Unknown: Don't approach it. Don't think of it as networking.
Just like, just get out there and just meet people. But that's
what it is. Well, that's what it is, but they just don't want to
use the word. But there's a different approach. Well,
there's, I've seen
it happen with some business people use it exactly, going out
that network Exactly. Well, you come out. It's the
thing of and I'm sure this has happened to probably both of
you, where somebody comes to you like, Hi, my name is so and so,
and I've done this, this and this, and this, and they lead
with their resume. Yeah?
Well, that's not good networking. Yeah, exactly. But
they're
kind of told that that's what you have to do. No for speed
dating,
yeah, but, but, but that the main thing is to, is to find a
common reality with the person and find out what interests
them. You
know, despite your success in all this rich I'm gonna, I'm
gonna challenge you on that. I'm gonna say that it's actually
finding, what problem do you solve?
But that's more of a hard promo sexual pitch. No, it's, it's
basically what's your problem and I can solve it. Well,
not only that, it's, well, what's your problem? I want to
listen and I want to find out what is the biggest thing you're
dealing with, and if it's something that I could
accommodate, or I know somebody that that could accommodate it,
I just want to be a resource for you. How can I help you? Being a
being a connector.
This is the rich Redmond show. What's
up, folks? Yep, it's that time. It's time for another exciting
episode of the rich Redmond show, where we talk about all
things like music, motivation and success. A lot of drummers
on this show, Jim McCarthy and I are celebrating over 200
episodes. It's a major accomplishment. But today we've
got a bass player, and now bass players are a drummer's best
friend, and this guy is a best friend. It's gonna be so great
to talk to him. It's long overdue. It's like herding cats
trying to get musicians to drive to Spring Hill to do this thing.
So there's a lot of rescheduling, especially if
they're busy and they're popular, like today's guest,
Jim. Before we go too far, what are you wearing? It's a little
forward thinking and a little crazy. This is a this is a
today's guest knows we both have an affinity for the designer,
John Varvatos, just because everything that he designs, it
fits the human body, and it complements the human body, and
you feel so good in it you walk a foot taller. It's a little
crazy, and this is the first public appearance of this crazy
post apocalyptic olive sweater.
It looks like it was attacked by a string trimmer. I know
it's a little crazy, but it was on sale, and that's the key to
wearing John Varvatos, is that you, but you have to wait till
the
sale. It's like you've almost got, like a ghillie suit on. You
know what? Those are? Not fat Ghillie No, no, no, not fat
Gilly. Not me. The ghillie suits that, like the snipers and
hunters wear, and they blend into the, oh, yeah, the forage
is it? Is it complimentary? Does that look good in it? It's
interesting. Okay, it's interesting
that a new shirt. That's
Jim. And I's thing, if he buys a new shirt, I'm like, Yeah, is
that new shirt?
Means that rich doesn't like it? No. But Jim, Jim,
Jim is on a, like, a health and fitness journey for his 50th
birthday. That's coming up. I was gonna say for your 50th
time, no, no, no, and it's gonna be great, because you're gonna
The funny thing is, is that when you get your new BOD, you're
just gonna want to go buy a new wardrobe. It's gonna be great.
And who John Barbados I should go for, yeah. I mean, you can
get a lot of stuff on Amazon, you know, especially his, like,
graphic tees and stuff. You just wait till
they're on sale. I go through the very exclusive, um, Kohl's
and get really good or, uh, track tour supply, silent
H at the on the coals, yeah, you know, also, a Nordstrom Rack is
good. You can get some good, totally stylish har heart car.
It's all the kids are doing, yeah, you know, um, today's
guest, I mean, this is, you know, he lets us preface on the
previous episode. He kind of crashed it. Well, yeah, he was
and, and it was, and it was cool. It was totally cool. I
love it. It's the first time has ever happened on the history of
our show, but I played a lot of music over the years with this
gentleman. He's a multi faceted bassist, great musician,
originally hailing from Sebring, Florida, calling Nashville home,
just like me, 27 years and he's all over the place. He plays
upright, he plays electric, he plays fretless, he does the
whole thing you want pedals. He's got pedals you want
straight into the amp. He'll do straight into the amp. But he's
been on soundtracks for television shows like Roswell,
Smallville, King of the Hill. He's been on film score
soundtracks like squat and American Wedding. He's played on
video games like Need for Speed, Hot Pursuit two and Project
Gotham Racing. And then look at this. Look at these artists.
He's worked with, Bailey Zimmerman, Michael Martin
Murphy, we're talking John party. Brett Eldridge, Leanne
Womack, Jody, Messina, Ty Herndon, Lee Greenwood, trace
Atkins, Jamie O'Neill, Jimmy Wayne, Lindsey. L Pam Tillis,
Gavin DeGraw, Tom Keefer of Cinderella. He's been out with
the guest who he's played with, Johnny Hyland, he's worked with
cowboy Troy cold Ford, and you will he will say yes to a
session we've done a lot of times. My friend Luis es Fauci,
What's up, buddy? Hey, man, thanks. Thanks. It just gives
everyone a nice cross section and a little bit of like, wow.
Look at this body of work. This guy's been in Nashville. Your
Nashville career is 27 years. And you do it all, man, you do
it all, and it can't. You kind of have to, right? Well, that's
the thing, is like, and you know this better than anybody, too.
It's just like, we're, you know, subcontractors for hire folks.
You know, we're not the artists in a lot of capacities, yeah.
And the way to, like, you know, this is the dream, as they say.
So you have to say yes to the dream. When opportunity presents
itself, it's like, when the door opens, you have to walk through
it, yes, so yeah. And honestly, it's like, because, you know,
you know how this goes with a lot of people, where we talk
about things where, well, I've reached a certain point in my
career, so I can't do this. Lower Level, lower paying
usually involves money, you know, lower paying gig or
whatever, yeah. But honestly, it's like, well, why are you
doing this? You know, it's like, we do it because we love it.
Yeah, and, and there's many times where all of us, I know
you've done it too, where it's just like, you that's not even
the question. It's just like, Are you available for blah,
blah, blah. Well, that sounds like fun. And then you don't
ask, like, oh, how much does it pay? Or, or who else is on it,
or whatever it's more about. You know, I have an opportunity.
I've never done that before, and I would really like to, yeah,
and regardless, and, you know, the bonus is like, Oh, by the
way, you're getting paid. So, like, a lot of
time we have a day rate in mind, you know, and we do that,
hopefully you get to the point as a musician where, you know,
you can, you can have some sort of a day rate, which is a, which
is kind of like a model, or it's kind of like a starting point
for a negotiation. But nine times out of 10, we love music,
and we're gonna make it work the first you know, the phone rings.
And so speaking of which, you know, you studied, you graduated
from the Berklee College of Music, which is great, because a
lot of guys go there for a semester or a year, and then
they go like, this is great, but do I really want to spend a
quarter of a million dollars? And then, you know what I mean,
but you did it, you graduated, which means you could finish
something and see it all the way through. You got tons of
training playing all sorts of different kinds of music. But
what did it we could talk about that Berkeley period. Because, I
mean, wow, that's amazing, because
it's a girls school.
Do you smell that? That's sarcasm.
Berkeley. You mean the Berkeley in California? No, no,
I'm being funny. Oh, sorry. I think can
elaborate on that. He's like, as soon as I'm like, that I was
told this, like, literally before I even, like, God, I
gotta do
this to myself. Do it
nice. Jim, you know, in
the kids today won't get that reference.
So true. It's very true. I'm so spoiled, and this is something I
look to every year, and it happens so quickly. It will be
at this concert again and this December, but you tour with
Brett Eldridge. You know, Brett Eldridge is known as, like a
country pop recording artist. He's had tons of success, but he
realized, oh my God, he's got a good, you know, Frank Sinatra,
kind of, like crooner, boob lay kind of a thing. So every
Christmas he's been going out and building this kind of, like
big band thing. So Brett Eldredge sings the classic
country hits, and you're playing electric bass, upright bass.
You've been touring with him for how, two
years. Well, let me preface that too. Also, I don't normally tour
with him like he does. You know, he's been around, and I've met
him even early on his career. But you did the con. Do you do
the Christmas thing? I do just the Christmas thing, yeah, and
the Christmas Big Band thing, if you want to call
it that, it's exceptional. And we saw you at the Ryman last
year, and it's a great date night. You like hooked Karen, I
up, and then this year you guys were at the Bridgestone. Yep,
amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. And that's something that I'm
grateful to be involved with, that to some capacity, I can
take no credit for that. That's all Brett, and good for him,
because he genuinely that. You can tell when you talk to him
about the Christmas show and everything else. He loves it. He
loves being that guy. He loves singing in that style. He's a
huge fan of that, yeah, and it shows because he does it well
and and you've seen it. I mean, you saw us last year and this
year, you can see his energy, and you can see that it's
genuine. He loves what he does, and he still does the country
thing. Actually, he just released a new country single
last week, so I'm sure he's gonna be kicking that off again.
But that's not what I do, right? I'm not involved with that side
at all. It's just more and it's it goes for the same for the
other musicians in the Christmas tour as well.
And your rhythm section partner is Derek Phillips, amazing job.
Oh, and
he great. You guys are great together, yeah? Well, thank you,
yeah. And Derek, actually, Derek is responsible for kind of being
the foot in the door for that gig for me, nice. He had asked
me about doing because we had done a lot of session work
together. Derek and I, and I think we've done maybe one or
two live things, but not much. We primarily have seen each
other in the studio. And he had asked me before the pandemic,
this is when Brett was starting to do the Christmas thing. And
he says, Hey, are you available? Because you play upright, and
this is what the gig requires. At that time, I was doing
another Christmas tour, or a Christmas show with trace
Atkins. Atkins, yeah. And that was a Celtic Christmas thing,
and it was a residency here in Nashville, yeah. But it was
great because we had four string players. It was really a nice
thing. That was with Johnny the clock, right? Johnny Richardson
was there. And then the last time I did it, it was John
spittle, nice. So it was, you know, as well, so, and it was
great. It was, I did it two years for that, but then when
the pandemic happened, and then I parted ways with trace. I
happen to be having lunch with Derek at sunflower cafe in Berry
Hill. Oh yeah, one of our typical like, mid session lunch
places, nice vegan lunch, great vegan lunch. So we're sitting
there, and I said, Hey, remember that thing you asked me about?
Is that I'm actually available this go around that sounds like
fun, is that? And he goes like, good to know. And I'm not making
this up. This is going to sound like I made it up, but 60
seconds later, Brett walks in to the restaurant, and literally,
we look at him, go like, what are your ears burning? Or, you
know, yeah. And then, sure enough, like that. Few months
later, I got the call and did it. And then so that was 22 and
then 23 we did again, and 24 this year, we did it again. And
it's been great. And the good thing about it now is that since
22 it was Brett's call to try to keep the same band, and that
means the rhythm section and all eight horn players. Yeah, so
what you saw is exactly what you saw last year, as far as the
personnel goes. And everybody on that stage are session players.
