July 25, 2024 • 55 mins
What happens when a young Brazilian guitarist, inspired by ACDC, stumbles upon blues legend John Lee Hooker through a stroke of radio interference? Join us as Art Menezes takes us through his incredible musical journey, from the vibrant streets of Fortaleza to the bustling blues hubs of Los Angeles and Chicago. Art recounts his self-taught beginnings, pivotal career moments, and the cultural backdrop that shaped his unique sound. It's a story of passion and perseverance, guaranteed to resonate with any music aficionado.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, season five of
Chewing the Gristle is upon us.
It's been a little while, folks, but it's going to be worth the
wait.
We're going to be featuring alot of convivial conversations
with various musical potentates,most of which you've heard of.
Some are going to be some newdiscoveries.
That's why I'm here to bringforth the chewable gristle
(00:29):
matter to you via theinformation superhighway,
brought to you, of course, byour friends at Wildwood Guitars
in beautiful Louisville,colorado, and our friends at
Fishman Transducers of beautifulAndover, massachusetts.
Both I've had greatlongstanding relationships with,
and continue to do so, andwe're very grateful for their
continued support in thisendeavor of giving you the
(00:51):
highest quality and chewablegristle possible.
Now, without any further ado,folks, let's get down and dirty
with some Chewing the Gristle,season 5.
Buckle up.
He astounds, he amazes, themighty Art Menezes, ladies and
gentlemen, blues guitarpotentate From beautiful Brazil.
(01:13):
We had a great chat.
You know what we did?
We chewed the damn gristle.
Tune on in right now.
Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we have convened once again
(01:39):
around the Gristle Fire for alittle episode of Chewing the
Gristle.
Today, beaming in from LosAngeles I believe you're in Los
Angeles we have the mighty ArtMenezes from, actually
originally from Brazil, butliving in LA for a while now,
and just an extraordinary youngblues guitar player, vocalist,
songwriter, artist, if you will,and so great to chat with you
(02:01):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
How's it going out there, art?
What's happening?
I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, my pleasure, appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
I've been a fan of your workfor a while.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I've been listening to your guitar since I was two
in Brazil and I've been here inLos Angeles for eight years.
Yes, yeah, so yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Thanks for having me, my pleasure.
So give us a right.
She sings Brazilian music,brazilian popular music.
And my big brother, he startedto listen to ACDC when he was 10
years old, 10 years, 11.
And I was three years, fouryears old.
So when you have a big brother,you don't want to look at your
(03:02):
parents like you want to, you'regoing to be like your big
brother, right?
So I said, you know, I'm notgoing to, I'm not really into
the Brazilian music.
Actually, after that, rightafter that, I was.
But as a kid I was like, youknow, I want to be like my
brother.
So I was listening to ACDC withhim all the time.
So, angus Young, he was my, my,my, my, my first guitar hero,
(03:28):
right, okay, and I still admirehim a lot.
And fast forwarding, when I was11 years old, I decided to play
music because of a friend thatwas living in my building.
He came with this method Iwritten a piece of paper with
numbers.
If you have the number 10, 10would be like first string, fret
, number zero, right?
So open string number 12, youknow like, uh, first string,
(03:51):
fret number two, and then withthe melody, no rhythm, nothing.
And there was a very famousbrazilian popular music.
So I I learned that I justgrabbed that I played on his
acoustic, just just like this,and I was, oh, this feels good.
So, and then I, you know, Iasked my mother to and my father
(04:12):
they kind of like cheapening tobuy me an acoustic guitar, a
cheap one, and so I kept playing, like by ear.
You know, I'm a self-taughtmusician, although after that I
decided to learn music because Iwanted to know what I was doing
.
I was curious and also thathelped me a lot.
But anyway, so I was one daypracticing at home.
(04:32):
At the time I had a Ryder guitar, an Epiphone SG.
I didn't have an amp, it waslike a friend's amp that was
sitting in my place.
But I used to live close to aradio station and we were
getting interference from theradio all the time in all the
devices at my place.
So I was jamming with acdcrecords and then that music
started coming from the amp andI was listening to that and I
(04:54):
stopped the record that I wasjamming with and I started
jamming with what was comingfrom my speakers and it felt
familiar and after that the theradio host.
He said the phone number of theradio.
I called hey, what is this?
And at the time I think I waslike 12 or 13 years old, and he
said, no, this is a blue show.
(05:14):
This isn't special about JohnnyHooker today.
And I said, oh, cool.
And then after that I started,like you know and after that it
was blooms until today.
So basically that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I love it.
So what town in Brazil did yougrow up in?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Fortaleza.
It's northeast of Brazil, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So is it a big city, kind of a rural thing?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It is a big city.
It's, I would say, the third orfourth biggest in Brazil.
Yeah, it's near the ocean.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And the weather's nice.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The weather.
I mean, I don't like summer,but it's summer every day.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, because it's near the equator so we don't
have like season in my hometown,so it's summer all the time,
the equator, so we don't havelike season in my hometown, so
it's under all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
When I was thinking, when you were talking about the,
you know ACDC, I mean, I meanfor the most part, I mean Angus
Young is a blues guitar player,you know, I mean he plays, his
whole approach is very much, youknow, bluesy.
So that that is not.
Uh, that was probably a goodsegue into actual listening to
the blues stuff.
So what kind of were you a fanof, like all blues, or were you
(06:31):
more fixated on certain types ofblues people?
Because you know, the reasonwhy I say that is that there
seems to be a lot of people whoare like, are blues fanatics and
they love the whole genre andthey learn everything they can
about all the different, youknow obscure artists and so on
and so forth.
And then there's people thatget drawn to certain blues
(06:52):
people because of their phrasingand their singing and their
songwriting and they just kindof, you know, have like a, I
mean they kind of have anappreciation for everybody, but
you know they're they're morehoned in on certain artists.
So I was wondering what yourapproach was.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I think both you know it was phases.
You know there was a time thatI was with acoustic resonator
slide, was learning everythinglike the delta, the roots and
everything.
You know there's the modernstuff traditional, the Chicago
blues, electric, the West Coast,everything know.
There's the modern stufftraditional, the chicago blues,
electric, the west coast,everything right but basically
(07:28):
after acdc, like I said, andit's very bluesy, you know, acdc
, in my opinion it's a bluesband with a rock drummer, right,
because even the lyrics youknow, like the, the form,
everything.
So after that there was stevierayvon, right, uh, and from
stevie I got obsessed withstevie.
When I first saw the it wasactually vhs that my brother
(07:52):
brought at home with uh, thehomo combo yeah, yeah, and I
remember watching that.
I would say I was like 13, 14and and I cried when I watched
it and it was very weird for me.
I said, oh, there's somethingwrong with me, because I was a
kid I 13, 14, and I cried when Iwatched it and it was very
weird for me.
I said, oh, there's somethingwrong with me, because I was a
(08:15):
kid, I never cried becauseanything that wasn't related to
physical pain, right, I mean no,no, no, no.
I cried before, like missing myfather or my mother because
they were divorced and you knowwe lived separately and had to
stay the summer vacations withmy father, then back to my
mother and you know that kind ofstuff.
But there was the first timethat I cried with something
related to art, to music, and Iwas like, wow, this is amazing.
Then after that I was like,note by note, learning, note by
(08:38):
note, stevie, note by note.
I got obsessed with Stevie.
And then, from Stevie, albertKing.
There was a time that I waslike crazy about Albert King,
and then BB and then AlbertCollins.
Those were like the bigfoundation.
And then came Clapton Hendrix,you know, otis Rush, and then it
started to go a little bit moremodern.
(08:59):
You know, of course I'm missinga lot of players.
Sure, I get it, but LarryCotton, robin Ford and then more
modern guys like Matt Schofieldyou, matt Schofield and Josh
Smith, kirk Fletcher those guysthat was more recently I would
say 10 years ago.
I was listening to them a lot,but it's been maybe now six
(09:22):
years that I don't listen to anyguitar players anymore, unless
it's music that has a guitarplayer Like.
I really like listening toDoyle Doyle Brumhall.
I think he's amazing Songwriter, singer, producer, guitar
player.
But the reason that I waslistening to his music wasn't
exactly because of his guitarplaying.
It was more about the wholething, the whole thing, right.
(09:43):
So yeah, basically that'swhat's been happening, and
nowadays I don't listen toreally blues or guitar oriented
music anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Listen to everything else yeah, I hear you, I
understand I mostly listen toold stuff.
I mean, yeah, usually I findweird old uh bootlegs online and
on, you know, on on youtube,but I just listen to those for
the most part.
But you know, every now, everynow and again I'll I'll listen
to new stuff, but anyway, uh, sohow did you make the transition
(10:10):
from being in Brazil todeciding to go to Los Angeles?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
So, first of all, I went to Chicago for the first
time in 2006.
So I went there for threemonths.
I was already playingprofessionally in Brazil, like
touring, especially in thenortheast of Brazil, but I was
going south too and I was makingmy name playing.
Actually, in my hometown we hadabout at the time we had about
(10:38):
seven blues bands.
I was playing nine of them.
I was the guitar player of allthe blues bands.
I was.
I was playing nine of them.
I was the guitar player of allthe blues bands and uh, and also
like playing Led Zeppelin, acdccover bands or Jimi Hendrix
cover bands, steve Ray Vaughancover bands and also the blues
bands, um, but uh.
So I went to Chicago because Ilove the blues and I wanted to
(11:02):
be there to see.
I was, you know, and it wasamazing.
I had a great time when I wasthere.
You know, like that's when Imet Buddy Guy.
I had I had a chance to jamwith him.
I was coming to his club everynight and at the time I didn't
speak anything in English.
So I always say, I tell thisstory that I, of course, I I
knew how to say hey.
(11:22):
So what's your name or how muchis this.
Or my name is Arthur, I playguitar, I'm from Brazil, you
know that kind of stuff.
But there was one sentence thatI learned that I was putting in
practice every night.
It was like hey, is there anyjam session here?
So I learned that phrase likeperfectly, you know, and I used
to come to the.
Whatever there was a blues showhappening, I would come with my
(11:47):
guitar.
At the time I was a kid, I was21 years old.
I decided to go when I was thatage because I knew that I could
get to the clubs.
In the clubs, sure, only 21,right.
So that was the reason.
So, and then I played with abunch of musicians, I learned a
lot, came back to Brazil anddecided to have my solo band.
(12:07):
You know my solo career thing.
So I quit all the bands with myband together, and that's when
I started experimenting withdifferent styles and mixing,
because until that time I wasvery traditional.
For me, blues has to be one,four, five, it has to.
Was very traditional.
For me, blues has to be 145.
It has to.
It cannot be in Portuguese, ithas to be in English and, you
(12:29):
know, has to be minor pentatonic.
You know, you have to.
I don't know.
Respect that you cannot.
You know 12 bars, eight bars orwhatever you know.
But then, when I went to Chicago, I saw them like mixing, and I
thought like that, ok, I'm notfrom here, I'm not from the
United States, I was born inFortaleza, brazil, northeast of
(12:51):
Brazil.
Why am I being so picky andtraditional about something that
is not even mine or my culture?
And I don't like to talk aboutmuch like that, because I think
music is universal, sure, but no, it was originated here, so
it's part of the culture here.
So that's why I say it wasn'tmy culture, it wasn't mine.
(13:12):
So I said you know what I'mgoing to.
So I saw them experimentingwith mixing, with rock, blues,
with rock, with funk, with hiphop, with rap, with soul.
Blues with rock, with funk,with hip-hop, with rap, with
soul, with country, witheverything.
And I said you know what I'mgonna do the same so I started
mixing with brazilian music fromnortheast of brazil, a rhythm
called bayan, I don't know ifyou're familiar with.
It's like in two, it's verymixolydian, it's it's very cool.
(13:36):
So I started mixing with thatand with rock, and then that's
it.
And then 2007, went back toChicago again, 2011 again and
back and forth to Brazil, youknow, and then I moved to LA in
2016.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, Well, Chicago's nice, but it's right where I
live and it's cold, it gets cold.
Yeah, Los Angeles is a littlenicer and, uh, although the
traffic is, uh, it's probablythe same.
