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AMPLIFYING WISCONSIN MUSICIANS WMPodcast interviews local Wisconsin musicians on their journey from their first group, solo endeavor, hired studio work, local community groups, and more, to their present day activities in the local music scene. We will also talk with music businesses and music organizations. We’ll talk about their origin story, what their influences are, what they do to hone their talents and their skills to be where they are today. What they feel is not only suffocating the local music scene, but, better yet, what they feel is helping push the local scene into the limelight. Also hear about gigs they’ve played that made an impression on them and why. . . and much more.
Episodes
Tuesday Apr 30, 2024
Tuesday Apr 30, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Episode 144
ELMER AND THE CERAMIC TREES
http://facebook.com/elmerandtheceramictrees https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwcLKmkvxCUtUAD712Nej9Q
http://elmerandtheceramictrees.bandcamp.com/
Conceived in the summer of 2012 by Janesville, Wisconsin singer-songwriter Robbie Haas, Elmer and the Ceramic Trees blend the lush melodies of bands like The Beatles and Big Star with the doom-and-gloom pop of The Cure and Echo and The Bunny Men, the driving rhythms of New Order, and the big choruses of classic Bowie to form a style of indie pop that is at once harrowing and gorgeous.
In this gripping episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, host Zach Fell engages in an engrossing conversation with Robbie Haas, the lead vocalist of the local band Elmer and the Ceramic Trees. Esteemed for its innovative take on timeless classics, the band is celebrated for its unique melodies and rhythms that harmonize perfectly with Wisconsin's vibrant music scene.
Haas lifts the curtain on his musical voyage, providing a glimpse into his transformative creative process, the evolution of his musical taste, and the birth of Elmer and the Ceramic Trees. He discusses his meticulous approach to album construction, the struggle to establish a distinct identity in Wisconsin's rich music landscape, and the triumph of finally creating an inimitable sound.
Explore the intricacies involved in bringing music to life as Haas shares insights into the intersection between his personal life and professional commitments in the challenging realm of music. Also, learn about the influences of technology on his modern music production and his innovative approach to curating immersive experiences for the audience.
In this episode, Haas uncovers his journey of embracing his unique musical style, his struggle with imposter syndrome, and involvement in local farmer's markets. Additionally, he glances over his anticipation for the 2024 Big Beat MKE Beat Battle Tournament. Among the highlights of this conversation is his detailed exploration of the band’s newest album, 'We Were Beautiful in August', which perfectly encapsulates the vibe of sprawling summer and melancholic autumn.
Robbie also opens up about his journey from being a novice at open mic sessions to being a seasoned professional, how a live performance by The Cure reignited his passion, and how he continues to nurture his penchant for creating and promoting new music. Discover Robbie's insightful thoughts on the future of his music career and the growth of his band in an industry studded with challenges.
Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Episode 143
The Rezzonators
On the latest episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, we take you on an immersive journey into the world of Milwaukee's rock sensation - The Rezzonators. Known for their unique mix of catchy riffs and groove-laden soundscapes, this rock and roll powerhouse shares an insider's view of their musical journey. From their humble beginnings playing cover gigs to releasing a double album recognized the world over, The Rezzonators narrate their climb to nearly 100,000 Spotify streams.
Dive deep into the stories behind their top tracks like "Everyday", "Panic Button", and "Highway Nights". Explore how they navigated the challenges of the pandemic, slowly regaining their live audience. Experience their tenacity and passion, as narrated by host Zach Fell in his conversation with band members Robert and Barry.
Gain insights into The Rezzonators' songwriting process and inspirations. Understand the stories behind fan-favorite songs such as "The Edge" and "Dream River". Learn how their unique approach to songwriting generates music inspired more by fictional tales than everyday experiences.
Join us in this deep dive into the life and times of The Rezzonators. Learn about their work-life balance, their memorable concert experiences, and how they've gone from local cover band to releasing their own albums. Get the inside scoop on their future plans, where to find their music online, and a sneak peek into their personal dreams for the band's future.
Do not miss this opportunity to delve into the captivating journey of The Rezzonators - a band whose passion for music clearly resonates with their ever-growing audience.
Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
Tuesday Apr 16, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLIFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Rob Marnocha
EPISODE 143
Discover Wisconsin's flourishing local music scene in this riveting episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, featuring guest Rob Marnocha. As the creative force behind 'Into the Music', Rob masterfully amplifies the unique voices of artists hailing mostly from Northern part of Wisconsin. Get an insight into his varied journey, from the great interviews that he creates and hosts.
'Into the Music' is not just a podcast but a platform where the unsung heroes of Northeast Wisconsin come to shine. It's a convergence of personal experiences, grueling struggles, performance insights, and interview discussions. We delve into Rob's experiences and future plans for his engaging podcast, spotlighting independent artists from Green Bay to Oshkosh.
In our conversation, we underline the vital role community support and live performances play in the growth and evolution of the original music scene in Wisconsin. We focus on the vitality of music podcasts and radio stations, notably Max Inc. Radio, Fox City's Core, and WAPL Homebrewed in nurturing local talent and keeping Wisconsin's music scene vibrant and pulsating.
Switching towards a broader canvas, we talk about the impact of worldwide podcast streaming in giving local Wisconsin artists much-warranted international recognition. The episode highlights the meticulous process of producing a podcast, from setting up intriguing interviews to ensuring engaging outputs. It wraps up with a shared mission of boosting Wisconsin's music and fostering a tight-knit network between content creators and musicians.
Stay engaged until the end as we delve into the personal influences shaping Wisconsin's music landscape and a special tribute to the 'surf' genre. Don't miss out on the next 'Into The Music' episode where our roles are reversed, and I become the interviewee. Join us in this enriching journey and show your support for Wisconsin music!
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Michael "MD" McNally
https://linktr.ee/MDMcNally
EPISODE 141
Join us on this episode as we delve deep into the musical journey of MD McNally, tracing his evolution from the soft, psychedelic ballads of 'The Marvelous' to the dynamic fusion of folk and blues in his latest EP, 'Crimes'. Discover the creative process behind his captivating sound, the influence of his heartland roots, and the confidence he brings to his songwriting. Tune in for an insightful exploration of an artist finding his voice and pushing musical boundaries.
Wednesday Mar 27, 2024
Wednesday Mar 27, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Nuke Plant Chickens
https://linktr.ee/nukeplantchickens
EPISODE 140
Welcome to a stirring episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast featuring the distinct sounds of Kenosha-based band, Nuke Plant Chickens. Born in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, these young music enthusiasts have grown into a seasoned band with a powerful synthesis of various music genres, offering a unique, homegrown energy with every performance.
The diverse group shares their exceptional journey, discussing their music inspirations, from King Gizzard and his Lizard Wizards to Black Sabbath. They reveal their band philosophy, revolving around enjoyment rather than strict professionalism, and the exploration of a wide variety music genres.
They delve into the challenges and triumphs of forging a path in the bustling music scenes of Chicago and Milwaukee. Get a peek into the band’s DIY recording process: a journey centered on raw, authentic music creation and problem-solving equipment issues, song selection, and balancing gig schedules.
Nukeplant Chickens not only discuss the release of their four finished singles, but also offer a glimpse into the stories imbedded in their music. They candidly share their experiences of attending influential performances and their appreciation of their supportive community. Above all, they light the beacon on their ambitious future plans.
We invite fans, fellow musicians, or those simply curious about the eclectic music scene to immerse themselves in this compelling episode. Join us as we reveal all this and more about Nuke Plant Chickens, the band that’s lighting up Wisconsin's music scene.
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Transcript
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Music.
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Ladies and gentlemen, music enthusiasts and podcast listeners,
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welcome to A Sonic Journey Like No Other on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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I'm your host, Zach Fell, and we're here to amplify Wisconsin music.
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In this episode, we're diving into the eclectic and electrifying world of Nukeplant
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Chickens, a band hailing from the charming town of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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Prizing a remarkable ensemble of talent, Nukeplant Chicken weaves a mesmerizing
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tapestry of sound, leaving no genre untouched. Get ready to immerse yourself
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in the music of Newt Plant Chickens, where every note is an adventure,
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every rhythm is a heartbeat.
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Join us in exploring the sonic landscapes crafted by this extraordinary band
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as we unravel their musical journey in this special podcast episode on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast.
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Thank you. So why don't we get a quick synopsis of each one of your music origins story.
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How did you get started? it i'm jeff i'm the
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singer and i i started
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taking piano lessons when i was seven and i'm
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23 now so that's 16 years ago and
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yeah i i can't remember why i started doing piano lessons but yeah okay i really
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liked guitar hero as a 12 year old so who are you oh my name is uh my name is
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ethan i'm I'm a guitar player sometimes.
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Awesome. Yeah, I really liked playing Guitar Hero, and that stuff is,
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like, the first stuff I learned, so that's a working story there.
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Cool. My name is Chloe. I started on bass in middle school, actually.
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My dad convinced me to play.
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He would show me Talking Heads footage,
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and Tina Weymouth basically played for Tango, to, which I'm happy about it,
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but I started on bass and then I started guitar after bass and that would have
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been also middle school.
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And then recently, you know, drums and all of that, but like I play guitar in this group.
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But yeah, I've just been playing forever since middle school.
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And my dad wanted me to. Cool. Very cool.
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Max, I play the drums. And for my fourth birthday, I got a drum set.
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I don't know why I didn't ask.
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But yeah, I've been playing ever since. I was happy about that.
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It's never stopped. Yeah.
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Camera. Sorry. Eight. Fourth or fifth grade. when I played trumpet for Mrs.
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Ripley in the KUSD school.
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Shout out to Mrs. Ripley. Yeah, shout out to Mrs. Ripley. Hi.
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You all basically started at a young age and grew through music and decided
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on the instruments you're playing in this group.
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So what is kind of like your philosophy as a group?
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What's your goals? And what makes you guys become this group of musicians and
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going out on stage and playing these types of songs that you play?
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Well, I'll say whatever sounds good.
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Whatever sounds good. Sounds good. Get it to sound better. I don't know.
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At least that's my philosophy.
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I think we all love being able to have fun. Yeah. Goof around,
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you know, whatever feels right, I guess. A lot of goofing around on stage.
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Yeah, it's a lot. We're not very professional. No, which is what's good about
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it. Which is why, I mean, that's why I did it. You know what I mean? If I'm being real.
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If we were going anywhere, Chloe would not be here. Absolutely not.
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So, yeah. Just enjoy it. You know, it's not taking things too serious.
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You know, that whole thing. Because it's not that serious. Make sure everyone is granted.
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Oh absolutely yeah yeah like these guys they're all my brothers and
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then so much as far as
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philosophies we actually have on the wall a list
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though that i wrote a few years ago called the
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jam commandments and the the number one rule the
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most important rule of the jam commandments no assholes
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so that's maybe the philosophy gotcha excellent
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so what kind of groups out there would you
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say inspire what you guys do well i
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mean the biggest one i'd say the one collective is
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king gizzard yeah and the lizard wizard okay and
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why is it why is that have you
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heard them brother come on yeah but
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there's listeners out there that haven't so probably helps them kind of grab
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an idea of what you're you're about they've done it all and they'll continue
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to do more and that's what keeps me i'm not limited to one genre the variety
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yeah yeah and it doesn't matter how many albums they release they'll all be good.
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Okay cool well it's good that you know to
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have that kind of inspiration in your life to be able to have something that
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you can kind of follow and go these are the kind of people that we like to you
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know follow in their footsteps basically right and always like individual people
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we all have different things which is why it's hard to find collective yeah like I,
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don't I'm not into like King Giz like all of these guys are I will say I'm not a nerd but,
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yeah I'm not you know I have a much more I mean not that King Giz we're all
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into OC's yeah we do like OC's OC's are great.
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Ween to ween to the stone age Okay.
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Well, it's like Black Sabbath, but that's like in a different way.
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Pink Floyd, we all really like.
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Dice Fits, even though that's in a different realm. They're like my favorite band of all time.
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Dice Fits. Everyone looks like Chippewa. Them Crooked Vultures, too. Yeah.
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Awesome. So it's an eclectic collection of individuals plus what you all are
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together enjoying at the same time, which is what creates the difference of
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what you are from other type of bands out there.
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So what made you guys decide to have horn players in your shows as well we knew them.
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They were they were our friends maddie was the first
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and she was just a she was a a friend of
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mine from a long time ago i met her through a band
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that i used to be in and uh she just
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kind of stuck around and jammed with us and yeah yeah yeah and when she when
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she was out of town we had a couple more shows so we asked Finn to play in Kirstead
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who's basically family with us. Like literally.
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Yeah. So when you guys do a live show are they with you all the time or just for special shows?
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Whenever they can. Whenever they can. Okay, cool. How long have you guys been together as a group?
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As the five piece with everybody in here right now since February February,
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March, it would have been after the live stream.
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There's like other stuff that goes way back. Yeah. Like I'm the last to join and I.
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Okay. So why don't you give the listeners like a little bit of the history of
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how this group grew and became what it is today?
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Our show. Our very first. We got to go back to the jam. Yeah.
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First of jam. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The COVID jams.
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That's where it started was COVID. Okay. it
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was a pandemic and we were all bored and the
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old band that i was in i got kicked out
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of because i'm a i'm a bad guy and i needed a new band and well we we also can't
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forget that max ethan and cameron yeah we're in a band together a metal band
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starting in 2020 yeah 2021 21,
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24, 2020. Okay.
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Well, me, Cam, and Jeff are all blood related. So that's how far in the back of that goes.
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And the first glimpse of the new plant chickens, I guess you could say,
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was my and Max's first band. It was called Floodplain.
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And we started playing together in November of 2019 or something like that. Wow.
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Yeah, COVID hit, and we got bored and started jamming with a bunch of other people. So I don't know.
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We kind of just grabbed anyone we could and brought them in the basement.
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Just played for hours. I mean, I think we... How big was the biggest one?
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The biggest jam that we were... I don't know if you were at the biggest jam.
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I think I was. It was the one. It was David, Logan.
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That one was pretty big, but we had another one out. we
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had these jams of like the most was probably
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like 13 or 14 people in the room and like at like many many guitars sometimes
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two drum kits yeah and i think one time we had two basses hooked up and everybody
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else was like either playing wind instruments or like rapping or vocals yeah.
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And we would just i mean we would go from like 7
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p.m to mid yeah let's play and then
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this was we the people in the band are just
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the people that remained from those jams gotcha
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wanted to keep playing because everybody else kind of has a life or
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moved on right right okay so this
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is what kind of glued you guys together was this jam and you guys met each other
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i mean you said three of you are blood related but then you guys kind of became
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friends and kind of created this this group that you are so where did the name
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come from it's a simple story that i could draw out a lot but But basically, I worked at a beach,
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the Illinois State Beach in Zion,
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which is just down the road from Kenosha.
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And my boss was a very nice man, very funny guy, but he was not the most educated man.
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Okay. And at the beach, there were some sandhill cranes that were,
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you know, they hung around the water.
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And he didn't know they were sandhill cranes, though, because he didn't know
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anything about birds. And.
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Right next to the beach as well, weird detail, but it's true.
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Right next to the beach is a defunct nuclear power plant.
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Anyways, all these elements coming together. On my first day of work at the
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beach, my boss pointed to some sandhill cranes,
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and he said, guests and visitors ask me all the time what those birds are called,
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but I don't know what they're called.
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So I tell them that they are chickens who wandered too close to the nuke plant.
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And the light bulb light bulb just went off there you go there you go awesome,
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producers and beat makers of milwaukee it is time for the
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2024 big beat mke beat battle tournament taking
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place at the jackalope lounge at the wicked hop in milwaukee's third
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ward on thursday nights between april 25th and june
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13th producers are going to go head to head in
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three one minute rounds to determine who is going to move on
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to the next round of the tournament with some amazing prizes
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from some great sponsors don't forget that you
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can submit your beats today at breaking and entering.net through march
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31st so when
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you guys perform out live what's the reaction from
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from the audience most of
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it most of them are friends so far so it's people who who even if we played
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i hope i hope we play good but people who if even if we played bad they'd be
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they still oh it's a great job at least not me I haven't gotten a lot of,
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people coming up to me who just didn't know how to I saw some people at the
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last show some strangers who were people I didn't know who were filming.
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That feels nice like a stranger who doesn't
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know us wants to look back at us later
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people want us to play rooster every single
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time every single time drunk people
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want us to play rooster that's a good reaction i feel like
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we spark a lot of curiosity people don't
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really know what what's gonna go on oh
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yeah it's gonna happen what we're gonna do right so so are you guys like mostly
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covers or do you add some originals in there on top of it we're actually like
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all it's like all we do almost no covers i mean we we we played a three hour set. Yeah. To fill time.
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There's like 26 songs. Okay.
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So where do you guys usually perform? Where's like your home base?
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I mean, you say you're in Kenosha, but like, is there a certain place that you
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play that you would call home or is you guys kind of spread it all over? Yeah.
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Rustic road definitely and let's get the kenosha
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creative space okay two places definitely one's
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a bar one's just like a community center and they're on the same block and they're
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they're right next to each other yeah so downtown kenosha basically okay and
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you guys said so you're not really taking this super serious so what are kind
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of like some of your main goals with this this group over the next maybe three to four years.
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Records. Yeah, a couple of records, probably. I mean, I personally just want
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to be able to play out and more than just downtown.
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I mean, I'm like thinking to like different live stuff for like like our first
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show of the summer that we created in space.
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That was one of the best like like times I've ever fucking heard.
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Yeah, it was just so fun. fun and it because there
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was so many people our age yeah there yeah
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and people that like maybe
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like all of us collected we didn't know and it was just
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it was really fun and it was packed and it was
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just it was so great i just want to play more shows like that but get out of
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the city too yeah i would really eventually yeah of course but you know i it's
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just this is like to be able to play that kind of stuff in Kenosha would be
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really and I know that's asking a lot. That would be really fun.
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So Wisconsin being mainly a cover band, that's usually what you're going to
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see mostly in Wisconsin bars and everything like that.
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You guys being mostly original, do you find it hard to get gigs or is it pretty
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decent to find gigs for an all original band like yourselves?
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It's not hard to get gigs because we're not a cover band.
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It was pretty hard at first. it's hard getting your foot in the door with some.
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Of these because they're busy they don't have time sometimes it's just it's hard because,
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especially in venues in Chicago and like Milwaukee where they haven't heard
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you they won't take you into consideration unless you played gigs in the area
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before you kind of gotta be there yeah you gotta be active in the scene that's
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kind of what's hardest about it,
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how is it that to get in the scene if you
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can't get into the scene right yeah so do
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you find that like it's not hard anymore really to get gigs why is that is it
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because you have now played so many shows or what's what's kind of like the
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secret for you yeah you play shows make connections yeah and we always make
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friends also go and see these venues in person because that will help a lot
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People talk, our owners talk,
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they talk among each other, really that's a great, great.
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Way to sprint yeah absolutely networking and making
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sure that you're not like you said earlier bylaws not
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to be an asshole right yeah yeah yeah so
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be kind you know be helpful be
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you know be positive so the local scene
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for you guys it seems to be a positive experience is
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there anything in the local scene of your area that
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you would wish was stronger sometimes people
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get egos i wish it wasn't that
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strong but i wish like people would build more bills together you know there
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was there was a lot of gatekeeping in the scene before yeah that's kind of coming
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down a little bit yeah a lot of people i mean like i had said people taking
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it seriously and i mean i don't mean like.
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Having boundaries within groups and like oh and you know planning out and things
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like that because Cause that's whatever, but I mean, taking things too serious
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and like professionalism are like two different things in life.
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You know, like you can be a professional and not be like an asshole. Right.
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Exactly. Which is the problem that majority of people here have because whatever.
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Yeah. It's just.
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No, that's good. That's good. Now, earlier you kind of talked about hopefully
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making some recordings.
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Have you done any of that yet? Yeah, we got a record.
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Yeah, for finished singles out there. So take them through the journey of the
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start, the process, and getting those out there to them.
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Actually, this just came up in my year ago today from Snapchat.
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We started recording. Really? Yeah.
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Like the other day. What is it? The 21st? Yep.
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So the 19th. So two days ago. We started recording because I finally got Ableton on my computer. Okay.
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And we just, I mean, we picked what songs we had, I think.
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It wasn't what ones we had. It was just, you know, what we wondered, what we felt we could do.
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Oh, yeah. But I mean, the songs mostly come from me, and Ethan writes some of them.
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But I think of the four, they're mostly like old.
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I'd like wrote them a couple years ago when
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i was in the other band and then they never wanted to play them
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okay you know i don't
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know how we picked the four singles it's the one are they the ones that just
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got one yeah yeah okay so the the first four they got finished now you you had
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mentioned that you just got ableton about a year ago on your computer so So
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I'm understanding that this is a DIY project.
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Yeah. So kind of, was this like done in like a living room?
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Did you do it at separate places? Kind of like how did the whole thing come
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together for the recording?
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Where was it done? Just my basement.
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And it's just like where I'm as I let go.
