Lance Reegan-Diehl Interview - The Final on Vinyl Podcast

It was a pleasure to speak to Lance Reegan-Diehl after all these years! I have been covering his music through reviews and press releases for 19 years now!

Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:14

Hello everybody, this is Keith MuzikMan Hannaleck with the Final on Vinyl Podcast. And today we are with Lance Reegan-Diehl, who actually I've been working with off and on for the last nineteen years. How about that, Lance? Did you know it was that long?

Speaker 1 0:31

Actually, I didn't know it was that long, and and you know, I started to look back on it and I'm like, yeah, I'm just I was I remember the 15 year mark, and that hit me a couple days ago, and I'm like, wait a minute, it's been more than 50 now, so uh it's awesome actually.

Speaker 2 0:47

Yeah, it is. There's not a lot of people in uh the music world I can say that about, you know, and enjoyed your music over the years and and working with you on your your music, doing reviews and your press releases and so forth. And uh most recently uh I appreciated the fact that you contacted me again and gave me some news about uh the fact you were voted as one of the top ten guitarists in Vancouver, is that correct?

Speaker 1 1:14

Yes, that is true. I just found out about that pretty recently myself, so I thought it uh I thought it might be good to well, renew our friendship again and uh bring up some of the news of I've been creating and you know, that's uh it's kind of a bit of a stir for me to to have that, you know, sort of you know, I've been I've been spending a bit of time in in Canada in BC and uh you know that just popped up and I'm I I think one of the main things that surprised me about that list was it it was written by a a forty year veteran of the music industry, um a writer, and you know, out of his forty years in Vancouver, that's his top ten. So I think that's that's something, you know, I that's what I think. I just really did uh set me back and I just kind of thought I was you know, I'd like to I'd like to tell people about Steve and tell people about all that stuff. So here we are.

Speaker 2 2:13

If I were you, I'd do the same. I'd be pretty excited about that. And uh uh you've been living in South Korea for many years. Did you decide to move back back to Vancouver or are you just visiting there?

Speaker 1 2:25

Um well we we decided at this point um to spend a you know, spend some time in Canada. So we've kind of kind of I guess we're we'll always just be between two two countries, and that's that's that's where we sort of let it sit. Um, you know, yeah, because we've got I guess both s both sides of the Pacific, we have things we enjoy, and that's you know, that's probably the way it's gotta be.

Speaker 2 2:48

So So you have a family.

Speaker 1 2:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 2:52

Uh I do.

Speaker 1 2:56

I do, and and then with my family, we're we're together, but um we've decided to either side of the Pacific, where we go, we just call it home. That's the way we feel now. So it's alright.

Speaker 3:08

Right.

Speaker 1 3:08

But yeah, we'll be back in Korea shortly. Uh we're gonna go back there and uh coming up, so it'll be it'd be nice, you know, to spend some time over there as well.

Speaker 2 3:17

So what was it like for you growing up in Canada and w whatever made you decide to go to South Korea? Did you meet your present spouse there or what happened?

Speaker 1 3:28

Well, you know, uh the decision came along, um I guess things a a few factors, you know, uh ninety six I was doing cruise ships, right? And then uh I was also playing, you know, in my original band and doing uh quite a few things. And playing in an R and B band and um I was uh working at uh Greenhouse Studios and working at Red Stripe, um which, you know, ties in with, you know, a lot a lot of artists out of Vancouver have worked to these places. Um but what what came up I think was initially the traveling, you know. Um plus I think what sort of spurred it was, you know, okay, I get to go play and if I'm kind of not really attached, I have a chance to save a bit of money, which was kind of the goal. Uh 'cause a few expenses had caught up to me and there was so there was the travel bug and the fact that, okay, well, you know, if I stay out there and just save a bit of money, maybe it'll can balance things out like that. So I decided to do a couple years of that. Um and it turned into twenty-five years of that. That that's literally how it happened, you know, and I mean maybe you've experienced this where you kind of embark on an adventure or of sorts, and then it leads you to something else. You go, well, I might like to try that too. And then so it just ends up I mean, and literally ends up being step by step where you know, it's i I yeah, that's that's literally I think what what spurred it on. I I had always kind of wanted to see other parts of the world, whether it be playing music or just traveling. Um, you know, I was fortunate that I could go go play music and and do that. Um you know, and and and all all the times that I even got to travel in in Europe and all around Southeast Asia, you know, I I made a point of getting out to see places. You know, I didn't I didn't just do the show and stay in the hotel room. I booked off a few extra days to go do stuff, and it was uh yeah, I think that's that's kind of been the driving force uh behind it, you know.

