Unknown: I wrote this story about William Shatner. I played
for the weirdest band. Was called Neil Norman's cosmic
orchestras put together by Paramount Pictures. And we
played all this really eclectic space 1999 all the theme songs.
And then we would back up the actors. So all the actors play
guitar, saxophone, sync dance, something we'd back him up, play
for him. And then Tim Russ, who played Tuvok on Voyager Star
Trek, I am Tuvok. I am Tuvok. Dude, that dude's a killer
singer and a great guitar player. And we were, we were his
band, and we put on this, this show, and at Star Trek
conventions. It was really
cool all the Trekkies. It was like the cast of Big Bang
Theory. That was totally,
this is the rich Redmond show.
What's up, folks? Rich Redmond here? Yes, you're in the right
place, you're in the right space. We're somewhere in the
matrix. But usually I have my co host, co producer, longtime
friend, Jim McCarthy, joining me as well. But today's a solo
show, one on one with my good pal, Bart Robley joining us from
Southern California. What's going on? Man,
you know what? Man, I knew I was coming on your show. So I'm
sitting over here doing my random accused as I'm going to
talk to rich Redmond, I got to be able to play the drums.
Look at the blob
over here talking to rich Redmond, dude. I'm so stoked to
be on your show. Thank you so so so much. This is,
no, this is, this is a great thing, you know, we, you know
we, we've been aware of each other for decades. But finally,
one of the great reasons to join the percussive Art Society is
all the greatest drummers, percussionists, educators, pros,
hobbyists that love drum and percussion. Drums and
percussion. We go to Indianapolis, Indiana, Indiana
once a year, and we converge, and so we're up at the Sabian
party, and you and I finally got the talk in the flesh,
but a year ago, almost,
yeah, almost a year ago, and I gotta give a shout out to our
mutual friend. JJ, Garcia. What's up? JJ, dude, everybody
loves JJ. He I think JJ is the glue that holds the musical
universe together. Yeah, that dude knows everybody you
know, really does. He's the ultimate connector, and he's the
ultimate sweetheart. And, you know, every couple of weeks I
get a hits magazine in my in my mailbox, and always makes me
think about, JJ, Garcia, what's up? JJ, yeah,
he I called him the other day. I was like, Dude, I need the
Pope's number. He's like, no problem. I'll text it over to
you. He knows everything
He really does. So we got to kind of kibbitz a little bit,
you know, way high up overlooking, you know,
Indianapolis. We were just kind of catching up, and then you had
me on your show. But you know, if people have had their head in
the sand, they don't know who you are. I don't know,
understand, hailing from Littleton, Colorado, been
calling Southern California home since 1989 that's about 36 years
living in the Inland Empire. There sunny and 70 you don't
need a WEATHER GIRL. But we like weather girls because usually
they're very attractive in Southern California. Um, but you
know what? You know how to keep a gig, my friend, you've been a
member, the drummer in the SAM Morrison band for 25 years. I
mean, you guys do clubs, casinos, fairs, festivals,
always working. You do covers, you do tributes, you do original
stuff. So we'll get into that. How you got the gig, how you
kept the gig. And you know, you're a full time educator.
You're always teaching one on one, one lessons. You know you
do clinics. We have Sabian symbols and in common, but also,
you know you're a several time author, but this is your latest
offering. Drum up your business, a practical blueprint to
thriving in the music business. It's step by step, and you can
see there's an acronym there. People love these acronyms,
determination, relationships, understanding and mentorship. So
I don't know where to start, man, but we could start right
there, if you want. This is your latest offering.
I say we start on page eight, because look at this handsome
dude right there. Look at that guy. Oh, thanks for having me in
there, man. You know what? Thank you so much. Yeah, when, when I,
when you and I were talking in Indianapolis at Andy Zildjian
party, man, I told you that I was writing this book and what
it was about, and when I said, when I said to, yeah, it's an
acronym and determination. And you just simply said, hey, yeah,
when determination, determination takes over, when
everything else fails, I was like, Oh, that's perfect. Can I
use it in the book? And you said, Yeah. And so, yeah, that's
how, that's how that whole thing started, yeah.
Well, what an honor, man. I mean, now you have other books
as well. Take us back. I mean, I think that you've got School of
Hard Rock. Bucks and you got the rock and pop and snare drum,
yep, yep. So it all started this way. It's I, I've always been,
like a lot of our drummer friends, I have an opinion, and
I want to get it out there, and I want to get it out there to
help my fellow drummers and my fellow musicians, right? I want
people to learn from what I've learned. I want people learn
from my mistakes. They say that, you know, success is found at
the at the bottom of a pile of mistakes, right? Sure, and Lord
knows I've made them. So I used to write for a magazine, way
back in the day. It's like this little as like a newspaper you'd
see inside a club when you walked in a rag. They call it a
rag. Yeah, exactly. And it was, it was called music scene
International, and I did a double bass column. And it was,
it was archaic. I found a recent version. I was like, oh my god,
I can't believe this is
horrible. You had a big mane of hair at the time as well, right?
Tons
of hair, tons Well, I did have the main Well, I did tease it
out, but I had hair down past my butt. You know? I had hair nice
and, yeah, but I did that whole thing, and it just kind of
slowly progressed, and I started writing for classic drummer
magazine. You remember that one? Oh, yeah, yeah. So I wrote for
classic drummer and I would do little articles. Here's how you
play this, here's how you play this. Here's a Soca groove,
here's a double bass and whatever. And so I put together,
yeah, school of hard rocks. That's the first one. This one
right
here. Oh, nice, yeah. And you sell and you just self publish
right on Amazon or
no, this is on so this one is on center screen publishing, and
it's distributed by Hal Leonard. Well, there you got
it. You got to have Hal in the mix. Same with my book. Yeah,
look at
that. And then same thing with rock and pop and snare drum.
This one right here. So it's kind of like a snare drum method
book, but something tells me, knowing you, it's kind of like
fun, and it's rocking totally.
