Unknown: I mean, that Nashville airport is just nothing but dues
with guitar cases, yeah, symbol cases coming and going, yeah. I
mean, I was catching a flight to go to a show, and Keith Urban
did a three piece band show there, over by, by the tootsies
area the southwest, there's a little stage, yeah, there's a
little stage there in the corner. And it's like, I hear
all this ruckus, and I'm like, Wow, that sounds really good.
You know, he's made an appearance at the airport.
Couldn't believe it. That's incredible. Maybe they're doing
more things like that. I think they are, because the modus
operandi there has been, the union will get you that as
you're going exiting to go get your bags. There's a tiny little
stage here by this coffee shop. Yeah, yeah. I think it pays 40
bucks. Oh, really, yeah, it's a union game.
This is the rich Redmond show.
What's up, folks? Yep, your iPhone, your clock, your watch,
is correct. It's time for another exciting episode of the
rich Redmond show. Usually we talk about all things like
music, motivation, success, wherever the evening takes us.
Jim McCarthy, how's Jim McCarthy voiceovers.com? Jim McCarthy
voiceovers, dot j, m, V, O, s.com, that's right, man, you
got so many businesses. It's your show.co. We're here at your
amazing facility where you do your garage door stuff. Tell us
about your side hustles, bud. Oh, geez. Where do I start?
Yeah, so we got the voiceovers, we got podcasting, we've got
garage doors and lighting, yeah, all congruent. You're a
renaissance man. Well, I mean, it's, it's a lot more people
just than me that make all these things happen. That's great.
But, I mean, you're a part owner of an amazing company, and maybe
in 10 years, you evaluate the thing, you cash out, you go
somewhere, you got a palm tree, maybe, is that the plan that's
that could be a plan that's the American dream, it kind of is,
but I still want purpose. You got to have purpose in this
life. You do have purpose. I feel like everything you do
brings value to people's lives, helps change their lives. Thank
you. Yeah, man. I mean, we're going on almost 20 years of
knowing each other, so yeah, and you know what? You're one of the
most solid
no BS, friends I've had in my life, really? Oh, yeah. I mean,
I can laugh in front of you. I can cry in front of you. We can
have an IPA together. We can have a cigar together. That's
right, yeah, no. We asked me if I'm wearing a new shirt, all the
stuff. It's very inside joke there. But I turned the hat
around. Yeah, he was wearing a news A newsy cap. Do you get
that from the Men's Warehouse? Or what was it? I got it from
Boston, Boston. Scally, calm.
Check those guys out. You're funny, buddy. Hey. The only
thing I was just gonna say is that we've been talking to a lot
of a lot, a lot about Spring Hill, because I'm a New Spring
Hill I'm a spring hillian, and I'm enjoying it. Less than a
mile from my house is my gym, my bank, the Publix, a cigar bar,
the Walgreens Mexican restaurant, two miles to the
podcasting studio, two miles to the highway. Mexican restaurants
here are about a mile apart. Yeah, there's a lot of in
general, yeah, yeah. Hey, let's get into it. People are looking
at us funny. We got an amazing guest. We a lot of great stories
here today. Today's guest, hailing from Rochester, New
York, calling Nashville home. Since 2020
he has been the lead guitarist and musical director for rocker
Lou Graham, an icon. Lou Graham, one of the greatest rock singers
of all time. He's currently also the guitarist for the Lou Graham
all stars. And he has been from 21 to 24 2021 to 2024 former
guitarist for Canadian Music Hall of Fame recording artist,
the guest who he's played with a lot of other luminaries. We're
talking the Paul Stanley's, the Carmine and Vinny applicies, the
Nancy Wilson's, the Dennis Elliott's, the Paul Rogers. Of
course, we're talking about our friend Michael sterto. What's
up, bud, how are you that's that's a mouthful, man, a lot of
accomplishments. That was kind of cool. I enjoyed listening.
It's great when you get to hear, you know, your body of work,
your your history and the music business all in one, one fell
swoop. Yeah, you've been busy, man, I've been busy working
hard, working hard, and we met each other
in a bar next to the Saban theater in Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills, right? 2016 Yeah, that was so cool. I know, super
small world, small world, very small world. And here we are,
and here we are, and we appreciate you making the hour
drive to Spring Hill. Great. Yeah, you know, what else? What
else I got to do today and just drive around. It's good, you
know, like scheduling this show. I always appreciate everyone
coming on, because in person, things are going by the wayside.
Everyone's like, Hey kid, let's just do zoom. You know what I
mean? But you know, making the trek to Spring Hill is a great,
great We appreciate it. Thanks for having me on the show, man.
I really appreciate it. Almost a spring hillian, almost, almost,
yeah, quite, yeah. Not quite, almost, almost just missed.
He went way north. So I was asking you when you moved to
Nashville, and you told me, during the pandemic, yeah,
during the pandemic actually, right? Like,
actually we came down
the day after New York.
Work opened up from the lockdown, and then we found a
place to live and went back home, sold everything, and we
were actually living here with all our stuff at the end of
July, 2020, so, so technically, we didn't move here during
pandemic, but we're still under pandemic situation, you know,
yeah, but it was great. It was great. It was great to get out
of New York. And I'm really glad to be here. Yeah, really glad to
the upstate New York now, Rochester. Man, there's
something in the water there, because that's your. Steve GADS,
your who else? Chuck Mangione, oh my god,
yeah. Chuck a Tello from Spira. Gyra, Lou Tony Levin, I think
about Billy. She not too far down. Yeah, we also here in
Nashville. Now, buffalo, yeah, Buffalo is a buffalo guy. Um,
I'm probably some other people. I'm forgetting. Shame on me for
forgetting. But wow, that's pretty incredible. Now, every
time I get to, like, Syracuse or Utica, you know, we got to have
the Utica greens and all that stuff. Chicken riggies. Right?
Chicken riggies. What is right? Does that creep creep into
Rochester? Or is Rochester have a dish? Yeah, we have, like, a
garbage plate and, like, garbage chicken French, and, you know,
stuff like that. What's the chicken? French? Chicken French
is, like, like, like a chicken cutlet made with like, an egg
batter. And, yeah, it's really, it's really over capelini and
some greens. Oh, my God, it's really good. Yeah, yeah, really.
And your wife's a piece of cook, but she's, Yep, she's a chef,
and she's in the real deal. Yeah, she is. She's a real
because I think about it's, it could have been last year, but
something tells me it's two years ago. There's you had a
Christmas party at your house. It was my birthday party. I was
your birthday party, and it was very, very
well fed. We were very well fed. And you took leftovers, and I
still haven't got the Tupperware back. Oh, my God. I don't think
that's happened. That's okay.
Oh, my back is Tupperware. Oh, I'm just kidding. It was gift.
That's what happens when you live so far apart and you've got
this crazy Note to self. I gotta find that title. I don't need to
tell because it was probably really good. No, it was, it was
we go through it a lot, because my wife likes to cook a lot.
Yeah, being Italian, you know, you don't leave hungry and you
leave with leftovers. So she's 100% Italian, yes, Sicilian.
Now, what is your mix? It's a little bit of everything. So on
my mom's side, I have Italian, Yugoslavian. My dad's side, I
have a little bit of German and maybe, like, Ukrainian, Russian
type stuff. But, I mean,
my dad was born in the Ukraine, but never lived there. He
immigrated during World War Two, ended up in South America, like
in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So that's where I get a lot of my rhythmic
stuff from growing up listening to the, you know, the vast
amount of artists that he exposed me to him and my uncle,
yeah, was it in Portuguese? He spoke Portuguese? Yeah, it was a
beautiful language. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, he spoke a
lot of different languages. It's pretty incredible. I mean, we
struggle just to get by with the you know. I mean, it's so
impressive when someone speaks more than one language. A lot of
times it's like, yeah, you know, it's English and Spanish. I
mean, I would be happy with that well. But then when people were
like, oh, yeah, German, French, Italian, it's almost imperative
to speak Spanish. No, I mean, it's almost Yeah, it'd be a
handicap not to that would be the one to speak, exactly. But I
know a lot of Angelenos that are like, Yeah, I've been in there
30 years, and I don't speak a lick of it, right? You know?
Right? Well, I know that when my grandparents integrated to this
country, they wanted to learn the language. They were very
proud to become citizens and do it, you know, the way they were
supposed to do things. And they kind of left their native
language behind. They, you know, vicariously learned from the
children of how to speak better English. And we kind of taught
them, because obviously, they were adults when they came,
there was no education for them, as far as you know, available to
them like there was to us. So they utilized our schooling to
help them speak better English. And yeah, they were very proud,
very proud. That's great, yeah, yeah. Amazing, man. Amazing. So
are you enjoying Nashville? You're five years in love. It
was a good move. Oh, tremendous. Yeah. My only regret is not
doing it way sooner. Yeah, yeah. I don't. I really have a desire.
No offense, I love where I came from. I love everything that
seasons of life, yeah? I just, I just where I it's just, you
know, just something about Nashville Music City. I mean,
somebody is writing a song right now. Somebody's got to do the
demo, a band's got to get put together. I mean, that Nashville
airport is just nothing but dues with guitar cases, yeah, symbol
cases coming and going, yeah. I mean, I was catching a flight to
go to a show, and Keith Urban did a three piece band show
there, over by, by the tootsies area the southwest, there's a
little stage, yeah, there's a little stage there in the
corner. And it's like, I hear all this ruckus, and I'm like,
Wow, that sounds really good, you know? And I went over there,
made an appearance at the airport. Couldn't believe it.
