Tropidelic

A band that adopts a highway, cleans it with fans, then goes straight back to building a tightly synced live show is the kind of story we can’t stop talking about. I’m joined by Rex Larkman, drummer for Tropidelic, for a conversation that moves from Cleveland pride to the real mechanics of modern touring, with plenty of laughs and hard-earned lessons in between. 

We get into the Cleveland music scene and how a “Lake Erie ocean” mindset can fuel a band whose sound blends reggae rock, funk, hip-hop, and high-energy drumming. Rex breaks down the drummers who shaped him, from Neil Peart and Trey Cool to Joey Jordison and Carter Beauford, and explains how he approaches recording versus performing so the parts serve the song but the stage still hits like a rush. 

Then we go deep on the gear and the why behind it: click track philosophy, backing tracks used as layered support rather than shortcuts, and Rex’s practical Roland SPD-SX setup with count-offs and a kill switch for the nights when tech fights back. We also talk tour life, Warped Tour chaos, rain-soaked shows, and the surreal feeling of playing Red Rocks, plus the “basement of Red Rocks” vibe at The Caverns. We wrap with Tropidelic’s new album First Light, DIY music video production, and a shout-out to the unsung heroes behind every great show. 

If you like artist interviews, touring stories, drumming talk, and behind-the-scenes music production, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What’s the best live venue you’ve ever been to?

Episode Links

• Tropidelic: https://tropidelic.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Rex Larkman

Jay Franze 0:31

And we are coming at you live. I am Jay Franzi. And if you are new to the show, this is your source for the latest news, reviews, and interviews. So if you would like to join in, comment, or fire off any questions, please head over to jafrenzi.com. All right, my friends. Today we have a very special guest with us. We have a member of the band, Tropedelic. We have Rex Larkman. Rex, my friend, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Thanks for having me. Sick intro. Oh thank I like that.

Jay Franze 1:06

That was awesome. We do put a little effort in here or there. I love it. I love it. All right,

How Tropedelic Adopted A Highway

Jay Franze 1:12

before we get started, I just need to know how does one adopt a highway?

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Wow. That's that's a a James question. Our rapper James. He is the one behind adopting that highway. But we've had it for about like five years now, I think. Four or five years, maybe six. I remember the story behind him finding that highway. There was a rapper. Oh, there was some other rapper, like I forget his name. I'm a butcher it. I'm sorry, but it was like 100 guns or something. It was just like if that guy can get a highway, Tropadella can for sure get a highway. It's just some guy that like we we hadn't heard of or anything. It was just like, oh, if he's got one, we definitely need to do one.

Jay Franze 1:56

Are there any requirements to have a highway? Do you have to clean it? Do you have to do anything?

SPEAKER_03 2:01

We do have to, uh, it's like a litter pickup program. And we I think I don't know what the qualifications are necessarily, probably some sort of business or like organization. You have to be, you can't just be like a random person. I don't think can't be just like the Jay Franzi Highway. Like maybe with what you do, probably. Like if you if you know, uh you probably could.

Jay Franze 2:26

You probably could that'll be my goal next year is to adopt the highway.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

It's it's hard to kind of spot on the high. Like, I've we've toured so much, and I don't even think I've like looked for other ones. I just know that they're all around Cleveland and all around Ohio. But yeah, we we like clean it up probably like four or five, six times a year. We all get together and we just I think we've done it like three times this year already, and there's like no schedule, we just kind of schedule it ourselves and invite fans to come and join us. We actually did it just this week, just yesterday or two days ago, and um we had some people come from Pittsburgh, and and it's really cool, really cool like just an opportunity to hang out with hundreds of people walking down the highway. Yeah, we could we could really just blow it out and just be like everyone come. This whole it'll be spotless by noon.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

It could be like like Seinfeld and widened lanes, yeah, more comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Cleveland's under some like crazy construction project right now where literally everywhere I go, there's I mean, it's always been that way, but it seems like we're doubling down. Maybe because LeBron's coming back. We could talk sports, we could open up with anything. So I don't know. It seems like Cleveland's really doubling down on fixing the road system and stuff. And the Adopt a Highway program's great. I love it's it's not a horrible part of town, it's not the best part of town. It's on 77 in fleet for people that may know Cleveland. It's the Tropedelic Highway, and we got one with only three exits. Normally there's there are like two on ramps and one exit. So opposed to four, we clean up three, and we got it pretty good yesterday. I'm trying to think if anyone found it. Oh, we found like a weird our sound guy, Alex, was there for the first time and he was like, Do we get to keep stuff? I'm like, if you want to, you can keep some stuff. And we found like a weird like x-ray of something, or like uh like a sheet of I don't know what material it is that you would put into a projector in like school and it would project onto the wall. Yeah, it was some sort of like manuscript or something. It's like, why is someone throwing that out over here? Like, what the hell is over? School's over, they're like, oh, screw that. That's on the side of the road now. But we cleaned it up, we got it.

Cleveland Scene And Local Sound

Jay Franze 4:46

What's it like living in Cleveland? What's the music scene like there?

