Unknown: People used to find out that I knew lucky as a kid, and
kind of grew up with Lucky, a really young drummer, learning
from this guy named Joseph lucky Scott, and I would have bass
players find me on the internet and call me, what was it like,
and what was it like to play with lucky, and ask me, what was
he using to get that sound for such and so, oh my god. And I'm
like, Dude, I do not know. First off, I wouldn't have known
because I was a little kid, but I used to actually see when
Lucky was out in public playing bass. There would be times when
he would get into certain sections and songs and he would
turn away so people couldn't see from the audience, because he
didn't want other bass players to see what he
was doing. This is the rich Redmond show.
Songs are like relationships. A song's like a woman. If you're
in a really good relationship with a woman, you can't tell her
what you want her to be. You can't force her to be what you
want her to be. You can respond to her. You can try to interpret
what she says back to her. I think I hear you saying this,
yada yada, yada yada. You can try to kind of match her, her
timbre, her her, her mood, or whatever. But the best thing
that you can do, honestly is listen, and don't ever try to
force yourself on a song. The song will tell you what it wants
to be nice. And I've taken that with me, not just with music,
with everything.
So just open yourself up to the universe, and the universe will
tell you,
it'll lead you just, just be honest.
It's how the Marketplace is. But I got a question for you, and
it's, and it's a very heavy question, okay, oh, if peanut
butter wasn't called peanut butter, what would it be called?
It'd
be nut butter, nut butter, pea butter.
You can make butter out of peanuts.
Yeah, it's amazing. You know, how they actually do that. Do
you ever try ever make your own peanut butter? Oh, it's
exhausting. No, it's not. You do it at Trader Joe's. You pour the
things and you get to, you know, just
get a food processor and some peanuts. It's all you need,
yeah, and it's super fresh. It's fresh and amazing. Wow. Put it
on some bread, and now we're into the podcast. See,
this is what happens, very much trying to trick us into you
know, it's all the latest and greatest stuff in in podcasting.
Yeah, now, but here we are. Here we are having a great
conversation with our friend Gerald wear. Now, let me tell
you about Gerald. We met in 2012 This is 13 years ago, at a place
called the Rutledge that place, of course, progress in
Nashville. I think it's a Mexican restaurant, it's a
hotel, it's something. But anyways, it was a great night. I
think I was playing with rich. Eckhart. Rich was the guitar
player for Toby Keith for a long, long long time, but he put
out this kind of like solo fusion project. And then after
the show, I meet this very nice young man who is also a
musician, a consultant, a social scientist, a researcher, a life
and career coach, a speaker and a proud US Navy submarine
veteran, yes, hailing from Chattanooga, Tennessee. This is
our friend, Gerald Weir. Thanks for coming on
the show, man, thanks for having me, dude, it's an honor. I
almost feel somewhat unqualified to sit here. No,
you. Well, the thing is, as I said,
a lot more I'm far less qualified than anybody that sat
here.
Well, the thing, the common thing, is that we all have a
love of music, drumming, rhythm. Also, you know you love we talk
over the years about success and motivation and why we do things,
what inspires people, and you're probably will be the only
drummer we ever have on this show that has a PhD. So I
thought it would make for an interesting conversation,
because you're a very evolved human that has got a lot of
depth and interests. You know what I mean? Because so drummers
are, you know, the drummer joke, you know? How do you know when
the stage is level? We all know that one get ready with the
splash symbol, Jim, the stage is even that is when the drummer
drools out of both sides of his mouth. Yes,
okay, okay, yeah, never heard that. But okay.
But I mean, originally from your Detroit. You're from Detroit,
but you kind of grew up in Chattanooga. You still live in
Chattanooga, keep a place in Nashville. So smart, and I met
you as a drummer, and then as the onion got peeled, I realized
that you did all these other things. And over the years,
you'd reach out to me. You're like, Hey, would you answer this
questionnaire for my paper? And I'd be like, This is great.
Somebody cares about what I think about for an academic
paper.
Well, but you're always gracious enough to answer the phone. And
honestly, you know, sometimes you can tell what you're getting
when you first meet somebody. Yeah, honestly, full disclosure,
that night when we met at the Rutledge that was literally the
first night I was in Nashville. That
is cool. That was a great kind of watering hole, you know,
networking opportunity for a first night in town. Because
some people could just find themselves at, oh, I'm at
tootsies. I heard about it. I get it, yeah, you know. But I
mean, that was a, that was a cool room,
yeah, Sean O'Brien, who actually played bass with you guys that
night, yeah, I knew him from high school, but that was
actually the first night I was actually out in. Nashville, but,
but my point in saying is, is, when you meet somebody, you can
tell sometimes if there's more to them than just what you see.
Yeah, and you know, not, not trying to be over flattering
here, but honestly, Dude, that was pretty, pretty, pretty. I
mean, it was hard to see that you were that kind of person.
Oh, man. And then the more I learned about you, and just kind
of what you did and how you did it. It just, it pretty much was
what I thought. It
was great. The last probably 10 guests that we've had on, yeah,
I've sang your praises. Oh, I
love it. Well, people, people love to hear their name. People
love
you listen to his humility. I mean, people, people love to
tell stories. Well, they buy out a big clinic at forks, and I
packed the house. I didn't anticipate that.
Wow, it's not hard to pack out. I mean, there's
a there's not a lot already. I couldn't do it. I couldn't pack
I don't think
anybody's gonna come see Jim McCarthy's jump drum clinic. I
drunk? Okay? Not a lot of guys can do
I think after everyone sees you at May 28 with the Huey Lewis
tribute band at City winery, I'll be
there. Yeah? Cigarette lighter in hand. Nice.
I'll keep the fires burned. Yeah.
