Ep 269 Elroy Acoustic

 John’s passion for music started at a young age and has sustained its momentum over the years, even after taking a backseat to raising four amazing children. After countless open mics, karaoke nights and endless hours of practice, John booked his first gig.  

Since then, John has been told that viewers can see and feel his passion for music when he performs and has a way of letting others feel it too. 

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. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike.

Oh my god, I heard some echo there. There was, it was Hollywood Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. Yeah, I was going like, you're happy tonight.

A little bit, yeah. I had a long ass day. Did you? Long day.

I was down at the Northwestern Hospital today. No, not for a bad reason, I was there for my regular day job and sat in the traffic and got here and I was dying of thirst and I visited our friends down at Judges. And if Judges is listening, we're looking for sponsors.

We sure are. So I've got a, I've got a pap, I had a couple of paps. Nice.

And a gentleman sitting at the bar commented on my hat. And he was wearing a hat himself. See how it starts.

And I'm going to make him a custom hat. And he bought me a beer. And so yeah, we're having a good time.

See? And then you, it was perfect. You walked in. With my hat.

With your hat on. And here's one of my clients. And he's like, damn, I got it.

So I gave him a card and everything. So yeah, that's what we're doing. It's a, it's a happy day.

See, that's great. It's like when two cigar smokers hook up. Yeah.

Don't matter who you are, you're brothers. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know? Yeah.

We get to sit in the back of whatever room or whatever patio is there and smoke our cigars and not have to talk to anybody but each other. Or riding the bike. Didn't matter who you were.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

That's the way it is. Pretty cool. Yeah.

So who we got in the studio tonight? Tonight we've got Elroy Acoustica. All right. We got Elroy Acoustica.

And by the morning, I think I'm going to figure out where we've met because you look very familiar to me. Yeah. I feel the same as soon as you walked in.

Where are you? Where'd you come in from? Where'd you come in from? Where do you live? I grew up in Hanselcross. I live in New Lenox now. Okay.

All right. Oh, piece of cake to come here for you. Yeah.

Right. Oh, yeah. 10 minutes.

So we've probably crossed paths at one point or another and shared a beer, paths. Paths, not streams. Yeah.

We didn't cross streams. We don't do that. We don't cross swords.

No. We don't cross streams. We don't do any of that stuff.

Very good. Yeah. Not that there's anything wrong.

No, no, no. If that's what, you know, if you're into that sort of thing. That's right.

That's right. But somewhere along the lines, we did. Yeah.

So explain this whole thing, the acoustic. So obviously you're an acoustic solo performer. Yeah.

I'm an acoustic solo performer. I have a little different background from most of the people who do this. A lot of the guys.

As evidenced by the foot fighter tattoo on his forearm. At least a lot of the guys that I know have started out in bands their whole life and, you know, kind of, you know, decided to break off and do kind of an acoustic thing and do it on the side and everything. I started out, I've been a bedroom guitar player my whole life.

Walk a chicka, walk a chicka, walk a chicka. That kind of bedroom. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, just would hear songs and just play by myself and just I'd sing a little bit, but I thought I had a limited voice.

I didn't think I sounded that great. I karaoke'd here and there. I met my wife about 10 years ago and we started seeing a lot of live music, karaoke nights.

And I was always, you know, nervous to karaoke and she'd push me into it. I'd drink a few beers and get the nerve to go up there and had a handful of songs that I could sing. And finally she was, she talked me into it.

It was right around the COVID time and there was an open mic going on and Thirsty Beaver out in Crestwood. Yep. Great group of guys out there.

Ding. That's, that's one common thread. Okay.

Thirsty Beaver. Yeah. So she talked me into trying it and yeah, I learned Sympathy for the Devils about the only song I could sing and play at the same time.

I had a little trouble. So I practiced that, practiced that. Mick and Keith are still working on that actually.

Yeah. And I think I mentioned earlier, my sister is a performer. She's in some bands and she is a, she once had an open mic and I borrowed her guitar.

My intention was to go up there and sing the song. But when I got there, I always thought an open mic, in my mind, I'd never been in one before. I thought, I always thought of it as a kind of like a karaoke where there's a lot of guys who are just starting out, who can't play.

Okay. That's in my mind, that's how it was. And that's what I expected.

I'm like, okay, maybe I'll be middle of the road. Maybe I was totally wrong. Everybody who played were these professional musicians.

They just went there to hang out and it was kind of like a hangout night. It was the pro jam kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Which I hate that name. It gives people that haven't done it a chance to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they don't, they don't judge.

