May 3, 2025 • 17 mins
In this Special episode I got the chance to interview Jeff Stevens of the rock band Stranger and is also the On Air Talent of Dayton radio station Mixx 1077. in this interview we talk about how his band was form and how he got to open For big rock bands like cheap trick , Night Ranger, Foreigner, John Waite and many othrs. This is deffinally an episode you got listen too.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everybody. This is Sea Bass from Rocking with
Sea Bass. And last week I said that we had
a very very busy week. You know, I went to
concerts and stuff and I had to I wanted to
talk all about it. But to make this easier, I
have a very very special guest.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
He was part of the Time Warp prom.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
He's in a crazy band called Stranger and yes they're Strangers,
and I happened to work for him for some odd reason.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
His name is Jeff Stevens.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
What Sea Bass, thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, it's good to see man.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Have you been I've been great great. You mentioned timework
prom that was so much fun. We got to uh,
we got to you know, just rock the eighties out.
But most importantly, we saw you in black and white
zebra you know, stretch pants.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We'll just say that.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Those pants were very soft and I love them.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And they fit. They fit the eighties theme very.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, Yes they did.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
But you guys sounded really good that day and your
voice was great.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The band sounded tight. How long have you guys been together?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Well, believe it or not, we have been together. This
is our twenty ninth summer together. Oh wow, twenty nine
So was I was your age when I started in
this band Sea Bass. So yeah, twenty nine years ago
we started and same original five guys. Currently, we have
a drummer that is filling in for us because our
(01:26):
original drummer, Rob Rob Hoading is awesome and he is
going through some health battles and has been for about
a year and a half or so, and so he played.
He played last summer like fifteen of our twenty five
shows and then sort of had to get some new
treatment and was kind of running out of gas a
little bit, so he had to take the end of
(01:50):
last summer off and so far healthwise he's doing much better,
but his energy is just so low, and he is
a super energetic drummer, so it's really hard for him
to play like he needs to while he's going.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Through the treatment.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
So so Kobe Utterback has been filling in for us
for you know, the last six or eight months, and
he does a very very nice job. He's a great drummer.
He plays in the band called love Bomb, and so
he plays with them and he plays with us until
Rob can get back.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, well, I gotta say I love your guitar player
as well. How did you guys meet him, because he
is phenomenal even your keyboarder.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah, so Matt is our guitar player, and then Brian
is our guitar player and keyboard players he would be
he would say he's a keyboard player first, but he
also plays pretty darn good guitar. Matt. It's kind of
funny how we met Matt. We were playing a gig
in nineteen ninety four, so thirty one years ago. Wow,
(02:51):
before you existed. Thirty one years ago. We were playing
a show and the guy that I started this band with,
his name is Dave Verinike. He and I were just
best friends through high school in college and we said
we were going to be like John bon Jovi and
Richie Sambora when we grew up. And so we wrote
songs together, we played music, and we were going to just,
(03:11):
you know, go to the ends of the earth. And
he sort of had a bit of a life change
and decided kind of in in in ninety four, he decided,
you know what, I need to get serious about my career.
He's a professor to college, and he said, I want
to marry my girl and start my family. So he
kind of abruptly left, which was nobody was expecting. So
(03:34):
he left us, we played it. We had a gig
back in spring of ninety four. We would play every
Wednesday at this club in Centerville.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Ohio Wow. And he told us.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
At the gig that the next week would be his
last week. So we're like, well, what are we going
to do? And so the club's like, well, you guys
got to keep playing, and we're like, we can't play
without a guitar player. So another band that was playing
at this venue was called Blue September and they had
a great guitar player named Matt Smith, and so we're like,
(04:05):
you know what, let's talk to Matt. And so I
pulled him aside and I said, hey, here's the deal.
Our guitar players leaving in a week. We need a
new guitar player. Can you just fill in? So Matt's like, well,
you know, it's pretty crazy. I'm going to school. I'm
in this Blue September, but I'll help you guys out
for a week or two.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Like okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So so we were making I don't want you to
be too jealous here, we were making two hundred bucks
a gig.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Nice, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yep, so forty bucks apiece, and so two hundred bucks.
And so we decided because we played thirty six songs
a night at this show, okay, so it was like
three hours, you know, twelve songs a set, so it's
like thirty six songs. So I gave Matt a cassette
and I said, can you learn these songs by next Wednesday?
