Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #108 - Lemoyne Alexander - From Hip Hop Producer to Rockstar

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#108 - Lemoyne Alexander - From Hip Hop Producer to Rockstar · The Chris and Mike Show

• 0:42
  So there, boys and girls, welcome to the show.
• 0:43
  This is Chris, That's Mike. And this is Lemon Alexander.
• 0:46
  He is, I guess we're super excited to have on the show
• 0:49
  because his credibility, his life resume is outstanding.
• 0:53
  You can find us as always, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
• 0:56
  So Lemon Alexander, welcome his name.
• 0:58
  Is lamoine. Lamoine lamoine.
• 1:00
  Dammit, lamoine, lamoine. It's.
• 1:02
  OK, it's OK, I get that all the time.
• 1:04
  I know, but I I'm not that guy. I like to be like the I'm
• 1:07
  pronouncing your name properly and plugging.
• 1:08
  Why? We did this before the show I
• 1:10
  got. I know just.
• 1:11
  Balls a little. Bit man, it's, it's my, it's my
• 1:13
  OCD man. It's just who I am.
• 1:16
  But now, now I remember Des Moines.
• 1:18
  Le Moines. Le Moines.
• 1:19
  Yeah, that's what I I tell everybody.
• 1:21
  Des Moines, Le Moines. That's great.
• 1:24
  Le Moines. So introduce yourself to our we
• 1:26
  have this going live right now on YouTube and then we'll be on
• 1:29
  the podcast platforms as well. So introduce yourself to our our
• 1:32
  fans. Welcome YouTube viewers, My name
• 1:36
  is Lamoine Alexander, I'm a recording artist of Rock'n'roll.
• 1:41
  Right on. Right on.
• 1:43
  That song you heard from the from the beginning of our show,
• 1:45
  that's actually Mike and I when we had our band Nemesis.
• 1:47
  That's a song called Freeman. Yeah.
• 1:50
  Song called Freeman because it's relevant.
• 1:52
  I like that. Yeah.
• 1:53
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:54
  That means a lot coming from you.
• 1:56
  Absolutely. Thank you.
• 1:59
  It always means more coming from another musician.
• 2:02
  Yeah, well, absolutely. We we have our own language.
• 2:05
  Absolutely. So give us, give us, give us.
• 2:09
  We're in an elevator going to the 22nd floor.
• 2:11
  This is floor #1 talk about yourself for 22 floors man.
• 2:14
  Yeah, Where did you get started and how did you go from?
• 2:18
  So I did my own little research. Chris said that how did you go
• 2:21
  from the hip hop R&B? How did you go from that side of
• 2:25
  things to wanting to be a rock'n'roll star?
• 2:28
  That fascinating. Back in the day, I was a major
• 2:33
  like force in the rap game producing a lot of big name
• 2:38
  recording artists. And I know it was around the
• 2:42
  time when it was the Biggie and the Tupac confusion going on and
• 2:49
  I lost a lot of casualties in that.
• 2:51
  And I the music changed, everything changed and I wanted
• 2:55
  no part of it. So I walked away and I had just
• 2:58
  got offered all these millions of dollars to do all of this
• 3:01
  stuff that I said I'm not doing it.
• 3:03
  And I, I cold Turkey walked away.
• 3:06
  Wow. Yeah, wow, that's that's a lot,
• 3:09
  man. And then I was stuck with like,
• 3:12
  OK, So what am I going to do? You know, I've done a lot of TV,
• 3:15
  I've done a lot of movies, soundtracks and stuff.
• 3:18
  But I still needed to get some of me out.
• 3:22
  And I didn't know where to go. And at the time, my dad was he,
• 3:26
  I didn't know he had had cancer. He was telling me, I really want
• 3:30
  you to go back and sing and do your own thing.
• 3:33
  It's time for you to stop producing and writing for
• 3:36
  everybody else. It's time for you to do you.
• 3:38
  And I was like, I've always hid behind my production and
• 3:43
  everything. So I never wanted to be upfront.
• 3:46
  So I started a rock band called State of Grace and we did a lot
• 3:51
  of songs. And one of those songs that
• 3:53
  really sparked off everything for us was the the remake of the
• 3:58
  Killer Queen. With Queen I did a song with Oh.
• 4:02
  Right on, man Killer. Queen for the for the movie
• 4:05
  Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh sweet.
• 4:08
  And it never got picked up, but we still put it on the album and
• 4:13
  Queen added it to the discography, so I was happy
• 4:16
  about. That is super impressive.
• 4:18
  Congratulations man. Yeah, that's.
• 4:21
  Huge. And that's the record right
• 4:23
  there, if you can see it, that's the, we got a plaque for that.
• 4:27
  And from that point on, I did, we did 4 albums.
• 4:34
  And at the end of that term with the band, it lasted 10 years.
• 4:39
  And I kept saying I, you know, everybody was really complaining
• 4:43
  in the band because I wrote produce, played all the
• 4:46
  instruments and all they did was porn.
• 4:49
  Right. Right.
• 4:50
  And and my managers was like, see, you're the guy you should
• 4:54
  be up front and, you know, drop the band.
• 4:57
  And I was like, no, I'm never going to drop the band.
• 4:58
  And the band dropped me. So I said, OK, it's time for me
• 5:05
  to figure out what I'm going to do.
• 5:07
  And I end up going back talking to my dad and me and him had a
• 5:10
  long talk. And I didn't know at the time we
• 5:14
  were talking, he was on his deathbed.
• 5:16
  And he basically said, you know, make a promise to me that you
• 5:19
  would, you know, record your own stuff.
• 5:21
  And if you do that, then I'll be there to be with you.
• 5:24
  And I said, OK. So I left and I went home and I
• 5:30
  started working on solitude and. Solitude was 2018.
• 5:35
  Right. Yes, yes, one of my favorite
• 5:38
  albums. Plus it was my debut album.
• 5:41
  OK, right on. He.
• 5:42
  Passed during the making of the album, and I dedicated the whole
• 5:47
  album to him. In fact, I was almost going to
• 5:50
  quit, but you know, I just kept going because I knew that's what
• 5:53
  he would want me to do. And I didn't even get a chance
• 5:57
  to shop it. I just, you know, talked to 1,
• 6:01
  maybe one or two people about the record and Isotopia picked
• 6:05
  it up right away, told me to finish it, and then they dropped
• 6:08
  it. And then I did the second album.
• 6:12
  A perfect world. Same way during the pandemic, it
• 6:16
  was always something going on when I was working on both of my
• 6:20
  albums. And then I ended my contract
• 6:25
  with Isotopia and I was in the middle of a divorce.
• 6:31
  And that divorce prompt me to write more songs and like
• 6:39
  Insecurity was one of my favorite songs which we was not
• 6:44
  planning on putting that out and my management team.
• 6:50
  I said, isn't it amazing how relationship turmoil, it's just
• 6:55
  some of the best. Some of the best.
• 6:56
  Recorded best, yeah. It's just, it's 'cause everybody
• 6:59
  can gravate to to it, right? Everybody can.
• 7:01
  Yeah, I mean, I've, I've gotten that.
• 7:02
  But you what? You what you guys don't know was
• 7:05
  I was in the middle of divorce when that happened and I was
• 7:09
  single and I wrote the lyrics based on a date that I had went
• 7:16
  out on. And I knew that me and her
• 7:18
  would, you know, because I was so insecure because of my
• 7:21
  divorce. I really felt like I can't be,
• 7:25
  you know, in a relationship or dating or anybody.
• 7:28
  I don't even know why I was doing it.
• 7:29
  And I kept it real with this person and I told him the truth
• 7:33
  and I wrote lyrics about it. And that's how that song came
• 7:36
  about. It was for therapy for me, but
• 7:39
  when management heard it, there's like, you need to put
• 7:42
  this record out. This is this is going to help a
• 7:45
  lot of people in the world. And I clearly didn't think like,
• 7:50
  you know, I wasn't thinking like that.
• 7:52
  And so I ended up talking to with with my management got me
• 7:57
  another deal with a company called Wicked records.
• 7:59
  And we ended up all three of us talking together and say, Hey,
• 8:03
  let's make this the search the first single.
• 8:05
  And and with the first single, they decided to do an animation
• 8:10
  video, which was different. I've never seen that before.
• 8:13
  And it it turned, I had no idea, you guys, I had no idea that
• 8:19
  that song was going do as much as it did.
• 8:22
  I've just heard that story. I've heard that story so many
• 8:25
  times, man, where like, probably one of the most famous is
• 8:29
  Hetfield talking about nothing else matters.
• 8:31
  He's like, that was for me and I played it for me.
• 8:34
  And I accidentally played it in front of one of those guys one
• 8:37
  of those days. And they were like, I think it
• 8:38
  was Bob Rock heard it first, you know?
• 8:40
  Hey, what's that like? No, no, no, no, I'm not taking
• 8:43
  this too much. No, you don't understand.
• 8:45
  I can't play this in front of these guys.
• 8:48
  That was the story. The producer heard it first and
• 8:50
  he's like, I can't go play this pretty stuff in front of those
• 8:53
  guys. You know, they're going to laugh
• 8:54
  at me. And Bob Rock was like, no, you
• 8:57
  don't understand. That's going to be the biggest
• 8:59
  song you ever had. And.
• 9:01
  And and clearly I didn't when I was doing and you write about
• 9:04
  that because I love that song that they did, but.
• 9:06
  Me too. Clearly when I was doing
• 9:08
  Insecure as I was writing the lyrics and singing it to it, you
• 9:13
  know, I I was like, there's something with this song and I
• 9:17
  had a flight like the previous morning and I was driving in the
• 9:22
  car like 4. I had just finished the song 4 O
• 9:25
  clock in the morning. I'm driving and it just I don't
• 9:28
  know what it did. It was like magic.
• 9:30
  It just it touched. Me.
• 9:32
  And I almost had a car, literally had a car accident,
• 9:36
  and I said something about this song.
• 9:38
  I had a ravine and I got out and nobody was around during the
• 9:44
  during during the process of the accident, I got back in the car.
• 9:48
  The song was still playing and I just drove to the house, packed
• 9:52
  up and and got on a plane and I had it in my headphones.
• 9:55
  I'm like, there's something about this song.
• 9:57
  I don't know what it is, but it's something about this song.
• 10:00
  And when management heard it, like I said, you know, I was
• 10:03
  like, I really, I felt like, like head feel like, you know,
• 10:08
  this is this is for me. You know, when I, when I'm
• 10:11
  starting to feel, you know, I have to remind myself when
• 10:15
  you're listening to to help me understand what my position is
• 10:18
  and what I can and cannot do. So I.
• 10:21
  Those are the best moments because like Chris always uses
• 10:24
  the word vulnerable, right? When someone is willing to be
• 10:27
  100% vulnerable, that's when your true self comes out and
• 10:31
  that's what people want to see, right?
• 10:32
  That's. True.
• 10:33
  Yeah, you're absolutely right about.
• 10:35
  That, but it's hard to do that. It is hard.
• 10:37
  It's hard. But for me it was like magic.
• 10:41
  I did the lyrics, I wrote the lyrics.
• 10:42
  I sang a song one time, that was it.
• 10:44
  And I didn't even go back to listen to it.
• 10:47
  I just put playing it in the car and that's it.
• 10:49
  And we took it from there. When they heard it, they were
• 10:52
  playing it every day and they called me.
• 10:54
  I said, man, we, we, we have to put this out.
• 10:57
  And I was. A little skeptical about it at
• 10:59
  first, but then I was like, you know what?
• 11:01
  Let's see. I had no idea TikTok would it
• 11:04
  would be on TikTok with 3.41 million.
• 11:08
  Wow, that sounds congratulations.
• 11:10
  So, so, so people that just joining us, you know, on the
• 11:13
  YouTube side of it, drop, drop the name of that album again and
• 11:15
  which song you're talking about. It's called Insecurity by Lamar
• 11:19
  Alexander from the album alone. Right on and now all your
• 11:23
  products you can find on on Apple Music, Spotify.
• 11:28
  Spotify. YouTube every every place where
• 11:32
  you can get music, I'm there. Cool.
• 11:35
  Yeah, I just went on to your YouTube channel.
• 11:36
  I saw that. I I didn't play it obviously
• 11:38
  because we're having a conversation, but I saw the the
• 11:41
  animated video pop up right away.
• 11:44
  Yeah, Vivo picked it up right away.
• 11:46
  I didn't even know that either. When I found out about it they
• 11:49
  called me and said Vivo just picked up your video.
• 11:52
  Right now. So your transition from the rap
• 11:55
  world to the rock world was rock something you just wanted to
• 11:59
  try? Is that where your heart's
• 12:01
  always lied? Well.
• 12:03
  It it there's a story behind that.
• 12:05
  When I was growing up, I was influenced by guitars.
• 12:10
  Awesome. Me too.
• 12:13
  At the first, first real sound that got my attention was the
• 12:18
  guitar in Me Too, the Diana Ross and The Supremes song, Someday
• 12:25
  We'll Be Together. That part, I was listening to
• 12:34
  it. I was a kid.
• 12:35
  I was like maybe 889 years old. And I'm.
• 12:39
  Listening to it and it it, it really mesmerized me.
• 12:44
  I mean, put a spell on me and I was like, whatever that is, I
• 12:47
  love it and I want to play that. And as I was growing as a
• 12:52
  teenager, the my first reaction to guitars was in church.
• 12:56
  When I go to church and I see the guy playing the guitar with
• 13:00
  Wawa that that influenced, I was like, I got to play guitar your
• 13:03
  church. Played but not at mine, yeah.
• 13:06
  Our churches didn't do that, man.
• 13:08
  You went to the cool. Church.
• 13:09
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 13:12
  Yeah, but my church was when they was doing all this and I'm
• 13:15
  like, I was going to church to. Church.
• 13:20
  I wasn't even paying attention to the pastor.
• 13:23
  I'm dead center looking at the guy played the guitar.
• 13:28
  I was like, Oh my God, that's what I want to do.
• 13:30
  And and then as my brother, I had, well it started with me
• 13:35
  being suspended from school and there was an old beat up guitar
• 13:41
  in the closet during the winter of me being suspended and I had
• 13:45
  to do a whole week with my dad at his house.
• 13:47
  My parents were divorced and that.
• 13:51
  Was your and that was and that was your punishment.
• 13:56
  Stay with my dad, that was it. And he was not nobody to play
• 14:00
  around with. So he when he would leave to go
• 14:03
  to work, I'd be bored. So I went in the closet and I
• 14:06
  don't know what I was in the closet for, but I felt something
• 14:09
  behind all of the clothes. And it was this old beat up
• 14:11
  guitar. I said, you got to be kidding
• 14:13
  me. And I took it and it, you know,
• 14:16
  I just went berserk over it had no name.
• 14:19
  It was my uncle's guitar. And so I, I used it as a
• 14:23
  project. I re cleaned.
• 14:25
  It was it. Was it acoustic or was it
• 14:27
  electric? No, it was electric.
• 14:30
  And then I passed it up. I smoothed it out, put stickers
• 14:34
  and stuff on it and it was no good.
• 14:37
  Maybe 2 strings on it or whatever.
• 14:40
  And I just started playing whatever I could think of and,
• 14:44
  and it, you know, from that point on I just did it every day
• 14:48
  and my dad would come home like what is he in there doing?
• 14:51
  And he found out that I was totally into the guitar.
• 14:54
  Yeah. That's cool.
• 14:55
  And then you. Know did he embrace?
• 14:57
  Did he embrace that in champion? Yes, he did.
• 14:59
  He did fully develop me to a point where he saw some interest
• 15:04
  he saw me have an interest in. Music.
• 15:06
  My parents did that same thing. They paid for my lessons, yeah.
• 15:10
  Yes, yeah, mine was a complete opposite her.
• 15:15
  Her statement was, oh, you don't need to get into that shitty
• 15:17
  world. You don't need to play, you
• 15:19
  don't need to be one of those people like.
• 15:20
  We had supportive parents in the morning.
• 15:23
  Chris did not. Yes.
• 15:26
  Yeah, like. You don't want to get in that
• 15:27
  world, like, OK. But but as I was going and now I
• 15:34
  have really found my sound, I had the guitar cleaned up and
• 15:38
  the guy that the musician, the music shop, he fixed it up, put
• 15:42
  the clean the pots, put new strings on it.
• 15:44
  Now I had to learn it was 6 strings.
• 15:46
  So I'm like what do I do with six strings?
• 15:48
  So what I did was I watched as a kid.
• 15:51
  I was watching Midnight Special and rock concert every Friday.
• 15:56
  How old are you? How old are?
• 15:57
  How old are you? At that time I think I was 11.
• 16:00
  How old are you? How do you right now?
• 16:02
  You wouldn't believe it man, I am 52.
• 16:06
  I'm 55, I'm 55, right? I'll be 52.
• 16:09
  That's why I want to know, because I remember that I
• 16:11
  remember those. Yeah, we all watched the same
• 16:12
  thing growing up. I watched it and I was like I
• 16:16
  had my guitar in my head and I was watching everything that
• 16:19
  they were doing and I was playing everything.
• 16:21
  I picked up everything, especially on Midnight Special.
• 16:23
  Midnight Special was the best because all the rock bands was
• 16:27
  was playing very few R&B and funk bands.
