The Paul Cardall Podcast

Ty Herndon: Country Music's LGBTQ Advocate

Episode Summary

Episode Notes

Paul Cardall and Grammy nominated country artist Ty Herndon discuss the emotional, mental, and behavioral challenges associated with being an artist. With venues closed, entertainers like Ty Herndon aren’t able to perform and enjoy the emotional connection with loyal fans. Unable to perform emotions have recently re-surfaced as Ty experienced a faith crisis. Also discussed is Ty’s LGBTQ+ advocacy. He was one of the first country artists to publicly come out as Gay. In addition, Ty and Paul talk about their collaboration with Kristin Chenoweth of Orphans of God on Ty’s Christmas album. They also discuss their co-write and co-performance on Some Kind of Wonderful for Paul’s upcoming album, The Broken Miracle. Order Ty Herndon’s latest album, Regifted, featuring Orphans of God. Available wherever music is streamed or sold. Find Ty Herndon on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tyherndonofficial and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tyherndonofficial. To keep up with Paul, find him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. All Heart with Paul Cardall is proudly a part of the American Songwriter Podcast Network.

Episode Transcription

- [Narrator] Hey, everybody. Welcome to the American Songwriter Podcast Network. This is "All Heart with Paul Cardall." Forbes magazine calls him one of the most listened to recording artists of our time. With more than 3 billion streams and 11 number one albums on top billboard charts. With his podcast, Paul wants to shed light on unique celebrities and influencers, who use their gifts to make the world a better place like you, his guests are all heart.

- Welcome to "All Heart," I'm Paul Cardall. When I first moved to Nashville, I was introduced to country artist, Ty Herndon. He's been Grammy-nominated, he's won Dove Awards. I knew his number one song, "What Matters Most." In fact, I recently went fishing with some friends, we put that song on and my buddy started singing every single word. People love Ty's music. Now in 2014, he made a bold decision in country music. He publicly came out as gay. There are people who pave the way for countless others. But by paving the way they suffer, they get criticized. Ty is not immune to that. He's had a remarkable life, a remarkable journey and I'm so excited to share his story with you today, on "All Heart with Paul Cardall."

- It's okay for me to say this 'cause it's me, but I've been a mess this year. ♪ Getting better all the time ♪

- Ty, you're an artist. If you have a normal day, you're not doing it right.

- Well, none of if have had normal days.

- I don't know any artists that actually has a normal day. They have good days and really low days.

- Yes, Mr.Helbig's been at my butt to get started writing this new record. I'm like man, almost afraid to, I said, "Pastor, opening these kind of worms."

- Well,

- You my therapy.

- I fortunately have an engineer who I feel like is a therapist, because he's so not judgemental, but he's like, what's going on today in your head? So Ty I wanna go back into, you know. You grew up in Alabama, you lost your father. How old were you when you lost your father?

- 17.

- What was the impact of that on you? Did you have a good relationship with him?

- I have a better relationship with him, over the years after he's been gone.

- Okay.

- I just had no relationship with him. He was a great guy. He just got married young and had kids young, and just, he was from a family of 12 brothers and sisters. He was the baby.

- Okay.

- And then he's mother died when he was two. So he get,

- Oh, wow, wow.

- get tossed around a lot. But he just had no idea how to receive or give love.

- Okay.

- This is interesting that he had two kids that were just, we're all about that. He probably had no idea what to do with us. He's like what is this hug thing? You know.

- Isn't it interesting what a hug can do for a person?

- It is.

- Especially when, 'cause I come from a family there's some hugging, there's not a lot of hugging. My grandfather fought in the war, World War II. You get a side hug.

- Not the full, love and acceptance embrace of what we all need.

- The pat.

- Yeah

- The pat is dismissal.

- So, was anyone in your family musical before you started singing was?

