John Rich is Right about More than Just Country Music

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:11

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I came across this article published on July 11th in Breitbart by, well, it was an interview with John Rich, who is a country music songwriter.

00:29

I think he's gone solo. He was part of a band called Big and Rich. I'm not sure if they're still around or what they're doing, but he's been around Nashville for a little while and I've certainly heard of them.

00:38

And if you watch Fox News, I think he's got some special show or something on Fox News.

00:43

I know I've seen his face on there. But anyway, he did this interview and some of the comments that he made in this interview to me are just spot on.

00:54

And I thought this could easily apply to so many other things, including evangelical

00:59

Christianity. And he's talking about country music here. I want to read the article and then just as we're going through,

01:07

I'll give you some thoughts. But this is the root issue of why, it's like what

01:12

Edmund Burke said. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. That's what we have going on.

01:19

That's what's going on in just about every institution. Good men are not doing what they should be doing.

01:25

Good men who are in positions of authority to do something are not doing those things. I'm gonna give you some of my own personal stories about that, some of my own analysis about that in Christianity, in the

01:33

Southern Baptist Convention, especially, but we're gonna look at John Rich's words, which are applied to the industry of country music.

01:42

Because I honestly, most country music artists, I think are conservative. They lean that way at least.

01:48

I remember years ago when I used to watch their award shows and stuff, I haven't in a long time, they would thank God, they would many times even thank their

01:56

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And their themes in their songs tend to be, at least there was a time in the early 2000s,

02:03

I remember when I was listening, more so, and that 10 -year period. And even some since then, there's a lot of religious themes and so forth in music and very pro -family kind of themes.

02:15

I think since the bro country movement, some of you who know what that is, I think things have really changed. I think country music is losing that.

02:22

I think there's still some artists who, Riley Green being one of them, he signed to a major label, but he still seems to kick back against that, the liberalizing tendency that's going on.

02:34

There still are some conservative, if you will, or traditional themes in the music, but less and less so in mainstream radio.

02:42

And John Rich explains why that is. And like I said, this can be applied to the

02:47

Southern Baptist Convention. This is just spot on stuff. So I wanted to read this to you. We're just gonna read it, about a seven minute article.

02:54

So we'll read it and then I'll just give you some thoughts as we go through. Country music star, John Rich of Big &

03:00

Rich told Breitbart News this weekend that the very liberal majority of those in the country music industry have become emboldened in recent months to push woke leftist ideology publicly in the contravention of the views of the majority of country music audiences.

03:15

Now, doesn't that sound familiar? Those who are running the industry, the service or the entertainment service that they run are disconnected from the people they're supposedly trying to market to and serve.

03:30

So fans and artists are disconnected. So here's what he says. Rich said that the mere threat of cancellation keeps conservative leaning artists from speaking out, arguing it is actually a step deeper than cancel culture.

03:44

And this is what I wanted to focus on. A step deeper than cancel culture. It's not cancel culture that's the problem, it's the threat of cancel culture.

03:53

Not enough people are getting canceled right now, guys. You may think everyone's getting canceled, it's not enough.

03:59

If everyone just stood up and said, we don't care about getting canceled, there wouldn't be cancellation.

04:06

But people cower in fear. They cowered in fear during the cultural revolution in China, they cowered in fear during every takeover by an authoritarian regime, there's this fear.

04:19

And we're watching that, maybe in a softer way a little bit, but we're watching that. And now is the time to stand up and not care.

04:26

Hey, I'll get canceled, I'll get canceled, God will provide. That really is, I think, what we need to be doing. And I'm not saying to be stupid, plan out how you would want to fight this stuff, but you gotta fight it.

04:38

This is a different religion. I mean, we wouldn't, about any other false religion, if you're a Christian, you wouldn't be like, well,

04:43

I just don't, well, maybe you would, I don't know. Today some people would. But hopefully you wouldn't be like, well,

04:50

I just gotta stay silent. No, you can't stay silent when it's running the show. You have to speak out against the errors and speak for truth.