That's unbelievable. Maybe they're doing more things like
that. I think they are, because the modus operandi there has
been the union will get you that as you're going exiting to go
get your bags. There's a tiny little stage here by this coffee
shop. Yeah, yeah. I think it pays 40 bucks. Oh, really, yeah,
it's a union gig. Oh, I didn't know that. I.
I think Keith probably showed up and said, I'm gonna play there.
Just get off. He's kind of got that cloud. It wasn't that
stage, though. It was. It was a it was further in, yeah, okay,
yeah. So that I, whenever I'm through there, you see somebody
at old red you see somebody at tootsies. You know, is there
somebody playing? So what stage? Wasn't the stage in Tootsie?
Yeah, it was, no, no. It was past tootsies. And it was, like,
a little, it's by eighth and roast. When you go past that,
there's a little, a little wing, and I think old red is right
there. And there's this little, it's this little setback, yes,
not very big, yeah. And, and I'm like, hear this? Bang, bang,
bang. You know guitar. I'm like, Wow, these guys are really good.
I turned a corner and like, Wow, that's pretty Do you have since
you're at the airport so much, do you have your
your go tos? Like, I know that I love to go to in the southwest
wing. I think it's an eighth and roast, or it's another one of
these hipster
barista parlor. Okay, I'll go to the barista parlor. I'll get my
coffee. But they got these Wolfgang Pucks and their little,
these little protein pucks. Oh, really. Get it Wolfgang. I get
it again. So anyways, I'll, you know, that's my go to for the
for the flight, is my and what's the name of the place? Barista,
barista parlor. I haven't seen that one. Yeah, maybe you're on
the other wing. I always go to West guy. No, I do Delta more.
Okay, so you're in the other I just kind of scoot into sky club
and just kind of hang. Oh, yeah. Kind of hang, oh, it's so nice.
Yeah, it's very nice. Now, does it? Do you get a lot of points,
and that allows you to do that. You have to pay the year. Well,
you could pay or you do points. I just used to do points, and
they got food in there. Oh, it's great. Drinks. Yeah, you're not
a member of any sky club where you nobody really clean
bathrooms. Nice. It's important. Yeah, you should. You should
probably look into it. I like that sky club thing. I will say
that. You know, recent years, we've been flying private more
because Jason's kind of got the mug, yeah, and it's great
because you just park your car, you walk in, you get your
coffee, and they load the thing up, you boom, and it's 10 times
as fast as a commercial flight.
Not bad. Don't you miss being grow up by TSA though. You
know, the funny thing about TSA is, you all that rigmarole,
right? And they say that they catch maybe 2% of the things.
So, and then the other thing I got to complain about is I'm,
I'm Global Entry, I'm clear, pre, and I'm TSA Pre, right,
right? The lines end up being the same because now they're
just given that stuff to anytime clear the line, the line of
clear is usually longer. It's easier to go through TSA Pre and
scoot through there. Yeah, that's ridiculous. You know,
it's kind of like when, when, uh, Instagram and Twitter were
selling the blue check. Yeah? Like, yeah, you can buy it now.
Nobody's special, yeah, I know, yeah, Elon, that's right.
Family, well, actually, Instagram, I think, started that
too. And yeah, meta, now, have you gotten your, your your
verification on tick tock, because you have to show your
driver's license. I don't necessarily feel good about
that. You already did. We got that for you a long time ago.
Oh, you got to check for me. Yeah? Or the rich Redmond show,
tick tock. Not rich. Redmond, show for rich. Redmond, oh yeah,
yeah. So what's the hesitation on showing your license? I don't
know because, because
the DMV doesn't already, the government doesn't. Everybody's
got everything on you, right? I know. So let's talk about the
government. Okay, let's get
where do we start?
Are we? Are we conspiratorial minded here, or is the earth
flat around? I would say, I would probably say that I'm
definitely conspiratorial minded as am I. You know, Jim loves
these tangents. In the 90s, I jumped on the whole X Files
thing, and that was my gateway into the conspiracies.
I try to be very selective about what conspiracies I talk to and
who I talk to them for, because it seems like it can turn into a
very interesting dynamic. There are some people that really take
it to extremes. There is people who take it to an extreme, but I
will say that Alex Jones has been vindicated, man, I'm glad
you brought him up. I listened to him a long time ago, quite
intently, in the 90s, you know. And he had the End Games and,
you know, the Obama deception and all that stuff, all those
videos and, and they're very compelling. He makes a
compelling argument. You know, it's good to be open minded,
listen, yeah, because now the big thing is Project Blue Beam.
Have you been hurt hearing about all the drones? Oh, yeah, UAP
sightings over New Jersey and Northeast and everything as
well. Yeah, so what? But which, which ones are you passionate
about
that you don't mind? Because we know the Earth is round, okay,
we know I don't understand. I'm a tree though. Yes, I'm
intrigued by the full, Flat Earther concept, like, it
doesn't make sense to me, because when you fly, okay, you
can, I don't know if it's just suggested that there's a
curvature to the earth, because we've been told that. Or you
look out the window of a plane, you're like, Yeah, I can kind of
see, you know that there's, I don't know. I've never been to
space, yeah, so I can't really tell you we see.
The Earth. I'd like to believe that too. I like to believe that
too. We see, my thing has always been, you see other planets in
their round, why would be the we be the exception, and why would
we it's a planet. I mean, it's flat. Why would we even bother
trying to perpetrate it? What's the purpose behind it? Wow,
where this is going to be fun.
So Marty Ray was on my podcast. Oh yeah, he's great. He actually
is, I think, a believer in flatter. I'm like, Really, yeah,
I'm intrigued by that whole as a lot of people that are having a
lot to say about that nowadays and and to me, I just kind of, I
try to embrace it. I'm not seeing it. But hey, man, what do
I know? I can't I'm just one guy, you know, I can't prove
that it's true. I can't prove it's not true. It's fun to talk
about, yeah, it's fun to talk about, yeah. It's, you know,
it's like, when you got in trouble, when you're a kid,
you're like, I'm not saying I did it. I'm not saying I didn't
say I didn't, neither confirm nor do. I'm not saying nothing.
So I'm just gonna leave it at that. Yeah, be really careful
about that's good. What are some other ones that are that I've
Oh, 911 Oh, that's a biggie. Did we land on the moon? Oh, that
right? There's another one, right? There's the movie, right?
Fly Me To The Moon with garlic. Johansen, but, I mean, it's not,
it's not uncommon. That's true, that truth is stranger than
fiction. You even had a movie like wag the dog back in the
90s, where they fabricated, you know, a false flag event that
spurred on and a distraction from a presidential controversy
Allah Clinton. So it was, it's not uncommon for these things to
happen, like even the the FBI, not the FBI, but the United
Healthcare shooter.
It's almost I was part of a conversation not too long ago,
and they were talking, you know, he was a rich kid and blah,
blah, blah and all this other stuff. And this happened, and he
went dark. And I'm like, I'm like, But doesn't that scream
Patsy to you? I mean, a little bit of Lee Harvey Oswald going
on here. I mean, this is that guy was a trained assassin man.
Well, they say it's easier, easier to fool someone, then
they convince them that they've been fooled, right? So anyway, I
mean, but why did he go and get caught on camera buying wet
protein bars or something McDonald's? Oh, what the he's
trying to get a McRib or something. You know, he took his
season for McRibs,
hard to kind of duplicate somebody in a vicinity. I mean,
maybe, okay, he's wearing this. He typically wears a hoodie,
yeah? You know. And then you, you can actually get those. I've
seen these masks. They look legit, dude. You can look like
Kanye West, it's scary, yeah, yeah. Jim Carrey, right? Joe
Biden, are they wearing? Is they selling these like an online
retailer? Yeah, they're just like a little stocking mask
it's, they've been doing masks forever. I mean, as far as,
like, you know, I mean, look at face off, you know, the movie,
you know, right? Nick Cage. Pick the end of, uh, Captain America,
Winter Soldier, where she takes the whole basket off her face.
And it turns out to be Natalie, yeah, Black Widow. But what do
we know, right? But that's the thing, is that, are they telling
us something with these movies that came like, all of a sudden
they came out with, they say, like, they say, they deliver
their agenda through, right through entertainment. But
again, you know, you had civil war that came out just
suggesting that, or just suggesting you've got homestead
coming out that's another movie that's all about, you know,
like, what are they telling us? What are you guys planning?
Yeah, what are you planning?
Jim, what is one of those secret societies where you have to be
approached to be in it, and they have a meeting, and they're,
it's not the it's the Mason. Masons. You got the big one is,
uh, Illuminati. Illuminati. But if you were approached to be a
Mason, would you do it? I don't even know what really is, it's
like, is that like joining the Oaks Lodge?
You have to be asked, right? Well, every town has a Masonic
Temple, you know, with a whole thing. And, yeah, there's, there
are people that proudly wear it too, yeah, and there's people
that wear it. Don't even understand what they're wearing.
They just, you know, it's part of fashion, part of, you know,
because, I mean, the Masons were some of the founders of the
country, right, you know, right? George Washington. George
Washington, Mason, yeah. Then you watch national treasure with
Nicolas Cage. Yeah, that a lot to do with that, all the
symbolism on the dollar and, yeah, things of that. Yeah,
that's true. Now, now back to music.