I mean, LA traffic is horrible,but Chicago traffic is also
horrible.
(14:10):
So describe, uh, how whathappened when you went to LA?
So did you, did band memberscome with you, or did you get a
new batch of guys to play withwhen you're in California?
What kind of what?
What happened that way?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's an interesting story because first weekend
when I was here, I was talkingto my friend Celso Salim he's a
great guitar player, bluesguitar player.
He's from Brazil as well and Iasked him hey, where are the jam
sessions, where are the clubs?
The clubs, and he said go toMaui Sugar Mill you know, and go
to go there and talk to Zach.
So I went there, I talked toCadillac Zach and I write my
(14:47):
name on the list and you know,when you're new in town, in town
, that you and you go to playthe jam sessions.
They always gonna put you toplay at the very, very last.
Of course, they like until late, you know.
So it was like three days I wasin LA still dealing with jet
lag and tired, so I went there,I jammed.
After I jammed, zach came totalk to me hey man, you are
(15:07):
amazing, do you have a band?
And I said yes, I said let'sbook here, and then he gave me a
date and the next day what Iwas was doing was like calling
friends to try to find the band,because but if I say yeah, no,
not, but I'm working on it, soyou know, and then I would miss
the opportunity, so yeah, sothat's that's, that's what
(15:29):
happened.
And then you know I, we've beentogether start rehearsing,
playing jams, playing shows, uh,start doing some openings and
um, and also doing somefestivals as well, because I
already came here with you know,I was already going to europe
to do tours, tours in brazil,even came here a couple times
(15:50):
right.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So yeah, basically it was like that I think it's so
funny because there's so manyvideos of you and you know, I've
got videos of our band andeveryone.
It seems like that the mauisugar mill is a great place for
people to take videos and putthem on youtube.
Well, I think it's funny.
It's like boy, how are allthese blues bands playing on
(16:13):
hawaii in hawaii?
I'm like it's actually in astrip mall in tarzana.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
You know what's interesting?
I was doing these last dates wewere opening for Buddy Guy, a
couple of dates and the drummer,julian Julian Ho, he's half
Chinese, right, he's American,he's half Chinese and he's been
to China a couple of times.
And you know, in China theinternet it's different, right,
it's something like it'sseparated.
(16:41):
I don't understand very well,but they don't.
It's different, right, it'ssomething like it's separated.
I don't understand very well,but they don't have access to
what's really happening here,right, likewise, unless you have
, like the thing called VPN,something like that.
I don't know those things, butanyway.
So Julian was telling me thatthere is a bunch of videos from
Maui Sugar Mill that got viralin China, from Maui Sugar Mill
that got viral in China, and wehave no idea because some guys
(17:02):
there they had access to thosedownloaded the video and posted
there again.
So probably videos of yours,mine, you know, like a bunch of
videos like viral, and becausethey don't have like social
media like Instagram or thatkind of stuff, so they don't tag
us, so maybe they don't evenknow our names, but they fans of
(17:22):
our work, but they don't knowwhat's going on.
I'm very excited about thisbecause we were working on this
tour in China, so I want to seehow this is going to be, cause I
think maybe people they knowalready my work there.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, well, you never know.
I mean I had someone reach outto me and say, oh, there's tons
of fans of you in China.
I'm like really, yeah, becauseyou never see anybody with like
a Chinese account or whatever.
I mean, occasionally on some ofthe social media you see that,
but not tons.
So yeah, it's an interestingthing.
It would be wild.
(17:55):
I mean, there's a lot of peoplein China that could be a lot of
people in china that could be,uh, uh, that a lot of potential
new customers.
So, um, you did the record withjosh and what else are you
working on?
I mean, so, as we all know, Imean it's kind of interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of youknow uh, videos pop up and I,
(18:18):
you know, I be honest, I I don'twatch a bunch of the YouTube
stuff.
I just, I just don't.
I like performance orientedthings and I don't really like
videos of you know of peoplediscussing the state of the
music industry or who's the bestor who's underrated and all
that kind of shit.
I just, I'm just not interestedin it.
But it seems lightly, you know,you're seeing all of these
(18:40):
things about.
I just was on TikTok today andI was scrolling and, and there
was this kind of older dudegoing you know, don't become a
musician because, yada, yada,yada and was saying all the
different things.
But and certainly there are alot more challenges in the in
these days, days in terms of,you know, no one's really buying
(19:02):
CDs anymore.
I mean, they do, but it'salmost like a pity buy.
You know what I mean.
It's like they want to leavethe gig with something you know.
And vinyl is better, because atleast vinyl it's more of like a
souvenir.
Whether they listen to it ornot, at least they've got
something to hold on to.
But you know, they buy t-shirtsand they buy, you know, all the
different stuff.
And I sell guitar pedals thatyou know.
I got my gristle King pedals,and so merch is a huge part of
(19:23):
how you do business.
But you know, all thetraditional ways of kind of
going about it are are justgetting redefined and um, but at
the same token, because of theinternet, there are different
ways to to make money.
And so I'm, I'm kind of of themind, of course I'm.
You know, I just turned 58.
So but I've been amazed becauseyou know I've made a living as
(19:50):
a musician for 30 years.
You know what I mean and and alot of that.
You know my wife quit workingwhen she wanted to stay home
with the kids.
I mean, that was 20 some yearsago.
So I'm you know I carried theboat for a family of six playing
my guitar, you know.
So you find ways to go about itand I'm just wondering from
your perspective, because you'reyou're my one, of my daughter's
(20:10):
age, you know.
So I'm just wondering what yourperspective is about being a
musician, being a professionalmusician, and looking forward to
you've got a a lot fartheralong as far as life to go
wondering your perspectives onhow the music industry is and
what you foresee in the futureand all that other kind of stuff
.
It's the best you know,obviously the best you can in
terms of you know no one can seethe future, but what are your
(20:32):
thoughts?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
To be honest, I'm scared with all the AI thing and
technology and that kind ofstuff.
Of course we take advantage ofthat, we use those tools, but
I'm scared about the future.
The last tour I was doing inEurope, I was talking with a
(20:55):
tour manager and he was saying,like, after one of the shows he
said, hey, hey guys, what you'redoing here is amazing because
we live in darker times.
He said something like that youguys that play the live music,
you like carrying the torch, youknow you keep, you keep doing
that, even though it's not, it's, it's hard, you know it's hard
to make money, it's hard to tomake a tour viable financially.
(21:22):
That's why he said I think thesame, but what I believe, it's
things that, that, that, that uhsometimes comes in gold, like
like waves, sure, but I thinkcyclical, right, cyclical, just
like the blues.
You know blues keeps comingback, coming back, you know, and
, uh, it's never mainstream, butit's, you know, like always
(21:45):
like appearing in our livesagain, right?
So, um, I think live music isgoing to be the same.
I think when people started tonotice how unhealthy is not
really giving attention to artand music, uh, they're going to
realize that's uh, and they'regoing to start to to uh, give
attention to that again.
That's what I think, butnowadays, what I believe is and
(22:09):
I think it sucks, but that's howit is you have to do a lot of
stuff.
You have to write your music,you have to manage your career,
you have to, you know, findother ways to make money with
merch, with teaching, you know,online courses, merch signature
gear instruments yep exactly.
(22:31):
So it kind of sucks becauseyou're not really focusing on
what you like really doing,which is performing and playing.
In my case, what I really likeis being on stage.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I don't like much rehearsals, you know.
Of course I enjoy teachingbecause I kind of feel like I'm
doing something for thecommunity, for the future of the
blues and that kind of stuff,Right something for the
community, for the future of theblues and that kind of stuff
Right.
But I really enjoy performing,even recording.
When I have to record my newalbums, of course I'm happy
because I'll find new songs, I'mhappy to put the songs out and
(23:02):
that kind of stuff, but stillwhat I enjoy the most is being
on stage making music live andon spot, improvising with other
human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Exactly so it's kind of scary, I feel it's scary
what's going on, but let's see.
Let's see.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
I mean I'm not reallypessimistic about it.
I mean I always tell the storyabout how my dad was a lawyer
and I was the youngest of sevenkids and he was not thrilled
about me being a musician.
So he had every one of myteachers along the way try to
(23:40):
talk to me about the realitiesof being a musician.
And I remember the last one wasmy college professor.
The guy that ran the jazzdepartment at the state college
that I went to was the guitarplayer.
He was the guitar teacher and,um, you know, and he goes yeah,
you know, your dad wanted me totalk to you and tell you how the
how the business really is, butthey've always said the same
stuff Look, you're never goingto have any money.
(24:01):
It's always uncertain.
Um, you know you'll.
As you get older, your, youexpectations of what you want is
going to change, and yada, yada, yada.
And it's almost like and Ialways say you almost got to be
a little crazy because you'relike no, no, no, I don't give a
shit, this is what I do and I'mgoing to find a way to make it
(24:24):
work and things.
I mean not to be weird about it, but you know, you just, you
find things that just happen.
I mean you do the footwork, youtry to do the next.
You know, as I say, you try todo the next right thing.
Don't be an asshole.
But if you work hard andpractice and have something to
offer and you're entertaining, Imean that's the biggest thing.
(24:45):
I mean you can, I mean I always, I always find that and this is
, you know, not to offendanybody that might be listening,
but a lot of times you got, youknow, jazz guys, get a little
darker, or jazz people, I shouldsay you know guys or gals,
(25:13):
because I think you knowobviously to be, you know, god
knows how many standards theyhave to know by heart and so on
and so forth.
But by the same token, that's,that's a music.
That's the average person, youknow, hears it and they think,
oh, am I in the dentist's office?
You know, am I in an elevator?
They, it's just doesn't havethat same visceral connection,
right, and so they're a littledarker about.
Well, no one understands howthis music is, but you can find
(25:40):
a way.
All you, my thing I've beensaying is because of the
internet and so on and so forth,it's like you don't need a
million people to get into yourshit, you just need enough.
And uh, the only thing thatthat that that frightens me a
little bit is the enough part,because people, for the most
part, they need some kind ofglittery stuff.
(26:03):
It has to be doctored up in away.
There seems to be fewer andfewer people who can just
intrinsically respond to thepositive aspects of music
without being told you know whatI mean, and um, so that's the
only thing.
That kind of frightens me.
But, by the same token, if youplay at a place, um, and it's a,
(26:24):
and it's a bona fide musicvenue, it's not, as I like to
say.
I don't like playing placeswhere they say, oh look, there's
a band here, you know want it'slike it's a live music venue.
But people, when they hear, asyou described, a real band where
people are interacting in themoment, making music on the spot
, improvising with that energy,and so on and so forth, they
(26:44):
can't help but respond to it.
And I think they're just.
You know, you just have to findsituations where you're
continually given theopportunity to get in front of
enough people, because once theysee it, you got them, am I
right?
It's like once they come outand see they're theirs, they're
yours for life, hopefully, youknow, and so that's all good.
(27:06):
But yeah, it's an interestingtime.
You know the internet, you knowI was.
I was seeing something todaywhere someone was saying, you
know, um, you know, fender andgibson are making the best
guitars they've ever made rightnow and I'm like, yeah, but
unfortunately, guys who areactually making a living can't
afford them because I mean the,they have stuff for every price
(27:29):
range but it's become more of alifestyle brand instead of tools
for creating music.
I mean, they certainly do that,but you know what I mean by
that.
It's kind of like I wasthinking of the analogy of like
Harley Davidson.
It's like Harley Davidson usedto be for, like hardcore bikers,
you know what I mean.
Lifestyle people that lived onthe road.
They were, you know, it washard, and then it became more of
(27:50):
a lifestyle thing where youknow, and it's fun.
I mean people are dressing up onweekends, going out in their
leather, you know, but they'renot like you know, the Hellcat
bikers that once.
So I don't know.
I'm just kind of rattling onhere a little bit, the coffee's
taking hold, but I just findthat all stuff interesting.
(28:10):
It's kind of the same as itever was, because it's never
been easy to be a musician yeah,what I think it's like uh, it
was the same with me, my mother.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
She was like giving me support and my father was
like, now, you know music, youhave to.
