Chip Herring, Musician, Comedian, Best Man

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Like grits, sweet teas, and family reunions or dating opportunities. I'm just kidding.

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Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I am your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading, following, liking, all the fun stuff on social media and of course wherever you are listening to the podcast. I totally appreciate that. And also for everyone that has bought me a coffee at ChewingtheFatBR.com. Thank you so much. It really means a lot.

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This month very special. This is the musical month of December and I am starting it off with a great old friend of mine. Not that he's old, but I've known him for freaking ever. Please welcome Chip Herring. And I am old. I am old. I feel old, but I'm young at heart. Well, I am old, so I mean.

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You were older than me when I met you, so, but not by much. Still older than you. Yeah. So Chip actually was the best man at my wedding. Well, in title, in title. I met Chip back when I was in high school at Richmond Academy. There was a little group that would come to the school called Young Life. They were a campus outreach group and Chip was one of the leaders there. And

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invited me to come to these cool little meetings, you know, or, you know, once a week after school and I don't know. We just we just kind of clicked. I was the I was the outcast kid. I didn't have You know a whole lot of friends in high school because I was the nerd. I was the fat kid and You were the creative kid. Well

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I mean, yeah, but that was also I'm thinking back to two old geezers at Augusta. Then at that time, Augusta College, where they're filming that video. And what a piece of gold that was. Now we are two old geezers. You know, we can recreate that without any makeup. Or chocolate. But yeah, and.

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I don't know, it was one of those things that, sometimes you don't know what you need in your life until you find it. And Young Life, Chip, your friendship was one of those things and it just made such a huge impact on me at a time that it was rough for everybody. High school's just rough. So let me, if I've not told you, thank you. Thank you for being you. Back at you though, cause I mean, I think that's why I was drawn to you cause in high school, what made you this loner or whatever was you were you.

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when everybody in high school, they're trying to be something they're not. And so it was easy to be drawn to you. Well, I appreciate that. Chip, we talk about young life, that's where we met, and we can talk about more of that kind of, you know, what drew you to young life. Right. But what are you up to right now? It's been years since then. Gosh. It's been oodles, oodles of years. It's been.

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That's more than oodles. That's like insane oodle. That's oodle plus Max, you know, that's true though. It has been 30 years. Yeah. Yeah dude, I I've had an amazing life I'm all about the adventure and Young life was definitely a fun adventure that I got to be a part of got to know some amazing people I still I'm a fan

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of the Ministry of Young Life. But my time had come and it had gone. And it, you know, whether it's playing professional volleyball, beach volleyball, because I'm 5'9", why wouldn't I? Other than the fact that people suggested that, yeah, you probably won't make it. And I will say I've lost to the very best volleyball players that are literally in the Hall of Fame now.

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They have all beat me and beat me well. But I was a quarterfinal specialist. So I was in it long enough to get sponsored and support me in that. And then at 28, blow my knee out. You know, stupid. And that was the end of it for me. And then I thought, well, let me try comedy. And comedy was kind of a natural fit for me. I enjoyed that a lot.

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You get weary of being on the road a lot, especially as a comedian, because you're by yourself a lot of the times. And you'll pair up with people here and there, but for the most part, you're by yourself. And I'm not a by myself kind of guy. But I love adventure. And I love, I think since I was young, I knew life was, I don't think I thought life was going to be short. I think I was a typical teenager thinking I was going to live forever. But I always loved, I was easy. When people go, dude, you want to go climb that water tower.

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All right, let's do it. Let's do that. And which is funny now because I'm terrified of heights now. As I've gotten older, maybe because I'm wiser and I know that, well, shit, something's going wrong. You know, I don't want to bounce off the earth. Right. These bones are a little bit more brittle now. Yes, very, very much brittle. Though I am carrying a little more padding. Yeah. It balance out. Right, right, right. But yeah, where I'm at now.

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I just got finished for 10 years. I coached volleyball at the University of South Carolina at Aiken, division two school, great kids. I didn't want to do it. The guy that was the head coach, he had reached out to me when he first moved to Aiken. This is like, I think he moved there about 11 years ago. After his first year, he found out that I lived in Aiken, South Carolina.

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And he reached out to me and said, hey, why don't you come be my assistant coach? To which I said, I've never wanted to be a coach in my life. I don't know anything about indoor volleyball. I'm a dirt dauber. I'm a beach player. That's six people's too many on the court, in my humble opinion. And I'm gonna hurt your players' feelings. A lot when they tell me I couldn't get to it, I'm going, you only had to cover three square feet. When I played, we had to cover 15.

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square feet. Well, it wouldn't be square on a volleyball court, but rectangular feet, I guess. So it was, it was interesting because Glenn, the head coach at USC Aiken is that guy that doesn't take no for an answer. And after about third or fourth effort at getting me, I finally said, fine, I'll come and I'll help a little bit.

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because he had inherited a pretty toxic locker room. And my experience working with young people, he thought that would be something I could help with. And I will say, I don't think I helped a whole lot with that side of it. I think attrition, the more toxic players were seniors that year. So I kind of get credit when I probably shouldn't get credit. And it's funny, because one of them, who was one of the most toxic.

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people is now a very dear friend of mine. You know, she's grown up and matured and she's since apologized to me. She resented me a lot because, you know, here I am. There's a lot of reasons, but I didn't Glenn's six foot five. He's a few years younger than me, but he's, he's old. And, and, but you're six, five, you could put on weight. You at least look like you once played this sport. Right. I'm five nine.

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that hasn't changed. That didn't get any taller. I might even be losing a little bit due to age, as my back starts to bend over and creak. And it's been an amazing 10 years, but then the bug doing music. I really wanna do music and volleyball, it was a big commitment and I was glad to have it. I learned that it's more than just volleyball.