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Okay. So what are some of the things that you've learned over time when you were recording?
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If you have to EQ too much, then you need to re-record it. Okay.
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Buy guitar plugins if you don't know how to mic and amp and don't be afraid
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to spend money on equipment good it's a good investment yeah i still i still
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have a lot of stuff on this thing,
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so for better recording yeah so the
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did you like put blankets up or anything around
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the room or is it like sound bouncing off
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cylinder blocks or whatever your walls are made out
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of it's mostly just it's about
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as raw and real as you can get it i mean
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we mic up each of the each of
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the drums but there's no like for for the
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most part there's no like sound cancellation okay there's a lot of that what
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a lot of that reverb gets filtered out through these mics anyway because they're
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i don't because they're condensers which is which is really nice yep cool and
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now you guys got four four songs finished, you released them.
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Let's talk a little bit about each one of those songs and maybe pick a few that
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you would like the listeners to hear on the podcast.
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I'd go for the first one. I'd go for Police State. The first one we released
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is called Police State Disco.
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Which is not fun. Not a disco.
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It's the only one that has Maddie fully on it. Like a solo, like a feature.
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The saxophone. And it's amazing.
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And is there a certain story behind the song? Or is it just...
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You want the listeners to make their own decision about what it's about?
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Yeah, yeah. I like that. Let them decide.
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Music.
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Would be another song that you would like them to hear on the podcast for there's
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one there's one there's one for each each people
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those who like upbeat stuff there's one called
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party wazo and those who like stoner metal
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there's one called way on three and the other people
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for the other people who like guns and roses ripoffs
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yeah there's one for you cool very
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cool so of those four do you
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want me to put all four on there or do you want me to put two or three on
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the podcast for them to hear that's up to me i
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mean up to you at least why not okay so after they hear this they want to hear
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it again and not listen to the podcast again they want to actually just listen
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to the songs in row obviously you guys are probably on most streaming sites
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do you guys also have a band camp site or are you not on that yet no we're not on so no we did not okay,
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i would say spotify and are you on whether it's reverb nation i think you guys
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are on as well where else can they go and hear your music online,
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anywhere you can we have some live recordings on YouTube.
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That's on your YouTube site okay cool we
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have to watch the first show we don't
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have ever we have the
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most not the most recent show but we have Octoberfest in Bloomingdale the only
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full show we have is one we played at a place called Moose Lodge in Kenosha
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it was an event called Blue Bands yeah that was a charity it was a charity event but yeah.
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Excellent as we're coming down to the end of this when
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do you think your next single is going
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to release or are you going to do like multi-song ep release yes
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so so the the
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goal is is because we've got a couple more shows coming
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up and the big plan is because it's such a pain in the ass to set up all this
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recording and then tear down for shows it's it's such a hassle so So our plan
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is to play the shows and then for the winter,
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because we don't have any booked then, to record during the winter so that we
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can get the same sound, same sonics, same everything.
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Kind of like a regular recording process for an album. Cool. Very cool.
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But we don't have one in the pipes? We do. We do. Which one is it?
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I have a one-tone drum. So that one's finished and ready to go, basically.
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Very soon, maybe. be so soon yeah so if you guys let me know when that might
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happen we could probably coordinate where this episode comes out around the
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same time that single comes out to kind of help you promote that so yeah just
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shoot me an email when you think that's going to happen and then,
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we'll we'll try to get this all together at the same time for the last question
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i have for you guys is there any gigs that you have been at that made a major
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impression on you either as As a performer.
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Or as an audience member. Watching someone perform.
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Are you talking like local scene shows. Or just like. Overall just experience doesn't matter.
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Well I. I'm a big fan of.
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I hate this word like punk rock shit and the funny thing I'm in this band something
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that kind of stick out like slits off but I you're a girl.
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We're so right I but I went to I've gone to so many shows like that and that's where I,
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just love that environment of like
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just people playing their little hearts out that's
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just so cute and I love it so much and I
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just like loud okay and like I went to
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a band I've gone to so many shows with
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my dad we've seen a band called the circle jerks okay
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one of my favorite bands of all time um I've
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seen them twice and the way that they play
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and their entire philosophy is
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like what I want to do it's just so much they
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just never grew up and they're like an 80s punk band
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right cool cool cool anybody else
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i mean me and you went to go see king diz
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over the summer yeah man man like
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it's just just go go go the whole time it's just their stage presence is just
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unmatched the sound quality was amazing i will say though i saw we saw them
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in june in chicago and that was great and And they've put out a lot of music.
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But I saw them in 2019.
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And I didn't have any fucking clue who they were. And I had never listened.
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Or I had listened to one album called Fishing for Fishies.
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But I barely knew who they were. I didn't know anything about them. And that was better.
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I like that. I like that one better. Because that was my first.
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You saw them on the Rat's Nest tour, right?
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I saw them a week after they released Infest the Rat's Nest.
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Though I had not heard it.
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It had just come out and they were, they were finally starting to play it. Cool.
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That's that's my view.
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I would say for a show that we played, for me and you at least,
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I would say that first creative show we did in a club playing.
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00:31:00,953 --> 00:31:04,653
Oh, you're talking about Green Park. That made a big impact.
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My bad. That made a big impact on you too. Just the rush you get from playing that.
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I mean, I've seen I saw the OCs live.
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I've seen them twice now. And again, just like the go, go, go.
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Just balls to the walls for two hours and there's
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again stage presence lights sound quality
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and i'm a big polyphia fan
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and i just i went to go see them wednesday in
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milwaukee and then thursday in chicago but just the the amount of musicianship
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and the amount of talent in that band it really inspires me and the community
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too it just inspires me to be a better person what's the last thing that you
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00:31:51,133 --> 00:31:53,233
you want the listeners to know about like your social media,
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where can they find you and things of that nature? Find us Instagram, Spotify.
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00:31:58,113 --> 00:32:03,353
Those are the main two that we're on and give our songs a list. Yeah.
385
00:32:04,333 --> 00:32:08,193
That's all we can really ask. Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for being
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on the Wisconsin music podcast.
387
00:32:09,553 --> 00:32:13,933
It was cool to hear about how you guys started, what you're working on and your
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future stuff. So thank you so much for being on the show.
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Thank you. Yeah. This was fun, man. Cool. We'll be right back.
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Music.
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Episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast. Once again, I'm Zach Fell,
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your host and creator of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, where I love to amplify
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the great sounds coming out of the Wisconsin State.
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We have great talent here, great support, great listeners.
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Thanks to Fox City's Indie Radio for syndicating this on Thursdays and Sundays,
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along with their other great programmers.
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So make sure you check out the Fox City's Indie Radio.
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And thanks to this week's guest, Nuke Plant Chickens, for being on the show.
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Check out their music on streaming and on Reverb Nation.
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And check out their gig coming up this Friday at McAuliffe's in Racine, Wisconsin.
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If you'd like to be on the show, just go to wisconsinmusicpodcast.com,
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fill out the guest request form up at the top, ask for your email and your name,
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and then I'll send you an auto email asking you for more information.
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If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Donations help pay for the website and putting the podcast up on streaming services
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and also getting our name out there to all Wisconsinites and others that are
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interested in our great music here in Wisconsin.
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Donations are secured through PayPal and Stripe. All you have to do is go to
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the website and click on Donate to WMP.
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You can also head over to our Instagram and Facebook pages and like us there.
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Leave some comments. Also, go to the podcast review section of your podcast
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player and leave a five-star review. It would be great.
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You can also head over to YouTube and watch the interviews and leave comments
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there as well. Have a great week, everybody, and we'll see you next time.
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
Tuesday Mar 19, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Elysian Stew
EPISODE 139
Welcome back to another riveting episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, where we unveil Wisconsin's vibrant musical landscape by showcasing its numerous talents. Today, we host the captivating instrumental guitar virtuoso, Pat Zyduck, also known as Elysian Stew. Renowned for his unique blend of diverse musical elements, Pat melds the old and new, crafting a captivating auditory tapestry.
Join us on a fascinating journey, charting the course of Pat's musical saga—from his first encounter with the guitar, the eccentric teaching methods of his father, his hiatus in military service, to his enthralling return to the music scene. He further shares his intriguing experiences of transforming life's adversities into potent musical inspiration and the compelling backstory behind his album's title.
Along with dipping into Pat's musical voyage, get set to delve into the compelling narrative behind his favorite song, 'Low-Flying Owls,' and the unconventional circumstances that bestowed it with its peculiar name. Candid discussions about maintaining work-life harmony as a musician, arranging gigs that complement his instrumental style, and dealing with harsh criticism provide a comprehensive picture of a musician's life.
Pat shares valuable insights into his influences, musical explorations, and recording studio experiences, and talks about the crucial role played by his wife, his ongoing projects, and his plans for future performances. Tune in to unravel the artistry of Elysian Stew, understand his musical style better, and discover the vibrancy of Wisconsin's music scene.
"I've always been drawn to the raw honesty of music. It's a way to express emotions that words alone can't capture," reflects Elysian Stew, offering listeners a glimpse into the soul of his artistry.
"There's something magical about tapping into the essence of a moment and translating it into music. It's like capturing lightning in a bottle," he muses, his words resonating with the universal language of music.
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Transcript:
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Music.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Wisconsin Music Podcast,
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your go-to destination for discovering the incredible musical tapestry woven
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by the talented artists of the Badger State.
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Today we have a special treat for your ears as we sit down with the master of
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the instrumental guitar, none other than the enigmatic Pat Zydek,
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better known on stage as the sonic storyteller Elysian Stew.
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Did I say all that correctly so far? You did, yeah. Excellent. in
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this episode we'll delve into the artistry of
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pat zidek a musician who skillfully combines fragments
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of musical influences to craft his sonic stew that is
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both nostalgic and contemporary with a mission to invoke emotions each composition
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is a journey through the forest of feelings a testament to the profound impact
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music can have on our souls but wait there's more pat zidek has just released
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a brand new album and it's titled driving the desert to burn a million dollars.
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Music.
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© transcript Emily Beynon.
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You can find this captivating musical experience on
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all major streaming platforms youtube itunes and more so
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get ready to immerse yourself in the enchanting melodies and
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tales of elysian stew do stay tuned to the wisconsin music
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podcast where we celebrate the sounds that make our steak
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unique one artist at a time so pat welcome
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to the wisconsin music podcast thank you
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thank you thank you very much for having me this is quite an honor i
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appreciate it well thank you so much for being on so let's
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get listeners introduced to you kind of give them a summary of
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your music origin story yeah so
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basically i've been playing guitar most of
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my life my father was was a professional musician so he
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started me when I was four okay pretty much
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had hopes and dreams of you know making it big and everything
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and those were dashed at the age of
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17 thanks to my father which is an interesting story I
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wasn't wasn't done maliciously it was done to let me realize that I wasn't good
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enough okay and at that point it was okay now I have to come up with a plan
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b because I didn't have a plan b before I was just it was going to be music
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or nothing and and realized that music wasn't going to work.
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So I came up with a plan B, joined the military.
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I got to travel the world for a number of years.
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Met a girl, got married, settled down, had a family. Music kind of fell by the wayside.
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Fast forward 20 years, that marriage ended, and my sister, who is probably one
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of my biggest fans, told me that I needed to start playing again, basically.
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A year later, I released my first album, and it was all songs written while
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I was going through a divorce, so they were very angry songs.
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A few years after that, well, about a year and a half after that,
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actually, I released a second EP entitled Tuwache Vida, which was songs I had
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written about genocide in Africa.
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Something that was pretty near and dear to my heart.
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And then I joined a band. I was hired gun guitar player,
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played with them for about six years and I was having a blast and everything,
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but it got to be a little much, you know, everybody in the band was working
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full-time day jobs and the band was starting to have a little bit of success,
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but not enough that any of us could quit our jobs.
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Okay. So, so I said, I was getting a little burned out. So I said basically
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that I needed a brief hiatus.
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And that hiatus actually, which was going to originally be a month or two,
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turned into 12 years. Oh, wow.
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Yeah, yeah. Pretty, pretty surprising.
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But then the pandemic happened and my full-time day job, I was out and about.
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I worked through a whole pandemic, which was pretty stressful.
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And when things started coming out of that, I realized I was in kind of a bad place mentally.
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So I decided I was going to start playing music again, just for my own personal
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therapy. You know, just it was something I enjoyed, something I loved,
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and it was something that took my mind off of everything else that was going on.
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And so I had absolutely no intention of getting back into the scene.
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But as I started playing, you know, and I was playing when we're kids,
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we play for the pure enjoyment and for the innocence of it, you know.
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So that was kind of the mindset I was going to bring into it this time.
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And I was I was playing for just for the pure enjoyment. And but before long, my muse showed up.
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And kind of smacked me in the back of the head and said oh
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welcome back i got a whole bunch of songs for you to write now and
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i started creating and i
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realized well what good are these songs if
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nobody's ever going to hear them i was really proud of them and decided all
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right well i guess i'm going to release an album and here we are back in the
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scene a lot a lot deeper than i had planned on going but yeah of it you know
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excellent so what what was what is your muse that made you really get back into this.
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Well, it's funny, but she just
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kind of showed up one day and I don't know who she is. I call her a she.
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I've never seen her or anything, but it's just.
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It's kind of a cliche when we talk to certain musicians about,
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they say, oh, well, the song was just floating in the universe and it just found
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me and filtered itself out through me.
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But a lot of the songs on this record, that's kind of the way they came.
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Just started noodling in the studio, playing around and all of a sudden the
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melody came and I'd build off of that and build off of that.
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And next thing I knew, I had a song.
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There are a couple on the album that were written for a specific purpose, like Russian warship.
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That one was, I don't know if you're familiar with the story of the Ukrainian
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soldiers on Snake Island, Ukraine.
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After Russians invaded Ukraine, a Russian warship basically told them they needed
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to surrender or they would be attacked.
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And the Ukrainians, in no uncertain terms, told the Russians where to go.
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So I wrote that song with trying to envision some of the emotions that the ukrainian
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soldiers were feeling while they were waiting for the russians to attack,
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gotcha that's that's where that song came from okay but
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like unquiet ghost i was just rehearsing to
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do a show and this melody just popped
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into my head and i started playing it and inside of 10
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minutes i had the song and there's there's a
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line in a josh ritter song called the bone
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of song where the song is basically about finding
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a bone in the woods and there are lyrics engraved on
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the bone and if you find the bone and put it back it will give you a
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song but there's a line in there it says lucky are you who finds me in the wilderness
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for i am the only unquiet ghost that does not seek rest and i wrote this song
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and it was like where did that come from it's like i have no idea where it came
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from but i figured the unquiet ghost brought it to me so that's what i titled it was unquiet ghost.
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Music.
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Cool. Very cool. So do you think some of this has to do with your military experience?
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This particular record? Probably not. No. A lot of these were just songs that
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just kind of came to me as I was playing around.
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And it's like, ooh, what was that? I'd build off of it and things like that.
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Nothing on the album is specifically related to my military experience,
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because that was a long time ago so kind
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of diving back into a recap of everything that you've
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said so far you said back when you were 17 your dad
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basically kind of showed you that in his own way that he felt that you weren't
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able to become a professional musician as this was going to become your profession
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as listeners are out there what do you think your dad was right about that made
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sure that that was the actual path
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for you to take was not to become a professional musician at that time?
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Well, it's not that he didn't want me to be a professional musician.
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He knew I wasn't good enough at that point. And the way he drilled that into
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my head was I came home from school one day and he said to me,
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he said, so what's your plan? You're not doing great in school.
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You're probably not going to go on to college. So what is your plan?
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And I said, well, I'm going to go to Nashville. My dad was big in the country
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music world. And he said, do you think you're good enough?
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And I said, yeah. My dad was the guy on the side of the stage,
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the hired gun and guitar guitar player.
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He played with some of the biggest names in country music in the 70s.
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And that's who I wanted to be.
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And he said, okay, cool. And he got up and walked out of the kitchen.
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And the next day I came home from school and there was an envelope on the table.
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I opened it up and there was $500 cash, Greyhound bus ticket,
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and a list of names and phone numbers.
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And he said, you're going to Nashville this weekend. And he said,
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all I want you to do is just spend the weekend walking up and down 16th Avenue,
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which at the time was the street all the major recording studios were on.
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And so I did that, you know, that was back in the days when you could send your
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17 year old boy off to a different state and not really have to worry about it too much.
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It didn't take me long to realize that these guys playing for change on the
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street corners weren't good enough to get jobs and they were a lot better than me.
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So it was kind of my dad's way of making me figure it out myself.
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So that's when I came home and said, well, I got to come up with a plan B.
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And and my i fully intended on pursuing music but you know life gets in the
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way a lot of times and things like that right okay no that that's a really interesting story it's like,
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Like you said, you know, if he would have just said, no, you're not good enough,
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you probably would have not listened to one word he said and,
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you know, fought against it.
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But your own experience, you went, okay, well, am I going to be dedicated enough
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to become better than these people?
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Yes or no. And obviously you made that decision.
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Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Well, and he didn't, he didn't want to see me go down to
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Nashville and then, you know, be living on the street starving.
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Right. Exactly. When no parent wants to see that happen. They want to see their kids successful.
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Now, obviously, you were in the military.
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Did you do anything musical in the military, or was it something in a different
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branch of the military that you were a part of? Well, no, I was in the Coast Guard. Okay.
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And my first duty station was Kodiak Island, Alaska.
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And while I was there, I met a fellow banjo player. So we formed a little group
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and we did a cassette tape.
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We didn't know anything about vinyl pressing or anything at that time.
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So we went into the studio and
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recorded, I think, seven or eight songs and put them on a cassette tape.
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And it was just bluegrass covers, that kind of a thing.
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It was just guitar and banjo. and during that experience
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in the studio it was like okay i want to do more of this
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this was fun yeah you know we played played
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some shows on the base and there wasn't a whole lot to
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do in the city of kodiak it's a city of 5 000 people and probably 4 000 of them
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are commercial fishermen and so you know the the bars get kind of rowdy when
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the guys are in right yeah so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunities to play
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but we played some shows on the base at the officers club the enlisted men's
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club and things like that.
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And then from there, I got transferred to Two Rivers, Wisconsin,
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where I had joined a country band. I grew up country.
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I didn't even realize anything but country existed until I was 12 when my cousin
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played Here Comes the Sun for me by the Beatles and blew my mind. Yeah.
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But came back from Alaska, formed a country cover band, and did that for a little while.
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And then met a woman, got married, had a family, and wife kind of got in the way.
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So that was my first hiatus from music, which lasted almost 20 years.
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Yeah. And then around, if I'm figuring this out correctly, going backwards from
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what you talked about before,
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about mid-2000s, between 2000 and 2010 is when you started your back to music
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with a band. Was that around that time?
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Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. What would that have been? Yeah, right around mids. Yeah. Yeah.
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And I started, you know, I started, I wrote my, my album, which is titled,
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I never want to meet another you. That's the one I wrote after I got divorced. Right.
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Gotcha. And the guy that owned the studio that I recorded that in,
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we ended up becoming really good friends and he invited me to join his band
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kind of as a hired gun guitar player.
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And I did that. It was a band out of Sheboygan called Icarus Drifting,
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which is the band is still around. They're called the Bellwether now. Oh, okay.
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Sure. Yeah. Yeah, Eric Cox and Thea, Marissa, and Corey.
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But yeah, so after Icarus kind of fell apart, Eric reformed Icarus into the bellwether.
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But I played with Eric and Icarus Drifting for about six years.
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And that's during that time I released my second album. And then we released an album as Icarus.
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Okay. So let's talk a little bit about this newest album that you recently released.
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Based um kind of give the listeners kind of like a the summary of from beginning
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to end how it started where you recorded it things you kind of learned from
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that process and the release story behind it yeah so i wrote these songs that
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you know over the course of about 16 or 18 months.
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And a friend of mine i live in fond du lac and a friend of mine owns a studio
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it's not a pro that's not his business but he you know he has a studio on the
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side he's a music teacher and things like that and he offered to record it for
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me so I took him up on it and just kind of,
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laid out the songs that I did and then you know picked the sequence that I wanted
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to put him in and one of the reviews that I got on the record said it's it's
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it's a journey going through the desert and seeing almost every single different
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terrain a desert would have to offer which is It's pretty interesting.
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The songs were not written to be grouped together.
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They weren't written specifically for this album.
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I would just write a song and log it. And then pretty soon I realized these
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songs all kind of go together with a little bit of variation.
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So they don't all sound the same. Right.
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And the title came from something a woman said to me after a live show one time.
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She said, your music just makes me feel so carefree, like I want to drive through
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the desert to burn a million dollars.
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And I went, oh, I got to write that down. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
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Very catchy, very thought-provoking title.
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Now, the tunes that you had mentioned earlier, Russian and Ghost,
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are those part of that album?
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Yes, they're both on this album. Okay. It's Russian Worship,
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and there is another part to the name of that song, but it's got a bad word in it. Okay, gotcha.
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And then the other one is called Unquiet Ghost. Unquiet Ghost.
