Anthony Corder

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Hey guys, this is Tyler Hilton, and you're listening to
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the All Bets Are Off Podcast. What's up, rock soldiers?
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Welcome back to the All Bets Are Off Podcast. This
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is Robbie Vegas, and I am super excited to bring
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you Anthony Corder today of Tora Tora. But before I
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get to Anthony, I do need to talk to you
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guys briefly about the New Jersey Horror Con. Just got
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back from it not too long ago, and this thing
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was absolutely incredible. If you guys ever get the chance
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to check out the New Jersey Horror Con, it is
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seriously something to see. We had an amazing time. Joey
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Quesada was there. Obviously, we all know him from ZO2
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and Twisted Sister. Steve Brown from Trickster. WWE and ECW
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legend Dawn Marie. Peter Criss was there of KISS, which is,
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I got to tell you guys, meeting Peter, I had goosebumps.
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It was just such an amazing time. There were so
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many vendors and the setup was really amazing. Weaving in
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and out of the two rooms downstairs. I mean, the
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creativity of some of these people and the jewelry and
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the homemade artwork and just so many horror figures and
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memorabilia and things like that. And the layout was really simple,
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really nice. Lita Ford was also actually down there, which
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was very cool. Got to say hi to her and
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chat for a second. Andrew Anderson was there, speaking of
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wrestlers aside from Dawn Marie. Not to mention a big
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chunk of the cast of Friday the 13th Part 2,
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including the original Jason, adult Jason. Phyllisa Rose of Sleepaway Camp.
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Brett Wagner, who of course was Leatherface. You had your
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trauma section. I can't say enough good things about it,
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and I want to actually thank the New Jersey Horror
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Con for the press pass so that I was able
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to do what I'm doing right now and tell you
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guys all about the con and how great it was
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and recommend that you check it out. They do multiple
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events every year, so be sure to keep up with
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them on Instagram at New Jersey Horror Con. See what
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they have going on for, I do believe, their September
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show that they're promoting pretty heavily right now. There's also
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a Christmas market And they're doing a Rad Mall event.
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And all of these take place at the Woodbridge Hotel,
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Delta Woodbridge in Jersey. So thank you, New Jersey Horror Con.
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I truly appreciate you giving me the press pass and
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letting me be there. And like I said, meeting Peter
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Criss is something that I'll never, ever forget. And it
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really meant a lot to me to do that. And,
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of course, to hang out with the cast of Friday
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the 13th, Bill Randolph, Laura Marie Taylor, Warrington Gillette, Kirsten Baker.
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I've had three of them on the show already. Obviously,
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you guys know that Brett Wagner and Phyllisa Rose have
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been on the show. Joey Quesada has been on the show.
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Steve Brown has been on the show. Andrew Anderson is
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coming up next week. We connected at the con. So
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a lot of cool stuff, man. So anyways, I don't
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want to go on too long because I know you
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guys are waiting to hear this interview with Anthony. So
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let's listen to some Walkin' Shoes from Tora Tora, and
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then we're going to get this interview going.
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Thank you.
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Anthony, thank you so much for being here on the
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All Bets Are Off podcast. I'm super excited to have
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you today.
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This is so exciting, man. Thanks for inviting me on here.
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I'm so excited for you and the music you're doing.
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And I appreciate you giving me a platform to reach
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out to people and talk about the band and music
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in general.
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Thank you, man. That's really awesome of you to say.
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And I'm always curious when I get somebody on the
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show for the first time. And my main thing is always,
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where does rock and roll enter your life for the
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first time? How does that happen?
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Wow. Well, my family is very musical. My mom's side
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of the family, I do a storyteller's thing lately, especially
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the band had been super active and I've been out
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on the road doing some acoustic things. Saw you on
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the cruise that we got to do together, which was amazing. Yes,
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we did. We'll talk about that at some point. For sure.
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In that storyteller's thing, it's cool. I talk about my
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family in that show. It's a behind the scenes look
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at some of the songs and stuff. But as far
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back as I can remember, music's been in my life, man.
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My mom's father, my granddad, he didn't play. He loved music.
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And he knew people like Mississippi John Hurt that was
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from down in the Delta in Mississippi. That's where I'm
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from is down in the nothing but cotton fields and
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not a lot going on. And they became kind of
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porch pickers. It's my mom, two sisters and a brother.
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They never played professionally, but they played and sang around
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the house. He encouraged them to play music. My mom
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played piano. My uncle and aunts played guitar. I thought
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everybody's family played music all the time. That's how ingrained
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it was in my life. Every time we got together,
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the guitars were laying around, people were singing. They did
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a lot of gospel music, hymns, but they loved R
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& B and Rock and roll and country music. I mean,
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I can't think of anything I wasn't super introduced to.
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Classical maybe was on the outskirts a little bit. We
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were more kind of down home, down and dirty kind
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of stuff. But they were my biggest musical influences, man.
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You know, for a long time, to answer your question, sorry,
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I kind of jump all over the place. But to
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answer your question, rock and roll probably entered my life
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was through my aunt. She's about 10 years older than me.
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So when I was about six years old, I remember
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vividly walking into our bedroom and hearing this music coming out.
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And it was, it sounded like little demons. They were
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kind of going at the beginning of the song. And
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it was God of Thunder on Destroyer. And it freaked
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me out, man. I like ran out of the room.
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And then I was like, I got to go back
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in there. What is that? What's going on? And I
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went in there. And of course, Shout It Out Loud
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was on there, Detroit Rock City, all that stuff. I mean,
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I just freaked out on Kiss. She had a huge
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poster on the wall, and it was the Bicentennial poster
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where they got the band on and the blood and
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the drum in his lap and all that. So they
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were my real introduction. Kind of parallel at that same time,
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there was a movie soundtrack that came out called FM.
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It was about FM stereo. It was a movie in
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the 70s, and it had Boston more than a feeling.
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It had cold as ice foreigner. It had ZZ Top
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on it. I was listening to that kind of stuff.
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She had Second Helping, that Leonard Skinner record. I used
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to listen to that all the time. She loved that record.
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But she's probably my gateway. My mom and my family,
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they listen to everything. They listen to singer-songwriter James Taylor
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and Neil Young and all those kind of people. But
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she was kind of like, you know, showing me that
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kind of stuff. And of course, I had a cousin
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that was about three years older than me. There wasn't
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a lot of people that lived near me when I
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was growing up. So he was kind of like my
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older brother, really. He was about three years. But we
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freaked out on Kiss, man. I'm not kidding. That Alive record,
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I used to literally get a tennis racket, man, and
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I would get on my bed. I thought I was
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in the Coliseum with Kiss. The song would come on,
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the crowd screaming, and I had my tennis racket. I
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was doing what everybody was doing back then. They were
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like marketing geniuses. I know this. I know we know
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it down the road now because of everything we know
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about the band and Gene Simmons and his marketing skills
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and all that. But I lived in the middle of nowhere.
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I mean, in the middle of the sticks. And there
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was a kid that lived up the road from me.
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His name was Thomas Jackson. His parents let him join
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the Kiss Army. And I don't know what happened. He
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was the only child or whatever was going on. And
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he bagged them into it. But he would get the
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mail outs online. And he lived kind of far from me.
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I had to walk up a gravel road. We would
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go over there and just lay on the floor and look.
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It was like Kiss belt buckles and lunchboxes. I mean,
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any kind of thing you could think of. And we
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were like, oh, my God, they got everything Kiss. So
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they blew my mind. That record. Then we backtracked into
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the original Hotter Than Hell, Dressed to Kill. We got
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introduced to those studio records, I guess. Rock and roll over.
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That was great. Hard Luck Woman. I mean, that one
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was kind of a huge song to me. I love
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the acoustic thing of that one. But I mean, all
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the records really did it. I think when I was
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really little, that one was kind of started me off.
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And I stayed pretty loyal to Kiss, man, as a kid.
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People started bringing in different bands and stuff, you know,
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ACDC or Van Halen and stuff. And I was like, man,
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I was very protective at the beginning. I wasn't kind
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of getting acclimated in that new stuff. But then I
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started spreading out. As I got older, I started finding
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other stuff. But I mean, I think I listened to
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all kinds of music growing up. I think that was
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one thing that was cool about my family is they
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were each kind of one of them was kind of
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in a different space. And so I got to kind
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of pull from all their different influences that the Mississippi
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John Hurt was definitely a huge influence on my family
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because my uncle and aunts learned those finger picking styles.
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They're like playing the bass and the, the, the bass,
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and the rhythm, and the melody all at the same time.
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When you look at them, it looks like, man, that's
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so easy. Anybody can pick the guitar up and do it.
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And then when I sat down as a player, I
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just went, how are you doing your fingers? I'm so
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confused about how your fingers are moving around. I mean,
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the melody's going, and then pick it. It was kind
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of like almost a classical thing, but it was just
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blues and And I'll tell you the other thing that
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blows me away now that I'm older, because they still
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sit around and do it, and I can't figure it
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out still. They got this trick. But I think he
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was in open tuning sometimes, but they're doing it in
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standard tuning, like cording the parts out. So they're unique
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in that sense, because it's just how they learn. It's
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just some people, that's just how you kind of learn it,
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and it's just how you do it. And I play
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by ear. I never took lessons or anything. One thing
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that I'm really... would encourage people if they have children
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and stuff is to get them to learn to read me,
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you know, or play chords and, and all that. I
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didn't learn it. I played by ear and I was
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so frustrated all the time. I wanted to just pick
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a record up and smash it. Cause I'd played it
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so many times. I mean, kids don't understand now they
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have YouTube and charting and all kinds of stuff that
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they can watch, but it was so hard. And we
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were singing the wrong lyrics half the time, you know,
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it was just, anyway, all that blew me away. Um,
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And they still inspire me. I watch them now and
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just go, man, dude, you should be making videos and
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putting them out on social media and all that kind
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of stuff. It's just, I don't know. That was a
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super long-winded way of saying it was my family probably
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that introduced me to the rock stuff. And then as
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I got older, that started influencing me. I moved to
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Memphis in ninth grade. I kind of moved all over
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the country. I moved like nine times in two years.
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It was almost like being in a military family. My
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dad was working for an airline company. And he finally
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got an offer to land in Memphis and run the
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hub there. And when he did, I moved out to
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a little suburb of Memphis called Collierville. And there was
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a guy out there that was a freaking Van Halen nut.
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And he invited me over to this guy's house. And
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he said, man, you've got to listen to these records
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and get into this band. And I was like, OK.
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I wasn't totally on board yet. But he kind of
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got me over the hump. And then I started going
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and listening to all, you know, everybody was talking about
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all the different bands and all that kind of stuff.
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I was older though. I kind of get, I kind
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of get in these cycles and I kind of get
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set in my ways, you know, as I think about the,
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the flow of everything. I think we're all, cause we're
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kind of creative. You're kind of pulling from all those
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different places. You know, everybody always says, you know, who's
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your biggest influence and all that, but it kind of
238
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depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Cause I mean,
239
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At some point, you're like, I want to listen to
240
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blues people and Elmore James and all that. And then
241
00:13:12.029 --> 00:13:13.950
maybe I want to listen to Etta James and some
242
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soul music and Otis Redding and things like that. Or
243
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maybe I want to listen to Rival Sons. That guy's
244
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one of my favorite singers that's ever come out. I mean,
245
00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:24.899
that dude is, he's probably one of my favorite rock
246
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singers that's around right now. He's incredible. But so it
247
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kind of depends. But my family definitely was that big influence.
248
00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:37.240
Well, You touched on something there that I kind of
249
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wanted to bring up with, uh, getting into Van Halen.
250
00:13:39.820 --> 00:13:41.679
Is that where Toratora came from?
