Listen Like Fans- For The Love Of INXS
Listen Like Fans is a podcast made by INXS fans, for INXS fans ā for the love of INXS.
From deep cuts to defining moments, personal stories to passionate debates, this is where fans from around the world come together to celebrate the music, the legacy, and the magic of one of Australiaās greatest bands. Whether youāve been there since the early pub gigs or discovered INXS years later, this podcast is about connection, community, and keeping the spirit alive.
No gatekeeping. No egos. Just pure love, memories, and a shared obsession with the sound that still moves us.
Listen Like Fans- For The Love Of INXS
šļø Episode Special: Behind the Kit with Jon Farrissā Drum Tech ā Tod T Burr
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What happens when you sit down at the pub with one of the people who helped keep the heartbeat of INXS on stage?
In this special episode, we share laughs, incredible backstage stories, and a fascinating look behind the scenes with Tod T Burrātouring musician, drum tech, collector, and the man who worked alongside Jon Farriss during the Switch era.
From his mischievous childhood in New York to life on the road with some of rockās biggest names, Tod takes us on an unforgettable journey. Hear how a chance encounter with Jon Farriss changed his life, how he learned Jonās drum setup from a single Google photo, and what it was really like preparing one of rockās greatest drummers night after night.
We also dive into life on tour, backstage disasters, priceless rock memorabilia, signed drum skins from legendary bands, and the unforgettable moment Tod almost found himself sitting behind Jon Farrissā drum kit at an INXS concert.
Most of all, this is just a really fun conversation. Itās full of laughter, great memories, and the kind of stories that only someone who lived the rock ānā roll life can tell.
If youāve ever wondered what happens behind the curtain before the lights go down, this is an episode you wonāt want to miss.
š„ Grab a drink, turn it up loud, and come backstage with us.
If you would like to watch the video of this interview, then check out the posts on Patreon.
To know more about Tod Burr and see his photos, check out his website: http://www.tmburr.com/
Become A Backstage Legend and join the INXS Fan Community
https://www.patreon.com/cw/ListenlikeFans_fortheloveofINXSBackstageLegends
Website: https://www.inxsaccessallareas.com/
Okay, growth.
SPEAKER_04Welcome to Listen Like Fans for the love of NXS. I'm B, and each week I'll be joined by a different co-host as we dive into the songs, the stories, and the moments that made us fall in love with this most iconic band on the planet. Let's go. Today we're going to be talking to Todd. He was born in New York, a lifelong drummer and touring musician, played with numerous bands across the US rock scene, a drum tech, touring musician, session player, collection of signed drum skins and rock memoria, and worked with our beautiful John Farris and in excess during the switch era. So welcome to the podcast. How are you, mate? In a pub where I like it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I'm in a pub having a pint. Uh, I only had to wait not even three minutes before you logged on, so it was wonderful. So I got I got about halfway down to my pint. I was honored to be asked to drum tech the rock star TV show on CBS where I was working for the band before GD Fortune was. So I had I had done rehearsals, I had done uh sessions with the band at Westlake Studios where we had no idea who the singer was gonna be. I thought it was gonna be uh the guy with the crazy arms. Uh what was his name? Uh the blonde guy from the Love Hammers.
SPEAKER_02Marty.
SPEAKER_00Martin, yeah, it's Marty. Marty, yes.
SPEAKER_02Marty.
SPEAKER_00He's gonna be mad at me because we're still friends on social media. But yeah, I thought it was gonna be Marty until the very last episode where I saw uh Susie and JD suddenly leech lean forward, and then I go, Oh, well, that's why Andrew wrote a whole bunch of songs for a girl singer. So he thought that Susie might get because you know, at the end of the day, the audience and the people at home would choose the top two, and then the band would pick the winner. And actually, I met I met Mig in Singapore about a decade later, and he says, Oh man, he goes, I really thought I was gonna get it. I says, You're my top five. So at the very last episode, um, they they they chose GD and I had to sign an NDA, which is called a a non-disclosure agreement, because we were we were done filming it at five because of union rules in in Los Angeles studios. The show wasn't airing until eight. So by the time they announced GD, it wouldn't be 9 p.m. So I went home to my girlfriend who at the time was watching the show on television. She goes, So who won? I go, I can't tell you. She goes, No, no, no, you have to tell me. I go, I can't tell you. She goes, she goes, Who am I gonna tell? I go, you live on the freaking internet, you're like 25 years old. You live on the internet, you know. Anyway, so so when JD is picked, I immediately just start running over. I shake everyone's hand, everybody's happy, and I go up to oh wait, I have to tell you the story I have about so I was working at SIR Studios, and uh I was the drum department manager, and I had an office upstairs with all the drums and cymbals, and this guy comes up, and I don't know if you're familiar with the crew guys, so this guy named Steve Jones, his name is his road name is 13. He was nicely you know 13? Not oh okay. Well, he's he was the main guy for NXS back to the Michael Hutchins days. So I've always been an NXS fan, and it really hurt me because um elegantly wasted came out when I lived in Los Angeles, and I love the record, and I still do to this day, and I found out they were getting ready to tour. Uh, 13 gave me a tour book from the Australian tour, which they never did because, of course, Michael passed away. Offer to work with them came from 13, who was basically Andrew's keyboard tech, but he was the only guy who was with them since the Michael days. So I'm at SIR upstairs in my office, and 13 comes upstairs and he says, Hello, my name's Thit. And then it says, Hi, I'm Todd within excess. So he goes, Is it okay if I had John Ferris come upstairs here and pick out some snares and cymbals for a rehearsal? And I'm like, Of course, yes. So, so you gotta understand something. I mean, I've been working at this job for five years. Before that was a company called Drum Doctors. I work for rock stars, the guys who play with the Rolling Stones, the guys who play with with um Seal, the guys who play with Paul McCartney and Helmet and whatever. So the fact that John Ferris is gonna walk into my office is cool, but it's not I'm gonna go ahead and smoke nine cigarettes and get drunk because it was the coolest thing ever. It was just John Ferris of NXS, who I love. So he comes up, the nicest guy in the world, and says, I know, mate, my name's John Ferris. And I said, Hi, I'm Todd. Nice to meet you as big as ham. And I showed him where all the symbols were, and I said, The crashes, rides, chinas, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I'll take one of these and one of these, but I put them all in the bag. I said, What stage are you in? He goes, Two. So I said, Can I bring them down and put them on your kit for you? And he says, Sure. So I went down and I set them all up and I put them on his kit. And then he goes, You want to hear a song or two, mate? And in walks Timmy Ferris, in walks in Kirk Pengilli, in walks in uh Andrew Ferrari. They all walk in the door, no one pays attention to me. I'm sitting in the corner like this, trying to be a freaking spot on the wall. Anyway, so they come in and they start ripping on it without vocals, of course, because there's no singer yet. But I knew every song they played. Very cool. Very cool. I'm I'm literally on the clock listening to NXS rehearse. Now, however, you got to realize I've listened to Motorhead rehearse, I've listened to um Kiss rehearse, I've listened to everyone rehears, but this is the first time I listened to a band rehearse without the singer, but I knew every single song. Anyway, so so and what were they playing?
SPEAKER_04Was that plain new stuff?