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My favorite song on the album is Low-Flying Owls, which was one of those songs.
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That just kind of came to me.
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I just wrote it one day, and I played it for my wife, and we're trying to come up with a title for it.
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Because a lot of times, you know, it's instrumental, there's no
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story right sometimes there's a story behind it but
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it may not be obvious to the listener because there's no words right
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so i try to either name
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the song after a feeling that the song may evoke or i go the complete opposite
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direction and just name it something really offbeat and off the wall and this
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one yeah i'd written the song and she said well let's just marinate on it for
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a few days and see if something doesn't come to us and we actually saw a road sign sign.
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And you know, those yellow diamond shaped signs like a deer crossing sign.
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And it said, caution, low flying owls.
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And my wife turned to me and looked at me and I had the song recorded and she's like, play that song.
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So I played it and she went, Oh my God, that's it. It's low.
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And she says, I just envisioned an owl just kind of soaring through the woods
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with its wings stretched out. And so that's what I titled it.
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Music.
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Obviously multiple different states and
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venues what can you kind of tell the listeners
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about your experience of the local attitude that
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you have experienced over the years that you have played out live
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good and bad well the the
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bad is the typical and i'm sure almost every musician out there
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will will agree with me when you know
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you show up to a gig and there's five people there and
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four of those five people are talking right
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you know and that's just part of it
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right but you know that it's there's that one person
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standing there paying attention and that's
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you know you got to bring your stadium show your a-game even if it's just one
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person you know well the good stuff is is far outweighs the bad of course but
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it's it's like one of the best experiences that ever happened to me after a
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live show and during a live show actually is i have a song,
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i wrote called river of souls and it's about genocide in africa it's a pretty dark heavy song.
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But i was playing a small coffee shop in cheboygan and i saw a woman in the
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audience just happened to notice she was crying i mean i'm like you know bawling
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ugly crying and we made eye eye contact.
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And she got up and ran into the bathroom while I'm on stage playing the song,
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looking at her husband who was sitting next to her thinking,
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well, you jerk, what'd you say to her?
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You know, and finished out the show.
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And she came up to me after the show and she says, I've never been moved so
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much in my life as I have from that song.
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And I said, you were crying because of my song. She goes, yes.
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And I was like, okay, I can retire now.
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It's like I touched somebody that deeply that
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i made her ugly cry right right i mean
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that's that it's a highlight for
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sure right it's it's something that an artist wants some
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kind of emotion evoked from something
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that they're doing either from a painting or a picture or a musical composition
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just know that they can you know touch somebody with a human emotion with what
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they're doing then that lets them know that they're on the right track of what
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they're trying to accomplish well even the negative stuff, you know, is okay a lot of times.
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I had a song on my first record called why, and it was rather political and,
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And I was playing it one day, and apparently this gentleman in the audience
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had an opposite political opinion of mine.
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And he got up, and he gave me the finger, and he walked out.
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And it's like, okay, that's fine.
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And then a woman came up to me afterwards, and she said, I'm sorry that you
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had to deal with that. I said, I'm not. She goes, well, why not?
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I said, it's perfectly fine.
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My song elicited a reaction.
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I would rather get a negative reaction than no reaction. Right.
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At least he was listening. Yeah, exactly.
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Told me a lot right exactly so we've
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talked about the local scene we've talked about your current project now
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obviously you talked about being divorced but it also sounds like you're remarried
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is your wife now is she a musician as well or is she just a really good music
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lover she's a music lover she is an artist but she's a graphic designer so which
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is great because she does does all the artwork for my albums, everything like that.
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So yeah, kind of a built-in art director. But no, she's a music lover for sure.
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And we go see a lot of shows together and pretty diverse as far as our tastes.
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You know, like two weeks ago, we were in Milwaukee at Pfizer to see Tool.
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And then the very next night, we were in Madison to see a Ukrainian folk band called Daka Bruka.
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Fantastic, fantastic. Yeah, it's good to explore all the different types of
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music out there, especially when, like you.
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Where you just started out, you didn't think there was anything besides country
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out there till you were 12.
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Now you're exploring all this different kinds of music. And I think it just
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makes you a better, not just a better musician, but just makes you a better
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person overall, just to experience all these different kinds of music out there.
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Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, and I draw a little influence from certain things.
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I was just playing the other day in the studio and I have a loop pedal that I play with.
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I don't do a lot with it live, but just started this little riff and it was
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like, that sounds kind of tool-like. So I just built off of it.
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Nice. you know and it's just had i
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not been exposed to that music i probably never would have done that right
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yeah i like to expose myself to a lot of different styles and
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genres now one of
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the questions i ask is about like work life balance you haven't really said
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you're retired or not but do you have like a work life balance difficulty or
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is it kind of pretty much you're you got a good balance going there i think
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it's it's probably it's pretty decent i mean it's work Work definitely is the predominant.
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I do have a day job predominant factor in my life right now.
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I work 10 hour days and I have a almost hour drive to and from work.
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So I've got, yeah, I live in Fidelac. I work in Appleton.
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So it's 47 miles from my house to my job.
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So I do spend a lot of time in work mode. You know, I come home and try,
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you know, like Mondays and Tuesdays, I'm done earlier than I am on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
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So I have time to play after work and things like that on Wednesdays and Thursdays,
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I get a little bit of time in the morning to play, but my wife does work Fridays.
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So Friday is kind of my day.
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It's my day to just do what I need to do and what I want to do and things like that.
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And then come the weekend, if we don't have anything going on,
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then I go into studio and, you know, play some more or it's,
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it's pretty rare that we don't have something going on. at least one of the days on the weekend.
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Are you going out and still performing with the new album? Are you getting good
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feedback? What's the deal on that?
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Yeah, I'm in booking mode right now. I've got a show booked at Oak Brewing in West Allis in April.
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It's one of the Amplified Artist Sessions that they do there.
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And right now, I'm... So being an instrumental artist, you know,
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I'm definitely not a bar scene kind of a guy. So my stuff just is not made for
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that particular type of venue.
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So I'm trying to find, you know, wine bars or maybe smaller places to play there.
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My wife and I happen to love the Door County areas and there's a lot of places
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up there. So I'm doing some bookings up there.
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There are some places in Sheboygan, you know, I'm trying to,
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trying to stick within an hour or two of my house, maybe two and a half if it's,
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if it's a really cool place.
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Uh but that's not to say i wouldn't take
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a you know if somebody booked me a great show in minneapolis or
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chicago i'd definitely jump all over it right right
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but yeah i'm i'm in i'm in hardcore booking mode right
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now and then is there
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any gigs i mean you talked about some gigs where you know you had some great
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emotional reaction from the audience was there one where you went and saw someone
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perform and had a great impression on you yeah so one of my wives and my both
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favorite artist is a guy out of Ireland named Damien Rice.
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He's a singer-songwriter, you know. I'm kind of reluctant to always say he's
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from Ireland because that immediately conjures up the image of,
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oh, he does Irish music, but he does not. He isn't a singer-songwriter. Right.
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But we've seen him a couple times,
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and we're actually going to see him in Chicago on the 1st of December.
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But he played the Auditorium Theater a few years ago, walked out on that stage,
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and I don't know what the capacity of the theater is. It's probably 6,000 or 8,000.
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But he walked out on that stage solo, solo just an
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acoustic guitar and that place fell silent
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for two hours i mean it was amazing
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i don't know how you do that one guy in acoustic guitar i'm
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working on figuring it out just yeah it's just like you're just mesmerized by
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someone that can go up there just them and an instrument and just control your
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attention for that amount of
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time it's just exactly yeah it's awe-inspiring and and And he's just so,
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I don't know if you're familiar with his music at all, but it's pretty deep, too.
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It's the type of music that you really should listen to. And most of his fans
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realize this, so most of them do.
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They're all in. Yeah.
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And that's definitely one of our favorites. And I would love to be able to figure
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out how to do what he did with that size audience.
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Yeah, you would think it's like a lot of
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those songs you would think that that artist does it means
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something to a lot of different people each one of those songs and it just everybody's
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there to experience that in a live setting right right well it's like dave growl
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the fool fighter said one time he said you can sing a song to 85 000 people
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and they will sing it back to you for 85 000 different reasons yep exactly exactly.
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I'm pretty much out of questions. I mean, you've given us a lot of stuff to
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ponder and think about and reflect on.
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Is there anything that you would like the listeners to know about before I let you go?
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Just check out the album. You know, it's available on most of the streaming
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platforms, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music. It is on YouTube as well.
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If you don't have any, I'm finding a lot of my fans are of my age and a lot
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of them don't have Spotify and things like that.
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So it's up on YouTube as well. but yeah just
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go check it out if you like it hop on over to
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itunes and you know click that old buy button that
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would be great there you go are you on um bandcamp as
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well yep okay so i will put all
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your links into the description of this episode
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so people can just click on that and then go right to that
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00:31:31,740 --> 00:31:34,440
and you know hopefully you know support you by
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00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,580
buying you know your music like you said on itunes or
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00:31:37,580 --> 00:31:40,620
over at bandcamp so yeah yeah it
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is all of the socials and it's all under the elysian
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00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:46,560
stew okay that's yeah that's one
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00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,340
more thing i was going to ask you but i forgot it's like where did that name come
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00:31:49,340 --> 00:31:55,700
from so elysian means blissful or delightful which hopefully people will find
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my music and stew comes from a lot of my influences growing up i've taken little
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00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,260
little bits and pieces and kind of all throwing them in the pot to come up with
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my own little stew of a style.
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And I figured by doing that also, if I ever work with any other musicians,
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they will just be added ingredients in the stew.
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00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,640
Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, Pat, thank you so much for being on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,580
Like I said, it's been a pleasure talking with you, learning about your journey
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00:32:22,580 --> 00:32:25,860
through music, and I hope the listeners enjoyed hearing this as well.
415
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:29,660
Yeah, I do too. Thank you so much for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
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00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,220
It's awesome what you do to help support Wisconsin musicians. That's great.
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00:32:33,999 --> 00:32:38,739
And then that's it. So I'll do this stuff post editing and everything.
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00:32:38,919 --> 00:32:42,019
And then I will let you know when this will go live. It'd probably be like,
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00:32:42,519 --> 00:32:44,559
I'm thinking not till the early
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00:32:44,559 --> 00:32:47,859
new year, like January, February is when this will probably come out.
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00:32:47,939 --> 00:32:51,739
So, and like you said, you mentioned a gig in April. So people will catch that
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00:32:51,739 --> 00:32:53,519
way before that happens.
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00:32:53,699 --> 00:32:55,699
And then they can, you have a website.
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00:32:56,259 --> 00:33:02,639
I don't have a website. No, I've just got, I've got the Instagram and my Facebook is under my name.
425
00:33:02,859 --> 00:33:08,999
Okay. I tried changing the name to Elysian stew and all these people kept sending
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me messages. Who are you? How do I know?
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00:33:12,419 --> 00:33:15,519
Cause I have a lot of followers on Facebook and I thought it would be easier
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just to change my name and it will be to start over.
429
00:33:17,859 --> 00:33:23,339
Right. By that I realized that didn't work. So I just changed it back to my name. Gotcha. Okay.
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00:33:23,799 --> 00:33:27,419
Well, Pat, once again, thank you so much for being on and looking forward to
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00:33:27,419 --> 00:33:30,159
putting this all together for you and letting you know when it's ready to go.
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00:33:30,479 --> 00:33:33,479
Sounds good. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yep. Have a great evening.
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00:33:33,679 --> 00:33:37,219
Thank you. You too. Well, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the
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Wisconsin music podcast.
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00:33:38,539 --> 00:33:42,339
Once again, I'm Zach Foe, your host and creator of the Wisconsin music podcast,
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00:33:42,379 --> 00:33:47,019
where I love to amplify the great sounds coming out of the Wisconsin state.
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00:33:47,059 --> 00:33:50,519
We have great talent here, great support, great listeners.
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00:33:50,959 --> 00:33:56,399
Thanks to Fox cities, indie radio for syndicating this on Thursdays and Sundays,
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00:33:56,479 --> 00:33:58,019
along with their other great programmers.
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00:33:58,059 --> 00:34:02,239
So make sure you check out the Fox cities, indie radio. Thanks to our great
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00:34:02,239 --> 00:34:06,439
guest this week, Elysian Stew, also known as Pat Zydek.
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00:34:06,779 --> 00:34:11,519
Make sure you check out his newest recording, Driving Through the Desert to
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00:34:11,519 --> 00:34:16,259
Burn a Million Dollars, available on most streaming sites and Bandcamp.
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00:34:16,599 --> 00:34:21,439
If you'd like to be on the show, just go to wisconsinmusicpodcast.com,
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00:34:21,539 --> 00:34:26,379
fill out the guest request form up at the top, ask for your email and your name,
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00:34:26,479 --> 00:34:30,219
and then I'll send you an auto email asking you for more information.
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00:34:30,839 --> 00:34:34,799
If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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00:34:35,319 --> 00:34:39,539
Donations help pay for the website and putting the podcast up on streaming services
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00:34:39,539 --> 00:34:44,119
and also getting our name out there to all Wisconsinites and others that are
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00:34:44,119 --> 00:34:46,539
interested in our great music here in Wisconsin.
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00:34:47,059 --> 00:34:50,959
Donations are secured through PayPal and Stripe. All you have to do is go to
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00:34:50,959 --> 00:34:53,839
the website and click on Donate to WMP.
453
00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:58,659
You can also head over to our Instagram and Facebook pages and like us there.
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00:34:58,879 --> 00:35:04,459
Leave some comments. Also go to the podcast review section of your podcast player
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00:35:04,459 --> 00:35:06,539
and leave a five-star review. It would be great.
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00:35:07,219 --> 00:35:10,979
You can also head over to YouTube and watch the interviews and leave comments
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00:35:10,979 --> 00:35:14,119
there as well. Have a great week, everybody, and we'll see you next time.
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
dak duBois
https://linktr.ee/dakdubois
EPISODE 138
Embark on a rhythmic journey with Milwaukee's own Dak Dubois on this latest episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast, hosted by Zach Felt. Known for his eclectic mix of indie pop, 70s funk, soul, and snippets of 60s and 70s psychedelia, Dubois has been creating exciting ripples in the music scene.
In this illuminating podcast episode, delve deep into the musical world of Dubois as he shares the stories behind his acclaimed self-titled album and dynamic performances with 'Doc Dubois and Company'. Gain insights into his creative process, musical roots, on-stage energy and the magic that unfolds with each performance.
Uncover the man behind popular anthems like 'Seaside' and 'Portland'. From harmonious soundscapes to Dak's shift to focusing full time on music, explore everything from his multicultural musical influences to the pivotal role of books in shaping his career. This episode promises a melodious adventure through the upbeat world of Dak Dubois that you simply can't afford to skip.
Landscape through the retro-modern universe of tunes Dak Dubois crafts, colored with classic rock and roll inspirations from The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and a psychedelic zest inspired by The Grateful Dead. Gain a unique perspective on Dak's journey, gigging experiences, industry transformations over the years and inspiring words for emerging artists.
Immerse yourself in the enlightening world of Dak Dubois, an inspiring figure in music balancing life's nuances while striking an engaging note with listeners. Join this melodious sporting adventure with Dak by tuning in to the Wisconsin Music Podcast and following him @DakDubois on Instagram for the latest updates on his musical journey.
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Transcript:
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Music.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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I'm your host, Zach Felt, and today we have a special treat for you,
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for all you music enthusiasts out there.
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And before I continue, hopefully I will say your name correctly. Is it Dak Dubois?
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Dak Dubois. Dak Dubois. Okay. Dubois, yeah.
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Just like Marge Simpson's last name. Sure, yeah. Okay.
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Our guest on the show today is none other than Dak Dubois, The Milwaukee-based
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artist who's been making waves with his unique blend of modern indie pop,
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70s funk and soul, and a touch of 60s and 70s psychedella.
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His self-titled album, a testament to his multifaceted talents,
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was entirely crafted in the comfort
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of his own apartment-turned-studio and was released in April of 23.
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What makes Doc truly exceptional is his live performances. He's not alone on stage.
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He's joined by a rotating cast of talented local musicians, collectively known
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as Doc Dubois and Company.
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Their shows are a fusion of funk-driven, jammy vibes and captivating crowd engagement,
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promising an unforgettable experience.
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One of his standout singles, Portland, even premiered on Radio Milwaukee,
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and his album has been lauded as an imaginative, colorful exercise by Milwaukee breaking and entering.
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If you're eager to dive into his world of music, you'll be delighted to know
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that his latest album is available on all major streaming platforms.
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So stay tuned as we dive into a conversation exploring the intricate stories
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behind his music, the vibrant energy he brings to the stage.
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This is an episode you won't want to miss, so let's jump right in and discover
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the magic of Doc Dubois. So welcome to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Cool. Thanks for having me, man. Cool. Cool. So let's get the listeners a little
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bit more in depth about your music origin story.
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How did you get started in the music and how did you land where you are today?
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Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, I started learning guitar when I was like 11 years old.
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I really enjoyed the sound of like the 60s and the 70s and a lot of different
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like kind of alternative and indie sounds too.
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29 years old. So at the time, like early Arctic Monkeys, Strokes,
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Flaming Lips, stuff like that. A lot of that really got me into music.
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I started learning guitar at like 11, played a lot, you know,
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throughout my teenage years.
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I had a stepdad who was a drummer and he would bring me out to
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all of these open jams and so i started
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playing with a bunch of like blues guys and stuff once i
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was about 16 and interesting to start playing in
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bars at that age too but yeah you know over
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the years i just kind of crafted more and more of
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myself as a musician and figured out how
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to sing better and play all the other instruments too
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and but yeah still guitar is kind of like my main love
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but yeah i love getting to do everything thing and kind of write it all out
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so wonderful wonderful so you said and other instruments so what other instruments
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do you play besides guitar yeah so i play i play drums i play keys i play bass
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pretty much anything that has strings on it i feel like i can kind of get down pretty quickly.
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So like mandolin ukulele kind of
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stuff like that a little banjo but yeah yeah
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pretty much anything thing with strings i'll try ripping so cool
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very cool have you ever tried like the non-fretted instruments
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like violin cello and in the such no no
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i don't think i came from that uh that level of prestige as
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a child so no i haven't tried but i
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understand they're just tuned differently they're tuned in fourths instead
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of fifths so right right i feel like that'd be pretty easy
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i play slide guitar so kind of used to not using frets
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with that so cool cool very cool and have
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you implemented let it slide into any of your songs i actually
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haven't no i've done it a couple of
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times with live i know last night we had a show at
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oak and at one point i grabbed one
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of my drummer's drumsticks and started playing slide guitar with that so that
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was pretty cool it's just on my sg too and i have an sg that's awesome for playing
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it sucks for slide but it somehow sounded okay last night so i haven't really
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heard anybody using a wooden drumstick for for a slide.
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Must be an interesting setup it was the first time i
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ever tried it so yeah we had a two-hour set we had
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to stretch it out and gotcha you know i looked at the boys i
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was like we're gonna get weird you know so we got weird people
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like it when we get weird so yeah right i was gonna say i bet the
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audience was enjoying it i bet for sure yeah definitely cool
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so how long has this has this group
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been kind of like together i know it's mostly you when you have this rotating
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set set of musicians but as this entity how
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long has this been going on just six months so i launched the album six months
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ago and that was kind of my first time doing this before that i was kind of
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a journeyman like guitarist i would just play guitar in a lot of different bands
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whether you know kind of a lot of across a lot of different genres but i moved
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down to milwaukee from the fox cities back.
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About a year a little over a year ago and started working
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on this album and knew that i kind of of wanted to like squeak out
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in this scene down here and and just try
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something new with it so really glad i did it's been really successful
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so far and people have taken taken it really nicely so
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excellent so kind of one of my questions is talking
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about the local scene so it seems like you're getting a positive reaction from
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the scene which is great what are some other positives that you've been kind
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of noticing about the local scene for you oh man i got so many homies in the
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scene And it's been crazy to just really be in a new place and get to meet all of them.
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Yeah. I've gotten to collaborate with quite a few different artists and I think
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getting to do recording stuff is great too, but I just love how diverse the scene is.
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Honestly, there's so many talented people from so many different like genres
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and sub genres that I think it makes, it makes it such an intricate scene in Milwaukee here.
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And I love getting to see it, man. man. There's just so much talent and people
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are just incredible songwriters and players in general. Yeah.
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It's a lot of great talent out there in the Milwaukee and outing areas,
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all the way throughout Wisconsin. There's just a lot of great musicians out here.
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What are some of the struggles that you've kind of seen in the local scene,
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though, that maybe needs help to help it make it stronger? Yeah.
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I don't know. I guess I haven't really experienced a lot of struggles necessarily. necessarily.
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I feel like selling merch is kind of hard, but I feel like that's kind of,
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everybody has that right situation.
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I also know that we're like in an interesting financial situation as far as
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like the world's concerned right now.
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So I'm not going to be like luring that over anybody's head. No.
