Jason McMaster (Dangerous Toys, Broken Teeth, Ignitor)

0:00:00 - Intro

0:01:42 - Welcome Jason McMaster!

0:02:02 - Early Rock Influences & Learning the Bass

0:11:35 - Fallen Angel & Learning to Sing

0:14:33 - Watchtower & Progressive Metal

0:20:10 - Formation of Dangerous Toys & Band Name

0:25:30 - Dangerous Toys Clown Artwork 

0:28:02 - Getting Discovered, The Back Room & South by Southwest

042:30 - Producers Max Norman and Roy Thomas Baker

047:30 - Touring with The Cult

0:51:35- Tour with Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Motorhead & Metal Church

0:54:41 - Changing Music Scene Climate

1:00:13 - Pissed Album, Song and Tour

1:09:50 - The R-Tist Formerly Known as Dangerous Toys

1:11:35 - Broken Teeth, Ignitor, Howling Sycamore, Evil United

1:14:30 - Being Asked to Audition for Pantera & Skid Row

1:18:15 - Axl Rose and Guns 'N Roses

1:20:30 - New Dangerous Toys Songs 

1:25:55 - Acoustic Songs for Dangerous Toys? 

1:30:10 - The Guys from That Metal Show

1:36:32 - New Bands 

1:38:20 - Central Texas Food Bank

1:39:54 - Wrap Up 

Jason McMaster Website:
http://jasonmcmaster.net

Chuck Shute Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chuck_shute/?hl=en

Central Texas Food Bank:
https://www.centraltexasfoodbank.org

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 0:18

[inaudible] podcasts,

Chuck Shute: 0:19

Jason McMaster, singer of dangerous toys and dirty looks as my guest today. He's also the singer for Watchtower, broken teeth howling Sycamore igniter, some tribute bands. He's released 21 total full length records since 1985. I know him mostly as the singer of dangerous toys. That's really my jam. And this is another one of those eighties bands that I discovered later on a compilation record. Then we went back and found their whole catalog and I really enjoy the music. They made a dangerous toys, was pretty big back in the day. They had a gold record. They had like five videos played on MTV. They toured with Alice Cooper, Judas priest, Motorhead, the Colt. Um, and I think things continued for the, for, for him and some of his bands. Uh, the guys from that metal show, just one of my favorite shows, they're fans of his band, a broken teeth. And we talk about that and um, that, that story and a lot of other stories. And there's a few surprises along the way in this interview cause I, as you know, I do a lot of research, but there was a lot of stuff I didn't know about and this is a little bit of a longer episode for me, but that's just because Jason's accomplished so much and he's had such a long career and I had a lot of questions and actually didn't even get to all my questions, so I'll have to have them on again. But hopefully this interview should hold fans over for a while. So here we go. Jason McMaster. I think, I think I've learned a lot about you and all the bands that you've been in. You've got 21 full length records since 1985 is that correct?

Jason McMaster: 1:51

Oh, that sounds right. Sound sounds crazy, but it sounds right.

Chuck Shute: 1:56

All right, well, welcome to my show. Um, so yeah, we'll you start at the beginning. Um, so your background, you're a big fan of kiss Elton John Arrowsmith, ACDC de Pere, all these seventies bands. Um, what was that like, uh, back in that time you were a kid? Were your parents into that kind of music too, or they at least they let you listen to it, right? They approved of it.

Jason McMaster: 2:18

Well, whether they approved or not, I don't think that they just think that I was lucky enough that they were liberal enough to just, Oh, it's, I guess it's just music. I guess it's okay. At least it's going to keep him in his bedroom and out of trouble. You know? I also have three brothers, so you know, the bad influences of my older brothers and my, and my one younger brother. Uh, honestly it's their record collections and my neighborhood friends, uh, their older brothers record collections as well. That sort of influenced me, uh, the babysitter across the street and uh, turned me on to Elton John and it was all over there. I guess Elton was my first real like rocker to kind of, I mean I was probably in third grade or fourth grade, third, third grade, and I think it was maybe a summer after that that my friends in the neighborhood, their older brothers had kissed a lie. And that was like 75 76 I was 10. Yeah. And, and so that's, and then I got into kiss and it was all, it was all over for sure. It was all over after that.

Chuck Shute: 3:36

Right. Your first book

Jason McMaster: 3:37

then I already had a bunch of bunch of queen records. Queen and Elton John were probably the first ones before kiss.

Chuck Shute: 3:43

Okay. And your buy, your first concert was actually Russian UFO, is that right? At like age 12 or 13? Yeah.

Jason McMaster: 3:51

77. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 3:52

And then you got your first bass guitar around that time you probably cause the gene Simmons and kiss and you, you said you couldn't even tune it. You didn't have an amp, but so eventually you just figured it out and you kind of copied the baselines of your favorite records you self taught yourself. Right. So it was that kind of just trial and error then mostly? Or did somebody show you some licks or

Jason McMaster: 4:11

no, it really, it really was exactly how you just said it. It was, it was put the needle in the groove and you know, here it goes. Nothing, um, you know, trying to, trying to listen for, you know, what be the lowest note, uh, you know, in the song, whether it be the opening or the, you know, the bridge or the chorus or whatever. And no, just learn, just learn by tone that, you know, that fat string close to you on the top is the lowest note. And you know, I might've grabbed the tuning peg and you know, dropped it, dropped, you know, moved it around, up or down to make it match whether they were playing anything higher than that low E I would just tune the bass to it. I was like, Oh no, I'm going to break the string. I'll go back down somewhere and try the next string. And it was, it really was sort of literal self teaching of how the base worked. Um, but my teachers were, uh, my records.

Chuck Shute: 5:19

That's very cool. Yeah, it must have been harder too because now you got equalizers and there's, I, you know, my friends that play along with records and they do all sorts of crazy stuff and turn off the guitars and play them their own guitars. But back then, I mean, with records, you couldn't change the equalizers, right? I mean, it was a lot harder.

Jason McMaster: 5:37

Well, there was, yeah, there was, there was no EEQ on a Mickey mouse turntable.

Chuck Shute: 5:41

No.

Jason McMaster: 5:43

If you were just a little kid, 10 years old and 12 years old trying to play along with something, your stereo was pretty, pretty janky, you know? And, uh, especially in the seventies, I mean, they had, they had high, they had, you know, high five. But you know, when you're, when you're that age, you don't have high fly, you got Mickey mouse turntable. So I'm listening to these incredible, uh, groundbreaking rock mans that, that would become institutions. You know, only they only after they've been together three, three to five years with only a few records out, and they're, they're, you know, it's completely mind blowing because I thought that, you know, surely this is magic. How are they doing this? It's just human beings. And they're, they might be, they look, they look like they're wearing their mother's clothes and they're playing these, these, these instruments and they're making these sounds and they're talking about these wild, uh, you know, the lyrics. I didn't know what they meant. It didn't matter to me what that meant. It was, it was the sound. And, um, and guy, I let it guide me in my, you know, my family and, and my friends and you know, I mean, I had some, I had some, uh, you know, my parents had friends and they had kids. Of course, we used to play together and hang out and I brought some kiss records over to their house one time and I don't know how I got them into the house because by the time I got'em into my buddies, you know, my, my nine and 10 year old buddies bedroom to try to listen to him, he's backing away from me. Like I was holding the devils in my hand. I'm like, dude, I got these, I got these kids records, man, they're awesome. And he's like, Oh no, my parents don't let us listen to that shit.

Speaker 3: 7:40

Yeah. Well that was that they had those stickers, right? Like, cause when I was grew up in the eighties and nineties, they had all those parent parental advisory. My parents wouldn't let me listen to any of that stuff. So you'd have to like put it on a blank tape and then write down rod Stewart or something and then, then it was okay.

Jason McMaster: 7:56

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um, but you know, the, um, the crazy thing was, is uh, Chuck, I didn't know what they were talking about. What do you mean your parents won't let you listen to this? It's just rock and roll music.

Speaker 3: 8:12

Yeah. You weren't reading the lyrics. Probably this is more just into the sound of it.

Jason McMaster: 8:16

That sounded cool. Right. Well, back then the lyrics didn't really come with the record, you know, and, and it wasn't, it wasn't about the lyrics. Once again, it wasn't about the lyrics. Even though they could have been, you know, and they weren't cursing up a storm. It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like rap music in the eighties where it was, you know, bitches and hoes and cash and drugs and you know, it wasn't about his shirt. It was sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it wasn't, uh, you know, they were talking about it. It was cleverly done and new windows and, yeah. And that's what I loved about ACDC Aerosmith and Nazareth and all, you know, it was really cool. They were, they were talking about all of these things I was too young to know about. Um, but it just sounded cool because I sure I had heard some of the words they're using, but I didn't know what the phrase is defined. So, no, I was just saying, um, you know, it wasn't about, it wasn't about the lyrics. It really was that I was completely obsessed and possessed by, uh, you know, rock and roll music and, uh, and songs on the radio. And there was no FM radio back then. Um, it was just all am radio and it was, you know, Elton John. I mean, they played Alice Cooper and back then Alice Cooper was, I mean, you know, he was super, super punk rock rebellious. Yeah. I mean, he was, he was Ozzy before Ozzie. I mean, it took Ozzy to have a solo career before he was a Prince of darkness or, or was some sort of like a household devil, you know, he's biting the heads off of bats and pigeons and all, you know, getting that bad boy thing going on. And Alice Cooper was like, whatever. I've been doing that the whole time. And Alice Cooper was on the radio right next to black Sabbath, but he was a little bit more rebellious by way of his songs weren't about the Vietnam war and stuff like black Sabbath and the soldiers coming back addicted to opiates and heroin and all that shit. And that's what Sabbath was kind of writing about, uh, because they were children of the sixties. And, um, and then you had, uh, you know, Alice Cooper was more psychedelic and, uh, was writing, uh, more horror show themed kind of things in the early seventies. And, you know, on am radio, you'd hear, you know, billion dollar babies in schools out in these crazy, you know, kids love that because school's out. Yeah. School's out for summer. Yeah, I love it. You know, this is great. And parents and teachers are scratching their head going, wow, this is, this music is kind of start a riot. So you know, cutting edges is beyond, yeah, he was beyond cutting it.