It's, it's just, it's it. And, you know what? Here's my thing.
When I wrote my instructional books, I didn't try to reinvent
the wheel, you know. I mean, if it hasn't been done with stick
control or syncopation, you know? I mean, right? So I just
wanted to get my opinion out there. Again, I just wanted to
be one of the voices that people could turn to in the drumming
industry and in the music industry to go, here's how you
do this. Yes, and so that's why I wrote the books, and how I
wrote the books. And, you know, just trying to help drummers
out,
if you're listening to this podcast, it means you're already
looking to improve your drumming. Why not level it up?
In person with me when you book a one on one day, drum tenset
drummers from around the world have traveled to Nashville to
study with me. We cover subjects like reading, rudiments,
technique, hand development, charting the Nashville Number
System, styles, percussion, music, biz, insider info, career
development, positive mindset and much more. Of course, we
address all your questions, and my deep curriculum has helped
players of all kinds move the ball down the field to be closer
to their goals, even getting accepted to college music
programs, moving to that dream music town, getting gigs and
keeping them. Find out more about my one on one day, drum
tensive go to drumtensive.com D, R, U, m, t, e, n, s, I, V,
e.com, drumtensive.com
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make your podcast sound like it should I
like the fact you call it a blueprint. You address
determination, you address relationships, you address
understanding, mentorship, fun photos of all the adventures
you've had in your life, practical stories how people can
learn things through your eyes. And you know, you've got a lot
of experience. You're committed to education and self
improvement. You've studied with Greg Bissonette. Ralph Humphrey,
God, rest his soul. Dave Lombardo, Rob Heskett, I don't
know him. You could tell me about him. Dom formularo, God,
rest his soul. Robert slack, what did you get from each of
these guys? And why would why did you seek each one of these
guys
out? Well, Robert, well, let's start with Rob Haskett. Rob was
he owned a music store in downtown Littleton called
crescendo music. Oh, this one, you're a little guy. I was a
little dude, and he was, I wanted to. Be in the school
band. And, you know, so my mom went in, and she goes, Okay, my
son wants to play drums, and he sells her a practice pad and a
pair of sticks. And I was like, No, man, I want the big drum
set. You know, I just saw Ronnie tut from Elvis playing this big
blue thing. That's what I want,
this practice, this Gladstone pad. I bet you had a Gladstone
pad. I
had a Gladstone pad. And then I had, remember the it was like
two squares of wood, you know, they kind of sat on each other
and had one of those and and so Rob was the first guy, and I had
to play traditional grip and five stroke rolls and
paradiddles and single stroke girls and go through the
rudiments. And I was about a year or more, and he finally
goes, you know, Mrs. Robley, I think Bart's finally ready for a
snare drum. And so I moved up to the snare drum and all the way
up. And so he was the first guy that that kind of taught me
drums that he actually, he's still around. He teaches in
Colorado. He plays in a bunch of bands, plays in a church band,
plays in a John Denver tribute band. They tour.
So he's got to be in his like, mid 60s or 70s.
Oh, he's he's in his 70s, and he's still really viable. Matter
of fact, we played Denver was couple years ago now, we played
in Denver, and we weren't quite sure logistically, how it was
going to happen, and he was going to backline because I'm a
Gretsch guy, and he had some Gretch kits. And he goes, I got
a Gretch kit, I'll let you borrow. And I ended we ended up
taking our gear out there. We ended up having a, like, a, you
know, a string of shows. So we took our stuff. But no, he's
still out there, still viable. He teaches. He has a studio at
his house called to Cobb Drum Studios. And just,
he's gotta be proud of you, right? I mean, I mean, it's
like, it isn't it cool that you were like the little tyke in the
room, and then now your colleagues,
right? And you know what was really cool when I got my
endorsement deal with Gretch The first year I was at the Gretch
booth. And at the time that ANR rep was Kim Graham, and I was
standing there talking to her, and it was, it was the first
time I'd ever been in a catalog, you know, you get your little
picture in the in the back of the catalog. Bart, Rob Lee, Sam
Morrison van, and I was just like everybody had walked by me.
There I am. Look at me. Look at me. I was totally geeked out. I
made it, you know, totally geeked out about it. And Rob was
there, and also this guy by the name of Gary curry. And Gary
used to own a place in Denver called percussion specialties.
Well, he was the manager. He didn't own it. He was the
manager there. And he, at the time, worked for HSS
distribution, right? Sonar, drum, Sabian cymbals, all this
stuff. Honer, yeah, yeah. Honer, yeah, yeah. And so we were,
we're all kind of standing around, and at that point it hit
me. I'm like, wait a second, these guys who used to be my
teachers. And I was, I was, I was the dude that would stand
there and stare at the drum sets going. I want that one. I want
that one so sex. We all were, you know, look at that one, you
know. And and then now I'm standing there with them. And
like you said, they're my colleagues, and they're my
friends. And it was, it was a good feeling. Isn't that cool?
And because I tell all my students, I say, you know, look
at if you stay in the business long enough and you do the right
thing, you follow through. You're a person of integrity,
character, you know, you practice you you all of your
heroes become, you know, your friends, and then the middle of
the night, you know, Carmine Apoc is like sending you a weird
meme, you know? I mean, you could, you know what? I mean,
you could text these people. I mean, it's, it's a cool it's a,
it's a cool thing. And sometimes it just takes a very, very long
time. Still have yet to meet Alex Van Halen. Still have yet
to meet, uh, Stuart Copeland, but the fact that, you know, I
can High Five Carmine, I can High Five Kenny, I can high I
can hug, especially Greg. You know, you know about Greg
Bissonette, like dude, he sees you at a trade show, he will hug
you and and he will not let go of that embrace. He might hug
you for 10 minutes walking around the showroom
dude. He is Greg is the shining example of not just what to be
as a drummer, but what to be as a person, as a human,
freaking being. Do
you know Chris Brady, yeah, you're, you're a Remo guy,
right? Yeah, I've been
with Remo since 1994
Okay, so that's about when I got on with Aquarian. Matter of
fact, Chris and I, joke about it, I got a picture of us around
here somewhere. I gotta find
it. Roy burns, I gotta. Oh, yeah. Roy burns, story, man.
