The Sonic Alchemy
Welcome to Sonic Alchemy, the ultimate podcast for creatives looking to elevate their craft and gain insider insights into the world of artistry. Hosted by Justin Webster and Kevin Crouch of the band The Silver Echo, this engaging show provides a dynamic platform to showcase artists and delve into the myriad skills and layers that contribute to a successful creative career.
Each episode of Sonic Alchemy offers a blend of captivating interviews and insightful discussions. Our interviews feature a diverse array of artists who share their unique journeys, techniques, and sources of inspiration. These conversations provide listeners with a rare glimpse into the personal and professional experiences that shape creative success.
In addition to interviews, Justin and Kevin host thought-provoking discussions on various topics relevant to creatives. These episodes explore everything from honing specific skills and overcoming creative blocks to navigating the business side of art and staying inspired in a rapidly changing world.
Discover how successful artists overcome challenges and find their voice.
Gain practical advice on developing skills, managing a creative career, and staying motivated.
Connect with a community of passionate creatives who are dedicated to their craft.
Sonic Alchemy is more than a podcast; it's a journey into the heart of creativity. Join Justin and Kevin as they uncover the alchemical process that turns passion into artistry and artistry into success. Whether you're an aspiring artist or an established creator, Sonic Alchemy offers the insights and inspiration you need to thrive.
Tune in and transform your creative potential into gold with Sonic Alchemy!
The Sonic Alchemy
Echoes of Youth: The Songs That Shaped Us
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to fall in love with music for the first time? Join us on this nostalgic journey as we share our earliest and most impactful musical memories, from the sacred hymns of our religious upbringing to the electrifying sounds of our first concerts. We'll reminisce about the 80s hair bands and reflect on how these formative experiences propelled us from avid listeners to aspiring musicians, driven by the deep emotional and spiritual connections we formed with our favorite tunes.
As teenagers, we faced the thrilling yet terrifying transition from church music to the raw, rebellious energy of bands like Korn, Slipknot, and Marilyn Manson. Through late-night sleepovers, church outings, and the influential guidance of older peers, we developed a broader appreciation for hardcore and politically charged music. This chapter of our lives highlights the tension between exploring taboo art forms and the spiritual fears instilled by our strict church backgrounds, painting a vivid picture of our evolving musical tastes.
Music's powerful influence on family bonds can't be overstated. We'll share heartwarming anecdotes of how our mothers' varied musical preferences, from Elvis to bluegrass, shaped our paths. We'll relive the adrenaline rush of our first talent shows and concerts, from Rick Springfield to Avenged Sevenfold, and the pivotal moments that solidified our passion for music. Whether it’s exploring the nostalgic 80s, the thrill of first performances, or the supportive environment created by our loved ones, this episode celebrates the profound impact of music on our lives and relationships.
Learn more about The Silver Echo at thesilverecho.com
all right, good afternoon. Good afternoon, what's?
Speaker 2:up kev. How are you doing today? It's a monday or someday I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a day well, it's a monday when we're shooting this. Who knows when it'll come out. Uh, yeah, I feel pretty good today, yeah. Yeah, routine's been pretty solid lately, so I'm overly caffeinated. That's what I'm missing. I've been productive already, which feels good, and, yeah, excited to sit down and talk about what sounds like a musical first right.
Speaker 2:Well it could be. I mean, it could be your first, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, very open-ended question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, tell me about your first justin we have a couch here you don't want to hear about that, you can lay down. We can talk about your first uh, whatever, yeah, no, I think, um, as we're focusing around our love of music, going back to our first meaning, maybe our first um place where we discovered music, the first time we heard music first, um, when I was driving home last night from work, I was thinking about this like what's the first recollection that I have of listening to music or absorbing music, and I was really trying to pinpoint what was the first thing, or even the first concert that I've gone to, and it the topic was interesting to me because it does sort of paint the tapestry of who I am now as a musician, but also as a person. Maybe things have come in and out of vogue for me with regards to what I liked versus what I maybe don't like now, or taste you know how your taste changed.
Speaker 1:You mean, over the years, your taste have changed. Yeah, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:Traitor. I know I didn't stick to that thing that I love so much. I don't know. There's a few like 80s bands. That's a whole podcast, I'm sure. But 80s hair bands I still have a soft spot for quite a few of them. But do I listen to them on a regular basis these days? Not often, although, in fairness, I was on Hair Nation on the way here in the car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you think you don't listen to them as much as you do. But I kind of do which is okay by the way. Yeah, you don't have to apologize for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Skid Row was on. And I was like oh, my God, I haven't heard 18 in life since I was, since I was probably when that song came out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it sounds like I mean your question is musical first, but the vibe that I'm getting is you're trying to pinpoint. Where did you, at what point did you recognize you had the bug and what were some of the things that got you inspired to I don't know, want to hear more things, or really really spoke to you and you realize that it was more than just a passive activity, like you know, mall music, elevator music, you know, whatever the hell.
Speaker 2:Because people listen to music all the time and they ingest music all the time in different ways and different periods of their life. Listen to music all the time and they ingest music all the time in different ways and different periods of their life. But not everyone listens to music and then goes. I want to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, those are kind of two different things, though I think, if I think about I don't know my first time I'm hearing music and knowing that I love music, that was much earlier than when I realized that I wanted to make music, cause I don't think I realized that those that those two worlds were even a thing. Like you know, uh, your story, I'm sure, is much more interesting than mine, but my earliest memories of music are in church, like easily. Like me and my family went to church every Sunday and typically midweek Most of my life growing up. Very few periods where that wasn't the case, the whole family was very involved across the board.
Speaker 1:My mom loved to sing. She has a very nice voice, although she uh call it shyness or nerves or whatever it was. It was hard for her to get up in front of people, but she would sing with us in the car and stuff, but it was always uh, religious themed stuff, you know, like they were trying to do it right and make sure that we had good influences, so they were pretty strict about what we listened to. So it was Southern gospel. Early on I remember like groups of you know older, older people showing up as like a quartet or something like that, or a family band and doing all of their you know, popular songs and or standards. Right Church standards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that as well. Yeah, totally, totally. I remember that.
Speaker 1:And just like the church band, the first time I feel like I I remember thinking, man, I want to make music was around eight probably, and there was a guy who played. I thought he was way older at the time. In my mind he was pretty old, but looking back now like probably-.
Speaker 2:He's probably 20. Probably like six, yeah.
Speaker 1:Not even I don't think, because yeah, because probably six months into me taking lessons with him maybe less he joined the military, so he must've been like 18 or 19.
Speaker 2:This is pretty familiar, though, for me as well, and now that you're saying this, it's recalling a lot of memories for me about the church, too, like because it was very similar background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean every service has music. Yeah, at least every service I went to. You know we, the churches that I went to, were not modern churches but they also weren't so old school that they were just voices singing hymns and stuff like that. You know there'd be typically at least a piano player. Um, you know, most of the time drums turned way, way, way down, but there were drums. But I remember seeing that guy play in the church band and he was playing an electric guitar. And I don't remember how I started getting them. I don't know if I signed myself up for them at like eight or nine years old, that wouldn't even make sense. But like I kept getting in the mail the catalogs, for I think it was musician's friend, uh, back in the day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you know they'd send it to you for free, cause it was literally just a catalog of everything that they sold. And I remember like looking through there and thinking that the guitars and all the different instruments, they look so exotic and cool. I remember seeing BC rich for the first time in that magazine. Uh, I remember seeing, um, the gym. That's where, like before I ever knew who Steve I was. I knew what the gym was from the catalog. Oh, yeah, and uh, eventually I, you know, I put Steve into, into the picture, but yeah, I saw him playing electric guitar. I didn't know anyone else who did that. It seems so cool seeing him up there. I was like man, I want to do that, and so.