Music is a hobby.
You know find, find like a realjob, and then you can not that
he, he likes music, but he heknows like find something that's
gonna give you the, thesecurity, financial security,
stability, and then you can doyour music and um, and I was
(28:40):
considering that that's why Istudied, I was studying law and
I study administration as well,but I quit, I didn't finish
those.
Um, but yeah, but I think whatyou have to do is you have to do
what you love, because life isso short, right, and yeah, and I
think what I think is we aredoing what we love.
And then maybe sometimes youthink, oh, but if I was doing
(29:02):
something else, I would havemore money.
Right, we think like this, andthen if you were doing something
else and having more money, youwould kind of think, oh, but
you know what?
I'd rather be doing what Ireally love, if I was doing
music.
How?
So what?
I think human beings, they areall the time like, uh, not
satisfied with things you know,yeah.
so I think it's part of beinghuman.
But I think we need to do whatwe love.
(29:24):
We need to put our hearts onwhat we do and when we do that
and we are being real people,they see that.
And if you're doing somethingjust for the money or for the
fame and you were a musician butyou doing something else,
you're going to get maybe thefame and maybe the money, but
(29:44):
you're not going to have theconnection with the audience,
right, and you're not going tofeel fulfilled.
I believe.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I agree, I agree, I agree absolutely.
It's interesting because thefirst thing I do in the morning
when I wake up, I get coffee, Isit down, I just start playing,
because that's what I like to do.
It was an interesting thing.
Sometimes the comments I meanI'm sure you're in the same
situation, I've been blessedwith 99% of the people that
(30:14):
comment on any of my stuff arenice, you know what I mean.
They're complimentary, they.
You know there's there's not alot of controversy, but every
now and again you'll get peoplethat'll say stuff and you're
like, oh my God, what planet arethese people on?
But I had this this one guybecause of these people on.
But I had this one guy because Ilike to post something, if not
every day, maybe every other day, where literally I just grab a
(30:36):
guitar, turn on the camera andnine times out of 10, it's the
first take and I just post itand be done.
You know, and it's just kind oflike it's a good exercise, to
kind of say, if I can playsomething off the cuff and can
actually stand to listen to itback, that's a pretty good
practice routine, you know whatI mean, let alone to put it
online and people and I alwayslook at it is that if my
favorite guitar players back inthe day would have done that,
(30:58):
that would have been to me themost awesome thing in the world
is to see kind of a little wakeup call from hey, stevie Ray
just turned down his camera andjust played a little little
thing, or, you know, or Hendrix,had he lived.
He's like oh, jimmy's waking up.
He's just playing a littlething before he goes on a stroll
.
He's like what Can you believe?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
that?
That would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Right, I'm not saying that I'm those guys, but you
get what I'm saying.
Someone you look up to.
Who would have done that wouldhave been amazing.
But I had this one guy post onFacebook where that's really
where the mutants dwell, ifwe're honest, is on Facebook.
Uh, present company excluded,of course.
But, um, I had some guy goes,this guy needs to find a hobby.
(31:38):
And I just thought that was thefunniest goddamn thing and I
realized, yeah, you can't reallyget to the level of, well, I
mean, that's not a hundredpercent true, but it's like I
tell people I go, I don't havehobbies.
It's not like I golf, you know,I don't go fishing, you know.
It's like I play guitar and Ireproduce.
I mean it's like I've got mykids, I got my family, I make
(31:58):
sure everything's taken care ofand I enjoy hanging out with my
wife and I mean I like readingand whatnot, and certainly when
I'm traveling, I like historystuff and check, but but I don't
have time for anything else,cause that's what I love to do,
which is really awesome, becauseyou think about it, it's like
people say to me you know,obviously a lot of people
getting to be my age, they'rethinking about retiring.
And they see these long tours,I'm going on and they're like oh
(32:21):
my God, don't you get tired ofit?
I'm like, are you kidding me?
I get to go out First of all.
My son's on drums, so I get totravel around with my son and
I'm with Toby, who is so easy totravel with and he's, you know,
great musician.
It's the three of us.
We travel around, we show up,we're playing at venues where
the only reason why people arecoming there is to see us.
It's not one of those placeswhere, oh, look, there's a band
(32:42):
here and uh, and we get to dowhat we love to do.
We get to stop if we want tostop.
You know, do whatever we want,and we get to play the music we
want to play and it's I go.
Why wouldn't?
That's like the greatest thingin the world.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I mean I go, why would I ever stop that?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So I'm going to do it until I drop.
I mean, you know, and that maychange, I mean another 10 years
or so, I might be like, yeah, no, but for now it's like, you
know, I like packing the van.
You know what I mean.
I like setting up my, I likesetting up the merch stand.
You know what I mean?
It's like look at that shit, itlooks awesome.
(33:24):
So I don't know, but to yourpoint, it's like, you know, most
people don't do stuff that theylike to do and so everything is
kind of a drag.
And then so that maybe that'swhy they've got other problems,
you know, maybe they, you know,drink too much or use, or
whatever the case may be, totake the dismal nature of their
life out of the way.
But if you do what you love todo, he's like, yeah, you, you
(33:45):
take some lumps, but um, ifyou're into it for the moment, I
guess that's the biggest thing.
It's like when you finally getto the point where you're not
obsessing about what you'veplayed, you know, cause whenever
I'm on stage and I play andmaybe it was a shit gig, or
maybe you know, we've, you know,I played some clams on a
particular song I don't give ashit.
(34:05):
It's like that happened in themoment we're done, now, in the
moment we're done now.
Let's move on.
And I know other people wouldjust be like, oh my God, that
was the worst gig.
And I remember someone postedsomething You're only as good as
your last gig.
I'm like that's horse shit, youknow.
It's like whatever happened inthat moment was supposed to
happen.
Now we're going to move on.
But at the same token, you can'tbe obsessed with oh, how is
(34:25):
this?
You know, thinking too muchabout people in the crowds, like
you just got to be in themoment and do what's.
You know what I mean and notworry about the gig tomorrow.
Or, by the same token, if Ishow up at a place, I'm not
worried about how many peopleare there, because it's like
well, we did everything we couldto get people here.
This is what it is.
I'm just going to enjoy myselfand play.
But you know, when I wasyounger, I guess I let all that
(34:47):
other shit bother me, but now Ijust don't.
So I just show up and as we'replaying, I'm like this is
awesome, it is what it is andeverything just seems to work
out.
You know, it's like the doorwas a little lame tonight but I
sold a shit ton on the merge orvice versa, or you know what I
mean?
It's just, it's awesome so whatI'm saying is artists, when you
get a little gray in your beardit's still awesome, nice, yeah.
(35:09):
We interrupt this regularlyscheduled gristle-infested
conversation to give a specialshout-out to our friends at
Fishman Transducers, makers ofthe Greg Koch Signature Fluence
Gristle Tone Pickup Set Can youdig that?
And our friends at WildwoodGuitars of Louisville, colorado,
(35:32):
bringing the heat in the shadowof the Rocky Mountains.
So what do you got coming up?
What's the plan for the rest ofthe summer here?
I saw you got some datesoverseas.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
So what I have?
So in five days, no, in a week.
In a week I'm going to be goingto Italy.
A couple of shows, I think I'mgoing to also visit Dolphix
Dolphix, you were there.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely Yep.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah.
So I'm going to visit them too,but I have this little tour
there, then I'm back and thenI'm going to have something in
California.
Like we're going to do SanFrancisco, paso Robles, santa
Barbara, la.
You know it's a little run,short run, and I'm going to do
(36:20):
the Hendrix tour.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, yeah, I saw that, Cool yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I'm going to do five dates with them in October and
I'm working on my new songs justin the moment now that I'm kind
of shopping for the rightproducers and the thing is, the
people that I want to work withthey like very famous and
expensive, so I have to find anapproach to convince them, you
(36:45):
know, yeah.
I understand to see how it'sgonna be, but I'm working on
those songs, you know, staying,taking care of my health and you
know basically that andthinking what are going to be
the next steps for next year.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, I was going to ask you when you were mentioning
doing another record.
So I did something a littledifferent this time.
I've got this record coming out.
That's going on.
My buddy, devin Ullman's, got alabel and of course you know
what are labels these days.
You know you can mostly do itall by yourself, but at the same
token, if they've got a vehiclefor promotion and other things
(37:24):
that help as a result of theaffiliation, well then it makes
sense as far as that's concerned.
But you know I'm doing becausea lot of people will come up to
my merch stand and they'll saywhat is your bluesiest record?
Because you know I got 20 somerecords now and they're kind of
all over the map.
They got little differentelements of it.
(37:46):
You know, what you said earlieris like, and I was always of the
mind of well, it can't just bea straight 12 bar, I've got to
add this in the bridge and I gotto have this little funky thing
, cause I thought, well, youknow, I need to push the ball
down the field or the kick thecan down the road a little bit.
And then I realized that someof the most popular tunes that
I've done, I've literally justsaid hey, let's do a 12 bar and
a.
I got a head that I'll make upon the spot and we record it.
People are like, oh my God, youknow which to me is.
(38:06):
It's a little disconcerting.
It's like you put all youreffort in to make these really
cool compositions and then thestuff off the top of your head
is the stuff that people go.
Oh, hey, they're there.
It's like why even bother?
But anyway, so it's mostly acompilation, compilation record.
But I had two, two tunes in thecan that I hadn't released yet.
And he's like well, why don'tyou get some special guests on
there?
And so we ended up doing that.
(38:27):
And so we ended up doing that,and then so we're only going to
and he was kind of funny.
He's like we'll promote thosetwo songs and those will be the
videos and we'll do some videowork on it.
But he goes I don't even careabout the other songs.
So it's like he hasn't evenheard the other 11 tunes that
will be on the CD and then we'llwe'll have only have nine tunes
for the, for the vinyl.
(38:49):
But I was just wondering if youwere of the mindset of the
paradigm changes.
It's almost like you onlyreally need to release four or
five tunes, because that's allpeople are going to listen to
anyway.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It's just so weird.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, maybe that's where we we are when I mentioned
about carrying the torch.
Torch, maybe, if maybe that'ssomething we need to do as well.
I don't know, like keepinsisting on that, on making the
music, the vinyls and that kindof stuff, but um, yeah, but I
(39:25):
think it's something to do withthe algorithm, with the
attention spam and that kind ofstuff so you go go releasing by
singles, like you said.
They just want to hear like fouror five songs.
But yeah, yeah, but yeah, Idon't have a vinyl yet.
I would love to have one,because I grew up listening to
vinyl, so that's something Iit's a dream of mine.
(39:45):
I want to have a vinyl, somaybe for this new record, who
knows.
But so I'm working on thosesongs.
Recently I not recently, it waslast year so I released this ep
called the mfm, five songs witha label.
Right before those songs theywere recorded during the, during
(40:07):
the pandemic right and it wasonly released that last year,
because when you start workingwith a label, it opens some
doors, they help somehow, butthe process is so much slower.
I would do by myself so muchfaster, you know, yeah, but, and
before that, I had two albumsproduced by josh right josh
smith he produced my first albumhere in the us to keep pushing
(40:29):
2018 and 2020, the fading away,which has uh, joe bonamassa
playing one track with us.
Right and uh.
But before that it was thealbums that I recorded in brazil
, which I'm proud because I madethem, but I'm not proud of how
they sound.
Got it because I was younger,you know I was self-producing, I
(40:52):
was mixing, I was doingeverything by myself at really
low budget.
So when I hear them they soundvery mature, even the lyrics,
you know.
When you start growing up, youknow you start to care more
about stuff.
Before I was just like copyingand pasting, like I was writing
songs based on what I waslistening to.
So, ok, blue songs.
(41:12):
You know this blue song talksabout I don't know, cheating on
your wife.
Let's write a song aboutcheating on your wife why, you
know it talks about like pottyand alcohol, this and that Right
, I barely drink, I barely youknow.
So I said you know what I haveto write songs that I connect
(41:32):
with.
So that's from the 2020 FadingAway.
That's when I start going moretowards the way.