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That was a fun ride. And I'm thankful, I'm forever thankful to Glen Cox for not taking no for an answer because I have so many, if I ever go back on the road and do comedy again, I have so much material that's just waiting. It's just waiting. I mean, I can share this now. About three years ago, our girls, obviously they're all women. And we had Glen myself and we've had a number of other assistant coaches. But,

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We used to go in before a match, you know, whether we're at Flagler College down in St. Augustine, Florida or wherever. And we'd get together about five minutes before we'd go out on the court and go through our run throughs and get warmed up for a match. And we'd sit down, it would be the scouting report. We'd tell them, hey, this player has a tendency to do this or whatever. And before we got to do our part, and about three years ago, there was three male coaches, Glenn Cox.

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Chip Herring, Jim Jizarkowski. And we would sit there while they would listen to their hype song. And their hype song was the most God awful song ever written, I believe. It's a perspective, so I don't wanna upset anybody, but to me, this is, and I didn't understand how a locker room with 16, 17 ladies

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are celebrating. They're not just celebrating the song. They're using the song to get them fired up, their lip singing to it. And Avery Macklin, who's such a cool kid from Chicago, and her dad's a jazz musician, so she's got great taste in music because it aligns with mine, so great taste. But Avery would play the air keyboard with her fingers. But it was a song titled,

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slob on my knob. And so Glenn and myself and Jim would just be sitting there mortified that we're having to hear this song. And I remember we were playing it at Wingate up in North Carolina.

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And their locker, the locker room that we had was right on the main, um, four year way. And I know they heard it because as we were walking to the locker room, we'd always not because everybody was decent. And, um,

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They'd be like, yeah, come on in. That song was already blaring. They'd be about three quarters through it by the time we got in there. And we'd have to hear the last part of it. And it was just so, and I mean, we had girls who had very strong convictions in their faith, Christian faith or whatever. And I would look and they'd be mouthing the words. I'm going, oh my gosh, I can't believe y'all. And I even asked them, I was like, y'all realize this is a song that really demeans the value of women. And they're like,

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It's got a great beat. And I was just like, it doesn't even have a great beat in my opinion, but. So I did that. And then, and now this year I decided I want to do more music and I've really enjoyed, Augusta Aiken has great music, history of music, James Brown.

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I go down this long list. I mean, it's just, I mean, one of my favorite drummers of all time. And I've always wanted to be a drummer. I went out and bought a drum set. I did not become the drummer I thought I could be. But, you know, Neil Peart, you know, some of these drummers that I could look up to.

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But one of my favorite all time drummers was a local guy named Dave LaRue. And Dave LaRue played in a band with my stepdad, Bush Giusto, a group called Snafu. And they had Steve Mitchell on lead guitar, who's an amazing guitarist. It's phenomenal. Yes. And they had a guy named Joe Anderson, call him Killer Joe Anderson. And Killer Joe Anderson could just thump the bass. And if I remember correctly, he played bass with James Brown at one time. I may be wrong on that. But I.

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My memory says he did. And then you had Dave LaRue on drums. Of course, my dad, Butch, he played the keys and he was the singer. And they would just practice down there. This is when we lived at Sacred Heart Church. And down in the basement, down in the basement was their rehearsal room. So the only time I'd go down there at night.

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in the basement if they were rehearsing. And I would go and sit on this really nasty couch, but your kid, you don't care. And I would just, I probably creeped Dave LeRoux out the way I just stared at him, because he was so masterful. And he just played a small little four piece trap kit, but he made it sound like Neil Peart rocking out YYZ or Tom Sawyer or something. I mean, he's just, he got so many sounds out of one drum, out of any one drum. And I would just be mesmerized by him.

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And as I understand it, Dave LaRouf still can rock it out. I mean, I don't think he's playing live anymore, but oh man, it'd be so cool if sometime I look up with him and say, come on man, come sit down with me and let's rock. That's awesome. Because I think he'd probably be too technical for me though because I'm not a technical musician. I'm just a, hey, play it, it feels good.

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Now you talk about your dad being a big musical influence on you as well. Yeah. Um, you guys were from Augusta raised here, uh, moved to town or moved here from Colorado in 1980, which is why I've developed such a nice Southern accent. I like grits, sweet teas and family reunions or dating opportunities.

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But I do love sweet tea way more than I should. I like grits very, very much. And I would try to get my Southern draw for anything. Although when I would travel, if I'm up North or something, I noticed that I tend to enunciate a little bit more. It's weird. I don't drag my words out quite as much, but I do recall going out to California one time, doing a comedy and I stopped in at McDonald's and I ordered.

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You know, I don't get number one value meal with a large Dr. Pepper. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Number one value meal, large Dr. Pepper. Hold on a second. And the person behind the counter would go get other people go, y'all got to hear this or you guys got to hear this and they would come over and I'd be like, um, I just want a number one value meal.

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It's all about which you know moments like that. All of a sudden he got super thick like I was from the hills of Tennessee or something So I don't know it's But yeah, so to answer your question And that's why we lived at Sagerhart. I mean my stepdad who's five years younger than my mom go mom He was 25 when he married my mom she was 30 and I was like

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and somewhere around that. And it was fun. I mean, my biological father is one of my heroes, but he wasn't, you know, my mom left him when I was three years old, right after my brother Scott was born. And because my daddy had alcohol issues and there's a really sweet picture that I still have, it's black and white, I'm not afraid to say that. Where my mom, my mom's still wearing a hospital band on her wrist.

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And my brother Scott came home for the first time and there's a picture of me laying up against my mom, just staring adoringly. I mean, she says it wasn't posed, but I'm going, mom, that looks posed. And she goes, it wasn't. And I was like, but I was enamored by my new baby brother. Now that I know I'm going to, I was stupid. Yeah, we do. Scott, Scott is one of the funniest people on the planet. Legit funny. And I've been around like world-class comedians. And.

