[0:00] Hello, friends. Welcome to another episode of Tell Us a Good Story.
Now, we typically try not to break episodes into multiple parts.
However, this conversation went about an hour and a half and was just too good to cut down into one.
So today is part one of our conversation with author, preacher, and social media influencer, Mr.
Kelly Kay. Oh, this man was so much fun to talk to. However, Kelly does not look like what we would describe as a traditional preacher.
No, he doesn’t. tattoos, few earrings, even his lip is pierced.
So as you can imagine, what are people’s reactions when they find out he is a preacher? Which are really funny. They’re so funny.
Also, this man developed a passion for music in high school, which led him to playing in punk rock bands before eventually becoming a tour manager and assistant for some of the biggest rock bands in the world, like Red and Nickelback.
Plus, Kelly tells one of the craziest stories about being in a traffic accident when he was on tour with the band Red and how that changed his life.
You guys, here’s part one of our conversation with our new friend, Kelly Kay.

[1:03] I’m Kevin. And I’m Stephanie. And during our marriage, we have dealt with an electrocution, a brain tumor, brain surgery.
Then doctors telling us that children were not in our future, followed by miscarriage, and then Kevin’s cancer diagnosis.
However, today, we live a life completely healed and restored with three healthy children who doctors said were not possible. And we’re here to tell stories that inspire, give hope, and brighten your day.
Welcome to… Tell Us a Good Story.

[1:32] Okay, friends, before we get to this episode, just a friendly reminder to please hit the subscribe button on YouTube and Apple podcast or give us a review. Five stars, please.
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Steph, I think this is meant to happen, right?
This is the third time that we are now getting on a call with this next guest, meaning we’re supposed to be doing this.
There’s been situations that I feel like the enemy does not want the story to be told to our audience. Absolutely.
Well, friends, our next guest is a husband, father of five, author,

[2:26] evangelist, staff pastor as well at Limitless 405 Church in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Tell Us a Good Story, Mr. Kelly Kay. Kelly Kay!

[2:38] Kelly, thank you so much for having me, you guys. I’m so excited to be here.
Kelly, thank you for saying yes to us. And the first thing I want to ask you about, sir, is, and I’ve heard you say this in the past, but when we look at you, you do not look like a traditional pastor, okay?
Right. So what is typically the reaction when people ask you what you do and you tell them that you’re a minister, you’re evangelist, all of that?
Is, is, is the best. And I give this the most on flights, right?
You know, when you sit down, somebody sits by you, they don’t know you, you don’t know them. Right. And I, and I fly Southwest a lot.
And I like that because you get two free bags, you know what I’m saying?
But when you fly Southwest, you get to pick your own seat.
Now we know what that really means. You’re not picking a seat.
You’re picking a person, right?
Like you’re walking down the aisle, you’re like empty seat and not that guy, right? Yes.
So I know that. So the people who choose to sit by me, they’re looking at me going, okay, they’re making assessments and judgments about me before they ever sat down.
So this happens all the time. They’ll sit down and they’ll start talking, telling me about their week in Vegas, their party, trying to show me pictures of girls and stuff on their phones, offering to buy me drinks, just cuss word after cuss word, 30 minutes into the flight every time they’ll go. So what do you do?

[3:53] I’m like, Oh, I’m a pastor preacher. No, no, you’re not.
I’m like, no, seriously. And every time, man, the voice changes.
Well, you know, I’ve been thinking about getting back in church.
My wife and I’m like, like, bro, I like to you were five minutes ago, way better than this fake version of you, right?
Yeah. Nobody ever looks at me and thinks, oh yeah, that’s a pastor.

[4:16] That’s awesome. Matter of fact, when I, when I travel and speak, one of the first things I say from the stage is I know a lot of you are looking at me right now I’m going, that’s not a pastor. That guy might rob me in the parking lot.
And then I say to those of you thinking that, I might.
You know, let them know. Yeah, I could. So I get it. I get it.
But you know what? God is just looking for anybody with their hand raised. And that was me.
So he will use anybody. I tell everybody, if God will do this with me, What’s your excuse? Oh, that’s good. I thought you were saying on Southwest, you get upset because everybody keeps passing you.
Like, hey, why doesn’t anybody want to sit beside me, right?
With these tattoos. No, I want that.
I love that part of it. I’ll sit there too and I’ll try to look as mean as possible.
You know, that way I’m not sitting by that guy. There’s one empty seat.
It’s normally next to me.

