Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #4 - Musical Ramblings

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#4 - Musical Ramblings · The Chris and Mike Show

0:01
Rock'n'roll. I love boys and girls.
0:12
That's Mike Michaels on guitar. This is the Chris and Mike Show.
0:24
Thanks for coming by and having a listen.
0:37
What is that? Is that something new?
0:40
I just made that up as we're sitting here.
0:43
You know me, man. I know I roll.
0:45
It just comes and comes and comes and comes.
0:48
I have no, that's what she said. I was waiting for that.
0:56
I set you up, buddy. You did set me up.
1:00
I. Have no idea where all that
1:02
comes from. I'm just thankful it does.
1:06
Yeah, that's like me with writing lyrics.
1:09
They just pop into my head one day and then boom, I have a
1:11
song. Yeah, you know, it's the muse.
1:17
It's the muse. I'm wearing my bison.
1:19
This was this was a thing we did at the Yellowstone, right?
1:27
Yeah. Yellowstone before Yellowstone
1:28
was cool with the did a 5K on a Friday and a half marathon on
1:32
Saturday in the mountains. It was fun.
1:34
That's awesome. So because we did both we got
1:37
these 16 point 116.2. I'm sorry, the bison challenge.
1:42
It was pretty cool thing called vacation races, which we've done
1:45
quite a bit of you you they have these destination races where
1:51
you go like we've done Lake Powell, Yosemite, Yellowstone.
1:55
We were going to do Iceland before COVID hit, but then COVID
1:59
hit shut the world down. That one would have been cool
2:01
because that was a global adventure for vacation races
2:04
where you you'd run every day like 5 KS and then the second to
2:09
the last days of the half marathon and you're with a group
2:12
of people and you see all the stuff and all the things you
2:15
know that's awesome. It would have been cool, but it
2:19
got shut down because the COVID don't.
2:24
Here we are. Hey, I ran 9 miles today on the
2:27
treadmill. That's not.
2:27
That's the fastest I've gotten since my recovery.
2:30
Very nice. So that was cool.
2:33
That's a six 4640 mile. I only did it for 1/4 of a mile,
2:37
but you know, I'm still capping my my running at a mile and a
2:41
half. I can't go any further than
2:42
that. So what was your actual injury?
2:45
A little bit more. A stress fracture on my second
2:50
metatarsal. So essentially, I broke my foot.
2:53
Out. And they had to do surgery.
2:58
Well, the fun thing is is no, no surgery.
3:01
It was just a hurry up and wait. The fun thing was I did it
3:05
probably in December of 21 at the Laughlin half, probably
3:10
hairlined it. And then the three doctors that
3:14
had the first two were absolute idiot dumbass motherfuckers that
3:18
wasted my time and caused more injury because I kept running.
3:23
Second one I got decided to have me run on inclines, 'cause she
3:27
said it was my gait and I'm like, well, my gait's never
3:29
changed, but she had me doing inclines on treads, so I started
3:33
doing 4% minimum incline all the way up to 7% still going at that
3:37
time, 'cause I was in outstanding cardio shape, you
3:42
know, I was doing, I did AI, did AI, did my mile benchmark run
3:47
back-to-back, same day, unbeknownst to me with a broken
3:51
foot, and he got both under 6 minutes at 52 years old.
3:59
That's impressive. Yeah, with a broken foot.
4:02
But you didn't realize it was broken.
4:05
Because then by March that year is when they finally, like,
4:08
started cross referencing Mris and realized, oh shit, yeah, you
4:13
have a stress fracture, your second metatarsal, and yeah, no
4:16
shit, you think. I've just been telling you for
4:19
months there's something wrong with me.
4:23
I walked in the door. X-rayed me.
4:27
Yeah, it's been a month now. Exactly that I've been baby
4:32
stepping everything, you know, just cool.
4:36
It's it's it's good to be running.
4:39
It was it was nice to get up to 9 miles an hour today on the
4:41
treadmill. I'm not going to lie, that was
4:43
that was a good thing. That was a very good thing.
4:46
I haven't done that, and I don't know how long.
4:48
I hadn't run since February of this year.
4:54
So you know, it was good. And then I stopped.
4:59
I I just. I hit my while and a half and I
5:01
walked. It was 23 minutes on the
5:02
treadmill today, but I followed the rules.
5:06
I stopped at a mile and 1/2. I kind of Joe, how are you?
5:11
Mike Michaels, How was your day? Well, I can definitely
5:14
appreciate your progress on recovery because.
5:18
Not that long ago, when I decided that we were going to
5:21
write music again, I realized that I had been playing all
5:24
along, but I had not been really playing.
5:28
You know, there's a difference between just messing around,
5:33
sitting on the couch and actually being able to
5:35
physically make it through a song without stopping, making
5:39
mistakes, being frustrated because you physically can't do
5:42
it right. My stamina and my dexterity had
5:44
gone by the wayside for a lot of things, so.
5:47
To be able to sit down and do what I just did even 8 weeks ago
5:54
would not have been possible. I couldn't make it that far,
5:59
being that technically proficient, so it's nice to be
6:04
on the flip side of that. Well, you had you had something
6:06
called. I had trigger finger.
6:09
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, trigger finger.
6:13
So explain what that is so our our audience knows what that's
6:17
about. It's not about.
6:20
No, it's definitely not from shooting guns.
6:22
It's from years and years of repetitive motion, you know, AKA
6:28
playing a guitar, working on an assembly line now for the last
6:32
13 years. So you wake up in the morning
6:35
and your finger is literally like this.
6:39
It's like a hook and no matter what you do.
6:42
You can't open it physically on your own.
6:45
You have to use your other hand to pry that finger open, and
6:50
it's some of the most excruciating pain you've ever
6:52
been in your life. Man, I screamed every time I did
6:55
it. It just hurts uncontrollably and
6:59
there's really nothing they can do for it other than it either
7:02
heals itself or you have to go see a surgeon orthopaedic and
7:09
get that tendon cut and then. Basically sewn back together so
7:14
it's stretched out again. You've pulled that tendon so far
7:18
that it it can't stretch anymore.
7:20
So luckily my sister is a physically or a physical therapy
7:24
assistant. So she gave me some exercises to
7:26
do and they worked. She's very good at what she
7:31
does. And thank you Melissa, for
7:33
telling me what I needed to do because that actually worked.
7:35
I did it religiously every day. It was just basically you take
7:39
both your hands and put them together.
7:42
And as far as you can stand, you know, bend them one way and bend
7:46
them back the other way and just hold it there for like 5 seconds
7:49
at a time. You're just working that tendon
7:52
out so that it stretches. It doesn't get stuck while you
7:57
sleep, it gets stuck. That's why you wake up with your
7:59
finger like that. So yeah, very thankful to be on
8:05
the men. I have these funky.
8:08
Yeah. And see, I have these funky
8:09
pinkies. See my funky little pinkies,
8:12
They're just these weird little. They like to just hang loose for
8:16
real, man. Hey, which is, you know, never
8:19
affected my ability to sing at all.
8:21
Let me tell you something that's going to come back around on
8:24
this podcast. Remember the Pinky folks?
8:28
Because when my buddy Rob is a guest on here, his pinky is more
8:35
jacked than anybody I've ever seen in my life and it for some
8:38
reason he just won't get it fixed.
8:39
So. We'll have him show everyone.
8:42
It's hideous. Really.
8:44
Oh, it's Oh yeah, What do you do to his pinky?