- My grandmother had her own radio show, WPRN, Alabama. She pick means like a guitar. She went to heaven, with her Martin Guitar in her hand, actually. It'd be hard for us to put a Steinway in her hands for piano players. But I don't come with piano player you're a piano player. I'm a piano Pentecostal, I can play the harp.

- You know, and the fact that we're in your bedroom is wonderful. So, like the whole world can see where Ty is resting his head at night.

- Interestingly enough, I've lived in small places, in LA, Dallas and Nashville. And in this particular place had stuff in storage in several places. Everything is out of storage. I had time to do it. And went through. I decided that there's no reason for me to have 15 country weekly's where I'm not on the cover. So I was just like I was keeping all this stuff.

- Well, most people don't necessarily think about is the fact that artists, we have our homes, we're on the road a lot. So, there's no need for a lot of us to have extravagant homes.

- It's weird to be home this much.

- Let's go back into the late 80s and the 90s, when you, you know, I think you had your first hit in 1995. If was that, you had your. You've got three number ones, you know numerous top 10s between 1995 and 2002.

- My story Paul Cardall, It is, we were supposed to have the book coming this year and that's been a long process. And the dude that helped me write the books, he said, "Man, this is like Oprah meets the Kardashians." It's a crazy story. But by the grace of God, you know I'm here. I'm still making music. Yeah, this will be my, I think my 16th studio album at the launch into. And it's probably, anybody that's gonna do an album this year or record, you know, it seems like there's a pressure around it. I don't know. I don't wanna go write an album about the pandemic. I'm gonna maybe write about how I got through some things. But then I get all up in my head. So I love this time to start writing for record. You know like, thank goodness for good producers and good managers, like calm down, just take a breath.

- Is it hard for you to go back and talk about that period of time?

- You know what Paul? It wasn't before this, I'm digging deep and producing really cool therapy right now, with a couple of great books. I'm digging back into some stuff that I probably didn't really take good care of. Which is, you know there's reasons that you gonna lose your cool-aid. And I'm a pretty cool guy, I'm pretty level most of the time. And during this time, I just, Back on the career stuff, I've had a lot of managers, booking agents, record labels that just weaved in and out of there, that I did not have great luck with. For me, this pandemic has happened, this is probably the fourth town. And I have always been able to stand on my own two feet, and say, okay, we're gonna work hard, we'll focus on this. And there was nothing to focus on. It was just like, we had my biggest year booked this year, probably in 10 years. Lots of going on. Now, this breakout wasn't bad, 'cause this happened to pull for me. It wasn't. I mean, it happened, my friends were losing their homes. You know, it's a... The music business needs a lot of love and prayer.

- It's struggling, it's struggling.

- And that's from, that's all the arts. And but for me in particular, I've done a lot of self care work, and just to be able to be solid. And for the first time in my life, I was like, something snapped at me man. I mean I was completely lost. I was that kid in the corner just not wanting to see you, talk to you, just completely, everything I knew out the window and I'm not a real big emotional person. I'm like, you know, coffee commercials off crowd of that. But I've learned to be solid about other things. But I could not have a conversation with you, about anything. And there was a breakdown that, a mental breakdown for me, emotionally, that I think over the years, I've just swept a lot of things under the rug, 'cause I thought I had to be strong about it. And I never learned to be confrontational. There's a good confrontational and there's a bad confrontational. And I just avoided it at all. And let's just move on, fine, you can have that $25,000. Oh fine, you owe It just like, I had a forgiveness knob that would turn all the way up.

- Yeah.

