Tracii Guns on Sound, Survival, and Staying Power

Tracii Guns of LA Guns joins Greg Koch for a refreshingly honest exploration of what makes rock and roll endure through decades of industry upheaval. Their conversation weaves through Tracii's musical awakening at age five—hearing Led Zeppelin's theremin breakdown in "Whole Lotta Love" from the backseat of a car—to building and maintaining LA Guns through countless lineup changes and industry shifts.

With remarkable candor, Tracii takes us behind the scenes of his evolution as a guitarist, from his early days playing "Scorpion-style heavy metal with a little Jimmy Page thrown in" to his current approach. Guitar aficionados will delight in their deep dive into equipment - Tracii's journey from traditional JCM 800 Marshalls to embracing digital technology while maintaining his signature sound. "You keep changing stuff but you keep getting the same sound," his tech once observed.

The pair unpack the mystique of legendary guitarists like Jimmy Page, revealing that greatness often comes from simplicity rather than complexity. "For all the magic that he is, he bought his main guitar for 500 bucks from Joe Walsh," Tracii notes, suggesting that true mastery comes from dedication to playing, not gear acquisition.

Perhaps most valuable is Tracii's hard-earned wisdom about music industry survival: "You don't need a million people, you just need enough people to support you. You get 10,000 people buying everything you do, you're done." In an age of algorithm-chasing and viral fame, Tracii and Greg remind us that authentic connection through live performance remains the beating heart of rock and roll.

Want to see these two legends join forces? Catch Tracii Guns and Greg Koch performing together at the Basement East on August 27th—a rare opportunity to witness their musical chemistry in person.

Episode Transcript

Greg Koch (00:09):
Ladies and gentlemen, can you believe it?
It's already time for seasonsix of Chewing the Gristle with
yours truly, greg Cox.
So many delightfulconversations to look forward to
.
We'll talk about music.
Yeah, sure, but you know whatelse we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind, sostay tuned.
We'll talk about music yeah,sure, but you know what else
we're going to talk about.
Anything that comes to mind.
So stay tuned.
We got some good ones for you.

(00:29):
Chewing the Gristle, season 6.
Another exciting dish of Chewingthe Gristle is now at hand with
rock and roll titan Tracii Guns.
You know him from LA Guns.
You know him as a rock savage,wheeling the guitar with great

(00:50):
aplomb, doing things to atheremin that many wouldn't do
to a farm animal.
Ladies and gentlemen, we had agreat talk Dig it, Tracii Guns
this week on Chewing the Gristle.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys andgirls, we have gathered around
the gristle fire once again Foran installment of Chewing the
Gristle.
We have the mighty rock legend,Tracii Guns in the house today

(01:15):
and we're looking forward to aconvivial conversation which
will lead any which way we wantit to go.
Tracii, how the hell are you?
What's happening?

Tracii Guns (01:25):
I'm good you know I'm at the age where there's
always this nearby.
Yes, you know, you and I areboth 1966-ers, that's right.
And you know life is good right.

Greg Koch (01:37):
It is, but isn't it just bizarre?
I mean, I'd like to think I'vegotten my money's worth.
It's like you know, I don'tthink about what, why.
You know I wish I would havedone this.
It's like you know, I've had,I've had a pretty good run, I've
done some crazy things in mytime, and so on and so forth.
But you find yourself lookingaround at someone going boy.
That person looks old and yourealize oh, no, we're.

Tracii Guns (02:01):
We're probably the same age the night.
Yeah, no, that's the.
The benefit of the rock androll, you know is, uh, we'll
never believe that we're olderthan 26 years old and uh,
hopefully it shows right exactly.

Greg Koch (02:14):
Well, I was just thinking about that as a fact
that I remember distinctlygetting to be about 27 and 28
and feeling ancient because Iwas hitting it so hard.
You know what I mean and you'relike.
And then god forbid you'd lookat people our age now.
It's like why are they evenalive, you?
know what I mean and then yourealize, oh no, you got a long

(02:34):
ways to go.
But what's interesting is thatyou know the average person you
know really is into music.
Like music is foundational forthem up until about that age.
And then they all go on and dotheir professional lives.
They've got families and so onand so forth and music isn't
important to them anymore.
But not for us.
We, we carried the banner,going forward like with the same

(02:56):
intensity and wondering whereall my buddies go.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tracii Guns (03:01):
No, that's true, you know it.
When I was 27, I becameextremely agoraphobic and I
didn't leave the house oh,you're kidding me For like 14
months.
Yeah, I was terrified to go tothe bank, to stand in line at
Taco Bell and I would lay in bedand just think well, this is it

(03:23):
.
You know I reached the end.
You know I'm an old man.
And then all of a sudden, Idon't know what changed.
I think I started eatingprotein or something and then
things got better.
But yeah, I mean, 27, 28 wereterrible years for me, you know,
really bad.
And you know the bank accountwas dwindling and you know I

(03:47):
lived in some stupid ridiculoushouse and I would just look
around and go is this?
It Is like, you know, is thiswhere it ends?
And but the cool thing was Ihad a.
There was no digital technologyyet, right, so that was like I
don't know 92 or 93.
And uh, and so all I did is Ihad this little task cam

(04:12):
cassette recorder and I justwould like write shit.
Yeah, that's all all I fuckingdid.
And and uh, turned into likestuff later, you know what I
mean.
Like, like, like hey, what do Ido on that crappy tape machine,
like you know?

Greg Koch (04:28):
But yeah, life's weird, right, but you know, that
just goes to show.
It's like, even when you knowlife does its thing, which it
always does, there's always, youknow, the playing, the creating
, just sitting around playingthe guitar.
That shit never gets old andthat and when you have that,
that's like the greatest giftyou can be given, because you'll

(04:48):
never I mean, most people don'thave something like that- they
don't.

Tracii Guns (04:57):
And when you go to therapy because, besides myself,
I know a lot of other peoplethat have gone through some life
crisis and the one thing thattherapists always encourage is
to have find the thing that doesmake you mentally focus on
something you enjoy and you know, I was in Denmark for five

(05:18):
years and which is such adifferent culture.
You know where people aretrying to collect cars, and, and
I, and if they do, it's on a,it's one car and they will make
that car mint.
You know what I mean.
So, like, the competition thingdoesn't really exist over there

(05:38):
the way it does here.
Like you know, we wanteverything.
You know, it's like I want aStrat and a Tele and a super
Strat, and, and I got to have adouble neck and a Marshall and a
Fender and I got to have it andI got it and I got it.
So, that being said, you knowall those people.
They go all the way throughcollege.
You know what I mean.
They learn trades and craftsand they learn about music and

(06:02):
they learn the basic shit thatmakes you happy in life and they
lead a happy life.
You know?
Um, for some reason we didn'tget the rule book.
You know where we grew up.
It was like say, hey, here'sthe keys to the country.
Go right, like go get yours,man, you know, kind of a thing.

(06:23):
And I mean, you know, guys likeyou and I are obviously very
lucky that that we've been ableto make any living out of music,
because it's it's an impossiblething to do.

Greg Koch (06:33):
Well, it certainly is .
I mean it's, uh, you know, whenwe think about the many things
that you need to do, especially,you know, being able to do it
this long.
I mean it's you know it's.

Tracii Guns (06:47):
Hey, you know, before we forget, you know
people watching this.
You and I are playing togetherat the basement East on August
27th.
That's correct.
Yes, you know, and, and youknow, I'm still looking forward
to that show man.

