DOUG Talks To DEREAK ST. HOLMES about the upcoming show in Detroit Hosting at Rock Camp and His Earliest Encounter with TED NUGENT

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, either Detroit's Wheels, doggetDerek, how are you, Derek Saint
Holmes, Detroit's Wheels, the GuitarGunslinger. How you been, buddy?
Yeah? Oh okay? Is thatis that? How we're billying you?
Now? Donell? How are you? I'm doing well? I'm uh well,

(00:21):
I don't know if you heard ornot. I thought we might have
tried to contact you for May thirtieth, but you're busy. But I'm going
to be roasted and uh and andour buddy John Bobby is going to be
part of these seven team roast ees, so uh, I'm bracing myself for

(00:42):
that. But he told me,he said, just ask Derek. I'm
funny. So I'm I'm asking youJohn, John Bobby is okay's funny.
Okay, he's funny after what sixshots of Jim beam or He's right.

(01:02):
Don is a good man and he'sgot quite a good sense of humor,
so that should be interesting. Hedidn't tell me that. I wish I
was gonna be that. That wouldhave been fun. Oh god, yeah,
that would have been great. ButI'm pretty sure we couldn't afford you.
So that was But coming into theToken Lounge, it's been a while.

(01:25):
May eleventh, you're gonna have HorseCave Trio opening up, so we're
excited about the show as always.Yeah, Horse Cave Trio. I'm excited
to see him. Yeah, theytook a big sabbatical for a while,
but they're back in. They're reallyyou'll love you know, I mean that
kind of rockabilly sound. Yeah,and I can't wait to see it.
So I'm gonna get the early soI can see it, and anybody gets

(01:48):
here early you will take pictures andshake hands. But oh, there you
go. All right. Well,the last time I saw you was here
in town for that Buddy Miles show. Yeah, how did What was your
take on that? How did youfeel after the show? Because I felt
pretty good. I mean I likedeverything I did, yeh. And I

(02:14):
think I was pretty amazed at howwell it ran. It was. It
was flawlessly run. There was alot of great talent. Jim McCarty was
on it playing guitar, and Ilove playing with Jim. That was a
lot of fun, yep. Andto play some of those old Buddy Miles

(02:34):
tunes and Hendrick's tunes. I meanit was really cool. I believe they're
going to try to do another one, so that should be that should be
a lot of fun as well.But I think it turned out pretty dog
one good. Yeah, with youknow, basically, I don't know what
forty people on stage, I mean, the biggest band I've ever played with.
But I'll tell you, I'll tellyou. The highlight for me was
when you, Jim McCarty and KennyOlsen, three detroiters all up on stage.

(03:00):
You know, I don't know thatwe'll see that again, hopefully we
will, but boy, that waspretty special. Yeah. Well, Kenny's
living here back in Detroit now,so it's very possible. Yes, yes,
you know, I always tell it. You know, everybody down here
in Nashville misses them. But buthe you know, he did the right

(03:23):
thing. Got to be around thekids. Now, how is Nashville these
days? Because you know, therewas just that big article that came out
that said, you know, Nashvilleis changing. It's not for you know,
country people anymore or whatever. Butyeah, it is exploding out there,
there's no question about it. Yeah, you've been there since the beginning.

(03:46):
Is it for country people absolutely?Is it for the new kind of
country absolutely? I think anyone thatwants to play and perform should come here.
I think they would enjoy this place. The beauty of this town,
Doug is you do not have toexplain yourself here if you're a musician.
Okay, So they've still got asmany clubs as before and even more.

(04:12):
Yeah right, yeah, oh yeah, it's booming down there. Well,
I see you playing down there allthe time. What are those clubs like?
I mean, I was to Nashvilleonce, you know, basically the
Strip, but I thought, youknow, we had gone to a couple
of different nightclubs are similar to theToken Lounge, right, oh yeah,

(04:32):
oh yeah, but the beauty Ithink of Detroit as you only have one,
and that's the Token Lounge, right, And if you want to see
something fun and you want to seesomething good, you have to go down
there and see John down at theToken Lounge and you can see some of
your top major artists up close andpersonal. That's the thing I love about

(04:54):
the Token Lounge and everybody down there, Doug, as you know, couldn't
be nicer, right, just goodfolks. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Somebody was telling me about this clubthough. It's the oldest bar in Nashville.
It's called sweet Water. Maybe.Yeah, I think there's a new
place down there called Sweetwater. Whowas it? Somebody was down there a

(05:15):
little bit ago. I forget whoit was. Well, they said,
basically, it's kind of like adirt floor, and you know there's no
real you know, there's no theydon't serve liquor. They just serve beer
and wine or just beer. Actually, yeah, you say dirt floor like
it's a bad thing. No.Is that good for acoustics? I'm not
sure. I don't know. Hey, man, this is Nashville down here.

(05:40):
Yeah, Okay, you're lucky ifyou get a one. You're lucky
if you get it. All right. I have not been to sweet One
yet, but I want to checkit out. I'm so busy. I'm
going every weekend. Tomorrow morning i'llbe in Dallas. I got to play
the Dallas Vinnage Guitar Show down there, and every weekend I'm business. I
don't get a chance to go downmuch. But yeah, it's booming.