- And that's not healthy, because you absorb all of that energy that you just hold on to. So, this is the first time I've actually talked about this and I've talked. I still have a little bit of a headache, I had a migraine yesterday. I'm learning to just take a breath, sit back and go okay, you're okay and life is gonna happen and like my friend Kristin Chenoweth said, we have to have tambourines in the alleys, of where we wanna sing, you're gonna sing. I don't know . Since I was six years old, I've been doing this for a living so, sometimes greatly, sometimes poorly. But it's what I always had to run to. And now that I'm hearing other artistes stories that have really man like I'm not gonna name names, but a very famous artiste did not leave her bedroom for four months. And another artiste never set foot outside of the house and found out they didn't really know how to behave. They didn't really know how to be at home, all that time. And, for me, I was already having some health issues, and from blood mole of all things, it was in my place I didn't know about. So I went into isolation, completely alone. I mean, Matt could come to the door. But I went into that three months, and a 800 square foot condo in the gulch, alone. And I had alone issues. I like, I'm social. I like a lot of people around and you know, Matt gets sick of it. Now he's become more social that he's completely flipped. And no one could get to me. I'd finally, was able to talk to my therapist from my rehab stay at Kimberlin Heights. And she reminded me of a lot of things. She reminded me that I was dealing with claustrophobia, which I thought I'd kind of conquered that. She said, "No, no." She goes, "You're in the heart of it."

- Now--

- You don't have to do well in an iso booth.

- I don't. And I don't breath well and I don't, all the Zoom stuff that was just happening at the time. I was like, I really don't wanna see you right now. And I don't wanna be seen.

- Right right.

- So I just completely lost my way and I was safe but up appear I wasn't. And so and during that time, a good friend of ours killed herself and she's another... There was death happening we couldn't even celebrate their lives. So that was not helping. That the thing that I was the best at was jumping in there and being strong and solid for others and for myself was gone. I mean, just gone. And I got a lot of great friends and I thought if okay, I was going to turn off my phone and I was like, guys, I don't have any answers for you, but I love how loved I was at that time.

- Is this, you know, as an artist myself, you know, I struggle. I've got a health issues, I've got PTSD, I've got all these things. And I've been dealing with this stuff. Do you think a lot of this is the cat and mouse game of the music industry and our personal lives interweaving the relationships we have and then constantly starting to you know, we're fighting to have a voice in a sea of amazing voices?

- What I know now is this. I wish you'd say I go to the road to work things out. What I know now is whatever was going on in my life, I would go to the road. It was easy for me to run and not face you know man or have a problem, you know. Or I'm really gone for two weeks. It'll fix itself. And you know, I'll come home, I'll be missed and you know just dissecting behavior has been very interesting and just trying to be well because also I've just, it's become a pretty big joke with my friends that if we're going to work that, let's wait and see what's wrong with Ty this week. So I've welcomed the humor because they're not wrong. It's been. It wasn't a cold, it was a tooth . It was an eye infection. There was a knee swollen. It was just every week was something. And you know what it was. Now that I've learned to just calm down. Stress is not good. I've never been a person who's completely stressed out. Everything in your body wants to stop working. You just get, and then add depression on top of that. And my father passed away from some pretty severe depression. And I thought it skipped me because I was just like, I used to look at people and go wait, they have a pill for that, right? I mean, and I felt bad that I ever thought that because there was no pill that was gonna fix this. Nothing that was gonna numb me out 'cause I was already numb. And I couldn't find my number one guy in there. And I can now talk about this without being . But I couldn't see God. I was like, where'd you go? And not on yourself, but just, what is this about? You know and that's never happened to me before ever, even in my darkest moments, you know it's just, there's been a strong connection there but man I couldn't find it. And that was horrifying to me. And it's enough to make you I mean, . I didn't wanna leave the earth. I'll say that right now 'cause the therapist asked me did you want to commit suicide? I said, "No, it was never about that." It was about, I don't know where to go to get answers at this point. And I don't know what the future looks like. and I just lost all this stuff and I don't know if it's gonna come back.

- You felt completely unsafe, abandoned by even the, you know, 'cause we talk a lot about God on All Heart, you know, the God that you love that you grew up with. The God of grace that has so much mercy. You felt even your partner, Matt, you felt totally alone. Totally alone?

