Ep 217 Fierce Atmospheres

Since its inception in Austin, TX in 2002, Fierce Atmospheres has hit the 21-year mark as a band. Having been in the Chicago metal circuit for 12 years, the band has released 5 EPs and 2 full length CDs. Eric and John stopped by the studio and filled us in on their incredible journey and where it is going.

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.

How's it going, Ray? It's a very windy night out. It is a very windy night. It's crazy coming here, man.

Yeah, but you know, you had the most exciting day though. Is it something you can talk about? I can talk about it. Yeah? Yeah.

Okay, I didn't know if you had to sign some type of... No, I wasn't saying you can't talk about it or anything. I was a TV star today. Yeah.

I was on Chicago Fire. I had a few little parts in there. And when it comes out, you'll see it.

Yeah, we're going to have to... So for today, I'm going to be Mike the Roadie and you're Hollywood Ray. I'll be Hollywood Ray. Yeah, I can be, yeah.

That was a cool picture you sent me. Yeah. What was it? Was that like a car wreck or something? It was like a street exploded and the flames were coming out of the street.

Coming out of the street. That's going to be... It's going to be... They'll start advertising. It's the crossover episode, you know, where they put MAD, Fire, and PD all together into one big storyline.

So that's what that's going to be. Yeah, I have to admit, I don't think I've watched network television ever since I started streaming. Yeah.

But you're going to have to let me know the date that this one's coming out. Oh, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen an episode of Chicago.

I hope I don't make the cutting room floor, but you never know. Well, at least you make something. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. I mean, otherwise, it's just kind of left up in the air.

That's true. It's kind of left up in the atmosphere. Just up in the atmosphere.

And it gets pretty fierce up there. Yeah, it does. It does get very fierce up there.

Yeah. And it just so happens that we got the fierce atmospheres here tonight. So they can take care of that.

That's right. How's it going, guys? All right. Who we got here tonight? John Ash.

And what do you do, John? What do you do in the band? Drums. Drums. All right.

I'm Albert Ripka. I'm the vocalist. All righty.

And I'm Eric Gosselin, the guitarist. The guitarist. OK, I was going to say you're not the bass player.

The bass player is always the person that gets left behind. Sometimes by choice. But now, how many are actually in the band? Was it five? We're a five-piece.

Five-piece, OK. So our guitar player and other guitar player and bass player couldn't make it. Yeah, OK.

And who are they? That's Lance King on bass and Marco Severini on guitar. I thought I saw another Gosselin in the list. No? OK.

But speaking of guitars real quick, did you see it came out just a couple of days ago about what Gibson's doing? No. Everybody that's got an American-made Gibson, those things are probably going to suddenly be worth a fortune. I used to.

Really? I didn't want to hear that. Yeah, I've got the article here. I read it.

They are moving all manufacturing operations to Indonesia. Whoa. I don't know if they're planning on keeping a select group that are still going to be made in the US.

But the article that I read, it said they're moving all of their manufacturing to Indonesia. Well, I've got two of them. Yeah, no kidding.

I mean, it kind of broke my heart a little bit. I mean, I'm not a Gibson fan myself, but I know a lot of people who are. And it's like, OK, now you're going to go buy a Les Paul, right? And if it's made in Indonesia, do you really have to buy a Les Paul anymore? I don't know.

And the irony is that they're cracking down on all these fake manufactured Gibsons that are coming from overseas. So now how are they going to determine that if they're all made in Indonesia? The Chibsons, they've been calling them, I guess. I guess every one of them, every Gibson is going to be a Chibson now.

I don't know. But it'll be interesting to see what they're going to do with that. Because they're saying it's going to open up like design options for them.

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what's going to happen.

And they're going to raise the price and get them cheaper. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Geez. Be interesting.

But I mean, I guess it's something that they had to do because you can't get on the internet nowadays without seeing a custom guitar manufacturer or maker someplace. But I don't know. That's true.

Yeah. What do you play? What's your preferred? I've got a carbon seven string. That's my main guitar.

Wow. And they don't even make those anymore. No, they don't.

They're now, aren't they now Kiesel? Isn't it the same family? Kiesel, whatever. Those are made in Indonesia now too. They better not be because I've been talking to them to order one.

I've actually played the Kiesel or however it is that they pronounce it there. They look nice. I mean, I haven't tried one.

I think that they are probably one of the better manufacturers around. I've got a friend that only plays them. And every time I picked one of his guitars up, the necks are just absolutely beautiful.

Nice. They really are. I mean, they play as well as they look.

It's probably because it's the same carbon people, isn't it? It's like they just changed the name. Something like that. What's cool about my guitar is when I ordered it, this was 13, 14 years ago.

I got to see it go through the production line. I ordered it from California where Carbon was. Chose everything I wanted on it.

