WRCO Live Music Interview: Soul Circus Cowboys

Formed in 2009. They better for a few years. Good to have them here in the studio with us. We have Billy McNight.

We have Frank and we have we have Ron as well here to join us. The band Soul Circus. My goodness. Good to have you guys here.

Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. I was not expecting the whole band, you know.

Well, we still have Joey Kirkland or other league guitar player in Jason Alfano, our drummer and Dan Turner,

our bass player down there, but they want to come up. So next time.

Let's start off a little bit though. I think a lot of our area residents are talking about what's

going on in Florida. You guys can tell us firsthand. Yeah, so we're from Tampa and our beaches just

got hit by Helene about two and a half weeks ago and it was a disaster and then this Milton guy just

came through and knocked it all over again. So fortunately, I don't know anyone personally that

was killed in this, but it's our beaches are on mess right now and it's just one after another.

So we're we're praying for everybody back home. We're coming home tomorrow and just we need any

help you can do it. Thank you for sending a truck with canned goods down there because people

are without houses without electricity. The flooded out are the all the places we play along the beach

which is huge or underwater. It's it's the I've been there my whole life and it's the worst I've

ever seen it. Plus all the massive tornadoes as well. I guess we never have that, but the storms

were so big that the whole south part of Florida were getting hit with tornadoes. You guys are up

here in the beautiful weather where you're feeling a little bit guilty. Where is it? Unbelievably

beautiful up here. Yeah, and yes, feeling guilty. We didn't want to take videos of it because you know

our family back home is under stress and here the Midwest has been blue skies and cool weather and

gorgeous. Well, we played the song just a little bit ago. Maybe Frank, you could talk about this

when you wear the t-shirt. Okay, so I'm Frank Myers. I'm the producer and I actually took

Joey's place because he stayed in Tampa with his wife and and dog and all that and I've worn this

t-shirt for a couple years and it says home of the free because of the brave and finally after

wearing it for so long, I finally looked at it one day as it, man, that's a good title. We need

to write that song and we need to, you know, celebrate those who have given us our freedom

over the through the years. Have you guys had a chance to play for some veterans groups before?

Absolutely. We do. We do a yearly honor the veterans. We are patriotic bands. We do quite a bit

of a down south and we just appreciate the men and women who sacrifice everything and we have

much respect for them. How does the writing process work here? How do you come about a song?

Well, like Frank said on this particular song, he was wearing the shirt and he said,

Billy, I like this title. Come on up and I flew up to Nashville and another hit song

out of Billy Montana joined us and we sat down one day and wrote it and then we presented it to

the guys and we put it together but it happens in all different ways where you come up with an idea

first or a title, a great title like that and then you just start to work it and then work it

down and then the creating process is the most fun for me personally. Having an idea and then the

process until it's a final mastered mix is a lot of fun and it's almost therapy. Yeah.

And then you bring the band in and they kind of band in and play and I'll do all my vocals one day

and then he'll come back down and we'll do all the harmonies and then he'll come back down

because it takes a week per per with you should do five at a time and so each song gets a day

and then he'll come down. We'll do a final mix and then put it in the hopper. We've been playing

the Soul Circus Cowboys for a long time here on the earth. Thank you for that. Absolutely.

What's been the biggest radio hit? Any idea? I think it's been I stand. Another patriotic song,

you know, yeah, but we're we're starting to get more and more plays at radio. We're doing pretty

well in the streaming in our YouTube channel but radio's starting to really open their

eyes to us. So having guys like you in front of it is much appreciated. And they can look us up at

Soul Circus Cowboys.com and of course all the social media outlets as well and everywhere you stream

digital music and it's also on the touch tunes. Touch tunes. Yeah, touch tunes. Yeah, so you can

wherever there's wherever there's touch tunes you can search Soul Circus Cowboys and play our music

and we appreciate everybody that does that. No doubt. Well, you guys have guitars. I'd be

remiss if I didn't say, hey, can you play one for it? Sure. You know, you've played all the song. Do

you have a request? I don't know. I like them all. What would you suggest? Well, you know,

people come down to Florida to get away from their 40, 50 hour job and come down to our beautiful

beaches and right now our beaches are in disarray. So to honor our beaches, this song is called

sit on a beach when usually it's paradise. Quick shout out to those guys right there, Redwood

Empire. They are because of them, we're able to afford to come out here and do these radio tours

and we appreciate them very much for sponsoring us. You brought the bottle in. It looks like

something's missing. You're gonna have to see somebody already stuck something. You snuck some

out front there. It's really good, too. Nice and smooth. All right, we'll take it away, guys.

