Ep 270 Chicago Rockhouse

Cover bands really are a dime-a-dozen as they say. But once in awhile a new project forms that manages to combine not only interesting songs, but a new way to present them to an audience. Rockhouse delivers on both fronts.

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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! Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And I'm going home, Mike.

You're going home? Yeah, I feel like we've been here for like six months already with you guys setting up these fucking cameras. What the heck's going on here? That's true, that's true. Yeah, hey, we're gonna be there at seven o'clock.

Oh, you don't have to be there early. Oh, yeah, we do. We have to be there early.

Well, shit. Now you know why. Man, no, this is Hollywood, man.

How's everybody doing today? Very good, thank you. I'm doing fine. I won some money this weekend.

How'd you win money this weekend? I took the Seahawks. Did you really? Yeah, you know, so I've never seen my son go to the highest of emotions to the lowest of emotions in a period of about five seconds. He placed a bet where I've, you know, the end of the game, the last rushing touchdown that scored and there was a holding penalty and they called it back.

My son bet some kind of parlay or some crap like that where the guy that scored that touchdown, he would have won a thousand bucks and he's jumping up and he'll say, yes, and then he sees the flag, he goes, no. Yeah. And overall, it was pretty much a boring game.

Oh, God, the game sucked. It was terrible. Mind you, 0-5.

Oh, God. I'm glad that the Bears didn't get that far. Yeah.

They would have had their asses beat. Yeah, and that was just a boring game. I think I was actually doing some work on my Les Paul.

I got finished by about halfway through the first quarter. I went, got something to eat, sat down with the rest of the people that were watching the game. You know, we had like eight people in the house and I fell asleep during the Super Bowl.

Did you sit halftime? Not that halftime show. We flipped over and watched Kid Rock lip sync. Oh, OK.

Yeah, yeah, we did. But anyways, yeah, God, it seems like the Super Bowl was forever ago. It does, doesn't it? Yeah.

But you know what the crazy thing was? The Super Bowl ended and me and my son and my daughter's boyfriend were just, at this point, we were just drunk drinking. We had too many Pabst's and we were cheering for the female figure skating. Nice.

The Olympics after the football game. Yeah, well, it wasn't a complete loss. I had my first cocktail around noon Sunday.

Yeah. So by the end of the Super Bowl, you pretty much know how I was. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a beautiful.

It was a long day. Beautiful. So I like to start my Sundays with, I don't know, just like bourbon and coke.

By noon, I'm just bourbon. You know, pass out, something like that. Sometime run it.

Who, who the fuck is that? Who's talking? Who is that? I don't know. I didn't know there was anybody here. I don't know.

We were in the halftime show. I, you know, I don't, I didn't think I did any, I mean. I don't know.

Maybe these guys are going to rock the house. Yeah, you got to keep reminding him he's got to talk in the mic. Yeah, you got to talk to the mic.

Yeah, that's me. All right, everybody. What's going on, fellas? There's enough of you.

We got, we've got 72 people in the studio. That's right. Everybody.

That's right. Chicago rock. Unbelievable.

You know, you know who, who decided to name it? You know, Chicago rock house, because yeah. Cause you know, that's like another word for crack house and shit, right? Is it? Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Right. Go to a rock house, dude. Yeah.

Actually, I got to give credit to Axel because I think he's, he's, he came up with the name. An old singer of ours. Okay.

So why don't we do this? Since there's so many, why don't we go around romper room style and tell everybody what your name is and what you do in the band? My name's Spig and I founded Rock House. Spig. Spig.

That's what I go by. First big F. Okay. If you're Polish.

All right. That's the American way. All right.

My name is Vladimir. Okay. People call me Vlad when they want to be nice to me.

The Impaler. Yeah. I play the guitar and I do all other kinds of stuff.

Musical director and cut videos and sing back vocals and sometimes leads and stuff like that. Awesome. Awesome.

My name is Rick. I do the keyboards and some little bit of guitar in the background. Sounds good.

Sounds really, it's your name isn't something else. It's just, it's just plain old Rick. You can call me Rick.

Okay. Rick House. John Vandenberg.

See my whole name in case anybody wants to find me. Yeah. Bass player, backing vocals.

He refuses to talk in the mic guys. Yeah, he does. He just won't, he won't do it.

Bass player, backing vocals. Yeah. Web stuff.

David, lead singer. That's all I need to know. That really is.

That's all you, that's all you need to know. Yeah. I'm Spig or Spiggy.

It's been filling in on the drums a little bit. He was actually for Rock House version two. He was taking the lead on the drums and I was going to the backup.

Okay. So he just, he just separated from the Marine Corps and while, while he's in. Right.

He's going to be, he's going to be taking a couple sets of, you know, a set of show. Fantastic. So we've got not just one Spig, we've got two Spigs.

And we've got, we've got Spig and Spiggy. And it's not like, that's not bad enough. We have two drummers.

Right. You know what I mean? Neither one should have a mic. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. That's right. So, so, so thank you.

Was this, so was this your brainchild then? Yeah. It was? Yeah, it was mine. Yeah.

Tell us, tell us how it all started. Tell us how it all came about. So, um, you know, I was in the metal scene back in the eighties, you know, the thirsty well days.