And I could see it for two months going through the phases, paint shop, electronics. And then it arrived at my door within two or three days when they said it would. So it was really cool.

And that's exactly the way it is. Because if you go onto their website right now, you literally build your own guitar. Your colors, your pickups, you know, different types of necks in the whole bit.

Send it in and you pick up the phone and call them. And if you ask them, if you ask them, hey, what do you think of this combination? They'll be honest with you and say, yeah, that's not really going to work. I mean, they're actually right.

They're actually pretty good about it. Mine was a thousand bucks, too. I'm not sure what a seven string from Keisel would cost now.

Maybe two, three. Well over two. Probably, yeah.

I'm sure it would be beautiful, too. But yeah. So if anybody from the company is listening, we're looking for sponsors.

We are looking for sponsors. And we would be more than happy to try some of your stuff out for you. Email Ray at rock and roll Chicago dot net.

Do it right now. That's right. Now, you know, the reason why I picked that up, really, because I will tell you the first thing that struck me when I listened to the first song, really.

Tell me if I'm right. You plug straight into your app. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't hear a whole lot of processing going on.

I didn't hear, you know, a lot of like transistor radio type sound and distortion stuff, which, you know, the typical sounds that you would hear from the type of music that you guys play. I was listening to that thinking this guy's just plugging straight into his app. Yep.

Yeah, much. No, no effects. I've got a watt pedal and a delay pedal for solos.

Yeah. Nice. Pretty much it.

And what's your app? I'm using the EVH 5150 now. Oh, wow. Nowadays.

Yeah. Nice. A newer one or an older one? It's geez.

I've had it five, six years now. Okay. So were they owned by Fender then? I can't.

I don't know because I know. I think PV owned them for a while. Yeah, you're exactly right.

A friend of ours, Jeff might know that. Yeah. We can't answer this for you.

We love this out. He bought that amp and he said, John, you know, I'm going to play this for a second. Let me know what you think.

He hit one chord. I go, dude, this is freaking it. I love it.

I love it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good.

Well, tell us a little bit about yourselves. Then everybody, I think everybody can pretty much know you guys are playing some heavy music. I guess heavy metal would be the best description of it nowadays because there's so many different descriptions when you're talking about heavy music nowadays.

When I think of heavy metal, I think of the traditional sounds like Iron Maiden and stuff like that. You guys kind of have a little bit of that, right? Yeah. But then I also hear a little bit of like Southern rock tone and some of the stuff that you guys do as well.

So I'm going to shut up. Let you guys tell us about it. Never heard that.

Eric, what do you want to say about that? I'm just thinking, yeah, those were our influences, Iron Maiden, Priest, Black Sabbath from back in the day. But then like Al and I, for example, back in, I didn't know him back then, but like in the late 90s, early 2000s, I started getting into European power metal, Evergrey and Flames, you know, Stradivarius, Camelot, even though Camelot was from the States, but they had that European sound. And so I guess I kind of just started writing in that fashion.

So I started this band like around 2002 in Austin, Texas. Right. Saw that.

Yeah. And I was writing the songs in the probably 1999, 2000. I started writing the first couple songs.

But yeah, those were the influences we pulled from the old school, but then trying to go new school a little bit too. We wanted to be original too. And then like when I met John later, he's an original drummer.

So that added to the originality too. Right. Was he your first phone call when you were putting the band together? Um, when I moved to Chicago, actually, he was one of the first people I started jamming with.

Okay. So the guys that, when you put the band together in Austin, it was a completely different group of guys. It was all, this band has been through about 27, 28 guys since I started it.

And I left you guys a list. And you guys are on the bubble. He might be 28.

Marco was 27, our latest guitar player. Um, but that's kind of my take on it is I want to have a little of, you know, my influences from when I was growing up, but I like so much new music too. I don't want to sound like my band's dated either.

I don't want to sound like we're stuck in the eighties. Right. But I don't know what their takes on it would be.

John? He's putting you on the spot again. This is when you guys talk. Okay.

Here we go. Yeah. I've played in so many bands through the years and so many genres, if you will.

And when I met Eric, to me, it's about, you hear a song and as a drummer, I don't just, you know, say, oh, I want to sound like this guy. You want to really add your stamp on it. And I felt like me and Eric, not just that we were good friends, we became friends very early on.

And you put your drum parts to it and you want it to solidify the sound of that band. You know, it's just what you do. Right.

And I just really enjoyed it. I mean, we were, even when we weren't in bands together, because I was in and out, I was in different bands in parts of that, but we always kept in contact. And he'd be like, yeah, John, while you're over here having a beer, hey, can you just throw a drum track down? I got this idea.

And I would still mess around with ideas with him. And you never knew what was going to happen. Right.

But it was always great. And I ended up coming back in the band a few years back. And I've been in ever since.

And I've been enjoying it. How long has that been? That was since 2019 when he came back. Yeah, it was pre-COVID.