All right. One, two, three, four.

Been 12 hour days, the past six months. My body complains, my mind's in a rut.

All I ever do is work and sleep. The cooler's packed and so are my clothes. Tomorrow I'll be

miles down the road. Mid-afternoon, I'll be right where I want to be. I want to sit on a beach

by drinking my hand, my face and the sun, my feet and the sand. Give me one, give me two,

give me three, give me four beers, five, six, seven, eight, who cares? Sleep all night with the stars

in a beach chair. Oh, yeah, who's ever been there? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm

sitting on a beach, sitting on a beach chair. Oh, yeah. Gonna turn off the phone, chill out and rest.

The weather's warm, the group is the best. I love the sound of the waves and a notion breeze.

There'll be girls and bikinis laid out in the sand. I'm belled drinks and books in their hands.

I got a baseball cap and some good sunscreen. I want to sit on a beach. I'm drinking my hand,

my face in the sun, my feet in the sand. Give me one, give me two, give me three, give me four

beers, five, six, seven, eight, who cares? Sleep all night with the stars in a beach chair. Oh, yeah,

who's ever been there? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,sl

sitting on a beach, sitting on a beach chair.

I want to sit on a beach, a drink in my hand, my face in the sun, my feet in the sand,

give me one, give me two, give me three, give me four beers, five, six, seven, eight, who cares, sleep all night with the stars in a beach chair.

Oh yeah, who's ever been there? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sit on a beach, sit on a beach chair.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sit on a beach, sit on a beach chair.

Oh, thank you. It's all circus cowboys. I was thinking about it. I want to spoil it. You guys have such tight harmony there.

Thank you. It's like brothers right there. Yeah.

And this guy over here, he's an award-winning guitarist. Yeah, he's an award-winning guitarist. Yeah, he's an award-winning guitarist. Yeah, he can throw down. We have a great time every time we go out and play. It's a lot of fun being in this band.

Oh, doubt. We'll take a break and come back. You guys have another song in you yet this morning, too. Okay. Sounds good. It's an honor to have Soul Circus Cowboys last song dedicated to all the residents of Florida. We're praying for them.

And again, is there a special place where people can donate it if they're listening? Have you come across anything? What was the place you mentioned?

Samaritan's purse. Samaritan's purse. Or the Cajun Navy. There we trust them. They make sure that the residents get what you give.

Okay. Wonderful. We'll be back with more in a moment.

Welcome back to our studio here on WRC Radio. Glad to have you in here in the Richland family restaurant studio. And we've got some live music today. I always love that.

Reminds me of the movie. Oh, brother. We're our power. So you can stand around a microphone singing. So Billy, they say you're a major foodie. Is that true?

I am a major foodie. That's one of the things I like to do best is go out.

If I walk into your restaurant, I'm going to take a picture of the presentation. And I'm going to give you a critic. Not that I am one, but enough people have been following me, but that they'll come in and the places that I eat at are like,

okay, you know, we appreciate you. Come on back. So it's working in my home state.

A thousand pictures of foods. Yeah. It's busy. Yeah.

You're one of those posting all the food. Yeah. That's awesome. But how do you how do you stay fit? You know, and you're on the road there eating all that food?

Yeah. I love to say in the gym. I mean, I've been working out to some 15 and yeah. You have to you have to this this business. You know, it takes a lot out of you. So the exercise helps me.

Yeah. You got some talented guys here. This guy over here has written a couple of songs as Grammy award winning songwriter Frank Myers of his biggest song is I swear and just a slew of number one hits from

Lone Star hits from tomorrow from Chris Young and just it goes on and on and on. So we're happy that he's in our corner. That's amazing. Yeah. I swear that got played a few times.

