#108 - Lemoyne Alexander - From Hip Hop Producer to Rockstar - The Chris & Mike Show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:42):
So there, boys and girls, welcome to the show.
This is Chris, That's Mike. And this is Lemon Alexander.
He is, I guess we're super excited to have on the show
because his credibility, his life resume is outstanding.
You can find us as always, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
So Lemon Alexander, welcome his name.
Is lamoine. Lamoine lamoine.
Dammit, lamoine, lamoine. It's.

(01:02):
OK, it's OK, I get that all the time.
I know, but I I'm not that guy. I like to be like the I'm
pronouncing your name properly and plugging.
Why? We did this before the show I
got. I know just.
Balls a little. Bit man, it's, it's my, it's my
OCD man. It's just who I am.
But now, now I remember Des Moines.
Le Moines. Le Moines.
Yeah, that's what I I tell everybody.
Des Moines, Le Moines. That's great.

(01:24):
Le Moines. So introduce yourself to our we
have this going live right now on YouTube and then we'll be on
the podcast platforms as well. So introduce yourself to our our
fans. Welcome YouTube viewers, My name
is Lamoine Alexander, I'm a recording artist of Rock'n'roll.
Right on. Right on.
That song you heard from the from the beginning of our show,

(01:45):
that's actually Mike and I when we had our band Nemesis.
That's a song called Freeman. Yeah.
Song called Freeman because it'srelevant.
I like that. Yeah.
Thank you. Thank you.
That means a lot coming from you.
Absolutely. Thank you.
It always means more coming fromanother musician.
Yeah, well, absolutely. We we have our own language.

(02:05):
Absolutely. So give us, give us, give us.
We're in an elevator going to the 22nd floor.
This is floor #1 talk about yourself for 22 floors man.
Yeah, Where did you get started and how did you go from?
So I did my own little research.Chris said that how did you go
from the hip hop R&B? How did you go from that side of
things to wanting to be a rock'n'roll star?

(02:28):
That fascinating. Back in the day, I was a major
like force in the rap game producing a lot of big name
recording artists. And I know it was around the
time when it was the Biggie and the Tupac confusion going on and

(02:49):
I lost a lot of casualties in that.
And I the music changed, everything changed and I wanted
no part of it. So I walked away and I had just
got offered all these millions of dollars to do all of this
stuff that I said I'm not doing it.
And I, I cold Turkey walked away.
Wow. Yeah, wow, that's that's a lot,

(03:09):
man. And then I was stuck with like,
OK, So what am I going to do? You know, I've done a lot of TV,
I've done a lot of movies, soundtracks and stuff.
But I still needed to get some of me out.
And I didn't know where to go. And at the time, my dad was he,
I didn't know he had had cancer.He was telling me, I really want

(03:30):
you to go back and sing and do your own thing.
It's time for you to stop producing and writing for
everybody else. It's time for you to do you.
And I was like, I've always hid behind my production and
everything. So I never wanted to be upfront.
So I started a rock band called State of Grace and we did a lot

(03:51):
of songs. And one of those songs that
really sparked off everything for us was the the remake of the
Killer Queen. With Queen I did a song with Oh.
Right on, man Killer. Queen for the for the movie
Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh sweet.
And it never got picked up, but we still put it on the album and

(04:13):
Queen added it to the discography, so I was happy
about. That is super impressive.
Congratulations man. Yeah, that's.
Huge. And that's the record right
there, if you can see it, that'sthe, we got a plaque for that.
And from that point on, I did, we did 4 albums.

(04:34):
And at the end of that term withthe band, it lasted 10 years.
And I kept saying I, you know, everybody was really complaining
in the band because I wrote produce, played all the
instruments and all they did wasporn.
Right. Right.
And and my managers was like, see, you're the guy you should

(04:54):
be up front and, you know, drop the band.
And I was like, no, I'm never going to drop the band.
And the band dropped me. So I said, OK, it's time for me
to figure out what I'm going to do.
And I end up going back talking to my dad and me and him had a
long talk. And I didn't know at the time we
were talking, he was on his deathbed.

(05:16):
And he basically said, you know,make a promise to me that you
would, you know, record your ownstuff.
And if you do that, then I'll bethere to be with you.
And I said, OK. So I left and I went home and I
started working on solitude and.Solitude was 2018.
Right. Yes, yes, one of my favorite

(05:38):
albums. Plus it was my debut album.
OK, right on. He.
Passed during the making of the album, and I dedicated the whole
album to him. In fact, I was almost going to
quit, but you know, I just kept going because I knew that's what
he would want me to do. And I didn't even get a chance
to shop it. I just, you know, talked to 1,

(06:01):
maybe one or two people about the record and Isotopia picked
it up right away, told me to finish it, and then they dropped
it. And then I did the second album.
A perfect world. Same way during the pandemic, it
was always something going on when I was working on both of my
albums. And then I ended my contract

(06:25):
with Isotopia and I was in the middle of a divorce.
And that divorce prompt me to write more songs and like
Insecurity was one of my favorite songs which we was not
planning on putting that out andmy management team.

(06:50):
I said, isn't it amazing how relationship turmoil, it's just
some of the best. Some of the best.
Recorded best, yeah. It's just, it's 'cause everybody
can gravate to to it, right? Everybody can.
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've gotten that.
But you what? You what you guys don't know was
I was in the middle of divorce when that happened and I was
single and I wrote the lyrics based on a date that I had went

(07:16):
out on. And I knew that me and her
would, you know, because I was so insecure because of my
divorce. I really felt like I can't be,
you know, in a relationship or dating or anybody.
I don't even know why I was doing it.
And I kept it real with this person and I told him the truth
and I wrote lyrics about it. And that's how that song came

(07:36):
about. It was for therapy for me, but
when management heard it, there's like, you need to put
this record out. This is this is going to help a
lot of people in the world. And I clearly didn't think like,
you know, I wasn't thinking likethat.
And so I ended up talking to with with my management got me

(07:57):
another deal with a company called Wicked records.
And we ended up all three of us talking together and say, Hey,
let's make this the search the first single.
And and with the first single, they decided to do an animation
video, which was different. I've never seen that before.
And it it turned, I had no idea,you guys, I had no idea that

(08:19):
that song was going do as much as it did.
I've just heard that story. I've heard that story so many
times, man, where like, probablyone of the most famous is
Hetfield talking about nothing else matters.
He's like, that was for me and Iplayed it for me.
And I accidentally played it in front of one of those guys one
of those days. And they were like, I think it
was Bob Rock heard it first, youknow?

(08:40):
Hey, what's that like? No, no, no, no, I'm not taking
this too much. No, you don't understand.
I can't play this in front of these guys.
That was the story. The producer heard it first and
he's like, I can't go play this pretty stuff in front of those
guys. You know, they're going to laugh
at me. And Bob Rock was like, no, you
don't understand. That's going to be the biggest
song you ever had. And.

(09:01):
And and clearly I didn't when I was doing and you write about
that because I love that song that they did, but.
Me too. Clearly when I was doing
Insecure as I was writing the lyrics and singing it to it, you
know, I I was like, there's something with this song and I
had a flight like the previous morning and I was driving in the

(09:22):
car like 4. I had just finished the song 4 O
clock in the morning. I'm driving and it just I don't
know what it did. It was like magic.
It just it touched. Me.
And I almost had a car, literally had a car accident,
and I said something about this song.
I had a ravine and I got out andnobody was around during the

(09:44):
during during the process of theaccident, I got back in the car.
The song was still playing and Ijust drove to the house, packed
up and and got on a plane and I had it in my headphones.
I'm like, there's something about this song.
I don't know what it is, but it's something about this song.
And when management heard it, like I said, you know, I was
like, I really, I felt like, like head feel like, you know,

(10:08):
this is this is for me. You know, when I, when I'm
starting to feel, you know, I have to remind myself when
you're listening to to help me understand what my position is
and what I can and cannot do. So I.
Those are the best moments because like Chris always uses
the word vulnerable, right? When someone is willing to be
100% vulnerable, that's when your true self comes out and

(10:31):
that's what people want to see, right?
That's. True.
Yeah, you're absolutely right about.
That, but it's hard to do that. It is hard.
It's hard. But for me it was like magic.
I did the lyrics, I wrote the lyrics.
I sang a song one time, that wasit.
And I didn't even go back to listen to it.
I just put playing it in the carand that's it.
And we took it from there. When they heard it, they were

(10:52):
playing it every day and they called me.
I said, man, we, we, we have to put this out.
And I was. A little skeptical about it at
first, but then I was like, you know what?
Let's see. I had no idea TikTok would it
would be on TikTok with 3.41 million.
Wow, that sounds congratulations.
So, so, so people that just joining us, you know, on the

(11:13):
YouTube side of it, drop, drop the name of that album again and
which song you're talking about.It's called Insecurity by Lamar
Alexander from the album alone. Right on and now all your
products you can find on on Apple Music, Spotify.
Spotify. YouTube every every place where
you can get music, I'm there. Cool.

(11:35):
Yeah, I just went on to your YouTube channel.
I saw that. I I didn't play it obviously
because we're having a conversation, but I saw the the
animated video pop up right away.
Yeah, Vivo picked it up right away.
I didn't even know that either. When I found out about it they
called me and said Vivo just picked up your video.
Right now. So your transition from the rap

(11:55):
world to the rock world was rocksomething you just wanted to
try? Is that where your heart's
always lied? Well.
It it there's a story behind that.
When I was growing up, I was influenced by guitars.
Awesome. Me too.
At the first, first real sound that got my attention was the

(12:18):
guitar in Me Too, the Diana Rossand The Supremes song, Someday
We'll Be Together. That part, I was listening to
it. I was a kid.
I was like maybe 889 years old. And I'm.

(12:39):
Listening to it and it it, it really mesmerized me.
I mean, put a spell on me and I was like, whatever that is, I
love it and I want to play that.And as I was growing as a
teenager, the my first reaction to guitars was in church.
When I go to church and I see the guy playing the guitar with

(13:00):
Wawa that that influenced, I waslike, I got to play guitar your
church. Played but not at mine, yeah.
Our churches didn't do that, man.
You went to the cool. Church.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, but my church was when they was doing all this and I'm
like, I was going to church to. Church.

(13:20):
I wasn't even paying attention to the pastor.
I'm dead center looking at the guy played the guitar.
I was like, Oh my God, that's what I want to do.
And and then as my brother, I had, well it started with me
being suspended from school and there was an old beat up guitar

(13:41):
in the closet during the winter of me being suspended and I had
to do a whole week with my dad at his house.
My parents were divorced and that.
Was your and that was and that was your punishment.
Stay with my dad, that was it. And he was not nobody to play
around with. So he when he would leave to go

(14:03):
to work, I'd be bored. So I went in the closet and I
don't know what I was in the closet for, but I felt something
behind all of the clothes. And it was this old beat up
guitar. I said, you got to be kidding
me. And I took it and it, you know,
I just went berserk over it had no name.
It was my uncle's guitar. And so I, I used it as a
project. I re cleaned.

(14:25):
It was it. Was it acoustic or was it
electric? No, it was electric.
And then I passed it up. I smoothed it out, put stickers
and stuff on it and it was no good.
Maybe 2 strings on it or whatever.
And I just started playing whatever I could think of and,
and it, you know, from that point on I just did it every day

(14:48):
and my dad would come home like what is he in there doing?
And he found out that I was totally into the guitar.
Yeah. That's cool.
And then you. Know did he embrace?
Did he embrace that in champion?Yes, he did.
He did fully develop me to a point where he saw some interest
he saw me have an interest in. Music.
My parents did that same thing. They paid for my lessons, yeah.

(15:10):
Yes, yeah, mine was a complete opposite her.
Her statement was, oh, you don'tneed to get into that shitty
world. You don't need to play, you
don't need to be one of those people like.
We had supportive parents in themorning.
Chris did not. Yes.
Yeah, like. You don't want to get in that
world, like, OK. But but as I was going and now I

(15:34):
have really found my sound, I had the guitar cleaned up and
the guy that the musician, the music shop, he fixed it up, put
the clean the pots, put new strings on it.
Now I had to learn it was 6 strings.
So I'm like what do I do with six strings?
So what I did was I watched as akid.
I was watching Midnight Special and rock concert every Friday.

