ep1 - The Pilot

originally aired on YTube Jan 27 2025

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Hey guys, how you doing? Just trying to see if I could do a little podcast from my couch. Because I feel like there's a lot to talk about. You know, um gear, gigs, comedy, movies, you know, that's everything. And gaming. Um I love a lot of that. And I've thought way too much about this podcasting thing, and I've just decided to just go, you know what? I'm just gonna make a podcast on my phone, on the couch. That's where I'm most comfortable. I've got my records around me, I've got guitars, you know, I'm probably I'm watching some uh I've usually got something around the tell. At the moment it happens to be Lincoln Park uh on mute uh doing their um their new tour with uh whatever her name is. Yeah, but she's fucking great at it. And I just thought, well, let's just try a wee a wee podcast. Because like I said, there's a lot to talk about. So gigs, what have I done this week? Tuesday I was at the Howl and Wolf in Glasgow on my own, doing an hour, and uh it didn't start well, I've got to tell you. Like s like I think some of you guys have like nice memories of seeing us as three-card trick or as uh as like originals bands, but we don't really always have great gigs. Like some of them are some of them are just either average or but the thing is our job is to make them great. Do you know what I mean? We're not the kind of band that has a big following, so we our job is to keep people in. Whoever's there will try and keep them in the room and uh by playing whatever they want to hear, and that would be the same. If you ever showed up to one of our gigs, we'd just be like, Well, what do you what do you want to hear? Uh sometimes we can you know I get a little bit cocky, I'll be like, Oh, what am I a dancing monkey? If people like just because the thing is people I feel like when when people get one song if somebody's standing down the front um and they keep shouting songs at you, if they get one song played for them, then they think the rest of the night is all theirs, you know what I mean? And I don't I don't think that's fair to the rest of the uh audience. I think everybody should have a song played for them if they want it, you know what I mean? But er Wolf on Tuesday when I was there on my own, I did like half an hour of uh some covers, some originals. I think it was probably like 30% uh covers and 70% originals, but that's kind of my favourite balance when I do my own shows. You know, when I'm playing with a band, uh like Gabby and Dean, three-card trick, you know, they expect covers, you know. But when I play my own uh solo gigs, they don't really care. Like they kind of like because I'm I'm just uh one guy on the stage. I'm kind of like background music, and if they recognise anything, then that's a bonus, you know. So I just usually start off with like Pride and Joy, or like you know, uh, what did I start with the other night? Layla, you know, something a bit swingy, something about upbeat. Um well actually the Layla thing is actually the same tempo as Pride and Joy, but it doesn't sound upbeat because it's all in a minor key, you know, the acoustic version of Layla. So I didn't really mind like doing it that way, uh, because I can't do the riff, you know, the little I love doing that riff when I'm playing with the band, but when I'm doing it solo, it's kind of like okay, well there's no there's not really any point in doing that, so I'll just do the acoustic version. But so I think I might have started with that, and then I always I always always do uh Ain't Got No Money by Frankie Miller, ain't got no money is one of my favourite songs. It's a little bit status quo, it's a little bit Stevie Ray, but it's just like I love the lyrics in it. You know, I'm looking for a woman about five foot four. Uh I love the lyrics, I can't even remember them right now. I'm looking for a woman about five foot six ain't in the glamour, she's just in the kicks, just this sweet fashion lady stepping dynamite to take me for granted in the heat of the night. Come on, baby, don't run away. Look in my face, being that odd day. I ain't got no money, but I sure got a whole lot of love. It just reminds me of the days when when I was like skint, you know, and but I don't know what it is, man. Like sometimes I kinda miss those days being skint because um being skint gives you drive. It gives you it gives you something, it gives you a uh a certain kind of um uh hunger for whatever's what's coming to me, you know, what what can I what can I possibly earn from myself, you know, and and and now that we're doing o okay, I mean we're not rich by any extent of the imagination, you know, we're still living, you know it's not week to week, but it's month to month, you know. Uh but then when it comes to the point where you're wondering whether I can afford a new ma a new Maserati this year, that's when it's an issue. That's when you know you've got money in the bank, you know. I mean, so I don't really care about making money because I don't want a new Maserati. I'm quite happy with the weed fucking hairdresser sports car that I've got. It's a nice little thing, it's a 2007 uh MX5, and uh you know I I I got rid of the Transam. I know I know some of you guys are gonna ask me at some point, like, oh have you still got the car? Like, no, the c the car is gone. It's gone to somebody who can look after it better than I can. You know what I mean? That's that's basically what I wanted anyway because I looked after it for the first five years that I owned it from like 2012 to probably what well what is what is five years from that, about 17. And then after that I just went, you know what, I