August 5, 2024 • 24 mins
Welcome to Merman Mondays, the podcast where Disney tribute band The Little Mermen share behind-the-scenes tour stories, discuss popular Disney content, and celebrate Disney's musical legacy. Hosted by Alexis Babini, founder of TLM, and co-host Andrew Grau, this episode promises to be an exciting dive into the world of music and tours.
Today, we have an extra special guest, Mr. Ryan Slatko. Known for his incredible jazz performances and a finalist in the Great American Jazz Competition, Ryan shares his favorite tour stories, best bits, and choice tour tastes. From his early musical beginnings to his journey with The Little Mermen, Ryan gives us a glimpse into his life as a musician.
Join us as we talk about upcoming shows, hilarious tour moments, and Ryan's role as a tastemaker on the road. Plus, get insights into his jazz influences and unforgettable performances. Whether you're a longtime fan or new to The Little Mermen, this episode is filled with laughter, music, and inspiration.
Stay tuned to find out where you can catch The Little Mermen live and connect with us on a deeper level. Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Instagram at @thelittlemermen. And for exclusive content, visit our Patreon page www.patreon.com/thelittlemermen See you next Monday!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:10):
Welcome to Merman Mondays, the podcast where the Little Merman share behind-the-scenes
tour stories, discuss popular Disney content, and celebrate Disney's musical legacy.
I'm your host, Alexis Babini, founder of the Little Merman Band.
And joining me is our co-host, Andrew Grau.
Thanks, Alexis. Whether you're a longtime fan or first-time dreamer,
(00:31):
the Little Merman is the country's premier Disney tribute band,
and bringing the magic of Disney
music to life with live performances all across the U.S. and the world.
Our mission with this podcast is to connect with our fans on a deeper level,
give behind-the-scenes glimpse at touring in an indie rock band,
and share in the joy that is Disney content and culture.
All right, so today we have an extra special guest, Mr. Ryan Slatko.
(00:54):
His credits include, in the past decade, he has placed as a finalist in the
Great American Jazz Competition and has led great groups in the notorious jazz
clubs of NYC, including Dizzy's, Cornelia's, and 55 Bar.
We're so excited to get Ryguy's favorite tour stories, best bits, and choice tour tastes.
(01:15):
Stay tuned to find where you can connect with us and get in a deeper level into the band lore.
Well, before we go the distance, we're still a touring band with some shows
coming up, so let's get down to business. Hello, Murpham.
You're kindly editing growl here to update you with some upcoming shows.
Monday, August 5th. Today, in fact, Green County Fairgrounds, Waynesburg, PA.
(01:38):
Thursday, August 8th, Iowa State Fairgrounds, as well as Friday,
August 9th, Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, Iowa.
Saturday, August 10th, Festival Park, Elgin, Illinois.
Thursday, August 15th, Hilt Performing Arts Center, Plymouth, Minnesota.
Saturday, August 17th, Epstein Family Amphitheater, San Diego, California.
(01:59):
Saturday, August 24th, Field of Dreams Family Fun Day, Salem, New Hampshire.
Tuesday august 27th the
seashell stage hampton new hampshire wednesday august
28th eric's church wyndham maine saturday august
31st wattsburg county fair wattsburg pa
and saturday september 14th adventureland octoberfest and that is in altoona
(02:23):
iowa more information like ticket links or rsvp links can be found on our website
at thelittlemerman.com slash tickets and i'll be Be sure to update these sections
going forward with more fall tour dates.
All right. So today's episode has our special guest. So let's dive in. Hey, Slap Man.
(02:44):
What up, what up, what up? What's up, Ryguy? We're really happy to have you.
Also happy to have you on this leg of tour.
Also, thanks for guest guest appearing on last night's crazy and wild episode.
So, yeah, Slap Man, what's good? What's the haps?
Oh, man, it's just so great to be here. It's great to be back in the mix of things.
I took about a two week hiatus because I was touring France.
(03:10):
With fellow jazz artist Danny Lipsitz, we played a show in the south of France.
And unfortunately, it meant I had to miss the big Merman Midwest tour this year.
But I saw a lot of cool places. And now I'm just happy to be back on that hustle,
back on that grind, back here playing with you guys.
On behalf of the band, we got to say bonjour, welcome back, and merci.
(03:31):
Merci for returning from France. So before we kind of even dive into how you
are with the Merman, And let's just talk a little bit about you,
like where you came from, where you went to school, just kind of what led you
up to the point of joining this wild and wacky, inflatable,
armed man, tube man, band that we are.
I first started playing music in middle school. Growing up, there's always music
(03:56):
playing in the house. My dad's stereo system.
And my dad was a guitar player. He still plays in like some dad rock bands. Slat dad.
Slat dad rock band. Shout out Slat Dad. Slap dad, slap mom, big fans.
Yes. But yeah, I really wanted to play drums. I remember because my brother
was getting into guitar too. My other brother was getting into guitar.
My cousin was getting into bass. And I was like, oh, I need to complete the family band.
(04:20):
But my parents, like any sensible people, did not want to buy their kids a drum set.
