Unknown: For anybody moving down here, you are starting a
business, whether you like it or not, which means you have to
have some magnitude of business acumen, definitely a good sales
approach. That's what I think made you rich, is that you
understood all that you knew you were somewhat of a master
salesman. You could back it up. You had, you know, you didn't
have the clout yet. You only had the clout coming from Dallas and
what you did, but you certainly had the education, but you had
biz, you know, you had a salesmanship to you, you know
what I mean? And that made a big difference. So a lot of these
people that are coming in, yeah, you gotta do a lot of stuff. You
gotta spread yourself thin. How many bands did you play in one
year that didn't have a scheduling clock? 2929 bands.
What year was that? 1999 right? You remember the year you were
playing the lottery,
totally playing, right? 27 of those acts do not exist anymore,
but you still had this. You know, you can't win if you don't
play. 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. We talk about
things like music, motivation, success. Drummers. We love the
drummers. They're everywhere. They're all over Nashville. This
is used to be guitar town. Now it's drum town. Everybody's
coming from New York, LA, they're coming from all the
schools all across the nation, and they know that they can buy
land here, they could put their kids through school, and they
can make a living playing the drums. And we're gonna talk to a
great drummer today, but first I want to catch up with Jim
McCarthy. Jim McCarthy voiceovers.com, Hello, Jim. How
was your holidays, buddy?
It was busy. I take that back. Maybe it wasn't so busy. It was
relaxing. We got to pull the plug a little bit. Yeah, we got
to smoke a cigar recently. Today, cigars, which is no one
has done that. I'm feeling very Mark Marin right now because
he's always bragging about how people bring him gifts. This is
the first gift that we have gotten on the show. Oh my god,
actually,
no, we had the keyboard player. He brought us some some gifts to
Ray luzier brought us some coffee.
Oh, yeah, some nice coffee. Yeah. And I didn't have a
grinder, a bean grinder, so then the I gave the coffee to John
hull on the road, Paul, Paul, Brother Paul. Brother Paul.
Brother Paul is always actually brother Paul and his band, the
water boys, just had a big write up in Rolling Stone magazine,
yeah, they put out this amazing, like, conceptual album that took
five years to make, and the critics are all raving about it.
So he's a, what an amazing person. Shout out to Brother
Paul. So positive, so positive. And I still have his you know
how he was in really into tea?
Yeah, he brewed his own tea. I still have his tea pot. I had
him on my podcast, the mostly Middle Tennessee business
podcast, mmtbp.com, check it out. It's actually, he was on my
podcast.
You're a promo sexual he did the same exact thing. Yeah, yeah.
Well, hey, listen, this is that time of year in Nashville where
the stores are empty. Everyone is robbed of milk and water,
everyone's bread, French toast tomorrow apparently. I mean,
it's crazy. It's that time everything's getting salted. And
it's also, if you're the kind of person that gets fever blisters,
maybe you kiss the wrong person in college, and this thing just
keeps following you around. I'm sporting a major one right now,
so if you can't see it,
the concept of TMI,
I just kissed the wrong person. Jim, hey, this is a great
drummer. This is like timing is, you know what the secret to
comedy is? Jim,
timing, timing,
where's the splashable? So our friend, born and raised in
Columbus, Ohio, he graduated with a music business degree
from Capital University. He is a working drummer. I mean,
actually, he has a podcast called The Working drummer
podcast. He's played all over the 50 states. He's played all
the cool spots in Nashville, the rhyme and the grand old Opry,
all the hipster rock and roll rooms. He's played with guys
like Mark Selby, Eddie, Raven, Billy Dean. We're talking
Michelle Wright, Julie Roberts. Recently, most current gig, he's
been playing with the front men of country, which is Larry
Stewart of restless art, Richie McDonald of Lone Star. You know
Richie, our friend Tim rush low of little Texas. And what else
do I want to brag. He works with producers like Eric Fritz, Jim
Riley, um, we have that in common. Great people. And his
podcast, the working drummer. Working drummer podcast, working
drummer.net. Started in 2015 he has a sidekick, a co host, Zach
albeit, he does an amazing job. And today is very special,
because they're celebrating 500 episodes. Our friend, Matt
Krause rich, What's up, buddy? What an intro. Man, good to see.
Yeah. Man,
oh, he's got some new sounds over
there. Oh, they're not new. Oh, I
just never used it. Jim finally
labeled the buttons toilet flush. Oh,
remember some of the old ones? Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh, the
pooping and puking. Yeah,
we're children in adult skin. That's good. I'm feeling
inspired. You know, we were trying to go organic and create
our own sounds, but I didn't know. What if you want virus,
man, I, you know, I you have to extend a thank by proxy to Kevin
rappilo, Angela Lisi, our friend, Chad Melcher, Canadian,
great Canadian, and I'm trying to think of
these. Are all guests on your podcast,
guests on our podcasts that have brought Justin Amaral was very
kind, brought, uh, some wonderful gifts that I'm just
I'm just blown away by their kindness. And I'm and it's one
of those things that you learn that you're like. It sometimes
only takes that one time to make a really good impression. Yeah,
I was in a band that worked with a an investor, and he sat down
and he told us, look, listen, after you do this gig, maybe
take a picture with the person and then develop the film, put
it in a frame, sign it. Thanks so much for hiring us. Send it
off. And we're all sitting there going, what? Yeah, and it's
those relationships, because this business, yeah. But
that was just, that was just very thoughtful. And you brought
us some coffee, some black coffee, which is great. Thank
you so
much. Is there a possibility to make a good second like a bad
first impression, but have a an ability to make a better
impression on the second round. You believe in that? I
I believe that it's always best to do it on the first time
around, because that is ingrained in people's minds. But
I think a lot of people understand that everyone has a
bad day, and maybe you caught that person on a
bed. Yeah, here's another funny thing to to your point that you
must have said about like somebody sending you a special
gift which made an indelible imprint in your mind. Check this
out. So I keep this card behind me, right? It's a picture of me
that is the most handsome picture of you. Thank you.
Because, you know, as we get older, it's much tougher to take
good pictures of ourselves. And I was sitting in a hotel room.
We were going for orientation at my daughter's college at UTC
Yeah, and I looked up, I was getting some work done, and I
looked up in the mirror from the laptop, and I'm like, you know,
I actually kind of look good if I could take a picture with
like, and I put up a thing on Facebook talking about, like,
you know, as you get older, you just kind of, you're not in love
with some of the pictures you take. As you get older and
older, I'm, at least me. I'm that's probably because of the
weight, but, you know, I'm working on it. And this one has
a great picture, and I just kind of put up a post about it. Got a
lot of cool comments. This guy printed it out. I'm not even in
his industry. Yeah, he does like F and I for training for the car
business. I pray that your special day brings an abundance
of happiness. Is my birthday card. We went and sent me a
birthday card. Peace and true joy to you today and always have
a happy birthday. My friend, velko to Kyiv, so velko, kudos
to you. Yeah, it's sitting on my desk now. Yeah, it's like, I
will never it's like, Dude, that's awesome. I
need to start being more super thoughtful like that, you know,
because, you know, you know, we have our companies, or, you
know, our company relationships that we meet everybody at the
NAM show. And next thing you know, you're endorsing a drum
company or something. And you want, you know, at the holidays,
you might want to send them some, maybe a some Harry and
David cookies or pears or something. But a lot of times
it's like, you know, it's a Starbucks card. You know what? I
mean, it's just like, let's it's, let's just cover our
bases. I can buy everybody everything right now at this
counter, but it's not very thoughtful. I mean, this is
thoughtful.
Thank you. Well, and also, I could, I had lunch with a friend
of mine years ago, and it was our first time meeting, and he
sent me a handwritten thank you. Yeah, that showed up at my
house. Wow. And I've held on to that. It
makes an impression, yeah, because somebody put effort into
that. Yeah, you know, it's crazy,
you know, I used to do, and this is some shame on me. I guess
things have either gotten busier or I've gotten lazier. Is that
every time I would do a drum clinic, I would write a
handwritten thank you card, and I would send it to the store so
you are thoughtful. Come on. I used to do it, and now I'm now
just like, it's like a text, thanks so much for having me,
guys. I'll see you next time. I mean, I don't know. I think it's
just a product of the times we're living. Well,
yeah, well, it's easy to really stand out, because if you do go
analog, you can certainly make an impression
Exactly, exactly. I think there's so many times I have got
two young son, well, young adult sons, however, yeah, they're 19
and 22
oh my god, yeah. They don't look old enough. That's a lot of cool
testosterone in the house. Man,
it is. But they're mostly out of the house. Yeah, one's getting
married. But anyways, I remind them I said. It doesn't take
much these days to stand out. It really does, if it holding a
door, looking, not staring at your phone, but paying attention
when using correct
grammar and just English in a text message and not text speak.
I like I'm trying to break my kids of that, not luv. Or, or,
oh, you know what drives me nuts when people refer to people as
ppl? Pupil, Oh, yeah. Oh, that drives me
purple, all those little things. And I think that I see it paying
off, yeah, little things that they
do. So, man, you're a world class drummer. You've been here
26 years. You're in the trenches. Everybody knows
Nashville is you know, a place where you come to move the
career floor forward. It's New York, it's LA or it's Nashville.
Of course, I always talk about the tertiary markets. Those are
great your Austin's, your Miamis your Seattle, they have great
music scenes. But really, there's, there's, like, three
big ones, and Nashville is becoming the favorite, right?
Yeah, where it's like, wow. You know, I just moved here to
Spring Hill, Tennessee. I took myself. I used to live right by
you. Was this from our old neighborhood, Starbucks corner.
So convenient, yes, so convenient. But, you know, you
can, you know, for the moment, you could buy a home here, and
there's dirt and and, and, but at the same time, you know, we
could be, we could challenge ourselves. There's classical
music here, there's rock and roll music here, there's
contemporary Christian all types of Country and Western music.
