Ep 268 Shades of Grey - S.O.G

 A Chicago based music group. The group consists of four members who are Dave Wolak - lead/rhythm guitarist, Marco Obaya - bass guitarist , Anthony Simmons - drummer and Xavier Keller - lead vocalist. All four members are known as the musician, songwriter and producer. They are here to spread PEACE, LOVE, and UNITY through their timeless music. 

Transcript

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Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Rock and roll, Chicago. Rock and roll.

Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie, and this is Hollywood. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. Oh, you got the echo on.

My echo on, let's check it out. Oh, I didn't know we had that in there. I had to say Mike, Mike, Mike, because somebody has to be here more than Marco.

That's true, yeah. I mean, his name's been mentioned on this podcast like three or four times now, probably five or six, because he's got friends that have been on the podcast. Friends in low places.

Yeah, that's right. So I figured I was going to do that. Oh, see, I thought we had a setting on the board here for the echo.

That would be cool. That would be cool. But I guarantee we'd set it, and then the people that come in here when we're not here would mess it up.

Yeah, they would. They didn't mess that one up, though. Marco, how you doing, man? I'm good, man.

Good to see you again. It's great to see you. Great to be back in this room.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys got to share that. You may not have headphones.

You may not have headphones. Yeah, I'm doing great. I'm doing great.

It's great to be back in this room with y'all. Yeah, yeah, okay. And you're playing bass in this band? Yes, primarily guitar player, and most of the other projects, bass in this project.

Bass is a guitar. Yeah, it is. It is for sure.

So first of all, we should probably tell everybody the name of the band. It is? Shades of Grey. Shades of Grey.

Shades of Grey. S-O-G-S-dot-O-dot-G. Okay, let me tell you what.

You guys should start using Shades of Grey more, because when I started looking for you guys, looking for S-O-G, there is an S-O-G in every damn state in the country, right? And you guys aren't even the only S-O-G in the Chicagoland area. Yeah, that's something we've recently talked about, is the accessibility to us on the internet. Yeah, yeah.

So there is a, I actually did put the connection together, so there's a knife company called S-O-G, right? Wow. And I collect knives, so I know, right? Yeah, it is pretty sharp. And they make military style knives.

And I was like, what is with this S-O-G, right? So when I searched for you guys, the first thing that came up was S-O-G was actually like a special forces military unit in the Vietnam War, right? And so that's kind of the connection with these knives that they make, because it's military style knives. And one of the bands in the Chicagoland area, I think it's a bunch of veterans. They're older guys, probably from the Vietnam War era, maybe serving in Vietnam, and they play a bunch of baby boomer rock and stuff like that, the stuff that you'd expect from that era.

So I'm thinking, there's more to this, right? I went down this rabbit hole. So there literally is that military unit, just like there's the military, there's the Marine Corps band and the whole, there's an S-O-G band for the military. Really? Yeah.

Wow. So, I mean, I went down, I spent like 45 minutes going down a rabbit hole, and then finally I found you guys performing at the Roxy in Lockport. And I was like, it's got to be these guys.

Yeah. No kidding. All right.

So tell us who your friends are. Well, real quick on that. Do you want to give them the real reason why it's Shades of Grey? Yeah.

You're Billy Joel fans. So, I mean, so the whole purpose of the group is peace, love, and unity. Right.

We're like a universal group. So we're kind of like all over the place. We're like, we make healing music in those three different ways, peace, love, and unity.

Shades of Grey, we're a multicultural group. So everybody's from different ethnicities. So we all come together and just deliver whatever messages we want to get across to everyone.

So. Okay. That's, I mean.

How many people are in the band? I know there's more than just the three of you. No, there's four. There's four? Four.

So I thought I saw some pictures with a lot of people. Our drummer's going to make it tonight, unfortunately, but we're here to represent him. You don't want to put a mic in front of a drummer anyway, so.

Yeah. You never do that. You ever, never put a drummer, put a mic in front of a drummer.

No. No, they should only ever have seven microphones and none of them. Should be directed toward their face.

Yeah. Yeah. No, Shades of Grey, the other thing that went through my mind is I recently saw the, the Billy Joel biography that's on HBO and that's a song on his last album, Shades of Grey.

So I was like, okay, please, is this going to be one of those Billy Joel tribute bands? And so I've been looking for you guys and I finally found you and hey, it's awesome. I'm glad you guys are here. Yeah.

That's a big thing. You know, just again, accessibility on the internet. Yeah.

We want it to be easy for people to find us. So it's hard. Yeah.

Yeah. And then we'll figure it out, you know? Yeah. And then it's like, as far as the trademark part, like we don't know who actually owns s.o.g. Yeah.