God,
hey, Boon got buys you houses, right? So, so this bass player
was, you know, Joseph Scott, Joseph lucky. Why'd they call
him lucky?
You know, I never asked him that, yeah, and it was, it was
always interesting that he would do that was his nickname. But I
don't, I don't know, you know, it was one of those things
where, you know, here's this guy who's from Chattanooga playing
in Curtis Mayfield. Mayfield's band, as a matter of fact, if
you want to see what he looked like, because he's passed away,
now, go look up the movie Superfly. He's in Superfly, the
band that's that's Curtis Mayfield's band. That's Joseph
lucky Scott playing bass dude. I used to people used to find out
that I knew lucky as a kid, and kind of grew up with Lucky, a
really young drummer, learning from this guy named Joseph lucky
Scott, and I would have bass players find me on the internet,
yeah, and call me, what was it like, and what was it like to
play with lucky and ask me, what was he using to get that sound
for such and so, oh my god. And I'm like, Dude, I do not know.
First off, I wouldn't have known because I was a little kid, but
I used to actually see when Lucky was out in public playing
bass. There will be times when he would get into certain
sections and songs and he would turn away so people couldn't see
him from the audience, because he didn't want other bass
players to see what he was doing. Didn't
do that in the early days. Didn't Eddie Van Halen do that
in the early days. Or somebody would turn their back to the
audience so they couldn't see.
I don't know. I thought Eddie was, he kind of had, like, the
showmanship was kind of baked into himself.
It could have been Stevie vi it could have been, well, I heard
that story, but we were talking off camera, and so you were
lucky enough to get some like, like, musical coaching as a very
young person with this bass player. And what did he tell
you? Well,
he said that you know the best thing that you can you can learn
and really just kind of take the heart about music. It doesn't
matter what instrument you play, if you sing, if you play,
whatever it is, is make sure you understand that it's a
relationship, specifically, in a lot of ways. I mean, you're
having a relationship with the tech guys. You're having a
relationship with the other guys on the stage. You're having a
relationship with the audience, the production guys, but, but
really important, you're having a relationship with the audience
because you want to make that connection. That's pretty much
to a large degree why you're doing it. Because you want to
connect with people, but, but you need to know that the most
important relationship is the relationship you're having with
the song and how to handle it, how to treat it. You don't abuse
it. You don't abuse it. You don't tell it what you want it
to be. You don't force yourself on it. In a lot of ways, a lot
of cases, the song tells you what it wants to be. I'm like
anybody else, dude. I have a I can have a pretty large ego, and
I want to come in, I want to, I want to do journal on this
thing, dude. But you can always do that. So you got to find a
place to where. What does the song want? What does this gig
need? And you humble yourself and you do it, but, but that
song is, honestly, it's like a woman or a man, or whatever you
know, but you have whatever you're into, yeah, you have to,
you have to, you have to, you have to honor it, yeah, and not
force yourself on it. That the song, especially if it's a great
tune, it'll tell you what it wants to be. He'll tell you what
it is.
Well, you're a great all around player. You recently sent me a
video of you playing a song called peace accord and, man,
you got it all that popping and cracking, snare, that back beat,
the power, the chops, musicality, all the stuff,
man, you know, well, you know, I sent that to you. I sent that to
a lot of people, actually, you know, sometimes I'll just like,
send a song to people that I like, and sometimes it's not
even really a fully formed idea, but you try to have the
production there, but not, not too much, not trying to go
overboard with production, but you send things that you like to
people, because this is something from your heart. It's
not something that you're trying to sell, per se. But again, man,
everything. That we do, especially as musicians or any
other field for that matter, it's people, you know, we want
to make those connections. We want to remake those
connections. And so you send it out there, you just put it out
there, man, and you believe in it. And sometimes it has wards,
and sometimes it's a little more polished than others, but you
just
want to share it. That's nice. And is that your home studio?
Here it is,
it is nice. It is, well, it's my home studio in Chattanooga.
Chattanooga, I don't have the room here, here, yeah, but,
yeah, it's my home studio in Chattanooga. Like,
I like that. You're, you're kind of, like, you're kind of BI
coastal, man, you guys living in two cities, man, you know, my
wife is very gracious. That is awesome. Well, how long you
crazy kids been together? And how did you
I'm gonna date myself a little bit here, dude, my we've been
married 25 years. Yeah, and we actually met at church. My
sister knew her before I did, and they're probably not gonna
remember this, but my sister was like, hey, you know I like,
there's someone I really like for you to meet. And I've always
been that dude that I don't like being set up. I don't like the
setup and I resisted it for a while, and then somehow,
someway, we just kind of got into contact with each other,
and I didn't call her for like, three, yeah, and then one day I
did. And then here we are, 25 why'd you call Yeah? I saw her
again, and maybe I was just in a different place. But I think
maybe my eyes were just working differently that day. Not that I
didn't think she was beautiful when I first saw her. I don't
know. Maybe I just wasn't at a place where I was going to be
well, I was receptive. And so I saw her again, I was like, oh,
was there something about her that that made you like, you
know, I have a feeling about this,
yeah, and it's gonna sound kind of weird, but I mean, I was like
any other single young dude you date around, you do what, you
know, you do your thing, or whatever. But I really from from
my wife. I really just got woman from her. If that makes, I don't
know if that makes total sense, yeah, yeah. She just, this is a
this is a woman through and through, yeah, through and
through. This is a woman. That's exactly how I felt about my
wife. Awesome. So I'm not alone in it, yeah, it's a beautiful
thing. It really is. I mean, you just for me, very frightening,
yeah, very frightening at first, because you're not in control,
you're not in control, and you just kind of following yourself
down this trail. But yeah, 25 years, she's never come into
conflict with me and music or me and anything else. She knows
she's first, but music does have a special Yes, you guys,
did you guys make the babies? We
three, two sons and a daughter. Nice. Yeah, we have a daughter
who's actually graduating from high school this year. She's
going off to college, so we will be officially empty nesters.
