Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 915 - Mark Menghi of King Ultramega on Collaborations

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 915 - Mark Menghi of King Ultramega on Collaborations · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  Guy we did rusty cage for fun. It was just for fun.
• 0:03
  Wow came out killer. I decided to throw some baseball
• 0:06
  on today and rearrange things a little bit and it was a cool
• 0:09
  song and then Kim got involved can fail and then all these
• 0:12
  other people started to get involved and we started talking
• 0:15
  and then you know, once all these people start getting
• 0:17
  involved all of a sudden you have a dude on this shoulder and
• 0:21
  a dude on this shoulder. It's like, do it, don't do it,
• 0:24
  do it, don't do it. And if you do it, man, you
• 0:26
  better deliver because there's going to be I'm a Chris Cornell
• 0:29
  freak just like you are. You better meet a standard, and
• 0:32
  you better exceed that standard. What's up everybody?
• 0:42
  It's Kefi from Ghost Cult. Meg, I am back once again with
• 0:45
  our friend Mark Mangee, interview number one on our
• 0:48
  podcast. And this is going to be 800
• 0:49
  something. So how are you doing?
• 0:51
  Hey man, thank you. I appreciate you.
• 0:53
  Yeah, man, 7-8 years later we're we're and 13 years as a brand,
• 0:57
  we're still doing the damn thing.
• 0:58
  I am so excited to talk to you today about the King Ultra Mega
• 1:02
  Project. And you know, I have to say this
• 1:04
  is not hyperbole, but I can't think of a better person.
• 1:08
  You may disagree. I can't think of a better person
• 1:10
  to help Stewart to steward this kind of project, and I don't
• 1:13
  think it could work at many other labels rather than raining
• 1:17
  Phoenix. Yeah.
• 1:18
  You know, if you would have asked me when we first did Rusty
• 1:22
  Cage back in 2020, Billy, William, Charlie and myself, if
• 1:27
  we would be here talking about Chris Cornell project, they
• 1:32
  probably laugh a lot. You know, it kind of like metal
• 1:37
  allegiance, man. Shit just fucking happened.
• 1:39
  It's it wasn't planned. You know, here we are base in
• 1:44
  hand. I'm in my studio right now.
• 1:45
  That's why, you know, Curtis is on me all day today and I I feel
• 1:48
  bad. My publicist.
• 1:51
  I was like, dude, I'm sorry. I've been fucking rehearsing,
• 1:54
  recording off of King Ultra Mega and like I was telling you
• 1:57
  early, man, I don't know why. I don't know what I got myself
• 2:00
  into, but I've never been more neurotic in my life about
• 2:03
  recording music because I'm I'm driving and crazy, man.
• 2:08
  What are we driving myself nuts? Yeah, I don't think of you as a
• 2:11
  perfectionist, but I understand about holding yourself to a
• 2:14
  standard when it's something like this and covers are no, you
• 2:18
  know, nothing new to you, but you know, it is a fantastic
• 2:21
  project. I you know, it's this is weird.
• 2:24
  I sometimes I don't miss the plague, but I miss like all the
• 2:28
  cool bedroom creativity, covers, jams, live streams.
• 2:32
  I kind of miss that a little. And I know people and that's,
• 2:36
  you know, and that's the thing with this, you know, with, and
• 2:40
  I'm going to digress for a minute, but what I'm about to
• 2:42
  say, we'll circle back into this, we'll kind of lead into
• 2:45
  it, you know, with Medal Allegiance, you know, I wrote
• 2:47
  and recorded 2 full length records, you know, music
• 2:51
  producing lyrics, you know, arranging all those vocalists.
• 2:55
  There was, that was a lot of work, but there was no standard.
• 2:58
  There was no me judging it against something else.
• 3:01
  It was. I'm going to try to do the best
• 3:03
  I can with Alex Mike and you know, the music, a lot of my
• 3:06
  riffs and song ideas and lyrics were in there.
• 3:10
  You know, it was a free for all, if you will, but there was still
• 3:13
  not that we got to meet this benchmark.
• 3:15
  We have to write a record that is as good as this record or
• 3:19
  Testament or whatever it is or we that was never in anyone's
• 3:22
  head, especially mine. Now with this, it's like, all
• 3:26
  right, we did Rusty Cage for fun.
• 3:28
  It was just for fun. Wow, came out fucking killer.
