Ep 210 The Midnight Calls

The Midnight Calls is a denim and leather Rock & Roll outfit from Chicago. The band is fronted by Spain-born singer, Taran de Pablos and features guitarists Adam Arling (The Last Vegas, Urge Overkill, Warrior Soul) and Tony McQuaid (Loudmouth, Frank Bang & the Secret Stash), bassist Sean Barnes and drummer Chuck Harling. Their music is heavily influenced by the blues-infused sounds of classic bands like Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones or AC/DC. With a recipe based on grooves, hooks, and loud guitars as the main ingredients, The Midnight Calls are not reinventing the Rock & Roll wheel, but rather rolling it down the road with the swagger and style that you would expect from road-tested musicians that have toured the US and Europe a few times over. We were fortunate to have them in the studio to hear about their success and talk about their new single So Cold.

Transcript

Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. It's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast Hey everybody, it's Ray the roadie and this is Hollywood Mike a little nasally Hollywood very very hoarse nasally a little allergies Yeah, something like that is kicking in. Yeah.

Yeah, it's probably allergies Cuz I've been taking like the Clarendon stuff in the morning clears it up for a little bit Then nighttime comes around and it's like somebody kicked me in the throat. Well, you know, it's alright It's not like a radio voice kind of sultry, you know some voiceover. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly Like there used to be a show on Showtime where it's like this Sexy Barry White kind of radio host guy, and I believe it was called midnight caller or something like that. Well, yeah Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's funny because funny you should say that because the band we're talking to tonight is the midnight call Wait, Barry White is here I don't think so How you doing guys, how's it going doing great then? All right, how are you guys doing? Yeah, we're having a spa.

Let's go. Let's go around the circle and introduce yourselves and tell everybody what you guys do in a band Sean Barnes bass player. All right I'm tearing the Pablo's.

I'm the singer. I knew that when I listened to their track. Yeah, I knew it I heard him speak and I was like that's got to be the singer.

Yeah. Yeah. So at what point in time? Did you start taking hormones? Guys I heard that vocal travels like Oh, jeez, that's a high-pitched voice man.

You got a big range a very young age. Yeah Excellent excellent in Tony Mac McQuaid guitar Tony Mac McQuaid. Yeah, he's got to have one guy with three names The name of the band doesn't attract people or you're a serial killer.

Yeah You don't want to be found. You know, it's always good, right? I am going to jump right into it jump. Holy shit I listened to that track that you guys sent over.

I am a fan. Yeah, they're holy crap, man It was kind of like a I don't know I don't know if people tell you this but you know The first thing that hit me was damn these guys sound like Blackberry smoke Yeah, then I heard a little bit of like Buckcherry in there and then he starts singing I was like, oh, well, that's Vince Neil So it's kind of like Much younger So we hope that's Vince Neil from 1982 Yeah, Vince Neil from 1982 Yeah, so so take us down the road start all the way back at the beginning how this whole thing come about I grew up in Spain and I came to the country 98 and I've been playing all the bands and stuff and Through common friend Dave Horniak, he's a drummer I ended up joining this tribute band called Black Angus and Tony and Adam play in that band And now it was always on the back of my head because I know who they were The I thought at some point I have to ask these guys to write some rock and roll with me, right? Right, right. So what kind of music was that then in Black Angus? It's a nice easy to be then I was like, I was I was guessing he had to have been at one point in time in an ACDC Bond Scott era.

Yeah Man, these guys are picky about their singers Early stuff we'll only play you should be all night long for the tourists. Oh, yeah, we will do it. We'll do it Well, right, right.

So they were author Sammy Hagar It's definitely David Lee Roth I know I can't swear on the radio here, but somebody wants To Somebody wants to scribe David Lee Roth era Van Halen is fucking and Sammy Hagar is making love and I agree with that analogy 100% is that Dave stuff was nice and dirty in the way it should about I don't know I probably I don't want to imagine myself doing that with either one of those guys But I would put out but come on, I mean have you seen David Lee Roth lately? So again, you have to put that asterisk David Lee Roth circa 1982 Hilarious man, I follow his channel, I think he's Have you seen I think it was just posted today he was he's doing some kind of tap dance routine to like Dance house music or something. Yeah. Yeah, I said hey guys this used to be the front man of Van Halen.

Yeah, right I mean somehow it doesn't surprise me. I mean those They say what it's a half a teacher as the video where they're wearing the pink tuxedos and the desert That dancing to me. Well, you don't hear it, but it kind of looks like it.

Yeah, right, right So I didn't mean to start over again. So you come from Spain. It's like 1989.

Did you join a band right away? It was 1998 okay, I was I was in a few bands and mostly doing metal actually and because there's few singers that can do melodic metal and reach and Sing that high and stuff, but it's not right. I always wanted to be frontman of a rock and roll band and Those were not so I ended up leaving my last metal band and and these guys finally Because I would I would bring up the list of let's let's write some songs together and Tony would kind of dismiss it I was like with black Angus. What's the point? And I ended up convincing them but the idea was for them to send me stuff and their riffs their ideas and I would write on top of them melodies and stuff, but They weren't doing it so that took another extra three or four months and then I just send them a demo that I had of a song that I wrote and They loved it and they said do you have any more and I said yes But you have to send me something there so we can write together and then that's how it started and then From then it took another probably another year till we actually had a show and we played right, right So metal wasn't your like genre of choice, I guess You prefer not to do metal.

