Ep 240 Eve Casino

Eve Casino is a four-piece independently produced rock band from the suburbs of Chicago. Dabbling in genres such as psychedelia, blues, and punk rock & drawing comparisons to a vast array of bands from The Doors to Weezer to The Cars; the band is noncommittal to any specific form of rock music and prefers instead to celebrate their diverse range of influences. The band strives to make each live performance vary from their last, with many songs never being played the same way twice. The band hopes to continue reaching new fans & reminding audiences that rock is very much alive.

Transcript

Ep 240 Eve Casino

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 week I am ecstatic, Mike.

Ecstatic. Ecstatic, absolutely. Wow, we're gonna finger an outlet or something? Well, let's not go there.

Okay. That could be two things. Okay.

No, I'm ecstatic for our guests in the studio tonight. I've been trying to get these guys in here for a long time. Long time.

Yeah, yeah, I think, where was it? It was the studio that we met originally. And you guys knew about this podcast for probably over a year. Yeah, trying to get you guys all in here.

We should probably tell everybody who we got in here. We've got Eve Casino in the studio tonight. And our special effects aren't working.

Our special effects aren't working. Is this thing? Welcome to the studio. Crowd noise.

That's what was gonna happen there if the button was working. Yeah. My first question to get this thing going, where's Eve? We get this question all the time of like, what the hell does Eve Casino mean? And actually, the guy who invented the name is not here with us today.

He's well alive. I think he's in New York or something. Okay, yeah.

Thanks for clarifying that he's alive. You know, he's with us. He's not physically present.

Right. Believe it was some sort of, he was watching Leaving Las Vegas one day. And just came up with some song that he named Eve Casino.

And we were changing the name up. And I think we just landed on it. And I was like, oh, that sounds like a cool name.

I could jive with that, you know? Right. Well, why don't we back up and introduce yourselves. Tell everybody who you guys are, what you do in the band.

And we'll start there. Do the kindergarten thing like around the table. So my name is Haggy.

I play bass and I do most of the vocals. And his name is Haggy. Yeah.

That's not Haggis. Just that stuff's nasty. Yeah.

Isn't Haggis a character from, um, there's a character. Isn't Haggis? Is it Harry Potter? Oh, Hagrid. Hagrid.

Okay. It shows you how much I know. I don't know.

He's named after, he's named after lamb stewed in a sheep's tongue. Haggis. And that's why I always start with, you know.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. My name is Marco.

I play lead guitar. Sometimes I sing rarely, um, or sometimes I go by slick Robinson. We'll get to that later.

You know, we'll get to that later. I'm Chris. I play the drums.

He plays the drums. And your singer is not present today. Is that what we're missing? No, Sam does, uh, he sings as well, but he also does a rhythm.

Gotcha. And, uh, keys. Gotcha.

Okay. I'm sorry. Okay.

Yeah. Me and him kind of split writing duties. Right.

Right. Okay. So you play bass and you write and everything.

And that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. So how did this whole thing come about? Who put this band together? The guy that moved to New York.

Yeah. And I'm sick of this shit. I'm out of here.

Yeah, it was me and him. Uh, we met on his birthday. Sorry.

We met on his birthday. Um, about nine years ago, eight years ago, uh, between me and him and, uh, started the band originally, uh, something called the influence. Yeah.

Um, where'd you guys meet? Was it a musical situation? You guys hanging out at a Russian bath house or massage parlor? It's funny. It was, uh, it was fresh out of high school. We were at a house party, uh, college.

Yeah. Fresh out of high school. No, I mean, it was Fred graduated college.

2018. That's when you came in. Yeah.

You guys had just met at that point. No, we'd been playing a bit longer after that. That's what they told you when I was 19.

That's what, yeah. Um, so, but we. Yeah, we started the, we started the whole thing called the influence.

It was just me and him for a while. At one point we were trying to get more people to play in the band with us. Um, before we had these guys with us, um, we had some guy come by from Craigslist and that was, uh, an interesting experience.

