Unknown: Men's show. But Jim, he said, I don't want to put that
kind of pressure on myself to have to pay the bills playing
the drums, right, which can be pretty smart. So he goes, You
know what? I'm just gonna produce 20 podcasts and then,
you know, have a million other businesses.
No, I just basically got to the point where I don't really know
how to get into that business, into I lived outside of New York
City all my life, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't know what to do,
you know? Well,
you know, do, but you know, you I went out when I was 18. You
took a different path, you
know? I don't know. I don't know if I still know how to get into
that business, honestly, and how to do it since I was a kid. So I
don't know. There's no rules.
So, Kev, what? What time At what age did you start hitting the
skins?
I was really young, because my great uncle was a real drummer.
So, you mean, like, a big band drum, yeah, big band drummer. He
was a real, like, could actually play, you know, and you're being
so self deputy, well, you know, was buddies with Gene Krupa, who
used to come to my great grandmother's house for
spaghetti and, no way, stuff, yeah, that's a whole Deep Dive.
Oh god, dude, you remember
that? No no before, way before my time, because he's my great
uncle. So we're talking about, like, the 40s and the 50s, yeah,
in southern Connecticut, because, you know, lived in
like, Yonkers or something, and they were friends, just like, I
know you Yeah, he knew they knew they were on the scene, right?
So, anyway, so as kids, my great uncle gave all the boy cousins,
of course, drumsticks. I'm a little kid going, well, he's the
coolest guy I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, I'm gonna I love
this. I don't why do we do it? I have no idea. We're drawn to it.
We're called to it. There's an animal. I'm a little kid. I just
loved it. That was that, yeah, was, I don't know if I was good
at it. I just loved it, yeah, so, so I'm, I'm a little kid.
I'm six, seven years old, with a pair of drum sticks. And, you
know, my mom sent me to drum lessons at the Italian community
center, you know, because they were $4 or whatever. And you sit
in a group, and I remember sitting in a folding chair,
being so small that my feet couldn't really touch the ground
and all these bigger kids and I'm with a pad in front of me
trying to figure out what's happening. I just loved it,
though, really weird thing to like,
because now six or seven years old, that means that you and I
are in the same path. We're relatively the same age. Because
for me, I was six years old 1976 had the sticks in my hands. Joel
Rothman, book, here's a five stroke roll. Here's a flam kid,
this is what a march sounds like. This is book, a boom.
Guys, kabuka, boom. Ka and you build on that, yeah, and, and we
did. We built a lot. We not only built a house, we built cities.
And then we come back to book, a boom casket. Book, a doomka.
For me, it never really left there as a kid. You know, by the
time you're 12, I have a band with neighborhood kids, yeah,
and figuring out rock and roll. And soon as you boom, whack,
boom, boom, whack, I'm like, Well, this is it, yeah, this is,
this is,
I'm done. You could take, you could play, taking care of
business. You could play all right now, you could play
everything,
all of it, you know, can't get enough whatever, you know, any
bad company song, yeah, for me, it's still that, you know, still
makes the hair stand up on the back of
my neck. I'm loving that you're saying that because everybody
that knows Jim and I knows that we're we all. We go back to the
classic rock, and that is what you would call money beat number
three. Money, beat number three is boom, crack, boom, boom,
crack, right? So you mentioned, can't get enough of your love.
Yeah? Paul Rogers singing his heart out. Yep, that's a
shuffled version of, boom, whack, boom, boom, right?
So you're learning a shuffle, not knowing what's happening.
But really, for me, I'm listening to the singer, always
listening to the singer, and rarely the drummer. Well, of
course, I'm listening to the drummer, but that singer just,
you know, Paul Rogers just lit me on fire. You know, Robert
Plant just lit me on fire. Of course, I'm listening to John
Bonham, but without that singer pocketing that thing,
it's just literally up as a kid. Have you gotten to meet Paul
Rogers? No, okay. No,
did you? Are you a lyric first person or instrument for like,
when you hear a song, what do you gravitate
towards the singer? Yeah, always, really, it's got it
that's got to get me. Oh, it's a weird thing, right? As much as I
love drums, I
mean, I'm hearing the drums and how it all fits. Oh, my God, the
wall of sound. He's riding that crash, and it's got that. Phil
Spector, you know, you're getting that, but without a
great singer, a drummer, just by himself, and I might get some
hate for this. It is after five minutes. It's a sad tale, yeah,
I want to hear someone sing something,
so the singer and then a guitar riff, yeah, in that space,
because that's making the whole thing pop, whether you're Jimmy
Page, but just pick anybody at whatever riff, especially from
our era, the guitar riff is the whole thing, yeah, and then the
singer, you know, sort of leading the charge. That's what
drew me to the whole thing. Do you
remember what your gateway drug music was, the first when you
went from your mom's music, your parents' music
to your music? Interesting? Yeah? Well, yes, because my
parents were like, what teenagers in the 50s. So my dad
had all these rock and roll records from the 50s. So, you
know, compilation stuff. Chuck Berry. All that stuff. Just and
as a kid, it's real easy to get into that, right? I mean, it's
just that little Richard, all that stuff, says little kid,
he's almost nursery rhyme, like you could just feel it
immediately.
Little did. I know you know
that Little Richard was singing about some deeply sexual thing,
heavy stuff, right? It just seems like kiddie stuff, right
when you're a kid, but you can feel it when you're a kid, so
definitely gateway. Then as a little kid, you see something
like the Jackson Five on TV, and you're like, what is happening
here, all these little kids playing instruments and singing
and, you know? And then, of course, opening that gatefold
kiss alive record at like, 10 years old. It's game over.
That's, that
was you with that game. It's God rest ace, yeah, God rest his
soul. It's, uh, that's, that's the end of it for me. I there
was no, I didn't know what that was gonna mean for the rest of
my life. I just knew this was it, yeah, this is it. You're,
you're a lifer. I'm doing this, whatever this is, I don't know
how,
but you made it happen. I guess you're a singer's dream, because
you're you've already told the whole world for all time on a
public record that that you listen to the vocal, and that is
the prerequisite, not only for Nashville, but just any non
instrumental music you've got to listen to the singer. If you're
setting up your wedge, your wedge on the floor, mix, no
inner monitors. What can you get by with? You got to have the
vocal.
Give me that vocal, maybe a character much as you got, and
maybe that guitar player, yeah, and that's it, yeah, you know
yourself, no, I'm sitting over it,
but a nice Lars Ulrich kick coming through the wedge is
nice.
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely for the fire. And back in the day, you
know, you'd have these side fills, where your wedges, what?
That's exactly why I can't hear anything, you know. But that
wasn't, that was only to feel it really is sort of caveman
version of just trying to feel the thing, not necessarily
hearing it loud. You just want to feel the thump even today
like it. I don't have drums in my ears. I have a Thumper in my
Thumper.
And that's the funny thing is that how much of the new
generation has no idea what you're talking
about. I don't know your roll. Call you guys, but
wait, but wait, So Ken, you're telling me that in your ears,
you don't have any of your drums.
I have a I'm exaggerating a little bit, but essentially, no,
I have a little overhead, you know,
to give me. Give it to me. No bass guitar, nothing. No. He's
no no. He's saying no drums, no drums, no real drums, really?
Why not level
it up? Drummers from around the world, we cover, you know, I got
numbers every styles, percussion, music, insider info,
career development, so I don't positive mindset and much more.
Of course, we address all your questions, and my deep
curriculum has helped players of all kinds I kind of the ball
down the field grow closer to their goals, even getting
accepted to college music programs, moving to that dream
music town, getting links and keeping them find out more about
my one on one, go to drum. 10. Are you? I can't hear that
frequency anymore. Anyway. Someone had hi hat in the
window, or
maybe you're just starting out. Want to hit the ground. Starting
out. Am I crazy? Bet you know for us, it's like 25
longest running radio
show from average off. The way house drummers are lefties,
right? You got Mark Beck and you got Eddie bears for me with for
not on ears. Everything that has come through that wedge has been
like, steel guitar and blast, yeah, yes, no lead vocal, and
you have no time to set that up. No time.
There's no bitching. There's no like, You call this a mix, you
know? It's just like, it's time to go,
go. My only move, I literally have time to I'll grab whatever
headphones are there, and I'll just chuck them on, yeah, just
the house headphones, and I'll just grab the high hat, because
it's always like, a million miles away from me. I'm a short
guy. I just pull it in. I'm like, and they're pointing at
me. I'm like, Well, we're doing this meanwhile. I'm going around
the drums. I'm hitting all rims, because the drums are so high,
you know, I can't reach them. It's like, all right, whatever.
It's fine. It'll be they'll hear the cross stick.
It's so uncomfortable to get him, somebody. Was wild. And
it's because, I mean, when I visited you in Detroit, rich
recently, yeah, recently, and, you know, like, sit down and
play. I'm like, I can't play your kid, man, your snare drum
is, like, freaking midway between my thighs.
People really have a problem with my snare drum because it's
so low. You know, my heroes were Tony Thompson, liberty Devito,
Kenny Aronoff, Phil Collins, and they all did.
They angled snare drum so you could hit your your thigh at the
same time. But the funny thing is, with yours, is that your
seat, like, I have a nice 90 degree angle on my leg for my
kick drum, right about there. Yeah, dude, you're like, 100
105 degrees. Sure. There's some serious things that we could do
to change the way our kits are set up right to better suit our
bodies and stuff.
You ever sit behind somebody kit, somebody else's kit, and
all of a sudden it makes so much more sense than yours, and
you're like, how do I replicate this? And you never can.
Yeah, for me, it's usually trouble, because I'm a short
guy, so I'm like, Well, I either can't touch the floor and I have
to figure out the seat thing and not worry about the drums, yeah,
or I just have to go. I just gotta go. It's over. It's done.
Try to hit what you can
lowering that snare drum is like, thank God. That's pretty
easy on the opry kid, and it's always, it's like a Yamaha
recording custom. Sounds really nice. But you know, I'm a short
guy too. But you know what? You don't play as, you don't read as
as a short guy. You you've got a huge personality. You're a super
affable, you know, high energy dude. So I never think of you
like that. And matter of fact, I didn't even know I was short
until maybe, you know, like the fourth decade of my life.
Because, you know, as drummers, we have to have some of the most
confidence to go on stage and do what we do. So with that
confidence came chest out, yeah, you know what? I mean, it's
like. And then all these athletes come backstage, get the
Red Sox backstage, get the Atlanta Braves backstage, and
they're looking down at you, and they're seeing if, like, where
you're balding and stuff. You're like, what's up there?