SPEAKER_03 4:49

It's awesome. You actually caught me at a cool time. I'm literally coming from a show that I I just went to. I I live in Lakewood, which is outside of the Cleveland limits, but it's like right now.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

You just should let we should let everybody know.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

Not my address, but I live I live in a town called Lakewood, not far from downtown Cleveland. And there's a music venue called Mayhall's that I'm not too far from. And I just literally drove a two-minute drive home from a hardcore show. Nice. And it was yeah, it was very like screaming uh metal stuff for your listeners, or if you're into that too. They were called brutality. I'd never heard of them, but my roommate, my good buddy Joey, was like, You want to go to this? And we did, and it was awesome. And they were actually pumping up the Cleveland scene and saying, like, they're from upstate New York. That's where I'm from. Well, that's where my family's from. Wow. It was like a it was like narrowburg. But yeah, they said anytime they come to Cleveland, they know that they're gonna have a good time. Cleveland's music scene's awesome. I mean, the rock hall is here, yeah, and that's awesome. Uh, as a kid growing up listening to classic rock, like Phil Collins and Rush. That's what I grew up with with my dad. Bands with some pretty crappy drummers. Yeah, only crappy drummers. That's all I listened to. That's where I got where I am today. Some yes, you know, of course, like I was a big Metallica kid and stuff like that. It's kind of where I found my drumming roots was in punk and metal. But Cleveland has a little bit of all of it. They have a big hip-hop scene, they've got a big metal and hardcore scene, uh, and then they've got like what I call like I don't want to call it Cleveland like local music, but they have like a very cool alternative indie rock funky scene where like I can hear it in their blood of what they produce that I'm like, oh, these guys are from Cleveland. It's it's very cool. And then you got Tropedelic, like us, which is out and left field. Out and left field for the Cleveland music scene. There's not a lot of reggae hip-hop funk elements. We do have some classic reggae bands. We got Carlos Jones and the Plus Band, which is like a legendary Cleveland known, locally, like known, oh I mean, probably nationally in some points, like reggae, roots reggae band. And he's like he's just a legend around town. I was a big ska punk kid growing up, so there were there I was in bands that was doing like ska punk Cleveland sounds, and there's still a little bit of that there, but not so much of like our music scene in Cleveland. We're kind of an outlier, I would say, when it comes to like what is popping and what's happening. But we got the lake, so we do have beach vibes, you know, when it comes to our what we write here in town and what we produce for the world. It it's influenced by the fact that like I call it an ocean. I call it the Cleveland Ocean sometimes. Are you in New York?

Jay Franze 7:52

No, it it's funny you you talk about the lake being like an ocean. No, I'm from Boston. My family's from Albany, New York, but I grew up in Boston. It's where my dad went to school. Cool. But I know what you mean by music having a or an area having a sound to it, like Boston had a sound to it.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Shout out Boston for having the biggest house of blues in the country and the nicest house of blues in the country. I will say that. That's a fun place to play.

Jay Franze 8:17

I used to hang out with the one in Orlando a lot. You've done there too, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

The one by Universal in Disney.

Jay Franze 8:23

Yeah, a friend of mine used to play it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Yeah, I love I love that house of blues. Like, I've never been to a bad house of blues, I could say. Cleveland also has a house of blues, which is pretty sick to just be a part of that community. I never knew that growing up, that like that wasn't a wasn't a normal thing. Yeah, it wasn't a normal thing. I don't know.

Jay Franze 8:40

There's like only like we don't all have them.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. It was cool.

Jay Franze 8:45

And in Orlando, they had the who are the two guys, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, or was the Blues Blues? Yeah. They would go to the House of Blues all the time. I mean, they were the founders of it, right? That would make sense of why it's House of Blues, yeah, yeah. Going back to your lake or your ocean lake. I am now living in the Cincinnati area, and I take my kids to a lake here that looks like an ocean. So it's a big lake, it's got sand. We go sit on the beach, the kids go on the water, and they have a grand old dime, and I don't have to drive nine hours.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

That's awesome. I I love Cincinnati.

Jay Franze 9:25

Yeah, it's it's not a bad place. It's got its areas that could be a little rough, but of course, of course.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

My my little sister, she's becoming a psychologist, and she went to college with me up in here in Cleveland, but then grad school at Xavier. Oh, yeah, beautiful school. So I've I've been I've been down there a good amount, and then we've played Bogarts in Riverfront Live. We've we've been around the Cincy area. Also, Northern Kentucky is also a very cool spot. That's where I live. That's crazy. My roommate is getting married, and he's like doing a bachelor party that I'll be a part of, and he's like, Yeah, we're doing northern Kentucky. So we're like literally looking at Airbnb's five minutes before this.

Jay Franze 10:04

Right. My wife is we met in Tennessee. Uh I worked in Nashville for 20 plus years, and we both worked behind the scenes in the music business.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Cool.

Jay Franze 10:13

And then um we moved up here for a year, moved out to California for a few years, and then back to here. So neither one of us are from here, but we moved here. Okay. I always say it's her idea of being in the middle of Boston and Tennessee, Kentucky. But we're um right on the border. I mean, my my street dead ends on the Ohio River. No way. That's so I mean if I could cross it, I'd be less than a mile away from Cincinnati.

Drummers Who Shaped Rex’s Style

Jay Franze 10:41

The band, you mentioned your your favorite, so let's just start by saying you are the drummer. I know we we bust on drummers, but you're the drummer. So we were talking about Rush earlier or Phil Collins. So who are some of your inspirations?