So we kind of stopped doing that. I knew a couple of friends in the area that, uh, were, uh, definitely interested in some music and figured we'd give everyone a shot. So I love it.

I love it. I love a Craigslist story. The Craigslist stories are just so creepy.

It still amazes me that people find each other on Craigslist. I mean, if you look at Craigslist, it looks, it looks like it was written in DOS 40 years ago. It looks exactly the same as when it first came out.

Yeah, it's crazy. Sam knew Haggy in high school and knew that he, um, had played cello for a while and figured he can learn bass and started since then. And I was a self-taught musician and this was my first band as well.

Sam has been playing for a little bit, uh, mostly classical on piano and stuff. Um, and when we met, it was funny. It was, uh, we were in the, we're in, I was in the basement of a house party and one of our buddies was down there and it was needed a ride and Sam happened to go pick him up and it was his birthday.

So he was like, Hey man, uh, you want to go smoke him out upstairs really quick? And I was like, Oh, you want to smoke some weed for sure. So we went upstairs and, uh, yeah, we've talked a little bit in the car and realized we'd start the band together and, uh, it's been a lot of fun ever since. Yeah.

Yeah. But it wasn't this particular band. It was, it was a different band.

Well, it was just called the influence, but it just turned into being a casino. Okay. Um, it was really just small, two guys hanging out in the, you know, I still have a photo of when we were kind of dreaming of doing something about, you know, to this extent and it finally happened.

And, uh, you know, once Aggie got in, we had our buddy Joe also come by, uh, Joe Prisdia, who is in Hawaii now studying botany. Also now with us right now. Right, right, right.

And all leaving the state. Yeah. You know, I, I actually see, uh, Joe on Facebook a lot and he is all over the place.

Oh yeah. It sounds like, it looks like he's having a lot of fun. So it sounds like he's doing a good job out there.

So I'm happy for him. And, um, but it was a great time playing with him for, you know, the time being that it was and helped us grow Steve casino as a whole, you know, and, uh, it was definitely a lot of fun, you know, I'm happy with it. So you consider all these guys like still in the band, they're kind of on hiatus or are you looking to rebuild it? How's that working? More so I'd say, I'd say Joe is a former member than anything else.

You know, he, he was our, our inter integral, like starting years that we wrote like one album, like 10 songs. Then, then say main members are obviously, you know, the three of us here and then our buddy Sam as well. Right.

Right. Okay. And when did you join the band? So, yeah, uh, Joe is the original guitar player.

When they actually had a full fledged band, we're out playing shows. It was Haggy, Chris, Sam, who's not here. And Joe, that was the original lineup, right? And then Sam and I had played in an alternative band.

We were touring together and stuff. And, uh, I fronted, I was singing and playing guitar in that band. He said, Hey, my buddy's going off to college, you know, the Hawaii thing that he was supposed to go to Germany or something.

Yeah. Yeah. So basically that's how that transpired.

He left and he's like, Hey, can you come and replace him? I was like, for sure. Right. So then we all started playing together.

And then, um, Sam's still in the band. He's just, you know, he travels a lot for work now, but he's just unfortunately not here today. I understand that.

And, you know, side note, they didn't bring a, they didn't bring guitars with them. I scolded them for that, for not bringing guitars to perform in the studio. So we'll have to get some sound bites and mix in a whole bit, but he's being modest.

I mean, the first time I saw Marco play guitar, he's like, he's like buttered silk, which is the name of his next project. Buttered slick. Don't get me started.

That's going to go this entire podcast. All the names we come up with this whole time. Nah, serious.

He's, he's a fantastic guitar player. That's very kind. He really is.

So, I mean, that's kind of a segue into what's this, what did he call you? Slick Ricky? What did he call you? That's my rap alter ego. There you go. Mine's Papa Squat.

Papa Squat. There you go. If I get my rap side right, it's Papa Squat.

I don't know if many people know this story. Because the video is, I don't know if we ever actually post this. So a long time ago, we played a show.

