Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Great White Guitarist Mark Kendall [Episode 204]
Transcript
- 0:00Our album was done. Basically, we had enough songs. Everything was fine,
- 0:04and then our manager came in with that song because he managed Guns and
- 0:08Roses, and I guess is he Dadlin, the guitar player, had showed
- 0:13him that song because we had an album called Once Bitten and we thought the
- 0:17obvious follow up should be Twice Shy. But we didn't know about this song,
- 0:22and we said it was okay, you know, but we we didn't
- 0:25know it was going to do what it did. I'm like, I know,
- 0:29dialogue. How's a fountain conversation round? That's a geyser? Interesting?
- 0:34Interesting, it's provocative for Taddy Man's back man rock and Roll. Welcome back
- 0:44to book don Rock. It's the podcast for those about to read and rock.
- 0:48You can find the podcast online at booked on rock dot com. Every
- 0:51episode of Booked on Rock is there in audio and video. Got links to
- 0:56all the listening platforms, exclusive videos, blogs, links to all of the
- 1:00social media sites. Another chapter in the dialogue series. It's been a while
- 1:04since we've had one of these episodes. The Dialogue series is a chill and
- 1:07chat with authors, fellow podcasters, musicians, and more. And our guest
- 1:12is a musician Great White guitarist Mark Kendall. Mark is the founding member of
- 1:18the Grammy nominated band, who sold over ten million albums worldwide, had six
- 1:23top one hundred Billboard hits, including the top ten single Once Bitten Twice,
- 1:26Shy nine top two hundred Billboard albums, and two platinum selling albums. Mark
- 1:32took some time out during Great White summer tour to talk about his days growing
- 1:36up in Huntington Beach, California, the artists and bands who influenced him,
- 1:40the formation of Great White that rise to fame by the end of the eighties,
- 1:44and the stories behind the band's biggest hits including rock Me, Savior Love,
- 1:48Once Bitten Twice, Shy, House of Broken Love, Mister Bone,
- 1:51and Call It Rock and Roll. I also asked Mark if he's got some
- 1:55favorite rock and roll books in his library and if he ever plans on writing
- 1:57a book himself. A playlist of Great White can be found on the show
- 2:02notes page. Mark, Welcome to the podcast. Nice to meet you,
- 2:07man, Thank you, Eric. Good to be here man. This is
- 2:09great. I'm looking forward to talking with you about a whole bunch of stuff.
- 2:13But let's start. Let's start with Great White, you're on You're on
- 2:15a summer tour right now. Brett Carlisle and lead vocals, Scott Snyder on
- 2:19bass, Michael Lardi on guitar, Audie Desbro and drums, and of course
- 2:23you Mar Kendall on lead guitar. Yeah. So you're playing shows with some
- 2:27big names Brett Michaels, d Snyder, Stephen Pearcy's Frehley Slaughter, Stephen Adler
- 2:32of Guns and Roses. Tell tell us about what fans can look forward to
- 2:36this tour, and and and where can they get tickets? You can just
- 2:39go to our website. As far as tickets, I don't really know,
- 2:46except ticket tron or whatever. You can probably find out from where we're playing
- 2:50a lot. We always have the information, and you know, you can
- 2:54find out when we're going to be in your area on official Great White dot
- 3:00com. Yep, I think you get tickets through there. Yeah. But
- 3:05you know, in the old days, the way we tour, we go
- 3:08out say like six seven, eight months with with like the Scorpions or whatever,
- 3:15you know, or go out five or six months with Jesus Preest.
- 3:20Now the way we're playing, it's we're not out on a bus we're flying
- 3:23to the shows, so we might play with you know, just anybody.
- 3:30I mean, we've played a couple of shows with sticks. We might AREO
- 3:34Speedwagon or you know, like you're saying about the festivals, a lot of
- 3:38festivals this time of year, so they usually like to put a nice package
- 3:45together. People come down and relived their younger years or whatever with the music,
- 3:53you know. And what's cool is there's there's some younger folks I'm sure
- 3:55showing up at those gigs too, because I run to people just today.
- 4:00He's like maybe in his twenties and he's like, oh, I love Leonard
- 4:02Skinner. You know, It's like, oh that's great. It's like,
- 4:06yeah, this is good to know. It's a little different with our like
- 4:11my parents, because they were so far removed from anything that resembled rock.
- 4:16I mean, you know, even with the Stone Beatles, it was like
- 4:20my dad was a jazz trumpet player, so that you know, it's like
- 4:24every album he had had a guy blowing horn on there or something, you
- 4:30know, so we really couldn't relate to that so much. But with our
- 4:34stuff, at least at rocks, you know what I mean. So if
- 4:40you got a twenty something year old kid, he's gonna maybe my parents weren't
- 4:45so corny, man. He at least it rocks. Yeah, at least
- 4:48at rocks, and they jump around like they're into it. There is a
- 4:51closer down in generations. Yeah, Like my dad mom born in thirty nine,
- 4:56so for them it was Sinatra, dene Art and Joannathis Glenn Miller.
- 5:02So nowadays it seems like, yeah, that gap is a lot closer.
- 5:06Yeah. Yeah. And and not that all those people are great, that
- 5:12the gendre is so different that you know, like we're just probably not going
- 5:16to go to a concert like that, you know what I'm saying. So
- 5:19even if the kid's into death middle, he can probably still relate big guitars,
- 5:27you know, fingers out there putting some energy into the show. You
- 5:30know, the drummer bless them away, So you know it's not that far
- 5:35away. Yeah. And there's a great bluesy vibe to Great White too.
- 5:38I want to ask you about that, but let's talk about You mentioned your
- 5:41dad being a musician, and it talks about this on the official website for
- 5:46Great White, that you come from a musically gifted family. You grew up
- 5:48in Huntington Beach, California. Tell us about your your parents, what your
- 5:53childhood days were like going up in Huntington Beach. Well, I actually we
- 5:59moved here. We lived in a lot of suburbs of Los Angeles, like,
- 6:02oh, within one hundred, one hundred and fifty miles at LA.
- 6:06So yeah, when I when I was fifteen, we moved to Hanka Beach
- 6:11for a couple of years until I moved out. But yeah, growing up,
- 6:15I actually kind of discovered, uh, the instrument by accident. My
- 6:23friend across the street, he was he was like the engine guy in the
- 6:27neighborhood. You know, he built the mini bikes, the go karts,
- 6:30you know, so we you know, we'd have fun on that type stuff.
- 6:35And you know, I was playing baseball, you know, was in
- 6:39Little League and all all the stuff that normal kids do. But he had
- 6:43a band that used to jam his garage, and I used to watch him.
- 6:46Every time I heard him, I ran over there and looked through this
- 6:49little window on the side, and one day the bass players playing with his
- 6:55teeth, and that just wigged me out. I just I went begged my
- 6:59day had to get me a guitar, and he got me one, and
- 7:03there was a couple of kids in the neighborhood that were kind of advanced down
- 7:06guitar. So I learned chords off and kind of really didn't put it down
- 7:12much for like a year. And when I was ten, I knew four
- 7:17songs that I'd been jamming with another guitar player, and I know the songs
- 7:23that was wipe Out, Pipeline, Secret Agent Man, and Gloria, And
- 7:29we played for the fourth grade class, and the fifth grade class came into
- 7:32our class. So after we play our four songs, that thought we know,
- 7:36so we just played Pipeline again while they were walking out. That's great.
- 7:42And I was just listening to Stevie ray Vaughan's version of Pipeline just yesterday.
- 7:46Yeah, well there's two guitar parts to those songs, like Secret Agent
- 7:51Man has two guitar parts. So all these all the you know, Gloria,
- 7:57we just kind of went we're winging it and just playing both play in
- 8:00the rhythm. But it's pretty amazing when I think back where I was ten
- 8:03years old, I'm like orchestrating these guitar parts and I barely know how to
- 8:09play, you know, So I was literally learning from It seemed like the
- 8:15same three chords were in all these songs, you know, so I knew
- 8:20enough. You know, I knew a few chords to where I could.
- 8:24My ear was kind of good because I used to listen to my parents' records,
- 8:28you know, a girl from me Panima. I used to sing along
- 8:31and my mom one day she actually said I sing in key. So my
- 8:37ear was good. You know, my pitch and I heard music well,
- 8:43so I don't know what. It didn't come that hard as far as just
- 8:46picking it up and learning chords, So it just kind of went on from
- 8:52there. I played baseball till I was eighteen, and my dad wanted me
- 8:56to be a pro ballplayer, but you know, the guitar just kind of
- 9:05won out. You know. It was like I was a little disheartened at
- 9:07baseball because there's guys better than me, and I didn't really feel like any
- 9:13scout's gonna come and check me out. So but you were you're a pretty
- 9:16good ballplayer though. What position? Oh, it's good, you know,
- 9:18I had home runs. I was a good pitcher. When I was about
- 9:24seventeen and a half years old, my arm was hurting a little bit,
- 9:28my upper arm past the elbow. And when I was twelve years old,
- 9:33my curve ball used to break like four feet. I mean, it was
- 9:35like this big hook and people are telling me that I'm gonna throw my elbow
- 9:39out too early. I never that never hurt me. I never got hurt
- 9:45through courage in my whole life. But what I think might have hurt me
- 9:48was fastballs. I think I kind of threw my upper arm out, you
- 9:54know, and thinking back, it had I worked out with light weights,
- 9:56maybe train better. But back then it wasn't like today. They didn't have
- 10:01the pro training camps. You know. Our coaches just said go play,
- 10:05and whoever had the most natural ability was the good player. You know.
- 10:11It wasn't like you know now twelve Euros look like little pros. You know,
- 10:15all their mechanics and fundamentals are perfect. You know. So I probably
- 10:22did things wrong, but but I had enough scale to where I actually when
- 10:26I was seventeen, I was hitting home runs, but not as many as
- 10:30some of the other guys, you know, and you really have to stand
- 10:35out above the entire league, and your numbers have to be crazy, and
- 10:39you got to be getting right ups every week before any pro scouts are going
- 10:43to come your way, you know, or you're just an incredible pitcher.
