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Rich Redmond, Veteran musician and longtime drummer with Jason Aldean, hosts “The Rich Redmond Show”, a show highlighting all things music, motivation, and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them.
Unknown: But I look at a thing
like the Duck Dynasty, right?
It's not my thing, but I look at
that, I go, okay, these guys
make duck calls, but they are
ubiquitous brand at freaking gas
stations. I want to make bald
man a ubiquitous brand. Maybe
people don't know that the bald
men started as a as a percussion
niche thing, but here we have,
you know a bald man, bald man,
salt and pepper shakers. Bald
man, the flamethrower. I don't
know there's all sorts of
different things so, but you are
thinking, Yeah, it'll be you and
Danny still creating things.
Sure. Okay. Oh, yeah. So anyway,
to answer your question, you
know the thought leaders, I have
nothing against it. It doesn't
really do a lot for me. I like
to go way far away and say, What
does somebody in a different
industry, like media or theme
parks, what are they doing? And
how can I distill that down into
something that I'm doing? That's
kind of what happened. Yeah.
Does your wife think you're
crazy?
Yeah, and she's also forbidden
me to start any other
businesses. This is the rich
Redmond show,
Jim. We had Jay Weinberg on
recently. We had Wes little,
great session player. I got to
visit kibbutz with our friend
Jeff roach. And, you know, was
almost a two hour interview. And
we talked about, not a lot about
music. We talked about
inspiration. There was some,
really, some detours that
happened. That's okay, that's
what happens. But gay, you know,
look who's in the room today.
Music, motivation and success.
This man has a haircut that
matches his business. Bald man.
Percussion. We're talking about
our friend. Mike McKey, thanks
for coming, buddy. Oh my god,
man. I mean, if people don't
know you're from Raleigh, North
Carolina, Raleigh, Raleigh,
Raleigh, don't say don't see
rally. No, it's bad. That's a
dead giveaway. There's a rally
in Raleigh, but that's it's a
dead giveaway that you're not
from the from those parts, fair
enough. And then you've been
calling Nashville home for five
years. Man, you're a newbie. I'm
new for 11 years. You have been
a were you founding member of
Delta Ray? Yes, founding member
and drummer with the Americana
Rock Band Delta Ray, if you
thought that was enough, no.
There's more to the story.
Founding member, along with his
partner, Danny young, of a
company called bald man
percussion, two times you guys
won Best in Show at Nam for an
instrument called the junk hat.
Here it is, right there. It's
not subtle. It's not for the
faint of heart, but it's we're
gonna get into what this thing
is, how it came about. I was an
early adapter of this thing. I
haven't been able to use it live
with Aldine, because most of
these sounds that have this kind
of a sound, they're already on
the track, you know what I mean.
But so I feel kind of bad about
that, but it is an amazing
instrument. In addition, you got
this thing called the drum team
collective, kind of rock and
roll team building. So there's
so much to talk about. Mike
McKey, thanks for coming, bud.
My joke. Yeah, man,
housekeeping, housekeeping. We
gotta get some house. Jim will
not let me do an episode without
saying that we do have the rich
Redmond show.com.
Finally, thank you. Check it
out. We have merch after 231
episodes, by this time this
comes out, it'll be 235
episodes. We have merch. So
we're sipping out of this, this
iconic coffee mug that the
people have been asking about
for five years. Even behind
them. You can have it delivered
to your house. They will lick a
stamp. They will send it to your
house. We got beanies, we got
hats, we got hoodies, we got
baseball jersey shirts. The
whole thing. Use the code, fall
25 fall 25 for a 25% discount.
Do it. Do it right now. Do it.
Yeah, right. See housekeeping
Done, done and Rich will deliver
these mugs to your house.
Personal person, on foot. On
foot, he will walk. That's how
dedicated he I've met dedicated
people in my life, but this guy
right here, this is a dedicated
guy. You guys haven't put out an
episode in a while? Yeah, he's
not back yet. He's not
dedicated. He's still walking.
He is, yeah, on foot, he's
delivering a mug. Yeah, man.
Kevin, in Iowa, I'm telling you,
I love your energy, man, you
know. But Raleigh, that's the
South. It sure is, yeah, but I
mean, you have North energy,
okay, I'll take it, you know. I
mean, like, just like, when I,
because I'm from Jim and I are
from Connecticut, when I moved
here, I was like, Man, I gotta
slow down this. Things are a
little slow around here. But you
are. You just like, well, I just
liked, I like life. I like doing
stuff, and I like and here's why
we moved to Nashville, was
because I like to meet people
that are interesting and
exciting, that find me
interesting and exciting. And,
you know, New York has it, LA
has it, but Nashville has a
Southern, North Carolina kind of
charm to us. It felt like a
natural fit. Yeah. So is that
did? Now, did you move here
because of the band and being
signed to Warner Brothers and
all that kind of stuff? Yeah? So
my band, Delta Ray, we signed to
Warner Brothers around 2011
10, I don't remember, but we
signed to Warner's three.
Seymour Stein, up in New York
City, he discovered Madonna The
Ramones. He coined the phrase
New Wave, I mean, a legendary A
and R guy. He found a Sire
Records, which is underneath
Warner. Okay, so we signed with
him in New York. And that's a
whole story. If you've got you
can Google or on YouTube.
Seymour Stein, Delta Ray.
There's lots of stories out
there of us doing long form of
how that whole thing, that's
great.
Thank you. And then we spent a
lot of time in LA, so back and
forth. La, all over the world,
doing all the late night shows,
all the all the fun stuff. And
eventually we landed over at Big
Machine Records here in
Nashville, home of Taylor Swift.
And we were so we made a bit of
a pivot. And I was back and
forth from Raleigh, North
Carolina to Nashville, a lot,
and here's why we were back and
forth a lot, is because we had a
residency at the basement, the
original basement in Nashville.
We turned this small, like 150
cap room into a haunted chapel.
Every single week, it sold out.
Every week we had a preacher
outside, warning people do not
come into this haunted chapel.
We had actors planted. We had
lanterns on strings. We have
light arena lights everywhere. I
never heard of this because it
sold out every time it was. It
was in 2018
that we did it for 16 weeks.
Yeah. Cheap Trick was our first
guest. We had Jamie Johnson pop
in and super, super fun. Eighth
Avenue, right, right there. Man,
yeah, lined out the door every
single time. That's smart and
and you were, you were probably
one of the brainchilds behind
the marketing. I'm a big Disney
theme park kind of guy, and it
was, it became a bit of a
playground to to create a theme
attraction in this little, yeah,
black box. 150 people, teeny,
tiny, tiny. We'd be talking like
sardines. It was sardines every
time, but it was artistically
very satisfying, and we'll never
do it again. It drove us nuts.
We had, I mean, like again. You
can go on YouTube and find some
stuff, look up the Delta Ray
revival at the basement, and
you'll see what I'm talking
about. I saw some footage of you
on your website with Delta Ray,
and there's this whole thing
where you have, like this,
there's like a drum solo, and
then the keyboard player jumps
off and he's beating on pots and
pans and trash cans. Delta Ray
shows a lot of vocals and a lot
of percussion. Yeah, it's like,
almost like a Fleetwood Mac ish,
yeah, we get compared to that a
lot. In fact, Rolling Stone
magazine said, if delta Ray is
if Fleetwood Mac grew up in
North Carolina, you'd get delta
Ray and that, that kind of I
would be like, Oh, nailed it.
Thank you. Yeah, good sound
bite. Thank you. Good sound
bite. So there's a there's ups
and downs with the band, label
changes, the whole thing. But
then when the pandemic hit, you
did something brilliant.
Yes, thank you. And I will tell
everybody we in 2019 we ended up
leaving Big Machine Records and
launched a Kickstarter campaign.
All right, we asked for $30,000
to make our first independent
record. And I'm sure the folks
in this, your audience knows
this, but for those who don't
know, traditionally, with
labels, you don't actually own
the master recordings. You don't
own the music. You have your IP
but you don't own your master
recording. So this will be our
first independent tour and
independent record release. We
asked for $30,000 we raised
$465,000
on Kickstarter. Blew it out of
the water, tail winds like
crazy, boom. It was amazing. It
was It was unbelievable. We did
a trust fall into our fans, and
they caught us. So it was like
it was historical numbers. It
really was. It was very, very
special, and a wonderful,
wonderful moment of tailwinds.
