Brooks Herring From the Military to the Music Industry
Brooks Herring, a Navy veteran and Nashville-based singer-songwriter, joins Spencer and Carli to share his journey from military service to the music scene. Growing up with a passion for music, Brooks discovered its power as a constant during his deployments, even mailing himself a guitar to Iraq. His time in the Navy and as a contractor in Afghanistan shaped both his perspective and his music, leading him to write deeply personal songs like “Why Me?” about survivor’s guilt and resilience. Now performing full-time, Brooks also advocates for veterans through organizations like RunPhase and CreatiVets. In this episode, he reflects on the healing power of music, the challenges of transitioning from military to civilian life, and his decision to return to school to sharpen his songwriting skills.
About Brooks Herring
Brooks Herring is a Nashville based singer-songwriter, and Navy Veteran. His original music blends Country, Alt-Rock, and Blues, often carrying patriotic themes shaped by his time in the Navy and as an Army contractor. Through his deeply personal songwriting, including his powerful track Why Me?, Brooks channels his struggles with survivor’s guilt and the search for redemption.
Offstage, Brooks is a Physical Therapist and a passionate advocate for Veterans recovering from combat trauma. His music serves as both a personal outlet and a way to connect with others navigating similar battles.
-
Spencer 00:35
Brooks herring, welcome to signature required. You are a singer songwriter, a Navy veteran and about 15 other things that I could list off of here. I'm really excited to have you as a guest, because we have a ton of stuff to unpack, but maybe you'll say it best in your own words. When someone comes up and is like, Brooks, what's your story? Who is Brooks herring? What do you answer? How do you how do you even begin to answer that question?
Brooks Herring 01:09
First, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. And I asked him, Where would you like me to start? Yeah, that's usually, that's usually just, you know, where would you like me to start? Because, I mean, we can go way back to the very beginning, or, you know, like, at the beginning of this part of my career, like this, this particular career, or, you know, you know, some people end up on like, this is Plan B, or this is Plan C, and I'm like, Well, this is, like, F or G, It's been a long ride.
Spencer 01:41
We help a lot of people tell their story, and most people, we go chronologically from the beginning, and that makes sense. People can follow it along. I think you're an exception, and I think we actually should go in opposite order with yours, because most people, when they're seeing you now, they're seeing you downtown Broadway, they're seeing you on a stage, you're singing, and you have an incredible look that just immediately says, I have a story to tell. So maybe let's start at the end, and we'll kind of work backwards from there. So talk to us about what you're up to now, because a lot of us see those guys and gals that are singing on Broadway, that anytime I fly to Nashville on Southwest Airlines, there's at least two or three people that are coming on board with a guitar, and I can tell they're not from Nashville, you know. I mean, they're coming there chasing a dream, but you're actually getting the gigs down there, so maybe talk us through what you're doing today, and then we'll kind of talk about the roots of where that inspiration for your musical talent comes from.
Brooks Herring 02:48
I'm a singer songwriter, songwriter, first and foremost, and I play literally every day somewhere, not just on Broadway. I love playing a wide variety of different types of venues and different events and everything. I love writing. I love telling not just my story, but but other other people's stories and and just stories that that maybe you know don't belong to me or any one person that I know, but but a story that I know can can connect with someone out there. It's taken a long, long time for me to get here, but I've been writing for over 20 years, and just never really understood the music industry and what it takes to get here where I am now. But love playing the shows downtown, and love playing a lot of my favorite songs for people, I've kind of gotten a reputation downtown of not playing the Broadway standards. I play a lot of songs and from a lot of genres and artists that you won't typically hear at a honky tonk down on Broadway. And I love doing that. I love taking requests. I love being challenged, and I just I love music in all its different forms, so, and I feel like that, you know, playing downtown is just a good way to, you know it, you know it's, it's reps, you know, keep my keep my chops and and it helps me learn, helps me grow as an artist and as as a musician. And I like to surround myself with incredible musicians, because that also makes me just inherently get better.
Spencer 04:26
When I see someone playing downtown, it's hard to know when you're seeing somebody in any bar across the country, a lot of the impression is like, okay, that's the first step in their career. They're trying to make it right. They're trying to get noticed by somebody. But it feels different in downtown Nashville that those are not places that you can just walk in and say, hey, I want to play. I mean, you are doing something by that point in time that you even get to have the opportunity to get noticed. So can you just talk about some of what that world is like? Because for most that are never going to have the opportunity. To play downtown. Just, just talk through what it's like to even get the opportunity to play, and what you're hoping for, like, if, if, at the end of you've got two shows tonight, at the end of one of those shows, what would have to happen that you would say, this is a freaking miracle, or this is the best thing that could have happened to me. Maybe walk us through that.
