March 26, 2021 • 24 mins
On "The Aftershow", producer Mandi Wimmer, dives deeper into Brian Ray’s interview with Orianthi to get his take on Orianthi’s experiences with Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper and being bullied for her dream to be a musician. Brian shares how the Miami Dolphins are responsible for how he and Orianthi first met and how this podcast, "On Tour with Brian Ray", came to be.
Check out Orianthi’s music at: https://iamorianthi.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
You're listening to the After Show, the Bonus episode series
for On Tour with Brian Ray. This is a production
of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media and I'm
your host, Mandy Wimmer. In the after Show, We're going
to dive a little deeper into Brian's thoughts on certain
parts of the interviews, as well as expound a bit
more on his own experiences on tour. We also want
to interact with you, so if you have a question
(00:34):
for Brian, shoot us a message on social media. We
are at on Tour pod on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In this episode, we get Brian's take on orient They's
experiences with Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper being bullied for her
dream to be a musician, and how the Miami Dolphins
deserve credit for how Brian and Orienty first met. We
(00:56):
also discuss how On Tour with Brian Ray came to
be in the place, and start with a recent collaboration
for an original song Brian Orienty did since their interview.
Here's my conversation with Brian Ray. Hello, Brian, how are you?
(01:20):
I'm great, many, thank you, how are you well? Welcome
to the after Show. The Bonus Episode series for your
show on tour Man. What a blast? Yeah, episode one
after show number one. Yes, so a little bit of
a role reversal here. You're in the hot seat this time.
Are you nervous? Yeah? I am kind of shaking, but
(01:42):
just from the waist down. Well, let's get started, because
Orienty the interview that dropped this week really amazing. Lots
of lots of incredible things that you guys talked about.
So we have quite a bit of things to get
through here that we want to dive into a little
bit deeper and just kind of get your opinion on. Plus,
you and Orienty have collaborated since this interview, which is
(02:03):
really cool. Yeah, yeah, sure we We were approached by
you as a matter of fact. Yeah, it's crazy, uh
by Black Barrel Media to do a theme song for
Bonnie and Clyde podcast written and hosted by your brother
Chris Swimmer. It's all in the family over here. And
(02:24):
um so, I I love the idea. And at first
we hadn't. I had a little misunderstand I thought you
wanted to do my first suggestion, which was the Bonnie
and Clyde Serge Gainsborough version, and and you said, no,
how about something original. I went, okay. So, you know,
what we found out through a lot of research is
(02:45):
that we could use Bonnie Parker's original poem because she
meant it to be used. It's left in the public domain.
And so we sort of adapted the lyrics and made
it sort of work for a song that was yet unwritten.
And you know, we worked on the lyrics, carving them
to fit and and made the music fit, and I
(03:06):
think it came out really good. What do you think? Well,
I absolutely loved it. And this show was a historical
true crime show called Infamous America, and Bonnie and Clyde
are clearly to the most infamous outlaws in American history.
And so for this show, we needed it to be
a duet, and we had you, we had our Clyde,
and we needed a Bonnie. And you immediately said, well,
that should be Oriente. Bonnie. Should be Oriented, should be Bonnie.
(03:29):
And I thought, wow, you know, yeah, I mean, orient
is clearly a badass guitar player, but honestly, very naively,
I'd never heard her sing, and um, she absolutely killed it.
I mean her voice is insane, yeah, really good. Well,
she added just the right kind of soulfulness and uh,
you know, just remarkable. She did like I don't know,
(03:49):
three takes in the studio and it was done. It
was crazy. And I've since gone and actually listened to
her solo music. Oh that just came out is incredible.
It went to the top of the charts obviously in
its first week. Um, you know, and I've listened to
a lot of her according to you, I mean, I've
listened to a ton of her music now since then.
I just incredible, an incredible, well rounded artist. I mean,
she's not just a guitar player, no doubt about it.
(04:12):
And it's great to kick off this podcast series with
a female who's younger rather than you know, just another dude,
you know, which nothing wrong with just another There will
be a lot of dudes. There's gonna be a lot
of it. But you know, the opening caveat being with
Oriante makes me very happy. And so how did you
guys originally meet? Okay, so that goes back to round
(04:34):
two ten. I had just finished my second solo album
called This Way Up. There's a song on They're called
I Found You Wherein exactly in the middle of the song,
I broke into something completely whack. It was a brainstorm,
and I just followed it through. It was just just
a brainstorm. And it was a guitar marching band, so
(04:57):
drum corps right with a great sort of what you'd
hear to college or high school band on the field,
with that great echo that happens in the stadium, but
all of the instrumentation being guitars, like a whole wall
of guitars. So I did it a brainstorm. It took
like a day to do it. So you were playing
(05:17):
all the guitars, all the guitars, and I played the drums,
Oliver played, My friend Oliver Leever played a little bit
of drums on top of the drums um, and uh yeah,
it was just me doing it all. Anyway, shoot forward sometime.