Is that was that? No, I love metal, but I've been doing it since I was in my teens and I'm 50 now. Okay One thing I found interesting so, you know, we were doing the black Angus thing and I wasn't really doing the original rock and roll at the time in Tearing bread up. He's like, hey, you want to do some song or do some original stuff? Like he was saying and I was I'm like, oh, yeah cool You know whatever and then when he did send the stuff over, you know him and Adam kind of were Started yeah, I was the other guitar player by the way, Adam Arling and I they kind of got it rolling, you know, so Adam was like, yeah, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's do you know play some original music So when tearing some stuff over to me I love the song so much like he was saying and I didn't realize that he was a rock singer full-on Okay, so I I've seen him play prior, you know, and not only in the ACDC by a tribute band that we're doing But in other bands he was it was original bands and other things he was doing so I didn't really picture him In that role and then once I heard the music I was like, oh wow, so it was really cool You know, and then I at first I was very apprehensive about doing an original rock project. I've done a bunch in my Time playing music and I wasn't sure if I wouldn't be a hundred percent into it, but I couldn't deny it and It was really fun, you know, so we're just having a blast and it really comes from the core of the songwriting Taryn's ideas and I was already loving playing with him as a person and his voice and everything in the Black Angus band But once I heard the material I was like I got to do this I gotta be an idiot not to you know, so I was really cool and inspirational But I never really knew he was a rock singer.

I thought he was a metal singer and so, you know forgive my I guess lack of knowledge of of what type of Music actually was accessible to you in Spain as far as what came from the United States, but I saw a description somewhere that you kind of described your music is kind of like southern rock or rock and roll and I could definitely hear that Southern rock influence as well. Blackberry smokes my favorite bands. I heard that I heard that I heard that Um Is that something that you would been exposed to and said I would love to be in a southern rock band is Was that kind of the intentions or to just happen by happy accident? Well, I was born in the 70s and for those Of your listeners that may not be aware.

Uh, we had a dictatorship in Spain for 40 years And our dictator died in 75 so there was a lot of music Uh that wouldn't come through we were in a market for rock and roll. There was a lot of uh, Rock and roll hits like for example summertime blues Had to be redone in spanish for that to be in the radio and it's a song called popotitos Well, no kidding and then so the same thing with jailhouse rock and many other american rock and roll hits and british rock and roll hits so Um, maybe it was in the 80s when it got more open and you would uh That my our elders our rock and roll elders in my little town Will listen to rory gallagher and deep purple and let's sapling and stuff like that and acdc especially 70s era and then bands from spain like baron rojo and um leño and uh And we got into that but there was a lot of bands that we never I never discovered till I moved to the u.s Or that I was aware of but I never actually heard their music like I was telling you Like a lot of illinois bands reo I had no clue who they were chicago. I knew they existed, but I had never heard the song.

Uh same thing with with Mega bands like journey over there to us it was like Since we were into the hard rock thing We were kind of like like scholars of it and we were we'll study it and look for bands So it was an underground thing the aor thing. So to us, uh, taikero and uh journey were the same Oh, wow, there were bands that would write that kind of music, right? But we didn't know that journey was so huge. We just knew the music and we heard it Oh, this is similar.

This is cool. We like it or we don't like it depending on who you are but you had to go in depth to find those bands because they were not promoted by their labels and In uh, not necessarily europe but in spain and also i'm assuming in portugal greece italy also had uh about history of having dictators and they they don't like rock and roll man, they're so uh It's impossible to tour Uh, i'm sorry to take time from my fellows, but it reminds me of uh, when metallica first came to play in spain there's the biggest uh Metal magazine in spain is called heavy rock And it's bigger than metal hammer is bigger than at the time rip magazine And we had to sign a petition. There was 20 000 signatures that we had to send To a promoting company for them to bring metallica because they believed that if we put the metallica We bring it to spain.

They're going to charge this much and we're only going to fill like the 2000 Person venue right right and they ended up bringing them to a soccer stadium and they sold out well And ever since then that was with the black album ever that was the first Arrival in spain and they have toured europe before as you know, I mean cliff burton died in europe, right? So so you guys you guys the first you heard of metallica was the black album. No, no, we knew of them But but but the first time they ever performed in spain was the black was the black out and was because fans the underground fans forced we we say with there's a crowd here for right right right for this, uh for heavy metal and for Uh for hard rock and we'll we'll turn up and and they had no other choice But to hear us because it meant money to them and they started bringing other bands and and labels started Not skipping spain anymore when it was time to launch a new single or something, right? Right, right. Was this um, was this prejudice against rock and roll music? Was it because of the united states? Was it because of just english-speaking countries in general? What what prevented what was it? It's the the mass of people love it.

