Episode #37: Late Night Special Band Lead Singer Fred Heintz 08/16/2021
Meredith:
Welcome to the 37th episode of The Gimme Golf Podcast powered by myrtlebeachgolftrips.com. I'm your host, Meredith Kirk. And today we have Fred Heintz proud man of the band, Late Night Special. Fred is so awesome to have you on the podcast today. And you're in town with some shows. Is that right?
Fred:
That is correct. I'm in town playing a couple solo shows. Just on a solo tour, which is what I do when the band is off tour. I just travel around and play. So this week, I'm in Myrtle Beach and getting the pleasure to sit here and talk with you.
Meredith:
Awesome. And now are you on the south end? Are you playing all over the Grand Strand? What are some of the venues?
Fred:
Mostly on this trip, I have been more on the south end. I played at Bubba's Love Shak last night, a new spot called South End Bistro down past Polly's and then play at The Grumpy Monk tonight. And when I come down to Myrtle, it's all over the place. There's so much music to be played down here. There's so many places offering music and seems like there's always a new spot opening too now that things are getting back to normal. So played all over, up and down, the Grand Strand from basically pretty much Wilmington to Charleston, this whole coastal area. I get to explore around and I like to mix it up and play different spots all the time when I'm doing the solo tours.
Meredith:
Oh, that's great. And it's almost like golf courses down here. There's so many different golf courses as well. Music and golf those two things bring many people here to the beach. So I want to talk a little bit about golf too, because there might be listeners saying, okay, why is Fred on the show? Well, there's reasons for this. Fred is a great golfer. I actually met you several years ago, you reached out to me and I gave you a golf lesson and worked on your game. And I was just floored by how this dude, this musician with this long hair's out there killing it could literally compete if you wanted to in my opinion, your swing was really, really good. I want to talk a little bit about your golf game as well. I think it's super cool that you play golf.
Fred:
Yeah. I love golf. I got into it at a really young age. Well, I say young. Nowadays young is like what, two or three, these kids are swinging clubs. I got into it around 10 or 12. I remember my grandpa taught me and I'm just been playing ever since. But yeah, we met a couple years ago. You're actually the only lesson that I've ever taken in golf other than family trying to give you some pointers or whatever.
Meredith:
I baptized you.
Fred:
Literally, literally.
Nate:
So you get into golf before you get into music then?
Fred:
Yeah, absolutely.
Nate:
That's [crosstalk 00:02:57].
Fred:
Absolutely played golf growing up. Like I said, my grandpa was a big player and when he passed away, my uncle took over where he left off. And that was mine and my uncle's thing to go do and eventually we dragged my dad into it. He wasn't much of a golfer but we drag him out and he got into it. And then I played high school in golf. I think I missed the cut my freshman year on the golf team. And then the next three years that we played in high school and our golf team was pretty decent. I think we qualified for states all three years that I played. That was probably a five or six player shoot like 40s, 45s in between there.
Meredith:
That's so awesome.
Nate:
I was good in high school if you shot. Forgot I played high school golf too. If you shot low 40s or high 30s you were pretty good.
Meredith:
Exactly, yeah.
Fred:
Right. Yeah.
Nate:
And you were pretty competitive.
Meredith:
Yeah. So did you ever think about wanting to play in college?
Fred:
Man, I'm a jack of all trades. I've had many different jobs. I love many different sports. And in high school, when I was playing golf, I don't know why I was more hyper focused towards football. And I played defensive end which is crazy because that position is just not built for my stature person. I'm 5'11", I think I was 220 max in high school. And it just wasn't the right position for my stature, I guess you will say. So I focused a lot on football and after high school, I had a chance to go play college football and I just decided against it. I had some family that had played and they were like man, unless you really feel confident about pursuing an NFL career just be careful going out and playing because it's four brutal years on your body. And I decided to take a year off for college then and that's when I had realized, man, I should have focused on golf instead of football because I realized I didn't really want to play football in college. And that was out of my life.
Fred:
But especially nowadays in the last six years, I really do wish I would have went and played golf or took it a little bit more serious because even still probably up until a couple years ago when I met you, I never really had taken golf that serious. Me and a couple friends had started playing and my buddy was at NC State in the PGM program, and he just had sparked us all to be like, "Hey, we're pretty decent at golf, why don't we try a little bit harder." And that's when I started to really chase the dragon here. And it's quite a fun.
Nate:
So there was a point where golf wasn't cool, though? Because I remember back when I was in high school. I'm older than you.
Meredith:
Yeah, and me too because we're older than you.
Fred:
Yeah.
Nate:
It wasn't cool. It coincided with soccer season and if you played on the golf team you were kind of out there.
Meredith:
Yeah. I was a dork. I was the only girl in the guys team. And I wore duck heads and... Well, actually, I wore... my best friend was a surfer, and so she was so cool. I wear like her surf T-shirts with duck heads and bows in my hair is awful.
Nate:
It's funny because all those soccer players are now playing golf.
Fred:
Yeah.
Nate:
Yeah, it's fun.
Meredith:
Yeah, golf is cool.
Nate:
Yeah, it's cool now.
Meredith:
Golf is cool now.
Nate:
It's acceptable.
Fred:
It is. It is. It has really blossomed, especially in these last couple of years with the pandemic going on. And golf being one of only sports that stayed open and alive, there's lots of new golfers, lots of new golfers. And it is. It is the cool thing to do now it seems like.
Meredith:
It really is. I think they said there's like six million people now that have come into the game. And then I know so many of my students and friends that have ordered new clubs. Even my middle son ordered some clubs, and they're literally on back order. He ordered some new wedges and it's six weeks, we only have a delivery date because even the manufacturers. And with employment, not enough workers, they can't keep up right now, which is a good thing because they're saying this growth in golf is almost bigger than when Tiger Woods won the Masters in the '90s. We had that big surge of everybody getting into golf. Once Tiger came on board, golf was suddenly super cool. But now we're seeing a new surge, which is really cool. I think it's awesome that you play golf. Now I wanted to interweave your music in this.
Meredith:
So you got into music, you said around 21 when we were talking earlier. About 21 when you got into music? Tell us a little bit about your music journey. And then I want to come back to golf too, because you get to play golf a little bit with the music where you travel. I would assume.
Fred:
Absolutely they coincide so effortless. Their show, they work so well together. That's for sure.
Meredith:
Right.
Fred:
Yeah. When I was 21, or 20, or 21, I can't exactly remember the exact date. I wish I'd wrote it down. But I had a friend who him and his brother played music. His brother was a year older than me. And he was a year or two younger than me. And I went over their house one night and everybody was going to the club, but the younger brother wasn't old enough to get in the club. And now he's like, "Hey, hang back. And let's play some music together." And I was like, "Well, I can't play." He's like, "I'll teach you a chord tonight." And he showed me a guitar chord. The next day, I go back to my house, I have this old beat up guitar that dad had, because my dad was a musician too. He had a band Fred and Stein. And right when I was born-
Meredith:
Fred and Stein, so you're a junior?
