Latest / Caught on the Mike... / David Fairbanks- Pomeroy, Lost Wax, & Lopan Banks

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David Fairbanks- Pomeroy, Lost Wax, & Lopan Banks · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you lived anywhere in the Midwest during the earliest parts of the new millennium, I can guarantee one song at a show cold on you, and that song being Roboflow by the Anton City-based band Pomeroy.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are many myths, legends, and truths that surround that band, and I have the distinct privilege of having David Fairbanks of Pomeroy on the show today.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about his journey and his newest project, Low Fan Base, is about to release its debut album in late July.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Pretty Good Rapper, but I tell you it's a pretty great album.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to have Dave on the show today.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it, that 1999 was 25 years ago.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: It almost makes me sick to my stomach.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: 1999, late 1999, was the time that I moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where from where I was living.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was living in a place that was kind of the midpoint between Des Moines and Omaha.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I got involved with the local music scene in Omaha.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I quickly found who some of my favorite bands, some of my favorite bands from Omaha and the surrounding areas were.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked about it on past podcasts about what the music scene was like in Omaha, Nebraska in the early part of the millennium.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a line that I have actually quoted on this podcast before, and that line is a critic is a critic, a critic for a reason.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I still quote it to this day, and I am very proud to welcome my friend David Fairbanks from the band Pomeroy Lost Wax and his new project, Lopan Banks.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a mixtape coming out called Pretty Good Rapper on Friday, July 26th in Kansas City at the Truman.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Dave, how the heck are you, man?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's up, man?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was a fantastic intro there.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I seriously do drop it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I seriously do drop that line.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think people tend to live in the comment section in the social media world that we live in now.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And who would have known back then?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's kind of a good start-off question.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever imagine that you were writing such prolific things back in 1999, 2000, 2001?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, absolutely not.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that first album, and by the way, before I get into that, I have to I have to set the record straight.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's I love that line too.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can't take credit for it.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's not mine.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's Matt.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's uh, you know, I give him, I give him credit where where credit is due, but I do love that line.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it is true, a critic is a critic is a critic for a reason.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh, you know, you can kind of fill in the blanks after that.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: But when when we were doing that first album, you know, we Matt and I started writing music in '97 together.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when we recorded that album was two years later in '99, after we had met Chris and Dean and kind of started everything.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: But you would you would laugh so hard if you could be a fly on the wall back then when we're putting it all together, because no, there was there was not a ton of thought put into anything.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I always tried to put a lot of thought into what I was doing with my rhymes, you know, and the content and the hidden meetings and the you know, entendres, you know, double entendres and whatnot.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: But we were just young dudes uh looking to have fun and make music together.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And never in our wildest dreams did we think that, you know, by you know, 2024, 2025, and beyond, we would still have people listening to it, taking taking it to heart, um, quoting it.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're just all so lucky to have been able to do this and make that kind of an impact on anybody, let alone uh the ones who still um, you know, uh call themselves fans.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that was a really crazy time because I think about my music fandom and how it was all over the place.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It still is.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I and and I think that's kind of the earmark of any musician.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you never know what you're gonna listen to on any given day.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the 90s in particular seemed like it was just you could throw about anything together and it would make sense.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then once we crossed into the millennium, the way that marketing was done, everything got recompartmentalized by genre again, um, which is kind of weird.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of to me, that was kind of a step backward.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I say all that because I think about us in our youth and how we did express ourselves and those avenues that we had.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And not to be like repeating rabbit or anything, but there's a lot more knowledge than we give ourselves credit for in our current lives.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I go back and I listen to some of my albums that I'm like, oh man, that that sucked back in the day.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go back and listen to it now and I'm like, man, that was a really witty line.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you find yourself going back and listening to some of the old Pomeroy material and just surprising yourself?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, it's it's for so long, it's been a constant pendulum swing, you know, and depending on how long it's been or what frame of mind I'm in or whatever, I've either hated and despised everything we ever did, or I've fallen all the way back in love with it and can't understand why it didn't just massively destroy everyone's face, and we're the biggest rock stars in the world, to right around probably where reality actually sat, which is, you know, I'm very proud of the product still.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think it holds up all these years later.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think a big part of why it holds up is because you can kind of see where we were coming from.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: All of her stuff was very, I thought, thoughtful, emotionally driven.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not every lyric, not every song was, you know, quote unquote thoughtful.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that um, you know, Roboflow was about just getting up and and and um you know smashing faces and and rocking out.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um that's what we wanted to do with it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think that every musician goes through it.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: You the second you get done with something and you record, at least the way we were, is we would love it up until we we put it on wax or we put it on tape or we put it on CD.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Then the second it is permanent, we walk away from it and we're just like, oh my God, you know, we should have done this, we should have done that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I make these changes?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: The people who listen to it have no clue the internal strife that is constantly going on with uh with what you're putting together.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I guess the only difference between all of that, uh, the Pomeroy years, between what I've been doing with low pay and banks is um I haven't really felt that a lot.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Probably because there hasn't been enough time that's gone by where I'm just like, oh, I'm over it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely hate it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I purpose purposely take breaks from it.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I go back and I'm I hear it, I hear it again with fresh new ears, and I'm just like, all right, that's that's the way I felt when we first finished it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can just your ears can get dead and tired of hearing it, and you know, every single millisecond of every single note and every single breath you took, and you just you put on the you know the magnifying glass, and that that gets unhealthy, and and um, you know, you just gotta kind of let it go and uh be okay with it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's really man, that's poignant because I just watched a video today, and it was this these actors, uh, it was Ryan Reynolds interviewing Hugh Jackman, Hugh Jackman interviewing Ryan Reynolds.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ryan Reynolds was talking about his anxiety and how he has used it as a tool to fuel his creativity because he becomes his own worst critic, because he's not only viewing things in the moment of creating it, but he's viewing it from the purview of being in the audience.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that maybe some of the relaxation that you're feeling doing the low pan banks project is because you're not worried about letting anybody else other than yourself down because it is a solo endeavor.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is you've got to answer for you.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think about that very similarly in the podcasting world, making that transition from being a musician to a podcaster, like I am doing the best by my guest, and I'm gonna try and do the best by myself.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, I'm the guy that I have to answer to.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel a similar way?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, man.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is, yeah, and it's it's it's all it's all give and take.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's an exceptional amount of freedom that I have gotten and a different kind of satisfaction from writing and performing and recording music on my own or as a solo artist than I got um from Pomeroy because the anxiety in the Pomeroy, I wouldn't call it anxiety, but what and you know what it's like when you're in a band.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, if you've had any kind of success, you guys have found a way to work together.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: You've found a way to be okay with each other's faults, to celebrate each other's gifts and things like that.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what it kind of becomes, at least with us, because we were tight as you can get, and still call all these guys my best friends.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: You worry about letting them down.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you worry about carrying your own bucket of water.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And man, when you got guys like Matt Barone in your band who can play that guitar better than anybody I've ever played music with and comes up with the most brilliant ideas, there's that kind of friendly, brotherly competitiveness where it's like, God, I gotta make sure I come correct on this, you know, because uh I can't, I can't um not be as good as everybody else in this band.