January 21, 2025 • 54 mins
Remember to get your tickets to the 2025 CPMAs coming up on March 5th:
https://amtshows.com/show/6th-annual-cpmas-hall-of-fame-induction-ceremony/
This week we have:
Dave Still:
Sr. Recording Engineer and Operations Manager of the Schoolhouse Recording Studio, Westport, Connecticut from 1976-1984. Responsible for three (3) Muddy Waters Grammy Award Winning Blues Records. Dave's biography speaks for itself in this episode. We get a glimpse of the recording process and equipment used to record those iconic songs in the 80s. Other notable artists that recorded with Dave are: Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, 38 Special, Cyndi Lauper, Dan Hartman, Foghat, Rick Derringer, Sonny Terry & Willie Dixon, Allen Merrill, 3rd Stream, and many more.
https://www.lvc.edu/profiles/david-still/
&
Brian Seneca:
Guitarist for Zero Gravity out of Harrisburg, PA, Brian has been playing music for most of his life. Brian just released his first solo album "I Am Still Around" which was nominated for "Album of the Year" for the 6th annual CPMAs this year. Brian collaborated with many names on this album including; Amy Simpson, Greg Platzer, Shelby Nelson of The Famous, and more. Stick around to the end for an exclusive performance of "Alright by Me" and be sure to check out his new album!
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/brian-seneca/1777624113
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RNAkmwj7AU
https://www.reverbnation.com/zerogravityrockandrollband
You can find out more about the CPMHOF @ https://cpmhof.com/
Brought to you by Darker with Daniel @ Studio 3.
http://darkerwithdaniel.com/
All media requests: thecpmpodcast@gmail.com
Want to be on an episode of the CPMP? For all considerations please fill out a form @ https://cpmhof.com/guest-consideration
Join us back here or on your favorite audio streaming platform every other week for more content.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Central Pennsylvania Music
Podcast Tonight Dave Still andBrian Seneca.
This episode is sponsored byMembers, First and now your
hosts, Daniel Kime and AlanMcCutcheon.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome back to another episode of the Central
Pennsylvania Music Podcast.
Tonight we have two veryspecial guests Dave Still and
Brian Seneca.
We'll also be lucky enough tohear a live performance from
Brian Seneca at the end, andwe're sitting down with Dave
Still.
Dave, thank you so much fortaking the time to come here and
be with us.
My pleasure.
So you for the watchers.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
the time to come here and be with us, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So for the watchers, the listeners I'm sorry you
can't see this, but for anyonewatching this video, dave was
nice enough to give me aplethora of notes and, honestly,
his story is incredible.
I do remember reading on yourLVC page, though, reading what
your expertises are andeverything, and just half of the
words that describe yourexpertise, I was like I don't
(01:07):
even know how to say this word,and I'm not being dramatic or
over-exaggerating.
I was like I'm pretty good atthe English language.
I was like I have no idea howto say this word.
But then, off camera, we weretalking and you kind of filled
me in what those were With that.
I always like to start with theguest.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Tell us about Dave.
What makes Dave Dave and wheredid Dave's story start?
My story began musically at age13 in 1963.
Born of the Beatles coming intoexistence and there was really
a surge of musicianship incentral Pennsylvania.
Around that there was bothEnglish music and the R&B scene,
(01:52):
and so the first band that wehad was a group called the Don
Shires.
It was Joe Calario, myself,paul Stavalli and Jerry Musser,
and eventually Jerry wasreplaced by Charles Oaks.
We played from 1964 through 67.
I was too young to drive whenwe began so my dad had to drive
(02:12):
me around with my drums in theback of his car.
That's awesome.
And we went to every place.
I think we played every firehall in the central Pennsylvania
back then and we went as farhall in central Pennsylvania
back then and we went as farnorth as Clearfield back in
those days.
I then went to college, whichwas an interruption in my
(02:32):
drumming career.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Don't you hate when that happens, when you have to
start adulting instead ofchasing your dreams?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
And played in bands up there through the years.
Notably, the first band wassome guys from Philadelphia,
really talented musicians.
They were sort of a horn bandBlood Sweat and Tears, chicago,
a lot of those kind of things.
Then the other and these names,I love these names City Chicken
(02:59):
was another band and Mud Rap.
Now, where those names camefrom from I can't begin to tell
you, but they're so unique theystick Well.
And also I looked at some ofthe names recently and don't
know where those came fromeither.
So, okay, you know.
So it looks like they kind offit into the to the scene.
Post-college, dan Hartman and Iwere actually Dan banned.
(03:23):
Dan banned the Legends from the60s and our band, the Donchars.
We kind of knew each other andJoe eventually went on—our bass
player, joe Clario, went on toplay with the Legends for quite
a while after I went to collegebecause the band couldn't
continue at that point.
And so Dan was in the recordingstudio in Mechanicsburg called
(03:44):
Baldwin Sound.
So Dan was in the recordingstudio in Mechanicsburg called
Baldwin Sound.
Dan and I shared a physicsclass in high school where I was
in the front paying attention.
Dan was behind me, not payingattention, because he was pure
creative talent.
I mean that was his thing so,but we had a collaboration in
the studio and I went in when hewas doing some work at Baldwin
(04:06):
Sound in the early 70s thiswould have been about 1972.
Okay, that started my interestin the recording world.
I loved the technology, whichtoday looks pretty antiquated.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Might be a little outdated now.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
From what was happening back then, but it was
really an exciting time and Ijust fell in love with the
studio, I believe it, and sothat went on for a few years,
did a lot of records.
The first album that I did wasan album called Morning Song
with some people from Penn Statewhich we went to college.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, we are Penn State.
Yeah, sorry for any Buckeyesfans out there.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And Fred Kurtz went on to.
He was part of that band and hewent on to be a founding member
of a really high-end audiocompany in Columbia, maryland,
called SPL.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I've heard of them, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, and so Fred and I remained cordial and friends
over the years.
Also, during that time Dan hadwritten a lot of music and had
come to the attention of EdgarWinner Wow okay yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Kind of Edgar Winner.
Wow, okay, yeah, kind of a bigdeal.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah.
So there was some negotiationsgoing on about that time and Dan
ended up going into the EdgarWinner group.
Okay, and Edgar and Dan had a.
They rented a facility out onSands Point, long Island, a very
large facility.
I think it was called theFleischman Mansion.
(05:50):
Edgar had one side, dan had theother.
Blanche, who was thehousekeeper, and myself were on
the third floor.
First floor was general use.
Second floor Dan started astudio Okay, so I had
transitioned out of Baldwin,went up to New York to work with
(06:11):
Dan in this studio, okay, andthere were some good and some
not so good things that came outof that, because I was familiar
with the Baldwin facility, boththe control room and the
tracking room, knew how to useit, was accustomed to it, knew
the microphone systems that wehad learned how to use them
quite well at that point, wentup there.
(06:34):
But that wasn't a studio, itwas a bedroom that had a studio
in.
It Got it.
Yep.
The recording area was thedownstairs had a very large open
living room that's probablybigger than most people's houses
.
That's where the Edgar had hisacoustic piano and they set the
(06:56):
drums up down there.
And that was the first album Idid with Edgar and in retrospect
I probably shouldn't have doneit because I wasn't acclimated
to that facility.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It was all new yep different mics, uh, different
acoustics, different room,different everything that's a
lot of brand new variables, likethey literally just introduced
a brand new equation to you andthey didn't even let you try to
solve the equation beforethey're like get to it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
That was just jump in and go.
Okay, yeah, um, it wasn't bad.
It wasn't a bad experience, butit could have been better in my
in my opinion.
So we were there for about ayear and a half, two years, uh,
went on tour with them a lotmixed them live when they.
When the Edgar Winter Groupwent on tour, I think we did 60
cities in 90 days the first tourthat we did.
(07:44):
Shoo yeah, man, you guys werepumping.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
I got to see a lot of thecountry.
It was a great experience.
Following that, the studiomoved to Westport, connecticut,
(08:10):
westport connecticut, and therewas a georgian house up there
that that dan rented sort of asimilar situation, where the
control room was on the secondfloor bedroom on one end of the
building.
The tracking room was whateither was a one-room
schoolhouse or a ballroom I'mnot quite sure A small ballroom.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It was some kind of hybrid in between.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, big open space but great acoustics.
Great acoustics.
And that's when things reallystarted to click.
Uh and so, but we had no visualcontact between the control
(08:51):
room and the studio trackingspace which means that you had
to.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You had to have that ear, you had to listen, yeah
listen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So the one of the albums that kind of kicked
things off, uh, for dan and his,his studio great talent, by the
way, dan Hartman incredibletalent was just a joy to work
with, very helpful, verysupportive.
If we needed equipment he madesure we had it.
(09:17):
But he let me take care of thetechnical side of the physics.
Okay, from the physics classback in high school.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
It's funny when a type A and type B meet.
What can happen when you lettype A do type A and type B?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
do type B.
It was a great experience.
But Images was the first albumthat was put out by Dan and it
wasn't quite meant forcommercial purposes.
It was more of an introductoryalbum to introduce dan and his
music and his talent to the restof the music community in new
york city and la, of course.
(09:54):
So a lot of things happenedafter that.
Um, one of the uh, because thestudio was in a large house, we
could actually host the artist.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They would come and stay there you get us at the
studio you guys were doing likewhat and this is no shade to
atrium, whatever but like you'redoing what like other big
production companies are doingout where they're like, oh, they
build a facility or theypartner with like a hotel so
they can bring the artists andthey can stay there for a while
(10:27):
to start doing the recording,rather than just having to book
them a day and have to bang outall those songs.
You're like no, just come hangout, come stay here, we'll let
the juices come naturally, andthen we'll hit the record button
.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Everybody stayed there.
We all ate dinner together.
We had someone who preparedmeals and took care of the
facility for us who stayed there.
That's awesome, and so it was acollaboration, both at a
personal level, a music level,and a professional level, that I
think really helped elevatesome of the opportunities that
(11:02):
we had.
So some of the first recordsand I'm going to may have to,
you may have to you probablyknow more from my notes than
I'll remember.
It's okay, we're talking about45 years ago.
It's a while back.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I can't tell you what I had for dinner last week.
That makes you feel any better.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I'm right with you, although it's this morning for
me, the, the Rick Derringer waspart of that group with Dan.
One of the first records that Iworked with with Rick was
Guitars and Women, and hisguitarist at that time was Neil
(11:42):
Giraldo, who went on to marryPat Benatar, and Myron
Grumbacher was the drummer onsome of that, and he was a good
drummer.
I enjoyed Myron, and so thatwas an interesting footnote as
what was happening.
Things were stirring up at thattime.
There was a lot of activitywith the music, and so we got
(12:09):
through those types of things.
Um, then the images album gotthe attention of fog hat.
Oh wow okay yeah, then one ofthe next albums we did was fog
hat night night shift.
We did that there.
They all stayed with us, didthe whole thing that we usually
do.
That's awesome.
Um, and then 38 special was thefirst.
The first two albums with 38special were done there this is
(12:29):
all between 1976 and 1982, whatI'm going to talk about up there
, and then we're going to comeback to central pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, absolutely, I'm just, I'm just living in awe
right now.
I'm going down this uh, thisstory road with you and I'm just
like man, I feel like the goodtimes were maybe behind us.
I don't know, I feel likemusically there's so much that
happened in those time periods.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
But please continue, sir, it would be hard to
duplicate in some ways.
So we did those two albums andthen there was an introduction
to Johnny Winter.
Johnny Winter got interested.
Obviously Edgar and he werebrothers so there was a lot of
sharing of information.
