Unknown: Have you tried the morgenstein tool, the Morgan
tool, the Morgan tool. Hey, what is it? God bless him, it's, it's
kind of like a, it's a, it's, you know
how you kind of put your drum sticks together to tighten lug
nuts and stuff. It's basically that okay?
And it's selling for a premium. I saw it at the drum show, and
it's flying off the show. I talked to the guys over at 2112
percussion in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I looked at the
price tag, and I was like, Are you kidding me for this? And,
and they're like, Dude, we can't keep them in stock. I'm so happy
for Rod, yeah, how cool. You know what I mean to because to
get a to get a piece of ancillary, you know, auxiliary
gear in the music business, to get sticky, right? Like a big
fat snare drum, or a drum taco, or a Mr. Muff, lug locks. Yeah,
any of that stuff
is difficult, very, very, I have a Mr. Muff, yeah, it's cool. I
just like
saying it anyways. So the
thing is that, or you buy just a, you know, a channel lock, but
it's not a Morgan tool, see, channel lock can do the same
thing, yeah, but, but
we like rod, and we want him to be successful. We do want
him to be successful. He's he's retired from Berkeley, right,
tired from
Berkeley, still playing. She's only 17, right.
Rod, what's up? Buddy show, buddy left I would be too, yeah,
left handed. He's playing the wrong
way. This is the rich Redman show.
Apparently, we've started this thing, Jim, you know, because
we're not supposed to reveal a new media when we are actually
starting the podcast. That's the new thing, yeah. But we do have
our mugs, we do which are not dishwasher safe. Actually, they
are dishwasher safe, but they have some raised a raised logo,
and it will disappear if you put it in the dishwasher too much.
I'm talking about the iconic rich Redmond
show coffee mug. These things are flying off the shelves.
What's the code? Oh, gosh, fall 2025. Is it? Fall 2020 Yes, it's
this rich Redmond show.com. Use the code. Fall
2025 it's been a minute or 25% off? Yeah, the store, yeah, it
has
been a minute because we have been so busy. I don't know what
it is about the fall, but the schedule has been for Christmas.
What Christmas 2025 oh, yeah, we're gonna or Xmas. That's,
that's so wrong. No, yeah. But we, you know what, we got to re
release the Master series to kind of like, buy us some time.
So we released episodes on Lonnie Wilson, Eddie bears and
Paul lime. And these are the OGs. And I went back and
listened to him, re listen to him, and I learned a great
takeaway with Paul lime, get there, always 30 minutes early.
Like, you know, his drums are set up, ready to go. But he
always is there without fail. 30 minutes early, coffee in hand,
you know, shooting the shit with everybody just ready to go.
You know, that's pushing it, 30 minutes early. I think an hour
early. Well, he's kind of a slacker, I think.
I mean, what has he done, really?
Yeah, yeah. He's just, he's just starting his career. But today's
guest knows Paul knows Lonnie knows Eddie. We all know each
other. We're as thick as thieves. Hailing from Cleveland,
Tennessee, calling Nashville home for 27 years. My guest
today, Garth justice has performed, recorded with Casting
Crowns. TG, Shepherd, Jackie Velazquez, Petra Engelbert,
humperdig, Michael English, Ricky Skaggs, Jody Messina, the
list goes on and on, and most notably, last several years,
since 2021 the queen of country music, Reba McIntyre, that's our
new friend. Garth justice, what's up? Man, rich, how you
doing? Thanks for being here. Man, thanks for having me. You
got Spring Hill, Tennessee, I drove past the sign today, since
1809
Wow, that's surprising.
That little horse and buggies, you
know, doesn't look a day over. Well, 1811
even back then, they didn't have any infrastructure. We're
overcrowded.
Oh, yeah. I mean these little two lane streets, yeah, right,
wow.
Dirt roads, most likely back then
at least, at least traffic still bad. So, yeah, that's anywhere.
It's a Tennessee these days.
Yeah, there isn't, there is a coalition out here. We've got,
you know, Dave Santos, the great bass player. Yeah, we've got
Evan Hutchings is like a stone's throw from me, John spittle.
John spittle is here. Scott Williamson's down here. Scott
Williamson, yeah, our
friend, the bass player. We had on, not Louise, but
we had him on, Matt. Matt, Matt. Matt.
Have to. He came on with sunglasses. He was a great guy.
He lives right down the road from me. Dang it nice.
And you know what we get? We got to take our ginkgo Balboa. I've
been taking it,
taking my ginkgo Balboa. What
is that guy's name? Mean, but with, like, what is his resume?
Ellsworth. Ellsworth,
gosh, my God, Jim, this is really tanking. And he was so
cool. Yeah, no. Definitely loved him. So Garth, you know, we have
been in this, this, like, circle and scene of your drums over
there, drum
paradise, right? They were, yeah, I'm with sound check now,
yeah, you
moved over there, closed Sony. I've been with every Cartridge
Company and dang tank, you know, and a lot of them are closed
now, right? But I would see your name over there, drum Paradise,
and I would be like, Oh my God, we've got to get together. I
mean, do something. And, you know, here it is, I've been
you've been here 27 years. I've been here 28 years, and you were
telling me you have a beautiful home studio. We kind of lived
over in the same hood together, right, right, yeah, yeah. So,
what's, what's a typical day for you? Are you cranking out five
songs a day, every day? What's, what's the thing? Boy,
it really varies quite a bit. You know, there are, you know,
the demo sessions where it's, you know, 2530 songs for the
day. I think 31 is my top Yes, for a single day. Wow. 21 for
me. A Keith follows, which is crazy. This is a, you know,
buddy Hyatt. Oh yeah. Oh gosh. Love that guy. And he just
cranks him out and knows how to do it. I hope he's doing okay,
buddy, yeah, yeah. He's doing great. Okay. He's doing great.
He's still killing it. But, you know, get, get a bunch of
players in the room, one pass, maybe a couple fixes, maybe a
guitar solo, and move on to the next
song. Now, are you doing full, full tracking in your place?
Yeah, yeah.
And then, and then other days, you know, there are those days
it's, you know, 31 songs, but there, there are days that are,
you know, a couple songs and spend a lot of time and get
everything right.
Now, if you're doing a full tracking band at your place,
like I know, Tony Moore does that a little bit, maybe Scott
Williamson does it a little bit. But do you all? Do you have an
engineer there?
So no, I engineer all. I engineer most of the stuff at my
place. I've got a remote rig set up by the drums. Wow. So
that means you're punching everyone the fixes. So you're a
master of
all the DAWs. I don't know about that, but I mean, because you
have to be fast, yeah, you do well, I a little, a little trick
I've learned is to set the set your markers up before you ever
walk into the drums. Set the markers up for the session. You
know, look through the chart. Set your verses, your choruses.
So when somebody asks for a I want the second chorus, you go
right to it, yeah, you get to it. So, yeah, just little tricks
like,
now, how did you learn Pro Tools? Was it a thing like, Oh,
my God, I better jump on this bandwagon and get left behind.
First question, yeah, what was the first dog that you learned?
Oh, Pro Tools, yeah. Was it Pro Tools? It was, what would do?
What were you doing prior to that? Did you cut and splice
tape
with? You know, my first couple sessions that I played on, I
never engineered to tape. My first couple sessions I played
on were to tape. But then when I started engineering, producing,
mixing, that kind of thing, we were on ADATs.
