In this episode of the Biscuits and Jam Podcast, we welcome back the multifaceted musical superstar Darius Rucker! Join Southern Living’s Sid Evan as they discuss his journey since his last appearance, dissecting his debut memoir, ‘Life's Too Short,’ Hootie and The Blowfish's 30 year reunion tour, and so much more. He breaks down the personal challenges he faced, the impact of his musical heroes, and his latest album 'Carolyn's Boy,' dedicated to his mother. Join us for an insightful conversation with one of country music's most resilient and talented artists!
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00:00Darius Rucker, welcome back to Biscuits and Jam.
00:02How you doing, man? Good to see you.
00:04I'm great. I'm great.
00:06Last time you were on this podcast was a few years ago.
00:09It might have even been during the pandemic.
00:12Oh, wow. That's a long time ago right there.
00:14That seems like 10 years, man.
00:17I know.
00:19Well, it's great to see you again.
00:21And congrats on your Gamecocks.
00:24I'm sure you're excited about that.
00:25Very, very.
00:26That was the first national championship game I actually got to go to.
00:29And I had to show the other two times we played.
00:33Yeah, that was great.
00:34I'm never missing another one, man.
00:35That's so cool.
00:36Well, it's a great thing for South Carolina.
00:39And what a story.
00:41Well, Darius, congrats on the new book.
00:45It's called Life's Too Short.
00:47I think we can all agree on that.
00:48Yeah, for sure.
00:50What made you feel like it was time to write a memoir?
00:54You know, they've been asking me to write a book for years.
00:57I've had several different publishing companies come up to me.
01:01And Harper came up to me.
01:03And we talked about it.
01:04And I always said that if I ever wrote the book, I was going to be really honest.
01:08And I wasn't going to write it until my kids were adults.
01:11And we went around and around.
01:14And my kids are adults now.
01:15And I just felt like, you know, and I met Alan, who I wrote it with.
01:19It just felt like it was time to tell the story.
01:21Well, you really put it out there.
01:24And, you know, I think you said on social media somewhere that people were going to be surprised by some of the things in this book.
01:31And that is probably very true.
01:35I don't think most folks have any idea what a bumpy ride it's been.
01:39No, because, I mean, it looks so smooth.
01:41You know, it looks like, you know, I started this band in college.
01:44And we got a record deal and went big.
01:46And then I came to country music and, you know, made it there.
01:50And it looks like just a smooth ride.
01:51But there were so many ups and downs, so many pitfalls, so many pits, so many holes, so many potholes, so many whatever you want to say that went on in my life starting from when I was born.
02:03That, you know, I just wanted to tell the story so people could know it.
02:07You know, I think that the one thing that I love so much about the book is, you know, the one thing that I want people to get is that I never make excuses.
02:16This is just what happened.
02:16Well, you're kind of lucky to be alive.
02:19Yeah.
02:19You know, for a couple reasons, I'm pretty lucky to be alive.
02:23You know, the opening chapter about, you know, hanging out with Woody and also the chapter about how hard we went and how hard we partied, those chapters, you really look at it, you know, I am lucky to be on the other side.
02:37Yeah.
02:39Well, you know, as someone who kind of watched your career for a long time, I kind of feel like we grew up together in a way.
02:46You know, I mean, I graduated from college in the early 90s and, you know, your music was just everywhere.
02:53It's just kind of, you know, part of my soundtrack.
02:56But, you know, I didn't realize how big a role David Letterman played in, you know, kind of getting you out there.
03:05What a cool story that he was listening in the car one day and heard your song and said, I want these guys on the show.
03:12Yeah, I mean, that's how we look at life and, like, that's one of those lucky moments that is just, that changed lives.
03:20Like, you know, some guy at a radio station who's a DJ who's been there a long time decides, I heard this song, we're not adding it, but I'm going to just play it.
03:28That drive time.
03:29Who does that?
03:30I mean, nobody does that today.
03:31You know, and he likes the song and no permission from the program director or anything.
03:36He's like, I'm going to just play this song.
03:37Y'all tell me what you think about it.
03:38And he plays it on my hand and that's the first time he's playing on that radio station and Letterman hears it.
03:43And he loves it instantly.
03:45And that's a Tuesday and on Friday we're on the show.
03:49And that changed our lives.
03:51I can't, I say to people all the time, I'm not here if that doesn't happen.
03:56We don't make it, I don't think, if that doesn't happen.
03:58But because grunge was so big, it was such a thing and nobody was dying to play us.
04:03And then Letterman happens and everybody's dying to play us.
04:06Wow.