But still. I think the U.S. military would win that battle. Even if there isn't.

Yeah. No pun intended that the U.S. military is going to win. No, no, no, no.

Yeah. No pun intended. Yeah.

So how'd the whole thing come about? Was there a concept? Who put everything together? So going way back, um, 2018, um, we, we were kind of like, everybody were doing their own thing. Like, so I was like a solo artist. He had his thing going.

Marker had his thing going. Everybody was just their own artist. And, um, me and David, we linked back up cause we were coworkers.

So we was like, Hey, you know, he's like, let's put a band together. You know, let's do something different. You know, let's make some music and try to put out a project.

So it was initially to put out one project. So from there, we just linked up, we started rehearsing and we, I had like a song, one song that I brought to it, to the concept and he, he accepted it. And we just started building from there.

And then after that, that's when we got Marco, he got Marco to come in. And from then, like, it was just like a timeline of us, just creating like different types, you know, different types of sounds and concepts. And like, once again, everybody does different things.

Like we're a Jack of all trades. So I produced, he produced, he produced. And when it came to us, like creating like specific songs, like, you know, David would play the bass and Marco will record.

He has his own studio. They will create the concept, whatever track it is. And then they were presented to me and then I would add my little touches to it as well.

And then after that, we'll just create, you know, just being one great masterpiece. Right. Yeah.

And from there, it has been that same pattern. Okay. As the years just came and then here we are.

So what was the, so what was the concept? The concept, we're all from different backgrounds, different ethnicities. So it's like, hey, you know what I mean? We have rock, we have R&B, we have, we have any, all the other genres. So we just kind of, we're fusing it all together.

Like I know we're right now, we're kind of like the R&B ish kind of zone, little hip hop, but we weren't, we're not in the box. Okay. So the concept is to spread once again, peace, love, and unity.

And the music is funny. The music that we've written over the times actually made sense for that time, specifically around like COVID. One of the songs that we have is called World Peace.

I was hoping you'd go into that one right there. So that one was like, COVID, everybody remembers COVID, people want to forget it. But the lyrics actually like, it was relating to what was actually going on.

Okay. You know, as far as the president, the world was shutting down and just like traumas from all different backgrounds and cultures and stuff like that. And we created, we actually did a little video slide too.

That's on our Facebook page as well and Instagram page. But, and it's so funny, like we actually made that song before COVID, now that I think about it. And then once COVID hit, the stuff, the things that were happening was relating to what was in the song.

Right. So that made us also think, ah, it was meant to be. Yeah, it was cool because like I said, I joined the band after, it was just them two originally.

And then I joined the band and started tracking some stuff for them, studio wise. And they came to me with World Peace just a few months before COVID actually happened and all that. Then he ended up putting together this slideshow video and everything.

So it just kind of just happened to just, you know, right place, right time kind of thing. And then it blossomed from there. I was like, let's just, let's keep doing it, you know? And then they had so many more songs and it's funny because sometimes he'll have an idea or sometimes he'll have an idea, which are only ever, you know, five to eight seconds long, you know, they're clips, like little clips and then we can all just kind of see the vision and go, wow.

Okay. Yeah. I see where this is going, you know? So sometimes they're made like electronically.

Sometimes they're actual band members performing parts. And then we, we loop them and contort them, you know, just create them in some sort of way. And then we'll relearn it and be like, all right, cool.

This is, this is the material now. So. Is this all taking place in one room altogether? Are you guys all at home working in your own studios, sitting at your own computers? It's a bit of both.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like either, you know, I'll write something, then get it together, give it to him and then we'll put it together, send it to Xavier.

And then that's one way of doing it. Or we'll all get together to where we have practiced that too long ago. And then we wind up playing a whole song together and just getting everything just, all right, just how it's structured.

We'll have this part here, chorus, bridge, verse, so on and so forth. And it's both. Right.

Right. Real quick. Cause I know you'll nerd out on this, but like, you know, the the, the RC loopers, you know, the guitar pedals and stuff.

And I've never, ever seen anybody use this function, but they have like the, uh, the RC two and three, which can actually store loops and stuff that you've created. Right. Right.

This dude's got one and he'll just create loops and stuff. And then he'll be like, Hey, I've got like eight of these things on my pedal. I'm like, what? All right.

Yeah, sure. Whatever. So we'll just literally plug it in and just, you know, give it, you know, put the files on my computer.

Yeah. And then I'm like, Hey, you just, you know, make something out of it. Here, play this.

Exactly. And then I'll, you know, it's just these, these chords, but they're cool ideas. I'm like, okay, cool.

And one of our songs, uh, we can swear on this part. I forgot. We asked that same question so much, so much for the peace and love and healing.