- 10:48I mean, you know, throwing it ninety five miles an hour when you're
- 10:52like eighteen, you might get signed. I actually a friend of mine plan
- 10:58got signed by the Dodgers at seventeen years old, so that that kind of
- 11:01stuff can happen. But you know, I just, really, to be
- 11:07honest, wasn't I didn't feel I was good enough to be a pro baseball
- 11:11player. Are you who you fan of? What's your team? Well?
- 11:18My local teams are Dodgers. Yep. I've been a fancis. I was
- 11:22like, you know, ten years old or even younger, used to have
- 11:26boxes of baseball cards, been through all these decades of different players and everything,
- 11:31you know, yeah, Rnando Venezuela, Yeah, all these eras.
- 11:37Even basketball was the same. It was like Gamberlain, Jerry West, and
- 11:41then you know, it always had the thinner guard combo every decade until our
- 11:50most recent decades, and I kind of lost interest. It's weird. It
- 11:54was like there was nobody had this type of star power or the kind of
- 12:01skills, the fast break and all that to get my attention, and I
- 12:07kind of gravitated away from basketball. It's so weird because I was a fan
- 12:11for you know, four decades, but I still followed baseball, so was
- 12:16rock and roll. So were you in bands during this period? Yeah?
- 12:20Yeah, I moved out. Actually, just right after I turned eighteen,
- 12:26I moved out and I was a friend of mine get me a job in
- 12:31a potato chat factory laced potato chips and we used to weigh the roles of
- 12:39impressions of potato chips, put them in boxes and just kind of put tape
- 12:43on it. And we were in a cover band, so we were playing
- 12:48like five sets a night at clubs and working during the day of this day
- 12:52gig right, and we came up with something because we talk about nothing but
- 12:58music. I worked right with the guy, so if the boss was coming
- 13:03around, we would point, and you know, we just have this distracting
- 13:07point job to where he'd think we're talking about something to do with the factory,
- 13:13you get me, but we're talking about legs up letting, what song
- 13:16we're going to learn or you know what I mean. And it was like
- 13:20it was really it really worked in it. It looked like we were really
- 13:22into our job. So that's why I started out. We were just you
- 13:28know, we're playing all the clubs and that, and that's kind of how
- 13:31I discovered Van Halein because they were a local band and I actually went and
- 13:39saw when I was like sixteen, and one thing I noticed pretty quickly was
- 13:46they played every night somewhere. I go, how can we do that?
- 13:50You know that? So I was more inspired than any I mean, the
- 13:54guitar player obviously was just insane, but I was more because I'm in a
- 14:00too, so I'm following their work ethic and how much they work. You
- 14:03know, these guys are playing everywhere and you know, so that really inspired
- 14:11me. Yeah. You talked to my buddy Jeff Goldbill. We both write
- 14:16for the Van Hillen News desk, and he had he did a great interview
- 14:18with you, and you talked about I think you were chatting it up with
- 14:22David Lee. David Lee Roth was filling you in like, hey man,
- 14:24you got to just do any gig you could get, you know, like,
- 14:28just yeah, just you know h I actually asked him, I post
- 14:33the question, how do you get your gigs? Because you know, do
- 14:39you an that's right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, he said, he
- 14:41said him and Eddie just get on the phone and call and say, hey,
- 14:46can we audition or whatever? And so they started playing clubs and then
- 14:52when they got in Hollywood, they became like the house band at Gazaaris.
- 14:56And then by that time they had enough original to where on a weekends they
- 15:01would go play showcases. You know, you saw him at a junkyard,
- 15:05though I love the story that you saw him at Was it for one dollar?
- 15:09Three blocks from my house? We walked, We walked there and and
- 15:13uh paid one dollar to get in. They had caves of beer and stuff.
- 15:16And you see the guitar player because my friend had told me how great
- 15:20he was, and this dude's like outlandish on guitar, so I wanted to
- 15:24see it. But when we first walked in, the singer brought Dave Roth
- 15:31was laying on the ground blowing a tube inside of the floor tom and he
- 15:35was playing like it sounded like wipeout day, you know, And I'm going,
- 15:43you know, like when does the guitar thing get a good damn?
- 15:46And anyways, they launched in and you could tell right away this guy there's
- 15:52something different going on. Now. I had the biggest musician following Tube was
- 15:58Michael Anthony the band at the time, or was before Mike Okay, So
- 16:00Michael Okay, now ra early he had just joined I think not that long
- 16:07before that. Wow. Wow, So was Eddie. There were stories about
- 16:11Eddie with his back to the audience because you just said a lot of musicians
- 16:15like was I never saw that. Yeah, you know, I've heard people
- 16:19say that, but I never seen him turner his back on the audience because
- 16:25it took a long time before he started doing the the eruption type thing.
- 16:30So he didn't even have a wing bar on a tremolot bar on his guitar.
- 16:36He was playing Les Paul when I've first seen him, right, and
- 16:38you know he so you saw him switch guitars and what up. But uh,
- 16:45the bar came later and the finger tapping came later. But I never
- 16:48saw him like turn his back and tried to hide what he's doing or whatever.
- 16:53Yeah, I've heard that said, but I saw him a lot and
- 16:57I never seen that one turning his back or whatever. Yeah, for those
- 17:00who don't know that story that that wasn't because Eddie was shy what she was.
- 17:03But Dave was just saying, like, don't anybody steal your stuff.
- 17:07You know, he's all that wild, you know. But so how many
- 17:11times did you see van Halen? Did you see as as that he's progressing
- 17:14with with the the new things he's doing. To go a lot quite a
- 17:18bit, even go to gazaarrees or if they played the Star Win or something
- 17:23we went. I remember one time I was drinking a little bit too much.
- 17:27I haven't drank for like a long time. But you know, I
- 17:32wasn't being mean or rude or anything. But I was talking to Roth and
- 17:37I don't even know what I was talking about, but he started looking up
- 17:42in the air and he goes, it's raining in here. Like I guess
- 17:47I would whoever me talking at Maybe I was overly excited, like I guess,
- 17:55a little spittle He said, it's raining in here? So what was
- 18:00you know? What? Was Dave an interesting character? Yeah? He was
- 18:06actually quite sweet. Actually I've talked to him a few times, just sitting
- 18:11and talking. One time I was playing in a pool tournament in Pasadena and
- 18:15he was upstairs eating and went up and talk sat down and talked to him
- 18:19because my brother had hung out with him before, and uh, all you
- 18:25know, he has this reputation like he's some big ego guy, but all
- 18:29he was talking about is me. He kept saying, what are you up
- 18:32to? How's the band doing this, that and the other. It's like
- 18:34all he wanted to know is what I was doing? And and uh so
- 18:40he has ah, he likes to engage in convert stations does with people.
- 18:45Yeah, but it's not it's not a me me me mean thing. You
- 18:51know. He just did on going back and forth and and definitely, uh
- 18:56you know, he he acted like he was really curious on what the band
- 19:03with us here? You know, that's I always appreciated that. Yeah,
- 19:07listening to Great White all these years, there's a real bluesy influence there.
- 19:11Who were the bands, the artist, the guitarist that influenced your sound.
- 19:15You're wearing Keith Richard shirt. Yeah, Deverel actually, but most played with
- 19:22you know, kind of a lot of passion and feel and whatnot. The
- 19:27first one I remember, when I was fourteen because I was just so blown
- 19:32away by him, was Carled Santana, and I was like I was jamming
- 19:36with these guys and I was like demanding that we play Santa. It was
- 19:40like we were Santana tribute band, but we weren't, but I just wanted
- 19:44to play Santana because I saw him on that Woodstock concert and he just grabbed
- 19:48this note. I told the story before, but it was still mind blowing.
- 19:52He grabbed this note and the look on his face was like it was
- 19:57like he's holding this note for dear life or something. I mean, the
- 20:02guy was sweating bullets and he was just grabbing this note. And I don't
- 20:07know why that just kind of It's just I want to play with that much
- 20:12effort and really feel what I play. You know, my dad was kind
- 20:18of like that way he played trumpet. He really squeezed the note, got
- 20:22the maximumount of it. So maybe I get a little from him. But
- 20:27then I discovered guitar player, so I was loyal to all of them,
- 20:33but I would move from one to the next, like once I got into
- 20:36Johnny Winter, It's like I wanted to learn everything he did, and then
- 20:40I'd get into album leave. For a while, I was playing like I'm
- 20:44going home note for note just from playing, just from learning it. It
- 20:51took a long time to learn it and play it fluid, you know,
- 20:53live in front of people. But I was so fascinated by his who it
- 21:00stuck again. But and then you know, later years when I heard Rio
- 21:07Grande mud That's easy top album, I going, who's this guy? You
- 21:11know, Billy Gibven's I was like, And I've actually had the opportunity a
- 21:15few times to hang out with him. He's real sweet and his wife is
- 21:18awesome. Been to a few shows. The way he plays, he's so
- 21:25effortless. It's like he used to get more, like have more body shapes.
- 21:30But now I think, and I've heard people say this when you get
- 21:33up in years, like you can get do everything you did before, but
- 21:38with less effort. Get me, he's wasting a bunch of energy, but
- 21:44you still get the same result. He just looks like, you know,
- 21:49he makes it look so easy it's but he really feels it, you know.
- 21:53He does it even on Eliminator. It gets talked a lot about the
- 21:56synthesizers on that album, but he's he's all over that album, like,
- 22:02oh yeah, good bluesy track on there is amazing uh bam bam bam bam.
- 22:11I got the six Yeah, yeah, it's it's the bluesy track.