The last EP was very personaland very deep.
I happen to my lyrics.
They are very dark, I don'tknow why, I don't know why, but
(41:53):
these new songs that I'm writing, the lyrics are really cool too
.
So I'm kind of go more towards,you know, like talk about death
, talk about anxieties, talkabout spiritual stuff, talk
about social dilemmas, that kindof stuff.
So I'm more going towards theway and my sound has been
changing from the last fiveyears, that I got obsessed with
(42:16):
first pedals, right, especiallyfirst faces, so that makes you
play completely different andmakes you write songs
differently too, you know.
So I'm going.
Every time it gets morepsychedelic, more jammy, you
know.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, yeah which is awesome, would you?
Yeah, I love that shit yeah itis goodness.
Yeah, I've been um, aninteresting thing that I've been
seeing kind of lately, speakingof kind of fuzz and and jamming
and psychedelics I'm like tothis day.
It's like hendrix is myall-time favorite, you know, and
(42:52):
, uh, I love listening tohendrix and I love playing
hendrix.
You know, every.
It's like Hendrix is myall-time favorite, you know, and
I love listening to Hendrix andI love playing Hendrix.
You know, every time it's kindof funny we kind of have slated
for the next record after thisblues compilation record comes
out, is we're gonna, we're gonnado like a Hendrix tribute,
because I do Hendrix in my way,you know, and I pick.
You know interesting songs andI think anyway.
(43:12):
But it's interesting when youknow and I pick.
You know interesting songs andI think anyway, but it's.
It's interesting when you seeand I don't know what I mean.
I understand it to an extent,but this obsession of who's the
best and the greatest guitarplayers of all time at some
magazine, you know, like RollingStone will come out with a list
and everyone will lose theirshit.
Like how come so-and-so's onthis list when this other person
(43:35):
isn't?
It's like none of that shitmatters, it's bullshit.
But typically, what will happennow is there seems to be a push
by the youngins to, to kind ofsay, I don't even know why
Hendricks makes the list anymore.
Things have evolved so far pastwhat he did and I'm just like,
oh my God, you don't get it atall because it has nothing to do
(43:59):
about technique, although histechnique was awesome.
But you know, I saw this, thisPete Townsend little snippet
today where they was talking.
He was talking about Hendricksand from the look of the video I
would say it was probably inthe early two thousands that he
said this.
But he's like, he's like Jimmy,he goes.
You scared the shit out of me,he goes.
But he wasn't a guitar player,really he had.
(44:19):
He was like a shaman.
He's like I'd go and see himand I was like how is this even
possible?
What I'm experiencing right now, you know and and that's what I
think people don't understandand what I used to respond to so
much about the um you know whyI wanted to play guitar.
You know, kind of what you weretalking about with your older
brother.
You know my brother was 14years older than I was and I
(44:42):
looked up to him like you know,my brother's super cool and he's
into all this super cool music.
You know it was Hendrix andcream and stones and James gang
and Allman brothers and so onand so forth.
So all of that music, thoseguitar players were like you
know, none of them were real, Imean, especially in terms of
today.
I mean I see some of these guys, like you know, tim Henson now,
(45:04):
and you know, of course, mateusAsado, does all this crazy
stuff.
But all these other guys wherethey're doing like it almost
sounds like it sounds comical tome.
It's like it almost sounds likeit sounds comical to me.
It's like, oh my God, therecan't be a moment where there
isn't something being played.
You know what I mean.
It's like and it's and it'sawesome to behold in terms of
(45:25):
technique, but it's like I don't.
I don't want to listen to itNow.
Of course that could be.
You know me, you know old manshouting, shouting at the clouds
, but uh, but to me that hasnothing to do with what hendrix
did or what albert king did, oryou know creamy or clapton.
And then you hear people pilingon oh, clapton was so overrated
and who cares?
(45:46):
And yada.
I'm like, oh, my god, amazingespecially during the cream.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Oh my god, yes, wow yeah, so it's.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
It's an interesting thing that you know this idea of
technique, um, and it's almostlike an athleticism has been
attached to music.
Uh, especially in the advent ofthe instagram world and social
media with you get a minute.
Of course, now you can playmore than a minute, but you know
, to peak, to grab people'sattention I'm sure you're, you
(46:17):
have the same thing.
It's like you can do somethingsuper soulful and it's all about
tone and feel and it feelsreally good and you post it and
people will respond, but you gobe like oh my God, and you're
just, it's a little.
I mean, you're, first of all,I'm glad that anyone gives a
shit one way or the other, butby the same token, it's like oh
(46:39):
my God, really, what are yourthoughts on the whole technique
thing and the whole like oh,hendrix is nothing and Clapton
it's really.
You know this guy and you knowit's crazy.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, the thing you said about the basket of play of
all time, that kind of stuff, Ithink it's all clickbait
because, right, people keepreacting.
That's why those magazines theykeep doing, they just want the
clicks, yes, yes, uh.
What I always think is, uh,there is always gonna be
somebody better than you, if youcan like, cause I don't believe
(47:14):
that, but you can.
I mean just trying to make mypoint there's always going to
have somebody better than you,but it's always going to have
somebody that prefers you thanthe one that it's better than
you.
Sure, absolutely, you know.
So what?
I think there's no such a thingas bad.
It's more about, like,connecting with the hottest or
not, you know Totally.
So the thing about the speedthing, I think it's uh, that's
(47:41):
what you said like attaching.
Attaching like somethingrelated to sport, like to
physical efforts or whatever,something that it's more like
hey, look at this, there'ssomething I can do that you
can't, right, so I'm better thanyou, so I'm special.
You are not.
So it's more on that vibe, andI think it's very annoying for
(48:01):
me, because we got in a placethat speed became what's
important to say, if somethingis good or not in a guitar
playing important to say ifsomething is good or not in a
guitar playing.
Let's say, uh, that for thethat's what I'm trying to say.
Speed became uh, same word asuh, virtuoso, right?
Is that what you say?
(48:21):
Virtuoso?
Yep, that's it my pronunciation, right?
Yeah, so, and I think we, wewould have to consider many
degrees of virtuoso, like belike, uh, feeling, timing,
groove, you know the laybackthing, you know everything so.
But no, it's only speed, it'sonly the technical speed.
(48:43):
If you're doing somethingdifferent, that's virtuoso,
you're better than somebody.
So that's what matters, sothat's what I.
I I hate that, you know.
Sometimes I post stuff likeplaying fast because that's what
I'm feeling at the moment.
Right Recording at home thatcame up and I was taking a video
and saying this is kind of cool, and then I know that people
(49:04):
react more to that.
So sometimes I do that onpurpose.
If I want to promote a showthat is coming up or a release
or something, I use a video thatI go more, working harder, so I
know it's going to engage more.
But if I don't have anything totake advantage of, I'm going to
post like something that Ireally care what I think it's
like if you play fast becauseit's who you are, it's part of
(49:27):
your personality, it's whatcomes in the moment Bingo, nice
People, they're going to love it, they're going to understand.
But if you play something fastbecause you're like you know,
I'm going to play something fastnow because I want to try to
catch the attention of theaudience or I want to try to get
something, you know I'm goingto try to impress, I'm going to
try to show off.
It's not going to sound natural.
(49:48):
Some people they're going to,oh, this is cool, this is nice,
but others they're gonna feel iteven they don't understand the
music side.
It was a little bit off, right,you know, because it wasn't
played from the heart.
So if you play fast because youknow, if you're like an anxious
person that speaks a lot, thatit's like very accelerated and
that's how you play, awesome.
(50:09):
Or if you play fast because youknow I'm mad today I want to
put all this anger out, you knowI'm gonna shred this shit off.
That you know.
And then you go and do it,awesome.
And if you play slow because ofthe same reasons, awesome.
And I think where you live alsoit reflects on your playing.
If you come, let's say thebebop, new york city, you know
(50:31):
everything, very frenetic.
So the city, this lifestyle,that's fine, I know, like west
coast, something else new to theocean, it's more, you know.
So it's the same thing inbrazil's.
If you go south, northeast ofbrazil, you know if you are not
dealing with any anxietiesrelated to money, you're super
like well in a place in life,you're gonna be relaxed.
(50:51):
You're gonna play more laidback.
If you're struggling, you haveto pay life, you're going to be
relaxed.
You're going to play more laidback.
If you're struggling you haveto pay your bills, you're going
to play, maybe faster, you'renot going to really breathe.
So I think everything isreflected, but as long as it's
natural, awesome.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I concur Heartily.
So what kind of?
Let's talk about gear for aminute.
What's your latest flavor foramplification devices, are you?
Oh my God, I'm spacing on thename.
What's the amp of choice?
Is it Turok, turok?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, turok, yeah, that's when we met
first time in person.
It was the Turok party at NAMM.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Oh, okay, right before the pandemic Right, so,
and it was the true rock partyat nam.
Oh, okay, at the uh for theepidemic.
Yeah, right, so, that was atthat club.
That, which is also didn't, didnot survive the pandemic.
It was that uh place that wasowned by those guys.
Slide bar, slide bar.
There we go, yeah, yeah 2020.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
It was in 2020, yeah.
So that's when I played to rockfor the first time, I believe,
and I always wanted the ampsbecause you know, I've seen,
like the players, that I likeplaying those amps and amazing
tones, and I always wanted theamps because you know, I've seen
, like the players, that I likeplaying those amps and amazing
tones and I want something likethat but very expensive.
So I played that party.
After that I talked to to eliand I said, hey, like I don't
(52:06):
know if you have any interest inhaving me as an artist or if
you offer artist discounts orwhatever, but I really like the
amp, I gotta have one and let's,let's work something.
And then he just sent me theamp nice.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
So do you like to?
Do you like to set it so thatit just starts to break up and
you use pedals on top of that?
Or you said it's straight clean, or do you use channel
switching?
What do you?
What do you kind of like to doclean?
Speaker 2 (52:33):
straight, clean.
Okay, I always heard that youknow you have to have an amp,
like kind of crunchy edge ofbreakup, to sound good at first.
I disagree, you just need toplay loud, right.
So if it's loud and it's clean,I have room like super loud,
awesome.
It's gonna sound even betterwhen it's crunchy, in my opinion
right so that's why I have thetraditional clean 100 watts.
(52:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
That's my.
Does it have reverb on it or no?
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah, reverb, yeah, and on the floor, 95% of the
show, even more fuzz face allthe time.
Even my clean tones with a fuzzface, I would play with
overdrive.
If I play something more bluesy, let's say my shows, I have one
, one song that I usually playwhich is called any day, any
(53:19):
time, which is more like a jazzyslow blues.
So I go in overdrive, clean andoverdrive, and when I play
blues in the natural I kind ofgo the version similar, similar
to oh shit, I forgot his nameEarl Ronnie Earl, okay, yeah,
yeah.
(53:39):
So I play kind of towards thatversion.
So, and then I go with anoverdrive too, but most of the
time I fuzz face, you know, andI like to fuzz before the
univime.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Okay, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
The fuzz is a glorious thing.
You find a good one.
You know, a lot of people don'trealize that hendrix had that
thing on a lot and he would justturn the guitar down and it
would clean up.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, and uh, yeah, I think the clean tone coming
from a fuzz face just rollingyour volume down.
It sounds better than when Ijust have the clean tone from
the amp.
When I compare and I measurethe levels, the volume levels, I
prefer the one that comes fromthe first.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, it's a cool thing, no doubt about it.
It's also interesting.
I don't know how muchaggravation you get, but you
know, one of the things aboutthe current music industry
situation is that, especiallywhen you go over to Europe, man
in clubs, they're all over you.
About the current musicindustry situation is is that
especially when you go over toEurope, man in clubs, they're
all over you about the volume.
Oh my God, it's so loud.
And you're like, really, Ibarely have this thing on.
(54:42):
I mean, what are you talkingabout?
Oh, it's solo, let us put itthrough the pan.
I'm like, no, just let us play,but it's it's.
It seems to happen more inEurope than it does in the
States now.
I mean, we show up at a cluband people know what they're
getting and we just do our thingand no one says shit to us.
