- 8 months ago
In this video, Charles Esten explains how he was born in Pennsylvania, but moved to Virginia with his mother and his sister after his parents divorced. After college, he played Buddy Holly in a long-running UK stage production before becoming a member of the casts for both the UK and US versions of Whose Line is it Anyway? Eventually, he landed a role on TV’s Nashville as troubled songwriter Deacon Claybourne, where he got to show off the musical skills he’d been developing since childhood.
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00:00Welcome to Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living. I'm your host, Sid Evans, and in this episode,
00:14I'm talking with someone who not only played a musician on television, but who also has a music
00:19career in real life. Charles Esten was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but after his parents
00:25divorced, he moved to Virginia with his mother and his sister. He went to college at William and
00:30Mary, met his wife there, and then went on to play Buddy Holly in a long-running stage production in
00:36the UK. Eventually, he landed a role on a new TV series called Nashville as the troubled songwriter
00:43Deacon Claiborne, where he got to show off the musical skills that he'd been developing since
00:48childhood. More recently, Charles has been playing the character of Ward Cameron on Outer Banks,
00:54and now, after releasing a whole lot of singles through the years, he's come out with his first
01:00full-length album. It's called Love Ain't Pretty, and in many ways, it's a tribute to his dad,
01:06who introduced him to so much of the music he loves. We'll talk about all that and the
01:11Southern hospitality at the Grand Ole Opry on this week's Biscuits and Jam.
01:19Charles Esten, welcome to Biscuits and Jam.
01:22Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
01:23Where am I reaching you right now?
01:25I am in Nashville, Tennessee. You can see right up on the wall behind me. There we go. That's the
01:30John Siegenthaler footbridge that crosses the mighty Cumberland River right down in the heart
01:35of Nashville. It means a lot. My wife got me that because that's one of the most important sets that
01:39we used on the show Nashville. My character was on that bridge a number of times. We moved here for
01:44the show, and we never saw a good reason to leave.
01:47Oh, that's great. You're at home.
01:48So, Chip, we actually met a couple times. I don't know if you remember this, but this was
01:55back in 2015 or 2016. I did a little cameo on Nashville. I had about two lines. I remember we
02:05were doing a little read-through with you and Connie Britton. And we sat down, and I'd never done this
02:12before. And after about five minutes, Connie realized that I wasn't a real actor. And she
02:19said, wait a minute, are you the actual editor of Southern Living?
02:22I don't think it took her that long. She's pretty quick. I remember that. We always went
02:30for authenticity. We were always striving for the truth, so it didn't surprise me at all. And you
02:35were fantastic. Well, you guys were very nice to a rookie, so thank you.
02:40No, no, no. We appreciate you being on the show. The way I always put it is steal from the truth.
02:44Why go hire somebody to play that guy when the guy's kind enough to come join us? So,
02:49it was perfect. What you need to do is, if you're ever traveling elsewhere in Spain or Italy, go see
02:54who they voiced you as. What's your Spanish interpretation sounds like?
02:59I would be very curious to hear that. But I will tell you, my acting career pretty much
03:03began and ended with that. Yeah.
03:08Well, I'm very proud to say mine did not. I've had a couple of jobs since, so I'm grateful.
03:12So, it's been a while now. I think it's been five or six years since y'all stopped shooting
03:18Nashville. I'm just wondering, do you ever miss that show and miss that character,
03:25Deacon Claiborne? I do. Absolutely. Those were incredible times for me. That show was a landmark
03:30in my career. I've been on a number of shows. I've had a very good career, one I'm very
03:35grateful for and happy about and was able to support a family and raise my kids and everything
03:39there in Los Angeles. But Nashville was different. It was the first leading role where I was a part of
03:44the cast in a long, long time. And then on top of that, the way it opened up all the music for me
03:49was incredible. So, every day of doing that was the purest joy. But what many people don't
03:57understand is that it means so much to me that it ended well, that we landed. It's one thing to get
04:02a show up into the air like an airplane, but just like an airplane trip, the important part is the
04:07landing. So, the fact that we brought it to such a beautiful close and wrapped it up in a way that I
04:14feel so content with means that I'm surprisingly okay with it being done. I would have done it
04:22forever if there was a way to do that. But it meant so much to me that we went out so well
04:27that I'm able to look at it with just nothing but gratitude and joy. And the other thing I will say
04:33that's so cool is that whereas normally, like most shows when they're done, like a Hill Street Blues
04:37or a Lost or whatever your great show was, if you want to engage with that show again, you pretty
04:42much got to go watch it again, stream it. With our show, the music is out there. So, it's not as much
04:48of a commitment. You just go listen to one of those Nashville songs. And I do it all the time. And on top
04:52of that, we've been able to get together and do a reunion tour. We just got back a couple months ago
04:56from being over in the UK. And we did one here at the Ryman Auditorium too, beside these friends of
05:02mine and play these songs and sing these songs and have that audience still care so much and be so
05:08moved by it. We're very fortunate. This show's a different thing than everything else. And I'm
05:14grateful for that. That's so great. I love that it's got this life that's continued after the fact.
05:19Absolutely. And very rare that just doesn't happen with other shows. What was the first time
05:24that you met Connie Britton? Well, it's funny because we were huge fans, my wife and I,
05:30before that, especially with Friday Night Lights, we used to binge that show. I mean,
05:35this is a show about the South. I'm not alone, right? Yeah. There's something about that show
05:40that captured that Texas life and did it with such realism that I would say to my wife,
05:47I just want to be on a show that is real, has scenes like that. And God heard me, I guess,
05:54because only a couple of years later, here I am. Pretty much the first real scene we really did
05:59together was right on that bridge. And we had no way of knowing. Generally, when you put together
06:05your lead actress with her love interest, you do a thing called a chemistry read, which means that
06:10in the audition, you put the two together and you go, well, is there any there there? Because you can
06:15have two incredible actors, just like you can have two chemicals and you put them together and it's
06:21inert. There's no reaction. It's very much like that. That's why they call it. I'm just realizing it
06:26now. A chemistry read. So we didn't do that. I don't know why they just rolled the dice.
