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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podcast sound like it should. 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
145
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.