Oh yeah. Not at all. In fact, they all encourage me.

Well, some do. Some do. Some do.

Believe me, some do. I won't mention, but there, there, there are some. Oh, I'm sure there are.

Oh, I don't know you. So I didn't put you up because I don't know who you are. I don't know.

I mean, there's some like that. Sure. Sure.

You know? Yeah. Yeah. So I, after seeing that, I told, told my wife, listen, I need to practice a little more, take the guitar home.

And I was so nervous. I could see tunnel vision, you know, just, and she goes, no way you're getting up there. And you're doing it.

And I, I just got up there, almost passed out a couple of times, but I got through the song. Broke a, broke a string, broke my sister's string while I was playing. I just kept playing through and, and did a song that worked out well.

Every week I would try to learn new, new song. Then about six months or so, I started some of my, some of the guys started inviting me to play under breaks. And, and, and a couple, when I did that, a couple of managers would come up, Hey, do you want a gig here? And I said, I don't know.

I only know 20 songs. I don't, can't do a whole three hours. And they said, we'll come back when you, when you learn 20 songs and.

Oh, come on. You can, you can drag out 20 songs for $40. I've seen people do it.

Believe me, you can do it. Yeah. But then it just took off from there.

We, you know, just built up to the point, like five, six years later, I'm, I'm playing two or three nights a week playing, you know, I got, could get booked more than I had time for. Right. Right.

Right. Starting to slow down a little bit now. Cause I'm trying to do some other things, but yeah, I had a great, great, great time.

You know, just every, every weekend, sometimes twice a day, you know, my wife became like my manager came and she kind of coached me into, she's got a really good, she's not a musician, but she's got a really good head for music. Right. Really good, you know, kind of now to play it this way, play it that way.

She encouraged me. I was more or less a kind of a classic rock alternative guy. And she kind of encouraged me to just learn some country.

I said, Oh, that's not me. Yeah. So basically what I'm hearing is, is you got up there for your very first time and you're like, okay, maybe I'm better than I think I am because people started approaching you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Kind of helped build your confidence up a little bit. Yeah, definitely. And I, you know, I spent my, I spent my whole life, you know, thinking I wasn't a great guitar player.

I was thinking I wasn't a great singer. Everybody thinks so. Yeah.

And yeah, I never played intricately, intricately in the last, I started taking lessons within the like six months and I'm starting to branch off a little bit because I want to get to more into blues, more into, more into some guitar playing, do some looping and, and you know, work on, work on those kinds of skills. Man, don't go too nuts with that. Not, no, just me.

You know what? I swear to God, I know, I know a guy, I'm not going to mention any names. I know a guy that is a multi-instrumentalist. He can play so many different instruments and he just got tired of doing the whole band thing.

Right. And, and I'm, and you know, I'm not going to pick on this one guy because he's not the only person that I've seen do this. I travel all around the country and I've seen dozens of people actually do this.

These multi-instrumentalists will get up there and you see, they've got this, they've got an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a bass guitar, maybe a violin, a fiddle, right? Maybe some type of a horn, right? Probably no glockenspiel. No glockenspiel though. You know, no, you know, no glockenspiel.

And you never find one. And they've got this looper system, right? And it's, you know, this is the time I wish we had video so you could see the expression on my face, but you can't. They'll put down a, they'll put down some type of rhythm track on their acoustic guitar.

And then they'll look at the crowd and they'll be like, Oh, but wait, there's more. And they'll turn around and they'll grab their bass guitar and put down. Oh, hold up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. I got something else.

Hold on. Then they'll go grab the fiddle. And they spend 10 minutes setting this song up.

And then they spend three minutes singing a song. And the first 10 minutes, they've lost half the people they were engaging, whatever the hell they were doing, you know? And so by the time he starts singing the song, everybody's like, that's what he's doing. Ah, whatever.

I'm gonna go get a beer. You know? When it sounds, it takes, it takes like three minutes just to hear where this is recognized the song. You get to add all the parts to it.

Yeah. And it's just like, but I mean, I think, I think loopers, that whole thing, um, that's an instrument in itself. If you treat it like an instrument, fantastic.

If you treat it like a way to make you sound better, wrong. You've got to treat it like it's an instrument and, and, and use it as such. If the song is three minutes, have that thing ready to go.

Right. I mean, your opinion for sure. Oh yeah, definitely.