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nobody has made me laugh as much as my brother Scott or my uncle Chris. So there's a picture though, where I'm staring at my little baby brother, my mama's arms, and you don't notice it until you do. There's a small hole in the headboard, and this is back in 1970. I mean, furniture was made for real wood. And later my mom shared with me that my daddy was

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inebriated, elevated, whatever you want to say, drunk, and threw a hairbrush at my mom and it punctured a hole through the headboard. Wow. And I was just like, whoa, that makes sense. Why, my mom, she didn't want us growing up with that. And my daddy's one of the most generous, sweet-hearted men on the planet, but his demons, man, they really rocked this world. And my mom broke his heart and he kind of...

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was broken hearted, but he was also an amazing musician. He was a bluegrass bass player. Um, could play the, the mandolin, the guitar, his favorite song to sing to us. Like, you know, now that I've gotten older and I know the more, the, the, at least I believe it's the real meaning of it puff the magic dragon. Yeah. Um, but

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And he was always a hero of mine. You know, my daddy, um, my dad, he ended up committing suicide when I was 18 years old and, um, he was living down in Savannah and we had not seen him for two years. I wrote a song about it called that's that. Um, and it was, it was an interesting song because I remember my brother and I, his funeral, neither one of us cried.

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And we both loved our daddy. Like he was a hero to us in so many ways. And he the one that was crying. And we talked about it about a year later. And we were both kind of angry that we didn't cry. Like, why, how do you not cry at your own father's funeral? And I look back on it now. I think I just kind of suppressed it without realizing I had done that. And literally about 10 years ago,

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I have a studio behind my house and I went out the studio and I had an intention of writing a song that ended up being called a carnival's folly and it was based on a recurring dream I used to have when I was younger. I knew that's what I wanted to write. I sat down with my guitar and I just started fiddling around with it. That's how I write songs. I just kind of fiddle around with my guitar until I find something that kind of moves me. Then I developed that and then...

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Oftentimes I go back and put lyrics this song wrote itself literally within 10 minutes Oh, and I sobbed I've been talking about slobber knock sob like snot bubbles tears And it was all that built up Suppression came out in 10 minutes. It was the best cry I've ever had Because then I could I felt like I could say I do miss you daddy. Yeah

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It was interesting because addiction was definitely a struggle for him that saw and suicide. I mean That's what ended him and none of those words are mentioned in that song But I tend to get wax poetic when I write lyrics, I don't know where that comes from yeah I mean, you know that that's You know everybody deals with stuff kind of differently and that's yeah, you know and sometimes you know metaphors are

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more palatable than just straightforward. You know what I mean? And sometimes it sounds like you have a very musical soul, so you were using lyrics musically to speak to your own soul. Well, the irony of that is you're not wrong. Like music is a huge, to me, life is about rhythm. When everything's in rhythm, it's an amazing ride.

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something gets out of rhythm it's like oh my gosh what is this? I think for me when I was younger you know my mom married my stepdad when I was 10 years old. He's an amazing musician. He got his master's degree at the University of Colorado in music. He also got a master's in English and phenomenal keyboard player. He's written

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orchestras, he's, I mean, he's written it all. Jazz, I think jazz is his passion. And when I was a kid, I remember sitting down with him at a piano and he trying to teach me songs. And there's two things he taught me, and I still to this day remember how to play those on the keyboard, that's all I can play. I can't even play chopsticks. I never even learned chopsticks, but I can play, I don't know what the name of the song is, but if I had a keyboard, I could play it for you right now.

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And then the theme song from or not the theme song but the communication from the aliens to the humans in The third Close encounter. Yeah, I Can play that I can play it like a boss But I rebelled I wanted to I just want to go outside and play football with my friends Okay, and so I went athletic and that that got me through college and then

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I rocked the athletics till it rocked me and picked up the guitar when my daddy committed suicide. He left me some guitars. And so at 18, I started learning some chords. And by the time I met you, Tim Mitchell taught me tons. You know, you remember all the Young Life songs. I mean, they were classic tunes from the 60s and the 70s. And

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and I learned how to pound chords. And to this day, that's all I'm really good at. I can pick some stuff, but it's not technically sound, but you'd be like, oh, that sounds like James Taylor. Somebody that really knows better be like, eh, that is, but that's not it. Well, I mean, but you know, but that's the thing is that's, I picked up the guitar because of you. Wow, that's cool. Because of, you know, hey, won't you help us lead this, you know, this group that's gonna be over at this place, or we're gonna be over at this place, why don't you help?

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do some program or lead. So I picked up the guitar and learned again to pound chords because you know, that little, I still remember that little pink young life. Yes, with the chords on the back page. The chords on the back page. Yeah, that's how I learned my chords. Yeah, and it was only like a dozen chords. There was nothing technically difficult about it. All I need is five or six and I can write you a masterpiece. Right, it's probably only three, to tell you the truth. But yeah. Fair, fair. But yeah, I mean, I remember that and it's like.

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You know, it's amazing how transformative, you know, music can be in a situation. I had heard this quote earlier or read it, and I apologize now because I'm gonna murder the gentleman's name, they said it, but his, I'm gonna say it French because I feel like it's French. Jean-Michel Basquets. Sounds legit. I mean, her Jean Michael biscuit.

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You know, but his quote is, it's, it's, if he's from Louisiana, it could be either or. But it's so profound. And it re I mean, it's one of those quotes that I read. And it just kind of like stopped me for a second. He said, art is how we decorate space. Music is how we decorate time. I like that. And it's, I mean, that's it's true because

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the time that you spend listening to a song or performing a song, you are just decorating that time. Well, if you're, I don't know, I think there are times when I feel like people think I'm littering, but. But no, I totally like that because music is always resonating with me. I remember very early. I mean, I remember as far back as when I was three years old. I'm 54 now. And I remember back at three, you know, my mom listened to Jefferson Airplane.