- Oh yeah, yeah. I had been, I realized this about myself now even before this I'd been pushing him way out to see. That's another conversation. But yeah, I was beginning that, thing that happens to guys my age where you just start getting really inadequate and you feel like, gosh, I've only got a certain amount of time to be impressive. You know I got to try harder and work harder. And that was another thing sitting in that condo I just realized, I was tired, I was just like, the race assistant for, Terri Clark and I were talking, she goes, you and I kind of from the 90s, the big guys, we call them. Which to think is just.

- You know where to serve. She goes, "It's a lot of work." I said, "Tell me about it." And then add LGBTQ or top of that. And the Foundation I'm so proud of all that. And.

- If you've created, you know, the Foundation for Love & Acceptance, it's the Ty Herndon's Foundation for Love & Acceptance. It's interesting the way, you know, you're talking and the different challenges you've had, you know. It seems like the people that are the strongest advocates for that type of thing are the ones who are a special witness in a way to the challenges and the pain. 'Cause I believe had you not experienced this pain and suffering, you would not be able to understand the needs of others who are hurting. And that's the irony, the thick irony of being, what. And I don't know that it's like, God just gives that to you. But it's like, you've been plucked Ty because he knows and then obviously the devil. The devil knows.

- The devil thrives with this Corona. That's the devil, part of .

- When I said yeah, what's the scripture, the devil is abroad in the land?

- Yes.

- So but with the Love & Acceptance, the word acceptance. You know you're talking about all these different challenges and that's one thing like for me. That's what's hard to do is accept that I'm aging, accept that I'm, you know, can I still achieve this and this and this 'cause you, it's like, it's what leads us, it's what drives us. It's what. Because we've been told our whole lives, Oh, you're so wonderful. I love your music. You're amazing. ♪ Wonderful ♪

- You know what you're so wonderful. Yeah, but then when the crowds are gone and when people are not telling you that, it's difficult.

- The challenges that I've had in my life. I grew up with a mom and a grandmother that I believe in myself, you know, I've stumbled, but stumbling is a part of moving forward and I've never run from a challenge ever. And it just my really personal stuff that I'm having to dive into now that. Why didn't I run from that? It was one of my fear around that. And it's been, that has been exhausting. But I'm glad to do the work because I briefly had the opportunity to do the work. Talking about work man, I'm so blessed to be able to sing on your album that's coming soon. In the new year now?

- Yeah. So February our song that we wrote with Joel Lindsey, "Some Kind of Wonderful," we performed it. Like that was the one of the things that, you know, we had a great experience. We went out and did LoveLoud Festival.

- So cool. It was so cool.

- LoveLoud Festival for those that aren't familiar was started by Dan Reynolds and Tyler Glenn. Tyler is also on the record as well.

- That's awesome.

- Yes, so it's gonna be exciting. You and I have a song. It's a really happy song, "Some Kind of Wonderful."

- And you know it

- Some of classic.

- It's fun, it's fun. And then with the Tyler Glenn who is also openly gay, we wrote this song called "I know It Hurts."

- So it's the opposite.

- "I know It Hurts." And there's a line in there that says, it's cold on the church floor.

- It's cold on the floor.

- You know, you talked about God feeling like God has abandoned you. And this is the emotion so many people struggling with their sexuality.

- It's interesting you say that. I don't know that I felt abandoned. I couldn't find Him. I felt a little more like he lost me. So there's so much going on right now you couldn't hold everybody, yeah.

- You went off the radar.

- Yeah, it was a brokenness in me. I'll be honest with you man. I was so angry.

- Yeah.