251
00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.629
Yeah, we were together. Um, that the band history, I
252
00:13:46.629 --> 00:13:49.370
don't know if you, if anybody's ever really talked to
253
00:13:49.389 --> 00:13:54.090
you about it, but, uh, the three guys, um, Patrick
254
00:13:54.929 --> 00:14:00.840
Francis on bass, Keith Douglas guitars, John Patterson, Keith and John, um, well,
255
00:14:00.860 --> 00:14:03.179
excuse me, Keith and Patrick, the bass player and guitar player,
256
00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:04.840
they grew up together. They've known each other since they
257
00:14:04.860 --> 00:14:07.279
were about nine or ten years old. They lived in
258
00:14:07.299 --> 00:14:10.210
the same neighborhood. And then when they were older, Keith
259
00:14:10.250 --> 00:14:13.049
and John had a band together when they were kind
260
00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:15.429
of leaving high school. It was called Lycanthrope. It was
261
00:14:15.450 --> 00:14:22.980
like super heavy. I like that name. It was like
262
00:14:23.240 --> 00:14:25.919
Judas Priest or Iron Maiden or something. It was two
263
00:14:25.940 --> 00:14:28.480
guitar players and a singer kind of jumping around and
264
00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:32.259
John was playing his drums and Um, so they had
265
00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:36.080
kind of had a group before Torah Torah. And then
266
00:14:36.139 --> 00:14:38.799
when they, that band was kind of disbanding, Patrick showed
267
00:14:38.899 --> 00:14:44.100
up and Keith and Patrick were reconnecting. Um, it was funny,
268
00:14:44.139 --> 00:14:46.299
Patrick and I went to one high school and Keith
269
00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:49.159
and John went to another high school. So we were
270
00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:54.080
kind of all getting together, reconnecting, uh, those social groups
271
00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:56.629
of people as we were getting together. And so the
272
00:14:56.649 --> 00:14:58.850
three of them got together. At first, Patrick was going
273
00:14:58.870 --> 00:15:01.190
to be the guitar player. He wasn't going to do bass.
274
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But then as they got sitting around and they were
275
00:15:02.590 --> 00:15:04.240
talking about music, they said, hey, why don't you just
276
00:15:04.269 --> 00:15:06.080
pick up the bass just to get us through and
277
00:15:06.399 --> 00:15:10.600
work on some songs and stuff. And then Patrick came
278
00:15:10.740 --> 00:15:13.320
and approached me. I had been playing in kind of
279
00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:17.360
a neighborhood band. We had done a talent show and
280
00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.710
maybe played some kind of band competition or something in
281
00:15:20.750 --> 00:15:24.350
a park or something. And the guy that I was...
282
00:15:24.929 --> 00:15:27.629
playing with back then his name is michael mcdonald we've
283
00:15:27.769 --> 00:15:29.529
we've stayed in touch through the years i just saw
284
00:15:29.570 --> 00:15:31.669
him recently but he's the whole reason i became a
285
00:15:31.730 --> 00:15:35.309
singer he was a shredder man i'm talking about this
286
00:15:35.370 --> 00:15:38.809
dude sat in his house freaking eight or ten hours
287
00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:43.070
a day with a record on rad freaking docking all
288
00:15:43.090 --> 00:15:45.730
the 80s shredding guitar players he was just sitting there
289
00:15:46.269 --> 00:15:49.789
and he begged his mom for a charvel guitar he
290
00:15:49.830 --> 00:15:52.850
got a pink like a bright pink charvel i mean
291
00:15:52.870 --> 00:15:55.200
this dude He could tear the strings off of it.
292
00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:57.440
But anyway, I got to be friends with him, and
293
00:15:57.460 --> 00:15:59.879
we were listening to those records. He turned me on
294
00:15:59.899 --> 00:16:02.059
to Dokken and Ratt and all that stuff, and we're listening,
295
00:16:02.100 --> 00:16:04.139
and he's showing me the solos. And he had a
296
00:16:04.139 --> 00:16:06.470
little drum kit in his house, like a snare, a hi-hat,
297
00:16:06.500 --> 00:16:07.570
and a bass drum. And so I was kind of
298
00:16:07.590 --> 00:16:09.429
over there banging around on that, trying to keep a beat.
299
00:16:10.110 --> 00:16:12.759
And he said, we need a singer, you know? And
300
00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:14.419
I said, well, maybe I'll do it. He had like
301
00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:16.519
a cone in his room that he would crank his
302
00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:18.940
amp up. And I was like yelling at him. It
303
00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:20.659
was like one of those orange with his own things.
304
00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:25.629
And we were trying to figure out songs and parts
305
00:16:25.690 --> 00:16:27.830
and stuff. And we picked up a couple of people
306
00:16:28.009 --> 00:16:29.870
that he was friends with at school that would play
307
00:16:29.909 --> 00:16:33.549
with us. And so anyway, Patrick approached me at some point.
308
00:16:33.889 --> 00:16:37.289
This is really super dating myself because he came up
309
00:16:37.309 --> 00:16:39.590
to me at a mall and We used to go
310
00:16:39.610 --> 00:16:43.929
to malls to hang out at freaking video arcades. And
311
00:16:43.970 --> 00:16:45.750
he came up to me and he said, hey, we're
312
00:16:45.789 --> 00:16:49.940
auditioning some singers. You want to come over? And of course,
313
00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:51.879
I said, yeah, I want to come over. But I
314
00:16:51.899 --> 00:16:54.200
was so scared. I was nervous because I felt like
315
00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:57.210
they were very advanced. I heard that they had played
316
00:16:57.250 --> 00:17:00.769
some gigs down in Midtown at some really sketchy venue.
317
00:17:01.429 --> 00:17:03.960
They had been in the studios. they had recorded in
318
00:17:03.980 --> 00:17:06.240
a studio. Well, when they said studio, I'm thinking like,
319
00:17:06.339 --> 00:17:08.039
you know, something I'd seen on TV or something. I
320
00:17:08.059 --> 00:17:09.960
didn't know it was a high school studio. It was
321
00:17:09.980 --> 00:17:13.259
like a little recording room. It wasn't like a, you know,
322
00:17:13.460 --> 00:17:17.440
freaking George Lucas place or something. But anyway, to me,
323
00:17:17.500 --> 00:17:19.849
I was super intimidated. I was like, Oh my God,
324
00:17:19.940 --> 00:17:22.730
you know? And so I had this great idea. My,
325
00:17:22.829 --> 00:17:24.769
my aunt had stayed with me for a little while
326
00:17:24.970 --> 00:17:27.509
and had worked with me on acoustic guitar. Just, I
327
00:17:27.549 --> 00:17:30.470
was trying to learn chords and all that kind of stuff. And, uh,
328
00:17:31.099 --> 00:17:32.440
I said, I'm going to go over there and just
329
00:17:32.519 --> 00:17:34.079
wow them. I'm going to go over there and do
330
00:17:34.099 --> 00:17:37.089
this singer-songwriter thing, and I'm going to play some kind
331
00:17:37.130 --> 00:17:39.349
of ballad song and just show them how cool my
332
00:17:39.390 --> 00:17:43.250
singing is. And I took a guitar. I still have it.
333
00:17:44.349 --> 00:17:47.569
It was a Viking acoustic. It was probably about a
334
00:17:47.569 --> 00:17:50.740
$ 60 acoustic that my parents bought me. I still have it.
335
00:17:50.740 --> 00:17:53.660
It's tiny. It's kind of skinny. I broke the head
336
00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:55.119
on it. I'm trying to get it fixed right now
337
00:17:55.140 --> 00:17:58.119
because I put some strings on it, and the wood
338
00:17:58.160 --> 00:17:59.779
just snapped. I don't know what happened. But anyway, that's
339
00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:04.119
another story. So I go over there, and Keith and
340
00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:07.720
them are all in Patrick's living room. And when I
341
00:18:07.759 --> 00:18:11.980
walked in, he had two 50-watt amps sitting out. One
342
00:18:12.009 --> 00:18:13.210
of them was a Peavey, and one of them was
343
00:18:13.230 --> 00:18:17.289
a Marshall. And John had a set of drums, and
344
00:18:17.309 --> 00:18:19.630
he had Rototimes. Man, they were about this big. They
345
00:18:19.650 --> 00:18:22.609
started tiny, and then they got all the way down.
346
00:18:23.529 --> 00:18:28.059
He thought he was Neil Peart. He's like somebody from
347
00:18:28.140 --> 00:18:32.930
Iron Maiden or something. But they did 2112. And it goes, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
348
00:18:33.049 --> 00:18:35.309
It like echoed through the amps, you know, across the room.
349
00:18:35.369 --> 00:18:37.490
And I just went, oh my God, this sounds amazing.
350
00:18:37.549 --> 00:18:40.849
You know, they're showing me 2112. But anyway, they said,
351
00:18:40.890 --> 00:18:44.079
you know, do something, play something. And so I strummed
352
00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:46.859
a chord and started to play Desperado by the Eagles.
353
00:18:48.420 --> 00:18:51.799
And I got about a couple of sentences in and
354
00:18:51.819 --> 00:18:54.220
they go, man, that's awesome. You know, Aerosmith, Toys in
355
00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:59.019
the Attic? Do you know a cheap trick? Do you
356
00:18:59.059 --> 00:19:02.059
know a cheap trick, son? And I was like fumbling around.
357
00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:04.240
I said, I don't know. I think I can sing it.
358
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:05.440
You know, if we sit here and kind of go
359
00:19:05.460 --> 00:19:09.799
through it, but that day we just immediately knew we
360
00:19:09.839 --> 00:19:12.640
enjoyed like having a good time together. Everybody, I sang
361
00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:14.349
a little bit of the things they could show me.
362
00:19:14.430 --> 00:19:17.569
And I mean, 2112 was pretty easy. There was no
363
00:19:17.630 --> 00:19:19.690
singing for like two songs. And then I just came
364
00:19:19.750 --> 00:19:21.869
in and kind of, you know, that was an easy
365
00:19:21.930 --> 00:19:25.369
one to work up pretty quick. But, um, We did
366
00:19:25.390 --> 00:19:27.190
those songs together and we were trying to come up
367
00:19:27.210 --> 00:19:29.200
with a name. And there was a friend of mine
368
00:19:29.460 --> 00:19:30.960
at the time that I went to high school with.
369
00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.279
We still stay in touch with her too, named Kelly Coffey.
370
00:19:34.140 --> 00:19:36.740
And she actually sat behind me in high school and
371
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:39.839
she made a list of band names. And for some reason,
372
00:19:39.859 --> 00:19:41.480
there was probably, I don't know, 10 or 12 names
373
00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:43.509
on there. For some reason, we saw Tora Tora on
374
00:19:43.529 --> 00:19:46.089
there and she had gotten it off of Women and
375
00:19:46.130 --> 00:19:49.950
Children First, that intro, number 32nd. And so we said, hey,
376
00:19:50.059 --> 00:19:52.960
why don't we try that? And so the first time
377
00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:55.839
that we played with that name, there was a group
378
00:19:55.880 --> 00:19:59.759
of people there and they went, Tora, Tora. It started
379
00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:02.680
like the chant from, you remember Animal House when they
380
00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:06.230
were doing that? It's what it felt like. And we went, hey,
381
00:20:06.259 --> 00:20:09.279
that's pretty cool. Maybe that'll work. And we played a
382
00:20:09.299 --> 00:20:12.440
little bit bigger venue as we were kind of moving along,
383
00:20:12.500 --> 00:20:15.559
getting some gigs and stuff. We were doing some kind
384
00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:18.920
of sponsored event from the radio station and a local
385
00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:21.789
music store where they let you play two or three
386
00:20:21.829 --> 00:20:23.750
songs and then they'd unplug you or push you off
387
00:20:23.769 --> 00:20:26.289
the stage or whatever. But our group of friends, because
388
00:20:26.329 --> 00:20:28.670
we had two groups of people from different high schools,
389
00:20:28.809 --> 00:20:31.430
we had an immediate following in Memphis. Like right away,
390
00:20:31.990 --> 00:20:34.230
all these kids would show up because we'd invite our
391
00:20:34.250 --> 00:20:38.019
friends from high school And they were in front of
392
00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:42.380
the stage, and we were backstage, and we could hear them, Torah, Torah, Torah.
393
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:44.339
And we went, oh, man, this is going to be cool, man,
394
00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:47.579
because we were so nervous. I mean, we were so scared, man,
395
00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:49.539
that when I first went on stage, I wouldn't even
396
00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:51.579
look at the audience. I just stared at my feet.
397
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:56.029
I looked straight down and just sang. And we came
398
00:20:56.069 --> 00:20:57.589
off stage, and the whole band looked at me, and
399
00:20:57.609 --> 00:20:59.710
they go, what are you doing? You have to look
400
00:20:59.769 --> 00:21:01.890
at people and move around. You're the freaking singer, man.
401
00:21:03.069 --> 00:21:05.849
I was having a heart attack. I think I blacked out.
402
00:21:05.910 --> 00:21:07.650
I just was up there and just started singing and
403
00:21:07.690 --> 00:21:10.289
I don't know what happened, but it was so fun
404
00:21:10.690 --> 00:21:12.730
and it's so cool. It's the same four guys from
405
00:21:12.750 --> 00:21:17.769
high school. We've been doing this since 1987, which is unbelievable.