• 3:30
  I decided to throw some baseball on today and rearrange things a
• 3:33
  little bit and it was a cool fucking song.
• 3:35
  And then Kim got involved. Kim failed.
• 3:37
  And then all these other people started to get involved and we
• 3:40
  started talking. And then, you know, I was
• 3:42
  talking to my friends in the State of Love and Trust podcast
• 3:46
  who's, you know, they're based out on the West Coast.
• 3:48
  I was telling them, you know, once all these people start
• 3:51
  getting involved, all of a sudden you have a dude on his
• 3:55
  shoulder and a dude on his shoulder, like, do it, don't do
• 3:57
  it, do it, don't do it. And if you fucking do it, man,
• 4:00
  you better, you better fucking deliver because there's going to
• 4:03
  be I'm a Chris Cornell just like you are.
• 4:05
  You better meet a standard and you better exceed that standard.
• 4:09
  You know, and that's what's going on in my head is
• 4:11
  everything I do. If you listen to Rusty Cage,
• 4:14
  that kind of is what it is. But then you get to be yourself.
• 4:17
  The, the, the instrumental of Joe and Kenny.
• 4:19
  That was a completely out of left field reimagined.
• 4:23
  All right, let's do this. This is not it's a cover, but
• 4:26
  it's not a cover. It's a completely reimagined
• 4:28
  song. And then, you know, say hello to
• 4:30
  heaven. It's cover, but it's not a
• 4:31
  cover. We it went to a call kind of
• 4:33
  like a soul Blues thing, which, you know, again, I'm not just a
• 4:37
  metal dude, a metal allegiance. I love, you know, I'm a big
• 4:40
  Motown, Stevie Wonder, temptations, you know, Bill
• 4:43
  Withers. If you listen to the baseline
• 4:45
  and say hello to heaven and you listen to Bill Withers songs,
• 4:49
  you could totally hear where I'm coming from in that rendition of
• 4:52
  that. So again, yes, they're covers to
• 4:56
  to make them the way they are and to produce them the way they
• 4:59
  are. And then to get the likes of Joe
• 5:02
  and Richie and Kenny and whatnot.
• 5:04
  It's a lot of work. And it's, you have to meet that
• 5:07
  level of, of a Chris Cornell expectation because again, I've
• 5:12
  heard a lot of Cornell shit that's just not good.
• 5:14
  And you're like, why would you go there?
• 5:15
  It's kind of like, you know, when you cover Hendrix or, or,
• 5:18
  or Zeppelin, it's just like there's certain things you just
• 5:20
  don't fucking touch, right? And, and, and Cornell is one of
• 5:24
  those guys you don't hear a lot. What you do here is some it's
• 5:26
  really good. Some of it it's just garage
• 5:29
  bands, which is cool. But to record it and put it out
• 5:32
  there for public consumption, it's again, I'm becoming
• 5:36
  neurotic with this shit. Well, be kind to yourself
• 5:39
  because so far y'all have knocked it out of the goddamn
• 5:41
  park. And I think similarly, Sach and
• 5:46
  Cotton make everything they do. There's a little bit whenever
• 5:49
  they do covers, you know, obviously Joe Man, like whatever
• 5:52
  he touches guitar, it's him, even if he's doing, you know,
• 5:55
  homage to something. And I thought the be yourself
• 5:58
  approach was super cool. I love that.
• 6:01
  It's like, you know, such a cool instrumental take on it and
• 6:04
  beautiful lyrical playing all the way through.
• 6:07
  And then, yeah, like Richie's in like Richie.
• 6:08
  The curse for Richie is that he did that one cover live and I'm
• 6:13
  sure that people have not stopped bugging him about it
• 6:16
  because he sounded so good and easily did it because Cornell is
• 6:20
  not easy to wait. Even the years before that, you
• 6:22
  know, I was skeptical on asking Richie to do this.
• 6:25
  I was very skeptical because I've known Richie a long time, a
• 6:28
  really long time. And we've had you know, and I'm
• 6:30
  going back 2015 years, a long time ago, where we'd have dinner
• 6:35
  together or we'd be hanging out and I go, man, you fucking need
• 6:39
  to do you need to sing Cornell man, Richie does Chris.
• 6:42
  And he would always not that he didn't like that.
• 6:44
  It's even to Richie. It's like, man, you just don't
• 6:47
  go there, you know, And I was shocked.
