Digital Social Hour
Grayson Rusell: How a Tent Revival Miracle Changed My Family Forever | DSH #1744
10 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
That's the crazy part about being an actor that I never thought would lend itself to music is that I learned early on what stories I can tell well and ones that I just got to leave alone.
Chapter 2: What role did a tent revival play in Grayson Russell's family history?
That's a good skill to have. There's somebody else that can play this better than me. There's somebody else that can tell the story better than me.
Chapter 3: How did Grayson Russell become an actor in 'Talladega Nights'?
There's some that is mine to tell that I can only communicate at the most effective. Songwriting is the same way. Performing is the same way.
Chapter 4: What was it like working with Tom Hanks on 'Greyhound'?
My pet peeve here in town is, you know, watching somebody sing a song and I don't believe that they believe it. You could sun stop?
Chapter 5: How does Grayson differentiate between acting and songwriting?
Yeah. You can tell when, even though the performance might be immaculate, the heart behind whatever it is, disingenuous.
Chapter 6: What themes are explored in Grayson Russell's new record 'Hell, Living, and Women'?
And not that they're not trying to really communicate it effectively. It's just that I don't believe in what they're singing about. or I don't believe that they believe it.
Chapter 7: How does songwriting serve as a form of redemption for Grayson?
For me, it has gone hand in hand in, okay, here are the stories I know can tell well. Here are the things that I've lived through. Here are the ones I can communicate that people will believe.
Chapter 8: What impact has generational trauma had on Grayson and his family?
Even though I lived through all this other stuff, they're not going to believe that frigging actor, kid, whatever, actually had to go through X, Y, and Z. And so some of those, you know, I have to let somebody else sing who, you know, people will believe that, you know, they might have lived through.
All right. So, Grayson Russell here today in Nashville. Let's go. Yes, sir. What's up, my man?
Dude, trying to stay alive.
Yeah. After hearing your schedule, yeah, I get that.
Trying to stay alive. Yeah, I went to bed about 6.30 this morning. So, we're probably, we're lunch. So, I mean, it's fine. We'll have a big night tonight. but thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, my friend.
Yeah, I'm curious about your journey, man. You've worn a lot of hats already.
I have. Dude, it's crazy. I know we're kind of talking a little faith-ish earlier, and we don't have to totally go into it, but I was raised predominantly by a bunch of old women, so my granddad was the youngest of six, and whenever, I have a great relationship with my folks, but whenever my parents would go to work, like Bertha and Inez and Ethel and all these old women kept me, and
Like I said, I grew up touring, doing gospel with my folks when I was five. Most of y'all know me as an actor, which is great. My granddad, when he was three, his mom died. She got melanoma from picking cotton and fell dead. She was in her 30s. And when his dad became a belligerent alcoholic after that, and when my granddad was five, he got rheumatic fever, which is like...
happens after you have like strep throat and don't treat it because penicillin wasn't a thing in 1945, 1950. Before antibiotics. Yeah. And it paralyzed him. So he would just scoot around on his butt as a five-year-old child. And it got to the point where he's about to kill him because there's nothing they could do. And they're like, look, kid, there's like a traveling preacher coming into town.
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