Brooks Herring 05:19
I feel like it's different from person to person. So I can't speak for every artist on Broadway, but, but I feel like, for the most part, the majority of us started somewhere else. I started in South Carolina, and had some sort of success, you know, either in our hometown, home state, whatever. And at some point, hit a bit of a ceiling in that region, and got the idea, whether you from from yourself or from someone else, that I need to seek more like I want to do this. I love this. I'm only going to get this far if I stay here. What do I do now? And of course, Nashville is Music City, and so this is kind of the Mecca, you know, once you've reached the ceiling, wherever you are, you know, it's like, Okay, it's time to go to Nashville, yeah, especially if you're in country music. And then once you get here, Nashville is very much a network, the musician network, and like the venue network, you've got to find a way into the network. You've got to make your way around to writers rounds and go to these venues and meet people in person. I would say, as a general rule, there's not a lot of success in cold calling and just sending emails to venues in Nashville, because there is such a large concentration of great musicians here in this city that are already working downtown like they're not. They're not scraping around for for someone to fill tomorrow's hard to find somebody, right? You can throw, you can throw an ice cube downtown Nashville and hit a songwriter, an engineer, you know, a booking agent, somebody you're gonna you know, somebody that's in the music industry, which I love. But when I first moved here, I was very fortunate to have spent some time before moving here, networking with people here I have, I call her my little sister, Shelby, Ray was already here. She moved here like seven months before I did. She was already on the ground. She was already here playing. She's absolutely incredible. So she was deep into the network. Kind of followed her around and made as many friends as possible. And it's kind of a snowball. You play one show, and you better show up and give it everything you got, and then if you've got the chops, then they're like, Okay, we're gonna book you again, and then you play there again, and then somebody from another venue hears you, and they're like, huh, you're new to town, huh? Like, like, you sound good. We'd like to book you. And then there's you got two, and then it becomes three, and then it becomes five, and then it becomes and, you know, if you've got the chops and you've got the drive and you put in the work it you can get to a point where there are 10 to 15 plus people that are reaching out to you, saying, Hey, what are you available? Yeah, so when can I get you this month,
Carli 08:12
You may you came and you had a friend here already, and that helped a lot, very much. What is the culture like among singer songwriters downtown? Because I could imagine it being like a fraternity sorority, where it's like you guys are all in it together, and you have this shared experience, and no one else understands what it's like. Or I could imagine it being like Hunger Games cut through. You're all running to the cornucopia, and you're gonna shift somebody to your left and right, so
Carli 08:41
and it maybe it's both, and it depends on what group you're in, yeah,
Brooks Herring 08:45
And I mean, I, I will probably use this answer more times than, than, than you'll want me to, but it depends. It really does. It depends on on your group, it depends on the people that you associate with, and it really depends on, on their mindset. There are a lot of us who believe that all ships rise, you know, and we're here. We're in this together. There is no foreseeable limit to the amount of music that we can consume. You know, none of us know when the world's gonna end. You know, for all I know, there are billions of ears right now listening to music, and they will listen for the next three minutes ish to a song, and then there will be another one and another one and another one for years and years to come. I don't see it as a competition. You want to release music, let's do it. I want to help. I want to release music. You want to release music. We all want to release music. Let's let's just fill the world with music. Music is life, and I mean, music just makes this world so much more beautiful. Art in general, makes this world so much more beautiful. And so a lot of us view it that way, and believe that this is, you know, this is one team, one fight. And with my military background, I really. You know, strongly believe in that. There are, there will always be, you know, those who see it as a competition who, like, I've got to make it before you do, you know. And I've got to do this before you do, and I've got to try and do this so that you can't do it. There will always be those, you know. But I don't, I don't feel like that ends. Well, I don't feel like that ever ends well, you know, you know, kind of like in The Hunger Games that doesn't
Carli 10:27
Some kind of faction, yeah, that feels really entrepreneurial to me. And I think that that's something Smith and I can really resonate with, is you want to put what good you do out there for us. It's teaching for us. It's trying to build community and teach things and try to, gosh, if we've learned something the hard way, why on earth would we not share because then you're going to learn something else the hard way. And then when we pool all of our knowledge together, we can all be more successful in the businesses that we create, and we can all hire more people, and we can all support more of our communities. And it just gets better and better. So I really resonate with what you're seeing. But in art, as in business, not everyone feels that way. So I get that, but you didn't always imagine yourself maybe even doing this full time, right you? So let me get this straight. Tell me if I have this incorrect you finished school, you finished a doctorate, and then the next month, started singing professionally full time. Is that correct?
Brooks Herring 11:27
So I'd fix it. I mean, it depends on your definition of professional, I guess. So I started. I started my bachelor's in Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina in january 2015, I started playing professionally, like I was getting paid to play while I was doing my undergrad. I started on the drums. I was playing drums for a guy named Jesse Moore, and he played a lot of country music. And I would get up and I would, you know, I would grab his guitar, and I would, you know, play during his breaks or whatnot. And I started getting I started booking some gigs as a solo artist. And when Jesse decided to retire from music, to stay away from music, he was very, very much all ships rise and was all those venues, he was like, book Brooks give him those gigs. So I started doing that more. But for me, it was like, you know, two or three a month, maybe four, you know, it feels a good month, and I was focused on school. And it was the summer between. I graduated in May of 2018 I didn't start the PT program until August of 2018 so it was that summer. I didn't want to spend a month looking for a job that I was going to quit a month later. So I just decided to, you know, let me start marketing myself. Let me really just see what I can do with this. And by the end of that summer, I was playing six, seven shows a week and making great money. And that's really when the light bulb kind of went off. Like, I can do this. Like, not only can I do this, I love doing this. Like, this is, this is fulfilling. Like, this is, this is really, this makes me happy. I had already accepted my seat at PT school, and I really wanted to be a physical therapist. I'm still very passionate about being a physical therapist, but I went to PT school, and I spent a lot of that that next three years kind of laying the foundation for a career in music and trying different things. I did more traveling. I started writing more, you know, because I started writing at 14, but it was kind of in waves. And I created a website, got a logo made, you know, trademarked that, you know, started getting merchandise made, just all the things that you you know, want in that foundation, you know, I did over the three years. And so when I graduated PT school, it was like, you know, I spent all that time not just preparing, but deliberating and, you know, just making sure I knew this was what I wanted to do. And so I graduated in December of 2021 and in january 2022 announced, you know, hey, I'm going full time with music too.
Spencer 14:02
Usually that goes in the opposite order, right? Usually people try the music gig and it doesn't work, and they're like, you know, it turns out I do like to eat, and I do like to be able to afford a roof over my head, so maybe I should go and go to school, but to do it in the opposite order. So as we're rolling back the clock on your story and how we're telling this story, what led you to believe that you wanted to go to PT school, knowing that you had musical interest all along? What was the inspiration to say, Okay, I want to go to school.