• 6:50
  And that cover he did at that. I know the song you're talking
• 6:53
  about. He did that with Portnoy.
• 6:54
  Port Mike was on drums for that. And I act.
• 6:57
  I remember after that gig, I when I saw it online, I text
• 7:00
  Mike, how the fuck did you get him to do that?
• 7:03
  Because I he was we skeptical about doing it and it was it was
• 7:06
  a charity. It was, I believe it was a Tony
• 7:09
  McAlpine benefit show that he did.
• 7:11
  If I, and again, I'm going off memory here, same thing with
• 7:14
  this. I, I, you know, I wasn't going
• 7:16
  to ask Richie to participate in this project at all because I
• 7:19
  knew he really didn't like to go there.
• 7:21
  But then again, I, I had this and I'm, I'm staring at it right
• 7:25
  now on my big monitor here. It's a chart of all the songs,
• 7:29
  all the instrumentation, who's on what, what do I have to do
• 7:33
  left I'm what songs do I need to record this, This person's doing
• 7:37
  this song. So basically it keeps me
• 7:39
  organized on, on what we need to do.
• 7:41
  And under say hello out of heaven.
• 7:43
  There was this a blank spot. And it was like, man, fucking
• 7:47
  Richie's got to do this. And I just, and I texted him and
• 7:49
  I'm like, dude, is this still you haven't talked to you
• 7:51
  haven't talked to him in a few years, This still you?
• 7:53
  And he's like, yeah, man, is that you?
• 7:55
  I'm like, yeah, man. He called me, I told him.
• 7:58
  And the song was done three days later.
• 8:00
  And and that's really how fast it came.
• 8:01
  And that was in July. In July we did this and then
• 8:05
  once we got it back, it was like, this has got to come out
• 8:07
  now. It wasn't supposed to come out
• 8:08
  this month. In the month of August.
• 8:10
  That song and I, I, I rushed it, I pushed it through because I
• 8:15
  couldn't hold this particular song back.
• 8:17
  I needed people to hear it. I'm super proud of it.
• 8:20
  And yeah, I mean virtue. He's virtue.
• 8:22
  Yeah, he just elevates everything he does.
• 8:24
  He's like the Jordan of rock. Like he definitely kind of, you
• 8:28
  know, it takes on another life with him participating.
• 8:31
  And I'm, I'm so stoked. It's, you know, again, clearly
• 8:34
  you do have experience doing this kind of putting people
• 8:37
  together and putting the right pairings of people together.
• 8:40
  It's a lot of responsibility, like you said.
• 8:42
  But I think also your, I think just your personality, your
• 8:44
  temperament and your love of music, your pure love for the
• 8:47
  material is probably what helps. Do you remember like, obviously
• 8:50
  obviously Soundgarden and and Audioslave are humongous Titanic
• 8:55
  bands, but Temple of the Dog came along like at a very crazy
• 9:00
  time. Nirvana.
• 9:01
  Was I remember, I remember it was, I remember when I I mean I
• 9:05
  remember like it was yesterday when when hunger strike hit and
• 9:10
  Pearl Jam. Wasn't really a thing yet.
• 9:12
  No, it wasn't. It wasn't a thing.
• 9:13
  Yet it wasn't out yet. It wasn't out yet.
• 9:16
  Yeah, I remember it all clear. I mean clear.
• 9:18
  Might have even been Mookie Blaylock in the original CD or
• 9:21
  tray. I'm not sure when they repressed
• 9:23
  it. Yeah, it might have been like
• 9:24
  members of Mookie Blaylock. Well, when you know, to again,
• 9:29
  to digress, so that Temple record is obviously Chris with
• 9:32
  Pearl Jam. I mean, yeah, Matt was drummer
• 9:35
  in it back then. He wasn't in Pearl Jam, but he's
• 9:38
  even though he's not in Pearl Jam anymore, still Pearl Jam,
• 9:40
  Pearl Jam with Chris. They were doing the demos and in
• 9:43
  the studio recordings of 10. And then in the middle of those
• 9:47
  Temple sessions is when kind of Eddie came along.
• 9:50
  That's when he joined the band. So he was a hunger strike.
• 9:53
  He was an unknown, you know, everything was unknown.