406
00:21:17.789 --> 00:21:20.950
I'm in another century back. I can't believe I'm even
407
00:21:20.990 --> 00:21:25.700
saying that, but it's so fun. We really genuinely still
408
00:21:25.740 --> 00:21:28.980
enjoy playing music with each other. We still love writing
409
00:21:29.019 --> 00:21:31.539
and stuff. I was talking to Keith, my guitar player,
410
00:21:32.339 --> 00:21:36.680
He just recently, last year, put out a solo instrumental record.
411
00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:39.970
It was called Remnants of Euphoria. Anybody watching, y'all can
412
00:21:39.990 --> 00:21:43.329
go look it up. It's on YouTube. And there's a
413
00:21:43.349 --> 00:21:45.069
thing on there called Time Bomb. I think he's got
414
00:21:45.109 --> 00:21:48.329
a video out for that. But anyway, we were talking
415
00:21:48.349 --> 00:21:49.990
to each other and we just said, hey, even if
416
00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:52.970
it's just me and you trading ideas, we still love
417
00:21:53.009 --> 00:21:55.230
doing it and trying different things with each other because
418
00:21:55.490 --> 00:21:59.039
he hears things totally different than I do. We go places.
419
00:21:59.539 --> 00:22:02.200
We used to laugh, man. It's really funny. I was
420
00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:06.990
the acoustic, mellow guy, and then Keith was this really
421
00:22:07.430 --> 00:22:10.470
thrash out heavy metal guitar dude. Then all of a sudden,
422
00:22:10.490 --> 00:22:14.289
we flipped. I started writing some really heavy music, and
423
00:22:14.349 --> 00:22:16.470
Keith is sending me stuff that sounds like Led Zeppelin.
424
00:22:16.509 --> 00:22:18.450
I was like, oh my God, what is going on, man?
425
00:22:18.470 --> 00:22:21.259
You're writing a freaking rain song or something. I don't
426
00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:23.450
know what was going on, but we still like it.
427
00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:27.400
His lyric ideas, his melody ideas, he'll hear things that
428
00:22:27.579 --> 00:22:28.759
I'd be like, I don't even know if I can
429
00:22:28.819 --> 00:22:32.519
sing that way. whatever but then we would do it
430
00:22:32.539 --> 00:22:34.339
and i'd go oh man that's really cool that's something
431
00:22:34.359 --> 00:22:36.119
i would never come up with on my own so
432
00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:39.500
we love that and we all contribute you know patrick
433
00:22:39.539 --> 00:22:42.619
and john they write their parts and i don't know
434
00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:45.009
we're we're still just kind of hanging in there man
435
00:22:45.049 --> 00:22:47.150
we we've been doing it a long time and it's
436
00:22:47.190 --> 00:22:49.710
very comfortable like for the four of us to do
437
00:22:49.769 --> 00:22:53.470
stuff we've only had somebody sit in like a sub
438
00:22:53.549 --> 00:22:55.509
kind of thing only a handful of times i could
439
00:22:55.529 --> 00:22:57.650
pray kind of one hand where we've had people sit
440
00:22:57.690 --> 00:23:00.309
in that covered a show or something for us um
441
00:23:00.680 --> 00:23:03.430
And that was just out of the sheer want of
442
00:23:03.470 --> 00:23:05.009
just wanting to go play. We were like, man, if
443
00:23:05.029 --> 00:23:07.250
you can't make it, I want to go see the crowd.
444
00:23:07.269 --> 00:23:10.289
I want to sing and play. And we told everybody
445
00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:13.390
we're coming. Let's just do it. But we can tell
446
00:23:13.450 --> 00:23:17.309
when it's not the four of us on our stuff. Yeah, no, no, no.
447
00:23:17.390 --> 00:23:19.390
That makes complete sense. But I got to ask, too,
448
00:23:19.410 --> 00:23:23.019
because you just said, so 1987, you guys get going.
449
00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:26.960
And at that time, obviously, we know the L.A. scene
450
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:30.319
was exploding. And you already mentioned Rat and Doc and
451
00:23:30.730 --> 00:23:33.359
And then you get the later bands like the White
452
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:35.759
Lions and things like that and Poison and Motley Crue.
453
00:23:36.359 --> 00:23:40.839
And what was the difference, like the main difference in
454
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:43.839
what you saw as compared to the Memphis scene? Because
455
00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:45.339
you guys are coming from Memphis.
456
00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:46.039
The L.A.
457
00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:50.630
Thing is exploding. You guys make it and you're thrust
458
00:23:50.750 --> 00:23:53.029
into those bands that I was just mentioning. So what
459
00:23:53.049 --> 00:23:54.829
was the difference between the Memphis scene and the L.A.
460
00:23:54.849 --> 00:23:58.880
Scene? We were all huge fans. you know, we were
461
00:23:58.940 --> 00:24:02.119
following it like everybody else in Memphis. We were catching
462
00:24:02.140 --> 00:24:05.539
the overflow. In Memphis, there was a place called Bill Street,
463
00:24:05.819 --> 00:24:08.900
which is the tourist strip of Memphis. One end of
464
00:24:08.920 --> 00:24:11.319
the street is B.B. King's and Blue City, and they're
465
00:24:11.339 --> 00:24:14.509
doing all the touristy blues songs, you know, Mustang Sally
466
00:24:14.529 --> 00:24:16.849
and all those kind of songs. And the street musicians
467
00:24:16.900 --> 00:24:18.589
are out on the road, you know, out on the
468
00:24:18.609 --> 00:24:21.650
sidewalk playing. But as you went down the street, there
469
00:24:21.710 --> 00:24:23.730
was rock and roll at the other end. There was
470
00:24:23.789 --> 00:24:27.680
a theater called the New Daisy Theater that was on uh,
471
00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:29.819
bill street. And there was a guy named Mike Lynn.
472
00:24:30.200 --> 00:24:33.420
That was, um, he was managing the building. He was hilarious, man.
473
00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:36.799
He came into this town. He was a boxing promoter.
474
00:24:36.940 --> 00:24:39.619
They rode into town with about six or eight boxers.
475
00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:41.869
And he got into the Daisy and he would do
476
00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:47.130
these Tuesday night boxing matches. And it was professional boxers.
477
00:24:47.390 --> 00:24:49.630
And then these amateur people could get in the ring
478
00:24:49.670 --> 00:24:52.529
with them. So it was like, you know, crazy because
479
00:24:53.490 --> 00:24:56.750
for everybody that's listening or watching Memphis is kind of
480
00:24:56.930 --> 00:25:00.539
in the, southwest corner of Tennessee. We're right in the,
481
00:25:00.779 --> 00:25:06.299
I mean, right on the edge. So it's like Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Boothill, Missouri,
482
00:25:07.220 --> 00:25:10.420
all those areas are there. In Memphis, a lot of
483
00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:12.220
people kind of migrate in because those are kind of
484
00:25:12.259 --> 00:25:14.900
rural areas and stuff and they'll come into town. So
485
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.940
you would see like a professional boxer standing there and
486
00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:19.349
then it's like kind of country, you know, farmer guy
487
00:25:19.369 --> 00:25:21.589
would walk out and he was big, you know, kind
488
00:25:21.609 --> 00:25:24.509
of cornbread eating, you know, pick up a truck, you know,
489
00:25:24.549 --> 00:25:26.910
he walks out And the guy would just punch him
490
00:25:26.930 --> 00:25:28.980
in the stomach one time and he'd fall over, you know,
491
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:33.299
because it's just like, you know. But anyway, we met
492
00:25:33.339 --> 00:25:36.720
Mike at that, or knew of him through that. And
493
00:25:36.920 --> 00:25:40.339
there was, at the time, local radio stations. We didn't
494
00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:42.680
have social media. We didn't have all the technology to
495
00:25:42.700 --> 00:25:44.269
stay in touch with people. There was only a couple
496
00:25:44.349 --> 00:25:46.089
ways to get access to your audience. So it was
497
00:25:46.150 --> 00:25:49.029
either the radio or you were doing your videos and stuff,
498
00:25:49.109 --> 00:25:51.920
you know, as that part of the industry grew up.
499
00:25:52.589 --> 00:25:55.269
And so radio was super important. So what was awesome
500
00:25:55.309 --> 00:25:59.210
in Memphis is they had local radio shows that promoted
501
00:25:59.269 --> 00:26:01.650
local music. It started off, it was 30 minutes long,
502
00:26:01.670 --> 00:26:05.079
then it grew into an hour. Every band from all
503
00:26:05.119 --> 00:26:09.900
those places that I just listed, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri,
504
00:26:12.299 --> 00:26:14.660
they were vying for slots on those shows. They would
505
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:17.579
send in their submissions. And it was powerful because they
506
00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:20.299
had that reach to an audience. If they got played, man,
507
00:26:20.339 --> 00:26:22.099
then they could get shows and people would come and
508
00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:24.019
they'd recognize their name and their song and they'd come
509
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:27.599
There was two stations in Memphis doing those local shows,
510
00:26:27.980 --> 00:26:30.700
and the local promoters were letting you do original music.
511
00:26:31.019 --> 00:26:34.599
Thank God for us. Because we were doing those cover songs,
512
00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:37.519
we were butchering them. We were like, dude, this is horrible.
513
00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:39.799
Why don't we just start writing our own stuff? People
514
00:26:39.819 --> 00:26:41.420
won't know if we're messing up or not. That was
515
00:26:41.700 --> 00:26:44.359
what got us into the groove of saying, let's write
516
00:26:44.420 --> 00:26:50.079
our own songs. Anyway, we were feeling the ripple effect
517
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:55.369
of the LA strip because At that point, 87, it
518
00:26:55.390 --> 00:26:58.029
had been going for a long time in L.A., so
519
00:26:58.069 --> 00:27:01.700
they were almost in their third generation of bands. Yeah.
520
00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:04.420
Because all the early people, Dokken and Motley Crue and
521
00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:06.440
all those people, and then they'd had Rat and all
522
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:10.559
these other people all coming. And then, like you said, Poison.
523
00:27:10.980 --> 00:27:13.140
You've seen all the documentaries on all that stuff where
524
00:27:13.309 --> 00:27:15.390
all those different bands were coming out. But we were
525
00:27:15.430 --> 00:27:17.450
doing the same thing in Memphis. You would go on
526
00:27:17.490 --> 00:27:19.390
that end of the street where rock was going on,
527
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:21.900
People were walking around. Their hair was puffed up. They
528
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:24.269
had leather coats on. They had their skin-tight jeans on.
529
00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:26.759
The chicks were knockouts. They all had on their little
530
00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:29.640
short skirts and all that. And what was awesome about
531
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:33.460
Memphis is that Daisy Place was an all-ages venue. So
532
00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:35.339
people underage, you gave them a place to go and
533
00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:38.799
see music, live music. And they would do an off night,
534
00:27:38.819 --> 00:27:41.240
like a Tuesday night. It'd be 900 kids in there.
535
00:27:41.700 --> 00:27:44.029
The whole floor would be full. The balcony would be full.
536
00:27:44.619 --> 00:27:47.109
The local station back then, there was a guy named
537
00:27:47.150 --> 00:27:50.960
Malcolm Riker that was on Rock 98. He emceed the show.
538
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.940
He would promote it online and say, we're going to
539
00:27:53.980 --> 00:27:56.380
do where you can play 15 minutes or three songs,
540
00:27:56.720 --> 00:27:58.500
and then we jerk the cord and the next band
541
00:27:58.519 --> 00:28:03.059
goes on. And people would come in from everywhere. And
542
00:28:03.420 --> 00:28:06.019
he became an advocate for our band. I don't know
543
00:28:06.059 --> 00:28:08.069
why he took a liking to us, but for some reason,
544
00:28:08.150 --> 00:28:10.289
all of a sudden, he was like, hey, man, I'm
545
00:28:10.309 --> 00:28:12.509
digging this song. We had Loves a Bitch and Wasted
546
00:28:12.549 --> 00:28:14.849
Love and a couple of songs. We did an EP
547
00:28:15.150 --> 00:28:17.410
on our own, a cassette EP. I can't believe I'm
548
00:28:17.430 --> 00:28:20.769
saying that, but cassette EP. that had five songs on it.