So yeah, so that was like the precursor to digital as we know
it,
yeah. I mean, technically digital tape, but yeah, still
kind of fraught with peril. Yes, exactly. Was
there anything intimidating about Pro Tools when he first
got into it that
you remember just the, you know, learning the interface, you
know, learning the how long
it take you? Well,
gosh, I think I'm still learning. But no, what I did the
first Pro Tools rig that I had was bought by the band I was
traveling with at the time, corporate entertainment band
that brought me to town. And I got, I got the rig set up, and I
was like, Okay, well, I don't really have anything to do, so I
opened up a I imported a CD track, and I opened up every
plugin in the list. Just, let's see what I can do. Yeah, and I
would cut stuff up and move it around. And, you know, just try
to try to create. It's good practice. Yeah, it was good. It
was good
training. That's what I did, because it was, it all the way
back when it's called Sound toys,
this would have been, this would have been 2000 so not it would I
think Pro Tools five was the first, the first version i You
ever hear of. Saw software. Audience. I did, wow. I did
early, early the mid 90s. Yes, those awful, yeah,
great movies. Great
Movies. 12 is coming out. Oh my gosh, in theaters. Are you a
Halloween guy? Do you? Do you look forward
to it at all? Yeah, you know, we don't. We don't dress up, except
for maybe an occasional Halloween party with some
friends, and we generally just turn the lights off and don't
pass out really candy, because almost every Halloween we go out
somewhere, if you're
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We are glad you're here. What? What? Who put the sticks in your
hand? Well, my uncle was a drummer. My dad's youngest
brother was a drummer, and he had drums set up in my
grandparents house when I was, when I was born, yeah? And so at
about two years old, I made my way down there and just, you
know, kind of tapping around. So that's very young, yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, you know that I didn't have any necessary
talent, you know, yeah, from a very young age, I really loved
the drums. But
then what was the thing? Well, you know, we might be around the
same age. So were you a child of MTV or what?
Okay, yeah, yeah, I loved, I loved watching MTV. I think, if
I remember correctly, the first video I ever saw was Motley Cruz
looks at kill so, I mean, yeah, come on
and now, are you Martha Quinn or Nina Blackwood?
Gosh, I, I don't remember that far back rich.
Okay, so Martha Quinn was like, she looked like a little pixie.
Had this. She had the cute, little sassy haircut. And then
there was Nina Blackwood, who was blonde, and she talked like
she was gargling with razor.
Okay, I've done most of my work in town in the contemporary
Christian sec,
how did you find yourself in that genre,
in the in the contemporary Oh, and that, well, I grew up in
church. I'm a church kid, yeah, grew up, you know, playing in
church, seven, eight years old, something like that. The drummer
didn't show up for Sunday night service, and so they said, Hey,
Garth, could you play drums tonight? And you know, I was off
to the races. So, like I said, from very young age, just loved
the drums. Loved everything drumming and drums. So
how old were you when that happened started
seven or eight? When the when the Sunday night thing happened?
Yeah, I can't remember. My mom would be able to tell you. So
at that point, were you like, Could you play? I kept a beat,
you know,
I would not want to hear the tape of that service if it
exists
anywhere. Humbling, going back to those oh my god, set demo
cassettes, right? Yeah, yeah. Did you get rid of your I got
rid of all my
cassettes. Finally, yeah, yeah. You know what I by. By the time
I started collecting music, it was all on CD, so I had a few
tapes, but not much. It's
really funny when someone you play on their record, and they
sign a CD over to you, and you look at it, and you go, I have
no way to play, right, right?
Yeah. We still, I have a corporate entertainment band,
and we still sell CDs at the at the table, yeah. And people
still buy them. You know, my wife bought a new car last year,
2020 and not new, new to us, and it's got a six CD changer in it.
Really 2020 Yeah, really crazy. I thought you're gonna say it
didn't have a CD player, right? No, mine doesn't. My car
doesn't, but, yeah, I mean, does yours nothing?
Because they're actually doing away with am radio next? Wow.
Jim likes, Jim was in radio, and so he is planting his flag with
the idea that radio is going
away. It's not going away. I think it's gonna stick around.
Just, do you think terrestrial radio is going away, or is it?
Well, I don't think it'll never go away, because it's needed for
a public service, sure that, God forbid anything happens. It is
we're supposed to have radio stations or the worlds or
anything like that. Yeah, exactly. Radio stations. I think
music stations are going away. Yeah. I think they're gonna
Yeah, that makes
sense, yeah. Well, did you see that MTV and VH one pulled all
of their music programming. They're only going to 20
years ago. But I thought
they're going out of business. I thought they stopped like MTV
just went off the
air. Really, I would have thought there had been a bigger
deal
about that. I remember, maybe it was an AI article. Who the hell
knows? How
do you know what we're reading is the truth? Right? Exactly.
Spend a two hour conversation on that, right? Yeah. I
mean, that's real. That's a real scary word. World. Living it is
it really, is it is MTV shutting. Sorry, I didn't get
much sleep last night. I can't put my my articulation is not
happening today. We're
drummers. It's our paramount. Confirms MTV shutdown. Wow. Two
days ago.
Holy cannoli.
Speaking of which, it's not a very I don't know if it's a
compelling story, but do you and the bride, like binge shows. I
mean, are you? Are you a Netflix Hulu Binger
company? Yeah, we'll generally have a show or two that we're
watching together or with some friends. So, yeah, we're in. Oh,
shoot. I can't remember the name of the show we're watching with
friends right now, but we've got one episode left, and it's been,
like a month, and we haven't been able to get together with
our friends. And so black rabbit die. No, it's shoot, it's a it's
an English show. It's fantastic. And I can't remember the name.
Anyway,
yeah, they got that channel Brit box, which all British
programming. Oh, nice. Yeah, nice. Very polite, yeah, very
polite network. But no, I recommend black rabbit on
Netflix. That was incredible. What cool story? Jude Law and
someone else,
yeah, some very attractive person. We don't know who it is.
That's amazing. Jim is doing the thing. He's trying to track down
what happened well, because
there's, there's like, an article that says, you know, MTV
is not shutting down, and it's like the Dayton Daily News and
the car. The article that I got before was from Hindustan Times.
That's in Kentucky, right? Yeah, I'm pretty sure think it's right
next to Cleveland. Yeah, it very well, maybe a suburb of
Cleveland, Tennessee.
What's life like in Cleveland, Tennessee, to get back there,
you still have
some Yeah, my mom and dad still live there. Still active in
church. It's a, it's a, it's a church town. Yeah, number one,
in a college town. Number two, the Lee University's there.
You're right there. So that's where you went to school. So
what? What happened between you jumping up at seven or eight
years old on the drums at church, to you studying music at
Lee University,
really just playing in church and and played all through
middle school and high school, marched, played in the jazz
bands. Yes, any opportunity I could get to play, you know,
travel play. Yeah, there were several college groups around
Cleveland that would, that would do weekend tours, and I'd go out
with them sometimes or or a summer long tour, you know. So,
you know, just any opportunity I had to play, I was trying to
find those opportunities.
I like, I because I've listened to a couple other interviews you
did, and I was always impressed with you, you know, you're the
you read, you play styles, and you did the big band, and you
did classical and marching. And I think that's important. It's
really cool. You know,
I've enjoyed it. I, you know, I got him chip Hancock in in
Chattanooga taught me to read at very young age. You know, I was
probably eight or nine when I started taking drum lessons, and
he's still teaching in Chattanooga, great guy and so
and then reading, reading in church. I was reading some of
the orchestra pieces, you know, that were actually coming out of
Nashville, and some of the choral music that was coming out
of Nashville that was all legit charts. You know, there, there
weren't, we didn't know what the number system was back then. So
all those were legit charts. And I, I had to figure out how to,
how to read all those things, yeah, what
are all these this? What's all this spilled coffee? Exactly,
right, exactly coffee grounds and like. So who were your guys?
Who were you guys? I Recaro,
yeah, I was big, big Carl fan, a Carlos Vega, you know,
untouchable. Both those
guys. What a shame, yeah, way too soon. Way too soon.
Way too soon, both of them, yeah.
But then, you know, I, I loved all those la guys, you know, the
New York guys, Gad and all those guys, but I was enamored with
the Nashville scene from, from, you know, one of my earlier
probably my next drum teacher after chip Hancock was guy named
Mike Childers, who's local guy. He played with Carrie Underwood
and public town. And, you know, I think he manages Scotty
McCarthy now, oh, he got into management. Great, great
drummer. And, yeah, it doesn't his brother Mark. Mark is still
carries. MD, so Mike was your teacher. That's great, yeah. So
he was teaching me a school, and turned me on to mark Hammond,
and said, Hey, find anything you can this guy has played on. And
so, man, I just, I devoured everything he he played on.
And Mark and John Hammond, yeah, and they're local, and they're
busy, yeah, never run into them. Yeah, I we got to get them on
the show. We got to get
them. Oh, man, yeah, you got to. I mean, if you can get it would
be listen both of them. I would listen to the whole thing
multiple times if you got both those guys. So they're heroes.