(05:00):
He's like, uh, okay, sure, it's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So sure enough, we had no practice, we had We
just we all showed up and said, I hope you
learned this stuff. So we said, you know, so I
gave him a cassette of our show from that week,
so it was going to be exactly the same. So
I said, if you just learn what's on here, we're good.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
He did it. He learned all thirty six songs.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Wow, And we're like, dude, this is great.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
So at the end of the night, we took our
two hundred bucks and we just gave it all to him,
you know, because he saved us, right Otherwise we would
have had to cancel.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
So we said, he says, okay, thanks guys, and I go, well,
you know, we kind of need you for next Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Also he's like, oh, well okay, so the next Wednesday, hey,
here's two hundred bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You know, thanks man. So two weeks in a row
we've played for free.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh no, So guess what happened the third week, same thing.
We needed him back, and so we're like, well, you know,
he's been with us for a couple of weeks. Now,
now we're going to split the money back up. He
kind of goes because I gave forty bucks and he's like, oh,
I thought it would be two hundred. And I'm like,
oh yeah, okay, sure, So I give him the two
(06:07):
hundred and the other guys are like, are we ever
gonna get paid for this stupid show? So here's the
So the best part about that, So he helped us out.
It was awesome, we struck up a friendship and he's
never left the band.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
So thirty one years, he kept saying, one more week.
It's been thirty one years.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Oh man, that's great. So he's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Myers dedication for that. Yeah, and the fact that you
guys kept giving him money too.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Eventually that part got old. We're like, come on, dude,
so kind of just going through the years here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You mentioned to me during texts that you guys did
do a music video.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, here it is right now. I got it on screen.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I know people on you here will not see it,
but you guys were doing Missing You featuring John wait Here.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Can you walk me through this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, first of all, everybody should. Everybody should YouTube it.
There's our video.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
The only thing I hate about this we were opening
for Foreigner at the phrase, So for somebody thought it
that'd be a good idea to put Stranger with Foreigner.
I'm like, okay, Stranger, Foreigner got it. So we got
to open for Foregner, which was a huge thrill. But
it was right after COVID, so it was like summer
of twenty twenty one, and we're wearing masks during the
(07:16):
sound check because there's like clips of sound check and
then there's clips on stage and stuff. So all the
clips during soundcheck we're wearing masks. So I you know,
it's just it takes you back back to that time
when you know you're like, oh, I don't have to
think about wearing masks. But on stage we got to
you know, we got to just you know, we obviously
didn't have to wear him on stage, but so it
(07:36):
was really fun and we decided to make a video.
But that summer we recorded the John Waite song Missing You,
his number one hit from nineteen eighty four. We got
to record it with him, so wow, I did not
know that. Yeah, So this this version is features the
you know, the video. He's not in our video, but
he is in the song. So which you could stream
(07:59):
all the Stranger song on Spotify or Apple. Even iHeart
has a Stranger channel, but you always have to put Stranger,
and then you have to put the title of the
song because if you don't, it goes to there's another band,
I guess from Florida called Stranger, yeah, from the eighties,
from the eighties, and there's another and then Stranger things
comes up all the time too, get the TV show, right,
(08:21):
So if you so, yeah, if you really want to
find us, then like we just released Endless Summer Nights,
so you would search Stranger Endless Summer Nights, Stranger, Missing You.
We've done other songs called Sweetheart and Christina and be
Good to Yourself. You just have to always put in
our name and the title of the song. So but yeah,
(08:43):
there's there are stuff is everywhere. So we opened for
John Waite about ten years ago with the phrase, and
we kind of struck up a friendship with him. So
in the summer of twenty twenty during COVID, we were
just everybody was bored. I mean we had a whole
packed summer. We had like thirty shows that summer, and
(09:05):
of course almost all of them got canceled. We played
like two or three, but most of them got canceled.
So we were like, what are we gonna do. So
Matt our guitar player, I was just talking about we
got We got on the phone and he goes, why
don't you why don't you ask John Waite if he
wants to do a song with us? I'm like, what
I said? Do you think I just called John wait
(09:26):
and asked him to do a song? I so why not?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So I did?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
So I emailed him. I didn't have his phone number,
but we emailed back and forth. I said, John, I said,
we're thinking about re recording your song missing You at
a studio in Cincinnati, and would you sing with us?