In the hair, hair metal days. Yeah. How'd that work out for you? I'm not a rock star and I have no hair.

So, but I do have some money in the bank. So that's a good thing. You know, it's kind of an oxymoron with musicians, but, uh, no, um, uh, we were an original band and, uh, you know, like big into the Queens, right? Black Sabbath.

What band were you in? I hate to say the name. Cause I hated the name. Animus Howell.

NMS Howell. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, but we were actually signed by, uh, Red Light Records back in 1988. Okay.

We've probably ran into each other and didn't even freaking realize it. Cause I used to hang out there and all, but I was in several different bands that stepped foot on that stage every once in a while. Yeah.

No kidding. It's a, it's a shame it's gone, but, uh, yeah, yeah. They tried to revamp it somewhere else.

I believe the thirsty well version too. Yeah. But it didn't really take off.

Yeah. Oh, well. So, but anyway, started Rock House.

Actually, Rick, I knew before any of these guys and we tried to put it together. He was playing keyboards. It just, it, it didn't work out at the time.

Um, and really Rock House formed years after we got together. But, um, so V1, I don't like talking so much about V1 because V1 doesn't even stand up to V2 version two, but we all met at some point and version one came together for version, except for JV. Yeah, I did.

Yeah. He, go ahead. You can tell him.

Yeah. No, no, no. You, you, you talk.

Come on. No, go around. There's way more things you need to say, bro.

Yeah. So, um, uh, so Vlad came in, um, uh, early on and we just, we just never had the right vocals and, um, you know, it just didn't work out. Actually, Dave was taking the job at Rock House and then he peeled off.

As I was leaving. As he was leaving. Everybody had met over the years and then it started and declined.

Yeah. And then the stars align somewhere that we all came together like 15 years later. This is true.

Yeah. Well, we were in the right place, but not at the right time. Right.

Cause we all met each other, but we never actually played together. I met him, you met him. I never met you or Rick.

Right. Right. We all had the same vision, I think way from way back.

And we just came in and out of the, each other's lives a little bit. I heard about Vlad right away because I had just left with Spig and he was doing Rock House and he said, Vlad came in and he's, I think he did a talent show with you. Was it? That's right.

I think so. He did a talent show with you and he played at his talent show. Was it at school? What amazing guy.

He told me. How far back are we going right now? 20 years. 2010? No.

Before that. That was probably nine. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right.

Cause you were talking about playing together at school in the whole bit. No, he played with Spig. Okay.

Yeah. He was like this. Yeah.

Playing drums in the corner. We got together back in like 06 or 05 or something. And he would be playing and just jamming.

He would be playing. Oh my gosh. Whom the bell tolls.

Yes. Are you kidding me? And then he, these guys did, what song did you guys do? Bark at the Moon? Something like that. Something like Bark at the Moon or something like.

No. Oh, I forget. When you were, when you were a kid.

It was a Bon Jovi tune. Oh, was it Bon Jovi? I wasn't there for that, but I heard about it and I heard about Vlad right away. Right.

And I guess apparently Dave was there and came and left and. Yeah. I had actually auditioned for V1 and it just didn't sit right for whatever reason.

I didn't, I didn't feel comfortable about doing the material because I had just come out of, I had come out of two bands. I used to be in a, I started in a Rush Tribute and where I, it was a four piece and we took so much shit for being a four piece. For being a four piece Rush Tribute band.

Of course, of course. I could totally, yeah, absolutely. But it allowed us to, to augment and supplement the sounds because I could sing, I could play guitar, I played keys.

And so we just built that sound there. Unfortunately things, or rather fortunately, however you're viewing it, but that didn't work out. And then I went on to hook up with a Deep Purple Tribute.

That was a lot of fun, but another sort of niche band we didn't really. And that was only three guys in that band. There were only three guys in that band, right, exactly.

That was a lot of fun. And I still am in touch with, with the guys from, from those two bands. Then migrated onto a Judas Priest Tribute, which was a lot of fun.

And, and then so finally I thought to myself, okay, well, I'm pretty much, I think done with the Tribute bands, because despite the fact that at first, at least for me, you know, there's, there's depending on which band you pick, you have a lot of material to choose from and you can go through that catalog, but then all of a sudden you kind of get, getting, painting yourself into a corner, so to speak. And so I, what was it? 2020 at the tail end of COVID, I think. It was right before COVID, I would say, right before it started.

Good old Craigslist ad. Yeah. We threw it out there.

Yeah. Be careful. This is going out into the internet.

Everything is true out there. Nothing, nothing, nothing good ever happens after you mentioned Craigslist. And so I saw the ad that was placed by, by Spig, and I had responded to it because we had met before for V1 auditions.

And it turns out that I was tailoring my response to Spig, but it was actually the Vlad responder. He was like, I think you know this guy. And then I had to go back into my emails and I'm like, son of a gun.

This is the guy that he took the, took the gig early on. It just didn't work out. And it was on good terms.

I totally understand. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So yeah, so we started practicing and you know, everything worked out really, really well. I was really comfortable with all the material that we were doing. It was just a huge variety.

Some of the things that suited my voice later on, we tried it some, tried out some things like cult and, you know, a few other songs where, you know, I kind of varied my voice, wasn't a clean stuff that I was doing, you know, in years past. And so it's kind of like experienced a little growth as a, as a, as a singer and, and a musician. So it's been, it's been tremendous.