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Definitely Neil Peart from Rush, Neil Peart. I still say Purt. I'll always say Pert. Um, Neil Peart was like my first show as a kid with seeing Rush. My dad showed me Rush, and then that kind of opened my mind to so many different styles of music and drumming and just everything. And then I remember finding Green Day when I was like 10 and Trey Cool and like their their whole like oh, bands are funny. Like the behind the scenes of bands is like just a banter the entire time. I fell in love with Green Day as a kid, Rush. Slipknot used to scare me as a kid, and then I turned 12, and then I was like, no, wait, this is actually amazing. And Joey Jordson from Slipknot inspired me so much. I played metal for years, and then, like I told you, ska punk, and like the love of sublime was kind of like my whole way into the reggae world, and even like 90s, I don't know what you would want to call it, whatever wave of ska, but like a band like the specials, some like really interesting, like reggae alternative sounding bands I loved as a kid, and then like I said, Phil Collins, he's like one of the top five that's still alive. Um, Avenge Sevenfold the Rev. Oh, I love I love Revenge Sevenfold. Big Avenge Sevenfold fan as a kid and still am. And the Rev was like when he passed away in 09, that was like the first one of the first deaths in my life where I was like, God, this is horrible. Like, he's just gone too soon, type of uh mentality. Like I was just so upset. But yeah, love Avenge Sevenfold. I think I've yeah, like Neil, Neil, the Rev, Joey from Slept Not, Phil, and then if I had to put another one in there, I'd say a guy named Josh Manuel from a band called Issues, which actually isn't a band anymore, but his drumming style taught me so much. Periphery, Matt Halpern, showed me so much. You can even say Bud from Sublime, too, is a big inspiration just as a kid listening to like that fast punk stuff, Trey Cool. I you know, there's a big, ever-changing list of drummers in my life that I I draw influence from. And now more than ever, it's like with the new drop album, First Light, that just dropped last week, two weeks ago. I don't play like those drummers for recording.

Jay Franze 13:28

You play different.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Live, live. I'm I'm playing like a metal drummer, and I'm playing a bunch of weird drummer tasteful grooves. Like I recording, I I definitely try to play for the song and do whatever will make the song sound the best and whatever grooves best with all the other instruments going on. Live I let loose a little bit, and I a little bit of my roots come out, and I play a little bit heavier. I wouldn't say faster. We we've got a whole system where we're on like a click, and I I do a lot of the backtrack mixing and stuff like that for our live shows. So I'm I always know what's gonna happen. I kind of I run that for the band, and our sets ever changing as well. Every every tour, like we were just talking today. We have our music festival, Everwild, outside of Columbus at Legend Valley coming up at the end of July. We're getting some sets ready for that. So I'm like editing some things and like fixing up the set. So we always change it up, but yeah, I am playing like a metal drummer for the Tropodelic shows. I love letting loose. It's the energy of the crowd and the energy of our vibe that brings it out of me.

Jay Franze 14:42

So before we get off 100% off the influences, I'm curious. Have you ever looked at some of the country acts? Because I worked in the studio for 35 years, but I worked 20 of those years in Nashville. And I got to work with some of the best drummers in the world. So did any of them actually influence you?

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Rich Redmond, if you know who Rich Redmond is, I forget what country artists.

Jay Franze 15:08

He hosts a show.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

He does? Yeah. I I used to see him all the time in Modern Drummer and like drum magazine and stuff like that growing up. My dad would get those all the time, and I would like read those alongside him. But Rich Redmond, when it comes to country drummers, I would say he's probably my biggest influence. I do love acts like Tyler Childers, even some of Zach Bryan's stuff. I don't normally listen to country for the drumming, but Rich Redmond is an exception because he's like doing weird, like backhanded cymbal hits and he's playing like a rock drummer. Actually, I wouldn't consider it country, but Dave Matthews band, uh, Carter Buford, the drummer for Dave Matthews band, is also up there for me as a big influence. He's an open-handed drummer that just does crazy syncopation stuff and like funk grooves, and he inspired me a lot as a kid. I love Dave Matthews band.

Jay Franze 16:03

I got to work on two of their records, and no way. And one of which was special to me because it was live at Fenway Park. Oh nice. That was a pretty cool record to be part of. That's awesome. Have you ever heard of Paul Lyme? Paul Lyme. I'm not Paul. Paul Lyme, he's a previous guest of the show, but he's a very, very big natural drummer. He's also played in tons of other stuff, but he plays on all the Shania Twain records with Mutt Lang producing those records, and he's he's even played in the Star Wars movies and stuff. So I mean he's a big guy. But yeah, he's definitely somebody you should check out. There's a few of them that are just absolutely amazing, but he's he's one that comes to mind right now.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

That's sweet. Yeah, country, I mean, country's got a lot of rock influence in their drumming, you know. It's like especially these days. For sure, for sure. I mean, Tyler Childers is definitely probably my favorite country artist. I just love his lyricism, his voice, the harmonies, everything that he does. I'm I'm always a fan to listen to. And it's not really drum heavy or anything, it's just it's comforting, it's different for the country scene, I'd say. Yeah. Emo country.

Jay Franze 17:15

A little bit. There's a few people out right now that are pretty good. And there's a few new ones that are coming out that are pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Chris Stapleton also rips. I have to shout out Chris Stapleton, amazing guitarist, amazing vocalist. Like his work is awesome. I do listen to a lot of that. Yeah, I like Luke Combs too. Luke Holmes rips. Uh was it the Zach Brown band? Uh, I like them. They were nice guys. That's cool. I'm not like a huge, huge country guy. I'm open to everything, but like people have people have told me I look a lot like Zach Bryan. So I've also delved down the Zach Bryan route and stuff, and I I dig his stuff, like very open to all styles of music, and those are some of my favorites for sure when it comes to country.