• 16:32
  But I said I want to start a band.
• 16:34
  So I got with my brother and my best friend and he got his
• 16:38
  sister and the four of us started a band and it was that's
• 16:41
  all they wanted to play was funk.
• 16:43
  I was saying no, no, no, let's play some some wild cherry and
• 16:46
  some let's do some other stuff. Nobody wanted to play rock.
• 16:51
  So Rush and and and then Lizzy and all of these bands, Van
• 16:56
  Halen and nobody wanted to play they they all wanted to play
• 16:59
  funk and R and. B And I was like, you should
• 17:01
  have, you should have called me. And Mike, man, what's up?
• 17:05
  So I was like, all right, I'll, I'll for, for now, I'll
• 17:09
  entertain you guys with learning how to play everything, which
• 17:12
  was the, the rhythm section of, of music from Parliament
• 17:17
  Funkadelic all the way to slide and a family stone.
• 17:20
  I was picking up everything, but my true heart belongs to rock.
• 17:24
  So I learned all the solos from Led Zeppelin, Stairway in
• 17:29
  Heaven, Wild Cherry, guitar solos, Rush.
• 17:35
  I did everything and then everybody was looking at me.
• 17:37
  That's amazing. But we can't do that stuff, you
• 17:40
  know? We don't do that kind of music.
• 17:42
  I was like, yeah, but one day I am going to do that kind of.
• 17:45
  So here's what I learned. I was working at Guitar Center
• 17:48
  for a couple years, and that's where, for me, the cultures
• 17:52
  started to mix, right. I learned that people are
• 17:55
  people, so when the black guys would come in, they would want
• 17:59
  to know what I knew just as much as I would want to know what
• 18:02
  they knew. About.
• 18:04
  So I wanted to know about Motown and R&B and rap, and they wanted
• 18:08
  to know the guys who had your interest, right?
• 18:10
  This is what fascinated me. I'm like, man, people are
• 18:13
  people, you know? People get pigeonholed by the
• 18:18
  media, right? People listen to rap, white
• 18:20
  people listen to country or rock and.
• 18:23
  Yeah. That's weird.
• 18:25
  No, that's. Not the way life is.
• 18:26
  So these guys would come in and we'd start talking and they
• 18:30
  would be just as fascinated with what I knew as I was with what
• 18:33
  they knew. Just that's why I asked the
• 18:35
  question, where did your heart lie?
• 18:37
  Because people would be fascinated that you know, all
• 18:41
  along you like that sound of Van Halen and ACDC and because you
• 18:47
  didn't and Rush because you heard what we heard.
• 18:50
  It's not just straight ahead rock.
• 18:52
  Van Halen is a swing. ACDC is a swing.
• 18:56
  People don't realize till they sit down to try and play it.
• 18:58
  It's like, wow, this is harder than it looks, right?
• 19:01
  So. Let me.
• 19:03
  Tell you this story, I walked away.
• 19:06
  I did my last rap record with Too Short and Jazzy Fate and I
• 19:13
  walked away. I was completely done with rap.
• 19:16
  They asked me to promote it. I don't even want to promote it.
• 19:18
  I'm like, you guys do whatever. And then I got an offer.
• 19:22
  When I was with rap a lot, I had another artist come to me and
• 19:26
  they everybody was throwing the kitchen sink at me to come back
• 19:30
  to produce. And I was like, Nope, I'm done.
• 19:33
  What I did was I gave them all of my files of all of the rock.
• 19:36
  I mean the rap stuff, you can have it, take it.
• 19:39
  I didn't even ask for no money, Just take it.
• 19:41
  Wow, that's. Crazy.
• 19:43
  Two days later I was stuck in the house and I picked up my
• 19:48
  guitar and I started playing cool.
• 19:51
  This true story. And the song was a cheap trick.
• 19:57
  I want you to want me. Dude, great band, great song,
• 20:00
  underrated. So I started playing.
• 20:02
  I want you to want me. I have my whole studio set up.
• 20:08
  I said what? Let me record this and I
• 20:11
  recorded the vocals, the guitars, the bass, the drums,
• 20:15
  everything. I had everything.
• 20:16
  And I played the drums, I played the bass and I had a whole
• 20:19
  complete song. The next day I heard the full
• 20:24
  song and I couldn't believe it. I was like, I got it.
• 20:27
  I can still do this. I want to do rock.
• 20:29
  And because I did that Cheap Trick song, I went in and I
• 20:33
  recorded all brand new rock stuff and it and I didn't even
• 20:38
  be honest with you, I didn't even have the proper guitar.
• 20:41
  I think I used the bass for some rhythm sections of the guitar
• 20:47
  because I had the software to change the bass into a guitar.
• 20:51
  Oh, that's brilliant. And I, I just went berserk.
• 20:53
  So I knew then that I wanted to go back to guitars because my
• 20:58
  last production in rap, I influenced guitars in my rap
• 21:03
  production. Oh, right on.
• 21:05
  I wanted to have some kind of live guitars going on in my rap.
• 21:09
  And that's what those guys wanted that were coming into
• 21:11
  guitars. And that's why they were coming
• 21:13
  to me, because most of my stuff was based on live, you know,
• 21:17
  music and instrumentation. What year was?
• 21:21
  When I did that song. Yeah.
• 21:22
  What year was this? Lemone Lemone this.
• 21:24
  Was 2008 or 9, No 2009. And I went into the studio the
• 21:35
  next day and I cut the song called Life Goes On because I
• 21:39
  knew when I did the cheap trick, I knew I could do my own music.
• 21:42
  So I wrote Life Goes On and I played it for this other guy.
• 21:47
  And at the time I was seeing this girl, she heard the song
• 21:49
  and she took the song. She said, Lamoyne, this is this
• 21:53
  is a great song. You need to you need to really
• 21:55
  do something with this. And I was like, I'm just messing
• 21:58
  around with it. She took it and gave it to a
• 21:59
  radio stage, wasn't even mixed her anything.
• 22:02
  And they played it on the radio. And when they called me, the
• 22:07
  radio station called me with you're like, you know, this is
• 22:10
  beautiful. We're going to have this song on
• 22:12
  regular rotation. And I was like, Oh my God, can
• 22:15
  you not do that yet? Let me go and mix it, have it
• 22:18
  properly done, and then I'll send it to you.
• 22:20
  And so that's what I did. I paid for the song to get mixed
• 22:23
  and everything. And I sent it to them.
• 22:24
  And then they played it every day.
• 22:27
  I said, OK, I'm putting the band together.
• 22:29
  I put a band together and the rest is history.
• 22:32
  Man, man. It's been I've been making rock
• 22:34
  songs ever since. And that was that.
• 22:36
  What's the band's name again? Date of grace with an 8.
• 22:39
  Yep, St. 8 OK. Yeah, State.
• 22:43
  And the last song I did with them was a song called Chasing
• 22:45
  Tie. OK well that's why when I hit
• 22:48
  State of grace on YouTube I couldn't find you but now it's
• 22:50
  state St. 8 of Grace. ST8, the number 8, that was my
• 22:55
  son's idea. He was like, no, that put eight
• 22:59
  there and man, we toured everywhere.
• 23:02
  We we opened up for a lot of big bands against me, George
• 23:07
  Clinton, we did a lot of stuff. I had no idea that the band
• 23:11
  especially Life Goes on, 15 minutes of fame.
• 23:17
  And I think there was one more song the the the song we did
• 23:21
  with Queen and it was another song.
• 23:24
  All four of those songs really took us to new heights.
• 23:29
  But then, you know, once again, I started like feeling like, you
• 23:34
  know, I'm doing too much because I write, producing all the
• 23:38
  instruments. And people got used to IT.
• 23:40
  People will get used to me just doing everything.
• 23:43
  And I got to the point where I can do this myself.
• 23:46
  I don't need a whole band no more.
• 23:48
  And management was like, yo, man, you need to stop hiding
• 23:52
  behind a band, man. You need to just come out front.
• 23:55
  So I said, OK, I'm going to take a chance.
• 23:57
  Yeah. So I did and.
• 23:59
  He never and he never looked back.
• 24:01
  I never looked back and here we are today.
• 24:04
  As far as singing goes, is that what you're saying, being a
• 24:06
  front man? Yeah, they wanted me to be the
• 24:09
  front man. To make that clear to the people
• 24:11
  that are listening. The three of us are musicians.
• 24:13
  We've been doing this our whole lives.
• 24:14
  We can talk our own language. He's talking about, you know, I
• 24:18
  came out front and I became the leader of the band.
• 24:21
  Yeah, and, and, and and remind you, I was the leader of our
• 24:26
  funk band when we were kids and we won all the state
• 24:31
  championship awards, even in Chicago.
• 24:34
  You know, I had no idea that once I got in front of an
• 24:39
  audience that they would tell me, my band, my family,
• 24:43
  everybody would say you would get possessed.
• 24:45
  It's like you don't even know what you're doing when you're.
• 24:47
  I'm a completely different person when I'm on stage. 100.
• 24:50
  Percent, man. Chris will attest to that.
• 24:52
  I'm a pretty mellow guy out off the stage.
• 24:54
  Yeah, yeah. I don't know what happened to
• 24:57
  out there. I'm really shy most of the time.
• 25:00
  But yeah, man, I saw a tape of what we perform especially like
• 25:05
  even with now with some of the shows that I've done and they're
• 25:09
  true, that they're telling the truth.
• 25:10
  I get possessed when I'm on stage.
• 25:12
  It's. Like, I'm glad there's video
• 25:14
  evidence because I've, you know, he shared what he had left of,
• 25:17
  you know, the shows that we recorded and some of those
• 25:20
  scenes I see. I'm like, who is that guy?
• 25:22
  Yeah, yeah. But see man, see, I'm the I'm
• 25:25
  the front man too, so I understand.
• 25:28
  So you know what I'm talking about.
• 25:29
  But you have. To tell you my band.
• 25:32
  Yeah, my band, band in the background would be like, it's
• 25:35
  going to be interesting to see what he's going to do tonight
• 25:39
  because they never know what I'm going to do.
• 25:41
  No. And see, my, my, my difference
• 25:43
  was with when we would go live. We got so comfortable with our
• 25:46
  music because we rehearsed so much that that they would follow
• 25:49
  me going off my little improv tangents.
• 25:51
  When? And back when we were when we
• 25:54
  were doing it, nobody was improving.
• 25:56
  So I had this weird thing I did. I called, I called spoken
• 25:59
  singing. When I would, there were there
• 26:00
  were songs that I would kind of speak sing to it.
• 26:02
  But again, because of how we wrote and everything and we were
• 26:05
  so tight as a group, it didn't matter where I went, they would
• 26:08
  follow me. So but you, you and I can attest
• 26:12
  to the fact you have to engage the crowd.
• 26:14
  The the crowd has to go through you before they go back to those
• 26:17
  guys. So if you're not doing your job,
• 26:20
  it's not going to go past you into the whole musicianship and
• 26:23
  the whole product itself. It falls flat.
• 26:25
  Well, let me ask you, since you know where you know where I am
• 26:29
  because you do the same thing I do.
• 26:32
  One time I did a show and I never forget this.
• 26:35
  This was, it must have been like 1000 people out there and I
• 26:39
  rehearsed with the band One time.
• 26:42
  Wow, never did that before. I know I do not like that.
• 26:45
  I like rehearsing Pastor Me until I get on stage, but things
• 26:50
  were so crazy I had to fly in and the whole thing, so we did
• 26:54
  the show. And has this ever happened to
• 26:57
  you when you're performing because you're such a
• 26:59
  perfectionist when you're on stage?
• 27:01
  I know how to reach my fans, but the music behind me, I'm
• 27:07
  listening to these guys and I want them to play the song the
• 27:10
  way I wrote the song, the way the song should be.
• 27:14
  And they they, I don't mind them changing it and channeling it
• 27:18
  into whatever they want it to be, but it still has to sound
• 27:22
  good. Do you pay attention even while
• 27:25
  you're in the middle of a song to what everybody's doing in the
• 27:28
  background? And you know, I've done that a
• 27:30
  few times and I go. You know.
• 27:33
  What are they playing back there, you know?
• 27:35
  Yeah, I, I was blessed with the fact when it with, with Nemesis
• 27:38
  anyway, that that we were. So we did because we did so much
• 27:42
  rehearsing and so much writing and whatnot that I would follow
• 27:46
  stuff that Scott done the drums for cues.
• 27:48
  I would follow stuff that Rick did on bass for cues and stuff
• 27:51
  Mike did, especially coming in out of solos and stuff.
• 27:53
  So I would bring a lyric sheet to Mike and say, here, this is
• 27:57
  what I got. OK, so I wrote a song called
• 27:59
  Vision, right? So I gave it to Mike.
• 28:01
  Mike took the vision lyrics and and the innate ability he and I
• 28:04
  have. He could take the emotional
• 28:07
  content from my lyrics without knowing what the content was and
• 28:09
  and pairing it perfectly. So it was just a dynamic that he
• 28:13
  and I had. So then I'm a good.
• 28:15
  Chandler in the morning, right? Right.
• 28:18
  So he so we would recreate the the basic melody from that and
• 28:21
  then bring it to Scott and and Rick in a practice.
• 28:24
  And then Rick's bass would change the dynamic of it.
• 28:27
  Scott's drumming would change the dynamic of it.
• 28:28
  So then we certain parts of every song we would do to where
• 28:32
  I would come in after Scott hit a certain beat on the drum, you
• 28:35
  know, and it wasn't Even so much the normal count stuff.
• 28:38
  It was just different elements from the from the verse to the
• 28:41
  chorus verse. To the bridge to the.
• 28:42
  Chorus. So I get what you're saying.
• 28:44
  Yeah. So.
• 28:44
  Here's It doesn't throw you off in the middle because you.
• 28:48
  Know, here's a, here's a good way to put it, Lemoy, not to
• 28:50
  interrupt you, but this is going to fascinate you as a songwriter
• 28:54
  and a musician. Basically what he's saying is
• 28:57
  like Freeman is a 3 minute and 24 second song, right?
• 29:01
  Yes. We could turn that into a 9
• 29:03
  minute song if we wanted to, and all Scott would have to do is 1
• 29:07
  quick little fill that would trigger Chris's brain to go, OK,
• 29:10
  we're going back into the song now, right?
• 29:12
  We had little magical things built into our songs like that
• 29:16
  so that we could either shorten them, extend them, do whatever
• 29:19
  we needed to do. So like he was almost like the
• 29:23
  general, you know, the, the he was the point guard of the band,
• 29:26
  right? He's the man.
• 29:28
  He's the one that he's the guy with the stick in his hand doing
• 29:31
  like this. But we were blessed, and Chris
• 29:33
  always gives everybody else props for this, and so do I.
• 29:36
  We were blessed that the three of us look to him to be the
• 29:40
  leader in that respect. You know, it wasn't like nobody
• 29:44
  had an ego in that band. No, that's what it takes.
• 29:46
  To have that, I think that's the only way you can have a jam band
• 29:51
  or improv, improvise on stage, which we love to do, you know?
• 29:55
  Yeah, I never had lead singer disease.
• 29:57
  Yes. Me neither, me neither.
• 29:59
  The only thing that that used to irritate me.
• 30:03
  Most of them especially. Well, all the bands I played
• 30:05
  with. They all do like to what are we
• 30:07
  going to do next, you know, and I go, OK, you got you got you
• 30:11
  guys got to, you know, evolve, put more input in it.
• 30:14
  So we could. You know, vibe off of each
• 30:17
  other. Everybody looked for me for
• 30:19
  answers all the time. That's where Chris took over.
• 30:22
  You know what? Are we going to do next?
• 30:24
  He would be like, let's just fucking play, man.
• 30:27
  I just, that was my answer. Let's just fucking jam man, Who
• 30:29
  cares what we? Play.
• 30:30
  Let's go. That's usually the, the key
• 30:32
  point, you know, just jamming. Let's just have some fun.
• 30:36
  And like I said, you know, this new band that I'm working with,
• 30:40
  I'm very, very, these guys are pros, man.
• 30:43
  They know exactly what to do, how to do it.
• 30:45
  And I don't even have pretty much have to even play.
• 30:48
  They play that well, you know, and I could play with them or
• 30:52
  not play and still feel the drive from the songs and it
• 30:57
  motivates me. And that's all I was looking for
• 30:59
  really, to jail with a good band that I know that can help excel
• 31:05
  and bring me out where I could, you know, be more focused with
• 31:08
  the fans and and the audience. So here's a question for you
• 31:11
  because you touched on this with with your home studio and stuff
• 31:15
  and playing every instrument when you laid down the I want
• 31:18
  you to want me from cheap Trick, right?
• 31:20
  So with every instrument you play, you self-taught with
• 31:23
  everything that you play. Everything.
• 31:26
  That was my question. Thank.
• 31:28
  You everything. Everything.
• 31:29
  I played live. I played drums.
• 31:31
  I played bass. Yeah, I played guitar.
• 31:34
  Yeah. I play Congress.
• 31:36
  Any type of percussions, OK, And I do all the vocals.
• 31:40
  I got a three-point octave range voice.
• 31:42
  I can go high, low and me. Right on.
• 31:45
  And and I write all of the songs.
