John, renowned for his roles in "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Smallville," shares his views on American identity and the intertwining of patriotism and faith. Hear his new single, 'She's Worth it,' from his latest album, 'Made in America.'
Beyond his extensive career in entertainment, which includes various TV shows, movies, and accolades as a film writer and director, John is also a dedicated philanthropist.
With over 20 albums and five number one country songs to his credit, he discussed how his personal faith has guided him through moments of loss and grief. johnschneiderstudios.com
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Counting among the outlaws, he said, come follow me.
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People from all walks of life since but then becoming.
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Outlaws. Today, joining us once again is
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John Schneider, actor, musician, filmmaker, philanthropist.
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He's best known as Beau Duke from the Dukes of Hazard.
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Well, for me anyway. If you ask my son, he'll say I'm
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having on today Clark Kent's dad from Smallville, and he's known
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for other TV roles, movies. He's released 20 or so country
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music albums, five number one songs and he's just released a
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new patriotic album made in America, which is why he's
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joining us here today. Welcome, John Schneider.
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It's great to be back here. Congratulations on your success
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of your show. Your continued success of your
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show. What's amazing is how many Dukes
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of Hazzard fan groups there are is still a phenomenon.
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Yeah, I just did a mad monster party, which is kind of like a
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Comic Con in in Glendale, AZ And Tom Wopat was there and yeah,
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it's it's crazy. And it's not just people who
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grew up watching the show, it's their kids as well now.
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So it's it's pretty wild because it's been almost 45 years,
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almost 45. Years.
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What makes it different than other shows that that come and
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go? I think Dukes has a sense of
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community that other shows don't have.
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And not just the not just the family unit.
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I mean, most television shows had a had a couple of buddies
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who depended on one another. But in but in mythical Hazard
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County, everybody really ultimately depends on one
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another. Even if the the bad guys, you
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know, they get a, they, they hire somebody who's a little too
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bad, like maybe physical with us or they take out a gun.
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Heaven forbid they take out a gun on Dukes boss hog is says
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no, no, no, no. I just wanted you to distract
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him. But we seem to have an
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understanding of the of the importance of not only our our
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immediate family, but our friends, Cooter, Enos, Cletus,
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those folks. And like I said, even our, even
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our extended extended enemy family usually ultimately in
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every episode become somehow important or learns a lesson
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from us or we or we, we learn one from them.
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It's really quite remarkable. Plus it's got the cars, you
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know, it's got the stunts. Like, like, you know, we really,
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our stunt team really started that exceptional kind of car
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work on television. You know, up until then, I
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think, you know, Jim Rockford would get the get the Firebird a
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couple inches off the ground and do a great reverse 180.
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But he wasn't jumping the train or jumping the Creek.
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And of course we have Daisy, you know, we have Katherine Bach,
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arguably the most beautiful woman of the 80s.
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So, and the wisdom of General General, the wisdom of Denver
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Pile, our Uncle Jesse, who was very much.
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I patterned my Jonathan Kent. You can tell your son, I
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patterned my Jonathan Kent very much after not only Uncle Jesse,
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but Denver Pile, because Denver, who played Uncle Jesse, was a
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very dear friend of mine and a great reason why I made it
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through those, made it through the success of of from 18 years
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old to 25, you know. Uncle Jesse with those big
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overalls. That's right, boys now boys.
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Anyhow, it was it was a great show still as Smallville.
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Smallville really, really help people too, though.
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You know, people talk about Smallville with tears in their
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eyes. They talk about Dukes really
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fondly and, and they remember their time with their
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grandparents while they watched it and, and they feel like we
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really are part of their family. But a lot of times big, big
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military guys will come up to me and, and say, you know, my
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relationship with my father wasn't all that great, but my
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relationship with Jonathan Kent was perfect.
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So it's it's, it's great to find out that that you were part of
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something that actually makes a difference.
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Yeah. Do you have a personal favorite?
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Something that, whether it's music or producing your own
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movies and writing or a character you've played,
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something that's kind of stuck with you personally.
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Well, I really enjoy the, I enjoy making the movies that
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I've made over the last 10 years, not just because of of
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being in control of the process, but also being being able to
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tell a story that I came up with from start to finish.
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So I really enjoyed that. In fact, I'm doing a new,
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developing a new show now that's going to be filmed actually in
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Kentucky, in Kentucky about a family.
