Oliver Anthony: Country Music, Blue-Collar America, Fame, Money, and Pain

The following is a conversation with Oliver Anthony, a singer-songwriter from Virginia who first gained worldwide fame with his viral hit Rich Men North of Richmond. He became a voice for many who are voiceless with his songs speaking to the struggle of the working class in modern American life. His legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford. Oliver Anthony was his grandfather's name. And so, Chris used this name as a dedication to his grandfather, and to 1930s Appalachia where his grandfather was born and raised.

So, I was texting you last night sitting at an open mic listening to a guy perform Great Balls of Fire. Like I told you, he was giving everything he got for, like, five people in the audience plus me. Well, you were there. I'd have been doing it too, if you were out there. Like, "Oh, that's Lex Fridman."

Some people go to the fun place, some people go to the dark place. Yeah.

We'll talk about it. By the way, all the love in the world to Jocko. He's great. I've been going through lots of ups and downs in life, lots of low points for myself over the past, shit, three years really, but recently, especially, and he always texts in his very high testosterone way of like, "You good, bro? Just checking in." He's a good man. He's a good man. He's, obviously, an inspiration to millions of people, but also just he's a good human being himself. Maybe one thing that we felt similarly, I would imagine, you way more than me is just feeling like, "Wow. I have the ability to influence, or the ability to either bring truth, or to improve people's lives, or ..." Every word that you say sometimes matters so much, and you're just like, "Man, I'm an idiot."

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I'm trying to deal with it, but although, when you talk to world leaders, when you stop into politics a little bit, and you apparently stepped into politics, even though, you never meant to, you're not a political person, that world is like, "What the fuck?" It's very intense. Especially, at an intense moment in history in an extremely divided country. Yeah. Like, saying that I'm not in politics, people are like, "Well, of course, you're in politics," and I don't know whether I am, or not, but I do think a lot of people in politics ... Like, as far as the people who sit on the internet all day, and argue about stuff on X, or on whatever, Facebook, and all, I do think their heart is in it for the right reasons. They observe that there's a lot of things wrong in the world that they'd like to see different.

What was the process of writing that song? It really spoke to the pain and the anger of millions of people. There was magic there. How many edits? How many lines did you write? Were there any lines that you were tormented by? Haunted by? Come back, "Should I do it this way or this way? Or that?" Do you have a ... I don't know. Can you pull a TikTok up on this? If you go to my page, so, if you go to-

We got to talk about that. So you posted the song Rich Men North of Richmond on August 8, 2023. I remember I was at work that day when it went up. Yeah.

Even the 20th century's got two world wars, and especially in the Second World War, the United States played a very crucial role. And there was a lot of ideological battle of ideas going on at that time, of the role of war and peace, of the role of the United States as the center place for the ideal of human freedom and human rights. We continue to innovate. I'd love to get back to talking to blue collar people you mentioned. Those are some of my favorite people. So it was actually really cool to find out that for many years of your life, basically the way you made a living is talking to blue collar people and getting their story. So I'm traveling across the world for a bit, but of course the world I love the most and I'm most curious about is the different subcultures and towns of the United States. So I took a road trip across the U.S. in my early 20s for several months, and that was a transformative experience for me. And that's something, one of the luxuries I have is to have the freedom to do whatever the hell I want now. And so I want to take a road trip across the United States for several months. And one of the things I wanted to do is just to talk to people in small towns in middle America. I don't know what words to put on it, but to talk to the very people that you talked about. Construction workers, plumbers, waitresses, oil rig workers, just people that do something real, people that are real, that don't make much money, that struggle but have as you talked about, have a richness to them. That's not often revealed. That's not often talked about. So maybe can you speak to that, to your time with blue collar folk?

Yeah. You got thousands of messages, like you talked about from people. You've gotten to talk to thousands of people about their pain. Through your work, through your music, you've been an inspiration to those people to find a way out of the pain. Can you tell the full story of your own lowest point. Before all of this, before the music, before you blew up, can you take me through the story of the depression, the drinking, and just the roughest times in your life?

But if I was, not to flip this, but it just popped in my head, but probably what I would tell anybody to do if they're suicidal and thinking about, if they're to that point, is just to go find somewhere in nature and go... I missed this step when we were talking about things, but selling my house and buying that property and putting a camper on it and trying to go into this whole off grid thing, really, I don't know, it does a lot of good for you being reconnected to nature. We are a part of it, but... Oh yeah, I went to the jungle for that reason, being out in nature in every way is beautiful. I say you got some... Maybe that's what I need to do is get some goats. I saw-

I got to ask you about something before I forget. I think I saw on Instagram you talked about a three-legged cat. Is that a real thing? Yeah.

Well, I guess I'll do, if I was going to do anything on here from the older songs that was relatable to everything we've talked about, it'd probably be I Want to Go Home. Sounds good. [inaudible 02:02:23].

Well, the guy who made this saved my butt because everything blew up and I was playing that little Gretsch resonator that's in all the original videos. And my wife had got me that off of Amazon, I think or something, for three or 400 bucks. It's like just an entry level import, little Gretsch and the pickup never would work right in it. So this string wouldn't work when you plugged it in. So here we are, everything happens all at once and we're trying to do these shows. And I think the biggest one I did, so basically what I ended up having to do was go, I bought one of these suction cup rigs that sticks right here, and the mic goes down under here to pick that string up. [inaudible 02:06:31].

So you're going to go out there a little bit this year. What are some things you're looking forward to? You're going to travel a bit, you're going to play a bit. The idea is to go to a town, like let's just use Iowa as an example. Instead of the big city in Iowa, playing at the venue where everybody books, let's find a farm field, 45 minutes outside of that big city, figure out the ingress, egress, the security, find a good promoter that can, a show organizer basically that has experience to where it's still professional and it's done correctly. But establish a new venue space that can't be put under contract by a monopoly, that any artist can go play without. If all these musicians are sick of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, then let's just start playing in fields and on main streets, and set these venues up, and establish them correctly and professionally to where they exist as their own space. And then imagine the economic impact that would provide to a town that otherwise would never... And imagine what it...