Ep 239 My 80's Band

My 80's Band is Chicagoland's 80s MTV era new wave and alternative pop/rock band, covering songs from such classic 80s hitmakers as The Cure, The Fixx, The Eurythmics, The Cars, Tears For Fears, Flock of Seagulls, Simple Minds, Billy Idol and more.

The band members’ decades of experience, solid chops and willingness to embrace technology enables them to perform songs in interesting ways which combines the classic sounds and visuals of the genre along with new twists and turns. My 80's Band provides audiences with a musical and visual experience that goes beyond “80s cover band” nostalgia.

Transcript

Ep 239 My 80's Band

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 Occupied Mike.

Occupied Mike, holy cow, what are you in a foreign country? No, I'm going to be a different Mike every single time we do this night. Really? Things are just changing and changing. The kids are officially moved out of their apartments at school.

They've both graduated. I see one already has a job. Yeah, that's awesome.

She already has a job. She's going to be a new special education teacher at the Plainfield School District 202. Cool.

And yeah, and we're not empty nesters anymore. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Man, now you got to feed them again. I got to feed them again and their friends because for some reason we're just like the party house. They're moving in now.

Yeah, that's right. That's what it is. We're going to finish up the basement so they can have, you know, bunks for their friends that come over and hang out.

So nice trip to ISU? Oh, yeah, it was really good. It was nice. It was good.

I mean, especially since they handed them that piece of paper, I spent a hundred grand. That's right. At least they got it.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to pause this for just a second.

Okay. I'm going to pause this too. You guys can't hear yourselves.

We're rolling once again. Yeah, we are. So I had a little technical difficulty there, but we've got a headphone problem taken care of.

I know this thing was made in the 80s. It's true. Yeah.

Okay. So the kids are back. Yeah, the kids are back and we're getting back into regular, yeah, regular parent mode.

That's exactly it. I'm looking forward to the things where I can start, you know, okay, my daughter will have her own contract. So, okay, let's get you off my medical insurance.

Right. Yeah. Then we'll go next to the cell phone bills, you know, stuff like that.

And the son? The son is looking for a job right now, but he wants to go into law enforcement. You know, that can take months, you know, to get the call. So he's got to find something to do.

So we're just getting kind of figured that out for him right now. Alrighty. Yeah.

So. Well, why don't we get onto what we're supposed to be doing here? Yeah. What is that? Talking to the my eighties band.

The my eighties band. Yes, sir. All right.

Now that's not working. We're done. We're just done.

Let's just, let's just get into talking to these guys. I think it's more important that we hear from these guys anyway. That's right.

So what's going on guys? How you doing? Tell everybody who we are. Hey guys. How's it going? My name is Zig.

I'm the drummer and the tech guy for my eighties. Yeah. I'm guessing that it doesn't say Zig on his birth certificate though.

It does not. It does not. Okay.

But we're going to, but we're going for Zig. Yeah. That's my stage name.

Stage. That's simpler than trying to spell his real name. I still fail at like five, six years being with a guy.

So. Yeah. Yeah.

So I am Dave. I'm the lead singer, guitar player, front man, tap dance, everything that needs to be done up front and get people into the show. Yeah, that's right.

Sounds good. So, I mean, eighties music just kind of like never went away. No, actually I think it's gotten bigger in some ways.

The nostalgia thing. I mean, even though it's been 45 years, when you really get down to it, even though we don't want to admit it. But the thing that makes us unique is the fact that most eighties bands that are out there now are taking the last half, the second half of the eighties.

They're doing more of the Harris stuff. They're doing the Bon Jovi, the Poison, the Journey, things of that ilk. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And there's a lot of great bands having tremendous success. But we, Zig and I, we decided that we wanted to do something different. And the first half of the eighties was dominated by phenomenal music, especially when the MTV era came out.

And it was filled in excess. Duran Duran, Billy Idol, The Fix, The Cure, The Cult, things of that nature. A lot of the bands.

Yeah. And for us, that's just what we wanted to gravitate toward for a number of reasons. One, because it's more female really oriented to enjoy this music that we do.

And just, again, it's just different, not what every other band does. And really, there's no one in Chicago that does what we do in the Chicagolian region. I don't know about you, but I heard him say they pretty much do it for the girls.

That's what I got out of it. Well, for the middle-aged women. There you go.

I hate to tell you this, but if we're all the same age here, we are not middle age. None of us here are going to live to be 112. I still like to think I'm middle age.

He's got a shot at it. Maybe not. Yeah.

So, what side of defense did you guys fall on when you were in high school or whatever era that was for you in the early 80s? Well, interestingly for me, I did not really listen to that much of the stuff that we're actually playing. I was more into either pop or metal. So, the new wave stuff, I mean, I liked it, but it was mostly stuff I heard on the radio.

