The Art of Networking and Finding Your Musical Voice w/Luis Espaillat :: Ep 209 The Rich Redmond Show

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Don't approach it. Don't think of it as networking.

(00:02):
Just like, just get out thereand just meet people. But that's
what it is. Well, that's what itis, but they just don't want to
use the word. But there's adifferent approach. Well,
there's, I've seen
it happen with some businesspeople use it exactly, going out
that network Exactly. Well, youcome out. It's the
thing of and I'm sure this hashappened to probably both of
you, where somebody comes to youlike, Hi, my name is so and so,
and I've done this, this andthis, and this, and they lead
with their resume. Yeah?

(00:22):
Well, that's not goodnetworking. Yeah, exactly. But
they're
kind of told that that's whatyou have to do. No for speed
dating,
yeah, but, but, but that themain thing is to, is to find a
common reality with the personand find out what interests
them. You
know, despite your success inall this rich I'm gonna, I'm
gonna challenge you on that. I'mgonna say that it's actually

(00:43):
finding, what problem do yousolve?
But that's more of a hard promosexual pitch. No, it's, it's
basically what's your problemand I can solve it. Well,
not only that, it's, well,what's your problem? I want to
listen and I want to find outwhat is the biggest thing you're
dealing with, and if it'ssomething that I could
accommodate, or I know somebodythat that could accommodate it,
I just want to be a resource foryou. How can I help you? Being a

(01:06):
being a connector.
This is the rich Redmond show.What's
up, folks? Yep, it's that time.It's time for another exciting
episode of the rich Redmondshow, where we talk about all
things like music, motivationand success. A lot of drummers
on this show, Jim McCarthy and Iare celebrating over 200
episodes. It's a majoraccomplishment. But today we've

(01:30):
got a bass player, and now bassplayers are a drummer's best
friend, and this guy is a bestfriend. It's gonna be so great
to talk to him. It's longoverdue. It's like herding cats
trying to get musicians to driveto Spring Hill to do this thing.
So there's a lot ofrescheduling, especially if
they're busy and they'repopular, like today's guest,
Jim. Before we go too far, whatare you wearing? It's a little

(01:51):
forward thinking and a littlecrazy. This is a this is a
today's guest knows we both havean affinity for the designer,
John Varvatos, just becauseeverything that he designs, it
fits the human body, and itcomplements the human body, and
you feel so good in it you walka foot taller. It's a little
crazy, and this is the firstpublic appearance of this crazy

(02:12):
post apocalyptic olive sweater.
It looks like it was attacked bya string trimmer. I know
it's a little crazy, but it wason sale, and that's the key to
wearing John Varvatos, is thatyou, but you have to wait till
the
sale. It's like you've almostgot, like a ghillie suit on. You
know what? Those are? Not fatGhillie No, no, no, not fat
Gilly. Not me. The ghillie suitsthat, like the snipers and

(02:34):
hunters wear, and they blendinto the, oh, yeah, the forage
is it? Is it complimentary? Doesthat look good in it? It's
interesting. Okay, it'sinteresting
that a new shirt. That's
Jim. And I's thing, if he buys anew shirt, I'm like, Yeah, is
that new shirt?
Means that rich doesn't like it?No. But Jim, Jim,
Jim is on a, like, a health andfitness journey for his 50th

(02:55):
birthday. That's coming up. Iwas gonna say for your 50th
time, no, no, no, and it's gonnabe great, because you're gonna
The funny thing is, is that whenyou get your new BOD, you're
just gonna want to go buy a newwardrobe. It's gonna be great.
And who John Barbados I shouldgo for, yeah. I mean, you can
get a lot of stuff on Amazon,you know, especially his, like,
graphic tees and stuff. You justwait till
they're on sale. I go throughthe very exclusive, um, Kohl's

(03:16):
and get really good or, uh,track tour supply, silent
H at the on the coals, yeah, youknow, also, a Nordstrom Rack is
good. You can get some good,totally stylish har heart car.
It's all the kids are doing,yeah, you know, um, today's
guest, I mean, this is, youknow, he lets us preface on the
previous episode. He kind ofcrashed it. Well, yeah, he was

(03:36):
and, and it was, and it wascool. It was totally cool. I
love it. It's the first time hasever happened on the history of
our show, but I played a lot ofmusic over the years with this
gentleman. He's a multi facetedbassist, great musician,
originally hailing from Sebring,Florida, calling Nashville home,
just like me, 27 years and he'sall over the place. He plays
upright, he plays electric, heplays fretless, he does the

(03:57):
whole thing you want pedals.He's got pedals you want
straight into the amp. He'll dostraight into the amp. But he's
been on soundtracks fortelevision shows like Roswell,
Smallville, King of the Hill.He's been on film score
soundtracks like squat andAmerican Wedding. He's played on
video games like Need for Speed,Hot Pursuit two and Project
Gotham Racing. And then look atthis. Look at these artists.
He's worked with, BaileyZimmerman, Michael Martin

(04:20):
Murphy, we're talking Johnparty. Brett Eldridge, Leanne
Womack, Jody, Messina, TyHerndon, Lee Greenwood, trace
Atkins, Jamie O'Neill, JimmyWayne, Lindsey. L Pam Tillis,
Gavin DeGraw, Tom Keefer ofCinderella. He's been out with
the guest who he's played with,Johnny Hyland, he's worked with
cowboy Troy cold Ford, and youwill he will say yes to a

(04:42):
session we've done a lot oftimes. My friend Luis es Fauci,
What's up, buddy? Hey, man,thanks. Thanks. It just gives
everyone a nice cross sectionand a little bit of like, wow.
Look at this body of work. Thisguy's been in Nashville. Your
Nashville career is 27 years.And you do it all, man, you do
it all, and it can't. You kindof have to, right? Well, that's

(05:04):
the thing, is like, and you knowthis better than anybody, too.
It's just like, we're, you know,subcontractors for hire folks.
You know, we're not the artistsin a lot of capacities, yeah.
And the way to, like, you know,this is the dream, as they say.
So you have to say yes to thedream. When opportunity presents
itself, it's like, when the dooropens, you have to walk through
it, yes, so yeah. And honestly,it's like, because, you know,

(05:26):
you know how this goes with alot of people, where we talk
about things where, well, I'vereached a certain point in my
career, so I can't do this.Lower Level, lower paying
usually involves money, youknow, lower paying gig or
whatever, yeah. But honestly,it's like, well, why are you
doing this? You know, it's like,we do it because we love it.
Yeah, and, and there's manytimes where all of us, I know

(05:48):
you've done it too, where it'sjust like, you that's not even
the question. It's just like,Are you available for blah,
blah, blah. Well, that soundslike fun. And then you don't
ask, like, oh, how much does itpay? Or, or who else is on it,
or whatever it's more about. Youknow, I have an opportunity.
I've never done that before, andI would really like to, yeah,
and regardless, and, you know,the bonus is like, Oh, by the
way, you're getting paid. So,like, a lot of

(06:09):
time we have a day rate in mind,you know, and we do that,
hopefully you get to the pointas a musician where, you know,
you can, you can have some sortof a day rate, which is a, which
is kind of like a model, or it'skind of like a starting point
for a negotiation. But ninetimes out of 10, we love music,
and we're gonna make it work thefirst you know, the phone rings.
And so speaking of which, youknow, you studied, you graduated

(06:29):
from the Berklee College ofMusic, which is great, because a
lot of guys go there for asemester or a year, and then
they go like, this is great, butdo I really want to spend a
quarter of a million dollars?And then, you know what I mean,
but you did it, you graduated,which means you could finish
something and see it all the waythrough. You got tons of
training playing all sorts ofdifferent kinds of music. But
what did it we could talk aboutthat Berkeley period. Because, I
mean, wow, that's amazing,because

(06:50):
it's a girls school.
Do you smell that? That'ssarcasm.
Berkeley. You mean the Berkeleyin California? No, no,
I'm being funny. Oh, sorry. Ithink can
elaborate on that. He's like, assoon as I'm like, that I was
told this, like, literallybefore I even, like, God, I
gotta do
this to myself. Do it
nice. Jim, you know, in

(07:11):
the kids today won't get thatreference.
So true. It's very true. I'm sospoiled, and this is something I
look to every year, and ithappens so quickly. It will be
at this concert again and thisDecember, but you tour with
Brett Eldridge. You know, BrettEldridge is known as, like a
country pop recording artist.He's had tons of success, but he

(07:31):
realized, oh my God, he's got agood, you know, Frank Sinatra,
kind of, like crooner, boob laykind of a thing. So every
Christmas he's been going outand building this kind of, like
big band thing. So BrettEldredge sings the classic
country hits, and you're playingelectric bass, upright bass.
You've been touring with him forhow, two
years. Well, let me preface thattoo. Also, I don't normally tour
with him like he does. You know,he's been around, and I've met

(07:53):
him even early on his career.But you did the con. Do you do
the Christmas thing? I do justthe Christmas thing, yeah, and
the Christmas Big Band thing, ifyou want to call
it that, it's exceptional. Andwe saw you at the Ryman last
year, and it's a great datenight. You like hooked Karen, I
up, and then this year you guyswere at the Bridgestone. Yep,
amazing. Yeah, it was amazing.And that's something that I'm

(08:14):
grateful to be involved with,that to some capacity, I can
take no credit for that. That'sall Brett, and good for him,
because he genuinely that. Youcan tell when you talk to him
about the Christmas show andeverything else. He loves it. He
loves being that guy. He lovessinging in that style. He's a
huge fan of that, yeah, and itshows because he does it well

(08:35):
and and you've seen it. I mean,you saw us last year and this
year, you can see his energy,and you can see that it's
genuine. He loves what he does,and he still does the country
thing. Actually, he justreleased a new country single
last week, so I'm sure he'sgonna be kicking that off again.
But that's not what I do, right?I'm not involved with that side
at all. It's just more and it'sit goes for the same for the

(08:55):
other musicians in the Christmastour as well.
And your rhythm section partneris Derek Phillips, amazing job.
Oh, and
he great. You guys are greattogether, yeah? Well, thank you,
yeah. And Derek, actually, Derekis responsible for kind of being
the foot in the door for thatgig for me, nice. He had asked
me about doing because we haddone a lot of session work
together. Derek and I, and Ithink we've done maybe one or

(09:18):
two live things, but not much.We primarily have seen each
other in the studio. And he hadasked me before the pandemic,
this is when Brett was startingto do the Christmas thing. And
he says, Hey, are you available?Because you play upright, and
this is what the gig requires.At that time, I was doing
another Christmas tour, or aChristmas show with trace
Atkins. Atkins, yeah. And thatwas a Celtic Christmas thing,

(09:38):
and it was a residency here inNashville, yeah. But it was
great because we had four stringplayers. It was really a nice
thing. That was with Johnny theclock, right? Johnny Richardson
was there. And then the lasttime I did it, it was John
spittle, nice. So it was, youknow, as well, so, and it was
great. It was, I did it twoyears for that, but then when
the pandemic happened, and thenI parted ways with trace. I

(10:00):
happen to be having lunch withDerek at sunflower cafe in Berry
Hill. Oh yeah, one of ourtypical like, mid session lunch
places, nice vegan lunch, greatvegan lunch. So we're sitting
there, and I said, Hey, rememberthat thing you asked me about?
Is that I'm actually availablethis go around that sounds like
fun, is that? And he goes like,good to know. And I'm not making

(10:20):
this up. This is going to soundlike I made it up, but 60
seconds later, Brett walks in tothe restaurant, and literally,
we look at him, go like, whatare your ears burning? Or, you
know, yeah. And then, sureenough, like that. Few months
later, I got the call and didit. And then so that was 22 and
then 23 we did again, and 24this year, we did it again. And