So our first independent release
and tour was March of 2020, ah,
so we got March 13. Things got
we got a little weird, yeah, so,
so we got kicked in the pants
there. But we had all this
money. Well, we spent a lot of
it on making some records. So we
made two records upon But before
all that, made two records, and
then we were working on a
Broadway musical as well. Most
of that money was spent. Most of
that money. That's smart. Huge
thing.
Anywho
pandemic happened, we said,
Okay, we can't tour. What can we
do? We have all these hungry
fans. We can't feed them. We
created a virtual house online
with rooms and different levels,
and we call it behind the door.
When you open the door, you have
access to all sorts of old
material, unreleased songs.
We're independent now we can do
that unreleased songs. And every
single month, every all six band
members would make Netflix style
TV shows. I made like a cocktail
show when I told stories from
the road. We had one of our
singers was like doing a
songwriting session, playing
guitar, learning Delta Ray songs
on guitar, and we would give
them access to us with a monthly
fireside chat. So we were just
fire host the fan with content
with letting them into our
lives, so to speak Private Lives
exactly, and it would, and it
had a pay pay wall there, and to
this day now, you know, five
years later, we still have.
That fan club. People are still
coming in. We do our fireside
chats. We all have kids and
things like that. So we're doing
less touring right now, but we
have still built this amazing
community of del charee die
hards. And is that what they're
called? That's what they're
called. And they've made
friendships and relationships
out of that, you know? And now
they travel around together and
have fun. And that just warms my
heart. Is an amazing thing, but
we're also able to keep our
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Well,
how did you guys come up with a
plan so fast to keep the I mean,
because March hit and everybody
just panicked, right? Were the
wheels already in motion for
that kind of a thing? No,
believe it or not, our artists
are pretty creative people,
yeah, and we're and we're used
to, like, just things not really
working all the time and
pivoting a lot. I hate that
word, but it's just just true.
It is overused. It is but, but I
think here's my favorite quote.
By the way, my favorite quote is
from HG Wells a director. He
says, the enemy of art is the
absence of limitations. I'm
gonna say that again, the enemy
of art is the absence of
limitations, meaning, if you
have no restraints, no sorry, no
constraints, if you have budget,
personnel, everything that is
gonna create bad art. However,
if you have constraints,
monetary restraints, time now,
oh, you can't tour, that creates
amazing opportunity for art and
ideas. So we have those
constraints, and that squeeze
made us create behind the door.
Well, that's really smart, and I
don't remember exactly who it
was, but someone said that great
art is created out of having not
enough time. In other words,
that's a constraint. It's
constraint. That's a constraint.
The enemy of art is the absence
of limitations.
I almost, I almost feel like you
guys could have gone and and
and showed labels how they could
have their artists do this. We
may or may not be having those
conversations, okay, yeah,
because I, I don't, I don't see
you as the type of guy who's
going to see something that
works and then not try to bring
it to the masses. Yeah, I have a
bit of a tendency to do, yeah,
and you're every time when I'm
around you, you're hyper
organized, and you were telling
me a way how you do your To Do
lists and your action items and
all that. And I thought I was a
pretty organized person, but, I
mean, that is to another level,
bro. Well, I love seeing how
people work in their day to day.
I think it's just fun. Yeah, and
I like to show people how I do
my day to day work. And you
know, with your juggle, juggle,
different things which most
musicians do, and most, I'm
sure, your audience here. They
are all professional musicians,
but you have other things that
you're working on as well. Yeah,
you got to figure out how to
time box thing. You know, I like
to use a post it note every
morning, and I write down 10 to
11. Here's what I'm doing. 1130
this time lunch break is this
time I literally write it down.
I'm a kinetic learner, so I
don't type it. I write it with
my hands. Oh, interesting. A
kinetic learner. Kinetic
learner. Yeah, writing must be
from Connecticut. That's there's
actually something to that. From
North Carolina, charting songs
instead of using software. Bad
jokes, man, when you write the
chart out, it helps you learn.
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Typing out a chart. But yeah,
same thing. Same thing. Yep. My
god, that is very, very
impressive. So I'm looking at
your shirt right now. Bald
member 2018
you're the one with no glasses.
I'm the one with no glasses,
correct? So then now tell us who
your partner is, who I know very
well, Danny. Danny is one of my
favorite people in the whole
wide world. Unbelievable.
Drummer, a talent through
through the nose, and a super
hard worker. So we have a very
wonderful working room.
Relationship. We were similar in
a lot of ways, but the way we do
work and stuff is polar
opposite, which I like, I like a
little bit of friction with my
partners, because it creates
great things and so, but we met
on the road. His band was
opening up for Delta Ray. He saw
he was playing with Dan timinsky
At the time, right? That this
particular gig was a big machine
artist called the church
sisters. Okay, yeah. So anyway,
as drummers, we typically wear
black V necks, and a lot of
drummers are bald. So he walked
in, yeah, exactly. So I was
wearing my black V neck, and he
walked in with his gear, like,
Oh, hey, shirt brothers, yeah.
And he saw this thing up on the
drum my drum kit. It was a
sloppy version of the junk hat.
Okay, it didn't look like that
one. It was something I made.
And I'm not a woodworker, and
I'm not very good at crafty
stuff. He saw that. He goes,
dude, that thing looks awesome,
but it's so ugly. Can I make one
for myself? That's just more
esthetically pleasing? Because
he says, because Dan, he's a
woodworker, would work? Yes,
stupid talent guy. And he did.
And he did, and he goes, dude,
this thing's cool. And then I
was like, That's awesome. Well,
let's just keep on noodling
around with it. And I was in
Raleigh at the time, but back
and forth a bunch. So as I was
back and forth with del Terre
doing the revival residency that
show would, I would stick around
Nashville for a while, and I
would go to Danny's house, and
we I'd just stay the night there
sometimes and build junk hat
stuff and mess around with bald
man things and anywho, we were
gonna make 10 prototypes just
see what happened. And one of
the like, we put it up on like,
a Squarespace site, and the
first person that I saw email
said, Hey, I gotta have this
thing. I saw this subject, and I
looked who it was. It was Matt
Chamberlain, and I go, Oh, I
throw up a little bit. He's my
he's my number one. Yeah, Matt's
my number one. As far as, like,
a left of center, incredibly
creative session Museum. Oh,
good gravy. Don't get me
started. Fiona, Apple
wallflower, Saturday Night Live,
house band all over the night.
David Bowie, yeah, insane,
insane. And a super nice guy,
and just a sweet, sweet man. But
anyway, I was like, Danny, we're
onto something. So let's just
not make 10 of these. Let's see
if we can scale this up. And we
were just kind of off to the
races, and won Best in Show at
NAMM for the junk hat. And we
had some other products, one
called the stank foot, and that
won Best in Show at NAMM of 2021
and then along the way, we had
some fun collaborations with big
fat snare drum. We called it big
fat bald man had some products
out, and that still exists as a
partnership, as a partnership,
yeah, we're, we're kind of
weaning off of that, those,
those particular products right
now, just we have all these
different things going on,
because the big fat bald man is,
it's a big fat snare drum
muffling ring, and then on, it
looks like a little ribbon
crasher, yeah, but it had bald
man components reminiscent of
the rhythm tech, rhythm crasher,
but a small and a muffler as
well. Gotcha, yeah, yeah,
exactly. And the cool thing is
that muffler, the rhythm, the
crasher part of it, doesn't
trigger unless you hit it. So
oftentimes, with something you
put on your snare drum that has
tambourines on, or whatever it's
going on, no matter what this
one is, just a muffler. And if
you want that cool white noise?
Yes, so fun to play. So much fun
to play. Oh so brilliant. And
Chris mazzarizzi, I love him.
And, you know, Ben hilziger and
all those guys over there,
fantastic. You should check out
their meme page called Big Fat
snare drum. That's just their
Instagram. Yeah, it's all like,
I like those guys
are amazing. I love it so, so.
And I think that this one was
personally hand. I met, I met
Danny over a dose on Murphy
road. Yeah, it was 2018 or 2019
and he goes, here you go. Man,
check it out, you know thing.
And I just haven't found an
outlet for it, you know, live,
but I mean, in this, yeah, well,
I'll tell you what, man like,
you know, Aaron Sterling Victor
and drizzo near z all, I mean,
all these amazing players, it's
just popping up, you know, on
their Instagram and stuff like
that, you know. So it's fun to
see this little weird product
being used in in popular music.
And you can play with your foot,
or you can play with your with
sticks, and there's various
parts of it that you can play.
