- [Narrator] Welcome to Peach Jam.

Recorded live in our GPB studios in Midtown Atlanta featuring songs and stories from a sampling of the truly diverse and incredibly talented musicians who call the Peach State home.

(upbeat music) On this episode, we'll talk to the Augusta based band, who are the go-to openers when big names come to town.

♪ Smile when you call my name A group of self-proclaimed punk rock geezers from Atlanta.

♪ My cavities, my projections all my ego's filthy lies ♪ And a talented singer songwriter from Chatsworth who says he didn't even know that writing songs and singing them was a valid career option.

- I did a few open mics in Chattanooga and I guess that's all it takes is somebody saying, "Your songs are good."

- [Narrator] First up, Pony Bradshaw from Chatsworth a humble artist whose songs have been streamed more than 30 million times.

♪ I wiped away the tears like they was flies on the melon ♪ ♪ As she fell into my arms ♪ I was buying what she was selling ♪ ♪ The furrows deep and newly plowed ♪ ♪ There's mercy in the seed put down ♪ ♪ Washed in the blood of the things we kill ♪ ♪ Be it time, or man ♪ Or that big coal hill ♪ Go tend the youngins ♪ Go jack your jaw ♪ No sorrow here ♪ No not none at all ♪ Holler Rose - I'm Pony Bradshaw, I'm from Chatsworth, Georgia and I play Americana music.

- Now, you've told me backstage in off mic that it's hard to describe what kind of music you play.

Why is it so hard to describe it?

- Well, it's not because it's weird or avant garde, it's more because it's more than one genre probably.

Americana has become an umbrella term for country, rock, folk, things like that and we fall under that umbrella.

- And I've seen it listed as Southern Gothic.

Do you... Have you seen that?

Do you know what that is?

- Well, yeah I mean, I don't know if the term originated from Flannery O'Connor back in the day and Faulkner but yeah, it's just the grotesque, the seedier parts of Southern culture, maybe that's what they mean by that.

♪ You've got to be willing to play the long game ♪ ♪ You can't tuck tail and dive out of the frame ♪ ♪ Holler Rose ♪ The pious moonshiner ♪ Holler Rose ♪ The pious moonshiner I was just rambling basically my whole life.

I was in the military at a young age, lived in Colorado, lived on couches everywhere.

I didn't really have any focus.

I mean, I think I learned a few chords on a guitar in my mid twenties, late twenties, but I never really had any interest of doing anything with it.

I don't think I knew that you could make a career out of writing a song and singing it, you know?

Other than it was a big fame, those types of people that the working class kind of career as a musician I didn't know existed.

And I did a few open mics in Chattanooga and I guess that's all it takes is somebody saying, "Your songs are good."

And it just pushes you further and further into that world.

I think the first or second time I did it, I won it.

So I think that kind of was some validation that I might be doing something I'm good at finally.

- I'm fascinated by that.

I'm fascinated at later in your life, you're an adult, and then you learn that you're not just a songwriter but you're a good songwriter, and you're able to win a contest, and you're able to to turn it into a career.

Do you think about it like that?

Is it two different parts of your life?

- Yeah, that's a good question.

It's all kind of strange to me still, it doesn't...

I never would've thought 10 years ago I'd be doing this right here, touring, making records.

It's all very strange, I can't really understand it but I'm very happy that I'm here.

I feel like I've found a purpose finally.

♪ Far Appalachia 'cross to St. Simons Sound ♪ ♪ Jean Rousseau, I hope we've done you proud ♪ ♪ Catfish skin white and lacquered thin ♪ ♪ Come down from the hills with your shirt tucked in ♪ ♪ Quick, find the Sawtoothed Jericho ♪ ♪ She's moonshine drunk hanging all over me ♪ ♪ These rituals ♪ Them dark spells ♪ Come on cast 'em mama ♪ Ain't no shaman but I'll wade through the slough ♪ ♪ And the scruff ♪ Cause going to water ain't enough ♪ - What did you do beforehand?

What kind of jobs did you have?

- Well, my first job ever, I was a cop in the Air Force.

- Wow, really?

- Yeah, that didn't work out too well.

I was booted after two and a half years, I think.

I just wasn't ready for folks to holler at me all the time.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- I don't think I'm ready for that now either but I never really had a great job, I was bumming a lot, I mean, it's the truth, it's not an admirable time of my life.

But my first real job after the military was in Chatsworth, though.

I worked as a financial analyst at flooring manufacturer for about eight years.

And then my last job I was a newspaper writer, sports writer for our local paper, and that was about five years ago last time I had a straight job.

- That's incredible.

- [Pony] Yeah.

- So you were able to flex that muscle that writing muscle, I guess.

- Yeah, I flexed it too much at work.

I would get in trouble for my Microsoft Word pulled up writing all day instead of doing my job.