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Yeah. I don't know. I feel like everybody's really cool and it doesn't feel
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grossly competitive or anything like that. Like.
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Yeah i don't know i guess i think i
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wish that the hip-hop and r b scene had a little
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bit more support from some of the some of the faces that
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i kind of see in the circles that i play in and stuff yeah because i love getting
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to play across you know different scenes and work with other people and i mean
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they definitely have a lot of support but i feel like it's there's just so much
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untapped talent there that i wish that we could almost support those people
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a little bit better but but that's honestly my only gripe.
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I mean, we're supposed to be a melting pot of everything, right?
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Yeah, totally, man. Right, exactly.
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Now, talking a little bit about this new album that came out in April,
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we're at the end of October with this recording of this interview,
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so it's been, like you said, about six months.
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So why don't we talk to the listeners
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through the journey of creating this project. How did you get started?
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How did you put the things together, like your recording equipment and things of that nature?
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Year how did it go being in an apartment is the drums
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you said you're a drummer so are these live drums or are
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these program drums can i talk about all the details of this album yeah definitely
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man yeah so in i have a studio in our apartment here and yeah i just sound dampened
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a ton of it you know just added a ton of foam and stuff but i live track i live
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tracked all the drumming usually i'll I'll do like an eight mic setup on the kit.
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I'll do like a mono overhead. I'll individually mic up the hi-hat and like the ride cymbal.
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So pretty much just the crash is coming through on the overhead as well as like
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the overall blend of all the drums.
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I just single mic the kick, double mic the snare, one on top, one on bottom.
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Tom's individually. And that's kind of like the general thing.
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I think having your mic placement's the best way to go because you don't want
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things to be out of phase or to like not come through sounding right. Right, right.
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So that kind of took me a little while to figure that out because this is like
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my first time really like recording to this capacity. So.
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I just had to keep messing stuff up. Even on that album, when I listened to
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it, I'm like, yeah, definitely, I've been doing things differently since I recorded that album.
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But yeah, I feel like I started recording it because I had played in a lot of
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other bands, and I was like, I think I could do this all by myself,
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and I wanted to take that on as a little bit of an experience thing,
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and I'm really glad I did because it really taught me.
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I think it made me a lot better of a guitarist in general, getting to really
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look at every single instrument and what it does to add to like the general sound of something.
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And I think that, you know, the end result is always what's the most important thing. Right.
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That being said, we live above like a venue too.
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So yeah, I got to really learn a lot about noise gates.
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And I also learned a lot about retracking. So yeah.
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And then there's a church across the street that's very old
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and it just it rings bells like hell man yeah
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crazy yeah so did you sample
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any of that and put it in your songs i actually didn't know
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i had a friend that i was playing and i had him as a rhythm
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guitarist for like a few shows and every time he'd come over to like jam and
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stuff he'd always be like oh dude the bell's going off i gotta go record this
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and he'd like run outside and record it and he actually used it in one of his
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songs and i thought that that was really interesting so very cool yeah he was
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more nerdy about it than i was i was just i I always see it as a nuisance.
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I'm like, I don't need that bell, you know? So the only bell I want is off of a ride.
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Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. Now, you said you live above a venue.
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Do you have other neighbors or is it just the venue below you and you're sitting up on top of it?
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Yeah, it's just the venue below us. We're on top. And I have a lot of sound equipment here.
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So when it comes nights to jamming, I usually try
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to do two jams a month where I bring
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in different artists and just like you know just mess around like see
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whatever happens which has been really great too to
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like get to meet a lot of different people in the scene and just like having that
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space and you know having people in for
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that is just honestly like the coolest thing to do yeah but
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uh yeah a lot of times we're pretty loud and they're
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pretty loud and our our bedroom and
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our living room are like on top of it so
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we have a third floor and that's where that is so it's pretty you got
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like a whole barrier it's never too bad sometimes you'll have
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some djs come through with like and bring like you know
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more subs or whatever right and you could feel it in like the whole house it's
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crazy but yeah it's it's like getting your back massaged when you're sleeping
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so it's not bad man it's not bad cool very cool so you're doing this recording
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by yourself so what kind of.
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For the people out there that are interested in, like, the recording aspect
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of it, like, what are you using for, like, your DAW and your interfaces and stuff like that?
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Is it all in one, or is it, like, outboard stuff? What kind of,
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what are you doing with that stuff?
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Yeah, so I have, I just have, like, a big Scarlett, like, the Focusrite, the 18-input one.
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Okay. Just, like, the massive box. and so I
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use that for pretty much all my drumming and then I do have like
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how to look a universal audio just like a volt I just use that on the separate
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side of the space so I don't have to like unplug anything and I'll just if I'm
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doing like quick vocal touch-ups or if I'm just like single micing something
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I'll use that because that's like where I have my desk and stuff and then.
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Yeah and then I also have reel-to-reel as well
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and I haven't really got no ton of chances to to
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mess with that yet but eventually what i'm
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going to do is i think like pre-mastering once i
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have my mixes i'll run it through there kind of catch
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some some of the you know tube warmth that you get off
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of it and stuff because it's just a four track it's not
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anything crazy but it's enough to run your stereo mixes
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through and kind of add that bit extra or
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even just do it on an instrumental basis like if i have a
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guitar and i want it to get really trippy put it through there
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and then just kind of like casually grab the tape as it
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comes through to kind of like wobble and slow it a little bit right yeah
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i've been really busy and i have i
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probably have like another 10 12 songs
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recorded right now and i plan on releasing an
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ep at the end of december oh okay cool
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which is gonna be cool and that one's gonna be a bit different because i'm gonna
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try to so the first album was all just me by myself on everything but i'm trying
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to get a bunch of different features from the city of milwaukee on that ep which
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is gonna be cool because like my friend wave chapelle is gonna be on it i have
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a couple of other artists that i've been working with too,
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and then i'd love to get like another rapper on it or like
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r&b singer or something and i got a few friends that i've definitely
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had in mind but yeah just kind of feel it out you know yeah definitely so let's
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kind of go back to the one that you just released in april and kind of talk
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about some of the songs on there are there some songs that you'd like the listeners.
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To kind of to hear on the podcast so they can go and check it out on band camp
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or other streaming sites? Yeah, for sure, man.
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It's, it's kind of a, it's, it's like a concept album too. So the whole thing
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like front to back kind of tells a story and it really goes through the motions.
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So to like name out one specific song I think would be a little, a little crazy.
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I know the most popular songs off that album are like Seaside and Portland.
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Music.
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So i feel like that's kind of like a good little surface level place to
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get into with it okay but the album like front to
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back it's only eight songs and it's like 36 minutes or
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something like that so it's pretty easy to get through it's really digestible
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the music on it is i wanted to make sure that it would be something that has
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a lot of moments where like the ear candy kind of hits you you know and you
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got good hooks good overall feel i feel like in my playing i i kind In my writing,
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I feel like I emphasize a lot of minor seven chords and stuff,
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so it really gives you that classic alternative indie sound.
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But then it's pretty imaginative and really jumps across a lot of different
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cultures as far as music's concerned, whether it be more of an Eastern sound
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or adding more of a Latin feel on something.
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And then all of the rhythm section stuff is super funky, so it's really easy
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to get into. Yeah, so you call this basically a journey album.
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So what is the journey that this album is supposed to take the listener through?
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Oh man, I think I just wanted it to resonate with any kind of like feeling of coming of age,
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you know, and really just kind of when everything kind of starts clicking as
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you know, we're adults and our brains kind of start forming a little bit more.
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I wanted to kind of go over that and the things that we grieve with,
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but also the things that we can be excited about too.
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And that's kind of the place that I was in when I wrote and recorded all of it.
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And yeah and i feel like it definitely can
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be or you could just put it on when you got some homies over and you're
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hanging out you know and it's it's just easy listening so excellent excellent
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so i'll put a few of those on there is there
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any ones that you really want me to put on the podcast or should i just
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randomly pick a few yeah i feel
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like seaside portland those two are pretty cool okay
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definitely usually i feel like those kind of get a lot of
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play soul mill is really cool too it's an instrumental it's
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the opener for the album too but it yeah that
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one's just really interesting it's got a lot of like phrygian scale usage but
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it's pretty light and it really sticks to kind of more like funky kind of minor
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like pentatonic box kind of feel stuff too from like a bass perspective right
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it's really nice and easy going.
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Music.
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Producers and beatmakers of Milwaukee, it is time for the 2024 Big Beat MKE
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in Milwaukee's Third Ward on Thursday nights between April 25th and June 13th.
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Producers are going to go head-to-head in three one-minute rounds to determine
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who is going to move on to the next round of the tournament with some amazing
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prizes from some great sponsors.
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Don't forget that you can submit your beats today at breakingandentering.net through March 31st.
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Yeah phrygian's kind of known as like the happy major sound
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because it's got that raised fourth in it so it's it's
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a very cool scale can be used over a lot of
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different things and a lot of great songs in the over the
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years have over the decades have been using that that that mode
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a lot so very cool yeah yeah it's cool it's definitely one
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of my favorites especially with like being a
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little bit more of a psychedelic artist too you know it really gives it that like
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kind of gypsy spanishy middle eastern
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feel to it too so what would be like some
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influences of yours that would be in
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that kind of genre that other that the listeners
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would be kind of understanding where that's coming from
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yeah i feel like from a modern perspective i'd say like krungbin i would say
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like peach pit the band crumb and then i have a lot of like kind of old school
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funky feels in it too so i think like funkadelic even like a little herbie hancock
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like like Headhunters album, you know? Right, right, right.
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And I would say like a little bit of Jimi Hendrix. It definitely,
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it's some of the tonalities are like throwback feel stuff for sure.
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But it's like hard to beat the 60s and 70s out of you when it's like so imprinted
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in your brain, you know? Right, right, right.
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So if I remember right, you said you're like in your mid 20s now and you started when you were 11.
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So that was like early 2000-ish, I would think.
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Is that, am I thinking that right? Yeah, for sure. I started playing in 2006.
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I'm 29. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So 2006.
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So when you were 11, what would be like some of the music that was influenced
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you at that young of an age?
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Oh, man, it was just Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and...
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Black sabbath you know kind of all of that stuff in
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general that was i remember hearing that music and
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just being like this is insane and then eventually once i
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got an acoustic and i was like 13 14
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i really became obsessed with nirvana i feel like everybody has to go through
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a nirvana phase and that was my nirvana phase and i i loved learning all their
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music because it was simple enough for me to play it and say with it yeah that
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that kind of where it was where it was at And then eventually as I got older,
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my taste kind of expanded out from there.
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And I really started listening to a lot of like jazz and funk and fusion and
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stuff like that. And a lot of different, like there's still all these elements
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of like psychedelia, but it wasn't as like prominent in it. Gotcha.
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Yeah, definitely all that stuff.
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And then a lot of like West Coast indie stuff I really started getting down
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on probably about 10 years ago.
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And I feel like I really haven't ever lost that. So wonderful. Wonderful.
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It's great to hear about musicians that start somewhere and they expand out
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and just try to search out everything that they can that really helps them become
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a better musician. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.
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As I'm getting closer to the end here with these questions, one of them is a work-life balance.
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So we haven't really talked much about what else you do. Are you doing music full-time?
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Do you have a side job or a day job that kind of conflicts with you making making
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music? How does that work for you?
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Yeah, I actually just left my full-time job a couple of weeks ago to really
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launch into this music thing full-time.
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And yeah, it was really hard to record and just play a lot of gigs too.
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I think over the summer, I probably
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played maybe like 30 some gigs with a full-time job and that was a ton.
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So yeah, I'm definitely kind of glad I'm making this decision right now.
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I'm not broke yet, so I feel like I'm still glad.
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But once that hits, I think then I'll be a little bit scared.
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But I just wanted to take a couple of months and really dive into it,
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work on content and kind of just see what I can do as far as getting the word
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out there on what I'm doing and stuff.
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And yeah, so the balance is really hard for
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sure i think having full-time job
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too and you know the demands that come with
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a full-time job it's really hard to balance those things out so but yeah definitely
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eventually it caught up to me so but yeah definitely just trying to look at
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music full-time and see what i can make of it you know and right exactly not
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30 yet so i feel like this is a good decision i still have six months until I'm 30.
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So this is kind of my mess around era right now. So, right.
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Now, in the past, I've interviewed Emily White. I don't know if you know who
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that is. Yeah, she's amazing.
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Yeah. So, and she's got that great resource, the how to build a sustainable
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music career, collect all revenue streams.
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Have you, have you dived into any of that and tried to? Absolutely.
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Yeah. Yeah. My, my girlfriend was the one that my girlfriend,
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Nora turned me onto that book.
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And my girlfriend, Nora is a much better reader than I am.
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So that's pretty tight because she made all of these notes on how to do all
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these different things. And
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that was, it really came in handy when it was time to launch this project.
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So shout out to Emily white, man. I mean, she's got in. Yeah.
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She knows what she's doing, man. And you can read through it a million times,
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that book and listen to her podcast.
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And it's just the amount of knowledge that you can absorb. It's just crazy.
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And yeah, big props to her, man. She seems like an awesome person too.
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And I know a lot of people that I know in the scene of nothing but amazing things
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to say about her. So yeah.
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Yeah. It's, it's, it's great to have. And then she's from Wisconsin as well. So it's just great.
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All these great Wisconsinites are doing all these great things for the local scene and beyond.
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So awesome. Very awesome. Hell yeah.
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The next thing is a gig that you have performed at or seen that has made a big impression on you.
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Oh, man. As far as gigs I've seen, I feel like every gig I go to, I'm just always in awe.
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Especially bigger names, but even locally, man, it's cool to see people on their grind.
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I think my favorite artist to see in the Milwaukee area is Classic.
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He's a really good friend of mine, too, so I'm not just being biased.
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But I wholeheartedly think he's the most talented guy I've ever gotten to see do anything.
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So he's amazing. If you haven't seen him live or had a chance to talk to him
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or anything, let me know.
372
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I'd love to link you guys up because he's the reason why he's won like every
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award in the city of Milwaukee.
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As far as music goes, he's just amazing.
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And he's easily one of the most kindhearted and just awesome people to,
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you know, like having your circle too.
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00:29:22.484 --> 00:29:26.584
So very cool. yeah definitely and then as far as shows i've played that have
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00:29:26.584 --> 00:29:27.904
made a lot a big impression.
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00:29:29.461 --> 00:29:33.641
Yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, I've really enjoyed every show that we've
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00:29:33.641 --> 00:29:36.881
played as a full band and that I've done as like a loop artist too.
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But yeah, I don't know. I mean, we just played at Oak Brewing last night.
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00:29:40.901 --> 00:29:42.241
It's our second time playing there.
383
00:29:43.161 --> 00:29:47.581
That's an amazing venue. I love seeing what they've done with their stage setup
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and like their sound dampening as well as like the lights.
385
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They've really put a lot into that place. And I feel like, yeah,
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00:29:54.501 --> 00:29:56.621
it's probably one of the best stages to play around.
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So and where's that? That's in Milwaukee, right? It's in West Allis.
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00:30:00.801 --> 00:30:03.281
Oh, West Allis. Okay. Yeah. Just 20 minutes away.
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Yeah, there you go. Everything's 20 minutes away from Milwaukee, right? Yeah, totally.
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And if you had a time machine, you could go back and talk to your younger self,
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any advice you'd give yourself.
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Yeah, man. I would just tell myself to keep messing up because the more you
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mess up, the better of a musician you become.
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00:30:21.701 --> 00:30:25.041
And yeah, you just got to mess up, man. You just got to keep messing up and
395
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don't take it personally, just get it over with.
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And as you continue to work on all of these things, like you eventually just get a lot better.
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So just keep messing up and, you know, keep your chin up through it.
398
00:30:37.681 --> 00:30:41.601
Absolutely. Yeah, that's great advice because, you know, I tell my students,
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I'm a band director at the high school and I tell them failure is just stepping stones to success.
400
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Eventually it's going to click and eventually you're going to become better
401
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at what you're working at.
402
00:30:52.867 --> 00:30:56.547
Yeah, totally. No, I couldn't agree with that more. I think even if you're self-taught
403
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or if you're taught at a higher level, you got to get your 10,000 hours in there
404
00:31:01.867 --> 00:31:04.067
before you can really just start crushing stuff.
405
00:31:04.407 --> 00:31:08.487
And yeah, you just got to keep messing up, man, because that's what makes all the difference.
406
00:31:08.927 --> 00:31:12.947
Exactly. Exactly. Is there anything that you want the listeners to know before I let you go?
407
00:31:13.627 --> 00:31:19.307
Follow me on Instagram at Dak Dubois. It's just D-A-K-D-U-B-O-I-S.
408
00:31:19.307 --> 00:31:26.707
So yeah that's pretty much it i know yeah i plan on doing a tour here in a few months probably.
409
00:31:27.547 --> 00:31:30.307
Yeah and wherever whatever city you're at you know check out
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00:31:30.307 --> 00:31:33.827
the music and check out instagram because i'm really good at making sure that
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00:31:33.827 --> 00:31:37.607
i stay up on content you can kind of get a little bit more feel for what the
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00:31:37.607 --> 00:31:42.107
live shows are like and they're definitely crazy i just want to make sure everybody
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00:31:42.107 --> 00:31:48.507
has an incredible night anytime they come out and see us so yeah excellent and
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00:31:48.507 --> 00:31:49.647
And I'll put all the links down.
415
00:31:49.727 --> 00:31:53.267
I'll put your link tree down in the details of the show so people can just click
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00:31:53.267 --> 00:31:57.107
on that and go right to all your social media and your website.
417
00:31:57.307 --> 00:32:00.207
So, Doc, thank you so much for being on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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00:32:00.387 --> 00:32:03.207
It's been great talking to you, learning about all your music stuff.
419
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And just thanks so much for being on.
420
00:32:05.247 --> 00:32:07.587
Yeah, thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it, too.
421
00:32:08.007 --> 00:32:11.407
Well, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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00:32:11.947 --> 00:32:15.587
Once again, I'm Zach Fell, your host and creator of the Wisconsin Music Podcast,
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00:32:15.727 --> 00:32:18.787
where I love to amplify the great sounds coming out
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00:32:18.787 --> 00:32:22.407
of the wisconsin state we have great talent here great
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00:32:22.407 --> 00:32:27.847
support great listeners thanks to fox city's indie radio for syndicating this
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00:32:27.847 --> 00:32:31.767
on wednesdays and sundays along with their other great programmers so make sure
427
00:32:31.767 --> 00:32:37.127
you check out the fox city's indie radio thanks to dr for being on this week's
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00:32:37.127 --> 00:32:41.567
show check him out all links are in the episode descriptions he has two.
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00:32:41.680 --> 00:33:06.320
Music.
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00:33:06.452 --> 00:33:10.312
For more information. If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating
431
00:33:10.312 --> 00:33:11.752
to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
432
00:33:12.292 --> 00:33:16.512
Donations help pay for the website and putting the podcast up on streaming services
433
00:33:16.512 --> 00:33:21.092
and also getting our name out there to all Wisconsinites and others that are
434
00:33:21.092 --> 00:33:23.492
interested in our great music here in Wisconsin.
435
00:33:23.760 --> 00:33:29.360
Music.
436
00:33:24.052 --> 00:33:27.912
Donations are secured through PayPal and Stripe. All you have to do is go to
437
00:33:27.912 --> 00:33:30.792
the website and click on Donate to WMP.
438
00:33:31.552 --> 00:33:35.632
You can also head over to our Instagram and Facebook pages and like us there.
439
00:33:35.632 --> 00:33:41.072
There leave some comments also go to the podcast review section of your podcast.
440
00:33:37.520 --> 00:33:45.840
Music.
441
00:33:41.072 --> 00:33:45.072
Player and leave a five-star review would be great you could also head over
442
00:33:45.072 --> 00:33:49.292
to youtube and watch the interviews and leave comments there as well have a
443
00:33:49.292 --> 00:33:51.072
great week everybody and we'll see you next time.
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Bruce Humphries
and the Rockabilly Rebels
EPISODE 137
Join us in the latest episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast as we unravel the musical journey of the incredible Bruce Humphreys, frontman of the Rockabilly sensation,
Bruce Humphreys and the Rockabilly Rebels!
🎸 Known for his distinctive blend of hillbilly and rock and roll, Bruce has conquered the rockabilly scene, from high school drumming days to headlining major festivals and opening for big-name artists.
🔥 Dive deep into Bruce's experiences as an original artist, exploring the highs and lows of the music industry and the band's innovative marketing strategies.
🚀 Discover their unique approach to music releases, featuring multi-sensory physical albums with 3D artwork and custom-made glasses.
😢 The episode takes an emotional turn as Bruce pays a heartfelt tribute to John Steffes, the band's bass player, who recently lost his battle with cancer.
🌟 Bruce's passion for vinyl records adds a nostalgic touch, providing a fascinating dimension to the conversation.
👨👩👧👦 Get a glimpse into Bruce's personal life and how he balances family, work, and his musical passion.