Yeah, and we can do some things that we'd like to do. I'd like
to say I'd like to spend more money on myself in my studio.
But,
well, what's not until we get college over travel
or anything, yeah? Like, I'm curious, because I'm kind of
getting there myself,
you know, yeah, I've traveled around a lot. My wife, not so
much. So there are a lot of places I like to take her that
she's never been. So traveling is definitely one.
What are some of those bucket list places? Like, are we
talking like? We're going like, like, corrupt, you know,
Madagascar,
you know, Fiji would be wonderful. Italy's gonna be it's
gonna happen this summer. You gotta have Italy's gonna happen
this summer. Are you guys gonna do Rome and all the stuff? Well,
we talked about doing the grand tour, but to do the grand tour,
right, you really need a couple of months. I don't think that's
gonna happen. But you know, my daughter's gonna study
architecture as well, so it's gonna be great to kind of go
around and see some of the churches and just some of those
really, really old places that everybody sees
on how did they do that stuff without machinery the human
mind, dude is, I mean, just like Jurassic Park. You probably
heard this before. Life finds a way. Life will find a way, or
it's aliens, or it's aliens, I don't know, but life will find a
way. But so we're going to do some of that stuff and just
check some stuff off the list, and just travel around and just
enjoy each other, because it's a new, it's a new it's a new
chapter in our life. We literally were pregnant three
months after we said I do. So we basically have had no life,
yeah, without
so, I mean, I always equate that to those kids that we felt bad
for in high school who, like, you know, all of a sudden
they're 1718, and she's pregnant, you know, and like, oh
my gosh, your life is ruined, and blah, blah, blah, and then
all of a sudden they just kind of get married, they forge their
way through it, And by the time they're in their 40s, they're
done, and they have resources. Yeah, Jim is
saying it could be a young man, young person's game, right? You
have the energy, right?
You have the energy, the resource, which is true, it
parenting takes a lot of energy, physically, emotionally,
mentally, it does. I
really don't know how you guys do it. I i Jim asked me, because
I always say, Yeah, you know, I never did it. I never did it. I
you know, I never did it.
The funny thing is, is that you'd kind of late. You
mentioned rich in the beginning that he took your phone calls,
which is the same story for me. He just kept on taking my phone
calls, and I one time, I think, texted you. So we were about to
have our second child, and I reached out to rich via text.
I'm like, Hey, Courtney, can drop at any moment. Do you mind
if we have you on the list to watch Cami? Cami, at the time
was like, 1617, months old, wow. And he's like, did I call you
with them? Now she's in college. I know. But the funny thing is,
you were willing to do it, ah, see.
And the fact that you not only knew it, but not but not only is
it wonderful that you that you would call, well, like I said,
sometimes you just, you just know a good apple when you meet
him, yeah, but, but the fact that not only would he take your
calls being the guy that he is, but but him being the kind of
guy that you would trust enough to call Would would you take my
little baby? Yeah, while I go do this. I mean, it speaks volumes.
I was told I was totally messing I
mean, I'm afraid of the soft spot on the skull, you know, I
was totally messing
with him. I just wanted to see how he'd react. He would do he I
literally, it was a call. I remember here. You were just No,
you were literally like, you know, I probably could. I don't
have too much going on, so I and I'm like, Dude, I'm totally
messing with you right now. Wow. You were thinking, Can I
accommodate this? I probably can, yeah, wow, amazing. I
didn't intend for him. I barely knew you a year at that. Oh,
man,
yeah, but it's okay. It's okay. We're still friends all these
years later, I think you could
have pulled it off, though.
Let's make him really uncomfortable this episode and
just talk nothing about rich and like, completely pour it on. The
world is
riches. The world is riches. Riches. World. I'm telling
you what. So you study architecture, and it runs in the
blood.
Well, maybe, maybe not. We. I told her that, you know, if at
any time, if you decide you don't want to do this, walk away
from it. Yeah, because it is, and I'm not saying this because,
because I studied architecture, it is a very labor intensive
degree all night because all nighters, there's a lot of
things you have to know. What you have to learn. Because it's
not just, can you draw well, it's, how does this wall stand
structural? You understand deflection? Do you understand
moment? It's engineering. Do you understand compression? And
then, how do you make that look good? And while at the same
time, don't spend too much of the client's money, and yeah, so
it's, it can be a hall, yeah? Yeah,
interesting, yeah. Because, like, you know, when you get
the, you know, you got these cookie cutter neighborhoods, now
we're like, there's maybe, like three designs, and they'll put
up like 200 homes, yeah. How does that work? This is called
Spring Hill. Does this home? Does this home builder come in
and, like, they hire, like, a staff architect to design those
three buildings. Developers
are a little different. Developers generally do those.
They just, you know, again, it's and there's nothing wrong with
this. Everybody's in the business to make money, and
variety sometimes doesn't offer itself very well to creativity.
Or the lack of variety, yeah, doesn't offer itself very well
to creativity. And so a developer, you know, you want to
make as much money as you can. So you have these, these basic
formats, these basic floor plans that you have, of course, you
massage them a little bit. You give people the the notion that
they can make some choices about what they're getting. And in
truth, that is the case. I mean, you get to pick your finishes.