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And I'm going to look like this about a family whose last name
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is Earl and they live in Perry County, Kentucky.
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So it actually is going to be called the Earls of Perry and it
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will be reminiscent of of Dukes. It certainly will.
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But I, there's a couple of films that that I did at the studio in
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Louisiana. One was a, a tribute to Smokey
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and the Bandit and then and that's called Stand on it.
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And the other one is a, the sequel to that.
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And there's one more that I haven't finished yet.
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So we've got to stand on it, Poker run and double or nothing.
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And I really, really enjoy those because it kind of kind of put
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everything together. I really, I, I play kind of Bo
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Duke, but obviously I'm older, but I'm really, I'm really
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playing a Burt Reynolds character and I drive a
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beautiful T top. I cut T tops in a in a
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challenger. So it's not a not a trans am,
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but I wrote it and my friends and I put all the music in it.
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So I kind of was able to to wrap everything together and come up
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with this really, really fun Southern horsepower comedy
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franchise. So if you haven't seen it, check
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it out. I'd say in my in my all these
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years, that that is my, that's my favorite.
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That's my favorite thing so far. So far, yeah.
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Any hood sliding? I tried once and I and I got
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stuck and I said and I and I the character I go, I jump up on it
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and it kind of goes. Yeah, you've got a Grecian.
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The older you get, the more you got to grease it down.
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Lemon pledge, Lemon pledge. But my character, my character
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says that used to be so easy, but it's, it's pretty funny.
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So I, I do poke fun at myself, which is also very important.
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It's also very important. So why a patriotic album and why
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now for you? Well, right now I think we have
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a lot of people who have been not just misinformed, but kind
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of reverse engineered to think our country bad, country bad, US
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bad. And I, I really was starting to
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get upset with that. I made a movie two years ago
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called to Die for about our flag for much of the same reasons
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where people who were, in my opinion, people who were
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insulting not only our flag, but the folks that gave their lives
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for our freedoms, they were being applauded and people who
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were waving a flag from their truck were being chastised.
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So these are these are things that I think are entirely
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backwards. So I wanted to do something
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about it. Cinematically, musically, made
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in America is is a couple of things.
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It is a celebration of what I think is the greatest country in
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the world. It is a reminder that that is
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exactly where we live. But it's also a call to action
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because it's not all flag waving on this.
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In fact, the song Made in America is about fixing the
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mistakes, but Made in America circa 1776.
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And then I get into it. Some White House clowns in the
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DC town made it a circus. Ever since it all went to hell
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in a heavenless handbasket. Teaching kids praying is a bad
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habit, but I'm saying one anyway.
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I pray it ain't too late to fix the mistakes made in America.
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There's a song on here that says thank you for your sacrifice
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that is specifically written to our Gold Star families.
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So I think a lot of a lot of people are very uncomfortable
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around folks who have lost a loved one.
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I understand what that feels like, certainly not to, to a
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battle overseas, but to a battle with cancer.
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So it's, it's important for me to give not just John Schneider
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thanking these folks, but but everybody who played on the
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record thanks these folks. When I, when I do it out in the
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in public, when I do a concert, the people who are singing
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along, 'cause I encourage people to sing, thank you, thank you,
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thank you for your sacrifice. It gives them an opportunity to
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express their gratitude as well, and I think when we do that, it
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makes us more likely to do it again.
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And if we continue a life of gratitude, then I think we'll be
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much better people. Yeah, patriotism always seems to
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go hand in hand with faith. I think so.
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Why do you think that is or why is it for you?
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We do believe that. I do believe that the United
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States of America is the the tangible breath of God.
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I think that God designed this country to be specifically free
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so that the rest of the world can look at it and have a goal
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and not necessarily a goal to come here, but a goal to do
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better where they are. So I, I believe when you think
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about the United States as a God breathed, I don't really like
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the word experiment, but I guess it, I guess it is true, a God
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breathed experiment, experiment that you can't help but keep God
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in your thoughts about the United States, God in your
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thoughts about the flag. When you when I see the flag, I
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see many, many people who have died defending it.
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For me, every time I see the flag, everything, I every time I
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think about patriotism, I think about, I think about God.
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And I pray, not that he fixes our trouble, but I pray that He
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gives us the stamina, the fortitude, and the strength and
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the courage to fix what's happened here in a very short
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amount of time. What we're doing now I don't
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believe is or what we're, what we're enduring now, I do not
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believe is part of God's design for our country.
