DOUG Talks to GARY SPANIOLA about the New album UNTETHERED and Memories of Rockin Detroit with BSA!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Yeah, Hi there detroits wheels.Gary, Hey, Gary, thank you
for checking in. How are youdoing, Gary Spaniola? Checking in from
Arizona? These days? You're stillliving out there in the desert. Huh
exactly, hip running, running fromtumbleweeds. It's crying out here. I
love it. What's the what's thetemperature out there today? Today? It's

(00:22):
about eighty so it's kind of chili. Well, you start to get used
to that, you know, onehundred and ten and anything below that.
It is funny when people come herefrom Michigan. They're wearing it's like ninety
degrees. They're all wearing shorts andT shirts and true Arizonians got long pants

(00:43):
on and you know, white sweater. How long have you been down there
now? It's gonna be ten yearsat ten years of Marshyeah, right now
yours. Oh, we've got GarySpaniola on the line. He's got a
brand new album out. It's calledUntethered, and I definitely wanted to you
about it because it looks like aspecial project because it says produced, engineered,

(01:06):
written and performed by Gary Spaniola.So you did everything yourself? Who
did? What is are you?Paul McCartney? Now? Or what.
Well, actually, a lot ofpeople don't know every album I've ever released,
all five of my albums, Iplayed every instrument, produced, engineered
route performs everything on my one albumin Wonderland, the one I had vocals

(01:30):
on, my wife Erica singing acouple of songs. But all the other
stuff, that's me playing everything.I mean, I like, I don't
know why. I just I think, well, I'm here by myself,
my studio having fun. So Istarted, you know, playing everything.
And then this album, which I'vebeen getting a lot of compliments, and

(01:51):
I think this album puts it aheadof the rest. Is I'm playing drums.
This is my debut as a drummer. Uh so a lot of the
drum tracks are biggest, feel alive. It really brought the album around,
Yeah, and feels much better.Well that's different, that's for sure.
But hey, I want to startout by thanking you too for that bittersweet

(02:12):
Alley track for the WLLZ MotorCity Rocksalbum. All those albums, by the
way, sold out very quickly.There may be one or two hidden end
some store somewhere, but yeah,those went quickly and time to move.
Boy, it's still a timeless tune, and thank you for that copy of
the Bittersweet Alley CD, Detroit nineteeneighty five, live on Wheels Radio.

(02:36):
I want to talk to you aboutthat before we we end our conversation.
But Gary, tell me about thisnew CD I put it on. It
is really special. It's a littledifferent than some of your stuff. So
why don't you explain? The reasonit's called Untethered is because there is no
change, no leases on me.I just whatever I felt like recording,

(02:57):
and it's really strains I guess youcould say. Is the first song I
started recording was a song in themiddle. It's called Ocean View and it's
acoustic. I mean, it's anylon string with a sounding like a stand
up bass. It's, you know, very abstract from what I'm knowing for
and what I have done. Andthat took me a couple of days to
get that finished, and the nextday I wrote the song Untethered, which

(03:21):
is definitely a rock track, youknow, satrianic kind of feeling, made
a little Viniola feel in it fromZeppelin. And there's even a song on
there called One More Time, whichkind of is my tip of the hat.
Who led zeppelins, how many moretimes? It's the old blues kind
of feel. So I mixed itup and one of the DJs out here

(03:44):
in Arizona listened to the album thatit's like a journey, so I went,
oh, perfectly, you know,it's a good way to describe it.
It starts out and if you listento it all in one sitting,
it'll take you from one spot toanother. And it was a lot of
fun doing it. Playing the drumswas really an adventure because I'm definitely not

(04:06):
a drummer, but it just addedthat extra feel to it and put it
to a whole other level. Whendid you start writing these songs? Don't
laugh, but I write while Irecord. I literally I'm sitting in a
chair at night, we're watching ashow, and I'll usually have a guitarre
in my hand out play real quietbecause arrow could be like, stop that