• 9:55
  And, you know, Motherwell Bone just, you know, kind of
• 9:57
  disbanded that whole thing and wild time and, and, and if you
• 10:01
  think about it, you know, Chris wrote that record for Andrew
• 10:04
  Wood. And here we are 30 something
• 10:06
  years later doing that song for Chris.
• 10:08
  And then if you want to take it a step further, would there be a
• 10:11
  Pearl Jam today if Andrew Wood was still here?
• 10:14
  Probably not. You know, where would we be
• 10:15
  musically? I mean, who the fuck knows?
• 10:18
  And crazy shit to think about, you know, and a lot of those
• 10:22
  thoughts go through my head when not only recording those songs,
• 10:24
  but once you, you listen back to him, it's like, man, what if,
• 10:27
  you know, what if this or what if this didn't happen or what if
• 10:30
  it did happen? And yeah, it's, it's surreal,
• 10:34
  man. But it's definitely humbling to
• 10:36
  be doing this and, and to have the, the people that I have
• 10:40
  involved in it. It's it's awesome.
• 10:42
  Right on. Also shout out to and rest in
• 10:45
  power to Rick Prattishar from What is that, London Bridge
• 10:48
  Studios, who's on the piano all over Temple.
• 10:50
  It's all kind of reminded me of Derek of the Dominoes, Times of
• 10:53
  Trouble, all night thing. One of my favorite, most
• 10:56
  romantic songs is all night thing, Wayne's World two, what's
• 10:59
  up and shout out to me too. But yeah, that was such a time,
• 11:04
  like just such a time in like 7 to 8 months.
• 11:08
  Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, Allison Jeans facelift goes gold
• 11:11
  and they do. You know they had them Clash of
• 11:13
  the Titans and got booed constantly like so many.
• 11:16
  Things happen and Motor Finger Vana, I mean the Black Album,
• 11:22
  it's just the fucking shit that was going on.
• 11:24
  Then it was just and and again, I, you know, I missed the whole
• 11:29
  80s thrash metal thing and I missed that whole and I was very
• 11:33
  young. I mean, I remember it, but I was
• 11:34
  very young. You know, my peak years were
• 11:37
  those quote UN quote grunge years, man, I was going to those
• 11:41
  gigs in Manhattan. You know, I saw Soundgarden in
• 11:43
  the clubs in the 90s. You know, I, I saw Pearl Jam,
• 11:47
  Randall's Island in the 90s when they were picketing fucking
• 11:49
  Ticketmaster. I mean, I was in the middle of
• 11:51
  all that shit and I saw fucking Alice In Chains open up for Van
• 11:54
  Halen. You know, I I was there in the
• 11:56
  middle of it. So that was kind of my era, if
• 11:59
  you will. That's what I kind of and I was
• 12:01
  in high school during those times, you know, so I I missed
• 12:04
  and as much as I loved, you know, the exoduses and you know,
• 12:07
  the testament and I and I fuck with Alex and Dave and all those
• 12:10
  guys all the time. I call them the the old men of
• 12:12
  MA and you know, but I I love that.
• 12:16
  It's a huge influence to me. I love that music.
• 12:18
  But when I do this king and I'm playing that, it's just just,
• 12:24
  it's just like kind of oozes out of me because, you know, I was
• 12:27
  ingrained in it, right? On we were probably, although I
• 12:29
  told you this before, we were probably at all the same shows.
• 12:32
  I'm a couple years older than you, so I was like junior
• 12:34
  college kefi I worked in in 20th St. and 5th Ave. used to go
• 12:39
  around the corner from work to tramps all the time.
• 12:41
  Oh yeah, Roseland and Continental and CVGB's which
• 12:44
  should have never been allowed to get raised and a whole bunch
• 12:47
  of other places. But like we were probably a
• 12:49
  couple times. I did little more, but not too
• 12:52
  many because Brooklyn people don't understand that, like
• 12:54
  Brooklyn is like the other side of the world.
• 12:56
  If you live in the Bronx, yeah. Yeah, it is.
• 12:59
  Man, except for the anthrax guys, people you know, and maybe
• 13:02
  a couple of other dudes, people didn't really go down there
• 13:04
  well. Just, you know, think about it,
• 13:06
  man. The clubs that we had in
• 13:08
  Manhattan back the Coney Island, high fucking wetlands, the
• 13:11
  tramps. Rose Bees.
• 13:13
  Limelight, CBS, Continental, Fucking.
• 13:16
  I mean, I could just rifle them off, man.