Yeah, I know. Like, how did you do your NBA player? How did you
do that? And like, Are you kidding me? You play for the
bulls,
but they watch us do our thing, and they're blown away. I know,
because we are. We are New York city traffic cops meets Olympic
athletes, and we are doing it and sweating. There's no other
job I'd rather have in the
world. I know it's, it's pretty wacky, and you don't really
think about it, you just go time and you just go, Yeah, I don't
know what to make of all of it. I just go. But you know, there
is a I'm not, like, I don't walk around in my day like that,
yeah. But behind the kid, you're like, Okay, here's how it's
gonna go. Go. Are you the band leader? I am okay, by default, I
guess just because I've been here forever. Well, when you
have
a relationship with Rodney, your artist is Rodney Atkins, yeah,
and he's, you've been in Nashville since 97 Yes, same as
me. 97 you've been playing with your artist for 25 years,
almost. I met him. Like, like we all do with me, yeah. Like,
really lucky. You know, you know we'd be making a living no
matter what, because we love to play. Yeah, but when you hook up
with somebody that is willing to have you on their payroll, and
they champion you, and they respect you, and they're loyal
like that for multi decades now, we both know that that's that
doesn't happen all the time.
No, no, it's it's pretty rare. Also, changing drummers is a
real pain in the ass. Guitar players, you can change. It's
not great. But drummers, man, if you got one, just keep them. If
you can build your own monster.
You heard it here, folks, if you've got a drummer that's
working in your band,
just I promise you, keep them. The grass is not greener. Keep
her. Keep her. It gets we need
more female. Don't be podcast, yeah, don't be
slip nut. Yeah, it's tricky. You gotta wonder, like, with all the
overturn, like, when you have a band that's got so much overturn
in a particular position, like a drummer, do you do as a drummer?
Do you keep that in mind, if you had to, and basically going into
it saying, and do you use it as leverage? You know what I mean?
Like, okay, you guys have a tendency to turn people over and
need to in two years, I gotta look out for me. You know what I
mean? Well, we're lucky.
We'd have to worry about that. Yeah,
people say that. Yeah, I'm sure I've said it to you. If somebody
said it to me, because, you know I'm we're more in this middle
ground. But where people have said me, did you ever think of
playing for somebody else? I'm like, well, well, sure, but I'm
sure what that means. But because this guy, I'm working.
But also I always joke like, well, all my friends play for
the biggest dudes in town, unless they will me their gig
for some reason, where, where are you going? I mean, so you
got
to you're gainfully. Employee, right? Because
you could go somewhere else that's bigger or this or that,
and be bounced in two weeks. So, yeah, a double, you know, versus
Yeah. And there's plenty of people that play that game. They
want to jump, they'll jump a gig for 25 bucks. And I'm like,
Guys,
there's no loyalty. Big picture. Guys,
focus, focus, focus. But then he got, you know, artists that will
after a long time, yeah, blow out half their band whenever we
know we know who did it. And it's like, what happens to these
guys that do that? Let me stop and pause. No,
I'm, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that is. I think
it's a there's probably a lot of reasons we can get into
sometimes people feel neither they need to to to clean house,
to make somehow something else happen.
Yeah, it came up on another podcast that I do, and I said,
you know, in the rock world, and I think there's a level of
forgiveness from the audience, you know, we've seen it happen,
especially with Van Halen, not necessarily the drummer, with
singers, yeah, I think the audience drew the line at Gary
Sharon. They're like, okay, and it's funny, because it's really
Gary wasn't bad for the band. He was a great singer. He could do
the Sammy and the Dave stuff really well. But he just like,
dude, the audience like, Guys, get your act together. Man. This
is we're kind of getting tired of this. You
can also tell when something's Like, legitimately working. And
there's, there's a there's a change, and it's for the better,
and they went to a new place, and it's interesting for
everybody, the fans and the band involved, that's cool. Hey,
you're searching for something new and fresh. There's nothing
wrong with that, but sometimes you just play the player
roulette, which kind of goes nowhere. And you can't stop some
of those people from doing that. Luckily, we were fortunate to
not have to deal with that. But, yeah, but it was all luck,
because when I moved to town, I was just playing for anybody,
and that asked me whether it was in town, out of town. Roddy was
just among many of the people I played with or for. I didn't
have a clue who was going to do what or why their career is not
my career. I'm just trying to figure it out. I can't worry
about I wasn't a band with record deals. I did all that
Nashville is like, I'm just going to try to be a drummer,
whatever that means, pro drummer for hire. Yes, I never, had
never done that before. I don't know. I didn't know what it
meant when I moved here. Luckily, I had idiot timing, and
it was a time when Nashville wasn't cool, and there was an
opportunity to sort of get in there. But again, I would just
play for anybody that asked me and try to figure it out. And
Roddy is one of the dudes I met, and we played some gigs, and he
never got any hits. And he'd call me occasionally. I would
see you playing with other people, and I was playing with
Rodney with no hits.
You. Oh, I was trying to come up. I was playing with Rush low
at Rush point. I was
Rodney on his first record, and we'd be playing at 12 noon at a
festival. Nobody cared. You know, I don't know. I'm just
playing,
hey, when you're going through hell, keep going. Just keep
on going. I mean, now, now, now, now, Rodney, Rodney Atkins,
he's, he's also around our age, five studio albums that sound
right, and six number ones. Wow.
Yeah, six number ones. And he's got a bunch of other songs that
live like number ones, which keeps the set
moving. And there is no tough fans whatever that is more loyal
than the country music,
which I was getting to before talking about some of the
artists that we you know, not going to name them, but they
blow out half their band and stuff like that. Do you think
the audience reacts to that like because they they the audience
respects and commands loyalty. They're going to be loyal to
their artists, but if they see the artist not being loyal to
their guys, do you think that has an effect on it? Because
we've seen some artists do that, and all of a sudden, the artists
themselves kind of, okay, you're you kind of shot yourself in the
foot. Do you think that's a thing
in our genre?
It's definitely artist driven. Oh yeah, yeah.
You really don't care who the drummer is,
yeah, but, I mean, but kind of true, your audience has gotten
to know you guys. They know Al Dean's band because you've been
there for 25 years and all the records. That's what I mean.
It's like, there's a
loyalty it can but I think in country at the end, I think it's
still pretty artist driven, of course. I take that to remind
myself, like, Hey man, you know, I don't mean this in a bad way.
You know, I'm side me, you know, so, and that's the beauty of it.
I'm a dude who's just hired by someone, yeah, and it's a
healthy thing to know that it's cool I'm working for that dude,
and it's not my band. If it was my band, he probably wouldn't be
my singer,
but he comes to you and he values your opinion.
You're the liaison between him and the guys, and that's a great
thing.
And and again, he had no hits for a while, and we've always
pick up bands, which is a nightmare for an original
artist. It's not a blues jam, it's very. Difficult to just sub
every weekend with a guy who's got a record. It's
just so you knew that. You you knew the tunes solid, but then
you'd have guys read number charts up there,
yeah? Or lay. My favorite part was, uh, Hey, man, I was just
laying out because I didn't really know. Oh yeah. Thanks for
laying out, bro. It's, now, it's just drums and vocal because you
laid
out. It's like, totally James Brown, yeah, thanks, vocal. What
is that for the layman? What
does that mean? So, laying out. So, you know, they show up with
their charts, and they maybe they're not prepared. So instead
of a showing up prepared, or B reading their charts or playing
something in the key that we're in, they just decide to lay out
and not play. I'm just gonna hang back and not
play until I hear the second chorus come around, and maybe
they'll get it on the
outro. Yeah. So they're milking it, yeah, and just sort of
staying out of the way. That was
probably when you know Rodney was doing Yes. Early day, early,
early county fairs, first record no hits. Everyone's eating their
elephant ears and their fried Snicker bars, and they're
setting up their chairs because Brooks and Dunn's coming out at
10 o'clock at night, and we're on at noon, right? You know, in
cadat or something.
But still, I mean, for a musician to do that, I can't,
how do you expect to have longevity?
They don't. They're, guess how many times I called them again,
zero times. So
they're miming us. Essentially, they what they're miming, yeah,
basically,
because they didn't really come prepared, or they kind of got a
little spooked, or they don't have the experience, or they
just didn't go for it. Just go for
it. And that's a double edged sword, because you're, you're
getting guys at the early part of someone's career, yes, and
they're like, Hey, man, it's, we're gone for three days. The
pay is 180 bucks. You got to learn 20 songs, yeah, and
there's no rehearsal.
You might not to get the best musicians.
No, it's Slim Pickens and,
but it was, but it was me and Ronnie. So I was the dude
eventually trying to figure out, you know, how we get some guys
in here that can play a little bit and and figure it out, but,
but then he was dead in the water, so then it was just him
and I, yeah, and I had gotten another gig, so I didn't, wasn't
playing with Rodney. He's like, Hey, man, we're gonna release
this single. If you're going through hell, you know they're
gonna let me release this if you want to come play a gig with me.
I'm like, sure I'll come play a gig, dude. I'm like, I'm
thinking his career is done. Come over, come over for dinner
sometime. But I got this other gig, sure enough, six months
later, out of nowhere, number one, four consecutive number
one. So what does that mean? I don't know. I just kept
but that buys you 20 years in the music business. If you got
six number one songs and a couple of songs that play like
number ones. Yeah, you got ravenous fan base. Got a strong
back beat. Goes a long way.
It goes a long way. And here I am still, yeah, got
off the bus this morning. You're also very, very aw shucks, self
deprecating. I mean, you got the gig for a reason. You've kept
the gig for 25 years for a reason. And Tom hambridge, which
we've had on the show, who's a friend of yours, a fellow
Bostonian? Yes, he's a singer, he's a songwriter, he's a
producer, he's a drummer. He's probably pretty tough on
drummers. You're one of his go to drummers.
Yeah, that's a crazy thing, how that worked out, but yes, and
that gig, I'm thinking, Oh, I'm gonna play for Tom hambridge.
He's my buddy. This is gonna be great. And this is after a bunch
of experience, he's in Nashville, you know, we're gonna
do some of his record. I'm like, playing for the drummers, and
that's something I've never really done, right? You're
playing for a great drummer who wrote the songs, who's also a
producer and the singer and fronting the band, yes, yeah.
And I'm going, Wow, this is gonna be interesting. And I
remember that those rehearsals initially, I'm trying to do his
slinky thing, that NRB Q kind of
slinky New Orleanian, and it's drunk, eighth notes,
yeah, it's tanking because it's not really me. And he just
stopped, and he turned to this is Tom. He's super nice guy.
He's like, Hey, man, I just want you to slam this thing that you
know. Don't do me. Just slam this give me, like, Grand Funk,
you know, just slam this thing, yeah, to the ground. And do you
don't try to, like, copy me off the hook. And I went, Oh, that,
of course, that makes sense. I'm here for me, for me to be me,
not try to be him, because it's going to be awful. And we did
that, and it worked
out we had a relationship. So, so is, was that you on bang and
roll? Did you play some drums on bang and roll that record? Bang
and roll?
I don't think I did play any well, because hambridge, you
know, Hey, Tommy, need a drummer. No, I got it, man.