(06:04):
I mean, this town is bustingwide open. So I'm glad. We
live forty minutes outside of town.We're way out by the Errington Winery,
which is Brooks and Dunn's place outhere, so oh wow, yeah,
we're out of ways. Do youever run into your old buddy Brad Whitford
from Arrowsmith that there? You know, I haven't had a chance to run

(06:26):
into him yet. I know they'regetting ready to Guroupe to start their tour.
Yeah, so I have not hada chance to see him. He
lives on the other side of townnow, on the other side of the
airport. So it's uh, yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't just bump
into him. But is it inconceivablethat you guys would ever do Whitford Saint

(06:50):
Holmes record again or is that stillDoug? You know we like to put
forty years in between our albums.Oh okay, yeah, very good.
So the third album, maybe we'lldo it just just before we clot So
I saw and this is something I'vealways wanted to do and I'm not good

(07:15):
enough to do it. But weren'tyou just recently at one of those rock
camps. Yes, I do therock and roll fantasy camps. I do
just about one every month. Wejust did one in Los Angeles. Okay,
yep, we did it with ourown Chad Smith with a drummer Chad

(07:35):
Smith is from Red Hot Chili Peppers. He is a Detroiter and Michigan and
he is on fire and he couldn'thave been nicer. He was such a
gentleman to all these people. Hedealt with about ninety people for about six
hours and he was so good.Yeah, I mean, he's a great

(07:58):
guy. He played here in Detroitin a band called Toby Red, and
we still get requests for Toby Redand they were on the They were on
one of the w LLZ albums wehere recently put out over the last couple
of years, as were you aswell, doing Queen of the Forest with
Ted Nugent live. So somebody,a little bird told me that you've been

(08:24):
practicing Queen of the Forest and you'regonna bring it out for this show at
the Token. I think we're gonnabring it out this time, and yeah,
we'll do it. What makes thatsong so hard the just the range,
the vocal range. It's arrangement.It's not the range. Oh okay,
I can still sing all all ofthose songs. We recorded in standard

(08:46):
pitch where a lot of singers haveto drop down a whole, but it's
really arrangement and now that we havethe arrangements very tight and did a lot
of rehearsing, and we're looking forwardto playing a lot of stuff thought that
Stranglehold album and quite a few thingsoff of the Kasker Shpeb album and a

(09:07):
few things off of Free for All. So okay, it should be fun.
So can you can you take usall back? Because I'm pretty sure
by now most people know that youwere the singer for Ted Nugent for basically
all his big songs, And canyou take me though back to that that
very day? How how did youtwo meet and how did this all come

(09:31):
together? Because you know, upuntil that album, you know, had
Ted had been jettisone band members andsingers left and right. There was no
more amboy dukes. Uh, thiswas strictly going to be on his own.
But but then he needed to leanon somebody and that was you.
So how did that come about?Right? And you know a lot of

(09:52):
people think that my voice is Ted's, oh yeah, But what happened was
you know we uh I. Igrew up in Riverview, Michigan and that's
downriver and we had a high schoolband called Scott and it was a three
piece band, just like Cream orJimmy Hendrick, char whatever you want,
a three piece band. So wegot asked to open up for Ted.

(10:16):
So every time we'd open up forhim, they requested us to do it
again. And we did about threeopening shows, and every show I noticed
heads on the side of the stagewatching me, and I think he was
trying to formulate how can I getthis guy to fit into what I want

(10:37):
to try to do and let himbe the singer in the band. And
he also plays guitar real well,so it's not just sort of a stand
up Rod Stewart singer, which iswhat he'd had all the way up until
me. And so that's how itstarted, and we, you know,
we I went up to his houseand he said, you want to you

(11:01):
want to come up here and jam, we'll see if we can put some
together. I said, well,sure, I'll come on up. So
I went out. We jammed forabout fifteen minutes and he stopped everybody and
he looks at me and he goes, how many Marshall amps do you want?
Yeah? I said I'll take twostacks and we all laughed, and
he said, you know we're leavingnext week, can you go and I

(11:22):
said sure, so we laughed andwe were only supposed to be gone three
four days. We didn't come homefor two three weeks, and I think
my first shows were with Trapeze No, which is Glenn Hughes singing. Yeah,
I went straight into the fire,you know, having to some nights
follow him, some nights open upfor him. And now that is not

(11:46):
too much pressure. No, he'sa pretty good little singer. Yeah,
yeah, he's he is quite thewhat do you say, English Stevie Wonder
voice. Yeah, he definitely.Uh, he still prides himself in,
like you, being able to hithis notes. So yeah, he's incredible

(12:09):
and he's a friend of mine andI love him dearly. And so yeah,
that's how that all got. Wenever stopped touring. I mean,
you know, it's like Joe Wallsaid, he thinks he's got an office
or a house, he's just neverseen it. Yeah, you know,
we purchased places and then we tookoff and we never came home. Well,

(12:33):
there's no question that you made you, along with Ted of course,
made that album as iconic as analbum could possibly be. I mean there's
no question about that. Yes,I should go down on record as you
know, helping to make Ted Visionfamous and a lot of money. I
would imagine, Oh boy, I'mgonna get in trouble for that one probably,

(12:58):
but yeah, all right, wellwe're looking forward to it coming up
here in just really a few days, uh May eleventh, out there at
the Token Lounge with Horse Cave TrioDerek Saint Holmes will be kicking out,
all the kicking out, all thatTed Nugent, all those jams. Cannot
wait to Detroit fans, So comeon down, all right, we will

(13:20):
be there and Derek Saint Holmes,thank you so much. We'll see you
here, buddy. All right,all right, thank you so much,
Doug. All right now, rockwith you later. Bye bye, sir. Rock off