(13:14):
So Johnny came and met me oneevening and said you know what's
going on with this studio andmet me and he was an interesting
character, to say the least.
But you know, loved blues, wasreally into the blues scene and
he at that time Muddy Waters andhe had started a collaboration
(13:37):
after Muddy's record album labelhad ceased to exist.
They were only doing reissuesso Muddy ended up then signing
with Blue Sky, which is JohnnyWinters.
All the labels.
Steve Paul had the label BlueSky.
So Dan Edgar, johnny Muddy,rick Derringer, they're all on
(13:59):
the Blue Sky label.
So it was a bit of a familything with the artistry.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And especially since they had stayed in the house.
You all knew each other.
You had all that camaraderiealready.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, it was, it was already.
It was already in place.
That's awesome.
So, um, the first album, whichis really almost the pinnacle of
my experience, and one of thefew regrets.
I don't have many regrets.
One of the few regrets that Ihave is that we did not
videotape the muddy waters hardagain session.
(14:33):
It was done in three days.
Everyone was live in the studiospace, um, everybody.
So we had Muddy Waters andJohnny Winter Pine, top Perkins
on the keyboards, okay, willieBig Eye Smith on drums and James
(14:56):
Cotton on mouth harp, andeverybody played live at the
same time.
It was interesting.
One of the comments that I readon the Wikipedia about the Hard
Again album is one of thecontributors said it sounded
like it was recorded live.
It was Everything happened atonce and from a recordist
(15:20):
perspective, plus, I couldn'tsee yeah I mean I'm up in
another on another floor.
Yeah, after we got set up androlling I couldn't really see
anything.
But muddy would rehearse a songonce, maybe twice, if it didn't
sound good to him.
After two attempts he said it'snot worth doing, but they would
(15:43):
rehearse it and then they wouldsay go Okay.
So I had to make sure that Iwas ready.
Paying attention Because I wason a 24-track recorder on the
board on the other end of thehouse and if you miss it, it's
gone, gone because if we'regoing to like number three, he
might be like screw it, it's notno there wouldn't have been
(16:04):
another one, there wouldn't havebeen another.
Take that's, there might havebeen a different song but not
there would not have beenanother take, that's crazy and I
think that's the, the, what isthe essence of capturing the
artistry of a recording, and Ijust wish we would have
videotaped that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So you're using the specific words that I wanted to
bring in here, because I do wantto talk about this capturing
the artistry of the performance.
So you say and this is straightfrom Dave and I love what he
says here artists are focused oncapturing imagery of the music
and it's best to be invisiblethroughout the process.
I, I eat, do not distract fromthe focus of the music.
(16:43):
You are not the producer or theartist, so do not offer your
opinions unless asked.
Opinions will be requested oncethe artist becomes comfortable
with your performance.
So how do you, how do yousculpt that invisible experience
?
Like how, how, how did thatlook to you?
And I know you're, you're kindof going through the process now
(17:05):
but, like you put that so wellin the beginning and I love that
, that it's best to be invisible.
But honestly you're, you'redoing so much that it's kind of
hard to be invisible.
I mean, I get it, get it.
You're not visibly there, butyou're doing so much to
manipulate that sound.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, what I mean by that is you're invisible to the
process.
In other words, you're there tocapture what they're doing, all
right, so you don't injectyourself into it.
You do your part to make surethat you are ready and able to
capture what they're doing, andI never talk to anybody.
(17:44):
I wouldn't go down and try tostrike a.
I mean, these are famous people.
Yeah, these are big, big people.
Muddy Waters from a bluesstandpoint way up at the top.
I didn't talk to Muddy unlesshe talked to me.
I didn't talk to Muddy unlesshe talked to me, and any artist.
Once they become comfortablewith you, they will bring you
(18:04):
into the fold, but don't doanything ahead of that because
you don't want to disrupt or inany way affect that performance
in any negative way at all.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So it's up to you to prove your chops as the producer
to the artist that you cancapture what they are trying to
perform.
And then, once you have proventhat to them, once they have
determined you have proven it tothem and they start getting
more comfortable with you, thenmaybe if they ask you for an
opinion whatever, sure I'll giveit because you've already
(18:38):
earned that, that kind ofrespect from that person.
You guys are on the samewavelength now within your own
respective fields.
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And again, once you've worked with a producer
like Dan for a long time, wewould collaborate on a lot, but
not in the beginning, and someartists don't want to talk to
the engineer.
I remember David Johansson hada producer and I had to be
invisible because there was notreally a camaraderie between his
producer and myself nothingnegative but he just wanted to
(19:09):
get the tracks down and becomfortable with the tracks.
So that's what I mean by beinginvisible, because there is a
tendency sometimes to offer anopinion or to say you know
something which you know.
I just didn't do it, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I just held on, was it hard to bite your tongue.
Sometimes, though, not so much.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I had plenty to do.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I had plenty to keep me busy.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I had plenty to do.
I was focused on making surethat it got on tape.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it had it.
You couldn't miss it, you know,because missing a performance
you can't, you can't bring itback.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
No, you know, once it's gone, it's gone it's one
thing about time you can'trewind it.
Tape you can rewind as manytimes well, maybe not as many
times as you want, it will wearout but yeah, time you can't
rewind.
So it's like, yeah, if it'sgone, it's gone.
And so I wanted to say here, um, because you've, you've gone
through some of the most like,iconic, like times of like of
our lifetimes of music and howmusic has grown, music has
(20:08):
changed, music has morphed.
And now here we are today it's2024, almost 2025 watching the
music scene change in the musicgenres, just music as a whole
change.
Back when you were doing allthis recording, you were, you
know, dealing with these,watching the music scene change
and the music genres, just musicas a whole, change.
Back when you were doing allthis recording, you were dealing
with these big-time, famouspeople, the way the music has
gone now, and then sitting incentral Pennsylvania.
(20:28):
The bottom line is what areyour thoughts on that?
As someone that knows music andthe recording and everything
inside and out, how would youdescribe that progression right
now?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
well, obviously the biggest difference, and let me
back up kind of a loadedquestion.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I'm sorry that's okay , what, what?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
let me back up for a moment on the muddy water
session.
There were no overdubs, therewere no punches, none, this,
none, zero, okay.
Okay, these were liveperformances, you know, and and
so, and I think that comesacross, and most of the
recordings we did then, and evenif I were doing them now, I
would do as much of the trackingwith as many of the instruments
(21:12):
as possible.
Okay, not all of them, becausethere's just something that
becomes magical from an acousticstandpoint about all of that
energy in the same envelope andwhat the microphones hear.
It's different.
It's different than when youtrack individual instruments
it's already pre-compressed.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It almost sounds too perfect compared to what you're
picking up live.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, and the other person I saw who did this was
Todd Rundgren when he was doingthe Cars album up in.
Where did they do the bigoutdoor concert thing?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I'm trying to think here yeah, it'll come to me,
it'll come to both of us oncewe're done rolling.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
But anyway, we were up there and, uh, with the cars
he did, he did everything.
You know, he just took plywoodand boxed in the amps and, you
know, boxed in the bass and youknow, the guitars and everything
and let the drums roll in thein the room.
So he had a similar approach,uh, but in and in the muddy
session, everything was open,there was nothing boxed in.
(22:20):
Everyone played just like theywere on stage in that room no
punch-ins, no overdubs, no,nothing.
So the big difference today iswith digital, and it's gotten
quite good, because I livedthrough the transition phase in
the mid-'80s where the analogwas starting to transition into
(22:42):
the digital yep and uh, althoughthe early digital, at least in
my humble opinion, didn't havethe low end solid things that
wasn't as muchbetter today, much better today,
but now you can.
You can correct pitch, you cancorrect timing.
You can correct pitch, you cancorrect timing.
You can correct this, you cancorrect that, because they're
(23:03):
ones and zeros and you canshuffle them around any way that
you want to.
Yep.
So my suggestion to recordistswho are trying to break into
things and there's a muchgreater field with film now for
the artistry that you can bringas a recordist to film as well
as music is, you know, try tokeep that the life of the
(23:31):
performance alive and not andnot kind of shut it out with
technology.
I think that's really goodadvice, honestly, yeah yeah, I
mean it's, it's an opinion ofmine doesn't mean anybody has to
follow it, and maybe somebody'shas a better idea than I think
if I had to summarize this, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think uh, for a lack of a better metaphor a suit
and a tie type person mightdisagree with you, but anyone
that actually has has had theirhands in the creative field
whether it be you as an engineeror, in the background, someone
who's on stage actually doingthe performance I think anyone
in that career field they wouldagree with you 100%, because
there is a spark.
(24:09):
All of this comes from somekind of spark, whether it's a
spark of imagination, a spark ofpassion, a spark of creativity.
And, like you're saying, don'tlet that spark get overshadowed
by all these ones and zeros.
Make sure what is making thator giving that life, make sure
you can still hear that life inthere, and I think that's really
awesome advice.
I just have one last questionfor you what do you think it is
(24:33):
that makes Central Pennsylvaniasuch a unique and special place
for music?
Because we have obviously tonsof musicians and artists that
come out of this area.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, it is unusual, I mean, and it goes back to the
60s.
I mean it started, jimi Hendrix,bass player, was from
Harrisburg.
Yeah, okay, in the 60s you knowone of his bass players, dan
Hartman, and a lot of otherpeople.
I mean, there just seemed—andthe number of bands and the
(25:04):
places to play that were— thereare not quite as many today, but
there was just so much going on.
It was driven partly by theEnglish music craze, but R&B has
always been strong here too,and jazz, jazz has always been
strong here.
So, coming back to this areaand I guess we're kind of
(25:27):
getting short, I'm going to letyou finish your thoughts here.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Don't you worry.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
But the greatest compliment to me was when I had
to come back to centralPennsylvania for medical reasons
with my family.
Johnny Winter, rick Derringer,who brought Cindy Lauper back to
here, recorded with me atBaldwin Sound in Mechanicsburg,
(25:52):
pennsylvania, and we didsomething very similar.
I was living in Dillsburg atthe time and they came and
stayed with me.
They said we're going to thecountry that's the way they used
to we're coming down to thecountry, so they would come down
and stay with me.
But there were a lot ofmusicians locally Tom Stroman in
Third Stream, tremendousmusician, teaches at Lebanon
(26:12):
Valley as well, incrediblytalented individual.
And so many groups the Sharks,Kings and Queens, full Moon, I
mean just.
And then I played in severalbands.
When I came back Splinter wasactually back in 72.
That was with Joe Clario.
I teamed up with Joe Clario andLauren Peck, bernie Hess, dan
(26:39):
O'Hara and a group calledMaricopa, which is, I think,
spanish for butterflies, if mymemory is correct.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I don't speak Spanish .
Yeah, I have no idea, so Ican't correct you or confirm you
.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And a couple others.
But I mean, even after I cameback to the area in the 80s,
there was still just a plethoraof tremendous musicianship going
on and people willing to get,get into the studio and take a
shot.
You know, give it, you know seewhat, see what they could do to
make things work out for them.
And some of them are stillplaying today?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
yeah, we have.
We have legends that have comeout of central pennsylvania and
it's like it's just crazy andI'm just so happy that I was
able to.
You know, as small as mychapter might have been in the
music scene, I put my stamp onthere, I'm in the history, I'm
proud of that and now I'm justhappy to be doing what I'm doing
now to continue supporting themusic scene.
Not only just you know, thepeople on stage but people like
yourself, that I mean.
(27:30):
Without people like you, thepeople that are on stage would
have no reason to be on stagebecause there'd be nothing to
sell.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
There'd be no product to sell.
