Here at Impact 89FM, our staff has the opportunity to interview a lot of bands, artists and other musicians. We're excited to be highlighting those conversations and exclusive live performances.
We're In Studio at the Impact. My name is Jeremy, here with our program director, Mckenna. And, hey, we just sat down with Brock and Jeff from Studiotone. We had a really good conversation. Both of those guys are Impact alums, so we talked a little bit about their time here. We talked about 25 years of Studiotone and what that meant to them and, of course, their upcoming shows. Mckenna, where can people see them live?
Mckenna:They're playing Friday, December 20th at Small's in Hamtramck. Doors open at 7, and it's all ages. And then Saturday, December 21st at Turnstiles in Grand Rapids, doors are at 8 PM, and it's 21 and up.
Jeremy:So listen in as Mckenna and I talk with Brock and Jeff from Studiotone right here on the Impact in Studio. We're in studio with Brock and Jeff from Studiotone. How are you guys?
Brock:Good. Good.
Jeff:Good.
Brock:Hey. It's - I'm home.
Jeremy:You're home. You're both home.
Jeff:Home!
Brock:It's been a while.
Jeremy:Well, it's always good to have some Impact alums back in the studio. You're both in the band Studiotone, which has a long history in the Lansing area. But we don't see you live as often these days, but people can see you two times coming up next weekend. And these are sort of reunion shows celebrating 25 years of the band.
Brock:It's our Reunion World Tour.
Brock:Yes. So if, you count both sides of the state as the world, sure. But we're excited to see it. So that's coming up December 20th and 21st, hitting Hamtramck, first on Friday night and then Grand Rapids on Saturday night. Talk a bit about what prompted these shows and why it's a good time to look back now.
Jeff:Studiotone has there was probably a ten-year period where Studiotone was super active and then people, you know, go in their different directions, in life. But Studiotone was always good about regrouping every year or so. It was annual at first and then maybe it was biannual for a while and then it came to a point where the pandemic happened and we haven't played since then. You know, and and Brock and I were only a small part of that band, but Brian and Brent who kind of were the, like, the Mick and Keith or the Liam and Noel, whatever association you wanna make, that were they were there the whole time. The the principal folks, you know, they were good about, always always bringing everybody back together. And, I think, it's been five years, and, yeah, that's what they wanted to do. So here we are.
Brock:Yeah. And, Nuffer is out in LA doing his thing. So it also tends to revolve around the holidays, when he gets back in town. It's so funny, as we were just mentioning before you fired the mics up, that it's 25 years. So, you know, Where You Left Off was 2003?
Jeff:3 or 4. Yeah.
Brock:Something like that?
Jeremy:It's 2003. I have it right in front of me here.
Brock:Digital Radio was, like, '99? '98? 2000? Yeah. 2000. It's crazy how you find it with friends in college too, where you don't see people for 20 years. You might not even talk to them, but the moment you walk back into the room, you're like, oh, yep. I remember this. Yeah.
Jeff:Take it a step further. We're not even gonna rehearse with them.
Brock:Yeah. Yeah. That's the scary part is, we're everybody, we have set lists for both, both evenings and I'm playing a few songs, both evenings.
Jeremy:Well, Jeff, when you walked in, you said "Brock, "I haven't seen you in ages." So I did wanna ask, about those connections.
Jeff:There's running text threads.
Brock:Yes. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, you know, just for the time that Jeff and I were in the band, I was trying to think the other day how many shows we played, across three, four states. And it's so cliche, but you spend that much time with a group of people, especially a bunch of smelly dudes in a van, you know, driving from Warsaw, Indiana where we had to kick the door into the bar because it got closed by the IRS the night before to get our gear back, to, you know, some place in Traverse City or Illinois or whatever. You just kind of become a family for better or worse. And so...
Jeff:Memory is funny that way. I see those, you know, old pictures and you can remember just from the picture like, oh, what the gig we played was before we took that photo and what happened.
Brock:Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, we still talk, and peruse. There's a few folks. I mean, there's a lot of other members of the band, you know, Dave Saxton, who played drums for our run for the most part, but there's also former - the bassist I replaced, Keith Witt, who passed away a couple years few years ago now. There is Pete Schaller, who was the original guitarist...
Jeff:Who will be, with us, I believe.
Brock:Yes. He will. Yeah. And, Jeff Lankowski, who's, playing drums now. And then, of course, Dana Boyette, who replaced me. There's...
Jeff:Josh Woodland followed me.
Brock:Woody! Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:So had other gigs this year, but he's been pretty consistently involved.
Mckenna:Did you two meet at Impact? Like, did you work together at Impact?