Greg Koch (07:01):
Oh, it's going to be a blast.
Thanks so much for having us.
It's going to be a blast.
Thanks so much for having us.

Tracii Guns (07:04):
It's going to be a blast, you know.
And which leads to the otherthing of how fucked this
business is, because la guns isa headlining band, we call all
the shots but we can't pick oursupport acts.
It's so fucked up.
That's insane you know, becausepeople like, yeah, but you know
we got these guys and you know,and this, and it's like you know

(07:25):
, if you want all the money,then you know because people
like, yeah, but you know we gotthese guys and you know and this
, and it's like you know, if youwant all the money, then you
know you got to let us do this.
It's like you don't want allthe money, but I want all my
friends to have all the moneytoo.
Right, you know, let's fuckinggo, and just every step of the
way and and I didn't we weren'talways in this position.
You know where, where, where wekind of called the shots and
did our own stuff.

(07:45):
You know, for like 25 years weweren't like that, and now we
are, and once again we hitanother wall.
So getting you to play with ushas been the joy of my year.
Oh, thank you.
It's going to be a blast.
Yeah, it's going to be great.
I'm just wanting to know.
I'm really happy about it.

Greg Koch (08:06):
Well, thanks for making it happen.
I did, we did.
Yeah, let's talk a little bitabout how you got started.
What was, uh, you know, sincewe're the same age, I'm curious
if you had older siblings thatwere into music, or or if you
got the discovery yourself, orwhat happened.

Tracii Guns (08:18):
Well, for me, um, I was sitting in the back of my
mom's boyfriend.
He, I was sitting in the backof my mom's boyfriend.
He had like a little 912.
And I was a little tiny guywhen I was five or six and I
would just lay down back thereand he had stereo speakers right
, and Whole Lotta Love came onthe first time I ever heard it
in my life, and I heard thetheremin break down and I poked
my head up what the hell is this?

(08:39):
Right, you know?
And my mom said, oh, that's,you know, that's Led Zeppelin
and that's the guitar.
And I'm like, I'm like, OK, soI could never make you know.
I got a guitar instantly, youknow, and I couldn't make it do
the theremin thing.
So I didn't know, I didn't knowwhat it was.
So I kept beating on the guitar, trying to get those sounds,
you know.
So for me it's always beenabout sounds, you know what I

(09:05):
mean and kind of learning thenotes and the parts and the all.
This stuff is always secondary,but having to learn how to play
the guitar along the way youknow, so I'm really attracted to
when somebody does somethingoff that works.
You know what I mean somethingthat's extraordinary, um, like,

(09:28):
you know, the one thing aboutyou that blows my mind is like
you know, you play things sowell, you know for lack of a
better expression like youreally play well, you know.
You're like, well, check thisout, and then this happens.
And then if you do this andthis happens, and then it's all
copacetic and this is grand me.

(09:48):
You know, I try to learnfucking you know, uh, the
alphabet and it's like I can'tdo it.
You know I, I just can't do it.
My ears do not go melodically,which is weird because you see
me play.
You think this guy, wow, you'relike fuck my god, jesus,
fucking christ.
But it's all just wittilydiddly, making noise and knowing

(10:12):
there's a major scale and aminor scale and somewhere in
between or five other places youcan go and playing.
For you know, 50 years, yeah,I'm doing, but but it's not, I'm
not fantastic like you are, youknow, you're just like I sit
there and I watch you, I just go, yeah, man, oh, I don't know.
Yeah, like that's how you do it.

(10:33):
And all my friends you know myguitar player friends.
They're heroes, man, like youknow, alex skolnick and shit
like.
Oh yeah, you can do all thatshit.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like, and me I go up there witha theremin and people go, yeah,
so it's good enough, right.
It's like kind of the key thing.
But as far as influences go toalign with yours, you know, I

(10:59):
think we're pretty, pretty close.
You know the Hendrix and thepage that had the huge impact,
you know, and then tony iomi andthen really I guess gary moore,
eddie van halen or randy rhodes, you know, and, and those are
my formative kind of I'm gonnabe a guitar hero thing, so I

(11:20):
tried to emulate all that andthen exactly probably what you
did is, once I got kind of overthat, started going backwards,
right, you know, and listeningto guys that really were writing
the manuscript for what theguitar heroes did.
And I think that's anotherreason I really dig listening to

(11:41):
you play, because you'll justthrow some Jeff Beck thing in
the middle of nowhere and I'mlike I know what he did, I know
that part, or joe walsh oranything.

Greg Koch (11:49):
I'm just like I'm like fuck yeah I remember when
my brother brought home, uh,that's so, what record, joe
walsh so what.
That was like 74 or something,yeah and uh, but we had those
james game records and all, yeah, all that stuff.
But you know, and as have youknow, you progressed over the
years.
What are the things that have,like, you've discovered that

(12:14):
were kind of happening at thesame time as the other music you
were into but for whateverreason, you weren't hip to it,
just because you didn't havefriends into it or you just
never heard it?
What were some discoveriesyou've made about some stuff
that was old that you just likeI can't believe.

Tracii Guns (12:27):
I've never heard this before we need to run from
right, because um always dug theyard birds you know what I mean
.
Like I always dug them, but Ididn't realize what an impact
they had on so many other bandsacross the world.
Um, across that time.
And one of the one of thethings that um is mind blowing

(12:50):
is, uh, mid sixties in Cambodia,they, they had a rock scene
with recording technology andauthentic, you know, stuff that
really was on par with theBeatles and the Stones and the
Sonics and all this stuff.

(13:10):
And people just don't knowbecause, you know, during
Vietnam, you know, we just wentin there and napalmed the hell
out of Cambodia and erased allthis history, this music history
that is.
You know, I'm going to eyeballreally quick, I know it's, I'll
find it, but there's a reallygood record and it goes to the

(13:35):
soundtrack of a documentary.
It's called I Won't Forget youand it has, like you know, 30
tracks on it that were savedfrom these studios and most of
the recording studios that werein the radio stations so the
bands could go in and performlive on the radio and they
recorded them and then theywould make the records out of
those recordings.

(13:55):
Nice, you know.
So these are things I'vediscovered along the way of, you
know, because I'm very, uh,focused on rock and roll.
I always really have been, youknow, um, but I love enya, you
know, because, melodically, youknow, uh, it's a whole garden of
you know, uh, melancholy,riffage, you know, done on some

(14:20):
weird organ thing, right, thatthat really appeals to me, you
know, and her voice is like anangel, you know so, uh, but that
gets more into that randyrhodes territory of, like, how
do you get inspired to be, youknow, studios, uh, what do they
call that?
Neoclassical?

(14:40):
right right without justlistening to segovia all the
fucking time.
It's like I did the Segoviathing for a while.
I guess that's more flamenco,but you know, there's just so
many aspects of what we do andthe ultimate goal for me is to
write original sounding songsmusically.

(15:01):
Because in LA Guns I alwayswrite all the music, first the
arrangements done, then philgets it and he wants to kill me,
and then he comes up with thegoods, right, you know.

Greg Koch (15:13):
So, like it's just always been, you know, an art
project for me it really has andso talk a little bit about the
progression of that band and howit's changed over the years and
different approaches and justkind of weathering the onslaught
of the music business ingeneral well, I think it's
number one.