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before they became Starship. I remember Simon and Garfunkel. I think because of them, I have this crazy love for harmonies. And so when I write songs, I hear harmony. Now I can't sing harmonies to save my life. I do music with an amazing guy named Danny New. Before COVID, he still hasn't come out of his house. He's an anxious spirit, but he's one of the most genuinely sweet-spirited dudes and very talented.

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He was a drummer in a band I was in that we opened for the Drifters EGR, which was a crazy cool experience. And he, as good as he is at drums, he happened to be the best guitarist in our band too. And when we realized pretty quick that we would be at all originals and we had like two and a half hours worth of originals, but nobody wanted to hear originals unless you were, you know, some big band, you know, big name group or whatever. And we weren't getting all a ton.

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of opportunities to play and bass player ends up getting married, starts having kids. So he kind of falls out of the picture. And he, Walter Ray is one of the, another one of the most genuine people you'll ever know. Um, you go down the list and one by one people kind of fell out. And while I still had an itch to make music and I'd written all this stuff.

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Because I found, ironically, through a student, Tracy Williams, she was a student at USC Aiken, and Tracy had poetry that she had written when she was like 15 or 16. And she had shared some of it with me, and I was looking at it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is good. And with her permission, I put music to a couple of them. And I kind of liked that. And then I realized, I got a lot to say too. And that's what started me writing. I don't remember what my first song was.

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I just know that I just started writing stuff. And if you took all my music You couldn't put it on the same album because I'm so inspired by so many different, you know one song the other side You get me Santana in here with this lead guitar. He would turn that into a Santana song easily Mm-hmm. I got another song that you'd be like, well, he's obviously listened to Jack Johnson when he wrote that song or

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Leonard Cohen, you know, his creepy sounding voice, but it's so amazing on Hallelujah. He wrote that song. And, you know, I realized how moved I am by music. And that's been the case my whole life. And music is the bookmark that my memories are attached to. I think that's why I remember so much from when I was three years old. I remember I used to eat cigarette ashes.

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I don't know where that came from. Um, could be why I'm the way I am now. I know. Right. Um, but somehow when I was a little kid, I was three years old, I was like, Oh, I'll put my finger in. I like it. Apparently I liked it. I'm not proud of that. Don't believe I told that. Yeah, I know. But say that's the new me though. That's also, I don't have a job now. Like when I was coaching, you know,

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at the university, you had to be careful what you said. Right. When you're in ministry, you gotta watch what you say. Because people are so offended that you have your flaws too. I now, I don't celebrate my flaws, but I've embraced them. And I gotta tell you, man, I feel pretty free. You know, and I think there's something, and I think it, you can tell people all the time, but I think it comes with age. When you get to a certain point,

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where you can truly be yourself and really not give to F's about what somebody else thinks of who you are, what you should be. I used to be so paranoid. And it's so funny, I was dating a girl, Lauren. This is several years ago. She's now married and happily married with two children now, but Lauren was very inhibited when we were out in public. And I remember one time we went to go see a band play and

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when the band wasn't playing, they'd turn on music. This was at what used to be called Sky City. Now I think it's called Garden City or something, but so it's getting lower and lower. Sky City used to have amazing music, you know, and I love live music. I've always loved live music. And I remember Lauren, I wanted to dance. I'm not good at dancing.

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I love to dance, and I've always been that way. Even when I was a teenager, I loved to dance. I remember New York, New York over in South Augusta. That was a teen dance place, man. That was all about it. I was like, Lauren, let's go dance. She's like, no, no, no, no. I don't want people to see me dancing. And I looked at her, I said, Lauren, nobody's looking at you. Dance floor's full of people. If they're looking at you, it doesn't have anything to do with dancing. They're looking at you because you're gorgeous. And I remember

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finally getting her out there and we danced. I mean, we were sweating after dancing as much as we danced. And I'll never forget her telling me later, I think this is after we had decided our relationship, it was over and at least that side of it. And she's always thanked me for that. She goes, I'll never forget, danced. I'm like, that was a great night. And she goes, yeah, you taught me just,

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Don't worry about people that I don't know those people. They don't know me. Why do I care what they think? Right. Um, I care about people that I know and love. I want to be considerate of, and I want to be considerate of those. I don't know. I don't want to be sitting at a restaurant and just belching or breaking wind at the.

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table, you know, you want to be considerate, but I don't really give a flip if they hear me talking, and they go, well, I disagree with that person, you know, whatever, why do we care so much about that? And I don't know, maybe it's social media, I don't know, we've gotten real self-conscious, and I've always joked that when I become 80 years old, should I live that long? I'm gonna be that old fart in an assisted living home.

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wearing tighty-whities, walking around with his ball sack hanging out and black socks going, nurse, I need a bed bath. I've always joked like that. Well, that is exactly kind of what I'm talking about, going, this is gonna be real. And I think in a world that seems so plastic anymore, I think part of why depression is such a big deal with young people nowadays, it goes to this, we filter everything through.

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filters to achieve a false perfection or a measure of perfection. And nobody's willing to look at the blemishes. As a musician, I am not technically sound at all. But if you come hear me play, you're gonna have a blast and you're gonna recognize the tunes that I'm playing. I do tons of 80s stuff, 70s stuff. I'll even dip down into the 50s a little bit every once in a while. Well, so in,

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that you're now playing out more. People could find you around town, and we'll get into that, where folks can keep up with you a little bit later. I did, this is the music month, and I did ask you to bring your guitar. You did? Would you like to put it to use right now? You got something that you might be able to pluck out for us here? I'll do an original. They're gonna wanna hear more guitar than vocals.

