaker 1:Does he do it for charity?
Speaker 2:No, does he go back to?
Speaker 1:the church or he just does it.
Speaker 2:He's made it profitable. They built a. It looked like a giant ant mound but it's a pizza oven. They built that out there. It's a brick pizza oven. Another dentist from the shop's a pizza oven. They built that out there. It's a brick pizza oven. Um, another dentist from the shop comes and helps them. Um, his daughter helps out there. Um, the sound engineers live on the property. Um, it's just really incredible place. Um and um, he wanted a place where people could still play real music, not cover music, not even this kind of stuff and have a place as they traveled and toured and put together a tour, a place to stop. And two years ago, one of the bands that came through town was nobody, was the Red Clay Strays. Oh my gosh, they were nobody. Skip.
Speaker 1:I just saw them, like I want to say a month ago, and they were fabulous. I mean, I'm a fan since I first first heard them, but then being able to go to a show, yeah, and they and they demand.
Speaker 2:They demand a million dollars now for a show. You know it's pretty incredible, but they were nobody. They had to borrow instruments from other people. They were coming through town. It was every dollar. They had to get and stay somewhere, all that kind of stuff but Eddie gave them a place to play and a place to stay on the property and it's that kind of place here in Charleston which is something special. It says something about Charleston that we're not going to let it die. You know local homegrown, you know songwriters.
Speaker 3:So making a set list for that audience is going to be different than another venue we're playing coming up where it's going to be out on a deck outside of a bar area where we're going to still do our music, but we're going to be a little bit more upbeat and lively there.
Speaker 2:There's no seating.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's no seating too.
Speaker 2:So standing, so you got to keep dancing.
Speaker 1:You got to keep moving, keep dancing.
Speaker 3:So you know, trying to find, like Josh said, those moments, trying to create dynamic movements, not just in each song but as a whole throughout the night, and then just trying to figure out, like you know, how do we want to start, how do we want to end, and then kind of just filling that in really well, in the middle, customizing it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If somebody's never seen Gale Bird, what's the one song they have to experience in person and they'll never forget you.
Speaker 2:Keep going. No, I think it's. I Can't Wait. We recorded it. We were in a place where we're like we don't know what genre we are.
Speaker 2:Yet I grew up, my first four years of my life were spent, you know. My mom went back to work, my dad was at work and I spent every single day with my grandmother, anita. And Anita Hickman was from Hickory, north Carolina, in the Appalachian Mountains About as southern drawl as you can get, and just an incredible woman. Well, I began to sound just like her and my mom when we moved away from North Carolina to Texas. My mom did everything she could so that I would not sound like I was from the Appalachian Mountains and had this giant Southern draw and would correct my grammar, would correct my accent. And living in draw, um, and would correct my grammar, would correct my accent, uh. And living in Dallas, texas, the biggest melting pot in the world. You know everything.
Speaker 2:Every accent you starts to starts to fade away. You're in Texas, but you're not right, and uh, but here and there my wife would tell me like man, some, it really comes out of you. You know certain words, you say certain things and it just wants to. It's who I was the first four years of my life, which were some of the most developmental years of your life, but I would, again, I didn't want to sound dumb, so I'd begin to try to bury it and all that kind of stuff. And as we were starting to develop music, it was like don't let it, and choir will do it to you as well.
Speaker 2:In middle school, trying to don't sound like that round your vowels, all these things, I became more and more proud of that lineage and more proud of that voice and not trying to suppress it as much, and that was something to learn myself about myself and my upbringing. But every curator that we would, you know, send our songs to to see if we would get on a playlist, was like, hey, you are country, you are country, you're not for this playlist, you are country.
Speaker 2:And we kept looking at ourselves like I think we're country you know, and so we'd like to tell ourselves we're coastal country, it's alternative.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's alternative rock meets Carolina country and you know it's. You don't have to have the huge draw, southern draw to be country.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't. I've known a ton of people in the heart of this state that don't have a southern draw, and you'll see a lot less of that too in these parts. But it really began to also morph our sound into that of embracing the country music, and so we leaned into it hard. So I'd say I Can't Wait. Live is, you'll see it shine. But a song that we've got released right now I'd say I Still Do would probably be the one that I would listen to. That'd give you a good understanding of what's going on. And Sean's playing banjo, he's playing electric guitar, he's playing the keys, he's playing all sorts of different instruments in that song. So you'll get every bit of Sean.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then probably second favorite would be Crumble Down.