🎧 The episode features tracks from his recent album, each with a unique narrative.
🌟 Wrap up the experience with Bruce as he shares remarkable gig experiences, from witnessing The Stray Cats live to the thrill of opening for Setzer.
🤘 These memories unveil his influences and profound love for music.
🎉 Tune in and Amplify Wisconsin Music! 🎶 #WisconsinMusicPodcast #AmplifyWisconsinMusic
--------------------------------------------------------
Transcript:
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Music.
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Welcome to the Wisconsin Music Podcast. This week we have Bruce Humphreys,
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and he belongs to the group.
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Bruce Humphreys and the Rockabilly Rebels. He has opened for major acts like
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the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Hazel Atkins, Hank Thompson, Rosie Flores, and much, much more.
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He has sold music worldwide and has played some major rockabilly festivals like
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the Coney Island Rockabilly Fest in Brooklyn, Franklin, Uno Go-Go in Chicago,
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Illinois, and Wisconsin's own S-Y-M-C-O, Simcoe, and Northern Roundup.
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Bruce, welcome to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Glad to be here.
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So, for the listeners, why don't you kind of give them your music origin story.
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How did you get started in the music and kind of how it got you to where you are today?
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Oh, I started playing music, well, I wouldn't consider it music back then,
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but in high school I started. I wanted to play drums and wasn't a very good
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drummer. And so I wanted to be more upfront.
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I didn't want to be sitting in the back. So I switched over to guitar and just
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kind of messed around on that and was in cover bands, you know,
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like alternative cover bands playing Ramones, Violent Femmes, Cramps.
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I then started writing my own stuff. And 30, 40 years later,
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I'm still playing, which is pretty amazing because, you know, you're a musician,
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you have lots of ups and downs and it takes a while.
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And a lot of people just kind of give up and quit and move on to something else.
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But for some reason it stuck with me.
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So yeah, here I am playing same kind of music and maybe a little bit calmer.
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So what kind of drew you to the rockability
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genre yeah well you know i i think it was about eight years ago i turned 50
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and i started kind of reflecting on you know my life and how i ended up getting
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where i am and that includes the music and i realized that i was really big
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into the the Beatles when I,
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you know, back in the early seventies, nine,
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10, 12 years old.
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And I didn't really put it together until years later that they were playing
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a lot of rockabilly songs from Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry,
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all that kind of stuff. Okay.
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And then the eighties came and there was the punk, punk new wave movement that
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included the Stray Cats, the Neo Rockabilly revival.
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And yeah, so that kind of started off a huge love for rockabilly and that old
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school kind of rock and roll.
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And also, I had been collecting Swing records from thrift stores for a while, so I knew about Swing.
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Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of what, what started that.
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I just never thought about really playing it. I was much better at playing two
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finger power chords, doing Ramones kind of thing.
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Okay. And eventually said, well, let's start a rockabilly band, see what happens.
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Gotcha. And for listeners that maybe haven't really experienced what rockabilly
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is, what would, what would be your best description of what that genre encompasses?
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Compasses i think i think they say it's the bastard son of the blues so it's
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old school country hillbilly music and combined with some rock and roll so early early early elvis.
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Elvis presley everybody knows elvis so that that would be my description what
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it is if somebody was asking me what the heck is rock and roll which they do
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a lot because people just don't know you know,
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kind of hillbilly music with some rock and roll in it.
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And what's the basic instrumentation for like a rockabilly group?
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Well, for a true rockabilly band, it will probably be an acoustic guitar,
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lead singer, upright bass, and a drummer with a stripped down drum set.
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But then, you know, and you're playing songs kind of like Elvis Presley.
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And then there's, you know, other genres that kind of came off of that, like psychobilly,
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which is mixing the punk is a little bit closer to the punk rock,
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you know, adding punk rock influences to that neo rockabilly,
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which adds a lot more newer production in the studio, more players.
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Players so currently we have four players
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in our band it's me playing rhythm guitar on
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electric and sometimes on acoustic a lead player a
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bass player and drummer gotcha so what
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is the local scene attitude towards your group like the positives of it yeah
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we've gotten great response it's pretty amazing because i grew up in indiana
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went to school in kentucky and kansas lived in texas lived in Tennessee,
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lived in Philadelphia, and I've played music at all those places.
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But usually you're just kind of like the backing soundtrack to something.
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People are sitting at the bar watching television.
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You're playing music to backs of heads. Right.
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So it's been pretty amazing up here. It's like people are really into going
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out and seeing music and seeing music and not just having it as the background noise. Right.
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And plus, you know, rockabilly and beer kind of go hand in hand.
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And I've been told there's a lot of beer drinkers up here.
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And Harley, the Harley Davidson crowd, you know, motorcycles and rockabilly.
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It's just that it kind of goes hand in hand also. Yeah.
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Lifestyle there. The music that I'm writing fits in perfect with that.
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And I get a really good response.
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I've gotten a great response up here at festivals, at fairs, clubs.
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And it's kind of odd. It definitely made me reflect back and, you know, why is that?
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Why is all these other places that I've played like that?
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And why is Milwaukee, Wisconsin in general, you know, different from all those other places?
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I don't know if I've actually figured it out, but, you know, I'm not complaining.
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Life is good. Good. Good. That's good. Is there any struggles you've seen in
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the live scene that just seems to be a hindrance or something that could be
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activated to help if it was turned around would help the scene for you?
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I think it's just the support of original music acts is kind of the main hurdle.
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And I feel like, you know, I've got two agents, three agencies that I work with.
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And the two of those, the majority of the acts seem to be cover bands.
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And so I feel very lucky to be a part of that crowd to be able to get booked
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from those agencies because we play a majority is original music.
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Now, if we're playing a three or four hour set, then we throw in covers from
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Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, of course, all those.
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Excuse me. But yeah, it's just kind of getting recognized as an original artist
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because cover bands, that's where it's at.
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You know, cover bands are going to make a heck of a lot more money than what
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we're pulling in. Gotcha. People want to go out and hear things that they recognize.
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Which I totally get. I understand that.
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But again, for the response that we've been getting, playing my originals,
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you know, I think we're pretty blessed.
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Nice, nice. So with being a mostly original band, what do you do to help promote
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like your shows and other things of that nature to keep people to notice your group?
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Yeah, social media. And I'm not social media savvy at all.
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Pretty much none of the guys in the band are. We're all at least in our 50s
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at this point, pushing 60, if not, I think actually someone is in their 60s.
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We're old school. We used to hang up flyers on telephone poles.
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We don't do that anymore.
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I'm on social media promoting it on all these different Wisconsin,
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our Milwaukee music, Facebook pages.
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I try to do some video of our songs.
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Like so with this new album instead of dropping all the
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songs dropping the whole album at one time
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and having it get lost in the shuffle we're releasing a
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single at a time so like every month i'll release another song i'll make a video
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for it we'll post it all over social media in hopes that it will generate more
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interest and kind of keep our name out there because our first album And we
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just kind of, we just put it out there.
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And, and then of course, three months later, COVID hit. Not that it would make
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any difference, but I figured the, the, the worst thing that could happen by
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releasing them via singles,
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I'm losing 0.0003 cents a stream online.
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And, you know, the fact is we're not getting that many streams no matter what. So, yeah.
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If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
124
00:09:27.827 --> 00:09:32.487
Donations help pay for the website and putting the podcast up on streaming services
125
00:09:32.487 --> 00:09:37.327
and also getting our name out there to all Wisconsinites and others that are
126
00:09:37.327 --> 00:09:39.747
interested in our great music here in Wisconsin.
127
00:09:40.287 --> 00:09:42.907
Donations are secured through PayPal and Stripe.
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00:09:43.836 --> 00:09:47.056
Do is go to the website and click on Donate to WMP.
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00:09:49.656 --> 00:09:53.656
So you just mentioned your newest recording. Why don't you kind of give the
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listeners a little journey from the beginning to the releases?
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You know, how did you start the project? Who's involved?
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Not only the musicians, but on the other side of the glass as well.
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Was it a DIY or did you go to a studio?
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Things of that nature yeah so our drummer has a home studio you know i've always
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i've always wanted to go into a studio but if i'm going to spend that much money
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it makes more sense to buy the equipment and i'll have the equipment and do
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it ourselves now of course it's not going to sound the same.
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But we'll save a lot of money and you know maybe the next album or the next
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album will will be expensive studio quality.
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So we started this almost two years ago. We recorded the basics in our drummer's basement.
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I brought the files home. I started building a studio at my house,
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so I started putting it together here.
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It would not have taken, it just was released this summer, it would not have
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taken as long if I went somewhere and paid a lot of money or if I knew how to
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run the software that I was editing it on.
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So there's a lot of trial and error, lots of error.
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But it was rewarding in the process.
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But yeah, so I got Lorenzo Rapani on lead guitar, John Steffes on bass,
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Kurt Weber on drums, and I'm on guitar and singing.
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I do play some piano on one song.
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Unfortunately, we lost John Steffes earlier this summer.
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To cancer, but was very grateful to have him on this album and kind of,
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you know, he helped out so much with the process.
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As far as, you know, other people, we did a Kickstarter campaign and I honestly
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did not think because we're older, we don't have a big social media presence.
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I did not think we would make our goal, but people really stepped up and we,
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we made it And I was able to release it on a real CD, release it on vinyl,
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you know, get a good recording and.
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Well, the artwork for the CD and the vinyl are all both in 3D.
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Oh, cool. And the glasses come with it. So they're custom made glasses.
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So it's kind of a fun, different release. I'm trying to kind of come up with
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different ways of releasing something to generate interest.
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Yeah. You know, it's not just an audio experience. It's a visual experience too.
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So I was really excited that that all turned out. On a side note,
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I've heard that getting vinyl from sending them your music to receiving the
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album back takes multiple months.
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How many months did it take for you to get that turnaround?
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That's what I heard too. In fact, I was told basically plan on it taking a year.
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So I was expecting it to be done in March.
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It came in the mail almost a month and a half, maybe two months ago at this point.
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So it took about six months, if that.
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Okay. It was quick considering what I was told. Right.
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You know, six months is definitely a long time, but you know,
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when you're expecting something a year later and it comes in half the time, you know.
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That's pretty cool. Yeah. There's hope for people that want to release something
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in a relatively short amount of time, half of a year.
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At least the company I went with, you know, I don't know what other companies.
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Are like but right and how
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many did you have made did you like a thousand run or half of that or what was
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it half of half of that we i think the total count was 245 that came in okay
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so yeah it's very limited run we'll see how this one sells this one has tricolor vinyl.
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The next printing if we actually are lucky enough to have to do that will just
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be either one color or just black.
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I don't think I'll have custom glasses made so that this first piece.
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Pressing might be a little bit more, I don't want to say valuable,
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because I don't think it will ever be valuable.
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I'd like for it to be, but you never know. Chances are it won't be,
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but it will be a special edition.
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Cool. Yeah, it's nice to see that some of this music being reproduced back onto
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vinyl has had a comeback.
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It's very cool, because I think vinyl has a very, it's not just a nostalgic niche thing,
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but it actually has a cool vibe to it of its
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own you know yeah absolutely yeah i've
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always i've always loved vinyl i obviously if
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you see behind me there's a small collection just
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just a small yeah yeah if someone asked you what were your i don't want to say
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your top or your favorites but if you wanted to show them or have them hear
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three great examples of songs off that album And what would it like be the three
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that you would like to pick and maybe we'll have put them on the podcast for you.
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The three songs would, first one would be coming down hard in my backyard would
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be another one and probably leave the lights on if I had, I mean,
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that's hard to pick three,
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you know, yeah,
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I would probably say those three because well, coming down hard,
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it's just a rocker it's opens the CD.
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Music.
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In my backyard, I wrote during COVID. Well, I started writing before COVID.
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I finished it during COVID.
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I always joke that it was, well, it's not a joke.
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It was a really depressing, sad time, and we needed happy songs.
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And I ended up writing a song about growing old, falling apart, and dying.
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A lot of my songs have humor in it. So that's in my backyard.
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Ours just talks about, you know, getting older and, you know,
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the issues health-wise.
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I'll save the rest for you guys just to listen to.
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Music.
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Hell came of me it hurts to wake up in the morning and in the middle of the night i've got a pee,
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no one ever said it easy no one ever said it could get this hard Just put me in a coffin,
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and bury my ass in the backyard.
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Well, that's what I get for daydreaming.
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The problem is that I never woke up.
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Now it's growing out of strange places and velcros replacing the laces,
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and then leave the lights on is just a special song because my mom when we were
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younger she said that she'd always leave the porch light on no matter what her kids were doing.
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So basically, if we got sent to prison, not that that would happen,
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and this is a drastic experience example, but if we got sent to prison,
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she'd always have the porch light on and welcome us back home.
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So no matter what happened, what the kids were doing, there'd always be a light.
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And so that kind of stuck with me. So I wrote that.
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The title inspired me. The lyrics themselves don't necessarily reflect that experience.
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Music.
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The Light Song is definitely a line that's stuck with me for 20, 30 years. Great.
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And yeah, that's amazing. So I'll insert those songs in there for you,
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and then the listeners can take a listen to that, and they can draw their own
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conclusions if they want to, and then go and see you play. Yeah.
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You and your group. Yeah.
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So speaking, you said you released this on CD and also on vinyl,
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but where can people see or hear this digitally?
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Do you have band camp? I mean, are they on the streaming sites?
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Where else can they hear this?
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Yeah, I think you could actually hear all the songs on Bandcamp, now that you mention it.
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Spotify, we have five singles from the album on there now.
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You can go to my website at brucehumphries.com. We have videos,
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links to all the YouTube and Instagram and all that, obviously come out to the shows.
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Shows so right now we have the vinyl and
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the cd we've been selling at shows we just don't not releasing
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them all online right and then there's uh four local
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record stores in town that you can pick them
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up at a record head bullseye records lily
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put and rush more cool so
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listeners out there if you want to go get your your hard
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copy of that you go see them at a show or go to
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to those record shops and check them out there or online like
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bandcamp.com where artists get a majority
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of what you spend on their music goes
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right back to them so that's definitely a good thing we're streaming
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unfortunately you get 0.001 of a penny on the dollar basically yeah where can
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they see you play yeah we've got a in february i believe i don't have the date
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in front of me We're playing at OPE O-P-E Brewery Okay That's in,
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West Allis Okay I believe It's right over there Near State Fair Park.
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We have been asked back for the Port Washington Fish Fry Festival.
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I don't have the dates for that, but you can go to my website,
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BruceHumphreys.com, and you can check out the dates that we have.
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Kind of in the middle of booking for next year.
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So listeners, go to this website when this airs, once you hear this,
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and go see when they're playing and go check them out.
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Because Rockabilly is an experience in and of itself, for sure.
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Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
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As we're winding down here, there's a couple more questions I have for you.
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One of them is work-life balance.
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Is that, I know you've talked about you're now, you know, in your,
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close to your 50s or early 50s.
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You've been playing a long time. Is it a struggle still or you kind of got a
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good control over the balance?
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I wish I was almost 50 or in my early 50s. I'm 58, so I'm pushing 60.
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Okay. It could be a challenge because, well, you're getting older and you're
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not as, you don't have the energy like you had when you were younger.
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So I've realized that I need to go and do more aerobic workout exercises,
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you know, during the week so that I can catch my breath when I'm playing.
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Because there are definitely times when I get winded from running around there
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on stage or into the audience. And yeah, so that's a big hindrance.
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I do have an 11-year-old and a wife, so that could be challenging,
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especially in the summer because weekends are the time to go camping and all that.
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And so we're trying to find ways to be able to do that and do family stuff while
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I do the band stuff. because, you know, we don't play a lot in the winter and
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winter's obviously not a good time to go camping.
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My 11 year old daughter does get up and sing with me on stage from time to time.
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So that's a whole lot of fun. Very cool.
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Yeah. What else? Yeah. So, you know, as far as other work goes,
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I mean, I'm teaching guitar lessons.
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I just was recently hired to do a
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song for a soundtrack for an art video project that
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a local artist is working on you know i
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do ebay stuff so i mean it's just my life is insane nothing's
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i don't make anything simple for me you know if i make a cd i've got to have
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it in you know 3d so i got to figure out the 3d process and then figure out
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the getting the glasses from china to the printing company so they can put it
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in you You know, it's just like, why not?
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I just simplify and just make it normal.
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Yeah. I can't, I know I've never been that way. So. Gotcha.
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Cool. Yeah. But, but it seems like, you know, you have at least a decent control
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over, over the balance of most of the things that you're doing. It seems.
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Sure. Sure.
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As long as it appears that way. Your wife hasn't kicked you out of the house yet?
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Not yet, no. Yeah. No. The last question I ask is, gigs that have made an impression
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on you as an artist and even as an audience member, is there some experiences
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that just blew your mind that you could tell the audience?
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For my shows or just any shows? It could be a show that you performed at,
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shows you've seen, things of that nature.
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Sure well you know with the with the rockabilly thing since i've got a lot of rockabilly influence.
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So i bought the stray cats album when i
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was a kid and uh i listened to it and i'm
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like yeah it's okay you know it wasn't something that blew
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me away and then i saw them in concert
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and watching you know the bass player
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run around with his upright bass on his shoulder chasing guitar
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player and the drummer getting up and standing on top of
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his drums and jumping off and the guitar guitar
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player getting up on the drums it was just such a
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show yeah it was so high energy
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and it was life-changing and then
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you know on the opposite of that we went to go see
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the cars before rick okasik passed obviously because yeah and he's never been
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one to really move around on stage and he was a big influence when i was a kid
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also so you know it's just kind of like watching Imagine a band stand there,
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play their songs. Not real exciting.
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I'm thankful I saw them, but it's like, I want to go see a show that's high
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energy, that they're into it, they're moving around, they're doing something.
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So it's not just audio experience, it's a visual experience also.
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You know, so I try to incorporate that into our shows.
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And, you know, we did open, you know, the other life changing or the great experience
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was opening for Setzer for a few shows on the East Coast when he was doing his orchestra.
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Yeah, I mean, that's kind of a little bit longer story. And,
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but yeah, it was very surreal to be up on stage at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic
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City with Setzer standing to the side, watching us play.
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And, you know, I was a guitar player for someone that I was very much into when
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I was a kid and somehow it ended up playing with him and, you know,
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and then the next day I'm back home raking leaves in the front.
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I can't be playing a sold out show at the Trump Taj Mahal and then raking leaves.
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Yep. Yep. But I learned so much from those experiences over there that,
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you know, that I apply to the band now, you know, my, yeah, just so much, so many influences.
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Wonderful. Wonderful. Is there anything you'd like to add for the listeners
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to know about before I let you go today?
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Um, I can't, I can't really think of anything right off except for,
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you know, if you do Do pick up our CD, you know, with the glasses.
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There's a QR code on the side that will take you to our secret web page on my
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website that has more 3D images.
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So, you know, it's just trying to make this more of an experience for people
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that, you know, it's not just getting something and listening.
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You can, you know, find these things and go explore other places and hear our
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stuff. And yeah, support the band, support local music, support original music.
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Excellent. Bruce, thank you so much for being on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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It's been a pleasure talking with you, learning all about you and your music
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and the things you've been doing. So thank you so much for being on the show.
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Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thanks, man.
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Well, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Once again, I'm Zach Fell, your host and creator of the Wisconsin Music Podcast,
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where I love to amplify the great sounds coming out of the Wisconsin state.
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We have great talent here, great support, great listeners.
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Thanks to Fox City's Indie Radio for syndicating this on Wednesdays and Sundays,
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along with their other great programs.
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So make sure you check out the Fox City's Indie Radio. Thanks so much to Bruce.
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For being on the show this week.
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If you'd like to be on the show, just go up to wisconsinmusicpodcast.com,
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fill out the guest request form up at the top, ask for your email and your name,
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and then I'll send you an auto email asking you for more information.
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If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Donations help pay for the website and putting the podcast up on streaming services
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and also getting our name out there to all Wisconsinites and others that are.
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Interested in our great music here in Wisconsin.
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Donations are secure through PayPal and Stripe. All you have to do is go to
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the website and click on Donate to WMP.
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And also make sure you like and subscribe us on.
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Music.
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
AMPLFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
Terrianne "Tootie" Lenning
THE TOOTIE SHOW
EPISODE 136
Welcome to another invigorating episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast! Join your host, Zach Fell, as he dives into an uplifting conversation with the vibrant Terrianne Lenning – popularly known as Tootie. The creative powerhouse behind local sensation, The Tootie Show, Tootie is a cancer survivor whose ardor for music and community-building is as inspiring as it is infectious.
In this engaging episode, find out about Tootie’s struggles with cancer and how it fueled her passion for music to overwhelming heights. Discover her vision for The Tootie Show and how her platform avidly supports local artists and small businesses. Her journey, filled with trials and tribulations, resilience, and an undying love for music, is a testament to the power of perseverance and positive energy.
Despite an ongoing battle with cancer, Tootie's commitment to championing independent music and local businesses never wavers. Tune in to hear her tell her compelling story in her own words and learn what message she wishes her audience will take away.