Fred:
I'm actually the fourth. I'm Fred Lee Heintz IV. Actually that's my stage name when I play solo is Fred Lee [crosstalk 00:08:42].
Meredith:
So you're the fourth?
Fred:
I'm actually the fourth.
Meredith:
Okay.
Fred:
Yeah.
Meredith:
He's got a big title.
Fred:
Yeah. So anyways, I take my friend this guitar, they get it stringed up for me. And after he showed me that I could do one chord, it was just like wildfire. I couldn't put it down and somewhere in that time period, we went to probably within six months of me learning how to play a little bit of guitar. We went to a Tom Petty concert and that was my first concert I ever went to, it was Tom Petty and ZZ Top. And before the show, some guy I worked with at Lowe's played guitar too. He showed me Last Dance with Mary Jane on the guitar and we just happen to be hanging out before the show. And somebody was like, "You know the lyrics to the song you should try to sing it." And I just started spatting out some lyrics and they were like, "Fred, you can sing." I was like, "I don't know about that man." Everybody knows this song. Everybody can sing this song.
Fred:
And from there the next six months just started writing music, writing my own songs. I think I had... again, I like to do everything. I think the end of those six months it had became... it had gotten to wintertime, and we went on a snowboarding trip. While I had gotten super confident on the snowboard and was trying to do some jumps and I came off a jump, fell, broke my wrist. In breaking my wrist... Luckily, it was my right wrist, it was my strumming hand so I could still play. Well, I was out of work for like a month and a half. And I just started writing songs in those month and a half. I had a broke wrist, I did nothing but sit there with my guitar.
Fred:
And I started making up the songs that were songs that I wrote, which was really interesting, because we just been learning covers with a buddy of mine that taught me how to play. That's all we would do and I would never really sing. And then when I started to write the songs, obviously, I was singing the lyrics that were just weirdly just came right out of me. I can sit down and write a song, based around an idea or with a group of people songwriters. I can do that very well. But a lot of the music that I write just flows out of me like it's almost like, I'll make up a song at a show and something out of it will just be catchy or something that I want to build that song idea around.
Fred:
And usually I'll just put my phone down and record it. But that's how it's always stemmed for me, it's just throw down something that can record whether it be a phone, or a little tape recorder and just freestyle for a little bit, play into a rhythm. And that's how I got started writing songs. Now, once the songwriting started happening in about a year, year and a half into playing I had a buddy who played in another band and he was the percussionist in the band. And I had just asked him, we played football together in high school, I asked him to join up with me and go out to an open mic and play an open mic. Well, we invited all our friends to this open mic, and everybody that we knew in our hometown Concord, showed up and wanted to see what are these guys? What do they think they're doing? So we get out there to this open mic, and it's packed out. We get up there, we do our thing.
Fred:
And the whole time we're playing, you could just hear people being like, "Dude, where did Fred learn to do this? How can he sing that good? He's never sang before." People were just chattering and you hear and you're like, "Man, do we have something cool going on here, Bradley? Is this thing pretty cool?" After that open mic we just started to go do that all over Charlotte. We went to wherever the open mics were. And I tell people all the time is very fortunate to came up in Charlotte versus in LA or in Nashville or New York, because Charlotte isn't... There's a lot of good talent in Charlotte but it's not overly populated with talent like Nashville, or New York or LA. It's not as a competitive town. So we were able to break in the scene with a little less resistance, of not having the professional ability of musician who's played since they were 16, or since they were a little kid.
Fred:
So once we started doing that, just playing all the open mics that steamrolled into, hey, here's a gig here, here's a gig, you want to open up for a band at this venue. And we just started doing that. And in 2013, we did our first full band show down here at the House of Blues. Our friend was doing a festival and he's was like, "Hey, I really like you and Bradley as a duo. But could you build a full band for me to put on this festival?" And we put it together, came down to the House of Blues and played like a festival on the back deck or whatever with a couple other bands, I think it was maybe TreeHouse, band called C2 & The Brothers Reed, band called Queen City Dub, which actually happened to be from Charlotte as well. And then there was another, one other band. It was more of a reggae festival thing. But they put us on-
Meredith:
I would have loved that. I love reggae.
Fred:
Yeah, reggae music is incredible. Just like when I first started playing guitar, I was listening to a lot of reggae revolution, Dirty Heads, just tons of different stuff, The Expendables and all over the place. So we wrote a couple reggae songs, and I think that's what got us into that. We were playing them at the time when we'd go out. And that got us on that festival. After that happened, we came back and a friend of mines mom had passed away. And instead of us all going out on Halloween that year, they wanted to do a concert and they asked if our band would play. And I was like, "That sounds like a cool idea, rather than just my band cannot build a show." And so we built this show called the Shakedown which eventually turned into a festival that I owned in Charlotte. We do that bi-annually.
Meredith:
And I saw that on your post on Instagram.
Fred:
Yes, yes.
Meredith:
Yeah. You can go follow Fred. What is your-
Fred:
My Instagram handle is FredLeeIV. It's jut Fred L-E-E, and then am I and a V like the Roman numeral, and then my band is Late Night Special Music on Instagram. And you guys can go check us out. Like I said, we post a lot about the shows we do as well as, I've seen that festival that I started kind of birthed my music career in Charlotte. We hosted this festival, we brought one of the bands from the show down here in Myrtle Beach called C2 & The Brothers Reed, then we had a local brand from Charlotte. And I think the first time we did it, we had about 200 people come out and we were just like, this is cool. So we crank it up the next year and it just grew to 400. And then as we kept doing it, we got it up to about a 1,200 person festival.
Meredith:
It's awesome.
Fred:
Yeah. We took two years off in 2000, or three years, 2018, '19 and '20 because my band actually had started touring a little bit more and just playing so much that we couldn't really sustain the festival the right way. But when the pandemic happened, we decided to bring it back. And we did one May 15th this year, and then we have our next one October 9th. And that's at a place called GreenLife Family Farms in Charlotte. It's a CBD farm as well as a local produce farm.
Meredith:
Awesome. Oh, my goodness, what an amazing story. You have so many gifts and talents. You were saying, I don't know how I can tell you God has blessed you. It's amazing, I believe when it comes to gifts and talents in life. They're irrevocable. I always tell that to my kids too. Because I have two older sons now out on their own trying to figure out what they're doing in their lives and stuff. And I'm like sometimes you walk into a gift you don't even know you had. My oldest son, for example, he never swam in high school. I always noticed in the ocean, in the pool, he was an amazing swimmer. But he ended up being... He's now become a search and rescue swimmer in the Navy, a really good swimmer. The stuff he can do underwater and all the stuff I never knew. And he's almost 21 and he's just discovered that that is like a gift. He never experienced it before. And I just believe my mindset in life is, sometimes you just fall into a gift that you didn't even know you have.