Click Tracks And Backing Layers Live

Jay Franze 18:02

Well, the other thing you mentioned was playing to a click, so you get the click going through your buds. What else is going through the earbuds? Or what else is going out to the the audience? What other tracks are there?

SPEAKER_03 18:14

So a lot of our recorded music has a lot of layers. There's a lot of things that six guys on stage can't necessarily produce entirely ourselves live. We could do as much as we can, but something like that.

Jay Franze 18:28

I think that's a good point because we're not talking about you using tracks to do something you can't do. You're using tracks to supplement something that you don't just have enough hands to do while you're playing.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Exactly. Yeah, we're not like I honestly, for the most part, there's not a lot of vocals. There's barely any vocals in the tracks. That's all coming out of the microphones and stuff. We try to avoid that and like make that as live and as real as we can. It's ambient stuff, some lead lines like our trumpet player Rob plays keys and he's the majority of like the synth sound coming from the stage. But when he has to break off and do some trumpet and singing stuff, he he plays trumpet and keys at the same time. He can do it, but that's still minusing a hand. That's crazy. So yeah, it's awesome. He's great, and he has a wonderful falsetto. Shout out Rob with a falsetto. He he kills it with that too. Um, but yeah, there's just a lot of layers and elements in our recorded tracks that we want to add to the live set, and I I put all those on a separate track and mix it, you know, to the best of my ability and to the best of our sound people, what they say. So, what are you using to play it back? Every band has a different way. A lot of people would use Ableton or Logic and have it on a on a laptop. That's probably eventually what's gonna happen over the next few years. Uh, I've tried to work with it, I'm not great at Ableton. Currently, and for the last like five years or so, I've been rendering out a WAV file of a mix for tracks that goes on my drum pad, and it's a rolling SPDSX. So one of the pads is projected out to the crowd, and that's all the house stuff, and then there's another pad that is just metronome, just the click, and I link them so when I hit one, they both start at the same time. So what happens is it's every drum kit, every kit on the drum pad is a different song. So every single kit has a different backtrack and click, and when I hit one of the pads, it starts. I put a count-off in there. We all hear the count-off, so we know to start at the same time, and the tracks will start on cue. Have there been issues in the past with that? Maybe a missed edit here or there. I'm not gonna say yes or no, but it's a pretty uh foolproof system.

Jay Franze 21:02

Does that check you up when it happens?

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Oh god, it ruins my entire month. If if there's ever like it's like my biggest fear is if there's a backtrack or click issue, like I have a fail save, I have an off button, and there's been some nights where like I'll hit it off. We don't normally get off of the click track. Like, we're like 99% of the time, it's great. But for for that one time where either there's an issue or something's going wrong, where someone misses a verse or someone misses a part or something, I can just turn it all off, and then we're just raw. And it's just we know the song, we know the structure, we finish it out fine. We've never really had that many issues. Like when we first started off, maybe there was some, but like for the last few years, it's been a foolproof system. And like I said, every band does it differently. And eventually we incorporate a lot of lights in our live show now, too. So all of that will be cued to stuff. And uh Ableton's probably the way that we'll we'll move from here on out.

Jay Franze 22:05

I don't know. I get torn. I I have friends of mine who just take a Pro Tools rig out on the road with them and they just put it on the laptop and go, which I get it and it's fine. And I use Pro Tools every day. I mean, it's my DAW of choice. However, I wouldn't trust it in a live scenario of being on stage. I'd rather just mix my tracks down, put them on a CD, and play along to a CD.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

It could be horrifying.

Jay Franze 22:32

I want it to take out as many risk as possible.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

When you're relying on a laptop, and like some bands I know, I think Dirty Heads is one of the bands. It's like they have a laptop running the show, and then they have a backup laptop running the same show so that if the first one dies, it immediately goes to the second one so that there's no issues. And it's like we're not at we're not at a point where we we could be running two laptops. Um it's pretty scary, but the the drum pad method is my most confident method, and I know that I can like fix things on a fly or change a song on a fly if like we need more, like we're running for more time, or if it's even like, oh, we're gonna cut this song, I just skip it. You know, it's I'm not fiddling with a laptop. That's my most comfortable way of doing it. Everyone has a different way, but it's worked well for us.

Jay Franze 23:21

I'd want to take the most simple possible way there is just whatever's fail-proof as possible.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

It's scary. I mean, like when it comes to running Ableton, that's kind of what has held me up doing it. I was just like, how do I trust it? How if we're outside at like a summer festival and the laptop, which I would keep away from the heat, but still it's even out there. Like we could skip, and then what are we gonna do? Like, I it's horrifying, but I bet that's a fear of every band in some way. But a lot of guys have sound techs and stuff that would be running that for them. But right now we don't have like another personnel to just be a monitor track guy. Right again, down the road. I mean, with the new album, we we've got we've got a great crew with us now that's running everything great. So we're we're stoked about this next tour this summer and our show that we have. Like, we're very excited to show it off.

Warped Tour Reality And Road Lessons

Jay Franze 24:19

All right, and before we get to that point, I got a question about your past tours, your past experiences. You've had an opportunity to play with 311 quite a bit. Now, you've played some pretty big places, so can you tell me what did you like better playing one of the indoor shows or a place like Red Rocks?

