Bobby Bones ‘Could Have Never Predicted’ The Raging Idiots’ Success

Last month, radio personality Bobby Bones and his longtime friend Producer Eddie, both of iHeartMedia’s The Bobby Bones Show, released The Raging Idiots Presents – The Raging Kidiots, a six-song EP comprised of original (and educational) songs for children. Upon its release, The Raging Kidiots shot to the top of the iTunes children’s chart and even ranked No.12 on the iTunes all-genre digital albums chart.

The idea to make a children’s album came when The Raging Idiots were in the studio working on their upcoming full-length comedy album. “We started thinking, ‘man what if we did a kids record? Let’s just stop everything and do a kids record,'” Bones recalled when Sounds Like Nashville had the chance to sit down with him during the week of the EP release. “We have a lot of kids that listen to the show with their moms so we gear a lot of our content to being entertaining to parents, but so that the little ears can still listen too.”

They realized they were onto something. “So what if we made something for just the little ears that wasn’t already songs that have been made. Because a lot of stuff now has been made and they just keep regurgitating it over and over again,” he shared. “And so, my thought was, why not make it motivational and educational at the same time?”

Bobby and Producer Eddie then recruited some of their friends, like Lindsay Ell, Eric Paslay, and Phil Barton, to help them write songs for the record. “You’re as good as the people you surround yourself with, and that was kind of the key for us…to put really good people around us because we’re not that good,” Bones admitted to us.

Eddie agreed and added, “Without them, this album would have been bad.”

Bones credited Paslay, who he called “one the best songwriters, period,” for helping them turn the idea for “When I Grow  Up” into a real song. The concept for the song came to Bones in the middle of the night, so he woke up to record a few lines into his iPhone. He gave that to Paslay and Barton and they helped take it from there.

“It was really cool to watch somebody so good do something that they’re kind of meant to do,” he said of working with Paslay. “There were times when he was so good at it I had to kind of pull him back a bit like, ‘Eric, wait, we’re singing to kids, let’s come down a level.'”

Bones equally enjoyed working with Ell. “Lindsay Ell is just a genius,” he proclaimed. “She’s just great with melodies and she’s a fantastic guitar player so we’re really lucky that we’ve been able to work with really great people.”

The Raging Kidiots EP is just a part of the duo’s success. The Raging Idiots have been playing sold-out shows across the country, including a recent sell out at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville where they were joined by Dierks Bentley, Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, Brett Eldredge, and many more. To date, they’ve raised over $1 million for various charities and will continue to give back with their upcoming shows and full-length comedy release on Black River Entertainment, coming next year.

“I keep comparing it to like we’re criminals on the run and eventually they’re going to catch us. The cops are going to come and be like, ‘alright we got you now, no more of that,'” Bones said of The Raging Idiots’ success. “It’s odd because we started doing this for like 20 people at a charity show and we didn’t do anything but play three or four bad covers and a song we had written that day. We’ve been able to grow it into what it is now and to be able to make millions of dollars and to be able to donate it and use it for good.”

“I like to think I have my career mapped out in certain ways, and I could have never predicted this,” he added. “I would have loved to have said that this was all planned but none of it was. I mean, I can’t really sing that well, I can’t play that well, we just kind of go out and have fun and as long as we’re having fun, the audience has fun and so that’s what we do. We just want to make people smile and laugh and do it for a good cause.”