Epp 291 Timeline Rocks Chicago

Timeline Rocks Chicago is a local cover band active across Chicagoland, known for delivering a heavier, hard-hitting twist on classic rock and progressive tracks.

Rather than performing straightforward radio renditions, they frequently play heavy metal and hard rock re-imaginings of classic tracks—citing influences and styles similar to bands like Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch, Helloween, and Jorn.

Their repertoire crosses heavy classic rock, hard rock, progressive metal, and occasional original material.

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 Reverend Hollywood. Reverend Hollywood, welcome back after a nice month of vacation.

Yeah, a lot happened during that vacation. It did, a lot of stuff happened. We had a tornado.

We went to your funeral, we did all kinds of stuff. Yeah, and I rose three days later. Yeah, you did, yeah.

Yeah, for those of you who don't know, I'm now Reverend Hollywood. Yes, he is. Because I am sitting next to a freshly married man over here.

That's right, yeah. Yeah, we were sitting there having a good time and all of a sudden a wedding broke out. That's right.

Said their vows and stuff. You know what the funny thing was? I was on the way here and I'm the last time I looked in my notes was your wedding script. What happened to my mic? I don't know.

Uh-oh. Let's figure out what happened to your mic. A couple of them clicked.

One, two, talking it. Hello. Hello.

There it is, there it is. A couple of them clicked in there. Yeah, it was supposed to be a pool party.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a pool party. Nobody got into the pool. Nobody got in the pool.

That's because you invited nothing but middle-aged people. Nobody wanted to show their belly or their gut or anything like that. I only know middle-aged and senior people.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we're getting dead at age. Yeah, everybody we know is getting married for a second time or dying and that's not fun for anybody.

That's right. God's got a timeline for us all. I know, there is a timeline.

There is. That's right. There's a plan going on there, right? That's right.

What about you guys? What do you think about the timeline? They're all right. Yeah, the timeline's pretty good. Everybody, welcome to Timeline.

Yeah, Timeline Rocks Chicago. You're in the studio with us, son. I'm still wrapping my head around all the correlations between marriage and that stuff.

Yeah, you brought all your fans with you. You had to say that again because they were all screaming and yelling over you. And just bring the mic in.

They brought all dudes with them. There was no chicks, you know, hooping and hollering in that either. I was just trying to wrap my head around the correlation between marriage and death.

Yeah, well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. That's right. You know, some people it is, some people it isn't.

That's right. I know, you got a good one though. Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I don't think that's death unless you mess up because she could kick you. She'll kick my ass. She would.

I can totally tell. She could. Yep, absolutely.

Dawn's great. Shout out to Dawn. I love you, baby.

That's if she only listens to the podcast. I don't know if she does. Yeah, just kind of like my family.

I don't think anybody even realizes that I'm on a podcast, even though I tell them all the time. Wouldn't that come with the marriage? Like, you must listen. Oh, yeah.

She'd have been on the license. That absolutely should have. We were trying to get our theme music and stuff beforehand as they walked down the aisle, but she put the kibosh on that.

Well, walked across the lawn, actually. Yeah, whatever. Although she did a fantastic job with the landscaping, so there was an aisle and there was the whole trellis and the whole bit you stood in front of and everything.

Yes, she did. You're looking all lacy. Place looks great.

It was. So how are you guys doing today? We're doing good. Man, this is so nostalgic for us because it feels like we've been going for so long.

I know. Now we just have to take a trip down memory lane for a little while. Yeah, no kidding.

Which I'm guessing that's what you guys do. We do. You know, with a name like The Timeline, right? Tell us a little bit about that.

Well, let's take it from the top. This band actually started. Let's give credit where credit is due.

First, this band started back in 2021, and it was myself and Mike Michaelunas and Gary Ingram, and we put this together and it kind of went a little different way than we wanted it to. The whole concept of this band is to go after the songs that other bands don't play. As we all know, we can walk into any club on any given night and we're going to hear six, seven, eight songs out of every band that everybody knows.

So what we want to do is we go after the older classics by the Hollies and stuff like that, and we do heavier versions of the songs. So like we do American Woman, but we do it a version by the band called Devil's Train. And then we do Five Finger Death Punch version of Bad Company.

And we put a spin on a little bit heavier. So, yeah, we do some of the classics like Dio Sabbath and, you know, the Judas Priest and stuff like that. But the whole main concept of this band is to go after the songs.

We do Halloween's version of Locomotive Breath, Vince Neil's version of Long Cool Woman. I mean, this is where we take it. When you come see our show, you're not going to hear the same old, same old songs that you're hearing every night.

And when we do play them, people start going, wow, we haven't heard that. Like we do a really cool version of Twilight Zone by a band called the Bloody Hammers. Much heavier, much is much heavier.

So we're into the older genre, bringing back the music from the late 60s and early 70s, and then just putting that heavier spin on them. Like I said, one of my favorite artists that we go by is an artist called Yorn. He's out of Scandinavia.

And imagine that with a name like that. He's one of my favorite singers, and he does a lot of cool things. We're bringing in a new song right now.

He does a cover of Brian Am's song Run to You, which is a little heavier version of what we're working on right now. He even touches on some ABBA in that we do a song called There's Something Going On, which is a Frida song. And we do stuff like that.

So people know these songs, but they just never heard them played the way we play them. And when they do, their face kind of like, wow, that's really cool. We just got done doing a show at Goat Village two weeks ago.