8:48
I'll let him tell the story because he tells stories better
8:51
than anyone I know and you will be laughing your ass off.
8:54
It should be the most downloaded podcast we have.
8:59
If anybody likes comedy and funny stories, we'll just call
9:06
it The Pinky Show. It'll be funny, that's.
9:10
Awesome. Struck me as funny when you held
9:11
your pinkies up. I'm like, I got a story about
9:13
that, right, right. So last week we talked about
9:18
Sammy and David. Do you hear the news that
9:20
Sammy's doing a tour with Leverboy and it's basically a
9:23
tribute to Eddie that was 2? That was two weeks ago, OK?
9:29
Was it 2 weeks ago? OK?
9:30
Yeah. Last last week we talked.
9:32
Two weeks ago we talked yeah. Oh, that's right.
9:36
OK yeah. So two weeks ago we talked about
9:38
Beverly Roth versus Sammy and then Neanderpal local jock here
9:43
in Arizona who's a huge, huge presence in the radio world in
9:48
Arizona. He was alluding to it.
9:52
I saw it earlier because I I get, yeah, I get emails from
9:56
Ticketmaster agencies and all those places that update me on
9:59
stuff. And so, yeah, Loverboy and Sammy
10:03
Hagar. And this, the set list
10:06
apparently is all Van Halen, which Neanderthals a little
10:09
irritated because he loved Eddie.
10:10
And there was never any type of memorial, you know, for for
10:15
Eddie at all. There was a couple of songs
10:16
played during the oh Tyler, I Forget his Last Name or Taylor
10:22
Hawkins. Taylor Hawkins tribute that Foo
10:25
Fighters did and Wolfgang came on stage with them and did a
10:28
couple Van Halen songs. That apparently was the the
10:33
extent of an Eddie Van Halen tribute.
10:36
I don't know if that's OK. So the.
10:38
Last thing that I read, not to interrupt you, but the last
10:41
thing that I read from Sammy was that, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
10:45
He was offended that there had not been a tribute to Eddie, but
10:49
he didn't feel like it was his place to do it when Wolfgang and
10:53
Alex are still alive, right? And nobody's heard from Alex in
10:57
a long time, and that's his business.
10:59
I mean, I'm not saying that he should do anything one way or
11:02
the other, but nobody should be busting Sammy's balls for not
11:05
doing an Eddie tribute. You know, he feels like that's
11:08
not his place. Oh, I I no, I agree.
11:13
And I don't think there's anything wrong with Sammy going
11:15
out and doing an entire tour wrapped around Van Halen music
11:19
because he and Eddie wrote brilliant songs, right?
11:24
I mean, Sammy, he was in the band.
11:26
He's not that. He's in the.
11:27
Hall of Fame as Van Halen right he's Sammy's not that right and
11:32
and Sammy individually solo wise he's he's he's not that great of
11:36
a songwriter I mean nothing against the man you know not
11:39
that in the first stuff we ever wrote is you know in the hall of
11:42
but he's just not like he reached he released stuff with
11:45
the Circle I think is what he called his last project and it
11:49
was just it was stupid like he's trying too hard I think is what
11:53
it is like you just got to let that shit flow I've never tried
11:56
it whenever I wrote music or wrote lyrics you know to songs
12:00
if if if I got to the point to where there was nowhere else to
12:03
go with that song. I'd just stop and I would never
12:06
force myself to write anything because I think if you're forced
12:10
it then it's it's not genuine and then you just you're just
12:13
you're pulling cliches together and.
12:16
I'm going to agree. If it doesn't flow, then don't
12:19
write it. I'm definitely going to agree
12:21
with you on this one. I like what they do as a
12:26
musician, but from from a selling or commercial
12:32
standpoint, right away, I understand.
12:35
Nobody's going to like this except other musicians.
12:38
You know it doesn't have that hook.
12:40
You listen, listen to any CCR song.
12:43
Why do people still listen to CCR every day by the billions
12:50
it? It sucks you right in, man.
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Let me give you a statistic for. For the longest time, I wonder
12:59
who the greatest songwriter in the world was.
13:02
I just recently watched ACCR documentary I Was Blown Away
13:08
Man, obviously. I still top of mind could be
13:11
anybody you know I still. Cannot big explosions.
13:15
I can't believe that this is even true.
13:18
In 18 months, John Fogerty wrote 5 gold albums.
13:25
That's insane. Five.
13:28
That's insane. Yeah, in. 18 months, 18 months,
13:32
Kyle. And what was it?
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Between it was between 1969 and 1971 I believe.
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It's just unbelievable. Well did.
13:58
I lose you. And what was it?
14:00
What was his? What was it?
14:01
Yeah, I lost a little bit. What was his?
14:03
Did you did you talk about his his reason for doing so?
14:10
He was going to lose his record deal if his next record wasn't a
14:14
hit. So he felt like every song
14:17
should be a good one. Yeah, it's it's it's it's too
14:25
bad that the industry now just focuses on one hit wonders and
14:30
there's no there's no labels anymore really backing.
14:33
There's no distribution backing because everybody can just do it
14:36
themselves and. So that's you just don't get.
14:41
That's the con of it, right? The pro side of it is you and I
14:46
are sitting here 2000 miles apart doing a podcast with
14:49
modern technology, right? So we can also write an entire
14:53
album on the on the same equipment, correct.
14:56
So the the good side of it is, oh, absolutely if.
14:59
You and I were in the 90s when we formed Nemesis.
15:01
We were limited to analog gear. We went in an analog studio.
15:07
We recorded the tape. There was no digital anything.
15:10
Then there was a DAT and a few things that were kind of.
15:14
Breaking new technology that very few people had.
15:18
Pro Tools was in its infancy, but we basically played with
15:22
Marshalls through big giant PA systems and everything was
15:25
analog. Now my studio right here
15:28
consists of a MacBook Pro and a nice focus right Preamp and a
15:34
couple other magic things that don't really mean anything to
15:39
anybody but you and I. So.
15:42
There's the pro side of it. You're right.
15:44
The con side of it is a band doesn't get to develop the way
15:47
we did in Nemesis either nowadays, correct?
15:51
Very few of them. You don't go out and play clubs
15:55
for years and then get noticed and start selling CDs at a slow
16:00
pace and get a development deal, which is what we had at one
16:03
time. You just don't see those things
16:05
happening. But I guess you know Justin
16:09
Bieber got famous just off. YouTube or TikTok or whatever he
16:12
did. So there's the pro side of it
16:15
again. He didn't need anybody.
16:18
Yeah. Well I yeah, yeah it's like the
16:21
the I don't know if he. I think he's the current singer
16:24
of Journey, that the Filipino guy, you know he got discovered
16:28
because of his YouTube right. Journey karaoke basically, you
16:32
know. And yeah.
16:33
YouTube they found it on YouTube you know and I got I I recently
16:39
downloaded a Journey a Journey album that was all their live
16:45
stuff and it's he's really good at Steve Perry's level of
16:53
singing to where oh it's if you close your I love Steve Perry.
16:56
The Journey was one of the bands that grew up loving.
16:59
Yeah. Yeah.
17:00
So there's a couple tracks on that that I had to look at to
17:04
make sure that it was actually Steve and I think his name is
17:06
Arnad, Arnad Pinimoir or something.
17:10
But you can, you can kind of, you can kind of tell because
17:15
Perry's personality comes through his, his character, you
17:18
know, shines through his, his vocals.
17:19
So you can kind of tell his nuances if you, if you've
17:22
listened to him like I have since I was, you know 10 years
17:25
old. See, you can see it.