- 22:18I mean lyrically, he's a genius too. If you'll be able to and
- 22:23a voice. What a voice too. I actually wanted to find out,
- 22:26like, what is he talking about? Like, you know, on the
- 22:30on the Trace out Ombras album, I'm going Master of Sparks. What is
- 22:36this? It's just so weird, And he said he they explained it.
- 22:41It was about this guy that used to go out in a pickup truck and
- 22:45have this barbed wire all like wrapped in a big ball and get the truck
- 22:52haul and ass and then throw it out and all these sparks would happen.
- 22:57That's him doing the voice. Yeah. They called him the master of Sparks,
- 23:03that this certain guy that is just crazy. But but he I got
- 23:07the six by the way, I'm sorry, I need you tonight. I
- 23:10need you Tonight is the one I'm talking about from that, Yeah, and
- 23:15that bluesy that ballad they do on the next one all rough boy love rough
- 23:23boy Boy, And that's interesting. So so you weren't you weren't of that?
- 23:30There were people say, well, this isn't this is an old school's
- 23:32easy top. What are they doing? But they were pushing it forward,
- 23:34but I still felt like it was this easy top sound. It was still
- 23:37easy top to me. Oh yeah, they were just trying, you know,
- 23:41giving you a slightly different look, you know, having some loop and
- 23:45you know, grooves underneath, and yeah there was some synth in there,
- 23:49but he still he still had that the guitar thing. You know, he
- 23:55didn't change anything he did. They were also smart enough to to know about
- 24:00like obviously music videos, but stage presence, image, the way you look
- 24:06dress of course, the long beers and all that. But did you take
- 24:10inspiration from from a band like that? And of course David the Roth making
- 24:14sure you have that stage presence because it's it's it's the whole package. Yeah.
- 24:18Yeah, you know, I found this hat and I started wearing the
- 24:23hat and people were talking about this hat, and I wore shades that became
- 24:29kind of an image and I had, you know, a certain thing around
- 24:32it, and people, you know, like the shades. I think,
- 24:37you know, I get them from truck stops for four bucks, and people
- 24:40thought, you know, like almost like I had them made or sunglass.
- 24:45There is steapy, Yeah, there is cheapy, but yeah, so you
- 24:49know you want to look it on stage and you know image, but as
- 24:53far as like an image like that's you know, massive makeup and anything like
- 25:03that. We didn't do that. Now, that's a different level. No,
- 25:08in Tesla, there were bands like that that. Yeah, they weren't.
- 25:12We were just wanted we wanted you to can tell we're in a band,
- 25:18but we didn't go too flamboyant on that. Yeah. So talk about
- 25:22when you guys formed, this is I believe in seventy seven. That's incorrect.
- 25:27Actually, okay, it was seventy nine. I met Jack Russell.
- 25:32A friend of mine told me about this guy that was in a band and
- 25:37my singer was a little bit old for us, and he didn't quite hit
- 25:41the notes, and you know, so we were ready to move on from
- 25:44him. But what I ended up doing is leaving the whole situation and just
- 25:48Jack and I made a band. Okay, I just kind of went on
- 25:52and on from there. He got in some trouble, which that whirred me
- 25:59a little bit, so I ended up getting another singer. But in the
- 26:03meantime, a year and a half later, he came back and auditioned,
- 26:07and my band had written a lot of songs and and so he just kind
- 26:14of glued right into it. And we were playing around Hollywood, and we
- 26:19played around for a couple of years and then then got some attention, got
- 26:26an opportunity with an air and armed man to make an EP that was in
- 26:33eighty four. The first two and then the first full album is eighty four,
- 26:38the self titled eighty three eighty three I think late eighty two something like
- 26:44that. We put out the five songs. We got airplay in one of
- 26:47the stations in Los Angeles called kamey t but we didn't really have a record
- 26:52deal. It was just a distribution. So it's kind of ironic that we
- 26:59were getting in heavy rotation on a song with no deal. Which song on
- 27:06your Knees on your Okay, Yeah, it was like the big PMRC thing
- 27:11and everything, so so you know, we're getting that attention. So we
- 27:18did get the full deal and then Michael Wagner produced that album or you know,
- 27:22engineered and was part of the production team. And then we went on
- 27:27tour with White Snake in the UK for I think two or three months,
- 27:33and then we came back with Judas Priest in the States and that was eighty
- 27:37four. Okay, who came up with a band name Great White. Actually
- 27:47I'm a singer. Jack Russell used to call me Great White when I would
- 27:51do a solo during a song back in the day in the clubs and souff
- 27:56because I'm like the whitest guy in the world, right, so he'd say,
- 28:00he'd say, like kid, you know. And anyway, so when
- 28:03we met Ellen nivendin' arman the following day, because he gave us his card
- 28:14this night that we played the Whiskey, we found out when we went the
- 28:19next day that he thought we had potential. He liked a couple of the
- 28:22songs, but hated our name. We're going to, oh, no a
- 28:26band name where we're thinking, we got to think of a new name,
- 28:30right because he don't like our name, which was Dante Fox. It is,
- 28:33you know, pretty bad, but yeah, we kind of settled on
- 28:37it. It was like it wasn't so much we loved the name, it
- 28:41just we abandoned trying to think of anything else. We just said, that's
- 28:47just going to be. I don't care, I'm not going to think of
- 28:49a name anymore. But anyways, Uh, I guess he was out in
- 28:55front of the Whiskey waiting for his car or something, and I stuck my
- 29:00head out the window of a car and I screamed something I don't know what
- 29:03it was, but he said the kid next from him pointed to the car
- 29:07and goes, there goes Great White because he never heard that. He didn't
- 29:11hear Jack say. He didn't happen to say it that night. So yeah,
- 29:17so when he heard that, he already hated our name. He knew
- 29:19he hated our name. But when the kid said there goes Great White,
- 29:23something clicked in his head right there, and he just said, that's our
- 29:26name. But we don't know it till the next day. And when he
- 29:30tells us you don't have to think of a name, I got a name.
- 29:33He goes Great White, where you know, we didn't. We didn't
- 29:36think of the Shark or anything like that, so we didn't totally love it
- 29:40right out of the gate, you know. Wow. But once we did
- 29:42think of the Shark, we thought, hey, that's a pretty cool name
- 29:45because it's not the tight name where you had to play a certain kind of
- 29:51music like you know, you know how a name a name like Slayer,
- 29:55you figure they're going to be pretty heavy our name. Really, if somebody
- 30:00says a Great Whites playing and you never heard him before, you really don't
- 30:04know what you're gonna go listen to you know what I mean. Yeah,
- 30:07so we liked it for that reason. Also, so talk about before asking
- 30:14about the albums that really blew up, and they were hugely successful. The
- 30:18first two albums you get, the self titled debut and then Shot in the
- 30:21Dark and eighty six. They're often forgotten because of the hit albums. But
- 30:23what stands out to you when you think about those first two records. Well,
- 30:30the first album, we're really trying to be something that we weren't,
- 30:36you know, and it wasn't successful. We were trying to be like Judas
- 30:40Priests and early Scorpions, even though it didn't turn out that way. But
- 30:44we were trying to be heavy and you know, because we thought that was
- 30:49the thing to do. You know, we're young, it's the early stage
- 30:52of our writing. Then the second what then we get dropped out the label
- 30:59after the Jesus preachort and and I America dropped us up the label. So
- 31:03we borrowed some money and went and made another record and called it Shot in
- 31:07the Dark. Well, Halos Who's was also the biggest, one of the
- 31:14biggest stations in Los Angeles at the time. Jamie T, Jamie T and
- 31:18kayla Us from two big stations. They put Base the Day on the radio
- 31:25in heavy rotation and it became number two songs of the year. So that
- 31:32got the attention to Capitol Records, and A and R. Man came down
- 31:36to San Juan Campistrano and thought us play at the coach House and signed us
- 31:40that night. So you know, we're getting our second opportunity here again because
- 31:48of a radio station. And you know, we're so grateful for that,
- 31:52because not everybody gets a second chance. It's funny in those days radio stations,
- 31:59yeah, they could, they had that type of influence, and of
- 32:02course, but radio the other thing. You know, I've kind of studied
- 32:07other bands because I'm curious, you know, is there any similarities to Tom
- 32:13Petty beginnings in ours? You know, I look into that kind of stuff,
- 32:17and I'm watching his documentary and like I was talking to the singer for
- 32:22R. E O. And he's like, they didn't hit until their third
- 32:27album. It's like that. Not everybody comes out of the gate with it,
- 32:30you know, and just blows the world up, you know, with
- 32:35the excitement. Very true oftimes, you got to grind it out a little
- 32:38bit and then you know, when your back's against the wall. Sometimes you
- 32:44come with it right. You have to know. I'm a huge pet fan.
- 32:49I remember Tom Petty. That first album is didn't do much. Yeah,
- 32:52they were trying to tell they were trying to label them or market them
- 32:57as like a punk band or a new way. Unbelievable, unbelievable, grinding
- 33:04story. He has no money, running out of gas, you know,
- 33:08trying to get to LA and oh my god, it's amazing, incredible.
- 33:13Well, you know, other guy, Sammy Higar was like that too,
- 33:15just grinding it out as a solo artist when he left Montrose, just just
- 33:21tour album tour, album, tore them until he slowly built up that following
- 33:24And you guys did that too, And then of course that sets up the
- 33:28the eighty seven album Once Bitten, number twenty three. The album goes platinum.