(10:40):
it's been great. And the goodthing about it now is that since
22 it was Brett's call to try tokeep the same band, and that
means the rhythm section and alleight horn players. Yeah, so
what you saw is exactly what yousaw last year, as far as the
personnel goes. And everybody onthat stage are session players.
Like, nobody's really like atouring guy per se, like couple
the horn players. They went outwith Josh stone and some other

(11:02):
artists. But primarily it'ssession guys doing this thing.
Yeah, that
horn section is playing on a lotof big film scores, exactly.
And they, I mean, constantly,like, even, like when we were
during the Christmas tour,flying back and forth, like they
made sure they had the earlyflight, because all this horn
players, like, man, we gottaremember last year, last year it
was, Oh, we got to go get intown to do John Wick four and

(11:22):
stuff like that, you know. Sothere's that. But that being
said, we weren't even sure howour personalities were going to
mesh between what we call stageright and stage left side,
dropping the rhythm sectionstage left, being the horn
players. And like LindsayMiller, who is our who is our
guitar player in that she'sgreat. She works at the symphony
all the time, and everything sheknew those guys prior, but and

(11:46):
Derek did a little bit 91 ortwo, but not really. So we're
like, okay, but now we have to,like, be together and tour.
How's this gonna work? Couldn'task for anything better. It's a
bus tour, right? No, it'sprimarily a fly tour, but we did
bus a day or two, just forlogistics sake. So you're flying
the same day of the show, theday before, day before, if we
can, that's so good. And you'rehelping all major markets, New

(12:08):
York, Chicago, Yep, great. Soyou know what's your thing on
the road? Like? For me, I'll tryto try to fill in some
educational event or something.I'll try to get my work out. But
as some guys have rituals like Iwant, some guys want to find the
best certain type of food in thecity. Some guys want to hit all
the indie LP stores. Some Ppeople just want to visit with

(12:29):
their homies in that city. Sowhat's, what's your thing that
you try to do? Well,
it's, well, first of all, I'llsay that I truly admire what you
do with that, because you makethe most of your time. You make
sure it's like, I'm going to doa clinic. I'm going to do this.
And I'm like, Man, I wish Icould do that. I but the food is
good too. The food is great.It's my routine. Has always been
for years, and this goes well,dare I say decades at this

(12:49):
point, is always, I always getoutside and go for a walk, a
long, long I call it urbanhiking, like, if it's a city I'm
gonna go, especially New York.And that's how I learned New
York was walking. It just takingsubway. Chicago, same thing. So
I always walk, usually in themorning. I never I didn't used
to be like a coffee shop guy,but now I kind of do that. So

(13:12):
the first thing is, I get up,get dressed, go to the coffee
shop. Where's my coffee? Where'smy coffee? Go have it. But then,
like, within the coffee shop,like the person behind the
counter, hey, I don't live here.Give me some recommendations for
maybe a lunch later orsomething. So I love doing that.
If there are friends and familyin town, it's always meet up
with them, yeah, for lunch ordinner, depending on their
schedule. But that's kind of mykeep myself sane routine when,

(13:35):
when I used to tour a lot morefrequently, yeah, when I was out
with the band Eve to Adam onSony, years ago, the tour
manager called that. He's like,Oh, you're gonna walk about. So
that's what he would tell doeshe call it? Yeah, he would see
me, like, you know him and thecrew up early, and they'd see me
kind of like, starting to walkoutside. He's like, Oh, Luis you
gonna walk about? I'm like, Yep,go walk about. You need anything
cool? That's your

(13:55):
thing. That's my thing. Yeah, myour friend Jason Sutter, used to
call it the Sutter strut. Sohe'd just get out and just like,
double time, just like, and justwalk that city and go, you know,
you do your thing, man, go to anice vintage clothing shop, go
buy some used records, get thebest cup of coffee in town. Meet
up with some friends. That's onething that is so great about the
road after all these decades, isyou kind of sort of create a,

(14:19):
kind of, like a street team,like, like, a community of
people that live in everydifferent city and and a lot of
times they'll remind you, hey,so you're gonna be in town on
such and such a day. You wannameet up for a coffee or
whatever? I'm like, yeah. Andthen you put it on them, you're
like, Okay, well, we're gonnabe, I'm gonna wake up on the bus
in the parking lot of the arena.So can you come by and grab me
and then you take me to yourfavorite coffee shop.

(14:41):
Amen. Yeah, that's exactly whatto do it. And most people are
very respectful of the fact, atleast friends and family that I
have are very respectful. Well,we're gonna, you know, we'll do
it on your schedule. We knowyou're here and you're on the
clock, yeah. So whatever works.So they're very good about it.
But then you get those people golike, they'll send you a text or
a email. You. You were in town.Why didn't you tell me? Yeah, I

(15:02):
know it's like, I don't haveenough hours in the day to,
like, notify everybody from andlook at my tours if there was a
tourist schedule. Oh, Chicago,it's this, this, and this. New
York, it's this, this, this, youknow, Springfield, Illinois,
it's this, this,
and this. What else I saw yourname and went, Oh, yeah,
exactly. You came up
with my caller ID and I sent itright to voicemail. Well,
ouch. I will say there's thiswhole thing and you know, and I

(15:25):
try not to dwell on it too much,but maybe you've experienced
this as well. But you know,there's these after the fact,
because thanks to social media,there's people that you might
have gone to high school withthat you didn't, they weren't
friends of yours or whatever,but they can find you,
but they're friends all of asudden, aren't they exactly,
Hey,
buddy, you're in town. Can Icome to share what I'm gonna
get? Seven tickets. Yeah, andyou're like, you were not nice

(15:48):
to me.
It's like that episode whereBrad Pitt guests on friends Yes,
and he's all thin and sexy yesand but Jennifer Aniston was
such a jerk to him. Remember, inhigh school, and she's like, I
he's like, Rachel Green, I hateher. Oh my god, she was so mean

(16:09):
to me. But now he's like, BradPitt. He's all gorgeous and
everything. She's like, Oh myGod. Who is that? The funny
thing is, they were dating atthe time, though, aren't they in
real life? I don't know. My God,
I did they did date. They diddate. Okay, so that's very
possible
that is so cute. Can you imaginehow I don't want to say life is
easy for Brad Pitt, but when youlook like that, women open doors
for you. Oh, the whole worldopens doors for you, yeah, like,

(16:31):
literally and figuratively.What?
Okay, here's a good question foryou guys of you know people,
caliber of caliber of peoplethat look like Brad Pitt. Who do
you think would be a good beerhang? I think Brad Pitt would
be.
I actually think Brad Pitt wouldbe a good hang, because he
genuinely it seems like he's oneof those guys. I can tell by his

(16:53):
personality. This goes withmusicians too, but really actors
and you know, this rich whereyou can tell is like, Oh, you
actually like the craft. You'renot in it to be just a movie
star, you actually like the gig.And I think that personality
makes it where I'm like, Oh, wecould hang one person. I did get
to hang with. You mentioned himearlier, and his happenstance
was Billy Bob Thornton, nice.And it was one of those where,

(17:15):
like, obviously it was, I waswith trace, and the box masters
were opening, nice. And I he, Iwas like, I want to meet him,
but I don't want to, like, youknow, be that guy. Be that guy,
right? Didn't have to. He cameright to me and introduced
himself because he's a musicianas well, and he is, but he was a
super nice guy. We realizedthese mutual friends we had and

(17:35):
everything else, and then he wasalready, by the end of the
night, was telling me, like, oh,have you seen this funny YouTube
video? Oh, dude, Google this.Check this out. You're gonna
love it. You know, he was a bassplayer at the wrong gig or
something. Oh, that's funny. No,it was, what do you say the the
West Virginia ninja was the onehe Yeah, look it up. It's this
dude from West Virginia who sayshe's a ninja, and that I found

(17:55):
that out from Billy Bob
Thornton. Oh, my God. He's justapproachable. He just seems to
me like he would be. He's likean everyman. Well, he was,
and I think maybe had to start,you know, if we talk about the,
really, the beginning of hiscareer, where he blew up, like
sling blade, that was kind ofsomething he created.
He created the platform forhimself. He was probably waiting
for Hollywood to come to him. Sohe just said, I mean, he was

(18:17):
really early on the scene as acontent creator, yeah, and he
hired his friends, DwightYoakam, yeah, yeah, from
Hamilton, yeah. Who did all thehe created those plays. Whose
name I can't think of, right?
Lin Manuel, Miranda. And I havea tie to that as well. Really,
yeah? Well, let us know. Well,so Well, he
didn't finish the question.Sorry. Who would you? Who would
you want? Sorry about I don'twant to cut you off. Yeah, no

(18:38):
worries, please. Who's how badlyAm I being rude? No, who would
you want to hang with?
You know, I really feel likethose two cats like Brad Pitt
and George Clooney, would be soapproachable and such nice cats.
Clooney really interesting. Ithink Clooney, I mean, he's a
bona fide global, you know,movie star. But I think that,
you know, if somebody, somebodylike vouched for you and you got

(18:59):
into the inner circle, he wouldbe very curious and
just fun. I've got two, yeah,RDJ and Chris Hemsworth, who's
RDJ? Robert Downey, Jr. Oh,okay, yeah, they'd be good
hangs. I think it's
funny that you referenced twodudes from the MCU. Yeah. I
found that kind of interesting,but I I'm inclined to agree with

(19:21):
you. Definitely an RDJ, forsure, you'd be a great he'd be
fun. I think everything I'veseen of him that is not I
remember seeing a thing, was it?It was a tour of his home with
his wife, yeah. And it was justa few years ago, but it was
like, I can't remember what thelike, a farm, yeah, windmill
looking thing. But it was on oneof those YouTube channels, like
American homes or whatever,yeah. And his personality, just

(19:44):
this is, you know, come in,check out my living room, and
his wife's there too, orwhatever. And that's where you
get the sense of like, Oh, thisguy would be good.
Vince Vaughn. Maybe VinceVaughn. Vince. Wanna Be Cool,
yeah? Who are some other peoplethat are just like, Man, this is
a guy that is grounded. Who'sthat? Barack
Obama? Oh, I'd do it anyway. I
mean, he went to mark Marin'sgarage. Did he Yeah, he did.