You get to pick your doorknobs. You get to pick your gold,
silver. Yeah, you get to pick how much you want to spend on
this. I'm gonna spend in that, but it's still basically the
same general two or three formats as what you're going to
get is for sports floor plan. And that has its place. Yeah,
that does. But, you know, you get, you get some of these guys
who get to design houses from the ground up, or get to design
commercial buildings from that from the ground up. Those people
do exist, but, there's a lot of risk in that too. Just because
somebody has deep pockets and they have money to burn, it can
that could be more of a hassle than working with someone who
knows they had a limited they have a limited budget. They can
only do so much. I don't care if the house is $2 million they
know that that's all they have. For a lot of people, $2 million
home would be amazing, but they know all they have is $2 million
the client sometimes, ah, do whatever you want. It could be a
crap show. I mean, because honestly, they're not making any
decisions. They're not telling you what to do, and you don't
know, then the worst thing is they come in. You know, I was
thinking that maybe that that should be over there or or maybe
those stairs shouldn't wrap around to the right. They should
wrap around to the left. The
less money you put you spend, the more illusion of choice you
have. It's like, buying a Honda. It's an illusion. It's an
illusion. You know, you got a couple things you can do here.
You can buy an LX and EX, an ex. L, yeah, you can have some
choices. But it's like, I equate that to I went from I sold Honda
or cars for a couple years. When I went from Honda to Mercedes,
it was like, you know, this little cone of options with
Honda, you knew the trim levels, what you could generally get
with them. To Mercedes, it was like, wide open options, yeah,
because you're paying more for the car well, and
music can be the same way. Honestly. I mean, if you're
working with an MD. Or you're working with an artist. You
know, for me, I can't speak for any other drummer, any other
musician, a lot of times, if I'm not giving parameters, I mean,
and I say this because, because another thing that another type
of person I love is comedians before actors. But I really love
actors because, and I heard Bill, Bill Murray say this
before, you know, he knows that he's got a part nailed where he
can feel it in his feet. Interesting. Yes, Judy Dench is
somebody is
a great, great actor. What do they mean by that? Well, dense
is still hot. Well,
but I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you what. I'm gonna
tell you what I think, Oh, my God. I mean, I think so too,
because creativity and just be I mean, there's a lot of things
that makes you comfortable in her skin. Do anybody? Anybody
can be beautiful, dude. Attraction is a whole, okay,
Helen Mirren,
yeah. I mean, maybe I'm thinking of Helen Mirren when I'm talking
about
Judy Dench. Helen mirrens on 1923 right now with Harrison
Ford. I mean,
she's so comfortable in her skin, man, she does
that. She does that Scottish Irish accent perfectly she does,
yeah. But the point I was making is parameters, for me are always
great, because you need, I need to know a little bit about what
you're thinking to give you what I think you want. But there's
this thing in architecture also where you spend a lot of time
educating the client, because it was always irritating when
somebody showed up and they had a picture. Hey, you know, can
you guys do this? Yeah? But no, tell me what you really think
you want, what you really need, and then we'll talk about how we
can get to point A to point B, where music a lot of times it's
the same way, you know, I need that. MD, I need that, that
producer. I need that guy to give you the to give me some
parameters. Yeah, give me some parameters to work in so you can
create your little Mo and Lisa, yeah. Asset jazz is great. But,
you know, having parameters sometimes is really great. So
anytime anybody I think that's creative, not everybody works
this way. I do it creatively. Parameters are good, whether
it's architecture, music, whatever
I love it. We never discuss that. So who are some comedians
that just blow you away, like they're Are you like a bill a
bill burger guy, or you like more? Mark Marin, like
storytelling.
I can I can be situational. And I'm not going to mention this
person first, because they're my favorite. It's just, it's just a
good example. So Dave Chappelle started out a certain way. Come
on, he started out a certain way as a certain kind of comedian,
and then he went away for a while, and then he came back,
and he was a different kind of comedian, and I think he's still
kind of evolving.
But how about those four specials on Netflix? You could
watch them back to back over and over and over again, and they we
in our band after a show, we will watch these things over and
over again, and it still resonates, and we still laugh at
the same
Yeah, yes, because it just depends on where you are that
day. But he just, I mean, and I think he's still kind of
evolving. It's kind of like a modern day George Carlin
commenting on, yeah, commenting on society. But I also love
people, like, I'm gonna butcher this name. She's gonna have to
forgive me, because I don't know her, but that's okay anyway. I
anyway, Natasha legero,
love her. Just short, little Italian, yeah, you know dice
Clay's show. He had a show called dice, yeah,
another period, it was a TV show. I mean, just, I don't know
it's just, it's just something about that kind of stuff that I
love, but I love musicians, not musicians. Not, not musicians.
I'm sorry. I love musicians that are really courageous too, but
comedians, comics are really courageous.
I mean, they're so I was gonna say that they're so brave. They
go up there and they've worked their thing out, maybe kind of
sort of, but they kind of know what they want to do, what they
want to say, but you have to have a lot of bravery to go up
there. And again, we use this word earlier, really, be honest,
yeah, and be in that moment. Honest, yeah, and, but I think
the same way about actors. I mean, there are a lot of actors
that I could point to that are just, they're just incredible.
Well, you think is the best one out there these days? So
I'm that guy when it comes to movies or just acting in
general. Not that mainstream is wrong or there's anything wrong
with mainstream. You like art films? Well, not, not so much
already films, but, but I could, there's two movies that I could
watch all the time and nobody would ever have to do anything
else with me. Movie wise. One is there will there will be blood,
oh, yeah. And, and they're kind of similar movies. The other one
is No Country for Old Men. I mean, it's just, they're just,
they're just raw. The casting is spot on and just the way. I
mean, again, anybody, any actor, that that can change themselves
into this person. Is believable the way they walk, the way they
change their voice, they literally can change their
countless and they become this character. Yeah, is amazing.
It's something
to so be admired. And you know, when I was studying, I knew
that. Was never going to be a wear a wig and do period pieces
and do Shakespeare Well, that would be utterly hilarious. I
wanted to, I wanted to do parts that were an extension of my
natural, natural essence. Can you do a British accent? Rich?