Nate:
He's like a new golfer that just pops onto the scene and you got someone that's been-
Meredith:
Killing it.
Nate:
... playing for 10 years and he's better than the person that [crosstalk 00:17:20].
Meredith:
Yes. Yeah, because when you think about all these-
Nate:
That's what I was thinking the whole time when you talk about 21 years old.
Meredith:
Yeah. Think about the musicians, like the Tiger Woods, they start when they're three, and their whole life is music, music, music, and they never really break through. And here it all just comes down. It's like, I just believe we're born with it. We have to discover it.
Fred:
Yeah, you do. You have to. And that's another thing too as I push people to learn, a lot of people say, I've tried to learn an instrument but I can't and failure is the thing that hinders people from doing it. They're worried about failing, but I remember trying so many chords that I couldn't do the first time I try them. It just took work. And I remember the time being, man, my friends play full songs, will I ever be able to play a full two minutes on? And now I'm playing... I play nine hours worth of shows in a day, just trying to hustle and make some money. And same thing, if I have to learn a group of songs for a wedding or something that I'm doing, I'll sit down for a couple hours and just crash and burn, crash and burn and crash and burn, and they'll walk away for a little while, come back. And then it's there, it works. And it's like all that failure led up to the practice that you needed to actually make that work.
Meredith:
Exactly.
Fred:
A lot of people get discouraged. I truly believe we have lots of hidden talents. But if you're not willing to break the ice on them, you can't really get through to the sweet stuff if you don't get through the hardships of learning-
Meredith:
[crosstalk 00:18:57], yeah.
Nate:
When you started you probably didn't put a ton of pressure on yourself to learn that because that was not your passion. Like you said, okay-
Fred:
Mm-mm (negative). No. There was no idea of, I never thought I could be in a band, I never thought I would be the singer or anything. My friends the two brothers that had played were so good and incredibly talented. And it drives me nuts now because they don't play, not anymore. Either one of them is actually, he works and I think co owns a choreography school out in, is it Lee, Tennessee? It's right outside of Knoxville or something. But now do dance choreography, which is cool because we're going to work with them on some music videos here coming up. And then the other guy ended up going to chef school in Ireland and coming back. He's a full time chef now.
Meredith:
Wow.
Fred:
But he doesn't play music anymore. And every ones in a while he'll pick up the guitar when I'm around and it drives me nuts because I'm like, "You quit and I just kept pushing forward?" Sometimes I feel like it maybe bothers him that I'm just still playing. Not in the sense that I'm doing good, but he's like, "Why did I stop doing it?" And I say the same thing because I always thought this guy maybe I'll get good enough to be the rhythm guitarist in this guy's band, he's good. He's so good. He had a lot of super soulful voice.
Nate:
So in music do you hit ruts? Did he get to a point where it's like, he's maybe in a rut in his music and gave it up? [crosstalk 00:20:24].
Meredith:
Likes the [inaudible 00:20:24] golf? How does that-
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:20:26] I'm struggling right now. I don't think I'm doing as well as I should, so I give it up.
Fred:
Yeah. I've pondered that question. I always asked him why he doesn't play as much anymore. I think he just got pretty busy with the chef thing.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:20:44]. Yeah.
Fred:
And then when he moved... He actually moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, and ended up getting married and having a kid.
Nate:
Gotcha.
Fred:
He crutches that excuse a lot.
Nate:
Life happened, right?
Fred:
Yeah, yeah. Music's one of those weird things. I see a lot of people going really strong. And then they have a kid or something changes in their life. And just the mentality of when you start to hit your mid 20s to 30s, just thinking to yourself, well, I'm not as established of a musician as I want to be. Or this career isn't as lucrative as it needs to be to support my life at this age. Just that thought is dangerous. It's very dangerous.
Meredith:
Because it's discouraging.
Fred:
It is.
Meredith:
It makes you just want to throw in the towel and say, forget it. Why pursue this?
Fred:
Why am I doing this? Is this the right thing? Because I have a girlfriend and we plan to have kids and a family. And there was this time from 27 probably up until the last year and these thoughts enter and cross my mind all the time. Is, "All right, is this going to be able to sustain? Is this something you want to do with the family? Is this going to set you up to make sure you can support the family and stuff?" I always teetered with those doubts all the time. But for me in 2019, I was really heavily on the fence about this. I wasn't thinking about quitting, but I was just like, I probably need to make sure I find some security somewhere else. Because like I said, just that stereotype of, "Oh, I'm about to be 30, I need to make sure I'm financially set." When in all reality I have a plenty of money. I have a spending problem not a... I make plenty of money. But anyways...
Meredith:
Is an everybody's problem, spending problem.
Fred:
Yeah. So right at the really, the peak of this doubt that I was having in my head, I also had this thing hanging on my back. It was like dude, something pretty big's about to happen for you, man. And in 2019, I got asked, my friends they own a sound production company and they were on this tour with a company called Nightlight Events. And it's A Sky Lantern Festival that they do in probably 15 different locations across the country on a yearly basis. And they were running sound and they're like, "Hey, we need a musician for the Dallas event." And I've never been to one but I'd seen videos and stuff.
Fred:
So they fly me down to Dallas and I just was fortunate to... the owner picked me up from the airport and we basically rode an hour towards the venue and just had a nice long talk and just hit it off on musical taste and just had a really good intellectual conversation in which he was like, "Man, I've never heard you play. I hope you're good." And I'm like, "You're the owner of this festival and you've never listened to me play?" But they needed somebody on the fly. But I was pumped. I felt very confident in what I do. I have a lot of shows that get rebooked just because people like me at the shows. I feel that what I'm putting out is a good product that people will use again. And so when he was telling me this, we don't have a set musician, we don't have anything. I was like, I'm going to lock this down for next year. This was one of the last two shows in 2019 that this tour did.
Fred:
So show up in Dallas and I like I said, I wasn't really sure. I thought maybe I would get up there and I'm by myself without my band. So I'm just doing what I do. My solo shows which I do a lot of looping and guitar work on top of singing when I play my solo shows. But anyways, a show up in Dallas and I had no clue what was going to go on. But there's like 20,000 people in Dallas. It's the biggest show I'd ever played.
Meredith:
So were you nervous?
Fred:
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I was the only artiste. It wasn't [crosstalk 00:24:43].
Meredith:
You get butterflies and all of that going on?