And of course, I'm sure it'll
sound different if you play with
plastics or different size
brushes, mallets, yep, making it
from the top, from the bottom.
There's all sorts of stuff you
can do with it. Yeah, a lot of
fun. Again. You can just go on
YouTube. Look up the junk CAD,
we have some sweet water
promotion stuff. In fact, the
video with Sweetwater explains a
lot. Nick di vigilio, he did a
good job interviewing you guys.
Yeah, I just saw him at the
Music City drum show. Saw you at
the music. You had your hands
full. I did. I had a three year
old with me. He just showed up.
I have child, though I didn't
steal him. I
wouldn't just do that to myself.
Here, take the kid. All right,
yeah, all right.
For this,
amazing product, man. And
congratulations. And, and it's
just in what the sales are proud
to be in every country, right?
Getting there, yeah, a lot of
countries. And I tell you, one
of the most fun parts of this
whole thing was, I always, since
I was a kid, wanted a patent. I
don't know why it's wanted a
patent. Maybe it's like a steak.
The ground, check the box,
exactly, check the box. And I
and when we developed this
thing, I was like, Man, I think
this is an opportunity to get a
patent. And I looked it up. Oh,
my God, it's expensive and time
consuming, yes, but
the enemy of art is the
limitations. So, and I had
limitations, right? So what did
I do? I found a way that there
are, there's lawyers that do pro
bono work, that do patent work
for like pharmaceutical
companies or whatever. So I went
on a website called NC, leap.org
and you tie up in, you know, how
old you are, how much what your
income is, what you're doing,
and then they'll say, oh, you
can't afford a patent attorney,
so we're gonna give you one.
Wow. So literally, this guy
named Mark, awesome dude, walked
us through the whole thing, and
I did a, don't get me wrong, I
did a lot of work, but he did
the really complicated stuff,
and it bypassed the 10 to
$20,000
legal fee, and it was just a
couple 100 bucks to file. And I
had to learn how to petition. I
had to learn how to go back and
like, we were rejected had, I
had to learn how the process
goes to say no. And in fact, you
guys remember the rhythm tech,
Iron Cross crasher thing, the
Oh, the ribbon crasher, not a
ribbon crash but it was like a
stack, but it looked like an
Iron Cross, black symbol. You'd
recognize it anyway. The Patent
Office said, Oh, your product's
way too close to this. And I was
like, hmm, that's kind of weird.
As a company, sorry, called
factory metal percussion that
was short lived. It was around
for about five years. Okay, but
this you're saying was a rhythm
tech product. It looks like a
rhythm tech in fact, neither
here nor there. But in a way, I
had to learn to say, Okay,
here's what makes us different,
and we had to lower, you know,
less than our parameters, of our
ad, of what we're claiming we
own, all that kind of stuff. So
I learned a lot. So I learned a
lot. So it was a lot of fun to
learn it, and I got the damn
patent. Yeah. How long did that
take? About a year, year and a
half. Yeah. Because you know,
when you're watching TV late
night and you see the picture of
the the caveman he's trying to
carve out the wheel and says,
got an idea for Vern invention,
yeah. And apparently, it's the
company that takes people on.
They take their ideas. Yeah, I
can't speak to that, but I,
fortunately, I didn't have to go
the caveman route. Yeah, yeah.
Mcleep.org, maybe. Now, how does
this? How does
I mean, how do you scale
district? How do you do that's a
great quiz. How do you we do it
all ourselves right now, man,
and we, we have been partnering
with some people to help us with
manufacturing, because Danny
lives in Chicago. Now. He moved
to he he's not playing anymore.
Well, because, because he was
doing pop and rock tours, and he
was doing also some musicals,
yeah, right, yep, yep. So he's
not playing, yeah. So a couple
years ago, about three ish years
ago, I came up to say, Hey,
buddy, big news. I'm having a
kid, and I told you, you'd be
the first guy to ever sub in for
a Delta Ray gig. He goes, Wow, I
have big news too. I'm moving to
Chicago. I'm not doing music
anymore. I'm like, Oh, well,
okay, gave up on me. He's doing
some software stuff. He's doing
brilliant I mean, he's so smart,
he's such a smart dude anyway.
So, so, you know, we're figuring
out the dance of we basically
will build it here, and then
I'll bring it to Chicago and
distribute through there, and we
will meet halfway in
Indianapolis, and we're finding
manufacturers here. It's just
wood and metal and chains. It's
not rocket science. So, but to
answer your question, how do you
scale it? We're working on it.
Yeah, wow. But we use, we do you
have some insights? Because you
know a lot about business. I'm
wondering who his influences
are. Who do you follow? You
mean, like Gary V and such,
like, you know, because it
sounds like you probably have a
lot of insight in, like, a lot
of the guys I listen to Bradley,
Gary V, we talk about music
stuff or just like,
oh, okay, sorry, sorry. I was
like, I don't know any of those
drummers. I don't know Gary V.
Oh, man, you know, I honestly,
this is gonna sound kind of
silly. I don't listen to many of
those people. I mean, of the
businessy people is more of like
Professor Galloway, but that's
more like financials and
politics. I think my North Star
is Walt Disney, the person, and
as a businessman, did you read
those books? Of course, they're
fantastic, and to go for an
outlandish dream and having a
crazy idea, but you have a yin
to your Yang. His brother Roy
was the money guy, and he was
like, No, we can't do this. And
so there's always that push,
that friction, like I said
earlier, that balance. I love
that balance. So I don't listen
to a ton of those. I kind of
zoom out. What's the 30,000 foot
view? You're going like, yeah,
to the OGS of industry, I
suppose, industry Jim, because I
think, you know, Disney started
Rumor has it, he started Disney
World off of his life insurance
policy. Did you know that will
be Disneyland? And yes, he and,
yeah, he mortgaged the house.
And believe you had, you know,
life insurance took out a life
insurance policy. I mean, it is
crazy dream. Okay, we're gonna
have this California real
estate. We're gonna build rides.
We're gonna have actors wearing
crazy out.
Fits. You can get cotton candy
everywhere.
Like, what are you a big fan of?
Like, Ray Kroc,
yeah, the founder. The founder,
yeah. I mean, you know, it's
funny, the things that I've
built are kind of on the niche
side, so I don't, I have the
vision for scale, but you know,
the junk had the target, the
target audience, potential
audience, is very niche compared
to the post it note, compared to
the post it note, bingo. But I
do look at this is gonna sound
very silly, but I look at a
thing like the Duck Dynasty,
right? It's not my thing, but I
look at that, I go, okay, these
guys make duck calls, but they
are ubiquitous brand at freaking
gas stations. I want to make
bald man a ubiquitous brand.
Maybe people don't know that the
bald men started as a as a
percussion niche thing, but here
we have, you know, a bald man.
Bald man the pepper, salt and
pepper shaker. Bald man the
flamethrower. I don't know.
There's all sorts of different
things so, but you are thinking,
Yeah, it'll be you and Danny
still creating things? Sure.
Okay. Oh, yeah. So anyway, to
answer your question, you know,
the thought leaders, I have
nothing against it. It doesn't
really do a lot for me. I like
to go way far away and say, What
does somebody in a different
industry, like media or theme
parks, what are they doing? And
how can I distill that down into
something that I'm doing? That's
kind of what I like to Yeah.
Does your wife think
you're crazy? Yeah? And she's
also forbidden me to start any
other businesses crazy energy
I'm fucking Yeah. She does.
Yeah. During the pandemic was
not a great time for us. She was
like, please leave. And I got a
job picking bananas over at
Whole Foods, picking groceries
at Whole Foods during the
pandemic. What do you mean,
picking any stocking them? No, I
would be like, I would do like a
shopper for somebody. They would
tell, you know, like, like that,
yeah, shopper. I had to, I had
to get to work of sorts, yeah.
And I had to, yeah. But it got
me out of the house, which is
good for her, yeah. And I would
talk to people through the mask
and everything and interesting.
Yeah. I spent the entire
pandemic staring into a little
green light on my Mac computer
trying to teach drum lessons. I
did that too, so hard. Oh, it's
the worst. Yeah, yeah, you and I
cut from the same cloth. And I,
you know, that it hit us like,
you know, obviously we survived,
and we're grateful for that,
because we're people, people we
are and again, and, you know,
but also I'm grateful that it
allowed time. Can we kind of run
the world, so to speak, you
know, it's like, you know, we,
nobody tells us, No, we have, we
can just get through the door,
right? And I feel like the
pandemic was very good for the
introverts of the world, who
oftentimes kind of get ignored.