So, it wasn't something I was really into, but now I love it. So, what's your definition of metal? Well, give us an era. Give us a year that we're reflecting on.

86, Master of Puppets, my favorite album. That's kind of the stuff, Motley Crue, stuff like that. Yeah.

So, it was kind of on that whatever that cusp of 80s metal could have been. Motley Crue, not necessarily hair band. They tried to turn Motley Crue into a hair band because you look at those four pictures on the Shout at the Devil album.

It's like, yeah, that's pretty much hair metal right there, but they didn't fit that mold. No, no, not with that album at least. That's a legendary album there.

Yeah, yeah. I was always kind of, I heard the music before I saw the album. I had a friend named Brian.

He was the guy that had the cassette tape collection. He had a thousand cassette tapes in the giant boom box and everything. And I heard the music before I actually saw the album, and he shows me the cassette tape, right? And I'm looking at it going, nah, that's not the same guys doing this music.

Right? No, not at all. This looks like Culture Club or something like that. You know, it's funny when I saw the Look What the Cat Dragged In album cover from Poison.

I really, I wasn't sure if those were girls or guys. A lot of them, yeah. Yeah, they certainly did that.

They really had that thing going on, yeah. And funny, you know, the stuff that people called metal back in the 80s is like Yacht Rock nowadays. Yeah.

You hear anything from Poison nowadays and nobody's going to say that's metal. No. I think the definition back then, at least when I was growing up, you know, like if you had long hair, it was metal.

Right. Or if you had long hair, you're a hairband. Yeah.

Nevermind the fact that people had long hair in the 60s as well. But you know, you're a hairband. They poof it up a little bit more, like make it a little more feminine.

They wore just as much makeup as the women did. Even more so. Yeah.

Even more so. It's hard to make an ugly guy look pretty. You make me think of, there's this one interview with David Bowie.

This is back when 75, 76, when he was doing the whole androgynous thing. And he said, when he first went out on stage, he went out with all the makeup and everything else, full bore. And then the guys in the band were like, oh, we don't want to do that.

We want to do that, you know? So then they saw how the women were flocking to them and everything else. And they said, the next show, hey, give me your mascara. Sign me up.

My face look good and everything else. So it says, Bowie was talking about how they're really like, they get the women, they're fine with it. And then you love how it became full circle because all of a sudden Kiss decides to take their makeup off for the first time.

Right. And everybody saw how successful that was. And that's about the same time that Motley Crue stopped with the makeup and Poison stopped with the makeup.

And anybody that was wearing the makeup stopped doing it because they saw that. The whole thing kind of came full circle. So what side of the defense were you on? Were you more pop or what? Well, I'm a little bit older and and I loved everything and I still do.

But, you know, I had the appreciation for those bands that access and Duran Duran. But I get more like Zig said, I was more of a harder rocker type of person, you know, Kiss, Sammy Hagar, Zeppelin, Foghat. Since really I have an older brother, older sister.

So I was more of a classic rock era type of thing. Back then it was rock. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, exactly. It was just rock. So but that's more my, you know, grasp bad company, things of that nature like that.

Then when the 80s kick in, I like the more the harder rock stuff. But again, had the appreciation for the pop and a new wave and things of that nature. So, yeah, yeah, that was a guitar player starting at 14.

And so, of course, you know, you had more the cooler guitar stuff was when you were rocking it out. You know, yeah, right. You know, I loved when I when I started thinking about the 80s, when my family first moved to like the Roselle or Schaumburg area here, I was in I was going into fourth grade.

Gosh, what year was that? That was probably about 19. Yeah. I think something like that.

No, it was exactly like 1980. So the whole thing started moving in. And that early on, you you you also had artists like Dan Fogelberg classified as 80s music.

And I have to give full credit to my father for this one, because he had a fantastic record collection back when we could buy forty five. So when I said he had a record collection, I mean, forty five singles, not necessarily albums with the spindling. You'd stack a bunch of them up on the turntable and stuff.

And it would be it would go from something from Michael Jackson to Dan Fogelberg to maybe something like by the Scorpions, you know, and it was just this eclectic collection of all kinds of different things. My father loved all kinds of different music and beats. So I really loved the early 80s.

I really did, because I thought it was more diversified to start getting more towards eighty six and eighty seven and stuff like that. It was very experimental. You know, I mean, what we call New Wave now, they didn't have a name for it then.

Right. Just kind of, you know, people just making music with these new keyboards that were coming out and stuff like that. It's just very experimental and creative.

Yeah. That's what I love about it. Yeah.

Oh, what is it like the Pet Shop Boys comes down when you think of stuff like that? Human League comes to mind when you think of stuff like that. And everybody, I don't care how cool you think you are. Everybody knows all the words to those songs.