So therefore we're going to control it Control has to do a lot with it, but it's also you know It carries the label of the music of the of the devil Oh, which I kind of find funny and I try to throw it in in the lyrics sometimes right like like bon scott would for example right Because it's it's stupid. So why not? Own it and have fun with it, right? Like jack black says, you know, you gotta stick it to the man. Yeah, that's right Rock and roll is about sticking it to the man, right real quick to interject on that though We have great friends and tony ourselves is toward spain Very recently and since this is taking place.

Oh, of course. They they are diehards. They are Great for rock and roll great crowds It's like you'd find an american crowd.

Everybody wants to hear this great rock and roll and now that it's opened up. It's Really receptive and tony could attest to that more than I could well, when did the dictatorship end? Motherfucker died 75 one year after I was born. So Yeah, yeah, well that means I mean, I know it's a completely different country now Absolutely, but democracy didn't start till I think it was 78, right? Yeah, it's a lot of passion there for american music american rock and roll music blues Uh jazz just traditional american music.

They just love it the crowds love it You know, it's smaller scale for the most part unless you're a huge huge huge band, right? Like taryn was saying but uh overall like the enthusiasm at these shows that what that I got to experience were amazing and Inspirational and I can't wait to go back. It's really it's very different than playing here Yeah, people don't understand that if you don't go and experience music or just any type of performances or entertainment outside the united states Um, especially if you go to actually there's places in the united states if you go to if you go to places You know some places in mississippi some places in louisiana and you know in areas like that Um where you know, they've got like one industry that's controlling the entire area or the entire region It almost makes those cities if you removed them from those states Those cities are almost like a third world country in themselves where everybody works for this one particular Factory right right and you have no and you don't have a lot of choices and i've been to some of these areas where You know, it was I think it was back in around It was it was back in around like, uh, I want to say like 99 or 2000 somewhere around there And I I remember being in biloxi, mississippi And everybody's playing the song smooth by santana and you've got these young teens running around going. Oh my god Have you heard this new guy carlos santana? You know and it wasn't even young teens I mean there were people in their 20s and close to 30s that are like How have you not heard of carlos santana? You're like in your 20s I granted he hadn't put an album out.

All right quite a while at that point, but still I mean You had to have seen mtv at one point Back when I used to play music does say a lot about the exposure level, you know And right and that happens all the time and it still does you know, especially now there's no National radio. There's no you have to find it right great stuff out there But you got to dig, you know, you got to find it right, right. So so we know where you come from Um, where are you originally from? Where'd your influences come from? Um born and raised in chicago.

All right still in chicago. Yeah, actually i'm out here now the juliet area. Yeah cubs or socks I'm a south side guy.

Okay, you know, that's a weird thing though when I grew up, you know My grandfather was basically my father. I won't get too much into sports But yeah at nine years old we always watch the cubs when I get up from school because that's all you can find wgn, right? channel 44 was all I mean You can't see anything, right? So it's like and chet lemons out there scraping his knees and shorts and stuff like that, right? So at nine years old, I actually made a conscious decision. I'm like man 90 percent of the city is rooting for the cubs.

Yeah, somebody's got to root for these people I'm, actually from the south side. So i'm like they're giving socks. Somebody's got to help these wretched people over here I don't know who's gonna help Yeah, that's really it's a really a trouble situation right now I was born in bridgeport.

Oh, there you go. So I think I was six years old when I found out that we had another baseball team I'm a south side or else. Yeah, i'm a lifelong socks fan.

But right now if they really want to go to nashville. I really don't care I'm getting really kind of tired Who's talking about that? Is it the socks reinsdorf? You don't build me a new stadium. I'll move them to nashville.

Go go Yeah, go, please Go, yeah, whatever. I think everybody feels that way, you know when the team starts to threaten that so go Yeah, you know we'll get somebody back here You tell me there wouldn't be people knocking on the door to come and have a team in chicago, right? Or put a good product on the field before you ask for a new stadium Yeah, let's bring the original football team back again. I'll bring the cardinals back to chicago There we go, yeah So our drummer is from bridgeport also.

Oh, yeah, we know numerous people from bridgeport We're we're a sort of mixed south side north side all over the chicagoland area. Yeah, I grew up in the south suburbs of chicago Um, if you're going to talk about a influence as a bass player Um, I started playing piano when I was about five years old. I knew that was coming Because no bass player starts off playing bass.

No I don't think i've ever talked to a bass player. It's like well, you know, I started taking bass lessons. No that that doesn't happen Yeah, you're exactly right.

You're exactly right. My ma's uh taught piano long and i've been alive and um You know, it was basically played the piano from five to about eleven then I picked up the acoustic guitar and then you know, you're in junior high and you're in seventh grade and it's like well, not anymore, but back then it's like Everybody's playing six string. Everybody's playing guitar.