(15:56):
How old are you? How old are?
How old are you? At that time I think I was 11.
How old are you? How do you right now?
You wouldn't believe it man, I am 52.
I'm 55, I'm 55, right? I'll be 52.
That's why I want to know, because I remember that I
remember those. Yeah, we all watched the same
thing growing up. I watched it and I was like I

(16:16):
had my guitar in my head and I was watching everything that
they were doing and I was playing everything.
I picked up everything, especially on Midnight Special.
Midnight Special was the best because all the rock bands was
was playing very few R&B and funk bands.
But I said I want to start a band.
So I got with my brother and my best friend and he got his

(16:38):
sister and the four of us started a band and it was that's
all they wanted to play was funk.
I was saying no, no, no, let's play some some wild cherry and
some let's do some other stuff. Nobody wanted to play rock.
So Rush and and and then Lizzy and all of these bands, Van
Halen and nobody wanted to play they they all wanted to play

(16:59):
funk and R and. B And I was like, you should
have, you should have called me.And Mike, man, what's up?
So I was like, all right, I'll, I'll for, for now, I'll
entertain you guys with learninghow to play everything, which
was the, the rhythm section of, of music from Parliament
Funkadelic all the way to slide and a family stone.

(17:20):
I was picking up everything, butmy true heart belongs to rock.
So I learned all the solos from Led Zeppelin, Stairway in
Heaven, Wild Cherry, guitar solos, Rush.
I did everything and then everybody was looking at me.
That's amazing. But we can't do that stuff, you

(17:40):
know? We don't do that kind of music.
I was like, yeah, but one day I am going to do that kind of.
So here's what I learned. I was working at Guitar Center
for a couple years, and that's where, for me, the cultures
started to mix, right. I learned that people are
people, so when the black guys would come in, they would want
to know what I knew just as muchas I would want to know what

(18:02):
they knew. About.
So I wanted to know about Motownand R&B and rap, and they wanted
to know the guys who had your interest, right?
This is what fascinated me. I'm like, man, people are
people, you know? People get pigeonholed by the
media, right? People listen to rap, white
people listen to country or rockand.

(18:23):
Yeah. That's weird.
No, that's. Not the way life is.
So these guys would come in and we'd start talking and they
would be just as fascinated withwhat I knew as I was with what
they knew. Just that's why I asked the
question, where did your heart lie?
Because people would be fascinated that you know, all
along you like that sound of VanHalen and ACDC and because you

(18:47):
didn't and Rush because you heard what we heard.
It's not just straight ahead rock.
Van Halen is a swing. ACDC is a swing.
People don't realize till they sit down to try and play it.
It's like, wow, this is harder than it looks, right?
So. Let me.
Tell you this story, I walked away.
I did my last rap record with Too Short and Jazzy Fate and I

(19:13):
walked away. I was completely done with rap.
They asked me to promote it. I don't even want to promote it.
I'm like, you guys do whatever. And then I got an offer.
When I was with rap a lot, I hadanother artist come to me and
they everybody was throwing the kitchen sink at me to come back
to produce. And I was like, Nope, I'm done.
What I did was I gave them all of my files of all of the rock.

(19:36):
I mean the rap stuff, you can have it, take it.
I didn't even ask for no money, Just take it.
Wow, that's. Crazy.
Two days later I was stuck in the house and I picked up my
guitar and I started playing cool.
This true story. And the song was a cheap trick.

(19:57):
I want you to want me. Dude, great band, great song,
underrated. So I started playing.
I want you to want me. I have my whole studio set up.
I said what? Let me record this and I
recorded the vocals, the guitars, the bass, the drums,
everything. I had everything.
And I played the drums, I playedthe bass and I had a whole

(20:19):
complete song. The next day I heard the full
song and I couldn't believe it. I was like, I got it.
I can still do this. I want to do rock.
And because I did that Cheap Trick song, I went in and I
recorded all brand new rock stuff and it and I didn't even
be honest with you, I didn't even have the proper guitar.

(20:41):
I think I used the bass for somerhythm sections of the guitar
because I had the software to change the bass into a guitar.
Oh, that's brilliant. And I, I just went berserk.
So I knew then that I wanted to go back to guitars because my
last production in rap, I influenced guitars in my rap

(21:03):
production. Oh, right on.
I wanted to have some kind of live guitars going on in my rap.
And that's what those guys wanted that were coming into
guitars. And that's why they were coming
to me, because most of my stuff was based on live, you know,
music and instrumentation. What year was?
When I did that song. Yeah.
What year was this? Lemone Lemone this.

(21:24):
Was 2008 or 9, No 2009. And I went into the studio the
next day and I cut the song called Life Goes On because I
knew when I did the cheap trick,I knew I could do my own music.
So I wrote Life Goes On and I played it for this other guy.

(21:47):
And at the time I was seeing this girl, she heard the song
and she took the song. She said, Lamoyne, this is this
is a great song. You need to you need to really
do something with this. And I was like, I'm just messing
around with it. She took it and gave it to a
radio stage, wasn't even mixed her anything.
And they played it on the radio.And when they called me, the

(22:07):
radio station called me with you're like, you know, this is
beautiful. We're going to have this song on
regular rotation. And I was like, Oh my God, can
you not do that yet? Let me go and mix it, have it
properly done, and then I'll send it to you.
And so that's what I did. I paid for the song to get mixed
and everything. And I sent it to them.
And then they played it every day.

(22:27):
I said, OK, I'm putting the bandtogether.
I put a band together and the rest is history.
Man, man. It's been I've been making rock
songs ever since. And that was that.
What's the band's name again? Date of grace with an 8.
Yep, St. 8 OK. Yeah, State.
And the last song I did with them was a song called Chasing
Tie. OK well that's why when I hit

(22:48):
State of grace on YouTube I couldn't find you but now it's
state St. 8 of Grace. ST8, the number 8, that was my
son's idea. He was like, no, that put eight
there and man, we toured everywhere.
We we opened up for a lot of bigbands against me, George
Clinton, we did a lot of stuff. I had no idea that the band

(23:11):
especially Life Goes on, 15 minutes of fame.
And I think there was one more song the the the song we did
with Queen and it was another song.
All four of those songs really took us to new heights.
But then, you know, once again, I started like feeling like, you

(23:34):
know, I'm doing too much becauseI write, producing all the
instruments. And people got used to IT.
People will get used to me just doing everything.
And I got to the point where I can do this myself.
I don't need a whole band no more.
And management was like, yo, man, you need to stop hiding
behind a band, man. You need to just come out front.

(23:55):
So I said, OK, I'm going to takea chance.
Yeah. So I did and.
He never and he never looked back.
I never looked back and here we are today.
As far as singing goes, is that what you're saying, being a
front man? Yeah, they wanted me to be the
front man. To make that clear to the people
that are listening. The three of us are musicians.
We've been doing this our whole lives.
We can talk our own language. He's talking about, you know, I

(24:18):
came out front and I became the leader of the band.
Yeah, and, and, and and remind you, I was the leader of our
funk band when we were kids and we won all the state
championship awards, even in Chicago.
You know, I had no idea that once I got in front of an

(24:39):
audience that they would tell me, my band, my family,
everybody would say you would get possessed.
It's like you don't even know what you're doing when you're.
I'm a completely different person when I'm on stage. 100.
Percent, man. Chris will attest to that.
I'm a pretty mellow guy out off the stage.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know what happened to
out there. I'm really shy most of the time.

(25:00):
But yeah, man, I saw a tape of what we perform especially like
even with now with some of the shows that I've done and they're
true, that they're telling the truth.
I get possessed when I'm on stage.
It's. Like, I'm glad there's video
evidence because I've, you know,he shared what he had left of,
you know, the shows that we recorded and some of those
scenes I see. I'm like, who is that guy?

(25:22):
Yeah, yeah. But see man, see, I'm the I'm
the front man too, so I understand.
So you know what I'm talking about.
But you have. To tell you my band.
Yeah, my band, band in the background would be like, it's
going to be interesting to see what he's going to do tonight
because they never know what I'mgoing to do.
No. And see, my, my, my difference

(25:43):
was with when we would go live. We got so comfortable with our
music because we rehearsed so much that that they would follow
me going off my little improv tangents.
When? And back when we were when we
were doing it, nobody was improving.
So I had this weird thing I did.I called, I called spoken
singing. When I would, there were there
were songs that I would kind of speak sing to it.
But again, because of how we wrote and everything and we were

(26:05):
so tight as a group, it didn't matter where I went, they would
follow me. So but you, you and I can attest
to the fact you have to engage the crowd.
The the crowd has to go through you before they go back to those
guys. So if you're not doing your job,
it's not going to go past you into the whole musicianship and
the whole product itself. It falls flat.
Well, let me ask you, since you know where you know where I am

(26:29):
because you do the same thing I do.
One time I did a show and I never forget this.
This was, it must have been like1000 people out there and I
rehearsed with the band One time.
Wow, never did that before. I know I do not like that.
I like rehearsing Pastor Me until I get on stage, but things

(26:50):
were so crazy I had to fly in and the whole thing, so we did
the show. And has this ever happened to
you when you're performing because you're such a
perfectionist when you're on stage?
I know how to reach my fans, butthe music behind me, I'm
listening to these guys and I want them to play the song the
way I wrote the song, the way the song should be.

(27:14):
And they they, I don't mind themchanging it and channeling it
into whatever they want it to be, but it still has to sound
good. Do you pay attention even while
you're in the middle of a song to what everybody's doing in the
background? And you know, I've done that a
few times and I go. You know.
What are they playing back there, you know?

(27:35):
Yeah, I, I was blessed with the fact when it with, with Nemesis
anyway, that that we were. So we did because we did so much
rehearsing and so much writing and whatnot that I would follow
stuff that Scott done the drums for cues.
I would follow stuff that Rick did on bass for cues and stuff
Mike did, especially coming in out of solos and stuff.
So I would bring a lyric sheet to Mike and say, here, this is

(27:57):
what I got. OK, so I wrote a song called
Vision, right? So I gave it to Mike.
Mike took the vision lyrics and and the innate ability he and I
have. He could take the emotional
content from my lyrics without knowing what the content was and
and pairing it perfectly. So it was just a dynamic that he
and I had. So then I'm a good.
Chandler in the morning, right? Right.

(28:18):
So he so we would recreate the the basic melody from that and
then bring it to Scott and and Rick in a practice.
And then Rick's bass would change the dynamic of it.
Scott's drumming would change the dynamic of it.
So then we certain parts of every song we would do to where
I would come in after Scott hit a certain beat on the drum, you
know, and it wasn't Even so muchthe normal count stuff.

(28:38):
It was just different elements from the from the verse to the
chorus verse. To the bridge to the.
Chorus. So I get what you're saying.
Yeah. So.
Here's It doesn't throw you off in the middle because you.
Know, here's a, here's a good way to put it, Lemoy, not to
interrupt you, but this is goingto fascinate you as a songwriter
and a musician. Basically what he's saying is
like Freeman is a 3 minute and 24 second song, right?

(29:01):
Yes. We could turn that into a 9
minute song if we wanted to, andall Scott would have to do is 1
quick little fill that would trigger Chris's brain to go, OK,
we're going back into the song now, right?
We had little magical things built into our songs like that
so that we could either shorten them, extend them, do whatever
we needed to do. So like he was almost like the

(29:23):
general, you know, the, the he was the point guard of the band,
right? He's the man.
He's the one that he's the guy with the stick in his hand doing
like this. But we were blessed, and Chris
always gives everybody else props for this, and so do I.
We were blessed that the three of us look to him to be the
leader in that respect. You know, it wasn't like nobody

(29:44):
had an ego in that band. No, that's what it takes.
To have that, I think that's theonly way you can have a jam band
or improv, improvise on stage, which we love to do, you know?
Yeah, I never had lead singer disease.
Yes. Me neither, me neither.
The only thing that that used toirritate me.
Most of them especially. Well, all the bands I played

(30:05):
with. They all do like to what are we
going to do next, you know, and I go, OK, you got you got you
guys got to, you know, evolve, put more input in it.
So we could. You know, vibe off of each
other. Everybody looked for me for
answers all the time. That's where Chris took over.
You know what? Are we going to do next?
He would be like, let's just fucking play, man.

(30:27):
I just, that was my answer. Let's just fucking jam man, Who
cares what we? Play.
Let's go. That's usually the, the key
point, you know, just jamming. Let's just have some fun.
And like I said, you know, this new band that I'm working with,
I'm very, very, these guys are pros, man.
They know exactly what to do, how to do it.
And I don't even have pretty much have to even play.