So much simpler,
conspiracies and music, yeah, let's talk about, I gotta say,
bunch of those. It's gotta be so satisfying to play music with
Lou Graham. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, one of the greatest rock
singers of all time, arguably, arguably, probably the greatest
of a generation. I mean, of top three, you know, you have, if
like, well, you think of the AR era that he's from, sticks
journey, Warner, reo, the Big Four, if you will, yeah, you
know, he's right up there with, you know, I mean, in my top
three, Steve Perry, Paul Rogers and Luke.
Am all Rogers, you know, now you got a chance to play with them.
Yeah, we did. We did a bunch of shows when I was when I was
playing with Lou last tenure.
We did several shows with that, and that was incredible. I
remember he's a nice chap too. He's not, he's incredible. He's
just a nice guy, regular guy. I got to play with him last year
on a television show. He came in with his yellow tambourine. He
said it proudly down on the drum riser, basically pointed out.
And he was like, That's my tambourine. That's my tamper.
Don't be very proud of that tambourine. And he plays it
great, yeah, yeah, don't touch it. He's incredible. Yeah, don't
even look at it, yeah, don't look at it. My tambourine, my
tambourine.
We would constantly invite him out to our encore because we
were direct support for bad company. And we used to open up
the Encore with the instrument, instrumental version of hot all
right now into hot blooded. So we would,
every day, every you know, we get into a city, we'd pop in
his, in his in his dress room, and say, Hey Paul, you know, if
you want to come sit in with us. That'd be great, you know, I'll
think about it. I'll think about it now. Little backstory, so
Paul is Lou's idol singer, like That's his favorite singer and
person who's emulated. So one night, he decided to surprise
us, and we got done playing the All right now instrumentation.
And every once in a while, Lou would like do a verse of all
right now, and it would be all predicated on his mood. And we'd
have to really be on our on our game to make sure that, you
know, we didn't end it. And he, if he wanted to sing it, we
would continue to play at least the verse of the song and then
go into hot blooded, well, this one particular night, Lou came
out from the left side of the stage, and he started singing,
you know, yeah, she was, you know, just a verse. And then
from the right side of the stage Paul came, and it was like, I
had, like, goosebumps, things like this, two other they were
kind of, like, not trying to outdo each other singing, but,
you know, polite battle. Yeah, there they were. They were, you
know, and it was really cool. It was really cool. And it's
similar, because they got similar feels and tempos. Yeah,
I think hot blooded might be a little faster. Um, yeah, I can't
remember what, what, yeah,
yeah, very similar, yeah, yeah, but that would be a good medley.
Did you guys just keep the same same tempo? Yeah, we kept the
same tempo and went ready to it. And the other thing too is that
I don't know if a lot of people know this or not, but Lou
started out as a drummer. I know that, yes, yeah. So yeah, band
Black Sheep that he was in before foreigner, and then he
came out and they couldn't find a singer. Well, he realized,
Hey, I'm a pretty damn good singer. Yeah, maybe I should
stand in the front of the band. I think that's what makes his
vocal style unique too. Is probably because his his, how he
delivers the cadence of his vocals. It's a very different
mindset. You probably could speak to that. I mean, you, you,
I don't know if you do, you sing. I sing in the shower.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Well, it's almost like Eminem with his the way he would
pattern, the syncopation of his lyrics and stuff like that, are
very drum Eminem man, he squeezes so much and so much
density into like, Lin Manuel, Miranda, yeah, you know the way
he writes his stuff, like, there's like, 80% more
information in Hamilton than any other Broadway show. Wow.
Because he had to stuff up in a lot of information, historical
information in the show, yeah. So he's playing with Lou. Is
incredible. He's amazing singer, mate, you know, legend. And
seems to me like it'd be a nice guy, great guy. Yeah, he's
really, really down to earth, salt of the earth. Just like,
kind of gather, we'd like eat with you, and catering, kind of,
oh yeah, oh yeah. I just had some. We had breakfast last
weekend together sitting in the hotels, yeah, talking about,
they passed the hot sauce, yeah, past.
So you know what's so funny is that foreigners celebrating
what, 50 years coming up on 50 years, yeah, and I think I saw
them on their
30th, okay, at the at the wild horse saloon. Oh, wow. And one
of my childhood heroes, Denny karmas, was playing. Oh, really.
And
after that, Lou got sick, I think is in the 90s, I think,
like, yeah, yeah. Very unfortunate situation. So it was
brain cancer. No, no. He had a brain tumor. Brain tumor, yeah,
it was non cancerous. And he found a doctor in Boston that
was able to to thankfully, remove it without doing too much
damage and, and here he is still persevering, you know, 74 years
old, still sounding great, yeah. And God bless him. I mean, I
can't imagine what it would have been like, not, you know, having
something happen. God forbid that back then, you know, yeah,
he's a amazing human being, and I'm very grateful. Yeah, and
does he live in upstate New York? He splits his time between
Florida in upstate New York. Yeah, we actually grew up in the
same town in Rochester, on the west side, little town of gates,
went to the same high school different times. Of course, he's
Yeah, so our families, our families were friends. Has he
been honored by his high school or, yeah, he's in a high school
hall of fame, and he's in the Rochester Music Hall of Fame,
yeah? And he's.
Getting inducted in 2025 with black sheep, the only person in
the roster Music Hall of Fame to be inducted twice now. Yeah,
there's a new question, wow. I want to start bringing forth.
Yeah, man, in this show that I keep it, we did it in the last
one with Mr. John spittle being that you're living in the same
town. Do you be like, Lou, come on over. Let's hang Yeah, we've
done that before. Yeah, we've been at should we have parties
dinner, you know, does he have you to his house? Oh, yeah,
yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, he's, he's, I
mean,
he's a regular guy. I mean, it's really, really, he puts on his
underwear one love at a time, which is funny, because I put
mine on two legs at a time. You just jump in. I'm like a hero.
It's, you just jump right in. Is that? What that spider man, that
shield is, Jim is that would be Captain America, sorry. My bad,
my bad. And Eddie Van Halen behind that? Well, my wife
painted that. You can't see this. I really got to get a
camera on that. Yeah, Courtney painted that. That's awesome.
That's cute. I said it's called frankenstrat. Yeah, that's
right. Frankenstrand, that's right. Have you read their book?
This is another thing. Well, I was gonna say
Edward has got to be a hero, right? Totally.
We're similar. We're all similar age. Jim is a youngster. Jim's
48 Sure.
Jim is 49 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I commanded you not whipping out
your calculator on your phone. I was doing my math. You're a
drummer. So you can figure that out. So you should figure that
out quick. Yeah, have you read their book? Alex's book? No, I
have it on audio I haven't busted into yet. I'm trying to
finish Rick Rubin's book right now. Oh, and
how's that? It's pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool. I can't sit
and listen to it at length. I have to do it in chunks. But I
have, I have Alex's book. I also was sent
Rosen's book, that tone chaser book, that really thick book, he
did all the conversations when he was working for the guitar
magazine, and he had all the interviews, actually, for all
the interviews, really, that's pretty cool, yeah, but it's,
there's a lot of information. There's so many books. I haven't
read the GroEL book. I haven't read the Alex Van Halen book.
Bernard Purdy's got a book, yeah? Um, some other drummers
got it. And then Robin flans put out a second Jeff per carro
book. Oh, really, remember we interviewed, yes, Robin, yeah,
well, I mean, with Alex, because he reads it, and, yeah, oh,
that's cool. And he's, it's so it's kind of funny to listen to
him, because HE CHUCKLES at himself. I just saw, I just saw
a interview he did with Anderson Cooper. That was, yeah, that I
need to watch it. Yeah, that was, I didn't watch the whole
thing. I just watched an excerpt from it where he talked about,
you know, Eddie's last moments. And that's pretty incredible. I
remember where I was when I found out I was, I think I was,
it
was hanging out with Ryan, Ryan cook and Philip s house. Who are
guys, national guys. We were having lunch, I think, at Moby
Dickies up in Hendersonville and, and it came across all our
phones, and it was just like, we were having a really good time,
and, and, and then that news came in, everybody was just kind
of like deflated. It was like, Holy shit, yeah, he's like, a
world without Eddie Van Halen, yeah, it's incredible. And we
found out neil peart passed right on when we were recording
the show, yeah, like, I did a lot of you know, at the time I
was doing a lot of research, and I think we had
Cole Marcus, good try. Cole Marcus was on, and I just again
right on there, Neil Peart dead at 6465
and you see my visceral reaction, yeah, as I find out,
yeah, I don't remember where I was when I found out about
Eddie, but I was like, come on, two in one year. For crying out
loud, I remember where I was when Elvis died and I was a kid,
you know, but I remember that. But I think Eddie impacted me
just as much being a big elves fan. It was just like, you know?
And then Wolfie put out distance. Well, also, yeah, he
put that out, but he also did a behind the music. It's, it's, I
want to say it's on one of the streaming platforms. Might be
Amazon, yeah, but there's a new one behind the music on
Wolfgang, and it goes into a lot like, you see the like, Eddie
with the steroid treatment. His face is swollen, but he's still
smiling. Yeah, he's still got that impish smile. But that
song, the distance, yeah, the voicemail about his dadly. I
mean, you can just tell that Eddie loved Wolfie so much. Oh
gosh, so touching. I mean, every time I have a tough time
listening to it, I get really emotional. You know, I ain't
heard of any wolfies music. Oh, you haven't. I got I gotta check
out at his band. Yeah? He plays everything. He does everything
himself. Plays all, yeah, yeah. He was on drummeo Recently,
yeah. Do you see that? That was great. He's such a gifted, of
course, gifted drummer. He would look at the mentor he had, I
know, right, you know, and mentors, yeah, his uncle and his
father, right? Because his uncle never played with anybody else.