Speaker 1:So church kind of gave you the bug.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely yeah, cause I was experiencing it every week. And you know, say what you will about organized religion, I certainly say a lot of things about it, but the one thing I I I give it a ton of credit for is that the people who had put the music together were earnest and there was a lot of emotion and pride put into having a good music service and usually multiple practices during the week, and so when everyone was there. You know you get this vibe in concerts too if the conditions are right. But everyone mentally is there for a purpose. So people will catch a vibe with the song and it becomes very powerful emotionally. And so I remember that being sort of like a drug to me, you know, getting in that sort of flow and everyone really like sort of unified around a specific theme or whatever. And then you know, of course it was a little bit later I started getting exposed to other emotions, other vibes, other feelings through the music and got addicted to those too. But early on it was totally church for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't argue with that either For me, it is true, I didn't really even think about it until you mentioned it, but that makes a lot of sense. That going to church on Sundays, um, it did evoke, uh, a feeling, a spiritual feeling, the Holy ghost, whatever you know, whatever Right.
Speaker 2:And I'll often remember them being, and I don't again. It's been a long time since I've been in the, in the, uh, the, the holy house, um, but you know, I always I call this, you know the call to action, right, like if you're feeling what's going on, if you felt the sermon. If you're feeling the message that I'm trying to tell you, I want you to raise your hand.
Speaker 2:You know, I want you to come down in front and that was always attached to a song. There was always a song somewhere around there or in that general place, yeah, whether it be a hymn or whether it be someone singing, um, yeah, a song. At that point Now we didn't have a full fledged band, we had a piano player and the pastor's sons were great singers. Um, I think later on we did start to get more of like a drummer and, uh, as people would join the church, I'm like, oh, I play drums, can I play in the church band, right? And so it kind of organically grew into something.
Speaker 1:That's usually how it went. You know, families sort of come and go for whatever reason, and people start growing up, they get interested, like my childhood best friend. So this is around, probably I'm just going to guess 11 years old I joined the church band, probably maybe 12, and I wasn't good enough at all to actually play with the band Right, so they put me up there and this it seems like kind of a dick move, but I guess I get it and it didn't offend me because I knew that I wasn't good enough to play with them anyway, like they would have me up there without my guitar plugged in. So I'm like going through the motions, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm practicing in real time. I'm getting the experience of being on stage in front of people, having to remember what comes next, having my charts up, you know, trying to fit in with the rest of the band, but no one can hear me. So it doesn't matter how bad I mess up, no one's relying on me, you know. And then my, my best friend, jeff, who is just a couple of months older than me, um, childhood best friend that I grew up with in that church as well. He played bass, um. My uncle played keys, um, and then of course we had a couple of different drummers over the years, different singers, um, but I, I was kind of like in this core group with my uncle and my best friend back then where we would, we were sort of learning together. My uncle was teaching us. He'd stay after so that we could work on parts, especially me, because my uncle also played guitar and trumpet and a whole bunch of other stuff. He was a great singer, so it was cool having him around, right. But then, like thinking about that other than just learning church tunes, I remember being completely floored when my uncle one day started playing green sleeves for me on guitar, and I think this might've been before. My memory's fuzzy on this, but I think this was before I ever joined a church band.
Speaker 1:I remember I had been learning what I could of certain songs. I was so bad when I started and I would get frustrated enough that it would make me not get very far during practice. I would avoid practice so I'd end up just like playing whatever I kind of already knew. Um, and he's showing me this and I'm going my God, this is the most beautiful thing maybe I've ever heard. It's still striking to me Like a good rendition of green sleeves is. It's also consequently why my favorite Christmas carol is what child is this Cause? It's the same music.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, he shows me this and then, you know, I try to convince him like, hey, teach me how to play this. And he shows me. And it's so far beyond me that I remember just being frustrated for months and months. I try to get a little part of it down and I just felt like I was getting nowhere. Um, but that kind of stuff was was pretty much where it started for me. And then my parents started getting adventurous and I say adventurous and they bring home other, like Christian artists that were doing other genres, so country music was around. If I was with uh cousins or whatnot riding around and you know, running errands or whatever, they'd have usually a country radio on. Okay, so I got a little bit familiar with some of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was wondering. It's like where did it cross over from sort of only um church music or Christian themed music into a secular? For you Like what do you recall the first secular artist you may have? Heard.
Speaker 1:You know, this is a topic that really had a massive influence on how my musical taste came about, because my family, for better or for worse, was very, very strict around anything secular. Um, part of me doesn't really understand why. Like being older now and knowing my parents, some of it surprises me a bit when I look back. Um, but they were pretty close minded to any sort of outside influence and, you know, I think it probably just came down to them thinking they were doing the right thing. Right, like kids are impressionable. Let's just max protection. We can't regret that.
Speaker 4:You know sure.
Speaker 1:But what that ended up doing for me is one is it kept me in a really narrow box for quite a long time while people my age were starting to develop their own taste in music earlier than me. I'm still sort of in this world of uh, this is what you're allowed to listen to, um, but I would catch glimpses, like you know, sleep over at someone's friend's house or you know some like outside of my immediate family member being in their car and hearing the radio. So I remember hearing, like I said, some Christian or not some Christian, but some country music, um, I don't even remember what specific songs, but it would have been around like early 2000,. Like between probably 98 and, you know, 2002 or something.
Speaker 1:Once I hit 11 or 12 and I I'm gaining a little bit more independence, I remember staying over at a buddy of mine, uh, at his house, and his older brother was in high school, and so that was where I got exposed to the first time to bands like, uh, corn, um, Slipknot, uh, marilyn Manson, uh, bleeding through. I don't know if you know that band, but they're a brutal band Like Meshuggah, sure, yeah, yeah, sure, like in that world, um, and for me at that time actually scary as hell, because I'm going from you know, uh, jesus loves me this.
Speaker 1:I, I Know this little light of mine to, not literally, but to to yeah to those bands that I mentioned. Yeah, not psychosocial at that time. I mean it was you know. Slipknot was terrifying in late 90s.
Speaker 2:That was like first, first record before that.
Speaker 1:Maybe Iowa was out by that time, I don't know, um, yeah, so anyway, uh, I heard that stuff and it both excited me a lot cause it made me go, wow, okay, there's there's kind of like this whole world of other stuff out there. That I think I think a lot of what made it exciting, honestly, just me being the little prick that I am, I think it was just the rebellious side of me. It was like it was like okay, they don't want me to hear this. There's gotta be a reason why.
Speaker 2:And I mean you go. It's not like you just got, it's not like you're listening to weezer, or or you know something more well that how, how harsh, friendly of a contrast it was just made me.
Speaker 1:It really put me on my heels. But it wasn't something that I wanted to actively listen to yet. It just sparked an interest and so I needed to wade in to the waters with other stuff. So I remember that same friend, like going to church with his family after probably crashing over on a Saturday night. Um, there's a, they're playing the radio, but they're listening to like top 40 or whatever. And so I'm hearing bands like three doors down in Creed, which you love to shit on, and I get it. I like to shit on them too, but for me at that point that was a big departure.
Speaker 2:Very singable songs very accessible, arms wide open, not to cut you off, but I mean, if you think about that, that is kind of. It falls into a place that almost feels like a Christian rock band.
Speaker 1:Well, cause they come from that faith-based background. But you know, I think Higher was the song. That was that I remember being big.
Speaker 2:I think like Kings and Leon, same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:Until you hear Sex on Fire. Right, wait a second. You guys grew up in the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're singing, okay, well, yeah, and the best part is that's the title. It's not even the lyric.
Speaker 3:It's not even the lyric Right Right, right, right Right. It sets us on fire, it sets us on fire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So it's one of those situations where it's not a cool story. However, beggars can't be choosers and I was famished to get my hands on anything that was that was outside of what I would normally be able to hear, right Um, so I wouldn't say no to anything If I saw a CD. I was at a friend's house. I was always asking people like what they were listening to, cause I was really interested and it felt scary and cool to get your hands on something that scared you a little bit. You know cause it was. Ooh, I don't know if I'm ready for that. I or I didn't know music could feel like that or be that way, not necessarily that it was super heavy, but that definitely started me in that direction and sent me into hardcore music and bands like Zayo. I had another guy who was a little loosey goosey with his faith at the church.
Speaker 2:Party on Saturday, but he's a really good guy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he's he. He was like, honestly, looking back, one of the more honest people there, I think, because he was interested in what was going on and he knew like hey, I can do a better job of living my life. But he also wasn't so on the Kool-Aid that he couldn't be real about where he had questions or where he was struggling or what he was really into. It wasn't this facade of like oh yeah, I, I definitely listen and do all the right things and I read my Bible every night. He was more like hey, kid, like check, check out this, this band it's just like you know, 11 year old kid or whatever. Um, you know, here's this crazy hardcore band that all they do is scream and they talk about like uh, hardcore band that all they do is scream and they talk about like uh, crazy, messed up, like political and kind of topics.
