Soul Strings

Soup Gronda On 54 Years Of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Songcraft, And Staying Grounded

• In Your City Show With Kelley and Gordon

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A Superman shirt, a Beatles jolt on TV, and a lifetime of songs that refuse to be one thing—Soup Gronda takes us inside the Ozark Mountain Daredevils with stories that feel like morning coffee on a back porch. We talk about how a group of songwriters built a band by honoring difference instead of forcing sameness, letting each track get the arrangement it deserved. That choice gave us the staying power of Jackie Blue and If You Wanna Get To Heaven, and it also confused a record industry that wanted tidy categories. Soup explains why they stuck to their guns and why the songs won.

You’ll hear how craft really works: capturing ideas with muddy hands in a garden, editing with intent, and the legendary moment Glenn Johns literally sliced tape to tighten Jackie Blue for radio. We dig into the lost art of album sequencing—five songs on side A, five on side B—and how that flow shaped deeper listening beyond the single. Soup’s philosophy keeps coming back to the same anchor: good songs last; bad ones vanish like a Bic lighter. The band wasn’t chasing “best player” polls; they were chasing melodies, words, and feels that people carry for decades.

We also explore the human choices behind the music: saying no to a Hollywood move, staying rooted in Missouri with families, gardens, and clean creeks, and valuing professionalism that starts long before showtime. Soup shares a clear creative credo—persevere, put in the hours, and finish the work. No rough mixes, no shortcuts. As we preview the upcoming Factory show, expect a generous helping of classics with fresh songs that keep the band curious and alive. If you love music history, songwriting process, and the soul of American roots rock, you’ll feel right at home.

If this conversation hits you like a favorite chorus, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves real songcraft, and leave a review telling us the Daredevils track you still carry with you.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, welcome to Soul Strings, where we connect with the people whose music weave stories into our lives. Today I'm honored to sit down with Soup Gronda, founding member basis and multi-instrumentalist of the legendary Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

SPEAKER_00:

Good morning, Lord, and good morning, everyone. Hey buddy, how are you doing? Uh I'm doing well. This is early in the morning, but I've got a cup of coffee and uh it's starting to work.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll share a cup of coffee together this morning.

SPEAKER_00:

There you go, good to see you.

SPEAKER_01:

You've got a show coming up, I believe, uh October the 19th at the factory.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know the exact date, but yeah, it's in the middle towards the end of October at the factory, which is a very cool venue. Very, very cool venue.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it really is a nice venue. I've seen uh I saw America there. Uh I'm gonna go see um Dream Theater there coming up right around the same time that you're gonna be playing, and I plan on coming to see you as well. So yeah, I love the table section in the back where you can sit at the tables and watch the show, but there's the seat, the seating is incredible. There's not a bad seat in the house.

SPEAKER_00:

So in the back of the table's other cocktails involved.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. We got the bar set up pretty well.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm looking forward to the one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I gotta ask you, so Sue, how did the name how did that come about? Because you're Michael.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, Michael Grand is my name that uh I used all through school. I went to college in Springfield in 1969, started a rock and roll band down there called the Great Sloth, and I was the lead singer, and I came out in a Superman t-shirt. And when you go to college, and I started playing around town or Springfield wearing this Superman shirt. So when you go to college, you meet 5,000 people at the same time, and people walk up and go, Oh, you're that guy in that band. And I went, Yeah, I'm that guy in that band. You're the guy wearing that Superman suit. Oh, that Superman shirt. Yeah, I'm the guy wearing that Superman shirt. And Superman got shortened down to Soup. I've been Soup since 1969. It's a uh it's a nickname that I acquired, and I just kind of stopped fighting it. And you know, that's why it's spelled S-U-P-E. Right for Superman. And um, so I've I just kind of succumbed to the um nickname.

SPEAKER_01:

That's awesome. You know, uh it kind of played with uh the name kind of fit with one of the bands you were in at one time, didn't it? The soup, uh, didn't you have a band named uh soup and something? Soup and the sandwiches. Yeah, soup and the sandwiches.

SPEAKER_00:

Soup and the sandwiches. I had soup and the sandwiches in Springfield for over the last 10 years. I lived in Springfield. When I moved to Nashville in 1991, which I call which I'm talking to you from right now, uh I started a band down here called Soup and the Sandwiches. And I figured that if I call it Soup and Ampersand the the whatevers, I could have whoever I wanted in the whatevers. Uh it's not like I had had the same lineup. So I've oh soup in the sandwiches has had, oh good lord, 50, 60 people in and out of its ranks. And uh yeah, I still have a I still work at soup and sandwiches, not too much anymore, but yeah, soup and the sandwiches. I've got all kinds of CDs out. You can find them all over the place, and it's a little bit wackier than the Daredevils, a little sillier. I'm sorry, a lot sillier. And that's kind of what I do um on the side when I'm not working with the Ozarks.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, we kind of share a friend, and that is Scott Kneehouse. How did you how did you meet how did you meet Scott Kneehouse?

