Rory Feek on Writing for Blake Shelton, the Grammys, His Down Syndrome Daughter, Losing His Wife

honestly I didn't want to show you this video but ultimately I was like I can publish imperfection and you'll have something or you won't see it at all and ultimately as your servant as someone trying to do my best to love you all I thought you'd probably rather see something as opposed to nothing the problem is we're a few episodes into this video podcast setting it up oursel it's difficult three cameras uh audio and long story short Rory is a little bit out of focus you guys might not even noticed but many of you will and I just want to acknowledge that that I wish he would have been in Focus uh it was this was a wonderful interview that's why I think it's too good to not put out there even though he is in Focus I've had Dan our editor do a little more broad shots where it's both of us but you know Rory tears up in part of this interview and we talk about everything we talk about uh his Down syndrome daughter losing his wife uh dealing with uh you know and accepting family members who have different moral ideas than you do and loving them and where they're at and so this is got to go up just please forgive the imperfection but hope it's an inspiration to all of us that we just need to get out there spread the word hit publish get the message out there no matter what and uh I want you to enjoy this conversation with Rory Rory we like to Jump Right In you basically give your own introduction here how do you best serve your audience that's a great question I think the best way I could ser serve my audience if my job was to serve my audience is just to be myself to be authentic that's the best thing I can do for myself and for anyone who cares you said if your job was to serve your audience yeah it's not no what is your job well my job is to live my life and you know to live great stories and Hope hopefully capture some of those and share some of them so I I don't do that to serve the audience I do that because it's inside of me it's something that I I have to do I have to share I have to capture so I haven't transition to a place to where it feels like a business or anything like that it it just feels like life off the top of your head what are some of these great stories you're talking about the day uh my little girl walked to school for the first time that's story huh today no the day the day my little girl tell us that story well it was just um I didn't know if she was going to walk you know I didn't I didn't know when Indiana was born we didn't know what we were going to get I still don't know what we're going to get but she's amazing and um thriving in every way so she didn't learn to crawl till she was almost three and a month later she learned to walk in braces and things like that so fast forward she's five or five and a half or something and she wants to walk to school which is just across the parking lot from our Farmhouse but she wants to walk by herself the first day and so I just happen to have the camera in my hand and she gives me a kiss goodbye and off she walks and and I I just stood there holding it while while I watched her out the screen door and then she got too far away so I had to step through the screen door and then on the porch and then I kept following her and then it was a special kind of emotional moment then I went into the milk house which is where my office in my studio is and then I just pushed play and I dropped some pretty music underneath of it and I just cried and cried cried and as did you know a million people and as do I every time that I do it that I watch something like that so that's a great story yeah but you know it's not a story that that we made on purpose it's a story we just lived on purpose and we captured it okay you captured this moment and you published this moment did you give a bit of context in the story to the audience or did you just capture this first walk to the schoolhouse I just said put it up there yeah I didn't I didn't I didn't say anything I didn't I didn't do a voice over I didn't I think the only thing I wrote was you know Indiana walked to school for the first time a that was the only thing that I put and those that don't know Indiana Indiana has Down syndrome yeah she's seven and a half and you knew that before she was born no we didn't know that okay no when she was born she was born at home with a home birth at our Farmhouse and so my wife and I had no idea we we'd never had as you know cuz you've had home births we never had a single doctor's appointment so everything was a surprise we didn't know if it was a little girl or a little boy and we definitely didn't know she was going to have almond eyes ah well what was what was it like when you discovered the Alman well it was you know we didn't Discover it for a little while it was um at first we just thought she was beautiful and perfect and then they said when a little later someone said that they thought that she might have Down syndrome and and we really didn't know what to do with that because it hadn't occurred to us and we just didn't really know how to process it so um my wife it's a long story but she had um had some complications and had to go to the hospital after given birth to Indie and it was there at the hospital that the doctor had said that so when she woke up from surgery I told her that and you know I was still processing it and we didn't know for sure that was just something that they suspected and you know Joey just you know was like oh no we got the greatest perfect baby in the world she just never gave it another thought and we really have never given it a thought we just don't you know she's just a little girl but we are aware of the fact that she's going to learn and grow differently and I think the best thing about that is I have two older girls so indy7 Hop's 33 and Heidi's 35 so like most people you don't realize that your children they're all different they're all born with different abilities and uh learning abilities and communication abilities and you know one one uh has lots of talent for performing and other one has some other thing that they're into or whatever but but I think up until Indie coming along you just felt like well we're all supposed to be we're supposed to finish first grade at this level and at fifth grade or eighth grade you you have to know your multiplication tables and anything else if you don't know that we're failing as parents or something but the time Indie came along was like no none of that matters anymore all that mattered was that she was going to be what she was going to be and we wanted to help her be the best of that and um that's been good for me good for her too was it ever a struggle was what a struggle just her being different yeah that she would have special needs well she doesn't really have any special needs she she doesn't um I mean her her only special needs is is that you know I mean the only special need Indiana really has is that she doesn't have a mama that lives here Ah that's really you know that's an unusual special need is that somehow she has to figure out how to be confident as a young girl and without without having a mama she has two big sisters and lots of ladies around but that's a special need she's growing up without a mama outside of that yeah I don't see I don't see it have you always viewed it that way I think so I think Joey and I you know we came home and we uh we googled it a lot we read I bought some books we ordered some books online and we we we met some people uh early on who kind of welcomed us into the Down Syndrome community and my wife didn't like it she just she just said no I'm I'm not doing that I'm not going to be part of that and it it was just that she didn't feel like we or Indie needed to be part of a community or that we needed to be we we had just a little girl and we didn't need to change our expectations at all she was just going to be a little girl and so so far that's been our experience and and honestly she's so bright yeah I'm I'm going to be real surprised if one day I'm not like riding in the passenger seat and she's driving me here and