They're absolute heroes. And through Mark, I was exposed to
John. And through John, I was exposed to Scott Williamson,
Brewster, you know, eventually need him all the all the greats
around here, Tony Mora, all those guys. So, yeah. So I
started trying to find everything I could find that
Mark played on and John. On as well. So in Cleveland, there was
a, there's a studio, when I was growing up, and they would, they
would do some, some of the choral print stuff that was
local to Cleveland. And they would hire Nashville musicians
to come down. And rather than pay the drummer to bring a kit
down, they would rent my drums, which, God love them. They were,
they were old Ludwig rocker, you know, birch Not, not a
great kid, but hey, you're pretty savvy. Renting your kid
out as a young man, I
say rent. I don't think they ever paid me anything,
but at least I went and set them up for free too. So, yeah, no,
but, but John came. John would come down and do do sessions in
Cleveland, and my parents, knowing that this is kind of
what I wanted to do with my life. Would let me skip school
and go hang the session, which was really cool. So I met John
that way, met several of the other Nashville musicians that
way, and met Scott Williamson that way. So that was a, you
know, they were both very influential in telling me, Hey,
if you want to move to Nashville, you should do it.
Yeah? You should try it. So
encouraging, yeah, I like that, because the flip side of that is
a lot of people saying, Hey, man, don't right, you know? I
mean, a common form of advice now is, don't do it, unless you
can't picture your life without your music. Sure, you know what
I mean, because it's just such a hard road.
Yeah, when you met with Scott Williamson, because we've, we've
had him on before, yeah, and he's, yeah, I just listed his
episode. Dare I say, friend of ours? Yes, absolutely. He's,
he's one of those people that like you're being funny, but Are
you being serious, right? Right? He has any kind of do that to
you.
Sardonic wit, though. Oh, yeah. Sardonic, good, good. Word,
right, yes.
Insult, right, yeah. Like he's talking about the first time
meeting him real quick, if you have,
okay, well, this, it's, it's, it's funny. Listening to his
episode, he was talking about some of the production stuff he
had done. My mom and dad both worked at the local church
bookstore there in Cleveland. And so I would after school, I'd
always go over to, you know, wait on my mom to get done with
work or whatever. So I was looking around one day, and I
found this new artist, you know, brand new artist, four girls
called point of grace, yeah, yeah. And I was like, Oh, that's
cool. They're, you know, girl group for him was big then, I
don't know you remember those guys for him was big then. So it
was, like, a, okay, maybe a female for him then. So I bought
the, bought the CD, and put it in my car and just it was a
Wednesday night because I was late to church, because I
listened to the whole record twice, sitting in my car, just
blown away. And Scott had produced that record and played
on it, yeah, and I was like, Who is this guy? This crazy, just,
you know, really, really great stuff. Anyway, a week later, he
came and did a session in Cleveland, and so I met him, and
he was, he was very funny, very, very dry, you know, immediately,
immediately caught that, but he's the guy that actually I was
a weckle Freak. Little splashes. Yeah, of course, still got
little splashes. Come on. But you know, so somebody had said
that I was really into weckle. And he said, Hey, if you're, if
you're into weckle, have you checked out? Vinnie, yeah. And I
was like, Well, yeah, I've heard of any. He said, check out,
Vinnie. And just completely opened my eyes, yeah, Vinnie,
Paul for some Well, yeah,
Vinnie, call you to
Yeah. So the night Walker record and yeah, Joe's Garage, all the
stuff.
And that was right around the time of 10 summoners tales. So
yeah, making five, four sexy, right? Five, or was it seven?
That was five. That was five. Seven days is in five. Seven
days is
in five. That's a big Have You Heard you need to Google this if
you haven't heard it, seven days in seven, four, ooh, or seven,
eight. Who does it? I don't know. It's some guy on YouTube.
Yeah, plays it in seven.
Marcus Finney does some of that stuff, right? He'll mess with
that. Yeah, it's a it's a fun exercise. I feel like my playing
over the years has just gotten stupider and stupider. I'm just
heading more and more towards Phil red,
it's crazy. You play for field. My brother even asked me. He
goes, Hey, would you ever play in a rush tribute band? I said,
Hell no. He goes, really? I said, No, I would. Why would I
want to do that? I said, Once upon a time, I said, Can I pull
it off?
There's some videos of that dude that sings at the same time?
Oh, they got the new world men, I think is what they're Yeah,
they dress in the orange jumpsuit, jump shoots jumpsuit.
Again, that guy sings and plays. Yeah, he's a beast, yeah. Well,
and pretty big rush news in the last weeks, yeah, talk about
that. Annika Niles,
she's nice. I've. Met her over the years, couple times at
conventions. Percussive artist,
I'm excited about she's gonna crush, yeah, absolutely.
I'm afraid that, like she's gonna cry. She's gonna play it
better than Neil,
dude, people are gonna start having you in the cross
explain. Okay, he was, he was a trailblazer, yes, okay, he
wasn't really all that much of like a technician, as we know,
as a weckle, or a kaleida or, you know, Carter Beaufort and
stuff like that, you know. But come on, there are cats out
there that could smoke him, sure, and play circle. He just
happened to be first in the mind for the general masses, you
know. I think when you think of drummers, people know,
generally, not drummers, but general mass audience, yes.
Who's gonna come to mind? Neil Pierre, John Bonham, Phil
Collins, Phil Collins, Chad Smith, right?
Chad Smith, everywhere. He's got a great publicist.
God. So there you go. But I mean, I think in that, in that
sense, he's like the
every man's drummer.
Yes, Neil. Neil had power. Neil had precision. He had creativity
too. He had creativity parts the finesse of a Vinnie or a weckle
or a gad. Yeah, that's that wasn't his testimony. You know
what? I mean, that that wasn't, that wasn't what he was going he
wasn't a flamboyant player. I think Annika will bring some of
that finesse to his parts. Now, see, Neil was the first drummer
that I ever realized was playing a part, a drum part. Yes, they
composed. He composed it, and he tried to play the same thing
perfectly every night, right, right? Where I'd never play the
same thing twice, you know, yeah? Like, Oh, okay. So he was
the first guy that I ever realized did that.
Yeah, just cool. So you don't play, like, if you, if you're
playing with a band that you've recorded with, you don't
duplicate the fills or anything
like, really, no, I've only been asked to do that one time.
I was filling in for Jody Messina, and she likes those
parts we were rehearsing, yeah, well, and what she said made a
whole lot of sense, and it wasn't offended at all. But she
she stopped in, like the second or third song, and she said,
Hey, I gotta ask, could you play the fills from the record? I
said, Yeah, no problem. She said, I take my vocal cues, or,
you know, I get cues from those fills, yes. So I took the lunch
break and I I charted out every, every fill Lonnie played on the
record, yes. So
yeah, cuz our fire buddy Elton Charles, was out with her, yeah.
And he's like, I gotta play those fills the same
every day they open for us on on the first leg of the little
player. Elton, gosh, he's fantastic,
good little player. He really is. I mean, there's some guys
that you don't hear about every day that are out there crushing
it.
Yeah, he's gonna be a monster. I mean, like, not. He's already a
monster. He's going to be recognized as a monster in this
town.
Yes, getting back to Annika, though, yeah, she's got a tough
job ahead of her. She does. She can do it now.
See, I'll be honest, I haven't heard the hate that I've I've
seen people talking about, I'm
really, I'm really happy. I don't even know her, and I'll
tell her this to her face, I am so happy for you. Massively, oh
my gosh,
massively happy. Don't you
agree that? Mean, you know she's if she changes up any of those
parts, oh, it's gonna be hell to pay. It's gonna be
it's gonna be interesting to see. It's
gonna be a lot of air drumming dudes in that arena? Are we
getting our tickets? Jim, are we gonna have like, a guy's night?
Are we gonna go? You got a couple of grand? Are they that
expensive?
Yeah, they're crazy. They
added they added dates, I guess another 17 dates.
We were talking like a grand for a ticket. No, you're talking
sometimes like five to 10 on the floor especially. Is that legal?