(20:05):
That's right, the where's theinterview is in a garage in
Glendale. Sign me up. Now, did
he do that when he was sittingpresident? At that time? He did
it while he was the president.That's you imagine
the cavalcade of cars that wouldshow up in that neighborhood in
Glendale? Oh, sure, just blackcars. I'm
surprised Mark didn't make amention of, like, all the Secret
Service guys, like, parked inhis driveway or something like

(20:26):
that. It was
probably one of the most securelocations, yeah, for him. I
mean, we don't get presidents on
our show of the United States.We get presidents of, like, the
American Federation of Musiciansand stuff on our No, no. It's
like, it's no, it's, uh,anything is possible in this
crazy life. I
got to put together a rush showat Berkeley. Really rush,

(20:49):
where's the place? So thecafeteria in Berkeley, what you
could do is kind of like alibrary card check it out, like
a performance space after hours.So we would do what was called
calf shows, you know, like fame
exactly at lunch, yeah, pretty
much, yeah. So I put, there'stwo that I am Dean put together.
It was Queen and rush. And bothof them, I had Alex, like, a

(21:10):
more on nice and, you know, therush one, he he did second
guitar keys and bgvs on Queen,he did primarily vocals and sang
lead, like he did the BowieParton under pressure. And years
later I saw a sudden, you watchhis career explode with Lin
Manuel, kind of in together.Yeah, yeah. And so much the

(21:30):
point that he just made a post.I just saw it, like last week,
and he was like, oh, you know,me and the wife are going to
London, whatever he he went andhad dinner with Getty Lee. Oh,
wow. So him and Getty are kindof besties
like, I guess, or whatever, thatis very approachable too, as is
Alex. I think Alex,
Alex is great. I met Getty andAlex in 2002 and this is right

(21:52):
because I brokered the meeting,because I grew up listening to
Rush as well. But I got signedto Atlantic Records in 2001 and
at that time, Russia was signedto Atlantic and a friend of mine
at the studio at Ocean Way said,you know, what do you want to
this is before paid meet andgreets and everything else. The
only time you did meet andgreets at that time was your you

(22:13):
knew somebody radio contest, oryou knew somebody like that. And
somebody at the studio is like,Hey, let me type up a letter and
send it off to the management,see what we can do for you.
Cool. And sure enough, I got themeet and greet with them. And
this was I just gotten therecord deal. I just signed my
first record deal. This is anEve to Adam. This. No, this was
nice. And I so I met gettingAlex pose the photo. And I said,

(22:37):
Hey guys, I just got signed toAtlantic, any advice he could
offer me. And Alex just kind oflooked at me. He's like, You got
signed to Planet records. Yeah,I did.
You're screwed my band. And
then he could see that, I guessmy cheeks just went flush, like,
what? And he's like, Man, I'mjust kidding. Whatever. And then

(22:59):
he's like, yeah, do you have anyadvice, and he's like, get a
good lawyer.
What was that supposed to mean?Yeah. So I taught action cop. I
remember for a while our oldfriend Ryan Hoyle played with
you guys, right? But Ryanoriginal drummer? No,
he was not. He subbed in, yeah.So it's funny, you mentioned, I
haven't talked to Ryan on a
hot minute, many years. Yeah,many years. So this

(23:21):
was either right around the timeor right before he moved to LA
Yeah, and we had to sub outbecause our original drummer, I
think his wife's about to givebirth to a kid, or their second
kid, or whatever. And he came inand subbed so we had Ryan for a
weekend. So
what was it like being anassigned band on Atlantic
Records in the early aughts.

(23:43):
Interesting, yeah, it was veryeducational. What were
the current bands at the time?Was it like the Eve sixes and
the fuel and
well, on our division of ourlabel, which, which is lava
Atlantic, which was Jason flomsin print, Jason from any carp we
had. It was us, simple plan,sugar, Ray, Matchbox 20, Kid

(24:06):
Rock, wow. And but then you hadthings like the Blue Man Group
put out a record, Oh, wow. Andtransit brew and orchestra.
These are all people on our
label. I mean, that Matchbox 20record, I was kicking it
yesterday with Pete Coleman, ourengineer, you know, at Fauci,
he's here in Spring Hill as alocal watering hole, yeah? And,
you know, Matchbox 20, theirfirst hit comes on the radio.

(24:28):
It's 1995
that's a long time ago. Man wasa long time ago. Holy, it
did the early outs. Was a longtime they are a,
they are a legacy rock band,yes, yeah. Classic
Rock, classic. Okay,
so, Jim, do you have a hot takeon this, like, what were you
consider at what point? How manyyears before it becomes a rocker

(24:49):
thing becomes classic? Where itgets that label? I think it's
generational. 2020, okay, so,20, yeah, that makes sense. 20
years, yeah, gotcha so. Andalso, during our time, because
hottish and cop was known asbeing a rap. Rock Band there was
obviously your limp biscuits.And you know those kind of bands
as well, nice
and so then, after hot actioncup, how many years before you

(25:09):
did the Eve to Adam thing?
E to add didn't roll arounduntil 2011
12? Because Didn't you guys playthe whiskey when I was living in
Los Angeles, you were there andyour bus was parked on Sunset
Boulevard, across the street.And then I made the mistake of
coming to party with you guys,and the next day was a big
hangover.
Well, I'm laughing because a lotof things happened that night,

(25:29):
and that was just the tip of theiceberg. Yeah, let me put you
this way, like you left and andI remember so vividly. I still
have a very solid memory ofbeing on stage at the whiskey
and looking, and you weresitting in the balcony. I
remember, still, I can look andgo like, there's rich. He's
right there. Just lean, youknow, in rich is, like, on that
rail, and just kind of justrocking out, just checking out
the show. And I'm like, God, Ihope we're not sucking right

(25:51):
now. That was great. But Iremember the whole thing is, of
course, we wanted to play rockstars, and we went to party at
the rainbow afterwards. I thinkat this point you might have
already gone, you might haveleft, yeah, but our whole goal
was to go meet Lemmy because,well, no, he wasn't. He was
under the weather. But it's sofunny because all the staff

(26:11):
there, like, kind of knew why wewere it's like, yeah, you're
looking for Lemmy. He's wealready know he's not well, he's
just at home because
his home was about 30 feet awaybehind, yeah, it's right there,
the rainbow.
But you know who we wound upclosing down the rainbow with
Billy Gibbons, not quite ascoolish, um, Ricky rackman, no.

(26:34):
Eddie Van Halen, no, yeah,
you're never gonna get this isfun. This is not a musician, is
He?
Is he a host? No, is it like oneof the guys from the metal show
or something? Okay,
no, go for it. Eddie trunk,
Ron Jeremy,
kid you not. I'm not making thatup. He was there quite a bit.
Yes, he was apparently he wasthere. We closed down the bar

(26:56):
with Ron Jeremy. Ron stillalive, right? Yes,
okay, yeah, yeah. I actuallyworked with his niece, really?
Yeah, okay. Did you ever read
his biography book? Not
interesting? Yeah? He heard,yeah. I'm sure it's probably,
like, just got tons of ups anddowns. Like, the only Yeah, I'm
sure yeah. The onlyconversations we had were very
middle of the road, commonstuff. Like, I so badly wanted

(27:17):
to kind of ask him about hiscareer a little bit. But we
never, we never went there. Oh,my god,
yeah, that was it. That waslike, before you had to be thin
and shave your body
hair. Yeah? No, he didn't care.Yeah, the Hedgehog,
exactly. Thank you. Helps youpick up her. So he, I mean, did
you feel like you had to, youknow, use some hand sanitizer,
maybe.
So, yeah, yeah. He just Iliterally, when we walked out

(27:38):
and our bus, our beds, ourbusses parked right there. We
actually, like, I can't believeI'm about to say this, but good
night, Ron Jeremy,
and he literally point me to thenearest car wash that I can walk
through. Yeah, exactly.
He literally. We watched himwalk out into the darkness of
sunset. We I'm not this isliterally, like a movie. He just
walked and just disappeared in
the darkness. He and his threelegs. Yeah, exactly. He probably

(27:59):
lived close by as well. I think
he did. My understanding is hedid, yeah, now
you're now you have Dominicanand Puerto Rican roots, yes. Why
music? Why the bass? Is yourmusical family?
Not really, yeah, not byprofession, yeah. My entire
family love the arts and lovemusic, and always have, and are
very driven by music. Butprofessionally, no, my dad's a

(28:23):
retired surgeon, like he went tomedical school at an early age,
and he's very business minded,and that's all good, but he
always my entire family, bothsides, had a passion for the
arts always. So even if I didn'tchoose this as a profession, my
mom made it a mandate, becausemy I'm the oldest of my
siblings, and my mom's like,Okay, here's what we're gonna

(28:44):
do. We're gonna get you into oilpainting classes, into piano
lessons. We're gonna do and I'mgonna do it with you. We're
gonna do the arts. Wow, becauseshe wanted to have what she
called, like, a well roundededucation, which is great. It's
like, yeah, we can do theacademics, and that's important,
but we want you to have all theaspects, all the things that's
so cool. And it just, I mean, mymom called it, she says it's
like, I called it. It's like,you know, early on, she's, like,

(29:05):
within a few years, like, beforeI was even, like, 10 years old,
she's like, you're gonna, you'regonna be a musician. And she
called it, she was right, yeah.So when the bass, when the bass
occurred later and later,meaning, like, middle school,
high school, really? Yeah. Well,I mean, I started with piano
lessons. I did horn stuff inmiddle school, high school, for
band and whatnot. But I think Ireally fell in love with the

(29:27):
sound of the instrument rightout of the gate. Yeah. And my
approach for it was one of thosethings where, like, Well, I
mean, look, you know, I alreadyunderstood music even as a kid.
It's like, All right, well, it'sfour open strings and it's
chromatic. How hard could it be?Then you find out it's not like,
you know, you know, even withdrums, it's like, well, you hit
this and you hit that. How hardcould it be? And you realize

(29:47):
there's a lot more to it thanthat. But the thing with bass
is, once I, you know, I tooksome Christmas money and bought
myself a bass or whatever, andit was just like, almost meat.
Is like, Oh, this is my voice.You know how it is? Is like, as
me. Musicians, we all we candabble in other things we
understand, like what people doand whatever. But there's this
thing about the conduit of us asa musician, like, No, this is my

(30:09):
voice, yeah, this is who youknow. This is how I contribute,
and this is how I expressmyself. Yeah, that's
how it was for me in the mouthharp. There you go. See, down,
down, down.
Did you start with the mouthharp? You didn't
know that. I didn't know that.It's because it didn't happen,
okay? But
I like how you sold it. You soldit like a total straight man.
I want to be Jim when I grow up.What's the secret to comedy

(30:33):
timing? Amazing.
Amazing. So
were you working after Berkeley?Did you kick it in Boston for a
while? Or did you I
did. I stayed not long, like, ayear, because I think it was
more out of a necessity of like,Oh, crap. What do I do now? And

(30:55):
money and everything else. And,you know, it was just like,
Okay, I graduated. I'm here. Iknow people here. I have some
gigs here, but I got to find ajob, and I did, and so I stuck
around for a little bit, and itwasn't until another drummer,
friend of mine I went to schoolwith, comes to my apartment in
Somerville, Massachusetts, whichis right kind of just north of
Harvard, and said, Hey, movingto Nashville, you want to buy my

(31:17):
furniture? And then he's like,wait a minute, you want to be a
studio musician, that's one ofyour goals. You should really
look at Nashville. And he can,in two hours, convince me
nice and before even checking itout, yeah, well, we flew down.
That was early that year, andthen July of that year we flew
down. He's, like, come with meto like, he's, he was scoping a

(31:38):
place to live. And a couple ofour mutual buddies who still
live here to stay, like, arehere, we're already here. And we
scoped it out, and it didn'ttake long. It's like, No, I
gotta make this happen, becauseyou and I didn't
meet right away in 1997 now ithappened after like, I feel like
I've known you forever and everand ever, but we have a similar
story in the sense that we tookeverything that came our way, we

(31:59):
crashed parties, we did all theright things we were supposed to
do, trying to get into the rightcircles, creating opportunities,
answering the call foropportunities. What was that
first opportunity for you? Wereyou playing around town? Did you
do lower Broadway? What was yourfirst road gig?
I never did lower Broadway. Andthat wasn't like it was part of
me. It wasn't like I was poopooing it or anything. It just

(32:19):
like it just worked out. Andhonestly, it was like, it's a
lot of work. I mean, I have alot of respect for those guys,
because the repertoire that theyknow is off the chain, and just
holding your P for so long,yeah? And that's and that, you
know, it didn't used to be thatway, you know, back in the day,
you know, you could actuallytake a break. Yeah? It was like,
it was a typical like, hereyou're gonna do three hours and
you're gonna take a 10 minutebreak every hour, okay, cool, or

(32:40):
five, or whatever. Now it's fourhours, no breaks and and I even
friends of mine, like, how doyou take a break? I'm like, I
hope to hell that one of mybuddies who plays my instrument
is there so I can go pee. I say,you know, if
you're a drummer, he's like,please do an acoustic song.
Exactly, right? Not just beer inthose bottles. Exactly, yeah,
those
aren't pillows. So the thosearen't pillows, exactly. I, you