Like, nobody's really like a touring guy per se, like couple
the horn players. They went out with Josh stone and some other
artists. But primarily it's session guys doing this thing.
Yeah, that
horn section is playing on a lot of big film scores, exactly.
And they, I mean, constantly, like, even, like when we were
during the Christmas tour, flying back and forth, like they
made sure they had the early flight, because all this horn
players, like, man, we gotta remember last year, last year it
was, Oh, we got to go get in town to do John Wick four and
stuff like that, you know. So there's that. But that being
said, we weren't even sure how our personalities were going to
mesh between what we call stage right and stage left side,
dropping the rhythm section stage left, being the horn
players. And like Lindsay Miller, who is our who is our
guitar player in that she's great. She works at the symphony
all the time, and everything she knew those guys prior, but and
Derek did a little bit 91 or two, but not really. So we're
like, okay, but now we have to, like, be together and tour.
How's this gonna work? Couldn't ask for anything better. It's a
bus tour, right? No, it's primarily a fly tour, but we did
bus a day or two, just for logistics sake. So you're flying
the same day of the show, the day before, day before, if we
can, that's so good. And you're helping all major markets, New
York, Chicago, Yep, great. So you know what's your thing on
the road? Like? For me, I'll try to try to fill in some
educational event or something. I'll try to get my work out. But
as some guys have rituals like I want, some guys want to find the
best certain type of food in the city. Some guys want to hit all
the indie LP stores. Some P people just want to visit with
their homies in that city. So what's, what's your thing that
you try to do? Well,
it's, well, first of all, I'll say that I truly admire what you
do with that, because you make the most of your time. You make
sure it's like, I'm going to do a clinic. I'm going to do this.
And I'm like, Man, I wish I could do that. I but the food is
good too. The food is great. It's my routine. Has always been
for years, and this goes well, dare I say decades at this
point, is always, I always get outside and go for a walk, a
long, long I call it urban hiking, like, if it's a city I'm
gonna go, especially New York. And that's how I learned New
York was walking. It just taking subway. Chicago, same thing. So
I always walk, usually in the morning. I never I didn't used
to be like a coffee shop guy, but now I kind of do that. So
the first thing is, I get up, get dressed, go to the coffee
shop. Where's my coffee? Where's my coffee? Go have it. But then,
like, within the coffee shop, like the person behind the
counter, hey, I don't live here. Give me some recommendations for
maybe a lunch later or something. So I love doing that.
If there are friends and family in town, it's always meet up
with them, yeah, for lunch or dinner, depending on their
schedule. But that's kind of my keep myself sane routine when,
when I used to tour a lot more frequently, yeah, when I was out
with the band Eve to Adam on Sony, years ago, the tour
manager called that. He's like, Oh, you're gonna walk about. So
that's what he would tell does he call it? Yeah, he would see
me, like, you know him and the crew up early, and they'd see me
kind of like, starting to walk outside. He's like, Oh, Luis you
gonna walk about? I'm like, Yep, go walk about. You need anything
cool? That's your
thing. That's my thing. Yeah, my our friend Jason Sutter, used to
call it the Sutter strut. So he'd just get out and just like,
double time, just like, and just walk that city and go, you know,
you do your thing, man, go to a nice vintage clothing shop, go
buy some used records, get the best cup of coffee in town. Meet
up with some friends. That's one thing that is so great about the
road after all these decades, is you kind of sort of create a,
kind of, like a street team, like, like, a community of
people that live in every different city and and a lot of
times they'll remind you, hey, so you're gonna be in town on
such and such a day. You wanna meet up for a coffee or
whatever? I'm like, yeah. And then you put it on them, you're
like, Okay, well, we're gonna be, I'm gonna wake up on the bus
in the parking lot of the arena. So can you come by and grab me
and then you take me to your favorite coffee shop.
Amen. Yeah, that's exactly what to do it. And most people are
very respectful of the fact, at least friends and family that I
have are very respectful. Well, we're gonna, you know, we'll do
it on your schedule. We know you're here and you're on the
clock, yeah. So whatever works. So they're very good about it.
But then you get those people go like, they'll send you a text or
a email. You. You were in town. Why didn't you tell me? Yeah, I
know it's like, I don't have enough hours in the day to,
like, notify everybody from and look at my tours if there was a
tourist schedule. Oh, Chicago, it's this, this, and this. New
York, it's this, this, this, you know, Springfield, Illinois,
it's this, this,
and this. What else I saw your name and went, Oh, yeah,
exactly. You came up
with my caller ID and I sent it right to voicemail. Well,
ouch. I will say there's this whole thing and you know, and I
try not to dwell on it too much, but maybe you've experienced
this as well. But you know, there's these after the fact,
because thanks to social media, there's people that you might
have gone to high school with that you didn't, they weren't
friends of yours or whatever, but they can find you,
but they're friends all of a sudden, aren't they exactly,
Hey,
buddy, you're in town. Can I come to share what I'm gonna
get? Seven tickets. Yeah, and you're like, you were not nice
to me.
It's like that episode where Brad Pitt guests on friends Yes,
and he's all thin and sexy yes and but Jennifer Aniston was
such a jerk to him. Remember, in high school, and she's like, I
he's like, Rachel Green, I hate her. Oh my god, she was so mean
to me. But now he's like, Brad Pitt. He's all gorgeous and
everything. She's like, Oh my God. Who is that? The funny
thing is, they were dating at the time, though, aren't they in
real life? I don't know. My God,
I did they did date. They did date. Okay, so that's very
possible
that is so cute. Can you imagine how I don't want to say life is
easy for Brad Pitt, but when you look like that, women open doors
for you. Oh, the whole world opens doors for you, yeah, like,
literally and figuratively. What?
Okay, here's a good question for you guys of you know people,
caliber of caliber of people that look like Brad Pitt. Who do
you think would be a good beer hang? I think Brad Pitt would
be.
I actually think Brad Pitt would be a good hang, because he
genuinely it seems like he's one of those guys. I can tell by his
personality. This goes with musicians too, but really actors
and you know, this rich where you can tell is like, Oh, you
actually like the craft. You're not in it to be just a movie
star, you actually like the gig. And I think that personality
makes it where I'm like, Oh, we could hang one person. I did get
to hang with. You mentioned him earlier, and his happenstance
was Billy Bob Thornton, nice. And it was one of those where,
like, obviously it was, I was with trace, and the box masters
were opening, nice. And I he, I was like, I want to meet him,
but I don't want to, like, you know, be that guy. Be that guy,
right? Didn't have to. He came right to me and introduced
himself because he's a musician as well, and he is, but he was a
super nice guy. We realized these mutual friends we had and
everything else, and then he was already, by the end of the
night, was telling me, like, oh, have you seen this funny YouTube
video? Oh, dude, Google this. Check this out. You're gonna
love it. You know, he was a bass player at the wrong gig or
something. Oh, that's funny. No, it was, what do you say the the
West Virginia ninja was the one he Yeah, look it up. It's this
dude from West Virginia who says he's a ninja, and that I found
that out from Billy Bob
Thornton. Oh, my God. He's just approachable. He just seems to
me like he would be. He's like an everyman. Well, he was,
and I think maybe had to start, you know, if we talk about the,
really, the beginning of his career, where he blew up, like
sling blade, that was kind of something he created.
He created the platform for himself. He was probably waiting
for Hollywood to come to him. So he just said, I mean, he was
really early on the scene as a content creator, yeah, and he
hired his friends, Dwight Yoakam, yeah, yeah, from
Hamilton, yeah. Who did all the he created those plays. Whose
name I can't think of, right?
Lin Manuel, Miranda. And I have a tie to that as well. Really,
yeah? Well, let us know. Well, so Well, he
didn't finish the question. Sorry. Who would you? Who would
you want? Sorry about I don't want to cut you off. Yeah, no
worries, please. Who's how badly Am I being rude? No, who would
you want to hang with?
You know, I really feel like those two cats like Brad Pitt
and George Clooney, would be so approachable and such nice cats.
Clooney really interesting. I think Clooney, I mean, he's a
bona fide global, you know, movie star. But I think that,
you know, if somebody, somebody like vouched for you and you got
into the inner circle, he would be very curious and
just fun. I've got two, yeah, RDJ and Chris Hemsworth, who's
RDJ? Robert Downey, Jr. Oh, okay, yeah, they'd be good
hangs. I think it's
funny that you referenced two dudes from the MCU. Yeah. I
found that kind of interesting, but I I'm inclined to agree with
you. Definitely an RDJ, for sure, you'd be a great he'd be
fun. I think everything I've seen of him that is not I
remember seeing a thing, was it? It was a tour of his home with
his wife, yeah. And it was just a few years ago, but it was
like, I can't remember what the like, a farm, yeah, windmill
looking thing. But it was on one of those YouTube channels, like
American homes or whatever, yeah. And his personality, just
this is, you know, come in, check out my living room, and
his wife's there too, or whatever. And that's where you
get the sense of like, Oh, this guy would be good.
Vince Vaughn. Maybe Vince Vaughn. Vince. Wanna Be Cool,
yeah? Who are some other people that are just like, Man, this is
a guy that is grounded. Who's that? Barack
Obama? Oh, I'd do it anyway. I
mean, he went to mark Marin's garage. Did he Yeah, he did.
That's right, the where's the interview is in a garage in
Glendale. Sign me up. Now, did
he do that when he was sitting president? At that time? He did
it while he was the president. That's you imagine
the cavalcade of cars that would show up in that neighborhood in
Glendale? Oh, sure, just black cars. I'm
surprised Mark didn't make a mention of, like, all the Secret
Service guys, like, parked in his driveway or something like
that. It was
probably one of the most secure locations, yeah, for him. I
mean, we don't get presidents on
our show of the United States. We get presidents of, like, the
American Federation of Musicians and stuff on our No, no. It's
like, it's no, it's, uh, anything is possible in this
crazy life. I
got to put together a rush show at Berkeley. Really rush,
where's the place? So the cafeteria in Berkeley, what you
could do is kind of like a library card check it out, like
a performance space after hours. So we would do what was called
calf shows, you know, like fame
exactly at lunch, yeah, pretty
much, yeah. So I put, there's two that I am Dean put together.