Speaker 1:Like I remember hearing songs that I had no way to process. Um, like what did they call them? The? Uh? Uh, there was a song that they had called Free the Three and it was about like the beginning of. It is sort of playing clips of like news coverage on it. It was about the West Memphis Three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it was. Oh, that's a great story.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so I'm hearing I have no context to what this is. And so I'm hearing I have no context to what this is. I'm just hearing this band wail about it and freak out and play crazy music and I'm just going, man, it would just give me chills all up and down my body Because just the amount of passion and the amount of anger, and I'm like I don't even know if I, like, am I supposed to agree with this? Like I don't even know what this is about. If I, if I, agree with it, what am I agreeing to? But I really want to because, like you know, the music is so it was intense.
Speaker 2:You know it's calling me yeah wow, there's so much to to unpack on that. I think the relate, the relatability for me, certainly the church. My mom was not as um.
Speaker 2:She liked a lot of music, so like she grew up listening to Elvis right yeah, that was, that was her thing, and there were a lot of, obviously a lot of Nancy Sinatra. I remember Music, just kind of it, became country artists, bluegrass artists from my, from, you know, my grandfather and my grandmother, of course, listening to that music as well. So music was always a part of her life and thus when I came onto the scene it was a part of mine as well. She would always and we were just talking about this this morning and even to this day she can't get in the car and not have the radio on. It's not dead silence, so she's always listening to the radio. Yeah, so my introduction to music was pretty early and it, even though I had the church music on Sunday, the rest of the week, and even on Sundays as well, you know, was full of of music, just secular music in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was so jealous of people like you when I was growing up. I really was, so I'm like man, they get to hear so many things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there were even. There were periods, like when you're talking about, and I'll go back. There were periods, though, even when I was venturing into music. That well I remember buying the Motley Crue album Shout the Devil, and it's got a big pentagram on it.
Speaker 3:And I was like, Ooh, that makes me uncomfortable listening to this.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, it makes you really embracing a different version of myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I felt like such a hypocrite cause. I would go and, and, and and. I was invested in the church for a while, like I was really. I believed in it, I believe and I do in some ways still Faith, right Spirituality. But I was definitely felt like such a hypocrite because I would be, listening to all of this music Right yeah.
Speaker 1:I struggled with that too, because consciously I knew what I was supposed to believe and do, but I was not powerful enough to resist it at all, and so I never knew where that left me. But I'm just like well, I'm compelled, like I. I don't really feel like I have a choice in the matter.
Speaker 2:Right, you had a calling. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That. I regret nothing, nor do I.
Speaker 2:The other piece of that was funny was how judgmental I became as I was getting older and this goes into more of the teenage years for me, but I was. I would see people in there that would listen to different types of music as well, and then they're in there in church and I'm like you, you were just listening to, you know, whatever, something that was super not appropriate to be listening to in the in the way of the church.
Speaker 1:Well, you start to learn for yourself as well as other people is those who do that the most are usually the ones doing it to combat their own convicted feelings about the fact that they're doing the exact same thing. So it makes me feel a little better if I call someone out for it.
Speaker 2:But it was very interesting and this is not on my mom like she did her best, her absolute best, because you know that was it. She raised me and going to the church, getting some of that in in our life was certainly important and the music that came from that was definitely important. But she did not put a and has never, ever put um any kind of limitation on to what I viewed or listened to, and that really allowed me very early on to be open to a lot of music. My grandfather, like your uncle, also could play anything. He yeah anything.
Speaker 2:It did not matter we had. He had a Wurlitzer organ in his house. He had a guitar.
Speaker 2:Every time I go over there he'd be playing something like Ghost Riders in the Sky yeah, johnny Cash and I just thought this is, it's like the salt of the earth, john Wayne type, yeah, guy, you know, like the manly man, right, right, that generation and I was so enamored of that, just sitting there listening to play or in whatever, whatever it was right, and so that I definitely know that I think I got it, that bug from music from him, but my mom also sang she was singing in the car all the time Right, and she had a great voice. Still does.
Speaker 2:She doesn't sing as much, but she sings you know, it brings her a lot of joy even now, and I actually have a recording that I will share. Can't wait. That certainly illustrates this. And she found of course she's found this tape for me. She made a whole cover of this with me, like with one of those pictures that you would take when you're in elementary school.
Speaker 1:Like a school photo.
Speaker 3:With your, you know, one of those poses and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:We went or I don't even think it was in school, I think it was at the mall Like you could go and get, almost like glamour shots used to be and this might even been before your time too but malls you could go and get photos taken in a store in the mall. Yeah, we did some of that as a family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a family right, the whole pose, like the stepbrothers pose, you know from the yeah right. So I have one of those pictures and I had the fancy jacket and the cool looking hair cut or whatever and she put this all on an album cover.
Speaker 2:I think it says everybody's got to start somewhere or something and it was all this sort of collection of songs that she had gotten of me singing. Yeah, and on occasion, with people like she'll bust it out, you know, not to embarrass me, but just even this morning, when she was playing and she gets all teary cause it's a, you know, I'm five years old, yeah, so without further ado, let me see if I can let's see if I can play a little bit of some of this as well. But you'll get to hear certainly no mistake in my accent, that's for sure.
Speaker 4:Mommy always has her way with me. You want to do hound dog now? Yeah, okay, get over here. Okay, go ahead. You ain't nothing but a hound dog, woo, crying all the time. You ain't nothing but a hound dog Crying all the time. Well, I never tried, rather than you ain't. No friend of mine Said you was high class that was just a lie.
Speaker 2:Get it together, kid. Come on, Get in the tempo.
Speaker 4:Said you was high class. That was just a lie. Get it together, kid. Come on, Get in the tempo.
Speaker 1:He's getting it though.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah what happened to that confidence Kev? Okay, yeah, this is what happened to it, right here I know every track in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway Acapella song.
Speaker 4:This was the name of the game and nice guys get washed away by the snow and the rain. This is why I don't sing anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to me this is. This is is reasons why you should sing. If you can do it, then you can do it now oh, yeah, yeah, that's about all you're gonna get right now.
Speaker 2:the the beauty of that, though, to me now and I'm very much comfortable with it and hearing myself back, you know, as a twangy Southern five-year-old kid singing Glen Campbell and Elvis, yeah, um, but that's all. My mom, like I think she knew we are all and it's so. This is what's so interesting about you and I, because we've had many a conversation about your family and I didn't know your mom sang until today, but your mom, sings all of your sisters sing yeah Right, you sing and play guitar.
Speaker 2:Your uncle played a lot of instruments and sang as well, so it's like it's like the Partridge family to me, like the entire family is musical Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad's the only one who, like he, was in band, I think a little bit in high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah or not even high school probably elementary school.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, he was the only one who wasn't interested on some level.
Speaker 2:I don't know about my grandmother. If she was, I'd have to ask my mom, but certainly my grandfather. My grandmother, if she was, I'd have to ask my mom, but certainly my grandfather, my uncle, mom, myself. We were all very crafty, artsy, musical bunch. And so the musical first to really tie it all back. Definitely Elvis, for sure, because that's mom, like that's what she listened to, so I was always hearing something like that in the car. We also, and Glen Campbell. Clearly she was a big fan of Glen Campbell and I still like Glen.
Speaker 1:Campbell Ain't nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not, but that's how it comes full circle and we'll get to that in a minute. We also had you know eight track in the car and we would. There was a thing, um, I can't, it's like Columbia records used to order it in the TV guide. So imagine this TV guide is a magazine that would come out that have all of the channels. Like you would see a guide now on direct TV or whatever cable thing and you would literally look every night and show you what's going to be on.
Speaker 1:but in that they'd be pissed when you realize it was for the wrong month and you hadn't.
Speaker 2:You didn't have the right one, yet you missed the show that you wanted to see, absolutely but they had ads in this for, like, I think it's called columbia and you would go okay, you could it's like get 10 albums or 10 8-tracks for a penny.