(33:01):
know, I my first opportunitycame about. It's hard because I
just kind of jumped, actually,no correction, here it is. My
first opportunity was within 48hours. And this, I have to thank
that's incredible. A friend ofmine who's still friends of mine
to this day, another bassplayer, Tommy Mac Tommy
McDonald, hey, what's Tommy? So,yeah, so you know, that guy's
great, but it was, I didn't haveany connections prior, other

(33:24):
than a couple fellow Berkeleyguys who beat me to the punch
here by a few months. Yeah, andthere was a merch guy, this is
gonna sound weird, like, who wasfriends with a guy who was
friends with my step mom's dadand, you know, right down the
line or whatever, and he's beena merch guy since the 70s.
Actually did it. Went out withrush at one point. So there you
go. There's your rush connectionagain. But he was out with

(33:46):
Sting and slinging that, yeah.But he was,
you know, he was, I think he wasworking for Richardson sutland,
you know, the big merch company,big one and big one. And he was
working with David Lee Murphy atthe time, just on the bottle,
exactly. So, you know, he'slike, you know, it was the I was
told say, hey, contact thisguy's name is Carson. Contact

(34:06):
him. Call him up. Here's hisnumber, that way. It's another
person you know in town. So Icalled and left them a voicemail
about, you know, 10 hours later,whatever, he's like, Hey, what
are you doing tonight? Like,nothing. He's like, all right,
you come to see this band withme. And so we went and saw Laura
darling, who is a writer, andshe was playing, and Tommy
McDonald's playing bass, nice.So we went to the thing. We met

(34:29):
Tommy, and I met and Tommy'slike, Oh, are you looking for a
gig? And I'm like, Duh, yeah,yeah. And he literally, like,
sitting down after any motionsto the stage, like, do you want
this gig? I'm like, Well, sure.Why. He's like, Well, I have to
go out with David Lee Murphy.David Lee Murphy, so I need
somebody to cover this. Andthat's, that's how he's off to
the race I'm
quitting right now. Pretty muchit's yours. But

(34:50):
I mean, that is example of ofthe, you know, the Keough Stroud
system, not just like, be out.And really, could we
have not gone through thisentire interview without
mentioning kiosks? I. I justsuch
a smart Guinness, you know,because the first 15 years in
Nashville, I would go out everysingle night as part of, like, a
business model. It's like, yougotta go, you gotta go to the
writer's nets, you gotta go tothe showcases. You gotta see the

(35:12):
regional bands that comethrough. You gotta be pressing
the flesh. And here he is, 20something years in, and he just
continues to do it. And he'salways top of mind and I'm like,
Keo, great business model,exactly. You know, no,
he's really good at that. It is,right? There is a certain thing
about it. But, you know, we talkabout the dirty word networking,
yeah, you know. And to me, andI've told this now that, you

(35:32):
know, we're on this side of thecoin and now where people are
asking us for advice andwhatever, and say, Hey, don't
approach it. Don't think of itas networking. Just like, just
get out there and just meetpeople.
But that's what it is. Well,that's what it is, but they just
don't want to use the word. Butthere's a different approach.
Well,
there's, I've seen it happenwith
business. People use it exactly.They were going out that network
Exactly. Well, you come
out, it's the thing of and I'msure this has happened to

(35:53):
probably both of you, wheresomebody comes to you like, Hi,
my name's so and so, and I'vedone this, this and this, and
they lead with their resume.Yeah, well, that's not good
networking. Yeah, exactly. Butthey're kind of told that that's
what you have to do. No speeddating,
yeah, but, but, but that themain thing is to, is to find a
commonality with the person andfind out what interests them.

(36:15):
You
know, despite your success inall this rich I'm gonna, I'm
gonna challenge you on that, I'mgonna say that it's actually
finding what problem do yousolve?
But that's more of a hard promosexual pitch. No, it's what's
your problem and I can solve it.
Well, not only that, it's, well,what's your problem? I want to
listen, and I want to find outwhat is the biggest thing you're

(36:36):
dealing with, and if it'ssomething that I could
accommodate, or I know somebodythat that could accommodate it,
I just want to be a resource foryou. How can I help you out?
Being a, being a connector.Well, like, you know, for
example, this thing, thesethings can kind of happen in an
organic way. And Jim and I goback and forth on this. So, you
know, if you have a website andyou have all sorts of products
and services, do you have a cartor a page where you list every

(36:58):
product and services and you,and you put the price tag on
there. What involves? Are youtalking about merch or service?
I'm services, right? Okay, sofor me, like, I got a call the
other day and it's guys like,hey, you know, I'm a, you know,
superintendent of the schooldistrict, and there's going to
be 300 guests, and we're goingto do a, we're looking for a
keynote speaker in 2027 inApril. I'm like, Well, I don't

(37:19):
know my schedule is, but mostlikely we are only touring June
to October, so most likely it'snot a problem. I already live in
Nashville, saving airfare orsaving Hotel. I'll come and goes
well, we already know that wewant you. We just got to talk
about budget and stuff, and thenget it started. We get into the
weeds. We're talking aboutdetails. And then I'm, like I
said, Now also, I can emcee theentire event for you. I could do

(37:39):
my keynote speech, and then,since the event has a music
centric theme, I can puttogether an all star band for
you. And they're like, Wow, wedidn't know you could do all
that. So Should these servicesbe listed on my website? Yes.
See Jim says, Well,
yes, and you're right aboutthat, because there is that. I
guess there's, there's got to bean art to it. And I'm obviously

(38:00):
still figuring it out myself orwhatever, but making people
realize what it is that you do.And one of the things, like, for
me, the biggest thing thatpeople weren't aware of and what
was playing
upright bass. Very few guys dothat.
Well, the assumption is that youdo one of the other, not both
and and. Like, obviously,there's, it's not just me.
There's a batch of us thatdouble and, and some of those

(38:20):
guys, like, are monsterdoublers, as we say, double on
upright and electric orwhatever. But the fact that you
still have to find that way of,hey, I want to make you aware
that I do this. Yeah, it's like,I, you know, the best example I
have from years ago was, youknow, I track out of the house
as well as, as we all do, we alldo remote recording. And I got
hired to do two upright tracks.Okay, so got them done. All's,

(38:41):
well, oh, I didn't take apicture. I didn't post. Should I
did it happen? Yeah, exactly. Ifyou didn't post, it didn't
happen. Like, we're
really good, like, when you andI work a lot together with Chris
Condon. Chris Condon is niceenough to call us. What's that,
Chris? He just called a guest onthe show. Should we call him
back? And yeah,
you should probably get him onthe air. He'll put,
like, his, his week of sessionson Facebook, and I'll do a nice

(39:03):
mash up of all these photos. Andhe puts a picture of all the
individual players. That'sgreat. Tags him. It's really
It's smart.
He's really good about it. Andit's one of those things where
it does make the Philippinesdifferent. Sometimes we personal
branding, personal branding,promo, sexuality, whatever you
want to call it. Kevin Murphy,
but he's not a fan of that, thatconcept, no.
And honestly, look, if it's whatto me, it's like, I feel like

(39:27):
it's sometimes it feels it mightnot be, but feels disingenuous,
like we don't want to like itseems it comes from a place of
ego. I'm trying to sell you,look how good I am. I don't want
to just be that guy, but at thesame time, how else do you make
people aware of what you do? ButI was
documenting some of our heroesthat I would never think that
would do that are now on thegame where, like, oh my gosh,
like, some of my heroes are,like, every time they do a

(39:48):
recording session or teach alesson or do a clinic, that
there is a photo and a video,we'll
look at the
how would you how do you pivotthat to make it valuable for.
Those watching, though. Soinstead of like, I get what
you're saying, sure where it'sit's a, it's a braggadocio kind
of approach, black dossier, likea light brag, yeah, humble brag.

(40:11):
What if you could just do avideo of like we do the the Fast
Five or a fun little triviaquestion. Be like, Hey, man,
we're here with with so and so,what do you think about, you
know, what's your favorite food?And there's that kind of stuff,
yeah, facebrag.com, exactly.Face brag, but it's just like,
it's just fun little stuff.Yeah, that could be

(40:32):
a way to do that, where it'smore engaging, because if you
think of it from the concept ofwhat we now have content
creators and influencers, yeah,kind of a dirty word, too, where
they like anything else, likeyou're making a movie, you're
making a TV, you're making somesort of program. It's the
engagement factor, like makingthe connection, making the you
know, it's, yeah, I, I know thatthey're selling something, but
this is entertaining to me.That's got to be entertaining.

(40:53):
It's got to be entertaining. No,
all right, well, let's say Ithink, I think that, you know,
Chris Condon comes to mind, justbecause he's so consistent about
doing that. And I like it,because you and I are always in
the photos. And, you know, Ilike being photos. So with
things, I don't think it'ssecret. It's,
it's funny, because we, well, wewere, we did a session with him
not that long ago over atSouthern ground. And I remember,

(41:15):
like, even, like, in the middleof like, he's, you know, waiting
for people to do their punchesbefore, yeah, before he comes
back to do like his overdub, andhe just why he gets, puts the
guitar down real quick, and justgoes and gets all and we all
know what's happening, so we allgo, hey, yeah, smile. Make
sure we get our best side onthere. So interesting, because

(41:35):
we're all over the place. Youknow, our roots are the things
we've done, our commonalities,but what was some of the first
bands that you got excitedabout? Like, for Jim and I was,
like, for me, it was like, thepolice in Van Halen. For him, it
was like, Van Halen rush, DreamTheater, kind of a thing.
Well, my first bands were HueyLewis in the news, Van Halen,
solid, yes, Ghostbusterssoundtrack. Oh yeah, okay, man,

(41:59):
that's kind of, he's, he's, Imean, Jim's kind of in that same
wheelhouse as me. A lot of thosethings do apply for me. Like, I
always tell people my earliestinfluences were movie
soundtracks, and I'm talkingabout the orchestral So, you're
John Williams, you're AlanSilvestri, you're Jerry
Goldsmith, those guys, you know,Howard Shore, etc, etc. Those
were, like, my first things,because that was like, well, and

(42:21):
even being like, you know,playing, bowing up, right? Like,
even before that, like, evenbefore I even dabble in that
thing, it was just somethingthat viscerally hit me. And
going to a movie, it was justlike, the soundtrack hit me, and
my parents were, like, Ubersupportive, because they're
like, oh, it's kind of likeclassical music, but it's
filtered through that lens.Well, without
that music, you'd have that StarWars conclusion on the first

(42:43):
movie that they made on theinternet that they removed the
music and sent the sound
effects in. Oh, I gotta seethat. I've not seen it. I've not
seen it, but I can imagine
all you hear is, like themusic's completely taken out and
they put like reverb effectswere on their footsteps. You
hear somebody in the backgroundgoing, somebody farts.