Chuck Shute: 11:28

Absolutely. So then around age 13, 14, I think you, you actually finally joined a band and then, um, this is the interesting story. You got kicked out of the band because you, you were with some older kids and you felt like maybe they thought you were cramping their style, cause they had joined it to get girls, but you actually wanted to play music. So they kicked you out. Then you moved to, you ended up moving to Austin and joined a band called fallen angel. And you guys did covers and originals and you started auditioning singers and that's when you realized you could actually sing better than the singers auditioning. So you and the drummer kind of, uh, chain, uh, took turns singing and that's how you learned to sing, right. Again.

Jason McMaster: 12:07

Yeah. We, you know, meet me and Mike. Yeah, that's exactly right. Being Michael police, uh, was the who, who played drums in that band. Um, eventually both of us. Um, that band was very short lived, um, you know, maybe eight months, nine months, and we were in like 11th or 12th grade in high school and, you know, we didn't know shit. And you know, he, we, we had really terrible equipment and I don't think either of us had really tried our fair share of writing what would really have the guts to be a good song. You know, I think just jamming together was, was enough for us. I mean, we were just kinda like happy to be playing our favorite cover songs and happy that there were guys that we thought were cool that, you know, wanting to jam with us and that whole singer thing. Um, you know, really, uh, the idea spawned from just me and him being close and hanging out all the time and listening to cassettes in the boom box and just both of us singing top of our lungs while we're driving through the neighborhood. And that boom box would be in the car sitting in sit and sit and bitch, you know, laying down on its back between us and just, you know, one of us would be, you know, putting in cassette tapes and one of us driving and it was just really, it was probably a, a couple of summers that we did that, uh, from the time fallen angel was a thing. It just playing backyard parties and whatever. And, and um, and then, you know, uh, one of our guitar players wanted to take a break and I started head hunting looking for guitar players that would want to continue and just jam, you know, no pressure. I mean we didn't, we didn't think we were good. I mean we were just trying to play rock and roll cause it was, it felt like flying and it still feels like flying. And that's the main reason I play rock and roll. But um, yeah, the, the, I, I uh, I was in a music store, I saw an ad and it said Watchtower, you know, heavy metal band or whatever. And back then the, you know, the term heavy metal in 1981 82 is still fresh. You know, crazy train was a brand new song on the radio, you know, so that puts it in a timeline for you and

Speaker 3: 14:55

you joined washout right by 19 and two you end up front. Right? And that's the, you guys are the pioneers of progressive thrash metal and actually Mike Portnoy, who's a famous drummer from dream theater and tons of other bands, he's a big fan of that band. Is that kind of music hard to play? Cause when I listen to it I go, Oh my gosh, it's like all these time changes and just, I mean it's all over the place. Like is it hard to like either remember those songs or play those kinds of time changes? Like do you guys ever get screwed up when you're playing live? Like, Oh crap. Like, or you just practice, practice, practice.

Jason McMaster: 15:28

Well, when by the time that I had, you know, uh, met those guys in and roundabout way was originally looking for a guitar player, not trying to steal watch guitar player Billy White. Um, it was more like they had heard of me and I had never heard of them and I didn't know I was fairly new to town still. I consider myself new to Austin and I didn't have a whole lot of friends. It was, that was changing quick when, you know, once I was in school for a year or so. And you know, that's how I met Mike's Elise. But, but uh, to finish it out, yeah, it was once I realized that these guys were amazing musicians and they were, you know, 16 years old was kind of mind blowing that they could play any way. Malmsteen Randy Rose solo, any rush song at the drop of a hat and they're still in high school. And your question's interesting because I feel like we rehearsed probably three or four times a week because it's all, it was like a drug, you know, it was all we did was all we wanted to do. And, uh, that flying metaphor, it, it really is because it just made us feel like we were flying. It was really when you're that young and you, you have something, you know, comic books and rock and roll or something as opposed to skateboarding and bike riding and whatever. I mean, we were all on that too, but, you know, we were, we were just enamored with rock music and those guys wrote these incredible Magnum Opus. Kind of a, I guess rush was probably the band to influenced, uh, overall. And here's when you kind of think about it as far as like progressive metal, and I use the term metal loosely. Rush was probably the first one. They were all empty. Yes. And, and King Crimson and all of those bands that were just writing and maybe early pink Floyd, you know, and um, there were a bunch of weird jazz bands that were like jazz rock bands that the guys in rush were into. And it was no exception. Everybody in Watchtower sands me. I mean, I liked it, I got it, but I was more of a head banker and, uh, because uh, you know, I give me Judas priest over anything anyway, you know, if I have to take something to a desert Island. And so you go ahead.

Chuck Shute: 18:03

Oh, it was just, no, finish up. I was just gonna move on to the, the rest of the, your story here, but sorry.

Jason McMaster: 18:10

No, it was, yeah, the, the Watchtower thing. I mean, we, you know, we probably wrote the first Watchtower record three different times just because we felt like our equipment and our writing were, were getting better. And, you know, most of the writing credits must go to the rhythm section and, or the, you know, the band at sands me, they wrote all the lyrics and they wrote all those crazy songs that I sang. And, um, the, my contribution would be more the melodies and, uh, and how I was to fit all of these words into all of these instruments falling down the stairs at the speed of light, uh, in time. And, uh, so I, I, that became my forte. And I think that that's how some of the bands that I, the projects that I'm involved in now, especially howling Sycamore, uh, which has a lot of crazy, uh, proggy to me, kind of, you know, long, you know, 10 minutes songs and they're just a huge journey of music. Uh, that's, that's where, that's why and how I probably came to be involved in holding Sycamore is because of that. But yeah, I mean, uh, Mike Portnoy and Chuck Sheldon from Def, uh, were probably the biggest G gene Hoagland from dark angel who plays in a hundred bands as well. He's, he plays drums for Testament right now, but he was actually in death for a while and he was in the version of death that wasn't just, you know, death metal or black metal. He was in the version of death. It was very progressive and they all cited Watchtower as an influence. That's kind of an honor. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 20:06

that's very cool. So, and then you're in that band for like five or six years and you put your, it's not a full time thing. You're working at a pan terrace pizza and some of these guys come to recruit you for another band, a cover band. This is in like 87 called the bands called Onyx. And you took over for a girl singer in that band and that band became dangerous toys. So who came up with the name dangerous toys? Cause I, I've heard you say you thought it was kind of a weak name at the time, but everyone I've told when I say I'm, you know, I'm going to see dangerous toys or I'm interviewing the singer from dangerous toys, they go, wow, I like that name. That's a cool name. Even in to 2020. So who came up with that? Yeah,

Jason McMaster: 20:42

yeah. I think that the, um, the, that it, the, that name came about, it's very similar to way that my involvement with the group came about because, you know, they, they were looking to steal me. They knew me from Watchtower. I started moonlighting in the late eighties, um, playing with other people and they knew that and it was mainly cover bands because at that point, Watchtower was not playing any covers. And if we did, it was side one of 2112 by rush just as an Encore, you know, it wasn't, we weren't, we were done with that, you know, we were established and, uh, revered in the underground world, but the, and we're trying to make records and we weren't trying to make it per se. We were just, we wanted to make great records and play music because for the right reasons. And that's important. The a and a band lit plays that kind of music. That's, that's, that's pretty much your aspiration anyway, because ultimately you don't, you don't think of selling a bunch of records when you're, you're playing in jazzy weird times and you're, you know, you're sprinkling speed metal on top of, of a, you know, pink Floyd and rush. So anyway, um, they came into my work, I was working at the pizza joint like you said, and they were like, Hey dude, you know, we knew who you are and our singer, we're, we're losing our singer and we got these gigs and you know what we do? I'd seen Onyx couple of times. It's like, yeah, you guys look like you're having fun. Yeah, I'll help you guys out till you find somebody permanent. And so they, you know, look what happened. So I started working with them. We played, we played like two or three shows, uh, under the new name. But because, you know, we, I started rehearsing with them, learning a bunch of their cover songs and they had their own songs and, but I didn't want to sing any of the old singers lyrics. I want, you know, I would think that the bass player, Mike Watson, you know, he had written a few songs already and I was like, well, we can just keep, we can keep the songs that have your lyrics or you know, we can keep the music you guys wrote and I'll just write lyrics over over. I think the first song I wrote with Dane restores is called here comes trouble. And it did end up on the first, on the first record. So yeah, so the name of the band where we're literally at are a couple of rehearsals and um, and the phone rings and it's the booking agent app. The Onyx was like the house band at the rock bar, you know, in Austin, the premier rock bars called the back room. Not around anymore of course, but it was world famous mid-level bands, headlining bands, you know, uh, everyone played their Ramones, Nazareth cheap trick, uh, armored Saint anthrax, Motorhead, you know, keep going. Pearl jam before all of these bands became a global success as their first us tours. They always played this sort of medium size rock, stinky rock bar called the back room and we were the house band there. So Onyx was the house, Onyx was kind of the house band. It played almost every weekend and um, was always adding new material, you know. Anyway, I go jam with them, we get a set together. The phone rings, we hadn't even played a gig yet. I heard you guys got Jason from watch our one book. You guys were like, well we can't play under the name Onyx. He's like, we'll come up with a name where going can call yourself hold the phone, drummer's holding the phone, how are we going to call this band? And the guitar players over there. Scott's over there noodling on his guitar and he goes, how about, you know, I don't know, bad boys make dangerous toys or something like that. And they'll go, just call it dangerous toys. Do that. And it's me and Scott kind of just threw that name out. We weren't even really thinking about it, but it was something that Scott said made us really sort of agree with that. It was an accidental, accidental bad ass.

Chuck Shute: 25:08

It sounds like kinda like how they came up with the name Motley crew. Like somebody just said, Oh, this is a Motley looking crew. It's kind of a similar kind of story almost.

