April 20, 2026 • 32 mins
Mike Schulte is the drummer for The Pork Tornadoes, a super fun band based in Iowa. They are about to play at Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines and Slowdown in Omaha. Mike talks about his history with the band, his favorite memories as the drummer, and his funny podcast, "Confused Breakfast."
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's the Emery Songer podcast here on the free iHeartRadio
app talking about all the great things happening in and
around Omaha and beyond.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We thank you for listening to this feed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I am incredibly honored to be joined by a good friend,
a guy that I share a drumming interest with, and
a guy who I've actually seen play drums with his
band several times, because they are the most fun band
that you can go and see and spend any time
watching anywhere in the Midwest. They're in it called the
Pork Tornadoes. Their drummer is Mike Shelti. He is on
(00:38):
our show today. Mike, thanks for coming back to the
show man.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's good to talk to you in the sense of
where we're not like, Okay, the clock is running, we
have sixty more seconds to hurry up and promo this
radio thing. So it's nice to actually talk to you
like a like two normal people would talk.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, like the advent of the podcast in you know,
free form pot podcasting is one hundred percent like better
I think than being conformed into whatever a TV show
or a radio show theoretically would be. And I know
that you are very familiar with that because you yourself are
a podcast host, and I'm going to start there this
(01:15):
time because we'll we'll have time to talk about the
music and the poor tornadoes, coming back to the slowdown
in Omaha. But the podcast you guys have, Confused Breakfast
is it's blowing up, like I can't. I was so
super surprised about how many followers you guys continue to add.
You have reached different corners of this. You know, like
(01:38):
you and me are about the same age, and it
just feels like our generation has found you guys, because
you're leaning into the nostalgia of what it was like
to grow up as kids in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, I mean, dude.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
When we started Confused Breakfast, it was mid twenty twenty.
It was a creative project because all my gigging had
gone away, and you know, we were all feeling a
little bit weird back then, and like so I just
needed something for just for pure joy, but also just
to creative outlet and it and that's the crazy thing
about podcasting is like, like, I agree with you, it's
(02:11):
one of the greatest forms of content that it's been developed.
Now that being said, I do love a good TV
show and a radio show where there's the production and
there's the snap snap snap, get to get to what
you want to because there are podcasts out there where
too many us and ums and and pauses. Is like, okay,
I'm out, but yeah, I mean, like we decided we
(02:34):
we just wanted to have fun, and without even knowing
at all where this thing could possibly go, and personally
not even caring really, it was just like, yeah, it'd
be cool if people listen, but we're.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Doing this for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
And then you know, a course of many awesome moments
kind of happened that sort of rocket you to the
next level. And we just we just crossed over one
point three million social media followers. Were our consistently in
like the top ten of in the United States of
movie TV film review podcast. So dude, it's just it's nuts.
(03:10):
Like I'm kind of like pork tornadoes. I'm just so
so blessed. I don't even know how I landed in
these things, but like, looking back, it's just so incredible
to be involved.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
With that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You guys do a good job with the video elements
that you utilize as well, And I saw one and
you guys, it's funny because you lean into the negativity
of some you know, of some people, and you made
a video of the Mighty Ducks and how Gordon Bombay
is like the worst hockey coach of all time and
(03:43):
it's one hundred percent true. By the way, Like, if
you watch the movies and you have any logic whatsoever,
you're just like, what's this guy thinking at any point
in time, and then a bunch of people are like,
you're thinking about it too hard.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It's like, man, this is for entertainment. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You know, you you're having fun making these videos. I'm sure,
and I know I feel this whenever I do my stuff.
You know, I get negativity and people, you know, saying
things it makes me feel bad, Like how do you
guys utilize that as fuel to just keep doing what
you're doing and not let it, you know, drag it down.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know what, The Pork Tornados trained me for this moment,
because when the Pork Tornado started to explode, We've been
a band for eighteen years and listen, the way you
view cover bands and tribute bands nowadays was not that
way back in the day, and we were one of
the first bands to actually transition out of the you know,
(04:33):
the guys in cargo shorts in a bar playing for
four hours playing Mustang Sally as background music. You know,
we were one of the first bands that actually said, no, no, no,
we got a product, we're better than everyone else, We're
gonna take this to like a national level production. And
people just did not like that, Like for some reason,
it just got all this negative negativity, like those guards suck.
(04:57):
Why were they playing that stage not my friend's band. Well,
because we work harder than you and we're we're putting
more investing into our show. But all the negativity that
the Portneo's got prepared me for what Confused Breakfast got.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It didn't prepare me for the sheer volume of it.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Because my god, dude, like I can't something's wrong with
the mentality of a large portion of people right now
where they just like can't turn off their their like
complaining brain. You know, like we're in such a society
where everybody just feels like they're entitled to say something
and that everyone should pay attention to what they're saying,
(05:35):
which is a social media problem. Oh yeah, but like
the fact that if you don't like something, just scroll on.
And then the fact that people stop to go. It's
just a movie. It's like, dude, we know, like we
understand that this is a movie. You're not saying anything
groundbreaking right now, and they're they're so serious, man, Like
(05:56):
I would have never imagined how many people could possibly
get that unbelievably mad about us just talking about a
movie from nineteen ninety four, you know, like it's it's
actually quite mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, and I think that just people are cynical about
people who have a platform. I honestly, it's just like
there's an element of jealousy. It's just like I wish
I thought of that, and I'm just gonna like tear
this down because I can't do that, you know, and
there are people that get to talk about this stuff,
and you know, I wish I would have come up
with a confused breakfast concept because I said this. I
(06:31):
do these conversations with my ai as all the time.
I watched I flew to Ireland and when we were
flying back, I watched Little Giants on the plane and
I just sat there, you know. And I've seen this
movie about one hundred times, probably from when I was
a kid all the way to now. And I still
enjoy it, and I still love it, and I know
(06:52):
it's a movie, but and I know that you are
familiar with this movie. It's like, how does how do
the Cowboys just not give spy camera smit the ball
thirty five times and just like win the game seventy
to nothing? Like how does that even like happen? We
have no no idea how that happens?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Dude, And people get they don't under they think like
I'm dogging on the Mighty Ducks, like I don't understand
the Mighty Ducks Changed by life. I watched that movie
one hundred times over the course of a few years,
and I still love watching it. But like, it's really
fun to comment on it as an adult now, being like,
oh my god, what are we? Why is Goldberg and
(07:34):
goal He's the worst goalie to ever play hockey? Why
is he representing the United States? And it doesn't mean
I don't like the movie. It just means I'm kind
of critically thinking about it now as a forty.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Three year old, and that's good and I like that.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And this is the thing, right, I love these movies
so much that I've watched them so many times that
I can actually use my brain, my adult brain to
try to like inject some logic into it that my
eight year old brain would not have done.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's like, correct, So why are.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The Cowboys going for it on fourth and goal from
the one yard line with like four seconds left or whatever?