SPEAKER_00But they played, they played Heaven Sent, Need You Tonight. They didn't play Elegantly Wasted, but I would like to take a moment to say I pushed for that song when JD got uh in the band, and JD was on my side. He goes, Yes, let's play elegantly wasted. And we're the right song, yeah. And also I pushed for not enough time again. All right, and JD was on my side with that one too. So in the beginning, it was we were all really, really tight and had a really great relationship. We were all on days off hanging out with everybody, it was a lot of fun, especially 13 um had taken me under his wing and allowed me to feel more like a part of the band than just a crew guy. Even to this day, I mean, I really do take pride in being able to set up drums and make them sound good and make them look good. And I've noticed that the guy who's taken over from me in Def Leopard doesn't have the same energy that I do when it comes to looks. One of the biggest things I really did appreciate about John Ferris allowed me to make his kit look tidy and neat and cool, no boom stands sticking out like this, no cables hanging out on the floor like spaghetti, you know, no crooked drum head logos. You know, I took I took an effort to make all this. You go back and look at the pictures from from and I built three kits for him. If you look at the pictures, I would uh I would take certain parts of his kit and order from Pearl Drums the same wrap and wrap other parts of the kit in the same color. Oh so when you look when you looked at the drum kit from the front, everything had a uh an energy, everything matched, everything looked amazing. And but I only learned this from my years at drum doctors and SIR Hollywood. Not to mention I worked at Guitar Center Hollywood for a while too, where I had my first teching gig. You want to know who my first teching gig was?
SPEAKER_04I was going to say, where let's roll back. How how did drumming become part of your life?
SPEAKER_00Well, it it started with Edward Van Halen.
SPEAKER_04Really?
SPEAKER_00My very first teching gig was with Eddie Van Halen.
SPEAKER_04I was working that that's going right to the top, isn't it? Really?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Well, and then I go to NXS and then I go to Def Leopard, and then I went to Cinderella. Yeah, I I have a bit of a pedigree.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Are you still working now? And then Motorhead. Um, I'm I'm actually working with a band called Smash Mount right now, but I'm on a hiatus uh because I'm in the middle of moving. Uh my my my wife passed away recently, so I'm moving into my new house, trying to get my dog acclimated. They're going to China or somewhere for like two or three weeks, and I I got I got someone filling in for me because I cannot I cannot do it right now. So um it just happens to be really the timing is perfect for you and I to be talking right now.
SPEAKER_04It's so funny because you're in Arizona. I have just also um interviewed another lady from Arizona in who's living in Arizona from Australia, who you may have come across. Her name is Amalia Amelia, uh, and she was in XS's massage therapist um while they when they came over for yeah, she she was massaging um a couple of the band and JD at the time.
SPEAKER_00And she was during during the switch tour?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, when they came over um during the switch tour over there.
SPEAKER_00Well, there was there was a couple of times where uh I would I would get uh a massage as well, or as you say down there, a massage. Massage. Um, and there was uh um yeah, so I would uh it'd be like like like Kirk would be walking out in a towel and I'd be walking in with a towel. I don't know, I mean I'd probably have to see her, but uh it wouldn't be you know the first time some woman I don't know would see me naked. But I will say there's really really one funny time that uh this is funny too. Uh if it was her, she probably remember this. Uh I got a massage and and as I was getting up, you know, you normally aren't wearing very much, so I reached over, grabbed the towel as it was naked, and JD walks in the door and he just goes, Todd, nice junk, dude. And that that was G that was JD's that was JD, JD's sense of humor. Yeah, immediately that diffuses the situation because you know, a lot a lot of men aren't comfortable being around other naked men. And I'm just like going, ah, and he just goes, Nice junk, and that was the end of it. And we never never spoke of it again.
SPEAKER_04I spoke to him this morning only via text. Yeah, only via text. Well, he was um he he toured Australia last year and he's coming back this year. Um, so we just touched him base um about him, and also he started his own podcast, and he said he'd like me to come on his podcast as a guest of his. So yeah, um, I'll mention him. The other person that I'd like to mention, I don't know if he was part of the crew, is a guy called Motley.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Motley, yeah. Motley's in the lighting guy. Um that's right. Him, yeah. I mean, I I I remember everybody on the crew because it was one of the best three years of my entire life. Motley's a really great guy. We're still friends on Facebook. I think he's with KISS right now. He's been with KISS a long time. Uh he's a really he's a really, really good guy. Again, we would all be on tour, and let's say we had a day off in Montreal. Two people would find a great little pub or restaurant. Next thing you know, there'd be 12 people in this little pub or restaurant, and all of us would be there having a great old time. Molly was great. Um uh he got me in trouble once at the Canadian border. Uh, he got pulled over because he he smelled like weed, you know, marijuana. I should imagine you would. Well, he got pulled, he got pulled into the you know, the put your hands up, the strip searching kind of thing. Yeah. And I thought I had I had thought I had time. So I, you know, we had like five buses outside, and I ran into the bathroom real quick to use the bathroom. And I come out, my bus is gone. So luckily, luckily, we were already over the border in Canada because my passport. Now, here's the thing is whenever you're on tour, bring your passport with you, bring your phone with you. Doesn't matter, just go into the store and buy, you know, what you call a packet of crisps, or you know, or or a Red Bull or whatever, but bring your phone and bring your passport with you. So luckily, I had my phone. I did have my passport, but we were on the other side of the border. So we had a the band, uh, I think it was called Creed, uh, was opening up for opening up for us. So I called my manager and uh he was on my bus and he goes, Oh, just jump on their bus. It's only like 90-minute drive. I I just knocked on the door and I said blah blah blah. And he goes, Oh, yeah, yeah, your boss just said you could ride with us. And now this is like 7:30 in the morning, and they're like on, you want a Red Bull, you want a beer? And I'm like, It's not even a show day, yeah. I'll I'll have a beer. So I hung out. I hung I hung out with their crew for 90 minutes and had the greatest time ever, you know, just meeting new people and everything's fine. But that's the only time that ever happened, and what they call that they call that oil spotting.
SPEAKER_04Oil spotted, oil spotting.
SPEAKER_00That means you get left behind.
SPEAKER_04Left behind. I'm sure there was a few times that a few people got left behind.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad they got you on the uh the bus for the it's better, it's better now with it's better now with cell phones. I mean, I can remember oil spotting a singer of the other band and my one of my bands in the 90s, and this is before the EU, and he was like stuck in Spain, and our next show was in France, and his passport was on the bus.
SPEAKER_04Oh, we need to get around that.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't my band, I don't remember. I'm just I'm just saying that somebody did something to get this guy across the border, yeah, and I have at home a jar of French francs. Is it Spanish lira? No, Greek lira, uh German marks, um, uh like all this uh all this money that's useless right now. Maybe like a 30 year someone will want to buy you know a 25 mark coin for me, but I've got a jar of this stuff from touring in the 90s before the EU.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's like a little bit of a sentimental jar jar. You should put some um guitar picks in there as well.