- All that stuff turned into anger eventually. And I couldn't even speak. I was just so so angry. And I guess I had a lot of stuff to be angry about. It just needed to like bad zit needed to pop. But I got through that. I had a bit of an emergency room last month just to kinda have a little surgery. And I got the emergency room at two o'clock in the morning. I was in so much pain that I guess I don't remember a lot of it. There was this beautiful black nurse. She's just amazing. When it was all said and done I was laying in recovery. She came and she goes, she said, "Baby." She goes, "No, need a lot of folks coming in here overnight." She goes to , "Are you in a lot of pain?" She goes, "But how's your relationship with God?" I said, "Well, I've been a little upset with him lately but other than that he's been with me my whole life. He's pretty pretty cool guy." She goes, "Well, we could tell." She goes, "You had some real, not so nice things to say to Him." Evidently I was letting God have it in the emergency room. She said, "Well, I'm happy to hear that." She goes, "I just want you to know that I was just coming here to tell you, just give you a hug from Jesus." and I said, "I'll take it."

- That's great.

- I don't even remember that. It was like, oh wow.

- So I did my amends, I got home I was like I'm sorry, it's your breath down here. I'm so sorry. You know, we're only built to be so strong you know, we're. And I call this my Titanic moment. You know, it was bound to happen that I just, I couldn't stay afloat anymore and I just, I had to break it down and I'm better now. It's good to be on the other side of that. But I have, yeah I had a... Last thing in the world I wanna do is ever have people worry about me because I feel like I did enough of that in the past.

- But it's okay.

- I've found who my friends were.

- I love the fact that when I was in Utah and I was driving up with some buddies to go fishing, and I said, "I gotta reach out to this artist." And they said, "Who?" I said, "Ty Herndon." They're like, "What?" And he broke into singing the entire song, "What Matters Most." And I corrected him. I said, "You gotta do the new version." And they could not believe that I had even been in the same room with you. So the impact, of your music. I mean, he knew every lick.

- That's what's amazing is we don't always see the impact we're having. And everything you're doing for the Foundation for Love & Acceptance and everything Ty.

- That's good tunes out there man. I know you have. And I've been saying with Eric and I were talking about the concept for this record. I said, "Man, I know it's times for a brand new original album." I said, "Look, really want to do this idea." But going back to, an album called "The Missed Hits."

- Yeah.

- I felt like it never got there. There were moments.

- I love it, I love it. This new song, let's talk about "Orphans of God." This is a Dove winning song by Joel Lindsey and Twila. And it's just an incredible song. And I remember being at a party with you and hearing the song and going, oh, we gotta do this, we gotta do this. And so you have a Christmas album.

- Yeah.

- I hope that you've re generated.

- 20 years old, five years old. That was 20 years old.

- Wow wow. So you own the rights to that then. You've got the, you were able to get that back.

- Yes.

- Okay and so then you've put on "Orphans of God featuring your dear friend, Kristin Chenoweth.

- Chenoweth

- Yeah, two dear friends. I'm on there. I'm on there. I'm playing the piano. I wrote it a little piano part for it. It's a beautiful song. When did you first meet Kristin?

- Evidently I met her and she remembered, I didn't. You know I got a few years that are missing up here but

- She's a sharp lady.

- She worked at Opryland so did I. So we crossed each other's paths a few times, but I was in New York doing, I think it was press for the, my coming out album. I think--

- Is that "Living In A Moment?"

- Oh no . This was a, it was lousy piece of.

- "Hands of a Working Man?"

- No, you gotta go whiteboard. 2004

- Oh! 2004.

- Yeah.

- "Lies, I Told Myself." 2013 with the album, "Lies I Told Myself." We found a new platform for bonding with fans.

- I wasn't out yet. I did that record prior to.

- November, 2014.

- Yeah.

- Was when you came out and you got some wonderful support from Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Tonight. 'Cause country you don't think of country music and the LGBTQ community. And I remember watching the show "Nashville" and that one of the characters Will, which probably was inspired by you.

- Totally, I've talked with him quite a few times.

- They should've made him a much bigger star but you pretty much, that was our favorite character. We loved Will.

- Well that beer bottle thing that happened on stage that actually happened to me.

- Oh, no kidding. When I was in Texas.

- So you were the first actually, were you terrified?