And he said, if it'll make you famous, I'm gonna
do it. He emailed me in less than two minutes.
He emailed me right back. I was completely shocked, but
(09:51):
he totally said he was in And so we went
to the studio in Cincinnati and recorded Missing You. Then
we sent it to him electronically in LA and he
recorded his vocals, send it back to us, and then
we mixed the two of us singing back and forth,
and it ended up being a duet of Missing You.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Dude, that is awesome, and we were like, no way,
this just happened.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That that is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's something you would sit there and go like, I
just did a thing with John Waite.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, that's exactly where we still I mean, you know,
here we are, three or four years later, we still
can't believe it happened.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So well, another artist that you actually kind of collaborated
a little bit with here, we've had him at the
Mixed Fest of a few times. Or once I would
say he walked right past me.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Richard Marx. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Richard Marx, Yes, did a.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Cover of Endless Summer Nights. And I was listening to
the recording is amazing. I was actually amazed how good
it was, and I was actually sitting there because I
was watching the original music video and kind of comparing
it and kind of thinking like, huh, Jeff could be
Richard Marx right here in this music video.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
It could work.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Yes, well my hair, I couldn't get my hair quite
that big, but he has great hair.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
But yes, So the idea was.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
That, you know, when we originally we're going to do that,
when we originally recorded Endless Summer Nights at the studio
in Cincinnati, we were gonna send it off to Richard
and have Richard make a duet. And then long story short,
he kind of his schedule kind of went sideways and
he's doing his own projects and he didn't really have
time for it. So we had this version of Endless
(11:24):
Summer Nights, you know, kind of set and ready to go,
and unfortunately he wasn't able to get to it. So
it was just kind of sitting there and a friend
at our at a little record label that puts our
songs out called Toucan Cove is the name of the
label in Chicago, and his name is Mick Stevanovitch, and
he goes, you know what, you should find a really
(11:46):
good female vocalist and just make it a duet between
you and her.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, yes, who is that?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
So that's Emily Schulte and she is fantastic. She has
You got to look up her other band. She's got
a band called Archer's Gate Okay, kind of a hard
rocking female led It's all guys in the band. She's
the female lead, and she is fantastic. They're amazing musicians
and it's kind of like almost like a Christian hard
(12:12):
rock band, sort of with it like an Evanescence type
of sound.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They're really really good.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And so Emily and I have sung together many many
times at various events and church stuff, and I said,
Emily would you sing this song with us? And she goes, oh,
my gosh, I can't believe you're asking. I'm like, are
you kidding me? You're amazing. I was like, will you
do it? She's like, I'd love to do it. So
she came to Cincinnati in February of this year and
we had her just jump in there and start singing, man,
(12:42):
and she was just belting stuff out and doing these
beautiful harmonies. And now you can hear it. It just was
released last week to Spotify and Apple Music and everything.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I don't have that. You had to send it to
me in the visually, Well.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
You were you know, you had to get prepped for
the show today here with rock and with sea bass,
so I.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Had to say, of course, right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
But yeah, So it's so look for a Stranger endless
summer nights and you can hear it's that's that's me
and Emily Shalty and she's going to sing with us
this summer. She's going to sing it live on I
believe it's June fourteenth at a thing called Canal Fest
in Tip City, which usually has about three thousand people
in a big open field on a beautiful summer night.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So she's going to sing it with us.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Wow, yep, pretty cool, I know, right yep.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So going off from all that, you know, you've you've
been touring for a long time. You've opened for Foreigner,
I've seen you open for Night Ranger, for Crying Out Loud.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, all kinds of opening acts.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
How does it feel for you to like literally do that,
to open up for some of your favorite rock groups.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, that's a it's really a great question.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's it's the thing that I really can't believe all
these years later that has actually happened because these are
all bands that I loved listening to growing up to,
and you know, people that back in high school and
middle school that I thought, you know, I saw him
on MTV or I saw their album cover. I can't
believe that I've gotten to know some of these guys
(14:06):
and that our band has been able to open up
for him collaborate with him. We also have a song
with Rick Springfield called Christina Yes. And you know, and
Rick was one of my idols growing up, just his
guitar playing, his songwriting so much more than just Jesse's Girl.
