Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. If you're even somewhat of a country music fan, chances are that you've heard of our next guest. Bobby Bones is

the host of the Bobby Bones show, which has an audience of more than 7 million per week. He's a member

of the musical comedy group, Bobby Bones and The Raging Idiots, and even mentored the Top 24 on American Idol this

year. His latest book, Fail Until You Don't, Fight, Grind, Repeat,

is about how he and some of his famous friends

made it through their failures

and found their way to enormous success.

Welcome to the show, Bobby.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate that.

Well, talk to us a little bit about your background

because you grew up in this

very small town in Arkansas. So how did you go from this town to being a big, big, radio star?

Well, I don't know if I'd use the word big, big, and star, but my transition started. So I was born in

Mountain Pine, Arkansas, the population is 700 people. And there's a sawmill,

or there was a sawmill, and it's since been shut down. And the town is, you know, it struggles now.

And, you know, my mom had me when she was 15 years old. I don't really know my biological father.

And she had a lot of issues with alcohol and drug use. She died in her 40s. And so a lot of that was me having to figure out to rate myself in a lot of

ways. My grandmother was a big influence. I was adopted for a while. And so I kind of had to figure

out if I wanted to get out, how to get out. I was the first

kid to graduate high school for my family. I was the first kid to graduate college. So, you know,

for me, it was there was only one way to get out of my town to do what I wanted to do. And that was

...