• 13:19
  And any given night, you would see any one of these bands
• 13:22
  there, you know? Sometimes multiple on the same
• 13:25
  night if you wanted. Multiple on the same night, man,
• 13:28
  you had everything, everything coming through there.
• 13:31
  And not only that man with the whole grunge thing, but you had,
• 13:34
  you know, like Biohazard was coming through, Life of Agony
• 13:36
  was coming through, Typo just formed.
• 13:39
  And in that early night, you know, I mean, so I had you had
• 13:42
  those New York, Brooklyn, those New York bands coming through
• 13:44
  that through that whole wave as as well, man.
• 13:47
  And it was just, I mean, the 90s in the live music scene was
• 13:51
  vibrant, man. And you know, the Lollapoozes,
• 13:54
  all the Lollapoozes that came through, you know, the
• 13:56
  festivals, all that shit. And I was talking to a buddy of
• 13:59
  mine the other day. One of the best shows still to
• 14:01
  this day I've seen was Wu Tang Clan and Rage Against Machine
• 14:03
  together. I mean, who the fuck pairs
• 14:05
  those, you know, But that's you got Ice Cube playing with
• 14:09
  Soundgarden. You got Snooty.
• 14:11
  I mean that, you know, when you ask a metal guy or a rock guy
• 14:14
  from the 90s, they love N.W.A and Wu Tang and, and in Tupac,
• 14:18
  they love that shit because they played together, you know?
• 14:22
  And I, I think that's probably why I'm so in left fucking field
• 14:26
  musically. And I like to think a lot of
• 14:27
  people my age or that grew up in that world are because you had
• 14:31
  all that and when you went to a concert, you saw them together.
• 14:34
  Yeah, you do the thing as a basis that I love.
• 14:36
  And we talked about this in a previous interview.
• 14:38
  So I want to beat the horse 2 dead.
• 14:40
  But I also grew up listening to like, dance music through my
• 14:43
  mom, who is a dance teacher. And so and I love some early rap
• 14:47
  and stuff like that. So you have that swing in your
• 14:50
  bass playing that absolutely makes complete sense to a person
• 14:54
  like me. Yeah, it's huge.
• 14:56
  It's huge for me. You know, I wouldn't say dance,
• 14:58
  but I would say it comes from like and Skullnick bust my chops
• 15:02
  on this. He calls it my yacht rock love,
• 15:04
  but listen to hall and oak space lines, listen to flute and Mac
• 15:07
  Listen, you know, listen to you know that that Michael McDonald
• 15:11
  Derrida doobies and you know, listen to all that stuff, man.
• 15:14
  I should just fucking it moves man and and take a step
• 15:18
  furthermore to I'm gonna I'm more 10 obsessed, I mean.
• 15:21
  Yeah, How can you not play bass and not love Jamerson?
• 15:24
  And obviously if you grew up in the 70s, you know, Brothers
• 15:28
  Johnson played on everybody's records and they were incredible
• 15:31
  and they played on Thriller and you know, Prince is an
• 15:33
  incredible bassist and Larry Graham and all that stuff.
• 15:35
  It's it's impossible as a basis. I feel like we are, besides
• 15:39
  drummers, the most open minded musicians in rock because like a
• 15:43
  lot of stuff seeps in if you let it.
• 15:45
  And I think guitar players can be guarded and weirdos and
• 15:48
  singers are also, you know, haven't been a singer.
• 15:51
  We can be very pretentious dudes, but just the bassist in
• 15:53
  me is like be a sponge and try to absorb and and borrow it and
• 15:58
  see what you can, you know, interpret.
• 16:00
  So that's really. Yeah, I mean, listen, as far as
• 16:03
  my bass playing goes, I don't even, I mean, it varies when I'm
• 16:07
  especially when I'm recording, you know, whether it's if it's
• 16:10
  metal allegiance, it's very, I like to think you're hearing
• 16:14
  Cliff shit in there and that's just kind of, you know, the
• 16:16
  geezer stuff and the Cliff stuff.
• 16:18
  It's just kind of what, you know, Cliff is one of my heroes,
• 16:21
  obviously. I mean, I think there's no
• 16:23
  secret in that, you know, but when you start spreading your
• 16:28
  wings and even like I was talking about say hello to
• 16:30
  heaven, I mean, that's what I do.