SPEAKER_00Oh, do you have no idea how many guitar picks I have? And and drumsticks. I'm finding drumsticks and and it I found uh a bunch of drum heads. Um, so on my wall in my in my new house, I have uh the inexcess switch drum head that uh I kind of I kind of helped design. Uh there were two drum heads that were used. The first one was the one I made for the rock star show, which was the white head with the inexcess logo with the red N. And then uh the manager asked me to cut out a chrome star for the middle of it. So if you look at the final episode, maybe like three episodes before, it did not have the silver chrome star on the very last episode it did, because I was there at five o'clock in the morning making a chrome star to put on the drummer and it looked fantastic on camera. So I did I don't I don't mind you know, it's I don't mind doing a job if if it makes sense, but there was a stage manager, I can't remember what his name was. He was really he, I think his name was Ed or something, but he was really, really nice to us. Um, and it turns out that uh 13 and I became the touring members of the band. And the second that the band left, JD left, they all went partying somewhere. The big manager at the time, the big NXS manager comes up and says, Hey man, Johnny Ferris really likes what you did with this kit. And he goes, What are you doing for the next three years of your life? And you know, me, you know, me being like a 32-year-old smart ass, I go, I'm touring with NXS. And he gives me his card and he goes, Call me tomorrow. Because I've only met him once before. So he gives me this card. He says, Call me at 10 a.m. tomorrow. And his name is Merch. His name was Merch. So I'm living uh somewhere off of probably Wilshire or whatever in in LA at the time. And stupid me, I've never been the situation. I brought my freaking girlfriend with me to meet the manager of NXS. Yeah, and she's uh she's like 25, weighs 100 pounds, soaking wet, and and we walk into this fancy schmancy apartment uh around the corner from CBS Studios where they were recording Rockstar. Really fancy apartment. So I walk in the door and it says hi, and he says hi, and his wife comes up, she says hi. And I introduced my girlfriend at the time. And he goes, he walks right to the bar. Now remember, this is like 10:02 in the morning. He goes right to the bar, he goes, Will you have a drink with me? I go, sure. I didn't ask. I don't know if it was tequila or it turned out it it was vodka, soda, and lemon. And he hands me this and I cheers him and he says, Come sit down next to me. And I says, Okay, and he goes, You have the job. And I'm like, What? And he goes, Yeah, he goes, Here's my accountant's name. You got to call him like in two hours, and he'll give you what give your social security number and and billing address and blah blah blah. The rate is X or whatever. And uh remember, this is like I think it was like September, like at the beginning of the TV season. So I said, What did I do? I said, Was Johnny really like me that much? He goes, No, goes, you had a drink with me. He goes, You're a stand-up bloke. And it's like, oh stop, I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. My dad's from Liverpool. He says, You're a you're a stand-up mate. He goes, I want you on my team. So we spent the next like six weeks doing promotional tours all over Canada, all over, you know, the West Coast, the East Coast, New York, San Francisco, whatever. And then um, I went back to my regular job for a while, and then I got this random call from another guy who I don't even who I don't know. Uh, and he goes, We're gonna do some rehearsals in Australia at the end of 2005. And I'm like going, I get to go to Australia, and he goes, Of course, we're gonna rehearse there for two weeks. Now you gotta understand something. This is over right after Christmas, uh, New Year's Eve, and then we we we have like two days off, and then start the whole tour of north north North America and Canada. I had just gotten back from a bunch of shows with a glam rock band that I was playing drums in in Japan. I have literally been home 48 hours and I get a phone call say now I'm going to Australia, and I'm like going is this my life? Yeah, anyway. So I basically wanted to I wanted to go to Australia, and I'm a huge Mad Max fan. Oh, fantastic. So great. So uh I I saw I saw Mad Max and the Road Warrior when I was in college in the 80s, and I'll tell you what one thing your your audience will probably laugh about is before the internet, I couldn't figure out what the hell the cars were. Okay. You you you have cars in Australia that they don't sell here.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Holdens, Ford Falcons, um, and and and and uh Utes. I wanted a Ute so bad. I almost bought a Ute last year before I bought my my I got a Dodge Ram. I got one of those big freaking Dodge Rams. Oh yeah. I live in Phoenix, you know, and then I got a con I got a convertible. I mean, I live here, the weather's gorgeous. But anyway, so uh my my I'm in I'm in Australia and I had uh we had a day off. So I uh uh actually I think JD turned me on to this guy. He was a he was a guest, um, a guest uh tattoo artist, and I went down there. I think he did this for 200 bucks. So I said, I want I want Mad Max's badge on my shoulder. And so one of the things NXS did was gave me a laptop because Apple was a sponsor. So everybody in the band and crew got a laptop. I'd never had a laptop before, I had a desktop. So I got a laptop and we're sitting at rehearsal, and one of the things I did is I found websites talking about the cars from Mad Max, and I think one of the websites still active, it's called Mad Max, Mad Max Movies Online or something. So I'm sitting there, like the band is playing, uh, you know, Need You Tonight or whatever, and I'm going, Oh, Ford Falcon XY. You know, I'm like I'm trying to find out all these cars. I had no I'm a car geek, so I'm trying to figure out all this stuff. I can tell. And anyway, it was amazing to find out. As a matter of fact, our our our our base tech got off the plane uh with us when we first went to the the hotel to start rehearsals the very next day, and he turns around and he goes, This doesn't like the this doesn't look like Mad Max. I'm like, dude, it's a freaking movie. I just wanted to know because when I saw, like I said, when I was a teenager in college, I went and saw Mad Max and Road Warrior, and I didn't know what the hell was up. And the cars all looked weird to me. Now I can tell you exactly what everything is.
SPEAKER_04Did they take you to the the Mad Max village? Did they they they because that's in Port Stevens?
SPEAKER_00But they didn't. No, I think it's called Signal Hill, if I remember. Um, and uh I I've I'm now very well versed on the Mad Max history of the interceptor and all that kind of stuff now, but back in the day, you know, like I said, when I was a teenager in the 80s, I didn't know anything about it. It was just a movie, but being a card nut, I was interested in what the interceptor was, yeah, and it was definitely an Aussie car. Yeah, and I did and I did learn that on my first tour. It's not Aussie, it's Aussie.
SPEAKER_04It's Aussie, Aussie, mate.
SPEAKER_00Hey Gavin, want to go for want to go for a ride to Wantana?
SPEAKER_04Well, I I I'm a bit of a hybrid. I'm I'm English, but I've been over here 22 years or something like that. So um, yeah, I've got a bit of a funny accent. But um, Mad Max, it's such an iconic movie, isn't it? It's that when it came out, there was nothing else like it, really. Um, and Mel Gibson, wow, what a what an actor he was.
SPEAKER_00It at the time started a genre, and basically you can go and look at so many other movies that can trace their roots back to the the first Mad Max movie, and you know the musical director was Brian May of Queen. He he was so uh what's the word I'm looking for? He believed in this movie so much that he involved himself in this little movie from a little guy from Australia that turned into one of the coolest. I I mean, I I have all of them on on DVD back from the 90s, I mean the 90s and early 2000s, and I could go ahead and quote all the greatest things about it. And the fact that here it is in the fall of 2005, and I'm sitting in a rehearsal studio. You know where the Nmore Theater is?
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00Well, we were in the Nmore Theater for two weeks, oh and I was honored to listen to them tweak songs. Oh, and then when they would leave, so you know that the the tradition of Australians shortening everything, yeah. So we had a transportation director named Paul Horton who became Horto. Horto, yes, and then because he was our driver, he became Transporto. So what he would do, he was involved in the band for decades, so he would take me to John Ferris's storage units. So you have to understand, we're starting a tour for three years. So I'm designing a kit that I'm gonna set up 200 times a year or more, maybe 600 times. I want memory locks that makes everything in the same place. I want a stand that's gonna be in the exact same place every time. I want to have a play a place to run cables. I want to have uh a pipe cutter, which I still have. I still have the pipe cutter I bought in Oz in 2005 because I do the same thing on my kits, I cut all the extraneous stuff off. I don't want things hanging out, yeah. You know, like like mess.
SPEAKER_04You don't want a mess, you want it to look beautiful.
SPEAKER_00I want it, I want it to look tidy. And if you go back and look at the pictures um of of the the the the kits that I built for John, they're tidy, they're all very, very tight, very tidy. Uh John's a big um a believer in the the pearl rack, which was designed by Jeff Picaro from Toto. The guy from Flipknot, his drum tech drives me crazy. I don't know his name, but I want to go ahead and kick him in the balls because he left all the pipes hanging down like this, and it looks it looks like a comb that has broken some teeth. And I'm just going, dude, here's a pipe cutter. Tighten all that up so every one of John's kits was nice and neat and clean. And when a pipe hit the rack, it stopped. Oh, and then if I had to have something sticking out, I would cut the end off and I went to a furniture store and I would buy caps that you put on the end of bar stools. Yeah, so it wasn't a piece of pipe hanging out, it was a little red, a little black cap. So if you go back and look at the pictures, all of the kits are all clean, neat, and tidy. So Horto would take me to Johnny Ferris's lockers, and I would find a kit, as one of his old kits, and I'd find a trap case of old hardware. I'm like, oh, I could use one of these, oh, I could use one of these, I could use both of these, and I'd find a little thingy of parts. So I take the parts, and what you do when you go on the road is you have what's known as a workbox. So in the workbox is drum keys and memory locks and and maybe backups of tom arms, cymbal booms, maybe two or three backup kick drum pedals, boxes of drum heads, blah blah blah. And I had one of these, and it was right right behind Johnny's kit on stage, and I flipped the lid up and he could turn around and go, uh-oh, and hand me the snare drum, and I put a new head on it, hand it right back to him. So one time he went through three snare heads in one show. Really? Wow. Yes, he was a very hard hitter and very exact. So the center of the head like this would be all worn out halfway through the set.