It was Queen and rush. And both of them, I had Alex, like, a
more on nice and, you know, the rush one, he he did second
guitar keys and bgvs on Queen, he did primarily vocals and sang
lead, like he did the Bowie Parton under pressure. And years
later I saw a sudden, you watch his career explode with Lin
Manuel, kind of in together. Yeah, yeah. And so much the
point that he just made a post. I just saw it, like last week,
and he was like, oh, you know, me and the wife are going to
London, whatever he he went and had dinner with Getty Lee. Oh,
wow. So him and Getty are kind of besties
like, I guess, or whatever, that is very approachable too, as is
Alex. I think Alex,
Alex is great. I met Getty and Alex in 2002 and this is right
because I brokered the meeting, because I grew up listening to
Rush as well. But I got signed to Atlantic Records in 2001 and
at that time, Russia was signed to Atlantic and a friend of mine
at the studio at Ocean Way said, you know, what do you want to
this is before paid meet and greets and everything else. The
only time you did meet and greets at that time was your you
knew somebody radio contest, or you knew somebody like that. And
somebody at the studio is like, Hey, let me type up a letter and
send it off to the management, see what we can do for you.
Cool. And sure enough, I got the meet and greet with them. And
this was I just gotten the record deal. I just signed my
first record deal. This is an Eve to Adam. This. No, this was
nice. And I so I met getting Alex pose the photo. And I said,
Hey guys, I just got signed to Atlantic, any advice he could
offer me. And Alex just kind of looked at me. He's like, You got
signed to Planet records. Yeah, I did.
You're screwed my band. And
then he could see that, I guess my cheeks just went flush, like,
what? And he's like, Man, I'm just kidding. Whatever. And then
he's like, yeah, do you have any advice, and he's like, get a
good lawyer.
What was that supposed to mean? Yeah. So I taught action cop. I
remember for a while our old friend Ryan Hoyle played with
you guys, right? But Ryan original drummer? No,
he was not. He subbed in, yeah. So it's funny, you mentioned, I
haven't talked to Ryan on a
hot minute, many years. Yeah, many years. So this
was either right around the time or right before he moved to LA
Yeah, and we had to sub out because our original drummer, I
think his wife's about to give birth to a kid, or their second
kid, or whatever. And he came in and subbed so we had Ryan for a
weekend. So
what was it like being an assigned band on Atlantic
Records in the early aughts.
Interesting, yeah, it was very educational. What were
the current bands at the time? Was it like the Eve sixes and
the fuel and
well, on our division of our label, which, which is lava
Atlantic, which was Jason floms in print, Jason from any carp we
had. It was us, simple plan, sugar, Ray, Matchbox 20, Kid
Rock, wow. And but then you had things like the Blue Man Group
put out a record, Oh, wow. And transit brew and orchestra.
These are all people on our
label. I mean, that Matchbox 20 record, I was kicking it
yesterday with Pete Coleman, our engineer, you know, at Fauci,
he's here in Spring Hill as a local watering hole, yeah? And,
you know, Matchbox 20, their first hit comes on the radio.
It's 1995
that's a long time ago. Man was a long time ago. Holy, it
did the early outs. Was a long time they are a,
they are a legacy rock band, yes, yeah. Classic
Rock, classic. Okay,
so, Jim, do you have a hot take on this, like, what were you
consider at what point? How many years before it becomes a rocker
thing becomes classic? Where it gets that label? I think it's
generational. 2020, okay, so, 20, yeah, that makes sense. 20
years, yeah, gotcha so. And also, during our time, because
hottish and cop was known as being a rap. Rock Band there was
obviously your limp biscuits. And you know those kind of bands
as well, nice
and so then, after hot action cup, how many years before you
did the Eve to Adam thing?
E to add didn't roll around until 2011
12? Because Didn't you guys play the whiskey when I was living in
Los Angeles, you were there and your bus was parked on Sunset
Boulevard, across the street. And then I made the mistake of
coming to party with you guys, and the next day was a big
hangover.
Well, I'm laughing because a lot of things happened that night,
and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, let me put you
this way, like you left and and I remember so vividly. I still
have a very solid memory of being on stage at the whiskey
and looking, and you were sitting in the balcony. I
remember, still, I can look and go like, there's rich. He's
right there. Just lean, you know, in rich is, like, on that
rail, and just kind of just rocking out, just checking out
the show. And I'm like, God, I hope we're not sucking right
now. That was great. But I remember the whole thing is, of
course, we wanted to play rock stars, and we went to party at
the rainbow afterwards. I think at this point you might have
already gone, you might have left, yeah, but our whole goal
was to go meet Lemmy because, well, no, he wasn't. He was
under the weather. But it's so funny because all the staff
there, like, kind of knew why we were it's like, yeah, you're
looking for Lemmy. He's we already know he's not well, he's
just at home because
his home was about 30 feet away behind, yeah, it's right there,
the rainbow.
But you know who we wound up closing down the rainbow with
Billy Gibbons, not quite as coolish, um, Ricky rackman, no.
Eddie Van Halen, no, yeah,
you're never gonna get this is fun. This is not a musician, is
He?
Is he a host? No, is it like one of the guys from the metal show
or something? Okay,
no, go for it. Eddie trunk,
Ron Jeremy,
kid you not. I'm not making that up. He was there quite a bit.
Yes, he was apparently he was there. We closed down the bar
with Ron Jeremy. Ron still alive, right? Yes,
okay, yeah, yeah. I actually worked with his niece, really?
Yeah, okay. Did you ever read
his biography book? Not
interesting? Yeah? He heard, yeah. I'm sure it's probably,
like, just got tons of ups and downs. Like, the only Yeah, I'm
sure yeah. The only conversations we had were very
middle of the road, common stuff. Like, I so badly wanted
to kind of ask him about his career a little bit. But we
never, we never went there. Oh, my god,
yeah, that was it. That was like, before you had to be thin
and shave your body
hair. Yeah? No, he didn't care. Yeah, the Hedgehog,
exactly. Thank you. Helps you pick up her. So he, I mean, did
you feel like you had to, you know, use some hand sanitizer,
maybe.
So, yeah, yeah. He just I literally, when we walked out
and our bus, our beds, our busses parked right there. We
actually, like, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but good
night, Ron Jeremy,
and he literally point me to the nearest car wash that I can walk
through. Yeah, exactly.
He literally. We watched him walk out into the darkness of
sunset. We I'm not this is literally, like a movie. He just
walked and just disappeared in
the darkness. He and his three legs. Yeah, exactly. He probably
lived close by as well. I think
he did. My understanding is he did, yeah, now
you're now you have Dominican and Puerto Rican roots, yes. Why
music? Why the bass? Is your musical family?
Not really, yeah, not by profession, yeah. My entire
family love the arts and love music, and always have, and are
very driven by music. But professionally, no, my dad's a
retired surgeon, like he went to medical school at an early age,
and he's very business minded, and that's all good, but he
always my entire family, both sides, had a passion for the
arts always. So even if I didn't choose this as a profession, my
mom made it a mandate, because my I'm the oldest of my
siblings, and my mom's like, Okay, here's what we're gonna
do. We're gonna get you into oil painting classes, into piano
lessons. We're gonna do and I'm gonna do it with you. We're
gonna do the arts. Wow, because she wanted to have what she
called, like, a well rounded education, which is great. It's
like, yeah, we can do the academics, and that's important,
but we want you to have all the aspects, all the things that's
so cool. And it just, I mean, my mom called it, she says it's
like, I called it. It's like, you know, early on, she's, like,
within a few years, like, before I was even, like, 10 years old,
she's like, you're gonna, you're gonna be a musician. And she
called it, she was right, yeah. So when the bass, when the bass
occurred later and later, meaning, like, middle school,
high school, really? Yeah. Well, I mean, I started with piano
lessons. I did horn stuff in middle school, high school, for
band and whatnot. But I think I really fell in love with the
sound of the instrument right out of the gate. Yeah. And my
approach for it was one of those things where, like, Well, I
mean, look, you know, I already understood music even as a kid.
It's like, All right, well, it's four open strings and it's
chromatic. How hard could it be? Then you find out it's not like,
you know, you know, even with drums, it's like, well, you hit
this and you hit that. How hard could it be? And you realize
there's a lot more to it than that. But the thing with bass
is, once I, you know, I took some Christmas money and bought
myself a bass or whatever, and it was just like, almost meat.
Is like, Oh, this is my voice. You know how it is? Is like, as
me. Musicians, we all we can dabble in other things we
understand, like what people do and whatever. But there's this
thing about the conduit of us as a musician, like, No, this is my
voice, yeah, this is who you know. This is how I contribute,
and this is how I express myself. Yeah, that's
how it was for me in the mouth harp. There you go. See, down,
down, down.
Did you start with the mouth harp? You didn't
know that. I didn't know that. It's because it didn't happen,
okay? But
I like how you sold it. You sold it like a total straight man.
I want to be Jim when I grow up. What's the secret to comedy
timing? Amazing.
Amazing. So
were you working after Berkeley? Did you kick it in Boston for a
while? Or did you I
did. I stayed not long, like, a year, because I think it was
more out of a necessity of like, Oh, crap. What do I do now? And
money and everything else. And, you know, it was just like,
Okay, I graduated. I'm here. I know people here. I have some
gigs here, but I got to find a job, and I did, and so I stuck
around for a little bit, and it wasn't until another drummer,
friend of mine I went to school with, comes to my apartment in
Somerville, Massachusetts, which is right kind of just north of
Harvard, and said, Hey, moving to Nashville, you want to buy my
furniture? And then he's like, wait a minute, you want to be a
studio musician, that's one of your goals. You should really
look at Nashville. And he can, in two hours, convince me
nice and before even checking it out, yeah, well, we flew down.
That was early that year, and then July of that year we flew
down. He's, like, come with me to like, he's, he was scoping a
place to live. And a couple of our mutual buddies who still
live here to stay, like, are here, we're already here. And we
scoped it out, and it didn't take long. It's like, No, I
gotta make this happen, because you and I didn't
meet right away in 1997 now it happened after like, I feel like
I've known you forever and ever and ever, but we have a similar
story in the sense that we took everything that came our way, we
crashed parties, we did all the right things we were supposed to
do, trying to get into the right circles, creating opportunities,
answering the call for opportunities. What was that
first opportunity for you? Were you playing around town? Did you
do lower Broadway? What was your first road gig?
I never did lower Broadway. And that wasn't like it was part of
me. It wasn't like I was poo pooing it or anything. It just
like it just worked out. And honestly, it was like, it's a
lot of work. I mean, I have a lot of respect for those guys,
because the repertoire that they know is off the chain, and just
holding your P for so long, yeah? And that's and that, you
know, it didn't used to be that way, you know, back in the day,
you know, you could actually take a break. Yeah? It was like,
it was a typical like, here you're gonna do three hours and
you're gonna take a 10 minute break every hour, okay, cool, or
five, or whatever. Now it's four hours, no breaks and and I even
friends of mine, like, how do you take a break? I'm like, I
hope to hell that one of my buddies who plays my instrument
is there so I can go pee. I say, you know, if
you're a drummer, he's like, please do an acoustic song.