SPEAKER_00:

Scott Neehouse played in a band called uh Acousticity, and at one point in time, I think we may have even been using the same booking agent, but we they went on tour with us, and uh the marquee read the Ozark Mountain Daredevils with special guest Acousticity. Oh, and Gordon, I'm talking I'm talking 56, 50 gigs, 60 gigs over a span of what four or five years, and uh and Scott being from St. Louis as I am, we bonded over that. Scott also being from Limburg High School down in South County, which is where I went to school, so we bonded over Limburg, and then we bonded musically because he and I enjoy the same kind of music. So it was a it was a really nice fit, a very, very nice friendship that's lasted all these years and it's strong today as ever. And I still look forward to playing with the guy whenever there's a gig come up with with him and I. We have a band called the Real Macaws, and that's uh Scott Neenhouse and Terry Rogers. So I met Terry uh Rogers when I played with the birds. He called me and I went out with Michael Clark, and I was in the last incarnation of the birds that had an original member, of course. It was just Michael the drummer, but uh, and then Terry and I remained friends, and I said, Terry, there's this guy in St. Louis you need to meet. He is birds, Buffalo Springfield, crosses and ash through and through. The two of them met. I introduced them and they got together. And good lord, what's it been 30 years now or so?

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

So Scott and I go way back, and he's a great guy and a beautiful musician.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you've been with the Ozark non-daredevil since the beginning. What drew you to music when you were young? I mean, how did your journey with the band begin?

SPEAKER_00:

The band's been together for 54 years. Okay. Wow. It's crazy. Now, uh, I growing up in and uh in St. Louis in 1964 when I saw the Beatles on TV. Man, fireworks went off all around my brain. My DNA was completely rearranged, and up till then, like all boys in St. Louis, I was a St. Louis Cardinal baseball nut, which I still am. So I go one day after seeing the Beatles on TV, I watched and I didn't see any of the girls screaming for Mike Shannon and Tim McCarver, but I saw them screaming for John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Now I was 14 years old and I was starting to get hair on my chest. Starting to get hair on my chest, and I went, wait a minute, now. Uh and and it was the the light switch turned on, and uh from 1964 to 1969, when I graduated and left Springfield, I had a band. I was a band leader in St. Louis. Of course, we weren't very, you know, we didn't really play that much, we didn't get much you know recognition. But I I was I got bit by that bug.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And anybody who gets bit by that bug will understand this next statement. I'm a 75-year-old man, and when I put my guitar on, I still turn into a giant eighth grader trying to learn how to play get off my cloud. I still have that same fire, that same intensity, and that same uh uh uh uh desire to play music. Now, from 1964 to 69, I had bands in St. Louis, but when I moved to college in 1969, I had zero interest in going to psychology 101 at 8 a.m. I had a hundred percent interest in staying up all night and drinking beer and playing music with some people. 1971, a couple years after I was down there, I met the rest of the guys in the Daredevils. And from there, from 1971 to now 2025, that's 54 years, uh we've we've just played music. That's all I've ever done my entire life, and I'm very uh lucky man to be able to say I was been able to support myself with my art and my music. That means I don't have to get up tomorrow morning and go to be a Walmart greeter, and I don't have to go to a day job to support my music habit. So I concentrate on it all the time, and part of that is talking with you this morning.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, that's so great that you get to do that because that's that's the dream job. The dream job is being able to do what that you love to do and get paid for it.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, that's yeah, who was it that said uh if you find something you love to do, you'll never was it you'll never work a day in your life or whatever that saying is.

SPEAKER_01:

I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's exactly correct, and uh I'm a living example of that.