That worked great, and I thought I have an idea.
I knew this guy, Stephen Ross, who owns the Miami Dolphins.
(05:40):
He was introduced to me by a guy named David Saltz,
who sadly is no longer with us, but an amazing
guy who is a conduit for many Super Bowl halftime shows.
And I'm like, now you're talking my language football super Bowls. Yeah,
for many artists. He he oversaw and was the conduit
for many of these big, big contract actually was the
guy who would get the artists and be the alaison
(06:03):
between the Super Bowl committee that you're familiar with and
the artist. Um. So, anyway, David Sauls I was in
New York City. We're doing some dates with Paul. I
think we were doing good evening New York at the time,
and we had some nights off. David Salts invited me
to dinner with Steven Ross of the Miami Dolphins. I
(06:26):
decided I was going to make a pitch, and the
pitch was okay, Stephen, what about a halftime show with
a guitar lead, drum corps, a guitar army, a guitar orchestra.
And Steven said, I love it. Let's do it, And
we had penciled in a date for it. Now, long
(06:47):
story even longer. I then had to go write it
because this now wasn't the same bit that I had
done for I Found you. This is a whole new thing.
So I decided to do sort of a medley of
rock and roll songs, but all played by guitar melodies, bass,
electric guitar, the drum corps, and a whole wall of
(07:10):
random orchestrated guitar sounding like a big band, and I thought, okay,
so I've got the songs lined up. I messed around
with jose Al Kantarma, my lovely engineer, and um cohort,
Yeah we do. And uh, I thought Rick Nielsen from
Cheap Trick, because I wanted to use Surrender the Great
(07:31):
Cheap Trick Anthem was one of the instrumental songs in
this medley. I reached out to Rick and sent him this. Uh.
I sent him an MP three of this demo that
included that the Surrender instrumental I had done, and he
wrote back, this is incredible. I love it. He said,
(07:53):
I'd be glad to do it. And then I decided
to get one more person. I thought it would be
great to have a female all and I think I
think it was I think it was David Saltz who
mentioned Orianty, and so we all met up in Miami
and did a halftime show. Now, in my mind, it's
a halftime show for a Super Bowl. It's going to
(08:13):
be on every station in the world. But of course
it was really just for the football audience that day
with the Texans against the Dolphins. But we did a
great halftime show. Amazing. So it was you, Rick and Orionty,
the three of you that did this right with a
hundred kids on the field with Gibson guitar, and we
(08:33):
did it as a tribute to Less Paul. She mentioned
that in the episode. I mean, you out there, if
you're curious about it, you can search tribute to Less
Paul with Brian Ray, Orionty and Rick Nielson. I think
that is what it is, tribute to Less Paul, Miami
Dolphins or something like that. All right, So that's that's
(09:06):
really cool that you and Orienty have such a you know,
a great history and hopefully there's you know, an opening
for a lot of collaboration between the two of you.
So going straight back to her interview and really how
she started. I was actually very surprised by this how
much she was actually bullying in high school. Obviously we've
done a few interviews for season one. This has come
up a little bit, so I want to delve into this.
(09:27):
This is a big dream to become a rock star,
to be a musician, and it's not traditional, I guess,
and in the sense of you know, what people normally
aspire to be, and you know, is that something that
you've had experience with the bullying as Yeah, well, you know,
for some reason, I kind of escaped it because from
(09:48):
a very early age, I decided I knew what I
wanted to do, just a wacky thing. I had a
brainstorm when I was three years old listening to you know,
the original rock and roll records Why Little Richard and
Elvis and the Everly's, and I saw the reaction that
my sister and and her friends all had on their
(10:08):
faces while listening to this, and at three years old,
I knew this is what I wanted to do, So
I never wavered from that. When the Beatles came along,
it gave me license, Like here's some young lads that
do that. Um, So I carved out that niche for
myself in the social construct in school. So I was
(10:29):
kind of an island unto myself anyway. You know. In
the case of Oriental, it just breaks my heart to
hear about that. Here's a young girl at fourteen getting bullied.
We pushed into lockers and you know, her guitars would
get destroyed, and it's just it's it's incredible how mean
(10:49):
kids can be. And it was very disappointing to hear,
you know, and that's in Adelaide, her hometown in Australia,
and Australia has a great history of of rock and
roll obviously, you know you have um, you know A C.
D C. And before that, the Easy Beats and so
many great bands. But you know, you would think that
(11:12):
they would love their original musicians. But they bullied her.