Speaker 2:And the whole idea was it would send you, you would pick out of the list of artists what you wanted, and then it's like a subscription service, so you get the first 10 for free or for a penny, and then every month they would send a choice that you would want and maybe one they would recommend, and then you would pay whatever the monthly thing was. So getting vinyl or getting eight tracks and all that kind of stuff that's how we did it, uh, in the beginning. And she would order like there was this thing called kt which was a big compilation record thing at the time. This is like late 70s, early 80s and they would have like K-Tel hits of the 70s, you know K-Tel soft rock.
Speaker 2:So it was like now yeah, exactly yeah, there's always been an iteration.
Speaker 1:Now that's what I call music 1,785.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. So that was my, I would get to hear songs like that. And then I just started going oh, can you, can we play that one again, like we'd be in the car? Yeah, you know, like, can you rewind? I want to hear that song again on that eight track or whatever eight track or whatever, and I think hearing those, really that plus the radio station, and we listen to pop radio a lot. Then I didn't get into classic rock until I was probably an early teenager. So I would listen to pop stations and that was again my introduction to eighties music and all of the sort of fad of the eighties um, which has come again back around full circle to be, you know, in vogue. Yeah, but even then it was just like, well, that was pop.
Speaker 2:Now they call it like I don't know um, synth wave or whatever genre it's morphed into now, or right, you know, alternative before it was alternative, but to me that was the definition seemed to change in hindsight yeah, you know, it's funny how that works yeah, yeah, but I guess my first one I would say first introduction to rock and roll, besides Elvis or Glen Campbell, which is kind of country and folk a little bit too, yeah, totally, was Rick Springfield.
Speaker 2:He's a massive fan of Rick and mom. This is another interesting thing. So he played a character on a soap opera called Noah Drake and my mom like many you know, single mom, working moms they go home, they're going to watch their soaps. They recorded their daytime soaps on a VCR. She's going to go home after a hard day at work. She's going to watch her daytime soaps. And he was on a soap opera that she loved. But he was also a pretty famous musician. At that point I didn't know him from being a musician yet, I knew him from having to sit there and watch soap operas. But I finally he would sing a song like on the soap at one point. You know, because he was a musician his character was a musician also, coincidentally, and I would hear him sing and I'm like, oh, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:I wonder if they knew he played.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder, yeah, I wonder.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know he might have a career yes, yeah, as a musician he's got a future.
Speaker 2:And then you would start to hear you know, like, uh, jesse's Girl, working Class Dog, all these songs that became very big for him. I mean, he, he blew up through the stratosphere, yeah, and so I guess my introduction to rock music at least the music I would consider rock music for me was rick, and that was also uh, getting into this next piece of the topic like first concert.
Speaker 2:He was my actual first concert that I went to we, I looked it up, this was this was in Pensacola, florida, in 1985. I saw Rick Springfield and a band called Till Tuesday open for him Now Till Tuesday.
Speaker 2:funny enough, you may not remember this song, but they did a song called Voices Carry Okay, huge song in the 80s, very cool. But the lead singer of this band, her name is Amy Mann and she now has written a bunch of songs. She continued on as a solo artist, probably most notably known for doing some music for the movie, the Paul Thomas Anderson movie called Magnolia.
Speaker 4:That was really great.
Speaker 2:I think she might have won an Oscar certainly nominated, I believe, for best song. I think a song called won an Oscar, certainly nominated, I believe, for best song. I think it's a song called wake up or wise up I can't remember the name now, but anyway, that was my very first uh rock concert. Now, yeah, how about you? So we talked a little bit about first artists and that went from one extreme to another? Yeah, but what about like a concept, what first artist did?
Speaker 1:you go. See, I wanted to add one other bit of context that I didn't realize was relevant until I was after I talked about some of my experience. But I was also homeschooled until the middle of seventh grade. I was also homeschooled until the middle of seventh grade. So it wasn't just that my musical tastes were restricted to what was at home, but all of my awareness of all pop culture yeah, Because I wasn't around- other kids and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, weren't subjected to it at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where a kid could come to school with a CD or a tape or whatever, um, or just hear what's being played there, you know. Uh, so there really was no outside influence, so it wasn't just the musical piece. I was really motivated to explore what else was out there in general, across movies and TV shows and anything artistic. Really, um, I was, I just felt like I was playing from behind, you know. And so while other kids are into, you know, britney and NSYNC and you know all that stuff is huge, right, spice girls, whatever, right, like things that were popular when I'm, you know, around 10, around 10, 11, 12 years old, where most kids are finding their own sort of identity and having their own music, apart from their parents.
Speaker 1:I'm missing all that. I'm aware that they exist because I'll see them, you know, on magazines, at the end cap of the grocery store or whatever you know, so, like, know these things exist, but I have no idea what they sound like. I don't know any of these songs. And so once I become a teenager and again I'm having more independence and I can hide stuff from my parents and, you know, spend more time with friends and stuff, I do whatever I could to watch and listen and experience anything that was like not allowed at home. And I was just absorbing very motivated.
Speaker 1:Well, cause I felt like I was trying to fill like all these holes in my knowledge about what everyone else my age knew, and so, even still, I have huge gaps and things that I just never got into, like all those bands, those pop bands that I mentioned. That was not part of my growing up at all. It's probably why I don't really like pop music. The things that I found during those formidable years were crazy bands. Sure, you know it was punk bands and hardcore bands and metal bands, and you know those happen to be the things I could get my hand on and they made the biggest, deepest impression on me. Yeah, so that kind of led me to so, like I guess, up through being, let's see, yeah, all the concerts that I went to for most of my growing up were all church based things.
Speaker 1:Um, as I got a little older, we'd be able to venture off to concerts that were like in the genre of rock, but they were still Christian events. So, uh, there was a taste of chaos. This is, and it's so funny how old I was and that this was still an issue, but I'm like I don't remember whether I was 17 or 18, it was one of those two, but it was in 2008,. There was a taste of chaos event here in San Jose and at that point I'm living near Fresno, California. Uh, so we're like two hours away and I get tickets with all my friends to go see Avenged Sevenfold, who you know we've talked about on the podcast.
Speaker 1:They were huge for me from 2005, until I mean currently, but especially from like 15 to, let's say, early twenties.
Speaker 2:As you're sitting here with bats next to you, coincidentally, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not dead bats, but close enough. Yes, a bat blanket. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's courtesy of my incredible wife, who has way better taste than me. Um, anyway, they're playing this event, so I get tickets. I don't tell my parents I'm going to go, cause, frankly, I spent a lot of time away from the house anyway. They wouldn't know one way or the other and I knew it just raised Cause. Frankly, I spent a lot of time away from the house anyway. They wouldn't know one way or the other, and I knew it just raised an issue. So I figured, okay, no problem, I'll be back. Usually I come home middle of the night anyway, so I go with all my friends and it's yeah, it's Avenged Bullet for my Valentine. Atreyu, bless the Fall. Uh, stuff that was really popular at that time hard rock bands that were in the early 2000s or kind of broke in that 2000 totally 2005
Speaker 1:yes, exactly, exactly. So it was all the stuff that I was into at that point. So it was like a smorgasbord of just amazingness that I was excited to see and, uh, that was a crazy experience. So, yeah, I, I get off scot-free. You know, we drive home in the middle of the night, everyone in there, just like eight dudes, who were all drenched in sweat, and when I say drenched, I mean drenched enough in sweat that we were still soaked by the time we got home two hours later. Wow, so you imagine all those guys piling into a Suburban or whatever we were in, like my buddy's SUV, and uh, yeah, it was disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Uh, yes.
Speaker 1:But uh, yeah, we get home and everything's great and, um, I'm just like casually talking about it, I think at church, really not even considering the fact that I could still get in trouble for it. Anyway, my youth pastor ratted me out to my parents and I was like this is so stupid, like I'm basically an adult. I mean I'm basically an adult. I mean, right, I was stupid for sure, but I'm, like you know, I'm old enough to at this point, like what are we talking about here? Right, my parents still got mad. My mom went into my closet and I didn't realize until later and took the tour tea that I bought. Um, that was still like. I still cruise for it occasionally on eBay hoping it's going to pop up.