[5:08] I’ve got the witness to a lot of people on airplanes. I bet you have. It’s always good.
What’s been your most amazing conversation with someone once they found out you were a pastor?
Right. Where it’s like, Hey, God ordained this. This person was supposed to sit beside me on this airplane.
That’s a great question. And I’ve got the perfect answer too.
So early on in my ministry, about 10 years ago, when we were starting this, I used to, I had another guy that would travel with me to kind of help me with, with all my, my merch and the stuff that I was doing.
So we were doing conferences and we didn’t get paid for these, you know, it was just us doing them because we wanted to minister they couldn’t afford to pay us so i remember getting on a flight once and he and i would sit on the edges and leave the middle seat open so we could trap you you know you got jesus coming on both sides and uh we’re sitting there and no one sat down yet and i just looked at him and i said bro i said we don’t have enough money for the flight next weekend to the next conference i was like i don’t know how we’re going to get there we can’t afford it and he just said you know god will provide i’m like you’re right he will about that time this dude sits down same story he’s showing us pictures he’s trying to buy us drinks 30 minutes into the flight he’s like what do you guys do and we’re like we’re pastors he’s like no you’re not yeah we are well he finally he breaks down and he’s like you know i’ve really been seeking god and i really wanted to know more about him and i just don’t know what i need to do and for the next two hours we just got to minister to him and we actually got to pray with him lead him to the lord right there on that flight and here’s here’s the crazy part but this is what i’m getting to.

[6:33] So two hours of all that, we get done. We’ve led him to Jesus.
Joy is all over him now. We’re having a great conversation. Then he looks at us and he goes, man, you guys are traveling past me. He’s like, you must make so much money.
And I’m like, actually, like we don’t get paid at all for this.
Like, we don’t know how we’re going to get to the next city.
We don’t know how we’re going to do it. Just God provides.
I didn’t tell him that we were in the middle of a financial struggle.
I just said, you know, we don’t have a ton of money. That’s not how this works.
No joke, the dude stands up, gets in his carry-on, pulls out his checkbook, writes me a check, and says, you know, I just feel like I’m supposed to pay for your next flight for wherever you’re going next.
So in a two-hour time period from having no money to get the next flight to leading this guy to Jesus, to him pulling out his wallet and paying for our next flights, like clearly God was working in that moment on both parties, and God put it together, and I will never forget that moment.
I’m still friends with him on Facebook. book.
I still get to catch up with him and check on him. Yeah. It’s really cool.
It was a really cool moment.
Okay. I’m feeling convicted stuff because when I get on airplanes, Kelly, I don’t want to talk to anybody.

[7:39] I feel you. I feel you. Before I had these wireless earbuds, right?
I would just put in ear pods. It’s not even hooked up to my phone.
I just, I would have that universal sign.
Don’t talk to me. I don’t, I don’t want to hear your life story, but you know what? That’s not good when you’re seen by your wife and I’m the one that you’re not talking to.
But you, you get a new best friend, right? Because the person next to you tells you their life story.
I tell you what, though, what’s really changed my opinion on talking to people on flights, because I don’t like to either. I don’t want to.
But here’s the thing about talking to someone on a flight.
They don’t know you and they’re probably never going to see you again.
What that means is it’s very easy for them to drop their walls in their heart and they will talk to you about things they may not talk to anybody else again. Why?
Because they don’t know you and they don’t know that they’ll ever see you again.
So they will be very honest with you.
And a lot of times you’ll You’ll see people in a very vulnerable position on a plane because you’re a stranger and you’ll get to give them the words they’re looking for and get to give them Jesus.
So once I realized that, now I see it as a responsibility and I’m not just on that flight to get to where I’m going, but I’m here because God wants to use me on this flight as well.