And I think it gave them a
moment like, hey, we matter too.
It was their time. It was their
time and, you know, and I think
as a result of that, there's now
a more understanding of people
that, like, Hey, I got I don't
want to go to this party. I
don't, and you don't have to
make up an excuse. You go like,
I'm peopled out or, you know, my
buckets overflow. And we, we
extroverts now, know, oh my
gosh, it's a battery. We have to
be sensitive to these people,
and it's like they're not being
they're not being shy, they're
just, they, just, they, they've
had their fill. Yeah? And the
way that I must you and I, our
batteries get charged up when we
go to a group of people, yeah?
When introverts like my wife,
get in front of group of people,
it drains. And now we know
that's that's cool. You guys are
nice, yeah? Oh God again. And
Yang friction. Yeah, that's a
good thing, because, for some
reason I'm trying to change
this. I mean, I don't want to,
but, you know, I will. I am the
last person at that party, sure,
because I'm talking to everyone.
And then the Italian goodbye is
very long. The GABA ghoul,
you're kissing cheeks and
saying, no, no, no, we're good.
And then you run into another
person, I'm gonna hit the
bathroom one more time. And then
you start talking. Time. And
then you start talking to all
the people on the way that the
Irish goodbye is the way to
that's the irish exit is the
best. It's the best. It'd be
like, I know that, so I'll see
these people tomorrow. Yeah, we
need to have like, a
Portugal goodbye, which is just
a reasonable, I'll say hi to
everybody and say bye, and it's
reasonable, yes, and they're not
close, if you have Italian in
Ireland, so that, I mean in
between, that would be Germany
or France. Maybe it's a French,
German Goodbye. Oh, French
goodbye. Sounds dirty somehow, I
don't, I don't
think German a principal
advisory could be like, you
know, yeah, you put German in
front of anything. It sounds
like, it involves, like,
shizers, sure, your words. Never
mind. German shopping bag. It's
got spikes in it, and you'll
love it. You'll like the French.
The French goodbye. It sounds
French. Goodbye. The French
goodbye
is it's up something
when I teach kids about how to
like, how to French. Goodbye.
There's
your next product idea.
Sorry, please continue. No. I
was gonna say when I teach the
kids how to do like, like an
open hi hat thing or play a
sloppy, loose hi hat, I just
say, pretend it's like you're on
a first date and it's like a
very link.
Angering kiss you because you
want to angle it in such a way
where it's like when you strike
it, it lasts as long as
possible. Remind me never to
take drum lessons from
you. How old are these kids that
you don't usually bring that up
unless they're they've had
puberty, okay, even so, it's
like 1314, dude. You know what?
I like to have some of these
right hooks out of nowhere.
I've never used to grow before.
Now I want to let this just
we'll
just edit it out the French
goodbye. Anyways, so you make,
yeah, I mean, you're in this
groundbreaking band. You got
Kickstarter history, you got the
successful company you're
running. You're growing, you're
expanding. You got the patent.
Now tell me about the drum team
collective, and we had a meeting
about this, because I want to, I
want to be somehow in the mix,
yes, and I admire the hell out
of you rich, because I've seen
what you do in the corporate
speaking world, and it's really
incredible. It's very, very
awesome. And I may or may not
have lifted a few of your
liftings. I lift all day anyway.
So the same year that I launched
bald man. So when delta Ray was
on tour, we would do some radio
tours where grant the bass
player and I would not go. We
were all the Musketeers all for
one one for all the time, but
with a country when it came to
radio, well, they just didn't
have the bike. We were like,
Let's go. I'll play with you
guys. We'll play. We're a band.
But they're like, No, we're just
doing the singers. That's just
how this thing works. So I had
about six weeks off the road,
which has never happened before,
yeah, and I got bored, so I
started two companies that are
still running today. It's great.
And, long
story short, with drum team
collective, I got a cold call
from somebody saying, Hey, I saw
your ad on Craigslist for
teaching drums. You seem like
you could do a corporate thing,
and we're looking for a team
building event, like a drum
circle, but not what can you do?
And I said, I don't know what
team building is, and I know I
don't like drum circles, so give
me an hour. Let me think of
something. Yeah, so I was just
driving, and I was like, Oh,
what if I take a drum set and
explode it into a semicircle and
teach drums the way that I teach
a kid playing drum set with your
kick drum. Cool. Here's your
snare drum. You're high. Let's
put them all together. What if?
What if we just do that one at a
time for adults and say, okay,
these three people are playing
the kick drum pattern. These
three people are playing the
snare drum and the cymbals and
tom toms and so on. And it
worked. And so you get some
people going. I got some people
playing eighth notes, and I got
some people playing just two in
the four. And I have people
doing four on the floor or just
boom, boom in the air on actual
drums. Oh, they got all drum
sets. Oh, yeah, when you see a
drum team event, it is put that
anywhere hundreds of drums. Oh,
my God, a big ball. We just had
one an event for Glassdoor with
people, and I own truckloads of
drums. Shout out the Ludwig,
really? Yeah. So what language?
A bucket, like a plastic bucket
like this is rock and roll team
building. I'm teaching people to
play real drums with a real
band. And so what happens is,
they're playing parts of the
drum set. And they go, oh my
goodness, I'm playing a drum
groove with Kyle from accounting
and Stacy from HR. This is so
fun. And then a professional
rock band kicks in live, playing
great rock and roll with down,
playing with them, playing the
part. So here comes back in
black, here comes back in black,
and it's a beautiful chaos. And
I tell the my band. They're
like, Hey guys, this will not be
musically satisfying. However,
we are empowering people to
learn to play music together,
and we're going to break that
fourth wall. They're going to be
in the band, and we're going to
have a musical Q, a, music
industry, Q, a afterwards, yeah,
all that stuff now, but the
band, I wonder if they're on,
are they? Are they on ears? New,
God, no, okay. We're raw,
dogging it, man. And then, like,
literally, these in Accounting
has been working out, and she's
got such a lead foot, but she's
rushing her brains out. And then
is there somebody on cowbell?
Will Ferrell with you guys? I
mean,
rich, rich, these drums are
muffled very well. Oh, they're
muffled. They're muffled very
well. So they're making noise,
but barely. And then, then I had
my drum kit, so I'll jump behind
the drum kit, and we're glued.
And you are not muffled. I'm not
muffled, yeah, the mike McKey
story and
story actually not muffled. No
muffling alone. Muffled. Muffle
is 0% muffle anywho,
yeah. So it's like this chaos of
sound, but, but it's like real
drums and boom, bah, boom, boom,
boom, bah, boom. And if one
person messes up, it doesn't
matter. But the point is,
they're having fun. They're
playing groovy together. And
then we'll they'll say, Well,
Great job everybody. And we'll
say, Hey guys, you know what I
noticed was your company, your
core values include
accountability and, you know,
teamwork. Well, guess what?
Those are the same core values
that any successful rock band
has. And here's how. And we talk
about that for a little bit, and
then they stand up, pick a new
station, and they're high five,
and they got their drumsticks,
and we play a new batch of
songs. And we do that a few
times. We'll talk.
Little bit of a break. And this
is one hour, hour, hour and a
half ballpark, yes. And then,
then it'll be, well, hey guys,
let's break the fourth wall
music industry. Q and A, what's
it like to tour? What's it like
to play on late night? What's
Spotify all about? What's that
whole Taylor Swift thing all
about? Yeah, and we can answer
those questions. So you've,
you've included the company's
cultural bullet points and all
that. They've had fun. They see
how being in part of a team, it
all fits together. And then they
get to do the Q and A you
probably go home with some
drumsticks, lanyard and
drumsticks, and they feel
empowered. They got to play
music together. And you know,
what's really cool is there was
a small company called Pfizer.
It's a pharmaceutical company so
small, so small. They were one
of my clients. And about a month
afterwards, I got an email back
from the guy that booked it.