It was in a shed. And it was, oh man, it was so hot. It was like the middle of July or whatever.

But anyways, we hired somebody to come through. It was more of a barn, right? I feel like shed has a different connotation. It's true.

But anyways, this guy comes and films and takes photos and stuff. And, you know, he put the whole video together, synced all the audio for us. It was cool.

And he said, we had a group chat going and, you know, I'd never met the guy. So he just texted us and said, hey, what's the correct spelling of everybody's first and last name? And thinking one person in the band would correct him. I just was like, yeah, yeah.

Put me under Slick Robinson. That's a joke. Like six months later, I get the final video and everything.

And at the end, it just says the credits and my name is Slick Robinson. I was like, really? Did nobody correct it yet? So it just, it just stuck. It's like that comedy bit by Ron White.

They call me Tater Salad. No, pretty much. Yeah.

That's hilarious. Man. Pretty cool.

Pretty cool. So you were, you were the, you were the third person that joined the band. Yeah.

On bass and that, that became the core. His, uh, I had played bass. I now teach at this place now, School Rock in Moketa.

But I was playing bass a little bit there because I had started with cello as a child and they just needed some bass players as, you know, bands usually do. So I picked it up there and then his, his old man was, or is a bass player as well and had a bunch of equipment. So I was like, well, I mean, yeah, if you have the equipment, I'm down to come.

Sure. Overhang, you know? Right, right, right. And that was definitely, definitely the best part about the early days is just being able to have access to all that equipment.

Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while since I heard you guys, but I remember you, you got a pretty good group. No, I appreciate it.

You're kind of funky. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely try to keep the funk, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Because like I said, it's been a while ago, but I remember the first time I heard you guys, I, I, I immediately thought like spin doctors. That kind of, that kind of a feeler sound.

Is that a fair assessment or what do you guys think you guys sound like? I didn't see that. What was, what's our, our website is something we're actually, we were just messing around with a cars song because in our bio it says cars is one of our inspirations. I'm like, we're going to have to cover that at some point if we keep saying that.

But we kind of just have an amalgamation of like a bunch of different sounds that, I don't know, I kind of find our stuff to be just like whatever stuff that we like. Yeah. It's kind of like the way I like to think about it is Eve Casino is just a salad, you know, but when you stab your fork and you're not getting everything, you know, like you use a little lettuce, carrots, maybe you're not getting a tomato in this bite, but the next bite you might get some tomato.

Yeah. I don't like tomatoes for the record. That's pretty deep for a guy that don't like tomatoes.

That's a deep, deep analogy right there. We're like a salad. Well, yeah, like even our latest release.

That's the next project, Stuck Salad. Like the last release that we had, it's song Dirty Money and Thought About It. Those are two like kind of sides of our same coin of Eve Casino, but like even Thought About It itself kind of mixes a more alternative sound with reggae and then Dirty Money is just more kind of like funk with got a wailing organ in the back and it's quick.

It's going down, going down, it's going down, going down, going down, it's going down, it's going down, going down, it's going down, going down. I like to always think of ourselves and what we do is like celebration of like all the different genres that America has to offer because that's kind of what America is. It's bringing all those things together and celebrating it.

And, you know, we have a song where it starts off very super psychedelic that ends in kind of like a thrash metal kind of sound and it can fit along with even some of our slower, like more feely stuff as well. What song? What's that called? That one is Makeshift Memory. That'll be coming out on the full album June 13th, I believe is when we're releasing the full shebang.

You were the primary writer of it? Not that song. So kind of the way it goes, if there's a song that I'm singing, I tend to have written that one. And then same goes for Sam as well.

Right, right. Now, when the band first started, everybody's got a vision in their head, right? Where maybe you had a meeting and you sat down and said, OK, this is kind of stuff we're into or I'm into. And this is kind of like the vision I have for my band.

Where you are today, is that anywhere similar to where it was when you started the band all these years ago? Uh, yeah. I mean, honestly, it kind of, uh, it's kind of gotten, you know, definitely a lot, a lot better, a bigger sense from what I've imagined before. You know, it's definitely working its way to being a ton of fun.