SPEAKER_01:

So the Daredevils, you know, you guys are described as blending kind of country, rock, folk, uh, even bluegrass. How did that sound evolve?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, when we first started, we we got together more as a songwriter's collective than a band. We had a whole bunch of guys who got together, and for years and years and years, we'd been in cover bands. We'd been in cover bands, and I, along with everybody else, was tired of being in a cover band. I didn't want to play the latest Rolling Stones song, I didn't want to play the latest Doobie Brothers song. We wanted to play our songs. So when we got together, we had very diverse uh personalities. One guy brought in country influence, one guy brought in um bluegrass influence, one guy brought in pop influence, one guy brought in this. What I think I brought in was my St. Louis rock and roll influence for lively music. Let's hit the dance floor and let's just have a good time. Now we get to the point where okay, what are we gonna do here? We're gonna play this song. We started working up songs, right? You play my song, I'll play your song, we'll play his song, he'll play our song, you'll play their song. That was a very democratic, very uh hippy-dippy approach. Then when we started working up these songs, we realized that they were all diverse, they were all different. So, as opposed to trying to make all the songs sound like the Eagles, when you hear the Eagles, every song sounds the same. When you hear you know, the Dewey Brothers, every song sounds the same. We didn't do that. That's why our two biggest hits, Jackie Blue and If you want to get to heaven, there's no banjos on Jackie Blue, there's no harmonicas on Jackie Blue.

SPEAKER_01:

There isn't one if you want to get to heaven, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so as opposed to trying to homogenize all of that into one batch, we decided to keep it all uh uh diverse and uh individual. Each individual song got the treatment it deserved. Now it confused people in the beginning because AM Records said, Well, what how are we supposed to best market this? Where do we put your records? Do we put it in the rock and roll section? Do we put it in the country section? Do we put it in the pop section? Our answer was why don't you put it in all of them? And they could and that that just didn't compute in the record industry. The people in Missouri loved it. The people in Hollywood couldn't figure it out. So what speaking of Jack. So what I'm saying is we stuck to our guns and it's paid off.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you have to, but especially back then. I mean, how many times when I watched a documentary on Queen, Freddie Mercury stuck to his guns on their eight-minute song? Because they were like saying, You can't have an eight-minute song, you gotta have a two and a half to three-minute song, but he stuck to his guns and it paid off. Right. When you we talk when we talk about if you want to get to heaven and Jackie Blue, what why do you think those two songs had so much staying power?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, because they're good songs. You know, they're good songs to start with. And there's a saying down here in Nashville, it all starts with the song. You know, if you get a good song and you make a good record of a good song, it'll last forever. If you make a record of a bad song, it'll go down the tubes like a bic lighter. So we put all of our energy into songwriting. We were we were an okay band. We weren't a great band, but we were great songwriters. Uh none of us have gotten one vote in the Playboy best bass player poll.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we've seen so many jokes about bass players, me being a lead singer.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah, I'm being a best drummer, best guitar player, none of us have gotten one vote in any of those polls, but we wrote good songs. Good songs will last forever. So that's what we concentrated on, and that's why those songs have staying power.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, we talk about writing songs. So what is what is your process? So many guys have different processes. They start with the melody, they start, you know, they start with the lyrics, they start with the groove on the bass. What is what is your songwriting process for you?

SPEAKER_00:

And is it different every song? Yeah, it's different all the time. As a matter of fact, the other day I was out in the garden tending to my tomatoes and my hands were in the dirt. My hands were just muddy and sweaty, and I got a song idea. And so I said, uh-oh. I had to get up, wash my hands, come inside, and write it down immediately because if I wait 30 seconds, it's gone. Sometimes the words will come to me, sometimes the uh uh melody will start, sometimes I'll get the uh uh instrumentation together. Okay, I want to get this to sound like this, and I want this influence, and and but there's no one uh approach. Each approach, each song it's like it dictates to me, it tells me what to do. Yeah, so some like uh I just went in the studio last week. I've just recorded I've just released a bluegrass album with some bluegrass friends of mine down in the Ozarks, and some of those songs are you know, good Lord, 50 years old. And some of them are better 50 days old, and each one comes to you individually, and you must stay open and receptive to however it hits you. If the music hits you first, fine. If the lyric hits you first, fine. And that so I don't I don't really have a playbook, you know. When it hits me, it hits me. And when it hits me, I have to uh respect the muse and immediately capture what it's telling me.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, we talked about if you want to go to heaven and Jackie Blue and the staying power and being the hits that they were. What song in the catalog of the Daredevils do you feel is underrated and that you thought was gonna be a hit but wasn't?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, deep tracks. Oh, oh, that was gonna be a hit. Oh lord, that's hard to say. I mean, we've put out we've put a lot of energy into songs and released them, and then went right down. I thought, oh man, this is great. I'm gonna be able to get me a new pickup truck with on this song, it's great. Bangably house with this song. You know, both Jackie Blue and If You Want to Get to Heaven weren't the first singles off those records. They were the second singles. There was another song that we thought was gonna be successful. It wasn't.