Quite kind.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's the truth, it's the honest to God truth.
But, dan, uh, I I would love tokeep talking with you a lot, a
lot longer, because this hasbeen very interesting to me.
It's I'm kind of like a historybuff in that way.
When it comes to music stuff.
It's very interesting to me,but unfortunately our has come
to an end, so we might have toget you on the books then later
for another season, then pick upright where we left off.
That sounds good to you, soundsgood, awesome.
(28:01):
Well, hey, thank you so muchfor coming out again tonight and
it was a pleasure talking toyou.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
My pleasure.
Thanks to everyone for all ofthis.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Absolutely, and we're sitting down with Brian Seneca,
brian thank you so much fortaking the.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Of course.
So let's get right into it.
You just released your firstsolo album.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Yes, I did.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So I want to talk about that.
But first, where does Brian'sstory start?
How did music?
Did you start music?
Did music start you?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
I think music started me.
To be honest with you, it'sbeen in my blood ever since.
My mom plays organ and piano.
She sang in the church choir,but the big game changer was
when I was about six years old.
My uncle, dave Sheets, gave meMeet.
The Beatles changed my, changedmy life.
I mean I played sports all upthrough high school and
everything but that bug bit meright then and, uh, it's been in
(28:53):
my blood ever since that's,that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So I mean, you've collabed with, I mean, people
like, uh, greg platzer um, I'msorry, I'm gonna pull up my
phone because you you've beenwith quite a couple, uh, local
artists here and I don't want todisparage any of their names.
Give me one second.
You got greg platzer, uh likeuh, the blitz dinette, uh, amy
simpson, uh, shelby nelson ofthe famous, uh, and honestly,
(29:19):
many, many more that I couldname, but we'll be here for the
entire time that you have welland that's why, like when it
came time I, I played in bands,like back in the 80s.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
It was a rude awakening, okay.
And then, even before that, aguy named Sam Noto who's a good
friend of mine he had arecording studio in his basement
, like a little four-trackstudio and we used to play
Mayfairs and stuff where Samreally got us out.
He had a real PA system, anactual microphone and all that.
And then there was RudeAwakening, which actually
morphed into a band calledTrouble Walking, which was
(29:48):
fairly popular in the late 80s,early 90s.
Then I was in a band calledBamboo Igloo.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That's an awesome name.
Just saying I just love thatname.
I never named it.
It makes no sense and that'swhat's awesome about it.
That's right.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Yeah, we figured nobody else had it, you know.
And then from that my bestfriend, Jerry Simpson, was my
drummer, Like a brother to me,and we formed Zero Gravity with
Rich Van Dieven during that band.
We was together for 22 years.
But yeah, I'm blessed that Ihave a lot of friends.
I mean, I've been doing this along time.
I started playing clubs when Iwas a teenager and when I
(30:20):
decided to do a solo record itsounded pompous for me to even
say that, Like you know.
But I said, well, I want to doit and I want to do it with my
friends and make it verycommunal you know what I mean?
yeah, and because there'snothing I love more than than
making music, especially with myfriends and mike giblin.
Uh red chuck studios right downthe road.
That's where we cut the record.
We go down on sunday afternoonsand, like uh, dave was saying
earlier about cutting live, wecut the record live.
(30:41):
I mean we overdub vocalsobviously sure and some guitar
solos and things.
But I think there's more of amore emotion.
I think there's a more of afeeling when you do it live than
when you track things.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
And uh, and I've thought well, if I'm going to do
a solo record, I'm going toincorporate all my friends, the
best that I can, Um, and, and Ithink the product turned out
fantastic.
I'm happy with it.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I mean, we talked a little bit off camera Um, I
loved what I heard Um the.
My favorite song was you weretelling me it was actually the
last song to actually make thecut.
The name of the song again wasum I'll ever be all over, dude.
I love that song thank you thevibe is like so on point.
Like I was listening, Ilistened to it in order, first
song very good.
I gotta be honest with you, thevery first vibe I got I hope
(31:24):
this is a compliment I got BruceSpringsteen.
Like as soon as the albumstarted that your voice and
everything.
I was like this dude kind ofsounds like Bruce Springsteen.
I was like I feel like that'slike.
I was like I don't know I'venot heard any other local
artists that that was my veryfirst like thought.
I was like I hope he thinksthat's a compliment.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I was like because the man is legendary, so I get
that, I get uh, steven Tyler, Iget um Paul Rogers a little bit.
People say, I sound like that alittle bit as well too.
All of them influences on me,like the Beatles especially.
But yeah, the first questionyou asked me where do I start?
All I'll Ever Be really tellsyou the whole story.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
It's an incredible song.
Like I was telling you, I lovethe 80s synth that's
incorporated.
I love the 80s synth.
I liked it in the 80s songsthat are still already out there
, but I like these newer actsthat are bringing them in
because I feel like they'rebringing them in.
Not like in the 80s it feltforced, but in the newer times
they are finding the appropriatetimes and the appropriate
sounds to interject that and I'mI'm here for it, man, like I
(32:25):
love when you can take somethingfrom the past, something that
influenced you, and you canproperly and accurately and I
would say, impactfullyincorporate it into your own
project.
I think that's awesome.
I feel like that's payinghomage to what influenced you by
using it in your own creation.
I think that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
And a lot of that's Mike Giblin.
I cannot speak highly enoughabout Mike Giblin.
He's the man.
It's so nice.
I've been writing songs sincebefore I even knew how to play
guitar.
I got a guitar when I was sixyears old and to me it's still
like a magic box when I sit downand play guitar, unless I'm
learning songs from my currentband, which is the Hassle.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Shout out, yeah, shout out to the.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Hassle, but I don't really sit down and play cover
songs.
Unless I'm learning cover songs, I just sit down and play cover
songs.
Unless I'm learning cover songs, I just sit down and play my
guitar.
I love to cook.
Sometimes I'll have aStratocaster around my back and
I'm making pasta and I just playconstantly.
I'm not book-learned.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
That's dedication.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Well, it's an extension of me, actually,
really.
I mean, I'm not book-learned,let's face it.
I'm not doing anythinggroundbreaking or different on
the record, but what I tried todo was stretch my boundaries,
Like the song you mentionedabout Shelby Nelson she's
amazing, very dear friend ofmine.
I wrote that song.
It's called your Love.
I wrote that at least fiveyears ago and I did a demo of it
(33:41):
with my friend, italo Savaglio,and I just sang it by myself
and I thought, you know I wassaying what if I could write a
disco song, you know, which iskind of what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
And wrote all the horn parts on piano and things
like that.
And then the more we got closeto doing it, I presented that to
Mike maybe the first song Ithink we cut and I said I want
to do this as like a peaches andherb kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So I mentioned to Shelby because we're good
friends- yeah, it out of thepark and I that's one of my
favorite tracks on the record.
I'll be honest too, I so I knowI talked about the 80 cent.
But like I love when someonewrites a good love song and they
accurately they do do a duet.
You have the man singing hispart and the woman singing it.
(34:21):
Not that you can't tell a storywith just one single musician,
but it really paints the pictureand I think that having that
dynamic difference between thevoices of the female and the
male, I think that really justit seals the emotions a lot
thicker in the song.
And I love that, like when asong can give me goosebumps or a
song can kind of like bringtears to your eyes and stuff
(34:43):
like that.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
That's what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
It's magic, it's literally magic Like, and that
you have created, that.
You've helped create a productof that.
And I know you're saying thatyou know your album's not
groundbreaking or anything butlike.
It's groundbreaking.
For you it's.
It's your first solo album.
So who's to say groundbreakingis subjective, you know.
I mean that it's groundbreakingto you.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
I would say it's groundbreaking well, I really
like to try to stretch theboundaries.
Like you mentioned, amy simpsonman, she another one fantastic
talent, she.
She sang on um.
All right by me which is afterI.
I recorded your love my drummer,trent sprenkel, one of the
drummers.
We had three different drummerson the record.
Everybody contributed but trentwas involved in the majority of
it.
He goes I like when you writebreeze, I like when you write
(35:22):
breezy stuff like write a yacht,a yacht rock song, and I'm like
all right, so I just like okay.
So I came up with those chordsand I actually went out to see
my old bass player.
He moved to Colorado andMelanie, my wife and I went out
to Colorado and it was Augustbut there was like snow on the
mountains and everything and Iwas playing that song for him
and I kind of worked it outwhile I was in Colorado, you
know, sitting on a deck lookingat the snow on the mountains
(35:46):
with me on that.
And then Rags, a good friend ofours, came out and put sax on
that track, which just was likethe icing on the cake.
He's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Thank you, buddy.
I love saxophone.
Yeah, these guys have heard metalk about it way too much, but
saxophone is making anappearance in the metal scene.
The metal scene Off camera.
I will show you an act.
It'll blow your mind.
It blew my mind when I firstheard it, because I didn't think
it was an instrument that metalneeded until I heard it and I
(36:16):
was like, oh my god, I'm likethat's the instrument that metal
has been missing and I was likeit's crazy so we'll talk about
that later on.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
It's funny you mention that because my mom it
was a musician herself and Iwanted a guitar after my uncle
Dave gave me Meet the Beatlesand she's like well, guitar
players are a dime a dozen.
She goes if you learn adifferent instrument, you know,
I'll, you know, get your guitar.
So if you listen to the lyricsin the title track, I'm Still
Around.
That's kind of autobiographicalfor me, you know.
(36:43):
And the first verse, if youlisten to it, that's Noel Staley
my elementary school teacher.
um, he used to call me scatter,you know, because, like you're
younger than me, when I wasgrowing up in the 70s, when you
had ADHD, they hit you and toldyou to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I've heard the stories from my parents.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Are you struggling to focus?
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Pay attention and do what I told you to do.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
I can't help it.
You're being boring right now.
My brain hates what you'resaying right now.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
But I struggled big time and my mom said you know,
get another interest.
So I tried to play saxophoneand I just had no desire to do
it.
I wish I did now, but at thetime I didn't.
All I wanted was that guitarman, you know, because you
couldn't stand in front of themirror with a sax and look that
cool, you know I'm right therewith you, silly.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I wanted a guitar for the longest time when I was
growing up and my parentsfinally, like they scrounged
together, they got me anelectric guitar.
I might have played that guitarlike like four times in like
the three years that I owned it.
And then I played violingrowing up all through, like
elementary school, middle school, and so, like one of my friends
was like, oh, like I'm startinga band, like do you want to
join?
I was like I don't really knowhow to play anything.
(37:45):
I was like I used to play theviolin.
He he's like here's a bassguitar.
He's like it's essentially thesame thing, you just hold it
differently.
And I thought he was like youknow, bsing me.
But I was like, oh, I was likeyou're right, like I was like it
kind of is like the same,almost the same practicality.
So I did that for like.
Were you playing it like?
(38:06):
This I did try it like I don'tknow, like a couple months and
then my buddy was like dude, Ithink you should be doing vocals
.
But I'm right there with younow going through like the music
scene, like going through myown music progression, I'm sure,
going through yours, you seesome of the other people playing
these instruments and you'relike man, like I really wish I
knew that instrument could bethat awesome back then.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Time to learn it yeah , well she, my mom, tried me to
try to get me to go to pianolessons, and I was like man, you
might as well just put a signon my back, says kick my butt.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I'm going to my piano lesson.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
You know, like I don't want to do that, but I did
teach myself how to play pianoand I like I said I'm not, I'm
not book learned, um, and it wasfunny too because, uh, in your
love, actually mike's and that'sthe one thing I want to say
mike was always listening, youknow, and he'd be like that's
cool.