Busses are leaving this town every single day. Songs are
being written right now. It was a game changer for you to move
here right as far as like, what you were aspiring to do and what
you did, you did it, yeah, well,
it was, for me, it wasn't moving to Nashville. It was moving out
of Columbus, right? It was moving away from home, yeah?
Because, as we were discussing off air before we started, I
went to school. I went to college, studied at a university
level in my hometown, capital, university
with Bob brouthype, brighthope. Brighthope, sorry, yeah, sorry,
Bob, because I saw Bob last two basics ago, because I went to
one of those Yamaha sounds of summer drum set camps. And it
was Ed So Bob and Steve Houghton. They
used to do that every summer at Capitol University, every
summer, yeah. And when I worked for Bob one summer, he's like,
Listen, if you just want to hang out at some of the sessions
while you're working for me, we'll, you know, do that. That's
how I afford it, to kind of hang out, yeah? So we both kind of
went there, right, yeah, right. And there was one other Ed Soph,
Ed Soph and
Steve Houghton. Steve Houghton, that was where Steve Houghton
was like, Hey, kid, you know, you're up tempo swing. You
gotta, like, double down on that. That's an Achilles heel.
Like, you know, he wasn't, he was great. He just cut to the
point your reading's Great. Style is great. Use it then to
get down to Cadet and get get that going here, you know? I was
like, All right,
thanks, Steve, yeah, and Columbus is another one of those
towns with the talent. Is amazing. I was so inspired by so
many of the musicians and the drummers that were there. Yeah.
I also, after college, started working at Columbus pro
percussion. Nice, Jim Rupp shop owner, yeah, okay, that's right
time. Okay, yeah, not anymore, but so I got to meet and got to
know all these players that I was aspiring to be more like.
And when you're a kid, you think all you got to do is get good
and you'll be successful. Well, we know that's not true. Yeah.
And it was more profound to me when I saw some of my favorite
players struggling to buy sticks. Whoa. And I had friends
that had moved to Nashville and were saying, When are you coming
down? When are you coming down? You know, mid to late 90s, they
were here. They were doing it. Listen, musicians are treated
with respect. It's a legit vocation. I don't know. I mean,
I was feeling comfortable. I was still in my hometown. I knew the
lay of the land. I was getting to know the community. I was
playing with so many people. I was subbing for my heroes, yeah?
And I was working in a rock band, pop band, deadhead band,
Brazilian Brazilian band, fusion, uh, plan and a 22 piece
Big Band every Monday night. Nothing like with my former
teacher, yeah, but learning more in that moment than I did when I
was in school
in an academic environment, yeah, yes, yeah. So I felt like
I had more
to do. Yeah. And then my relationship with my now wife,
was growing, and it's like there was just a lot going on. I
wasn't ready to go. Meanwhile, one of my high school friends,
Jay Demarcus, had moved down. I did not know that. I did not
know that. Yeah, okay, so in high we went to a vocational
school together. You start to school, studied piano and bass,
and he was in a Christian rock band, and he's like, come play
drums with us. And so I played in that band for a little while,
and then right out of high school, he was like, I'm going
Nashville. And I'm like, what you're supposed to go to
college? That's what you do after high school? He's like,
not me, yeah. A lot of my friends, yeah. And just that was
just hardwired in me to do that, which I'm still very grateful
that I did. So Jay was one of those people. So Nashville had a
draw for all the organic reasons. All those reasons you
knew people. You knew that it would be a respected thing. It
didn't have the scariness of hailing taxis, learning the
subway system, living on the 405, and yes, and that makes
sense. But I could totally relate to that, because when I
was in Dallas, kind of, my finishing school was in Denton,
and you're getting all sorts of academic experience, and then,
you know, it's like me and Jim Riley and Carlock and Luke Adams
and Blair Simpson, all of us. We would work in Dallas. And Dallas
had such a beautiful, robust scene. It was like, Well, I want
to play in that fusion band, and I want to play in that and I
would play in a 22 piece Big Band on Monday nights, and then
another one on Tuesday nights. And it was like, my finishing
school was like, I really want to check this box, yep, and then
I'll make this move. So I was 26 when I moved here, and quickly
turned 27 and my first person that I saw and met here was Jim
Riley, wow. Who was your first person that when you moved here?
You know, did you run into somebody at the at the Lowe's or
the Starbucks or the
who was the first hand you shook that?
Oh my gosh, who was the first person you networked with?
Yeah, man, right. Well, I think
I needed to start working and paying rent, because I was still
traveling from Nashville to Columbus, which is a seven hour
drive, and still playing with some of the bands in Columbus
and coming back, and then putting my rent on my credit
card and just oh, gosh, another friend, Josh Berkheimer,
elementary school friend, wow, Columbus that I've known longer
than anybody alive. Right now, I haven't talked to Josh in
forever. Is he still at it? He's great, yeah, he's back in town
and just, yeah, staying really busy. And but I needed a job,
and I think I went to a temp agency and worked in an office
for like, two weeks in office space, the real office, the real
office. I mean, I did the job for two weeks before I got off
for the job at forks, drum closet, all right, Gary, so it
was, it was an easy transition. Gary knew Jim, one of their key
employees, was leaving, also named Matt. It was a easy fit,
yeah, and but I quickly learned Nashville is not Columbus. And
from a retail point of view, you have Touring professionals a lot
with endorsements. You don't have the weekend warriors. You
don't have the people with real jobs just, I mean, selling in
Columbus at COVID propagation was easy. I was probably the
worst salesman at forks, drum closet, really. Yeah, a lot of
those guys to this day still make fun of me and laugh at the
live opportunities. Why
did they think that?
Well, I think someone would come in and say, I think I need a new
pedal, and I'd take it, and my gym rep sensibility would be
like, well, let's take a look at this. Oh, well, just need a new
spring, and let's clean this and oil it up. And there you spend
$5 and off you go. Oh, instead
of setting so instead of taking advantage of the opportunity,
you just figured I would just,
yeah, and Gary's like, what are you doing?
You gotta, I mean, forks does have a beautiful repair
department. They do.
They do. And, I mean, I'm being somewhat hyperbolic, but at the
same time, they weren't angry. They were just like, man, you
could have is
your training? Does Gary put you through, like, a day or
something where it's like, this is sales 101, it
was Marcy goosey, where Columbus percussion. It's like, well, we
have these seminars through Nam. We're going to send you guys off
to do this. I was the president of the Student Association of
Nam because of my degree in music business. So I was doing
that. I was I was not focused on working in the retail industry
or doing music business per se. I wanted to be a player, which
is why I moved to Nashville. Yeah, it was interesting. So I
mean, love forks, love Gary, and we got to a point where I was
getting more and more calls to do gigs and could not sustain
the workload he needed from me. And
when, what year was this? 2000 2001 Okay, I think
before my time. Yeah. And so he's like, You need to make a
choice. Either I need you here or can't have you working here.
And I was like, Gary, thanks for the opportunity. I moved down
here to play, yeah? And we had, you know, probably a day or two.
We were just not happy with each other. And then we're like,
quickly
reestablish. I'll come back and shop here, you know, because, I
mean, that was around the time when, you know, I'm sure I would
come in and chat with you, yeah, down in, because now that
original Gary is so he was so forward thinking. It really did
start as a drum closet, and then he was able to open the closet
up a little bit more. Then he got that space next to corner
music, which is now a, you know, high dollar athleisure V A
store. So bougie, yeah. Mean, it is, it is the best athleisure.
If you like Lulu Lemon, you will love viori. Anyways,
is it kind of like a knockoff brand, or is it the superior
brand, Lulu Lemon?
It's a little bit more, I think it's a little bit more
expensive. Does it have the va va voom with the ladies? Yeah,
oh yeah. But actually, their men's line is, is nice. So if
you want, like, nice workout pants that like taper and make
you feel sexy. You go and you drop them why? Because you had
you. And I would always teach each other to why. And I at the
YMCA on Old Hickory Boulevard, and I miss it. They closed it
down. I miss it too. It was so great because there was a lot of
it was like an older community that would go there, and a lot
of times there would be no one there, and you and I would just
have the run of the place, and I realized you were a serious, you
know, serious about maintaining your playing career and staying
healthy and wanting to be healthy for the rest of your
life. Because you weren't doing all these, just like standard,
all right, let's do some squats. We're doing, do some burpees.
I'm out of here. You were doing all sorts of things with
kettlebells and stretching and all that stuff to Yeah, you
know,
stretching is like the elixir for age, right? Do it every day?
Yeah, it's the science is still out. We just can't slow it down,
right? I mean, it totally and, and again, at forks when I was
there, that's where I met people like you, yeah, and, and drummer
Jim Riley, and such a hub, yeah, and I'm trying to think of Trey
gray. Trey gray. We became close there, and I got to know so much
about what country music was. I knew nothing about I knew Garth
Brooks and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers was, yeah, but I
just knew there was something about Nashville that could offer
that. So I'm trying to think players like Greg Morrow on a
very unassuming, so quiet, yeah, and just sweet. And I'm like,
wait a minute, I know. I now know who this is. This guy's a
badass, but his personality so sweet. That's the key. I just
got to be really nice and sweet to everyone, and they'll think
that I'm great. But
the funny thing is, to your point, and I was, you know, when
you brought it up before about your selling ability, that's a
sales technique. You know, you you asking, the only thing I
would qualify because I spent some time in sales, your your
Integris nature came out. You know what? I mean, that's a
relationship builder that I know this guy's not going to take
advantage of me, yeah. But I mean, I the only thing I would
say before that me, like, Okay, are you interested in getting a
new pedal? You just want to fix the old one? Yeah, that would be
a good question to ask going into it. But I mean, that
approach is very relational, the way you went about
it, yeah, I don't want to take anything away from what Gary No,
no, no,
absolutely still got to be a businessman, yeah. But if you
were to in there for the long haul, you would have built up a
book of business, as
did Gary and Melissa, right? Because it was based on that.