No, he wouldn't. He won't. Nope. Wolfie on dremio note to sell.
Yeah, yeah. We need to try and get him on. Yeah, man.
Why? Imagine we get both Wolfie and Alex on either to try to do
that. Yeah, man, yeah, because Alex is doing, he's not a hermit
anymore. He's doing interviews. Get on it. Jim. Anyways,
so what was the we were talking to, John spittle before this
about, you know, the catalyst records. And it was, you know,
we're all similar age. So it was, it was
1984 Van Halen and and synchronicity from the police.
What was your big record? That was like, I'm gonna do this with
my life. That basically broke from your parents music to your
you. This is my music. Yeah, yeah. Well, I remember in the in
the mid 70s, like I was listening to the Saturday Night
Fever soundtrack, heck yeah. And grease soundtrack. And then I
think the edgiest thing that came out was Charlie Daniels the
Devil Went down to George I had it on the Columbia Records and
tapes club, yeah. And then a friend of mine laid Van Halen
one on me. And and you know that running with the devil bomb. We
just talked It's unbelievable, right? Like, that's the song,
because it was, it was life changing, and but it wasn't
until eruption you listen to that you're trying to figure
out. You hear the horned car horn, you know? And you listen
to run with the devil and which is incredible. And you're like,
holy shit, this is incredible. Then then eruption comes on, and
it was like, What is this like? What is this an instrument? Is
this a keyboard? Is this a guitar? And it just blew my
mind. I didn't even really play guitar yet at that time, I was
playing other instruments at the time. Oh, were they? Well, I
started out as a drummer, awesome for about six months to
a year, and then I left that, and I started playing violin in
grammar grade school. And then I went from from that to trumpet
until I got braces, right, as you can imagine, with the
mouthpiece, then with the saxophone. And then I kind of
lost interest. And then I as an elective in eighth grade in
middle school, I took guitar. It was guitar keyboards. I took
guitar. I figured, you know, guitar might be cool, more
portable, yeah. Well, I just, I was thinking about the whole,
you know, the whole chick, yeah, exactly. I mean, the keyboard
guy. I mean, although, oh, you could wear it like Chick Corea,
but it's still not cool. The guitar, yeah, but, you know, I'm
kind of kicked myself for not playing keyboards, but I'm glad
I play guitar, you know, see, I'm glad I play guitar. I think
the guitar players attract a certain kind of chick woman. And
Billy Joel told a story at UConn once about he wasn't exactly
popular,
and he didn't have the look right, but he didn't know how to
play classical piano, and he was really good at it and everything
he says, I finally got invited to a party, like a high school
party, and nobody talked to me. I was by myself and just hanging
out. And I walked around the house, and lo and behold, in one
of the rooms, it was a piano, and I started playing. And you
know, I was just kind of noodling around, and I look up
and there was a girl standing there, so I got even more into
it. And he was playing, he's I looked up and there were three
girls standing there, and he was like, Okay, this is why
something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, I mean, hearing Eddie Van Halen
and trying to do that on the guitar when I, you know, knew
nothing about the interest, no, YouTube, no. I mean, did someone
did like guitar? Were there magazines back and then where
they would do transcriptions, tablature? No, tab, tab, tab.
Wasn't even really, wasn't even a thing, yet, it was always
situation, yeah, you know. And it was always wrong, you know,
that never really made sense, you know, if you transpose the
instrument.
But Eddie Van Halen never took credit for the tapping
technique. Well, just, he just kind of developed it. But there
was people before him to do that too. So he just, I said, he got
it from Jimmy Page. Oh, really, yeah, there's a video of him.
It's called what it means to be American, and it's about an hour
long. And he talks about, he says, Look, I just saw Jimmy
Page, you know, kind of doing this thing, but he did it on one
hand, and he's like, Oh, that's what he's doing. And he says,
but if I add my other hand, look what I can do. And that's how it
started. And that's interesting. You say that too, because back
then you said there was no videos, there's no tab, there's
no, you know. So you had them live. You had to, you had to put
the record out, yeah, see it live, yeah. There was no MTV,
right? There was no, you know, YouTube. So you had to, like,
imagine, put the record needle on the record or cassette tape,
and have to try to figure it out yourself. What was your first
concert? First concert? Well, I saw a bunch of concerts with my
folks. The first concert I went to without my folks was rush.
Oh, my moving pictures. Big one. Moving Pictures to her, wow.
That was incredible. Which ones you go see with your folks? A
bunch of them. I mean, they took me to see some local bands. I
saw a journey with my dad. He took me to go see which journey
is my Neil Shawn is my favorite. Oh, my, number one. He's your
number one guy. Number one guy. Number one guy. Yeah, nice,
yeah. What do you think about all the controversy with that?
That's good, that's happening. I mean, you know, he's your guy,
but it's like, dude, just, What? What? Just stop. Yeah, what's
controversy? It's like he and he and Jonathan Cain are, like,
fighting all
there. You know, there's ownership dispute.
And all that crap. And, well, I think I could throw this out
there and safely say that in music and in bands, it's not
really the music that breaks up the bands. It's the business
that breaks up bands exactly Publish. And, well, publishing
is one, one aspect of it, but there's, you know, the longer
I'm in this business, the more I realize that, you know, if to
really have a good business acumen is really an advantage
for yourself, to have your T's crossed and your eyes dotted.
And the more I learn about different bands, and the deeper
I get into things I hear well, you know, that's why this band
broke up, or that's why that band, these guys hate each
other, and it's really unfortunate situation, because I
think we all get into it for one common, you know, theme, one
cause, because we love the play, and like you said early on, you
know, it draws attention to you. So if you're a kid, you're
having trouble finding friends, or it's identity, yeah, it kind
of helps you. It helps you, you know, break out of your social
awkwardness,
but it's really disheartening. When you some of your heroes,
you see them go through what they're going through in the
struggle. It's really unfortunate, but you gotta get a
wonder if it's self inflicted, though, I think a lot of itself,
yeah, they live to a certain, uh, level, and then all of us,
they get used to it, and then maybe the money gets tight, or
something changes, and, you know, all of a sudden, they
gotta change up their lifestyle. I'm not changing my lifestyle,
you're gonna change your lifestyle, ego, greed, you know,
all that kind of stuff. You know, you have handlers telling
you how great you are, and yes, man, everywhere. Yeah, exactly,
exactly. So, Neil Shaw, Neil, yeah. So you're the kind of guy
which you just like play all the solos, note for note. I try to,
yeah, but I've, I've tried to take, I've tried to take what
I've learned from those guys, and try to morph it into style
my own, yeah? And try to take from those Luke there and Neil
and Eddie and Randy Rhoads and people like that, yeah, now when
you're playing with Lou, yeah, and you got these iconic,
um, uh, guitar solos,
kind of gotta have to have to have to, because even the soccer
mom out there is singing it. Nobody cares what I think about
the soul they want to hear with the way it was played, yeah, you
know. And I have to do the best I can. But fortunately for me,
lose generous enough, and he's done that, done this with, you
know, all the guitar players after me is, you know, he'll
extend soul sections and and he'll encourage you to take a
little bit of liberty and be yourself a little bit, you know,
nice. So that's really the cool aspect about him, is, is he's
just a real generous Yeah. Now, who is that I am? It's a total
brain fart. I think it's a privilege. And thing, who was
that drummer that you play with all the time in Rochester? Oh,
Rob. Rob mount, Rob. Yeah, I haven't seen Rob forever. Yeah,
I haven't seen him in I haven't talked to him in a while. You
guys were great on that together. He's really good.
Yeah. In fact, that that gig that we met was his first show
with Lou, yeah, and you were there. And I think the next
night, Steve Gadd was there, and I think Kenny Aronoff was at one
of the shows in his first little round of shows. It's so funny
Steve gadd's Son, yeah, Carlo runs front of house. He did, he
did for a while. Yeah, wow, yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, it's
incredible, because I was sitting at the canyon club.
Yeah, you know, and I, I'm on a date. This is after my second,
second divorce. Um, just call me Ross. I'm the divorce guy. Um,
excuse me, there's Steve get and Carol, like, sitting at the
table next, right behind me. I'm like, I'm like, What are you
doing? My son's running front of house. Like, yeah, incredible.
And then we got to do a bunch of fun educational stuff together,
yeah, um, we got to be counselors at the Rock and Roll
fantasy camp. I think this was 2017 something like that. Yeah?
And you have, I think, for several years, me, you and Luis
Espaillat have been
players at the School of Rock thing where we do once a year at
the Ryman, and it's great. You're so great with the kids,
and you're so giving of your time, and they love you. And you
like that. You like education? Totally Yeah. Totally Yeah,
totally Yeah. I taught for a long time when my kids were
little and I wasn't touring, you know, I was teaching out of a
music store, and I had, you know, like, about 5060, students
a week, you know, with a with a healthy waiting list. I was very
fortunate, yeah. And, you know, the cool aspect is, you can
attest to this is, is, is, you know, teaching, helping kids
achieve their goals and perpetuating what we do, and
seeing them go on. And then some become successful, or some
decide to take a departure, but they take principles that you've
taught them and to whatever they do. And then you run into them
later on, and they'll say, like, I still play guitar. Or, you
know, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have, you know, I know
I had this one student that was incredible. It was a young kid
named Matthew ran aletta back in Rochester, and
anything I taught him, like, the next week, he'd have down, like,
eruption is one of the things I was working on with him. And he
came back and I.