- I wasn't. At that point it got to a point that it was like, I'm not doing anybody any favors by not just speaking my truth. Because I was living pretty much 100% authentically at that time. But I had never said the words and it was, and people go, what's the big deal about coming out is like, well, the big deal about coming out is that you're stating the fact that you're gay. That your stating, your You're letting the world know who you are. And it's clearly it's quite that simple. But the hoopla that happened around me was just simply because I was the first successful male country artist that was coming out. And I had no idea that Billy Gilman was, I knew Billy was gay, but I had no idea that he was. We hold those secrets up to heaven because it's not your business to tell.

- Right.

- Evidently he was posting a YouTube video the next day. And you said early about me, I woke up to like 260 text messages on a Saturday morning. And what day I said, "Bill, I can't thank you enough for coming." I said that my story was unique but all of a sudden there were two of us and it took on rocket fuel and it was everywhere. And the funny part was they were trying to get people to guess who the two people were. And so.

- Everybody starts wondering, questioning, asking.

- Yes, I would jump back over to Kristin. But I--

- Yeah, we're gonna jump back to Kristin, but I think it's fascinating what you did. And I think it's, you know, it always takes somebody to lead the way and you've done such a great service for that community.

- Thank you man.

- Country music is so much better.

- My brave soldier, Chely Wright is actually the first to do it. And her journey was more difficult. She's my mentor, my coach. I couldn't have done this without her. to do it correctly. I was terrified with sitting down with people mad. Entertainment Tonight. I sit down with them, with Nischelle Turner, I knew her. She said, "You need to take a breath." I said, "Dude don't I?" She goes, "This is mama baby." This is. And once the conversation started, it was easy breezy. And, Matt was, he was over like hiding behind the camera, I'm like. He's over there.

- Yeah. Before we get to Kristin. When did you meet Matt? And you've been with Matt for quite some time.

- 11 years.

- We met through a mutual friend on Facebook. And we, probably five years later that we found out that our mutual friends had the same name but it was not the same person. Oh okay.

- So it was fate, yeah.

- Yeah. Otherwise I reached out to you 'cause you were a total stranger.

- That's awesome.

- But you were a cute total stranger.

- Yeah, Matt's a great guy. So back to Kristin, you guys were working at the Opry and then you were in New York. She

- Yeah

- She said, "I know you." And you're like, ah!

- No, Chely. I went to sit down and talk with Chely before I came out. Chely goes, I'm going to a performance with Kristin Chenoweth tonight, would you like to go? It's like, I love her. Yeah, I said, I think I met her on time. She goes, "You did." And when she did one, was it a benefit? Can't remember the charity at this point but I went backstage and there were all these Broadway stars and I was just kinda took my place in the corner and she. In the her country is voice, it's like, Ty Herndon, a living prince. She kept running across the room and just jumps that Kristin style right. Arms and I just love me. And we chatted for a minute and then my guitar player about 10 months later, I get my guitar player. One of my guitar players, Josh, there's Josh and Eric. We were doing a show in Oklahoma, he said, he goes, "I need to ask a favor." and I said, "Okay." He said, "I'm dating this girl and she's famous and we need a little extra security for tonight. 'Cause she's gonna the shit up." I stopped what I was doing. I was like, "What did you say to me?" I said, "Well, who is it?" He said, "Well, I've been seeing Kristin Chenoweth for about six months." I was like, "Are you kidding?" Well, we got,

- It's a small world.

- we got her, he met her at a family wedding.

- Wow, yeah.

- And be there going on two years now they're strong. God did a good thing there.

- Josh is awesome. I love the fact that Kristin Chenoweth who is a Broadway queen is elegant, graceful in, you know in my hometown, they adore her. She just performed with the Tabernacle Choir. She did a lot of great work within circle there. And here she is with Josh, this country boy.

- And a country a boy.

- And that. Yeah. And an amazing guitar player. And it just shows that she's still country at heart.

- Just tiny bit younger and he's sexy man. So he play Peterson. He is . I said, "Kristin I'm robbing the cradle too." It's all good.