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And I do think we are. We are in the process of getting
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that back. I think you can relate to this.
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When I was young and you went to, let's say, a ball game and
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you stood up for the national anthem, there was never a
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thought of not standing up for the national anthem.
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Or if you didn't take your baseball cap off and put your
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hand over your heart, if it wasn't your own dad, somebody
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else's dad would smack you in the back of the head and make
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you do it because that's who we are and how you you go.
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And it looks like an option. And it's not only an option, but
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a lot of the younger generation doesn't even really seem to
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understand, like they're not being disrespectful on purpose.
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They don't even seem to know the tradition.
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No, they've been like, yeah, they've been, they're de
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educated. I don't think that's the right
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word. But they their education has
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devolved in that regard because people take they just folks out
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there are who started a lot of this actually, you know, I'll
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just say folks who started this are very good at sensational
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marketing. So I think the first time that
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it happened that that person was doing that on purpose to get the
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cameras all facing toward him. And, and what price, my God,
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what, what price? What price did did the rest of
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us pay for that, that single act of, of selfish self promotion?
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And then somebody else said, oh, well, that's a great idea.
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So let's do this. So let's, let's create a
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movement and then let's create some BS history behind it so
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that more people will do it. But that is all self-serving.
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The great thing about the United States of America is it's not
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self-serving. the United States of America and true Americans
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are all about serving other people because we do believe
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that that's what God wants us to do.
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So when I see all that, it just, it just boils my blood.
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And you're, you're right. I'm and, and I'm, I'm 64.
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There was no way in the world that anybody would do that
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specifically because we all knew veterans who had come back.
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In my case, there were people coming back from from Vietnam.
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My stepfather was in Korea. My, my, my dad's age, my dad's
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age group, my stepfather also were Korea age.
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And we also all knew all, not somebody.
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We all knew somebody who didn't make it back.
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Or in the case of Vietnam, we all we all had a friend or a
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friend of a friend who came back in a box draped with a flag.
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Yeah. So you would never, not just
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because some some adult would smack you in the head, but you
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would, it would never occur to you to disrespect that flag
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because that is a tacit disrespect of everyone who has
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sacrificed for it. And now, you know, people are
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so, so up in arms about wanting to wanting to express their
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freedom and exercise their First Amendment right at the cost of
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hours, which I still can't quite understand how they justify
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that. You know, how can somebody say
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you can't say that after just saying some horrific thing?
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And I wrote that into to die for my, my daughter says you can't
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just tell people what to say. And I said you just did.
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And she says that's different. Right.
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Of course it is. Of course it's so different.
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It's termed as nationalism, like patriotism, the negative is
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turned into the nationalism where we think if we say we're
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the best country on earth, then it's insulting the rest of the
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nations. And see, if you agree with this,
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I have a thought on, but we're not saying we're better than
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other people in the world. To me, it's kind of like if you
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go in biblical terms, you have a God chosen people to bring a
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bigger plan of salvation to the world.
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Yeah, is a funnel where you have America's not saying they're
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better, but it was a funnel for democracy to help spread this
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idea to the world of a government with freedoms for the
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people. Yeah, I agree with that.
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Because we, because we are based on a foundation of all men
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created equal, because we are are set upon a foundation of
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pursuing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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Because because that's the rock on which we are built.
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We are the best country to spread the word of freedom and
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it's and it's ancillary freedoms to the world.
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So it's like I said, and it doesn't mean that everybody
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needs to come to America, right, come to the United States, but
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they do. If they are people who can smell
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and taste freedom, but they can't quite get their hands on
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it yet, then they can take action to try to instill more
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and more freedoms rather than less and less freedoms in their
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country and make their country a better place.
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So freedom is the best part of it.
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Free will is the best part of it.
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All of the magic that's happened in those countries I believe
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happened because an oppressed people said OK.
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Not anymore or OK, not right there.
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We're going to, we're going to, we're going to fight for, we're
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going to think for, we're going to gather for, we're going to
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rally for little bits of freedom in our country.
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And we'll grow them and grow them and grow them so that we
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can be more like the United States of America.
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I heard you recently. Well, actually I don't know if
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the interview was recent. I've recently heard an interview
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and and it was about getting older and you said something to
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the effect of I don't feel like I'm getting closer to the end.
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Let me see if I get this right. You said I feel like I'm getting
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closer to the beginning. So you're talking spiritually?
