Nothing like pulling double-duty while you are in the Marine Corps.
The great Jamey Johnson stopped by the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast to talk about his time in the Marines, listening to contemporary country music and how he enjoys artists like Morgan Wallen, working from the Cash cabin to create his new album Midnight Gasoline, how he wrote “What A View,” meeting his now-wife and proposing the second day he knew her, and much more.
He’s an interesting artist all around, but one of the more intriguing portions of his life is the eight years that he spent as a Marine. As to how he got to that point, Johnson says that he tried out the whole college thing and felt as though he had gotten everything out of it that he needed to in a couple of years:
“I had a full-ride scholarship at Jacksonville State. Played a French horn in the concert band. After a couple of years, I figured I learned everything I was gonna learn. And I joined the Marines. I didn’t want to do the things you had to do to keep the scholarship. I was ready to move along and do something else.”
That something else was joining the Marine Corps.
Why was that the next step? Jamey Johnson simply says that he always knew he would be a Marine at some point in his life (that’s bada** if you ask me), and once he was ready to move on from Jacksonville State, it seemed like the next logical step:
“There was always something in me that I knew I was going to do it. From the time I was a kid, I always knew I was going to be a Marine one day. When I reached that point in college when it was time to sign this off and move on, one of my ideas was, ‘Well, I can go join the Marine Corps or go in the reserves, get my GI bill and then (get) right back up in school.'”
@whiskeyriff “From the time I was a kid, I always knew I was going to be a Marine one day.” // Check out the full podcast with @JameyJohnsonOfficial available now on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. #whiskeyriff #whiskeyriffraff #jameyjohnson #marinecorps ♬ original sound – Whiskey Riff
That plan that Jamey Johnson had didn’t go as he thought it would. He never did end up going back to school, or using his GI Bill, and instead opted to do “Marine classes” that were available. And that was all while his passion for writing and performing continued to expand, even while he was busy with serving in the Marines:
“I was writing a lot. At the time, I had never co-written a song. Didn’t even understand the concept really. I wrote all my songs by myself. But I was also learning cover songs. Anytime I’d perform live in the Marine Corps, it was probably at some… I remember one time it was at Camp Wilson, which is in 29 Palms California.
There’s a little bar in the middle of the desert and I sat on the front porch with my cap upside down and lot’s of people would drop tips in there. I made a little money. I remember we made enough money that we went gambling in Laughlin, Nevada, one night.”
“Gambling in Laughlin” sounds like a song title to me.
And the more he played while he was in the Marines, the more others took notice. In fact, he says that he got very popular with the higher ranking officers because of his musical abilities:
“I was also getting passed around by officers. They would hear from some captain that this singer brought a guitar out to the middle of the damn desert and was putting on shows. (They’d say), ‘Well bring him over here, I want to hear it.’ I got real popular with all of the officers.”
To hear more from Jamey Johnson, make sure to download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or click here.
We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts.
Cheers, y’all.