(04:30):
making a noise, so I kindof mute the guitar and I go,
that's kind of cool. So I'llrecord it onto my iPhone and the next
day I just recorded, So therewas no like writing. I really don't
write, like sit down and I'mon to write. I usually just start
writing when I'm recording and it justkind of flows. It's probably I have

(04:53):
a problem remembering songs, Like Idon't sit around with other guys in jam
because I forgot I can't recall chordsthe song, so I get bored and
I write songs instead of you know, playing them, which sounds crazy,
but it's the truth. It's veryvery strange, but it works for me.
Yeah, definitely. I think thisalbum is pretty special in the fact

(05:15):
too, that you're doing some instrumentalstuff that I mean, you've touched on
instrumental before in your career, butuhh yeah, album Entropia. Yeah,
there you go. I knew Ihad heard some of your stuff instrumentally,
but this seems to have a specialplace right now. And the outstanding production
of this. I really got tocompliment you, you know, on the

(05:39):
production, just due to the factthat it just sounds so crisp and clean.
You must have an amazing studio there. Tell us a little bit about
that. Well, first, I'mglad you mentioned that because it's really I'm
not sure what the proper word is, but I spent more time mixing this
album than I did actually recording it. Okay, for that is Let's say

(06:01):
I mix the track and then I'ma fantastic speakers here, like all different
kinds, but for some reason,you go in your car and that seems
to be like the deciding factor ofoh it's to its hide or too much
lows, even though I have apair of you know, twenty thousand dollars
speakers that won't reproduce the same aswhat my car does. So then I

(06:23):
was like, why is this?So I made a digital you know thing
i'd play my car of like theBeatles come Together or the end of it
called the End, the song theEnd, which is on Abbey Road.
If I'd put some Pink Floyd,I would put a bunch of other groups
that I know have incredible sounding records, And if my mix didn't either compare

(06:46):
or some better, I'd go backand mix it again. And that's why
I spent all this time just playingwith frequencies and stuff, and the people
that were mastering the album because itis coming up and Vinyl won't see until
the end of April. But theycalled me. I never had this happen
ever an album I've done. Theycalled me from the record plant and said,

(07:09):
hey, do you mind if wetake a copy of this album,
it sounds incredible and I was blownaway. Wow made me smile. So
yeah, thank you for noticing thatthere was a lot of time spent on
this. And yeah, the studiogear is about of fun. I have
a bunch of vintage stuff that Iuse that helps aid in the sound of

(07:30):
it. But a lot of it'sdone and just high twenty four two k
frequency of how how much it's sampled. Okay, all right, you're losing
me now, but I do thinkit is really, really good, very
crisp. As a matter of fact, quick story, I dove into helping
produce an album once for a friendof mine, Nicos VOTs, and I

(07:56):
tried to do the same thing.I would listen to it in the studio,
it'd be fine. I put itin my car and it sounded muddy,
so I kept trying to change itback and forth. Find me,
I just said, screw this,and I turned it over to an engineer
who spent the rest of the timeputting it together. But I was right.
I was on the right track.Uh Stross three. I mean,

(08:16):
I've been doing this for you know, fifty years, and it doesn't change.
It's always like you're always doing somethingand there's always that elements that you
have to try to figure out.This one though, I really wanted the
low end and the high end everythingjust to stand up. I didn't want
any record coming on the radio aftera song of mine and sound better.

(08:37):
I just spent way too much time. Luckily I can do that making,
you know, having a stand up. So when the guy called from the
plant and said can we keep one? I was like, that was really
cool. It was a very happymoment. That's quite the compliment right there,
I would say, because they probablyhear hundreds of records a month.
Yeah, yeah, that's why Iwas. I was blown away. And

(09:00):
I don't know, this person isn'tlike he's a friend of mine or anything,
which is cool. Also, whatyou said about the time to move
I get today. You know,I have a small record label that I
put stuff out on, and Iget notifications from Pandora and Spotify and all
these pimeline services. So I noticedthe time to move on the WZ is

(09:26):
overdouble what it was in the lastten days. So people are listening to
the which I was going to tellyou today, I was hoping to tell
you I hit ten thousand streams,so today it's over twelve thousand, so
it's about one thousand a day sinceit was released, which is really good
for an independent label. Oh god, I of course have to work.