And they somehow don't get it, Like we didn't set
up that it was fourth down at all the entire time,
but they're just going for it in a enti game. It
makes no sense, Emery, it's a movie, Jesus, just watch it.
And Arthur Cheney, the coach in Airbud, can we talk
(08:23):
about him like playing a dog wearing tennis shoes in
the championship game?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Like what are we doing?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Don't even care? You don't even care as a kid.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And that's what's so great about the nostalgia bug that
we've kind of all you know, man, you see those
like tiktoks where it shows like a video camera from
like nineteen ninety four and someone walking through a Blockbuster.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Like we all miss it.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
We all missed the simplicity of the eighties and the
nineties and even the early two thousands, and so that
whole nostalgia wave of talking about old movies is like
we to be clear, dude, we didn't invent that. Like,
there are a million podcasts out there that do what
we do, but we just somehow, I don't know, man,
we somehow found a lane of like comedy but also
(09:09):
not taking the movie too seriously, but also like taking
it seriously when it when it calls for it. So yeah,
it's dude, it's it's just wild. And I'm pretty pumped.
I got a four year old and a two year old,
and I'm just really excited to start like showing them
some of these movies, and it's just.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Man, that's gonna be great. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Nothan says that there's no rule that says a dog
can't play basketball, Well, is there a rule that says
a dog should play basketball?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Because I think that's the one we need to be
talking about. Yeah. No, you guys do great stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I love it when the feed pops up into my
feed and my algorithm and I just sit there and
I laugh. Not just because I know you, but it's
just what a fun concept. And I just absolutely love
that you guys have that kind of fun with it,
and it's the same attitude that you kind of bring
to the music right. So the poor Tornadoes. You know,
we've been over this ridiculous band name, but you guys
(09:58):
are in this lane of taking songs that we all
know from like the eighties and nineties all the way
to songs that have been released in the last year
and putting this kind of rock like variation to it
that makes it so fun just to watch you guys play,
but to dance to, to feel to, and you guys
play for a long time. It's not like you show
(10:20):
up and do a forty minute set and then get
the heck out of there. I mean, you guys are
knocking out fifteen twenty songs at least every set that
you play. You know, how has that evolved from the beginnings?
Like you said, it's been eighteen years, Like when did
you guys kind of find this? Okay, we've got this
figured out. We just got to find the songs now
that fit what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I don't know if you ever really figure it out, right,
like you You don't always go, oh yeah, cool, this
is it, you know, like it the band has evolved.
It started off as just a band in a bar
and we just played whatever we wanted, and then it
you know, you slowly start to just make decisions like
one day, I think, truthfully, the thing that really like
shift us if you look back on it, was we
(11:02):
decided we were going to play Teenage Dream by Katie
Perry and and mind you were like a rock band, right,
We're playing like ac DC and old rock songs like that,
And for some reason we're like, oh, let's play Teenage Dream,
but let's make it like.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
A rock and roll version.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And it wasn't like a, oh people will love this.
It was just like this sounds fun to us, and
you know, and then I remember after that people started
being like, oh, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
They like they do like girl songs but like.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Rocked up, and we kind of went, oh, wait a minute,
like that's that's not a bad idea, Like what.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
If we add a few more?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And then you know, slowly but surely, you're you're getting
the Beyonce Helo Medley showing up, you're getting Taylor Swift
starting to show up in the set, and it just
like it just sort of happened.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
But but we've never consciously.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Made a decision to go, well, this is what will
be popular, so we have to do it. It's always
been we like this and so we're going to do
it and and hopefully everyone else likes it. So I
think that is part of our longevity is that we
we've never made a decision that was not something we
all enjoy to do, you know, cause like you can
(12:09):
see that a mile away. I've seen bands play before
them like these guys hate that they're on stage right
now playing this song, and that audience can tell that stuff.
So I mean, I think the one thing you'll get
at a Pork Tornado show is pure genuineuness of like
we love each other.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
We've been doing this forever.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
It'd be so easy for us now to stop because
we're all getting older.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
We all have we there's eight kids among the.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Four of us under eight years old, and like we
all are married and.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Dude, it's hard to leave on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But we love it and we genuinely want to do
this as long as we can. So I don't know, man,
We've just always made decisions based on what we like
and it just resonates with people.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, and one of the things, like you've mentioned that
the kid part of this, it's never going to be
harder than it is right now for you guys to to,
you know, like manage all that with so many young
people that are running around with you guys. But as
you kind of enter this phase, you are still churning
out new songs. You're still you know, working on arranging
(13:13):
new songs. Because you really do rearrange the song. It
sounds like people can still sing along to it, but
you have to figure out the instrumentation and how your guys,
you guys are going to perform it. Like you do
all the rapping, which I find to be absolutely incredible
that you can rap and play drums at the same time.
I can barely think about anything else when I'm playing
the drums. But then you have, you know, all three
(13:34):
of the guys up front can also sing, and they
do that as well. And you, like I mentioned, you
have like a forty year radius of songs that you
like to play. How many songs do you think you
guys have had in the library at you know, over
the entirety of your band, you have a guess.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I mean, you know, like right now we're at this
two hour set mark where we play for two hours.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
We know, we don't stop. It's just song, song, song,
songs song.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I mean, we play longer than you're gonna spend five
hundred bucks to go see a national artist coming to
town and they're gonna play for sixty seventy minutes. You know,
we're gonna play for two hours and play all the
songs you want to hear. So we've custom Taylor did.
That means songs are in and out of the lineup
every night. But if you had to go back to
the start of this band and any song that we've
(14:18):
ever performed, it's probably close to two hundred, three hundred songs.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Maybe that's insane, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It had to be over one hundred, considering how many
I already be heard, like in the last five years.
When I see you, guys, I see you at least
once or twice a year, and it's always different. And
this is the one thing my wife loves about you,
because she's like, oh, I've seen the port Tonadoes before.
She says that about some other people in other bands.