But over there, especially inGermany, it's like, oh my Lord,
oh my God, it's so loud, youneed to turn down.
(55:02):
It's like it's crazy.
Lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, season five of
Chewing the Gristle is upon us.
It's been a little while, folks, but it's going to be worth the
wait.
We're going to be featuring alot of convivial conversations
with various musical potentates,most of which you've heard of.
Some are going to be some newdiscoveries.
That's why I'm here to bringforth the chewable gristle
(00:29):
matter to you via theinformation superhighway,
brought to you, of course, byour friends at Wildwood Guitars
in beautiful Louisville,colorado, and our friends at
Fishman Transducers of beautifulAndover, massachusetts.
Both I've had greatlongstanding relationships with,
and continue to do so, andwe're very grateful for their
continued support in thisendeavor of giving you the
(00:51):
highest quality and chewablegristle possible.
Now, without any further ado,folks, let's get down and dirty
with some Chewing the Gristle,season 5.
Buckle up.
He astounds, he amazes, themighty Art Menezes, ladies and
gentlemen, blues guitarpotentate From beautiful Brazil.
(01:13):
We had a great chat.
You know what we did?
We chewed the damn gristle.
Tune on in right now.
Right now, ladies and gentlemen, we have convened once again
(01:39):
around the Gristle Fire for alittle episode of Chewing the
Gristle.
Today, beaming in from LosAngeles I believe you're in Los
Angeles we have the mighty ArtMenezes from, actually
originally from Brazil, butliving in LA for a while now,
and just an extraordinary youngblues guitar player, vocalist,
songwriter, artist, if you will,and so great to chat with you
(02:01):
today.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
How's it going out there, art?
What's happening?
I'm good, I'm good.
Thanks for having me.
Oh, my pleasure, appreciate it.
Appreciate it.
I've been a fan of your workfor a while.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I've been listening to your guitar since I was two
in Brazil and I've been here inLos Angeles for eight years.
Yes, yeah, so yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Thanks for having me, my pleasure.
So give us a right.
She sings Brazilian music,brazilian popular music.
And my big brother, he startedto listen to ACDC when he was 10
years old, 10 years, 11.
And I was three years, fouryears old.
So when you have a big brother,you don't want to look at your
(03:02):
parents like you want to, you'regoing to be like your big
brother, right?
So I said, you know, I'm notgoing to, I'm not really into
the Brazilian music.
Actually, after that, rightafter that, I was.
But as a kid I was like, youknow, I want to be like my
brother.
So I was listening to ACDC withhim all the time.
So, angus Young, he was my, my,my, my, my first guitar hero,
(03:28):
right, okay, and I still admirehim a lot.
And fast forwarding, when I was11 years old, I decided to play
music because of a friend thatwas living in my building.
He came with this method Iwritten a piece of paper with
numbers.
If you have the number 10, 10would be like first string, fret
, number zero, right?
So open string number 12, youknow like, uh, first string,
(03:51):
fret number two, and then withthe melody, no rhythm, nothing.
And there was a very famousbrazilian popular music.
So I I learned that I justgrabbed that I played on his
acoustic, just just like this,and I was, oh, this feels good.
So, and then I, you know, Iasked my mother to and my father
(04:12):
they kind of like cheapening tobuy me an acoustic guitar, a
cheap one, and so I kept playing, like by ear.
You know, I'm a self-taughtmusician, although after that I
decided to learn music because Iwanted to know what I was doing
.
I was curious and also thathelped me a lot.
But anyway, so I was one daypracticing at home.
(04:32):
At the time I had a Ryder guitar, an Epiphone SG.
I didn't have an amp, it waslike a friend's amp that was
sitting in my place.
But I used to live close to aradio station and we were
getting interference from theradio all the time in all the
devices at my place.
So I was jamming with acdcrecords and then that music
started coming from the amp andI was listening to that and I
(04:54):
stopped the record that I wasjamming with and I started
jamming with what was comingfrom my speakers and it felt
familiar and after that the theradio host.
He said the phone number of theradio.
I called hey, what is this?
And at the time I think I waslike 12 or 13 years old, and he
said, no, this is a blue show.
(05:14):
This isn't special about JohnnyHooker today.
And I said, oh, cool.
And then after that I started,like you know and after that it
was blooms until today.
So basically that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I love it.
So what town in Brazil did yougrow up in?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Fortaleza.
It's northeast of Brazil, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
So is it a big city, kind of a rural thing?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It is a big city.
It's, I would say, the third orfourth biggest in Brazil.
Yeah, it's near the ocean.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And the weather's nice.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The weather.
I mean, I don't like summer,but it's summer every day.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, because it's near the equator so we don't
have like season in my hometown,so it's summer all the time,
the equator, so we don't havelike season in my hometown, so
it's under all the time.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
When I was thinking, when you were talking about the,
you know ACDC, I mean, I meanfor the most part, I mean Angus
Young is a blues guitar player,you know, I mean he plays, his
whole approach is very much, youknow, bluesy.
So that that is not.
Uh, that was probably a goodsegue into actual listening to
the blues stuff.
So what kind of were you a fanof, like all blues, or were you
(06:31):
more fixated on certain types ofblues people?
Because you know, the reasonwhy I say that is that there
seems to be a lot of people whoare like, are blues fanatics and
they love the whole genre andthey learn everything they can
about all the different, youknow obscure artists and so on
and so forth.
And then there's people thatget drawn to certain blues
(06:52):
people because of their phrasingand their singing and their
songwriting and they just kindof, you know, have like a, I
mean they kind of have anappreciation for everybody, but
you know they're they're morehoned in on certain artists.
So I was wondering what yourapproach was.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I think both you know it was phases.
You know there was a time thatI was with acoustic resonator
slide, was learning everythinglike the delta, the roots and
everything.
You know there's the modernstuff traditional, the Chicago
blues, electric, the West Coast,everything know.
There's the modern stufftraditional, the chicago blues,
electric, the west coast,everything right but basically
(07:28):
after acdc, like I said, andit's very bluesy, you know, acdc
, in my opinion it's a bluesband with a rock drummer, right,
because even the lyrics youknow, like the, the form,
everything.
So after that there was stevierayvon, right, uh, and from
stevie I got obsessed withstevie.
When I first saw the it wasactually vhs that my brother
(07:52):
brought at home with uh, thehomo combo yeah, yeah, and I
remember watching that.
I would say I was like 13, 14and and I cried when I watched
it and it was very weird for me.
I said, oh, there's somethingwrong with me, because I was a
kid I 13, 14, and I cried when Iwatched it and it was very
weird for me.
I said, oh, there's somethingwrong with me, because I was a
(08:15):
kid, I never cried becauseanything that wasn't related to
physical pain, right, I mean no,no, no, no.
I cried before, like missing myfather or my mother because
they were divorced and you knowwe lived separately and had to
stay the summer vacations withmy father, then back to my
mother and you know that kind ofstuff.
But there was the first timethat I cried with something
related to art, to music, and Iwas like, wow, this is amazing.
Then after that I was like,note by note, learning, note by
(08:38):
note, stevie, note by note.
I got obsessed with Stevie.
And then, from Stevie, albertKing.
There was a time that I waslike crazy about Albert King,
and then BB and then AlbertCollins.
Those were like the bigfoundation.
And then came Clapton Hendrix,you know, otis Rush, and then it
started to go a little bit moremodern.
(08:59):
You know, of course I'm missinga lot of players.
Sure, I get it, but LarryCotton, robin Ford and then more
modern guys like Matt Schofieldyou, matt Schofield and Josh
Smith, kirk Fletcher those guysthat was more recently I would
say 10 years ago.
I was listening to them a lot,but it's been maybe now six
(09:22):
years that I don't listen to anyguitar players anymore, unless
it's music that has a guitarplayer Like.
I really like listening toDoyle Doyle Brumhall.
I think he's amazing Songwriter, singer, producer, guitar
player.
But the reason that I waslistening to his music wasn't
exactly because of his guitarplaying.
It was more about the wholething, the whole thing, right.
(09:43):
So yeah, basically that'swhat's been happening, and
nowadays I don't listen toreally blues or guitar oriented
music anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Listen to everything else yeah, I hear you, I
understand I mostly listen toold stuff.
I mean, yeah, usually I findweird old uh bootlegs online and
on, you know, on on youtube,but I just listen to those for
the most part.
But you know, every now, everynow and again I'll I'll listen
to new stuff, but anyway, uh, sohow did you make the transition
(10:10):
from being in Brazil todeciding to go to Los Angeles?
Speaker 2 (10:15):
So, first of all, I went to Chicago for the first
time in 2006.
So I went there for threemonths.
I was already playingprofessionally in Brazil, like
touring, especially in thenortheast of Brazil, but I was
going south too and I was makingmy name playing.
Actually, in my hometown we hadabout at the time we had about
(10:38):
seven blues bands.
I was playing nine of them.
I was the guitar player of allthe blues bands.
I was.
I was playing nine of them.
I was the guitar player of allthe blues bands and uh, and also
like playing Led Zeppelin, acdccover bands or Jimi Hendrix
cover bands, steve Ray Vaughancover bands and also the blues
bands, um, but uh.
So I went to Chicago because Ilove the blues and I wanted to
(11:02):
be there to see.
I was, you know, and it wasamazing.
I had a great time when I wasthere.
You know, like that's when Imet Buddy Guy.
I had I had a chance to jamwith him.
I was coming to his club everynight and at the time I didn't
speak anything in English.
So I always say, I tell thisstory that I, of course, I I
knew how to say hey.
(11:22):
So what's your name or how muchis this.
Or my name is Arthur, I playguitar, I'm from Brazil, you
know that kind of stuff.
But there was one sentence thatI learned that I was putting in
practice every night.
It was like hey, is there anyjam session here?
So I learned that phrase likeperfectly, you know, and I used
to come to the.
Whatever there was a blues showhappening, I would come with my
(11:47):
guitar.
At the time I was a kid, I was21 years old.
I decided to go when I was thatage because I knew that I could
get to the clubs.
In the clubs, sure, only 21,right.
So that was the reason.
So, and then I played with abunch of musicians, I learned a
lot, came back to Brazil anddecided to have my solo band.
(12:07):
You know my solo career thing.
So I quit all the bands with myband together, and that's when
I started experimenting withdifferent styles and mixing,
because until that time I wasvery traditional.
For me, blues has to be one,four, five, it has to.
Was very traditional.
For me, blues has to be 145.
It has to.
It cannot be in Portuguese, ithas to be in English and, you
(12:29):
know, has to be minor pentatonic.
You know, you have to.
I don't know.
Respect that you cannot.
You know 12 bars, eight bars orwhatever you know.
But then, when I went to Chicago, I saw them like mixing, and I
thought like that, ok, I'm notfrom here, I'm not from the
United States, I was born inFortaleza, brazil, northeast of
(12:51):
Brazil.
Why am I being so picky andtraditional about something that
is not even mine or my culture?
And I don't like to talk aboutmuch like that, because I think
music is universal, sure, but no, it was originated here, so
it's part of the culture here.
So that's why I say it wasn'tmy culture, it wasn't mine.
(13:12):
So I said you know what I'mgoing to.
So I saw them experimentingwith mixing, with rock, blues,
with rock, with funk, with hiphop, with rap, with soul.
Blues with rock, with funk,with hip-hop, with rap, with
soul, with country, witheverything.
And I said you know what I'mgonna do the same so I started
mixing with brazilian music fromnortheast of brazil, a rhythm
called bayan, I don't know ifyou're familiar with.
It's like in two, it's verymixolydian, it's it's very cool.
(13:36):
So I started mixing with thatand with rock, and then that's
it.
And then 2007, went back toChicago again, 2011 again and
back and forth to Brazil, youknow, and then I moved to LA in
2016.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, Well, Chicago's nice, but it's right where I
live and it's cold, it gets cold.
Yeah, Los Angeles is a littlenicer and, uh, although the
traffic is, uh, it's probablythe same.
I mean, LA traffic is horrible,but Chicago traffic is also
horrible.
(14:10):
So describe, uh, how whathappened when you went to LA?