Jason McMaster: 25:18

Yeah, because I think they were called something else prior

Chuck Shute: 25:21

Christmas or something.

Jason McMaster: 25:22

I don't know. Yeah, it was Christmas or, yeah, you think you're right. Go ahead.

Chuck Shute: 25:29

I was just going to say what else is cool about dangerous toys was the artwork. And I thought it was interesting that um, Tommy ponds, the guy who designed the clown, you guys did this. I know with Helen Sycamore, you've never met that band and you do all the work over the, um, you know, the computer emails and, and phone and stuff like that. But that then before emails and all that, you just called this guy up and you described like the artwork you wanted and then he said he FedEx it to you. And I guess he must have nailed it on the first draft. I mean, it looks great. Is that, was that the first draft that you said?

Jason McMaster: 25:59

Well, no, no, but it's very, very similar. The first draft you can find online, it has like a purple and black, uh, sort of, uh, a bullseye looking logo. And, um, the, I didn't have a, it didn't have a logo. It didn't say dangerous toys on it. It was just like, you know, purple and black spiral circles, bulls-eye looking thing with the clown face to face. Um, and the hair was about the same. I think the ears were a little bit thicker, kind of clowny ears, I guess you could chain. Everyone kind of has the visual, they were, the ears were a little bigger. The teeth were like, um, HR Geiger's alien teeth. They were the long kind of spammy looking things like razor kind of looking things. And they were, they were covered in saliva. They were pretty gory and you know, a little bit of a way, but it was still kind of classy cause it was real streamlined. And he always faces long JobOne and walking, you know, very kind of weird, uh, pronounced facial features. And he's always, the clown has always had that, that long face. And so of course the red clown nose, but with the high job phones and the open mouth gaping fangs and all that and the eyes were whited out. There was no pupil. So it was pretty like Whoa, that's fucking scary. But you know, it was really freaky looking because it was a cross between it, you know, the clown from penny wise and, and, and maybe those stupid clowns on, uh, the mood, the eighties movie killer clowns from outer space and, and HR diggers, alien. It was kind of like a cross between all of those things. And to back up a little bit, so we had to, you know, we were only together about six months before the band got signed. Like it happened like literally overnight.

Chuck Shute: 28:13

Yeah. You were discovered in the backroom, but I know you guys played the second ever South by Southwest. Was that before you got discovered or after you had been signed?

Jason McMaster: 28:22

No, that's when, that's when, that's how that works is like you'd be becoming discovered is, is before your sign becoming discovered is when someone sees you and goes, Oh my God, you know, I want to write checks for to you and put you in the studio and put you on the road and give you a deal and you gotta you gotta got, so that's how that sort of like timeline goes. So, um, if I back up one more time, it kind of start to have a timeline for you. So 87 I start working with these guys and were called dangerous toys and we're playing the local bars. Uh, that would have been October of 87 by March of 87 we hadn't really done a whole lot, but we were still playing around and that would have been, Oh no. March of 88 is when someone, so God, that's like four or five months after I started playing with them. Wow. So yeah.

Chuck Shute: 29:26

So that's pretty crazy.

Jason McMaster: 29:28

Yeah. March, March, yeah. It's real quick. March of 88 was when saline arm back from SBK songs, which was then just a publishing company. I say just a publishing company like, Oh, you're, you're just a Polish. But anyway, they had clout and from Los Angeles and was there because at the very first South by Southwest in 87 March of 87 eight year earlier saline arm Beck had been in town and was just out probably at the back room and saw, or maybe downtown somewhere on a clay. She saw Onyx play, but it was, but it was Onyx with all the toys. Dudes fans, me, right. I'm not there. So they have the girl singer, right. So she comes back a year later to basically sign Onyx. And so she's downtown again watching Onyx play and Onyx ad just gotten some new dudes. So she's got her new band and they're playing and playing the songs and saline arm back. Who? I didn't know her, I didn't know who, I hadn't, hadn't met her yet. She's downtown watching Onyx and she's looking for some locals to talk to. And she was like, this has been around a while. Yeah. Oh yeah, but see, this is her new band. She's like, man, I was here last year and saw this, this totally electrified, just kick ass, rock and roll down. These guys were crazy looking and she was the singer, but it was a different band. Something's not right here. And he's like, well they're, they're called dangerous toys. They have this thrash metal singer singing for them and their blitz third, you got to go see them. They're just killing it. And she's like, take me right now. And they paid the bill and she didn't, she just met this guy and this guy worked at the background and so she hops in a cab with this guy. His name's Bobby meet Neely. So she hops in a cab and they run down was, it was only a few miles over the river, just South South of downtown. And so they go, they come see us on a Sunday night, second ever South by, in fact then South by was purely music. It wasn't a film festival. There was no high tech because it's fucking 1988 right. So there's no digital anything. It's vinyl and cassettes. And just art, you know, there's no, there's no moot film festival. There's no tech world. It wasn't a trade show. Literally was a hotbed for talent for managers and publishers and shit like that come down with record labels and shifts to come discover talent. And now it's a complete, I know, right? It was all about the little guy back then and not now. It's just a trip to trade show now.

Chuck Shute: 32:14

Yeah. See I'm from Seattle. We used to have a thing called bumper shoot. It was a freak. It was a similar kind of music festivals free and now it's like become this big thing. They have, you know, comedians and it's tickets or prices are through the roof and it's totally changed. So it sounds like, yeah, probably something like that.

Jason McMaster: 32:31

Yup. Yup, yup. Wristbands are like a thousand bucks anyway. So, yeah. So anyway, uh, I'm not even fucking, yeah. So anyway, um, because you know, they have bands like Metallica play. Oh, we've got a new record. I'm saying it's not about that. I heard about this killer

Speaker 6: 32:52

cause Metallica around their exposure. So they really need to get noticed, right?

Jason McMaster: 32:57

No, no, no. We'll, we'll, we'll understand that. You know, when you're a trade show, it's all about your new product that's coming out next year. And Metallica was playing an Xbox thing and it was for the new Metallica rock band game that was coming out.

Speaker 6: 33:15

Okay. Gotcha. That's totally, but anyways, so the sheet saw you guys at South by Southwest.

Jason McMaster: 33:21

She, she comes down, she sees this, there's only like 15 people in the audience. You know, we're, we're first, we're apart first. We're appalled that we're playing on a Sunday night when we just played there the Friday night and we got talked and talked into doing it by the agent there because we were the house man. We were hot shit. We were big fish, little pond cut thing. Right? And we weren't looking to be signed, we weren't trying to be rock stars. We were just having fun and partying and you know, we were 20 something years old, 21 years old, you know, it didn't matter. We didn't care. And uh, so we were just happy to be playing rock and roll with our shitty jobs,

Speaker 6: 33:59

whatever. Right?

Jason McMaster: 34:02

So she comes in and says, you know, C's are probably terrible. You know, we played cover songs, we played some original stuff and you know, it's after the show and saline arm back from SBK walks up to me and we're just standing there drinking a beer. And uh, that was back when I drank. I've been sober for what seems like forever now, but somehow sitting there and she comes up and I am saline armed Beck from SBK and you guys were great and I want to talk about a publishing deal cause I think that we can record you guys and do some stuff and no, MTV is super hot at that time. It's, it's, it's 88.

Speaker 6: 34:44

Yeah, it's part of, you know, not just how you sound too. And you guys looked cool. He had long hair.

Jason McMaster: 34:49

Oh yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we were crazy looking. I was wearing combat boots and bullet belts from my thrash metal days, but I had kind of big hair and makeup on and shit, you know. And we were playing butt rock, you know, we were playing something similar to, to, you know, ZZ top and Aerosmith meets, you know, I don't know, LA guns and faster pussy cat or something, you know, dare I say guns and roses. Since I have red hair and I sing high and I have tattoos. But ultimately that's what, that's what's hot at an 80 ADA. Everyone's looking for a new Jean are right. So anyway, I'll kind of joke. I was like, I was like, I was like, nah, you know, I'm not even in this band. I'm in this cool thrash metal bank. I'll watch tower, but they're standing right over there. Go talk them. They're cool. Go ahead man. You know, and I think I dissed her. I might've been kind of dickish

Speaker 7: 35:42

sure.

Jason McMaster: 35:43

And I did. I wasn't meaning, I wasn't trying to like, I was pissed because man, it's Sunday night. I wish I was, you know, at home or something, you know, whatever. So the funny thing is, is she hung out with them all night long and they called me the next day at the toys. They called me and they said, Hey, that, that lady from LA, she was legit. Wow. She was, she was totally legit. And uh, and uh, you know, cause I mean, you know, there's no, there's no internet, there's no way to look up SPK music songs and look up her name. You can just sit there. Hold on, I'm gonna see if you're legit before I talked to you, you know, like you can now. And so, you know, they had extensive hangout with her to figure she was legit and they called me and go, man, she's legit. Let's go back one month. Prior to that I was dating a girl that had sent a cassette tape. One side was a live performance of dangerous toys and the other side was the new plan new in 1980 April of 87 demos that Watchtower had just cut. So same thing or two completely different styles of music, same singer. And so she had sent that to an intern buddy of hers who was working with a management company also in Los Angeles called co entertainment. Now they're called union entertainment. But anyway, so it's a funny story about how that went down for the reason that, uh, that guy out there, Tim heinies, his name, you know, he imagined the, you know, the rock and roll manager guy, just stacks of demo, cassettes on his desk and every day, and this is, this is a true story. Every day he grabbed like three or four off the top of those, top of that, you know, cowering cassette pile, any, any climb in his eighties Corvette and he couldn't, he'd pop a tape in and, uh, and if, and if the first song didn't grab him, he'd roll down the window and Chuck it out