SPEAKER_03 24:42

I it all depends. I remember as a kid, all I wanted to do was play outside. Like that was like Warp Tour was my was my ultimate goal. And we did play Warp Tour in 2018. Okay. And that was a dream come true for me, the guys, we all had a great time. It was amazing. And what was it like? It was as crazy as every other band will ever tell you it is. Warp tour is is the summer camp, boot camp, like everyone always says, of touring. We got there at like 7 a.m. and by 8 a.m. we were lugging merch a mile from where we had to park because they're massive amphitheaters, and you got like 50 bands on a day. And it's really like first come, first serve. We were playing the smaller, I don't remember if it was the Ernie Ball stage or the uh the Kevin says stage is what they were calling it back then, which was like Kevin Lyman's like stage of smaller bands that he wanted to just put out there. I think it was Ernie Ball is what we were on.

Jay Franze 25:45

So it was the main stage, is what you're saying. You were on the main stage. No, we were the really big one.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

We were not we were not on the the main stage. We were in 2018 is when we did it. We were we were a smaller act and we didn't really get the luck. I don't know if the even the big guys got a luxury on warp tour, but we were hauling gear to get there just to get a good merch spot, is what I remember, which was like around our stage, was first come, first serve. It was setting up the merch. How'd that go? It was great. We did great. I mean, uh we played Florida. We did the last four days of Florida, we did like Jacksonville, West Palm, Tampa, and maybe Orlando had a date as well, and it rained every single day. We uh we got all of our sets but only for ten minutes, yeah. Well, it did only rain for 10 minutes, but a torrential downpour and it flooded.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

I remember one day the worst rain ever for ten minutes.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

It insane. It Jacksonville flooded. Luckily, we we completed our sets, but the whole show got canceled that day. Um, and it was literally there was like a rain culvert on a highway that was above everyone, and it was just pouring water down onto someone's car as we're driving out and like at least a foot of rain on the ground. It was a blast. But I remember my favorite warp tour memory was one day it was pouring rain in Atlanta, and it was right before our set, and we didn't know if the show was gonna happen or not, and it did, but we also didn't want to be drenched in our clothes, so we all wore towels. We all took all of our towels and we just went around the waist. We actually ran out of towels, and I wore a trash bag. I put a trash bag over my legs, and then I put a trash bag over top of me, and that was so hot it sucked. Like one song in, I just ripped it off. So warp tours is is is crazy and as fun as everyone will tell you, but also it is a very grueling endeavor. Day to day. It's just setting up a whole city in a day, basically, of stages and crew and like figuring out where everything's gonna go. We didn't know where we were going half of the time. We're looking for the inflatable that said the band names, or like, what time are we playing? Like it was a hectic thing, and I see why they don't do it anymore because it is it was so difficult. That's a lot. But they I think what they're doing is great. I love the festival style, warped where they're keeping the the name and the vibe alive, even though it's only in like DC West Palm Beach, I think, or they have a Dayton, Florida, and then like Long Beach. Whatever they're doing, it seems to be working all the old emo fests are still getting their time of day to shine. It's awesome to see these. But we were honored to be a part of that last. We played the very last day of the tour, too, which was just like I couldn't have waited any longer in my life to be able to accomplish that, and it was it was oh, it was so fun. I would do it again. Oh dude, the heat would kill me.

Jay Franze 28:48

Just kill me. I lived down there for six years, it was brutal.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Where where about in Florida? You said Orlando. I was in Orlando, yeah. Nice, nice. We played, correct me if I'm wrong, I I call it Guanabanas in Jupiter, Florida. It's like a beach bar that we used to play down there, but that was in like, yeah, Jupiter, Orlando, middle of the state of Florida area. And then I love St. Pete. I can talk about Janice Live all day.

Jay Franze 29:18

White sand. I saw you guys played played down there as well. So pretty good sized crowd down there. I mean, for St. Pete.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

I mean, I'm surprised they got a crowd that size. I think Tropodelic's been playing before I was in the band. I I joined in 2017-18, and uh Florida's like the second most played state for the band over the 20 some years that Tropodelic's been a band, and like the over 10 years that we've been touring, Florida we've always hit, and we've got a good crowd down there and friends, fans, the whole lot.

Jay Franze 29:51

I love the time I spend in Florida. It just gets hot. That's all I can say, is it just gets hot and humid.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

It's a humid heat, too.

Jay Franze 30:00

Yeah. I mean, you talk about West Palm, it's beautiful, it's a beautiful place to be, but man, at this time of year, you don't want to be there.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

Yeah, we just we just announced the show in Jacksonville. October 17th, we'll be in Jacksonville. I think that'll be our only Florida play this year, which is kind of odd for us, but we'll be hitting it next year. Unannounced, but we'll be back. We'll be back in Florida soon enough. In the colder months for Cleveland, too, which is like I was like, why don't we go to Florida?

Jay Franze 30:29

Why don't we swap this around a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Yeah, we don't gotta go in August. Let's just go in January or February.

Jay Franze 30:36

Now, before we get off the Florida and in the tour and the rain, I I'm curious, do you panic at all when your gear is getting drenched?

SPEAKER_03 30:49

After so much tour, I wouldn't say it's panic.

