The Legendary Travis McNabb: A Nashville Juggernaut :: Ep 212 The Rich Redmond Show

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
All the rock drummers that I kind of model myself

(00:02):
after the Bucha rose, thearonoffs, they all bury it. I
know,
I know, for me, it's, I'm such abig bottom fan. Yeah, and that
tonality, man,
he made it boom. He did. Did hecome off? He came off?
You have to, because it's a 26inch bass drum with no monthly
right? That's right, was italways 26 or
did he go bigger than that? No,I think he was pretty much
always 26 Yeah. Always 26 Yeah,he would play 26 It is, yeah. He

(00:26):
would vary Tom sizes. Sometimes,
yes, they played tubs, big, old,generally
big, but tuned higher thanpeople realize.
Why wouldn't you do that?Though? I mean, just high buddy,
like a jazzer, yeah, jazzer.Why? Why wouldn't you play a 26
inch kick. Is it? You know, you
have to be respectful of thegenre, like we're pushing it
with our 20 fours. That's true.You know what? I mean? Well,

(00:47):
for, I mean, for country. Imean, is it country that could
be mixed down, 24
is perfect for modern country. Iagree 100% Yeah. 22 is good if
you want to be a little bit morepolite pop. 20 is a great
overall bass drum show, ifyou're playing like weddings and
casuals, and then you're talkingabout volume, even the sonic
quality, like a 20, you cancover the entire history of

(01:11):
music, pretty much.
This is the rich Redmond show.What's
up? Folks? Give your watch, youriPhone, your clock, if you got
one of those on the wall, oldschool is correct. It's time for
another always exciting episodeof the rich friend Show coming
to you from beautiful SpringHill, Tennessee. We talk about

(01:34):
things like music, motivation,success. Lots of drummers walk
through this door becausedrummers, we are the cake. We
are the foundation. Everythingelse is the frosting. It all
falls apart without us. I lovetalking to drummers, and I got
another one right here. He's mylongtime friend. 19 years. He's
come up on his 50th birthdaythis year. We got to do
something really big. JimMcCarthy. Jim McCarthy,
voiceovers.com, thank you. Ihave no idea what you're talking

(01:56):
about. Dude, it's gonna be a bigone. Buddy, one level. 49 what's
the day? What's the I shouldhave been memorized after 18
years? August, 20. Okay, it'sgonna be great. And so what do
you want to do? Do you want todo a big public thing, like at
the red door, or Fauci or one ofthe or do you want to just do,
like, a private thing, you know,
as I I'm good with my backyardor the fire. Let's do
that. Very chill. Let's do that.No one has to drive, right? I

(02:19):
like that. No one. Hey, did youwatch the Grammys? I did. I'm
sure we're going to talk to withour guest today about the
Grammys. But I think that, youknow, there's a new era of the
Grammys. I was a reallyenjoyable show. Harvey Mason is
a an amazing drummer. He playedall these Herbie Hancock
recordings, classic la drummer.His son, Harvey Mason Jr, is
like the president of the GrammyAssociation. I think he's been
doing a great job updating it.And I like watching the show

(02:41):
because I get to keep up withall the new styles and genres
and sub genres. So what stoodout to you? Well, I don't want
to become to get off my longguy, right? So everyone's
talking about this chapel, Romechapel. Ron. Oh my god, the kids
are loving this girl. She hadthe biggest day at Lollapalooza,
the biggest crowd ever. And I'mlike, Okay, let me check this
out. So I'm like, All right, Iget it. I watched the
performance, then I went and Idid the deep dive on Spotify.

(03:02):
And all's I got to say is I havelistened to her song pink pony
club about 50 times. I did ahour and a half workout
yesterday, and I played it overand over, and it is an ear wig.
It's a master class in writingarchitecturally perfect pop
music,
right? It's a lot of color toit. It's so, oh my.