And I'll throw a shout out because we had Operation Empire backing us up. And before the fall. Yeah.

And there we go. And everybody, the one thing at the end of the show was that everybody said, we love your song selection. We don't get to hear music like this anymore.

We don't get these songs, you know, they're too buried. Everybody wants to say, you know, they want to hear the journey. And we do do a journey to them, but we do by Angelo Basamonte.

We do any way you want it. Not the way you hear Journey do it. It's just body double bass like Brett's part here.

And you know what? And that's a cool thing, too, because, you know, these two right here, they're the driving force with that kind of just keeping that beat going. Jeff just goes crazy on guitar. I couldn't be blessed more than having him at the guitar.

And the cool thing about this band was when we first started with these guys, this was Jeffrey was not part of our band. It was just Jeff, Jeff over here, Jimmy, Brett, myself and Jimmy being retired. Now we decided he wanted to take off and do some things to be a snowbird.

So the whole concept was to keep the band moving. So we went out and we found Jeffy Palmer over here on bass. Jim comes back on guitar and now we're a four.

And it just makes it that much heavier. Just it's a cool sound. Yeah, yeah.

Well, that was, you know, you kind of completely destroyed my question. You answered it before I even got a chance to ask the question. But normally, you know, it's like if you know me, if we had a dollar for every band that came in here and said, you know, we play cover songs, but we play them differently than everybody else plays them.

You know, we'd be millionaires. Every cover band likes to think that. But, you know, there's a fine line between playing the song improperly, correct, you know, and still got to be recognizable and covering.

It still has to. Right. So what I've heard is what I've heard is and I like to ask the tough questions, not to be disrespectful, but it's really easy for me to say, all right, I'm going to I'm going to cover.

Don't you want me by the Human League? Right. But I'm going to go off on the YouTube and I'm going to find a heavy metal version of that song and I'm going to do it. Right.

Oh, yeah. So what's the difference between doing that and just getting together a band and coming up with your actual own version of it? Well, that's kind of like what we do in a way. So we will go after and we can thank Jeff over here on guitar for that.

So we basically go and we find the songs we want to do, but we don't really. Then we put our spin on them. OK, so, yes, we're going to use that same structure that they're doing it with.

But then Jeff's going to add his own little things on top. Jimmy's going to add what he's going to add. Brett's going to change up the drums a little bit.

He's going to change up the bass line. And then we kind of just work it together that way. And you change the words.

No, I can't. No, it's ours. Here's what I'm really good at as a singer.

And I've always said this. OK, as I've been doing this so long, I know cadence. So, yeah, if I do forget the words, I know how to make it right as I'm saying it.

I've actually sung to the audience about how I am forgetting the verse. And he just. Yeah, I just told you guys, I just saw how I forgot the verse.

I'm going to have T-shirts made up that say singing the wrong words with conviction is an art form. And I'm an artist. Yeah, yeah.

There you go. That is it. So there's a lot of singers that can't do that.

You have to. Because you'll hear them all of a sudden just start going. Or just mumble.

Just suddenly do an Eddie Vedder version of anything. And all you got to do is. That's all you got to start doing.

That's what you do. Have the right amount of beers. They all sound like that, right? Yeah, I know we said we don't give the drummer a microphone, but when you do want to say something, grab one.

Because we do want to hear. Because you can't hear it. But we can't hear you.

That's the one we let these guys talk a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's been my experience that when drummers do say something, it's absolutely fucking ridiculous. So we'd like to get it over to Mr. Red.

Here we go. All right. Hold on to your hats, everybody.

Drummer has a microphone. Oh, that's my kid. Nice.

Yeah, usually when I talk, it's super loud because I've been behind the kit for so long. It's like I think I don't have any hearing anymore. Yeah.

And look, and he doesn't follow direction because he keeps bringing back like this. We love picking on drummers here. We do.

It's funny. It's great. I can take it.

So what do you have to say now? You got a microphone. Talk. Shit, man.

He's going to be like the girls on Girls Gone Wild videos. Oh, yeah. They can say whatever the heck they want.

They have five seconds to say whatever they want to the world. And what do they do? They go. I'm just going off of what Rich said, too.

Structurally, when we pick a song, structurally, usually we keep it able to get to the crowd. And everyone can understand where the chorus is, where the structure is. It's usually not picked apart.

But when I play the drums, a ton of double bass. Where can I fit this fill? Where can we make this heavier? And kind of that's what happens with every song that we play. Right, right, right, right.

Classically trained, or did you just decide to start beating on the drums one day? So Rossi Music, seven years old. I was in drum lessons. And the first day he's like, oh, yeah, you're trying to learn drums.

Blah, blah, blah. I sit behind the throne and see the kit. He takes the snare off and puts it right on my lap.

I start crying. I'm like, I want to play the drums. I don't want to be in a marching band.

Yeah, right, right, right, right. I'm listening to Iron Maiden and Magadeth and Metallica. He's like, oh, we're going to learn some Michael Bolton and some jazz and like all that.

I probably cried until, you know. What was your teacher's name? John Poindexter? Yeah, John Poindexter. Great drummer, phenomenal.

Michael Jackson, you know, Commodores, Earth, Wind and Fire. That's what he's playing. He's like, Dad, I don't want to play this.