[8:50] All right, Steph, I’m going to test you again here. What is your favorite book of all time? Obviously, it’s the Bible, Kevin.
Yes. Nailed it. Very good. This time you didn’t say the book we wrote called You Met Her Where. But it’s still a really good book. That is true.
And it would make a great gift for friends or relatives on their birthday or for Christmas.
Friends, you can order your copy of our book titled You Met Her Where at kevinandsteph.com.
And we will make sure to personally sign a copy for you or whoever you want.
And as always, thank you for listening to Tell Us a Good Story.
All right, Kelly, we’re like five minutes in this conversation.
Are you being evicted? I’m loving this already, Kelly.
Me too. I admit. This is fun. Okay, so you grew up in the church, apparently.
And back in high school, you developed this passion for music and became a musician and got involved with a punk rock band, I believe, is that correct?
Yeah, yeah, I was real into the punk scene. What is it like starting off in a band, like going to a punk rock concert?
What is that like at smaller venues starting out?
Is it just like one big mosh pit? Do you have any good stories from that, Kelly?
One big mosh pit. You mean out of the three people that came to the show? Huge mosh pit.

[10:05] That’s what it was. Being in a band, you know, in the early mid-90s playing punk in Oklahoma, where I’m from, every show, it felt like we were just playing for the other bands, you know?
The only band, the only people that came to the show were also playing the show.
So it wasn’t really very exciting times. It was just, that’s what you do.
You got to pay your dues, you know to try to get a record deal to try to get somebody to see you so i don’t i don’t really have too many crazy stories from uh playing shows in those days just because there really wasn’t much happening i mean i was in a lot of bands but the truth is they were all wildly mediocre we just weren’t that great yeah i mean i’m a good musician i was with good musicians but i mean think about all the people trying to make it famous as a musician everybody you know you You got to be in the top 1% if you’re going to make it. And we just never were.
So it just didn’t happen. And it’s not even just that. Some of the most talented musicians and singers are out there every Sunday morning across the United States.
Yeah, for sure. And nobody knows about them.
It is in this small town out in the middle of Idaho or whatever, right?
So it’s not just being talented. It’s actually getting the opportunity as well. Yeah, for sure.
Okay. So then you met some tour managers, right? You wanted to get into the music industry, Kelly, to the point where you offered to work for free.
Can you tell that story of phone call after phone call? Can you share that story, please?

[11:33] What happened was I was in these bands and we were trying to make it.
I had met these managers.
Some of the managers that I had met worked for one of the biggest management companies in the world at the time.
These guys manage Nickelback, Saliva, Poison, all the big rock bands.
These guys touched them at some point. I had met these dudes.
When I realized my band wasn’t going to work, I started calling them and asking for a job.
So I’ll never forget the first day I have this idea. I’m like, you know what?
If I’m not going to make it as a famous musician, if I got in the industry on the backside, the management side, then I’m only one degree of separation away from these bands.
And if anybody ever needs a bass player, a guitar player, hey, I’m right here.
I thought that that would be my idea to get close enough to them to not get a record deal myself, but just join somebody that already had one.
Right. I’m a pretty resourceful guy.
Yes. So I call and ask them, can I have a job? You know, can I come work for you? And they’re like, what?
Like, who are you? Like, where’d you go to school? Like, what’s your degree?
And I’m like, oh, yeah, no, I don’t have that. I didn’t do any of that.
I’m just I, I just know rock and roll. And I just love music.
Give me a job. And obviously, they said no, you know, like, no, we’re not going to give you a job.
So the next day I called, hey, can I have a job? They’re like, no, again.
And they told me, like, do you know how many people try to get a job here?
And they have degrees like they have references, they have a resume, like you have nothing.

[12:55] Every single day, Monday through Sunday, no joke, I called them on their cell phones and asked for a job for six months.
I didn’t skip a day. I asked them for a job.
And I know they were getting tired of my phone calls. They were getting tired of telling me no.
But at the end of six months, I got a little note on my door saying my lease was up on my apartment and I either needed to resign or find a new place to live.
So I just took this as my big shot. And I called them again.
And I said, hey, I’m not asking you. to come work for you, I’m telling you, I’m coming to work for you for free.
I was like, you don’t have to pay me. I just want to show you that I know what I’m talking about.
I know that if you let me in, I’ll be beneficial to you.
And they called me back that evening. And one of the guys said, all right, you can sleep on my couch. If you’re willing to work for free, let’s go.
So I sold everything I had. I sold my car, all my stuff.
I ended up hitchhiking with $5,000 cash and one suitcase of clothes to their offices, got there and started working for free. I worked for free for three months.
Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Do you have a question? Yes. Let’s pause there.