• 31:47
  That's cool, man. Very.
• 31:48
  Piano. Piano keyboards.
• 31:51
  Piano too. Piano.
• 31:52
  I had to. I taught myself how to play
• 31:53
  piano for that started when I started producing.
• 31:59
  Rap. That was the real the work
• 32:03
  instrument because, you know, everything was centered around
• 32:07
  the piano, so I really had to learn how to play that.
• 32:10
  So here's the thing. But here's here's I want to go
• 32:11
  down the rap path because I've never been a big rap fan.
• 32:14
  Just not my thing. So this may come across as a
• 32:18
  completely ignorant question or it may be something that's
• 32:20
  completely enlightening. So from a musical, from a music
• 32:24
  standpoint, instrumentation wise, what what what is
• 32:27
  typically guitar? Like you talked about bringing
• 32:31
  guitars in the rap, right? And and so you have are you
• 32:35
  talking everything with a band would have, because most of the
• 32:38
  rap artists you see now when they go on stage, right, they
• 32:40
  have the tracks behind them. They're just on stage by
• 32:42
  themselves. That's true.
• 32:43
  You know, so you don't see the musicianship part of it, right.
• 32:47
  So you're, you're in the studio. You mentioned Tupac, so I'm
• 32:49
  assuming you did something with Tupac.
• 32:52
  I did. I was getting ready to work with
• 32:54
  Tupac before he died. OK, cool.
• 32:56
  OK, that's right. So, so you're in the you're in
• 32:59
  the you're in the studio with a, with a rap, a rapper, a rap
• 33:02
  artist. What's what's the music behind
• 33:04
  what they're doing? Because all I hear from all I
• 33:07
  hear in rap is is the. Samples and scratches.
• 33:10
  Right. OK, what I usually do, I
• 33:15
  incorporate. The only thing I incorporate
• 33:18
  that's live. When I was doing towards the end
• 33:21
  of my rap career, production was mostly guitars, bass and some
• 33:27
  drums. But most of the drums was always
• 33:29
  sampled in drum machine. You know, most of the time.
• 33:33
  I mean, maybe I would try something different
• 33:38
  occasionally, but most of the time is drum machine.
• 33:41
  OK. So with the with the drum
• 33:42
  machine is that is that because then you don't have to worry
• 33:44
  about the human element as far as the timing goes Exactly and.
• 33:48
  Rappers don't care about, you know, live musician, they just
• 33:51
  want to get the beat off so they can do their rap over it.
• 33:55
  So that was simple for me. But being eclectic and being
• 33:59
  different and trying to come up with different styles, you know,
• 34:03
  I didn't want to sound like everybody else.
• 34:05
  So I incorporated live bass playing over the drum tracks.
• 34:10
  Really. Because it was live, you know,
• 34:12
  and if there was a mistake maybe, but you in my tracks, you
• 34:16
  would never hear the same repetitive bass line.
• 34:21
  This is towards the end and when I started, yes, I take a, a, a,
• 34:25
  a mood bass or something and sample, I mean recorded 4 beats
• 34:30
  of it and copy and paste it. So I'm done.
• 34:33
  Then I said that's what everybody else do, I want to do
• 34:35
  something different. So I started playing from the
• 34:37
  top of the song to the end with all these these notations that
• 34:43
  would change the dynamic or the baseline straight to the end.
• 34:46
  And I like that. So I said I can do the same
• 34:49
  thing with guitars. So I'd do a strum or Wawa or
• 34:52
  something and they go, oh man, that's too live.
• 34:55
  Can you cut it up and not paint? I would cut.
• 34:57
  I would play live. And cut.
• 34:59
  And chop it up and put it in the drum machine to make it sound
• 35:03
  like it was simple. But you're still getting that
• 35:07
  human. Element, right?
• 35:09
  Yeah, it still has the human element.
• 35:11
  In it but yeah sometimes I would sample myself and put it in a
• 35:14
  drum machine so I can still have that rap element and that's what
• 35:18
  everybody like because I could play every any instrument any
• 35:21
  instrument so as a producer you're.
• 35:23
  Injecting these these musical instruments into the song that
• 35:26
  you're producing to make it stand out even more than it's
• 35:29
  already trying. Because absolutely the rap music
• 35:32
  industry is everything like rock and you got to you got to have
• 35:34
  something's got to stand out. You got to have the hook.
• 35:37
  Something's got to break you because you know what?
• 35:39
  1000 people want to be a rap star, right?
• 35:41
  So what's that one thing? Is they're going to take you.
• 35:44
  Over the knot, over the top, right?
• 35:46
  So if you're making that much fuller of a sound behind the rap
• 35:49
  artist, I think that would give them an edge when it came to
• 35:51
  airplay and and popularity and, and grabbing the hook and stuff,
• 35:54
  right? Yes, exactly.
• 35:57
  Yeah. And when I did.
• 35:59
  That. It was so different and unique.
• 36:02
  They would pass it on and that's how I got signed to rap a lot
• 36:05
  because they would pass it on to other rappers and yo man,
• 36:09
  where'd you get that beat from? And then it just just would just
• 36:12
  spread and then go on. I ran that label on one who ran
• 36:18
  that label? You were.
• 36:18
  Signed to. Who ran it?
• 36:21
  Yeah. Which?
• 36:23
  I'm. Assigned to multiple labels?
• 36:24
  Which one? The one that you just mentioned.
• 36:27
  Rap a lot. Rap a lot.
• 36:28
  Yeah, I've heard. That.
• 36:30
  Name. Yeah, Rap a lot is a.
• 36:33
  Big name, a big record company. Oh my God.
• 36:37
  Oh. My God, I'm just seeing them
• 36:41
  last. Night.
• 36:42
  I forgot his name right now. That's cool you.
• 36:47
  Know he he's really. Good He he knows how to pick
• 36:52
  most of the the the rappers and, and he pretty much called me and
• 36:58
  asked me to. We had a big meeting over the
• 37:01
  last artist. And this was during the time
• 37:04
  when when I was getting ready to to work with R Kelly's brother.
• 37:07
  He was a rapper, you know, and. We never.
• 37:11
  Got around to doing he was probably, I would say, my last
• 37:15
  rapper that I was getting ready to work with.
• 37:19
  Never heard of R Kelly having a. Brother who was going to be a
• 37:21
  rapper? Yeah, yes.
• 37:23
  You and you never will. But you know, the guy is
• 37:26
  fantastic. That's, you know, he can't shine
• 37:29
  past his brother, but that's why that's that's a.
• 37:32
  That's a terrible shadow to follow to.
• 37:34
  It is because everybody. Has a right to be their own
• 37:36
  individual and that that's super sad to me that, you know, one
• 37:41
  person can ruin it that bad for somebody else.
• 37:43
  But you're right. He did.
• 37:45
  Yeah, well. It's kind of like.
• 37:47
  Yeah, it's kind of like Michael Jordan's kids.
• 37:49
  None of them play basketball because how could you?
• 37:51
  How could you live up to your father?
• 37:53
  Well, they all tried. No, it's.
• 37:54
  Impossible. They they tried.
• 37:56
  But they failed. But it's it's just, I mean,
• 37:57
  Lebron's kids can live up to him.
• 37:59
  They just got to flop better, you know, But it's you just it's
• 38:03
  hard to live up to somebody with that magnitude.
• 38:05
  Like Jacob Dylan is Bob Dylan's kid.
• 38:07
  He's he's good in his own right, but he'll never reach the level
• 38:11
  that Bob did. You only, you know.
• 38:13
  You only. Get that?
• 38:14
  Yeah, You talking about? Dylan Bob Dylan's son from
• 38:19
  Dylan. Yeah, Wallflowers.
• 38:21
  Yeah. Wallflowers.
• 38:22
  Yeah, The Wallflowers. Yeah, like.
• 38:23
  Like. He's a great singer.
• 38:25
  He is, absolutely. But he'll never.
• 38:27
  He's the son of Bob Dylan, so. Right, right.
• 38:30
  You just. Never.
• 38:31
  You can never aspire. Like if Mick Jagger had a kid in
• 38:34
  Rock'n'roll, yeah, it's not happening.
• 38:35
  And as he's got a kid, but he's not in.
• 38:37
  Rock'n'roll and as good as he is.
• 38:40
  Wolfgang Van Halen is in the same light, right?
• 38:42
  You're right. We only get one Eddie Van Halen.
• 38:45
  Yeah, yeah, and and. And Wolf was named Wolfgang.
• 38:49
  Yep, Wolfgang. He's fantastic.
• 38:51
  He's fantastic. Mammoth that's.
• 38:53
  The name of Mammoth? Yep, Mammoth.
• 38:55
  Yeah, and. He's and he and he owns his
• 38:57
  space. He owns and he's good at like I
• 38:59
  didn't give him credibility when they first came out because I,
• 39:02
  like everybody else thought, oh, riding the coattails of Eddie.
• 39:04
  And then they opened up for one of my favorite bands, Alter
• 39:06
  Bridge, and I was blown away. I was just, I was blown away by
• 39:10
  his stage presence. A nice band too.
• 39:13
  Alter Bridge is fantastic man. And the nicest, most humble,
• 39:16
  down to earth guys you'll ever meet in in at least I may just,
• 39:21
  I just, you know, just amazing. But the way he commanded the
• 39:25
  stage and the presence that he had and his engagement with the
• 39:28
  crowd and I was just like, holy shit.
• 39:31
  He he's, he's carving his own slot in this industry and he's
• 39:35
  doing it without emulating his father.
• 39:38
  Now he had exactly. And now that was one thing.
• 39:41
  That impressed me. I was like, he's doing it
• 39:43
  without, you know, no help for his dad or nothing, you know,
• 39:47
  and he found his own sound and everything.
• 39:49
  I was very proud of him for that.
• 39:50
  Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple moments.
• 39:52
  Yeah, yeah, couple moments can't get past their dads or or.
• 39:56
  Anybody that's. In the game.
• 39:57
  You know you can't pass them. And like he, he plays.
• 40:00
  Every instrument that's also impressive.
• 40:02
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:03
  And he's self-taught. Yep.
• 40:05
  Yeah, he's self-taught and you know.
• 40:07
  His dad. Helped him.
• 40:09
  A little bit, he said his dad was the worst teacher.
• 40:12
  Ever though. That's on.
• 40:15
  Record, yeah. His dad was.
• 40:18
  The worst teacher? Yeah, he said.
• 40:19
  My dad's one of those. Guys that can do it.
• 40:22
  And yes, he's Eddie Van Halen. But I'm telling you right now,
• 40:25
  he's one of the worst teachers ever because he can't slow
• 40:28
  things down. You know he only plays it at 1
• 40:31
  speed, so you got to be able to either keep up or.
• 40:36
  Right. And I.
• 40:38
  Don't. Take away from shredders I
• 40:40
  think. Shredders are that's that's cool
• 40:43
  with them. I shredders I can if I wanted
• 40:46
  to, but so can I. There's a.
• 40:47
  Place for it? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm deep.
• 40:51
  When I play my solos, my souls, my solos are like spiritual.
• 40:56
  Yep. Yeah, I want to hear one note
• 40:58
  that's gonna means something. B.B.
• 41:01
  King means B.B. King means more to.
• 41:04
  Me than Ingvae Malmstein, right? Or Joe Satriani, Then you know
• 41:09
  what I'm talking about. I can.
• 41:10
  Listen to BB play all. Day long.
• 41:12
  I can listen to Stevie Ray play all day long because Stevie Ray
• 41:15
  knew when to play fast. But when he hit you with that
• 41:18
  note that didn't belong there, you're like, Oh my God, where'd
• 41:22
  that come from? You know?
• 41:24
  And then he would. Just hang on it like.
• 41:26
  Why do you do that? BBBB is.
• 41:29
  Another one that taught me resilience and and feelings when
• 41:34
  you're playing. My dad used to tell me listen to
• 41:36
  B.B. King and I was like, I don't,
• 41:37
  he's a Blues guy. I don't want to hear him.
• 41:39
  I heard him. The thrill is gone.
• 41:42
  Yep, Yep. What's?
• 41:43
  The. Space in between.
• 41:45
  Right. Oh my God, I was for that right.
• 41:48
  Spot. I was like, OK, I'll see.
• 41:51
  What they talk about, yes. I was very impressed.
• 41:57
  The one thing I studied him too. The one the one thing I was.
• 42:00
  Going to mention earlier when I had when I was at the the Ultra
• 42:03
  Bridge show with Wolfgang Van Halen, he only, he only did the
• 42:06
  the Eddie Picken thing once in the whole show.
• 42:09
  Oh the tap fret board tapping. Only once.
• 42:12
  Only once. Yeah, only one time.
• 42:14
  Yeah, only one. Time and so that I thought was
• 42:18
  cool too, because he he really wasn't trying to be his father
• 42:21
  no, he was just. Wanting to be himself.
• 42:24
  Which is cool. Man it is man so.
• 42:26
  Let's let's dive more into your. Your life resume Lemoyne I want
• 42:31
  to know I want to know how old were you when you first got to
• 42:39
  the. Level to where you.
• 42:40
  Were being paid significantly for for either performing or
• 42:43
  producing and what did that look like?
• 42:45
  Was that the rap world? Yeah, it started in a rap.
• 42:48
  Row and by the way, the the guy the the president of rap a lot
• 42:54
  is Jay Prince. That's his name.
• 42:56
  What up? What up, Jay Prince?
• 42:58
  Shout out, yeah. My my career started picked up I
• 43:06
  to be honest with you, yeah, I was doing plays, doing music and
• 43:11
  plays OK and. After.
• 43:14
  A little bit a little bit of time I spent in that after my
• 43:20
  family, my brothers, cuz I did a band with my brothers called
• 43:23
  Generation. And then we get another band
• 43:26
  after that going into the 80s called The Fascination, and we
• 43:31
  score maybe about three hits, like literal record company hits
• 43:37
  and everything. And then I got out of it and
• 43:42
  then I started producing with some of the guys that was in the
• 43:45
  band, and that's how we started producing.
• 43:48
  Oh, gotcha. You know, my first real job came
• 43:50
  when I was in college, Davenport College at the time, and I got a
• 43:57
  phone. Call and.
• 43:58
  They said that, you know, they wanted me to come to Chicago and
• 44:03
  I was like, for what? You know, I was like, man, we
• 44:05
  need you here. And, and I was like, you know, I
• 44:08
  spoke to them and little that I knew, it was Mr. Lee and they
• 44:13
  wanted me to work with R Kelly and R.
• 44:16
  Kelly needs a team of. Producers and some positions.
• 44:20
  And so I said, OK, So I packed my bags and I moved to Chicago
• 44:24
  and I went to work with R Kelly at the time.
• 44:28
  And two years I spent learning how to program and make beats
• 44:33
  and all of that because like I said, I come from a musician's
• 44:36
  background where everything was live.
• 44:39
  So I had to learn how to contain all of that in machines and.
• 44:45
  Being around. These guys, they taught me how
• 44:47
  to do all of that and I said, well, I got to be different than
• 44:50
  what everybody else is doing. So I spent days and nights
• 44:55
  trying to perfect my craft all the time.
• 44:58
  And that's. When I started.
• 44:59
  Getting paid working for R Kelly and then it went from there
• 45:04
  because I left R Kelly and I started working for Michael
• 45:07
  Bivens from. Yeah, and his company, same.
• 45:13
  Thing I spent a year with him doing the same thing, you know,
• 45:16
  making beats for his artist. Then I left Bivens and went to
• 45:20
  Motown, same thing a year with them.
• 45:23
  Then it just spiraled into other things with with, you know, I
• 45:27
  work with McMillan, who was manager managing Prince and
• 45:32
  Stevie Wonder at the time. And.
• 45:36
  You know, we formed this connection and then I started
• 45:39
  working with him for like two or three years and he brought me a
• 45:42
  lot of clients. And that's why I said this was
• 45:45
  during the time where I was literally about to work with
• 45:49
  Notorious BIG before he got killed.
• 45:52
  And. And faith and Faith Evans and
• 45:55
  doing all these beats, you know, I just learned how to do my
• 45:59
  craft where everybody was coming to me based on, on, you know, my
• 46:05
  experience. And then from there I started
• 46:08
  making all this money doing all of this just producing stuff.
• 46:11
  And, and then I got an offer to from working with another artist
• 46:20
  that took me to rap a lot. And at that time when I started
• 46:24
  working for rap a lot, I did a like a 10 year contract with
• 46:27
  them. Didn't know it, but I did a 10
• 46:29
  year contract with them. And it during the process of
• 46:32
  that, you know, things started drifting and slowing.
• 46:35
  So I started spreading my music around working with Murder Inc.
• 46:40
  During the time I did something with Murder Inc, RCA and I met a
• 46:46
  Tron, which was Tupac's the manager, and we were talking
• 46:51
  about doing some stuff for Tupac, but then he got killed
• 46:54
  right after that. So, you know, the whole rap game
• 46:57
  just was just gave me a bad feeling.
• 47:00
  You know the. Longevity.
• 47:02
  Of it, the safeness of it, it's just I didn't feel comfortable
• 47:06
  doing it no more. The bigger that I.
• 47:10
  The bigger I got in producing and making beats, the less I
• 47:15
  wanted to do it. Wow, interesting.