Learn this and you can play anything. Wait, but he was your teacher? Unbelievable. And yeah, to this day, I'm like, thank goodness that I actually stuck with it.

He was your teacher. Yeah. Wow.

To this day, I'm like, I would go up and hug this man for an hour and a half because, yeah, I remember just sobbing when I came home. I don't want to go to drum lessons anymore. No, this guy, oh my, he molded to what I became today.

So how long did you spend taking lessons, just putting the snare on your lap? Oh, man, it was probably the first couple of years. And we were there for maybe five. Couple of years.

Well, just learning like regiments and stuff like that. It was, oh man, it was stressful. And so how long before he let you actually touch the entire kit? So he was really cool.

He let me pick my own tunes. Like, hey, which one do you want to learn? But you're still going to learn this at home. It's like, okay, so I'll fill in some metal stuff, but you're still going to learn this and you're still going to do your left and rights.

And yeah, no, that's the basics. You got to get those down. Yeah.

The standard is what, yeah, exactly. I tell fundamentals is everything. I tell young kids all the time, like my son has become a very good guitar player.

And what he does now is he goes into his room and he listens to all kinds of modern metal and stuff like that. But when he first started, I was like, no, no, you sit down, you listen to this. And I made him play the Rolling Stones.

I said, you learn how to play like Keith Richards first. Oh, yeah. And then you can go and learn how to play like Zach Wild because Keith Richards, he's got alternate tunings and stuff, but you're not going to start learning how to play guitar by playing everything in drop D. OK, I want a seven string.

Your index finger is strong enough. You've been picking boogers all your life. That booger hook is strong.

It's the pinky and the ring finger we got to worry about now. That's a great line. And even practicing in my parents' place, too, like all my practice CDs were pretty diverse.

We'd have some reggae. We'd have some even EDM dubstep stuff and then hardcore music and stuff that I like. So I always kept kind of a diverse practice.

I would always try to get back to the fundamental stuff, making sure like I'm putting fills in the right spots and still feeling the grooves instead of just going crazy. So which one of you guys is driving the change in the music more, the guitar or the drums? Actually, I manipulate a lot of like signature changes and half time, double time, stuff like that. But I would say we all do a really good job of keeping the structure and kind of being right with each other, even even in slip ups where it's like, oh, shit, we were supposed to play one more measure.

We're all on top of each other when it comes to keeping it rolling and making it sound great. Yeah, I think what you guys are doing is actually kind of cool because I've always noticed throughout my career, my life that when you go and you see a band play a song live, it always sounds to me it's most of the time it sounds a little different than what you're used to hearing on the radio. Because when these bands get together, especially rock bands, when they get together, you know, you know, like they're back in the garage, right? Oh, and the way they wrote the song always sounds a little heavier with a little more grit before record company gets their meat hooks into it and says, no, no, you got to record it this way.

Yes, yes. That's why we love playing at the quarry, too. It's like a glorified practice that we get to play in front of people.

You know, it's so comfortable. Everyone's having a blast. If it if it ain't fun when you're up there, then why the heck you doing it? Yeah, yeah.

So how long you been in the band? We've been rocking since four years. Yeah. Four years.

Four years. Yeah. Same group of guys.

Yeah. The core of core four. OK, we brought you every year last year.

OK, so so what was the what was the first phone call like? Like, well, you hear you. It was you guys. Do I have to do that? I'll pass it.

You don't have to. You don't have. All right, because I'll ruin them.

Once upon a time, I used to bowl in a league. This is a good story. This is over in Orland Park, Orland Bowl.

Every story that starts with a bowling story. A pitcher of beer. I was in a bowling league, men's league Thursday nights.

And this one was in the same league. I didn't know him right away. We were courteous, obviously playing the same league.

But he comes in one day wearing a shirt bearing the name of Players Guitars. We're in the South Side. Yeah, yeah.

Legendary. Legendary shop. And great for at work.

Just struck off. That's the only place I bring my guitars for Mike. Mike and the crew know what they're doing.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I just struck up a conversation just based on that. So you play.

Yes, this, that. And we got to talking and it turns out we were into a lot of the same music. And he asked me to one day if what was you love that you love.

Why don't you tell this story that had nothing to do with average? You tell this story because I love hearing him tell it. When we first started in the basement? No, no. When we were talking at the bowling alley and you asked about a specific band, whether.

Oh, yeah. I'm like, well, what are you playing? What are you into? Blah, blah, blah. You know, he's like, well, Jeff's like, well, I know the first three Iron Maiden albums, backwards and forwards.

I'm like, you're my man. Come on down. So he's not lying.

I'd like to hear him backwards. Yeah, I'm sorry. He said, you know how to play it frontwards and backwards.

I'd like to hear you play it backwards. No, I don't really. You know, I think he imagined, you know, you'd be like, blah, blah, blah.

He just turns around and faces nobody. So the roots of our joining together stemmed from that. We went through a couple of different iterations members wise.

But nothing really took off. We played a couple of parties for some friends, local stuff. But when it became apparent that we needed a full time drummer and singer, because at the time your brother, right, was playing drums and singing, and it was having a hard time.

OK, I'm either going to be really good at the drums or I'm going to be really good at singing, but I'm not going to be able to be really good at both at the same time. It's just too much going on. But scheduling became issues.

His availability. We decided, all right, we pulled Brett in. Jim's son.

And immediately clicked, like everything we wanted to play, anything we had an idea to play, Brett. Sure. Yeah, I know that.