Speaker 1:Because, uh, avenged at that point they, uh, uh, they used the motif that um GNR did of, like all the band members as skulls, all the skulls, yeah, but they did it with them with like their emo cuts and their fedoras and bandanas and sunglasses and stuff.
Speaker 1:So it was like uh versions of them paying homage to GNR, sure, and I thought it was so cool and I had all the tour dates on the back and so I got to wear that shirt once or twice and then it just vanished one day from my closet and I was never able to get it back and uh, you know, at this point, 2008 was too many years for me to be comfortable counting ago. Uh, so I don't think it's going to pop up, but if someone happens to be listening to this and has one of those in a large uh, I'll pay you handsomely. Uh, yeah, so that was like the first time that I really ventured out on my own and did something a little dangerous, I guess, when it came to you know, music and all that, but I thought the whole thing I thought was silly, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean thinking about shows, and that is interesting because parts of our lives are very, very similar and then parts of them are vastly different and it is fascinating to me why I respect all of that. I think it's a very important part of who you are and how you are and what informs you as a person, as an artist, musician, everything, a friend brother, as an artist, musician, everything, a friend brother.
Speaker 1:It is interesting to me because I imagine, at the point in which you are finally able to break in the chains, you know, yeah, it was like my musical rumspringa you know, or what do they call that, not gap year or whatever they call that thing where you basically go live as a heathen for a year and decide if you want to come back to the church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so that was it. You were far off of the. I was like I ain't coming back, yeah, I'm out, I'm way out. It's like some family dogs.
Speaker 1:You, you let them outside and they kind of stand out on the porch and look at you like family dogs, you, you let them outside and they kind of stand out on the porch and look at you like kind of come back in and then other dogs bolt for the tree line and you never see them again yeah, yeah, that was me yeah that's amazing. You're describing yourself like a feral animal yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's pretty appropriate yeah, but it is.
Speaker 2:It is great that, at least at the point in which you were able to experience that, I imagine that concert it was probably life-changing too.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:You're getting to see something that is sort of like revelatory.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, awakening maybe.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean totally on a lot of levels. One, I got to see bands that I really loved, but also it was compounded by the fact that I was saying bands I really loved that were current and therefore I was finally part of something with my peers which I never really had. Now, of course, even you know at that point, metal's a subgenre, and so it's not the cool music at school but it's cool with my friends, you know and it's relevant today, right, you know.
Speaker 1:It's not going back and listening to someone's dad's music, or, you know, I don't know that kind of thing, because I was always like going back and trying to fill in those gaps, which was cool, but it's then you're not getting it.
Speaker 2:When everyone else is getting it, the allure is different, right, you know yeah, I that takes me into like the, the junior high and high school, like I. I, by that point, I had, I guess I had gone to see so Rick Springfield. Of course, till Tuesday I mentioned already with my mother who loved Rick we saw George. Michael His mother didn't love Rick.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Still.
Speaker 2:Still yeah, we actually went and saw him at Mountain Winery probably four or five years ago.
Speaker 4:Just killed it.
Speaker 1:I showed you some videos of that Just man, what a great great great artist. Couldn't see the stage through all the panties I imagine Still people throw it yeah.
Speaker 2:Bras and panties yeah.
Speaker 1:They look a little different than they did. Maybe 86. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No disrespect there. Good for you, rick. Yeah, but then it was. You know, I guess I was trying to remember. I think 15 was sort of my first concert on my own. Now again, george Michael, we saw it together. George Michael, we saw it together. I need to mention this because I do think it's a very important part of my first. What gave me interest, beyond my grandfather, into playing an instrument was Billy Joel.
Speaker 2:And it will forever come back to Billy Joel. Yeah, so bar none without a doubt. If anyone ever asks me what's your primary influence for wanting to play the piano or keyboard or synth or anything, it's going to always go back to him. Yeah, and I still have a massive love for Billy Joel At the entirety of the catalog. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I bought a songbook when I first started taking lessons. I was so obsessed and I don't quite recall how I got there, because I think I heard songs that were like like you may be right or uh, it's still rock and roll, which is more of like a guitar style of billy joel or what he was doing at the time okay, but then I would.
Speaker 2:I went backwards and I would hear like all the earlier stuff where I was like oh my God, this guy's a piano virtuoso and writes just incredible great music. I saw we rented we would rent VHS tapes all the time and watch, have a weekend bender with watching a whole bunch of movies from the video store and we rented this live from Long Island and that did it. That was probably even before the Rick Springfield concert. I think I had seen that and that was like whoa, this guy's playing and he doesn't give a fuck and he's just enjoying him and his band are just getting out Ripping it.
Speaker 2:So, rick, george Michael, the Faith Tour I saw him on that when he went solo and then Billy Joel and then at that point now mom's like yeah, I feel comfortable with you, you know, you I'm.
Speaker 3:I started working early, like 14, 15, I was cutting grass and doing all that kind of stuff, making money on my own.
Speaker 2:I'm a hustler, since I was knee high, you know um. So she's like yeah, I feel good and you know I had older friends I was in school with, so I, I think 15, I went to see journey, I believe that was that was the first rock show probably there.
Speaker 2:Bad company was somewhere in that era as well, and then it then it just kind of took off and it became a bit blurry even to now. There's thousands of shows that I've seen since then, but the early ones motley crew during their heyday, of course, yeah, um, all the hair, every one of them I don't think that I didn't miss any, you know, yeah, my close friend, closest close friend, greg, who's also a guitar player.
Speaker 2:We would go see anything and everything that would come out so if it's white snake, poison all of the hair, hair metal or whatever hard rock at that time van halen, I mean you name it we were going. If it came to, I kind of, I guess I had, I would say, a rubber band, a distance wise from how far I could go, that mom would feel pretty comfortable okay, so I live in the in terms of what like distance?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I lived in the panhandle of Florida, so if you figure, okay, I'm in an area near Fort Walton Beach, right, it's kind of where I grew up. It's a military town or near a huge military base there and that whole area actually is full of military. But our biggest sort of concert venue would have been at Pensacola, so that's maybe 40, 45 minutes away from where I grew up. And then we had Mobile, alabama, which also had a big venue about the size of San Jose, and then Biloxi Mississippi also had a big venue about the size of San Jose, and then Biloxi Mississippi also had a venue. So between those that's pretty much where I was at. And then, you know, later it would be like I would go as far as Atlanta, orlando, kind of all over, right, right, you know, but this is pre-college still, I was still in high school, but I would still I would make like, oh, this, they're gonna this things. You know, this band's gonna be there, this, this uh festival or whatever, and I would go and see shows like that.
Speaker 2:Movies had a big influence on me because, like I said, we've been, you know, would binge watch 10 or 15 movies over a weekend, yeah, so hearing soundtracks, and it's completely the opposite from how it was. For you, it was almost over saturation of pop culture and all of that. Like I just could absorb any of it. I was buying Fangoria magazines cause I was way into horror films. I was collecting. I had horror movie posters from the video store. Our friend was in the video store, so anytime they would get a poster in there so you would go into my room and this is why I say I love my mom, cause she was just an open book when it came to like, I know you're a good kid, I'm doing the best yeah just let you be who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let, yeah, let you figure it out, yeah. And so I remember friends of hers would come over and they would look into my room this is teenager kevin and they would look in there and my room was painted jet black and I had all these sconces with candles and stuff, and then the room was just one evil-looking horror poster after another. In fact, on the front door of my bedroom door was a poster of Slumber Party Masker with all these girls like scantily clad girls in broad panties with this dude.
Speaker 2:It's like you're seeing him from between the legs yeah with the drill and they're all like it's just a classic slasher film looking poster and I know people were like what on earth, kind of satanic hellion have you raised? But I had. I still had my sensibility about me and I loved everything. So it wasn't even though that was something I was into. People get afraid of those, but I had. I still had my sensibility about me and I loved everything. So it wasn't even though that was something I was into.
Speaker 1:People get afraid of those things, but it's like people just don't get. It is really why it is People are afraid of things that they don't get. You know, as if that equates to anything other than you just have interesting taste, you know, or like things that kind of scare other people.