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So whether we actually uh recognized it or not at the time, I think there was constantly this edging towards the top that we were doing to each other.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's all healthy and that's all good, but yeah, you know, you don't want to be the guy that is the weak link.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and whether you admit it or not, I think we all kind of go through that.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh it it's kind of crazy because then um when you're actually in the writing process, and I know this was just my experience, especially with some of my later projects, when you're in the writing process, you start questioning who you're writing the song for at the end of the day, especially when you're working with more skilled guitarists or more skilled bass players, or you know, a really good rhythm section, you're like, okay, are you playing for the song or are you playing for the other musicians in the room?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are two totally different things sometimes.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that can create a little bit of competitiveness and a little bit of internal strife whenever you're trying to put something together.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: So my take on that is is right in line with Rick Rubin, which is the second that you start creating music as a product for other people, with them in mind first, you've lost the art axe aspect.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'll tell you, even in Pomeroy, there were some things that we did that I think maybe um had more of a focus on that, like instead of focusing on what it was we were trying to do and the and the idea, maybe there are a few times where we thought, oh, this would go over really well.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if there was uh necessarily everybody would agree in the band that that's what happened, but I certainly felt that way at times.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the most fulfilled I've ever been in music, I think the most fulfilled a human being can ever feel is taking what they feel in their heart and their soul and their mind or whatever, bearing it all, putting it into this art form, and granted, there's a certain amount of it where you want to try and make it as cool as possible, and you know, you don't purposefully put stuff together you know people won't like, but absolutely everything from your soul, and then people react to it and then they connect with it and then be they become fans.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've always told everybody better than any drug, better than any drink, better than anything ever, hands down, no question, is what you get when you step out on stage and there's 600 people in front of you and they're going insane.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: The exact same feeling is when you put a piece of art together, like an album or a song or whatever, and people really connect with it and they've got every single um lyric memorized, and they say that you know they still play it for their kids, and they put it in the car when they're going to work in the morning.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That for me is about um the the peak of human existence.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: It holds up too, it holds up well because I've done all of those things.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've listened to it in the car on a drive to cheer myself up, I've played it for my kids.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter is a fantastic musician herself now, and she's kind of starting to experience the band life.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's a great thing.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of jumped into the middle portion of the story, but let's take a few steps back.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Pomeroy's first demo was done in 1997.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You and Matt did it in Long Beach, California, and kind of explain the genesis of that journey of Pomeroy to Lost Wax to Low Pan Banks, and let's focus on Pomeroy for a few minutes because you know, being an Omaha Lincoln guy, there's going to be a lot of local people that are going to be listening to this, sir.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's let's take that way back machine back and let's let's talk about how Pomeroy came together and ended up in Nebraska.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first and foremost, I will tell you, although the story starts somewhere else and is presently somewhere else, it is undeniable that a huge part of how I feel about Pomeroy and how I feel about music in general, and just the years of my life that I've enjoyed the most had everything to do with Omaha.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is my adopted hometown.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: I still have family who live there.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: We only lived there for a year, but Omaha pulled us in, wrapped its arms around us, and it's just I I can't think of a better place in my head.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just the times on stage and the people we met, recording at the Ranch Bowl, all that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll get into some of that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But back to your your question.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess I'll also say I mentioned this to you earlier.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wrote a song earlier this year for Pomeroy called Feeling Like I'm in Omaha.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh I really like it, and the guys like it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's kind of a future thing that when we actually get around to doing a new album, which um hopefully will be in the next couple of years, um, yet can't say enough about uh that town, and obviously it's the people.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh we'll never forget that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to go back to the beginning, it all started um at K-State in 1994 uh when I met Mad Marone as a freshman.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um it started in a weird place in a fraternity house.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: We were both uh fraternity pledges in the same house, and uh my first meeting impression of Matt was him with an acoustic guitar sitting out on the deck playing for everybody, and um obviously fantastic uh guitar player, but you know, I'm 18 years old and I think I'm cool too.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, show off, you know, that dude, he's not that cool, whatever.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I instantly though became best friends, and then we, you know, we both had musical background.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had been doing music and performing since I was a little kid.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's obviously very talented.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we got elected as the uh song social chairman of the house, which basically our job was to come up with arrangements and songs and stuff that we would put together and go and serenade other sorority houses to get them to want to do parties with us.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think I told you, you know, uh kind of lame in hindsight, but at the time was like the dopest thing ever because like we got all this attention and all these girls were like, Who are these guys?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we put it all together.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that led to um us uh, you know, talking like, man, we should do something, you know.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, this was the mid-90s, you know, 311 had gotten big, and um we all we liked a lot of the same music, a lot of the same hip-hop, and we always kind of tossed around this idea of doing something.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the opportunity presented itself in '97 because um Matt's uh uh mom's um uh brother uh uh has a studio in Long Beach, and uh um uh he uh invited us out.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we went out and we recorded four, I think it was four songs, four or five.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the original was it was the very original summer night, the original bodies in tune, the original played, and uh maybe turn your head, I'm not sure.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: But we recorded it to tape in '97, came back to K-State and started shopping it to people.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, meaning that just means playing it for our friends at parties.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh you know, not like actually shopping it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: But then um uh we met Dean.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Dean actually came over.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had moved out of the fraternity house.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Dean came over to the house because he had some friends that were trying to pledge.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, Matt was the president, and Matt's roommate was a bass player.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So Dean had come over, saw a bass sitting around, and picked it up, and starts playing it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And Matt from the fraternity house calls me and he totally recreates the scene from Back to the Future where Chuck Berry's cousin, you know, Marvin.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Marvin, right, Marvin, right, Marvin Barry.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, Michael J.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Fox is out there ripping it, and Matt, you know, Matt puts the phone up.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, you know that sound we've been looking for?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, listen to this.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he puts it up, and D just like pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, pick it up.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, What?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Who is that?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh, dude, I'll talk to him.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: We'll set up a thing, whatever.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's so cool.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, All right, all right, cool.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we set up a time to jam with him.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Dean had already made friends with Chris Davis because he was rocking around the student union a couple weeks before and saw Chris pull in in his old like Oldsmobile or whatever and had a pearl drum sticker in the back.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody who knows Dean, Dean just walks up to him and just say, Hey, you play drums?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and Chris is like, Yeah?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, You want to jam sometime?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Yeah, and it's you know, kind of do we become just become best friends?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: kind of thing.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Dean had already met Chris.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: We got together, and the first time we ever met up, the four of us, was over at Dean's house, and we ran through some covers and some originals.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was like legit movie magic, like absolute.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: We were all like, You guys feeling this?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is this is amazing.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that right there, that initial spark, that initial, like, we all started thinking, oh my God, this could be something actually.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like this, we could we can do something with this.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: This this could be great.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And before long, you know, within a month or two, we had put a little set together.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: We started playing, you know, fraternity houses and local bars, we're playing shows in '98.