Oh, absolutely. Anybody our age can sing. Don't you want me, baby? Bye.

We do it. We can get us to that. Yes, exactly.

Oh, yeah. So you guys do a bunch of that stuff. Yes.

So you have to have a keyboard player in the band. No, you don't. No.

Wow. OK. We cheat a little bit with tracks.

OK. You know, so it's our it's our savings there, you know, but yeah, so we just we run tracks for that and we kind of have our own style. Our bass player is more of a he comes from a funk background, you know, so he brings in a lot of the slapping and plucking and stuff like that.

So it gives us kind of an original sound. But yeah, we definitely have, you know, all the tracks and stuff doing all this and stuff. We put some edge into it as well.

Like, you know, we talk about don't you want me, baby? For example, the way we do it is it's like the Scorpions did. Right. You want me to be sorry.

Wow. So we give it a little more. But we still have some of the keyboard stuff behind it with the tracks.

But it's definitely got more attitude toward it. Right. So, you know, we do that or we do cars by Gary Newman.

Right. As you know. So I'm doing it.

So I'm doing all those parts on guitar. Right. As opposed to just having it with keys.

So it gives it more attitude. But you're still giving the gist of a song. Right.

So that's what people really like about it. So. Right.

So so you are kind of doing your own thing because you don't have all the instrumentation and stuff. So who's missing in the band? Who? Our bass player Jerome. So you got you guys are a three piece bass player, guitar, drums, you sing and then you've got some kind of backing track that's going to provide keyboards or whatever and stuff like that.

You know, we usually I will admit we have run away from that in the past. You know, we have run away from talking about that, that stuff in the past because we've had we've had people in here that are that they play the tracks, but they don't want to admit it or hide it or whatever. But you guys are like, yeah, we're a track band.

So let's talk about it. Yeah, because I because I would I'd never have been in a track band. Don't want to be.

I mean, for whatever reason or not, I've never had tracks. No, ever. No.

Well, people think that's one, but that's not that's just a burn on a light bulb. OK, since I was 12. But but so how's that working? I mean, how are you guys doing that? Who's listening to the click? Somebody's got to be listening.

We're all in here. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. I pretty much run it. You know, I got my laptop back there and I run it and it's not necessarily that we want to.

It's just the most practical way for us. You know, we could afford, you know, otherwise we'd have to get a keyboard player. And we just decided that as a trio, we were a four piece for a while and we did have a keyboard player.

But it just works better for us as a trio. Less drama, you know, just a cleaner kind of, I don't know, makes it more efficient, makes it more us and unique in that respect by having it as a trio. And plus, as we all know, less people to give money to.

So it's easier, easier to get hired. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Case in point, like we just played four wins casino in South Bend and they have a smaller stage. And the reason they hired us is because we're a three piece. So if you're a four piece or like Cadillac or Uber, 200 people on stage.

Yeah, not quite. One ninety nine, one ninety nine. Yeah, yeah.

But you know, I mean, it's just so you still have the real estate out there was with three people. They say we can hire you and they hired us back again because they like what we do. We bring to the table and we can make it happen.

Yeah. Yeah. So what is your most I guess what would be your most I don't I don't know if the keyboard heavy is the proper word.

What's the most orchestrated song you guys do where you require those tracks? I'm curious how that works and how you pull that off. I'll probably say send me an angel. Yeah.

By real life. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. OK. All right.

Starts out with the keyboard. So we're kind of OK. There's no way around that one.

Right. Right. So you guys all have a click.

And is something where you got to like hit play on the thing or is it just something that's always looping for you guys? No, no. We have it all set up. We run it on logic on a Mac and we have we have a click.

We have our backing tracks on there. We're also synchronizing lights through MIDI. Oh, OK.

And we're synchronizing his head rush guitar patches. It just comes through MIDI signals and changes as patches on the fly. Right.

So we automate a lot of stuff along with it, so it's not just tracks. We kind of try to do whatever we can with it. You know, automate some volumes, stuff like that.

Put in some vocal effects on there like echoes, you know. Right. Right.

So it always fascinates me when I see bands do that because it seems so seamless. Is this the kind of thing where like if somebody if somebody walked up to you and threw one hundred dollars in a tip jar and said, you know, play Tennessee whiskey. Oh, please don't say that.

I can do it if you need to. No, no, no. You could.

But I don't know where we put all the vomit. Not anymore. It's been a long time since we have actually.

I just can't do it. I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. But but it's like somebody comes up and throws a hundred dollars on a stage and says, OK, you know, play.

Don't you want me, baby? Like right now? I got to hear right now. I got to leave. You guys haven't played yet.

Play it right now. How are you doing that if you've got these tracks? Is it something that's always moving or do you have to all of a sudden just say, OK, well, and I got to find it because we got to add stuff to it. How does that work? Yeah, no, that's pretty straightforward.