- My wife is you know, she's four five years older than me. So she just plucked me up. But I've been paying my dues every day, still trying to win her over.

- You gotta .

- So--

- I think did you thank me when I'm over? You absolutely did not. You had one for the day.

- Yeah yeah. So "Orphans of God" is out, it's on the Christmas album, the name of the Christmas album?

- Is "Regifted."

- Okay, so yeah, everybody obviously ask Alexa or Siri, whichever women you're faithful to to play Ty Herndon. What's your advice to young Ty Herndon?

- Not try to be everybody's friend. You know, because they're definitely not your friends. You just really spend a little bit of time in finding out who you're dealing with. Do some background checks. So I've really gotten royally gifted quite a few times.

- You have one of the biggest hearts and you give everyone the benefit of the doubt. And I think because of your faith and your love of Jesus you try to see things through His eyes. And that's the challenge I think we run into in this difficult world.

- Whoo!

- Because we wanna give everyone the benefit of doubt. My wife, Tina works on Wall Street. She's in New York, you know, she's tough. She comes into my little world out in Utah and she's like, you gotta watch that person. You gotta watch that person. They want something. They don't want you, they want something, you know.

- Everybody always wants something. That's a song title, that's for sure. But you know what? I've watched Kristin Chenoweth work, I've watched you work. You know, there's a level of professionalism that you can maneuver things and you can actually say, no. I'm learning that as well. But I think Paul, I think as far as I know as long as I'm on this earth, I'm gonna be doing music. And I think probably I'm about to move into some of the best music in my life. I did with "Orphans of God" man. I didn't. You know this, you and I. I delayed your record because I couldn't. There was a disconnect that was happening from, you know, from here. It was crazy. That had never happened to me before. 'Cause I could have a cold, like I have right now sinuses or whatever I could sing through it. I went into the studio probably eight times to try to sing that thing. And it was just, Eric and I were to just scratching our hairs like, what's wrong? I said, "I don't know, man I don't." It's just, definitely wasn't the song so I'm just it's such a pleasure to sing. It just. There was a texture that was there. You know, like I've done every time with your song you know, I prayed up and I showed up. But for me, I went back, what did it, I went back to the well. I went back to where I started singing contemporary Christian gospel, hymns, you know, just, there's such an emotional connection to me and God and universe for that stuff. And I love this song. I've been wanting to sing it forever. And we were able to do a gorgeous arrangement of it.

- Yeah yeah. You know, just coming in Nashville meeting you has opened my eyes tremendously. You, without even, you know, great we're doing music together that's fantastic, that's great.

- What we were born to do.

- But you know I believe everybody deserves a covenant relationship. Yeah.

- Absolutely.

- And that there's no orphans of God. Everyone is welcome to the table. And so I came in from a, you know what I. Salt Lake's a pretty big town, but I came in here like this and you just, I love it. I love what God did. I just went like. And you know, it was your love of God and your faith and it was like, Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine heaven without time. All these amazing people, come to think,

- I don't wanna .

- God's put in my life. Like if I. So thank you for doing that for me. And accepting me, so.

- Can't speak right now, you're gonna make me cry.

- Well, I love you man. You're amazing. You have influenced so many people you know, your plug, you keep plugging away, plugging away.

- Swimming swimming swimming.

- You know. It's a straight narrow gate because we go through it one at a time.

- Yeah.

- And you are helping a lot of people, one by one and it's turning into a sea of. So it's beautiful. And I will brag about you to everyone. And so thank you so much for what you're doing man.