549
00:28:22.329 --> 00:28:25.849
And he started playing them on the radio. And the
550
00:28:25.869 --> 00:28:27.690
guy that signed us to A & M Records, the
551
00:28:27.750 --> 00:28:29.829
A & R guy, told our band, he said, I
552
00:28:29.849 --> 00:28:31.869
knew I was going to sign you because I flew
553
00:28:31.910 --> 00:28:34.269
into Memphis to see your band. I got in my
554
00:28:34.309 --> 00:28:36.250
rental car and I turned the radio on and your
555
00:28:36.299 --> 00:28:39.720
song was playing on the radio. Oh, wow. And our
556
00:28:39.779 --> 00:28:42.160
song got out of just a local show. It got
557
00:28:42.200 --> 00:28:45.480
into a top five requested song for the the station
558
00:28:45.799 --> 00:28:47.759
and so we were getting played on the radio i
559
00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:49.759
mean we were freaking out i remember like hearing the
560
00:28:49.779 --> 00:28:51.500
song on the radio and just going oh my god
561
00:28:51.559 --> 00:28:53.329
we put our song on the radio this is crazy
562
00:28:54.430 --> 00:28:57.170
and uh so that helped a lot the promoters and
563
00:28:57.349 --> 00:28:59.890
and the djs were all kind of and i mean
564
00:28:59.910 --> 00:29:03.130
back then they were having uh the studios were super
565
00:29:03.150 --> 00:29:05.269
busy in memphis they had a ton of work because
566
00:29:05.329 --> 00:29:07.710
everybody was cutting those demos to try to get on
567
00:29:07.910 --> 00:29:11.559
radio yeah And they were doing producer showcases. So they
568
00:29:11.579 --> 00:29:14.180
had record label people coming all the time, management companies,
569
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:20.190
booking agents, people behind the scenes, publishing companies, the PRO people,
570
00:29:20.349 --> 00:29:22.269
all those people were coming down. They had things called
571
00:29:22.289 --> 00:29:25.950
producer showcase and things like that. So it was really thriving.
572
00:29:26.329 --> 00:29:29.609
And it was definitely the overflow from L.A., just the
573
00:29:29.690 --> 00:29:31.869
vibe of the rock scene back then. It was a lot.
574
00:29:31.950 --> 00:29:35.349
There was some super heavy metal, you know, kind of dark.
575
00:29:35.789 --> 00:29:39.609
And I don't even know. It wasn't grunge yet. But
576
00:29:39.640 --> 00:29:41.410
they were just. heavier bands. And then there was some
577
00:29:41.430 --> 00:29:44.109
blues kind of sounding stuff and then more kind of
578
00:29:44.130 --> 00:29:47.089
pop rocky kind of things. But it was fun and
579
00:29:47.130 --> 00:29:50.630
it was competitive back then, even though we were little kids.
580
00:29:50.819 --> 00:29:53.059
But at the same time, it was like a fun competition.
581
00:29:53.170 --> 00:29:56.589
Like when one person started getting some attention, it made
582
00:29:56.609 --> 00:29:58.630
the whole community get attention. And then that, that gave
583
00:29:58.670 --> 00:30:00.579
all these other people opportunities. So it was kind of,
584
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:04.859
you were, you were definitely going, I want to, you know,
585
00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:06.539
one up the guy next to me, I want to
586
00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:08.720
become better at what I'm doing. But at, but you
587
00:30:08.740 --> 00:30:10.369
also kind of were rooting for them at the same time,
588
00:30:10.430 --> 00:30:12.279
because you go, if they, they get something going on,
589
00:30:12.289 --> 00:30:14.829
then that's going to help us maybe get, maybe we'll
590
00:30:14.849 --> 00:30:16.829
get on the show with them or maybe, you know,
591
00:30:16.910 --> 00:30:20.019
to be on the radio station thing with them or whatever. So,
592
00:30:20.849 --> 00:30:24.079
It was really cool. We didn't really know about LA
593
00:30:24.119 --> 00:30:26.559
and stuff until we got signed. We always stayed based
594
00:30:26.619 --> 00:30:28.759
out of Memphis. We signed a production deal with Art
595
00:30:28.799 --> 00:30:33.079
at Studios. For anybody watching or listening, please go look
596
00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:37.859
that studio up. It's still active. But it had a
597
00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:40.619
huge effect on us. We won a Battle of the
598
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:43.619
Bands competition. We won one day recording session in there.
599
00:30:44.599 --> 00:30:46.519
And we walked in. It was during the time we
600
00:30:46.539 --> 00:30:49.599
were cutting our little EP that we were going to
601
00:30:49.640 --> 00:30:52.839
put out. We went in and was working on a song.
602
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:55.339
It just so happened that day, a guy named Paul
603
00:30:55.420 --> 00:31:01.009
Ebersole was the engineer that was on duty. He inherited
604
00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:04.509
us by accident. We came in and we started talking
605
00:31:04.549 --> 00:31:10.410
to him. He played piano on the original Phantom Rider cut.
606
00:31:10.809 --> 00:31:12.650
We did it for the EP and then we recut
607
00:31:12.670 --> 00:31:15.240
it for Surprise Attack. On the first one, he played
608
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:17.359
piano on it. He started talking to us and he
609
00:31:17.380 --> 00:31:20.039
just said, I think I hear something in here. I
610
00:31:20.059 --> 00:31:22.099
don't know what it is with these songs, Love's a
611
00:31:22.140 --> 00:31:23.680
Bitch and Waste of Love and all that. And he said,
612
00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:26.250
but maybe we could cut these, like really take some
613
00:31:26.269 --> 00:31:28.450
time and do good versions of them and maybe see
614
00:31:28.490 --> 00:31:31.509
if we could get a record company interested. And we said, great,
615
00:31:31.769 --> 00:31:33.289
how do we do that? And he said, well, we
616
00:31:33.309 --> 00:31:35.710
put together this production deal. We didn't know what that was,
617
00:31:35.769 --> 00:31:37.430
but we were like, does that mean we can record again?
618
00:31:37.450 --> 00:31:40.319
We want to do that. And so basically they became
619
00:31:40.339 --> 00:31:45.039
the middleman between us and the labels. And it was cool,
620
00:31:45.099 --> 00:31:48.779
our timing, this was like God or the universe, wherever
621
00:31:48.920 --> 00:31:52.259
everybody lands on this. To me, it was totally like
622
00:31:52.279 --> 00:31:55.819
a God thing. But the timing was perfect because they
623
00:31:55.859 --> 00:31:58.089
had just got an artist signed to a record label.
624
00:31:58.119 --> 00:32:00.609
His name was John Kilzer. He was on Geffen Records.
625
00:32:00.990 --> 00:32:05.269
He was a prolific singer-songwriter, but he had rock. His
626
00:32:05.329 --> 00:32:07.369
songs were like Red Blue Jeans. It was kind of
627
00:32:10.529 --> 00:32:12.890
a throw at Russia and America and all this kind
628
00:32:12.910 --> 00:32:16.519
of stuff. But anyway, he was really great. singer-songwriter, but
629
00:32:16.539 --> 00:32:18.859
they knew all the A & R people right the
630
00:32:19.059 --> 00:32:20.940
timing that we walked in. They said, hey, we already
631
00:32:20.960 --> 00:32:23.140
have everybody's phone number. Let's just cut four songs on
632
00:32:23.180 --> 00:32:24.980
these guys and we'll see if somebody will give us
633
00:32:25.069 --> 00:32:28.789
a call back. Yeah. And so we did. We ended up,
634
00:32:28.829 --> 00:32:33.069
we showcased a couple of times. And one thing that
635
00:32:33.109 --> 00:32:34.829
I didn't bring up earlier with you that was kind
636
00:32:34.869 --> 00:32:39.990
of funny, our rehearsal place in Memphis was insane. We
637
00:32:40.029 --> 00:32:44.269
had a warehouse. Our guitar player's dad, Keith Douglas, his dad,
638
00:32:45.329 --> 00:32:47.809
Had rented it in the middle of the city. I
639
00:32:47.829 --> 00:32:49.839
think he did it for us on purpose. We were,
640
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:52.640
first of all, down in his plant. He owned a
641
00:32:52.660 --> 00:32:54.660
glue factory and we were rehearsing down there on the
642
00:32:54.700 --> 00:32:57.960
state line at Mississippi. And he rented the space right
643
00:32:57.980 --> 00:33:00.869
next to the Coliseum, right where we saw concerts. We
644
00:33:00.910 --> 00:33:03.390
saw everybody, Van Halen and ACDC and everybody in there.
645
00:33:03.950 --> 00:33:06.109
But we almost were touching the parking lot, you know.
646
00:33:06.900 --> 00:33:08.980
And we were in this little place, and it had
647
00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:11.190
a bay door, you know, and we opened it up,
648
00:33:11.339 --> 00:33:15.829
and there were these empty barrels, 55-gallon drums sitting in there, red. There's,
649
00:33:15.849 --> 00:33:17.569
you know, a bunch of them, as far as you
650
00:33:17.589 --> 00:33:20.130
could see. And we just said, let's push them all
651
00:33:20.150 --> 00:33:23.210
to one end. Let's put some plywood on top of it.
652
00:33:23.589 --> 00:33:25.210
And all of a sudden, we had a stage all
653
00:33:25.230 --> 00:33:28.450
the way across the thing. Oh, wow. We hung some
654
00:33:28.670 --> 00:33:31.599
black garbage bags off the front, and he put a
655
00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:33.859
PA system in there. Like, I'm not talking about, like,
656
00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:36.289
two speakers. I'm talking about, like, big ones that would
657
00:33:36.309 --> 00:33:38.789
be for a show. He stuck them in there. And
658
00:33:38.829 --> 00:33:40.569
of course, as soon as we did that, we said,
659
00:33:40.829 --> 00:33:42.789
we got to throw a party, man. This place is ready.
660
00:33:44.529 --> 00:33:48.170
And so we did. And we put out flyers. And
661
00:33:48.230 --> 00:33:50.049
it got so crazy. We couldn't do it all the
662
00:33:50.089 --> 00:33:52.950
time because we were scared the police would come. But
663
00:33:53.089 --> 00:33:55.019
it got so big, that friend of mine that was
664
00:33:55.059 --> 00:33:57.440
on the radio would announce it. He'd go, go to
665
00:33:57.500 --> 00:34:00.839
the warehouse for a tour. I mean, it sounded like
666
00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:04.640
we were really, and it was blasting across five states, man.
667
00:34:05.230 --> 00:34:08.269
People would come. It was so big. We couldn't fit
668
00:34:08.309 --> 00:34:10.809
the people in there. We had two football players from
669
00:34:10.829 --> 00:34:13.750
Ole Miss University that was about 60 miles from Memphis.
670
00:34:14.070 --> 00:34:16.690
They would take the money at the door. And we said,
671
00:34:16.730 --> 00:34:19.929
if anybody fights, throw them in a sand pile outside.
672
00:34:20.389 --> 00:34:22.349
We didn't want anybody fighting inside. We were like, we
673
00:34:22.389 --> 00:34:24.570
want everybody to get along. And, you know, when you're
674
00:34:24.610 --> 00:34:27.480
little like that and everybody's got their turf and their
675
00:34:27.519 --> 00:34:29.460
chest is kind of puffed out, you know, sometimes people
676
00:34:29.480 --> 00:34:31.340
would get mouthy with each other and they'd get all up.
677
00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:33.690
So they would take care of that. But it was
678
00:34:33.730 --> 00:34:35.769
a really fun vibe. We said, you can do anything
679
00:34:35.789 --> 00:34:38.769
you want to in here. Nobody get hurt. So they would.
680
00:34:38.969 --> 00:34:41.300
They'd come in. They were smoking. We had big sand
681
00:34:41.699 --> 00:34:44.500
buckets everywhere so they wouldn't burn the building down. Yeah.
682
00:34:44.780 --> 00:34:46.980
They would sit on their cars. It would get to capacity.
683
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:49.780
We would raise the bay door and they would sit
684
00:34:49.820 --> 00:34:52.440
on their cars. They had lawn furniture outside. They were
685
00:34:52.460 --> 00:34:54.579
throwing Frisbees. I mean, it was like a scene out
686
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:57.550
of a movie, man. It was awesome. And we didn't
687
00:34:57.570 --> 00:35:00.869
know what we had. We were like running a club, basically.