It's like why not play bass i'll have all these gigs lined up Yep, so I did it now it's reversed in the chicagoland area Yeah, there's like 12 bass players for every six string player and it's like it's like yeah How did this happen, you know, right, right, right, but as far as influences go back I mean, um, it definitely it dates back to with my mom playing piano and stuff is uh, The early motown stuff from jamerson and donald duck dawn Yeah, then, you know progressing on to john paul jones, obviously and um, you know barry oakley from the allman brothers and And even some of the stuff, you know, like just rhythmic stuff where you would hear You know like with the stones or you'd hear mick taylor and keith just The way they would interplay and charlie would lay this back beat And there's a space in between if you're listening, which I think all good bands do it's it's all about finding Where you fit into that situation? And so it was all that, you know some stevie wonder and then you know in the 80s some steve harris some getty lee And everything sort of influences, but I would say my forte of what I like to do is definitely Based in the roots of the blues. Yeah 50s americana 60s english rock. Yeah, right and uh, 70s moving forward from there.

Yeah, and what you what got you into the metalman? I is not much of a metal guy is that you know, I was born in 69 So I grew up so I mean, you know, steve harris and uh, judas priest in 1983 um Armored saint anthrax. That was sort of cool to be but At the same token. I still have my roots from my aunt my mother of listening to you know Strangers in the night right then lizzie live and dangerous, you know, it's a robin shaw or bridge of science.

Yeah So I still had that in me But I mean, um all your friends, you know when you're in junior high high school, they're listening to metal 80s metal stuff not heavy metal stuff, but uh So yeah, but I mean as i've gotten older, I mean obviously My influences and I think the influence of the band go back to The bands that we drop on which is earlier. Oh smith faces, you know the stones. Um all that type of acdc and I let the other guys elaborate on that because I think they uh Sort of feeling that same way go socks I might go to nashville You know, you mentioned acdc I just recently uh Had the opportunity somebody sent me a link to an old black and white video of acdc And I don't know if it was true or not But it said that it was like one of the first shows that they had played together as a band And this hall that they were in looked like a vfw hall or something and had the six-foot Fold-up table set up and there was like nobody there, but they all looked like they were 12 years old And yeah, it was bon scott and they were just a blues band.

They were just a blues band They almost didn't even sound like acdc They were just up there playing muddy waters and all kinds of stuff like that, but you could tell That the acdc was about to burst out of whatever was going on in that stage. You could hear it there, but it was very undistorted guitars, you know, and um and You really heard bon scott singing in his natural chest voice Which was which is a little different than what we're all used to It was really interesting if you go on youtube if you're acdc fans check out look for those videos They were real interesting really quick. Tony could attest to this more when people do listen to acdc Their guitars are not as overdriven as people might think they are.

Absolutely. It's a more. Yeah I mean and tony can attest to that more.

It's a very it's kind of with you know The whole process of playing guitar when you start, you know, everyone's playing unless you you know Usually when you start you're playing really clean when you discover rock and roll and hard rock and stuff You start pouring on distortion and then you think everyone that's the sound right now They're young ears. You don't really know and then as you go and you break it down like You know, it's the first stuff. I played rock and roll stuff.

I played in my high school band was you know Our grade school band actually it was acdc stones You know maiden played very poorly. Yeah, we thought we were doing it right but we weren't you know, you know things like that priest but um It was fun when dave our buddy asked to do this, you know Start covering some acdc stuff. Just a bunch of friends doing some bond stuff It was breaking down the songs again and realizing that these guys are playing pretty wide open clean guitars Oh, yeah, not much distortion at all.

Those records are very simple. There's not a lot going on not a lot of overdubbing It's yep. It's what you see is what you get kind of music and I think that stuff hits the hardest I love huge elaborate productions for certain kinds of bands and things like that But on the most part I just like to hear bands play right and that's my favorite, you know in any genre Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think you can hear that in in our songs. We uh purposefully uh Record the the drums and bass live And we're all in different rooms of the studio But we're playing live and we don't record them to a click right and we play live together all the time And so even if we don't keep, you know, if someone still redo something, of course we can redo it right, but we're always Looking at it playing together, right? Right. Yeah So we're trying to go for the for the for the flow of the band And then if there needs to be an overdub then maybe the solos get done after the all the vocals get done after but uh the the main Part of the song we like to record it live and be more flowing and natural like back in the 60s and 70s then more Uh, you know like yeah like nowadays a lot of people, you know record by themselves and send it to someone right You know send it to the guy, which is very normal.

I understand, you know Everyone has home studios. You can record at home and do those kind of things. I do think it takes something away from it Uh, but that's just my own tastes of what I like to listen to And again depending on the genre right and depending on the band and things like that Sometimes I do like very elaborate productions on certain things, but for our stuff we're trying to keep it pretty meat and potatoes I think you know and just show you what we got.

We're adding some color on here on our record We're gonna add some color on there. Sure have some guests on there and stuff like that, but everything's pretty much, you know the band um, and we're of course talking about the The track, uh, was it so cold so cold so cold. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the track that was sent over to us That's what that's what we listened to. Okay.