An experience-rich journey – from enjoying local concerts to battling health issues head-on, working multiple jobs, and advocating for local music talent. Get to know about the magnitude of change music has brought into her life and her relentless dedication to uplifting the Wisconsin music scene.
Be part of her mission as she discusses her initiatives to establish symbiotic relationships between businesses and local artists. Her unequivocal message: collaborative growth is not only achievable, but necessary for a thriving community.
If you share a love for music and Wisconsin's talent, this episode not only inspires but encourages participation to support local dreams. Immerse yourself in Tootie’s passion-filled narrative and learn more about her special bond with the Wisconsin music scene.
www.facebook.com/TheTootieShowIndependentRadioStation
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Transcript:
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Music.
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Welcome, everyone, to the Wisconsin Music Podcast, where we amplify the incredible
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music talent right here in Wisconsin.
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I'm Zach Fell, your host here on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Today, I am thrilled to introduce a remarkable woman whose love for music and
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unyielding spirit have inspired many.
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She's a journalist, a cancer survivor, and a visionary behind The Tootie Show,
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a podcast that celebrates the artistry and stories of local and independent musicians. Musicians.
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Please join me in welcoming Terri-Ann Lenning, also known as Tootie,
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as we delve into her journey, her passion for music, the impact of the Tootie
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Show on Wisconsin music scene.
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Welcome, Tootie, to the Wisconsin Music Podcast. I'm glad to have you on.
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How are you today, and how's it going?
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I am doing really well today, to be honest. The last couple of days were a little
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hairy, but today is a good day. Good. Good to hear.
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Now, I first heard of you from the Facebook post that Corey posted about the
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GoFundMe page that they put together.
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Can you share with us and the listeners your journey with music and how it's
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impacted your life, especially during your unfortunate battle with cancer?
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Well, in 2019, I got really super sick and they couldn't find exactly what the problem was.
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They knew it was cancer, but they couldn't find out exactly what kind of cancer it was at first.
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And then all of a sudden, just more things started coming up through the year
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of 2020, but it was kind of hard because we were during that lockdown from COVID.
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So it was hard to get into the doctors and
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figure out exactly what was going on I found
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out recent that year 2020 like two
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weeks before my 30th birthday is when I had uterus cancer
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and I was bleeding out for a whole year and I couldn't stop so I was really
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super sick and December of 2020 is when they finally got me into the surgery
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they have my whole uterus pulled out the hysterectomy and I died during the the surgery,
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not once, but a few times on the table, I had an in-body experience.
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From there, they, during the surgery, before I went under, they go,
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is there anything that we can do to make you feel comfortable?
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I love music, so I played my music playlist on Spotify. I had 700-something songs on there.
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And during the in-body experience, I saw the light. I was ready to go.
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I'm like, oh, it's my time to go.
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And all of a sudden, my favorite music artist, overtime song,
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came on the playlist, and it jump-started my heart and lungs.
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My soul went back to the body, and I'm here today because of that. Wow.
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What an amazing journey, just laying there on the operating table.
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But definitely glad that you are here with us today. So what inspired you to
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start the 2D show and how has it involved since you started it?
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That's a good question. So when I was battling the cancer treatments during
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that, before the surgery, I fell in a deep pool of depression.
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I was turning 30. I didn't have any kids. I didn't have a family. I didn't start a family.
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Never been in a relationship, never had that experience.
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Experience so finding out that i had
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uterus cancer it broke my heart because all i wanted was to
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have kids and i found out i couldn't have
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any so it was just a struggle and
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then i found this music video on youtube it just told me something told me click
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on it so i clicked on it and it was the video divided me fall from overtime
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and i fell in love with the video so i looked him him up some more and I started
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following him and loving all his music.
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His music helped me cope with my cancer skills and helped me bring back life.
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Because I was struggling with depression.
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And some of his songs that he has helps me fight and keep fighting.
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So I didn't give up on life.
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And so that's pretty much how it happened.
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And then when I had the surgery, his song actually saved my life.
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So I got more involved with it.
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And then ever since then, it's just like, I always wanted to be a journalist.
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I had a heart for writing because when I was back in high school and middle
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school, I just loved writing, but the government told me I couldn't be anything
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because of my learning disability that I have.
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So they probably pretty much shut me down and caused more depression when I
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was growing up through that department.
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And then when I met Overtime, Overtime's music is like, don't have anyone tell
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You can't do anything no matter who you are.
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You can do it and start it and be whoever you want on yourself And listening
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to his music and the songs and just talking to him because I met him a few times already in person.
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Just having that mentor, that's how I started the Tootie Show.
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It basically, I started listening to music. I started doing reviews on music.
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And that's pretty much how the Tootie Show started.
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With a show like yours, what challenges have you faced running that show?
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And what are some of the things that you had to do to overcome that?
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There is a lot of challenges I'm still battling.
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Right now, the major part is getting the financial part because I'm still struggling
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with all the cancer aftermath on the first time.
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So I'm still in a lot of debt, so I'm still trying to climb up and trying to get everything.
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So that's the biggest one is financial, trying to get everything up and running.
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Getting all the necessary equipment to get everything going.
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That's the other struggle.
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And then the other struggle is that you have competitors.
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So you have to, like, in the scene that I'm in, And I have two other competitors
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that are like kind of battling against each other and trying to see who is best.
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And I don't really care for that because I cheer on for everybody.
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But then it causes a bunch of drama. And that's the stuff that I don't really care for.
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So it's a battle.
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That's the other worst part about it is that you got to pick and choose,
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you know, who you support, I guess.
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Okay so are you saying that you're you're
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so not your competitors but people that
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you feel are within the same umbrella as you those two
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are competing against each other and you're kind of like looking at that from
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the outside going i don't want to deal with any of that drama i'm just doing
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my own thing over here and if people want to participate and listen in and what
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i'm doing then that's all that i really care about yes that's all i that's exactly
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i just want to to be myself.
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And like I said, I care for the community so much.
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I love the community and being with the community and the music.
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And I just want to, I don't care about being competitive with everyone else.
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I, that my heart is just, you know, I, I, like you said, I had cancer,
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but I don't know if anybody else knows, but I also got diagnosed with cancer again.
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So I'm battling in cancer once again this time
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it's in my ovaries so that's why
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cory made the go for me page right now because it's a
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struggle and i'm trying to do the tootie shows what's keeping me fighting and
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so with every other people that competitors they're just like trying to take
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everyone with like well don't go with tootie come with us and i'm just like
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why why do you have to be like that Why can't we just all support everybody?
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Exactly. So I'm just like, it causes drama, and it's just like,
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I'm just like, I don't know. I'm just doing my own thing. Right, exactly.
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I mean, I kind of feel the same way about my podcast. Like, I'm just doing this
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to help the music scene here in Wisconsin.
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If people want to go and challenge other, you know, social media people out
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there, then that's their own deal.
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I'm not going to get into that mess. If you want to help support the Wisconsin
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music scene, then go and do that.
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Why waste your energy battling each other? We're supposed to be helping rise
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everybody above, you know, the tide.
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What's the saying? all ships rise with a tide basically
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right yeah absolutely yeah so
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unfortunately like you mentioned we have that go you have that gofundme page
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that cory set up because unfortunately another round of cancer is hitting your
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body and you need help to you know with medical bills unfortunately with you
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know the health care system these days it's just way too expensive to be sick
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unfortunately unfortunately, as sad as that is.
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So where do you know what the GoFundMe page link is?
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I actually have two of them. So one of them, one of my good friends,
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Holly, she's like a sister to me.
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Her husband, Josh, is actually my DJ that I work with a lot.
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And DJ J Vicious and Holly, they started a GoFundMe page when I first found
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out I was sick in September, and it's on the GoFundMe.
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It's like literally on the GoFundMe website.
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It hasn't gone anywhere really. Cause a lot of people just don't, it's sad.
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Everyone is struggling. So, I mean, I get it. Nobody wants to donate anymore.
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So that's just the sad part. And then they also, JVichess and Holly also did
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a benefit cancer music event show in October.
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And it was okay, but again, it wasn't, you know, a lot of people didn't come and donate and be there.
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So it is just, it didn't go anywhere really.
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And then all of a sudden it's just like, as I'm being sick, I've been working a lot at regular jobs.
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I had three jobs I was working at on top of it, trying to get back on track,
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trying to get my financial situation back on track.
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As i'm as i'm sick and so
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i busted my butt so much this last
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year so i was going to get a good tax return
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refund i claimed zero so i
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knew that they could take as much out of my check as they wanted
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so i can get a good refund well recently i
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just found out that i'm not
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getting a refund i actually owe four thousand dollars back
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to the federal which i don't understand
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stand i'm i'm at lost words
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so i lost all my refund that i was planning
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on getting and so now that takes
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away because i'm also carless i my
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transmission went on my car the first time when i had cancer during
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the treatments going back to freighter back so i'm
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what i've been without a car for almost a couple
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years now and i can't get any because of
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my my my credit is bad from
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the cancer for the first time so i'm struggling and
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i was going to use a tax to get my car
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and then i was going to use my taxes to get
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my medication that i need for the cancer and then i
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was going to use it to help promote the shows that i'm doing to help
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promote support to both them but right now i'm not seeing a dime i actually
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owe so that puts a financial struggle right so cory my friend buddy Corey noticed
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that so he started a second GoFundMe page and see where he knows a lot more people than anyone so.
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And that's where you found it. Yes, that's exactly where I found it.
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So it has led you to being here on the podcast, which hopefully is going to
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help elevate your situation to the people out there and hopefully can help you out.
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So let's kind of talk a little bit about the show that you are running, the 2D show.
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Let's kind of talk about what do people or what should people expect to listen
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to when they go and listen to your podcast?
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Well, I'm trying to actually build it as a podcast right now.
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Now it's just like a show, social media show kind of thing.
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I don't have the LLC for the podcast up and running yet.
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I'm trying to build a team so I can actually have hosts. I want to do like a
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kind of like a radio podcast community where I can have a big,
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a group of people just come up and talk and we can come up with things to talk about.
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But my main thing that I do a lot is I do music reviews. I do food reviews.
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I go to restaurants and I test out food. I take I take pictures at show events.
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They go to certain big show events around an area I help support the music community
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that way and I take pictures for them and I take videos and I share them and
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Now just recently I got a call from a bigger.
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Independent music artist from out of state that he said to me I want you to
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promote me for the whole state of Wisconsin.
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I'm like, I'm not a promoter and he's
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like no this is your job this is you i want you and i'm like
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okay so i took the opportunity because it
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will also help get my mind off of the cancer stuff right so i took it and so
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now i'm gonna add being promoter onto all of that with everything else i do
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excellent so my podcast is like it's all kinds of stuff it's like up and down
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it it's all kind of stuff but.
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I want to help the community and the music and also the small businesses and companies.
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I can advertise for them. I'm
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very good at advertising and selling their products and all that stuff.
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That's kind of what I do. I want to advertise.
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I want to promote them like a regular commercial air kind of thing. Right.
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So, yeah, but that's pretty much what the whole Tootie Show is about.
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Is just like laughter stories sharing
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music especially the music that means
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something like comes from the heart that you know
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not a lot about a lot of music that's put on air now is it's just about sex
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drugs and all that kind of stuff and the music that I got myself involved it
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comes from the heart it actually means something like it's helping people cope
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with with life experiences of what they went through. Wonderful. Wonderful.
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Now, recently I saw on your latest YouTube channel, you had an artist come on.
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How do you select the people that would come on and talk with you?
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Yes. So I do interviews also. Sorry, forgot to mention that.
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That's my favorite part because I love getting to know the people and the artists in the community.
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Whoever just, whoever comes and follows me
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and they see me or i go to shows is
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when i do a lot of my networking is when i go to shows i introduce
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myself and say they're like oh you do interviews and
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i'm like yeah well then i said reach out to me
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we'll schedule an interview come on over and we'll do an interview and that's
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how it happens wonderful wonderful so people are listening into onto this this
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episode go contact tootie over on her show if you're interested in working with
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her now the next question i have is as a journalist and an interviewer,
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what message do you hope to convey to your audience?
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I know you're talking about, you know, things from the heart,
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but particularly regarding the importance of supporting the local and independent music artists.
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That's a little tricky question, actually. So sometimes I'm not 100% perfect.
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I have a learning disability, so my writing is not 100% perfect,
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but I like it. I love it. Good.
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And I just love talking and getting to know people.
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My biggest thing is just that for interviews, just be yourself.
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Don't try to be fake. Don't try to be anybody or I'm this macho person and trying to be that somebody.
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Buddy and just my big advice
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to everybody just love yourself and be yourself
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just be yourself smile laugh
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and be yourself that's my motto that's what i look
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and want to tell everybody good good
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yeah why do something and be all fake about it then what's the point
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of doing it because then it's not really you yeah for
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sure yeah now how long
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has the 2d show been around i started it
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september 22nd 2021 okay so
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we are coming up on re three
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year two years almost and at the end of this year it'll
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be three years excellent have you had any memorable moments so far over the
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last few years i did i had a lot of memorable moments i've seen overtime about
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five times live a couple times in Wisconsin and a couple times, one time in Kansas.
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The best part about that whole story this was
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probably being my most memorable story so far is
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that when i first started following over
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time and getting involved with all of this i found out he was coming to wisconsin
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on two where i almost cracked my pants and so i literally had to look up to
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see how much the tickets were and see how far it was so if i can go see him
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and the tickets tickets for over $25 for a ticket.
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So I was shocked. I'm like, oh, I want to go. And I found out it was,
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uh, it was in Beaverdale, Wisconsin. I'm like, oh, I know where that is.
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So I talked to my mom. I'm like, yeah, let's buy two tickets and let's go.
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So we bought, we bought the two tickets and then all of a sudden,
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like a month later, my mom surprises me with the VIP tickets. Oh, wow.
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And, but the best part of it, when I was looking up to date,
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I won't, that's It's another time I almost crapped my pants because the date
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was my birthday, August 20th, and they came to play for my birthday.
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So that was the first time I actually met Overtime.
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Yeah. And it was the most, it was the best concert I have ever been to.
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And just he took time out to talk to me outside for 45 minutes and just stood
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there talking to me for 45 minutes outside.
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So he's a real person. He's not some fake person.
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He is really true. He cares about his fans. He shakes everyone's hands after
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the show is over and everything.
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He's just a really cool, independent music artist.
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And because of that, I met so many other cool ones. And it's just like...
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You know it's i had some really
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good number of moments like i just if
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you go on my page you'll see all the pictures and videos of
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all the stuff i've been the people i've been meeting and the
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interviews i've been having it's just those moments
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will last a lifetime with me yeah definitely like
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i had other bigger moment that
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i had recently was when i got asked
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to be the mc for the band on this piston okay
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um january 27th and cory my
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friend cory's that you saw the post was he's the main drummer
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in the in the band yep so yeah so
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that was a big memorable moment of being the big mc for the first time for that
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so that was great that was a big moment and the band was awesome and i loved
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it i had a great time being mc so yeah wow yeah you're definitely doing great
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things And I'm glad things are,
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at least some great positive things are happening to you in your life, which is great.
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The next question I have is, how do you balance your personal life,
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your work with the 2D show and your other professional endeavors?
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Is it a struggle or is it kind of have a good balance on it?
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At first, it was a struggle. Like I said, this last year, I had two other jobs
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plus the 2D show. So I was technically doing three.
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And it was a struggle. It was It was hard and then I had to deal with a lot
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of stuff with my mom on top of it My mom has a lot of health issues, too.
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So I had to Jumble that and jumble that I was working 12 to 15 hours at my regular
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job And then I had a second part-time job.
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So I was working there Trying i'm trying so hard to get the financial to get
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up just to keep going to keep going and.
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Let me tell you, I'm not going to lie, it was really rough. There was times
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where I couldn't even do it all.
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And I have so much energy.
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I don't know where it comes from, to be honest with you. I have no idea.
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Yeah. Yeah. But at some times I just felt like my energy was, it was dying down.
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And during the summer, I noticed of last year that I could really,
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I was not doing as much as with the Tony show and I could really tell it took
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my positive energy away.
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And a lot of negative came back to me. Like I was missing something.
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Right. I was always working.
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I was always working, But I wasn't doing what I truly really loved with the
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20 show like I wasn't doing going to shows.
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I wasn't doing It I missed it.
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That's what you know, and it was really hard but I Had to make a decision at
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first I was gonna put it down and I'm like I can't do this anymore.
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Like and then I also bumped in some rude people that were trying to bash me
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on my show I'm trying to bring me down to and I'm just like why do you have to do that?
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Like well maybe this is it for me maybe i
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can't do this and so yeah i was battling it a couple of times i wanted to put
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it down and like i can't do this but in the in the end i'm like this is my dream
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this is what i'm fighting for and this what's what truly makes me happy so in
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the end i had to find the balance yeah so.
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Gotcha. Well, I'm glad you're still
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here around. I've had the same kind of thoughts too about the podcast.
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Am I really doing anything that's positive for the scene? Is this really worth it?
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There's other places that people can go and listen about Wisconsin music,
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but overall, it's like I enjoy doing it.
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I love meeting the new people, especially people like you, and just trying to
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help the scene here in Wisconsin for everybody that's involved in music.
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So it's glad to see other people doing exactly the same kind of thing going
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out there and just trying to be positive about the music scene here in Wisconsin.
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Yeah, I just I have so much love for the whole community.
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I just I have such a big heart. And when I was growing up, I was the shyest.
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I was in a turtle shell. You couldn't even get me to talk to anybody.
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And all of a sudden, after like having an experience like having cancer changes you.
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Yeah i bet after i had the surgery it
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just i was a totally different person i had
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all this energy like i said i don't know where it comes from and i
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lost so much weight and i'm healthy well not anymore because i'm sick with cancer
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fortunately but i was healthy and i just went happy like the judy show makes
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me so happy just like the people i go to me and the shows i go to like Like,
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I discovered other music that I didn't even know that was out there, and I love it.
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It's just like, it makes me feel like the music is my bloodline.
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It keeps my heart pumping for some reason, and it just, it keeps me going.
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Yes. And then the people that I meet also for the community and the music artists.
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And they're like my friends.
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They're like my homies now to me. they're keeping
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me going because when i they notice when i'm down they uplift
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me because i need that and yeah and they're
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there for me when i need them and then when they're down
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i'm there for them to uplift them and we all need that we all need that in the
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world and yep i hear you yep it's great it's a great it's it's a great feeling
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to be it might be hard dealing with the with a lot of the drama stuff,
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like I said before, the drama stuff and people just fighting and just,
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but in the end, you really do truly meet the most amazing people and it changes.
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It just changes your heart.
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And it's like, I am doing this for a reason because I love it.
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I want to help change the community, bring the community back together again.
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Yes. And how can listeners in the community support the 2D show and its mission
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to help, you know, So just continue doing what you're doing.
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Well, keep following me. Follow the Tony show on my Facebook is my main page right now.
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I'm at 816 followers, which is a pretty good, decent following for being almost three years in.
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But just keep following I I'm the only person that really runs my page So if
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you comment and I will respond to you as soon as I can,
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I mean, there's I don't have a solid team that actually you'll be if you comment
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or message me You're talking directly to me so,
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That's one way or if I go live or if I do live videos at a show send stars that's
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also good support because then i will get some income coming in that way,
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i also try to look for sponsorships i
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would like to get sponsorships to help me support
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the show but my thing of that idea is i would like to advertise and help promote
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them to get the sponsorship like i would like to support their company and in
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return they can sponsor the tootie show so if you want to help support the 30
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show you want you have a business or you have a company,
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come contact me and get involved and then you can help sponsor me and i can help advertise for you,
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wonderful wonderful it's like i scratch your back if you scratch mine you know
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like exactly we need people to learn how to bargain again instead of like.
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You know same thing with the bars and the pubs and The venues I mean everyone.
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I mean everyone needs to make money.
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We all know this But we also have to understand that we're living in a world
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that a lot of people don't have a lot of money and we're all struggling so if a bar or a venue or,
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A pub has space to do live shows I
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can bring business for them bring people in they're
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buying the liquor and the drinks and the food but they
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need to work with me and let me use their space i can't afford
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thousands of dollars to rent out the space right
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and that's one thing we're running into so i
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mean it's hard we all people have to realize that we're all in this together
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but we can all help each other if we just learn how to work with each other
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exactly you you can't explain it better than that because Because we have to
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work together to help everybody here.
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So you have a TikTok page. You have a SoundCloud page.
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You're on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Mixcloud.
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Is there any other places that people can come and find you?
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I do have a Twitch, but I don't use it because Twitch is more for gaming.
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Right. I don't do gaming, and I don't know. Twitch won't let me allow to upload
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all my videos and all that stuff.
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So I don't really use Twitch, but everything else I use I Facebook like I said
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is my main page I do use Instagram,
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YouTube I have I do I upload my interviews and stuff on YouTube There might
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be a couple interviews that are not on my YouTube that are on my Facebook because
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I ran out of space on my phone,
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Okay, again, I'm just I don't have all the proper equipment.