(43:05):
But yeah, exactly, that's,that's, that's a big thing. So,
I mean, that's what I mean,that's some of the first thing
is me that wasn't just somethingthat my parents liked or that
got me personally excited, yeah,and then from there, yeah, we
can branch into, like, you know,rock and roll and everything
else. Like,
I first think about you guys,first thing that comes to mind
is that you and I, you know, Itell people I'm a rock drummer

(43:25):
that is has an over education injazz and classical, but I'm a
rock drummer. I feel like it's alot of times you're a rock bass
player like you, we have that welove our eighth notes, and we
lock so good on that. But isthere something we wouldn't know
about? Did you go through like,a James Jameson phase? Or, of
course, all the, you know, thethe James Brown stuff, or, like,

(43:47):
what are some secret things thatyou just love and admire that
are in the well that we wouldn'tthink, well,
I mean, that's it well andagain. But I would venture to
guess you could, I challenge youto ask any other bass player,
and there's going to be thatelement as well, yeah, when we
found James Jeffersonspecifically, or anything about
time, you know, Duck Dunn or, orany of those guys, you know,
it's like, Ooh, this is, this islike a warm and fuzzy and it's

(44:09):
cool because it's like, oh,that's what makes you dance.
Yeah. Okay, so, I mean,obviously it started with that,
with the James Brown in some,like, disco e kind of stuff,
Lewis Johnson, that kind ofthing. But also then it kind of
went into some other areas aswell that were kind of adjacent.
So I just had one top my head,and I completely blanked. But I

(44:30):
wonder
who the first bass player was indisco that did the deed up, deed
up, deep up the octave thing.God,
I feel like I should know this.And I feel like people are like,
adding at me right now,listening to this, going like,
you should know this, and we'll
take it out. Yeah,
you know, it's like, I blank,but I
don't know. Stu Yeah, I don'tknow either, but I mean, yeah,

(44:50):
exactly it. There's an
evolution. There's the warm andfuzzies about that, in the funk,
and then, oh, here was the one Iwas thinking of too, where it
was, and this is kind of goinginto high school, getting into
college. Time. But, you know,Rocco Prue from Tower of Power,
oh, yeah, because it was like,the, okay, take, you know, the
Jameson thing, which has thecool sick of patience, but gives
you the warm and fuzzies, andgive it another technical error
as well. Yeah, exactly, yeah.But he knew how to make those.

(45:15):
It's like, Yeah, but try to dothat and make it feel good. Who
are the guys that played with apick really well. Well,
there's, you know, it. There's alot of rock dudes that play well
with a pick, you know. Andthat's something that, again,
that was a skill set I had todevelop after the fact out of
necessity. But now I use it on,I do, I do pick on country
sessions. Sometimes, you know,if it's appropriate, if it's

(45:36):
appropriate, and sometimes itjust is, you know. Now, I wish I
slap
him. Slapping is that that's atech, that's a technique. Is it
a technique that gets reallyrusty if you don't use it a lot,
it
can be. It depends on theperson, because there's and
everybody, even within thatpeople have different their own
technique. Within slapping andpopping, you know, where they're

(45:58):
positioning their hands is howthey do it, or whatever. I mean,
you know, I mentioned LewisJohnson earlier, you know who?
You know, he does a lot ofstuff, but then he wound up
playing on Michael Jacksonrecords, and he wasn't slapping
and popping on that, yeah, but,you know, brothers Johnson, he's
slapping the Jesus out of it.When were you in Boston again in
the 90s? Early mid 90s. Earlymid 90s. Yeah.

(46:19):
So did you ever hear of any ofthe New York bands at all?
No, the one New York band likeso there was a I had a gig. I
used to work at a club calledthe paradise when I was up in
college. I interned there, andthen they wound up hiring me for
a bit doing sound or being oneof the sound guys there. And the
Paradise is the equivalent ofexiting. Is here, it's been
around the same amount of time,both national and local. X, the

(46:42):
one New York band that Iactually heard, that I'd never
heard before, and heard theirshow went like I'm getting their
record immediately, is calledthe Bogman. Interesting. They're
still around. I saw I followthem, and I saw they're still
posting, but they're very a NewYork centric band.
There's a band that I came upwith in the 90s, in when I was
with Connecticut white bread.There was another band we used
to play with a lot called jamsyndicate. And I bring them up

(47:04):
from time to time. Yes, amazingband. Ahead of their time. They
just never really had their due.But the bass player was
phenomenal. Alessandro Nardone,Sandy sardon, gotcha, Isabelle,
but
it does not but I'm definitelygonna check it out for sure. So
thanks for the tip on that.Yeah, I love checking out new
stuff, so, or stuff, no other
stuff. I don't think it's onSpotify or anything you can find

(47:26):
it on YouTube. Yeah,
yeah. There's nothing morepainful than bad popping and
slapping, though. Oh,
there. There is, because thereis the danger of overplaying
like anything else. It's like,it's a technique, and you can
easily overplay and slapping
and pop, but doing it out oftime, well, that's the
that's No, that's a big no no,yeah, well, you can't slap it.
You got to stroke it.

(47:48):
I'll see myself out.
Thank you. There you go. It'slike, how quiet did the room
get? That was that amazing?Yeah? Well, anything,
everything, should be played intime. I mean, that's just like,
I don't care how simple oranything. That's the key thing
that separates, like, like thekids from the grown ups. It's

(48:09):
definitely like, feel somethinglike a laborial Senior, you
know, who's a big influence onme being a bass player, you
know? He his whole mantra wasalways like, yeah, you could do
that. And he's got all thesetechniques too, you know? And
he's like, I don't care. You cando that. You just do whatever
you want, just for the love ofGod, feel something Yeah, and
feel, make it feel. So, youknow, make it feel. Yeah.

(48:29):
Here's a observation onsomething recent that was in the
news with a bass player and aprofessional drummer, both
professionals. What is your takeon the whole Primus thing?
Finding a drummer being that,you know, are you a less clay
pool guy? I
am, yeah, I saw, I saw les livein 91 open for
rush. I remember that. Yeah,that was on the roll the bones

(48:49):
tour. Yes,
it was. And I saw that showtwice in Florida. I was still,
still in Florida before college,but I remember seeing that, but
already he had made waves justbecause his technique was
unorthodox, especially in more,shall I say, commercial base,
taking the lead. Yeah, exactly.They're not a commercial band,
per se, but they got thenotoriety, so they got in that
thing. So obviously we had tosee that. But that was the first

(49:09):
time I saw them. And you want totalk about a guy again,
unorthodox technique, or adifferent technique, or
whatever, his timing is,impeccable, yeah, that's the one
thing, because they just let himfly. He starts a song, just
slapping and popping himself.And you're like, yeah, the you
know, Tim, Herb Alexander andthose guys, you know, or Larry
Leland, are just like, we don'tneed a count off. We know where
it's at. He just said it, andit's perfect. His timing is

(49:30):
great.
It's amazing. Is, am I right insaying that this is almost like
they're making the audition.It's almost like a publicity
junket. It's almost like they'remaking it like national news,
Primus is looking for a newdrummer. Yeah, kind of like, who
did that? Dream Theater did it?Dream Theater made
it. They made a wholedocumentary on it. Yeah, you
remember that? Yeah, are you abig John my young guy as well? I

(49:52):
do like John my young again,very different thing, or
whatever. It's not, it's, it'sright, it's the right thing for
that band. It's not the rightthing for ever. Thing. But you
remember when Smashing Pumpkinsalso hired the kid from
McDonald's for a drummer. Thekid was working at McDonald's,
and after Jimmy Chamberlainleft, right, right, the Billy

(50:13):
Corgan hired a kid that wasworking at McDonald's to be the
new drummer in SmashingPumpkins. Do you remember that
Jim, it was, I don't rememberthat was also national news. So
it's actually kind of a smartthing, because all these
drummers are coming out of thewoodwork. Some are very
underground and unknowndrummers, and some are very
established, and some arehousehold names. They're all

(50:34):
auditioning. Dude. There's a, Imean, we have a bunch of mutual
friends that sent in an auditiontape. What the heck? Why not? We
mentioned Keo earlier. He didit. Did
he? I mean, what somebody'sgoing to get the gig? You
somebody got the gig. Who wasit? It's a he went with somebody
he had experience with, course,Brian, brain, mancia, oh,

(50:54):
brain, but he's already done thegig. And to be honest with you,
it's like, it's me, when Tim,like, quit before this whole
audition thing. I'm like, Surelyhe's going to be the new
drummer, because he's alreadybeen
the drummer. Yeah, you know,that whole thing. And then just
make a phone call to somebody,you know, I think I got two
reasons
on that. One, publicity youmentioned earlier. The other
thing is, like, it's an excuse.Going, like, oh, I never heard
of this guy. It's good. I'mdiscovering new talent, mining

(51:16):
talent. Mining talent. So thatway, even though you might not
take them into your main gig,you might be able to partition
them off to another gig. I'd
be curious to interview lessabout that, and kind of like
really get into the nitty grittyand say, was it because this guy
had time in the trenches andthat kind of gritty upbringing,
maybe played in the garage band?Because there's a lot of people

(51:37):
that did apply for the gig, whoare Instagram drummers, of
course, who have come up throughthat route. There's
some Nepo babies that I'll getinto, you
know, just, you know, they'renot exactly seasoned, you
know, no, they're not. And we'veseen, and now we do live in the
day and age where we've seensome of those people getting
those gigs. Yeah, we there's abachelor and drums specifically,
but in other avenues as well,where they found them on

(52:01):
Instagram because they had akajillion followers, or
something like that, right? Butthat doesn't make them good. No,
not necessarily, but sometimes,and I mean, I might be thinking
this more like conspiracytheory, but it might be one of
those situations where they'rethinking, hey, we can get some
extra publicity, because theyalready have built in publicity.
Okay,
maybe Jones. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so

(52:23):
actually, yeah, funny that yousay that because there is a
drummer out there, and he's, Ithink he's been featured on
drumeo and stuff like that. Ican't remember his name, but I
believe he's Spanish or Italian,but he's, he's just got these,
he's got all the chops, veryclinical speed off the charts.
And he does like renditions,like he did, Tom Sawyer, yeah?
Spanish guy, yeah, yeah. I don'tknow, I don't remember his name,

(52:44):
but he's, he's one of these guyswho, yeah, dude, you can
overplay the crap out of it, butyou just completely remove,
remove the soul of that song.Yeah, you took, you ripped it
right out. He got murdered inthe cup. So
many shops. But for what? Somany chops, what? Well, he's
making a great living becausehe's selling
mugs, hats, hoodies. There's

(53:06):
that, yeah, and well, and also alot of the younger folks now,
they see that as a viable avenueof of of occupation. You're
like, wow, I could just set upcameras and lighting in my
space. Come down here, createcontent, sell product, run a
business. Have the notoriety.Get the free gear. They don't
have to jump on a tour bus. Theydon't have to jump into a van.
They don't have to sleep at the,I mean, the Holiday Inn, yeah,

(53:28):
with the one with the pool inthe middle, that's really noisy
with the kids. You know, itsmells like chlorine. They don't
have to do any of that rich.It's funny,
because you're seeing a lot ofideas that, quite frankly, you
and I thought of, yes, we triedone. Which one the drumming
roulette idea? Remember thatyears ago, where I'd throw songs
at you, oh, yeah, and you had toplay them.