And I had that scenario with Ben Caesar earlier, when I first met
him, yeah, and as a salesman, helping him find a new double
pedal and a new company. And then, like, Man, I like this
guy, hearing him try out pedals and like, Wait, whoa, who does
he play with? This is great. And then expanding those little ways
of expanding my world and under better understanding what
Nashville was yeah and is Yeah, but Nashville was in 2000 2001
my new world. Where do I fit? I'm not the kind of medium fish
in a small town, I'm a very small fish in a big town. And
how do I manage that? And
now you're a big fish in a little, big town. You really
are. I mean, you're a big fish. I mean, somebody needs a
drummer, your name's going to be on the list. That's the thing
is, you got to get on the list right? And now you're on the
list. You put in 26 years, you should be on the list. Thank so,
thank god, that's amazing. So, yeah, you got to meet a lot of
the tastemakers and the guys that were doing it totally, you
know, totally. And so before I came, I kind of knew, all right,
you got to get to know Greg Morrow, Chad Cromwell, Lonnie
Wilson, Eddie bears, there's a Shannon forest kid, Paul lime,
Steve Brewster, is doing the Christians? Like, where are
these guys? Where do they hang out? Can I shake their hand? And
then you realize, well, I could be a fly on the wall. I can ask
them questions, but they're not necessarily gonna get me work.
I'm gonna have to get work from band leaders, bass players,
keyboard players, contractors. Yeah, you know they could. They
could. They could show you the way. Totally, yeah, you know,
but at
least you know the to your credit. And this came up in a
recent conversation on a podcast that I produce, the people
coming to town now, especially in the songwriting arena, they
don't seem to have a reverence for those who came before them,
understanding that they're standing on the shoulders of
giants. Three chords in the truth. Yeah, no, but Harlan
Howard, apparently that's a thing now, like there's just
they have no idea who people are, the people that wrote the
biggies. You know that they're
trying to, you're right. I mean, I think it's, is that say, is
that the same nuance than that? Because I know you have people
that reach out to you and say, Rich. I don't know if you know
who I am, but I'd love to have coffee. Yeah? And meet river of
coffee. I had, I had that meeting with, with a great young
drummer about a month ago. Yeah, and one of his inspirations was,
you, wow. So it, I mean, there are young people that are, you
know, finding, but I do have conversations with people, and
they're like, I, don't, I don't know who that is. Wow,
what Eddie bears. You mentioned Eddie bears or something like
that.
No, no, no, wasn't Eddie, but, you know, could have been even
somebody like Greg Morrow or somebody like that, Jim
McCarthy.
That's understandable, so, but, I mean, I Jim played in
Connecticut white bread, though. I mean, that's, you can't deny
it. That is a good
I mean, that's, that's, you know. I also
wonder if access to information is so easy now
there's no excuse for it these days, you know. But I'm
wondering if that would be
the excuse is like I can access everything I need to know
through the pot, through a podcast, through YouTube
interviews, through all this stuff, where, if you wanted to
find something out, even as simple as how to get from point
A to point B, you had to pull out a map. You had to do, we're
from that generation, so not to be the old guy on the lawn, but
how do you kind of repurpose those skills? Yeah, in a way
that's useful
is there, is there a reverence for the amount of access to, you
know, again, standing on the shoulders of giants, those
giants that are in town, like when I first moved here, was for
radio, yeah. And moved here in oh, five, having a heavy
drumming background. Once upon a time, I would go to forks and
see, you know, hey, you can get lessons from Chester Thompson
and Johnny Rabb. And I'm like, Oh, my God, right, really? Yeah,
that's so cool.
And, and how do you, how do you have that reverence? But how do
you make that transition from it's time for me to go, it's
time for me to work professionally, and, you know,
share the space or have my gig as well. Yeah, that reverence
has never gone away, if anything, it remains. And after
doing the podcast, which I'm sure we'll talk about, yeah, uh,
I've learned that I that reverence is transferable to my
peers, to younger players that I feel inspired by and and kind of
see it as a as a community that gives me more peace of mind, as
opposed to, where do I fit? How will people see me, and the
competitive that you know, competitive nature is in and
shedding that, yeah, so that you can then get back to what
inspired you to pick up the sticks. Well,
as we know, the drum community is the best, you know, you know,
back in the day, you know, when I said,
Thanks, bye See, ya
know, I'd go to The Great Escape and and it was like a comic book
store, but it also had used records and tapes, and I would
just get, you know, you know, uh, Tammy wynette's Greatest
Hits and Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits and Gene Watson's
Greatest Hits. And so that's what, how I started to learn the
vernacular of country music. And then we could look at the actual
written credits and go, oh yeah, Jerry crew, and oh Tommy wells,
oh my God, oh Eddie bears. And then so you I learned these
names, and now we just keep trying to buy records. Now, if
you have $13 a month for Spotify. You have all the
world's music at your fingertips. So then you could
just Google top Nashville session recording drummers.
Boom, it comes up. Those are all the names you can go to drummer
world, right? You could read about the guy. Then you could go
to their allmusic.com you could look at their discography. Then
you could start to go on Spotify and put playlists together by
style, by artist, by Tempo, or by drummer. I was like, so all
the kids that come with study with me, I'm like, hey, put
together an Eddie bears playlist, a Lonnie Wilson play.
You're gonna now you're covering 80s. You're covering 90s, the
early 2000s you got these playlists and find out what
makes these drummers ticks. Do they do they like high pitched
snare drums? They're the do they program loops a lot, what's
their their vibe and their swagger, and why does Lonnie
Wilson never play the ride cymbal? And you know what I
mean, but, but there's a lot of crashes, and everybody has this
thing that they brought to the table, right? Which is so cool,
and
I think you're making me realize and telling us that about what
inspired me to start the podcast. Because when I was
working retail at Columbus or in Nashville, I had this really
organic way of discovering who these players were, yeah, and
then using that as a launching point to then go down those
rabbit holes. And, you know, it's like, oh, so this is Greg
Morrow. He played on that Montgomery Gentry record of all
those songs that I've I have to learn for this week. This is my
town, right? Yeah. And it's like, as I'm learning those
songs for gigs and writing charts, I'm like, wow, that
that, or when I was one of my first big artist gigs, well,
artist gigs. What a musical artist gigs was Mark Selby,
yeah. And. He was kind of like a rocker, yeah, for sure, but we
were, you know, opening up for country artists and doing
different things like that, and and Chad Cromwell played on his
record that we were touring on. And so I got to dig deep into
that, his style, his approach, his sound, and then talk to Mark
about that experience. What does he do and then meet him
personally? So when I left that I I missed that interaction,
that that actual match, as opposed to just like, turning on
YouTube or whatever, and kind of, like, no, I need, I need to
know more, not because I'm looking for gigs from drummers,
but like, how does it? How do I stay dialed in to the
vernacular, to Gosh? Deep Brewster is such a great example
of a drummer that's been on the scene for decades, yeah, and a
seasoned player, but knows that he has to stay current with drum
tones, sounds, styles, approaches, because he's in the
studio, and young producers, young songwriters, are going to
be like, Okay, here's the song, let's go. And he's going to be
like, I know what to do for this. As opposed to, well, this
is what we used to do, and this is how we did it, and this is
how I did it, yeah? He knows that doesn't fly. Yeah, he's a
perfect example of that. And so that, I don't know, again,
drumming community the best, yeah, and it's, we're, we're in
a practice, right? Like, like a doctor, like a lawyer. It's,
it's forever, yeah, it's, it's, it will continue to be, you
know, that type Yeah, totally.
And now, now, I'm sure you have your Nashville family tree where
it's like, this, be got that. Be got that. So you're working with
Mark Selby, and then then maybe you get a call from Billy Dean,
and you're working with Michelle Wright, and you're touring
Canada, and maybe you're playing with Julie Roberts, and you get
to play the Grand Ole Opry. Now, this last gig that you did for a
while front men of country music, yeah, that to be fun.
Tell us about that experiment, because those are three. I
because those are three iconic voices, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So again, that all stems again. I love the way you
refer to it as the family tree, and I can see the base of it,
and then it branches off. You do a gig, you meet somebody, you
really connect, and it branches off. And then on a next gig, you
meet somebody else. So one of the scenes that I've been in and
out of in the 2526 years has been lower broad, yeah, like so
many people, I don't live down there. There's been moments
where I've gone five, six years without stepping foot down
there. But in working down there with players that I adore, I met
a bass player whose close friend was a guitar player who was
really close with Larry and did a bunch of stuff with Restless
Heart. And so he was starting to form a core band that would go
out and support these guys doing solo or dual acts. So we did a
Tim rush low show. Yeah, we did, you know, Larry and Richie
together. We did those. And then they're like, over time, it
started to get more and more, and they're like, Okay, they're
gonna combine, and we're gonna do a super corporate, call it
the front men of country. So I was on the ground floor of that,
yeah, and so it was exciting, but I had just left a road gig
after, you know, oh, is this the savannah jack man. Savannah jack
man, after 15 years feeling good about working from home, doing
more home studio stuff. Okay, work, building my network again,
diversifying my portfolio, if you will, gotta make
sure you have gold and you got to have art, gold bars and art,
that's right. And Doge, no, and
crypto, were you in the crypto? No, you're not okay. I do. I got
to get in the game, man, I think
I have some Doge somewhere on a lost app.
Oh, you might want to find that. Yeah, I think so.
So especially after tomorrow when Snowmageddon hits. Anyways,
I but I found myself, we're going to Texas, and it was like
it was all fun and exciting the way it is. You're I'm back on a
bus and but before I get to that point, I can say, lead singers
can be tough. It can be great. It can be the worst
Tim. Tim knows what he
wants. Yeah, he'll tell you, Well, you got three lead
singers. Yeah, you
got three. You're like, this could be a nightmare. I think,
canceled each other out. They were the sweetest to work for,
and gave me a lot of power and control from the drum throne,
nice and so, like, this is record tempo. Do we want to move
it? Uh, I feel like you're pushing. Do we want to do this?