Sure. I know that. And if he didn't know it, it was less than a week's time before he did.

And the very next week we were jamming it out. And then when Jim knew Rich from various circles or the guys with the longest tenures in bands is probably these three, Jeff, Rich and Jim being the elder statesmen. I'm no spring chicken, but these guys have got at least 10 years on me, if not more.

Too many bands. But once Rich entered the fold and it was the four of us, that's when things sort of really started to take shape. We started playing out, got gigs here and there.

And it sort of took off from there. I'd been playing guitar for 25 years, started playing in high school, but it was never anything really serious. It was more of a hobby, although I wanted it to be more than just that.

It's just life happens and it gets away from you. So this is my first real foray into a working band of any kind. Outside of a high school gathering I had.

Yeah, we put in the work. I joined the band and put in the work. We literally just had a rehearsal.

We were talking about things of that nature. It's like, you guys put me outside of my comfort zone as a guitar player and I'm humbled by it, really. So it sounds like you were pretty much just like a classic metal guy.

Oh, absolutely. With the Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden was my first foray into the metal community.

Right, right. And just all stemmed from that. And you pretty much got that good just kind of hanging out in your bedroom.

Bedroom player, yeah. And this is like your first big thing. Pretty much.

Wow, that's pretty cool. Damn awesome. I mean, the feedback we get from this guy.

It's scary. I'm my own worst critic. Yeah, well, that's the way it goes.

So as we were saying, but this version of Timeline is the new version that after I cancelled the other one because we had some differences and we just put it to the bed for a while. And then when Jimmy got up with me and he's just like, I was just finished. He was in bed with you? So we put that to bed.

Oh, OK. You said he got up with you. I put that to bed.

This band is really tight. I was with Sonic Fate for a while. And then the COVID stuff hit and everything like that.

And we were like, so anyway, so Jimmy just reached out to me and he was like, hey, got an idea. Do you want to come sing with me? And I'd already been singing with him in his band. And as I was telling you last time when I was doing the Lights Out thing that Jimmy had brought me to his band, Two for the Road.

And I was taking care of the UFO and the Judas Priest because he didn't want to sing it. So he brought me into this band. And then we had a couple of rehearsals and he gives me a list of 17 songs to learn.

So I come in a week later with all the songs down and we're doing them. And a couple of weeks later and I'm like, things are working out. How about we got to come name name for the band? He's like, what do you want to call it? I go, I got a good idea.

So I just said I want to bring back Timeline. So I said, well, how about Timeline? And Jimmy's like, oh, that was the name of the original project I had going. This is kind of the concept we want to do.

And they were all down with it. Jimmy's like, yeah. And he goes, I can see the banners.

I go, what do you see? He goes, I see like this big giant skull, like in the form of a clock. And I go, really? Like my banners I have already made here? And I go, so we already had everything done and stuff like that. So then we just took it and moved it forward.

And ever since then, these guys were very willing because when I was first came in with them, they were doing a little bit more 90s music. You know, they had their Iron Maiden, but they were doing more 90s, Jimmy Eats World, stuff like that. And I was like, hey, this is the concept.

I'd like to take it. Let's go after this. Let's go after these songs that other bands don't play.

And that's the thing you were saying earlier. You know, bands will always say, you know what? We play these songs differently. But the things that we do is we do pick different songs in other bands.

You're not going to hear anybody out there playing Jethro Tull by Halloween, you know, Halloween by, you know, the Book of Mud and Birth by Halloween's version, heavy versions. We do Yorn's version of Ride Like the Wind. We do Lorde's version of Message in a Bottle.

We do Iron Maiden's version of Communication Breakdown. So we go after all this is really heavier stuff that other bands just don't want to play, you know, and that's the way I look at it. So I think it's kind of cool.

I mean, I love going out and hearing all the other bands, but I just want to do something different. And we have such a variety in our catalog that I will never put the same show together twice. So when you come to see us, it's not going to be a repeat of the show you just saw or something you heard, or we're going to open with the same song every time.

I'm constantly changing the set list and giving these guys, you know, just a pair of these songs together and changing it up because I don't want because I don't want to be stale. I don't want these guys to be stale. I want them to always be having fun on stage.

And I always want the audience to be, you know, enjoying themselves going, oh, yeah, we heard this last time. So I may pull songs up. And Jeffrey brought this up, but we haven't played a couple of songs that I've learned already like six months ago.

I'm like, exactly, because they didn't fit the lineup. Now the time's coming. Those songs will now go into the lineup.

And then you got to pull other stuff out. And that's the cool thing about designing the setlist for a show, designing a three hour set list. It's pretty challenging.

Yeah. I was going to say, you got a lot of time on your hands because I do that in my bands and God, I hate it. I really do.

I mean, really, because you got all this shit going on through your head. It's like, OK, this song is at this tempo and this one's at this time. We're going to build it up a little bit.

Now we're going to drop it down a little bit. You know, we're going to bring it. But we can't do that because these three songs are the same key.

And I mean, it sucks, right? No. Yep. It can take hours to do one freaking set.

Thank you. He'll send a text. He'll send a text with just photo photos of the set.

Here you go, guys. This is a Sunday set. All right.

Yeah. Usually within five minutes. Hey, these two songs are drops for me.

Yeah. All right. Let me get back to you.

Nothing's ever final. Yeah. Even the day of the day of the day of something could change, right? It could.

