Joe Rogan Experience #2189 - Dennis Quaid

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)

Nice to meet you, man.

You too, man. Really.

It's been a pleasure. I've- I've seen so many of your fucking movies. It's always weird when you meet someone that you've seen so many times in movies, you know.

Yeah.

It's like, "All right. There he is."

Yeah, yeah.

"A real person."

Yeah, there, there they are.

(laughs)

That's... (laughs)

I didn't know you do, uh, you're- you released a gospel album though.

Yeah, last, uh, last year.

That's wild.

Yeah, it's, uh, called Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners-

How-

... because I wanted the biggest possible audience

(laughs)

(laughs)

I could get.

Gospel Record for Sinners?

Yeah. (laughs)

How long you been singing gospel?

Well, you know, basically I grew up at the Baptist Church, and so it's five songs that I grew up with, and it's five songs that I wrote before and during the making of the record. It's kind of like my spiritual journey, I guess. That's the way it turned out in the end. My wife, she put the, uh, order together, and that's what it seems to be, kind of my journey in life.

Was this something that you had thought about for a while, or did it just kinda...

Yeah, uh, yeah, I wrote this song, uh, called On My Way to Heaven, and, uh, I wrote it for my mom to let her know that I was okay after I got out of, like, rehab and for cocaine in 1990. And, um, then, uh, w- uh, then I wrote the Fallen, which is kinda, like, taken from, um... Remember that movie Thunder Road-

Mm-hmm.

... with Robert Mitchum? You know?

Yeah.

It's kind of like in that vein or that- that kind of feel to it, and there- there's this highway called the Devil's Backbone up near Bandera. And so it's- it's a ride with the devil.

Wow.

And you wind up getting left for dead on the side of the road.

So, this is just something that you felt like- like, "Fuck it. I've done everything else. Why not do a gospel album?"

Yeah, I- I've, you know, I've- I've recorded. I've always been a songwriter. I got a guitar when I was 12 years old. My grandfather bought me at, you know, at Western Auto. It's a great place to buy guitars.

(laughs)

And, uh, uh, you know, I- I realized I was never gonna shred a guitar, so I... A songwriting became like a defense, you know, something you could bring to a band.

Right.

And, uh, so I've always done it, and, uh, but I got this offer from, uh, Gaither, uh, 'cause they heard, Bill Gaither had heard the song On My Way to Heaven, uh, asked me to do a gospel record, so said yeah.