No, no, you let us know. What do you where do you want to go? How
do you want I mean, lots of collaboration in those early
rehearsals. They're so chill, yeah. And
I'm like, I like this. Did you have two clicks as a general
rule from the studio recording? Or no, I
did not. I don't remember exactly. I think it's when I
hear where they're putting the melody. And each one of those
guys has one singing right down the middle, one's on top, and
one's behind, or, you know, so it's just trying to treat each
one differently. Now they would sing each of their hits, 40
number one hits between three of them, you know, 30 million
whatever. And so playing some of these hits with the playing
bluest eyes of Texas, with Larry singing, yep, was goosebump.
What did they sing in your house?
Front Porch, looking in No, did they sing
from your house? Though? Jim, did you have a home concert?
Yeah, why? Because back in the day, I have a story. That's why
I resonate on this is okay. When the front men were getting
started, Tim reached out to me because I was doing the vid SIGs
at the time. You can recall those, the white background
videos. That's how you and I met totally and they saw yours, they
saw Reggie hams and stuff like that. So I think I don't know if
Tim reached out to you and you pointed him my way, or maybe he
reached out to Reggie. But anyway, he called me up, told me
who he was. I'm like, Oh, hey, how you doing? He's like, So,
hey, we want to do a video, much like you did for Reggie and
rich. And I said, Okay, you know, I said, I shoot him in my
front room, man, you know, are you okay with that? Are you guys
are used to hide budget music videos, and I've seen the Lone
Star videos where they're on glass floors and all this. I'm
like, It's not that. It's my front room and it's your front
room, looking in my front room, looking in, yeah, and he, we
ended up shooting the video with all three of them. And it was,
it was one of those things that was kind of so profound. Because
when I moved here in oh five, I just always had this impression.
I said, you know, Courtney, my wife, Courtney, I said, I just
have a feeling we're gonna have people of note, like artists in
our house. And that happened, I believe in oh nine or 10, four
years after we moved here. I mean, literally, it was a night
where she, like, made all the food and everything, and like
catering, if you will, and Larry's trying out the pizza she
made. And so great, Richie's asking which tie he should wear.
He's asking Courtney for advice, and I'm looking at her, and
Richie starts playing,
amazed, yeah. And you know,
already there, and all these amazing songs in our living
room, and it's the voice, and I'm looking at Courtney, I'm
like, can you freaking believe
this is in our house? Yeah, very
intuitive. You made it
happen, buddy. I just, I just knew, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So
that was, that had to be fun. Yeah, it
was, it was fun, and it was, I found myself back out, and it
was, and still, those guys, as legendary as they are, they were
starting a new band and a new project, yeah. And so their
budgetary concerns and so, you know, it was great. They leased
a bus. We weren't in a van and trailer, and that was beautiful.
She'd leave on a Friday, go to Texas, play on a Saturday, be
back sometime Sunday. Yeah, there's three days in town. I
was missing. And, you know, they were taking care of us, yeah,
but I was still missing opportunities, and I So, long
story short, it just got to a point where, like, I felt like I
was re establishing myself from a home base, and I was missing
that. I was missing some regular gigs that I had worked really
hard to build up to. And if I was, some of those gigs were on
Broadway, but they were coved gigs, and if I couldn't make
them, then a lot of these people, like, you're never here.
We've got somebody that can be here. Love you. We're gonna call
you for this and this and this. And I'm like, makes sense? Thank
you. Awesome. I'm glad to be on the list. I just wasn't first
call. I got bumped down, second, third, fourth, yeah. I'm like,
this helps me main juggle many things. Yes,
well, you're doing you're doing the podcast, and then you're
doing your home recording, whichever, which is an
expectation nowadays. And I've seen your setup. It's down
there. It's all, you're all oralex and software, it up and
you're ready to go, which is awesome. What are some of the
places down on lower Broadway that that are COVID? Are there
more room? Are some of the rooms they pay better, or there's
better crap,
you know, I think, I think it's, it's sometimes it's the shift.
It could be the environment, could be the crew. So places
like old red, what used to be wild horse, is now category 10.
Luke. Combs is place. Combs is place. And so the pay, the
opportunity, with some of the bands, some of the talent that
is working down there that is either does really well when
they play down there, so they don't have to play eight days a
week, no. So they're playing there a couple times. They also
have other plate spinning, which led to the front man game, yeah,
you know, yeah. So, like, I don't like that place. I don't
want to go. Ever go down there, it's like, man, that's great.
That's fine. If you can, you can do that. But again, I see it not
as an ending, an end game. I mean, it is, it is a it is
another piece of the pie. Yeah, you know, it's another so you
can go down there, you can meet people, and they may be
producing and so one of the one of the groups I work down there
with, the guitar player, has his own studio and works with other
I mentioned, there's a producer here, spring two blocks away,
yeah, from here that has kept me busy for the last four and a
half years. Nice as a as a result of the relationship that
I built with another musician doing some of those slower
Broadway games. Yeah.
Well, so old red, that's not, I mean, I've been down there.
That's nice. It simply seems like the kid is well maintained.
It seems like more than ever the kits are little bit more well
maintained. Back in the day, was there be, like, it was all Thai
kits, or it was all maypex Kids, or like that, you know, these
companies, and now that then there was, like, a pearl period.
I mean, I have my places that I love to go down there, like
when, when tourists come into town, or friends they want to
see lower Broadway, I always take them to Roberts. I just
think Roberts is the holy grail of honky tonks. Like you're
walking into 1950 right, and people are swing dancing and
they're line dancing, and you got the crinkle fries, and then
just the spiders and the boots on the walls, and everybody on
stage is wearing the pearl snap shirts. And it just feels so
nostalgic. And then you could walk right next door, and then
they hire the entire bands playing to clicks. They got
iPads and in ear monitors, and it's like, Oh my God. It's like
a robo band. It's like, completely different from the
you know? It's just a different energy and vibe, and the two
places are right next door, right amazing. And
I think my interest especially when one of the first places I
played is the stage, and it was just been a home base for me for
a long time, and I wanted to use those experiences in the early
days of in ears, different things like that, as a way to
acclimate to what was expected from a live drummer and a studio
drummer when I was first here in 2000 the early 2000s I'd never
played live with a click. My experience in the studio was
limited, but I was on the fast track to figure out what it was
that I needed to do to work in Nashville. So then, when I got
the call to play with somebody like Billy Dean. They're like,
we play to a click. Gotcha. No problem, you know. And listen,
can you learn all these songs by tomorrow? And, yeah, yeah. And
we have number charts. Can you do that? Gotcha? Yeah, I'm good
to go. I was ready to do it now. It's a little bit more common.
We know drummers who grew up with laptops and playing the
clicks and yeah and all that stuff. But that was not common.
Now I'm in a place where I'm trying to learn how to play
without clicks.
It's just, it's part of our thing. It's so crazy. Yeah,
going back to that. So is that really happening?
They're actually going away from clicks.
No, no, no. I'm just saying, personally, like, I probably
more comfortable with a click than without, which it was
really funny that after 25 years of it, yeah, yeah, yeah, you and
you do a lot of times, you're just doing gigs, you're doing
playing songs on the fly, and it's like, there's no click,
there's this, like, with, think of the chorus, you know, like,
big counting off, Big Band tunes. Think of the shout
chorus, think of the melody and like, get your tempo from there.
That's how I played every gig, whether it was the big band, the
Brazilian, the rock band, yeah, it's like, there was no
reference. There was we could have played it too fast. Could
have played it too slow. Could have been different from night
to night only. But we, when we listen to our heroes and our
band, the bands that we love, were like, yeah, there was no
click on that, but it sounds so good.
New York, New York, one,
two. You know, you get the feel for it, yeah, yes. Here you go.
Like, what's the template? Nobody has time for that. Some
of those tributes.
I mean, Nashville has more tribute bands between, you know,
Tyson Leslie and Brian Russell Collins and all the, you know,
the Nashville drummer jam stuff. He's like, Okay, we're gonna,
we're doing a Van Halen night. So it's like, one two, it's
just, so it's, but I'll usually bring a little light, and all
goes red, green, red, green, off one two. So these are, there's a
reference from something. And then halfway through, I'm on the
belting thing on red, gray and red, green, you're checking
yourself. Always check myself. Halfway
through, I don't
think Alex did, Alex. Alex did not. Sammy Hagar, when he was
here, I was there, too rich.
You were somewhere, and I, I was going to invite you to come
along, because tickets weren't that expensive, yeah, but it was
the second night that Aronoff filled in. Yeah, nice. Just
hearing him play, you know, I just knew he was running a
click. And there was a couple songs when they're like, oh, it
needs to be faster, and he's, this is the reference, but I
felt for him, and I'm
like, oh, there was a couple little. He had a little, like, a
rhythm watch or something.
I don't know exactly what he had, but he had stuff running,
and he had his iPad with
dude. Had to learn a two hour set over 24 hours, yeah? But if
anybody can do it, I mean, it's Yeah, so deep into the pool, you
know? Yeah. Circling back to to, sorry, I'm used to hosting. This
is great. It's not so much easier being a guest. No, you
don't think so? No, well, I love being a guest because I
like being No, hey, this is fun. I like being a guest. Yeah?
No, no, no. I mean, it's, it's, that's, that's an interesting
concept. I mean, we could talk about that later we get to the I
mean, also your, your your interview style is, it's, I'm
not going to call it buttoned up, because you're not a
buttoned up guy, but it's, it's more in the Actors Studio, it's
very like, you have, it just seems like there's certain
things you want to hit, and you're very well communicated,
very eloquent, and you're hitting those things, and
they're, they're more of like, this is more of, like, a wacky
radio show where yours is, like, these are time capsules that are
people are going to be like, oh, like, refer to working drummers
podcast episode 497, that are in these archives, because you've
captured these things, and they're very informative. And
not that we're not informative, but we just do it in a wackier
way. No, I
get that, and I think it changes from guest to guest.