He has so many great songs, but Christine is kind
of one of his album cuts, and Rick agreed to
(14:27):
do that with us, And then that's kind of what
started the whole snowball was we recorded with Rick, then
we recorded with John Waite, then we recorded Sweetheart with
Frankie Prevett. He was in frank in the Knockouts in
the early eighties, So that kind of started us collaborating
with some of these people. But I never thought we'd
be opening up for Night Ranger or Ario Speedwagon or
(14:50):
Starship or Foreigner, John Waite, Rick Springfield Cheap Trick at
Courthouse about two blocks from here. Yeah, it's really really
been a thirty eight special. We've opened for twice, Rick Springfield,
we've opened up for five times, so it's actually, you know,
(15:12):
we've actually kind of struck up a little bit of
a relationship with these guys. So it's really hard for
me still to believe.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So yeah, wow, Well, to wrap all this up, do
you have any good advice for all the bands out
there that are trying to make it?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Well, my advice would be coming from somebody who never
thought he'd do anything other than singing the shower, because
that's about as far as I thought it would get.
Is just is to stay with it and dream big.
Because when I was watching MTV back in the day,
I never thought in a million years that I'd be
my band, would be recording with them or opening up
(15:50):
for them and stuff like that. So you just don't
The truth is, you just don't know what could possibly happen.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And so I just had enough faith and belief.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
That, hey, you know, things sometimes work out and sometimes
opportunities kind of fall in your lap and are presented
in front of you, and that's just what happened.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I mean a lot of it is.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
There's some luck, there's some timing, there's some destiny, there's
but I would say faith more than anything, that just
that that you can do it. Faith in your abilities
and trust, trust yourself, and surround yourself with good people
that don't suck the life out of you. It's nobody
can believe that this band has been this little band
(16:32):
from Dayton, Ohio has been together for twenty nine years,
because most bands that are hugely successful don't last for
twenty nine years because they get in fights and they
don't agree on stuff, and they get on each other's
nerves and they break up and we're still all best friends.
So surround yourself with people that you like working with,
that you're creative with, and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Anything's possible.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Agree with you on that, Jeff. I thank you for
coming on the show Man. It's been it's been a blast.
I love your stories. I'm so jealous that you got
to meet bon Jovi by the way.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Oh yes, yes, oh that was a big one.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yes it was. But I'll get you back one day.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
To all the people out there listening, thank you for
tuning in. This has been rocking with Sea Bass take care,
and keep on rocking.
What's up everybody. This is Sea Bass from Rocking with
Sea Bass. And last week I said that we had
a very very busy week. You know, I went to
concerts and stuff and I had to I wanted to
talk all about it. But to make this easier, I
have a very very special guest.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
He was part of the Time Warp prom.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
He's in a crazy band called Stranger and yes they're Strangers,
and I happened to work for him for some odd reason.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
His name is Jeff Stevens.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
What Sea Bass, thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, it's good to see man.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Have you been I've been great great. You mentioned timework
prom that was so much fun. We got to uh,
we got to you know, just rock the eighties out.
But most importantly, we saw you in black and white
zebra you know, stretch pants.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We'll just say that.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Those pants were very soft and I love them.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And they fit. They fit the eighties theme very.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, Yes they did.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
But you guys sounded really good that day and your
voice was great.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The band sounded tight. How long have you guys been together?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Well, believe it or not, we have been together. This
is our twenty ninth summer together. Oh wow, twenty nine
So was I was your age when I started in
this band Sea Bass. So yeah, twenty nine years ago
we started and same original five guys. Currently, we have
a drummer that is filling in for us because our
(01:26):
original drummer, Rob Rob Hoading is awesome and he is
going through some health battles and has been for about
a year and a half or so, and so he played.
He played last summer like fifteen of our twenty five
shows and then sort of had to get some new
treatment and was kind of running out of gas a
little bit, so he had to take the end of
(01:50):
last summer off and so far healthwise he's doing much better,
but his energy is just so low, and he is
a super energetic drummer, so it's really hard for him
to play like he needs to while he's going.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Through the treatment.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
So so Kobe Utterback has been filling in for us
for you know, the last six or eight months, and
he does a very very nice job. He's a great drummer.