We have this song called cool shit. And that was exactly that. We had this little loop on the pedal and I was like, Oh, I can get with that.

And then I just started like, just like tapping out drums electronically and pro tools and stuff. And then it became this big thing. And now I swear to God, we probably play that song like 15 times every rehearsal.

Cause it's just, it's our anthem. Yeah. Yes.

And they were so inspired because they were just, you know, the concept of a cool shit. I mean, we all take a hot shit, but a cool shit, like a mentholated turd. Yeah.

Well, right now it's cold enough out there for a cool turd. Oh man. We can, I mean, I think, I think we've just experienced what they go through.

I mean, the tangent that I just went off on with cool shit. Yeah. Okay.

I totally get that. The concept, like the actual artwork, who did the artwork day? Oh God. I mean, I didn't do that.

I have a friend of mine named Dan who does computer graphic design and everything like that. So he did the artwork. And so our idea off the artwork was like, Oh, you know, we're very Chicago based and everything.

So let's make the artwork like funny and like, you know, something that people remember. So it was just like, please tell me it's the turd from South Park. No, it's not that.

I think there's going to be a copyright lawsuit right there. I'm going to just be honest with you. Mr. Hankey.

Is that his name? I don't know. Something like that. Yeah.

So there's, there's artwork for the song. Cool shit. Once you see it, you like not only for that, but also each song too.

It's its own artwork and own message behind it. Did you guys send some of this stuff to us? No, I requested some stuff. I emailed you.

Yeah. I sent you emails. Okay.

I haven't seen it because now I, now I have to see it because I have a feeling that you have to hear the music and stare at the artwork at the same time together. The two like create the entire story. That's a great way of putting it.

Wow. Interesting. Interesting.

So it was a lot of the stuff that you guys create. Is it, is it electronic? Is it actual playing of instruments? A mixture. Yeah.

Right. Cause I heard, I heard a lot. I mean, I listened to some of your songs and I heard a lot of electronic stuff going on and some, some dubstep beats and everything in there.

Um, uh, so there's a lot of stuff that might be produced electronically and like might be released as like, there's like a lot of hip hop or like R and B type beats more so than like, um, or more so than like a live drum kit, you know? But when we play a live, we just replicate all that stuff as close to possible, you know, with a live drummer, you know? So when there's those hip hop beats, we have a great drummer, Anthony's amazing, you know, and he, his high hat work is incredible. So he's really able to get those trills and stuff like that. So when it comes to programming stuff like that, it's really, it doesn't seem like so much a problem cause we know we can replicate it live.

We're also not afraid to play with a backing track every now and then too. Sure. Sure.

Have you ever considered a glockenspiel? You know what? This guy right here is the guy, you know, I don't know if you've ever actually used a glock. Technically. A glockenspiel, not a glock.

Not a glock. Yeah. Again, so much for the peace and love and healing.

But like he was saying earlier, it might start off as an idea, electronic live band, something, and then we kind of put it together. We'll develop the sections and then we'll be able to perform it together at rehearsal. And then very understandingly so, the drummer, Mike, okay, yeah, I understand this is going to be programmed or I'm actually going to be playing it, whatever the case is.

Once we get the grounds for that track, he takes it home and he just decorates it like a Christmas tree. He's like, oh, I'll put some bells here. Think about the scene in Bruce Almighty when he's decorating the sky.

That's what I think about. That's a really good way to put it. Is that not? That's such a good way.

And it just makes the song hit so much harder because everybody has their ingredients that they add to it and it makes it even more powerful and people really resonate with it. Okay. All right.

God, I wish we could hear some of it right now. Yeah. We got to get some stuff sent over to us.

I was going to say, I sent it earlier. There's no way we can put it on now. We'll have it on.

I know, but I want to hear it now. Look, I want my cake. I know.

And I want to eat it. I know you're spoiled. I'm going to have to wait till the whole thing comes up.

I can hold my phone up when the unreleased track up to the. Yeah. Yeah.

No, no, no. That's okay. We'll get the stuff from you guys.

We'll put it into the podcast because I want to, I want to hear some of this stuff in its entirety. I'm getting this image like, okay, that it can kind of be trippy, you know, cause we got artwork we have to stare at and listen to it. You know? I mean, he's a great guitar player and he really knows how to kind of play.

And that's how he ended up as the bass player. Cause that's how it always happens. You know, you got two guitar players.

One of you has to play bass, Marco. We've been playing together for years, you know? And so when this came about, man, it was, I don't know, it's just, I like playing bass. Like there's a freedom to it as a guitar player.

You're just like, Oh yeah. Two less strings. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean that, yeah. You know, I tell this joke all the time.