Speaker 7: 38:02

the window. It's literally,

Jason McMaster: 38:05

I'm the one Oh one on the Ventura freeway or whatever and can and L LA County or whatever. Right. So, and then he, uh, and then he'd pop in another one, same thing. Nope, out the window. Nope, out the window. Well, he popped it in and heard these and pleasing by dangerous toys, like a lie of a live recording of our earliest, most archaic version of that song. You heard that song and he pulled over and picked up his giant brick, like, you know, old army cell phone that he actually has his car phone, you know, with the curly cord on it. And he calls his internet. He calls us, he calls his intern from his eighties Corvette and in 1988 early or 88 and goes, who are these guys? Get me on the phone with, where'd you get this? Where'd you get this tape? I gotta I gotta I gotta see these guys. I got to meet these guys. So he has been calling us and talking to me and trying to get me to quit Watchtower. And he had been calling us saying, you know, I think T's and pleasing as a hit man. We gotta do something with this. And we use basically like super cool guy. Uh, wasn't blowing smoke up my ass. He totally believed in the material. He was like, he, you know, I remember something Tim told me, he was like, where were you about 10 years ago? Know it's rare. We find somebody who can belt it like that in Los Angeles. It was a bunch of just Clowney bullshit, you know, and he really liked, he, he respected what I was trying to do and he respected what I was doing with Watchtower and everything. But he really thought that the iron was hot because of the GNR and the whole LA scene and sunset strip was, you know, bang it right then. Right. And here we are, something different being we're from Texas, right. And uh, really liked it and he called me, he called me about every week and he stayed in touch with Mark, the drummer from the toys. And so, you know, we had been talking to him for only a few weeks and then we meet saline at via the South by Southwest. And she had never heard of Capco entertainment or any Kim heinie. So we put them together, they had lunch, they had lunch the week later and they made a plan. And there was a contract that said there was a contract drawn up by both of them. It was a production company, publishing deal, all inclusive management deal by both, both companies, Capco, entertainment and SBK songs, publishing, management saying we, if we get you a major recording contract within 90 days we own you. Wow. Basic basically, right? If we don't get you a major recording contract, you know, that you think is doable and sizable, um, in 90 days, just burn this cottage, tear up, you're free to go. That's a pretty good deal.[inaudible] and, and uh, we, we never left town. You know how bands like I'm packing up the band and moving to LA and going to eat, you know, bologna sandwiches for six years, however long it takes to make it. We never get none of that ever.

Chuck Shute: 41:36

So they went out and got the record contract for you from Sony or

Jason McMaster: 41:41

Columbia, I think. Well, well we had, we had the showcase, but point is, Chuck is we didn't leave. We did, we slept in our own bed every night. We didn't sleep on the street or in the back of our car trying to make it like, like literally they brought seven different major recording companies, record companies. And we play and we played our home turf, played the pack, we played the back room, they came and saw us at the back room in front of our home crowd. That's very cool. That makes a lot. Well it's kinda, it's kind of how LA guns and faster pussycat and guns and roses did it. You know, once they got their shit together, all the labels are out there. All managers are out there. They just heard, Oh shit, you got to go see this band and that band. And then they just signed them all up in one year.

Chuck Shute: 42:29

Gotcha. So then you get sick and then you get signed and then you're, you work with producer max Norman for that first album and he's a legendary producer. He's known for his work with Ozzy and Megadeath. And you said that you train and you basically live with him for three or four months and you said that you got to hear a lot of Randy road stories from him. Is there one story about that he told you about Randy Rhoads that sticks out?

Jason McMaster: 42:55

Not necessarily. Just the fact that I was working with a, a name producer was enough for me. Um, I don't, you know, I worked with Roy Thomas Baker a couple of years later and her queen songs and the only one, the only Freddie mercury store. Yeah, exactly. But the only Freddie mercury story, uh, that I recall, uh, well there was a few of them, but he would, he would stay up all night partying and like go knock on Roy's door at like 5:00 AM gone, get up, get up, it's time to go to the studio. And he'd been up all night and was ready to go sing. He was ready to go work at the studio at like 5:00 AM he just thought the world revolved around what they were ready to do. Well, and the thing is, is in the seventies, back then the studio was probably open, probably someone at the studio doing something, probably not something productive at 5:00 AM someone in there doing something good or bad? So yeah. Sorry, go on. No, I was just saying the Freddie stories, I remember, and he was just a, uh, an animal, you know, he was ready to just kick ass all the time. You know, and in the Randy story is I feel like, um, you know, max was lucky to work with such a talent and then have, you know, because of his tragedy, you know, and there's just no telling what would have become a Randy Rhoads afterwards. I mean, he would been able to relish in all of his favor. Jimi Hendrix, Hendrix in his twenties as well. Same thing. It's hideous.

Speaker 3: 44:43

Terrible. But yeah. So you're recording, this is Hollywood in 88 so this is when you are, you did leave Austin. You're, cause you're recording in Hollywood, you're on that infamous sunset strip in 88 you said it wasn't uncommon to just walk down the street and see like LA guns or guns and roses just walking around. I mean, that must've been kind of scary.

Jason McMaster: 45:00

Oh yeah. From any of those bands was, was always hanging out at a bar, you know, the cat house or there was a bunch of different ones. Uh, exposure 54, uh, of course, you know, the typical rainbow and the Roxy and stuff like that, there was more too. I just can't think of the names of them right now. And you know, you'd see axle every once in a while and slash every once in a while. And I mean, they were busy as shit. They were blown up. So, you know, they weren't around that much, but when they were coming home from doing something, they would go out and we didn't

Speaker 3: 45:37

too. Right. I mean, you guys have,

Jason McMaster: 45:41

yeah, yeah, yeah. So we make the record that was, you know, over, you know, around the end of 88 through Christmas, you know, we, we, uh, we record the record and it comes out in June, I'm sorry, May 9th of 1989 is when the record came out. And we had shot a video, a couple of videos, and we were, we'd be in and out of LA making videos or, uh, you know, just working on material or whatever. But we never really left Austin. We never really like, you know, Oh yeah. We've never really moved to Los Angeles. And whenever we went out to Los Angeles, it was rent, you know, in a long, in a, in a, in a hidden, uh, you know, sort of like ignorance. We were footing the bill for everything because everything the label did pay for at the time we learned a word. That word is recoupable. Everything had to be paid back via record sales or t-shirts, sales or you know, money. The band had gone from touring or whatever, uh, eventually had to pay those bills. Um, so yeah, but anyway, that's, that's how it is. They don't tell you that when you think about all the glitz and glamour about, you know, getting a record deal and you know, that's when the real work begins. You think you just kicked back after that. You got it. The songs don't sing themselves. They don't write themselves. You have to be, you know, there's where your obsession in your possession with your craft has to kick into super high gear

Speaker 3: 47:29

and this is kind of your,

Jason McMaster: 47:29

your peak. You got the teasing and pleasing. It was on dial MTV for like three months. I think. And then you had the scared, the single and the music video came out. You had a song on the shocker soundtrack. You tour with LA guns, Torah Torah junkyard three of my favorite bands, tour with a Colt and bottom. Did you learn anything from touring? Like with a Colt cause they had been pretty successful at that point. Um, did they, did they give any pointers or anything or not necessarily. They were super nice to us. Um, Ian the singer gave me some leather pants. He gave me some cool jewelry and he was probably just cleaning out his closet. But anyway, I took it. Yeah, I was very gracious and uh, and uh, Billy Duffy gave one of my guitar players, uh, Gibson, Les Paul, I think it had a crooked neck on it, but you know, probably, uh, probably an$800,000 car or something, you know, you know, maybe, maybe a thousand dollar guitar. And, uh, they were, they were nice to us and um, yeah, it was very cool. I wrote on Ian's bus with him quite a bit. Uh, I think what the deal is, is he was trying to, and, and don't, don't really quote me on this. This is just the feeling that I got. Did he, he was trying to not drink, like he might've been struggling with some, some, uh, some drinking, you know, he wanted to drink and I wasn't really, I didn't really party. I could have a drink if I wanted to, but I had to make sure I had a day off, you know, if I was gonna go there, you know, and I was really just, you know, it's work being on the road and here if you're gonna stay up all night and yeah, if you're gonna stay up all night and do stupid shit to yourself, all you need is a good hour to be good. You got 23 hours a day to be an asshole. As long as that one hour that you gotta be kick ass is kick ass. Right. Sorry, go on. So, yeah, I mean, we were, we were, we were doing well. What I did learn is that when you're playing in clubs and you're touring with junkyard and LA guns and stuff like that, um, we did Europe with faster pussycat, it's a little bit more close knit, meaning that you're seeing the guys in the band that you're playing with every day, all the time. And with the Colts, you know, they each have their own bus and you, I mean we were on tour with the band for like a week before we even met them and that's a normal I, we learned that that's normal. You know, I've, I've played a couple of shows with the scorpions. One of my favorite bands never met him.

Speaker 3: 50:20

Yeah, I've heard that a lot.

Jason McMaster: 50:21

Yeah. Well that's a, well you're not going to go knock on their room door.

Speaker 3: 50:28

Yeah. Cause I've interviewed a lot of Canadians and comedians say that you guys share the green room, but with musicians you all have separate dressing rooms or buses and stuff. So yeah, you don't always get to meet the people you, you do a show with.

Jason McMaster: 50:40

Yeah. But it's more, it's like that when it's on a smaller scale is what I meant. Like when you're doing a club tour or a small theater tour or you know where your soundchecks are kind of overlapping, you know, you're taking turns, sound checking and setting up and all that. Everyone's sort of a, you know, it's this cohesive data day in, day out of like, Hey news up, you know, and you're hanging out and shit. And um, it wasn't like that when you get into arenas cause everything's so big, sort of spread out and there's no cell phones, Hey dude, meet me in catering. You know, that didn't happen. It's way. It's such a different world now.

Speaker 3: 51:19

Yeah. So anyways, you're, you're touring with a Colt. The record company pulls you off the road and um, they want you to go back in and make another record. So that's when you worked with Roy, Thomas Baker, legendary producer. Um, and then in 1991 you get the call from management that you're going on tour with. This is even better than the Colt. This is Alice Cooper, Judas priest, Motorhead and metal church. For the operation rock and roll tour. Um, now I know you got to meet Lemmy and I heard a little bit of that. Um, you met Alice, he was complimentary of your song, scared, which is about him. Um, and then you got to write on a tank with Alice Cooper, Rob Helford and Judas priest. So take me back to that point. At that point, do you feel like you've just made it like you're King of the world, you're on a tank with three of your idols?