Well, someone's buying them and turning around and selling them,
right? They put out. They specifically said, Look, get in
line at Ticketmaster and make sure they get them from the
source with the prices that they have. Because these guys are,
yeah, because usually, back in the day, when I would want to,
like, go see a show, you'd go to the ticket master booth, yeah,
at Dillards, yes.
And they print them up right there
for you. Yes, yeah. Does that still happen? No, no, no, no,
it's online. I All I remember is that when Courtney got the
tickets for Taylor Swift, she could buy up to six, okay, and
she's like, I just want to buy three and blah, blah. I think
the grand total, I think it ran us about 800 about 850 bucks for
three tickets. Wow. And then she goes, she let me know when she
got them, and I said, did you get all six? No, I only bought
three. I'm like, oh, because what
you want to turn them around? Hell, yeah,
dude, I could have charged like, three grand a ticket. Dang.
You know, consumerism, right? Yeah, absolutely, it's the name
of the game. No, I'm incredibly happy for her. And I feel like
we're used to females being in the music industry as front
people, but I feel like she's gonna move the needle a decade
ahead for female side people, yeah, you know what? I mean? Oh,
I hadn't even thought. About that. Think, yeah, it's great,
you know, I think
that's a great thing. You think she's gonna be a side person? Do
you think they'll make her a part of the band?
God, who knows what the business deal is?
Question, yeah, that's a good question. I mean, either way,
I'm sure she's making a pretty betting. Oh yeah, yeah, good for
her. Because I don't think they, I don't think they don't need
the money.
She's gonna be living in a German castle
with a moat and alligators in the moat.
Madamonica, you just sounded like Arnold. He's Austrian.
She's got to live in a German castle. Oh, my God, she got to
be sitting there with her tapestries. So,
you know, back to the Hammond brothers, just because I don't
want to let that go, if somebody wanted to check those guys,
wanted to check those guys out, what are the seminal recordings?
Oh, gosh, they probably have some, some holy grail.
Yes, absolutely. Well, for for me, one
of John's best recordings is the West King album, The robe.
There's a song on there in particular called, I believe
that he just kills, yeah, good lord. And then probably my
favorite John Hammond track is from a Phillips Craig and Dean
record, and it's called Mercy came running, and it's him and
Jimmy Lee, slowest playing bass and just the most unique drum
part, brilliant Drum and Bass interaction. Yeah, so that's for
John. Gosh, yeah, those are a couple of great ones. Also the
dogs of peace records. Have you? Have you heard those? No, I got
I gotta do like a deep dive dogs a piece. It's him and Jimmy Lee
and Blair and Gordon Kennedy. Wow, yeah, that's, it's a, it's
a series. They've got two records, one from probably 1520,
years ago, and one from about five
years ago. Jimmy Lee is such an aw shucks type guy, right? I
gave you know, when you try to compliment, I mean, he's just a
world class musician, yeah, he's like, ah shucks, I know, right?
It's kind of like you ah shucks.
A lot of the greats are, right?
You are so that way.
Well, I mean, it's, oh, thank you very much. It's very off
putting to be the other way. You know,
that's something I need to be. It's not attractive. I need to
get off putting
go to sugar free. He totally sugar free jello.
Stuff, pretty good. The guy in our band that does the dad jokes
is Jack Sizemore. He's our, you know,
okay, he's a dad. He's
he really loves the puns. The
puns are very we could
count on rich stick to it. Can't beat him. I mean, he loves him.
Oh, he loves them.
Oh, I've got a, I've got an ongoing thread with Jeff King
and Jacob Lowry and Carmella Ramsey from the Reba band. Yeah,
we, we always share dad jokes. So it's, it's, it's a constant,
like almost daily occurrence that somebody posts a dad joke
that's amazing. And same thing with my sister. I exchange dad
jokes with my sister and her two girls. What's your sister do?
She is a well, she was a pharmacy technician for a long
time. She's actually gone into the legal side of Big Pharma.
Yeah, right. So I'm not exactly sure what her job entails, but
it's relating to pharmaceuticals. Yes, yeah,
that's good business, yeah. Oh my gosh. You
mentioned Germany before I actually knew a German sound
engineer. Yeah. Let's put a time I knew a check one too, as well.
Oh my God in heaven. Oh
God. So I was, you know, when we were just about to start, we
were talking about, you know, your road versus your studio
tan. And when you do the road with Reba Mason, how many dates
a year? You guys? Do
you know the first year? 2022 I think we did.
45 maybe dates,
very manageable. Yeah, yeah. 23
maybe that's around the same number. She took 2024, off to to
tape. And then this year we did maybe 20, yeah. And then she
took the back half of the year to record happy's place and the
voice. So she's been on the West Coast since June or July. Do you
have to do the fills? No, that's great. No, no, it's it was
surprisingly easy transitioning into that band. Yeah, of course,
I did a lot of homework, but I only had like, a week and a half
to to learn the stuff, you know, after we after it was confirmed
I was in the band. So, you know, I charted everything out. And
it's cool to have a little iPad up there with some carrots
or whatever. Yeah, nice. Yeah, that's, that's been nice. So
it's always nice.
I do need to make the transition I've been getting. I've been
watching all the sort of footage of all these drum clinics I do,
and I've got the giant music stand with the notebook and
people. But it's like, I don't trust the iPad. I mean, sure.
What if it dies? What if the sun gets on it? What if it
right? I get it? I get it. But what if the wind blows and blows
all your charts. I
got my clothes pins on there and the Crown Royal bag. Yeah,
right.
What if a little drop coming off of a leaf hits the sun just
right, and then all of a sudden light your notebook? Oh, see?
Yeah, I guess you can really get into some final destination
stuff here, right, just in time. But that's a thought about that.
What we're gonna do for Halloween is I'm gonna put the
original John Carpenter on. That's five, four done, 10,
counting, ding, Dan, Dan, yep. It's like an update to take
five, three plus two duple. And so I'm gonna have that on in the
back, and then My gal is just gonna be dressed totally normal.
But there's gonna be a chance. Gonna be a chain, and when the
kids open the door, she's gonna pull me off and I'm gonna have
one of those spirit Halloween masks, you know, with the yak
hair and everything. And I'll be like, take one. That's gonna
get old after about 10 minutes. Yeah, I know you're gonna be
like, just, just take the damn candy. I
got some. I got some kids pretty good with our ring doorbell.
Last year, they came door. You know, the porch light is off.
They came rang the doorbell. So I, you know, I get a
notification on my phone, and I activated the phone. I said, Go
away. It's amazing, great idea. That is a fantastic over drove
your mic there. They're good.
So, so back to Reba. We are all over the place. What is it like
working with you know, this is really crazy, because she's a
singer, she's an actress, she's an entertainer, entertainment
mogul. Yeah, she's had two, I believe, two sitcoms, but I
mean, 70 million records worldwide now, 100 singles. I
don't know how many went number one, sure, but when you're
choosing from 100 singles to put a show together, you know the
rule in a, usually modern country concert going is, leave
them wanting more, give them 90 minutes. Is that what you guys
do? 90 so you're looking at Rick's, 24 songs. 25 songs.
Is it the same set list the entire year?
Generally, we'll change things up about every six months. Or
that's how we that's how we, we did it. Yeah, so, and generally,
there's a, there's a medley of some medley, not Reba songs in
there. So she did like a gospel little gospel medley. Of course,
she did a gospel record. So I guess those technically, yeah,
are her songs. Little gospel medley in there. We had, you
know, we, we had worked up a couple of her number ones that
it eventually didn't make the make the show. Does he love you?
Was one that got cut, wow, like the week of our first show, and
I was, I was kind of shocked. Of course, the vocalist who was
singing with her got sick for our first show. So maybe that,
that, you know, played a part. But it never background singer,
yeah, it was Carmella Ramsey. Something happened and she got,
she got sick and missed a missed a show, or couldn't sing, I
guess she she still played great field player, but yeah, so that
one never made it back in which was one of her biggest hits,
yeah, you know, yeah, it's, it's really interesting. You know,
seeing the set list every time and, okay, there's a new one,
there's a new there's a new song that wasn't even a single that
she just really likes, so an album cut that she'll throw in.