you know and has her own life in every way you can imagine I'm going to be real surprised I'm okay if she doesn't but she just keeps surprising me and Joey she has another little boy that she goes to school with who learns slower like he doesn't talk as well and uh he just learns a little bit different than her and so they all learn a little bit different all kids do but little ones like Indie they they all come with different abilities and so so far she's she's been surprisingly sharp did Joey have the same spirit and attitude yeah she did she she never wanted to have babies of her own so we had been married 10 or 12 years before she finally decided to trust God and let him decide what was best that was a big deal I mean because from the moment I met her like we really didn't argue about things she was just such a good person and a good woman and and but babies were a big deal to her she wasn't going to have any um we weren't going to talk about it like she was just completely against it she didn't think she had a motherly bone in her body but after 10 years or 12 years of being in together and being married and all of her dreams coming true and then some and we had such a wonderful marriage I think she got to a place where she came to me and said you know I can't keep God has blessed us and blessed me so much I can't keep holding something from him just because I'm afraid of it and so she said I think we should see what he wants and I was I was I was actually frightened at that point I'm I'm baby crazy I held your little boy earlier I love babies and I love children but for her it was such a shift like a mountain had moved and I thought even though at the time I was 47 about to turn 48 when Indie was born I I you know I was ready to sort of ride off into the sunset enjoy the older years my girls were grown older girls but because it was such a shift I immediately recognized that God's doing something in her and I'm with her like whatever whatever this is going to be I want to be so for us to have a baby is a big deal and then uh Joey I think part of her was she had a wonderful mother who was such a terrific te caregiver of her and her four siblings and her mom was a singer you know who wished she could have moved to Nashville and she never did because she took care of her family so I think Joey knew that to be a mother you can't have both and she wanted to be Dolly Parton so uh that was part of it for her and then another part is I think she was afraid of child birth and I remember not long after she got pregnant we were laying upstairs and we just like you we just never really had television but we had an iPad and I had seen this documentary called babies and I loved it it's like five babies just the first year of their life and I was trying to show it to Joey but it it work whever it was it wasn't available anymore and when I when I looked it up another another documentary came up called The Business of Being Born MH and Joey watched it and so she went from literally like laying down in bed that evening and turning that on and being afraid of childbirth to it the credits rolled my wife closed the laptop and said we're going to have a baby in the house with no medicine and that girl right there that lady is going to be my Midwife and I was like uhoh that lady the lady on the screen the lady on the screen yeah her name was Miss panel like Joey recognized it turned out that a lot of the documentary was shot about an hour away from our farm at a place called The Farm yeah where the most famous midwives in the world are and Pamela is one of the original ones and so Joey just for some reason it's like homesteading it made no sense to be you know to go you're G to have babies in the in the hospital all that stuff scared her but the second she realized wait a minute I could have a baby at home the way they've been having them forever and she was for some reason it immediately resonated with her like the the hard stuff was going to be the good stuff and and she did so great that's good it was so good that's cool so when Indie came along that's was a long way to get to that she didn't um she was surprised but on the other side you know just was she turned turned into of course just like that a a light switch went off in her and she went oh well this is what life's about like she's she's realized no no music no career no dreams nothing compared to this feeling of having a baby and um she was in love with Indiana and so like Indiana wasn't flawed or less she was perfect as a matter of fact before Joey passed away you know two years years later Joy would say quite often I don't think we ever like put it on film or anything like that but she would say I think women should wait to have babies until they're a lot older so they have a better chance of having pretty little almond eyed kids like mine you think that's what she said it is that she was oh I have no idea I think God caused it but but there the reality is is that the chances they it increases when you get older and Joey was 30 what would she have been I don't know I can't really do the math right now but she was in her later 30s so all all that that meant was um she felt like she won the lottery so if you want to win the lottery maybe wait a little while so that's pretty good yeah that's a that's a really good perspective yeah how old is Indie she's seven okay how old are you I'm 56 okay um you getting tired no my knee hurts okay but I'm not tired no I'm getting older what would you help us out here this is a mentality a lot of people want and need because you hear me coming from you know is was it a struggle you know is is it something you feared uh help us out help out help out the parent who's struggling with it with that with that child appointment instead of delight like this is special this is a gift everybody should have well om eyes well you got to remember you know not everybody sees it that way and when Indie was born you know we we found ourselves on the phone with a lot of people you know everybody's so excited they're so excited and so tell us about the baby and so one by one we would tell them you know that the doctors think Indie has Down syndrome and pretty much every single person said I'm so sorry and and you know what I would have said the same thing if someone someone had told me the same thing cu you don't really know what to say or what to think because of what the culture says except my neighbors Gabe and Mandy they had a little girl who had special needs who was older she was what would she be uh four years older than indie or something anyway I found myself a couple days later in their kitchen Joey's at home with the baby and I and they want to hear all about it and I tell them you know Andy's born and she's doing great and Joey's doing great but the doctor said that she had Down syndrome and they get this big smirk on their face they start almost giggling and Mandy says ex sorry you know forgive me but I just want to say congratulations you just won the lottery and what was neat about that to me was they they recognize that you're given a gift that a lot of parents aren't given and that just meant it gave us permission to think about it a little bit differently and not that we hadn't it was just it just became a real visual uh moment and I'd like to think that you know if you follow our world at all and have followed Indy's life you know I don't have to say anything I don't have to tell you she's a gift you know it yeah that's true you you just I don't have to tell you we treat her different she's she or we treat her just like anybody else um but I think the main thing is is for people um if you wanted to be an encouragement to them is just you know every we're all a little bit different you know I have brown eyes you have blue eyes um I'm a little bit taller than you there are people like Mark who's a little bit smaller than you um or Jason Jason uh you know we're all different and I just feel like that's it's just that some of it scares us you know it's what we don't know it scares us but for me man it's been the greatest it's been such a gift tell me that tell me why has it been so great well I mean