Brock:No. We didn't, but, that was the first thing because I joined Studiotone before Jeff did. And, the first thing I think we talked about is when he came to rehearse the first time with us. He's like, "Oh, I worked at the Impact" Because I was, I think I was here at the time because it was 2003? 2002? No. I think I got here just after I joined the band. But...
Jeff:I was done in 2001. I met Brent and Brian who are, you know, from Studiotone as a, you know, cohost of The Basement back in 1999, 2000, whatever it was. And so I was very aware of them. They had the first record. And, sometime after I graduated, Brian had called me and said, hey, we're looking for a guitar player.
Brock:Yeah. The Impact is the center of all things because it's gotten like, seriously though, like, I saw a number it's probably been two, three years ago where you posted, the conspiracy theory, that I was the fourth Hanson brother.
Jeremy:That's right.
Brock:But, that was thanks to the Impact. I ended up doing a tour with Hanson. Thanks to the Impact, I was working in radio in Chicago. So the it is a it's definitely the the hub of all of the web, of all the people going out everywhere and and doing cool exciting things. But we love the fact that it's the Impact is here to, facilitate that, but also, too, we can come back and as Jeff and I walked in, we're like, oh my god. Jeremy, you've done so great. It looks... You've kept the saddle warm. It looks awesome.
Jeremy:We're glad it's just on air. You've been talking about how the band is a bit like a family, so I'm assuming a lot of the people in the audience coming out, they're gonna be like family. I'm also thinking about the music itself. So looking back, you have two full length albums that were released in 2000 and 2003. It's an open ended question. So how does that music feel to you these days? You're all listening and I'm guessing relearning some of the songs individually. Does it all come back to you?
Jeff:Yeah. And you know what? Listening to it, I feel like it's aged pretty well. I feel like it has kind of a timeless thing. We were kind of right down the middle in terms of we just wanna be a rock and roll band. We weren't pulling from really specific genres, and we have a lot of influences from the '70s, '80s, '90s, and even early 2000s. So I think it holds up. And in terms of playing it without rehearsal, we played so many shows.
Brock:Yeah. It's muscle memory.
Jeff:And we're all good at our homework, and we've done it this way a handful of times before, so I feel pretty good about it. Certainly, there's gonna be some butterflies when we step onto that stage in the first moments, but I think it'll come together or or it will be a
Brock:Glorious!
Jeff:Glorious train wreck to see.
Brock:Well, fortunately, I've been with my... I actually play with two other cover bands. But with the one cover band, we've been pretty regular. So the wacky thing is that I'm playing bass with Studiotone at Small's on the 20th of December. And then on the 21st in Grand Rapids, at Turnstiles. My cover band, Sex With Exes, is opening, and I play guitar in that band, and then I get to switch over to bass for Studiotone following us.
Brock:So it's... Sometimes songs get intermingled and you kinda lose track, but I always... Listening back to the stuff though, Jeff. Maybe you, I don't know if you felt the same way, but as an audio guy, production, audio production recording, that kind of thing being my bag, I'm biased about anything I had a hand in. So I have a hard time having outside ears, outside perspective, and appreciating things for what they are. But, you know, as much as it is the music, it's the memories of, you know, East Lansing in 2002 when we're playing with 19 Wheels, at Rick's.
Jeff:Rick's American Cafe.
Jeremy:Yeah. Temple Club.
Brock:Yeah. Temple Club.
Jeff:That one too.
Brock:The old Small Planet, the new one for, like, two years. So it's all up there for us. And, hopefully, it translates or it transmits down to our fingers and makes the right noises, right sounds, but we'll see.
Jeremy:Well, you think about the local scene and what is really defined as, a "local band," and I'm using air quotes there. But, when you listen to your two albums, they don't sound like they're from a local band playing in the 2000s. They're fully polished studio albums. And maybe the one signpost of the times was at the beginning of Digital Radio when it started with that dial up sound from a computer.
Brock:You know what's really scary is how many Americans still utilize dial up. It's, I can't imagine.
Jeremy:So, Jeff, I know you travel quite a bit, Brock, you're an instructor here in Lansing at Lansing Community College. You're still involved in the local music scene. How do you both feel that things have changed or have remained the same?
Brock:I well, certainly, I... To be fair, I have I'm not participating in the local scene as far as I'm not going out and seeing shows. I'm not... From my perspective, there certainly aren't as many places for bands to play as there used to be. I mean, I don't think Rick's has had live music since, like, 2005, and so that's kind of a bummer. And, you know, we play at, frequently, we play at the Watershed in Haslett. I think we're one of the only full bands to play there, and that's because we went to high school with the guy who owns it.
Jeremy:There you go.
Brock:But, there's a lot of desire for music. I think I don't think that's changed but for some reason, people aren't seeing it as a either profitable or viable way of let's have a bunch of people and and play some live music. So these days, it's mostly laptop and an acoustic guitar with backing tracks and which is fine. Totally cool if that's if that's what you do. But when we have to go up to the UP to play casinos, in the Soo and Saint Ignace, in Manistique, it's kind of a bummer.