And isn't that always poetic when someone who's bullied figures
out that, you know what, I'm going to stuff it
in your face, which is exactly what she did. When later,
you know, she was invited on stage with her idol,
(11:34):
you know, Carlos Santana in the local arena and Adelaide
for all of them to see. I mean, at fourteen
years old, she was unwavering and sending out press kits
all over the place. I mean, she was writing, she
was recording. I mean, she's she's so young now. I
think she's in you know, late thirties, thirty thirty seven
(11:54):
if I have that correct. And she started playing when
she was six, So what a success story in thirty
years what she's been able to accomplish. And I really
am impressed with her parents. First standing behind her, you know,
and realizing this is her dream and saying, you know,
she's not she's not going to do well in school
because that's not what she wants to do. You know,
Let's let her actually fulfill her dream. So very impressive. Yeah,
(12:17):
I mean, she was just remarkably driven and another person
who's calling was very clear to her wasn't going to
be something else. She wasn't going to be an executive.
You guys talk about that how music really is a calling,
and that's what you felt as well. And I feel
like you mentioned Elvis a second ago, and you were
watching your your sister and her friends their reaction to
(12:40):
Elvis when you were three years old. So, I mean,
I guess it begs the question were you thinking you
wanted to be a musician or did you just want
the reaction from the ladies. Well, that's a very good
question that I still have not answered. No, I liked
all of it because the music itself was so intoxicating.
I knew I love that before I saw my sister
(13:03):
Jean Space and all of her friends light up at pictures,
you know, cooing at Elvis and the everly Is and
little Richard, you know, before the visual aspect hit me.
I was just intrigued with rock and roll, which is like,
what the hell is this? Get me some more? That's
all I want. You know, at three years old, I knew, well,
(13:25):
you and Orienty both have that in common as well,
both very old souls at a very young age. So
to to move on to her tour stories where one
of her biggest tours that she was about to go on,
also while she was very very young, was Michael Jackson.
You know, there's a lot of controversy about Michael Jackson. Clearly,
(13:45):
you know, there's everyone has a different opinion Michael Jackson.
We're not here to speculate on on any of that,
but to talk about Oriente's experience with him, you know,
one thing that you know I had heard kind of
out there in the ether was that you know, he
was on drugs and different things like that. You know,
he was performing that that this is it to her,
rehearsing for this is it to her? And she really
(14:07):
takes that down, you know, in the interview and says,
you know, I was there, I was with him, I
was in those crazy rehearsals. He was so on it.
I mean, every little detail he was on you know,
change this change that he heard everything. I can't even
imagine if someone were on drugs that they could be
that on it. Uh. You know, you you have your
own story that you talk openly about that you're you know,
(14:29):
long time sober. Um, what is your what are your
thoughts on that? Like, could someone be on drugs and
be that on every single detail and a perfectionist in
those long rehearsals. What do you think? Well, it's it's
different for everybody. Some people can be what are called
high function alcohol exert drug addicts and Um, while we
(14:52):
know that Michael apparently was was doing propo fall at
night to fall asleep, which is an anesthesia you know. Cool. Um,
she claims that there's no way he could have performed
to the sort of ability he was performing at at
rehearsal with these long, grueling rehearsals and like you said,
be so in control of all the aspects visual music, gear, used, angles,
(15:18):
dance moves, all that stuff, and also be loaded. So,
I mean, it's not for us to speculate, but that
was her experiences that he was working his tail off,
you know, obviously disappointing. It sounds like it would have
been an incredible tour and experience for Oriente, and she
she had her own album coming out right at that
(15:39):
same time, which then ended up doing very very well.
So obviously we talked about in the episode how you
know that was a tough transition for her, losing you know, Michael,
who was now a colleague and a friend in so
tragically you know, and suddenly that would have been her
first world tour. But then coming out of that, after
she released her album, then she ended up going tour
(16:00):
with Alice Cooper. The interesting thing about his tours is
that he he and his wife has Oriente talks about,
are so kind and they're so generous, so there's amazing people.
Then he has these tours that are just dark and
snakes and guillotines, and it seems so opposite of who
Alice Cooper is, but it's just incredible performer, absolutely incredible,
(16:20):
And Oriente talks about a couple of just insane experiences
which people can listen to episode to hear all those like,
obviously I'm not going to do them justice, but one
of her experiences with a piethon a Boa constructor as
she's trying to get her coffee in the morning and
this boa constructor is stalking here. I would freak out.
I would have lost my mind. Have you ever I mean,
(16:41):
obviously Paul McCartney doesn't have those sorts of things on stage,
But have you ever had any of those sorts of
crazy experiences? Wow? No, I've never been stared down by
a giant bullet constructor. No while on tour. I'm you know,
while on tour. But I guess the only I could
say that's even close to this is in the early nineties,
(17:03):
I was guitar player and musical director for Rita Coolidge,
who many people out there might know from from Joe
Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishman tour and her own solo career.
I was playing with her. We were doing a casino
showroom like a big theater in Reno, Nevada, and the
opening act for us was a baby elephant act. What yes, So,
(17:29):
while I've never been stared down by by a bow constructor,
we did follow an elephant. And when we followed the elephant,
it was not with a shovel. I would just say
that that might be the worst job in showbiz working
for the elephant as an opening act. How How does
that even happen? How do you bring an elephant on stage?