So did you, did band memberscome with you, or did you get a
new batch of guys to play withwhen you're in California?
What kind of what?
What happened that way?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
That's an interesting story because first weekend
when I was here, I was talkingto my friend Celso Salim he's a
great guitar player, bluesguitar player.
He's from Brazil as well and Iasked him hey, where are the jam
sessions, where are the clubs?
The clubs, and he said go toMaui Sugar Mill you know, and go
to go there and talk to Zach.
So I went there, I talked toCadillac Zach and I write my
(14:47):
name on the list and you know,when you're new in town, in town
, that you and you go to playthe jam sessions.
They always gonna put you toplay at the very, very last.
Of course, they like until late, you know.
So it was like three days I wasin LA still dealing with jet
lag and tired, so I went there,I jammed.
After I jammed, zach came totalk to me hey man, you are
(15:07):
amazing, do you have a band?
And I said yes, I said let'sbook here, and then he gave me a
date and the next day what Iwas was doing was like calling
friends to try to find the band,because but if I say yeah, no,
not, but I'm working on it, soyou know, and then I would miss
the opportunity, so yeah, sothat's that's, that's what
(15:29):
happened.
And then you know I, we've beentogether start rehearsing,
playing jams, playing shows, uh,start doing some openings and
um, and also doing somefestivals as well, because I
already came here with you know,I was already going to europe
to do tours, tours in brazil,even came here a couple times
(15:50):
right.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
So yeah, basically it was like that I think it's so
funny because there's so manyvideos of you and you know, I've
got videos of our band andeveryone.
It seems like that the mauisugar mill is a great place for
people to take videos and putthem on youtube.
Well, I think it's funny.
It's like boy, how are allthese blues bands playing on
(16:13):
hawaii in hawaii?
I'm like it's actually in astrip mall in tarzana.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
You know what's interesting?
I was doing these last dates wewere opening for Buddy Guy, a
couple of dates and the drummer,julian Julian Ho, he's half
Chinese, right, he's American,he's half Chinese and he's been
to China a couple of times.
And you know, in China theinternet it's different, right,
it's something like it'sseparated.
(16:41):
I don't understand very well,but they don't.
It's different, right, it'ssomething like it's separated.
I don't understand very well,but they don't have access to
what's really happening here,right, likewise, unless you have
, like the thing called VPN,something like that.
I don't know those things, butanyway.
So Julian was telling me thatthere is a bunch of videos from
Maui Sugar Mill that got viralin China, from Maui Sugar Mill
that got viral in China, and wehave no idea because some guys
(17:02):
there they had access to thosedownloaded the video and posted
there again.
So probably videos of yours,mine, you know, like a bunch of
videos like viral, and becausethey don't have like social
media like Instagram or thatkind of stuff, so they don't tag
us, so maybe they don't evenknow our names, but they fans of
(17:22):
our work, but they don't knowwhat's going on.
I'm very excited about thisbecause we were working on this
tour in China, so I want to seehow this is going to be, cause I
think maybe people they knowalready my work there.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, well, you never know.
I mean I had someone reach outto me and say, oh, there's tons
of fans of you in China.
I'm like really, yeah, becauseyou never see anybody with like
a Chinese account or whatever.
I mean, occasionally on some ofthe social media you see that,
but not tons.
So yeah, it's an interestingthing.
It would be wild.
(17:55):
I mean, there's a lot of peoplein China that could be a lot of
people in china that could be,uh, uh, that a lot of potential
new customers.
So, um, you did the record withjosh and what else are you
working on?
I mean, so, as we all know, Imean it's kind of interesting.
I've been seeing a bunch of youknow uh, videos pop up and I,
(18:18):
you know, I be honest, I I don'twatch a bunch of the YouTube
stuff.
I just, I just don't.
I like performance orientedthings and I don't really like
videos of you know of peoplediscussing the state of the
music industry or who's the bestor who's underrated and all
that kind of shit.
I just, I'm just not interestedin it.
But it seems lightly, you know,you're seeing all of these
(18:40):
things about.
I just was on TikTok today andI was scrolling and, and there
was this kind of older dudegoing you know, don't become a
musician because, yada, yada,yada and was saying all the
different things.
But and certainly there are alot more challenges in the in
these days, days in terms of,you know, no one's really buying
(19:02):
CDs anymore.
I mean, they do, but it'salmost like a pity buy.
You know what I mean.
It's like they want to leavethe gig with something you know.
And vinyl is better, because atleast vinyl it's more of like a
souvenir.
Whether they listen to it ornot, at least they've got
something to hold on to.
But you know, they buy t-shirtsand they buy, you know, all the
different stuff.
And I sell guitar pedals thatyou know.
I got my gristle King pedals,and so merch is a huge part of
(19:23):
how you do business.
But you know, all thetraditional ways of kind of
going about it are are justgetting redefined and um, but at
the same token, because of theinternet, there are different
ways to to make money.
And so I'm, I'm kind of of themind, of course I'm.
You know, I just turned 58.
So but I've been amazed becauseyou know I've made a living as
(19:50):
a musician for 30 years.
You know what I mean and and alot of that.
You know my wife quit workingwhen she wanted to stay home
with the kids.
I mean, that was 20 some yearsago.
So I'm you know I carried theboat for a family of six playing
my guitar, you know.
So you find ways to go about itand I'm just wondering from
your perspective, because you'reyou're my one, of my daughter's
(20:10):
age, you know.
So I'm just wondering what yourperspective is about being a
musician, being a professionalmusician, and looking forward to
you've got a a lot fartheralong as far as life to go
wondering your perspectives onhow the music industry is and
what you foresee in the futureand all that other kind of stuff
.
It's the best you know,obviously the best you can in
terms of you know no one can seethe future, but what are your
(20:32):
thoughts?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
To be honest, I'm scared with all the AI thing and
technology and that kind ofstuff.
Of course we take advantage ofthat, we use those tools, but
I'm scared about the future.
The last tour I was doing inEurope, I was talking with a
(20:55):
tour manager and he was saying,like, after one of the shows he
said, hey, hey guys, what you'redoing here is amazing because
we live in darker times.
He said something like that youguys that play the live music,
you like carrying the torch, youknow you keep, you keep doing
that, even though it's not, it's, it's hard, you know it's hard
to make money, it's hard to tomake a tour viable financially.
(21:22):
That's why he said I think thesame, but what I believe, it's
things that, that, that, that uhsometimes comes in gold, like
like waves, sure, but I thinkcyclical, right, cyclical, just
like the blues.
You know blues keeps comingback, coming back, you know, and
, uh, it's never mainstream, butit's, you know, like always
(21:45):
like appearing in our livesagain, right?
So, um, I think live music isgoing to be the same.
I think when people started tonotice how unhealthy is not
really giving attention to artand music, uh, they're going to
realize that's uh, and they'regoing to start to to uh, give
attention to that again.
That's what I think, butnowadays, what I believe is and
(22:09):
I think it sucks, but that's howit is you have to do a lot of
stuff.
You have to write your music,you have to manage your career,
you have to, you know, findother ways to make money with
merch, with teaching, you know,online courses, merch signature
gear instruments yep exactly.
(22:31):
So it kind of sucks becauseyou're not really focusing on
what you like really doing,which is performing and playing.
In my case, what I really likeis being on stage.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I don't like much rehearsals, you know.
Of course I enjoy teachingbecause I kind of feel like I'm
doing something for thecommunity, for the future of the
blues and that kind of stuff,Right something for the
community, for the future of theblues and that kind of stuff
Right.
But I really enjoy performing,even recording.
When I have to record my newalbums, of course I'm happy
because I'll find new songs, I'mhappy to put the songs out and
(23:02):
that kind of stuff, but stillwhat I enjoy the most is being
on stage making music live andon spot, improvising with other
human beings.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Exactly so it's kind of scary, I feel it's scary
what's going on, but let's see.
Let's see.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
I mean I'm not reallypessimistic about it.
I mean I always tell the storyabout how my dad was a lawyer
and I was the youngest of sevenkids and he was not thrilled
about me being a musician.
So he had every one of myteachers along the way try to
(23:40):
talk to me about the realitiesof being a musician.
And I remember the last one wasmy college professor.
The guy that ran the jazzdepartment at the state college
that I went to was the guitarplayer.
He was the guitar teacher and,um, you know, and he goes yeah,
you know, your dad wanted me totalk to you and tell you how the
how the business really is, butthey've always said the same
stuff Look, you're never goingto have any money.
(24:01):
It's always uncertain.
Um, you know you'll.
As you get older, your, youexpectations of what you want is
going to change, and yada, yada, yada.
And it's almost like and Ialways say you almost got to be
a little crazy because you'relike no, no, no, I don't give a
shit, this is what I do and I'mgoing to find a way to make it
(24:24):
work and things.
I mean not to be weird about it, but you know, you just, you
find things that just happen.
I mean you do the footwork, youtry to do the next.
You know, as I say, you try todo the next right thing.
Don't be an asshole.
But if you work hard andpractice and have something to
offer and you're entertaining, Imean that's the biggest thing.
(24:45):
I mean you can, I mean I always, I always find that and this is
, you know, not to offendanybody that might be listening,
but a lot of times you got, youknow, jazz guys, get a little
darker, or jazz people, I shouldsay you know guys or gals,
(25:13):
because I think you knowobviously to be, you know, god
knows how many standards theyhave to know by heart and so on
and so forth.
But by the same token, that's,that's a music.
That's the average person, youknow, hears it and they think,
oh, am I in the dentist's office?
You know, am I in an elevator?
They, it's just doesn't havethat same visceral connection,
right, and so they're a littledarker about.
Well, no one understands howthis music is, but you can find
(25:40):
a way.
All you, my thing I've beensaying is because of the
internet and so on and so forth,it's like you don't need a
million people to get into yourshit, you just need enough.
And uh, the only thing thatthat that that frightens me a
little bit is the enough part,because people, for the most
part, they need some kind ofglittery stuff.
(26:03):
It has to be doctored up in away.
There seems to be fewer andfewer people who can just
intrinsically respond to thepositive aspects of music
without being told you know whatI mean, and um, so that's the
only thing.
That kind of frightens me.
But, by the same token, if youplay at a place, um, and it's a,
(26:24):
and it's a bona fide musicvenue, it's not, as I like to
say.
I don't like playing placeswhere they say, oh look, there's
a band here, you know want it'slike it's a live music venue.
But people, when they hear, asyou described, a real band where
people are interacting in themoment, making music on the spot
, improvising with that energy,and so on and so forth, they
(26:44):
can't help but respond to it.
And I think they're just.
You know, you just have to findsituations where you're
continually given theopportunity to get in front of
enough people, because once theysee it, you got them, am I
right?
It's like once they come outand see they're theirs, they're
yours for life, hopefully, youknow, and so that's all good.
(27:06):
But yeah, it's an interestingtime.
You know the internet, you knowI was.
I was seeing something todaywhere someone was saying, you
know, um, you know, fender andgibson are making the best
guitars they've ever made rightnow and I'm like, yeah, but
unfortunately, guys who areactually making a living can't
afford them because I mean the,they have stuff for every price
(27:29):
range but it's become more of alifestyle brand instead of tools
for creating music.
I mean, they certainly do that,but you know what I mean by
that.
It's kind of like I wasthinking of the analogy of like
Harley Davidson.
It's like Harley Davidson usedto be for, like hardcore bikers,
you know what I mean.
Lifestyle people that lived onthe road.
They were, you know, it washard, and then it became more of
(27:50):
a lifestyle thing where youknow, and it's fun.
I mean people are dressing up onweekends, going out in their
leather, you know, but they'renot like you know, the Hellcat
bikers that once.
So I don't know.
I'm just kind of rattling onhere a little bit, the coffee's
taking hold, but I just findthat all stuff interesting.
(28:10):
It's kind of the same as itever was, because it's never
been easy to be a musician yeah,what I think it's like uh, it
was the same with me, my mother.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
She was like giving me support and my father was
like, now, you know music, youhave to.
Music is a hobby.