• 16:32
  Nothing that Jeff Amnet did. If you listen to Jeff original
• 16:36
  baseline on that song and you listen to mine and AB it
• 16:38
  completely different, completely different and that and again,
• 16:43
  when you have Charlie playing, Charlie kind of weighed it down
• 16:46
  what Matt did, but Charlie did. But Charlie does, you know, and,
• 16:50
  and if anyone knows anything about Charlie, he's an
• 16:52
  unbelievable musician period, not just drums and he's a funky
• 16:57
  dude, man. I I I've witnessed him play with
• 17:00
  Stevie Wonder band musicians. I've witnessed, you know, behind
• 17:03
  it, you know, so he he starts laying grooves down.
• 17:06
  That's a little different other other things that are going to
• 17:09
  come out. Well, Andrex are my hometown
• 17:11
  hero, so I'm always happy to talk about Charlie and Scott and
• 17:14
  Frankie and anybody. Let's talk for a second about
• 17:17
  William because I think like obviously nobody is surprised at
• 17:21
  how great he is and he crushes it on the recording.
• 17:25
  And I feel like it's weird. I know it's hard to replace
• 17:28
  another singer. And again, here we are paying
• 17:31
  tribute to Cornell and Lane is another guy, right who is just
• 17:34
  like so iconic and so stand alone and singular.
• 17:38
  And William has come in to to change.
• 17:40
  And I've interviewed William and he's delightful and and super
• 17:43
  informative and people don't know that he has a whole career
• 17:45
  before comes with the fall and before all that and neon Christ
• 17:49
  and and R&B and all the things. But you know, he's such a
• 17:52
  well-rounded dude and he is such a tuned instrument.
• 17:55
  Like he really, I love seeing them at back to the beginning.
• 17:59
  Once I got to rewatch the replay because the live stream kept
• 18:02
  cutting out on them, of course, But I feels like William is
• 18:07
  getting like mass acceptance finally, I think from even the
• 18:10
  holdout Alice In Chains fans like only Lane and Mike Starr.
• 18:14
  There's somebody out there who's like this, right?
• 18:16
  And Inez is a joy. Everybody knows he's like nobody
• 18:19
  is nicer than him in all the rock and William is phenomenal.
• 18:22
  You know, he's so fucking money and so clutch with the.
• 18:25
  Ball William is such a fucking humble, sweet dude, man.
• 18:29
  I mean, there's really nothing else to explain how to explain
• 18:32
  him. He's just super humble, just an
• 18:34
  amazing human being. You know, I, I Speaking of
• 18:38
  which, in the 90s, I, I saw his those bands come as you follow
• 18:42
  And and I want to say it was tramps.
• 18:44
  So one of those the wetlands of tramps.
• 18:46
  So it was one of those two and I told him that I saw you before,
• 18:49
  way before the Alice thing, you know.
• 18:51
  And then I saw him at Bowery Ballroom.
• 18:53
  He was in Jerry Cantrell solo band be pre Alice In Chains and
• 18:58
  his his band opened up for Jerry and then he sang a few tunes
• 19:01
  with Jerry at the Bowery. But yeah, he he's just a great
• 19:06
  guy. I mean, I've never heard a
• 19:08
  single person speak negative about him.
• 19:10
  And and to your point, I think Alice fans now again, you know,
• 19:14
  Wayne passed IN20004321 somewhere.
• 19:19
  I forgot. I don't know the year early
• 19:22
  2000s. I mean, listen, we're in 2025
• 19:25
  now. You know, people want to hear
• 19:27
  that music. And you know, same thing with
• 19:29
  Soundgarden. I don't know.
• 19:30
  Everyone keeps asking what are they doing for the Rock and Roll
• 19:33
  Hall of Fame? Who's doing this?
• 19:34
  Who's everyone thinks I know something.
• 19:36
  I know absolutely shit. I'll start there.
• 19:40
  Number one. You know, here's what I do know
• 19:42
  though. I miss Chris.
• 19:44
  I miss his songs. I miss his music.
• 19:46
  And if I have the opportunity to put out a collection of his
• 19:50
  music and it raises money for a great 'cause I'm, I'm all in
• 19:54
  men. And and same to with Alice.
• 19:57
  If William has the opportunity to be in Alice In Chains, you be
• 20:01
  in fucking Alice In Chains, man. You know, STP's try, you know,
• 20:04
  they have their new singer, you know?