Not. I wouldn't do it because I, you know, I'd had to. Right here
and now, spot of tea. Keep going. Spot of tea. Can you? Can
you okay? You keep on saying the same thing over and over
again. Can you converse like Ringo, you know? Well,
that's a Cockney. That's a Liverpool come
upstairs, and we'll young you up a bit
about making sure everybody's fans got dyed hair, no belly,
really. And the end, and where's John Barbados. Wow, he come
upstairs. We young. You up a bit. Young
up a bit. Come on, yeah. What do y'all think out there? The old
that's awesome. Wow.
No. But so deep. So when you were studying architecture, you
were drumming at the same time. Now, did you do architectural,
architecture professionally for a while? Yeah,
for a while I did, wow.
And then how are you managing all the drumming during this so,
so there was, there were some guys that I met because I went
to architecture school after I got out of the Navy, and there
were some guys that I met literally at this music store in
Knoxville. It's called Rick's music, okay? And I went in just
to buy some drumsticks, and I just decided I'm gonna sit down
on this. Is it still there? No, no. I'm gonna sit down on this
kid, and I'm just playing around on this kid. So these two guys
approach me like, Dude, what are you doing later? Can we talk
about playing some music? Yada yada yada. Are you free tonight?
Yeah. Are you free tonight? So anyway, it turns into this band,
yeah, that was called just water blonde. And, excuse me, we, uh,
I mean, just we, we had some really good times. Shared the
stage with a lot of different people, just very varied. Dude,
just, I mean, everybody from the crab family to Arrested
Development to to Israel and new breed, to Victor Wooten, to what
was the
music like? Was it? It
was it was this. It was, it was like, and
I always struggled to describe it. It was like,
what's that band out of me?
It's like, is it Jam Band?
No, no. It's a, it's a Christian rock band, pod. It's like pod
mixed with James Brown mixed with chili peppers, funky, rocky
overtones. Well, not, not, yes, but not, not, not so much in
your face, yeah, but, but it was just us having a great time. So
I was having to mix all dude. I would, we would, we would go out
on the weekends and and do our role thing and come back on no
sleep, and then I'm at a drafting day. I mean, just like,
just like most musicians burning the candle at both ends, and
just because you love it. I mean, it's not, it wasn't even
really an option. You didn't even think about it, yeah, so,
so you just did it. So, I mean, plus, I was, I was a little
younger at the time, and my wife was, was, was a lot more
understanding then, and she is now in a different way, not that
she's not as understanding
now, on a Wednesday, come back on a Sunday, yeah,
yeah. Sometimes you leave on a Wednesday, you come back on a
Sunday, and, young, and that was like, constant, yeah, but, but
you loved it in a passenger van pulling a trailer behind you.
And is the back line gonna be crappy when we get there? We got
to use the back line is, I mean, whatever. Hey,
kid, we got a CB 700 kid, you like hydraulic heads.
Wait. You want hands on them?
Well, it's the proverbial picture, dude. Here's the house
kit. It's even worse than the house kit photo when you get
there, yeah? Dude, yeah. Crazy camber.
Cambers. Do you like adjustable snare drum stands at our own
volition, just on their
own. Hey, so And thank you for your service. So right out of
high school, you're going join the Navy.
Well, actually, I went to business school first, then I
went to Navy, and then I went up. Were you in Mystic?
No,
no. What
was your navy experience like? And I tell you what the I think
this is crazy to say, but there's a lot of countries
around the world where military service is required for two
years. I think it would be good for some of these entitled young
whippers. That
would be awesome. I talk about this all the time with people. I
don't I don't think a couple of years of compulsory active duty
service would be a bad thing for a lot of people. I mean, I know
a lot of people disagree with that, but I think it'd be a
great thing because you're only 20 when you get out, right?
Yeah. I mean, honestly, there was a lot the military taught
me. I thought I had things, some things together, and I was okay,
because I'd always been a self starter. I was always kind of
person who didn't need a lot of outside motivation to do things,
yeah, but there. There was some things that the military taught
me, especially the way I served, which I'm really proud of. Some
submarine life is not like surface Navy life. It's
it's a lot more claustrophobic. It is.
It is, but, but it's hard to explain to people. How
long are you down there. It
depend on a mission, yeah. How was it
a nuclear powered sub? They're all nukes. Now they're all
nukes. And how many guys were on the boat with you? The
crew? The crew could be anywhere from 100 to 120 it just depended
different different departments. Yeah, of course. You had
strategic guys, you had tactical guys, you had navigation guys,
engineering guys, people who knew certain things about
certain things. Everybody had to know everything, because if half
the crew goes down, these birds still got to fly. We got to get
these missiles off, yeah. So you to be qualified. What you get
about when you get a certain amount of time to do it, you
can't just show up there. You have to get what's called
qualified, which means you got to learn every nut every boat.
You got to know how to react to plant works. You got to know how
to launch. Gotta know how to launch missiles. You gotta
understand the tactical side of it. If, if half this crew dies,
and we got nowhere to come home to because the rest of the world
has exploded, you can survive. We could survive. But you got to
know this guy's job. You got to know this guy's job. They start
eating each other. Yeah. I mean, we know we would take this. We
had to be have the same intellectual qualifications. And
so it's going to sound kind of weird, because people think,
well, seals don't have an intellect. They actually, really
do. But we had to take the same physicals and we just seal the
seals, the seals and sub guys, yeah, I mean, your scores, your
qualifications. I mean, they're like, right up there. You're
like, 1% of 1% some of
that stuff is the is the strange stuff where you're, like, just
those tests, where you're on the beach and you're you're cuffed,
and the waters are coming in, and didn't
do any of that. Oh, yeah, but, yeah, but, but that was, we had
our portion of crap that we, that we because, because, you
mean, people would mean, I'm gonna say this. I don't mean any
disrespect. Yeah, there are some professions in the civilian
world where turd is the norm, right? And exceptional
is the exception. Yes, it's uncommon. It's uncommon
in that in that world,
turd was very uncommon, and you found out real fast if you're
who the turd was, and and then what do you do with the turd?