I've had two older girls and then I have Indie so it's a gift for me for a bunch of reasons number one I was when I was younger raising Heidi and Hopi I was still just a kid myself so I made every mistake in the book and and they they pay the price you know I I'm their dad but I'm Indy's Papa and the difference between that is Heidi will say this quite often she'll say sometimes I wish you were my dad and the the meaning is you're so different today than you were then she'll kind of joke about it because we lived off of like Taco Bell in a one-bedroom apartment and Indie has her own school so we live on a big farm and Life's a little bit different so she'll say it kind of in that way like I wish I was your kid today because it's a better life but what she actually I think is talking about is just that I'm just more present and I'm trying harder and I've learned a lot so that's one thing is it's a gift it's a gift it's like for you you got some older kids and then now Henry's real small and so by the time Henry's 10 it might be a little bit different experience what you have to give him and so that's one thing I get a do over as a father number two um you know as God does what he does I was a single father for 12 years with my two older girls before Joey came along and they were 11 and 13 or 12 and 14 something like that when Joey and I met we got married soon after when Joey got sick I remember we were sitting on the back porch talking and the baby was about a year old and we just kept getting worse and worse news and cancer had come back and it was stage four and and she was upset but she wasn't upset that things were looking bad and that she might not be here she was upset and she made a real point to say you know I just I just uh I don't want you to have to be a single parent again but the gift was and I told her in the moment like I don't want to be but somehow he knew like I'm good at this I've already done it like he already knew I could do it and um that's that's a crazy thing that I could have never imagined would happen and so Indiana is a gift to me too because her mom's not here and yet her mama's here you know I don't know who I would be and what I would be doing if Indie wasn't here just to wake me up in the morning and have purpose I mean eggs and bacon every morning no I I don't get to sleep in we have you know we have baths and bedtime and all sorts of stuff that make life meaningful so she's also a gift because she gives my life meaning and her mother lives on you said you made mistakes when you were younger as a parent what were those mistakes well I was I was very you know I wanted to be a singer a country music singer and then a songwriter and so I was chasing my dreams and so my dreams it meant uh what you were sharing something earlier it meant you know the kids are in the back seat and I'm in the front seat not really there I'm planning you know I'm working on where I'm going I mean I'm there I didn't it wasn't wasn't that I wasn't there it's just that I wasn't there as much as I could have been in lots and lots of ways um another way was for a long long time I just desired I I grew up in a broken home and so I just really wanted to be in a you know in a really good relationship and so I went through a string of relationships and so I just drugg my kids through all of those relationships for a long long time and um that that's another ones like you're you making all these other things priority and they're not or they're not enough so all those kinds of things and you know education when when the kids when we move to a small town on the farm we live at now I put them in school and I thought oh they'll just be fine when I was growing up we moved from town to town and state to state and I went to school wherever the bus picked me up and it was fine but it wasn't fine for them they were getting lost one of my daughters was getting falling behind and getting lost and the other was just getting lost in the culture some and so I tried to come up with answers on what to do you know move them to another school but I it was kind of almost too late at that time but as I'm older it's like I I don't think a school's going to fix that problem like it's an opportunity for me to be part of like fixing you know the education system or whatever but it wouldn't have occurred to me then so all those kinds of things you had said that you're good at it now you're a good single parent I'm good at what makes you good at it um what makes a good parent what makes a good parent I mean I'm still learning and I'm still getting better at it but um I've just I've never really been wired I know a lot of people who have children and they just just need a break the parents need a break par need a break yeah they're just they're just overwhelmed and they just need a break I don't I don't ever really need a break like it's just not it doesn't feel it just feels like life it doesn't feel like you need a break from it it's like for some reason I've always just recognized it as this is life take the kids with us we'll just do life together and um Indie was really no different even though when we came home after Joey passed away and she's only 2 years old now I have a little one in diapers was very complicated because it's not like you know breaking up with a girlfriend and you're you know you're back to just you and your kids and this girl's not living with you or whatever that happens to be this is different it's like real grief and real disappointment and heartbreak but it requires you to change diapers and yeah learn how to teach her her signs and sign language and you know a million other little things and learn how to cook again and learn how to take care of her and all and then you know figure out who you are and stuff like that so but the part that was easiest for me was the picking up the baby and just trudging on okay you know giving baths and making the bed and doing laundry and like and so the parenting part of for a long time that's the just the parenting and being there with them and taking care of them and then now it's just you know being part of their lives and and believing in them and loving them so you lost your wife your daughter lost her mom and you still had to change diapers you still had to feed do you did did that help you through your grief process having to keep going or do you resent it I know I don't I don't resent things I don't I'm I'm not wired that way so I didn't and I don't I don't resent that uh it helped me yeah I mean it was hard sometimes and frustrating at times when you're trying to teach her out of potty train and it's just not going very well and I'm not sure what to do um there's things like that that were hard but I didn't resent it it was it really like I said it gave me a purpose and helped me stabilize every single day that no matter what this is how the day is going to begin and this is how the day is going to end and there's going to be a whole bunch of stuff you got to do in the middle of it and while you're doing that figure out who you are and what what's left of your life and what you're supposed to be doing and so no I I think I recognized immediately that God had given Joey and I a gift we knew it at the time long before we knew that gift was going to be left with me and help me through everything so yeah I've never seen it as anything except for a gift nice you you said you're not wired that way that's not something you had to work on you just don't resent well you know there's a bunch of things when I say I'm I'm not wired that way it's like God has rewired me through years and years and years and so I don't really have a resent I don't have a resentful bone I just don't even know how to access that it's just not the way I'm wired I also don't have like um I don't have a I don't hold grudges I don't like I feel like everybody means well you know hurt people hurt people it's like I just it's just not inside of me I can't find that um but for a long time I think like all of my 20s before the 20s in my 20s probably maybe even in my early 30s I would have probably felt a lot more like a victim and why aren't things going the way they