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I'm just starting out right but I,
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But, yeah, I do what I can. But, yeah, I'm on all the social media.
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You can find me, contact me.
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Like I said, just message me and link up with me. I'm really ready to meet all
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the people out there. Yes, definitely.
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Well, Tootie, is there anything else you'd like to cover before I sign off with you?
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I am going to be promoting for a bigger artist in May that I'm going to be promoting
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for the whole state of Wisconsin. And the whole point of these smaller shows
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00:28:30,044 --> 00:28:34,844
that I'm doing is I'm looking for opening artists to open up for this other mystery artist.
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So the first show is actually February 24th.
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It's in Reedsburg, Wisconsin at car banders with SAS and it starts at 6 PM and
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00:28:47,444 --> 00:28:53,484
the tickets were $15, but we did drop them down to $5. Oh, nice. So tickets are $5 now.
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Come and support. We also have a donation bucket on our table to help donate
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00:28:59,424 --> 00:29:05,824
for the Tony show if you would like to donate so I can get some funds to keep help because I,
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Have three other shows that I'm doing for the Battle of the Bars So the next
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one is going to be March 23rd and the next one is April 26th,
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Excellent and is all that information on your Facebook page Yes,
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00:29:22,444 --> 00:29:27,444
all the information is on my Facebook page and on my Instagram page.
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I have a bunch of reels that I was making to spread the word.
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Also, if you buy a ticket for this first show on the February 24th,
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00:29:36,944 --> 00:29:42,844
if you buy a ticket, you can get free beer if you're 21 and up until supplies last.
423
00:29:43,104 --> 00:29:47,704
We have a keg, so whoever buys a ticket can get free beer until the keg is gone.
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00:29:48,584 --> 00:29:50,324
Awesome. And for those that are.
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Interested in what beer it is do you know what beer you're
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00:29:54,192 --> 00:29:56,932
going to be having in that keg i think it's bud light
427
00:29:56,932 --> 00:30:00,012
okay so i do believe we picked
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bud light perfect perfect all right also if
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other music artists are listening in i for
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the the next round for march i'm looking
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for more artists to jump on the line because i'm
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looking for other people that are interested in getting their craft
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out there and whoever wants this big
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opportunity to open up for a big independent music artist
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00:30:22,632 --> 00:30:25,572
no the artists were not going to say his name yet because he
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00:30:25,572 --> 00:30:29,372
is a mystery that's the whole point of having doing something fun
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00:30:29,372 --> 00:30:32,952
right so excellent all
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00:30:32,952 --> 00:30:35,912
right so we have been here talking
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00:30:35,912 --> 00:30:39,912
with tootie about her show on her unfortunate cancer i
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00:30:39,912 --> 00:30:43,752
think if it was caught early enough that i think you should be at a good high
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00:30:43,752 --> 00:30:47,532
percentage of survival so that's a great thing we want to make sure that you're
442
00:30:47,532 --> 00:30:51,112
sticking around so people go out there and help the tootie show as much as you
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00:30:51,112 --> 00:30:56,432
can so she can help support the Wisconsin scene and music and all the things she is doing.
444
00:30:56,752 --> 00:30:59,612
Tutti, thank you so much for being on the Wisconsin Podcast Show.
445
00:30:59,672 --> 00:31:03,072
It was great hearing your story, you know, and all the great things you were
446
00:31:03,072 --> 00:31:04,932
doing. I can definitely tell you're a real person.
447
00:31:05,052 --> 00:31:09,012
You're not being some fake person out there on the social media as you,
448
00:31:09,052 --> 00:31:12,692
you know, you're there, you're helping support, everything's coming from the heart.
449
00:31:12,832 --> 00:31:16,532
And people like you, we need more of people like you. So thank you so much for
450
00:31:16,532 --> 00:31:19,292
being on the show. Yeah, thank you for having me.
451
00:31:19,312 --> 00:31:24,492
And I also want to just to add in, I want to thank a lot of people so far that
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00:31:24,492 --> 00:31:26,032
have helped me through this journey.
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00:31:26,372 --> 00:31:31,792
And all the music artists and my close homies, my friends.
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00:31:31,992 --> 00:31:37,092
I want to thank DJ J Vicious. He's also my, he's like a brother to me.
455
00:31:37,172 --> 00:31:38,812
He's been so helpful through everything.
456
00:31:39,112 --> 00:31:41,432
He's helping me do my shows with me.
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00:31:42,172 --> 00:31:45,452
DJ Woodworth is another great close friend that is helping me.
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He will be at the show on February 24th.
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00:31:49,284 --> 00:31:55,724
I want to thank Mr. Corey as well. He is the main drummer in Fist Piston and the band.
460
00:31:56,244 --> 00:32:00,224
And I want to thank Overtime, of course. He's my favorite music artist.
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00:32:01,024 --> 00:32:05,984
And all these, so much. There's so many. There's so many. But all of them,
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00:32:05,984 --> 00:32:08,124
this wouldn't have happened without them.
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00:32:08,244 --> 00:32:12,964
So I want to thank them all for being a big part of this and being a big part
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of my life and this journey.
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And thank you for having me on your Wisconsin music podcast.
466
00:32:18,824 --> 00:32:21,544
I really do appreciate that. And thank you for being here.
467
00:32:26,744 --> 00:32:30,284
Well, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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00:32:30,764 --> 00:32:34,384
Once again, I'm Zach Fell, your host and creator of the Wisconsin Music Podcast,
469
00:32:34,564 --> 00:32:39,204
where I love to amplify the great sounds coming out of the Wisconsin state.
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00:32:39,264 --> 00:32:42,704
We have great talent here, great support, great listeners.
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00:32:43,124 --> 00:32:48,624
Thanks to Fox City's Indie Radio for syndicating this on Wednesdays and Sundays.
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00:32:48,824 --> 00:32:52,944
Along with their other great programmers. So make sure you check out the Fox City's Indie Radio.
473
00:32:53,284 --> 00:32:58,064
And also thank you to our great guest today, Tootie from The Tootie Show.
474
00:32:58,144 --> 00:32:59,404
Please go and help her out.
475
00:32:59,824 --> 00:33:04,564
If you'd like to be on the show, just go up to wisconsinmusicpodcast.com,
476
00:33:04,624 --> 00:33:09,484
fill out the guest request form up at the top, ask for your email and your name,
477
00:33:09,584 --> 00:33:13,344
and then I'll send you an auto email asking you for more information.
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00:33:13,704 --> 00:33:17,784
If you are enjoying these episodes, please consider donating to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
479
00:33:17,784 --> 00:33:20,544
Donations help pay for the website and putting
480
00:33:20,544 --> 00:33:23,584
the podcast up on streaming services and also
481
00:33:23,584 --> 00:33:27,404
getting our name out there to all scots nights and others that are interested
482
00:33:27,404 --> 00:33:32,044
in our great music here in Wisconsin donations are secured through PayPal and
483
00:33:32,044 --> 00:33:37,784
stripe all you have to do is go to the website and click on donate to WMP and
484
00:33:37,784 --> 00:33:41,504
also make sure you like and subscribe us on all social media and.
485
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:49,578
Music.
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
Tuesday Feb 20, 2024
WISCONSIN MUSIC PODCAST
AMPLIFYING WISCONSIN MUSIC
EPISODE 135
Josh Escher of the Rising Phoenix band
WMP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WI_Music_Podcast
Welcome to another inspiring episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast. We dive deep into a heartfelt conversation with Josh Escher, a renowned bass player recognized for his incredible talent and versatility. As a member of the 80s party rock cover band Rising Phoenix, Josh captivates our listeners with his fascinating journey, from his humble beginnings to his triumphs as a seasoned musician.
Josh not only recounts his experiences of playing with various bands over the years but also shares critical life lessons and his captivating perspective as a rhythm guy. He highlights the thrill of playing in a band, the importance of synchronization with the drummer, and reflects on the evolution of the local music scene. He emphasizes the significance of camaraderie and collaboration within the music community and the importance of resilience in the fast-paced world of music.
Join us as Josh details the path of Rising Phoenix, from its inception to its current substantial 10-year run, playing music from legendary bands such as Poison, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, among others. Their unique blend of '80s hair metal and '70s and '90s pyro pop rock has made waves across Wisconsin, captivating audiences in different parts of the state.
Josh also delves into the challenges faced by bands in finding gigs, appeasing audiences, and finding the right band members. He shares the importance of appealing to the audience and band's ethos and discusses the role of recordings and social media promotions in spreading a band's name and music.
Lastly, he fondly recollects his early recording experience with Justin Perkins and encourages listeners to be a part of a Rising Phoenix show. Join us in celebrating the magnificent sounds from Wisconsin as Josh Escher unravels his musical journey.
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Music.
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Welcome to the Wisconsin Music Podcast. This week, we have Josh Escher.
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Did I say that correctly?
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That is correct. All right. So we have Josh Escher. He's a bass player,
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and he is the bass player for an 80s party rock cover band called Rising Phoenix.
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He's from Ableton, but the band is based in central Wisconsin.
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He's going to talk about how he got into music and things of that nature.
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So, Josh, welcome to the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
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Thank you, Zach. so give the listeners an idea of
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how you got into music and how it's
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kind of grown in your life and how it's gotten you to where you
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are today yeah so I kind
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of got started I think a little bit late you know a lot
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of guys that do what I do what we
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do I you're a musician as well I think
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a lot of folks are like you know oh when I was 10 or
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whatever somebody bought me my acoustic guitar
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and i got started or whatever and i was
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kind of i was kind of that kid i grew up in a small town and
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and there wasn't a lot of people doing music around me really
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and and so it was kind of one of those things where i was
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sort of a late bloomer i think i was maybe 17 when
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i when i really kind of sat down and
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went you know what i think i want to play guitar you know
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saved up some bucks went and went and bought myself a little student much model
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electric guitar and and just kind of got started you know and that's we're talking
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1997 98 so it's like no youtube no you know the the.
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What were the the tab centrals and all those there whatever the heck those sites
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were that right you'd get porn charts and tabs off of but you know just kind of flying blind,
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back in those days but really you know just kind of allowed it to be in a van
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like it was That was not always the thing.
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I picked guitar. I didn't have room for drums. I'm not coordinated enough for drums, really.
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I just wanted to be in a band. I was a kid who was listening to a lot of Metallica.
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I think a lot of guys my age were listening to Master of Puppets.
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I'm just going, holy cow.
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That would be cool to do. And, you know, just starting to go see concerts and
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like looking at folks on stage and just being like, man, I just really love
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to do that. That would be awesome.
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And then so taking that, you said you started with guitar, but when I did the
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intro, it said you're playing bass. So how did you switch from guitar to bass?
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Yeah. So, you know, trying to get a band started in high school wasn't happening.
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I just started playing guitar anyways.
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And I said, small town, there wasn't anybody around.
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Got into college, got a band put together, group of guys that just lived on the dorm floor with me.
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You know, had a really good time. Ironically, the bass player in that band was
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a guitar player that switched over.
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He was a much better guitar player than me, by the way. Okay.
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But, so I played in that band for about two years and just, you know,
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kind of had, we weren't great. The band was called Severus.
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It was a lot of fun. I loved those guys, the cool dudes.
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I just ran into one of those guys not all that long ago. You know,
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we're talking, you know, over 20 years ago now,
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but you know, everybody kind of finished up school and, and I was still going
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to shows and, and still had a lot of those contacts that I had through book and stuff and whatnot.
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And just happened to have a group of guys that I was pretty good friends with
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reach out to me and say, Hey, we're, we're thinking of replacing our bass player.
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Do you think you could play bass?
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I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't see why not.
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Like I was going to see him all the time. I knew the songs pretty much.
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I mean, I, you know, as well as I needed to. Okay.
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And, and so I went and traded a bunch of stuff in and got a,
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got a bass guitar and got a rig and joined this band called Hail Grey Sky that I ended up playing.
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And for gosh, probably nine or 10 years.
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And it, it was really just kind of a, like I was playing guitar riffs on bass.
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You know, I really, I look back on that time and I'm like, I was playing bass,
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but I wasn't really a bass player, quote unquote, at that point in time.
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But I picked up the bass and it just kind of, it sort of stuck for me.
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What made you realize that those lines that you were playing on bass really
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weren't bass lines, they were more guitar?
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I mean, I know you were coming from a guitar player perspective,
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but that had to be some kind of influence into what you now do on the bass.
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So it's funny because like we're talking
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about like probably about 2005 you know a
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long time ago connects up to what i'm doing right now
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around that time there was a
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guy his name's eric gunderson real talented drummer i think he was playing in
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punk band out of oshkosh called rip winkler at the time had reached out to me
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and he was like hey i want to start a motley crew tribute band and i was like
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i never thought about playing in a cover band much less a tribute To be honest,
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at that point in time, I was kind of that like, you know, all screw cover band,
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you know, all against that whole. I was that guy, you know. OK.
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You know, all for a piss and vinegar at 22, 23 years old, you know.
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And but I was like, he was like, yeah, we're in dress up and,
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you know, just be ridiculous.
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It'll probably be a good time. We can make a little bit of money.
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And I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? I got time.
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And so joining that band, I had to sit down and learn like three hours of one
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specific bass player's music.
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And it's funny because, you know, right now there's a lot of stuff with Nikki
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Sixx and like whether or not he's actually playing on stage and whether or not
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he actually recorded some of those parts.
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Parts but they were they were
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bass parts they were bass lines where for a
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long time i was doing was basically just playing the
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parts lower really okay
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okay in pale gray sky which i was having a
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blast doing and and don't get me wrong i those are some
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of the best years of my life playing that band but like i
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just i started doing this motley crew tribute i
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was called sleaze patrol and it was
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just like oh this is this is
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what a bass player does like you you
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you you're the rhythm section you rock in
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with the drummer you you hold down the low end you you
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know you fill in that space that's your job right and
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it was that point where i really said and i
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just went like oh this is cool like
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i was always you know i
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i said before you know i was i was a metallica kid i was james hetfield guy
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i wasn't the kirk hammett guy i was the james hetfield guy i always wanted to
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be the rhythm guy and you know becoming just a bass player is is is that i i was the rhythm guy And I,
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and I get to, I get to fill in that space and it just always,
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it felt right for me. And I haven't looked back since.
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Nice. Nice. So now that you're more, you're definitely more tuned into being
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a bass player, not a guitar player playing bass. You're actually a bass player.
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Do you find that locking in with like the kick drum and what the drummer is
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doing is highly important?
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Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's obviously all the time,
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you know, there are there are certain certain songs I feel like where it maybe
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becomes less important.
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But, you know, it's one of those things like nothing feels better than when
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when you're just tight with that drummer.
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It's I've been really lucky in every band I've ever played in.
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That i've just had these drummers that are just super super
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tight and in the pocket makes my job
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super easy but i yeah they're they're
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really i don't i don't think there's a better feeling as a bass player
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like then then getting in
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that pocket and just like just sitting in there and just
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feeling that yeah it's it's like you
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said it's that pocket and if it's got that pocket
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everything on top of that just flows so
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much better oh absolutely yeah now
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so you've been playing out live a lot i
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mean over the over these years so what have you kind of noticed
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from the local scene that is some
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positives that you've you've encountered you know it's
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funny because it thinks i i say all
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the time that i feel like things changed a lot in the
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in all the years that i've been doing it and but then
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i say that and sometimes i'm like like have they though or are you just getting
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old and you just like not you know like not locked into things like i i was
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i was so immersed in that in that like in that original band world for a really long time.
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And and now i'm in the cover band scene and it's
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like like do i not know what's going
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on in the in that world over there anymore or
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is there not anything i don't know
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what i feel like i see is i just
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feel like there's so many good musicians i i think that's that's probably the
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thing i noticed the most and it's like especially the young musicians like it
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it's it's crazy like there there are some bands running around around here that
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are half my age i'm i'm 41 so when i I say half my age, you know,
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we're talking about is that are just barely able to go into bars without their parents. Yeah.
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And like, I wish I was as good as some of these kids are, you know,
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I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've seen.
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And I imagine that that's, like I said, way at the beginning,
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having those access to those tools, like having YouTube and like all these online
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courses and things like that.
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And then I think I really personally feel like I see a lot of the bands around
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the area going a little more out of their way to kind of give those kids a little
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bit of a leg up these days.
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Then you know when when i was starting out man it just it felt like everything was competition,
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right it felt like you were fighting for your life to get gigs and and you know
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there was a small handful of people that were going to help you out everybody
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else was just gonna you know,
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push you down on their way by because they were
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afraid you were going to take your spot and right and i
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i just don't feel like it's that way anymore at least
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not nearly to the to the the extent that i felt like it
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was in 2002 yeah right
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right it's it's people aren't afraid to like
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you said give a leg up to upcoming musicians they
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actually want to encourage them instead of diminishing their their you know
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their dreams or whatever they you want to call it of being you know playing
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in the live music scene in an area yeah now thinking on the other side of the
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the coin what are some of the struggles you've kind of seen over the last so many years i think.
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Need to help bring the live scene a better reputation i i think the the thing
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that i noticed and and like i was saying maybe maybe i'm just i was out of the loop but like.
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When I was doing the original thing, it felt like a lot more places for us to play.
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And I feel like that's something that a lot of original, like full band,
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there's lots of places for solo acoustic folks or little duos.
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There's a lot of places that want those folks to play.
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But full bands, all ages venues, those types of things.
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I'm from the Fox Valley. So when I speak, I'm speaking of, you know,
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Appleton, Green Bay, Oshkosh, that sort of area.
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Right. I'm not super tuned into what's going on in Milwaukee or Madison.
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But there always felt like there were places for us to exist as bands that wanted
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us in their places and really, really wanted to support what we were doing.
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You know, and I'm coming from a place where that Hailgrace guy,
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the band that I was in for all those years. I mean, we were a heavy band.
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I mean, we were doing at the gates, like melodic death metal,
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nowadays you'd call it metalcore.
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We were doing that sort of thing. And, you know, your average bar is not usually
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going to want us to come in and assault their patrons with what we were bringing, you know.
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But there were a lot of places around that were open-minded to having shows with bands like us.
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There was a pretty solid group of bands around us that we played with often.
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I just don't know if that.
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Exists as much i know the the few people that
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i kind of still keep up with these days it seems like they
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play someplace and then they never played that place again okay
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and so i don't know like i said i maybe i'm
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completely tuned out and i have i'm just old guy now
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but you know it always felt
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like there were there there was small ages places
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for us to play there were some bars that like to have shows
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like that every weekend you know i
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those things are really important to original music scene
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i feel like yeah and it makes it makes
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it tough like yeah if i was if i were to start
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an original band tomorrow i didn't know where
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i would book a show yeah it's it seems like wisconsin
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for better or for worse seems to cater more
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to and there's nothing wrong with them but catering more
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to the cover or tribute type bands yeah
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because that's that's going to draw on a crowd for most you
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know places that are going to be serving alcohol or whatnot
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you know that's an easier sell than
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we have this original band and i know you guys maybe never
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heard of them but come to our establishment anyways and that's a harder sell
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unfortunately yeah yeah it's funny because in 2005 we complained about the cover
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bands all the time taking all the places but we had lots of places to play so
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right you know maybe maybe we didn't know how good we had it maybe you You never know.
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It's sometimes hard to look back and, you know, is it hindsight or is it just
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a different type of world now?
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You know, who knows? Yeah.
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Now, let's talk a little bit about Rising Phoenix. Kind of give the listeners a lowdown on that group.
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You know, what kind of music you guys are playing? Who are you covering?
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Where they can see you a lot? You know, things of that nature.
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Yeah, for sure. So it's funny because I, you know, I brought up the,
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I brought up the Motley Crue tribute earlier and I said that kind of ties into what I'm doing now.
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So I'll be, you know, probably by the time you put this out,
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I'll have, I'll have three years in rising Phoenix. Now I joined the band.
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Of all times in 2020 which is what a great time to join right right right october
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october of that year just this thing you know we were starting to play things
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again but the band's been around for over 10 years now like uh you said in the
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intro a lot of the band is from central wisconsin.
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Marshfield wisconsin rapids wisconsin rapids is kind of like our unofficial
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home okay that's sort where they got their start.
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But one of the newest different singers in Sleaze Patrol his name is Matt and
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he is the singer in Rising Phoenix has been pretty much almost since their beginning.
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So he and I had stayed in touch throughout the years. There was a few years
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there where I wasn't playing in bands.
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I was coaching roller derby of all things.
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So I'd kind of gotten away from playing music and
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I was wanting to get back to doing it i was playing
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in another band called moonlight
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bandits it's just the bandits now and matt had reached out to me and just said
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hey we're we're looking to replace our bass player i'd really like to get you
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in here you know start learning the set before i even knew i was going to have
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an audition start learning the set so jumped into that so rising in Phoenix.
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Like you said earlier, I kind of coined this. We're 80s party rock.
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You can kind of wrap your head around what that is.
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We play a lot of Poison, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses,
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Stedrell, Whitesnake, Van Halen.