17:27
You can hear it. You can hear the differences a
17:29
little bit. But but Filipino dude man has
17:32
fought on with the most of the stuff that it's just like the
17:35
delivery of some of the words that makes you realize, OK,
17:37
that's Steve, that's not the other guy or vice versa.
17:40
But if you're looking for a a live a live album of journey,
17:45
it's it's phenomenal. It's a really.
17:47
Oh, he's. Definitely as close as anybody
17:48
that I've ever heard. It's a really good Yeah, Yeah.
17:58
So let's see the brilliance of music.
18:06
It's no I got Escape. I remastered Escape, which was
18:10
cool. That's a great album too.
18:12
Escape. I used to fall asleep to that I.
18:15
Just listened to that one at work the other day.
18:17
It's amazing. It's a good album, man.
18:22
Oh yeah. You know, another tune that just
18:27
came up the other day that I had forgotten about because they
18:29
wrote that candy ass shit in the 80s was what?
18:36
God Starship. Jefferson Starship?
18:44
Find your way back. Oh, oh, Jefferson.
18:46
Holy. Shit, everybody.
18:48
Do yourself a favor and go out to YouTube right now.
18:52
And type in. Find your way back by Jefferson
18:54
Starship and turn it up. What do you got there?
18:58
I don't have my glasses on, bro. Yeah so that's the journey.
19:02
That's the greatest. That's the it's the greatest
19:05
hits journey album. Oh, my thing's fading, There we
19:08
go. And the artwork, which I don't
19:10
see the relevance to it but the arc was done by Duff Mckagan of
19:14
obviously Guns N' Roses fame, Bad ass.
19:16
But it's it's it's seventeen shots.
19:19
I got my glasses. On.
19:21
Trying to look cool but I'm old. It's OK.
19:27
It's OK. It's got 17 tracks on it you
19:29
know and they're all I mean you know all the songs that on this
19:37
on the slide thing are are the hits exception of one I don't
19:41
know why no fire but everything else I've heard of and it's it's
19:44
a jamming. It's a jamming album, man.
19:46
For for a live, a live thing for sure, you know.
19:57
So yeah, it's it's good. It's good.
20:05
So yeah, if you, if you know, if you're a Journey fan, greatest
20:08
hits, it's it's a good, it's a good thing.
20:10
I will definitely have to check it out because I do like
20:13
listening to that guy's version of the songs.
20:15
If you can't hear Steve Perry, you might as well hear somebody.
20:18
And that's why it's supposed. To see yeah.
20:22
Oh, this one is mostly Steve Perry.
20:23
It's. Mostly Steve Perry on that live
20:25
because it's you can. Yeah yeah OK There's a couple
20:29
that that aren't odd things but for the for the most of it Steve
20:32
Perry and you can tell you can tell by the the delivery of the
20:35
words and the melodies and you know I saw something on Steve
20:39
Perry the other day on YouTube dudes like flowing Gray hairs.
20:42
It's he's going to it's one of those things man.
20:44
All the rockers from our youth. Are going to just casually be
20:48
gone in the next 10-15 years? And I don't, I don't don't like
20:52
that. I know these.
20:54
These are all getting old. You know you don't and you don't
20:58
growing up in the MTV era, right?
21:01
You have this. You have these visions imprinted
21:04
in your brain. They're burned in your mind.
21:06
You know what those journey looks?
21:08
Like and then you see them now it's like holy right?
21:12
Right, Like like right now the Scorpions are doing the 40th
21:15
anniversary all the. Time first thing, man. 40 years
21:20
ago, love and first thing came out and it was a baby boom.
21:23
Because Still Loving You was one of those songs.
21:26
That right? You see them now and they're
21:28
just totally grave mind. Boggling.
21:32
Yeah, but they probably sound all wearing.
21:35
Hats because they don't want anybody to see that they don't
21:37
have any hair. It's like, OK, it's all good.
21:40
I don't have any hair. Yeah.
21:41
Yeah, I'm sure I haven't. I haven't.
21:46
I haven't seen them in a while. I don't either.
21:48
But you know, I I, you know, I didn't have hair when we were in
21:51
Nemesis because I shaved it. OK, So there there's a good
21:54
story. I had a bald cap.
21:56
I was a play. There's a good story.
21:58
Yeah, so I just. Showed.
22:01
Yeah, I was in a play. I just showed one of my friends
22:05
that picture and then I'll let you continue with your story.
22:08
I apologize, the person picked you.
22:12
As me, because I'm bald, Correct.
22:17
They're like, that's you, right? And I'm like, no, I'm the dude
22:19
playing the guitar, right? I told you I was a guitar player
22:22
for how many years? And I can't believe you had that
22:25
long hair? And I said, well, let me tell
22:27
you another story. He shaved his head before it was
22:30
socially acceptable and everyone was, like, scared and shitless
22:33
of him. That just wasn't done back then,
22:35
you know. No.
22:39
And the irony of it, which we got and and.
22:43
See the irony? Back then?
22:44
I had a uh huh, I had a blue, I had a blue lifted Ford pickup
22:50
and on the back windows I had an American flag and a Arizona
22:53
flag. I live with a with a black guy
22:56
who was in the Muslim stuff in Farrakhan and I was wearing
23:01
unbeknownst to me because of my ignorance, I used to wear this
23:03
red and black checkered flannel with black Doc Martens.
23:08
So we we'd walk around them all together and he'd be wearing his
23:11
Muslim Farrakhan hat. And I'm in this red and black
23:14
flannel. And we'd go in this corner into
23:17
the stores, you know, the corner, and we'd just watch
23:19
people go out the other side and like, what the Hell's going on?
23:21
And then finally, about a year later, I realized, oh, I got a
23:25
shaved head, looked like a total Skinhead because of how I
23:28
dressed, which was nothing intentional.
23:32
It's just it was the flannel era.
23:34
And then Courtney, that was his name, he's he's all into the
23:38
just anything. Louis Farrakhan.
23:40
And and I forget some of the guys that he was, he was really
23:43
into and reading and studying and he was in the Tai Chi and
23:46
all this, you know, chakras and stuff, really great human.
23:50
But it just the two of us walking down the street just
23:53
caused alarm, you know? And the the the whole reason I
23:57
shaved my head was because I was in a play and we were doing the
24:01
dress rehearsal. And that's basically the night
24:03
before the show goes on. You you walk through the you run
24:06
the entire play for just, you know, the directors and the the
24:09
staff and my bald cap rip When we were taking off the makeup
24:15
and stuff. And it would have taken 2 weeks
24:17
because Amazon didn't exist to actually get the bald cap from
24:22
New York. So I was like, well, fuck it,
24:23
I'll just shave my head. And you know, it was shoulder
24:26
length, you know, And I mohawked it the night that for one night
24:32
and went to campus the next day with a Mohawk and then right
24:36
before the play shaved it off, put the ball and then they have
24:40
to do ball cap, just make up it up.
24:43
And that was it. And then I showed up at band
24:44
practice, I think 2 days later with a shaved head.
24:47
And you guys are like, what? That's what I was just going to
24:51
ask you. So when I met you, I knew you
24:53
had hair, But I was convincing myself as you were telling this
24:56
story that you never had hair. But I'm like, I know he had hair
25:00
when he joined the band. You're right, you showed up that
25:02
day and everybody was like, holy shit man, what did you do?