688
00:35:00.949 --> 00:35:03.909
And it would only happen every few months. The record
689
00:35:03.969 --> 00:35:08.429
company people came to see us showcase there. When you
690
00:35:08.469 --> 00:35:10.250
walked in, it was two offices, and we built a
691
00:35:10.289 --> 00:35:13.829
bar upstairs. And they could stand there. We got them
692
00:35:13.869 --> 00:35:15.869
to come early, and they stood there, and they watched
693
00:35:16.010 --> 00:35:19.150
everybody come in. They drug their coolers in, their lawn chairs.
694
00:35:19.349 --> 00:35:21.769
And they just stood there and watched it organically. And
695
00:35:21.789 --> 00:35:24.650
then we popped up on stage and went, let's party.
696
00:35:24.730 --> 00:35:27.030
Let's go get it. And everybody just went, yeah. And
697
00:35:27.090 --> 00:35:28.480
it was like, all right, man. It was so fun.
698
00:35:31.590 --> 00:35:33.929
But that had a big influence on us, you know,
699
00:35:34.269 --> 00:35:36.630
building a following. We had the radio support. We had
700
00:35:36.650 --> 00:35:40.360
kind of a cool place to do the shows. And
701
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:42.860
the next thing we knew, we were cutting some demos
702
00:35:42.880 --> 00:35:47.639
with Arden. And, you know, the rest is history. We
703
00:35:47.659 --> 00:35:49.579
kind of signed with them and then we just jumped out.
704
00:35:49.619 --> 00:35:53.349
And I mean, I remember I remember Keith and I
705
00:35:53.389 --> 00:35:55.630
were cutting grass for a living. My mom was a
706
00:35:55.650 --> 00:35:58.239
real estate agent and his mom was, too. And we
707
00:35:58.260 --> 00:36:01.440
would go and cut their properties. He had a truck
708
00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:03.579
and we had a couple lawnmowers in the back. And
709
00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:05.739
we were riding around. We went, man, wouldn't it be
710
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:09.130
crazy if we got in the studio and had a
711
00:36:09.170 --> 00:36:11.170
chance to do some work? And we were just driving
712
00:36:11.210 --> 00:36:15.289
and thinking and smoking and talking and just dreaming. And
713
00:36:15.309 --> 00:36:17.269
the next thing we knew, we were in the studio.
714
00:36:17.289 --> 00:36:19.630
And then we heard our song on the radio. And
715
00:36:19.650 --> 00:36:21.949
we just went, oh my God, the song is on
716
00:36:21.969 --> 00:36:24.760
the radio. This is the craziest. What is going on
717
00:36:24.780 --> 00:36:28.389
right now? So that whole trip, and this whole ride
718
00:36:28.429 --> 00:36:30.949
with them has always been like that. We've just said,
719
00:36:31.070 --> 00:36:33.909
you know, let's just enjoy it. Have a good time.
720
00:36:33.989 --> 00:36:36.929
We love doing music. We love seeing the people. We
721
00:36:36.949 --> 00:36:39.989
love being creative and all that. So that kind of
722
00:36:40.090 --> 00:36:43.940
origin part of it is it was really special time, man.
723
00:36:43.980 --> 00:36:47.480
We were, we didn't know anything. We didn't know anything.
724
00:36:47.500 --> 00:36:49.880
And I just think it just made it so amazing
725
00:36:50.079 --> 00:36:52.079
because we were just like, let's just ride the lightning.
726
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:53.989
Let's just see what happens. We don't know if we're
727
00:36:54.010 --> 00:36:57.349
going to do anything or not, but, let's just go
728
00:36:57.389 --> 00:36:58.949
have a good time with it. And that's kind of
729
00:36:58.989 --> 00:37:02.630
how we approached it. And we got very lucky the time.
730
00:37:02.650 --> 00:37:05.190
And like I said, there were so many talented people
731
00:37:05.250 --> 00:37:08.260
in Memphis. I mean, they're still, it blows me away.
732
00:37:08.280 --> 00:37:11.119
I live in Nashville. I'm here. I've been here for
733
00:37:11.119 --> 00:37:16.539
21 years. But Memphis is still home to me. The
734
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:18.309
band's based there. I have a lot of family there.
735
00:37:19.349 --> 00:37:23.030
And I go there to visit and I'll walk in
736
00:37:23.070 --> 00:37:25.329
some little hole in the wall. And it's one of
737
00:37:25.349 --> 00:37:27.489
the most talented people I've ever, I was like, why
738
00:37:27.530 --> 00:37:29.449
does everybody in the world not know who this person is?
739
00:37:29.469 --> 00:37:32.250
They're so good. So we kind of grew up around
740
00:37:32.289 --> 00:37:35.500
that element in Memphis. It's always been kind of wild.
741
00:37:35.539 --> 00:37:39.619
And we've always felt like ambassadors for the city. As
742
00:37:39.659 --> 00:37:42.179
we started off as little kids, everywhere we went, people
743
00:37:42.260 --> 00:37:46.260
ask us about Memphis. Yeah. It meant something different to everybody.
744
00:37:46.380 --> 00:37:48.389
Some people loved it because of the blues, you know,
745
00:37:48.489 --> 00:37:51.730
like WC Handy and the cross, you know, the crossroads
746
00:37:51.769 --> 00:37:53.590
right there at 4th and Beale. They'd say, man, that's where,
747
00:37:54.590 --> 00:37:57.590
That's where it all happens with blues music and all
748
00:37:57.610 --> 00:37:59.920
that kind of stuff. And then other people would say,
749
00:38:00.659 --> 00:38:02.320
I love it because of Rockabilly, and I love it
750
00:38:02.340 --> 00:38:05.099
because of Elvis, and I love it because of Stax.
751
00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:09.059
Stax was huge, man. They were the biggest black-on business
752
00:38:09.099 --> 00:38:12.500
in America. At one point, they had everybody, Otis Redding,
753
00:38:12.579 --> 00:38:17.360
Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, all those people. And so then
754
00:38:17.480 --> 00:38:19.579
there was the rock era that was going on. People
755
00:38:19.619 --> 00:38:22.699
like Jimmy Jameson that was with Survivor. He took over
756
00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:25.239
after the original singer of Survivor was gone. And they
757
00:38:25.280 --> 00:38:27.699
called him the Golden Throat. He was amazing. But he
758
00:38:27.719 --> 00:38:30.179
had a band before he was in Survivor called Target.
759
00:38:30.920 --> 00:38:33.679
And they sounded like bad company, man. I mean, I'm serious.
760
00:38:33.699 --> 00:38:35.920
This guy could sing his ass off. He was so good.
761
00:38:36.699 --> 00:38:39.139
He sang back up on our records. If he wasn't touring,
762
00:38:39.500 --> 00:38:41.619
he would be in town and do session work. And
763
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:43.900
he came in and sang on, a lot of people
764
00:38:43.920 --> 00:38:47.280
don't know this, he was singing on that Surprise Attack record. Oh, wow.
765
00:38:47.739 --> 00:38:50.079
And he would come in and he always had this
766
00:38:50.139 --> 00:38:52.880
real mischievous grin on his face. Like he's like something,
767
00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:56.079
but he would come in and talk to us about
768
00:38:56.099 --> 00:38:58.000
the industry. You know, he would say, you know, who
769
00:38:58.059 --> 00:39:01.440
owns your name? Are you paying attention to your publishing stuff?
770
00:39:01.500 --> 00:39:03.300
Or it was those things that you would only know
771
00:39:03.320 --> 00:39:06.119
after you kind of gained some experience in the industry
772
00:39:06.159 --> 00:39:09.000
and say, Hey, these are some kind of important conversations.
773
00:39:09.780 --> 00:39:11.940
This is intellectual property. This is something that you need
774
00:39:11.980 --> 00:39:15.280
to protect. And this is going to be your livelihood. And, uh,
775
00:39:16.110 --> 00:39:17.880
So he was kind of doing that. He was dropping
776
00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:21.019
little nuggets. He wasn't being like, oh, I got it
777
00:39:21.059 --> 00:39:23.659
all down. He was very humble. He could have been
778
00:39:23.659 --> 00:39:26.559
a really kind of cocky guy and have a big ego,
779
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:28.849
but he wasn't. He was like he never changed his
780
00:39:28.889 --> 00:39:31.409
whole life he was always the same guy yeah and
781
00:39:31.449 --> 00:39:34.179
no matter how successfully got and we were just lucky
782
00:39:34.199 --> 00:39:36.199
because we got introduced to him through the studio you
783
00:39:36.219 --> 00:39:38.039
know we said oh my god this is amazing and
784
00:39:38.940 --> 00:39:41.760
so he was a lot of fun and uh anyway
785
00:39:41.780 --> 00:39:46.460
those adventures have been crazy man this whole.
786
00:39:46.340 --> 00:39:50.019
Time yeah Well, I got to know then because now obviously,
787
00:39:50.280 --> 00:39:51.989
you know, you hit it and you're doing your thing.
788
00:39:52.309 --> 00:39:56.110
Do you feel that Tora Tora fit the hair metal
789
00:39:56.150 --> 00:39:58.070
category or were you just kind of placed in it
790
00:39:58.130 --> 00:40:01.630
because you hit at that time when everything was exploding
791
00:40:01.690 --> 00:40:02.230
for it still?
792
00:40:03.269 --> 00:40:05.980
Well, I mean, the timing of it, we were kind of,
793
00:40:06.519 --> 00:40:09.599
like you said, in that last wave, I guess, of
794
00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:12.460
things that were going on. We didn't like consider ourselves that,
795
00:40:12.539 --> 00:40:15.849
but we didn't. we weren't really arguing or thinking about it.
796
00:40:16.030 --> 00:40:18.190
We were just like, let's make some music. I mean,
797
00:40:18.210 --> 00:40:20.530
I had, you know, posters of Motley Crue and Bon
798
00:40:20.550 --> 00:40:23.380
Jovi and stuff on my walls hanging everywhere. So I
799
00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:26.019
was a fan of it. I think that we kind of,
800
00:40:26.940 --> 00:40:30.079
at the beginning, we were kind of leaning on the
801
00:40:30.119 --> 00:40:32.760
advice of other people. And as we got some experience,
802
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:35.139
we started realizing that we had a little bit more
803
00:40:35.739 --> 00:40:37.619
of control over the stuff that was going on where
804
00:40:37.639 --> 00:40:43.159
we weren't maybe necessarily, um, having to fit into what somebody,
805
00:40:43.260 --> 00:40:46.739
we were trying to be just our own thing. But
806
00:40:46.780 --> 00:40:49.099
I mean, you know, on all that stuff, we were
807
00:40:49.159 --> 00:40:52.320
like excited, man. I mean, I remember going and people
808
00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:55.590
getting fittings for stuff to go on the road and
809
00:40:55.610 --> 00:40:57.010
stuff you're going to wear on stage. And I mean,
810
00:40:57.050 --> 00:40:58.849
we just thought it was the most cool thing in
811
00:40:58.869 --> 00:41:00.570
the world. We were like, what is all this going on?
812
00:41:01.269 --> 00:41:03.489
And then we kind of, you know, if you watch
813
00:41:03.550 --> 00:41:06.929
between those records, the Surprise Attack and Wild America, we
814
00:41:07.269 --> 00:41:10.599
got well-seasoned. off that first record. We toured for two
815
00:41:10.639 --> 00:41:13.980
years on that first record. Wow. And we started out playing,
816
00:41:14.260 --> 00:41:17.730
you know, some place in the middle of nowhere in
817
00:41:17.769 --> 00:41:20.389
Pennsylvania with three people. You know, it was the bartender
818
00:41:20.429 --> 00:41:22.929
and the bouncer and my manager. And they were going,
819
00:41:23.389 --> 00:41:25.349
what's the name of your record? You know, he was
820
00:41:25.369 --> 00:41:27.389
standing in the back, you know, trying to get me
821
00:41:27.429 --> 00:41:29.690
to figure out, because we never toured. We had never
822
00:41:29.829 --> 00:41:32.070
toured as a band. We just played in Memphis and
823
00:41:32.110 --> 00:41:34.860
we were signed. Yeah. So we didn't know the ropes
824
00:41:34.920 --> 00:41:36.340
on the road. And so we kind of had to
825
00:41:36.380 --> 00:41:38.599
go learn that. But, you know, you caught on pretty quick.
826
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:42.019
And for about six or eight weeks before the first
827
00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:48.110
record came out, we moved to New York. Excuse me.