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we get into '99.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: We start getting asked to go out of town.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Matt and I skip our college graduation at K-State to go play our first theater show in uh Denver.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, open it up for a metal, uh, like a metal core rap rap rock band called Blister 66, who we ended up staying friends with for years afterwards.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember those guys.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those guys were great.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fantastic dudes.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: We spent a lot of time on the road with them, and you know, they weren't exactly like us, but we really clicked.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's when we go in and record Inside the Shine in 1999, and we take those original few songs that we had, and then we put in the other ones like Rebound and Roboflow and whatnot.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh we we we go to where it really broke, where the love affair with Onaha started, was we had got into Penny Pitcher Night at the Ranch Bowl and I don't know how that initial show happened, but we did.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there were actually a lot of people there that had no clue who we were, but we got on, and I we we we were like, dude, this is a you know, this is a cool club, this is an opportunity.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Before we went up there, we were researching the ranch bowl and kind of figured out the history of it.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we got to come correct, and we we felt like we destroyed it that night, and um, we came back the next time because we got invited back, and there was a line out the door.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, oh my god, it's like you're fishing a barrel in this place, you know, like wow, are we that good or are they just that starved for it?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um later found out uh in no way has Omaha ever been starved for good music.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we uh we were we were pretty proud of ourselves.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when Eric Markle, who had brought us back, pitched us to his dad, Matt.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh before long, you know, within a couple months, we had a record deal with Gecko Records to do Cocoon Club.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And on July 4th, 4th of July, I remember it vividly, we moved up to Omaha.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember because as I'm driving into town and I'm pulling into Omaha, I'm watching all the different fireworks shows going on around everywhere.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is cool.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're celebrating the fact that we're coming into town and we're we're gonna live here.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's how it started and then.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know the rest, or if you don't, I'll I'll fill in the blanks.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, we've only got limited amounts of time.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what's funny is you remember before we started recording, I was talking about how, and you were also chiming in about how we can't remember what we ate for lunch yesterday, but there's some weird things about dates and times and things.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: That penny pitcher night, you guys were playing with a band called Shutterbug.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I also remember that 4th of July, too.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's crazy about that?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: That 4th of July, um, the Ranch Bowl had a two-night show that was Cottonmouth Kings, Zebrahead, and this little band that nobody had ever heard of was opening the show, and they were called Lincoln Park.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I remember that those kind of anomalous things always happened at the Ranch Bowl, and I think that was part of the magic, especially of that era, which kind of leads to some of the questions I said I was gonna throw at you.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some uh some rumor, some conjecture.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can clear some things up.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite Pomeroy shows of that era was this last-minute show that you guys got thrown on with Blue October.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember it because you guys opened the show with this medley of back and black leading, tying into Roboflow.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was the most genius transition I had seen.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was so well executed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: But there was a special reason for that show and that last-minute positioning, or at least that's what the rumor always was.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You guys had some label interest for a period of time, did you not?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: We definitely did some major, major label interest.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, this uh yes.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll start by saying yes, and then you tell me what you want to know.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so there's there's a few different rumors.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one was you guys were in the negotiation process with the label at one point in time, and that you guys were trying to, in essence, um more or less get get-go as an imprint on a major label.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is that true or not?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely true.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so yeah, I I I thought it was.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also heard you guys were also really close another time with signing with a major label, but major labels doing major label things, they wanted to remove some of the hip-hop element out of Pomeroy and water you down to what maroon five's sound was at the time, which ironically, maroon five started injecting hip-hop years later.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is that also true?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So uh most, I mean, like the general idea is there, but um it it it's it it wasn't uh the second time might have been maroon five, but the primary incidents uh that we still talk about to this day, like you know, on the pick a path book, if you would have chosen differently, where would your reality end up?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny that you mentioned Lincoln Park, because that's at a time when that that first single that they had was just destroying everything.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh they so they came in, um, wined and dined us, uh, took us out.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is while we were recording um Cocoon Club, I think.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm not sure if we had finished it yet or we were somewhere, maybe we had maybe we had recently finished or we were in the process.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: But they came out and um they were like, you know, we love you guys.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: We love RoboFlow.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: We love this song.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we want to get rid of everything else, and we want you to make us 10 Roboflows.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: We want you to be, you know, Lincoln Park is big and we want you to do this.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, man, you know, we basically had the ability to say yes and say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna go down that road for you, and we're gonna take your money up front, we're gonna get plastered everywhere and all that stuff.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we heard all of the all of the promises and the and the appetizing things.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really difficult for us at the time.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, here we are um only you know, a few years after really starting, kind of in its infancy.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, technically, if our first demo is 97, it's already 2000, 2001, and we've got this opportunity, um, ultimately we sat down and we said, look, if if we're getting this opportunity now, we're going to get this opportunity later.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, you know, spoiler alert, we didn't, but the point was is that we still to this day are very happy with that decision because we started doing it because of what we wanted to do.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: If we had to become a carbon copy of Lincoln Park and had to do 10 Roboflows, people wouldn't like Roboflow as much as they like Roboflow.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and who Pomeroy is, is always going to have the hip-hop element.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And more importantly, I think what we were going to lose were a lot of the other artistic elements that Bat brought to the table.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the, you know, uh, the harmonies and the um, you know, the the um the my paradise type songs or the cutting zone or the she's dangerous is they wanted it to be straight up Lincoln Park, which, you know, um nothing against Lincoln Park ever.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, fantastic band.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I get down on their stuff, but that just wasn't us, you know.
• 27:43
  unknown: Right.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the same deal when people say, Oh, if you twerk 311, you twerk Pomeroy.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I think that's a little closer, obviously.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um, we always thought, you know, we used to say Pomeroy sounds like Pomeroy.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've got different elements, we've got different things going on, but there's nobody else out there.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I I still have never heard of any other band out there who ever did it the way that we still do it and the way that we used to do it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, absolute truth.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: We decided to take the artist's stand and say, no to your record deal and no to your idea, and we want to remain, you know, Pomeroy.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh down the road, if if if you guys like us now, you'll like us later.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they did never come back with the same type of offer, though.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm glad I am.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny to joke about, like, man, where where would we be now?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I also wouldn't have all this, and I probably wouldn't be doing a solo project, and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to, you know, uh enjoy other pieces of life.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and we can get into the other things that I do, but I might not be married and have two wonderful kids, and you know, uh it's choices are choices for a reason, and you can't dwell on them too much once you made it.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to create unintentionally create a butterfly effect, and it does kind of tie into this Lopan Banks project because you cited Tribe Call Quest and Jurassic 5 in your email, both groups that I absolutely love.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you would have gone down that RoboFlow 10 times road, you would have lost that as well.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: You would have lost the the funk, the neo-soul, like the the painting behind your head of your Mount Rushmore.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, like the essence of what Pomeroy was and what made Pomeroy great?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: With some of that stuff happening during that time and that whirlwind that was occurring, I know it felt really treacherous at times about when you guys were gonna get Cocoon Club done because you had a bunch of releases set and then you had to change the release date and change the release date again.