91: Robin Taylor Zander

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
And welcome to another sly cast hereon IR Radio and w IBAFM. I'm
Slide joining us now Robin Taylor Zander, who's got a new album out well
I guess it's been out since April, but also a new song and video.
It is a pleasure to talk toyou, Robin, Hey, thanks
for having me anytime. I firstread about you in the Rolling Stone magazine

(00:23):
and they really were impressed with whatyou were doing in Cheap Trick. But
I had no idea that you werepursuing this solo career and this big producer,
Jack Douglas, had discovered your music. How did that happen? Well,
Jack, you know, he's workedwith a ton of artists, and
he's worked with my dad and CheapTrick on their first record obviously, and

(00:44):
he also mixed live the Boudhakan,which is what they're pretty much known for.
So he's always been a friend ofthe families. And my dad sent
him from my demos a few yearsago and he said, man, you
should go into the studio and trackthem. So we did just that and
he liked everything that came out,and he said, I'll mix and master
the record if you If you wantto come on board. He signed me

(01:07):
to his record label, and that'skind of where it started. But I
co produced the whole record with myfriend Kenny Siegel, and we sent the
tracks to Jack and his friend JayMessina and they mixed it, mastered it.
How did you learn to play allthose instruments? I mean, you
pulled to Paul McCartney here, andyou're not the first artist to do this,
but still that's you know, thatshows a certain amount of dexterity.

(01:32):
Well, as a kid, mydad had a little music room and when
I was growing up, they hadall the instruments laying around the house,
so piano, drums, guitars,the bass, and so I just hopped
around basically, and it's almost likeplaying with toys as a kid, only
they were musical instruments. And I'dlisten to music as I got older,

(01:53):
and I'd play along the records andthat's kind of how I learned. And
you know, I learned from areally good rock band. Is a you
know, just a really great liverock band. As you know, we
we like to call them our ownhere in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
Were pretty proud achieve track. Yeah, so, well, my dad's from

(02:15):
Beloit as we're born. That's right. I forgot that he was originally from
Beloit. And they, you know, under different names they played. I
think they were set to warm upfor Otis Redding at the show that unfortunately
Otis Redding was killed before in Madison. Yeah, that's true, true story.

(02:36):
So you said something and I hadbeen. I'm as guilty as anyone
else. As I listened to you, I was trying to think about comparisons.
Who does he sound like? Andyou're really pushing back on the notion
that you sound like anybody you wantto be you, Well, I've you
know, I hear my influences personally. I know, I know what my

(02:58):
songs kind of sound like. Recordparticularly, it's a lot of British Invasion,
a lot of Beatles and you knowStones, maybe a little bit of
the Kinks. I like that kindof music. To Who from the sixties,
all that stuff that was in mydad's record collection. So I mean,
if I had to compare to anything, you know, my idol growing

(03:19):
up was When and McCartney. Thosewere two my two idols, So you
know that's where I start. Iwould say those are good picks, you
know, yeah, not bad.What does it concern you? I heard
Meloncamp say recently that he thinks rockis dead, and that gives artists a
little more latitude, not so muchpressure from the record companies. Isn't gonna
take Robin Taylor Xander and Wolfgang vanHalen and Dez and Jesse Money, who

(03:47):
both are great singers as well.Is there going to take all of you
that are kind of in the nextgeneration to turn this around? Well,
that's if you think rocks dead,you know. I mean I kind of
push back on that a little bitbecause I, you know, I listen
to a lot of music, andI know that rock as a as a
genre has always been kind of blurred, you know, blurred lines, and

(04:11):
you can hear a lot of influencesin pop music that are also kind of
rock influences. So I, youknow, I don't know if it's necessarily
dead, but I do think peoplelike me, or you know, sons
and daughters of other musicians from thepast can kind of carry that torch because
there's not as many rock bands nowas there were back in you know,
the seventies or you know sixties.So I don't know, it's it's kind

(04:33):
of hard to say, but Ido. I see, you know,
people like me or Wolfe, youknow, caring the torch and and doing
doing what we do. I mean, I like, I just love music.
I love rock music, but Ilove blues, jazz, and pop
music and country and you know,blue grass. I like a whole bunch
of stuff. So you know,it's it's it's blurred lines for me.