And then COVID happened. We started recording. So you're like 24, 25.

When we recorded Speed of Dreams, it was the strangest thing, because COVID hit. And he had all these great ideas for this album. And I was still in another band, which was called Iron Finger.

And then they changed it to Reflexicon. I was still in that band. And I'm laying down these drum tracks for these songs.

I'm not even in the band yet. And all of a sudden, I'm starting to hear, as the songs are coming together, vocals are on it, leads are on it, all that. I'm listening back going, holy shit.

This is too good to pass up. And so I stayed with it. And I couldn't do both bands and ended up sticking with this.

And I'm happy with that. So when a guitar player says that they're going to, I want to sound like this particular person, I want to sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, or I want to sound like Eric Johnson or whatever. Guitar player goes out and buys that kind of guitar and looks at their pedal board and looks at their amplifiers and the whole bit.

But when a drummer, not being a drummer myself, explained to me, how does a drummer decide, OK, I'm going to sound like John Bonham? Well, first of all, as a drummer, you're going to know you're going to have your sound. John Bonham had his own sound in spades. I mean, he had a groove that was amazing.

And he was one of my biggest influences. And so you're not really going to want to even sound like that guy, even though you love him, you want to sound like you. And I tell any drummer that.

Be you. That's what's most important. Serve the song, but be you at the same time.

Was it the tone of his drums? Was it the way that he played? What was most distinctive about it? In the case of Bonham, it was really more about that groove. He always had that sweet backbeat kind of groove that just made the song just have air. Right.

And I would like to think that that's influenced me as a drummer. Right. Right.

Yeah. When a guitar player talks about stuff like that, they're literally talking about the sound, the tone. Right.

Yeah. They're not talking about, oh, I love the way he strums his strings. No, I mean, that's right.

I have never heard a guy hit an A like that ever. Yeah. My God.

Unless you're talking about B.B. King. OK, right. B.B. King could hit an A note and hold it forever and say more with that one note.

And it was pretty. Go out to dinner and come back and he's still holding it. Yeah, and he's still holding it.

You go out for a bite and. So are you playing through Indonesian drums? Right. No, I'm not.

The ones that I use in the studio are my DW, that's Drum Workshop. I love their sound. I agree.

The tone of them is amazing. And oddly enough, their sister company is called Pacific or PDP, if you will. And that's the kit that I always take to all our shows, because even though they sound amazing, I love the sound of them.

It's almost as good as DW, not quite. They're nowhere near as expensive. So when I play somewhere and someone's bumping my equipment because it has to be moved quickly, I'm not getting mad at people.

I don't have to say, all right, let's go. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Gosh, you know, you gave me a flashback.

I was in a band about 10 years ago. We played the Roundhouse over in Aurora. And it was the night that an Illinois roller derby team won the championship.

So all of a sudden, you've got just about 20 crazy girls, man, the roller derby team. They're at the show having an absolute blast. One of them jumps up on stage and leaps into the air and lands on the bass drum.

She's literally standing on top of it. And all of a sudden, the drums go away. And I'm like, what the heck happened? I turned around, look for a drummer.

And he's standing there, pointing a stick at her face. Get off now! Get off! Hey, you love your drummers. You're going to care about them.

You're not going to have somebody standing on them. That's right. Sorry.

She was great. She stood up there. She's like, yeah, she's got the horns up like this, facing him.

I know you're on a roller derby team, but you've never come closer to that. Yeah. I was going to say, she's holding two fingers up at each hand.

He's got one. So when you got to Chicago, who was the first person that you called? How did you start constructing the band here in the Chicago area? So I was living in Champaign for eight years. But I met my ex-wife now.

But at the time, I had just met her down there. And she immediately got a job up here. So I started coming up here.

And the first person I met actually was Joe Martina. And he's on our 2008 demo as a singer. And he was in a band called Judas Rising, a Judas Priest tribute here and there, which I fill in for them once in a while.

I actually play with them here and there. So he was the first guy. Then I met some other people like Steve Reimer, who ended up being on our 2012 EP.

And I met John around 2011. So it was 2007, then 2009, 2011. Everybody started kind of coming into place.

And for a while, I was pulling guys from out of state. So Dan Banker is from the Blackened Metallica tribute here in town. Oh, yeah, right.

So he used to live in Iowa. We used to call him Iowa Dan. So he was in the band for a while.

He used to come to Champaign and work with us and Joe. And then my old buddy Bruce used to fly out from Maine, where I'm originally from. And we were just cutting demos back then.

The band didn't play live till 2012. OK. And I started it 10 years before that.

So it took a long time to really, like, get it to where we were playing live. It was a studio project. Right.

That's really EP. When we did the EP, it was 2012. Right.

And you were the first drummer that we did gigs with. So we played Nightcats. I didn't even know that.