(53:48):
But my thing was, right, youcould play at them, but I am
just such a stickler formeticulousness and learning a
song.
You're not an ideal candidate tobe in the seat. Yeah, you're a
host, but the whole idea of hostit, you should totally host it.
Okay,
that's your friend, but you
definitely want Kevin Murphy onthe panel, right? Oh,

(54:09):
God, right. He would, yeah.
Well, and also, well, look, andKevin is, like, we know Kevin is
a person, but as a player, youknow he's also, He's amazing.
He's worth the salt. And that'slike, it's one of those guys is,
like, that's like, you know,it's, you know, he says things
that we wish we could say. He'sjust like, whatever this does
not care. He doesn't care. He'sgiven him. But it's, but at the

(54:30):
same time, it's just like, youknow, there's so many other
people that try to pull that anddon't have the goods to back it
up. And I go, Well, Kevin,you're not wrong, and you're
really good. You're an amazingplayer. And I love, I love
hanging and playing with thatguy whenever I got that
opportunity. Yeah, years ago,
I remember we were doing adouble bill. He's playing with
Josh Grayson, and he was justthat sounds like he's just like,

(54:52):
doing a one handed role on thishand that he did a one handed
role between his right hand andhis right foot. And like, I'm
like, Oh my God, you're. Crazybuddy, you're gonna get fired.
Don't use that well.
He's also the first guy to golike he knows enough not to, you
know, he knows when and where todo it. That's another push the
envelope, yeah, but that that'salso that skill set, and

(55:14):
whatever I think makes is whatmakes you a good not just good
drummer or good musician. It'slike you you've got that skill
that's great, but you know notto do well, you've
been on a million sessions witha million cats. I mean, you're
working with everybody from, youknow, like on one day you might
be working with me, another dayyou're working with Dan Needham,
another day you're working withAndy Hull.
What are some of the skills wedidn't address something? What I

(55:34):
was down a little rabbit trick.Oh,
shoot. We'll come, come back tome. Let's finish this drumming
roulette thing. The drummingroulette. But you see, I
apologize, guys, that's right.
Drumeo has kind of taken thatconcept where they get these big
name drummers sitting in andthen, like, they took Mike
Portnoy, and he had played abunch of his stuff, they
interviewed him, and then theythrew like a tool song at him.

(55:56):
Yeah, that's right, right? Ihave for 3045, minutes. He sat
there learning it. Well, theythrew
a couple like, and I think it's,it's a very entertaining
concept, because you're going totake a drummer who's known for a
certain genre and throw thecomplete opposite genre and go
try this, right? And sometimesit's like, the results, the ones
that I've seen is like, Oh,that's a that's not the right

(56:16):
part, but that's a coolapproach.
It's amazing to watch becausethey're, they're, they're,
they're just willing to putthemselves out there. You know,
they don't have to do that,yeah, but I love the fact that
they do.
It's a little, it's a, you know,actually have a clinic coming up
in Albany, and hopeful all theflights make it and everything
with all this winter, getwinter, get them. But snowball

(56:38):
winter snow gets Yeah. Anyways,if I make it there and
everything works, great. It'sgoing to be one, you know, one
of my little one man shows, andthe host is a great friend of
mine, Bobby angeletta, who's adrummer, and he's got a rock
band that he's had forever. He'sbeen playing with these guys
forever, and he's going to havehis rock band there, and I am
going to chart out on the spotone of their songs I've never

(56:59):
heard, and play it with theband. Nice. That was his idea.
We good idea. Can you get thatvideoed while I have another
friend? Stan Z, what's up? Stanis completely ignored. Stan is
so no, no. Stan Z, he's yourfriend. Is a great drummer, but
he's, he's a videographer, likea professional videographer,
that a new shirt, and he's gonnacome out and film it. So, Jim,

(57:20):
I'm answering your question.Stan z is gonna come
out film Jim McCarthy
at the first voice first rulespodcast interviewing is
listening. What were you saying?Anyways?
Okay, so go back to your yourthis television show that in the
making? Well, we
have the idea talk about this. Idon't think we should. I think
we got to keep it under wraps.Okay, that's our little idea we
could talk to

(57:41):
copyright first. Yeah, who didyou ask for?
Luis? Luis, yeah. Okay. One timehe said, my name is not Lois. I
said, Luis, yeah, there you go.He said, Yeah, you did. But what
time the fact
that you called me out on this,that's great. I'm
used to it. I get it all thetime.
One time I spelled it, l, o, u,i s, by accident. And you're
like, well, first of all, I'mnot Lois,

(58:03):
yeah. Well, I get that atStarbucks all the time, so I'm
used to, like, Mitch
Mitch Mitch Mitch Redman, MitchRedman,
God, I love that. That's,that's, I'm putting that in my
phone now, yes, I don't reallygo to Starbucks, so,
I mean, I don't know what Iwould get. Probably dick.
You want a dark Dick rose. Validquestion again. That's Jim at

(58:26):
Jim McCarthy voiceovers.com, allyour Starbucks now we return to
the show after the fact. Hetalks about his time his
friendship with Diddy. Okay.Yes. Continue. So yeah,
yeah, go back to your idea thistime. Are we going to talk about
it? Well, here's the thing, Ithink that if we talk about any
of these ideas, yeah, they couldbe stolen. Totally,

(58:48):
yeah, probably valid. Keep itunder wraps that way, just to
get someone
signs an idea worth pursuing,basically,
I'm the host. No, Kevin Murphyis going to be on the panel.
There's going
to be a panel. This is glorioussorts. I whatever you're
selling. Sign me up. Yeah, youjust said panel. You Kevin
Murphy, and then he
could be a guest panelist as the

(59:10):
non drummer representative, therep, but you have a rhythmic
sensibility, so big time.
I'd love to sure if that's thecase. I'm in so with the
with the Dominican roots, yes,did you? Did you ever have that?
Tell everybody. And this goes
for you too, Jim.

(59:31):
I love the fact you mentionedpanels. You just made me flash
back to a panel you and I wereon back in like, 2008 Belmont,
so rich and I were on a panel.And when we're going around the
horn, introducing ourselves andwho we work with, trying to do
the resume thing, or whatever Imentioned at that time because
I'd worked with Jamie O'Neill.Yeah, every time I mentioned a
name that I had worked with orwas working with, rich

(59:52):
immediately started mouthing adrum part from one of their
things. There is no Arizona,yeah, that's exactly Jamie
O'Neill. And you start doingthat, I'm like, yeah, that song.
It was, and it's so funnybecause the students are just
like, arms crossed, just like,All right, get on.
Just entitled Belmont. Kids,come on. Kids, it's like,
lighting up. People,
sorry, where were we rich? Is
world class at that? Oh, youknow what? I mean, you could

(01:00:15):
verbalize and vocalize drumparts like nobody's business.
Oh, he's really good at it. Imean, I admire most drummers I
know are good at it, but theyhave their own version of it,
and Rich's version, like, isvery you can first of all
understand exactly what he'stalking about, right? But it's
rich doing it. So again, thecomedy timing thing, it's like,
you just have to kind of givegiggle a little

(01:00:35):
bit. The first time he told mehe's like, Oh yeah, falling
rocks. I'm like, Oh my gosh,that's exactly what it sounds
like, Absolutely. Sneakers in
a dryer. Yeah, see that kind ofstuff. I
love when it slows down. And thebest was
Pat Boone. Debbie Boone, that's
how you buy a house, kids,bucket of fish. We also have
kind of, like, a, you know, aquick language where I'm like,

(01:00:58):
hey, you know, because we're alot of times we're not, it ain't
rocket science. We're playingstraight eighth, like a ballad
or something. Mid temple. I'mlike, Hey, intro, binka, pink
pinka. First verse, pinka,pinka, pinka, pink binca. Pre
chorus, pink binka. And thenwhen we get to the chorus, four
on the floor, and he's like, gotit, he writes it in, boom, we're

(01:01:18):
done, you know? And that
works. And it's really, itreally does work that way. And
it's, it sounds silly if you'reon the outside looking in, but
honestly, it's like, oh, okay,cool. Then we just saved a lot
of time me trying to figure outyour kick drum pattern. Did you
do that with other drummersoccasionally? Yeah, I've had to
do that with some other drummersthat you can tell. It's like,
fishing. And then it's like, oneof like, Hey, man, I got an
idea. How about this? And
I go, what kick drum pattern? Orare you going to play,

(01:01:40):
yeah. Boom, smack, boom, boom,smack. Yeah. Just, how about
boom, smack, boom, boom, smack.In this one, just, boom, smack,
boom, smack. And we're good,yeah, there was
one time I, you call them themoney beats, yeah. And I was
watching an off episode of TheOffice, and Dwight actually
talks about, you know, him beinga beat farmer. He says, you
know, we don't take the badbeats. We it's like the bad
beats we put down. We put thebeats out and by the road that

(01:02:02):
are the that attract the mostattention, something along the
lines of that. He goes, thoseare our money beats. I'm like,
Oh my gosh. Well, we got to pullthat
clip. You have to use that as aand I should put it on my
website. You
should totally do Yeah, let'sjust get a trademark before this
episode comes out. Okay, let's
do that, Jim, making friendseverywhere. Yeah. Anyways,

(01:02:24):
speaking of what, you wereasking me about the Latino
stuff, but I digress. Yes, thatis so there was a big portion of
that, and I was trying, I wasgonna reference it earlier, but
obviously, growing up in thathousehold, and that was very
president, so present, notPresident. Sorry. English, well,
that's on your mind right now,it's not everyone's mind,
exactly we're talking about,yeah. So it's, it's one of those

(01:02:44):
things where, you know, when Ifirst moved to the town there, I
got involved with the salsa bandpretty quickly, like there was a
thing, and it was one of those,had I have I played a
professional before at thatpoint? No, but I knew enough
because of osmosis. And just,you know, part of the thing of
learning a song, you know, themajority that's listening.
That's the key thing. Islistening like, if you know,
more than anything else, thanfiguring out the notes, figuring

(01:03:05):
out your part, if you listen tosomething repetitively, you know
you already in your brain, kindof already know what you have to
do on your instrument. So a lotof those Latin rhythms were
natural to me, just because Ihad heard it for so long,
immersion, immersion in that,you know, and specifically with
like, we said, Dominican, like,it's merengue, which is kind of
like, it's very much like a fouron the floor on steroids, you

(01:03:30):
know? And it very and that's it.So I was like that, that part
sees, because everybody talksabout Latino music in the COVID
and and that little pushed forfeel, especially for bass, like
hitting the downbeat, like aneighth note before the actual
downbeat, that kind of stuff. Soyeah, all that stuff. Again,
that was my lesson as a musicianto, like, listen,
was that here in Nashville withLalo Davila, his band? I did

(01:03:53):
play with
Lalo, but that was after that.This was this gig. Was
beforehand. This was near early,early aughts, and this was,
there was a place in printersalley called Club caliente. Oh,
and it's now where theunderground places that British
pub is, and that was run by acouple people, a couple from
Columbia, who are danceinstructors, nice, and they
hired me and a bunch of peoplelike we made a salsa band and

(01:04:14):
had a weekly gig there. Awesome.And it was great because it
built the repertoire. My readingchops got better, and just
playing with four percussionistswas always a blast. Oh,
my god, yeah, because it's like,because when we, when we play
Latin rhythms on a drum set,Jim, we're basically
impersonating four people. Butif you have the four, if you So,
you got a conga row, you got abun Garo, you got a guy that's

(01:04:35):
playing, maybe the the playing,or maybe cowbell, yeah, and then
you got a guy playing Tim Bali,and it's all broken up,
you know, who's actually adrummer who has got a lot of
Cuban influence, and it comesout in his music. Take a wild
guess.
At least expected he's Jr. No,

(01:04:58):
it's not. You. Always, heactually is Cuban, but does not
really have a typical Cubanname. It's almost an Italian
name. It kind of is a thing.Well, I'm thinking
of one guy in particular, buthe's a bass player. And this is
somebody's rock bass player, but
somebody has been on our show.No, this guy is a drummer,
renowned Heavy Metal, speedmetal drummer,

(01:05:21):
Dave Lombardo, Yep, there yougo. Wow. Okay, yeah, nice,
because you can actually hearthe Cuban influence, yeah, yep.
He'll do that kind of stuff.Like, over like, he'll be like,
you know, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah,
yeah. So he's got all that toadd to the right. See, that's
the thing is, like, listen,listen, listen, the things
incorporate everything. You getcool crap like that, totally,

(01:05:43):
totally, and then, and, yeah,I'm sure you had a jazz period,
like a straight ahead jazzperiod. And now the funny thing
is, if I had to choose between,like, I love playing big band,
but if I had to choose betweenplaying straight ahead, small
group, bebop or 70s, 80s, 90s,fusion, I'm always going towards
fusion. Why is that? I just, Imean, I love swing, but I'm not