SPEAKER_02Hard hitter.
SPEAKER_00Unless he was having a really I get you beer. I'm gonna have one more. They start they start pouring my pint as I walk in the door.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I like it. I like it. I like I like the fact that I you asked for some uh a running sheet of what we're gonna talk about, but I haven't even asked you a question yet. You're just rolling. This is awesome. I'm loving loving all this information. So um we've we've john. So would you have it sat there at the side of the stage or something? How does that work?
SPEAKER_00If you look at if you look at some videos and some photographs of stuff, Gary's bass rig was rather large. So I was able to have a little bit of room back there to move around so I could lean forward and look at the kick drum or lean back and look at John's microphone placement or make sure that the floor toms aren't moving all over the place. But I tried to get the kits standardized, you know what I mean? Uh, and I tried to make it so I could get if again the best the best show you've ever seen is one where you don't notice the crew, yeah. You know, if and and but there's also some other times where like let's say you see a big show and someone like David Bowie is playing, and every single song has a different guitar, and the guy has to come up and give it to the guitar player, change it and give it to the guitar player. Now, normally, if you notice, everybody's wearing black, you know, they try and they try to go immediately walk off the stage. Like when I when I work for another band, I hate being on the stage. I don't care, I don't care if the whole stage is falling apart. I hate being on the stage. I'll run out real quick and I will go ahead and fix one thing and then I'll run around as fast as I can to hide myself. Now, the best shows I've ever had were the ones where nothing went really went wrong and the audience never noticed us. But every now and then, now one I'll say one one really funny thing that that happened during this tour. What we call the old school fans, the ones who've been following the band for 25 years, normally women, uh, which is okay because I like women, you know, they would they would make signs for us and and they would hold the signs up like like the the saxophone tech for Kirk became one of my best friends. He's out with uh Chris um oh the country guy with the the long hair, um Chris Stapleton. So he's out with Chris Stapleton right now. I just saw him at the airport in Phoenix. He was here a couple of weeks ago and we hung out for a minute. Um, hold on one second here. Speaking of text, another one of my tech friends just messaged me, goes, Hey Todd, what's up, dude? I'm like, gone. I'm in the middle of an interview. I'll talk to you in a minute. I just thought it was funny, but anyway, so his name is Lindsay, became one of my best friends. We both lived in LA, we were best friends forever. He was in here uh at the Sky Harbor Airport. Thank you so much. I was I was on my way out for a gig, he was on his way in for a gig, um, and um he became my best friend. So him and I and JD and 13 and our other base tech Kevin became like friends, people who hang out on the tour. It turns out that some of the the fans found out where we were. So let's just say we're in Sydney at the Intercontinental, and some of the fans found out. Now you gotta remember, this is like 2006. Like the cell phones were not all that big at the time. I don't know how they did. Maybe they just called every hotel and they called their friends, they go, Oh my god, they're the intercontinental. So I would go downstairs with like Lindsay or maybe even JD, and there'd be like five women down there, yeah, you know, like going, Oh my god, we have pictures. I'm like, Yeah, I'll take pictures, blah blah blah. And then and then when it first started, I just I was called drum tech at first for a while. Yeah, drum tech, give me one of John's drumsticks and blah blah blah. I'm like on. I'm off duty, they're all locked up. I can't give you one now, but but wave to me during the show tomorrow. Then they start bringing signs, you know, drumstick, drum tech, give me a stick, you know. And then they then they then this was when my space was happening, and they found out who my girlfriend was, and then they found out that the fifth element was one of my favorite movies. And my my my girlfriend at the time and I both loved Mila Jovovich, so then they start putting up pictures of Mila Jovovich going, Mila wants a drumstick for me, like so funny how this all became, and then our monitor engineer, it was named Paul. Oh, wait, oh my god, I can see his face. I can't remember his name. But anyway, he called he called the women MySpace Boilers. You know what a boiler is?
SPEAKER_02Yes, they stand in the front row and go.
SPEAKER_00So anyway, so he he called he called them MySpace Boilers because there's always a bunch of women in the front row.
SPEAKER_04Oh god, they love their nicknames, don't they?
SPEAKER_00And you gotta remember, this is the MySpace days where we didn't really have a lot of privacy. So some random person is like going, oh my god, you're you're in can today, you know, where you're at, and like going, no, I'm I'm I'm off duty today. I'm not gonna go ahead and you know, blah blah blah. And then the next thing you know, we're on a boat, you know, uh in the harbor, you know, drinking scuba diving is something like how gorgeous is that harbor, mate.
SPEAKER_04Oh, gorgeous. Oh, it's amazing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00I'm honored to have to have have been there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well, we've got the in excess 50th anniversary coming up next year, and I'm gonna be doing a bit of a boat party on that harbor for a lot of the fans. So um, if you find yourself in town, you never know.
SPEAKER_00Uh I've I've I've uh I've been doing uh I I don't know if you guys follow politics, but our economy in America is roaring. I am making a lot of money and I would love, love, love. As a matter of fact, I'm so mad that that in excess wasn't in the rock and roll hall of fame.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I know. It was good to watch it.
SPEAKER_00I was I was this close to flying myself out on my own dime just to watch it. I mean, I would I would love to go back to Cannes and you know, we did we did a tour where we did like like started up there and then went to places like Rockhampton. Yes, that's in Queensland, uh uh Wollen Gong.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you call uh uh Bris Bris Vegas? Yeah, the Gold Coast. We went down and uh went down the entire coast all the way down to Adelaide, which for some reason their time zone is off by 30 minutes, yeah. In the entire world. And I was I was just there playing with a glam rock band in 23, and I kept telling my my singer, my guitar player, I go, dude, reset your watch. Why? They had they're off by 30 minutes. Why? I don't add I don't know. I'm just saying is I've been coming here since 2006. I know this place is off by 30 minutes. Don't be mad at me. I'm just telling you, you know, if if if if lobby call is 7 a.m. don't show up at 7 30, be mad at me.
SPEAKER_02All right, yeah, you gotta be right. You gotta be right. Wow. You've got so much, so many right memories.