Brooks Herring 14:37
Music’s always been a part of my life. I've been I started playing trumpet in the sixth grade, and then moved to the drums, and then learned to play the guitar, and then started writing and singing. I started writing poetry when I was in elementary school, so like when I started playing guitar and watching my cousin Chris Jones, watching him play and writing everything else, like it just kind of came naturally for those two to come together and. It's always been a part of my life. But I didn't grow up anywhere near Nashville. I didn't grow anywhere grew up anywhere near I grew up in Conway, South Carolina, nowhere near a big city. I didn't know anything about the music industry. I didn't know what it meant to be a songwriter. I didn't know what it meant to be an artist. I that was so foreign to me. I listened to the radio, but for all I knew those people, you know, lassoed a shooting star, and, you know, ended up on the radio. I knew nothing. So from the time I was young, well, first of all, I mean, my dad was in the Air Force. I'm a military brat. My brother and I spent our entire childhood running around in the woods in his old camo uniforms playing sniper hider, and just he and I were both in JROTC for five years. Like we what is that? Just for people, Junior Reserve Officer Training Course? So it's, it's like the high school equivalent of what you'd see ROTC in college. It's, you know, a military program. Like, there's, there's, it was, it was Navy JROTC. So there was naval education, there was marksmanship, there was physical training, land navigation, just there all the color guard drill. There was there all the, all the things that you would find in the military, but at a high school level. And he and I both excelled in that and like we were preparing for a career in the military from the time we were, yeah, high that was always plan a that was always my mission. And so music love. I was always passionate about music, but that that was my direction. And then I so I spent six years on active I enlisted right out of high school, and spent six years on active duty in the Navy, and then two years as an Army contractor. And when I, when I came home in 2013 I was looking for a mission. I had kind of lost that purpose. I didn't have a mission. I didn't have, you know, what I had been become used to and and so I was just searching. I was searching. I opened a restaurant with my dad. Owned a restaurant for about three years. I don't recommend that. What kind of restaurant? Barbecue, barbecue. My dad is a master chef, Master pit Matt that, I mean, I will put his, his cooking up against and I mean, yes, I'm biased, but, I mean, I've had a lot of barbecue, I'll put it up against any barbecue I've ever had. What's his specialty? Brisket, brisket. The brisket is second and I'm hungry.
Carli 17:25
Sorry, dude, you've done all of the things that people are really afraid to do, combat, start a business, put your art on display for people to see. I mean, these are things that people spend their whole lives pontificating, trying to do, and you've done all three of them before you were 40. That's, I mean, it's creeping up, chasing you so you're out, you're looking for your mission. Did you wake up one day and be like, I am gonna go to school?
Brooks Herring 17:56
I owe that to my brother. My brother's retired Army, and he was just up my butt about going to school. I did pretty well academically in high school. He's like, You need to go to school. I was like, I can't go to school. I'm 28 at the time of the house. I'm 28 years old. I need to get job. I need to find another contract and go back overseas. Like, like, I need to, you know, pay bills and take care of my kids, and we got this restaurant. I need to work. And he just kept on that you should go to school. The VA will send you to school. The VA is not gonna send me school. Eventually. I was like, All right, look, I'll go and I'll ask, okay, so I went to the VA, and I was like, hey, my brother says you'll send me to school. Like, just expecting a flat out, like, you know, we'll send you to a trade school, or some, you know, whatever. They're like, yeah, you can go school. We want to go school for. I was like, I don't know, should I go to school for? They're like, we don't know. So used to having a mission. So used to having a directive, like, give me a mission and I will go finish it, you know, I will go fulfill that mission. And here they are. They're like, What do you want to go school for? Like, so they gave me a bunch of these aptitude and personality tests, like long, long tests, all these crazy questions, and the results came back, and it was like, you belong in the medical field, working directly with patients. And I was like, I blow shit up. I shoot things. I teach people to shoot things, you know, like, what? But that was what, you know, the test came back and that, that was kind of the result. And I was like, Well, you know, trust the process, trust the research. I just took some time, just to think about it, just to, you know, sleep on it, whatever. And I don't remember what it was, if it was, you know, something I experienced with someone or something I saw. But when you think about professional athletes, Division One athletes, if they tear an ACL, if they get injured in a game, the amount of therapy that they get, the amount of rehab that they get to get back. To that peak physical shape to get back on the field is insane. The amount that we invest in that, you know, whether it's the institutions or or the teams or whatever else. And I was just thinking like we as as war fighters, you know, and especially, you know, a lot of the the SF community and those guys at the tip of the spear, they spend years training to be the best of the best I would put them against any professional athlete. They are just in crazy mental and physical shape. And then they go overseas to do their job, and they lose a leg, and then they go through months, sometimes years, of rehab so that they can walk. And in a lot of cases, it's like, okay, you can walk again. Congratulations, have a nice life. Here's your check. Yeah, you know, go join the Legion, which I love the Legion, but I mean, just, you know, that's just kind of it. And so the thought, you know, the epiphany that I had was, we should offer the same level of physical therapy and training to those tactical athletes that get injured that we do to any professional or division one athlete we should that should be available to them so they can get back to that peak. Obviously, if you, if, well, I can't even say that. I was going to say, like, if you, if you, if you lose a leg, you're not going to be back to the same shape. But they, there have been instances where, where men and women have have lost limbs and have gotten back to the same relative level of fitness, you know, and ability. And and so that that, that was my epiphany.
Spencer 21:43
And so let's keep rolling the clock back through that. So you're in the Navy, your family, your father was in the Air Force. And so you also talk about during your time, you spent a couple years as a contractor, and a couple years in distinction, serving in the Navy. Are those two separate things? Is okay? So walk us through, just for those that don't know, the distinction, like me, what is the distinction between being a contractor, the types of jobs that you're performing there, versus serving in the Navy? And then just talk about why navy? When your dad was Air Force.