Yeah, a couple times. Yeah. Well, the minions did it. What's that? Oh, it's not happened. That's right. It's been in all kinds of movies and commercials. And it was number one around the world.

Literally around the world. And you had two different versions pop in country. Yeah. Yeah. Pop version was number one 11 weeks on the pop charts. And like I said around the world. And there's all kinds of different versions and different languages.

And it's just I've seen it on a game commercial. I know that. Yeah. How long did it take to write that one, by the way?

Well, you know, my partner at the time, Gary Baker, we were in a duo called Baker and Myers for a while. And we worked together for quite a while. And he just called me. He lives in Sheffield, Alabama, which is three hours from Nashville where I live. And he knew I was coming down to work with him.

And we were actually writing with Robert Byrne in the morning. God rest is so big hit songwriter. And he called and said, Frank, I got a title for you to think of when you drive down. He says, called, I swear.

He says, you know, just, you know, I swear I'll love you forever. I swear I'll always be there. You know, that kind of thing. I said, cool. So I wrote the course on a little handheld micro cassette player driving from my house down to actually muscle shows.

I wrote the course on that. And we wrote with Robert that morning. And we were done by 11 or 12 and he had cooked some barbecue chicken, whatever. And I had left my car over at fame studios. And on the way back over there, I said, Hey, man, I wrote a course coming down here to that idea. You gave me this morning. And we went inside fame and.

The Walt Aldridge's office and he and I just sat there wrote the verses. And that's it. We did. Well, that ain't it. We did two demos on it. Everybody in town passed on it. I mean, all the big names passed on I swear. And I personally pitched at the John Michael Montgomery three times before we finally cut it.

Do you still have the micro cassette? No, I mean, I may somewhere. I have no idea where it is. You know, I mean, I had so many of those things. Yeah.

The original lyric that that I wrote the song on is in the country. He's called a fame. Along with the original lyric of you and I that I wrote for Eddie Ravin, Crystal Gale. Oh, yeah, you wrote that one too. That was it number one.

Yeah, goodness. Well, good to have you in the studio with us. Great to be here, man. Yeah, part of this. If you feel like singing with us, just try me. Yeah, careful what you asked for here. You know, but you guys got another song. I need to share this song. I'm going to ask the ladies that are listening.

This is a song about it. When you're trying to reach your man, you're trying to talk to him. And he seems to just be ignoring you. And you can't get through to him until finally you've had enough. And you left. And then.

It's like, can you hear me now? And he's like, wait, what happened? And oblivious to the whole thing. So this song is written from a woman's point of view the best we could from being broke up with a lot of times in our lives. It's called, can you hear me now? All right.

She said I hate to say goodbye in a note. And working it out, it's always my hope. I tried talking to you so many times. But the words you heard were yours and not mine.

Can you hear me now? Never I'm gone. Are you lonely now? When you lay there alone, you never would listen. When I poured out my heart, I bet the silence is deafening for you in the dark. Can you hear me now?

Oh, can you hear me now? She said I must have cried a river of tears. And it's sad to think I wasted all these years. But there's less and cheer both of us can learn.

You know, actions speak louder than words. Can you hear me now? Never I'm gone. Are you lonely now? When you lay there alone, you never would listen. When I poured out my heart, I bet the silence is deafening for you in the dark.

When you lay there alone, you never would listen. When I poured out my heart, I bet the silence is deafening for you in the dark. Can you hear me now?

Baby, you'll get the picture if I'm not in the frame. Oh, my voice in your hair doesn't drive you insane. She said, can you hear me now?

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Never I'm gone. Are you lonely now? When you lay there alone, you never would listen. When I poured out my heart, I bet the silence is deafening for you in the dark.

When you lay there alone, you never would listen. When I poured out my heart, I bet the silence is deafening for you in the dark. Can you hear me now?

She said, I hate to say goodbye in her note.

Oh, Soul Circus Cowl. That was up there for the moment. That was, man.

Because Ron had put it a half step high.

Yeah, you think it was high for you.

Tighten your shirt.

Well, good stuff. We'll be back with more from the Soul Circus Cowl boys. You guys on a time kit.

You'll get a little bit.

One more radio today. You got one more song? No, man. We'll be back with more tomorrow.

