Ep 224 The Rangers

The Rangers are an independent, nationally touring, Lowell Indiana based band playing Honky Tonkin’ Country music!  With 4 Records, 5 singles, the Band's goal is to "bring country music back to its roots!" They took some time out of their touring to talk with us about where they are 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, how you doing? Hollywood.

Yeah, why does it feel like we have been out of the studio for a while? Maybe because we have. Hasn't been that long, has it? Two weeks. Oh, that's not too bad.

It's not too bad, it's not like the three months we were off last year. Yeah, when the roof came in. Yeah, it's been two weeks.

Yeah. So, but now we're back at it. Yeah, and I'm excited too.

We got new cameras in the studio now. Yeah, new cameras. Not working yet, but pretty soon we're going to be on YouTube.

You get to see our ugly mugs. Wow. Uh-oh, people might stop listening.

They might. The free people might not tune in anymore. That's right, or we'll have two new hosts.

Yeah, oh, that could be, that could be. Well, Millie Vanillian. That's true, we could do that.

Yeah, yeah. So, tonight we got a whole house full of cowboy hats. Ray didn't get the memo.

I didn't get the memo, yeah. I wish we had the cameras for this one, because you could see four guys walked in wearing cowboy hats. Exactly.

You know, I always have one on. You always have a hat too. I do, and I don't know why I didn't bring it.

Oh, I don't know either. I don't know, you see, the one day. The one time, the one time would have fit perfectly.

Yeah, we got- It's not like everybody comes in with baseball caps. We got Stetsons and Resist dolls and stuff like that. That's pretty sad when I can tell what they are just by looking at them.

I was pretty sure that was a Resist doll hat. Yeah, it was a Resist doll hootie. There you go, yeah.

I knew. The one you wore came in with a matoir, was it? A who? A matoir. Oh, the one that I came in with it? Yeah, it absolutely was.

Yeah, that's what I thought. You know, I didn't actually, you know, kill the animal and make the felt, but you know. Oh, you will someday.

I could, yeah, I could. Possum or something. Yeah, I go out there all by myself, all alone.

Plenty of those in the backyard for you to grab. So, who's here? We got the Rangers. The Rangers are here.

Hello. Oh, well, thanks for having us, y'all. Ah, it's that one right there.

Yeah, I'll tell you, you know, all the guys show up. It's with dudes in the audience all the time. Oh, it's just a bunch of guys, no chicks.

Yeah, yeah. So, how you guys doing? Doing good. Yeah, yeah.

Well, we're going to go around the table. Just as he says good, he pulls the microphone. Yeah, he did.

We're brothers, this is how it goes. Well, you know what, why don't you go ahead and start, because we're going to go around the table and do the kindergarten introductions. Right on.

My name is Dan Abel. I am the youngest brother of three. I ask that like it's a question, like I don't know.

Are you, Dan, are you? I think so. Today, I am. He was doubting whether or not he was an actual brother.

No, but I'm the youngest of three brothers. Our middle brother's not in the band, but I play the lead guitar and I do the backup vocals and starting to do a little more lead vocals and stuff. Gotcha.

Write songs and all that fun stuff. Okay, all right. Yeah, he's the youngest.

He's definitely adopted, right? Yes, that's right. All right, y'all. My name is Mike Abel.

I do the lead vocals and the rhythm guitar in the band, the acoustic stuff. So doing typical frontman stuff, also writing songs. And then, yeah, Dan and I started the band a long time ago.

I'm the oldest brother of three. All right. So yeah, we kind of started doing this a while ago.

So yeah, that's my role in the band. Now on to our drummer. I'm George Ricopoulos.

I play the drums, so I don't really talk. And that's by design. You ever see what happens when you give a drummer a microphone? Yeah, you're asking for trouble.

Yeah, somebody ends up needing bail money by the end of the night. I didn't pay you. Well, hey, I'm Colin.

My last name is Joseph and I am the ranger's fiddle player. The ranger's fiddle player. Yeah, he's a damn good one too.

Fiddle. Have I ever seen you do that? I brought my fiddle to the studio one time. Yes, yeah.

And then everyone kind of despised it, so I kind of brought it back. It means you ain't in the right place if you're despising the fiddle. Yeah.

I usually come with my sax, you know, with friends from Joliet Junior College. Yeah, yeah, right. The jazz program there.

And I play sax too, so. Right. And that's what you showed over.

So in case you guys haven't figured out, I've known Colin for a couple years now. I figured that out. Yeah, he used to show up to the studio and... Did you like his fiddle? ...and everything.

I don't remember his fiddle. It couldn't have been that memorable. You've got a lot better since then.

Wait, have you had any fiddles in here before? You know, I can't think of any other band that had a fiddle. We had an accordionist. We did.

And we had a simulated glockenspiel. We need to get one of those in the band. Oh, I've been looking for glockenspiel.

That's what I want to learn. We've rock and roll glockenspiel. We've been looking for a band that actually has a glockenspiel, not a simulated one.

You're right. Yeah, yeah. Colin, you're going to have to pick that up now.