The, the outpouring of support that we've had has been absolutely amazing. If I may plug our YouTube channel briefly, Rock House. I don't even think you need Chicago Rock House.

You do need it. Oh, you do need it. Okay.

You do. Chicago Rock House. Chicago Rock House is keyword.

And yeah, we're up to, let's see, we started that in 2021, I want to say, early 2021. And with a few videos. With the audition tapes.

The audition tapes. Right. Exactly.

And, and you know, from there we built up over 10,000 subscribers at the, as of this recording and almost 2 million views of all of our videos. We've got 40 some videos out there right now. And it's a wide variety of, of rock.

I mean, we've do, you know. Our board. Yeah.

We do, you know, the standard arena rock, you know, we're Journey and, you know, White Snake and all that. But you know, we also, you know, liven it up with a little Toto. Cult, as I mentioned before.

Queen. Big fans of Queen. And again, the, the, the outpouring has just been tremendous.

The support that we've been getting and it's been slowly building and it's been fantastic. Quite a ride. So I, best decision I could have made in terms of, you know, my musical direction for, for my career is like, wait.

Now, did the rest of you guys come from that whole tribute band thing? Or do you have experience playing, playing in tribute bands and things like that? No, I just want to throw a plug in here with, with Spig, just real quick, because he was actually taking over the main, he was going to be the drummer at Rock House. I'm like, you got to play with David and you got to play with Vlad because these guys are, and he is an amazing drummer. And then he dropped the ball and he's like, I'm going into the Marine Corps.

But anyway, that's him. So go ahead and introduce yourself, Spig. Yeah, I'm Spig, been playing drums since I can remember.

And he's pretty darn good. Since I can remember, and I'm old. My old man kind of taught me everything.

And so I got to give credit to him. Just a little credit. Yeah, a lot of credit.

He's pretty good. So, so do you guys play at the same time? Are you, you always have two drummers on stage at the same time? No, no, no. So it's not that.

So he's only here temporarily. Yeah, we're not doing, who does, who did that 38th special? Oh, there were several. Several, yeah.

But I think Ringo and the All-Star Band. Yeah, no, it's not one of those. We've got to go Ringo, man.

Yeah, the Doobie Brothers had two drummers. Yeah, the Doobie Brothers did. Yep.

Steely Dan. Steely Dan had two drummers. No, we're not going to be doing that.

But no, so when he would come in on leave, you know, he'd come up on stage and, you know, play a couple of times. And now he's gone, now he's not gone, he's home temporarily. So this is an opportunity for him to play.

And these guys, you know, open up the book of music a little bit. And so he does some things way better than I can do. So when he's playing, what are you doing? Just going, wow, look at my favorite drummer.

I mean, I think you got it right. I think you should send him to the bar, yeah. He's sitting in a corner and learning.

Well, that's good. That's good. So I was kind of, what were we talking about? You had a lot of experience with tribute bands.

Did any of you else come from that area or what were some influences? What kind of brought this whole thing together? Cover bands only. Yeah. I did all and I was in some horrible, horrible cover bands.

Even my wife is like, what are you doing? No names. No, I will not name names. You know what? You're too old for this.

We all have to kiss a few toads, you know? I mean, it happens sometimes, right? I gave up entirely, you know, it was so frustrating playing for a whole band would maybe make 250 bucks. Yeah. Get home at four in the morning.

I'm done. I don't need this anymore. And these three.

I had to drag them. Oh, yeah, yeah. Kalanch Big and Dave made these five videos on YouTube and they were in their basement studio.

Oh, now we're rocking. They were really great quality and they, of course, they sounded amazing. And I saw that on Craigslist, which is even not even a thing anymore.

When I saw the videos, I did two things. I go, holy crap. These guys, you know, the vocals, the draw, everything is higher than I've ever seen.

And they're in St. Charles. I live in Aurora. So, you know, I have to be realistic with the practice distance travel time.

That was it. That was good enough for me. So I just went and auditioned thinking, is this finally my chance to not be in one of these? Not even level B bands.

We're talking in the C's. Yeah. C's and D's.

Any bar that anybody will take you. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's awesome.

But how about if we pay you just to play a couple songs? It was about getting down to that point. You know, by the time you pay for gas and buy something to eat, you go home with like 10 bucks if you're lucky. But you know what? I'll tell you what.

We've all been, if you're a musician, everybody's been in a band that's been that way. And there's still something to be learned. Oh, it's a good experience.

I have young daughters who were trying to get it and I want them to, I don't want them to go right to a decent band. They got to learn the hard way what they like, who they, what people are like to deal with. Right.

Right. What bars are like. That's probably our biggest strength, John, too, is that we get to, we get along really well together.

I mean, there's no, it's no ego at all. I mean, and everyone has a role that they play in here outside of the music. So when you go downstairs and we rehearse, it comes together.

It's actually fun. It's fun. You know what's crazy about that? We were, I was just having that conversation with somebody.

It was, you know, how many failed bands I'd been in when I was younger. And it wasn't until I was like in my forties that I was actually in bands that stuck around and we made a name for ourselves and had a good reputation and everybody worked well together. I, I get the feeling that we're all about the same age.

