Ep 244 Lovedrive Chicago

Lovedrive Chicago is a tribute band that performs the music of the Scorpions. The band aims to recreate the Scorpions' sound and energy by playing their popular songs.

Transcript

Ep 244 Lovedrive Chicago

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 Melancholy Mike.

Melancholy. We're going to be melancholy this week. Oh, okay, like a smashing pumpkin melancholy? I don't know, you know.

Or that guy, that John Cougar melancholy. He's, from now on, he's John Cougar melancholy. Okay.

That sounds like a character in a children's book. Or in Family Guy. Something, yep, something like that.

Yeah, it could be. So why are you melancholy? I know this is coming out sometime mid-July or whatever, but I think we would be remiss if we not, did not take just a minute and talk about the passing of Brian Wilson. That's right.

Did you guys hear about that today? Yeah, I just saw it. Man, you know, that, you know, when I was, I don't know, I don't even know how old I was. I don't think I was 13.

I was pre-teens. And my parents had the Time Life series. And we ultimately ended up getting this cassette collection of music from the 50s and 60s.

And I would always steal the ones that had the Beach Boys stuff on it. I was this young kid and I would take all the tapes that had the Beach Boys music on it. So I didn't like to see that today.

That sucked. Yeah, it did. 82 though.

I mean, he's lived a long life. Yeah, and somewhat of a troubled life. He battled mental illness and the whole bit.

But he was a genius, musical genius. Yeah, yeah. We talked about on the last podcast about the musical auteur.

I actually looked that up. That is a phrase. I didn't think you just knew that offhand.

Yep, I looked that up and it was started with, it started with Phil Spector. Right, right. He's considered to be the first one.

And Brian Wilson was a student of his. And so he's considered to be one of the first musical auteurs. These guys that could walk into a studio and use the studio as their instrument.

They didn't need to have anything written down. They didn't need to have a song ready to go. It's just whatever inspired them within the studio is what caused them to create a song.

And that's the way it sounded. And I mean, that's just, that's a level of genius. This is brilliant, man.

It's like, wow. And he's got a connection to the Chicago area. That's the most people don't realize that.

From 1997 to 2001, he was trying to make his own little comeback. And of all people, a guy who wrestled in the WWE, I think it was, or whatever, he wrestled. Oh, what was his name? His name was Dude Love.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Remember that? I got some dolls that are of Dude Love.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he was from St. Charles, Illinois. And he convinced Brian Wilson, their wives became friends.

And he convinced Brian Wilson. He's like, look, I'm going to put up the money. We're going to produce this for you in the whole bit.

Make a solo album. And it was Brian Wilson's solo album called Imagination, I believe it was called. And they, and he bought the house right next to him.

And he lived in St. Charles from 1997 to 2000. Steve Dahl had something to do with that too. Yeah.

He was involved in the producing of that album too. Yeah. Yeah.

But I mean. Mick Foley is Dude Love. No, there was a Dude Love before Mick Foley.

Oh, really? Yeah. As I looked it up, there was like, there's been like several Dude Loves. But the guy that I'm thinking of is the guy that he was really, he became more known as a manager and he acted as almost like an evangelistic preacher, but he was a manager and he was Dude Love or Buddy Love.

Dude Love, Bromance, whatever you want to call it. Something like that. Something like that.

So why don't we make our own magic here now? Yeah, why don't we do that? Let's create something tonight. Yeah, absolutely. Who do we have in this? There was this voice that came out of nowhere.

That's right. We've got Love Drive Chicago here. How are you guys doing tonight? Good, good to be here.

What's up? Is that working? I don't think that's working yet. Yeah, there you go. We got to get our own crowd music.

Our special effects aren't working tonight. How's it going, guys? We're doing good. Great, great.

Why don't you tell everybody who's here tonight? Yeah. Well, I'm Sean. I play guitar.

The Shanker parts. The Shanker parts. The Shanker boy.

Yep. That's the Shanker boy. Yep.

And I'm Jeff Tokar, lead vocalist, the Klaus. Yeah. All right.

So in case you guys haven't put two and two together yet, these guys are a Scorpions tribute band. Completely. Oh, yeah.

I'm looking at the T-shirt with this giant scorpion on it with the scorpion album font across that says Love Drive. Who's not here with us tonight? Oh, drummer, bass player, and lead guitarist. Yeah? Yeah.

We got a couple of them have a little bit of a rehearsal tonight for a show they're doing at the Des Plaines Theater. Oh, okay. Yeah, they couldn't.

And they trusted you two. I know. I gave them one more chance.

You guys want to save us. So is this strictly, I mean, are you guys strictly performing locally, or do you guys travel all over the place? Well, we're, we got some stuff in the works right now. We'll play like anywhere and everywhere, really.