So I love it. So it's not all the number, yeah.
And then Jeff King, love that guy. What such positivity. You
know, occasionally when I find him in a session, he's just so
happy to be there, absolutely creative, encouraging, positive
energy. And that Jacob Lowery, I don't know if we have met in the
flesh, but I do enjoy his side. Man Chronicles, he has a
podcast. Yes, it's very dramatic. It's the side. Man
Chronicles,
you should have him on your podcast, on just kvetch about
making podcasts. Yes, see,
I might know something about that. Yeah,
Jim, 20 podcasts, I don't know how you do
Jacob's fantastic. We actually, we were hired at the same time
and as a team, because you guys worked together all the time.
Well, we
didn't even know the other had been hired. I thought Mark Hill
was still, still in the band, and he and Trey gray left to
stick it out with Brooks and Dunn Yeah. So anyway, I show up
to a session. I'm waiting to hear from management, you know,
if I've, if I've got the gig, or whatever. And Jacob walked in,
he gets set up, and we played through the first song and and
he says, after the first song, he said, Garth, anything new in
your life? I was like, Well, funny, you should ask, but I'm
kind of, I'm waiting to hear if I got the Reba gig. He's like, I
mean, he looked like he'd seen a ghost. He said, I am too. Are
you kidding me? No, oh yes. It was like a call. No, this did
listen. This was for me, at least. I don't know how exactly
it worked with Jacob, but for me, at least, it was a Jeff King
recommendation, nice. And so we. Waited, Jacob and I waited that
whole day. You know, in between songs, do you hear anything?
God, you could have text nothing at the end of the day, we both
got a text saying, Hey, you're in the band. Yeah, man, but
yeah, Jeff. Jeff had called me about a week before that. I was
actually on my way downtown to sub the smoking section. Show
you familiar with the smoking section? Yeah, do tell us to
makers started it back in the day. It's, it's a funk horn band
all the great RnB hits Aretha Shaka, all that stuff Chicago,
whatever. Anyway, it's a heavy book, and I was really nervous
about playing the show that night, because I was subbing for
John Hammons, the regular drummer, heavy book, and I was
nervous, and I looked down, and Jeff's calling me, and I sent
him to voicemail, and he sends me a text. He says, answer your
phone. Okay, sorry, so I called him back. He said, Hey, Reeve is
looking for a drummer. Would you mind if I put your name in the
hat, I said, No. I mean, what's the what's the schedule? Like,
you know, what's it? I don't want to be gone a whole lot. So
he told me, and it sounded great. And I'm thinking,
there's, there's, there's got to be 100 other drummers are
looking at. And there were a few, but I got the gig so nice.
Very thankful. Just just on his recommendation.
So what's the first like, practice, rehearsal with the
mic,
yeah. How much does she rehearse for a tour? Because you hear
about these, like, the pinks of the world. They're like, we do a
month without the dancers, we do a month with the dancers. I'm
like, I'd be burnt out,
if I remember correctly. We did a week of just the band, maybe,
maybe four or five days. And then she came in for about three
days, and then we went up to Evansville, Kentucky and did two
days for rehearsals in the arena where we did our first show.
Nice, yeah, it's great.
That's a common thing to go to the opening place and set up and
do a couple days.
You kind of did that, like one last time we did your tour kit
breakdown.
People are so mad. They want to know what these drums are. And
let me just tell you, folks, it's always the same. I just
change the finish. I go from a black sparkle to a red sparkle
to a black and red sparkle to a matte black to a piano black,
same sizes,
same configurations. You still have all those kits.
Yeah, you can ask me if I need them or if I use them.
I, you know, I was No, that's funny, maybe, yeah, Jim, you
know how long I've been doing this for free, or,
Jim, you got it? You get a lot of gear.
I got the second hand drumsticks. Love it.
Oh, tons of crack symbols. There you go. Yeah, you know, like
crack symbols. And when I go up there to see his kid, I'm like,
dude, be careful. Don't cut yourself on there. They look
like murder
gave them to me, right?
I know, but you really cracked him. I mean, you kept it going
well, I mean, it's tough to stop a crack. I know. I did the whole
keyhole drill thing. It doesn't work. Yeah, I tried to patch it
up with some gaff tape, and even even
shaving the symbol out, doesn't really work. No, because it's
sharp, the crack is, yeah, yeah.
I love the fact that they have warranties on symbols. I went to
forks and I bought a pisty, oh, it's got a two year warranty.
I'm gone. Really, they actually have warranties on these things.
I guess it's
pretty crazy. I didn't know that. I mean, you're talking to
a Sabian and Zildjian guys. Yeah, yeah. You don't have a
whole lot of ground here.
Zildjian one of the oldest companies in America, oldest
company in America, the oldest company in America.
Pretty cool now is Sabian kind of this, like, you know, young,
it's a young company, Young. There were, like, the America of
the world, or the Sabian, the Canada of the world, Canada of
the world.
But isn't like Sabian, kind of like, you know, Zildjian, me
too, in a way, like
Zildjian, no, no. Children, yeah, it is. It is. And they've
got their own voice,
different alchemy, and yeah, they,
it was, what the 80s they started, yeah, because I
remember the advertisements, and Rod morgenstein was a big yeah
endorser for them, Harvey Mason, I'll yeah, I was, I was a die
hard pasty guy back because of Alex. Hey, nothing wrong with
that. No, I say I like Sabian. I was just messing
past is a good rock and roll symbol. I mean, if you're gonna
go classic, you go get me some vintage Ludwig drums and some
pasty giant beats.
Yeah, right. I have no idea what even those mean. I know, like
the 3000s
Yeah, are good. They got dark symbols now, like Steve Jordan
plays super
dark signature, I have a signature crash, 2020, inch
crash. Everybody's making great stuff. I will say there's
probably maybe, like four or five brand new companies that
are on the scene. They're not so great. But if you stay with, you
know, if you stay in the in the Big Four, yeah, you know, what
are the big four? You know, you got children, sabe and pasty and
mineral mine are because.
Yes, I interviewed one of the guys who owns one of the newer
companies. I'm going, Dude, you've got some freaking cojones
starting a symbol company, you're going
up against, like, I mean, it can be done. I mean, in the
automotive sector, they've, they've shown it can be done
going up against the big three. I mean, for a symbol company,
that's, that's a man, I have
to say in in almost, excuse me, sorry, I'm a drum nerd. I've got
a huge collection of drums and cymbals. I love, I love to buy
gear. And so in every city I go to, I try to find a drum shop or
a local music store. And in nine out of 10 drum shops that I find
outside of Nashville, most of the new symbols they have are
smaller companies. Interesting. Yeah, wow, it's very
interesting. Badges. Drum shop in Cincinnati is fantastic shop,
by the way, but almost all their symbols, I mean, they have
plenty of zilchin and feisty and Sabian, but they have a huge
selection of these custom made symbols, small, small batch, you
know, one off symbols. And those are a lot of fun to play, yeah,
you know,
well, so that's your thing. Like, everyone's got a thing on
the road. Like, some people like to go buy, you know, vintage
clothing, or find the, try to find the most extreme Mom and
Pop coffee house. But I like to combine the coffee house with
the where's the drum shop thing, and then, so do you have the
discipline to not buy a snare drum? Or is it
like it's, it's white knuckling? Sometimes I love to buy drums
and cymbals. Well, I
saw a little video with Joe Carroll from Treasure Island. He
was like, you know, Garth, show me what you got in the case
there. And it looks like you had a lot of eights. Well, he had,
yeah, I've got, I've got more six and a halfs than I do
eights. I do have a couple eights that make a regular
rotation right now.
Nice. I have no eights. What would my first eight be? Are you
talking about? Gosh, eight inch deep.
Oh, snare, civilian, deep dish. I'm thinking like, Tom, well,
I just, I have to say, I found on on marketplace about maybe a
year ago, an eight inch deep DW edge. Nice, custom, custom deal.
I brought, bought it down here in Spring Hill. Man, that thing
just is a cannon. Did you buy it over boomers? No, I bought a
craviato 1012, years ago over at boomers.
You know what he's got? No, I kind of like it's hard to find
drum so long ago.