He plays in the band called love Bomb, and so
he plays with them and he plays with us until
Rob can get back.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, well, I gotta say I love your guitar player
as well. How did you guys meet him, because he
is phenomenal even your keyboarder.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah, so Matt is our guitar player, and then Brian
is our guitar player and keyboard players he would be
he would say he's a keyboard player first, but he
also plays pretty darn good guitar. Matt. It's kind of
funny how we met Matt. We were playing a gig
in nineteen ninety four, so thirty one years ago. Wow,
(02:51):
before you existed. Thirty one years ago. We were playing
a show and the guy that I started this band with,
his name is Dave Verinike. He and I were just
best friends through high school in college and we said
we were going to be like John bon Jovi and
Richie Sambora when we grew up. And so we wrote
songs together, we played music, and we were going to just,
(03:11):
you know, go to the ends of the earth. And
he sort of had a bit of a life change
and decided kind of in in in ninety four, he decided,
you know what, I need to get serious about my career.
He's a professor to college, and he said, I want
to marry my girl and start my family. So he
kind of abruptly left, which was nobody was expecting. So
(03:34):
he left us, we played it. We had a gig
back in spring of ninety four. We would play every
Wednesday at this club in Centerville.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Ohio Wow. And he told us.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
At the gig that the next week would be his
last week. So we're like, well, what are we going
to do? And so the club's like, well, you guys
got to keep playing, and we're like, we can't play
without a guitar player. So another band that was playing
at this venue was called Blue September and they had
a great guitar player named Matt Smith, and so we're like,
(04:05):
you know what, let's talk to Matt. And so I
pulled him aside and I said, hey, here's the deal.
Our guitar players leaving in a week. We need a
new guitar player. Can you just fill in? So Matt's like, well,
you know, it's pretty crazy. I'm going to school. I'm
in this Blue September, but I'll help you guys out
for a week or two.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Like okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So so we were making I don't want you to
be too jealous here, we were making two hundred bucks
a gig.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Nice, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yep, so forty bucks apiece, and so two hundred bucks.
And so we decided because we played thirty six songs
a night at this show, okay, so it was like
three hours, you know, twelve songs a set, so it's
like thirty six songs. So I gave Matt a cassette
and I said, can you learn these songs by next Wednesday?
(05:00):
He's like, uh, okay, sure, it's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
So sure enough, we had no practice, we had We
just we all showed up and said, I hope you
learned this stuff. So we said, you know, so I
gave him a cassette of our show from that week,
so it was going to be exactly the same. So
I said, if you just learn what's on here, we're good.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
He did it. He learned all thirty six songs.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Wow, And we're like, dude, this is great.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
So at the end of the night, we took our
two hundred bucks and we just gave it all to him,
you know, because he saved us, right Otherwise we would
have had to cancel.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
So we said, he says, okay, thanks guys, and I go, well,
you know, we kind of need you for next Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Also he's like, oh, well okay, so the next Wednesday, hey,
here's two hundred bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You know, thanks man. So two weeks in a row
we've played for free.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh no, So guess what happened the third week, same thing.
We needed him back, and so we're like, well, you know,
he's been with us for a couple of weeks. Now,
now we're going to split the money back up. He
kind of goes because I gave forty bucks and he's like, oh,
I thought it would be two hundred. And I'm like,
oh yeah, okay, sure, So I give him the two
(06:07):
hundred and the other guys are like, are we ever
gonna get paid for this stupid show? So here's the
So the best part about that, So he helped us out.
It was awesome, we struck up a friendship and he's
never left the band.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Nice.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
So thirty one years, he kept saying, one more week.
It's been thirty one years.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Oh man, that's great. So he's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Myers dedication for that. Yeah, and the fact that you
guys kept giving him money too.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Eventually that part got old. We're like, come on, dude,
so kind of just going through the years here.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You mentioned to me during texts that you guys did
do a music video.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, here it is right now. I got it on screen.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I know people on you here will not see it,
but you guys were doing Missing You featuring John wait Here.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Can you walk me through this? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, first of all, everybody should. Everybody should YouTube it.
There's our video.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
The only thing I hate about this we were opening
for Foreigner at the phrase, So for somebody thought it
that'd be a good idea to put Stranger with Foreigner.
I'm like, okay, Stranger, Foreigner got it. So we got
to open for Foregner, which was a huge thrill. But
it was right after COVID, so it was like summer
of twenty twenty one, and we're wearing masks during the
(07:16):
sound check because there's like clips of sound check and
then there's clips on stage and stuff. So all the
clips during soundcheck we're wearing masks. So I you know,
it's just it takes you back back to that time
when you know you're like, oh, I don't have to
think about wearing masks. But on stage we got to
you know, we got to just you know, we obviously
didn't have to wear him on stage, but so it
(07:36):
was really fun and we decided to make a video.