How about that, folks? There you go. Right. So actually.

You're just the live guys on that. Just a live guy. So Drew and Dan from Blackened now were in the lineup with John when we did our first gigs.

OK. And we played Nightcap and we did the Warriors of Metal Fest in Ohio. Oh, wow.

That was the hellacious storm. Right. That was the big storm.

Oh, my God. It was bad. But it was a good experience.

Kind of like tonight. And no, no, no. This was way, way beyond that.

It was a terrible storm that hit. Yeah. You couldn't even see in front of you driving down the road when we were coming back.

Snow or rain? Rain. It was summer. Tornadoes and everything else.

And on the way back home, it was crazy, too. Right. So, yeah.

Interesting. So you're basically based in Chicago. I mean, there's a lot of great rock clubs around here in the Chicago area.

What made you decide that you were going to go and play in Ohio or play in Iowa or play wherever the heck you decided to stand around here? So in the 90s, I was in a band called Living Impaired and we toured a lot. So I came and I played Chicago five times before I ever moved here. OK.

Played at Riley's Rockhouse in Aurora. Played at the Big Horse on Milwaukee. Played at Phyllis's.

I'm trying to think where else. But we played a bunch of times here and toured. So I just like to be on the road anyway.

Yeah. And play wherever. Right.

You know. Yeah. So if they'll allow us.

Yeah. If you want to give us a gig, we'll go. Yeah.

Oh, that's good. But a couple of summers ago, we went on the road right before Al joined, actually, with Terran. So we did two shows in Ohio.

We played Providence, Rhode Island, and we played Providence and Lewiston, Maine, where I'm from. OK. Went up there and played a hometown show for me.

Hometown. But they got to meet all my buddies up there. Earlier you were saying you guys just finished backing up a few big names.

Yeah, we lucked out. It was a crazy year. I could have sworn for six or eight months we couldn't get a gig for the life of us.

I'm like, guys, no one's booking us. Everybody I call is just not responding. So then all of a sudden, in August, we opened up for Anvil at Reggie's.

Then in September, we were offered to open up for Sewin at the Forge across the street. Yeah, right across the street. From Sweden, which was a great show for us.

And then in October, we're getting ready to rehearse. We're at my house, or me and John were, and we got a phone call two and a half hours before it to go to the Arcada and open for Saga. Oh, wow.

Wow. And so three in a row, international acts out of nowhere. The Saga gig was really interesting because me and Eric are like, well, you know, we'll get ready for rehearsal.

We're a couple beers in, and all of a sudden, he gets this call. I'm like, he seems pretty serious. What's his problem? All of a sudden, I find out.

John, you want to open for Saga tonight? He goes, uh, yeah. Wait, you said tonight? In two and a half hours, we had to be on stage in two and a half hours. Oh, wow.

So we scrambled. He calls our guitar player, Marco. He's like, I'm 20 minutes from the house.

He's like, turn around, go over to the Arcada. One of us got a hold of it. You got a hold of Al.

Or did I? I called Al and told him. Lance, our bass player. I'm like, Lance, you think you can do this? Can you do this for our brother? And he's like, no question.

Let's go. Let's go. Right.

And he was recovering from surgery at the time, too. So he wasn't even supposed to be performing. But he was like, well, we got a chance to open for Saga.

So he's like, bring my amp. He said, bring my amp. Yeah, show must go on.

Hey, so I pop a stitch or whatever. We get it all back up. It turned out to be an amazing show.

We got there in just the nick of time. All the people that ran the place at the Arcada, Solomon, everyone, they were fantastic to deal with. We got up there, got on stage, boom, great show.

And we got to thank Scott Davidson from Rebel Radio for that one. So you guys know Scott, I'm guessing, maybe? Not personally, no. But I was going to ask, how did you just get? He threw our name in the pot.

They called him up and asked him if he knew a band that would open. Oh, no kidding. And he called us.

It's like, wow. Very nice. You know.

Now, do you guys have representation? Or are you booking the band most of the time yourself? I've been pretty much representing it for years. It would be nice to get some outside representation, maybe on the next album. Well, you must have a secret then, because most people representing themselves don't just get called by national acts saying, hey, come on over.

Well, I think it's just been stay in the course. Yeah. Keep doing it.

And some street cred. What's up? We have a little street cred. We've been around a long time.

I think that helps. Right. And people know when we play live, we don't mess around.

We get up there and we do it. We give it to them when we play live. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

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Are you guys looking to book more smaller shows? Are you looking to do more things like for national acts and stuff like that? That would be great to do more national acts. Yeah, to get on festivals, too. Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah, that'd be a good one. Unfortunately, a lot of the really cool rock clubs have all started to turn into pop clubs. We all know that.

I hate to say that. Oh, we have tribute bands. Yeah, that's what it's become.

It is. And I'm not down on it. I'm not down on it because it's still great in its own way.