They were up in New York, this
team and the sales team. And he
goes, Mike, I've got to tell
you, by the way, we changed the
name of this internal team to
the yes, if team based on the
program, and this little bit of
a little bit that we do, he
goes, we changed the name of our
internal team to the yes, if
team yes, if instead of yes and
instead of No, because, ah, so
it's a play on yes and yeah. But
if you say, let's say a teammate
has an idea,
and the easiest thing to say is
no, because there's always a no,
because, but if you're in a band
with somebody, or in a team with
somebody, they're there for a
reason. There's a trusted worker
or bandmate, yeah, and they have
a voice at the table. So if we
say, Okay, well yes, if you can
prove the ROI, yes, if you can
take that idea over across the
finish line, I know yes, if you
feel passionate about it, and
can better convey that to me,
because I didn't get it the
first time. So it's just letting
ideas happen. Letting ideas have
a chance. That's kind of the
that's the thesis there. Now,
how many drum team building
members is in an event, members
being the participant, like
that, like, like, so you're,
you're on the real drum kit, but
then don't you have some help,
help with some other drum type?
Yeah, depending on the size of
the event, I will have, usually
a singer who's on wireless
running around, another person
running around doing hype work,
and people dancing around.
Because if you have a cowbell,
and if you're a cowbell arena
playing tambourine, you're gonna
be dancing around the aisles and
having fun. But we have a guitar
player, bass player, Yeah,
amazing. Thanks. That's a great
thing. I appreciate a giant rock
band with lots of drums now the
person, Stacy from accounting,
who's playing the Hi Hat Part,
she's playing on a real hi hat.
Yeah, do you just tape that up?
I did a little bit of tape.
Yeah, little tape, a little bit
of tape. Gotta have your gaff
tape. What I tell you, kids,
it's part of your gear. You
gotta have gaff tape. Lug locks,
WD, 40 extra sticks, extras,
crash cymbals, pliers, the
stuff. Bring everything with you
all the time, no matter what you
got to be a boy scout or a Girl
Scout, totally French. Goodbye.
It's not Is he not impressive.
He's doing all the things. For
the first time in my life, I met
somebody who's got more energy
than you. He actually has more
energy than me. I know it's
incredible. It's amazing. I need
to channel it. No muffles. No
muffle lists. Muffle this,
right? Did you guys see that
movie? The substance with Demi
Moore? It's like a that sounds
it's weird. I saw it all the way
through. I It's like, I can't
bring myself. Is that a big deal
for you to see some a movie all
the way through?
Because it does get weird. You
can abandon it. You can abandon
and be like, oh, you know, but,
but there is a payoff chip.
Okay? Yes, sir. Body horror.
It's a body horror film. You
know what I watched least
recently was, uh, death of a
unicorn. Have you seen that? Um,
it was, it's on my stuff,
whatever it's like, yeah, my
stuff. Or it's a unique movie.
It's actually, for the first
time in a while, Hollywood put
it, put out something that kept
you guessing. I went to go see a
horror film. It's a, it's a
horror comedy. I love that can
be tough. Oh. Paul Rudd, okay.
Paul Rudd, yeah, it's on my
list. So is it a good ending? I
thought it was, okay, good,
yeah. Was it worth your $5.99
I didn't buy it. It's free. It's
free on, I want to say prime HBO
max or something. See, that
happens? See, I put the stuff on
my list, and at one point it's
1999 that a week later is 1299
is 1299 then two weeks later,
it's 599 then it comes, then
it's free. You gotta wait. You
gotta you gotta be patient. So
Jim knows I'm a horror fan. I
didn't know you were, cause I am
very much too, very much a
horror fan. And I went to go see
there's a new,
new film by Dave Franco and the
girl, his real life wife, Alison
Brie, and it's called, she's
cute. It's totally cute. And
it's called together. And I
enjoyed the whole thing, and
there's a lot of guessing going
on, and then you can kind of see
the ending coming. And I was
like, it's always so
dissatisfying when the whole
thing is a good ride, but then
the ending, it blows the whole
thing. Well, it's, it's, it's
tough to do a horror movie. I'm
a jaded I'm a jaded horror
viewer, because very rarely do
you not see it coming. And are
you completely satisfied, like a
great meal, where you're like,
I've got my steak, got my
asparagus, I've got my red wine.
This.
Perfect. This last night was a
steak and half a thing of
asparagus, no wine.
Got it or like, like, liquefied
mashed potatoes. Oh, yeah, like,
an acid powdered mashed
potatoes. Yeah. So what's your
Mount Everest horror? Oh, I
could, I could answer that. Go,
alien, wonderful. Well, yeah, no
one can hear you scream in
space. That's my favorite film
of all time, okay? But as far
as, like, the one of the most
scary films that will never stop
scaring you, The Exorcist,
terrific. Why does it keep
scaring you? It's so odd. It's
so it's something to think about
the exorcist. Like, scary, but
it's, there's, there's something
a little bit like, this is too
real, or like, it could actually
happen because it did. It's
really crazy. Yeah, yeah.
There's actually a film out
right now that is. It's like,
this is what the Exorcist was
based on, yeah, and people died
making the film. Yeah, it's a
little little bit strange, yeah,
Passion of the Christ. Look at
the story of Jim Caviezel. Oh,
yeah. And the stuff he went
through stuff after, after he
played Jesus. Oh, just during
filming the film. Oh, I didn't
know about, yeah, what happened?
Oh, just stuff like, you know,
he was struck by lightning,
stuff like that, yeah. Oh, my
God, a bunch of stuff, yep, Oh,
yep. Oh, my God, I'm waiting for
the sequel of that one two. It
is Electric Boogaloo. I think
they actually do have one in the
works. Oh, wow, after his
resurrection, that's crazy. Jim,
you're actually a little quiet
today. I'm just, there's so much
energy that's something that's
gonna it's insane energy. And
then one of the things that I'm
just trying not to, you know,
he's like, never when Kenny
Aronoff and I ever, oh, good,
great.
That's too much for me. I read
the room, man, he found a Kenny
found out that he can swear. He
goes, we could swear on this
fucking thing. And then he just
opened up the floodgates. How
about that? Yeah, yeah. I gotta
say, one of the things I wanted
to kind of bring up was my
family and I have been watching
this YouTuber called Ryan. His
name is Ryan Trahan, yeah. And
he's got like, probably 22
million followers. He's one of
these guys, great, wholesome
guy, you know, he's probably 25
years old, married his wife for
five years. I mean, they got
married young. They just
finished, I think I was telling
you about this the other
night, 50 states in 50 days at
the coolest Airbnbs. And
they just are driving. They just
wrapped they drove everywhere
except for Alaska, California
and Hawaii, and they wrote the
he, his intention was to raise a
million dollars for St Jude, Oh,
wow.
3 million, $11 million yeah,
wow. We gotta get we gotta give
them a shout out, because that's
that's noble. So No, and people
were donating, but that, but he
had to make it to the new
Airbnb, Airbnb, and they had all
sorts of challenges. Had this
thing called the The Wheel of
doom. So if somebody donated
over $50,000
they would have to spin the
Wheel of doom. Yeah, and on the
wheel of Doom was like, Hey, you
got to go through the next 24
hours without coffee, or you got
to wear your pajamas for the
entire day, or you got to split
up and find your way to the next
Airbnb, and they hated that. Or
they can get a golden ticket
that forgave them for the next,
you know, it's more of a wheel
of inconvenience, pretty much.
Oh, wow, yeah. They gamified it.
They gamified it. And, you know,
say, Hey, if you, if you follow
us on YouTube and on Instagram,
we'll give you a, you know,
we'll donate a penny to the
cause. They raised like 100
grand in Bennies with people
that followed them. That's
amazing. That's crazy, right?
And he's got his own candy
company. It's called Joy Ride.
Wow. Shout out. Joy Ride. Oh.
It's gonna be hard to take on
the big boys at Mars. They're in
every guy, yeah, I got a guy.
But you know what last night I
did? I felt guilty afterwards. I
in lieu of dinner, I had the bag
of peanut butter. M M's. Love is
that your go to
peanut butter or peanut and an M
M's, peanut or peanut butter.
These were peanut butter just to
Reese's Pieces, Reese's Peanut
Butter Cups. Too small. Now,
pretty small pieces, but peanut
butter cups. Oh yeah. I like
that. I like the Eminem brand.
I'm totally loyalist. I like the
red, yellow, yellow, number
five, red chemicals. Oh, yes,
maybe the man you are today,
Robert Kennedy, would hate it.
He would Maha
make America healthy, healthy
again, okay, yeah. Well, hey, if
he gets if he makes our food
like Europe. That'd be great.
All we have to do is get rid of,
good luck with this, but get rid
of all the high fructose corn
syrup. Oh, man. I mean, that's
the hugest industry right there.
I know there's impossible. Mike
Tarana. I mean, the guy's in
great shape. He eats bread and
pasta.