Speaker 1:for me, Crumble Down's great yeah, I have a question, sean. How did you learn to play so many different instruments?
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 1:Just picking them up and playing with them.
Speaker 3:Parents locked me in a cage for the first six years of my life. No, I started on piano. I was trained classically for a while, picked up the guitar and realized I could just do things on it that made me feel things that the piano didn't.
Speaker 1:Is it because of what you knew by playing the piano that it made it easier for you to pick up a guitar?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and vice versa. Honestly, a lot of what I learned on guitar. I started I voiced things differently on the piano and so then adding other instruments kind of just came naturally differently on the piano and so then adding other instruments kind of just came naturally. So I'm very engineer-minded, so theoretically I understand music really well, so I could understand a lot of instruments and so then pretty much anything stringed I could, you know, functionally play pretty well.
Speaker 3:At least well enough to you know track on a song or two. But then I had a lot of opportunities over the last couple decades of getting to do some really cool stuff. I play with an orchestra here, the North Charleston Pops.
Speaker 1:Nice, so those are different shows.
Speaker 3:We've done country shows and 70s rock and funk, so I've just had a wide experience with a lot of really cool opportunities. That have, I see, now equipped me for a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1:It's helped you. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
Speaker 2:There's also a lot of neuropathways in his head. Up there he majored. I don't know how, but he majored in math and jazz theory at the same time. What If anybody could tell you jazz theory at the College of Charleston is an extremely difficult program? And then math I mean.
Speaker 1:come on man, I was a Don't even go down that road, because I was a communication major because you didn't have to take but one math class Exactly.
Speaker 3:The only, thing, the math major has done for me is it's a joke for everybody else. When I can't get an audition problem right or something, that's the only thing it does.
Speaker 1:I suck at math. I'm just telling you right now that does not fly for me. So you know, absolutely Well, that's just amazing. You know you mentioned genre before, but is there really a specific genre that you're going for? Because nowadays me working in radio, it's. I don't know if there's one, just one specific genre anymore. Like country, I think everything crosses over and you know they may. You know, one day they're listening to you, the next day they're, they're playing the rock channel and then whatever, maybe they're doing some hip-hop or rap, it's, I don't know. Everybody crosses over nowadays and I think the music that you're doing even though you say it's country, but I think it fits everybody, and especially nowadays, it makes you think and it makes you think about the people you love and the people you care about, and and life in general, and that's what it's about. I don't know.
Speaker 2:You get placed in a genre you know Red Clay Strays. I'll bring them up again.
Speaker 1:They're they're, they're southern rock, they didn't want to be country, right. Right, they're getting country awards, but exactly, I guess that's kind of what I'm saying. And you know, like in our group of radio stations we have a classic hit station. Back in the day we used to call them oldies, but um, we're, we're seeing that the audience is younger and younger and younger and you know, they want to hear boston, they want to hear icdc, they want to hear some of the old 70s music, the 80s music, even the 90s that we're touching on now is oldies, which makes me feel old. So it's, you know, it's just amazing. So I'm going like, where does it?
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't know, I think it's all over the place that'll be interesting to see if that ends up being a strength for us, because I didn't come from a country background.
Speaker 3:I've listened to Brad Paisley, keith Urban just idolize them as guitar players, but I didn't grow up listening to it. I grew up. I love Queen. I listened to a lot of church music. I've studied jazz. It's such a wide variety of stuff and it's been a struggle because we have tried to make sure. If it seems like the audience is country-based, like we're getting those playlists for online distribution, we kind of want to help continue to push that. But man, when we play live that's another one of the disassociations is like we can open up more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We don't have to stay strictly country and we can pull some other genres in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Our upcoming show. We've got a show at the Poor House coming up. I think Sean mentioned it. We've got our own Poor House here in Charleston, on James Island, and this upcoming show we've got, uh, our pianist is Venezuelan, you know, and, um, you know, just incredible, he's incredible, but he's trained in jazz. He's just, but he can play all over the place. Um, and then, you know, we've got a drummer that is as a background in what would you call that?