SPEAKER_03:

What was the name of that song?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh the first one, um, I believe the first one was uh we released was Country Girl, maybe it didn't go anywhere. We released If You Want to Get to Heaven Zoom to the top on the second album. Oh shoot, I forget what the first single was. But they said, Well, let's release Jackie Blue. We released Jackie Blue and boom to the top of the charts. So you know, and and you have to realize this is 50 years ago.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

The industry was different. There was no internet, there was no instant downloads, there was no what is this? This is uh StreamYard, there's no Zoom, there's no YouTube, and uh back then it was just different, and uh not better, not worse, just different.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, me and my wife talked about that. Me and my wife do a show here called uh In Your City, and uh we brought that up. I brought that subject up because remember, you know, when we talk about the B sides of songs, how many B side songs made it to the top of the charts because somebody bought the A side and then they started listening to the B side and went, wow, this is great on a 45. And we had an album. When we bought album soup, we put the whole album on and we just let it play, and then we would hear songs that we would normally wouldn't hear. So I think about the music industry today, and I start thinking me and my wife talked about that, and I said, you know, you know how many songs are being missed because people don't listen to the whole album, they're just listening to, like you said, I'm just downloading the one track I like and I'm not hearing the rest of it. So I wonder how many songs that could possibly be hits that are getting missed because people aren't listening to the whole album.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, are they even making albums anymore? You know, people make them, but they're all they're all the old stuff that me and you grew up with, you know? Well, what we would do, I mean, the whole process is different. Here, here's an example. Okay, we've got 10 songs, we're gonna put them on this album. Five songs on side A, five songs on side B. If somebody picks it up and plays side A, the first song must flow into the second song, into the third song, and fourth. Now, the fifth song on side A must have a good ending song for side A. Now that song, when you flip the record over to side B, the last song on side A should flow into the first song on side B. So, like you were saying, when you listen to the whole album, there's a flow to it. Like a concert, right? You're right, and that's the part of the uh uh process that I think is getting lost because it does, you know, some people are still doing. I mean, the old Fred Flintstones like myself are still doing that. But uh, you're right, you know, people are doing, oh, here's our latest single, you know, and here yeah, here it is. Here's our latest album, and you get to hear 10 songs that we paid a lot of attention to recording and sequencing. So you're right. There are a lot of songs, hit songs on many albums, not only ours, but other artists as well, that you know, could have been hits, you know, but they weren't, and that's fine with me, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Can you share a favorite moment with me that you had that always sticks in your mind of recording in the studio, something that really sticks out to you or even on stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well okay here.

SPEAKER_00:

We made our first down with Glenn Johns. Okay. And uh he he said okay we recorded the song. It was fine. Okay. And it was fine. He said, oh that's great. We're gonna use it. And he said, well it's too long. Like like Jackie Blue. Okay, Jackie Blue. Jackie Blue recorded on the album was almost almost four minutes long. So Glenn said okay we're gonna edit it. Well how are we gonna do that? He actually got the tape on the thing and sliced the tape at the top of that last verse. Then he rolled the tape back back forward forward forward to the end and sliced it again. So he edited out a whole verse he took the two pieces sliced them together seamlessly so the the record you hear on the radio doesn't contain the last verse that Steve and Larry wrote so the version on the album is four minutes long. The version on the radio is three minutes long. When that happened I just went oh my god this guy's amazing it was like open heart surgery this guy was and now we have all this now we have all this computer stuff where you just go boom boop boop done you know right exactly right actually you can actually tell it to say hey take out this part and it'll actually just take it out for you right and that opened my eyes it opened all of our eyes and that helped us edit our song that's why none of our songs are you know nine minutes long you know to be honest with you those nine minute long songs bore me after three minutes and 15 seconds.

SPEAKER_01:

What is a life you know the name of the show is Soul Strength so I always like to ask what is a life lesson that you learned while touring on the road or during this whole process of your life with playing music what is a life lesson that you can share with some of us a life lesson is uh perseverance perseverance man I know this is what I was put on the earth to do make art make music have so it will enrich someone else's life somebody hears a song and go oh that's great and it gives them a good feeling that's you know that's that's it and persevere keep going keep going keep going don't let anyone tell you you know that you know hey what are you doing this for you know I know what I'm doing it for that's to help other people um to enrich other people's lives there's that and also you must do your homework today I think a lot of a lot of young folks say well all I gotta do is go on that TV show for 16 weeks and I'll be a star yeah you must do your homework well they say 10,000 hours or something at your craft you must do your homework you must sit down you must get sore fingers your fingers must bleed with calluses and um and then finish your work you know finish you know if you're writing a song finish if you're writing a book finish finish the work you know that's I know a lot of guys go well this song isn't finished but I I've gonna put a I'm gonna put a new guitar and I'm gonna put this on it and then that and then I'm gonna do this.