She didn't say that about the poor Tornado because she
knows that there's gonna be different new songs or a
(14:46):
different set list. What are some of the songs that
you don't have in the rotation that you feel like
were like the cornerstone pieces, and they were really hard
to take out of that set list when you felt
like it the time, it'd become time to get it
out of there.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, it's that's hard because you do as much as
you say you like playing a song, which you genuinely do,
after a certain amount of time, you go, I don't
really like playing this anymore, and you know, and crowds
get a little leery of it after they've heard it
for eight straight years.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
So there is that rotation process.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I think one of the biggest songs that we used
to play that did take us a bit to the
next level that it hasn't been in the setlist for
probably eight years now was wagon Wheel.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
We took this like rocked.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Up version of wagon Wheel right when it was getting popular,
before Darius Rucker even re recorded it, and it was
it was amazing, It was, it was fantastic. But you
know what, all of a sudden, every cover band.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
In the world is playing it.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, and fans are just going, oh, wagon Wheel. And
even though we felt we had a pretty incredible version
of it, I mean that was a conscious decision. One
day we go nope, that we will never play this
song again, and it and it just left the lineup,
and you know there's some like truth be told. Mason
really wants to pull Tennessee Whiskey for good, you know,
(16:11):
but like that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
He's got to get sick of singing that one, because
I mean he's got to like that's the moment people
are like talking about with his voice and his his talent,
I couldn't imagine happened. All Right, I gotta do this
thing again.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah, it's it's the song that really did kind of
break us.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I mean, we hit almost ten million views with our
cover of Tennessee Whiskey on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
It's like the fourth highest viewed cover.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of that song on YouTube, which is pure insanity because
that is a song that every person sings and you know,
like we would love to pull it. But now we're
sort of in that territory of like, well, wait a minute,
somebody may have made the trip. Like you know, we
get phone calls all the time that's like, hey, we're
flying in from Portland to see you guys in des
moin next weekend because we know you won't come to
(16:57):
Portland and the chances of them having found us because
of Tennessee whiskey is pretty good and they probably really
want to hear it, So it's like, oh man, it's
hard to get rid of the big time staples, but
the other songs are always fair game to get interchanged.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, it's interesting, and you guys are gonna be at
the Slowdown. It's an awesome venue to watch a band
like you because everybody's just in there. They're party and
they're having a great time.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
What a killer vision. Yeah, I love that place.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, and it's just fun.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Like every time I've ever gone to a Poor Tornado show,
you know, a lot of people in there. It gets
really crowded, which is what you want, and everybody is
just having a great time. And what are moments from
state from the stage right, because you're experiencing it different
than we are when we're out there watching you guys,
what are moments out there throughout the show, maybe in
the last handful of years that you look at and
(17:46):
you're just like, people are loving this, They are jiving
with this so much. When you guys not only debut
news songs, but maybe it's a song that you've played
for a long time that people are just like always
up for every time you play it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
My favorite moment over the year is spotting the dude
who got dragged to the show from his girlfriend or
his wife, Like you can see him.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Sometimes they're musicians, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
They're just dudes just going ah, I just got to
put in the work tonight, make the wife happy. And
you can see them arms crossed, never a smile on
their face, sometimes just going ah, just these guys are
going to be so bad.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
What a terrible name.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I hate this And watching them slowly evolve throughout the
night to where by the end they're singing the words
to Shake It Off by Taylor Swift and you're like,
oh my god, we got you, dude. Like I just
love when positivity and just like that it kind of
overtakes people because sometimes people want It's like the online
(18:45):
stuff we just talked about. They want to be negative
to you so that you can reciprocate that back to
them and like get in some sort of an argument.
So like that guy probably wanted us to look at
him and be like, look at this guy, he's not
having fun.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Everybody boo him.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, he probably in a way they wanted that,
but we're never going to give it to him, like,
we're always just going to be like, dude, if you
like it, cool, if you don't, whatever, We're here to
play to everyone else. And it's just so fun watching
people just just change like their first time seeing us
to being like I hate this band. I can't wait
to see him again. That's that's my favorite thing, honestly.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Well, and that's the one thing. You see you guys.
I saw you for the first time at the National
Balloon Classic.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I think it was oh geez yeah, and I.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Think that was probably like twenty eighteen or nineteen would
be my guess.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And then I the.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Pandemic happened, and then I saw that you Guys were
one of the first concerts at Woolley's in Des Moines
after the pandemic slowed down in twenty twenty one, and
I was like, I want to go see them because
I haven't seen a live concert in forever, and so
that was the first time I like went out of
my way. We bought tickets, we went to go see
(19:54):
you guys. And then I was just like, I'm seeing
them every single time, Like there's just like there's no
poor Tornadoes show that I'm gonna miss if I can
if they're anywhere close to me. I go to see
you guys at the fair all the time, and I
just tell everybody, this is the band I want to
show to as many of my friends as possible because
I know they're all gonna have fun and they're all
(20:15):
gonna enjoy themselves in different ways. You guys have to
take some pride in that, and that's you know, that's
got to keep you guys going right that you're you know,
you have such a wide demographic of people that find
your music and your show's attractive. But the fact that
the rewatch value of the Poor Tornadoes people laud that
as much as any of your musical talents.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, it's it's it's nuts because I mean, yeah, we
have played Tennessee Whiskey probably let's see, we've that song
came out almost ten years ago for us, and we've
done about fifty shows a year, so we've probably played
that song five hundred times. And it's like, we may
not enjoy it, but you look out and you see
the person that's back for their eighth show of the
(20:55):
year and they're singing it and loving it. It's just like,
you know, we I don't know, man, we've been doing
beautiful things by Benson Boone and like on the video wall,
it's got like these photos of our kids and like
you see people like kind of like happy crying in
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
You're like, man, this is just just good.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Like it just feels like a way that we can
contribute to society, because.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Man, that stuff's tough.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Man, the world's crazy economy sucks for a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
And like the fact that you spent.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Your hard earned money to come see us and carved
a night out and got a babysitter and went out
to dinner. It's like we have to deliver, you know,
like we will die on this stage to be good
performers for you because it means so much.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I love how excited people get when that countdown is going.
It's the Taylor Swift countdown into the start of the show,
and people are just like, oh it's coming here we go,
oh yeah, And I just love the buzz that's in there.
You've started the last few that I've seen with my
favorite band of killers. You play a few different killers.
Somebody told me it just gives me so amped. I'm
(22:02):
so pumped every single time you guys play that song
and get things going. But there's so many different moments
throughout the show where it's like, oh yeah, I didn't
expect them to go to the Backstreet Boys here. I
didn't expect them to go to Taylor Swift here, And
you got like eight Taylor Swift songs that you guys
know how to play. So I just wonder for you,
at this point and this many shows and this many years,
(22:25):
what are those songs that you actually do have fun
playing at this point?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
To be clear, here, I have fun playing every song.
I've We're to the point now where I look at
the next song and I go, yeah, cool, Like I'm
I love everything we do are because we learned so
many new songs.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
The ones we tend to not like as much tend
to make their way out.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So like we're the set list we're gonna play this
weekend Friday and Des Moines and then Saturday in Omaha
is like one of the best set lists we've put together.
