I had a chance to spend some time with country artist and songwriter Mark Taylor at Top Golf, Nashville. We talked about his new music and video, collaborating with songwriters and other artists like Whey Jennings, plus we had the Top Golf experience where I lost hideously to this golf fan! Next we sample some of his own signature whiskey at the Up N Country studio just outside Nashville, TN.
Sue Bonzell
We’re at Top Golf in Nashville, Mark Taylor is here going Oh man, I’m excited that we’re gonna get to play some golf. I
Mark Taylor
cannot wait. It’s gonna be so much.
Sue Bonzell
Word on the street is you’re like, like a major golfer,
Mark Taylor
allegedly. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see how I played today. But I can’t wait. We’re gonna have such a good time. And hopefully we’re gonna hit right over that little net right there. I’m excited.
Sue Bonzell
Yes, we’re gonna we’re gonna score big on the old years right now. So you are a pretty avid golfer. How much time do you get to spend golfing?
Mark Taylor
It depends. I mean, we did this really cool Country Club concert series with a couple of different folks all the time. So we’re doing that I get to play a fair amount. But, you know, most days if I can go out and hit balls, I feel lucky because the music industry is so time consuming right now. But yeah, I mean, whenever I can get out if I can get out once or twice a week. I’m pretty happy. But I’ve been playing my whole life. And I’m just I’m loving it. It’s such a fun sport to get out there and just go enjoy it for a little while.
Sue Bonzell
It is it is time consuming. And a little bit expensive. But best course you’ve ever played.
Mark Taylor
Oh, gosh, you know, we did we played down with a course called Kiawah Island, which is they had a bunch of us opens that was beautiful. Oh my gosh. And that was a couple of years ago. And you know if it wasn’t so much of this and so far away, and you know, five hours to play. And then the caddies are expensive and I play every day, but it’s a it was a beautiful golf course and so much fun to go down there and get to meet everybody and get to go play one of the best golf courses in the world. That
Sue Bonzell
they are so beautiful. It’s amazing. And there’s so many opportunities around the world to go absolutely. Yeah. You never know. You never know. You could be like playing golf in India. We don’t have absolutely no right. I don’t know they have golf courses in India.
Mark Taylor
We could find out. That’s our next go to India.
Sue Bonzell
Okay, let’s start making a note making. Well, let’s talk some music. You gotta do song. Party. Oh, yeah. Tell me tell me the best line out of the whole thing.
Mark Taylor
If you remember the party, where you really even there and I was just reading funny college stories with two good friends of mine, Mr. Dave Brainerd, Mr. Steve O’Brien one morning at Dave studio in Nashville. And we were just, you know, talking about things college and I had just graduated that I was like, Oh, I miss all this stuff. And 20 minutes later, we were writing this really fun song. And I thought it was a joke at first and then about 20 minutes after that. I was like, oh my god, we might be onto something here and send it over to my producer. And we recorded the next week. And we we’ve had so much fun just getting that song out in the world and watching everybody react to it. And you know, having a good time with it, hopefully.
Sue Bonzell
And it’s so I think a lot of us have been there before. It’s like, you know,
Mark Taylor
last week? Absolutely.
Sue Bonzell
It’s a true statement. True
Mark Taylor
statement Thursday.
Sue Bonzell
Now have you I have you thought about the video yet? Is there going to be a video.
Mark Taylor
There’s a lot of good stuff. We did a lot of really cool content for this oil, anything just yet. But there’s a lot of cool stuff happening. I promise. Okay,
Sue Bonzell
well, I can’t wait for that one. Because it sounds like it really is going to be a party. It’s
Mark Taylor
fun. So anything with Mark Taylor as a party, we’re having to Mark Taylor time.