Oh, so Gotcha. And then, but didn't then, did you play some
tracks on rodney's? It's America.
I played, I was on going through hell, some of that,
what's on, it's America, maybe one. I
was just, I was just trying to, yeah, when I was doing a deep
dive. Now, are you in? Do you have a side project called the
amplifier heads?
Amplifier heads, yes, that's cool. Rock is with a guitar
player I played with, with Tom hammers. That's we put out, I
don't know, four or five records. That's. Straight ahead
rock and roll,
straight ahead, classic rock and
yeah, it's, it's straight ahead rocking.
That's my favorite, though. That's real fun. And we did, we
did even more during covid Because, you know, I had a rig
in my house. Okay, so,
so what's, what's this? What's the space? Like a man cave above
the garage and bikes. It's
these old I live in Hillsboro village, right in Vandy area,
and his little old 20s bungalow.
Wait a minute, that's a boat that is. That's a nice area.
Well, again, again, the time we moved to town, dude, it was just
a regular little neighborhood.
Can you say retire anytime you want jam, bro, buy up there.
We bought it in, well, we lived across the street in a house
that we rented for years, and then in 2004 we moved into the
house across the street right the 20s. I read the other one
out and bought and, no, we didn't, we didn't own that one.
We just rented it, yeah, and we bought the house across the
street in 2004 Evers I know at the time was real
money, and get on Zillow,
the address is still in the same house, still in
the same house. For you, it's a big lot too, which is kind of
funny in that neighborhood, but at the time it was real money
that I did not have, right? But you're glad you did it. But in
Nashville, they're like, oh, yeah, sure, you're good. You got
a job, you're fine. And I just bought a house that could never
happen.
That is like the East Village. It's funny, right? That's our
East Village.
Never thinking Nashville was going to explode me, then I
would have been like, whatever we just, it's just convenient.
It's convenient. My wife likes it here. She worked at Vandy for
a bunch of years. It's, it's very convenient. I'm in town.
Is she still working at Vandy. No, she has 2020,
they bounce, some people now she works for the Nashville scene.
Really, graphic designer for that. Oh, great. What you do?
Friend about she graphic design. She worked in the alumni
department. Graphic Designer. Great combination. She went to
art school. I went to music school. Great earning
capability, right there. Nailed art and music, perfect
the liberal arts, the
dream team of
but oh four around that time, yeah, we were,
you know, the real estate market was real. I was still in Vegas,
then the real estate market was hot, yeah, I think everywhere,
and it was leading up to the bubble that happened. So you
were right in the middle there when you bought, where the
prices weren't at their peak, right?
And it, you know, it was more excited about the real estate.
It was fair for the time. And, you know, we're like, well, we
got to live somewhere, and we love this neighborhood, so let's
just stay here. And the little lady across the street, which we
worked on her for like, five years, sell us your house. Sell
us your house. And she did, are you close to dying?
Are you feeling okay?
What do you plan from the wait a minute,
why are my nieces calling me all the time? Everybody
knows Hillsborough village, because you know it is, it's,
it's the spot. Like, okay, where are we going to talk about the
song that we're gonna cut? Where are we gonna talk about your
project? Where we gonna cut this deal? Fido, yeah. So you're
right around
Fido browns, diners, right at the end of my street. Yeah, I
was around the corner. It's incredible. But Belmonts, you
know, just throw a rock at Belmont, yeah? So, yeah, it's
just again, like most things in Nashville, you can't we came
here at a time where I was figuring it out, and I wasn't
thinking past a week or a year or I didn't know how long I was
gonna last here. I didn't, you know, I didn't really love it.
When I moved here, it was a big change for
me. It was like, it was not cool.
It was literally banjos. Yeah,
it was rough. Though it was cheap. They were giving it away.
So I was like, well, we're saving money. We rented a whole
house for half the price of our little 400 square foot apartment
in Boston, and I had to have a rehearsal space with all my gear
in in Boston, so I have all my stuff in my house. This is
amazing, dude. 400 square feet is small, small, and that was we
were happy to have it. And it's in the middle of the city, and
that's just the norm, you know, just there's no two bedroom in
Boston, even back then, that wasn't even thinkable. It was,
well, the eastern seaboard cities were crazy,
unsustainable.
Yeah. So Nashville was like, Well, this is cool. This is
accessible. You could put you could put drummer musician on
your mortgage application, and it works. I didn't put that on
my rental application in Boston, they wouldn't rent to you,
unreliable not having it. Sorry. They the references you needed
to rent an apartment. You know, was, were ridiculous. Never
mind, you know, anyway,
do you miss Boston? Do you miss Boston? I do
miss it because it's a great city, yeah, but the reason we
moved is because we did everything we could do there at
a rock band. We had record deals. Tell us about that. Tell
us about that. The original scene was incredible in the 80s
and early 90s in Boston, I stumbled into that as a kid. Was
my only goal was to go to the big city and find a band. And,
you know,
yeah, and you were probably the incubator was. Berkeley College
Music.
It was, I my story is pretty funny, as far as that goes. The
short, the long story short, is my dad's like, Look, you can't
just move to New York City. I know you want to be a musician,
but what are you going to eat? So he said, I can send you to
school. This is a one shot deal. Not many kids get this Yeah, and
back then it was cheap, pick something. I don't care where
you go. Just do something. I don't care what it is. So, like,
fine, because I'll just go to music school. Fine. I didn't
want to go to music school. I don't want any part of that.
Yeah, so I just said, Berkeley. I didn't visit it. I didn't I
got rejected. It's amazing. Your dad's like, I'll cover it. He
said, Fine, fine. If you get in. I had to go to the summer
program to get in. Thank God I did not the place for me, it was
a nightmare, because I'm now, I go from kid in a rock band to in
a bebop school with prodigies, yeah, like, well, this is gonna
get weird real quick. And they weren't. They weren't into
rockets back then. Yeah, in the early they embraced it later on,
well, that they went where the money
was. The guys from Dream Theater didn't change the attitude
there. Yeah, I mean, I
went to school like this. There's people like Terry Lynn
Carrington walking around. Del fail. Marsalis is walking
around. I'm a kid. I'm 17 years old, going, I'm in big trouble.
Will Calhoun was, like, in the room next to me.
Oh, you went school will, yeah, right next to me. That's
incredible. That's a Cool
story, bro. It's gonna get weird. This is really, I'm in
it.
How was he when he was Did you know him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He
was one always set up in the practice room. Seems like a cool
dude.
Dad, dude. Dad ended back, dude. He had
this cool ensemble thing called Dark sarcasm. And it was all
these super cool African American dudes that had this
great, like fusion kind of band situation. They would do
different stuff, like recital stuff. It was wild. So even out
of the gate as kids, you know, they're, like, fully realized,
you know, which? Again, the long, the long story short, for
me, forget all the schooling, all that stuff. It just taught
me how to survive. I got it's just thick skin. What are you
gonna do now? Man, everybody's better than you. What are you
gonna do now? Let me ask you
this. I mean, you're again, you're being super self
deprecating because you have a mean backbeat. Who were your
teachers? Was it the rod morgensteins and the skip,
Hayden's and the skip? Skip
was the one dude, Casey Jarrell, still, they weren't there yet.
Like, Rod was not there yet, you know? So skip was the one dude
who I actually connected with because a he was a nice guy,
yeah, he was kind of a rock dude, yeah, or he got it. He
taught, like a double bass drum, you know, class, class and
stuff. So I could somehow, you know, at least identify with
something Yeah, that I wanted to do, yeah, where all the other
guys were just hardcore jazz guys, and, you know, worried
about what my high hat foot was doing while I was swinging. I'm,
like, this is I'm gonna, I can't do this. I'm a rock guy, yeah.
So skip was a great guy, so it was just rough, man, it was
rough going. But you graduated. I graduated. Well, yeah, so my,
I do find a band. We're working on it. My band's kind of almost
getting signed. I quit Berkeley in my last semester before
graduating. I'm like, I'm out see you all you suckers later,
got a record deal. Next Suck it, yeah. Next stop, rock star,
yeah.
What was the name of the band? There's a band called Kid crash.
A bunch of bands were getting signed out of Boston at extreme
or buddies. We all played together on the scene. Paul
Gary, Yep, great guy. We're all doing the thing, yeah. So it was
getting hot and we were making ways. Well, that takes time. So
I'm still there. I didn't get whisked off into rock star land.
I'm still in Boston figuring it out, you know, recording and
doing all this stuff. So three years after I quit, I went back
and fixed a couple things, knocked on a couple doors, a
couple professors said, Hey, man, I remember this incomplete.
Can I fix that? And did a couple things, and they gave me a
degree. Nice. I was like, Dad, I hear sorry.
Do you still have your dad? Yeah, he's probably cool. He's
proud of
you still rocking, yes, and it's the only thing he ever come out
to the shows, I'm sure, like you big Italian family Connecticut,
to be like, 60 people that would show up, you know? Oh, he can,
son, yeah, that's no matter what I did. Playing Mohegan Sun was
the Holy Grail. That's like, you know, it's in Connecticut. Yeah,
there's nowhere from
they give you a room. Yeah, you're like, I'll be here for
two days, or whatever. You know, I
could have toured the world's problems, but, yeah, but did you
play Mohegan Sun? Because we need to go there. It's a
badass Casino. It's a great it's
just, it's like, they're their equivalent of the Hollywood Bowl
kind of thing, totally,
really, at least in my family's eyes. See if I said the
Hollywood Bowl, they'd be like,
Oh, whatever. Did you play toads place?
I still haven't done it. Yeah, yeah. Holds it against me.
Toads, he's like, he's kicking sand in my face on the beach.
Oh, my God,
you're gonna play there someday. I don't know. Dude, if you ever
do play there, it's gonna be a hell of a show. I hope
it stays open. Yeah? It's a good, good venue. Foo Fighters
just did his pop up there. Really, yeah, that's right,
yeah. It's an amazing place. But that was the scene in Boston,
all those amazing clubs which had this amazing, original scene
of all kinds of music. Of course, being a college town
fueled it. What years were you there again?
I lived in Boston since I'm 100 I lived there from, like, as a
kid, from 1982 to 1997 Okay, so all the 80s. I caught all the
80s as a as a kid. So you
probably because I was, I was active in the band scene, at
least in Western Connecticut in the early to mid 90s. We might
know a lot of the same guys. I'm
sure it's a small you know, you could reach all of it. Yeah,
we'd play all of it from Boston. That's Boston in New York City.
Just make that loop all the time. I just
went up to Long Island and play with a killer cover band. Oh my
gosh, you're so good. That was a good cover band.
I mean, always a great scene, yeah, but all those rock clubs
like you say toads, the fact that it's still open is amazing.
That's fantastic.
It all died, okay? Tuxedo junction, Danbury, Oh, wow. I've
never played there. I played there. I got that over all you
guys, yeah, yeah. You guys no longer there.