04:58

So anyway, John Rich says, ultimately, this is creating a divide between the country music industry and the country music audience.

05:05

The industry of country is, I would say, I can't give you a percentage, but let's just say that the majority is very liberal.

05:12

Rich said in an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius XM, the Patriot Channel. They've been that way for a long time.

05:19

It's interesting that the industry that puts out country music doesn't really align with a lot of the audience. A lot of folks that listen to country, and again,

05:25

I can't give you a percentage, but I can tell you a majority of the audience probably leans conservative. Though you've got this gulf, kind of, about their, between the two.

05:36

Over the years, the industry has never really come out strongly about their liberal edge than they've got until recently, maybe in the past six to 12 months.

05:45

They've started coming out more and more, and the problem you get is, if you've got artists that are conservative, but they're record labels, they're publicists, they're a manager, a lot of the radio stations are being overseen by liberals, and that is the problem.

05:58

I don't think it's the country music artists, some of them, but I don't think it's most of them. I think, mostly, it is what he just said.

06:05

It's those who are running the industry. I was on, not too long ago, I was on the

06:10

John Frederick's radio show talking about Virginia politics, and I noticed, even, some of the people working in the radio station, they were not conservatives.

06:22

The show is a conservative show, but the people that are actually doing, overseeing it, putting it out, that kind of stuff, they're not necessarily, and that's not necessarily wrong,

06:31

I'm just saying that's how it is. They've started coming out, let's see here. So they're afraid of not getting played.

06:40

A lot of my fans will ask, hey, John, why don't we see other country artists who we assume are probably conservative?

06:47

Why don't we see them speaking out? The answer is, they still want to get their records played, and they still want to be invited to the awards show, and get the big tours, and those kinds of things.

06:56

So is it cancel culture? No, because they're not even stepping forward to be canceled. So it's actually a step deeper than cancel.

07:04

It's the threat of cancellation that keeps them from saying anything in the first place.

07:09

So I think country music audiences now, any of them that are conservative, are starting to see things in the industry, and say, hold on a minute, that's not how

07:16

I thought it was, or what they thought about our country, or our culture. But now, they're seeing that is how they feel about it.

07:24

So it's really an interesting gap between who's promoting the music, and who's listening to the music at this point. This is exactly what's happening in the

07:31

SBC. It's exactly what's happening in evangelical Christianity. Exactly, you could just switch out a few words. John Rich is describing what's happening.

07:38

There's a gap between the seminary professors, and the churches that they're supposed to be serving, by helping educate their pastor.

07:47

There's a gap between the young pastors coming out of seminary, and their churches. There's a gap between the SBC, and the people sitting in the pews.

07:54

This is the problem, guys. And it's described here by John Rich, is it's the elite, and it's the population.

08:01

And they are not on the same wavelength. And those who are conservative, who are in those realms, and I'll give you a story.

08:09

Will not come out. I happen to know at Southeastern, a number of professors, and ex -professors, mostly ex -professors now, because a lot of they try to retire, if they're conservative, or they get switched to another school.

08:21

Who did not agree, who do not agree, with what's happening at Southeastern. I can give you names, and I won't.

08:27

They would not appreciate it, but I can give you multiple names of professors there. I've told the story many times about a professor that I had at Southeastern, who when

08:36

I brought up the concern I had about social justice on campus, he said, close the door. I agree. If I were to say what

08:42

I really thought, I'd lose my job. And this is someone who had been there a while. And there's a number of people like that, conservatives.

08:49

And people even reach out to me. I know a lot of these people. They won't come out and do it publicly.

08:54

You know why? There's probably a couple reasons. Sometimes conservatives have, they need to follow the rules, and that's part of staying in their lane, and doing nothing outside of what they think their duty is.

09:05

A lot of it though, and this is the real reason for the majority, it's because of fear. It's because they fear man.

09:14

They fear man. They do not want to come out and say these things. Because if they do, they will get fired.

09:21

They will lose not just their salary, they'll lose a lot more than that. They'll lose their retirement, perhaps depending on where they're at, they'll lose perks, education for their kids.

