Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, you love done to censure, Wow for you your
dreaming Vegas.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So this is the pipe Man here on the Adventures
of Pipe Man W four c Y Radio. I'm super
excited about our next guest and and and actually where
he's at because we were just talking about that before
the interview.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
So let's welcome to the show, Ryan Roxy. How are
you up?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
What's happening? Pipe Man?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Great to be on the show, Oh Man, Great to
have you. Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
First, I have to say right off the bat, I
love your studio back in there with all those guitars.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Let's start there.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Tell us about those guitars, because I'm sure each one
of those the way you have them placed has some
special significance to you.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The only significance it has is that I actually need
every single one of the guitars that sort of put
around the room. Expect you This one, especially because it's
a original Alice Cooper Band guitar, was the Gibson SG.
Both the original OG's Michael Bruce and Glenn Buxton played
the SG. So there, in fact, I have to learn
(01:32):
a lot of those songs and their parts makes it
easier to do on the SG. I thought you'd like
to talk about the room because, like, to be honest
with you, I can go and pick up that guitar.
It's not even a green screen. Which for the longest,
longest time, I have done a podcast called the End
of Trenches podcast, and I always had a studio green screen,
(01:55):
and people always thought, oh, man, yeah, that's a cool studio.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
But I actually have a cool see that looks cool
to me. I'm like, I wish I had that as
a green screen.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I'll send you a screenshot of of just the studio,
but no, I'm very lucky to have this and be
able to record music. I recorded the last two singles
of the guitars and vocals right here in this room,
and then it kind of an international affair. The drums
recorded in Albuquerque and his home studio, and then we
(02:28):
send up all the tracks to Canada to our producer
Robbie Miller, and he basically, you know, puts all the
love in, puts in all the hard work making it right,
and it becomes international sort of recording, especially with this
newest single that we just have called Fight Another Day.
We had a keyboard player from the UK, Keith Wheer.
(02:50):
He emailed his tracks in to Canada, from the UK
and then Bridget West from the New York Loose. She
sang some backgrounds on it and she was I'm wearing
Europe and she laid her vocals down, So truly is
an international affair.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
And first of all, I.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Want to say, I love the name of that song
alone because I lived that my whole life.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Okay, another day always you know that that to me
like says it all.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Like I don't even have to listen to his song
yet and know that that is all me. And I'll
tell you what tripped me out too.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So I'm wearing today a Grateful Dead shirt because my
live show in a couple hours I'm going to be
dedicating most.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Of it to Bobby Weir.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And I was like, trip it out when I saw
the same name, and I'm like, wow, that's really weird.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
He's weird. Yeah. On the keyboards and on the piano,
he's great. He was in a band called the London
Choir Boys. He's been there for years and now he's
him and Griff has their own band together, Griff Griffin
from the Choir Boys. They've got their own thing together
and it's sounding real good.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
But you know, the.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Grateful dead if you're doing a whole show, and it
shouldn't you be like bong Man and not pipe man.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know what's so funny about that? So I go
on tour and I do festivals all over the US, UK, Europe,
and you know, the one question I don't ever ask
artists is the question that's asked of me all the
time by.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Artists like so, I never asked, how'd you get your
band name?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You know, because I know from a lot of my
friends too, that's like the number one hated.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Question that they get. And they all go to me.
They all go, well a word, pipe man come, and
they always make these assumptions and then they literally will
write a song in the middle of the interview and
like sing this song and it always either has to
do with plumbing or what you just mentioned, bongs.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So everyone knows you were a former adult actor, So
you know, pipe man was your sort of your nickname.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
I guess, yeah, there, there you go.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
He was your he was your moniker sending the pipe man.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's right, exactly, see, and I surf So it could
go along with that too, like it could go so
many different ways.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I think that's where it actually came from, you know,
cause you're in the pipe, you're in.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
You know, or skateboarder.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I'm a skateboarder too. But guess what my last name. Yep,
my last name is Piper. That's where it came from.
It's as simple as that. And that's what I find
if people ask how people got their band names, because
usually there's not some big story behind it. It's some
simple thing or like, hey, we were just hanging out,
(05:55):
we were stone and.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
The name sounded good.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Well, yeah, Roxy seventy seven, which is the name of
my solo band. That is pretty obvious, is my last thing.