Speaker 2 5:45

I see. Do you remember when you sent me the Jam Mate guitar years ago?

Speaker 1 5:51

Oh yeah, that was in the two thousand and seven and eight era, right?

Speaker 2 5:56

Yeah.

unknown 5:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2 5:57

So what happened was I ended up giving it to my son and he just took off, took off with uh he had a few guitar lessons and just uh playing the guitar ever since.

Speaker 1 6:07

You know, so I did that.

Speaker 2 6:10

Yeah, you did. You did that.

Speaker 1 6:13

That's pretty awesome, man.

Speaker 2 6:15

That's cool, huh?

Speaker 1 6:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2 6:18

So Maniacal Savern was your uh your last album that I covered, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Your your instrumental rock is awesome, yeah. I've always loved it.

Speaker 1 6:26

Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 6:26

Is there any any uh plans to to make another recording? I know it's not the easiest thing in the world to do and it takes time, but any plans for that?

Speaker 1 6:36

Yeah, um I I recently this is a funny one, I recently uncovered uh I uncovered some lost tapes, and and I'm not kidding you. Some some recordings that I'd thought I'd lost. And I I I ended up acquiring a a really a really good quality cassette deck, and so I was able to play these tapes once into my computer and recover them all. And um I'm just deciding what to do with them. Uh and then uh the o the the bass player I used to work with um years ago, uh like thirty-five years ago, and uh we went to college he's a college together, but Danny Remko, he uh showed up with some bass parts and now he put together a bit of a demo tune and so we were kinda going through and I said I found all these recordings, I found some of those shrapnel records stages we'd played on and stuff like that and he's like he's just like I don't even remember doing that and and then you know but I talked to him and he's like, Wow, you found that so we found all this stuff and now we guess I I I was so that aspect I was thinking of doing a couple songs with Dan and then then release all these recordings we knew we never had, you know. So there there's that.

Speaker 2 8:01

Um That'd be great, man. I'd love to love to hear that stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:05

Well yeah, I I dug that up. Um as far as another n newer recording, um yeah, I'm I'm just geared up to do that and I I have a couple of you know, a couple of recording projects I'm I'm working on and playing on. Um but I I I do suspect there's another instrumental coming out. Um at some point, you know, I just it's little little germs of ideas have been sprouting up and I put them away and you know, just put away little drum machine parts with guitar parts and riffs and C, you know, you you should revisit 'em until something kind of manifests itself in some way some respect. So absolutely.

Speaker 8:47

Okay.

Speaker 2 8:47

Any uh idea of uh putting putting all your catalog out on vinyl? Have have any labels reached out to you and say let's get all your your recordings on vinyl or have you thought about it yourself, 'cause it as you know, it's gotten really big again.

Speaker 1 9:00

So Yeah, I've seen that. Um I I d I don't know if I I don't know if I want to do that. Yeah, it's it's interesting, you know, that to have that big vinyl record. But uh no, I haven't I I know I know a couple of people that have. I know uh Thor and Al Harlow have put out limited vinyl you know, more as more as a collector piece and and something like that.

Speaker 9:31

Sure.

Speaker 1 9:33

But yeah, but it's it's it is interesting. I I have a record player again, which is funny. I didn't think I'd ever have a record player again, but I do.

Speaker 2 9:41

So you're great. So what did your collection look like? What do you have do you have stuff that you grew up on? Your stuff from the sixty seventies? What do you have?

Speaker 1 9:51

Yeah, I I I did. I did I found you know, it's I think as it goes in life you you sort of set aside things and I had a few records in boxes and I've dug through them and pulled them out and I've I've found I found some of the the old records I had. I've just I just found what, I found John Luke Ponty, I found Frank Zappa, I found the Jeff Beck, I found the original albums I had and you know most of my rush collection was there, things like that. You just sort of like, oh wow. So you know yeah, definitely too. I think the records I I I have put on are the ones that I don't quite have on digital. So I put them on and listen to them again and go, Oh yeah, I remember that 'cause he's you know, used to used to put my song on the turntable and slow things down to listen to l listen to passages, right?