No, Colin feels about the assimilated glockenspiel. Next album? No, I actually do seem to remember you bringing it. But yeah, you're right.

It didn't last very long. Because I think it was on a night where we had a bunch of blues players. And you were up there with a fiddle.

And the blues players was like, sit your ass down, boy. If I had my distortion pedal, it may be a little bit different, but... Right, right, right. So you said it's been a while.

When did this whole thing come together for you guys? Oh, let's see. Well, I guess not in the grand scheme of things. But Dan and I started this band in what, 21? 2021.

Officially 2021. That was when our first album came out. Mike and I have been playing since around 2018.

But we didn't really start writing songs until 2019. You know, like to go through the phase of crappy country songs that are cheesy. And you'd never want anybody to hear.

You've got to go through writing some kind of bad stuff before you can get to decent stuff. And you've got to kind of learn how things go. So 2021 was when we officially started the band.

And with our first album, the Bayou is real swampy. It's real voodoo-type Cajun music. And it all started off as instrumentals.

So we had a bunch of just instrumental demos and just ideas of just Dan and I jamming in our bedroom. And it was, you know, really cool stuff. It was kind of fun for us.

We always wanted to do original stuff. We didn't want to, you know, we would play other people's songs. That's kind of how we learned.

But we always wanted to do our own thing. And so that was cool for us to be able to have these instrumental demos. And then we just decided, hey, why don't we write some lyrics to these? And so that's how the Bayou came about.

And that was 2021. We pretty much have done an album every year since. And, you know, have kind of went from there.

Right, right. So when you, you mentioned you have to write a few shitty ones before you come across a good one. Do you always finish a song, though, no matter how shitty it is? Or do you abandon it? I feel like you don't know that it's bad until it's done.

I feel like you sit there after it's done and you're like, oh my gosh, why did I put so much time into this? Like, it's horrible. You're not putting enough effort into writing bad songs, young man. Because when I write a shitty song, I know it's shitty halfway through.

But I will finish it, though. That's that's. Yeah.

Actually, I think the way it works sometimes is you start working on one. And then what I don't ever want to do is I don't ever want to force like lyrics when you when they're not coming naturally. You don't want to force it.

So I have a bunch of songs that I think are good, but are incomplete because I'm like, well, when I was sitting there writing the song, it was there, it was there and then it was gone. Right. And so it's like, all right, well, you know, I'm not going to sit here and try to force these lyrics because then it becomes bad.

Right. But that's most people. Right.

Anybody that's a songwriter, I think they've got hundreds or thousands of unfinished stuff. I've got a ton of stuff on my notes on my phone just like you go through it. And sometimes you're saying like you do sometimes finish writing those those crappy songs, you know, you're never going to use.

But sometimes you got one line in there that's like, that's a really good line. It's just the rest of the song is not nearly as strong as that line. So I'm going to take that and use it in something else, you know.

Right. Or that becomes your hook, right? Yes, exactly. You can take that and use it to something else as well.

Yeah. Right. 100 percent.

Or when you're thinking of something and you remember, oh, like two years ago, I remember writing this. Right. So you go back in there.

You go check through this and you find it and it's. Yeah. Yep.

You ever you have a book at home where it's just lyrics? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

You ever go back and just like for the hell of it. Let me see what I wrote three years ago. Let me see what I wrote four years ago or whatever the heck it was.

And you look at yourself. My God, how immature was I or how stupid was I? Well, yeah, exactly. And in the age of the technology and recording and everything, it's like we have a lot of stuff on our phone, a lot of voice memos, a lot of stuff like that.

So occasionally after, you know, let's say just after we just did our most recent record, Cowboy and Bottle, we, you know, just for the hell of it. After we feel real accomplished, it's done and everything. And then, you know, we're like, let's go back and listen to the old stuff just because, you know, and it's like, wow.

It's kind of cool. It's like, yeah, you look at it and you're like, wow, this is really bad. Like, you know, we were telling George on the road.

We're like, dude, we kind of, it's like kind of a rite of passage to show you our old stuff. But we're not like, it's kind of embarrassing. But then, but it's cool noticing, like seeing where you started and where you go at.

Oh yeah, of course. I always put a date on it and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely.

I've got one book that went through most of the 90s and I keep it hidden. And every once in a while I'll go back and I'll read it. It's like, how did I survive this? Because it was the 90s.

It was like when bands like Stained, you know, when Aaron Lewis was Stained. And so everybody was writing this stuff about just the most depressing shit you've ever heard. And I wrote stuff like that because I think, well, this is what's selling, right? And it's like, this is like a suicide note.

How did I ever write this? I've never felt this bad. Yeah. Ever.

Wow. You know, sometimes a really, really good lyrics come from a dark place sometimes though. Oh, of course.

Oh, okay. Attention, everybody. The drummer's about to say something.

We're not responsible for this. Here you go. I wrote a song one time when I was younger and my mom, like, I guess, went through my notebook and I come home and that was open and on the table and she goes, George, are you okay? Because she read it and all it said was, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

You shouldn't be writing songs. You're a drummer. If you throw this away, I'm going to tell nobody this ever happened.