Yeah. Okay. I just want to kick out the jams, rock you like a hurricane, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the reason I asked is because, especially this part of the country, I can't even say this part of the country. It's the state of Illinois. Because you get out of Illinois.

Right. For some reason, and I travel around a lot, other states aren't as gung-ho over tribute bands as the Chicagoland area. The club.

I mean, there are tribute bands playing in every club on the weekends in Chicago. But you get to the Twin Cities or whatever. It's not the same way.

You know, it's not the same way. It's true. I mean, but there is a popularity for it.

Because you've got people, you know, you've got people, you know, like Pink Floyd tribute bands that are filling out stadiums. Like Pink Floyd would. Yeah.

I have a friend, a guy that's been on this, on the podcast, that's playing in like a shared tribute band. And they are, I mean, he's never home. They're on planes constantly going all over the place.

It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. Playing, you know, shared tributes and stuff like that. And these people believe it's her.

Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah.

But I mean, I mean, hey, it's great work if you can find it and get it. So that's why I was asking, is it pretty much limited here? Because it seems like you guys are really into it where you're going to go anywhere and, you know, hopefully sell out arenas or small theaters. That'd be pretty awesome.

We have one thing going for us that when we do play in a strange area for a strange audience, we always kill them with the show part. Right. And that's our forte.

I think that is the winning combo. Yeah. We can play anywhere for any crowd.

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I'm the dude, like I bring out the Marshall stacks, even if I don't need to.

And like, I'm running around like crazy and shit. Like I just, I just love the Scorpions. They're like probably one of my favorite bands and I'm only 34.

So yeah, I'm a little, little, you know, I miss that all the mega jams of the Scorps, but I love them all. And yeah, it's like I would, when I was learning how to play, like before school, that it would be Metal Mania and VH1 Rock Fest before, like I would get on the bus for school. So like every morning it'd be like Rocky, like a hurricane, winds of change, and then like some wasp and stuff.

It was sick. So I'm always like, I've always been a metal dude. My whole life.

So like the Scorpions, I felt were like, just like the ultimate hard rock, heavy metal band. And their riffs were easy enough to where I could like figure them out. And then through time, I just like love it.

And that's kind of how I play naturally anyways. Like, I just kind of think like, I mean, I love shredding, but I'm like, I like the rhythm and like locking it down because I play bass as well. But with this band, I shred the guitar.

So you bring out a real half stack just to play. Full stack, I got two. Full stack just to play a bar gig.

Yeah, dude. Oh, yeah. There was a time.

Usually there's not enough stage. But he hit the nail on the head. He said, he's 34.

Come back and talk to me in 20 years. You're still going to bring out that whole stack. And I'm like, nah, man.

I bring out the Blues Jr. Cause I'm like that son of a bitch anyway. I just like looking back and just being eye level with the knobs and shit. Like, you might want to think about getting a Blues Jr. And building a fake, just, you know, get some plywood and build a fake facade.

Nah, nah, man. I got to do it for real, dude. Because then I used to do, like I was saying, with the fully loaded stacks and everything, I would run stereo like ABY.

And I would use, because I have a Marshall JCM800. And then at the time an AVT. So I would use both Marshalls like combined to have my distortion tone.

And it was insane. So do you have the black and white Flying V and all that? I do. Oh, yeah.

Yeah? Oh, yeah. I've got the black and white V. It's my favorite. So we ask every tribute band this.

So do you dress up like these guys? Is it a visual show as much as it is? An audio show? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, man, I wish I had some leather pants.

I'd be badass. I just wear like your standard, like ripped up. You do it once.

I've done it. You do it once. Do you ever see the episode of Friends where Ross is wearing leather pants.

And he starts to sweat so much you can't get the leather pants off. So he tries to dry it out with baby powder. And he makes a paste in his crotch.

I've been there. That's what it takes. If there's a price you gotta pay, it's a price I'll pay.

Leather pants, man. They're hot. Yeah.

I used to do it all the time. It's like, man, no, I'm done with this crap. No way, man.

I'll do it once and learn. And then we'll see how bad I really want to do it, you know? Or parachute pants. Find some parachute pants from the 80s.

No, God. And a members only jacket. From the merry-go-round.

Yeah, yeah. And you too. You wear the leather biker's cap in the home.

Oh, yeah. I leather out. I wear as much as I can.

And try and be Klaus Main all the way. Yeah, yeah. Even imitating a German accent, if you have to speak into the microphone.

Don't get shade! California! Yeah, yeah. So no, seriously, Scorpions, they were one of what I call my high school bands. You know, I was cruising around in high school.

So between the ages of 14 and 18, they were relevant and on the radio when I was in high school in my formative years. And the first time I ever heard of them, I was at my uncle's house, probably for something like, I don't know, Christmas Eve or something like that or whatever. And my cousin Jennifer had this stack of albums because she got a new stereo, probably for her eighth grade graduation or something.