- 33:34Rock Me Save Your Love reached the Hot one hundred top ten rock radio
- 33:37singles. Lady red Light also did well on rock radio. Did you feel
- 33:40like the band was hitting the stride by then? Did you feel like did
- 33:45you feel good about the songs when the album was released? Wow, here's
- 33:50my deal is It's the first time I've ever like listened back. I remember
- 33:55sitting in the control room with the record company all there, and I heard
- 34:00rock Me come back at Me, you know, through the speakers at a
- 34:05pretty decent volume, and I, you know, you don't know if it's
- 34:10gonna the people are gonna gravitate toward it, but to me it sounded like
- 34:16amazing. You know, I couldn't believe what I was hearing, because you
- 34:21know, you're you kind of get a little bit of tunnel vision, and
- 34:24you know you're overdubbing your stuff and the stuff being that, you know,
- 34:30it's not like we're totally playing live in the studio, So I really didn't
- 34:35know what we did until we were done. And when i'd heard it back,
- 34:38I felt like it had a good, good chance to do something.
- 34:43But I was a little worried about how long it was. It was seven
- 34:46minutes long, and we'd never had a hit song before. You know,
- 34:50we're going to radio with the seven minutes song. So the manager does a
- 34:55funny little trick add just to be humorous, every song on the album,
- 35:02he put three minutes and fifty nine seconds. So when when the radio station's
- 35:09got the single, it said three point fifty nine rock Me, three fifty
- 35:14nine but early seven minutes. So then the you know, the phones are
- 35:19lighting up, the songs going big. We're out with night Ranger. You
- 35:22know, we're on tour, songs, on radio everywhere. You know,
- 35:25it's a big hit. So by the time they figured it's seven minutes,
- 35:30I guess it was, you know, almost too late or something. Probably
- 35:34I don't know that, but you know what I mean. I mean,
- 35:37you know, I think they like this shorter stuff. But you know,
- 35:40it was kind of an ao R type time a little bit. It was,
- 35:46I know, it wasn't like it is now with the classic rock.
- 35:50You know, like at one ten every day is when Petty will be on.
- 35:54It's well, you know, like it like the whole thing's on a
- 35:58clock. There was a little bit more random back then. It felt like,
- 36:01Yeah, I worked in radio for a while and it was just I
- 36:04played the same songs every night after night, and then they would move,
- 36:08like they'd move tom Petty's free Falling from like two pm on Monday and then
- 36:14they played at four pm on Tuesday, and that was mixing it up.
- 36:20Okay, you know exactly what I mean. Oh yeah, but I'm so
- 36:24grateful they play us though, you know, we're not quite the oldest dam
- 36:29we're kind of the classic rock deal or something. And you know, I
- 36:32still get the chills when I hear anything of us on the radio. I
- 36:37took it the greatest ever. Yeah, I was. I was going to
- 36:39ask, what's what's your memory of the first time you heard us, any
- 36:43of your songs on the radio. What that felt like? Well, the
- 36:45very first time was on your knees on that EP, and you know,
- 36:50you just can't believe it. You know, you never think you're good enough,
- 36:53you know. Plus it wasn't too long before that when my mom was
- 36:58coming out in the ground check. Can you guys tone it down, tone
- 37:01it down, right back down to earth. You didn't tell us to turn
- 37:06it down, of tone it down. I just roll off a little trouble
- 37:09huh rock podcasts. We'll be back after this. Now you waiting, I'll
- 37:17be right back. Your solo on rock Me is so damn good. Do
- 37:23you recall any any stories memories of recording that song? I want to ask
- 37:29you about some of the other songs too. No, I'm just trying to
- 37:35do things that are memorable that I think bit the song and some you know,
- 37:38trying to play as week as possible. I'm kind of a fan of
- 37:44that. I don't just want to play a bunch of notes and to try
- 37:47to get attention. I'd rather play something musical, because I've always been a
- 37:53fan of singers. Even when I was a very little kid, like five
- 37:57six years old, i'd sing sing along. Even when my dad got me
- 38:01Hendrix Spream and the Doors. I didn't even hear the guitar. When I
- 38:07was listening to Hendrix. I was singing with him. I was singing,
- 38:10Hey Joe, I was singing, you know, manic depression or whatever.
- 38:15And and so later in life I'm playing guitar. My thinking is, how
- 38:22come just singers get to sing all these beautiful melodies? Why can't I?
- 38:25Why can't I try to incorporate a little of that. I mean, you
- 38:30want to do some things that are a little fast for a dynamic, or
- 38:35maybe the end of the solo flurry a little bit. But I want to
- 38:38do things like like Jimmy Page did with Stairway to Heaven. I mean,
- 38:44you know, a solo that lives on its own forever, not just the
- 38:50song, how great that is, but can you believe how cool that solo
- 38:53is? You know, and it's not because it's technically you know, this
- 39:00highly skilled gi T monster thing. It's just so beautiful and it fits so
- 39:07well in this and the sound of it is great, and the way the
- 39:14length of the notes and you know what I mean, Yeah, that's my
- 39:19My thinking in other words, has never been how many notes can I get
- 39:22away with before the band's going to say something. My thinking is what can
- 39:28I do to make this song the best it could possibly be? You know
- 39:30what I mean? Yeah, yess that's why I played the way I do
- 39:36you. How about Savie Love? Do you remember any memories of recording that
- 39:38writing the song? Yeah? Actually I was over at this friend of mine
- 39:45who was a really good songwriter, and you know, it's kind of writing
- 39:51with him, and he kind of had this heavy metal approach to say your
- 39:55love believe it or not, with this big intro, heaving guitars, and
- 40:02we decided to bring it down into like a more of an acoustic and maybe
- 40:08some strings and make it more of that type song that maybe lifted in certain
- 40:15areas with the dynamics. It was really never a big hit, except for
- 40:20when we played it live. It wasn't like it was you know, a
- 40:24top ten single or anything. I don't think. But when we played it
- 40:28live, people wigged out, you know, they called it a turntable hit.
- 40:32The turntable hit. It's like when the fans discover songs that aren't getting
- 40:37a lot of attention, you know, maybe they discovered them on the album
- 40:44and they go, wow, I really love this song too. This is
- 40:47just look at this is funny. The Save Your Love edit, the length
- 40:50three minutes and fifty nine seconds, I called it, yeah, three fifty
- 40:55nine everything, you know, and it was really that added just being humorous.
- 41:01It wasn't like we were trying to get away with something. It was
- 41:04just being funny. It's like, you know, like in movies, like
- 41:08they'll put a frog in every scene, every scene, just to see if
- 41:14somebody notices it. We did it in this what we were in this movie
- 41:17called uh see they can't movie now? Is it? What? Was a
- 41:28well known movie one i'd recognize. Yeah, it was with definitely D'Angelo.
- 41:35Look it up because I still remember seeing it's play the band. We just
- 41:40played the band in the movie. But anyways, they were putting some kind
- 41:46of animal thing in all every single scene to where just to see if the
- 41:57director would notice it. And if nobody notices it, when the movie's all
- 42:01done and in theaters they can go watch it. GOODK, there it is,
- 42:06you know what I mean? Yes, I don't know if it's a
- 42:07little little thing. Now. I'm curious as to which movie that is,
- 42:10because I remember it was with what What Made to Order? Made Order?
- 42:20Yeah, May Order nineteen eighty seven. Here we go, Yeah, IMDb.
- 42:22I think they mentioned because that White Lion was in the Money Pit with
- 42:29Tom Hanks and Shelley Duval in nineteen eighty six. Oh yeah, I remember
- 42:31watching that on HBO. I'm like, wait a minute, that's fine Lion.
- 42:37But they were unknown at the time. They were just like the there
- 42:40were the wedding bands. Cool. Yeah, How did you like making videos?
- 42:49I heard they could be long days? Not really so much because of
- 42:52the waiting. But I remember when we did stick it on the first album
- 42:55was it was kind of fun because my brother was there in the crowd and
- 43:00Tom Jones. We took a break. I was watching Tom Jones rehearse in
- 43:05this other room that was attached to we were doing it. It was badass.
- 43:08You know. Tom Jones is a singer and he was going to be
- 43:12on Johnny Carson. We got to talk to him a little bit, going
- 43:15on Johnny Carson The Falling Night and doing a rehearsal for that. But just
- 43:20watching that guy, you know, yeah, thing perfect and you know he
- 43:27he just has you know, a T shirt on a sweatpants down there.
- 43:35Oh god, yeah, the guy. His pipes is pretty incredible. Man.
- 43:40Yeah, making the video, I've always heard it's it's like a long,
- 43:45long, laborious thing, but boy, it pays off though. The
- 43:49it moves. Yes, as they would say, we were excited. We
- 43:52were excited with the whole MTV and you know, we were really getting our
- 43:58music out there and you know the videos. It was fun. They didn't
- 44:02let us go in the day if they shot girls, they wouldn't let us
- 44:07be there on that day because it would distract from the whole shooting scene.
- 44:14But sometimes we're in with them, so we had to be there. But
- 44:17there were times when, like when they hung the chick on the hook and
- 44:21stuff, I mean they didn't want us down there. They literally, like
- 44:28today, they wouldn't do it that way. They would just get a chick
- 44:30sitting on a chair and then dub in the hook. You know, but
- 44:34they he's actually hanging on this thing. Yeah, but uh yeah, so
- 44:40yeah, the video I mean because see back then the equipment they had train
- 44:46tracks, and you know, if we we didn't use drones, we use
- 44:51helicopters. If we were doing an aerial shot, you know, we're doing
- 44:55a shot up on a building. Now it would take us just minutes to
- 44:59do with a with a drone, but we we actually get helicopters with cameras,
- 45:06you know. Yeah, so everything took longer, you know, the
- 45:10setups, you know, took longer. Now we've done videos. You know,
- 45:15we did a video a few years ago and all the all the equipment
- 45:21small now, but it's the same quality. Get me, could do everything
- 45:24on your phone. I did a solo on a street right down from my
- 45:30house and we were waiting for the traffic. I had to run out there
- 45:35when no cars were coming, and we had a drone, multiple cameras.
- 45:40It's amazing that, you know, and it looked great, you know,
- 45:44it was black and white as bad ass. I still try to I'm still
- 45:47it's crazy for me to think it's working in radio for so many years.