I mean, it's exactly what I pictured. A lot of the songs, you know, thanks to Marco and Sam for mixing them all, have done a great job of putting the vision into reality and what we're actually looking for out of this. So, I mean, it's, uh, the sounds are exactly what we want.

Everything is, uh, definitely picked individually because we're, you know, in the band actually editing our own stuff. So it definitely makes it, uh, become more of a reality, but it's, uh, yeah, for sure. I was going to ask, so you guys are doing your own engineering.

You're pretty much putting together your own recordings and all, but who's got the studio? Uh, kind of a mix of both of our spots. In our house, we have more of a practice style studio and then him and, uh, him and Sam. Yeah.

I like to just refer to it as like an overdub studio and it's nothing serious. Um, but yeah, we'll record, um, drums at their place. Uh, cause that's where we rehearse and it's, it's pretty dead down there.

We like the, you know, the result we get. Right. And then, uh, guitars and vocals kind of are done anywhere.

We've done vocals that their place, our place. We were in Tennessee. We did bass and guitars for a lot of stuff for this release.

Yeah. Rented out an Airbnb and just tricked it out. We have all the equipment because between them, they, they do it on the side.

So Sam used to do a full time. Right. Right.

So, I mean, uh, most of the stuff we have is like mobile. So we just packed everything up in a van and then, uh, just drove out to Tennessee, up in the mountains. So you had, you had nothing going on, nothing, no reason to be there except for the fact you were like, let's just get the hell out of town and go and merge yourself in music.

Because it just, it's easier for us to focus when we're all just in a place solely to do that thing versus when we're here, it's too easy to say, oh, I just got home from work. Let me just take tonight off guys. We'll do it next week.

Yeah. Right. It's just too quick.

So we were able to get like the meat and potatoes of all the songs done for the album. And it was like 10 days or something. Yeah.

Something like that. Um, he, you know, busted his butt. I don't know if we're allowed to swear.

Oh, you can say whatever the hell you want. This is a podcast. In fact, if people don't swear enough, we throw a few in.

But yeah, no, he, he busted his ass in the first three days, basically had all the drums done. And then, uh, we had two little studios set up, which was cool. So we had like a live tracking room and then there was multiple rooms and floors of this place.

Um, and it had really high ceilings, which was awesome for the drums. Um, and I set up a little bit in a, in like a different room and then he would come in and record bass while the other guys were doing live tracking stuff still. So we kind of, we're just constantly keeping the cycle going at all times.

There was something being done and we had a jacuzzi, which was, we did have a jacuzzi as well. Oh wow. And there was this, there was this arcade pin machine, pinball machine there that like we ended up getting the top three scores on it.

And you can look at three letters. So we had Eve cast, you know, if we may not have got as much work done, it was because of that. But God damn, I was not going to leave that place without us having the fucking high scores on the pinball machine.

After I, after I finished my song, I have everything we needed in three days. I spent the rest of the time in the jacuzzi. Pretty hammered.

Give me a break. So it was nice. Yeah, no, absolutely.

So you guys are done with me. See ya. I'm going to go.

Yeah. And I'm going to meet somebody else new for the band at a massage parlor. That's great.

Yeah. I mean, that in itself is old school. I mean, bands nowadays don't do that.

You know, it's like you gather at somebody's house or you rent out some studio or you do something. That's what you heard about years ago. That's why all the greatest studios out there are like out in the middle of nowhere.

That's why Muscle Shoals is in the middle of a swamp. You know, just get the heck out of Dodge and submerge yourself in the music. It's pretty cool that you guys did that.

Absolutely. It's really true because like we were a band that I've realized over the years, we work best together. You know what I mean? We might have stuff that we work on individually, but when we come together is when we really start hashing out the details.

And that's what was cool. Even though the songs were written, I mean, we were bickering about one song and Just Breathe. I was like, oh, man, that should only go two times.