But here's what I did. One day, I came home from Guitar Center with drumsticks.
And I drew circles on the carpet. And I banged on those as if they were drums.
And I think my parents were like, OK, this is sad.
We should we should throw him a bone here. So they got me a Roland V-drum set,
(04:41):
the electronic drums. Oh, nice.
And that was like my main instrument for many, many years. And I was playing along to prog rock.
I was playing along to Genesis records, Rush records, Kansas records.
I just went straight for the complicated stuff. hey but
yeah that's kind of how i took out all that pre-teen angst
and eventually he's like okay this is fun
(05:02):
but i want to play with other people i want to play in a band and i
heard about the jazz band at our local middle school and i had to make a difficult
choice okay what do i go for school because i knew i wanted to be a musician
and like you know why why do i go for piano i go for drums i eventually decided
on piano because i wanted to learn about all of music and I'm less just like rhythm,
(05:25):
groove focus. Sure. As great as that stuff is.
But yeah, then I ended up at University of North Florida, great school,
studying under Lynne Ariel.
Four years later, I guess I wanted to be in New York somehow.
Hey, get the bagels over here.
Come here and get the New York bagels. Oh, pizza. Oh.
Oh. Because oh, and this piece of bread. It's a bagel.
(05:49):
Oh. Oh. Oh. But yeah, if you want to pursue some kind of career in jazz or something,
New York is the place to be.
And I had to see if I could do it. I had to just see if I could hang with the
best of the best of the best in the world.
And it's been great so far. I did my master's at NYU.
Yeah. Thank you. Go Violets.
(06:11):
Fighting Violets. The Fighting Violets. You like walk outside.
Yeah. And like the flower punched you in the mouth. And you're like, whoa, you smell good.
Yeah, we are literally the Fighting
Violets. Fear us. They have a football team, bro. Isn't that crazy?
Wow. Those flowers are real tough flowers. I had no idea.
Heavy jazz influence. But I've heard you play classical music and you're absolutely fabulous.
(06:34):
As long as we play Blue Bossa for like three hours, it's fine.
Blue Bossa, everybody's favorite jazz song.
It was very fun. Listeners, we're going to get in deep with some jazz knowledge,
some music knowledge on this episode.
Some nice musical metaphors talking about looking under the car hood.
I'm a little bit of a jazz boy myself. I had to learn some jazz to get into Berklee.
(06:55):
I definitely farted my way through some scales without really like...
And the funny thing about this band is I've become more of a lead player in the Little Mermin.
I was a chord boy, singer-songwriter boy. So yeah, it's been really interesting
hanging with Slatt and getting this front seat into just the world of professional
(07:16):
jazz knowledge, you guys. So we're going to give you guys a little glimpse.
Yeah. So, Ragai, now that we're, you know, you've been in the city for some
time, how did you find your way into the Merman? And then what were your preconceived notions?
And then what has lived up to your expectation or what is now the...
What is now your thesis of The Mermaid? Yeah.
Well, you know, it happened the way so many other great opportunities in my
(07:40):
life have happened, which is just totally serendipitous, just totally like a
miracle of timing and the stars aligning the right way at the right moment.
What had happened was right around the time, I think, that Derek was leaving the band. Yeah.
You're on the hunt for key subs. It just worked out for that first six-day tour.
(08:00):
Yeah. I remember it very vividly. 2022, was it? 2021?
It was like right after the pandemic. And wait, is that how it happened?
Your first shows with us were like a six-day tour? Yeah.
Oh, my gosh. It was the Midwest. Our last show on that tour was Buffalo.
Oh, yeah. Roman, Running Sound. Bro. Oh, my gosh. We can talk about Roman.
(08:22):
Yeah, Roman was the best.
So we go to this place that's basically a line dancing bar.
And it's called like the Broken Spoke or something. being
it's a country bar and there's like a little dance like thing.
In the in the middle and we have no business being here
playing an afternoon show and this guy
who is the sound person because you meet a lot of these characters on
(08:42):
the road who are great sound people and this guy's just
like i had open heart surgery last week everyone's like
what are you doing here roman you don't have to
look at anything and mind you we sounded incredible
roman did us such a good job
bob we all love roman i hope he's
doing well and he didn't even look at our stage plot y'all's like
(09:03):
i'm doing this and it's gonna be great yeah i'm not
looking don't show me your input list i don't yeah
it was it was literally one of the best sounds i just think we've ever had and
it was a it was a great show and it was a good one to kind of end on shout out
to roman we hope you're doing well yeah man but yeah getting out to your question
i definitely had this preconceived notion of first of all like wow this is such
(09:24):
a brilliant idea and with some you you know,
some of the best talent New York City has to offer, right?
These incredible singers you've gotten from Broadway or elsewhere.
And just like, every rhythm section player has just been great.
And yeah, I mean, I knew the music could be really great. And of course it was.
What I was not prepared for was just the extent of tour ruckus.
(09:48):
Funny bits and silly things.
Music.