(30:48):
They play that well, you know, and I could play with them or
not play and still feel the drive from the songs and it
motivates me. And that's all I was looking for
really, to jail with a good bandthat I know that can help excel
and bring me out where I could, you know, be more focused with

(31:08):
the fans and and the audience. So here's a question for you
because you touched on this withwith your home studio and stuff
and playing every instrument when you laid down the I want
you to want me from cheap Trick,right?
So with every instrument you play, you self-taught with
everything that you play. Everything.
That was my question. Thank.
You everything. Everything.

(31:29):
I played live. I played drums.
I played bass. Yeah, I played guitar.
Yeah. I play Congress.
Any type of percussions, OK, AndI do all the vocals.
I got a three-point octave rangevoice.
I can go high, low and me. Right on.
And and I write all of the songs.
That's cool, man. Very.
Piano. Piano keyboards.

(31:51):
Piano too. Piano.
I had to. I taught myself how to play
piano for that started when I started producing.
Rap. That was the real the work
instrument because, you know, everything was centered around
the piano, so I really had to learn how to play that.
So here's the thing. But here's here's I want to go

(32:11):
down the rap path because I've never been a big rap fan.
Just not my thing. So this may come across as a
completely ignorant question or it may be something that's
completely enlightening. So from a musical, from a music
standpoint, instrumentation wise, what what what is
typically guitar? Like you talked about bringing

(32:31):
guitars in the rap, right? And and so you have are you
talking everything with a band would have, because most of the
rap artists you see now when they go on stage, right, they
have the tracks behind them. They're just on stage by
themselves. That's true.
You know, so you don't see the musicianship part of it, right.
So you're, you're in the studio.You mentioned Tupac, so I'm
assuming you did something with Tupac.

(32:52):
I did. I was getting ready to work with
Tupac before he died. OK, cool.
OK, that's right. So, so you're in the you're in
the you're in the studio with a,with a rap, a rapper, a rap
artist. What's what's the music behind
what they're doing? Because all I hear from all I
hear in rap is is the. Samples and scratches.
Right. OK, what I usually do, I

(33:15):
incorporate. The only thing I incorporate
that's live. When I was doing towards the end
of my rap career, production wasmostly guitars, bass and some
drums. But most of the drums was always
sampled in drum machine. You know, most of the time.
I mean, maybe I would try something different

(33:38):
occasionally, but most of the time is drum machine.
OK. So with the with the drum
machine is that is that because then you don't have to worry
about the human element as far as the timing goes Exactly and.
Rappers don't care about, you know, live musician, they just
want to get the beat off so theycan do their rap over it.
So that was simple for me. But being eclectic and being

(33:59):
different and trying to come up with different styles, you know,
I didn't want to sound like everybody else.
So I incorporated live bass playing over the drum tracks.
Really. Because it was live, you know,
and if there was a mistake maybe, but you in my tracks, you
would never hear the same repetitive bass line.

(34:21):
This is towards the end and whenI started, yes, I take a, a, a,
a mood bass or something and sample, I mean recorded 4 beats
of it and copy and paste it. So I'm done.
Then I said that's what everybody else do, I want to do
something different. So I started playing from the
top of the song to the end with all these these notations that

(34:43):
would change the dynamic or the baseline straight to the end.
And I like that. So I said I can do the same
thing with guitars. So I'd do a strum or Wawa or
something and they go, oh man, that's too live.
Can you cut it up and not paint?I would cut.
I would play live. And cut.
And chop it up and put it in thedrum machine to make it sound

(35:03):
like it was simple. But you're still getting that
human. Element, right?
Yeah, it still has the human element.
In it but yeah sometimes I wouldsample myself and put it in a
drum machine so I can still havethat rap element and that's what
everybody like because I could play every any instrument any
instrument so as a producer you're.

(35:23):
Injecting these these musical instruments into the song that
you're producing to make it stand out even more than it's
already trying. Because absolutely the rap music
industry is everything like rockand you got to you got to have
something's got to stand out. You got to have the hook.
Something's got to break you because you know what?
1000 people want to be a rap star, right?
So what's that one thing? Is they're going to take you.

(35:44):
Over the knot, over the top, right?
So if you're making that much fuller of a sound behind the rap
artist, I think that would give them an edge when it came to
airplay and and popularity and, and grabbing the hook and stuff,
right? Yes, exactly.
Yeah. And when I did.
That. It was so different and unique.
They would pass it on and that'show I got signed to rap a lot

(36:05):
because they would pass it on toother rappers and yo man,
where'd you get that beat from? And then it just just would just
spread and then go on. I ran that label on one who ran
that label? You were.
Signed to. Who ran it?
Yeah. Which?
I'm. Assigned to multiple labels?
Which one? The one that you just mentioned.

(36:27):
Rap a lot. Rap a lot.
Yeah, I've heard. That.
Name. Yeah, Rap a lot is a.
Big name, a big record company. Oh my God.
Oh. My God, I'm just seeing them
last. Night.
I forgot his name right now. That's cool you.

(36:47):
Know he he's really. Good He he knows how to pick
most of the the the rappers and,and he pretty much called me and
asked me to. We had a big meeting over the
last artist. And this was during the time
when when I was getting ready toto work with R Kelly's brother.

(37:07):
He was a rapper, you know, and. We never.
Got around to doing he was probably, I would say, my last
rapper that I was getting ready to work with.
Never heard of R Kelly having a.Brother who was going to be a
rapper? Yeah, yes.
You and you never will. But you know, the guy is
fantastic. That's, you know, he can't shine

(37:29):
past his brother, but that's whythat's that's a.
That's a terrible shadow to follow to.
It is because everybody. Has a right to be their own
individual and that that's supersad to me that, you know, one
person can ruin it that bad for somebody else.
But you're right. He did.
Yeah, well. It's kind of like.
Yeah, it's kind of like Michael Jordan's kids.
None of them play basketball because how could you?

(37:51):
How could you live up to your father?
Well, they all tried. No, it's.
Impossible. They they tried.
But they failed. But it's it's just, I mean,
Lebron's kids can live up to him.
They just got to flop better, you know, But it's you just it's
hard to live up to somebody withthat magnitude.
Like Jacob Dylan is Bob Dylan's kid.
He's he's good in his own right,but he'll never reach the level
that Bob did. You only, you know.

(38:13):
You only. Get that?
Yeah, You talking about? Dylan Bob Dylan's son from
Dylan. Yeah, Wallflowers.
Yeah. Wallflowers.
Yeah, The Wallflowers. Yeah, like.
Like. He's a great singer.
He is, absolutely. But he'll never.
He's the son of Bob Dylan, so. Right, right.
You just. Never.
You can never aspire. Like if Mick Jagger had a kid in

(38:34):
Rock'n'roll, yeah, it's not happening.
And as he's got a kid, but he's not in.
Rock'n'roll and as good as he is.
Wolfgang Van Halen is in the same light, right?
You're right. We only get one Eddie Van Halen.
Yeah, yeah, and and. And Wolf was named Wolfgang.
Yep, Wolfgang. He's fantastic.
He's fantastic. Mammoth that's.
The name of Mammoth? Yep, Mammoth.

(38:55):
Yeah, and. He's and he and he owns his
space. He owns and he's good at like I
didn't give him credibility whenthey first came out because I,
like everybody else thought, oh,riding the coattails of Eddie.
And then they opened up for one of my favorite bands, Alter
Bridge, and I was blown away. I was just, I was blown away by
his stage presence. A nice band too.
Alter Bridge is fantastic man. And the nicest, most humble,

(39:16):
down to earth guys you'll ever meet in in at least I may just,
I just, you know, just amazing. But the way he commanded the
stage and the presence that he had and his engagement with the
crowd and I was just like, holy shit.
He he's, he's carving his own slot in this industry and he's
doing it without emulating his father.

(39:38):
Now he had exactly. And now that was one thing.
That impressed me. I was like, he's doing it
without, you know, no help for his dad or nothing, you know,
and he found his own sound and everything.
I was very proud of him for that.
Yeah. Yeah, he had a couple moments.
Yeah, yeah, couple moments can'tget past their dads or or.
Anybody that's. In the game.
You know you can't pass them. And like he, he plays.

(40:00):
Every instrument that's also impressive.
Yeah. Yeah.
And he's self-taught. Yep.
Yeah, he's self-taught and you know.
His dad. Helped him.
A little bit, he said his dad was the worst teacher.
Ever though. That's on.
Record, yeah. His dad was.
The worst teacher? Yeah, he said.
My dad's one of those. Guys that can do it.

(40:22):
And yes, he's Eddie Van Halen. But I'm telling you right now,
he's one of the worst teachers ever because he can't slow
things down. You know he only plays it at 1
speed, so you got to be able to either keep up or.
Right. And I.
Don't. Take away from shredders I
think. Shredders are that's that's cool

(40:43):
with them. I shredders I can if I wanted
to, but so can I. There's a.
Place for it? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm deep.
When I play my solos, my souls, my solos are like spiritual.
Yep. Yeah, I want to hear one note
that's gonna means something. B.B.
King means B.B. King means more to.

(41:04):
Me than Ingvae Malmstein, right?Or Joe Satriani, Then you know
what I'm talking about. I can.
Listen to BB play all. Day long.
I can listen to Stevie Ray play all day long because Stevie Ray
knew when to play fast. But when he hit you with that
note that didn't belong there, you're like, Oh my God, where'd
that come from? You know?
And then he would. Just hang on it like.

(41:26):
Why do you do that? BBBB is.
Another one that taught me resilience and and feelings when
you're playing. My dad used to tell me listen to
B.B. King and I was like, I don't,
he's a Blues guy. I don't want to hear him.
I heard him. The thrill is gone.
Yep, Yep. What's?
The. Space in between.
Right. Oh my God, I was for that right.

(41:48):
Spot. I was like, OK, I'll see.
What they talk about, yes. I was very impressed.
The one thing I studied him too.The one the one thing I was.
Going to mention earlier when I had when I was at the the Ultra
Bridge show with Wolfgang Van Halen, he only, he only did the
the Eddie Picken thing once in the whole show.

(42:09):
Oh the tap fret board tapping. Only once.
Only once. Yeah, only one time.
Yeah, only one. Time and so that I thought was
cool too, because he he really wasn't trying to be his father
no, he was just. Wanting to be himself.
Which is cool. Man it is man so.
Let's let's dive more into your.Your life resume Lemoyne I want

(42:31):
to know I want to know how old were you when you first got to
the. Level to where you.
Were being paid significantly for for either performing or
producing and what did that looklike?
Was that the rap world? Yeah, it started in a rap.
Row and by the way, the the guy the the president of rap a lot

(42:54):
is Jay Prince. That's his name.
What up? What up, Jay Prince?
Shout out, yeah. My my career started picked up I
to be honest with you, yeah, I was doing plays, doing music and
plays OK and. After.

(43:14):
A little bit a little bit of time I spent in that after my
family, my brothers, cuz I did aband with my brothers called
Generation. And then we get another band
after that going into the 80s called The Fascination, and we
score maybe about three hits, like literal record company hits

(43:37):
and everything. And then I got out of it and
then I started producing with some of the guys that was in the
band, and that's how we started producing.
Oh, gotcha. You know, my first real job came
when I was in college, DavenportCollege at the time, and I got a
phone. Call and.

(43:58):
They said that, you know, they wanted me to come to Chicago and
I was like, for what? You know, I was like, man, we
need you here. And, and I was like, you know, I
spoke to them and little that I knew, it was Mr. Lee and they
wanted me to work with R Kelly and R.
Kelly needs a team of. Producers and some positions.

(44:20):
And so I said, OK, So I packed my bags and I moved to Chicago
and I went to work with R Kelly at the time.
And two years I spent learning how to program and make beats
and all of that because like I said, I come from a musician's
background where everything was live.
So I had to learn how to containall of that in machines and.