And somebody said, here's a bunch of albums. And we're going through them trying to figure out what the heck is going on here. And somebody says, the dude's got forks in his eyes.

So, of course, I was the guy I was the guy who's like, play that. Right. Right.

And of course, the first song is played. And I was like, oh, I know I've heard of this band before. Absolutely.

And that was kind of my first experience with the Scorpions. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

So what makes a 30? Well, you're 34. So yeah. So I guess what made you seek out because that's kind of past your time.

What made you seek out that music from that era? So like growing up, my my dad was always into like metal and like the Scorpions and Dockin, a lot of Dockin and Kiss. So Kiss is like my favorite bands, which I know even sounds even crazier because I'm 34. The Kiss was my first concert when I was 16.

Actually, my mom took me and my brother to Kiss. Yeah, it was fucking bad. Cool, cool.

And so I've always just liked that kind of music. And then like Queensryche too. Just like, oh, I guess it's like, I don't know if it's like heavy metal or just metal or whatever.

But like, because I know like you could get down in the weeds for days about the different subgenres of metal. What is heavy metal? What's death metal? Like I've always been into that stuff. And then my mom was like into Cher and like that kind of stuff.

So I had a little bit of everything. And now like I'm like super into death metal. Yeah.

Wow. I'm all over the place. Yeah.

Wow, no kidding. But that's yeah, I just I just listened to it. I was like, I like this stuff.

I still like System of a Down when they were coming out because that was like my high school love System of a Down. I was all into them. I saw like every time they came to town, I would go to their concerts.

I actually got in trouble. So in high school, I was in the guitar ensemble class and we had to do like we had to do like I think four concerts a year. Like the whole class plays, you know, and use and whatever.

And they're like classical songs. At the time, I'm like, this is lame. I want to play Black Sabbath riffs and like metal and stuff.

And then I missed two of them because of System of a Down concerts. And I missed the third one because of Van Halen. And the teacher was like, dude, you're supposed to do four shows like for the concerts.

You did one. Technically, I'm supposed to fail you. I was like, all right, man.

Well, if you got to fail me, it is what it is. Like I'm still going to System of a Down. I'm still going to go see Van Halen.

I was like, you got to do what you got to do. Honestly, that's like research. Like I should be getting extra credit for that.

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, absolutely. I didn't get fired.

Mr. Jackson, he was my guitar teacher in Linkway Central. I thought you were going to tell me that you had to do something like you had to play a classical piece on guitar. And because you really could, you could play aerials by System of a Down as a classical piece.

During the one concert I did make, we had to like come up with like this piece. And I did. And then at the end of it, I went, bam.

And immediately, I'm like, yeah. And then like everyone in the class was like, dude, that was hilarious. Oh, my God.

You should see the teacher's face. I walk, I'm like walking off the stage to him. I could see him was like, why'd you do that? Yeah.

And I was like, because I thought it was funny. He's like, yeah, yeah. Music, not funny.

Oh, yeah. By the way, like I'm going to miss the next one for Van Halen. So I'm not sorry.

So, so where'd you come from, Jeff? I mean, I can probably pretty much guess why you're a Scorpions fan. I came from Indiana, 219er. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. St. John, Indiana.

Still played with a lot of bands, a lot of bands from Indiana still. They cross the line and play over here in Illinois a lot still. So still in touch with all those people.

Yeah. Got to start there, man. Indiana.

Yeah. My brother was a lead singer in a band there, a real popular one, doing all the 80s classic rocks. And I just, I watched him do it so many times and went to so many shows as a young kid, you know? Yeah, right.

And I like, I can do that. Yeah, I can give it a shot. I can try that.

Yeah. Now, do you play any instruments or are you just a vocalist? No, the very first band that I ever got in when I was working in out in Ohio, I was playing bass. Okay.

And they're like, all right, we're going to do this song called Fastway, you know, and say what you will or something like that. And no one could sing it. Right.

So I ended up stepping up and singing and they're like, oh, Jesus, you're our singer now, you know, trade that bass in for a microphone. Yeah. No more bass for you.

Yeah. Which is pretty cool because then you get to show up with just like a leather bag over your shoulder and put up all kinds of bass. I know, right? Yeah.

The lead singer syndrome. No, I'm joking. He, he actually brings, brings some gear.

I bring a ton of shit to the shows. Yeah. I do.

Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.

Often the bodily Yeager too. One of the most important. One of the most important.

Pieces of the puzzle. Of course. Right, right, right.

So who put the band together? It was kind of given to me is the way that happened. A really good friend of mine, a drummer called Rick Kroll from South side of Chicago. He, he put the band together originally.

Okay. And he literally just was burnt out. Every time somebody would quit, they'd get somebody new.

Another person would quit. And he just said, I'm done with it, man. I hope I never see it again in my life.

