Hi friends, welcome to another episode of That Sounds Fun. I'm your host Annie F. Downs. So glad to be here with you happy April Fools. But no joking, we have a great show for you. The music in the background is from our friend Mr. John McLaughlin is new album, Aston Grace is amazing. I hope you listen to it.

A couple of months ago, almost at you, actually about a year ago, we did a podcast survey and asked a bunch of you thousands of you answered us and we said, who do you want to hear on the show?

And today's guest was the number one answer, I think for sure, top three, but I think he was number one. Many of you know and love his music, but I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation with my friend, you want your favorite singer songwriters, Mr. Ben Rector.

Ben Rector, the world has longed for you to be here. I'm so glad we got to make it work. I really am. Yeah, thank you. Me too. There is no one, the podcast family stalks me more about having on the show than you literally.

I'm happy we could give them what they want. Why? Why is that? What is that about? I don't honestly, I don't know. I feel like probably the Venn diagram of a people.

Crossover, there's probably pretty good overlap. I don't know why, honestly. Do you do a lot of interviews? I don't do like a lot of interviews, but I don't not do interviews. Do you like them?

Yeah, I genuinely, I do because I feel like most of the things, most interviews I do would be more long lines of like a public says, set up a phone interview with a newspaper and those are usually the same four questions.

And then what actually happens is anytime an interview goes to print and I get this, people ramble when they just talk out loud and it also tone matters a lot.

Yeah. And so a lot of times people that are writing that down, it gets changed a little bit and it's like super shortened and I'm always like, I didn't say that or that it didn't come off. I wanted to try. I welcome and get excited for the opportunity to get to do.

Like a recorded interview because usually you can talk about different things and also I don't I'm not like secretly worried like, oh my gosh, they're going to chop this up and I'm going to sound like it's going to ruin me.

I'm just going to do like one of those things that Jimmy found does where he cuts single words and makes his own sentence. That is literally what I do on the show. So that's great. So just get ready.

I can't wait to hear. We have had Simone on. Oh, awesome. And it is one of people's favorites favorite episodes. And he attributes so much of his national life to you and y'all's friendship.

And I love that guy so much. And I do feel like I don't know. It was a weird sequence of events. He was just about, I'm sure you're listening to probably listen to this or he probably told the story.

He was just about, he was in Memphis and he was going to go, I think to seminary, but was also like, maybe I want to cook. And we're y'all roommates at Arkansas. Yeah, we were. So we knew each other well from that. And he had really started to love food then.

Yeah. And so I called him because I was opening for need to breathe on a three month tour. And I just wanted to have a friend come along with me. He sold t shirts. But I was just like, I'd love to have just a buddy because it's going to be a long time.

Yeah. And so I thought of him. Were you in Hillary already married then? Yeah, we were. Okay. And we were Simone. He's just such great company in general. And I called him not knowing if you want to do it. I was like, this would be a fun way to see the country.

I'd love to have you there. Yeah. And so after that, I think he crashed at Hillary and I's house for a few weeks. And he was still kind of on the fence. And I was, I didn't want to like tell him what to do. But I'd really thought that he would be so good at food. And I thought he'd really enjoy it.

And just in that weird segment of time, burger up, tweeted they were looking for some form of a cook or chef or something. And I was like, you got to go. And he went and then like the rest is history. Now I feel like now he knows one trillion more people in Nashville than I do. He's like the mayor of the city.

Yeah, he really is. It is amazing. I was at a mutual friends birthday dinner last night. And when the guy stood up and said, when I look around this room, I rise that there was this one decision or two decisions that you made that lined up this whole thing. Totally.

And isn't it fascinating to think like you just saw burger up tweet. Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing. Yeah. And that he was just in the right spot of like having enough free time to be like, yeah, maybe I'll check that out.

Yeah. Like I think that the not for my involvement in it, but I think like him doing food is a good thing like for people and for him. Like I think he's probably made to do that. He's awesome at it and his wonderful person.

And watching him eating his food is a treat. Yeah. But watching him create it and with the intentionality feels spiritual.

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