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I don't know. The list of bands that I type out in posts on social media is long.
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But you get the idea. We're kind of, we're doing that sort of 80s quote unquote.
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Quote a lot of it's the hair meta stuff that pyro
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pop rock type things a little bit of
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70s we do some kits from the 70s a
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little bit of 90s we we do some like allison chains
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and stuff like that but the vast majority of it is that 80s rock
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stuff gotcha and we as far
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as like where we're playing is that we're we're mostly based out of central
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wisconsin so we do a lot of stuff kind of up that sort of wisconsin rapids stevens
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point wasa like pipe line up that way gotcha that that's sort of their bread
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and butter we've been really working working on trying to get ourselves.
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Into the fox valley a little bit more here and there you know we've got we've
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had a few more appleton oshkosh shows some green bay stuff that we have coming
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up as well every once in a while We'll get down to North Forest, Madison.
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But, you know, just kind of working on playing a lot of those things,
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really working on trying to expand out to planned fairs and planned,
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you know, big events. Gotcha. And now for listeners out there that are in bands
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like yours, what are some advice you would give them for not only just finding
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gigs, but keeping bands together, you know, and just meshing well together?
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Yeah. Um, you know, as there's many gigs, yeah, it's hard to,
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you know, put your best foot forward.
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You know, I, my, I have been, I have been sort of in charge of our social media for a while now.
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And the, the, the thing that i always say is like i try to make our band look like people.
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Nobody cares if you can absolutely nail
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that guitar solo or that drum fill well i
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shouldn't say nobody musicians here yeah you know
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the average person they want to come out and see a band and
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have a good time so you know focusing on being
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fun you know putting it out out there that that what
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you do is going to is going to sell
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beer it's going to keep people in
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in the establishments those are
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the things that matter when it comes to booking so you know
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really really kind of focusing on those things you know
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and as far as as far as
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keeping the band together you know it's just it just comes down to like you
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know find people that that you can put up with outside
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of playing i think is always the most important thing um you know it it it if
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you can't if you can't hang out with people you probably aren't going to want
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to play with them right this time yeah you know but i would say like i did a
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whole when i when i got out of the.
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I spent a bunch of time looking for a band to play in.
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And I really tried to focus on... They were trying me out because they needed a bass player.
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But I always said, I'm auditioning them too. True.
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I want to get the vibe of the people. I want to make sure that playing your eyes, that things fit.
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There were definitely a couple of situations where I was like, it's just not right.
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And you walk away from it. And I think that sometimes folks are just like,
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you find, like, we need a guitar player, and then a guitar player shows up,
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and you're like, all right, we got a guitar player.
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And sometimes you got to be patient. You got to be willing to say,
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hey, you know what, that wasn't the right one. Let's keep looking.
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It might mean that it's going to take you an extra month or two before you start
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gigging. But in the round run, it's better to find those right people first
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than, you know, make those changes down the line.
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Right. Once the once the once the truck is going down the highway,
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you know. Right. Exactly.
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Because, yeah, I mean, sometimes it takes maybe a couple of times playing with
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somebody to warm up to them.
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And sometimes it just happens right away. way but it's hard to
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do that sometimes because say you get
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somebody in the band and you're thinking well maybe in a little bit of time this
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person will start gelling with us but sometimes it
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just never does and then it gets harder and harder to say
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sorry this is not going to work out and you know it
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gets complicated yeah for sure you know it's a i was having a conversation just
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like this with a buddy in a different band who is looking for someone right
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now and and he's like you would You would be amazed at how many people show up and you tell them,
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we're going to do covers and we do this, and this is where we're going to play and whatever.
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Then three months down the line, they're like, hey, how about we write a song?
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It's like that fair time, they were just hoping that if they got themselves in that band.
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The band would just sort of bend to what they wanted, you know, down the line.
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And it's, you just, you, you got to go into it knowing that what they say is, is, is what they mean.
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Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, if you have alternative,
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alternative, alternative options or alternative motives, then you need to say that out front arise.
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Like you said, down the line, it's just not a good thing. Yeah, for sure.
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Yeah now for you know sometimes
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i ask people like do they do recordings and
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and you guys do covers so do you like record
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yourself like practicing and listening back or do you do anything with recording
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at all with the group so not really i prior to me being in the band they definitely
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did stuff in order to get and the material together things like that we we definitely you know Now,
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we get a lot of video, but most of that is more for content,
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you know, getting those Instagram reels and, you know, videos put up on on Facebook
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and wherever else, those types of things.
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To be honest with you, I couldn't even tell you the last time I said put in a recording studio.
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It's funny. I was just yesterday listening to your episode with Justin Perkins
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and thinking about like, holy man, that guy recorded my first band. Like, wow.
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Yeah, it's that was that was like a small back.
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But once again, we're talking 20 years ago. yeah
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but you know it's it's one of those things where
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so our our current promo
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video as far as recording stuff that's
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probably like the most recorded thing that we have yeah
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and that was something we did off of you know the
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the videographer took sound direct off
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the board so that he would have some good quality audio
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to to mix up for our video gotcha which
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going back back to what you asked what you asked about as far as booking and
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stuff like i can't recommend more having a really good quality video that what
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we have now is is amazing i i think it it it makes us look so cool.
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It probably makes us look cooler than we are
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but yeah anybody um well you
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just told everybody right now yeah yeah well now
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00:24:28,782 --> 00:24:33,462
it is what it is right right right but you
360
00:24:33,462 --> 00:24:36,462
know i i have not done the recording
361
00:24:36,462 --> 00:24:39,282
thing in a long time it was definitely one of those things
362
00:24:39,282 --> 00:24:43,862
that i'm sure a lot of musicians say you know yeah that love hate relationship
363
00:24:43,862 --> 00:24:51,062
with that process yeah it's so cool to get the finished product the man what
364
00:24:51,062 --> 00:24:56,702
a pain it's it's a it's a if you want it done right it's It is definitely a
365
00:24:56,702 --> 00:24:58,862
process, and it's not a short road, for sure.
366
00:24:59,202 --> 00:25:03,622
No. No. Tuning. Just tuning. Right. Yes.
367
00:25:04,282 --> 00:25:11,242
Tune after every take. Otherwise, I mean, depending on what strings you're using
368
00:25:11,242 --> 00:25:12,642
and things like that nature,
369
00:25:12,742 --> 00:25:16,842
but yeah, you got to make sure you got to micromanage everything from beginning
370
00:25:16,842 --> 00:25:19,962
to end sometimes, just because you play a song,
371
00:25:20,082 --> 00:25:22,582
and then three songs later, you're out of tune.
372
00:25:22,582 --> 00:25:26,582
And you didn't even know it and just you got to go back and redo stuff all right it's just,
373
00:25:27,302 --> 00:25:32,402
exactly it's not like a live gig where that's not recorded and you just go listen
374
00:25:32,402 --> 00:25:35,642
to them and it's there and it's gone you got to record it you can go back and
375
00:25:35,642 --> 00:25:38,402
listen to as many times as you want to and you start hearing things that you
376
00:25:38,402 --> 00:25:44,602
didn't hear before so going on from there we talked about the local scene and
377
00:25:44,602 --> 00:25:46,422
we're getting close to the end here um.
378
00:25:47,744 --> 00:25:54,244
Work-life balance. Do you have, is it challenging for you to do the band and
379
00:25:54,244 --> 00:25:57,744
have the other part of your life? Or is it a pretty good balance for you?
380
00:25:58,444 --> 00:26:02,444
You know, I would say that sometimes it's hard.
381
00:26:03,224 --> 00:26:08,184
We, as a band, we definitely keep some weekends open every month.
382
00:26:08,484 --> 00:26:13,124
A couple of the guys have young kids. So, you know, we try to make sure that
383
00:26:13,124 --> 00:26:15,744
there is some space for family time.
384
00:26:15,824 --> 00:26:19,544
We're not playing every single weekend. I know at one point in time before I
385
00:26:19,544 --> 00:26:24,224
joined Rising Phoenix, I believe there was a year, 2017, 2018,
386
00:26:24,424 --> 00:26:28,984
something like that, where they played every single weekend the entire year.
387
00:26:29,364 --> 00:26:34,464
You know, sometimes Friday and Saturday, but definitely every single weekend for the entire year.
388
00:26:35,744 --> 00:26:39,544
We don't do that now. Yeah. And that's okay.
389
00:26:39,684 --> 00:26:45,604
You know, my wife is about as supportive as anybody could ever be.
390
00:26:45,604 --> 00:26:48,404
You know she comes to a lot of gigs
391
00:26:48,404 --> 00:26:52,324
she actually takes a lot of video for me and
392
00:26:52,324 --> 00:26:56,944
so we definitely get that we get that time but it's it's
393
00:26:56,944 --> 00:26:59,984
obviously it's still really important that we get get our time outside
394
00:26:59,984 --> 00:27:05,824
of that and we as a band because we're so spread out we don't we don't really
395
00:27:05,824 --> 00:27:11,184
practice all that often okay i think in the three years that i've been in the
396
00:27:11,184 --> 00:27:16,004
band i think we've We've gotten together as a group in a room and practiced
397
00:27:16,004 --> 00:27:18,904
maybe six or seven times.
398
00:27:19,264 --> 00:27:23,864
Interesting. And probably three of those were when I was joining and we were
399
00:27:23,864 --> 00:27:27,884
just kind of running through, you know, beginnings and endings so that I knew
400
00:27:27,884 --> 00:27:29,364
how they how they did that stuff.
401
00:27:29,624 --> 00:27:34,064
Gotcha. Otherwise, it's kind of when things get slow in the fall or the winter
402
00:27:34,064 --> 00:27:37,184
and we decide like, oh, hey, let's let's add a couple of songs.
403
00:27:37,584 --> 00:27:41,084
We'll find a lot of time to get together and just sort of run through things.
404
00:27:41,084 --> 00:27:43,124
But otherwise, you know, we're playing enough that.
405
00:27:43,874 --> 00:27:49,934
After all the years that the guys have been together, we can play pretty well
406
00:27:49,934 --> 00:27:52,094
together without having to get together.
407
00:27:52,774 --> 00:27:57,914
Our practice space is like two hours from me, so that would make it challenging.
408
00:27:58,094 --> 00:28:02,274
So not having that practice component definitely makes it a little easier to
409
00:28:02,274 --> 00:28:03,814
sort of balance things out.
410
00:28:04,134 --> 00:28:09,734
Good. Gotcha. Cool. The last thing I ask is gigs that made an impression on you.
411
00:28:09,734 --> 00:28:14,714
You so as a performer is there a gig that made a great impression on you and
412
00:28:14,714 --> 00:28:18,654
also as an audience member is there a gig or performance that you saw that made
413
00:28:18,654 --> 00:28:21,374
a big impression on you oh man.
414
00:28:23,174 --> 00:28:26,414
So i let me let me start first with
415
00:28:26,414 --> 00:28:29,454
the with the as an audience member uh because okay
416
00:28:29,454 --> 00:28:32,254
you know it's funny because it just came up in my
417
00:28:32,254 --> 00:28:35,674
in like my facebook memories okay a number
418
00:28:35,674 --> 00:28:38,674
of years back my wife bought us tickets
419
00:28:38,674 --> 00:28:41,814
to go see guard brooks okay now it's funny because like
420
00:28:41,814 --> 00:28:45,234
with all the music that i've been talking about you cannot
421
00:28:45,234 --> 00:28:47,854
you can obviously assume the kind of stuff that i
422
00:28:47,854 --> 00:28:50,694
generally listen to and i could sit here and
423
00:28:50,694 --> 00:28:53,394
be like oh i saw metallica in 2000 and that was
424
00:28:53,394 --> 00:28:56,254
amazing or like i saw pantera this time
425
00:28:56,254 --> 00:29:00,154
or that time and all those things were great but like we went and saw guard
426
00:29:00,154 --> 00:29:03,494
brooks a number of years ago and that was i grew up with guard brooks getting
427
00:29:03,494 --> 00:29:07,514
played in the house i could sing everywhere to every single song okay i'm not
428
00:29:07,514 --> 00:29:13,374
a big country guy i love garth brooks that was the most amazing concert i think
429
00:29:13,374 --> 00:29:15,534
i've ever been at i mean the,
430
00:29:16,094 --> 00:29:18,954
people in the crowd were holding up signs for really
431
00:29:18,954 --> 00:29:24,674
random like east side songs he hasn't performed in 20 years and he would just
432
00:29:24,674 --> 00:29:29,774
play like a verse and a chorus off the top of his head nice nice you know it
433
00:29:29,774 --> 00:29:33,754
just like and then and then throw in like the drummer had like a like a drum
434
00:29:33,754 --> 00:29:36,894
kit in like a gyroscope thing and did a drum solo,
435
00:29:37,114 --> 00:29:40,474
which you wouldn't expect at a country show. No, it's right.
436
00:29:40,714 --> 00:29:45,474
But still amazing. Yeah. It's, it doesn't matter the genre. It's,
437
00:29:45,534 --> 00:29:47,854
it's how well that artists can perform what they perform.
438
00:29:48,514 --> 00:29:51,434
And that was, I mean, so good.
439
00:29:51,554 --> 00:29:55,194
Yeah. So good. Like it just, just nailing everything and just,
440
00:29:55,294 --> 00:30:00,994
I mean, probably all the best musicians that money to buy on that stage too, you know?
441
00:30:00,994 --> 00:30:07,914
Yep. so that that is definitely probably that as far as shows I've played now.
442
00:30:08,634 --> 00:30:11,594
Rising Phoenix has definitely played some really cool things
443
00:30:11,594 --> 00:30:15,154
since I've joined the band the band has been on such an upward trajectory you
444
00:30:15,154 --> 00:30:20,094
know I don't want to take away from that because like we're doing some really
445
00:30:20,094 --> 00:30:24,234
cool things we there's a balloon rally in Wausau we get to play every year that
446
00:30:24,234 --> 00:30:27,954
has thousands of people and like we play while the balloons are lighting up
447
00:30:27,954 --> 00:30:31,094
the balloons with the fire and all those things and,
448
00:30:31,634 --> 00:30:35,614
lots of super cool stuff and we and next summer is even going to be bigger.
449
00:30:37,230 --> 00:30:40,070
In the first handful of years when i was in pale gray sky
450
00:30:40,070 --> 00:30:43,010
there was a period of time
451
00:30:43,010 --> 00:30:45,650
where we were actually getting there's a i don't know
452
00:30:45,650 --> 00:30:48,530
if you're familiar with the fox valley much but there's a there's a
453
00:30:48,530 --> 00:30:53,990
rock radio station called the raisin okay here and they had sort of taken on
454
00:30:53,990 --> 00:31:00,430
the mantle of like supporting local rock bands metal bands the sorts of things
455
00:31:00,430 --> 00:31:06,490
and at one point in time they They had a handful of us open for some like national acts.
456
00:31:07,110 --> 00:31:10,070
And in a lot of cases when they would do those types of things,
457
00:31:10,130 --> 00:31:13,150
usually like, you know, the local bands play and like nobody would be there.
458
00:31:13,290 --> 00:31:14,990
And then people would sort of show up. Yeah.
459
00:31:15,690 --> 00:31:18,470
Closer to the end of the night when the national bands were going to play.
460
00:31:18,890 --> 00:31:22,510
And we played this one show. It was a Riverside ballroom in green day.
461
00:31:22,990 --> 00:31:30,850
I think that's a 2,500 cap. Okay. Venue. I think we were going on first of six bands.
462
00:31:32,010 --> 00:31:35,010
We were worried. we weren't going to get to play for anybody because
463
00:31:35,010 --> 00:31:39,290
they were going to open the doors and it was going to start we looked out the
464
00:31:39,290 --> 00:31:43,850
door out the door by the stage right before we start or right before they were
465
00:31:43,850 --> 00:31:48,670
going to open the doors and the line was like around the parking lot and down
466
00:31:48,670 --> 00:31:54,950
the block wow and they let all of those people get in the building before they made us start.
467
00:31:56,486 --> 00:32:00,026
I have never gotten to play over the top.
468
00:32:00,306 --> 00:32:04,746
I don't know how else to put it, but over the top of like a full on circle pit.
469
00:32:04,986 --> 00:32:08,646
Okay. My life is probably the only time I ever got to do that.
470
00:32:09,286 --> 00:32:15,546
That I think we played a 25 minute set or a 30 minute set. It might as well have been 30 seconds.
471
00:32:15,906 --> 00:32:18,086
It was just like a blur.
472
00:32:18,646 --> 00:32:23,046
I don't remember anything else other than that. It was just a massive humanity
473
00:32:23,046 --> 00:32:25,926
in front of us. Yeah. And I don't know.
474
00:32:26,486 --> 00:32:29,166
I definitely get to
475
00:32:29,166 --> 00:32:32,066
play some awesome shows in
476
00:32:32,066 --> 00:32:35,266
front of killer crowds all the time now but
477
00:32:35,266 --> 00:32:38,666
man that i how do you you just
478
00:32:38,666 --> 00:32:41,386
like i i probably didn't even
479
00:32:41,386 --> 00:32:45,926
play everything right that day it was just you know you you get i'm i'm kind
480
00:32:45,926 --> 00:32:50,886
of that i'm in that bass player that the joke about bass players is it's either
481
00:32:50,886 --> 00:32:55,826
the guy that is doing cartwheels on stage or the guy that's standing at the
482
00:32:55,826 --> 00:33:01,266
back i'm the guy that does cartwheels on stage okay and and i probably.
483
00:33:02,046 --> 00:33:05,066
Spent more time running around on that stage than
484
00:33:05,066 --> 00:33:09,206
actually playing it was it was i'll be
485
00:33:09,206 --> 00:33:13,926
chasing that feeling you know i still play live and i try to be that person
486
00:33:13,926 --> 00:33:20,506
on stage to this day because that feeling was just insane yep and there are
487
00:33:20,506 --> 00:33:25,986
so many musicians out there that have similar stories and know exactly what you're talking about.
488
00:33:26,966 --> 00:33:30,466
I myself, I've been in those kinds of situations too, where it's just like,
489
00:33:30,506 --> 00:33:32,166
this is the greatest feeling ever.
490
00:33:32,706 --> 00:33:36,966
That's for sure. Is there anything else you'd like to say before I let you go for today?
491
00:33:37,626 --> 00:33:41,446
Oh, geez, I don't know. Thanks for having me on. Okay.
492
00:33:42,286 --> 00:33:45,726
Everybody come out and see a Rising Phoenix show if you see us coming around.
493
00:33:46,106 --> 00:33:47,726
Absolutely. Yeah, I don't know.
494
00:33:49,246 --> 00:33:52,426
Like I said, I do listen to the podcast periodically
495
00:33:52,426 --> 00:33:55,406
periodically and it's just it's super cool that
496
00:33:55,406 --> 00:33:58,346
you're you're doing this to kind of put put a highlight on
497
00:33:58,346 --> 00:34:02,026
on some people that i've definitely listened to a few episodes good
498
00:34:02,026 --> 00:34:06,986
i was just like i don't even know who this person is or or really know anything
499
00:34:06,986 --> 00:34:12,046
about what they do but like it's just kind of cool to like hey here's some random
500
00:34:12,046 --> 00:34:16,366
hip-hop guy from right i don't know dodgeville or something like right right
501
00:34:16,366 --> 00:34:20,986
right it's it's really it's really neat to kind of get to hear what's is going on.
502
00:34:21,426 --> 00:34:25,426
Excellent. Well, Josh, thank you so much for being on the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
503
00:34:25,706 --> 00:34:29,646
It's been a pleasure talking and hearing your story and thank you so much for
504
00:34:29,646 --> 00:34:31,266
being on. Thank you, Zach.
505
00:34:36,103 --> 00:34:39,643
Well, thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Wisconsin Music Podcast.
506
00:34:40,103 --> 00:34:43,823
Once again, I'm Zach Fell, your host and creator of the Wisconsin Music Podcast,
507
00:34:43,923 --> 00:34:48,563
where I love to amplify the great sounds coming out of the Wisconsin state.
508
00:34:48,603 --> 00:34:52,043
We have great talent here, great support, great listeners.
509
00:34:52,463 --> 00:34:57,963
Thanks to Fox City's Indie Radio for syndicating this on Wednesdays and Sundays,
510
00:34:58,043 --> 00:34:59,523
along with their other great programs.
511
00:34:59,563 --> 00:35:04,603
So make sure you check out the Fox City's Indie Radio. And thanks to this week's
512
00:35:04,603 --> 00:35:07,983
guest Josh Escher of the band Rising Phoenix,
513
00:35:08,763 --> 00:35:11,763
If you'd like to be on the show Just go
514
00:35:11,763 --> 00:35:14,783
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515
00:35:14,783 --> 00:35:17,803
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516
00:35:17,803 --> 00:35:20,663
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517
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518
00:35:24,503 --> 00:35:28,963
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519
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520
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00:35:37,303 --> 00:35:38,883
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522
00:35:39,423 --> 00:35:43,283
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524
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525
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