Roy, oh,
oh, dude, this is, this wasn't planned. I have this look. This
is me and Chris. Brady, yeah, 8 billion
years. You guys are wearing your you guys are wearing your mom
jeans. We are wearing
mom jeans. Man,
who is that ugly girl standing beside Chris? Anyway? Um, we,
I've been with aquarium longer than Chris was, but no, Chris is
a dear friend of mine, and and Chris does a lot of people don't
know this, but Chris is an incredible drummer, and he's
really good at transcribing stuff nice, and so he does a lot
of transcriptions for Greg. And him and Greg are, like, really
tight and, and that's what Chris says. He's like, man, Greg is
not just a great drummer. He's a great person, yes, and he, he's
just that dude. He's just, he makes you feel welcome and and,
well, you know, the the ultimate, you know, the ultimate
formula for a great clinic is to
entertain,
to teach and make them laugh. And so, so, so like any great
clinician, you're gonna laugh, you're gonna learn, and you're
going to be entertained, and you're definitely going to get
that at a Greg Bissonette clinic. You'll definitely get
that at a Stanton Moore Clinic, a Carmine clinic, a Kenny
clinic. So, so that's and I mean, especially Greg, he's
always, he's got the cat skills, jokes, and he'll pick up the
trumpet, and you know what? I mean, he's just always telling
stories, like, like two old guys in the park. You
know, you gotta ask Brady. I'll tell it now if you want, but you
gotta ask Brady about the black page story at a Greg Bissonette
clinic. Oh, yeah, it's
like a I played that in my for my senior recital. It's like a
coffee can that was spilled all over a piece of paper. Oh, it's
unbelievable. Well, Greg is giving a clinic, and he sees
Chris in the back of the room, and Chris can play the black
page, right? Yeah, and, and Chris is standing there watching
the clinic, and Greg goes, Hey everybody. It's, it's Chris
Brady from Aquarium drum heads. And you should hear this guy
play the black page. Come on up, Chris. Chris is like, because I
started getting tunnel vision.
It's that scene in poltergeist where the mom's trying to get
down the hallway, and the hallway just keeps getting
longer and longer. Right? Right. My God, amazing. And then, you
know, you gotta, we have to say something about, I didn't know
Ralph Humphrey very well. I mean, of course, odd times
specialist, played with Zappa, taught at MI forever, and then
was kind of like a founding member of the Los Angeles Music
Academy. Or was it the Los Angeles College of Music, LACMA?
I believe that's llama, and now it's Los Angeles College of
Music. Lack them. Yeah, sounds like a rudiment Slack. So I
didn't know him very well, but Dom and I were dear friends who
would like, always, like, at any trade show, we would end up at
some sort of a dinner, and I would always sit next to him,
and we have our red wine and stain our teeth and tell
stories, and I would just soak, soak up his juju, you know,
yeah, yeah, Dom was awesome. Well, Ralph Humphrey, hands
down, was the best drum teacher I ever had, and here's why. You
know, I think the sign of a good drum teacher is when they know
what you need to work on before you know what you need to work
on, you know. And I went to him to work on Moeller. I had been
watching Joe, Joe Mayer, Oh, yeah. And there was the 2005
2005 Modern Drummer festival days. He's on that video is way
back, and he's doing his Joe Joe Mara thing, and his hands are
just like water. I'm like, I gotta learn that. I gotta really
work on that. So I went to Ralph, and I told him, that's
what I wanted to work on. And 10 minutes into the lesson, he
goes, I'll be right back. And we were at his house. He had a
little like a pool house, and on the back of the pool house, he
had converted this room into a drum room, and and he comes out
with these exercises. And he goes, here, let's work on these.
And it was molar, but it wasn't molar. It was kind of, it was,
it was a lot more than that. And it was a, it was a thing of four
exercises. And I teach it to my students today, and I still
practice it today. I've turned I've, I've made clinics out of
it, yeah. And he, he knew this stuff before I did, and he
really helped me with my groove and my feel, yeah, and my time,
of course, and and he was just a real sweetheart of a guy. And
when we got the before we got on the the podcast, we're talking
about the record deal that I got where we recorded with Michael
Blum, he really helped me through that. And he was just a
great dude. And he was he would sit down and play, and he would
play the simplest of things. And I'm sure you've run into this
where you just see somebody sits down, one and three, two and
four, and you're like, how do you make it sound that good?
Yeah, how do you pull that sound out of the it's so simple, but I
can't do that. And
he did a lot of TV shows like he was. On Dancing with the Stars
in the house band before they went to, like, pre recorded
tracks and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, he was. He told stories of that too. He said he
had stories about that band and how good they were. He's the
guy. I'm 99% sure I'm right about this. So if you Google it
and I'm wrong, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure I'm right at the
on Star Trek, the theme song.
Okay, that that log drum, that's
Ralph, nice. I how cool to be like, or say you're like, Hal
Blaine and you know you you were
there. Or you're like,
threes coming same film, Yeah, same fill, different, different
jingle. But, you know, to be the A part of the fabric of like
American culture, like that. And Emil Richards, you know,
probably owned the log drum that Ralph played on the television
show. And he was so smart, because he was always the leader
and or contractor of the percussion section, and then he
made money from renting his instruments,
renting his gear out, and he and he did the Cartage for it. You
know, what's crazy is and I, and it was just kind of weird how it
happened, where I ended up studying with Ralph, I played
for the weirdest band in the world. And, matter of fact, I'm
a writer as well, obviously not just my books, but I blog a lot.