I might say looping is very basic, but some, some songs you just kind of, and some of like the blues songs, some of the slow songs, I think it adds to it just to, you know, have a very basic track and do some slow blues leads over it. Right. Right.

Um, songs like, you know, it's a couple of clapping songs. Um, wonderful tonight. Like you could play that song, but it's much better if you could just, you know, kind of do the guitar part, that little piece as this kind of signature of the song.

Right. It doesn't work if you whistle it or hum it. Yeah.

Right. You've got to hear it. So if you can put, if you can put down the rhythm tracks with an acoustic guitar and then grab your electric and actually play that live.

Okay. That's cool. That's great.

But yeah, no, I totally get that. And that's kind of something that I've been known for. I don't use a lot of effects.

It's just me, my guitar, my, you know, I don't use a harmonizer. Um, you know, I don't use a whole lot of reverb and all that stuff to change my voice. It's pretty much me and my voice and my guitar.

Right. Right. Interesting.

So, so you, you literally started off just like doing karaoke when you were younger, there was no bands, there was nothing like that. No, there was nothing, nothing like that. Yeah.

So I'm very, um, I, uh, like encouraging guys like other bedroom guitar players, like me and say, Hey, just, you know, if you could sing and I was in my wife, he said, cause I was kind of, when I started it, I was, you know, I, you know, I'm still not much more than basic chords and, and my wife telling me, you don't need basic chords. You don't need more than that. You know, you play simple man.

You could, you know, you don't need pretty true. Yeah. There's, um, as someone, someone, when I started here, you either, you know, if you're going to do this, you either have to, you better either be a good singer or a good guitar player.

You could be both, but one or the other, you know, to make it work. Yeah. So, so how old were you when you actually started playing guitar and everything? Uh, freshman year, uh, high school playing in high school.

Okay. Okay. All right.

So actually younger than I thought. Okay. So that's good.

That's good. That's good. And then karaoke came into the scene and the whole, but I'll tell you, I have a friend, um, a friend of mine who lives in Louisiana who runs a, uh, a, a Zydeco band.

He once said, he goes, you know, karaoke is the reason why we have concealed carry in this country. And I laughed at one point in time, but I'll tell you, um, it's, it is important. It is, you know, karaoke is open mic for people who are singers, you know, they're good singers, right? The, when you go to, we talked about it earlier about open jams, right? The person who just wants to get up there and sing is not always welcome at an open jam, but they're always welcome to karaoke.

Sure. Yeah. Always.

Um, the thing that I hate about karaoke is when there's always the one person in the crowd that can blow. There's always that one or two people that can sing their off. Right.

And everybody's having a good time. They're doing karaoke. They're having a couple drinks.

You're making friends. You're buying cocktails for one another. Everybody's great.

And then the one guy gets up there and says, these guys can't freaking sing. And he gets up there and he or she gets up there and sings and then nobody else wants to get up after that. And they just killed the entire evening for everybody.

It's like, sit down and shut up. You know, you can sing, we know you can sing. Why'd you do that? Go find an open mic night.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Something like that. Or go find a band for exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So what was your first song? Um, first song that you, that you, I guess, or, or, or what's your, every, every person that does karaoke or started off with karaoke has their karaoke song.

Oh, what's your song? It was a black by Pearl Jam. No kidding. Yeah.

That's wow. Cause I couldn't really, there's only a few songs at the time, a few songs that I thought I could sing. I didn't, didn't venture much from a couple of Pearl Jam songs.

And I wasn't one of those. We weren't going out every weekend or anything like that. It was just like follow the karaoke crew, you know, the different, uh, you know, units that go around.

But yeah, we just said every once in a while, there's a karaoke is going on. I would get up and sing. I do some Hootie songs.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That was my, uh, I had a few handful ones and then, um, and do much, much of that before I started doing the, uh, the open mic stuff. Right.

Right. So how long have you been performing? Uh, about, let's see, this will be going on six years this summer. Okay.

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Awesome. Good. I'll tell you what, we're going to take a quick break.

Okay. We're going to, we're going to get all cute and set up and we're going to come back and we're going to hear some live music. Alrighty.

That's what I want to do. Alrighty. You're listening to the rock and roll Chicago podcast.

Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier. Get ready for the stop blues show that takes you deep into the soul of the blues with classic hits road stories and live jam sessions hosted by blues man, Kevin Purcell and me, the one and only road bill. The bus stop blues is two hours of nonstop blues banter and bad assery.