can't be arse for this anymore. But I still couldn't, you know, our agent Andy always used to say things like uh start shitting or get up start shitting or get off the potty, you know. And now I realise that I should have done that way earlier. You know, I should have just went right, okay. I'm not gonna keep this car, you know, for this long, I'm not gonna maintain it the way that it should be. So luckily, some guy called Ed just came down and he was just like, okay, I'll he put a note through my letterbox and said, I'll uh I'll take this car off your hands if you want, if you're looking to sell it. And I was like, great. And it just so happened that he pulled up in a beautiful silver uh MX5, and I was like, Oh, nice car, by the way. And then like a few days later, when we were negotiating tactics of um of the sale, he was like, Well, how how about if I just you know part exchange that for you? So that's what happened. So I've got a nice um I've got a lovely MX5 right now, and I do love it, but anyway, going back to my point originally about being skint and being you know well off, to me there's not much difference because I still like working. I always liked working when I was skin, you know, and I love I love working now, almost to a almost to a fault, because even though you know people around me would say, Why didn't you just take a couple of months off? I'm like, No, I can't do that. I just can't do it because I in my head, like, if I take a couple of months off, then somebody's gonna there's always somebody nipping your tail, if you know what I mean, like nipping your like gonna come up behind you and steal your job. They took our jobs, they took your jobs, you know, the whole South Park thing. So I I don't like the idea of taking time off like because I want to. If I take time off, it's because we're all allowed a holiday, like for like three months, uh three weeks a year. Three months would be amazing, but you know, well, that's what Alex is doing right now. But um, you know, three weeks holiday a year, that's what everybody gets. But in this business, in the music business or in any entertainment business at all, if you take any gigs off, you're always aware that somebody might come in and be better than you at what you do. You know, I mean, and fucking everybody knows. I mean, I've stolen tricks from bands that came before me, and you know, there might be bands that come after me that uh that after three-car trick, I should say, that do the same thing. They steal our tricks, you know. Um, but all the tricks are the tricks of the people before us anyway. Like it's not my tricks, and it wasn't even the tricks of the band, and I'm just talking about um I'm really just talking about segues and you know, guitar tricks and drum solos and all that kind of shit, and I'm like, but I don't see that much anymore. So I think that's maybe why we're still kind of busy. Um, but I don't want that, I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose it because I know we're busy for a reason, and not and a lot of people just go, you know, you you'll always be busy. It's like, no, that's not the case. You're always gonna have somebody nipping your heels in any industry, in any industry. You know what I mean? If somebody fucking delivers pizzas quicker than you do, you know, I used to deliver pizzas, or if somebody makes sandwiches slightly better than you do. I used to work at Subway, you know, then you're gonna get bumped for this guy. Yeah, I mean um that's the world we live in right now. But I don't know that um it's worth uh not taking time off for it because you need you need to you need to look after yourself, you know, which I'm obviously not doing right now, um, who's been you know a little bit too busy, I think. But um you know I think this is the best way to do my podcast because I wanted to do it video-wise on YouTube, but I just don't think that anybody gives a fuck. It's just easier if it's just like I'll just talk into my phone and then just put the whatever graphic I've ended up putting up on the screen right now. Because you guys have got your pods in. I've got my pods in all the time. You're listening to shit, and sometimes you just don't want to listen to music. Sometimes you just want to break from that, sometimes you just want to listen to somebody talk, you know, and that's what that's why podcasts are so great. Um, and I love listening to guys talking about comedy and and music, and in a weird way, I feel like music and comedy, musicians and comedians are so similar, but nowadays, um, and here's here's a weird thing that we can talk about is that I think like comedians are doing so well right now because reels and uh short form content is it lends itself to that industry, especially for the one-liners, or even if it's uh somebody who tells a story that lasts like three minutes. I mean that's a three-minute reel right there. But a song is three minutes, but for some reason, the likes and the views uh and then the responses on um social media are all for like seriously short form content. So I'm just wondering if you guys could shine in a light on that and whether you know, whether you could find a reason for that. Because like a song is three minutes, and then they got back to the point where the Beatles were doing the the two and a half minute song or the Love Me Do was on was less than two minutes, and yet, you know, it was one of their biggest songs. And then you've got things like I'm the Walrus that are like either six or seven minutes long, but still a great song in a different way, you know. Uh and and A Day in the Life is one of my favourites as well. Uh just but maybe that's because it's like three different songs put together. I