Well, I'm sure he eats some,
some some protein, maybe mostly
peanut butter, M M's, I think
that's right, yeah, Italian
made. I felt guilty about that
one. But anyways, on the couch
last night, I had my mixture of,
like, I'm starting to feel like
Jim cottage cheese and Greek
yogurt. You know, you mix it up
and put some local honey on it,
and you're just, it's just like
a protein Power Pack. That's my
bread.
Breakfast? Yeah, I've been doing
cottage cheese with sliced
almonds and honey. That's
fantastic, Jim, but yeah, get
some, get an egg in there too.
You think so? Not in it, but on
the side, raw, not the rocky
style, yeah, rocky style.
Salmonella,
raw eggs. You're in good shape,
though, yeah. What are you
doing? I wear a girdle,
full body.
That's amazing. Yeah. But do
you have like a, like a thing to
get out and, like, get get your
son working along? Well, I
appreciate I've been not. I
mean, I miss best part of the
road that I miss very much,
because as drummers to free
time. Well, actually, so drum we
never, I never had drum techs or
anything like that. So I would
set up everything. We're pushing
all the gear from the trailer,
setting up for the show, playing
the show, tear down, pushing
out, and then on every day off
go work out in the hotel. So I
was exercising every single day.
And then now that I'm not
touring right now, I'm like, Oh
my gosh, I feel it. So try to,
try to, you know, I break a
sweat every day, is the goal?
Yes, get sweaty every day, even
if you go for a walk around
neighborhood. And right now, you
can just step outside and you're
sweaty, guys. Wait, this is
like, hot? Is it always been the
time entire country is on fire.
I mean, I've been here 28 years.
It's insane. Yeah, it's in the
90s. It's
supposed to break I think this
weekend. Yeah, great. Well, that
when, when this airs is not
that's not gonna matter. See, I
love time of this record, the
time of this recording. I love
layering. So like, you know,
October, November is, like,
awesome time. I'm wearing long
underwear right now. Like I
said, total girdle. I was gonna
mention that, you have to wear
pants over them. I am miserable
right now. Oh, my God. Hey. So
do you have advice for somebody
who wants to start a business
and see it through? Because
you've done that very
successfully, get your head
checked.
Well, I appreciate you saying
that. I don't think I've been
very successful with it, but I
would say to them, is a
marathon, not a sprint. And I
would say, talk to everybody.
There are no dumb questions. Ask
the dumb questions and and find
these, not even mentors, just
people that are like that are
outside of your comfort zone.
Find that yin to your yay. Yeah,
you know, find people that and
have people poke holes in your
idea. That's a very important
thing of like finding people
that will say, here's why it's
not going to work, and then have
a response to those, but in but,
but relish in that friction, you
know? And that's what makes
things work, in my opinion.
Yeah, yeah, friction. That's
great advice. And
entrepreneurialism aside, what
about you as a musician? Did you
come from musical family? When
did you start? Who was the
catalyst? Was a Ringo? Was it
Stuart? Was it Alex Van Halen?
Who was it? So my parents are
both professional musicians. My
dad just retired from the
collegiate world. He was a
pedagogy and musicologist over
at Campbell University. Oh, my
God, where's that? It's North
Carolina. Oh, gotcha. And my mom
is still teaching some, but
they, you know, from 50 students
a week down to, you know,
they're kind of trying to,
trying to retire.
And so I grew up with John,
Paul, George and Ringo, Matthew
Mark, Luke and John and
classical music, wow. So that
was my entire upbringing. And, I
mean, we'd be at the dinner
table. Name that composer, name
that time period is this
Baroque, this pre Baroque. What
makes it Baroque, you know? Oh,
so you probably did really great
music history class. I did drop
the needle. Oh, yeah, yeah, no,
I just dropped my dad's name, Dr
McKey. Oh, you went to the same
school that he taught at. Well,
I got free tuition there, which
was very nice, anywho. But so, I
mean, piano was played 24/7 at
my house. So I was just, you
know, complete indoctrinated
that way. Got a little bit older
and discovered rock and roll
music in particular. Started
listening to heavy music and
realizing how cool the
similarities between heavy music
progressive music, like heavy
metal instead, like a helmet and
like, yeah, raging as machine.
I'm a 90s kid, yeah. And then
realizing, Oh my gosh. And even
though, especially with Dream
Theater, that stuff is classical
music, it's straight up. Is
straight up. My thesis is, if
Beethoven Bach or kmonoff
Tchaikovsky, if they were all
around today, they would be
making progressive music, I
think, like what it was, that's
what it was, exactly. Yeah,
that's heavy. That is heavy.
It's dope here. So I am one of
four boys in the family, and all
of us are musicals. We played in
bands together, and most of us
are doing it professionally.
Still to this day, you have bro.
Did you say brothers? Yeah, and
we all play, yeah, wow, yep. My
brother is my youngest, youngest
brother. He's 10 years younger
than me. He and his wife just
moved to Nashville. They're in a
band called waking April. It's
like a electro pop, synth pop
duo band, nice and really
awesome. Y'all check them out.
They're on Spotify and all that
good stuff. Waking April. And
then my brother Mark is a
producer out in LA and he works
with a ton of artists. In fact,
he was, he did.
Thing with Jason Aldean a while
back in Florida a few months
ago, with an artist, oh, the
private corporate show. And then
my older brother Adam is in the
tech space, but it all revolves
around music tech things. Wow,
dude, you gave me a great idea.
I know Mike Toronto. Does it.
Mike is like, a he's like, he
did a lot of the artists on
shrapnel records and stuff. And
he lived in United States. He's
got, he's got a giant Mohawk,
but he moved to Sardinia, Italy,
and he does, does plays a lot of
classical music with the drum.
There's not a lot of clinicians
that are doing that. He built
himself a respectable social
media following very respectable
the 60s. Yeah, muscular guy
keeps himself in shape, and he
No. But I mean, the idea of
doing incorporating one
classical piece and playing drum
kit on top of it into my
clinics, I think that'd be fun
to do it. That could be really
cool. Yeah, and what that would
do, I could show the chart,
well, what that could do is show
that music is so universal, I
think it's all big. One
umbrella, all cross pollinating,
cross pollinating. But if you
can take a modern element, like
a drum kit, which is like, to
me, the epitome of a modern
American instrument, only 100
years old, well here's why I
like the drum set, because the
story kind of goes, this is what
I've been told, is that the drum
set kind of started in New
Orleans. They would have these
street drummers with one person
playing bass drum, one person
doing cymbals, and they wanted
to keep the party going on the
river boat. So they got all
these, but they couldn't fit all
these drummers on a river boat
in the corner. So one guy was
like, well, I'll just play the
bass drum with my foot. And it
was just out of necessity. Yes,
that this drum set, again, the
enemy of art is the absence of
limitations. They had
limitations. Great things came
from that, right? And so the
drum set evolved from that. But
it's such an American
instrument, because Chinese tom
toms, Turkish cymbals, English
snare drums, European bass
drums, yeah. And then it's kind
of made in this awesome melting
pot in America. I think I tell
everybody, it's the nut, it's
been, it's the Benetton of
musical instruments. You know
what? I mean? It's basically,
it's incredibly multicultural.
But the other theory is, is that
maybe there was a vaudeville or
a silent film thing, and then
one guy, the symbol player,
couldn't come and so then they
invented the low boy, sure,
yeah. And then they're like, All
right, we can pay one guy for
three jobs more like
a man, we're gonna get no touch
up, change. Yeah. Now, the other
thing that I that people, I
don't know if they know about
you, but you also have an
affinity for cigars. I do enjoy
the cigars. Yes, cigars. And we
have a great cigar bar here
called the mission cigar lounge.
And it's, what's, what's the one
that we on the Abbey in East
Nashville, smoker, Abbey, so far
away. You're in Alabama. It's
insane. Yeah, I really, I'm on
bunk bang. I mean, where am I in
North Alabama? Oh, you're nuts.
Okay, I've been down here for 20
years inside North Alabama.
Actually, I'm so I'm so used to
it now because I don't have to
go into Nashville every day.
Now, do you have a studio here?