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Absolutely, yeah, I do believe that when when we leave here,
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you know, I do. I'm a Western fan and I do
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believe you Go on to your reward.
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So when you go on to your reward, you go.
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You go and you are in this wonderful place that we can't
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even possibly imagine. What makes it real for you?
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Well, because of the loss, because of the loss recently.
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So I, I do believe that God gives you insight into those
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those folks that that gosh, loss is even the wrong word have gone
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on ahead. How about that who have gone on
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ahead and not thinking, not believing, but knowing I will
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see these people again gives me great comfort and eliminates the
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number one fear that I think I think we all have or I used to
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have, which is the fear of dying.
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I don't believe, but I but I tell you what, I've never really
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believed Ken that this was it. I think this is a, this is a, a
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teaching ground. This is a, this is we're here to
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learn, we're here to do. We're here to figure things out
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so that we can bring them with us when we go.
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But I've always believed that, but I don't believe we're going
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to be on fluffy clouds with harps and wings and all that.
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What I believe is it is going to be so amazing that that none of
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us can possibly imagine what it is.
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I don't think my loved ones are sitting on a cloud eating,
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eating bonbons. You know, I think they've got,
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they've got something to do up there.
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I don't know what it is, but I will.
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And I always think that if so, if you're a non believer and
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you're thinking it's all just wishful thinking, it helps you
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get through life. Whatever helps.
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Why would we need it to get through life?
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I think you mentioned you didn't say the word grief but referring
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to grief, deep emotions like grief or even not accepting you
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have grief because you feel like something was cut short.
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Or. That was that shouldn't have
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happened. If it feels natural, we wouldn't
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have grief so that if we were just animals and went away and
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were buried and whatever and that was the end.
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It'd be a cruelness in the world of evolution that the one
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animal, let's say it was, that develops a brain that can
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produce such emotions that can grieve their dead and well, love
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that deeply, hurt that deeply, and have these intense emotions
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we do. Doesn't make sense unless the
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Greek, the death part of it wasn't part of the original
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equation and there's something after.
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Otherwise we'd be like other animals that just bury their
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dead or they eat their children or you know what?
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I. Mean like there isn't.
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Really feelings there about it. They don't ponder philosophical
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or religious. Correct.
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Well, there's a, there's a, there's like you said, loss.
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Death is is biblically speaking, death was really not part of the
00:24:07
original design. So when death entered in.
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So if so, if death is not part of the original design, God's
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designed a man, then when when death crept in because of sin,
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and I'm not a, I'm not a biblical scholar by any means.
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We didn't know what to do with it.
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And I'm, I'm speaking from experience with this.
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The thing about grief is that when it happens to someone else,
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it seems like, you know, when you're consoling a friend, it
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seems like you know, it seems like sorrow, it seems like pain,
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but when it happens to you, it is indescribable.
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There is, and this is what I said, I said many times during
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my struggle with with this is I don't have any place to put it.
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God built a lot of shelves and a lot there's a lot of places to
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put a lot of things in us, but not grief, not grief.
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Grief is, is one of the, it's like trying to remember a dream.
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It's like I can just about get my, my mind wrapped around it so
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that I can, I can even look at it.
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And because we all know that we are all going to die.
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Nobody's getting out of here alive.
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We are all going to go away, whether that's to heaven or to
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somewhere or to we'll never know until we get there.
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Oh, there's a song. We'll never know until we get
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there. I got to write that.
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I've got to write that down. But when something like this
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happens to you, it's an entirely different animal.
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And when it happens to you and you are AAI can't imagine going
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through grief and not believing in in God.
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I can't imagine not believing that I will see these folks
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again. I just can't.
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I can't imagine that and why would I?
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But I don't believe it's a crutch because I believe also
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that when you are actually grieving that God has a way of
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showing you. There are many, many references
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in the Bible, the signs and wonders.
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I believe God has a way of showing us signs and wonders up
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to kind of help deal with this. This emotion that is is so all
00:26:47
consuming at times because I've seen things I've seen things
00:26:52
that are absolutely inexplicable and they happen exactly what I
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needed to see them. And because of Alicia's passing,
00:27:00
now I also believe maybe I'm just some crazy old dude in the
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motor home somewhere, but I believe that my mother has
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spoken to me. I believe that I've seen my dad.
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I believe. I believe I remember things
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about my grandmother, who was the first person that told me
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when I was about six or seven years old.