You know why bass guitars have four strings, right? So you can't have two extra. No, but I get that though. It's, you know, as a guitar player, I like to like go to an open jam or something and just spend the, you know, spend the evening playing bass, just doing something, you know? Yeah, exactly.

It's a different free. And like, I mean, you know, I played guitar and lots of different things. It's a nice change up.

It's fun too. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, did you ever go out and, uh, and go to the jam and hang out with Smiley Tillman? The new one, right? I have not yet. Okay. To be honest, I felt really bad about it because I have to go out and I have to meet his son too.

He keeps bugging me. Yeah. Where, where's the new place now? It's Fatty's.

Uh, it's on, it's actually Wednesday nights. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

At Fatty's. At Fatty's. If anybody from Fatty's is listening to this podcast, we are looking for sponsorships.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for real, Smiley's awesome.

Um, both Mike and I, myself have played with them. Um, just, I mean, you know, fantastic group, you know, uh, I know they, they play at house of blues all the time. I always want to go down there and see them.

You know, it's just, I'm busy myself cause I'm, you know, recording bands, playing in different bands. I'm always rehearsing and doing something, you know, I, I feel bad. I can't always make it out to some of these shows, but, uh.

Yeah. I've seen some videos of his son. I haven't met his son.

I haven't seen him play live. He's a little more modern in what he does, but Smiley is literally like, um, he's almost kind of like BB King. Xavier, Dave, you guys want to go have a drink next door while these two, uh, have their little bromance.

He tells stories about his songs and stuff. And then he plays this, this classic blues stuff and everything. I was, uh, I was at, um, uh, Gaelic Park.

Um, they asked me to host the jam over the summer, uh, time they do an outdoor jam in the summer. And then, and he showed up out of the blue here, walks in Smiley, tell me he didn't want to play or anything. He just wanted to hang out and listen.

I did get to see him again. And I got to tell him, I told him I got to get out to see him. Yeah.

I mean, I'm the same way, you know, cause I know you have this on Wednesday night, you know, there's everybody's got so much going on. Cause like, I don't want them to feel like, Hey, if you're listening, smile, you know, I don't want to abandon you, but I just, you know, we're all busy. We're musicians, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. If you ever do go, give me a call. Dude.

Yeah, absolutely. That would be awesome. You guys should get Smiley to do something.

I played a little blues guitar on one of your songs. We should, we should, we really could. We really could.

This guy's great. It reminds me, you ever see the movie, uh, be cool. I'm not a movie guy.

Okay. I haven't seen it. It's this, uh, um, Cedric, the entertainer is plays like this, this mob boss.

Right. And, uh, but he's also a music producer. So he's, he's, he's kind of like a Suge Knight character.

Right. And it's this comedy and, and he's talking about putting a little blues guitar over some stuff. And it's, it's a great scene.

I I'm totally picturing Smiley Tillman playing blues. It's called be cool. I heard of it, but I actually never saw the movie.

Yeah. Oh, I'm not watching that movie. I'm already cool.

No, I'll tell you what. It's cool. Insert song playback.

Hold on. That was a dad joke. No, no.

Musicians should all see that because it is about the music business. It really is. And I, and I'm being serious.

Um, Cedric, the entertainer plays like a Suge Knight, puts a comedic spin on a Suge Knight character and it's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith are in it in a little bit. Yeah. You got, you should see it.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. No.

Yeah. Um, I know, like, I mean, like I said, him and I, like we've been playing together for what, almost 10 years now, a little over at this point. Yeah.

Um, and we both started in a band and it was literally, that was just basically like blues improv, you know, and, and our, our first band, we, we didn't even write songs. We would just show up to gigs and we just like, look at each other and be like something and be flat. Sure.

And then we would just start playing. Drummer would kick in and be like, all right, you solo, man. And we would just go back and forth until we felt like ending at some jams would last, you know, 25 minutes and stuff.

We're just having a great time playing all these different breweries and different spots all over. And, um, you know, this was, this was cool. Cause it was just like a, just like a little bit of a different Avenue with still some of those same gimmicks in there.

So it's a lot of fun. That's interesting. It's like everything that we've experienced throughout our careers as musicians and artists led us to here, you know, so everything that we are good at and grown in and learn, we are applying that to this and other things that we do.

Right. So what, what else did, or have you done before this project? So I was a solo artist. Yeah.

Um, I still, I like have projects that I put out as a solo artist and I work with my mom as well. She's a solo artist, a legend. Um, but yeah, like, so I've been like, I have like a project out and things like that.

So before we like came together, like I was doing my solo thing and then I think I joined a band with him once upon a time. It's like, we all have our stories with Dave that, you know, we all linked that once upon a time and then time passed. And then we, it's like full circle.