Speaker 2 10:46

Right. I was just gonna ask you that kinda follow the line with my next question. Uh how old were you when you picked up your first guitar and what were some of your influences?

Speaker 1 10:56

Yeah. The the thing was guitar and piano and other instruments were all around us. All all of uh me and my siblings as kids, we all had you know, we all had parents and grandparents that kind of played on and off, so um that that was there, you know, from an early early stage and we found all the vinyl records when we were really young and we'd put them on and you know, we'd always be listening to something. I mean, you know. So th um, but I I would say first picking up the guitar and kind of like not playing it but kind of like having one around. I was about seven or eight years old I think. And then um you know, lessons and that didn't come along till I was probably about ten. But we're still talking in the seventies, you know, when I picked it up and um yeah. I mean it I think it was only about two or three years of lessons and then I was fully on to running with it, you know. Picked up twenty one twelve and then, you know, uh Blizzard of Oz came along shortly after that.

Speaker 2 12:08

Class classic metal, yeah.

Speaker 1 12:10

Cla classic metal, absolutely. Yeah, uh you know, uh growing up in the house that was mainly influenced by fifties, rock and roll and and country music. Great great roots. I mean I still can go back to that and I remember lots of that stuff and you know, it's it it's today even gigging, I play I play some country sets and I play with you know, very you know, a band that does a variety of stuff and it's all good. I mean it's it's it's just good fun music getting out there and playing that's it's that's what that's what musicians do. So I never shied away from that, that's for sure. So But yeah.

Speaker 2 12:48

Is that always been your main source of income or other other things you've done?

Speaker 1 12:53

Um, yeah, for the most part, you know, I've I I would say uh you know, especially in Korea, Japan, like session work was the mainstay for me for a lot of years, you know. Um developed my own studio out of that and then it became concerts and festivals and you know, other things that just all tied into it, right? So, you know, it's yeah, I mean with with a comp musical music company you're we start running systems as well and sending those out for the weekend and Yeah, pretty soon it gets it gets fairly busy and you know, it's like, Oh yeah, I got a couple of shows to do and amongst all this stuff and yeah, so yeah, it's been it's been pretty good. I mean it's uh led me into some interesting pathways being in the R and D department in in uh well, Jam Mate. I was in the R and D department on Jam Mate with that and Apple Air companies and developing products was the next step and Yeah. Yeah, I think I think if I if I f flip back to early influences, there was, you know I had older brother and all his friends and they were all into like basically like Pink Floyd and Rush and you know, th those kind of things for the that early late seventies rock and rollers, Van Halen and Aerosmith and I that stuff was, you know, you you're just listening to it. It's around all the time, you hear it, right? You know, and then uh you know, sort of ten years after it was still in there. I remember listening to that, you know.

Speaker 2 14:27

Um still great to this day. I I think.

Speaker 1 14:31

Yeah, yeah, it's still great, absolutely. I I remember listening to you know, Johnny Cash was one of the early ones, you'd hear that, you know, those g guitar riffs on there. I mean Elvis Records were all over the place. I remember listening basically Scotty Moore, right?

Speaker 14:44

Oh yeah, Scotty, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:46

Yeah, and then um yeah, so I think I I think I had a pretty broad range of influences when I was younger. I mean, uh I definitely got into the Randy Rhodes Van Halen vein when I was vi in in high school. You know, that was Steve's Steve Stevens was you know, Billy Idol, right? Billy Idol was big, so you're like, oh, you know, so you just start checking out all kinds of players, right? Stuff like that.

Speaker 2 15:10

Oh Steve's awesome, definitely.

Speaker 1 15:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2 15:14

You ever listen to any of his uh solo stuff?

Speaker 1 15:17

Yeah, I did. I um uh there was the Atomic Playboys and way back in a long time ago I I had I had a chance to uh check out some of the early stuff. I think he was with S Stu Ham was playing with him on that.

Speaker 15:33

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 15:34

Yeah. Yeah, I remember that stuff a long long time ago.

Speaker 2 15:41

One of the other things I wanted to say to you is yeah, my appreciation for your support of the veteran community. I'm a veteran myself and my father was a World War II vet and I just really appreciate your support of that community. It's important.