Yeah, that definitely has a rootsier feel I could see what you're saying Well, it's a slide and everything. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely Um, and i'll tell it had a warmth to the recording and which my next question was Did you guys record that all digital or did you put that on tape? How did you guys actually record the band? I have a home studio.

Okay. Yes your obligatory home studio, but I have you know I've been doing it for a while and um, it's all and I use analog front end I record and I record into the computer, you know, I use the computer that I am very old school about it i'm, not a purist but uh But it was an analog front end absolutely and and I can I can tell Nice, I can tell immediately. Yeah, I mean some people can some people can't you know, I To me it's very obvious.

Yeah, and it's what my ears like to hear and i'm not, you know I won't even debate what's better. I like analog. I'm an analog guy.

It makes me happy No, I like it. It definitely it definitely has a different warmth I can always tell the difference because everything's recorded on analog mixed on it I basically use it as a computer like a tape machine. Sure.

Sure. Yeah Yeah, because I noticed about the guitars if you listen to it What you going back to what you were saying about acdc not having a lot of distortion on their guitars I mean, it's like I could actually hear the strings slapping the frets I mean you can actually hear that and you know what and some people would say well You don't want that in there find that frequency and pull that out. No bullshit.

Leave that in there Mistakes are awesome. Yeah, so how many of your favorite right? I mean, they're all over the place, right? And that's because they're capturing moments, right and that's what recordings are supposed to do what's weird nowadays I find that like, you know before people used to make records to support a tour Right, you know Or tour to support the record. I'm sorry.

Yeah now it's completely the opposite, right? The music's pretty much you put it out. There's a promotional device. Yeah, it's like it's like a business card.

Yeah Yeah, so bizarre. Yeah, it is but I like the mistakes. Yeah, right.

So it's like uh It became a thing You know to fix everything right because you can right i'm like, okay great not I feel Everything sounds the same to me, right? Anyone could do that. Anyone could make yourself sound good, right or fix every everybody can make it perfect Yeah, everyone can make it perfect. Yeah, and it gets boring down Yeah, it's bad.

It's part of uh, what rock and roll is and what I When we started playing together Some songs were heavier some songs were had more of a pop thing going and maybe that kind of music maybe you want to Produce it more and fix it more but we ended up uh, like tony Would say we had we have to find an identity as a band and we find it there on the same I think we found it in the 70s. We sound like the faces and early acdc and then some of it May not fit into there, but that's the core, right? And when you listen to those rock and roll records part of it part of the the charm of them is that they have dirt You know, they have things that are not perfect. They have uh, you know, or not even even with bands that are kind of like retro I love this.

Um Song by the white stripes where it just was a new song. It's just piano It's a piano ballad and the dude is playing it live and recording the voice live and uh Must be meg white that drops a jar of forks or something and it's in the song. He's playing Yeah, and it's great.

You're like what? That's awesome. Yeah Because if the take is great Why a little mistake or why maybe the drummer went a little faster or a little slower than in the first verse now on the second Verse why ruin the whole you're supposed to right? The chorus is kind of supposed to Speed up a little a little bit Yeah I mean, well, you know, it's dynamics, right? It's like why do you want to take all the dynamics out of Right, right. Yeah.

Yeah, leave a little bit of a live performance in there for sure well, I think that's what we really try to do is live performance because There's an essence when you're recording If if the bass player is playing a dummy track to the drummer and the guitar players aren't even really playing, right? You know see then you get the bass player responding to the drummer then when the guitar players go to record They're just responding to what? Now is laid down, right if you're all playing together live i'm hearing the rhythm guitar I'm hearing what tony's doing that i'm hearing what adam's doing on the x I miss it under the spectrum So when you're hearing all that even though you might go back and punch a little guitar or do something else You're playing live as a band. So you're feeling what everybody else is contributing to the song Locally as compared to just laying down bass and drums then we're going to lay down the guitars Well, then the guitars aren't interjecting The rhythmic feel until after the bass and drums have done what they're doing and right you've lost sort of the essence of having a full band Recording and their live essence of what they're supposed to be about right exactly. Yeah, there there was a um, uh, i'm not gonna remember the name of the movie, but um It was it was out many years ago and every once in a while When I saw it I shot a video with my phone and I posted it to facebook and every once in a while It pops up on my facebook page and it came up about two or three months ago But there's a scene where uh, this guy owns a recording studio And he goes to dinner for the first time to meet his girlfriend's parents and really the whole family and one of her brothers is a smart ass and says Do you really think it's so smart to invest all kinds of money and time into what's pretty much a dying art? And he says, you know, it might be a dying art But i'll tell you what Owning a recording studio and doing it the way I do is so much better than it is today because you can't beat the sound Of a bunch of musicians sitting around in a circle jiving off of one another it's really a special thing It really is it really is and I love it.

Yeah, so I love that experience. I love recording, you know, so uh Guitar playing is my favorite thing in the world to do, but my second favorite thing is recording. Yeah music and creating.

Yeah and creating Yeah, so tell us about the interaction. Tell us about so cold. What's the story behind that? Uh, I wrote the music taron wrote the lyrics to that.