(09:48):
There is a song I did bya group Ready for the World from Flint
called Love You Down that has sixteenmillion streams, so I got quite a
way to go catch it. Butit's you know, it's still something.
It's for twelve days of it.I was very very happy to see that.
And because of that, it's movingup. Time to move and the

(10:11):
old DSA stuff. It's cool seeingthese charts you can see the countries.
The other thing is want I mentionedreal quick. I didn't even think about
this when I was doing the instrumentals, but Spotify send you what countries people
are listening to it. My otherstuff was always you know, you're taking
you know, Detroit and you've gotyou know, the United States. My

(10:33):
second country, which is pretty closeto the United States is Brazil and it
goes all the way down to Japan. So it's like twenty countries that are
listening to the album. That's whyit's spread. They put it on a
playlist that's for guitarists, So peoplethat listen to guitar music will play it,
and my song comes on and thenif they hit follower like it gets

(10:56):
added and it gets bumped up andgets to another playlist, and I just
pray keeps going, you know,keeps growing. Well, obviously you've got
a growing fan base. Of course, you have a huge fan base here
in Detroit, you know, stillfrom the old Bittersweet Alley days. And
I love the fact and I knowthis Untethered album came out, you know,
just a couple of weeks ago,and you may have already you know,

(11:18):
shot through your two hundred pre orders. But getting that copy of the
BSA album nineteen eighty five live onWLLZ Radio, This sounds fantastic. And
by the way, thank you forthe mention on the back. Well that's
you talking. Yeah, it doesn'tstart off, yeah, starts off with
you, right. Wow. Cool. A little bit about that. There

(11:43):
were boxes and boxes my father,Captain I kept in the closet for thirty
years and that's when I started openingup and that's what first created the book.
I wrote moments which you can getit. All the stories. It's
all about Detroit and the DSA andgrowing up in the MotorCity and I found
that tape. It was a digitaltape of a live broadcast from the Writs

(12:07):
and I said, w Z DougTotel, that's all the tape said,
what is this? So I hada transfer and I was blown away.
God, remit that that's just mastered. I just tweaked a little bit of
a mastering and put it out andit was fantastic. But that was all

(12:28):
you're doing. You can tell,you can tell that is a jammed packed
ritz because it's just crazy. Youcan just feel the energy coming off this
thing. So when you order theUntethered album, are there still Bittersweet Alley
CDs that they can get her?How how can people you know, reach

(12:48):
out and grab these CDs? Yeah, if you go to my website which
is Gary Spaniola s p A nI O l A dot com. Uh,
there's all kinds of you can orderall this kinds of CDs whatever and
it has been extended. So ifyou buy the Untethered CD, you would
get the b s A Live CDwith it for free. And of course

(13:13):
don't forget the guitar pick. Yeah, the guitar pick that comes along with
it too, and and all ofthat still goes to charity, right,
All the proceeds, yes, allproceeds, Every single penny goes to Thank
You Children's Hospital. Nothing is keptfor any All the recording costs, all
that, all that, none ofthat gets recouped. It's all you know,

(13:35):
when you buy the CD, that'swhat's pretty much going two things too.
I've been doing that for the lastfive albums that I really so yeah,
it's something I feel great about andit's you know, that's what it's
all about. I've had I've hadnumerous people tell me they think that is
just the best, and they reallycompliment you every time we bring name up