- 45:51I had to drive like forty five minutes to an hour to get to a
- 45:52microphone, and now it's I'm in my apartment. It's like that's where we're
- 45:57at. Like like a musician, you could record at home, you could
- 46:00record a whole lot, or during COVID you could do stuff where like here's
- 46:04my parts, I'll record my parts here, you do yours where you are.
- 46:07It's so different I do. I do a radio show now in Palm
- 46:13Springs, cool, and what I do is it's total free form, so
- 46:17I can play any song I want. So I get the list of songs
- 46:22and I literally do all the rapping on my phone and then the guy edits
- 46:30it together. I don't even go to the station. I'm not voice tracking,
- 46:34right, the voice tracking they call it. It's just my Mimo,
- 46:37my Mimo recorder, and it's high quality. It sounds perfect. I've heard,
- 46:44I've heard the shows I used. I used to pre record a shift
- 46:47and then I am in my car listening to myself. It's like it's just
- 46:52the strangest thing. But that's like serious XCM. I think serious XM.
- 46:57I think does that a lot where a lot of the you' here there,
- 47:00they're at home. They do it like you're doing it and then they and
- 47:02then they insert in all the breaks. But it was it was fascinating to
- 47:06see because you you would you would have all the spots on a sheet of
- 47:10paper, this is when you talk, this is the song you're going to
- 47:13introduce. And it was kind of a bummer though, because the magic of
- 47:16radio was doing that thing live and that was you know, I came from
- 47:21my dad did radio before me, and it was like it was like an
- 47:23art form, you know. But it's great that you get to pick your
- 47:27own songs. That's great. Yeah, it's see what's different then It's just
- 47:32like I was saying about the video, how the setups took longer because there
- 47:36was a lot bigger gear. It was just everything's faster now. And you
- 47:42know, but but the era you're talking about is human connection. Driving to
- 47:46work, you know, you feel like you're doing something and now we can
- 47:52do it all from home. And that's why kids are home, you know,
- 47:54playing video games and their computers. And you know what I mean to
- 47:59where everything I had to do coming up, I had to leave the house
- 48:02to get it done. You know, if I wanted to promote the band,
- 48:07I couldn't sit behind the keyboard. I had to get a staple gun
- 48:10in my posters and go to Hollywood. Yeah, you know, and it
- 48:14was that way with everything. Everything took footwork. Obviously, the business model
- 48:20has changed so much. So the big question I'm sure you've been asked so
- 48:22many times streaming services, what do you think about it? You know,
- 48:29I just deal with that. The thing I like about when I grew up
- 48:35is it was soventful to go to a record store buy an album. You
- 48:38know, been the whole day listening to physical graffiti, get some beer,
- 48:45save up, saved up for you, worked a job to save up for
- 48:50the b itself of buying a record was just so cool. I don't know,
- 48:54there was something about it. And uh, it's just a lot more
- 48:59human connect in different world. As far as the way is today with the
- 49:02streaming, you know, we just wanted we have internet assassins. They know
- 49:08how, you know, the best way to get our music to people.
- 49:13But it's just a little different, you know, it's not the way it
- 49:17was. I think the kids today are more song oriented than you know,
- 49:25knowing who's in bands like I always knew the guitar player, bass player,
- 49:30drummer, and singer. I always knew everybody's name in every band was like,
- 49:37yeah, the album even you know who did you know reading the lyrics?
- 49:43You know, and I don't know, there's just something to say about
- 49:45that. But you know, now I think, you know, kids might
- 49:49wake up before school and download like fifteen songs too from that guy to go
- 49:54you know where. It's not that hands on. My favorite guitared player is
- 50:00this guy, you know what I mean. Yeah, as an artist in
- 50:06the world, do you get like a check a year for royalties? How
- 50:09does that work? Yeah? We you know, quarterly, monthly, you
- 50:19know. You know, the songs still get played all over in different mediums,
- 50:24uh TV, some movies occasionally, which usually get a symphy for that.
- 50:31Plus you know so much so there's a lot of areas. The thing
- 50:37that's one thing good about today is the song the airplay is counted more accurately
- 50:45because it's not like the days of jukeboxes where you're just you're going by that
- 50:51thing that spends around. You know. Now everything's piped into the Internet,
- 50:55so it's easier for asas up and Sam and change all these different entities to
- 51:04count your songs correctly so they can pay the artists properly. Yeah, we
- 51:07had a music log we'd sign each hour. At the end of each hour,
- 51:10sign that log because I think that was part of the reason why.
- 51:14Obviously for commercials too. But yeah, guitarist and founding member of the Grammy
- 51:19nominated band Great White, Mark Kendall is here. But the other thing I
- 51:23was gonna mention too what's crazy too is like TikTok industry and like the younger
- 51:29the younger culture is like I put up all these videos and it's the short
- 51:32videos that get the most views. It's like the forty second shorts, fifty
- 51:37seconds. It has to be a minute or less. I don't know if
- 51:39I like that or not, but it is what it is. It is
- 51:44what it is. You know what I noticed being you know modern day Facebook,
- 51:50you know this ex Twitter or whatever. The thing that the fans respond
- 51:57to most is for the pictures on stage, like where you're jamming and you
- 52:02got the best shape of your life and your guitar just looking cool and you're
- 52:07looking cool and the lights are badass. They respond more to us in airports
- 52:15eating maybe maybe just standing there or backstage just chilling, you know, because
- 52:23I think they get to see us on stage all the time. And I
- 52:28know me as a fan, I want to know do Dlly Gibbons stratory McDonald?
- 52:34You know, what does he do when he's not blowing my mind?
- 52:37Guitar? You know? And I think the fans like that, they want
- 52:43want you to show a little bit of yourself away from the stage because I'm
- 52:47just judging by the lights that it gets these candid shots of us just goofing
- 52:53around. You know, we'll get like thousand of likes and and and maybe
- 52:59this on stage shot that's the greatest ever, it doesn't really get their full
- 53:04attention, you know, because they've already seen that. Yeah, well,
- 53:07do you have people like I know your publishers reach out to me so we
- 53:09can do this interview? Like do you have people that do like they make
- 53:13sure you post something every day, Like Sammy Hagar posts something every day and
- 53:16all. And it's because it's like a necessity in order to get your name
- 53:20out there and keep your name out there. I noticed Samuel will put something
- 53:23up every day, and you know that that's intentional, like you gotta you
- 53:27gotta do it. It's like it's necessary. We kind we kind of do
- 53:30that just on our own and and you know, we're always uh taking selfies
- 53:38or maybe get the story manager, take a shot of the band, you
- 53:42know when we're not looking so good. Yeah, right right, and you
- 53:45know, just just this show man. We're just a human, you know,
- 53:50we're just excuffy guys that you know, trying to have fun here it
- 53:54works and sharing that with yeah, people who like to be Oh. I
- 54:00was a manager, former manager of Kiss and I can't remember his name now,
- 54:04but he was talking about he still manages nowadays, and he's been around
- 54:07for a while and he just was telling like he was telling his bands.
- 54:09He's like, he used to be guys, we wanted to get your songs
- 54:13on the radio, MTV and then tour a lot. He's like, now
- 54:16you got to be on all the social media sites. And the guys in
- 54:20the band was like, well, what am I gonna post? He's like
- 54:22anything, just with anything, just get your name out there. Yeah,
- 54:28I want to move now to the nineteen eighty nine album Twice Shy, double
- 54:31platinum, nominated for a Grammy. Mister Bone is on this one top thirty
- 54:37rock radio, The Angel Song is top forty, House of Broken Love,
- 54:39Top ten rock radio enters, the Hot one hundred and then there is the
- 54:44top ten single once Bitten twice Shy video and heavy rotation originally in nineteen seventy
- 54:49five single by Ian Hunter of Matehopel. How did it come to be that
- 54:52you guys recorded that track? Whose choice was it? Here's what happened that
- 54:58our album was done. Basically, we had enough songs, everything was fine,
- 55:02and then our manager came in with that song because he managed Guns and
- 55:07Roses, and I guess isy Dradlin, the guitar player, had showed him
- 55:12that song because we had an album called Once Bitten and we thought the obvious
- 55:19follow up should be Twice Shy. But we didn't know about this song.
- 55:23And I knew nothing about Ian Hunter a solo career or anything like that.
- 55:30I just knew him from Monta hoopo that this was a solo song that was
- 55:36never hit. But our manager really liked the lyrics a lot because it was
- 55:40about being on the road and stuff, and we thought it was okay,
- 55:45we go, you know, just just make it your own, you know,
- 55:49and we'll put it on the record, you know, as an album
- 55:52track and to see how go. So we did that, and but by
- 56:00coincidence, back when we did the Jenus Priest tour. Our sound man was
- 56:04good friends with Ian Hunter, and so he wasn't doing nothing at the time.
- 56:09We went by his house and borrowed his drum riser out of his backyard
- 56:14for the tour. He loaned us as he loaned us a riser he had
- 56:17it, he had his backyard, but he had nothing to do with doing
- 56:22the song. Five years later, so we have one more encounter with him.
- 56:27He rode on our bus one time. I forget what that was about.
- 56:30But again this song was brought to us. Niven loved the lyrics because
- 56:35we're always on the road. We've been on the road, you know,
- 56:37we never go home, and and so it kind of fit what we did.