We just came back in something bigger and better. I feel like I've seen you before someplace and I don't know exactly where. I get that a lot.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, not on a post office wall or. I was thinking post office myself.

Yeah. Yeah. You could trust me with your mail anytime.

Okay. There you go. Now, what, what have you done? I've been in a band with Marco for many, many years, of course, with Xavier.

So do you guys have any other friends? I mean, you guys have always been. I mean, same thing. I've been a solo artist for a while and just did like, just side gigs here and there recorded with, you know, different people, different artists and everything like that.

Back in, I will, I will say this just because to where it's like, I knew you don't talk about it that much. Cause it's like, for me, it's like, you know, it's like, it's one of those things where it's like, you ask me, I'll tell you. But if you don't ask me, I won't even mention it.

But I'll just say it to where back in 2021, I actually did get a Grammy nomination. Really? Yeah. For a reggae album.

That one was for, so Jesse Royals that I played on the song, High Tide Low. Jordan, a friend of mine that I used to work with, he has his own studio on in Jamaica called Natural High Studios. Okay.

Shout out to Jordan. So they need a guitar player that he had some stuff that he wanted me to do to where it's like, Hey, you know, like if there's any songs you want to work on, blah, blah, blah, let me know. And he was like, Oh, you know, there's a song I want you to do.

I need some guitar work on it. I know you could do it. Why don't you come on, you know, by and do it, whatever.

I was like, Oh yeah, for sure. Awesome. And then I go like, do you have like a mobile gig? You can always come by me, blah, blah, blah.

He's like, yeah, I got my mobile gig. Come on by. So did my guitar work, got it done.

And I haven't heard from him a long time after that. And then he just messaged me out of blue. Be like, Hey Dave, you know, that song you worked on, the whole album's done and everything.

It's you know, up for a Grammy nomination. Wow. Yeah.

Back in 2021, best reggae album. No kidding. Who won that year? I think Ziggy Marley did.

Of course. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a good honor.

Missed it by that much. Yeah. But yeah, I remember.

Yeah. But, um, that was something to where it was a huge achievement of mine to where it's like, you know, I'm going to say this cause you know what, my students are going to listen to this later and everything. But like, you know what? I was that one kid too, to where it's like, Oh, you know, like you watch the Grammys and you're like, Oh, you know, awesome to get this and blah, blah, blah.

And it actually happened. You know? So I'm very, very thankful, very thankful to work on the project. Very thankful to, you know, meet Jordan and, uh, you know, just, uh, get everything going.

So shout out to Jordan, shout out to Jesse Rose and shout out to natural high studio. So. You didn't go to the Grammys.

I don't know if they went either cause I didn't talk to him about that, but Jordan, he's like so busy with like the reggae scene going from like Jamaica to UK, bringing the reggae scene to the UK. He's all over the place. Right.

Right. Right. Right.

Accepting the award for. Yeah. Right.

Right. But I remember even getting it to where it's like, you know, you, you order it, you know, from the whole Grammy like nomination site and everything like that. And then you'll get it.

Yeah. The plaque. Cause I remember you had it in your studio for a while.

And so I wound up ordering two of them. I keep one at work in, you know, workspace, my student seat and everything. And then I keep one in my studio.

Right. Right. And so that way, you know, So they do, they give you a plaque, just to say, They give you the paper, but you put in like a frame yourself.

Gotcha. You've been nominated for. Yeah.

Yeah. But there is a process though. You have to send the BMI number.

I'm part of BMI and all that, but you have to send a BMI number, credentials, all that stuff. Make sure it's all good. Right.

And then basically it's kind of like, no news is good news. You don't hear from us. That's good.

It's going to go through. You'll get it. Right.

It took a while. I remember my fiance and I, like, I got home from work one day and I looked and I was like, Oh my God, like, like, babe, it came. And she's like, what? Oh my God.

And she's like freaked out and everything. And it happened around my birthday. So I actually had a big celebration.

Oh, that's nice. It was like a double celebration. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. Get your Grammy nomination flyer for only $59.99, but wait, get two for $69.99. Yeah. Call today.

Cause like he, he, he got two of them initially and gave one to me as like, Hey, you can hang it up in the studio. And I never physically got around to hanging it up for like a year. It was sitting there.

It was on the desk, but it was visible. Yeah. With the coffee ring on it.

Oh no, he had respect for it. He's like, what do I want this? He's just fucking showing off. Yeah.

Sure. This is sure. This is real.

But no, it's cool though. It was just, it was fun just for a year. It'd be like, what's that? I'm like, Oh, you know, I just, I work with Grammy nominated people sometimes.