Right. And he just said, will you take it and just do something with this? Wow. I did.

And what year was that? Good God. I don't know. Maybe seven, eight years ago.

No, it's gotta be longer than that. Cause I was like 25 when I joined the band. Wow.

Yeah. So you guys have gone through quite a few, uh, personnel changes. Yes.

I'm assuming. Yeah. It took us a while to get to this group that we have right now where everybody was like, all pro wanting to go as far as we could with this, you know? Yeah.

Well, I mean, we played the house of blues maybe five times, six times. Wow. Yeah.

Between like 2017 through, oh yeah. Yeah. Cause to 20.

Yeah. Yeah. I got, I have the tickets on my fridge, so I walk past them all the time.

I like that shit. It's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, we've been like the most, like we've been, you know, yeah.

Like I said, I joined the band when I was like 25. So. So who are we missing tonight? So we got Costa.

Costa, Costa, Costa, Dan. Yeah. Say that 10 times.

That's easy for you to say. Sorry. I fucked up your name, homie.

Yeah, he's, he's, he's our MCS right now. They have motherfucking shredder. He didn't want to make it, but he's listening.

All right. If you can hear me, you're a bitch anyways. Um, he's a, he's a shredder and, and, uh, he's, uh, in this thrash band called misfire.

Okay. So I actually played, I was, uh, Yeah. Yeah.

They were doing a tour with Exodus long ago. So, um, but yeah, he's, he's doing that and jamming with us as well. He goes out on little mini tours for a month or two or three.

And we just kind of hold back and wait for him. You know, we don't, we're not in a big hurry to play games. Sure.

And then, uh, our bass player, I'm not, you could say his name. Cause I don't want to fuck it up. Barry Kleber.

Hell yeah. Barry's a beast on the bass. Yes.

And dude's oftentimes side note. This dude has like the ultimate bass tone coming from his amp. But he's always like, I need more bass in the wedge.

And then I'm like, all right, fine. Turn out my stack. So our side of the stage is always loud.

It's always shaken. Yeah, it is. But you know, that's, see, that's why I need a stack.

Cause I got to play with bass players. He's always competing with volume. That's right.

That's true. And then, and then our drummer. Yeah.

Greg Gillespie. Greg Gillespie. Okay.

Yep. And are you, are you all, are, are you guys in Indiana? Where's home base for you guys? No, I'm like 10 minutes down the street. Okay.

Yeah. We all live close in the same area, but we rehearse at my house in Naperville. Okay.

So you're, so you're here now. You're no longer a two on nine. Yeah.

I've been out here for good God. I don't even know how many years now. Yeah.

Probably 40. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So how are you guys finding your gigs? You know, it seems to always be different when we talk to tribute bands. It's funny.

If there's a buzz going on. Yeah. And you're doing your well, and you're up here.

Everybody's calling you constantly. Sure. Then if you miss a month or two or three, all of a sudden, everyone's like crickets.

Yeah. Yeah. Go out and beat the bushes, you know, and start all over.

You got to blow out the dust. Yes. What kind of places are you looking for? Or what kind of places I better question is what kind of places are looking for you guys? Cause I mean, I don't, I don't know a lot of Scorpion tribute bands out there.

Right. And I've got an image in my head as to where I'm going to go and see a Scorpion tribute band. No, no, no.

We like real estate. So we like big stages. So we, we kind of tend to hover around the theaters.

Okay. Like the Hobart Art Theater. Yeah.

Arcada. Nice. That kind of setting anyway.

And it works good for us because we put on a concert. It's more like, like a show atmosphere versus like when you go to like see a five band show or whatever. Right.

It's like, all right, show starts at this time. The first band, they get 30 minutes. It's like rapid fire.

So we try to do anywhere between like at least an hour to an hour and a half to where we could do like a show. Right. You know, it's, it's like the Scorpions themselves do it.

Right. It's not, they're not just. So you're not, you're not looking for, you're not looking for bar gigs.

You're not looking for the three, one hour sets with a 30 minute break in between. You're looking, you're looking for this. So, so how was it? So for, for musicians listening to this, right.

So how is it different looking for gigs like that versus a bar gig? You got to have some different kind of business plan or marketing technique for doing that. For one, you don't even go to like a broker that books all the clubs, the small clubs, because that's all they have is that little handful of clubs that they book. Right.

For the theaters, you got to go right to the owner. Okay. And you end up having a good rapport with them and you know them and you talk and you can call them and, you know, or message them and say, Hey, you know, I want to put a show together.

Yeah. And it takes months sometimes to line them up. It does.

It's a lot of hard work. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot more schmoozing involved if you're dealing with the owner of a theater. Yeah. And you probably, you probably have to call on the guy many times before he's going to return your call or give you the time of day.

Yeah. They're so busy that it's just, it's just a matter of catching them on the right day at the right time at the right moment and boom, everything just happens. Right.