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Did some of the business outside of just recording have an influence on the recording at that time?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's uh like anything in life, it's never just one thing, it's a lot of different stuff.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, you know, um the the move, and you can hear it in the music.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: The move from inside the shine to cocoon club.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, cocoon club was more of a business project.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: We still still love it to this day.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Still, you know, it's still Pomeroy.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we had we had Matt Markle invest in.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we didn't work for a year.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he paid for everything.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: He paid for new instruments, he paid for gas in our vehicles, he paid our rent.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: We would go to the ranch bowl and raid the kitchen like we freaking own the place, you know.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I I remember one day, you know, uh he gave Eric the credit card or whatever, and we went to whatever music store it was at the time because we needed a bunch of new stuff, you know, new amps, new guitars, new, yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I've got like I got like qualm yaws that I'd never even used before.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm a hamper cussionist, yeah.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna buy this, you know.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but because of a lot of that, we had a little bit of pressure on us that we needed to deliver.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is that I think we got a little tight.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: We got a little uptight because here we are getting interviewed, you know, by Universal and Sony and whoever it was that we're talking to at the time.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, we've got potential record label contracts larger than what we've already signed.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Our shows are getting bigger, the name is getting out there, and I think all of us kind of collectively tightened up a little bit.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're just like, you know, uh maybe maybe worried a little too much about perfecting the product as opposed to um making it be what it was supposed to be.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so that took some time.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had to rethink a few things, we redid a few things.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know we even changed some slight arrangements and even some lyrics between um uh Inside the Shine and Cocoon Club.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the culmination of all those things definitely put us a little behind schedule.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: But um there's there's nothing that I would ever really regret about any of that.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'd we probably looking back would have loved to spend a whole nother year there living out of that place and and and hanging with everybody.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: We all became incredible bowlers, uh, you know, and we'd go play Sam volleyball when we wanted.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, oh, oh, by the way, there's a fantastic music venue right here where any night of the week you can go see somebody amaze.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, those are the golden years.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's my running joke is like I'll be standing in the sporting goods department of that Walmart that's there, and I'll say, yeah, Pomeroy is gonna go on at any point in time now.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be on soon.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Slight delay.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what's what's funny?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that you brought up the bowling because I remember when you guys were in the thick of recording, there was just some random, super late night.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: A show was over, and you guys were recording really late, and you grabbed a bunch of us from the bowling alley to clap for Elevate.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I tell you what, Pomeroy is a sucker for the group clap, man.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: We are a sucker for the or the group snap or the group.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love doing group stuff.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of, not to turn it away from there, a lot of grouping vocals on the Low Pan Banks record and some of the you know, call and answer and choruses and stuff.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: But from day one, we always tried to do stuff like that.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we were recording our first record Inside the Shine with Rob Reeback, um, and who still to this day uh he mixed my Low Pan Banks album and he's still done stuff for us to this day.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember we were sitting in a circle out in the big room, and we we had come up with this idea where we were going to do a waterfall group clap where, and it wasn't all claps, it's like somebody snapped next person would clap, next person like a tambourine, next person, you know.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I'm sure we were very um inspired at the time.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but uh that that that didn't seem to work, you know.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um, we always love the group, and even on um uh what what is that uh uh vocal the on uh vocal from um the identity record, that thing is full of of group stuff, and so we are suckers for that, and I do remember that, and that's amazing.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's so much fun.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you know, we've all been drinking, partying, hanging out.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go in the studio and do something.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: If it sucks, we'll cut it.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's great, man, um, you know, not only do you have something cool, but you got a good story.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move past Omaha.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Pomeroy did a couple of releases after you guys moved back to Kansas City or moved down to Kansas City.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: What were those experiences like in contrast, you know, without focusing too much on Omaha?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because your story kept evolving to a point, but so did the industry, so did social media, um, so did pop culture in general.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: There were several different iterations, different styles of music that were kind of captivating the world's attention at the time.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: How did the releases that follow Cocoon Club impact you personally?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what's your purview on all of that?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a great question.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've thought about it a little bit, but not enough to have a canned response.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I'll tell you is when I think about each individual Pomeroy record and kind of how we got there, I feel like more than the outside forces, you know, more than the industry, more than music at the time, more than whatever, I think each individual record is a pretty, pretty good uh, you know, look in the mirror, direct reflection of what we were either going through at the time, what we were feeling at the time, whether we felt like we had either either grown up or moved past something, or maybe, you know, because you got to understand, when we first started the band, Chris was like 18 years old, you know, 18, 19 years old.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: He couldn't even get into the clubs that we were playing.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and we've gone from there to, you know, all of us have kids at this point, you know, all of us are either married or have been married, actually, all are currently married, some of us twice, uh uh, but one of us actually.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh, you know, it's you go through these different stages.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so inside the shine is a direct reflection of the college years, man.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was the culmination of 97 through 99, and us getting started, we were just kind of throwing it out there, and and you know, absolutely no fear of anything, um, you know, no real concerns about what it needed to be.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was just what it was.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Cocoon Club was still that, and then it had the extra elements of my God, other people are looking at us, we got a chance to do big things, and we signed this record label, and you know, we're doing all that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, identity is is one of my favorite records because it was on the back end of all of that.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: We had moved back to Kansas City, and Kansas City's got a great music scene.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we love it.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's way different than Omaha.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we felt like we had kind of really established a good network of friends there.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: But we came back, we basically came back home, and we were still that was at the point where we really started touring absolutely religiously, you know, because we were still on Gecko Records and we were going out, we were, you know, that's when our RV broke down out in Seattle, we were going coast to coast.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but identity was like, you know, 200 uh two to you know 2000 because hold on for a second.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we did the we did the DVD in 05, and so Identity was before that, 2002-2003.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was we kind of stripped things down.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want it to be as um, you know, for example, just like the song uh Identity, a lot more singing, a lot more faucetal vocals, a little more intricate, you know, that was just what we were feeling at the time, you know.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, although I will tell you, some of the songs on that album do get, and that was really the first opportunity for us to have Tyson shine.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because on Cocoon Club, we started with John Etzel, who was our original keyboard player.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then before we finished, John left.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh to this day still miss him and and and hope he's doing all right, wish him the best.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: But we had to get a uh um uh a fill-in for him, which was Shag.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a guy that we'd met here in Kansas City, and there were still some keyboard parts left to be played, and he got in and he did, you know, a couple of those parts on Cocoon Club, but then he was with us for um you know that period of time between Cocoon Club and Identity, and then Tyson comes on board and just gives us that extra lift and that extra tangent that that we didn't have in all areas showmanship, versatility of musician, just shredder of both the keyboard player, guitarist.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's an instrument that the guy can't play, and he can sing his ass off too.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so he was just like a plug and play, like, oh my god, did this just get better kind of thing?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, wow.