- You were writing songs- - Oh yeah, yeah.

- While you were supposed to be writing?

- Somehow they would monitor our screens and I would get written up every now and then for not doing what I was supposed to be doing.

(Interviewer laughs) Half of the songs on my first record, Sudden Opera, Bad Teeth, and those songs I wrote 'em at my desk there.

- When you're writing songs like some of the ones you played today, you mentioned Ellijay and Raven County and St. Simon's, and so you have a connection with the state, it feels like.

- I love St. Simon's Island.

I mean, that's probably why I mentioned that's one place one beach town that I dig.

Savannah's great too but in Raven County, I live in Northwest, that's more northeast, but it's... Oh man, it's beautiful.

It's just...

It's a unique and kind of mystical region.

(emotional southern acoustic guitar) ♪ Drawing life from the roots ♪ Of the cemetery trees (acoustic Americana music) ♪ Oh (acoustic Americana music) - [Narrator] Coming up, we'll talk to Whiskey Run and find out why they only play within a three hour radius of Augusta.

But first punk rock from Atlanta New Junk City is next on "Peach Jam".

(southern rock music) - If you like watching "The Fork in the Road" on TV, we also have a new podcast coming out.

We take a little more of a deep dive into all the farmers, chefs, and artisans that are involved in bringing all these great Georgia products into your home.

It's a can't miss.

(rock and roll music) (upbeat punk music) (intricately upbeat punk music) ♪ I will no longer be ♪ A sad sack 30-something ♪ Who's still stuck leaning on all the self-hate ♪ ♪ I found when I was 21 ♪ Back then, I thought all I deserved or would become was ♪ ♪ Gutter drunk ora lonely, un-loveable screw up ♪ - Hey, I'm Dakota.

- I'm Jeff.

- I'm Mason.

- I'm John, anew junk city and we're a punk band from here in Atlanta.

- Does punk have too many sub-genres?

And so you just call it punk or are you just punk because it's really difficult to Google what punk music is.

- Yeah, I think it's just kind of a catchall term.

I think a lot of times I'll just kind of use it interchangeably with we're a DIY band, I think says a little bit more about how we operate and less about what kind of music we play.

Rock and roll seems a little too generic, I think punk like kind of gets at it.

I'll say we're a pop-punk band sometimes but I think that evokes more like Sum 41 and Blink 182 and a little...

I dunno, a little more immaturity, like silly bathroom humor and I dunno.

- I love that the other guys are just nodding their head.

- We're mic-ed up, I'm not trying to interrupt and mess with the sound guys.

- Please, interrupt me.

- I'm not rude.

Yeah, I mean you were drowning there.

(everyone laughs) But no, I do think there are so many subsets and so many sub genres and occasionally you'll get somebody that's like, "That's not punk, that's emo wave."

Just go down the rabbit hole of genres.

So I think it is easy to say we're a punk band, we're pop punk band, we're a DIY band.

I feel like anyone that's asked me that question is probably not someone that's gonna listen to the band anyway.

People at the at the bar I work at come in and, "Oh you play music?

What kind of music do you play?"

And I'm like, "Let's not play this game."

(band laughs) ♪ So, where does it leave me?

♪ Stuck in reverse with the gas tank empty.

♪ ♪ There it goes again, that woe is me ♪ ♪ That my lack of agency ♪ I put a limit on this ♪ Call it a past life and move on from it ♪ ♪ Open the drawer ♪ Just burn the pages ♪ I don't need them anymore ♪ The contrast's high enough to see ♪ ♪ All the lies being sold to me ♪ ♪ I've got everything I need ♪ I've got a life I finally love ♪ ♪ And I can start to believe ♪ I've got everything I need ♪ I've got a life I finally want ♪ ♪ And I can start to believe (upbeat punk music) - And at this age, it's like, I don't have a lot of hobbies.

We are in our late thirties and we all have wives, and houses, and the daily upkeep and going to work and this is the thing I get to do with my free time.

I'm not gonna waste time being around people that I don't want to be around and I think a lot of people feel that way.

If you're lucky enough to still be doing it then yeah, you wanna surround yourself with people you love.

- So how do you balance that with wives and kids, and dogs, and you have all of these things in your life, plus your job?

- We skip practice a lot.

- Is that it?

Okay, okay.

(everyone laughs) - We don't tour much.

- Yeah?

- I think last year we played 10 shows total.

A couple of them were out of town.

But that's, I think how we've never really burned it out.

We've been a band for a long time but we're still a baby band in a lot of ways.

- When you do go out on shows, so if you Google your name and you go out and you play, you'll find there's these write-ups, and there's these people who want to evoke all these large words trying to describe you and how you have lists- - Chrysanthemum.

- Yes, exactly.

(everyone laughs) Yes, plethora.