You think we're wacky? I don't think we're wacky. We're just
conversational, inept descriptor,
but his show is very it is it's it has wacky
moments. It depends. Yeah, sometimes when Rich is on, it
can get a little wacky.
Well, I'm lucky you had me on two times.
We should do it like the both of us. Guess not his
Oh, here you go. I was going to say one of the things that has
been beneficial about doing club gigs like on Broadway is when
the band was out, when the front men had an opportunity to open
up for Alabama, was one of the first few times. And we're
playing this arenas in Texas, and they hadn't thought about
like, wait a minute, they're gonna bring us on this large
stage. We need to have some stuff going. We're not just
gonna walk out there. We're not playing a small venue. Oh. Like,
walk on music. Walk on something that's gonna lead into the first
big song. Kick it. I think it was, was, you know, Lone Star or
something, got to Yeah, and they're like, can you guys do
something? So the three of us, the bass player, guitar player,
and I were like, yeah, no. What if we vamp on this, go back and
forth, back and forth, be like, a four bar jam, and then when I
do this fill, that'd be, of course, we have very limited
sound check time, so we had to kind of like, construct this
really quickly. Like, we'll do this and then that. And like,
let's run it real quick for sound check, and then we'll
just, we'll do that. When the guys came up for sound check and
we showed them what we had, they're like, that's That's
perfect. That's amazing. How'd you guys do that so fast? I
mean, not taking anything away from what these guys have done
in the industry, what they've written, what they've done over
the years, you know, but between the three of us, we've learned
and played 1000s and 1000s of songs and had to improvise and
had to create on the spot, and that serves you well in those
scenarios in the studio. Another thing. So I just, I just want to
put a button on that whole thing as we're referencing Broadway,
Nashville, and for all the shit that it gets. Yeah, that's fine,
but this is what I've taken from it and just seeing it as an
opportunity for growth. And how do I use those skills and apply
that in other places?
Are you finding people to come into town or reticent to play
Broadway?
No, I find people coming to town to think that that is the holy
grail,
really? Yeah, that's a highly coveted thing. It
is. But I'm like, guys, that's not the end all. It can be a
source of income. It could be a source but you also see it as a
source of experience. It's like the big band gig that I used to
do every Monday night. We'd walk away with maybe 10, $12 in our
pocket. But the Learn, the experience that I learned from
it, the reading, the pressure.
I couldn't, I couldn't put a price on
it. Yeah, Dallas Jazz Orchestra,
$8 and the collection Jazz Orchestra on the Tuesdays,
$24 and how much would you spend
to get a lesson? Yeah, you know, do
you remember your first time going down Broadway when you got
here, and as a tourist, no, but yeah, just you're prospecting
Nashville, and you were kind of like, you know, these guys were
at a whole different level from where I am.
Yeah, no, it was, I think it was like 1997 right? My girlfriend,
I were driving down to Pensacola, and we wanted to stop
in Nashville, so we went walk down Broadway, and it was
interesting, you know, but it didn't really blow me away. But
certainly, when I started playing there in the 2000s I
would see other bands and, and, and I think continues to this
day. I mean, it's, I
mean room to room, but I mean the quality of the musicians is,
yeah, is different. It. But
I mean, very much is different. I mean, I see on the first floor
at kid rocks, sometimes I'm like, Whoa, good, bad, really. I
mean, I hear drummers like playing the shit out of certain
journey songs, not necessarily note for note, but like, nice.
That's really good. Yeah, that sounds really Pro.
But coming from Columbus, like my coming from Connecticut, it's
just a different level. I mean, I guess I was, oh yeah, I was a
little tempered from Vegas, because you had a really good
quality musicianship out there as well. But, you know, coming
here, it's like, oh, these guys are good, you know, because, I
mean, Connecticut, it was like, you know, we had, I surrounded
myself with good players, but they were few and far between.
I there was, it's hard for me to answer that in a really concise
way, because the level of musicianship in Columbus again,
so pretty was still so good, but maybe not in the rock world that
I experienced, but like in in the jazz world, in the Latin
world, in the funk world, yeah, there were guys that used to
play with George Clinton that were in a band that still exists
now in plays like once a week, and there's some of the baddest
ass musicians on the planet. But again, the
machinery doesn't exist in those kind of markets, the places that
rehearse, the recording studios per capita, the tour bus
companies, yeah, the whole machinery that we have,
the focus of musicianship, doesn't exist in those areas.
And
like, Connecticut is like, you know, if you have, I lived in
Connecticut, I would probably be in the best, you know, wedding
corporate circuit band in a tri state area. That would be
easier. It would be easier to
rise to the top, yeah. And
you hear that, you hear that. You hear people in other towns
where you're like, man, they're a really good player, but
there's just something missing about their touch, about their
approach, about their time, feel totally they're set up to
interact their gear. That is just like, there's just
something it's like, it's like the TP stuck to the bottom of
the shoe, like it looks great. You just got to lose the toilet
paper, this stuff at the bottom of your shoe, your zippers open,
and you're Yeah, exactly, exactly. The last thing I'll say
about the transition. What inspired me was I was at
Columbus Pro and Kenny arnoff was on tour with Fogarty. And
he's like, Hey, I got a day off. Could I come in and do a clinic?
So there were, like, literally, six of us sitting there. And one
of the things he said, and I had the opportunity to tell him this
later, and he was like, I do like three things really good,
and I've been able to make a living at it. So I implore you,
you can have 10 c minus grooves, or you can have three a plus
grooves. And at that point in my life, I'm juggling all these
different bands, and I was feeling a little bit of a draw
to Nashville, and I'm like, That's it. That's it. I know
what I want to do. I'm going to be a backbeat drummer, and I'm,
I'm I'm doing this, and I'm not getting rid of the John Riley
books and the things still want to work on that. I want it to be
a part of my personality, but I need to focus on that, because I
want to be a full time player and own a house, yeah, and maybe
have kids.
What did he say the three things were, were they three skill sets
or three beats? I think it
was. He was referencing three, like, grooves, three, not
necessarily three beats, but like, this is, like, if you want
me for you, I'm your dude. Yeah, if you know, I mean, Erskine has
stories of being in the studio and being like, I don't think
I'm your guy for this track. I can, I can, you know, suggest
somebody. And we think of these players as just like, right?
Everything, yeah. But that was another eye opening experience
in a time when information was limited, yeah? So
he, in a sense, is telling you, chop at one tree. Don't chop at
multiple Yeah? Because you'll, you'll go, after a while, you'll
have a forest of on, you know, half chopped trees.
And I was cool with that, because, um, specializing
something I wanted to I was okay with being specific. Yeah, yeah.
I
think that's, it's wonderful to hear that even, you know, like,
Kenny will throw it out, there's like, Hey, I got a day off. I'd
rather do a clinic for six people than not do because I
have, I've had those where you do, you make a booking last
minute, you commit to it, and there's like, four people in the
room, and you just do it anyways, and you're just like,
well, I'm working my craft. I'm, you know, continuing my skill.
I'm making a difference in people's lives. I always love
that about him, and he's still that way, you know, which is,
which is fantastic. What is your gear, man, do you have your
alliances, your gear? Before
we go that? Let me just ask real quick and just to there was one
thing that kind of to your point that you made earlier. I get
what he's saying, but I think there's a lot of you still have
to put air in the tank, right? You still need fuel. Cash is
oxygen for any business, for anybody moving down here, you
are starting a business, whether you like it or not, which means
you have to have some magnitude of business acumen, definitely a
good sales approach, that. What I think made you rich is that
you understood all that. You knew you were somewhat of a
master salesman. You could back it up. You had, you know, you
didn't have the clout yet. You only had the clout coming from
Dallas and what you did, but you certainly had the education, but
you had business, you know, you had a salesmanship to you, you
know what I mean, and that made a big difference. So a lot of
these people that are coming in, yeah, you got to do a lot of
stuff. You gotta spread yourself thin, you know, right? It's,
it's like in the business world, like, what, even what we're
doing here, we're doing everything from podcasts to
lighting for, you know, car washes to video walls. Now we're
kind of getting into other spaces. We're in garage doors.
We're doing everything just to sustain. You're the art of the
Renaissance, but you have to, yeah, you know, there's until
the one it's like, how many bands did you play in one year
that didn't have a scheduling clock? 2929
bands. What year was that? 1999 right?
You remember the year you were playing the lottery? Totally
playing, right? 27 of those acts do not exist anymore,
but you still had this. You know, you can't win if you don't
play two.
Two remained, Jason Aldean and Connecticut white bread. Big
Kenny was rush, low one of the bands, no, in 99 No, I hooked up
with him in later. 2001
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy, I mean, and
there was a lot of different personalities come down and
again, like, like, meeting you. And it's like, there's so much
more than just because I just want to spend I just want to
hole up in my practice room, yeah, you know. And it's like,
no, it's not that you need to get out and see people and meet
them and, you know, press the flag. You gotta
do it. Yeah, networking is such a bad word, but guys, you gotta
do
it. Touch grass thing. I thought it was no,
well, it's, it's, you know, we, we all know our friend, Keo, you
know what I mean. It's like, I always refer to because he's
such a man about town. It's like, if there is a lie norm,
he's just like, the basement east. He's gonna be there if
there's something at the exit, and he's gonna be there, he's
gonna be at the coolest thing. He might have be at multiple
things, you know, and, and, and he's smart, you know, he didn't
move out to Spring Hill. He's like, he's close by. And if he
hears about something last minute, he is there, yeah. And
that's, like, a great business model, and he's because he's
never out of people's minds. He's always fresh on people's
minds, because he is always out supporting the community.
He is, he is, my workaround is, start a podcast.
Yeah, I was gonna say that's, that's a good pivot, yeah,
because
I have, especially as I get older, I have a hard time
leaving the house if I, even if I have a gig, I'm like, what
time is load in? What's my map app say? What is I got five
minutes before I even have
to walk out of here, like I'm already in my jammies and my my
slippers, and you want me to come down and play Mama Tried
for us $50 in which version. So just just to talk a little bit
about Savannah Jack, I remember that they're still together,
right?