want or even when they're going really well why am I not happy why am I unhappy even when you know music success is happening or something um I was really jealous you know for a long long long time really really really insecure all those kinds of things and then one day about five years after Joe five years after Joey and I were married and that didn't go away immediately like she was very very beautiful and I was very very afraid of losing her to the music business and all sorts of stuff but one day and and what was funny is like I would have these fears and things and and they would you know she would they would turn out unfounded and she would just be the most solid person in the world and I'd realize what am I doing like letting my mind run away with me and then one day I woke up and I was like I don't even know how to be jealous I don't even know I don't even know how to find it I I can't even find it anymore and like that that's not who I inherently am that's who God sort of inherently re rewiring you and you know I'm inherently now I'm not inherently I'm rewired where I'm I tend to be filled with gratitude a lot more than I'm filled with grief like grief cannot compare with gratitude and that's just a rewiring it's like I just I don't know how to hang on to the pain I only know how to hang on to the gift of it it's just all I know how do how do we mimic that how how do we have our overnight transformation experience well you you got to go through some hell you're going to have to you know suffering we were watching earlier it's like suffering is is how you um how you burn out all those bad parts so that you can be left with the gold with the good stuff so I don't think there is an overnight way but I do think it it comes down to you decide to be grateful you know it's like uh in Sleepless in Seattle where he says you know I'm just going to like wake up I'm going to breathe Breathe In and Out mhm and then I'm going to breathe in and out again and then one day I'm not going to have to remind myself to breathe in and out and and it's that way it's like decide to be full of gratitude be grateful for what you have just in a decision and then you know and then it'll selfishness will sneak back in and then decide again and then decide again and then pretty soon you won't have to work as hard at it it'll by default it'll creep up and be like oh that's right I'm fil of gratitude so so somebody's wanting what you have they want this transformation and you got it by going through hell do they just just let time run its course and let hell automatically happen or do they raise some hell and if so how raise some hell yeah like create some hell for themselves to get to this place of maturity and transformation think that's a good idea too I do think that's a good idea give us some hell raising ideas well if there's something inside that if there's if there's something you know you should be doing but you're afraid to do it do that good that's going to that's going to upset things and it's going to make things harder but it's going to bring you closer to where you want to be and all of those things wherever they are but like if there are things that you know you should be doing that you're not doing something that you know you should be saying choices you know you should be making places you know you should be going whatever that stuff is do the hard thing whatever those things are that that that will quite often that will blow up your world in the way that it needs to be blown up and that will create you know suffering because because you'll you'll upset you'll upset the world that you've protected for so long and it'll make you vulnerable and and that will that will move you know if you can decide to be grateful even when you're scared little by little by little yeah you won't have to decide to anymore that's the secet happiness gratefulness yeah you were talking about that earlier it's like it's not Health yeah because health is that means that as we get older no one is going to be happy yeah I don't it's not going to you know that's true you're right yeah and so and happiness cannot be the answer either like happiness cannot be the attitude it can't be the answer so I do think um you know I think gratefulness is is pretty high up there you know where you can find meaning in in the work you're doing the dreams you have the chasing of them um but gratitude will get you a lot farther than than happiness I think that's a good word I would say we faced fears you know we've gone against the society we took the Great American Farm Tre checked it all traveled the road so these are kind of kind of fear you know people are afraid to go into homesteading we face that now I'm in like this boat of I'll give you an example of a fear so it's and I'm sure a lot of people would face this fear but fear of Confrontation you know Rebecca and I are really good at that with each other and so we have the deepest relationship there is but when a friend hurts your feelings or a business associate mhm does something you're not not question about that can be that can be tough to confront don't you think yeah you have to confront it yeah what's your fear what's your fear that you're you're working on now um well probably my biggest fear would I I I don't know that it's a fear so I'm a Storyteller like you are and I've been doing it a long long time and I'm you know I came to Nashville to learn to be a Storyteller so I I I wrote songs but I want to learn how to write great songs and so the way that I sort of seen the evolution is that I came to Nashville and I buckled down I got mentored by a lot of great people and I've learned to write great songs I learned to write great stories and I still wasn't happy and one of the reasons was that of course when you start having success or or money or fame or any of those kind of things that that you know if you're if you aren't happy where you are you will not be happy there if you're not happy in an apartment you will not be happy in a mansion if you're not happy with little you will not be happy with a lot and so uh one thing that I came to realize was that you know I didn't want to just write a story a great story I started to realize I want to be part of one and that was a real game Cher for me and and it as I started shifting my life it it was almost as if in writing a song and you start understanding storytelling your character has to make choices and do things that make the end of the story amazing well I started to realize that that's something that I or my wife and I needed to do in our lives and so we started trying to make choices that would help us be part to tell a better story with our lives and and we have and it's been incredible it's been so much more fulfilling than just like writing a great song or making a great you know whatever it is video or whatever that stuff is so the next level of that uh is the scarier part for me which is something you do um Jessica does um I feel called to help people tell better stories with their lives but I have a real problem it's like you said uh what was the very first thing that you said it's like what you know whatever advice or like what you know what do you want to share with the very whatever you're yeah how how do you how do you best serve the audience yeah so I don't serve the audience so what's the fear of mine serving the audience and and there's a bunch of reasons for it it's like there's so much noise out there and I don't want to be part of the noise it's like and it and and I don't want to I don't want to watch it I don't want to participate in it last thing I want to do is be more of it um I have a real problem with like who am I to tell you anything even though I think I have a lot to say like I have a really strong feeling I I went to this thing long you know a few years ago it was life-changing for me is a long story but there was this guy this therapist really smart guy that's up there talking about forgiveness and and you know all sorts of things grief all sorts of things to like 60 people and I remember thinking I want to do that like I want to impact people in in ways like the heart of their