SPEAKER_00I mean, the I mean this this is one of the reasons I'm writing a book. I'm I'm in the process right now. Uh I lived in LA during the Rodney King riots. I lived there during the major earthquakes, I lived there during the uh O.G. Simpson trial. Uh, I met my first wife, got a divorce, had the best dog in the world, got the gigs with with in excess, and then they took a break for about a year. So I went back to you know, working with local musicians or went back to playing glam rock bands or whatever I was doing at the time. And I got this random phone call from the bass player or the bass tech from from Def Leopard. And he goes, he goes, What are you doing right now? I go, I'm working in a music store. I'm playing at the House of Blues tonight. He goes, What are you doing tomorrow? And I go, Nothing. He goes, come by, come by Mate's rehearsal studios, is basically a place where everybody rehearses, all the big bands do. And I go, sure. And so I go in there, and the Def Leopard drum set is out of its case. And I don't know, and I'm like going, Oh, that's cool. I said, I've I've been I've been seeing this on you know on MTV for 25 years, and it's right in front of me. So he goes, This is I think his name was Trey or something. He goes, This is Trey, this is Rick's drum tech. He goes, This is my buddy Todd. Todd was the drum tech for NXS. He goes, Hey, nice to meet you. He goes, You want to check the kid out? I'm like, sure. So so I go, can I sit down? And go, yeah. I go, so this does this, yeah, and then this does this, and that does that. I go, yeah, well, it makes sense, blah blah blah. I just thought nothing of it. And I went home and I told my girlfriend that the skinny blonde, you know, the 99-pound skinny blonde. And again, this is before iPhones and stuff. I didn't have a camera on me. I just sat at the Def Leopard Kid, I think it was like 2008. So I told her, I said, Oh my god, I just sat down at Rick Allen's drum set. It was the coolest thing ever. And she goes, Oh my god, that's so great. So, so didn't think anything of it. About three o'clock in the afternoon the next day, I'm out to lunch and my phone rings. Of course, you know, you don't have any idea who's calling in 2008. It's just my phone rang. I pick it up. He goes, Hey, my name is Mike. I'm I'm I'm the uh financial director for Def Leopard. I'm like, Hey, Mike, I'm Todd, nice to meet you. He goes, Yeah, I know who you are. He goes, Um, goes, I heard you got your head wrapped around what Rick Allen does on his drum set. I'm like, on, well, yeah, it kind of makes sense. I mean, you don't have a left arm, so you have to do everything with your left leg and your right arm. He goes, Yeah, he goes, the drum tech was very impressed that you had your head wrapped around what he does. He goes, Can Rick Allen call you? And I'm like, now he goes, I'm like, five minutes. I'm like, um, yes. And he goes, and then call me back at this 310 number after you get done talking to Rick. So I go back inside, I'm shaking, and my girlfriend goes, What's going on? I go, I need a shot of bourbon now. I said, Rick Allen's gonna call me in five minutes. She goes, What? And I says, Yes. So I and then now this is when people were not rude. I went back outside and he says, I know, told this is Rick Allen. I'm like, going, hi, pleasure to talk to you, sir. He goes, I heard you figured out what I do. He goes, Would you like a job? And I'm like, Yes. And I said, but I have a problem. And he says, What's that? And I go, I work for Johnny Ferris of In Excess. And he goes, Oh. So I said, can I call you tomorrow? So, so, so I I he goes, Yes. So now I have in my phone, I still have it in my phone right now. I still have Rick Allen's cell phone. I reached out to 13 and I says, I know we're on hiatus from in excess. I go, are we gonna do anything in the next year or so? And he goes, No. And he goes, you know, they're having an issue with JD and trying to figure out what they want to do, if they want to release another record, blah blah blah. You got a year off. I'm like um. So so I said, Can you ask? I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna stay right here. I said, call me in five minutes. Can you call because I'm calling Australia? They're all in they're all in Sydney. So I said, could you call Johnny and either have him call me or ask him if it's okay if I go out with Def Leopard for a year? 10 seconds later, Johnny says, Go for it. Tell Rick. Oh look, look, look, look, look, look, hair, my arms is still on. Yeah, my arms is up.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that was perfect timing.
SPEAKER_00It was so great. So literally 48 hours later, I'm in, I'm in, I'm doing a I'm doing a video, uh a Tim McGraw mashup with Def Leppard called Nine Lives. Wow, and I hadn't even met the band. I I met like one guy on the crew, and I'm sitting there taking the freaking Def Leppard drum set and putting it in this stage in downtown LA with basketball players and neon and Tim McGraw with his chest shaved and his freaking black hat on. I'm like going, I have no idea what I'm doing. What am I doing here? Anyway, so and then that turned into uh in like almost five years. Um was it really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then um so no phone call from John Farriss at that point.
SPEAKER_00Well, here's the thing is uh Def Leppard did uh double header in Sydney, and the the security guard for in excess reached out to me, he says, Can Johnny come backstage and see Rick Allen? I'm like, Are you kidding me? Yes, and I said on one condition, I go, Can I be in the middle of a picture with John Ferris and Rick Allen? And if you go on if you go on my website, there's a picture of us, and I'm like going, you know, meet the new boss, the same as the old boss. I thought it was really, really funny. Oh my that's awesome. And and then uh probably maybe about two years later, um, Tony was the security guard's name, NXS came and played at the Will Turn Theater, and Lindsay, who was uh Andrew's guitar tech and I went with our significant others at the time, and we went to the wheel thing, went to the wheelchair and saw the show, and it was great. And after the show, I thought we were done. Tony comes out running with like laminates, throws them on our neck, and grabs Lindsay and I and brings us backstage to say hi to the guys. And it was just like I'm like, it was so wonderful.
SPEAKER_04I feel like you know it's part of the family.
SPEAKER_00I I feel like I'm part of the family, and I actually on my very first tour, uh, there's actually an honorary Aussie test foreigners could take. I passed it. You did. I did. I know how to pronounce pronounce Aussie. Uh uh Aussie, sorry. And then uh I also know that Foster's is not Australian for beer.
SPEAKER_04No, it is not. No, and and did you ever wear your tracky dax?
SPEAKER_00I'm sorry, did I what?
SPEAKER_04Did you ever wear tracky dacks?
SPEAKER_00I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_04Oh, there you go. Taught you a new word. So they're um, I don't know what you'd call them, tracky dacks, your jogging bottoms. Do you call them jogging bottoms? You know um what you'd wear with a jogging suit and you'd just like a pair of joggers on your like sports trousers, suit pants. A track yeah, trachedacks.
SPEAKER_00I have not worn those since the 90s when I was a fan of corn.
SPEAKER_04Well, they're all back in fashion now, darling.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I don't think me being 60, I don't think I can pull it off anymore.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you look great for 60. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I'm st I'm st I'm still able to go ahead and um uh move around on my own accord, uh and uh Drive a convertible and drink a couple of pints. So rock and roll in you. Well, and then the other thing is again, the other thing is is the the the memories. I want to go ahead and spread the positive messages about doing what I've done and what I did. Um and the fact that the in excess band and crew treated me wonderfully, and um I I've got wonderful memories, and that's like I said, that's why I'm writing a book. That's why I'm writing my book because I want the world to know a hundred years from now how great the experience was, and not saying to anybody younger who wants to get into this, because when I was 15 or 16 years old, I would see late-night TV shows with rock bands like Thin Lizzie and Kiss and go, Oh my god, I want to do that. Well, everybody wants to do that. So in the 90s, I worked my ass off to get a couple of record deals where I was the drummer in the band. I had some songs and movies, I did this and that. But as a day job to make more money, I would work for other guys. Like I said, I worked for the drummer for Paul McCartney, I worked for the drummer for Sarah McLaughlin, and it was a great experience learning a lot of all this kind of stuff. And then when I started running SIR Hollywood, and 13 came upstairs and asked me to do this, I knew what I was doing. And then when I when I got asked to do the tour with with Johnny, I knew what I was doing, and I loved the band. See, here's the thing is I was asked to go on the road several times with some several different bands. I turned them all down because I don't know what your favorite band is besides in excess. But when someone asks you to go on tour, you gotta hear the same songs all the time. The time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_00Could you imagine how many times I must have heard Pour Some Sugar on Me? Or how many times I heard Need You Tonight, or how many times I've heard, you know, so but I still love those songs. I will still listen to them to this day. Same thing with Motorhead, you know, same thing with Cinderella, you know. Um, but I would never, ever, ever take a Sabrina Carpenter tour.
SPEAKER_04Before you got the gig, did you ever see In Excess in concert yourself before that?