I'm going okay, because I bought
a house here, so I have my place
is going to be 2020 by 21 with
12 foot ceilings, so it's going
to be gorgeous. But I want to
make sure that I do the build
out all in one fell swoop, and I
want to be here and not on tour,
because I'm only in town. Now,
48 hours a week. 48 hours. 48 to
72 hours a week. Now until
November. Oh, wow, yeah. This is
a very special time. This is our
this is why Jim and I go. Let's
do two podcasts,
right? Yeah. So this, this week
buys us a month of podcasts, so
if you're listening to this, but
anyways, yeah, so that we have a
it's great. We can, you can go
to the cigar lounge. Do your
thing. Walk out. You don't smell
that bad, because the smoke
eaters are the best. And this is
the one in town here. It's like
a mile giving a shout out what's
called, again, the mission cigar
lounge. All right, yeah, good
one. John spittle, he likes to
hang that. Yeah, no. John
spittle, my buddy Jr McNealy,
who was a tracking engineer 25
years ago, I would meet on like
at the at all these studios
around town now, he just mixes,
which is great, you know, stay
at home. You can mix in your
underwear. I always do, you know
what I mean? My thing is, I'm
such a fashion hound. People are
like, people are like, Hey, you
could just like, track in your
underwear. I like to get
dressed, even if I stay at the
house. I think people would hear
it. They're like, this song is
not working. I think was rich,
naked, yes, is he wearing cargo
pants or skinny jeans? Sounds
like he got too comfortable with
this one. There's not enough
tension. Yeah, that's right.
That's right. Again, that
friction. Let's get some
uncomfortable pantaloons on this
guy whose creativity exists in
limitless, limited environments.
Almost had it. It was almost
there. What is your favorite? Do
you have a like, you've been
here five years? Do you have a
favorite restaurant in town? I
love to cook at home. Man, I
love so you do the cooking. Oh,
yeah. Is it a modern,
cosmopolitan relationship like
that, where your wife is like.
I'll clean and you cook, or I
think is more of I'm good at it,
and I like to do it. See that I
like the barbecue. And such a
sexist thing to say, wasn't it?
Jim, I really showing my age.
You can edit that out. I was
like, Oh, it's a reverse
relationship where you're doing
the cooking. So crazy. What's
What's wrong with being
shopping? I'm trying to being
sexy, sexist,
so what restaurants I love, and
Donaldson, Jalisco, there's
always so Danny, my bald man
partner, he knows all the RAD
restaurants around town. So when
I moved here, he showed me some
cool spots. But any kind of
ethnic food, like there's some
great pho restaurants around
town. We used to live in Antioch
and man the, I mean, the
Vietnamese food there. So I
don't really do Vietnamese a
lot. King the kid, it's called
the King market, and Antioch is
a grocery store. When you walk
in the back, it's a very small
Thai and Vietnamese, really,
yeah, was so good, and you never
got food poisoning. Oh,
constantly. But it tasted great.
That's amazing. Yeah, vomit
violently. Okay, so, okay, so,
so you love Pho and Thai and
sushi, oh yeah, celebrate all
that. So absolutely, absolutely,
what is your favorite drink? My
favorite drink? I'm a cocktail
hound, but I honestly right
these days, just whiskey, neat,
I think is really great,
depending on me, my buddies go
to Kentucky. We go to Louisville
a couple times a year, and we go
on the Bourbon Trail. We go to
these tastings and everything
like that. It's kind of like the
kind of like sideways, like a
wine tasting, wine country, but
in Kentucky, more or less, yeah,
that was a lot of fun. And is
this great, great, time out with
the guys doing that. But I look,
I love to make old fashions at
home with, like, a little smoker
thing, smoke fashions. I think,
I think a smoked old fashioned,
that's my, my staple. I like
that. A good, a good old
fashioned is, did we have one
the other day? Breakfast? I've
never breakfast of champions.
I've been a big IPA guy. Had you
had home style the other day
from Bearded Iris. Yeah, that's
a great beer. Great beer. Yeah,
Jim and I are always at the
brick tops. We it just works for
everything. So I'm from North
Carolina, and North Carolina
beer situation is really good,
yeah, so coming over here, I
think one reason I switched over
to whiskey, because the whiskey
situation in Tennessee's a lot
better, but just the breweries
just couldn't keep up. But there
are some great breweries in
Nashville, including new heights
is my favorite. New Heights is
good. Rick was that barricade is
good. I don't know that one down
by the stadium, okay?
Mill Creek isn't bad. That's
good. Marble Fox is great. And
what's the one that does the
Peter Martin jelly, peanut
butter and jelly? That's
tailgate. Actually, there's a
better one. Zul brewing in
Knoxville. Oh, X, you will,
okay, this thing tastes like a
peanut butter and why not just
eat a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich? I can't get over the
whole food beer thing. I might
just eat a sandwich and have a
beer. So this is more fun as a
beer. You need a freaking knife
and a fork to drink that beer.
It's, it's we learned something
about rich. He's on the couch
with his peanut butter. M, M's,
right. So we No, no, I was at
the movie theater,
but I might as well been on the
couch. Might have been on the
couch, yeah, yeah, but no, but
on the couch later that night, I
had the protein. What? It was
okay, because I felt guilty.
Yeah, they're having M M's for
dinner. Now, who would be your
favorite drummer? Who are the
catalyst guys? Well, you said
Ringo. I didn't say Ringo, but
you said Matt. No, I said Matt
Chamberlain's my number one. We
said, John, George, Paul. Oh,
that was how I grew up with
listening to The Beatles.
Gotcha, yeah, but no, I'm a
Ringo aficionado. I will defend
Ringo to the death me too.
Thankfully, there's less Ringo
bashing than there was. I think
people are getting wise, and
they're hearing the isolated
recordings. Guys, there's some
audio out where they pan over
and you just hear Paul and Ringo
playing together. Is just like
these isolated tracks I love to
hear. Oh, it's so slinky. Oh,
it's awesome, if you ever like I
don't know about Ringo. Listen
to this isolated tracks, man.
I'll just never forget when Greg
Bissonette said, isolate any
Beatles song with the drums, and
you'll tell what song it is just
from the drum track, hook, hook,
hook, hook, hook. It's not just
time. It's ideas and orchestral
parts, yeah. And that's, I mean,
I, my delta Ray career has been
stealing from Ringo, like, Let's
do parts time. There's, like,
maybe five adult Ray songs. It's
just time, bear, I mean, with
fills and out, like, the and
very, you know your standard
stuff, it's, I love parts, and
that's part of that's that
classical upbringing. Yes? Jeff
piccarro, Matt Chamberlain,
Ringo, nice. Well, that's, I
mean, the great building blocks
for any drum career, because you
got time, groove, feel covered,
creativity covered. Pocket lope,
commercial success and artistic
success. Yes, man, that's
amazing. Good stuff. Yeah, man,
he likes Dream Theater too. You
would say, like, I respect them
very much. It's not my bag, but
I love my favorite quote about
music stuff is from sting.
Somebody asked him in an
interview, what kind of music do
you like? He says, I like music
that surprises me. And I'm like,
I like.
That because Dream Theater is
surprising music. Jazz is
surprising heavy metal is
surprising music, you know? And
I think there's some things in
pop music right now that is
surprising. I'm like, that's
kind of, I didn't see that
coming, yeah. So that's where
I'm at right now, is, I like
surprising music. And I would
say the Dream Theater falls in
that category. You're in
college. Did you get into this
pink spangling bebop or big band
kind of a thing. I was never
good enough for that. I dabbled,
but I know enough to I know
enough. But what was your degree
in? I I got a degree in Spanish
and religion, and I don't do
either one anymore. Wow, I don't
do either one anymore. You
played for fun. Well, I played
professionally through, I mean,
part like in college, yeah, I
mean part of paid my room and
board, which was not covered by
my dad's doctorate. Or, you
know, being a professor. There I
was playing in worship bands and
and country bands. And, I mean,
I was making money weekly
playing music, yeah, playing
drums. And then I'd go to class
the next in the, you know, in
the morning, and I'd do a cover
gig that night till 2am and then
work around papers and do the
whole thing, yeah? And, you
know, I thought about getting a
percussion degree, but I was
like, I don't want to teach. I
don't want to teach
professionally. I want to tour
play rock and roll. And I need
to, I want to get this degree.
So I make it a choice to go, all
right, I'm good at this language
thing and the religion thing, so
I'll just do that and then be
able to do the rock and roll
thing. And sure enough, as soon
as I graduated, I was off to the
races. Smart now, so you speak
Spanish, not anymore. I said, I
don't do them anymore. Ah, but I
mean, at one point I just
because it atrophied. I don't
know what that word means, but
it's like, like it. Like it a
weekend. It's not like riding a
bike. Yes, you got to use it.