Yeah, I remember those. I never owned one. Vinnie loved them.
Really secret weapon, yeah, wow. Who was that? Any it's just,
it's
still over there, and I'm it's really crisp and yummy. And
what time is, what time they close? It's like a, it's like a
four, it's like a piccolo ish,
yeah, close soon. I don't think he locks
the door. It's wood, it's wood, but it plays like a deeper drum,
but it's thick, okay, which is hard to do.
That's, yeah, that's, that's impressive. I got to check that
out. Any idea who was? Was a Bauer? Buyer, was he involved?
Buyer, I don't think so. Okay, I have a couple of his drums too.
Okay, I don't have any of his drums. James. Buyer, James.
Buyer, yeah, yeah. Remember
what like Premiere, but their thing was, yeah, like, slightly
smaller diameter shell, right? Almost like a timpani kind of
effect that was there. That was their differentiation. Yeah,
it's like that. And, yeah, we'll see. You know, not to slam a
drum coming. No, not at all. Have
you tried the morgenstein tool, Morgan tool, the Morgan tool.
Hey, what is it? God bless him. It's, it's kind of like a, it's
a, it's,
you know how you kind of put your drum sticks together to
tighten lug nuts and stuff. It's basically that, okay?
And it's selling for a premium. I saw it at the drum show, and
it's flying off the price. I talked, I talked to the guys
over a 2112 percussion in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I
looked at the price tag, and I was like, Are you kidding me for
this? And and they're like, Dude, we can't keep them in
stock. I'm so happy for Rod, yeah, how cool, you know what I
mean to because to get a, to get a piece of ancillary, you know,
auxiliary gear in the music business, to get sticky, right?
Like a big fat snare drum, yes, or a drum taco, or a Mr. Muff
lug locks, yeah, any of that
stuff is difficult, very, very, I have a Mr. Muff, yeah, it's
cool. I just like saying it anyways. So the
thing is, is that or you buy just a, you know, a channel
lock, but it's not a Morgan tool, see, channel lock can do
the same thing, yeah? But, but we like rod, and we want
him to be successful. We do want him to be successful? He's he's
retired from Berkeley, right? Tired
from Berkeley, still playing. She's only 17, right.
Rod, what's up?
Buddy show, buddy left, yeah, left handed. He's playing the
wrong way. Are you a foodie? I'm a fat kid, so I like you are not
a food kid. I'm. I'm, I'm a fat kid at
heart, right? So when you were young, I mean, you turned it
around, you're like, well,
well, I'm diabetic, so I've had to, I've had to switch up my
diet, you know, low carb thing. But Hello, 1517, years ago,
something like that. So, yeah, my son was very young. He's 21
Yeah. So, yeah, he's very young, and so, you know, I went through
all the questions of, is it, you know, hereditary or anyway, but,
yeah, you know, just trying to eat reasonably, you know, and
just just try not to be stupid, and then trying to get to the
gym, yeah, when I can, you know.
So you're just doing the machines and a little bit of
cardio, yeah, yes, free weights, you know, free ways
to go. Yeah, Rich has given me crap because I want an E bike.
Nothing wrong with an E bike and E bikes better no bike, right?
I've been riding my bike. Yeah? As I've gotten older, it's the
hills, man, like, off a duplex here. Yeah, you, I know you
don't ride your you don't have a bike. Do you even have a bike?
No, I would like to
get home, you know, get the helmet and everything. See,
you got to worry about these.
We make, we make our money doing this. Yes, yeah, I know too many
guys who I went mountain bunk bike, mountain bunking. Nope,
nope, no story. Do that. I went mountain biking a couple times
with Gary Lund. And, you know, Gary great, great bass player
here in town, went mountain biking a couple times with him.
And, man, it's so much fun. I loved it. And the whole time I
was working out, yeah, just because you're gonna go over the
handlebars at some point that
Joe Bergamini, you know, one of the editors at Hudson music. You
know, he helped with the Stuart Copeland book, yeah, the GAD
book, and he had a spill. Man,
it was messed up his hands, yeah, but, I mean, he
just can't, he rehabbed. He's back. I can't risk it's the
same, same reason I sold my motorcycle. I loved riding my
motorcycle, but especially with cell phones these days. Man,
it's just not
worth it. No one, no one is paying attention. No at all.
But, I mean, you
could make the same case for, like, lifting weights, or, you
know, even running, you could fall down. Sure, sure, you know.
But I
think you know, there's a
tempting fate with some of those things, maybe.
So I will say that, you know, you want a bike, possibly, yeah,
mule town bikes is the place to go. Oh, there you go. Mule town
bikes.com.
You have a little deal worked out with these guys. Yeah, I
forgot to tell you little under table.
So basically, 10% off now,
yeah, I'm getting a Venton e bike. So my philosophy is that
look, instead of five miles a day and knocking the crap out of
me. I'll do 10 and, like, it'll be fun and something to look
forward to. Well, as long as you get the heart up, you know,
right, you're basically
getting everything going. And, yeah, it's just because, I mean,
dude, I like duplex out here with the hills. Oh yeah, oh man,
they freaking run you ragged. They run Sydney ragged. She's
like, you know, 100 pounds less than I am, 150
thanks. So, no, no, I see 100 seems like a lot. I mean,
that's, that's crazy. So you were talking about, you know,
your diet, like, Do you have any things that just either you got
to splurge, like, oh, I mean, I got to have my BLTs with
avocado. Or, you know, like, I'm a coffee house culture guy,
like, I will choose a coffee house based on the quality of
the food. There you go, you know, okay, no, I don't, I
don't. I don't have any real splurge items. There's so much
now, especially with the Keto movement and all that kind of
thing that you can, you can get pretty much whatever you're
craving. A little lower carb, yeah, way,
yeah, you get keto pitas.
You know, there's even keto cake mixes, because I love, I love
sweets, sweet guy,
so, yeah, mine, mine is the, is the Eminem, the peanuts,
right, right?
That was my downfall in the in our dressing rooms, because
evidently, somebody put on the rider. Hey, peanuts every day.
Oh, come on. I know it's really bad. Don't at least put them in
the little baggies so I can at least not grab the bag. But when
you got a bowl of them sitting there, just, just one,
or at least toble The road,
you know, another great thing is the biscotti, the Scott brand,
the cookies, yes, vanilla.
They'll give you those on the plate. I was flying in from
Seattle, and I was like,
they make that, they make that in a spread, oh, like a
butterfly, yeah, yeah. Mercurio talked me about, we
definitely took a turn here. We did
that's all right, that's a pleasant, it's a pleasant turn.
But yeah,
so getting back to, like, yeah, things that you like to eat,
okay,
oh, man, where's gonna go with this? Oh, you ever try? Like,
just for a little supplemental shakes, the core powers, no gas
stations, no. Actually, pretty good, okay, like, the kind of
because I'm a sweet guy too, especially chocolate. Yep, it's.
Totally just kind of nips it in the bud. High protein, low
sugar, high protein, low sugar. Yep, fantastic stuff.
Okay. Well, everybody that knows me, it knows me. That
core power, there you go. That's what I was about to say. He
needed to give away. Just
keep stewing the Mr. Hey, it's got to wink it.
You got to do that. We got to put the littleness. I need that
sound effect. Well,
while we're on the subject, what is your favorite
food, your favorite your favorite
food, if I could, if I could choose anything to wanted to
eat, regard, irregardless, regardless, regardless of my
Yeah, I'd have to go Italian. Mom used to fix an amazing
lasagna when I was I love, yeah, yeah, just any kind of pasta.
And, yeah, sauce.
Now, do you have, like, little alcohol every once in a while?
Or no, you
know, not really. I mean, not good man,
yeah, if you have to, what's the what's the go to? Oh, like, at
the holidays, it's like,
I tried a beer. I'm not, not much of a beer drinker, so
whisking would probably be Wine. Wine.
Yeah, nice of red wine. Yeah, good for your heart, yeah,
there's some medicinal benefits, antioxidants, totally. There you
go. That's what they say. Depends on who's doing the
study, right? That's the thing about studies, right? Who's
funding the study? Because they are going to sway it in their
direction.