It's just basically lined up and I just kind of toggle through it. Just hit next, next, next or whatever. I could take the cursor and move it over there.

I'm not I don't know if you're familiar with like DOS systems like recording software, but basically that's all we use. You know, so you see your you see the timeline, you see the waveforms and you kind of just navigate between there, you know, so it's relatively simple. So, yeah, don't you want me? Yeah, you got a hundred bucks.

Got it. Got it. We'll do it.

But other than that, otherwise, do you pretty much have it set up in order of your of your set list? Yeah, usually because it makes it easier just go from one to the next. But sometimes like he'll throw something out or sometimes we'll just skip around for whatever. And they're waiting on me because I'm like, oh, man, I can't read it.

You know, I'm like trying to look at it and trying and so, yeah, I mean, it could be a pain sometimes, but the damn song. And you guys now did you guys have to create all of those backing tracks yourself? We usually will. Some of them are created or added on to.

But a lot of the stuff I'll just get ready made and we'll just pick out what we want. We don't use all of them necessarily. We just pick up whatever we want.

And a lot of times I have to go in there and actually edit them because they're not necessarily in time. You know, sometimes they're kind of off. So I got to chop them up and kind of try to get them to fit in there so they sound good.

So sometimes they're not necessarily like the exact track. We kind of make it our own. And then, of course, we do like, you know, sometimes we modify the song itself so it doesn't the structure changes a little bit.

Right. Yeah. And I think that's the thing right there.

And it's always kept me from wanting to do anything like that because it's like a lot of work. I don't have the time or patience. It's a lot of work, a lot of trust.

It's a lot of work. If something goes down, you're like, oh, shit. I mean, if we had to pull it off with autumn, we could.

Yeah, sure. We could because we the musicianship and equality there and everything else. But it does definitely embellish and pays a little bit more color on the picture.

Yeah. And there's a couple of tunes that we do without the tracks. So we do like blister in the sun.

We don't use tracks for that. Right. Or my Sharona.

We got the beat or certain things like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Those those are two songs that I've played more times than I care to admit as well, too. But they're always so fun to do. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, you know, there was a lot of stuff. You hit it on the head.

There's a lot of stuff that was kind of cutting edge, kind of, you know, down the waves, the right word or whatever. But I find myself listening to a lot of things from the 80s, like in the 80s. I hated Duran Duran.

Couldn't stand Duran Duran. Was it Simon Lebon? Is that the singer? His voice was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I don't know what it was.

And I hated them. But now I hear that. I hear something by Duran Duran.

I'm like, holy shit, this was really cool. It's too bad. I didn't appreciate it.

Thirty five, forty years ago. Yeah. You know, one thing, at least for me as a guitar player, because I'm the only guitar players in the band, you know, I'm so used to doing typical blues based rock, whether it be.

Excuse me. I don't think your bass player would consider that. Well, I just call it bass.

I consider I never call it bass guitar. I've always called bass bass. This is guitar.

OK, so. But my point being is that most rock that I was doing before that was blues bass Zeppelin, Bad Company, Sammy Hagar, metal, whatever was very one, four, five kind of a thing. Whereas these guys, some of them really didn't play that well.

So they had to kind of become soundscapes. So you had to go in there and kind of investigate the delays and the choruses and things like that to make it sound like the song, you know, like we do. I ran by a lot of seagulls with that.

It's not that's complicated, but to get that sound to get the delays right, to get that and then try and sing it on top of it as another thing altogether, you know, to do one thing leads to another is a very complicated right hand rhythm thing to do that. Keep it up consistently with the tracks and the click and sing it at the same time. Thank God it's only one chord.

But it's very more almost like a reggae-ish in a way. So you have to have that kind of rhythmic pulse if you don't have that right with a click, because that's a thing in the beginning. We weren't that tight with a click.

We were. Yeah, we were a train wreck, especially with that song, because, yeah, it's kind of difficult. No, I know.

I've tried to sing it and play it at the same time, and I just stopped. I wasn't playing it enough to really get good at it. So I was going to say, screw it.

I just. Yeah, it's not easy. It took me quite a while.

So I'll challenge any guitar player out there thing. Hey, I can play Yngwie. Well, try this.

Yeah, right. Give it a shot. Let me see what you think.

It's not dissing Yngwie or any great players, but it is such a unique approach trying to do that, especially after playing, you know, you know, one, four, five blues kind of a thing. So and then you throw in curve, then you throw in singing at the same time. And it's kind of like doing this, you know, for those of you can't see me, I'm rubbing my belly and patting my head at the same time.

And we're entertaining. And we're also sometimes doing dance maneuvers or a little choreography between me and the bass player. So we're doing all that plus trying to be entertaining to the people out there.