Speaker 2:We did in first Cause it's kind of fun In the vein of first, we also had and it was not my, my church, but it was we again, small town, every corner like a seven 11, it's a church because it was just part of the fabric. You know, yeah, military church, military church that's it.
Speaker 2:That's where it was, and there was a period there where I think, uh, parents, I forgot. The pmrc whatever that stood for, I can't remember now was kind of becoming very big, and that was before the explicit lyrics content thing became you know, Tipper Gore, al Gore's wife. It was a big deal about them really trying to censor music, but for the churches they took it as a totally different thing, so it was like a monthly record burning.
Speaker 2:They actually I was, actually, we witnessed this, yeah, and parents, kind of similar to the taking of the shirt, records and paraphernalia of artists would get put on this big pyre and burned and it would be a whole ceremonial thing.
Speaker 4:It was terrible.
Speaker 2:And I mean talking like just you pick it like oh yeah, well, hotel california eagles or satanist yeah, rush which is the star of david, by the way. For anybody who's out there who's still wondering whether or not a band from canada is satanic, oh my god, I love it. They are not.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I love it so much but it was so.
Speaker 2:That's the culture yeah, well you're.
Speaker 3:My mom was not part of that either. She's like look, I'm gonna draw the line here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good for her like I'm not. That's kind of crazy. You know you're saying that, elvis, because he, you know, jangled his hips around or whatever he's, you know, evoking the devil.
Speaker 1:It's like that's drawing the line that's part of why I love uh. I know this is a this podcast evolving into something completely different here.
Speaker 2:We're exercising a lot of demons today, a lot of demons out there.
Speaker 1:Well, that was one of the funniest parts of that. That Dewey Cox movie Walk Hard is he's in high school. He's like 45 years old playing a high school kid. Yeah. But it's during the tame part of his career. He's playing the high school dance or whatever, and they're playing a song called I Want to Hold your Hand Right and it causes a mass outrage and the preacher's like. You know who else has hands? The devil, the devil.
Speaker 4:And he uses them for holding.
Speaker 1:I'm like that was totally the mentality of people around me growing up too. Yeah, but you reminded me I don't know where in the world my parents got this from, but they totally bought it hook, line and sinker. Yeah, there's a turn of phrase for you. That's a that's, that's my dad all the way. No, so they, they. They brought this like to like those VHS packs that came in to you know, like Titanic, whatever come in the cardboard sleeve and there's two of them and it was this uh documentary air quotes for anyone listening um called they sold their soul for rock and roll, and it's probably on youtube or something.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure I've seen this.
Speaker 1:If someone wants a really great laugh, they should go it. I'm probably like 12 or something at the point that my parents show me this. They make our whole family watch it. We like sit down, like okay, this is serious, we need to educate ourselves about the evil out there. Oh, yeah, yeah and uh. It's this narrative that starts from Robert Johnson, cause that that is the that is the blues yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was the whole story on the crossroads, baby, yeah, exactly so it starts at the crossroads and makes its way through modern music and it's talking about how all these musicians are like possessed by demons and all of this is like a plot by Satan to, you know, destroy the youth of America and all these kinds of different things, um and uh. I remember that kind of spooked me. I was like Whoa, is this real? And then I just kept listening. I was like I'll risk it.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I feel like I'm okay, like I hope, I hope that, uh, I'm right about it. But that was a really interesting point in time where we didn't burn records. But that kind of mentality was prevailing in different ways throughout my childhood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely happened a lot, and I recall, I think, seeing some of that. There was still, and I think even to this day. I can recall, yeah, going back first time I heard something that actually scared the shit out of me as an artist. Now I'm probably 26, 27 years old, I'm working at this independent cinema, which is one of the coolest jobs I've ever had in my life, by the way. And this guy, his name was I don't know what his real name was. We called him Spanky. It might have been his real name, but it was Spanky. Super cool dude, super hip guy. We had a lot of hipster people that worked at this place, of course, because it's an indie cinema so it wasn't spanky a little rascal, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay so if his parents named him that because of it, bless your heart, you're probably in therapy today.
Speaker 2:but, um, he gave me an. He gave he's like yeah, you like, you seem like you like a lot of cool music, different stuff, and we were talking I was into Sonic Youth a lot, I think, back then, like a true hipster, which I still love, that band, by the way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But he's like, yeah, you should check this artist out, diamanda Galas, and I'm like he's like if you want to hear something that really sounds like they're evoking the devil, you should listen to this. It's like Lords of Salem and I'm like I remember taking this home, this CD, and I was. It's kind of like, just imagine a movie moment for a moment. It's like you're looking at this and it's dark in your apartment or whatever and you're looking at this and going, okay, okay, okay, I'm going to put this on and I I will have to look this up to even see which album it was now, but it's like heard evoking this sort of it sounds like you're in this in a seance or a chant it's like this yeah wailing and shit yeah and I'm like what the fuck is this?
Speaker 1:yes, you know, yeah, you're like, oh, this shit might be real this time, and I'm like I'm like I gotta turn this off, because now I feel like I'm getting dangerously close I'm gonna bring the devil into my mama's house literally yeah I'm like I'm getting really nervous.
Speaker 2:I can't handle that kind of responsibility the candles all blur, you know, yeah, like blow out in your house now and you're cause you're trying to set the mood.
Speaker 1:but then all of a sudden some.
Speaker 4:It gets too, real Some strange force is just coming into your place and you're like okay, yeah, I cannot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you get a chill at the wrong time, I cannot handle this at all.
Speaker 2:This is definitely not for me. Have a panic attack, exactly a full on, and I'm going okay, yeah this is not for me. Uh, yeah, I appreciated her now after I've gone and read a lot more about her, but that was one that scared the shit out of me. Yeah, uh, for sure. I remember that's so funny, even going back into high school again. I had a friend, two friends that were into metal and they kind of got me in into that.
Speaker 2:They were leaning, they were into iron maiden and metallica and all that kind of stuff so that was sort of where I got that influence in and started listening to metal and um, I remember hearing the, the intro to number of the beast.
Speaker 2:You know it's like a movie quote, I think or a quote from somewhere that when they put that on the, on the intro to that song, it's a human number, it's number is six, six, six and I was like, whoa, okay, this is pretty evil shit too. So I'm still I gotta be careful I have those that, those church roots, still there embedded in me and I was like certain places I was like I don't know.
Speaker 1:But when you're young, you don't really know. You know it's like.
Speaker 2:Am I going to wake up and and be in a lake of fire?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, you know, I just kept telling myself I have plenty of time to turn it around Like I'm still young. Yeah, if I, uh, if I get burnt by this, I got plenty of time to get it right with Jesus like you have nine lives. Like a cat. I'll get one more and then get right by Jesus son then the further I took it.
Speaker 2:Eventually I was like I'm going to hell, it's fine what, oh my gosh, I know this is it morphed into more of a discussion about our upbringing, but it's a healthy way to kind of inform where we are and what has influenced us and how we're. It sort of shaped who we we are as people and as artists and musicians too. But so you mentioned your uncle. You you've mentioned, you know, trying to learn guitar, of course for the church. You mentioned the first concert that you were able to go to, yeah, and I imagine there's a period there in time, you know, after that, where the absorption of that culture became even more rampant, like where you were just anything and everything I could get my hands on, yeah, you were really getting involved in. So was there some artist or band that really clicked for you at that point where you said, yeah, I got to play guitar and that's it. I have to do this?
Speaker 1:You know that's a really good question. It's it. I have to do this. You know that's that's a really good question. It's hard, I feel like when I hear other people talk and answer questions like this, it seems like they remember things in a lot more vivid detail than I do. I remember feelings, but I don't. I have a hard time remembering specific moments or artists sometimes, but what does stand out to me when you were asking me like, so I think, when I first get a guitar, it's just cause I think music is cool and, frankly, I thought it was going to be a lot easier to learn how to play. And then I'm in the church and I'm like, okay, well, this is fun to play with other people and I enjoy this. Like, like, this is a cool hobby. It's probably going into high school when I start thinking like, oh, I might really want to do this. And the moment that pops into my head is I remember 2003, 2004. Maybe there is a on PBS at this point you're right yeah good, just lost a toe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah all good, walk it off. Yeah, you got nine more, you'll be all right. Uh, so, uh, anyway, um, yeah, it's probably 2003, 2004. My family at this point doesn't have like cable or satellite, so we have just whatever comes on over the antenna, sure, and so that we had like six channels, and on PBS was a broadcast of a. It was like different segments from Eric Clapton's Crossroad Festival, and so this is all in like I don't know an hour and a half or two hour period, cause they didn't play the whole thing, but however long of it they played.