Check out the bus stop blues podcast at the bus stop blues.com where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple podcasts, or any other major podcast platform up on board the bus stop blues where the blues never stops rolling. Oh, and we're back with Elroy Acoustic. Some sunny day.

We'll take your time. Don't live too fast. Those will come.

They will pass. You'll find a woman. Oh, oh, won't you do this for me son, if you can do this for me son, forget your lust, rich man's gold, all that you need is in your soul.

You can do this if you try. All that I want from you my son It's to be satisfied And be a simple kind of man And be something you love and understand And be a simple kind of man Won't you do this for the sun If you can Don't you worry You'll find yourself Follow your heart And you'll try All I want from you my son Is to be satisfied And be a simple kind of man And be something you love and understand And be a simple Be a simple man Won't you do this for the sun If you can Yeah! Brought some fans with. That's right.

Brought some fans with. Very nice, man. Very nice.

Excellent, excellent. Yeah, that's a song that many people do, but not many people do it well. It's not a difficult song to do.

If you don't have the emotion or the feeling, it doesn't come out right. I've seen people doing it. It's just like, okay.

It's like you're waiting for something to happen and it never does. That was a pretty good rendition. Thank you.

That was good. Thank you. For me, that's like one of the first, when I first started listening to music, that was one, you know, right when I got the, yeah, right when I got, you know, my first guitar, you know, that was one of the first songs that I would try to play.

Right, right. What was your first guitar? My first real, well, the first guitar I bought was a $20 guitar just for my friend. I went out freshman year and at the time they had these, not concerts, but movie theaters would have these song remains the same.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Midnight showings and it was crazy as there'd be, it was Lincoln mall.

I don't know if you're from, if you grew up around here. Yeah. Theater over there and midnight.

Lincoln empty lot as we call it now. Lincoln empty lot. Yeah.

Yeah. But they would have midnight showing sometimes it'd be every like few months it'd either be song remains the same or it'd be the Warriors. Oh God.

Yeah. It's sure. Of course they did.

Yeah. Yeah. And there was no rules at night.

They let you, you could bring beer, alcohol. It was like the purge. It was like, it was like going to a concert.

There was everyone's passing around drinks and you know, I'm 16 years old and their joints are coming around me. Yeah. And, and anyway, I was just starting to get into music at the time and, and Zeppelin was one of my favorites coming around and I'd never seen it was before MTV and for radio.

So I'd never seen real footage of them. Yeah. And I just couldn't believe it.

Like the, the, the intro of the first song is the same, but it's like, you know, the very first song is rock and roll and the lights are off and you hear the music and hear the drums and all of a sudden the lights come on and Jimmy Page just jumps out with his guitar. I was like Madison square Garden as I couldn't believe this one guitar was doing, making all this, Yeah. Making all that sound, sound and controlling and just like driving the whole, like everything just the way you move your way.

Like, I was like, I got to do that. Right. So I bought a, my friend, uh, call my friend who had a guitar.

He's still play that guitar. And he's like, no, I'm 20 bucks. I bought it.

It was a, you know, I don't know if it had a name, but I started out with that one and just kind of went on from one on from there and bought an acoustic and just, it was always a guitar around. Uh, but like I said, I never, uh, you know, I never felt, uh, uh, never felt that I was connecting a lot with the guitar. Like I had something I didn't, I didn't, I felt like I just didn't have the ability to play intricate and to, to, to play well.

And I found out later in life that, um, you know, if you, you know, there's, um, practice enough, you know, they're kind of saying now there's a lot of studies. Now they're saying that, uh, uh, you're not really, you're not dismissing that you're born with talent, but they're just saying that there's, um, there's a lot more to do with determination. It'll come out of your practice.

If you try hard enough, and if you have the right kind of practice, you know, people think, Oh, I'm practicing, playing the same thing over. You're not getting better, but you have to drive, drive yourself to practice things that you don't, you're not good at the practice things that you need to learn. That's hard to do.

Like it's easy. Like I'm just having fun. I'm singing songs, but, but to, to go through the scale, it's like go through scales over and over.

It's not particularly fun, you know, but it's getting better. That's what you have to do. I remember, I remember when I finally got my first bar chord, I like freaked out.

I've been trying and trying, couldn't get it right. And all of a sudden it just happened because I was practicing. I kept trying and trying and trying.

One day it was like, it worked. It, yep. You must have weird fingers.

I do. Yeah. It's just cause that's not a natural movement.