And where's your blogs? Medium, medium. Oh, you blog on medium,
okay, yeah. And I wrote this story about William Shatner. I
played for the weirdest band. Was called Neil Norman's cosmic
orchestras put together by Paramount Pictures, and we
played all this really eclectic space, 1999 all the theme songs,
and then we would back up the actors. So all the actors play
guitar, saxophone, sync, dance, something. We'd back them up
play for him. And then Tim Russ, who played Tuvok on Voyager,
Star Trek, I am Tuvok. I am Tuva dude. That dude's a killer
singer and a great guitar player. And we were, we were his
band, and we had put on this the show, and at Star Trek
conventions, it was really
cool all the Trekkies. It was like the cast of Big Bang
Theory.
It was totally and the first gig that I did with them. We were in
Denver, and it was bitching, because it was put together by
Paramount, so there's big screens and all this Star Trek
stuff's coming down. I want to watch it, and I can't, because
I'm playing to click and, you know, reading charts read
totally dude. You know the gig. So I'm doing the gig, and the
first part of the show is all this, like, I say real eclectic,
weird theme song music, and we're just kind of background
music. Well, then the show starts, and all the people come
in, lights go out. And you know how it is, lights are in your
eyes, and you can only see, like, the first two rows of
people, yeah, and I'm playing, and I'm like, That dude has the
biggest head I've ever seen, because all I can see is a
silhouette. I'm like, what is up? You know, he had the mask
on, right? He had on a Star Trek thing. And I'm like, you know,
some and they all dress up. It was so cool. And the thing that
I learned from that was, it doesn't matter what you're into
in life, right? Like, if you're into collecting thimbles,
there's going to be a convention of thimble collectors that
gather together to talk about thimbles. And that's the way the
Star Trek thing was. And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of
fun. And anyway, back to the Ralph Humphrey thing. It's just
cool that I did that, and I got to and I got to meet Ralph and
work with him, and we talked about the log drama and talked
about all that stuff. And Neil actually had asked Ralph to do
the gig, and he was like, Nah, he didn't want to do it. Neil
Norman. That was a guy, Neil Norman's cosmic orchestra.
Oh, yeah. Well, see, that's great. So you can start
somebody, you study with people, and you know, you get on their
radar, and then before you know it, you're on their sub list,
which is always a great thing. You know what? I mean, exactly?
Yeah, totally, totally. And then what'd you get from DOM? Was
Dom's thing more mental, like, how to construct clinics and how
to approach your career and stuff, because you really are. I
mean, the book is definitely worth picking up, folks right
there. It's an easy to remember an acronym, but it's like, this
is definitely not rocket science, but some of the stuff,
none of my books, are rocket science, either. It's just a
friendly reminder of the things that that maybe not You're not
really thinking about. Of course you have to be an expert at your
craft. Of course you have to be good at your instrument. But
it's all these other things, like the admin, running your
career, staying in the public eye, creating relevant content,
joining professional organizations, going to the
conventions, being seen, all very
important stuff. All very important, and that is what I
got from DOM. I took a couple of lesson Dom and I did a master
class together one time when. Covid hit. And I had taken a
few, you know, playing things with him, but it was definitely
more like you say, the mental game, how to get things going.
And the reason I say we did the master class together, and throw
that in there, was because that was probably the biggest lesson
I took with him, like on hand technique, as I was giving the
lesson, right? And but DOM was, again, such a positive ball of
energy. And he really kind of helped you wrap your brain
around the fact that, hey, man, you can do this. And I remember
when I first threw my hat into the ring, okay, I'm going to do
clinics. My thinking on it was totally backwards. I was
thinking, oh my god, I'm going to do a drum clinic in a room
full of drummers. What the hell you know? I'm going to be
bleeding out in a shark tank. But it wasn't that way, and he
helped me get my brain around. I was like, No. Nobody wants to
see you fail. Everybody wants to see you succeed. And for some
reason, I said this on a podcast the other day. I don't know why
it was this way, but for some reason I had this thing in my
head that Dave weckel is going to show up at my clinic, right?
I don't know why, but I'm like, I like, what if Dave weckel
shows up on my clinic? Dom, I don't know what to do. He goes,
Well, what are you gonna do? You're gonna out drum weckle.
Nobody can do that. Come on. You just gotta stay on your he
really helped me get my brain
around. Stay in your lane. Stay on stay on target. And then, and
then have some wonderful takeaways. You know, the way,
the way I, and I'm sure you agree, the way I approach the
drum clinic or the master class, is it is a special event that
brings the community of like minded people together. I'm not
a genius, but I've been fortunate enough to experience
all these great things in life and give me a perspective, and
I'm going to share those things, and we're going to laugh, and
we're going to learn, and we're going to love and we're going to
be entertained. And it's almost more of like a it's like a one
man show. It's like a small one man show, if you're an actor and
you're in a black box theater, and people come out and it's
like, what is this? Oh, my God, this person just played 15
characters and told me their life story. So I it's like that.
Yeah, it totally is. It's that's a great analogy, and that's a
great way to kind of describe it. It really is. And I, I think
the clinic thing and the master class thing is, is you're taking
what you do and say, Now, here's what I do. Take what you do and
pull from it just like any drum lesson would be. I mean, a one
on one coaching thing or drum lesson is going to be more, hey,
you know, pull your hand up this way, turn your hand over, finger
technique, do this that. This is more of like you say, a one man
show. This is what I've been able to do. This is what I've
been able to create. And you can do it too. A matter of fact, one
of my clinics, I have a I'm sure, like you. I have different
areas that I touch on, yeah, the master class today to Adams
place, Adams drum room, the madam drummer. What's up? Adam
Adam, we love you. He's over. Matter of fact, he's in Europe,
with Europe. Oh, wow. Yeah, he's, he's our manager. Anyway,
you're kidding me. No, he's dude. He manages Europe, thin,
Lizzy, Lita
Ford, oh, so, so, like, so that's his niche. Is the 80s
bands, keeping them, keeping them working. Like, hey guys, I
got you, I got you a birthday party. Jeff Bezos, his kid,
they're having a birthday party and but
the clown goes on before you guys,
are you cool following the puppet show? But no, I mean,
that's amazing. That's cool. So that means, that means he
brushes shoulders with our friend Bobby rock, who I love.
