Jon Langston Interview

Beasley Digital

4/23/2025

Transcript

00:00so welcome to the 92.5x to you millies furniture x lounge the styles you

00:07love for less and this is john langston good to see you john good so welcome to our studios thank

00:12you uh we're going to talk here for a little bit but let's get a little bit of your background i

00:16know you're from georgia and right now country music is just loaded with people from georgia

00:22so that's got to put a little pressure on you and you come from the land of alan jackson like

00:26tell us a little bit about that i mean i don't know just something about being from georgia and

00:31like having uh all these great you know entertainers and songwriters uh from georgia like you know like

00:38red akins he's been he's been a huge uh influence on me and actually lived with him for like a year

00:43and he's the one who kind of took me under his wing when i moved to town wait so red akins is

00:48is thomas red's father so did you were you in like thomas's old room when you lived with him

00:52i don't know so like he lived next door though yeah but uh but one day i was i moved i moved to

00:59nashville and a couple months later i get a dm on twitter from him and it said uh holla at me his

01:07number writ and i was at a bar and i was like i ain't calling him right now i was like i got to wait

01:14for the next day so i called him the next day and uh you know we talked for a while went over to his

01:19house and uh we just got to know each other cook some food and had a couple beers and you know

01:24he ever since then he's kind of been like my mentor yeah he's done a good job with his son oh yeah yeah

01:30yeah good good little philosophy there so your background is you you wanted to be a football

01:34player right so you went played college football and you got some head injuries yeah i had about

01:40uh six concussions so uh that's right yeah my last one it was it was rough it was uh so we i was

01:47coming off my fifth one and we did all the protocols did all the all the stuff you know you're you're

01:53running you're taking your tests you're going mris all this stuff and i passed all of them felt great

01:58didn't have headaches anymore for like three weeks and uh strapped on the pads again and did little

02:05did i know it was gonna be my last time the first drill we did we're doing inside drill and i just

02:11went i was i was happy to be back so i was flying through a hole and i just me and this guy collided

02:17and i was blind for like 15 minutes wow i just like fell to my knees i could like feel my eyes were open

02:24but i couldn't see anything and so i thought i just hit myself blind i'm freaking out i'm crying i'm like

02:29yelling to the you know the trainer that like come help me out i'm throwing off my

02:34my pads and stuff and then it started finally after a little bit wow sight came back but like

02:40it scared the crap out of me and i was like i'm done after that so so now are you worried about

02:44like future i mean things for complications or anything maybe one day but like right i feel

02:49great like i had like headaches and stuff again like you know just normal concussion stuff after that

02:55but like other than that other than forgetting where i put my wallet stuff like i think i'm all right

03:02i hear you so then that was a crossroads for you yeah so then you decided like well i can't play

03:06football now so did you stay in school yeah so like i was on so we we got a brand new uh head coach uh

03:13when that happened luckily you know i sat down with them told them what was going on and and they honored

03:19my scholarship oh good for me to finish school but the funny thing is i didn't finish school so

03:25yeah that so my mom wasn't too happy about that because i started doing music and i started caring a

03:30whole lot more about you know going doing shows and writing songs and not going to class and that

03:36ended up well you're writing songs in class right oh yeah definitely most definitely would you care to

03:41share with the class john what you're writing there did you ever get that like yeah from a teacher uh well

03:47i yeah definitely uh well i'll so we had this computer class and i was literally on we're supposed to be on

03:54like microsoft excel or something doing something and i was on word typing down lyrics and stuff she was

03:59walking around she's like what are you doing i was like i'm writing a song she's like you're supposed

04:02to be doing your work and i'm like not sorry but that had made you perform if i was the instructor

04:07i'd have had you up there yeah yeah yeah i don't know so then how so now you start playing then do

04:13that yeah i mean i had a lot of extra time on my hands so i like picked up a guitar like i took

04:19guitar lessons like eighth grade but like it was just for fun it was just for fun again and in college and

04:25stuff and i started just writing songs and playing at you know open mic nights and uh parties and stuff

04:31and posting like covers on youtube and stuff and people were like man you should like go record a

04:37go record something so i had a um that christmas break uh i uh asked my mom's like what do you want

04:44for christmas like i just want studio time at my buddy's basement studio in atlanta and she was like

04:49wait what so uh so it's cool how it all came together but yeah that's uh that's how it came to

04:56be so like a lot of folks um like kane brown was posting youtube videos and facebook videos and one