You know find, find like a realjob, and then you can not that
he, he likes music, but he heknows like find something that's
gonna give you the, thesecurity, financial security,
stability, and then you can doyour music and um, and I was
(28:40):
considering that that's why Istudied, I was studying law and
I study administration as well,but I quit, I didn't finish
those.
Um, but yeah, but I think whatyou have to do is you have to do
what you love, because life isso short, right, and yeah, and I
think what I think is we aredoing what we love.
And then maybe sometimes youthink, oh, but if I was doing
(29:02):
something else, I would havemore money.
Right, we think like this, andthen if you were doing something
else and having more money, youwould kind of think, oh, but
you know what?
I'd rather be doing what Ireally love, if I was doing
music.
How?
So what?
I think human beings, they areall the time like, uh, not
satisfied with things you know,yeah.
so I think it's part of beinghuman.
But I think we need to do whatwe love.
(29:24):
We need to put our hearts onwhat we do and when we do that
and we are being real people,they see that.
And if you're doing somethingjust for the money or for the
fame and you were a musician butyou doing something else,
you're going to get maybe thefame and maybe the money, but
(29:44):
you're not going to have theconnection with the audience,
right, and you're not going tofeel fulfilled.
I believe.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
I agree, I agree, I agree absolutely.
It's interesting because thefirst thing I do in the morning
when I wake up, I get coffee, Isit down, I just start playing,
because that's what I like to do.
It was an interesting thing.
Sometimes the comments I meanI'm sure you're in the same
situation, I've been blessedwith 99% of the people that
(30:14):
comment on any of my stuff arenice, you know what I mean.
They're complimentary, they.
You know there's there's not alot of controversy, but every
now and again you'll get peoplethat'll say stuff and you're
like, oh my God, what planet arethese people on?
But I had this this one guybecause of these people on.
But I had this one guy because Ilike to post something, if not
every day, maybe every other day, where literally I just grab a
(30:36):
guitar, turn on the camera andnine times out of 10, it's the
first take and I just post itand be done.
You know, and it's just kind oflike it's a good exercise, to
kind of say, if I can playsomething off the cuff and can
actually stand to listen to itback, that's a pretty good
practice routine, you know whatI mean, let alone to put it
online and people and I alwayslook at it is that if my
favorite guitar players back inthe day would have done that,
(30:58):
that would have been to me themost awesome thing in the world
is to see kind of a little wakeup call from hey, stevie Ray
just turned down his camera andjust played a little little
thing, or, you know, or Hendrix,had he lived.
He's like oh, jimmy's waking up.
He's just playing a littlething before he goes on a stroll
.
He's like what Can you believe?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
that?
That would be amazing.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Right, I'm not saying that I'm those guys, but you
get what I'm saying.
Someone you look up to.
Who would have done that wouldhave been amazing.
But I had this one guy post onFacebook where that's really
where the mutants dwell, ifwe're honest, is on Facebook.
Uh, present company excluded,of course.
But, um, I had some guy goes,this guy needs to find a hobby.
(31:38):
And I just thought that was thefunniest goddamn thing and I
realized, yeah, you can't reallyget to the level of, well, I
mean, that's not a hundredpercent true, but it's like I
tell people I go, I don't havehobbies.
It's not like I golf, you know,I don't go fishing, you know.
It's like I play guitar and Ireproduce.
I mean it's like I've got mykids, I got my family, I make
(31:58):
sure everything's taken care ofand I enjoy hanging out with my
wife and I mean I like readingand whatnot, and certainly when
I'm traveling, I like historystuff and check, but but I don't
have time for anything else,cause that's what I love to do,
which is really awesome, becauseyou think about it, it's like
people say to me you know,obviously a lot of people
getting to be my age, they'rethinking about retiring.
And they see these long tours,I'm going on and they're like oh
(32:21):
my God, don't you get tired ofit?
I'm like, are you kidding me?
I get to go out First of all.
My son's on drums, so I get totravel around with my son and
I'm with Toby, who is so easy totravel with and he's, you know,
great musician.
It's the three of us.
We travel around, we show up,we're playing at venues where
the only reason why people arecoming there is to see us.
It's not one of those placeswhere, oh, look, there's a band
(32:42):
here and uh, and we get to dowhat we love to do.
We get to stop if we want tostop.
You know, do whatever we want,and we get to play the music we
want to play and it's I go.
Why wouldn't?
That's like the greatest thingin the world.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
I mean I go, why would I ever stop that?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So I'm going to do it until I drop.
I mean, you know, and that maychange, I mean another 10 years
or so, I might be like, yeah, no, but for now it's like, you
know, I like packing the van.
You know what I mean.
I like setting up my, I likesetting up the merch stand.
You know what I mean?
It's like look at that shit, itlooks awesome.
(33:24):
So I don't know, but to yourpoint, it's like, you know, most
people don't do stuff that theylike to do and so everything is
kind of a drag.
And then so that maybe that'swhy they've got other problems,
you know, maybe they, you know,drink too much or use, or
whatever the case may be, totake the dismal nature of their
life out of the way.
But if you do what you love todo, he's like, yeah, you, you
(33:45):
take some lumps, but um, ifyou're into it for the moment, I
guess that's the biggest thing.
It's like when you finally getto the point where you're not
obsessing about what you'veplayed, you know, cause whenever
I'm on stage and I play andmaybe it was a shit gig, or
maybe you know, we've, you know,I played some clams on a
particular song I don't give ashit.
(34:05):
It's like that happened in themoment we're done, now, in the
moment we're done now.
Let's move on.
And I know other people wouldjust be like, oh my God, that
was the worst gig.
And I remember someone postedsomething You're only as good as
your last gig.
I'm like that's horse shit, youknow.
It's like whatever happened inthat moment was supposed to
happen.
Now we're going to move on.
But at the same token, you can'tbe obsessed with oh, how is
(34:25):
this?
You know, thinking too muchabout people in the crowds, like
you just got to be in themoment and do what's.
You know what I mean and notworry about the gig tomorrow.
Or, by the same token, if Ishow up at a place, I'm not
worried about how many peopleare there, because it's like
well, we did everything we couldto get people here.
This is what it is.
I'm just going to enjoy myselfand play.
But you know, when I wasyounger, I guess I let all that
(34:47):
other shit bother me, but now Ijust don't.
So I just show up and as we'replaying, I'm like this is
awesome, it is what it is andeverything just seems to work
out.
You know, it's like the doorwas a little lame tonight but I
sold a shit ton on the merge orvice versa, or you know what I
mean?
It's just, it's awesome so whatI'm saying is artists, when you
get a little gray in your beardit's still awesome, nice, yeah.
(35:09):
We interrupt this regularlyscheduled gristle-infested
conversation to give a specialshout-out to our friends at
Fishman Transducers, makers ofthe Greg Koch Signature Fluence
Gristle Tone Pickup Set Can youdig that?
And our friends at WildwoodGuitars of Louisville, colorado,
(35:32):
bringing the heat in the shadowof the Rocky Mountains.
So what do you got coming up?
What's the plan for the rest ofthe summer here?
I saw you got some datesoverseas.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
So what I have?
So in five days, no, in a week.
In a week I'm going to be goingto Italy.
A couple of shows, I think I'mgoing to also visit Dolphix
Dolphix, you were there.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely Yep.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah.
So I'm going to visit them too,but I have this little tour
there, then I'm back and thenI'm going to have something in
California.
Like we're going to do SanFrancisco, paso Robles, santa
Barbara, la.
You know it's a little run,short run, and I'm going to do
(36:20):
the Hendrix tour.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, yeah, I saw that, Cool yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I'm going to do five dates with them in October and
I'm working on my new songs justin the moment now that I'm kind
of shopping for the rightproducers and the thing is, the
people that I want to work withthey like very famous and
expensive, so I have to find anapproach to convince them, you
(36:45):
know, yeah.
I understand to see how it'sgonna be, but I'm working on
those songs, you know, staying,taking care of my health and you
know basically that andthinking what are going to be
the next steps for next year.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, I was going to ask you when you were mentioning
doing another record.
So I did something a littledifferent this time.
I've got this record coming out.
That's going on.
My buddy, devin Ullman's, got alabel and of course you know
what are labels these days.
You know you can mostly do itall by yourself, but at the same
token, if they've got a vehiclefor promotion and other things
(37:24):
that help as a result of theaffiliation, well then it makes
sense as far as that's concerned.
But you know I'm doing becausea lot of people will come up to
my merch stand and they'll saywhat is your bluesiest record?
Because you know I got 20 somerecords now and they're kind of
all over the map.
They got little differentelements of it.
(37:46):
You know, what you said earlieris like, and I was always of the
mind of well, it can't just bea straight 12 bar, I've got to
add this in the bridge and I gotto have this little funky thing
, cause I thought, well, youknow, I need to push the ball
down the field or the kick thecan down the road a little bit.
And then I realized that someof the most popular tunes that
I've done, I've literally justsaid hey, let's do a 12 bar and
a.
I got a head that I'll make upon the spot and we record it.
People are like, oh my God, youknow which to me is.
(38:06):
It's a little disconcerting.
It's like you put all youreffort in to make these really
cool compositions and then thestuff off the top of your head
is the stuff that people go.
Oh, hey, they're there.
It's like why even bother?
But anyway, so it's mostly acompilation, compilation record.
But I had two, two tunes in thecan that I hadn't released yet.
And he's like well, why don'tyou get some special guests on
there?
And so we ended up doing that.
(38:27):
And so we ended up doing that,and then so we're only going to
and he was kind of funny.
He's like we'll promote thosetwo songs and those will be the
videos and we'll do some videowork on it.
But he goes I don't even careabout the other songs.
So it's like he hasn't evenheard the other 11 tunes that
will be on the CD and then we'llwe'll have only have nine tunes
for the, for the vinyl.
(38:49):
But I was just wondering if youwere of the mindset of the
paradigm changes.
It's almost like you onlyreally need to release four or
five tunes, because that's allpeople are going to listen to
anyway.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It's just so weird.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, maybe that's where we we are when I mentioned
about carrying the torch.
Torch, maybe, if maybe that'ssomething we need to do as well.
I don't know, like keepinsisting on that, on making the
music, the vinyls and that kindof stuff, but um, yeah, but I
(39:25):
think it's something to do withthe algorithm, with the
attention spam and that kind ofstuff so you go go releasing by
singles, like you said.
They just want to hear like fouror five songs.
But yeah, yeah, but yeah, Idon't have a vinyl yet.
I would love to have one,because I grew up listening to
vinyl, so that's something Iit's a dream of mine.
(39:45):
I want to have a vinyl, somaybe for this new record, who
knows.
But so I'm working on thosesongs.
Recently I not recently, it waslast year so I released this ep
called the mfm, five songs witha label.
Right before those songs theywere recorded during the, during
(40:07):
the pandemic right and it wasonly released that last year,
because when you start workingwith a label, it opens some
doors, they help somehow, butthe process is so much slower.
I would do by myself so muchfaster, you know, yeah, but, and
before that, I had two albumsproduced by josh right josh
smith he produced my first albumhere in the us to keep pushing
(40:29):
2018 and 2020, the fading away,which has uh, joe bonamassa
playing one track with us.
Right and uh.
But before that it was thealbums that I recorded in brazil
, which I'm proud because I madethem, but I'm not proud of how
they sound.
Got it because I was younger,you know I was self-producing, I
(40:52):
was mixing, I was doingeverything by myself at really
low budget.
So when I hear them they soundvery mature, even the lyrics,
you know.
When you start growing up, youknow you start to care more
about stuff.
Before I was just like copyingand pasting, like I was writing
songs based on what I waslistening to.
So, ok, blue songs.
(41:12):
You know this blue song talksabout I don't know, cheating on
your wife.
Let's write a song aboutcheating on your wife why, you
know it talks about like pottyand alcohol, this and that Right
, I barely drink, I barely youknow.
So I said you know what I haveto write songs that I connect
(41:32):
with.
So that's from the 2020 FadingAway.
That's when I start going moretowards the way.
The last EP was very personaland very deep.
I happen to my lyrics.
They are very dark, I don'tknow why, I don't know why, but
(41:53):
these new songs that I'm writing, the lyrics are really cool too
.