Fred:
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah, definitely. And I don't get nervous a lot. Anytime I play a new spot, I definitely have a little bit more nerves than usual. But this was crazy because like I said, it was 20,000 people. And usually at an event like that you have your band at least. And then usually at an event like that there's multiple bands on a bill. And it was just me. I played for an hour and a half before they do this lantern launch at sunset.
Meredith:
Oh, my goodness.
Fred:
And it was just nuts. Once I started, usually anytime I start the show, the nerves are instantly gone. I'm in the groove, I'm comfortable then. But I was definitely nervous, and I was like, "Man, what did you get yourself into? You told these people you can come out here and entertain 20,000 people?" Well, it just worked out. After the show I stood there and signed autographs and took pictures for about an hour with just a huge line of people. And I was like, this is nuts. This is one of the coolest things I've ever done. And after that, the next day, they hit me up. They're like, "Hey, will you fly out in two weeks and do the Flint, Michigan festival?"
Meredith:
Wow.
Fred:
Detroit is the main area that it was in but... I go out and do that festival two weeks later. But in between then they basically got flooded with emails of people wanting to know who I was. And so they introduced everybody that's on their following to me. And we did the next show on Flint, Michigan, it went incredible. And then following that, we just had planned to do 2020 together. And we started 2020 off in Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas. Kind of same ordeal I think Phoenix was like 12,000, Austin, Texas was a little bit smaller. And I think that was because the weekend we were in Austin was the weekend the pandemic hit. It was right there in March and we pretty much flew home from Austin. And that was the end of the tour because everything started to shut down.
Meredith:
Obviously, the COVID- Yeah.
Nate:
So how does nerves affect a performer? Obviously like in golf, you're on the tee, you're nervous you may not take the club. How does that affect... as someone with no musical talent asking you, how does that affect?
Fred:
It definitely will affect-
Nate:
Does it affect your voice? Does it affect how you play?
Fred:
Both. Both. It will start constricting your muscles. It's the same thing in golf. If you're not in that flow state, you're not really in a smooth swing path and thought, you will-
Nate:
Voices shake. You can tell your voice is shaking. [crosstalk 00:27:24].
Fred:
Yeah, your voice will just start to tighten up. My hands will get a little tired. I'll start playing a little bit... It's not bad, it's probably nothing that the average person could notice. But as a musician, you're like, "Man, what is wrong with me?" A lot of times too I use the loop pedal thing with my pedal board, I love it. It makes tons of great noises. Makes the show more exciting. But they're susceptible to just random weird loud noises that you don't want in the set. And sometimes that will happen and it's happened before, in front of all these people and I'm like, "God [inaudible 00:27:58]. What's going on?" That'll shake your nerves for a second as you're like, oh, my god-
Meredith:
Because you're trying to multitask. You're thinking about that and you're still having to play. I'm seeing your brains go in different directions.
Fred:
Exactly. Exactly. Sometimes that'll rattle my nerves. And you could tell a song or two after, I'm just a little shook. I'm like, "Oh man, jeez, I can't believe that happened." How embarrassing. But really nobody in the crowd ever really notices.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:28:19].
Meredith:
Yeah.
Fred:
Yeah. Like I said, I feel like I handled the nerves thing pretty well just because like I said, it's like, I guess I could say it'd been in not necessarily golf because I play some golf tournaments too and I cannot shake the nerves in golf. I will go out and shoot 77 in the practice round and then go out and shoot almost a 90. Just because I let my nerves just get out of control and won't stay focused. Nerves carry through golf. Whereas football, used to be with football, you're just like, right before the game you're like, "Oh, god dude, man. I'm just feeling rough." People are throwing up they're nervous.
Meredith:
Just the adrenalin.
Fred:
Yeah. But then as soon as first play happens it's like you're locked into this, where exactly where you want it to be. You're not nervous anymore.
Meredith:
And you can express it better like in physical sports. How adrenaline works is, you got to dump it. How do you dump it? You could run, physical movement can dump adrenaline but golf can't dump adrenaline. And music can't dump adrenaline because you're stagnant, you're static. There's no way. With football, you can get it all out. All those chemicals.
Fred:
Yeah, exactly. It's almost fuels... that's the fuel you need in football. It's that adrenaline rush whereas-
Nate:
I was never as nervous in team sports as I was for golf. I'm sure [inaudible 00:29:38] because it's just you.
Fred:
Yeah.
Nate:
There you are.
Meredith:
And there you are in front of 20,000 people.
Fred:
Yeah. That was that moment. Like I said, I was filled with heavy doubts. I'd decided in 2015, we released an album in Charlotte. And then that year, we played a pretty big show at the Visulite Theater in Charlotte. And we had some producers come out after they saw us play, they were like, hey, we're going to get you guys a really good deal on a studio in Nashville. And so they took us to Nashville in 2016 and we recorded. And when we were there, we recorded a place called EastSide Manor studios. And that's actually where The Roots have their... they have two Grammys out of that studio. And The Roots, that's Jimmy Fallon's-
Nate:
Jimmy Fallon's band.
Fred:
Yeah, house band. So really cool. Being there working in a studio where someone had recorded Grammy Award winning tracks. And then just being there the way the studio owners, they kept bringing people in to introduce us to, or introduce those people to us. And they're like, "Have you ever heard of this band?" "We've never heard them. Why haven't we heard of them? And do you guys tour full time?" "No, we don't even tour." Just like lots of stuff that was just building us up. Like, man, this is really cool. And eventually, I ran into a couple of my favorite artists in the studio. They happen to be there working. And it's funny the producer we were working with didn't even know who they were and I did. And he was telling me it was somebody different. And we ended up going out and talking and just having this great prolific conversation.
Fred:
And after the conversation, I was like, "Dude, you're in the same studio as Joey Landreth." I don't know, you got to take this seriously, man. You got to turn it around. Because at that point, everybody was just still having fun. And I was on the precipice of, "Hey, I'm dropping this cash on this album and this opportunity, because I do believe in what we're doing." And obviously you're biased, hopefully you believe in something you're doing. Anyways, I just kept pushing forward. When I came back from that last trip in Nashville and meeting Joey, I was like, "Man, I'm going to take this seriously." So at the time, when I got out of high school, just a quick rundown. I got out of high school, I took a year off college then went to cosmetology school because my dad is actually a hairdresser for the last 40 years pretty much and his dad was a hairdresser.
Meredith:
And that's why you have awesome hair, I love your hair.