(03:23):
And I'm just, despite the name,I'm just dancing. And then the
subjects are really, because Ilived in West Hollywood for two
years, and I know what'shappening there. And it's, it's,
it's fun, it's a fun town. Funwas a way to put it. So anyways,
I really enjoyed that. And hey,I just want to do just a little
bit of housekeeping here, justin this spirit of Mark Marin,
just letting people know we'reFebruary 24 I'm going to be at

(03:44):
the Coliseum Nashville, theColiseum national.com I'm going
to be doing a two hour masterclass. Come check us out. March
15, they're gonna be doing aclinic at the West Coast drum
Center in Seattle. Check out mysocials for all the stuff. March
16, I'm gonna be at the woodstick drum festival with Greg
Bissonnette, also in Seattle.Come check that out on july 21
the day after the Music Citydrum show. Now the Music City

(04:04):
drum show, you're gonna bethere. You're I'm gonna be there
the 19th and the 20th, right?And we're gonna have a booth.
We're gonna step and repeat.We're gonna be selling things.
We might even be recordingepisodes podcast. That's what I
say, is that we're gonna have,we're gonna have merch. Merch is
coming. We're finally, after sixyears of this show, over 200
episodes. We're gonna havehoodies, hats, coffee mugs, all

(04:25):
the stuff, 19th and 20th. We'reat the convention center doing
the thing. We're gonna have abooth, and the day after, I'm
gonna be at the drum supplyhouse, I'm gonna be doing a big
clinic. So that's where I'mgonna be at. Let's get into it,
because we got an amazing guest.You know, we are kindred
spirits. We are members of themutual admiration society. I
think this guy is soaccomplished, hailing from New
Orleans, calling Nashville homefor 15 years, he was a long time

(04:49):
band of member of the awardwinning Rock Band Better Than
Ezra. 13 years he's playing withthis little group called Sugar
Land for 18 years. Currently,he's playing with Frankie
Ballard, but he also does tonsof recording sessions. From
Music Row, from his home studio.Look at these people, these work
with. We're talking big and richBilly Pilgrim cowboy, Troy,
Frankie Ballard, Gavin de Grau,having a hazard. Christian
Bucha. It goes on and on. Thenhe's recorded with guys like

(05:10):
James Blunt, Marshall, Crenshaw,the Indigo Girls, Lady Gaga.
Sean Mullins, there's DanielDaniel powder, Suzanne Vega, the
B 50 twos. Butch Walker,Beyonce. This is a big boy
resume. I'm talking about myfriend Travis McNabb. What's
happening, fellas? So we are sohappy that you made the trip

(05:30):
over to Spring Hill, our newhome. Yeah, you're a
franklinite, right? I am, yeah,so I'm not too far. You got the
studio on the hill? Yes. Indeed.If anybody's followed your
Instagram, they know how COVIDThere's got to be a lot of
jealous drummers. That's abeautiful space.
It's a beautiful space. I feelI'm so fortunate, and you
deserve it. Well, when my wifeand I moved here from New
Orleans, we, we, it's just twoof us. We don't have kids, and

(05:54):
so we had a smaller home in NewOrleans, and we were looking for
that here, because always there.Always had the studio of my old
band Better Than Ezra down thestreet. And so initially we were
trying, we liked the Franklinarea, but we were only finding
bigger houses. And ourintention, or because of what we
were used to, thought we'd havea home and then would have a

(06:15):
studio separate, yeah. And soultimately, it started making
sense. Okay, these are allbigger houses. It's my studio is
going to wind up being in. Upbeing in the same building,
which is great. And now I tracka lot my pajamas and all that
sort of typical thing of thoseof us that have home studios,
but we're really fortunate. Wefound this place in the woods on
a hill, so it's a walkoutbasement, so I have, I'm not

(06:37):
like in a dungeon, you know. Andit's just a beautiful space.
It's, it's, it's peaceful to beat, but even just the drive home
through the horse farms and allthat stuff just to get there,
yeah, is this meditative momentthat, you know, it brings you
into that peaceful space justgoing home, or which is also a
workspace for me, but it's, butit's a, it's a great one.

(06:58):
Yeah, the Instagram is, TravNAB, that's right. So, Trav now,
so check it out, folks, you'regonna see ton of nice piano,
Persian rugs, tons of vintagekits, snare drums, you know,
curated percussion, everything'sall miked up, ready to go.
There's a view. You got yourworkstation there? Boom, it's
nice, man. Yeah, I'm spoiled. Somine is gonna be the typical um

(07:20):
man cave above the garage, okay,20 by 2112
foot ceilings. See, that's thatI'm jealous of. I wish I had
higher ceilings, but you getaround to the plug ins and all,
yeah, totally. And I do haveenough square footage to where I
can get good room sounds, eventhough don't have the ceiling
height I wish I had, yeah, Ijust have to be a little more
careful about actually beingdynamic regarding the symbols,