don't know. I don't know. But I think comedy's doing really well right now because of reels and because of uh social media being so like insecure about itself, really, and not really knowing what it is. It doesn't know what it is, it's basically testing its own waters with regards to like reels and like but I think we all know that the attention span of the average of the average person is now down to like what fucking 15-30 seconds if that you know vine the vines were great because that was like seven seconds, but that was like on purpose, seven seconds, you know, that's all they would give you. And now you're talking about like you could have reels that are like six minutes long, but you'll still only get like uh 30 seconds worth of worth of uh viewership out of them. So I don't really know what's going on. It's exciting to think um that there's a a bit of a shift, and one of the most important things for me is the fact that uh and me and not just myself but like creators, like content creators, uh I don't consider myself to be in that crowd because I don't do it regularly. But um one of my favourite things um to consider is the fact that you know we don't do this content creation for a living. We think we're doing it as a an as an aside to what we actually do, which is going out there like in the pour and rain and then loading gear in and playing for three hours or four hours, whatever the fuck it might be. And that that's where the that's where the um that's your day-to-day income, you know. I mean but then when you get to the point where you're doing like reels and content online and you start making money from that, I sometimes do worry. It's like, well, if I was to make more of a living out of doing that, would I still want to do the other? And I think I think I still would because I'm I'm because I'm 41, I'm old school. I I just love the idea of touring, I love touring, I love playing with other humans, I love playing in a band, I love the uh camaraderie of uh if it was a great gig, we share the we share the enjoyment of that. If it was a shit gig, you know, we share the blame. If it was any blame that we had. I think some bands, including us sometimes, we kind of get to the point where we're just like, well, it wasn't our fault, it was the audience. And you know, I kind of err on either side of that because sometimes I do a shit job of being a front man and being personable in that. I sometimes do a shit job of that, and yet it's still a great gig. And then sometimes you kick the arse out of your own personality by like, I'm you know, I just rolled out of bed, I'm in this gig right now, I'm in front of a hundred people that couldn't give a fuck that we were here, but I've got to make them I've got to make sure that they have a good time. So you you absolutely like give them I mean I don't have any stock banner, you know, I just talk to people on the mic and see if they react. And if if they do Oh no, sorry, if I if I work Mars off in that respect and then they don't react, I'm like, well, that was their fault. But you know I don't know. I don't know, it's a fucking weird thing, man. Because if you you can just play well and you don't get a reaction or you could play badly and if you talk some shit and it gets a good response That turns out to be a good gig as well. So I don't really know how the whole it's all about chemistry, man. You know, people don't I think even the audience, like I don't know when I go to gigs, I don't know what why it's a good gig obviously sound is a big is a big fucking deal. Like you need to have if it's just annoying on your ears, if somebody if they if the if the audio isn't right, then that's gonna be really fucking annoying. But um I don't know man, I just think like you gotta give like give people a buy, you know, like BYE, you know, give people I think that's what the phrase is like just let the acts breathe a little bit, you know, and then we and and and by the same token we also let the audience breathe in the way that like especially with my solo gigs as I was talking about earlier, if I'm playing on my own, there's nothing to be impressed by, you know, it's just one random guy standing around a stage uh playing guitar and singing, like you can get on your phone. So why would you be impressed by that? So, how do you actually get them to be impressed by it? It's by it's by human interaction, give them a bit of chat, you know. I I sometimes fall out with people on the mic. More often than not, I don't, you know, but 10 well probably 5% of the time, there's like an issue, you know. But I like that though, and they like that as well. Like even the person who's like Habergore me loves that because after the gig they'll come up to me and go, Oh, that was a great bit of chat there, man. You know, because people like human interaction and they also like being called out, especially from whoever's on the stage. I don't. If I'm at a gig, I like to just stand at the back and just like be invisible because I just want to watch what's going on. But by and large, I think some people like to be, uh I think most people like to be kind of involved in what's going on on the stage. Maybe I'm wrong here, but maybe I'm feeding too much into the the the comedy thing here. But uh I don't know, man. It could be it could go either way. And uh but I still but the fact of the matter is I still love doing it. I still love playing gigs and having a bit of crack with the audience, and you know, if they're into it, I'm into it. If they're not into it, I'll quite quickly um figure out that they're not. If you know what I mean. And you would as well, you know. If somebody doesn't like it's like in personal life, if somebody doesn't like you, you