SPEAKER_00:

Well finish that's why people say you want to hear my rough mixes no I want to finish right and I'm not gonna play you my rough mixes doesn't describe the song well it's it's like a painter saying well I see this lady here well I'm gonna put a sun over her head here and this gonna shine down it I'm gonna put some dogs and the painting isn't done but here you like it no finish your work you know what keeps you balanced I heard you talk about the tomatoes and having a garden and stuff what keeps you balanced today in life with between music and life what keeps me balanced is the same thing that kept us balanced in 1970 when was Jackie Blue 75 whatever that was 75 yeah close time and M came to us and said hey look guys look man we got a hit record Jackie Blue okay let's follow it up give us Jackie red come on how about Jackie Green how about Jackie Brown come on come on we said well we don't approach our music like that oh come on come on come on come on we had two hit records and AM asked us to move to Los Angeles move out here to Hollywood we can get you on the Sonny and Cher show we can get you on Smothers Brothers we'll get you on the Tonight show we'll get you on Mike Douglas show Mike Douglas that's a name I haven't heard in a while remember Mike Douglas show yeah oh yeah yeah so and we said no we think we think we're gonna stay here we had young families and my daughters were eating fresh tomatoes and fresh strawberries out of the garden and they were swimming in beautiful clear stream creeks and I wasn't going to uproot them and move them to Los Angeles so I could go on the Mike Douglas show we held our ground there we stayed in Missouri then and and it's just you know I can't be on on camera all the time you know there are times when I you know I like to tend to my gardens I like to play I have seven grandchildren I like to play with them you know I like to I like to do other things I like to um you know I like to sweep the leaves off my deck you know so it's just keeping yourself grounded uh is important to me and it's important to Daryl Zark Mountain Daredevil's because it got it to where it got us to where we are and like they say you got to dance with the one that bring you to the dance. That's right. So we're we're we've got our feet planted firmly on the ground and that'll keep our head out of the clouds. You know what what do you hope people feel in their soul when they hear your music when well we hope it gets to their soul do you think that song honky donk badk is going to get to anybody's soul nah like I said it's a big lighter that's the that's the thing with music today. Yeah big lighter when it's done yeah you just discard it.

SPEAKER_01:

If it gets to your soul we want you to I will I would like for you to first of all enjoy what I do and first and second of all if uh if it gets in there want you to carry it with you in your soul carry it with you you know let it make you happy in the morning when you're having coffee let it make you happy in the evening when you're having your first margarita but keep it in the soul well you guys have the show coming up here in October what can we expect to see in this show that you got coming to the factory here in October I believe October the 19th I'm looking it up right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah uh yeah it's a Sunday evening which is very cool which is very cool.

SPEAKER_01:

What you're gonna hear is we we never we haven't hit the uh uh chubby checker level yet you know we haven't hit Paul Revere and the Raiders level yet we're a working band we've been working the entire 54 years with new music new um new songs when somebody comes to the uh factory they'll hear Jackie Blue they'll hear chicken train they'll hear if you want to get to heaven they'll hear all of that but we're also going to throw in some of the new music that we've been writing and recording and playing I would say it's gonna be oh maybe hmm 60 40 no seven 75 25 old hits but you know for uh to for to keep it interesting for us we're gonna put in some new music which we've been playing um uh recently how long has this the members of this band been together that we're gonna see 10 12 years or so you know when you've been together 54 years you know you we've been through oh lord a dozen incarnations new drummer new guitar player new replace the new guitar player new drummer replace the new drummer replaced the old drummer but and uh there have been 35 people over the over the um 54 years that have been in the Ozark Mount Daredevils uh this has been together uh this band's been together well 10 12 years or so and it's really good because we picked people from Springfield Missouri that were first of all really good second of all nice people which is important and three professionals because being a professional doesn't mean watch me for two hours on stage being a professional also means showing up for the bus on time in the morning professional being don't be an asshole sorry you can say that yeah don't be a diva don't be a jerk and um play well with others and uh so the the the um the band is really really really good and I'm really looking forward to coming to uh the factory well we're looking forward to seeing you so thank you brother appreciate you have a fantastic day and we'll see you here at the factory be well call any time Gordon thanks okay bye bye