06:32So we showed up that day and I promise you, this is the first thing I said to her. I said,
06:36there are a million reasons why I'm excited to do this show. And you are a couple hundred of them.
06:44And I meant that. And if I'm honest, I'm more of a fan now than when I met her,
06:48just to be so close at watching her process and, you know, getting experience, her intelligence,
06:54her humor, her wit, and all that went into it and her commitment to truth and to it being real.
07:00Those things I saw on that other show were not for nothing. They were definitely the writers,
07:04the producers, and her co-stars, but a whole lot of it was Connie's authenticity too.
07:09And it was a joy to work with that.
07:11Yeah. Well, such a pro. And you had to be married to her for a long time and people had to believe
07:17that, right?
07:18We weren't married that long. We didn't get married till later.
07:21Till much later in the show, right?
07:22In fact, what's funny is that her husband, when the show started, was Eric Close, who played Teddy
07:28Conrad. And I had known Eric longer than anybody else on the show by far. We had met when we were
07:33young actors in Hollywood in the same acting class. So we were buddies and we got to meet each other
07:38again. We hadn't seen each other in a little while. And we'd go around to parties and things.
07:42Eric knows everybody. Wonderful guy. Everybody loves him. And he would introduce me. He goes,
07:46this is my friend, Chip. He plays my wife's boyfriend. And we're like, yeah, that's true.
07:51So eventually they broke up and Deacon and Raina finally, spoiler alert, did get married.
07:56But I got to play her love interest for so long, man. I loved every bit of it.
08:00Yeah. Well, listen, I just got to say congrats on the new album. It's got to be very exciting for
08:06you. It's your first one. And it's called Love Ain't Pretty.
08:10And it's got 14 songs on it. Great songs.
08:15And it almost seems like something right out of the show, something that your character could have been
08:21coming out with. So it must feel really good.
08:24There is a through line. I have to admit, first of all, if you think about the fact that so much of
08:28Deacon was me, but then on top of that, all that Deacon went through, that to me was the thing that
08:34bonded everybody to that character. And what that did is it meant that people would come up to me
08:39or they would reach out on social media and people would share their own hard times that they'd either
08:46been through or were going through right there. They'd talk about their father who had had addiction
08:51issues or their aunt who had had a cancer battle or whatever it was. There was something about his
08:56path that they, it moved them. It touched them. What I've found through doing this a lot is that
09:03sometimes it's harder to face our own problems right on. We sort of wall up, put that shell,
09:09don't process it really, just go through it. And then this show comes along or a song and it's more
09:15of a bank shot and it sort of gets in behind our defenses. And suddenly you find you're sitting
09:21there crying for Deacon in a way that you never cried for this situation in your own life.
09:26And it's cathartic and it purges these things, but these people come up and share that. So
09:30what that did is it reinforced in me the importance, the meaningfulness of art, of these depictions,
09:39whether it's TV or whether it's music. So what that meant is that, whereas I already had some songs
09:45and I got some of my songs on the show. I wrote a song called Looking for the Light with Charlie
09:51Worsham and Dennis McCuskey. And Looking for the Light could have gone on this album very easily.
09:56What I'm saying is that this thing that I have, this theme that I've learned over my life,
10:01that life is hard, brutally hard sometimes, but man, it's beautiful. That is the theme through
10:08Love Ain't Pretty. That's the line, love ain't pretty, but damn, it's beautiful.
10:12I saw somewhere that you'd been working on this album for like 10 years or so. And I'm wondering
10:18if some of the songs on the album actually date to the Nashville show or that you were writing them
10:24you know, as you were working on that. But it's interesting because some of the work
10:28that we're talking about when we say it's been 10 years is preparation. And some of the preparation
10:33is the other songs I've recorded. So strictly speaking, I don't mean that we went into the
10:38studio 10 years ago. I mean that I was not ready at that time to do an album. A lot of it is finding
10:44out who I was as an artist, which might seem unusual for a guy as old as I am.
10:49But when you realize the fact that I've spent a lot of my time portraying other artists,
10:54I played Buddy Holly in my very first role in London in the early nineties. After that,
10:59I was on Whose Line Is It Anyway, where I would imitate other artists constantly,
11:03whether it was Sting or Bono or whoever. Even before that in college, I was in a band,
11:09but it was a cover band. So throughout those things, I got rather adept at putting on these
11:13masks of other people. So the work in Nashville, where I came to play another person,
11:18Deacon, was to peel these masks away and go, all right, what's underneath there? Who am I?
11:24What do I have to say? So that's the work of most of those years.
11:29Well, I'm so glad you waited and it feels very coherent and very much of a piece and very
11:35consistent. And I want to talk about it a little bit more in a minute. But before we do that,
11:41I wanted to ask you just a little bit about where you grew up. You were born in Pittsburgh
11:46and then you moved to Virginia when you were pretty young. And I'm just wondering, what's the place
11:55that feels most like home when you kind of look back?
11:59It would be Virginia. I have such a heart for Pittsburgh. I left there right before third grade.