Fred:
That's right. That's right. And I date a hairdresser now too, so she's responsible for my hair now. I did that for a couple years just found that it wasn't my thing. In the process of doing that I've worked for a guy that owned a food truck. And I was like, man, this industry is booming. So I went out and bought a food cart, started running the food cart, and then we rented a food truck for a couple years and ran that. We'd basically go to call centers and do their lunches. And it was incredible, you show up at 11:00, leave at 4:00 and just crush because these call centers had 30 minute to a hour lunch breaks. They would come out and get food so quick. So I did that for a couple years.
Fred:
Coming back from Nashville in 2016, I was like, you know what, I'm going to sell this food cart, and I'm going to do music full time. Because my booking agent actually from Myrtle Beach, we had begged him forever to come down and play after we did the House of Blues show and we could never get a show. He has a cancellation. He lets us come down. We kill it. He's like, "Okay, you're more than welcome to come here anytime you want now." It's like our try out. And in doing that, he's like, "Hey, have you ever played solo shows?" And I hadn't, and I just lied to him. I was like, "Yeah, I have played solo show." So I come down here and make a grand one weekend playing solo shows. And I was like, that's it. I'm done. I'm going back and I quit. I put the hotdog cart, the food cart up for sale. And just decided to pursue music full time.
Fred:
And in doing that I made the decision right then that, hey, no matter how heavy the doubt gets, you can't give up on this. And at that point, too. Again, we had met so many people, like meeting Joey Landreth in that studio. He came in to the studio and was like, "Hey, I wanted to ask whose tracks these are. They are recording. This is great. And I was like, "Really man, damn. I should ask you to record [inaudible 00:34:07]." He's like, "Dude, anytime you let me know." And just those solidifying moments to think somebody that I've really idolized is standing right here talking about working with me.
Meredith:
Giving you confirmation on what you're doing.
Fred:
Exactly. Exactly.
Meredith:
It's like signs in the road, mile markers. That was exactly.
Nate:
It is a confidential need to.
Fred:
Yeah, it is. It is.
Meredith:
And you have to have those. It's like having that shot in your arm. You have to have those boosts because that tells you internally, your compass is set in the right direction.
Nate:
I was thinking musical food cart. You could be playing and [crosstalk 00:34:38], that could have been something [crosstalk 00:34:40].
Meredith:
It's a lot of multitasking.
Fred:
We did do that. That was always funny. You can talk to the people at the call center and we had such a good time with those people because they were rough, man. They were they wanted... They would give you hard time if you let them push you around, but they also liked to be pushed around a little bit. But we would sit out there and play. I would play guitar because I would always bring my friends to work with me because it was a cash business and my friends if it was their day off from work, I would be like, "Come on, come on and make 100, 200 bucks with me." Because I was really crushing it with the food cart. That actually was a very lucrative industry and I had had it dialed at the right time. But we had this plan early and it's still not over yet because my brothers... I'm the oldest of five. I have a sister that's next in line and then three brothers after her.
Meredith:
Oh, my goodness, that's a big family.
Fred:
Yeah, yeah. My dad wanted more kids, but my mom was like, "No, no, no."
Meredith:
She did good with five.
Fred:
Yeah. We're all within eight years too. So it was just bam, bam, bam. Just slammed us out. But anyways, my brothers ran the food truck well with me and I just had this plan. I was maybe once we get pretty big, I don't know if you guys ever seen the movie Chef.
Meredith:
I haven't seen it.
Fred:
What's his name? Jon Fevreau or Favreau, whatever his name is. He's a producer for all the Marvel movies and stuff like that. But anyways, this guy has this basically food truck. And he just goes around and with his kid and they go all over the country hitting these farmers markets and they make a meal and his kid's social media savvy. So he posts everywhere and makes them successful. And so they're traveling around doing this. But I had this idea, I was like, man, if we ever do get to a point where we make it big, how cool would it be to have a food truck that follows the tour bus and at pre show we feed these crowd.
Meredith:
Branded. Yeah, branded.
Fred:
Yeah, it's a branded thing. And it's, here's our food truck we do a celebrity appearance at the food truck before every show and who knows, get up, play three songs on top of the food truck.
Meredith:
That's awesome.
Fred:
And then let my family run that. Because like I said, it was such a lucrative business. I was like, "Man, this would be something to tag along on the road and just..."
Nate:
You'd need a big food truck.
Fred:
You would. You would. You would.
Nate:
A lot of stock.
Meredith:
Almost like the size of one those massive [inaudible 00:37:01]. Like a bus.
Nate:
A bus. Yeah.
Meredith:
Yeah.
Fred:
That was coming in. After that we came... coming down here to play those shows, I realized, hey, you can make really good money playing music. And I was like, the food cart was 60 to 80 hours a week. It was so much man. Because I was the owner. And after work hours you just turn around, you'd have to go get prepped on. And at the time we were playing... It'd be like, we get up at 7:00 o'clock, cook the food, get out to the place by 11:00, get done at 4:00, driving it almost 45 minutes back home, unload the truck. Load up my truck with music equipment, drive back to Charlotte, play a venue.
Meredith:
Wow. It's a grind.
Fred:
It was tough. Yeah.
Meredith:
That's a grind.
Fred:
I was like, "Hey, I'm spreading myself too thin between these. I've made some good money with the food truck." And at the time too Charlotte's food truck industry when I was getting out was about to explode. Within a year it had went from 30 food trucks within, I don't know 50 mile radius to, it just boomed. It was a couple of hundreds.
Meredith:
I think Myrtle Beach just allowed food trucks a couple years ago. That hasn't been very long here. [crosstalk 00:38:11].
Fred:
Yeah, I've noticed a few.
Nate:
There's a application, there's a big process you have to [crosstalk 00:38:19].
Meredith:
Oh, I'm sure.
Fred:
Yeah. There's a lot that goes into it, a lot of red tape.
Meredith:
Well, getting to... Let's move to golf a little bit. How do you play golf on the road? Do you ever get to do that? Or, at different shows take the time out to get a round of golfing? How does that work for you?
Fred:
Lots of shows are at night. So anytime we can play during the day.
Nate:
Does your band play?
Fred:
Nobody in my band plays.
Meredith:
Do they know that you're good?
Fred:
Not really. They know that I play a lot.
Meredith:
If you're listening to this podcast, Late Night Special guys, the guy can play, he can play some golf. I've seen it. I've witness do it.
Fred:
Yeah. A couple of them have wanted me to get them into it. And I told them, right now's the time, everybody's in it. I make time to play because, coming out of high school I think that our last tournament high school, was states. And I was my senior year. Golf season was in the spring right before you graduated. I was playing pretty good and we were on the way down to the state tournaments and I started talking about the shanks. And I was like, "I've never got the Shanks." I got the shanks in the state tournament and went from shooting an 84 to shooting, I think I shot 90, 92 in the tournament. My coach was pissed. So I was just like, "I'm done. I'm going to quit golf."
