Oliver Anthony: Country Music, Blue-Collar America, Fame, Money, and Pain | Lex Fridman Podcast #469

- The following is a conversation with Oliver Anthony,

singer-songwriter from Virginia,

who first gained worldwide fame

with this viral hit "Rich Men North of Richmond."

He became a voice for many who are voiceless

with his songs speaking to the struggle

of the working class in modern American life.

His legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford.

Oliver Anthony was his grandfather's name.

So Chris used this name as a dedication to his grandfather

and to 1930s Appalachia,

where his grandfather was born and raised.

"Dirt floors, seven kids hard times," as Chris says.

He's happy to be called either one, by the way.

I've gotten to know Chris more

since the recording of this conversation.

He truly is, as he appears online

and in his songs, down to earth, humble

and a good man who deeply feels the pain of the downtrodden.

This is a Lex Fridman podcast to support it.

Please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Christopher Lunsford,

or as many of you know him as, Oliver Anthony.

So I was texting you last night sitting at an open mic,

listening to a guy perform "Great Balls of Fire."

Like I told you, he was giving everything he got

for like five people in the audience plus me.

- Well, you were there.

I'd have been doing it too, if you were out there like,

oh, that's like screaming.

- No, man.

He was this big dude on a keyboard, just everything.

Sweaty, long hair,

you could tell like he was there in his own little world.

I love the courage of that, of just giving it everything.

I don't think he wants to be famous.

I don't think he wants anything in life except to be there

and to play like his heart out.

That's why I love open mics.

Like some people still aspire

to be famous when they play open mics,

but some people, maybe they've given up

or maybe they never wanted to be famous.

They're just there for the pure artistry of it, so.

And you said you started out playing open mics.

At shady bars, what was that like?

- Well, yeah, real quick before I forget too.

A great example of a guy who had that same mindset

and was able to maintain it really well

as this mandolin player named Johnny Staats

in West Virginia.

To me, he's one of the best

and he's won all these awards and stuff,

and he still works for UPS full-time.

And like he could go out and tour with play mandolin

for anybody he wanted to, but man, when you meet Johnny,

like you can tell he's just got this joy in him

that I don't think he would have if he...

But as far as me with the open mics,

yeah, it was just, it was, a lot of them were really,

a lot of them were embarrassing.

There was a couple, I remember there was times

where I'd go up and try to do, I do like one song.

I get like halfway through the next song

and I'd be so nervous by that point.

I couldn't remember any of the words.

And there's a couple times,

I remember there was one time in particular

that I just walked off halfway through the song,

put my guitar in the case and just, well, I just left.

I didn't even, like, couldn't even stay in there,

you know, just total freak out, but.

- Just embarrassment.

- And I never drank in bars either.

Like I wasn't really a social drinker,

so I was just there to try to do the mic.

So it was kind of, I was a little out of place anyway.

I feel kind of outta place in a bar to start with, so.

- Yeah, it's back when you could smoke in bars,

there's a whole vibe to it.

People smoke and drinking and yeah, definitely.

You know, bombing in a place like that

when the audience is like,

there's like five people and they're bored.

- Yeah, there was one like that.

It was in Matoaka.

It wasn't that far from where I lived.

The place is gone now, but it was about as big

as the room we're in here, if that, you know.

Like the ceiling tiles were yellow

from where everybody had smoked in it

since the beginning of time.

But like, yeah, that was my little spot.

Those little type of spots

- You did covers? What'd you play?

What was your go-to

- Back then, it was like, I don't know,

"Fishin' in the Dark," Nitty Gritty Band

or like any of those old like Hank Jr. songs,

like any of those bar type, David Allen Coe.

Like "You Never Call Me By My Name,"

any of that kind of stuff.

And I haven't even played any of those in forever now.

But as any of those ones

where you get people singing along and stuff,

that's what I'd always try to do, you know?

- Yeah, that song you performed

"Take Me Home, Country Road," how's that go?

West Virginia?

- Yeah. - It's a good song.

- John Denver was just one of those guys that who knows

where he would've went long term

if he wouldn't have passed, but-

- You know, it's a fun song that I love.

I shouldn't, but I love is, what is it?

Like, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

- I think that's what I liked about John Denver

was he was a little bit like,

he let himself be a little bit corny

in the spirit of like, having fun with it.

Like great example, there's this older guy

that not a lot of people have heard of named Roy Clark,

but my farm's like a mile down the road

from Roy Clark's old farm.

But he used to be on Heehaw,

I don't know if you've ever heard of that old show

from like the '60s or whatever,

but crazy dude, he could pick any instrument up,

like there's videos on YouTube of him,

but he would just sit there and just pick anything up

and just rip it to death.

But he would always just be real silly about it.

He never took himself too seriously, you know.

- Some people go to the fun place,

some people go to the dark place.

You know, country can do both.

You more often go to the dark place, to the pain.

- Yeah, well, especially some of the new songs

that are coming out, they'll be probably not,

I mean, I don't know what they'll be.

I don't know what is country anymore anyway.

I don't know that many people who listen

to the type of music that I grew up listening to

and probably listen to country radio anymore anyway.

Like, I think there's quite a lot of people

who don't who've sort of disowned that space.

You know, in commercialized country

you only really get what sells

and a lot of what sells isn't necessarily what matters.

- Well you had that whole experience where they take

what you recorded and "polish" it, quote unquote

try to make it perfect.

And then so doing destroy the soul of the thing.

And so probably that happens with these big artists.

They're so famous. It's like a machine.

And so, what the machine does is it over polishes things.

And so the raw like power of the person,

the uniqueness of the person,

the soul of the person is gone if you do that.

- Yeah.

Well, I think professionalism,

like applying the tactic, the tactics of corporate America

to anything that is baseline artistic is not gonna end well.

- They're all individually brilliant,

but together, this corporate speak comes out.

- Yeah.

- Just the soul of the people dissipates.

It like disappears.

Why are you all pretending

that like life is not terrible and beautiful

and like you're both scared shitless and excited,

and this guy's going through a divorce,

this person just fell in love.

Like you're forgetting the intensity of life

with this corporate, like nine-to-five.

Like, hi John, it's great to see you today.

(Oliver laughing)

Oh, you too.

You as well, you as well.

But when I look at it, I'm like, "Why am I whining?"

I feel like a Bukowski-type character

because like, they're all really nice,

they're all good people,

but like something is gone

when you have this corporate machine.

- Well they're there to fill a role contractually.

And I think if they bring too many

of their human elements into that,

then they jeopardize losing their sense of security.

And it's all just out fear.

It's out fear of losing your job.

I mean, it's the reason why all the songs say Oliver Anthony

and not Christopher Lunsford on them.

You know, like it's fear of, it's so difficult to,

especially now it seems, I mean, who knows?

I was never around in the '40s or '50s to work a job.

I'm sure they were probably pretty miserable back then,

but you know, they talk about now like how difficult it is,

like the impossibility

of having a single family household or anything else.