The singer does maybe a handful of gigs 15 years. That's a you
played with him for 15 years, pretty much. I mean, it's it,
you know, it started as it was Don Ellis Gatlin. He and his
brother, Don and Daryl Ellis, were on Sony in the 90s. They
they were the band. They were the duo that famously lost to
Brooks and Dunn every year. Damn amazing singer. It started out,
you know, doing bar gigs, but then the writing, the singing
between the three guys, they were kind of like the rascal
flats, and I was the Jim Riley of the band. I wasn't in the
band, but I was the drummer for the four piece. Yeah, that
eventually became a five piece. So it just one. Was one of those
groups that we were doing gigs, you know, opening up for the
Doobie Brothers and Vince Gill. So many amazing opportunities.
Honky Tonk state fairs kind of a thing. All
everything these guys love to play casinos. Would would, yeah,
would travel and then would work with an agency that would put us
on and off cruise ships as the artists, the featured artists,
so we weren't contracted. We'd jump on these ships. We'd
perform as a band, yeah, you know, the 45 in the main
theater. People were like, did you bring charts for our event?
No, no, we're self contained. Yeah. We were the only ones out
there doing it. So got to travel all through the Caribbean, you
know, the Italy, different things like that. So I probably
stayed on a little bit too long, because when you're in that
close knit of a group, I don't know if you know this, yeah, if
you've ever been in a band for really a long time, but let me
tell you. It's like when your parents split up, and you
actually become closer with your father after he moves out. You
know, I still keep in touch with it. So many amazing
opportunities. I can tell you one thing, I wasn't because I
wasn't technically a member. They wanted for their first
studio album to be like John Jorgensen on guitar, yeah, David
Santos on on bass, who the singer knew really well. You
know who we would love to have play drums, Steve Ferroni. I'm
best friends with Steve Roney. Let's get him so at Blackbird,
there's John David. Steve Ferroni, I was let me tech, let
me, yeah. Oh, and we want you to play percussion. Oh, thank you.
Great. Hey, because I didn't feel like I needed an
explanation of why they got Steve Ferroni to play drums on
this as we know many of our friends who played in touring
bands, who you know, Chad Crowell was the drummer, or
whoever was the drummer on the record, the record, because the
goal was to get on the radio, and if it was Keith Urban
Savannah, Jack, Jason Aldean, we had to compete. We had to sound
sound just as good as you guys. Yeah, on the radio. So I'm like,
no, no, it's good. The more success that you have, the
better it is for all of us, including me. So that was great,
great connection with Steve, and incredible experience. And then
the second record we did, I was on it still got John Jorgensen,
and I'm really proud of that, nice and proud. But you know,
the band went through enough compromises and had its moment
on a label, got, I think, number 40 on the charts with a song
with a head
top 40. I mean, Casey, Casey would be like, Hey, this is
great, right, right, great
experience. But it came to it came to a close for me and and
my family needed more attention, and it's not like I was moving
back to the middle of nowhere. Yeah, it's moving back to Music
City, yeah. And people were waiting for me, and it took
about a year to get back up to speed, and then I was rolling
again, yeah, and the front men hit, and I'm like, I've already
been here. I'm missing out. Yeah, I wanna, I gotta, you
know, it's
the it's that classic, you know, are you a road musician or a
studio musician? And that was a big deal in 1997 now the lines
are just blurred. I mean, I'm sure guys that you know, like, I
just, I don't hear about Steve Brewster ever jumping on a bus.
But for me, it's like the phone rings, if it makes sense. I
just, I just go, do you know
what I was interviewing? Michael Grando, yeah. And he goes, I
love them. People are like, Oh, I only do live or only do studio
goes, we're all studio musicians. Yes, if you get a
call for a session, are you turning it down? No, you're not.
What's
so, what's your your setup? Are you advertising? I always ask
all the because, you know it's, are you do advertising? Your
wears on sound better and air gigs and all that.
Yeah, I have and air gigs has worked out, okay, uh, it's, it's
become so competitive and over saturated that it really what
we've seen as the industry has changed and home studios are
growing. It's almost like the same way you get live work, you
build it upon relationships and to do a single song for a
songwriter overseas, or whatever is cool, but to establish a
relationship with a songwriter that wants to use you
constantly, or producer that has a stable of clients that I feel
makes it profitable, yeah, to do that because we all wanted to do
home studios, COVID hit, we all upped the ante. Yeah, took our,
you know, our money, whatever help we got from music cares or
whoever, and bought a new interface and did all that
stuff. Yeah, I should have done that, but still, it's like, Man,
that's a lot of work to do this one song. I should be charging
more. How much do I charge? You know, it's this constant. And I
just played for two hours and got so much more than that. So
it's a constant battle. Yeah,
hamburger and steak. I'm sorry, hamburger and steak. Yeah,
yeah, and but, but it's, it's, it's, it's a, I'd say it's about
30% of what I do now, yeah, where I know we have friends
that it's probably more like 70 or 80% of of what they do. But
we always, and we talk about this a lot on the podcast. We
have a lot of people that are doing it more full time, and
it's trying to streamline the work. Time is money, yeah. So
how do you manage that in such a way that doing that one track
goes by, templates, file management, all that, all
those things. Because when you go to a session where you're
hired as the drummer at a studio with an engineer, guys, we're
good, moving on. Okay, to do one more good. All right, moving on.
Moving on. I love that. And then you're like, you're home by
three, and you're like, Man, I just did a record. Yeah, and
maybe in a year I'll see it or hear it where, when you're at
home, you're like, Yeah, I got the file. Okay, put it in here.
I've got my template, but still, listen to it. Did you have a no
chart? Okay, I'll write my own chart. And then Mike's, where
was that my I use that mic for another thing. Okay? I gotta
engineer. Then I got tuned. I gotta be more than drummer doing
everything you're doing everything. And so then here's
your 100 bucks,
yeah, when you're charging the same as if you were in a so
yeah, every year I've given myself a little bit of a raise,
yes, and then establish those relationships with the producers
that I spoke with Ken Coomer, yeah, not that long ago. So
Jim, we're gonna have Ken on the show. He is the original drummer
with Wilco, and now he just produces crazy, mad numbers of
records,
yeah, yeah. We played them on the radio back in the day, yeah.
And,
um, Ken Coomer, you were talking to Ken about, probably, about
recording himself, right? Yeah, because I listened to the
interview, it was, yeah, yeah.
I think it's
like,
Ken, why would we be talking about you, just because you're
amazing. I mean, I love Wilco and we love the fact you become
an amazing producer and,
well, it's just, it's all about just, kind of just managing that
time, oh, just doing one song at a time for somebody just doesn't
work out. But having having those relationships with people
just really kind of, again, it's like having a little bit of
this, a little bit of that, so then all of a sudden, that
person's out of the business or leaving. You're like, okay, no,
I'm still good, yeah, so because it's, it's creating a certain
amount of security, because we have those friends that have
gigs, and it's like, man, if that artist is like, Guys, I'm
done.
Yeah, you have a very radio esque intro. Oh, thank you. The
Working drummer podcast,
I can tell you that we've had a couple people do our intro. Nick
graffini Did our intro for a while. Resource, a good friend
of mine who was in broadcasting, and then a few years ago,
gosh, oh, the dude from Atlanta, the voiceover guy,
Jack White. Jack White, the drummer ragas his soul, who just
passed away. He was,
uh, Rick Springfield's original drummer. Oh, yeah. He battled
for 10 cancer for 10 years. Gosh, he was married to Peggy
Bundy.
Oh, really, yeah. So he's the voice of our intro, and it's
just an honor to have him.
I didn't know that because it I can hear it now. Yeah, yeah,
we had to speed it up a little bit. But I'm so honored to have
him. That's amazing.
We miss you, buddy. Okay, yeah.
So very timely. We're celebrating 500 episodes of your
podcast. Working drummer. You started it in 2015 you've had
everyone, I mean, the big dogs, you know, your Chad wackermans,
John Robinsons, Steve Smith, Joel Rothman, Cindy. I want to
hear about Joel Kenny, Nick Bucha Cindy Blackman, but you
also get guys that are, you know, doing touring productions
off of Broadway or, you know, New York cats, European cats. So
tell us. Tell us about the podcast.
So I have to show you all this while you're doing the camera.
This is title Warner. I think I have some extra ones, but I
couldn't find them, so this has been stuck on my fridge. On the
side, it's probably got grease stains on it. More than 65
episodes available. Working drummer. Podcast is the resource
for education, entertainment and beyond one episode and you'll be
hooked. Rich Redmond, Jason Aldean, sessions and clinic, you
offered a quote for me that was, I was ever one of your first
guests. You were one of my first guests. But this we were going
to summer Nam or winter Nam, or something like that, and I
wanted something to hand out. And this is, like, 2016 this
came out, and it's been sitting there. And I've got a, you know,
an iTunes review, got our, you know, all that stuff, more than
65 episodes
available. Amazing.
You know, that's, that's a big milestone. 50 is a milestone,
because a lot of people will hit 20, and they'll
be like, This is work. How good?
Yeah. So, this is, you know, back in the days when when
podcasts were rare, if you don't have a podcast, you're in the
minority, I know. But at midnight, Episode 500 posted
last night, nice. So when you called, I was like, this is
going to be good timing. I've taken a little bit of time off
for the holidays. Amazing timing. Very excited about it.
We did not do anything big this time around. The podcast for my
co host Zach Alberta and I has been again, a piece of the
puzzle of what we do. He is a full time touring musician,
drummer that does musicals. He's out now with the touring company
of and Juliet. He's. He did the ink too proud to beg, proud to
beg. That was 16 months of his life. And amazing player, uh,
Atlanta, cat, right? Atlanta, originally from, well,
originally from New Mexico, studied in Kansas, lived in LA
for five years. When we first met, he was moving, I thought,
Oh, great, off like a West Coast guy, and he goes, Oh, and I'm
moving to Atlanta. I was like, Oh man, how's that gonna work?