828
00:41:48.130 --> 00:41:53.230
Our management company owned Club L'Amour in New York. And
829
00:41:53.250 --> 00:41:57.489
it was very famous. Metallica played their kicks. They managed
830
00:41:57.550 --> 00:42:01.650
White Line, Overkill, Taekwondo. We were kind of the southern
831
00:42:01.690 --> 00:42:03.409
guys that showed up all of a sudden. We didn't
832
00:42:03.429 --> 00:42:06.619
know anything about New York or anything. And it was fun.
833
00:42:06.920 --> 00:42:10.400
But we were staying on Staten Island, which is, I
834
00:42:10.440 --> 00:42:12.280
don't know. We saw the bright lights of the city
835
00:42:12.300 --> 00:42:14.320
in our van, and then we kind of just went, oh,
836
00:42:14.380 --> 00:42:16.320
where are we going? And it was like, you're on
837
00:42:16.380 --> 00:42:20.489
Staten Island. And it was seven people. It was four
838
00:42:20.530 --> 00:42:22.329
guys in a band. We took three of our best friends,
839
00:42:22.409 --> 00:42:25.199
our crew guys. Mm-hmm. And we left Memphis like a
840
00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:27.780
group of Vikings, man. We wanted to go conquer. We
841
00:42:27.800 --> 00:42:29.860
had never been out on the road. And man, it
842
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:34.809
was the most amazing experience. I'm telling you, it was unbelievable.
843
00:42:35.090 --> 00:42:39.349
It was so exciting and fun. And for those few weeks,
844
00:42:39.449 --> 00:42:41.349
we got to do some really cool stuff. Right before
845
00:42:41.369 --> 00:42:43.630
the record came out, we played with Kix. We did
846
00:42:43.989 --> 00:42:45.469
about five or six shows with them. And it was
847
00:42:45.530 --> 00:42:48.969
right when Don't Close Your Eyes had taken off. They
848
00:42:48.989 --> 00:42:52.119
were already established. They'd had a few records out. And
849
00:42:52.139 --> 00:42:54.420
they were so down to earth. We were wondering what
850
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:55.860
they were going to be like because we knew their
851
00:42:55.880 --> 00:42:58.440
song was taking off and all that. But they were
852
00:42:58.460 --> 00:43:01.280
really nice to us. You know, they could have not
853
00:43:01.619 --> 00:43:03.789
interacted with us or anything, but they always were nice
854
00:43:03.829 --> 00:43:07.130
and cordial and all that kind of stuff. And, you know,
855
00:43:07.210 --> 00:43:09.510
all these years later, I've had a chance to bump
856
00:43:09.550 --> 00:43:11.610
into them, a couple of them, and tell them how
857
00:43:11.670 --> 00:43:14.239
much that meant to us. Because we used to use
858
00:43:14.280 --> 00:43:17.260
Blow My Fuse as our hype music before we went on.
859
00:43:17.280 --> 00:43:19.260
We would have it on in the dressing room and
860
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.239
stuff and listen to it on the bus and all
861
00:43:21.260 --> 00:43:25.170
that stuff. And, uh, I don't know. I think about
862
00:43:25.190 --> 00:43:28.210
them a lot. They, they definitely influenced that second record
863
00:43:28.250 --> 00:43:29.969
a lot. Cause after we had been around them and
864
00:43:29.989 --> 00:43:32.699
saw a few of their shows, we became big fans
865
00:43:32.840 --> 00:43:34.719
and we ended up working with a guy named Taylor
866
00:43:34.739 --> 00:43:37.380
Rhodes who had written some songs with them and had
867
00:43:37.420 --> 00:43:39.579
recorded some of their music with them. He was based
868
00:43:39.639 --> 00:43:41.699
out of Nashville. And so we came up and we
869
00:43:41.739 --> 00:43:44.860
wrote amnesia and faith healer on wild America with him.
870
00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:48.960
So those were our first two singles off that second record. And, um,
871
00:43:49.880 --> 00:43:52.079
I don't know. It was just, that was a crazy time,
872
00:43:52.099 --> 00:43:54.559
but I got so many stories about all that stuff.
873
00:43:55.099 --> 00:43:55.860
I could talk all day.
874
00:43:56.420 --> 00:43:58.059
Well, it kind of brings me to my next point,
875
00:43:58.119 --> 00:44:01.199
which was how do you start navigating the changing landscape
876
00:44:01.239 --> 00:44:02.280
of music in the nineties?
877
00:44:03.239 --> 00:44:07.059
It was, it was very hard. We didn't recognize it. And, uh,
878
00:44:07.460 --> 00:44:10.039
I've had a lot of people ask me, excuse me,
879
00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:13.340
that said, you know, how did you fail when grunge
880
00:44:13.380 --> 00:44:17.840
destroyed your, genre or whatever. And we didn't know. We
881
00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:21.940
really didn't think of it at the beginning. After things
882
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:29.650
had taken off, when Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and those
883
00:44:29.690 --> 00:44:34.369
guys took off, the Seattle sound, we recognized that. And
884
00:44:34.429 --> 00:44:37.860
we were kind of in between cycles, record cycles, when
885
00:44:37.900 --> 00:44:40.320
this was taken off. So we were kind of still
886
00:44:40.340 --> 00:44:43.219
in our little bubble in Memphis recording and working on
887
00:44:43.300 --> 00:44:45.000
our own music and stuff, working on Wild America and
888
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:48.590
all that. So we were just focused on doing the
889
00:44:48.610 --> 00:44:52.150
best record that we could. We probably wrote, I don't know,
890
00:44:52.150 --> 00:44:54.550
60 songs for the first record and then 60 or
891
00:44:54.550 --> 00:44:58.449
70 for the next record. Oh my God. Tons of songs.
892
00:44:58.789 --> 00:45:01.969
You would run through a handful of them and we
893
00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:04.610
would run in and cut four or five of them.
894
00:45:04.949 --> 00:45:06.599
Then we say the best one out of that whole
895
00:45:06.619 --> 00:45:09.019
batch is this one. Now, this is the song that's
896
00:45:09.059 --> 00:45:11.469
made the record. Dump all those. Now let's go beat
897
00:45:11.489 --> 00:45:13.630
this one. It's got to be better than this to
898
00:45:13.650 --> 00:45:15.510
make the next one. So we did that. We worked
899
00:45:15.570 --> 00:45:18.199
on that record for almost two years. I mean, that
900
00:45:18.219 --> 00:45:21.480
was a long space to be away. But what was funny,
901
00:45:21.539 --> 00:45:24.079
when you ask about it, how was it navigating the 90s?
902
00:45:24.199 --> 00:45:27.239
We played shows with Alice in Chains when we were touring.
903
00:45:28.300 --> 00:45:30.820
I remember walking in a little club, and I don't
904
00:45:30.860 --> 00:45:33.340
remember where I was. I was in Spokane, or it
905
00:45:33.380 --> 00:45:36.239
was somewhere on the West Coast. And it was a
906
00:45:36.280 --> 00:45:39.860
little pub. And I walked in, and I saw their t-shirts.
907
00:45:40.519 --> 00:45:42.059
on the wall and it said allison chains i was
908
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:44.059
like man that's a weird name for you know i
909
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:46.739
wonder what these guys sound like and of course lane's
910
00:45:46.780 --> 00:45:49.050
voice was freaking insane you know it was like oh
911
00:45:49.150 --> 00:45:51.550
my god but we thought of them more as like
912
00:45:52.130 --> 00:45:54.050
they were just heavy they were like a black sabbath
913
00:45:54.090 --> 00:45:57.889
or something you know we didn't when it wasn't registering
914
00:45:57.929 --> 00:46:00.829
to us that hey there's this whole new genre this
915
00:46:00.849 --> 00:46:02.630
whole new scene that's about to blow up out there
916
00:46:02.650 --> 00:46:05.869
because we had just only bumped into them you know Yeah. And, uh,
917
00:46:06.110 --> 00:46:07.699
we played a couple of shows. We played a little
918
00:46:07.719 --> 00:46:09.980
tiny club and then we played a big venue. It
919
00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:13.440
was probably, I don't know, a thousand or 2000 seat
920
00:46:13.719 --> 00:46:15.940
place that they had lined from their area. And we
921
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:20.440
were like, damn, these dudes are really taking up, but
922
00:46:20.480 --> 00:46:22.760
they were cool. You know, we saw, we bumped into
923
00:46:22.780 --> 00:46:25.519
them through the years. We, we weren't like best friends
924
00:46:25.559 --> 00:46:28.500
with them, but we were, you know, friendly enough where
925
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:30.480
if they came to Memphis, we'd go and, you know,
926
00:46:30.780 --> 00:46:32.780
tap on their door at the bus and say, Hey, and,
927
00:46:33.659 --> 00:46:36.889
or if they, uh, I think they were out in L.A.
928
00:46:36.989 --> 00:46:39.909
one time. Keith was recording out there doing something. And
929
00:46:40.570 --> 00:46:42.550
they came up and they were recording in another room
930
00:46:42.789 --> 00:46:44.570
doing overdubs or something. And we got to see them
931
00:46:44.590 --> 00:46:46.429
and visit for a minute. So, you know, it just
932
00:46:46.469 --> 00:46:47.989
be kind of like we were on the road all
933
00:46:48.010 --> 00:46:51.420
the time. So you're kind of crisscrossing everybody. You see people. Yeah.
934
00:46:51.460 --> 00:46:52.860
And that's the way it was with all the bands
935
00:46:52.900 --> 00:46:55.059
back then. We would leave notes to each other on
936
00:46:55.079 --> 00:46:57.599
the wall like, hey, I know you're coming in next week,
937
00:46:57.619 --> 00:47:01.380
you know, whatever. And because we were all kind of
938
00:47:01.519 --> 00:47:03.059
coming up at the same time and playing the same
939
00:47:03.079 --> 00:47:04.639
old places and all that. Yeah. Yeah.
940
00:47:05.179 --> 00:47:07.409
Yeah. That's cool.
941
00:47:07.610 --> 00:47:11.440
It was hard, and especially when our record deal with
942
00:47:11.519 --> 00:47:16.000
A & M ended in 94, we worked on a
943
00:47:16.380 --> 00:47:18.980
whole project. It went all the way to the mastering phase.
944
00:47:19.139 --> 00:47:21.769
We were literally about to slap the artwork on it
945
00:47:21.789 --> 00:47:26.110
and put it out. They called and said, if your
946
00:47:26.150 --> 00:47:28.389
record's coming out, it's going to get shelved. It's not
947
00:47:28.429 --> 00:47:29.949
going to come out at all. We had worked for
948
00:47:29.989 --> 00:47:32.260
a year or something on a record of recording stuff,
949
00:47:32.320 --> 00:47:35.059
and we'd written a lot of songs. And I was
950
00:47:35.119 --> 00:47:38.980
probably 24 when that happened. So I was the youngest
951
00:47:39.019 --> 00:47:41.599
guy in the band. And all of a sudden it
952
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:45.489
just went from, you know, we were gone. We would
953
00:47:45.530 --> 00:47:47.969
do eight week runs or 10 week runs or something
954
00:47:47.989 --> 00:47:49.369
like that. And then come home for a couple of
955
00:47:49.389 --> 00:47:52.789
weeks to where it started getting spotty. Like we started
956
00:47:52.849 --> 00:47:56.550
slowing down. We're playing smaller venues. And then the next
957
00:47:56.570 --> 00:47:58.409
thing I knew, it was hard to get in touch
958
00:47:58.429 --> 00:48:01.579
with people. They were like not picking up the phone.
959
00:48:01.599 --> 00:48:03.500
They had moved on to somebody that was, you know,
960
00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:07.179
taking off and busy and working. Yeah. And, um, so
961
00:48:07.260 --> 00:48:09.739
that was a hard reality. And I don't think it really, the,
962
00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:13.119
the magnitude of what had happened with me and with
963
00:48:13.139 --> 00:48:15.500
the band and stuff hit me at that time. I
964
00:48:15.539 --> 00:48:17.039
thought it was going to be like, we always did.
965
00:48:17.099 --> 00:48:19.300
We would do a high, this thing for a second.
966
00:48:19.340 --> 00:48:21.909
And then, Hey, I'll see you in a couple of months. Yeah.