No, no big deal. You know, it's fun. But like, nah, it's just, but it's cool.

It's like, it's a cool accomplishment. That's some cool shit. Yeah.

Interesting. Well, then you look a little bit closer in that certificate and says Grammy. Yeah.

Wow. Well, I guess we don't need to talk to you guys anymore. Cause we got a Grammy Marco.

Thank you for coming. Uh, show yourselves out. Yeah.

So Dave, tell us. So what's uh, what's 2026 going to look like for you guys? Are you going to spend more time writing or are you going to be performing? What's what's the, what's the deal? More gigs, of course, more writing, more creating, because we're getting great feedback from what we have created so far and performed. Cause usually it's kind of hard to get originals across if you are on demand for cover, especially in Chicago.

Yeah. So we found Chicago's the worst, right? So, but you didn't hit it for me. No, it is.

We talk about it. We talk about it all the time. Chicago is the absolute worst.

I travel the country for what I do and I can go to any other city and there's a place where you can see live original music all the time. But in Chicago bar owners, they just want tribute bands. They're concerned about putting asses on the bar stools.

And if you walk in and say, I'm an original band, they, yeah, they don't want you. We're fortunate. Like we, cause we completely agree.

We've struggled with that, especially as a band who wants to express, you know, the message that we want to get across and everything. We're fortunate enough to have found a couple of people now and we can't talk too much about it cause not everything's completely confirmed, but it's very, very much like 90% likely that we'll have a, just a very, very fulfilling summer. Definitely new music.

Cause this is actually probably the most active the band has ever been strictly just due to like kind of life lining up for everybody. You know what I mean? We're, we're available. We're rehearsing every single week, whereas before it was very, you know, kind of spontaneous and sure, you know, random, but it's been a lot of good stuff.

I don't know if you want to take it over and talk about some of the news. Oh no. But for just one second, how, so what kind of places are you playing? So we've played like a lot of like bars and smaller bars and whatnot, like you would typically find in Chicago.

Sure. Most recently kind of found ourselves in, I don't want to say corporate cause that's a little bit of a big boy word to use for what we're talking about, but like hotels and more so kind of things where we're not necessarily the main entertainment, but like kind of like filling some space, you know what I mean? While people are kind of mingling or doing their thing or whatever. And for us, it's a lot of fun cause we have a lot of freedom.

You know what I mean? They're not expecting us to kind of stick to any one sort of thing. We do a lot of different covers. We jam a lot.

We play originals. So when we're kind of not necessarily always the main focus, you know, and there's people paying into, we're on a stage of course, but like, yeah, we can really have a lot of freedom. It's like, okay, cool.

Let's play that. Let's play this song again, but let's try it a different way. Let's do this at a different tempo.

You know, I don't know. It's fun. Okay.

Yeah. And I didn't mean to cut you off. That was, that was an important point to make.

Yeah. Totally. Totally.

Yeah. Cause like, again, like just like we were talking about Chicago, like we, we can go to Chicago and play for 30 minutes and make 12 bucks and that's fine. You know what I mean? But like, it's a lot of fun to make a significant more, you know, significant amount of money and then be able to actually just have a freedom and a lengthy period of time to set up and play on a stage.

You know, it's not 25, 30, 40 minutes, you know, we're playing for, you know, an hour and a half, three hours now, which is really, really nice. And you guys have enough original music to do an hour and a half to three hours. Most of the time they're asking for covers as well.

And again, that long, you know what I mean? But if we have originals, we probably have like an hour. Yeah. And then when we do play the originals, people react like I've, I've noticed they are, they, they listen.

Oh, that's cool. You know, cause we make sure every song we create has an intention behind it because that's the whole purpose of the band and the message, you know, and our goal, you know, every song has to be with intention and we may have some songs that's just for fun, you know, cause everybody liked to have fun, but like for the most part, it's, we have to have intention behind the songs that we create. Well, that's good.

That's good. Put a little, I mean, you put a little bit more into it if you have some type of an intention. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast.

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So, listening to some of the videos that I found of you guys online, how would you mix it up? You've got an entire night to play for, you know, on your own. No other, no other bands, right? How would you mix it up? Like what kind of covers are you throwing in there? We do mainly mix up R&B and all that to where, I mean, the last show that we did, we rock with you. We did Pretty Brown Eyes by Mean Condition.

Black Eyed Peas. Black Eyed Peas. We're kind of grabbing from everything.

I don't want to interrupt him, but like, I feel like that's so on par for what you expect from us. What I mean to say is like, we will have those songs in there. And then we have like the, like more trappy, hip-hoppy sort of like, you know, bass driven songs and stuff like that.