Favorite tours with you specifically was there
our first big leg in 2022 when we
took that tiny little plane to ironwood and we
(10:11):
literally just sat outside this hotel that we had for two
nights and just played games and had a good time and then ordered enough little
caesars to murder us all and we were all very sick the next day and that was
when alexis was obsessed with foreigner and there's this video that i took because
we had adjoining rooms we just opened open the door and Alexis is in the bathroom singing.
(10:32):
It's as cool as a showering. And then Ryguy just kind of wakes up and just,
just does his, his laugh and just like, what's going on.
And just his whole like bewildered look is it's so classic.
I mean, I just, one thing I want to like point out just about these,
the lovely people who make up this, this establishment, this band,
this, this institution is, you know, y'all are hilarious and y'all are really like, yes.
(10:55):
Anders, like commit to the bit. and you
know like one of the one of the kind of recurring bits that
i've contributed that i'm not i don't say i contributed but just
like the spirit of this which is like those bits that are based off of almost
like a musical puzzle like this is halloween yeah oh my gosh yes well this started
(11:15):
because i had this revelation that oh you can change the lyrics of agatha all
along to this This is Halloween for a funny result.
And then the rest of y'all guys like take that as a cue to just take this and run with it.
Yeah. Next thing I know, we're in a hotel room, all six of us.
And we're singing Row, Row, Row Your Bow with the lyrics of This is Halloween
(11:39):
in rounds like the original.
This is Halloween. This is Halloween.
This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween.
That's where it gets hard at the end you got to be careful with that
kind of stuff around us like everybody will join in it's
great um i i want to share one of
(12:01):
my favorite moments springfield ohio we definitely brought up in
the tour debrief we love springfield ohio i could i would play there every day
of the week if i could we really love it there and they have this big rock in
the middle of the stage and rye guy plays a synth a a slat synth that's a keytar
and he goes i'm gonna take take a solo during Eye to Eye up there.
(12:22):
And we go, we bet you will.
And sure enough, comes out, walks up on there. They put this huge spotlight.
And he just shreds the most insane solo.
Everybody loses their mind. I feel like one of the things the band has really
done for me is given me a bit of a space for my star power.
Because jazz doesn't always have that. In jazz, it's very much about.
(12:44):
The band and the community and the thing we're creating together
and it's very much the same with us but in
this case we also have our little moments to shine yeah you've got
your little moments scrow on you know supercalifragilisticex
the the voice bit you've got the little bass thing on
go the distance you've got you know monomena yeah
you know alexis you've got a lot of great little solo
(13:07):
wiggly wah moments you've got some bits some
dad jokes no there's no there's not a singled that
joke in the very serious if you haven't heard
about that so far but you really kind of give us that space
to be like it's about all of us yeah also about
each one of us individually and like let's everyone let
everyone have a little moment i will spotlight baby i
(13:28):
will say right guys so one of the things one of my favorite songs we do is ducktales
because it's just it's a great song everybody weirdly a lot of little kids get
it because i feel like it's very safe tv for anyone to watch it's on the disney
plus it came back they redid it as a show And Ryguy and I trade fours in the bridge.
And it's always so funny because Ryguy is such a great soloist and he'll start
(13:49):
off pretty simple. I'm like, I can kind of play along.
And then it's always the second four totally blows me out of the water.
I was like, I don't know what to do here.
Like, I can try to keep up, but I'm not going to. But yeah, I mean,
it's also one of those roles that Ryan plays where it's, you know, a chordal instrument.
So there's a lot of filling in space. And even though there are six people on
stage, there's only three of us that can make, you know, notes essentially with our instruments.
(14:14):
And Ryan does such a good job of bringing that sort of jazz influence and making
really beautiful sounds and intros and stuff.
Like your intro last night to let it go was incredible because you were just
kind of patting along doing this whole theme and variation and even have like
a little run at the end before you went into the typical piano part and i looked
over at quinn ago yeah that was nice,
(14:36):
yeah the special spice yeah so outside of just the goofs.
The music, the fun, the hangs. You are kind of known in this group as a bit
of the taste maker. I want to talk about some of Ryguy's tour tastes.
And it was so funny because on the way here, he jokingly was like,
(14:57):
there's this place called Bad Boys Cafe.
And we're like, yeah, we're Bad Boys. And we're like, no, we're not going to
do that. We're not going to go there. We're going to find a nice place.
And then we went to the nice place and they were like, we're too busy.
You guys should go to Bad Boys Cafe.
And we're like, all right, we're going to Bad Boys. So we went to Bad Boys.
Now here's the sound cue for tour taste. Taste, tour, taste.
We're tasting on tour. There we go. That was good.
(15:17):
I don't know. I've just gotten really lucky with finding spots on the road.
There was one spot we found that was like an outdoor kind of picnic table.
Oh, where you had to go to the bathroom? Yeah, I had to go to the bathroom.
And what kind of was it? It was like this family restaurant.
I want to tell that story from my perspective.
Because the way I see it all unfold. I mean, Electrical, I'll tell you what actually happened.
(15:38):
But yeah, we found this restaurant, like diner kind of spot.