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the first opportunity we had for uh him.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the DVD we did with the EP live at the Blue Note was the Road Warriors.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'd been on the road for a long time, and we were just like pulling the trigger, and there was nothing we couldn't do, and we kind of wanted to show that piece off, and we were playing the big crowds everywhere.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then um uh the uh the new reflection CD was a big change.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was a it was a marked change from what we had done before.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that, again, has to do with what uh different people were going through at the time, you know.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh especially Matt.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Matt's always been the the uh one of the most principled songwriters in the band, the most gifted musically and idea-wise, I would say, um, you know, till the day I die, out of all of us.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that was a very macaron um heavy record, and I love it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love all of the songs on that record.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we had our hip-hop stuff, but we really tried to push the envelope.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: We did that Billy the Id song, which where we got way more in depth with different layers of, you know, entendras and hidden meanings and you know, what is yeah, and and and that that song was very personal to me because it had to do with some stuff that I was going through.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think more than outside influences, every single thing we've ever done has everything to do with what we're going through at the time, which is why I'm really glad we've kind of um yeah, we've always stuck together, we've always stayed together, we've always remained best friends.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really working on them to do that next big Pomeroy album where there's talks of doing like a full-blown reunion tour, either late 2025 or 26.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep reminding them, I'm like, hey, I wrote this song.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta do it, you know, I've been working on all this stuff, but I, you know, I uh I'm relentless at times and I think I've ground them all down, and now they're coming back, and I and I think I've got everybody excited, and um, I'm super, super grateful and appreciative that they're gonna come down and help me throw this big party for my release.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, to that end, anybody that's coming to that to see Pomeroy, there's going to be more than enough Pomeroy for those people coming just to see Pomeroy, to not let anybody be disappointed.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the focus is gonna be the low pan banks aspect and the release and whatnot, but I couldn't have Pomeroy help throw the show without a heavy dose of Pomeroy.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's gonna be that.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, I just kind of finished up the run of show.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot going into it.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited and appreciative that they're gonna help me uh do it.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, dude.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: That last album, the new reflection album, I love the production on that.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's fantastic.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Start to finish.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did it ever cross your mind?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, to record some of the OG songs a third time after that album dropped.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Did that ever be like, man, the production was so good on this?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we do need to revisit my paradise or something along those lines.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, we've always talked about, in fact, Matt and I were on the phone not long ago talking about not that exact idea, but going back and doing music videos for the old songs.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one thing we really regret that we never really did is do the full-on music video.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: In this day and age, with the technology that you got, it's pretty commonplace to oh, let's go shoot a video.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I got an iPhone 15, you know.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, when we started this out, you know, we had one well, but when Matt and I started it, cell phones weren't even really a thing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody had laptops, the internet was nothing.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we were we're from the grassroots, play until you die, and then build it from the inside out.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: But what cell phones were a thing, we had one cell phone, and it was an entire band cell phone.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if our parents wanted to get a hold of us, they would call the one we had to take turns using it, a little Samsung flipper.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh, you know, I I think it would be awesome to do that.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to go back and re-record um kind of like an anthology, man, and and do like maybe a section of new Pomeroy songs that we've written, you know, in the last couple years or that I've written or that Matt wants to write sooner stuff that we've been throwing around, plus maybe re-record some old ones, plus do like music videos or something that, you know, at this point for us, it's not about you know making it big on social media and and and you know, having the Pomeroy career.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's about the people that are already here.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if if more people jump on, great.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's kind of like that's when I think it's okay to start doing stuff with your audience.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, I feel like if I write with the idea that we're going to put something together that all the people who would usually come to Ranch Bowl shows would love to hear, then I think it's okay because it's
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: you're you're you're still writing for yourself because we're all kind of the same thing and then all those people like you and all the people that went in to do the clapping of the hands and stuff like that I feel like that's me too um and I would love to do that I would love to do that yes yes and that's that's great because this kind of brings it to the to the next phase of everything because that parasocial relationship world that we live in is very real and it is a full 360 degrees audio video experience I talk to a lot of younger bands and younger bands are less concerned about record deals these days and more concerned about building community like that's why social media is like for all the ways that we want to vilify all the ugliness that social media has created from an artistic standpoint there are some really great merits to it and that community building and that world building almost like its own little MCU if you will absolutely is really important.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great because how I started following you again or found you again through social media was through your project Lost Wax.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Lost Wax does a lot with videos and interacting in that sense in that essence.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: How fun has that been for you?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man that has been the ride of a lifetime I mean again I probably said it I'll say it a hundred more times because I truly believe it I'm so lucky to have been a part of these successful fun fulfilling entertaining projects and and that started in 09 like right as Pomeroy was like okay we're not going to tour anymore we're not gonna put out another album like oh night because um you know uh that's when we Chris Davis and I started Lost Wax because at the time um dean was out in Florida at full sale you know he went uh he went to recording school Matt had already moved to Chicago and um he had gotten married and you know he'd start family out there.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Tyson oh man I I you know I I I never know where Tyson is at any given day you look at his social media he's in Scandinavia and he's playing with Vixen somewhere in Australia I was just gonna say Tyson has kind of become the forest gump of 80s hair metal dude that dude is uh riddle uh uh wrapped within an enigma and frosted and amazing exciting shit you know I love that dude so much he's really good but uh I guess my point is I I can't remember where he was at the time he might have still been in Kansas City he may I don't think he had yet made the move to Nashville but in 09 Chris and I just kind of started this thing hey we've been playing music together since you know 98.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: We can't just quit cold turkey let's do something that we could go you know do it like the basement of Lucky Brew Grill on an weekend night and get some people out.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it started as this project that we called Emergency 6.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we called it that because we were still living in the house that um uh the Pomeroy guys and I lived in um in Kansas City Missouri and the address was 9116 so we called it emergency six and it was me and him and our other new roommate Leslyn Allman um one of the one of the best female vocalists I've ever played with and friend uh grew up with went to high school with Matt at Sumner Academy in Wyatt um and we started this little thing that then turned into Lost Wax because Dean saw that we were doing it so he got in he was the original bass player and Tyson even got in and was doing guitar and keys.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Dean actually came up with the name Lost Wax um and we were like oh that's amazing you know we we adopted it and then slowly Dean stopped playing Tyson stopped playing and it was back down to just me and Chris and then we added on who we call the OGs of Lost Wax me and Chris John Bullsby um uh and um Lindsay Emmett and well and um and and Brandon Gherkitt um and uh we've been doing that since 2009 what's fantastic about that is that thing has exploded over the years become bigger and more successful I mean and Chris is responsible for all of it because I went back to law school in 2009.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure we'll talk about that at some point but I had no time to you know we may have started the project together and we were kind of we had thought hey we're gonna build this thing together or whatever and I just got so busy I think the writing was on the wall I was like hey man if I just take this over and run with it and I was like please do because I I can't you know I'm back in school full time I think I you know I gotta uh she wasn't my wife at the time but my you know girlfriend who I'm married to and we've been together uh for uh 24 years now but um uh and I was like dude you just run with it that dude destroyed it it is now such a huge thing what started with just two guys that charted into five people is now a musician stable of like 60 plus you can put three or four or five I've even seen uh weekend nights where they've put like six or seven versions of the band together all at the same time in different places always got versions of the band traveling around the country I mean it is the real deal and now these days I just kind of sit back and watch it you know there's constantly new blood and new musicians coming in you know there was a time when we had started it out where we were I was good for about eight shows every month and that was always going to be every Friday Saturday and on week in months where there were five weekends it'd be 10 uh five weekends uh yeah five weekends that's right um there'd be at least 10 shows a month sometimes we played on Sundays primarily um uh wedding gigs high-end weddings but we started out playing clubs now you can get into Lost Wax and be a primary you know musician and you can make a very good living doing it doing only music um and it's just something Chris has done such a fantastic job building I mean we were the house band for the NFL draft in 2020 I was just gonna say that you know who gets to do that you know I mean it's fantastic and although I wasn't a part of the the group that did this you know they just did um and they were promoting the filming of it they were the house they we without me was the house you know I can you know I'll ride the coattails or whatever you know oh yeah I was there no I wasn't I clearly wasn't but they're the house fan for um uh this this reality show that HBO Magnolia is doing called um Second Chance Stage or Second Stage X second chance um that they just filmed um that's coming out in November and that thing comes out in November that's gonna be in your face every single episode Lost Wax is the house band at performing they got three celebrity judges and Chris was even one of the coaches and he's gonna have all this FaceTime where he's trying to put together people's stuff and um Shelby Winfrey who is a female vocalist in Lost Wax is one of the other coaches.