No. It's, it's not natural for your fingers to, you know, for the index finger to just go flat. Yeah.

It's just, it's cause that's not a natural movement at all. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why a lot of people give up on guitar. Cause like so much, uh, there's so much mechanics you have to learn to make it sound, you know, to play everything right. So people give up before they get to the point where they can play.

Right. Most of the time, you know, when somebody says that you're playing the guitar, like I play guitar, I'm, I'm right handed. Right.

They're not referring to the right hand on the neck. Your right hand is usually what's doing all the strumming. Right.

So people will get very frustrated with the guitar because now you're taking your dumb hand. Right. And you're asking the dumb hand, you can't even throw a baseball.

I can't even throw a baseball with my left hand. Right. But now I'm asking it each individual finger to, to, to precisely fret one of six strings in a small little one inch by two inch area here.

Right. Yeah. So it becomes almost impossible for people to do something like that.

And so most of the frustration with learning how to play guitar is okay. You've got to get over the fact that this is your dumb hand and you're not going to be able to accurately do that for a long time. And you've got to keep trying to do things like that over and over and over again.

And the tips of your fingers hurt like hell. Hell. Yeah, exactly.

Not to mention it's, it's, it's backwards. If you think about it, you know, if you play a piano, you're looking at everything and you're reading it right to left, right. And you're looking at your hands the way they're supposed to be starting with the continuing over here, but now you're flipping it upside down.

You know, now you're flipping it and looking at everything, looking at it backwards. Yeah. It's completely, it's completely different.

Yeah. Yeah. I get it.

And the piano, you could somewhat make music. This is listenable, you know, very, you know, in a very short period of time. And right.

Guitars, you know, a lot of work before you get in. If something you sound remotely musical, you basically got to make the notes and chords on the guitar there. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Right.

They're in the piano, right there, right there, that there, there's that great scene in, uh, in, uh, actually, no, I take that back. It's not in the movie Ray. I saw the making of the movie Ray when Jamie Foxx was auditioning to get the role to play Ray Charles.

And the, the requirement was they brought in, they had these two pianos face-to-face. And the last thing that Jamie Foxx had to do was he had to go head to head and play piano with Ray Charles because he wanted somebody to play him who could actually play the piano. And Jamie Foxx made a mistake and Ray Charles stops.

He goes, Oh, he goes, what the hell did you go and do that for? He goes, all you got to do is look down and find a note. Yeah, it was great. It was a great scene.

So are you completely self-taught on guitar? Did you take lessons? Uh, well, I, I took some lessons, but they were just, uh, not for long. I didn't, I didn't really count that as contributing anything. I, uh, you know, there's, they, they wanted to teach you how to read music and I wasn't interested in that.

I just wanted to hear, Oh, how do you play this Rush song? How do you play, you know? So I kind of, I, I kind of backed off from those that early on. Right. But I'm taking lessons now.

I take some online lessons. So, um, and they're really, I'm, I'm, I'm getting a lot better than ever dreamed I would be just from taking these and, and, and practice. I don't know if you ever heard Marty music.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Like Marty music.

He's kind of cheesy, but he's, he's got some really good, really good lessons. Really. He's got a really good job.

Yeah. He's been doing that for freaking years. The guy's probably, the guy's worth millions just showing people how to play guitar on, on, on the internet.

It's crazy. What's funny is a lot of times some younger folk will ask me like, so who did you use to learn to play the guitar? I'm like, what do you mean? Well, who'd you, where'd you go online? Who'd you use? I'm like, when I learned the guitar, there was no internet. There was no internet.

Yeah. Yeah. I had to go buy a book.

Yeah. And look at the book. He even addresses that.

Marty says, like, listen, he'll, he'll show like a scale or something like that. He was like, I didn't have anybody. I had to figure this out for him.

I had to ask him. He goes, I'm showing you guys, he goes, this is, you don't, you don't know how, uh, you know, how helpful it is to see a video and watch some guys slow. You can slow down and watch it.

Right. Thanks so much. We've got these apps now on our phones where we can remove all of the other tracks, except for the guitar track.

So we can hear exactly how it's not. We had to sit in our bedrooms with a stupid record player. Cause I mean, I learned how to play in the, in the early eighties, right? You know, turning the stupid, you know, taking the needle off the record and putting it back where you think it should be, putting it back down and listening to a record.

Yeah. And try and play it. Yeah.

It's crazy. But those are the good old days. Those are fun.