(17:51):
I really don't know how that was happening. But I
mean zz Top the Great zz Top Toward with a
whole farm, animals set up live on stage. They carried
cattle with them on tour. It's truly unbelievable. What what
gets set up for these shows, the incredible things that
that happened, and people flying from ceilings and live animals
(18:14):
and this as Orienty talks about real swords, and I
mean stuff is dangerous. It's dangerous on stage. It's like
you take your life in your own hands for these performances.
I think people really need to appreciate, you know, the
level of danger I guess that people are in when
you know anything can go wrong. This is live. And
I just want to know what kind of ear plugs
(18:36):
those baby elephants were wearing, because surely they can't be
on a rock and roll stage or is easy talk?
I mean, what kind of earplugs to cows? You say,
it's curious. It's a great question, and we'll have to
look into that. We'll ask Billy Gibbons when we have
him on. Yes, yes, definitely looking definitely looking forward to
that one, alright, So we are going to wrap it
(19:07):
up here with my own little lightning round. It's going
to be two questions and they are one is going
to have something to do with music and the other
is going to have nothing to do with music, and
they're gonna be one word answers. But before that, I
think there's something very important that we need to discuss
with the audience, and that is where did the inspiration
(19:28):
come from for on tour with Brian Ray Well, let's
see here. So it really started with an idea I
had some years ago for what I thought would be
a cable series um that we've actually made a demo
reel for, uh And it was a project called Sideman
(19:48):
where I would interview people like me who do what
I do for a living and so that people out
there in the world could see a window into this world.
You know. I don't know what people think of us musicians,
but it's hard work and I think people would love
to have a view inside of that to see how
(20:08):
people like me started from a very young age dedicating
our lives to this strange pursuit with very tall odds,
you know. And I just thought that that would be
exciting for people. What happened was I was talking to
my good friend Elissa Pollock from My Heart Media, who
reminded me of this idea I had Seidman from years
(20:31):
before and said, Brian, have you ever thought about doing
that as a podcast? And I said, I don't know,
and it's not really my thing. I haven't really listened
to podcasts. And then I, funny enough, I've had a
conversation with you and you said the same thing. I
remember that Sideman thing. Have you ever thought about doing
this as a podcast? So I thought, two people have
(20:53):
now come to me within a few months of each
other to say the same thing. Maybe I should follow
it down. Perhaps this is a sign. Perhaps this is
a sign, and you, having a media company who are
concentrating on podcasts, came to me with this idea, and
look at us. We're sitting here doing it episode one,
(21:13):
season one. And it was a long time ago that
we had this conversation, and you know, to see it
come to fruition and all the things that have happened
since since that, it's just crazy how things come to
fruition after all that time. And Alissa quickly became one
of my favorite people on earth. I mean, she's the best.
She's a joy, She's an absolute joy. Completely love Alissa.
(21:33):
We love working with my heart. I mean this has
been so fun already and we're only one episode in,
so here we go. We're a half hour in. Yeah,
it only took us a year to get it together,
but man, it's worth it. Yeah. Well, good things are
worth the weights, That's what I hear. All right, So
let's get into this lightning around you. Ready, Yeah, there's
two questions. One of them is going to have to
(21:55):
do with music, and the other is going to have
nothing to do with music. So I believe these are
probably one word answer as you can't think. This is
the first thing that comes to your mind. Favorite city
you've been to onto our Paris? Wow? You love Paris? Why? Yes? Oh,
it's just you know, it's um the feeling there. There's
(22:16):
just romance in the air, and it's a beautiful looking
city and uh, there's a lightness there and am an
appreciation of the pleasures of life. You know, they know
how to live there. They do nice. Okay, So next question,
nothing to do with music. Are you ready? I'm getting ready? Okay,
(22:37):
I'm ready. Sunrise or sunset sunset. Okay, let's be honest.
Have you ever seen the sunrise? Hell, yes you have
because you stayed up all night. I'm sober now. I
haven't seen in thirty three years. I avoid the sunrise,
but I love a sunset. You do love a sunset? Yes?
I do? Yes, Yes, over Less Paul Pool in Palm
(23:00):
Springs maybe that could be yeah. Or over the ocean
in Santa Monica. Sets right out there, right out my window.
Some great sunsets in your day. Well, thank you so
much Brian for joining us on the After Show. It's
my pleasure. All right, We'll see you next week. Sounds
good to date. Thank you everyone for listening. On Tour
(23:34):
and The After Show are both productions of I Heart
Radio and Black Barrel Media. The show is produced by
me Mandy Wimmer with executive producer Noel Brown. For more
information about on Tour, visit our website black Barrel Media
dot com. For behind the scenes photos from these interviews
and to interact with us, visit our social media at
on Tour pod, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. From more
(23:58):
shows from I Heeart Radio and Black Barrel me Vidia,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite podcasts m HM.