Cause you're mentioning, mentioning 1988 at Thirsty Whale. Yeah. I graduated from high school in 1988.

Right. So, you know, it was when you get older and you get a group of guys that are older and mature and it's not about the Eagles anymore. It's like, this is your responsibility.

I'm going to take this responsibility. We're all adults. Let's act that way.

There's no more of the bullshit. It's like, you wish you could have skipped the twenties and thirties and got right to the forties. It's a totally different experience.

In a way. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, it was 100% totally different experience than anything I've ever been a part of really. I was in a band for three days, three days, one time, literally a band for three days. This band was just trying to get together and get together.

And they finally pulled me in cause they hated their other guitar player. And I went there, we're like, oh, this is great, man. This is fantastic.

You know, we sound great. Let's start putting, putting some shows together. Let's put together a set list and stuff.

And then, you know, Monday comes around and they're like, yeah, the drummer decided he didn't want to do this anymore. And we practice at his house. You always practice at the drummer's house.

Wow. That's yeah. Crazy, crazy.

Drummers are very powerful people in, in cover bands, I guess. They have too much gear to lug around. That's true.

Right. And who's the lead guitar player? Blatt? Yes. Yeah.

Are you good, Blatt? Am I good? Is Blatt good? You want to come? Yeah, kind of. He's very humble. He's amazing.

Yeah. Thank you. That's, uh, he's very humble.

But I was just telling somebody earlier today, it's like, uh, he is that good. He's globally good. Yeah, he really is.

Like, yeah, he would, he'll play note for note, Yngwie Malmsteen. Wow. Going back to the day.

But that's the first video I saw of him. I'm like, holy, she's playing far beyond the song. And I, there's no word, there's no one singing in that, but I know all the notes.

Right. I know all that stuff. I'm like, son of a man.

He's just sitting there. It's still out there somewhere. He was in the shower.

But it was that video, but that's the kind of player, uh, uh, globally, globally good player. Where'd you get your start? Thanks. Um, you know, I started early.

I was maybe 10, 11 years old when I heard, uh, Queen live, live magic album. And I heard Brian May and I was like, oh my God, how do you do this? And I had some old acoustic guitar laying around. So I took it.

Yeah. Started kind of noodling around, found some notes and stuff. Then I discovered Gary Moore, this, um, legendary Gary.

Hold on. Shall we, shall we genuflect to make the sound across real quick? Yeah. So, you know, you know, yeah, right.

And then, uh, and then after Gary Moore, I started discovering, you know, Yngwie and Steve Vai, Joseph Triani, Steve Lukather and all these big guys, you know, and, um, and I kind of expanded my, uh. I don't mean to interrupt, but you, you need to go back. Your origin story is much more interesting.

All of us combined. Oh, that's, that's a different. You skipped your whole thing.

Look, that's a different podcast. Okay. Let's not do that.

No, no, no, no, no. Now we have, now we have to talk. Now you got to talk.

We just opened up the door for another podcast. This cannot happen right now. Okay.

Let's not go. This is a long story, man. We don't have time.

We actually have plenty of time because you guys didn't bring any instruments to perform inside of the studio. Oh, we can play some videos. How about that? Yeah.

We'll play some videos, some MP3s, but it doesn't matter anyway. So yeah, we'll skip that part. So was, so was Brian May, was that the first guitar player you ever tried to emulate? Uh, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Brian and Gary, I would say.

Okay. The two of them. Yeah.

If you had to, if you had to pick between the two of them. You can't do that. Oh, sure you can.

Sure you can. Because I think they both have two completely distinctive tones. And, and yeah, Gary.

Yeah. That's, that would be mine. Definitely.

Because he feels it, you know, the way he plays. I mean, he pours his soul into those notes. You know, Brian is amazing.

Brian is recognizable. Oh, absolutely. You can, but Gary started something, you know, he married blues and hard rock in a way that no one else did before him.

And a lot of guitar players nowadays, they emulate and borrow Gary's licks. You know, not a lot of people know about Gary Moore. That's very kind of sad in a way.

But, um, here in the States. Right. He was huge in Europe because he's from Ireland.

But, uh, yeah. If there wasn't, you know, Thin Lizzy and stuff, he probably, like nobody would know about him. But yeah.

And he didn't even, he didn't even spend that much time with Thin Lizzy. No. So, so he doesn't really get his notoriety.

But him and Phil, you know, they, they stayed friends forever and they cut a few tracks later. You know, like Thin Lizzy didn't spend that much time with Thin Lizzy. Yeah.

Thin Lizzy. No, you're exactly right. That's true.

That's true. No, but I'm with you on Gary Moore. A friend of mine turned, uh, turned me on to Gary Moore years and years ago and I love everything that he's ever done.

So, yeah. But I also like Brian May too, that, you know, Brian May has a completely different sound. He's got that, he's got that Vox AC30 sound.

Yeah. Well, you know, his sound comes mostly from his, um, you know, self built design guitar and pickups and stuff, you know? So you've got to have those single pickups, single coils and AC30 and all the, you know, extra stuff, boosters, delays, all this stuff that he uses, you know? Yeah. And a guitar that weighs about 50 pounds.

I mean, the real one is heavy. Yeah, it is. It is.