She was like, are you okay? Yeah. It was the funniest thing ever. I'm like, yeah, but I just gotta write sad songs sometimes.

Little did you know, George, we're going to bring that song back. You know, why not? I'll give it a shot. They're making anything so country nowadays.

So Colin, what's going on, man? You write too? That's a no. I'm more of an introvert. Lyrics are my thing.

I'm currently failing an English class at Juco. I like writing instrumentals, but I am in the process of writing a song and it's the farthest I've ever gotten with lyrics and I'm stoked to hopefully bring it on to the Rangers next album. It's quite good, actually.

I started with a hook while I was in the middle of Tucson and it just came to my head. I was like, whoa. So this is like the start.

So what was the hook? Drinking's all I've got when you're not around. Okay, sounds good to me. You can probably add something like lotion and porn.

When you've got five guys in one hotel room, that's kind of, yeah. I wouldn't go there, though. I mean, yeah, I'd leave that part alone.

Being on the road, yeah. So did they make you buy a hat? Did they make you buy a cowboy hat when you joined the band? You weren't a cowboy hat guy before. Yeah, it was.

Yeah. Yeah, I went out to Boot Barn and bought a hat. On Route 59? Yeah.

That's where I bought all my Christmas presents for my kids. My kids hang out at Saddle Up and they're like, we need boots and hats. All right, there you go.

So I made them a hat and went and bought them boots. Awesome. Yeah, it was a great adventure because my dad's a fiddle player.

He's from around there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, you got to go get a hat.

I was like, you know what? That's a great idea. Yeah. You need to go do that.

Yeah. By the way, Boot Barn, we're looking for sponsors. Yes, we are.

Oh, I almost missed that. Yeah, if anybody from Boot Barn is listening to this. That's right.

And they're national. I mean, that could be national sponsorship. And we're international, our podcast.

Our podcast, this is international. Yeah, we can get people in Indonesia wearing some cowboy hats and boots and stuff. We are trying to get sponsored by Boot Barn.

We're like, hey, most of us wear Cody James stuff a lot anyways. I mean, the jeans and the hats and everything. So that's pretty much their main thing there.

Hey, Boot Barn, you know, just let us know. Yeah, right, right, right. They look interesting.

I couldn't find any cowboy hats at Goodwill. So I could leave them at your expense. I don't know if I'd want to wear one from there.

From Goodwill. Yeah, boots and hats from Goodwill. I don't know if you want to do that.

Yeah. Well, that's good. I think the first time I met you, you had a show where you were doing something with like the Joliet Junior College Jazz Band or something.

You walked in wearing like a vest and a suit and everything else. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I can't remember what show it was, but yeah, we're always playing. Yeah, okay. Fun times with the Joliet Junior College Jazz Band and combo.

And they've got a great program over there. No, they do. And by the way, Joliet Junior College, we're looking for sponsors.

That's right. Since their building is right next door. Since, yeah, since you broke our roof.

Yeah, no kids. That's right. Yeah.

They owe a sponsorship money. That's right. Because their roof landed on this roof.

That's right. Wow, I hadn't even thought about that. We should put that in a sales pitch.

We should be here for three months after that. Yeah, we should put that in a sales pitch. I completely forgot about that.

Yeah, wow. Wow, okay. Anyways, I knew I was going to... Oh, yeah.

So, all born and raised Chicago area? Yeah, so... Yeah, sir. Yeah. So, Dan and I, brothers, obviously, we grew up in Oak Lawn.

And we live in Lowell, Indiana now. And, but yeah, we grew up in Oak Lawn. When did you make that move? Just curious.

Just last year. It was a little October. October of 23.

Gotcha, okay. All right, last year is 2023. Yeah, Lowell's awesome.

It's like a small, you know, just one road town. It's, we love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, it's growing. There's a lot more people moving in there now. But it's still pretty quiet compared to anywhere near Chicago.

More and more and more if the taxes keep going up here. That's for sure. That's right.

You would be surprised how many of our neighbors are literally from this area. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like, oh, yeah, we just moved from, you know, you know, the Chicago suburbs. Yeah, right. Look at Dyer, Cherville, St. John.

Yeah. They're little tiny towns. And they're getting all these suburbans that are building up.

Yeah, packing up. Yeah. Awesome, awesome.

So, you guys are all born and raised Chicago, man. Because, I mean, it just begs the question, how does a bunch of guys from Chicago decide they're going to love country music and become country music artists? I don't know. I guess.

Well, honestly, I mean, growing up, my dad was a huge fan of, like, Waylon Jennings. But not like a super fan. But, like, he had a good handful of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, big Johnny Cash guy.

And that was kind of like our introduction into country music, kind of. So, we knew that. And that's the good stuff, the old stuff, right? And so, for a while, we were still fans of bands like Pink Floyd and a lot of the other rock bands and stuff.

And then it was, you know, we were out in Mesa, Arizona at Rooster's Country. We just headlined that on our... Yeah, it was kind of like a bottle tour that we're on right now. Right, right.