Sue Bonzell
So I just had Whey Jennings on my show. And oh my gosh, it’s so funny, because like then you came around and I was like, I just love Nashville, because everybody is so like interwoven in everything. So tell me about your connection with Whey Jennings. Yeah,
Mark Taylor
so I mean, it started with this hilarious couple of buddies that out of Ohio called me one morning, they were like, oh my god, can you please hop in on this song? We’re pitching it to a movie at noon. I’m like, Alright. They call me at 930 as like, I can hop on about 11 o’clock. So I hop on this zoom call at 11 o’clock. And they were like, can you help us? You know, with this song? And I’m like, Sure. So we jump in and put about an hour into it. And we had to send it over to the director of this big movie in Hollywood. And I’m like, and I am just as green to the whole Hollywood thing is most people are but I’m like, I don’t know how any of this works. I’ve never pitched a song to a movie before. This is totally new to me. But we sent it over to the director of the movie and he called back a couple of hours later and said, you’ve got a song in the movie. I’m like what Are you kidding me? I said, who’d you get to sing the song in the movie? And he goes, Are you a Waylon Jennings fan? I said, Yeah. And he goes, Well, we got way Jennings. And it was funny because I wrote it with someone who’s very close to way. So he sent the song over, and he was like, we got we got way to sing it in the movie, and, and then, a couple of weeks later, the record label was like, Hey, we think we’re gonna put this out, too. I was like, well, that’s even cooler. And then a couple of weeks after that, they said, Yeah, we’re actually going to make it the single. We’re going to name the album after it. We’re going to name the tour after it and it’s been absolutely unbelievable. And it’s been really cool. Just to watch it happen. It was something truly I had no idea was going to happen. I
Sue Bonzell
love I love it when things like that happen. And it’s just kind of like, Right Place Right Time. It’s like things just kind of come up
you have you met Whey Jennings,
Mark Taylor
we have not met him first. Okay, we’ve worked a lot together on stuff. But my good friend Shane Grove and David Wade are close with him as well. And that’s kind of how they got the song there. But we haven’t met personally, I think he’s coming to Nashville at some point in time. Some guitars we have set on the wall. But yeah, he’s just amazing, isn’t it? He
Sue Bonzell
is I really, really love him. It’s so amazing how similar his his voice has looked crazy to his grandfather. I mean, I think it’s amazing. I mean, that’s like no legacy, right? Absolutely.
Mark Taylor
It’s cool. Just to have a song cut by someone in that family haven’t been titled track of his record. I’m like, This is the coolest thing in the world. But I feel so fortunate that he recorded that song. And it was just so cool. Getting to work with everybody on that. So that
Sue Bonzell
was really neat. Now as far as like, you know, legacy, when you started doing music, did you come from a musical family? What’s your background? Yeah,
Mark Taylor
my dad, you know, put himself through school playing music all the time. And that’s where I got my first love of music from he built he not built but like, put together some different little tiny guitars for me when I was a little kid. You know, we ended up just playing I’d be strumming nonsense chords in the basement when I was two years old. And that turned into I started booking my first like professional shows. It was 50 bucks for four hours in a pool. I wouldn’t exactly call it when I was 13 years old, something like that. And I just got hooked ever since and went to college, didn’t do music in college, but then got out on the road with big and rich for a little while and got to go really learn how to tour the correct way. And I’ve played 1000s of shows, you know from the time I was 13 to now but it’s been nothing short of incredible.
Sue Bonzell
That is so cool. What’s the biggest show you’ve
Mark Taylor
played? So far? Biggest show? Oh, gosh, we’ve done it. We’ve been very lucky to do a bunch of big ones. The biggest smallest show I’ve done so bluebird cafe. I got to make my bluebird debut a couple months ago and got to have my dad come up and play a song with me which is really, Amy Stewart who sang that song knock on wood back in the 70s. She recorded one of mine a couple of years ago actually. And it was my first ever cut. So I had him come up and play that song with me on the bluebird stage and we had such a good time. But this past couple of months we were out with Russell Dickerson doing some dates those were huge. We did some festivals with John party and Joe Nichols and LV Shane and so that that level of shows probably the biggest but I you know, just getting to go out with Russell and see how he does it. It’s you pinch yourself. You’re sitting backstage, you’re like, am I doing here? This is crazy. But those are probably the biggest shows we’ve done in a
Sue Bonzell
long time. That is so exciting. So if you have like a like a biggest show or a biggest venue or something like that, what would be like at the top of that list for you? Like
Mark Taylor
what I’d want to do Yeah, oh gosh, I’d love to tour with Garth I don’t know if that’s ever gonna happen. But I would love to talk with Garth I grew up on Garth and George and Brooks and Dunn and the Eagles and all those that’s like my Mount Rushmore of music right there. So any of those guys right there. But yeah, I mean, I’ve been so fortunate. I mean, I grew up with you know, jump party and Joe Nichols and Russell’s been a huge influence of mine forever and to get to go you know, play shows with those guys. It was I mean, come on. It’s incredible. But we’ve we’ve been very blessed and have had such a good time out there episodes, guys. Well, you
Sue Bonzell
know what you never know. So I’m like, I have this thing on my show. I’m like, I really feel like we need to just manifest I was like, it’s
Mark Taylor
just we’re just gonna put it out there. We’re listening. Let’s do it. I’m at.
Sue Bonzell
Truth or truth. Well, it’s time for truth or true. World famous.