Speaker 1:I hear Layla for the first time, which to this day is forever drilled so far in my brain, like that was the coolest thing I had ever heard anyone do with the guitar, and so I, for the longest time I thought that was just clapped in. I had no idea what derrick and the dominoes was or anything. I just heard him up there ripping it on this really cool strat. Yeah, and uh, yeah, that same. I hear ZZ Top for the first time. I hear like Tush and LaGrange, I think, yeah, for the first time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I hear Robert Cray for the first time. Oh yeah, and he played a song that is pretty obscure, I feel like, but I've always wanted to cover it. Time makes two and it is just devastatingly beautiful and sad. I hear John Mayer for the first time. He does City Love, I think, because this is on his first record, the Squares album. Yeah, I think because this is on his first record. The Squares album yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:So he does like Neon maybe and City Love, but he does this whole funky, drawn out guitar intro that really showed off what he could do and I remember going, man, how does someone play like that? So anyway, I hear all these kind of artists and this might've been a later Crossroads, I might have the timing wrong, but I remember also, on one of those Crossroads things, I heard Gary Clark Jr for the first time. He's playing like a red. It might be a casino, but I always thought it was like a like a three, three, five but some sort of like hollow body guitar. Yeah, and uh, yeah. So that just floored me. And this is like.
Speaker 1:I've heard some heavy music. I've heard some, you know, like all the other stuff I grew up with. So this is somewhere in the middle, you know where it's like it's not current music but it's so good that it sort of supersedes era. Yeah, and I started realizing, okay, there are some songs that are so good that they stick around for good reason. And yeah, I'm hearing the way that they're playing and the, the amount of emotion in the music was always what, what got me and I was like man, I want to be able to do stuff like that, whether it was that cool guitar intro from John Mayer, whether it was writing a song like Layla or something that was just really fun, like this easy top, top stuff, or you know that Robert Kray song, things that just make you feel like someone took your heart and just ringing it like a sponge, you're just like, oh man, but why do I enjoy listening to it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like it hurts so good. Yeah, yeah, so I mean, who knows precisely, but I remember that being a really impactful thing for me and I got a chance to record it on a, on a VHS tape, like a blank tape that we had Right, so I had the ability to like go back and rewatch some of that stuff.
Speaker 1:That's incredible, yeah, I still like to go back on YouTube and watch some of those I had this is gonna get really funny.
Speaker 2:I had a uh Yngwie okay, yeah so I had the VHS of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah when, yeah, during that was like my junior year.
Speaker 2:I got Yngwie like rising force, rising force, yeah yeah, and watched all of him just shredding with his terrible 80s effects with the video that would go in and out, it was just so cheeseball looking now, but it was the only effects that you know, key in effects and all this stuff that they would do on the video High tech, then Absolutely, I remember that there were.
Speaker 2:There was like a. You kind of mentioned public access, but that's also. I remember that early on in my life too as being a pretty big influence of first for me watching, I think, Friday. I think it was called Friday night videos. If anybody out there is over the age of 40, that's listening to this maybe correct me on this. But I believe it was called Friday Night Videos and it was sort of pre-MTV, at least for me, because I think I've said this before we didn't have MTV for a while so I wasn't exposed to that. But I would have that on a Friday night. So if I was up or stayed up late enough to watch that, I would get to see some videos on there on a Friday night. So if I was up or stayed up late enough to watch that, um, I would get to see some videos on there. And then I remembered Saturday there was like this Casey Kasem's like top 10, like he, Casey Kasem big DJ.
Speaker 2:Of course he would do like Casey Kasem's top 40 songs and all this kind of thing. He was a very well known right. It's almost like a um, an Oprah songs and all this kind of thing. He was a very well known right. It's almost like a um, an oprah, you know, at that time for music. So everyone was like, oh, it's casey's, you know. And people would call in. It's like this is you know? Uh, casey, case and you know, have a dedication. Someone would call in and want to dedicate a song to someone else and all this kind of stuff anyway right.
Speaker 2:It morphed into, I think, a video program that was like the top 10 songs of the week and I remember seeing that, like on saturday, after the cartoons like you know, saturday morning cartoons and stuff on tv, and then this the show would be on and that would be where I would be able to get to hear or see a video along with the song.
Speaker 2:So I remember seeing like boy George and this sort of androgyny that he brought out with all this. That was again you think about. It's like 83, you know, and he's got like he's wearing dresses and it was very interesting. Or the Eurythmics, which, again between Dave Stewart and um, annie Lennox, you know, again very interesting way they dressed the talking heads. I remember seeing David Byrne. Yeah, I remember seeing the coolness and this sort of provocative video of Jack and Diane from John John Cougar. About these you know, uh, what's the lyric? Uh, something about taking off her pants, dribble off these Bobby Brooks slacks and do what I please. I think was the lyric in the song.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh, this is super nasty.
Speaker 2:And it's showing these two, uh two teenagers, you know, making out behind a tree or something in the woods or whatever. Anyway, I just remember all these videos and sort of that, that cultural presence. It definitely was intriguing enough to me that I was like I that that coupled with me learning the instrument. I'm like, yeah, I have to do that. And I remember, oh uh, flash dance, the movie. If you haven't seen that you should go back and see it. It's for it's great, great, a very classic eighties film. But there's a, the song, the theme song for the movie Flashdance, by Irene Cara. My mom loved that song and this is I was taking lessons to learn play organ. I started playing organ first before piano or anything else, because I had an organ. So you know, at least I didn't have to go and buy a new instrument and doing recitals. My first musical performance in front of a live audience was doing a recital and people would go up and play like Canon and D and some Mozart shit.
Speaker 2:I'm like no, I ain't doing that. I ain't doing that For Elise. Yeah For a lease. Yeah for a lease. Yeah, all the classics, you know Right, I'm like, yeah, I don't want to do that, I want to play Flashdance. So I did. Well, the dopest thing about this, though, that I remember and God I wish I had a video of that was organs, of course, two keyboards, so you got your chords down here and maybe you're playing a melody or something up here, but they also have pedals. Yeah Right, Organs have foot pedals.
Speaker 1:Yeah A whole shitload of pedals. Yeah, so that whole thing. Why do they have so many pedals? It's. I've never, of all the years I've had access to Google, I've never researched that one.
Speaker 2:Look that one up. Yeah, but nevertheless there's bass pedals that are going on, so I'm like I had to learn the music for this because I was committed. That was the first performance I'm going to do, so I don't want to screw this up, yeah.
Speaker 1:This is your first time ever playing in front of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, want to screw this up. Yeah, this is your first time ever playing in front of people. Yeah, yeah, and I'm like, okay, so I'm gonna do fucking flash. This is, yes, yeah, great call, what a feeling, yeah. So, um, and I'm like, and so I'm having to do and I know anybody's listening this can't see what I'm doing my foot, but I'm literally having to play the bass part on the bass because it's a whole octave.
Speaker 1:Your foot basically looks like you're in stop and go traffic.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, yeah, yeah yeah, but it's a whole octave, like a piano octave, right, so you have, you know, black keys, white keys, whatever, but they're all in pedals and I'm playing chords and I'm playing the, the actual vocal melody, uh, with my right hand chords to cover the you just swung for the fences oh, yeah, yeah it was great, yeah, and it had, like you know, organs at that time had the sort of pre-built like drum beat yeah, so I had to find something that was going to be the kind of the vibe of that, yeah, and the whole thing.
Speaker 2:It's like a one-man, fucking man going on yeah, you know, yeah, and so, if you, you know, for me I'm nervous as as hell. Yeah, of course, but in my mind I'm like I'm gonna go up here and just destroy this, you know, and drop the mic on everybody. Yeah, like, and again, everybody's doing the whole, you know all the stupid classical stuff, and I'm like like, no, I'm going to get in it. And so people were up kind of, you know, doing all this kind of clapping and stuff and I was like that was the bug.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, even though I've struggled with it and I still struggle with wanting to play in front of people because it's all that nervous, energy and anxiety. There's nothing better. So that was my very first ever musical performance, and then it was high school after that, like doing talent shows and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Did you do?