SPEAKER_00Or just being a fancy music on the radio, or it's really really funny because I was a metal guy, I was a heavy metal guy in the 80s and early 90s, where I saw Pantera a bunch of times, uh, Van Halen, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, all that kind of stuff. Um except for when my brother took me to see John Denver, which I freaking loved. So I got to see John Denver at a bar years later. I got a picture with him. He was really nice to me. But it was all metal, it was all Wasp, Motley Crue, Kiss, Van Halen, uh, David Lee Roth. Um, as a matter of fact, um, I was working with a band in LA, and the drummer from Autograph uh was our our producer. He used to take me to David Lee Roth rehearsals, yeah. And it was amazing, but again, I wasn't paying attention to the drum tech or the guitar tech. I was watching the band, I was hanging out with the girls, I was hanging out with the other bands. I didn't know. He actually, the drummer and autograph actually got another band called Dirty White Boy with Earl Slick from David Bowie, and he asked me to help him set up his drums. This was like 90, 1990, 91, 92, something like that. And I didn't know I was drum teching for him, I didn't even know it was a name for it in the early 90s. I just helped, you know, I threw his drums in my truck. We drove down to a warehouse, I set them up with him. He played the show, we put him away, we went out and had a had a had a beer, and that was the end of it. But but like three years later, I got offered to work at drum doctors, and I knew now I knew what it was. Again, this is before the internet. Yeah, so you learn you had to learn things step at a step at a step at a but but like I said, when when 13 asked me to help out with with Johnny's kit, I knew what I was doing at that time because now we're talking about a decade later of setting up drum sets for I mean, I did uh Coachella, I did video shoots, um uh I I did you know, I set up the band obituary, believe it or not. I did some metal stuff with slipknot. You have to know what you're doing to be a professional, and I'm sure there's a bunch of people doing the job who aren't professional. You know, I've heard rumors about like like the poor drummer in the band gets the merchandise guy, yeah. That's the drum tech. And I've heard horror stories about that. And that's not case. Uh I was I was on tour with the band and I was the drum tech, and I kept working with the the merchandise guy a lot, going, dude, you gotta do this, tape this down, you know, put a memory look, put a memory lock on this so it's in the same place every time. I showed him tuning tips, you know. I learned how to tune drums from a bunch of different people. I'll tell you what's really one really funny thing.
SPEAKER_04I'll tell you what you need to do though, is you need to speak to the guy who owns the pop bar and see if he can put a light on you because you're in the dark and I can't see you.
unknownOh god.
SPEAKER_00I can't see you at all. It's it's it it's a woman, and as soon as she comes over here, I will ask her. Well, that's what happens when the sun sets in the evening.
SPEAKER_04No, I can see you. Yeah, that's good. Dave Lee Roth, he loves in excess as well. He's sung a few of their songs before now.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I was probably like 22 years old, 23 years old at the time, and I'm hanging out at a rehearsal with the singer of one of my favorite bands, and just watching them, you know, make mistakes and and have fun and laugh at each other, and there's tons of girls hanging around, and you know, there was a bar on the side. I mean, this was this was basically a rehearsal room with a bar in it, and the band was jamming and it was fantastic. I'm like four rows back watching magic, and then you know, and like I said, this was maybe like 88, 89 in 2005. You know, I'm doing the same thing in Australia at the Enmore Theatre. The difference is I'm being paid for it and I have to work as opposed to getting drunk and hanging out with the girls, yeah, and I'm not a paid holiday too. Oh, we had we had New Year's Eve off, and Andrew Ferris let us party at his house. Yeah, the New Year's Eve 2005-2006 was so hot, and unfortunately, JD and I don't think 13 13 didn't drink that much, but Lindsay and I and probably JD went out uh New Year's Eve and got obliterated drunk, and then we're driving to um Andrew's house and it's 44 outside, and having a hangover when it's 44 on New Year's Day in Sydney when it was humid like crazy was not the best thing in the world. So I was miserable for half the day, but after that it was a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_04Here's another name for you. Um, Darren Jones. Do you remember Darren Jones? He was um working with a bit he he was an ex-policeman, young kid, and he did a lot of like the security on the switch um tour.
SPEAKER_00That name sounds familiar. We you know, we also had a bunch of drivers on the tour buses who became really good friends too. Um, and there was a bunch of crew guys every now and then you'd see of someone that you knew from one tour on another tour because they had sound companies. Uh yeah, and the sound companies would hire the same groups of people that would go out there. Gary and JD and I did that show out in Malibu. We had the same sound company that we used, including two of the people I knew from the tour. Now you gotta remember, this was this the whole thing ended in 2008, and now it's 2014, and I'm in Malibu seeing some of the same people I knew. I mean, it was amazing. The thing is called Delicate Sound, if I remember correctly. Yeah, and they're I think they're based out of San Diego, and then uh Def Leopard used to use a company called Sound Image. Uh, and a lot of the same people that I would see doing shows would say Cinderella or Motorhead and everything, especially when you have bands doing festival shows, you know, doing a show with 12 bands. We did a show with Motorhead and Soul Fly in Portugal, and I knew the guitar tech from Soul Fly, who was the guitar tech in a band that I'd worked for 25 years ago, and there's still out a lot of people are still out there doing this, you know.
SPEAKER_04It's a very small world, and it's all good, your the small world is gonna be in your book.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Now you're gonna be in my book.
SPEAKER_04Oh, am I? Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely, you're gonna be in the 2026 uh uh per uh section. I don't know if you like look at the um the social media, all that kind of stuff. Um there's uh I just uh found moving from a place I've been at for 12 years into my own place. I just found a box of signed drum heads, no snare drum heads, and there's one from NXS. And it's great that everybody wrote on it. It's gonna go up on my wall. I've got, like I say, I got the switch head up there. I've got um, you know, I've got Marky Ramon, I've got Def Leppard, I've got Velvet Revolver, all these some of my bands are up there on the wall. The other thing is I've got a box of posters and stuff, like like posters of like, you know, uh Inexcess did a show in Jakarta, Indonesia. I needed a security guard with a machine gun following me around. Oh wow, because kidnapping foreigners is a way to make money for for really, really poor people in these third world countries. So we were we're doing the I mean, I was able to to take pictures again. If you go on some of my social media, you can see some of this up, like tanks with like 50 cows on the top, coined to the audience in case they just start to riot. Uh, we did a show once with in XS in India, and they didn't have forklifts. So they would have these guys with flip-flops and like a diaper lifting road cases into the side of trucks.
SPEAKER_04So we called them that's how they would move things around.
SPEAKER_00Well, they they we called them the biological forklifts. So you'd have eight guys putting this 500-pound case in the side of a truck.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, I wouldn't be up to watch.
SPEAKER_00I'd be up in the truck there catching and trying to get all this stuff loaded in. Ah, I mean and then another thing is a lot of people don't realize that you have when you tour the states, so you Canada, Mexico, United States, we use the imperial system. So, you know, feet, inches, miles, blah blah blah. And then when you tour Europe, you have the meters, millimeters, kilometers, blah blah blah. So our American gear doesn't fit in a European truck. So we had to make call we had to make what's called a B rig, which is the second rig. So our second rig, everything is tighter, a little bit smaller, so we can fit the same gear in the truck. Yeah, I mean things you don't know until you do this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, not until it's crazy. That is crazy, but yeah, it makes absolute sense, doesn't it? Why can't we just be universally doing everything the same?
SPEAKER_00But we tried that in the 70s, and America said no. You wanna know you wanna okay, you want to know how this works? I'll tell you right now. Go for it. Okay, I'm doing a job, and some guy comes up and says, give me three inches of tape. I know what that is, and I will give him three inches of tape. I am in Australia, and some guy comes up and goes, Can you give me 130 millimeters of tape? I'm like, I have no idea what that is. Someone goes, and then I'm in a hotel, and some guy, and I said, Hey, where's the nearest pub? Oh my god, it's not even a quarter mile down the road on the left. And I'm like, Great. I put on my shoes, I walk a quarter mile, I'm in the pub. I'm sitting at the Intercontinental in Sydney. I said, Where's the nearest pub that's still open? Oh, it's a three-quarters of a kilometer down on the left. I'm like, oh, should I get a cab? Can I walk that? I don't know. And I'm sure that people from you know other countries come here and go, What the hell is a mile? And I go, 5,260 feet. Because I I just my my entire life has been based around this. But I do remember being, you know, maybe like six or seven, you know, in the 70s, and they tried to do the metric system. And in I don't know about in Australia, but I know here I've got yard sticks that have flip it over, and it's metric on one side, yeah, and it's imperial on the other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now can can I be semi-crude? Is this for is this for adults?