Like, I don't know, man, four times. Like, you can tell us like, no, no, no solo yet. No solo.

I was like, two times, two times. And it worked out because now we're like, OK, we like how it turned out. Yeah.

At first I was like, no, dude, it doesn't make any sense. What are you doing? And then after now that we do it that way constantly now, it's like, oh, yeah. No, no, Just Breathe and Lucy's Lullaby was made up separately that day.

Well, yeah. We ended up turning Lucy's Lullaby into an entire different song in one day just trying to figure it out. We ended up putting that in the mix.

It was the most random thing, but we ended up having inspiration. Yeah, that's like this jammy compilation after Just Breathe, the first release that we had from this album cycle that we're doing right now. Yeah, like Chris said, we just sat down and composed that all in one afternoon.

And that was the only one where we had to like nail everything on that. Right. You know what I mean? Again, old school.

I mean, that's the way it used to be done. And if bands go on and record a song, then they'd have to spend the next month rehearsing it to play it live. Yeah, right.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, that's pretty cool.

I can't believe you guys are actually doing that. It's kind of a it's an older, more mature mentality. You guys are young guys.

There's another part of it to me because I do a lot of recording on the side and, you know, with modern technology, it's so common just to kind of come in for a short period of time, leave and, you know, back and forth. And then eventually the song gets done. But for us, this felt like like an era was being completed.

Like we can kind of put a wrap on that. Like, awesome. You know, this was the last 12 months or whatever of us writing and composing stuff.

And then once we left Tennessee, to me, at least it felt like, OK, now we have a fresh slate again. Right. You know what I mean? Like not that we stopped writing or anything, but it's like, OK, that chapter of EVE Casino is kind of, you know, it's good.

We can move on. Yeah, because we were actually so excited about Dirty Money and thought about the ones I was that we just released. I was talking about earlier.

We were so excited about those when we wrote them. We're like, this should probably be on the album, right? Yeah. That's the only ones that we recorded fully out here.

But I mean, if you listen to them, those are probably ones where you're like, oh, I could see why they definitely want to add that. Right, right, right. So how long were you in Tennessee doing this work on this album? 10 days.

10 days. Well, 10 straight days. So we had a plan before we went out there of the songs that we wanted to do and what order we were going to do everything in, because we would the way we do things is we live track and then we only keep the drum take.

And then we go back. And you go back and you do it all over again. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Again, again, old school. Yeah, exactly.

10 days. It's like a conclave. Yeah, it is.

Got a lock in there. White smoke coming out. Oh, there was a lot of white smoke.

There was a lot of white smoke coming out for sure. When the album comes out white. Yeah, it wasn't incense.

That's for sure. Yeah, it was in the middle. Oh, sorry.

No, no, no, continue. I was going to say one of the best part was in the middle of nowhere. So we just kind of like the first couple of days, we were like, let's kind of like walk it a little easy.

And then we're like, there's no one around here. Like our driveway was not even joking, like 40 degrees or something like that to get up to the house. And there wasn't a soul around.

It was awesome. Wow. Just one, just like one cabin or one house or whatever.

There was a couple of cabins around, but just their summer homes and it was February or something like that. Oh, wow. You're in the mountains in February.

Yeah. Nobody's going to be there. It was actually really nice out.

There was no weather or anything like that. Yeah. And it was, it was relieving to be in the jacuzzi.

I'm imagining the owner of the Airbnb. They come back in there. Oh my God.

I got to fumigate this place. What the heck's going on here? We were polite. We stopped outside.

Okay. Smells like weed beating ass in here. What are we going to do now? Hey, that's his next album actually.

Eve Casino, weed beating ass. The way we had to put back all the furniture after all that was crazy. We didn't, but we should have taken a picture afterwards.

We had to move everything, all of the sides to be able to fit a drum set in the living room. It was wild for sure. Did you forewarn the owner of the Airbnb beforehand? We did ask.