That it was only outdoor seating it was like a picnic table so you can't really
go inside of the actual building alexis really needed to use the bathroom but
they weren't like i don't know they weren't letting him but then i'm there standing
at the count of the window ordering and i look inside i just see him like just
come around a corner i was like what are you doing here.
(16:01):
And then later found out this whole thing happened with the card and oh yeah
so okay yeah they didn't have a public restroom outdoor and we've been on the
road for like six hours and it's a great
place and so I made my food order we're all
kind of ordering out this window whatever and then after I
got more than I was like hey is there any chance I could come back and they're like okay come
back here they like shuffle me through the side door now I'm in
(16:23):
the kitchen of this restaurant while walking through walking past the grill
and I use the restroom I come back out and then the the lady realizes she hasn't
given me my credit card back so she she's about to hand me my credit card but
then as she does it falls under the stove that's on and it's again it's a
family restaurant so this is like kind of a child doing this it's like this 14
(16:44):
year old girl so in like a matter of two seconds i see
her see she has my credit card she hands it to me credit card falls under
the stove child dives under the stove and then her mom comes around the corner
and she sees her kid under the stove that's lit she sees me she goes oh no like
what have you done and eventually like my credit card comes out but it was just
sort of like this moment of peril and then yeah i at the end of that like ryan
(17:07):
saw saw me come out because that's when he was making his dinner order.
Yeah. Yeah. So if you could just give us a place that really stands out to you.
I just have to say I'm blanking on the exact name of the place,
but the place in Delaware with the hot dogs.
Oh, Jimmy's. Yeah. Oh, man.
Yeah. So as the hot dog story been told?
(17:30):
No, it hasn't. We were playing near Rehoboth where my folks live. Shout out to my dad and my.
Them very much and we needed food after this gig because there
was like a bunch of boardwalk bites but i didn't really want to eat
a bunch of fried food the cheese yeah i had like a
corn dog but it's just it wasn't enough and so we were going to stop at
a place on the way back and my dad said oh you should go to jimmy's roadhouse and
(17:50):
i go what's that he goes yeah it's this really great local place let's get
into hot dog store yeah this is yeah yeah it was a
lot i just remember it was very large hot dog it's like a foot long
hot dog and it was actually so long yeah yeah oh we're all
getting like actual like dinners it looks like hot dog and they're
like okay whatever you think i want hot dog and then
they bring it out and it's huge and then we all have a picture of us all taking
a bite from it everybody's helped to eat this hot dog because it was so large
(18:14):
they brought you another one that's that's yeah and so so cody cody cody when
alexa went to the bathroom because alexa is known to like go to the bathroom
and then prank us so alexa i'm gonna prank him so he goes away she goes hey
just get him another hot dog.
And then and it comes to the table it's like oh yeah freaked out we had this video of alexis just,
(18:35):
panicking like what where'd this come from and
then oh no i have to eat it so that was
that was tour taste tour taste it's tour taste tour
taste tasting the tour i don't know close enough
anyways so rye guy you've been in the band for a long time you have a lot more
breadth of knowledge of our bits yeah well again like the this is halloween
(18:55):
thing really sticks out to us because it's like wow like we can any one of us
could get the rest to do anything we found that out the The easy way.
The easy way. Yeah. There's no, there's this.
Yeah. Very much. Also, I have to say big fan of spaghetti, man. Yeah.
Spaghetti man has infected us a little too hard. We're going to have to,
(19:16):
when we do a tour brief tour debrief about this tour, we're going to have to
talk about spaghetti man.
Also, if you want to like go into like stage bits. Oh yeah.
This is kind of a bit between me and Carly, but when I think it's when Alexis
is telling his first dad joke,
something like, uh, which, which princess won the
race it's like rapunzel by just a hair and then
(19:37):
carly and i just go there just to sit there go dad that's a
good one so right guy we really appreciate you coming in and talking with us
and like hanging with us now where can we find you follow me on instagram at
ryan slatko music find me on youtube check out my website ryan slatko music.com
and on august 20 seconds.
(20:00):
I'll be playing with Danny Lipsitz. He's a tenor, like a jazz tenor player.
There's a variety of stuff.
We're going to be playing at Joe's Pub.
Oh, nice. This is like a big variety show he does with horns and strings,
and there's going to be a tap dancer and guest vocalist. It's just an epic show.
If someone were listening to this podcast and were thinking about moving to
(20:21):
New York, or they're thinking about getting into music,
what's a piece of advice that you'd like to give kind of our younger listeners
or people just trying to figure out what their next step is in this wide world
that is music and entertainment. Keep going. Don't give up.
Of course, if you feel like trying something else, that's cool,
but this is a very difficult and unforgiving industry,
(20:45):
and it's really going to take everything you've got to offer and more.
So just give it your all. Just keep going.
Hang out with a lot of people. Ask a lot of questions. Be absolutely shameless
in just going after what you want.
Affirm that you deserve this thing for yourself.
Then you can make it happen. Dream, believe, achieve.
(21:05):
Oh, I love it. I love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ryguy.