And then he would say, like goout and play Jackson 5 octaves
at the end there, and I knewexactly what he meant because he
was kind of, he was invested,but he could stay back and
(38:56):
listen differently than I didbecause I'm playing it and
everything else.
And he goes what's that chordthat you play in the chorus?
I'm like I don't know.
I'm like it's from one of thesenights by the Eagles.
I stole it and I moved it downfour frets, just point blank,
and he comes out and he goesit's a G major, seven jackass.
(39:18):
And I was like okay, there yougo.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
You're like great, my brain doesn't care what you're
saying.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I don't know if I can say jackass.
I just said it twice, that'sfine.
Yeah, so there was things likethat.
But that was the brilliantthing about him is he just sits
back and he listens and he'llsay he never said do this.
He'd say go try this, or we'dslow a song down, the song your
Honesty, which is on the secondwell, I said the second side.
I played that a lot faster whenI presented it to Mike and he
(39:48):
goes all right, stop playing itlike a metal lick and slow it
down, and it gave it a wholedifferent vibe by changing the
tempo, a better vibe.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's crazy when you can do that right.
Yeah, and when you were here,you heard Dave talking and
everything.
We were talking about itBecause I fully believe in his
statement of being visible untilyou have that, whatever.
But if you already have thatbond with someone, like you
obviously did with mike andeverything, yeah, you can get
some of the best recommendationsfor the people that when
they're actually invested inwhat you're doing at just as
(40:16):
much as you are, like they'reactually paying attention,
they're not just doing it forthe money, they're not just
doing it for the credit, they'reinvested in it.
And you'd be surprised when youlike, they will just think of
something so stupid simple andyou're just like why didn't I
think of that?
and, like you said, it changesthe whole tone of the song he
did like.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
And you mentioned platzer, my buddy greg.
He came in and played a lot ofnice lead work on there um such
a fun guy yeah, britney martin,a friend of mine I worked with
before.
And then, uh, amy, they didbacking vocals and and forgive
me, mike, you'll be able to tellme what her name was, but the
girl who did the backing vocalson all I'll ever be, because I
finished doing the track andthen, you know, you kind of
(40:53):
leave it and mike would likesend me an email like four in
the morning, say like I put somekeyboards on here, I put some
bass on here why is it all?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
it's always like that you get them at like four in
the morning you're like dude.
Like did you go to sleep yet?
Like what is going on?
Speaker 5 (41:04):
well, that's I mean he was invested in so many ways
and like like I just I just leftthis house before I came here
because I have another recordbasically written, and like I
want to work with him again, um,as soon as possible.
So I went down and presentedhim some songs and you know
he'll be like slow that down, dothis.
You know, um, and he, he sentme the, the final product,
because in the breakdown of thatsong when it stops, and I come
(41:27):
back in after the, the solo, I'ma big queen fan.
I love 70s queen especially yeahand I said I want this to be
big, big queen vocal, you knowbig harmonies, and that's all we
really talked about it.
Then he sends me this like this, this email of the song, and
it's freaking huge and it's herjust her doing all the backing
vocals, you know, with my vocalin the middle.
(41:49):
And uh, man, when we first time, greg and I sat at his house
and listened to it after ronnierhodes thank you, ronnie for
mastering the record, masteredit and uh, we sat there with it
cranked and it was just sopowerful and it was because of
her voice.
Like all the contributions madethe record as good as it is and
I'm looking forward to gettingeverybody together again and and
doing at least so I got twothings for you here.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
One did we just get the exclusive that you have a
second album coming?
Speaker 5 (42:15):
well, eventually yes I don't know, if I don't know,
cpmp I don't know if I'llactually do it as a full album
again, because someone pointedout to me that actually my good
friend bryce connor is, who fromthe jelly bricks, who, uh, um,
said love those guys too.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
We had them them on.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
I used to work with Bryce at Ray Music House and
Bryce is a fantastic guy and hewas like release singles.
You know the record's cool.
It was like an entity.
But I think, regardless of howmany songs we get done this time
around, I'll probably do oneevery other month or something.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think that's smart.
I mean, I'm no expert, but Ican say that I've seen the same
kind of trend.
If you're someone like TaylorSwift or whatever, people are
expecting albums, and that'sfine, and that's not to say that
just because you're not on thatlevel, but oh, I'm on that
level, you're right.
(43:06):
Especially like it keeps yourelevant without having to do
all the work of constantlystaying relevant.
You just you put all that workin, you have it there and it's.
It's kind of like we do herewith the podcast.
I mean we shoot and then werelease, but we shoot faster
than we release.
I don't know if we're givingout trade secrets here, but
anyone that's been on here, theyalready know that.
So it's the same thing, and soit keeps us relevant without
(43:28):
having to constantly be going100 miles an hour to keep that
relevance.
I think that's a very goodpiece of advice, honestly.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
And the whole industry has changed.
I was fascinated with Dave'ssegment there when he was
talking.
I remember being a kid in the70s and I was a huge Kiss fan.
They were massive.
When I was a kid they wouldrelease like two records a year.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I don't know how they did that like I don't know how
some, some people just have likethat gift um me no you weren't
getting two albums a year out ofme.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Well, I mean to make it good, you wouldn't think like
, even like, one of my favoritebands is aerosmith.
Like I said, they did a recorda year, you know the eagles a
record a year, you know.
So they had to keep themselvesin in the public eye, so to
speak, or you would go stale, Iguess, whatever you want to call
it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
You picked a perfect band for that example.
I mean the fact that Aerosmithlegitimately almost died, like
Aerosmith almost ceased to exist.
But then they did that onecover Like before that was even
like a thing of that R&B song,and that is what got them back
on top and From that point onthey exploded and it's crazy.
You could just stale out if youjust do one thing wrong.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
And it's funny you mentioned Walk this Way was the
hit with Run DMC.
I don't know if you listened tothe whole album, but there's a
song on the record called Unityand it's like my James Brown
kind of thing.
I got my buddy, jamie Morrow,who I used to play all-star
baseball with when we went tohigh school together.
Him and my buddies that Iplayed sports with got into
(44:55):
hip-hop kind of early on in itsinfancy Not infancy.
It was around for a while butwhen it started becoming
mainstream and I used to play onguitar stuff like little
four-track things for them, backwhen I went to East High School
with those guys and I got ahold of Jamie and I said man, I
want you to put a little hip-hopsection through the middle.
If you didn't hear it, it's oneof the things I'm really proud
of of the record, because thesong's called Unity, because
(45:18):
every day you read the paper.
Well you don't read the paperanymore, but every day you turn
on the news and you're watchingthe news or whatever, and
there's all this stuff abouttensions and intentions and
everything.
But, like I the, the songitself speaks.
Like you know, music isunifying.
It doesn't have a color, itdoesn't have a race.
Everybody loves music and Iwanted to incorporate as much as
I could like.
I used the james brown kind ofvibe with it and then, jamie,
(45:39):
you know, raps over the middleto kind of I didn't get to that
song yet.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I apologize, so that's okay, I'm gonna go listen
to that then, once we're doneit's pretty.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
It's a pretty cool track.
I was.
I really like the way it turnedout.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
I can't wait to hear it.
Honestly, I got two more quickquestions for you.
So one what do you got comingup?
You got any shows coming up?
Speaker 5 (45:57):
Well, I'm playing with Platzer and Greg Stalk and
Millhouse.
We have a band called theHassle.
We're doing covers mostly withthat, but actually I'd like to
put a band together with a lotof the guys that I did this with
and do my own stuff, maybe onceevery six weeks, and play
venues where people want to comeout and hear original music.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I'm going to tell you you have the sound for it.
The bars, the scenes, thevenues, all of them.
They will eat your sound up,man.
I'm telling you that right now.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
I'd love to do my.
I mean, that's my dream, that'swhy I started is to write my
own music.
And if I can do that once everysix weeks or so and people
actually show up and I'm notlike thank you, and you, you
know, that would be great.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So then this leads me to my final question, spinning
right off that you are someonethat's still currently in the
scene.
You're someone that's been inthe scene for quite some time.
There is obviously something sovery special about the central
Pennsylvania music scene.
You go all the way back, likeDave said, all the way back to
the 60s.
For whatever reason, musiciansget pumped out of this area like
crazy.
Being someone that's stillactive in the scene and has been
(46:58):
in the scene for so long, whatdo you have to say to that?
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (47:04):
I don't really have a definitive answer for you.
I mean, there's a lot ofdifferent styles.
Yeah, it's different now, andDave touched on this too Like
when I was coming up minute Icould play.
I used to play five nights aweek and work a day job, or at
least three to four nights aweek and work a Day job.
You don't have the venues likeyou used to to be able to go
play anymore.
Yeah but you know, even like,like when I was in whatever
(47:27):
prime I had, we rehearse everyday that we didn't, we didn't
play.
And then we go to see ourbuddies bands, you know, we go
out and support them and I don'tknow what it is.
I mean because you got likeBrett.
Brett was more a Mechanicsburgguy, not Harrisburg.
But, Central PA and DannyHartman, which he mentioned.
Danny was a Harrisburg guy.
I don't really know what it is.
(47:48):
I guess maybe because we areurban in a way.
So there's different sounds,different styles.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
We're close to new york, we're close to
philadelphia, we are you know,yeah, pittsburgh's were like
really hard to break into,though somehow at least it was
for us, like when I was doingstuff pittsburgh was like the
hardest scene to get into phillysuper easy, new york super easy
.
Pittsburgh like you had to knowa guy yeah it was like it was
weird, I didn't understand um,but yeah, you're not wrong, I
didn't really think about itlike the geography of it.
Yeah, that's.
I think that's a good answer,man, but I don't know, I just
(48:20):
hope.
Whatever it is, I hope we justkeep pumping stuff out, I hope
to see you on the stage.
I'm telling you, man,absolutely put time into doing
your own thing.
Then to keep doing stuff withthe Hasslers, all that.
Keep doing that, but definitelyput time in there.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
I appreciate, I like what I hear on that album.
Man, that means the world to me.
I've had so much positive, uh,response from it.
It's overwhelming and I and Ican't even tell you how much,
what, how much it means to mebecause, um, so many kind words
from so many people and I wouldlike to do a live project myself
with you know.
You know it's not like I'mshare, you know I mean we, I'd
split the money evenly guys.
So if anybody wants to help meout, I'm not sure that's awesome
(48:59):
.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
So with that, do we get to possibly hear a little
bit of your voice here?
Speaker 5 (49:05):
live on the show.
Yeah, people can bear with me I.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I think people can bear with you.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
All right, we'll see awesome, well, hey thank you so
much.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure talking to you, sir.
Hi, this is brian seneca andthis is my song.
All right by me.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Think about it, baby.
All the things you need.
Think about it, baby, all you,including me.
If you need your space, I'lljust be hanging on.
(50:11):
If you need to leave, thenplease don't stray too far.
Whatever you do whatever youchoose, baby, it's alright by me
.
Wherever you go, wherever youknow, baby, it's right by me.
(50:37):
No, I'll never hold you downand if you choose to come back
(50:58):
one day, I'll always be around.
Find your place in life, findyour peace of mind and be free.
And when the sun don't shineand you need to smile, I hope
(51:23):
you think of me.
Think of me.
Sometimes we're bad, but thensometimes we're good.
But through it all, we did thebest we could.
Whatever you do, whatever youchoose, baby it's all right by
(51:48):
me, wherever you go, whereveryou know baby, it's all right by
me.
I never had it so good.
I never quite understood Justhow strong this could be.