• 47:19
  Yeah, the less I wanted to. Do it, You know, I'm not going
• 47:22
  to lie. It made me a lot of money, lots
• 47:24
  of money. I was able to buy stuff and do
• 47:27
  stuff for my families and everything.
• 47:30
  But the IT just just, I just, I just didn't like it.
• 47:34
  Yeah, I just, you know it. Just wasn't.
• 47:37
  For me and then people. Go ahead.
• 47:42
  I should say when so. When you turn on the radio.
• 47:43
  When you turn on SiriusXM, whatever you choose to to listen
• 47:46
  to music, how often do you hear samples of your stuff in the
• 47:49
  music room? Yeah, that's the beauty of it.
• 47:53
  You know, I could go back YouTube and I could go back and
• 47:56
  listen to a lot of stuff that I produce and it makes me feel
• 47:58
  good, you know? Right.
• 48:02
  Yeah, and I still get checks for it today.
• 48:06
  And it's not as big as it was. Back then, but I still but
• 48:09
  still, you know, but still. Yeah, let me ask you this,
• 48:12
  Lemoyne. The behind the scenes for me,
• 48:16
  the fascination. I was like a little kid at
• 48:18
  Christmas the first time I saw a recording studio.
• 48:21
  Just all the lights and the, you know, like the little kid in me
• 48:24
  came out, all the knobs and the like.
• 48:27
  I got it Is that you know what? I know that feeling.
• 48:29
  What? You're talking about.
• 48:30
  Is that what made you want to do it?
• 48:31
  Because I think you either have it or you don't, right?
• 48:34
  Yes. OK.
• 48:35
  I don't know, You know when they.
• 48:36
  They talk about you got that it thing.
• 48:40
  Yes, that's what people. Used to say to me.
• 48:42
  You got that it thing and I go what the fuck is that?
• 48:45
  It. Yeah.
• 48:47
  What is the? It I just like making music, you
• 48:50
  know, but. And I don't know, I kind of, I
• 48:52
  kind of like measured it as like the IT thing being maybe you
• 48:58
  would dedicate your entire life to it and you don't give a shit
• 49:01
  about nothing else but that. Yeah, right.
• 49:04
  That's how I. Put it you know I.
• 49:06
  Don't know? Well, like Chris.
• 49:08
  Chris. Gave me a huge compliment
• 49:10
  earlier today. You know that I have my own
• 49:12
  style and I'm super proud of that because I I can't play a
• 49:17
  bunch of cover songs, right? That wasn't my thing.
• 49:19
  I wanted to figure out what the guitar meant to me.
• 49:22
  You said it earlier, spiritually, that's what, that's
• 49:26
  what made me understand what my place here on earth was, right
• 49:30
  When I learned how to do that and make people happy doing it,
• 49:33
  I'm like, well, that's cool. You know this must be my thing.
• 49:37
  You know this is beautiful. That we're doing this guitar
• 49:40
  talk. You guys make it When I start on
• 49:42
  my when I start my next album, I want you guys on my album.
• 49:47
  We want to stay. In connection with each other.
• 49:50
  Because I want to hear this, I got to hear you guys play.
• 49:53
  I want to talk beats with you. Because that's the part I suck
• 49:56
  at. So this is beautiful for me,
• 49:58
  too. Yeah, I tell you, Lemoyne, he's
• 50:00
  been. Harpering on me forever to get
• 50:01
  musicians on the show. I'm like, dude, I'm trying, I'm
• 50:03
  trying, I'm trying. So when when she reached out to
• 50:05
  us, it was just like, yes, right on.
• 50:07
  And then such a spiritual connection before.
• 50:09
  We ever met, man? Yeah.
• 50:11
  Because it's it's. All we're all old.
• 50:13
  You got to be for what? For what we always wanted to do
• 50:16
  and you're still doing it, which kudos to you.
• 50:19
  Your soul has to be so old. You have to have roots that that
• 50:23
  just ground you to be. That's true because you want.
• 50:27
  Because. We all know this and, and the
• 50:30
  lead singers for sure. We're walking on stage in front
• 50:33
  of people that don't know us. Yes, we're walking.
• 50:36
  Without crowd. Right.
• 50:38
  And the crowd has to like with the arrogance to think that.
• 50:41
  We belong there, right? Yes, Without.
• 50:43
  Without. Without being an arrogant,
• 50:46
  narcissistic ass hat. That's the key, right?
• 50:49
  Because. Then you don't.
• 50:50
  You know you don't. I don't think I think with.
• 50:53
  Lead singers, they'll never get past that, but it's rare to get
• 50:57
  one that. Doesn't have lead singer
• 50:59
  disease, which I was lucky Chris never.
• 51:01
  Made us feel like this is my band and without us we're not.
• 51:07
  I agree with you on that. And even with my band now, you
• 51:11
  know, even when we play, I always said, hey, look, I'm, you
• 51:15
  know, we're banned. Let's all work together as a
• 51:17
  team. I'm not that guy.
• 51:19
  Look, you do it this way or you're going to get fired or no,
• 51:22
  I don't do all that. I never done.
• 51:24
  But here's the purpose. But.
• 51:25
  Here's where. I'll give my drummer.
• 51:27
  And I credit we founded that band.
• 51:29
  Chris joined shortly after we founded the band.
• 51:32
  We were smart enough to know what people related to, right?
• 51:36
  They related to him because he was the one that they heard from
• 51:40
  first. Hey, it's Friday night at the
• 51:42
  Mason Jar in Phoenix, AZ. How we doing?
• 51:44
  Right. That's that's it.
• 51:46
  That's what they saw. So everybody gravitates towards
• 51:49
  the singer. We, we as musicians, allowed him
• 51:53
  the opportunity and the affordability to do his job
• 51:57
  without thinking he was trying to be an egomaniac.
• 51:59
  Right. Right.
• 52:00
  He was a huge personality on stage every night.
• 52:03
  He just was. Yeah.
• 52:05
  But then in everyday life. You just, you know, I'm just a
• 52:07
  social butterfly. But I had the, I had the
• 52:10
  presence on stage, the Iron Dog, and we'll explain that some
• 52:14
  other time. But that was my persona.
• 52:16
  That was my persona on. Stage I mean.
• 52:18
  You know, I there's one side of the Mason jar where I reached up
• 52:21
  and grabbed the light trust and was swinging on it and and I
• 52:24
  looked down at Mike and Mike looks over at the whatever guy
• 52:26
  over there and then he's like, get off of that.
• 52:28
  I'm like, my bad, but you know, get off of that.
• 52:32
  It was just. But that was The thing is.
• 52:34
  Like you step on stage, you have to.
• 52:36
  It's like kind of like a hell. It's like a possession, man.
• 52:39
  I don't know. It's just you got to turn it on.
• 52:41
  You got to be able to. Yeah, yeah.
• 52:42
  It just turns on once you once you whatever you do.
• 52:45
  Like I sell houses so when my phone rings, I can turn on the
• 52:48
  real estate guy like that. No matter what my day is like, I
• 52:51
  go, hey, there's some real estate guy, you know.
• 52:53
  Good afternoon. But so, so it's the same concept
• 52:56
  with what you, what we do as musicians.
• 52:57
  You walk on that stage, that's it.
• 52:59
  This is the moment in time. You only have one chance to be
• 53:02
  in front of this group of people at this point in time in life.
• 53:06
  And you either knock it out of the ballpark or you fall flat on
• 53:08
  your ass. And that's going to determine
• 53:10
  your trajectory for the next show you do.
• 53:12
  Yep, that's true. That's true.
• 53:14
  The guy that taught me to. Play.
• 53:15
  Guitar Lemoyne. He kind of said exactly what
• 53:18
  Chris said when he was teaching me to be a lead guitar player.
• 53:21
  He says Eddie Van Halen described it best.
• 53:24
  It's like falling down the stairs.
• 53:26
  You know there's no real right or wrong way to do it as long as
• 53:30
  you land on your feet when it's over, right there you go.
• 53:33
  That's a great. Analysis.
• 53:34
  I like that. And the next time you listen to
• 53:36
  a van? Halen Solo.
• 53:38
  You'll listen to it in a different light.
• 53:39
  I did. Ever since I've heard him say
• 53:41
  that. Yeah, you write about that.
• 53:43
  That's a good way of doing. That, I mean, I never really
• 53:46
  analyzed it like that in my head, but that's, that's the
• 53:50
  other famous quote that he's got.
• 53:52
  That always stuck with me in my head as a player when I was told
• 53:54
  I was doing something right or wrong.
• 53:57
  Either way, I'm like, you know Eddie said it best.
• 53:59
  You got 8 notes. Actually, you have 7 notes in
• 54:02
  the octave, right? So you have 8 notes.
• 54:04
  How you mix them up is your business.
• 54:06
  There are no right if. It sounds good if.
• 54:09
  It sounds good, It is good that always.
• 54:10
  Stuck with me that is. All true.
• 54:14
  This is this is one of these most different interviews I've
• 54:19
  ever done and you know I like talking with the musicians man
• 54:23
  so just to let you know if you guys need me to do a show, I
• 54:27
  would love to come out and do a show with you guys man we'll.
• 54:30
  See, here's the fun thing. I'm in Arizona.
• 54:32
  Mike's in Illinois, yeah. Yeah, where are you?
• 54:36
  At I'm in Illinois, right? Now I was just in Arizona.
• 54:40
  I got to go back again. When you come to Arizona, reach
• 54:43
  out man. We'll go to.
• 54:43
  Dinner or something? You got it.
• 54:45
  That's exactly what I'll. Do Where are you at in Illinois,
• 54:47
  Lemoy? I'm in.
• 54:49
  The South Side of Chicago. Oh man.
• 54:53
  So yeah. So we're like. 2.
• 54:57
  And a half hours apart. I'm in Pontiac, if you know.
• 55:00
  Oh, yeah, I know what that is. Yeah, I know.
• 55:02
  Exactly what it is we're world famous for our prison.
• 55:06
  Wow. That's about all we got going
• 55:09
  on. Here.
• 55:11
  It's all right. A lot of cornfields.
• 55:14
  Yeah. That's why I'm.
• 55:15
  I'm trying to figure out some of these these these.
• 55:20
  Conventions and. Some of these outdoor
• 55:22
  performances and stuff that they have in Chicago, you know, I
• 55:26
  just got here so you know, I'm trying to jump on wherever they
• 55:29
  want me to play it. So that's where they trying to
• 55:31
  figure out now where they going to place me.
• 55:35
  That's cool, man. So what do you, what do you,
• 55:36
  what's, what's your world look like right now as far as you're
• 55:39
  working? You're working with a new band,
• 55:41
  you said. Is it still state of grace?
• 55:43
  No, no, no. It's just.
• 55:44
  The one Alexander OK and I have a backup band now and I.
• 55:49
  Just finished the album too so. OK, so when's that album drop?
• 55:53
  We just. Found out the new single drops
• 55:55
  on July 6th and the album follows it.
• 55:58
  So maybe about a week after the single comes out, the album
• 56:01
  comes out. So it's all in July.
• 56:04
  OK. Are you doing?
• 56:04
  This on your own now. Self production, self
• 56:06
  distribution, every single. The first album was.
• 56:09
  All Me. The second album was All Me and
• 56:11
  the third album was All What's this Album called In the
• 56:13
  Morning? Alone.
• 56:15
  Alone. Alone, yeah.
• 56:16
  Limon. Alexander alone and is it?
• 56:18
  Is it so? Did you create your own label?
• 56:21
  No, no, this. Is the company is called Wicked
• 56:23
  Entertainment. Oh, that's right.
• 56:24
  OK, so Wicked Entertainment is a.
• 56:26
  Label and the distribution, yes. As a matter of fact.
• 56:30
  We're we're dealing with some new distributors right now as we
• 56:32
  speak. Cool.
• 56:33
  So for the people that under. Don't understand the whole
• 56:36
  concept of of music distribution and stuff.
• 56:38
  Give us a little insight of the struggles with that now versus
• 56:42
  20 years ago, oh, 20 years ago it.
• 56:45
  Was totally different. Thank you.
• 56:47
  Thank. You, Mike, it's nothing like it
• 56:49
  is. Please kind of break that down.
• 56:51
  When you got into the business, how you got paid and what your
• 56:55
  life was like and now what your life is like.
• 56:57
  That's a great question, Chris. OK.
• 56:59
  That's, that's a good question. And I'll try to be as persistent
• 57:03
  with this. In short, yeah, that's cool.
• 57:06
  We got all the time in. The world, man, you're fine when
• 57:09
  you're when. You're a producer, artist during
• 57:12
  the good days, OK, They give you a budget.
• 57:15
  Yeah, sometimes those budgets could, could, could be ranging
• 57:20
  from 200,000 to 9 to 1,000,000, right, Right now out of those
• 57:27
  budgets you get. The you have to pay for.
• 57:31
  The studio, those budgets, you know, they, you have to pay for
• 57:35
  studio, you have to pay for videos they're charging you, but
• 57:38
  for everything that they give you, including your advance
• 57:41
  money. Sometimes they don't charge you
• 57:43
  for the advance money, but at some point, you know, you got to
• 57:47
  pay it back. It's not much different you're
• 57:49
  going to. A bank and getting a loan
• 57:50
  correct? Exactly.
• 57:52
  Pretty much. So with all the the money that
• 57:56
  they've given you on top, they have to use their own money to
• 58:01
  promote you, right And. That's a whole different.
• 58:05
  Budget so you look at what you're worth is from your album
• 58:10
  sales. Back then, OK.
• 58:14
  Right now, when you. Your.
• 58:15
  Album sales are growing and growing and growing.
• 58:19
  They're going to make their money back, yes.
• 58:21
  Now you're the writer. You're going to make the money.
• 58:23
  If you're right, you're also a publisher publishing your music,
• 58:28
  which no label is going to let you completely take full
• 58:32
  publishing. They got to split it with you.
• 58:34
  You're going to get paid. Now most people, producers as
• 58:39
  producers, they're getting paid behind because they're making
• 58:43
  the songs, the artist. If if, if you get an artist and
• 58:48
  they're making that, they're really pretty much singing what
• 58:53
  you make them sing and what you write for them.
• 58:56
  They're not getting paid. The only time they get paid is
• 58:59
  when they go on the road to perform the song, right.
• 59:02
  So let's break it. Let's.
• 59:03
  Break it down like this real quick.
• 59:04
  You got a dollar, you make a dollar, and out of that dollar
• 59:08
  the label gets how much? The label.
• 59:12
  Gets honestly out of that dollar about $0.75.
• 59:17
  OK, so you have 1/4 left and out of.
• 59:19
  That quarter left, you're paying the writer, you have to pay the
• 59:22
  rider, so. By the time you get paid, you
• 59:25
  probably got about $0.10, right? So out of $0.25.
• 59:30
  Leftover from that dollar which which is I've I've lived that
• 59:33
  with when we when you when council was signed with this is
• 59:35
  a band after Mike and I signed with Universal Records a little
• 59:39
  subsidy platinum plus records. There was never seen a dime
• 59:42
  because they just they. Take it all right, Snoop Dogg.
• 59:47
  Snoop Dogg came out right, right.
• 59:48
  And Snoop Dogg came out recently not to interject that he had,
• 59:51
  what was it, a billion downloads, Mike, not too long
• 59:53
  ago? And he made like $40,000.
• 59:56
  She's like, where's my $34,000? On 1 billion downloads, yeah,
• 1:00:00
  yeah. And that's what I want, people.
• 1:00:02
  To understand so that's the dollar breakdown so that's the
• 1:00:05
  dollar breakdown so continue on your path of educating the world
• 1:00:08
  lamoine ohh man let me tell you something the.
• 1:00:10
  Biggest the biggest RIP off to me.
• 1:00:12
  He's just explained the good days.
• 1:00:15
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  The good days was. If if for a producer, he can
• 1:00:20
  make a lot of money, a producer is he's the one that's going to
• 1:00:23
  always make money, right, right. Because he's the one that's
• 1:00:26
  behind the scenes making the music, making everything happy,
• 1:00:29
  right? Artists.
• 1:00:30
  No, no, but today, now we're talking Spotify and all these
• 1:00:35
  other outlets where Spotify came from.
• 1:00:38
  I don't even know. All I know was they they just
• 1:00:41
  decided to form a company to take artists and exploit them
• 1:00:48
  and get paid off of them. Did Lars not try and warn?
• 1:00:51
  Us about this during the yesterday's yes he did can.
• 1:00:54
  You explain a little bit about that real quick for the.
• 1:00:57
  People who still hate Lars. Yes, Lars, he to me, he's my
• 1:01:01
  hero because, you know, he, he did a lot to, to teach us.
• 1:01:06
  Yeah, that. You know that's not.
• 1:01:09
  Fair. They're ripping us all.
• 1:01:10
  People work hard to make the music.
• 1:01:13
  Nobody listens. This is how you support your
• 1:01:15
  family, right? Yes, this is how we.
• 1:01:18
  Support our family. A prime example, the Queen
• 1:01:23
  record, that was the one I was telling you where we got about 2
• 1:01:27
  million on Spotify, 2 million. I think it's 2 million instant
• 1:01:32
  change or whatever. Yeah, which is the got a check.
• 1:01:35
  Literally. The check came back for $600.00.