Brooks Herring 22:20
Go, Navy beat army. So I was in navy, JROTC, my instructor, and the man I consider to be like a second father to me, Master Sergeant Howard Brantley was a Marine, and he was, he was definitely a big part of making me who I am throughout my high school years, but so I was, it was Navy JRTC, when I graduated high school, the Navy was what I knew. I put my heart and soul into it, and I knew the Navy. I knew naval history, naval science, like knew it, front, back, side to side, up and down, like that's what I knew. And with that many years of JRTC, I was guaranteed e3, out of boot camp. What is e3, semen. So, I mean the pay grade. So E, 1e, 139, are the enlisted pay grades. And then you have one officer pay grades, and you have officer pay grades, a one through 10. And it's, it's your your rank and and how you're paid. So you got to jump start, come out. Got it? You got a big jump start? Yeah, I wanted to be a seal, like every, you know, gun Ho, you know, young man wants to do and wanted to be a seal. Also got offered a new contract. I aced the ASVAB so that I got offered a bunch of they tried to get me to get me to go on a sub. I'm six two, so I took a tour of a submarine and hit my head like 10 times. Like, I'm not living like this. There's no way. There's no way I'm getting sunk underneath the water in this thing for six months at a time, and I am. But I went to meds at Fort Jackson and failed the color vision test seven times before they kicked me out of the room, so there was no way I could do what I wanted to do. And so it was basically like, Hey, you can join now without a job, undesignated, or you can wait, like, nine months to get a different job. And I was just, I was ready. Like, I mean, this was, this was just a couple years after 911 and just a lot of my friends were already over there or on their way, and I was just like, I gotta go. Like, let's go, whatever undesignated, sure, fine. So I went to boot camp, my RDC, my lead RDC was a fleet marine force corpsman, Chief acacella, legend, absolute legend. And I just just spending that time with him. I was like, Okay, well, I want to be, I want to be a fleet marine force corpsman. I want to be like, Chief acacella and core school was locked up. Locked up so many people joining us. Corpsman, like, they were like, oh yeah. People are on like, a four year waiting list to go to core school. But the Marine Corps was literally dying. Me for FMF Corman, like, there's tons of people going to score school, but nobody wanted to be FMF, nobody wanted to be on the front line. And I was just like, show me where to sign. Like, I will sign a contract right now that I will go to FMS school and I will be an FMF Corman, you know, if you can just fast track me, they're like, no, not gonna happen. Wow. So I ended up just being undesignated. Ended up graduating, but then, but then shortly, because I joined as an e3 because of ROTC, I was able to take the rating exam after only six months of being in the Navy. So I got to work in the armory a lot, and fell in love with working on guns, and I took the Gunners Mate test like six months after, after being in and there's a lot that happened in that time. I ended up getting frocked as a GM three in DC use on my way to Iraq in in January of 2006 a friend of mine, I went to middle school and high school with Anthony shadow, and he he came home on mid tour leave from Iraq, and had so many awesome stories. And he was dating my sister at the time, and we hung out a lot. And just just, I felt so worthless because of everything that he was over there doing, and I had not done a damn thing.
Spencer 26:23
You had signed up for it all, but just couldn't get your way over.
Brooks Herring 26:27
Yeah, I was like, regretting joining the Navy. I was like, I should have joined the Marine Corps. I should have joined the army. I should, I should be over there. And he went back after his mid to relief and was killed in Baghdad two weeks later. And that sent me down, you know, a war path. I burned bridges at my command to get what were called IA orders, individual augmentation to go and join the join the army, but to, basically, like, give myself as a sailor to an army unit, you know, to go to Iraq. And by May, I was leaving for training, and by August, I was in Iraq,
Spencer 27:04
Basically, like, get me over there, whatever the cost. I'm gonna burn any bridge I need to be there.
Carli 27:09
Do you feel like that was the grief of because you were so young, still, right? You were just out of high school? It was all you knew you were ready to fight. Do you think that it just clicked in your brain and you're like, I just have to get at them. They hurt, my buddy,
Brooks Herring 27:26
Grief, guilt, like, just a feeling of inadequacy, just all the things. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. And then, you know, I spent a year over in Iraq and still didn't feel like I did nearly enough. And so I kept volunteering for orders. I got orders to go to Afghanistan that got changed to Africa. Reluctantly, I kept the orders, and I went, you know, deployed to Africa, and I was there for 10 months, and again, didn't feel like I did nearly enough like it wasn't a Hot Zone. And so just kept trying for more orders, and I tried to get attached to a special warfare unit. And the unit they sent me to called for a 9536 which is Special Warfare armor. And so I was like, here we go. You know that that's going to be deployment time for sure. And then I got there, and it was a unit that used to belong to spec war that now belonged to surf land and so surface Atlantic is everybody's wearing blue. So I showed up. They were like, you do too, Harry. I was like, nope, yeah. So that really, really pissed me off. Felt like I got lied to by the detailer, long story medium that sent me down, you know, more just and I got out of the Navy in 2011 And that summer, I drank more and did more drugs than I care to admit again, I lost that mission. I didn't have a purpose. I was bartending. I was just, I was just being a degenerate.
Spencer 29:17
Would you do in music during this time at all, or did that go away too, where it was like
Brooks Herring 29:22
I was but I wasn't okay. I had guitars in my room, like my, my, you know, when I went to Iraq, I mailed myself a guitar and I played it in the bunker, and I learned some cover songs and recorded my first song in Iraq, and a little Toshiba laptop, Little Voice Recorder app, you know, just me sitting there in my in my pod, you know, just playing guitar and singing. And you know, I did that the whole time I was over there. When I came back, it collected dust. When I deployed to Africa, I took that same guitar, mailed it to myself, and I played that same guitar. And then while I was in Africa, the bass Chaplain came up to me with one day, because I was playing guitar on bass all the time I would play the baseball. I opened for a couple USO tour bands like, I was starting to kind of like, move up a little bit, and he had this guitar and hard case and didn't have any pegs, didn't have any strings. One of the tuning keys was broken. He was like, Gunner, I can't do anything with this. Do you want it? This one down right there? I was like, Yeah, chaps, I'll figure it out. And I fixed the tuning key in the armory, ordered strings and pegs, and I've written 1000s of songs on that guitar. That's Wendy Washburn. So 2002 Washburn, D, 10 s probably retailed for about 200 bucks back in the day when I started playing professionally. I got it professionally set up, got the electronics installed in it, and it plays and sounds like a dream. I take that to the studio next to five and $6,000 guitars, and the engineers just like that one, that one right there. When I went to Afghanistan as a contractor, I mailed that guitar to myself, and I played it almost every single day. So, but, but that, that summer, summer of 2011 I wasn't really, you know, pick around, but I wasn't playing much, you know, I would try and do something here, there, at the bars that I worked at, but I was just in a really, really dark place. I spent my whole childhood preparing to be a fighter, and, you know, now I didn't have that, and I was at times suicidal in that time, just ready to Okay. I, you know, I guess my mission is over, like I can't do what I was meant to do, so I might as well leave. And I was looking for another bartending job because I was having hard tape time paying my bills. And I was on Craigslist, Amber, Craigslist, yeah, and I saw, I saw a listing for a crane operator in Afghanistan. And I just, I don't know, I was looking for for something. And so I just emailed the guy. I was like, I'm not a crane operator, but here's my resume. Here's my DD, 214 he sent me an offer letter the next day to be a weapons repair tech, wow, in Afghanistan. And so I headed off to Afghanistan in August of that year.