(52:18):
Now you've decided to leave.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
If you need your space, I'lljust be hanging on.
(52:57):
If you need to leave, thenplease don't stay too long.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Whatever?
Speaker 4 (53:05):
you do, whatever you choose, baby, it's all right by
me.
Wherever you go, wherever yougo, wherever you know, baby,
it's alright by me, alright byme, alright by me, all right by
(53:39):
me.
It's all right by me, it's allright by me, baby, baby, baby.
It's all right by me.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Well, that does it for us on another episode of the
Central Pennsylvania MusicPodcast.
As always, we'd like to thankthe guests for taking the time
out to come and sit down andtalk with us.
We'd always like to thank thefans for watching and listening.
Until next time, guys.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the Central Pennsylvania Music
Podcast Tonight Dave Still andBrian Seneca.
This episode is sponsored byMembers, First and now your
hosts, Daniel Kime and AlanMcCutcheon.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Welcome back to another episode of the Central
Pennsylvania Music Podcast.
Tonight we have two veryspecial guests Dave Still and
Brian Seneca.
We'll also be lucky enough tohear a live performance from
Brian Seneca at the end, andwe're sitting down with Dave
Still.
Dave, thank you so much fortaking the time to come here and
be with us.
My pleasure.
So you for the watchers.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
the time to come here and be with us, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
So for the watchers, the listeners I'm sorry you
can't see this, but for anyonewatching this video, dave was
nice enough to give me aplethora of notes and, honestly,
his story is incredible.
I do remember reading on yourLVC page, though, reading what
your expertises are andeverything, and just half of the
words that describe yourexpertise, I was like I don't
(01:07):
even know how to say this word,and I'm not being dramatic or
over-exaggerating.
I was like I'm pretty good atthe English language.
I was like I have no idea howto say this word.
But then, off camera, we weretalking and you kind of filled
me in what those were With that.
I always like to start with theguest.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Tell us about Dave.
What makes Dave Dave and wheredid Dave's story start?
My story began musically at age13 in 1963.
Born of the Beatles coming intoexistence and there was really
a surge of musicianship incentral Pennsylvania.
Around that there was bothEnglish music and the R&B scene,
(01:52):
and so the first band that wehad was a group called the Don
Shires.
It was Joe Calario, myself,paul Stavalli and Jerry Musser,
and eventually Jerry wasreplaced by Charles Oaks.
We played from 1964 through 67.
I was too young to drive whenwe began so my dad had to drive
(02:12):
me around with my drums in theback of his car.
That's awesome.
And we went to every place.
I think we played every firehall in the central Pennsylvania
back then and we went as farhall in central Pennsylvania
back then and we went as farnorth as Clearfield back in
those days.
I then went to college, whichwas an interruption in my
(02:32):
drumming career.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Don't you hate when that happens, when you have to
start adulting instead ofchasing your dreams?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
And played in bands up there through the years.
Notably, the first band wassome guys from Philadelphia,
really talented musicians.
They were sort of a horn bandBlood Sweat and Tears, chicago,
a lot of those kind of things.
Then the other and these names,I love these names City Chicken
(02:59):
was another band and Mud Rap.
Now, where those names camefrom from I can't begin to tell
you, but they're so unique theystick Well.
And also I looked at some ofthe names recently and don't
know where those came fromeither.
So, okay, you know.
So it looks like they kind offit into the to the scene.
Post-college, dan Hartman and Iwere actually Dan banned.
(03:23):
Dan banned the Legends from the60s and our band, the Donchars.
We kind of knew each other andJoe eventually went on—our bass
player, joe Clario, went on toplay with the Legends for quite
a while after I went to collegebecause the band couldn't
continue at that point.
And so Dan was in the recordingstudio in Mechanicsburg called
(03:44):
Baldwin Sound.
So Dan was in the recordingstudio in Mechanicsburg called
Baldwin Sound.
Dan and I shared a physicsclass in high school where I was
in the front paying attention.
Dan was behind me, not payingattention, because he was pure
creative talent.
I mean that was his thing so,but we had a collaboration in
the studio and I went in when hewas doing some work at Baldwin
(04:06):
Sound in the early 70s thiswould have been about 1972.
Okay, that started my interestin the recording world.
I loved the technology, whichtoday looks pretty antiquated.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Might be a little outdated now.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
From what was happening back then, but it was
really an exciting time and Ijust fell in love with the
studio, I believe it, and sothat went on for a few years,
did a lot of records.
The first album that I did wasan album called Morning Song
with some people from Penn Statewhich we went to college.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, we are Penn State.
Yeah, sorry for any Buckeyesfans out there.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
And Fred Kurtz went on to.
He was part of that band and hewent on to be a founding member
of a really high-end audiocompany in Columbia, maryland,
called SPL.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, I've heard of them, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, and so Fred and I remained cordial and friends
over the years.
Also, during that time Dan hadwritten a lot of music and had
come to the attention of EdgarWinner Wow okay yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Kind of Edgar Winner.
Wow, okay, yeah, kind of a bigdeal.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah.
So there was some negotiationsgoing on about that time and Dan
ended up going into the EdgarWinner group.
Okay, and Edgar and Dan had a.
They rented a facility out onSands Point, long Island, a very
large facility.
I think it was called theFleischman Mansion.
(05:50):
Edgar had one side, dan had theother.
Blanche, who was thehousekeeper, and myself were on
the third floor.
First floor was general use.
Second floor Dan started astudio Okay, so I had
transitioned out of Baldwin,went up to New York to work with
(06:11):
Dan in this studio, okay, andthere were some good and some
not so good things that came outof that, because I was familiar
with the Baldwin facility, boththe control room and the
tracking room, knew how to useit, was accustomed to it, knew
the microphone systems that wehad learned how to use them
quite well at that point, wentup there.
(06:34):
But that wasn't a studio, itwas a bedroom that had a studio
in.
It Got it.
Yep.
The recording area was thedownstairs had a very large open
living room that's probablybigger than most people's houses
.
That's where the Edgar had hisacoustic piano and they set the
(06:56):
drums up down there.
And that was the first album Idid with Edgar and in retrospect
I probably shouldn't have doneit because I wasn't acclimated
to that facility.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It was all new yep different mics, uh, different
acoustics, different room,different everything that's a
lot of brand new variables, likethey literally just introduced
a brand new equation to you andthey didn't even let you try to
solve the equation beforethey're like get to it.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
That was just jump in and go.
Okay, yeah, um, it wasn't bad.
It wasn't a bad experience, butit could have been better in my
in my opinion.
So we were there for about ayear and a half, two years, uh,
went on tour with them a lotmixed them live when they.
When the Edgar Winter Groupwent on tour, I think we did 60
cities in 90 days the first tourthat we did.
(07:44):
Shoo yeah, man, you guys werepumping.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
I got to see a lot of thecountry.
It was a great experience.
Following that, the studiomoved to Westport, connecticut,
(08:10):
westport connecticut, and therewas a georgian house up there
that that dan rented sort of asimilar situation, where the
control room was on the secondfloor bedroom on one end of the
building.
The tracking room was whateither was a one-room
schoolhouse or a ballroom I'mnot quite sure A small ballroom.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It was some kind of hybrid in between.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, big open space but great acoustics.
Great acoustics.
And that's when things reallystarted to click.
Uh and so, but we had no visualcontact between the control
(08:51):
room and the studio trackingspace which means that you had
to.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You had to have that ear, you had to listen, yeah
listen.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
So the one of the albums that kind of kicked
things off, uh, for dan and his,his studio great talent, by the
way, dan Hartman incredibletalent was just a joy to work
with, very helpful, verysupportive.
If we needed equipment he madesure we had it.
(09:17):
But he let me take care of thetechnical side of the physics.
Okay, from the physics classback in high school.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
It's funny when a type A and type B meet.
What can happen when you lettype A do type A and type B?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
do type B.
It was a great experience.
But Images was the first albumthat was put out by Dan and it
wasn't quite meant forcommercial purposes.
It was more of an introductoryalbum to introduce dan and his
music and his talent to the restof the music community in new
york city and la, of course.
(09:54):
So a lot of things happenedafter that.
Um, one of the uh, because thestudio was in a large house, we
could actually host the artist.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
They would come and stay there you get us at the
studio you guys were doing likewhat and this is no shade to
atrium, whatever but like you'redoing what like other big
production companies are doingout where they're like, oh, they
build a facility or theypartner with like a hotel so
they can bring the artists andthey can stay there for a while
(10:27):
to start doing the recording,rather than just having to book
them a day and have to bang outall those songs.
You're like no, just come hangout, come stay here, we'll let
the juices come naturally, andthen we'll hit the record button
.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Everybody stayed there.
We all ate dinner together.
We had someone who preparedmeals and took care of the
facility for us who stayed there.
That's awesome, and so it was acollaboration, both at a
personal level, a music level,and a professional level, that I
think really helped elevatesome of the opportunities that
(11:02):
we had.
So some of the first recordsand I'm going to may have to,
you may have to you probablyknow more from my notes than
I'll remember.
It's okay, we're talking about45 years ago.
It's a while back.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I can't tell you what I had for dinner last week.
That makes you feel any better.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I'm right with you, although it's this morning for
me, the, the Rick Derringer waspart of that group with Dan.
One of the first records that Iworked with with Rick was
Guitars and Women, and hisguitarist at that time was Neil
(11:42):
Giraldo, who went on to marryPat Benatar, and Myron
Grumbacher was the drummer onsome of that, and he was a good
drummer.
I enjoyed Myron, and so thatwas an interesting footnote as
what was happening.
Things were stirring up at thattime.
There was a lot of activitywith the music, and so we got
(12:09):
through those types of things.
Um, then the images album gotthe attention of fog hat.
Oh wow okay yeah, then one ofthe next albums we did was fog
hat night night shift.
We did that there.
They all stayed with us, didthe whole thing that we usually
do.
That's awesome.
Um, and then 38 special was thefirst.
The first two albums with 38special were done there this is
(12:29):
all between 1976 and 1982, whatI'm going to talk about up there
, and then we're going to comeback to central pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Yeah, absolutely, I'm just, I'm just living in awe
right now.
I'm going down this uh, thisstory road with you and I'm just
like man, I feel like the goodtimes were maybe behind us.
I don't know, I feel likemusically there's so much that
happened in those time periods.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
But please continue, sir, it would be hard to
duplicate in some ways.
So we did those two albums andthen there was an introduction
to Johnny Winter.
Johnny Winter got interested.
Obviously Edgar and he werebrothers so there was a lot of
sharing of information.
(13:14):
So Johnny came and met me oneevening and said you know what's
going on with this studio andmet me and he was an interesting
character, to say the least.
But you know, loved blues, wasreally into the blues scene and
he at that time Muddy Waters andhe had started a collaboration
(13:37):
after Muddy's record album labelhad ceased to exist.
They were only doing reissuesso Muddy ended up then signing
with Blue Sky, which is JohnnyWinters.
All the labels.
Steve Paul had the label BlueSky.
So Dan Edgar, johnny Muddy,rick Derringer, they're all on
(13:59):
the Blue Sky label.
So it was a bit of a familything with the artistry.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And especially since they had stayed in the house.
You all knew each other.
You had all that camaraderiealready.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Yeah, it was, it was already.
It was already in place.
That's awesome.
So, um, the first album, whichis really almost the pinnacle of
my experience, and one of thefew regrets.
I don't have many regrets.
One of the few regrets that Ihave is that we did not
videotape the muddy waters hardagain session.
(14:33):
It was done in three days.