We were able to headline this place just a couple weeks ago in Mesa, which is really cool. Nice, yeah. But we were out there, and we saw some... Our family took us to see a show, and they're like, there's this guy named Jesse Daniel.

We were like, why'd you guys see him? We're thinking, well, Jesse Daniel, I've never heard of him before. When is he from? When did he start? And they said, well, he's new. And I thought, oh, no, it's going to be some hip hop stuff.

Well, keep in mind, at this point, we had already had our first two albums out. So Dan and I, you know, it was like we were trying to figure out whether we wanted to do country music or whether we wanted to keep doing the southern rock kind of abstract, you know, music we were doing. And so I'm thinking, man, it's modern country.

I'm like, OK, well, it'll be fine. It's a concert, you know. And we go there, and they all start walking in, and they got, you know, the button-up shirts and the cowboy hats.

And they start setting up a pedal steel guitar. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, like, these guys mean business. This is real country.

So they... Not Chicago country. No, right, exactly. And they set up, and they just played probably the best, like one of the best sets I've ever seen.

And it was all his own music, like a handful of cover tunes, but like mostly his own stuff. The thing was, it was cover tunes that he wanted to play. It wasn't like he was just playing like top 40.

Like, it was just he... Yeah, save a horse, ride a cowboy. And he wasn't doing any of that stuff. No, he was doing just real country tunes that he wanted to do.

Real country music, yeah. Yeah, I heard George on a fast train, Billy Joe Shaver, and I'm like, OK, all right. And after that, I was hooked.

And Mike and I looked over and said, we're like, wait a minute, like country music is not quite as dead as I thought it was, you know. That was our reticence to actually do country. We're like, is it a thing anymore? I mean, most of it's the pop stuff, you know, like what's it going to be? And when we heard Jesse Daniel up there doing his thing, it was like, OK, this is not dead.

This is very much alive. So yeah, that was... And the fact that at the time, I mean, because he's signed to Lightning Rod Records now, but then they were 100% independent, doing everything themselves. And just their story is really inspiring.

But like just their work ethic was a huge, huge inspiration for us. They just do everything themselves. And that's kind of what we do.

So did you have to make an adjustment? You said you were kind of doing the Southern rock thing. And yeah, OK, yeah, a lot of that stuff kind of sounds, you know, it's country, a little bit of rock and roll. Did you have to make any adjustment to get a little more, I guess, add a little more twang to the music to kind of classify yourself as more country, hence the fiddle player? Yeah, well, actually, like we had before Colin even joined us, our third record, Roll the Dice, which is really our first foray into country music.

And that actually kind of Roll the Dice is like one of our most popular songs. Like, you know, it's cool. Like now that we've played enough shows around, a lot of people sing along to it.

And it's really awesome. But that was our first foray into it. And we did have to kind of adjust.

I mean, I always I always kind of sang that way. But it was less about like before the first two albums were concept albums. They're very like, like serious and dramatic, rooting and dramatic.

And, you know, you know, we were trying to tell a deep story with it. But then with the with Roll the Dice, we were still trying to be deep with it. But it's country music.

So you have to like be like we're kind of talking about at the beginning. You got it. You got to like have you can you got to have like a dour subject.

But you have to do it in a fun way. Yeah. And that's kind of we're trying to do a Roll the Dice.

So, yeah, we did have to specifically with Hockey Tonk music, which is mostly like it worked. I would consider us more of like a Hockey Tonk is what our like main genre of country music, I guess. Like Hockey Tonk, Rockabilly is really what we do.

And Roll the Dice, the biggest learning curve for me was getting the chicken pickin' on the guitar down. And that's that's that was the biggest thing. And that's, you know, I'm still still working on new stuff.

But that was the biggest learning curve. Actually, can I can I I want to add a statement to that. We do Hockey Tonk, but I think we do a lot of genres and we do a lot of Texarkana or Tex-Mex music as well as a lot of Western ballads as well.

I think I think we're I don't know if we're trying to go for a niche, but those three are our niche. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, I'll throw that in there.

I think it's super cool. Yeah, no, our set is a set is pretty diverse for being a country band. I mean, we've got like a blues song in there sometimes and we got some like real like almost like like Western swing like the Quartzsite Saloon is that's a song off Way of the West.

Our second record, but the way we play it live is really like a Western swing Wild West ballad. And so it's a lot of fun. But yeah, I mean, we kind of with Roll the Dice was kind of our first, you know, step into country.

So it was like it was a learning curve for me and then how to dial the tone in for the Telecaster and how they how they run it and starting to do my own thing with it. But we really kind of came into our own with this last album, Cowboy in a Bottle. Yeah, we really but like not that we didn't put our heart and soul into Roll the Dice, but with Cowboy in a Bottle, it was a we were able to like just really, OK, we got even more influence from a bunch of other artists.

And now now it's like, OK, we're able to put our whole thing into it. And and that was that was George, when you when you came in, because that was play the drums on. And I think that was such a like an awesome, an awesome thing to have that extra dynamic to have you in there and had to get your own parts on it.