Meredith:
Everybody says that when they get to the shanks, I'm going to quit golf.
Nate:
It's the worst feeling in the world.
Fred:
I did.
Meredith:
It is the worst because it's like, how do you get out of it?
Fred:
And I literally did, I quit for two years and just didn't play. And then weirdly a friend of mine that we had became really close with we started playing. I realized that he liked to play and we just started going out and playing again. And then eventually he was the guy that his mom passed away. And we ended up having the concert at his house. And then through that we built the Shakedown together. And just through that, we'd always been good friends. And he went to NC State, to the PGM program for a while. And that sparked our interest in, hey... We started to realize, yeah, we're not pro level good but we are still in the top 10%.
Meredith:
Good. Absolutely.
Fred:
We still are a lot better than most of the people out there. We also started to notice that a lot of people we play with don't really play legit. It was like, well, we play really legit, ball down, taking every stroke, and maybe take two off the tee is about as far as we push it. But it's man, if we're like this decent and we play legit, what can we do? So we started just chasing it down. And now we do a lot of amateur tournaments and stuff, and just try to keep grinding. I make time for golf. All shows are most of the time at night unless I'm doing something like double duty on the weekends. But I really try to make a lot of time for golf and it's been a thing. I actually started pre pandemic.
Fred:
We started going out and I just fell in love with walking. And once we would go walk 18 holes in the middle of the summer. So once you got the stamina to do it, I started doing this weird golf workout where I'm walk around with my bag on my back. I would do 20 squats on every tee box, and 20 push ups on every green.
Meredith:
Oh my gosh. That's cool.
Fred:
And just get my cardio up. Because, especially on the days where the golf wasn't going so good, I'm like, I got to get something accomplished out here.
Meredith:
I like it.
Fred:
I would just start doing these workouts and moving into the pandemic, I don't know, I lost about 40 pounds.
Meredith:
[crosstalk 00:42:00].
Fred:
Just staying active working through golf, walking all the time. And so I really fell in love that aspect of it. So I started to use that as my exercise source, versus having to make time to get to the gym. I could really get two things done at once and work on my game. And since we had... I had the lesson. Really the lesson was what turned around for me. When I had that lesson with you, I don't know how, but it just like took 10 strokes off my game. And I just kept like... I was like, man, I really should work at this morning. If I actually worked at it, maybe it would pay off a little bit more.
Meredith:
I remember watching you swing and I'm like, gosh he's got so much talent. I get so used to having students, swing after, swing after swing. And then every now and then I'll have a student that just really captures my attention when it comes to just the raw talent. And I remember like, gosh, this guy's talent, oh my gosh, he's got so much talent. I'm not just saying that, I really mean that. I don't say that to everybody. But you really have a lot of raw talent there. You could pursue golf if you wanted to. At least to have some fun skin games.
Fred:
Well, that's the weird thing. I'm trying to keep it heavily in when the pandemic hit, we really took off and started playing all the time because that was all there was to do. Just go play golf. And I'm very fortunate I work with a company on Instagram called The BAG Tour. And they're based around Charlotte, but they are... It's a really fun group of guys, they've created this platform on Instagram where you can basically join with them and become a sponsored golfer at any level. They have tiers and levels and you become a sponsor golfer. So we got to play a lot of golf with them through the pandemic. And that again, just sparked the interest and music had almost disappeared for that. For me it disappeared for that one month of March. It was music... The shutdown happened, there was not a lot going on. Following that I didn't get a break. For some reason private shows just went through the roof. And that tour even though it got canceled, we somewhere in October got to go do five shows across the country that were like 10,000 plus events.
Nate:
You almost had to reinvent yourself. It took that month to figure out, now what are we going to do? Yeah.
Fred:
Yeah, and I was going to reinvent myself as a golfer. I was like, I'm going to focus on golf and this is going to be my plan B for right now. And maybe I can get dialed in enough to... Because like I said, I was like, maybe I'll go back to school and pursue a career in golf as well. I wasn't giving up on music, but I was like, this is weirdly scary. Either way, it turned all back around and just been super busy with music since the pandemic happened which is very fortunate.
Nate:
You should enter the North Carolina, the men's qualifier to get into the amateur open.
Fred:
I'm working. I'm working. I'm got to work my... I'm still working pretty hard on my swing. I've got to dial it in. What we talked about earlier is the nerves. That's really if you could teach that, the mental... Just having mental stamina for golf. If you could-
Meredith:
Actually [inaudible 00:45:23].
Fred:
Yeah. Seriously you almost need [crosstalk 00:45:27].
Nate:
It's called the alcohol. A couple beers before, that's what it is.
Fred:
Yeah, there you go.
Nate:
It is.
Meredith:
Oh, no. That just never helps me. Never helps me.
Fred:
Doesn't help me either.
Nate:
Nerves. Bring the nerves down.
Meredith:
No, but right. It's like Ben Hogan said, the golf game it's the four and a half inches between one ear to one ear. It's up here. It's a mindset of being able to execute, perform, what your goals are under the pressure. But I would say this, to sing, I can't even imagine singing in front of 20,000 people. One, I have a horrible voice and I would never be in that position. But to do that, if you can do that, you most certainly could perform under any type of pressure with golf. I can tell you that as an instructor. If you can do that, you have the mindset, the mental framework so to speak to be able to translate that into another area of your life.
Fred:
Right. And it's tapping into that. Once you can tap into that, that's when it gets for real.
Nate:
A lot of it it's being confident in what you're doing. Like you're a confident singer now.
Meredith:
Yeah. It's all about routine too.
Nate:
It's about confidence.
Meredith:
It's all about routine.
Nate:
I used to yawn a lot. That would be the one thing to get oxygen to your brain. Because when playing high school golf we played [crosstalk 00:46:45].
Meredith:
Would you force yourself to yawn?
Nate:
I would.
Meredith:
Really?
Fred:
Yeah, and it would put more oxygen in your brain.
Nate:
Yeah, it brings more oxygen. It was a golf tip I read one time.
Meredith:
That's good.
Nate:
And I would literally do that on the golf course. I would just, okay yawn. It just brings you down.
Fred:
It's so funny you go through those things. Because golf's such a weird game. Your body's ever changing and feeling different every day. So you wake up approaching it every day. And I remember, actually a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember what it was. I was just flipping through Instagram right when we're playing and you were given a tip. I think it was to keep your shoulders and your feet and everything in line. You bring your hands down in front of you. And I just started doing that and I'm telling you the next two rounds, I shot in the 70s no problem. Not even playing that great, but still shooting in the 70s. Something I was having a lot of trouble with is getting my feet going this way, my shoulders were still going this way. But it's just like, every once in a while you find one little tip that helps you and you hyper focus on that.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:47:43] alignment tip.