Bobby rock, dude. I want to have him on the show, man, dude.
Bobby rock, okay, so yeah, he, I got invited to Adams birthday
party few months back. And yeah, everybody was our leader,
forward and windy. Do is great, man. It was a fantastic Well,
Bobby rock was, he was kind of the guy that I look to to not
only is he a killer drummer, but he's a great writer. He's a
columnist. He's written many books on a lot of different
subjects, yeah. And yeah, just a great dude,
man. What I got from him was the Hey, pay attention to what
you're putting in your mouth. Yep. And maybe also, um, get
some exercise. Kid, you know what? I mean? Yeah,
yeah. Lift some weights. Lift some weights. But, yeah, so, um,
so Adam, the clinic that I did, Adam's thing was, uh, it was a
molar thing, right? It was a master class on molar. Well,
I've put a whole clinic together around the Bob. Bigger
recordings, all the RE records that we did, that's a whole
nother story with the SAM Morrison come back to that. Come
back. That's what we're talking about next. That's okay, how we
did those recordings. Because, man, ever and I'll throw this
out there as the hook, and then I'll tell how I did it. Every
one of those records that we did and we've had, matter of fact, I
asked Sam to text me the numbers, like, in the millions
of streams. Over 40 million streams on on the Bob Seger
stuff.
Oh, right, dude, that means that 40 million people have heard
your drumming. Bart, right, right? About that, that's pretty
I know it's really cool. Who are these people? What countries are
they in? Do they speak the language, right?
It's incredible. It's totally cool. And when we did those
recordings, they were well from the second album through all
these other recordings that I did with him, and I got those
because I did my job well to anybody listening, who's a young
drummer, they were cut to click recordings or cut to click
sessions. Meaning, of course, you're going to cut to click but
it was me, my transcriptions, a drum set, and that's it. No
musicians.
You're going for the for the feel and a tight track that they
could build everything around 100%
there, matter of fact, there was, I cut. One of my favorite
recordings was a song that was, wasn't even a big hit for
Seager. We re recorded a song called Ain't got no money. And
then we did another song called back in 72 those are my two
favorite recordings that we did of his, and I recorded those on
Christmas Eve. It was me and me and Michael, and we're sitting
in up in Sherman Oaks, just cutting tracks. Man, nobody else
in the studio. This is two of us.
Was your was your bride upset that you were working on
Christmas Eve a little bit.
It was the only day that the studio was available, or was
a crunch? Yeah, that was the thing. It was one of those
things where he wanted to get it done, and he goes, Hey, can you
come in? I said, Yes, I can. So I was there. Always say yes,
always say yes, no matter.
Always say yes, unless it's
someone's life's on the line or something. Yeah,
right, exactly. Sounds like your life was on the line, but, but
you guys got past it. You're still married. That's good. So,
so you know, you're an author, you're an educator. You're
teaching all the time. These are great stories, but tell us about
the SAM Morrison band, 25 years. That's a long run. That's
hallowed ground. Same members. How did the relationship start?
How'd you get the gig?
Okay, well, I was at the time, I worked at this place called
Orange County speaker. It was before I could make a living as
a musician, and I was working there during the day. I was
playing gigs at night, and I was teaching. So if I didn't have a
gig or rehearsal, then I was given lessons. It's always and
in writing, doing my thing, and Sam came in to get some speakers
repaired. We did like big pa big PA systems that had just gotten
off to her. We rebuilt them, you know, and so anyway, Sam brought
some speakers in, and we'd fix some speakers for him, and we
made fast friends, and he was in at the time. It was always a SAM
Morrison band, which it still is. And they were doing country.
They were doing the, like the 90s era country. Lot of Travis
trip, Garth Brooks Clint Black,
yeah, Tracy Lawrence Clint
Black, just came to our show the other night in Canada. Was
awesome to see him, man, really, yeah, you know Jack Gavin, yes,
I haven't seen him in a very, very long time, but he was a,
one of the longest running drummers for Charlie Daniels,
yeah, and that's Sam's, like, due north, right? Is Charlie
Daniels band? That's, that's Sam's thing. Okay? And so
anyway, he, he, he asked me to sub for him on a couple of gigs.
His drummer couldn't make it, so I went in and subbed for him.
And I was at the time, I had been playing hard rock and stuff
forever, so it was a, it was a big, you know, square peg, round
hole, a big learning curve, and I just went to work. Fast
forward about a year of that relationship going on. He calls
me up, and he goes, Hey, man, my drummer quit, and my guitar
player quit, and I've got a two week tour of Europe coming up,
and the gigs yours, if you wanted it. And I was like, let's
go. So I had my passport, I had everything, and we went off to
Europe, and we played in war zones. We played during the
Bosnia Croatian war. We played in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo,
Dona, Syria, yeah, Sarajevo, that was the capital of Bosnia,
and we played there,
all right, yeah, it was the capital of Bosnia, and it
was so risky. It was. Risky. So this would have been because I
hit those same countries in those same cities, well, for the
US military, 1998
Yeah, so it was a little bit after that, because this was
when we were 20 miles from Parliament, the night that the
military stormed it to get Milosevic out. And this is no
joke, dude, we were, we were playing, and you would be,
oh, my god, yeah. It
was nuts. And at one point when we were in Kosovo, it was really
surreal. We're up on this hill, and it was dusk, and we you're
staying in the military barracks and everything, and there was
all these black birds. They weren't crows or ravens, They
were just these ominous looking black birds. 1000s of them were
up on a hill. There's a city way down below, and you could hear
them down there shooting, and I and and they were like, oh, it's
all small, small arms fire won't make it up, you know, right.
Anyway, so we played there and did that whole thing, and did
the whole military were over there, and then years later,
like that, all those, like those Toby Keith videos and stuff that
he did for that, where he played for the military, dude, that's
where we played. That was the same it was the same place. It
was Eagle base and Bosnia camp, Bond steel, and Kosovo, all
those places. Wow.