So I know you want to speak to that or like your experience with that album. Once again, everybody, the drummer has a microphone. Who brought the bail money? I've got 9-1-1 dialed up on me.

No, I knew they were a real deal country band when I came and did it. When you're a drummer, it's both a blessing and a curse. You play everything everywhere.

It's just like part of the job. And I played country. I played everything.

And, you know, I sat down and I heard the record and had the roots of the country music that I liked, that I enjoyed. And they let me do what I want, which is a bad idea. But it was good for my creative process because then you check yourself, you know, and the country country is not really about the drums, but they're playing good parts.

So it was cool. It was good to set the scene. Absolutely.

So were you in the country music before you met these guys? I was in everything. My dad was a drummer, too. And he said, hey, you listen to everything.

Listen to everything. Know everything. Do it all.

And then, you know, I heard Willie Nelson. I'm like, that's the guy. But it was tough.

I grew up in Murkina and Frankfurt. And, you know, they like to drive big trucks. And they'd go to Tweeter Center all the time to watch the new country guys.

And I never really understood that because I was a guy who was listening to Willie Nelson CDs in my car. Let's talk about the new country music for a little bit. How old are you guys, by the way? 27.

27? And I'm 29, 28. It'll be 29 in June. OK.

I am 21. The child. 21.

I'm 23. Do you have a navel or you come out of a test tube? I, yeah, something like that. I think they said a C-section.

So, wow. OK, so you'll remember this. Back in the 90s.

We're old enough to remember it. Back in the 90s. I remember the 70s.

Yeah, me too. I do too, isn't it? In fact, on the way here, I was listening to some old Yacht Rock. I love Yacht Rock.

I know you do. Ambrosia. Yeah, but anyways, so back in the 90s, you could turn on VH1 and MTV when they still actually had music videos and a country video would come up and everybody in L.A. was going, man, where'd all the metal musicians go? And all you had to do was look at a country video from the 90s to find out where they all went.

I swear there were bands that looked like if Motley Crue took their makeup off, all of a sudden they're a country band. I mean, seriously, the big hair and the painted fingernails and all of it, but they played really good. They played really good country music.

And then you go into the 2000s, right? And stuff like that. And then you've got, OK, now it's really starting to sound pop. And I think that whole thing kind of started with Shania Twain, right? Yeah.

Shania Twain. And, you know, she was married to Mutt. What's his name? Mutt Lang, right? Yeah.

And it became really pop. Then all of a sudden it becomes hip hop, right? And that brings us up to the last month. So what did you guys think of the CMA Awards show? I didn't really watch it.

I don't pay any attention to it, honestly. No? I don't. Honestly, and the reason is because it's like, if I felt that it were a lot more like country music, I would have had interest in it.

But it's like the guys and the gals that I think are doing like, and listen, country music is really whatever you call it. Honestly, like if the masses are like, you know, this guy's country. Well, I guess so.

I mean, it's like if you start nailing, like really putting it down to what it is and what it isn't, it's like it's just the kind of country music that I like, you know, and it's not really anything. I would say, though, I would say that there is like in the hardcore base, though, of country music, I would say that people are like the modern stuff. That's why they separate it so much.

That's why there's, you know, they call it pop country. They call it rap country. Sure.

You know what I mean? And but to piggyback on Dan's point, the guys that we that we follow and listen to, like, you know, they're never on those CMA awards. I mean, the guy, the only guy that's going to get close. I don't even know if he was.

There's a guy named Zach Topp who's going around right now. Zach Topp is really, really good. Didn't see him on the awards.

I didn't watch the entire award show either. I watched what my kids wanted to watch. Yeah, well, and then, you know, and that's the exact top.

I mean, he's it's like his sound is like straight out of the 90s. He's very Alan Jackson, like he's very, you know, and so the traditional stuff is coming back. I think a lot of the country music base, you've got a lot of people who support independent country music, which is amazing.

That's like huge. Well, that's the that's the thing. And that's kind of what I was getting at, because every single musical musical genre has kind of gone through some type of of an evolution.

Yes. And now we're in the age of especially like like rock and roll music. Traditional rock and roll music is underground nowadays.

The guys that don't want to have the guest rapper in exchange for of a guitar solo. Right. And the funny thing is they're not calling themselves rock and roll because somebody's going to shit all over it as soon as you start calling it rock and roll because they think Katy Perry's rock and roll and she really isn't.

Right. So they're making up names nowadays. They're calling it Americana or they're calling it garage music or or whatever.

But it's traditional rock and roll. And I think country is kind of going through that. Yeah, exactly.

Same kind of thing right now. I think a lot of people are getting really like a lot of people are getting tired of the new stuff, I feel like, because a lot of it to me anyway, I know that like if you listen to an artist long enough, you can differentiate them. But a lot of the time people hear it and they're like, man, it's just like I can't.

It's just everything that's being released just sounds like the last album that came out, you know? Yeah, I think we're currently going through a time that music hasn't seen before. Music is really being controlled by the masses of the public with social media. And I think people are finally able with Spotify to find an artist that they truly like and they can truly support this artist like it's no longer going to be mainstream in the coming years like it is.