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I will say I played a lot last week, so my voice is a little raspy This is a song I wrote Cold has a weird effect on me or at least it used to it doesn't not so much now, but I had gone out to my studio and I had written this song called a long walk and thankfully strung throughout the verses

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is hope. But if you listen to the verses, you're like, oh my gosh, this guy's really going through a down time. And all it was was I had opened my back door to let my dog out and a cold hit me and it immediately put me in a funk. I don't mind the funk. I think the funk makes you very introspective. And I kind of dig that part of it because as an introspective moment, I tend to get creative. And so I had written Long Walk.

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It's a cool tune. I play it on occasion. I don't always play it. It depends on what the setting is. I need to snap out of the funk. And there's a couple of ways I like to do that. I love the pay it forward movement. I love that.

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I love people who bless. I just knew I wanna get back to that side of me because I do try to bless. I'm not great at it. In fact, I'm pretty clumsy at it a lot of times, but I do feel like...

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We could use a lot more blessings. I think, I think, um, there's a great show out right now called Ted Lassow. Yes. And he, he hit one of my favorite quotes. New quotes was, you know, too many people are busy judging when they should have just dared to be curious. And I thought, wow, yes. I'm curious as I've gotten older, I'm more curious. It's not enough for me to know you, Rob.

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What makes Rob rob? Was Rob willing to unveil to me? I was talking to a young girl. Um, last Sunday we went for a bike ride and, um, and we got to talk and we kind of sat down over by the river and we're just chilling, talking and, um,

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She was blown away by how legit I was. Like I was pretty straight with her on some stuff and some of it had cutting words to it. But I shared with her, if I'd have known then what I know now, I would have been such a different person. And when I was younger, intimacy was physical. And as I've gotten older, I find that to be the least

35:00
It's not, not that it's not intimate. I mean, you know, sex or whatever, very, very intimate. But the most intimacy that you can get from somebody is them revealing more and more of themselves, whether it's via their heart or their thoughts. And I'll never forget the look on her face. She just had this huge epiphany. And this is, she's beautiful. These girls are gorgeous. Like she could be intimate with any guy she wants to.

35:30
Um, it, it dawned on her a relationship that she had in the past. She didn't understand why it ended. And, um, it was because it was all about physical intimacy. Didn't really have this other side of it. So it was kind of cool. Um, hopefully she can use that in her future. I think a lot of people, especially with social media and things like that.

35:54
they try to compare themselves to curated versions of other people. Agreed. Because everybody doesn't post. Opt is it on my butt this week? You know what I mean? Yeah. Nobody's putting the worst pictures up as their default pick. Exactly. It's like, you know, what would it look like if everybody put their real worst days, no filters, no filters, worst days on social media for a week. You know what I mean? Because that's what's

36:23
That's what's real. The other stuff's real too. And you want to celebrate those winds when people are able to take a vacation to Maui or whatever and see a beautiful sunset and that moves you. But that's not 24 seven. And a lot of it's not very real. I've never been to Maui. I've been to some tropical places that look amazing on the postcard. But you get there and you realize, smells horrible here. It's hot as I'll get out. I'm not comfortable out here. The water's

36:52
Bathtub warm, no relief there, the pool's even worse. But the picture says it's paradise. Well, that's paradise, I don't think I wanna go there. So this song was about perspective. And I think perspective is huge. And I needed to get out of the funk, so I thought I'm gonna write an upbeat song. And I think that's why, I love this song for a lot of reasons.

37:20
I just love the groove of it. I think it's a fun groove. I really like the words. And so this is called The Other Side, written by Chip Herring.

37:49
There's a song that would call me fool That I'm chasing my shadow to myself, I'm cruel Stranding for the stars, awake and before I touch Ain't gonna hear the cries, not long, okay Not much, oh

38:17
grass, feel the blades through my toes grab mystical dreams, breathe them deep inside my soul no turning back, my case is straight ahead gonna find something right around my head I'm picking up speed, oh cause she cast aside

38:43
Stretching my soul to the other side

38:53
Speed or caution cast us

39:16
Fly, gonna go

39:20
I'm gonna leave them in the sky, slide down the rainbow, I'll splash into the sea The wet of the waves is what catches me, yeah I'm picking up speed, of course you can't still sigh

39:42
Stretching my soul to the other side

39:51
Speed of speed, or caution cast aside

40:21
Standing in distress for way too long Chasing my dreams, singing brand new songs Taking my eyes and looking up high Gonna spread my wings and fly into the sky

40:38
you

40:49
Steps up the ocean blue And feed a great white shark, yeah, that's what I do Throw up a high five to a savvy octopus Find me a blue whale, give it a push, yeah Big enough speed, oh, cause she casts a side

41:15
Catch my soul to the other side

41:46
I think I've kind of been out of tune a little bit on my guitar. But like I said, I'm not technically sound. Ha ha ha!

41:58
All right, Chip, this is the second part of the show. This is where we started to dive a little bit more into like mental health. Yeah. You know, it's something I have struggled with, it's something I still continue to work through, but I think everybody goes through a lot of the same stuff, but a lot of people just don't talk about it.

42:18
So, I love having these conversations because it helps to uncover the commonalities that we all have as people. People have down days, people have depression, people have anxiety, things they worry about, whatever. And just having a conversation, I really think helps so much. And hearing that there are other people that are just normal people dealing with the same type of stuff. So, I like to ask the question, what do you do

42:48
to keep the dark at bay.

42:53
I'll go back to perspective.

42:57
and my willingness more so now than when I was younger. When I was younger, I didn't think I had a right to have problems. I felt like people expected me to have answers to problems. And that was stupid. That was self, you know, that was self abuse because I did, I feared.