(44:45):
Being around. These guys, they taught me how
to do all of that and I said, well, I got to be different than
what everybody else is doing. So I spent days and nights
trying to perfect my craft all the time.
And that's. When I started.
Getting paid working for R Kellyand then it went from there
because I left R Kelly and I started working for Michael

(45:07):
Bivens from. Yeah, and his company, same.
Thing I spent a year with him doing the same thing, you know,
making beats for his artist. Then I left Bivens and went to
Motown, same thing a year with them.
Then it just spiraled into otherthings with with, you know, I
work with McMillan, who was manager managing Prince and

(45:32):
Stevie Wonder at the time. And.
You know, we formed this connection and then I started
working with him for like two orthree years and he brought me a
lot of clients. And that's why I said this was
during the time where I was literally about to work with
Notorious BIG before he got killed.
And. And faith and Faith Evans and

(45:55):
doing all these beats, you know,I just learned how to do my
craft where everybody was comingto me based on, on, you know, my
experience. And then from there I started
making all this money doing all of this just producing stuff.
And, and then I got an offer to from working with another artist

(46:20):
that took me to rap a lot. And at that time when I started
working for rap a lot, I did a like a 10 year contract with
them. Didn't know it, but I did a 10
year contract with them. And it during the process of
that, you know, things started drifting and slowing.
So I started spreading my music around working with Murder Inc.
During the time I did something with Murder Inc, RCA and I met a

(46:46):
Tron, which was Tupac's the manager, and we were talking
about doing some stuff for Tupac, but then he got killed
right after that. So, you know, the whole rap game
just was just gave me a bad feeling.
You know the. Longevity.
Of it, the safeness of it, it's just I didn't feel comfortable
doing it no more. The bigger that I.

(47:10):
The bigger I got in producing and making beats, the less I
wanted to do it. Wow, interesting.
Yeah, the less I wanted to. Do it, You know, I'm not going
to lie. It made me a lot of money, lots
of money. I was able to buy stuff and do
stuff for my families and everything.
But the IT just just, I just, I just didn't like it.

(47:34):
Yeah, I just, you know it. Just wasn't.
For me and then people. Go ahead.
I should say when so. When you turn on the radio.
When you turn on SiriusXM, whatever you choose to to listen
to music, how often do you hear samples of your stuff in the
music room? Yeah, that's the beauty of it.
You know, I could go back YouTube and I could go back and

(47:56):
listen to a lot of stuff that I produce and it makes me feel
good, you know? Right.
Yeah, and I still get checks forit today.
And it's not as big as it was. Back then, but I still but
still, you know, but still. Yeah, let me ask you this,
Lemoyne. The behind the scenes for me,

(48:16):
the fascination. I was like a little kid at
Christmas the first time I saw arecording studio.
Just all the lights and the, youknow, like the little kid in me
came out, all the knobs and the like.
I got it Is that you know what? I know that feeling.
What? You're talking about.
Is that what made you want to doit?
Because I think you either have it or you don't, right?
Yes. OK.
I don't know, You know when they.

(48:36):
They talk about you got that it thing.
Yes, that's what people. Used to say to me.
You got that it thing and I go what the fuck is that?
It. Yeah.
What is the? It I just like making music, you
know, but. And I don't know, I kind of, I
kind of like measured it as likethe IT thing being maybe you

(48:58):
would dedicate your entire life to it and you don't give a shit
about nothing else but that. Yeah, right.
That's how I. Put it you know I.
Don't know? Well, like Chris.
Chris. Gave me a huge compliment
earlier today. You know that I have my own
style and I'm super proud of that because I I can't play a
bunch of cover songs, right? That wasn't my thing.

(49:19):
I wanted to figure out what the guitar meant to me.
You said it earlier, spiritually, that's what, that's
what made me understand what my place here on earth was, right
When I learned how to do that and make people happy doing it,
I'm like, well, that's cool. You know this must be my thing.
You know this is beautiful. That we're doing this guitar

(49:40):
talk. You guys make it When I start on
my when I start my next album, Iwant you guys on my album.
We want to stay. In connection with each other.
Because I want to hear this, I got to hear you guys play.
I want to talk beats with you. Because that's the part I suck
at. So this is beautiful for me,
too. Yeah, I tell you, Lemoyne, he's
been. Harpering on me forever to get

(50:01):
musicians on the show. I'm like, dude, I'm trying, I'm
trying, I'm trying. So when when she reached out to
us, it was just like, yes, righton.
And then such a spiritual connection before.
We ever met, man? Yeah.
Because it's it's. All we're all old.
You got to be for what? For what we always wanted to do
and you're still doing it, whichkudos to you.
Your soul has to be so old. You have to have roots that that

(50:23):
just ground you to be. That's true because you want.
Because. We all know this and, and the
lead singers for sure. We're walking on stage in front
of people that don't know us. Yes, we're walking.
Without crowd. Right.
And the crowd has to like with the arrogance to think that.
We belong there, right? Yes, Without.
Without. Without being an arrogant,

(50:46):
narcissistic ass hat. That's the key, right?
Because. Then you don't.
You know you don't. I don't think I think with.
Lead singers, they'll never get past that, but it's rare to get
one that. Doesn't have lead singer
disease, which I was lucky Chrisnever.
Made us feel like this is my band and without us we're not.

(51:07):
I agree with you on that. And even with my band now, you
know, even when we play, I always said, hey, look, I'm, you
know, we're banned. Let's all work together as a
team. I'm not that guy.
Look, you do it this way or you're going to get fired or no,
I don't do all that. I never done.
But here's the purpose. But.
Here's where. I'll give my drummer.

(51:27):
And I credit we founded that band.
Chris joined shortly after we founded the band.
We were smart enough to know what people related to, right?
They related to him because he was the one that they heard from
first. Hey, it's Friday night at the
Mason Jar in Phoenix, AZ. How we doing?
Right. That's that's it.
That's what they saw. So everybody gravitates towards

(51:49):
the singer. We, we as musicians, allowed him
the opportunity and the affordability to do his job
without thinking he was trying to be an egomaniac.
Right. Right.
He was a huge personality on stage every night.
He just was. Yeah.
But then in everyday life. You just, you know, I'm just a
social butterfly. But I had the, I had the

(52:10):
presence on stage, the Iron Dog,and we'll explain that some
other time. But that was my persona.
That was my persona on. Stage I mean.
You know, I there's one side of the Mason jar where I reached up
and grabbed the light trust and was swinging on it and and I
looked down at Mike and Mike looks over at the whatever guy
over there and then he's like, get off of that.
I'm like, my bad, but you know, get off of that.

(52:32):
It was just. But that was The thing is.
Like you step on stage, you haveto.
It's like kind of like a hell. It's like a possession, man.
I don't know. It's just you got to turn it on.
You got to be able to. Yeah, yeah.
It just turns on once you once you whatever you do.
Like I sell houses so when my phone rings, I can turn on the
real estate guy like that. No matter what my day is like, I
go, hey, there's some real estate guy, you know.

(52:53):
Good afternoon. But so, so it's the same concept
with what you, what we do as musicians.
You walk on that stage, that's it.
This is the moment in time. You only have one chance to be
in front of this group of peopleat this point in time in life.
And you either knock it out of the ballpark or you fall flat on
your ass. And that's going to determine
your trajectory for the next show you do.
Yep, that's true. That's true.

(53:14):
The guy that taught me to. Play.
Guitar Lemoyne. He kind of said exactly what
Chris said when he was teaching me to be a lead guitar player.
He says Eddie Van Halen described it best.
It's like falling down the stairs.
You know there's no real right or wrong way to do it as long as
you land on your feet when it's over, right there you go.
That's a great. Analysis.

(53:34):
I like that. And the next time you listen to
a van? Halen Solo.
You'll listen to it in a different light.
I did. Ever since I've heard him say
that. Yeah, you write about that.
That's a good way of doing. That, I mean, I never really
analyzed it like that in my head, but that's, that's the
other famous quote that he's got.
That always stuck with me in my head as a player when I was told

(53:54):
I was doing something right or wrong.
Either way, I'm like, you know Eddie said it best.
You got 8 notes. Actually, you have 7 notes in
the octave, right? So you have 8 notes.
How you mix them up is your business.
There are no right if. It sounds good if.
It sounds good, It is good that always.
Stuck with me that is. All true.
This is this is one of these most different interviews I've

(54:19):
ever done and you know I like talking with the musicians man
so just to let you know if you guys need me to do a show, I
would love to come out and do a show with you guys man we'll.
See, here's the fun thing. I'm in Arizona.
Mike's in Illinois, yeah. Yeah, where are you?
At I'm in Illinois, right? Now I was just in Arizona.

(54:40):
I got to go back again. When you come to Arizona, reach
out man. We'll go to.
Dinner or something? You got it.
That's exactly what I'll. Do Where are you at in Illinois,
Lemoy? I'm in.
The South Side of Chicago. Oh man.
So yeah. So we're like. 2.
And a half hours apart. I'm in Pontiac, if you know.
Oh, yeah, I know what that is. Yeah, I know.

(55:02):
Exactly what it is we're world famous for our prison.
Wow. That's about all we got going
on. Here.
It's all right. A lot of cornfields.
Yeah. That's why I'm.
I'm trying to figure out some ofthese these these.
Conventions and. Some of these outdoor

(55:22):
performances and stuff that theyhave in Chicago, you know, I
just got here so you know, I'm trying to jump on wherever they
want me to play it. So that's where they trying to
figure out now where they going to place me.
That's cool, man. So what do you, what do you,
what's, what's your world look like right now as far as you're
working? You're working with a new band,
you said. Is it still state of grace?

(55:43):
No, no, no. It's just.
The one Alexander OK and I have a backup band now and I.
Just finished the album too so. OK, so when's that album drop?
We just. Found out the new single drops
on July 6th and the album follows it.
So maybe about a week after the single comes out, the album
comes out. So it's all in July.

(56:04):
OK. Are you doing?
This on your own now. Self production, self
distribution, every single. The first album was.
All Me. The second album was All Me and
the third album was All What's this Album called In the
Morning? Alone.
Alone. Alone, yeah.
Limon. Alexander alone and is it?
Is it so? Did you create your own label?
No, no, this. Is the company is called Wicked
Entertainment. Oh, that's right.

(56:24):
OK, so Wicked Entertainment is a.
Label and the distribution, yes.As a matter of fact.
We're we're dealing with some new distributors right now as we
speak. Cool.
So for the people that under. Don't understand the whole
concept of of music distributionand stuff.
Give us a little insight of the struggles with that now versus
20 years ago, oh, 20 years ago it.

(56:45):
Was totally different. Thank you.
Thank. You, Mike, it's nothing like it
is. Please kind of break that down.
When you got into the business, how you got paid and what your
life was like and now what your life is like.
That's a great question, Chris. OK.
That's, that's a good question. And I'll try to be as persistent
with this. In short, yeah, that's cool.

(57:06):
We got all the time in. The world, man, you're fine when
you're when. You're a producer, artist during
the good days, OK, They give youa budget.
Yeah, sometimes those budgets could, could, could be ranging
from 200,000 to 9 to 1,000,000, right, Right now out of those

(57:27):
budgets you get. The you have to pay for.
The studio, those budgets, you know, they, you have to pay for
studio, you have to pay for videos they're charging you, but
for everything that they give you, including your advance
money. Sometimes they don't charge you
for the advance money, but at some point, you know, you got to
pay it back. It's not much different you're

(57:49):
going to. A bank and getting a loan
correct? Exactly.
Pretty much. So with all the the money that
they've given you on top, they have to use their own money to
promote you, right And. That's a whole different.
Budget so you look at what you're worth is from your album

(58:10):
sales. Back then, OK.
Right now, when you. Your.
Album sales are growing and growing and growing.
They're going to make their money back, yes.
Now you're the writer. You're going to make the money.
If you're right, you're also a publisher publishing your music,
which no label is going to let you completely take full

(58:32):
publishing. They got to split it with you.
You're going to get paid. Now most people, producers as
producers, they're getting paid behind because they're making
the songs, the artist. If if, if you get an artist and
they're making that, they're really pretty much singing what

(58:53):
you make them sing and what you write for them.
They're not getting paid. The only time they get paid is
when they go on the road to perform the song, right.
So let's break it. Let's.
Break it down like this real quick.
You got a dollar, you make a dollar, and out of that dollar
the label gets how much? The label.
Gets honestly out of that dollarabout $0.75.