Jay Franze 30:53

It is concern, but it's like uh yeah, I mean you're a drummer, you don't have electronics in your kit.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Well electronic kit. The pad that runs the entire set. Yeah, I make sure I don't take that out.

Jay Franze 31:11

But your guitar players and oh no.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Sure. I mean, we we played a show in North Carolina last year. Uh, I think it was on Carolina Beach.

Jay Franze 31:20

Yeah, you guys play a lot of nice places.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

It's a cool thing. Reggae and the whole reggae rock world takes you to really nice locations, unlike the metal scene, which is playing like playing in basements. Basements and dingy areas, reggae takes you to the beach, and I love it. It's it's a it's an awesome community of people, and it always feels awesome to play outside to answer your question. I do love playing outside, it is such a luxury, and I feel like other genres of music don't get that as much as we do.

Jay Franze 31:53

Right. Alright,

Red Rocks Rush And Cave Show Chaos

Jay Franze 31:55

so you you say you love playing outside, and I get that, but you played at Red Rocks. Not only did you play it at Red Rocks, but you played to a sea of people that went on for miles and miles and miles. So you're playing at one of the best venues in the world to uh sea of people. What's that feel like?

SPEAKER_03 32:12

I call it a tsunami of people just because the the stage is so low, and the steepness of the crowd, it just looks like a giant wave of people coming over you. We've done it twice, and I'm blessed to have done it, even once. And every time it's like one of those moments where I just stop thinking and I'm just like looking around. It's just cool to just take it all in. And also the crowds there are always hype. Like the Red Rocks crowd is it's almost like a I don't want to call it a built-in crowd, but like because it's Red Rocks, people are gonna come. Right. And you know, it was every time I'm there. This is the first time we played it, it was like a blur because it was so cool. The second time we played it, I walked around and I was just like, I know where to go. We kind of feel like you own the place a little bit more, and like I got to really just kind of walk off on my own and take it in. And we played with the Dirty Heads twice, so shout out Dirty Heads for putting us on. And uh, we played with Rome as well most recently, last June. I think about a year ago, yeah, nearly a year ago, we played Red Rocks for the second time, and Rome's drummer is also from Cleveland, which is awesome. Shout out Joe, but uh yeah, it every time Red Rocks is sweet, but I also always anytime I think of Red Rocks, I think of Tennessee and I think of the caverns. Okay, and we've done the caverns twice as well. I call it the basement of Red Rocks because to a monsoon of people outside, you are in a literal cave with one entrance, one exit. It's like if anything crossed, it was kind of freaky. I mean, yeah, I got limestone dripping on the gear. That's a perfect example of where I didn't expect to have inclement water damage to our gear. We didn't, but like it was still like I'd touch my case and it'd be soaking wet. I'm like, I'm in a cave, what's happening? But it was like just the moisture of the limestone and stuff inside the cave. That is a crazy sounding venue, too. Like, I hit the kick drum and it just sounded like a cannon. Right. It was so cool. But yeah, Red Rocks is top, probably number one, most favorite venue I've ever played. But the caverns is like a very unique second pick, close to first, just because not a lot of people know about it, I feel like. Or if they do, they're like concert heads and they have kind of looked it up or heard about it. But I I definitely never heard about it when we got the opportunity to play there. Yeah, it's a little, it's a bit extreme, but there's people out there that love it, you know. Whatever. I mean.

First Light And DIY Video Production

Jay Franze 35:00

All right, uh, a couple more things here. So you've got some new music up here. Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_03 35:06

Sure. Uh, new album, Tropedelic's new album, First Light, is out now. It's been a long time writing it. I I don't want to say two years, but it feels like about two years of writing it. Many songs were written, many songs made the cut, 12 to be exact, and then many didn't. Um, so we we were right, idea creation was a long process, and it all started with our song Out There. I would I would pinpoint it, which was the first single came out uh last year, actually. Speaking of that, where did you film the video? That was in West Virginia at our trumpet player Rob again, his family's farm. Dude, it was beautiful, is so gorgeous. Is I think it's called Franklin, West Virginia is the city, and it's very much on the east, like southeast side of the state. Dude, you could have told me you were in Ireland and I would have believed you. I know, yeah. It felt Lord of the Ringsy, it could have been New Zealand. Like, it was so cool. I actually directed and filmed that video with uh my friend Ryan, and I remember when we rode out there and it was coming out, I was like, this needs a video, and it needs to be out there, it has to be outside in some sort of nature, cool area. Rhodes, our singer also was very much behind this idea. And Rob was showing me photos of his family's farm, photos that he took, and I was like, these are the shots, dude. Like, I didn't really have to like look any further, just take me to these places, and I'm gonna set up a camera and I'm gonna put Bobby, our old guitarist, on top of that building. I'm gonna put James in front of that house. I'm gonna put you by that lake. We like where he was like fishing on a giant in a giant pond, and I was like, set up your keyboard right there, and that is the shot, and and that's what became the music video for out there was just his farm, huge property. I don't want to say the acreage, I don't know what it is. It might have been 300 acres. They've got cows, they have other people's property. It was it was gorgeous. Rob and I went down early. I scouted out the locations and was like timing with the sun. Like, all right, we got to shoot at 1 p.m. here because the sun's hitting the house at this light at this time. It was an awesome project. I love film and I I love video. I've been doing video since I was a kid.

Jay Franze 37:35

All right, let's talk about that for a second because you did some amazing work. So, what kind of equipment did you use? And how did you I mean, I you're describing the area, but how did you put it all together?