43:23
people would discover that I didn't have all the answers, that I was a fraud. And so, I don't know how I navigated through those waters looking back on it now, but somehow I did. There's something very real with imposter syndrome. I mean, that's a real thing, because when you put yourself into a place of leadership, you're leading these kids that are only a few years younger than you. Well, and I would wager, I would question how many,

43:52
leaders feel like frauds. How are these people following me? I think when I was younger, when I was in high school, Butch Arnett was a huge influence on me in all the best ways, in all the best ways. And I remember going, I wanna be like him. Not like him, but I wanna have the effect on people that he had on me. And so...

44:17
I feel like I kind of faked it. I used my humor, my ability to make people laugh, to cover up. I was just as full of crap as anybody else out there. As I've gotten older, I'm definitely quicker to tell people, no, don't listen to me. I mean, I'll give you nuggets that have helped me get by. But I think what gets me through, my faith is huge to me. I think it is the found rock, the bedrock of

44:46
where I find myself, I've been through some stuff. I mean, I had a girlfriend when I was, just before my daddy took his own life, or no, just after a couple of months after my daddy took his own life, my girlfriend was hit and killed by a car. And so I definitely went through this, screw you, God, get out of, I don't want this. Get away from me, you suck.

45:13
So I have faith and now I think that can only carry so far. Um, I think my faith would be the Ferrari. What, what fuels it is as I've gotten older, I do realize life isn't forever for me, you know, on this planet. And right now this is all I've ever known. Um, so I want this time to be as awesome as it, as it ever was. I used to have a t-shirt I got from Walmart and you say it's all good.

45:43
And so in my 30s, if you'd asked me how I was doing, I'd be like, it's all good. And I would base that in truth because I'd read the Bible and I thought, well, in the end, it's all good. You know, and so I can honestly say, but I could be going through some really dark times. And again, I think most of it was self induced. I can't point at people and say, well, they made me feel this way.

46:09
I think I lived under this false notion that I was supposed to be perfect. And so that's why I try to give them. Now I, again, I don't celebrate my imperfections, but I do, I embrace them and own them. I'll own them. And what I find is that when you do that, you'll find out who your real friends are. Cause I've definitely had people just turn their backs on me and walk away. And that's cool. I've accepted that. Well, that's okay. I don't need a thousand.

46:39
Friends just need a couple, two or three really good friends, people I can lean on. And then I got family. I mean, I've got an amazing family. My brother, Scott, is one of my favorite people on the planet and we've always been tight. My sisters are amazing and they see things in a whole different way. I mean, whether it's politically, spiritually, or we have very different perspectives on this thing called life, but I can still glean great wisdom, not but, and I can still glean great wisdom.

47:08
from my sisters. My mom's one of my heroes. She's as strong a woman as anybody I've ever known. She's brilliant. Politically, we are way on different ideas on that. She still believes in some of that stuff, and I'm going out there and they're all full of crap. And I feel like I got the data to back it up. But she would tell you she's got the data to back up while she still has faith. And I'm like, yeah, rock on. I don't try to, you know.

47:37
trying to avoid those conversations really but I think perspective you know Dead Poets Society was one of the great movies Robin Williams was an amazing actor in it really hit on a lot of really touchy subjects in that movie but I think one of my favorite scenes is when he got up on the desk and he challenged those kids

47:58
All right, look at it from a different perspective. And so my different perspective is, it's pretty simple, but I try to simplify things, especially when it comes to complicated things. When I'm in a funk, like I said earlier, I kind of embrace it for a little bit. I won't let myself sit in it more than a couple of days because I don't want to get used to it, but I definitely try to glean from it any wisdom. You know, it exposes a lot of my flaws.

48:26
when you're in a funk and maybe that's what keeps you down. But eventually you gotta look up from it and go, all right, enough of the funk with the dark times that you're talking about. Now you gotta understand, I don't think I've ever, I've had moments where they were depressing. I've never felt like I lived with depression. So I don't wanna oversimplify this and make people think, well, you got this changed the way you think about it and everything's cool. Look, it's all sunshine and happy.

48:54
That's not my intent, but the way I deal with things. I've lived long enough to know that those things that, in fact, my friend that I was talking about earlier, we went on a bike ride last Sunday and she, not last Sunday, a week ago this past Sunday, she, I asked her, I said, do you have any regrets? And she didn't hesitate very long, she goes, no. I've definitely made my mistakes in life. She goes, but no.

49:23
I don't have regrets because those things are what brought me here. She's from Kansas. She moved to Aiken, South Carolina to play volleyball. Um, and she's definitely dealing with some struggles here. That's why we're out talking. And, um, she goes, I don't have any regrets because without those things, I wouldn't be here. I was like, rock on. I look at it a little bit differently. I have made many mistakes, countless mistakes in my life.

49:53
Um, and maybe, I don't know, I don't know if I could go back and change anything. I don't know that I would because I kind of am digging where I am now. I don't know that I would be ready to be as honest with myself or no others. Um, if I hadn't made some of the mistakes I've made, but I definitely, um, I look at them as these are things that have strengthened me. And so I remember when COVID, you know, first hit.

50:20
The first week or two, I freaked out like everybody else. But after a while, I was like, you know what? I'm not going to live in fear. My faith says I'm not supposed to live in fear. So I was like, I'm not going to live in fear. And over the next several months, I started posting songs on Facebook, just stupid cover songs. Just me singing into a cell phone. It was cheesy. But I got a lot of people thanking me a lot. In fact, I only intended to do one song. It's a wonderful.