Thank you.

Welcome back to our studio here. We have Soul Circus Cowl boys for a few more minutes here in the studio with us.

Billy, could you talk a little bit about your collaboration with St. Jude's?

Oh, yeah. That's a really big thing. We do, we do a benefit at Skipper Smokehouse every year for those kids.

I walked through the hospital once in Memphis and it literally took my breath away.

So that is our biggest foundation that we do.

All the proceeds I get at least two or three of the most popular bands in the whole state of Florida come join us.

And we put a lot of people in the seats and every year the president of the St. Jude's comes over and we make a big donation to him every year.

We wrote a song called Believe It That went to some proceeds to that as well.

So those kids are our heroes. They're fighting the biggest fight and they're not even 10 yet.

You're going to be heading back home to Florida here in a day or so.

We were supposed to fly out tonight, but the Tampa airport was shut down because of the storm.

So we're picking up a 430 flight in the morning.

Okay.

Well, we wish you best of luck. Thank you so much.

Hopefully you say your buildings were all right.

My personal buildings were all right. It's our beaches that are really taking the hit.

So hopefully we can get them up and running because you know, it's season time.

And so everybody wants to sit on a beach.

Everybody wants to sit on a beach.

And you know, the tourism is a big huge part of our livelihoods for everybody.

And so we just got to go back and assess the situation and get them back up and running.

No doubt about it.

You're going to be playing some tours, some shows here in the coming weeks.

We hope so.

The tomorrow night was an Apollo Beach. It got canceled.

So we have to go back and see what's going to be around.

We have the bike tober fest in Daytona, which is a huge, huge bike rally.

Usually about 300,000 bikers from all over the country.

We don't know if that's up and running.

So I'll have to go back and make some phone calls to see who's up and who's down.

We'd like to get you back here sometime.

We'd love to come up here. Great town.

Hey, and you know what?

If there's anybody listening to this that would like to book this band,

you can always reach out to us at soulcircuscowboys.com.

And we'll make it happen.

Yeah, we will.

Come play for your birthday party or whatever the case might be.

Wedding dance.

Yeah, we liked it.

Big bless is really cool.

Awesome.

Well, it's an honor to have you guys here.

And very good.

We do one more song.

Sure. We saw a lot of barns coming in.

Yeah.

This particular song when I was raising Brandon Florida, which is southeast of Tampa.

We were just cow pastures and orange groves.

So we'd have a flatbed trailer in the field in a keg of beer, a red solo cup,

and a live band that was our weekend.

And this is kind of how the song originated.

It's called party at the barn.

All right.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five.

We've got to come up to sundown.

We blow off steam if you know what I mean.

When the weekend comes around, we party at the barn.

Yeah.

Raise a little yah.

Line up the shot, sport what we got.

Bring out the last pause.

Done a build a bound fire.

Get a little hard where.

We ain't no clocks and they ain't no last call.

Party at the boy y'all.

Every beer and wine and homemade shine

steaks out on the grill.

Gars and bags and jacked up trucks

parked out in the field.

You can smell the smoke and hear the music

all the way to town.

The girls get down, the boys get loud.

But the law don't come around.

We party at the boy y'all.

Raise a little yah.

Line up the shot, sport what we got.

Bring out the last pause.

Done a build a bound fire.

Get a little hard where.

Walk to we drop.

Ain't no clocks and they ain't no last call.

Party at the boy y'all.

The moon gets high and so do I.

The blackbird sings the coyotes cry.

That southern wind whispers through the trees.

Party at the boy y'all.

Raise a little yah.

Line up the shot, sport what we got.

Raise a little yah.

Line up the shot, sport what we got.

Bring out the last pause.

Done a build a bound fire.

Get a little hard where.

Walk to we drop.

Ain't no clocks and they ain't no last call.

It's a party at the boy y'all.

Raise a little yah.

Come on and party at the boy y'all.

All y'all know it's a new come get you some love.

Yeah.

All right.

So circus cowboys.

I like that slight guitar over there.

Nice job.

Ron and Frank.

And Billy you bet.

So circus cowboys.

Good to see you guys.

Come back when it's warmer weather next time.