04:07What a story.
04:09Well, here we are.
04:11And, you know, you put so much into this book and you wrote about a lot of really hard things too.
04:19You know, losing your mom and your brother and, you know, being alienated from your dad and a lot of drug and alcohol abuse.
04:28And all kinds of stuff.
04:29And I'm wondering what was the hardest thing to write about or what were some of the hardest things to write about going through this process?
04:38Writing with my dad was hard.
04:40Because I didn't realize how much it affected me until I wrote this book.
04:45You know, because you live your life and you just go on with it.
04:47You know, whatever happens, you take it.
04:48And, you know, after a while this stuff, if something bad has been out of your life long enough, you just don't think about it anymore.
04:54And that's how it was with him.
04:55I just don't think about him.
04:56And then I wrote this book and, you know, it made me go write a song.
05:00It was just like, man, I didn't realize how much it really affected me that he wasn't there.
05:04And writing that was hard.
05:06Writing about the partying was hard.
05:08You know, writing the stuff about my brother, that was stuff I went around.
05:12Am I really going to put that in the book?
05:13You know, should I take that out?
05:14But then I remembered what I said to myself.
05:17I was going to tell the truth.
05:19And so I left it in there.
05:22Do you feel some kind of catharsis, you know, putting this down on paper, putting it out in the world, just kind of telling the story?
05:32Oh, yeah.
05:33This was so therapeutic for me.
05:34You know, there's so much stuff that happened in the book that now I talk to, you know, with my guy because I didn't even think about it for years.
05:45And this is something that's probably affected me in a way or a lot of ways, you know.
05:48So let's talk about that.
05:50And it was such a good therapy for me to write that and read it back.
05:56And then when I was reading the audio book, it was even more, you know, like that.
06:00So, yeah, I'm really glad I did it for that reason.
06:04You know, so much of this book is about Hootie and the Blowfish, of course, and the bonds that you had with these guys, which was, you know, basically a bunch of college friends from the University of South Carolina.
06:16But they were really so much more than that.
06:19I mean, they were they were, you know, brothers.
06:21And I'm wondering if they will be surprised or were surprised by anything in this book.
06:31Oh, no.
06:33Like it was like when I read Sony's book, it was out there, but there was nothing that surprised me.
06:37You know, we we all lived it together.
06:40And I mean, until the late 90s, early 2000s, we were together every day.
06:47We were always together.
06:48We were together when we were off.
06:49You know, we were just always together.
06:52And so now there's nothing that's going to surprise anybody in this book.
06:55Not any, not any, not anybody who did the Blowfish.
07:00You know, one thing that surprised me a little bit or I didn't really know the story was about your history working in the record store for a long time.
07:10And it was called Sounds Familiar, which is a great name for a record store.
07:15And it sounds like it was a really seminal place for you.
07:19I mean, you kind of would come back there and, you know, even when you're not making music, when you're not writing music, you're surrounded by music.
07:27Yeah.
07:27What did that place kind of look and feel like?
07:31And why was it important to you?
07:33Oh, it was, the record store life was amazing.
07:38You know, you heard everything.
07:40Like, the one thing I think people are going to get from the book is how important music is to me.
07:44And for me to work at a record store and, like you said, be surrounded by music and then on the weekends go out and play shows where I'm surrounded by music was just like heaven.
07:57You know, I'm getting paid from two places to go play music.
08:00And it was just, or go listen to music.
08:03And it was just really awesome.
08:07And it, one of the, some of the best years of my life was working at Sounds Familiar.
08:12I made good friends and I had a great time and I loved that job so much.
08:16So paint a picture for me of that store.
08:18I mean, what does it look like when you walk in?
08:20And is it kind of vintage looking?
08:22Is it more modern looking?
08:24Well, it was modern for, it was modern for the 90s.
08:26I mean, modern for the 80s, you know, 88, 89, it was modern for them.
08:30But, you know, you walk in and you walk in the two, the two glass doors, the counters right there.
08:34And then it's just records everywhere, you know, in different sections, jazz and rock and hip hop.
08:39Well, I guess one hip hop there was rap back then, you know, and, and all, you just, just different areas.
08:45And it was awesome.
08:47You know, it was so many times I walked in that store and somebody was playing.
08:50And something that became my favorite album, you know, just, and I would have never put it on myself, but somebody else put it on.
08:56I go, wow, that is great.
08:58Like, I would have never discovered Nancy Griffith if somebody wasn't playing it when I walked in one day.
09:02Then that changed my life.
09:03I love that if there were two copies of a record there, then you could listen to one, put it on.