Meredith:
Right, right.
Fred:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nate:
Aim and alignment, yeah.
Fred:
Yeah, that helped me so much for a couple of weeks. But it's funny, you start to crutch on that one thing that you remembered seeing. You're like, well, that helped me last time. And sometimes you start to overcorrect on those things. And that ends up-
Meredith:
You take it too far down there.
Fred:
Exactly.
Meredith:
Yeah, yeah.
Fred:
And like I said, you're waking up every day with, especially the older you are, you're waking up every day your body feels a little bit different [crosstalk 00:48:08].
Meredith:
Wait till you get 43.
Fred:
I'm not even-
Meredith:
You're 30, you're still a young babe.
Fred:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I use my youth while I can.
Meredith:
I always say when it comes to the golf swing, aim and alignment that's a golf fundamental. That's why it worked for you. I always like to remind people when it comes to golf, when you're struggling, when things start to collapse, always go back to the fundamentals. It's like the reset button, an electrical outlet. A little button you hit on your electronics. It's the same thing. So you just hit reset. So how do you hit reset? Well, it's the fundamental, so its aim, its alignment, its grip. It's your stance, getting into the athletic position. And then, think about the takeaway. The first, six to eight inches the club leaves keeping that nice and square. Sometimes just going through your pre shot routine using the fundamentals for your pre shot routine. For example, my pre shot routine has been the same for over 30 years now. I've been playing golf since I was six, longer than that. But I've had the same pre shot routine and it's always this.
Meredith:
The first thing I do is I stand behind the ball, and I find my intended target. I really focus on it. I mentally, not only do I find the line, but I tell myself, I'm going to hit the target. I talk to myself on my own. I'm going to do that. I can do that. And then when I step behind the ball, then it's aim, the club face and then it's body alignment. So you get the club face square, then you get your body square. And you get into that athletic position. And then one of the last things I do is, then I grip it. I'm gently holding the club, but then I really focus on the placement of my hands and the pressure of my hands. And then I just look at my target, reconnect with, oh, I'm going to hit that.
Fred:
Yeah. You're reassuring yourself.
Meredith:
Yeah. And then sometimes I motion out the takeaway sometimes I don't. But regardless, I go through that every single time. And when you go and work through a system that's the key to opening up the door, to letting go of the mental side, the stressors and the pressure. Because then what you do is you take yourself out of it, you take the pressure off yourself. I can't trust Meredith, I don't trust myself all the time. But one thing I can trust is my pre shot routine. So when I get stressed, I sit there and say, "You know what Meredith, the pressure is not on you. It's, you just do your pre shot routine." And nine times out of 10, you have a really solid shot.
Fred:
Yeah.
Meredith:
So I don't have to trust myself, but I trust the routine. And so instead, I translate the pressures on the routine. It's not on me. It's the routine that has to perform. And if I do everything right, I'm going to have a good shot.
Fred:
As for me is staying in golf mentally. I'll use my routine. And it'll be going great. And then I'll have a bad shot. And maybe I'll forget to use my routine that turns into two bad shots. Or it's, I'm using my routine and it's going so well, that I feel like I don't need the routine today.
Nate:
You don't need... Yeah.
Fred:
And that's when it starts to go shit. Yeah. And so you have to remember, hey, stay focused. Staying focused is the hardest thing. Your cell phone on the golf course, is the worst. That's one thing. Having a musician's schedule is pretty lackadaisical in a way. It's very... you own your own schedule, you make your own schedule, but I also work, maybe I only work 40 hours a week. Those 40 hours are scattered over 120 hours. Being distracted on the golf course by my cell phone or having to answer a call for...
Nate:
So you have a pre shot routine, but you don't have a set daily routine.
Fred:
Exactly. Exactly.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:52:01].
Meredith:
Right. And then it's harder to implement a routine if you don't have somewhat of a daily routine. Everything is synced, everything is connected it just [crosstalk 00:52:10].
Fred:
Yeah. And that's what's tough. When I'm home and during the pandemic... Probably why I got so much better at golf was, we were playing a lot every day. We were going through routine. I'd wake up every day, go work out, and then we'd go to the range where we've got play. It was just setting a pretty good routine. Once we got out on the road earlier this year which was the first... or actually back in the fall. Once we got on the road in the fall, and basically flying out on Thursdays. You're out working all weekend, not getting to swing the club, because I wasn't bringing my clubs out to these events and stuff. I just didn't quite have the time. But then you flying back home, or you drive in a car for a couple hours and then you try to play Monday through Wednesday. It's just so hard to find-
Meredith:
It's inconsistent.
Fred:
Yeah, find the consistency and keep yourself in that groove. That's been tough. But again if it was my career, if I had knew... Yeah, I don't know, my bills had to be paid but I would probably be a little bit more structured and routine with my golf game. But fortunately, I am with music. And that is my career right now. And I have that a little bit on a better lock than the golf [crosstalk 00:53:26].
Meredith:
Well, I can tell you I love, one I'm blessed to know you as a person. And it was fun working with you. And I'm glad we've stayed connected even if it's just through social media just keeping up with what each other's doing and stuff.
Fred:
Absolutely.
Meredith:
But what a amazing voice you have. Anybody listening, you've got to go check him out. Fred, his voice is amazing. It's very soulful. Your voice is very soothing. That's just every time I hear your voice I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this guy, when's he going to just have all these albums out?" Because to me, you're just absolutely amazing. It's truly an honor to have you on our show. It's so cool that you're often in Myrtle Beach performing. I just want everybody listening to know that you actually, you could be in town and Fred could be performing. So I want to give our listeners right now. Go ahead and tell them ways that they could follow you that they could connect with you. And then the last thing after you do that, I want to find out your number one favorite course in Myrtle Beach.
Fred:
Okay, all right. I'll have to ponder on that one because there's some very [inaudible 00:54:33] that I've played. Yeah, so if you're looking for us, you can go check us out, check out our website, we've got a merch store, we've got a lot of upcoming dates and stuff on there that is latenightspecial.net. And if you're on social media and whatever you can find us on Facebook, Late Night Special Band. Or Instagram is @latenightspecialmusic, and you can just catch us all around. We had some good luck this last year, we got on the Pat McAfee Show, which is Pat McAfee was the punter for the Colts. And when he retired, he went into broadcasting. And I want to say, again, I'm not 100% of the story, but I think he turned down ESPN, a job with those guys to actually go start his own YouTube channel. And they've just had immense success.
Fred:
And if you don't know Pat, he's just got a incredible personality, just a true go getter funny guy. But anyways, we got on their show last year and they've been spreading the love of with the music with them. We released an album back in 2020. And they've been spreading that album around just sharing the love so that's helped us get a little bit more national recognition and everything. And like I said, we have a new album coming out here in a couple of weeks.