He's also a doctor scientist. Yeah, right. Yeah.

He is. That is correct. Yeah, he is.

Yes, he is. Amazing. Since we're on the rocket science stuff, uh, he went to the same school Tesla went to.

Nikola. No, it's actually called Nikola Tesla. So that's the second part of the story, John.

All right. Are you happy now? That's the most interesting part. Okay.

Well, yeah, I'm an automation engineer and electronics guy. So I do, I do all the technical stuff in the band pretty much, you know, like automating, automating our shows and patches and changes and, you know, all that kind of stuff from like wiring racks and multi-effects and sound design, stuff like that. You can go into any piece of gear and hand jam anything in there.

And rewire it. Live too. So like when our MIDI crashes live in a show sometimes in, you know, all of a sudden he, you know, because we MIDI effects and, you know, and on his, on his boards and stuff.

So MIDI fails every once in a while. It's, you know, it's not foolproof, but he can go on the fly like this. Yeah.

And he comes over, but no, he's, he's very, very good. You gotta have, you gotta have that in the band. Right.

Yeah. But in terms of, you know, guitar playing, like you develop your own style, but if you play in a cover band, you have to play too many different styles if you want to do it right. If you want to do it faithfully, right.

So if you, if you want to produce the song to sound as, as much as possible as the original guy who played it, right. And, but not play note for note. Right.

You know, so you've got to keep it in the style of the guitar player you're covering, but then you add your own stuff a little bit, take a little creative liberty and stuff. Of course. Of course.

And that's how I know I'm getting older because I used to have a pedal board the size of this table. And one day I was just like, I'm tired of carrying this thing around with me. So now he, he's seen my rig.

I'm a guitar into amp guy now. And I'm just, you know what? I might not sound exactly like the recording, but I don't care. I'm not carrying that 200 pound pedal board anymore.

You know? Well, my pedal board has basically few things on it. You know, one, one backup pedal board with the fractal unit. So I'm down to, you know, using modulators.

I don't like amps anymore. Yeah. I'm tired of that.

Yeah. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier.

Get ready for the Bus Stop Blues, the 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 badassery.

Check out the Bus Stop Blues podcast at thebusstopblues.com where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, or any other major podcast platform. Hop on board the Bus Stop Blues where the blues never stops rolling. So you guys, y'all get along.

You have a good time in a whole bit. Amazing. Give some advice to some up and coming musicians.

How do you put together a band where you guys get along so well? How do you do that? Well, I mean, one thing I think in terms of the material is that we have varied interests, you know, not just one, just like we're not all metalheads or, you know, into whatever styles. We've got a pretty wide variety. And I think that, you know, lends itself to being able to adapt to like song choices that we want to do.

Or, you know, we're amenable to some of the selections that we do because, yeah, we, I mean, we're not solely, you know, hard rock. We've, you know, got some ballads out there and whatnot, but. Kind of like that dartboard, you know, I'm playing songs that I would never listen to younger and I play them now and I love them.

And it's to the credit to everyone else. I mean, everyone brings in a little part of that. Yeah.

And it also goes into, you know, discussion about, well, what kind of material should we do? We do covers, we, you know, at some point in the future, yeah, we're going to document this right now. We're going to do originals. But it's always, you know, the big question is like, what sort of, what sort of songs we want to do? You know, we got to do the songs that people love, you know, but there are some other songs that like as artists we want to do as well because, you know, we want to, you know, we want to please ourselves in what we do first.

And if other people like it, that's great. They don't like it. Well, it's okay too.

But, um, Yeah, but we do a lot of deep cuts and B-sides, you know, we kind of avoid all these main songs that everyone plays because you don't, who needs another cover band, right? I mean, you just need something a little bit different. You mean you don't play Don't Stop Believin'? Actually, we don't. No, we don't.

We don't play Jessie's Girl either. We need another cover band. We need another one that plays Don't Stop Believin'.

But we do, we're planning to cover the final count. No, I'm just joking. No.

We do another Europe song, but not the final count. See, we do, for example, we do Rock the Night, which was right after, you know, final countdown on the album. But yeah.

And nobody, and nobody has a clue that that was actually right after the final countdown. Everybody just knows the final countdown. And the cassette.

Yeah. I have the vinyl. Oh yeah? I have it on vinyl, I do.

And that was one song I didn't listen to till Rock House. So see, another huge guy that I discovered back in the day was Kim Marcello, the second guitar player from Europe. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was one of my, also like top five, I would say. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. Excellent. So who's got the most eclectic musical taste? Probably me.

Probably me. I mean, I was listening to Andy Williams earlier today. Oh, wow.

I mean, I'm huge. Me too. Oh, there you go.

Okay. We're in connection. Didn't know about that.

I was listening to Doobie Brothers. Oh, okay. Okay.

I love the Doobie Brothers. For me, I started out with the Beatles. Hearing those harmonies and Lennon and McCartney.

I had me and my brother, Eric. My brother actually has got a really good musical talent, but he didn't, wasn't able to continue it, but started with the Beatles. Then, you know, a lot of that 70s pop, Glenn Campbell, Wichita linemen, you know, singer, songwriters.

He's talking my language. He's talking my language. What's my favorite genre, man? Yacht Rock music, baby.