Speaker 2:I know you mentioned in one of the podcasts you mentioned. When you first came to a different school and seeing Michael and a few of the guys playing, did you ever do a talent show like that?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before doing the band that you had in the in playing Well, the band did the talent show, the band did the talent show Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I show up to that assembly that I talked about and I see Michael in them. Um, so two of the guys in that band ended up becoming a band with me, and so we played at least two talent shows. I don't remember how that all worked out, because I remember times where we could have played, where I was, uh, academically ineligible as they called it uh, which is the man's way of saying, uh, fuck you, we don't like metal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Um, yeah, yeah. Or also the man's way of saying you know you got to go to class and you have to actually get seized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to which I didn't get a lot of Um, but yeah, we played a couple of times. We won. I think it was our senior year. We won that talent show. And what was really unique about that experience and I already had the bug, but it just cemented it for me Uh, we win that talent show through a little bit of uh, not trickery of the judges, but like we pulled out all the stops.
Speaker 1:I don't remember whose idea was probably Michael Um, but you know his dad worked on campus as the uh campus resource police officer and was a coach on the football team. So I by proximity, but Michael and his family knew all the staff, sure. And so we convinced one of the substitute teachers and football coaches, like hey, dude, like so instead of just going out there and playing our song, we play. The song we chose was a trivium song which had an intro song, so we get them to play an intro song before we even start, like a real concert Right, like you know how they play music before the band walks out. So we do that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But we convince uh, our, our he's our friend now um, to turn off all the lights in the gym and that when he hears us start to play the song, he flips them on. So it was like our version of, you know, hitting the house lights, yeah, hit the lights, yeah. So there was theater to our performance and no one was ready, like no one else was thinking that outside the box they were like I'll just wait for my name to be called and I'll come out there and do my little dance routine or sing to my track or whatever. We're like uh-uh.
Speaker 2:No, we're going to go full, kiss no we are going to dominate this shit, yeah. No one stands up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're out there windmilling and spinning our guitar and I out there like windmilling and spinning our guitar and I'm like doing the dime bag kind of harmonics, but like I'm pulling the guitar fully up by the whammy bar and just shaking it in front of the front row like steve I in the cross yeah, exactly exactly like that in front of ralph.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes exactly like that. That's the perfect reference. We've got a video of it as well. You can't hear at all what's happening, but you can see some of our vibe Dude. We sold out and people loved it, like people who would not normally like the kind of music we were doing. I think we just had enough swag that people were like.
Speaker 3:Ooh, this is different, Like this is cool. So we win.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that was my long winded way of saying they did something really weird that year. I've never heard of another school doing this. Maybe it's a thing. All the schools and our school district did a talent show and the winner of the talent show got to go on tour to all the other schools. Oh, wow, so like our school did it, and then they set a schedule for four weeks or maybe it was like four days or whatever. Right, but four different events, one at each school, so you got to play your own school again and everywhere else and then there would be a winner of that one. So we're up against the best talent from each school. And yeah, we're riding around with our band teacher, uh, and you know, lugging all our gear. We've got half stacks and michael's got his full big drum kit and double bass pedal and the works. We're on our cutoff metal tees and all that stuff. Long hair just a moppy.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing a photo that Michael shared with us in the text yeah, you looked amazing, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Highlight of my life Crazy acne. But we, we went around and it was so fun. We felt like we were a band that was on tour and we were playing original material. At that point we decided, if I remember this right, we we didn't play the same song we did at for the first talent show. Um, I might be wrong, but I think we played original material. We're like, hey, this is our shot, we're going to break it big. We got to play our song, right, we lost that, that talent show, um, which we were like mildly disappointed about, but the thing we cared about was the experience of getting out there and doing it. That was so fun. Oh yeah, that was like one of my few really positive memories of high school. There weren't many of them, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't have such a bad time with it, but I think the talent show we did, I did, I think we did. Yeah, we did Separate Ways, we did Journey.
Speaker 1:Dude yeah.
Speaker 2:And our singer. I think his name was Dwayne. You know, nobody's handling.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:Rock.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Rock Johnson, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a friend of mine. Yeah, my friend Dwayne Dwayne, but he was. He was brave enough to want to take it on. I think he sang in chorus and choir and all that whatever. And then we, we, and then we did the track and I can't remember if we won that one or not?
Speaker 1:Is this?
Speaker 2:you and Greg. This one is going to get a little fuzzy for me and I feel like I would not do a great service to him. But there was another great friend of mine whose name's shannon, and to tell a quick tangent of a story, uh, grag was the natural talent to me like it didn't ever feel like and I'm and this isn't fair to him, because he does work his butt off still to this day to perfect his art and play but it always felt like he was just naturally gifted.
Speaker 1:Like he could just do it, just do it like Joe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. Uh, shannon had to work for it and Shannon really had to learn, but Shannon was obsessed with Tim Pierce oh awesome. So Shannon loved him here. So, going back to the Rick Springfield reference, tim was the touring guitarist for Rick and also wrote, I think, with Rick and everything. Yeah, I think he was on those recordings, yeah, amazing. And again, anybody not familiar with Tim. You can find him all over YouTube and podcasts. I'm sure he's just a great studio musician, incredible, incredible, talented guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great teacher.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And seems like a very kind soul.
Speaker 2:I think Shannon played the song with us and he had the Tim's white strat that, uh, that he always played, at least back then during that time. Yeah, I could be wrong. I think that we almost went up against Greg and I think Greg did a Joe Satriani Always With you, always With Me, always With Me, always With.
Speaker 1:You? Oh yeah, Sorry, I had it backwards. Yeah. So he had like the little.
Speaker 2:Tascam and had played the backing parts of it and then did the solo over the top. I'm pretty sure he did it that year. Anyway, that was a. That's a great song, but we were, all you know, the musical community of us. We certainly had a good time. I think that was the first talent show that I had done was doing Journey and learning that. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, there were. There's a wow, what an interesting, what an interesting podcast this has turned into.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it makes me want to know what other people's experiences have been. You know cause? I'm sure some of these are really relatable. Other ones will make people laugh, but I'm going to put out the invite. If you're listening to this, please get in touch with us and let us know if you invite. If you're listening to this, please, uh, get in touch with us and let us know if you, if you've got some great stories about how you got into the music that you love, or yeah, who was your first?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was your first, whatever. Yeah, yeah, mick, first mixtape, that was one that I was going to get to, but it's like, yeah, but we know like, uh, I think, yeah, first mixtape, first concert first. If you were, if you're a musician, when did you get bit by the bug? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, first time you rebelled or, uh, you know, did something you weren't supposed to do. Yeah, yeah, man, it's, it's a great topic. We're going to have to have Michael on to share his side of all this too, oh yeah. But yeah, we'd love to hear from you. Now is probably a good time for us to say goodbye on this particular episode, but, yeah, please reach out to us, we'd love to hear from you. So, thesonicalchemycom I just realized, man, we got into this thing we didn't even introduce ourselves or anything. Too late for that now. But anyway, yeah, this has been, you know, the sonic alchemy podcast. Find us on the sonic alchemycom, tweet at us, whatever, we want to hear your thoughts on the show. We want to have conversations about these things. You know we get to talk in person, but we'd love to hang out with all of you through the internet and see what your experiences have been as well. With that, any parting words?
Speaker 4:Kev, my offer's coming over the phone. Well, I really don't mind the rain.
Speaker 1:I love how you sound like Walker and Texas Ranger all together. Yeah. From. Talladega Nights yeah. Yeah, and I done, pissed in my pants.
Speaker 2:I'm just going for it. I'm so sorry, Glenn Campbell. I did not mean to ruin your song, but I think Glenn would have loved it.
Speaker 1:I do too.
Speaker 2:I absolutely do, yeah, so I'm signing off with that one Until next time.
Speaker 1:Well, we will catch you all next time. For now, have a wonderful day and we will talk to you later. Take care.