25:07
But it gave us such a unique look, man, because Rick had his
25:11
hipster look, you had the shaved head, which made you look mean
25:14
as all hell. And Scott and I had long hair
25:17
and we look like long hairs, right?
25:20
We look like rockers at that time, yeah.
25:22
And then about a month after, right, right.
25:26
And then about a month after I did it, Michael Stipe from
25:28
R.E.M. shaved his head. And then, thus, the world began
25:31
embracing white men, shaving their hair off.
25:34
This is a true story. I forgot.
25:37
What the hell? Michael Yeah, yeah.
25:40
But yeah, but legit nobody, I mean, nobody shaved their heads,
25:44
man. Like no one, that's why.
25:46
And of course in in. You know, college because it was
25:50
a college production. You know, all the chicks were
25:52
like, Oh my God, you're such gorgeous hair.
25:54
Really. Really.
25:56
Why did you say so? Why?
25:56
I still had gorgeous hair? Why do you wait till it's all
25:59
gone to tell me? I had gorgeous hair.
26:01
I actually used to get that while I had it, so I can't say
26:05
that. Right.
26:09
I always got asked the question she.
26:10
Has gorgeous hair. Because then, you know, I always
26:13
got asked the question, where do you get your hair done?
26:16
And the answer was always the shower.
26:18
Because if I had to put forth any effort to do this, it
26:21
wouldn't be there, right? You know me better than anybody,
26:26
man. I didn't go get my hair done in
26:28
a salon. Yeah, it was just naturally
26:32
curly. That's that's probably why so
26:34
many, right? That's probably why so many
26:37
rockers throughout the years, their hair gets shorter and
26:39
shorter and shorter. Like I saw something with with.
26:43
I think it was. I think it was that Joe Rogan
26:45
thing I saw with David Lee Roth on his he's buzzed military
26:48
buzz. You know, he had this long
26:50
flowing lion's mane. You know, that was one of his
26:54
trademark things. And now he's just, you know,
26:57
this much hair on his head. At some point you got to say
27:00
enough's enough. You know, you either, I guess,
27:02
embrace the fact that it's all gone, to quote the great George
27:06
Costanza, right? These are the remnants of a once
27:10
great civilization. You have to come to that
27:12
conclusion. It's got to go.
27:15
Or you rock the skullet and everyone laughs at you because
27:19
you don't know you're bald yet. Yeah, right.
27:24
Even even Miles Kennedy from Alter Bridge, he he had, he's
27:27
always had kind of long shoulder length hair that keeps creeping
27:30
up when they just so. And they were here recently.
27:33
It's not, it's not as long as it used to be.
27:35
And it's grand. So when they post pictures and
27:37
stuff on their page, I'm like, yeah, I get something current,
27:40
man, because that one's probably from a couple years ago.
27:43
But I'll tell you so at the end of the day, you think back and
27:48
at least I have to laugh because I'm like, what the fuck, man?
27:51
It's so much better now to just be able to get up and go.
27:56
My grandpa used to ask me all the time when I'd come home for
27:59
Christmas. He hated my hair, so I'd get the
28:03
same question every year. Yeah.
28:06
You think that long hair makes you play that guitar any better?
28:10
And I'd be like, no, it just looks cool, you know?
28:13
And he'd always say, not from where I'm standing.
28:16
So there you have that. He hated it.
28:21
Yeah, long long haired freaky people need not apply, right?
28:25
It was cool at the time and you know, we all, we did have a good
28:29
look and that was part of the band.
28:31
It was part of who we were. It was important that we had an
28:35
image. You have to sell an image.
28:37
You're you're selling a sound, you're selling the songs, but
28:39
you're also selling an image. You can't just go up there and
28:42
look like everybody else in the crowd, right?
28:45
Nobody wants to see themselves get up there.
28:47
They want to see some. Like you said, they want to see
28:49
the long haired freaky people do something to entertain us.
28:55
So we did. We played loud, aggressive music
28:58
that you couldn't talk over because it was loud and
29:00
aggressive I. Don't know if it was aggressive.
29:06
It was more, it was, it was, it was, you know, it was, it was
29:10
Hard Rock. I would say Hard Rock.
29:12
I don't think we were aggressive at all.
29:14
I could be wrong. Well, not like death.
29:17
We were, we could play. We could play with anybody.
29:20
Exactly. No, no, no.
29:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying that we we found
29:25
our niche we could play with. Anybody.
29:27
Absolutely. That was our niche as we could.
29:30
We could play with absolutely anybody, which is why we worked
29:34
3-4 nights a week. Yeah, right.
29:40
Yeah. And the trippy thing is, and I
29:42
think last week we talked about, I totally forgot, we opened for
29:44
Marshall Tucker Band. And I, you know, there's one of
29:47
my all time favorite bands and I just back then I didn't even
29:50
register that we were opening for Marshall Tucker.
29:53
I didn't. I hadn't.
29:54
I hadn't yet. Like expanded, That was one of
29:58
your first gigs in the library. At that time, yeah, yeah.
30:06
Yep. I was trying to remember the
30:08
other day, Marshall. Tucker Band and I still listened
30:10
to him to this day. OK.
30:14
So we'll we'll scratch the story I was going to tell because I
30:19
just put something in perspective.
30:21
So we opened up for Marshall Tucker and Sacred Reich just to
30:28
prove your point. That we could put Enough's
30:29
enough. We opened up for yeah, Enough's
30:32
enough. Tony McAlpine, Pat Travers.
30:37
There was a there was a little known band in the 90s who were a
30:41
one hit wonder and I had to go back and look up what the song
30:45
was. And I'll never remember what it
30:47
was now, but I do remember the band.
30:49
Yeah, we opened up for a band called Catfish.
30:51
Do you remember that show? I do, yeah.
30:57
They had a really. I remember.
30:59
The song, if I remember the band, Yeah, look up that song on
31:04
YouTube when you got time, man. You'll remember the song right
31:06
away. It was on KU P/E all the time,
31:08
OK? It was one of the ones that was
31:10
in the rotation. OK, and they played it to Mason
31:14
Dryer and we opened up for them. I was going through my folder.
31:17
I got all the tickets from all the shows that we played.
31:21
Nice. Yes, somehow that was in
31:24
something that I got back from. I have some.
31:26
Stuff somewhere. Yeah, right on.
31:32
I have to find my. My box, I have a yeah, I have a.
31:38
You should reach out to him and see if he has anything else that
31:41
he's not not being forthright about having, because I don't
31:50
think he threw everything away like he says.
31:54
Well, maybe he'll listen to the podcast and he can send me a
31:57
message if he's got something. It's all good.
32:01
I don't hold any ill will towards anybody, especially him,
32:04
because he made sure I didn't die when I was at the worst
32:07
point in my life. So I have nothing bad to say
32:09
about anybody. It's I did my shit, they did
32:12
their shit and we're still, you know, you can't change the past.
32:17
I can only change the future. So if you happen to listen to
32:19
this Kevin, and you want to say, hey, it's all good, man,
32:23
Everything's good. We're all different people,
32:28
right? Yeah, last last I ran into him,
32:32
I I I helped him. I helped him with something.
32:36
I think it was real estate related.
32:37
And he's he's a he's a foster parent now.
32:39
He fosters kids. I see that he's still my friend
32:42
on Facebook. So yeah, he always.
32:45
I think that is really great. I admire him for doing it.
32:49
Yeah, it's been a while so. So your friends on Facebook but
32:53
you never poke at him? No, I just.
32:57
I don't know. If he doesn't.