Spencer 32:00
And this is a private contractor that's working on a contract with you guys.
Brooks Herring 32:04
They were contracted by the army to provide, you know, services, wide array of services. And so I was a weapons repair tech, and then I got promoted to weapons repair inspector. Spent 19 months at Fauci news in northern Afghanistan, and then spent three months at Fauci in southeastern Afghanistan. Pretty much, I mean, I lived, lived in Afghanistan for two years. I would come home like once every six or eight months or whatever, for a week or two and then go back.
Spencer 32:40
Was that close to the most activity that you had seen during your time of the Navy? Did you see more as a contractor in terms of, I mean, those are hot zones and activity there, versus
Brooks Herring 32:50
It was a lot. I mean, I mean, I spent because eventually, my purview I was, I was responsible for all the weapons and just about all the weapons in RC north, and so I was on a helicopter every other day going to a different FOB. So I was flying all over the place. I'd be, you know, at killigai, Imam Sahib fortitude matrief, just like all over northern Afghanistan, just I would inspect, I would order parts. I would write a board quarters. I would come back. Then I would come back when I had the parts and I would fix all the weapons, and just got to spend a lot of time with all those soldiers, American soldiers, Germans, Swedes, Nords, Brits. I mean, just like Aussies, like everybody that was over there, got to spend a lot of time with a lot of different units. And and I work on a lot of really cool stuff.
Spencer 33:42
That's, as I say, I bet the gear that you got to see over there was just, it really credible, really
Brooks Herring 33:47
cool. Yeah, working, working, you know, sometimes with the ODA guys and some of the cool stuff they had, the EOD guys were always really cool. Worked out with the J tech guys a lot. And you just, you know, it just, I was I was me again. I was me again. I got over there in, you know, August of 2011 I quit smoking. I started hitting the gym, like just, you know, started, started playing music a lot more, like I would be in the armory every single day with my guitar, just jamming. I would play at the USO for people. And I started Afghanistan was really a turning point in my perception of my own ability, because I started putting stuff on YouTube. You can, you can look me up on YouTube and you'll see pictures or videos of me in the armory in Afghanistan, just like playing little cover songs. Got one that ended up, you know, I haven't checked it lately, but I had like, 40,000 views or something like that. And I was like, Okay. And a lot of lot of good comments. I was like, okay, so other people think I'm good. Like, maybe I can, maybe I can do some of this.
Carli 34:46
I think the mental health component of this is just so real for people. And I want to acknowledge and thank you for trusting us in this space with that, because that's not easy. You're a tough dude. You're trained to kill. Or you specialize in weapons, and you're a BA singer, right? You're doing all these things. So I feel like to open up about that mental health aspect is really a special thing that you're capable of doing. And so thank you. I do want to ask you said you were back. So you had this dark place, you came home, and then you were back. What changed? Was it mission? Was it purpose? Is that something that you've gotten to keep with you because you seem really passionate and like you're doing great now? Or did it go back down again when you came home from Afghanistan? What has that journey been like?
Brooks Herring 35:35
It was, it was, it was having a mission and a purpose and a purpose. It was. And for the longest time, I had a very narrow vision of what that mission and purpose was, and that was to be a weapon specialist, to be as close to the front line as possible, to be overseas, to be a warrior. I wanted to die in uniform. That was like, even as a kid, that was my dream, which is kind of morbid and weird as a kid, as a kid, carried off on your shield, right? That's what I wanted, yeah? And I had this narrow vision of what my mission and purpose had to be and what it was, and when I came back from Afghanistan, yeah, I fell into a lot of that, that darkness as well. I had opened the restaurant with my dad, and I was very busy with that. But that wasn't that didn't fulfill me that didn't make me happy, that that was his dream, and I wanted him to have that, and I was just kind of there to help facilitate, but I needed to find something else. And, you know, going back to the whole the rehab for deciding that I wanted to become a physical therapist to help veterans recovering from combat trauma. That was kind of when that narrow vision started to widen a little bit. That was when, okay, if that can't be my mission, if that can't be my purpose, I want something comparable. I want something that makes me feel like I'm still serving. And so I went to the VA. I went back to the VA, and I was like, hey, again, expecting to get turned down flat on my face. I want to be a physical therapist. And they're like, Okay,
Carli 37:10
Good for them. I was like, Well, where do I go?
Brooks Herring 37:13
They're like, okay. And I mean, I was like, I said I was raising Conway a lifetime, gamecock fan. My dad's got pictures of me, like, sliding down the slide as a little kid with my gamecock. Yeah. You know, God bless through the 90s and early 2000 everything. But it just happened to be in Columbia, South Carolina, when all this was happening, I was like, Can I go to USC, the real USC, yeah, before they were a state and they're like, Yeah, go. I was like, Man, that's wild. But then doubting, Doubting Thomas is still in there. I was like, There's no way I'm getting accepted to USC, Division one. School, big, awesome school, like, amazing exercise science program. Like, there's no way they're not gonna accept me. I took the SAT in 2003 like, I'm not taking that again. I applied, and they accepted me as a transfer student because of my military credit. Wow. And so I got in the VA is on board. I'm like, I'm going to orientation. It's getting real, and I'm just still, just like, in my own head, like I haven't been to school in 11 years. I'm gonna fail and and let me say, let me just, just, I am a failure. I am a failure so many times over, and that's what's made me strong, is failing and failing and failing and refusing to lay down afterwards. But that was in my head, like, I'm gonna fail again. Like, and then I got through my first semester of classes and had straight A's, wow. And that's, that's again, that's where that widened a little bit more. And, like, the little switch was, like, you know, kind of good at this, yeah, not just, I'm good at this, just more like, shut up, put your head down. Make it happen. New mission. Attack it. Make it happen. Yeah. I graduated summa cum laude with leadership distinction, and got accepted to PT school and everything. So, so that, you know, I'd kind of accepted that that is my, my new mission. And so I put everything I had into it.
Carli 39:25
I forget where. But then you left, we're coming like we're coming back to present day in that then you finish PT school, right? Go and become a full time singer songwriter. So you were doing it on the side, but now it's your bread and butter. But did I read that you are back at school again? Is that true?