And people have to, you know, bar owners have to make money and that's what's making money for them a little bit. And every once in a while, it would be nice to find a place that's like, yeah, we just want original bands or, you know, or whatever, you know. Right.

Or something that's not a tribute band. I don't care if you play covers because I'm, you know, the tribute bands, everywhere you look, it's tribute bands. And I literally had somebody yesterday say, are you guys a tribute band? No, we're not a tribute band.

Oh, that's what we're booking. We're booking tribute. It's an epidemic.

It is. Yeah. So when did you join the band? So I joined the band a little over two years ago.

Okay. So I've been singing actively in bands in the area for almost 20 years now. Okay.

And I grew up in a household with a dad who was pretty young. And so in the 80s, he was all about, you know, Whitesnake and Dio and Dokken and, you know, all the bands that were really popular at that time. So here I am as a little three-year-old traipsing around in our apartment and I'm hearing all this heavy stuff and it clearly had an influence on me because that's the style of singing that I'm into.

So but growing up in the 90s in particular, you know, going to high school between 94 and 99, you know, everybody my age was listening to stuff like Korn and, you know, Limp Bizkit and all of that stuff. And so I was a total outcast. You know, I had a mullet and ripped jeans and, you know, everyone thought that I was the lamest kid ever.

Now, kids who were my age or, you know, like if I was that age now, rather, I'd be like the most popular kid ever. I would just need a mustache and I'd be all set. You mentioned 94 to 99.

A little trouble in high school or at six years? That's what you figure. Or I'm sorry, 95. But yeah, so from 95 to 99, I was in high school.

But then in the 2000s, started working in a record store, you know, met musicians just through working there. And I got into my first serious band, which was this power metal band called Bav Morta. And it just kind of snowballed from there.

I joined one band after another to the point where I've probably been in at least a bigger dozen bands now. And so when these guys lost Taran, depending on who you're talking to, I had gotten word through one of my bandmates in a band that I just recently left. And he had told me what had happened.

And I happened to have Eric's phone number because we had done shows together with our respective bands over the years. And so I gave him a call and I said, hey, you know, I just heard about you guys losing your singer. I'm really sorry.

You know, if you guys have any gigs coming up, you know, in the immediate future and you don't want to turn them down, let me know. I'll be happy to fill in. So we booked one.

Yeah, so we don't have any, but we'll book one. Yeah, little did I know the gears were spinning in this guy's head. It's like, I'm going to rope this guy in.

So I end up learning a bunch of their songs for a show. And we have a blast doing it. You know, the rehearsals were great.

You know, we just all got along super well. And it got to the point where they were just like, well, hey, we're working on a new song. Why don't we have you see what you can do with this? And then it came to, well, now we got these other gigs that we really want to do.

What, you know, do you think you can do these? So I joined, well, I did my first gig with them in October of 2022. By February, actually, really by January of 2023, I was like, all right, I'm just in the band now. Not much needed to be said.

He was pretty much in. But one thing that was cool when we put that album out, he actually picked it up. He was still in his other band, Accuracy.

That's how we met him. Fierce Atmospheres played with Accuracy on a festival at Brower House in 2014. But when we put out Speed of Dreams, he called me personally to say how much he liked the album.

Oh, wow. So I was like, oh, that's really cool. Thanks, you know.

And so when he found out Taron left, it was almost like a natural thing that he would have done that, like asked to fill in for us or something, you know. It's pretty cool. He fit in with us.

I mean, hey, we're abrasive. We're assholes. And he's like, you know what? And that's why nobody wants to book metal bands in their club anymore.

That's right. It's all because of you guys. You got a bad rap, bad attitude.

God, what a dick. But in a good way. He's a good dick.

I appreciate it. That's what I came to say. All right.

They sound good, but they're all dicks, you know. So listening to you guys, you're talking about how you guys all came together and stuff. And it was kind of like fate.

Did you guys know that today is a very, very, very important day in the history of rock and roll? And December 4th. December 4th, 1956. Oh, hey.

Is that the day that music died? No, no. That is the day that Carl Perkins was in the studio at Sun Studios. And then guys, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, these guys were literally like, I think Johnny Cash was there to pick up a paycheck.

And Elvis walked in for some other reason. And Jerry Lee Lewis walked in for some other reason. And today is the day that they created that million dollar quartet.

Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, that was to be a fly on the wall and listen to a jam session like that. Can you imagine that kind of thing? But I just thought that was really cool.

You guys were talking about how it all kind of all came together. It was kind of like fate and the whole bit. So how many albums do you guys have out? Well, there's only two.

Well, three, if you include the EP. Well, there's two full length albums and five EPs. OK.

And then we also have been, what's that? You're saying five EPs. Yeah, it's on there. Maybe we should read the bio.