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean big time stuff and just to think that it started with hey let's do some singing and hip hop we almost called the the project hip hop laptop because we had Chris's drums and then tracked everything else and then I'm rapping and then I'd play the congas a little bit and that has turned into this I mean it's it's insane that I that I you know will be able to go to my deathbed someday and say that I was part of that helped create it and then watched it just blow the doors off every day.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't can't give Chris enough credit for what he's done.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing I love all of this because it culminates into how driven you are as an individual as you had mentioned in the origin story of Lost Wax that you became a lawyer like started a family like made yourself busy it's you've got your hands in a lot of things and you're executing at a very high level what was the most fulfilling part of that era and that area of your life you were obviously you know had the fuel of the past history with Pomeroy this lost wax project taking off but you were taking going to school to be a lawyer is no easy task sir like it is not um it it's it's no easy task it's no cheap task especially if you um are already 10 years older than any incoming you know first year law student you know um so uh I guess to encapsulate it it was something I always thought I could do it's something I was always told I could do it is never it was never ever anything I wanted to do because um I grew up my father um is an attorney he's actually just now retiring this year but um he practiced uh uh uh very uh consistently from the day I was born I've got a picture from 1976 and yes I will date myself after I was like uh two months old in him in his cap and gown graduating from law school with me in his hand you know I'm this little bean you know with with me in his arm.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up with him as um uh an attorney for a father and he was a fantastic one well respected by uh by everybody in the community in the area he went on to do a lot of amazing things there's you know if we had more time there's some fantastic trial stories I've got of when I I was a kid and it was in the 80s and I don't know if you know um anybody I won't get into that I won't get into that but just we'll have to do that for a future episode friends.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right yes yes yes but it'll it'll it'll break into a tangent we can't come back from but my point was I never wanted to be an attorney because my dad was and I always knew I was destined to be on a stage somewhere or to be some type of person with influence through my art and I I don't know that I ever kind of made those connections as a kid.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: As a kid it was probably just like I love writing poetry I love making songs you know I love uh I love the BC boys I love run DMC I wrote you know I got introduced to rap writing at uh basketball camp in fourth grade and you know started writing raps and all that and I just always thought I got the bug I'm gonna this is what I'm gonna do I'm always going to do something like this.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I never ever gave it an option but as on the kind of backside of Pomeroy when you know I've already been um in a long-term relationship I think I'd I'd put my now wife then girlfriend through a lot uh uh over the years and she had stuck with me and I was waking up in the back of the bus and even though I was still living the life and loving it you you let those thoughts start creeping in.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you know and I wasn't old at the time by any means but you know what's next?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's next for me?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I had this kind of epiphany where I was kind of scared that like I knew I had all these abilities but like who am I if I'm not the guy from Palma?
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know who am I if if if if I'm not David Fairbanks the rapper or whatever and if I don't get a ride around in this RV or this bus and I don't get it what value do I have?
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do I give to the to the world or the people around me?
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I secretly, without telling my father because I didn't want him to get excited I secretly went and applied to law school at UMKC in 2008 and I you know I went and kind of studied for the LSAT on the down low and whatnot and passed it and and kind of rocked it actually and was like oh man maybe I've got an aptitude for this you know I I can talk well but do I think I can do it and I applied and I got rejected man they were just I they were like uh when when did you graduate college?
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh 10 11 years ago okay and what kind of grades did you get um what did you you know uh in 1999 what was your cumulative GPA you know and I think I was I didn't even have a 300 I was like a 2.9996 or something you know because I jerked around the last couple years because I was so busy trying to get this band thing.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: Off the ground so I went back and I took some classes I took their advice and I went in and met with I think uh one of the deans at the time at missions and I was like what I need to do like well do this and this so I went and I did some community service and I took some classes and I did all that and then I reapplied and they accepted me in 2009.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that started my journey and I walk in full time you know 10 years older than everybody else and I already had a mortgage and we had cars and we had pets we didn't have kids yet and I was like I don't want to take six years going back part-time so I I I went back full time for three years took out maximum amount of of federal student aid loans every every year and just to pay for that you know robbing Peter to pay Paul and then deal with all this debt later which just by the time I got you know it just kept getting more even though I wasn't borrowing money because I was on an income based repayment plan.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I basically mortgaged my financial future just so I could go and get that degree and because the most fulfilling I think what your question was I have a tendency to ramble.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think what your question was the most fulfilling thing about it and it had everything to do with proving to myself that I was more than just the guy from Pomeroy and that I could do other things with my life and I could take aspects of of what made me good in this job, being able to communicate with people and speak well and round out thoughts and be able to do that.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do I have what it takes to actually put the work in to study and learn the law and understand it and and and really all law school is about is about learning to perform under the most immense pressure and retain knowledge and get used to the idea that when you've got lives and and tremendous amount of especially what I do assets and wealth and children and everything like that, do you have what it takes to put the work in and and and get it done and learn how to handle a billion different spinning plates.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um I you know even though I was 10 years older than everybody else I have such best friends from law school that I met that will continue to be just as close to me as a lot of my former best friends that I'd either grown up with or even some of the guys in Pomeroy it's just this different sect.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I just can't say enough about how gratified I was in being able to show myself that I could do that.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the best part of it.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: That brings me to kind of a thought here or a multi-tiered thought.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is a quote that I absolutely love and it's you have your entire life to write your first album all right so let's take that quote and set it to the side for just a moment I view our lives as being seasons.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is the inside the shine Dave there is the cocoon club Dave and you perfectly describe that I have several versions of myself too and to be honest on any given day when I reflect upon that version I might not know that guy anymore.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_00: So going back to that quote and bringing that quote back into the fold it's almost like you have all of those experiences to lead you to this moment that you're at right now.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you talked about the community service and the things that you had to do so you could be accepted in the law school maybe that was a result of some of the empathy that you also learned as being an artist and being an artist takes a great deal of humility.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you're on that stage you can be as cocky as can be but when you're off stage you know sometimes critiques hurt and you have to learn how to deal with critiques.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn how to deal with whenever you get praised and do things well.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe all of those things led to your success and this pathway of you becoming a lawyer even if you didn't intend for it to absolutely uh everything you said is perfectly spot on.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess what I would say is and it still happens today I would have never gotten to the point like if I would have tried to go and apply to law school right out of college we didn't get signed by you know get going we didn't do all that I would have I would have failed miserably I didn't have what it took I didn't have the life experience I didn't have the humility I think in order to do anything significant you got to be willing to look yourself in the eye and admit that you're not very good at something and you need to get better at it or you need to change something about your life and criticism only hurts when it's true you know and I can take criticism all day from anybody but uh what what really gets you is the poignant little bit that somebody who you know and trust says to you and you're like damn it that that hurts because I know whether I want to admit it or not that's true.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely true.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: But not letting that you know get you down or set you back or whatever.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm a problem solver man.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like every day I get up and I I like to solve problems.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what my whole life has become in being an attorney and I've got a very amazing practice I'm very fulfilled by that.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there are aspects that are different or aspects that are the same between the two because the way I practice law I I do try to make enough as much of it about art as I can.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: But life in general is about humility common sense and drive and if you've got a little bit of uh talent uh there I mean you can do fantastic amazing things but like the pendulum swing again it's like um I feel like being a musician who I in a position where I could write and record my own material even with Pomeroy being able to have that outlet makes me a 10 times better lawyer than I would be if I didn't have that and vice versa because you know if I didn't get a strap a suit and tie on every day and go to court multiple times a week and you know I I I do a lot of trial you know I'm a litigator by nature a lot of everything actually um if I didn't get to do that I wouldn't appreciate the other side of it as much as I do.