Brooks Herring 39:47
So like I was saying about artists coming here, you find some success in your hometown, and then you kind of hit a ceiling. I had already been playing all over South Carolina and traveling while I was in school and. And in 2022, I went, you know, I was practicing part time as a PT, but I was, I was focused mostly on music, and started releasing music. And it didn't take long for me to hit the ceiling. And June or July, something like that, I got a call from the VA, and he was like, I just wanted to check in on you and see how PT was going.
Carli 40:27
It's awesome.
Brooks Herring 40:28
I was just in my fields or something. I was like, man, be straight up with you. I am practicing part time, but my passion is with music, and I'm pursuing a career as a musician. Wow. He's like, man, that's really cool. You know, you still got 36 months of Chapter 33 eligibility if you want to go back to school for music. I go back to school for music. And I just remember being like, shut up. There's no, I just went to school for seven years. There's no way. He's like, no. That was chapter 31 this chapter 33 different pocket. And so immediately just wheels start turning, just, you know, and I immediately just looked at South Carolina, like, that's, that's my alma mater. That's, you know, I'm established in the community. Start looking. They have a Music Industry Studies program. And then there was like a voice in the back of my head that was like, do your due diligence. Look around. Look around. Do what's best, look around. So I started just like Google and Google and music business, music, you know, all this kind of kind of stuff. And of course, Berkeley shows up and everything. But in the top 10, consistently, music business, Belmont, university, Nashville, Tennessee. I was like, wow, wouldn't that be something? Yeah, to be in Nashville. And to rewind just a little bit, while I was in PT school in March of 2020, I got to come to Nashville for the first time because of a program called Creative vets. Creative vet springs combat veterans to Nashville and to their partner locations across the US, and pairs them with songwriters and with mentors to tell their story through a song. And I got to experience that, and I got to experience Nashville, and I got to experience a writers round and a studio in the music industry. And that was just, I was like, I have to be here. I have to find a way here. I don't know how, but I need to find a way here. And so, you know, I got a phone with guy with VA. Thought he was full of crap, went online, applied for chapter 33 benefits, got the letter in the mail. Yep, 100% 36 months, chapter 33 wherever you want to go, wow. That's like, wow. So I applied to Belmont and got accepted. And so January 9 of 2023 I had a farewell concert in Columbia. And January 10, I drove here. In January 11, I started classes at Belmont. I was a music business major. In February, I found out there was a songwriting program you had. You have to be a student at Belmont, and you have to apply and get accepted. It's very small program. And so I applied, you know, and like they, you know, Apple here with it. They, they'll, they'll let you know, by the end of February, they waited till February 28 I was like, Oh God, I didn't get in. I didn't get it. I'm not good enough. But February 28 you know, I got the email like, you know, been accepted. So I changed my major over spring break. And I've been in the songwriting program at Belmont since March of 2023 absolutely love it. The network is second to none. Been able to take recording classes, audio engineering, DAW production, just songwriting, music business. Just all learned so much about the industry and been connected with so many amazing people, just just as a part of being a Belmont student.
Carli 43:47
So you would be my phone a friend on Do You Want to Be a Millionaire? Because the pockets of intense, deep knowledge that you have from like military history, Navy history, physical fitness, the body to music is profound. Gamecocks too. Yeah, sports, so we'll do all the things I wonder, though, on a deeper level, you said, Oh, I'm not good enough. I may not get in. Have you reached the point where your brain stops telling you that, or are you still waiting?
Brooks Herring 44:19
I find myself seeking validation on a daily basis. Superhuman. We have this thing now called social media the bane of my existence. I grew up without a cell phone. I grew up in the woods. I didn't have my first cell phone until I was in high school. Because I paid for it, I'd go get minutes and scratch off the back and like, type in the code or whatever. My little Nokia, you know, testing and driving was okay because it was teenage, and you didn't even have to look. You just knew where the buns were. You know, I started MySpace account in Iraq to keep up with family, and then it just grew. And then just Facebook, and then, and as an artist, unfortunately, your social media.
Carli 45:02
Presence defines you in so many ways. It's sickening. You probably can't get away from it.
Brooks Herring 45:06
And I feel this constant need to create content and to post content, and to do this and to do that and try and get more followers and more views and go viral so that someone actually notices me. And when I spend a couple hours editing a video, I put it up, and he gets like, 100 views. I'm like, damn, yeah, not good enough. And then you see another video, like, you see some of the things that go viral that are just like, cringe worthy. And I'm just like, Why? Why is that what you want? And so that plays a big role. But I mean, you know, I, I mean, I get a lot of validation when I'm playing live. I have a lot of people I love, absolutely love the people that that come to our shows and stay and watch and sing along, and I've had so many people come up to me, and I so if you have given me a note on a napkin at a show, I guarantee you I still have it. I have every single one, like the people that come up and say, You are amazing. The best thing we've seen since we've been in Nashville, the whole time we've been here, that right there just overshadows anything social media could ever provide as far as validation goes. But at the end of the day, when it, when it comes down to making this a career, making this like a long term viable option to provide for for my family, like somebody's I gotta get discovered. I've gotta, like, I gotta get found. I gotta get signed, or whatever the case. Something's gotta pop off. And once upon a time, you would walk into a record label and they would say, let's hear your music. Now you walk in, they say, show me your socials, yeah, show me the audience that you've already built, that we can take advantage of and monetize.
Carli 47:01
You keep mentioning an undercurrent of all of this is your desire to provide for your family, a desire to take care. I mean, I think everything under what you've done is a heart to serve and take care of the people you love, whether it be your countrymen and whether it be the people that listen to you in a bar and but I keep hearing you talk about your family. How has that been? Because you've been all over the world. You've been doing all these different things, all these different places, how has that been for your family? It's
Brooks Herring 47:34
tough. Yeah, it's tough. I have two sons, 19 and 13. I 13. My 19 year old lives in Myrtle Beach. My 13 year old lives about two and a half hours northwest of here in Fulton, Kentucky, with his mom. That was another reason that I really wanted to move to Nashville is we. I used to be 10 hours from him, and now I'm two and a half hours from him, so I can, I can finish a gig here and drive up for a football game, and I haven't been able to do that enough. But, you know, in my head it was like, I'm moving closer. I'll be able to do that all the time. And then, you know, every weekend, I'm traveling to Florida, California and Colorado, whatever else, and it's I haven't gotten up there near enough. But, you know, it's tough. It's it's like I'm, I would be retiring from the Navy this year. If I'd have stayed in, I'd be retiring this year, and instead, I feel like I'm beginning a career, like I'm putting in those long, long days and late nights and the stuff that you know, most of us would do when we're in our 20s, you know? So then you can kind of slow down once you're going to kind of hit that mid or higher level, and you can focus on other things. So it's made it's made it tough.