Oxy seventy seven made sense. The band before that that
I had a kind of my my solo band, but
I put a band named to it was Dad's Porno
Mag DPM, with the great Mike Fazano on the drums
and Will Efforts on the base. But that was Dad's
(06:20):
Porno Mag. And that's again pretty self explanatory. The first
time you found out about sex, first time you found
maybe he saw another another person of the opposite sex
with no clothes on, was probably your dad's pornomag at
least from my generation.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
You know, Yeah, that's true. It is true. It is true.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
And that's somebody that used to hang out at the
Rainbow with Lemmy and uh Ron Jeremy.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
It is true talking about a pipemin there you go,
pipe man.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
And I want to know too, Like, so.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I heard that Alice Cooper is like one of the
greatest to work with, you know, like and encourages stuff
like you're doing now, doing your own thing, doing your
own creativity, having your own projects.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So and I don't think everybody's like that. In fact,
I know not everybody's like that. So how cool is
he that?
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Being secure in your own ego and in your own legacy.
For Alice, he really is. He's the best boss I
ever had. And trust me, I've worked a lot of
fast food restaurants, so I figure he is the best
as far as letting you shine because of that sort
of being relaxed in his own legacy and stardom and
(07:46):
household name status. When you play guitar solo, he wants
you up in front and center. He doesn't want you
sitting in the back sort of you know, pulling a
Jeff Beck and putting your putting your back to the
audience or anything like that. No, want you boom up
in the center in the spotlight. And I really appreciate
that about him because he's always supported us, everybody that's
(08:09):
in the band, with our solo projects. And you know what,
if I can just get him to listen to the
new single, I think he'll really like it.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
There you go, well, let's do that.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
And you know it is It's funny because it's true,
because like I'm friends with Nita, and I just thought
it was very cool. You know, she went and did
something else for a little while, but then she was
just welcomed back with open arms.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
When she realized it was time to come back to Alice.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
She did her version of tal Bachman of what I
If anyone knows that name, if you know, you know,
but I was in a band between the during the
Alish years, between tours and stuff. It was an artist
called tal Bachman, and there was you might not know
the name, but you know, obviously there's big pedigree in that.
Randy Bachman was the father. It's Buckman in or Overdrive.
(09:00):
It was his kid, his son, and his son wrote
a bunch of great songs tal did and I was
part of that album and part of this song called
She's so high. So the next time you're writing in
an elevator, you're at a pizza hut and you hear
some muzak, or you're on your peloton, you'll probably hear
that song come up once or twice. But that's my
(09:21):
guitars and my guitar solo. But that being said, that
did not pan out into the world of getting up
into the front of the stage and being able to
selo your ass off. So when I realized that that
was sort of the writing on the wall, I'm very
happy that Alice did ask me back and we were
able to get back on stage together and rock as
(09:45):
a unit as we have for the last God, what
did I get back in the band? I was in
it from ninety six to two thousand and six, took
a small break, moved to Sweden, did some gigs in Sweden,
few bands in Sweden, did my own stuff in Sweden well,
But then back in twenty twelve, got asked back and
we've been touring every year since then, so on and
(10:07):
off since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Six, and there's definitely chemistry there.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Like I've seen you guys quite a few times at
the Wimmer festivals, and like there's such you just see
it on stage like you can tell. You can tell
when there's chemistry or if people are just going through
the motions, and you know, like you can also tell
that Alice makes it like a family opposed to you know,
(10:32):
this is my band, like a lot of bands will
do so.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And I believe that cohesiveness is basically reciprocal with the
audience because the audience becomes the family then as well,
because we see so many of the same places. You know,
you talk about Grateful Dead and how they travel and
they sort of follow the band along caravan. We have
our own little Alice Cooper Sick Things caravans that come
(10:59):
out in certain sections of the country and they'll just
be with us for like one or two weeks, and
they'll go to all the shows. And we're very thankful
for it because of that sort of relationship that we
have with the hardcorese and then with every show, hopefully
we're still doing it. I will talk to people that
(11:21):
will say, you know what, this is my first Alic
Scooper show, but I'm coming back. So that's the best
thing to hear is when when you know you've been
doing this for as long as we've been doing it,
and you still get people that say, this is my
first Alice Scooper show. Now I'm a fan. I'm like,
I love it all Right, what took you so long?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
But right, but that is amazing, And so what was
it for you?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
What was that first moment, way back, way way way
back when you decided playing guitar and being part of
music was just a part of you.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I think the pretty much the opening first few bars
of music of Van Hantalen won right because when Van
Halen and again, I grew up in the Bay Area.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
So I was very lucky to be born and raised
by that much of a spectrum of music. There was funk,
there was disco, there was punk rock, there was metal,
there was classic rock. And I grew up in a
very cool time, you know, going to concerts in the
late sevenies. One of my first concerts I ever went
(12:28):
to was the Jackson five at Oakland Coliseum.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Then my second concert was right across the street at
the at the that was the Oakland Arena Jackson five,
and then across the street was the Oakland Coliseum. I
went to Day on the Green with Journey and Black
Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio, the late Great Ronnie James
Dios on lead vocals and Journey headlining the gig. It was,
(12:54):
I mean like I was very lucky. But then those
guitar heroes that came out, man Edward van Halen, he
just kind of made you listen and go, how is
that done right? And how can I do it? How
can I catch it on that?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Like one of the first songs I ever learned on
guitar was ain't talking about Love.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And Heaven and Hell. My first three songs were not
Smoke on the Water.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
They were Ain't talking about love, Heaven and Hell and
twenty five or sixty four by Chicago.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Oh wow, that's a good one. Well became that Green
Day song. I love it right then. But then it
was like my first was Smoke on the Water, just
like everybody else, I'm one of you smoking my back.