09:10But if there was only one copy, you couldn't open it.
09:12You had to actually buy it.
09:13You had to buy it.
09:14Yes.
09:14You had to buy it.
09:15And that was a great rule.
09:16That was a great rule.
09:17So, you know, because a lot of times if you bought something, you opened it, you played it, somebody else would want to buy it.
09:23So you'd have to order it.
09:24Right.
09:24Which was, which was cool.
09:26And so, yeah, that was some of the great days of my life.
09:29I love, I love working at that store.
09:30You know, Darius, you talk about a lot of musical heroes in this book.
09:35I mean, Lou Reed and R.E.M. and Nancy Griffith, you just mentioned.
09:39And I want to ask you about one in particular, which is Al Green.
09:43You were obsessed with him as a kid.
09:46And then you ended up getting to perform with him at this award show.
09:51I think it was maybe the Billboard Music Awards.
09:54And he was singing one of your songs, which is kind of incredible.
10:00What did that moment mean to you?
10:03That was probably at that point the moment where I said, we made it.
10:08That was, that was the point.
10:09When, when Al walked on that, I will never forget that night.
10:13Al walked on that stage because rehearsals were rehearsals.
10:15Nobody's really, you know, we're playing, but you're not playing.
10:19And when we hit that baseline and he walked out on that stage and started singing, it was, it was out of body experience.
10:27It was so amazing.
10:28And he is my idol.
10:31He's the number one.
10:32He's the guy.
10:32He's the reason I wanted to sing.
10:34He's the reason I wanted to be in music.
10:35And to have gotten to be on the stage with him is still one of the great moments of my life.
10:40Well, you know, I'm from Memphis and I've seen him in, in his church.
10:44Yeah.
10:45And there's nobody, I don't think I've ever seen anybody that can perform like you.
10:50Oh, no.
10:51I've seen him in concert a couple of times.
10:52Nobody sings like Al.
10:53Well, so Darius, moving to the present, there is a new album that just came out called Cowboy Carter that you may have heard of.
11:05And it's, it spawned a lot of conversations about black artists and country music.
11:11What does it mean to you to see Beyonce coming out with this record right now?
11:16Oh, I love it.
11:17I love it.
11:18I think it's another thing that shows that there's a lot of people of color in this country that love country music.
11:24They're just usually not allowed to.
11:25And for her to come out with a record like that, which is so great, and to make, bring all this attention to the, to the genre and everything she's done for it, I think is great.
11:34I think it's awesome.
11:35You know, it's awesome.
11:37I hope, you know, when I came here 16 years ago, there wasn't anybody that looked like me in the, in the, in the business.
11:43And over the 16 years I've managed to see Kane and, you know, Willie Jones and Warren Treaty and all these bands and, and, and, and, and artists starting to get looked at and getting deals and stuff.
11:55And it's great.
11:56And I hope what she does makes it even better.
11:59I hope, you know, I say it all the time.
12:00I love to see country music looking more like America.
12:03What do you feel like it'll take for Beyonce to be really welcomed by the country music community?
12:09Or do you feel like that's already happened?
12:11I think she's already got that.
12:12But I think, you know, to be a part of the community, you got to make more than one country record.
12:16You know, that's the one thing that I think is disliked by country music, the community a lot, is, you know, what they call carpetbackers.
12:24Guys who come for pop, make one record, and then go back to pop and, you know, pretend like country doesn't exist, you know.
12:30But what she did, she made an amazing record.
12:34It's going to, you know, probably win record a year and all that stuff that, you know, it's going to be a great moment for her in country music.
12:40But to be a part of the community, you got to come here and play.
12:42You got to be a part of it.
12:44Yeah.
12:44Yeah.
12:44It takes some time.
12:45Yeah.
12:47Well, you know, Darius, when you came out with your first country song, which I think was 16 years ago, which is kind of incredible.
12:56Crazy.
12:56That's crazy.
12:57So it was called Don't Think, I Don't Think About It.
13:01And it went to number one, right?
13:03It did.
13:05Yes.
13:05So this, and this was the first time that that had happened for a black artist since Charlie Pryde.
13:1025 years.
13:11And I'm wondering if y'all talked about that after that happened or if he reached out to you.
13:19Absolutely.
13:20Charlie and I became really good friends.
13:21Our first meeting was at the Opry where we both got there like two hours early and just sat and talked for hours.
13:28And then we would talk after that every time we saw each other on the phone or whatever.
13:32And we just became really good friends.
13:34And it was at that time when we were the only two people that had done it.