Well, that's a good thing to do, because those that the soldiers
really appreciated their star for the for a slice of
Americana, you know, they're over there, you know, defending
everything, and it's just totally crazy. Sorry, I'm
somewhat distracted right now. I'm going to make that not look
so but this is real life stuff, like waiting for the plumber to
come because, you know, your bathroom is smelling for some
reason, and you're trying to figure it out. And the Wi Fi has
given us fits a little bit right now. It seems like it's slowing
well,
just bathrooms about up, it's good. And just as a point of
reference, bathrooms, they do stink from time to time. Just
yeah, this is like some sort of a that's not human. What is
that, but hopefully we'll, you know, we'll get to the we'll get
to the bottom of these things. So, so you're playing, you know?
So what? You know, subbing for someone, you know, a last minute
job leads to a 25 year relationship, yeah? Like, so,
like, I'm seeing like, wives and girlfriends have come and gone.
People have had children, they're grown. They're out of
the house. Is it the same? Has it been the same personnel?
No. What happened was, if for the last, last, like, 10 years,
it's been the same, it's a real solid unit. Now, the bass
player, and myself and Sam, it's been, I've been coming up in
September. It'll be 26 years bass players like 2223 amazing,
you
know. So you finish each other's sentences, Oh, dude, you're very
comfortable personally and professionally. Um, you know,
you know what you're getting into and then. But the thing
that I also like about how you, you know, you live your life, is
you approach things the same way that I do, which is like, you're
out on the road. There's 24 hour day. You're not playing the
entire time. You make good use of your time. You're writing
your books, you're teaching lessons. Yep, you know, you're
hitting the gym because, you know, idle time is the devil's
playground.
Totally. Man, been there, done that. Man. Don't want to do
that. So I yeah, I teach from the road, I write from the road
and and, well, like when we were doing the Bob Seager stuff, I
transcribed all that stuff, you know, so takes time, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, so well. And then after we got back from Europe,
when really a lot of personnel stuff changed, and we went into
just doing, like, our originals and more southern rock. We still
did some, like, more of the outlaw country stuff, some of
the Travis tritt, the old Wayland stuff, you know, stuff
like that, you know, just great stuff. And then started doing a
lot of almond brothers, lot of lot of Leonard Skinner 38
special, all that stuff. Yeah, and we're working out in Vegas,
and we happen to have four or five Bob Seeger tunes in the
set. And it was one of those things where Sam, he doesn't try
to sound like Seeger. He just does that's just, that's what
his voice sounds like, right? When, when, matter of fact, on
the recordings, when we on the song, roll me away to me. Still
to this day I listen to it, I'm like, Oh my God, you sound like
John, Dude, you just nailed it. It just, it's perfect. So
anyway, we're working out in Vegas, and we're playing with
this band called Yellow Brick Road, and they were not a they.
They just did everything. They it wasn't an Elton John tribute.
That was just the name of the band. Interesting, yeah, and
like, what? And they were great. They would, one night, they
would do like, a tribute to rush, and they would nail it,
and then the next night, we're doing a tribute to the Beatles,
and they'd nail it, dude. That's very smart. And it kept, keep
everybody sharp. Totally, totally. And so Sam, because,
you know, man, we always get, we get more requests for Seager.
People say, I sound like him. Why don't we try a tribute
thing? Okay, why not? Let's see if it sticks to the wall. And we
did, and, man, it stuck. So there's really, like two bands.
It's two bands, but so and what we did to kind of keep the
branding is that it's the SAM Morrison band presents turn the
page. So we get hired either to do our original stuff, we get
hired to do the Southern rock stuff, and we get hired to do
the Bob Seger stuff. And the smart thing about it is, like,
we don't dress up like we don't. We're not a Beatles man. We
don't need to wear Sergeant peppers. We just go out there
looking like a rock band, right? I mean, that's what we do. And
so we'll get hired, we'll go out and play, and Sam makes this
thing at the end of the show. He's like, I don't know if you
you know we don't look like other tribute bands. You've
seen, blah, blah, blah, blah. We've had movie songs of our own
in movies and TV shows, and tells the whole story. Well, as
soon as he does that, we get hired back next time around to
do both shows. Happens all the time. And so, yeah, we work a
lot, and we're on the road a lot, and that's
amazing, and it's a really brilliant business plan. And
does he have an agent, or does he handle everything himself?
We have both. He handles stuff himself. And then we have, like,
we have one agency that we work with out of Arizona, that they
handle everything in Arizona for us. I mean, we have, we work in
Arizona so much that I seriously thinking about buying a house.
It's a dry heat. It's a dry heat. Oh, dude, my sister lives
there. Forget it. No way. I mean, that's, that's what keeps
me from buying a house. Well,
that's what's really interesting, is I do like the
desert. I mean, obviously it's not enjoyable in July and
August, you got to, kind of got to stay in but you know, if you
lived in Southern California for 36 years. Is it even possible to
think about leaving the palm trees and this blue skies?
You know? I, there's times I, you know, you hear all these
people the California Exodus. Everybody's leaving California
because of politics and this and that. Well, now you're starting
to hear about how everybody's like, coming back to California,
you know? Because really, oh yeah, people are starting to
come back and and, yeah, it's, it would be tough to move away.
I mean, it's definitely home, you know? It's definitely, well,
it's
just one of those beautiful energy points in the universe
where I tell everybody, you know, you go to a strip mall and
you can, you can get vegan health food. There's a smoothie
shop, there's a boba tea thing, there's Indian, there's Mexican,
there's Vietnamese food, all in the same strip mall. Trip around
the world, you know what I mean? And it's just this melting pot
of cultures, which really, you know, lights my fire. I really
enjoy that. So we're kind of like hitting a little bit
everything, just to show that the the complete dedication and
versatility you have in your life. Tell us about the
drummer's Education Connection
deck, yeah, so that was a covid project. Um, thank you for being
on it, by the way. Thanks for asking, yeah. Um, drummer's
Education Connection, I was out for a hike, uh, when covid first
started. I'm like, What are we gonna do now, you know, and I
got a phone call from chip, chip, Ritter.