(59:17):
OK, so you have 1/4 left and outof.
That quarter left, you're payingthe writer, you have to pay the
rider, so. By the time you get paid, you
probably got about $0.10, right?So out of $0.25.
Leftover from that dollar which which is I've I've lived that
with when we when you when council was signed with this is
a band after Mike and I signed with Universal Records a little

(59:39):
subsidy platinum plus records. There was never seen a dime
because they just they. Take it all right, Snoop Dogg.
Snoop Dogg came out right, right.
And Snoop Dogg came out recentlynot to interject that he had,
what was it, a billion downloads, Mike, not too long
ago? And he made like $40,000.
She's like, where's my $34,000? On 1 billion downloads, yeah,

(01:00:00):
yeah. And that's what I want, people.
To understand so that's the dollar breakdown so that's the
dollar breakdown so continue on your path of educating the world
lamoine ohh man let me tell you something the.
Biggest the biggest RIP off to me.
He's just explained the good days.
Right. Yeah.
The good days was. If if for a producer, he can
make a lot of money, a producer is he's the one that's going to

(01:00:23):
always make money, right, right.Because he's the one that's
behind the scenes making the music, making everything happy,
right? Artists.
No, no, but today, now we're talking Spotify and all these
other outlets where Spotify camefrom.
I don't even know. All I know was they they just
decided to form a company to take artists and exploit them

(01:00:48):
and get paid off of them. Did Lars not try and warn?
Us about this during the yesterday's yes he did can.
You explain a little bit about that real quick for the.
People who still hate Lars. Yes, Lars, he to me, he's my
hero because, you know, he, he did a lot to, to teach us.
Yeah, that. You know that's not.

(01:01:09):
Fair. They're ripping us all.
People work hard to make the music.
Nobody listens. This is how you support your
family, right? Yes, this is how we.
Support our family. A prime example, the Queen
record, that was the one I was telling you where we got about 2
million on Spotify, 2 million. I think it's 2 million instant

(01:01:32):
change or whatever. Yeah, which is the got a check.
Literally. The check came back for $600.00.
Yeah, 2 million. Plays yeah 600 dollars $600.00
now back now. Now back in now.
Back in the day when you started.
Now, back in the day 2. Million sold a record.
Double. If you got, if you sold 2

(01:01:53):
million records, you got damn near $1,000,000, right?
That's the difference. Right.
See, that's what I want people to understand the difference
between now and then and what Napster did to the culture of
music. Because when when when we got
signed with Universal, it was onthat on that cusp.
Everything was was going away from the label backing up.

(01:02:14):
And it was, it was jumping into the whole online Spotify,
Napster, Apple Music, because itwas 2008 when that was released.
So and it wasn't it again, it was the last band I was in.
It wasn't Mike and I cuz you know, Mike and I is the best
band I've ever been in. But I could tell by just the
label itself. They were just they were just in
it for this. They could give a fuck about the

(01:02:37):
no they. Could like the people.
Behind the scenes, the producer we had Tony Miglioria producer,
which is claimed to fame was he plays the the piano and keyboard
on Bye Bye Miss American Pie, Don McLean, It says keyboard
pianist, right? Robert Metzger, the guy that was
behind the label was tied to Elvis in some way, shape and
form, but he was just a he was ashoe salesman piece of shit.

(01:02:57):
Like just, I mean, you know, used car sales.
I'm just like, you could just tell, right.
And, and so I don't I don't. The experience was great.
You know, I, I was, I recorded in, in Gravity Studios in, in
Nashville, which is the only part of the studio that was
something that, you know, not many people can say we were in,
in, in, oh, there's not a Brentwood Nashville or

(01:03:20):
Brentwood, TN Alan Jackson and George, George, George.
Was it George Strait or Yeah, I think George Strait's studio
over there. Chelsea Music, Chelsea Music
Group, right. I mean, it was the things we did
were cool. And the experience was great.
You know, and and I'll never regret doing that stuff, but it
was gave me insight to the bullshit.

(01:03:41):
So I like how you just, that's why I asked that question,
because you just kind of nailed a hammer on the head, right?
20 years ago, you sell 2 millionrecords, you're making
$1,000,000. Yeah, you're making a million.
Dollars to you said it best Yeah, you said it best.
If you pay attention to what he said, he he's like how the hell
can we make a living? Yeah.
When companies like Spotify and all these other streaming

(01:04:05):
services take our music. Yeah.
And they get paid. Yeah.
And give us this much in sale, they're making 12.
Dollars a month off 200 million subscribers.
Yeah, that's insane. And taking the royalties.
Do the math. Yeah.
And taking the. Artist Royalties.

(01:04:25):
That's a huge point now, now forme, Limone.
OK, I'm the guy that I buy the entire album on Apple Music.
I don't buy single songs on Spotify.
If you're on Apple Music, I'll go download your entire album.
Yes, it is. It's our Apple.
Right, because to me that. I don't I don't know how much of
that you get from that, but I'd rather do that than subscribe

(01:04:45):
and just be able to listen for free because I know how hard it
is right Music yes, I think that's beautiful.
Thank. You for, for that, you know, you
go, you go to iTunes. To me, it's like a record store
to me, Yeah, exactly. You know, and that's what.
We used to me and you and and Mike, we were influenced by

(01:05:08):
going to the record store. We hear what we hear.
We like it, we pay for it, and we leave.
Take it home. Yep, Tower.
Records, man. Well, since we're the same age,
let me. Tell you a funny story about the
record store. I went there one day and I'm
leafing through the records and I'm like, look at that.
This is the coolest. This is going to be the coolest
heavy metal band I've ever seen in my life.

(01:05:28):
Look, I've heard this. Story.
That's where it lasts. Artwork that's so cool I get it
home in the first time. I used to love it.
You can. Listen to the music, touch it,
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Lemon, you gotta listen to this punchline here.
I get home and it's Molly Hatchet.
So the first. Song I hear is flirting with.
Disaster. I'm like, this isn't heavy metal
at all, but I love it. So that that was one of my

(01:05:52):
introductions into Southern rockwas I thought I was buying a
heavy metal album because they had the coolest artwork, man.
And that's the other thing. Think about.
It not think about it. Back in our day when you bought
a record, first of all, you could buy a whole album for
seven or 8 bucks under $10. Oh yeah, absolutely you can.
Open it up. You can.

(01:06:13):
See your favorite artist, you can read the credits, you can
see the pictures, and I love allthat stuff.
Yeah. You can read the lyrics, what do
you get? Now what do you get?
Now when you buy now, not a damnthing man, you get.
Something I'm changing that. Let me tell you.
What I'm doing Cool. Prime example.
I'm going to show you something.OK, right on.
Lemoyne. Alexander, ladies and gentlemen.

(01:06:34):
Lemoyne Alexander. Yeah, this is something new.
OK. This is.
My album. Oh.
Right on. It's a guitar, dude.
That is bad ass. You open this up.
Put it in your computer. You're going to see the credits,
you're going to see the photos, you're going to get the album,
you're going to get rarities, you're going to get everything

(01:06:56):
on this right here. So if you want to download an
album cover, you can get it fromhere.
Put it right on your screen. You can, you can.
It's got a it's got a little device in here where you can
make posters and and go get posters made.
Dude, I love that that's. Fantastic Lemoyne this.
This is going to be my new album.

(01:07:17):
Just like this when it comes out, buying it right like that,
that's awesome. I got to have one that that's
legit, man, that is. Brilliant.
That is absolutely brilliant. My management came up with that
it. Was like, look, we going back to
the old school, but the old school you even you can, there's
ways you can even get vinyl fromhere, really.
It's got so much information. In here for you to get

(01:07:39):
everything you need just like itwas when we can go to the record
store and buy all of it. It's got the credits,
photographs, rarities, and you want vinyl, you can.
You can order vinyl in here. Videos, you even get videos in
here. Everything is crazy, man.
And what's that? And what's that going to?
Cost this this year is. Probably.

(01:07:59):
Honestly, yeah, At best, maybe 20 bucks or less right now.
That's cool. Yep, that's cool.
That will. Be in my.
Studio, right? Here as soon as it comes out.
That's cool. That's very Yeah, that's the way
we doing it now you. Know and I and I agreed to it
because it was like, you know, Iwant to go back to the way
things were when music was fun and you can purchase music you

(01:08:22):
know people are scared to buy because you're not getting
nothing when you buy the songs. It's just a song you download
and put it, and that's why I won't just.
Download a song, download and I've discovered, I've discovered
better music on the artist that I downloaded for that I bought
the album for one song. Then all of a sudden like the
entire album I'm like, holy shit, these guys are great.

(01:08:45):
Which I never would have done ifI was just buying song by song
by song Exactly. You know, like.
Alter Bridge. I never would.
Have I never would have fell in love with Alter Bridge had I
just downloaded Rise today, but something that we all talked.
About earlier the band has to prove to us that they can write
an entire album these days too, right?
So many people are writing for the.

(01:09:06):
Single right they don't care everything else is just filler
or they're not doing an entire album at all yeah and I've had
that problem too where I've. Downloaded an album because I
wanted one song and the rest of the song, the album sucks and
that's but that's let's see, that's the brilliant of of in
our generation going to the record store, right?
You know, Mötley Crüe comes out,you see shout at the devil album

(01:09:26):
cover. All this is going to be legit.
And then you may only like one song like you.
It was a gamble. We knew that.
You, but that was the cool thing.
About it because part of the thing about it.
And you're right, it is a gamble, but if you really look
at it, it's really not because they're giving you more music
for you to learn and choose fromthat you would get that you

(01:09:48):
would normally get back in thosedays that you can't do today.
Well, and I'll tell you one of the things.
That we talk about that is a lost art these days is when you
did find that album like Shouting the Devil, that was
great all the way through. You got your buddies together
and everybody just listened to it over and over and over again,
man. You know, that's how you spent
your Friday and Saturday nights.Yep.

(01:10:10):
Until the next. I'm going to tell you guys
something. Yeah.
On the 1st. Album.
Solitude. There's a last song when you get
a chance to it. Once you go listen to that last
song. The song is called Euphoria.
It's a 8. Minute.
Song of just instrumentals of. Me just.
Jamming through genres that I learned how to perfect, I did

(01:10:33):
everything. The only genre that's not in
that that particular song is rap, but all the genres that I
was influenced with. I played guitar solos over all
of that. Now when?
I. Was doing the album.
I was asked why are you doing that?
I said because I want to go backto the way things was back in
the old days when you can buy a full length album and you get

(01:10:58):
that instrumental where it's it's just nothing but just
music, yeah. And when I did it, it it.
It went people with my fans werenuts.
Well, now I'll. Now, I'll tell you something
that'll be on parallel with that.
I was always super insecure as asongwriter because I had nothing
to compare myself to. Right When I met these guys,

(01:11:21):
they gave me more compliments that we never talked about until
now. That like when Chris wanted me
to write music for his spoken word, you know, I knew how much
that meant to him. But then I understood that all
this, what I thought was nonsense, was really music,
right? Because I would just sit there
and play and these guys would belike, hey, what's that, you

(01:11:42):
know, Or what's that? Do that again.
You know that's true. My my.
Problem is my. Brain is so chaotic that I don't
think like a drummer. That's why I don't.
I'm not well at beats. I can.
I can't wait to mute you guys. I can.
Write riffs till the cows come. Home but a lot, a lot of them
just overlap each other, right. So these guys would slow my
brain down enough to say hey, I like that do that again or I

(01:12:06):
like this do that again. Yeah, because the way I missed
that the way I write. It's basically a poetry.
It's a poem. It's 4 verses, 4 line verses,
and then a four line course. And then we would just, I'd give
that to Mike and then we would evolve it, however we evolved
it. But it always started out in the
basic ballad format of poetry because that's when I first
started writing in that. And that style was high school

(01:12:28):
because an English teacher challenged me to stop being a
dumb jock and write a poem. OK, you guys got great stories,
man, Great. Stories, you know, but that's,
that's kind of how. That evolved so that I learned
how to write just from, from a poetry standpoint.
And then it's, you know, it justevolved from there, you know,
and it's still writing from a poetry standpoint.
When I send him stuff, it's like, here, check this out, you

(01:12:50):
know, and he can pick up the, yeah, he can pick up the
attitude from it instantly. That's the primary.
Reason why I did these instrumentals because I wanted
people to just euphoria means, you know, be relaxed and listen
to music. So I said, well, I'm just going
to make a song where it's just nothing but just music and I'm

(01:13:11):
just doing my guitar solos over.It went over really well.
They asked me to do a second one.
I did it on the second album andnow I'm doing it on the third
album. So there's three parts of it all
right on you get to. You get to listen.
To all three, if you and I just did an interview last week and

(01:13:32):
they said, you know, we heard them, we heard them and you
know, why don't you suggest thatI do a release of all of the
Euphorias on one album? Not like a trilogy, that's.
Awesome. And I said that's a good.
Idea. So I think I'm going to do that
after I get about two more, you know, because I'm going to keep
the train going. The next album I'm going to do

(01:13:53):
another one and another one, andthen I'll put them, I'll compile
them all on one album. That's cool.
I have a piece of music like that.
It's it's just two pieces, but Iwrote it when I was going
through the throes of my addiction and I credit that
piece of music was saving my life because I played it over
and over and over and in the in the middle of the night one

(01:14:14):
night, a guy that was, you know,was unsavory character, but he
was around a lot. He heard that piece of music.
And this is not what you would expect from this guy.
He said, you know, keep playing stuff like that man, because the
world needs more of it. Yes, that is so true.
The world needs. Fresh music.
Lemoyne It stopped me dead in mytracks.