09:34

A lot of times if you're a professor, your kids can go and get an education for free, those kinds of things. This is happening all over the place.

09:41

People want, pastors want to be invited to the big conferences. They want the book deals from the big publishers. That's why they won't speak out, guys.

09:49

And there's, and I'm telling you, there's a good old boys club. There's a number of good old boys clubs.

09:55

And there are even conservatives on the other side, people that would agree with many of you who are listening about social justice, who are against it, who only feel that they can step out, risk their necks just a little bit, ever so slightly.

10:09

They can step out a little bit, as long as they know five or 10 other people are gonna have their back, and they can kind of have a soft place to land.

10:17

But if they don't have that soft place to land, they're not going to, they're not gonna risk it. That's the problem we have, guys.

10:22

We have conservative leaders, a lot of them, who are, who lack a spine, who don't trust

10:28

God, at least their level of trust isn't that high, and they fear man. And this is a real problem, and I'm longing for the

10:38

Russell Fullers, for the Tom Rushes, the people that say, you know what, truth is truth,

10:44

I don't care, I'm gonna please God. And that is one of the encouraging breaths of fresh air that Russell Fuller is to me, when

10:50

I've heard him talk about, I don't care what people think. People who care about the truth, they can see what

10:57

I've said, they can compare it to the facts that I've dropped out there. I don't care, though, ultimately what people think, it's

11:04

God that I want to please, and we need more of that. People who are playing for the court of heaven, not, playing to please

11:13

God, playing's not even the right word, they're living to please God, living for the court of heaven, they're not living for the, for what man thinks of them, or what groups of people think of them, or those kinds of things.

11:26

A lot of my fans, let's see here. Okay, so John Rich says, asked how conservatives such as him can beat this vocal leftist shift in the country music industry, the

11:37

Redneck Rivera, trademark owner, pointed to Aaron Lewis' recent patriotic anthem,

11:43

Am I the Only One?, as an example of the gap between the industry and audience. Despite skyrocketing on the charts and streaming platforms, the industry has completely ignored the song, which slams left -wing activists, including those who tore statues down during the

11:56

BLM riots in 2020. Listen, there's going to be people in the industry and outside it who say, oh, he's just making up that up, or that's hyperbole, or what he's saying, that's not really what it is, and the industry is not doing that,

12:11

Rich said. But let's take the song you just talked about, Aaron Lewis' song. Yes, it is at the top of streaming platforms and sales platforms.

12:18

Sales is the big one. I mean, when people vote with their wallets, that's the strongest vote you're ever going to get in any industry, especially in music.

12:27

They can stream it for free half the time, but if they actually go purchase it, well, that tells you something.

12:34

So he's out there topping all these charts, yet the country music industry won't back him up. Radio won't play him.

12:40

So what does that tell you? Does that tell you what I'm telling you right now about how the industry sits and where a lot of artists and audiences sit?

12:48

Sits are in two different places. Is that a correct statement? Yes, it is a correct statement. It's where it is right now.

12:54

So people are voting with their dollars and the industry is going, we're still not going to play it. So if you want to know why other country singers don't come out and say what they really think about things, at least conservative ones, it's because of the exact scenario you're watching out right now, playing out with Aaron Lewis' song.

13:13

And you can see this in the evangelical world too. Why are people like myself and others putting out this content that is naming names and people wanna hear it?

13:22

In the pews, they wanna research it, they wanna know. But there's no way

13:28

I would ever, ever, ever, ever, even conservative conferences would ever platform me. I'm just being real with you guys.

13:35

It's not gonna happen. It's going to be other people like me that would, and I'm not looking for that, so that's fine with me, but people who are interested in the platform, who really wanna climb the ladder and be thought of well and those kinds of things, sit in those chief seats.

13:51

Those kinds of people will not take the risk to do that, to name names, to say something that could get them potentially canceled.