12:05And there's something about Pittsburgh in particular that stays with you. And I've had family there ever
12:11since that when my father was still alive, I was constantly visiting him summers, holidays. After I
12:17was a kid, we would still take my family back there with my dad and with his family and with
12:21extended family there. And I still do to this day. And I love them all dearly, but growing up in
12:26Virginia, so that would be it. But I will say about Pittsburgh that I left there during those Super
12:32Bowl Steeler years. And it's funny, but there's something a little bit true about it that you might
12:36have noticed that wherever you go in the NFL, when the Steelers are playing, there's a good contingent
12:40there. There's a reason that no team travels as well as the Steelers. It's because when those teams
12:45were making their glory in those four Super Bowls, in those years of the 70s, Pittsburgh's economy
12:51was cratering and steel mills were closing and the mining was drying up and the factories. And what
13:00happened was that there were so many folks that had to leave Pittsburgh. I left because my mom was
13:05leaving, my dad, and we were going to Virginia. Other folks were leaving for those reasons.
13:09But I was no different for them. When I left, all I had was my Steeler coat and my terrible towel.
13:17And it seems like nothing and it seems silly, but it was something concrete that I could hang on to
13:23with pride that meant Pittsburgh to me. And I know I'm not alone in that. That's why there's
13:27grandchildren to those kids that have hardly ever even been to Pittsburgh that are just diehard
13:32Steeler fans. And it sort of cemented then also my feeling as I have a bit of an outsider's
13:39mentality that has never really quite gone away that started there. Like even when I was in
13:44Virginia, I went to a neighborhood where these folks had all grown up together from birth.
13:49So even though I was coming at age eight or nine, you'd think that's early enough since I'm,
13:54you know, but I was still a bit of the new kid for a long time. And even when I went to Los
13:59Angeles, I always felt that way, even though I was able to work my whole life, I never felt like I
14:03was in that in group. Of course, I might not be alone in that. But then even coming here to Nashville
14:08and being part of this music industry, but not all the way in. I'm not getting radio play. That's
14:14just not my experience. So I think that identity, that's a part of who I am. And it's also part of
14:21why I became an entertainer, like the new guy trying to get noticed, trying to get liked and make
14:26everybody feel comfortable. So both of those places are my homes and they both are a major
14:31part of me. Yeah. Always a little bit of an outsider mentality, maybe. Yeah. It's funny because
14:37Nashville, I think when I first got to Nashville, this was different. John Denver has a line where
14:41he says, coming home to a place he'd never been before. That's exactly how I felt about Nashville.
14:47And over the years, I sort of go, oh, it's so funny. Sometimes I look at where I'm driving and I go,
14:52this could be Virginia. This is Virginia right now. And other times, especially in these winter
14:56times, I'll come up over a hill and the brown and the trees. I go, this looks like Pittsburgh. So
15:00I feel both of those places that are deep within me right here in Nashville. That might be another
15:04reason besides the music and the good people here of why I feel so at home.
15:07Chip, I want to ask you about your dad. You mentioned him and I know you lost him about
15:1215 years or so ago. And I saw you post somewhere, you were talking about what an influence he was on
15:22you in terms of music. Tell me a little bit about that. What did he instill in you when it comes to
15:27music? What's interesting, there's a line in my second song that says, it says, a little right
15:32now, and it's about needing more faith. It says, I'm a farmer praying for rain. I'm a gambler who
15:37needs an ace of spades. I'm a sailor hoping for a gust of wind. I'm a singer looking for that song,
15:42a prisoner that ain't got long. I'm a dreamer waiting for my ship to come in.
15:46That's what my dad was. That's where I got that phrase. My dad was always said, he was a salesman.
15:52So he's always saying, I'm waiting for my ship to come in. And that kind of faith and looking down
15:55the road, it carried him, especially his actual faith. But he went through some hard times,
16:01whether it was the divorce and losing his family. Later, when he remarried, he and his new wife,
16:07Jan, had not been married that long when they had a baby and he lost that son to crib death.
16:12They got super involved in the sudden infant death syndrome foundation, and they established
16:17the one in Western Pennsylvania. So I saw again and again, my dad go through very, very hard times,
16:23especially for somebody that lived on that dream. And two things I saw, the first primarily was his
16:29faith carried him and that influenced me as well. But then I also saw what music meant to him
16:35constantly. And I recall it so well because he was always singing along or had music going. And
16:41he talked about the doo-wop group he was a part of in college and they would always sing and he'd go
16:46doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, like, you know, Blue Moon and all those songs. But I can remember driving down
16:51the road with him and he had the console in the middle there, you know, and his fingers were just
16:56rat-a-tat-tat on that console. And it's even weird looking at it now because see that ring right
17:02there? That is a singing ring from my college, William & Mary, which is exactly where he went to school.
17:07As you get older, your hands start to look like your dad's. Has that happened to you?
17:11Yes.
17:12Right? So sometimes I look down and my fingers are tapping and that's my dad's stocky little
17:18square little hand just rapping away. But the songs that meant so much to him would carry him,
17:23like the ones I recall was Simon and Garfunkel. And he had just been through this heartbreaking
17:29thing, this divorce, and we're still visiting. I'm still a little kid, but he's singing,
17:33I am a rock. I am an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries. And
17:41I knew it, even being young, I knew this, he was yelling these things out into the world. Or Neil
17:46Diamond's, I am, I said, to no one there. No one heard at all. So I didn't put it all together then.
17:54But this album, and let's be honest, country music, that's the essence of country music.
17:58Come on, Lord, get me through another day. This hard thing's just happened. So I'm either going to
18:03cry into my beer or I'm going to go hit the jukebox and we're going to have a time tonight.
18:08And those things, the essence of that, a lot of that is all over this album. Just
18:13his introducing me to music. And he introduced me to Buddy Holly and introduced me to Waylon and
18:18Willie and all these greats. The Opry. I know everything I know about the Opry because of my
18:24father. But that would have been one level. The level that I got even more from it is the power
18:29of those things. And some of this I'm thinking as I say it for the first time to you,
18:34but the power of those things is what this album's about.
18:39Well, you know, I saw a picture that you posted on, I think, Facebook or Instagram a few years
18:46ago. And it was you sitting by a campfire with your dad. And you've got a guitar in your hand.