Everyone was live in the studiospace, um, everybody.
So we had Muddy Waters andJohnny Winter Pine, top Perkins
on the keyboards, okay, willieBig Eye Smith on drums and James
(14:56):
Cotton on mouth harp, andeverybody played live at the
same time.
It was interesting.
One of the comments that I readon the Wikipedia about the Hard
Again album is one of thecontributors said it sounded
like it was recorded live.
It was Everything happened atonce and from a recordist
(15:20):
perspective, plus, I couldn'tsee yeah I mean I'm up in
another on another floor.
Yeah, after we got set up androlling I couldn't really see
anything.
But muddy would rehearse a songonce, maybe twice, if it didn't
sound good to him.
After two attempts he said it'snot worth doing, but they would
(15:43):
rehearse it and then they wouldsay go Okay.
So I had to make sure that Iwas ready.
Paying attention Because I wason a 24-track recorder on the
board on the other end of thehouse and if you miss it, it's
gone, gone because if we'regoing to like number three, he
might be like screw it, it's notno there wouldn't have been
(16:04):
another one, there wouldn't havebeen another.
Take that's, there might havebeen a different song but not
there would not have beenanother take, that's crazy and I
think that's the, the, what isthe essence of capturing the
artistry of a recording, and Ijust wish we would have
videotaped that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So you're using the specific words that I wanted to
bring in here, because I do wantto talk about this capturing
the artistry of the performance.
So you say and this is straightfrom Dave and I love what he
says here artists are focused oncapturing imagery of the music
and it's best to be invisiblethroughout the process.
I, I eat, do not distract fromthe focus of the music.
(16:43):
You are not the producer or theartist, so do not offer your
opinions unless asked.
Opinions will be requested oncethe artist becomes comfortable
with your performance.
So how do you, how do yousculpt that invisible experience
?
Like how, how, how did thatlook to you?
And I know you're, you're kindof going through the process now
(17:05):
but, like you put that so wellin the beginning and I love that
, that it's best to be invisible.
But honestly you're, you'redoing so much that it's kind of
hard to be invisible.
I mean, I get it, get it.
You're not visibly there, butyou're doing so much to
manipulate that sound.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, what I mean by that is you're invisible to the
process.
In other words, you're there tocapture what they're doing, all
right, so you don't injectyourself into it.
You do your part to make surethat you are ready and able to
capture what they're doing, andI never talk to anybody.
(17:44):
I wouldn't go down and try tostrike a.
I mean, these are famous people.
Yeah, these are big, big people.
Muddy Waters from a bluesstandpoint way up at the top.
I didn't talk to Muddy unlesshe talked to me.
I didn't talk to Muddy unlesshe talked to me, and any artist.
Once they become comfortablewith you, they will bring you
(18:04):
into the fold, but don't doanything ahead of that because
you don't want to disrupt or inany way affect that performance
in any negative way at all.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So it's up to you to prove your chops as the producer
to the artist that you cancapture what they are trying to
perform.
And then, once you have proventhat to them, once they have
determined you have proven it tothem and they start getting
more comfortable with you, thenmaybe if they ask you for an
opinion whatever, sure I'll giveit because you've already
(18:38):
earned that, that kind ofrespect from that person.
You guys are on the samewavelength now within your own
respective fields.
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And again, once you've worked with a producer
like Dan for a long time, wewould collaborate on a lot, but
not in the beginning, and someartists don't want to talk to
the engineer.
I remember David Johansson hada producer and I had to be
invisible because there was notreally a camaraderie between his
producer and myself nothingnegative but he just wanted to
(19:09):
get the tracks down and becomfortable with the tracks.
So that's what I mean by beinginvisible, because there is a
tendency sometimes to offer anopinion or to say you know
something which you know.
I just didn't do it, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I just held on, was it hard to bite your tongue.
Sometimes, though, not so much.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I had plenty to do.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I had plenty to keep me busy.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I had plenty to do.
I was focused on making surethat it got on tape.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it had it.
You couldn't miss it, you know,because missing a performance
you can't, you can't bring itback.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
No, you know, once it's gone, it's gone it's one
thing about time you can'trewind it.
Tape you can rewind as manytimes well, maybe not as many
times as you want, it will wearout but yeah, time you can't
rewind.
So it's like, yeah, if it'sgone, it's gone.
And so I wanted to say here, um, because you've, you've gone
through some of the most like,iconic, like times of like of
our lifetimes of music and howmusic has grown, music has
(20:08):
changed, music has morphed.
And now here we are today it's2024, almost 2025 watching the
music scene change in the musicgenres, just music as a whole
change.
Back when you were doing allthis recording, you were, you
know, dealing with these,watching the music scene change
and the music genres, just musicas a whole, change.
Back when you were doing allthis recording, you were dealing
with these big-time, famouspeople, the way the music has
gone now, and then sitting incentral Pennsylvania.
(20:28):
The bottom line is what areyour thoughts on that?
As someone that knows music andthe recording and everything
inside and out, how would youdescribe that progression right
now?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
well, obviously the biggest difference, and let me
back up kind of a loadedquestion.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I'm sorry that's okay , what, what?
Speaker 3 (20:49):
let me back up for a moment on the muddy water
session.
There were no overdubs, therewere no punches, none, this,
none, zero, okay.
Okay, these were liveperformances, you know, and and
so, and I think that comesacross, and most of the
recordings we did then, and evenif I were doing them now, I
would do as much of the trackingwith as many of the instruments
(21:12):
as possible.
Okay, not all of them, becausethere's just something that
becomes magical from an acousticstandpoint about all of that
energy in the same envelope andwhat the microphones hear.
It's different.
It's different than when youtrack individual instruments
it's already pre-compressed.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It almost sounds too perfect compared to what you're
picking up live.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, and the other person I saw who did this was
Todd Rundgren when he was doingthe Cars album up in.
Where did they do the bigoutdoor concert thing?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I'm trying to think here yeah, it'll come to me,
it'll come to both of us oncewe're done rolling.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
But anyway, we were up there and, uh, with the cars
he did, he did everything.
You know, he just took plywoodand boxed in the amps and, you
know, boxed in the bass and youknow, the guitars and everything
and let the drums roll in thein the room.
So he had a similar approach,uh, but in and in the muddy
session, everything was open,there was nothing boxed in.
(22:20):
Everyone played just like theywere on stage in that room no
punch-ins, no overdubs, no,nothing.
So the big difference today iswith digital, and it's gotten
quite good, because I livedthrough the transition phase in
the mid-'80s where the analogwas starting to transition into
(22:42):
the digital yep and uh, althoughthe early digital, at least in
my humble opinion, didn't havethe low end solid things that
wasn't as muchbetter today, much better today,
but now you can.
You can correct pitch, you cancorrect timing.
You can correct pitch, you cancorrect timing.
You can correct this, you cancorrect that, because they're
(23:03):
ones and zeros and you canshuffle them around any way that
you want to.
Yep.
So my suggestion to recordistswho are trying to break into
things and there's a muchgreater field with film now for
the artistry that you can bringas a recordist to film as well
as music is, you know, try tokeep that the life of the
(23:31):
performance alive and not andnot kind of shut it out with
technology.
I think that's really goodadvice, honestly, yeah yeah, I
mean it's, it's an opinion ofmine doesn't mean anybody has to
follow it, and maybe somebody'shas a better idea than I think
if I had to summarize this, Ithink.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think uh, for a lack of a better metaphor a suit
and a tie type person mightdisagree with you, but anyone
that actually has has had theirhands in the creative field
whether it be you as an engineeror, in the background, someone
who's on stage actually doingthe performance I think anyone
in that career field they wouldagree with you 100%, because
there is a spark.
(24:09):
All of this comes from somekind of spark, whether it's a
spark of imagination, a spark ofpassion, a spark of creativity.
And, like you're saying, don'tlet that spark get overshadowed
by all these ones and zeros.
Make sure what is making thator giving that life, make sure
you can still hear that life inthere, and I think that's really
awesome advice.
I just have one last questionfor you what do you think it is
(24:33):
that makes Central Pennsylvaniasuch a unique and special place
for music?
Because we have obviously tonsof musicians and artists that
come out of this area.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Yeah, it is unusual, I mean, and it goes back to the
60s.
I mean it started, jimi Hendrix,bass player, was from
Harrisburg.
Yeah, okay, in the 60s you knowone of his bass players, dan
Hartman, and a lot of otherpeople.
I mean, there just seemed—andthe number of bands and the
(25:04):
places to play that were— thereare not quite as many today, but
there was just so much going on.
It was driven partly by theEnglish music craze, but R&B has
always been strong here too,and jazz, jazz has always been
strong here.
So, coming back to this areaand I guess we're kind of
(25:27):
getting short, I'm going to letyou finish your thoughts here.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Don't you worry.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
But the greatest compliment to me was when I had
to come back to centralPennsylvania for medical reasons
with my family.
Johnny Winter, rick Derringer,who brought Cindy Lauper back to
here, recorded with me atBaldwin Sound in Mechanicsburg,
(25:52):
pennsylvania, and we didsomething very similar.
I was living in Dillsburg atthe time and they came and
stayed with me.
They said we're going to thecountry that's the way they used
to we're coming down to thecountry, so they would come down
and stay with me.
But there were a lot ofmusicians locally Tom Stroman in
Third Stream, tremendousmusician, teaches at Lebanon
(26:12):
Valley as well, incrediblytalented individual.
And so many groups the Sharks,Kings and Queens, full Moon, I
mean just.
And then I played in severalbands.
When I came back Splinter wasactually back in 72.
That was with Joe Clario.
I teamed up with Joe Clario andLauren Peck, bernie Hess, dan
(26:39):
O'Hara and a group calledMaricopa, which is, I think,
spanish for butterflies, if mymemory is correct.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I don't speak Spanish .
Yeah, I have no idea, so Ican't correct you or confirm you
.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And a couple others.
But I mean, even after I cameback to the area in the 80s,
there was still just a plethoraof tremendous musicianship going
on and people willing to get,get into the studio and take a
shot.
You know, give it, you know seewhat, see what they could do to
make things work out for them.
And some of them are stillplaying today?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
yeah, we have.
We have legends that have comeout of central pennsylvania and
it's like it's just crazy andI'm just so happy that I was
able to.
You know, as small as mychapter might have been in the
music scene, I put my stamp onthere, I'm in the history, I'm
proud of that and now I'm justhappy to be doing what I'm doing
now to continue supporting themusic scene.
Not only just you know, thepeople on stage but people like
yourself, that I mean.
(27:30):
Without people like you, thepeople that are on stage would
have no reason to be on stagebecause there'd be nothing to
sell.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
There'd be no product to sell.
Quite kind.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's the truth, it's the honest to God truth.
But, dan, uh, I I would love tokeep talking with you a lot, a
lot longer, because this hasbeen very interesting to me.
It's I'm kind of like a historybuff in that way.
When it comes to music stuff.
It's very interesting to me,but unfortunately our has come
to an end, so we might have toget you on the books then later
for another season, then pick upright where we left off.
That sounds good to you, soundsgood, awesome.
(28:01):
Well, hey, thank you so muchfor coming out again tonight and
it was a pleasure talking toyou.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
My pleasure.
Thanks to everyone for all ofthis.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Absolutely, and we're sitting down with Brian Seneca,
brian thank you so much fortaking the.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Of course.
So let's get right into it.
You just released your firstsolo album.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
Yes, I did.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
So I want to talk about that.
But first, where does Brian'sstory start?
How did music?
Did you start music?
Did music start you?
Speaker 5 (28:31):
I think music started me.