[14:01] Hitchhiked from Oklahoma to Texas. Yeah, they had about seven offices, but that one was in Texas. Yeah.
Okay. How many rides did you have to hitchhike to make that route to get all the way there?
I hooked up with this one group of dudes that were going down there for the oil field and that’s where they were headed.
So I just I didn’t know him I just got in the back of the truck and they took me to the address I told him I wanted to go to that was it wow it didn’t get murdered on the way well were you all tatted up at that point too I had one tattoo this little one on my wrist I didn’t look near as scary.

[14:37] That’s true people would probably pass him like no I’m gonna pass on that guy for sure no I look like a normal guy back then how long did it take for somebody to pick you up was it a while no not Not at all. I mean, we’re in Oklahoma.
There’s lots of oil field traffic. And I kind of knew that there was going to be people heading to West Texas. So that didn’t take long at all.
That was an easy process.

[14:57] Okay. I’m shocked by that. I would have never thought of that.
I wouldn’t either. No. Okay. So you make it to Texas. They drop you off the office. Go.
Yeah. So I start working for them for three months. Three months I worked for free.
Just went in every day and I hustled. I mean, I was looking for new band.
They also had a record So I was looking for new bands that they may want to sign, just different things like that.
And after three months, they fired their assistant.
He wasn’t really doing much for them anyway. And once I saw that, I knew if I just pushed real hard and just did as much work as I could.
They’re going to see a huge contrast between me and the guy sitting in the desk that’s getting paid. And that’s all it took.
So three months in, they let him go. I got that job.
So now I’m there as an assistant.
And then about three months after that is when they put me out on the road tour managing some of the biggest rock bands in the world.
And it was like a dream come true.

[15:53] If you like what you hear, please tell someone about us. As soon as this episode is over, go tell your spouse your closest friend a parent a co-worker or share one of our posts on social media however if you don’t like what you’re hearing please do not don’t tell anyone don’t tell anyone don’t tell anybody just disregard this message don’t worry about it forget about us yep go on with your merry day and to get more information about us or our entire catalog of episodes be sure to check us out at kevinandsteph.com thank you for listening to tell us a good story.

[16:23] Okay so who are you who are you touring with the band so I went out Yeah, the first band that I was a tour manager for was Red, and this was right at the end of Silence record when that came out.
So we were out with Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Three Days Grace.
And then I also later became the stage manager for Warped Tour on the main stage.
So I worked with Paramore, Kill Switch Engage, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Chiodos, Funeral for a Friend, you name it.
When I was the assistant, the main band I worked for was Nickelback.
So, yeah, it was crazy. Were you literally pinching yourself the whole time, like your life? I made, oh yeah. I did this.

[17:01] The greatest part for me was when I was doing that, when I was moving out there, all my family, all my friends were like, dude, you’re an idiot.
This is the dumbest decision.
And then later, like a year later, they’re all calling me. Can you get me tickets to this? Can you get me backstage here? I’m like, yeah.
Whose horrible idea was it now? Now that you’re going to meet all these bands and go to all these shows.
Yeah, it was great. I don’t regret any of that. Okay, so working festivals, working these concerts, what’s one of the wildest things you’ve seen from fans, whether it’s trying to get on stage, whether it’s trying to get backstage, people sneaking in?

[17:36] What’s one of the most interesting experiences you had?
You know, some of the craziest stories that are coming to my mind, I can’t tell on here.
Okay, well, that’s fair. That’s fair. I was going to say, give us a PG-rated.
Let me tell you, I saw some crazy stuff. up.
All right. The things that you see in movies or on TV of these rock and roll backstage, it’s true. It’s real. Seriously.

[18:00] Yes. And yeah, I was working with a Christian band, but I wasn’t always with Christian bands. And, It’s wild. So I’m trying to think of some crazy stories that’s PG enough.
So when you hear crazy stories from like Motley Crue, that stuff’s real, right?
I remember reading the Heroin Diaries, Nikki Sixx’s book, and he’s the bass player for Motley Crue. I read that before I was really serving God.
And I remember reading those stories thinking, nah, like, did that really happen?
Like, are you exaggerating for the book?
And then after getting out there and seeing it all, it’s like, oh, yeah, no, that absolutely that happened. I don’t doubt that.
Not one bit. Oh, man. What does it mean to be a tour manager?