(01:14:34):
Because it came from somebody. That guy was he didn't talk like
that, you know, But he playing that piece of music changed his
brain at that moment in time from being a mean, tough,
cussing, drug addict, alcoholic.What you know, he was just that
kind of guy and he talked that way, but he he stopped me dead

(01:14:56):
in. My tracks, you know.
That was a moment in time, and Ihave a lot of those where I know
music can change someone, you know?
Yeah, music can. And.
And that's the prime example of of insecurity.
When you hear insecurity, even now, when I even go back and
listen to it, I'm like, oh, wow,you know, I see what everybody
is talking about now, you know? And it's a staple, one of my

(01:15:20):
biggest songs, and it's a staplein my career that it's more than
just a song to me. It's, it's, it's like, like you
just said, it saved your life. This song really helped me, you
know, get over a lot of things hearing you tell that story.
Makes me inspired to, you know, I have to get that recorded
because I think the world needs to hear it that that guy that

(01:15:41):
made that statement is no longerwith us.
So there was a reason he was placed on this earth and I know
it was for more than that, but he was in my life.
He was placed there to say that at that moment in time.
So and and it helped you and. Yeah, and here and here and
here. In your story, you know you
were. I put it out there.
Because this is. How I was feeling, I don't know

(01:16:03):
how people are going to react toit, right.
And it spoke to them because it came from your soul, you know?
Exactly. Yes, that's exactly you put.
It perfectly. And that goes back to
songwriting itself. When you're writing a song
that's just just about, you know, going out and getting
drunk and getting laid, there's no meaning to that.
There's no, you're not going to look back on that 20 years and
reflect. Oh, Oh yeah.
The. Stuff.
Everything I've ever written that was.

(01:16:24):
Down to music I can I can listento that song and I can know it
takes me back exactly to why I wrote it most of the time where
I wrote it, where I came up withit and I can remember the
structure of it because it has meaning because there's purpose
behind it. Like a lot of people always
asked us because we were we werewe were abandoned the early 90s

(01:16:44):
and stuff. So when we when we disbanded, it
was 9596. So we we, we didn't really go as
high as we could have gone, but we were Creed before Creed was
Creed because that's how I write.
I write about life and things like that.
I have a better range than step had or has, But that's kind of
why we were able to play with asmany different acts that we
played with. We open for everybody from

(01:17:05):
Marshall Tucker Band to Enough Is Enough because we we were
just a good old fashioned rock'n'roll band that had
substance and we had enough of adraw because back then, which
you can probably relate to, you had to sell tickets to your
shows like nobody was promoting you but yourself.
Yeah, our moment of days. Right, so the crowd was
dependent on. What we did to promote

(01:17:25):
ourselves. And that's lost in this world
now too, because nobody's doing the work.
Nobody's spending the time to stand in front of a janitor and
two waitresses and the bartenderor, or 3000 people you know,
packed in because you've, you'vegrown organically over time.
You don't get that. It's, it's instant.
I want one song to make, you know, 3,000,000 downloads.

(01:17:48):
So I make $800 next and the label gets all of it next, next.
Just like we could spend 1000. Dollars a week promoting this
podcast and we could have millions of hits right none of
them mean anything because they're all bots right right
right we we've grown this. Thing organically Lemoyne to the
fact that we really started paying attention to at least I
did from some content wise on YouTube in March.

(01:18:12):
We just passed 85,000 views. Now to put it in perspective, my
business YouTube pages I've had since 2005 or 6.
I'm just under 500,000 views andI have probably 600 different
600 videos and congratulations to put it into.
Perspective for you even. More, that's a 70% increase in

(01:18:32):
three months because you only had, we only had about 30,000
views up till that point when heshifted his focus to being
consistent and doing things a certain way.
And all of a sudden I was like, you know, you're rapidly
approaching 100,000 views and I'm like, no.
Because they don't look at the. Members news, guys,
congratulations. Thank you.
And that's and I don't even pay.Attention to it, I just do it.

(01:18:54):
So that's what makes it even more special is that there's not
we're not paying for it. So many like we get hit up all
the time all $200. We'll get you 100,000 views.
No. What do you mean no, no.
And for me. Selfishly, this is He's
fulfilling my dream by finding amusician that is speaking on the
same level as we are as songwriters and as a musician

(01:19:16):
reached heights that, you know, we had aspirations to at that
time of reaching and for, you know, whatever reason or
another, the stars weren't aligned at that time.
But I agree with Chris, man. I never had more fun musically
in my life and never felt more free as a musician or a human
being as the time that I was surrounded by those three guys.

(01:19:37):
That's what they meant to me, right?
Yeah. And it's a it's a brotherhood.
Man, it's a family. This is definitely a
brotherhood. Vans Brotherhood.
I love it. Yes, yeah.
And as musicians. We all stick.
Together. That's why this is a dream for
me. Part of starting this podcast
was to be creative again and to grow something from the ground
up, like planting a seed, Right.I'm not a gardener.

(01:19:58):
This is my garden. This is our playground.
You know, every now and then we get the, well, you know, maybe a
cuss a little too much or whatever.
Yeah, we do. This is our.
For good or bad ladies and. Gentlemen, this is my
playground. I have to have a place where I
can be creative, right? Chris has to have a place where
he can feel like himself as an artist.
Yep. So we're, we're we.

(01:20:20):
We're sorry. For the language every now and
then. But you know, Lemoyne will back
us up. Musicians have their own
language. They do.
Yes, we do. Amen.
Amen. I want to I want to ask you
something about your life resumein, in, in the music industry,
Lemoyne. I want to know, I want to know
in your opinion, because it sounds like you have met a ton
of people along your journey, what would be the the one that

(01:20:45):
that that that starstruck you that you met?
Did we lose him? I was going to say, did you I,
I. Lost his video.
I lost his video too. Hello.
Hello. Lamone.
Lamoine. I keep saying Lamone.
Lamoine. Lamoine.
Like Des Moines? Yeah.
We may have lost Lamoine. I don't know if I have his

(01:21:05):
number to call him either. Oh oh, I wonder if his Internet
went out. They might be having storms up
that way. Today.
There was a frost moving through.
I didn't know he was in Chicago.I didn't either.
I didn't either. So dude, what a fascinating
individual. Right, that was dude.
Very cool guy, very good human. I wanted to ask him about his.

(01:21:26):
Songs he wrote for DMX and Aaliyah too.
Yeah, well, I just. That's why I was.
Kind of going with that, I wanted to see what he said as
far as, you know, who he had metand that kind of thing.
Then then take that to a whole new all new level on you.
Know because it'd be interestingto see.
Because the names that he dropped to the people he worked
with and, you know, would you ever have actually been

(01:21:47):
starstruck? Like, I wanted to ask him if he
reference Prince. Like, dude, did you never meet
Prince, You know, because R Kelly, R Kelly's kind of, you
know, dark. Yeah, he definitely.
Tainted his own name. Yeah.
Yeah. So not that.
It wasn't impressive that he worked with R Kelly a little
bit. You know, that's just one of
those names where. It's not like Ted Nugent where
you can go. Yeah, I love his music, but I

(01:22:07):
hate his politics. Right.
Or whatever you hate about him. You know, you can't take away
from the fact that Uncle Ted is an amazing guitar player.
No, you can't. And then he is for.
Sure. Give it a second and see if he
can, yeah. I'm going to.
I'm going. To the e-mail, and I'm going to
e-mail him and see what's what if he responds.

(01:22:29):
That dude's definitely legit though man.
Holy crap. Very, very.
Much as. Far as.
A life's resume and music goes he's he's been there, done that
on both sides of the fence, as arock'n'roll guy and as a hip hop
guy and as a rap guy. Yep.
Yeah, it's amazing that that's why I asked him.
About the rap, because I've never really gotten to rap, as

(01:22:50):
you know, but it was interestingthat his.
His. What he did for how he how?
He brought the the. Guitars and the bass and stuff
into rap was was pretty legit. And it's funny because.
That was about the same time I was at Guitar Center a couple

(01:23:12):
years before that, but it would have been along the same
timeline as Sorry about that guys.
No, they're totally fine. Hang on, dude.
I was just, I was just, I was just emailing you.
Modern technology it doesn't. Work all the time and we were
just talking like that and. And you're sideways.
And we were. Talking about you behind your
phone. I'm here.

(01:23:35):
We hear you. We hear.
You. It's all good.
Man. So MM has a couple questions for
you that that he was hoping, he was hoping you'd come back so he
could ask. So I'm here.
Yeah. Yeah.
So when I was doing my research.I saw that you were somehow
involved in writing songs for DMX and Aaliyah.
Yes, yes. Tell me, tell me about those,

(01:23:57):
please. The.
Process with Aaliyah first was when, remember I told you, you
know, the guys called me down and they wanted me to work with
R Kelly. Yeah, my, I had. 22.
Guys that called me and they wanted me to be a part of the
team. R Kelly's music team and.
How that? Happened was he was literally in

(01:24:19):
the studio working and they asked me and the other two guys
to to participate in helping with the production of the song
and that's what we did. We spent like, honestly.
On that one song, I think we spent.
About 3 days straight. Nobody showered or nothing.

(01:24:40):
You can imagine what it smelled like.
Yeah, buddy. And once R Kelly did his job, he
left the rest of it to us. Then we end up going into the
studio and we finalized the project.
And once it was done with all our expertise together, you
know, we all gel together to make that song sound good and.

(01:25:03):
And it was approved and it came out.
What was the name of that? Song.
Yeah. Back and forth.
OK, I wanted to. Look that one up.
Let me see do. I have the record for that.
I think I do some of them. Yes, it was called back and
forth. And that was debut album from

(01:25:27):
her debut album. OK, there's the record.
You were saying the. DMX.
The DMX. And I, we became good friends
back right a little bit before he died and there was a song we
were working on together. Hey yo Cato, for a friend of
ours that that passed and. We had planned on.

(01:25:51):
He he was me and him was talkingabout joining his company.
He had a new company he had juststarted.
I forgot the name of it, but we were talking about me signing
with him during that that time. But then he got caught up in
some other stuff and not shortlyhe passed.
But yeah. We did.

(01:26:12):
We had. Started on.
I was particularly asked to joinin on from a friend of mine to
produce for him when he flew into Chicago and they called me
and I went to the studio and that's when I met him and I came
up with these ideas for songs for him.
And it went from I just finisheddoing the soundtrack for Crime

(01:26:34):
partners or film where Ice T andSnoop Dogg.
So my friend Cato wanted to get involved with the soundtrack,
but the soundtrack was already done.
So when I told him I was workingwith, well, I'm getting ready to
do some stuff with DMX, he said,oh man, I got to meet him.
Let me meet him. So when DMX came in, I'd

(01:26:56):
introduced them two together andthey became best friends, the
two of them alone. And he had just started his new
production company, which we were talking about.
And my friend that I introduced to to Cato was buying a song,
buying a spot on his production company for the for the movie.

(01:27:19):
I forgot the name of the movie that.
DMX was doing the soundtrack forand and we were all involved in
it. And what happened was he got
killed. That's a bad thing.
That's a bad thing, yeah. He got killed and DMX went nuts
and we all came together to try to come up with a song for his
passing. And that's that's what the

(01:27:40):
Ayokado song was about from thatpoint on.
But you know, after that, DMX lost it and we lost contact with
each other. I think he just went sideways
and you know, from that and fromhim going in that direction, I
couldn't reach him. And then and when I heard the
news that he had passed, it was too late by the end.