(04:53):
So you have this bifurcated career.You have your solo career now, but
you also play with Cheap Trick,you play show. Yeah, I'm out
there with them, you know,I split duties. I do my solo
stuff now and my days off,and then when they have a gig,
I'm out with them playing rhythm guitarand background vocals. So I got my

(05:13):
plate full. So and by theway, Cheap Trick will be in Milwaukee
at Summerfest on June twenty second,if I'm not mistaken, so people can
have a little fun at summer Fest. So great that concerts are happening again.
And then are you doing a solotour to push this your album as
well? So it's I have somedates that are on the books right now.

(05:35):
It's not a big tour per se, just because of the Chief Tricks
touring schedule this year is pretty prettyhectic. But in between I will be
doing some gigs. I'm doing somestuff in Florida, in New York,
California. If you go on tomy website, Robin Taozander dot com,
you'll see all that info there andcheck out where we're gonna be. Um,

(05:55):
I have my own band, andwe'll be playing all the original music
from the record and some covers anda little bit of everything. Tell me
about the band you put together,So yeah, Jack actually knew them from
New York. He lives in outsideof New York City, and there they
were their own band called Boys Goto Jupiter, and if you look them
up, they had their own musicand they're all around my age, you

(06:19):
know, in their twenties and justreally great young musicians, all very similar
influences love sixties and seventies, classicrock and British Invasion and all that good
stuff. So it's a really goodfit and we're getting along very well and
it's just just been great so far. So it's the same band you tour

(06:40):
with. It you recorded the albumwith. I recorded the album on my
own. Well, yeah, that'sright, that's right, you recorded that
on your own. I was justwondering if you had any of them helping
with background singing or anything like that. Well, yeah, they none of
them were on the record, butthey had to learn the record and they
they did so, and I waspretty impressed. The first gig he did

(07:00):
was back in April, and weopened up for the Joe Perry Project as
our first gig ever together. Weopened up and yeah, I know where
was that Where was that shop?Yeah? Fox was up in Connecticut,
Okay, because I know Joe Perryjust played a couple shows in the Chicago
Land area as well, So thatwould have been cool if you could have,
if you could have opened for himthere. I know he had some

(07:24):
just only like three dates where theydidn't have an opener and they needed one.
And Jack fortunately knows Joe and withhis work from Aerosmith, so it
all worked out. But yeah,he was great. Man's great open up
gigs with him. He's just agreat, great guy to know. Well,
hopefully he doesn't, you know.Evidently, Steven Tyler back of the
day, if an opening act wasgetting too popular, going too long,

(07:46):
he used to pull the cord theirpower equipment. You didn't have any of
that happened. Oh no, no, none of that happened unfortunately. Oh
that's a great story from a documentaryon Kansas. But so what was you
You did all this this album recording? That out to be an arguous process,

(08:07):
though, was it? Was itwhat you expected? Um? It
was. I expected going into itto take a you know, I thought
it was gonna take a few monthsto finish all all the tracks because I'm
doing everything myself, you know,from the building it from the ground up,
layering drums and bass and guitars andpiano. And it was me and

(08:28):
my friend Kenny, who owns thestudio we recorded at. It's called Old
Soul and it's in the Catskills inNew York. And we basically for three
weeks got everything finished for the basictracks. I thought I was going to
take double that, but we gotit done in three weeks, and then
we took another couple of weeks todo the overdubs and it was great.
Man. I had a blast.I love living in the studio. It

(08:52):
was hard work, but I liketo work because it's you know, it's
what I love to do. Soyou went to what the what? What
college? Did you go to theBerkeley College of Music in Boston. Yeah,
I did. I did some sessionsthere. Um. And I also
went to Full Sale down in Orlandofor some technical education regarding studio work.
So I basically learned how to runyou know, my own programs and stuff

(09:16):
for recording, and learned how torecord on my own console and and and
at Berkeley, I kind of learnedhow, you know, how to read
and write music because I didn't knowhow to do that before. I was
just the I played by ear kindof guy. But now I could you
know, spit some SERI backage ifyou needed me too. Um. But
yeah, I learned a lot ofmusic going both those places, for sure.