Exactly, right? Not just beer in those bottles. Exactly, yeah,
those
aren't pillows. So the those aren't pillows, exactly. I, you
know, I my first opportunity came about. It's hard because I
just kind of jumped, actually, no correction, here it is. My
first opportunity was within 48 hours. And this, I have to thank
that's incredible. A friend of mine who's still friends of mine
to this day, another bass player, Tommy Mac Tommy
McDonald, hey, what's Tommy? So, yeah, so you know, that guy's
great, but it was, I didn't have any connections prior, other
than a couple fellow Berkeley guys who beat me to the punch
here by a few months. Yeah, and there was a merch guy, this is
gonna sound weird, like, who was friends with a guy who was
friends with my step mom's dad and, you know, right down the
line or whatever, and he's been a merch guy since the 70s.
Actually did it. Went out with rush at one point. So there you
go. There's your rush connection again. But he was out with
Sting and slinging that, yeah. But he was,
you know, he was, I think he was working for Richardson sutland,
you know, the big merch company, big one and big one. And he was
working with David Lee Murphy at the time, just on the bottle,
exactly. So, you know, he's like, you know, it was the I was
told say, hey, contact this guy's name is Carson. Contact
him. Call him up. Here's his number, that way. It's another
person you know in town. So I called and left them a voicemail
about, you know, 10 hours later, whatever, he's like, Hey, what
are you doing tonight? Like, nothing. He's like, all right,
you come to see this band with me. And so we went and saw Laura
darling, who is a writer, and she was playing, and Tommy
McDonald's playing bass, nice. So we went to the thing. We met
Tommy, and I met and Tommy's like, Oh, are you looking for a
gig? And I'm like, Duh, yeah, yeah. And he literally, like,
sitting down after any motions to the stage, like, do you want
this gig? I'm like, Well, sure. Why. He's like, Well, I have to
go out with David Lee Murphy. David Lee Murphy, so I need
somebody to cover this. And that's, that's how he's off to
the race I'm
quitting right now. Pretty much it's yours. But
I mean, that is example of of the, you know, the Keough Stroud
system, not just like, be out. And really, could we
have not gone through this entire interview without
mentioning kiosks? I. I just such
a smart Guinness, you know, because the first 15 years in
Nashville, I would go out every single night as part of, like, a
business model. It's like, you gotta go, you gotta go to the
writer's nets, you gotta go to the showcases. You gotta see the
regional bands that come through. You gotta be pressing
the flesh. And here he is, 20 something years in, and he just
continues to do it. And he's always top of mind and I'm like,
Keo, great business model, exactly. You know, no,
he's really good at that. It is, right? There is a certain thing
about it. But, you know, we talk about the dirty word networking,
yeah, you know. And to me, and I've told this now that, you
know, we're on this side of the coin and now where people are
asking us for advice and whatever, and say, Hey, don't
approach it. Don't think of it as networking. Just like, just
get out there and just meet people.
But that's what it is. Well, that's what it is, but they just
don't want to use the word. But there's a different approach.
Well,
there's, I've seen it happen with
business. People use it exactly. They were going out that network
Exactly. Well, you come
out, it's the thing of and I'm sure this has happened to
probably both of you, where somebody comes to you like, Hi,
my name's so and so, and I've done this, this and this, and
they lead with their resume. Yeah, well, that's not good
networking. Yeah, exactly. But they're kind of told that that's
what you have to do. No speed dating,
yeah, but, but, but that the main thing is to, is to find a
commonality with the person and find out what interests them.
You
know, despite your success in all this rich I'm gonna, I'm
gonna challenge you on that, I'm gonna say that it's actually
finding what problem do you solve?
But that's more of a hard promo sexual pitch. No, it's what's
your problem and I can solve it.
Well, not only that, it's, well, what's your problem? I want to
listen, and I want to find out what is the biggest thing you're
dealing with, and if it's something that I could
accommodate, or I know somebody that that could accommodate it,
I just want to be a resource for you. How can I help you out?
Being a, being a connector. Well, like, you know, for
example, this thing, these things can kind of happen in an
organic way. And Jim and I go back and forth on this. So, you
know, if you have a website and you have all sorts of products
and services, do you have a cart or a page where you list every
product and services and you, and you put the price tag on
there. What involves? Are you talking about merch or service?
I'm services, right? Okay, so for me, like, I got a call the
other day and it's guys like, hey, you know, I'm a, you know,
superintendent of the school district, and there's going to
be 300 guests, and we're going to do a, we're looking for a
keynote speaker in 2027 in April. I'm like, Well, I don't
know my schedule is, but most likely we are only touring June
to October, so most likely it's not a problem. I already live in
Nashville, saving airfare or saving Hotel. I'll come and goes
well, we already know that we want you. We just got to talk
about budget and stuff, and then get it started. We get into the
weeds. We're talking about details. And then I'm, like I
said, Now also, I can emcee the entire event for you. I could do
my keynote speech, and then, since the event has a music
centric theme, I can put together an all star band for
you. And they're like, Wow, we didn't know you could do all
that. So Should these services be listed on my website? Yes.
See Jim says, Well,
yes, and you're right about that, because there is that. I
guess there's, there's got to be an art to it. And I'm obviously
still figuring it out myself or whatever, but making people
realize what it is that you do. And one of the things, like, for
me, the biggest thing that people weren't aware of and what
was playing
upright bass. Very few guys do that.
Well, the assumption is that you do one of the other, not both
and and. Like, obviously, there's, it's not just me.
There's a batch of us that double and, and some of those
guys, like, are monster doublers, as we say, double on
upright and electric or whatever. But the fact that you
still have to find that way of, hey, I want to make you aware
that I do this. Yeah, it's like, I, you know, the best example I
have from years ago was, you know, I track out of the house
as well as, as we all do, we all do remote recording. And I got
hired to do two upright tracks. Okay, so got them done. All's,
well, oh, I didn't take a picture. I didn't post. Should I
did it happen? Yeah, exactly. If you didn't post, it didn't
happen. Like, we're
really good, like, when you and I work a lot together with Chris
Condon. Chris Condon is nice enough to call us. What's that,
Chris? He just called a guest on the show. Should we call him
back? And yeah,
you should probably get him on the air. He'll put,
like, his, his week of sessions on Facebook, and I'll do a nice
mash up of all these photos. And he puts a picture of all the
individual players. That's great. Tags him. It's really
It's smart.
He's really good about it. And it's one of those things where
it does make the Philippines different. Sometimes we personal
branding, personal branding, promo, sexuality, whatever you
want to call it. Kevin Murphy,
but he's not a fan of that, that concept, no.
And honestly, look, if it's what to me, it's like, I feel like
it's sometimes it feels it might not be, but feels disingenuous,
like we don't want to like it seems it comes from a place of
ego. I'm trying to sell you, look how good I am. I don't want
to just be that guy, but at the same time, how else do you make
people aware of what you do? But I was
documenting some of our heroes that I would never think that
would do that are now on the game where, like, oh my gosh,
like, some of my heroes are, like, every time they do a
recording session or teach a lesson or do a clinic, that
there is a photo and a video, we'll
look at the
how would you how do you pivot that to make it valuable for.
Those watching, though. So instead of like, I get what
you're saying, sure where it's it's a, it's a braggadocio kind
of approach, black dossier, like a light brag, yeah, humble brag.
What if you could just do a video of like we do the the Fast
Five or a fun little trivia question. Be like, Hey, man,
we're here with with so and so, what do you think about, you
know, what's your favorite food? And there's that kind of stuff,
yeah, facebrag.com, exactly. Face brag, but it's just like,
it's just fun little stuff. Yeah, that could be
a way to do that, where it's more engaging, because if you
think of it from the concept of what we now have content
creators and influencers, yeah, kind of a dirty word, too, where
they like anything else, like you're making a movie, you're
making a TV, you're making some sort of program. It's the
engagement factor, like making the connection, making the you
know, it's, yeah, I, I know that they're selling something, but
this is entertaining to me. That's got to be entertaining.
It's got to be entertaining. No,
all right, well, let's say I think, I think that, you know,
Chris Condon comes to mind, just because he's so consistent about
doing that. And I like it, because you and I are always in
the photos. And, you know, I like being photos. So with
things, I don't think it's secret. It's,
it's funny, because we, well, we were, we did a session with him
not that long ago over at Southern ground. And I remember,
like, even, like, in the middle of like, he's, you know, waiting
for people to do their punches before, yeah, before he comes
back to do like his overdub, and he just why he gets, puts the
guitar down real quick, and just goes and gets all and we all
know what's happening, so we all go, hey, yeah, smile. Make
sure we get our best side on there. So interesting, because
we're all over the place. You know, our roots are the things
we've done, our commonalities, but what was some of the first
bands that you got excited about? Like, for Jim and I was,
like, for me, it was like, the police in Van Halen. For him, it
was like, Van Halen rush, Dream Theater, kind of a thing.
Well, my first bands were Huey Lewis in the news, Van Halen,
solid, yes, Ghostbusters soundtrack. Oh yeah, okay, man,
that's kind of, he's, he's, I mean, Jim's kind of in that same
wheelhouse as me. A lot of those things do apply for me. Like, I
always tell people my earliest influences were movie
soundtracks, and I'm talking about the orchestral So, you're
John Williams, you're Alan Silvestri, you're Jerry
Goldsmith, those guys, you know, Howard Shore, etc, etc. Those
were, like, my first things, because that was like, well, and
even being like, you know, playing, bowing up, right? Like,
even before that, like, even before I even dabble in that
thing, it was just something that viscerally hit me. And
going to a movie, it was just like, the soundtrack hit me, and
my parents were, like, Uber supportive, because they're
like, oh, it's kind of like classical music, but it's
filtered through that lens. Well, without
that music, you'd have that Star Wars conclusion on the first
movie that they made on the internet that they removed the
music and sent the sound
effects in. Oh, I gotta see that. I've not seen it. I've not
seen it, but I can imagine
all you hear is, like the music's completely taken out and
they put like reverb effects were on their footsteps. You
hear somebody in the background going, somebody farts.
But yeah, exactly, that's, that's, that's a big thing. So,
I mean, that's what I mean, that's some of the first thing
is me that wasn't just something that my parents liked or that
got me personally excited, yeah, and then from there, yeah, we
can branch into, like, you know, rock and roll and everything
else. Like,
I first think about you guys, first thing that comes to mind
is that you and I, you know, I tell people I'm a rock drummer
that is has an over education in jazz and classical, but I'm a
rock drummer. I feel like it's a lot of times you're a rock bass
player like you, we have that we love our eighth notes, and we
lock so good on that. But is there something we wouldn't know
about? Did you go through like, a James Jameson phase? Or, of
course, all the, you know, the the James Brown stuff, or, like,
what are some secret things that you just love and admire that
are in the well that we wouldn't think, well,
I mean, that's it well and again. But I would venture to
guess you could, I challenge you to ask any other bass player,
and there's going to be that element as well, yeah, when we
found James Jefferson specifically, or anything about
time, you know, Duck Dunn or, or any of those guys, you know,
it's like, Ooh, this is, this is like a warm and fuzzy and it's
cool because it's like, oh, that's what makes you dance.