- You're so welcome, man. My grandma said I would be that preacher and teacher one day. I said, well, I certainly I've been able to do that. I'm gonna be able to do it better now. Even better than before. I got to share a video with you. I just got yesterday. A good friend of mine he's on MSNBC, his buddy had just downloaded the song and I mean, man, he struggled with his success and he's a successful person on television now. And it hit him right in the heart man. He was balling. He said, "I needed this message today." He goes, "This is not a sad cry. 'Cause this is a happy cry. This message was heard so loudly in me," he said. And I was like, wow, you know. I have a relationship with Kristin, like I do with you with, with Chely, right? Like I do with... We talk about God, you know. And man, I was one day probably a month before this pandemic thing hit, man I was just listening to some old tunes that I grew up with. Man, the Holy spirit was just all over me and just, I mean, I got into a full blown just worshiping and just right by myself, you know. And I turned the recorder on and I mean, I was doing the cried to Chely and to Kristin, I was like, "Guys if you wanna see Jesus, you wanna see Him glow? Right here. It's right here today."

- Yeah. And I kept that video. I said one day I'll post that. And I don't know that time maybe now, who knows. But that moment I realized now. Some of the stuff I just can't talk about man. I realize now that God was putting something in me.

- He loves you man.

- He was preparing me for a big old lesson that I was gonna be able to. I was like, I don't wanna another lesson. No no no no! I don't wanna another lesson man.

- Well, it's like I said, you know, there's so many people hurting. So many people hiding. So many people who feel unworthy and yet, you know, most of my audience are believers. If you're not maybe you will be, but .

- You'll love this.

- I just love you, man.

- love this as well. My other friend that works for ET, she said, she goes, "Well," she goes, "I don't know if we're gonna do a story or not." Or rather, she goes, "But I will tell you this." She goes, "Right before the election, right before there's so much going on in the world, you came with this song?" Just out of the blue, she goes, "It wasn't even a lot of hoopla around it." You just said here's a song with Kristin Chenoweth and Paul Cardall. And I said, "Why not?" There was no right timing for it. I mean sure we could have had, you know, we could have set it up just to release it in the new year. But I was like, no, it's done just this is not gonna be a song, this is gonna make a huge splash off at the beginning. It's gonna, it's a seed and it's gonna grow.

- Yes, it's an anthem. It is a message. That's what I love about these types of projects. They're purpose led.

- Purpose led.

- They're purpose led. They are--

- No idea. What purpose is.

- Well, the purpose of it is to, you know, what the purpose is, come on.

- No, it's sometimes when you're purpose led you just being led to do something and you.

- You're , well you just--

- Have it later, you know, why you're so led to do it.

- Yeah, pass .

- And that is purpose of life from years back.

- Yeah passing.

- And in Michael Passons and Melissa Greene from Avalon sing on the record as well. I mean, that was just... Michael's my good friend and so is Melissa, but I didn't think they said yes because they both had good and bad experiences with Avalon. And Michael just was able to come out and tell his story. And I'm just, my friend is different. It's just like, I was like, wow, I've always loved you, but I really like you. Right now and he's in love and you just being able to be authentically himself.

- Yeah.

- It was full circle for him. 'Cause it was kind of a forgiveness thing. Let's just all hug. 'Cause this is about a moment, a song, that you both are a part of.

- Yup. One of my favorite moments of Kristin goes up into that really soprano Sandi Patty thing right there, right hanging right with us Melissa Greene. They're just swimming together man. It's a beautiful moment.

- It's epic. It sounds like there's almost like a choir there. The way that it's there.

- Yeah

- And its beautiful.

- It doubled in months

- Yeah, you did a fantastic job.

- And I was like, okay, what am I gonna sing here? And I was like, I'm not gonna sit here. This is the moment that I can just kinda step back and go wow, you know. She goes into her thing there and it's just. I love the fact that for the first time ever in my career, I was like, okay, what about here? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna go sit over here.

- Amazing. Well, the song is "Orphans of God" everybody. We are very proud of it, as you can tell. But it is a song that I encourage you to listen to the message and then share it with those who and God will put on your heart who needs to hear the song. I think it's everybody. All right, my brother.

- It was fun. Thank you for having me on.

- All right, man. Have a great day.

- You too, I love you man. Thank you.