To be honest with you, it'sbeen in my blood ever since.
My mom plays organ and piano.
She sang in the church choir,but the big game changer was
when I was about six years old.
My uncle, dave Sheets, gave meMeet.
The Beatles changed my, changedmy life.
I mean I played sports all upthrough high school and
everything but that bug bit meright then and, uh, it's been in
(28:53):
my blood ever since that's,that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So I mean, you've collabed with, I mean, people
like, uh, greg platzer um, I'msorry, I'm gonna pull up my
phone because you you've beenwith quite a couple, uh, local
artists here and I don't want todisparage any of their names.
Give me one second.
You got greg platzer, uh likeuh, the blitz dinette, uh, amy
simpson, uh, shelby nelson ofthe famous, uh, and honestly,
(29:19):
many, many more that I couldname, but we'll be here for the
entire time that you have welland that's why, like when it
came time I, I played in bands,like back in the 80s.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
It was a rude awakening, okay.
And then, even before that, aguy named Sam Noto who's a good
friend of mine he had arecording studio in his basement
, like a little four-trackstudio and we used to play
Mayfairs and stuff where Samreally got us out.
He had a real PA system, anactual microphone and all that.
And then there was RudeAwakening, which actually
morphed into a band calledTrouble Walking, which was
(29:48):
fairly popular in the late 80s,early 90s.
Then I was in a band calledBamboo Igloo.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That's an awesome name.
Just saying I just love thatname.
I never named it.
It makes no sense and that'swhat's awesome about it.
That's right.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Yeah, we figured nobody else had it, you know.
And then from that my bestfriend, Jerry Simpson, was my
drummer, Like a brother to me,and we formed Zero Gravity with
Rich Van Dieven during that band.
We was together for 22 years.
But yeah, I'm blessed that Ihave a lot of friends.
I mean, I've been doing this along time.
I started playing clubs when Iwas a teenager and when I
(30:20):
decided to do a solo record itsounded pompous for me to even
say that, Like you know.
But I said, well, I want to doit and I want to do it with my
friends and make it verycommunal you know what I mean?
yeah, and because there'snothing I love more than than
making music, especially with myfriends and mike giblin.
Uh red chuck studios right downthe road.
That's where we cut the record.
We go down on sunday afternoonsand, like uh, dave was saying
earlier about cutting live, wecut the record live.
(30:41):
I mean we overdub vocalsobviously sure and some guitar
solos and things.
But I think there's more of amore emotion.
I think there's a more of afeeling when you do it live than
when you track things.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
And uh, and I've thought well, if I'm going to do
a solo record, I'm going toincorporate all my friends, the
best that I can, Um, and, and Ithink the product turned out
fantastic.
I'm happy with it.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I mean, we talked a little bit off camera Um, I
loved what I heard Um the.
My favorite song was you weretelling me it was actually the
last song to actually make thecut.
The name of the song again wasum I'll ever be all over, dude.
I love that song thank you thevibe is like so on point.
Like I was listening, Ilistened to it in order, first
song very good.
I gotta be honest with you, thevery first vibe I got I hope
(31:24):
this is a compliment I got BruceSpringsteen.
Like as soon as the albumstarted that your voice and
everything.
I was like this dude kind ofsounds like Bruce Springsteen.
I was like I feel like that'slike.
I was like I don't know I'venot heard any other local
artists that that was my veryfirst like thought.
I was like I hope he thinksthat's a compliment.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
I was like because the man is legendary, so I get
that, I get uh, steven Tyler, Iget um Paul Rogers a little bit.
People say, I sound like that alittle bit as well too.
All of them influences on me,like the Beatles especially.
But yeah, the first questionyou asked me where do I start?
All I'll Ever Be really tellsyou the whole story.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
It's an incredible song.
Like I was telling you, I lovethe 80s synth that's
incorporated.
I love the 80s synth.
I liked it in the 80s songsthat are still already out there
, but I like these newer actsthat are bringing them in
because I feel like they'rebringing them in.
Not like in the 80s it feltforced, but in the newer times
they are finding the appropriatetimes and the appropriate
sounds to interject that and I'mI'm here for it, man, like I
(32:25):
love when you can take somethingfrom the past, something that
influenced you, and you canproperly and accurately and I
would say, impactfullyincorporate it into your own
project.
I think that's awesome.
I feel like that's payinghomage to what influenced you by
using it in your own creation.
I think that's awesome.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
And a lot of that's Mike Giblin.
I cannot speak highly enoughabout Mike Giblin.
He's the man.
It's so nice.
I've been writing songs sincebefore I even knew how to play
guitar.
I got a guitar when I was sixyears old and to me it's still
like a magic box when I sit downand play guitar, unless I'm
learning songs from my currentband, which is the Hassle.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Shout out, yeah, shout out to the.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Hassle, but I don't really sit down and play cover
songs.
Unless I'm learning cover songs, I just sit down and play cover
songs.
Unless I'm learning cover songs, I just sit down and play my
guitar.
I love to cook.
Sometimes I'll have aStratocaster around my back and
I'm making pasta and I just playconstantly.
I'm not book-learned.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
That's dedication.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Well, it's an extension of me, actually,
really.
I mean, I'm not book-learned,let's face it.
I'm not doing anythinggroundbreaking or different on
the record, but what I tried todo was stretch my boundaries,
Like the song you mentionedabout Shelby Nelson she's
amazing, very dear friend ofmine.
I wrote that song.
It's called your Love.
I wrote that at least fiveyears ago and I did a demo of it
(33:41):
with my friend, italo Savaglio,and I just sang it by myself
and I thought, you know I wassaying what if I could write a
disco song, you know, which iskind of what it is.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
And wrote all the horn parts on piano and things
like that.
And then the more we got closeto doing it, I presented that to
Mike maybe the first song Ithink we cut and I said I want
to do this as like a peaches andherb kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So I mentioned to Shelby because we're good
friends- yeah, it out of thepark and I that's one of my
favorite tracks on the record.
I'll be honest too, I so I knowI talked about the 80 cent.
But like I love when someonewrites a good love song and they
accurately they do do a duet.
You have the man singing hispart and the woman singing it.
(34:21):
Not that you can't tell a storywith just one single musician,
but it really paints the pictureand I think that having that
dynamic difference between thevoices of the female and the
male, I think that really justit seals the emotions a lot
thicker in the song.
And I love that, like when asong can give me goosebumps or a
song can kind of like bringtears to your eyes and stuff
(34:43):
like that.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
That's what it's supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
It's magic, it's literally magic Like, and that
you have created, that.
You've helped create a productof that.
And I know you're saying thatyou know your album's not
groundbreaking or anything butlike.
It's groundbreaking.
For you it's.
It's your first solo album.
So who's to say groundbreakingis subjective, you know.
I mean that it's groundbreakingto you.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
I would say it's groundbreaking well, I really
like to try to stretch theboundaries.
Like you mentioned, amy simpsonman, she another one fantastic
talent, she.
She sang on um.
All right by me which is afterI.
I recorded your love my drummer,trent sprenkel, one of the
drummers.
We had three different drummerson the record.
Everybody contributed but trentwas involved in the majority of
it.
He goes I like when you writebreeze, I like when you write
(35:22):
breezy stuff like write a yacht,a yacht rock song, and I'm like
all right, so I just like okay.
So I came up with those chordsand I actually went out to see
my old bass player.
He moved to Colorado andMelanie, my wife and I went out
to Colorado and it was Augustbut there was like snow on the
mountains and everything and Iwas playing that song for him
and I kind of worked it outwhile I was in Colorado, you
know, sitting on a deck lookingat the snow on the mountains
(35:46):
with me on that.
And then Rags, a good friend ofours, came out and put sax on
that track, which just was likethe icing on the cake.
He's amazing.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Thank you, buddy.
I love saxophone.
Yeah, these guys have heard metalk about it way too much, but
saxophone is making anappearance in the metal scene.
The metal scene Off camera.
I will show you an act.
It'll blow your mind.
It blew my mind when I firstheard it, because I didn't think
it was an instrument that metalneeded until I heard it and I
(36:16):
was like, oh my god, I'm likethat's the instrument that metal
has been missing and I was likeit's crazy so we'll talk about
that later on.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
It's funny you mention that because my mom it
was a musician herself and Iwanted a guitar after my uncle
Dave gave me Meet the Beatlesand she's like well, guitar
players are a dime a dozen.
She goes if you learn adifferent instrument, you know,
I'll, you know, get your guitar.
So if you listen to the lyricsin the title track, I'm Still
Around.
That's kind of autobiographicalfor me, you know.
(36:43):
And the first verse, if youlisten to it, that's Noel Staley
my elementary school teacher.
um, he used to call me scatter,you know, because, like you're
younger than me, when I wasgrowing up in the 70s, when you
had ADHD, they hit you and toldyou to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I've heard the stories from my parents.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Are you struggling to focus?
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Pay attention and do what I told you to do.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
I can't help it.
You're being boring right now.
My brain hates what you'resaying right now.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
But I struggled big time and my mom said you know,
get another interest.
So I tried to play saxophoneand I just had no desire to do
it.
I wish I did now, but at thetime I didn't.
All I wanted was that guitarman, you know, because you
couldn't stand in front of themirror with a sax and look that
cool, you know I'm right therewith you, silly.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I wanted a guitar for the longest time when I was
growing up and my parentsfinally, like they scrounged
together, they got me anelectric guitar.
I might have played that guitarlike like four times in like
the three years that I owned it.
And then I played violingrowing up all through, like
elementary school, middle school, and so, like one of my friends
was like, oh, like I'm startinga band, like do you want to
join?
I was like I don't really knowhow to play anything.
(37:45):
I was like I used to play theviolin.
He he's like here's a bassguitar.
He's like it's essentially thesame thing, you just hold it
differently.
And I thought he was like youknow, bsing me.
But I was like, oh, I was likeyou're right, like I was like it
kind of is like the same,almost the same practicality.
So I did that for like.
Were you playing it like?
(38:06):
This I did try it like I don'tknow, like a couple months and
then my buddy was like dude, Ithink you should be doing vocals
.
But I'm right there with younow going through like the music
scene, like going through myown music progression, I'm sure,
going through yours, you seesome of the other people playing
these instruments and you'relike man, like I really wish I
knew that instrument could bethat awesome back then.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
Time to learn it yeah , well she, my mom, tried me to
try to get me to go to pianolessons, and I was like man, you
might as well just put a signon my back, says kick my butt.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
I'm going to my piano lesson.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
You know, like I don't want to do that, but I did
teach myself how to play pianoand I like I said I'm not, I'm
not book learned, um, and it wasfunny too because, uh, in your
love, actually mike's and that'sthe one thing I want to say
mike was always listening, youknow, and he'd be like that's
cool.
And then he would say, like goout and play Jackson 5 octaves
at the end there, and I knewexactly what he meant because he
was kind of, he was invested,but he could stay back and
(38:56):
listen differently than I didbecause I'm playing it and
everything else.
And he goes what's that chordthat you play in the chorus?
I'm like I don't know.
I'm like it's from one of thesenights by the Eagles.
I stole it and I moved it downfour frets, just point blank,
and he comes out and he goesit's a G major, seven jackass.
(39:18):
And I was like okay, there yougo.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
You're like great, my brain doesn't care what you're
saying.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
I don't know if I can say jackass.
I just said it twice, that'sfine.
Yeah, so there was things likethat.
But that was the brilliantthing about him is he just sits
back and he listens and he'llsay he never said do this.
He'd say go try this, or we'dslow a song down, the song your
Honesty, which is on the secondwell, I said the second side.