That kept us out of trouble, I think. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

And then it forced us to go get a job so we could replace the stylus on the turntable and replace some more. How many strings we broke? Yeah. Yeah.

So we said we were going to embarrass you. So what's the first song you ever learned how to play? Uh, the first song was, uh, probably, um, let's see the old, uh, uh, I can't play it anymore. Smoke Underwater.

You're going to do it right now. Your own, your own, your version or the correct version or the correct version. Oh, he's no, he's, he's doing it.

He's, he's doing it. Yeah. Now sing it.

Yeah. One, two, three. No.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's everybody's, everybody's favorites.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And Zeppelin, uh, did it like probably Heartbreaker. Yeah. Uh huh.

Yeah. And you said you're married, right? Yes. What's your wife's favorite song? My wife's favorite.

She, I wouldn't say that she has a favorite song. She's, um, what's the one she wants you to play? Um, well actually, I should probably say, does your wife go out and see your shows? Oh, she has a miss one. Really? Yeah.

She, well, she missed one. She had a flu. She's, she's half of my show.

She, I don't have a, I don't have much of a, um, like a stage personality, which I, you know, cause I'm so banter. Yeah, I don't, that's just not my thing. So she takes care of that for me.

She's very outgoing. She gets people up and dancing. She gets, she forced me to just this thing, uh, to make do sing along songs.

Yeah. She goes, Oh no, you gotta do journey. You gotta do, I said, ah, that's not my style.

I don't do sing along songs. Wow. And she forced me to a country.

She was like, if you want to entertain everybody in there, you gotta learn it. And now it's become, I can do three hours of sing along songs and half the time. And she, she, she's got a bag of tambourines, uh, kind of, you know, percussion instruments and just, she'll see a group of people at a table.

She'll hand them out. She gets them all up, dancing, doing shots, you know? So your wife is encouraging this and going out there and doing everything. What's your wife's name? Stephanie.

Stephanie. Yeah. Applause Stephanie for going out there and doing that.

People admit this. I don't have like a huge following. Acoustic guys usually don't, but I usually get a table or two friends that come out and 90% of them there to more so to hang out with Stephanie than to see the music.

Wow. She, I mean, she's either a very supportive wife or she's like, you know what? I want him to recognize my dream so I can control it. Yeah.

We're just picking on you, Stephanie. No, she truly, uh, people say that I, I added a kind of a few years back, I got a second mic cordless. So she takes second mic and towards the end of the night, you know, if the, if the venue allows it, you know, some people don't like that.

People sing along and grabbing, you know, some of my friends will, will do some backup if, uh, you know, at that kind of place. Cool. Well, it sounds like she does have a favorite song though.

She has to. If she does all that, she's got to have her favorite song. What's the, what's the, what's the song? What's, what's her song? Come on, man.

What's her song? Um, yeah, no, I, you know, she, uh, she, she has songs that she hates for me to play. Okay. Then let's do one of those.

If we can't go in Memphis, Gerald, uh, she, oh no, no, you, you absolutely have to do that one. You have to do that one because that's like one of my favorites. I'll do that one already.

I've been trying forever to write. I'll do a song. It's a 10 minute song.

I'll cut it down. Yeah, we'll cut it. We'll cut it down.

But I've been for years, I've been trying to write a song that sounds like a Gordon Lightfoot song. And I just, I just can't cause he's got a, he's got a, he's got a great sound. Yeah.

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It was just the anniversary. So I ended up, I was getting a lot of requests for that last year.

It was like the 50th year, I think. So then she's heard it plenty of times. And every time I do it, you know, every time we hear it, you can see she rolls her eyes.

She'll even, she'll tell the people. Yeah. But, um, she introduces it by saying, I hope this is one of your favorite songs because it's not one of mine.

It's wonderful. I get, I, there's a song for our wedding that I dedicated her to Aaron Lewis song. Um, that's, that's, uh, um, yeah, you're, well, you're more of a nineties, um, metal kind of guy.

I'm looking at the tattoos on your forearm and stuff like that. I mean, you got the food fighters and, um, food fighters was Zeppelin. Uh, and we, yeah, these are all my influences.

Uh, uh, this is Brian James Dio. Yeah. Oh, that is a Metallica.

Um, I got that. My son drew, my son designed that. My son's a musician too.

Um, he designed that. He's an artist too. The tattoo on my left arm, which you can't see cause I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, was designed by my son.

It goes from here all the way down to here. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Um, I've got, yeah, the stones. Yeah. My first guitar.