Speaker 2:Uh, paramore type rock, you know but he's got so much energy and he's, he's really really good, he's a human metronome, um, and you know, then you got Sean, you've got myself and you know, and, um, you know, and then we're, but we're trying to bring it all together to where it is one band and it everything's tight, everything is. It just sounds good, it feels good, but there's moments to where, in a performance like if this is your first rock show or your 1,000th, you've never experienced something like this, to where this moment captures you. There was a time where these instruments did something that I was not expecting and it was incredible. Or they did something with a song that I was a little familiar with, that I was not expecting at all, and I think that's my new favorite version of that song, and so it's just great. I mean, it's a challenge, but it's definitely giving each other feedback on that as well, as we as we rehearse.
Speaker 1:You know, one one plus, with Gail Bird and the music that you're putting out and we're talking about country, if you're going to fall into that genre, I guess country is very faith based. I mean Nashville, it's very Baptist, it's very. You know what I'm saying. So maybe they are. I mean, maybe it's to get in front of these programmers and country radio in general and say, hey, we're here, this is what you need. However, I understand I hate to see you be on the road 300 days out of the year and I know that's not what you want, but still, I think, are you on country radio at all anywhere?
Speaker 2:No, it's. You know that's been the road we've tried to figure out as well. And Sean and I, you know we're marketing guys too. You know we've got a marketing firm and a PR firm that you know that we run websites and marketing. You know campaigns for One guy's running for governor of California and one customer has a gymnastics company and one customer just all over the place, and we know how to make them successful. We know how to market everybody else's business, but when it comes to music and when it comes to this consumer on the other end, when it comes to someone saying, hey, there are, how many songs are released today, matt?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Yeah, I think it's a million songs a day, it's crazy A day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're cutting through the clutter of a million independent artists and not hating on independent artists but you're cutting through the clutter of anybody making music on AI and putting it on YouTube music Ah, that's a whole other story, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're going to say, hey, listen to me this goober from Charleston named Gail Bird, when you don't. You got enough time in the day to figure out what you're going to play anyways, right, and so it's just developing relationships, you know getting and just telling our story. But I think consumers and you know music lovers want somebody authentic. They don't want another copy paste, you know. They want somebody who's lived it and that actually wrote the song, maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you guys are authentic. This is. It's a whole different sound when I, at the beginning of the podcast, when I played just a little clip of the song and the harmonies and all that. It's something you don't hear nowadays. No, that was great.
Speaker 2:In the song Crumble Down there's a piano solo and it was a desire of mine. I remember him playing piano at my wedding and I was like, hey, I don't want one of your guitar solos in this, I want a piano solo. Because I think Freebird and Leonard Skinner was the Leonard Skinner rock shows were one of the most incredible things. That, uh, it even offended the Rolling Stones, you know, when they had Leonard Skinner to open up for him and they're like, hey, don't go out on the tongue. And they went out on the tongue and it was incredible. But the you, but they had this pianist that played in the band, that was a roadie right, and he brought in classical piano into Southern country rock for Leonard Skinner. So I said, sean, I want a tribute, kind of, to that, I want this piano solo. So we went to my alma mater, charleston Southern, we went to the music department and they've got about 20-some Practice rooms yeah, a bunch of uprights solos.
Speaker 3:So we went to my alma mater, Charleston Southern.
Speaker 2:We went to the music department and they've got about how many different 20, some Practice rooms, yeah, a bunch of uprights, a bunch of uprights, but they've got about 20 different types of pianos there. They've got baby grands, they've got grands, they've got uprights, they've got all sorts of different brands of pianos. We played every single piano and we finally found we narrowed it down to like two and then finally we narrowed it down to one piano. Then we set up we had we had some friends of ours let us in on a Saturday and we set up and we spent the next like two hours perfecting this piano solo and recording it in this in makeshift studio, in the middle of of a college campus, and, um, it turned out to be incredible and I love it. It's one of my favorite songs and it's because, like I knew what went into this.
Speaker 2:Right and uh and uh, it's so much fun to listen to, and so that's. You know, you can't put us in a box. And and uh, we're going to. You know, we're going to figure out how to make something our own.
Speaker 1:Have you thought about, um, just hitting the road and hitting up some radio stations? Maybe take a little bit of vacation time from whatever and just hit the road and hit up some morning shows, and maybe with your music, maybe something like a K-Love or people like that.
Speaker 2:Stations like that very faith-based. I don't know. Have you thought about that?
Speaker 1:Well, like you know, I emailed you. You know, yes, and I loved it.
Speaker 2:Because I've got friends from Syracuse. We flew into Syracuse and then we went to Lake. Was it Ontario?
Speaker 1:There's Lake Ontario.
Speaker 2:Lake.