So Uh, I Was sitting it was covid And uh, and I was sitting outside, uh, loyola physical therapy facility um Obsessed about the song that he had sent me I had to come up with a chorus and my my son was having physical therapy for his uh back or something and i'm And i'm outside because you know You what I saw you have to wear a mask or whatever and i'm trying to come up with something and the first thing I came up with was the call the the the The chorus of that With the way it is in the album actually and The lyrics of it with it. Like how can you be so goddamn cold? So now I have to write a rock and roll song with because it fits so great and the chorus now have to He has a knack. Yeah, he has a great knack for like capturing moods So, you know, I just send music to him.

Hey, man, what do you you know, what do you think? I don't really write lyrics once in a while taron writes 99.9% of our lyrics by the way So he all the lyrics are coming from him and he writes a lot of music too, but adam writes music. I write music and everyone collaborates on that and um He just captures like you can hear A piece of music and capture the mood of it and lyrically kind of get get it without even I don't suggest anything to him You know, I don't I want him to just be a blank slate. What do you feel? What do you react from you know? And some of my songs I might even have lyrics for but I won't show them to him Because he always comes up with something better.

Anyway, you know And I don't want to be affected by it, you know, I don't want you to hear something It's hard to get it out of the back of your brain sometimes. Well in that particular case then I think I thought Well, the verse has to fit this and it has to be and I remember I was outside in that parking lot And I moved away from the door because I had to see if I could sing That part that I just came up with because you come up with it in your head But maybe it's too high for you to sing now So I don't I don't think so I've heard his voice Oh, I can sing it, okay, then I can write the yeah, I can write the song there Uh, but um, it's a rock and roll song. It's it has a slide guitar It has the verse it's got that And the the pre-chorus is it straight up rock and roll chuck berry kind of thing only a little slower, right? So they have to rock and roll lyrics and what When you say to somebody and it has to be a rock and roll lyric How can you be so goddamn cold? I must be talking to some lady that did me wrong So that's what I did the lyrics about, you know Sometimes you have to change the world with your words Sometimes you just have to hit the song and make it quality with the song with the style We have other like uh coming up roses our second single the lyrics are more You have more of a social thing going But not this one.

This one is just about guy that got done wrong by a woman You know because you know, there's not enough rock and roll songs, you know that touch on that subject matter You know what that's that's part of the we got a couple almost love songs We didn't reinvent the wheel we just Got it. Yeah, if you're looking for a reinvented wheel you're Like there's there's not enough country songs where he crashes his pickup and his dog But that's that's that's part of what we're doing is that is that to me to my foreigners ears and my way of my slightly different way of understanding rock and roll is that You don't have to change If you love the style and a song may have been done before by some other people better than you and worse than you You don't really have to be innovative Or a great lyricist to write a lyric to it or write a guitar part Or because the chord progression is probably g to a to d like any other song So they've kind of all been done, but I mean pretty much every song the quality, you know The quality sits in the performance and the nuance and that's what I what I love about this band Is that is the nuance is that how the drummer a lot of a sudden there's a little thing on the on the high hat and uh, ron that he does that sean does on the bass and maybe there's a There's a line on that song. For example You had nothing better to do than eat my heart with a spoon.

I've never heard that line before. Yeah, that's gotta hurt Which in a way is I think even harder to do So, how do you take something that's been around as long as it has obviously, you know, again, we're not reinventing the wheel How do you make it your own? I find that challenging. I find it interesting How do you make a band have character playing that kind of music which we all just absolutely adore, right? So it's like Let's do it.

You know, let's figure out our niche, you know, what's our sound gonna be? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna bring to the table, you know, and that's fun to me. That's exciting and interesting You know keeps me engaged, right? You're listening to the rock and roll chicago podcast. Hi, i'm rick anthony I'd like to thank my radio brothers ray the roadie and hollywood mike for allowing me to tell you about my podcast The someone you should know podcast we spotlight musicians authors and interesting people and we like to say we're making a difference one artist at a time The podcast is heard twice a week on mondays and thursdays and you can check it out on your favorite streaming platforms And on the web at someone you should know podcast.com That's the someone you should know podcast with me rick anthony making a difference one artist at a time I'm christy from crime cave podcast I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons of snapped back in the mid 90s I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time With each episode under 20 minutes.

I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years Join me in the crime cave podcast Or you know, whereas they say, you know You can I don't care what kind of gear you have on the you can have 100 pedals on the floor I don't care if you're playing a lester or paul through a marshall. It doesn't matter The tone of the guitarist comes from their fingers. Absolutely.

So if that's the case, then the tone of the band comes to the players Yeah, it's not your gear, you know, it's not your gear and how do you make it different? Well, because you have to present it. I mean, you know, your band is unique in the fact that Nobody else is going to duplicate your band. No one can do it.

No one can duplicate anyone else, right? That's the beauty of music. It's like you brought up earlier. I'm like, um, like you hear blackberry smoke in it Yeah, i'm huge blackberry smoker.