You know, what's coming up? What's coming up? Evan Williams,
season,
season, yeah, that's a that could be a five pound spread.
You have to bike 20 miles a day.
Evan Evan Williams. Evan Williams, eggnog. Okay, spiked
eggnog.
He's got all kinds of this show.
So here's the deal. Let's get back to this a little bit,
because I want to is
one of my favorites. Okay, there
you go. So anyways, it's spiked, and it's so incredible. It's
like drinking pancake batter. Oh, but it's incredible. It's
just amazing. And the guys in my band have been polishing off as
well. Yeah, that's how I found out about it. Oh, my God. They
love this thing. I introduced them to to Kentucky coffee. What
is that? I told you to bring it today. It's a brand. It's with
coffee whiskey. Oh, I thought you were winking at me, like,
let's put some whiskey in our coffee today. You know what? I
mean? We could do that.
Yeah, they kind of infused that for you with Kentucky coffee.
That would be a way to wake up and go to sleep the same time.
I don't know what to do. No, okay, the final, final eggnog
comment my son and I for the past, yeah, 12 years, we have a
celebration every year, and I mark it on our calendar first
nog celebration, the first purchase of nog, and we'll have
our we're we'll toast and have, what is it like mid December?
No, it actually comes out mid October, usually. So we've
already had, really, we've already had ours this
year. Really, is it made or do you actually first Evan
Williams, eggnog?
No, no. It's, it's, it's Southern Comfort eggnog, but you
buy it at Walmart. There's no no alcohol in it. And I've tried
making eggnog, and I'm not good at, oh, that's a heavy thing.
Anyway, sorry. No,
no, my thing is, I want you to shine a little light on your
wife and tell us about next level entertainment. Yeah.
Well, my wife and I moved here 98 as you, as you said, 27 years
ago, she got hired in a an entertainment, corporate
entertainment band. She was, she's a singer, and so she got
hired. I moved here with no job. We we were living, living in
Phoenix. We left college and moved to Phoenix. Worked at a
church out there for about a year and a half. I was on the
production team, and they had a studio and dry heat, oh gosh,
like a blowtorch. It's unbelievable, exactly. Yeah. So
anyway, she got called to join this corporate entertainment
band. And we were, we'd always wanted to move to Nashville. You
know, that's like I told you, this is where I always wanted to
be. And so she got hired. I moved here with no job. So I was
actually, I would go out with this band and run sound I'd do
front of house for them on the weekends. Wow. So we were
traveling together, you know, went around the world together,
and we did that for 18 years, wow, in that band. And then when
that ended, we started next level entertainment slash
productions. And we do kind of the same thing. We do just a lot
less of them we do. We do a handful a year of these
corporate that's
a lot of work dealing with the corporate client. They could be
a handful.
And these people are wonderful, great. They, I mean, it's, it's
like, no stress, kind of like a family. We've known them for so
long. It's just, it's a, it's a fantastic arrangement we have,
so that's been great.
What's so you're saying you have a relationship with, like, event
planners in Nashville or No, no,
it's actually, it's actually a specific company that we have
been going in for. They're West Coast based. And, yeah, we just
got back yesterday from Seattle from an event. So did Vegas and
Seattle. One, yeah, just a fantastic people, easy and so,
you know, we, we're looking at maybe spreading out in some
other venues. But, man, we've got, we've got such a good thing
going with these folks.
So is it the thing where you're doing celebration at the end of
the night you're doing YMCA,
we usually open up each of their events, like on a Friday and
Saturday, we'll do a 30 minute set. We used to do only covers,
and then they asked us not to do covers, and so we wrote a bunch
of original tunes and do that kind of stuff.
I've never heard a party planner say, do originals, yeah.
Well, we were shocked too. It wasn't them. It was their,
without getting deep into the weeds. Here it was their, their
attorney who was a little scared, because they have their
own again, not getting in the weeds. They have their own
social media platform, like a private social media platform.
Oh, I see. And their attorney was afraid that the licensing
that normally covers, cover bands, yes, wouldn't cover that.
Oh, interesting, private entity. And so they were like, you know,
we don't want to take any chances. Would you be willing to
write some music? And we're like, yeah. So, man, a couple
good friends of mine, John Newell and Marty lemaine, great
songwriters and producers on their in their own right here in
town, helped us write 10 original dance pop songs, nice,
and we performed them. You know, for this corporation, it's a
four, it's a it's four front people, right? Three front
people and a four piece band. Gotcha, yeah? And then we'll do
a worship service on Sunday morning for this, for this
event,
yeah? Cuz there is a company called West Coast music on the
west coast that basically assembles, you know, all these,
like, famed side men from, like, big bands. And they'll put them
together and be like, Hey, you're gonna go play clooney's
place tonight in Malibu, you know? And it's, yeah, it's good,
yeah, 800,000 bucks, yeah, right. You know, you're gonna
eat some nice, gigantic prawns.
Exactly, exactly you get a lot of like, tribute acts, maybe,
because, are you, are you kind of sourcing the acts for? No,
this is, this is the same man.
It's our band, Yeah, same band that goes to these events,
I was gonna say I know a tribute band that like plays for
peanuts. Oh yeah.
Okay, we've got several here in town. I've sub for almost all of
them. So, yeah,
I know of one in particular. Okay, what's that? What we'll
talk off. Okay,
great. Sounds good. So many inside little wink winks.
Where'd the
wink go? There's no wig for that. That's okay.
So hey, Garth, have you been doing any do you like teaching
at all? Like, have you taught
anything? You know, I taught when I was in college, yeah, and
it, I enjoyed it, but it didn't really resonate with me. I
haven't. I haven't taught in 25 years. Wow, taught a little bit
in Phoenix. I had a couple students out in Phoenix,
but, yeah, since I moved to Nashville, I haven't really,
yeah,
you really enjoy teaching.
It's been a calling, you know, and I've been doing so many
recently. I just did well. I did the Guitar Center in Brentwood.
I did the Music Lab in Brentwood last night. I did a college two
weeks ago. Don't ask me what it was. And then Friday, I'm going
to Trevecca Nazarene, because my buddy Larry aberman. So it's fun
because you get to address the audience at hand. Sometimes it's
like a mixed group, where they want to talk about the music
business, and it's a lot of based on Q and A. Sometimes they
want more traditional drum clinic. Sometimes they want a
master class where it's more intimate and make sure that
everybody gets up. So I've got all these different models, but
what's fun about it is I just try to make it like a one man
show. So there is there's comedic elements. Everybody
leaves with handouts, there's interaction, there's
performance, there's education. So I just try to take the lead
from the great clinicians who say, you know a Carmine aposio.
He said, Hey kid, make sure that you teach them something, that
you entertain them, and most importantly, you make them
laugh. And if you do those three things, the hour flies by. It
feels like five minutes
exactly. So fun. My least favorite clinics I've been to
were clinics where the guy would just play the whole time, yeah.
I'm like, okay, that's really cool. But can you show me how to
get a little closer to what you're doing?
Yeah? And I went to the other direction where it's like, I
don't do solos at all, and I just play songs, and I talk
about the skill set that like, what would make somebody, you
know, get in line behind a Garth justice? Well, great gear,
understanding of the history of music, rudiments, reading,
understanding styles, balance between the limbs, tune.
Interesting, musical mindset, all that stuff absolutely that
we really have to address. Yep, you know absolutely.
But you know when you're at Tribeca, yeah, make sure to look
up at the lights.
Oh, boy, we did those. Oh cool. Oh, really at the host, the
whole university campus, no way back in 2017 How come you
haven't retired from that? That sounds like a big job, man. Job,
man. We'll talk about that offline. I mean, so the whole
campus is LED lighting. Yes, wow. Now my only complaint about
LED lighting is, I hope it gets softer, because it's so intense.
That's the color temperature he's talking about. Yeah,
maybe the intensity, sure, super. I don't like the bluish.
That's color temperature, yes, 6000 what they call 6000 Kelvin.