Love Yacht Rock music. Yacht Rock. Yacht Rock, yes.

R&B. There was a group, Ray Goodman and Brown. Oh, yeah.

A fantastic, fantastic harmonies. My mother used to work at Comiskey Park doing the concessions, and after they were all done after games, they would come back to our house on the south side and crank music. You know, that was one of them that we used to play.

Styx Paradise Theater. For a minute, I thought you were going to say, mom used to play the organ at the Sox Park. Yeah.

We were able to meet her a couple of times. So, yeah, just soaked up a lot of those influences. And then, you know, then the 80s came around and then, you know, and got into the radio rock and arena rock and then even a little bit of rap, you know, 17, 18, 19 years old.

You listen to that as well. So, yeah, it all. And then finally, at least speaking strictly for me, once I found my voice, I figured, OK, well, you know, I've always been able to carry a tune.

Um, and then I, I, it was, it started with, with one of the Judas Priest albums, you know, singing along in the car. And I thought, wow, this is great. I can, I can, I can sustain that.

But then I thought to myself, OK, well, you want to go, you know, give it a little bit more of a test here. Well, one to try out for, you know, some of these bands that are looking for singers. And the Rush Tribute, as I mentioned earlier, was, was the first one.

And my concern was, OK, well, can I do that over two and a half hours, three hours? And technique and, um, you know, breathing. I keep myself in shape. I'm a gym rat, um, and get sleep and drink water, all that.

And yeah, it's, um, I mean, the, the videos that we have kind of attest to, like, at least at the end for me, you know, how, how much we put into our performances. I mean, I give, every show I give everything. And some people got, and the one thing that might be a challenge for some bands is that, um, you know, we do everything in the original key, or at least we try to.

I'm 95% of the songs. Um. You'll be down tuning soon.

I know. It's not time yet. I know at least a few of you are in your 50s.

Yep. I'll still be young, but, uh, no, I mean, it's, it's, um, I can, again, the, what we've posted online and what we have in our live videos kind of attest to how, how strong I think we are as, as performers. And then personally for me again, you know, wanting to just deliver a hundred percent I can.

I always, one thing that I always wanted when I was in band is to, to be the, to try to try to be the band that I wanted to see or to try to be the performer that I wanted to see. So, you know, I, I do, you know, a little bit of, you know, either stuff with my hands or punching or whatever, you know, just to give a little more of a, you know, show it a little bit of emotion. I see, I'm not going to name names.

There are a lot of bands that just, I don't know, don't do that for whatever reason. And I, but for me, at least this is, you know, something that I think, you know, people and people have the fans that we have are kind of tuned into that and appreciate that. Well, you know, they call it show business for a reason.

Well, exactly. That's the other thing, you know, right. It's, it's, well, it's show business and entertainment.

And I've actually learned that because it's not enough to where you can just stand there and sing. Oh, you have to, you have to choir to do that. Yeah.

Right. Right. And that's, I mean, and especially now that prices are, you know, 15 bucks, 18 bucks cover or whatever, it's like, you know, people are paying good money and they're coming out, you know, it's, that's, that's why I will always do that for, you know, everybody that's watching at home or listening, whatever.

I will always, you know, give that commitment, you know, a hundred percent, 110% where I can. So as we all will in this band that I think is, you know, kind of elevates us in a way. So the last time you guys decided that you were going to start adding new material, what was the song that everybody said, uh, yeah, no, we're not doing that.

I mean, when you have, when you have a, when you have an eclectic group of musicians and everybody's got their own little tastes and they're all little backgrounds and everything, right. What's the song that somebody had to come up with something like, let's do that Engelbert Humperdinck. Just had a group meeting in which we don't normally do not in the basement.

We went out to a restaurant to discuss mainly. All right. What songs are we going to add? Cause we had a very busy schedule that we're not quite used to this summer.

We're not going to have any chance to do this. We got to do it now. And, you know, we all make great suggestions, but, uh, it is very hard.

That's the hardest thing is just somebody to say, that's it. We're going to do that one. Whether anybody else wants to do it or not, you still got to try it.

We already have a long list of, of, you know, our set list is pretty long at this point. We have almost 70 songs, right. That we, we cover and we, we rotate.

Yeah. We, we shuffle, we shuffle them, you know, for each gig, each gig. There's never a, the same set list for, for each gig.

But yeah, it's hard to add new songs now without, you know, adding Jazzy's girl. And obviously, yeah. So we're trying to find like some filler stuff, the stuff that, uh, It's easy, low hanging fruit.

Right. You just pick a little bit, not too much of it, but, uh, We tend to, to, uh, cover these huge songs, you know, that everybody's busy in the band. Like there is, there is not one second of downtime for any of us when we play.

Right. So if there are no keys in the song, we arrange them. So there are actually keys or, or, you know, Ricky's playing, uh, power chords on the keyboard as well, if he's not holding the guitar.

So, you know, stuff like that. So we add Hammonds, we add strings, we add pads. We, you know.

Sure, sure. I like during practice when we break into some kind of like a wedding type song or something, just funk it up. Yeah.

And we did that with Journey. We did it. Oh yeah.

We did a Journey song. We did it with another one. Switch it up a little bit.

Some song that just breaks out during practice. Beat it, right? Yeah. Some fun stuff on the bass that doesn't get out there.