Chip, Ritter now, Chip, now, you could sum him up as, there's so
many. Obviously, this is not the only thing he does. But he was
world famous for appearing on David Letterman, stupid human
tricks as the juggling drummer.
Yep. And I tell you, the thing is, and he, he'll tell you this
too, like he doesn't teach juggling to his students. He's
He's a dude. He's a kick ass drummer. He is a great drummer.
But matter of fact, we used to do this thing every year at Nam
time, right down the street from the Anaheim Convention Center.
There was this club and, and we would have a Nam jam, and we
called it the SAM jam, right? Sam Morrison fans and everybody
would come and play. We had everybody come and play and Chip
came down one night. I always invite all my drummer buddies,
come play, come play, come play, come play. And, and if we do it
again, I'm going to call you come play. Yeah, and and so chip
gets there, and, dude, there's like, rock stars getting up and
playing, right? And they're Oh, yeah, that's great. That's
great. Chip gets up there, starts juggling house down, man.
He's just great. He's so good. So anyway, Chip calls. He says
he wants to do something. He doesn't know what he wants to
do. And and I go, Okay, well, let's have a meeting. So we get
on Zoom, much like you and I are now, and he goes, Hey, you know
Rick stojack down in San Diego? I'm like, I know Rick. Yeah,
everybody knows Rick. I love Rick. So we have a meeting. And
he knew Jeremy up in the bay area, so we had like a weekly
meeting for a month, kind of brainstorming of what we wanted
to do, what we wanted to call it, how we wanted to do it. And
then it got to a point where it's like, well, we can keep
meeting on Zoom every week and talking about doing it, or we
can just do it. So we started going live on Facebook, and then
got stream yard and go live to Facebook and YouTube, and we've
had everybody on we've had Billy Cobham, we've had David
garibaldi, we've had Bissonnette, we've had you and,
and then and and, and we've had people that own a company that,
you know, make drumstick tips, you know, I mean, just
everything. And we just kind of geek out on drums.
It's fun. Yeah, yeah. Who doesn't, who doesn't love that?
And then say, then you turn it into a audio podcast as well on
Apple podcasts,
yeah, we do an apple podcast, and it's pretty much everywhere
we do it. We turn it into a an audio podcast. And then I take,
and I just started doing your video, I take a do shorts of it,
and put shorts all over YouTube and Facebook and social media.
Yeah, you know, just do the normal drummer thing. Hey, look
at me. Look at me. Look at me. Well,
it's a great thing. I mean, so Dude, you're checking all the
boxes, man. You're a touring drummer, you're a recording
drummer, you're an educator, you're an author, you're a
podcaster. Now, you know, you're an original band, you're in
tribute bands, you're doing all of the stuff to keep the lights
on. What's your
favorite drink? My favorite drink is, is coconut flavored
water? I quit drinking coconut water seven years ago. Yeah,
yeah. Lacroix, coconut water. I love
it. Lacroix, Lacroix. I love that. Coconuts my favorite.
That's, that's the good that's a good one. That's really good
because it makes you feel like you're on a tropical vacation.
Totally. Dude. Coconut pie, Coconut, coconut anything. Dude.
Me too. Coconut milk, coconut cream pie, real coconut. You
know, you chill it in the, in the in the refrigerator. It's
like, you're in that Tom Hanks movie. It's crazy.
Exactly, exactly. No, I actually quit drinking. I quit drinking.
It's kind of, you know, if you would ask me what I drink six
years ago, I'd have said, I just take the top off a bottle of
Jack Daniels. But,
oh, yeah. Like, like Tommy and
and Nikki, yeah, just pass a bottle of Jack back to each
other. But they were 19 years old,
right? No, I quit drinking coming up on seven years ago
now, all right, bro, yeah, and it was, that was a that was a
journey, and I even wrote a book about that. Yeah, that's a whole
other So, yeah, that's another whole published book. That is a
published book, and that is self that one is self published. That
one, that one is on Amazon, and that one is called, don't hit
the reset button.
Don't hit the F and reset button, yeah, okay, that's,
that's an interesting story there. Well, maybe I'll check
that out. Everyone check that out. And then, if you had to
choose a pizza, what is it? What is it?
Okay? You know what? Everybody asked that question. That's a,
that's a drummer podcast question. I Oh, I
don't want to be normal, right?
No, no, no, no, no, it really is. We have to know about this.
So I there's a place in Chicago, and you probably know the name
of it. What is it? Luminaries. Luminaries. Okay, everybody in
the band we're playing in Chicago, everybody in the band's
like, Oh, we got to go to Illuminati. We got to go. And
I'm like, okay, whatever. Dude, that's damn good pizza. I love
to cook. Now, if I have a hobby, my hobby is cooking. I love to
cook. So when we're on the road, I'm like, we stay in an Airbnb.
I go get food. I cook. I love to do it
as you're an asset to the organization,
dude. I love cooking. Love doing it right and but these guys are
all the way. I want to go here. They want to go there. Okay,
cool, whatever they and they're talking about this pizza place.
And everybody loves pizza, but luminaries in Chicago kicks ass.
And when Todd Zuckerman was on the deck show, you can go watch
it. The question we always ask at the end, what's the best
pizza? He said, luminaries. And watch Dom familiaros episode
too, because he gets crazy about the pizza I
really love. Would you ever go as far as putting pineapple on a
pizza or not?
No, see, that's the thing. I think there's a religion about
that, like, either you have pineapple or you don't. And
like, the it's like people go to it's kind of okay. Remember when
you're a kid, there was two camps. Dollars, either kiss
ruled the world or kiss sucked and you'd go to blows over it.
Okay? I think it's the same thing with pineapple on pizza.
It's like, you would know, they, they people fight over
because you get the acidity, you know. And it's like a
combination thing, like, I'm not opposed to it, but as a general
rule, you know, just give me a beautiful slice of, you know,
New York New Jersey cheese pizza.