13:39And so it was great to talk to him and have the insight that he had and all the things he did and all of the things he went through.
13:50Because one thing I said before I met Charlie, when I first came to Nashville, I said, I've heard some of the stories of what Charlie had to go through.
13:56There's nothing y'all can do to me to make me quit.
13:59If Charlie can go through that crap, there's nothing y'all can do to me to make me quit.
14:03And I told him that.
14:05That was something that he loved that.
14:07He respected that.
14:07He loved that.
14:08And we became really good friends.
14:11And he was just my mentor.
14:14He was always there for me anytime I wanted to ask him anything.
14:17Was there a story that stood out to you that he went through?
14:21You know, something that is really kind of stuck in your mind.
14:25It's probably not what you think I would tell you.
14:29But there is something that when he said it, it punched me in the throat.
14:33And him and I talked about this for probably 45 minutes.
14:36Charlie probably had an amazing career.
14:38To do what he did in country music when he did it was amazing.
14:42Who Need the Bullfish was the biggest thing on the planet at one minute.
14:46You know, we were big.
14:47And he said to me, you know, Darius, I've done all this stuff in music.
14:51And you've got to realize, growing up, when you grew up African-American, and I know everybody that I know grew up in my area.
14:58When you went to the barbershop, there was an Ebony and a Jet.
15:01And you read it every time you went to the barbershop.
15:03Every time.
15:04And he said to me, he's like, you know, I've done all this in music and I've done all this.
15:09And I've never been on the cover of Ebony and Jet.
15:11And I looked at him and I said, me neither.
15:13And that just stuck with me.
15:17Because that said to me, not only do we have to fight, you know, the white racists over here telling us we shouldn't be playing country music.
15:25We also have to fight the black folks telling us we shouldn't be playing country music.
15:29And to have gone out and put ourselves where we put ourselves, put ourselves out there the way we did that, and to have the success that we have had for not one person to go, I'm going to write a story about this and put it on the cover of this magazine.
15:44That's pretty hurtful.
15:45That hurt us both, I think.
15:46Yeah.
15:47You're really kind of a liar out there.
15:50Yeah.
15:51That really hurt us both.
15:52And when he said that, that was such a punch in the gut.
15:54Because, like, me neither.
15:54That's something I've thought about.
15:55Never.
15:56Never even gotten, I think I've been in it once.
15:58You know, that was, that was, that really stuck out to me.
16:03Darius, I want to just ask you about your most recent album, Carolyn's Boy, which came out about, I think, six months ago or so.
16:11And it was named after your mom, you know, who died before she ever got to really see your success.
16:19Yes.
16:21What's the story with the, with the photo on the cover?
16:25I love that picture so much.
16:26It's my, my family's favorite picture of her.
16:28Everybody's got it.
16:29And that was her at 25 graduating nursing school.
16:33That was a nursing school graduation picture.
16:35I got it right.
16:36I got it right here.
16:37Yep.
16:37That's her nursing school graduation picture.
16:39She looks just like my sister right there.
16:42It's good scary.
16:43Yeah.
16:44But, you know, that's just a picture we've had and I wanted that to be the cover.
16:48Well, I love that you did this as a, as a tribute to her and I'm sure she would have, she would
16:54have loved it too.
16:55Oh, she would have.
16:56You know, you talked in the, in the book about how she had this great singing voice and, and
17:01you thought of her as the fourth Supreme because she was always singing along with their music.
17:05I love that story.
17:07She was, I mean, all was special.
17:09I mean, that's why, I think that's what, one of the things that always kept me so humble
17:13about my voice was my mom and my dad were both better singers than I were.
17:17They were both just stupidly great singers.
17:21And so anytime I get a little big head, I remind myself, you don't sound like your mama
17:25though, you know, so that's easy to do for me.
17:31You know, there's a beautiful scene in the book where you talk about hanging out with
17:35your mom for a whole day.
17:37Like I think it was just a few days before she died.
17:40Yeah.
17:41Was that unusual for her to call you and want to drive over to Columbia?
17:46To say that, to say that was unusual would be an understatement.
17:49She had never done that.
17:50I'd been living in Columbia for five years at this point.
17:53And the only time I saw her was when I went home.
17:55She had never once said, I'm going to come see you.
17:58And just out of the blue, she said, I'm going to come see you.
18:00It's like, it's like, you know, if you believe in this stuff and it's like fate, it's like
18:04God saying, look, you need to go handle what you need to handle.
18:07And she came and she saw me and it was one of the greatest days of my life.
18:10And I got to say everything to her I ever wanted to say.
18:12And that, that was special to me.