Yeah. Okay, so, I mean, obviously it started with that,
with the James Brown in some, like, disco e kind of stuff,
Lewis Johnson, that kind of thing. But also then it kind of
went into some other areas as well that were kind of adjacent.
So I just had one top my head, and I completely blanked. But I
wonder
who the first bass player was in disco that did the deed up, deed
up, deep up the octave thing. God,
I feel like I should know this. And I feel like people are like,
adding at me right now, listening to this, going like,
you should know this, and we'll
take it out. Yeah,
you know, it's like, I blank, but I
don't know. Stu Yeah, I don't know either, but I mean, yeah,
exactly it. There's an
evolution. There's the warm and fuzzies about that, in the funk,
and then, oh, here was the one I was thinking of too, where it
was, and this is kind of going into high school, getting into
college. Time. But, you know, Rocco Prue from Tower of Power,
oh, yeah, because it was like, the, okay, take, you know, the
Jameson thing, which has the cool sick of patience, but gives
you the warm and fuzzies, and give it another technical error
as well. Yeah, exactly, yeah. But he knew how to make those.
It's like, Yeah, but try to do that and make it feel good. Who
are the guys that played with a pick really well. Well,
there's, you know, it. There's a lot of rock dudes that play well
with a pick, you know. And that's something that, again,
that was a skill set I had to develop after the fact out of
necessity. But now I use it on, I do, I do pick on country
sessions. Sometimes, you know, if it's appropriate, if it's
appropriate, and sometimes it just is, you know. Now, I wish I
slap
him. Slapping is that that's a tech, that's a technique. Is it
a technique that gets really rusty if you don't use it a lot,
it
can be. It depends on the person, because there's and
everybody, even within that people have different their own
technique. Within slapping and popping, you know, where they're
positioning their hands is how they do it, or whatever. I mean,
you know, I mentioned Lewis Johnson earlier, you know who?
You know, he does a lot of stuff, but then he wound up
playing on Michael Jackson records, and he wasn't slapping
and popping on that, yeah, but, you know, brothers Johnson, he's
slapping the Jesus out of it. When were you in Boston again in
the 90s? Early mid 90s. Early mid 90s. Yeah.
So did you ever hear of any of the New York bands at all?
No, the one New York band like so there was a I had a gig. I
used to work at a club called the paradise when I was up in
college. I interned there, and then they wound up hiring me for
a bit doing sound or being one of the sound guys there. And the
Paradise is the equivalent of exiting. Is here, it's been
around the same amount of time, both national and local. X, the
one New York band that I actually heard, that I'd never
heard before, and heard their show went like I'm getting their
record immediately, is called the Bogman. Interesting. They're
still around. I saw I follow them, and I saw they're still
posting, but they're very a New York centric band.
There's a band that I came up with in the 90s, in when I was
with Connecticut white bread. There was another band we used
to play with a lot called jam syndicate. And I bring them up
from time to time. Yes, amazing band. Ahead of their time. They
just never really had their due. But the bass player was
phenomenal. Alessandro Nardone, Sandy sardon, gotcha, Isabelle,
but
it does not but I'm definitely gonna check it out for sure. So
thanks for the tip on that. Yeah, I love checking out new
stuff, so, or stuff, no other
stuff. I don't think it's on Spotify or anything you can find
it on YouTube. Yeah,
yeah. There's nothing more painful than bad popping and
slapping, though. Oh,
there. There is, because there is the danger of overplaying
like anything else. It's like, it's a technique, and you can
easily overplay and slapping
and pop, but doing it out of time, well, that's the
that's No, that's a big no no, yeah, well, you can't slap it.
You got to stroke it.
I'll see myself out.
Thank you. There you go. It's like, how quiet did the room
get? That was that amazing? Yeah? Well, anything,
everything, should be played in time. I mean, that's just like,
I don't care how simple or anything. That's the key thing
that separates, like, like the kids from the grown ups. It's
definitely like, feel something like a laborial Senior, you
know, who's a big influence on me being a bass player, you
know? He his whole mantra was always like, yeah, you could do
that. And he's got all these techniques too, you know? And
he's like, I don't care. You can do that. You just do whatever
you want, just for the love of God, feel something Yeah, and
feel, make it feel. So, you know, make it feel. Yeah.
Here's a observation on something recent that was in the
news with a bass player and a professional drummer, both
professionals. What is your take on the whole Primus thing?
Finding a drummer being that, you know, are you a less clay
pool guy? I
am, yeah, I saw, I saw les live in 91 open for
rush. I remember that. Yeah, that was on the roll the bones
tour. Yes,
it was. And I saw that show twice in Florida. I was still,
still in Florida before college, but I remember seeing that, but
already he had made waves just because his technique was
unorthodox, especially in more, shall I say, commercial base,
taking the lead. Yeah, exactly. They're not a commercial band,
per se, but they got the notoriety, so they got in that
thing. So obviously we had to see that. But that was the first
time I saw them. And you want to talk about a guy again,
unorthodox technique, or a different technique, or
whatever, his timing is, impeccable, yeah, that's the one
thing, because they just let him fly. He starts a song, just
slapping and popping himself. And you're like, yeah, the you
know, Tim, Herb Alexander and those guys, you know, or Larry
Leland, are just like, we don't need a count off. We know where
it's at. He just said it, and it's perfect. His timing is
great.
It's amazing. Is, am I right in saying that this is almost like
they're making the audition. It's almost like a publicity
junket. It's almost like they're making it like national news,
Primus is looking for a new drummer. Yeah, kind of like, who
did that? Dream Theater did it? Dream Theater made
it. They made a whole documentary on it. Yeah, you
remember that? Yeah, are you a big John my young guy as well? I
do like John my young again, very different thing, or
whatever. It's not, it's, it's right, it's the right thing for
that band. It's not the right thing for ever. Thing. But you
remember when Smashing Pumpkins also hired the kid from
McDonald's for a drummer. The kid was working at McDonald's,
and after Jimmy Chamberlain left, right, right, the Billy
Corgan hired a kid that was working at McDonald's to be the
new drummer in Smashing Pumpkins. Do you remember that
Jim, it was, I don't remember that was also national news. So
it's actually kind of a smart thing, because all these
drummers are coming out of the woodwork. Some are very
underground and unknown drummers, and some are very
established, and some are household names. They're all
auditioning. Dude. There's a, I mean, we have a bunch of mutual
friends that sent in an audition tape. What the heck? Why not? We
mentioned Keo earlier. He did it. Did
he? I mean, what somebody's going to get the gig? You
somebody got the gig. Who was it? It's a he went with somebody
he had experience with, course, Brian, brain, mancia, oh,
brain, but he's already done the gig. And to be honest with you,
it's like, it's me, when Tim, like, quit before this whole
audition thing. I'm like, Surely he's going to be the new
drummer, because he's already been
the drummer. Yeah, you know, that whole thing. And then just
make a phone call to somebody, you know, I think I got two
reasons
on that. One, publicity you mentioned earlier. The other
thing is, like, it's an excuse. Going, like, oh, I never heard
of this guy. It's good. I'm discovering new talent, mining
talent. Mining talent. So that way, even though you might not
take them into your main gig, you might be able to partition
them off to another gig. I'd
be curious to interview less about that, and kind of like
really get into the nitty gritty and say, was it because this guy
had time in the trenches and that kind of gritty upbringing,
maybe played in the garage band? Because there's a lot of people
that did apply for the gig, who are Instagram drummers, of
course, who have come up through that route. There's
some Nepo babies that I'll get into, you
know, just, you know, they're not exactly seasoned, you
know, no, they're not. And we've seen, and now we do live in the
day and age where we've seen some of those people getting
those gigs. Yeah, we there's a bachelor and drums specifically,
but in other avenues as well, where they found them on
Instagram because they had a kajillion followers, or
something like that, right? But that doesn't make them good. No,
not necessarily, but sometimes, and I mean, I might be thinking
this more like conspiracy theory, but it might be one of
those situations where they're thinking, hey, we can get some
extra publicity, because they already have built in publicity.
Okay,
maybe Jones. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so
actually, yeah, funny that you say that because there is a
drummer out there, and he's, I think he's been featured on
drumeo and stuff like that. I can't remember his name, but I
believe he's Spanish or Italian, but he's, he's just got these,
he's got all the chops, very clinical speed off the charts.
And he does like renditions, like he did, Tom Sawyer, yeah?
Spanish guy, yeah, yeah. I don't know, I don't remember his name,
but he's, he's one of these guys who, yeah, dude, you can
overplay the crap out of it, but you just completely remove,
remove the soul of that song. Yeah, you took, you ripped it
right out. He got murdered in the cup. So
many shops. But for what? So many chops, what? Well, he's
making a great living because he's selling
mugs, hats, hoodies. There's
that, yeah, and well, and also a lot of the younger folks now,
they see that as a viable avenue of of of occupation. You're
like, wow, I could just set up cameras and lighting in my
space. Come down here, create content, sell product, run a
business. Have the notoriety. Get the free gear. They don't
have to jump on a tour bus. They don't have to jump into a van.
They don't have to sleep at the, I mean, the Holiday Inn, yeah,
with the one with the pool in the middle, that's really noisy
with the kids. You know, it smells like chlorine. They don't
have to do any of that rich. It's funny,
because you're seeing a lot of ideas that, quite frankly, you
and I thought of, yes, we tried one. Which one the drumming
roulette idea? Remember that years ago, where I'd throw songs
at you, oh, yeah, and you had to play them.
But my thing was, right, you could play at them, but I am
just such a stickler for meticulousness and learning a
song.
You're not an ideal candidate to be in the seat. Yeah, you're a
host, but the whole idea of host it, you should totally host it.
Okay,
that's your friend, but you
definitely want Kevin Murphy on the panel, right? Oh,
God, right. He would, yeah.
Well, and also, well, look, and Kevin is, like, we know Kevin is
a person, but as a player, you know he's also, He's amazing.