I don't know. I think he's stalling. He doesn't want to do the Edmund Fitzgerald, but we're not leaving until he does the Fitzgerald.

It's like quick before he shows us the tattoos on his ass. Oh God, no. Here we go.

This podcast is going to hell. He didn't say no. He didn't say no.

There's a tattoo on his ass somewhere. Could be. Yeah.

We, uh, I didn't have any tattoos when I met five years ago. That's all since I started doing music. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Edmund Fitzgerald. Let's go. Come on.

That's a great chord progression. They could go on. They could go on absolutely forever.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I was trying to find like a horn that would blow or something like that. Like a, like a shit passing. And all we had was, uh, all we had was, no, I guess that works.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that works. That's good.

That's good. I guess I could, it's coming to me now. Like, uh, it's actually of all the songs is a Jethro Tull song that she likes when I play a locomotive breath.

Oh God. You know, that is when people do that song, right. It's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool.

See, well, give us, give us a minute of it. Give us, give us a second of it. I'm curious.

She's not even a Jethro Tull fan. She probably, I don't think she even knew the song before. That's cool.

That's cool. That's one of my favorite songs too. I absolutely love that.

It doesn't matter, you know, where that song is, where I hear it. I'm listening to the rest of it. It's, it's a great song.

Really cool. Really cool song. So do you do any original music at all? Or do you all, uh, um, well, that's kind of, that's kind of where we're at now.

So we've been doing this for five years and, you know, we both have full-time jobs and not only full-time more than what she would work in a medical field. Um, she's a nurse, I'm a racial therapist. Um, and then, so we've been doing this and then playing two times, you know, two or three times on a weekend, you know, take a weekend off here and there, but it's just been nonstop.

And, and there's times it gets to us. And then, um, I had a kind of after towards the end of this year, I got a little lazy and I wasn't really booking myself. We usually go on like these kind of like pub crawls where we'll go and find a bunch of places that have music and draw a card off.

And, and her being the salesman that she is usually talk, she's talked people into me playing even before they even heard me sometimes, you know, she's, uh, you know, she's got that way of talking to people. Um, but anyway, uh, we, so we had some time off and then we found out we were the kind of enjoying not going, it's not that it's not what we're tired of doing this or anything like that. It's just that you want to sit at home and watch a movie every once in a while.

It's more like having to be somewhere. Okay. It's like, okay, Saturday we got it.

Okay. We have to go and we'll, we have to go do something, go to an arms or whatever, but you gotta be back at two. So she'd get in the shower.

So I get to my guitar, change the strings, be there to set up. And then you can't just say, well, I'm tired today. I'm not going to do it.

You know? So, um, so we decided to, uh, kind of use this time. We've been getting more healthy, working out and, uh, you know, eating better and, uh, just like taking a little time off to, uh, you know, kind of regroup and stuff. And we're talking about the kind of writing songs and coming up.

We haven't really written, wrote one yet, but I'm, I come up with some things and we write down some lyrics and yeah, just in it. And like I said, I want to, I want to get into more blues type music, maybe more country. So I've been listening to music out.

I haven't really listened to this guy now. He's going to write country. And he said before he didn't like it.

Well, I'll tell you what, I guess it's funny that you said this cause I can even send this to if you want, but this is a, uh, something that I saw the other day. I even took a screenshot of it. It's the, and I did this only to motivate myself cause I do write, but I haven't written anything in probably about three or four months.

I guess, you know, for the same reason I got shit going on. Right. You know, but I saw this and I was like, okay, this is really cool.

It's, it's called the 26 day song writing challenge and it gives you a topic for 26 days. So if you, if you can write a song a day, you're pretty, you're better than me. I'll tell you that right now.

But it's like day one, write a song dedicated to your latest crush, right? You might not want to do that if you're a married man, but you know, Hey, your latest crush could be Papa John's pizza. You know, I mean it worked for Jimmy Buffett with cheeseburgers. I don't know.

Um, the, you know, day two is write a song about your favorite season. Day three is write a song about a place with a name for the title. And then the one that I'm actually looking forward to is day five is write a song that has a color in the title.

I don't know. I mean, it just gives you ideas. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. It gives you an idea. There's like, there's like 26 of them on here.

Write a song for your parents. Nobody ever thinks about that. I'm going to write a song for my wife, my girlfriend, my dog.

Nobody thinks about writing a song. Number two, the season one. Yeah.

I do it like I'm about oregano. Yeah. Yeah.