But we've also... I'm sure it's what I read online. We recorded a bunch of covers also for a record label called Versailles Records. And they put out eight out of 10 albums that we recorded.

So I don't know what happened to the label. We haven't talked to Jake in a long time. So besides our two full length albums, five EPs, we've been on eight other records.

Just doing one cover on each of those, though. And you've worked with some producers and mixers that people would recognize, too. Yeah, our latest one was mixed by Andy LaRock from King Diamond.

And we're hoping to record the next one with him in Sweden. Wow. So you guys have done some recording out of the country.

We've done recording all over the states. I've recorded down and we've recorded twice in Nashville. We've recorded in Rochester, New Hampshire, Tampa, up in Maine.

Mostly demo stuff for those. But Nashville, our last album before Speed of Dreams was recorded in Nashville at Blackbird Studios. OK, wow.

Yeah, yeah. So you guys could say, what the heck? We're going to Nashville this way. And you guys just pick up and go and do it.

And once we did, I mean, it's like it's hard to turn back. Once you've worked in a world-class studio, it's not as much fun to record in someone's basement. Oh, of course.

Anymore. Of course. It lost its luster, you know.

Yeah, and once you've worked with somebody that has been in the industry for a long time, and they've worked with other people that you've heard of and you're recognizable, it's kind of difficult to go back to your buddy's son, you know, Tom, who just graduated from the University of Arizona. Right. And it's not to say you can't get good tracks in a home studio, because we recorded Speed of Dreams at my place.

Right. But I just think it's time to do it again in a bigger way. What do you think is the biggest difference? What's the big difference between somebody who really knows what they're doing and somebody that's just kind of OK? I think it's just the tones you're going to get, for one.

The tones you're going to get are, you know, way different than what you would get maybe from someone else like that. But then it's just the experience and it's the vibe. I think it helps make the album sound a certain way when you're in a different city recording out of your comfort zone.

You're not sleeping in your own bed at night. You're in Nashville for four days. It just changes the way everything feels.

To me, that's a big part of it. What I like about it. Yeah, it feels like maybe they're pulling the best out of you.

Yeah, that too. You're on the spot. You're on the clock.

Yeah. You know, and I mean, like working at Blackbird was incredible. I mean, we had $100,000 in microphones on the drums.

There was 22 tracks going for the drums alone. And I mean, we were working through a 99 channel console. I mean, just being there was amazing.

Just being in that environment, you know. That's the big difference. I mean, you get a sound that, you know, you're not just putting a mic on every single drum and going with it.

Right. And trying to duplicate it digitally. Exactly.

Fix it in the mix. You know, a lot of people try to do that. They'll just record and then fix it after.

It's like, man, get it right the first time. Yeah. Get it right then.

Right. But isn't it important that everything sounds perfect nowadays? It is in metal, especially too. Everybody wants everything on the grid and everything's got to be perfect.

But... That, of course, was a rhetorical question because, I mean, I already knew the answer to it, but that's exactly it. There's a lot of pressure for it. Yeah.

Definitely. And you can hear it. You can hear it when somebody, you know, stretches out a note using Pro Tools as opposed to going back and re-recording the track.

Right. You can hear it. And that kind of takes away a little bit of the, I don't know, the mystique.

You know, I don't know. Right. Some of our favorite albums weren't done with click tracks and all that back in the day.

Yeah. Listen to Black Sabbath's albums and the tempos are going... Yep. Yep.

And what's the famous Beatles song where Paul McCartney literally hit a wrong note on the bass and they left it in? It was... What was the song? I don't remember that one. I can't remember, but I know that's a story. And Paul McCartney talks about it all the time when they interview him.

He's like, yeah, I want to hear my mistakes. And he literally made a mistake. And they said, no, leave it.

And now that I know where it is, I can hear it. Don't forget, you can hear John Bonham's pedal squeak on their first album. Oh, really? Yeah.

You have to really listen carefully, but you can actually hear it. So it's amazing. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because, you know, the other important day in rock history today was two months after John Bonham's death, Led Zeppelin decided to break up.

That happened today. They knew the moment he died, though. Yeah.

Honestly, they knew. Well, they announced it, I guess. Yes.

Yes. And December 4th, 1980 is when they decided, yep, we're done. We'd like to welcome our historian this evening.

He's good with Google. I am great with Google. I can Google with the best of them.

In fact, that's going to be the name of my next band. Google with the best of them. All right.

Yes, the best. So who's your favorite singer? Oh, boy. Favorite singer would have to be Ray Alder of Fates Warning.

It's not very well known, unless you're really big into aggressive metal. But, I mean, that guy is just phenomenal. So emotive with his voice.

He used to be, you know, like a high-pitched wailer back in the day. But he really weaned off of that over the years. And his mid-range is something I want to just, if I could touch it, I would caress it.

I would make sweet, sweet love to it. It's amazing. That's a whole different podcast.