I don't think Yale University girls are as pretty as USC
girls.
Is that kind of like heads Carolina?
Sounds like, what is it? What is the word from part the song from
Parliament, you know, looks like California? No, no, it's like
Carolina, or looks like California.
Don't test me. I, you know, I played tambourine on the song,
because what song is it? Then that's, it's called Carolina,
yeah. How does the lyric? I remember
when we had them on, I kind of challenged us. It
was six years ago, guys, Jesus,
five times six. Are you saying that North Carolina girls don't
look as good as the California Girls? And they're like, that's
not worth saying. It's
all the Carolina girls are. I'm on the record saying this. I'm
engaged. I'm
not saying anything. I'm taking the fifth on that.
How long you been married? We've only been married
in the classic Nashville way. We got married at an ACM Awards
because it was convenient in Vegas. Hey, man, come to the
gig. We gotta get a
free flight in a room. Just go to the
Elvis chapel on the street. So we went to, you know, you know
that thing. So we rehearse on Sunday night, yeah, for the
Monday TV show. And then we went and got married late Sunday
night after rehearsal, and I'm wiped out. It was our very first
one. We never played one before, so it's 2007 and my wife wants
to go out and party her friends there. I'm like, I'm going to
bed. Man, I got a show tomorrow night. You guys have fun. I'm
out.
I bailed on it. Bail for your wedding
night, flying in, doing TV show rehearsals, getting all that
together, got married and like, I'm out. You guys have have a
big went
out with her girlfriends. What's that? She went with her
girlfriends? Yeah? Oh, my God, it's amazing.
Hilarious. 18 years, yeah, I guess so, right? 2007 Yeah, wow.
But we've, we've known each other since the 80s, because she
went school in Boston, also art school in Boston. Is she time?
No, no. She's German. Her mom was actually from Germany.
She's very methodical, yeah, precise, right on point.
Reminds me all the time, of everything, how it needs to be
yes, I always joke her mom was the sweetest person, but very
German. And I would turn to her, like, are you telling me how to
use a spoon right now? Are you really telling me, like, how, I
mean, everything was, like, how to be done? Oh, my God, a
certain way. Like, I'm pretty sure I know how to use
this. But she thinks for their head. You think with your heart,
yeah? I
call it magical thinking. I have the magical thing, yeah, she's
sweating it. And I'm like, don't worry about it. It's gonna be
fine. What's gonna happen?
So, so I'm at my hairdressers today, and he's Italian, you
know, and he's a bass player from the 80s on the Sunset
Strip. He had a successful salon for 20 years in Hollywood. So,
you got to be pretty good hairdresser, yeah. So I'm trying
to, I had a hoodie on this morning, get my hair spackled,
and I put on my jean jacket, you know, because it's the layering
season, you got your hoodie and your jean jacket. So I'm trying
to put my and I'm putting it over my head in this very
specific way. And he goes, do you always put your jacket on
like that? I go, I guess he goes, so do I? My wife gives me
shit about it's so dramatic. Everything is just like an
opera. Yeah? The fat lady singing is my entire life.
Yeah, I definitely have the magical thinking, but, but she's
been on the ride. I mean, you know, it was all fun and games
when was all along here and rock and roll. You. Then you got to
turn it into, like, reality, mortgage to Nashville, yeah,
which she wasn't wrong. She hated Nashville that first year.
She's pretty tough, and she wasn't wrong. It was, it was a
big adjustment. And you know, when you have, when you move to
Newtown, or at least me, it was all my big idea. So I was just
on fire, like I was had tunnel vision of like I got to figure
this out, because this is my dumb idea. So if it fails, it's,
it's on me. Yeah, you know, so a lot of pressure, I got to figure
it out. I had a buddy here, my buddy Angelo, who we followed
down here. He
lives right over by, right around the corner from, yeah, on
on Clayton. Yes. He lived on Clayton by the sound Emporium,
because I dated a girl for three years named Lizzie on Clayton.
And I don't even want to know what that house is
worth. I had the rental house because that I rented because of
him. Yeah, I just said, well, Angela lives here. I'm just
gonna live here. I just copied him. That was my only reference.
I'll just do what he does. He seems to be the pope in
Nashville at the time. I'll just do what he does, and maybe I'll
be okay, yeah, he couldn't really help me. He's a
songwriter. He's not a drummer. I mean, you know,
and then the publishers telling him to hire these studio
musicians, and he's like, okay,
it's all good, yeah. I didn't expect him to, like, you know,
hand me stuff, yeah, but I was definitely gonna copy him. If he
lives here, it must be cool. I'll live here. If he does this,
I'll do this because he's got it figured out a lot. What's he
doing,
man? Because he was a big thing, what's that? Did he pass
Angelo? Yeah, oh, no. He's rocking, rolling
right here in town, yeah, but yeah, I haven't heard his name
or seen him. Yeah,
he's no, he's good. He just put out a new record with his wife.
Okay, great. You know he's, oh, he's Angelo man. He's always
here.
I am asking if the guy's alive, yeah, let's take that out.
Anyways, Angela, What's up, buddy?
Well, and I know him, known him since I was, like, 19 in Boston,
yeah. And he's 10 years older than me, so they were always,
like, the big brothers. They had the big record deal when I was a
kid, I'm like, oh, that's how you do it, yeah. So what was
that band called? Face to face, face to face. Okay, a couple of
a top 10 hit and top 40 hit, which is inconceivable to me,
back conceivable, like, how could you do that's amazing.
We're all friends, and they, you know, the guitar player in that
band, my buddy Stu Kimball, produced my band in the 80s. So
it's all this group of friends, and they were older than me, so
they were, like my big brothers, like, yeah, I always followed
them. They always helped me out. And I followed we all followed
him here, yeah, and you know, much to his horror.
And, well, I'm just really, you know, and I got two words for
you. And I think this will resonate with you. 12th and
Porter, yeah, was that the incubator for you? Because,
like, I feel like I ran into you all the time. We were trying to
meet our people, yes. And like, that wasn't really Music Row. It
was kind of like the underbelly of Music Row. So, you know, you
had your, you know, I played with the Evan roots, I played
with porcelain, I played Mr. Ray. I played with Linda Regan.
I played with all these underbelly rockers that were
trying to do the thing. And eventually, you know, you
started to shake hands of publishers and studio owners and
people that were more in the corporate structure of music or
Yeah, but you spent a lot of
time there 12th and Porter Billy block, you know, back in the
day, rest his soul, yeah, and his sons are doing great. Super,
oh, you know, super kind to me as a new guy. So all that scene,
yes, I was there because it was close, and it was Angelo, you
know, I'd follow him there, or the Sutler, or something, you
know, whatever, back in the day, just trying to make the scene
the new settler is not like the old so, yeah, exactly. And, you
know, that's not really my thing, yeah, making the scene,
it's not really what I'm comfortable with. But everybody
was so cool. And I always tell that story, like, you know, I
You remember Paul Griffith, drummer, Paul Griffith, yeah,
badass, right? Yeah, you know, you and him, people would call
me and I like, Oh, cool. Where'd you get my number? Oh, rich
Redmond gave me your number. Paul Griffith gave me your
number. I'm like, This is amazing, right? I love this.
This is, this is great. This is, and I would do the same if I
couldn't do something, or if somebody needed somebody, or and
that was sort of where it all started, doing those things.
Yeah? Alliances, yeah. Playing for anybody in the mutual
admiration society. I played for this woman, Jen Cohen, for the
longest time. She's of Jen Cohen folk Center, which I didn't
really have in the bag. Yeah? You know that kind of low key,
kind of fat snare, real down low and, you know, folky kind of
thing, yeah? So Matt, Matt Chamberlain, things I needed,
you know that I didn't have I like, I gotta get I can't fake
it. I gotta get in this thing, yeah, figure out how to do it.
What's she doing?
Moved out of town. It's like she's a cantor in New Jersey.
Yeah? Did the scene forever, very, said all that. Now. A
circuit. I did that for years with her, which was, you know,
playing all those colleges and gigging, and met a lot of great
musicians. Sorry, I'm rambling, but one of the guitar players so
good.
This is great rambling. You know why? Because I knew this
conversation was going to go so smooth. Because you talk with
your hands, you're a great conversationalist. We just need
a gigantic bottle of wine, yeah, and some candles.
This is nothing. This is vodka. No, it's just,
by the way, that's dishwasher not safe. Yeah, that the letters
will come off.
Yeah, I can feel that the Braille poisoning kicking in.
Who was the blind
girl who that? Hold that up for a second. What is that?
That's our iconic rich Redmond show mug. Yeah, go to the rich
Redmond show.com and use the code fall 2025, for 25% off.
Anyways, back to the show.
So funny enough. It couldn't have been further away. It just
sort of hit me. A guitar player I played with in that gig, which
is playing the knack of circuit, knew Rodney. That's how he's we
had done a radio tour with him before he ever had a band, and
said, Hey, this guy's gonna do a gig this weekend, rehearsals on
Tuesday. Here's the songs. Come play with us. I didn't know who
the
songs were on CD. Yeah, they were on CD.
And so I learned the songs, and I played a couple of weekend
gigs like he did with a million people. Never knew who Rodney
was. He had a record that just came out. Nobody knew. So I got
introduced to Rodney by a guy I played with, with Jen Cohen, who
were playing the NACA circuit. And none of it related, but all
of its related, right? It just sort of happened that way. And
meeting you at 12th and Porter, amongst many other people. Yeah,
that would I play with and go round and around and around? It
was amazing. Back then, it was doable
and accessible. You did it, man, and
I don't know again, I never thought of it past a week ahead
of me. I was just trying to figure it out,
yeah, but you did figure it out. Yes. So you got this 25 year
gig. What are the brands? Buddy, Sakai. I did Sakai, but you were
with Yama. I was with Yamaha. That's, that's, let me tell you,
if I wasn't with dw, everybody knows, I'd be with Yamaha. It's
just they you can't go wrong. It
can't go wrong in it. Being in Boston at that time, I grew up a
Slingerland kit, and then they disappeared. Put a pin in that.
Except now it is owned, which I've circled all the way down.
Lombardi. I'm trying. Are you gonna try to get in? I'm trying
Trey's DW let me know if I could help. You know, it's Jules up.
It's a text, Thomas Jules, yeah.
She signed this kid, yeah. I'm sending you a box of cigars.
I told her, that's what I grew up with, Simon, and then they
went away. So, but yeah, Yamaha and Joe Testa, the great show
Testa helped me with so much over the years. Yeah, so now I'm
no drums at all, dude. These
are marquee brands, though. This is the traditional high level
combination of brands, Sakai, zilgin, Vic, Firth, Remo, yeah.
I mean, that's like, I'm the holy grail of companies.
I've never changed. I haven't changed anything since the first
time I put a drum head on a drum. Well, there.