18:53And I know that he would have been incredibly proud to see you coming out with this new album.
18:58Oh, man. Sid, you're getting me where I live. My dad, I was so blessed that he got to see me play
19:03Buddy Holly. He got to be in the audience for that. And he said, you can't even wrap your head
19:07around what this is like for me. I got to feel all that. And he was very good at verbalizing. He
19:13was emotionally intelligent guy. And he said, you can't know what it was like to drop that needle
19:18down onto this 45 called That'll Be The Day. And he's not as knowledgeable about music. I know that
19:25what he was hearing was Buddy Holly's Stratocaster. And it's a sound that baffled and drew all of the
19:33British musicians at that time from Paul McCartney and John Lennon to Eric Clapton and on and on.
19:38That Stratocaster sound was not that well-known yet. So that introduction,
19:43he's talking about that, right? And he goes, for me to remember that moment so clearly and now to be
19:51sitting in the audience while you whip into that intro, into that song. So he got to see that.
19:56He did not get to be here for Nashville. He did not get to see me in person at the Grand Ole Opry.
20:03I do believe he's watching from elsewhere. But even in that moment, me with that guitar playing
20:09for my dad around a bonfire, I remember feeling or knowing that I was helping ease some of his pain
20:16with that guitar. That's a powerful thing. And like I said, Nashville reinforced it,
20:22the power of that, that that can happen. And now I'm part of a group called Musicians on Call,
20:27which I ask anybody to look up musiciansoncall.org. And it's incredible why nobody thought of this
20:33sooner. It's been over 25 years now and a million patients. Musiciansoncall.org has taken an artist
20:39that has volunteered, brought them into a hospital setting or hospice or a veteran's hospital or a
20:44children's hospital. And first they ask, there's somebody here with a guitar that would love to
20:48sing some songs. Are you interested? And some folks say, not right now. And some folks say, yes.
20:52And you walk in that room and that same feeling comes back to me as when I was with my dad, that
20:57it's not that I'm so amazing or so great. There's something about this warm wooden instrument in this
21:02cold, sterile environment. I've seen the power of what it can do. So that's, again, part of that
21:09recurring theme I'm talking about that's like, hey, let's share something. It's funny because people say,
21:15let's get on the same wavelength. Well, sound has a wavelength. And when everybody's listening to
21:20something together at a concert or around a campfire, we're all in the same wavelength and we get to go
21:25away for a second to this place. And I've seen that ability. And once you taste that, it's a little
21:31addicting in a good way, because you just want to bless whoever you can with it. You know, you're like
21:36the little drummer boy. This is what I have. This is what I can do. I hope it blesses you.
21:43After the break, I'll talk more with Charles Esten about his brand new debut album, Love Ain't Pretty.
21:48I'm also going to ask him a few rapid fire questions that we call the Jam Session.
21:59I'm Charles Esten, and this is my Southern Living Jam Session.
22:05All right. Biscuits or cornbread?
22:08Cornbread.
22:09Oh, okay.
22:10No offense to the show.
22:14Sweet or unsweet?
22:15Unsweet.
22:15Acoustic or electric?
22:18Acoustic.
22:19Waylon or Willie?
22:20Waylon.
22:21Oh.
22:22Charleston or Nashville?
22:24Nashville.
22:26Had to think about that one for a second.
22:28No, no, no. It's Nashville. I just do love Charleston. Go ahead.
22:30I love Willie. I'm just doing my job here. I'm just answering.
22:35I'd love to sing a duet with blank.
22:38Willie.
22:40My favorite Southern town is blank.
22:43Alexandria, Virginia.
22:44My favorite barbecue joint is blank.
22:49Oh, peg-legged porker.
22:50Good one.
22:51My favorite dive bar is blank.
22:54I don't know how divey it is, but Robert's Western World. If we're going full dive bar,
22:59then I'll say Santa's Pub.
23:01Okay.
23:02The dish I'm known for cooking is blank.
23:05Ooh.
23:06Upscaled leftovers.
23:07I'll explain real fast that my kids have always been amazed that I can reach in the fridge and pull out anything that is in there from the last week and turn it into some brand new thing that blows their mind.
23:18So I'm not an originator. I'm the remix. I do the remix. Porkchops 2.0.
23:23But that's a talent. That's great.
23:25Yeah.
23:25The best dog I ever had was named blank.
23:29Blue. That dog was named Sue on the show Nashville when it was a puppy. But when they wrote it off, I told him, you're not getting him back. So I took him home and I changed the name to Blue because he was a boy named Sue, but I wasn't going to do that to him.
23:40But I wanted the name to be close enough that I didn't go Blue. And he went, who's he talking to? So Blue sounds like Sue. And then later Blue has some puppies and we got one of them. And that dog, who I also love dearly, is Ryman, just like the auditorium. But Blue is my boy. My boy, Blue.
23:56I love that. All right. Last one. The most Southern thing about me is blank.
24:00My love of my family.
24:02Great. Chip, I want to ask you about your mom, too.
24:06Please. I'd be a bad son if we didn't talk about her, too.
24:11So she really raised you in a lot of ways. You moved to Virginia, like you said. What did she do for a living?
24:18I want to start and say that she, for all I've been building my father up, even he would say the reason for the hard times, some of that was brought on by himself.
24:27He had some difficulties, especially in the early years, anger issues or drinking too much, just a lack of discipline for him to focus and do the things.
24:36And so early on, it was important to her.
24:39She said she stayed for nine years because she thought that a boy should have a father.
24:46My sister should have a father.
24:47But then in a certain point, she started to wonder if I was getting the right lessons.
24:52And so there just reached a time where she couldn't do that anymore.
24:56And she left, which sort of helped him reach one of his rock bottoms, which I know his faith came from that rock bottom.