So you as a front man, you know what it's like. You got to pick out the people, seeing who's paying attention, who's having a good time, how you get that person into it, what's going to be the magic key to get the audience going. Right.

So not an easy thing to do, especially within a three piece. Right, right. Yeah, because I have 198 people on stage with me.

I can stop playing. You can hide behind them. Yeah.

You can drop out anytime you want. Somebody's got you covered. Yeah.

I'm a front man. I have mastered the art of putting the blame on somebody else by giving them that look. It's the trombone players this time.

It's bass player. All you got to do is turn around and look and the whole audience looks at the guy that you looked at. Oh, it's his fault this time.

Never the singer's fault. All this talk about all these songs has whet my appetite for a song. Yeah, I think it's time we get a little tune out of it.

I want to see how we're going to do this with just an acoustic guitar today. All righty, well, we'll be right back. All righty.

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24-7 all music with its roots in Illinois. Hey we're back everybody for the first time tonight we've got my 80s band playing a really cool song for you right now. One, two, three, four.

And it's getting better all the time. There's nothing you and I won't do. Let's stop the world.

I'll stop the world and melt with you. You should open wide. I'll stop the world and melt with you.

You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time. There's nothing you and I won't do. I'll stop the world.

I'll stop the world and melt with you. You should open wide. I'll stop the world and melt with you.

I'll stop the world. You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time. There's nothing you and I won't do.

Please stop the world. I'll stop the world and melt with you. All right.

I mean the song's basic as anything just cnf really. Yeah. But then when you have the tracks and they're kind of going to background it helps and flushes things out and again our bass player is so funky he never does any of the bass lines from the actual songs.

Right. I mean he creates his own thing. So he's slapping it and doing everything behind it and when you go into that I mean everyone's screaming it you know with the blue drunk or not they're screaming it out.

Yeah it's probably better when they are drunk and they're all trying to do it. Oh it sounds like we always recommend church. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking while they were playing this is probably one and only time that a drummer is going to leave with less equipment than anybody else.

I love this. We need some more gigs like this. Yeah that's pretty pretty simple.

I was just as he was doing that I was thinking we should have like a studio cajon or something like that. Yeah. I think it'd be a good idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Easy.

You know that is a if you go on to any like coffee house covers you know from like satellite radio or anything like that that is a big thing nowadays is people are reworking and doing covers of 80 of 80s music all the time. I just heard what is it I believe it's New Order the song Blue Monday by New Order. I heard a guy I heard a guy do that solo on an acoustic guitar and he slowed it down turned it into a ballad and it was fantastic.

I love when people do that yeah I mean I love when they take something and just put in the creativity and basically make something original out of it. You know take the melody take the rhythms of the song and just make something unique out of it. Yeah yeah that's why I liked the you know the Unplugged series on VH1 so yeah a lot of times you'd see the actual artists do that with their own music and I thought it was really cool.

You know play the they played it the way they wrote it when they were just sitting at the kitchen table with the guitar and they're like we need to do it a different way because this is getting boring. Right right this song means something to me now that I'm 35 years older than I was when I wrote it let's play it a little different way. Yeah yeah yeah excellent.

I did I was watching remember that show Scrubs? You know there was an episode it was like the saddest episode of the series ever where every doctor in the hospital had lost a patient and the angel of death was in the hospital that day dressed up in in scrubs walking around with an acoustic guitar and it was Colin Hay from Men at Work. Okay. And as their as their patients passed away he's the angel of death helping their souls leave their body and he's playing and he's playing Overkill.

You know talk about ghosts appear and fade away and stuff but he's doing it slowly like a ballad and when I heard that I went and looked for it online and I was like man this is better than the than the poppy thing that ever had been played on the radio so in my acoustic solo stuff that's the way I do that song. It's really cool version of that song. I mean Clapton was one of the first that did that with like Layla.

Right. I mean like two completely different songs. The acoustic one is awesome.

The first time I heard it I didn't even recognize it as Layla. Yeah yeah yeah. He even sang the words so differently I couldn't even recognize it when he started singing the lyrics.

I'm like wow this is pretty well. That's that's the cool thing is like when you do that especially when you slow it down and strip it down the lyrics come into focus you know you may have not even you know listened to the lyrics before but now the lyrics are actually like coming out. Well you couldn't hear them half the time because the music was live.

Right right. So who's coming out to see your show? Are you finding that it's more you know older people like us or is it a pretty easy. Easy.

About 65 percent women. Okay. Okay which is a great thing.

Yeah. Which is what which is our goal in the first place. Right.

Because you know we're dogs so you know if the ladies are there the guy's gonna be following along so. That's right. That's what works really well for us.

Ladies are out there having fun dancing. You know this music's colorful. It's fun.

It's upbeat. It's danceable. Right.