• 1:01:39
  Yeah, 2 million. Plays yeah 600 dollars $600.00
• 1:01:44
  now back now. Now back in now.
• 1:01:46
  Back in the day when you started.
• 1:01:48
  Now, back in the day 2. Million sold a record.
• 1:01:51
  Double. If you got, if you sold 2
• 1:01:53
  million records, you got damn near $1,000,000, right?
• 1:01:58
  That's the difference. Right.
• 1:01:59
  See, that's what I want people to understand the difference
• 1:02:01
  between now and then and what Napster did to the culture of
• 1:02:04
  music. Because when when when we got
• 1:02:07
  signed with Universal, it was on that on that cusp.
• 1:02:11
  Everything was was going away from the label backing up.
• 1:02:14
  And it was, it was jumping into the whole online Spotify,
• 1:02:17
  Napster, Apple Music, because it was 2008 when that was released.
• 1:02:21
  So and it wasn't it again, it was the last band I was in.
• 1:02:25
  It wasn't Mike and I cuz you know, Mike and I is the best
• 1:02:28
  band I've ever been in. But I could tell by just the
• 1:02:31
  label itself. They were just they were just in
• 1:02:33
  it for this. They could give a fuck about the
• 1:02:37
  no they. Could like the people.
• 1:02:39
  Behind the scenes, the producer we had Tony Miglioria producer,
• 1:02:41
  which is claimed to fame was he plays the the piano and keyboard
• 1:02:44
  on Bye Bye Miss American Pie, Don McLean, It says keyboard
• 1:02:49
  pianist, right? Robert Metzger, the guy that was
• 1:02:52
  behind the label was tied to Elvis in some way, shape and
• 1:02:55
  form, but he was just a he was a shoe salesman piece of shit.
• 1:02:57
  Like just, I mean, you know, used car sales.
• 1:03:01
  I'm just like, you could just tell, right.
• 1:03:03
  And, and so I don't I don't. The experience was great.
• 1:03:08
  You know, I, I was, I recorded in, in Gravity Studios in, in
• 1:03:11
  Nashville, which is the only part of the studio that was
• 1:03:13
  something that, you know, not many people can say we were in,
• 1:03:16
  in, in, oh, there's not a Brentwood Nashville or
• 1:03:20
  Brentwood, TN Alan Jackson and George, George, George.
• 1:03:24
  Was it George Strait or Yeah, I think George Strait's studio
• 1:03:27
  over there. Chelsea Music, Chelsea Music
• 1:03:29
  Group, right. I mean, it was the things we did
• 1:03:31
  were cool. And the experience was great.
• 1:03:36
  You know, and and I'll never regret doing that stuff, but it
• 1:03:39
  was gave me insight to the bullshit.
• 1:03:41
  So I like how you just, that's why I asked that question,
• 1:03:44
  because you just kind of nailed a hammer on the head, right?
• 1:03:47
  20 years ago, you sell 2 million records, you're making
• 1:03:49
  $1,000,000. Yeah, you're making a million.
• 1:03:52
  Dollars to you said it best Yeah, you said it best.
• 1:03:55
  If you pay attention to what he said, he he's like how the hell
• 1:03:58
  can we make a living? Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  When companies like Spotify and all these other streaming
• 1:04:05
  services take our music. Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  And they get paid. Yeah.
• 1:04:09
  And give us this much in sale, they're making 12.
• 1:04:13
  Dollars a month off 200 million subscribers.
• 1:04:18
  Yeah, that's insane. And taking the royalties.
• 1:04:21
  Do the math. Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  And taking the. Artist Royalties.
• 1:04:25
  That's a huge point now, now for me, Limone.
• 1:04:27
  OK, I'm the guy that I buy the entire album on Apple Music.
• 1:04:31
  I don't buy single songs on Spotify.
• 1:04:34
  If you're on Apple Music, I'll go download your entire album.
• 1:04:37
  Yes, it is. It's our Apple.
• 1:04:38
  Right, because to me that. I don't I don't know how much of
• 1:04:41
  that you get from that, but I'd rather do that than subscribe
• 1:04:45
  and just be able to listen for free because I know how hard it
• 1:04:50
  is right Music yes, I think that's beautiful.
• 1:04:53
  Thank. You for, for that, you know, you
• 1:04:55
  go, you go to iTunes. To me, it's like a record store
• 1:05:00
  to me, Yeah, exactly. You know, and that's what.
• 1:05:03
  We used to me and you and and Mike, we were influenced by
• 1:05:08
  going to the record store. We hear what we hear.
• 1:05:10
  We like it, we pay for it, and we leave.
• 1:05:12
  Take it home. Yep, Tower.
• 1:05:14
  Records, man. Well, since we're the same age,
• 1:05:16
  let me. Tell you a funny story about the
• 1:05:18
  record store. I went there one day and I'm
• 1:05:20
  leafing through the records and I'm like, look at that.
• 1:05:23
  This is the coolest. This is going to be the coolest
• 1:05:25
  heavy metal band I've ever seen in my life.
• 1:05:28
  Look, I've heard this. Story.
• 1:05:29
  That's where it lasts. Artwork that's so cool I get it
• 1:05:33
  home in the first time. I used to love it.
• 1:05:35
  You can. Listen to the music, touch it,
• 1:05:37
  Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 1:05:39
  Lemon, you gotta listen to this punchline here.
• 1:05:41
  I get home and it's Molly Hatchet.
• 1:05:43
  So the first. Song I hear is flirting with.
• 1:05:45
  Disaster. I'm like, this isn't heavy metal
• 1:05:47
  at all, but I love it. So that that was one of my
• 1:05:52
  introductions into Southern rock was I thought I was buying a
• 1:05:55
  heavy metal album because they had the coolest artwork, man.
• 1:05:58
  And that's the other thing. Think about.
• 1:06:00
  It not think about it. Back in our day when you bought
• 1:06:05
  a record, first of all, you could buy a whole album for
• 1:06:08
  seven or 8 bucks under $10. Oh yeah, absolutely you can.
• 1:06:12
  Open it up. You can.
• 1:06:13
  See your favorite artist, you can read the credits, you can
• 1:06:16
  see the pictures, and I love all that stuff.
• 1:06:19
  Yeah. You can read the lyrics, what do
• 1:06:20
  you get? Now what do you get?
• 1:06:22
  Now when you buy now, not a damn thing man, you get.
• 1:06:25
  Something I'm changing that. Let me tell you.
• 1:06:26
  What I'm doing Cool. Prime example.
• 1:06:28
  I'm going to show you something. OK, right on.
• 1:06:32
  Lemoyne. Alexander, ladies and gentlemen.
• 1:06:34
  Lemoyne Alexander. Yeah, this is something new.
• 1:06:37
  OK. This is.
• 1:06:40
  My album. Oh.
• 1:06:41
  Right on. It's a guitar, dude.
• 1:06:42
  That is bad ass. You open this up.
• 1:06:47
  Put it in your computer. You're going to see the credits,
• 1:06:50
  you're going to see the photos, you're going to get the album,
• 1:06:53
  you're going to get rarities, you're going to get everything
• 1:06:56
  on this right here. So if you want to download an
• 1:07:00
  album cover, you can get it from here.
• 1:07:03
  Put it right on your screen. You can, you can.
• 1:07:05
  It's got a it's got a little device in here where you can
• 1:07:08
  make posters and and go get posters made.
• 1:07:11
  Dude, I love that that's. Fantastic Lemoyne this.
• 1:07:14
  This is going to be my new album.
• 1:07:17
  Just like this when it comes out, buying it right like that,
• 1:07:19
  that's awesome. I got to have one that that's
• 1:07:22
  legit, man, that is. Brilliant.
• 1:07:23
  That is absolutely brilliant. My management came up with that
• 1:07:27
  it. Was like, look, we going back to
• 1:07:28
  the old school, but the old school you even you can, there's
• 1:07:31
  ways you can even get vinyl from here, really.
• 1:07:35
  It's got so much information. In here for you to get
• 1:07:39
  everything you need just like it was when we can go to the record
• 1:07:42
  store and buy all of it. It's got the credits,
• 1:07:45
  photographs, rarities, and you want vinyl, you can.
• 1:07:49
  You can order vinyl in here. Videos, you even get videos in
• 1:07:53
  here. Everything is crazy, man.
• 1:07:55
  And what's that? And what's that going to?
• 1:07:57
  Cost this this year is. Probably.
• 1:07:59
  Honestly, yeah, At best, maybe 20 bucks or less right now.
• 1:08:04
  That's cool. Yep, that's cool.
• 1:08:07
  That will. Be in my.
• 1:08:08
  Studio, right? Here as soon as it comes out.
• 1:08:10
  That's cool. That's very Yeah, that's the way
• 1:08:12
  we doing it now you. Know and I and I agreed to it
• 1:08:16
  because it was like, you know, I want to go back to the way
• 1:08:18
  things were when music was fun and you can purchase music you
• 1:08:22
  know people are scared to buy because you're not getting
• 1:08:26
  nothing when you buy the songs. It's just a song you download
• 1:08:30
  and put it, and that's why I won't just.
• 1:08:31
  Download a song, download and I've discovered, I've discovered
• 1:08:35
  better music on the artist that I downloaded for that I bought
• 1:08:40
  the album for one song. Then all of a sudden like the
• 1:08:42
  entire album I'm like, holy shit, these guys are great.
• 1:08:45
  Which I never would have done if I was just buying song by song
• 1:08:48
  by song Exactly. You know, like.
• 1:08:50
  Alter Bridge. I never would.
• 1:08:51
  Have I never would have fell in love with Alter Bridge had I
• 1:08:53
  just downloaded Rise today, but something that we all talked.
• 1:08:56
  About earlier the band has to prove to us that they can write
• 1:09:00
  an entire album these days too, right?
• 1:09:04
  So many people are writing for the.
• 1:09:06
  Single right they don't care everything else is just filler
• 1:09:09
  or they're not doing an entire album at all yeah and I've had
• 1:09:11
  that problem too where I've. Downloaded an album because I
• 1:09:14
  wanted one song and the rest of the song, the album sucks and
• 1:09:17
  that's but that's let's see, that's the brilliant of of in
• 1:09:20
  our generation going to the record store, right?
• 1:09:23
  You know, Mötley Crüe comes out, you see shout at the devil album
• 1:09:26
  cover. All this is going to be legit.
• 1:09:28
  And then you may only like one song like you.
• 1:09:30
  It was a gamble. We knew that.
• 1:09:32
  You, but that was the cool thing.
• 1:09:33
  About it because part of the thing about it.
• 1:09:37
  And you're right, it is a gamble, but if you really look
• 1:09:40
  at it, it's really not because they're giving you more music
• 1:09:45
  for you to learn and choose from that you would get that you
• 1:09:48
  would normally get back in those days that you can't do today.
• 1:09:51
  Well, and I'll tell you one of the things.
• 1:09:53
  That we talk about that is a lost art these days is when you
• 1:09:56
  did find that album like Shouting the Devil, that was
• 1:10:00
  great all the way through. You got your buddies together
• 1:10:03
  and everybody just listened to it over and over and over again,
• 1:10:06
  man. You know, that's how you spent
• 1:10:07
  your Friday and Saturday nights. Yep.
• 1:10:10
  Until the next. I'm going to tell you guys
• 1:10:11
  something. Yeah.
• 1:10:14
  On the 1st. Album.
• 1:10:16
  Solitude. There's a last song when you get
• 1:10:18
  a chance to it. Once you go listen to that last
• 1:10:19
  song. The song is called Euphoria.
• 1:10:23
  It's a 8. Minute.
• 1:10:25
  Song of just instrumentals of. Me just.
• 1:10:28
  Jamming through genres that I learned how to perfect, I did
• 1:10:33
  everything. The only genre that's not in
• 1:10:36
  that that particular song is rap, but all the genres that I
• 1:10:40
  was influenced with. I played guitar solos over all
• 1:10:44
  of that. Now when?
• 1:10:46
  I. Was doing the album.
• 1:10:48
  I was asked why are you doing that?
• 1:10:49
  I said because I want to go back to the way things was back in
• 1:10:53
  the old days when you can buy a full length album and you get
• 1:10:58
  that instrumental where it's it's just nothing but just
• 1:11:01
  music, yeah. And when I did it, it it.
• 1:11:04
  It went people with my fans were nuts.
• 1:11:07
  Well, now I'll. Now, I'll tell you something
• 1:11:10
  that'll be on parallel with that.
• 1:11:12
  I was always super insecure as a songwriter because I had nothing
• 1:11:17
  to compare myself to. Right When I met these guys,
• 1:11:21
  they gave me more compliments that we never talked about until
• 1:11:25
  now. That like when Chris wanted me
• 1:11:27
  to write music for his spoken word, you know, I knew how much
• 1:11:31
  that meant to him. But then I understood that all
• 1:11:35
  this, what I thought was nonsense, was really music,
• 1:11:38
  right? Because I would just sit there
• 1:11:40
  and play and these guys would be like, hey, what's that, you
• 1:11:42
  know, Or what's that? Do that again.
• 1:11:44
  You know that's true. My my.
• 1:11:47
  Problem is my. Brain is so chaotic that I don't
• 1:11:50
  think like a drummer. That's why I don't.
• 1:11:52
  I'm not well at beats. I can.
• 1:11:53
  I can't wait to mute you guys. I can.
• 1:11:55
  Write riffs till the cows come. Home but a lot, a lot of them
• 1:11:59
  just overlap each other, right. So these guys would slow my
• 1:12:02
  brain down enough to say hey, I like that do that again or I
• 1:12:06
  like this do that again. Yeah, because the way I missed
• 1:12:09
  that the way I write. It's basically a poetry.
• 1:12:12
  It's a poem. It's 4 verses, 4 line verses,
• 1:12:15
  and then a four line course. And then we would just, I'd give
• 1:12:17
  that to Mike and then we would evolve it, however we evolved
• 1:12:21
  it. But it always started out in the
• 1:12:22
  basic ballad format of poetry because that's when I first
• 1:12:25
  started writing in that. And that style was high school
• 1:12:28
  because an English teacher challenged me to stop being a
• 1:12:32
  dumb jock and write a poem. OK, you guys got great stories,
• 1:12:35
  man, Great. Stories, you know, but that's,
• 1:12:37
  that's kind of how. That evolved so that I learned
• 1:12:39
  how to write just from, from a poetry standpoint.
• 1:12:42
  And then it's, you know, it just evolved from there, you know,
• 1:12:46
  and it's still writing from a poetry standpoint.
• 1:12:47
  When I send him stuff, it's like, here, check this out, you
• 1:12:50
  know, and he can pick up the, yeah, he can pick up the
• 1:12:53
  attitude from it instantly. That's the primary.
• 1:12:56
  Reason why I did these instrumentals because I wanted
• 1:13:01
  people to just euphoria means, you know, be relaxed and listen
• 1:13:05
  to music. So I said, well, I'm just going
• 1:13:07
  to make a song where it's just nothing but just music and I'm
• 1:13:11
  just doing my guitar solos over. It went over really well.
• 1:13:15
  They asked me to do a second one.
• 1:13:17
  I did it on the second album and now I'm doing it on the third
• 1:13:21
  album. So there's three parts of it all
• 1:13:23
  right on you get to. You get to listen.
• 1:13:26
  To all three, if you and I just did an interview last week and
• 1:13:32
  they said, you know, we heard them, we heard them and you
• 1:13:35
  know, why don't you suggest that I do a release of all of the
• 1:13:40
  Euphorias on one album? Not like a trilogy, that's.
• 1:13:44
  Awesome. And I said that's a good.
• 1:13:46
  Idea. So I think I'm going to do that
• 1:13:47
  after I get about two more, you know, because I'm going to keep
• 1:13:51
  the train going. The next album I'm going to do
• 1:13:53
  another one and another one, and then I'll put them, I'll compile
• 1:13:56
  them all on one album. That's cool.
• 1:13:58
  I have a piece of music like that.
• 1:14:00
  It's it's just two pieces, but I wrote it when I was going
• 1:14:04
  through the throes of my addiction and I credit that
• 1:14:07
  piece of music was saving my life because I played it over
• 1:14:10
  and over and over and in the in the middle of the night one
• 1:14:14
  night, a guy that was, you know, was unsavory character, but he
• 1:14:18
  was around a lot. He heard that piece of music.
• 1:14:22
  And this is not what you would expect from this guy.
• 1:14:24
  He said, you know, keep playing stuff like that man, because the
• 1:14:27
  world needs more of it. Yes, that is so true.
• 1:14:31
  The world needs. Fresh music.
• 1:14:33
  Lemoyne It stopped me dead in my tracks.
• 1:14:34
  Because it came from somebody. That guy was he didn't talk like
• 1:14:38
  that, you know, But he playing that piece of music changed his
• 1:14:42
  brain at that moment in time from being a mean, tough,
• 1:14:47
  cussing, drug addict, alcoholic. What you know, he was just that
• 1:14:52
  kind of guy and he talked that way, but he he stopped me dead
• 1:14:56
  in. My tracks, you know.
• 1:14:57
  That was a moment in time, and I have a lot of those where I know
• 1:15:00
  music can change someone, you know?
• 1:15:03
  Yeah, music can. And.