50:48
What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. I did it with the Louis Armstrong voice and everything and it came out really cool and I posted it. And I remember Steve Laracy from Augusta messaged me, he goes, dude, I needed that so much, thank you. I can't wait to see what you're gonna post tomorrow. And I almost responded, I was like, suck it, just go back and look at that one again tomorrow. I'm just doing that one song. But it kind of got me started. And I ended up doing 365 straight days where I posted. Wow.

51:17
you know, whether it's an original song or a cover. A few of them, like I wrote a song about, you know, quarantine, you know, a little goofy song about that. But I found that even in that time, and I'm a people person, you know, I feed off people's energy. And, you know, I'm going to a house by myself and I'm like, you know, I went to work at the airport because we were essential. It was like...

51:45
People could fly all over the country to complete golf at Aiken or Augusta, but we all gotta go home. It didn't make sense to me, but it kept me working and I was thankful for that.

51:59
I didn't, I didn't want to just yield to it because I finally said, well, screw this. I'm not going to live in fear. If I get it and it kills me, it kills me. I can say I had a great life. I'm not, and I'm not trying to, this isn't me preaching to anybody. This is how I responded to it. And, and, and it'd be a cool thing. I have a song list that is insane now. Like my songbook that I used to play when I go play shows before COVID was a third the size that it is now. Like,

52:28
And I learned that, man, there's a lot of 80s songs. I never would have tried to learn these songs. I even do Right Said Freds, I'm Too Sexy for My Love. Nice. Oh, it's so fun. And it's so funny to see people's reaction when I whip it out and start doing it. But I never would have bothered to learn that song or Faith by George Michael. I guess it would be nice. I love that song. It's a great song. He wrote amazing stuff. And he sounds amazing when he did it. But.

52:56
Now I pull that stuff out and I play it for any age group and they love that stuff. And so for me it's the perspective thing. This will make me that that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger is kind of a thought that I have going through it. But again I don't want people that are really dealing with real stuff. I mean definitely go see somebody because I agree with you. I think talking.

53:20
Communicating you know getting sharing it because you'll find that you're not alone is probably a huge part of it and The people that would you know discard you because of it. Well, how good of a friend were they really anyway? You know, that's my attitude now. I mean and again some people that I love dearly and just

53:42
They don't like the raw, real, you know, and I respect that. It makes them uncomfortable. It challenges them to get raw and real with themselves. And I'm not here to tell anybody to do that. I think it's a scary, scary thing. But I think on the other side, now that I'm on the other side of it, I think that, um, it's the best reason I smile now, or one of the best reasons.

54:06
All right, Chip, this is the third segment of the show. This is a segment we call the Fast Five. It is the Fast Five, Fast Five, fast five. Fast Five.

54:21
Sorry, I don't have a theme song yet. Maybe we can collaborate something. We fear change. Excellent, excellent. You can collab something with me on a theme song for the Fast Five. Fast Five is powered by Poddex. It's an app that was created by a friend of mine, Travis Brown. It was created for podcasters, but it's basically conversation starters, icebreakers, things like that. So if you ever have to talk in front of anybody or if you just need some inspiration to start a conversation, I know you.

54:49
trip do not need any of that, but there's still some fun questions in there. If you go to chew of the fat BR.com slash pod decks and use the promo code chew, you can get 10% off your deck. But I've got my deck here ready and I'm going to hit the randomizer. No wrong answers. Just first answer that comes off top of your head. All right. Ready? I'm ready. All right. See, that was the first question. You were really slow on that. No, I'm just going to go. Number one.

55:19
What would you do with an extra hour in a day? Sleep. I second that emotion. I love naps. Naps are one of my favorites now. Oh my gosh, I can naps just like leaning against the wall. It's so crazy. It is so crazy, but yeah, naps are the best. Question number two.

55:44
What goals did you set at the beginning of last year that you achieved or made progress on? I don't set goals. Really? I'm not a goal setter. I probably should be. I probably would have done a lot more with my life, but I'm not a goal setter. I just, I'm like, I'm a squirrel. Like, ooh, different, oh, I wanna do that. I wanna do that, I wanna do that. And I kinda like that. Yeah. I, you know, I think there's- Let me preface. I did-

56:11
decide I wanted to play more music. I wanted to get back out there and play more music and do more shows and I've definitely done that. Well, I mean, yeah, I guess you didn't really set a goal to do 365 days of songs. No, in fact, that started with one song, it became 30 songs, 40 songs and somewhere about 180. I was like, all right, I gotta put a draw ending on this and 365 seemed like, all right, one year. Yeah, yeah, that's good, that's good. All right, question number three.

56:41
What's your favorite movie theater snack? Ooh, I love movie theater popcorn. Really? I love it, yeah. And I don't care what they say, that stuff you buy at the Kroger grocery store or wherever, it is not the same. It's not the same. They've got some kind of addictive, something they put in there. It's a little cocaine or something that they- That's why I love Riverwatch. I love Riverwatch, because you can go back and feel it up again. And I do. Yeah, no, I'm 100% with you on, a movie is just not a movie without popcorn to me.

57:11
Even if I'm going by my, you know, normally I go with, you know, with the family and I get the big bucket or whatever, but even if I'm just going by myself, I've got to have a thing. I call my bank ahead of time, get a loan, because it's not cheap. It is not cheap. But I'll tell you, to partner with that is the blue slushie, the blue iceys, I love those things. And if the movie theater doesn't have more of the machine is down, it affects how I feel about the movie. I don't care how good it is, it's weird. Yeah, I gotta have the blue slushie.

57:40
See, I was never one into the blue slushie. I was always the kid that always mixed the cherry and the Coke. Oh yeah. Like a cherry Coke. I've had moments where I'm like, I feel a little wild tonight. I think I'm going to mix it up. That's awesome. All right, number four.

58:00
If you had to lose one of your five senses, which one would you give up? Oh gosh.

58:12
That's brutal. I love tasting things. I love smelling things. I guess if I had to lose something...

