Laurie: One of the things I found when I was doing my research, I found there were so many comments on how you are connected with your fans and how they appreciate being able to talk with you, and have that connection with you. How do you do that, how do you keep that going?
Rockie: I think the people that listen to my music and me have a really close bond and I think this is why - When I was playing with kind of a big star in Nashville when I decided to leave and do my own thing I had this one 10 song CD, the same guys that you see played with me in Clarksville, Tennessee at a place called "Flight Time" or something like that. We were just going to play my songs. So for ten years we played but we just played my stuff. So I went in and thought instead of playing "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," we are going to play my songs. I think there were 28 people in the room and I remember thinking I'm going to play my own stuff, so I'm going to go around to every table and I am going to thank them before I play for listening to my stuff so they would stay. That is the reason I was going to do it. My hands were sweaty. I'm an unbelievable introvert, which is the really odd thing, 'cause I'm really not an extrovert, I'm an introvert, and I'm shy. So, I went up to that first table and he was a big biker guy and I have a motorcycle so I'll go up to him, you know, so I went up to him and I said "I want to thank you all for coming tonight and listening to my songs." And he said "who are you?" I said, "Well I'm in the band and I'm going to sing some songs that I wrote." He said "you're not the manager, you are not telling us to leave?" And I said "no I'm just thanking you for coming." So I went to every table, it was horrifying and then we went up there and played my whole album from beginning to end and we sold 24 copies, sold a whole box. I said that's it, I'm going to do that every night of my life and here's what's great about that, for 10 years before I got a record deal and got signed I did 325 one nighters, 325, no bus, no crew, no deli tray, no tour support, no crazy road manager telling us what to do when we don't want him to, nothing by me setting it all up, we'd play and then we would tear it down and leave. Every single night for 10 years I went to every single human being in that room and I shook their hand and I thanked them for coming. Every night was great but once in a while magic happened. Here's the thing about being on the road non stop, my daughter would come out in the summer and we would have a little RV I would rent and we stay separate and she would spend the summers with me playing fairs and festivals, but it also meant that every Christmas my band was on the road and we would play somewhere on Christmas. I remember Christmas Eve in Superior, Wisconsin at a club called Shooters, and there were maybe 4 people in the room. It was Christmas Eve and it was a very depressed environment, not for me, because I was trying to be upbeat and positive. Those nights I would go to each table on New Years Eve, Easter and Christmas and all those night and I would sit down and spend more time, cause you had more time. I felt for some reason or another it made me feel better about my own situation to make other people feel good about themselves. I would talk to them. Well there was this guy named Danny who was there and he was talking about how he used to play guitar. He was really, really drunk and he was telling all things about that and he asked me if he could play my guitar. This happened to be the worst Christmas of my life, cause the love of my life had just left and I was by myself, which is really, really a sad, sad story. I had this guitar with me, it was a beautiful Stratocaster, custom shop Stratocaster, and it had my name engraved on the neck and everything. So I said Danny you can come up and play my guitar. So this guy that was really drunk came up and he took my guitar and he fell over and he broke it in two. He broke this guitar in the neck so it was gone, completely finished. My band thought I was going to explode or whatever but I didn't because it would really hurt him, and started to cry, and he said "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" It was our last set, and I said "Danny, don't worry about it, it's not a big deal." And at the end of the next set he was still there and I took him out, got him a cab to go home and we were out in the snow in Superior, Wisconsin. It was cold and he was going home in a cab thinking he had nothing to live for and I was going to a hotel, knowing I had nothing to live for and this is interesting, because I don't pray that much anymore, I used to pray a lot but I said "Danny let me pray with you." and that night I said a prayer with him that I didn't believe, I just said words because I thought it would help him, and I asked for his life to be full and for him, to be able to give up drinking and I told him this is the last Christmas that you are going to have to spend alone. He told me about his family and how he lost his wife, and child and he had a job on the docks there and he lost that, but anyway, I didn't think anything else about except that I had a broken guitar.