- 56:44But had we been desperate and actually needing a cover because of lack of
- 56:50material, the trick is to find a hit, you know, kind of
- 56:55like what Lenny Kravis did with The American Woman. It's like, find a
- 57:00song that's already been a hit and then make it your own. We're not
- 57:04going to go hunt down a song that's never been a hit and try to
- 57:08make it one, you know. So it wasn't like we were searching for
- 57:15one. It just came to us. And we said, okay, we'll
- 57:17do it. Then then the record company totally wiggs out because it comes out
- 57:22pretty good and they want to make it the single. And we thought it
- 57:28was okay, you know, but we we didn't know it was going to
- 57:31do what it did. And then so it's out for seven months and we
- 57:39literally haven't even gone to the second song yet because it's everybody's you know,
- 57:44really really gravitated toward it. In I remember it, like relate to the
- 57:50lyric. They relate to the lyrics because you can put once bitten like I'll
- 57:54never do that again, right, so you can apply it to your life
- 57:59pretty much. You know. It was a lot of different things. So,
- 58:01yeah, the song did very well. But the thing I thought was
- 58:05funny is it was number one on MTV. It made me realize that your
- 58:13video and MTV to do with how good the video is. It's just because
- 58:17the song's top five in Billboard, so that just moves you up the ladder
- 58:24on MTV. But I think they completely judged your video by where you are
- 58:31on the chart, because I didn't think that that video set any records or
- 58:37anything. I mean, it was it was cool and fun, but yeah,
- 58:42well shot. But yeah, it wasn't like a epic, big budget
- 58:45Michael Jackson, but it wasn't thrill. It wasn't thriller. Yeah, I
- 58:51remember that summer Man summer of eight nine, and I was I was in
- 58:54my last year of high school. I remember thinking, I think back Batman
- 58:59was the big movie, Great Whites, one Bit and Twice I was a
- 59:01big song, you know. I just remember that summer. It was yesterday
- 59:07booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this suspense is killing me.
- 59:13Any stories or memories you could share from some of the other hits, like
- 59:15Mister Bone. Mister Bone. Yeah, there was actually a guy who's like
- 59:21an an arch man or something. His name was Mike Bone, and we
- 59:25had him in the video. We did it out in the middle of nowhere
- 59:29at this house and stuff, and it's pretty cool. But yeah, people
- 59:35really dug that song. It was a great live track. You know,
- 59:39a lot of the songs become something from playing live, you know, and
- 59:50you kind of know what they are after playing live a lot, you know,
- 59:54by the reaction of the crowd. That's just funny. It's like when
- 59:58you played live, it's not like recording because there's that I've said this before,
- 1:00:04but there's like a three month window after you're done playing, so you've
- 1:00:08got to wait to find out if you're good or not, so to speak,
- 1:00:13where when you play live, they let you know right when the song
- 1:00:16ends, so we can we can feel what songs are getting the reaction and
- 1:00:22which ones are you know, getting the most reaction, and you know,
- 1:00:27maybe others are getting reaction too, but so you can kind of feel the
- 1:00:32songs that they're that they're responding to. And that's still in the setlist,
- 1:00:38right, Yeah, Yeah, we play that. We do a little jam
- 1:00:43in the beginning. That's one thing to keep it exciting for us. We
- 1:00:47like to involve the crowd, you know, involve the fans, whether it
- 1:00:51be singing or you know, bring them into the show by doing a few
- 1:00:55random jams that we don't really know exactly how we're gonna to do it,
- 1:01:00you know, so it makes it exciting for us. Things are changing tonight,
- 1:01:06that's cool. Anything to eliminate going through the motions, you know,
- 1:01:09we like to sure get exciting. How about House of Broken Love? Remember
- 1:01:14about recording that writing that that's a fan favorite, you know that, believe
- 1:01:20it or not. The solo, and that took me about ten hours.
- 1:01:24And there's nothing hard. Like a fifteen year old that's been playing the year
- 1:01:29could probably play that solo, but to ride it was kind of a pain
- 1:01:34in the butt because I didn't have anything for it, and there was a
- 1:01:37lot of solos and fills in that song, so I had to come with
- 1:01:43something, and so I was just writing it as I go, as I
- 1:01:46went, you know, And by the time I was done, Man,
- 1:01:50my fingers are killing me just from playing so long, because it's not just
- 1:01:57the link of the solo. I was playing for like ten hours up and
- 1:02:01on, and my fingers were in pain. And I discovered something a friend
- 1:02:07of mine told me. He says, dip your fingers in dasolene and it
- 1:02:12kind of sucks the soreness out. And I did that and it worked.
- 1:02:15I can't believe it. Man, that's cool. So it almost feels like
- 1:02:20your fingers have bruising. Yeah, so did they take from different parts where
- 1:02:24you like recording the whole ten hours and they took yeah, rolling, rolling
- 1:02:30two inch tape and I was playing along. Then we'd listened back and just
- 1:02:37I'm just building this cool solo. That's uh. I'm trying to make it
- 1:02:43the best I can, you know, make it memorable, because the song
- 1:02:49was so simple that I wanted it to have something else, some musical value
- 1:02:54besides, you know these two cores that are going down, So okay.
- 1:03:02A couple of years later, ninety one hooked follows that has Desert Moon and
- 1:03:07Call It rock and Roll, which both got heavy Airplane Rock Radio Top twenty
- 1:03:10went gold. Any good stories on Desert Moon call it rock and Roll?
- 1:03:15Yeah, yeah, Desert Moon itself. After we were done with I think
- 1:03:23either The Scorpion or Tesla, I can't remember, but instead of going home,
- 1:03:30we went to the Bahamas and just like partied down like billy for five
- 1:03:35days. Right, so we were kind of in a coma a little bit.
- 1:03:38We went to New York to Electric Ladylan Studios. You know, we're
- 1:03:45into three coordinat and all that legendary, and flew we flew in all the
- 1:03:51biggest radio station people to come watch us play that song live in Electric Ladyland
- 1:03:58and that was that was joyful. And then we did a really cool video
- 1:04:03out in the desert at night, and Dean Kane was in that video.
- 1:04:09I don't know, mamily, Yeah, he did the sleepermn Sieries and stuff.
- 1:04:14Really cool dude, that was real early in his career. So you
- 1:04:16know, these guys love doing music video, isn't. And then Christine Rose.
- 1:04:21I think she's kind of a model, and she was real personable and
- 1:04:29got into it, you know, dancing around this fire. Yeah. And
- 1:04:32at this point now, is the label really putting a lot of money behind
- 1:04:35you guys because you got your coming off the huge album? Yeah? Yeah,
- 1:04:40they I think I think the album could have been a little bit better,
- 1:04:45you know, I think, you know, in hindsight, you always
- 1:04:51can fix things. Yeah, you know, but I think I think we
- 1:04:57felt a little bit short there. That's just my opinion. But a lot
- 1:05:00of the fans like like it, But I don't know. I just think
- 1:05:05we could have stepped it up a little bit more with maybe the production a
- 1:05:11few other things, you know, just my opinion. And what did you
- 1:05:14think of grunge rock when you when you first heard Nirvana and sound Garden and
- 1:05:20Alice believe it or not? Believe it or not? You know, I
- 1:05:26really felt like the eighties was getting a little water down toward the end.
- 1:05:30I mean, the whole the whole decade was wonderful, you know that the
- 1:05:33Doc and skid Row, all the you know, some really good bands writing
- 1:05:38some quality material. But toward the end, because of the the big machines
- 1:05:44out there, they all wanted their dock in and they wanted their skid row,
- 1:05:46you know. So then you you kind of get, like, toward
- 1:05:50the end, a little bit predictable with the writing. You know, you
- 1:05:56can almost I can almost give you the lyrics for the chorus before I hear
- 1:06:00him it because that predictable. So when I heard that Nirvana for the first
- 1:06:05time, I thought it was just awesome. I couldn't believe it. It
- 1:06:11was well for this reason, they just plugged in. It seemed like a
- 1:06:15band that just plugged in. And it reminded me of us when we were
- 1:06:19starting out in the garage. Kind of crummy, but we didn't care,
- 1:06:25you know, we just kept doing it and then we got better. But
- 1:06:29they had this kind of I don't care attitude. But there was some melody
- 1:06:34in there with really raw ass fucking guitar sounds. I'm going that singer he
- 1:06:45has something, and what he has is his placement where he puts his vocals
- 1:06:51aren't like what other guys would do. It's almost like Phil Lenna with them
- 1:06:57Lizzy. It's like if you had another guy sing those song, he would
- 1:07:00never place the words were, Phil, did you give me? Yeah?
- 1:07:06There's there's there's a way to do it that A lot of singers would do
- 1:07:13it the same, but then you got a Phil Lenna that did it so
- 1:07:18his own way but made it so tasteful but just cool. It's just a
- 1:07:24rhythmic thing that like in al Green or you know, there's certain singers have
- 1:07:30that others don't. Like. Others got great voices, but they don't have
- 1:07:36that little extra thing that makes him a real original. And I thought that
- 1:07:42singer, even though he was just blasting in something, but there were other
- 1:07:45things he was doing that I go, that's kind of his own. It's
- 1:07:50like if I put another singer in there to sing that, he would never
- 1:07:54do it that way. But the way he's doing it is really cool.
- 1:07:59Interesting. It was a little bit refreshing for me. But at the same
- 1:08:02time, man, well maybe we're going to be on the hiatus for a
- 1:08:08while. Up, I'm not going to go out and start playing sounding like
- 1:08:11Nirvana to keep it well. But that's some bands were thinking about that and
- 1:08:15somebody doing it. We kept just writing the best songs we could, praying
- 1:08:21people are gonna like it. But we we never change anything we did because
- 1:08:27something swimming by doing great. So we just went out and we played mid
- 1:08:31size venues instead of arenas, say true to the music, true to who
- 1:08:35you were, and all the fans were still there. That's what was cool.
- 1:08:41Fans were so loyal that they you know, they dug it, they
- 1:08:45came down to see his play. Are there any albums during that period in
- 1:08:48the nineties that you're bummed that it came during that period because they would have
- 1:08:53done so much better, Like you got ninety two, Psycho City, Let's
- 1:08:57see Picho, ninety four, sail Away right, let it Rock Up ninety
- 1:09:01six. I think it was Psycho City. I felt had that come out
- 1:09:08like in the eighties, somewhere just wedget in there somewhere, I don't know,
- 1:09:14that probably would have done pretty good. And I think Can't get there
- 1:09:16from here in the late nineties really just missed its time because there was there
- 1:09:23was a lot of good stuff on that. Yeah, the Tribute to Zeppelin
- 1:09:27though, Man, that that was an album. I think that was received
- 1:09:30very well because the MTV Unplugged appearance where you're playing zeppy songs got a lot
- 1:09:35of people's attention. And then you released the tribute album from ninety eight,
- 1:09:40which I'm interested in the songs that you chose I thought was really cool.