33:00
I don't know. I guess I'll just say, hey,
33:03
sometimes you just got to say hi.
33:05
Yeah. Say, hey, that's kind of what
33:07
you did to me. We what up.
33:09
You know, we we would go long periods without talking and all
33:12
of a sudden you'd pop up just out of the blue.
33:16
Or like my mom would run into you out in Arizona, or my
33:18
brother would run into you and they'd say, hey, and you and I
33:22
have always kept in touch, though.
33:24
There's just something between people who have gotten to the
33:28
level of being in a band that we have that you can't break that
33:32
bond. Agreed, agreed.
33:37
There's there's there's no and nobody understands unless
33:39
they've been in bands they've been on stage and performed
33:42
thousands of shows and different been there done that you know
33:47
yeah it's just it's a whole That's why when when black bands
33:51
that have stayed together with the the same lineup.
33:55
You know Flex? Well, Scorpions had the same
33:57
brand, no? Because they got rid of Herman
33:58
the drummer. I don't know who's in it now
34:01
like Rush was. Rush was scorpions?
34:03
Well, no. Russians started out, maintained
34:05
the original anime Anchor near the Guns and Roses.
34:10
Fuck, maybe the Stones and The Who?
34:13
Oh, no, they've had until. Remember, as far as OK, the core
34:21
members are the same. If we're going to count that,
34:23
Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Mick.
34:27
The bass players have changed throughout the years.
34:31
Ronnie Woods Been there long enough to be considered it.
34:33
Wasn't always Bill White Rolling Stone.
34:36
Well, he's the original, but he's gone now.
34:41
But he died, didn't he? Yeah, I knew he.
34:42
Was gone. I knew.
34:43
But no, Charlie died. I think Bill has just left, OK?
34:49
ZZ Top was the same three guys for all their years.
34:55
That's true until that one of them died and they're still
34:57
touring, which I don't know how you tour your your main basis of
35:02
ZZ Top, the two long bearded guys out front it.
35:06
So here's the story behind that and.
35:08
Yet you're still touring his long time base tech of, I don't
35:15
know, 30-40, 45 years. He was there for a long time.
35:20
It was Dusty's blessing that they continue on with him
35:26
playing bass because Dusty said he was every bit the bass player
35:29
that he was, if not more. He wanted them to do it.
35:33
Oh. That's cool.
35:36
Yeah. That was like in his dying
35:38
wishes or it was in his will or there was actually physically
35:44
documentation saying we, you know, this is what I want.
35:48
I I would like the band to continue.
35:49
This guy's as good as I was or have ever been.
35:53
And you know, he wouldn't have been my bass tech if he wasn't a
35:56
good bass player, right? Just like a guitar player is not
36:00
going to have a they're not going to have a guitar tech that
36:03
can't play guitar. That's cool.
36:04
I did not know. Usually your guitar tech is as
36:06
good as playing and they know how to fork your shit.
36:10
Not one single original member. They're still touring.
36:12
As for like. How's that work?
36:15
Like Journey has the core of the band, you know?
36:19
And then you have a singer that can pretty much emulate Steve
36:23
Perry on point. I still have never seen them
36:26
with with without Steve Perry. I don't.
36:28
I don't, you know, it's just I just don't like, I just don't
36:31
like it, you know, I just, it wouldn't.
36:34
It just doesn't work for me. It's, you know, it's kind of
36:37
like, I don't know. I just it doesn't.
36:43
I don't think you should call yourself the band name if you
36:46
don't have at least the core members left and foreigners.
36:51
Just the name now has nothing to do with the the band because
36:54
it's they're all different. My opinion anyway, I don't.
36:59
You know, I would say as long as as long as you have the blessing
37:04
of the original members and the original members are getting
37:07
paid, then I don't have a problem with it.
37:10
But when there's a deal like, let's say Great White, when
37:14
Great White had all their problems, Jack Russell went his
37:18
way, the band went their way, and then there was a legal
37:20
battle, then ensued over that name.
37:22
Right then I have a problem with it.
37:25
It's like either everybody gets to use it or nobody gets to use
37:29
it. That's when it's a problem.
37:32
KISS has got something set up to where they want KISS to continue
37:35
with no original members in the not too distant future.
37:38
But that's their wishes. They want to keep making money
37:41
off it, and if people want to go see it, you know, who are we to
37:45
say I'm I'm with you, I'm not going to see it because I
37:48
remember the original, but a 14 year old kid right now doesn't
37:54
have that same option that you and I had, right?
37:57
So maybe he wants to go see as close to Kiss.
38:00
As he right but then they but right right but then they they
38:04
need to they need to be tribute kiss you know kiss you know
38:07
asterisk tribute band when they do it because you.
38:11
You're not. I get you authorized by kiss off
38:14
your name. And stuff.
38:14
But you you just right something to that effect to where it's
38:18
not, you know this isn't the original product, but it's as
38:21
close to the original product you're going to get.
38:24
You know it. Just so you want a disclaimer
38:27
because there's plenty of cover, there's no original members in
38:30
the fan. Come at your own risk.
38:35
Right. Yeah, because if you didn't
38:36
know, I'm fine with that. I think I was.
38:38
A huge Foreigner fan and I. Right, right.
38:41
If I'm a huge Foreigner fan, which I like Foreigner for, that
38:43
was about it. I like some of the stuff that
38:45
Luke Graham did on the solo stuff.
38:49
But if I'm going to go see Foreigner, I I'm walking into
38:53
that that venue expecting to hear Lou Graham sing.
38:56
So if Luke Graham's not singing, what am I paying for?
39:00
You know, that's agreed it's no different like like Queen's
39:02
Reich, right? They had their split and their
39:04
nonsense and chaos. I would like to point out one
39:07
band real quick, the name before I would like to point out one
39:11
thing real quick. I would like the audience to
39:15
realize that's how we wrote songs.
39:17
Do you notice how that we resolve that problem very
39:20
quickly without arguing? Nobody raised their voice.
39:23
That's the kind of vibe that we're looking for on this
39:25
podcast. A lot of people are asking me
39:27
why I'm doing this. What I want to get out of it,
39:31
What I want to get out of it is a lot of things.
39:33
But the main thing I want to get out of it is to show the world
39:37
what a connection two people had and how you can have
39:42
conversations and debates and disagree without getting
39:48
excited, getting in an argument, if you have your point, and I
39:52
have mine, and we know that we're not going to agree, we
39:56
agree to disagree. That's why I kept asking him
40:00
questions until I got I wanted to get to the root of what you
40:05
were getting at. I thought I knew what you meant.
40:09
But I had to keep asking the right question until I got there
40:11
right. What he's asking for is he wants
40:14
the public to be. Aware that the band has no
40:17
original members because he's a huge Foreigner fan, but he's a
40:21
fan of Lou Graham, just like I would be a fan of Mick Jones as
40:28
a guitar player, correct? Right, right.
40:31
I just want the world to see where we're coming.
40:33
That's the thing. Like was cool.
40:36
Right. And it's that's the concept with
40:37
Queen's right. Like everybody knows Jeff Tate
40:39
left. Queen's right.
40:40
So when Queen's like tours they they know it's not Jeff Tate
40:43
because then Jeff Tate when he's trying Jeff Tate of Queen's
40:45
right, you know Jeff Tate will do.
40:47
He's come he's come through Arizona so much since he went.
40:50
So it's kind of like dude you're wearing you're welcome out.
40:53
Stop, let me ask you this. Have you seen?
40:56
Shows up and does a show. Have you seen the other guy?