967
00:48:21.929 --> 00:48:25.630
Or something like that. When that happened with the band,
968
00:48:25.969 --> 00:48:28.110
that's kind of how I felt. I just said, Hey,
969
00:48:28.130 --> 00:48:30.170
you know what? Maybe we'll take a break. Let's figure
970
00:48:30.190 --> 00:48:32.110
it out. Keith, Do we want to go back on
971
00:48:32.130 --> 00:48:34.510
the road? Can we go back on the road? Can
972
00:48:34.550 --> 00:48:36.230
we do, you know, what can we, how can we
973
00:48:36.269 --> 00:48:39.989
work this out? Yeah. And it was seven years before
974
00:48:40.030 --> 00:48:42.679
we saw each other again. Oh, my God. It was
975
00:48:42.739 --> 00:48:44.059
a big race. Yeah.
976
00:48:44.119 --> 00:48:47.780
But, you know, like now, like thinking about that and
977
00:48:47.800 --> 00:48:51.099
looking back on it, it's crazy because, you know, all
978
00:48:51.119 --> 00:48:55.840
of those bands, you guys included, have this big resurgence. And,
979
00:48:56.139 --> 00:48:59.510
you know, fast forward to just this year. you're playing
980
00:48:59.530 --> 00:49:02.909
on the Monsters Rockers, Tora Tora, and you're doing, you know,
981
00:49:03.010 --> 00:49:04.110
the Acoustic.
982
00:49:03.769 --> 00:49:05.969
Rocks also, which I thought was really cool.
983
00:49:06.130 --> 00:49:08.469
And it's like, it had to be a mind-blowing thing
984
00:49:08.510 --> 00:49:10.010
to realize that we're back.
985
00:49:10.050 --> 00:49:10.659
Like, it's back.
986
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:11.389
Here we are again.
987
00:49:11.420 --> 00:49:15.340
Yeah. It's been wild. I think it was a timing
988
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:18.019
thing with us. And the Monsters of Rock, one thing
989
00:49:18.079 --> 00:49:21.539
I would like to say about them, is they've created
990
00:49:21.579 --> 00:49:24.659
something really super special, man, with the community and the
991
00:49:24.719 --> 00:49:27.500
culture that Larry's created, his team of people that he
992
00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:32.119
works with. They're all amazing. And April Lee had approached
993
00:49:32.199 --> 00:49:34.019
us a couple of times to go on the Monsters
994
00:49:34.039 --> 00:49:36.360
of Rock. I had met her or seen her here
995
00:49:36.559 --> 00:49:39.250
in Nashville before. And our band, we couldn't get our
996
00:49:39.289 --> 00:49:41.320
shit together. You know, we would all talk to each other.
997
00:49:41.539 --> 00:49:44.659
And finally, I think she talked to our wives. She
998
00:49:44.679 --> 00:49:46.460
just said, I'm just going to go to somebody's wife
999
00:49:46.519 --> 00:49:48.380
and say, hey, they need to really pay attention and
1000
00:49:48.420 --> 00:49:51.619
do this thing. And so we just said, let's let's
1001
00:49:51.699 --> 00:49:54.719
do it. At the time that this all happened, where
1002
00:49:54.760 --> 00:49:57.090
we got affiliated with them, our bass player, Patrick, had
1003
00:49:57.449 --> 00:50:00.250
had a health scare. He had been diagnosed with cancer.
1004
00:50:01.179 --> 00:50:04.269
And he went in for something else and they found
1005
00:50:04.289 --> 00:50:06.630
it and they said, hey, this is super aggressive. But
1006
00:50:06.670 --> 00:50:08.690
they said, it's just at the very beginning. We're going
1007
00:50:08.710 --> 00:50:09.849
to get it and you're going to make a full
1008
00:50:09.869 --> 00:50:12.800
recovery and you're going to be able to be healthy
1009
00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:17.500
again and live a great life. And right as he
1010
00:50:17.539 --> 00:50:19.119
was coming out of that, we saw the people from
1011
00:50:19.139 --> 00:50:21.139
Monster Rock and they said, you should jump on here.
1012
00:50:21.159 --> 00:50:23.469
And we said, let's go. Let's go on here. This
1013
00:50:23.489 --> 00:50:25.880
will be fun for us to do it. And that
1014
00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:28.599
was 2017. So next year will be 10 years that
1015
00:50:28.619 --> 00:50:31.400
we've been affiliated with them. We go in an alternating
1016
00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:34.199
kind of rotation. We don't go every year. We go
1017
00:50:34.260 --> 00:50:37.260
maybe every other year. Excuse me. And I think Larry
1018
00:50:37.300 --> 00:50:39.519
does that to kind of keep it fresh. He's got
1019
00:50:39.539 --> 00:50:42.420
to have some of the heavy headliners that are pulled
1020
00:50:42.460 --> 00:50:46.280
that are kind of mainstays. But I think he moves
1021
00:50:46.300 --> 00:50:49.679
it around for the fans. He gives them access to
1022
00:50:49.719 --> 00:50:51.909
people maybe from Europe that they wouldn't get to see
1023
00:50:51.929 --> 00:50:54.380
unless they're doing something like this. And then for bands
1024
00:50:54.440 --> 00:50:56.920
like us that are just, we're not super active, but
1025
00:50:56.960 --> 00:50:59.059
we're still playing and we're still putting music out and
1026
00:50:59.079 --> 00:51:00.980
all that kind of stuff. It's a great way for
1027
00:51:01.019 --> 00:51:03.619
us to interact with the fans and see everybody and
1028
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:06.449
to see the other bands. We're huge fans of theirs.
1029
00:51:06.489 --> 00:51:08.789
We toured with a lot of those guys. So it's
1030
00:51:08.829 --> 00:51:11.230
a real kind of community thing for me personally, just
1031
00:51:11.250 --> 00:51:13.250
to get on there and see each other. And you
1032
00:51:13.289 --> 00:51:15.309
know how hard the music industry is, man. We have
1033
00:51:15.329 --> 00:51:17.170
to really kind of encourage each other. You get kind
1034
00:51:17.210 --> 00:51:20.630
of beat up in the industry. So it's good. You know,
1035
00:51:20.869 --> 00:51:23.429
sometimes you're just getting knocked into somebody's path for a minute.
1036
00:51:23.739 --> 00:51:26.179
just to show up to encourage them and stuff, you
1037
00:51:26.199 --> 00:51:27.780
know what I mean? Or just to encourage each other.
1038
00:51:28.380 --> 00:51:30.389
So I've felt like that a couple of times on there.
1039
00:51:30.739 --> 00:51:35.030
And then, you know, I don't know. I, I think
1040
00:51:35.070 --> 00:51:38.610
he's doing this thing now, the mountain festival, the mountain
1041
00:51:38.630 --> 00:51:42.010
music festival over in Gatlinburg. And he brought that on
1042
00:51:42.050 --> 00:51:44.170
land during COVID. And I think that was amazing how
1043
00:51:44.190 --> 00:51:47.409
they've got that set up now. That's another great experience.
1044
00:51:47.519 --> 00:51:50.800
And that's August 21st through the 24th for anybody watching. It's,
1045
00:51:50.980 --> 00:51:53.800
it's a great, it's a great way to go see music.
1046
00:51:53.980 --> 00:51:56.800
They have it really flowing really great and the bands
1047
00:51:57.389 --> 00:52:00.409
are backed up one right after another. It's cool how
1048
00:52:00.429 --> 00:52:04.210
they switch stages. But anyway, I can't say enough great
1049
00:52:04.289 --> 00:52:09.869
stuff about them. It's been really amazing to get a
1050
00:52:09.889 --> 00:52:11.750
chance to do that. The fact that I did acoustic
1051
00:52:11.809 --> 00:52:14.590
on there was scary. I was like, I don't know, man.
1052
00:52:15.289 --> 00:52:18.389
There's a lot of rock and heavy distorted guitars on
1053
00:52:18.429 --> 00:52:19.789
here and I'm going to get up and I'm scared
1054
00:52:19.829 --> 00:52:22.760
they're going to start throwing beer bottles or something. Yeah, man. I,
1055
00:52:22.940 --> 00:52:23.920
you know what? I agree.
1056
00:52:24.619 --> 00:52:26.139
I thought the same thing.
1057
00:52:26.340 --> 00:52:26.940
I really did.
1058
00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:28.980
I was like, this is, this is frightening.
1059
00:52:29.260 --> 00:52:32.610
It is pretty cool though, man. It's a very intimate
1060
00:52:32.659 --> 00:52:35.730
kind of setting and people are really listening. I love
1061
00:52:35.769 --> 00:52:37.489
it because when we do our show, we kind of
1062
00:52:37.510 --> 00:52:40.369
come in and do, depending on what show it is,
1063
00:52:40.409 --> 00:52:42.550
you know, 75 or 90 minutes. And we kind of
1064
00:52:43.250 --> 00:52:45.010
blow your head off and do a couple of ballads
1065
00:52:45.389 --> 00:52:48.769
and the dynamic of our show or whatever. But With
1066
00:52:48.789 --> 00:52:51.050
that storyteller thing, I get to acknowledge a lot of
1067
00:52:51.070 --> 00:52:55.010
people behind the scenes and tell them things about the
1068
00:52:55.050 --> 00:52:57.130
band that if they followed us through the years that
1069
00:52:57.150 --> 00:53:00.650
they probably didn't know about. And that's the songwriters, the producers,
1070
00:53:00.670 --> 00:53:04.340
the studio we worked at. We did all of our
1071
00:53:04.380 --> 00:53:07.239
work with A & M at Ardent Studios. And then
1072
00:53:07.320 --> 00:53:11.019
for Bastards of Bill, we let that out in 2019.
1073
00:53:11.019 --> 00:53:14.039
It was our first new music in 30 years for
1074
00:53:14.099 --> 00:53:18.610
Frontiers Records. And we record that at Sam Phillips Recording Service.
1075
00:53:19.389 --> 00:53:22.150
And I'm not kidding. It looked like Sam Phillips was
1076
00:53:22.170 --> 00:53:26.030
fixing to walk in there any second. And for anybody watching,
1077
00:53:26.090 --> 00:53:28.530
if you don't know who Sam Phillips is, he's the
1078
00:53:28.550 --> 00:53:31.650
guy that found Howlin' Wolf. He found Jerry Lee Lewis,
1079
00:53:31.670 --> 00:53:36.630
Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, a guy named Elvis. And he
1080
00:53:36.750 --> 00:53:43.389
sold his studio to RCA. And they took control of that.
1081
00:53:43.510 --> 00:53:47.820
He went on the same block in Memphis. and found
1082
00:53:47.880 --> 00:53:51.019
a auto body garage, and he stripped it to the studs,
1083
00:53:51.460 --> 00:53:55.199
and he built his dream studio, and it's still working.
1084
00:53:55.639 --> 00:53:58.309
This thing is up and running. There's great music coming
1085
00:53:58.329 --> 00:54:02.530
out of there now, but we went because Jeff Powell,
1086
00:54:03.010 --> 00:54:05.190
one of our dear friends we've known for 35 years,
1087
00:54:05.250 --> 00:54:06.809
he worked on Wild America with us. He was an
1088
00:54:06.869 --> 00:54:11.030
assistant engineer back then. He's working there, and he had
1089
00:54:11.159 --> 00:54:14.940
seen us. We did a fundraiser for Patrick when his
1090
00:54:15.510 --> 00:54:17.530
health scare was going on at home and he was
1091
00:54:17.650 --> 00:54:20.289
there he was attending Jeff saw the show and he
1092
00:54:20.329 --> 00:54:22.699
called me and he said man you know we had
1093
00:54:22.739 --> 00:54:27.760
some people sitting in for the for the show Patrick's
1094
00:54:28.119 --> 00:54:30.320
uh hadn't fully recovered and he wanted to get up
1095
00:54:30.380 --> 00:54:32.360
and play a couple of songs but we said we'll
1096
00:54:32.380 --> 00:54:33.820
get some people to cover the set and you can
1097
00:54:33.840 --> 00:54:35.480
get up and do the you know the encore stuff
1098
00:54:35.519 --> 00:54:38.760
with us and uh he said I noticed when Patrick
1099
00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:41.760
walked out on stage man that was the Tora Tora
1100
00:54:41.800 --> 00:54:44.070
sound like the for y'all in the you know that
1101
00:54:44.110 --> 00:54:46.420
we kind of talked about earlier And he said, I
1102
00:54:46.610 --> 00:54:48.760
was wondering if you want to cut a single. You
1103
00:54:48.780 --> 00:54:50.519
want to come down to Sam Phillips and record with me?
1104
00:54:51.619 --> 00:54:53.460
And I said, you're not going to believe this, man.