I mean it is just impact and it has those
signature turns where you know you're hearing Phil Collins into
a rap, Medley into Britney Spears into the Killers, Like
(23:10):
it's just like it's a journey. We're taking you on
a journey that you don't expect. And actually we had
that new rap medley that we were putting together that
ends with Lose Yourself by Eminem.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Have you heard that one?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I haven't seen you guys play that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
No, So here's an interesting story for you.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Like we I spent about a year custom tailoring like
a new rap medley, right, and I and I we
did oh now, I can't even.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Remember what it was. I was like, this is perfect,
it's it's gonna be so good. It was.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was a song into California love into Eminem lose Yourself.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
And I was like, bro, people are going to lose
their minds.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And we put it together and we practiced it, and
we played it like four or five times in the
fall last year over the winter, and it just it
was kind of it was okay. It just people didn't
react the way I thought they were going to react
to it. So we went back to the drawing board,
where like, we need to retool this, and so now
the new one, like we've perfected it. People are it
(24:09):
might be the loudest people go the whole night. It's
hypnotized by Big into Nutting but a g thing snoop
and dre into eminem lose yourself and it's like it
might be my finest moment of like my abilities and
like how we crafted this and we put it together
and that's currently.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
My favorite moment of the night and people just love it.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I can't wait. That's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And you're the rapper, so you you got the mic
and you're going crazy on the mic and then play.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We played that in Cedar Rapids and my parents came
to the show and.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
My mom was like, that was a lot of words.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I was like, yeah, it's a lot of words, mom, Hey,
but you you were you were the genius behind it.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So it's not like you can blame anybody else for uh,
for the workload there.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I'm excited for that. You got a lot of other songs.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I want to real quick to songs that you don't
play now or aren't on the set list that you
think could come back, because I know that you kind
of like go in and out it was some of
these songs will pop up. Like you said, some of
them have been retired forever. But are there songs that
you have done that have been you know, kind of
(25:21):
lost its regular spot in your set list that you're like, man,
now that I think about that, I'd love to play
that in front of people again.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Sometime.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
There's a lot of those.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
There's some that we know that just they just don't
make sense, you know, like it's just people really don't
get it. We'll save it for a special occasion kind
of a thing. But one song in particular that we
used to play, we used to do this like eighteen
minute long medley of it was like it was like.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Gavin de Graus.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
It was like I Don't want to Be by Gavin
de Grau, into Et by Katy Perry, into Wonderwall by Oasis,
and then into like all I Do is win and
it was like, brother, Like it was insane, how crazy
that medley?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What don't you even think of that? Like do we
think of that?
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's the same way all of our medley's happened.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Like we play it and then you'll see someone's light
bulb kind of goes off while we're playing it live
and they go, oh my god, this is the same chords.
Is blah blah blah song. And then so usually Mason
will just like sing a chorus over the one we're
already playing and we.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Go, oh, let's do it. So the problem with that.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Medley, though, was that number one, Wonderwall is maybe the
second most overplayed song of all time by cover bands,
and number two it like we could barely none of
us could move or breathe after like eighteen minutes of
just non stop rocking of this medley. So we've had
talks about figuring out how to bring it back, and
(26:50):
it just, I don't know, it just doesn't fit.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
But I would love to figure out how to bring
that medley back.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, that's uh, I would I don't know, man, those
are so different, all four those songs are, and they
work unrelated that I think every single song change. You know,
you see people like when you throw the Mowana thing
into the kalo is just like wait a second, what
what did that?
Speaker 4 (27:12):
You could see?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I like looking at the crowd during that, because you
see the fifty percent of people out there that are
deep into young kids and like they're like, Mowana, my god,
And then you see the fifty.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Percent that's like, what, what's what's moana? I've ever seen that?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
The glory of the pork Donados, I'm gonna say one.
I haven't seen you play the last couple of times,
but your version you already do like five Taylor Swift songs,
but your version of I knew you were trouble.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Oh you're right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I mean, honestly, as many great songs as you guys play,
there were a couple of times where you played that
and I came away just like, man, that song slaps
when they play it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I don't know why that one has made its way
out a little bit, but you're you're like the third
person to tell me that in the last couple of weeks,
to be like, hey, time to time to throw that
back in, so we might we might have to bring
I want.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
That, dude.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Taylor has some songs. Okay, we all know that's.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
An incredible songwriter, you guys.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean, have you heard the Ryan Adams cover of
her entire album nineteen eighty nine?
Speaker 4 (28:11):
I have not Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
That that will show say what you want about Taylor Swift,
but she writes good songs. And if a man like
Ryan Adams, one of the greatest songwriters of all time,
can take her entire album and reform it and turn
it into his own, that's a sign that you're a songwriter.
So dude, just type in nineteen eighty nine Ryan Adams
and just hit hit play Man.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You will love it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I will do that. I am very excited about that. Now.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
The last thing I want before I leave you here,
and you know, we're excited poork tornadoes on Friday in
the Moin from my de Moin people, and Saturday in
Omaha to slow down for my Omaha people. This is,
you know, for anybody who you've kind of talked about
the general cynicism of society, or even people that have
never seen the poor tornadoes that might not know what
(29:01):
they're getting themselves into. What would be your last word
elevator pitch to somebody that's like, ah, you know, like
is this really kind of for me?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm like, they're not like active concert going type of people.
What would be your elevator pitch to get them to
want to try out the pork tornadoes?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
I think, and this is very non poetic of me.
I'd have to work on it.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
But I think the idea behind the pork tornadoes that
people should be most excited about is that we are
so diverse in our variety in the sense of, like,
for a while there, the Tribute act thing became one
of the biggest things in the world, and people would
be like, cool, I'm going to see this Van Hailen
tribute band or whatever.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And I think most people would tell you that's a
bit on.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
The decline now that the tribute thing was kind of
overrun and it's not a thing that people go to
as much anymore. And I think it's because the variety's
not there. Like you go to see a Taylor Swift
cover band, you're only gonna hear Taylor Swift right where
with us, we've purposely moved into the world of variety
where we play songs from four different genres from five
(30:09):
different decades. And that is by on purpose because we
know that if you're coming with your wife who loves
Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
We want to give you.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
We want to give you a queen song, we want
to give you a killer song, because we know that
you like rock and you're going to like something that
you hear at our show. Where I can't promise you
that if you go see a Taylor Swift band, if
you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not going to like
anything that you hear that night.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
So we're we pride ourselves in.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Those moments in the summer where there's a grandma, a mom,
and a daughter all in the front of the stage,
you know, three different generations finding something they can like
and being together at a show.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And that's the moments of life. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
It's getting out, saying yes, doing things with the people
you love.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And usually music's an incredible soundtrack to that.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
So like that's where we we'll always hang our hat
is that we are a good time and we will
be the soundtrack to your good time?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
You know what I mean one hundred percent, And honestly
is I always tell people this about Iowa weather, you know,
and your guys like, if you don't like it, just
wait today and you're gonna get something completely different.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Gay for us man, the poor tornadoes.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
If you're not driving with this song, We'll just wait
a couple of minutes because the next one's going to
be completely different.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
And we know that, Hey, you got you got five
minutes to get to the bar and get a new drink.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Mike Schalty, he's the drummer for the Poort Tornado is
also a host of the acclaimed and Esteemed podcast, Confused Breakfast.
Mike is always my man. Great to chat with you.
I can't wait to see you this weekend. And thanks
so much for giving us time today.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Thanks man, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And this is the Emory Songer Podcast and thank you
so much for listening. We will be back in this
feed this week, so be sure to stay locked and loaded.