Jason McMaster: 52:04

Yeah, I'm, I'm pinching myself the whole time. There's a photograph, it might be searchable online. It might be on one of my pages somewhere, a picture that we're talking about. And that was oppressed day for that tour. And um, for some reason metal church wasn't there and for some reason Motorhead wasn't there, but it was a Los Angeles press press day and it was me and Mark from the toys and it was Rob Halford and it was Alice Cooper and the one weren't anybody else there. So it was three out of the five or whatever. And you know, represent representing. So me and Mark represented. And then, uh, Alison, Rob and we don't know what to expect. Our publicist is telling us how it's going to go down. Uh, Ricky Rackman was the, uh, he was, you know, he was the voice and the face of Headbangers ball on MTV at the time. So, so he's doing the yay. Super cool. And he, he's so he's emceeing the press day and sort of like sending the questions from press and it was held at the whisky and uh, there was, you know, lines of photographers out front of the whiskey and they had brought this tank and this Jeep, because operation rock and roll was a sort of a spinoff of the operation desert storm that was happening. Right. So the posters are camouflage and it's got all the logos and there's a tank with a guitar and a, you know, so you know, they bring this tank and they're rolling down sunset and Rob and Alice are sort of inside the Gunter it.

Chuck Shute: 53:48

Huh.

Jason McMaster: 53:49

And the managers are, are over there and the, and the publicists are over there and they're like, how come Jason's not up there? Can y'all get Jason up there and Jason get up there cause I'm like, no dude, that's Alison. Rob. I mean they're the stars of the fucking show. You know those are, I can't be what you're going to miss. Oh my God. So I get up there, I'm sitting up there on a tank riding down sunset

Chuck Shute: 54:13

with two guys that I worshiped. Sure.

Jason McMaster: 54:17

And the whole time I'm just going to be cool.

Chuck Shute: 54:20

Cool, cool, cool.

Jason McMaster: 54:23

People are taking pictures right now and there are rock royalty like literally inches from my elbow. Yeah, I was a kid. It was just, I just felt like I was a little kid meeting evil Knievel or somebody like that.

Chuck Shute: 54:39

That's awesome. And then you had three music, music videos for that album, the hellacious acres. So you're still getting an airplane. MTV. Um, and now this is kind of around the time when grunge starts taken off. So at what point does the record company drop you? Cause you didn't even get a followup to the hellacious acres, which again, I have three videos that got played on MTV. But

Jason McMaster: 55:02

yeah, it was, it was so, you know, the record deal. And this was very common to get like a seven album deal, you know, and we only got to make two of them. Well, you know, a lot of our cohorts, I called the class of 89, they were getting, they were getting signed and dropped, you know, a year later. So the fact that we had a pretty much, you know, a three year run of a kind of running with big dogs was really, really lucky. Aura. And, um, one of the greatest things that I, I, I will never ever forget. And I, and I tell this, this little Quip, uh, quite often actually is doing press me. And when we would do these, these press days, uh, it was usually me and Mark, uh, the drummer doing most of them. And when there was like multiple, like interviews to be done in a matter of days, we would, you know, we would set up interviews with the other guys. You know, the other guys would do some and me and Mark would do some and I would do some by myself, et cetera and whatever was a good match, you know, that gave a good interview. So, um, Mark said in more than one interview, but it was a really good thing that I didn't ever have to go fishing. Hey, tell him that thing, you know, it was just something that he said that made a lot of sense to us and that is that, you know, this is all fleeting. Like how good or bad you're doing, is it going to change? No. The next five minutes it's going to be different. Um, one day you're selling records, the next day you're not, you know, it's like the stock market. One day you got money to pay your bills and the next day you don't. And you know, being able to sustain this is, uh, is kind of like, you know, you, you, you need to be in bed with the next new trend and you need to be able to make sure you have some insurance somehow to keep your record deal. Or, you know, where the costume that's popular or whatever it is, because we knew we weren't Bon Jovi. We knew we weren't Alice Cooper. We knew we weren't Judas priest all super established in it. Obviously been able to have hit after hit after hit. So with, with this new style of rock music that they called grunge, which I don't really like the term, it's as bad as hair metal. I don't like the term hair metal. And I don't like the term grunge because it's all rock and roll to me. And whether I loved it or hated it, it's not important to the fact that why was my, you know, the people that like my style of butt, rock, cock rock, whatever, your hair metal, if you will. Uh, why are they so mad at this new style? Is it because now for them to follow a trend, they have to buy a completely new wardrobe? Is it because they're not into punk rock like these Seattle bands are, you know, they're all into punk rock and moody broody shoe gazy kind of shit, you know, joy division and new ways and you know, old cool punk rock from England Buzzcocks and whatever, you know, and it's bringing in this new sound, even though they still like kiss black Sabbath, Soundgarden, Soundgarden sounds like led Zeppelin and black Sabbath, but they're from Seattle and they fit their cog in the wheel of this new sound that's taking over the world. So it basically cleaned off all of the crap that had gotten signed because all labels were trying to scoop up anyone, anyone with red hair and tattoos and sang real high. There were a lot of crappy bands that got signed. You can, you can throw us in the crap pile too if you want. I don't care. We were lucky. We were. Thanks. We were lucky to be there. You have to think about it from our side, right? I wasn't getting angry like the people that love dangerous toys. That's great. And, and I was having a blast just riding and playing rock and roll because it's what I do now. If someone, if someone is, you know, wants to just follow the trends, they're going to leave you behind, but the ones that are upset because they have to buy a new wardrobe or they're very faithful to what it is that you do, that's great too. But you know what? There's going to be a lot of anger and a lot of bad, stupid things said that's going to make us look bad. I remember all these petitions to try to get MTV Headbangers ball.

Chuck Shute: 59:45

Yes.

Jason McMaster: 59:47

Sign it.

Chuck Shute: 59:48

You wouldn't, I wouldn't lie. Why did they ever get it?

Jason McMaster: 59:51

Well, you know what? I wouldn't sign it because when you say Headbangers ball and then you play Bon Jovi and poison, that's not headbanging music.

Chuck Shute: 1:00:01

True, true. Yeah. It was kind of a weird mix.

Jason McMaster: 1:00:05

They would even tell you that. They wouldn't even tell you that they need to just call it rock show.

Chuck Shute: 1:00:11

Okay, so in 1994 speaking of angry, you guys released the album piss. I think it was independently. I love this very underrated record in my opinion. I love the laws, my promise, the moon. I actually woke up this morning with the song strange in my head loser, also very catchy. And then the title track was obviously one of my favorites. Pissed. Is that song about someone in particular like the old record company or is it just a general feeling of being pissed off?

Jason McMaster: 1:00:39

Well, that's kind of where I was going a second ago. All this anger about trends and, and the change. And you know, MTV is not playing real rock and roll anymore. They're playing this bullshit. It's called groans that I don't understand and where, where, and when they look weird and they're dying their hair pink and blue and they're, you know, they're wearing these baggy clothes and what am I going to do? I don't know me, my Mo, right? So everyone's crying about it and you know, it's like the same thing when punk rock came out, punk was liberating. It was punk stands for freedom. And that's what rock and roll originally stood for. And they're missing the point if this ain't a fashion show. Right. And that's kind of what it was. And, and, and, uh, much like punk grunge was kind of the anti, uh, populace, you know, we're, we're, we're not doing this because it's popular. We're doing this because it's new and it took off and became what it became. And so we write these songs, we're still gonna play, you know, dirty rock and roll. So we write the pissed out. You know, we had a couple of lineup changes that, you know, took us for a loop for a second, but we still kept writing the same kind of rock and roll and, um, uh, it, it, it didn't, it didn't Dawn on us to, to try to follow any trend. And that's sort of our sound changed quite a bit because of the lineup changes on the, on the artist formerly known as record. But we'll get to that. So the piste album is not in any form or fashion a fuck you to the, to the industry, to grunge, to all of that stuff. Uh, it is, it is literally the lyrics are about, um, how you don't really know me. How can you say this and that and the other thing when you don't, you don't know what I like. You don't know where I'm from and you think that you do and you're, you're telling me it's not even rebellion or anything. It's like I'm angry because you're just like literally telling me how it's going to be and you don't know. We don't care to ask what it is about anything that I, that I think that how I feel. And, uh, that was a bummer to me. So I wrote that and I, uh, I think it came out pretty good for what? To live with, the message of the lyric, because it's real simple. I can see it's going to be a long day cause I gotta deal with these assholes, you know, you know, uh, you're, you're, you're choking me. You're, you're holding me down by saying all these things and it's not even how I feel. You're putting words in my mouth. Right. And so that's more or less what it was. Now, unbeknownst to me, the, uh, the liner notes came out and it could have been my manager and I don't hold any grudge. I don't know who wrote the liner notes, but there's this long winded like, you know, this system, you know, we love the people who stuck by us to all the radio stations and lawyers and you know, thanks everyone who stuck up for us, you know, and it's like, you know, maybe it was some people in my camp, maybe not even standing right next to me on stage, not even my bandmates but you know, my, maybe my manager was upset more than I was because he knew we weren't going to be as lucrative. I don't know. But you know, there were a lot of man in industry people that felt like that, that like, you know, like a dinosaur band, like lover boy, which I love lover boy. But I remember seeing him being interviewed about it and he goes, yeah, Nirvana ruined my career. It's like, dude, your shit came out in like, you know, 10 years before, 12 years before, before this happened. And it was interesting, you know, cause some, and that's what I didn't like. People are interviews turn to that, you know, rock and roll interviews were about, so what do you think of this new thing? Huh? Are you selling as many records as you were last week? You know, and I'm like, I don't want to talk about how many records I've sold, but talk about Roz, celebrate rock and roll together.