1105
00:54:53.619 --> 00:54:56.739
Frontiers Records wants us to record a full record. We
1106
00:54:56.760 --> 00:54:58.340
want to come and do it with you. We'll just
1107
00:54:58.380 --> 00:55:00.559
come and do the whole record with you. And so
1108
00:55:00.599 --> 00:55:03.980
we did. We did everything in about eight days, I think, total.
1109
00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:07.159
It was a live record. It was very intimidating. It
1110
00:55:07.179 --> 00:55:08.590
was scary. We didn't know what we were going to
1111
00:55:08.630 --> 00:55:11.369
sound like. We hadn't recorded any music. But he said,
1112
00:55:11.710 --> 00:55:16.670
you know what? He said, I specifically... focused on the
1113
00:55:17.070 --> 00:55:18.989
vocal part. And I said, Hey, I'm not the little
1114
00:55:18.989 --> 00:55:22.789
24 year old kid you recorded last time. I'm kind
1115
00:55:22.829 --> 00:55:24.820
of nervous. And he said, listen, I'll take care of you.
1116
00:55:25.139 --> 00:55:27.599
He said, I'm going to come to your rehearsals. We'll
1117
00:55:27.619 --> 00:55:31.000
map everything out. We'll get, you know, pre-production, everything will
1118
00:55:31.039 --> 00:55:32.539
be locked in. And then when you come in and
1119
00:55:32.559 --> 00:55:34.800
it's going to be, I'll put you in a booth
1120
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:36.559
and I'll put the band out live in the room.
1121
00:55:36.820 --> 00:55:37.900
And if you get it, you get it. And if
1122
00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:39.840
you want to come back and correct something later, we'll,
1123
00:55:39.969 --> 00:55:43.530
we'll have that option. And it was cool, man. I mean,
1124
00:55:43.570 --> 00:55:46.510
we were set up. Everybody's looking at each other. They
1125
00:55:46.550 --> 00:55:49.090
did John's drums kind of like John Bonham's. They had
1126
00:55:49.110 --> 00:55:51.030
the big one kind of sound on it. And it
1127
00:55:51.070 --> 00:55:53.360
was sparse. You know, the micing, it wasn't a lot
1128
00:55:53.400 --> 00:55:57.119
of micing. And John was using an app on his
1129
00:55:57.159 --> 00:56:00.820
phone as this click. He looked and would read that.
1130
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:06.860
So our only objective on the tape was, is John okay?
1131
00:56:07.340 --> 00:56:08.940
We would go in for the listen back and we go,
1132
00:56:08.980 --> 00:56:12.210
what do you think, John? And he would go, I
1133
00:56:12.250 --> 00:56:15.969
think I sped up that roll into that chorus. And
1134
00:56:15.989 --> 00:56:18.570
we go, it sounds awesome. We love it. It sounds
1135
00:56:18.590 --> 00:56:21.090
like a real band. And he would go, OK. And
1136
00:56:21.130 --> 00:56:24.110
then Keith would immediately double his guitar. He'd play a
1137
00:56:24.139 --> 00:56:26.280
Strat on one and put a Les Paul on top
1138
00:56:26.340 --> 00:56:28.840
of it, meet it up. But we were kind of
1139
00:56:28.860 --> 00:56:30.559
going through the songs like that. And then Keith and
1140
00:56:30.599 --> 00:56:32.500
I came in, and I sang, and he did some overdubs.
1141
00:56:32.619 --> 00:56:35.079
And that was it. The record was pretty close to
1142
00:56:35.099 --> 00:56:37.380
what you would hear of us live. That's kind of
1143
00:56:37.420 --> 00:56:40.300
how it felt. Yeah. And so we released it on
1144
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:42.440
the Monsters of Rock. We said, we're going to let
1145
00:56:42.480 --> 00:56:45.750
it out in February of 2019. We're going to be
1146
00:56:45.829 --> 00:56:48.409
on the cruise with all the super fans. They're going
1147
00:56:48.429 --> 00:56:50.949
to be the first people to hear the record. And
1148
00:56:51.010 --> 00:56:53.969
so we delivered it in August to Frontiers and they
1149
00:56:53.989 --> 00:56:56.329
had a six month pipeline and it popped out on
1150
00:56:56.570 --> 00:57:00.079
that like February 22nd, whatever that date was, we shipped off.
1151
00:57:00.800 --> 00:57:04.920
It came out and man, it was so fun. So
1152
00:57:04.960 --> 00:57:08.139
that it's, Monsters Rock is, it's just amazing. The thing
1153
00:57:08.159 --> 00:57:10.199
that they built and the way they brought everybody together,
1154
00:57:10.239 --> 00:57:12.400
it's almost like a family reunion, you know, for a
1155
00:57:12.440 --> 00:57:14.800
lot of the people that travel, they'll come in to
1156
00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:16.719
see each other once a year and hang and hear
1157
00:57:16.739 --> 00:57:18.699
the music. And it's great. Yeah.
1158
00:57:19.099 --> 00:57:22.260
Yeah, for sure. A hundred percent. And, uh, unfortunately I'm,
1159
00:57:22.360 --> 00:57:24.119
I'm going to start to wrap this up here right now,
1160
00:57:24.179 --> 00:57:25.920
but I feel like we could do like a part two,
1161
00:57:25.960 --> 00:57:28.039
three and four because you have some great stories and
1162
00:57:28.079 --> 00:57:30.679
I would love that because I love, I love hearing
1163
00:57:30.699 --> 00:57:32.699
your stories. So I really feel like we should do
1164
00:57:32.739 --> 00:57:35.889
this again if you're up for it. Um, Before I
1165
00:57:35.929 --> 00:57:37.929
let you go, I do want to say I want
1166
00:57:37.969 --> 00:57:41.750
you to plug your social media, plug any upcoming events.
1167
00:57:41.849 --> 00:57:43.889
And I wanted to say to you personally, it was
1168
00:57:43.969 --> 00:57:45.789
really an honor for me to see my name next
1169
00:57:45.809 --> 00:57:47.829
to yours on the Monsters Rock flyer. So I thought
1170
00:57:47.849 --> 00:57:50.730
that was really cool. And seeing you play and stuff
1171
00:57:50.769 --> 00:57:52.750
like that and just being a part of that Acoustic
1172
00:57:52.769 --> 00:57:56.110
Rocks thing with you was really, really awesome for me.
1173
00:57:56.570 --> 00:57:58.730
I loved it too, man. Thank you so much for
1174
00:57:58.750 --> 00:58:00.869
giving me a platform and a way to reach out
1175
00:58:00.889 --> 00:58:03.789
to everybody we know. Are so excited. I've got a
1176
00:58:03.829 --> 00:58:06.889
couple of shows coming up. I'll be down in Texas
1177
00:58:07.210 --> 00:58:09.150
in Oklahoma City. I'm going to be in Austin on
1178
00:58:09.250 --> 00:58:12.139
June the 4th. And I'll be in Oklahoma City on
1179
00:58:12.179 --> 00:58:17.159
June the 5th. It's Buck's Backyard in Austin. That'll be
1180
00:58:17.179 --> 00:58:20.679
with PJ Farley. Christian Shields is on that show. And
1181
00:58:20.699 --> 00:58:24.380
then we also, all three of us have been hands
1182
00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:27.809
doing percussion. He'll be traveling with us. And then we
1183
00:58:27.829 --> 00:58:30.550
got Chris Crush from Permacrush in Oklahoma City with us.
1184
00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:32.760
So those are coming up. I think I have some
1185
00:58:32.780 --> 00:58:37.400
dates in July in Ohio. I'll be up that way.
1186
00:58:37.460 --> 00:58:39.400
I'm excited. I haven't been back up there for a minute.
1187
00:58:39.980 --> 00:58:41.559
And then, of course, the band will be on the
1188
00:58:41.599 --> 00:58:46.219
Mountain Festival in August. That's August 21st through the 24th.
1189
00:58:47.949 --> 00:58:50.929
It's a great experience. I love it in Gatlinburg. You're
1190
00:58:50.969 --> 00:58:55.769
right in downtown. Everything's walkable. The food's walkable. Everything you
1191
00:58:55.809 --> 00:58:58.670
want to see. We're biased because we're in Tennessee. We
1192
00:58:58.710 --> 00:59:02.659
love it. And then the other thing that I'd like
1193
00:59:02.679 --> 00:59:04.860
to say, you can find us on all social media.
1194
00:59:04.980 --> 00:59:07.030
We're TorTorBand. You can find us on there. We have
1195
00:59:07.050 --> 00:59:08.969
an official YouTube channel. We'd love for you to join that.
1196
00:59:09.190 --> 00:59:12.940
I have at... Anthony quarter official on YouTube. I also
1197
00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:16.119
have Anthony quarter sunset sessions on Spotify. If you want
1198
00:59:16.139 --> 00:59:17.719
to go check it out. I don't think there's very
1199
00:59:17.739 --> 00:59:20.840
many people, maybe a hundred people. It's, it's me with
1200
00:59:20.880 --> 00:59:23.219
the acoustic and I did it. I used to do
1201
00:59:23.280 --> 00:59:26.559
porch shows during the pandemic and some people had asked
1202
00:59:26.579 --> 00:59:28.909
for some of those songs to be recorded and that
1203
00:59:28.929 --> 00:59:31.329
they'd have access to it. And so that's on there
1204
00:59:31.369 --> 00:59:34.730
if you want to join that one. And, you know,
1205
00:59:34.769 --> 00:59:37.929
besides that, we're just living the dream, man. I'm out
1206
00:59:37.989 --> 00:59:43.500
promoting Memphis. Anybody out there that does vinyl records, if
1207
00:59:43.539 --> 00:59:46.739
you do vinyl records, we are pressing in Memphis. We're
1208
00:59:46.760 --> 00:59:51.300
pressing wax. I'm a customer, but I love the company
1209
00:59:51.340 --> 00:59:54.269
so much I became an ambassador. I went to develop
1210
00:59:54.289 --> 00:59:57.110
their business. I love it. We do short runs. You
1211
00:59:57.130 --> 01:00:00.409
can do as few as 100, and we can do
1212
01:00:00.449 --> 01:00:04.440
as many. There's 54 presses in Memphis. It's a beautiful facility.
1213
01:00:04.519 --> 01:00:06.079
If you ever visit Memphis, I want you to go
1214
01:00:06.119 --> 01:00:11.239
see it. It's beautiful. They service all the major companies,
1215
01:00:11.320 --> 01:00:15.389
Sony and Warner Brothers and Universal. But my specific promotion
1216
01:00:15.570 --> 01:00:18.690
is for independent labels and independent artists. If you want
1217
01:00:18.710 --> 01:00:21.090
to do vinyl, reach out to me. Find me online
1218
01:00:21.130 --> 01:00:23.369
and reach out. I'd be happy to talk to you.
1219
01:00:24.159 --> 01:00:24.460
Love it.
1220
01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:27.599
Thank you so much, man. And again, it was such
1221
01:00:27.619 --> 01:00:30.079
a great honor to be featured with you. So thank
1222
01:00:30.119 --> 01:00:31.860
you for being here, and let's definitely do this again,
1223
01:00:31.880 --> 01:00:33.840
because I feel like you have so many more stories.
1224
01:00:35.179 --> 01:00:37.010
Awesome, man. Well, I hope I didn't talk your ear off.
1225
01:00:37.050 --> 01:00:38.510
Thank you so much for having me, man.
1226
01:00:39.170 --> 01:00:40.730
Loved every second of it, man. Thank you.
1227
01:00:41.730 --> 01:00:42.429
Take care of yourself.
1228
01:01:05.030 --> 01:01:08.610
All right, rockers, please follow Anthony on social media. See
1229
01:01:08.650 --> 01:01:11.130
where Tora Tora is playing next. See where Anthony is
1230
01:01:11.170 --> 01:01:16.489
playing acoustically. And there's shows with PJ Farley. And yeah,
1231
01:01:16.510 --> 01:01:20.710
I mean, great guy. Saw him on the ship. Absolutely fantastic.
1232
01:01:21.349 --> 01:01:24.360
And give him a follow. And also follow the All
1233
01:01:24.389 --> 01:01:27.980
Bets Are Off podcast across the board on X, Instagram,
1234
01:01:28.079 --> 01:01:31.619
and Facebook at ABAOPod. And we will see you next
1235
01:01:31.659 --> 01:01:33.480
time on the All Bets Are Off podcast.