(07:43):
you know, that's the biggestthing. If I'm bashing those,
like it's a live show, they'rejust gonna then the room mics,
you know, with the compressionyou want to use on room mics and
stuff, it becomes, uh, notpleasant. So that, that's
something I've learned andfigured in the space, yeah, you
know. But other than that, it'sabsolutely love it, yeah.
And so now, does, does youryour, does your wife work from
home? Because you got to workaround that, right? More or

(08:03):
less she does. She's a woman ofmany talents, and has had many
careers, but currently, her mainthing is she's, she's in real
estate, nice, and so she's outdoing that, but also her home is
the office, so she really,she's, so, I think, used to it
or okay with it, you know. Soanytime I need to, whether it's

(08:24):
recording or working up newmaterial for a gig I'm gonna do,
or whatever, I'll ask her, orkind of see what she's up to.
And she's always like, why
are you just go do it? Yeah, butit's amazing. She's a keeper.
Oh, yeah, hundreds,
25 years, man. It's amazing for
a rock star like for you to beavailable to be committed. 25
let's do the math. 25

(08:45):
How long ago was it? That was ayear 2000 it was
the end of 99 and it was at inLas Vegas at 2am after a show at
House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.How long have you got been
dating at that point? Aboutthree and a half years. That's,
that's what's good?
Yeah, yeah, it's almost twicethe
standard is that right? Twoyears should get off the pocket.

(09:07):
Okay, 9125
days. You guys, you've beensaying, Yes, dear,
wow, that's awesome. Yeah. Imean she literally, okay. So
where my drums are in the spaceof our my basement studio, our
sofa is directly above them, soshe will nap right above me
while I'm playing. She's, it'samazing. It's amazing. Yeah,

(09:30):
wow. Well, that is, that isgreat, and we'll talk about
that, because that's a big thingin the modern world, is having
your own space. So I'm in norush, because, you know, the
majority of times I find myselfin a commercial studios. You are
many, many, many times, but it'sstill only about 5% of my
income. You know what I mean?Because, you know, I do so many

(09:52):
educational events, or I'm onSouthwest Airlines and do that,
you know, but I can't wait to doit. But I'm gonna do it, right?
I'm gonna build a room within aroom. Oh. So I just gotta, you
know, do that thing, float thefloor and do it right? Because
this is my last studio. I mean,I'm getting my AARP literature,
you know. I mean, my hair is thesame color as yours,
so you and I think are right atthe same Yeah, I love that you

(10:13):
were eight months apart. Oh, isthat right? So I'll be 55 in
July. Oh, okay, so I'm ahead ofyou. So we're just, we're eight
months apart. So you were bornin the 70s. I was just barely
born in the 60s. Well, manwalked
on the moon, and then you wereborn, that's right, right,
exactly, right. And then for me,one year later, you know the big
the big collars, the big hair,that's right. You know, John

(10:34):
Travolta, Amanda, the 70s werespecial. I agree. I agree, yeah.
But you only remember what from1974 75 on? I mean, yeah, it's a
pretty good part of the decade.But you remember the 80s more,
right?
Yeah, but, but, I think thething that a lot of people don't
think about with the 70s isbecause you do, you tend to
think of disco and the fashion,the ridiculous fashion, that

(10:55):
kind of that's awesome, butridiculous. But, I mean, think
about early 70s Led Zeppelin,yeah, you know what I mean,
like, there was some great newWave
of British Heavy metals. Yes, Istill
feel like some of the best musicwas from
69 to 82 that's a golden era ofthe release, because you get
Laurel Canyon, you get rock androll, you get the one hit

(11:15):
wonders, and then you get ya,
I'm a huge yacht rock, yeah? Soyou guys love all this, yeah,
what's that? Did you watch thatdocumentary? No, I haven't seen
it yet.
Well, I just got rid of HBO Max.I'm saving $16 a month. Yes. And
then there's a new there's a newshow with that Noah guy from er,

(11:37):
he's in another medical drama.Remember he was Clooney sidekick
Noah Wiley, yeah. So he's thelead in this new thing. It's
called the, the unit, or the, Iforget what it's called, but
anyways, it's like a visceralyou are in the ER, and the whole
episode is one hour in realtime. Oh, kind
of like that. Remember the show24 Yes, wouldn't they wouldn't