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Uh well, like I said, like Rob literally had photos that he showed me, and I thought, these photos are great. I'm just it was like a photo of an open field, and I was like, I'm gonna put my drums out there, and I'm I'm gonna just play drums in this open field and take your framing of that photo and kind of play with it a little bit. We had some drone work, Ryan Jakou, uh our buddy, he helped me with the drone work and helped me um with some of his his camera eye and skill with like some of the framing of shots. I used a Sony A7 III, that's what I shoot with primarily, and some of the shots were shot with that, some was shot with Ryan's gear, which I don't know off the top of my head. And I was just like, what if we put someone on top of that building? Is it stable enough? And he's like, it should be, and we just did it. I just did it it worked out great. I'm like uh to Bobby. I was like, dude, just like walk up and down, just stay in the same plane you're at and walk across that building, and that's our shot. And then there was like a beautiful white house that James was on as well, and it was just a whole day of pre-production and like scouting out the spot because all of these locations were like somewhere a mile or two away from each other, and we had we had like uh I don't I don't know if they're not four-wheelers, but it was like a four-wheeler type thing. I was timing out the time of day where sun and different things were hitting stuff. Actually, I think it was a two-day shoot. I did like some some of the guys the first day, and then we went around an extra day and shot some extra b-roll. But that's on the top of a goddamn mountain that's on the property. And it was like we had to drive at least 20 minutes to get there. And I was like, I'm only taking roads and I'm taking Rob with me because this is your farm and I don't need you for navigation. And then Ryan came along with me with his drone, and we just shot away. I kind of wrote it all up in my head on the way down there, uh, which was like a six, seven-hour drive.

Jay Franze 40:03

So you said you were into this stuff as a kid. Yeah. You're obviously still doing it now. How did you learn all the equipment? Was it just practice, or did you actually study it in any way?

SPEAKER_03 40:16

I did it on my own. I have a YouTube channel uh with like 300 and some videos from when I was 12 years old to like 25 years old. I'm I'm almost 30 now. So I uh I used to do drum covers all the time. I've I've got Avenge Sevenfold, I've got a bunch of metal stuff, I've got some ska punk and hip hop. I do Jay-Z. I do I did everything edge shear and you do some pretty impressive stuff. Yeah, thank you. It it was cool. I just did it as a hobby for when I was a kid. I loved YouTube. I was a big I still am a big YouTube content consumer. I love I don't really watch too much TV unless it's like the new Game of Thrones is out or something. I'm watching like the cool, like cool shows like that. I'm not watching too much like network television, so I spent a lot of time on YouTube and I just did that from 10 years old since I found Green Day. Basically, when I fell in love with Green Day, I fell in love with the behind the scenes video of everything that made them them and their live shows. And I did that, and then I went to college for that in a way. I went to college for like social media marketing, and while I was in school, that's when I joined Tropedelic. So I kind of just combined my skills and still do it for Trop to this day, and it's ever evolving. Like when it comes to Instagram reels, I'm shooting with an iPhone because sometimes Instagram likes iPhone more than they like a $2,000 camera. I don't know why, but they do. And then I edit that kind of stuff, and I did that music video and one for Ease Up, which was on our last record, Royal Grove. I did that music video too, and I'm always kind of a secondhand eye and ear for whoever we're working with. So I've worked with a lot of directors and stuff we've worked with over the years. Most recently, we just came out with a music video today, as of the filming of this. It's called it's the No Fear, our song No Fear. You guys don't stop. We don't. It's the video content, is I love it, and it's just what the day and age of being in a band is you have to have constant video content or some sort of thing to keep up with social media and that whole marketing end of being in a band. Uh, what is it? Uh Fairport Harbor is a town on the east side of Cleveland, about 45 minutes away from Cleveland. And Rhodes loves our singer Rhodes loves lighthouses. Tell me about the lighthouse, because that I love lighthouses as well, so it's pretty cool. Yeah, he he has got a lighthouse tattoo, and it's just kind of like it's a beacon. It's a beacon of light in the darkness, and it's people have described us as that. I mean, some write-ups have said that we're just like a beacon of light for Cleveland, which in the grand United States I could see it. Cleveland's a gray area, it is literally, but also like with the Browns, we don't gotta talk about that. But you know, with like losing sports teams and stuff, Cleveland is kind of like a it's a dark zone, and and lighthouse is is a great metaphor for you know the style of summary music that we make in being where we come from. People think we're from Florida. Right. No, we're just a couple Midwest boys that enjoy positivity and and love this style of music. But yeah, that music video we shot at a very historic lighthouse. I think it was made in the 1800s, and was used for a lot of uh imports of goods through the Great Lakes, Lake Erie, and uh we went through the whole museum. That was there. There's like a whole historical area aspect of that. Well, you got to go in the lighthouse. The family that owns that uh historical spot and the people that work there let us kind of free reign film our way through it. And it's just like no fear, whether you want to equate it to the fear of heights.

Jay Franze 44:19

Well, yeah, because you guys were on top of that lighthouse up against that railing. That's not where you'd be finding me.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

It was it was a bit it was a bit spooky. Not only the historical hauntedness of that lighthouse, but also the the heights of the lighthouse itself.