[18:39] Essentially, you’re an overpaid babysitter for famous people. That’s all it is.
So as a tour manager, my job is to ensure everybody’s on the bus at the right time.
Everybody’s off the bus. They’re on stage at the right time.
We get to the right place. Everybody gets fed.
Essentially, if anything goes wrong in the day, it would have been my fault.
I make sure that we’re all following a schedule.
The bus gets to where it needs to be. The bus driver’s taken care of.
The bands where they need to be you’re just overseeing everything on that tour to make sure it runs efficiently okay that is a babysitter yeah for sure it is okay i’m a babysitter then what’s one of the most random requests then by someone you’re babysitting right is it hey i need this type of food back in the vip room i need like you had to deal with a lot of random stuff kelly in that Yeah.
The funniest thing is now tour managing Wang Chung.

[19:33] These guys are in their 70s. So the bands I used to work with, they were all like in their 20s and 30s. It was all party, party, party all the time.
Now it’s stop listening to NPR.
I need you to get out of the bathroom, get in the van.
We need to get to the show. I need you to wake up. Like Nick Feldman from Wang Chung.
I love him so much. Like he is one of my favorite people on this planet.
But that dude, Dude, I feel like I have to walk behind him as much as I do with my two-year-old.
Like, we’ll be at an Airbnb, and I just hear this dinging.
I’m like, what is that dinging? Nick, he went and made some coffee, just left the refrigerator wide open.
Like, I’m walking behind him, flushing toilets, shutting doors, turning off lights, like, constantly.
So you got to think, rock stars get used to living this life where everything’s done for them.
Yeah. And that bleeds into everything. everything so i feel especially somebody that’s been a rock star their whole life since they were 20 and now they’re in their 70s like this dude is used to people serving him so even on our days off like all i do is just follow nick i just gotta follow nick around put up his bread clean up his mess shut the fridge turn off the light like all day long so that’s probably the funniest one to me i’m always like bro you’re harder to deal with than my two-year-old i was not expecting that I was not expecting that, but I totally get it though. Right?
Okay. So can you share the story? Now granted, we could ask you a ton of questions about like Nickelback or actually, do you have a good story from Nickelback?
Right. From your experience with them. So many.
Being one of the top rock bands in the world.

[21:03] So this might be my, one of my favorite ones. And I can tell you a lot.
So when I worked for Nickelback, I was their day-to-day guy.
So anything that Chad or anybody needed, they didn’t call their manager. They called me.
And if I couldn’t handle it, then I went to them. So I talked to them a lot, multiple times throughout the day.
So one day I get an email from Chad, the lead singer of Nickelback.
And it just, in the email, there’s another email address.
And he says, can you send this email address five thousand dollars that’s all it said and i’m like well hang on chad like that sounds ridiculous for one like who is this so i call him you know like chad what what are we doing why are we emailing somebody five thousand dollars he’s like well on i guess it was world of warcraft some game that he was playing he’s like this guy runs a guild and they’re gonna escort me through this dangerous forest to so i don’t i don’t play the game and And I’m like, hold on.
I was like, you don’t even know this guy? He’s like, no, but he runs the guild and they’re going to escort me.
And I need to get through this dangerous area. And I don’t want to lose all my stuff. I don’t want to get killed. Within a video game.

[22:07] Yes. So I’m like, so you want me to pay him $5,000 to escort you in a video game? Yes.
I’m like, all right, hold on. So I email this guy. I’m like, I need your phone number, man. I need to know what I’m doing.
So I call this guy. Sure enough, just some nerd.
That’s what he does. They protect people. They guard them and take care of them.
So I end up wiring some kid $5,000.
And he had no idea it was Chad Nickelback doing this. He had no idea.
So I had to pay somebody $5,000 so they could escort Chad’s little character in a video game.

[22:39] Please tell me he wasn’t like 12 years old and you’re wiring him money.
I didn’t ask how old he was.
He’s probably a teenager. Probably so. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome.

[22:52] Steph, what is one of the most asked questions we get about Tell Us a Good Story?
Do I really get that excited?
Besides that one. Oh, how do we get all these incredible guests? Correct.
And some of our best conversations have been with guests who our listeners have reached out to us and said, you should talk to this person.
To name just a few, Nick Vujicic, Coach Tom Ryan, Carol Matico were all recommendations from our listeners.
So if there’s someone you would like us to interview and think they might be a great fit for Tell Us A Good Story, please let us know at kevinandsteph.com.
You don’t even have to personally know them. True, but do me a favor.
Before you submit their names, please make sure they are still alive.
That has actually happened, and it is super hard for me to find their contact information. But regardless, thank you for listening to Tell Us A Good Story.