(11:59):
that? That was 24 episodes.Yeah, yeah, in real time.
Similar, similar concept. So nowI gotta get to the HBO again.
Yeah, you do. But see now thething that drives me crazy
because we have about 10 ofthese stupid services, yeah, me
too, but, but half of them,including HBO, now you can
either pay more or keep yoursame rate, but now you got to
watch commercials, so we're justback to regular TV, except we're

(12:22):
paying for each individualchannel. It's we're also
watching commercials. What
do you guys get your regulartelevision through? Mine is, is
I use Hulu for regular TV? It's
$75 a month. Okay? I use YouTubeTV for my regular is that 50?
No, it's similar 7070.Something. Yeah. It's
like, you cut the cord at somepoint, and everything was really

(12:43):
nice and cheap, and they figuredout a way to get you. They got
us exactly
well. And the other thing for usis, because, I don't know if you
have it on Hulu, one of theappeals for us with YouTube TV
was it had the local networks.You know, my wife is loves
particular shows on, like,certain news shows every day,
that kind of Yeah. So, you know,today in Nashville, right? Yeah,
you got,
you got to have that stuff,yeah? Well, that is, that is a

(13:06):
great thing. But, you know, Ijust feel like, so, like a bad
friend that, you know, I admireyou so much. I feel like, you
know you, are you? Are you selftaught, for the most part? Yeah,
I am, yeah, because, in fact,I've taken, I took one lesson
about two or three years agofrom,
oh god, I'm so bad. Dave

(13:27):
Elitch. Dave Elitch, thank you.Wow. Probably put you through
the meat well grinder, the thingthat
I went to him for a specificthing, and we did this one
lesson, and it's something I'mstill trying to incorporate my
playing, and I haven't been ableto do it all the way, which is
to not bury the beater, becausetonally, it's just better not to
but being self taught, I justthe original pedal I had was
crappy, and that just whatever.That's how I wound up playing.

(13:48):
And obviously, plenty greatplayers do play that way, yeah?
But I'm a fan of the release,yeah, the open tone. But I just,
I've played for so long, buryingit that I'm, you know, he, he
opened my mind and physicalityto how to do it, but I haven't
gotten comfortable enough yet todo it on a gig or on a session,

(14:09):
unless it's really light touchor something. No,
I always thought you wanted tobury the beat, because I don't,
I think, but that's great.That's interesting, Jim, because
one of the most recordeddrummers of all time, John
Robinson, who is one of the fewdrummers in the world that has
close to perfect time. You know,he's got, he passes the David
Foster test, basically, like,take a click track and you will
not hear the click track forthree and a half minutes. That's

(14:29):
not me. I'm Italian. I'memotional. No, it's not gonna
happen. It doesn't affect myability to get worse, sure, but
I just that's not my thing. Hepulls off and he gets tons of
power. So, like, dude, like, youknow, the roof is on, dude, and
it comes off, right? But all theplayers that I all the rock
drummers that I kind of modelmyself after the Bucha rose, the

(14:52):
Aronoff,
they all bury it. I know, Iknow, for me, it's, I'm such a
big bottom fan, yeah, and thattonality, man. In, he made it
boom. He did. Did he come off?He came off? You
have to, because it's a 26 inchbass drum with no muffling.
That's right, that's
right. Was it always 26 or didhe go bigger than that?
No, I think he was pretty muchalways 26
Yeah, yeah, okay, 26 It is,yeah. He would vary Tom sizes,

(15:16):
sometimes, yes, but he playedtufts, big, old, generally big,
but tuned higher than peoplerealize. Why
wouldn't you do that? Though? Imean, just high buddy, like a
jazzer, yeah, like a jazzer.Why? Why wouldn't you play a 26
inch kick? Is it? You know, you
have to be respectful of thegenre, like we're pushing it
with our 20 fours.
That's true. You know what Imean? Well,
for coming for country. I mean,is it country that could be

(15:39):
mixed down 24
is perfect for modern country. Iagree, 100% Yeah. 22 is good if
you want to be a little bit morepolite pop, 20 is a great
overall bass drum. So if you'replaying like weddings and
casuals, and then you're talkingabout volume, even the sonic
quality, like a 20, you cancover the entire history of

(16:00):
music, pretty much, right? Yeah.But,
I mean, even for a front ofhouse application, you're seeing
something like that on stage,it's merely just esthetic,
right? I mean, they'll be ableto mix it and do it. They can
manipulate
it to some degree, but, butstill, ultimately, the thing
that you are making happen onthe stage or in the studio,
whatever it is in front of themicrophone, it can be change and