• 20:06
  Yeah, he's Jeff is great, by the way.
• 20:07
  People say if they haven't checked out their stuff with
• 20:10
  Jeff, Jeff. What people don't understand is,
• 20:13
  you know, with Alice, you don't think Jerry, when Wayne passed,
• 20:18
  yeah, they, they were disbanded for a while.
• 20:20
  But there comes a point in time, like, am I not supposed to play
• 20:23
  my music ever again? You know, it's the same thing in
• 20:26
  STP and, and, and I don't know what sound Lauren is going to
• 20:30
  do, but you know, hopefully I could fill a gap.
• 20:34
  Yeah, you guys are doing a wonderful service and you're
• 20:36
  always been a very charitable and charity minded person.
• 20:40
  You know, a lot of your stuff you've done have been charity
• 20:42
  shows and met allegiance and other things have done a lot of
• 20:45
  charitable works and and you know, great shows on behalf of
• 20:50
  wonderful organizations. So I'm always appreciative that
• 20:52
  you do that because I think it's important we have to.
• 20:55
  I think we've seen kind of like with Fire Aid earlier this year,
• 20:58
  even though it wasn't so rock focused, it was nice to see
• 21:01
  everybody come together for a good cause.
• 21:03
  And obviously we got a little more Nirvana that way too.
• 21:06
  Yeah, Yeah, that was pretty fun. Yeah, I mean, listen, you know,
• 21:10
  with Music Cares, you know, for and for those that are not
• 21:13
  familiar with Music Cares, you've probably heard of it but
• 21:16
  don't really know what it is. Essentially, you know, they help
• 21:19
  folks in the music business. So Roadies, Rd. crew, stage
• 21:23
  managers, guitar technicians to truck drivers to lighting
• 21:28
  engineers, to musicians, to whomever can prove they worked
• 21:33
  in the business for however long and they're on hard times.
• 21:37
  They need financial help, they need to go to rehab.
• 21:40
  They're, you know, they, they, they're having some issues that,
• 21:43
  that they need help with, whether it's, you know, mental
• 21:45
  awareness, you know, they're there to provide and to fund
• 21:49
  that for them. And I've had a lot of friends
• 21:53
  over the years that unfortunately passed away on
• 21:55
  drug overdoses or mental, you know, mental stuff and a lot of
• 22:00
  friends that are not doing so well.
• 22:02
  And, you know, for me, and I've had personal experience with it,
• 22:06
  you know, and if I could help that I would do anything I can.
• 22:10
  And that's just kind of where I'm at with this.
• 22:13
  And, you know, it's, you know, I just hope that people know that
• 22:16
  there is help. And I hope that, you know,
• 22:19
  anyone in this business knows they're, they're not, they're
• 22:22
  truly not alone, you know, and anyone that knows me knows they
• 22:24
  could pick up the phone, you know, I'd be there in a minute.
• 22:26
  And yeah, man, it's, it's important to me.
• 22:30
  Same same. I heard a really great quote
• 22:32
  this year. I keep regurgitating.
• 22:35
  Harley Flanagan is just like, hold on a little bit longer.
• 22:38
  If you feeling really low and bad, just hang on an extra day
• 22:42
  and ask someone to help you and that little bit will get you to
• 22:46
  the other side of whatever you're going through.
• 22:48
  And I thought that was really brilliant of him.
• 22:50
  That's all. I haven't heard that.
• 22:52
  That's that's cool, man. That's it.
• 22:53
  Go see. The Wired for Chaos documentary
• 22:56
  is extremely great and strong and I was really happy about it.
• 22:59
  Came out great. I'm happy for him.
• 23:01
  He's doing his thing just before we go.
• 23:04
  I don't want to be all gloom and doom, but, you know, we did just
• 23:07
  lose a giant of New York music from another hometown guy.
• 23:11
  I mean, Ace, Ace from KISS, Man, what a what a brutal and sad
• 23:16
  thing to have happened. But I wanted to know, you know,
• 23:18
  when I know you're a big fan. Do you have a favorite Kiss
• 23:22
  record on a more positive thing, or a favorite Ace moment that
• 23:24
  maybe sticks out to you? You know, I really didn't know.
• 23:28
  I I didn't know Ace. I met him a few times.
• 23:32
  Yeah. No, I met him a handful of
• 23:34
  times. I didn't know.