25:06So as hard as it was for her and as difficult as it was for him, it led him to reassess, do some things differently.
25:14And, you know, like most Christians, it didn't ever get him perfect.
25:18It just got him saved and it got him always aiming to pick himself up and do better.
25:24So that's about him.
25:25But now about her, she'd been very bright, straight A student all through high school and even the college where they met.
25:32But she had subsumed herself.
25:33And of course, this was the mid 60s to early 70s.
25:35So you're just now getting the women's liberation movement and I am woman, hear me roar and all that.
25:41And she hit that at exactly the right time.
25:43But it was still difficult to do as a woman to start from nothing and having no work experience for nine years.
25:48So she started out working for my uncle as an assistant or receptionist or secretary in his boat dealership.
25:55And my grandfather worked for the government for a while.
25:57We were there in Alexander, Virginia.
25:59You're right there across the Potomac River.
26:01He said, just get a job in there and I know you'll flourish.
26:03I know you'll do well.
26:04And she did.
26:05She started at the lowest rank you could in the Environmental Protection Agency.
26:10And by the time she retired, 25 some years later, she had gone as high up and as far as she could in a non-political appointment.
26:18She's an extraordinary woman.
26:19She's very, very bright and such a hard worker.
26:23Again, I'm not doing my dad a disservice.
26:25It's true.
26:26My dad had his own company.
26:27And I can promise you that my mother worked harder at the dining room table into the middle of the night for the government than my dad worked for his own company.
26:37It's just who she was.
26:39But it was not just who she was.
26:41It was who she was also knowing she had two children to raise and bring up.
26:45Because my father wasn't going to be a place to go for the child support or any of that that was coming as it could and sometimes wouldn't.
26:53My mom put us through college.
26:54My mom did all those things and sacrificed while raising us.
26:58So, I was funny because I was raised by these two parents.
27:02My father, super charismatic, fill a room, artistic, sing.
27:06But his side of the coin also had that other side of the coin too.
27:09I can be undisciplined.
27:11I can be a little bit lazy here.
27:13I can have all these emotions, but so fully human and loved him so much.
27:18And then my mother had this more dependable, reliable, strong, hardworking, focused, if you want to talk about how they both dealt with their bank accounts, my mother scrimped and saved.
27:31And it was unfair because when I was with my mother, going to McDonald's was a big discussion.
27:36And no, we don't need to go to McDonald's.
27:37And then go to my dad's house and we'd be at a steakhouse or going to Disneyland.
27:41His theory was, how is life worth living if I can't take my kids to a steakhouse?
27:45And so, I was raised in this area between this utter yin and this utter yang.
27:51And somehow, the two of them blessed me to find this middle ground.
27:56But my mother, I have so much love and respect for.
27:59There's a song on here that is for my wife called Candlelight.
28:03But I know my mother influenced all these songs.
28:07She's in there on all of them.
28:08She's the strength inside of me.
28:10She's the hard work inside of me.
28:12And she's loving through action inside of me.
28:18And she glows and she dances in the night when the cold wind blows.
28:21And she lights up a room and she could burn this town down if she wanted to.
28:25She's powerful.
28:26And so, my mom has all those things in her as well.
28:29And I wouldn't be here without her.
28:32The other thing I have to give to my mom is,
28:34my father could have and should have been an actor and in music.
28:37And so, I've heard it said that we're living out our father's dreams or our parents' dreams
28:42they didn't chase.
28:43And there's a lot of that in there.
28:45But my mother, she's not exactly depression era, but she has some of that from childhood
28:51and raising up and needing to make sure they had enough money.
28:53She has her anxieties and her fears about the future or at that time did.
28:58And would have been very concerned about my future.
29:02And so, I could have easily seen a world where my mother would have said,
29:06that's all great.
29:06That's nice.
29:07You can do that.
29:07But you need to get something that lasts, something you can bank on, something you can build on.
29:12But she looked at me for who I was and what I brought.
29:15And when I told her I was going to be in a band or I was going to go be an actor,
29:19whatever she felt of that, she said, then go do it.
29:22Go do that.
29:23And that's a tremendous blessing as well.
29:26What comes to mind when you think of her cooking?
29:28I think of the fact that she didn't get a chance to do that as much as she would have liked.
29:34Because she was working.
29:36She was working.
29:37And so, she was making meals that she was pulling together for us.
29:42And there wasn't a lot of money behind these meals.
29:45So, over the years, she's made some wonderful dishes, but I don't think of my mother and that.
29:53I will say, though, it's funny because Southern Living, it was always on the counter and everything.
29:57And so, she always would read of those things and this life that if she wasn't busting her butt 24-7,
30:04that easier Southern life of making these biscuits or this ham or whatever.
30:09And we always had great meals.
30:11We were surrounded by her parents as long as they were alive and blessed us and her sisters and her brothers.
30:17And so, they're always potlucks.
30:19So, when I think of my mom, I think of her bringing something to that potluck.
30:23Some of them were super Southern, like the Jell-O mold kind of desserts in them, you know, that kind of thing.
30:30Some great dips.
30:31Meatballs.
30:32I don't know when that came into the family, but pot sausage with a little bisquick in it and cheddar cheese.
30:37Those are every Christmas and all.
30:39You get to pop those while you're waiting for the other food.
30:41And I do remember she made bisquick biscuits.
30:44I remember those very well.
30:46I love those, man.
30:47I haven't had one of those in forever.
30:49You know, it's just straight out-of-the-box bisquick and spoon of its whack.
30:53So, it had no shape to it.
30:55It was just sort of amorphous, but you would break it open.
30:57That was fantastic.
30:59But you can still taste it.
31:00You know, you can probably still remember exactly what that tasted like.
31:04Oh, absolutely.