(16:21):
tweak but, but the originalsignal is important, and it does
affect the end result. The otherthing too is on the stage, you
know how what you're hearing asa player, as you blend the kit,
you mix it yourself, as you playwhat the band hears, you know
that's all affected by how bigor small that drum is. Yeah,
there are wedges or ears orwhatever you use, and that's

(16:42):
part of the equation. But partof it is just, how much physical
air are you moving up there? Youknow? What kind of band is it?
What are you trying to achieve?Wow, I never know
if you're playing in, uh, what?There's, there's, there's a
couple of bands out now, thecredit, let's say Greta Van
Fleet, right? And they'retotally taking updating Russia,
right? So maybe that drummer'sgot a 26 and that's gonna be

(17:03):
great. Maybe there's a feltstrip on the front of felt
strip, and maybe a little, maybea, maybe a hospital pillow, but
sheep, you know, but not a lot,you know, because all of us
guys, we take the DW the bonehourglass thing, yeah, you know.
And, you know, invented thatlike a Disney Scott crego, the
drummer for the Eagles. He wasin a band called Venice, from
Venice, California, in the 90s,and the and he went, you know,

(17:26):
he was close with John good, andhe said, got an idea. Now it's a
standard giveaway on every DWdrum, crazy, the little muffling
thing. It's like a mufflingbone. Yeah,
I love those things. That's whatI use that and I use at some
point, because I do bury thebeater and for a while there.
Like, you know, if you're on anarena tour, you can get away,

(17:47):
like I was playing a 26 withSugar Land for a while on a
couple of tours. But because ofthe way that that batter head
responds, or really the resonanthead bouncing back, and call,
you know, all of that movementtogether, burying the beater in
a 26 it can get a little you gotto really bury it hard, or it's
going to get flappy. And so atsome point, instead of a I

(18:09):
didn't have a felt stripavailable, so I used a bandana
rolled up and used it like afelt strip near the top of the
head. And now I do that on everydrum, because I got so used to
how that feels. Yeah, and it's anice, I don't know something
about it that's become a thing.So
when you, when you say, better,are you just a real question?
I'm getting drum geeky on mykick upstairs. I'm finding that

(18:31):
I I don't know if I'mintentionally coming off the
head or if it's rebounding offthat. You know what I mean?
What the thing is, is you don'twant, is you don't want the
flutter. You want to chooseeither take and fully commit to
it. So pull that thing off likeyou're playing bebop jazz. Bang
comes way but way off. Think
about how when you hit a hit aTom, and you take this, you'd
not stick

(18:52):
pulling off, right? But I mean,when I hit my kick, it's like,
maybe I need to UN detune it alittle bit, make it softer.
I like a floppy kick head on mypower stroke three. Just, you
know, with the flams, I
like the power stroke three withthe dot nine, whatever that
one's called, that's, that's,but I don't use the flames.
Yeah, that's my go to. So

(19:13):
I was, when I was on yourInstagram, really recently, I
saw your the shirt, the newSugar Land kit. And you're not
afraid to just, really just,you'll use a lot of those big
fat snare drum mufflers, andyou've got, it seems like on
your snare drum, you've got afull one on there. Yeah,
the one I use, though, and I useit like 85% of the time on so

(19:34):
much stuff that I do is the verythinnest one they make, right?
It's called the shining and it'sa much thinner ply than the
normal big fat snare drum. So itis the full head, but it because
of it being thinner, it doesn'tlike even the way the ghost
notes feel in your hand andstuff. It doesn't affect all of
that. That must be a more recentproduct from that. It's
relatively recent. It wasn't onin the early days. It's been

(19:56):
around, I'm gonna say, five ishyears now, or something, but I.
Because before they existed, andit so happens I know Chris
mazzeri mazarici From when atone point Sara Bareilles was out
with Sugar Land and he was drumteching on, that's right. And it
was around the time that that hewas about to launch big fast air
drum, yeah. And so, you know, Iwas aware of it and discussing

(20:21):
it with him early on, but backin the day, we all used to just
cut out heads and do a similarthing. Or at least I did, yeah,
and I always liked using thethinner ply of a two ply head as
my pre big fat thing, you know,as my homemade one or whatever,
and so, and that was one of thethings at some point, I sort of