Yeah. No, it's a pain in the ass to do it. But we do a lot of songs and drops.

We have about eight songs, eight or nine songs that we drop down. These guys drop in, too. So so they're not.

So I want to make sure that they're not always changing guitars on stage and this and that. So I'll kind of loop them together as much as I can. Right.

Fade them in, fade them out and stuff like that. So they're not wasting a lot of time on stage doing their guitar changes. And that drives me.

That drives me crazy because, yeah, we've got our guitar player. Fantastic. Scotty's fantastic guitar player.

And and but he's like, well, I'm playing slide on this song, right? I'm not going to switch my guitar and then two songs later go back to slide. Let's do all these songs in a row and hope. And now I got to arrange everything for the guitar that he's playing.

And he's got like 20 guitars on stage. What the hell? Right there. He does.

I swear to God, he brings more guitars to a gig than I have hanging on my wall. It's the funny thing. Do they ever sound different to anybody else? The audience has no idea.

But he enjoys them. And that's all that matters. Hey, that's all that matters.

That's right. It gives them the confidence. And he's carrying them.

Yes, yes, exactly. But you know what? The one thing, too, those last guitars do have some cool sounds like this is the first time I've ever been like we do Godsmack's version of Rocky Mountain Way. Yeah.

I've never seen a guitarist do the voice box. Yeah. Without the voice box.

Right. He's got it perfectly to a T programming. It's more the technology.

But yeah, it had to be programmed. Now what's now what now? How do you how do you do it? Well, I've been running my rig is a little unorthodox. Right.

So I run everything through a fractal axe effects. Yeah. With a traditional solid state power amp.

So where people talk about, you know, and I got nothing against tube amps. I've owned plenty of tube amps. But the technology is some of the gear that's out now.

Yeah, it can't be ignored. Right. And I kind of got in what about four or five years ago in the fractal stuff.

Yeah. And I realized in short order, I could pretty much dial in just about any tone I could dream of. Right.

So I didn't need five different amps. I just need this box. And it's a little time consuming to program things and to set the tones up.

But in the end, it's worth it because one button I'm in a different spot. I play that song as well. And I have a love hate relationship with pedals.

The first thing I tried to do is emulate with a pedal. And I hate pedals because they're every pedal I have breaks in like two years because they're mechanical. Right.

So I was like, done, threw it off the pedal board. Right. And I went and got the phase 90.

And what I do with it is I set the phase 90 to the tempo of the song. And I will actually play along with it and kind of do the Peter Frampton thing. With my mouth.

With the phase 90 going on there. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Because I don't have the time and patience to program. There's always a way. The Freggle Rocker, whatever the heck it is.

The Freggle Rocker, whatever it is. But that's cool, though. I love when people come up with their own way to come up with that sound.

Because who wants a talk box? I got the phase 90 in my pedal board. That's a great pedal. Oh, yeah.

Great pedal. Yeah. Unfortunately, I recently discovered it.

I was just watching YouTube. And I saw this guy go, here's how I got rid of my wah pedal. And I was listening to him.

And I was like, OK, that sounds close enough. I know it's not a wah pedal. But nobody in the audience is going to know it's not a wah pedal.

Yeah, that's my favorite pedal now. Which is weird, because I don't really have effects pedals on my pedal board. It's just all about the gain.

And it's like the only effects pedal that I have. Yeah, that's pretty cool, though. Yeah, it is cool.

Interesting. 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, a 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. Up on board, the Bus Stop Blues, where the blues never stops rolling. So when you guys got together and decided that you're going to do this format, was this something that had, that before you even started a single rehearsal, you decided on the format, or did you start rehearsing, you get somewhere down the line? I had this, well I'm going to say, I had this format back in 2021, when I put the first timeline together.

Gotcha, okay. And we did a show, and it went over pretty well. But there were some musicians in the audience who got in other people's ears and says, this concept's not going to work, people don't want it.

And I was just like, and then that's what kind of like, put a little riff in between me and a couple of the members of the band. I was like, okay guys, this was the concept we went through, and then they started changing it. So long story short, that fell apart.

So then I went into Sonic Fate and worked with them for a while, took over for Jeff when he left the band. As I said, when I went to Jimmy and he gave me the songs that they were doing, I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool. There was about a dozen in crossover, weren't there? Yeah, I would say so, because most of the, like he said, most of the stuff when we started was 90s.

Because my brother Jay was singing, and he was a drummer as well. The first song I did bring in for us was Ride Like the Wind, the orange version of Ride Like the Wind, was the first version. I said, when we played it and they heard it and they played it, I'm like, this is the concept, this is where I want to go.

Ride Like the Wind, the Christopher Cross song. Interesting. It's actually one of my favorite songs to play.

And you cover whose version? It's by an artist called Yorn. By Yorn, okay. The Scandinavian.

The Swedish guy. The Scandinavian guy. Which is weird, because the name just doesn't fit.

We actually cover three. So yeah, we got three songs by him. We got Ride Like the Wind, something's going on.

And then I said, we're bringing in that right now, we're working on Run To You by Brian Adams version, but Yorn's version of that. Yeah. And he's got a lot of cool things.

And then there's actually a song that we're bringing in. I know you guys are familiar with the band ABBA, of course. Of course.

So I love this artist called Todd Morose. And he's another guy. And he does Knowing Me, Knowing You in a very heavy version.

