Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Baste Records’ own Chris Wallin in studio to discuss how Los Angeles has influenced Nashville’s music culture and the craft of songwriting.
Leahy: Let us welcome to our microphones for the very first time…
Wallin: Chris Wallen.
Leahy: Chris Wallen, a great singer-songwriter who is here early as part of our anti-woke hour every week, brought to you by Baste Records. Anti-woke music. Chris, just for our listening audience, tell us some of the number-one songs you’ve written.
Wallin: I wrote Don’t Blink for Kenny Chesney. I wrote Something To Be Proud of for Montgomery Gentry, and Love Me If You Can for Toby Keith. A lot of stuff.
Leahy: So let’s just stop here for a moment. The cool factor of the studio just went up 1000 percent, right? Thank you for doing
Brewer: It only went up 500 percent because when I came in, it went up. It went up, right.
Wallin: There you go.
Brewer: Exactly.
Wallin: I felt it when I came in.
Leahy: Yes, exactly. Now, you, Chris, have just been where you met some high-profile people at a charity event, and we’ll hear about that in a second. And then you’re going to go out to the America Fest momentarily.
Wallin: Yes. right?
Leahy: In Phoenix, Arizona.
Wallin: Saturday I’ll be flying out.
Leahy: So let’s talk a little bit right now about who you met at the charity event that you attended in Michigan.
Wallin: I was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I did a show up there, Kyle Jennings and Friends. It’s called The Nashville Storytellers. And it was a cancer benefit as well. And just so happened Ms. Dana Perino from Fox News was the MC.
Leahy: And so you were hanging with Dana Perino?
Wallin: We were just hanging out with Dana Perino and her husband Peter, who’s awesome. And it was also me and Doug Johnson, JT. Harding and Kyle Jennings. All those guys have a bunch of hits as well.
But just hanging out with Dana, she’s very interested to hear more about Baste Records and everything. It was really a cool thing. Her husband is now sending me memes.
Brewer: A sign among friends.
Leahy: Sharing memes now.
Wallin: I know.
Leahy: What’s interesting now is that Dana is a personality on Fox News and she was the former press secretary for George W. Bush way back when and generally considered sort of a center-right person, I think. Clint would you think that’s accurate? Is she center right?
Brewer: Sure.
Leahy: She’s pretty feisty you could say. The event was kind of fun.
Wallin: Oh, it was amazing. We were at the Kalamazoo State Theater. It was one of the most unbelievable show gigs I’ve ever done. The place was packed. They raised a bunch of money, did some good, and I got to act a fool on stage and tell lies.
Leahy: But you’re a singer as well.
Wallin: I am, yes.
Leahy: Singer-songwriter. Cool factor way up here.
Wallin: Well, here’s the thing is I sing like a prisoner, Michael. I sing behind three bars and look for a key.
Leahy: (Laughs) Boom shaka laka. Rim shot. (Wallin laughs) By the way, just so you know, our producer, Patrick is also a musician.
Wallin: Oh, very cool.
Leahy: He’s a drummer, and he escaped from Seattle just about a year ago. Like a lot of folks from various blue states have come here and find Nashville to be very friendly and a very good place for musicians to come to.
Wallin: It’s one of the last true communities, like songwriter, and musician communities. There’s a lot of music meccas, but the camaraderie in Nashville, I believe, is unmatched.
Leahy: Back to the issue of camaraderie. They do these surveys about what’s the best state in this, that, or the other. There was a survey that came out that said Tennessee is the state, one of the kindest to neighbors states. It’s second in the country behind, allegedly, Georgia. I’m going to dispute that election. (Laughs)
Wallin: Revote.
Brewer: Is there any election you won’t dispute Mike?
Leahy: The people in Tennessee are nice. Nashville is a great place. Our friend Raymond Arroyo, you see him often, he’s a Fox News contributor. He’s written a book about the wise men who found Christmas. He was at a book signing at Barnes and Noble last Saturday. It was packed.
He’s moving to Middle Tennessee. Everybody’s moving to Middle Tennessee. I’m trying to get Elon Musk to move Twitter here. We’re not going to give them any incentives. Clint might. (Laughter)
Brewer: I would not. (Laughter) I saw a story last night that the greater Nashville area, Davidson County and the other 15 counties that comprise the greater Nashville area has eclipsed two million people.
Leahy: Yes, and it’s growing. And a lot of them are coming from California and Illinois and other blue states. But one of the things I want to talk about here right now and Clint and you’ve seen this as well is the transformation of Nashville as a center of conservatism and conservative culture, or Middle Tennessee, broadly speaking. The city of Nashville is, you know, left because, fill in the blank.
But Middle Tennessee is the center for conservative journalism and for conservative culture. Of course, The Tennessee Star started this whole thing when we launched The Tennessee Star back in February 2017, there wasn’t a single conservative news outlet in the state of Tennessee.
We’re still the only conservative news outlet in the state of Tennessee that focuses on Tennessee politics. But following our lead, of course, The Daily Wire moved here. Everybody’s moved here, it seems.
Brewer: You’ve got Iron Light Labs out in Franklin.
Leahy: So there’s just confluence. The rest of the country is going crazy. But there’s a confluence in Nashville between music culture and conservative traditional journalism. And they’re kind of combining even though the industry itself, the music industry, the labels are woke. Your thoughts on this?
Wallin: I have always seen country music especially is the thing that made it what it was, in my opinion, is it’s for every day, hard-working, God-fearing people. It’s for the everyday person that goes out somewhere. It has turned into this, and this is my opinion, into a business where the music itself is secondary.
And what happened is, I think LA, whether you like it or not, LA has moved in. And the way they do business has moved in, and their ideologies have moved in. For me, country music, it doesn’t matter.
Everybody gets caught up on the loops and snaps and the production, and everyone gets so mad about that. I could care less about what amp you use or if you have a loop and a snap. I’m more concerned about the actual craft of songwriting in between those loops and snaps.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Chris Wallin” by Chris Wallin.Â