I mean, first of all, Remo, I get asked every day, can you
help me? I'll say yes. I will send your you know, links to you
know, my friend over at Remo, it is the most difficult thing to
acquire. It really is. It really is because they invented the
drum head. Otherwise, if you have dead animals
still over our drums, which you know, by the way, Jimmy Herman
said Salo. Speaking of Jimmy Herman forever plays with, Oh,
that's great. Okay, yeah. Speaking of hunting, but yeah,
no, Remo, somehow, I always joke that they haven't gotten to the
R's yet. My last name, like, Who is this who's this guy? What's
his story? But yes, I've, I've been there forever and again, if
I had to go buy him at forks, that's what I
really do. It is Chris Hart, your guy, yeah, or gotcha
helped me out. Go right to the top. Kind of got in there again,
all timing and opportunity and luck and, yeah, things happen at
the same time. And I'm an old guy, so that was a long time
ago.
And you're a likable person, which goes a long, long way.
Depends on who you ask, I guess. But yeah, I think so. Now you're
very like, person, all right?
I'm a loyal guy, so if I'm, if I'm using something, here's the
thing about that stuff. And you, when people ask you, listen, I'm
not taking anything. I'm never going to use, right? I don't
want anything. I just want what I want. If I have to go get it,
I'll go get it. If I, if someone's going to help me,
that's awesome. I have a realistic expectation. Listen,
Yamaha, you're talking to Steve Gad, yeah, I'm aware of where I
am in the world. And I'm not being humble. I'm just like,
look, but I am in the world. You create exposure for the product,
yes. So whatever that means to you, however, we can make
something work. Great. If not, I'll just go get what I need.
And it'll be fine. So that's always been my approach, and
still my approach, even with Slingerland. I love Slingerland.
It's where I started. I love them. The fact that dw has re
popped that and it has made it so sexy. Unbelievable is
exciting. I know what the real world is. You know, I'd love to
rep. I'm your guy. You know, as far
as they're gonna need guys in the country genre, and it hasn't
happened yet, it's so great.
I know what I can offer. Whatever that means to anybody
is fine, but I'm not looking you know, you know how it is people
like, Hey, man, can I I've been in town three months. You think
I get, like, free cymbals and drums and, yeah, I don't know.
You're like, probably not. You'll know when it's time. So
anyways, before I came over here, do you know this kid,
Zoltan to back, we've had him on the show, but he's the drummer
with muscadine bloodline. So I met him at MI Musicians
Institute, like I taught a little bit out there. And so I
meet this kid, I'm like, Oh my God, there's tons of potential.
Great, feel, great energy. Likable person, humble, hard
working. He moves to Nashville 11 years ago, and today,
actually yesterday, he signed a deal with Sabian Simmons, and he
did it the right way. And it was all through, like, polite
persistence. And so we just went out and celebrated his it's it
just happened for him,
you know, it was never about that for me. I, you know, I had
one drum kit forever, probably till I moved to Nashville.
Really, was it a recording customer, Maple custom. Well,
that was before Yamaha. Oh, wow. You know, I had my Slingerland
kit. I had a DW kit when I first moved to Nashville, and then
Yamaha, because I couldn't, where was I gonna get Yamaha?
All my Japanese friends in Boston were all Yamaha guys.
They were hipping me to Yamaha in like, 1984 I was, yeah, yes,
I get it. I'm in. Look at this quality, look at the
craftsmanship, look at the innovation. But at 23 years old,
I wasn't gonna walk over to Jack's drum shop in Boston and
buy a new recording custom, because it was unattainable.
It's like, even then eight grand or something. I mean, how am I
gonna do that? But, yeah, so I forget what I was gonna say, but
that whole acquiring gear thing is just never been my thing.
Yeah, you know.
So what's the snare drum with Rodney out there? Like, is it a
steel Are you a steel snare drum? Guy? Wood snare drum? You
know, I kind of go back and forth right now. I'm using a a a
six and a half, like vintage bronze Ludwig, nice. I have my
Lars right next to me. So I go back and forth between the Lars
and the Oh, wow, yeah, cuz Lars with the Yeah, diamond plate,
yeah, yeah. It's, I know it sounds crazy. It's an amazing
drum that you know, that three mil steel shell. It's insane.
It's a really good drama. It's not just, it's not just a saint
anger. Horrible snare sound was that the was that the drum, yes,
that's the famous, you know, snares are off and he's doing
the thing. It's not that it's a great drum, but
the videos that they make on that the memes. So it's like
they put like a trash can. It's so bad position. I
mean, they made an artistic decision to just go with it, you
know, yeah, but that's what people remember about that
album.
I know, yeah, I know. It's the whole album, yeah, pretty much,
yeah. Wow. It's ridiculous, but
you're wearing Metallica, sure. So. Are you down? Are you down
with that music?
Do you love it? Well, you know, because I was in a rock band in
the 80s. I hated Metallica back in the day. Do
you like that kind of music? Do you like those people? It's loud
jean jackets and long hair
was the hardest bands you listened to growing up. What
were the
hard you know, I was way into British metal as a kid. That's
right in my wheelhouse. So, you know, Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden,
Judas Priest, you know, deep purple
Canadian metal anvil, of course,
rush like everybody else, but that's my wheelhouse of high
school. You know, all that stuff when it was breaking,
but some Metallica was kind of pushing the envelope.
I didn't like Metallica back then. I hated Metallica. Really
hated him. I thought I didn't want to hear about that. It sort
of caught me. I kind of had a resurgence when the past, like
10 years, when they started, they're still here. They're my
age. I'm going, okay, and they're making, like, real
records. I'm going, Oh my God. And it kind of I got back on the
ride, yeah. And went, Oh my gosh. You know, knowing how hard
it is to even maintain anything, yeah, these guys are somehow
still making records, you know, because
up in that neck of the woods you had, you know, Anthrax was a big
yeah neighborhood, and if you will, biohazard, all those guys
and being in a rock band at that time, we opened for just about
every band like that that came through Boston in those big rock
clubs,
yeah, ever open for overkill?
Yes, same bill. Same bill. Yes. Down there any of those bands
that came in, we got on it.
No one has heard of overkill. Any of our guests, sure, except
for you, overkill was a notable band like. Me and Travis McNabb
were like, urge over kill.
Was thing. They were demand, all that crazy
testament. Yeah, nuclear assault. Yeah,
sure. I just saw Matt Chamberlain did a post. He had a
metal night. He had a night off, oh, my God, and with brandy
Carly or whatever, and he went to go see testament.
Nice, yeah, all those classic thrash bands. But I wasn't
really a thrash guy because I was a British metal guy, yeah,
so I wasn't hearing that at the lot of galloping. It's kind of a
snob, you know, these guys can't play. But, you know, 40 years
later, like, oh my god, yeah. And also realizing it's not
about that. It's always about, you know, you recognize Lars
immediately. That's the game, Rich. Redmond, lay something
down. You know that's rich. You really do. That's the game.
Really guys, yo, yeah. That's really hard to believe,
because I tell all my students, I'm like, look at most of
country music is between 69 and 89 BPM, right? It's very hard to
stand out.
But if you, but if you, you know that signature, like she's
country, it's, it's Redmond, like, that's the thing. You
know, Jason's sound is very identified. It's a thing you
guys made that thing. That's, that's, it's one thing to play
music and to be good and to be proficient. It's another thing
to have a voice and to be recognizable. That's, that's the
magic. That's very, very nice, difficult. It's almost, it's
special. It's special.
What is when is country metal gonna make a thing? I think that
guys are trying to do it. I'm not joking. I think there has to
be a thing.
I thought, you know, based off of you guys, because you guys
really brought, yeah, distorted the country, like the heaviness
of the country crunch, yeah.
And maybe that will come around again, because there's a lot of
people that are like, I really, are like, I really miss the my
kind of party. She's country era. You guys are really onto
something. But, you know, Jason is very quick to evolve. And I
got to say, I always tell everybody, you know, if you have
an audience of a multi generational audience of males
and females, 15 to 55 it is nearly impossible to pull off,
yeah, and that's what you want, yeah. You know, like, look at
pink. She can do six nights of sold out stadiums in Australia,
male and female, all ages, multi generations. Yeah, that's
incredible.
Yeah, it's also, yeah, it's also speaking to that. I don't think
there's a point of reference for young people to have the metal
influence. Maybe as much. It's still a small thing. And metal
still exists, like it always is, small pocket of metal dudes,
mostly. And Metallica doesn't count. They've, they've, they've
crossed into their cross zones world. They're just, you know,
in their own orbit, right? So I don't know if there's a
reference for kids to sort of make that come around where sort
of hip hop and that kind of stuff had a reference, and it
could kind of come together. Maybe, I don't know, it's my
idiots view, but I don't know. But you guys were definitely had
established that and made it huge, even at the time, because,
you know, Ronnie and and you guys are at the same time. It's
all happening, and you're kind of going, Oh, these guys are
over there, and Rodney is doing this thing. It's all kind of
new, yeah, fresh, new guys.
And the difference is really, like, how much cross stick Are
we playing? Really, you know, that determines, is it funny how
it's gone away. There's got no cross.
I think of that every night, because Ronnie's biggest hit,
which is like a 60 week number one, is across the is watching
you get a real cross stick, or a real cross stick, no real
crossing. Nice Guy cast who nice, real cross stick. Front
house guys got it. I'm like, Hey, man, I I've had to tell
many guys listen, man, I know we all have the big backbeat. If
this song doesn't have cross stick, yeah, we got a problem.
Yeah, it's got, it's a has to have it. I want Opry in your
face, cross stick. Cross
stick. It's funny, when I was with Pam Tillis, she had a lot
of cross stick, yeah, and so even back then, I've really
pushed the envelope. I had a pad way up here, nice. That's great,
because it's really made a show out
of it, and it's gonna be a thing. So wedding, where you got
to get it there. I've messed with different versions of that,
yeah, especially in Arena world or something, when you this
cross stick is like,
what about a wood block, the jam block? Remember that era? There
was a five, five year period where everyone's like, had their
blue or orange.
I probably had both. I definitely remember the blue
trying to find that right. It's not right, but it's loud. Yes,
loud cuts. It cuts.
I mean, it slices an ogre head. An ogres head off. Now we just
have click blasting my left oh my god, I wake up in the middle
of the night listening to it click. And it's like a crazy a
lot. It's a lot.
I think the guitar solo, the artist driven guitar solo, is
probably going to make a comeback. And I think our friend
Ben Gallagher is Ben
Gallagher was fantastic. You heard of this kid? No, no, no.
He's got a he's got a song called stomp, and a lot of shit.
Picking. He it's, he's, he's a cross between a chicken picker
and a modern shredder. And it's a nice combination. It's
refreshing. It's very refreshing. I miss, I miss
guitar.