You're listening to the After Show, the Bonus episode series
for On Tour with Brian Ray. This is a production
of I Heart Radio and Black Barrel Media and I'm
your host, Mandy Wimmer. In the after Show, We're going
to dive a little deeper into Brian's thoughts on certain
parts of the interviews, as well as expound a bit
more on his own experiences on tour. We also want
to interact with you, so if you have a question
(00:34):
for Brian, shoot us a message on social media. We
are at on Tour pod on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
In this episode, we get Brian's take on orient They's
experiences with Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper being bullied for her
dream to be a musician, and how the Miami Dolphins
deserve credit for how Brian and Orienty first met. We
(00:56):
also discuss how On Tour with Brian Ray came to
be in the place, and start with a recent collaboration
for an original song Brian Orienty did since their interview.
Here's my conversation with Brian Ray. Hello, Brian, how are you?
(01:20):
I'm great, many, thank you, how are you well? Welcome
to the after Show. The Bonus Episode series for your
show on tour Man. What a blast? Yeah, episode one
after show number one. Yes, so a little bit of
a role reversal here. You're in the hot seat this time.
Are you nervous? Yeah? I am kind of shaking, but
(01:42):
just from the waist down. Well, let's get started, because
Orienty the interview that dropped this week really amazing. Lots
of lots of incredible things that you guys talked about.
So we have quite a bit of things to get
through here that we want to dive into a little
bit deeper and just kind of get your opinion on. Plus,
you and Orienty have collaborated since this interview, which is
(02:03):
really cool. Yeah, yeah, sure we We were approached by
you as a matter of fact. Yeah, it's crazy, uh
by Black Barrel Media to do a theme song for
Bonnie and Clyde podcast written and hosted by your brother
Chris Swimmer. It's all in the family over here. And
(02:24):
um so, I I love the idea. And at first
we hadn't. I had a little misunderstand I thought you
wanted to do my first suggestion, which was the Bonnie
and Clyde Serge Gainsborough version, and and you said, no,
how about something original. I went, okay. So, you know,
what we found out through a lot of research is
(02:45):
that we could use Bonnie Parker's original poem because she
meant it to be used. It's left in the public domain.
And so we sort of adapted the lyrics and made
it sort of work for a song that was yet unwritten.
And you know, we worked on the lyrics, carving them
to fit and and made the music fit, and I
(03:06):
think it came out really good. What do you think? Well,
I absolutely loved it. And this show was a historical
true crime show called Infamous America, and Bonnie and Clyde
are clearly to the most infamous outlaws in American history.
And so for this show, we needed it to be
a duet, and we had you, we had our Clyde,
and we needed a Bonnie. And you immediately said, well,
that should be Oriente. Bonnie. Should be Oriented, should be Bonnie.
(03:29):
And I thought, wow, you know, yeah, I mean, orient
is clearly a badass guitar player, but honestly, very naively,
I'd never heard her sing, and um, she absolutely killed it.
I mean her voice is insane, yeah, really good. Well,
she added just the right kind of soulfulness and uh,
you know, just remarkable. She did like I don't know,
(03:49):
three takes in the studio and it was done. It
was crazy. And I've since gone and actually listened to
her solo music. Oh that just came out is incredible.
It went to the top of the charts obviously in
its first week. Um, you know, and I've listened to
a lot of her according to you, I mean, I've
listened to a ton of her music now since then.
I just incredible, an incredible, well rounded artist. I mean,
she's not just a guitar player, no doubt about it.
(04:12):
And it's great to kick off this podcast series with
a female who's younger rather than you know, just another dude,
you know, which nothing wrong with just another There will
be a lot of dudes. There's gonna be a lot
of it. But you know, the opening caveat being with
Oriante makes me very happy. And so how did you
guys originally meet? Okay, so that goes back to round
(04:34):
two ten. I had just finished my second solo album
called This Way Up. There's a song on They're called
I Found You Wherein exactly in the middle of the song,
I broke into something completely whack. It was a brainstorm,
and I just followed it through. It was just just
a brainstorm. And it was a guitar marching band, so
(04:57):
drum corps right with a great sort of what you'd
hear to college or high school band on the field,
with that great echo that happens in the stadium, but
all of the instrumentation being guitars, like a whole wall
of guitars. So I did it a brainstorm. It took
like a day to do it. So you were playing
(05:17):
all the guitars, all the guitars, and I played the drums,
Oliver played, My friend Oliver Leever played a little bit
of drums on top of the drums um, and uh yeah,
it was just me doing it all. Anyway, shoot forward sometime.
That worked great, and I thought I have an idea.
I knew this guy, Stephen Ross, who owns the Miami Dolphins.