Jeremy:Yeah.
Brock:You know? But I also think music translates. People are listening to music in different ways now, and music from the smallest group or person is so much more accessible than it used to be. So I think that's changed things. But I don't know, Jeff, you...
Jeff:It's sort of a different era for vocal music. I feel like, you know, even Studiotone, the first record I believe was recorded up to analog tape and the second one to Pro Tools. There's that sort of divide that happens. But, yeah, playing with the bands that you mentioned and at that time, Michigan had sort of a, you know, a jump start from a bunch of bands that had found some success in the late '90s. Talking about like The Verve Pipe and Papa Vegas was signed for hot minute and Electric Six, you know, a bunch of those bands that were sort of out there nationally brought attention to, I think, some of the local scenes here.
Jeff:I lived in Chicago for twelve years, and I played in bands, but they were generally cover bands in the like couple original bands I played with. It just was it just felt like a lot of work to get people into the, into the venues to see. And so, you know, and to what you were saying, you can also it's harder to generate that local interest, but music is so more widely available if you want to put it out there. So it's sort of a weird dichotomy.
Jeremy:Even listening to your albums, I didn't have to pull out the old CDs anymore. I could just find them on Spotify.
Brock:So, yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy.
Jeremy:Well, hopefully, we'll see more opportunities for live music, live local music. We have Grewal Hall that opened last year in Lansing, and then there's the new Ovation performance center downtown that's being worked on.
Brock:Yeah. I was excited being that the LCC campus is right at downtown, seeing the Grewal Hall, and the artists that they're getting in there is is pretty darn impressive. When I saw that Black Flag was playing, I was like, okay, that's... you got cred if you're having Black Flag. Although, Black Flag played in the '80s back at the Watershed when apparently it was like the coolest punk bar in the face of the planet. But, anyway, yeah, it's just just evolving. It's what we're supposed to do. Things change. Sometimes it sucks, but, sometimes it gives opportunities for other people to have their music heard from, you know, thousands of miles away that would have never, in our era of local music, would have never had a chance. So...
Jeff:Well, and the venues that we're playing, if you look at their schedules, there are things happening. Some of it is just some of my ignorance of it is just me being a, you know, middle aged dude that's not as keyed in as maybe I used to be.
Jeremy:So going back to these upcoming live shows, you talked about the band members who will be on hand. What are you most excited and looking forward to? What should people be expecting?
Jeff:I'm looking forward to see, hopefully some old friends we haven't seen. I should mention, at Small's in Detroit, that or Hamtramck rather, Woolly and All Over the Shop are two bands that are also on the bill. All Over the Shop is Todd and Brandon who were in The Prime Ministers, which is sort of a...
Brock:Oh, yeah.
Jeremy:That's awesome.
Jeff:Michigan power pop band. Yeah. And, a band that dates back to, yeah, my time here and many years beyond. But I'm looking forward to seeing all those folks and listening to that music and and getting up and being able to play. I don't get to play a lot these days. It's just not something that is, that I have as much time for, but I'm grateful that we have these gigs and really looking forward to it.
Brock:Yeah. I've - just seeing everybody, I know we'll have some folks out at both shows that we have not seen in a long time that we used to routinely see. But, primarily, I'm looking forward to trying to blow Studiotone off the stage with Sex with Exes opening, 9 o'clock at Turnstiles in Grand Rapids. But, no. It'll be, it'll be fun. It's just kind of a kind of a weird family reunion mixed with the holidays. I mean, it's apropos because we're getting together for the holidays. The loud drunk uncle will start a problem. That'll probably be me. And, there'll be drama and... No, It'll be fun.
Jeremy:Well, we're looking forward to those shows, Brock and Jeff from Studiotone. Check out our website at impact89fm.org for a link to their social media and Bandcamp page. Studiotone performing live Friday, December 20th at Small's in Hamtramck. Doors for that one are at 7 PM. It's an all ages show. Then the next night, you can catch them in Grand Rapids at Turnstiles. Doors for that show are at 8 PM. It's a 21 and over show. You can catch Brock's other band, Sex with Exes, opening at that second show.
Brock:You'd be surprised how many people clutch their pearls at the name of that band, and I don't get it. But, whatever. We'll be, we'll be happy to make people embarrassed with our dirty little words.
Jeremy:Jeff and Brock, thanks for coming in studio. We appreciate it.
Jeff:Thanks so much for having us.
Jeremy:This has been the Impact in Studio. You can check out our website at impact89fm.org. You'll be able to find our audio archives there along with some great stories, photos, videos, and more. Until next time.