Spencer 48:59
It’s interesting the handful of really pivotal moments that you've had in your life. One actually shares something in the Patton family. So my grandfather was in the Air Force. He was military police, and my dad, all he wanted in life was to be in the Air Force, and he was all in for it. And the last thing that they had to check for him was whether he was colorblind. And they said, Son, you are so colorblind that you couldn't even be a chef in the Air Force. And you know, being red, green, color blind, not good colors to mix up when you're dealing with anything
Brooks Herring 49:43
That’s me that's right, red, green, color deficient.
Spencer 49:45
And as soon as I heard that in your story, it's amazing though, how much that moment in your life altered the entire trajectory of you. Of your life, but also the people you've been able to influence. And the journey along the way shifted without you having the ability to control it in any way, shape or form. And it feels like to me, as a listener of your story, that you're at another kind of red, green, color blind moment that you're coming out of a life that could have been lived in some way, right? I would been retiring from the Navy, but instead, you're reaching into an audience that you can speak uniquely to those that have suffered trauma, those that don't get paid attention to in a way that you can speak that language better than most anybody, because you've lived it. And it's exciting to see that in your story, like, I see your confidence building each time. Like there's not many people that in high school go into the JROTC and just knock it out of the park with naval history and all of the success that you've had. I mean, a lot of times we know that the entry into the military is someone's only ticket out. I mean, it's their only escape from an from a world that they're trying to get out from. And I just think it's interesting for you that you have succeeded in every place where you've known the mission, and it feels like that you're in a place right now of saying, I am starting to know my mission for this next chapter, and it's really exciting to see that story. I appreciate you sharing it in the way that you have, because it gives other people permission that all of us have that imposter syndrome. On the inside, it looks different. The voice sounds different, but each one of us sit around saying, When is somebody actually going to figure out that I'm not the guy that everybody thinks that I am? And being able to give voice to that through music is a very special gift.
Brooks Herring 52:17
It's the mission.
Carli 52:19
I also think there's a thread here too, in Mission definition, yeah. And we have four kids, and our oldest is 13, and I just look at them in their peer group and how often they're struggling to know what their mission is at such baby ages, you know? And I've got kids that are like, well, I need to figure out what class I might take, because I got to know I got to know what college I want to go to and what I want to do is my whole life. And it's like, Baby, you're an eighth grader and and I think you had some of that, in a sense too, that you felt like you knew the mission from the time you're an eighth grader, you were going to go to high school, you're going to go to ROTC and do this. But gosh darn it, life never quite turns out, for anybody what you think it's going to be an eighth
53:02
I thought I knew the mission. It derailed what the mission was.
Carli 53:06
The greatest skill set that you have shown in your grit, that I also want to try to teach my children is mission pivot and to never be counted out. It's never, ever, ever going to look like you thought it did, right? Never, ever, ever. I if somebody had told me, it may look really cool, but if someone had told me that this is the chair I was gonna sit in someday, I would have hid. That's the scariest. I'm not doing that. And I just don't think that God tells us what's next, because we would hide. I think that when we come to what the pivot moment is, we have to trust that we have everything we need to take the next right step at the pivot. And I think that, like Sven said, You give voice to that, but I also think that you will inspire everyone that you write for and that you talk to in your children, that maybe they didn't understand every pivot as they lived through them with you, but that the grit of pivoting on the mission is really all that it takes for a well lived life.
Spencer 54:07
as you've talked a lot, just, you know before, when you were saying, I'm a failure, right? And you said it like six, seven times in a row, and it kind of hung there for a second, and I was looking over a car that was like, This guy's not a failure. There's every reason to talk about success. But I think what you quickly said afterwards was that you've learned to pivot out of failures, and that is huge, because so many people, everyone is going to fail. And if you live in that place of saying, I'm a failure and that's the end of the story, then that's a disaster, it's a tragedy, and no one's potential is really achieved from that headspace. So Brooks, we have a tradition that we do at the end of each of our podcasts where I read. Uh, three sentences, and there's a blank at the end of the sentence. We haven't given these to you ahead of time, and we just want to know what the first thought is that comes to your head. So when I read this, that's right, it makes everybody nervous. You're gonna knock it out of the park. So I'll read it. It's a very short sentence, and then you just repeat the sentence back.
Brooks Herring 55:19
And people ask me that, do you like surprises? I'm like. It depends on whether or not I need to put it on my calendar.
Spencer 55:26
You're good. You're good. So just I'll read it. You can read the sentence back to me and then fill in the blank. Okay? Music has the power to blank.
Brooks Herring 55:36
Music has the power to heal
Spencer 55:39
and that the truth you've displayed, that my time in the military taught me blank.
Brooks Herring 55:53
So many things, so many things you that is a tough one. There's so many things that I could put there. My time in the military taught me humility, resilience.
Spencer 56:21
That's good to truly support veterans. We need to blank
Brooks Herring 56:30
To truly support veterans, we need to give them a voice
Spencer 56:41
I can hear, just in the story that we've got to talk through today, some of the ways in which the VA takes on a lot of damage from a lot of people all the time. There's very few things that you can Google to hear positive things about the VA, and I'm sure there are a lot of things that are completely true about it. It's good to hear the role that they played in your education and the opportunities that they came through that to help give you a voice and a mission.