• 1:15:04
  And that's the prime example of of insecurity.
• 1:15:08
  When you hear insecurity, even now, when I even go back and
• 1:15:13
  listen to it, I'm like, oh, wow, you know, I see what everybody
• 1:15:15
  is talking about now, you know? And it's a staple, one of my
• 1:15:20
  biggest songs, and it's a staple in my career that it's more than
• 1:15:25
  just a song to me. It's, it's, it's like, like you
• 1:15:28
  just said, it saved your life. This song really helped me, you
• 1:15:32
  know, get over a lot of things hearing you tell that story.
• 1:15:35
  Makes me inspired to, you know, I have to get that recorded
• 1:15:39
  because I think the world needs to hear it that that guy that
• 1:15:41
  made that statement is no longer with us.
• 1:15:43
  So there was a reason he was placed on this earth and I know
• 1:15:47
  it was for more than that, but he was in my life.
• 1:15:50
  He was placed there to say that at that moment in time.
• 1:15:53
  So and and it helped you and. Yeah, and here and here and
• 1:15:56
  here. In your story, you know you
• 1:15:58
  were. I put it out there.
• 1:16:00
  Because this is. How I was feeling, I don't know
• 1:16:03
  how people are going to react to it, right.
• 1:16:04
  And it spoke to them because it came from your soul, you know?
• 1:16:07
  Exactly. Yes, that's exactly you put.
• 1:16:10
  It perfectly. And that goes back to
• 1:16:12
  songwriting itself. When you're writing a song
• 1:16:13
  that's just just about, you know, going out and getting
• 1:16:15
  drunk and getting laid, there's no meaning to that.
• 1:16:17
  There's no, you're not going to look back on that 20 years and
• 1:16:19
  reflect. Oh, Oh yeah.
• 1:16:22
  The. Stuff.
• 1:16:22
  Everything I've ever written that was.
• 1:16:24
  Down to music I can I can listen to that song and I can know it
• 1:16:27
  takes me back exactly to why I wrote it most of the time where
• 1:16:31
  I wrote it, where I came up with it and I can remember the
• 1:16:35
  structure of it because it has meaning because there's purpose
• 1:16:38
  behind it. Like a lot of people always
• 1:16:40
  asked us because we were we were we were abandoned the early 90s
• 1:16:44
  and stuff. So when we when we disbanded, it
• 1:16:46
  was 9596. So we we, we didn't really go as
• 1:16:51
  high as we could have gone, but we were Creed before Creed was
• 1:16:53
  Creed because that's how I write.
• 1:16:55
  I write about life and things like that.
• 1:16:56
  I have a better range than step had or has, But that's kind of
• 1:17:01
  why we were able to play with as many different acts that we
• 1:17:03
  played with. We open for everybody from
• 1:17:05
  Marshall Tucker Band to Enough Is Enough because we we were
• 1:17:08
  just a good old fashioned rock'n'roll band that had
• 1:17:11
  substance and we had enough of a draw because back then, which
• 1:17:15
  you can probably relate to, you had to sell tickets to your
• 1:17:18
  shows like nobody was promoting you but yourself.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah, our moment of days. Right, so the crowd was
• 1:17:24
  dependent on. What we did to promote
• 1:17:25
  ourselves. And that's lost in this world
• 1:17:28
  now too, because nobody's doing the work.
• 1:17:31
  Nobody's spending the time to stand in front of a janitor and
• 1:17:34
  two waitresses and the bartender or, or 3000 people you know,
• 1:17:39
  packed in because you've, you've grown organically over time.
• 1:17:43
  You don't get that. It's, it's instant.
• 1:17:45
  I want one song to make, you know, 3,000,000 downloads.
• 1:17:48
  So I make $800 next and the label gets all of it next, next.
• 1:17:54
  Just like we could spend 1000. Dollars a week promoting this
• 1:17:57
  podcast and we could have millions of hits right none of
• 1:18:00
  them mean anything because they're all bots right right
• 1:18:03
  right we we've grown this. Thing organically Lemoyne to the
• 1:18:06
  fact that we really started paying attention to at least I
• 1:18:08
  did from some content wise on YouTube in March.
• 1:18:12
  We just passed 85,000 views. Now to put it in perspective, my
• 1:18:15
  business YouTube pages I've had since 2005 or 6.
• 1:18:19
  I'm just under 500,000 views and I have probably 600 different
• 1:18:23
  600 videos and congratulations to put it into.
• 1:18:28
  Perspective for you even. More, that's a 70% increase in
• 1:18:32
  three months because you only had, we only had about 30,000
• 1:18:37
  views up till that point when he shifted his focus to being
• 1:18:40
  consistent and doing things a certain way.
• 1:18:42
  And all of a sudden I was like, you know, you're rapidly
• 1:18:45
  approaching 100,000 views and I'm like, no.
• 1:18:48
  Because they don't look at the. Members news, guys,
• 1:18:50
  congratulations. Thank you.
• 1:18:52
  And that's and I don't even pay. Attention to it, I just do it.
• 1:18:54
  So that's what makes it even more special is that there's not
• 1:18:57
  we're not paying for it. So many like we get hit up all
• 1:19:00
  the time all $200. We'll get you 100,000 views.
• 1:19:03
  No. What do you mean no, no.
• 1:19:05
  And for me. Selfishly, this is He's
• 1:19:07
  fulfilling my dream by finding a musician that is speaking on the
• 1:19:11
  same level as we are as songwriters and as a musician
• 1:19:16
  reached heights that, you know, we had aspirations to at that
• 1:19:20
  time of reaching and for, you know, whatever reason or
• 1:19:23
  another, the stars weren't aligned at that time.
• 1:19:25
  But I agree with Chris, man. I never had more fun musically
• 1:19:29
  in my life and never felt more free as a musician or a human
• 1:19:33
  being as the time that I was surrounded by those three guys.
• 1:19:37
  That's what they meant to me, right?
• 1:19:39
  Yeah. And it's a it's a brotherhood.
• 1:19:40
  Man, it's a family. This is definitely a
• 1:19:42
  brotherhood. Vans Brotherhood.
• 1:19:44
  I love it. Yes, yeah.
• 1:19:46
  And as musicians. We all stick.
• 1:19:48
  Together. That's why this is a dream for
• 1:19:50
  me. Part of starting this podcast
• 1:19:52
  was to be creative again and to grow something from the ground
• 1:19:56
  up, like planting a seed, Right. I'm not a gardener.
• 1:19:58
  This is my garden. This is our playground.
• 1:20:01
  You know, every now and then we get the, well, you know, maybe a
• 1:20:03
  cuss a little too much or whatever.
• 1:20:05
  Yeah, we do. This is our.
• 1:20:08
  For good or bad ladies and. Gentlemen, this is my
• 1:20:11
  playground. I have to have a place where I
• 1:20:13
  can be creative, right? Chris has to have a place where
• 1:20:15
  he can feel like himself as an artist.
• 1:20:17
  Yep. So we're, we're we.
• 1:20:20
  We're sorry. For the language every now and
• 1:20:21
  then. But you know, Lemoyne will back
• 1:20:24
  us up. Musicians have their own
• 1:20:26
  language. They do.
• 1:20:28
  Yes, we do. Amen.
• 1:20:29
  Amen. I want to I want to ask you
• 1:20:30
  something about your life resume in, in, in the music industry,
• 1:20:33
  Lemoyne. I want to know, I want to know
• 1:20:35
  in your opinion, because it sounds like you have met a ton
• 1:20:38
  of people along your journey, what would be the the one that
• 1:20:45
  that that that starstruck you that you met?
• 1:20:50
  Did we lose him? I was going to say, did you I,
• 1:20:53
  I. Lost his video.
• 1:20:54
  I lost his video too. Hello.
• 1:20:57
  Hello. Lamone.
• 1:20:59
  Lamoine. I keep saying Lamone.
• 1:21:00
  Lamoine. Lamoine.
• 1:21:02
  Like Des Moines? Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  We may have lost Lamoine. I don't know if I have his
• 1:21:05
  number to call him either. Oh oh, I wonder if his Internet
• 1:21:09
  went out. They might be having storms up
• 1:21:11
  that way. Today.
• 1:21:12
  There was a frost moving through.
• 1:21:13
  I didn't know he was in Chicago. I didn't either.
• 1:21:15
  I didn't either. So dude, what a fascinating
• 1:21:19
  individual. Right, that was dude.
• 1:21:22
  Very cool guy, very good human. I wanted to ask him about his.
• 1:21:26
  Songs he wrote for DMX and Aaliyah too.
• 1:21:29
  Yeah, well, I just. That's why I was.
• 1:21:30
  Kind of going with that, I wanted to see what he said as
• 1:21:31
  far as, you know, who he had met and that kind of thing.
• 1:21:33
  Then then take that to a whole new all new level on you.
• 1:21:40
  Know because it'd be interesting to see.
• 1:21:42
  Because the names that he dropped to the people he worked
• 1:21:44
  with and, you know, would you ever have actually been
• 1:21:47
  starstruck? Like, I wanted to ask him if he
• 1:21:48
  reference Prince. Like, dude, did you never meet
• 1:21:51
  Prince, You know, because R Kelly, R Kelly's kind of, you
• 1:21:54
  know, dark. Yeah, he definitely.
• 1:21:57
  Tainted his own name. Yeah.
• 1:21:59
  Yeah. So not that.
• 1:22:00
  It wasn't impressive that he worked with R Kelly a little
• 1:22:02
  bit. You know, that's just one of
• 1:22:03
  those names where. It's not like Ted Nugent where
• 1:22:06
  you can go. Yeah, I love his music, but I
• 1:22:07
  hate his politics. Right.
• 1:22:08
  Or whatever you hate about him. You know, you can't take away
• 1:22:11
  from the fact that Uncle Ted is an amazing guitar player.
• 1:22:14
  No, you can't. And then he is for.
• 1:22:16
  Sure. Give it a second and see if he
• 1:22:20
  can, yeah. I'm going to.
• 1:22:21
  I'm going. To the e-mail, and I'm going to
• 1:22:24
  e-mail him and see what's what if he responds.
• 1:22:29
  That dude's definitely legit though man.
• 1:22:30
  Holy crap. Very, very.
• 1:22:34
  Much as. Far as.
• 1:22:36
  A life's resume and music goes he's he's been there, done that
• 1:22:39
  on both sides of the fence, as a rock'n'roll guy and as a hip hop
• 1:22:42
  guy and as a rap guy. Yep.
• 1:22:47
  Yeah, it's amazing that that's why I asked him.
• 1:22:48
  About the rap, because I've never really gotten to rap, as
• 1:22:50
  you know, but it was interesting that his.
• 1:22:56
  His. What he did for how he how?
• 1:23:02
  He brought the the. Guitars and the bass and stuff
• 1:23:04
  into rap was was pretty legit. And it's funny because.
• 1:23:09
  That was about the same time I was at Guitar Center a couple
• 1:23:12
  years before that, but it would have been along the same
• 1:23:16
  timeline as Sorry about that guys.
• 1:23:18
  No, they're totally fine. Hang on, dude.
• 1:23:21
  I was just, I was just, I was just emailing you.
• 1:23:23
  Modern technology it doesn't. Work all the time and we were
• 1:23:27
  just talking like that and. And you're sideways.
• 1:23:29
  And we were. Talking about you behind your
• 1:23:31
  phone. I'm here.
• 1:23:35
  We hear you. We hear.
• 1:23:36
  You. It's all good.
• 1:23:38
  Man. So MM has a couple questions for
• 1:23:41
  you that that he was hoping, he was hoping you'd come back so he
• 1:23:44
  could ask. So I'm here.
• 1:23:46
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:23:47
  So when I was doing my research. I saw that you were somehow
• 1:23:50
  involved in writing songs for DMX and Aaliyah.
• 1:23:55
  Yes, yes. Tell me, tell me about those,
• 1:23:57
  please. The.
• 1:23:59
  Process with Aaliyah first was when, remember I told you, you
• 1:24:04
  know, the guys called me down and they wanted me to work with
• 1:24:06
  R Kelly. Yeah, my, I had. 22.
• 1:24:09
  Guys that called me and they wanted me to be a part of the
• 1:24:12
  team. R Kelly's music team and.
• 1:24:16
  How that? Happened was he was literally in
• 1:24:19
  the studio working and they asked me and the other two guys
• 1:24:23
  to to participate in helping with the production of the song
• 1:24:28
  and that's what we did. We spent like, honestly.
• 1:24:34
  On that one song, I think we spent.
• 1:24:36
  About 3 days straight. Nobody showered or nothing.
• 1:24:40
  You can imagine what it smelled like.
• 1:24:43
  Yeah, buddy. And once R Kelly did his job, he
• 1:24:48
  left the rest of it to us. Then we end up going into the
• 1:24:50
  studio and we finalized the project.
• 1:24:53
  And once it was done with all our expertise together, you
• 1:24:59
  know, we all gel together to make that song sound good and.
• 1:25:03
  And it was approved and it came out.
• 1:25:06
  What was the name of that? Song.
• 1:25:07
  Yeah. Back and forth.
• 1:25:09
  OK, I wanted to. Look that one up.
• 1:25:15
  Let me see do. I have the record for that.
• 1:25:16
  I think I do some of them. Yes, it was called back and
• 1:25:22
  forth. And that was debut album from
• 1:25:27
  her debut album. OK, there's the record.
• 1:25:31
  You were saying the. DMX.
• 1:25:33
  The DMX. And I, we became good friends
• 1:25:37
  back right a little bit before he died and there was a song we
• 1:25:42
  were working on together. Hey yo Cato, for a friend of
• 1:25:47
  ours that that passed and. We had planned on.
• 1:25:51
  He he was me and him was talking about joining his company.
• 1:25:55
  He had a new company he had just started.
• 1:25:58
  I forgot the name of it, but we were talking about me signing
• 1:26:02
  with him during that that time. But then he got caught up in
• 1:26:06
  some other stuff and not shortly he passed.
• 1:26:11
  But yeah. We did.
• 1:26:12
  We had. Started on.
• 1:26:13
  I was particularly asked to join in on from a friend of mine to
• 1:26:20
  produce for him when he flew into Chicago and they called me
• 1:26:23
  and I went to the studio and that's when I met him and I came
• 1:26:27
  up with these ideas for songs for him.
• 1:26:30
  And it went from I just finished doing the soundtrack for Crime
• 1:26:34
  partners or film where Ice T and Snoop Dogg.
• 1:26:38
  So my friend Cato wanted to get involved with the soundtrack,
• 1:26:46
  but the soundtrack was already done.
• 1:26:48
  So when I told him I was working with, well, I'm getting ready to
• 1:26:51
  do some stuff with DMX, he said, oh man, I got to meet him.
• 1:26:53
  Let me meet him. So when DMX came in, I'd
• 1:26:56
  introduced them two together and they became best friends, the
• 1:26:59
  two of them alone. And he had just started his new
• 1:27:04
  production company, which we were talking about.
• 1:27:07
  And my friend that I introduced to to Cato was buying a song,
• 1:27:14
  buying a spot on his production company for the for the movie.
• 1:27:19
  I forgot the name of the movie that.
• 1:27:21
  DMX was doing the soundtrack for and and we were all involved in
• 1:27:25
  it. And what happened was he got
• 1:27:27
  killed. That's a bad thing.
• 1:27:30
  That's a bad thing, yeah. He got killed and DMX went nuts
• 1:27:35
  and we all came together to try to come up with a song for his
• 1:27:38
  passing. And that's that's what the
• 1:27:40
  Ayokado song was about from that point on.
• 1:27:43
  But you know, after that, DMX lost it and we lost contact with
• 1:27:49
  each other. I think he just went sideways
• 1:27:51
  and you know, from that and from him going in that direction, I
• 1:27:56
  couldn't reach him. And then and when I heard the
• 1:27:59
  news that he had passed, it was too late by the end.
• 1:28:03
  I know a lot of. People that I work.
• 1:28:05
  With during my career as a producer, I can't reach none of
• 1:28:09
  these people no more because you know, they have the insurance
• 1:28:12
  and outs. Some people I can still get a
• 1:28:13
  hold to, you know, if I if I work a little bit harder to get
• 1:28:17
  to them, you know, But you know, that was during the the rap
• 1:28:21
  days, you know, pretty much most of those people that I work for
• 1:28:24
  and did records where they're not even doing rap anymore.
• 1:28:29
  Not at all. Yeah.
• 1:28:31
  Wow. So one of the things.
• 1:28:35
  One of the things I wanted to ask you like, like you've
• 1:28:37
  dropped, you've dropped some amazing names in the music
• 1:28:40
  industry, right? Like just, you know, I'd have to
• 1:28:41
  tell you that what's the one artist you've ever worked with
• 1:28:45
  or met that you just were kind of like?
• 1:28:49
  I would, I would have loved to work.
• 1:28:51
  With and I was getting close. That's another one with Michael
• 1:28:54
  Jackson. Yeah, that would have been that
• 1:28:56
  would have been cool. Everybody has a Prince story.
• 1:29:00
  I do have a Prince story. Right on.
• 1:29:01
  Let's hear the Prince story, man.
• 1:29:03
  Because. Because Prince.