I don't necessarily hear in this band, but we get everything from guns and roses Cinderella to stones to black crows to faces. I'm a huge black crows fan blackberry and smoke and black crows are like very And buck cherry, you know, those three bands are very similar What I like is we get different different people suggest different things that they hear out of what we're doing Which means we're not cloning anybody, right? We're putting our own spin on what we want to do In the basic blues based roots rock and roll fashion and giving it our best shot at uh, putting our spin on it and also another cool thing, you know, we're a two guitar band and uh adam and I don't if you If you listen very rarely do you hear us playing the same thing, right? We just it's a real two guitar band kind of in the aerosmith style and you know, uh maiden style, you know It's not just dudes playing the same riff right to make it heavier. We're actually intertwining right and creating melodies Yeah, no, that's good that work together but completely different.

So I see you've got three songs here You got so-called you latest you got coming up roses and what are you? Uh, you guys working on an album or are you just okay? We didn't plan on it at first But we were like, hey, we'll just make song, you know a lot of people do it, you know Let's uh record some songs make some videos have some fun, but we have so much material And as things started going and we were really digging it and you know we've been a year in now and we're like, let's do it. Let's do a full length and Uh move on keep moving forward. So we hope to have that out, you know Not too much longer Is So the idea is that the fourth single will come out by the time this podcast is out it'll be out, okay Oh, yeah, we heard it.

It was good. That was great You gotta say my finished mix It's 95 that's close. Yeah.

So, um, take a minute you you mentioned andy, um, is the other guitar player adam adam adam So, um who's missing how many chuck our drummer chuck harling, okay. Yeah, so that's the whole band. Gotcha Okay, five piece.

Gotcha. Okay. Excellent.

And so you got a drummer another guitar player Yeah, and and you guys have you guys all been together from day one or has there been some personnel? Changes in this band pretty much other than feeling it out and getting everyone involved is our very first show Yeah, they do one show. It was adam and I and our friends. Uh, Um eggs galayasevich from hassler worth's playing base And my friend hugo ayala was playing drums to filling for us because we wanted to play this game opening for the claus The claus is a band from la whose singer's chad terry, which is the singer for the las vegas And adam is in the las vegas.

Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah, so He asked us to open so we we we just put the songs together 16 minutes and With these two guys, okay, but that's the only show that we've we've done with a different lineup And then I cut, you know, I was like, oh, you know, I want to get more involved You know, I was kind of was talking about earlier.

I wasn't 100 committed yet. And then uh, After seeing that show i'm like I gotta do this and then sean uh was always interested in it and uh chuck i've known since high school, so He was I was like, oh man, i'd love to I hadn't Kind of play with him on and off a little bit but not ever in a full-on project So that wasn't if he was available he was very busy the drummer was the only yeah That was the case where we had to try guys because we tried a few drummers Once with these after that first show the first bass player that we asked was sean Okay, and he already knew about it. He kept asking me to send them in the songs and we wanted tony To play the second second and then when sean said he was doing i'm like i'm definitely doing it We've played in bands for years together So after having that on and off then the search for the drummer kind of ended because he said I know this guy chuck That he and he sent us a video of him playing with the wooly rhinos and one of his bands And we liked him and we brought him over and that was it.

So So that was the only he's a beast. He's great. Yeah.

Yeah good. Yeah. So where do you guys play? What kind of places? well, just mostly Kind of all chicago clubs, I don't know taron you take we play right across the street Oh, have you really? Excellent.

Excellent. Yeah, we've done uh, we try to do we do our own shows, but we do Do shows opening for local nashville's we just did a show with faster pussy cat blacktop mojo the super suckers. Jason gained in the jive We played a lot at reggie's.

Okay, that's like reggie's like a second off. Yeah, that's On the street from there and yeah, so reggie's great, but we have great shows at the forge. We love frank and uh I'll let you guys hear for the rest of that.

Yeah across the street. We open for blacktop mojo We played a couple of original band nights Yet again and some other bands And we've done berman street actually for some odd reason they put uh, they did a original Band night and we played it and we play a bunch of reggie's gigs. We do a lot of city stuff.

Yeah, you know Liars club we open for faster pussy about the vixen in mckenry, but normally we we are in the city in the city a lot Yeah south side. We're playing once in a while. We'll do like northman tavern like on the lakes kind of interesting they'll have a rock band out there and we'll Catch people coming out from after work.

It's a lot of fun in the summertime, but we're pretty much open for anything, you know Everyone's really busy. I you know, so we're not super super active, right? Yeah When you play your own shows, I mean are you doing all original music when you do your own shows? Yeah, mostly mostly like three hour shows you're doing. No, no, no, uh Like the northman show, what do we do? That's gonna be a two hours.

So we'll add some covers and something like that. Sure What kind of stuff do you throw in as a cover to comp all over the place? Yeah, really? Yeah Yeah, and so instead of keeping it instead of keeping the content consistent you throw something in it Consistent but yeah, we'll we kind of mix it up a little we have we have a couple of covers that are more like Okay, we're going to play a show that's going to be 60 minutes and we want to throw in a cover Okay, we normally either do nice boys. Okay, I um Roast that too or we do cowboy song.

