Every August, the town of Challis, Idaho plays host to thousands of visitors for the annual Braun Brothers Reunion Festival. A family-friendly event for the music enthusiast, the BBR brings both well-loved and up and coming artists together with their fans in a picturesque setting for three unforgettable days. This year, the BBR will be held from August 10th-12th and will feature fourteen plus artists, including esteemed singer-songwriter Jack Ingram who makes his BBR debut.  As part of our continuing series showcasing the artists performing at this year's Reunion, Ingram graciously took some time to talk about playing the festival, musical friendships, and much more.

You’ve taken part in Reckless’s Softball Jam, but have you been out to the BBR before or will this be your first time?  
I haven’t been to the BBR, but I have known Reckless, Micky, and Gary for many years. I love them, I love their family, and I love their music. Like a lot of musicians down here, they’re brothers in arms. I’ve wanted to play the Reunion for a long time, but I was either too busy, or they didn’t offer enough money for me to get up there (laughing), so I had to tell them to quit being cheap and I’ll come (laughing). Finally, it worked out this year, and I’m so glad it did because I really do feel close to them in a lot of different ways.

It’s funny, I can be acquaintances, and friends to a certain extent, with people that I don’t like musically, but when I know what someone is going for in the music world, well, that’s always a basis for a good friendship with me. I guess it’s like any job where if you know someone and they’re hacks and you know they don’t care and they’re just going for the most common denominator bs you can probably be friends with them, but you’re not going to give them your heart because you know they’re not going to treat it well, and they’re not going to give you theirs because they don’t give their heart to their work. When I meet people and love what they do, and more importantly how they do it, and I think they’re going about it for pure reasons then right there I think we have a chance to be really good friends and if I like them personally, the way I really love these guys, it immediately becomes a friendship like your best friendships where you can pick up where you were the last time you saw one another.

Those are some of the best kinds of friendships. Being that you all have the same careers, does seeing one another at a festival like this or Steamboat make it more special?
It’s about that, but more importantly, when I had hits and was being mister country star, it was great to have friends in the business that regardless of everything else, understood the what and why. The Reckless guys, if they didn’t like what I was doing, they’d say, ‘Oh man that sucks for Ingram that he had to do that because you know he hates it,’ instead of calling me a sellout. There’s a big difference there, and there are only a few other artists who understand fully what other people are doing.

I do love seeing them because we don’t see one another often. A lot of times people get together and say let’s not talk about the business, but no matter how hard you try, sometimes you don’t have anything else to talk about and with these guys we have other things to talk about; we really do understand each other and can let ourselves be our true selves because we really do care about one another. There’s this code with Willy and Cody, almost like a Mafia thing (laughing) where we’re lifers. When they say to me or I to them that a person is a lifer, we know this person is going to be around a long time, so it’s okay to invest in him or her, like Jamie Lin Wilson. No matter what degree of success she finds it doesn’t matter, she’s going be here. So those types of friendships, like what I have with Wade and Randy, Todd and Rodney, they’re cool. We don’t have to know all about each other; we just know.