Tracii Guns (15:33):
It's dumb luck, right, it's just fucking dumb
luck because you know peopledon't really stay together that
long in marriages and bands andbusiness and things like that.
But you know, I started the bandwhen I was in high school, you
know, and we played kind ofScorpion style heavy metal,
probably with a little JimmyPage thrown in Right, because

(15:54):
that's what was popular around82, 83.
And then, through a series of,you know, member changes and
friends going off to beprofessionals and other
businesses and stuff like that,I ended up with Axl Rose singing
in LA guns, who was Izzy's bestfriend, you know, izzy Right,

(16:14):
and he was in LA guns.
And then we changed the name toguns and Rose we don't need to
go down that long road and thenwe had guns and roses and then
we got really popular reallyfast and I was like oh, and then
we had Guns N' Roses and thenwe got really popular really
fast and I was like, oh shit,you know, All right, here we are
, but I don't want to hang outand die with drug addicts.
So now you know how am I goingto get out of this?
And so I just redid LA Guns askind of like a Motley Crue meets

(16:37):
the Rolling Stones ideology,like, okay, I like five-piece
bands, even though I want toplay alone.
The five-piece band, theAerosmith, the Arbards kind of
thing, stones, yeah, stones.
It felt like the right thingfor LA Guns to be.
It felt like every guitar heroband is just a guy by himself

(17:04):
and I thought, well, if I canshred and have some other guy
play all the the stuff, that'smeaningful and I can just solo
all night.
That's what I want to do,because I notice, you know,
every anytime I'm in a bandwhere it's a three-piece band,
um, you know, the, the bottomdrops out if I stop playing
rhythm.

(17:24):
You know what I mean, unless wehave a keyboard.
It's like Udo or something likethat, and that's cool, it's a
vibe and I'm into it.
I mean, I'm probably going tostart another band tomorrow
where it's me and two people andparty on and all that stuff,
but on a professional level theLA Guns formula just works.
And what I mean is, you know,we got enough guys playing

(17:48):
instruments to be very musicaland very diverse, and which
means I can write whatever Iwant, and then, as long as
phil's singing, we sound like laguns he has such a distinctive
british american crossover thingthat he is that it gives me the
freedom and that's all I give ashit about.

(18:10):
I just want musical freedom.
I don't you know the fact thatyou know all the bills are paid
and we make bucks and like allthat shit.
That's wonderful, but I'd stillbe doing exactly the same
fucking thing if we didn't.
You know, I really I want to bejimmy page man, you know I.
You know I want to do, I wantto do it and and that keeps me

(18:32):
going, you know it keeps meexcited how's the uh, the
relationship with phil?

Greg Koch (18:36):
I mean maintaining that over the years I'm sure it
took some work, and, uh, becauseyou know it's hard enough.
I mean I've always hadthree-piece bands because I can
only usually handle two othermusicians at any given time, and
now that one's my son, it'sthat much easier.

Tracii Guns (18:52):
So, man, god, you know, and you got a good problem
.
And dylan, he's definitely thesecond coming of jesus bottom,
you know, like yeah, I'mwatching you.
And then he does something likeI'm like damn, man, you know,
he just sticks it in the kickand it's over.
Yeah, my god, um, but with phil, um, and, and you'll find this

(19:15):
that this has happened to us allthrough junior, high school,
high school, adult living, andthere's other people that fuck
up great relationships.
Right, like you know, you canbe cruising along and have your
best buddy that you're gettingstoned with in high school and
then some other dude will say,hey, your best friend said this
about you, right, right, youknow this kind of, you know,

(19:38):
gossip.
You know poisonous, toxicpeople that are looking for
attention and it gets in between.
And that's happened a bunch oftimes with us, with Phil, you
know.
Managers have gotten in betweenus, band members have gotten in
between us, you know.
And finally we took a break.
I took a break for 12 years andwhen it was time to do it again

(20:02):
, I took over the whole thing.
And the problem earlier is Iwas 10 years younger than the
next guy in the band, eventhough it was my band, so I was
just respecting all theseopinions and people and like I
wasn't going to backtalk, youknow, and then it would get to a
point where I wouldn't backtalk.
Then the day would come whereI'd go get the fuck out of my
life, you know what I mean.

(20:23):
I get it.
All your wisdom did fuckingnothing for me.
You know what I mean, right?
So when we got back together inabout 2017, I just started
cleaning house.
You know what I mean.
Like you know, I wanted this tobe the thing that we do and be

(20:44):
successful at it and reallyrecognized where the toxicity
was.
You know what I mean.
Eliminated.
That did one show.
We got a fucking really nicerecord deal with Frontiers, and
that was the beginning.
And then, you know, we had aguy in there that was helping

(21:04):
out that ended up being, justlike all the other guys that he
talks shit about, you know, amanager type, right?
Oh, this guy is ripping you offand don't do that.
And then, obviously, down theroad, the guy ends up ripping
you off.
Same story.
So the two key ingredients isthe five band members in the
band were tight.

(21:26):
It's a family now, right, youknow, we're all adult enough.
Nobody, nobody's trying to getanything over on anybody.

Greg Koch (21:35):
No weird agendas or whatnot.

Tracii Guns (21:37):
Right.
You know everybody'scomfortable in their livelihood,
especially Phil.
You know Phil's in a greatplace.
He's uh, he's gonna be 69 injanuary, you know.
So he's, he's 10 years on us.
Yeah, he's got 10 years on usand he's singing like a
motherfucker and um.

(21:58):
So I think that we just reallyappreciate it and we're having a
really good time, whichtranslates into the crowd and
our audience, and then they'rehaving a good time and things
grow and we just, you know wedon't really have goals to speak
of.
You know it's more about we'rehappy where we are right and
it's just maintaining it.

Greg Koch (22:16):
Now that's the thing, isn't it?
Just you just want to keepgoing, just want to keep going.

Tracii Guns (22:21):
Don't want to piss anybody off, you know.
Save your drama for the llama.
You know all that shit, Fuckthat shit.
It's boring.

Greg Koch (22:32):
So, gear-wise, how's your stage stuff changed over
the years?
Are you constantly tweaking andmessing around, or have you
stayed pretty consistent when itcomes to the battle array?

Tracii Guns (22:45):
Right, it's crazy.
You know my old guitar tech,kent Holmes.
He used to say he goes, he goes.
You keep changing stuff but youkeep getting the same sound
right.
And that was a big epiphany forme and that was around, I don't
know, like 1989, I guess, and atthat point I was using JCM 800,

(23:10):
100 watts, you know, verticalinput, the right amps, right, a
very basic setup with a stereochorus, you know, using two
heads and four cabinets.
At the time we were playing bigplaces and a wah-wah and an eq
and kind of basic.
But the the struggle for me wasalways the delays, right, um,

(23:30):
going to the front end of amps,right, not sounding lush enough.
So I kind of always did like ashort one, repeat delay kind of
thing, and then a big stereodelay that was just fucking out
of control because I couldn'tmake it sound smooth no matter
what I tried to do.
So that was my sound for a longtime and I would collect amps,

(23:55):
you know, because we, we loveamps, um, but all the way
through, and then the variousbands I played through, I would,
you know, if the drummer wasn'textremely loud I would play out
of like some cool, like Buddhacombos, you know stuff like real
boutique-y kind of stuff.
And then I always use the yellowSD-1 pedal.
That's always been my drivepedal and I could basically get

(24:18):
the same, you know, or it feltmushy enough where I was
comfortable.
That's what I go for.
It's like oh, fuck, yeah, man,you know this is a golden sound,
but in 2016, 2017, more came tomy attention.
They made these little pedalsand they made these little

(24:42):
amplifier like preamplifierpedals pedals.
I'm like, well, how does thatwork?
You know, and there was a timeI did use like a rocktron
chameleon preamp through poweramps.
You know shit, like that heavyduty stuff.
You know, like, like, like fuckman stuff.
Yeah, like, wow, you know likewhat a, what a fucking waste of
energy.
But, um mean, it sounded great,but whatever.