I was, I was trying to get him on the show. I'm like, dude,
just add a little Eddie Van Halen tapping into that. He
seemed reluctant. But, you know, I try. It's been done when it's
been done by Eddie for letting all that but any rest in the in
the country, genre, yeah, hasn't been done yet. I think piano
needs to make a comeback in the country. Oh
god. The second verse, Boogie dude.
Second verse, boogie woogie piano. Wouldn't that? Yeah, your
brother be all over there. Oh, totally.
We had a utility guy, my friend Liam, who played with us for
years, and he could play every instrument. And the second
verse, second verse, piano just cracks me. I can't believe you
just said that it's right because he'd be playing fiddle,
and he'd run over the piano and, like, put the fiddle on his lap,
just so we could play that little run on the second verse,
pig, Robin. Second verse, I'm like, hey man, you're like,
Jerry Lewis over there. Just stop, stop running around, just
just to stay over there and forget the second verse. It's
fine. Yeah, it's
fine. So you so you like me, had to become a student of country
music. So like when I moved to town, I immediately went,
remember the great escape? It was a comic book store,
absolutely and they had used cassettes. So I went over there.
I bought Tammy wynette's Greatest Hits, Merle Haggard's
Greatest Hits. And I just went to school like Johnny Cash
because, you know, I just didn't grow up with it. I didn't
either, you know, I had to learn the rules, you know, the stick
and the brush and the the shuffles and the kick drum
patterns and the rules of when you go to the snare. Yes,
yes. It's funny, because also i i got kind of I did that, and
then people would always call me for the boom, whack, yeah, well,
then you don't want the thing. No, no, we're not doing that. I
want you to do, boom, whack, boom, boom, whack. And you're
like, I got that you don't want that. You don't want the little,
you know, country thing. They're like, No, okay, so I didn't get
to do it that
much for the people I put. I'm sure you have a great train. Be
shuffle.
Definitely do I love doing it. Yeah? You know, if you asked me
to pull out brushes on a gig and do a little, oh, this is
amazing. Yeah, this is so fun. Let's do some
very rare, very rare. So, speaking of these styles and
youth, you know, you're mentioning Metallica. You're
mentioning the boom, whack. But who are some of your favorite
like, cats, man, like,
favorite drummers? Drummers? Oh my gosh, that's such a tough
question, right? It's
like a flavor of the month. Yeah, it's so I mean,
it's, but, I mean, they keep rearing their ugly head, yeah,
in your life,
you know, of course, I grew up with the Gene Krupa thing
hanging over my head, and as a young kid, I would watch those
movies and stuff and see him. But you know, for me, really,
you know the Neil Pearson, Alex Van Halen, nice.
We all agree. We're all from Connecticut, and we all agree
that Alex Van Halen doesn't get the dude, one
of the greatest ever
I've been chasing that my whole life, you know? I just, I just
loved it. I'm fortunate enough to be of the age where I could
see them in their prime and as a kid, yeah, which is magic, you
know, though, after watching becoming Led Zeppelin like three
times, I've kind of backed down the John Bonham rabbit hole,
which is so cliche, but the older I get, the more astounded
by it I am, like, I can't believe these people are aliens.
How did four guys get in a room and do this? Yeah, you know,
whereas a kid, he's like, Oh, I could do that. This is awesome.
Now I'm like, This is impossible. How does this
happen? You know?
So, and then I got to think that AC, DC, oh, my God, has to be
one of the greatest rock bands of all time. The way they pray
to eighth notes. There's very few 16th notes in their music.
They are all so committed to those 8/8 notes in a measure of
four, four time, and they know exactly what to do with them,
and how all the guitar riffs dance around Phil,
and it's so
muscular, it's mind blowing. And I feel lucky to have been the
right age to take that in at the right time. You know, you can't.
I wouldn't trade that. Hey, you know, younger older. I'm like,
Yeah, but I got from my 10 year old self to my 20 year old self.
I got the best stuff ever while it was happening, nice while it
was being released, you know. So for me, you know, you know, you
got to hear it for the first time. Yeah, as a brand new I
saw,
wait a minute, the back you were born in 1964 Yes, the Beatles.
Right, right down the street, you know, at Shea Stadium,
right? The Beatles come to America. So my whole life, you
know, you just to be in that wheel. That's pretty
incredible to have that be your birth year, because that was the
year that changed America, that changed the world, really
did. That was a tipping point into a me. Yeah, it's pretty
incredible me generation,
to be in that and because. My dad and uncle appreciated music.
I got to see a lot of old school guys. So I saw Buddy Rich a
couple times as a young kid, yes, at like, a dinner theater
in, you know, Connecticut, yep, blowing your face
off. GRC, Maynard Ferguson, yes, yes. I saw him with Ray Brinker,
this drummer, Ray Brinker, that went on to go play with Pat
Benatar in her later years. Oh, yeah. But I was like, Oh my God.
Because I was like, he had the red Yamaha recording customers
with the jazz symbols, you know. And I was like, amazing, wow.
Before the record, brothers, he was a heavy metal, heavy metal
horns, man. He was like, That dude was like, screaming, yeah.
Leonard Ferguson, yeah, fun. I appreciation for all that stuff
as a kid, even though I didn't really know because those
records were in the house, so I liked it. Drummers are weird,
right? You guys agree, drummers pretty much like all drummers,
don't they, most
part. And you know, I went to dinner with three non drummers
the other night. One of the guys I went to dinner with, I met him
at the Rock fantasy camp, like, 10 years ago, because I did one
year of teaching at the Rock fantasy camp. And this guy,
camp. And this guy, his day job is high level. He owns this
Dental Group, so he's doing great. He's high level dentist,
and he had his CFO with him, and one of his right hand guys, and
they were telling me about, you know, their, you know,
admiration of music and stuff. And they're like, now, do
drummers hang out? Do they like each other? I was like, oh my
god, guys, you don't understand. It's like two dogs seeing each
other
from across the street. It's a
love fest. Is that only contained in Nashville?
No, the world over, really? Yeah, I think so. Are you gonna
go to do you ever go to
basic i The only time I went is when it was in
Nashville. Oh, that was about like,
9798 Yeah, was that early? Oh my gosh. So
it's been in the city of Indianapolis, yeah, for ever
since, I know, and it's they've got another 10 year contract, I
believe. But anyways, for those that are listening, the
percussive Art Society is this amazing mutual admiration
society, where all the percussionists and drummers that
are at a professional level, educators, studio, students,
hobbyists, that we all converge on Indianapolis, Indiana, and we
go, and it's three days of clay. So this year, it's November 13
through 15 at the Indianapolis Convention Center, and it's the
50th anniversary.
Oh, wow, yeah, I need to go again, just because I love that
stuff. Yeah, I'll nerd out all day long and sit in the back and
just, yeah, love all of it. You know. But for whatever one
reason or another, I just never got there and it's you do any
teaching, teaching tennis. You actually teach tennis? Yeah?
Really not drums. Is that your is that your cardio? Yeah? I
mean, I hit balls every morning, usually if I'm home.
What about the tennis elbow? Is that a thing?
Here's the thing. I from playing drums as a kid and playing
tennis as a kid, I've never had tennis elbow. I've been
obsessing over golf this past year and hitting 1000s of balls.
Now I'm like my elbows killing me from from a year of golf,
never from tennis, now from drumming,
because I have a friend, Jason Sutter, and he, you know, he's,
like, was Cornell's drummer, and, yeah, now he's playing with
Joe Perry, and he had a foray into tennis, and
he got tennis elbows. Yeah, it can happen. I mean,
I've just done it since I was a kid. I've always loved it and
it's always a wannabe.
Well, you're lean and mean, so I remember you telling me 20 years
ago, yeah, I get on the bus, I got my Tupperware, I make my
chicken, I make my meals. You're very disciplined. So the way you
look, you're probably still doing that. But now, what are
you doing? Do you stretch? Do you supplement? Do you weight
train.
I don't do enough weight training, and my wife gets on me
because, you know, as you get older, need to be strong, have a
bad habit of just doing aerobic type stuff. Yeah, that sounds
sort of my I like that. Yeah, it's not really high energy.
It's more energy. I'm an up guy, so I weight things never really
it's
fun for guys that are past the age of like us, past the age of
50 weights is not supposed to be good
like you got, but we lose a pound of muscle years straight.
This has been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe. You don't want
to blow out your anus when you're squatting, you know,
but we're not supposed to do that. Yeah. What are we talking
about? Sorry, guys, yeah. So I don't do enough. I've just been
obsessing lately over over, you know, hitting golf balls, which
sounds really bougie and weird, but I have,
you mean, at the driving range, or the game, or 18 holes, all of
it. So get this. My dad's got all of it four. Hole in ones.
That's
unbelievable. How do you say that holes in ones?
Yeah, hole in ones.
Hole in ones. What's the plural for hole in one?
Somebody let us know at the rich Redmond show@gmail.com,
I think it's hole in ones. Okay, hole
in ones. That's probably right. Again, I have a weird component.
Motion to hit a ball, like a tennis ball or golf, was a whole
other issue that I have. It's not like I'm trying to be, you
know, make the tour or something. I'm just trying to, I
just love, sort of my happy place. Do
you do that on the road? That's your thing? Yes. Do you play
with Rodney? He doesn't play.
So me and couple of boys were out there every day. We were out
there yesterday morning before the show
you get away. Yeah? Because, you know, Aldean, Aldean will hit
and Kurt will hit. So they'll go out and do the thing. Yeah,
golf, golf,
and on the road to, you know, I gotta do, so I used to bring my
road bike on the road. I used to bring, you know, all kinds of
stuff I'm trying to segue into, maybe sports that won't kill me.
Yeah? Not that I'm afraid, but, you know, let me try to do stuff
that I can actually maintain and not get run over on the road in
the middle of Iowa. Yeah, myself, it's I push my luck a
little. I was
thinking about getting a bike, you know, but, but, you know,
there is something to the a lot of the drummers that ride their
bikes, they end up doing something with their wrists.
Yes, yes. So I've been lucky. I've never really been injured.
I always joke with drumming. Well, I never really repeat the
same motion, so I'm not gonna get
hurt, yeah? Just kind of, now, do you warm up backstage a
little bit? I do pad.
No, not really. I kind of, I'll kind of just move
legs, yeah, move sticks on the legs kind of thing, yeah? Or
sometimes
hands, just to get them moving. But mostly, like, sort of the,
you know, I'm trying to, like, run in place and get get a
little
steady. Now, that's really interesting to hear because I've
been listening to, you know, Dave Elish, jump rope. Jumps
rope for 10 minutes.
Yes, is it from tennis all the time? Yeah, jump rope to get
moving.
Now, jump rope. Jumping rope is, you know, I get it because I'm a
rocky fan. But, you know, unless you're doing the skips and the
crossovers and stuff it, it seems just like I'm pounding my
knees.