41:02
No. I heard you even hurting.
41:05
I haven't even heard him. I need to do myself a favor and
41:07
go listen to him. I don't.
41:09
Yeah, yeah. I haven't.
41:11
I haven't heard of, but I've heard.
41:12
I've heard that he he's like just younger stronger voice.
41:17
You know the other mind blowing thing.
41:20
Jeff Tate smokes like Freddie Mercury smoke I don't blows my
41:25
mind And Freddie Mercury smokes like a pack a day Shit.
41:29
I It blows my mind how singers some people just have just.
41:34
Knowingly. Yeah, I just genetic.
41:39
But those guys didn't live to be that old, so who knows?
41:41
They might have blown their voice out, you know.
41:46
Well Freddie Mercury died from AIDS.
41:47
The complications not has nothing to do with smoking but
41:49
just the the fact that like you know all singers you you push
41:55
the the power comes from your diaphragm you know and then you
41:58
and you can inject your throat you know know how to manipulate
42:01
it to where your throat singing and.
42:02
And combination of both, which I did in Nemesis.
42:05
There's stuff that was all throat.
42:07
No throat. You know what I mean.
42:08
But somebody with a range like Mercury and and just his his
42:13
power and presence as a singer alone.
42:16
I didn't, I didn't know until years years ago that he's like
42:21
was a just a a chain smoker. I'm like what the fuck.
42:24
Like any man who cares. You're playing guitar chain
42:27
smoker. You know you do little
42:28
background harmonies here and there, but.
42:30
You're not. You're not doing a show.
42:33
A 90 minute show, singing and and constantly smoking like I've
42:38
I've seen stuff from Metallica's tour where Hetfield's sucking
42:42
down cigars side stage before he goes on.
42:44
I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?
42:46
Like you're you don't inhale those.
42:51
Yeah, but you're still but you're still fucking hitting the
42:54
cigar, man. Kept even worse.
42:56
You're still hitting the cigar. It's still hitting your throat.
42:59
Whether you inhale or not. It's still.
43:01
You're still bringing an element into your into your instrument,
43:05
which singers. I understand where you're coming
43:07
from to. Where you you, you just right.
43:10
It's just, you know I've had my share of problems with my voice
43:13
over the years. But it's it's never something
43:16
that I I I abused knowingly. And to me, smoking as a singer,
43:21
just knowingly willingly abusing your instrument, it's kind of
43:24
like you with guitar. Like you you'd mentioned
43:26
earlier. Like if you don't play, you'll
43:29
lose it and you have to get back to that constant.
43:31
Where you just fiddle around with it every day for a couple
43:34
hours getting your rhythm back and your fingers back and your,
43:37
you know, it's it's no different than if if I decided oh, I'm
43:41
going to go you know join a cover band and sing two nights a
43:45
week. I'm not in vocal shape to do
43:46
that. There's there's going to have to
43:48
go back you know get a go back to voice teacher for a couple
43:51
months and. I mean, I still know all the
43:54
drills and exercises, but it's just always good to have
43:56
somebody that that like a trainer, you go work out.
43:59
I don't go work out by myself. I go work at Orange Theory
44:01
because they have trainers that this is what you're doing.
44:04
This is how you do it and it's you need that well and that's
44:07
something that very. Rare do I think.
44:09
Think about from a singer standpoint is you're carrying
44:13
your instrument around with you at all times.
44:16
So a singer is always in fear of getting sick.
44:19
And usually singers are not germophobes, but they're they're
44:23
very much, they're more aware of things like that because you are
44:29
carrying your voice around with you and if you get sick, you
44:32
Can't Sing and you can't perform.
44:34
Like you said, I can get blown out drunk, I can get stoned, I
44:38
can do whatever, and I can still get up there and play my guitar.
44:42
Because you're playing comes from your subconscious.
44:45
Yours does too. But your instruments also part
44:48
of your body. People take that, that you know,
44:52
if you don't hang out with musicians, you don't even think
44:55
about That is what I'm getting at.
44:56
Only musicians actually think about the singer because you
44:59
hear it all the time. Hey man, you know, if you're
45:02
sick, stay away from me because I got a show tomorrow.
45:08
Yep. That's why I was always even
45:10
before Knuckles were cool. It was, you know, I don't want
45:13
to shake your hand. Yes, you know, it's just just
45:20
you know. You know, before, before all the
45:24
hand sanitizers and shit, I always was just, you know,
45:31
that's the one thing about microphones too, is like you.
45:33
Just you never from a singer standpoint and nobody touches my
45:36
mic. Like, fuck off.
45:37
Don't. No.
45:38
He even had his own mic stand that he could have killed
45:41
somebody with. Do you still have that?
45:44
Yep. Yep.
45:45
I I I don't. It broke.
45:50
The guitarist and my last band decided to be funny to throw
45:52
something in the trailer when we were packing up for the Road to
45:55
Sturgis tour and and and broke it.
45:58
Oh man. And then?
46:00
Right then and there, the drummer was like, oh, right.
46:02
And then the drummer's like, that's a bad omen.
46:04
That's a bad omen. So I gave it.
46:06
I I connected with Neil. Who explained, explained to the
46:10
fine people who are listening what we're talking about because
46:13
they have no idea what we're talking about.
46:14
So either describe it to him or if you have a picture, I.
46:17
Wish I had a picture. But I don't have a picture, but
46:21
I have a tattoo. So the tattoo which you can't
46:23
really see, I'll have to take a picture of it and somehow get it
46:26
on. But the tattoo, this mic stand
46:29
was fucking Neil. Drew the tattoo because Neil
46:33
Neil created, right, right. So the mic stand itself was my
46:35
hand. We we molded my hand in this
46:38
resin. So I was holding the mic like
46:40
this in my hand and the whole thing went down, like, where's
46:44
the went down to my shoulder. But this was up, so my my.
46:50
The base of it was raven's claws.
46:52
And then it came into my arm. My whole.
46:55
So cool. The whole.
46:56
Entire arm was like like straight up, straight up to
47:00
where when I stepped to the mic I'd be stepped into my hand the
47:03
mic. We had a so the mic would fit
47:05
right inside my hand of the mic stand itself and then I I would
47:08
wrap my hands around my hand and single thing weighed probably
47:12
what you know. Yeah, yeah, probably 15 lbs it.
47:20
Was A. It was made of black resin.
47:21
And you and the cool thing about you could really, yeah, but you
47:25
could, you could see the veins the way he did it.
47:27
You could actually see my actual veins in the sculpture itself
47:31
because he was an art student. So it was an art project that he
47:33
he did and he got an A on it. You got, oh, you got, yeah, many
47:37
compliments on that. I'm decided it'd be.
47:42
It was always a talking point. It was before.
47:44
People bands like corn. Oh yeah, Long before being out
47:48
with their. Long before.
47:51
Yes. Yeah, I I was the mic stand
47:54
originator. You very well might have been.
47:57
Who knows? I mean, we played so many damn
47:59
shows, dude, who knows who saw us?
48:01
You know, when we got on the plane to fly back here to play a
48:06
gig in Illinois, like probably five or six people that were
48:11
from Phoenix had been to one of our shows at The Jar or The
48:14
Ballroom or Boston's or whatever.
48:18
Right on. We played a lot of shows, I
48:21
remember. Boston's.
48:24
Yeah, Yeah, that's Yeah. If you got booked at Boston's,
48:28
you were a big deal at that time.
48:32
Uh huh. Yeah.
48:36
Yeah. Wow.