I like more of a sunlight kind of vibe. This is
3300
let's go with that. But they are forcing us to do it. And I think
Jim sees an opportunity there, because that opportunity has
come and gone, yeah? But I mean that, I mean it's very hard to
find traditional Edison light bulbs? Yeah, no, it's getting
harder. You can get
the Edison bulbs that have the LED filaments in them. Ooh, they
still look like Edison
bulbs. Nice. Yeah, yeah, I've seen those. This Edison guy,
man, can you imagine our world without that person? He came
along and changed the world,
right? Could you imagine if he didn't screw Tesla?
I was about to say, some would say Tesla was the yes, yeah,
founder, but Edison's got his name on all the
Nicola Tesla.
I got into Tesla five years ago. And the car, the actual man, oh,
sorry, I know some saying, but it led me to the car, yeah, and,
and the guy said, Hey, do you want, do you want it to drive
itself? And I was like, Absolutely not. Absolutely not,
man, you've
never been in a car driven itself.
No, really. Well, here's what I'll say. I had my first, like,
decent run in a Tesla. I took a trip down to Huntsville with a
buddy of mine, and he's, you know, he's got the self driving
feature on we're on the interstate, and the car will
fuss at him if he looks away for too long, like he'd look over
and talk, talk to me, and it would say, eyes forward or
something, you know, keep your eyes on the road. And he said,
yeah, it gets on me all the time. He said, if, if it gives
you too many warnings, it will shut off the auto drive feature,
wow. It will like, ground you for
autos driving, but it still wants you to be present. Yes,
you
can't be like, you can't be drinking an
app. Yeah, you can't, dude, people's got a camera on you,
all times, is what he says.
Interesting, yeah, yeah, which means that the government's got
a camera, exactly, right?
Oh, my God, man. I mean, wait, this girl, the man listening. I
love that you are just, you just surrendered the process Exactly.
It's really, really good. That makes it great. Hey, so, so you
know you're, you're gonna be out with Reba, yeah, probably in
2026, that'll be your fifth year. Yeah, very nice, amazing
body of work. You're busy doing sessions on Music Row. You got
your incredible home studio, super active, amazing body of
work. How can people find you that says here at Garth justice,
is that your Instagram? Yeah,
Instagram, Facebook, email is my name@mac.com
I love it. I mean, she's got to be so cool to work with. She
looks like such a nice person.
Yes, she is. She loves to have fun. She'll, you know, she'll,
she'll ham it up with us and cut up.
Maybe that's why she's gotten so far in life. People want to be
around people they know and like and trust
absolutely well. And it's and we all know folks who are real good
at doing that in a fake way. And there's nothing fake about it.
With, with Reba. She's, she's the person you, you would hope
she would be. Are you
playing around here anytime soon?
Yeah, actually, I'm. I'm subbing with, well, it's not around
here, sorry. Subbing with the eagle maniacs tomorrow night up
in Bowling Green, except for Lonnie. Yeah. Lonnie got called
to do something, and had to bail the last minute. So I'm subbing
for them. And then the day after Thanksgiving, down here in
Spring Hill, at the mule house, I'll be subbing with the eagle
maniacs.
So mule house, Columbia, yeah. Columbia, yeah.
A day after Thanksgiving, that would be the 25th I think.
Hold on, I could be wrong. You can't get anything past you. I
could be wrong. Is it always, it's always, like the fourth
Thursday of the year. So, so
for any musician in in parting, any musician that comes to do
the thing in Nashville, what's a couple of, just quick 20? Hey
kid, yeah, do this. Don't do that.
Find the people who are doing what you want to do, and hang
out with them. Fantastic. Go hang out on sessions. Do it the
right way. Don't, don't, don't bring your drumsticks. And, you
know, expect to, you know, play on the last. Hey, you don't want
to play on the last. No, that's not gonna happen. Just be cool.
Be a fly on the wall and. Take everything in, drink everything
in. That's what I tried. The Hammond brothers do that for
you. The Hammond brothers did that for me. Scott did that for
me. Brewster, yeah, those guys couldn't have been more more
generous to me when I first moved to town. And then, you
know, eventually you start meeting people through that. And
you know, when you're cool, other people are cool. Somebody
will remember you. Somebody's needing a drummer. You know, I
met this guy at the session the other day. I wonder if he'd be
good for that. And don't be in a rush, exactly. And you get
called for an audition, and it takes time, and you you don't
build relationships to get work. You build relationships to gain
friends, and through friends, you get work. That's how it's
worked for me.
Great advice. I like this. This is a feature, like, kind of a
new thing you just stumbled upon just now, tidbits, well, you
know, tidbits and good advice. Yeah, would you call me
No, but I love, I love the
but I have a I have more to say. Okay, go home. Sorry, Jim,
that's right. What if we call it good advice, bad advice. Like,
everything that you just said all of a sudden I'm like, like,
so while you're there, should, like, every time the guy gets up
from the drums, you should go and sit on the drums. Yeah, play
them, right? Yes, without asking, and then ask to take
pictures with the artist every single time. Absolutely right?
Or what other bad
like, I said, you know, bring your sticks to the bring your
stick back. Have your stick bag over your arm when you walk in
to hang out at a session that's putting laxatives in his coffee.
That's a good way not to get called back or not to get
invited back to
a session. So as far as working on relationships, call them
every day and say, Hey, what do you got for me? Yeah, exactly.
What other bad advice
would you told my mom that I met somebody who's gonna help me
make it in Nashville? Yeah?
Oh, when you go, when you get called to sub for somebody, do
not try to snake the gig. Oh, that is the worst, right? Just
do that advice, though, absolutely, we want bad advice.
I don't have any that.
So the opposite of that would be like, you know, make sure that
you try and Snake the gig out from underneath.
Oh, gotcha pass the band leader your card. Say, Hey, man, yeah,
my brain doesn't work.
Like, if old freakin slow poke here doesn't work out anymore,
you know where to go. You know,
that's a funny feature, okay, well, remember it, but you're
the producer.
I like it, yeah? Fantastic. Good advice, bad advice. You know,
what good advice do you have? You can counter with bad advice.
I'm gonna tell you, like, after
27 years of living here? Yeah, I am so happy we got to spend an
afternoon together same there's been the like, really great,
really great. And congratulations on an amazing
career. Thank you, and you,
thanks, man. I watched this. I was watching this guy when I
first moved to town. I told him I'd go to the Preds games. And I
was like, Who is this drummer? Yeah, this Energizer Bunny
behind the kid.
That's interesting that you would have liked my playing in
the year 2000 Wow. I hope I sounded
98 that's 98 I'm telling you. We were both new in town. Wow.
We're killing bro. Well, thanks, bro. Was it
really intimidating for you at the beginning? Yeah, oh
yeah. Well, because I think everybody sorry I did cut this
out if you want to. I think everybody moves to town
thinking, wait until they hear me. Oh yeah, I mean, and then
it's, all I got to do is start playing.
It's crickets for the first couple of years. Yeah, you know,
I was like, Man, I'm a top call drummer in Dallas. I got my
master's degree, played with this big band. Give me the
chart. And then you move here, and you're like, No one cares,
right? You have got to start over. You have to ingratiate
yourself with the community connections, slowly do the
thing. Yeah, and I wish I wasn't in such a rush, but that's just
my thing. I'm an East Coast guy.
I think all of us, you know, are in that rush. But no, I mean, he
was, you know, you set the bar for me. I mean, it was like,
okay, that I got to be at least as good as that guy. You know, I
don't remember that. That's so sweet, though. It's killing
Yeah, see,
so you just did it. See, we're just talking about that earlier.
Oh,
I love it. Everyone that is Garth justice at Garth justice,
and the email address is Garth justice@mac.com Do you like? You
get DMS from kids like, hey, how do I do this? Yeah, all the
time, all time. And you give them that advice, absolutely,
make friends, absolutely
right. Come see me. We'll hang out a session. You know, I love
it. Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, man,
bring your sticks. Jump on my drums when we're trying to
figure out what the track sounds like. Corner the producer, yeah,
Jim, it's always great to see you. It's been a while, and to
all the listeners, oh, there's the camera right there. Be sure
to subscribe, share rate and review. It helps people find the
show. Really appreciate you joining us, and we'll see you
next time. Thanks. Garth, thanks. This has
been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate and follow along
at rich redmond.com forward slash, podcasts you.