That'd be great. Or rosemary. Actually, you know what? You have to be careful though, because I think Sarman and Garfunkel did, you know, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

Yeah. So you can't really do that one. Yeah.

We'll have to do something about cayenne pepper or something like that. Yeah. Talk about herbs to province, fire, real, you know, eating too much cayenne pepper, something like that.

But this is really interesting. I thought that was pretty cool. That'd be a good way to start.

Yeah, it is. And right now we're, we're, um, since we have some extra time of like, we'll, we'll throw out topics and, and even we'll be out doing something and we'll hear a phrase and we'll write it down. Like, okay, that's going to go into a song somewhere.

I've heard this, uh, I heard John Lennon talk about that. He goes, cause he's giving some advice and he goes, well, when you have words that you like, write them down. Right.

And pretty soon you'll have, you know, a book where then you put them back together because they don't have to make sense sometimes. Yeah. Right.

A lot of people say they'll be writing something. They got like writer's block, you know, then they'll remind, remember something they wrote a year or two ago. Right.

Find that book. Here it is. This is what I can use and fits right in.

I heard one today standing in the lobby of Northwestern hospital in the city. Somebody, somebody walked into two people are arguing and the, and the lady behind, I think it was, it was just like information desk or something like that said, it is not my responsibility to manage your breakdowns. Geez, that is a song.

That's a song line right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Excellent. So where can people find you social media wise? Uh, social media, I, uh, I have a website, my, uh, lroyacoustic.com, um, that they'll have everywhere I'm playing that, um, you know, I get booked for private parties and so they can reach out to me on that. My, uh, my Facebook got shut down.

Um, I got corrupt or something. So there's, I was going to say, Oh, what did you say? That's the thing I don't say. I don't, yeah, I don't talk political or anything like that.

Yeah. I don't know what happened, but, uh, I guess I got hacked and something happened. And then my, so my music, I have the Elroy Cousic, there's an old one.

Um, so I, and I, like you can't access, so there's another one, other acoustics. So my official, I guess, uh, for Facebook, Elroy, Elroy. Um, and, but, uh, the best place is to look on my website.

Um, I have all my gigs, uh, up to date. Perfect. Um, but I'm playing, uh, yeah, I play at Arrowhead, um, in the new Lennox.

I got to come up there in a couple of months. Uh, the new true country, the one in Shenanigan. I love that place.

There's a new one in April and then the new one, it's going to be a new Lennox. And I think I'm in there in June. They're hoping to be up, have it up.

I'm at social 45 in a, in a few weeks, a few months, I think. Uh, next week I met Melinda's in Worth. Um, new owner there, the food there is, you know, he's really turning the place around.

Um, yeah, I got a, I have a list somewhere. I guess the thirsty beaver has new owners now too. I heard.

Oh yeah. Is it, is it new owners? Wow. I think it's new owners.

Hmm. Okay. And a little bit of a shake up over there, but I guess for the good.

Yeah. Okay. All right.

Stray bar in Frankfurt. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Quite a bit. Uh, I don't know.

For us at Gaelic park. Oh yeah. A few times.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, every third Friday I'm at the speakeasy in, in, uh, at Embers in Lockport.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Right.

Right. Okay. Speakeasy on third floor.

That's a real, that's one of my favorite places to play. It's a cool, cool, cool place. Yeah.

Every third Friday I'm there. So by no means stopping, I'm just not playing two, three times a weekend. Yeah.

Right. Right. Right.

And so gotcha. Gotcha. That's it.

All right. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for coming in.

Yeah. There's a really cool people. You have to get the word out here about the museum.

There's a museum is awesome. Eventually. Yeah.

When it's totally open. Yeah. Yeah.

Right now it's, it's, it's like it's open, but it's only like pseudo open. Okay. So I mean, words getting out a little bit.

I mean, it's open Monday through Friday. It's open during the day. You can walk right through the front door.

Uh, the gift shop is open. The first floor is open here, but you can't go to the second or third floor. They're both under construction, but you can, but believe me, um, they would appreciate people coming in just to see what is currently available.

It's, it changes quite often, but guys come in and buy a t-shirt because it's a non-for-profit organization and, and every dollar helps. So yeah. Yeah.

It's a great spot there. There's your charitable contribution speech. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I guess it was. All right. And, and, and, and Ron Romero, if you're looking, if you, you know, if you're listening, we're looking for sponsors.

Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah. Alrighty.

Good to see you. All right. Thank you very much.

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.