You know where's you know I mean some of the other stuff is you know unless you get the you know white boy dancing or something like that you know. Yeah. And we find like younger people they they like it too surprisingly you know.

Sometimes you would think that they wouldn't be into it but they are and some of them even know the words. I don't know how they know the words to these songs but 80s 80s like you know like I mentioned when we first started both of my kids just graduated from college. They're they're 22 and 23 years old and 80s parties on college campuses are all the rage.

No. I mean you know they their last year of college they were both kind of over the whole partying thing or whatever but you know they could be mid-sense and somebody says hey we're going to a party over at so-and-so's you know place tonight. Nah I don't think I'm gonna say it's an 80s party.

Okay I'll be right there. I mean. And my 80s are there.

You better get there. What is old is new. Yeah.

Yeah right. These guys are from the 80s. Yeah they're actually they're authentic man.

They're authentic. Come and see them. Yeah.

It's been going great though man. Our turnout's been nice. Again you know clubs are paying us good money to come out and play.

That's easy set up with just three people. We play in smaller stages so it really works out quite well and it's since what we're doing. I tell you if I had a nickel for every time a person came up to me says thank God you're not doing Don't Stop Believing.

Thank God you're not doing Living on a Prayer or whatever. Seriously I mean like we're so burnt out on those songs. We hear it all the time and as you know again no dis to the other bands because they're great bands but they do virtually same set list and you swap the members and you would never know.

No one's gonna be able to sit in with us. It ain't gonna happen you know what I mean because of the tracks and just music we do. No one really knows it.

Right. Is there one song that you guys do that you think really truly is your own cover of it? That's a good question. Don't You Want Me Baby I think.

Yeah we do. We kind of rock that one out. Yeah you put me on the spot now I'm going through all the songs in my head you know but yeah Don't You Want Me by Human League definitely we have our own kind of take on it.

It's more of a kind of raw version of it with the guitars. Yeah. Can you do that? Can you do that here? Give us just give us a bit of it.

I'm just curious. Don't you want me. I know I can't believe it when I hear that you won't see me.

Don't you want me. I know I don't believe it when I hear that you won't see me. What you left to find.

Then change your mind. Better change it back or we'll be both be sorry. Don't you want me baby.

Don't you want me. Don't you want me baby. Don't you want me.

I was working that waitress in the cocktail bar. That much is true. But it's later on I got my world at your feet.

Even with or without you. Days later I already got the world at your feet. And I still want you.

Now I gotta figure out my life on my own. I guess that's what I must do. Don't you want me.

I know I can't believe it when I hear that you won't see me. Don't you want me. I know I don't believe it when I hear that you won't see me.

What you left to find. Then change your mind. Better change it back or we'll be both be sorry.

Don't you want me baby. Don't you want me. Don't you want me baby.

Don't you want me. Don't you want me baby. Don't you want me.

Don't you want me baby. Don't you want me. Don't you want me baby.

Don't you want me. Don't you want me baby. Don't you want me.

Nice. Yeah. A lot of distortion.

Oh yeah. And you're trying to do the dive bomb and it's not quite working on the acoustic guitar. I get that.

Just keep on slapping with the right hand. And just when it came in, I was like, okay, do they track in the female voice? But no. We had a female singer initially, but yeah, just ended up parting ways.

No bad terms or anything, but yeah. Yeah. Okay.

No, good. That's, that's, that's totally cool. I want to see that, I think.

So when you add something in there, you're just adding a little keyboard into it. I'm assuming is that what you're putting into it? Yeah. You know, a lot of the tracks, all it does is beef things up, you know, because we'd have to just too much of a gap in there.

So a lot of it is they use a lot of arpeggiators, for example, in the 80s stuff, you know, so it kind of fills in those gaps and gives it more of a kind of pumpy feel, you know? Right. Right. Right.

Because you definitely need it. Like we do a new sensation or devil inside by in excess. Oh, yeah.

Right. You need to have that. If you don't have the whole song just falls apart.

I've done it in previous bands and it's just not the same if you don't have that, you know, or a new sensation, you need to have it. Yeah. That kind of thing.

So. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Like I said, it's really not putting too much, too much lipstick on the pig.

That way, you know, it's just putting enough stuff on there to kind of give a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah.

We definitely don't rely on them. So and sometimes, you know, things happen. We got to shut the tracks off in the middle of the song and continue on.

You know, that's right. It's pretty common for us. Most of the times, you know, people don't.

Sorry, folks. Keyboard player got pissed. He went home and he quit.

He said he's got the backdoor trots. Yeah, they're running the bathroom. Is there is there any original 80s music you guys do? Original 80s music.

You've written. No, we don't do any original stuff. Yeah.

Dave does original stuff. I released my CD about four or five years ago. It's definitely more like, as I tell people, if Paul Rogers, a bad company, join the Eagles and hit Ted Nugent on guitar.