(01:28:03):
I know a lot of. People that I work.
With during my career as a producer, I can't reach none of
these people no more because youknow, they have the insurance
and outs. Some people I can still get a
hold to, you know, if I if I work a little bit harder to get
to them, you know, But you know,that was during the the rap
days, you know, pretty much mostof those people that I work for

(01:28:24):
and did records where they're not even doing rap anymore.
Not at all. Yeah.
Wow. So one of the things.
One of the things I wanted to ask you like, like you've
dropped, you've dropped some amazing names in the music
industry, right? Like just, you know, I'd have to
tell you that what's the one artist you've ever worked with

(01:28:45):
or met that you just were kind of like?
I would, I would have loved to work.
With and I was getting close. That's another one with Michael
Jackson. Yeah, that would have been that
would have been cool. Everybody has a Prince story.
I do have a Prince story. Right on.
Let's hear the Prince story, man.
Because. Because Prince.
Just so you understand. It's OK, So Mike and I are Mike

(01:29:07):
and I, and as far as Prince is concerned as a musician, he's
one of the most prolific musicians that I, I just the
dude just I would love to be in his brain for an hour because
because to me, the songs that like that, he like little red
Corvette, right? Like you, you.
How much of that did he hear in his head right before he

(01:29:28):
actually put it down? And the fact that he could take
what he has in his head and put that down and produce it to
every, it's just, I wish I coulddo that and I can't.
I don't have that innate abilitythat, that someone like him had.
I need people like Mike to help put my, when we were writing our
music and stuff to put my, my vision of what I hear down.

(01:29:48):
But I think somebody like Princeand the Michael Jackson's and
even Kid Rock, because they, they're, and probably you too,
because you can play everything.So you can probably hear
everything and in your head kindof like Mozart, right?
Like a composure, you're hearingall these different elements and
you know where they can go and you just know how to put them
down into the system and make itcome out like so, so.

(01:30:08):
So. So.
Yes, bring us your Prince story,please.
Well. On the highlight of my career, I
was doing, I was doing production and my lawyers
reached out to me and they askedme, you know, would you like to
work for Prince? Prince is looking for somebody
to program for him at at PaisleyPark.

(01:30:31):
Nice. Really.
You know the. Opportunity like.
Really. And they came to me and they
asked me. So I was like, I was, I was
like, devastated, right? So, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I. Said So what's the?
What's the? What you know, tell me the
details about the job and everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when they.
Brought it to. Me, he had already heard who I

(01:30:52):
was and there was a conflict in the early part of a song that I
had did using a sample from another producer that we did
together that, you know, it got blown over and we, you know, he,
he didn't want to he didn't bother me about it no more.
But what I did learn about it was that he had heard my

(01:31:15):
production and, you know, he he's considering me working for
him. And I, I thought about it for
like 2 days. Well, yeah.
And like you just. Said you know.
I looked up to Prince. How could you not?
I mean. As a musician, how could you
matter, right? His recording stopped against.

(01:31:37):
Had her my life behind. Him to a point where.
OK, OK. You know.
I was so. Highly influenced by this man.
It didn't even you know the thought of me working for him
was just no brainer. But the second.
I think it was the. Third day they called me back
saying I was like, are you goingto do it?

(01:32:00):
And I was like, I thought about it and thought about it.
I said no because I know if I doit I'm not going to have.
The same respect for. Him because I grew up respecting
him, I. Guess you know what I'm saying,
because once you start working. For somebody that you that you.
It were. Highly influenced.
You see flaws, you see things, you hear things and you go, oh

(01:32:22):
man, I didn't know it was like this.
And then it changes your perspective of that artist that
you grew up listening to. So I was like, I think I, I.
I'm cool with the. Way that it is right now.
So I like that. I like that.
Response. Yeah, that's good.
And and I and I. Respected them for asking me and

(01:32:43):
I and even him considering me working for him but I think
because I I couldn't do. It I think.
That might be the most. Impressive response to being
comfortable in your own skin as an artist that I've ever heard,
yeah. But I but I but I and.
I get that response because, again, you have somebody on such

(01:33:05):
a a high level because he's Prince.
Yeah. And then and then you you could
theoretically see the dark side and not like what you see.
And then all of a sudden that that that person you hold in
such high esteem, it completely changes.
You know, it's. Yeah.
And that's what I was afraid. Of yeah, I thought about it for
two days. I mean, they had been calling me

(01:33:26):
every day and on the on the third day I was like, I had to
turn it down. It's like, man, are you and and
weirdest thing was you're crazy.Why would you turn?
What? Well, no matter what he was.
Offering because what? He was offering to pay me was
ridiculous, but you know, of course it was Prince Money man,
it was. Prince, it was just the fact.
That it was Prince. But see.

(01:33:48):
But see that goes back. To that Nietzsche.
Quote Careful how long you gaze into the abyss, because the
abyss also gazes into you, right?
That's exactly what Chris just said.
You know, you pull the curtain back, you never know what you're
going to see. And I was afraid of.
That and I thought about it and I and so I shared this
information with you the same thing I told him and he thought

(01:34:11):
I was crazy. He literally thought that man,
that's Prince. How could you turn down Prince?
And I was like, you know, I havetoo much respect for him to work
for him, right? Because how could you?
How could you? Comfortably give him your
opinion like he's Prince, OK man.
You know that part in purple ranges?
I don't. Like that, I think you need to
go this way. I wish I could.

(01:34:32):
Give the guy credit. But I remember 1 of Stevie Ray
Vaughn's producers and one of the documentaries I wrote, he
said Stevie would play between 60 and 62 solos on average for
every piece of music that he wrote.
And then he would ask him to pick one and he's like, all 62
were fucking brilliant. So how do you pick exactly?

(01:34:53):
He's like. There.
Wasn't one. Flaw in any of them.
They were just different, right?Yeah, yeah.
He's like, that's how good Stevie Ray Vaughan was.
I've never been able to say thatabout anybody else.
He's like all 62 of them were brilliant, that is.
Crazy. So you know.
Like I said. Those.

(01:35:14):
Those times I've met lots of people in my career and, you
know, I've been blessed to be able to work and and have all of
this stuff happening at the sametime.
But my biggest accomplishment tome is actually doing my own
music now. I feel so much better about
that, Yeah. And then and right, rightfully

(01:35:34):
so, because you've been doing itfor so long.
It's it's about time you you gotyour, your turn.
Like we had a guy on that's that's a boxer, right?
He's been boxing for 16 plus years.
He just finally got to the pros.Like it it literally since he
was 19 years old, 15 years old. He started boxing amateur when
he was when he was 19. But that was, I forget what he
called it, but it was basically the what he called that the Pee

(01:35:56):
Wee League. He did that.
Yeah, he. Did that for a.
Certain amount of time. Then he was an amateur, I think
for 10 years. The Open Pro or the Open
Amateur? League, right?
Open Amateur league. Well, you.
You. Know so it's it's amazing that
16 plus years just to get to become a pro and he's he's just
he's going to have his third professional fight next week
musicians are very. Much the same way, right?

(01:36:18):
And he's 36 years old. It's.
Like, and so that was fascinating to me because the,
the time that you put in musicians put in and and it's
not just wake up one day. I mean ran it when we're in the
zone and the muses there, right?I could write a song.
I could write 5 songs right now if I was in that zone and I
could could write music for my boom.
All of a sudden you have 5 songs.

(01:36:39):
Yeah. But people don't understand
that. How much of that is, how much of
that is a craft? And you have to hold that.
It's definitely a craft, you know?
It takes time to really, really put songs together, especially
songs that's meaningful that people can get out of.
Well, I thinking about it, I think Chris I.

(01:37:00):
Think Chris just said it best. The mood has to be right.
The time has to be right. I apologize for interrupting
you, but people don't. No, no, no, you're absolutely
right. Everything has its timing, and
what I learned is I don't put a lot of emphasis and oh, I got to
find the right song. I just write.
I write what I feel I. Do.

(01:37:20):
What I do and I just keep it going and I don't even think
twice about it. I'll come back and listen to it
and go, that sounds good or no, just saying a word.
And I usually pass it off to some of my friends that are not
in the music business, you know,some girls I know or whatever,
and say, listen to this, tell mewhat you think of it.
And they'll tell me the truth. And we go from there and, and

(01:37:41):
then I'll take a chance on it. And, you know, but I don't, I
don't, you know, you know, I have this pen and you know, this
word and this and that. I just write what I feel.
I go in and I sing it. That's it.
I don't put any thought into it.I just go for it.
No, it's. Like it's one of the coolest.
Stories I've ever heard about music and bands.

(01:38:01):
Bon Jovi when they were writing New Jersey, right?
Their, their breakthrough, right?
They would, they would lay down,they would lay down songs in the
studio and then go to the local the the pizza, just a pizza
joint near the studio and they would play it, they would play
it at the pizza joint on the jukebox and watch the kids
reaction. And then based on that reaction,
they knew if that song should make the album or not.
And they would go And they just,that's a great tactic, right?

(01:38:24):
And. They just kept doing right.
They just kept doing that till they had 12 songs on that
record. They knew we're going to relate
because everybody in that pizza shop was, you know, jive into
those songs. What time of the day?
You. Just you.
Just you. Just reminded me of something
when I was doing rap, when I wasa rap producer majority and I
used to teach everybody this when I would be doing an artist.

(01:38:45):
If I'm working with an artist, Isaid OK, look, we'll take a
break, we'll do the beat. They finished the song.
We're not mixing it. We just did a rough mix of it.
Yeah, we'll go to the nearest club, play the DJ, play the
song, he'll play it in. The club and.
Get a response to it and then we'll go back into the studio.

(01:39:06):
Hey, that bass was too low. We need to bring that back up.
Nice. The people like that little
break. Let's make the the break longer
and we'll we'll do these kind ofthings to to make the song
better, go back into the studio and fix it.
This is all in one night of us producing the song.
That's cool, that's cool, and that's to.
Do that back in the day. Yep.
Yeah. And see to.
Me, that's what a producer. Should do it should take your

(01:39:28):
product and elevate it, not, notjust sit there and OK, you're
going to do this and let me change the volume and the sets
and this is this. They should take that product.
And and that's what I knew when,when we did the whole thing with
with Universal Records, that he wasn't a producer.
He was a producer. He was an engineer.
Basically, yeah, that's what. His role was and because I

(01:39:48):
because I kept kind of saying like, well, what should we do
here? Well, it's your song.
I know what. Produce it, man, Produce me.
That is true, I think. That and.
Lemoyne, you can back me up. I think that we owe the audience
a definition of a producer, and the easiest layman's terms for
me is if you've ever heard a band play a song before it was

(01:40:09):
actually recorded and the producer got a hold of it.
That's a great example of why that guy is there.
Right? Exactly.
That is so true. You hit it right on the nail.
The song sounds one way before. You hear it and then you hear
all the I just got asked this question by a guy that I work
with the other day. He says, how do you know where

(01:40:29):
to put certain things in a song?I said sometimes, you know, as
the songwriter and I. Got those questions.
Too I'm. Like how do you know?
Even with my own. Songs I'm like I it just it's in
the universe. You just yeah.
But then there's. But then there's.
Times where I might write something and you hear it and
you're like, hey man, have you ever thought about this section

(01:40:50):
here? Have you ever thought about
doing this? And I'm like, no, I'd never.
That thought would have never crossed my mind.
Yes, I got lots of those too. That's.
What a producer does a. Producer takes a piece of music
and hears things that the artistdidn't hear when they were
writing the song correctly. Is that a good layman?
Layman's terms? Definition.
Great definition, OK. Fantastic.

(01:41:11):
That's it's so true. We keep talking like we have.
Our own language. And I just realized we're saying
things that people probably like, you know, what's a
producer? What's an engineer?
An engineer is what Chris described.
He's the guy that actually puts the equipment where it needs to
be to make the sound, Yes. That is so true.

(01:41:31):
And it sucks when you. Have a guy who.
Says he's a producer and all he's doing is dialing in a
sound. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the one, but the one I don't like.
Those kind of producers I. Mean to me, producers are the
essential part of any song, right?
And that's what you expect. They, they may not be able to,

(01:41:54):
all of them may not play instruments, but they have some
kind of knowledge from the instrument by mixing and
producing it true enough that they can hear whether it goes
there or not. Yes, correct.
Even the vocals, even the smallest thing like a triangle
bill or Congo or something like,no, don't put that there.

(01:42:14):
Put it right here. You know what I'm saying?
You know, it's like, yeah, it's like the cowbell man.
Exactly. Exactly.
So when I when I say. Producer, that's what you need.
A real producer knows music and not Today's producers are like,
you know, Fruity Loops and and because they can do a song.