Okay. And we did that with the original timeline. And that went over for not everybody at the club, because I was like, yeah, that's a cool attitude.

So that's the concept I want to do. I want to go after those songs. The other bands, you don't hear them.

Right, right. But when you do hear them and you hear them the way we do them, you're like, wow, damn. Well, you know, the band Seether started to do that back in the early 2000s.

Didn't Seether cover Careless Whisper and did like a heavy version of Careless Whisper or something like that? I love that band. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, unfortunately for me, that's when it kind of went downhill.

It's like, you know, I'd like to hear more Seether music. I don't want to hear more covers. Right, right, right.

You kind of get disappointed because you're like, I want to hear another Seether song. Sure. And that's what we can say we do.

We bring you the covers of the covers. Right. Like we do like we do take that.

We do Soft Cell's Tainted Love, but we do the Scorpions version. I didn't even know the Scorpions did a version of that. Neither did I. My music library has grown exponentially since joining this band because I've had to download so much music I've never even heard before.

And it's like, I got to learn this. Okay, I'm going to have to go and find out because that sounds like it would be awful. It's actually very cool, man.

It's a very powerful tune. It's just really cool the way they do it. Wow.

Yeah. What's the other one they do? Well, you've inspired me to go find some of these things because that's, you know, some of this sounds like it should be, I'm going to listen to it. We're just going to sit around with a bunch of friends and make fun of it.

But you're saying it's not. It's cool. It's very cool.

You know what, like I said, go pull up Locomotive Breath for Halloween. Okay. You'll blow your mind or even go look up Yorn.

Yorn actually has a cover album of the covers. It's what he does. He goes and he goes, basically, that's what Yorn does.

He really doesn't write any original music. He goes and he finds all these covers of all these older songs. That's what turned me on to him.

I was like, all right, here's an artist. That's okay. This is what he's doing.

So why can't I do this in a cover band myself? Right, right, right, right. And this is what we do. It's a prime example of a guy with a really good voice paying homage to the guys who probably inspired him to sing in the first place.

Right. Well, if you guys don't do this one, I'm going to inspire you to pick up a new song. If you guys don't, maybe you already do it.

I'm a Tesla fan. I love Tesla. All right, hang on.

Okay, which one? Which one? Well, I like several of them. But right now, the one that I like is I think their version of I Love You is fantastic. Okay.

Oh, off the Homage album. Yeah. But yeah, I've heard their cover.

Their version of the Climax Blues Band. Yes. Oh, that's cool.

And they do a fantastic job. Which one do we do that we haven't done in a while? Lazy Days and Crazy Nights. Oh yeah, no kidding.

One of my favorite. See another one. I don't want to see this, the whole thing.

Why that one? Because bands don't do, if you're going to do a Tesla song, who's going to do Lazy Days and Crazy Nights? Right, right. You know, nobody. We will.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. No, but that album he's talking about is they all got together and they all picked two or three songs that influenced them as growing musicians.

That's cool. And they're putting out just a cover album. All right.

Yeah, it's fantastic. That's the first cut that I've heard off a bit where Tesla does a version of I Love You by Climax Blues Band. All right.

And Frankie Hannon, who's I became a guitar player because of Frankie Hannon. And he plays all of that synth stuff on slide guitar. All right.

Which is awesome. It really is. That's cool, because the original timeline we actually did.

What was that? What is Climax Blues Band? It's been a while. Couldn't get it right. Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Yeah, we did. We did that in the original timeline. In the first version timeline, we did that one.

Couldn't get it right. Now, does the name timeline have something to do with the fact that, I mean, you probably don't play these things in chronological order. Actually, we did that once.

So that adds another whole element to putting together a set list. Yes, it does. This is the 60s.

This is the 70s and so on. Yeah, and that's what we do. Yeah, we take them through a timeline of the music.

So yeah, we'll start. And then, you know, sometimes I'll put the set together with all the old songs starting from the 60s, late 60s, down through the 70s and 80s and stuff like that. And then sometimes we'll just mix it up.

But yeah, the whole concept is this timeline is to take them on a timeline journey of the music. OK. You know, and the cool thing about it, too, is when we get the right venue, we also have, you know, when we come with playing, you know, like you guys, OK, you're there to put on a show.

Right. So that's why we have the banners on the stage. But we also have a video screen behind us.

So and if we have it, if we have the video screen and the overhead cameras working, we have a, you know, we have a loop going through all the bands that we play are just on the screen behind us, just playing around a rotation through the whole night. So now you've got a visual behind us, which locks you on the screen behind us. Right.

Instead of all the sports screens and stuff like that, which I do ask the spire owners, turn those things off. Oh, of course. Don't belong on when we're playing.

Unless it's NHL playoffs and then NHL playoffs. I'm going to need. Jeff, you're stuck out.

And no, get your bag and back out of stage. Yeah. At least not have them on behind us.

You know, we hope the people are, you know, looking at us and not the television screen. Right, right. You know, they're all applauding and, oh, wow, we really nailed that song.

Now they get scored a goal. Yeah, that happens all the time. That's that's absolutely hilarious.

That's cool. It does happen. Well, you know, you know, I wish you guys would have brought instruments because that sounds so interesting.

I'd love to hear some of this stuff, you know, live and in the studio. But I don't know. We're going to have to dig it up on the Internet.