That's more what my stuff is like. But Ziggy's done some original stuff as well with his with his thing. Right.

But we come from just a different background with the band we're doing before. We just didn't think things were progressing. We want to.

So we just decided to just happenstance. We're just kind of talking while we're still in the other band about this material. And we just had a kindred spirits on it.

We just kind of said, OK, well, let's go and try it. Let's do it. It's fun.

It's fun music. It really is. You know, I mean, yes.

Yeah, I've done that song a thousand times. I've always felt guilty singing that song. I guess the words are a little creepy.

The good thing for a singer, though, is the same frickin words twice. Yeah. You know, we need that.

I mean, I don't know about you, but I space stuff. Yeah. You know, consistently, you know, we're doing something on top of the track.

So to turn it off is, you know, it's just complete brain fart. Yeah. On stage.

I mean, just like, what is the frickin word? I forgot. Never. That's never happened to me.

So we're doing we do this segue from Rebel Yell going into White Wedding. Yeah. Back into Rebel Yell.

And so when it came for us to do the White Wedding part, I'm sitting there like. Okay, where are they? And that was an instance where the tracks got turned off and we just jammed. Waited for Dave to figure out what song he was playing and then come back to it somehow.

But you know what? It worked. No problem. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I've got this metal stamp thing hanging in my hanging in my basement. And it says, you know, it's an it's an art form to sing the wrong words with confidence.

And I'm an artist. Yeah. Repeat that first verse, baby.

Just repeat the first verse or whichever one you can remember. Confidence. That's it.

Combination plan or whatever works, you know. Or just mumble. Yeah.

Yeah. That works too. As long as you come up with syllables, you know, and hit the vowels, not the consonants.

Yeah. I mean, poof, you're instant Eddie Vedder. Yep.

You know. Yeah. But yeah.

And so we do some, you know, like some Rebel Yell White Wedding. We do a good rocked up version of that. And so we kind of branch out.

We do The Cure and Occult. You know, In Emotion, we do Obsession by them. We prototypical have a guy, a girl singer on there.

Gary Newman. We're doing Robert Palmer. Right now we're doing Elvis Costello, Pump It Up, which is a great song.

Isn't it a great song, Nosey? Yeah. He's been trying to do that song for a couple of years now. And we finally did it.

And I got to say, I like it. Cool tune. I can tell he's in my school.

You can have Elvis Costello. I've never been a fan. Yeah, I haven't either, but I got to give it to him.

You know, it's okay. I mean, once you play it, it's different. It's like, okay, this is fun to play.

Yeah. Especially the big difference with the old band was before with the girl and with the other bass player and Jerome. Jerome had so much funk and groove to everything.

I mean, he really does. Yeah, he's very percussive. Jerome who? Jerome who? No, what's his last name? We call him Jerome.

McCain. Or Cain. Cain.

Jerome Cain. Okay. All right.

I know a funky bass playing Jerome too. I was wondering. And he plays in a lot of bands.

I was wondering if it was the same guy. This is the one band Jerome's in is with us and stuff. And you know, like we're doing No One Bites the Dust.

Okay. So, you know, he just really just slays it down. We do, when we do Duran Duran, Hunger Like the Wolf, he does a bass solo in the middle of it.

When we do Whip It by Devo, you know, he's not a really good commentator. Oh, you have to. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it just slams in people's skull. So, again, we present it with more attitude than probably the way is how a lot of these bands from the 80s, if they're doing these tours, are the way they're doing it now.

Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, they're not doing it the old 80s way. They're doing like, you know, slamming it out, making a rock out more. That's what we have done.

We've embraced that. Right. Right.

Right. So, what do you guys have coming up in like July? Like what kind of dates you guys have? July is pretty busy for us. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we have a South Bend Casino, the Four Winds in July. Yeah.

Some of the big ones. We've got a couple of festivals coming up. Festival season is among us.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We're pretty booked. I mean, right now, I'm booked almost every – we're booked almost every single weekend.

Yeah. Until October. Okay.

Oh, wow. You know, and it's been a lot of work. I mean, I'm the primary booker of the band and stuff.

And it's been a lot of calls, a lot of emails, a lot of texts. You know how it goes. Right.

And so, we've been real fortunate to do that. And we're playing everywhere from, you know, a couple of weeks from the 23rd of May. We're going to be up at the pub at Maple Park.

Okay. Yeah. That was a good show.

Yeah. Because today is June 24th. That's right.

Don't scare me like that. It was great. It was a fantastic show, man.

It was an awesome show. I loved it. It was wonderful.

Then the morning of May 24th, we're playing at Soldier Field. Okay. We're playing for a 10K run there.

Nice. You know, so, but we got to be there six in the morning after doing the gig. Oh, God.