Speaker 1 15:55

Oh yeah, I always no, you're very welcome. I I have family members of the exact same same way and um yeah. You know, in in one way or another it it was always I would say it was always great to to work with the military audiences and just just just go play and some of these shows were just so amazing, the stages, you know. I mean I remember going out in the bushes on marine carriers and playing on the back of marine carriers in the middle of nowhere. The military is very regimented and then there's this rock and roll band in amongst all of this, you know. It's quite amazing.

Speaker 2 16:40

But I remember the ships I was on, they we had bands that would be rocking out on the on the deck. I was on an amphibious ship when I started with the the gate drops down for the Marines and then I went to a supply ship, so I know what you're talking about there.

Speaker 1 16:55

Oh yeah, I know. Yeah, those those are amazing ships. We had one we played on a ship called the USS Essex.

Speaker 2 17:06

I remember that one. Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 17:08

Yeah. Yeah, and we had got to go play inside on that. We got the the full tour of the the ship. It's they're massive, you know. I I remember where we played was one of the hangar bays, and there's three of them, and they're just huge. Um it was uh it's quite an quite a new experience to see that. You know, you you get to see a hovercraft parked in there. You walk you know, you bring your gear past a parked hovercraft. So yeah. Yeah, quite amazing.

unknown 17:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:36

But an aircraft carrier? With the SX aircraft carrier or no?

Speaker 1 17:41

It's a jump carrier.

Speaker 2 17:43

A jump carrier. I never oh, I never heard of that. What's that?

Speaker 1 17:45

That's a they call it well it's not it's not as big as an aircraft carrier, but it's still it still carried aircraft.

Speaker 17:53

I see.

Speaker 1 17:55

So I don't know where the jump comes from myself, but I know that a lot of the vehicles are vertical takeoff vehicles, um, and uh hovercrafts pop out of the front end of those. I think that's how they work. Um yeah, it's it's called the Iron Gator. It's kind of a famous ship, so yeah. Well yeah, it's appreciate all that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:22

Well it's uh it's been great talking to you finally after all these years, almost twenty years. Uh it's amazing how this time has flown by and I I hope that we can do this again. I know there's many artists I have done this with, you know, three times. Uh we we could we could do this for all the the uh reboots you got coming out of the new stuff, uh if you decide to do that and we could talk about all that music, you know.

Speaker 1 18:47

Oh yeah, no, that'd be fantastic to do that. I mean, uh that's that's something that I'm I'm I'm sort of working on just in the background, you know, as uh yeah, I'm I'm I I'm playing pretty regularly, um, which you know keeps me busy. And then, you know, uh family life of course, I mean, you know, it's you know, you gotta you gotta stick with that. I th I have my son kind of starting on guitar now, he's plunking around on it and he's sort of catching the fun of it, but you know I I think it takes a few years for it to really catch on, but uh he's he's musical. I know that, you know, as he's gotten that from uh from me and his mother, that's for sure.

Speaker 19:26

So Well that's cool.

unknown 19:28

Yeah.

Speaker 19:28

That's good.

Speaker 1 19:29

But I had to tell you, I mean, I I've I played the the Star Spangled Banner every single Fourth of July for about twenty five years, and you know, I uh every time it was just one of those things I d I don't I I I kind of would would pull like Hendricks and Malmstein influences to my version of it, but it was you know, it was always it was always a highlight of every year for me to go and do that, right? And uh I have met so many people, I've got so many friends that are in the in the armed forces like around the world. I'm still in touch with a lot of them and you know, even some of them remember, you know, back in two thousand two when you were playing, so it's really fun, a lot of good great memories. So I mean I uh I was basically a contractor with music for the military, but um still I I think uh somewhere in there I raised morale and did my best for the welfare and resource of of the service people.

Speaker 2 20:30

So that's I'm sure you did. You created a legacy just with that alone, and uh greatly appreciated. So I will uh I'll get all this over to you as soon as I go through it, Lance, and uh thanks so much today for your time and talk to you again soon.

Speaker 1 20:46

All right, Keith, it's great talking to you. Have a wonderful evening.

Speaker 2 20:51

You too. Take care.

Speaker 1 20:53

Bye, bye bye. Yep.