Chuck Shute: 1:05:30

So at that point you were dropped from that label, you're doing independent and you had the artist formerly known as, so as this point, dangerous toys. Is this more still a full time thing or are you going to, you guys have to get day jobs and it's more of a side thing or how, how does that work?

Jason McMaster: 1:05:45

Well, yeah, we, you know, a smart musician, whether they have any rock and roll cloud or not has a, has some kind of day job and that's just normal. Especially now because, uh, the digital world, you know, Spotify pays fractions of a cent per, per stream or download, right? So it's a, it's completely watered down at the, uh, there's no dollar in it at all. It's just fractions and fractions of pennies. And so no one's making money. Um, there was something that happened last year or maybe the year before that it went to court and I don't really know the outcome of it, but it was just an interesting factoid. And that is that Peter Frampton, you know from the seventies Peter Frampton,

Chuck Shute: 1:06:38

Oh yeah, I heard you talking about this

Jason McMaster: 1:06:39

shit. You got huge hits. You know who baby, I love your way killing it. Right. And it's on, it's on the radio every day it's on the radio and you know, 10 countries as we speak, you know, it's making money all the time. Well Spotify, you know, for like for like 17 million streams or spins or downloads or whatever, he got 1200 bucks.

Chuck Shute: 1:07:03

It's crazy. So you made enough to pay back your record company cause like you said, you had to pay back everything they gave you and you got a gold record for your first song.

Jason McMaster: 1:07:12

No, no, it doesn't really work like that. Like that. Let's say, you know, your, your record's still in print and you're lucky if it is because of the digital world still in print, so you can buy the CD somewhere. Um, but it's mainly downloads. Uh, at that point by by nineties, it was still, CDs were still kind of new and the downloading and stuff, you know, but they weren't doing vinyl anymore, so that was weird. So it was CDs and maybe cassettes sometimes. Um, and uh, yeah, we make the piss record that comes out on, on a CD and cassette, not vinyl. And we tour, uh, we record the record in LA with, with uh, with Mike Watson. Uh, March of 94 we come home, the bass player quit, Mike Watson quit and we get Michael Hannon from salty dog to the tour on base who we do a couple hundred shows. A Michael Hannon goes back to Ohio where he's from. He was living in Hollywood at the time, but, um, he went back home to Ohio. Uh, we started writing without Mike Watson, without my Canon on bass. I played bass on all the demos, same engineer and producers. And that did a pissed, did the artists formerly in Texas with me on bass. And the song writing was different because we had lost a couple of original members in 94 on the piste album. We got Paul IDL from dirty looks. Uh, we are huge dirty looks fan. So it was like totally, he was a huge dangerous toys fan. So it was kind of, we were kind of, you know, gay for each other, you know, it's a great match and really we were close. He's just great. He's just so good. Like bro love total. Bro-down loved that. Loved that band. Loved that.

Speaker 6: 1:09:20

Well yeah. And you would end up later being the singer of dirty looks, which we'll get to that of course too. But

Jason McMaster: 1:09:26

yeah. Well of, so, um, the a huge fan. I mean he dirty looks fan and we all were so, you know, 94 we get him, we go make the record, you know. Uh, and then we do the tour with Mike Hannan on base cause Mike quit went to school for awhile. He rejoined us in 99. But, uh, the point is, is we made artists with as a four piece and toured it as a four piece, and the material was very different. I mean, there's a song that's kinda sounds like smashing pumpkins song on there that's kind of heavy, like pan Tara or something. There's a song that sounds like ministry. This is all, I'm just spitballing right here as to where the tunes were different and what it, what it was, is because since we had lost Mike Watson and it was, it was just such a weird time and no one can say that they weren't affected by it. No one can say, Oh fuck that. You know, we tried to just ignore that all the time and just be that dude, you know, everywhere I went, there was this new sound, you know, that I would hear and it crept into my songwriting and we made a record where I'm not saying baby baby, baby, and singing the blues all the time. I started writing some of its kind of love songs, some of it, some of it's actually softer than your typical dangerous toys. Rock and roll, boogie woogie. Um, and some of it was much heavier. So the artist formerly known as it's called the artist, formerly known as dangerous toys. Kind of like the prints, spin spinoff because of the, because the material and because of the of the lineup changes, same singer, guitar player, drummer.

Chuck Shute: 1:11:19

Yeah. Thought of changing your name, but you just use that as the title for the album. But no, I think there's some good too. I like heard it all. I like share the kill. It is definitely a little bit of a departure. But um, and then you did a lot of other, uh, different bands during the last 20 years or so. You've, you've gone back with Watchtower a little bit. You've, you've done broken teeth, which you described as a, uh, ACDC but pissed, uh, igniter, which is kind of a, you've described as Dungeons and dragons. Metal. You've got a bunch of tribute bands, sad wings as Judas priest kill them all is, uh, Metallica. CIC is kiss, uh, and then, uh, Texas metal Outlaws is, that is, that covers attributes as well. So like a onetime thing. And then a Halloween Sycamore,

Jason McMaster: 1:12:03

uh, that was a real, that was the text. And metal Outlaws was a one time project of just a bunch of tech Texas metal guys. And the record is, there's a couple of good songs, but it's kind of, you know, the, the recording sessions were, you know, there was a lot of people turning in tracks and they're inconsistent with each other. And it was a fun little project, but it's not, it's not a band hadn't done a show in 25 years. So there's that sad wings play, sad wings plays once a year, kill them all, plays maybe twice a year. So those, those tribute things are just for fun.

Chuck Shute: 1:12:40

Yeah, that's cool though. Yeah. And then the headline says you've never played live with Allianz Sycamore cause he never met those guys. You've had two albums, but you've done it, um, through the power of the internet and stuff. Right?

Jason McMaster: 1:12:53

That's right.

Chuck Shute: 1:12:53

Yeah. And then evil United.

Jason McMaster: 1:12:55

Well, you know, I, I'm, I'm, yeah, you United has three records out howling. Sycamore has two records out. Broken teeth has been around 20 years. Um, we have like eight records out. Uh, none of these, none of these are really new at this point. Uh, igniter igniter has a new record coming out, uh, in August called the golden age of black magic and howling Sycamore is, those guys are writing, they're writing third howling Sycamore record right now. And I'm excited to hear what that, what that's going to be because that material is that trip.

Chuck Shute: 1:13:36

Yeah. Do you guys think you'll ever do a show for that band?

Jason McMaster: 1:13:41

Well, if we did, it would be like a showcase because you know, the sense of where I've never met him, we've never rehearsed. So we'd have to rehearse.

Chuck Shute: 1:13:53

And then you, you were, um, brought in to be the singer of dirty looks. Now did that just not happen because of the quarantine and all that stuff or is that going to maybe reschedule some of that?

Jason McMaster: 1:14:02

So that's, that's, that's been re that's been rescheduled. Uh, there is an October 3rd date and sellings Grove, Pennsylvania.

Chuck Shute: 1:14:10

And so is being in so many bands. Is that out of necessity or just a love of the music or a little bit of both?

Jason McMaster: 1:14:19

Well, it's an honor to be asked. Have you ever thought of, I said, I said no to a lot of cool shit.

Chuck Shute: 1:14:27

Really. What'd you say? No to? I heard you were asked to join Pantera at one point.

Jason McMaster: 1:14:32

I was not asked to join pan Tara. I was asked to do an audition

Chuck Shute: 1:14:36

audition, sorry.

Jason McMaster: 1:14:38

Only once. Yeah. Yeah. They called me once and then they called me twice and both times I was like, man, I'm in the middle of, I'm in the middle of doing something. I'm in the middle of a, of really trying to, you know, get, get this band, you know, off the ground and it's nice to be asked. Plus you have to remember, I was in a like a weird weirdo thrash metal band for almost a decade. And during that decade, for the most of that decade, Panthera was like a glam rock band.

Chuck Shute: 1:15:15

Right? Yeah, that's true. A lot of people don't know.

Jason McMaster: 1:15:17

And so when they, when they started to write, you know, really heavy, powerful, sort of almost thrashy kind of angry metal, you know, bro metal or whatever, I think some people call it for fun. Uh, you know, that was, that was, this is before Cowboys. You know, I hadn't heard anything from Cowboys, but I'd heard plenty of their other stuff with a different singer. I think they had a, you know, I would have, if I would've gotten that gig, I would have been on the record. That would have been, uh, the power metal album at home called power metal. So that would have been, um, uh, 80. Wow. Wow. That's a, that's a no, no, because that record came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but, but power metal was a couple of years prior to that, so probably 88. So yeah, it would have been 86 or 87. Uh, and, uh, when Sebastian lifts skid row, snake called me a couple of times and was really, him and Rachel really wanted me to audition for skid row.

Chuck Shute: 1:16:39

I was going to ask you, I think that would have been a great match.

Jason McMaster: 1:16:43

Well, so today and um, you know, I think that they write great songs and I think that if I'm going to know, I'm just not a huge fan. I still, I don't own any skid row. I, I think that there's, yeah. And I think that, you know, they're a, they're an excellent rock band and, and uh, you know, I think that, uh, I mean I might up one day and regret that decision to not even try, but I was trying to, I was trying to get toys, you know, back on the road and I was trying, we're trying to ride and get it together and we, we had just made some decisions and I guess that would have been like 93 or 94 or something like that.

Chuck Shute: 1:17:28

Wow. Wait, they asked you to join skid row in 93 and 94 cause I think they still had Sinatra

Jason McMaster: 1:17:32

not join, not, not join, join, join. Sebastian was gone. So whatever year he was gone when you left and snake and you know, here's a campfire and snake and Rachel are sitting around, well who do we want to try out? And my name was on the list. That's an audition. Maybe that's compliment.

Chuck Shute: 1:17:56

Yeah, would be, it'd be nice if they could get back with Sebastian, but I, it sounds like that's never going to happen. So

Jason McMaster: 1:18:04

no, he, he pissed in their cereal bowl.

Chuck Shute: 1:18:08

Oh he did? Yes.