Yeah, we're not getting judged here. I may have said too much. Maybe.

Join us next week for the Kinky Rockers podcast. So now do you have any, you know, classical training yourself? I have very little training. I basically just learned singing by just listening to albums and trying to match what those singers were doing.

Um, I spent a lot of years just in my bedroom as a teenager, probably destroying other people's voices. Again, next week. For a different episode.

But yeah, I just spent a lot of years just trying to sing along to the albums I love. And I eventually took a few lessons here and there with some singer, you know, with some voice instructors in the area. But when, when they would ask me what I want to sing in my response was, well, I want to sing metal.

Yes. They're like, well, wait, did you say mental? And I didn't know. I just overpronounced the T for one.

But for another thing, I, you know, as soon as they hear metal, they just, they're like, ooh, we, you know, we don't want anything to do with that. You know, if you want to learn how to sing classical or jazz, we've got you. I'm like, I like that stuff, but I want to be able to sing with power and, you know, have, have some, you know, like a super extensive range.

And they're like, we, we don't know what to do. Yeah. I don't know how to, I don't know how to train a diaphragm that's going.

But you know what, singing your style of music, I'm also a vocalist. It's like, it's, it's work. Yeah, it really is.

I mean, you've got to be up on your cardio. You really have to do stuff like that. Yeah.

And on my diet, I definitely need to be up on my cardio. So tell us a little bit about the folks that aren't here. Just so everybody knows who they are.

All the folks that aren't here. Oh man, we get the trash talking. Here we go.

Well, we got Lance on bass. He plays with a pick. You know, sometimes people think, oh, you're playing metal with a pick.

It's still cool. Lance is still cool. He gets a great tone.

He's an awesome guy. Great bass player. And he does some great harmony vocals.

Yes. Yeah. Well, good.

Real good range. You know, believe it or not, some bass players play with a bow. Indeed they do.

In fact, I started, it started off that way. There was a young man by the name of Mozart. He's looking at Google again.

But yeah, and Lance is great. And he also, he writes a lot of his own stuff. In fact, I was recording some drums for that.

And that never, I don't know what he's doing. Yeah, it didn't pan out. But he's got great ideas.

And he adds his mark to our songs as well. He comes up with bass parts. He'll listen to the basic idea.

And the way the songs are normally happening is Eric will originate these really cool ideas. And he'll say, John, what do you think? I'll listen to it. Okay, I think I got some ideas.

We'll lay down drums. We'll haggle over things. And then Lance will come in and lay his bass down and all that.

And Lance has been in the band quite a while. He started pretty early on, maybe 2014. He was in Nashville with us to record at that time before Speed of Dreams.

He was on our Pariahs, Misfits, and Sinners record. Then he left for a while though, and then came back kind of like John. But Lance has been back with us since 2018, maybe.

Yeah, it's been a while. Pretty straight through. It's been us three, John and Lance and I, for the last six years, probably.

Solid five anyway. Solid. And we work well together.

And Marco, our latest guitar player, he's been with us three years. And he was referred to us by Taron, our old singer. So they knew each other from way back.

And he's like, hey, I know this kid. He's really good. And he's like 25 years younger than me.

He's a young guy. Yeah, he's the baby of the band at 29. He is.

He follows along and shreds right with us. And he can play all the stuff really well. He went to Berkeley, by the way.

Oh, did he really? Yeah. Yeah. So he's one of those guys.

He's a good, clean player though. He truly is. And I think he's found his way in the band, his comfort zone.

He seems to be pretty comfortable with us now on stage and stuff. And he's getting good at ball-busting with the rest of us. Yeah, he's got to do with that.

But now he's spreading his way in there. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good.

I've found that these guys that are classically trained like that, they've gone to places like Berkeley and stuff like that. I absolutely love playing with those guys live if you can get them to step out of their own head for a little while. Yeah, a lot of thought going on.

Yeah, look up from your guitar and look at all those people out there just screaming and yelling for you right now. Right. Enjoy that.

He does. He enjoys it. Yeah, he does.

He's kind of found his way in his own into the band. It was probably uncomfortable for him in the beginning because we're all like, he's over 30 years older than him. I'm 25 years older than him.

Lance is 27, 28 years older than him. So it was probably a little awkward at first for him. But even our last guy, Sean, that's playing on Speed of Dreams, he was just like four or five years older than Marco too.

So we have a couple of young guitar players coming through. But they just seem to fit in and hang with us. If they can hang with our nonsense.

They love us, who wouldn't? So you feel like you've got the crew going forward now for a while? It seems it. It feels it. Feels pretty good right now.

Yeah. Yeah. You got anything coming up that you're excited about in the, I guess at this point, it'd be like in the new year.

Yeah, it would be the new year. Or plans that you have coming up? Yeah, we're working on it. And what country are you going to be in for that one? Well, I'm not sure.