We got the idea because the band that Sam and I had been in before, like we did the same thing. We just rented a place out and just, you know, being polite said, Hey, this is what we're planning on doing. If you're cool with it.

And also they'll give you the heads up on the neighbors too. Yeah. Right.

Because I've had people be like, I would, but you know, Joe next door doesn't, you know, no, it's whatever. And also just, you know, floors and stuff like that. I want to be courteous, but yeah, just pushed everything out of the way.

Got it set up how we, you know, thought was best. And we like to face each other too. I know sometimes we'll, people will turn around.

We just put up live, feel like it. I don't know, but I really like, I, you know, when you're, when you're rehearsing a recording, I'm the same way. I'd rather be sitting here like around the table, so to speak.

Right. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Now, is that the first time you guys ever did anything like that? Or is it? Yeah, it is in our band. Him and Sam had done that with the other band, but all together.

This band, that was the first time. Yeah. And how many, how many albums do you have? Do you have full length albums or is it just singles you're releasing? So the way we're doing this release, because we, we released an album with Marco called here's the thing in 2023, end of 2023.

And we realized like a lot of the songs towards the end of the albums didn't get a lot of love just because the way people ingest music these days. So we are doing this kind of small release, like double singles. And we did, we've done three of those for this one.

And then we're just releasing the rest of the album here in June. Right. So just something to try and keep stream numbers up for all those songs that would rather have gotten neglected in the album.

And so far it's actually been working out really well for us. Yeah. It's easier to give somebody easier to give somebody two songs as opposed to 10 and they'll more than likely listen to them all the way through.

Right. Maybe even again, you know what I mean? Right. Right.

Yeah. If you give them 10, that's like they, they click on one, they get about halfway through it. Okay.

I got it. I, you know, I got it. I got that one figured out.

Let's listen to the next one. And they, and they go all the way down. Like I said, the last three have no clicks, you know, is the way it goes.

And like when we were trying to write albums, like old school, like, oh, your last song should be a banger, you know, but one of our best songs and favorite songs of the album has no streams. You know, that's kind of, that's kind of a bummer. So this, yeah, this release cycle that we've been doing has been a lot more favorable for us.

I'd say. Yeah. Yeah.

Excellent. Excellent. As well.

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24 seven, all music with its roots in Illinois. So with everybody kind of spread out all over the place, are you guys playing live shows at all? Yeah, we got, we got another one coming up here in June. That's going to be our album release.

Okay. And then what's the, what's the date of that and where that was at Nick and Ivy's. And I believe, oh, okay.

Yeah. Nick and Ivy's is Friday the 13th. Nick and Ivy's is going to have your entire band there.

Oh yeah. Wow. Good.

Good for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. They, uh, they've Paul's, Paul's the shit. Like he's, he's helped us out a lot.

He's brewed a beer for us. Yeah. Yeah.

I saw that. And I've had that beer. It's actually, it's actually a really good beer.

It is. You know? Yeah. No, Paul's Paul's good people.

I like that place. Yeah. No, it's a lot of fun there.

So that's an album release party in June. And what do you guys get? You guys get stuff going on throughout the summer? Um, there's a, there's a couple of shows. We have a cubby bear show at the end of August.

Um, Lincoln Shire or the city, the city, the city. I don't even know if the one in Lincoln Shire is there anymore. I feel like I, I only know the cubby bear in Chicago.

Just because that's the one in Lincoln Shire. It was, it was, uh, it looked like a converted barn, big white building. It's really, but it was really nice inside.

Nick is called the cubby bear North. I played there before, but it's been years. I don't even know if it's still there anymore.

Yeah. It was down the street from like the Marriott Lincoln Shire theater. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So the one in Chicago, you're playing there.

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much, pretty much just that we're logging in and getting, getting some new songs down with Sam being out of town a lot.

We're transitioning another member into the band. Okay. And, uh, yeah, it's just trying to just get back to our roots again.