SPEAKER_04It's definitely for adults.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So you know what a C hair is?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_00What's the worst? That's what I want to know. Okay, what's what's the C word?
SPEAKER_04The terrible C word.
SPEAKER_00The terrible C word, yes.
SPEAKER_04The four the four-letter one we can use.
SPEAKER_00Yes, okay. So in in when especially when men are around men and you're talking about a infinitesimal space, like you're you're put you're language language. Anyway, anyway, so let's say you're putting you're putting a rack together and it's really, really close, and you says, just don't make it touch, just give me a sea hair in space.
SPEAKER_02Oh, right. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Now us smart ass guys will go an imperial sea hair or a metric sea hair. And the fact is, half the crafting excess crew was Aussies and half of us were Yanks. That was a really funny joke. It made it the entire tour.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm sure that still happens now as well.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I I I I always have great conversations with friends of mine from overseas, and we talk about the the Imperial or metric sea hair. And it's just one of those jokes that that there's jokes that that that are universal, there, and then there's jokes for men. And that is a that is a man joke.
SPEAKER_04I've never spoken to someone um that has been so sort of like the the sort of the part of the crew. Um, how many people were on we have we have what's known as the Champagne Crew, which is basically the four of us that were doing all the band.
SPEAKER_00Then then you have uh probably sorry.
SPEAKER_04So what what would that be? Would that be like so you you're the drum tech with the big guitar tech?
SPEAKER_00And I was doing Johnny, yeah. Uh my buddy Kevin was doing uh Timmy and Gary. Um uh Lindsay was doing um Kirk, uh Kirk, because Kirk played like multiple instruments, so he not only had to be a guitar tech, but he had to be a sax tech, and Kirk had multiple saxes. Sometimes he played two songs, two saxes in one song, especially the solo from Never Tear Us Apart. That was the most important sax in the entire show. Was that one solo? I think it was like nine notes. But when he hits that first note, that's and then also the other thing of funny thing about it is we'd find a really cool place for Kirk to pop out of. Like, like, like, like, like, like, let's just say the stage is normal and and and there's like a corner of the room where there's nothing there. We would get all the cases and strap them together and cover them with tape so Kirk could see the steps, and then we tell Motley that he's gonna show up on stage left. Get the light right, and so so so yeah. So Kirk would come up there and he'd be like this, and you hear two, three, four lights. Oh my god, it was great. We did this, we did this like in Norway, we did this like in Amsterdam, we would try to find random place for him to pop up, and uh, nine times out of ten, it was great. The audience loved it because a lot of people, especially with with with bands that they're huge fans of, would come see multiple shows, and they'd see something a little bit different. What really would suck? Imagine if you got went and saw the same band five times in a row, they played the same songs in the same order, the same way, they wore the same clothes. Yeah, then why would you go see the same why why would you pay, you know, money to see the same show five times? Yeah, got it unless, unless you know, you're going to do, you know, and then the after shows, the meet and greets. Um, I don't remember if we ever did sound check parties. We did it with Def Leopard where people would pay money to watch sound check. Yeah. So you have like 30 or 40 people sitting in like the first five rows watching us go, more kick drum, more kick drum, less kick drum, more kick drum. Yeah, but to answer your question, I'm probably saying it was probably probably about there's four the four main crew guys, that was us, and then we had the uh monitor engineer and he had an assistant, and we had front of house and he had assistant, then we had wardrobe. I don't remember if she had assistants, I think she had local assistants everywhere. Um, and then probably a couple of regular techs who would help us with the lights and stuff, and then Motley had a couple of assistants here and there, so I'd probably say maybe like 30.
SPEAKER_03Wow, 2025 to 30.
SPEAKER_00So and then we have, you know, I think we probably had maybe like six tour buses and a couple of trucks, and again, everything changes when you're in the east, everything changes when you're in Australia. You know, there's very few tour buses in in Australia, so we would we uh we would drive ourselves a bunch of times, you know, we just get a come what they call them Toronto's like the Toyota the minivans Toronto, Toronto's Toronto, yeah. So we would get a couple of those and drive ourselves to the gigs, you know, because it wasn't that long to go, you know, from Wollen Gong to Sydney, and then and then of course when you fly to Perth, because you can't drive, I mean you can if you don't have like the gear, the gear has to drive, so you basically get two days off in Perth. So my very my very first time in Perth, we had two days off. So me and the wardrobe girl Lindsay, and I don't know if 13 went with us. Uh, we uh we took a cab to the memorial for Bon Scott.
SPEAKER_04Oh, wonderful.
SPEAKER_00So it's yeah, so so the memorial, there's actually a bench for him put there by his mom, and then his actual tomb is there, and somewhere on an internet, maybe on one of my pages or whatever, there's a picture of me wearing ACDC shorts, posing with Bon Scott's grave. You know, it's it's it's one of those things where you know what's a lifetime opportunity to to go there. Um I I mean I've been to Perth like nine times since then, but the very first time I'm like, you gotta see Bon. You have to see Bomb. You know one of you know my one of my favorite bands of all time. It just happens, you know, happens to be ACDC, and another one of my favorite bands happens to be NXS. Another one of my favorite bands happens to be Rose Tattoo. Oh, right, great. What do they have in common? Anyway, so yeah, so uh and did you go to ACDC Lane? No Melbourne. I went to Cotislow Beach and I took some rude pictures with the artwork.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Is that on your website as well? It would definitely be in your book.
SPEAKER_00In part, they have these random weird artwork structures there, and I took some rude pictures with it.
SPEAKER_04So let's let's talk about was there, yeah, we gotta say this, haven't we? What was the most nightmare of session that you had with the band, you know, where everything went wrong, or was there never anything like that?
unknownEasy.
SPEAKER_00I gotta I gotta remember where it was because we flew in at like four o'clock in the morning and for a gig that day. Somewhere in the east, uh not Singapore, because Singapore was fine because it was sponsored by uh tequila companies, it's sponsored by Patron, so that was fun. Oh, so we did a gig, not in Singapore, not in Jakarta, somewhere, somewhere in the east. We set up on stage and the power drops out. So our front of house guy, his name is James, really nice South African guy. He's on the radio going, I just saw all of the guitar amps wet black. And I'm like, Yes, we lost power. So our guy in charge is under the stage figuring it out. So next thing you know, so the audience is waiting. We're none, we're all tired, we haven't slept. We're in the middle of some country I can't even remember right now because it was so horrible. And the power keeps dropping out. So we get ready to start the show, and here's the thing is we're running a mini-mac for all the loops and samples, you know, all the shakers and all of the the the the the you know the the the parts of the show that we we have to have. Yeah, because you don't want to bring 12 people on tour. No, so I have to restart the computer every single time it was. Every time, and it takes about a minute. So then so the power comes up, I hit restart, and I'm watching my screen, lose it, and then I hear James go, I just saw the lights go off again. Yes, we just lost the power. So finally, I I after like five times, I get off the stage. The band's not on stage yet, thank God. Thank God they're in the dressing room waiting for us to come get them. So I get off the stage and I run down the staircase, and there's like bare wires like underneath the stage, like like twisted with tape on them. I'm like going, we're gonna die.