[23:39] Can you share the story, Kelly, about you’re with Red, and your life changed dramatically traveling back to Nashville after a night’s concert.

[23:51] Yeah, so we had been on this tour, the same tour I was talking about with Breaking Ben, Three Days Grace, Seether and Red. I’m Red’s tour manager.
We’d been renting a Prevo, a tour bus, and it was getting expensive to rent it. So we’d made the decision to buy our own bus.
So we had a custom bus built. But from when we needed to drop off our rental to pick up our new bus, there was going to be an overlap of two days.
So for those two days, we had to get a 15-passenger van to go do these final two shows.
So we leave Nashville, drop off the bus. We get in our van, head to South Carolina, then to North Carolina.
We finish up the second show. We’re heading back to Nashville to pick up our new bus.
It’s like a 16 hour drive. So I’m sleeping in the very back seat, the furthest seat.
We took out the seat in front of me so two people could sleep on the floor.
And there’s another seat and then the two front seats.

[24:42] I’m asleep in the back. We’re almost to Nashville.
It’s like 6 a.m. We’re like 20 miles out of Nashville. So we’ve been driving all night and I wake up.
Now, normally in the morning when I wake up, I would put my earplugs in or earpods in, get on my computer and start working, just planning out the day, whatever we need to do.
This day, for whatever reason, I didn’t do that. And I decided to go back to sleep, which is very weird. I never do that.
What also was weird was I took off my hoodie, which I leave on 24 seven.
Back then I always had a hoodie on. I took it off and then I laid on my back to go to sleep, which was also weird because I sleep on my stomach.
I fell asleep instantly, which is weird. It normally takes me 30, 40 minutes to fall asleep.
All right. So I fall back to sleep. We’re driving down the highway.
It’s like 6am and a construction company had left a guardrail overlapping into the highway by just like four to four or five inches, not much, but it was over the line, just enough.

[25:40] And I guess cars had been swerving around it, but since now we’re in bumper to bumper traffic, we’re coming up on this at 70 miles an hour and our driver can’t swerve because there’s cars next to him. So he just hits it doing 70.
And it literally peeled the entire side of the van off like a can and a can opener just destroyed the metal.
And while I was asleep or whatever, I don’t know what caused it, but I came out of that metal, that hole in the side of the van.
And so I woke up in a full scream, sliding on my back at 70 miles an hour down the highway.
Really? I thought I was burning alive. I thought I was on fire.
I just woke up screaming. And in my mind, I’m on fire. I’m burning.
I didn’t know what was happening.
So when I stopped sliding, I realized I’m not on fire. I came out of the van.
I’m looking around all our gear, amps, guitars everywhere scattered all over the highway.
Right behind my head is the trailer and a truck has ran up over the trailer.
So had that trailer gone to the passenger side of the van, not the driver’s side, I would have just got run over by the truck that was coming behind us. I’d have been gone.

[26:46] So what had happened was I tore 90% of my back off sliding down the highway.
So it’s the exact same as a burn, which is why I felt that road rash.
It’s the same as a burn. So you’ve got to go through burn treatment.
So the paramedics get there.
They’re looking at my back. They assess the situation. They put me in the ambulance.
And while we’re driving to the hospital, the paramedic tells me, he’s like, bro, you are so lucky to be alive.

[27:12] I’m like, what do you mean? And we’re just talking about it.
And he tells me all these things.
You know i tell him about what i had done before the crash and then he tells me had you been awake, this crash would have killed you he said if you tried to brace yourself while you’re coming out of that metal this it would have killed you but because you were limp you were just able to slide right out and it worked perfectly he said had you been laying on your stomach because i told him i sleep on my stomach i had this huge cut that went across my face because of where i came out of the metal he said had i been on my stomach he looked at the metal he said that would have slit your throat.
He said, it would have killed you. Rolling over on your back saved your life.
Then he said, had I had my hoodie on, had all this extra material, he said that probably would have got caught on the metal and pulled me underneath the van and I would have got run over.
So taking that off, rolling over and going back to sleep all saved my life.
And all those things happened in a split second.
I just woke up, did all those, went right back to sleep.
And he said, that saved my life. So God clearly had his hand on this the entire time, whether I knew it or not.
But that day, that ended my touring life.