He's worth the salt. And that's like, it's one of those guys is,
like, that's like, you know, it's, you know, he says things
that we wish we could say. He's just like, whatever this does
not care. He doesn't care. He's given him. But it's, but at the
same time, it's just like, you know, there's so many other
people that try to pull that and don't have the goods to back it
up. And I go, Well, Kevin, you're not wrong, and you're
really good. You're an amazing player. And I love, I love
hanging and playing with that guy whenever I got that
opportunity. Yeah, years ago,
I remember we were doing a double bill. He's playing with
Josh Grayson, and he was just that sounds like he's just like,
doing a one handed role on this hand that he did a one handed
role between his right hand and his right foot. And like, I'm
like, Oh my God, you're. Crazy buddy, you're gonna get fired.
Don't use that well.
He's also the first guy to go like he knows enough not to, you
know, he knows when and where to do it. That's another push the
envelope, yeah, but that that's also that skill set, and
whatever I think makes is what makes you a good not just good
drummer or good musician. It's like you you've got that skill
that's great, but you know not to do well, you've
been on a million sessions with a million cats. I mean, you're
working with everybody from, you know, like on one day you might
be working with me, another day you're working with Dan Needham,
another day you're working with Andy Hull.
What are some of the skills we didn't address something? What I
was down a little rabbit trick. Oh,
shoot. We'll come, come back to me. Let's finish this drumming
roulette thing. The drumming roulette. But you see, I
apologize, guys, that's right.
Drumeo has kind of taken that concept where they get these big
name drummers sitting in and then, like, they took Mike
Portnoy, and he had played a bunch of his stuff, they
interviewed him, and then they threw like a tool song at him.
Yeah, that's right, right? I have for 3045, minutes. He sat
there learning it. Well, they threw
a couple like, and I think it's, it's a very entertaining
concept, because you're going to take a drummer who's known for a
certain genre and throw the complete opposite genre and go
try this, right? And sometimes it's like, the results, the ones
that I've seen is like, Oh, that's a that's not the right
part, but that's a cool approach.
It's amazing to watch because they're, they're, they're,
they're just willing to put themselves out there. You know,
they don't have to do that, yeah, but I love the fact that
they do.
It's a little, it's a, you know, actually have a clinic coming up
in Albany, and hopeful all the flights make it and everything
with all this winter, get winter, get them. But snowball
winter snow gets Yeah. Anyways, if I make it there and
everything works, great. It's going to be one, you know, one
of my little one man shows, and the host is a great friend of
mine, Bobby angeletta, who's a drummer, and he's got a rock
band that he's had forever. He's been playing with these guys
forever, and he's going to have his rock band there, and I am
going to chart out on the spot one of their songs I've never
heard, and play it with the band. Nice. That was his idea.
We good idea. Can you get that videoed while I have another
friend? Stan Z, what's up? Stan is completely ignored. Stan is
so no, no. Stan Z, he's your friend. Is a great drummer, but
he's, he's a videographer, like a professional videographer,
that a new shirt, and he's gonna come out and film it. So, Jim,
I'm answering your question. Stan z is gonna come
out film Jim McCarthy
at the first voice first rules podcast interviewing is
listening. What were you saying? Anyways?
Okay, so go back to your your this television show that in the
making? Well, we
have the idea talk about this. I don't think we should. I think
we got to keep it under wraps. Okay, that's our little idea we
could talk to
copyright first. Yeah, who did you ask for?
Luis? Luis, yeah. Okay. One time he said, my name is not Lois. I
said, Luis, yeah, there you go. He said, Yeah, you did. But what
time the fact
that you called me out on this, that's great. I'm
used to it. I get it all the time.
One time I spelled it, l, o, u, i s, by accident. And you're
like, well, first of all, I'm not Lois,
yeah. Well, I get that at Starbucks all the time, so I'm
used to, like, Mitch
Mitch Mitch Mitch Redman, Mitch Redman,
God, I love that. That's, that's, I'm putting that in my
phone now, yes, I don't really go to Starbucks, so,
I mean, I don't know what I would get. Probably dick.
You want a dark Dick rose. Valid question again. That's Jim at
Jim McCarthy voiceovers.com, all your Starbucks now we return to
the show after the fact. He talks about his time his
friendship with Diddy. Okay. Yes. Continue. So yeah,
yeah, go back to your idea this time. Are we going to talk about
it? Well, here's the thing, I think that if we talk about any
of these ideas, yeah, they could be stolen. Totally,
yeah, probably valid. Keep it under wraps that way, just to
get someone
signs an idea worth pursuing, basically,
I'm the host. No, Kevin Murphy is going to be on the panel.
There's going
to be a panel. This is glorious sorts. I whatever you're
selling. Sign me up. Yeah, you just said panel. You Kevin
Murphy, and then he
could be a guest panelist as the
non drummer representative, the rep, but you have a rhythmic
sensibility, so big time.
I'd love to sure if that's the case. I'm in so with the
with the Dominican roots, yes, did you? Did you ever have that?
Tell everybody. And this goes
for you too, Jim.
I love the fact you mentioned panels. You just made me flash
back to a panel you and I were on back in like, 2008 Belmont,
so rich and I were on a panel. And when we're going around the
horn, introducing ourselves and who we work with, trying to do
the resume thing, or whatever I mentioned at that time because
I'd worked with Jamie O'Neill. Yeah, every time I mentioned a
name that I had worked with or was working with, rich
immediately started mouthing a drum part from one of their
things. There is no Arizona, yeah, that's exactly Jamie
O'Neill. And you start doing that, I'm like, yeah, that song.
It was, and it's so funny because the students are just
like, arms crossed, just like, All right, get on.
Just entitled Belmont. Kids, come on. Kids, it's like,
lighting up. People,
sorry, where were we rich? Is
world class at that? Oh, you know what? I mean, you could
verbalize and vocalize drum parts like nobody's business.
Oh, he's really good at it. I mean, I admire most drummers I
know are good at it, but they have their own version of it,
and Rich's version, like, is very you can first of all
understand exactly what he's talking about, right? But it's
rich doing it. So again, the comedy timing thing, it's like,
you just have to kind of give giggle a little
bit. The first time he told me he's like, Oh yeah, falling
rocks. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's exactly what it sounds
like, Absolutely. Sneakers in
a dryer. Yeah, see that kind of stuff. I
love when it slows down. And the best was
Pat Boone. Debbie Boone, that's
how you buy a house, kids, bucket of fish. We also have
kind of, like, a, you know, a quick language where I'm like,
hey, you know, because we're a lot of times we're not, it ain't
rocket science. We're playing straight eighth, like a ballad
or something. Mid temple. I'm like, Hey, intro, binka, pink
pinka. First verse, pinka, pinka, pinka, pink binca. Pre
chorus, pink binka. And then when we get to the chorus, four
on the floor, and he's like, got it, he writes it in, boom, we're
done, you know? And that
works. And it's really, it really does work that way. And
it's, it sounds silly if you're on the outside looking in, but
honestly, it's like, oh, okay, cool. Then we just saved a lot
of time me trying to figure out your kick drum pattern. Did you
do that with other drummers occasionally? Yeah, I've had to
do that with some other drummers that you can tell. It's like,
fishing. And then it's like, one of like, Hey, man, I got an
idea. How about this? And
I go, what kick drum pattern? Or are you going to play,
yeah. Boom, smack, boom, boom, smack. Yeah. Just, how about
boom, smack, boom, boom, smack. In this one, just, boom, smack,
boom, smack. And we're good, yeah, there was
one time I, you call them the money beats, yeah. And I was
watching an off episode of The Office, and Dwight actually
talks about, you know, him being a beat farmer. He says, you
know, we don't take the bad beats. We it's like the bad
beats we put down. We put the beats out and by the road that
are the that attract the most attention, something along the
lines of that. He goes, those are our money beats. I'm like,
Oh my gosh. Well, we got to pull that
clip. You have to use that as a and I should put it on my
website. You
should totally do Yeah, let's just get a trademark before this
episode comes out. Okay, let's
do that, Jim, making friends everywhere. Yeah. Anyways,
speaking of what, you were asking me about the Latino
stuff, but I digress. Yes, that is so there was a big portion of
that, and I was trying, I was gonna reference it earlier, but
obviously, growing up in that household, and that was very
president, so present, not President. Sorry. English, well,
that's on your mind right now, it's not everyone's mind,
exactly we're talking about, yeah. So it's, it's one of those
things where, you know, when I first moved to the town there, I
got involved with the salsa band pretty quickly, like there was a
thing, and it was one of those, had I have I played a
professional before at that point? No, but I knew enough
because of osmosis. And just, you know, part of the thing of
learning a song, you know, the majority that's listening.
That's the key thing. Is listening like, if you know,
more than anything else, than figuring out the notes, figuring
out your part, if you listen to something repetitively, you know
you already in your brain, kind of already know what you have to
do on your instrument. So a lot of those Latin rhythms were
natural to me, just because I had heard it for so long,
immersion, immersion in that, you know, and specifically with
like, we said, Dominican, like, it's merengue, which is kind of
like, it's very much like a four on the floor on steroids, you
know? And it very and that's it. So I was like that, that part
sees, because everybody talks about Latino music in the COVID
and and that little pushed for feel, especially for bass, like
hitting the downbeat, like an eighth note before the actual
downbeat, that kind of stuff. So yeah, all that stuff. Again,
that was my lesson as a musician to, like, listen,
was that here in Nashville with Lalo Davila, his band? I did
play with
Lalo, but that was after that. This was this gig. Was
beforehand. This was near early, early aughts, and this was,
there was a place in printers alley called Club caliente. Oh,
and it's now where the underground places that British
pub is, and that was run by a couple people, a couple from
Columbia, who are dance instructors, nice, and they
hired me and a bunch of people like we made a salsa band and
had a weekly gig there. Awesome. And it was great because it
built the repertoire. My reading chops got better, and just
playing with four percussionists was always a blast. Oh,
my god, yeah, because it's like, because when we, when we play
Latin rhythms on a drum set, Jim, we're basically
impersonating four people. But if you have the four, if you So,
you got a conga row, you got a bun Garo, you got a guy that's
playing, maybe the the playing, or maybe cowbell, yeah, and then
you got a guy playing Tim Bali, and it's all broken up,
you know, who's actually a drummer who has got a lot of
Cuban influence, and it comes out in his music. Take a wild
guess.
At least expected he's Jr. No,
it's not. You. Always, he actually is Cuban, but does not
really have a typical Cuban name. It's almost an Italian
name. It kind of is a thing. Well, I'm thinking
of one guy in particular, but he's a bass player. And this is
somebody's rock bass player, but
somebody has been on our show. No, this guy is a drummer,
renowned Heavy Metal, speed metal drummer,
Dave Lombardo, Yep, there you go. Wow. Okay, yeah, nice,
because you can actually hear the Cuban influence, yeah, yep.
