Joe Rogan Experience #2468 - Luke Grimes

TL;DR

Luke Grimes joins Joe Rogan to discuss his unlikely music career, life in Montana, and the strange pressures of Hollywood.

Key Points

• 1.Luke Grimes plays Kayce Dutton on Yellowstone and recently launched a music career at age 39, with his first live performance being in front of 1,200 people in Billings, Montana.
• 2.Grimes had no ambition to be a frontman — he was always a drummer — but his father's death pushed him to finally pursue making an album.
• 3.His fourth-ever show was at Stagecoach Festival, a massive country music event, before he had significant live experience.
• 4.Taylor Sheridan, creator of Yellowstone, is described as a near-impossible level of productive — writing multiple shows simultaneously while still having a full personal life.
• 5.Rogan advised Oliver Anthony not to sign any record deals after his viral hit "Rich Men North of Richmond," telling him the labels were "vampires" — Anthony was being offered $7 million advances.
• 6.Rogan first did UFC commentary in 1997 at UFC 12 in a high school auditorium in Dothan, Alabama, on a propeller plane, when UFC was banned from cable TV.
• 7.Rogan got addicted to pool in New York, playing 8 hours a day and entering tournaments, which is why he refuses to try golf.
• 8.Dana White lost $600,000 at blackjack at Red Rock Casino on what Rogan described as "a normal night" for him, and reportedly lost $6 million in a single night on Flagrant podcast.
• 9.Rogan theorizes Dana White started Slap Fight as a separate revenue stream to fund his gambling habit without touching UFC money.
• 10.Grimes and his wife moved to Austin in December 2019, loved it for two months, then got locked down during COVID — they bought an Airstream and eventually settled permanently in Montana.
• 11.Both Rogan and Grimes criticize LA's groupthink culture, where actors conform politically and creatively because they've given up everything to be there and become dependent on approval.
• 12.Rogan says stand-up comedy was ruined for many comics once they got TV deals — they temper their material to avoid controversy, losing what made them funny.
• 13.Grimes experiences severe impostor syndrome performing music — he blacked out from nerves at his first show and still battles it every performance.
• 14.Rogan credits the comedian migration to Austin during COVID (Tony Hinchcliffe, Tom Segura, Christina Pazsitzky, Shane Gillis) for building enough talent density to launch the Comedy Mothership successfully.
• 15.Rogan says Austin now has seven comedy clubs on his street alone and roughly 17–18 world-class comics living there, making it one of the top live comedy hubs globally.