(09:39):
Somehow Kenny Wayne Shepherd has gotten byall these years, he and a
number of others, uh kind ofin the same boat. But you went
and learned it. Uh. Youknow, cheap trick has stayed away over
the years from clauses in politics andand and you know, having a heavy
hand in that area, you tocontinue that tradition. Um. Yeah,

(10:03):
you know, I I'd like tocontinue just you know, in general,
the music that I'm making I'm reallyinto right now, and I do see
a place for the music, thekind of music that I'm writing. Um,
there's a gap, you know.There's not a lot of stuff where
you're blending rock and pop and evenstuff like country. I lived in Nashville
and I love country, old countrymusic, you know, like Johnny Cash

(10:26):
and George Jones, and you know, even stuff like Glenn Campbell did.
Glen Campbell was amazing. I know, this is one of the best guitar
players ever. If you've seen inplay guitars, you know, and sing,
it's just amazing. So I likethe idea of blurring the lines,
you know. I like to carrythe torch for rock music if I could,

(10:46):
because I'm super into it. Butyou know, I have a lot
of I have a lot of differentinterests, you know, So um,
you know, I guess yeah,I see myself doing a little bit what
Cheap Trick did and kind of branchingout from there. So when it comes
to music and it's future, wheredo you see things going well personally?

(11:11):
And I see things for myself goingin different directions just naturally. I love
the music I'm listening to right nowis a lot of a lot of blues
and a lot of pop and alot of countries. So I see myself
personally going into those directions, butyou know, you could. I could
see a lot of bands that areLike there's a band called King Gizzard and

(11:33):
the Lizard Wizard, which is kindof a weird name, but they do
so many cool things. They've releasedlike twenty records. They've only been a
band for ten years, Like literally, they're so prolific and they do so
many different genres that I just seeartists getting their music out. You know,
we have the Internet now, youdon't really need a record label to

(11:54):
get your music out there. Youcan be your own manager, you can
do your own things. So Isee music becoming more accessible as time goes
on, and I'm I'm totally forthat. One of the lessons I'm sure
you learn from others, or maybeyou didn't, is to keep lyrics somewhat
ambiguous. Explain, sorry, you'rebreaking up. Oh okay. You talk

(12:18):
a little bit about how you don'twant lyrics to be too specific. You
want the listener to be able touse their imagination. Explain, Well,
you know, that's just how Iwrite. I always come up with the
music first, like nine times outof time, the songs are born out
of a chre progression. I playedon guitar or piano and the lyrics would

(12:39):
always come next, So I've alwayshad you know, it always takes me
longer to come up with words,but that's just the writer I am.
So I feel like the more ambiguousthey are, the more relatable they can
be to, you know, differentpeople. And my favorite songwriters like the
Lennon's and McCartney's and you know,like Ray Davies from the Kinks, and

(13:01):
you know, some of their songsare very general and some of them are
you know, not about a particularyou know, person or place. They're
about you know, whatever they're goingthrough. You know, they're very honest
songwriters. So I think if youcan talk from that ambiguous point of view,
you can get a lot of peopleinto your music. And all those
songwriters that I talked about were reallygood at doing that. So I'm just

(13:24):
trying to trying to get get where, you know, where they were going.
Well, the first time you playedwith Cheap Trick, were you nervous?
Oh? Yeah, very, um, you know I was. It
was twenty seventeen when I started playingwith them, and the first time I
played, I was actually filling infor drums while Dax was at home having
his first kid but his wife,so um, I was super nervous,

(13:48):
and after that happened, they askedme to stick around and play rhythm guitar
and sing backgrounds. So it's sucha yeah, yeah, I know,
man. You know my I thinkof my dad when I first learned to
drive, making me nervous. Obviouslyyour dad made you feel more comfortable.
Oh well, yeah, he wasvery encouraging, you know, he didn't

(14:09):
pressure me or anything. It wasmy decision to go in and do this,
but they, the band collectively offeredthe job to me, and I've
grown up around them and they knewI could play and and be some help
to their live tours, so I'vefigured why not. Hey, it's worked
for Nick Collins, you know,who played in Genesis farewell tours. So

(14:31):
that's that was kind of a nicestory as well. I wish you nothing
but success again. The new albumthe distance, High and Lows, the
track from it will put a track. We'll put a link for the track
so people can listen to High andLow. And the word is getting around
about you very quickly. Robin Taylor, Xander's good good luck and thank you

(14:56):
for taking the time to talk withus today. Anytime, man. Thanks
Hello everyone on Madison, Wisconsin.Thank you all right. This is Sly.
Another Sly cast at WIBAFM dot com.