But that summer we recorded the John Waite song Missing You,
his number one hit from nineteen eighty four. We got
to record it with him, so wow, I did not
know that. Yeah, So this this version is features the
you know, the video. He's not in our video, but
he is in the song. So which you could stream
(07:59):
all the Stranger song on Spotify or Apple. Even iHeart
has a Stranger channel, but you always have to put Stranger,
and then you have to put the title of the
song because if you don't, it goes to there's another band,
I guess from Florida called Stranger, yeah, from the eighties,
from the eighties, and there's another and then Stranger things
comes up all the time too, get the TV show, right,
(08:21):
So if you so, yeah, if you really want to
find us, then like we just released Endless Summer Nights,
so you would search Stranger Endless Summer Nights, Stranger, Missing You.
We've done other songs called Sweetheart and Christina and be
Good to Yourself. You just have to always put in
our name and the title of the song. So but yeah,
(08:43):
there's there are stuff is everywhere. So we opened for
John Waite about ten years ago with the phrase, and
we kind of struck up a friendship with him. So
in the summer of twenty twenty during COVID, we were
just everybody was bored. I mean we had a whole
packed summer. We had like thirty shows that summer, and
(09:05):
of course almost all of them got canceled. We played
like two or three, but most of them got canceled.
So we were like, what are we gonna do. So
Matt our guitar player, I was just talking about we
got We got on the phone and he goes, why
don't you why don't you ask John Waite if he
wants to do a song with us? I'm like, what
I said? Do you think I just called John wait
(09:26):
and asked him to do a song? I so why not?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
So I did?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
So I emailed him. I didn't have his phone number,
but we emailed back and forth. I said, John, I said,
we're thinking about re recording your song missing You at
a studio in Cincinnati, and would you sing with us?
And he said, if it'll make you famous, I'm gonna
do it. He emailed me in less than two minutes.
He emailed me right back. I was completely shocked, but
(09:51):
he totally said he was in And so we went
to the studio in Cincinnati and recorded Missing You. Then
we sent it to him electronically in LA and he
recorded his vocals, send it back to us, and then
we mixed the two of us singing back and forth,
and it ended up being a duet of Missing You.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Dude, that is awesome, and we were like, no way,
this just happened.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
That that is fantastic.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's something you would sit there and go like, I
just did a thing with John Waite.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, that's exactly where we still I mean, you know,
here we are, three or four years later, we still
can't believe it happened.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So well, another artist that you actually kind of collaborated
a little bit with here, we've had him at the
Mixed Fest of a few times. Or once I would
say he walked right past me.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Richard Marx. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Richard Marx, Yes, did a.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Cover of Endless Summer Nights. And I was listening to
the recording is amazing. I was actually amazed how good
it was, and I was actually sitting there because I
was watching the original music video and kind of comparing
it and kind of thinking like, huh, Jeff could be
Richard Marx right here in this music video.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
It could work.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Yes, well my hair, I couldn't get my hair quite
that big, but he has great hair.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
But yes, So the idea was.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
That, you know, when we originally we're going to do that,
when we originally recorded Endless Summer Nights at the studio
in Cincinnati, we were gonna send it off to Richard
and have Richard make a duet. And then long story short,
he kind of his schedule kind of went sideways and
he's doing his own projects and he didn't really have
time for it. So we had this version of Endless
(11:24):
Summer Nights, you know, kind of set and ready to go,
and unfortunately he wasn't able to get to it. So
it was just kind of sitting there and a friend
at our at a little record label that puts our
songs out called Toucan Cove is the name of the
label in Chicago, and his name is Mick Stevanovitch, and
he goes, you know what, you should find a really
(11:46):
good female vocalist and just make it a duet between
you and her.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, yes, who is that?