Jason McMaster: 1:18:10

You know, for them to not get back together. I mean, you know, Axel never said he worked with those guns. Dude, look at it. I mean actual, his actual, his like he has really, really like been impressed the last 10 years. I mean all of the shit he's gotten to do, you know, that is that stint with AC DC was made everyone eat their fucking words, man. He just kicked that ass.

Chuck Shute: 1:18:38

Awesome. Are you a guns and roses?

Jason McMaster: 1:18:42

Yeah, I like the, I like the live like a suicide EAP and I liked the first record and there's some things that are kind of scattered after that. I mean, how can I not, how can I not like that? I mean, it's kind of like a great mix of rolling stones and punk rock and Aerosmith and heavy metal. And it's an excellent, excellent source of a historical, classic rock and punk and style also into this one rock and roll band. I mean, that's, that was like the savior of like what was going on, what was about to beat run shit that was going to be the light all the way through. That was a band like guns and roses. Even though Nirvana and Pearl jam were killing it all over town, if guns showed up, it was still a big deal.

Chuck Shute: 1:19:32

Absolutely. No, they're huge.

Jason McMaster: 1:19:35

Had all the grunge bands open for them. So they made it work. They made it fucking work, man. And so it's kind of important to rethink that, that all of the motherfuckers that were talking shit about grunge and pissed off about, you know, Oh man, I want metal. I want, you know, I want this and that. And the other thing, and it's like, well, if they're playing grunge on Headbangers ball right next to Bon Jovi.

Chuck Shute: 1:20:02

Yeah, no, I think Alison Chan's poison. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

Jason McMaster: 1:20:08

Yeah. And you know what? Uh, maybe I could've, should've, would've just left it alone, but I think that GNR kind of summed it up when they had all those kinds of bands be their opening bands.

Speaker 3: 1:20:17

No, that's very, I know, I love, I love all that stuff too. But I mean, I'm probably more partial to, uh, the, the rock stuff. Like I think of all your bands, a lot of your stuff. I think dangerous toys is probably my favorite. And now you guys are working on a new album with dangerous toys. I've heard some of the songs I've heard hold your horses. I saw you guys do that live in Denver. And then there's a new song called silver tongue. What does that one about?

Jason McMaster: 1:20:43

Um, it's pretty vague, but, uh, it's about talking shit, talking shit.

Speaker 3: 1:20:52

Okay. And then there's a song called

Jason McMaster: 1:20:55

said that the hook, the hook is a blister on your silver tongue. Like if you were going to put a spell on somebody, I hope you get a blister on your silver tongue there. You know, because you're, you're talking shit, you're a used car salesman. You think you're all hot shit and you got this all going on and yet what do you do? What are you going to do if you get a blister on that tongue, you know, and you're, then you're fucked. Cause that's all you got.

Speaker 3: 1:21:20

Right. That's good. And then the pretend it's candy song. That's a great song title. And then the lyrics are even better. It's, you've, you've kind of given us a preview of that. Pretend it's candy. Yank my doodle. It's a dandy. If you keep this up, I may come in handy. I love like the tongue of chic of that. That's so great. I'm excited. When is this record coming out? Is there any potential dates for that?

Jason McMaster: 1:21:43

Well, well, uh, to not make a pun, everyone needs to hold their horses because what's really happening is a slow death because we've tracked a couple of couple of these songs, uh, that we, you just mentioned and um, you know, there's been a few mishaps that have, or just life, uh, things that have happened that have really kind of slowed us down. Um, you know, we don't like scenario when, when we were high on the hog, we were, we were all living in close proximity. Well now we're all over the place and it's really hard for us to get together to write. So it turns into, you know, two or three of us writing via the internet, right. Recording parts. And I did this, put something down on it, cool. I here, I added this, now you do something. And that's just pretty much how everything is done now. Uh, unless you're going to go camp out in the studio, but that's a fantasy. No one does that anymore. They have home studio. People are emailing, you know, drum tracks to the guitar players and the guitar players are emailing those tracks to the singer for the singer to demo out his what he's going to do. You know, that's just how it is. And then they ended up just making a record like that. Especially during quarantine.

Speaker 3: 1:23:14

Yeah. Are there any covers on the new toys record? If not, I'd like to make a suggestion at hear me out. The John Fogarty song, the old man down the road, I think you guys could kill that song.

Jason McMaster: 1:23:29

Yeah. Uh, I love John Fogarty, but I'm probably the only one in the band that would be game for something like crazy like that cause that'd be kinda crazy.

Speaker 3: 1:23:39

Oh yeah. I just think that metal version of that would sound really cool.

Jason McMaster: 1:23:45

Yeah. I don't think the toys are metal, but you know, again, I'm not, I'm not dissing anyone's opinion of that. I'm doing a dangerous toys version.

Speaker 3: 1:23:55

That's what I mean. You guys are, you wouldn't call yourself metal. I mean, well you described it as books metal I think is what you've said before, right?

Jason McMaster: 1:24:05

Yup, yup, yup, yup. That's a, that's a thing that makes you want to lay off the metal part because boogie metal, uh, I think, I think Jackal, I, I've called and they probably would like it, but like redneck metal.

Speaker 3: 1:24:22

No, that's good. I like that. Well, you're all done

Jason McMaster: 1:24:26

and there's a bunch of that. There's a bunch of that out there. Like Michael Hannon, I mentioned him. He has a band called American dog and their total redneck metal, they might even have a record called that for a song called that. So, you know, it does exist. All of this combo convoluted, you know, let's, let's, let's name this style and put it in a box and put it on the end of the shelf with all the other sub genres of what is just fucking rock roll. So, um, we don't have enough, we don't have enough. Uh, we don't have enough on tape to call it a dangerous toys record, Chuck. It's the, it's still, it's on him. It's on a shelf. It's on a back burner. There's nothing going on because of the quarantine and go back further because, uh, you know, personal things have happened to some of us that have really slowed us down that, you know, we need to heal and uh, there's, you know, shit, shit gets in the way. Life gets in the way of rock and roll. You don't think about it when you're a young person. You know, you don't really look at that. You just want chill coming out. You know, I get asked that every day. It's like, well, you know, think about the world right now. I got an email deal. What are you guys playing in my town? If you take a look around, no one,

Speaker 3: 1:25:48

right?

Jason McMaster: 1:25:50

No one's flying right now. Why are you asking me this stupid question?

Speaker 3: 1:25:54

Well, your old tour mates, Torah Torah, they just, they're going to release a five song acoustic EAP. Would you guys ever do that for the toys? Like I think promise the heard it all.

Speaker 6: 1:26:03

Those might sound really kind of cool acoustic. Would you ever do like a little acoustic EAP?

Jason McMaster: 1:26:10

Well, the last thing I want to do is make my drummer

Speaker 6: 1:26:13

hammering

Chuck Shute: 1:26:15

true. True. Yeah. I can,

Jason McMaster: 1:26:18

because people, what people know you for, they really expect that.

Chuck Shute: 1:26:23

Yeah.

Jason McMaster: 1:26:25

Um, you know, bunch of old fat dudes

Speaker 6: 1:26:28

with balding long hair kind of thing going on, trying to

Jason McMaster: 1:26:34

fit in their skinny jeans, uh, playing acoustic just sounds and looks in my mind like a funny, retarded video. It doesn't sound good to me. I'm not calling anyone who's doing that, uh, old or fat or bald or anything. I'm just trying to create a scenario to get myself out of you thinking it's a good idea.

Speaker 6: 1:26:55

Yeah. You're laughing. That was supposed to be funny. Yeah. You're not loving my ideas right now, but, um, let's see what else. Okay. It's not, you know, don't take it Purdue. Don't take it personal. Man.

Jason McMaster: 1:27:10

I was asked to do, check this out. This is for real. Somebody asked me the other day, and God bless them because they, they think they seemingly think I hung the moon or something because I did an interview with this guy, uh, and it went really well and we got along great and it was a fun thing much like this, by the way, this is a very cool thing that we've got going on here. So, and he emails me back and goes, dude, our interview just like totally lit up the whole sky. Everyone here, it was somebody in Fargo, North Dakota and all, man, I'm playing your music even more now we're getting more requests and requests. People do that shit when they can just turn on the,

Speaker 6: 1:27:53

yeah,

Jason McMaster: 1:27:53

their phone and a song comes up. People are requesting, I guess it's happening in Fargo anyway. Bless their hearts, man. Rock and roll. That's just real. So, so he's saying, man, everything, you know, he's just saying it was just so great and the world is on fire with my name and I, man, that's fucking awesome. And he goes, I have this idea. Here's who's already done it and who's gonna do it? They're on the calendar, it's going to be awesome. And what it is, it's like a Facebook live streaming performance.

Chuck Shute: 1:28:19

Okay. What do you think of those? Do you like those?

Jason McMaster: 1:28:23

Well, if, if, if it weren't quarantine, I'm not excited about being in a room with even my own bandmates that means they're assuming that I'm just going to pick up an acoustic guitar and you know, seeing some Willie Nelson, which will be fucking awesome, but I'm not prepared to do that. You know, it's like fuck, I'm going to have to put a set together. I'm have to work on this shit and I'm terrible and I can play guitar just fine. I teach guitar, that's my day job. I'm a music teacher so, so, so, you know, but I'm, I'm not good enough to just go on there and excite people. I can on it thing like Bob Dylan if they want, but that's not going to do that. So I cordially was very gentlemanly, declining, respectfully declined. I appreciate the love, but I just can't do that because you don't know what that is. See me with an attitude, acoustic scene and you know, rocket man, that's awesome to me, but not awesome to someone who wants to rock out to and policing and they're not going to hear that. They're not going to hear that.

Chuck Shute: 1:29:33

Yeah. So I mean, you've had a lot of,

Jason McMaster: 1:29:34

I feel like it would, I feel like it would kind of suck for them. And you know, there's going to be comments people going, Whoa, this is long. This is a long way away from what I expected. You know? And it's like, I don't want to give people the bait.