18:14Well, so many people don't ever get that opportunity.
18:16And the fact that y'all got that time together and it's really kind of, you know, kind of
18:21gives you chills thinking about it.
18:23It was great.
18:25So, you know, Darius, you know, we talked about how you, you wrote about some tough
18:29stuff in this book, but you've also got some tough stuff that you deal with on this album,
18:33you know, and there's some really fun songs on the album, like beers and sunshine.
18:37And then there's also some, you know, much more personal ones.
18:40And, um, there's, there's one on there called never been over.
18:44Yeah.
18:44Um, that's about splitting up with your wife of 20 years.
18:49Um, and you know, I'm just wondering if all of this kind of together is a little bit of
18:54a process of working through some difficult things.
18:58I really think it is.
18:59And I didn't think it was when I started doing any of this, but I think writing the book
19:02and that record and all this stuff I'm writing now is just the way of finally, I think the
19:08writing the book made me deal with stuff that I was just forgetting about or pretending that
19:12wasn't there because I just wasn't thinking about it.
19:14And now you write a book about it and it comes back up and you have to deal with it.
19:18And I think that's just a, that's a lot of stuff I'm going through right now in my life.
19:21Yeah.
19:21Yeah.
19:23Um, there's another song on the album called Old Church Hymn, um, which you recorded with
19:29Chapel Heart and, you know, I've had them on the podcast and met them and they're just,
19:33you know, wonderful and fun and so great.
19:37And, um, I'm just wondering how that one came together.
19:40That was a great one.
19:42We, we, we, we cut that song and, uh, I went, I went home from the studio.
19:46Russell, I cut the song, went over to the studio and I was just flipping through Twitter
19:49and it was just, somebody had re, re, re tweeted this video of that when they were singing,
19:58I think Jolene.
19:59And I, I look at that, I go, what?
20:02You know, and I listened to it a few times and I'm like, this is crazy.
20:05It's like, I call, I got text Ross.
20:06I think I know who I want to sing background on Old Church Hymn.
20:09And so I, I hit them up in their DMs.
20:12I DM'd them.
20:12I was like, you know, this is Darius Rooker.
20:14I got this song.
20:15Really?
20:15They must have freaked out.
20:16Oh, they didn't believe it was me.
20:18They thought, they thought it was a joke.
20:19They thought it was a, yeah, right.
20:20Yeah, right.
20:21Yeah, right.
20:21No, it's the Blue Jackets.
20:23Darius Rooker.
20:24You know, I'd love for you guys to come sing them by.
20:27And so we exchanged numbers and I got in touch with them and, and you know, they,
20:30we, they came and sang on it and we've been bad.
20:32We've been best buddies ever since.
20:34I love those girls so much.
20:35They're, they're awesome.
20:36That's great.
20:37Well, it's a great album and it's, it seems like, um, you had a lot of fun making it.
20:42And, uh, but I love that song.
20:45Love that song.
20:46Oh, me too.
20:47Well, so Darius, I mean, you know, here you are now, uh, you know, kind of coming full circle
20:52and, and you've got a, you know, big summer tour coming up with Hootie and the Blowfish.
20:57Why did it feel like the right time to get back on the road with these guys?
21:00Ah, 30th anniversary of Cracked Review.
21:02You know, it just seemed like the year to do it.
21:0430 years ago, we put that record out and all of our lives changed.
21:08So this seemed like the time to go out and then play a bunch of songs from it and go out
21:12and do the Hootie thing again.
21:13Have you been rehearsing already?
21:15God, no.
21:16We rehearsed like two days before.
21:19I'll be honest with you.
21:20Actually, they've rehearsed a little bit, but not much.
21:22We just to figure out what the set list is going to be.
21:24So, uh, but we'll rehearse before we go out.
21:26Have you finally persuaded them to perform a few country songs?
21:30Yeah, it's too late for them now.
21:33No, we do a couple of my hits at the end of the show.
21:35Yeah.
21:36Well, Darius, I just have one more question for you.
21:38Okay.
21:39What does it mean to you to be Southern?
21:41Southern to me means somebody who, who goes out of their way to be nice, who really cares
21:49about things other than themselves and who just, who, who patience, who has, who has
21:57the patience of a saint.
21:58That's a Southerner to me.
21:59Well, that's sums it up, doesn't it?
22:01Absolutely.
22:02That's a good way to look at it.
22:04Well, Darius, uh, congrats on the book and the album and the tour and everything that's
22:09coming up.
22:10And, um, thanks so much for coming back on Biscuits to Jam.
22:13Thanks a lot, Sid.