What is up Young Hollywood? It is your boy Drew. We are here today with music and acting star Sam Palladio. Good afternoon. What's up? Thank you for coming to our couch again.

Yeah, I'm it's a very uh you know, it's a pleasure to be here. You know, last time I heard you left gum on our couch. I was about to say before we start rolling, like I hope you haven't sabotaged me again. Uh yeah, last time I came it was like straight down and then we had this whole little thing about being being stuck on the couch, so.

Somebody left gum.

Somebody, somebody sabotaged me. And it might be one of you guys, I'm not sure. This is really so you can't leave. Maybe a female fan did that so that you will stay here. Do you want to hear the sound effect that?

Yes. There we go. I think there's I think we're gum-free today. I hope anyway. You grew up in a beach town, right?

I did. I did. Beautiful little town called Penzance. The Pirates of Penzance is a, you know, Gilbert and Sullivan musical, but it is a real place. And it's still kind of full of reprobates and pirates. Um but it's uh yeah, a beautiful little coastal village. Yeah, so I grew up, you know, splashing around in the ocean and uh it's a bit a bit colder than over here, but. Um yeah, nice place to grow up, man.

Probably your big break, was that Nashville?

It was. I trained as an actor in in the UK and uh I I've been doing, you know, little bit parts here and there, little guest stars on things and uh I signed up with uh a great American manager. It started 2012 and the the first thing she sent me was um the script for for Nashville, which um I was very excited to read because I'd never had like an American TV script come to my door before. It's cool. You know, I didn't think I had a chance to be honest, so I just thought well they're going to cast they'll obviously cast an American guy. Uh but I'll do my best and I did and I did and we are like four years later uh it worked out. We were just in uh in Houston, Texas last night playing a playing a show with with the cast. We're currently on tour doing some American dates and uh you know, Gunner, the character I play on Nashville is, you know, it's his home state. So, uh I definitely made a thing of uh confusing the audience by coming out all coming out all British.

Not only did that uh launch your acting career, but that launched your music career, right?

It really has, yeah. I mean, I I I grew up playing music. I, you know, my my dad played guitar and uh I played drums as a kid growing up, so played in little rock bands and did the singer-songwriter thing and uh and but always, you know, it's been a real through line throughout my life and and through my my career as an actor, you know, I've played lots of roles where they required actors to sing or to play instruments and um, you know, a lot of theater roles that required live music.

They've released albums that you've been on both of those albums, right? The Nashville albums?

Oh, for sure, yeah. I mean, there's uh I mean, there's probably like eight or nine records now. Um and they've sold very well. I think they've done millions of downloads and um so it's been a yeah, an amazing platform to um you know, to to to show people the two sides of my career that I always wanted to. So I just got distracted by my big my big face. It's gone now. Don't worry. You know, I've been really lucky to to to work on this show and get and get, you know, uh this this amazing platform for music, which is like my my absolute um passion. So it's it's nice to for for an actor to sort to get like instant instant feedback because of course you shoot a TV show and, you know, they say cut and you hope that it you hope that it went well. You don't really know, whereas uh if there's if there's a good vibe and a good energy in the room at at a club, you know you're on the right track.

You played at the Grand Ole Opry.

I have, yeah. I have. I didn't know much about country music before uh before I got the role. I knew the greats, you know, I love Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson and, you know, Waylon Jennings and those kind of guys, but um country music back in the UK isn't a huge thing, but it's it's, you know, fast becoming that. You know, the Opry was a bit of a uncharted territory for me when I first arrived in Nashville. That's holy ground you're walking on. And um I've now been fortunate enough to play there maybe well at least of 20 times. Um

And the other thing is you've you've played with a bunch of people, right? Like you've even got to play with the probably one of my favorites, Elton John.

Yeah. Not the Opry, but um Yeah. That was incredible. Elton will arrive on the show and I was very, very lucky to be uh you know, the the character on the show he interacts with. He could have, you know, Hayden could have had some great storylines with him, you know, Connie Britton but um, yeah, I felt very um, you know, very humbled that that he crossed he crossed my path and we got to we got to sing together and we got to sing uh we got to sing a track from his great new record um And the other thing he wanted to sing live, which was so cool because, you know, the the way we do it is you get into the studio a week or so before. You record the song, you, you know, you learn you then I go away and like learn the guitar part. Um, which sometimes, you know, they have these amazing session guys come in and cut them and they're very intricate, you know, they can be very intricate parts. So that's usually the process and then and then we we shoot the song and and we mime like a music video, you know, you mime to your own voice. Elton didn't want to do that. He wanted to sing he wanted to turn up. He didn't want to sing to his own voice, he just wanted to sing. So we were all thrilled that he wanted to do that. And that meant that I, you know, I was singing harmonies with him. I was singing this duet. So that meant I had to sing live with him as well, which was amazing.

Well, you know what? It's always good vibes with you, man. You are always so humble and I cannot wait to see you. Thank you for coming by.

Thank you for thank you for having me, man. Uh Sam Palladio, guys. Rockstar.

Thanks, bro.