00:27:19
She was holding my hand. We're walking through Mount
00:27:22
Gisco, New York, and out of nowhere she just said, you know,
00:27:25
Johnny, one of these days I won't be here.
00:27:29
But don't worry, you'll see me again.
00:27:31
I'll be with Jesus. And I was like, OK, that was the
00:27:37
extent of my the extent of my religious upbringing.
00:27:42
But guess what? When I needed it, that was
00:27:45
enough, more than enough. So I thank my grandma.
00:27:49
I thank my grandma, grandma for that little, little piece of
00:27:51
wisdom. And I don't remember my
00:27:53
grandmother being a particular religious person.
00:27:56
I don't think I ever remembered her saying the name Jesus except
00:27:59
that one time, but it was enough.
00:28:04
One of my favorite scriptures is Ecclesiastes, and unfortunately
00:28:09
I understood it deeper, deeper, deeper when I was older.
00:28:13
But it's something to the effect of it's better to be in the
00:28:18
House of mourning than the House of feasting, because death is a
00:28:22
destiny of every man, and the living should take this to
00:28:25
heart. Oh wow.
00:28:28
Think about it. Look it.
00:28:28
Up. I'm going to look that one up.
00:28:30
Do you have the Ecclesiastes? Ecclesiastics.
00:28:32
I think it's like the very first verses in there.
00:28:35
And I liked it 'cause I knew it was true when I was younger, you
00:28:39
know, Then I lost a sister and then I lost a daughter and then
00:28:43
I lost a marriage. And.
00:28:47
Then you start to you have those go back in your head and you're
00:28:50
like, you'd never want to relive this or wishing on anybody else.
00:28:55
But. On the other side, which there
00:28:59
never really is another side, but through the dark part of it,
00:29:04
you do realize the painful truth of it is, you know, it's why
00:29:09
most people have spiritual moments if they have a near
00:29:13
death experience or they just, yeah, or our loved one passed
00:29:17
away because it makes you face mortality was the essence of
00:29:20
those verses, you know? Right.
00:29:22
And it I've, you know, it takes for me, it takes the, the fear
00:29:25
of it out for me. And now, you know, I don't think
00:29:28
the, I think the fear of death is fear that someone you love is
00:29:33
going to die. Yeah, that's worse.
00:29:36
Yeah, that's much worse. And, and, and someone who has
00:29:38
not gone through grief, that probably sounds like that one of
00:29:42
the more ridiculous statements. But no, that's what it is.
00:29:47
That's, that's what it is, the fear of fear of someone you love
00:29:50
dying. And those of us who are still
00:29:52
here, the older we get, the more we have been through that.
00:29:57
And oddly, kind of like the hyphen, you know, oddly, at some
00:30:01
point when you get closer to the end than closer to the middle,
00:30:05
you know, because I don't know very many 124 year olds.
00:30:08
So I think arguably I'm not in middle age anymore.
00:30:14
That fear completely goes away. And added to that fear we used
00:30:22
to have and added to now this new found strength of, hey, you
00:30:24
know what? I'm more worried about someone I
00:30:27
love dying than I am about me. And this is not a cavalier
00:30:32
statement by any means. But.
00:30:33
But then you, you get toward and we'll get to see them again.
00:30:41
Yeah, right. And, you know, I thought my
00:30:46
mother lost her, her first son when he was three years old.
00:30:49
He died in 1957. And I came around in 1960, and I
00:30:54
watched my mother grieve. Johnny Michael, her whole life,
00:31:00
her whole life as I knew my mother, every every minute of
00:31:05
every day had a had a measure of grief in it.
00:31:08
And the first thought I had when my mother passed away was she's
00:31:12
holding Johnny Michael's hand. And if, if that makes somebody
00:31:20
roll their eyes, I don't care because because that really,
00:31:25
when I thought about it that way, that was the first time I
00:31:28
thought of my mother as happy. So not only does that notion
00:31:34
help help other people who've lost a child, I can't imagine,
00:31:42
but it helps me, helps me get through the day and it helps me
00:31:47
think about the, the awe and wonder of what's to come.
00:31:52
You know, where are we in the here?
00:31:54
I'll get all, all funky on you. Where are we in the Caterpillar
00:31:57
butterfly transformation? Are we, is this, are we a
00:32:00
Caterpillar? Are we locked in the chrysalis
00:32:02
right now? Where are we?