(20:42):
said to him, I would love it ifthere were a thinner version of
this. Now, you know, it's notlike I was involved in that or
Yeah, but I just always had thatopinion or feeling about it. And
then eventually they did comeout with one good and that is, I
use it much more often than not.
I don't think I have that one. Ihave all the models, even the
one with the little ribboncrasher and the jingles and all

(21:03):
that. It's really fun to have.So are you committing to that
with as the sound of the snaredrum for the Sugar Land tour
where it's like, say, taped downand secured to the head and then
your side snare? Is that an Aand F? It is now now A and F
drums. I met that President,Raffi. What's his name? Rami.
Rami, yeah, sorry. Rami, yeah.But Romy was like, I know you

(21:25):
played dw, but if you, if youbuy like, like, say, you buy two
or three of more of drums, I'llgive you insane now, because I
know which ones I want, right? Iwant the giant pancake ballad,
right, right? Yeah, that thing'sand I want the little crazy one
that you
have. And that little crazy guyis, man, I love that thing. And
actually, because fairly soonafter they opened, I was in

(21:46):
Austin, gosh, it was five or sixyears ago now, because I think
it was there for FrankieBallard's wedding, actually, and
I reached out to him. He said,Yeah, come by. And I went. And
he kind of gave me a tour of theplace. And so then we had a you
know, person to personrelationship. And I called a
year or two later to order drumfrom and I wanted, not the giant
one, but one of the thin, Realpancakey Drums, yes. And he

(22:08):
said, Okay, well, I was askingsome questions about what I
could get away with, tensionwise, on and that kind of thing.
He said, Well, what are youreally intending to do with it?
And I tried to explain. He said,I don't think that's the drum
you want. I think you want, andit's the one I have, the little
rude boy that's, like, whateverit is, yeah? And it's, it's for,
like, loops, first loops,exactly. And he, he pointed me

(22:30):
to that instead of what I wasgoing to order. And I love it,
and I use it all the time, yeah,yeah. And Ludwig doesn't get mad
because it's no, they don'twell, and they don't even make a
drum like that, yeah, there yougo, you know? So and I do. I
love the A and F. I love hiswhole model. I love the esthetic
of the stuff. I love all ofthat. But at this, you know, but
I've bought one of their drumsbecause it's something I can't

(22:51):
get from Ludwig. Ludwig, yeah,you know, has just been so great
to me. Weren't you
originally with DW it was DWI,because I always look at your
picture on the wall at theamphitheater in St Louis. Yeah.
So he's he, you know, a youngerversion looks exactly the same,
but just all smiles, and he'splaying over here. DW, drops,

(23:12):
yeah, yeah. I'm on a few wallslike that around the country,
and I get a text about once amonth from somebody at one of
the venues, like, Oh, here youare, you know, with brown hair,
like, obviously, I don't have asteak in any of aldeans
restaurants, but it's nice to beplastered all over the wall.
Sure, crack symbols anddrumsticks out there and stuff
that's fun. So Jim, you don'tknow about A and F drums, but

(23:33):
it's like a like, the epitome ofhipster boutique drum companies
in Austin, Texas. And they lookso cool, and they sound so
unique, and they have such oddsizes. But it reminds me of like
a drum that you would find onlike, the Nostromo spaceship
from Alien, right? Just Oh yeah,yeah, battered and blistered.
And, yeah, I'm looking at themnow. They're cool, beautiful.

(23:56):
They're really cool. Yeah, superunique. Yeah, they can't be
cheap. They're not cheap.They're not cheap. It's, they're
small. They're small batch.Yeah, it's really, looks like
really
big kick drums and four piece.But they're
not wood. They're, they're all,well, it
varies. Yeah, they do wood onesand metal ones, yeah, and the
metal ones are, yeah, they'recool. That's the one I have. Is

(24:16):
this steel you know? Do theyhave
one at forks right now? Do youknow? Because there was a metal
kit there yesterday, probablythey
might, yeah, I would saydefinitely. Nelson would,
because that's yeah, they'reesthetic,
yeah. No, I know they have abunch of their snare drums. I
can't recall if they, yeah, havea kid at the moment or not. But
they, I know they carry theirstuff,
yeah. But I just, and then thereason, the way I said that, I

(24:38):
got pulled away from saying howmuch I admire you. And this is a
big boy resume. This is somebodywho's been working in the music
industry successfully since, forsince you were 18. Yeah. I mean,
that's, that is a rarity, yeah,you know what I mean. And
you're, you're not justsurviving. You have always
thrived, you know. And, and whenI watch you play, I mean, for