heart of their heart of their hearts but I'm never going back to school I'm NE it's not going to happen I'm not I'm not going to have his credentials none of those things and uh and I just sort of sat there disappointed for about five minutes in the room while he's still talking I just ran ahead and said I wanted to be like him and then you know my song writer Creator brain took over and I said you know I'm never going to be a therapist but I would be a hell of a Ben therapist and the reason is is that and the reality is is I don't care what you learned in school you know I I'd rather learn from Joel salatan than from someone who studied it forever you know what I mean who has a lot to say they've been to you know they've been to a schools and got their PHD it's like that doesn't mean anything to me like I want to I want to learn from someone who drinks out of the trough mhm and so for me I think that's that's a part of where I am is like I feel like God's given me so many terrible roads and beautiful roads that I've gone down and insight that I feel called to be helpful but it's transitioning to figure out how to do that that's hard for me MH you know without feeling like you're part of the noise so that's scary for me me yeah to go from being a story basically the hero of your story to being a guide for other people that's that's the scary part but it it's where I am it's what I feel like I'm supposed to do yeah I think so to back up a little bit what is a song that you wrote that would be most recognizable Sun Beach Sun beach somewhere by Blake sh well it's not by Blake Shelton sung by Blake Shelton yeah that's not Blake Shelton's song yeah no that's you you wrote that song me and Paul over Street wrote that song yeah okay so how does that process work so you you you've got this song out you're you're trying to be the songwriter uh you've wrote this song how in the world do you pitch to Blake Shelton well you know songwriting is a business so you've got let's just say you know 100,000 songwriters in Nashville writing songs which is probably realistic 100,000 wow you know they're they're everywhere if you if you're paying for your groceries you're you're being rung up by a songwriter if you've ordered a pizza if you're in an Uber they're almost all songwriters you know they they really are or singers or whatever which is what makes the town so special is because they're it's a town full of dreamers so you you see yourself everywhere but but um if you reach a certain level um you you write songs and you could write songs for a Publishing Company they're paying you to write songs every day for a living okay and that's what I did at different times and so they have people with within that company their job is to share the songs that you've written with artists producers and things like that so quite often songs that I've got recorded have happened that way and sometimes it's we know people I think Paul over Street probably pitched that song to someone in the camp so doesn't really matter how it just finds its way and and somehow you Blake Shelton yeah is big deal now yeah was he that big of a deal no he was that big deal this is this is preo that helped did that did some beach my wife would say some beach helped and he cut his mullet that's what she would say she would add that and he cut his M so now uh he's actually really funny he's really a nice guy and he he deserves all the success he's one of the very few country singers who can laugh at himself and and has a sense of humor like most singers can't do it themselves oh yeah lots and lots singers songwriters have is that typical to have a relationship with each other I don't know I don't okay but y'all do yeah well we don't have a relation he doesn't come by very often but if I see him he's always very nice so some beach can you can you quote some Beach or or Capello some beach uh uh yeah I mean for those that don't know there are Jeremiah Michael and Jason have you heard the song some beach beach did you know this that he was the writer for sun Beach okay yeah so the I mean I'd rather quote a you know other songs let's let's quot A Little More Country Than That do it if you want a brick home in a school zone with the doors locked and alarms on honey your what's the you're honey off you're way off track because I'm a little more country than that um yeah so I I mean I I just love great lyrics and you know it's like you you were reading The Road Not Taken yeah it's just great yeah it's just great so good um how's that work were you getting paid by the hour over there writing songs or you well it actually doesn't it's the way that it works is um I got a job so I got paid $300 a week that's that for five years my first five years when I started writing songs my girls were still young but I got a job moved to Nashville got a job making $300 a week and I did that for five years but so imagine I think it's around $20,000 a year I made was that big time for you I mean it was big time for me because we were we had a steady income I wasn't just playing gigs at night or you know trying to wait tables at Apple bees or something and I was I was working every day I mean I was writing songs every single day so it was really big deal for me and uh but the way that the songwriting World Works you're basically getting it an advance so imagine if you wrote for 5 years okay $300 a week that means that after three years which I my first song got recorded uh after three years and it ended up being a big number one song but and then I had a bunch of other you know hits and different things but so I wrote for that company let's say for five years I have never made money from that company you had not no because they just recoup they recoup all your money from a very small little thing and so it just it has this magical way of like never you know you never really get so yes it did change your life but at the what happens is it's really just in advance that they recruit that doesn't mean that I didn't make money it just just means in that in that context so you also you make money from from U you know radio royalties which is a different royalty stream which is how I bought our Farmhouse so okay you you you get Advan the money but they also take the money back from other areas and stuff so it's kind of a great situation especially if you've never made any money before but if you learn how money works it turns out it's really sucky does that count when you you say play on the radio does it count when it gets played on Spotify and YouTube and all that stuff I mean that's why I think everybody's upset about it is that they uh like Spotify you could have 20 million listens or something and you get paid pennies I don't have I don't know how that stuff works but everybody's upset about it okay I'm not upset about it all right I I don't you know I just don't think about those things I I I just feel like it's all going to work out in the end you you mentioned the road not taken is that the name of it by Robert Frost where was your Divergence where was your divver I'm a big big fan of that idea of the road not taken um my my Divergence I think about that a lot um my Divergence happened without knowing it happened number one when I had my first success as a songwriter I don't have any idea why you could have done any you know I there were so many better choices I could have made with the money I could have we lived in an apartment we had already moved into like a nicer apartment I could have like moved into a really really nice apartment or rented a house I could have had like all new furniture a brand new vehicle like and money in the bank and all this sort of stuff but for some reason I got it in my head that we were going to go buy a rundown Farmhouse and fix it up and so about 45 miles south of Nashville that's what we did is we bought this rundown Farmhouse that you know you you we had to wash dishes with a hose and it was a disaster it didn't have it was just a disaster um but I spent all my money on that All My Success money on that and that was that was the first Divergence because up until that that moment I had been trying to get to Nashville