• 1:29:04
  Just so you understand. It's OK, So Mike and I are Mike
• 1:29:07
  and I, and as far as Prince is concerned as a musician, he's
• 1:29:10
  one of the most prolific musicians that I, I just the
• 1:29:13
  dude just I would love to be in his brain for an hour because
• 1:29:18
  because to me, the songs that like that, he like little red
• 1:29:22
  Corvette, right? Like you, you.
• 1:29:25
  How much of that did he hear in his head right before he
• 1:29:28
  actually put it down? And the fact that he could take
• 1:29:29
  what he has in his head and put that down and produce it to
• 1:29:33
  every, it's just, I wish I could do that and I can't.
• 1:29:36
  I don't have that innate ability that, that someone like him had.
• 1:29:40
  I need people like Mike to help put my, when we were writing our
• 1:29:43
  music and stuff to put my, my vision of what I hear down.
• 1:29:48
  But I think somebody like Prince and the Michael Jackson's and
• 1:29:50
  even Kid Rock, because they, they're, and probably you too,
• 1:29:53
  because you can play everything. So you can probably hear
• 1:29:55
  everything and in your head kind of like Mozart, right?
• 1:29:57
  Like a composure, you're hearing all these different elements and
• 1:30:01
  you know where they can go and you just know how to put them
• 1:30:03
  down into the system and make it come out like so, so.
• 1:30:08
  So. So.
• 1:30:09
  Yes, bring us your Prince story, please.
• 1:30:11
  Well. On the highlight of my career, I
• 1:30:15
  was doing, I was doing production and my lawyers
• 1:30:20
  reached out to me and they asked me, you know, would you like to
• 1:30:23
  work for Prince? Prince is looking for somebody
• 1:30:28
  to program for him at at Paisley Park.
• 1:30:31
  Nice. Really.
• 1:30:32
  You know the. Opportunity like.
• 1:30:34
  Really. And they came to me and they
• 1:30:36
  asked me. So I was like, I was, I was
• 1:30:39
  like, devastated, right? So, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:42
  Yeah, I. Said So what's the?
• 1:30:44
  What's the? What you know, tell me the
• 1:30:46
  details about the job and everything.
• 1:30:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when they.
• 1:30:49
  Brought it to. Me, he had already heard who I
• 1:30:52
  was and there was a conflict in the early part of a song that I
• 1:30:57
  had did using a sample from another producer that we did
• 1:31:01
  together that, you know, it got blown over and we, you know, he,
• 1:31:07
  he didn't want to he didn't bother me about it no more.
• 1:31:10
  But what I did learn about it was that he had heard my
• 1:31:15
  production and, you know, he he's considering me working for
• 1:31:20
  him. And I, I thought about it for
• 1:31:24
  like 2 days. Well, yeah.
• 1:31:25
  And like you just. Said you know.
• 1:31:27
  I looked up to Prince. How could you not?
• 1:31:30
  I mean. As a musician, how could you
• 1:31:32
  matter, right? His recording stopped against.
• 1:31:37
  Had her my life behind. Him to a point where.
• 1:31:39
  OK, OK. You know.
• 1:31:41
  I was so. Highly influenced by this man.
• 1:31:43
  It didn't even you know the thought of me working for him
• 1:31:47
  was just no brainer. But the second.
• 1:31:53
  I think it was the. Third day they called me back
• 1:31:55
  saying I was like, are you going to do it?
• 1:32:00
  And I was like, I thought about it and thought about it.
• 1:32:03
  I said no because I know if I do it I'm not going to have.
• 1:32:07
  The same respect for. Him because I grew up respecting
• 1:32:10
  him, I. Guess you know what I'm saying,
• 1:32:14
  because once you start working. For somebody that you that you.
• 1:32:17
  It were. Highly influenced.
• 1:32:18
  You see flaws, you see things, you hear things and you go, oh
• 1:32:22
  man, I didn't know it was like this.
• 1:32:24
  And then it changes your perspective of that artist that
• 1:32:28
  you grew up listening to. So I was like, I think I, I.
• 1:32:32
  I'm cool with the. Way that it is right now.
• 1:32:36
  So I like that. I like that.
• 1:32:38
  Response. Yeah, that's good.
• 1:32:40
  And and I and I. Respected them for asking me and
• 1:32:43
  I and even him considering me working for him but I think
• 1:32:47
  because I I couldn't do. It I think.
• 1:32:52
  That might be the most. Impressive response to being
• 1:32:55
  comfortable in your own skin as an artist that I've ever heard,
• 1:32:59
  yeah. But I but I but I and.
• 1:33:02
  I get that response because, again, you have somebody on such
• 1:33:05
  a a high level because he's Prince.
• 1:33:07
  Yeah. And then and then you you could
• 1:33:09
  theoretically see the dark side and not like what you see.
• 1:33:13
  And then all of a sudden that that that person you hold in
• 1:33:16
  such high esteem, it completely changes.
• 1:33:19
  You know, it's. Yeah.
• 1:33:20
  And that's what I was afraid. Of yeah, I thought about it for
• 1:33:24
  two days. I mean, they had been calling me
• 1:33:26
  every day and on the on the third day I was like, I had to
• 1:33:29
  turn it down. It's like, man, are you and and
• 1:33:32
  weirdest thing was you're crazy. Why would you turn?
• 1:33:35
  What? Well, no matter what he was.
• 1:33:38
  Offering because what? He was offering to pay me was
• 1:33:40
  ridiculous, but you know, of course it was Prince Money man,
• 1:33:43
  it was. Prince, it was just the fact.
• 1:33:45
  That it was Prince. But see.
• 1:33:48
  But see that goes back. To that Nietzsche.
• 1:33:50
  Quote Careful how long you gaze into the abyss, because the
• 1:33:53
  abyss also gazes into you, right?
• 1:33:57
  That's exactly what Chris just said.
• 1:33:59
  You know, you pull the curtain back, you never know what you're
• 1:34:01
  going to see. And I was afraid of.
• 1:34:04
  That and I thought about it and I and so I shared this
• 1:34:07
  information with you the same thing I told him and he thought
• 1:34:11
  I was crazy. He literally thought that man,
• 1:34:14
  that's Prince. How could you turn down Prince?
• 1:34:16
  And I was like, you know, I have too much respect for him to work
• 1:34:20
  for him, right? Because how could you?
• 1:34:22
  How could you? Comfortably give him your
• 1:34:24
  opinion like he's Prince, OK man.
• 1:34:26
  You know that part in purple ranges?
• 1:34:28
  I don't. Like that, I think you need to
• 1:34:29
  go this way. I wish I could.
• 1:34:32
  Give the guy credit. But I remember 1 of Stevie Ray
• 1:34:35
  Vaughn's producers and one of the documentaries I wrote, he
• 1:34:39
  said Stevie would play between 60 and 62 solos on average for
• 1:34:43
  every piece of music that he wrote.
• 1:34:45
  And then he would ask him to pick one and he's like, all 62
• 1:34:50
  were fucking brilliant. So how do you pick exactly?
• 1:34:53
  He's like. There.
• 1:34:54
  Wasn't one. Flaw in any of them.
• 1:34:57
  They were just different, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:59
  He's like, that's how good Stevie Ray Vaughan was.
• 1:35:02
  I've never been able to say that about anybody else.
• 1:35:05
  He's like all 62 of them were brilliant, that is.
• 1:35:09
  Crazy. So you know.
• 1:35:12
  Like I said. Those.
• 1:35:14
  Those times I've met lots of people in my career and, you
• 1:35:18
  know, I've been blessed to be able to work and and have all of
• 1:35:23
  this stuff happening at the same time.
• 1:35:25
  But my biggest accomplishment to me is actually doing my own
• 1:35:30
  music now. I feel so much better about
• 1:35:32
  that, Yeah. And then and right, rightfully
• 1:35:34
  so, because you've been doing it for so long.
• 1:35:36
  It's it's about time you you got your, your turn.
• 1:35:39
  Like we had a guy on that's that's a boxer, right?
• 1:35:41
  He's been boxing for 16 plus years.
• 1:35:43
  He just finally got to the pros. Like it it literally since he
• 1:35:47
  was 19 years old, 15 years old. He started boxing amateur when
• 1:35:51
  he was when he was 19. But that was, I forget what he
• 1:35:53
  called it, but it was basically the what he called that the Pee
• 1:35:56
  Wee League. He did that.
• 1:35:59
  Yeah, he. Did that for a.
• 1:35:59
  Certain amount of time. Then he was an amateur, I think
• 1:36:01
  for 10 years. The Open Pro or the Open
• 1:36:04
  Amateur? League, right?
• 1:36:05
  Open Amateur league. Well, you.
• 1:36:06
  You. Know so it's it's amazing that
• 1:36:09
  16 plus years just to get to become a pro and he's he's just
• 1:36:12
  he's going to have his third professional fight next week
• 1:36:15
  musicians are very. Much the same way, right?
• 1:36:18
  And he's 36 years old. It's.
• 1:36:19
  Like, and so that was fascinating to me because the,
• 1:36:21
  the time that you put in musicians put in and and it's
• 1:36:28
  not just wake up one day. I mean ran it when we're in the
• 1:36:31
  zone and the muses there, right? I could write a song.
• 1:36:33
  I could write 5 songs right now if I was in that zone and I
• 1:36:36
  could could write music for my boom.
• 1:36:37
  All of a sudden you have 5 songs.
• 1:36:39
  Yeah. But people don't understand
• 1:36:42
  that. How much of that is, how much of
• 1:36:44
  that is a craft? And you have to hold that.
• 1:36:47
  It's definitely a craft, you know?
• 1:36:49
  It takes time to really, really put songs together, especially
• 1:36:53
  songs that's meaningful that people can get out of.
• 1:36:56
  Well, I thinking about it, I think Chris I.
• 1:37:00
  Think Chris just said it best. The mood has to be right.
• 1:37:02
  The time has to be right. I apologize for interrupting
• 1:37:05
  you, but people don't. No, no, no, you're absolutely
• 1:37:07
  right. Everything has its timing, and
• 1:37:11
  what I learned is I don't put a lot of emphasis and oh, I got to
• 1:37:16
  find the right song. I just write.
• 1:37:19
  I write what I feel I. Do.
• 1:37:20
  What I do and I just keep it going and I don't even think
• 1:37:23
  twice about it. I'll come back and listen to it
• 1:37:25
  and go, that sounds good or no, just saying a word.
• 1:37:29
  And I usually pass it off to some of my friends that are not
• 1:37:32
  in the music business, you know, some girls I know or whatever,
• 1:37:36
  and say, listen to this, tell me what you think of it.
• 1:37:38
  And they'll tell me the truth. And we go from there and, and
• 1:37:41
  then I'll take a chance on it. And, you know, but I don't, I
• 1:37:44
  don't, you know, you know, I have this pen and you know, this
• 1:37:48
  word and this and that. I just write what I feel.
• 1:37:51
  I go in and I sing it. That's it.
• 1:37:54
  I don't put any thought into it. I just go for it.
• 1:37:58
  No, it's. Like it's one of the coolest.
• 1:37:59
  Stories I've ever heard about music and bands.
• 1:38:01
  Bon Jovi when they were writing New Jersey, right?
• 1:38:03
  Their, their breakthrough, right?
• 1:38:05
  They would, they would lay down, they would lay down songs in the
• 1:38:08
  studio and then go to the local the the pizza, just a pizza
• 1:38:11
  joint near the studio and they would play it, they would play
• 1:38:13
  it at the pizza joint on the jukebox and watch the kids
• 1:38:16
  reaction. And then based on that reaction,
• 1:38:19
  they knew if that song should make the album or not.
• 1:38:21
  And they would go And they just, that's a great tactic, right?
• 1:38:24
  And. They just kept doing right.
• 1:38:25
  They just kept doing that till they had 12 songs on that
• 1:38:27
  record. They knew we're going to relate
• 1:38:30
  because everybody in that pizza shop was, you know, jive into
• 1:38:33
  those songs. What time of the day?
• 1:38:35
  You. Just you.
• 1:38:36
  Just you. Just reminded me of something
• 1:38:38
  when I was doing rap, when I was a rap producer majority and I
• 1:38:43
  used to teach everybody this when I would be doing an artist.
• 1:38:45
  If I'm working with an artist, I said OK, look, we'll take a
• 1:38:49
  break, we'll do the beat. They finished the song.
• 1:38:52
  We're not mixing it. We just did a rough mix of it.
• 1:38:55
  Yeah, we'll go to the nearest club, play the DJ, play the
• 1:38:59
  song, he'll play it in. The club and.
• 1:39:02
  Get a response to it and then we'll go back into the studio.
• 1:39:06
  Hey, that bass was too low. We need to bring that back up.
• 1:39:10
  Nice. The people like that little
• 1:39:12
  break. Let's make the the break longer
• 1:39:14
  and we'll we'll do these kind of things to to make the song
• 1:39:17
  better, go back into the studio and fix it.
• 1:39:19
  This is all in one night of us producing the song.
• 1:39:22
  That's cool, that's cool, and that's to.
• 1:39:23
  Do that back in the day. Yep.
• 1:39:25
  Yeah. And see to.
• 1:39:25
  Me, that's what a producer. Should do it should take your
• 1:39:28
  product and elevate it, not, not just sit there and OK, you're
• 1:39:31
  going to do this and let me change the volume and the sets
• 1:39:33
  and this is this. They should take that product.
• 1:39:35
  And and that's what I knew when, when we did the whole thing with
• 1:39:38
  with Universal Records, that he wasn't a producer.
• 1:39:41
  He was a producer. He was an engineer.
• 1:39:45
  Basically, yeah, that's what. His role was and because I
• 1:39:48
  because I kept kind of saying like, well, what should we do
• 1:39:50
  here? Well, it's your song.
• 1:39:51
  I know what. Produce it, man, Produce me.
• 1:39:53
  That is true, I think. That and.
• 1:39:55
  Lemoyne, you can back me up. I think that we owe the audience
• 1:39:58
  a definition of a producer, and the easiest layman's terms for
• 1:40:04
  me is if you've ever heard a band play a song before it was
• 1:40:09
  actually recorded and the producer got a hold of it.
• 1:40:13
  That's a great example of why that guy is there.
• 1:40:15
  Right? Exactly.
• 1:40:17
  That is so true. You hit it right on the nail.
• 1:40:19
  The song sounds one way before. You hear it and then you hear
• 1:40:23
  all the I just got asked this question by a guy that I work
• 1:40:26
  with the other day. He says, how do you know where
• 1:40:29
  to put certain things in a song? I said sometimes, you know, as
• 1:40:33
  the songwriter and I. Got those questions.
• 1:40:36
  Too I'm. Like how do you know?
• 1:40:38
  Even with my own. Songs I'm like I it just it's in
• 1:40:42
  the universe. You just yeah.
• 1:40:43
  But then there's. But then there's.
• 1:40:45
  Times where I might write something and you hear it and
• 1:40:48
  you're like, hey man, have you ever thought about this section
• 1:40:50
  here? Have you ever thought about
• 1:40:51
  doing this? And I'm like, no, I'd never.
• 1:40:53
  That thought would have never crossed my mind.
• 1:40:56
  Yes, I got lots of those too. That's.
• 1:40:58
  What a producer does a. Producer takes a piece of music
• 1:41:01
  and hears things that the artist didn't hear when they were
• 1:41:04
  writing the song correctly. Is that a good layman?
• 1:41:07
  Layman's terms? Definition.
• 1:41:09
  Great definition, OK. Fantastic.
• 1:41:11
  That's it's so true. We keep talking like we have.
• 1:41:14
  Our own language. And I just realized we're saying
• 1:41:16
  things that people probably like, you know, what's a
• 1:41:18
  producer? What's an engineer?
• 1:41:20
  An engineer is what Chris described.
• 1:41:22
  He's the guy that actually puts the equipment where it needs to
• 1:41:26
  be to make the sound, Yes. That is so true.
• 1:41:31
  And it sucks when you. Have a guy who.
• 1:41:32
  Says he's a producer and all he's doing is dialing in a
• 1:41:35
  sound. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:39
  Yeah, the one, but the one I don't like.
• 1:41:40
  Those kind of producers I. Mean to me, producers are the
• 1:41:45
  essential part of any song, right?
• 1:41:48
  And that's what you expect. They, they may not be able to,
• 1:41:54
  all of them may not play instruments, but they have some
• 1:41:57
  kind of knowledge from the instrument by mixing and
• 1:42:01
  producing it true enough that they can hear whether it goes
• 1:42:05
  there or not. Yes, correct.
• 1:42:07
  Even the vocals, even the smallest thing like a triangle
• 1:42:11
  bill or Congo or something like, no, don't put that there.
• 1:42:14
  Put it right here. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:42:16
  You know, it's like, yeah, it's like the cowbell man.
• 1:42:19
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:42:22
  So when I when I say. Producer, that's what you need.
• 1:42:26
  A real producer knows music and not Today's producers are like,
• 1:42:33
  you know, Fruity Loops and and because they can do a song.
• 1:42:37
  On on a. Laptop, they call themselves a
• 1:42:40
  producer. That's not a producer.
• 1:42:41
  You put a budget in his hand, he wouldn't know what to do.
• 1:42:44
  Correct? Agreed.
• 1:42:45
  Agreed. Yeah.