• 23:35
  I I can't say I knew him. But again, man, anyone who picks
• 23:39
  up an instrument and doesn't like kiss, it's you know, it's
• 23:42
  especially being from New York. I would say my one of my
• 23:45
  favorite ace moments was, and I just saw Frankie posted about
• 23:50
  this the other day early today or I just saw it on Frankie's
• 23:53
  feed bellow. I was at the Yankee Stadium
• 23:57
  opening of the new Yankee Stadium where Frankie Scott Ace
• 24:01
  and I believe it was Anton Fig on drums and they played New
• 24:05
  York groove at the new at the new Yankee Stadium and probably
• 24:09
  30 people there, maybe that. And it was just cool, man.
• 24:12
  Because here I am at that time, you know, I'm nobody, you know,
• 24:16
  I was on the business side at at that point in time of working
• 24:20
  with Anthrax and doing things I do with them and just and I'm a
• 24:22
  die hard Yankee fan. I mean die hard big time Yankee
• 24:26
  fan. And to be in a brand new Yankee
• 24:29
  Stadium before anyone and watching them play this song
• 24:33
  foot away from me, which was a pretty cool, pretty cool moment.
• 24:36
  And just seeing ace up there ripping.
• 24:39
  And that's probably my favorite quote UN quote ace moment, you
• 24:43
  know, But you know, 2025, it's been rough, man.
• 24:45
  It's. Been super rough it's been.
• 24:48
  So hard. I'm still not over Ozzy.
• 24:50
  I'm not. I'm not done grieving.
• 24:53
  I wasn't ready. I was never going to be ready.
• 24:56
  I watched the documentary twice on Paramount Plus.
• 24:59
  I want to just like I need a nap now because like it just hurts
• 25:02
  my heart. So Ozzy, you know, Brent, you
• 25:06
  know, Brent was a friend, you know, and I hit man, you know,
• 25:10
  you know, Brian Wilson is one of my biggest heroes, especially on
• 25:14
  on the bass playing and the production side of things.
• 25:17
  You know, Pet Sounds is a top 10 record for me all time.
• 25:20
  Yeah. I kept referring to like, my
• 25:22
  family. I was like, I hadn't, not that I
• 25:24
  know, but like, now I know why Brian Wilson went fucking crazy
• 25:27
  in the studio trying to perfect something.
• 25:29
  You know, I get it, you know, But, you know, just a, you know,
• 25:34
  and I know I'm missing people, but you know, it's just, it's,
• 25:38
  it's been a tough year, man. And yeah.
• 25:40
  And, you know, hopefully, you know, with Ace and Ozzy, people
• 25:44
  just remember, you know, we, we were lucky.
• 25:46
  We were the lucky ones to get to see them and and and be there
• 25:49
  for for that. And another in our bass
• 25:52
  fraternity, Sam Rivers of Limp Bizkit, who put down a
• 25:55
  generation of bass sounds right, really forward bass playing
• 25:59
  finger style bass. I always talk about 5 string
• 26:01
  bassist and finger style bassist.
• 26:02
  And I think Anthony Jackson just passed away.
• 26:05
  So we're just getting slaughtered.
• 26:06
  It's so brutal. I know.
• 26:08
  I saw, I saw Anthony play a few times in some of the jazz clubs
• 26:12
  in Manhattan. But yeah, like I said, man, it's
• 26:14
  just this is a fucking rough year, dude.
• 26:16
  You know, gone from The Moody Blues.
• 26:19
  Another. 1 John Lord love The Moody Blues.
• 26:22
  You know, my, my main word is, you know, keep your heroes in
• 26:25
  your heart, keep your head up, keep pushing.
• 26:27
  I appreciate you and everything you were doing and excited for
• 26:30
  more King Ultra Mega and all the other things you have going on.
• 26:33
  I'm sure I'll see you down the line in person or like I said,
• 26:36
  perhaps at NAMM. Thank you for everything you do,
• 26:38
  Mark. This is amazing.
• 26:40
  Yeah, man, of course. And if you're out in Anaheim,
• 26:42
  coming on out to the MA party, man, it'll be fun.
• 26:45
  Yeah, going to be a. It is going to be a fun one.
• 26:46
  I bet I'll see you soon all. Right man.
• 26:49
  Thank you bro, I appreciate. You anytime brother.
• 26:51
  See you soon. Bye.