[28:19] I’m a nurse. That’s my career. So I’ve been in surgeries and I’ve seen burn victims. And I’m thinking, oh, dear God, what you had to endure. The pain.
That deep breathing is hands down the most extreme pain I’ve ever been through in my life, man. And you had to do it how many times?
How many times did you have to get deep breathing? Multiple times a day. Multiple times a day.
Two to three times every day. Yeah. That was evil, man. Evil. evil.
The good part about that was when we went to the lawsuit, like two years later, when we’re finally negotiating all that and going over the settlement, they told me when a judge looks and sees that you’ve gone through debriding through burn center treatment, he goes, you win.
All they need to know is that you’ve gone through that pain and no one argues you, you win.
So yeah, I got a great settlement out of that. That’s why I was able to get married and get her a ring and do my whole wedding was out of the lawsuit from that crash.
Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do that. But, uh, but yeah, they said there’s no argument. If anyone who’s gone through that treatment, you win.

[29:22] So it was, yeah, it was awful. When you survive that, but then you were going through like the debriding, were you almost like, God, I don’t even know if I wanted to survive. Like, did you question survival?
They would give me more morphine and it wouldn’t touch the pain.
Not didn’t even touch it. Like it was nothing.
So when that crash happened, they took me to the hospital in nashville right the ambulance took me to a nashville hospital, well the band didn’t have insurance i didn’t have insurance so the guy at the hospital tells me you need to go to a burn center but they just discharged me like i can’t well i can’t even put on clothes i have no back so i’m in nashville i’ve got no family no friends just the band well they already went back home so i’m just sitting there at the hospital and nobody knows what to to do with me.
So Mike, the singer from Red, just drives me to Provident Records.
He drives me to their record label.
All right. So now I’m at the record label in a hospital gown.

[30:18] I got nothing. All my stuff’s destroyed on the highway. I got no clothes, no nothing.
They just put me in the president’s, the record label in his office on his couch.
I got no back. I’m just laying there.
He’s in a meeting with Mark Stewart from Audio Adrenaline. They come down and pray over me, which Mark Stewart’s like my hero growing up.
And now he’s in here praying over me in my back.
The president of Providence, like, what do we do with you? And I’m like, I don’t know, man.
He goes, he goes, you just tell me where you want to go and I’ll buy you a plane ticket like nobody knew what to do and i’m like i guess send me to my parents in tulsa which luckily tulsa has an amazing burn center so they just put me on a southwest flight again with no back no imagine a plane taking off when it sucks all your your body back no can you imagine so.

[31:04] There’s me just on a southwest flight next to people just dying in pain my face has cuts and i look like i just been beat up and people are looking at me all the way it was it was a mess yes to finally get me home my mom looks at my back and she’s like you should be in a hospital right now i’m like yes i should and they finally drive me to the burn center but it was about 30 something hours that i went with no treatment no nothing just traveling all on my own to try to get somewhere to get treatment i’m shocked they even let you on a plane right no kidding like open wound like that and they had me in a wheelchair and then they wanted me to get up and walk through the metal detector.
And I’m like, I can’t stand up. I can’t move. And they’re like trying to pull me out of that chair. And I’m like, I have no back right now. Oh, it was brutal.

[31:49] I don’t wish that on my worst enemy. So when you got in the accident, so you’re trying to get into a plane, how many days was that?
Like the next day, right? No, it was like 10 hours. Yeah. Shut up. Yes.

[32:00] Shut up. Yeah. I’m telling you, it just happened that morning.
That was six in the morning. This is like five, 6 PM.
It hadn’t even been a day yet. Literally, open wound on his back from the asphalt.
I was going to say, you have gravel, you have rocks in your back embedded.
I’m shocked they let you on an airplane. Oh.

[32:24] Friends, thank you for listening. Next week will be part two of our conversation with Kelly Kay, which includes what happened after the accident.
Oh, you guys. Guys, as you’ll find out, he was involved in a lot of different things, including comedy, before becoming a preacher who went viral on social media with his daily videos.
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