- 1:09:45And in the Light was released as a single, which is a that's a
- 1:09:47deep track from Zapplin No Quarter Tangerine. Yeah, that was cool. So
- 1:09:53what went into the decision making as to which idea the idea was Because when
- 1:09:59we we did that unplugged show, the manager called me the night before we
- 1:10:02did that show and said, learn babe, I'm gonna leave you. Jack
- 1:10:05wants to do it. And I was in shocked because we're no way to
- 1:10:11rehearse and it's a pretty big arrangement, a lot of picking, and you
- 1:10:15know, I'm thinking this isn't like learning touch. I mean, this is
- 1:10:19serious shit. Yeah, And I didn't even I mean we went over in
- 1:10:25the dressing room and one time we went through the whole song in uh downcheck.
- 1:10:31So I'm unsure of this arrangement, I you know, but the singer
- 1:10:36knew it so good that I kind of followed his lead because a couple of
- 1:10:41times I'm going into another part and just kind of noodle my way out of
- 1:10:46it with some riff that just comes out the top of my head and go,
- 1:10:50okay, we don't change yet, you know. And it was nerve
- 1:10:55wracking. If you're watching the video, man, I'm shinking until the end
- 1:11:00and I know where it's going to go. Oh I didn't know that yet,
- 1:11:02but I put my head up, I'm all happy. Wow. Yeah,
- 1:11:08I mean and Jack Russell nailed it. Great vocals. Oh yeah,
- 1:11:12he nailed plant. So here's what happened. So MTV chows that song to
- 1:11:17put on their format, you know, in rotation. So now the fans
- 1:11:25want to hear Zeppelin all the time, and I mean they really want to
- 1:11:29hear us to play a lot of Zeppelin. They just because we did that
- 1:11:32song good. Right, So we had a break in our touring schedule and
- 1:11:39we go, okay, they want to hear Zeppelin, Let's give them Zeppelin.
- 1:11:44And so we spent six days and learned eighteen songs, and most of
- 1:11:49the songs we did almost all of them we didn't do when we were teenagers.
- 1:11:54We didn't play. We weren't playing in the backyard parties. We weren't
- 1:11:58playing these songs. We learned things like in the Life you know, and
- 1:12:03ramble On and some of the other ones because we had to learn them because
- 1:12:10we didn't know them. We didn't know them because we didn't play when we're
- 1:12:14a teenager. I've never played Stairway. They haven't correctly except for when we
- 1:12:19recorded those shows. Everybody thinks I know it because you can play the intro
- 1:12:29thing, but if you go to learn the whole thing, I used to
- 1:12:31not even played some of the right chords. I wasn't playing the correct chords.
- 1:12:36So I went to learn that song and I'm going, oh shit,
- 1:12:40I knew I would never even been close, and some of the other songs.
- 1:12:45But I noticed a lot, you know. I kind of learned the
- 1:12:47way Page puts his guitars together. When when you dissect the songs, he
- 1:12:54usually has three guitar parts. So I just we had to pick the most
- 1:12:59dominant too, because we're playing totally live, and so it all worked out
- 1:13:04that. Yeah, So it was one gig only right. It was from
- 1:13:09the Galaxy Theater where there's a couple of songs that we only got right on
- 1:13:16the last show. Most of almost every song came from the last show.
- 1:13:20After playing Yeah the Rover that one actually did when I was a teenager,
- 1:13:30bet, but most of them I didn't do. I always say Zeppelin three
- 1:13:34might well, I know, I love Zeppelin two, but Zeppelin three is
- 1:13:36like a close second, and I love Tangerine is one song. But that's
- 1:13:41the way in Tangerine like that back to back, back to back tracks on
- 1:13:44that album I wish you had done. That's the way that sounds so good.
- 1:13:51There's a live version one of the only times I've heard Zeppelin live where
- 1:13:58Page, I mean, Plant is just nailing it, and they also do
- 1:14:02going to California like Yiller. It's like the best I've ever done it live,
- 1:14:08Plant descend all. His range was there. He wasn't ditching any notes.
- 1:14:15He did a couple of alternate you know, melodies bits, but for
- 1:14:18the most part he was hitting it. How many times did you see the
- 1:14:21live? I only saw him once. What year? Me and a buddy
- 1:14:27of mine saw him in seventy five, I believe, and we sat behind
- 1:14:30the band like but when they walked on stage, I was I was at
- 1:14:36this little round gate or little round wall. I could have touched Page.
- 1:14:44That's how close we were, you know, when you're when you're like fifteen,
- 1:14:47How crazy that is. It's like, no, I guess it's seventy
- 1:14:50five. I was, Uh, what was I eighteen? Eighteen years old?
- 1:14:58I was eighteen. You got enough close. Look at Bonzo smashing away
- 1:15:02right when they walked on, Right when they walked on stage, we saw
- 1:15:05the whole band walk on from behind the stage with this less Paul in their
- 1:15:12prime. Yeah, it's so rare, dude. It didn't really sound that
- 1:15:16good. I was walking around the arena trying to the sound. It just
- 1:15:23wasn't optimum. But it was just such a to see them and everything was
- 1:15:29such a big deal. Yeah, amazing. No, I've always wondered,
- 1:15:33did Jimmy Page ever call up Jack and say, hey man, because he
- 1:15:39worked with Funny Story. We heard a funny story that Plant said, I
- 1:15:45guess somebody had played him something and he sounds he said, he sounds like
- 1:15:50more like me than I do. Really, Yeah, I always wondered.
- 1:15:56You know, Page worked with Coverdale and when Ian Hunter got it back together
- 1:16:02after that song went age and people were asking him why he was playing this
- 1:16:06great white song. Well that's the story of the Kinks, And you really
- 1:16:11got me Dave Davies was saying when they came to America in seventy nine on
- 1:16:15tour, and uh, you know, one of the young kids comes up
- 1:16:18to him and he's like, he did a great cover of Van Hill and
- 1:16:21he really got me. There you go, and he's like, great,
- 1:16:26great, thanks a lot. Look up. Yeah, but actually the ex
- 1:16:30version did get a lot of attention when it came out. When it came
- 1:16:34out, they had it, but probably beyond that kid's year. Yeah,
- 1:16:40exactly, That's what it was like, one of those younger kids. So
- 1:16:43after Jack's departure in twenty eleven, you go through lead singer changes and I'm
- 1:16:46curious how that experience is. Like he had Mitch Malloy one point and then
- 1:16:51Brett Carlyle in twenty twenty two. So it was at a difficult transition and
- 1:16:57getting new singers in how much how many guys are audition was it very very
- 1:17:02easy? Well? With Brett, he just killed it so bad the first
- 1:17:09show, Like I didn't even know because my headphones, I didn't hear him
- 1:17:13that good. We auditioned three guys. What happened was we had this guy
- 1:17:17who was already in a band, but he was doing this as an extra
- 1:17:23gig when his band wasn't busy. He was in this band last in line
- 1:17:27with Vivian Campbell. Oh yeah, so if def Leppard wasn't busy then they
- 1:17:34would. They sometimes went out for a few weeks. And you know,
- 1:17:39so we're not the Taipano wants to just get a different singer. So so
- 1:17:45we auditioned three singers with the tape. We just stripped the vocals off of
- 1:17:49some of our big songs and sent it to three singers and Brett happened to
- 1:17:54be a friend of ours. Friend of ours told us about him. So
- 1:18:00I tell these guys. After we picked Brett because he gave the song the
- 1:18:04most attention, I go, I'll do this show if we can rehearse once.
- 1:18:11You know, I don't want to go out there and end my career
- 1:18:13or somebody they're jam with. So we went to Vegas and we jammed with
- 1:18:17them all day and he sounded pretty good. But that night I didn't hear
- 1:18:23him my headphones and some journalists were coming up to me, some bands going,
- 1:18:29if you don't keep that guy, you're crazy. And then the next
- 1:18:32day it was like this world news and everything, and I still haven't heard
- 1:18:35him. I'm wondering, what are these people talking about? And then I
- 1:18:41saw him on YouTube from that show singing stick it like perfect and rock me
- 1:18:47just nailing it, and I'm going, holy cow, no wonder they liked
- 1:18:50it? You know, Yeah, this is our guy. Yeah are you
- 1:18:54looking? You got to have that balance, like you want to have somebody
- 1:18:57that you can move forward with, make new music with, but also in
- 1:19:00the live shows, you gotta have some well, although not every band does
- 1:19:02that. I mean like when Motley Crue brought in Oh geez now, I'm
- 1:19:09all of a sudden drawn a blake when Vince was out, uh, and
- 1:19:13they brought in the new singer, Krabbi John Krabbe. Different style, different
- 1:19:16voice, So it's like kind of strange when they play live, Like how's
- 1:19:19he going to sound? Yeah? Well, if you're ever going to YouTube
- 1:19:25and see uh bread, I think I believe he's twenty seven years old.
- 1:19:30He has that pure tone, you know, and he delivers the songs how
- 1:19:36people are used to hearing them on the radio, you know, so he
- 1:19:41just sings the songs verbatim, and I think that's what people want to listen
- 1:19:45to, you know, if you're singers so far up, you know,
- 1:19:51from from what they're used to, then it it kind of weirds them out
- 1:19:56a little bit. Yeah, especially because now live is where it's at too.