Right. So, so it's not just about marketing for you guys. It's not just about putting together a website or anything like that.

You got to be salesman. When I say salesman, I'm not talking about retail. I mean, you have to be salesman.

You have to sell yourself. I mean, with this, with this biz, it's like 1000% what it is. Like this is what I, this is what I, this is what I am.

This is what I'm about. This is what I can offer, you know, like, so when we're, when we're doing a show or we want to book a show, it's like, we're not doing the three, one hour sets. Like, cause we're, we have an art, like close my eyes and have a plan.

Okay. This is how our show is going to be seen. So we're going to make sure that like, cause the environment has to be right too.

Right. So if, if you're wanting to like, like for bands that are booking shows, you know, starting off bands or whatever, like you can't do the small dive bars and then the theaters at the same time. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? You have to kind of like pick a lane and like, if you, if you can't do your show properly in a theater, then don't, don't try it. Cause all you're going to do is set yourself up for failure. And then that owner is going to be like, man, these guys never happened again, ruined it.

So that when you're ready and you have something that would do great in a theater, it's like, oh, well, I remember that one time. So I would say if, if you're starting off play anywhere you can play, which isn't going to be a theater right away. But if you have a show that like a vision that you want to do, like that could work in a theater, I would say go for it.

But you're going to have to figure some stuff out first. You got to think outside the box and really put a production on you. Any festivals or anything? We didn't do anything last year at all.

Did we? No. Cause I was, I did a lot of touring last year. Cause so I do front of house for bands.

I actually work across the street at the Forge too. What's up? So shout out to the Forge. And we're looking for sponsors.

We are looking for sponsors. So the Forge would like to sponsor us. You can walk across the street with a check.

You got Sean Coogan in the house. I will make some calls for you guys. But so I, last year I worked with Saliva and a couple other bands, Kingdom Collapse and Saul and Adelita's Way.

I had a blast last year. It was a lot of fun. So this year I'm doing more like stuff around home, trying to build up my, cause I started my own audio company as well.

So I'm trying to build that up and it's going great. I'm, I'm booked up, you know, every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, minimum plus setups and stuff. You know, it's cool.

It's going great. So last year we couldn't really play because I was gone. Or if I was home, it'd be for like two weeks.

And then heading out again. And then I'm like, Oh, I got to go again, man. So, yeah.

But I learned a lot just seeing like how different shows are, are ran everything from like small clubs to like, you know, giant festivals, like we did Welcome to Rockville and Louder Than Life. It was insane. Well, it sounds like you guys, I mean, you guys can afford yourselves that luxury because nobody's relying on the money from the bank to pay your bills and raise your families and do all that good stuff.

So you can kind of wait for the good ones to come along. But I'm just, you know, I was just trying to hit home and let the younger people that listen. We have a lot of young listeners that listen to the podcast and they're like, well, you know, they ask us all the time.

How do you find gigs? How do you do this? Well, you kind of have to decide what it is that you, you know, what you want to do. You know, and in this particular case, you know, I can imagine, you know, let's say you're trying to get into a theater and let's just call the owner Ron. I bet you can guess who I'm talking about.

We won't talk about him. We won't talk about him live, you know, right here. But, you know, you call Ron and it's like, Hey, Ron, I got this great band.

I like to play here. You might not hear from him. So you got to put a little note for yourself in your phone.

Call Ron again, you know, next month, you know, or whatever it is. I remember calling Ron. Let's just call it Ron.

Yeah. For like a year, nothing. Crickets.

And then I was out in Indiana for Father's Day and out of the clear blue of my phone. Yeah. Ron, Ron's calling.

Hey, I got a show. You could, you could say it's Ron Onesti. It's, it's episode 44 on the rock and roll Chicago podcast.

That's right. Wow. He did.

He did a podcast before my time. He did. Episode 44.

Episode 44. No kidding. It's funny.

He, he is one of the nicest, nicest guys I've ever met my entire life. I just, I can't, I cannot believe that personality and that guy. Yeah.

I mean, he's a little guy with this big, huge personality. Yeah. Right.

Right. It's amazing. Yeah.

And he treats you like royalty when you play there. Yeah. Yeah.

That place is awesome. I think I signed every single door in the green room. I love drive.

I'm pretty sure I did. You're listening to the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Hey everybody.

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Up on board the bus stop blues where the blues never stops rolling. Do we call the score? What do we call the scorpions? Do we call them 80s metal? What do we call the scorpions? I know right then that's what's like all the subgenre. Well they're because I don't call them classic metal.

I wouldn't call them classic. I would say just hard rock metal. I mean yeah.

No that's what I call them. In the 80s they were heavy. I mean they were heavy.

They were considered heavy but they also called poison heavy metal in the 80s. That's true. That's what I'm saying.