Big thanks to Mike Schulty. The Poor Tornado is one
of my favorite bands to watch live anywhere around the Midwest,
and we will talk to you on the Emory Songer
Podcast right here on the Free iHeartRadio
It's the Emery Songer podcast here on the free iHeartRadio
app talking about all the great things happening in and
around Omaha and beyond.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We thank you for listening to this feed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I am incredibly honored to be joined by a good friend,
a guy that I share a drumming interest with, and
a guy who I've actually seen play drums with his
band several times, because they are the most fun band
that you can go and see and spend any time
watching anywhere in the Midwest. They're in it called the
Pork Tornadoes. Their drummer is Mike Shelti. He is on
(00:38):
our show today. Mike, thanks for coming back to the
show man.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's good to talk to you in the sense of
where we're not like, Okay, the clock is running, we
have sixty more seconds to hurry up and promo this
radio thing. So it's nice to actually talk to you
like a like two normal people would talk.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, like the advent of the podcast in you know,
free form pot podcasting is one hundred percent like better
I think than being conformed into whatever a TV show
or a radio show theoretically would be. And I know
that you are very familiar with that because you yourself are
a podcast host, and I'm going to start there this
(01:15):
time because we'll we'll have time to talk about the
music and the poor tornadoes, coming back to the slowdown
in Omaha. But the podcast you guys have, Confused Breakfast
is it's blowing up, like I can't. I was so
super surprised about how many followers you guys continue to add.
You have reached different corners of this. You know, like
(01:38):
you and me are about the same age, and it
just feels like our generation has found you guys, because
you're leaning into the nostalgia of what it was like
to grow up as kids in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, I mean, dude.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
When we started Confused Breakfast, it was mid twenty twenty.
It was a creative project because all my gigging had
gone away, and you know, we were all feeling a
little bit weird back then, and like so I just
needed something for just for pure joy, but also just
to creative outlet and it and that's the crazy thing
about podcasting is like, like, I agree with you, it's
(02:11):
one of the greatest forms of content that it's been developed.
Now that being said, I do love a good TV
show and a radio show where there's the production and
there's the snap snap snap, get to get to what
you want to because there are podcasts out there where
too many us and ums and and pauses. Is like, okay,
I'm out, but yeah, I mean, like we decided we
(02:34):
we just wanted to have fun, and without even knowing
at all where this thing could possibly go, and personally
not even caring really, it was just like, yeah, it'd
be cool if people listen, but we're.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Doing this for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
And then you know, a course of many awesome moments
kind of happened that sort of rocket you to the
next level. And we just we just crossed over one
point three million social media followers. Were our consistently in
like the top ten of in the United States of
movie TV film review podcast. So dude, it's just it's nuts.
(03:10):
Like I'm kind of like pork tornadoes. I'm just so
so blessed. I don't even know how I landed in
these things, but like, looking back, it's just so incredible
to be involved.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
With that stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
You guys do a good job with the video elements
that you utilize as well, And I saw one and
you guys, it's funny because you lean into the negativity
of some you know, of some people, and you made
a video of the Mighty Ducks and how Gordon Bombay
is like the worst hockey coach of all time and
(03:43):
it's one hundred percent true. By the way, Like, if
you watch the movies and you have any logic whatsoever,
you're just like, what's this guy thinking at any point
in time, and then a bunch of people are like,
you're thinking about it too hard.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It's like, man, this is for entertainment. It's fun.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
You know, you you're having fun making these videos. I'm sure,
and I know I feel this whenever I do my stuff.
You know, I get negativity and people, you know, saying
things it makes me feel bad, Like how do you
guys utilize that as fuel to just keep doing what
you're doing and not let it, you know, drag it down.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know what, The Pork Tornados trained me for this moment,
because when the Pork Tornado started to explode, We've been
a band for eighteen years and listen, the way you
view cover bands and tribute bands nowadays was not that
way back in the day, and we were one of
the first bands to actually transition out of the you know,
(04:33):
the guys in cargo shorts in a bar playing for
four hours playing Mustang Sally as background music. You know,
we were one of the first bands that actually said, no, no, no,
we got a product, we're better than everyone else, We're
gonna take this to like a national level production. And
people just did not like that, Like for some reason,
it just got all this negative negativity, like those guards suck.
(04:57):
Why were they playing that stage not my friend's band. Well,
because we work harder than you and we're we're putting
more investing into our show. But all the negativity that
the Portneo's got prepared me for what Confused Breakfast got.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It didn't prepare me for the sheer volume of it.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Because my god, dude, like I can't something's wrong with
the mentality of a large portion of people right now
where they just like can't turn off their their like
complaining brain. You know, like we're in such a society
where everybody just feels like they're entitled to say something
and that everyone should pay attention to what they're saying,
(05:35):
which is a social media problem. Oh yeah, but like
the fact that if you don't like something, just scroll on.
And then the fact that people stop to go. It's
just a movie. It's like, dude, we know, like we
understand that this is a movie. You're not saying anything
groundbreaking right now, and they're they're so serious, man, Like
(05:56):
I would have never imagined how many people could possibly
get that unbelievably mad about us just talking about a
movie from nineteen ninety four, you know, like it's it's
actually quite mind blowing to me.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, and I think that just people are cynical about
people who have a platform. I honestly, it's just like
there's an element of jealousy. It's just like I wish
I thought of that, and I'm just gonna like tear
this down because I can't do that, you know, and
there are people that get to talk about this stuff,
and you know, I wish I would have come up
with a confused breakfast concept because I said this. I
(06:31):
do these conversations with my ai as all the time.
I watched I flew to Ireland and when we were
flying back, I watched Little Giants on the plane and
I just sat there, you know. And I've seen this
movie about one hundred times, probably from when I was
a kid all the way to now. And I still
enjoy it, and I still love it, and I know
(06:52):
it's a movie, but and I know that you are
familiar with this movie. It's like, how does how do
the Cowboys just not give spy camera smit the ball
thirty five times and just like win the game seventy
to nothing? Like how does that even like happen? We
have no no idea how that happens?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Dude, And people get they don't under they think like
I'm dogging on the Mighty Ducks, like I don't understand
the Mighty Ducks Changed by life. I watched that movie
one hundred times over the course of a few years,
and I still love watching it. But like, it's really
fun to comment on it as an adult now, being like,
oh my god, what are we? Why is Goldberg and
(07:34):
goal He's the worst goalie to ever play hockey? Why
is he representing the United States? And it doesn't mean
I don't like the movie. It just means I'm kind
of critically thinking about it now as a forty.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Three year old, and that's good and I like that.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And this is the thing, right, I love these movies
so much that I've watched them so many times that
I can actually use my brain, my adult brain to
try to like inject some logic into it that my
eight year old brain would not have done.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
It's like, correct, So why are.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
The Cowboys going for it on fourth and goal from
the one yard line with like four seconds left or whatever?
And they somehow don't get it, Like we didn't set
up that it was fourth down at all the entire time,
but they're just going for it in a enti game. It
makes no sense, Emery, it's a movie, Jesus, just watch it.