(01:06:05):
as crazy about playing smallgroup swing as I am big bad,
oh, because it's a bigger thing,and there's more, I guess, more
for you to do, per se, moredifferent things
so sexy and powerful about thatamount of people working
collectively. You know, April inParis, you know,
just I never tell you about thetime I used to get really upset

(01:06:28):
at the haters. Used to get onYouTube, yeah, because they
thought all you could do wasthat, yeah, like the country
stuff, all right? And I'm like,You have not seen
a percentage of what this guycan do.
But in their defense, what haveI done to show the world I can
do it? I haven't done it. Ihaven't put out my jazz fusion
record, but sometimes the jazzgroup, but

(01:06:49):
I've seen something of you. It'slike an old VHS tape where
you're doing, like, fusionstuff. Oh yeah, you
were you're one o'clock, weren'tyou? Yeah, you see, there you
go. I mean that alone, like thatcarries weight. And what I'm
talking about is the wholething. When you when you say,
Oh, you're one o'clock, it meansyou're in the one o'clock band
at North Texas State, which isthe heavy jazz, like, cream of
the crop guys. So it's one ofthose things where that's almost

(01:07:10):
like a calling card amongst themusical communities. Like,
that's why I just said it now islike, you're one o'clock,
even, most of the guys go on.He's gonna play jazz
professional. Of course they do.And I like, I'm going to play
country
and west. There's nothing wrongwith that. Bissonnette was
right, yeah, yeah. And
then when you think ofBissonnette, yeah, I mean, he's
great, Swingers, small, great,covers all the bases. But you

(01:07:30):
know, when I think of Greg, Ithink about David Lee Roth, of
course. Well, that's
what you saw him. That's thething. Is, like, we always
associate, and people do thisand they want to pigeonhole you
naturally, and it's just like,with you, it's like, the country
thing, because they saw youprobably with Aldine, yeah? You
know, it's like, yeah, but youknow, he does other things too,
and I've, we've all been there,yeah? And ask whoever, like this
person might know me from this,and this person might know me

(01:07:53):
from that. It's like, oh, Ididn't realize you did. You
know, the first time I walkedinto the Christmas rehearsal,
Lindsey Miller, who was also oneo'clock, you know, she knew
about me. We knew each other. Wenever worked before, but she's
like, the motion was, like, shecomes, like, I didn't realize
you did this. Meaning, you know,I'm air basing an upright bass,
taking it for a walk, becauseshe seen me do, like, session
work for country artists, yeah,whatever. It's like, No. Or she

(01:08:13):
saw me with a rock thing, youknow, she didn't. It's like,
yeah, we, I think all of us,basically, you can take a panel
of everybody working musiciansnowadays, and most everybody
what I is what I consideroverqualified, yeah, meaning
that, and they're not one trickponies, like they have the skill
sets obviously some people like,well, I don't do Latin jazz as
well as this guy, sure, butthey're not just one trick

(01:08:36):
ponies. It's
hard to keep everything allpolished up. And equally, I was
gonna sharp,
yeah. I mean, very, how long iswill it take you to snap back
into full fusion swing mode? Oh,
just practice the material acouple afternoons and make sure
that I get the sticks in myhands like riding a
bike, kind of or,
yeah, is it? I think so?
Well, I mean, look, a goodmusician is a good musician, is

(01:08:58):
a good musician, even if thereis an idiom or a genre style
that you're not familiar with,you know your instrument, you
know the approach. So it wouldbe a matter of, Hey, I just need
to study up. I need to listen. Ineed to do this and then figure
it out. You know,
is this something that you do inpreparation for gigs? For me to
learn stuff, I will chart itout, because by charting it

(01:09:20):
helps me learn it, and it helpsme create a mental snapshot in
my mind. I could see the chartin my mind's eye. Then the other
thing that I do, over the courseof however much I time I have
leading up to the gig, I will dothe immersion thing. So
commuting, listening to thematerial, working out, listening
to material, cleaning the house,listening to the material. So so

(01:09:40):
it's in my DNA in a deep way,very
much, 100% 110% yes, it'severything. I mean, it's it that
is in the last you know, I kindof came off touring in 2020 and
I've been such a guy, but I'vesubbed in a bunch, yeah. So
anytime there's a subopportunity, it's That's exactly
it is. Like I told you. Aboutgoing for a walk. It's just like

(01:10:01):
throwing the earbuds, go for awalk and just put, you know,
create a playlist. Now that wecan create playlists just like,
okay, they sent me a set list,and I don't have recordings, but
I have stuff off of thestreaming services. And just
make your playlist, put them inorder, let it run. Yeah, you
know, it's amazing. And, yeah,it's just literally listening
and listening. And when it comestime to have to sit at home and

(01:10:21):
with my instrument on to play.It's like, I already know this
is the key of G. It sounds like,Gee, I'm in the ballpark, you
know, it's that much, you know,I did that specifically. I
subbed in speed and KevinMurphy, I subbed him for John
party for about a month in 21and it was one of those, like, I
remember going for a walk,earbuds just on repeat, the set
immersion, you know, did, didthat with Tom Kiefer, you know,

(01:10:42):
immersion. Here's the set. Allright, cool. You know, that's
all on streaming here. There
you go. Yeah, hey, we hadsterile on, and you guys were in
the Guess who together. Oh yeah,see, there
was another one. The same thing.It was like, when I got called
in for that, because that wasthanks to both stereo and Troy
laketa, who called me for that.Yeah, even though Troy is like,
kind of also sub guy for thatgig. And same thing, it was just

(01:11:03):
like, Okay, we know, like, andit's one of those, like, I went
through the list and immersion,like, I knew American woman,
obviously, you know. But Ididn't realize, like, Oh, I do
know some of their stuff. I knowno sugar tonight. I know no
time. I you know, some of theseother things that were like,
kind of hits, and these eyes,you know. And I completely
forgot
Jesus, which, by the way,

(01:11:25):
deceptively hard for both drumsand bass. Yeah. Like Gary
Peterson, the original drummerfrom the guests who, like,
called me out, like normal,nicest guy in the world. He
knows his stuff, and he's comingup on 80 and he's been drumming
since he was good kid. He'sYeah, and he still plays double
kick at like, 7770 Awesome.Yeah, great. But he was the

(01:11:45):
first one to go like, Hey, man,you're not playing the feel
right? He's like, Oh, and I'm Iliterally like, because you
think of that Doom, doo, doo.Doo is the baseline. It's you
can hear it, but you don't thinkabout how it swings. And it
literally was like, I'm playingyour eyes, like you're not
swinging hard enough for it. AndI literally went and listened
about the third list. I'm like,oh, that's what he's talking

(01:12:05):
you mean the subdivision betweenback at ACT,
yeah, it's almost like, like, wethink Doom, doo, doo. Doo is
bat, Duba da. It's like, there'sa swing, you know? So me even
verbalizing it that way, that'sstupid. At, yeah, exactly puts
you in that mindset, eventhough, like, the notes are
timing in the same spot, butit's how you get there, the
swing, yeah, what I was playing
the other night with Chicago.There you go. That does that.

(01:12:29):
Oh,
so all the watch, that's
kind of all the
David Foster stuff. David Fosterand that stuff is slow.
That's a skill in itself,
with the gated reverb stuff andall that space

(01:12:49):
I'm just flashing back to thelast 1516, 1718, years like him.
Like, every time he's like, ohyeah, oh god, it's like, like,
if anything, he must verbalize,you can definitely verbalize a
snare with a ton of reverb.
Now, you mentioned earliervoiceover, yes, for me, or
did you, have you done it? No,I, I've dabbled in it because

(01:13:11):
you've got
a you've got it like a veryyou've got a good voice, and you
have the ham factor. Oh, thank
okay. This is natural ham. Yeah,
well, I, the first time I got todabble in it was at Berkeley.
Was like, there was a project,and like, Hey, can you I like
your voice? Can you come do athing? And it turned into a
commercial spot for Amtrak.Nice. Wow. Why don't you call me

(01:13:32):
Amtrak, you know? So I gotta dothat. And I thought about it,
and but then I always feel like,for whatever reason, I feel like
I'm not an effectivecommunicator sometimes. Well,
you're very Arctic, so I don'tthink I am. I don't see myself
far more than I am. That's thatis a lie. I'm just, I think I
stammer a lot. No, I don't thinkyou do. Because honestly, it's
like, then I see and hear peoplelike you and go, like, Yeah, I

(01:13:54):
can't do that. Really. That'slike me trying to write a song.
And I work with so many worldclass songers. I'm like, Yeah,
but I can't do that. Oh,
can I? Can I brag on Luis? Yeah,he was honored with being able
to do a musician spotlight atthe Country Music Hall of Fame,
which is basically an hour longpresentation, and it's open.
It's on at the Country MusicHall of Fame. Now, when you

(01:14:14):
think about the Country MusicHall of Fame, the clientele
coming through there. There arepeople that live in Nashville,
there are people that are not inthe music business, and they're
also people that are just peoplethat are just straight up
tourists. And they come oncethey pay their fee to get in the
hall, they can go to thisspotlight. And so there's this
beautiful theater. It's packed.Luis invites me, and he does
this basically a rundown of hiscareer. He talks about this

(01:14:35):
instruments that he played, hisinfluence, his training, growing
up, his first opportunities, gotto play these, and you were so
articulate. Oh, thank you. Itwas very entertaining. Well,
I appreciate that. Thanks. Andhonestly, that's one example
where I in the middle of it, Ididn't feel articulate at all.
It was great, like I literallyhad the moment of, like, you
know, get over that I'm trying,and I know it's a process, but

(01:14:57):
even, like, walking out and inthe middle of my presentation.
I'm going, this is why we'llSuck it, stand up, because
they're speaking of articulateand confidence. Because, you
know, you get the introduction,they give you the whole rundown.
Here's your credit, welcome, youknow, whatever. And I walk out,
applause, whatever, and thenit's dead quiet, and then the
mics on you, and you're like, sogood afternoon. You did great.

(01:15:20):
Yeah. So I play bass. Okay,
I'm gonna play some, you know,that's what it felt like to me,
yeah, you know. And then lookingin the eyes and having people
like rich and some other like,some of my Ariana cap was there
as well, who's a well known basseducator online. She does the
Scott space lessons andeverything, and watching them,
me and some other my peers beingthe audience, and I'm just like,

(01:15:42):
Oh, crap,
great. It was, there was, therewas very few UMS. It was so
perfectly put together. I hateto be rude. I'm just looking at
my phone because Jim's got ahard escape hatch. Time, we're
gonna do the Fave Five favoritecolor, blue, or, sorry, royal
blue. Specifically, a lot ofthat, right, buddy. It was just
blue the last Yeah,

(01:16:03):
so it's very much deep row blue,
almost purple. You've had timeto think about these questions
too. I
have favorite drink,
alcoholic or non alcoholic? Isit like Cuban
coffee? What's your go to rightnow?
I like, I like, like, a Lacroixsparkling water kind of thing.
Yeah, I'll occasionally, if I'ma air quote, bad boy, it'll be

(01:16:24):
Diet Coke, yeah, you know. Andthen as far as an alcoholic
drink, I'm always a sucker at anice, quiet place for an old
fashioned, nice
alcoholic drink buddy, EvanWilliams, eggnog. I Oh, that's
good. That is
insanely good. That
is like saying, I'm gonna quoteDave, uh, Dave attel, remember
him? Yes, this is the quote hesaid about eggnog. He's like,

(01:16:44):
it's like, yeah, eggnog. I wantto get drunk, but I really want
pancakes.
Evan Williams, spiked eggnog isthe most incredible, because I
don't know if you guys knowthis, but Jim also, uh, he
produces the small town podcast,yeah, so

(01:17:04):
they try that in a smalltown.com they
were, they were, they weretouting the the beauty of the
Evan Williams drink. And theydid like 10 minutes on it, Chris
as a Christmas gift. Jim got mea bottle of it. Oh, fantastic.
And it did not last long. It wasincredible.
Sure, it's really tasty. It'sdrinking Alfredo sauce. It
is, but a really good favoritefood or dish.