I think the second one was your Mama, Don't Dance, Daddy,
Don't rock and Roll? Not the Poison version, No, No,
it was Kenny the real version, Loggins and Messina, And
(13:53):
then I think my third might have been It's a
toss up between Jumping Jack Flash by the Stones, or
it was do you feel like we do. Peter Frampton,
who again another one of my guitar heroes, that again,
I would stare at that album, and I know that
that album came out before van Halen, so I might
have to read I might have to switch my story
(14:18):
around a little bit, but never let the truth get
in the way of a good story, so we'll stick
with van Halen. No right comes alive. Come on, man,
that that was a game changer as well.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So speak of ed Hell and I'll just tell you
just because it's funny. My favorite, I think, one of
my favorite memories and of thousands and thousands of shows
in my lifetime, was nineteen eighty three the US Festival
in sam Bernardino. Van Halen was headlining heavy Metal Day
(14:48):
and they did start ain't talking about love. There's three
hundred thousand people there, and Eddie's looking over at Dave
because he ain't singing, and then Dave just goes into
the mic and he goes, I fucking forgot the words,
and the whole place roared like that was the best
thing that ever happened, except one dude who heckled him.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And he turned to that dude and he's like, I
will fuck your girlfriend. And like, I'm just thinking that's
live music.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Like like.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
People talk about backing tracks and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was so live music right there, because like, you're
a good front man if you can overcome forgetting the
words by doing shit like that.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
And I love the fact that he probably said that
line in every town and every like concert.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
But you know what, for you, for me one that
was the one that did. And for me it was
the same thing at the Cow Palace when he said
it to some guy and at the Cow Palace exactly
never let the truth get in the way of a
good story, because that guy deserved it. Yeah, I think
I think at the Cow Palace, somebody threw an orange
(16:05):
up on stage. That's what that was the thing war
jet me up on That's okay, pal because after the show,
I'm on a fuck yard girlfriend and so we all
have that David Lee Roth moment.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
It's true though, you know, like you go and it
it's the first time for you, so you think this
is like, oh my god, I'm at this special thing
that never happens.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Well, you're almost I almost didn't last that show at
the Cow Palace because that was on the Diver down tour,
and I was.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
You know, pretty young, up and front, pushed up in front,
and I wasn't tall at all. I'm still not, but
my girlfriend at the time was even smaller, And all
of a sudden, the show starts and she goes under
and I go, what the hell? Where is everybody? And
then I get pushed in this thing And we were
lucky to make it out of that one because that
(16:58):
was way before GA. That was way before GA guy
banned in general, admission was just the way you did
it at concerts. So yeah, I love Van Halen's stories.
But the US Festival, I think Motley Crue I think
it opened it. Didn't they open medal.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Day on that one.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
No, I think Quiet Riot opened it because you had
Quiet Riot, you had Crew, you had Ozzie, you had Priest,
you had Triumph, you had Van Halen.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
I'm trying to think who else was that day.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
It sounds like a twenty tour I know, right, I
just came up the road breeze uh and it, you know,
what was a trip about. I think it was that
year that that happened that I saw Ozzie with three
separate guitarists.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
In one year, because because Randy Rhoads. I saw Randy
New Year's Eve right before he died.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Then you saw Jake.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Well, actually I also saw Pat Travers Pat Travers for
a short period after Randy played, and I caught one
of the shows.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Pat Travers taught me a great way of playing schools Out.
We were we did a we did a show with
him years ago, and we asked him to come up
on stage for Schools Out. And everybody you know says
they know schools Out, and then when it comes right
down to jamming it, it's a little trickier than most
people think. But Pat Travers actually knew it better than
(18:28):
I think I did. And he played his part in
the No Mo fanzas No Mo Books. He played that
part and he literally taught me a new way of
playing it that I play today. So I never got
to thank Pat for for I haven't seen him since
that gig, And thank you Pat for teaching me a
(18:49):
very new, cool way to play Schools Out and I
do it today.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
See that's way cool. I love hearing stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I don't talk about that because you know, I don't know.