48:41
We need the scene like in Phoenix ticket steps.
48:43
And we can go over the I don't know, I haven't.
48:46
I don't really go. I've every now and then I'll
48:48
check out with some friends, we'll go see cover bands and
48:52
casinos. But I haven't.
48:55
I haven't picked up a New Times in 20 years and that's where all
48:58
the band stuff used to be. I just, I don't know.
49:02
When I go to record stores, the record stores I go to don't
49:05
really promote local bands, which is kind of shitty other
49:10
than ASU. That's how we got all ours.
49:12
I I. Just yeah, that was the best
49:18
thing. I was going down ASU the last
49:19
time I went. Out finding the hottest chicks
49:21
you could Scott and I rather enjoyed that job.
49:29
Hitting the. Pavement.
49:31
Oh, I bet you did. You know, it's like, yeah, we'll
49:35
go sell the tickets. Yeah.
49:39
Yeah, good old Scott. Did you reach out to Rick at
49:44
all? Did you poke at him?
49:46
No, but I need to, William. Richard Carr, the 3rd I'll get
49:50
on that. He always looked at me funny
49:52
when I introduced him, when I did the banner introductions,
49:55
you know, and he'd always look. At me, like with that little
49:59
evil eye, when I'd say William William Richard Carr, the third
50:02
on base, get the stink out. It's Rick, man.
50:07
William Richard Carr, the third Mr., Mike Michaels on guitars,
50:14
Scott Connor on the drums. Ladies and gentlemen, please
50:18
welcome Mr. Chris Dunham. Yeah, that would be me.
50:27
We did that a few times well. Where are we at?
50:31
We did. We do that a few times for sure.
50:33
I I introduced, I think, I think every set we ever played.
50:35
I introduced the band. I did every time.
50:38
Not introducing the band, no, you did it just like that.
50:41
It's just it brought it brought back memory.
50:44
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to, man.
50:50
People need to know who you are and why you're there.
50:53
You know, everybody always left. That's the whole better than
50:57
they can of it, right? Yeah.
51:01
Everybody always left our show happier than when they got
51:03
there. So I guess ultimately which is?
51:07
Cool. Because not all.
51:08
Yeah. I would say ultimately for you
51:10
and I, that would be our mission statement or mantra for this
51:14
podcast is we hope that when you get done listening to this, that
51:17
you either laughed or cried or thought about something or just
51:21
had an emotion and that it made you happy.
51:24
If they're tears, I hope they're happy tears.
51:26
You know I want positivity bred into the world now, right?
51:29
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because not all my songs
51:35
were were happy, you know? No.
51:37
No time for hate, no, but I think.
51:39
That wrote were happy either, but it was.
51:41
I think the it's. The way they were delivered,
51:44
people could resonate with him and they could catch on to it.
51:47
I think the point that they're missing, though, is the ones
51:50
that weren't positive were therapeutic to you in your own
51:54
personal way that we knew because you shared it with us,
51:58
but the public never got to hear that, you know, So what they
52:03
would interpret as, wow, that's an angry song.
52:05
It might have been an angry song, but that was your way of
52:08
dealing with it without hurting anybody.
52:13
Absolutely. Music is therapeutic.
52:15
Absolutely. So if it needed a OH.
52:18
Yeah, without If it needed a tough guitar riff, we would make
52:23
it a tough guitar riff and it would support the song.
52:26
It would support the message. It might make it sound like it
52:29
was an angry song or that you were being angry, but it was.
52:32
Music is therapy, man. Some of the nicest guys I've
52:35
ever met in my life play the heaviest music.
52:39
Those death metal guys, all they're doing is trying to scare
52:42
people. They're the nicest guys you'd
52:44
ever want to meet for the most part.
52:45
They get their aggressions out on stage every night.
52:47
Oh. Yeah.
52:48
Well, yeah. Yeah.
52:50
Yep, exactly. Yeah.
52:52
People don't. Not everybody but there's
52:56
there's collective groups in in in my lifetime that never you
53:00
know when when the whole Tipper Gore shit was going on oh
53:04
Metallica's Satan worshippers and you know AC DS use the
53:08
devil's music all they didn't nobody understood it was it was
53:13
nobody's evil man. It's just it's just show.
53:16
It's it's a character you step into.
53:18
It's you know, you. You couldn't be metallical
53:21
without having that dark, imminent presence.
53:23
Because. It was such ground breaking
53:26
music and such so, so off the wall.
53:29
Where the hell did this come from?
53:31
Like you could never release an album called Kill Them All Today
53:33
with that cover on it. There's no way like that's not
53:36
going to fly. Destroyed, You know, Right.
53:40
But back then, it's just. I mean, that's the thing, man.
53:43
Nobody Metallica did for heavy metal what?
53:46
What Grunge did what Seattle did for grunge, right?
53:50
Because there's two different eras of time.
53:52
And when Metallica broke in and kind of hit the mainstream that
53:58
that nobody heard that fucking driving angry just in your face
54:03
like fuck you here I am music like they put out, you know, I
54:07
mean I like all the Metallica up to black and black I think kind
54:11
of made them commercialize, which there's a whole debate
54:14
that we won't go down there. But I liked everything pre
54:17
black. I Black's all right.
54:20
Right. Black's all right, but Black was
54:22
a commercial success. Which they had, They had to,
54:26
right? They had to go there because
54:27
they had to evolve. You know what I mean?
54:28
Like you can't just stay and kill them all world, you have to
54:31
evolve. I mean Ride Lightning is still
54:34
all their pre black stuff stands a test of time.
54:37
Black took them to the stratosphere and you know, then
54:41
the S&M stuff with their orchestra I thought was
54:44
fantastic because whoever thought that metallic music
54:47
could actually so. There's a good if I can find it,
54:53
I'll write it down and I'll share it because it's totally
54:56
worth. Watching this YouTube clip it's
55:00
the it's acoustic like. What the fuck?
55:04
It's it's music, dude. There's a YouTube clip out there
55:06
with Michael Caine. He's the director of the
55:12
orchestra. He's dead now, but there's a
55:15
there's a good clip of him talking about writing the charts
55:23
for Master of Puppets, the song itself.
55:26
And he said, I went to James and I said this section right here.
55:30
He said it's very interesting. He said were you guys aware that
55:33
you wrote it in 22nd, thirty 2230 seconds?
55:40
And James said, I was embarrassed, but I just had to
55:44
look at him and say, Nah man, we just thought it was cool.
55:47
And that dude started laughing. It's it's just a great, you
55:50
know, here's this musical genius conductor can do anything, play
55:54
any instrument, write it, notate it, do anything.
55:57
And he was fascinated that a band of four people could pull
56:03
off a musical feat like Master of Puppets.
56:05
It is a musical feat. It's like 200 and. 20 beats a
56:10
minute or something, just non-stop except for that little
56:13
middle section. Yeah, yeah, it's insane.
56:16
Yeah. Yeah, No, it's one of my
56:18
favorite all time songs too. And the S&M version is fucking
56:22
fantastic. But the original one is still
56:24
just, you know, it's just so we we could go on for, we could go
56:29
on for days about Metallica and we probably will at some point.
56:33
But to harken back to how this whole point started, I heard
56:38
about Metallica in 1985. 84 When Ride the Lightning came out, my
56:46
buddy Mark Brewer was giving me a ride to school.
56:49
I was probably a fresh I must have been a freshman in high
56:51
school because he would have been a sophomore.