Just one day they're gone. You flush them. You haze them, well,
no, or slightly
encourage them, like we're only you encouraged
vigorously, but, but, but eventually, wind up
they're gone. So you could just straight up get out of the
military. Well, they're not holding up your radio.
They didn't know. Well, they didn't kick you out of the Navy.
It's just you can't do this. You're a desk jockey now,
whatever. I don't know what they are, what they send them to, but
you can't, yeah, you can't do this. Yeah. And sometimes pick
guys with psych eval out of it. You know this. I mean, you do
get some guys who kind of, kind of get through the preliminary
valuations, and they show up at a submarine, because they
literally, 99% of the time, they know if you're going to be able
to do this before you ever even see a submarine.
What was the whole crush depth and how close did you guys get?
I'm not allowed to remember, you're not allowed. So that's
classified. Really. I legally cannot tell
you, Wow, it's amazing.
It's great to be bound by the laws and the government. That's
right. It's
what if we redacted in the buckets? I
legally there are certain things I legally cannot tell you,
because
in Crimson Tide, another great movie with Gene Hackman. Yeah,
right, yeah. I think they said in that movie it was, like, 1200
feet or something like that. And it was they could, they came
within like 50 feet, and then the powers back up, and they
were able to get back up.
Oh my gosh, I can't tell you this, though, close call. If
some if they actually really made a documentary or a movie
about what life is like on a trident ballistic missile
submarine, it lasts about 15 minutes, really. Yeah, it lasts
about 15 is
it that boring? Or the stuff you can't talk about?
I mean, most, most military stuff is you just you, it's
hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. But when we need you,
yeah, and then, and then you, then you're told this is what
the mission is. You, depending on what you do. You're told
about when you're gonna deploy. You're told about where you're
gonna go. I mean, that's you know about when you might be
back the movies
that are out there that deal in these types of scenarios. Did
Crimson Tide come close? Was it really? I mean, it just seemed
that, like all the language they were using, all that stuff
consultants, completely fictional,
really, all Hollywood eyes, completely fictional, really?
Yeah, it would never happened that
way. So why not the Navy Band, that would seem the obvious
choice, less physical. Let
me tell No, let me tell you something. The Navy Band is so
competitive, really, dude, you would not believe the level of
rigor it requires you. To be a part
done talking about the submarines.
Okay, well, I just know that you can't legally say,
I like to say about that. But dude, just if you, if you ever
saw them perform, oh yeah, you'd understand why. I mean, it's
that whole musical, professional thing, but, but with military
precision and way of life on top of it? Yes? So, real precise,
real very precise, very disciplined, yeah, you have to
want to do it.
And they travel and pretty well. And you got your retirement, and
you got a paid vacation, you got dental and medical.
They're soldiers. They're sailors, yeah? Some good. That's
so good. They're Marines. Yeah, it's so competitive. It's so
competitive. My dad was in the Navy. I wish I had more
information, but I know he was on the sub, really. And when I
was born 1970 when dinosaurs roamed the earth, he was on a
sub in Loch Ness,
makes sense for the time. Crazy, right? Yeah, yeah,
exactly in Scotland,
yeah. I said, Did you see the monster dad? You know what I
mean? Because I was, I love lockdown, I love Bigfoot, I love
area 51 Marine
inside Loch Ness. I guess really did
he ever, did you ever ask him questions about this
is so embarrassing. My dad's gonna be 80. So as we're getting
to the point where I want to record his life story, ask him.
You want to ask him all the questions. And I want to the
next time we get together. And I
did ask, if we do it on the podcast, it'd be great. We
should. There you go, you know, but it's
going to be, I'll be publicly embarrassed about the number of
things I don't know about my own parent. Well, that's
okay, because, I mean, when after my my dad passed, I found
out a lot of things about him from his friends and people that
knew him well. But, you know, probably as a kid you shouldn't
know,
ditto, yeah, I learned a lot of things about my dad I didn't
know after he was gone. Yep,
by the way, I did watch two episodes of F is for family.
Wow, that was the 70s, yeah, yes, it was
binged.
Awesome. Yes, was
it Laura Linney is the wife, yeah? And
Justin Long is one of the kids?
Yeah, yeah. He's the one that's in the, like, the, he's, like,
in the band that's like, Yes,
oh no, Prague rock. Justin Long is, the is the is the hippie
son, I believe, but he's in a band, yeah? And it's like, rush,
it's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. I've only seen the
first two episodes. He's not in a band yet. The one where
they get into the fight at the table, and there's no, they're
like, screaming, and then they have makeup space, oh no, that's
what I'm talking
about. Where he's getting the calls, the sales calls at
dinner, and he's like, I'm not gonna get it. I'm not getting
this boon.
I'll tell you, dude, don't spoil it for dude. F is the family
where a man has to do what a man does.
Amazing. It is awesome, dude. There's only two seasons
of it, yeah, I watched it by myself, yeah? And then my wife,
she's like, What do you watch? I'm like, Oh, you got to check
this out. And we both just dove, right? I swear there's
five seasons,
maybe not a couple. Yeah. Okay, well, speaking of cartoons, we
were talking off camera. What's up with that emoji t shirt?