There you go. There you go. Yeah, and see, that's another
thing, right? New York Pizza versus Chicago pizza, right?
Yeah, it's a thing.
I like them. I like to fold it. I want to fold it on the streets
of Manhattan, drip the grease off there a little bit, you
know. See,
I'm I kind of like that too. That's the one thing I don't
like about the thick Chicago stuff. It's like you got to have
a fork, and
you can only have one, one piece, because it is a mouthful.
Yeah,
it is, it is, it's good. But you know, you know Fred Fisher? You
ever met him? Not yet. No, okay. Fred is a guy. He's a drum
teacher, drummer, great dude in Boise, Idaho. He's been on deck
a few times as a guest host, and this is a little weird, but I
gotta try it. He said there's a pizza in Idaho that's covered in
pickles.
Oh, my God, right, yeah. Put it on the lower part of the to do
list. It's I got it No, though. Okay, here's one for you. I'm a
peanut butter freak, and somebody was telling me about a
pizza that they put peanut butter on it, then red sauce,
and then made the pizza. And I'm like, uh, but I tried it and it
like I had one piece, yeah, and it
was, I'll put it on the lower part of the to do list. Now,
listen, if you had to pick a favorite dinosaur, oh, yeah,
what would it be Stegosaurus, triceratops, Diplodocus,
the bartosaurus Rex, dude, the bartosaurus Rex, yeah. Man, he
has, he holds his drumsticks like this,
yeah, the bartosaurus Rex.
T Rex's are just very mad at all times because they have slow
sets little arms. They can't scratch an itch.
They're pretty pissed. Yeah, yeah, they're pretty pissed. I'm
pretty pissed. Yeah, I Yeah, bartosaurus Rex. I got a
bartosaurus Rex. I love that. Um, now the funny thing is, is
this has been a great conversation. We We do have some
editing to do on it to make it cohesive, because there's so
many things going on
here. Your producers gonna hate me.
I just appreciate you making the time in your busy schedule,
because you're always playing, you're always traveling, you're
always teaching, you're always recording. Everyone can check
out Bart robley.com, it's R, O, B, L, E, y.com. They want to
check out all your books the latest, which is drum up your
business, determination, relationships, understanding
mentorship a practical blueprint to not surviving but thriving in
the music business. And best way for people to get this is it an
Amazon
you can get it on Amazon. You can order direct from my
website. If you want the digital version, you can go to Hudson
Musik and you can type in Bart Robley. And both of those are on
Hudson music with our friend Rob Wallace and Joe Bergamini.
We love Rob. We love Joe and Joe and and Rob have my Crash Course
success digital offering at Hudson as well, and it is
selling like cardboard. So please go check it out, folks,
my you know what? Dude, my book shipped cardboard. Oh, you know
what I think you and I see. You know what I can see in the near
future? I see between Crash Course and drum up your
business. I see a BART Roby rich Redmond master class thing,
business sponsored by Sabian, sponsored by Sabian and Adam
Parsons drum room and deck drummers. Education, connect
drummers. Education Connection and yeah, all of the above.
Bart,
congratulations on the success in the music business. Having a
goal, having a dream, realizing your dreams, having enough
patience and persistent to see it through. And thanks for
taking all of your wisdom and things you've learned along the
way and putting it in easily digestible formats for the
future generation. And I appreciate your time, man,
dude. I appreciate you and and seriously, anybody in the
drumming world if you don't, if you're not aware of rich, well,
then you live under a rock. Rich is what I say about I said to
this in my live video a minute ago. I always say that Rick
stojack is a positive energy hand grenade. He's great to be
around. And if he's a positive energy hand grenade, then rich.
Redmond is a positive energy nuclear bomb. I love being
around this guy. Watch the fallout right when he calls and
my phone rings, I pick it up no matter what. I'm looking forward
to seeing you in in Indiana at basic we're gonna have a great
time.
50th anniversary, folks, 50 Oh, way, really, it's the 50th year.
So if it's a perfect year to join the percussive Arts
Society, if you haven't joined, yep,
and we will. Find a we are going to find a practice pad, and I'm
going to teach you rich Redmond how to play a flamma, BARDA
diddle, diddle,
flamma, BARDA diddle, flamma, BARDA diddle, flamma, BARDA
diddle, flam about a diddle fan. I'm about to you can put it in
odd times.
You can, you can put it in odd times. But if you get, if you do
the flamma, BARDA diddle, diddle, it'll stay, it'll stay
in four.
Oh yeah, it cycles over the bar line. Yeah, it does. I love
that, dude. I appreciate your value, your friendship. And
everyone check out Bart robley.com and buy his brand new
book. Drum up your business. Awesome, man. You are the best.
Thanks, brother. I appreciate this will come out in about
four Fridays from now, and I'll
let you four Fridays from now. I love that. This is perfect.
Isn't that
amazing? Thanks for your time, buddy. I appreciate it, man,
okay, but I'll talk to you. And yeah, you bet. And to all the
listeners out there, please give yourself a hand. We appreciate
you. Be sure to subscribe, share, rate and review. It helps
people find the show. Leave us a nice, you know, five star rating
and a sweet review. We appreciate it. And Bart we have
merch now, man, this is really exciting. If you go to the rich
Redmond show.com you enter the code, fall 25 for 25% off hats
and koozies and baseball jerseys and hoodies and beanies and the
iconic coffee
mug. Oh, dude, I need a rich Redmond coffee mug. I need to
send you one. Yeah, you said something about what's my
favorite drink, other than coconut? What caught dude, I
love Starbucks. I don't know what the hell they do to their
coffee.
They burn it. And we love it. I did.
Yeah, we love it. It's part of my you know what? It's great for
travelers, because you and I, everything changes every day,
but the one thing that is consistent is the
bucks. Yes, baby, I love it, buddy. Thanks again,
man. Have a great day. I appreciate your time.
Thank you, brother. I'll talk to you.
This has been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate and follow
along at rich redmond.com, forward slash, podcasts you.