(05:40):
He was introduced to me by a guy named David Saltz,
who sadly is no longer with us, but an amazing
guy who is a conduit for many Super Bowl halftime shows.
And I'm like, now you're talking my language football super Bowls. Yeah,
for many artists. He he oversaw and was the conduit
for many of these big, big contract actually was the
guy who would get the artists and be the alaison
(06:03):
between the Super Bowl committee that you're familiar with and
the artist. Um. So, anyway, David Sauls I was in
New York City. We're doing some dates with Paul. I
think we were doing good evening New York at the time,
and we had some nights off. David Salts invited me
to dinner with Steven Ross of the Miami Dolphins. I
(06:26):
decided I was going to make a pitch, and the
pitch was okay, Stephen, what about a halftime show with
a guitar lead, drum corps, a guitar army, a guitar orchestra.
And Steven said, I love it. Let's do it, And
we had penciled in a date for it. Now, long
(06:47):
story even longer. I then had to go write it
because this now wasn't the same bit that I had
done for I Found you. This is a whole new thing.
So I decided to do sort of a medley of
rock and roll songs, but all played by guitar melodies, bass,
electric guitar, the drum corps, and a whole wall of
(07:10):
random orchestrated guitar sounding like a big band, and I thought, okay,
so I've got the songs lined up. I messed around
with jose Al Kantarma, my lovely engineer, and um cohort,
Yeah we do. And uh, I thought Rick Nielsen from
Cheap Trick, because I wanted to use Surrender the Great
(07:31):
Cheap Trick Anthem was one of the instrumental songs in
this medley. I reached out to Rick and sent him this. Uh.
I sent him an MP three of this demo that
included that the Surrender instrumental I had done, and he
wrote back, this is incredible. I love it. He said,
(07:53):
I'd be glad to do it. And then I decided
to get one more person. I thought it would be
great to have a female all and I think I
think it was I think it was David Saltz who
mentioned Orianty, and so we all met up in Miami
and did a halftime show. Now, in my mind, it's
a halftime show for a Super Bowl. It's going to
(08:13):
be on every station in the world. But of course
it was really just for the football audience that day
with the Texans against the Dolphins. But we did a
great halftime show. Amazing. So it was you, Rick and Orionty,
the three of you that did this right with a
hundred kids on the field with Gibson guitar, and we
(08:33):
did it as a tribute to Less Paul. She mentioned
that in the episode. I mean, you out there, if
you're curious about it, you can search tribute to Less
Paul with Brian Ray, Orionty and Rick Nielson. I think
that is what it is, tribute to Less Paul, Miami
Dolphins or something like that. All right, So that's that's
(09:06):
really cool that you and Orienty have such a you know,
a great history and hopefully there's you know, an opening
for a lot of collaboration between the two of you.
So going straight back to her interview and really how
she started. I was actually very surprised by this how
much she was actually bullying in high school. Obviously we've
done a few interviews for season one. This has come
up a little bit, so I want to delve into this.
(09:27):
This is a big dream to become a rock star,
to be a musician, and it's not traditional, I guess,
and in the sense of you know, what people normally
aspire to be, and you know, is that something that
you've had experience with the bullying as Yeah, well, you know,
for some reason, I kind of escaped it because from
(09:48):
a very early age, I decided I knew what I
wanted to do, just a wacky thing. I had a
brainstorm when I was three years old listening to you know,
the original rock and roll records Why Little Richard and
Elvis and the Everly's, and I saw the reaction that
my sister and and her friends all had on their
(10:08):
faces while listening to this, and at three years old,
I knew this is what I wanted to do, So
I never wavered from that. When the Beatles came along,
it gave me license, Like here's some young lads that
do that. Um, So I carved out that niche for
myself in the social construct in school. So I was
(10:29):
kind of an island unto myself anyway. You know. In
the case of Oriental, it just breaks my heart to
hear about that. Here's a young girl at fourteen getting bullied.
We pushed into lockers and you know, her guitars would
get destroyed, and it's just it's it's incredible how mean
(10:49):
kids can be. And it was very disappointing to hear,
you know, and that's in Adelaide, her hometown in Australia,
and Australia has a great history of of rock and
roll obviously, you know you have um, you know A C.
D C. And before that, the Easy Beats and so
many great bands. But you know, you would think that
(11:12):
they would love their original musicians. But they bullied her.
And isn't that always poetic when someone who's bullied figures
out that, you know what, I'm going to stuff it
in your face, which is exactly what she did. When later,
you know, she was invited on stage with her idol,
(11:34):
you know, Carlos Santana in the local arena and Adelaide
for all of them to see. I mean, at fourteen
years old, she was unwavering and sending out press kits
all over the place. I mean, she was writing, she
was recording. I mean, she's she's so young now. I
think she's in you know, late thirties, thirty thirty seven
(11:54):
if I have that correct. And she started playing when
she was six, So what a success story in thirty
years what she's been able to accomplish. And I really
am impressed with her parents. First standing behind her, you know,
and realizing this is her dream and saying, you know,
she's not she's not going to do well in school
because that's not what she wants to do. You know,
Let's let her actually fulfill her dream. So very impressive. Yeah,
(12:17):
I mean, she was just remarkably driven and another person
who's calling was very clear to her wasn't going to
be something else. She wasn't going to be an executive.