13:59

They don't want that. They don't want any negativity. They're gonna keep talking about the Reformation, the

14:05

Puritans, whatever they can find to talk about that lets them avoid talking about the elephant in the room, the social justice movement and what it's doing.

14:14

And you know who I'm talking about. You know, cause we've talked about it on this podcast. You know who these people are.

14:20

People that you think, aren't you conservative? Aren't you, I thought you'd be against this. I thought you'd be stronger against this. I thought you'd be willing to name names.

14:26

Why aren't you doing it? Why? And the answer is right there, staring you in the face guys.

14:32

This is why on a mass scale, this is the kind of thing that's happening. Even those who are respectable, many of them, opposing the social justice stuff, were thought of as, you know, they're respectable people opposing it.

14:44

They're only gonna go so far. Same thing's happening in country music. And what's the way to get around it?

14:51

John Rich's answer, gotta go out on your own. Create your own platform, write your own song. And you know, at this point, streaming services are still carried, even if the radio doesn't.

15:01

And people can access it that way. They can download it from iTunes. At least still they can. So that's what you have to do.

15:08

When asked about what has changed in this last year, Rich said that the left has been bolstered because they've seen everyone from Donald Trump on down kicked off social media.

15:17

They see that the powers that be in the tech and the media are on the left, so they've got them on their side. So that emboldens them to step forward and go.

15:24

Well, there's really nothing anyone can do about it. So we're just going to step out there and just do it.

15:31

We'll just, we're going to make our purpose be the fact that this is going to play out like we want it to play out.

15:36

And it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks because we've got all the power on our side. And guess what Rich said, asked.

15:43

They do have all the power on their side. But conservatives, he continued, still have their voice.

15:49

And there was one primary reason they are not using it. There's only one word, fear.

15:56

They're afraid of it. They're afraid of what might happen to them if they push back or they speak up.

16:02

And that goes all the way from a multi -platinum artist down to just a regular guy or gal living in America that wants to keep their job or doesn't want to get kicked off a platform.

16:11

He said before explaining his thinking on the matter in the bigger picture.

16:18

What were the founding fathers worried about when they signed the Declaration of Independence? They were signing their death warrants when they signed the

16:24

Declaration of Independence. If Britain found those men, they were going to hang them.

16:29

They were going to burn their property, enslave their families, they would erase them. That's what they were up against. That's what they were risking to push back against the tyrannical force like England.

16:38

And they were willing to do it, Rich said. Give me liberty or give me death was not just some bumper sticker. It wasn't a hashtag.

16:44

It was an attitude it took to found this country. Yet in 2021, Rich continued, people do not say things over fear of getting kicked off of social media.

16:54

That's not the level of intensity that got the country founded in the first place, he said. Although he suggested people are starting to realize their freedom of speech is more valuable than someone else's opinion of them.

17:03

He added that the left has been smart and successful at becoming interwoven with all the different platforms interconnected in tech and media.

17:10

So if they want to corral you or a certain group, they can do it. We do not, he said. We don't have any bases covered at this point.

17:17

We're playing catch up. And now you're seeing the results of it. However, he said, he is seeing things starting to turn a corner for conservatives, citing the recent wave of parents getting involved in school board meetings as the left pursues radical agenda items such as critical race theory.

17:32

Everybody's got to stand up on their own two feet and not be afraid to express their opinions about what they see in the country, he added.

17:40

And that's the article. I want to read for you some Bible verses and recommend something that I think can help.

17:51

Let's see, where are my Bible verses? I thought I had them all pulled up here. Well, I'll just, I'll give you the resource and then

17:58

I'll just give you some passages that I think are helpful.

18:04

The resource is Christian Manhood Illustrated by Harry Reader. And I think there's two versions of this.

18:10

So I have the old version, which is just Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Joshua Chamberlain. And it's a six

18:16

CD set. It's an excellent set. Give it to the young man in your life, but listen to it yourself. You can go and get it on eBay still.

18:22

It's like 15 bucks on eBay, 39 for shipping, Christian Manhood Illustrated.