(25:06):
But these little things came outand I put this pedalboard
together with like 24 pedals onit, you know, because there were
so little.
I was like, well fuck, why notJust, you know, have everything
on there?
And at that point the amps thatI had were the newer 800s that

(25:28):
had effects, looped, you know,returns, right, so I could have
these more preamps you know,like a fender deluxe and a
marshall 900 and all this stuff,and run them right into the
delays and everything like thatand like the distortions before
it, and go right into the powersections of the amps and not to

(25:49):
worry that was like strikinggold.
For me, it was like wow, all mydelays are lush, everything
sounds massive.
It's quiet.
You know it's not this, this,this rat's nest of noise you
know because it pretty much was.
For the first 30 years, it waslike, yeah, I'd turn my guitar
up and the rig would be yeah,yeah and uh.

(26:14):
So then, in 2018, um, when Iwas at the height of my
stonerdom, you know, just youknow, this weed was my life.
You know, I was like man, lifeis good all the time.
So this company called head rushcame out on my head rush that

(26:34):
that's got me written all overit, right, and I looked at what
it was and it's this touchscreeniPad thing with all the pedals
and amps in it.
I'm like, oh, wow, so I couldget rid of these 24 little
pedals, get this one pedal andeverything's in there with a

(26:54):
noise suppressor not a noisegate, but a noise suppressor
which actually identifies yourshitty signal and gets rid of
that.
So I call this guy Brian Davitt.
I found him on Facebook.
He was the head A&R guy forhead brush and I'm like, hey man
, is this thing any good?

(27:15):
He's like I don't know, I'llsend you one.
I'm like, all right, so I getthis thing, I dial it in and
what's the first thing I go forJCM 800, right, jcm 800, you
know stereo delay chorus here,blah, blah, blah.
And they didn't have a yellowpedal, they had a tube screamer

(27:36):
like, yeah, man plugged it intomy amps.
I'm like, oh fuck, there it isno kidding that's it, that's.
All I require in my life is this, and this is for live because
live you know, live is whereit's at.
I've never recorded my live rig, and on a studio record oh no,

(28:00):
kidding, yeah, which is like youknow.
That's not the eddie van halenway like sure he's like, hey, my
shit sounds good, put mics infront of it.
I'm going, but it's definitelythe jimmy page way right.
It's like, okay, these are theMarshalls I use live, and then
you don't know what I use in thestudio.
You know that mystique, but Ireally I have tried putting

(28:25):
analog rigs together for liveever since the head rush and it
gets close.
It's not as powerful, it's notas controllable and it's not as
out of control as I wanted toget.
Like you know, with the headrush I can make it get really
out of control.
You know, with feedback onevery fret, you know on every
string, you know just the rightkind of stuff.

(28:46):
So, um, that being said, youknow I'm really a vintage guy
with a really modern piece ofgear that gets me what I want
live.
Yeah, it does the thing but inthe studio, you know, here, like
like you, you know, I think Ihave every fender and every
marshall and like, and uh, ampegshit, silver tone shit.

(29:10):
Uh, I'm building amps now I'mgonna try to sell people, uh, 50
watt marshals for two grand.
You know the, really you know78 jmps because they're through
the roof.
Nobody makes a good one andthey take me about two days to
build from scratch.
You know so they're the best ampum for rock and roll guys,

(29:33):
because you can really do thesmall faces thing, you can do
the Randy Rhoades thing, you cando the Jimmy Page thing, and 50
watts these days is plenty.
You know it's plenty.
Let's be honest.

Greg Koch (29:49):
Anything more than 50 watts, you're getting the stink
eye from everyone around.
Oh man, yeah, more than 50watts, you're getting the the
stink eye from everyone around.

Tracii Guns (29:55):
Oh man, yeah, well.
So.
So wait, now here's a luxurythat you have that I didn't have
till about a month ago.
You're up there.
You don't have some guy wailingthrough stage monitors vocally,
right?
So phil got in-ear monitors forhimself last month and so now
his monitors on stage are like agood level where I can hear

(30:18):
what he's singing, right.
But I can hear my guitar.
Oh, there you go, I can fuckinghear it.
Yeah, if I play out of a Deluxe, I can hear it, right, you know
.
So the whole reason for allthose 100-watt amps all those
years is I couldn't hear, right,you know, because he sings high
, you know, and he's screaming.

(30:39):
And as soon as he put those onand we did that gig that night,
I walked to my pedal board and Iturned the master down and I
was like this is fucking awesome, and so that I'm talking about
learning things way later, right, like that's the thing.
So now he's kind of allowed meto kind of like look at my rig

(31:02):
and go, wow, you know, I can doother things now too, you know,
if I want to play, like I said,a deluxe on stage for one song,
because it's the right sound forthe song.
Well, I could certainly do,certainly do that now.
You know, and, and you know, Ilove all of it, man, I love all
this shit.

Greg Koch (31:20):
I love all this shit Gear is fun, it never.
It never gets old.

Tracii Guns (31:26):
Yeah, it doesn't, man.
You know, I, I, I have fourEchoplexes.
I had three and I used themtill the end, right Like they
got to the end.
And my friend Eric, who ownsCaveman Music here, always knows
that I'm on the alert because Iuse those.

(31:47):
And he didn't tell me he had anEchoplex on.
This was about two or threemonths ago, but I saw it on
Instagram and I lost my shitbecause I was definitely sure
somebody had already bought it.
You know, and I, eric, whydidn't you tell me about the
Echo?
Oh, I'm sorry I forgot, man.
You know I go.
Well, let me know when anotherone comes in and he goes no, I

(32:11):
still have this one.
I'm like, does it work?
He goes yeah, that works.
I'm like I fucking went downthere so fast, got the thing and
they're expensive, man.
I think I paid like $1,400 forit or something.
But it's the one you know andit works and it's on tour and
it's doing the thing you know.

Greg Koch (32:35):
We interrupt this regularly scheduled Gristle
Infested conversation to give aspecial shout-out to our friends
at Fishman Transducers, makersof the Greg Koch signature
Fluence Gristle Tone pickup setCan you dig that?
And our friends at WildwoodGuitars of Louisville, colorado,
bringing the heat in the shadowof the Rocky Mountains.
So back in the day, like whenyou know, of course, jimmy Page

(33:00):
always had the two and he hadthe one for all the crazy
theremin stuff, I'm imagining.
And then the other one was justa quick slap back, that's it.
And I'm wondering.
You know especially, you knowas he got more medicated it's
like.
But as we all know, when youcrank those amps, as you said,
when you're going to the frontend of them, you got to be
careful you can barely have theamount of effect on in order for

(33:23):
it not to get all saturated andshitty.
So he must've just had itbarely on.
And then, you know, years laterit seemed like he would.
Maybe it would be a little bitmore wash.
You know what I mean.
But how did you deal with itback in the day?
You just went through the frontend and you would just have to
bring the amount of effect weighthe fuck down so it wouldn't be
all distorted.

Tracii Guns (33:44):
Well, you know, I had an epiphany like the last
few weeks.
You know I used to use a DD3, aBoss.