I don't know what to teach this kid. Well, he was falling on his
grades, and his dad showed up and said, you know, we're gonna
pull him out of the lessons because, you know, he wanted to
get his education in order. We're gonna use it as a tool to
straighten him out. And once he gets his grades up, he'll come
back. He came back. Parents were very grateful. I was very, you
know, trying to help them as well.
I did a corporate event, and I can't remember where the
corporate event was, with Lou, and it was acoustic, and we got
done doing sound check, and this guy comes out of the kitchen
with a chef. Get up on right? He's like a head chef, and he
says, Are you Michael sarato? I said, he goes, You remember me?
And I said, Where do I know you from? He goes, it's me. Matthew
reynaletta, oh, my God. I'm like, wow. What like? What do
you do with your life? It was on the head chef at this country
club, blah, blah, blah. And I just want to thank you for all
the discipline that you helped me with in my guitar playing. I
was able to apply it to my life, and I was able to achieve it
almost like kind of blown away. I mean, I away. I mean, I don't
live in that headspace, but it's the stories like that that
become really gratifying. So to answer your question, yes, I
enjoy, I totally enjoy working with school of rock and and, and
I'm amazed by, like, this area, School of Rock, and how good the
kids, right? The Prague candy and Kelly, oh man, they do such
a great job and and I enjoy doing their their functions all
the time. And I'm amazed at how good the kids are. They're so
good. And it's really redeeming, because as we get older and we
are our generations age out, we're losing, you know, these
players. There's least some replenishment, because you start
to think of like, who's going to replace? Yeah, you know, we're
losing them faster than we're, you know, because kids are
basically learning to DJ. Now, let's you know what I mean. It's
like making music on computers and everything. Yeah, they're
just like DJ, yeah. And they can learn a lot easier, like we were
talking about earlier, not having MTV or YouTube or or, you
know, different things to help us learn quicker. They can just
draw, like my kids, they won't even my both my kids play guitar
and sing. They won't let me show them a damn thing. Like they
won't. I can't give my kids, like, tips or lessons or
whatever, everything's Come to dad. Yeah, and they're
incredible, like, when they play and sing, it just brings a tear
to my eye. And, yeah, it's emotional. That's got to be
very, very seriously. That's the most frustrating thing about a
parent. Man, yeah, being a parent, that's for sure. Well,
Ian, my son, you met Ian? Yeah, he's part of the Young Life
organization at Belmont, and he's playing his guitar and
performing with it, with the youth group. And, you know, it's
incredible. What did he decide to major in
biochemistry, biochemical, biochemical engineering, or
genetics, or whatever. What do you do with that? I don't know.
Make money.
I don't know. Oh, my God, he's doing great. Yeah, that's
incredible. We'll give him my best. Yeah, I will. That's
incredible. Yeah, you know, it's everyone always asked me, Hey,
are you going to do your drummers weekends? Yeah, because
I did that for four years and it's so much work to organize
those things. But I do
just love the fact that we did those for four years, because
some of the kids that are that go through that program more
than just the the impact that you could potentially have on
them, yeah, they all keep in touch with each other, yeah, and
they lift each other up, and it's like, they're all going to
these major music schools or graduating, or getting touring
jobs or getting session work, or I'm like, Wow, there's just a
small part in that is really cool, you know, especially like
with rock and roll fantasy camp, some of those business people
that you know you're dealing with, alpha males, yeah, you
know, CEOs, they go every year. Some of them go every year. Oh,
and they go in multiple camps. But you know, the wrangle those
people into, you know, organizing them to be cohesive,
and then, you know, it can get well, you remember, you I think
your room was very across from my room right next year, some of
those people were like, you know, they were, I thought,
like, I thought my group was gonna, like, throw punches at
one point, yeah, but by the end of the night, you know, by end
of the weekend, I'm sorry at the Whiskey a Go, go in Hollywood,
everyone's embracing each other, you know, I'm still keeping in
touch with everybody you know. And you make lifelong friends. I
mean, you know, and, and, you know, unassuming as you know,
our lead singer, Laura, is in charge of the blonde lady,
right? Blond lady? Yes. She comes every year. She's in
charge of the Hollywood Christmas parade. Yes, with Eric
Estrada, yes. And she co hosted, yes. It's like, her thing? Yeah,
it's like crazy. Yeah. I actually Teddy zigzag, who
played in the last version of The Guess Who with me,
participated in that, and he actually called me and asked me
if I was available to go out and participate in that Christmas
parade. And I thought that was the coolest thing in the whole
world. That's amazing. I didn't get a chance to do it because I
was already committed to something else. But I mean, wow.
You know, I mean Teddy zigzag, wow. I mean, he was the keyboard
player in Guns and Roses, and then he was the keyboard player
with Billy Bob Thornton's band, the Walter trout. Billy Bob
Thornton, yeah, he's his total character, Billy. He's still, I
mean, Teddy, Teddy's incredible. Just, just if he's a character,
I love him. I mean, he could be a stand up comedian. He was at
camp with us too. Oh, he is funny. He's.
Hilarious, so funny, yeah, yeah, man, great guy. Incredible,
incredible, yeah, I'm saying that a lot today. Sorry, guys,
that's gonna have to add that to the potential phrases that we
could put on our merch. Incredible, incredible,
incredible, well, that was fun. Well, that was fun. Nice.
Where's the bathroom? Yeah, I'm heading to the bathroom again,
right? It's the aging you believe that a lot too? It's the
aging bladder. It really, really is so aging bladder. You have a
theory about drinking water before a show, I cut off liquids
90 minutes before a show, I put myself into dehydration that
will allow me to have an empty bladder when I get on stage, and
then I can hydrate a little bit on stage, and our show is only
90 minutes right now. You guys were talking little before we
got on camera, uh, about Taylor Swift's three and a half hour
show, yeah? MATT Billingsley, I sure hope there's a pee break in
there, where there's a track maybe, and the dancers go out
and maybe the set change. I
can't go three and a half hours without pee. Hopefully has a
little area pipe and drapery with a bucket, yeah, drums where
you can just something slip in there real quick. Or maybe it's
just, like connected, like an astronaut.
Yeah, he could just have a bag. He's got a catheter, right? You
can have a catheter. That's horrible. I don't think you want
to be that active with a catheter. No,
just the thought of that. One of those infomercials that just
roll
tell us about this new project with our friend Troy laketa from
Tesla Riz and the believers. Yeah, incredible. It's happy
music, it's happy music, it's world music. It's upbeat, it's
reggae, it's world it's pop, it's a little bit of country. So
Riz
is a young artist, dynamic artist, from Reno, Nevada. Okay,
Troy's son, Troy Jr, was producing him. Asked Troy to
play drums on a couple tracks while he was out visiting in
Sacramento. And this was all kind of in motion two years ago
at that point. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and he jumped on
board to the to the Riz train, and just realize how dynamic and
the potential that Riz has, and and it's just a matter of time
until the whole world is understanding what we all see
right now. But so Riz, I'm sorry. Troy brought Riz to
Nashville and started working on the all the recordings we've
been doing, yeah, for the last couple years. And Troy invited
me to come out play on one track, and it was this, the
first single. Don't stop. Don't stop trying. I gotta we talked
about journey. I got journey to brain. Don't totally and it
expanded into the entire first EP, plus there's a second EP.
We've done two videos. We were just in Ocean Way studios over
the summer recording seven or eight new songs for another
release, and we did a bunch of showcase here in town. We played
city binary. We opened up for the Wailers at the third Lindsay
nice, which is really cool. And that was an incredible
experience, by the way, the whalers meeting the whalers.
Yeah, what is the current lineup of the whalers? I'm not sure,
but it's like it was intense, man, those guys were, they were
the, you know, they were great. I think the bass player may have
been somebody. I don't know enough about them, other than
when I saw them. It was, it was great. Yeah, I've never
experienced anything like that before. But Riz is, you know,
he's got,
he's got this really cool website with his community. He's
trying to build his own, you know, social network, yeah,
social network. And he's doing a great job at all of it. So,
risen to believers. I think the EP, the one that's out right
now, everyday people, it's got like, five or six tracks on it,
yeah, really, really good. So it's you. It's Michael Devon,
the player from White Snake.
And I love Peter keys. Peter keys, he's also done the School
of Rock with us. Yep. Leonard skater, easy, yeah, badass.
John saloway, who's another local guy here, singer
songwriter, Troy myself. Who am I forgetting? Troy Jr, squidly
Cole from Steven Marley's band. Oh, wow,
yeah. It's a, it's a really cool, it's, and it's completely
out of my comfort zone, as far as, you know, playing reggae. I,
you know, it's definitely, definitely, yeah, I'm a chink
guy. Yeah, you're the chink guy. Without being, you know, without
being derogatory, yeah, I'm the chink guy, yeah, one and three,
buddy, dude. I told him. I told I told I mean, you know, I love
Troy. He goes so far back, credible drummer. I said, Hey,
if you ever want me to, you know, play percussion, I will
come running. That's why I kept one of my
percussion tables. Oh, in case, in case, Troy says, come
running. I can hang all my jam blocks and tambourines and wind
chimes. Let me ask it. Is Troy doing this in between roofing
jobs?