I think let's see. Oh, wow. Yeah, so those are in the team Yeah, it's like the northman thing.

We might throw in like, uh Well greetings If we play If we play a longer thing, we need more jammy songs. So we've done roadhouse blues. We've done the jack we've done Entirely through the grapevine, right? Right, right.

Yeah. Yeah, so it's it's still consistent a lot We still do it kind of our own way. We'll do dead flowers stuff like that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's see. Um We're at the end of october you guys have anything on the calendar for like november december Anything around the end of this year No, not right now.

No right now still looking for stuff So if so, if there's some venues out there that need a pretty kick-ass original band give these guys a call always looking yeah, you know and Unfortunately, there's kind of a shortage of just all original clubs in this city I I've you know, I travel all over the country and I can go to minnesota and you know Every bar in downtown minnesota says yeah original bands bring them on down here, but it's it's not like that in chicago Yeah, so we're very limited in what we can Do you know so we have some friends playing rock bands not many We were actually at a uh party the other night last saturday and i'm in hey guys want to do a show you like, please Yeah, you know, it's like it's really hard to find bands Just straight up rock and roll bands to play with. It really is. It's easier when you're when you're Uh, like doing metal or something more extreme Or even in the city if you're more into like maybe punk or even indie Yeah, right, but to do the stuff that we do that's kind of like old as yeah, you want to it's gen x or rock and roll man, yeah, yeah Which is the best kind I don't know what this crap is.

They're calling rock and roll nowadays We're too hard rock for for martyrs And we are too too Too light for I don't know bottom lounge. Yeah, so so uh It's hard to find bands that kind of fit into what we do a little bit So when we do as long as it's rock and it's melodic we will try to And we're very much concentrated on trying to you know, do some more stuff in europe. I mean Again, it's a different appreciation for the style.

Sure, right? You know a lot of our my favorite bands rock bands european rock bands don't come to the states anymore Unfortunately, because they just can't afford it, right? You know, it's like we love it. We love the crowds We love the people but we can especially in the midwest is rock and roll, right? I mean That's where you play. Yeah, you know the coasts are whatever, right? You know the midwest is where it's at and they're just like For us to come over here and pay for the touring and all that We just don't make enough money where they can just bounce around europe and make a good living Especially with the states taxing the shit out of people coming from other countries to perform here, you know They can't even get in.

Yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous, you know, just Enjoy the fact that there's going to be you know A couple thousand more people in your city that normally wouldn't be here probably going out drinking beforehand and afterwards and enjoyed that Why would you do that and charge so much for somebody to come here and play a show? I don't know. That's just ridiculous And we suffer right? So yeah Right, but I can't blame them So, how can people find you guys what you have a website? Yeah, the midnight calls that come I think that's what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you on facebook? Yeah, we're on facebook and instagram on you know on every platform Our our latest single just hit 6 000 views on youtube yesterday.

I think so for us is like 6 001 I listened to it on the way here All right Listened to it this afternoon. We're actually really happy, you know for You know, we're older guys. We've been around, you know, it's like, uh For a true diy man.

We're really happy about that. So, you know, thanks to you guys you know and we're getting some support and some people are playing the song and people are liking it and that's just amazing and motivating and uh We're gonna keep putting more stuff out, you know I I have to go start a band called the diy band Yeah, I always want I always want to have one called tba Free beer tba free beer and the free beers These guys are playing everywhere Hardest working band in showbiz All righty guys, well, thanks for coming out. This is a lot of fun.

Yeah. Thanks for having us great guys All righty. Take care now.

All right. Cheers. Thank you Well the midnight called the midnight call and now they're gone with the red sparkling shoes Yeah, no, I they were they were fantastic.

They are fantastic. They are a great band you guys, um, listen to them Don't just listen to the stuff that we put here on the podcast go and find them on the internet listen to them like I I want to see a live show because They are as full as energy as their music would indicate and how lively they were in the studio That's got to be a fantastic show and another original band another original band We've been giving and getting a number of those an original southern rock band, which is so cool. Yeah.

Yeah, that's very cool They sound great. You got to get out and see them. So That was a lot of fun.

And uh as always thank you for listening to the rock and roll chicago podcast Check us out every tuesday for another exciting new episode. See ya Hey everybody, it's ray the roadie and this is hollywood mike of the rock and roll chicago podcast If you've been joining our weekly program, we have great news for you Just tune in to road to rock radio on mondays at 7 p.m Central time and you can hear a rebroadcast of one of our past episodes then again on thursdays at 7 p.m You can hear our most current episode brought to you by the illinois rock and roll museum on route 66 So go to road to rock dot org scroll down and click on radio station That'll bring you to the road to rock radio a station committed entirely to the great music from illinois From chicago blues born on maxwell street to today's rock and roll and everything in between 24 7 all music with its roots in illinois The rock and roll chicago podcast is edited by paul martin theme song courtesy of mnr Rush the rock and roll chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show The music is used to promote the guests that are featured