Greg Koch (33:50):
DD3.
Yeah, I've used one for sincethe beginning.

Tracii Guns (33:53):
Right, I don't have any now, like I don't know why,
I have everything, but I don'thave a fucking DD three.
So Carlos Cavazos, uh Cavazos,jammed with us a couple of weeks
ago and he had a little pedalboard with a tube screamer and a
DD three on it and a high and aSLO sold on it.
Yeah, and I'm like you'rerunning that into the front.
He goes yeah, why, I'm like,I'm like, okay, and that's what

(34:15):
I used to do, right, right, sohe's playing.
I think that's the only delayyou can do that with.
It pretty much works.
Yeah, like, like, like, fuck,okay, way more gain than I was,
and so you know.
So you know, it always workedsomehow for me in the past.

(34:38):
I don't remember cause I'm notthere right now, but but I did
use two DD threes, you know, onefor the big stereo thing and
one for the single, for thesingle slap.
Yeah, whatever.
But page thing and you'll agreewith me on this, I know you
will those delays had to work.
So when he talks about, youknow, getting the amps just to

(35:02):
the edge of the breakup point,he wasn't kidding, and on some
of those bootlegs he didn't evenget to the edge of breakup
right.
Like you know, he was justclanking away.
You know doing his thing andI'm definitely positive.
You know that he wanted to beable to play the clean stuff
really nice, and so I think heprioritized more of a clean

(35:26):
sound live and getting it justdistorted Because he wasn't even
using the tone bender anymoreonce Zeppelin really got rolling
, you know Exactly of kind ofgave up on fuzz and all that
stuff, um.
But I noticed, um, when I talkedto a lot of the old engineers,
the guys, a lot of what me andyou heard was they were running

(35:49):
echoplexes and space echoes atthe front of house, you know so
like on guitars, on vocals andstuff like that like I wondered,
like same thing, like live atleeds, you know exactly yeah,
yeah, they had to be doing thatfrom the front of house and
those engineers back then theywent to school, they weren't
like you know, they weren't theguy down at joe's bar and I

(36:09):
could do sound right, like thoseguys back then, like you know,
they knew how everything workedand how to patch things and you
know all this archaic dinosaurequipment, sure, and that shit
sounds great.
It's really interesting whenyou listen to the live James
gang and a lot of Deflambootlegs around 71 to 75.

(36:35):
Right when, bootlegs around 71to 75, right, plants definitely
singing through a space echobecause, the delay has reverb on
it.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and and ittook me a long time to figure
that out like where's thatreverb coming from?
Because it wasn't the room.
You know, it wasn't, it's like avery sparkly kind of uh like,
what do they call it now?
What do the kids call it?

(36:55):
They call it it's like twohigher octaves of reverbs, like
shimmer, shimmer, yeah, yeah,yeah, like there's some shimmer
on, like when Plant would do abig thing and then the delay
would repeat over and over.
You can hear this kind ofshimmer reverb in there, like

(37:15):
those dirty cool high-end shit.
It's just like fuck man, it'sso magical.

Greg Koch (37:22):
It's so weird when you listen to those little
bootlegs Is that you know likefrom 72 or 73, that's when
Page's live tone was probablythe best and when you listen to,
well, that you know how theWest Was Won.
Now I know what was it.

(37:44):
Kevin Shirley went in andspit-shined that shit up.
Yeah, he did.
But what you were saying aboutwhen he turns that thing down
same with Song Remains the Same.
He turns that guitar down, it'slike the greatest clean sound.
And then he turns it up andthat shit is gainy but yet still
has clarity.
And then I heard somethingabout how he switched to KT

(38:06):
whatever tubes in his Marshallsin 75, and so it was a little
cleaner and a little clankier.

Tracii Guns (38:12):
Yeah, because I was just going to say it's like you
know two things.
I know about Page is he savedhis first you know dollar for
his first session and he neverbiased his amps or changed tubes
no kidding, it's like for allthe magic that he is.

(38:33):
You know he bought his mainguitar for 500 bucks from Joe
Walsh.

Greg Koch (38:38):
Right, you know what I mean.

Tracii Guns (38:39):
Right, like you know, he's really maybe not as
sophisticated about what he'splaying through as we'd like him
to be.
Sure, Of course, you know whatI mean.
He's like I've got Marshalls, Ihave Echoplexes, I have a Sonic
Wave, theremin, I have a DoubleNeck Les Paul, but I'm more
about playing these things thangiving a fuck, right.

Greg Koch (39:02):
They were just tools at the time.

Tracii Guns (39:03):
It's like oh, this is the stuff we use.
Yeah, and who knows what thatmentality was, you know, like
kind of going through thosecouple years he had in the
studio scene, right a year, acouple years he had in the
studio scene, right where youknow, obviously he was taking
notes, but that was aboutrecording, right, you know, and
you know he's playing out ofsolid state rickenbackers and
shit like live.
Yeah, you know like what thefuck, right, you know.

(39:27):
So I mean, it's really hard toget in in anybody's mind.
That's that mysterious and Ithink the mystery is just
because he didn't give a fuckindeed.

Greg Koch (39:35):
Well, it's just like when you listen to uh, you know
clapton's cream tone and likespring of fit of 68, you know
it's like it's the most glorioussounding thing and you know, he
did.
He had no idea.
It's like what am I playingthrough?
Just plug me into that shit andturn it off.

Tracii Guns (39:52):
That's right.
That's right and and I agreewholeheartedly, you know,
because there's a reallyinteresting video of Hendrix
jamming with Buddy Miles.
I think Hendrix played at onefestival and then Buddy Miles
was playing the Newport MusicFestival.

Greg Koch (40:09):
I've seen that, yeah, where he's got the blue dashiki
on and he's playing throughlike showmans.

Tracii Guns (40:14):
And it's like ouch, yeah, like stop, you're killing
me.
Right, and there's all thatwhite trash audience on the
beach.
You know like he's just goingand it's like you know that
strat through those dual showmanon 10.
Right, you know, like the funnything about a lot of Fender
amps like that they don't havepresence control.

Greg Koch (40:35):
Right.

Tracii Guns (40:36):
And I don't know if people really know what a
presence control does.
It's part of the power amp,it's not part of the EQ, right?
So what it does is it canreally help you to grind that
power amp.
You know.
So, when you crank the presence, not only does it give the
appearance that it's brighter,but it actually adds more gain.
That's a weird thing.

(40:57):
So what it does is it limitsthe amount of bass response.
That's why it appears to bebrighter, right, but it's just
making the amp kick ass.
If you have a Fender amp like aTwin or something like that,
like a crazy loud amp, and youdon't turn the treble down, man,

(41:19):
it just keeps going.
That treble just keeps takingoff and going, I don't think by
the time they got to the 85-wattamplifier or high-powered Twin
or any of those things.
I don't think it was about game, man.
I think it was about getting areally nice big, loud, clean
Billy sound you know you gotHendricks out there with a fuzz

(41:43):
face.
go right in the fucking front ofone of those goddamn things.
That's the coolest thing ever,though you know, that's the
stuff that I think that you andI enjoy is stumbling upon a
video of a guy we dig doingsomething out of the ordinary
and go.

Greg Koch (42:01):
How did that happen?
Yeah, how cool.

Tracii Guns (42:03):
Is that exactly?
Yeah, because we have theluxury.
You know those guys didn't havethe luck.
We have the luxury.
You know we could go into checkout anything we want.
We go on youtube now and likesee how gear works and we can
work with other engineers andtell them our ideas and then
they make them come to life.
You know, yeah, we got it waybetter than those guys, trust me

(42:23):
no doubt.