18:27

The new version is only like five CDs, I think. And he added

18:33

George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. I have not heard that one. I'm sure it's good.

18:39

But the one that I'm aware of that I thought was really great when I heard it and I own it is Christian Manhood Illustrated six CD set.

18:45

Dr. Harry Reader, I would recommend that. So as far as Bible verses, I was thinking of when

18:51

I was thinking of this podcast, reading through that article. In 2

18:57

Samuel, Joab says, be of good courage, let us play the men for our people and for the cities of our

19:03

God and the Lord do that which seemeth him good. In 2 Samuel chapter 10.

19:10

And I think of playing the men, playing the man, being a man, being someone of good courage.

19:19

I mean, this is what is associated with manhood in scripture. You even see this with Joshua and Caleb and the courage they had to go spy out the land, trust

19:30

God, go and conquer the land. That's what we're lacking today. That's what we need. We need the strength the apostles had.

19:37

We need the strength to go up and stand on the street corner and preach. If anyone gives me hope right now, it's the street preachers, the ones that are good.

19:45

Some of them aren't, but the ones who are fearless and not just fearless, but they're correct and they have the right heart.

19:50

They wanna help people. They want them to know the Lord. They're bold. And if they get arrested, they get arrested.

19:57

We need men that are bold and we need women that are bold, but we need men that are bold in their families, in their communities that, you know what?

20:05

If I get canceled, I get canceled. I go do something else. Lord will take care of me. Be bold.

20:11

And what does it say in 2 Samuel? Let us play the men for who? For our people and for the cities of our

20:16

God and the Lord do that which seemeth him good. Let the results be up to God.

20:24

Let him figure it out. He'll figure it out. And I know this is easier said than done, guys. I know it. I know it's very hard to stick out like a sore thumb.

20:30

I know it's very hard when you think, do my own friends think I'm a racist because I stood against this? I know it's very hard when you get canceled and it's embarrassing.

20:39

I know. Just ask Juan Riesco, but look at the joy he has. So I wanna impress that upon you.

20:47

Be bold, play the man. And not everyone has the same platform. Yeah, be smart about it. Don't be a jerk about it.

20:53

Just stand for truth like Martin Luther did at the Diet of Worms. Just stand for truth. In reformed evangelical

21:00

Christianity, the Puritans are talked about a lot. The reformers are talked about a lot, but the courage of the reformers is not with the current crop, guys, barely.

21:11

I don't see it. Talk about Martin Luther all the time. And meanwhile, you're kind of in your good old boys club that acts like a state church that suppresses those often who would actually be truly bold.

21:26

I've seen examples of this. We need that strength that came with the reformers. We need it again.

21:33

And why it's left us, there's a lot of explanations that I guess could be given, but there's no excuses that can be given.

21:40

The time is now. So stand up and make your voice heard. Don't go along. Complain when the diversity training comes along.

21:49

Cite your complaint. Let your boss know who you are. Be respectful about it. Use your platform, whatever it is, to promote the truth.

21:57

Doesn't mean that it's all you have to do 24 -7. We have lives. Train your kids, though. Be yourself,

22:03

I think, is the main thing I'm trying to say. Be who you actually are. Don't hide yourself. Don't hide your beliefs because you're afraid.

22:10

Stand up and play the man. So what's happening in country music is happening, and evangelicalism is happening all over the place, and it's the same problem, a lack of courage and fear guiding people.

22:23

I'm thankful for those who don't have fear. I'm thankful for those who are bold or willing to have the pleasure of God and forego the pleasure that comes from being liked by man.

22:37

So that's all I got for you. I hope that was helpful. I hope that was inspirational in some way because there are rewards for standing up.

22:44

Sometimes on this life, there can be a lot of pain associated with it, and I get it.

22:49

And look, I have the fears that you all experience. I get that. I understand.

22:55

I wanna be liked by a man. Who doesn't wanna be liked? But there's something more important, and that's what you gotta remember.

23:02

All right, well, I've said enough. I hope the rest of your day, whatever you're doing, is good and blessed, and more coming later this week.