31:05And another Southern thing, it's so funny because she was never a big drinker or partier.
31:09But when we got a cold or a flu or something, out came the hot toddy.
31:14So, even as like an eight or nine-year-old, a little warmed-up whiskey with some honey in there.
31:20And even I remember a little tang in there or something like that.
31:23Just something to give it a little kick for your cold.
31:26Not a ton of it.
31:27We weren't drunk or anything, but it's just she swore by the hot toddy for the sore throat.
31:32Well, she must be excited about the new album, I'm sure, too.
31:35She's my biggest fan, for sure.
31:37I'm very grateful that I get to play a great venue in Alexandria.
31:41It's called the Birchmere.
31:42Coming up on 10 years, I think, or something like that, every year.
31:45My wife and I switch like a lot of families.
31:47Christmas for your family this year, Christmas for my family next year.
31:51And in the meanwhile, you swap the Thanksgivings against those.
31:53So, I'm either there in Alexandria on Thanksgiving or Christmas.
31:57And I have been so blessed to see from the stage.
32:00It's a bit of a view, but my mom out there just being in the moment and getting to share those things.
32:07She has always been my biggest fan.
32:09I'd be remiss if I didn't say that she scrimped and saved and bought me my first guitar and my sister and I, our first piano.
32:16And I remember I would go, Mom, come watch this.
32:18And I would play her a song that I had written.
32:21And she was so proud.
32:23But I think she was always concerned and worried that, what do I do with this talent in this house, this kid?
32:28I don't know.
32:29And I want it to turn into something.
32:30I remember she said to me, you know what you need to do?
32:33You need to write a letter to Paul Anker.
32:37And I'm like, I'm not going to write a letter to Paul Anker.
32:42But in retrospect, maybe I should have.
32:45I don't know.
32:46I later saw that John Mayer had written.
32:48I'm trying to remember who he wrote a letter to.
32:50But these different folks have done that.
32:52And she also saw, I think, how I took music and that piano.
32:57And on those days that I was hurting from the divorce or from whatever it was, man, I poured it into that.
33:03Playing a new song or playing somebody else's, it's always been there for me.
33:07And she was one that gave that to me, to be there for me.
33:09My father gave me the love.
33:11But she was where the rubber hit the road.
33:13You can have all the love in the world you want.
33:14But if you can't afford a guitar or piano, good luck.
33:17Yeah.
33:18Well, Chip, I want to talk about a couple songs on the album.
33:22And so it's called Love Ain't Pretty.
33:24And, you know, it sounds like an album that's by someone who's been around the block a few times, who's got some life experience.
33:31And when you look back at the songs that you wrote for this, I'm wondering if there was one song that kind of set the tone for the album.
33:40You know, that you wrote it and you kind of felt like, okay, this is different.
33:44This is something that I want to keep doing.
33:47It actually came in the other direction.
33:49We had every song except for one song.
33:52Just in the middle of all our pre-production and getting ready, my producer, Marshall, and I had been set up for a write completely unrelated to this.
33:59And it was me, my producer, and Jimmy Yeary.
34:02It was a fantastic songwriter.
34:04And the three of us got in there and Jimmy had a title idea.
34:06And we kept writing on and it just wasn't clicking.
34:09So we sort of adjusted it.
34:10And then we said, what is it we're trying to say here?
34:13And this happens to me a lot as an actor, like in a scene, if the scene's not working, I go down to that.
34:18What is the scene trying to say?
34:20What is my character trying to say?
34:22Then you verbalize it.
34:23And so on that day, we're trying to say, look, life is hard, man.
34:26It can be brutal.
34:27It can kill you.
34:28And I said, and I go, love ain't pretty.
34:30And we went, love ain't pretty.
34:32And that would have been pretty good.
34:34But we said, but damn, it's beautiful.
34:37That summed it up.
34:38That made it more.
34:39That's not just like, who wants to hear a song that says, life is hard.
34:43The end.
34:43Good night, everybody.
34:45Life is hard, but damn, it's worth it.
34:49And so there we are.
34:51We have the 13 already.
34:53And here comes, and I'm certain the reason for that is, it's like a crock pot.
34:58We're just basting in these thoughts and these other songs.
35:00And so that through line found its expression in that song.
35:04And as soon as we wrote it, I'm like, well, there's our title track.
35:07And there's our first one.
35:09There's our thesis statement.
35:11You know?
35:11So that one actually came afterwards.
35:16So.
35:17Interesting.
35:17It happens like that sometimes.
35:18Yeah.
35:19Yeah.
35:19The album said what the album was.
35:21I didn't.
35:24Love ain't pretty.
35:26No, love ain't pretty.
35:30Damn.
35:33It's beautiful.
35:34There's another one on there that's called One Good Move.
35:51And it's about a guy who's made a lot of questionable decisions, shall we say, except for one.
35:59And that's the person that he's addressing the song to.
36:04Yeah.
36:04So I'm wondering if there's a little autobiography in that one.
36:08Oh, there's not a little.
36:09There's a lot.
36:10That's it.
36:10I would.
36:11In fact, that song came from, I was at a writer's retreat.
36:14A bunch of us got together and a friend had invited me to this.
36:17And this is another thing I found in creativity that sometimes where you're meant to be in a creative moment, your whole body, it cries out against going.
36:29It's called resistance.
36:31Have you ever been getting ready to do your podcast or your show?
36:34And you don't want to at all.
36:36And you're like this close from making a phone call because you do have a little bit of a tickle.
36:40So I could probably cancel.
36:42Let's just put this thing off or whatever else you're working on creatively.
36:46And it's not just creatively, but I really think it happens creatively.
36:49What I have come to find is whenever I get that feeling over the years, I've let it win sometimes and I've never felt good about that.
36:58So when I fight it and I go anyway, what I find is that's when the magic happens.
