WEBVTT

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^(audience clapping and cheering)

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^- (laughing) I never really thought

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^I could sing to be honest with you.

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^So, when I first would play people just loved it.

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And at first I just thought, man, y'all are my friends.

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Whatever, you're just telling me what I wanna hear.

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There was nothing like the first time somebody was like,

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yeah man, your song stuck in my head.

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To hear that, it was just amazing.

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♪ So far from land, so far from you ♪

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Me, I think my whole life I've always

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been inclined to just loving music a lot.

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Picking up guitar was when it really,

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things kinda started to click into place.

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I just remember hearing the strings,

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and the sound of it was just the most beautiful thing.

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Even when I didn't play a chord to it.

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It was just a open strum.

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It just blew my mind away.

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I had just picked up guitar, I think,

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a year before I shipped out to bootcamp.

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I got really curious as to what the experience

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in the Navy could kind of do to my heart.

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^♪ Save my soul from the ocean ♪

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So, to be out to sea where you start, it was scary,

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but it was exciting working on the flight deck.

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It's super dangerous (laughing).

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It's crazy, when we first started I was like,

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how is this even possible, how do people do this,

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you know what I mean, (mumbles) for six months?

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I never in my life thought I would

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be able to do something like that.

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The day would be so hard and so long that

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it wasn't like I was really forcing myself

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to play guitar, it was like, I need to play guitar.

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This is a chaotic place, and this guitar

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is just guiding me through the tornado.

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(guitar strumming)

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^To look out and not see anything, straight

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^water lines, waves, no land, no anything.

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That played a lot into the songwriting because

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Stephen King always says that when you first

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write something, to write with the door closed.

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And so, to be able to see, and to not have

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just anything around, no pop-culture, no Twitter,

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no anything distracting you like that

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was a huge, huge influence for me.

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♪ When my heart doesn't need ♪

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A lot of these songs are about being far away,

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being out to sea, being distant, missing your loved ones.

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And that's this life, that's this story.

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It's a hard job, it's a hard situation.

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To have songs that reflect that, or emulate that,

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was really helpful for a lot of people I think.

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How many of y'all ready to go home?

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I'm ready to go home.

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- [Woman] Yeah!

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- Are y'all not ready to go home?

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I'm ready to go home, I'm ready to get home.

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(crowd cheering)

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I've grown a lot as a person.

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I've seen a lot, I've experienced a lot.

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I think as an artist I'm a lot more confident now.

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'Cause before I joined the Navy I was very insecure.

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Even when I joined, I was very insecure about my music.

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I didn't think it was that good.

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I didn't think people really cared.

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That's one thing I can definitely say about

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this boat, is that there's a lot of people here,

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a lot of close friends that really pushed me.

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I think to have that many people pushing for you,

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believing in you like that, it's a very humbling thing.

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You know?

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♪ Seen the highest of my highest and the lowest of my lows ♪

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This deployment is definitely more to me,

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and matured me a lot as a person.

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There definitely have been the hardest

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six months of my entire life hands down.

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I've never experienced mentally, emotionally

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the things that I've experienced out to sea like this.

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But then, I've had chances to do with my music

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that I would not have had if weren't on deployment.

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^I think more than anything what I've learned

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^is you need to embrace who you are.

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^The cool thing about the Navy is that

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you're exposed to a lot of different people,

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you're exposed to a lot of different cultures.

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You meet all these different people and

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you kind of take from them, pull from them.

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But at the same time, you sort of realize

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who you are as a person in the process.

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And I think being around that for so long

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has just allowed me to really just be myself.

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I know who I am as a person.

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I know who I am as a man, as an artist.

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And I'm just very, very happy

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and blessed for the experience I think.

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I'm very excited for the new year,

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and just everything that's about to happen.

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^(group laughing)