He'll do that kind of stuff. Like, over like, he'll be like,
you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
yeah. So he's got all that to add to the right. See, that's
the thing is, like, listen, listen, listen, the things
incorporate everything. You get cool crap like that, totally,
totally, and then, and, yeah, I'm sure you had a jazz period,
like a straight ahead jazz period. And now the funny thing
is, if I had to choose between, like, I love playing big band,
but if I had to choose between playing straight ahead, small
group, bebop or 70s, 80s, 90s, fusion, I'm always going towards
fusion. Why is that? I just, I mean, I love swing, but I'm not
as crazy about playing small group swing as I am big bad,
oh, because it's a bigger thing, and there's more, I guess, more
for you to do, per se, more different things
so sexy and powerful about that amount of people working
collectively. You know, April in Paris, you know,
just I never tell you about the time I used to get really upset
at the haters. Used to get on YouTube, yeah, because they
thought all you could do was that, yeah, like the country
stuff, all right? And I'm like, You have not seen
a percentage of what this guy can do.
But in their defense, what have I done to show the world I can
do it? I haven't done it. I haven't put out my jazz fusion
record, but sometimes the jazz group, but
I've seen something of you. It's like an old VHS tape where
you're doing, like, fusion stuff. Oh yeah, you
were you're one o'clock, weren't you? Yeah, you see, there you
go. I mean that alone, like that carries weight. And what I'm
talking about is the whole thing. When you when you say,
Oh, you're one o'clock, it means you're in the one o'clock band
at North Texas State, which is the heavy jazz, like, cream of
the crop guys. So it's one of those things where that's almost
like a calling card amongst the musical communities. Like,
that's why I just said it now is like, you're one o'clock,
even, most of the guys go on. He's gonna play jazz
professional. Of course they do. And I like, I'm going to play
country
and west. There's nothing wrong with that. Bissonnette was
right, yeah, yeah. And
then when you think of Bissonnette, yeah, I mean, he's
great, Swingers, small, great, covers all the bases. But you
know, when I think of Greg, I think about David Lee Roth, of
course. Well, that's
what you saw him. That's the thing. Is, like, we always
associate, and people do this and they want to pigeonhole you
naturally, and it's just like, with you, it's like, the country
thing, because they saw you probably with Aldine, yeah? You
know, it's like, yeah, but you know, he does other things too,
and I've, we've all been there, yeah? And ask whoever, like this
person might know me from this, and this person might know me
from that. It's like, oh, I didn't realize you did. You
know, the first time I walked into the Christmas rehearsal,
Lindsey Miller, who was also one o'clock, you know, she knew
about me. We knew each other. We never worked before, but she's
like, the motion was, like, she comes, like, I didn't realize
you did this. Meaning, you know, I'm air basing an upright bass,
taking it for a walk, because she seen me do, like, session
work for country artists, yeah, whatever. It's like, No. Or she
saw me with a rock thing, you know, she didn't. It's like,
yeah, we, I think all of us, basically, you can take a panel
of everybody working musicians nowadays, and most everybody
what I is what I consider overqualified, yeah, meaning
that, and they're not one trick ponies, like they have the skill
sets obviously some people like, well, I don't do Latin jazz as
well as this guy, sure, but they're not just one trick
ponies. It's
hard to keep everything all polished up. And equally, I was
gonna sharp,
yeah. I mean, very, how long is will it take you to snap back
into full fusion swing mode? Oh,
just practice the material a couple afternoons and make sure
that I get the sticks in my hands like riding a
bike, kind of or,
yeah, is it? I think so?
Well, I mean, look, a good musician is a good musician, is
a good musician, even if there is an idiom or a genre style
that you're not familiar with, you know your instrument, you
know the approach. So it would be a matter of, Hey, I just need
to study up. I need to listen. I need to do this and then figure
it out. You know,
is this something that you do in preparation for gigs? For me to
learn stuff, I will chart it out, because by charting it
helps me learn it, and it helps me create a mental snapshot in
my mind. I could see the chart in my mind's eye. Then the other
thing that I do, over the course of however much I time I have
leading up to the gig, I will do the immersion thing. So
commuting, listening to the material, working out, listening
to material, cleaning the house, listening to the material. So so
it's in my DNA in a deep way, very
much, 100% 110% yes, it's everything. I mean, it's it that
is in the last you know, I kind of came off touring in 2020 and
I've been such a guy, but I've subbed in a bunch, yeah. So
anytime there's a sub opportunity, it's That's exactly
it is. Like I told you. About going for a walk. It's just like
throwing the earbuds, go for a walk and just put, you know,
create a playlist. Now that we can create playlists just like,
okay, they sent me a set list, and I don't have recordings, but
I have stuff off of the streaming services. And just
make your playlist, put them in order, let it run. Yeah, you
know, it's amazing. And, yeah, it's just literally listening
and listening. And when it comes time to have to sit at home and
with my instrument on to play. It's like, I already know this
is the key of G. It sounds like, Gee, I'm in the ballpark, you
know, it's that much, you know, I did that specifically. I
subbed in speed and Kevin Murphy, I subbed him for John
party for about a month in 21 and it was one of those, like, I
remember going for a walk, earbuds just on repeat, the set
immersion, you know, did, did that with Tom Kiefer, you know,
immersion. Here's the set. All right, cool. You know, that's
all on streaming here. There
you go. Yeah, hey, we had sterile on, and you guys were in
the Guess who together. Oh yeah, see, there
was another one. The same thing. It was like, when I got called
in for that, because that was thanks to both stereo and Troy
laketa, who called me for that. Yeah, even though Troy is like,
kind of also sub guy for that gig. And same thing, it was just
like, Okay, we know, like, and it's one of those, like, I went
through the list and immersion, like, I knew American woman,
obviously, you know. But I didn't realize, like, Oh, I do
know some of their stuff. I know no sugar tonight. I know no
time. I you know, some of these other things that were like,
kind of hits, and these eyes, you know. And I completely
forgot
Jesus, which, by the way,
deceptively hard for both drums and bass. Yeah. Like Gary
Peterson, the original drummer from the guests who, like,
called me out, like normal, nicest guy in the world. He
knows his stuff, and he's coming up on 80 and he's been drumming
since he was good kid. He's Yeah, and he still plays double
kick at like, 7770 Awesome. Yeah, great. But he was the
first one to go like, Hey, man, you're not playing the feel
right? He's like, Oh, and I'm I literally like, because you
think of that Doom, doo, doo. Doo is the baseline. It's you
can hear it, but you don't think about how it swings. And it
literally was like, I'm playing your eyes, like you're not
swinging hard enough for it. And I literally went and listened
about the third list. I'm like, oh, that's what he's talking
you mean the subdivision between back at ACT,
yeah, it's almost like, like, we think Doom, doo, doo. Doo is
bat, Duba da. It's like, there's a swing, you know? So me even
verbalizing it that way, that's stupid. At, yeah, exactly puts
you in that mindset, even though, like, the notes are
timing in the same spot, but it's how you get there, the
swing, yeah, what I was playing
the other night with Chicago. There you go. That does that.
Oh,
so all the watch, that's
kind of all the
David Foster stuff. David Foster and that stuff is slow.
That's a skill in itself,
with the gated reverb stuff and all that space
I'm just flashing back to the last 1516, 1718, years like him.
Like, every time he's like, oh yeah, oh god, it's like, like,
if anything, he must verbalize, you can definitely verbalize a
snare with a ton of reverb.
Now, you mentioned earlier voiceover, yes, for me, or
did you, have you done it? No, I, I've dabbled in it because
you've got
a you've got it like a very you've got a good voice, and you
have the ham factor. Oh, thank
okay. This is natural ham. Yeah,
well, I, the first time I got to dabble in it was at Berkeley.
Was like, there was a project, and like, Hey, can you I like
your voice? Can you come do a thing? And it turned into a
commercial spot for Amtrak. Nice. Wow. Why don't you call me
Amtrak, you know? So I gotta do that. And I thought about it,
and but then I always feel like, for whatever reason, I feel like
I'm not an effective communicator sometimes. Well,
you're very Arctic, so I don't think I am. I don't see myself
far more than I am. That's that is a lie. I'm just, I think I
stammer a lot. No, I don't think you do. Because honestly, it's
like, then I see and hear people like you and go, like, Yeah, I
can't do that. Really. That's like me trying to write a song.
And I work with so many world class songers. I'm like, Yeah,
but I can't do that. Oh,
can I? Can I brag on Luis? Yeah, he was honored with being able
to do a musician spotlight at the Country Music Hall of Fame,
which is basically an hour long presentation, and it's open.
It's on at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now, when you
think about the Country Music Hall of Fame, the clientele
coming through there. There are people that live in Nashville,
there are people that are not in the music business, and they're
also people that are just people that are just straight up
tourists. And they come once they pay their fee to get in the
hall, they can go to this spotlight. And so there's this
beautiful theater. It's packed. Luis invites me, and he does
this basically a rundown of his career. He talks about this
instruments that he played, his influence, his training, growing
up, his first opportunities, got to play these, and you were so
articulate. Oh, thank you. It was very entertaining. Well,
I appreciate that. Thanks. And honestly, that's one example
where I in the middle of it, I didn't feel articulate at all.
It was great, like I literally had the moment of, like, you
know, get over that I'm trying, and I know it's a process, but
even, like, walking out and in the middle of my presentation.
I'm going, this is why we'll Suck it, stand up, because
they're speaking of articulate and confidence. Because, you
know, you get the introduction, they give you the whole rundown.
Here's your credit, welcome, you know, whatever. And I walk out,
applause, whatever, and then it's dead quiet, and then the
mics on you, and you're like, so good afternoon. You did great.
Yeah. So I play bass. Okay,
I'm gonna play some, you know, that's what it felt like to me,
yeah, you know. And then looking in the eyes and having people
like rich and some other like, some of my Ariana cap was there
as well, who's a well known bass educator online. She does the
Scott space lessons and everything, and watching them,
me and some other my peers being the audience, and I'm just like,
Oh, crap,
great. It was, there was, there was very few UMS. It was so
perfectly put together. I hate to be rude. I'm just looking at
my phone because Jim's got a hard escape hatch. Time, we're
gonna do the Fave Five favorite color, blue, or, sorry, royal
blue. Specifically, a lot of that, right, buddy. It was just
blue the last Yeah,
so it's very much deep row blue,
almost purple. You've had time to think about these questions
too. I
have favorite drink,
alcoholic or non alcoholic? Is it like Cuban
coffee? What's your go to right now?
I like, I like, like, a Lacroix sparkling water kind of thing.
Yeah, I'll occasionally, if I'm a air quote, bad boy, it'll be
Diet Coke, yeah, you know. And then as far as an alcoholic
drink, I'm always a sucker at a nice, quiet place for an old
fashioned, nice
alcoholic drink buddy, Evan Williams, eggnog. I Oh, that's
good. That is
insanely good. That
is like saying, I'm gonna quote Dave, uh, Dave attel, remember
him? Yes, this is the quote he said about eggnog. He's like,
it's like, yeah, eggnog. I want to get drunk, but I really want
pancakes.