Greg Koch (42:25):
I mean, uh, you know I often discuss this when I'm
doing these, these podcast, justtalking about you know the ups
and the downsides of socialmedia and this technology and I
always kind of stick to thething of it.
It's like we're kind of in thegolden age of learning and you

(42:49):
know making the craft better andhaving access.
I mean I'm sure because youwere the same age.
Remember, when you get like aguitar player magazine and
whoever you were really into atthe time and they would mention
like three, four, fiveinfluences that you had never
heard of before and you're like,well, how do I get those
records?
And if you weren't one of thosereal proactive people that like

(43:10):
sent away for records and youjust went into the Sam Goody or
1812 and they would never havethat shit, or if that, or very
rarely but nowadays this ElmoreJames guy.
Right now you go online and youcan not only see or for sure
you're going to hear whateverthey had, but a lot of times you
can actually see them inpractice.

(43:31):
And then either they will havea thing where they're showing
you what they're playing, orsomebody else is broken.
It's insane, it's amazing.

Tracii Guns (43:41):
It's amazing.
Yet people still would ratherrely on dragging and dropping
loops of music.
And you know, singing a melodyand then having a guitar part, I
don't get it.
You know, it's so easy to learnto play an instrument.
Now, right, you know, andpeople are still too fucking
lazy to fucking learn how toplay the instrument.

Greg Koch (43:59):
That's the other thing about the technology.
I say this all the time.
It's like you know, you'll postsomething and you'll list
exactly what you're using, thesong you're playing, and if it's
not your song, oh, it's byso-and-so, and then in the
comments people will ask thequestions over and over again
about what you just posted up.
But by the same token, youcould, you know no one's certain

(44:22):
.
You have basically the oraclein your hand.
You know what I mean and youcould easily access with a quick
search, like I do all the time.
You know what I mean all daylong.
And it's like, it's amazing tome that people have access to
all this information but theymake they're so lazy, so fucking
lazy, that they they won't evenmake the effort.
Or, like I always say, I'm justso glad I'm able to make a

(44:45):
living doing what I'm doingbecause, uh, you know, you can't
, you can never take anythingfor granted.
So it's like some person mightsee a Wawa video I've done and
be like, oh, I liked that guy.
I saw him on a Wawa video.
Have no idea that I have recordsout.
I have no idea I've donewhatever else I've ever done.
They just like that one thing.
I'm like, okay, well, however,you got here, that's cool.
But by the same token, if I wastheir history, I'd read their

(45:11):
Wikipedia page and then think tomyself, well, this isn't the
whole truth, but this at leastyou know what's my beak a little
bit, you know what I mean.
And then I'm going to go inmore than that and like, oh, he
was in this band.
Well, let's hear some of that.
Maybe there's some footage ofhow are they live, you know, and
you do the deep dive.
And that's where I think youknow where excellence really
comes from.
Have the drive, but it justamazes me how people don't

(45:34):
understand that if you want thisshit, it's like you got to do
the work.

Tracii Guns (45:46):
Yeah, I mean, if you, if, especially for
longevity purposes, you know,like working on a craft and I
don't care what the craft is,you know, but that's, but that's
, that's.
You know, that's the secret tothe baker.
You know the baker didn't juststart.
You know making cakes today,right, you know they, they, they
did their research to havefavorite other bakers and they,
you know all these things andthat's that leads to kind of

(46:08):
like the, the modern guitaristmentality of you know well,
who's the best guitarist, youknow who's been.
I can't stand that shit.
It's so weird and the way Ialways explain it to guys, cause
, you know, people ask you allthe time.
They ask me all the time, well,what's the best guitarist?
And it's like guitar playersare Baskin Robbins.

(46:29):
Man, you go in, you got 31flavors and in this case,
probably a thousand flavors ofthe guys, right, and you know
most people gravitate towardschocolate.
Cool, you know, chocolate'seasy to process, it's fucking
yummy, blah, blah, blah.
But then there's a fuckingcrazy guy that likes, you know,
the pimento, spumoni, you knowmocha, you know all this stuff.

(46:55):
And then, because they likethat flavor, they're not too
turned on by all these others,you know.
So it's just.
There's.
No, of course, competition isgreat, because you know we want
to.
You know I see you play, I go,I want to play that weird bendy
thing like he does, right, andthat's the way it works.
It shouldn't be.
Well, jeff beck did that betterthan jimmy page, so jeff beck's

(47:19):
a better guitar player thanjimmy page.
It's like he's not.

Greg Koch (47:23):
That's not that.

Tracii Guns (47:23):
I love where it works exactly and I love to have
beck and I love jimmy hendricksand I love pat.
You know, from the germs youknow I would never tell a
student like, only fuckinglisten to this, because that's
where it's fucking at, althoughyou know that there are people
like that.

(47:43):
It's like what the fuck man?
You know, and that's where Ithink guys like Angus Young have
been really smart.
Keith Richards has been reallysmart, slash has been really
smart.
They keep it to a thing, rightRight to an identifiable thing
that they do, and it's palatable, it stays the same, it's big

(48:05):
and it grows Right, right.
It's like a thing and I just Icould never really do it, you
know, like there's too much funI want to have.
But I'll tell you somethingabout acdc.
We did a couple tours with themand they always sound check with
the stones.
You know what I mean.
Like so they're like, yeah, wereally dig the stones, man, you
know.

(48:26):
So we just like put a littlebit more distortion on me and
kind of that's the mentality,right, so you, some bands, are
able to focus and really likestick to a thing.
And you know I worship thoseguys.
I wish that my attention spanwas, you know, any bit longer
than a fleas, but it's not.

(48:46):
You know, it's like I want totry everything you know, and
it's fun, it's I want to tryeverything you know and, and
it's fun, it's more fun to tryeverything.

Greg Koch (48:54):
Absolutely.
You know, it's kind of a funnything, is I?
Um, you know, as we're talkingabout discovering things that
you really didn't pay attentionto at the time, and now I I'm
just obsessed, uh, so I don'tknow when it was, but I started
seeing um, well, you know, um,um, Jason Isbell's, uh, a guitar

(49:16):
player, uh, sadler Vaden, right, is that the same?
I've never met him personally,but we've talked online and
stuff.
Okay, yeah, I never met himeither, and he would always post
uh on, I think, like on um, uh,not Instagram, what's the they
instagram?
Oh, threads, threads, thank you, um had a senior moment there.

(49:39):
He was posting this thing andthis was before they announced
the reunion, but he'd be likeanother day has gone by, an
oasis hasn't reunited.
I'm like what the fuck is thiswith this guy's problem?
You know, know, and cause I wasthinking I always thought they
were kind of just like um, uh,like a would be Beatles cover
band, right, I just never paidany attention.
So then, all of a sudden, there, uh, it's getting closer to the

(50:01):
reunion and uh, and then I waslike, oh, you're seeing some
videos and I'm like thosefuckers are funny, right, I
enjoy the little snippets ofliam and noel and so on and so
forth.
Dry yeah, and then all of asudden, I start listening to
these tunes.
I'm like I had no fucking ideathat they are a rock and roll
and now I'm absolutely obsessed.

(50:21):
That's amazing, and so I'vebeen listening to it non-stop.
And what's crazy is is that yourealize, I mean one of the
things that you know, as we talkabout people always kind of um
compartmentalizing everything.
You can't do this or you can'tdo that in terms of this is the
best or this is the worst.
And, and you know, whenever youget the people are like, well,
I'm, I'm just really more aboutthe song.