trying to get in the music industry and then somehow I just chose to get the hell out of Nashville and put down Roots far far away you know was an hour away in a town in a community outside of town um so that that me down a path that most of the other songwriters that I knew people that I knew wouldn't have taken now it's 22 years later and that path that diverged diverged again and then again and then again then again then again it just keeps happening in so many different ways um you know it happened when um when when I was about 33 I'd been in the house for a couple of years fixing it up and God was working working on my character and I was really turning over myself to him for the first time i' I'd wanted to have faith but I couldn't figure out couldn't figure out how to have it I kept waiting for him to hit me in the head with a brick I'd said the prayer I'd come forward I'd been baptized a couple of times I'd done you know I'd done everything and yet it just hadn't happened and so I finally just realized it wasn't going to happen instead I would just try and make better decisions and next thing you know it happens it's like turned out he wanted to use my hands and feet and and mind and that's that's how he did it is like little by little one day I woke up and and I was different I was moving in a different direction and so I've been out in the house for a couple of years and working on The Farmhouse and I really really wanted um to be with an extraordinary woman when I around that you know when I gone out there and it it turned out that I didn't know it at the time but the only that wasn't going to ever happen unless I was going to become an extraordinary man I just thought for some reason he would give me this great woman first but he didn't I had to do a lot of changing and stuff and so one of the things that happened was um all the beautiful people I knew lived in Nashville all the beautiful girls all that sort of stuff and my one of the Divergence was I was just going to stay out here and see if I could God had somebody or something in store and I was like that's a bad idea it's going to be lonely I'd been to my Walmart and seen the spandex you know the polyester and stuff was like oh well you know it's can't it'd be fine to be alone in the farm or whatever and little did I know that's how God would bring Joey into my life by choosing to look somewhere else or actually stop looking and so that again like kept encourag encouraging me to do different things and then Joey and I um we didn't have a television and yet someone came along 5 years after we were married and encouraged us to try out for a reality television show kind of like American Idol for Duos and uh I thought it was a terrible idea it was just going to be miserable and I was so worried about it why did you do it cuz she asked me to my wife asked me to she was 32 at the time and getting older and she asked me if I would and I thought oh God please don't ask me that cuz I thought you know I but but my Hope was I thought I was going to end up you know on the outtakes of the first episode uh and I was going to be humiliated and never leave home and then my beautiful wife was going to but I thought maybe someone would discover what a gift she was turned out that I didn't understand how television worked it's like they see through to the heart of you you and even the people who made the show they recognized that what we were together was important and so they wouldn't change that at all and so we ended up getting to have a music career and all sorts of things and then after we had a music career this was another Divergence I'll tell you two more then I'll stop you like this this it's the yeah it's the F it's just so good um we were at an award show and we had been had a lot of success singing and we were nominated again for top new vocal duo or something in Las Vegas and I remember my wife was just so unhappy and I was too because I just we were just gone all the time and and it just felt like success that was unfulfilling and you were always chasing you know everything else around you and U so they called the nominees and my wife looked over at me and said are you ready and I knew she she was holding my hand and I knew she wasn't asking are you ready to go up on stage when they call my our names wow she was like are you ready to go home I knew it I knew it she was like she's this is she was ready to she didn't want to sing about living on a farm she wanted to live on one and so we decided to give up the music industry basically and and not take that path anymore and just go home we grow a garden and I'd figure out how to grow a music career without leaving home mhm and that was my job and so what ended up happening was we ended up turning our barn we didn't have it planned at the time we end up turning our barn which was just a place like like this you know where you just kept tractor and tools and stuff like that we turned that Barn into a place to make our own television series with our friends we' never made anything like that before and it changed our lives and then years later you know that that's where we do concerts and stuff now and then and then uh years later after Joey passed away and we had to come up with another option for school for Indiana uh we decided I decided to build a one room Schoolhouse at home you know I never saw anybody else do that before I just thought it was neat and really a good idea and it felt right and so all those are just different divergences that have happened that have been wonderful to me and homesteading is one of them you know it's just as Joel says if you start to question where your food comes from pretty soon you're going to question everything yeah you're going to question education and politics and you know money and you know happiness and all those things how the world what the world tells you is the best way you're going to question those things what are you questioning these days up until now most of the stuff that I've done storytelling that I've been done have been on other people's platforms you know on other TV networks and things like that so probably the big thing that I've just questioned lately is you know just like you and a lot of people we've had conversations with Magnolia and different networks through the years and I've questioned whether um trying to find the right network is the right answer to to tell your stories and instead I think maybe the right answer is to just create your own yeah rather than try to find the right platform potentially just create a platform that that feels right is anything stopping you yeah just just starting the only thing stopping me is starting H how long ago was this idea I got to create platform well it's not it's not really been it doesn't really happen like that where I feel like I've got to create my own platform it's more like through the spring this year in early summer you could just feel like a change is sort of finding its way and then as fall came came along um it just like some some of the doors that open and close and are confusing start to make you wonder it's like these are not all closing for a reason I mean by they're not closing not for a reason they're definitely closing okay because they're supposed to and I think it's just been a bunch of different things that have kind of led to the idea that maybe we could should just start our own platform from home and one of them is is seeing you and some other folks that have done it and uh and I'm a big modeler so a lot of times if I it's like if you if you can take apart a great song you can write a great song you if you can learn from someone else so what do you think your platform will be about well it's it's called the homestead Channel and it's like the Hallmark Channel only it's the homestead mhm um but it's not really Homestead in the world that you guys use it um because it's not really about you know teaching or those kind of things I happen to live on a 100 Acre Homestead that a lot of things happen there and so what this would be is it's a channel based upon the stories that are unfolding there so it's like it would be my story mine with