It's not that Pat Travers and I are in a
huge feud or anything like that. I just never have
a chance to tell that story when all my brain
memory function is working and I'm on the phone with
the pipe man, and.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
There it comes. There it is.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
That's what you bring out in people, pipe man, that's
what you do. You bring out good memories.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
That's the way it should be too.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And how about this, this is a recent good memory
probably for you that you guess it on Rocky's rock
and Roll Symphony.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Good segue. Yeah, absolutely, that was cool. That was a
very cool memory. I got hats off to Rocky and
hats off to Paul Hunger for setting it all up
and promoting it and getting people into the studio because
they had never done a live studio audience. And it
was a night off that we were having on tour,
on this last Alice Cooper Judas Priest tour, and ironically enough,
(20:00):
I don't know if it's even ironically, but but I
had a gig to do with the with the Rock
and Roll Symphony. The bands Judas Priest and Alis were
having a band dinner that night and I had to
miss it. But retrospect, it was the best missed band
dinner I ever had because we had such a good
(20:20):
time filming this and and doing it, and it hopefully
will turn into something that we're able to do in
more places, in more UH cities and towns when there
are nights off on tour. I love going coming in
live studio audience. They asked questions. I play some songs acoustically.
I get asked good questions by the host, which is rocky,
(20:43):
and then Paul Lunger's there, you know, waving the flag,
waving his blinder like that. So it was a good
time had by all, I think, So go check it out.
I think it's a maybe you can put the links
in somewhere.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, I'll put I'll put the links in the description
for the podcast afterwards, for sure, because I checked it
out and I thought it was pretty cool, for sure,
and everybody has to check it out. So is there
anything else you got going on in twenty twenty six
that you want the listeners to know about.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
I want them to check out all the new music
that I have out. I put out a single earlier
called Better than You, and then we just released this
one called Fight Another Day, and it's sort of it
goes they go hand in hand together, So go check
them both out on my YouTube channel if you can.
All the links are at Ryanroxy dot com. New music
(21:33):
is going to continue to come out all throughout the year,
and we've got another year of Alice touring all in
the works. We're excited about not one, but two shows.
There's a Chris Angel Alice Cooper show that's happening in Vegas.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Oh, that's gonna be cool.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It combines illusions in rock and roll, which is one
of the first times I think it's happened. And then
we have the Alice Cooper Alice's Attic brand new set
list and set pieces as well, so that's something to
go check out. And then, you know, if you want
to get dive in and become more inner circle, I
(22:08):
do this thing every year called Roxy's All Out Excess
Pass and it's ed basically like having a backstage pass
to everything that goes on, you know, before the show,
after the show, backstage post on the bus, getting dressed
the days off, so I kind of give everybody a
(22:31):
sort of a glimpse into what life on the road
is about. And again Ryanroxy dot com, you go check
out all Excess Pass, but yeah, look out for new
music and I appreciate you taking the time to spend
with me and giving me some good memories of my own,
and best of luck with everything you're doing.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Pipe.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Man, Hey, you rock and I love what you're doing.
I love your new music. Everybody's got to check it out,
and I'll have to check out out. So Alice shows
us here too, because man, those are definitely show. You
don't even have to like the music to love the show.
I happen to love the music, but it's just such
(23:11):
a great show.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
There's so much to love about the music because Alice
is put together some really amazing bands over the years
where it's original ogs, you know, with you know, Glenn
and Michael and Dennis and that that musicality of it.
They're just great and they're the reason why we're still
(23:33):
able to tour.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
Today, that whole original band, Yeah, because we get to
we get to play those hits and those iconic legacy hits,
and then all the songs that Steve Hunter and Dick
Wagner were part of, and then all.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The Caine Roberts era stuff. We touch on all of
it throughout the show. There's a lot of It doesn't
matter if your seventies eighties, nineties aughts, or even up
until this last album that we did with the band
called Road. It doesn't matter whatever era you're into. Alice.
I think you're gonna enjoy the.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Show absolutely well.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
You are an amazing musician, and thank you very much
for everything you've done all these years, and thanks for
being on the Adventures of pipe Man.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Appreciate you having me pipe Man. Enjoy the ride, everybody.
We'll see you out there somewhere. What's happening rock and Rollers?
Ryan Roxy here, the Alice Cooper Band, and you are
listening to the pipe Man right here on W four
CY Radio.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Rocket Man, thank you for listening to the Adventures of
pipe Man.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
I'm w for CUI Radio.