Speaker 4 (11:50):
So that's Emily Schulte and she is fantastic. She has
You got to look up her other band. She's got
a band called Archer's Gate Okay, kind of a hard
rocking female led It's all guys in the band. She's
the female lead, and she is fantastic. They're amazing musicians
and it's kind of like almost like a Christian hard
(12:12):
rock band, sort of with it like an Evanescence type
of sound.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They're really really good.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And so Emily and I have sung together many many
times at various events and church stuff, and I said,
Emily would you sing this song with us? And she goes, oh,
my gosh, I can't believe you're asking. I'm like, are
you kidding me? You're amazing. I was like, will you
do it? She's like, I'd love to do it. So
she came to Cincinnati in February of this year and
we had her just jump in there and start singing, man,
(12:42):
and she was just belting stuff out and doing these
beautiful harmonies. And now you can hear it. It just was
released last week to Spotify and Apple Music and everything.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I don't have that. You had to send it to
me in the visually, Well.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
You were you know, you had to get prepped for
the show today here with rock and with sea bass,
so I.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Had to say, of course, right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
But yeah, So it's so look for a Stranger endless
summer nights and you can hear it's that's that's me
and Emily Shalty and she's going to sing with us
this summer. She's going to sing it live on I
believe it's June fourteenth at a thing called Canal Fest
in Tip City, which usually has about three thousand people
in a big open field on a beautiful summer night.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So she's going to sing it with us.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Wow, yep, pretty cool, I know, right yep.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So going off from all that, you know, you've you've
been touring for a long time. You've opened for Foreigner,
I've seen you open for Night Ranger, for Crying Out Loud.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, all kinds of opening acts.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
How does it feel for you to like literally do that,
to open up for some of your favorite rock groups.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, that's a it's really a great question.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
It's it's the thing that I really can't believe all
these years later that has actually happened because these are
all bands that I loved listening to growing up to,
and you know, people that back in high school and
middle school that I thought, you know, I saw him
on MTV or I saw their album cover. I can't
believe that I've gotten to know some of these guys
(14:06):
and that our band has been able to open up
for him collaborate with him. We also have a song
with Rick Springfield called Christina Yes. And you know, and
Rick was one of my idols growing up, just his
guitar playing, his songwriting so much more than just Jesse's Girl.
He has so many great songs, but Christine is kind
of one of his album cuts, and Rick agreed to
(14:27):
do that with us, And then that's kind of what
started the whole snowball was we recorded with Rick, then
we recorded with John Waite, then we recorded Sweetheart with
Frankie Prevett. He was in frank in the Knockouts in
the early eighties, So that kind of started us collaborating
with some of these people. But I never thought we'd
be opening up for Night Ranger or Ario Speedwagon or
(14:50):
Starship or Foreigner, John Waite, Rick Springfield Cheap Trick at
Courthouse about two blocks from here. Yeah, it's really really
been a thirty eight special. We've opened for twice, Rick Springfield,
we've opened up for five times, so it's actually, you know,
(15:12):
we've actually kind of struck up a little bit of
a relationship with these guys. So it's really hard for
me still to believe.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So yeah, wow, Well, to wrap all this up, do
you have any good advice for all the bands out
there that are trying to make it?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Well, my advice would be coming from somebody who never
thought he'd do anything other than singing the shower, because
that's about as far as I thought it would get.
Is just is to stay with it and dream big.
Because when I was watching MTV back in the day,
I never thought in a million years that I'd be
my band, would be recording with them or opening up
(15:50):
for them and stuff like that. So you just don't
The truth is, you just don't know what could possibly happen.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
And so I just had enough faith and belief.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
That, hey, you know, things sometimes work out and sometimes
opportunities kind of fall in your lap and are presented
in front of you, and that's just what happened.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I mean a lot of it is.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
There's some luck, there's some timing, there's some destiny, there's
but I would say faith more than anything, that just
that that you can do it. Faith in your abilities
and trust, trust yourself, and surround yourself with good people
that don't suck the life out of you. It's nobody
can believe that this band has been this little band
(16:32):
from Dayton, Ohio has been together for twenty nine years,
because most bands that are hugely successful don't last for
twenty nine years because they get in fights and they
don't agree on stuff, and they get on each other's
nerves and they break up and we're still all best friends.
So surround yourself with people that you like working with,
that you're creative with, and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Anything's possible.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Agree with you on that, Jeff. I thank you for
coming on the show Man. It's been it's been a blast.
I love your stories. I'm so jealous that you got
to meet bon Jovi by the way.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Oh yes, yes, oh that was a big one.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yes it was. But I'll get you back one day.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
To all the people out there listening, thank you for
tuning in. This has been rocking with Sea Bass take care,
and keep on rocking.
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