SPEAKER_05Oh, the worst thing ever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, so after about half an hour, we're now half an hour behind schedule. The manager comes up, I can't remember what his name was, Ross or whatever, comes up and goes, We're gonna pull this song and this song and this song and this song. We're gonna play for 30 minutes and then we're gonna leave. Because we're already on stage, we finally have power, they figured out how to keep it up. I hit start on the laptop, we played for like 30 minutes, the audience had no idea who we were. Oh, you too. It was that that's literally the weirdest gig I've ever had. They had no idea who we were, the power sucked, we were exhausted, and it was like, why do we do this? I mean, I'm sure the check cashed, you know, the promoter got paid, we got paid, I got paid, but I'm just saying and the band never came out. I don't even I can't even remember the name of the city. Oh I'm sure I give I'm sure if I went on to my old website I could find out, but I'm just saying it was and also it was so freaking humid. I'm just sitting there. This is why I live in Phoenix now. There's no humidity here. Oh, really? Oh, it's like 85, zero humidity. Nice. I'm on my lawn when it's 105. Yeah, I'm just saying this no humidity. But this was like this was somewhere not see, horrible, sticky, horrible with with third world technology. Like I said, we went to India. People were loading our cars with our forklift or loading trucks without forkless, our video screens were bamboo with guys climbing up of them like spiders. I mean, you know, it's just it's just like I can't, I haven't remembered Stephanie Shuit. I have not remember I have not remembered that gig until you just asked us because you remember the good stuff. You do it. You remember the good stuff, you remember the fun stuff. You know, I can go back on my website. I don't I don't think I have a picture of that dumb stage. Go ahead. I probably have a picture, like I said, of you know, me sweating somewhere or like like being in uh Malaysia with a with a with a pizza in a cone. You know, pizza and a cone.
SPEAKER_04Pizza in a cone, like like a like an ice cream cone, but with pizza.
SPEAKER_00Uh it's called cone. I took a picture of it because it's so freaking weird. And that that's the other thing I'll say. If you ever had a chance to travel, I mean I've been on tour, I've been doing this since the mid-90s. And the worst thing you can do, especially as what they call us, what do they call us ugly Americans, is get off the plane and go to the American Embassy. You know what that is?
SPEAKER_04Yes, McDonald's. McDonald's.
SPEAKER_00Yes. If you were in Copenhagen for the first time, why would you go to McDonald's? I don't know. I mean, I went and got pizza with corn on it. Because I wanted to try something that you can't get here. No one in America puts corn on pizza. Don't like I had a slice of pizza with corn up. And then when I was the first time in Australia, because I'm an ACDC fan, I'm like going, where can I get a sausage roll?
SPEAKER_04They're like, everywhere. Oh yeah, we like our pies. And when you went to Belgium, did you get mayonnaise on your chips?
SPEAKER_00I had a Belgian waffle with um what's that? What's that uh chocolate stuff?
SPEAKER_04Chocolate, Belgian chocolate.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no, it's it's um it's the Nutella.
SPEAKER_04Oh Nutella.
SPEAKER_00When it goes in the first time I was in Belgium, I said, I gotta get a Belgian waffle, and they go, What do you want in it? And I go, Nutella. You know, just because you gotta, you know, it's like you're in Switzerland, have Swiss chocolate. You know, you're in France, have a baguette, you know, you're in Spain, have some tapas, you know. You come to America, have a freaking cheeseburger and some pizza. You go to Australia, I wanted to have a sausage roll.
SPEAKER_02A pie, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and a meat pie, yes.
SPEAKER_04Go for a Barbie.
SPEAKER_00I heard that shrimp on the Barbie isn't a real thing.
SPEAKER_04No, I not well, sort of. But at Christmas, we all like our um with seafood at Christmas on off the Barbie. It is a real thing. Definitely.
SPEAKER_00Well, as as far as the very first tour I ever did, I heard that that uh a lot of Australians do not like Paul Hogan and Men at Work.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're a bit kitsch. But we love Irene XS. We do love them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh so you again, it's still one of my favorite bands in the entire world, and I'm I'm absolutely a hundred percent honored to have been the tiniest part of it. Um it's a tragedy what happened to Johnny's finger, and it's really sad that that they can't Timmy's Timmy's Timmy says sorry, sorry, Timmy's finger, that they cannot reconcile with with JD fortune because I mean I would love to come back for one last big bang. I would. If they asked me, I would come back in a heartbeat. Again, one of my favorite bands, they treated me very well. I had the best experiences of my life, and it and even though it ended in 2008, it still you know brings me light and still makes me happy, and we're still talking about it, aren't we?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well, I've I've I I used to have another podcast before this with a guy called Hayden Murdoch, and we've we did 250 shows plus um on the band. And now I'm in season two of my new show and I'm meeting people like you. There's just so many people that have got all these stories that we haven't heard. So this is wonderful to have you. And we've been talking for over an hour and a half now, and I'm sure you've got a lot more stories behind you, and I would like to re-get you back on.
SPEAKER_00Um, and and maybe I've got I've got I've got probably another 90 minutes of stories we haven't even talked about.
SPEAKER_04All right, well, we'll we'll park those for another day then because that would be wonderful, and maybe I might be able to see you a bit better as well because you're oh no, so dogs.
SPEAKER_00This this was this happens to be the circumstances in the middle of my move. And I I thought I thought we would be done by now, and and I just wanted to come down and have a pint, and then you came on. So let's let's let's let's let's reconvene somewhere else, and then I'll be inside like you are with with like lights on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then I can have a look at your drum kit and everything.
SPEAKER_00Uh well you can you can probably um uh just go on uh tmber.com, uh which is uh website set up by the skinny blonde, uh, and it's got what I call drum porn on it. And uh drum porn just means 10,000 pictures of Johnny's kit and Rick Allen's kit and motorhead and blah blah blah, and some of my kits and blah blah blah. And then of course, you know, Facebook. I got I got whole sections of categories of these are my drums, these are my snares, these are some gigs I've done, blah, blah, blah. And then uh probably Wednesday. Um, I'm believe it or not, it's really, really funny that you brought that up. Is Wednesday is my ghostwriter who just finished Carlos Santana's book. He's excited to he's excited to do mine. We've made it to 20 2005. So literally, this is really great that we did this today because Wednesday we start on 2005, which is when I did the NXS Rockstar show. So you brought up a lot of memories. So we're gonna go ahead and get that. Um brilliant. That that year going. And uh yeah, let's do let's do another one of these, maybe like in a week or so. I guarantee I'll be I'll be inside with some light on.
SPEAKER_04Well, we've got Paul Jolie to thank, who is another um drummer in uh in a in a band in uh in New South Wales in Australia, and he put me on to you. So we've got Paul Jolie to thank for um bringing us together. Paul Jolie. Paul Jolie.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, yes. There's this you go onto my website, there's pictures of us all wearing the in excess hoodies. Yeah, there's a drummer, he's a drummer too. Yes, he is. Tell him I said hello. Oh, I will, I will. I still think we're friends on Facebook too.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well, he brought us together, so he's a good man.
SPEAKER_00He loves a stand-up mate, as they say.
SPEAKER_04Oh, he's a great guy, awesome guy.
SPEAKER_00Oh, just tell him I said hi and thank you. That was yeah, I I I haven't I haven't uh talked to him in a while, but I hope he's doing well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he is, he's doing well. All right, well, I'm gonna let you go, darling. It was wonderful to speak to you. You uh you you're a larger than life character. I've got questions, Galo, that I want to speak to you about.
SPEAKER_00And we'll do it again. I'll I'll be I'll be somewhere with better lighting next time.
SPEAKER_04That's okay. It's all good. It's all good, Todd. All right, enjoy your night.
SPEAKER_00Cheers. Good night. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_04Well, thanks for listening, everybody. It's been absolutely fantastic. If you want to know more, then check out the links that are in our description and send a message.