You got to use it, or you lose
it. Yeah, yeah. I told, no
bueno. I told, No bueno, huh? I
told Jay Weinberger, I said,
Hey, man, I love your feet.
Slipped on. I mean, guys, it's I
would, I would kill to have your
feet. I said, I'd love to have
your feet, but I said, it's kind
of like learning Spanish. I
would really love to learn how,
but not so much that I'm
actually going to. Can the clip
of that be Hey, John. Jay
Weinberg, I love your feet.
Close. That could be the opener.
Yeah, you know, I'm just
putting, I'm just quoting rich
Redmond. That's smart. Listen,
listen to the show. Yeah, Jay's
feet. Jay's no muffles. So Mike,
muffle key. Drummer, folks, it's
MC K E, Mike McKey. Drummer.com,
you learn all the things. That's
your hub, and then you're on,
uh, you're on though, the
instant on the social stuff, and
then bald man is how people find
that bald man percussion.com,
yeah, yeah. We have our shop
there. You can buy some stuff,
and we do customized junk hats
if you want your name on it.
Ooh. Like I even have,
here's mine, here's the camera.
I made this one for myself. So I
have our bald man logos there.
That's killer. So, like, we can
actually put a we you could have
a rich Red Wing, yeah? Show, we
could have Jim and you and I
could share the junk hat, yeah,
be like our rim show, but up. I
mean, that's just sounds great.
That's so cool. What do these
retail for?
They go for one. We just had to
change the pricing 169, for the
OG one, and there's a smaller
version. There's other sizes,
yeah. So Thomas Pridgen, drummer
from the Mars volt and beyond,
he was like, Guys, I wouldn't
want a small version. And
because we use a CNC machine, we
were like, well, we're gonna
have to make, like, a bunch of
them. So we ended up selling we
made one for him, yeah? And then
that's the one that Daru Jones
ended up having as his signature
model and his signature model,
they're all sold out. We made it
very limited edition. They're
gone, gone, gone. Yeah, they
sold out like that, wow. But we
had his record label and his
face engraved on the entire
thing. It's so cool. So you can
go to, you can go on our
Instagram and our website and
see that one. So awesome. I
always see Thomas getting a
burrito at a place called Cactus
on Moore Park in Studio City.
And I never bugged him, but I
always be like, you know the
musician thing, you know, I know
you who with that? Thomas? What?
Thomas pigeon, oh, Pridgen,
yeah, he'd always be getting a
getting a burrito. Oh, that's
Thomas, always getting a
burrito.
So what's new for Delta Ray? Any
new music coming out? Yeah, we
just released a single a few
weeks ago, and we have another
one coming out soon. We have a
big show in North Carolina on
October the 18th. And again, we
all there's so many munchkins
and kiddos now, so it's very
hard for us to get to do public
shows. We do some private shows.
And this weekend, this means
nothing, because we're not
airing right now, but I'm
heading up to Boston to do a
presentation for the deltry
musical that's coming to
Broadway. It's called the ninth
woman. So we have our flagship
song, our first single, that
took us around the world. It's
called bottom of the river. It's
actually an a cappella number.
And I said, I want to find a
sound for this song, because I
think it's going to be a big
song. I ended up playing chains
on a trash can. That song was
the catalyst for the junk hat.
So I was playing it with my
hands. I was like, I want to get
that sound with my feet. So fast
forward, like, five years after
that song. I want that's what
that was the catalyst for the
junk cat. Was that song. So
anyway, the music video for.
About in the of the river went
viral before it was virally.
Things we're like on the cover
of Reddit and that we got on
some music blogs back when that
was a thing, yeah,
and it's a story about some
people finding a witch in sale,
in the in Salem, Massachusetts,
but then she turns out she was a
real witch and kills him. And so
is the musical version of that,
that whole story kind of fleshed
out. So you guys fleshed it out
and wrote a musical, yeah,
together as a band. By and
large, it was the siblings.
There's three siblings in the
band. They do all their writing.
This was, this is really their
big creative project, because
I'm in, I mean, it's a, it's a
Delta Ray musical, but they, I
cannot take any credit for the
writing, so you're gonna sell it
to Broadway, to Broadway. Oh, my
God, that's so cool. Yeah. Now
Huey, Huey had a thing, didn't
he was short lived. It was the
heart of rock and roll, was it?
Yeah? Yeah. I mean, Melissa
Etheridge has one out there. I
mean, Bruce Springsteen, you
know there's some.
Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank.
So new thing now, yeah, but, but
there's a lot of great artists
doing, doing some the musical
things you have Ronnie. I'd love
to see a Ronnie James Dio
musical and be all medieval to
be dragons and elves and gnomes
and some short person singing
very,
you know, holy day. I mean, I'm
a sucker for Ronnie. I thought
he was just so delightfully
theatrical. We haven't talked
about Ozzy. Well, we haven't,
yeah, the funeral is today. It
was, I saw a little bit of it as
beautiful. Yeah, they televised
it. They did, yeah. I mean, it
was in Birmingham, and the
whole, the whole town just came
up and there were, there was a
marching band playing Crazy
Train. I mean, it was very, it
looked very, very special. Dana,
Dana, that dude, that dude was
actively dying on stage, and he
was giving like it was his last
Huzzah. I mean, you could tell
it was. It was really a big push
to get that show out.
Yep, yeah, two weeks out. Sounds
right. That's amazing. Yeah,
wow.
Man, God rest his soul. Man,
he can bite out the heads off as
many bats as he wants. Now,
heavy bats. That was back by
accident, supposedly, oh yeah,
yeah. He didn't know it was a
real bad Oh. He thought it was a
plastic bat, yeah. Oh my god.
Well, it was moving probably,
we've been watching the World
detour with Jack and Ozzy. So I
guess you know, Jack is coming
to his own as a very he's
actually, like, a really likable
dude, just a family man, and he
divorced, or his wife divorced
him back in 2020 but leading up
to it, just a great, great show,
they go and see all of America,
just the two of them, Jack. This
is Jack, Jack Osborne. Oh, and
it's, you know, he's my wife
even likes watching Ozzy, but
she's not an Ozzy fan. Yeah,
it's good show. Yeah, man,
interesting. Everyone's Yeah,
man, my ex did a reading for
Jack Osborne one time. Yeah, she
was making I was married to a
psychic. Yeah, it's crazy,
right? Yeah, you
didn't go see the divorce
coming. Everyone says that,
thanks, Jim. Oh my god. So
thanks for coming.
On that note, on a positive
note, French Goodbye. Oh my god,
the German goodbye, that was,
that was a very German goodbye,
and it was good. We covered a
lot of ground, and it's because
you and I talk so fast. We did a
75 minute show, 18 minutes. And
imagine somebody putting this on
2x I would apologize to
somebody's brains for falling
out. Can you believe Marc Maron
is retiring? No kidding, yeah,
like 1300 episodes or something.
He's like, it's time. I think
he's gonna miss that new show,
the with
Luke, Luke Wilson. Luke Wilson,
yeah, Owen Wilson, Owen Wilson,
with the penis nose, Luke will
Owen. Owen, yeah, he's, he's got
that show. He's coming out. Owen
Wilson, it's called Wow, the
musical. Well, wow. What else?
He's got a documentary. Mark
Marin's got a documentary about
him. He just played a lead in a
in indie slash, larger Hollywood
type film, and he's got a
special coming out on HBO, like
he's crushing it, four big
things. How have you not invited
him onto the show? Yet?
He's such a curmudgeon. I don't
think he, you know, he never,
oh, come on, that would be,
like, one of the biggest
highlights of your life. You
love him. I do love Marc Maron.
I just like, would you know he
was the one who convinced me
that, instead of being all
buttoned up because we first
started the show, I wanted it to
be there was no UMS or uhs, but
in just like, very
rich Redmond show, not like
inside the actor studio, but
more version. And then I
realized the popularity of his
show and Joe Joe Show, and it's
just like sitting in a bar
chatting. So people appreciate I
know. I hope more people
appreciate it out there. Be sure
to subscribe, share, rate and
review.
You get your merch. We
appreciate you. Thanks, Mike,
thank you. Mike McCarthy,
drummer.com, Jim, thanks for
your time and talent. Course,
we'll see all you guys next time
this has been the rich Redmond
show, subscribe, rate and follow
along at rich redmond.com
forward slash podcasts. YOU
TO.