(50:43):
It's like, well, yeah, you'realways about the good song,
you're about music, music in itstotality, right.
And the one thing that alwayskind of turned me off,
especially when the kind of theamerican-esque, kind of
alternative singer-songwriterthing is- well, we can't get too
crazy.
We can't rock too hard.
It can't get too loud.

Tracii Guns (51:01):
My funny hat might get a you know it's a bizarre
take on being creative, isn't it?

Greg Koch (51:07):
and then, and then I'm listening to these oasis
songs like these.
These guys don't give a fuck,it is just it's time to rock,
and so I've just been.
And it's so simple.
Those songs are so simple.
It's ridiculous, but they'refucking amazing.

Tracii Guns (51:23):
Well, now that you've gone down to Thrabile,
did you see their documentary?

Greg Koch (51:28):
I started to watch it the other day before I had to
leave.
I didn't finish it, but it'slike it's crazy it.

Tracii Guns (51:34):
It makes so much sense, though, because you get
into music, just because youlike it doesn't mean you got to
be good at it yet, right, right,you don't have to be good at it
right now, right, you know whatI mean.
And they're that classic storyof like, yeah, we just want to
go in the fucking basement andfucking play, right, right, and

(51:55):
yeah, they're influenced by theBeatles yeah what's wrong with
that?

Greg Koch (51:58):
the Beatles were also you can also hear all the
Beatles influences wearing ontheir sleeve, you know exactly,
you know, I mean, that's thewhole point.

Tracii Guns (52:06):
And um, you know the the success that they had
very quickly wasn't because theywere virtuosos, it was because
they loved what they were doingand they were very dry with
their sense of humor from dayone.
You know, people love that man,people love humor, people love
sarcasm and the other cool thingthey stick to playing cool

(52:30):
looking vintage style rock androll things.
Yes, even their denim jackets.
You know the whole vibe.
But, yes, their music is reallyto the point.
It gets there right now.
Yep, you know what I mean.
It's not fucking around, it'sgreat production's great right,
you know.
So, you know, I don't knowwhich one it is, but one of them

(52:52):
has very good sense, yeah, no,no, no is the guy that writes.
It's no yeah right, so that hehas a very good sense of what's
coming through the speakers andwhat feels good.
Right, you know, and you know Ihate to tell you kids, but
that's the most important thing,man it comes through the
speakers and everybody in theroom feels good.
That's all that fucking mattersabsolutely.

Greg Koch (53:13):
And what I think is so amazing, when you're now I'm
watching all the footage ofthese concerts that they're
doing.
They're huge, they're fuckingmassive and every person in that
crowd knows those words andthey're singing at the top of
their lungs and you're like thisis it actually gives you hope
for humanity?

Tracii Guns (53:31):
Well, it does, because you know it's a very
like.
You know I love how you saidit's so simple and it is because
rock and roll is, you know, androck and roll has always been
the go-to.
You know, I don't care if it'ship hop or country, because both
those fucking genres right noware just heavily influenced by
rock.
You know country music, youknow I go, I'm addicted to

(53:53):
Cracker Barrel, so I sit out andsmoke cigarettes.
It's fucking delicious, right.
So I sit out there and they'realways pumping this modern
country to the stuff and it'slike some guy comes in playing
through your SLO.
That's not country, that'sfucking, that's rock.
Yeah, you know that's ourcountry.
That's fucking you know that's,that's rock.

(54:14):
Yeah, you know, like the snarehas a big fucking you know
reverb gate on it, right, andyou know.
But the thing that ruins it isthat fucking every goddamn guy
sings the same way.
But I did hear a Darius Rutgerssong the other day that I
thought was amazing throwback towhat country music really

(54:38):
sounds like.
And the weird thing is I heardit on my son's playlist.
He's not a rocker, I don't wantto go into Jagger, he's got
another goal in life and hisbrain does something
extraordinary, but it's notmusic.
So I finally got him his firstcar get in there.

(54:58):
And I go what are you listeningto?
Because he's never listened tomusic in 16 years.
I got a playlist that you puttogether and he's like yeah.
And I go, well, what is it?
He goes, I think it's moderncountry, some kind of hip hop,
and called a white girl music,like Katy Perry style stuff.
So he has this blend of stuffand it's all the modern stuff.

(55:21):
But there was this DariusRucker song on there and I was
like, hey, you know that's thegood song.
Right, he goes, I love thissong.
I go, ok, at least you, hecould tell he connected to
something.
But yeah, rock and roll is theheartbeat of everything.
You know what I mean, fromLittle Richard forward.
It's spicy Right.

Greg Koch (55:43):
You know what I mean.
It brings the heat.

Tracii Guns (55:46):
It brings the fucking heat, and there's no
denying it.
And I got a couple friends,friends, a couple of girls, I'm
talking about doing a kind ofoffshoot band, um, and that
conversation's been brought up.
It's like I want to keep thissimple.
You know, I want to go for thethroat, I want to have a great
time and we're going to befreaks, you know, because,

(56:08):
because if we're not, nobody'sgoing to give a shit.
You know, and yeah, I've hadthis conversation.
You know, because, because, ifwe're not, nobody's going to
give a shit.
You know, and yeah, I've hadthis conversation, you know,
cause I I try to work with youngartists every now and then and
I'll call up like whoever's,like an expert in the field of
whatever music it is.
I'll be like, hey, I've got thisguy recorded, this record, this
is good, you know, and like,the first thing that, like real

(56:28):
pros always tell me is they go.
You know, send me a video, youknow, so I can see it.
And like you know, 10 out of 10times, that guy's a schlep.
What are you thinking?
You know, like it's anentertainment business, man,
entertain me, right, right, yeah, I'm like right, right, right.
You know, fair enough, you know,and it is and it always will be
, you know, and, and, but guyslike us, you know we had a much

(56:52):
tougher time discoveringBeethoven or whatever.
You know what I mean.
It wasn't, wasn't in our faceall the time, and so you know,
when I see somebody reallytrying, you know, I kind of
overlook the schlep factor andlike, but this guy's talented,
you know, right, I have empathyfor this young man, you know,
but it is a business and it'sthe music business and it's the

(57:12):
entertainment business, and Ihave empathy for this young man,
but it is a business and it'sthe music business and it's the
entertainment business, andthat's the bottom line, no doubt
.

Greg Koch (57:18):
I mean, I remember hearing distinctly a buddy of
mine years ago, A buddy of minefrom Little Feet and then my
buddy Catfish Hodge.
They had this band called theBlues B busters and we were
doing some gigs with them andand they loved our band and the
guy's like, you know, I knowsomebody at whatever record

(57:38):
company and um, and he got backand he goes.
All the guy asked was how oldare they and what do they look
like?
You know?
And then, by the same token,you're always thinking, well,
certainly someone along the linelike there's a musical true
north that certain people stillascribe to, and you're like no,

(58:02):
all they care about is where issuccess?
That's the only language theyunderstand.
So if you can be successfulwith men making really cool shit
, great, but that's not theprerequisite, it's not, that's
not the prerequisite.