And there was one I read it was, "Whisk of nostalgia."

And I don't even quite...

I dunno what that means.

(everyone laughing) - I don't either.

(everyone laughing) - So you just come off as as four dudes who really have a good time and I don't know, some people maybe wanna look too much into it when it just seems like this is what you enjoy.

Some people bowl, some people fish, y'all play punk.

- Well, I do think there is something with any art whether it's music or a painting or whatever it may be, that once it's out in the world part of it isn't yours anymore and how people interpret it and comprehend it, and grapple with it is up to them.

So I do think that, yeah, there's probably influences we get compared sometimes to the Gin Blossoms, which loved that band as a kid so I'm sure there's elements of that.

That's that wisp, what was it, wisp?

- It was a whisk of- - A whisk.

- A whisk yeah, like a kitchen whisk.

A whisk of nostalgia.

- That's the caliber of writers writing about us doesn't know the difference in a wisp and a whisk.

- I think that's cool though that he got that out of it, whatever that meant to him.

Yeah, he got something out of it no matter what it was.

- Well the fact that anybody's writing anything that isn't like incredibly mean.

- Yeah, someone...

The fact that anybody cares, even one person, two people, blows my mind.

♪ I can't believe my ears ♪ All that I can hear are my own complaints ♪ ♪ But I swore it off this year ♪ And I've taken every chance to double down on it ♪ (energetic punk music) ♪ I show the worst parts of me ♪ My chipping teeth, my cavities ♪ ♪ My projections, all my ego's filthy lies ♪ ♪ I don't know when to stay out of it ♪ ♪ To let it go, to learn to sit ♪ ♪ And feel more than this emptiness ♪ - Where did you go in Europe?

- So that particular tour we were in... Let's see, we were in Belgium for a little bit.

We were in Germany and... - The Netherlands.

- We slept in the Netherlands but we did not play there.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- That show was in, that show was in Belgium.

- Music (indistinct) was where it was.

- Yeah.

- Music (indistinct).

But no, we went to a few countries, we're hoping to go back.

We've got some plans in the works to hopefully make that happen again soon.

We put out a record last year and have had some people hollering at us on social media... - "Hey, hey!"

- Asking us to come back over so we're trying to make plans to do that but that was honestly one of the most humbling and gratifying experiences as a band.

Like Jeff said, it's awesome when one person cares about your music but to go to another country we had this one moment that I will probably never forget as long as I live, where we're sitting outside of this venue in Aachen, Germany I don't... Where's Aachen?

I don't know, point to a map.

I don't have no idea.

And we're sitting there and this guy comes up and he goes- - I had just sat in dog poop.

- He had just sat in dog poop.

And this guy says, "Ah yeah, are you New Junk City?"

And we're like, "Yeah."

And John's like, wiping dog poop off his pants.

He goes, "I've made your playlist for tonight.'

And it was a list of songs that he wanted to hear from the dude from Germany where he actually came from a different country.

- He came from the Netherlands.

- Came from the Netherlands- - To the show in Germany.

- To the show, gave us this piece of paper and we were just like, "What is happening?

This what so cool."

- It was like, "We don't know half these songs."

- And we went and practiced half of the songs and then when we finished he said "You sound better on the record."

(everyone laughs) But it was good.

(nostalgic punk music) ♪ I'd ask you what's wrong ♪ I think I know enough ♪ You're killing yourself just trying to keep up ♪ ♪ So if this is right where I'm supposed to be ♪ ♪ Why does it look so empty (punk rock music outro) - [Narrator] And now shining a light on the music scene in Augusta, Whiskey Run.

(relaxed Americana country music) ♪ I've loved, lost, and let you go ♪ ♪ Singin' Petty and the Rollin' Stones ♪ ♪ You stare out the window ♪ My chest gets tight ♪ The worst things happen on Monday night ♪ ♪ Keep sayin' I'm smokin' too much ♪ ♪ Stayin' up till dawn ♪ Running down a dream a man is gone ♪ ♪ Leaving too fast ♪ Getting in my way ♪ Should've saved it up till I'm out your way ♪ ♪ Oh girl never gonna let you go ♪ ♪ Maybe I roam ♪ Maybe I mess things up again ♪ I wish I could save my heart for you ♪ ♪ Save my for you - I'm Jayson Sabo with Whiskey Run, I play lead guitar and vocals.

- I'm Jamie Jones, I'm the drummer with Whiskey Run.

- And I'm Dave Furman, I play rhythm guitar and lead singer, and we are a Whiskey Run.

- Whiskey Run.

- And what kind of music do you play?

- I'd say it's a kind of a combination of a lot of influences from Georgia and just our musical taste in general.

But I would think that we're more kind of an Americana pop.

We sound country because we're from Georgia.

- [Jayson] Twang.

- But we're a country Matchbox 20, I'd say.