Indiana that we're living and it's part of its homesteading but part of it's It's a million other things it's navigating music and concerts and writing children's books and and living on a farm and having your sisters on both sides of you and restaurant and all those sort of things and a little girl in school and stuff um but it's also the school will have its own story they'll have their own show and because right now you know the education system is just in an uproar it's it's so confusing and so gives us an opportunity to tell multiple stories right on our homesteads so we would tell our story we would tell the school story which is just an opportunity to say there's a lot of ways of teaching children today education there's a lot of opportunities let me show you one so we would tell that one we would tell my sister story with the restaurant she has a restaurant called the mealhouse so we would tell that story we have some music program we have like just this plethora of content and up until now I was like I don't there's just so many things that you're doing or want to do but you don't know where they should live and as you start to look at it you realize you should just create a platform for them to all live and then it can grow out from there so it's live concerts and like this weekend NE week from well this coming Friday we have a comedian at our concert hall nice so you know we it's a you have comedy so it's our first live at the funny farm so we'll capture it and you can you can have comedy on you it's like it's it's all kinds of things and it's you know my own unique storytelling it's you know my nephew's over there with a camera there's lots of Storytelling and some of it will be homesteading but it it's really more about the way that I see homesteading different than a lot of people is I mean we have a garden we have cows and chickens and we just butchered a bunch of turkeys and we have pigs and all of it but that's part of a much larger system eco system that's going on and so for me homesteading is like I'm always reminded that 150 years ago homesteaders homesteading was you know running across the country Whatever It Is On Your Wagon putting your flag in the ground and saying here's my 160 Acres or whatever it happens to be and you're going to live on that for 5 years and you're going to prove it and then you get to have it and that that's really about settling on the land and and being sustainable with the land but but at that time you know it was all all the conflict that they dealt with was external it was all let's try not to get killed by bears or by Indians let's try not to freeze to death in the winter somehow we have to grow enough food raise enough food for our families not to we don't not to get you know killed by you know um all sorts of things that are happening you're just trying to keep your families alive and so all all of it up until you know not that long ago 30 years ago 50 years ago all the conflict we had in our lives especially as homesteaders was external but nowadays almost no most people deal almost all their conflict is in their heads everything is internal conflict everybody's upset because they're just looking around on Instagram and you can't you can't you know kid the anxiety level s are through the roof and depression and panic attacks and health and all these sorts of things and a lot of it is become it's because you know we we we all have like big screen TVs and cars that start plenty of food in the fridge I mean the majority of us yeah and yet we're so unhappy and we're so racked with anxiety and fears and all that stuff and part A lot of it is is these devices and all that stuff so so for me all that to say I feel like homesteading to today is about planting a flag in your mind it's about choosing to go against the grain and saying I'm going to go down a different path and question a bunch of these things and and a lot of it is is that i' you know I've got to turn off technology or I've got to limit it or I've got to I've got to make different choices for my family you know all those kinds of things and so this this channel is really a conscience it's very conscious of those kinds of things not just gardening and animals it's it's really more about all the other things like my tagline would be thanks for watching don't be afraid to turn this off now and spend some time with your family I think it's really important no I think you're going to create something special there in the sense that up until now we watch a show and it's a series and they'll introduce characters of that show and one episode might be more about one character and that kind of develops but in your series if Marcy joke makes an appearance in your show but they want more Marcy then they can go over there and watch that you're taking binging instead of to the next level it would it's really more like um it's like Mayberry you know you might have you might have turned on to watch Andy Griffith yeah but if Mayberry had its own network um The Barber everybody everybody would their own stories and they're all intertwined great may not seem like stories sometimes I'm a big fan I was telling Jessica of slow TV and so I'm I'm a big believer in like sometimes nothing has to happen like my favorite some of my favorite stuff is like nothing's happening at all and because we're moving so fast we have so many images coming our way I feel like slowing down is an important part of it so there just a lot of that stuff would you say you're a Christian oh super yeah absolutely Christian okay and would you say you're a Christian uh somebody asked me about that the other day I I was like I don't really know the answer to that I know um we'll have to have a whole another podcast in the future I'll have you on my show now you have I'll have to have a show have to create a show somebody told me uh I don't know I don't I don't know you were speaking homesteaders of America or something and I came across your the life I live I caught the trailer I this life I live this life I live so it's on YouTube folks can search that and go see that and one thing that it it came across I think you mentioned God early on and that but then um your daughter got married to a woman on your farm uhhuh how does that sit with you well I mean it's not the choice I would have made for her it's not it's not my choice but it's her choice and and to make things you know a little more interesting if Hy was sitting here Hy would tell you she's a Christian yeah okay you know yeah so uh that was a surprise for me so after my wife passed away almost immediately after she passed away I was sitting at the kitchen table back at our Farmhouse and Hy um it's a long story but what came out of it was she told me that her friend her girlfriend Wendy was her girlfriend okay and that was a real surprise for me and and I really wasn't sure how to take it and people have you know people have a fit over you know if you're honest about something they have a fit if you're not honest they have a fit so it's like it doesn't matter they're going to have a fit either way just be yourself yeah so uh I you know my reaction was at first not very good and one of the reasons was is that my wife had just passed away within the last week and a half or something and we had just buried her and when I drove back from Indiana which we had been in Indiana with her family for 5 months and I drove back to The Farmhouse for the first time I have this 2-year-old baby in the back who's just barely two and I'm thinking about my girl my older girls and the job I did parenting and all of a sudden the responsibility that I have and I and I was thinking oh I need to really be careful with Indiana like not let her be around things that could be harmful to her like I need to really cuz I was I thought I tried to be careful especially in the teenage years of my older girls but I had just said to myself I've got to be really careful and protect Indie from you know things that could hurt her and hurt her her faith and and um as she's growing up and here I am sitting there with that and as Hope's telling me that we sort of have this unspoken conversation where