Join us on Patreon for exclusive content, bonus episodes, behind the scene insights
and more. Or visit patreon.com slash thelittlemermen to become part of our Merfam
and enjoy all the extra perks we have to offer.
In addition, please follow thelittlemermen at thelittlemermen on Instagram.
(21:28):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Merman Mondays. We hope you have
enjoyed our stories and discussions.
Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on all the platforms we just mentioned.
We'd love to hear your feedback on Patreon.
So please leave us a comment or send us a message there. And until next time,
remember to dream, believe, achieve. See you next Monday, y'all.
(21:52):
Music.
Music.
(00:10):
Welcome to Merman Mondays, the podcast where the Little Merman share behind-the-scenes
tour stories, discuss popular Disney content, and celebrate Disney's musical legacy.
I'm your host, Alexis Babini, founder of the Little Merman Band.
And joining me is our co-host, Andrew Grau.
Thanks, Alexis. Whether you're a longtime fan or first-time dreamer,
(00:31):
the Little Merman is the country's premier Disney tribute band,
and bringing the magic of Disney
music to life with live performances all across the U.S. and the world.
Our mission with this podcast is to connect with our fans on a deeper level,
give behind-the-scenes glimpse at touring in an indie rock band,
and share in the joy that is Disney content and culture.
All right, so today we have an extra special guest, Mr. Ryan Slatko.
(00:54):
His credits include, in the past decade, he has placed as a finalist in the
Great American Jazz Competition and has led great groups in the notorious jazz
clubs of NYC, including Dizzy's, Cornelia's, and 55 Bar.
We're so excited to get Ryguy's favorite tour stories, best bits, and choice tour tastes.
(01:15):
Stay tuned to find where you can connect with us and get in a deeper level into the band lore.
Well, before we go the distance, we're still a touring band with some shows
coming up, so let's get down to business. Hello, Murpham.
You're kindly editing growl here to update you with some upcoming shows.
Monday, August 5th. Today, in fact, Green County Fairgrounds, Waynesburg, PA.
(01:38):
Thursday, August 8th, Iowa State Fairgrounds, as well as Friday,
August 9th, Iowa State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, Iowa.
Saturday, August 10th, Festival Park, Elgin, Illinois.
Thursday, August 15th, Hilt Performing Arts Center, Plymouth, Minnesota.
Saturday, August 17th, Epstein Family Amphitheater, San Diego, California.
(01:59):
Saturday, August 24th, Field of Dreams Family Fun Day, Salem, New Hampshire.
Tuesday august 27th the
seashell stage hampton new hampshire wednesday august
28th eric's church wyndham maine saturday august
31st wattsburg county fair wattsburg pa
and saturday september 14th adventureland octoberfest and that is in altoona
(02:23):
iowa more information like ticket links or rsvp links can be found on our website
at thelittlemerman.com slash tickets and i'll be Be sure to update these sections
going forward with more fall tour dates.
All right. So today's episode has our special guest. So let's dive in. Hey, Slap Man.
(02:44):
What up, what up, what up? What's up, Ryguy? We're really happy to have you.
Also happy to have you on this leg of tour.
Also, thanks for guest guest appearing on last night's crazy and wild episode.
So, yeah, Slap Man, what's good? What's the haps?
Oh, man, it's just so great to be here. It's great to be back in the mix of things.
I took about a two week hiatus because I was touring France.
(03:10):
With fellow jazz artist Danny Lipsitz, we played a show in the south of France.
And unfortunately, it meant I had to miss the big Merman Midwest tour this year.
But I saw a lot of cool places. And now I'm just happy to be back on that hustle,
back on that grind, back here playing with you guys.
On behalf of the band, we got to say bonjour, welcome back, and merci.
(03:31):
Merci for returning from France. So before we kind of even dive into how you
are with the Merman, And let's just talk a little bit about you,
like where you came from, where you went to school, just kind of what led you
up to the point of joining this wild and wacky, inflatable,
armed man, tube man, band that we are.
I first started playing music in middle school. Growing up, there's always music
(03:56):
playing in the house. My dad's stereo system.
And my dad was a guitar player. He still plays in like some dad rock bands. Slat dad.
Slat dad rock band. Shout out Slat Dad. Slap dad, slap mom, big fans.
Yes. But yeah, I really wanted to play drums. I remember because my brother
was getting into guitar too. My other brother was getting into guitar.
My cousin was getting into bass. And I was like, oh, I need to complete the family band.
(04:20):
But my parents, like any sensible people, did not want to buy their kids a drum set.
But here's what I did. One day, I came home from Guitar Center with drumsticks.
And I drew circles on the carpet. And I banged on those as if they were drums.
And I think my parents were like, OK, this is sad.
We should we should throw him a bone here. So they got me a Roland V-drum set,
(04:41):
the electronic drums. Oh, nice.
And that was like my main instrument for many, many years. And I was playing along to prog rock.
I was playing along to Genesis records, Rush records, Kansas records.