That was the one thing we had him on. He was a roofer. He
still doesn't. He runs roofing jobs. Well, I don't think he's
doing it currently, but he did, you know, when Tesla was down,
he started a roofing company. I just learned that myself. He's.
Crazy, such a man of many talents, and he's built like 20
different recording studios over the years. Yeah, you know, it's
cool. I got a chance to play with him in the Guess who,
because Gary Peterson ended up having to have some surgery,
that's right. And Gary's the original, original runner,
original drummer of The Guess Who, yep, the original drummer.
And, and, just so our listeners know guess who the big hits
were? American woman, magic carpet ride. Nope, these eyes,
these eyes.
No time left for you.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Great songs. Yeah, Troy. On two days
notice, Gary gets hurt, we call Troy. Troy. Can you come out and
help us out do a bunch of shows? And he like a champ. I mean,
learned a set and nailed it. Yeah? Amazing drummer. I love
that. Amazing guy, yeah, yeah. We love Troy. Yeah. That's
great. Troy. Laqueta reminds me of Aaron off learning the Sammy
Hagar van hill right in 24 hours. That's pretty incredible.
The funny story that Troy shared on our podcast and in very few
other interviews, is that he told us that he also auditioned
for Mellencamp back in the day. Yeah. Wow. That cool. Yeah,
super cool. Where would Aronoff be if that didn't happen? Um,
well, you know, Kenny got asked to play in the Jerusalem play
timpani in the Jerusalem symphony. He turned that down,
and there was some sort of like, Adult Contemporary Lou Rawls.
Wow. He was asked to audition for Lou Rawls, but then he found
out about a young guy named Johnny Cougar Seymour, Indiana.
Yeah, right. There's these moments in our lives, man that
like change us forever. I'm so glad that I met
a young guitar player named Kurt Allison, who introduced me to a
young bass player named totally Kennedy, who introduced me to a
young singer named Jason Lt. And this is all human relationships,
no resumes, no monster.com right? No auditions, just people
shaking hands and getting a feeling about each other. Yeah,
yeah. I think it's indeed these days, indeed.com Yes. Sorry, is
he? Yeah, I'm showing my age, but it's true, though. Yeah, did
you said monster.com monster docs, that's a throwback. I
don't even know if they exist anymore.
It makes me think of that scene from the office
where it's a cold open and all you hear are monster sound
effects coming from Michael's office, and Jim goes monster.com
singular.
That's great.
Hey, Jim, I'm going to do the Fast Five, but maybe you should
ask Michael your favorite question, my favorite question,
yes, okay,
you have to, at one point, quit everything you're doing,
and for the rest of your life, you have to pick a band that's a
tribute band,
and hey with the play every day with this band, what tribute is
it gonna be? Wow,
was
he gonna be one of two? I have to know it down to one and he
gives two. Again, probably I would
love to do a journey tribute band,
because of Neil and probably kiss. I mean, that'd be cool.
Oh, my God, we haven't talked about kiss. I know, ace, ace.
Yeah. I mean, have you entertained the notion of
playing in a journey tribute band at all? I actually played
in a journey way back in the day, yeah, when I was, you know,
probably late 80s, early 90s, had something going on, but it's
a really popular one here in town. Yeah? That our friend Jim
Handley played right, played drums in That's right, wasn't
he? Dean's tech at one point. Yeah, and he's got one of his
old kits. I think he actually jumped on stage with Jordan,
right, right when Dean fell in the shower or something like
that, got hurt. Yeah, that's incredible. What's up? Jim
Handley? He's, uh, what was the name of the band,
resurrection. Is it resurrection? They're another
one of those bands that, when they play third and Linsley, it
is a line out the door. Yeah. They've run out of chicken
fingers, yeah. But, I mean, they they play that. We saw them play
somewhere in the park in Franklin, or something,
Pinkerton, maybe, yeah, or maybe not. But they were very good.
They were one of the, I think, one of the country's premier
journey. My brother's in a journey tribute band in Detroit,
really, yeah, but he's my brother's issue is that he's the
best guy in the band. What does he do? Keys? Oh, he's been
playing since he's four or five, six years old. When you say it's
his issue, he's the best guy in the band. He doesn't surround
himself with people that are better than well, we want him to
move to Nashville? Yeah, we're trying to get him to move down
here. And Dan McCarthy, Dan, he's, why are you not moving to
Nashville? Dan, come on, Dan, you getting any younger, buddy?
Well, what make it happen? We'll convince him. I think the last
trip down here he was it. I I felt badly because we didn't go
downtown.
Like we should have. But we went right before they had to leave
and go back, he and his girlfriend and I gave him a
little taste to lower Broadway during the day on a Monday, like
one in the afternoon, sure, sure, sure. He was like a dog
out the window, like they were playing
Jack and Diane. I mean, there's like 80 bands down, but the
thing is that you're tall, world class musician, yes, yeah, that
are just amazing. How long ago was this? Though, this is, uh,
beginning of October. Okay, so is this? Because when you go
down to lower, broad, now it's different, like, the music is
different, repertoire is different, way different. You
know, like, you see, you see, like, Flying V guitars. You see
campers. You know guitar, you know, you hear some kiss, yeah,
you hear some kiss. You hear Metallica, yeah. You hear
zombies, yep. So what's the thing with Kiss? Were you
totally enraptured with the double platinum record? And it
was a visual, yeah, it was a visual when I was a kid, it was,
you know, the first kiss alive was just incredible, you know,
just to see Gene Simmons and Ace and Paul, just that, that whole
thing that they had going, I was, was so captivated as a kid.
It was like a, like a cartoon, you know, yeah, entertaining. So
to me, I just latched on to ace, you know, early on, because, you
know, he was just so damn cool. Yeah, you know, he lived up in
our area,
in the Northeast. He's still, he's still in New Jersey area,
New Jersey, yeah, I think it was reading, yeah, he's a jersey
guy, yeah, yeah. So he used to play tuxedo junction all the
time. Fraleys Comet yeah for these comments, yeah. Anton Fig
on the drums, there on that classic tracks I know. And our
friend Matt Starr has been doing yeah for many years. Yeah. Did
that thing? Yep, exactly. Matt's a, Matt's a rock fantasy guy
absolutely cross pass with him, and spend a lot of time with him
at the i at the whiskey on those nights, those Monday night jams,
lot of, lot of biker jackets.
I mean, I mean, I think a black leather jacket is required to
enter. It's a uniform. It's a uniform. Yeah, it's like a rite
of passage, the Viper in LA, yeah. I hope the Viper still
stays, but no Matt would have a jam night every Monday night at
the whiskey, at Go, go. And I feel like, well, we had Slim Jim
phantom on the show, and I think slim owns, knows the owner of
the whiskey, and he's like, it's such a hallowed, iconic landmark
of Los Angeles, I don't think it's going away. I hope not.
Yeah, that'd be sad about the Viper. They might not like knock
down that whole strip. They usually do a for development and
stuff like that. Somebody comes in with a good chunk of change
and they go see you later. Yeah, Money Talks, man, you could look
at Nashville, right? And Omni is not there anymore. I know Omni
went away. I mean, it's changed so much since I've been here.
It's incredible. I can imagine people that have been here
longer than me, what you know, and I hear about their their
impression about it all the time. Yeah, I would have loved
to been here 20 years ago. You know, that's when I got here,
just for the real estate value. Oh, yeah, totally, I've had the
same house. We bought it in 20, 22,005,
it's gone up a little bit that was good. Yeah, hey, would you
play down there ever in Broadway? Yeah,
I don't know. I always say if I was a little bit more in charge
of it, like to curate the band, curate the list, yeah, maybe
curate the knight,
you know, yeah, Riley plays down there a lot. He does, but he
curates like he surrounds himself with the players that he
wants, really the repertoire that he wants, which would be
the way to do it. But I do think about trying to get a little bit
more connected sometimes to the scene at Roberts, because I love
Roberts, because I got Pearl snap shirts. And it would be, it
would be really fun, because you got to play a little quiet as an
upright bass player. And it's just a whole different thing.
And occasionally I'll go down there and I'll sit in with John
England. And John England and the Western swingers. What's up,
John, they are the best western swing band, yeah, in Nashville,
yeah. I like, I really enjoy going down there and see more
traditional country. I wanted the traditional Yeah. And, like,
since I've lived here, I've been enamored with the pedal steel.
Like, I just love the sound of it. It's a difficult instrument.
It's like a spaceship, yeah, it's like flying a plane. Like,
you know, when you get on the plane and you look in the
cockpit and there's, like, these, all these switches and
everything, the guys are, like, that's what I imagine. I mean, I
got to play with, with cowboy Eddie, yeah, and, and I was
sitting next to him, and he sits down and sets up his pedal
steel. And it's got, like, things with his feet, things
with his knees he's doing, you know, he's got the steel on top
with the, you know, the landing strip of 65 strings. It's the
same. And he's like, chops for days. And, yeah, playing, where
was that? It was with the CMAS, with Caitlin Curtis, okay, he
did that channel four today in Nashville. Show, yeah? WSM,
yeah, yeah. Today in Nashville. It was great. It was great. I
got to co host at that show one time. Did you really? Yeah? They
had, they have guest co hosts. Kelly Sutton. Kelly Sutton,
what's up, Kelly, we love you. So is this an up and coming gal?
That's you kind of continuing to work with a.
Little bit I haven't since then, you
know, that came through Brent Fitz, you know, Brent. I love
Brent for who's he play with? He plays a slash, slash and a bunch
of other things. He was her music director, and they were
getting ready to do. And he was actually another guy was filling
in on a guess who gig, you know, Winnipeg guy.