You guys talk about that how music really is a calling,
and that's what you felt as well. And I feel
like you mentioned Elvis a second ago, and you were
watching your your sister and her friends their reaction to
(12:40):
Elvis when you were three years old. So, I mean,
I guess it begs the question were you thinking you
wanted to be a musician or did you just want
the reaction from the ladies. Well, that's a very good
question that I still have not answered. No, I liked
all of it because the music itself was so intoxicating.
I knew I love that before I saw my sister
(13:03):
Jean Space and all of her friends light up at pictures,
you know, cooing at Elvis and the everly Is and
little Richard, you know, before the visual aspect hit me.
I was just intrigued with rock and roll, which is like,
what the hell is this? Get me some more? That's
all I want. You know, at three years old, I knew, well,
(13:25):
you and Orienty both have that in common as well,
both very old souls at a very young age. So
to to move on to her tour stories where one
of her biggest tours that she was about to go on,
also while she was very very young, was Michael Jackson.
You know, there's a lot of controversy about Michael Jackson. Clearly,
(13:45):
you know, there's everyone has a different opinion Michael Jackson.
We're not here to speculate on on any of that,
but to talk about Oriente's experience with him, you know,
one thing that you know I had heard kind of
out there in the ether was that you know, he
was on drugs and different things like that. You know,
he was performing that that this is it to her,
rehearsing for this is it to her? And she really
(14:07):
takes that down, you know, in the interview and says,
you know, I was there, I was with him, I
was in those crazy rehearsals. He was so on it.
I mean, every little detail he was on you know,
change this change that he heard everything. I can't even
imagine if someone were on drugs that they could be
that on it. Uh. You know, you you have your
own story that you talk openly about that you're you know,
(14:29):
long time sober. Um, what is your what are your
thoughts on that? Like, could someone be on drugs and
be that on every single detail and a perfectionist in
those long rehearsals. What do you think? Well, it's it's
different for everybody. Some people can be what are called
high function alcohol exert drug addicts and Um, while we
(14:52):
know that Michael apparently was was doing propo fall at
night to fall asleep, which is an anesthesia you know. Cool. Um,
she claims that there's no way he could have performed
to the sort of ability he was performing at at
rehearsal with these long, grueling rehearsals and like you said,
be so in control of all the aspects visual music, gear, used, angles,
(15:18):
dance moves, all that stuff, and also be loaded. So,
I mean, it's not for us to speculate, but that
was her experiences that he was working his tail off,
you know, obviously disappointing. It sounds like it would have
been an incredible tour and experience for Oriente, and she
she had her own album coming out right at that
(15:39):
same time, which then ended up doing very very well.
So obviously we talked about in the episode how you
know that was a tough transition for her, losing you know, Michael,
who was now a colleague and a friend in so
tragically you know, and suddenly that would have been her
first world tour. But then coming out of that, after
she released her album, then she ended up going tour
(16:00):
with Alice Cooper. The interesting thing about his tours is
that he he and his wife has Oriente talks about,
are so kind and they're so generous, so there's amazing people.
Then he has these tours that are just dark and
snakes and guillotines, and it seems so opposite of who
Alice Cooper is, but it's just incredible performer, absolutely incredible,
(16:20):
And Oriente talks about a couple of just insane experiences
which people can listen to episode to hear all those like,
obviously I'm not going to do them justice, but one
of her experiences with a piethon a Boa constructor as
she's trying to get her coffee in the morning and
this boa constructor is stalking here. I would freak out.
I would have lost my mind. Have you ever I mean,
(16:41):
obviously Paul McCartney doesn't have those sorts of things on stage,
But have you ever had any of those sorts of
crazy experiences? Wow? No, I've never been stared down by
a giant bullet constructor. No while on tour. I'm you know,
while on tour. But I guess the only I could
say that's even close to this is in the early nineties,
(17:03):
I was guitar player and musical director for Rita Coolidge,
who many people out there might know from from Joe
Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishman tour and her own solo career.
I was playing with her. We were doing a casino
showroom like a big theater in Reno, Nevada, and the
opening act for us was a baby elephant act. What yes, So,
(17:29):
while I've never been stared down by by a bow constructor,
we did follow an elephant. And when we followed the elephant,
it was not with a shovel. I would just say
that that might be the worst job in showbiz working
for the elephant as an opening act. How How does
that even happen? How do you bring an elephant on stage?