I just went straight for the complicated stuff. hey but
yeah that's kind of how i took out all that pre-teen angst
and eventually he's like okay this is fun
(05:02):
but i want to play with other people i want to play in a band and i
heard about the jazz band at our local middle school and i had to make a difficult
choice okay what do i go for school because i knew i wanted to be a musician
and like you know why why do i go for piano i go for drums i eventually decided
on piano because i wanted to learn about all of music and I'm less just like rhythm,
(05:25):
groove focus. Sure. As great as that stuff is.
But yeah, then I ended up at University of North Florida, great school,
studying under Lynne Ariel.
Four years later, I guess I wanted to be in New York somehow.
Hey, get the bagels over here.
Come here and get the New York bagels. Oh, pizza. Oh.
Oh. Because oh, and this piece of bread. It's a bagel.
(05:49):
Oh. Oh. Oh. But yeah, if you want to pursue some kind of career in jazz or something,
New York is the place to be.
And I had to see if I could do it. I had to just see if I could hang with the
best of the best of the best in the world.
And it's been great so far. I did my master's at NYU.
Yeah. Thank you. Go Violets.
(06:11):
Fighting Violets. The Fighting Violets. You like walk outside.
Yeah. And like the flower punched you in the mouth. And you're like, whoa, you smell good.
Yeah, we are literally the Fighting
Violets. Fear us. They have a football team, bro. Isn't that crazy?
Wow. Those flowers are real tough flowers. I had no idea.
Heavy jazz influence. But I've heard you play classical music and you're absolutely fabulous.
(06:34):
As long as we play Blue Bossa for like three hours, it's fine.
Blue Bossa, everybody's favorite jazz song.
It was very fun. Listeners, we're going to get in deep with some jazz knowledge,
some music knowledge on this episode.
Some nice musical metaphors talking about looking under the car hood.
I'm a little bit of a jazz boy myself. I had to learn some jazz to get into Berklee.
(06:55):
I definitely farted my way through some scales without really like...
And the funny thing about this band is I've become more of a lead player in the Little Mermin.
I was a chord boy, singer-songwriter boy. So yeah, it's been really interesting
hanging with Slatt and getting this front seat into just the world of professional
(07:16):
jazz knowledge, you guys. So we're going to give you guys a little glimpse.
Yeah. So, Ragai, now that we're, you know, you've been in the city for some
time, how did you find your way into the Merman? And then what were your preconceived notions?
And then what has lived up to your expectation or what is now the...
What is now your thesis of The Mermaid? Yeah.
Well, you know, it happened the way so many other great opportunities in my
(07:40):
life have happened, which is just totally serendipitous, just totally like a
miracle of timing and the stars aligning the right way at the right moment.
What had happened was right around the time, I think, that Derek was leaving the band. Yeah.
You're on the hunt for key subs. It just worked out for that first six-day tour.
(08:00):
Yeah. I remember it very vividly. 2022, was it? 2021?
It was like right after the pandemic. And wait, is that how it happened?
Your first shows with us were like a six-day tour? Yeah.
Oh, my gosh. It was the Midwest. Our last show on that tour was Buffalo.
Oh, yeah. Roman, Running Sound. Bro. Oh, my gosh. We can talk about Roman.
(08:22):
Yeah, Roman was the best.
So we go to this place that's basically a line dancing bar.
And it's called like the Broken Spoke or something. being
it's a country bar and there's like a little dance like thing.
In the in the middle and we have no business being here
playing an afternoon show and this guy
who is the sound person because you meet a lot of these characters on
(08:42):
the road who are great sound people and this guy's just
like i had open heart surgery last week everyone's like
what are you doing here roman you don't have to
look at anything and mind you we sounded incredible
roman did us such a good job
bob we all love roman i hope he's
doing well and he didn't even look at our stage plot y'all's like
(09:03):
i'm doing this and it's gonna be great yeah i'm not
looking don't show me your input list i don't yeah
it was it was literally one of the best sounds i just think we've ever had and
it was a it was a great show and it was a good one to kind of end on shout out
to roman we hope you're doing well yeah man but yeah getting out to your question
i definitely had this preconceived notion of first of all like wow this is such
(09:24):
a brilliant idea and with some you you know,
some of the best talent New York City has to offer, right?
These incredible singers you've gotten from Broadway or elsewhere.
And just like, every rhythm section player has just been great.
And yeah, I mean, I knew the music could be really great. And of course it was.
What I was not prepared for was just the extent of tour ruckus.
(09:48):
Funny bits and silly things.
Music.
Favorite tours with you specifically was there
our first big leg in 2022 when we
took that tiny little plane to ironwood and we
(10:11):
literally just sat outside this hotel that we had for two
nights and just played games and had a good time and then ordered enough little
caesars to murder us all and we were all very sick the next day and that was
when alexis was obsessed with foreigner and there's this video that i took because
we had adjoining rooms we just opened open the door and Alexis is in the bathroom singing.
(10:32):
It's as cool as a showering. And then Ryguy just kind of wakes up and just,
just does his, his laugh and just like, what's going on.
And just his whole like bewildered look is it's so classic.
