Had just been a long week.
Of course everybody remembers Morgan Wallen‘s now-viral appearance on Saturday Night Live a couple weeks ago, when the singer made headlines for his abrupt exit from the stage after saying goodnight while the cast and guest host mingled on stage.
Morgan posted an Instagram story afterwards with a photo of his plane captioned “Get me to God’s country,” which has not only become a meme but also apparently ruffled the feathers of SNL cast member Kenan Thompson. And everybody’s been speculating on what happened with the exit and why Morgan was in such a hurry to get home. But so far, neither Morgan nor anybody from his team has commented on the viral moment.
Until now.
JR the Handler dropped the first episode of his new podcast, The JR the Handler Show, this morning. And if you’re a fan of country music podcasts, you may already be familiar with JR: He not only serves as Justin Moore’s tour manager, but he was also the co-host of The Justin Moore Podcast.
And there’s really not anybody who’s better connected in the country music industry. JR previously served as tour manager for Jon Pardi, has a long history in the industry with artists like the late Wayne Mills, and knows more about the history of country music than just about anybody I know.
He’s also (obviously) got a ton of behind-the-scenes stories from the road and from his time working in country music, so it only makes sense that he’s started a new podcast to not only share his knowledge and stories about country music, but bring on guests to talk about what it’s like in country music from their perspectives, guests that you might not necessarily get to hear from on other podcasts.
And his first guest just happened to be Jeff Gossett, the tour manager for Morgan Wallen.
The two have known each other a long time, and along with swapping stories from their time on the road together while Gossett was serving as tour manager for Brantley Gilbert, they also addressed the viral moment from SNL – and according to Gossett, it wasn’t a big of a deal as it looked:
“It’s probably been made a bigger deal than it should have been, but it hasn’t hurt him.”
According to Gossett, they had been in New York City since Wednesday preparing for the show (which, as he points out, doesn’t start until 11 PM eastern), and by the end of the show everybody was just ready to get home:
“I flew in Wednesday, Thursday we rehearsed, Friday we had a day off, Saturday was the show. And that show doesn’t start until 11:00 at night…
New York City’s a great city… but it’s just not what, I think, we’re used to. And so I think without getting into any detail on that, it was a great experience, Saturday Night Live is a wonderful show. I think we all probably just wanted to come home.”
And he also says that the “abrupt” exit wasn’t really as abrupt as it looked on television:
“It wasn’t like there was an immediate exit. Back to the dressing room, changed some clothes, signed some photos for SNL, the stuff you have to sign at these events, it wasn’t like whisked right out of there and into a vehicle. I mean, we were probably there another half hour before we left.
Overall it was a great night, and he went home and got back to the grind, as we all did.”
So there you have it. Nothing happened behind the scenes, no big drama, just ready to get back home to God’s country after a long week in NYC.
The entire conversation between JR and Gossett is great, with the two old friends talking about everything from how they got started in the industry to Gossett’s love for Panda Express while he’s on the road.
Give it a listen, and add this podcast to your weekly rotation, because if you’re a fan of country music and everything that goes on behind the scenes with your favorite artist, The JR the Handler Show is going to be a must listen.