00:32:05
And is the, I don't think the, the Caterpillar is aware of the
00:32:09
butterfly, but I'm pretty sure the butterfly is aware of the
00:32:12
Caterpillar. So chew on that for a little
00:32:15
while. Otherwise, why did God, why did
00:32:17
God give us that? Why did he give us that amazing
00:32:20
metamorphosis? Why did he give us the tadpole
00:32:23
and the frog if it weren't to learn something?
00:32:27
Yeah, So. And what did they say?
00:32:30
What's that like? I saw a bumper sticker the other
00:32:32
day. If man came from monkeys, how
00:32:34
come they're still monkeys? Yeah.
00:32:39
Right, right, right, right, right.
00:32:42
So yeah. I have a lot of scientists on.
00:32:45
I have a lot of scientists on, but the reason I do is because
00:32:49
there shouldn't be a division between faith and science.
00:32:51
Scripture says, you know you, God reveals himself by his word
00:32:55
and by his creation. And what you're saying, you look
00:32:59
at things in creation, you're like, how is that possible?
00:33:01
Or why is it even there? Why is it doing that?
00:33:06
We just drove through. We're in Sedona, AZ right now
00:33:09
and driving through the mountains here.
00:33:14
If that doesn't look like like a topography, a geography, a
00:33:22
geology that was created by massive amounts of water going
00:33:26
somewhere else, I don't know what it is.
00:33:29
All these beautiful Monument Valley, all this, all these
00:33:32
beautiful vistas that we have here that you know, of course,
00:33:36
makes me think of. She wore a yellow ribbon and
00:33:38
some great, some great John for John Wayne Westerns.
00:33:42
But I was looking at that and I thought, wow, this is amazing.
00:33:46
One of these days I'm going to find out if that's true or not.
00:33:50
You know, I won't be here when I find out.
00:33:52
But one of these days, I'm going to find out.
00:33:54
And, you know, maybe, maybe somebody's going to say, you
00:33:57
know, it's pretty good. Not a lot of people looked at it
00:33:59
that way, but I love to look at it.
00:34:03
You know, I'm looking out the window right now.
00:34:05
The tree I'm looking at is older than me.
00:34:07
The rocks I'm looking at are certainly older than me.
00:34:10
So maybe I'm really not that smart.
00:34:12
Maybe I should pay more attention to what God has done
00:34:15
and maybe that'll inform what I'm going to do next.
00:34:19
Yeah. You mentioned people could find
00:34:24
your album on what, iTunes? What's the best way?
00:34:28
Best way, if you want to buy a hard copy, there's only one way
00:34:30
and that's John schneiderstudios.com,
00:34:33
johnschneiderstudios.com. If you just like to listen to
00:34:36
it, then just look up John Schneider's Made in America and
00:34:39
you'll find it on iTunes and Spotify and Apple Music.
00:34:44
It's it's in all those places. But I'd really like you to.
00:34:49
I don't know how, I don't know how writers get paid.
00:34:51
They do. I don't know how any of that
00:34:52
works. But if you I'd prefer that you
00:34:56
prefer a hard copy, and that's John snyderstudios.com.
00:35:01
The C DS are they're going to be delivered.
00:35:03
We had issues with the, with the CD manufacturer getting the raw
00:35:08
materials to make the C DS and, but I think they're in now.
00:35:12
So check up, check it out, listen to it on iTunes 1st and
00:35:18
then or tell you what. You can also go to my Facebook
00:35:21
page and I'll, I'll put a link up there and it'll play little
00:35:24
snippets. It'll play a snippet from each
00:35:26
of the each of the songs. And if you feel like it's
00:35:29
something you'd like to have in your collection, then by all
00:35:31
means, go to the store and grab you one.
00:35:33
It's just I'll put I'll put a link to that Facebook site and
00:35:37
you're johnschneiderstudios.com in the in the show notes.
00:35:41
Fantastic. And like, go ahead and like my
00:35:43
Facebook page. It won't hurt.
00:35:45
I won't track you down. I I promise I won't track you
00:35:48
down. Hey this has been great fun.
00:35:51
Yeah. Thank you so much.
00:35:52
You're so welcome. You have a wonderful day.
00:35:54
God bless you. Counted among the outlaws, he
00:35:58
said. Come follow me.
00:36:00
People from all walks of life since, but then becoming alloys.