I mean, I just, one thing I want to like point out just about these,
the lovely people who make up this, this establishment, this band,
this, this institution is, you know, y'all are hilarious and y'all are really like, yes.
(10:55):
Anders, like commit to the bit. and you
know like one of the one of the kind of recurring bits that
i've contributed that i'm not i don't say i contributed but just
like the spirit of this which is like those bits that are based off of almost
like a musical puzzle like this is halloween yeah oh my gosh yes well this started
(11:15):
because i had this revelation that oh you can change the lyrics of agatha all
along to this This is Halloween for a funny result.
And then the rest of y'all guys like take that as a cue to just take this and run with it.
Yeah. Next thing I know, we're in a hotel room, all six of us.
And we're singing Row, Row, Row Your Bow with the lyrics of This is Halloween
(11:39):
in rounds like the original.
This is Halloween. This is Halloween.
This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween. This is Halloween.
That's where it gets hard at the end you got to be careful with that
kind of stuff around us like everybody will join in it's
great um i i want to share one of
(12:01):
my favorite moments springfield ohio we definitely brought up in
the tour debrief we love springfield ohio i could i would play there every day
of the week if i could we really love it there and they have this big rock in
the middle of the stage and rye guy plays a synth a a slat synth that's a keytar
and he goes i'm gonna take take a solo during Eye to Eye up there.
(12:22):
And we go, we bet you will.
And sure enough, comes out, walks up on there. They put this huge spotlight.
And he just shreds the most insane solo.
Everybody loses their mind. I feel like one of the things the band has really
done for me is given me a bit of a space for my star power.
Because jazz doesn't always have that. In jazz, it's very much about.
(12:44):
The band and the community and the thing we're creating together
and it's very much the same with us but in
this case we also have our little moments to shine yeah you've got
your little moments scrow on you know supercalifragilisticex
the the voice bit you've got the little bass thing on
go the distance you've got you know monomena yeah
you know alexis you've got a lot of great little solo
(13:07):
wiggly wah moments you've got some bits some
dad jokes no there's no there's not a singled that
joke in the very serious if you haven't heard
about that so far but you really kind of give us that space
to be like it's about all of us yeah also about
each one of us individually and like let's everyone let
everyone have a little moment i will spotlight baby i
(13:28):
will say right guys so one of the things one of my favorite songs we do is ducktales
because it's just it's a great song everybody weirdly a lot of little kids get
it because i feel like it's very safe tv for anyone to watch it's on the disney
plus it came back they redid it as a show And Ryguy and I trade fours in the bridge.
And it's always so funny because Ryguy is such a great soloist and he'll start
(13:49):
off pretty simple. I'm like, I can kind of play along.
And then it's always the second four totally blows me out of the water.
I was like, I don't know what to do here.
Like, I can try to keep up, but I'm not going to. But yeah, I mean,
it's also one of those roles that Ryan plays where it's, you know, a chordal instrument.
So there's a lot of filling in space. And even though there are six people on
stage, there's only three of us that can make, you know, notes essentially with our instruments.
(14:14):
And Ryan does such a good job of bringing that sort of jazz influence and making
really beautiful sounds and intros and stuff.
Like your intro last night to let it go was incredible because you were just
kind of patting along doing this whole theme and variation and even have like
a little run at the end before you went into the typical piano part and i looked
over at quinn ago yeah that was nice,
(14:36):
yeah the special spice yeah so outside of just the goofs.
The music, the fun, the hangs. You are kind of known in this group as a bit
of the taste maker. I want to talk about some of Ryguy's tour tastes.
And it was so funny because on the way here, he jokingly was like,
(14:57):
there's this place called Bad Boys Cafe.
And we're like, yeah, we're Bad Boys. And we're like, no, we're not going to
do that. We're not going to go there. We're going to find a nice place.
And then we went to the nice place and they were like, we're too busy.
You guys should go to Bad Boys Cafe.
And we're like, all right, we're going to Bad Boys. So we went to Bad Boys.
Now here's the sound cue for tour taste. Taste, tour, taste.
We're tasting on tour. There we go. That was good.
(15:17):
I don't know. I've just gotten really lucky with finding spots on the road.
There was one spot we found that was like an outdoor kind of picnic table.
Oh, where you had to go to the bathroom? Yeah, I had to go to the bathroom.
And what kind of was it? It was like this family restaurant.
I want to tell that story from my perspective.
Because the way I see it all unfold. I mean, Electrical, I'll tell you what actually happened.
(15:38):
But yeah, we found this restaurant, like diner kind of spot.
That it was only outdoor seating it was like a picnic table so you can't really
go inside of the actual building alexis really needed to use the bathroom but
they weren't like i don't know they weren't letting him but then i'm there standing
at the count of the window ordering and i look inside i just see him like just
come around a corner i was like what are you doing here.