But I think just there's we're going to see more smaller genres like like, yeah, just smaller genres that are going to be more popular. It's not going to be like big pop. That's going to be popular.

It'll be. It'll be. I would say it'll be less corporate and more independent.

Yeah. Yeah, 100 percent. Because, yeah, I don't think I agree.

Like the money's always won. The money always wins. Well, see, that's the comment I was about to say.

It's not that the people are controlling. It's the money. It's the money controlling.

Listen, if they can even this is working. The people are the pawns. Yeah.

And really, it's I mean, it's always been money. But to your point, go back to the 50s when recording was was brand spanking new. Right.

It was all it was about what record was bought or sold. Right. Which dictates into the dollars.

So, I mean, yeah, you still had a little bit like right here in Chicago. You had a great record company, Chess Records. Right.

Leonard Chess. He specifically knew what he wanted to record. You know, he liked blues music.

He liked black musicians. And that's what he did. And he was a white Jewish guy.

But he absolutely that's the music that he wanted. And that's the music. That's the only music that he would record until he came across a fantastic group from from England called the Rolling Stones.

But they played American. They played American blues music and kind of changed it a little bit. But when people were actually going to stores and buying records, and I don't think any of you here have experienced that as actually having to go to a store to buy a record, unless it's like a vinyl shop or or whatever, you don't really understand it.

It's the people that were going there buying the records that dictated into the dollars. And then the studios were like, OK, well, guess what? We're doing this from now on because this is what the 16 year olds are buying. And it really really was 16 year olds were the were the demographic that they were going at.

Right. I think for the longest time we had the streaming hit. Yeah, right.

Everything was streaming. Nobody was buying nothing. I remember when Best Buy dumped all their CDs and put songs.

I used to work for Best Buy. I remember when they did that. Yeah.

And it was like, now what? It's all streaming. But the only ones getting rich are the social media places. Spotify, Apple, they're getting rich.

I mean, I know guys that got music out there. Well, I think I think the point is that is that like maybe maybe. Yeah.

So the corporate that's all the corporate music is always going to be powerful. It's always going to be there. But I think there's a lot more opportunity on calendar.

Your point for independent artists to thrive because of social media. So there's a lot more independent groups and a lot more independent bands that are known about because of, you know, the boom of technology. There's a lot of bad stuff to it.

Don't get me wrong. I just, you know, like, yeah, streaming is, you know, a lot of people think, oh, I'm going to, you know, put my song on Spotify and get rich off it. No, no, no, no.

Like you're no. No, yeah, it's good to get numbers on Spotify. That's where everybody listens.

That's great. That's how people listen to your music. But as a band, it's like you you make your money and you you, you know, pay your bills and do all that by playing shows and, you know, having merch and, you know, being on the road and doing it grassroots, you know, and having a tick tock.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.

Tick tocks making all these artists blow up. But you're probably going to hear about Zach Top coming up in the future. I mean, he's just blown up.

I mean, just blown up. Zach Top is everywhere. I mean, you're probably hearing him on the radio now, but you just don't haven't don't know who he is.

So, yeah, I recommend checking him out. He's super cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Like for every stream on Spotify, the artist gets like one tenth of a penny. Oh, yeah.

I mean, he's nothing. Yeah, yeah. I got a I got a royalty check from Apple Music one time.

It was 31 cents. It was I mean, it was like it's like it cost them more money to send me the check. Right.

Exactly. You know, a lot of people, a lot of people have a really like sour relationship with Spotify and you'll see a lot of guys, a lot of guys in the independent scene actually will come out and they'll kind of like they complain about Spotify. And, you know, sure.

Could they pay the artists more? Probably. They probably could. But the thing is, it's like Spotify is what everyone's using.

Yeah. And it's like and if I don't put my music on Spotify because I have problems with how they pay artists. Sure.

Anyone, if you have the right to take that stand. Right. But you're hurting yourself because that's where most people listen to music.

Right. And anyone can post to Spotify, which is awesome. Yeah, yeah.

That's the I mean, I think they said there's like tens of thousands of songs that get uploaded every day. Yeah. Yeah.

Like you couldn't do that back in the day. Right. No, you can just look up some guy, you know, and find his music.

Right. Yeah. And they they that is that is definitely easier to find anybody, wherever, whoever.

I mean, you could fall in love with a with a band that's from some small town in South Dakota and you can get their music and the whole bit. I still want to go to a record store. Yeah, I do.

Walk in, smell the patchouli incense burning and start looking through the bins. There is something there is something about that that they're missing a little bit of the heart because, I mean, you and I, we've talked about this so many times before when you had a favorite band and that band released an album. You know, it would come on a Tuesday.

Right. Yeah. One of your friends or all of you would go to that record store.

You buy that album. You only had enough money to buy one of them. Right.

And you go over to that one person's house and y'all lay around in his bedroom for for the next two days, smoking weed and drinking coke, listening to that album. And you pass the jacket around there. Everybody read every single word on that on that album jacket.

I mean, it was it was a spiritual experience. It was supposed to get sitting at a computer. Click, click, click, click.