I played that a lot faster whenI presented it to Mike and he
(39:48):
goes all right, stop playing itlike a metal lick and slow it
down, and it gave it a wholedifferent vibe by changing the
tempo, a better vibe.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
It's crazy when you can do that right.
Yeah, and when you were here,you heard Dave talking and
everything.
We were talking about itBecause I fully believe in his
statement of being visible untilyou have that, whatever.
But if you already have thatbond with someone, like you
obviously did with mike andeverything, yeah, you can get
some of the best recommendationsfor the people that when
they're actually invested inwhat you're doing at just as
(40:16):
much as you are, like they'reactually paying attention,
they're not just doing it forthe money, they're not just
doing it for the credit, they'reinvested in it.
And you'd be surprised when youlike, they will just think of
something so stupid simple andyou're just like why didn't I
think of that?
and, like you said, it changesthe whole tone of the song he
did like.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
And you mentioned platzer, my buddy greg.
He came in and played a lot ofnice lead work on there um such
a fun guy yeah, britney martin,a friend of mine I worked with
before.
And then, uh, amy, they didbacking vocals and and forgive
me, mike, you'll be able to tellme what her name was, but the
girl who did the backing vocalson all I'll ever be, because I
finished doing the track andthen, you know, you kind of
(40:53):
leave it and mike would likesend me an email like four in
the morning, say like I put somekeyboards on here, I put some
bass on here why is it all?
Speaker 2 (40:58):
it's always like that you get them at like four in
the morning you're like dude.
Like did you go to sleep yet?
Like what is going on?
Speaker 5 (41:04):
well, that's I mean he was invested in so many ways
and like like I just I just leftthis house before I came here
because I have another recordbasically written, and like I
want to work with him again, um,as soon as possible.
So I went down and presentedhim some songs and you know
he'll be like slow that down, dothis.
You know, um, and he, he sentme the, the final product,
because in the breakdown of thatsong when it stops, and I come
(41:27):
back in after the, the solo, I'ma big queen fan.
I love 70s queen especially yeahand I said I want this to be
big, big queen vocal, you knowbig harmonies, and that's all we
really talked about it.
Then he sends me this like this, this email of the song, and
it's freaking huge and it's herjust her doing all the backing
vocals, you know, with my vocalin the middle.
(41:49):
And uh, man, when we first time, greg and I sat at his house
and listened to it after ronnierhodes thank you, ronnie for
mastering the record, masteredit and uh, we sat there with it
cranked and it was just sopowerful and it was because of
her voice.
Like all the contributions madethe record as good as it is and
I'm looking forward to gettingeverybody together again and and
doing at least so I got twothings for you here.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
One did we just get the exclusive that you have a
second album coming?
Speaker 5 (42:15):
well, eventually yes I don't know, if I don't know,
cpmp I don't know if I'llactually do it as a full album
again, because someone pointedout to me that actually my good
friend bryce connor is, who fromthe jelly bricks, who, uh, um,
said love those guys too.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
We had them them on.
Speaker 5 (42:30):
I used to work with Bryce at Ray Music House and
Bryce is a fantastic guy and hewas like release singles.
You know the record's cool.
It was like an entity.
But I think, regardless of howmany songs we get done this time
around, I'll probably do oneevery other month or something.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think that's smart.
I mean, I'm no expert, but Ican say that I've seen the same
kind of trend.
If you're someone like TaylorSwift or whatever, people are
expecting albums, and that'sfine, and that's not to say that
just because you're not on thatlevel, but oh, I'm on that
level, you're right.
(43:06):
Especially like it keeps yourelevant without having to do
all the work of constantlystaying relevant.
You just you put all that workin, you have it there and it's.
It's kind of like we do herewith the podcast.
I mean we shoot and then werelease, but we shoot faster
than we release.
I don't know if we're givingout trade secrets here, but
anyone that's been on here, theyalready know that.
So it's the same thing, and soit keeps us relevant without
(43:28):
having to constantly be going100 miles an hour to keep that
relevance.
I think that's a very goodpiece of advice, honestly.
Speaker 5 (43:34):
And the whole industry has changed.
I was fascinated with Dave'ssegment there when he was
talking.
I remember being a kid in the70s and I was a huge Kiss fan.
They were massive.
When I was a kid they wouldrelease like two records a year.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I don't know how they did that like I don't know how
some, some people just have likethat gift um me no you weren't
getting two albums a year out ofme.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Well, I mean to make it good, you wouldn't think like
, even like, one of my favoritebands is aerosmith.
Like I said, they did a recorda year, you know the eagles a
record a year, you know.
So they had to keep themselvesin in the public eye, so to
speak, or you would go stale, Iguess, whatever you want to call
it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
You picked a perfect band for that example.
I mean the fact that Aerosmithlegitimately almost died, like
Aerosmith almost ceased to exist.
But then they did that onecover Like before that was even
like a thing of that R&B song,and that is what got them back
on top and From that point onthey exploded and it's crazy.
You could just stale out if youjust do one thing wrong.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
And it's funny you mentioned Walk this Way was the
hit with Run DMC.
I don't know if you listened tothe whole album, but there's a
song on the record called Unityand it's like my James Brown
kind of thing.
I got my buddy, jamie Morrow,who I used to play all-star
baseball with when we went tohigh school together.
Him and my buddies that Iplayed sports with got into
(44:55):
hip-hop kind of early on in itsinfancy Not infancy.
It was around for a while butwhen it started becoming
mainstream and I used to play onguitar stuff like little
four-track things for them, backwhen I went to East High School
with those guys and I got ahold of Jamie and I said man, I
want you to put a little hip-hopsection through the middle.
If you didn't hear it, it's oneof the things I'm really proud
of of the record, because thesong's called Unity, because
(45:18):
every day you read the paper.
Well you don't read the paperanymore, but every day you turn
on the news and you're watchingthe news or whatever, and
there's all this stuff abouttensions and intentions and
everything.
But, like I the, the songitself speaks.
Like you know, music isunifying.
It doesn't have a color, itdoesn't have a race.
Everybody loves music and Iwanted to incorporate as much as
I could like.
I used the james brown kind ofvibe with it and then, jamie,
(45:39):
you know, raps over the middleto kind of I didn't get to that
song yet.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I apologize, so that's okay, I'm gonna go listen
to that then, once we're doneit's pretty.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
It's a pretty cool track.
I was.
I really like the way it turnedout.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
I can't wait to hear it.
Honestly, I got two more quickquestions for you.
So one what do you got comingup?
You got any shows coming up?
Speaker 5 (45:57):
Well, I'm playing with Platzer and Greg Stalk and
Millhouse.
We have a band called theHassle.
We're doing covers mostly withthat, but actually I'd like to
put a band together with a lotof the guys that I did this with
and do my own stuff, maybe onceevery six weeks, and play
venues where people want to comeout and hear original music.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
I'm going to tell you you have the sound for it.
The bars, the scenes, thevenues, all of them.
They will eat your sound up,man.
I'm telling you that right now.
Speaker 5 (46:25):
I'd love to do my.
I mean, that's my dream, that'swhy I started is to write my
own music.
And if I can do that once everysix weeks or so and people
actually show up and I'm notlike thank you, and you, you
know, that would be great.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So then this leads me to my final question, spinning
right off that you are someonethat's still currently in the
scene.
You're someone that's been inthe scene for quite some time.
There is obviously something sovery special about the central
Pennsylvania music scene.
You go all the way back, likeDave said, all the way back to
the 60s.
For whatever reason, musiciansget pumped out of this area like
crazy.
Being someone that's stillactive in the scene and has been
(46:58):
in the scene for so long, whatdo you have to say to that?
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (47:04):
I don't really have a definitive answer for you.
I mean, there's a lot ofdifferent styles.
Yeah, it's different now, andDave touched on this too Like
when I was coming up minute Icould play.
I used to play five nights aweek and work a day job, or at
least three to four nights aweek and work a Day job.
You don't have the venues likeyou used to to be able to go
play anymore.
Yeah but you know, even like,like when I was in whatever
(47:27):
prime I had, we rehearse everyday that we didn't, we didn't
play.
And then we go to see ourbuddies bands, you know, we go
out and support them and I don'tknow what it is.
I mean because you got likeBrett.
Brett was more a Mechanicsburgguy, not Harrisburg.
But, Central PA and DannyHartman, which he mentioned.
Danny was a Harrisburg guy.
I don't really know what it is.
(47:48):
I guess maybe because we areurban in a way.
So there's different sounds,different styles.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
We're close to new york, we're close to
philadelphia, we are you know,yeah, pittsburgh's were like
really hard to break into,though somehow at least it was
for us, like when I was doingstuff pittsburgh was like the
hardest scene to get into phillysuper easy, new york super easy
.
Pittsburgh like you had to knowa guy yeah it was like it was
weird, I didn't understand um,but yeah, you're not wrong, I
didn't really think about itlike the geography of it.
Yeah, that's.
I think that's a good answer,man, but I don't know, I just
(48:20):
hope.
Whatever it is, I hope we justkeep pumping stuff out, I hope
to see you on the stage.
I'm telling you, man,absolutely put time into doing
your own thing.
Then to keep doing stuff withthe Hasslers, all that.
Keep doing that, but definitelyput time in there.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
I appreciate, I like what I hear on that album.
Man, that means the world to me.
I've had so much positive, uh,response from it.
It's overwhelming and I and Ican't even tell you how much,
what, how much it means to mebecause, um, so many kind words
from so many people and I wouldlike to do a live project myself
with you know.
You know it's not like I'mshare, you know I mean we, I'd
split the money evenly guys.
So if anybody wants to help meout, I'm not sure that's awesome
(48:59):
.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
So with that, do we get to possibly hear a little
bit of your voice here?
Speaker 5 (49:05):
live on the show.
Yeah, people can bear with me I.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I think people can bear with you.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
All right, we'll see awesome, well, hey thank you so
much.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure talking to you, sir.
Hi, this is brian seneca andthis is my song.
All right by me.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Think about it, baby.
All the things you need.
Think about it, baby, all you,including me.
If you need your space, I'lljust be hanging on.
(50:11):
If you need to leave, thenplease don't stray too far.
Whatever you do whatever youchoose, baby, it's alright by me
.
Wherever you go, wherever youknow, baby, it's right by me.
(50:37):
No, I'll never hold you downand if you choose to come back
(50:58):
one day, I'll always be around.
Find your place in life, findyour peace of mind and be free.
And when the sun don't shineand you need to smile, I hope
(51:23):
you think of me.
Think of me.
Sometimes we're bad, but thensometimes we're good.
But through it all, we did thebest we could.
Whatever you do, whatever youchoose, baby it's all right by
(51:48):
me, wherever you go, whereveryou know baby, it's all right by
me.
I never had it so good.
I never quite understood Justhow strong this could be.
(52:18):
Now you've decided to leave.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
If you need your space, I'lljust be hanging on.
(52:57):
If you need to leave, thenplease don't stay too long.
Speaker 3 (53:04):
Whatever?
Speaker 4 (53:05):
you do, whatever you choose, baby, it's all right by
me.
Wherever you go, wherever yougo, wherever you know, baby,
it's alright by me, alright byme, alright by me, all right by
(53:39):
me.
It's all right by me, it's allright by me, baby, baby, baby.
It's all right by me.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
Well, that does it for us on another episode of the
Central Pennsylvania MusicPodcast.
As always, we'd like to thankthe guests for taking the time
out to come and sit down andtalk with us.
We'd always like to thank thefans for watching and listening.
Until next time, guys.
We'll see you next time.
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