she says without saying she asks without asking am am I still going to get to spend time with my little sister and there was a part of me inside my first reaction was I don't think so because you know there's a part of me that goes okay is this where in the Bible it says you know brother will be against brother and you know sister will be against mother and all these different things and maybe this is where I'm supposed to take a stand and then but the other thing that I think she was asking me at the time without asking me just in her eyes was are you still going to love me and and I think there was a part of me that was just saying I I don't think so I don't think I think I'm supposed to this is where tough love happens and I walk away or something we didn't talk about it but it was a very heavy conversation but you know what it didn't take me very long at all to realize that that's not the right answer for me for me the right answer was I'm with you you make your choices number one even if I don't agree with them and I'll tell you I may not agree with it but it's your choice and it's your life and I'm here with you I'm I may not support your choice but I can support you I may not love your choice but I love you and um that that felt like the right thing to do and it wasn't too long before I I was you know I was informed you know I don't know 6 months later or something they were engaged in getting married and I knew the right answer was I was going to be happy for them even though I was worried I was worried for hopei because I was worried that it seems like the way that God works when I don't do what he says I should do when I don't live the way he says I should live it seems like I don't find happiness seems like I'm left empty and I was worried about that for them but still you know I gave her away and we had a big wedding in our in my wife's Garden you know it was a beautiful day she has since uh they got divorced probably a year year and a half ago and and she's here with us and she's doing great and who knows what her future holds but I think it's important that she knew and that she knows I love her and I I want her to be happy I may not completely um love all the choices that she's made but you know what every day is a new day yeah who knows where she's going what's going to happen for have y'all had that conversation oh we have it all the time okay yeah we have it all the time I mean we have it without having it when she said well she'll say oh that Matthew MCC he's a hottie she'll say that I was go oh yeah he is you know we'll just giggle together a little bit you know whose idea was it for her all right all right all right huh whose idea was it for her to get married on the farm oh her idea she would yeah that's her idea and you said at that point sure yeah absolutely no hesitation was this another overnight experience it wasn't overnight but it was pretty soon pretty soon that I realized that the best most Christian thing I could do is love her just love her and the other thing that's important to me is like I do not believe that choice is for everybody I don't say that everyone should make that choice that's the choice that I felt like was the right thing so I I don't think I've studied the Bible and here's what I think God says about that I've studied my heart and this is what God said about that and here we are you know and I and I feel good about that choice what do you say to parents or siblings going through that well I'd say love love is a choice love is not a feeling love is a verb love love is not this thing that you feel because they they make you they make you proud and you love them you choose to love them you choose to love them and I just think that's what you have to do is like you choose to love them especially when it's hard that's why it's love do you love them because uh she's your daughter and that's flesh that's blood or do you love her just because you're supposed to love everybody oh I I don't know I think it's a little bit of both I'd love her I I extra love her when it's hard because she's my daughter and because she deserves it and I I want to give her my love even when it's hard and I also know it's it's the right thing across the board you know I can love somebody um and disagree with them Ah that's a Divergence nowadays Rory diverge on my friend I mean it it's important you know it's it's like we're not all going to agree on stuff we we need to have our own opinions and our own thoughts how do you love somebody when you when you disagree love is a choice we'll go back to that like love is a choice it has nothing to do with whether you like them okay there nothing to do with whether you like them it it has it's a choice you know hopefully you like them but even if you don't it's like you know a long time ago it's like you know I and I even with my wife you know I I came to realize um she's been gone for six years and you know I'm still you know I still wear my ring and I'm still feel married to her it's a choice you know I no matter what happens I think I'm always going to feel that way I don't know what tomorrow holds but it has nothing to do with she gave me a bunch of Love last week and this week and she made me a great meal and she's letting me do what I wanted has nothing to do with she doesn't even have to be present that's a big deal I couldn't love people who were present so you know love is a choice that's a good that's a good way to end it sure uh love is a choice uh you summing it up here as uh you can love somebody even if you disagree agree with them because right now in 2021 it seems like there's a lot of disagreement yeah and strife out there there's a lot of like cancel culture that's that's in our vacular now we we haven't heard that until yeah that's that's a backwards culture like that whole thing like that's why Faith matters you know in this world it's like you know I don't think we're supposed to cancel people I think it's I feel like it's the opposite of what we're supposed to do it's like the whole point is a forgiveness it's like the whole point is you know what I've done has been cancelled so that I get to have a new day doesn't matter what I did yesterday that's the whole point that's what forgiveness is about and so it's like that otherwise what's the why even try and be better I mean wouldn't you say in your own life in most of our Lives we are trying to to become you know all that we're born to be we're trying to to reimagine our lives and our characters and every day is a new day and if you take that away from us there what's the point we're all going to fail and so it feels like this cancel culture is is the reverse of what it's supposed to be instead of because it doesn't matter what you've done in the past doesn't matter how much good you done it it all cancels and goes away it all goes away because of something you did every everyone's going to fail that test I feel like the only way to survive it is to say you know you can't you can't pretend that the past hasn't happened but you can learn from it and you we need to be forgiven for our past it's like that's that's a big part of why I think I I feel so much gratitude is because I've made so many mistakes and I feel I've been greatly forgiven and so you have to be able to forgive greatly if you've been forgiven greatly yeah okay yeah I think that's a good word I think that's a great way to end it what where can folks find you if they want more of Roy Fe um we can find me here on the Justin Road Show u in an upcoming episode of Divergence possibly yes you'll be on a Divergence um you can go to Rory fe.com okay places like that okay good yeah thanks for having me on here good to be in your good to be with you today hang out in our I love what you're doing keep going we're going to sit around and talk we might as well tape it and share World great you had a lot of good things to say thanks for sharing that with us thanks for having me appreciate it all right

Channel: Justin Rhodes

Views: 136,941

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Id: oDYKzjxdPdo

Length: 74min 30sec (4470 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024