Brooks Herring 57:14
I will say when it went with the VA, they're there. It's just like any other business, any other entity, there, there's the good and there's the bad, like there, you know, even, even throughout that educational journey, there were, there were hiccups. They were they were hold ups. They were people that tried to hold me back, or just what, I'm not going to sign off on this. I'm not going to sign off on that. But then there was another person that said, No, we're going to make this happen. And the same with VA healthcare. I've had great care. I've had not great care. The Nashville VA downtown has been amazing. The Murphy's approved VA has been amazing. You know, my physical therapist back in Columbia, at the VA land and Amber. You know, absolutely love that guy again. You know therapist, you know, psychiatrist, friend, you know, like so many, so many things. So you know, it's, you know, it's that same old, it depends kind of, kind of answer, you know, I think there's always work to be done to improve, you know. But I couldn't possibly just say, like, every experience with the VA has been bad, you know, done a lot of great things.
Carli 58:17
I’m going to let you close, but before you close and this could totally get cut, I just feel like, in my spirit, I need to tell you that I feel like you were made for a time such as this to give veterans a voice, and that you have a gift in your humility and your authenticity. And I just, I just don't really care that you've messed up or that you think you failed. I think it's what makes it possible for you to do the work that you are created to do now, and I would be remiss, and this is just what I do, and my gifting, and it doesn't have to go anywhere, but between you and I in this moment that I just feel it pressed upon the spirit that you were made for this moment, this is the story that you've been writing, and it starts here, and everything before was the beginning. It was the prequel. Don't let that voice the enemy inside your head tell you any different, because it would rob the people you were meant to serve if you didn't do what you were supposed to do next.
Brooks Herring 59:21
I'm doing my best. Keep going. I'm pushing. We didn't even, we didn't even get a chance to touch on sobriety.
Carli 59:29
You’re gonna come back. After you write a few more chapters, you're gonna be back.
Brooks Herring 59:35
That’s been, that's been the last the chapter of the last year. Most of the last year has been, has been the struggles and successes with sobriety and harnessing that to make sure that I stay on track to do exactly that.
Spencer 59:53
Good luck tonight performing downtown Broadway this very evening, and I think it gives all of us. A really good perspective that on that stage, with the guitar behind the drums, wherever those artists are at, there's a real story, and giving that opportunity to hear that story is just more encouragement to give voice to as many people as we can, and I really am excited that you've been so real and so authentic with us today to talk about yours, and I know it's going to inspire some people that needed to hear it. Hope so. Thank you for being here.
Brooks Herring 1:00:33
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Spencer 1:00:41
Brooke, sharing you. Herring, singer songwriter, Navy veteran. Really an incredible story of a guy that, before 40, has lived like five different lives. And I think if you pull up a photo like most people just listening, you need to see Brooks in order to also understand who Brooks Herring is like just his look. Not only does he just look like a badass singer songwriter, Navy veteran and he just has that whole look, but it also reveals, when you look into his eyes that he's gone through a lot good and bad. He's seen a lot of trauma, and he's still wearing it today.
Carli 1:01:31
His comfort, his comfort level with hard things, and that sounds so simple, right? But his ability to stay in the hard and talk honestly and openly about the hard puts so many, I think, public figures or personas to shame because he's not sugar coating it. We got into it about his family. At the end, he was talking about his sobriety, about how he burned bridges while he was in the military, which is the one thing he thought he was ever gonna do, but he was willing to say hard things and be comfortable, not in a self deprecating way, and not in a feel bad for me way. It was just a very genuine like, yeah, that kind of sucked. I would do it different if I knew better, but I guess I'm here now, and I it's hard to call a conversation that is that deep and that broad and intense refreshing, but I do find myself leaving talking to Brooks feeling refreshed by the candor of that
Spencer 1:02:39
You and I both love the Enneagram, and not everybody listening will know what that is. They should read about the Enneagram. It has given us a common language to understand people's personality at a level that has served me and business and personal in so many ways. But he is so clearly a four on the Enneagram, and for those that aren't familiar with it. A lot of the most gifted artists are force, and that personality has this unique ability to sit in the awkward, in the uncomfortable, in the traumatic, and be able to see it not as something uniformly negative, but instead to see it as part of the scars that allow them to be uniquely who they are today.
Carli 1:03:37
It’s beauty in the pain, beauty and the pain. And I, you and I are actually laughing about this over the weekend, not I'll just say it. There's no way to preface this one. We had a family, my parents dog had to be put down over the weekend, and our daughter, that was all in her emotions, kept going back to it and crying. It just like really hard moments, and my sweet 10 year old loves animals so much, and she just really couldn't get through the pain. And I just so learned my deficiencies. I am a two on the Enneagram. Twos are the opposites of fours in that we are completely uncomfortable with the painful moments. And I found myself very much coming up short in a mother, in my empathy, because I wanted to care for our daughter, and I got so uncomfortable at one point that I started laughing and I couldn't stop. And what? There's a syndrome for people like me. It's a problem. What is it? You
Spencer 1:04:38
know, it's actually so it is absolutely legitimate, so to make you feel better, so there is a neurological, psychological response to being uncomfortable that comes out in some people as laughter, which makes it I'm doing it right now. I can't 10 times worse because. Is you see this just in really rare moments, where it's at a funeral, or it's when someone gets badly hurt. The last thing that you're actually doing is laughing, but it's your body's way of trying to deal with what is an incredibly stressful moment for you.
Carli 1:05:24
And it was three days of her being devastated, and I had tried everything I knew how to do, and I just felt like the worst mom in the world, because I couldn't stop. And I was just so sad that she was so sad, yeah, that I had this horrible nervous response and and maybe that's why I just found Brooke. So I bet he doesn't laugh when his kid is crying. I bet he is great at dealing with pain, and that's part of what we talked to him about too. Of like he is so uniquely gifted to sit in that, yeah, with people and the mental health crisis in our nation, not just for veterans, but including veterans, is so immense and it feels almost like insurmountable. What are we going to do? And I think through his music, through his storytelling, he could make a really deep impact for a lot of people, because he's better than me and can handle really hard emotion for a stronger period of time.
Spencer 1:06:26
The main takeaway I hear out of his whole story is the best moments of his life were ones where his mission and purpose was most clearly defined and understood by him, and the moments that were the very worst was where he had no clarity of what his mission and purpose was. And that is a lesson that applies to billions of additional people, besides Brooks herring, and I think that is the place to start. Whether we're talking about mental health, talking about career goals, talking about relationship is, do you understand your mission and purpose? And to the extent that that's unclear, it's going to be really hard to take a single step past it until that part is solidified.