And we've had a couple of jams of not having a show to prepare for and nothing to stress for. And it's been really fun to like, just kind of chill for a second. You know, going back to something you mentioned earlier, like the music that we used to write before was a lot more jam oriented, a lot more loose.

And, uh, I don't want to say not rehearse, but just kind of like, we knew the gist of sections, you know, and then as we kind of progressed over the last week, maybe two years or so, we've gotten a little bit more specific with certain things like that. And I think now we kind of just want to go back and have a little bit of fun with it again and just, again, put the mics up and hit record and see what happens. Yeah.

Right. Right. Right.

Have you, uh, run into Smiley Tillman? I have not actually. Um, I, I want to go out and see him again. Cause I was, it's been actually a year almost to the day that I ran into.

Have you ever made it out to his jam? Cause you and I had talked about going, I just don't have the time. That's exactly my dilemma. Cause I want to, you know, he's super ecstatic every time I see him and I want to go out there and hang out and play.

Um, but I love the whole band. They're super nice people and I'm just in the same boat, man. I just don't have the time.

Yeah. I got to find it, go out and see him. I keep trying to get him on the, on the podcast here.

And he's, he's busy too. Yeah. What we're talking about is, um, God, you, like you said, it was almost a year ago to the day on Facebook or something.

Yeah. Smiley Tillman is, I mean, a local blues legend and he was playing the studio one night and nobody knew he was playing there because it was like a Wednesday or a Thursday or something like that. And I just happened to stop in there and you stopped in there for whatever reason.

I forgot my card. We played that weekend and I forgot my debit card there. That's right.

I was drunk and I came back to get, and I was like, I guess I'll hang out. And then I was having a beer and I was like, look at this. There was like five people in this place.

Smiley Tillman's up there putting on a, putting on a show. And, um, and he's, he played sitting on the dock of the bay and he started doing the whistle at the end of it. And he's trying to get people to whistle.

So I walked over back by the soundboard where there's a microphone for the sound guy to talk to the people on stage. And I started doing the whistle. And his eyes perked up and he looked around because he heard the whistle.

And he's like, Oh my God, we got another musician in the house. Right. And next thing you know, he says like, you must be a musician.

Come up here and play. And there happened to be this telecaster hanging on the wall. And I started playing with him.

Right. Played a few songs with Smiley Tillman. And, uh, and Marco was there and I said, well, he plays too.

And he said, well, give him the guitar. So I gave him the guitar. I sat down and listened.

So the two of us were jamming with Smiley Tillman one night. It was a lot of fun, man. The video you're right.

It was almost a year ago. Because that little snippet, I think that Laura may have shot that night. Yeah.

Ended up on Facebook on my time hop a few weeks ago. Here's another cool story. So I actually, uh, so that same night he hits me up, uh, he's like, Hey man, I really like, you know, I'm playing, uh, the house of blues downtown.

It was like a Thursday or something like a week, a week to the day. And I was like, man, I, it's interesting. Cause I'm also playing house of blues that day.

Cause I got hired by Nickelodeon to do this, like party one-on-one thing that they do. So I went and played the big room up there and then he's like, well, run on down if you got time. And it just so happened to be perfect timing for their set.

So I got, I played the big room and then I ran down backstage or asked the dude to go backstage. Cause I know there's a way. And he's like, no, you gotta go through the crowd, man.

So I'm like, Oh man. So I'm like, you know, big crowd. And I'm just like squeezing through.

Sorry with my guitar and everything. Try not to poke anybody, whatever, make it to the little dining room that they have there. And he sees me.

He's like, Hey, is that Marco? And I was like, yeah, man, right up there, dude. And we just got up there. No drummer, just two guitars and a bass player, man.

It was awesome. That's so cool. Oh yeah.

That was so much fun. I saw the video, but I was like, were you playing with Smiley Tome at house of blues? It's like, I sure was. I was like, I remember that as part of your plans.

He's like, yeah, that's funny because the experiences that I've had with him were just completely unplanned. Just happens for a moment. That's the best, man.

It's just so much more organic. He's such a teacher too. I mean, he really is.