But then on top of that, there will be a point in our set where this guy's playing like pure imagination, just beautifully by himself on guitar. You know what I'm saying? So like, it's such a broad spectrum there. You know, like you, I don't know, it's head banging at one point.

At the next point, you're just like, you know, resting your head on someone's shoulder. So you guys do a good job of creating some continuity. It's not like you're doing an original that might sound like, you know, something from Billy Ocean, right? And then you turn around, let's play Metallica.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm showing my age by saying Billy Ocean. I, I, I am, but he's still one of those.

At least you didn't say Billy the Kid. Well, yeah. Well, that, that would make me old.

Is that the rapper? Who? Billy the Kid? Wait, no. Billy the Kid is an old Western outlaw. He's really old.

He's an outlaw. He's a rapper named Billy the Kid, actually. Is there really? I think from Washington, D.C. he had a, yeah.

I remember he had a good song on like some trap YouTube channel. But I digress. We don't need to be giving anybody's.

Yeah. No, interesting. Okay.

Well, that's good to know. That's good to know. So, so what, so, so continue on.

What, what's got to happen in 2026 for you guys to call it a successful year? Just more aggressive. Like we've always been talking about, right? More shows, work harder, more originals, because that's the ultimate goal, right? I mean, everybody loves covers, but you know, the whole goal is to get them to hear our sound, you know, and we've done a great job so far as far as, you know, giving them what they want to hear and what we want them to hear. Right.

And then what we want them to hear turns out to be what some of them want to hear. Okay. So.

Yeah. So are you releasing them just a song at a time? We were doing single after single, but this time, right, we were talking about doing more of a project, you know, a body of work, an album. I think another more important thing to point out this time around is before, like it was just the two of them and I was kind of just an engineer.

I wasn't necessarily in the band. So for everything that's been released, basically up until this point, it's been like hired drummers or hired bass players. And even though I've been playing bass in the band, I've never actually appeared on a track as a bass player.

Gotcha. You know, I feel bad for you. Yeah.

I've programmed and I've done a bunch of like the, you know, production work and stuff like that. But this will be the first time that this iteration of the band, like the four of us will actually be heard together. That's cool.

And I think that's what's driving us to kind of do more of a project style thing as opposed to a couple of different singles over the year. Like piece mailing it together. Yeah.

As well as just like I mentioned before, the fact that it's more consistent. So how much stuff you've got that you haven't recorded yet? Oh my God. You got enough for an album? Oh yeah.

We got a lot. It depends on what's on his looper pedal. That's right.

That's true. We have a dope concept that I won't speak too much on, but it's going to make so much sense. Yeah.

It's going to make so much sense. When do you anticipate releasing this? What do you guys do? We know for sure we have singles. We know for sure.

As far as the actual, you know, how much time it's going to take to record all the stuff we have in mind, we don't know. And you know how it is 2026. Like, is it going to be worth it to release a full length record? Is it going to be worth it to release smaller bits and pieces? So I don't know.

We're just going to probably do what feels right. Cause we're very much just kind of in a feel it out as we go. So where can people find the stuff that's already out there? Every platform, Spotify, iTunes.

Okay. I was looking for you on Spotify, but I tried shades of gray. So G I, I found all kinds of stuff, but you guys, I think it's S dot O dot G dot.

Well, I tried the S dot O dot G dot at the end of the G. I'm telling you, there's a, might be a dot at the end. There's a lot of SOG that pops up. If you, I even tried SOG band Chicago and several came up and none of them were you.

So yeah, we're, we're trying to, we're trying to help you. We're just trying to help you. What I did was I put an S dot O dot G Spotify and it pulled up on the website to where there's a bunch of SOGs, but then our picture shows up in the mix of everything.

So it's kind of like, it's a, like, it's not a fully trademarked name yet. You know, it's just, it's like a group, you know? Importantly though, too, is like, cause even me, if I'm trying to tell somebody about a song, I can't just go to Spotify and type in SOG. I have to type in S dot O dot G in all caps, not lowercase has to be proper.

And then I also have to do the proper space and then do cool shit. Or I have to do world peace or a specific song before I even find it in the mix. That's something we're trying to figure out is how we can manipulate that.

Yeah. I was looking for clouds are gray. I couldn't find it.

That's a struggle. You know, the trick is just get famous, insanely famous. It'll just be in the algorithm and just automatically pop up.

Yeah. But even, I even put clouds are gray as a search and that didn't come up. Because that's usually like, I'm usually searching for that song or something.

So I have to search. I don't know why, but world peace tends to be the one that always brings YouTube specifically. It's like easy.

But again, I don't know. I digress. I'm sorry for anybody out there who's trying to search us.