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's the total yin and yang and it sounds cheesy but it sounds cheesy because most of the time that is not accomplishable by by everybody.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody gets that opportunity.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just so happy that I and grateful and thankful that I get to be able to do that and be able to solve problems for people and help and at the same time be able to have this outlet that I have in in creating this art and and still be able to connect people that way.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: These days I'm very satisfied because you know at the end of the day if it sucks and it's terrible and everybody hates it, you know, I can't blame Matt or Chris or Dean or Tyson or anybody you know that's all on me.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love that because at the end of the day if it if it really is as good as I think it is which I do and I'm not in any way trying to be arrogant at all.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: I just like it and I think it's a good product then then you know I get it I get a I get to put my flag in that you know but it's not just me.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good opportunity for me to plug the fact that the whole O Pan Banks project is a three-headed monster and that's me and two of my best friends in the world and they happen to be brothers Chris Wilson and Adam Wilson.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: They are guys that I've been loosely writing stuff and making stuff with for a number of years.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Adam has uh a studio in his uh house um that they call Beat Lab which uh we you know uh religiously for years have been going over and doing stuff.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: Chris, his older brother is the one who pitched the idea of low paying banks to me and said look dude you've been working on this for so long you have so many songs.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: You started recording solo project stuff in like 2005 you know and you've got to what you said it you can take a lifetime to write your first album I feel like that's the situation I'm in because when we went looked at it we went through I've got a whole removable hard drive here of stuff I just did in 07 you know and every track on the album uh got recorded between 2020 and 2022.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's still a wealth and and loads of stuff that I've got to work on but he pitched it they pitched it we came up with the idea and that's how it actually got done because I just I've been just mindlessly recording stuff and saving it and being like well someday but they made me you know well we'll we'll get around to it.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that's how it kind of uh came to life I love that we were my wife and I were on a drive and spoiler alert if you're just listening to this or watching this Dave and I have a little bit of history so Dave actually sent me an advanced copy of Low Pan Banks and I enjoyed the shit out of it dude.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome I love the opening and the closing because I think the commentary from your parents are is fantastic bookends to what happens in the middle you know dude it it it's I love every song and I love the finished product but I love it because it came together at the very end because of those bookends.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right and we struggled for a long time part of the reason I like I I the the the songs in their current form have been there for a while.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: We kept struggling because we wanted to make it a mix You know, we wanted to make sure it could play from beginning to end without anything, and it's a complete thought.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, Spotify and um iTunes and whatnot, they'll divide it into tracks.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, when you hear it, you'll see that there's really no beginning and end, and just the end of that song is where we decided to clip it in the beginning because it all goes together.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh, you know, we had toyed around with an idea of this, you know, um, kind of skits that kind of went all the way through.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there was this idea where I was gonna be driving around in my ranchero listening to the radio, and the album comes on, and we recorded.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: We tried a bunch of different ideas, and at the end of the day, none of it really felt genuine.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: It felt like, you know, I'd be like, it's cool, but is it really me?
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, does it add to it?
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I really like these songs.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want us to just throw some shit in here because we think it's a cool idea or whatever.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think this is actually another Chris Wilson idea where he was just like, man, you know, we've always talked about this being just about you and whatever.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, what do you think about, you know, because you always talk about how your parents have always supported you, what do you, you know, maybe do some kind of a thing with them.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's what that's what culminated.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it we recorded it um Thanksgiving last year when we were uh with them for Thanksgiving, sat down at the dining room table and and did that brief little intro.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, I guess the the story behind it is they hadn't heard the album yet.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so then uh we got back home and I sent it to them and they listened to it.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the book end on the back is me calling them and interviewing them briefly about their take on what they thought.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time that came together, I was like, dude, that's it.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad we didn't force anything else.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we needed, and it just kind of it just kind of came together.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, yeah, and and obviously it goes without saying, uh uh in my mind, my my parents are uh the number one reason why I even am who I am today, why I've had the opportunity that I've had.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: They they still support me in every single way.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: My dad always says, you never stop raising your kids.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely true.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm 48-year-old uh now.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: I still feel when I talk to them like I'm the 10-year-old kid that just got back from basketball camp who wants them to listen to my new rap that I memorized, you know.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I felt like, what a better way to round this out.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: I can go back and listen to it years from now.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: They will be forever immortalized on this thing, and it's always gonna mean a lot to me.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I like it even more because I think that comes through.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't know me, you don't know them, you can just kind of tell that it's it's it is what it's supposed to be.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it adds a lot of heart and it ramps up the first track really nicely.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's because the first track is danceable, like you know, you talk about it being at like 95 BPM.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is just like that head nodding.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about what's about to come next.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, my second wife, she uh she has no connection to local music whatsoever.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't know me in the band days, like so.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: Her music taste, I'll tell you, we did a road trip one time and she had this CD that she burned off in high school.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: I kid you not, I can't make this up.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Jen's Cool Disc, and it had like Richard Marks and Nelson and like things we would ironically listen to back in the day just to be funny.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, like her taste is all over the board.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of priming her.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I knew we were gonna drive to where she's originally from in uh southeast Nebraska um Saturday morning.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I played her some Pomeroy stuff, and I'm like, man, I used to love these guys, used to play shows with these guys, know these guys, fantastic guys.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I played her some Pomeroy stuff.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: I go, but Dave sent me his album last night.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever we make the drive down these rural roads, I want to just not talk.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to listen to this album.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to have that experience.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: I got to hear the intro, your parents, hear that first track take off.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The the track about the erroneous text message was absolutely hilarious because at first I'm like, I tilt my head like a dog and I'm like, what's going on here?
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the time it was all said and done, I was chuckling and I'm I'm actually laughing out loud.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the time the whole mix was over, hearing your dad's comment about the text message track made me laugh a second time.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, that was so clever, so clever.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, first thing she said, I really like that.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_00: What you like something I like?
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was like a huge win.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this mix, this album is really gonna connect with people, Dave.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you know, I know you made it for you, and you made it for your team, but this is gonna connect with audiences, and I think it's a lot for people to get excited about.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just excited to get this out into the world and see what's next for low pan banks?
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely, and um, you know, I again lucky, very lucky uh to be in the position that I am to be able to do this and not have it be something that I need to happen in order to survive.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's this it's this level of freedom and comfort that, you know, I know that um everything is gonna be okay if it sucks, which makes me want it not suck so much worse.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I really want it, people, I really want people to connect with it and like it.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: But totally, I've matured enough emotionally and have done enough other things in my life to where if truly, you know, I don't know, um, what's his name?
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Fantato or whatever, uh, was like uh, this is the worst thing I've ever heard or whatever, you know, I'd be like, all right, you know, that's cool, that's fair.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm gonna keep on doing my thing.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: But um what I really want and what the plan is, is to continue to do a number of these.
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like I said, I've got a lot of stuff already either in the can or close to in the can, a lot of ideas, a lot of stuff that's already recorded.