37:03Some devil, some demon on my shoulder was trying to keep me from this beautiful thing.
37:07And I had no way of knowing that.
37:09But I'm sharing that because now when you hear that resistance, look that demon right in the eye and go, nice try.
37:16I'm going.
37:16If I feel like I don't want to go, there must be something good waiting for me.
37:20I've come to believe that now.
37:22So I went to this thing and I met these great writers.
37:24And at lunchtime, I'd already written one song.
37:26At lunchtime, I was talking with these three young female writers, all great.
37:31And in fact, I was praising them, saying how I was so impressed by how at a young age they were so together, so driven, so focused, so disciplined, making this happen.
37:39I was not that guy.
37:41I was a little bit of a dissolute youth, nothing too off the grid or anything too bad.
37:45Just some of that laziness in there, making the wrong choices, not going to class, doing this instead.
37:51And I was not wise.
37:52I will say that.
37:53Who is at that age?
37:54Very few are.
37:55Some are.
37:55I was not.
37:57And yet that guy that I was, I was telling them I made so many mistakes, except for one, I said, except for my wife.
38:03Somehow, that fool that I was, was wise enough to see her and go, all right, moron, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.
38:11Don't screw this up.
38:13Hang on to that one.
38:15And I did.
38:15And I look back now and I thank God for that voice inside of me through all that immaturity that said, hang on to this one.
38:25I said, she was my one good move.
38:26I just said it.
38:27And in this town, you'll see a room full of people and somebody will say something.
38:30And you can always see the writers in the room because instantly they go and they put that phrase in their phone or they'll look at each other like, that was a title.
38:39Usually, I'm the one that hears titles.
38:41I don't know if you ever knew, but while he didn't write a bunch of songs, Ringo would frequently speak in titles.
38:46Oh, I didn't know that.
38:47Oh, really?
38:47Yeah, Ringo said, it's been a hard day's night.
38:49One of those, they call them Ringo-isms, I think.
38:51And Paul and John were like, hard day's night.
38:53Whoever?
38:54Yeah, I've been working eight days a week.
38:56So some people talk in titles and other people hear them.
38:58Usually, I hear them.
38:59But that day, I spoke one.
39:00And it was the other three when we got into that right that said, well, we're definitely going to write that.
39:04And I was like, write what?
39:05And they said, one good move.
39:07And how long have you all been together now?
39:09Oh, my goodness.
39:10We met on January 25th in 1986.
39:15Wow.
39:15So we are coming up on, man, we're about 37 years.
39:21And we got married in 91.
39:23So we haven't been married as long, but we've been together most of my life.
39:27That's great.
39:28And she's definitely my one good move.
39:30I just thought that's completely autobiographical.
39:32By the way, I should add, now that you know my mother and my father, you go, how did they ever get together?
39:36And they were so different.
39:38I used to ask myself that constantly.
39:40And the answer came up with was they met in college.
39:43And when you meet somebody in college, my young self told myself, it's an artificial environment where everybody's on their best behavior.
39:50And so note to self, don't marry someone that you meet in college.
39:54Well, I end up going to the exact same college.
39:56And I marry a girl from the exact same sorority.
40:00And, of course, it worked.
40:02She was my one good move.
40:03So there's no lessons to be learned from any of that.
40:05It's just what works, works.
40:07Oh, that's great.
40:09That's great.
40:10If there was trouble to get into, I was getting into it.
40:15If there was something that I shouldn't do, you know I would do it.
40:20I was young.
40:22I was dumb.
40:23I was always on the run.
40:25Messed it up all by once.
40:28Because when I look at you, I see my one good move.
40:34Yeah, my one good move.
40:39There's another song that I just got to tell you.
40:41I love this song.
40:43And I don't think it's released yet as we're talking.
40:47But it's called Maybe I'm All Right.
40:49Yeah.
40:50And it's very simple in a lot of ways.
40:53But it seems to really suit your voice.
40:56And it kind of rises to this great crescendo in a really nice way.
41:03I just loved it.
41:04I really enjoy that one.
41:06Do you ever kind of need to tell yourself that you're all right?
41:09Is that part of where that came from?
41:11Would you mind if just for one second I flipped it on you?
41:13I get to talk about these songs and end up talking about them constantly.
41:16I have not yet heard somebody talk about what a song means to you.
41:21Because yours is as valid as mine.
41:23Did that resonate with you at all?
41:26Or can I ask you that for a second?
41:28Absolutely.
41:28What did it mean to you?
41:29Well, Maybe I'm All Right.
41:31I think everybody's got their demons.
41:33And everybody's kind of carrying things around with them.
41:36And they've got their struggles.
41:38And they've got their challenges.
41:39And they've got their shortcomings.
41:40So I think you kind of have to wake up every day and say, maybe I'm all right.
41:47You know, maybe with all of this that's going on, I'm okay.
41:52And you kind of have to tell yourself that to get through the day.
41:56Or at least that's some of what I took away from it.
41:59Well, no.
41:59I mean, that's it.
42:00That's what I was putting out there.
42:01And more than anything, what I love about it is I like where it comes in the album.
42:05It's on the final third of the album, I would say.
42:08So yeah, we've said love ain't pretty.
42:10We've been down on our knees praying for a little bit more help.
42:13We've done one love ain't love.
42:14We've talked about losing love.
42:16And at this point, it's a realization that is in some ways disconnected, not disconnected
42:22like the reality is not true.
42:24But I'm just saying that in the exact same reality, nothing's really changed.
42:28And you can perceive it all from, I'm in such trouble.
42:31Nothing's ever going to work.
42:32I've been fighting the same battle for so long.
42:35Why don't I get any better at this?
42:38You'd think by now I could have conquered this.
42:41And there's been so many times I thought I could.