Watch invaders them, and you'll know invaders m
z i m, invader z i m. And what
streaming service is that on? Well, it was on
Nickelodeon for a while. Now it's just it's in syndication,
and I bought it on, I hope I could say this on Apple TV,
sure, because I just wanted to have it because I wanted to own
it, because it's so awesome, yeah, but I'm not real sure
where you can watch it now, but it's around. You can get it, but
it's just, it's this wild thing, dude that's created by John and
Vasquez. I think I'm announcing his last name, right, but he Zim
is an irkin, and his entire planet are invaders. And what
they do is they go around the universe and they invade planets
and enforce their will on these planets. The Earth can weigh on
these planets. Well, this particular show is about an
invader who's horrible at it. He literally is the worst invader
that you're ever going to meet Little does he know that the
leaders who are called the almighty tallest, they're the
leaders of his people because they're the tallest. Oh, that's
poor people, and they're identical. They're identical
because two of them, they're identical because they're the
same height. They sent him the earth to get rid of him. But he
doesn't know this, all right? And as bad as this sounds, he's
actually trying to destroy Earth. He's the he's the
protagonist. The antagonist is the kid who knows that. He's an
invader trying to take over the earth. But nobody believes
him. It sounds like resident alien.
It may be maybe a little similar to resident alien.
I mean, it sounds good. I mean, it's no tribal but I'm wearing a
t shirt
that. That character, Dib. Yes, dib is the is the antagonist
who's always foiling the protagonist, Zim. But this is,
this is that kind of faci thing that DIB wears on every episode.
What's the
one you're watching? Primal? I watched primal on it was adults.
It was like a five season Adult Swim cartoon, but very bloody,
very gory, very violent, and a great soundtrack. So it's I've
talked about it on several episodes, but I binged it, and
I'll probably watch it again. It's a T Rex and a caveman who
neither one of them can speak, but they befriend each other and
they travel the world on an adventure. Wow,
dude, see, that's what you want, dude, a buddy, a bro thing,
which dude I'm telling you, interspecies
bro, yes, story amazing. It's like,
you know, speaking of Adult Swim again, hopefully I can say this
world case, totally Yeah, dude. We have no sponsors. Metal,
ocalis, have you guys seen metal? Oh
yeah, I've seen them. I've seen some of the musicians from that
play live, really, at the Improv on Melrose in LA talk
about soundtrack. Dude, Gene holder, dude, that show dude,
dude, is incredible. If you still don't watch it for the
music, it's incredible.
But a metal locker is that on Adult Swim metal? I don't
think they're not. It's not on Adult Swim anymore. But again, I
bought it Apple TV, Apple TV, but it's out there. You can find
it anywhere. But it's just this really cool show about this, the
internal life of rock stars, yes, who and they literally are,
like, the eighth largest economy by themselves, really on the
planet. I'm not gonna spoil it too much. Just watch it. It's
awesome. And
so speaking of gene, Hoagland, do you play fast double bass? Do
you like that? I
don't play fast double bass as fast as gene does. Who does I
mean, jeez. But yes, I dig some double bass. When I think
Lombardo fast, I never really heard gene. It depends
on who you ask. A lot of people would say that when it comes to
that metal double bait, that gene is, like the gold standard,
but, but I'm not saying that other guys aren't right, but
gene is also hella musical. I mean, just, he's just really
musical. I'm not saying other guys aren't right, but, but,
yeah, he's that metal dude that just, but
you know who my metal guy was Vinnie aposy, yes. Car mine's
brother, yes. And he wasn't a double Basser. He just had a
nice, strong right foot. And then my double bass chops come
from Carmine, and it's more about power than speed. So I got
a lot of power and but I'm more of like a slow foot me and like
Clapton, slow hand, slow foot would be this amazing band.
Yeah,
that's the challenge that I've been having with the Huey thing,
really, is that they want me to, like, at the end of new drug,
they want to accent all the horn blah, you know, they want to,
like, kind of do back, like, little, you know, you could do
that, you know, like, what Bill does in the second part of that
mood got to and he goes, go back to the groove. Yeah, they want
it done in every single section. And you listen to some of the
other drummers that they have, they're
like, more always, are
you saying you'd like to be able
to do that? I don't write. I'm at the age where I'm like, I
don't need to, like, once about a time, I'd be like, Oh my gosh,
I gotta learn how to play like that. Like, I watched Jelly
Rolls drummer a couple of Cody ash. Cody ash, that dude is a
beast. He's fast. He's really fast. And, you know, but it's
all the stuff that he's doing. He's doing a like, you know, a
lot of like, variations with the kick at the toms and stuff like
that. Dare
I say he's got, he had some like, you called him modern
gospel chops. It's gospel chops meets Prague metal. Okay, right?
And he's mixing it up. Yeah, he's playing with this guy named
Jelly Roll crazy. It's nuts. He's
like, a metal drummer that found himself a country gig. Totally.
Well, you know, I mean it. Maybe you don't want to, you don't
care about it, but you know JoJo Meyer, great drummer. Love that
dude to death. He's like a real drummer playing electronica,
yeah. But anyway, he's an incredible teacher as well. Yes.
And his advice for guys who want to play faster is just, it's not
all about just building up your chops to get to a certain speed.
You literally have to learn, have to have to learn to think
faster, to play faster. And he's not saying just thought, after
thought, after thought, I thought. That's not what he
means. He's saying you have to adjust your mind, yes, to the
speed of what you want to do, and it can get you there fast.