- 1:20:00People go to the show, they yeah, and you know what's amazing
- 1:20:01nowadays that that is. I mean, I remember at one point it was
- 1:20:05a bed. I'm old enough to remember when a band got a new singer,
- 1:20:09I was it was hard to accept. But nowadays you get like Foreigner
- 1:20:12and share Sticks and you name it. And I think I think a lot
- 1:20:17of that reason is because the songs are the biggest thing, you know,
- 1:20:26and and a lot of new generations they just know what they're hearing on the
- 1:20:30radio. There might be people that don't even know that's not the original Foreigner
- 1:20:34Journey. Yeah, yeah, Journey Journey. That singer goes out and just
- 1:20:40sings his art out and people get to enjoy the music, which is what
- 1:20:45got them to love the band in the first place. You know. But
- 1:20:48you want a singer that can handle the range, and it is a high
- 1:20:53range. It's a tinner vocal, So you can't have a guy with a
- 1:20:59Morrison type Jim Morrison singing rock me. You know, it's like my solo
- 1:21:03album. I didn't have any Zeppelin on it. You know, I can't.
- 1:21:09My voice is like, uh, you know, maybe Elvis or you
- 1:21:14know, Steve ray Vaughn or something. Yeah, I can't pull off any
- 1:21:18any of that sky Rocket range. I thought it was cool that I read
- 1:21:25that because Jack has Jack Russell's great way. But I thought, you you
- 1:21:28said, that's cool. He can you know, he could keep part of
- 1:21:30the name. He's got to he's gonna make he's going to make a living,
- 1:21:34which I thought was cool. I mean, it wasn't like, uh,
- 1:21:38you know, it's there seems to be some mutual respect there in that.
- 1:21:41In that sense, Yeah, we wanted to him to have a way
- 1:21:44to make a living and just going out there as a solo thing. It
- 1:21:48probably would have been tough. It's tough on singers that were even a huge
- 1:21:54band sometimes to have a career on their own, you know, very difficult.
- 1:21:59So yeah, we gave him a way to do that and no,
- 1:22:03no problem. Book on Rock Podcasts will be back after this. Hey,
- 1:22:09I won't be long. This podcast focuses on books on rock and roll,
- 1:22:15so I'm curious to find out if you have some favorite rock and roll books.
- 1:22:17That you've read growing up or nowadays anything I've read, you know,
- 1:22:26Ted Templeman's book on Guess Real Interested and how the studio thing happened, you
- 1:22:33know, kind of how he met the band a little bit. I knew
- 1:22:36a little bit of it, but I wanted to hear details. And then
- 1:22:43another guy wrote a book. I don't know why. His names Well,
- 1:22:46while you're thinking of that name, Greg Renoff, who wrote that book with
- 1:22:50Temper, Yeah, the other one in the backyard. Yeah, I know
- 1:22:57Greg pretty well. Yeah, I mean that book. Even I spoke with
- 1:23:01him. Uh, you know, I gave him every story I had to
- 1:23:08include in the book. And then this band called I believe they were called
- 1:23:13Van Halen at his book signing party, and uh, you know, they
- 1:23:20dressed like van Halen and everything and did it pretty good. And the original
- 1:23:27bass player shut up at that show, I saw a lot of no.
- 1:23:32No, it was uh Mike Stone, Mike Stone who recently passed I think
- 1:23:39he was before before. You know, I guess they kind of it was
- 1:23:46a mutual thing with him leaving the band because he had he had other interests
- 1:23:51and whatnot. So Michael Anthony the actually found by doing his show with Michael
- 1:23:59Anthony's band, and you know that's how they hooked up. But yeah,
- 1:24:04so yeah, there's a lot of books like that. Ye book. I
- 1:24:11just signed a book deal with Oh my god, I was going to ask
- 1:24:13you this, Mark, Okay, tell me about this? Yeah, I
- 1:24:15was. My question is right here. It's question number eighteen. Have you
- 1:24:18ever thought about writing? Okay, tell us about this. It's just going
- 1:24:24to be an autobiography now, just kind of tell my story. I think
- 1:24:27it'll be good for my kids to look at. I get about four hours
- 1:24:31on a tape and I started doing this years ago. I had a lot
- 1:24:36of the story going, so I'm just gonna kind of go back. I
- 1:24:40got a gear to do it. So everything's lined up, publisher, the
- 1:24:45whole thing. It's it's in the work. Yeah, yeah, when do
- 1:24:48you think I've already signed the deal. I'm just gonna kind of do it
- 1:24:53work with somebody and like I'm going to write it my version. They're not
- 1:24:58going to lose any anything I'm saying, but they might do it a little
- 1:25:03bit more pro right. I mean I'm not I'm not a writer, so
- 1:25:10or they might leave some things alone. This is what I'm told you know,
- 1:25:15they're not going to lose any of my story. You know, I'm
- 1:25:19just going to go back to my childhood and just tell everybody what happened.
- 1:25:24Yeah, that's cool. Now, I'm just curious. You don't have to
- 1:25:27if you can't say, but the publisher? Can you mention who the publisher
- 1:25:30is yet? I'm just curious because I deal with so many publishers for the
- 1:25:35show. I'm wondering if it's one I'm familiar, Right, I have the
- 1:25:40paperwork, you know, I just barely read the contract, Okay, but
- 1:25:45I can let you know later. Cool. Well, well, you know
- 1:25:47you've got a place to promote the book here, because that's that's uh yeah,
- 1:25:50you know that's it. Man. The name of the show, Yeah,
- 1:25:54name of the show booked out rock so that this is what we we
- 1:25:58focus on here. I will. I'll shoot you an email with that info.
- 1:26:02Oh absolutely, please, do you know what I'm saying? Yeah?
- 1:26:05So, and then there's a mention of a documentary in the works on the
- 1:26:09website. Is that still? Yeah? In fact, I think it comes
- 1:26:14out tonight. It's all about the eighties. It's on Paramount Plus. I'm
- 1:26:24not sure what they're calling it. I can't remember okay title, but it's
- 1:26:28going to be a docu series. I think they're making it now, all
- 1:26:31right, it's all the bands from the eighties decade. At the M three
- 1:26:40festival, I did, uh, it might be coming out July sixth,
- 1:26:45not the twenty sixth. I might have that up all right. Well,
- 1:26:48I'm sure on Official Great White dot Com it'll be posted. Oh yeah,
- 1:26:54I think so. But I did about a three hour on camera interview with
- 1:27:00the director and kind of told him what I remember. Cool. Yeah,
- 1:27:06so people could go to Official Great White dot Com for the tour dates as
- 1:27:10well. When's the next gig? I can We're playing this Saturday. I
- 1:27:18believe it's in Tennessee. Let's see June twenty nine, Daniel Beach, Florida.
- 1:27:27Dan, I'm actually going to see my son. That's right, it's
- 1:27:30in Florida. I'm going to see my son. He he's a marketing director
- 1:27:35for a CBD company. Oh wow, seeing him for a few months now.
- 1:27:40So he's out of Fort Lauderdale, which is ten minutes from where we're
- 1:27:45playing. So that's great. It's going to be cool. Yeah. July
- 1:27:49sixth with Brett Michaels, d Snyder Steve Agerry speaking of he was in Journey.
- 1:27:55He had a great run with Journey and Slaughter. So yeah, and
- 1:27:58you got it's it's mixed up nicely here, you know, shows with Stephen
- 1:28:01Pearcy, Slaughter, Stephen Aler Vixen. Uh. Then there's one, Uh,
- 1:28:05I see July twenty with Ace He's Freeley add it's so funny, you
- 1:28:13know. I hear derogatory every once in a while, you know, there's
- 1:28:16that hater as they call it these days, and we'll say something derogatory.
- 1:28:21Are you hitting me? I go, I didn't know there was nobody.
- 1:28:27When I was like fourteen years old, everybody in the neighborhood was playing air
- 1:28:30guitar day. It's Freely. There's nobody like him. Yeah, legend,
- 1:28:35you know, and might be the most technically, you know, but but
- 1:28:40the field he's got the field to touch, he's got that. He's got
- 1:28:44that. He has generations of people generation, you know, and some of
- 1:28:49the funniest stories, some of the funniest driving the wrong what is he driving
- 1:28:54like one hundred miles an hour on the freeway going the wrong way? Just
- 1:28:58oh, that's it. I've got plenty of those. Yeah, Well,
- 1:29:03and by the way, congrats Mark. Yeah, you see you've been cleaning
- 1:29:05sober for a long time. That's the other thing you're yeah, yeah,
- 1:29:11that's great. Yeah then Kennett, you know, just kind of decided.
- 1:29:16I mean I had quit before and just but I I went and the extra
- 1:29:23mile of time and kind of gaged some of my character dejects and did you
- 1:29:29know a little bit of self work and stuff, and work I work with
- 1:29:31other people you know that might be struggling. I saw that online. Yeah.
- 1:29:38Yeah, so I you know, become kind of an advocate, I
- 1:29:41guess, and always get involved in case there's somebody out there that that just
- 1:29:47thinking about it, that might just need a couple of encouraging words. Go
- 1:29:53hey, I know that guy who plays guitar, man, he's sober.
- 1:29:57Maybe I'll try, you know, just I've gotten a lot of people like
- 1:30:01I've worked with over one hundred and fifty people in the past ten years and
- 1:30:04now seen a lot of success. Man. You know, it's great,
- 1:30:09it's fun to do that. It's great to hear. Well. Thanks Mark,
- 1:30:13this was awesome. Love to ask you a bunch of questions about question.
- 1:30:16Yeah, Van Halen, of course, that's always my band so you
- 1:30:20can always talk Van Halen. So yeah, thanks man, this was awesome.
- 1:30:25Thanks Eric, appreciate it. Man. Well, no, that was
- 1:30:31an adventure. I was quite a sure you put on the band. Well,
- 1:30:36let me just close this conversation by saying you are one unique individual