(14:00):
and talk about that. You're givingback and you've given so much over the
years. I mean, you've broughtso much joy to people with the band
and with your solo stuff and noweven from Arizona, you know, reaching
out and putting out these great recordsthat are different, that are diverse,
that are eclectic, but from theheart. And I think when somebody follows

(14:22):
an artist like yourself, they wantstuff like that. So yeah, yeah,
I'm just doing what, like yousaid, like I feel, and
it might not be like set intoa groove that I should be in,
but I luckily don't have to dothat anymore. So if people like its,
then fantastic. If not, whatever, But I'd also like to say

(14:45):
the guys in the band Bitterswoodelli,when you purchase any BSA, see these
T shirts, mugs, I mean, all this stuff, it's all available.
All they go to sing Jude andevery guy in the band's like,
yep, that's cool, let's doit. So those guys, you know,
deserve the same praise because now oneof them is I ever mentioned?

(15:05):
You know, hey, what aboutme? Not one? I want to
give a salute out to Dave Gerstenand Bill Blake and Rich Nelson and Tim
Marco. So yeah, those guyswere great, and I still follow a
few of them on Facebook, andit's always good to see their reaction to
you know, to your new musicin and all the stuff that's going on

(15:26):
around town. You know what's reallyweird is I sent when I was mixing
the songs sitting here by yourself,you kind of get, you know,
you don't know if is this good, I don't know what I'm doing whatever,
So I send it out to thoseguys and when they came back and
said, wow, this is thisis really good. You're guitar playing kendn

(15:46):
knew. I went, okay,this is cool because a lot of times
when you write something or you recordsomething, you think it's great because you
wouldn't be recording it if you didn't. You know, it's like that's just
part of life. So you kindof get lost in there. And when
they kind of you know, gaveme the okay, like wow, this
is it, it really put meup, you know, to take it.

(16:07):
And then when it started playing onSpotify and it's taking off like that,
that just kind of blew my mindthat, you know, you can
reset the people so fast. Butthat's technology today. So how do I
get my hands on this beautiful guitarthat you have? How can I have
one? Well, it's one ofa kind, and I believe it or

(16:30):
not. That's my old black ListPaul that I played on stage ninety five
percent of the time. And afterputting pickups and drilling a whammy bar in
it and you know, pretty muchdemolishing the poor thing, it sat in
the closet for about thirty years.It's the nineteen seventy seven left Paul pro

(16:51):
same one, Jim mccardi player.We played the same guitar. Oh yeah,
yeah. So when I did theLLZ album, I did a little
and I kept seeing the guitar andI went on that poor thing and I
took it out and I went,oh, so I routed out all the
bad parts, put in mahogany andsent it to a woman in Florida.

(17:11):
But Julie Oaks that did the pain. That is a she paints that unbelievable.
It is. It is to seeit in person. And then I
had to send it to California.The same guys that worked on Fleetwood Mac
and a bunch of these stars inLa did the coding on it. The

(17:32):
final looks like a piano coding,okay, and it sounds incredible. It's
so fun. Yeah, I thinkshe's happy now. I still use them.
Yeah, he's done a lot ofthe tracks on the album. That
is one beautiful guitar. But Gary, thank you so much. Congratulations on
this new record, Untethered. Wecertainly invite people to go to your website,

(17:53):
Gary Spaniola dot com, purchase notonly this, but grab that live
copy of Bittersweet Alley and and getsome of the merchandise, you know,
contribute to Saint Jude's and and continueto follow, in my opinion, one
of the great great musicians here fromthe Motor City, Gary Spaniel. Fantastic

(18:15):
job, Gary, so much,Doug, I really appreciate it. You
are a pillar and destroyed music.But you know that already. Oh man,
I appreciate that all the time.Yeah, have a great time down
there in Arizona. And maybe we'llsee you back up here in the Motor
City not too long. I'd loveto see you do a show here.
If you ever need help with that, let me know, Okay, buddy,

(18:37):
thank you so much, all right, Gary, Gary Spaniel right here
on the Detroit Wheels,