Oh, this is cool. And start flipping through stuff. It's all right.

The best part is like you're you're giving your time to that. Yeah. When when you do Spotify, it's like, oh, I'm going to put on my phone and put it on the background when you're listening to a record.

You're listening. You're listening to a record. Absolutely.

That was the biggest reason we wanted it. We pressed our last album on vinyl. Oh, that's great.

Was that, you know, we wanted it to be like that's I feel like that's the right way to do it. I don't want to just like I know they say, oh, you're for your metrics. You should release a single every six months or every six weeks or whatever they say.

And then after that, you know, you just come compile them all into an album and just release the album. It's like I want I release a few singles, but like I want to release an album, release records, make albums, you know, do it the right way. That's and that's that's that's what our whole thing is.

Like I my goal is to every album release, even if we do an EP, press it on a seven inch vinyl like I love vinyl records. I think they're really cool. And kind of like what George was saying is like, that's almost like really showing the album some respect is that it's like, you know, you don't like it's the artistry.

Exactly. Like you don't have a video to go along with it. Sometimes online you do.

But if you're listening to the records like you're sitting there, you pour a glass of whiskey and just sit down and listen to the album, you know, and enjoy it for what it is, right? I don't need an album to pour a glass. Yeah, we always we just need we just need Wednesday in a podcast. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

When you got your flask, I was told not to bring it because when you when you put an album out, you put a vinyl on. It's like it becomes an event. You just sit there and you sit and listen to it.

It's not it's like skip and skip. It's like, no, you have to listen and appreciate every song. And then that way it's like, you know, like with me, when people say, oh, you heard this song.

I'm like, OK, well, I'll check it out. But I listen to a whole album of whoever did it if I like it, because I'm like, well, OK, I want to be able to appreciate this. Absolutely.

Because then when you go to the live show and you see this artist, you can appreciate, oh, hey, I know that song, too. I know that song, too. But yeah, like the artists, they when they when they put an album together, I speak from experience with all of us having done just Cowboy in a Bottle.

Like I love that name, by the way, Cowboy in a Bottle. If you walked up to the bar, there's a cowboy in a bottle. You just looked down my way as I sat docile.

I asked her, what do you mean? She said, I'm lonely, too. I guess this cowboy in a bottle will have to do. I sat alone on the stoop.

I head down to the back. Man, I'm gonna waste your time. I got trouble for that.

Just a walk on by. Like all the rest. I just need some time.

The cries I've heard. She walked up to the bar. Cowboy in a bottle.

She just looked down my way as I sat docile. I asked her, what do you mean? She said, I'm lonely, too. I guess this cowboy in a bottle will have to do.

Immediately, I'm thinking to myself, okay, a bunch of guys from Chicago, not real cowboys, but if you have the right something in a bottle, anybody can be a cowboy. That's a pretty unique name, I like that. When we're putting the album together, it's not just like we have 10 songs so we just throw them in a bin, shake it around, and release it.

We place the songs in order a specific way because we want the album to be listened to start to finish in this order. Tell a story. Even if it's not a concept album, this is how we think it should be.

Actually, a fun fact here is that when we released the album on our digital streaming and the CD and stuff, we had it in a specific order, but the vinyl, you only get 44 minutes total. 22 on each side. We had to reorder a few of the songs for the vinyl.

It's almost exactly 22 minutes per side. We were this close. We were 20 seconds shy of not being able to do it.

The thing is, on the subject of telling a story, we still tell stories in our songs. That's why people love country music, is the story. We have a couple of story songs on this last one.

One of them is a Western ballad called Luke and Luna. That's a fun one, but I think my favorite story song on that album is actually about a real event that happened in Oklahoma in 1967. It was the tornado, the EF-4.

We have a song called Winds of 67 that's about that whole thing. Dan wrote the song, it's great. We wanted to pay tribute to the people who lost their lives growing up in Oklahoma.

That's kind of... You hear it, especially... George, him and his dad own Primos in Oklahoma, 95th Street. They hear stories about the tornado all the time. It was a fire that day that no one could describe But just as soon as the wind whipped up, the nightmare came alive It came rolling in like a freight train and all it could do is watch 16 miles of wicked wild, it reached 100 knots From Famous Hills to Chicago Ridge and on to Old Oklahoma Where once there stood a hundred homes and everything was gone From the winds of 67 You'll never see it coming till it's gone Tomorrow is never to give up Wait, you own Primos? Get out of here! People come in all the time.

Once, twice a week, people talk to me about it. So when I heard that song and we recorded it in a church in Oklahoma It was like, oh my god. It's been in my family my whole life.

I've worked there since I could walk. Talking to people about that exact moment. To be able to bring that to life.

It was very cool. We grew up in the house that they sold to my mom and dad. My grandma would always tell us the story about what they saw.

It's like when you have so many people in one area That have a unique story about this one thing and it's all from different angles From different perspectives. Some people lost family members. Some people knew people who lost family members.

There was just something about that day. You knew something bad was coming but you just didn't know what. There were 58 people who lost their lives in that tornado.