And Arthur Cheney, the coach in Airbud, can we talk
(08:23):
about him like playing a dog wearing tennis shoes in
the championship game?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Like what are we doing?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Don't even care? You don't even care as a kid.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And that's what's so great about the nostalgia bug that
we've kind of all you know, man, you see those
like tiktoks where it shows like a video camera from
like nineteen ninety four and someone walking through a Blockbuster.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Like we all miss it.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
We all missed the simplicity of the eighties and the
nineties and even the early two thousands, and so that
whole nostalgia wave of talking about old movies is like
we to be clear, dude, we didn't invent that. Like,
there are a million podcasts out there that do what
we do, but we just somehow, I don't know, man,
we somehow found a lane of like comedy but also
(09:09):
not taking the movie too seriously, but also like taking
it seriously when it when it calls for it. So yeah,
it's dude, it's it's just wild. And I'm pretty pumped.
I got a four year old and a two year old,
and I'm just really excited to start like showing them
some of these movies, and it's just.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Man, that's gonna be great. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Nothan says that there's no rule that says a dog
can't play basketball, Well, is there a rule that says
a dog should play basketball?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Because I think that's the one we need to be
talking about. Yeah. No, you guys do great stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I love it when the feed pops up into my
feed and my algorithm and I just sit there and
I laugh. Not just because I know you, but it's
just what a fun concept. And I just absolutely love
that you guys have that kind of fun with it,
and it's the same attitude that you kind of bring
to the music right. So the poor Tornadoes. You know,
we've been over this ridiculous band name, but you guys
(09:58):
are in this lane of taking songs that we all
know from like the eighties and nineties all the way
to songs that have been released in the last year
and putting this kind of rock like variation to it
that makes it so fun just to watch you guys play,
but to dance to, to feel to, and you guys
play for a long time. It's not like you show
(10:20):
up and do a forty minute set and then get
the heck out of there. I mean, you guys are
knocking out fifteen twenty songs at least every set that
you play. You know, how has that evolved from the beginnings?
Like you said, it's been eighteen years, Like when did
you guys kind of find this? Okay, we've got this
figured out. We just got to find the songs now
that fit what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I don't know if you ever really figure it out, right,
like you You don't always go, oh yeah, cool, this
is it, you know, like it the band has evolved.
It started off as just a band in a bar
and we just played whatever we wanted, and then it
you know, you slowly start to just make decisions like
one day, I think, truthfully, the thing that really like
shift us if you look back on it, was we
(11:02):
decided we were going to play Teenage Dream by Katie
Perry and and mind you were like a rock band, right,
We're playing like ac DC and old rock songs like that,
And for some reason we're like, oh, let's play Teenage Dream,
but let's make it like.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
A rock and roll version.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And it wasn't like a, oh people will love this.
It was just like this sounds fun to us, and
you know, and then I remember after that people started
being like, oh, it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
They like they do like girl songs but like.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Rocked up, and we kind of went, oh, wait a minute,
like that's that's not a bad idea, Like what.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
If we add a few more?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And then you know, slowly but surely, you're you're getting
the Beyonce Helo Medley showing up, you're getting Taylor Swift
starting to show up in the set, and it just
like it just sort of happened.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
But but we've never consciously.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Made a decision to go, well, this is what will
be popular, so we have to do it. It's always
been we like this and so we're going to do
it and and hopefully everyone else likes it. So I
think that is part of our longevity is that we
we've never made a decision that was not something we
all enjoy to do, you know, cause like you can
(12:09):
see that a mile away. I've seen bands play before
them like these guys hate that they're on stage right
now playing this song, and that audience can tell that stuff.
So I mean, I think the one thing you'll get
at a Pork Tornado show is pure genuineuness of like
we love each other.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
We've been doing this forever.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
It'd be so easy for us now to stop because
we're all getting older.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
We all have we there's eight kids among the.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Four of us under eight years old, and like we
all are married and.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Dude, it's hard to leave on the weekends.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But we love it and we genuinely want to do
this as long as we can. So I don't know, man,
We've just always made decisions based on what we like
and it just resonates with people.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, and one of the things, like you've mentioned that
the kid part of this, it's never going to be
harder than it is right now for you guys to to,
you know, like manage all that with so many young
people that are running around with you guys. But as
you kind of enter this phase, you are still churning
out new songs. You're still you know, working on arranging
(13:13):
new songs. Because you really do rearrange the song. It
sounds like people can still sing along to it, but
you have to figure out the instrumentation and how your guys,
you guys are going to perform it. Like you do
all the rapping, which I find to be absolutely incredible
that you can rap and play drums at the same time.
I can barely think about anything else when I'm playing
the drums. But then you have, you know, all three
(13:34):
of the guys up front can also sing, and they
do that as well. And you, like I mentioned, you
have like a forty year radius of songs that you
like to play. How many songs do you think you
guys have had in the library at you know, over
the entirety of your band, you have a guess.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I mean, you know, like right now we're at this
two hour set mark where we play for two hours.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
We know, we don't stop. It's just song, song, song,
songs song.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I mean, we play longer than you're gonna spend five
hundred bucks to go see a national artist coming to
town and they're gonna play for sixty seventy minutes. You know,
we're gonna play for two hours and play all the
songs you want to hear. So we've custom Taylor did.
That means songs are in and out of the lineup
every night. But if you had to go back to
the start of this band and any song that we've
(14:18):
ever performed, it's probably close to two hundred, three hundred songs.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Maybe that's insane, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
It had to be over one hundred, considering how many
I already be heard, like in the last five years.
When I see you, guys, I see you at least
once or twice a year, and it's always different. And
this is the one thing my wife loves about you,
because she's like, oh, I've seen the port Tonadoes before.
She says that about some other people in other bands.