Yes, we will. And find it all. If you don't have plans on Sunday, you can always come to the quarry ballroom.

Yeah, next Sunday. This coming Sunday, yeah. Well, you know, what do you guys have coming up? Because this is going to air what? The 18th of August.

The 18th of August. Today is August 18th. Yeah, pull out your calendars.

What do you guys have? What do you guys have? It's the day after my birthday. 28th. So actually the 28th of August, we will be playing at the Chill House and we will be shooting our new promotional video with the new band.

OK. OK, we do it. Yeah.

Are you guys going to be outside? Did they rebuild the stage yet? Undetermined. It's undetermined. I was there yesterday.

They've got a very small platform out there. We don't know what they're going to have. But the inside, we were going to shoot it at Goat Village because we like the backdrop at Goat Village.

And things fell through. And if you don't mind, I want to throw a real quick shout out, number one, to our videographer Jill Gutierrez, who just does and kills it for us. And her cousin, Lisa Marie, who does all our Facebook work for us and stuff like that.

And she could evidently work the pit crew at Indy, too, I think. I'm sure you'd change the tires to flat tire. I showed her that she had a flat tire out by O'Hara.

She had to change it herself because it got late. But that's OK. Good.

That's OK. But yeah, so we'll be the 28th, August 28th at Chill House, Friday evening. We're probably going to pull it inside because I like the way the stage looks.

And we're going to be able to set the stage up for our promo video at the outside. If they still would have had the outside stage that they had, that would have been perfect. Sure.

But, you know, Tom's unfortunately got burned down and stuff like that. So we're there on the 28th. And then we're at we're at Barcode.

And oh, yeah. OK, so we got the whole it's right. We got that's right.

Oh, yeah. And we also have, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't do nothing for Halloween, you must come out to the Corey Ballroom in Thornton and watch our Halloween show. We've been doing it for three years.

We put on an awesome Halloween show and we go all out. Cash prizes for best costume. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we do is the band in costume. Yeah, I dressed up from the singer. I dressed up from the singer from Ghost last year.

Nice, nice. Yeah. Jeff has almost won the competition.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As Doc Brown. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Oh, my God. I didn't even need a wig.

It was so hard. So the 28th at the Chill House, then then Halloween at the Quarry, and then November Friday, the 13th at Barcode 111. And then we're possibly, as I was telling Ray here earlier, I also are where we rehearse at.

I run a stage with a couple of friends of mine, Grant Niebergall, who plays with Freddie Dixon Band and Lizard Kings. And we have a stage that we run in South Holland. And so we're going to probably throw a Christmas party, a Toys for Tots Christmas party.

Nice. Coming up just for all our friends, people that come out and support us and stuff like that. Just throw a big bash for them to come out.

Toys for Tots. We did it a couple of years ago at the Quarry. It went over really well.

And we did. So we had them out there. So we'll be doing that.

So yeah, definitely. Yeah. So my question about the way you organize the set list, if you're starting with 60s and 70s and everything, what happens when you're playing a club and it's a lot of mixed ages? You having a hard time holding on to the younger folks when you're doing that or what? This is when I always like to check out the club I'm playing and their constituents and who's like with their crowd.

So I'll go check a club out. If I see that club's got a lot of 30s and 40s in there and stuff like that, well, then we'll even change up the music a little bit like when we do right when we do not rate our love Twilight Zone. We play.

We have the version we'll play for the heavy crowd, and then we have the laid back version we'll play by Golden Arrow Ring for the younger crowd. Whatever works, man. Whatever works, you know.

But then we also have like we have stuff in there from, you know, we do some Foo Fighters and we have Jimmy's World and we have Incubus and we have Default. So that we do as well. So if those songs call for the night, depending on the venue we're playing, then we'll pull those out.

Right. And stuff like that. But we want everybody to basically get to see a timeline with what we are, what we're about.

And, you know, that we're, you know, yes, we do this thing, but our main thing is hitting these early tunes with the heavier edge tone and stuff like that. Right. Bringing you to covers of the covers.

Right. Right. And that's what we do.

So you got anything to add to this? You're just been sitting there. Yeah. Quiet and, you know, all that.

Oh, he's been here before. So we've got him on tape. How about I just throw songs down your throat? Yeah, it can be a challenge, you know.

All 10? Yeah, I mean, I'm retired. So I, you know, I'm in a number of bands, which I really don't want to talk about now. But no, I love the concept.

I love the guys here. I did it. I answered a Facebook post last fall.

Just before Halloween. Yeah, just before Halloween. Then I came out and checked them out.

You auditioned us. I auditioned them at the Halloween show. And I liked what I heard.

Better yet, my wife liked what she heard, too. There you go. So that is a key factor.

Yeah, it is. She's pickier than I am, actually. So he's in so many bands that you guys think you're doing covers, unique covers.

No, but that's just the stuff he needs to learn for all of his other bands. So he's not doing double work or anything like that. It does double up sometimes.

We got to do that Britney Spears song, guys. No, no, no, no, Britney Spears. What's the heavy version of that? We just did so little.

Yeah, yeah, right. I do like the concept. I like doing the heavier versions of other songs.

All these guys are really good musicians. Yeah. They really are.

But the first guy I'm going to notice is my drummer. Sure. The guy's a monster.

He is. He's just really good. Once I find good drummers, I stick with them.

Yeah. I don't leave them. So I had to play drums a lot because he was grounded all the time.