(17:51):
I really don't know how that was happening. But I
mean zz Top the Great zz Top Toward with a
whole farm, animals set up live on stage. They carried
cattle with them on tour. It's truly unbelievable. What what
gets set up for these shows, the incredible things that
that happened, and people flying from ceilings and live animals
(18:14):
and this as Orienty talks about real swords, and I
mean stuff is dangerous. It's dangerous on stage. It's like
you take your life in your own hands for these performances.
I think people really need to appreciate, you know, the
level of danger I guess that people are in when
you know anything can go wrong. This is live. And
I just want to know what kind of ear plugs
(18:36):
those baby elephants were wearing, because surely they can't be
on a rock and roll stage or is easy talk?
I mean, what kind of earplugs to cows? You say,
it's curious. It's a great question, and we'll have to
look into that. We'll ask Billy Gibbons when we have
him on. Yes, yes, definitely looking definitely looking forward to
that one, alright, So we are going to wrap it
(19:07):
up here with my own little lightning round. It's going
to be two questions and they are one is going
to have something to do with music and the other
is going to have nothing to do with music, and
they're gonna be one word answers. But before that, I
think there's something very important that we need to discuss
with the audience, and that is where did the inspiration
(19:28):
come from for on tour with Brian Ray Well, let's
see here. So it really started with an idea I
had some years ago for what I thought would be
a cable series um that we've actually made a demo
reel for, uh And it was a project called Sideman
(19:48):
where I would interview people like me who do what
I do for a living and so that people out
there in the world could see a window into this world.
You know. I don't know what people think of us musicians,
but it's hard work and I think people would love
to have a view inside of that to see how
(20:08):
people like me started from a very young age dedicating
our lives to this strange pursuit with very tall odds,
you know. And I just thought that that would be
exciting for people. What happened was I was talking to
my good friend Elissa Pollock from My Heart Media, who
reminded me of this idea I had Seidman from years
(20:31):
before and said, Brian, have you ever thought about doing
that as a podcast? And I said, I don't know,
and it's not really my thing. I haven't really listened
to podcasts. And then I, funny enough, I've had a
conversation with you and you said the same thing. I
remember that Sideman thing. Have you ever thought about doing
this as a podcast? So I thought, two people have
(20:53):
now come to me within a few months of each
other to say the same thing. Maybe I should follow
it down. Perhaps this is a sign. Perhaps this is
a sign, and you, having a media company who are
concentrating on podcasts, came to me with this idea, and
look at us. We're sitting here doing it episode one,
(21:13):
season one. And it was a long time ago that
we had this conversation, and you know, to see it
come to fruition and all the things that have happened
since since that, it's just crazy how things come to
fruition after all that time. And Alissa quickly became one
of my favorite people on earth. I mean, she's the best.
She's a joy, She's an absolute joy. Completely love Alissa.
(21:33):
We love working with my heart. I mean this has
been so fun already and we're only one episode in,
so here we go. We're a half hour in. Yeah,
it only took us a year to get it together,
but man, it's worth it. Yeah. Well, good things are
worth the weights, That's what I hear. All right, So
let's get into this lightning around you. Ready, Yeah, there's
two questions. One of them is going to have to
(21:55):
do with music, and the other is going to have
nothing to do with music. So I believe these are
probably one word answer as you can't think. This is
the first thing that comes to your mind. Favorite city
you've been to onto our Paris? Wow? You love Paris? Why? Yes? Oh,
it's just you know, it's um the feeling there. There's
(22:16):
just romance in the air, and it's a beautiful looking
city and uh, there's a lightness there and am an
appreciation of the pleasures of life. You know, they know
how to live there. They do nice. Okay, So next question,
nothing to do with music. Are you ready? I'm getting ready? Okay,
(22:37):
I'm ready. Sunrise or sunset sunset. Okay, let's be honest.
Have you ever seen the sunrise? Hell, yes you have
because you stayed up all night. I'm sober now. I
haven't seen in thirty three years. I avoid the sunrise,
but I love a sunset. You do love a sunset? Yes?
I do? Yes, Yes, over Less Paul Pool in Palm
(23:00):
Springs maybe that could be yeah. Or over the ocean
in Santa Monica. Sets right out there, right out my window.
Some great sunsets in your day. Well, thank you so
much Brian for joining us on the After Show. It's
my pleasure. All right, We'll see you next week. Sounds
good to date. Thank you everyone for listening. On Tour
(23:34):
and The After Show are both productions of I Heart
Radio and Black Barrel Media. The show is produced by
me Mandy Wimmer with executive producer Noel Brown. For more
information about on Tour, visit our website black Barrel Media
dot com. For behind the scenes photos from these interviews
and to interact with us, visit our social media at
on Tour pod, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. From more
(23:58):
shows from I Heeart Radio and Black Barrel me Vidia,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever
you get your favorite podcasts m HM.
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