• 1:12:19
  SPEAKER_01: If I can get this to hit a little bit and get it to, you know, generate some motion, some listeners, some viewers, whatever it it is, um, then I'll feel way better about continuing to do more.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm already talking with Adam and Chris about maybe doing, you know, hey, let's get this out and then let's do a single in a couple months, you know, or maybe let's take a collection of maybe they say four or five uh of different themes, you know.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to do projects that, although the way that Pretty Good Rapper sounds is kind of my wheelhouse where it's it's thick with all of my influence, you know, and it's just it's just me.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'll continue to always do stuff like that, but I do have a lot of other stuff that is different.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's still hip-hop-based, and it still has to do with, you know, showing vocal and lyrical skill and prowess with some catchy stuff, but um, you know, maybe maybe way more emotional, maybe way more introspective, maybe uh a little less, you know, uh punchy and danceable, but nonetheless, I think is gonna connect with people too.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just super excited to get it out of the gates so we can get going on it.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we'll never stop practicing law, we'll never stop playing music.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna really try to keep both of them moving forward and keep them at as high a level as I can because man, life is short, dude.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: My kids just are getting older, and obviously I am getting older, you know, here.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and uh I I try to stay young.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really tell, but I got the long hair in the back, you know, the the headphones kind of so I try to keep myself young there, but you know, um uh everybody goes through it.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm I'm two years shy of hitting that 50 mark.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel any older than I did when I was 30 or 25.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm still active.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I still, you know, I'm sure maybe there's less testosterone in my body, I guess, because that's just the way it is.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I don't feel like I've lost a step.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I feel good.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I can do this for, you know, 50 more years.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, fate will tell me otherwise, but until then, man, let's go.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: What can audiences expect at your release on Friday, July 26th?
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So lots of stuff.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you you can expect some Pomeroy, you can expect um friends of uh uh of mine that are in Lost Wax that are coming in to do uh some stuff with me.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can expect um my DJ, DJ Sincere, who did the transitions on the record.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_01: He is actually my son's DJ teacher.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So my son has been for the last five years, one of the original students at this hip-hop school called Break Free KC, been taking both D uh dance, breakdance, and DJ lessons.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh part of the show, you're gonna see this.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see my son on the ones and twos at one point in the show, um either with his teacher or solo.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see uh some of the best e-boys uh and hip-hop dancers in the city that are gonna come out and are gonna put on a show for everybody at the beginning.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, like the the the it's gonna be kind of a hip-hop party free-for-all, you know, for the first half of the show, and we're gonna get into some special guests, and we're gonna get into uh, without giving away too much, a lot of fun things.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um then we're gonna get into my set, and my set is going to kind of go back and forth.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna get into some Pomeroy.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's other stuff that I won't disclose at this time, but you can ex you can expect that it's gonna be a party.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_01: And for anybody who's ever been to the Truman, I've seen a few big shows there.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fantastic room.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um I saw surfaces there with my wife, fantastic.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I saw a couple other, but it's uh it's a it's a big stage, great lights, great sound, huge room, you know, got the copper lounge balcony up top.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be really, really cool.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and all I really want is people to come out and have fun.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I tried not to charge too much for ticket.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not the cheapest place to rent out, but I'm not trying to make my money back.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to put on a big show and just charge enough to maybe have a shot at making my expenses back, maybe whatever.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_01: But Lopan Banks has never been about, you know, making money like Pomeroy was, because that's how we survived.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was how we lived, that's how we got to the next day.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is a passion project that I hope takes off, but um, I just want people to come and have fun.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be available, the album's gonna be available everywhere two days before.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't want to have to pay for it and you already pay for streaming services like Spotify or whatever, it's gonna be absolutely everywhere.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely everywhere that you can find it digitally.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be there.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm getting ready to start some new promotions where if we can get people interested and buying either some of the merch or some of the whatever, maybe I'll send out an advanced free copy of the album to you personally, you know, with uh with a link on a private server or whatever.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're also at the show.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pressing vinyl.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: We got stacks of awesome vinyl records with cool designs that we're gonna do.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing tape cassettes.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going old school.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_01: No CDs.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're into vinyl and and and cassettes.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just got off the phone with disc makers earlier, tried to straw urban into getting all my stuff here earlier than it should be, but I think it I think it'll be here on time.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, just it's gonna be old school party, fun.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's all ages.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_01: My kids are gonna be there, everybody else's kids are gonna be there, especially if you're there early for the fun stuff and the dancing and all that.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I want everybody to walk away going, damn, that was a really good show.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of, you know, um, and after walking away from it, be like, oh crap, I need to get the apple, you know, or I I need to make sure that I say this.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, my concluding question always on every episode of Caught on the Mic is what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it sounds corny, but I preach this to my kids every single day whenever they have problems or questions.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of too full.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's the old corny, treat other people like you want to be treated.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I grew up very I grew up in a not overly religious, but a religious household.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was raised Catholic.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't claim anything anymore.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't claim a religion, I don't claim anything that I claim to treat human beings the way human beings should be treated.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I really try to instill that in my kids.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the best thing you can do.
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_01: All the little stuff, you know, hold open a door for somebody who doesn't need the door held open for.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Say hi to somebody when they're walking and they look uncomfortable like me.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes when the beard grows out, I got my hat down and I'm walking up, you know.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do people think, well, what's this guy up to?
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Be nice.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I always tell my son, it takes zero effort to be nice, you know, even just even somebody who is not being nice to you.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Kill them with kindness, be nice, turn the other cheek, do the right thing.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: The older you get, the more you figure out that your gripes and your concerns and the things that we see post people posting every day on Facebook, well, I have a thought, I have a conviction, I have a ax to grind, you know.
• 1:19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the older I get, the less any of that shit matters, man.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what's gonna matter at the end of the day is how much time you spent with your family, how well you treated other people, and what people are going to say about you after you're gone.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Granted, you're not gonna be here to hear it, but I sure would like a little bit of a lasting legacy where my kids could talk kindly of me, and other people would say, Oh, he was a good dude.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: He did good things.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's kind of how I try to treat life.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is the perfect summation of what I'm gonna say to you, sir.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's been 24 years where I've known you at this point.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am so glad to have this interaction with you and have some presence in each other's lives again.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: The world's a much better place with you and it, Dave.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited for this project.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to have the opportunity to get a vinyl at some point in time, and I'm hoping that uh I'm hoping that maybe you bring the show back home to your second home.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think there might be a there might be a chance we could do that.
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I mean I'm all about being transparent, but we gotta keep some cards held close to the vest sometimes, right?
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for doing the show, brother.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 1:21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, you're the best, man.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I also gotta tell you, I, you know, uh it's the same to you, man.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_01: I find you uh to be the same dude that I knew back then, but you know, uh just a better version, stronger, smarter.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, dude.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think I you you're a good dude, and I think you do a good job on this podcast.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think you do a good job interviewing people.
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're thoughtful with your questions, you know.
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just I I want I want to I want your I want your podcast to blow up and double and triple and quadruple.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you you keep putting in the good work that you do, man.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh empirical evidence would show that uh that is the uh that's the key.
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm proud of you and congratulations to you and and thank you so much for thinking enough of me to have me on.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, man.
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_00: That means the world to me.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, I want to thank my friend David Fairbanks for joining me on the show today.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you get a chance to listen to Low Pan Banks, pretty good rapper when it drops.
• 1:22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is fantastic.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have had it for weeks.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait for all of you to hear it.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, I highly encourage you to go to the Caught on the Mic YouTube channel and watch this episode.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_00: It has a totally different effect.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you are following Rostwax and the Low Pan Banks on Instagram.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're being generous, make sure you're following Caught on the Mic on all social media channels as well.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Visit me, www.caughtonthemic.com, and email me caught on the mic at gmail.com for all booking and any other questions.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 1:22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Clark.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you.