Speaker 1:Oneida, and there's the Finger Lakes.
Speaker 2:Yep, I think we were on Ontario. It's a big lake.
Speaker 2:It was incredible and we had, I mean, there's the tall green grass and the lake was incredible. The sun, you know the, the sunset, the sunset was, everything was incredible. And I was like man, nobody knows that this up here, this exists. It's incredible. And, uh, so these friends, these are great friends of mine, they live here in Charleston, they're also songwriters and and I said, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, hey. This guy responded to me I'm going on his podcast and his name's Skip, and it's called Skip Happens. And they lost their mind. They were like are you kidding me? What? Skip from the Wolf?
Speaker 2:Yes, and they lost their mind and Grace and Mitch Johnston, great friends of mine, they lost their mind. They were just laughing and just it took them right back and they are huge fans of yours.
Speaker 1:But no, it's like Tom, I said hello, that's so awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I emailed you. You responded, you listened, you love music. I've emailed every radio station here in my own city. You know, and thought about showing up and I've had friends on there and thought about showing up and I've had friends on there. I get no response.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got to tell you, josh, I do this. Yes, I'm the PD, I'm the afternoon guy at the Wolf in Syracuse. The skip happens is mine. But what I do is I do share a lot of this. What I do here in my own studio, what I do here, I share it with the Wolf listeners, right, you know that what I do here.
Speaker 2:I share it with the Wolf listeners.
Speaker 1:Right, you know that's what I, so I have that connection and even if I wasn't working radio, I'd still be. Hopefully I would be talking to you. I would be doing because I firmly believe that everybody needs to be heard. Yes, and I firmly believe it's one fan at a time. I firmly believe how all that works. I mean, yeah, I mean I've had Lainey Wilson on, I've had Martina McBride on, I've had Russell Dick. I can go on and on. All right, I've had a lot of the big stars, but you know what? People already know who they are. I'm not dissing them at all. I love them. I love them, but still, people need who you are. You're in the game as well. Your music needs to be heard and they need to know how hard you're working at getting it out there. And by reaching out to people like myself or anybody else that will host a podcast, take advantage of that. Take advantage, get yourself out there.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying. Thank you for having us. We're, we're not going to stop. We'll keep working and even though, even though our journey might look, look different than some artists, we realize we're still going to put work in. So that that doesn't change. Yeah, um, I will, I'm going for it and we'll tell you this absolutely, and we'll tell you this.
Speaker 2:You know I'm going to pick your brain about a radio tour.
Speaker 1:I'm going to email you follow up and all that kind of stuff 100 I got your phone number you know, I know you do and you're coming we're going to go out on the boat at some point.
Speaker 2:We got a friendship now. But somebody told me one time they said hey, man, I can't wait for people to know who you are and to hear you. And I said you know what? But you know what's even greater Is there's a God in heaven that knows me already and he hears me and he loves me.
Speaker 2:He knows everything about me. I'm like I could die today and just be super happy, knowing that I am known, I am seen, I am heard, I am loved. I am everything that I would ever need, even if nobody ever heard my music. I know that I made my creator happy because he created the planet the most incredible thing we get to go out and look at and that creativity's in me and I kind of tried to give back a little bit of it to him. I think that might move his heart just a little bit, but he sees me, he hears me, he knows me, he loves me and that makes me so happy.
Speaker 1:100%, josh, yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 2:But I want people to hear it and know it, because I think it could help change the trajectory of their life or their marriage or their family, to where, if I had some hurt and I had something going on, god never wastes a hurt. He never, ever wastes a hurt, because He'll allow us to use that to keep somebody else from having to go through that same type of trauma or hurt and say, hey, I know what you're feeling exactly right now and I want you to know how you can walk through this. You can actually walk through hell and not even smell like smoke coming out of it and you got a story to tell 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now is Melissa at home watching this.
Speaker 2:No, you know what? I didn't even send her the link.
Speaker 1:No, no, well, I mean, if she just clicks on, you know, my Facebook or YouTube, or the podcast page. I just cause. I haven't seen her chime in here yet, so that's awesome People can comment.
Speaker 2:She's probably doing all the nighttime routine everything.
Speaker 1:She is God bless her Wonder woman.
Speaker 2:She is a wonder woman like nobody's business. She has no fear of man. She has missed justice. She worked at a psych ward helping children who everybody else counted off. She worked in the department of social services trying to rescue children. She is like god bless the most incredible woman you've ever met, but like pure in heart, um, there's something different. You meet her and you're like that's, that's a real person. Um, that is just so pure in heart and she's just so motivated people like that.