Jay Franze 44:34

And then you're standing out on the top of it. It's like you're killing me. And did you use the drone then? Because I mean you got some pretty cool footage up there.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was it was super fun to do. Like I said, the people that run that space were like, Yeah, have a great time. We're just gonna chill back here, like film away. Sure, don't worry about it. Yeah, Fairport Harbor Marina Museum and Lighthouse is the name of the place. And it's just a historical lighthouse that's been in operation for years, and now it's kind of just a monument of that air area and that place and time that it was used for. And yeah, thank you to them for letting us shoot there and just kind of be like, we're gonna go up there. And oh my god, is it claustrophobic in there, too? It is a tight entryway. Like we had to squeeze ourselves to get into the top of that and stuff. It was cool though, and the area around there is beautiful, the lake, like a lot of the color schemes of this album First Light are like the golden hour orange of the sun and the blue of the water and the sky, and then the greenery that surrounds it, like the out there video and that one, I think really complement each other well with kind of the vibe we've been going for, the nature aspect of the album and the visuals that we want to showcase with these songs. This new music video compliments out there and also the whole vibe of the record. Great how it came out. Shout out Deli, our homie that filmed it for us. He also did the signals music video, young kid from Cleveland. He's helped us out a lot.

Unsung Heroes Behind The Band

Jay Franze 46:14

Well, on that note, we do this thing here we call Unsung Heroes, where we take a moment to shine the light on somebody who works behind the scenes or somebody who may not get a lot of credit. Do you have anybody that you'd like to shine a little light on? Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Uh I'd shout out our crew. Uh Timmy, our tour manager, the best. I love Timmy as a human being, but God, that dude's a hard worker. We've had a lot of bus issues recently, to say the least. Uh, just tour issues in general. He's the guy that is always on top of like, how do we still get to the show? Where the hell are we staying tonight? How the hell are we gonna get there with all the gear and stuff like that? He is constantly a saving uh Lloyd House, a beacon of safety for us guys that myself, I don't want to speak for everyone else, but I'm just like, ah, this sucks. Like, how are we gonna take care of this? He's always on top of it. So, shout out our tour manager, Timmy. Uh our sound guy, Jim, is just a curator of good vibes when it comes to the dynamic of all of us dudes being in a very tight enclosed space like a bus all the time. Jim, shout out his Nespresso machine and in the good vibes that his Nespresso coffee. Yeah, and Alex, our our other sound guy that works with Jim, wonderful guy, new guy to the crew. He kills it. Chase, our merch guy, also a new guy to the crew, great vibes, great banter, hard worker. Shout out our crew, Puril and and hell, our tour bus driver, Nick. We do drive ourselves a majority of the time, but on this tour, we're going on tour this summer with Little Stranger all across the United States. Check it out. Uh, the the Broken Hearted Boys tour. But we'll have a driver this tour, and Nick will be the guy getting us around. Tour driver Nick. He tours with a bunch of metal bands and stuff, but he's taken a month and a half out of his busy schedule to kick it with us. He's gonna slum it for a little while. He loves reggae. I was like, what do you listen to up there? Like, sorry, just swearing his okay. Uh, if you're listening to Mashuga, he's like, No, I'm listening to Dirty Heads and you guys, and I'm like, awesome, sweet, dude. So, shout out the crew, shout out everyone in the crew and people I didn't mention. Miles, our manager, who answers hundreds of emails a day for us, like all of all the people behind the scenes that work so hard for us. Like, for real, they deserve flowers as much as all of us do in the band. This whole operation of Tropodelic would not work without all of them. So, all those dudes love you, and yeah, shout out those guys. And I love the guys in the band too, you know. Everyone, yeah, yeah. They're the guy, yeah. They're on stage with me. No drummer or anything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you gotta you're talking to a drummer. Come on. All right, drummers have the most gear to carry, so shout out to all drummers around the world that don't have a drum tech. That's awesome.

Tour Dates Final Words And Goodbye

Jay Franze 49:16

All right, well, let's go ahead and wrap this up here. We have reached the top of the hour, which does mean we have reached the end of the show. We've actually blown past the top of the hour, but if you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. And if you have not, well, it's all too. You can reach out to both of us tonight over at jfenzy.com. We will be happy to keep this or any other conversation going for that matter. Rex, my friend, I cannot thank you enough for being here. I would like to leave the final words to you.

SPEAKER_03 49:41

Thank you, Jay. That thank you for having me. This was awesome. I love talking music with you. And yeah, Tropodelic will be on tour this summer, all across the country. Starts in Omaha, ends in DC. We'll be out in California, we'll be out in Texas, we'll hit we're hitting Denver. Hell, we're even hitting Detroit, you know. And they might hit back. They may hit back. Hey, I was there for when the Cavs beat them uh game seven in the in the not the finals, but in the playoffs, and people were texting me like, watch yourself. And I'm like, you know, I saw them shoot their shots, and they all missed that game. So shout out to Detroit, love Detroit, you know. Um, but yeah, we'll be everywhere this this summer and into the fall. We're even coming back to Cleveland uh at the Agora. So if you're listening from anywhere in the country, check us out, tropodelic.com. The new album, First Light, is here, came out two weeks ago filming this. We're really proud of it. It's got some awesome features, and it's our best work to date. We finally found our sound, it feels like. So check it out, First Light. We'll be on tour. Thank you for having me. And we're already working on the next record, so yeah, it'll be out sometime in the future.

Jay Franze 50:57

All right, folks. On that note, have a good night.