(01:42:37):
On on a. Laptop, they call themselves a
producer. That's not a producer.
You put a budget in his hand, hewouldn't know what to do.
Correct? Agreed.
Agreed. Yeah.
Yeah, huh. You know and and.
That's not me. You know, I could take a whole
full, I could take a, a, a, a $40,000 song.
And when I'm done with it, rightit I can cut that cost down to

(01:43:00):
half or even less than that timewise because I don't really need
the artist. Once the artist does his job,
the rest is on me. The artist can go home and go to
club or whatever. And then I take it from there.
And I don't spend a lot of time like, you know, the older
producers, they'd be in the studio for days and days.

(01:43:21):
And the record companies budgetsis like damn near 100 grand.
I think it's stupid to waste allthat time sitting in the studio
pushing one button at a time when you can knock all that out
in 2448 hours and you got a whole project done.
OK, let me ask you this with that.
Said you're familiar. With Metallica's black.

(01:43:42):
Album, right? Yes.
What would you agree that that is sonically not one of the best
sounding albums? And heavy metal I would agree.
I would definitely agree. I think that that the Black
Album was really underplayed andthey didn't really do it,

(01:44:02):
wouldn't dive into it. They didn't.
Dive into it. They played Inner Sandman for
the most part and it's all you ever hear from Black on a
commercial level. Is that one song.
So you know that that album took.
Over a year to make and it cost over $1,000,000, right?
That's what I heard, yeah. Could you?
Have do you think? That you could have done that
album cheaper at that time? Because I think yes, really.

(01:44:23):
100%. OK, 100.
Percent. I'm gonna be out.
I'm gonna be. Honest with you?
Yeah, I would have got that album done honestly in two
months for for maybe 50. $60,000.
So here's where I think Bob Rock.
Would disagree with you. He would say that you could have

(01:44:46):
never got those guys under control for that short of time
to be that. That's the only problem,
remember. What I said earlier, right,
right. You the.
Work is with the producer. Bob Rock is the producer.
So as long as they do their job and you get in there, get them
in, get them the hell out of there because you'll never get
no work done while they're there.

(01:45:06):
So my job was to make sure, hey,you got your shit done, OK, you
can leave, go have a drink, go to the club or something and let
me do what I do. Here's the reason I asked that.
Question and you can you know, Ithink you would enjoy it.
I ran across 2 hours and 14 minutes of outtakes from a year
and a half in the life of Metallica, right?

(01:45:28):
We've all seen a year and a halfin the life of Metallica.
If you're into Hard Rock music or heavy metal, it's it's one of
the most famous documentaries inthe history of the world.
At this point, I just. Saw two hours and. 14 minutes
that we've never seen last night.
Oh, I'd like to see, yeah. Where'd?
You get that? I will.
I will do my best to. Find it again and I'll send you
guys a link. Cool.

(01:45:49):
Because I'm sure, I'm sure it's in my past history.
What I got out of that Lemoyne was how integral Lars is to the
songwriting process. And he is outvoted like 3 or 4
or 5 to 1 and ends up. Getting his way because.
He keeps explaining it in a different way, but I think

(01:46:11):
that's where a lot of the time constraints came from that took
so long is because they were changing things even after they
started recording, which, you know, is not ideal.
But I was fascinated with what he would hear in his head and
say, you guys are missing what I'm saying, man, he's doing this
shit too much. I want him to lay back on the
backbeat. You know, I want him to follow

(01:46:32):
the hi hat or the Toms or, you know, his ability to hear things
like you're saying that the artist normally wouldn't hear
just fascinated me. They would not be.
That. Band without.
That guy, people need to understand that they hate him.
You know you. Know with my experience.

(01:46:52):
As a producer, you know. I.
I learned a lot about how I produce by working with with
multiple artists and of different genres.
But the challenge has always been because I'm a producer and
I'm producing myself, right? And you're.
Harder on yourself. I have to double question.

(01:47:14):
Myself, like, absolutely. And so.
I, I usually have to bring somebody in.
Mostly my manager is like that. You know, he's that second guy
that would give me what I'm looking for, the truth behind
what, what, what I'm doing. No, no, no, don't do that.
That's not a good idea. And I have to follow it because

(01:47:35):
I'm merely producing myself as opposed to if I was producing
another artist, I wouldn't need his compliment or anything
because I know exactly what thatartist need.
And I know what's what's going on, what to do with that artist.
But when I'm doing me, it's it'sI'm very critical and I can't
get all. I know what I want, I know what

(01:47:56):
I hear and I know what what I'm trying to do.
But am I sure about it? It's hard to get away from it
when. You're the one on the inside.
Yeah. Because, you know, I don't want
to be like, well. This is, you know, I'm, I'm
listening to my own music and, and it sounds good to me.
I don't care about everybody else.
But that's, you know, because that's not how I am.
I want everybody to love it besides me, right?

(01:48:19):
Agreed. So you know, I have.
I have. Problems with that?
You know, I still have problems with that till this day.
So, you know, 9 times out of 10,I'll do a song, send it to my
manager what you think it is, you know, hey, change, change
that one word and you good or change that baseline or and
that's where. You.

(01:48:40):
That's where the trust comes into people that you surround
yourself with when you're creating what you're creating,
regardless of what it is. You have to be able to rely on
them for their honest opinion, not just being yes or no, you
know? Yeah, when I went to these.
Guys, I was honestly looking fortheir opinion, where if it was
somebody from the outside looking in, you're always a
little more guarded, right? Like now that I know you, if I

(01:49:02):
sent you a piece of music and you said, hey, man, have you
ever thought about this or that,I would be all ears, right?
Yeah, let's try it. If Chris says, hey, you know,
let's make this verse a little bit longer.
I need a little more time to getwhat I want out.
I'm all ears, man. I I'm here to serve the song,
right? I'm not serving myself as a
player. It's all about the song.

(01:49:23):
Thank you. Take, take all options and take
opportunities from other people.Whoever is giving you advice on,
on anything, take it because younever know what you're going to
come across, right? I'll tell you the funniest
story. About jamming with my drummer
for the first or second time is I love drums, man.
I wanted to be a drummer. My wanting to do so far

(01:49:45):
outweighed my ability to do so right.
So we're jamming, writing songs,and I'm like I'd.
Hit him harder. You.
Know just, I want to hear him, you know, I want more, you know,
he started laughing. He's like, man, I jammed with a
lot of people. And he says, I always heard the
opposite. You're playing too fast, you're
playing or you're playing too hard.

(01:50:07):
You're playing too much. And here you are telling me to
play louder and more like, well,I love drums, man.
You know, I want to hear that rhythm.
That's what makes people move. That is true.
Guitar's fun for you and I to sit around.
And play by ourselves because welove guitar, but people only
want to hear so much of that by itself before we want to hear

(01:50:28):
that beat. Man, that backbeat.
Is the one yes, yeah, Chris saidit best earlier when you.
Throw the bass in there, the whole song changes.
It does, yes. It does everything.
That's why I buy a. Prince.
You know when he did, when Dovescried, tried everything.
He could. To put a bass line in that song
and it just didn't fit. Yep.
So he relied heavily on the drums.

(01:50:54):
You know, without that, that song wouldn't have.
Been nothing. The beat is what carried when
everybody knows that beat. Yep, Yep, Yep.
We could go on. For everybody.
I don't think we should. We're like Chris Joy.
Talking music with you guys I. Know we're like too forward to
meeting. You, yeah.
Working with you guys. Yeah, that would be fun.
Man, that would. Be fun, I know you know and now

(01:51:16):
is your home relationship going?Absolutely is.
Your home is your home. Based Chicago.
Yeah, right now. OK, OK.
You know. Record company had.
Me come here so. I could do DC interviews and,
you know, work on promos and tryto finish up my album.
Which I just. Wrapped up in 2 days ago if
you're going to be here through the summer.
Man, we'll have to figure out a way to meet like in Joliet or

(01:51:36):
something. They're opening up a new casino
there in August, hey. Man, we could meet.
There for dinner or. Something if you got a way to
get down there and meet for, yeah, I could do that, in fact.
Let's see if we can get some live performances up in there.
Let's write some. Songs first I'm.
Down for that man I'd love. To do that, I'll come jam with

(01:51:58):
you. Right on.
Cool, let's do. It cool I.
Sent you my. I sent you my.
Cell when you when you disappeared, I, I emailed you
and said where did you go? So my cell number's in there.
So if you respond back to that with yours, I'll share I'll
share it with Mike and then we'll all group text and say
hello and and then just keep in touch and you know like I said
when you when you're getting ready to come to Arizona, man
reach out. You know, I sure will.
Definitely. Who's in Arizona?

(01:52:18):
You. I mean, I'm Chris is in Arizona.
Mike's in Illinois. I'm in Illinois.
OK, Chris, I'll. Be in in.
Arizona in about less than a week and I'll just reach out to
you and let you know when I'm there.
Absolutely. And we'll see if.
You and when I get back, Mike, you and I will get.
Together whenever. Because I'm here all the time.
Yeah, we'll plan a day for sure,man.
There you go, I want to say. Yes, first I want to say thank

(01:52:41):
you Laura for this, this interview.
Absolutely. See Laura.
The bomb. Laura is really the bomb.
I want to thank Charles Swift, my record company, Wicked
Entertainment. But more importantly, I want to
thank all my fans because, you know, without, without my fans,
none of this would be possible. And I, and I love the fact that
they love my music. And I'm going to keep doing

(01:53:02):
music as long as I can. And, and #1I thank God for, for,
for all of this happening. There you go.
What's the best place? People can find you online.
You can find me online at. We Lemoine, alexander.com,
Google search, Lemoy and Alexander.
You can go to Spotify, Apple andeverywhere in the world.

(01:53:27):
All you have to do is just type in the name.
LEMOYNE Alexander. There you go.
Hey, we always. Wrap our show up like this.
If you're having a bad day, don't let the bad days win.
Somebody Loves You. Somebody will miss you if you
take your life. So don't do that.
If you need somebody to talk to,you can go to the Google
machine, find somebody that thenthey could listen to your and
help talk you off that Cliff or reach out to family and friends

(01:53:48):
because you never know. They actually do want to hear
from you and they will help you overcome whatever trauma you're
dealing with. That moment in time for Chris
and Mike. This is the Chris and Mike show
for the world's world, famously Moon Alexander.
Dude, such a treat having you onthe show, man.
Thanks for doing this man Damn. Nice meeting you.
Yeah, and and we don't look. At this as an interview, we look
at it as a conversation because that's just how we roll, man.

(01:54:10):
So anytime you want to come backon and have a conversation with
us, let us know. We're happy to do it.
Yeah, after your albums been outfor a little.
Bit give it a couple months and reach out to Chris again, let us
know how the albums doing, what kind of reaction you got, what
you're up to. Okay, yeah, I sure will.
I will reach out. To you guys as soon.
As the album is once again, yeah, Once it's done and looks
like this, we'll reach out to you guys.

(01:54:31):
Yeah, because I want to buy one.Yeah, I.
Want one too? Absolutely.
You got it no problem. Guys, hey, have a great man
have. A have a great man, have a great
day. Anything you need, just reach
out and then like I said, respond to that e-mail and we'll
exchange all our digits and and we'll start in touch and and
make the world a better place tolive in.
You got it. Thank you guys.
Thank you, have a good weekend. Peace, you too.
Love you. Love you love.

(01:54:52):
You, Mike. Love you too brother too.
Bye man. We're clear, we don't want to
fly in this up to you. Look the temple.
You're insane. Feel the tears.
Open your eyes on your journey. This is the place where you will

(01:55:18):
go. Feel the trail behind your eyes.
Feel the soul and meet you. Take a moment.
Look until you see him. Fight the battle.
That's you for the Squeers. Fight the battle, but you for

(01:55:39):
queer who is your baby to your fear.

(01:56:49):
The. Come down here.
We haven't found Sally and see the sand.
You can fight him. Wait for the dead.

(01:57:13):
When? He's closer.
I've been hit by. The wind, you ain't no creature.
We're playing smiles and you should you quit on the almighty
days. How to dream?
Who in your life to keep our soul in every man.

(01:57:35):
Take the turn behind your eyes. Feel the soul evolution now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:57:56):
Take your moment.

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#108 - Lemoyne Alexander - From Hip Hop Producer to Rockstar

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#108 - Lemoyne Alexander - From Hip Hop Producer to Rockstar