Chuck Shute: 1:29:49

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, you have a lot of, uh, accolades. You're inducted in the Texas, Texas music hall of fame. You have a star on the South Texas music walk of fame. Uh, I don't know if you know this. Rolling stones, uh, rolling. So named your dangerous toys, debut number, the number 29 best hair metal album of all time. Uh, one of my favorite things that you did that was really cool. We, you ha ha. I think, I don't know if it was just once but multiple times. But you were on that metal show and you're in the audience and they, they come and talk to you for a little bit. And you've said, uh, well, I know Eddie, he just played your dangerous toy song a couple of days ago on the radio and you said that Dawn Jamison and Jim Florentine have come to see broken teeth. Are you, uh, close with those guys? Like an Eddy trunk? I know Eddie, you and Eddie trunk seemed to have the exact same, uh, musical backgrounds in terms of what you're, you're both fans of rush UFO and kiss and all that stuff.

Jason McMaster: 1:30:41

Oh yeah, yeah. Um, no, none of us are closed. All those Jersey guys. I love those guys and I have lot of respect for them and, and they're, they're super talented and the whole comedian thing and the, and the act that they have going on, the personas that they have are just, that's really who they are. And it's fucking great that they're these metal fans and that metal show and that Eddie thought of them first. And you know, to have a show is like Eddie doing it by himself. God bless him. You know, that might've been a little bit boring. I like it that, you know, people loved it or hated that metal show. The guys in kiss called it Wayne's world, you know who went there once to watch Wayne's world. That's stupid. And at the same time, and that same time that Willis, he's right, the guys in kiss are right. It is Wayne's world, the original Wayne's world. You know, it's like they have rockstars on, they go, Hey man, you're awesome. We love you. Now what? Oh man, what kind of food do you know? Stupid shit. You know? And I love it. There's no music. You know, they're just talking shit. That's cool. And uh, yeah, and uh, the story about how I met Jim was, uh, he was in Austin doing his comedy act and he went on the morning show of the local rock radio station. And back then I was not getting up like old man early on. Now I get up early as fuck. And back then I was, I slept till at least noon or one, you know, started my day at three or whatever the fuck. And so it's like, dude, it's like 8:00 AM and my phones ran. And I'm like, who the fuck is someone dead? You know, that's, you know when that happens. But something was always bad news and my buddy was calling me going and they're talking about you on the radio right now. It's like, man, anyone who's up this early talking about me that likes him, my kind of music, why are they up this early? If they like what I do cause they know, you know, rock and roll, people don't get up at 7:00 AM I hung up. And then another dude called me that I barely knew this guy. Uh, I can't remember his name right now. I'll feel terrible. He's in this other band in town and might've been Dave. And he was in the band, the crumb bombs, punk rock man. And he's a big comedy fan. So he was all over it. And Jim ends up meeting him somewhere and Dave knew enough because he's local, right? Knew enough people. He got my, he got my phone number and called me later in the day. He's like, Hey man, it's Dave from the Chrome bumps. Oh, Hey dude, what's up man? Man, Jim Florentine really wants to, man, he's such a cute. Anyway, let me back up. They were on the radio show. I found out what was going on. What had happened was, is the morning show guys, and it's a comedy show, you know what I mean? And he was there plugging his show that night at the laugh factory or whatever the hell, right? So he said, yeah, I'm in town. It's my first time in Austin. And uh, and I'm playing nights or the laptop or whatever. What are you, uh, we into? What are you doing? You know, Austin, pretty awesome towns, music town. And he goes, yeah, I'm pretty bummed at my favorite band. Broken teeth is not playing tonight night while I'm here. And they got the DJ tripped out and they're like, well, we know Jason. We know that guy. He's like, Oh man, that guy bought their album. They're great. They're kind of like ACDC of that. And just basically plugging the shit out of broken teeth on the morning show. And again, I'm thinking, who the hell is listening to this? But it's pretty bad ass. This, this guy, I don't know who's the comedian who's up and coming, uh, you know, cranking anchors and all that. Uh, he's talking about books. That's the time we only had a couple of records out, you know, two or three, maybe a couple. And so it's still early two thousands, you know, 2005, maybe, something like that. And uh, so later in the year, later on in the day, Dave crumble calls me and says, dude, he was, he loves broken teeth, man, and he's going to put you on the list and was hoping that that, can I give him your phone number? Cause I'm kind of in the lobby of his hotel right now. Oh shit. Okay. Fuck. And he's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, give him a number. So, so he calls me or I called him or whatever and we chat, we make a plan and I showed up to his gig that night with a backpack full of swag.

Chuck Shute: 1:35:32

That's so cool.

Jason McMaster: 1:35:33

I brought you, I brought you a gift man. And he talked about broken teeth and his act that night. Hey you guys like rock and roll and the whole crowd, this guy broken T's. I'm really in, you know, and he was using, he usually uses one of his favorite pants and in his act somehow, you know, here's this chick and she's doing this and she's doing that and I'm listening, I'm listening to broken teeth while I'm, well she's blowing me right. And then the punchline or whatever. So he just mentioned, you know, he's not telling a joke about a band. He's using the band as fodder. Right?

Chuck Shute: 1:36:07

Yeah. Give you a little publicity. That's good.

Jason McMaster: 1:36:10

Right? So, and this is pre monsters of rock cruises and all that. And so now it's just historical, um, you know that metal show and they talked about broken teeth and they, they always mention me on there and sort of around about alumni. Well that's how rock and roll people are, man. It's a, it's a family.

Chuck Shute: 1:36:33

Yeah. Is there any other new bands? I know you're like Danko Jones and airborne. Are you a fan of like Gretta van fleet is kind of like a led Zepplin sounding band or the struts are kind of like sound like the queen. I mean there's seems like there's a lot of these retro sounding bands popping up. Do you like those or do you, are you more just into the original stuff?

Jason McMaster: 1:36:53

I'm more into the original stuff, but I appreciate someone who's wearing their influence on their sleeve cause I sure do. So there's a whole lot of, uh, bands, bands you mentioned. They're, they're, they're great. Um, but, uh, this sounds terrible. I don't go out and buy their records, you know. Uh, but if there's a new Testament record or something like that, I'll go by that, you know, um, if there's a new Danco I'll try to buy that. I usually don't have to cause he's sending me that.

Chuck Shute: 1:37:26

Yeah, that's really cool. So,

Jason McMaster: 1:37:29

and there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of like, uh, stylistic bands that are just really bad ass that are flying the plane, flying the flag, just like broken Tito's, dirty fast rock and roll that still not heavy metal. But I think you think that it's heavy metal because it has a classic sound yet it's brand new. See what I mean? I love that about all of the bands. I think that it's important. And being music teacher, I'm hearing about those bands and or maybe having to learn how to play one of their songs in order to teach it to my students. So there's that.

Speaker 3: 1:38:04

Yeah. So you work with the kids at school rock, that's your day job.

Jason McMaster: 1:38:09

And adults, I teach, I teach all ages. My youngest student is a six year old and my oldest is probably,

Speaker 3: 1:38:18

Oh, that's, that's super cool. Um, well I like to end each episode talking about a charity. You mentioned the central Texas food bank. Can you tell me a little bit about the work that they do? I mean, it sounds pretty self explanatory, but

Jason McMaster: 1:38:32

yeah, there's not really anything else to say about it. Um, they, you know, they feed thousands in central Texas every day and they, people donate. I'm sure that people donate money, uh, all day long because, uh, you know, much like all of the other foundations and charities, you know, very little money can buy a lot of meals for a lot of people and just people on welfare and people who just aren't doing real hot right now mentally and socially because they have, they've had to adapt and they don't have the resources. They have to drive their car. I'm getting gas cheap, you know, and they have to drive their car and sit there in their car in line and expose themselves just to, that's bad. But you know what I mean? To, uh, to the virus to, to, to just get some food to make it through the week. And, um, you know, I'm not, I'm not suckered into all of the, you know, the commercials and the ads, but, you know, I think that to try to give some back here locally, I mean, Texas is a big, big state and, um, I think that everyone's gonna be fine throughout this because I just have a lot of hope, but I really think that it's a good idea to, for everyone to try to give to their local food bank.

Speaker 3: 1:39:52

Absolutely. That's very cool. Well, you've accomplished so much in your career. I know you're not done. I look forward to that new dangerous toys album, whatever, however long it takes to do that and hopefully some shows. Um, is there anything I've left out or anything else you want to promote?

Jason McMaster: 1:40:09

Um, no. You know, the new igniter, the new, the possibilities of a new, a howling Sycamore within a year or so, uh, hopefully gainers toys will get off our slow old ass and do some more recording cause we have a bunch of songs. So that's not the problem. Uh, and uh, but I'm looking forward to a lot of new, uh, making a lot of new music for people. Um, you know, I'm, I'm still writing and teaching. Uh, I'm still alive.

Speaker 3: 1:40:41

That's good.

Jason McMaster: 1:40:43

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me on your show.

Speaker 3: 1:40:46

Thanks for being honest. That was a lot of fun.

Jason McMaster: 1:40:48

It's my favorite. My favorite thing to do is talk about rock and roll.

Speaker 3: 1:40:52

Absolutely. Any you're welcome back. Thanks

Chuck Shute: 1:40:54

so much for coming on.

Speaker 8: 1:40:56

All right one. You too, Jason. Bye bye. Bye. Bye.

Chuck Shute: 1:41:00

This was such a fun interview. I love talking metal and rock music, especially with one of the best people in the business. So I want to thank Jason for coming on my show. Check out all his stuff on his website, Jason mcmaster.net. The link is in the notes or you can Google it. Um, and that should have links to all his social media, the different pages for all the bands that he's in, as well as merchandise and basically everything you need. Um, you can find me on all the social media as well. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to write me a review on iTunes or Facebook. Um, and if you don't want to miss any upcoming episodes, make sure you hit that subscribe button. Thank you so much for listening and making it through this episode. I hope you have a great day or night.

Speaker 9: 1:41:54

[inaudible].