Oh, geez. Then. Pass.

Because we're insane, or because I'm insane. May 24th evening, True Country in Shanahan. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. That is a cool place. I just played there myself.

What a cool place that is. Have you guys been there before? I've been there, but I haven't, we haven't played there. That electric flag they got.

It's cool. Yeah. Although it's going to be warmer out now.

So, you guys could be on the patio. They've got a backdoor patio, and it opens up, but it's actually bigger than the bar inside. So, that might be a cool thing.

Oh, that sounds like fun. I mean, that bar is not big. No.

Again, lucky we're a three-piece. Yeah. Because if we were anything bigger than edges, we couldn't do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, June 7th, we're playing at Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo.

I don't know. Yeah. One of the ones close by is we got the new Lenox VFW on July 26th.

Oh, okay. So, that's the closest around here. Maple Park, which is out there.

That's up north. Yeah. Yeah.

We got a Munster, Indiana festival. We got a Whiting, Indiana festival coming up. June 6th, we're playing at Semino's.

Your trumpet guy, I think, got me that gig. Carlo? Yeah. Carlo got me the gig.

No kidding. They were playing at Semino's. The one over there at the end would be Ice Arena.

Yeah, yeah. So, we're playing there on the 6th. On the 5th, we're playing at the Midlothian Park District in Millennium Park.

We're playing the Uptown Tap in Plainfield. Oh, nice. On the 13th of June, which is cool.

It's our first time there. They really wanted us to be out there. Good people there.

You'll like that place. Yeah. It's a nice venue.

We're playing in Whiting, which is literally a block from his house. We're in downtown Whiting. They have a nice stage out there.

What was that Uptown Tap date? June 13th. June 13th. Yeah.

Hopefully, I am not playing anywhere. Come on down. It'd be great.

Yeah. Oh, no, we are. Cadillac Groove is playing the rooftop of the historical building right next door.

That's a big – although, that ends early. I mean, I can walk to Uptown Tap from my house. I'm going to have to check you guys out.

Come on out. Yeah. I think we're starting.

Let me see what Mr. Calendar says. Jump on stage with us. Sing some Duran Duran.

Some Duran Duran. You grew up with Duran Duran. You loved it back then.

Yeah. 8 to 11, so we'll be there. Then, like I said, I mean it just goes on and on and on.

Yeah. We've been very, very blessed in the amount of gigs we've had to this band. Right.

It's really been great. Excellent. So, how can people find you? You got a website they can go to and just download a calendar or what? Yes.

My80sBand.com. My80sBand on Facebook. Same thing on Instagram. My80sBand.

And yes, we have all our events on there. All three of them. Right.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.

Well, I'll tell you what. I enjoyed listening to you guys. Yeah.

I enjoyed talking to you guys. Thanks for being so candid about working with tracks and doing everything. Because we've never really talked about that before.

And I know there's people out there that are like, especially solo artists, how do I do a solo gig and then have some tracks for myself without using a looper? Because I hate doing that too. That's like tap dancing to me. You know, when you're trying to do all that stuff.

I do acoustic shows as well, and I know what you mean. But the thing is, I found initially that when we're talking about doing tracks, I'm like, you know, crap, that must feel like you're giving in. Or like, you know, you're being discriminated against and stuff like that.

But again, the thing I think that we do different is we use it as a color. We don't use it as the core. There's some bands that are out there that they can stop playing their instruments completely.

And you're still here. And you're still at everything. You're still going.

Right. We're not that. And if we mess up, I mean, that's like that train going down the tracks.

There's nothing stopping that train short of his finger stopping the track that we have. Oh, how do we catch back up? So we know these songs inside, outside, backwards, forwards. And you just got to, you got to be like that.

You got to be a new game. You can't be a half baked player. Or if you're timing waivers or something like that, you'll, you'll feel it.

The whole thing will just not be on. Right. So it's a lot of work to do that.

Difficult. As a drummer, I'm still learning how to play with the click track. You know, I've been playing for years, but it's a learning experience every day.

And I hate the sound of click tracks too. Every time I play one, I mean, it's just a terrible sound. Give me something different.

You don't make it sound, make it sound like a kick drum or something. I don't like that. You're playing a lot of chorus three, two, three.

You got that, you know, but you don't think I just read the other day. I don't even think I told you about it, but I guess they have these things that you could strap to your guitar strap, for example, and just provides a right. Right.

So then you don't have to worry about a click. And then, so people, I guess, stay on time better by the pulse. Plus if you have a kidney stone, it can work.

Yeah. All right, fellas. Alrighty.

Thanks for coming out guys. That's a wrap. Yeah.

It was great meeting you guys. Thank you. The rock and roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin theme song courtesy of MNR rush.

The rock and roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show. The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.