(16:01):
And then later found out this whole thing happened with the card and oh yeah
so okay yeah they didn't have a public restroom outdoor and we've been on the
road for like six hours and it's a great
place and so I made my food order we're all
kind of ordering out this window whatever and then after I
got more than I was like hey is there any chance I could come back and they're like okay come
back here they like shuffle me through the side door now I'm in
(16:23):
the kitchen of this restaurant while walking through walking past the grill
and I use the restroom I come back out and then the the lady realizes she hasn't
given me my credit card back so she she's about to hand me my credit card but
then as she does it falls under the stove that's on and it's again it's a
family restaurant so this is like kind of a child doing this it's like this 14
(16:44):
year old girl so in like a matter of two seconds i see
her see she has my credit card she hands it to me credit card falls under
the stove child dives under the stove and then her mom comes around the corner
and she sees her kid under the stove that's lit she sees me she goes oh no like
what have you done and eventually like my credit card comes out but it was just
sort of like this moment of peril and then yeah i at the end of that like ryan
(17:07):
saw saw me come out because that's when he was making his dinner order.
Yeah. Yeah. So if you could just give us a place that really stands out to you.
I just have to say I'm blanking on the exact name of the place,
but the place in Delaware with the hot dogs.
Oh, Jimmy's. Yeah. Oh, man.
Yeah. So as the hot dog story been told?
(17:30):
No, it hasn't. We were playing near Rehoboth where my folks live. Shout out to my dad and my.
Them very much and we needed food after this gig because there
was like a bunch of boardwalk bites but i didn't really want to eat
a bunch of fried food the cheese yeah i had like a
corn dog but it's just it wasn't enough and so we were going to stop at
a place on the way back and my dad said oh you should go to jimmy's roadhouse and
(17:50):
i go what's that he goes yeah it's this really great local place let's get
into hot dog store yeah this is yeah yeah it was a
lot i just remember it was very large hot dog it's like a foot long
hot dog and it was actually so long yeah yeah oh we're all
getting like actual like dinners it looks like hot dog and they're
like okay whatever you think i want hot dog and then
they bring it out and it's huge and then we all have a picture of us all taking
a bite from it everybody's helped to eat this hot dog because it was so large
(18:14):
they brought you another one that's that's yeah and so so cody cody cody when
alexa went to the bathroom because alexa is known to like go to the bathroom
and then prank us so alexa i'm gonna prank him so he goes away she goes hey
just get him another hot dog.
And then and it comes to the table it's like oh yeah freaked out we had this video of alexis just,
(18:35):
panicking like what where'd this come from and
then oh no i have to eat it so that was
that was tour taste tour taste it's tour taste tour
taste tasting the tour i don't know close enough
anyways so rye guy you've been in the band for a long time you have a lot more
breadth of knowledge of our bits yeah well again like the this is halloween
(18:55):
thing really sticks out to us because it's like wow like we can any one of us
could get the rest to do anything we found that out the The easy way.
The easy way. Yeah. There's no, there's this.
Yeah. Very much. Also, I have to say big fan of spaghetti, man. Yeah.
Spaghetti man has infected us a little too hard. We're going to have to,
(19:16):
when we do a tour brief tour debrief about this tour, we're going to have to
talk about spaghetti man.
Also, if you want to like go into like stage bits. Oh yeah.
This is kind of a bit between me and Carly, but when I think it's when Alexis
is telling his first dad joke,
something like, uh, which, which princess won the
race it's like rapunzel by just a hair and then
(19:37):
carly and i just go there just to sit there go dad that's a
good one so right guy we really appreciate you coming in and talking with us
and like hanging with us now where can we find you follow me on instagram at
ryan slatko music find me on youtube check out my website ryan slatko music.com
and on august 20 seconds.
(20:00):
I'll be playing with Danny Lipsitz. He's a tenor, like a jazz tenor player.
There's a variety of stuff.
We're going to be playing at Joe's Pub.
Oh, nice. This is like a big variety show he does with horns and strings,
and there's going to be a tap dancer and guest vocalist. It's just an epic show.
If someone were listening to this podcast and were thinking about moving to
(20:21):
New York, or they're thinking about getting into music,
what's a piece of advice that you'd like to give kind of our younger listeners
or people just trying to figure out what their next step is in this wide world
that is music and entertainment. Keep going. Don't give up.
Of course, if you feel like trying something else, that's cool,
but this is a very difficult and unforgiving industry,
(20:45):
and it's really going to take everything you've got to offer and more.
So just give it your all. Just keep going.
Hang out with a lot of people. Ask a lot of questions. Be absolutely shameless
in just going after what you want.
Affirm that you deserve this thing for yourself.
Then you can make it happen. Dream, believe, achieve.
(21:05):
Oh, I love it. I love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Ryguy.
Join us on Patreon for exclusive content, bonus episodes, behind the scene insights
and more. Or visit patreon.com slash thelittlemermen to become part of our Merfam
and enjoy all the extra perks we have to offer.
In addition, please follow thelittlemermen at thelittlemermen on Instagram.
(21:28):
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Merman Mondays. We hope you have
enjoyed our stories and discussions.
Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on all the platforms we just mentioned.
We'd love to hear your feedback on Patreon.
So please leave us a comment or send us a message there. And until next time,
remember to dream, believe, achieve. See you next Monday, y'all.
(21:52):
Music.
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