She didn't say that about the poor Tornado because she
knows that there's gonna be different new songs or a
(14:46):
different set list. What are some of the songs that
you don't have in the rotation that you feel like
were like the cornerstone pieces, and they were really hard
to take out of that set list when you felt
like it the time, it'd become time to get it
out of there.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, it's that's hard because you do as much as
you say you like playing a song, which you genuinely do,
after a certain amount of time, you go, I don't
really like playing this anymore, and you know, and crowds
get a little leery of it after they've heard it
for eight straight years.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
So there is that rotation process.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I think one of the biggest songs that we used
to play that did take us a bit to the
next level that it hasn't been in the setlist for
probably eight years now was wagon Wheel.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
We took this like rocked.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Up version of wagon Wheel right when it was getting popular,
before Darius Rucker even re recorded it, and it was
it was amazing, It was, it was fantastic. But you
know what, all of a sudden, every cover band.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
In the world is playing it.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, and fans are just going, oh, wagon Wheel. And
even though we felt we had a pretty incredible version
of it, I mean that was a conscious decision. One
day we go nope, that we will never play this
song again, and it and it just left the lineup,
and you know there's some like truth be told. Mason
really wants to pull Tennessee Whiskey for good, you know,
(16:11):
but like that.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
He's got to get sick of singing that one, because
I mean he's got to like that's the moment people
are like talking about with his voice and his his talent,
I couldn't imagine happened. All Right, I gotta do this
thing again.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Yeah, it's it's the song that really did kind of
break us.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I mean, we hit almost ten million views with our
cover of Tennessee Whiskey on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (16:33):
It's like the fourth highest viewed cover.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Of that song on YouTube, which is pure insanity because
that is a song that every person sings and you know,
like we would love to pull it. But now we're
sort of in that territory of like, well, wait a minute,
somebody may have made the trip. Like you know, we
get phone calls all the time that's like, hey, we're
flying in from Portland to see you guys in des
moin next weekend because we know you won't come to
(16:57):
Portland and the chances of them having found us because
of Tennessee whiskey is pretty good and they probably really
want to hear it, So it's like, oh man, it's
hard to get rid of the big time staples, but
the other songs are always fair game to get interchanged.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, it's interesting, and you guys are gonna be at
the Slowdown. It's an awesome venue to watch a band
like you because everybody's just in there. They're party and
they're having a great time.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
What a killer vision. Yeah, I love that place.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, and it's just fun.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Like every time I've ever gone to a Poor Tornado show,
you know, a lot of people in there. It gets
really crowded, which is what you want, and everybody is
just having a great time. And what are moments from
state from the stage right, because you're experiencing it different
than we are when we're out there watching you guys,
what are moments out there throughout the show, maybe in
the last handful of years that you look at and
(17:46):
you're just like, people are loving this, They are jiving
with this so much. When you guys not only debut
news songs, but maybe it's a song that you've played
for a long time that people are just like always
up for every time you play it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
My favorite moment over the year is spotting the dude
who got dragged to the show from his girlfriend or
his wife, Like you can see him.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Sometimes they're musicians, sometimes.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
They're just dudes just going ah, I just got to
put in the work tonight, make the wife happy. And
you can see them arms crossed, never a smile on
their face, sometimes just going ah, just these guys are
going to be so bad.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
What a terrible name.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I hate this And watching them slowly evolve throughout the
night to where by the end they're singing the words
to Shake It Off by Taylor Swift and you're like,
oh my god, we got you, dude. Like I just
love when positivity and just like that it kind of
overtakes people because sometimes people want It's like the online
(18:45):
stuff we just talked about. They want to be negative
to you so that you can reciprocate that back to
them and like get in some sort of an argument.
So like that guy probably wanted us to look at
him and be like, look at this guy, he's not
having fun.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Everybody boo him.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
You know, he probably in a way they wanted that,
but we're never going to give it to him, like,
we're always just going to be like, dude, if you
like it, cool, if you don't, whatever, We're here to
play to everyone else. And it's just so fun watching
people just just change like their first time seeing us
to being like I hate this band. I can't wait
to see him again. That's that's my favorite thing, honestly.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Well, and that's the one thing. You see you guys.
I saw you for the first time at the National
Balloon Classic.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
I think it was oh geez yeah, and I.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Think that was probably like twenty eighteen or nineteen would
be my guess.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And then I the.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Pandemic happened, and then I saw that you Guys were
one of the first concerts at Woolley's in Des Moines
after the pandemic slowed down in twenty twenty one, and
I was like, I want to go see them because
I haven't seen a live concert in forever, and so
that was the first time I like went out of
my way. We bought tickets, we went to go see
(19:54):
you guys. And then I was just like, I'm seeing
them every single time, Like there's just like there's no
poor Tornadoes show that I'm gonna miss if I can
if they're anywhere close to me. I go to see
you guys at the fair all the time, and I
just tell everybody, this is the band I want to
show to as many of my friends as possible because
I know they're all gonna have fun and they're all
(20:15):
gonna enjoy themselves in different ways. You guys have to
take some pride in that, and that's you know, that's
got to keep you guys going right that you're you know,
you have such a wide demographic of people that find
your music and your show's attractive. But the fact that
the rewatch value of the Poor Tornadoes people laud that
as much as any of your musical talents.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, it's it's it's nuts because I mean, yeah, we
have played Tennessee Whiskey probably let's see, we've that song
came out almost ten years ago for us, and we've
done about fifty shows a year, so we've probably played
that song five hundred times. And it's like, we may
not enjoy it, but you look out and you see
the person that's back for their eighth show of the
(20:55):
year and they're singing it and loving it. It's just like,
you know, we I don't know, man, we've been doing
beautiful things by Benson Boone and like on the video wall,
it's got like these photos of our kids and like
you see people like kind of like happy crying in
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
You're like, man, this is just just good.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Like it just feels like a way that we can
contribute to society, because.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Man, that stuff's tough.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Man, the world's crazy economy sucks for a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
And like the fact that you spent.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Your hard earned money to come see us and carved
a night out and got a babysitter and went out
to dinner. It's like we have to deliver, you know,
like we will die on this stage to be good
performers for you because it means so much.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
I love how excited people get when that countdown is going.
It's the Taylor Swift countdown into the start of the show,
and people are just like, oh it's coming here we go,
oh yeah, And I just love the buzz that's in there.
You've started the last few that I've seen with my
favorite band of killers. You play a few different killers.
Somebody told me it just gives me so amped. I'm
(22:02):
so pumped every single time you guys play that song
and get things going. But there's so many different moments
throughout the show where it's like, oh yeah, I didn't
expect them to go to the Backstreet Boys here. I
didn't expect them to go to Taylor Swift here, And
you got like eight Taylor Swift songs that you guys
know how to play. So I just wonder for you,
at this point and this many shows and this many years,
(22:25):
what are those songs that you actually do have fun
playing at this point?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
To be clear, here, I have fun playing every song.
I've We're to the point now where I look at
the next song and I go, yeah, cool, Like I'm
I love everything we do are because we learned so
many new songs.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
The ones we tend to not like as much tend
to make their way out.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So like we're the set list we're gonna play this
weekend Friday and Des Moines and then Saturday in Omaha
is like one of the best set lists we've put together.