I don't know if it'll be Sweden or not. Does Indonesia have any recording studios? No, no. We'll be importing our guitars.

But I am going to go to Google one more time because there's, I told you there was three important dates. There was three things that happened on this day in music history. And this is completely coincidental or ironic, whatever you want to say.

But 1971, this is the day Montreux burnt to the ground. Oh, during a Frank Zappa performance, sparking the inspiration for Smoke on the Water. And Montreux is where? France.

Switzerland. Somewhere around there. Is it France or Switzerland? I don't know.

Where is it? No, it's Switzerland. It is Switzerland again, my friend. We can find, it is Switzerland.

Yes, it is. It's Switzerland. I was right the first time.

Yeah, and the next question goes to... It must be answered in the form of a question. Yeah, at this point in this situation, it has to be in the form of a question. Yes.

Montreux sounds French to me. Yeah, well, it does. I mean, they're all... Part of Switzerland is really close to France, so they speak French in certain parts of Switzerland.

All those countries are like a six-hour drive from one another. See, it's like driving from one state to another. I'm just a big, dumb singer.

Hey, no, you're not dumb. Who knows? Who knows? I'm not big either. You're a great singer, though.

So we got a few more minutes left. What do you want everybody to know about you guys? Talk about the new CD. Well, talk about that.

I mean, yeah, if we're looking into the new year right now, we're trying to, we're looking at some dates coming up, maybe a show in February at Sound Growler Brewing in Tinley Park. We're in talks with them. We don't have a specific date yet.

But the main thing right now is our new album. We have about nine or ten songs worth of music. Al's probably got lyrics for six, seven of them right now.

And we're in pre-production. John and I work a lot in the studio putting the songs together. We're doing two of those songs live now.

So we've started playing them actually live. And that's the main goal right now is to just put out a new album. And let me touch on that for a second, because this is kind of cool in my opinion.

Eric had said to me, you know what? With this CD, I really think it'd be great if before we record them, we get a chance to play these live a lot. Because then that feel is going to be there. And I'm like, you know what? That's fantastic.

That's a great idea. So we started doing that with these newer songs. And we're up to only two now that we're playing.

Only two, but we're on the third. We're on the third one, yeah. That one will probably be at our next show.

Right. And it really, when you get to play it live, I think it kind of solidifies that feel of that song. You know what I mean? You can be in the studio.

It's kind of a stagnant environment, if you will. And you want that live sound. You want that power.

You want that inertia in that song. And I think that only comes from playing it live. Yeah.

And with the last album, we had time constraints because of working with Andy out in Sweden. He had to finish the project up after a while. He was like, guys, I got to finish this with you, you know? So we wrote the last couple songs in the studio.

We never even played them live. We just had to finish them and write them. It was crazy.

And send them off. So now those songs sound a little different because we've been playing them live for three years. I insist on that, in fact.

I've done enough recording and stuff in my lifetime to know exactly what you're talking about. I've never liked writing a song in the studio and then you hear it and it sounds like you've written it in the studio because six months later, after you've been playing the song live, you're like, it sounds absolutely nothing like the recording. Changed a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. You got to take it out on the road for a little bit and let it develop into what it's going to be and then transfer that energy into the recording.

I agree with that. You guys plan on doing any vinyl? We did that one on vinyl and we do hope to do the next one on vinyl. Nice.

It's like hard to turn back, you know? Once you've done it on vinyl, you got to put everything on vinyl after. That is a huge thing nowadays. But we only made 250 copies and I think we have like 50 left.

So we sold a couple hundred of them. Excellent. Excellent.

Yeah. Nice to see it coming back. I love that it came back like that.

Well, I think we're done. I think so. Yeah.

You guys are awesome, man. That was a lot of fun. Thanks for coming in.

Yeah. A lot of fun. Thanks for having us.

Yeah, sure. Very cool. We'll see you out there.

We'll see you out there somewhere. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I wonder if they play Indonesia.

I don't know. I bet you they would, though. Probably.

They're all over the world. They are. They said they're going to go back to Switzerland.

Yeah. When we agreed to do the interview, didn't we tell them that you have to have ties to Chicago? I mean, they're not here enough. Exactly.

No, they got the ties to Chicago. That's interesting. Yeah.

That's pretty wild, man. They're doing a lot of other albums coming out. So you guys just decide, hey, you guys want to go to Switzerland or whatever or Sweden or? That's where we want to record.

You want to go to Nashville? Sure. Pack up and go to Nashville. Just go.

That's fine. They must not be married. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. Don't know. But that was a good time with them, guys.

Glad to meet them. And make sure you get out there and see them wherever they're playing. Just want to let you know, this is our last podcast for 2024.

We're going to take a little break over the holidays and come back after the new year. So we hope everybody has a merry Christmas and a happy new year. And we'll see you guys in 2025.

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.

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