Speaker 1:It's just wow, dude, you're so lucky and you're blessed. You are blessed, both of you are blessed. Can I ask about your harmonies, though? How did uh like the song I played as we came on here tonight? That blew me away? The harmonies. Is this just? It's just there, it's natural, or did you work at it? How did all that come to come to be?
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, that that was a really fun one. So just trying to match the theme of the song flying high, you know, happy in love, like we wanted the harmonies to be soaring and moving, and so I love orchestration, and so I felt like part of it was trying to view it as an orchestrator, like how am I moving the parts in a way that ties well with the song? And so, um, we just very I'm very fortunate to get to work with some great singers and with josh and melissa being able to to move like that, and so we we spent a good bit of time in the studio making sure we we nailed it. But, um, but yeah, part of it, I think, is just trying to like visualize musically what matches what we're trying to communicate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was really good, that was just the beginning. Beginning, my friend. Yeah, absolutely, you know, Gale Bird. That's who they are. Gale Bird, Check them out Now. If somebody wanted to go on and maybe somebody watches this after the fact and we're live right now, but they can bring it up anytime, so where would they go to get your music?
Speaker 2:So if you go to galebirdcom, G-A-L-E-B-I-R-Dcom and you can get all the stream links, we're streaming on every major platform, so it's Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you're streaming music, you can find Gail Bird and so we can link to that from our website. There's merch on our website. There's, you know, some music videos and things. We've tried to put together a little bit, but really it's like you know, find the song that resonates with you and and, and know that there's a story behind it.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that Absolutely. I was just looking at a few of my notes and they're all over the place. That's why it skip happens. Yeah, I don't know, what did I tell you when we were going to go on? Is that we just go? We just go, we just do whatever, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. So you know it's been great having you on. You know, melissa, just I, I'm sorry she couldn't be with us, but I totally get it being a mom, believe me. I, I've got three daughters, I've got eight grandkids, and my wife and I now nancy and I we have a son that's 24 but he's down syndrome and he's just, oh my god, we do it, we do something called zach attack with dad.
Speaker 1:So, oh, wow you start looking through my uh youtube page, you'll see it on there, but uh, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:We just opened a gg's playhouse here in charleston, the first in south carolina. Yeah, so um, one of my other friends, marianna, she, uh um, is every like every other Saturday volunteering. What an incredible organization. We lost your audio. There, you go, we're back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, see my microphone. I got all excited and I hit the keyboard and it hit the.
Speaker 2:M you know what M means Mute Right right, right Gone.
Speaker 1:It's like you lost me. Now I'm back phone. I got all excited and I had a keyboard and it hit the m you know what m means mute, right, right, right gone. It's like you lost me.
Speaker 2:Now I'm back now you're back, yeah yeah, but no, gg's playhouse is great.
Speaker 1:Um, I've emceed a lot of their events. I do a lot of their uh, charity, their fundraising um, we do all that. My son is actively involved with gg's playhouse, so I love it, and never a dull moment I'll tell you no, never a dull moment.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you no, never a dull moment he's the biggest baseball fan you'll ever meet.
Speaker 1:He's just like I say you should check out Zach. Attack with Dad.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:It's all good. I want to thank you for taking the time to hang out tonight. Talk about you guys a little bit. Find out about you. I'll be spreading the word. I bit find out about you. I'll be spreading the word. I'll do what I can on my end and I don't want to lose touch with you, both of you. Even tell Melissa I said hello even though we didn't meet. But I'm here and you're so blessed, both of you and what you do and your mission and the music. It's healing. It will definitely help people and they need to hear it. So it's Gail Bird and they've been on Skip Happens tonight, if you like it. You guys got a YouTube page. You do right, yep, I think so Gail Bird music.
Speaker 1:Yep, there you go. Subscribe to them, subscribe to Skip Happens, and we have a lot more of these coming up too. I just you know, josh and Sean. Thank you so much, and thank you to the studio. Who's that, matt's behind?
Speaker 3:the board Holy City Music Yep.
Speaker 1:Holy City Music. I love that. That's so cool. I love the studio idea too, so it's very cool. All right, guys, hang right there. We're going to say good night. Thanks for watching everybody. It's been Skip Happens and we got more of these coming up real.