And yeah, and Jeff, these guys are very good guitarists. Jeff and the effects he's got, he's right about whatever the hell he was talking about, the box or whatever. The Freggle Rocker, whatever.

Yeah, I've never heard of the Freggle Rocker. From now on, it's his Freggle Rocker. I've never heard the Aerotube, you know, what is it called? What's that, Helix? Yeah, the TalkBox.

I've never heard of it. Helicoil, Helicoil? Do that. I don't know what that is called.

Without the tube, you know. But no, it's been great. Rich here, a good singer.

He's great at promoting and just knowing what to do with the band. And he makes sure that all we have to do is come and play. That makes things, you know, easy.

And it's, yeah, I'm having a great time. Guys, I'm just a singer. All I got to carry is my wireless microphone and that's it.

You guys just need to do it. And he's a very hardworking guy. He doesn't just show up with the mic and just, you know.

Cool. Here we go. He's a singer that actually helps to set up the stage and shit.

Oh, yeah. Sometimes to a fault. Sometimes I'll get to the venue and I'm like, guys, you didn't get, all right, you guys got to move out your instruments.

Now why? Because you didn't let me get the banners in place first. Move your shit out of the way. We did a show a little over a month ago now, I guess, at the Irish Rebel.

Killer place. And where applicable, you know, he likes to have lighting and special effects. And sometimes there'll be a fog machine, which has an awesome story.

But yeah, and he had this one set of lights set up right next to where I was standing and it was blinding me. I'm going down and I'm not one of these players. I know my way around the guitar well enough, but sometimes I gotta make sure I'm playing the right notes.

Right, right, right. And all I'm getting is the glare from the light. And we're in the middle.

I think it was during Lights Out. Yep. Ironically? Ironically, no.

Jeff, are we playing? And it's just one of those things. I was like, whenever you get a moment, I'd appreciate you turn that, removing it entirely from my space. I think it was a little bit more than that.

I appreciate it. It was like, light, light, light to me. Well, before we get into the, you know, the how can they find you and all that other good stuff, I guess, you know, talking to you guys, you guys have my wheels turning.

I'm telling you, it sounds interesting. I want to get out and actually see what you guys do. If I ever get a break, I would love to go out and see what you guys do.

But I was just reminded of something else. You know that, you know, the song Boom Boom by John Lee Hunker? Yeah. You ever hear the version by Big Head Todd and the Monsters? No.

Add that to your set list. Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's suddenly it's just as heavy.

And it's all staccato thing. You guys are going to fucking love it. Yeah.

Boom Boom by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. All right, cool. It's all right now.

You know, the songs like by the Cranberries, the zombie. Yeah. We've got a really heavy version of that we're bringing in.

Because, you know, we need somebody to do another cover of that song. Yeah. All right, everybody does a cover of that song.

But what is it? Five Finger Death Punch does a really good version of that song. Yeah. Whose version are you? We're going to do Angelo Basamati's.

OK, I've never heard that one. We'll give it a shot. It's very it's it's really cool.

I like going and finding these artists that are just out there. He's a one man artist. He's also out of Scandinavia and he does the whole.

I'm sensing something. Yeah, yeah. Hold on.

We're all getting passports or. Well, you know what? You just got to think of all those singers out there. I mean, the best singer that ever came out of there.

I mean, it's King Diamond. I mean, Jesus. That's what turned me on.

All those singers and stuff is listening to King Diamond. I'm like, where's this guy? Let's go listen to these guys. Oh, man.

These guys grew up yodeling. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they can they always have this stuff to go through throat.

They never have a sore throat. They're great. Exactly.

Exactly. No, but I guess we should get to it like work. How can they find you? How are people going to know where you're playing? Tell us about your social media.

Well, on social media, you actually find we're on Instagram. But you can also find us if you ever want to contact us and reach out to us. Would you just hit us on Timeline Rock Chicago at Gmail dot com.

And then, of course, you just look us up on Facebook at Timeline Rock Chicago. Don't just look up Timeline because you won't find us. But you got to look up Timeline Rock Chicago.

And that's how we find that and stuff like that. So that's where we're at. We rarely ever rock Chicago, literally.

But hey, that's all we're doing is rocking Chicago. What are you talking about? Chicago land. Timeline Rock Chicago land.

Rocking Chicago land. Exactly. And Indiana land.

And, you know. Well, that's considered Chicago land. It kind of is.

We're going to be sharing a football team. Don't get me started. But yeah, but if you guys, you know, if the crowd out there, if you're looking just for something a little different than you haven't heard and you just want to hear the older classics just with a little heavier edge to them, then, you know, we're the guys to come out and see, you know, come check us out.

You definitely won't be disappointed. I guarantee you that. We play a lot of cool tunes.

Like I said, if we can impress Jeffrey's wife over here. Yeah, there you go. That's it.

Something right. I think that's the next, that's going to be the name of the next band. Impress Jeffrey's wife.

Yeah. We even do a very cool version of Country Roads Take Me Home by John Denver. But it's not the way you guys have ever heard it.

All right. There's another one. All righty, guys.

Well, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having us. Been a lot of fun.

You're going to be right in my neck of the woods at the chill. So yeah, I'll probably be coming out to check you out. Like I said, we'll be shooting our video that night, our promo video that night as well.

So we're going to get as many people out there as we can. Awesome. All righty.

Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you.