So I'm kind of go more towards,you know, like talk about death
, talk about anxieties, talkabout spiritual stuff, talk
about social dilemmas, that kindof stuff.
So I'm more going towards theway and my sound has been
changing from the last fiveyears, that I got obsessed with
(42:16):
first pedals, right, especiallyfirst faces, so that makes you
play completely different andmakes you write songs
differently too, you know.
So I'm going.
Every time it gets morepsychedelic, more jammy, you
know.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, yeah which is awesome, would you?
Yeah, I love that shit yeah itis goodness.
Yeah, I've been um, aninteresting thing that I've been
seeing kind of lately, speakingof kind of fuzz and and jamming
and psychedelics I'm like tothis day.
It's like hendrix is myall-time favorite, you know, and
(42:52):
, uh, I love listening tohendrix and I love playing
hendrix.
You know, every.
It's like Hendrix is myall-time favorite, you know, and
I love listening to Hendrix andI love playing Hendrix.
You know, every time it's kindof funny we kind of have slated
for the next record after thisblues compilation record comes
out, is we're gonna, we're gonnado like a Hendrix tribute,
because I do Hendrix in my way,you know, and I pick.
You know interesting songs andI think anyway.
(43:12):
But it's interesting when youknow and I pick.
You know interesting songs andI think anyway, but it's.
It's interesting when you seeand I don't know what I mean.
I understand it to an extent,but this obsession of who's the
best and the greatest guitarplayers of all time at some
magazine, you know, like RollingStone will come out with a list
and everyone will lose theirshit.
Like how come so-and-so's onthis list when this other person
(43:35):
isn't?
It's like none of that shitmatters, it's bullshit.
But typically, what will happennow is there seems to be a push
by the youngins to, to kind ofsay, I don't even know why
Hendricks makes the list anymore.
Things have evolved so far pastwhat he did and I'm just like,
oh my God, you don't get it atall because it has nothing to do
(43:59):
about technique, although histechnique was awesome.
But you know, I saw this, thisPete Townsend little snippet
today where they was talking.
He was talking about Hendricksand from the look of the video I
would say it was probably inthe early two thousands that he
said this.
But he's like, he's like Jimmy,he goes.
You scared the shit out of me,he goes.
But he wasn't a guitar player,really he had.
(44:19):
He was like a shaman.
He's like I'd go and see himand I was like how is this even
possible?
What I'm experiencing right now, you know and and that's what I
think people don't understandand what I used to respond to so
much about the um you know whyI wanted to play guitar.
You know, kind of what you weretalking about with your older
brother.
You know my brother was 14years older than I was and I
(44:42):
looked up to him like you know,my brother's super cool and he's
into all this super cool music.
You know it was Hendrix andcream and stones and James gang
and Allman brothers and so onand so forth.
So all of that music, thoseguitar players were like you
know, none of them were real, Imean, especially in terms of
today.
I mean I see some of these guys, like you know, tim Henson now,
(45:04):
and you know, of course, mateusAsado, does all this crazy
stuff.
But all these other guys wherethey're doing like it almost
sounds like it sounds comical tome.
It's like it almost sounds likeit sounds comical to me.
It's like, oh my God, therecan't be a moment where there
isn't something being played.
You know what I mean.
It's like and it's and it'sawesome to behold in terms of
(45:25):
technique, but it's like I don't.
I don't want to listen to itNow.
Of course that could be.
You know me, you know old manshouting, shouting at the clouds
, but uh, but to me that hasnothing to do with what hendrix
did or what albert king did, oryou know creamy or clapton.
And then you hear people pilingon oh, clapton was so overrated
and who cares?
(45:46):
And yada.
I'm like, oh, my god, amazingespecially during the cream.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Oh my god, yes, wow yeah, so it's.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
It's an interesting thing that you know this idea of
technique, um, and it's almostlike an athleticism has been
attached to music.
Uh, especially in the advent ofthe instagram world and social
media with you get a minute.
Of course, now you can playmore than a minute, but you know
, to peak, to grab people'sattention I'm sure you're, you
(46:17):
have the same thing.
It's like you can do somethingsuper soulful and it's all about
tone and feel and it feelsreally good and you post it and
people will respond, but you gobe like oh my God, and you're
just, it's a little.
I mean, you're, first of all,I'm glad that anyone gives a
shit one way or the other, butby the same token, it's like oh
(46:39):
my God, really, what are yourthoughts on the whole technique
thing and the whole like oh,hendrix is nothing and Clapton
it's really.
You know this guy and you knowit's crazy.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah, the thing you said about the basket of play of
all time, that kind of stuff, Ithink it's all clickbait
because, right, people keepreacting.
That's why those magazines theykeep doing, they just want the
clicks, yes, yes, uh.
What I always think is, uh,there is always gonna be
somebody better than you, if youcan like, cause I don't believe
(47:14):
that, but you can.
I mean just trying to make mypoint there's always going to
have somebody better than you,but it's always going to have
somebody that prefers you thanthe one that it's better than
you.
Sure, absolutely, you know.
So what?
I think there's no such a thingas bad.
It's more about, like,connecting with the hottest or
not, you know Totally.
So the thing about the speedthing, I think it's uh, that's
(47:41):
what you said like attaching.
Attaching like somethingrelated to sport, like to
physical efforts or whatever,something that it's more like
hey, look at this, there'ssomething I can do that you
can't, right, so I'm better thanyou, so I'm special.
You are not.
So it's more on that vibe, andI think it's very annoying for
(48:01):
me, because we got in a placethat speed became what's
important to say, if somethingis good or not in a guitar
playing important to say ifsomething is good or not in a
guitar playing.
Let's say, uh, that for thethat's what I'm trying to say.
Speed became uh, same word asuh, virtuoso, right?
Is that what you say?
(48:21):
Virtuoso?
Yep, that's it my pronunciation, right?
Yeah, so, and I think we, wewould have to consider many
degrees of virtuoso, like belike, uh, feeling, timing,
groove, you know the laybackthing, you know everything so.
But no, it's only speed, it'sonly the technical speed.
(48:43):
If you're doing somethingdifferent, that's virtuoso,
you're better than somebody.
So that's what matters, sothat's what I.
I I hate that, you know.
Sometimes I post stuff likeplaying fast because that's what
I'm feeling at the moment.
Right Recording at home thatcame up and I was taking a video
and saying this is kind of cool, and then I know that people
(49:04):
react more to that.
So sometimes I do that onpurpose.
If I want to promote a showthat is coming up or a release
or something, I use a video thatI go more, working harder, so I
know it's going to engage more.
But if I don't have anything totake advantage of, I'm going to
post like something that Ireally care what I think it's
like if you play fast becauseit's who you are, it's part of
(49:27):
your personality, it's whatcomes in the moment Bingo, nice
People, they're going to love it, they're going to understand.
But if you play something fastbecause you're like you know,
I'm going to play something fastnow because I want to try to
catch the attention of theaudience or I want to try to get
something, you know I'm goingto try to impress, I'm going to
try to show off.
It's not going to sound natural.
(49:48):
Some people they're going to,oh, this is cool, this is nice,
but others they're gonna feel iteven they don't understand the
music side.
It was a little bit off, right,you know, because it wasn't
played from the heart.
So if you play fast because youknow, if you're like an anxious
person that speaks a lot, thatit's like very accelerated and
that's how you play, awesome.
(50:09):
Or if you play fast because youknow I'm mad today I want to
put all this anger out, you knowI'm gonna shred this shit off.
That you know.
And then you go and do it,awesome.
And if you play slow because ofthe same reasons, awesome.
And I think where you live alsoit reflects on your playing.
If you come, let's say thebebop, new york city, you know
(50:31):
everything, very frenetic.
So the city, this lifestyle,that's fine, I know, like west
coast, something else new to theocean, it's more, you know.
So it's the same thing inbrazil's.
If you go south, northeast ofbrazil, you know if you are not
dealing with any anxietiesrelated to money, you're super
like well in a place in life,you're gonna be relaxed.
(50:51):
You're gonna play more laidback.
If you're struggling, you haveto pay life, you're going to be
relaxed.
You're going to play more laidback.
If you're struggling you haveto pay your bills, you're going
to play, maybe faster, you'renot going to really breathe.
So I think everything isreflected, but as long as it's
natural, awesome.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I concur Heartily.
So what kind of?
Let's talk about gear for aminute.
What's your latest flavor foramplification devices, are you?
Oh my God, I'm spacing on thename.
What's the amp of choice?
Is it Turok, turok?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, turok, yeah, that's when we met
first time in person.
It was the Turok party at NAMM.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Oh, okay, right before the pandemic Right, so,
and it was the true rock partyat nam.
Oh, okay, at the uh for theepidemic.
Yeah, right, so, that was atthat club.
That, which is also didn't, didnot survive the pandemic.
It was that uh place that wasowned by those guys.
Slide bar, slide bar.
There we go, yeah, yeah 2020.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
It was in 2020, yeah.
So that's when I played to rockfor the first time, I believe,
and I always wanted the ampsbecause you know, I've seen,
like the players, that I likeplaying those amps and amazing
tones, and I always wanted theamps because you know, I've seen
, like the players, that I likeplaying those amps and amazing
tones and I want something likethat but very expensive.
So I played that party.
After that I talked to to eliand I said, hey, like I don't
(52:06):
know if you have any interest inhaving me as an artist or if
you offer artist discounts orwhatever, but I really like the
amp, I gotta have one and let's,let's work something.
And then he just sent me theamp nice.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
So do you like to?
Do you like to set it so thatit just starts to break up and
you use pedals on top of that?
Or you said it's straight clean, or do you use channel
switching?
What do you?
What do you kind of like to doclean?
Speaker 2 (52:33):
straight, clean.
Okay, I always heard that youknow you have to have an amp,
like kind of crunchy edge ofbreakup, to sound good at first.
I disagree, you just need toplay loud, right.
So if it's loud and it's clean,I have room like super loud,
awesome.
It's gonna sound even betterwhen it's crunchy, in my opinion
right so that's why I have thetraditional clean 100 watts.
(52:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
That's my.
Does it have reverb on it or no?
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah, reverb, yeah, and on the floor, 95% of the
show, even more fuzz face allthe time.
Even my clean tones with a fuzzface, I would play with
overdrive.
If I play something more bluesy, let's say my shows, I have one
, one song that I usually playwhich is called any day, any
(53:19):
time, which is more like a jazzyslow blues.
So I go in overdrive, clean andoverdrive, and when I play
blues in the natural I kind ofgo the version similar, similar
to oh shit, I forgot his nameEarl Ronnie Earl, okay, yeah,
yeah.
(53:39):
So I play kind of towards thatversion.
So, and then I go with anoverdrive too, but most of the
time I fuzz face, you know, andI like to fuzz before the
univime.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Okay, yes, yes, yes, yeah.
The fuzz is a glorious thing.
You find a good one.
You know, a lot of people don'trealize that hendrix had that
thing on a lot and he would justturn the guitar down and it
would clean up.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, and uh, yeah, I think the clean tone coming
from a fuzz face just rollingyour volume down.
It sounds better than when Ijust have the clean tone from
the amp.
When I compare and I measurethe levels, the volume levels, I
prefer the one that comes fromthe first.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, it's a cool thing, no doubt about it.
It's also interesting.
I don't know how muchaggravation you get, but you
know, one of the things aboutthe current music industry
situation is that, especiallywhen you go over to Europe, man
in clubs, they're all over you.
About the current musicindustry situation is is that
especially when you go over toEurope, man in clubs, they're
all over you about the volume.
Oh my God, it's so loud.
And you're like, really, Ibarely have this thing on.
(54:42):
I mean, what are you talkingabout?
Oh, it's solo, let us put itthrough the pan.
I'm like, no, just let us play,but it's it's.
It seems to happen more inEurope than it does in the
States now.
I mean, we show up at a cluband people know what they're
getting and we just do our thingand no one says shit to us.
But over there, especially inGermany, it's like, oh my Lord,
oh my God, it's so loud, youneed to turn down.
(55:02):
It's like it's crazy.
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