Mark Taylor
I’m excited. I’m scared but I’m excited. I love
Sue Bonzell
how I strike fear. It would be what I
Mark Taylor
got. Which was the golf.
Sue Bonzell
Pick one. Yes.
Mark Taylor
If you could be invisible, what’s the first thing you would do? Okay, that’s a good one. I would probably sneak into a bunch of concerts first of all hang out on stage. I’d also so Nashville traffic is horrible. I will tell you that much. I would just dodge all of Nashville trash. I don’t know if that would even help me being invisible but I would just fly throughout you know cars and whatnot. You have to have like an invisible card. Yes, I guess because it Yeah, but get around Nashville traffic. And speaking of contracts.
Sue Bonzell
I like that answer. I like the concert answer for sure. Because there’s so many concerts and then like you said like you can be like backstage Tip like you’re just chillin. I love it. Yeah. Okay, this is good. I like that. I also have a little card deck called cowboy wisdom. Okay. And so this is just some little cards for inspiration. And basically, I’ve had pretty good luck with artists pulling cards, and it’s kind of like it applies to their life. So if it resonates with you, I want to know what’s going on and why oh, here we go.
Mark Taylor
Never looked down on someone unless you’re helping them up. Oh, I love that. That’s so nice. The big thing for me is I’m still a fairly new artist in Nashville. So you know, a lot of folks will you know, DM call whatever, hey, I’m trying to move to Nashville. I’m writing songs. Now, what do I do? And I was that person not too long ago. So it’s really rare, especially the last couple of weeks I’ve been talking to a lot of those folks have literally fresh right in town and try to figure it out for the first time and yeah, I mean, I think you always got to help the next person coming up and I think that’s that’s really special in Nashville.
Sue Bonzell
And that goes for you know, even the you know, the big guys my gosh, I mean, like Earth and Luke and you know, Tim McGraw they bring a lot of newer younger artists on board and they’re helping them and mentoring them. And I think that that’s Yeah, especially in this industry, because it’s hard enough. It’s hard enough. Exactly, exactly. Well, good. Well, Mark Taylor, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time. We got to chat. We’re gonna go play some golf. Are you ready?
Mark Taylor
I’m born ready for this Come on. Let’s go get a drink two 310 on the couch and my ex girlfriends back and my truck stolen the traffic comes in. I don’t even want that oh my
oh that was great. Oh, hello. Oh man, you remember
Sue Bonzell
Well, Mark Taylor a man of many talents, not only the guitar the singing, I heard he’s done some acting as well. You know it’s a rumor going around town. I don’t know. I’m making things up. But we have some whiskey Here we go. This is your whiskey. Tell me all about this. Yeah,
Mark Taylor
we make it my bathtub. I’m kidding. I partner with a great company out in California called Cali distillery. And we made a this awesome bottle and the awesome juice that goes inside. It’s a whiskey bourbon on it gets a honey flavor, which is great. So it’s like aged and honey. Really fun, but it’s called steel string signature. It’s available in a lot of places. So go check it out. But it’s a really fun just kind of guitar branded whiskey. You know, it’s a it’s meant to just you know, it’s easy sipping it’s fun, it’s lower proof so it’s not going to kill you but it’s it’s fun to just sit on the back porch and have a glass of it with some ice so
Sue Bonzell
I do I do like that label there. That’s really cool.
Mark Taylor
I wish I made it I it’s a great graphic designers come in and help out but you know, I told the guys I’m like I really want something with guitars involved in it and all the steel strings and it just it all came together. So naturally I was so excited when the graphic designers presented this this design but I’m so glad that we can kind of finally showcase you know, guitars and whiskey two things I love so much and I’m really proud of it.
Sue Bonzell
It’s cool. That’s really cool. Now you signed this one I did yeah. So now tell me is there are all of them signed or like how does that all work have
Mark Taylor
to get a bottle and there’s a limited run available of signed bottles right okay, let’s check the limited amount available. So go check that out. But uh, yeah, this is the second bottle.
Sue Bonzell
Well, let’s get that there. Cheers Cheers. Thanks for having me. I’m gonna SIP
Mark Taylor
I’m not gonna SIP notes of honey it’s you know it’s ancient honey we use a lot of those you know flavors to just make it a little bit easier so it’s not kind of you know, burn going down the old time but it’s still it’s still a whiskey it’s still bourbon still gonna get you a little bit but I’ll it’s a good sipping whiskey.
Sue Bonzell
Well, Mark Taylor, thank you again, for going and playing golf with me playing some music. Sharing your whiskey. I mean, you’re invited back anytime. Thank
Mark Taylor
you and I’ll go golfing to drink whiskey anytime you just call me I’m here.
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