(01:17:25):
That's a tough one, because thatvaries much like musical taste
depends on the day. But I meanat the moment, at the moment,
ooh, I I am a sucker for, like,a pasta with a pesto sauce and
grilled chicken. Yeah, there yougo. Like, like, usually, maybe
Fettuccine, but sometimes I'mkind of thinking more like,

(01:17:47):
Penny,
yeah, I want the pine nuts inthere too.
Oh, the pine nuts is little
amazing. Hey. So we're gonnachange this question. Favorite
actress. Oh, gosh.
What are these stipulations onthis? Just just skills.
They either the most talented orthe most sexy or,
well, there is, and I you put meon the spot, I'm blanking, and

(01:18:08):
I'll remember this at threeo'clock in the morning. But
there is one actress who's, atleast, for me, like, just drop
dead gorgeous. But that, asideher skill set, she is freaking
amazing. And I remember a fewactors saying, like, no, she's
got the good she is amazing.Redhead, probably close to our
age, pretty close. And I, itescapes me right now. It'll come

(01:18:30):
to me later. She got
mad men, I think she wasChristina Hendricks. Was that?
Christina Hendricks? Yes, Ithink that's
it. Yes, you said redhead.
And I'm like, there's not a lot.There's Julianne Moore. Julian
was great too. Yeah, no,
she's great, but, but, but,yeah, she does, but, but, you
know, she's, she's really,obviously, really pretty and
whatever. But as as the skillgoes, like, she's got in spades.

(01:18:51):
But also, I've read interviewswhere there's many, like, top
tier, like, legendary actors golike, Oh, she's, she's the whole
package. She's, she's a great
thespian. She works. I lovethat. And at the moment, what
would be a favorite song?
Again, tough on that, because itchanges. But honestly, it's like

(01:19:12):
favorite song. It's tough. Imean, I've been going, kind of
revisiting jameroqui recently.Oh yeah, it's so much fun. It's
so good. And they
got new album coming out. Yeah,gooduba.
But even, like, some of theother stuff that's not like that
hit or whatever, it's just like,you go down that catalog
automaton is their last recordthat came out, like, four or
five years ago, and it's likethe whole record front to back.

(01:19:33):
I can just put it on, and I'mhappy
haven't heard that. But thatbaduba, which has got the built
in swing, reminds me of thatfirst Maroon Five record. Oh,
yeah, same. Oh, that was really,really good, man Jim, ask your
question, buddy, and the

(01:19:54):
audience is bored. Now. Anyways,
you ever hear the band wigwam?Yes, the. Really good. Yeah,
they're so refreshing. Wigwam.Wigwam, is it like you watch the
peacemaker with John Cena? Theydid the the music for the intro,
all right, right, and it's oneof the most quirky intros.
Hilarious.

(01:20:15):
John Cena has done really wellin expanding his brand. Oh yeah,
wow,
have you in the same token, I'dbe a miss if I didn't mention
another album. But are youfamiliar with the one band, one
album, band, toy matinee fromthe early 90s? Oh, yeah. Sheryl
Crow, yeah. Well, Sheryl Crowwound up being a touring version
of them for hot Yes, but it washer boyfriend at the time who

(01:20:37):
also helped co write, like, theTuesday Night Music Club stuff,
yeah, but I mean, that record,that's uh, Patrick Leonard, the
producer who won up. That's why,and one of my biggest
influences, Guy Pratt on base,and guy got to play on the
Madonna record, like a prayer,because Patrick Leonard was
involved, and he produced thatrecord. And that record, you
talk about power pop, likestuff. So good. Toy
matinee, toy man, you guys heardit here first, Jim, you want to

(01:20:59):
ask your trivi band question.So, yes, well, you just gave it
away. Sorry, guys and action,that's fine.
So you have to, okay, so what ifyou had to pick up a tribute
band and play the rest of yourlife in
what would it be that I had topersonally play? I mean, you
have to do it every day. I'mgonna say Jamaica, because I'm
on that kick right now. Yeah,because, first of all, it the

(01:21:20):
skill set. It's fun music toplay, but it's a challenging
thing, and bass wise, and it'sjust kind of one of those things
where you find that happy mediumof, oh, the instrument I play,
what I have to do, brings achallenge to it, but it's so
much fun to do.
If think about when you're like,in your 70s, your fingers hurt,
and you're like, I just want toplay Panama. I'd love to play,
I'd love to be in a Van Halenband too. But, I mean, I man Van

(01:21:44):
Halen rush
so many, you know, I think HueyLewis huelus would be great.
Actually, I did get approachedone time almost jokingly from a
drummer of buddy of ours aboutdoing a Huey list in the news
tribute band. I'm like, call me.I'm here. Yeah, it's great
songs.
It is. They are fantastic. Yeah,
Hey, Jim, that's, that's, Imean, that's you, remember, you
gotta play every day, yeah, forthe rest of your life.

(01:22:07):
So, Richard, you make that soundlike it's a bad thing. I had to
play my instrument for every dayfor the rest of my life. Oh,
darn, that's my arm. Now, Iknow. Are
you gonna be going hunting afterthis now or,
Oh, because of my camouflage.Again, that's Jim. Hey, man.
I hope that. I hope you know,there's not a lot of comments on

(01:22:29):
the on the YouTubes.
Bruce Banner called he wants hisshirt back. Hey, so Luis,
what is there if you want toreach out to you? What's the
best way do you have yourown.com Yeah, I do. You spell
everybody, you spell your lastname. Here
I will. So my, I do have a.com Idon't really keep it up as much
as I should. But no, there. It'sL, L, U, I, S, E, S, P as in

(01:22:50):
Peter, a, i, L, L, A, T as in,thomas.com
Luis, espayat.com it's just sofun to say. But you
know, obviously, more often thannot, the social media stuff. So
Instagram is Louis bass, l, u,i, s, B, A, S, S, Luis, Luis.
Espayat base altogether, B, A,S, S is my Facebook page.

(01:23:11):
Instagram, Twitter's the same. Ithink I do have a tick tock,
even though I just saw the newsthat that might go away. Yeah.
Do you have, like, a centralwebsite? Did you mentioned,
yeah, Luis despaya.comeverything's there. Everything,
all the links are there
too. Yeah, that's great thing.And I will say just really quick
in closing, that I reallyappreciate your commitment to
music education as well. You'repassionate about it. You and I

(01:23:32):
have done the thing at theSchool of Rock at the rhyme in
many years, and the kids loveyou, and you're great working
with the kids. And same with ourfriend Michael sterto and Angie
and Kelly McCarthy. We love themso much, so much. We could talk
for hours and hours. Yeah, of
course. Well, we've also gothistory ourselves. We even get
into the stuff that we've workedon together.
What have we done? You got tocome back? Well, I'd be glad to
Yeah, absolutely. What have wedone over the last 20 years? So

(01:23:54):
much.
Well, the red door we've donenow. We've actually, like,
legitimately played on records,and we do remember, like I was
having a good little happymoment we did there was a
Canadian artist that was, hisname was Jay Allen. I remembered
it. Yeah? Murray Pulverproduced, oh yeah, Canada, who's
in dark Walker and also crasheson music, produced that. And we
got to do that, yeah? And thatwas fun. So we've, we've gotten

(01:24:14):
to do some really cool stuff,whatever.
Anytime I walk into a room and Isee you on a recording session,
like it's gonna be a fun day,yeah, you know what I mean?
Because, you know, a lot ofpeople can do the thing, but
the, you know, the the thingthat makes it fun is those soft
skills, you know, those thatinterpersonal. And it's, I just
always have a great time withyou. Well,
ditto. And same thing with you.And it's also one of those

(01:24:35):
things where, like, playing withyou, just personality great. But
even from a professionalstandpoint, I'm like, we have
nothing to worry about here.Rich is going to put the one
right where it needs. It needsto be. Boom, yeah, exactly. And
we know where it's gonna go. AndI can, like, I always make sure
one of my things is, like, withmost drummers, but definitely
with rich, is, like, if I'm in aroom and I have a choice, I'm
like, put me in the room withthe drums. I have isolation

(01:24:56):
cans, I'll be fine, yeah. And soI have a visual, because
drummers. Rich included, theyhave what I call poker tells,
yeah, so they'll be playing, youknow, doing the grooving along
or whatever, and then all of asudden, you see, maybe that
right shoulder comes up and he'slike, Oh, he's about to do
something, but boom, but boom.And I got, he's like, how did
you know he's gonna do this?Like, you telegraphed
it. I was about to do Pat Boone.Debbie Boone, right into the
right exactly right to the bellof the ride. Jim, thanks for all

(01:25:18):
of your time and talent. You areso funny. I gotta say, I gotta
with the world as our witness. Ijust feel so grateful in 2025
that I have so many amazingfriends, but it's a short list
of people who would broken downon the side of the road. You're
pulling up. Luis would pull up,you would pull up. And I

(01:25:41):
appreciate it.
I gotta say, Luis, when youfirst came in, you just, I love
the fact that you just came in.You know, we were recording the
other podcast. I'm serious. I'mnot being facetious. That you
just, you kind of crashed it andyou sat down. The moment I saw
you, I instantly liked you. Oh,thank you. Yeah, that's what.
For what for what it's worth,nice to be likable.

(01:26:03):
It is. It is nice to be liked.You can only do so much, but
even, even Mother Teresa had herhaters.
Now here's the thing, Courtney'scoming to pick me up. He's got
to meet Courtney. Let's see whatkind of
read she gets. Oh, that would begreat, because Jim's wife is
incredibly empathic. Oh,
really. Okay, yeah, all right.Well, goes mean luck, yeah.
Honestly, it wasn't my intentionto crash last podcast. I was
gonna sneak in and be off to thecorner. I loved it. I got pulled

(01:26:23):
in so I loved it. Loved
every bit of it. So I was, Icould say is, thank you for
doing this, making the trip toSpring Hill. It was long
overdue. Congratulations oneverything. I'm happy for you.
I'm proud of you, and I'm just,I'm just proud to call you my
friend. Ditto.
Man, absolutely. It's an honor,and thank you for having me. I
appreciate it absolutely. But Ireally do everybody check really
do Luis

(01:26:44):
espaya.com send him a DM. He'llget back to you right away. And
for all the listeners, weappreciate you. Thank you for
listening, thank you forwatching. Be sure to subscribe,
share, rate and review. It helpspeople find the podcast. And Jim
would be very mad at me if Ididn't promote some of my wares,
like my book Crash Course forsuccess, which you can get
because Jeff Bezos will lick astamp and will send it to your

(01:27:06):
house. Also, there's a brand newhardcover book, which is called
Making it in country music. Andinsiders look at the industry.
And if you're a drummer and youlike to go rat Tat, Tat, but you
want to keep your marriage, youwant to keep your relationship
with your neighbors or yourband, you can get this three
sided Made in America, ProLogic, rich Redmond signature
practice pad and we'll see younext time this has

(01:27:27):
been the rich Redmond show.Subscribe, rate and follow along
at rich redmond.com forward,slash podcasts. You

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The Art of Networking and Finding Your Musical Voice w/Luis Espaillat :: Ep 209 The Rich Redmond Show

Cold Case Files: Miami