So, so when you're putting together, you're putting together your set list. Is it more, um, let's play a little something for everyone or is it, let's play the stuff that everybody's going to enjoy, but there has to be some continuity. It's, it's kind of, um, I think initial thought is like, what would I like to hear when I go out and see a cover band, right? What, what didn't I see live for a very long time or heard on the radio? Right.

And this is kind of our approach. I guess my question was, you know, there's some cover bands that, um, they might be playing Beat It by Michael Jackson. And the very next song might be Don't Try It On Me by Metallica.

Okay. Is that more your style? We're totally up for it. Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever, whatever you got, you know, whatever you got, bring it on. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

We do stuff like that all the time. Yeah. There's some stuff that would, that proof of concept, we go down there.

Some stuff that was, uh, like when I was coming down there in the beginning, Depeche Mode. Yeah, we did. Yeah.

I mean, it didn't work. It didn't work. Yeah.

But there's some stuff that, it sounded pretty good though, but it just wasn't something that we were going to put in their life. But Curie has been huge. Been a huge video for some reason.

Yeah. That video is 350K almost. It's not a metal song or an 80s.

No. Well, it's an 80s song, but it's not, it's not. That's another song.

Mr. Mr. Yeah. Yeah. Huge song for us.

Huge. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Excellent. Excellent.

Well, we cover Dream Theater, uh, Ozzy, uh, Police, Toto, Queen. Sting solo. Slaughter.

Yeah. Sting. Yeah.

Whitesnake. The Tubes. The Tubes.

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.

So we're, like I said, we're a dartboard. Yeah. So now twice I've, tonight I've heard originals.

Uh, yeah, it's, it's in the works. Okay. Yeah.

When do you find time? We're going to do the new Blackhawks theme song. You'll know why shortly. But when are you going to find time? Has anything been written yet or? No, not yet.

Nothing. No, just a little riffs and ideas and stuff. Yeah.

Filling up notebooks. Yeah, exactly. That's gonna be fun.

We could, we could, with just the ideas and improvise, well, first off we record everything. So we, when we're done with rehearsal, um, when we're done with rehearsal, we record straight out of the rack. So it sounds exactly like a studio quality.

Um, so we're. Produced the recording, right? Right. Rome, the thing.

And we can just listen to it. We can improvise, right? We could probably make a song. It was like with a hook.

We can. Yeah. Yeah, we can.

And we did quite a few times, like when we're warming up or setting up or something, we start jamming and there's always something great that comes out. And we record all of this. All of us have some original music already.

I mean, he does, uh, you do. JV, JV does. You're not like mine.

It's like Flock of Seagulls. I heard it. That's pretty good.

Yeah, it's pretty good. That's fine. As long as you do the hair.

Mine is more like groovy, funky. He's more like metal, you know? We can make something. Dave and I like power metal from Europe.

Yeah. We would love to do that, but that really, you know, that isn't going to work. We can marry everything.

We can mesh. Yeah, we'll make a salad. We'll see.

And then we'll do a European tour and then all of our tour will be accepted. Right at home there. Yeah.

Label yourself experimental and everything will be set. Nobody will care at that point. That's all you got to do is slap a label on it.

Yeah, that's right. We're actually going to be an interstate band for the first time this year. That's cool.

Which is really exciting. Going to Austin. Nice.

That's a great town. I love that town. Yeah, absolutely.

So how can that, well, first of all, what do you guys, what kind of gigs you guys got coming up? Lots. Yeah. We're turning down work.

God, what are we doing? We're doing, we just landed. So Bourbon Street's coming up. We got Austin in April.

That's a, that's a corporate gig. But the corporations like us because we're, I think because of the strength of the music, the variety, because it's not really. Selling out to big business.

Big, big millions, guys. Well, they pay really, really, really, really well. I would too.

We're not going down there for a few hundred bucks. We've got Lake Fest, Glendale Heights Fest. We've got probably five or six concerts in the park.

West Chicago Railroad. West Chicago. We just landed F Fest.

And then might be doing some work with the Chicago Blackhawks. We'll find that out tomorrow. Yeah, I think we probably up to maybe 20 shows up through.

I just can't name them off the top of my head. Sounds like you guys are doing some work with Bass Shuler. Is that who's getting you your festival gigs in a little bit? No, Toga, Talon, Wally, Elliot.

Wally has been killing it for us. We're looking for sponsors, Wally. Yes, we are.

Oh, I almost missed that one. Yeah. No, Wally's doing a great job.

Wally, in fact, for a brief moment, I thought. You guys are cut from the same cloth. Yeah, you really do.

This is undercover work right here. Yeah, it could be. Wally got us all the festival things.

And that's what's hardest to get in. Yeah, right. Hard to just suddenly start going festival.

Yeah, no, absolutely. You got to get in. It's like an underground group of people.

Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is. Springfield too.

We'll be in Springfield. Yeah, we're doing the Mother Road 66. We're doing that one.

We're handling that. And when is that? No, no, no, no. September.

Do you guys play in year round or primarily a warm weather? We want to. Oh, my God. Maybe in the spring.

Well, he's going to Europe for three weeks in the summer. Just to rest from these dudes. And he goes every other year to be fair, right? So he's he's he's gone.