You know he we were, he was coming into Nashville, and he
was like, Hey, do you want to do this? And I'm like, sure it was,
you know, it was, and she's a powerhouse. I don't know if you
did a little digging on her, I'll have to. She's incredible.
What a singer. Check it out. Caitlyn Curtis, well, you got to
keep working with her, because you never know. I would love to,
you know, would love to. I haven't been asked, but I will.
Of all the
um, recording artists that are out now, topping the charts. Do
you have some ones that are kind of like digging on, like, I, I
like Megan monroney's new director, cool. I like,
there's, I like, a lot of, I mean, a lot Americana stuff,
yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I like some of the lot of the females,
like Carrie Underwood, is amazing. I could see like that
looks like it'd be a fun gig. Oh, yeah, you know, because
she's, she's like, a rocker, yeah? You know, I think she went
out and opened up for Guns and Roses last year, and she was
doing, like, Motorhead and and heavy stuff we had Seth, on the
show, she was on Howard Stern. She did a, like, something you
wouldn't expect her to, mama, mama, that's right, coming home,
that's right, yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, she's, she's a
powerhouse. Yeah? I think about, you know, a lot of the
contemporary country artists and and my kids turned me on to a
lot of this. They're really dialed into all the new My son
loves. Morgan Wallen, that seems like a cool gig. I mean, that
stuff. Bailey Zimmerman's got a cool band, you know, he's,
they're all rockers, the young rockers. Yeah, that's kind of
cool, cool thing, yep. So yeah, yeah, heck yeah, man, what's
the, what's the coming up for the holidays? For you? Big, big
family gathering. Big family gathering. What's your place?
Yeah, you coming? What day, what day you want to come? I can
bring the Tupperware back.
Bring a dish in the tupperware. Yeah, what's the what's 2025
looking like? What are you looking forward to? Any like,
personal goals? And, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm really looking
forward to, you know what 2025 brings? I don't know what it's
gonna be. I don't know that's terribly exciting. Yeah, it's
really exciting. Actually, it's like living on the edge. You
know?
I may do some shows with Lou if, you know, if he, if he decides
to have a schedule next year, I don't really know what that
looks like. And I'm pretty open to, you know, options. Yeah, you
guys heard it here. That's right. Michael is available.
He's open for options. That's right. Here's the thing, maybe
another question, theming, every time we have a guest on, yeah,
is, you know, the music business has been going in through a
pretty big earth shattering shift over the last 20 some odd
years with digitization of music. Yeah. What's the fix on
that? Because you have songwriters that aren't being
compensated the way they used to be, and all these different
things, you know, streams, you know, I got a million streams,
but I got, you know, $5 in the mail. That guy, how, what's the
fix on that? You know, what? What, like, what, you know,
think tanking these a solution, touring and merchandise. Yeah,
touring and merchandise, where most money is, but, you know, I
think, I think that's just, you know, labels their way of
getting back around and getting over on, you know, everybody
laughed at Lars when he was bitching about Napster. He was
really foreshadowing things, so he was kind of being proven
right. He was like, Guys, this is gonna ruin us. Yeah, yeah, I
don't. I don't have an answer for that. I mean, that's like
the million dollar $64 million question is, you know, you got
to stream a song, what, like 10,000 times making make a penny
or whatever, point 00, whatever it is. It's ridiculous. Why is
it so dastardly low? I mean, because if you compare it to
radio spins, I mean, what's the what's the ratio between 10,000
radio spins? I can't remember what the maximum number a week
was. Back when I was in we actually were reporting radio
stations because the creator of Spotify set up that algorithm,
yeah, but I mean, it benefits heavily the but it's based on a
subscription, subscription. So that's I was gonna say. So how
much is a subscription to Spotify? 10 bucks a month. I
think that's 1299, now, okay, so it used to be able to buy a
record and 20 bucks, and then you owned it forever. Even even
before that, it was 889, because didn't Peter Frampton go against
the record companies at one point to keep the price at 899,
or something, or whatever.
Anyways, then you own the music forever. Now you own, you're
subscribing to it, right? But you potentially own all the
music. You own everything. It's really not, not. How do I put
it? Hey, you are. You own
nothing. The entire you don't own anything. You're, right?
You're leasing it. You're as long as you're paying the bills
to the world of music, right? And nobody's listening to every.
Complete, you know, like, like, an album. Everyone listens to
singles. They, you know, they have their playlist, you know,
skipping through. And I don't know if you watch, like, I watch
my kids, and there's like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Yeah,
everything thumbing through everything. You know, a song
comes on and it gets played for like, a nanosecond, they skip
over it. Not in the mood for that, not in the mood for that,
yeah, not in the mood for that. So I don't know the answer to
that, but I hope somebody comes up with something to to
counteract that, because the the revenue is, is pitiful. Yeah,
it's pitiful because, I mean, it's, it's, you're only, it's
the walmartization of songwriting that means it's like
the quality of everything's going to go down, which, you
know, there's balances that come into check
and come into play in those scenarios. Because if you're
gonna really strong songwriter, you know, and you go about it
with a good business plan, I'm not streaming my stuff. If you
want quality music, you got to come to my website, yeah, and
download it. So, I mean, that's it. Maybe that's a play. Well,
then be your own label, your own distributor, and everything like
that, which is possible, it's possible, but the game is kind
of rigged, because they have access to all the platforms, and
they're the ones putting everything out, pushing
everything out to everybody. What if you don't, what if you
don't need a platform? You know, if all of a sudden, because if
everybody's starting to make it on Spotify, not Spotify, but
tick tock and things of that nature, right? Yeah, that's
true. You know, you're discovering, I mean,
Dragon Force got discovered through Guitar Hero, sure, you
know, and you got all these different types of new ways
because radios going away. Yeah, you know that's, that's going
downhill. You really feel like it's, I mean, yeah, happens,
because the talent brain drain of radio is being it's being
cannibalized. How, how many reporting radio stations are
left? I don't, I don't know what those stick 100 something, but
what happens when you know you run out of the talent you know?
Is it just a jukebox at that point? And are people going to
stick around to listen to commercials, to hear the next
hot song, when I can just download it, when I can just go
to tick tock? It was interesting because you and Jim used to work
at Jack FM. I'm excited tonight. I really enjoyed Jack FM's
model. Although it was a limited playlist, you would hear a lot
of repeating. It was very highly researched playlist. Yeah. So in
Jack FM, for at least Nashville, we did a lot of local research,
and at that time, what seemed to check the boxes were people in
my demo, and a little bit older at the time, in oh, five where,
hey, salt and pepper could go into Van Halen, could go into
sure Run DMC into, you know, Faith Hill. That made sense. And
that's where the playing, what we want genre started to come
into play. But we weren't, you know, playing what we want. It
was a, at least in our radio station, a very well locally
focused research what is every Jack? FM?
No, because they were, it was owned. Most of the jacks were
owned by CBS, and it came from New York. So another
homogenization, exactly, of the music distribution, and we're
all in this room, probably old enough to remember that used to
have regional radio stations that you looked forward to
driving through that
because they had, they played first cool thing can AC in LA
where, you know, they played Queens right before anybody was
playing queens, right? And they, you know, Kos and you know, the
whole la scene. They were instrumental in that. Now it's
become like, you can go to any town, it's homogenized, and the
commercials are the same, the playlist is the same. You know,
they just have a different personality dictating the same
dialog, and he's probably in another city Exactly. That's,
it's, that's the it's the cannibal, like I've been putting
out. I mean, podcasts are definitely an option for anybody
who's left over in radio. And I encourage people I still know, a
lot of them, a lot of them stick around because they're romantic
about it, but I tell them, Look, you know when the date is going
to come when radio doesn't consider you're valuable
anymore, right? Right? It doesn't mean you're not
valuable. Podcasting needs you, because, you know, 98% of
podcasters don't know. 98% of what you know, right? You know
what I mean, right? They're just people who have executed. Yeah,
the best podcasts out there are actually kind of badly produced,
even even like your Sirius XM is kind of starting to dwindle too,
because it's, it's just, they're not pivoting, they're not
adapting.
You know, I don't know what's gonna happen. Podcasts are not
going away. No, no. So I'm so happy that we've been doing ours
for five years, right? You know, and it's just an endless I mean,
how many musicians and creatives that do we know, right?
Everyone's like, you should get such and such on the show. Oh, I
will. They're on the list, yeah. But I will. There's only 24
hours in the day, sure, right? But, um, so to get to know you a
little bit better, we're gonna do the Fast Five. And it's never
fast. What's your favorite food?
Pizza, yeah. How could you not love New York? Yeah, I had, I
had bowling alley pizza yesterday. It was at a roller
skating.
Ring my friend Michael Knox at his annual skate party. And I
was starving, and I had it was, it wasn't great, but it was
still pretty good, yeah, yeah. It was like, Chuck E Cheese
pizza, yeah, yeah. Like cardboard with cheese on top of
it, and frozen amazing. That's right. I mean, frozen pizza,
dude, you can't go wrong with pizza. I mean, it's just such a,
such a good Oh, you can,
yeah, if you live in Vegas, you can, right, right?
You know, being from New York, you know that, you know good. I
mean, even up in your neck of the woods in Northern New York,
yeah, you got good pizza. Oh, absolutely. Oh, my God. And when
you fold it, it's not supposed to droop, right? No, you're
supposed to take the paper towel and get the grease out of it.