Hair metal or whatever it was. I definitely wouldn't call the scorpions hair metal right. Hard rock.

Hard yeah hard rock right. And I mean that genre has kind of gone through a couple of different changes. It sure has.

Oh yeah. So what's different I guess? You know talk about it musically maybe or you know what's different? You know why why does that sound so much different and inspiring? And then sometimes you hear things that might be classified as the same thing that's being produced new nowadays. Yeah I know.

And it kind of loses its appeal on people. What what is it? I think commercialized for one. That like a lot of a lot of music nowadays is like mixed and mastered to be like huge and the same like everything's got to be slamming whether it's the full you know three guitars, full drums, keyboards, everything followed by the acoustic part.

Back in the day it would when the acoustic guitar would hit it would be quieter because you're losing the whole band. With a lot of chorus pedal. Yeah yeah.

A lot of like another thing is like everything nowadays is like very digital because. Right. I don't want to bring the Marshall stack.

I don't want to bring a Marshall and then you know a Peavey and then all this to get this sound. I could get it it's replicated and I'm sure it's great everyone stands by these plugins and they're awesome right. Everybody loves their fractal.

Yeah it's but I can hear the I can hear that. I hate I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan.

It sounds different than stuff that was handmade like a dude soldered that and I don't know if you guys have ever tried to solder. I tried to solder it took me like two hours. Well I tried to solder like a subsnake on an XLR and I found out how thin the wires are on an XLR cable.

Yeah it was not gonna hit two hours and yeah I only burned myself once though. But you know that's that was handmade. Nah I was listening.

It's like mini welding soldering. I mean yeah it's an art. It's an art.

And it looked all right but you know when I put the cable back together you can't see it so it works though. It's you know it's a point but like all that stuff you had you know you had an amplifier and a microphone in front of that so the microphone colors it up the your preamps all that stuff makes a difference. So when you just go warm tones when you go from your your guitar straight into a pedal board box like yeah it replicates the air but it's different than actually having a microphone because each microphone is different too.

Right. So but then again like I don't have that gear I have the Marshalls like because that's what I like you know snakes and sparklers. That's what I like man.

But even not you it's about the consumer you know. But you know even in the even in the 80s though you would see you would see a lot of guitar players where they had the hardware they had the gear right. But you know multi-effects pedals were the shit in the 80s.

They really were. And you get 30 of them. Yeah yeah and I used to hate them because if that thing broke your sound is gone.

Yeah okay story about that. So we were doing it before I got before I became the Marshall guy remember Jeff I had one of those it was the line six pot HD 500. It was like oh the ultimate one of those.

This sounds just like a Marshall JCM 800 right you know right out the box. I'm like oh okay cool. So we're doing a show and we're playing No One Like You.

So I go to play the clean part you know and if you're like burning it's automatically switched to the distortion channel. I'm like that's odd. I go hit the clean you know patch again defaulted to the distortion channel.

So I had to finish out that show you know like palm mute and everything. Right right right. I was like yo Jeff I got to get rid of this hunk of junk.

Yeah today do you know yeah today like I'm about to throw it in the garbage right now after this gig. So he's like oh I know someone that's selling a Marshall. Yeah yeah.

So man my first Marshall JCM 800 half stack and then I got another cabinet and then I got another head the AVT 150 and it was like I need two more cabinets. Now I got a triple super lead. I've never had a good excuse with with line six stuff live studio cool live never had a good experience.

I played in a band one time with a guy that bought a line six amp a 212 line six amp a thousand sounds in this amp with the board and everything that comes along with it. And he was one of these guitar players that wanted to sound exactly like the recorded guitar and he had all these sounds in this line six. And first of all it was such a compressed sound that sound guys had a hard time with it cutting through the mix right.

And so this guy he couldn't he couldn't find a sound that he liked for one particular song. And so he brought back his fender twin reverb and his pedal board. So you stand up there looking at him up there on stage.

He's got this giant line six thing here. He's got this giant pedal board over here. He's got his line six over here and he's got a and he's got a fender amp sitting on top of the line six because he needed he needed that for the sound of one song.

Geez. Yeah for that one it's a bit much you know that's where I'd be like well see when I bring my Marshall stack it's one stack pedal board. I have like a noise suppressor because it's a Marshall so it's noisy.

Yeah noise suppressor. Electro harmonic soul food. Fantastic pedal.

I know right. It is the best and I'm barely hitting it too. And that's so that's like another pro tip for up and coming guitar players.

The insane mode on the line six amps that's not a good tone because that's hard as hell to cut through to a mix like there's it is possible to have a terrible guitar tone that in the room sounds you know good. Don't ever scoop out your mids all the way. The guitar is a mid-range instrument.

Keep your mids. That's right. Yeah but as far as effects some Marshall tone the soul food the boss chorus.

Yep. The I think it's electro harmonics flashback digital delay. Yeah yeah yeah.