know, after a certain age or a certain level of um life experience, you've got to you've got to understand that people like are not all the same. So if you tell a joke to somebody and they don't like it, or if you make a quip, or if they make a quip to you, you might just go, I don't like this person. You know, and that's fine. But you know, give them another chance. Give them one more bite of the apple, you know, and then you know, and they might give you another bite of the apple. But I I just don't think it's uh I just don't think everybody's the same. And people are getting so different now because there's no um uh what's the word? Like with as as far as like entertainment goes, everybody's got a billion different things on their phone feed, you know, whatever that might be. Facebook, Reels, Instagram, TikTok, and all that shit, and YouTube, you know, my YouTube is just full of people uh well it's like comedy podcasts or uh people talking about music equipment. That's basically my entire YouTube, or sometimes like gaming, you know. Oh this this funny thing happened on uh when I was playing like Fortnite or Evil Within or Resident Evil and I post videos of that. But I think that people are bec like the the entire uh infrastructure of uh society is becoming so diverse now that that's why you can't say anything. You can you can't say everything to everybody anymore. You can say everything to anybody as long as that anybody is like you know they're in your ballpark. Do you know what I mean? It's like Jerry Seinfeld had a great one where he was like, I can say anything to all of you, but I can't oh what did he say? What was it? I can talk to all of you. Ah Jesus, I need to get this right because it's such a great line. He was like, uh I can just he was just talking about what it's like to be a comedian in front of like 70,000 people in an arena as opposed to like talking to one person backstage or like you know, and I think he said something like, I can talk to that was it, I can talk to all of you. I need to put a pause there just so you can, you know. I can talk to all of you, but I can't talk to any of you. That was such a great line to me because I I feel like that as well. I'm so Um and I think a lot of performers feel like this like they're we're so like uncaged on stage, but then when when you get off stage, as soon as you walk down those two or three steps and you're standing beside the bar, you know, in our world, you know, Jerry Seinfeld isn't walking down two or three steps and standing at a bar. But as soon as you st like walk down those two or three steps and you're standing at a bar beside somebody and they're like, Here mate, how come you didn't play any Pink Floyd? I'm like, Well, A, you didn't ask us to, and B, you know, we're shit at it. And then he starts, oh, because I saw Pink Floyd in 2000 and fucking And like Ah God, how how many facial expressions of I do not care what your experience of Pink Floyd was do I have to give you before you just go back to your uh you know shot of Jaegermeister and uh it wouldn't be that because Jaeger's cool. Um your shot of uh fucking hell. You know, go go back to your fucking ball of blue wicked, you know what I mean? And just fucking, you know, it's not that I don't like people talking to us, but we're we all we all feel the same. Like I love if it's like if it's an intelligent conversation, I fucking love it. And then you get this whole thing of like we made you, we're here because we're paying your fucking wage. You you got in for free. You're watching a great band like and I don't just mean us, I'm talking about covers bands in general. You got into this building for no money, none of your doubloons crossed pans for you to get in here. So you're standing there at a bar and you had a yeah, you're paying for the beer, obviously, but you'd be paying for the beer if we were on stage or not, or if there's a fucking DJ on. Which I don't have a problem with DJs either, but you know, it's you know it's entertainment. Um and it just annoys me where people go, oh well, we made you, or if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be here. It's like if it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be here. Oh god, I could I could talk about this for fuck excuse me. I could honestly I could talk about it for days, guys. But anyway, I'm gonna post this, see what you think. Um I don't really care because there's no camera, you know, there's no camera on me. I'm just sitting on my couch just talking into my phone right now. I'm gonna put a stupid wee graphic up and you know it's up to you if you want to listen to or not. But so glad if you do. Thank you very much. And uh if anybody else uh if any other musicians want to come on and you know talk some shit to me, then let's make it not so b big a deal as we did before with the whole two cam three cameras on the podcast thing. Let's just make it like a you know, sitting around chatting and we've got a microphone, a couple of microphones, you know. I think people like that stuff because they don't want to be sitting watching a podcast. I'm the same. Like I don't like watching a podcast. I'll listen to a podcast till the fucking cows come home. But I will rarely sit and watch like two or three guys, or just one two or three guys just sitting about. Do you know what I mean? I hope well I think you guys are probably the same. Um anyway, that's my first one. And it's gonna be one of many. I'm gonna try and do this a couple of times a week. Um let me know what you thought. See you later. I need to come up with a good sign off line. Um because Bill Burr's got um, you know, fuck you cunts, or you know, going f fuck yourselves. Uh I'm just but I I yeah bye.