58:25
Well, as I'm getting older, my eyesight's going. I'm still hanging in there. Um, dude, I think, um, okay, my sense of self.

58:37
I'm just kidding. That's such a cheap answer. And I wouldn't want to give that up. Of the five. I guess smell. Smell? Yeah. Okay. Cause then somebody could break wind around me and I'd be like, I don't care. Right. Yeah. You go to the doctor and like, doc, my farts don't smell anymore. Yeah. They don't smell, but my eyes keep watering. What's up with that? What's going on with that? Yeah. I'd, and it's weird. I bet there's some psychological studies where they examine the answers to that question.

59:07
I probably failed miserably. No wrong answers. Not here, not here, but there's some psychiatrists out there going, oh, yes, he needs some help. I was going to say is like, because you think if like your sense of touch is like, and I say that because. I love touch. Well, I have a couple of dead zones on my body. Do you really? Oh, wow. From surgeries that I had that had nerve damage, this entire side of my leg. Really? Is dead.

59:37
I don't have a lot of feeling there because I had this. When I do this. Are you doing? No, no, no, no. I when I had shingles, I had a case of shingles several years ago and my left nipple, I don't have much feeling in it. That sounds like this should be. Was that a movie? My left nipple. My left nipple is going to be a song. It's going to be a song. All right. Question number five.

01:00:06
As a musician, what do you think is more important in a song? The melody or the lyrics? Ooh, I'm a lyrics guy. Lyrics speak to me in a lot of ways, but I mean, yeah, cause in the same spirit, I love poetry. Like I love reading some of the classics, but I think, yeah, I'm a lyrics guy. Yeah, I'm gonna say I'm a lyrics person as well. Because I'm a fan of words. Yes. I mean,

01:00:35
As a child, I read the dictionary. Yes. I just love language. I love, uh, etymology. I love war. Your vernacular has always been quite extensive. But I had that covered. Um, but yeah, just there, there, cause there's so much emotion, I think that you can do through words, cause like I said, even a written word, a, uh, you know, a piece of art that uses a font or something like that.

01:01:00
There's so much emotion you can do even even a spoken word, you know doing theater myself You can yeah, you can sway people's emotions with those things There are times that music has brought me to tears sure, you know without any lyrics or any words in it I think but it is more often that words movie words will pierce me and move me

01:01:21
Yeah, Chip, that's it. That's that's that's our fast five. That's the show as well. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. It's cool. It's cool. Come out here and hanging out with Robbie. Yeah, Rob. Sorry. That's right. You were Robbie when you were high school. I was. Yeah, Rob. That's how I tell you know, when people know me from is like what they call me. You know, you know, my parents told me that when I was in fourth grade in Colorado, I went to Martin Park Elementary and my parents told me, you know, Chip, you're going to be an adult.

01:01:48
and you're not gonna want me known as Chip. That's a little boy's name. And so for one year, I went by Robert, which is my formal name. And after one year, in fourth grade, I was Robert. And after that, I said, no, I'm Chip. And here I am, 54, but I haven't grown up yet, so maybe, maybe. Maybe one day. I mean, maybe they'll put that on the death certificate or something. That's right. It's like, yeah, probably, maybe. Rarely am I a Chippy, though. Yeah, Chippy. Chippy, yeah. I don't think, you know what? I don't think I ever knew that your name was Robert. How did I not know your name was Robert?

01:02:18
I'm sure you do you pray for God I am old and your name we have common names I mean I pray would have said dude. My name is Robert I don't know you just embodied chip and you've always been chip and And and I love being able to reconnect with you. It seems like over the past few years We've been able to get together a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah do some projects. So thank you so much for agreeing to be here

01:02:39
to be on the podcast and be a part of it. It's my pleasure. I really enjoy it. And if folks want to keep up with you, how can they find you on like social media? Instagram is probably the best. I don't, I have a Twitter account. I never use it. My Instagram is chip underscore herring. H E R R I N G. I am that guy. I've learned lessons. You don't post too many pictures too often because you lose followers.

01:03:06
You know, so right now it's a lot of, one of the things I wanna do, I wanna build a schoolie. And I wanna get rid of my house, I wanna live in a schoolie, I wanna travel. Schoolies, you could buy a school bus, dude, for almost nothing. And you turn it into a home. What? Yeah, dude. And you can drive around, you gotta look that up. It's a rabbit hole, it's gonna take you, and you're gonna start going.

01:03:30
Well, you're married and you got all that stuff. This might be a viable... Yeah, you might have to talk about that with somebody. I don't have to talk to anybody about it. I'm just gonna do it. I hate cutting grass. I'm going, yeah, if my grass gets too tall, I'll just crank it up and roll it down. Yeah. But yeah, dude, I want to do that. And so right now, if you were on my Instagram, you'd be like, okay, a lot of volleyball. A lot of volleyball. But you'll see, well, I don't really post a lot of my posters for my shows. I do put them in my stories. So if you want to keep up with what I'm playing, man, there's a lot to do. Get out there and do it.

01:04:00
Don't hibernate. We're not bears. Put on a coat, get in your car for the few minutes you got to warm up the car. Drive wherever. By the time you get there, you're warm and toasty. Few seconds you're in the cold and you're back inside a warm. Don't park your life because it's cold.

01:04:14
For sure. Tip from Chip. The tip from Chip. I love it. Thank you so much again, Chip, for being here. And I'll post all those links in the show notes. So if you want to keep up with Chip, see where he's playing. And just follow this amazing human being that has meant so much to me. Check it out, chewingthefatbr.com. Also, if you would like to support this podcast, I would appreciate it if you buy me a coffee. Chewingthefatbr.com. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. And I look forward to the next time.

01:04:44
where we can sit a spell and chew the fat.