Like a wah. Yeah that's all you need. That's absolutely all you need.

I'm a guitar I'm a guitar into amp guy myself. I mean yeah I have a pedal board but it's they're not there's no effects. I have a soul food.

In my opinion that is the best Klon clone pedal made. It's I freaking love it. It's awesome.

In a pinch like just through like the clean channel on a regular amp it's doable you know. So with the Marshall it's like yeah just a little bit of sizzle like yeah I'm not hitting it that hard as hard as I would have probably when I was younger. Captain Insane or distortion.

You don't play with a stock Marshall do you? No it's my yeah but see all right how is it modded? I don't know. I bought it from the dude he's like it was modded. I'm like cool it sounds great.

I know I turn up the low end all the way but I don't get like that terrible like knocking sound on the back of the cab. So it's like yeah and then everything else I don't know. Yeah we know some guys that do some crazy shit to Marshall heads.

Yeah. I mean to the point where Shanker was buying them from him even. Oh wow.

Yeah we took one up to the House of Blues and sold it to him in the right after his show right before the show or right after it but. Wow. Oh yeah.

That's pretty cool. He knows a good amp when he hears me. Shanker bought it from you.

Yes. Wow that's cool. Yeah it is yeah.

Then I mean what'd you do to replace it then? Yeah well I don't know. I don't know it wasn't mine. Oh.

I still got mine. I'm yeah. You got one that was in that pile though.

Yeah because he brought over four of them. Yeah. Yeah this dude brought over four different Marshalls.

He's like pick one like try them all out. Holy crap. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. Nice. It was.

So what's your. He wanted me to buy all of them. It's like I can't.

I want to. I'm actually looking for a 900 now so I can complete the trifecta. Right.

I have an 800 I want a 900 because I have a 2002 so. Nice nice. And then I'll run all three of them at the same time.

Oh dear lord. Three stacks baby. I'm telling you.

You're going to hear me from my house all the way over here. I went to the in-ears just because of all that. So I could hear myself.

So what's the show like with you guys? So you're playing what it's like an hour and a half type. Yeah. Theater show and stuff.

Hour and a half. Yeah. Are you doing all the hits? Are you throwing in some b-sides there? Tell me a little bit about the show.

So we're doing we're doing like the hits that you have to do. Okay. Yep.

With a couple extra goodies you know. Like I'm a fan of the heavier stuff. So we throw in some heavier tunes that.

Like what? Like He's a Woman She's a Man. Another Piece of Meat. Dynamite.

Dynamite. Okay. My favorite.

Yeah. We'll do old school if there's an old school crowd. You can tell.

You can feel it man. And you know who likes what. So we'll either grab the oldies and throw them in there as much as we can and sprinkle it in.

Because we don't get to play them all the time do we? No. Yeah. So it's kind of a gift to us you know.

When there's a Scorpion fan club out in front of you and they're like yeah. Where's that separation between old school Scorpions and new Scorpions? If there's more ladies it's new Scorpions. If it's a bunch of dudes in black shirts.

No like what album? Yeah I'm talking like album year. Oh. Yeah.

Boy. Wow. I think Blackout.

Well we always do. We always do those. And Forward you know because they got way more commercialized.

Yeah. With their songs. Yeah.

There's some lovey-dovey songs they do. There are people like oh that's a Scorpion song. Savage Amusement is like one of my favorite albums from them.

I know it's kind of like super produced but it's got some jams. So that like it would be sweet if like oh we could do like if we could play a three hour show. Yeah I know.

I say that until it's like all right it's time to do it. After two hours you're like oh. There's so many like awesome songs.

So it's like we do like you know your standard like mega hits you know. We basically do what the Scorpions do live. Okay okay.

Except for we add some of the earlier 70s like the Uli John Roth stuff. Sure right. If you know or we'll do like more of like the.

I totally forgot about him. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Rhythm of Love like that kind of stuff you know. Yeah okay. I like it all so.

Right here's a good marketing idea. Figure out a three hour show but do it in two nights. Yeah.

I like that. Get people to buy tickets for two nights. Yeah yeah.

Yeah. Advertise like that. Part one is this.

Part two is this. Run if you're listening. I get a commission on this run.

Yeah. Or you'll do something like perform one album in its entirety. Yep.

And that was you know. I was thinking about that. We kind of do worldwide live now.

We do we do. So. Yeah.

The like the ultimate live album. Just change it a little bit. Tweak it for the night.

Right. Yeah yeah. Excellent.

I mean I would love the. I mean dude I probably mentioned this. Because like I said I've been in this band since I was 25.

So I went through all of the. Dude what we should do is learn every. Learn every single album.

Every single song. We could just call them out and it's like okay sure. So I would do a lot of this like learning them all.