So we can't do anything. So we're trying to pile in. You just bring Mike in.

There you go. Yeah. Can you sing? Yeah, let's see.

As long as the gig is between four and eight a.m., I think I have got the time. Because I mean, you guys named a bunch of festivals that I'm actually going to be playing too. Might even be the same day.

What are you doing? I'll have to check. I know. You got to ask him.

Yeah, he knows my calendar more than I do. What's the band? Cadillac Groove. Cadillac Groove.

And Mike and the Stillmasters. And Mike and the Stillmasters. But the festival band is Cadillac Groove.

So, I mean, when you guys are talking about putting a lot of people on stage and having a lot of stuff going on, I understand because there's 10 of us on stage. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

And Glendale Heights Fest is actually near and dear to my heart because a good friend of mine, his name is Todd. He runs a band called Forget Hannah. And his mother, who was like a second mother to me, booked all the talent for Glendale Heights Fest for years and years and years until she finally passed away.

So every time I hear Glendale Heights Fest. That's where I grew up. Oh, no kidding.

That's like my stomping ground right there. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

What high school did you go to? Well, I grew up in the hood of Glendale Heights and went to school in Glen Ellyn at Glenbard West. And you went to Glenbard West. We were definitely considered the hood.

Okay. Well, yeah. They're like, oh, that guy's from Glendale Heights.

I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Okay.

So I know exactly the area where you're from. Cause I knew, I knew the area of Glendale Heights that went to Glenbard. Yeah.

I got a lot of friends that went to Glenbard West and I dated a lot of girls that went to Glenbard West. I know the whole area. So yeah, I actually grew up in that.

I actually grew up in the area as well. I, I went to Lake Park, but I grew up right off of Bloomingdale Road. Yeah.

That's where I grew up. I'm Bloomingdale Road. He's a specialist because he grew his living there.

That was our very first festival that we were able to get. We were, we had only played three, four times. How are we going to get these fest where nobody knows who we are.

And we were able to through what, I don't know how he did it, but we got, I think a Thursday night opening headliner and we, we were able to video it and make some of our best videos. And that's kind of what said, okay, these guys are ready for festivals. There's the proof.

Watch the videos. We have no way to prove it. Right.

How do you explain to somebody you're good enough to do a festival until you do them? Right. Exactly. It's like a chicken egg thing.

So once you're in, you're in though. Yeah. They're very hard to get in.

Yeah. Very hard to, um, and like, you just can't, everybody thinks they're a great band. I don't, I don't, I'm not knocking it.

I mean, everybody thinks they deserve to be up there and, and, uh, and I'm sure they all work hard, but when, um, um, and it's very hard to break. But once you do, you've definitely earned it. And I'm not taking away from anybody who's not doing it, trying to get in there.

Right. We've been there. Right.

Um, but, um, um, we do, Hey, I, I am so proud of this band. Uh, and, uh, I think everyone just, like I said, I don't know how familiar you are, or if you've had an opportunity to hear some of the things we've done, it's right there for you to see. Yeah.

Um, and, uh, and here, uh, and it's, uh, we really connect musically and, um, um, you know, we're getting the book of music. Yeah. We get the, the, the, the fan response has been overwhelming, not just in Chicago, but thanks to the powers of YouTube.

Yeah. Yeah. Worldwide.

Um, it's, yeah, we, we can't thank everybody enough for the support and, um, you know, we're, we're looking forward to continuing doing bigger and better things. Chicago Rock House, Chicago Rock House. So people who are hearing about you for the very first time on the podcast, um, how can they find you regularly? Uh, it would be chicagorockhouse.com. Um, we're all, we're on all the socials.

Um, you can get there from the website. Correct. Yeah.

YouTube. It's really easy. And then YouTube, Chicago Rock House keyword.

You'll find us. Yeah. Our channel is on there and, um, yeah, speaks for itself.

Yeah. There are other rock houses out there, but if you want to see us, you got to go to Chicago. Chicago Rock House.

Right. Chicago Rock House. The Mighty Algorithm is, was interesting because we were just posting videos and all of a sudden that song Curie from Base Camp in Lyle, which is only our second gig we ever did, something about that one went nuts.

Yeah. And within like a week, we had like 80,000 views. All these comments from all over the world.

We're going, okay, wow, that was really cool. You know, you start thinking maybe every video will be like. They're not quite, but.

His vocal is insane. So he starts it out with the Curie, you know. Right.

Right. I open it. Like Darien's singing.

Right. Excellent. It must be because of me.

I mean, it has to be. It's always right. Take all the credit.

That's right. That's right. Hey guys, it's that time.

Time for us to say thank you. And to collect our envelopes. Yeah.

We've had a blast. We'd love to come back sometime. And again, for everybody watching and listening, thank you all so much for the support.

We are so appreciative and grateful. And we love you all. If there's any chance you haven't been to this museum yet.

It is one of the coolest places I think I've ever seen for this type of a museum. Massive hats off to whoever started it and got it going. That would be Ron Romero, founder and CEO.

Ron is a hero. Yeah, don't, don't, don't, don't say that too much. Well, he can say it.

We don't say it. Edit this out. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, fellas. Thanks for coming in.

Thanks so much. Take care. 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.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is produced by MNR Rush.