Meredith:
So exciting. Is there a title of this album?
Fred:
There is a title is called, Dance the Night Away.
Meredith:
Love it.
Fred:
We're basically going to be releasing a couple EPs over the next couple months. Which EP is not a full length 12 to 14 song album, it's more of anywhere from four to eight songs. So probably do four to five songs on each EP. This first one, Dance the Night Away, it's a little bit more groovy, a little bit more dancey. Our agents referred to it as almost this Daft Punk feel, which was cool. With Daft Punk retiring out of the game, maybe we can slot in and get a little bit of action.
Fred:
Yeah and then our next EP or next couple EPs there'll be different, they'll be genre different. The next one will probably be more like a psych rock. And then the next one following that is more like Sultry Singer songwriter thing. And then we're going to try to gear up for 2021 and do a full link album with them. Just have a big list of producers, some people from Nashville and LA that I've been itching to work with. Just not that it's been completely out of range, but it's just something that didn't feel like we were quite ready for. But I think now, really looking forward to moving forward and working with somebody. The people that we want to work with are people that have worked on major records with a lot of different artists.
Fred:
And I've just became... like I said, when I decided in 2016 to delve into this and do it full time, I just started researching every angle of how and what to do. And that's when I stumbled across and ran into this producer vein. The producers own a lot of these tracks that you hear that are top 40 hits from now even back into the 50s. The producers have a lot to do with helping an artist capture a sound and bring it and elevate it. Bring it to the best potential. It's where I'm at.
Meredith:
That's exciting.
Fred:
Yeah.
Meredith:
You have that and gosh so many good things are happening for you. I hope you keep up your golf game. I know you're in Myrtle Beach performing this week and will be often here like you always are. At least seems like at least once a month you're here doing a gig, which is really cool. What golf course do you like to play when you're here?
Fred:
I have really, really... Let's see, the last six months we've played a lot of really good ones. I really like Heritage. Heritage has been a really fun one.
Nate:
That's a good one.
Fred:
I have not played True Blue or Caledonia yet. I've been itching to play those. I've heard a lot of good things about those. But Heritage has been really fun. The Witch has been really fun. I don't know why I like that course so much.
Meredith:
A lot of people like The Witch. A lot people [crosstalk 00:58:47].
Fred:
Yeah. It's just such a very cool layout. It's got that vibe-
Nate:
No homes around it. You're out there and nature [crosstalk 00:58:54].
Fred:
Yeah, yeah. Being out in nature is really cool. But I liked Heritage too. Just the layout of Heritage is really fun. I'd say those are two of my favorites that I've played.
Nate:
Those are good ones.
Meredith:
Yeah, those are really good courses. All right, well, Fred, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Nate:
[crosstalk 00:59:12] talking to you.
Fred:
Absolutely.
Meredith:
Yes.
Fred:
Absolutely guys. Thank you all so much.
Meredith:
What a great story? Seriously. You're so gifted, love your music. Definitely want people to check you out. Definitely worth if you're in Myrtle Beach. Go to latenightspecial.net. You could follow them on the handle latenightspecialmusic. You can follow Fred, just check them out. Definitely something to do in Myrtle Beach, we have golf, we have music here. What a great place to vacation and relax and just enjoy life. Right. Thanks for coming on the show. And maybe we'll have you on again. And I want you to enter the men's open, the amateur qualify for it, Fred.
Fred:
Yeah. I'm going to try. I really do want... That's a big goal of mine in 2022. Is to play some more serious tournaments because that's... Really haven't played a lot of tournament golf since high school. And I realized this last year that it's a little different. Like I said, that pressure factor. I'm like, I have to conquer that. I have to conquer that. I want to go out and play some good round. You definitely might see me getting in that because 2022 I would love to do that. I want to do some more on national and international touring in the music business and get some more albums out. And then in my golf game, I definitely want to just keep stepping it up a notch. Take advantage of the time. In 10 more years, I don't know that I can perform like I'm performing now.
Meredith:
Enjoy your peak?
Fred:
Yeah, enjoy the peak, enjoy the youth.
Meredith:
Golf, music..
Fred:
I said something to somebody the other day, I was like, I don't know... Me personally, and this is nothing against anybody who does get lessons but, I would say after the age of 50 I don't want to lesson anymore because I'm going to probably be so frustrated that I can't do what I used to be able to do. It's going to be, I don't know if I want to play anymore. But golf's is that game you can play forever till probably the day you die.
Meredith:
Yeah, it is. It's a game of a lifetime.
Fred:
Yep.
Meredith:
All right, Fred. Well, thanks for coming on.
Fred:
Cheers you guys, thanks so much, man.
Meredith:
Thank you.
Fred:
Yeah.
MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com Ambassador Meredith Kirk is joined by the talented front man of the Band “Late Night Special” and golf enthusiast Fred Heintz!
Show Notes/Time Stamp
To :23 Intro from Litchfield Country Club
:24 The venues in Myrtle Beach that Fred plays at
1:53 How Meredith and Fred connected, his golf game
4:14 Playing football, chance to play collegiate
5:38 When golf wasn’t cool, how it’s changed
7:28 Getting into music at a late age and Fred’s music journey
10:47 The process of writing songs
11:39 Open mic days
12:27 Getting started in Charlotte North Carolina
13:14 First full band show at House of Blues Myrtle Beach, building a band
14:20 Building the show “The Shakedown”
16:17 Meredith on hidden gifts and talents
17:45 Not giving up on learning an instrument
21:48 Pursuing a music career with a family
22:42 The thought that something big was going to happen, and it did
24:38 Playing solo in front of 20,000 people in Dallas
26:55 How nerves effect a musician/performer
29:52 Releasing an album, going to Nashville, The Rootz
31:54 Taking it serious
32:07 Fred’s timeline and getting into the food truck business
33:07 Performing in Myrtle Beach, deciding on music being full time
33:52 An idol giving confidence and confirmation
34:34 The musical food cart
35:44 Following the tour bus idea
38:19 Mixing golf with music career, giving it up for 2 years because of the shanks
40:38 Realizing most people don’t play “legit” and making time for the game
41:26 Working out while playing golf and walking
42:14 Fred’s lesson with Meredith and her thoughts on his game
44:04 The nerves in golf, having mental stamina and a routine
47:13 Aim and alignment tip
48:16 Going back to the fundamentals of golf and importance of pre-shot routine
51:31 The musicians schedule, not having a daily routine
54:09 Ways to follow Fred and the Band—music and upcoming shows:
54:58 Guests on the Pat McAfee show
55:44 New Album! “Dance the Night Away” and other new releases upcoming
58:08 Fred’s favorite Myrtle Beach golf course
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