42:43And then here I am with the same anger, the same whatever that is, the same pain, the
42:48same addiction, the same whatever.
42:50Am I going to be cursed with this battle forever?
42:54And without anything changing that you can have another voice go, well, maybe, but take
42:59a look right now at your life and the love in it and the light in it and the joy in it
43:03aside from this thing, which yes, we will continue to fight.
43:06We'll ask God's help in that battle, but maybe you're okay.
43:10Maybe you can handle this and maybe if this is your lot in life, I forget, was it Paul
43:16that said this thorn that you always carry with you?
43:19Okay.
43:19So maybe you have this thorn.
43:21Maybe you can carry that.
43:23Maybe it's a perception thing is what I'm saying.
43:26And it's a choice.
43:27It's a choice to some degree.
43:28Yeah.
43:29It is a blessing to be blessed with that vision of it.
43:33And it is a revelation.
43:34Even within the song, I like how it's a revelation that it starts off with just me and my voice
43:38on a keyboard.
43:39So I go, and that's, that's me playing that little part.
43:43We have a much better keyboard player on the album named Tim Lauer.
43:46He's a genius.
43:47But I think in that moment, Marshall, my producer wanted it to feel more personal and confessional,
43:52just chip on a keyboard.
43:53And it starts really quietly.
43:55Like, you can almost picture the old cliched light bulb overhead.
44:00Like, wait a second, I've been going through all this.
44:03I've been fighting it.
44:04I've been on my knees and back again.
44:06And here I am.
44:08So maybe I'm more than just that thing.
44:10And maybe that won't define me.
44:12And what that does is it lets you let go a little and breathe through it.
44:18And I think then you're more likely to be able to win more battles when you're like
44:24that instead of the desperation of a, I'll never make it.
44:27I'll never do this.
44:28So if anybody could hear that song for a second and go, maybe I'm all right.
44:32Maybe, like, maybe just a little crazy suits me fine.
44:35It just occurred to me.
44:37It just came on like a light.
44:38Maybe I'm all right.
44:39Sometimes there's a line or two in a song that lifted.
44:42And a lot of times they're throwaways.
44:44I like a lot of the throwaway lines I have at the end of my songs in this album.
44:47One of them is, maybe I don't need the victory.
44:51Maybe I just like the fight.
44:53Maybe I'm all right.
44:54And that's interesting.
44:55What if you think about that way that, yeah, I'm a soldier along the way.
44:58And this is my life's battle.
45:00And off we go.
45:02Well, I love that one.
45:03And there's so many great ones on this album.
45:05And I hope people listen to every one of them.
45:08Chip, I just have one more question for you.
45:09Sure.
45:10What does it mean to you to be Southern?
45:12I think the part that resonates with me the most, what I want is connection, one-to-one.
45:16And I told you about it, whether it's through the musicians on call or playing with my dad.
45:20Some of it might be a cliche, but I remember going to New York and I didn't feel that connection.
45:26I know they have their communities up there for sure.
45:29I don't know what they're like, but I often felt that when I walked out, that city confronted me.
45:35Like the cold, the loudness.
45:38There's something about the South.
45:40I don't know if it's the more literal warmth and the climate.
45:43That might be a part of it.
45:44But even coming from LA, we had lived on the same street in LA for 15 years.
45:48And we knew more people on this street in Nashville in a week than we did in 15 years on that street.
45:57Some of that's down to us, but some of it's down to people bringing bundt cakes and people just saying, nice to meet you.
46:04So there's community and a culture of kindness.
46:09And none of this is to let go of the history of the South.
46:13The South's had its times where it wasn't so kind.
46:15And that's all exactly true.
46:20And maybe part of that leads into the culture now.
46:22But you want to be better than you were.
46:24So that warmth is escalated.
46:27But I feel it, man.
46:28And I see it in individual people that I hold up as models and heroes.
46:33Whether it's like, I'll give you a couple of Vince Gill and Amy Grant here are a model of Southern gentility and warmth.
46:39But there's a strength underneath.
46:41And there's a, goodness, there's talent underneath.
46:43I see that again and again at the Grand Ole Opry.
46:45There's these people that are at the very top of the game and couldn't be any better.
46:48But there's a warmth and there's a welcoming.
46:50Whether it was little Jimmy Dickens, who was 93 when I met him and had been there when Hank Williams was there.
46:56And had every right to say, this is our community.
47:00You're an interloper.
47:01You're a guy on a TV show.
47:02So you can play here, but don't make yourself at home.
47:05It was the opposite of that.
47:06It was welcome, welcome.
47:08And that welcome, welcome is at the heart of what the Southern experience is to me.
47:16Sitting around a campfire, gathering at the Grand Ole Opry, doing a guitar pull where we pass the guitar around.
47:23That's a long answer, but that's mostly what it means to me.
47:26Well, that's a great one.
47:27And Chip Esten, it's great to see you again.
47:30And congrats on the album and everything else.
47:33And thanks so much for being on Biscuits and Jam.
47:35It's been my pleasure.
47:37Thanks so much for having me.
47:38And thanks so much for helping out on Nashville.
47:40I think I might have done that show in.
47:45No, no, no, no.
47:46We survived you by far.
47:50Thanks for listening to my conversation with Charles Esten.
47:53Southern Living is based in Birmingham, Alabama.
47:56Be sure to follow Biscuits and Jam on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
48:02And we would love your feedback.
48:04If you could rate this podcast and leave us a review, preferably a nice one, we'd really appreciate it.
48:10You can also find us online at southernliving.com slash biscuitsandjam.
48:15Our theme song is by Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek.
48:18I hope you'll join me next week when I'll be talking with Devin Allman,
48:22a musician who's managed to chart his own path while also honoring his father's legacy.
48:28We'll see you then.
48:40We'll see you then.
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