We do exist. We really do. We have to get a really unique song title so that people can search.

You may have to, you may have to come up with one of those weird spellings, like in college shades of gray, but it's S H A Y D E S. You know, and use the, and use the, the least popular way of spelling gray, which I believe is what G R E Y or something like that. I thought EY was Europe and AY was... No, usually EY is color and AY is a name. What did we do? You did E. Look at that.

He's answering questions for us. Well, do you guys have a website? See, that's the, that's, so that's another thing because the lack of consistency for us has been kind of a problem over the years. But again, we've been so much more just kind of on the ball, at least the last couple of months.

And then into this new year, we were talking about, we do have a, like a booking agent and whatnot. And one of the biggest things we need to do for her this year is get her a proper EPK, you know, a website someplace where there's a centralized link and they can go and visit all of our music because that's going to be the biggest thing is for some, you know, especially people that you guys just, Hey, here's a link tree or whatever. You can find all the music, all the information you guys need.

Anybody wants to book us, all that kind of stuff. So you can sell it, you can sell the music. And you get all the profit.

Hopefully all this will be like figured out. It's not really a problem, but you know, we, we do realize again, that that has been kind of an issue for us. So we're trying to correct, sort of remedy those.

Just change your name to the O'neaters. Yeah. No, but really on a website, you say you're charging 99 cents for a song, you're going to get that 99 cents.

You know, you sell it on Apple. They're charging 99 cents. You're getting one 10th of a cent.

Right, right. So no website yet. No website.

Did we just learn that? Yes. If people want to see you live, how are they going to find you? We're looking at them right now. Social media.

Yeah. It's mainly a SOG on Instagram and Facebook. I think we're definitely more prominent on Instagram.

It's kind of more like the, you know, just more popular. I think now it is. But again, as we, we get going again, we're going to have more, more relevance on Facebook and then eventually website, you know, link tree, all that kind of stuff.

So I will tell you to keep saying big things coming soon. I will tell you as an old guy who still uses Facebook, Facebook is still the best platform for getting people to go to your shows. Yeah.

You can't, you can't send out mass invites through Insta or anything like that. It's also, I think like our, our vibe and everything too, would get across to a lot of people on Facebook. So I know there's like a generational gap too, but like, I do think we are multi-generational.

It's important for us to cross both of those. It's something for everybody, every generation. For sure.

And we actually have a, maybe we should, yeah, we're going to have to build up Facebook more because we actually have a Facebook page. Yeah, we do. We have all this stuff.

We just. We just have to show Facebook some love too. Get all your friends to, and you can link them together nowadays, get all your friends to like you on Facebook and then you create the invite and send people out and get word out about the shows.

It still is the best social media platform for doing that. And again, what's nice now is there's four members we were just talking about the other night, you know, before with just the two of them, it was a lot harder, but now there's four of us. Yeah.

I take a lot of the production, you know, responsibility. He's got a lot of social media stuff. There's a lot of writing and booking and whatnot.

And then our drummer actually is great with cameras. He owns a camera company and everything like that. So he films our shows, takes photos and does all that kind of stuff for us too.

Nice. The thing with that though, like we're in the era though, like I've been thinking like that everybody has short attention span. Oh, yeah.

You know, it's like, cause it's so oversaturated. But like everybody, like you have to really do something so extravagant to capture people's attention because everything is so oversaturated. Yeah.

So it's just like, we've all, we all have the same type of mentality for this like concept. Like as long as we, what we're making is like fire and it's just having tension and then people are the people who do, you know, capture it or whoever, attention we capture, they, they like it, then that's good. But, you know, of course nothing wrong with going, you know, big.

Right. That's the goal too, of course. But yeah, I mean, that's what we make.

That's why we have intense, strong intention behind all the songs that we create and yeah, make sure they really hit and get across because so far it's been, it's been capturing some, you know, some people's attention. So. You guys do a TikTok? We are talking about that.

It's pretty big. Yeah. Cause I, yeah, yeah.

TikTok. Yeah. Well, fellas.

Does that include me? Yes. Oh, thank you. It does.

Your fellow. Thank you. All right.

Yes. I think it's time. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we've come to the end of our podcast. Well, we have to, well, we have to leave time because they're going to send us some kick ass soundbites.

That's right. We have to have room for that. We're going to see a picture of some cool shit.

Cool shit. And we're going to put, and we're going to. I would like to take the lyrics of cool shit and put it to the music of cool jerk.

You work on that. I'll do that. I'm going to be down drinking bourbon at judges.

Okay. Alrighty, guys. Thanks for coming in and the best of luck to you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for having us.

Thanks again. 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.