Evan Williams, spiked eggnog is the most incredible, because I
don't know if you guys know this, but Jim also, uh, he
produces the small town podcast, yeah, so
they try that in a small town.com they
were, they were, they were touting the the beauty of the
Evan Williams drink. And they did like 10 minutes on it, Chris
as a Christmas gift. Jim got me a bottle of it. Oh, fantastic.
And it did not last long. It was incredible.
Sure, it's really tasty. It's drinking Alfredo sauce. It
is, but a really good favorite food or dish.
That's a tough one, because that varies much like musical taste
depends on the day. But I mean at the moment, at the moment,
ooh, I I am a sucker for, like, a pasta with a pesto sauce and
grilled chicken. Yeah, there you go. Like, like, usually, maybe
Fettuccine, but sometimes I'm kind of thinking more like,
Penny,
yeah, I want the pine nuts in there too.
Oh, the pine nuts is little
amazing. Hey. So we're gonna change this question. Favorite
actress. Oh, gosh.
What are these stipulations on this? Just just skills.
They either the most talented or the most sexy or,
well, there is, and I you put me on the spot, I'm blanking, and
I'll remember this at three o'clock in the morning. But
there is one actress who's, at least, for me, like, just drop
dead gorgeous. But that, aside her skill set, she is freaking
amazing. And I remember a few actors saying, like, no, she's
got the good she is amazing. Redhead, probably close to our
age, pretty close. And I, it escapes me right now. It'll come
to me later. She got
mad men, I think she was Christina Hendricks. Was that?
Christina Hendricks? Yes, I think that's
it. Yes, you said redhead.
And I'm like, there's not a lot. There's Julianne Moore. Julian
was great too. Yeah, no,
she's great, but, but, but, yeah, she does, but, but, you
know, she's, she's really, obviously, really pretty and
whatever. But as as the skill goes, like, she's got in spades.
But also, I've read interviews where there's many, like, top
tier, like, legendary actors go like, Oh, she's, she's the whole
package. She's, she's a great
thespian. She works. I love that. And at the moment, what
would be a favorite song?
Again, tough on that, because it changes. But honestly, it's like
favorite song. It's tough. I mean, I've been going, kind of
revisiting jameroqui recently. Oh yeah, it's so much fun. It's
so good. And they
got new album coming out. Yeah, gooduba.
But even, like, some of the other stuff that's not like that
hit or whatever, it's just like, you go down that catalog
automaton is their last record that came out, like, four or
five years ago, and it's like the whole record front to back.
I can just put it on, and I'm happy
haven't heard that. But that baduba, which has got the built
in swing, reminds me of that first Maroon Five record. Oh,
yeah, same. Oh, that was really, really good, man Jim, ask your
question, buddy, and the
audience is bored. Now. Anyways,
you ever hear the band wigwam? Yes, the. Really good. Yeah,
they're so refreshing. Wigwam. Wigwam, is it like you watch the
peacemaker with John Cena? They did the the music for the intro,
all right, right, and it's one of the most quirky intros.
Hilarious.
John Cena has done really well in expanding his brand. Oh yeah,
wow,
have you in the same token, I'd be a miss if I didn't mention
another album. But are you familiar with the one band, one
album, band, toy matinee from the early 90s? Oh, yeah. Sheryl
Crow, yeah. Well, Sheryl Crow wound up being a touring version
of them for hot Yes, but it was her boyfriend at the time who
also helped co write, like, the Tuesday Night Music Club stuff,
yeah, but I mean, that record, that's uh, Patrick Leonard, the
producer who won up. That's why, and one of my biggest
influences, Guy Pratt on base, and guy got to play on the
Madonna record, like a prayer, because Patrick Leonard was
involved, and he produced that record. And that record, you
talk about power pop, like stuff. So good. Toy
matinee, toy man, you guys heard it here first, Jim, you want to
ask your trivi band question. So, yes, well, you just gave it
away. Sorry, guys and action, that's fine.
So you have to, okay, so what if you had to pick up a tribute
band and play the rest of your life in
what would it be that I had to personally play? I mean, you
have to do it every day. I'm gonna say Jamaica, because I'm
on that kick right now. Yeah, because, first of all, it the
skill set. It's fun music to play, but it's a challenging
thing, and bass wise, and it's just kind of one of those things
where you find that happy medium of, oh, the instrument I play,
what I have to do, brings a challenge to it, but it's so
much fun to do.
If think about when you're like, in your 70s, your fingers hurt,
and you're like, I just want to play Panama. I'd love to play,
I'd love to be in a Van Halen band too. But, I mean, I man Van
Halen rush
so many, you know, I think Huey Lewis huelus would be great.
Actually, I did get approached one time almost jokingly from a
drummer of buddy of ours about doing a Huey list in the news
tribute band. I'm like, call me. I'm here. Yeah, it's great
songs.
It is. They are fantastic. Yeah,
Hey, Jim, that's, that's, I mean, that's you, remember, you
gotta play every day, yeah, for the rest of your life.
So, Richard, you make that sound like it's a bad thing. I had to
play my instrument for every day for the rest of my life. Oh,
darn, that's my arm. Now, I know. Are
you gonna be going hunting after this now or,
Oh, because of my camouflage. Again, that's Jim. Hey, man.
I hope that. I hope you know, there's not a lot of comments on
the on the YouTubes.
Bruce Banner called he wants his shirt back. Hey, so Luis,
what is there if you want to reach out to you? What's the
best way do you have your own.com Yeah, I do. You spell
everybody, you spell your last name. Here
I will. So my, I do have a.com I don't really keep it up as much
as I should. But no, there. It's L, L, U, I, S, E, S, P as in
Peter, a, i, L, L, A, T as in, thomas.com
Luis, espayat.com it's just so fun to say. But you
know, obviously, more often than not, the social media stuff. So
Instagram is Louis bass, l, u, i, s, B, A, S, S, Luis, Luis.
Espayat base altogether, B, A, S, S is my Facebook page.
Instagram, Twitter's the same. I think I do have a tick tock,
even though I just saw the news that that might go away. Yeah.
Do you have, like, a central website? Did you mentioned,
yeah, Luis despaya.com everything's there. Everything,
all the links are there
too. Yeah, that's great thing. And I will say just really quick
in closing, that I really appreciate your commitment to
music education as well. You're passionate about it. You and I
have done the thing at the School of Rock at the rhyme in
many years, and the kids love you, and you're great working
with the kids. And same with our friend Michael sterto and Angie
and Kelly McCarthy. We love them so much, so much. We could talk
for hours and hours. Yeah, of
course. Well, we've also got history ourselves. We even get
into the stuff that we've worked on together.
What have we done? You got to come back? Well, I'd be glad to
Yeah, absolutely. What have we done over the last 20 years? So
much.
Well, the red door we've done now. We've actually, like,
legitimately played on records, and we do remember, like I was
having a good little happy moment we did there was a
Canadian artist that was, his name was Jay Allen. I remembered
it. Yeah? Murray Pulver produced, oh yeah, Canada, who's
in dark Walker and also crashes on music, produced that. And we
got to do that, yeah? And that was fun. So we've, we've gotten
to do some really cool stuff, whatever.
Anytime I walk into a room and I see you on a recording session,
like it's gonna be a fun day, yeah, you know what I mean?
Because, you know, a lot of people can do the thing, but
the, you know, the the thing that makes it fun is those soft
skills, you know, those that interpersonal. And it's, I just
always have a great time with you. Well,
ditto. And same thing with you. And it's also one of those
things where, like, playing with you, just personality great. But
even from a professional standpoint, I'm like, we have
nothing to worry about here. Rich is going to put the one
right where it needs. It needs to be. Boom, yeah, exactly. And
we know where it's gonna go. And I can, like, I always make sure
one of my things is, like, with most drummers, but definitely
with rich, is, like, if I'm in a room and I have a choice, I'm
like, put me in the room with the drums. I have isolation
cans, I'll be fine, yeah. And so I have a visual, because
drummers. Rich included, they have what I call poker tells,
yeah, so they'll be playing, you know, doing the grooving along
or whatever, and then all of a sudden, you see, maybe that
right shoulder comes up and he's like, Oh, he's about to do
something, but boom, but boom. And I got, he's like, how did
you know he's gonna do this? Like, you telegraphed
it. I was about to do Pat Boone. Debbie Boone, right into the
right exactly right to the bell of the ride. Jim, thanks for all
of your time and talent. You are so funny. I gotta say, I gotta
with the world as our witness. I just feel so grateful in 2025
that I have so many amazing friends, but it's a short list
of people who would broken down on the side of the road. You're
pulling up. Luis would pull up, you would pull up. And I
appreciate it.
I gotta say, Luis, when you first came in, you just, I love
the fact that you just came in. You know, we were recording the
other podcast. I'm serious. I'm not being facetious. That you
just, you kind of crashed it and you sat down. The moment I saw
you, I instantly liked you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's what.
For what for what it's worth, nice to be likable.
It is. It is nice to be liked. You can only do so much, but
even, even Mother Teresa had her haters.
Now here's the thing, Courtney's coming to pick me up. He's got
to meet Courtney. Let's see what kind of
read she gets. Oh, that would be great, because Jim's wife is
incredibly empathic. Oh,
really. Okay, yeah, all right. Well, goes mean luck, yeah.
Honestly, it wasn't my intention to crash last podcast. I was
gonna sneak in and be off to the corner. I loved it. I got pulled
in so I loved it. Loved
every bit of it. So I was, I could say is, thank you for
doing this, making the trip to Spring Hill. It was long
overdue. Congratulations on everything. I'm happy for you.
I'm proud of you, and I'm just, I'm just proud to call you my
friend. Ditto.
Man, absolutely. It's an honor, and thank you for having me. I
appreciate it absolutely. But I really do everybody check really
do Luis
espaya.com send him a DM. He'll get back to you right away. And
for all the listeners, we appreciate you. Thank you for
listening, thank you for watching. Be sure to subscribe,
share, rate and review. It helps people find the podcast. And Jim
would be very mad at me if I didn't promote some of my wares,
like my book Crash Course for success, which you can get
because Jeff Bezos will lick a stamp and will send it to your
house. Also, there's a brand new hardcover book, which is called
Making it in country music. And insiders look at the industry.
And if you're a drummer and you like to go rat Tat, Tat, but you
want to keep your marriage, you want to keep your relationship
with your neighbors or your band, you can get this three
sided Made in America, Pro Logic, rich Redmond signature
practice pad and we'll see you next time this has
been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate and follow along
at rich redmond.com forward, slash podcasts. You