It can be, you got to be, you know, you got to figure out a
way to get
light, you know, do you do the crosses and,
no, I can't. I mean, way back. I could do a little bit. I don't
do it enough. I just want to move so I'm at least warm. Yeah,
I'm always cold. So, you know, you're warming your hands on,
like the movie, so lean, you know, I'm on movers trying to
warm my hands. Yeah? You know, hey.
And we were talking about Jim may have captured it. I don't
know if he was rolling or not, but we were talking about our
mutual friend Trey gray. You know, everybody knows that he
played with Faith Hill in the early days. Tim McGraw in the
early days. He's done tenure with Reba. He's done now. He's
currently with Brooks and Dunn. So he was one of the first hard
hitting, youthful rock inspired drummers to come to Nashville. I
really feel like he changed things. And I would say that
we're friends, but you're you see him a lot more than I do.
You guys have a podcast tell us about
that. We do have a podcast, which comes from he moved back
to his hometown in South Bend, Indiana, a bunch of years ago.
So when he comes to town, he stays at my house if they're out
on the road. So he I'm his hub. So we would just sit at my
kitchen table and just YouTube and look at old kiss videos,
whatever we were talking about, just nonsense, because we're
buddies, and my wife would just come into the kitchen like, you
guys are killing me, you know, go to bed. Yeah, she's like, I'm
shutting the door and I'm going to bed. You guys do whatever you
want. So we always joke, this should be a podcast. It should
be a podcast. We also thought, well, we could just have our
friends over to the kitchen table. Well, that didn't, of
course, it never materialized. Long story, longer we during
covid, we just said, let's just do it, zoomed it, and finally
got it up and running. Really, it's just him and I talking, was
what we did at our kitchen table, about nothing.
And do you I mean people like love that.
It worked out great, because we're just two morons who go at
each other, and that's just what we do. So I just press record,
and then yeah, edited it when he when it got a little off, off
the rails, yeah? Or he started mentioning names. Let me just
take those out. Don't
actually mention specific, yeah.
Let's not get too far down your issue. But, um, yeah, so it
turned into a thing, especially during covid, and we've been
doing it ever since. It's falling off, falling off a
little bit in the past year, but Trey and Kevin changed the
world. It was supposed to be Trey and Kevin save the world
one podcast at a time, yeah? But Pat Buchanan did the theme song
without drums, yeah. Send it to me. I put drums on it. That's
the theme song. And then, in the name of the podcast, it's
a very traditional, like corporate marketing type jingle.
Yeah, it's a jingle. It's a jingle. He was so excited about
that. Pat Buchanan is such an excitable young man, so
he has a childlike spirit. He really does. It's great.
Speaking of which, Nashville, Pat Buchanan, I first moved to
town. I A buddy of mine that I also played with, that folk
singer with bass player. He called me one day said I had
just moved to town. Hey, do you have a passport? I said, Yes.
Tony Lucido, no. Guys. Name's Ken. Horn back. He's like, Do
you have a passport? I like, I'm checking, yeah, I have a
passport. Yeah, it's still good. Hey, do you want to go do a two
week tour of England in 24 hours? Yeah, with who? Pat
Buchanan. I don't know who that is. I'm like, do you mean the
cameos band? Yeah, yes. I didn't know. I'm new to Nashville. I
like, Yeah, I'll do it. And this other guy, Jeff Finland, so I
met Pat on the plane going to England to play two weeks of his
music, the idol jets, which Greg Morrow was in that band. Yeah,
I'm listening to the CD, going, Nope, not gonna play that like,
not by tomorrow. And I'm learning the music. He's got
charts charting. Pat had the charts, national number charts,
yes, which taught me how to write Nashville charts. He I
still write them in his little square boxes like he did. Yeah,
that was imprinted on my brain. Super easy. Yeah, great. Got it
little boxes with slashes. I still do it the same way. Hey,
great. So I met him out of the box. We did this two week pub
tour of his stuff. We had a great time. We were rocking the
suits. I didn't know him. And we've been friends for ever. And
he moved
to Florida for Right, yeah, he had Lake House taking care of
his, I think aging mother or, yeah, she passed.
She did. So he's just kind of, you know, they got their lake
house and doing the thing, and he still does stuff, but, uh,
yeah, so lucky me that I stumbled into just as a friend
to know this not he
still has the Beatles haircut, yes, which I
love, yes. He, during that trip, he took me to Soho, where this
suit maker,
oh, a bespoke suit maker was Seville road.
It was right near the
what's the club there? Oh, my gosh, my the canyon club. Nope,
the cavern the candy club in London, sorry. Oh, my God, I'll
think of it when it's too late. Anyway, it was right across.
Luckily, it was closed. Yeah, because if I came home from this
pub tour after just moved to Nashville with $1,000 suit that
I wasn't making, yeah, because Pat Bukit, because Pat thought
it was a cool idea, and he'd had one of like, well, I'm gonna get
one, I would have been in big trouble, but we've been fast
friends ever since, just, Oh, it's great, silliness. Sorry.
Long story. Anytime I've ever ended up in a recording studio
with Pat it's like, you're gonna have a good time. There's gonna
be tons of energy and tons of ideas flying and it's just
awesome. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. He insisted that no matter what
I did on the gig, he doesn't know me because I said, Hey,
man, what if you need something and I'm not doing it or
something, just I'm not sensitive. Just fire away, man,
let me know we don't know each other. It's all good. It'll be
fun. He's like, all I need from you, no matter sometime in the
night, to give me a pretty, pretty, like, a pretty, pretty,
you mean the he's like, Yeah, give me that anywhere. Yeah,
just give me one of those somewhere. So I would jam it in
the worst possible spot, yeah, the most unmusical spot I could
find. And he loved it. He would fall on the floor. I'm like,
Well, this is fun. I'll just That's amazing. We're having a
good time. Yeah, great. So anyway, thanks for indulging
that. So, Kev,
I'm going to put this out there. Yeah, we could always take it
out, but I think it's going to be great, okay, but I have known
you for 28 years, oh my gosh. And I know that you're Italian,
but I have never known the exact pronunciation of your name? Oh,
it's funny. Everyone butchers it. They do. Is it rappillo?
It's rapillo or pillow, hard? L's like, a pillow? Yes. Do you
have to tell people all the time, because everybody's trying
to make it Spanish repeal, like, soft. L, exactly. Trying to do
that. I'm like, Nope, it's a pillow. Straight up. Yeah, a
pillow. I was just saying, you get a lot of guys, I'm sure,
like Rapallo,
a lot of that wrong accents, which, you know, I'm guilty of
myself all the time
in drumming world. I'm so glad I got this because, because I've
told a million people about you, especially in the early days,
but I probably butchered your name. It's okay
not a lot of times in Nashville back in the day. Yeah, Angelo
was the only other one.
Yeah, more now, a lot more. Now, a lot more of everything,
yeah, but yeah. Big Italian family still in Connecticut,
most of them still there on the same street.
But I think that, I think that we how
often you get back to go visit your folks,
not much. I was there this summer for a couple days because
I we played up through there, and I jumped off the bus and
stayed home for three days because we had, we were off for
the week. Still got your mom? No, I lost my mom a couple years
ago. She was the youngest of that whole crew, which is
interesting how life works. She's a nurse her
whole life. Mine too. My mom, 45 years a nurse, right?
My mom was working almost
to the day, yes? Well, I mean, it's, it
was a little bit of a slow thing, but she's 79 years old.
Is still a full time nurse. I'm like, Mom, what do you got to
pay the rent? What are you doing?
Purpose? Did she say? She loves it
what we do, it's what we do. Is what we do. Yeah, but yeah. So
lost her, which is tough. You know, I'm spoiled. Mama's boy,
man, it's tough stuff you got, if you got brothers and sisters,
brother and sister, lots of cousins. Are you the oldest? I
am the oldest.
I'm the. Oldest? Yeah, we're from Connecticut. We're Italian,
yeah, your mom was a nurse, yeah, really weird. Bro, pretty
intense, right? What was your dad an accountant? He was shut
up.
Swear to god, dude, what the fuck you did? My he did my
Kenny Aaron off here, he did. He didn't found it. We could say,
Fuck, wait a minute. So my dad is an accountant? Yeah, I'm
counting on a nurse.
Yes. His whole life I didn't do my taxes. Until last year, I
said, Dad, I'll do him this year. He's 87 he's like, You
sure? Like, I'll figure it out. I'm like, oh shit. I don't
know how to he knows more than the IRS at this Yeah, yeah,
yeah. And he's still
on it. Like, he's still on it, he's still all in that
really incredible. We're kind of like, Isn't that wild?
Like, well, you know, I felt that, you know, it's funny you
say that because, like, you know, coming to a new town, and
I wasn't, I wasn't a kid when I came here, so I wasn't 18. I was
in my 30s when I came here. So it's a little different
experience. You're trying to, how do you find your people? You
know, it was, yeah, so meeting you and people like you,
especially you a you were a good role model, because you were,
like, not only a great drummer, but you were a dude that was
going after it. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, that's cool. That guy's but
not, well, I appreciate it. Oh, he's in the right. Like, you
were just going after it. And you were like, cool, and you
were cool everybody and giving out numbers.
And Jim was like, you know, you, he says you came to town. What
did you say, Jim,
I'm here. Yeah, ready or not.
But, you know, and other people come and kind of tip toed, and
maybe that's the, maybe that's the better way, because, because
I do have a little bit of a reputation,
guy, yeah, but that's what's funny about anybody that would
take that on about I'm like, yeah, it's you, dude, it's not
rich, it's you had it figured out. And I didn't have that, and
I didn't know how to navigate that, especially, like, I wasn't
a drummer for hire. I'm in a new town. I'm like, How do I figure
this out? I'm gonna be me.
But it was, it was, it was a big deal. The older we
get, I feel as human beings, the the
more difficult it is to make major changes like that,
geographical changes, career changes, absolutely. Would you
agree, Jim,
the older we get? Yes, yeah, I haven't done it in a while.
I mean, moving across the country in your 30s is different
from moving across the country when you're 21 years
old, because there's no fear, and there's you don't know the
forces against you, and it's all magical thinking.
You just moved down here was that daunting about a year ago,
right? Oh,
to spring kill Yeah. No, not at all. It's just the drive, you
know, just more podcasts.
Yeah, we're still moving. Yeah, I
didn't move off. This was funny. I moved all the way to
Nashville, then I didn't move off the street, right since I
got here, so, but that
paid off brother, who knew Jim Zillow
compared to Redfin. But dude, this is part of your retirement
plan, you know. And that's, that's actually getting to be a
thing you start thinking
about, for sure, I'm sure people, people ask me, just in
general, because you do it for a while, how long you gonna
do that? Like you didn't take any second mortgages or he
locks? Did you say it again? Did you get take any second
mortgages, or HELOCs out or No? No. Wow. You still got original
equity,
yeah. And you got your tracking space, yeah, yeah.