- So you're from Augusta, tell me about the music scene in Augusta.

- It's great.

The music scene in Augusta is just unbelievable.

I mean, you can go out any night during the week and see a jazz band, an awesome jazz band, blues, rock, metal, country, alternative, whatever you wanna call it, punk even.

There's been some fantastic bands that have born and raised in Augusta like us that have just branched out and done very well.

But the music scene in Augusta really is something else.

♪ Looking back over all these years ♪ ♪ Smiles and laughs ♪ The fights and the tears ♪ You can't ever smile when you call my name ♪ ♪ Sweet as the wind through the Georgia pines ♪ ♪ And makin' good time down 25 ♪ Hold me up so I won't (indistinct) to pray ♪ ♪ It's more than a feeling baby ♪ ♪ Oh we can sit here waiting ♪ So give me a shot of Fireball Whiskey ♪ ♪ Hold my hand so you ain't gonna miss it ♪ ♪ Girl I love you just the way you ♪ ♪ The radios up ♪ Toes on the dash ♪ You're looking at me ♪ My hearts beating fast ♪ Girl I love you just the way you are ♪ ♪ Just the way you are - And then when these national touring acts come through town, you guys in Augusta seem to be the go-to local band that's the opener.

Tell me some of the people you've opened for.

- Let's see, Dwight Yoko - Shenandoah.

- Shenandoah.

- Darius Rucker, Charles Kelley.

Kelley from Lady A, just to name a few.

- Yeah, we open for Jason Aldean, Keith Urban.

Yeah we've been...

It's really cool when we get asked to do it 'cause of course we're super excited.

We get to play our music, in front of these great crowds and it's awesome.

- You don't necessarily tour.

You go around but you don't necessarily tour.

So tell me about your philosophy behind that, all that.

- The beautiful things about where Augusta is located geographically is that there are a lot of major markets around us.

So we decided to kind of draw a two and a half, three hour circle around Augusta and that's...

I mean, that's Macon, Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, Charlotte, a bunch of cities, those are huge markets.

We just have a rule that we don't play any places that we can't hit every eight weeks, eight to 10 weeks.

♪ More feeling baby ♪ Oh, we can see waiting ♪ So gimme a shot of Fireball Whiskey ♪ ♪ Hold my hand ♪ And sing into the mystic ♪ Girl, I love you just the way you are ♪ ♪ The radio's up ♪ Toes on the dash ♪ You're looking at me ♪ My heart's been fast ♪ Girl I love you just the way you are ♪ ♪ Just the way you are ♪ Just the way you are - So you're a working band that has regular day jobs.

What do y'all do?

- Yeah - I'm a private investigator- - Which I think is so cool - By day.

- Seriously, that's cool.

- I'm a private investigator by day and get to play lead guitar with these guys, on the weekends and special dates, and festivals and stuff.

So it's... - They could do a TV show about that.

- Absolutely.

- Guitar player, rock and roll private investigator, I love that.

- We've been coming home from a gig one night, four o'clock in the morning.

I'm like, "Hey guys, let's get off this exit somewhere in South Carolina."

And they're like, "What's going on?"

But they all know now, they all know now.

Yeah, I was like, "Just wait here."

I jump out and they'll see me roll, hide behind some bushes, jump under a car, pull my GPS tracker off, and hit the road again.

And they're like "what?"

- We could talk for so long about that, that's awesome.

Let's write that down, make a podcast about that.

- Sure, yeah, we'll do it, we'll do it.

- And then what do you do Dave?

- I'm a therapist at the VA and I also have a private practice where I screen sperm donors.

- Okay.

- [Dave] Yeah.

- Alright, we're gonna leave that one alone.

(everyone chuckling) - Yeah, I don't do that.

- I've never screened, Jamie.

- Right - Right, right, well, I'm...

But anyway, I'm a paint contractor, yeah.

- So you all have jobs and then you get to play in a rock and roll band, a country rock band or Americana pop band, whatever you want to call it.

And you sleep in your own beds every night.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, it's awesome.

♪ I feel a fire ♪ Burning in my soul ♪ I feel the coming my heart ♪ Pushing through these old bones ♪ ♪ You electrify me baby ♪ Make all my dreams come true ♪ It's not the feel or your skin ♪ ♪ Or way that your hair falls ♪ It's not the way you treat me baby ♪ ♪ Or the moments in between ♪ The passion and union ♪ That always keep you safe and ♪ - [Narrator] Do you wanna hear more songs and stories?

Check out our podcast at gpb.org/peachjam.

♪ Oh what you mean to me ♪ The sunrise over the ocean ♪ The wind beneath my winds ♪ Oh, what you give to me ♪ Life and love and happiness ♪ And everything in between ♪ Oh that's what you mean to me ♪ - [Narrator] Thanks for watching Peach Jam.

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