You play differently standing on stage with this guy. For sure. He just brings you just like down and mellow.

It's like, it's great. It was a good time, man. I appreciate that.

That's what I always felt about those open jams that you guys had on Sundays, like just with like Herman Hines and God rest his soul. Him and Smiley, they both had one day where they were just like shooting, like they were just one liners, but they were just spitting knowledge. I was like, I wish I had a notebook so I could just write this down and like keep it in my head because it was just like, it was one of those beautiful nights.

We are so fortunate in this area to have guys that are so deeply rooted in what I call roots music, not necessarily blues, but Americana and stuff like that. And when these guys just want to share their knowledge, I mean, some of these guys toured all their lives. Maybe they were married at one point in time.

Maybe they weren't. Maybe they have kids. Maybe they don't, but their kids are all grown up and out of the house and they see a bunch of guys that are just like, I'm going to produce some musical children and pass on that knowledge.

I mean, you guys are, I'm probably old enough to be your father, but I mean, but these guys are in 70s, 80s, you know, some of them in their 90s. They look at me like a kid. Hey kid, come over here.

Let me show you. It's so cool to talk to those guys, man. Absolutely.

And I'll tell you what, it shows in your music because I love your music. I enjoyed watching you guys a few times and I saw you guys really. I needed to have you guys.

I wish you had a guitar to play in the studio here, but we'll have to have, we'll have to have Pauly pull some of this stuff down. We got a bunch of stuff, MP3s up there. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I'll tell you what. How can people find you guys? Oh, we got, we got everything on our socials.

So either Eve Casino on Facebook or Eve underscore casino on Instagram. Right. And this is the bit that I always say on our shows.

You can find our stuff on Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, anywhere you can find good music, anywhere you can find bad music. Right. You can share it, steal it.

As long as you give it to someone, we're fine with it. You know. He's practiced that a hundred times.

There should have been music in the back. That was great. The empire carpet man.

But wait, there's more. If you call now for the next 15 minutes. Yeah.

How do they know if you call within 15 minutes of that commercial airing? Cause there's always a little timer ticking down as well. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's always the same timer. So any parting words of wisdom you want to give out to anybody? Something that people should know about Eve casino before we get out of here. Speaking words of wisdom.

Let it be. Just everybody keep playing, man. You know, follow your passions, follow your dreams.

Yeah. And you work hard enough. They just might come true.

So definitely keep on keeping on, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Anyone else? Yeah. I mean, I guess just like going off what Chris said.

You won't realize until you're a main part in the scene until all of a sudden people that I look up to on the scene come to shows and they're like, I can't believe you guys can play like that. That's something that warms my soul every time. Yeah.

Yeah. I just think a lot about if something feels right, stop worrying about perfection, especially in this band. It's something that I got taught the hard way.

Just forgetting about perfection and just kind of asking myself, does it groove? So that's a musician's thing. But yeah, 100 percent. Well, kumbaya, baby.

That's right. That's the first time I've ever used the term 100 percent. No, it is.

And I'm surprised I've used it because I hate it. It's become that everybody says 100 percent. I was at ISU for my kid's graduation and I asked the police officer.

I was trying to find my car and I said to him, I said, is there a creep that runs behind that building over there? He goes 100 percent. And honestly, I didn't know what the hell that was supposed to mean. OK, I guess that means, yeah, there is.

Yeah, that's right. Anyways, man, even casino. Thanks for coming by.

Yeah, thanks for coming by. Thank you guys for having us. I appreciate it.

Yeah, a lot of fun. Nobody got hurt. No.

Hey, before we go. Yeah. Where can people get your new album? Oh, yeah, that will also be Spotify, Apple Music, wherever you stream.

Also, we're going to definitely have some over down the street. Audio fills a couple of our regular, regular record shops. These are going to be vinyl.

Yeah, these ones, we're going to have vinyls eventually, but they're going to come out CDs first. Awesome. Cool.

Very cool. All right. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, guys. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of M&R 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.