• 1:42:46
  Yeah, huh. You know and and.
• 1:42:48
  That's not me. You know, I could take a whole
• 1:42:51
  full, I could take a, a, a, a $40,000 song.
• 1:42:56
  And when I'm done with it, right it I can cut that cost down to
• 1:43:00
  half or even less than that time wise because I don't really need
• 1:43:06
  the artist. Once the artist does his job,
• 1:43:09
  the rest is on me. The artist can go home and go to
• 1:43:12
  club or whatever. And then I take it from there.
• 1:43:15
  And I don't spend a lot of time like, you know, the older
• 1:43:18
  producers, they'd be in the studio for days and days.
• 1:43:21
  And the record companies budgets is like damn near 100 grand.
• 1:43:27
  I think it's stupid to waste all that time sitting in the studio
• 1:43:31
  pushing one button at a time when you can knock all that out
• 1:43:34
  in 2448 hours and you got a whole project done.
• 1:43:37
  OK, let me ask you this with that.
• 1:43:39
  Said you're familiar. With Metallica's black.
• 1:43:42
  Album, right? Yes.
• 1:43:45
  What would you agree that that is sonically not one of the best
• 1:43:49
  sounding albums? And heavy metal I would agree.
• 1:43:54
  I would definitely agree. I think that that the Black
• 1:43:57
  Album was really underplayed and they didn't really do it,
• 1:44:02
  wouldn't dive into it. They didn't.
• 1:44:04
  Dive into it. They played Inner Sandman for
• 1:44:05
  the most part and it's all you ever hear from Black on a
• 1:44:08
  commercial level. Is that one song.
• 1:44:10
  So you know that that album took.
• 1:44:11
  Over a year to make and it cost over $1,000,000, right?
• 1:44:15
  That's what I heard, yeah. Could you?
• 1:44:16
  Have do you think? That you could have done that
• 1:44:19
  album cheaper at that time? Because I think yes, really.
• 1:44:23
  100%. OK, 100.
• 1:44:25
  Percent. I'm gonna be out.
• 1:44:28
  I'm gonna be. Honest with you?
• 1:44:29
  Yeah, I would have got that album done honestly in two
• 1:44:32
  months for for maybe 50. $60,000.
• 1:44:41
  So here's where I think Bob Rock.
• 1:44:43
  Would disagree with you. He would say that you could have
• 1:44:46
  never got those guys under control for that short of time
• 1:44:49
  to be that. That's the only problem,
• 1:44:51
  remember. What I said earlier, right,
• 1:44:52
  right. You the.
• 1:44:55
  Work is with the producer. Bob Rock is the producer.
• 1:44:58
  So as long as they do their job and you get in there, get them
• 1:45:01
  in, get them the hell out of there because you'll never get
• 1:45:04
  no work done while they're there.
• 1:45:06
  So my job was to make sure, hey, you got your shit done, OK, you
• 1:45:10
  can leave, go have a drink, go to the club or something and let
• 1:45:13
  me do what I do. Here's the reason I asked that.
• 1:45:16
  Question and you can you know, I think you would enjoy it.
• 1:45:20
  I ran across 2 hours and 14 minutes of outtakes from a year
• 1:45:25
  and a half in the life of Metallica, right?
• 1:45:28
  We've all seen a year and a half in the life of Metallica.
• 1:45:30
  If you're into Hard Rock music or heavy metal, it's it's one of
• 1:45:34
  the most famous documentaries in the history of the world.
• 1:45:36
  At this point, I just. Saw two hours and. 14 minutes
• 1:45:40
  that we've never seen last night.
• 1:45:43
  Oh, I'd like to see, yeah. Where'd?
• 1:45:45
  You get that? I will.
• 1:45:46
  I will do my best to. Find it again and I'll send you
• 1:45:48
  guys a link. Cool.
• 1:45:49
  Because I'm sure, I'm sure it's in my past history.
• 1:45:53
  What I got out of that Lemoyne was how integral Lars is to the
• 1:45:58
  songwriting process. And he is outvoted like 3 or 4
• 1:46:03
  or 5 to 1 and ends up. Getting his way because.
• 1:46:07
  He keeps explaining it in a different way, but I think
• 1:46:11
  that's where a lot of the time constraints came from that took
• 1:46:14
  so long is because they were changing things even after they
• 1:46:18
  started recording, which, you know, is not ideal.
• 1:46:22
  But I was fascinated with what he would hear in his head and
• 1:46:25
  say, you guys are missing what I'm saying, man, he's doing this
• 1:46:28
  shit too much. I want him to lay back on the
• 1:46:30
  backbeat. You know, I want him to follow
• 1:46:32
  the hi hat or the Toms or, you know, his ability to hear things
• 1:46:37
  like you're saying that the artist normally wouldn't hear
• 1:46:41
  just fascinated me. They would not be.
• 1:46:45
  That. Band without.
• 1:46:46
  That guy, people need to understand that they hate him.
• 1:46:48
  You know you. Know with my experience.
• 1:46:52
  As a producer, you know. I.
• 1:46:56
  I learned a lot about how I produce by working with with
• 1:47:00
  multiple artists and of different genres.
• 1:47:04
  But the challenge has always been because I'm a producer and
• 1:47:08
  I'm producing myself, right? And you're.
• 1:47:11
  Harder on yourself. I have to double question.
• 1:47:14
  Myself, like, absolutely. And so.
• 1:47:18
  I, I usually have to bring somebody in.
• 1:47:20
  Mostly my manager is like that. You know, he's that second guy
• 1:47:24
  that would give me what I'm looking for, the truth behind
• 1:47:29
  what, what, what I'm doing. No, no, no, don't do that.
• 1:47:32
  That's not a good idea. And I have to follow it because
• 1:47:35
  I'm merely producing myself as opposed to if I was producing
• 1:47:40
  another artist, I wouldn't need his compliment or anything
• 1:47:43
  because I know exactly what that artist need.
• 1:47:45
  And I know what's what's going on, what to do with that artist.
• 1:47:49
  But when I'm doing me, it's it's I'm very critical and I can't
• 1:47:54
  get all. I know what I want, I know what
• 1:47:56
  I hear and I know what what I'm trying to do.
• 1:48:00
  But am I sure about it? It's hard to get away from it
• 1:48:03
  when. You're the one on the inside.
• 1:48:05
  Yeah. Because, you know, I don't want
• 1:48:06
  to be like, well. This is, you know, I'm, I'm
• 1:48:08
  listening to my own music and, and it sounds good to me.
• 1:48:11
  I don't care about everybody else.
• 1:48:13
  But that's, you know, because that's not how I am.
• 1:48:15
  I want everybody to love it besides me, right?
• 1:48:19
  Agreed. So you know, I have.
• 1:48:22
  I have. Problems with that?
• 1:48:24
  You know, I still have problems with that till this day.
• 1:48:27
  So, you know, 9 times out of 10, I'll do a song, send it to my
• 1:48:31
  manager what you think it is, you know, hey, change, change
• 1:48:34
  that one word and you good or change that baseline or and
• 1:48:39
  that's where. You.
• 1:48:40
  That's where the trust comes into people that you surround
• 1:48:42
  yourself with when you're creating what you're creating,
• 1:48:44
  regardless of what it is. You have to be able to rely on
• 1:48:46
  them for their honest opinion, not just being yes or no, you
• 1:48:50
  know? Yeah, when I went to these.
• 1:48:52
  Guys, I was honestly looking for their opinion, where if it was
• 1:48:56
  somebody from the outside looking in, you're always a
• 1:48:59
  little more guarded, right? Like now that I know you, if I
• 1:49:02
  sent you a piece of music and you said, hey, man, have you
• 1:49:05
  ever thought about this or that, I would be all ears, right?
• 1:49:08
  Yeah, let's try it. If Chris says, hey, you know,
• 1:49:11
  let's make this verse a little bit longer.
• 1:49:13
  I need a little more time to get what I want out.
• 1:49:16
  I'm all ears, man. I I'm here to serve the song,
• 1:49:19
  right? I'm not serving myself as a
• 1:49:21
  player. It's all about the song.
• 1:49:23
  Thank you. Take, take all options and take
• 1:49:26
  opportunities from other people. Whoever is giving you advice on,
• 1:49:32
  on anything, take it because you never know what you're going to
• 1:49:35
  come across, right? I'll tell you the funniest
• 1:49:37
  story. About jamming with my drummer
• 1:49:39
  for the first or second time is I love drums, man.
• 1:49:42
  I wanted to be a drummer. My wanting to do so far
• 1:49:45
  outweighed my ability to do so right.
• 1:49:48
  So we're jamming, writing songs, and I'm like I'd.
• 1:49:54
  Hit him harder. You.
• 1:49:55
  Know just, I want to hear him, you know, I want more, you know,
• 1:49:58
  he started laughing. He's like, man, I jammed with a
• 1:50:01
  lot of people. And he says, I always heard the
• 1:50:03
  opposite. You're playing too fast, you're
• 1:50:05
  playing or you're playing too hard.
• 1:50:07
  You're playing too much. And here you are telling me to
• 1:50:10
  play louder and more like, well, I love drums, man.
• 1:50:14
  You know, I want to hear that rhythm.
• 1:50:16
  That's what makes people move. That is true.
• 1:50:19
  Guitar's fun for you and I to sit around.
• 1:50:21
  And play by ourselves because we love guitar, but people only
• 1:50:25
  want to hear so much of that by itself before we want to hear
• 1:50:28
  that beat. Man, that backbeat.
• 1:50:29
  Is the one yes, yeah, Chris said it best earlier when you.
• 1:50:32
  Throw the bass in there, the whole song changes.
• 1:50:35
  It does, yes. It does everything.
• 1:50:37
  That's why I buy a. Prince.
• 1:50:39
  You know when he did, when Doves cried, tried everything.
• 1:50:42
  He could. To put a bass line in that song
• 1:50:45
  and it just didn't fit. Yep.
• 1:50:47
  So he relied heavily on the drums.
• 1:50:54
  You know, without that, that song wouldn't have.
• 1:50:55
  Been nothing. The beat is what carried when
• 1:50:57
  everybody knows that beat. Yep, Yep, Yep.
• 1:51:04
  We could go on. For everybody.
• 1:51:04
  I don't think we should. We're like Chris Joy.
• 1:51:07
  Talking music with you guys I. Know we're like too forward to
• 1:51:10
  meeting. You, yeah.
• 1:51:11
  Working with you guys. Yeah, that would be fun.
• 1:51:13
  Man, that would. Be fun, I know you know and now
• 1:51:16
  is your home relationship going? Absolutely is.
• 1:51:18
  Your home is your home. Based Chicago.
• 1:51:21
  Yeah, right now. OK, OK.
• 1:51:22
  You know. Record company had.
• 1:51:23
  Me come here so. I could do DC interviews and,
• 1:51:26
  you know, work on promos and try to finish up my album.
• 1:51:29
  Which I just. Wrapped up in 2 days ago if
• 1:51:31
  you're going to be here through the summer.
• 1:51:33
  Man, we'll have to figure out a way to meet like in Joliet or
• 1:51:36
  something. They're opening up a new casino
• 1:51:38
  there in August, hey. Man, we could meet.
• 1:51:42
  There for dinner or. Something if you got a way to
• 1:51:44
  get down there and meet for, yeah, I could do that, in fact.
• 1:51:47
  Let's see if we can get some live performances up in there.
• 1:51:52
  Let's write some. Songs first I'm.
• 1:51:55
  Down for that man I'd love. To do that, I'll come jam with
• 1:51:58
  you. Right on.
• 1:51:59
  Cool, let's do. It cool I.
• 1:52:01
  Sent you my. I sent you my.
• 1:52:02
  Cell when you when you disappeared, I, I emailed you
• 1:52:04
  and said where did you go? So my cell number's in there.
• 1:52:06
  So if you respond back to that with yours, I'll share I'll
• 1:52:08
  share it with Mike and then we'll all group text and say
• 1:52:10
  hello and and then just keep in touch and you know like I said
• 1:52:13
  when you when you're getting ready to come to Arizona, man
• 1:52:15
  reach out. You know, I sure will.
• 1:52:16
  Definitely. Who's in Arizona?
• 1:52:18
  You. I mean, I'm Chris is in Arizona.
• 1:52:20
  Mike's in Illinois. I'm in Illinois.
• 1:52:23
  OK, Chris, I'll. Be in in.
• 1:52:24
  Arizona in about less than a week and I'll just reach out to
• 1:52:28
  you and let you know when I'm there.
• 1:52:29
  Absolutely. And we'll see if.
• 1:52:30
  You and when I get back, Mike, you and I will get.
• 1:52:33
  Together whenever. Because I'm here all the time.
• 1:52:35
  Yeah, we'll plan a day for sure, man.
• 1:52:37
  There you go, I want to say. Yes, first I want to say thank
• 1:52:41
  you Laura for this, this interview.
• 1:52:43
  Absolutely. See Laura.
• 1:52:44
  The bomb. Laura is really the bomb.
• 1:52:47
  I want to thank Charles Swift, my record company, Wicked
• 1:52:50
  Entertainment. But more importantly, I want to
• 1:52:53
  thank all my fans because, you know, without, without my fans,
• 1:52:57
  none of this would be possible. And I, and I love the fact that
• 1:53:00
  they love my music. And I'm going to keep doing
• 1:53:02
  music as long as I can. And, and #1I thank God for, for,
• 1:53:08
  for all of this happening. There you go.
• 1:53:10
  What's the best place? People can find you online.
• 1:53:13
  You can find me online at. We Lemoine, alexander.com,
• 1:53:19
  Google search, Lemoy and Alexander.
• 1:53:21
  You can go to Spotify, Apple and everywhere in the world.
• 1:53:27
  All you have to do is just type in the name.
• 1:53:29
  LEMOYNE Alexander. There you go.
• 1:53:33
  Hey, we always. Wrap our show up like this.
• 1:53:35
  If you're having a bad day, don't let the bad days win.
• 1:53:37
  Somebody Loves You. Somebody will miss you if you
• 1:53:38
  take your life. So don't do that.
• 1:53:40
  If you need somebody to talk to, you can go to the Google
• 1:53:42
  machine, find somebody that then they could listen to your and
• 1:53:45
  help talk you off that Cliff or reach out to family and friends
• 1:53:48
  because you never know. They actually do want to hear
• 1:53:49
  from you and they will help you overcome whatever trauma you're
• 1:53:53
  dealing with. That moment in time for Chris
• 1:53:54
  and Mike. This is the Chris and Mike show
• 1:53:56
  for the world's world, famously Moon Alexander.
• 1:53:59
  Dude, such a treat having you on the show, man.
• 1:54:01
  Thanks for doing this man Damn. Nice meeting you.
• 1:54:05
  Yeah, and and we don't look. At this as an interview, we look
• 1:54:07
  at it as a conversation because that's just how we roll, man.
• 1:54:10
  So anytime you want to come back on and have a conversation with
• 1:54:12
  us, let us know. We're happy to do it.
• 1:54:14
  Yeah, after your albums been out for a little.
• 1:54:15
  Bit give it a couple months and reach out to Chris again, let us
• 1:54:18
  know how the albums doing, what kind of reaction you got, what
• 1:54:21
  you're up to. Okay, yeah, I sure will.
• 1:54:23
  I will reach out. To you guys as soon.
• 1:54:25
  As the album is once again, yeah, Once it's done and looks
• 1:54:29
  like this, we'll reach out to you guys.
• 1:54:31
  Yeah, because I want to buy one. Yeah, I.
• 1:54:33
  Want one too? Absolutely.
• 1:54:34
  You got it no problem. Guys, hey, have a great man
• 1:54:37
  have. A have a great man, have a great
• 1:54:38
  day. Anything you need, just reach
• 1:54:40
  out and then like I said, respond to that e-mail and we'll
• 1:54:42
  exchange all our digits and and we'll start in touch and and
• 1:54:45
  make the world a better place to live in.
• 1:54:47
  You got it. Thank you guys.
• 1:54:48
  Thank you, have a good weekend. Peace, you too.
• 1:54:51
  Love you. Love you love.
• 1:54:52
  You, Mike. Love you too brother too.
• 1:54:54
  Bye man. We're clear, we don't want to
• 1:54:59
  fly in this up to you. Look the temple.
• 1:55:07
  You're insane. Feel the tears.
• 1:55:09
  Open your eyes on your journey. This is the place where you will
• 1:55:18
  go. Feel the trail behind your eyes.
• 1:55:23
  Feel the soul and meet you. Take a moment.
• 1:55:30
  Look until you see him. Fight the battle.
• 1:55:34
  That's you for the Squeers. Fight the battle, but you for
• 1:55:39
  queer who is your baby to your fear.
• 1:56:49
  The. Come down here.
• 1:57:03
  We haven't found Sally and see the sand.
• 1:57:07
  You can fight him. Wait for the dead.
• 1:57:13
  When? He's closer.
• 1:57:14
  I've been hit by. The wind, you ain't no creature.
• 1:57:19
  We're playing smiles and you should you quit on the almighty
• 1:57:24
  days. How to dream?
• 1:57:28
  Who in your life to keep our soul in every man.
• 1:57:35
  Take the turn behind your eyes. Feel the soul evolution now.
• 1:57:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:57:56
  Take your moment.