But really, after I did this the first year, he joined and met
him through Nick Ruffini, yeah, and just a great fit, yeah,
just, I couldn't ask for a better partner. Just that
perfect yin yang. He jokes that he's the party of no, I'm the
party of Yes. I'm like, we should do this. We should do
that. He's like, Whoa, how about we do this instead? I'm like,
Oh, that's a good idea. It seems like he gets more jazzers. He
does. And I feel like we don't necessarily pick a lane, but I
think it's more organic, because now he's in the musical world,
he'll pull from that. I'm in Nashville. I can pull from that,
but we try and not pigeon hole ourselves. Yeah, but I had the
lead on wel once, and I was like, and I'd met we call a few
times, and I thought, Zach. I went, can you do this? Would you
mind? I'd feel much more comfortable if you did it. You
guys can get into the weeds with the short amount of time that he
may be available. We've tagged team a few times, but again, I
feel so blessed that not only can we create a consistent
episode every week based on splitting the workload, but also
we're on the same page as far as remaining true to the brand, if
you will, of showcasing the in the trenches drummers, the
lesser known names, but still impressive body of work. Yes,
something that we can all take away from, it's nice to have we
call on. It's nice to have Todd Superman on. But within those
conversations, what can I extrapolate that is relatable to
somebody that just maybe is playing on Broadway in
Nashville, or is playing a weekend gig, or maybe at their
church or whatever, to engage those listeners, those that are
curious to even the non drummer, yeah, you know, so really
casual. I love that you know you're saying, you know,
describe our conversation as that, but you know it would try
and Zach prepares differently than I do. I think I over
prepare. Got my outline just in case, because I might have a
guest that is short with their answers, and I may have to lead
the charge. I may have guessed that I don't get a word in
edgewise, but over time, I've learned to edit in the moment.
In other words, I think we're done with this topic. Yeah, time
to move on. I call it passing exit ramps.
It's a skill set, this, this, this hosting thing, yep, is a
thinking on your feet thing, and it's so good. Some people love
Sudoku. Some do crossword puzzles. This is how Jim and I
keep our brain sharp, because you really have to jib and jab
and think in the moment and and we had to get our sea legs
together. As far as having two people that could give and
take, well, it helps that you had somebody who worked in the
business. No,
totally. Jim's a great coach, and then I'm a I'm a good
student, and I'm sure you are in the sense that I always go back
and listen to an episode, maybe two times, maybe one for
enjoyment, and then one for how can I improve my hosting skills?
And do I need to remove anything or edit anything on behalf of
the guest?
Well, Matt, you do that, right? You probably listen to it two or
three times before you release. Well,
I go through and edit and over time, and, you know, probably
not two times, but, but it does give me an opportunity to hear
when I am maybe not allowing the person to fully, you know,
finish their point, or other things like that, happens. So I
think there's, there's ways that definitely I again, it is a
skill set that I feel like has helped me. And consider it's
like, what else can I be doing with this? How else? Because at
the end of it, I do feel like, man, I've, I've, I feel like I
just left a gig. Yeah, you know, it feels good. There's a
lot of there's a lot going on up here, yeah, in the head and the
heart. So the first thing that comes to mind for me is you
could be a panel moderator. You can be an event host. You can
create your own events. I mean, there's now that you have this
organizational ability, and you know how to cut to the chase and
keep people engaged, and it's educational, but it's also
entertaining. It's fantastic. I've
got, I got a lot of early encouragement, yeah, from
friends and different people. The very first guest was our
friend David Black, yeah, you know, I thought I need to start
off with somebody we're just comfortable with. Comfortable.
Know him. Great resume, great player. Good. Personality, and
he was just a great and my friend Mike Jackson helped me
get started. And he is in the industry, as far as voiceover,
he's like, so he was able to coach me with that stuff.
Totally
now, now what tell us about this Patreon thing? Are we missing
out? What? What is that? So Patreon talking about
the monetization of it? I'm kind of curious. Yeah. Have you been
able to do that? Somewhat?
It took us a while to get to the point where we could put money
in our pockets, but to make enough money to keep the lights
on was our goal. Because for Zach and I, the money we made
was from for him, teaching and gigs and touring. For me, it was
playing and touring, recording and all those things. So the
podcast still needed to be under control so that we continue to
enjoy it. But after a while, we did. We're doing some
advertising that helped. But still, you've got the website,
you've got we're on megaphone now that costs us a little bit
to subscribe to some of these platforms, if it's gear, we use
you that
when you say ad, and were you actually doing ads on the show?
Yeah, okay. Do you still? Yeah,
we still do nice so through
megaphone, which so about three years ago, we joined a network
called the drum click. And so let's get the big fat five and
all that big fat five they've recently drumming, drummers on
drumming, I think is the new name. I
think Ben is brilliant, because does a great job. He took the
first several episodes, turned it into a book, yes,
and we're having him on as a guest, and coming up soon. Chris
mazzaritzi is from Big Fat snare drum. I love Chris. He had the
idea to do this like comedians do with podcasts. We'll start a
network, and we'll, you know, work off each other. So, uh,
Bart van der Zee drum history, which is an amazing podcast as
part of that network. Nice and, uh, drum candy with Mike Dawson.
Mike Dawson, thank you. And so right now, those are the ones
that are a part of that. And so with with we with megaphone.
What's megaphone? So megaphone is a distributor that when you,
when we first started, you had to do all the code on your
website to get it to upload to iTunes that now there's services
that you when you just dump your mp three in there, it goes to
all the aggregates, like Libsyn that we use. Libsyn, okay, that
type, and I'm trying to think of dynamic advertising is the
thing. So when you listen to podcasts, and you and you hear a
little and all sudden an ad starts because they can see that
auto audible marker. Or sometimes it could be like Conan
O'Brien, and it could be in the in the middle of some sounds,
and it
goes, drives me up that, like my radio sensibilities are off the
charts. When it happens, it's like, mid sentence and it cuts
out. I'm like, why?
What happened? What that is, what that is is, I know that's
dynamic ad player, right? So we've got two spots that we you
program it in. You've got at the beginning of the episode and
somewhere in the mid roll and somewhere at the end, and each
one of those spots has a certain value to that you can assign to
the the advertiser. So getting into the, you know, can you
actually the donuts here? But
can you actually assign because, like, when I do a lot of
podcasting for clients and stuff like that, and I'm just, like,
if they have an ad, I'm just baking it into the file. At some
point we got to get to dynamic ads, but in the software I use
where I'm able to actually designate the time. Okay, stop
here, and I might have a produced piece that ramps up.
Hey, we're gonna be right back. Boom, because let the listener
know you got, you know, you got 30 seconds. I even tell my
clients, well, they could skip forward. I said, I understand
that. But what if you were to prep them like, Hey, this is how
we pay the bills. Just make sure you're listening to these. Some
of those words from our sponsors. We're gonna be back in
a few make sure you check them out, give us some love, because
you know, if you enjoy the podcast, this is how we're
funding it.
It's an evolving industry. Yeah, that when we now, everyone
listens to podcasts, they really do. And as a result, we've
actually seen our listenership go down, because it's like,
there's just so much out there. Wow. So we now have tried to
find new ways to, you know, invigorate that and bring
attention back to it, because we were the only ones. There were
very few out there. Very few podcasts, very few drumming
podcasts. Now there's more of those. Yeah, we're, you know, as
a result of of of Nick slowing down his output and some other
people. We're probably the longest running podcast. And,
you know, again, 500 started. So I also feel like it's still
super fun. Grow so much from it. It's helped Zach and I on this
episode 500 talk about, I mean, it's all in. The episode we talk
about, you know, just how it's it's helped our our careers,
it's helped our growth as as drummers and as as business
people and just all these things, and my connections with
people within the industry, whether it's playing or where
the retail industry that remains intact, but it's not through
somebody else's business. It's through mine, yeah. And I say
mine, Zach, and I Yeah, you know. And so that feels really
good. I feel like I own something. And one of the
inspiration for starting this was like, I'm in a band, but I
have no say in this. And it's like, but I'm not a songwriter.
How do I I want to create? I want, I want something that's
mine, and so that was kind of the start of that you
actually, I mean, looking at your your Instagram page, are
you guys doing clips from the episodes, like short form
content, things like that?
Yeah, not as much as, like some of our young podcaster friends
that are super tech savvy, Zach and I always checking in with
each other. It's like, Should we do that? I see this and I see
that. I'm inspired, but yeah, do we want to? Because
I'll tell you right now. Like you again, my radio
sensibilities, yeah, to promote the other shows on the radio
station. For my years in radios, spent when talk radio always
running promos, throwing back to the morning show. And hey,
here's what you could expect coming up on blah, blah, blah.
That's what those are. You know, getting people a little bit of a
taste that they may not have found you, it's removing the
hoops. You know what I mean, well, and
I just worked on one today for Chad Wackerman. And so getting
back to doing that, we actually hired Dan ainspan from the
National drummers podcast to do a bunch of clips for us. So
again, it's a reminder of what the drumming community is, the
podcasting community is, and also, like some of the tech
stuff, that is a necessary evil, but also maintaining and
managing it in such a way that it remains fun. That's why we're
at 500 because Zach and I have put some limits on how demanding
this thing is. Does it remain fun? Does it remain and can it
pay for itself? Now, in recent years, we've been able to put
some money back into our pockets, but going back to your
Patreon, Patreon is, you know, it's crowdfunding at its core,
yeah, and so there's a lot of different ways to do it, but
Patreon has grown and it has changed with the industry as
people are, you know, like, wow, I can do this. I have now, I
have computer, I have internet. I can create my own business. I
can create my, you know, it's, it's endless, the opportunities
to create whatever, yeah, you know. And so Patreon is one of
those things that has come up as a result of this changing
industry. And
that's, it's like, again, going back to how I coach clients in
the podcast space is, you know, coming up with rate cards and
stuff like that, and different things that you can do to make
it affordable for one business versus another, identifying
those audiences that make sense, because there are a lot of
people I could do the dynamic ads that are controlled, and
they'll get a couple of points on it, but at the end of the
day, it's like, you know, they could start dictating what they
want you to Talk about, and all that kind of stuff. And it's
typically not a good place to be with certain kinds of podcasts.
