This conversation, like Sloe Jack himself, is going to offend some of you.

In a little over 6 months the 23 year-old Australian-born, Nashville-based artist has amassed a huge following on Social Media, mostly for his outspoken takes on all the hot button social issues. Under the rubric of, as he describes it, “Common Sense”, Jack has thrown himself against the liberal monolith that is the contemporary music business with the fury, hilarity, and dare I say charm, of a first rate provocateur.

Before you listen to this podcast, go to his instagram and poke around for a second. One of two things will happen: you’ll either dismiss him as a foul-mouthed phobe and unfollow me for platforming him, or maybe you’ll see what I think he actually is — a modern avatar of what used to be called Rocknroll spirit, spokesperson and hero to a generation of kids who grew up in a decade where being white and male was irredeemably problematic.

We taped this interview in mid-August, when his follower count had just crossed over 300K on instagram. Seven weeks later he’s well over half a million. I point this out to indicate the impact his message is having on culture — especially young men.

He’s worth your attention — at the very least — because he has theirs.

Okay, If I might put a little of myself out here… another reason I reached out to Jack is because I saw him doing something courageous. Speaking out against what he thinks is wrong or stupid, and accepting the knocks that come.

As someone with some conservative sympathies (a better way to put it is I’m a little —as opposed to waaaay — left of center) I’ve at times felt like a coward for not speaking up against the more egregious examples of a left that has increasingly seemed to have lost its mind. For instance, I don’t think biological males should be allowed to compete with biological females (or change in their bathrooms). But until this moment, I’ve never said so publicly. Why?

Because for the whole of my career, my desire to reap the benefits of the pop culture’s shinier largesse — to be on Tiny Desk, play Bonnaroo, get a glowing review from some mainstream tastemaker — preempted any moral compunction I might have to speak out against what I felt to be an obvious wrong. Not only is this cowardice, but worse, it allowed a community of which I am part (the creative community if that’s not clear) to careen even farther out of step with a general public striving to maintain some kind of hold on normalcy.

The current state of the democratic party is the probably result of similar inactions by thousands of people like me — moderate people who kept their heads down out of fear of being called a name rather than tap their friends and colleagues back a step before everyone talked themselves insane.

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I mean, what do you think is gonna happen when you tell a generation of young men that they, by virtue of being alive, are the problem? According to the Washington Post, employment rates for working age men are at an all-time low. This recent Gallup Poll shows that young American men are uniquely lonely compared with their counterparts in other rich countries. This one minute clip from a news program I tune into, Breaking Points, explains what everybody already knows — we are way past the narrative where men need to get out of the way so that women can flourish.

Along comes Sloe Jack. He starts stirring shit up, saying what a lot of young people think but are afraid to say. I saw this kid and to be honest I felt like he had a lot of guts. I got where he was coming from, and I wanted to know him a little better. This conversation is the result.

I have always been something of a contrarian. So this is me behaving contrarily. However you feel about the episode, I hope we can agree: an institution, industry, or political party that operates with the kind of rigid ideological conformity that marks this particular cultural moment, is, without at least some internally-generated opposition, doomed.

As the late great Jack Clement once said “What we need around here are some high class dreams.” And you don’t get high class dreams without a little controversy now and then. ~Korby

🎙️ Check out Sloe Jack’s live performance of “Fools Gold” live on the podcast