Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life. I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off. We started up and we ain't going to stop.

I like you. I could have not. That's when they got wheels off. Ryan Copleman never stayed in his lane. I don't know that he even has a lane.

He is a showrunner, writer, creator of a show called Billions. Right now, that's his main gig.

He's written a number of movies. He's been a big shot A&R guy during the heyday of the

recorded music industry. He's written more songs on his acoustic guitar during this pandemic than

I have. He's written more songs than I and Charlie Crockett put together have.

But man, he is a dude with a big engine, and he is super thoughtful and really smart and funny.

I love getting to speak with him.

He's got a lot to say, and it's really useful.

He recommends a book during the course of this conversation that I read a long time ago without fully committing to, and I have decided I'm going to go back and revisit that book myself because he made it sound like something

that could really work. He makes reference during our conversation a few times to Jason.

And for those of you that may not be on the super inside of the Americana songwriter world.

That's Jason Isbell, who is a brilliant dude and somebody that Brian and I are both friends with.

I'd never spent any time with Brian or gotten to really talk to him before this,

and I'm so glad that I got to talk to him for

wheels off. I've made this point before, but it's worth making again. I get more out of making

this thing, wheels off, than maybe anybody who is listening to it, just because these are conversations that I'm dying to have

with people that I admire. And Brian is right there at the top of the list. He's just so cool

and so, you know, just so wide ranging in the success that he's had. And I don't mean like

commercial success necessarily or, you know, monetary

success. I just mean like he's done a lot of stuff at a high level and he's lived an examined

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