05:04day he woke up and he had like 60 000 shares like that's sort of how you started too right just posting

05:09your stuff out there and did you have one thing that connected with a whole bunch of people that you

05:13didn't know yeah i mean it wasn't like that overnight i guess you could say but as i posted more videos and

05:18more like you know vine was huge back then and i would post like videos of me and my dog and i'll

05:24be singing with them and stuff and just stupid stuff and people would be following me and i'll be like

05:28hey go check out my music and i just saw i started creating this following and stuff and people were

05:33like you should do shows and i'll go to these college bars and play for free and these people

05:38would show up and sing these songs i'm writing i'm like what is going on yeah and it just turned into

05:42this you know crazy deal and like my buddy uh we released a song called forever girl on itunes

05:48and stuff and three weeks later my uh buddy calls me up from kennesaw state down georgia he's like hey

05:54man we got this uh party on on the farm uh friday which was like the next day and i was sitting with

06:01brad my guitar player and some other guys now that i was recording demos with in that basement and uh

06:08he's like hey you want to open up for chase rice uh we we don't have any we can't pay you nothing

06:13but we got plenty of free beer for you i was like all right i was like we're there so i hung up and i

06:18was like well boys y'all want to put a band together and so they're like oh yeah let's do it so uh you

06:24know we we rehearsed all night long i've never played a full band show in my life ever and but he has so

06:31they were kind of like showing me how to stand and like you know do all this stuff and yeah and

06:36like uh uh so we rehearsed all night went the next day and played these songs and we were terrible it

06:43was awful but we had a blast it was a good time and uh but at the end we played that forever girl song

06:50and there's 800 college kids out there and they were all screaming every single word wow and that's

06:55when i i like i remember just like it was yesterday i had like chills i was like i got the bug

07:01right then i was like this is what i want to do for the rest of my life i want to write songs i

07:05want to be on stage and i want to i want to do this and i didn't know how i was going to do it but like

07:09i got off stage you know call my mom i was like yep this is what i want to do like screw school you

07:14know so you quit right after that no like i i i pretended like i was gonna finish and then i caught

07:22i'd never been in nashville before and i showed up for my exams and they're like you missed too much class

07:26you get you know yeah the policy was or whatever you missed too much class you can't graduate so

07:31that happened with me and i was like well i know i'm not going home to my mom and tell her that i

07:36didn't finish and i know they're not going to let me do more school you know i was like a redshirt so

07:41i was there for five years and i i wasn't going to be at bowling springs north carolina for one more

07:46year so i was like well i just rented a u-haul packed up all my stuff and had some money saved up

07:52and i just moved to nashville it was crazy wow that's a great story so you mentioned brad your guitar

07:58player where's your guitar i know you play what happened yeah so we're down to one guitar because

08:04somewhere somewhere in denver between the airport a rental car and the hotel it disappeared

08:13just disappeared and we were asking the lady i was asking like i was like asking her about it she goes

08:17oh this happens all the time like what are you talking about this is something you should not

08:23tell me like and so was it like a really expensive guitar it was a taylor i mean i mean it wasn't

08:28expensive but if it was that guitar i would have been a whole lot different mood but yeah i mean it's

08:33still a you know good guitar that i've written a bunch of songs you heard the morgan wallen story about

08:37six oh yeah on the tarmac right yeah one airline was supposed to load all his expensive guitars into

08:44the cargo and delta found them and they left them on the tarmac and the plane took off and there's

08:48six guitars sitting out there and he got into this twitter war with delta over it well maybe i

08:54shouldn't have said the airline uh and another airline was no another airline was driving by on

09:00a baggage car and saw these six boxes and it was these guitars and they had to get it to him for a

09:07gig that night so guitar stories are great we had a we had old boy come in here one day and we had to like

09:13clamp his guitar together you know with super glue and clamps because it had broken uh in the baggage

09:19hold you want to see me mad you're gonna get my guitar with it in pieces no i don't want to see you

09:25mad that would be if that guitar was in pieces yeah i'd be pretty mad all right that's terrible because

09:30like that's our like that's our tool that's like sure you know you have memories with that thing you

09:34know like you know you're on stage with it you're right you're in the writing rooms with it you know it's

09:40what makes these songs what it yeah exactly well we're excited to see you i know that a lot of

09:45folks uh been following you on social media and those folks are fervor fans so let's uh introduce

09:51you to the radio audience okay all right john langson thanks a lot for being here in the mealies x lounge

09:56all right it's 92.5x to you

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