Tracii Guns (58:14):
It's not funny because if we look at like, uh,
alan Freed, and how he would getto get the single, he would put
it on the radio and it was ahit because that was the only
game in town.
Um, and then smarter peoplecame in said this is great,
thanks, right.
More radio stations, morerecording studios, having all

(58:37):
these guys in the 50s go on thesame bill, play two or three
songs and money, money, money,money, money, money, money.
Artists last, to get paid,right, right, engineer would get
paid a little bit.
Up front Radio guys are ontheir salary, right.
So now we get to this point andI was trying really hard for a

(58:59):
girl I was going out with to getsome radio stuff right and I
get a breakdown from the labelof what the criteria is like.
Real analytics is like a realanalytics, real information.
I'm reading this.
Thought about her age, thoughtabout her audience, didn't

(59:20):
matter how good her songs were,it does not matter because the
funnel, there's already 200pieces of sand that are click
all the boxes, everything behindthose 200 things these people

(59:42):
are going to give up and thenthere's going to be 200 more
grains of sand that click allthe boxes.
So, in theory, yeah, if youhave a great song and it's on
the radio, yes, you're gonnahave great success.
Getting to that point is likenearly impossible.
It always was right.
Yeah, totally, it's not a newthing.

(01:00:02):
But, um, you know, that's why I, like you know, I respect bands
like pantera, for example.
Right, they didn't have allthat.
They were so good and so unique.
And so word of mouth, metallicato an extent too, that there
are some people that cut throughall the noise, but it's very

(01:00:22):
rare.

Greg Koch (01:00:23):
And we're still talking about one or two artists
.
You know what I mean.
That's what I'm saying, exactly.

Tracii Guns (01:00:29):
I don't want to make everybody fill with gloom
and doom, but you're supposed todo music because you love it.

Greg Koch (01:00:35):
I was saying in connection to the earlier thing
we were talking about about theinternet is that it has leveled
the playing field in terms ofyou can directly contact your
fan base.
You just have to build your ownfan base.
It's still the Wild West-ishthat you can still organically,

(01:00:59):
you know, if you're really good,put your stuff out there and
get some traction going,although the analytics and the
algorithm is being a littleprickish as far as that is
concerned, but still you canmaintain.
You know, grow a crowd.
I mean that's what we've done.
I mean we've, we've built upand I always say you don't need
a million anymore, you just needenough.
You need enough people to showup at your gig, enough people to

(01:01:21):
support you.
You know I just like I starteda Patreon thing.
After many, my, my, my son,dylan, is now taking control of
a lot of the different onlinemarketing stuff.
He's killing it.
You know what I mean.
He's like dad, you know.
You know we use the example of.
You know a lot of these guyswho do these YouTube channels.
They make millions of dollars.
They do.
And my son's like, hey, if thisguy and this guys are making it,

(01:01:44):
you should at least be doing X.
You know what I mean.
So you know he's kind of takenover and it's growing and that's
all well and good.
But the biggest takeaway fromall this stuff is you do not
need a million people, you justneed enough people to support
you.
You get 10,000 people buyingeverything you do.

Tracii Guns (01:02:01):
You're fucking done , oh yeah, that's insane, you

(01:02:22):
know, I mean, and I try to tellpeople, you know they ask for
advice because you know a lot ofpeople have, you know, 10
million followers and 20 millionfollowers everywhere, but they
can't sell out.
You know a tiny bar, you know,and kind of the whole point of
what I'm saying is like, ifyou're great and you go to open
mic night, those five people aregoing to be like God damn it,
Right.
And then the next time sevenpeople are going to be there,
Right, Like you can still do itthe organic way and then use

(01:02:44):
your, your social media to your,to your advantage.

Greg Koch (01:02:45):
Exactly, exactly, correct.
That's what we've noticed withjust the fact of you know, to
your point, it's like you canhave all this online stuff, but
the online thing, as cool as itis, it's not the same as being
in the room with people.
There's that that whole magicalthing, that intangible thing
that we all loved and, you know,aspired to music because of
that experience, and so it's.

(01:03:06):
It's getting in front of peopleand, yeah, to your point, you
might go to some town and youknow there's 10 people there the
first time, but if you'reawesome, those 10 people and the
owners of the bar and thepromoter are going to tell
everybody they know.
And the next time you comethrough it's going to be more
and more and more.
But it's, it's that sacrificeof just doing it.

Tracii Guns (01:03:23):
You have to do it, man, you know, especially if you
play rock and roll, right, like, especially if you play rock
and roll.
Rock and roll literally meanslive.
You know what I mean.
It means alive, right, ifnothing else.
And you really got to do it.
You got to connect with peoplein a way where they like you.
Right, you know, becausepersonality is just as important

(01:03:46):
as the cool stuff you're doing.
No, no, you know what I mean.
And if you're a relatable humanbeing, you know, nothing makes
a guitar hero better than areally great singer.
Right, right, right, right.
You know, if you got David LeeRoth or whoever and you're great
, well, people are going to sayyou're great, right, yeah.
But if you got some schlep andyou're ripping all of a sudden,

(01:04:08):
yeah, I don't care who caresexactly?
yeah, you know, a great singermakes a guitar hero, no doubt
about it you know there's somany psychological factors in in
the whole deal, because youknow I was listening to isley
brothers with hendrix um theother day and I thought to

(01:04:28):
myself, how did this not workout?
You know what I mean?
Because it had all the samemagic.
You know, People don't evenknow about it.
It's so weird to me.
And you know they dump him outand then he ends up a little
Richard for a minute and doesn'tknow, what the hell he's doing.
And then he's like fuck it, I'mgoing to England.
You know, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.

(01:04:49):
And all of a sudden it justhappens that's because he got in
front of enough people.
At that point he had gotten infront of enough people in a real
setting where people are likefuck.
You know, my favorite story isthe Clapton one.
He goes, he wants to jam withClapton and Clapton blows him
off, kind of.
And then finally he gets up onstage with Clapton and Clapton
just sits there with his mouthopen Like what, what the fuck

(01:05:12):
man?
You know, magic comes in allshapes and forms and sizes.
And you know, while you'realive, you know, go see some
magic.
That's exactly correct.
I walked right upstage in onevenue and got in an Uber to go
see you do your thing.

Greg Koch (01:05:31):
I remember it well.

Tracii Guns (01:05:32):
Because I want what you give.
Man, you know like I need moreof that in my life.
You know it's just everybody'sso formulated, even on a rock
level.
It seems like these days thatit's tough to really get the
thing, man.
You know it's really it's hardto find it.
Well, it needs to be done.

Greg Koch (01:05:53):
Yes it does.

Tracii Guns (01:05:56):
And I can't do anything else, so I'm going to
do that.

Greg Koch (01:06:00):
Melissa, my friend, it was great hanging with you.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou at the end of the month and
that's going to be a blast.
Hopefully we can do some more.
I think that's going to be alot of fun.

Tracii Guns (01:06:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we will.
You know, one thing leads tothe next.
I just had my buddy, dave,who's a laid-back country picker
, come up and play with us atthis festival we did over the
weekend.
It's so cool when guys gettogether and do stuff, man, this
is like, yeah, no doubt.
So that's my mentality.
So you know, we'll keep thefloodgates open and do as much
as possible Coming up.

(01:06:34):
All right, man.
Thanks, Greg.

Greg Koch (01:06:36):
Thank you my pleasure .
Take care, We'll talk to yousoon.
Peace, Bye-bye.
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Ladies and gentlemen, toanother episode of Chewing the
Gristle.
We certainly do appreciate youstopping by.
Make sure you tell your friendsall about us.
I think they might enjoythemselves.

(01:06:57):
So thanks again for tuning inand we'll see you next time.