He's got a whole thing about Yeah. And JoJo Meyer, I'm
telling you, just as a technician, the he's pretty
amazing. He is because
when he does his Samba, you know, so like when I do a samba,
it starts to pick up swinging, digging, digging, digging,
digging, right? But he's thinking he's got that second
note in there, right? So he's right, right? He's got this
thing where he can get all four No. In there. And I have to
cheat it, you know, we're most human drummers. Don't take again
gig again, Mere Mortals. Yes, it's
crazy. We all have the same musculature, though, and bone
structure, but
some guys might have sort of, like a they're fast
Twitchers. There's Twitchers. They're fast Twitchers. Yeah,
yeah. And I guess, and I guess you can build that up to a
certain degree, but you know, a lot of stuff is, is, I mean, I
hate to say it like this, but I just think there's a truth to
it, because it sounds like none of us have access to it, which
is not the case. Some guys, honestly, they have a there's
gift to it. I mean, I think a lot, most a lot of museums, are
really gifted, but, but we're all different. We're gifted
differently. Even if we play the same instrument, we're gifted
differently. And you know, and if you do things a little
slower, that's fine, too. Maybe you're more musical, you know,
because it's not about how much you can play or how much bass
you can fill up. I actually enjoy musicians, honestly, not
because of the less they play, but they know what to play,
where to play it, when to play it, and they're literally there,
not necessarily not to be seen, but they're a servant in how
they approach it. If they're musical,
like you're talking about now, to your point earlier that you
made, that the song is gonna tell you what it needs. Yeah,
it's gonna tell you what it needs. And that's musical
maturity. That's musicianship maturity, to me, that you know,
even as I'm getting back into it, I've been playing since I'm
1112, years old, but for the longest time, and what's working
against me is the fact that, you know, building up the muscle
memory and the chops going in thinking that it's simple music
to play, which it is not like, I had a guy come up to me this
morning. He goes, he's like, Well, that's pretty much
straight head music. I'm like, Dude, you think it is simple,
simple stuff. Dude, can be like, for real challenging, because
simple stuff, especially if, if it's, if it's meant to work, it
is what it is, you know, it's simple, it stands on its own.
Well, you have to handle it a little, a little differently,
because it's simple. It doesn't need you to. And I'm not talking
about playing less. I'm just saying it's just, it's a
simplicity to it. Well, he had made
the comment. He says, Well, it's not like, it's, you know, you're
playing Neil Pierre, I said, Neil Peart stuff. You knew it
was complicated, right? I said, Try playing if this is it. Yeah,
six got dude, got dude.
That's a lot harder. But feel, feel is, I mean, not being
insulting towards anybody feel, a lot of times, it's something
that a lot of people don't have. You know, field is the kind of
thing. You're definitely born in it. Well, you can develop and
develop it, but, but it's the kind of thing that I think
personally feel. Feel is one of those things that, in some
instances, you have to want it. You have to want to have great
feel I mean, I've gotten, I've gotten jobs before
based on your feeling, yeah? Because
this Gerald is a guy's a great feeler. Yeah, he's making, he
makes life easy for the rest of us. He's musical. He understand
how this thing's supposed to feel. Yeah? And, you know,
without being too technical or anything like that, because I
know some dudes that they don't give a credit, they don't want
to talk about the technicality. Technicalities of anything. I
just want you to feel this thing. I want to have to not
look her back. I don't want to have to not look back at Yes,
yes, yes, yes. That's the worst I've had in these that would
there were just absolute tyrants in the rehearsal room. And they
would tell you, you know, dude, I you know. You ask them, Am I
doing a good job? Because you want to get feedback. And they
go, Well, I tell you what. They go, Well, I tell you what. You
know, when people are dancing at the gig, I'll let you know if
you're doing if you did a good job.
That was the ultimate test in this. In the 80s and 90s,
playing in dance bands, wedding bands, corporate bands, how many
people? How long you could keep? Can you
make that shuffle, bounce,
yeah. Can you Yeah? Can you make that thing dance? Can you make
yourself without, yeah, so, I mean, there are a lot of
different ways to evaluate things, but, but speed is great,
but, well,
I mean, it's, it serves a purpose to a certain kind of
audience. So you listen to like, but I came up it was I listened
to, you know, Van Halen was a huge influence on me. Then it
could be, it became rush, and my playing level went up a whole
lot more. And then, you know, I got into, like, the heavier
bands, metallic and Anthrax was a big influence on me, but that
was all thrash speed and all that kind of, and I used to play
all the fast double bass stuff, but it just didn't stick, you
know, because it's like, okay,
yeah, you know what you guys have in common? What
Carter? Yeah, yeah. I was never gonna sound like Carter, but
just the way Carter kind of approached things, to me, was
really freeing. Yeah, you know, over here, over here, yeah, but
not only that. I mean, he, he that he and Dave in that band
have me. I mean, the guy gets to feel over lyrics and
yeah, he's encouraged to do it,
yeah, he gets to play the exact same set list tomorrow, but not
the same way. Yeah, in
the live version of ants marching that when I was getting
in the radio in the late 90s, there was a portion of it where
he would play this. It was like the Huertas off the symbol the
Tom and the snare drum. You know, over that burnt, he was
keeping time. And I'm, I would sit there and listening to it,
going, what the hell is he doing? Yeah. And then you
finally get the 20,
does it with the feet and the China's that that it gets right,
yeah.
And then you get under the table and drumming the video set. Did
you have that? Yeah, I
do the hockey jersey, yes? Well, I gave it away to a kid. I
rocked, I did, but I had it for years, but I gave it away my
wife. They're not flattering. No, they're not.
It's a thing. Or the the wetsuit that he used to
never, never did the wetsu, yeah, he
used to wear, like, the spandex shirts,
amazing man. But it was designed for him. To him, he could get
away with it. But the rest he got away. But the rest of us had
to just kind of whatever, yeah, I was gonna wear the loose
hockey
jersey and do good with it.
If you're a founding member of a band and you have, you know, an
understanding with the guy that's singing those songs and
you're writing the songs. I mean, it's like everything was
lined up perfectly for him to be able to play the way he wants to
play, you know? I mean, unbelievable.
Well, well, but I'm on a rich gush a little bit. Yeah, you
know? I mean, you're a founding member of a band, as far as I
know.
Yeah, this has been the rich Redmond show. Subscribe, rate
and follow along at rich redmond.com, forward, slash
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