I mean it is just impact and it has those
signature turns where you know you're hearing Phil Collins into
a rap, Medley into Britney Spears into the Killers, Like
(23:10):
it's just like it's a journey. We're taking you on
a journey that you don't expect. And actually we had
that new rap medley that we were putting together that
ends with Lose Yourself by Eminem.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
Have you heard that one?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I haven't seen you guys play that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
No, So here's an interesting story for you.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Like we I spent about a year custom tailoring like
a new rap medley, right, and I and I we
did oh now, I can't even.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Remember what it was. I was like, this is perfect,
it's it's gonna be so good. It was.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was a song into California love into Eminem lose Yourself.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
And I was like, bro, people are going to lose
their minds.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
And we put it together and we practiced it, and
we played it like four or five times in the
fall last year over the winter, and it just it
was kind of it was okay. It just people didn't
react the way I thought they were going to react
to it. So we went back to the drawing board,
where like, we need to retool this, and so now
the new one, like we've perfected it. People are it
(24:09):
might be the loudest people go the whole night. It's
hypnotized by Big into Nutting but a g thing snoop
and dre into eminem lose yourself and it's like it
might be my finest moment of like my abilities and
like how we crafted this and we put it together
and that's currently.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
My favorite moment of the night and people just love it.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I can't wait. That's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And you're the rapper, so you you got the mic
and you're going crazy on the mic and then play.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We played that in Cedar Rapids and my parents came
to the show and.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
My mom was like, that was a lot of words.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I was like, yeah, it's a lot of words, mom, Hey,
but you you were you were the genius behind it.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
So it's not like you can blame anybody else for uh,
for the workload there.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I'm excited for that. You got a lot of other songs.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I want to real quick to songs that you don't
play now or aren't on the set list that you
think could come back, because I know that you kind
of like go in and out it was some of
these songs will pop up. Like you said, some of
them have been retired forever. But are there songs that
you have done that have been you know, kind of
(25:21):
lost its regular spot in your set list that you're like, man,
now that I think about that, I'd love to play
that in front of people again.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Sometime.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
There's a lot of those.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
There's some that we know that just they just don't
make sense, you know, like it's just people really don't
get it. We'll save it for a special occasion kind
of a thing. But one song in particular that we
used to play, we used to do this like eighteen
minute long medley of it was like it was like.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Gavin de Graus.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
It was like I Don't want to Be by Gavin
de Grau, into Et by Katy Perry, into Wonderwall by Oasis,
and then into like all I Do is win and
it was like, brother, Like it was insane, how crazy
that medley?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What don't you even think of that? Like do we
think of that?
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's the same way all of our medley's happened.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Like we play it and then you'll see someone's light
bulb kind of goes off while we're playing it live
and they go, oh my god, this is the same chords.
Is blah blah blah song. And then so usually Mason
will just like sing a chorus over the one we're
already playing and we.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Go, oh, let's do it. So the problem with that.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Medley, though, was that number one, Wonderwall is maybe the
second most overplayed song of all time by cover bands,
and number two it like we could barely none of
us could move or breathe after like eighteen minutes of
just non stop rocking of this medley. So we've had
talks about figuring out how to bring it back, and
(26:50):
it just, I don't know, it just doesn't fit.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
But I would love to figure out how to bring
that medley back.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, that's uh, I would I don't know, man, those
are so different, all four those songs are, and they
work unrelated that I think every single song change. You know,
you see people like when you throw the Mowana thing
into the kalo is just like wait a second, what
what did that?
Speaker 4 (27:12):
You could see?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I like looking at the crowd during that, because you
see the fifty percent of people out there that are
deep into young kids and like they're like, Mowana, my god,
And then you see the fifty.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Percent that's like, what, what's what's moana? I've ever seen that?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (27:27):
The glory of the pork Donados, I'm gonna say one.
I haven't seen you play the last couple of times,
but your version you already do like five Taylor Swift songs,
but your version of I knew you were trouble.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Oh you're right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I mean, honestly, as many great songs as you guys play,
there were a couple of times where you played that
and I came away just like, man, that song slaps
when they play it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I don't know why that one has made its way
out a little bit, but you're you're like the third
person to tell me that in the last couple of weeks,
to be like, hey, time to time to throw that
back in, so we might we might have to bring
I want.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
That, dude.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Taylor has some songs. Okay, we all know that's.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
An incredible songwriter, you guys.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean, have you heard the Ryan Adams cover of
her entire album nineteen eighty nine?
Speaker 4 (28:11):
I have not Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
That that will show say what you want about Taylor Swift,
but she writes good songs. And if a man like
Ryan Adams, one of the greatest songwriters of all time,
can take her entire album and reform it and turn
it into his own, that's a sign that you're a songwriter.
So dude, just type in nineteen eighty nine Ryan Adams
and just hit hit play Man.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You will love it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I will do that. I am very excited about that. Now.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
The last thing I want before I leave you here,
and you know, we're excited poork tornadoes on Friday in
the Moin from my de Moin people, and Saturday in
Omaha to slow down for my Omaha people. This is,
you know, for anybody who you've kind of talked about
the general cynicism of society, or even people that have
never seen the poor tornadoes that might not know what
(29:01):
they're getting themselves into. What would be your last word
elevator pitch to somebody that's like, ah, you know, like
is this really kind of for me?
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Maybe?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm like, they're not like active concert going type of people.
What would be your elevator pitch to get them to
want to try out the pork tornadoes?
Speaker 4 (29:20):
I think, and this is very non poetic of me.
I'd have to work on it.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
But I think the idea behind the pork tornadoes that
people should be most excited about is that we are
so diverse in our variety in the sense of, like,
for a while there, the Tribute act thing became one
of the biggest things in the world, and people would
be like, cool, I'm going to see this Van Hailen
tribute band or whatever.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And I think most people would tell you that's a
bit on.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
The decline now that the tribute thing was kind of
overrun and it's not a thing that people go to
as much anymore. And I think it's because the variety's
not there. Like you go to see a Taylor Swift
cover band, you're only gonna hear Taylor Swift right where
with us, we've purposely moved into the world of variety
where we play songs from four different genres from five
(30:09):
different decades. And that is by on purpose because we
know that if you're coming with your wife who loves
Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
We want to give you.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
We want to give you a queen song, we want
to give you a killer song, because we know that
you like rock and you're going to like something that
you hear at our show. Where I can't promise you
that if you go see a Taylor Swift band, if
you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not going to like
anything that you hear that night.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
So we're we pride ourselves in.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Those moments in the summer where there's a grandma, a mom,
and a daughter all in the front of the stage,
you know, three different generations finding something they can like
and being together at a show.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
And that's the moments of life. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
It's getting out, saying yes, doing things with the people
you love.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And usually music's an incredible soundtrack to that.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
So like that's where we we'll always hang our hat
is that we are a good time and we will
be the soundtrack to your good time?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
You know what I mean one hundred percent, And honestly
is I always tell people this about Iowa weather, you know,
and your guys like, if you don't like it, just
wait today and you're gonna get something completely different.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Gay for us man, the poor tornadoes.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
If you're not driving with this song, We'll just wait
a couple of minutes because the next one's going to
be completely different.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
And we know that, Hey, you got you got five
minutes to get to the bar and get a new drink.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Go for it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Mike Schalty, he's the drummer for the Poort Tornado is
also a host of the acclaimed and Esteemed podcast, Confused Breakfast.
Mike is always my man. Great to chat with you.
I can't wait to see you this weekend. And thanks
so much for giving us time today.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Thanks man, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And this is the Emory Songer Podcast and thank you
so much for listening. We will be back in this
feed this week, so be sure to stay locked and loaded.
Big thanks to Mike Schulty. The Poor Tornado is one
of my favorite bands to watch live anywhere around the Midwest,
and we will talk to you on the Emory Songer
Podcast right here on the Free iHeartRadio
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