So those little bungals Have those weird bonus rooms up
there, yeah? Which Trey and I, Trey did that, by the way. He's
like, this got to be a tracking room. You're crazy. This was,
like, in 2015 you got to make this a thing. It was just a
storage space. He, I said, I can't deal with it. And I left
the house. I went out with Sandy to get some lunch. He, I left
him up there. He measured everything. He started setting
up a kit in the middle of the room. He started nailing kiss
posters on the wall. He have all this cool stuff. Good friend. He
did it. Yeah. So that got me started. That's great.
What's up, Trey? Trey's got to come on. Now, the funny thing
is, is that, you know, Trey will cut it up with me when I see him
in person, of course, but he will not return a text ever. Is
he like an anti technology
or what? No, he's he's kind of funny. Listen, he's over there,
texting whomever he's texting, but, uh, but not me. I don't
know what, not anybody, right? It's annoying. For some reason.
I don't know what is with him, and I have no idea it makes no
sense.
Yeah, but it is what it is. But hey, man, when you see Trey gray
play, there is a there's a childlike enthusiasm, and he
just looks like he is having the time of his
life. Yes, I think he, he's helped me with that, like
letting go of stuff. Hey, man, sell this kit. Put a rig in your
attic, you know, I would have never done that. My holding on
to stuff and not doing that. So he, you know, we helped each
other that way. And I'm the opposite for him. I'm like, Hey,
man, don't do that. Yeah, listen, let's do it this way.
It'll be, yeah, I'm a little bit more on, you know. Well,
that's the accountant, Dad. Yeah, I'm a little bit of that
because. My accountant, Dad was, like, very methodical and very
safe. Oh, and there's, there's direction, and you have to have
a plan. And then my mom is magical thinking, yeah,
sure, yes. You know my I always joke. My dad knows where his
first $5 is still like, oh, I made that. It's right here,
right
where I framed it,
1956 I'm like, Yeah, okay. I'm definitely not that way, but,
but yeah. So that kind of works
out, but, well, I just think that this is, this was so long
overdue. I'm so happy for you. I'm so proud of you. It's
fantastic to call you a friend and a colleague. And you're
keeping the world safe for country music. You're still
using cross sticks. You're, you know, you're playing with Tom.
You got a body of work. You're it's a great, great thing. If
people want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to
find I'm
on Instagram. That's sort of my one social media thing.
Yeah, not a Facebook. No, I never did, you know, I never did
Facebook. There was no real reason.
Yeah, I just It's the old person platform. Now,
well, back in the day, I think back in the day is when, when
Facebook was actually taken off. Rodney was taken off. I'm like,
I'm pretty connected. Like, everybody knows where I am. Is,
like, I'm not in the witness relocation program. Like, just
call me, dude, yeah. So I got in, I'm on Instagram, and I'll
post some dumb things. What's the handle there? Just your
name, just my name. Kevin repellent. That's great. It's
easy peasy.
Yeah, man, well, hey, thanks for having me out here.
Are you kidding me? I'm sorry it's taking so long. We're up
to, I think, 232, episodes on the early days. You know, we
had, we were experimenting. We're trying to find our
audience. We had comedians on. We had we had body language
experts. We had take celebrity tailors. We even had Huey Lewis
on, but I think the audience just loves when drummers get
together,
you know, yeah, I think it's just to talk about experiences
and what we've done, that's what Trey and I do. We don't really
talk about drums. We just talk about whatever. And we've had
people on. Now, if you if we could, I'd love to wrangle you.
Yeah, me, me, he would do it
the think so,
if he like. If I said, Hey, we got to go over to you a thing,
he'd freak out. But I said, Hey, rich is gonna it's the same
thing, by the way, your audience, you think they would
come and sit in that chair right there. I could get him to do it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Get him to do it. And you guys do it. I
won't be on you guys talk. You do the tray thing, cuz once you
get him going, gotta wind them up. It's, it's
going, it's Jim. Do you have any interesting questions, or
anything you'd like to ask our amazing guest today,
I was gonna wonder, what was a stick? Drop, moment in your
life? Stick? Drop, yeah,
there's been a lot of them.
I had one not too long ago at the beginning of, you know,
running tracks where you have a controller here and you press in
buttons, playing, bang, bang, stick break up in the air. Hits,
the hits the controller chooses another song. Oh, middle. Oh,
how's it going? Everybody kill. You know, stuff like that. You
know, this is why delicate stuff shouldn't be near the drummer,
of all the places for this to be. So now it
seems like they put the laptops over a little bit farther back
or off with you got SPD kind of a thing, or, you
know, I don't I'm using just an entire controller. I can pick
any song, and then I just have a little, a little four trigger
pad that I can make a couple moves, and that's it. I know I
made it real
simple. Do you ever use that, that Yamaha, DTX? I did. I have
a couple of
those. Yeah, they're cool. They're beasts. Yeah, they're
great. They're workhorses, yeah? But I was like, this thing's a
beast. I don't need all these. This is too many options. Yeah,
I don't want to make this many moves. Yeah, I want on and off.
Let's play good advice. Bad
advice. Oh, yeah, I'm still confused about that, so you
handle it. Okay, so
we'll have somebody coming into town, or even coming up playing
their instrument. What's some good advice you have
for them? Good advice. What's
your advice? A good question. You know, thing I've run into
maybe with younger players. It's not their ability to play,
because most younger players could play circles around me
now, right? Because there's, I would say, listen, listen. Just
listen to people like, listen to the people you're playing with.
Yeah, listen to the people you're playing for. You know, a
lot of players, just young dudes are playing and they want to do
the thing, but they're never listening to what
bulldozing, bulldozing.
So basically, don't, don't listen to take in. Listen to
respond. Listen to respond.
That is the definition of not listening. Pop psychology.
Listen to regurgitate something you heard. I mean, listen like,
listen to what's around you. I know that sounds.
We stumble. We stumbled on a new like feature, kind of fun thing,
good advice. Bad like, you give good advice. And then when I
counter bridge counters
with some bad, oh, cool. I like that. I could come up with a lot
of bad advice.
Well, what's, what's bad advice give us.
What's that little boy Rich has given me the look of like, Why
do I have him? Yeah,
no, it's great stuff.
Bad advice. It
sounds like a Saturday in the lifetime. Oh, my God.
The listening thing just spins me out. Man, not listening just
spins me out. It's an epidemic, right? I don't want to sound
like an old guy, even though I am. But it's, it's a problem,
man. It's like, Man, did you not hear that?
Bad advice? Overplay.
Go ahead and fill over all the vocals.
Yeah, yeah. Bad advice.
Anything that comes out of Trey Gray's mouth, I'm kidding. Good.
X,
Sam Kennison falling off the staircase.
No, I'm kidding with Trey. He would, I would say that if he
was sitting right
here. The funny thing about Trey was like, hey, Trey, you know,
this show got canceled this year, but we were supposed to do
Jason Aldean and
Brooks and Dunn Oh, they were driving there. He called me.
They were on the way
Europe, yes, set up her stuff and bent everything. Because
unbelievable. And then she did it a night, two nights later, at
another van. Come on, it was her hips. So, ooh, those things are
like weapons. But anyways, I, you know, I'm texting Trey. I'm
like, Hey, Modern Drummer wants to do a feature on our kits.
They want to come out and take a picture of our kids and get the
specs. And are you down? Can I set this up for us? Crickets,
are you serious? Got back to me,
Oh, my God. What is wrong with him? Well, I know what's wrong
with him, but we should
bring him on and like, just have him sit there and not respond to
any of our questions, right? Exactly?
Ignore him completely. Yeah, he was, they were on the bus and he
texted me, or he called me and said, Yeah, we're on the way to
Fenway Park. I'm like, Oh yeah, cool. That'd be great. Yeah, my
old neighborhood. Except it's not happening. Oh my god, we're
turning around. I like that. They did it again. Like that
guy's still working there. Whoever came up with that rig?
So you
guys don't bring your own stage, or is it just like a prefab 10
of stage?
You know, when you do, I think at Fenway there's a company that
gets hired to put up the stage the bones, yeah, and then you
hang your lights and
stuff. Yeah, yeah, you decorate the tree. Still, though that's
that's a little frightening. It's coming
up. Decorating the tree is coming up. You know? What else
is coming up? A nice cold glass of Evan Williams eggnog.
So now look at the camera. This podcast sponsored by eggnog. No,
that
would be great, but Evan Williams is a big old company,
and I don't you know children are listening to this. We don't
really want to have an alcohol spot?
Yeah? I guess I mean, only when they're 21
Did you have fun? I had a great time. Thanks for making the trip
out.
Thanks for I do feel like I've I always joke I don't like to
leave the 440 loop, yeah,
you know. And then you went to 840 Yeah. I
felt like I was riding the lightning
400 loops out of your way. It's a
little scary. Is it weird to come all the way down here to
Alabama? Yeah,
he's been here for 20 years, and I used to when I lived in
nippers corner, when he would ask me, let's come to my
barbecue or whatever. Be like, yeah, I'll see in two hours. I
mean, but now I live here, and you just get used to it, yeah,
you know, it's like, it's like, you know, when you work in
Hollywood and you live in 1000 Oaks, it's like, yeah, it's
gotta make the job. And
especially now you don't, you know, there's no reason to be in
downtown, that's for sure. But I could have just jumped off the
bus back from Tuscaloosa last night just throw me on the front
line. I'm
just happy you made, made the trip, buddy. And I just think
that, you know, you did it. You did it, you checked the boxes,
and hopefully you had an amazing time doing it. And there's no
stopping us, man, we're just gonna keep working until they
send me home, moving the ball down the field. Yeah, just keep
going. You know, I love it. Yeah, thanks, gentlemen. That's
Kevin rappillo. Kevin rappillo, Kevin rappillo, rapillo, it's
raw pillow. It's a raw pillow. It's my pillow.com. So hey
everybody. Check him out on the Instagram. He will get back to
you and look for him playing around town. Send me your tracks
to do his recording in his man cave, in his home. That's worth
$1.2 million and check him out on the road with Rodney Atkins,
six number ones, five studio albums. He's been there since
day one. Thanks for being here, man. Hey, thanks for having me.
Guys, Jim, thank you for all your time and talent and to the
listener. Hey, I haven't told you in a long time, but we have
an email address the rich ribbon show@gmail.com any questions or
concerns you want, things you want to change, things you like,
send us some advice. Also the rich Redmond show.com be sure to
use the code fall 2025, for 25% off all merchandise, including
the iconic rich Redmond coffee mug. Everybody loves this thing.
It's like a Lipton cup of coffee. Big. It's big. It's
very. Masculine, we love it. Thanks for listening. Be sure to
subscribe, share, rate and review. It helps people find the
show and we'll see you next time. Thanks. Kev, thanks, Jim,
too bad. Thanks. Guys.