56:53
And he popped that thing in his cassette deck and it's changed
56:56
my life ever since, man, just hearing that opening to fight
57:00
fire with fire. Unbelievable, right?
57:04
Nobody had ever heard anything like that, man.
57:06
The the kids today can't understand that.
57:09
There was nothing like that. They were the first, right?
57:15
We were listening to Def Leppard and Mountain crew, man.
57:18
Exactly. None of them.
57:21
That's the one thing that that where we're at in the in the
57:23
music world today, there's there's nothing that's that's
57:27
not been tapped into. You know now it's just
57:30
everybody's a thief on some level.
57:33
But not intentionally agree. You know, I I know exactly.
57:38
It's hard to be an original nowadays.
57:40
Yeah, Yep it is. Because even the stuff we wrote
57:45
in Nemesis that would would still, you know, would still be
57:50
relevant today if if if if it came out today, we it would be,
57:55
it would be compared to something else that came out
57:57
since then, I'm sure, and I'm very proud of that.
58:01
Lyrical content and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have.
58:05
And we didn't use, we didn't use a bunch of studio magic.
58:09
We just went out there and played, man.
58:12
There's two lessons that I learned from Jimmy Page and Led
58:15
Zeppelin. The two lessons that I took away
58:18
from studying Zeppelin more than any other band was split
58:24
Everything 25%. There's no argument, doesn't
58:27
matter who wrote what without that other guy being there.
58:29
There's no band. OK, that's rule #1.
58:33
Agreed, agreed. Rule #2 is don't do anything in
58:37
the studio that you can't recreate live.
58:40
And he broke that rule a little bit, absolutely.
58:43
But he was always able to lean on John Paul Jones to play some
58:47
kind of keyboard stuff to support the other guitars that
58:50
weren't there right. Yeah, yeah.
58:57
He's the Beethoven of guitars for our generation.
58:59
No question. Right on.
59:03
That's a good analogy. It is I to me, he is just
59:08
because to your point, he recorded stuff that still sounds
59:16
just like it did the day it was. It doesn't sound like it came
59:20
from 1967 or 1975. It sounds like it was recorded
59:24
yesterday, right? You hear a Led Zeppelin song.
59:28
It doesn't harken you back to 1970.
59:31
It's just a Led Zeppelin song, no?
59:33
Not at all. Yeah, yeah, not at all.
59:36
It stands the test of time for sure, even though you go back
59:39
and I. Mean.
59:40
Obviously they've remastered their stuff, but if you go back
59:43
and listen to Trickster or Slaughter, it's clear that it's
59:48
1987, correct? Nothing wrong with those bands.
59:51
I'm not saying that it's bad. I'm just saying if you hear that
59:54
sound, you say, Oh my God, that takes me back to 1988, right?
59:58
If good times, bad times comes on right now, I'm just like,
1:00:02
cranking it up. I'm not thinking, oh, it's 1968,
1:00:05
right? Right.
1:00:08
Oh yeah. Even The Doors didn't have that
1:00:11
power. No, no, because a lot, you know,
1:00:17
their stuff came from the 60s and the 70s.
1:00:19
Just because of the what a lot of it was driven by Manzarek and
1:00:22
and Robbie and the way they played, it's still the keyboards
1:00:26
itself. I think kind of the way Manzarek
1:00:29
played them kind of locked them in that time capsule in the.
1:00:32
Sound. Yeah, the actual sound that he
1:00:35
worsened. Yep, Yep, Yep, absolutely it.
1:00:40
Just fascinates me more and more all the time at how talented
1:00:46
Jimmy was, not only as a guitar player and a songwriter, but as
1:00:50
a producer and an engineer because the sounds that he got.
1:00:56
He didn't use all that studio magic, it just whatever he did
1:01:00
to record those that music, it stood the test of time.
1:01:03
It just fascinates me. Oh yeah.
1:01:07
Oh yeah, that's. One.
1:01:09
That's one man's vision. That's that's the yeah.
1:01:13
Oh, yeah. Which is insane, like inside of
1:01:16
his brain. For a day.
1:01:17
Just for a day. See what?
1:01:18
He's kind of like Prince. Like what did Prince hear?
1:01:21
All that shit, that everything that Prince ever recorded.
1:01:23
Did he hear all that shit in his head before I laid it down or
1:01:26
was it just, you know what I mean?
1:01:28
Those are those things. Yeah, those are those things
1:01:30
that always, you know, because I never, I've never had the fool
1:01:35
when I write lyrically. I've never, I've never had, I've
1:01:37
never had the music in my head, you know, per SE.
1:01:41
And then in all the nuances, I always needed you guys to feed
1:01:43
off. Well, this needs the drums.
1:01:45
Got to go this way and the bass got to go this way.
1:01:48
I just heard the melody I just saw.
1:01:49
I saw what I wrote and then the melody came up from based on
1:01:52
what kind of riff you came up with.
1:01:54
And then you guys kind of filled in all the pieces to make it
1:01:56
this big sound that that was true for any band that was ever
1:02:00
in. When it came to writing, I could
1:02:03
lyrics, all the melodies and structuring but the.
1:02:07
Best way that I can describe it from a musician's standpoint is.
1:02:14
I used to have a really complicated explanation, but
1:02:17
I've simplified it. You would understand my
1:02:19
complicated explanation but most people go cross eyed on me.
1:02:22
So the best way I can describe it is it's like in my mind I can
1:02:27
feel the rhythm and the pieces which would be the chords are
1:02:32
like puzzle pieces floating along in my mind and I just plug
1:02:35
them in where they belong, right?
1:02:38
So I'm feeling the rhythm, just the the universe vibrates at
1:02:42
frequencies. And we're going to get really
1:02:45
woo woo now, but that's the reason that a lot of musicians
1:02:48
like to get high because you're on another frequency now, right?
1:02:53
So on that frequency, I'm going to play differently than I am
1:02:56
when I'm on a sober frequency. It just changes the way that you
1:03:00
play so now. The puzzle pieces look
1:03:04
differently than they would have if I was not under the influence
1:03:08
of anything. You're just vibrating at a
1:03:10
different frequency. That's all there is to it.
1:03:14
But as far as writing the music, that's a cool analogy.
1:03:17
It's. Just like putting puzzle pieces
1:03:18
in there, yeah, yeah. That's why you need drummers.
1:03:27
Drummers are good at putting the puzzle together because they
1:03:29
understand sections. They can count.
1:03:33
That's the big one. They can count.
1:03:35
Yeah, right. Thank God for that.
1:03:43
Well, we're over an hour. Should we call it a day?
1:03:50
Get back to life for the week. Repeat that, because you froze
1:03:56
up on me, I said. I said we're over an hour, so we
1:04:00
should probably call it a day. Call it a show.
1:04:02
Was this our 4th show? This is #4 #4 The Chris and Mike
1:04:09
Show. What are we going to call this
1:04:12
one? Ramblings.
1:04:13
Musical ramblings. I'm fine with that.
1:04:17
Yeah, I'll. Let you name it Musical
1:04:20
Ramblings Episode 4, The Chris and Mike Show.
1:04:22
Thanks for everybody for hanging in with us for this long.
1:04:28
Yeah. It's a democracy.
1:04:29
Hopefully you got something good out of this.
1:04:31
It is a democracy. So, all right.
1:04:35
Mike Michaels. I'm Chris Dunham.
1:04:38
He's Chris Dunham. We'll see you next time, right?
1:04:44
Peaks All right, man. Thanks for stopping by.
1:04:49
See ya. Hey.