Because I just love it and it's fun. And then it'd be like you know we'd play play it once or twice. And oh we try out a new song.

So now we have like our set list pretty refined. But we're still always trying to add new stuff. Right right.

Because eventually I'll just keep playing the riffs. I'll be like you guys better jump in on this. You're making it weird.

Well you know you can do stuff like that with a band like the Scorpions. Because remember they started off on vinyl. Back when albums were eight to ten songs.

Not like nowadays where you can have 15 to 21 songs on a full length album. It's crazy. Yeah to the edge.

Yeah yeah. So you could learn you could learn three albums of material. And you've only got like 24 songs learned.

That's the way it used to be. So how can everybody how can people find you guys? Do you guys have a website? Do you have? We do. We got a website.

lovedrivechicago.com right? Dot com yep. Yep right on. I don't know if we got an Instagram and all that.

But if we don't we're gonna I'm gonna set it up soon. Are you on Facebook? Yes. Yeah because you gotta be on Facebook.

Yeah yeah. The new one is Instagram though. That's when everyone's telling me.

Yeah but you know what I'll tell you what. You know we do this all the time. We always talk about Facebook and Instagram and the whole bit.

And from my own bands and everything. You don't reach the same amount of people on Instagram. You don't have the ability to do those invites.

The algorithms won't let you. Yeah but if you've got a Facebook account. You can link it to an Instagram account.

So whatever you put on Facebook. Yeah. Goes out on Instagram.

That's when it like sticks up. Right yeah. It's not like you have to post stuff on Instagram.

It just takes it. We just made a video not too long ago. A bunch of short clips of all the House of Blues shows.

Yeah. Oh yeah it looks sick. Check that out for sure.

We just threw it on Facebook. You know we got over a thousand views on it in the past few days. You will see my stacks.

All over. That's right man. He's proud of his stacks.

That guy in the elevator at the House of Blues. You know he's like didn't you just do this three or four times. You know it's like.

Yeah because it's a little elevator when you bring your gear up. Right yeah. From underneath.

Yeah yeah yeah. If you had to haul that shit up the stairs by yourself. Oh no.

You'd stop doing it pretty quick. Right then and there man. Stairs all right.

But like every time I bring them everyone tells me. Oh dude that's so cool. I wish I had a stack.

That sweet sound. Yeah. But deep down inside everyone they see my stacks.

It's like how can you not want to have a stack yourself. Like yeah you got it sucks to move it. But like whatever it's my workout.

I gotta do something. Drink an extra beer. Do a gig at Mother's where you got to take it down into the basement.

Yeah. Or there was a place on the north side by Loyola it was called Huey's. And honest to God it was only the second floor.

But I swear you went up three or four flights. I mean it went forever. Yeah well maybe for that one I'd make an exception.

Yeah yeah. For the half stack. Half stack that night yeah.

But. But you're young you can still carry it. That's right.

Yeah one cab in each hand. Let's go. Yeah.

All right gentlemen. All righty. I think that comes to the end of our time together.

I think it does. You guys got any gigs coming up anytime soon like end of July August. We're trying to put this show together right now.

And I think we're going to do it in Wisconsin believe it or not. Okay. We we draw real well up there in Waukegan.

Okay. So we're going to try and grab a local band from up there to open up for us. And we're going to we're going to play.

You ever do that tribute thing in Kenosha that big. Oh yeah. Yeah you've done that.

Yeah. Did that a couple times. Too many times.

I remember the one time we were on the the beach front stage. And I was all set. I was like oh yeah we're on the beach front stage.

Yeah yeah. How lucky we are. And we were like not facing the beach at all.

We were like facing the opposite way. And we're just getting slammed by wind. Wow.

So it was. In sunburn. We were off for a day.

I was like not. And then like pulling up. I'm like dude man my truck's gonna get stuck in this sand.

I got I don't got four wheel drive. I'm thinking like all right I'm gonna have to get pulled. Jeff's gonna have to pull my truck out like.

Because my stacks are weighing it down. I know all my stacks. I'm gonna have to dig my stacks out.

I'm gonna get sand out of my stacks and my crack. It's gonna take me years to get all the dust out of my shit. Yeah.

After you do that a couple times you think ah you know what that Tribute Island thing. Yeah yeah. Let the young let the young kids that are starting out have it.

It's awesome if you're like headlining it. But it's very much like you know a multi-day mega festival for us. Get up.

Do your set. Get the fuck out as fast as you can. If you got the time then oh it's cool.

It was still awesome doing it. It was very fun. It was worth doing it.

I would just you know. It's an experience. We're looking at more like I was saying like those shows where you come to our concert to see like our show.

Right. Yep you know. Cool.

Well thanks for coming out guys. Yeah. Thank you for having us.

Nice talking with you. Keep your eyes peeled for these guys. Go on see some Scorpions man.

Yeah. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Are you ready baby? 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.