Every time I'm at a show, we always toast the 58 when we play that song. We just made a lyric video for it and put it up. There's a group on Facebook that it's all people That experienced the Oklahoma tornado.

Knowing that there was 58 people. My father was one of those 58. My mother was one of those 58.

Connecting with those people after writing that song. It's a part of our lives. We play it on the road.

We hear it so much. We play it every show. Being able to actually meet with the people who it actually affected.

The actual people. It's not just this phantom thing that you sing about. You meet the flesh and blood people who are actually involved.

It's really something else. By the way, the podcast is looking for sponsors. We are.

We give good commercial. We do good commercial. What has to happen in 2025 for you guys to consider this to be a very successful year for you? We have our Cowboy in a Bottle tour that we're constantly adding dates to as we go.

The way I view success is if we can double what we did last year, even at a minimum, that's great. We have a bunch more zones and areas of the country we're touring this year. Last year on our Wild West tour we went to Texas and Arizona.

It was our first time we ever toured and that was awesome. This year we started off in Arizona a couple weeks ago. We're doing some dates in Ohio, Indianapolis, Wisconsin in the spring months.

We're doing Texas again in May. We're going out to Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota. We're doing all that in July.

We're heading to the East Coast in August. We're working on some new music. We've got a lot of stuff that we want to do.

As much as we can do and as many places as we can tour, as many people that we can share our music with across this country, a successful year for us looks like it's shaping up to be that. Already the amount of shows we have booked just by itself is already better than last year. Where can people see you around here? It's kind of spread out.

It's not all the time. That way we're not overplaying the area and everybody can get a chance to see us. We've got a couple of shows coming.

We're playing in Fort Wayne, Indiana Friday. You guys are playing Sweetwater. We did that last year in April.

Then we're playing Smokey Joe's in Crete. This Saturday. Saturday the 22nd.

That was a great show. It was fantastic. Flag is so drunk.

It's the last time we have Ray at one of our shows. We're playing Base Camp in Lyle on February 28th. The last time you guys will be able to see us in town until June is the Law Office in Yorkville.

That's one of our favorite venues. We're really trying to get a lot of people out to that show. Anybody listening, that's going to be your last time to come see us live until June.

We've got a guy by the name of Preston McCabe coming to open the show. He's from southern Indiana. This kid is ridiculously good.

He's doing all of his own stuff. He's going to blow up. You've got to get there to see him.

Last time you're going to see us is June. We're playing Carol's Pub downtown in June. That's where we're going to be in the next upcoming weeks.

We try to play around here as often as we play everywhere. You've got to go where the music takes you. Where can people find you if they're looking for you on social media? We're on Facebook, just The Rangers Band.

On Instagram, The Rangers Band. Our website is just therangersband.com. We're on Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere you get your music. We're on YouTube.

YouTube is something that I think a lot of artists don't do enough with. Having live content, having stuff like that. It's really awesome to have a library of live videos from shows.

We've got a great videographer by his company. He's called Goat Alert. He's incredible.

One of the best out there. If anyone's looking for a videographer, he's the guy. We've got a lot of great stuff from him on our YouTube channel.

Just look up The Rangers Band on YouTube. We actually just played the first ever Americana Fest at the Roxy Theater. We headlined that.

That was great. They did a great job with that. Our whole performance is recorded and mixed and mastered.

It's got full studio audio and everything. We've got that on YouTube as well. I have to ask.

You guys were there. I wanted to get there, but I couldn't. I had a gig.

Who ripped the door off? The door that goes down to the green room. It was us. The door was ripped off the hinges.

No, it was not me. I'm right behind Colin. I feel the door falling on me.

He's already down the stairs. My girlfriend looks at me. She's like, what the fuck? I'm like, it was not me.

You guys literally ripped the door off. I thought you were going to give me a generic answer. But it was actually you guys.

It was George. Jess, we got him. You were looking for where to send the bill.

We found him for you. I sat there for 15 minutes trying to fix it. I was just trying to say that we blew the doors off the place.

And my whiskey was downstairs. That was a big ass door too. The whiskey was calling.

That's why we're getting the hell out of here, guys. Thanks for having us. We got to go next door and start drinking bourbon.

That sounds phenomenal. A country music band writing a lot of songs about bourbon. What the hell are you saying? Not at all.

If you like bourbon, the Rangers music is for you. Sounds good. The Rangers.

Good group of guys. I was surprised to see Colin. I didn't know he was a member of the band.

I've known him since he was about 18 years old. Every so often we'll surprise you with somebody like that. He's here.

Somebody you know. The first time I met him, we were doing blues and jazz. He's a fiddle player and now he's touring with these guys.

Another original band. How refreshing. They're not just playing around here, they're touring.

I wish them a lot of luck. I saw them last weekend at Smokey Joe's. Did you really? It was a good show.

Thank you for listening to the Rock & Roll Chicago Podcast. Check us out every Tuesday for another exciting episode. The Rock & Roll Chicago Podcast is edited by Paul Martin.

Theme song courtesy of Eminar Rush. The Rock & 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.