In this case, you're kind of talking about, you know, you
know, the kind of identifying the advertisers that make sense
for a drumming podcast would be what it would be, you know, you
got national reach so you can, you could appeal to maybe some
insurance companies, things of that nature, coffee, coffee
style brands, those fashion brands, you know, yeah, I'm not
exactly sure if you're gonna have, you know, drum
manufacturing companies, you know, clamoring for advertising,
but they are really because they have a they have an advertising
budget in a print market that was always their MO, right? Is
going away. So they still have the budget that needs to be used
somewhere. Yeah? And when you have, like, an in ear company
that doesn't get a lot of visuals, they need testimonials,
right? They need that. So a lot of times we're guinea pigs with
stuff, yeah? Or we're like, we're the beneficiary
forks will advertise with, I believe, Nashville drummer
podcast. Yeah,
they advertise with us for quite some time, but there's, there's
just so many different ways. And because of the dynamic
advertising, you can do it by region. Yeah, you can do it by
the Yeah. So, so JC, reached out to us about the Music City drum
show. JC, Clifford, yeah, I've actually
you were there right this past year, yeah? Just talk about
community, yeah, because I was actually set up with my own
podcast where you were, you were out of town, yeah? And, you
know, it's something that we you and I should probably at least
try and make an effort to be there, get a booth this year,
possible. Yeah. I talked to JC, and I can't remember the guy's
name, I'll be home.
I'll be home for that Sunday, but yeah, we should check on
getting a booth. We
can get a booth, and maybe I can just have a presence there, you
know. But I mean, JC and I, and I the guy who Landon Hall.
Landon, yes, thank you. Sorry. Landon, yeah, they are talking
about making, like a podcast row. And I've suggested that. I
said, you know, get partnered with one of these drum booth
sponsors. See,
we were there year one. I was like a can, and we had a couch,
and we had people sit down. But it's got to
be hermetically sealed, right? It's,
I was able to do it, yeah, I was able to,
we know we were there, but we didn't, we didn't. We weren't
going to record anything, but we were going to do is we had our
chiropractic friends that. What's his name? Cheyenne
Gaffar, yeah,
he's a great guy. He's been on another podcast that I produce
sales until so he,
you know, it's one of those things where we were able to,
like, bring it's like that was kind of our excuse to be there
and share this service and build community. And a lot of times we
do stuff in this industry, we're not really quite sure what the
end result is. It's not going to be cash in your pocket at the
end of the day, but it's going to be just a little down the
line. Yeah, a little bit down the line. And again, it's just
you gotta constantly be doing things. And so, you know you
were talking about, like, how do people know who you are? Keogh,
what a great example. It's like grassroots marketing at its
finest. When I tell people that I'm an introvert, they're like,
really, but you do a podcast, I'm like, I know, but that's how
I that's how I work around I never see
you as an introvert. Let me tell you this. I was just, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry being rude. I was just texting our friend
Luis esbaya, former guest on the working drummer. He's, you know
what, and because drummers love Luis and he's just a drummer's
best friend, great guy. Listen, I'm learning so much.
Congratulations on 500 episodes. Working drummer.net. Anywhere
there's podcasts, you can get the working drummers podcast.
We're gonna do the Fave Five, Fave color, blue. So fast.
Everybody loves blue. So many drummers. But do you have blue
drums?
No, I don't. Now, my first dw, my first pro kit, was a royal
blue dw, royal
blue favorite food or dish,
man, my wife says, anything? Pureed, um,
pureed, like, like, like, baby food. Okay? Smoothies, yeah,
like, Joey eating the baby food. Yeah,
come on in. You're
up next. Fight. You're up next. Should
we put him right here? We can sit down. My
friend. We're doing we're wrapping up. We don't have
a microphone for you, but something tells me you're low
enough. Thank God. What's up, buddy? All right, so we're doing
the Faye five. So yeah, what would be your favorite dish or
favorite food? Probably eggs. Eggs are the nature's
multivitamin. Yeah, I'll have four a
day. Let me ask you this, though, can you eat for a day?
For a day, really? Yeah, because they said that it's bad for you.
No, didn't been debunked, really. So I should eat more
eggs. Eat
four eggs in the morning and a whole avocado, and you will be
crushing this
paleo I've got tuna fish and canned chicken.
Jim, oh my God, you're going to be bench pressing
legs in there. Favorite drink?
Oh, coffee,
coffee, yeah. And then this, these last two are so hard, and
Jim hates me for asking this, but what is your favorite movie
of the moment or of all time?
Gosh,
like this sucker comes on and you're like, sorry, babe, I'm
gonna be here for two hours, or at the moment. Yeah, it could be
at the moment, like some people, like, Step Brothers, yeah. Of
course, some people are, like, JAWS
fit anywhere that
I've seen multiple that I will watch every time is probably
Saving Private Ryan, oh god, yeah. I mean, I cannot not watch
that
you get teared up at the end. My dad and I watched
it together for the first time, and at the end, he was
like, on the
football game, what's your favorite song of all time, or
something you're digging right now? Um,
what I'm digging right now is Rosanna, yeah. And just trying
to get back into wrapping my head around that as a huge
picaro fan and not a toto fan, yeah. Sorry, not sorry. This is
big. I
mean, this is, this is controversy in the making. So
not, you're not a fan of their body of work overall, not,
not compared to some of our friends that worship the entire
but what are some bands that you freaking love? Well, I mean,
grew up listening to Rush and so you know all that. Okay,
so Jim go,
what the question?
The question, so if you had to pick a tribute band for the rest
of your life? Life. You cannot do anything else. Yeah. What
tribute is it going to be? Paul McCartney?
Wow,
yeah. Paul McCarthy,
because I get we did a tribute show at third and Linsey, yeah,
and and at the moment with, with the band Savannah jack, and we
were playing a ton of McCartney, and we'd go and play Broadway
and open up with jet and band on the run and stuff like that.
Everyone over 35 was like, yay. And everybody else was like,
where are these guys? Yeah, who's this guy? It was so fun to
not only play Ringo parts and Abe liboreal Junior and try and
cop what he was doing. I'm like, I could do this for the rest of
my life. Nice. It's I was in a James Taylor tribute band for a
minute last year, fire and rain. Yeah, the Kunkel. So who would
have thought to do that,
that? That was amazing, because you're covering everybody from,
you know, Gad
Carlos Jordan, Carlos Vega. It's,
it's, I mean, my heroes, literally, my heroes. I think I
have an aversion towards being in a tribute band, of bands that
I really, really love, because then I'm like, I would hate this
by the end of it, you know, seriously, I mean, McCarthy,
just it's covers so much, from the rock to the, you know, 60s
rock to all throughout.
We need more journey tribute bands, really, do
we being totally sarcastic? Matt, what's the best way for
people to find you? Do you personally have a.com
matthewcross.net,
sorely needs to be updated. But you know, I I think that it's
hard to say social media is in a weird spot right now. Again,
that's what I love about the podcast. I've had a lot of
people reach out to me personally through the podcast,
as they have Zach too, not just for pod their podcast needs, but
for drumming and personal and other things like that. So I
love that. So working drummer.net. Yeah.
Great, nice. Hey, you are have been a fantastic guest. I mean,
your your hosting chops are sharp, 500 episodes, but isn't
it nice? Just let your guard down and just be like, yeah,
man, it is. Man, I've not unbuttoned this shirt. That's a
great shirt. Many years that is
a great western inspired shirt, ladies and gentlemen, that's
Matthew Kraus, matthewcrows.net, also check out working
drummer.net you can patronize the site. You could give them a
little money for their time and their efforts and their talents.
500 episodes is a major commitment. Congratulations, and
you're a backbone of the drumming community here. It's
just a pleasure to know you, and I'm so happy for you, man, thank
you, man, dude, thanks for being on here. Thanks for being here.
Yeah, Jim, thank you for your time and talent, buddy. Thank
you, Jim. You're welcome. Hey. And I do want to say this jacket
that I'm wearing, everybody knows I'm a sucker for dead
cows. Very thin dead cows. This is a company called last Wolf.
And my friend Rob ricotta. He's a drummer. He opened up for us a
couple years ago with John not John Edwards, uh, John Morgan,
what's up, John? And he was nice enough to get me this coat from
this company, and even embossed my initials on the jacket. So I
just want to say, what's up, Rob, just want to say, what's
up. Last Wolf, I really like this brown bomber jacket that
you have, and there's also a brown Cafe Racer jacket that you
guys have. But, uh, Anyways, guys, hey, there's this company
called DW. I really like your drums. They sound really good.
There's just one drum set, and apparently you got the wood from
Lake Superior. I mean, come out, I don't know. I think they're
sold out of that gym or whatever happens next. All the doctors
and the lawyers buy those. The guys that make big time bucks
buy those kits. Right? Totally. Hey so guys, thank you for
watching, thanks for supporting the show. Be sure to subscribe,
share, rate and review. It helps people buy and follow the show
and buy this. This is my book here, right here, Crash Course,
success, I know, but this is the you're like, hey, just promote
this stuff. I'm a drummer with a product. There's my practice
pad. By the practice pad. It's, it's made in America. Yeah, go
to Starbucks
and check out the mostly Middle Tennessee business podcast.com.
That's right, and it's just like George Burns used to say you're
that. They say, Hey, George, what does your doctor think
about you smoking 10 cigars a day and drinking copious amounts
of whiskey and chasing young women, and he said,
I don't know he's dead. Ah, we'll see you next time. Folks,
thanks, Matt.
This has been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate and follow
along@richredmen.com
forward, slash podcasts. You