You could do that, but, but, I mean, if you fold it like it
shouldn't come, yeah? I mean, around here Spring Hill, we got
some pretty decent pizza places. I spent a lot of money at
salvos, but we if you fold it, it will droop, because it's not
I added salvos today for lunch. It's true, yes, at a Sicilian,
yeah, I really wanted to have lunch with you today too. I'm
sorry, favorite
drink,
iced tea. Yeah, I mean alcohol drink, sure you want. It could
be anything. Well, do you like that southern sweet tea? No, no,
just tea and yeah, like a peach tea or a raspberry tea, flavored
tea, alcohol would be probably like a good glass of Pinot or or
a dark beer, Guinness, I have to buy, like, any Porter, you know,
dark beer. Like, you know, I'm a coffee guy, yeah? Coffee, you
know, all day long. All day long, I could drink coffee. I
could drink a pot of coffee and go to bed. Yeah, yeah. It
doesn't affect my gal either. She's like, I'm like, It's
midnight. It's gonna speed in your body for six hours. Nope.
Nice espresso. Just that, the aroma, the taste, the ritual of
it. Favorite color, color purple, yeah, yeah. Purple's my
dream, but I don't see you in purple a lot. There's got to be
a specific purple, yeah, yeah. I don't know why you got, do you
have purple guitar? I don't, I don't. What's your thing? Are
you? Are you associated with a brand, like a PRs or something?
Gibson, Gibson, yeah, les Paul's Custom Shop stuff, yeah. Do they
have, uh, is that purple? You got to look at it. Well, we,
well, we've been talking. We've been talking. Yeah, I got
something that worked with them. See 2025, this is really hard,
and Jim, Jim doesn't like the last two questions because
they're so hard. But no, I'll qualify that. Okay, I think it's
ridiculously hard. Of the moment should be, what's your favorite
song of the moment? Song of the moment, okay, kind of wearing
you asked me that I've been on a I've been on a deep dive of DEF,
leppard era, high and dry, Steve Clark, Pete Willis, the guitar
tones, I don't know why again, streaming. This comes through,
came through. I got a playlist. And you know, you can jump over
and play the record I hit high and dry, and I just like, last
two or three days. What a great record. Well, everyone just does
pyromania over and over. Mania was a great record. Hysteria was
a great record. No hysteria especially, yeah, history is a
great record, but high, high and dry, just reminds me of my youth
earlier. Yeah, the guitar tones were great. What's the song that
is like a go to at any given time, at any given time? Yeah,
that you can it's like, it doesn't get old. From anybody,
anybody?
Wow, that's a good one journey, huh? A journey? Uh, wow.
You stumped me. I can't think of anything, right? Yeah, it's,
that's, that's a tough question. Tough one a go to at any time.
Like, it's like, this is always either going to make you happy
or make you go to a special place, okay, city of the angels.
Journey. It was back to back in the evolution record, right
after love and touch of squeezing, because that love and
touch of squeezing was my gateway to journey, even though
I didn't know when I was growing up listening to Santana records
with my dad and my uncle, I was listening to an early nail
shine. You were, I was, I had no idea. And he was a Santana,
right? I mean, that kid goes back, yeah, yeah. You know, so
city of the angels, because it came off love and touch of
squeeze, and that was a hit, probably 7677
Yeah, yeah, I'm old dude. My dude, no, that's, I'm trying to
some of the best music. 6080, 82 I love it in there, vocal
harmonies. I'm a
There you go. Yeah, I don't know where it's coming out of what's
coming out of my things. I think it's just coming out of your
phone. Yeah,
that's it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nailed. Rock Whalen, yeah.
Smith, so good.
What is your favorite movie of the moment, or favorite movie of
all? Ty you're gonna laugh
the Jim Carrey version of the Grinch. Yeah. I just love it's
just, it just makes me did. The funny thing is, is that Jim
Carrey was making all those faces and mosses and had that
kind of energy when he was just, yeah, you know, he just was
easy, yeah. He just grew to he never aged now. He's aged now,
but he's not doing anything right now. Is he? Is he out of
the business? Isn't he? He's kind of, he's kind of been jaded
by the business he's speaking.
Against it, yeah. Like, speaking of Illuminati, he's kind of
calling it out. Well, he just, he just did a sequel to a
gigantic animated franchise, Hollywood franchise, a Sonic the
Hedgehog. And they asked him, like, why did you decide to do
it? He's like, um, I've been spending a lot recently. I
needed the money. You got to
love it when you could just do that. I need 20 million What do
you got?
Amazing, amazing, crazy. Yeah, this was so fun, man. It was
great. Anything that is on your mind or you would like to be
recorded in public record for all time.
I really grateful you guys had me out. It's great to finally
meet you. Yeah, good to meet you. I list I've listened to
your show for a long time, and, oh, it's so I mean, we're
flattered. I mean you're rich in the other guy.
I mean you're just a great musician and just a great guy,
and we're so glad that you're part of the national music
community. And I hope we get to do something in 2025 that'd be
great. Speaking of the School of Rock and their yearly event at
the Ryman, Angie and Kelly were telling me that they decided to
do the rhyme in every other year, which means that
potentially in July of next year, we'll do the Ryman, and
Kelly plays a little bit of drums. So two weeks ago,
for his birthday present, Angie had me go and teach him
adrenaline nice. And it was so cool. So we were doing the money
beats and trying to get him to use his left foot a little bit.
But, you know, he's got the feel, he's got the groove.
Absolutely need me to come over there and show him a thing or
two. Heck yeah, Jim, you're, you're a great Jim is a great
rock trimmer. Thank you. That's awesome. That's all shake it off
the rust right now, man, I'm literally looking forward, you
know, I'm really looking forward to getting more involved. More
involved in the Nashville music scene. Yes, I think, you know,
since I, when I moved here, I jumped into a touring band, so I
really wasn't involved in a lot other than, like, what we did.
So I really, I really didn't take advantage of a lot of
networking or meeting, you know, people that are involved. So I
kind of felt like, not like Nashville guitarist, but a
guitarist living in Nashville, yeah? Because all my shows were
traveling all over the country, so I really didn't get a lot of
chance to, you know, run with some friends, you know, other
than running into people at the airport, yeah, or in airports
period. I mean, I feel like your next thing is, is, you know,
doing the Nashville thing and CO writing, you know, yeah, 10
o'clock on a Monday. Yeah, I definitely want to do sessions.
I definitely, you know, I kind of got bit with the bug, you
know, through Troy, of of, you know, it's probably going to be
more Riz stuff next year,
you know, I'd like to expand that, you know, do a little
more, you know. I'd like to lend my talent in, in the cape, in
the capacity that, you know, it's what I do. Yeah, I don't, I
don't see myself as one of those, you know, chameleons. You
know, I like to be hired to do, if somebody's familiar with with
my style and I can contribute in a positive manner, like to, like
to work in that capacity. Do you do the the number charts? Yeah,
yeah. A lot of guys are just like, yeah. I just, I really
haven't figured that out. I'm like, oh, it's got, it's pretty
easy. Yeah, it makes sense to not have to rewrite the chart,
yeah, just transpose Exactly, exactly, you know. And I, you
know, prior to coming here, I had my own way of charting
things, which is, which was very similar. So it helped me, you
know, adapt to the number system pretty quickly. So the only time
it's really difficult to do the number system is on Christmas
songs, because there's so many extensions and advanced harmony.
It's almost like maybe we should do the other guys, right, right,
right. But it's, man, it's, it's a really good system, and it
totally makes sense. That's great. What's the best way for
people to get in touch with you if they want to hire you? They
got questions for you? Yeah. So social media, Instagram,
official. Michael sterto At, official. Michael Serta
michaelster Calm. Michael@michaelserto.com
is my email, and, you know, get a hold of you guys, I'm sure.
And it's S T A, e r t o, s t a, e r t o, that's good, yeah. It's
like Michael A, E for A, E L, S T, A, E R and I had to, I always
had to be phonetic with my friend Dan woje house key. He
was a great drummer. Played with Peter Frampton coming up in
Dallas. He was like he was five years ahead of me, and it was
Whoa, Joe, W, O, j, c, I, E, C, H, O, W, s, k, lot of
consonants, lot of consonants. Wojo, one of the guys in my
band's Connecticut white bread as a matter of fact, yeah,
Bill Kaczynski with a K in the
beginning, yeah, wow. Billy's Great. That's a great time, man,
really, really great time. Thanks for joining us. Thanks
for having me. Man, I just I really appreciate you including
me. And this is, you know, long time listener, first time
caller. I love
enjoy the holidays. Holiday season. This will probably come
out in the new year, probably. So, yeah, yeah, I think we're
gonna roll these out. We're gonna roll out some repeats.
It'll be a new season. Yeah? You'll say, we say Merry
Christmas, right? Yeah, Merry Christmas, not happy holidays,
right? I'll do I just try to cover my bases. Yeah, Merry
Christmas. Merry Christmas. You and.
And your family, a Merry Christmas. You know, the Brits.
I'm watching the Brits say Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas.
Yeah, Merry New Year. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas. Hey
to all the listeners out there. We sure appreciate it, guys and
gals, be sure to subscribe, share, rate and review. And
there's a lot of you you're not taking my advice. Leave us the
rating. Leave us the review. It helps people find the show. We
sure appreciate it. Jim, appreciate your time and talent.
All right. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. See you next
time this has been the rich Redmond show, subscribe, rate
and follow along at rich redmond.com forward, slash
podcasts. You