(24:59):
everything from. The way, thetone, the way you strike, you're
touching, your technique, thetone you get, your posture. You
have good hands, good balancebetween the limbs. You have a
feel. You have a groove. I thinkthat, you know, you can't grow
up in New Orleans and not have afeeling, a groove. Yeah, it's in
the water, it's in the food,it's in the culture. It's in,
you know, it's everywhere, butit's in the room. Even it's in

(25:19):
the room, it's and, and, andyou're, you're not afraid to
dress you know, the because thedisease and being a country pop
drummer is to wear all black,right? But you go out there and,
you know, you got an ascot, yougot your vests, you know? And I
was gonna ask you, like, I'vealways had, I like the vest with
the t shirt thing, I wore thatout. But you always have some

(25:40):
sort of, like, a dress shirt,but it's not a full length,
yeah? What I was
more up here? Yeah, I'll do ashort sleeve, just because it's
not quite as dressy, but it'sjust more realistic. As a
drummer, what's, what are thebrands for short sleeve dress
shirts? I find some
picking notes,
yeah, I know, right. I'm tryingto think there are a couple
websites that are order stufffrom that. I can't think of the

(26:02):
names like H M and so no, but Ido find stuff at H M
occasionally. And actually, Ifind stuff at
J Crew. J Crew, yeah, yeah,yeah. We go into
Tractor Supply.
Car heart, that's right. Ourheart, yeah. Car hearts, very
styling. I like the car. That'sright, yeah, good stuff. There
is good
stuff. Well, that's, yeah,that's, that's the funny thing

(26:23):
about fashion is, like, whenwe've been all in our
perspective, perspective groupsfor so long, you know, in the
early days, we were kind of likea motorcycle gang with the, you
know, the chucks and the thejackets and the wallet chains
and the right, and you can stilldo that a little bit with the,
with the Frankie crowd, whereyou got the cuffed up jeans and
stuff, right, right? But it'slike, you know? And then we'll
go through the stage where welook like the knack with the
skinny ties, and then I'll dothe vest thing, and then we'll

(26:45):
just do the T shirts, or we'lldo the rock t shirt and the
blazer. There's only we've doneit all.
That's true. You know what? Imean? Well, when you get to our
age, yeah, you've been through alot of, you know, eras, yes.
So I'm back to the to all blackwith a splash of color on the
ground. Just wear a hoodie.You're the hoodie. Oh, you know
what? The the gospel chops, Rand B guys wear their hoodies.

(27:06):
And
for me, the hoodies, thehoodies, too casual. For me, I,
for whatever reason, I like itto be a little more dressed up.
And that's just, I don't even,yeah, that's what I feel like.
You know, I'm, it's, it is,ultimately, it's a form of art.
It's a it's a commercial thing,but at the same, but it's also,
it's a show. There's showbusiness happening Absolutely,

(27:27):
and I think you know, but evenin life, you know, how do you
want to present yourself? Idon't know. You know that stuff
matters a bit to me.
It all matters. Manny pattiesmatters skin branded look, skin
care matter waxing matters ahigh dollar haircut. You know,
you know, you and I are notafraid to spend a lot of money
on haircut. That's true. I addedup at the end of the year, and
I'm like, Well, man, damn. Butit's worth every penny, because

(27:49):
I kind of bought a Mercedes. Yougotta have, you got to have some
good hair, man, you can't go tosuper cuts. I mean,
I have my branded look. It'slike, you know, yeah, get up out
of bed and throw something on.There
you go. But just consistent thisjourney, this year. Yeah,
50 by 50. Okay,
wow. What are you? Are youdoing? What is it? Is it more
about diet exercise, at

(28:10):
this point in the in life, it'sgot to be about diet. Cheers.
No, I love it. It really is.Because, I mean, it's, I can do
all the working out in theworld, but you got to get your
nutrition in line. Yeah, that'strue, yeah, dude, hey,
so let's take us back, you know,because we know that we don't
have to go into your first drumteacher and all that. What was

(28:32):
the what was the drummer thatinspired you to pick it up?
There was music in your family,right? There was,
yes, my my dad was a guitarplayer. Not in my memory, not
professionally. In his lateteens, early 20s, he was making
a living in a little regionalband in Louisiana, playing, you
know, mostly covers, that kindof thing. His dad actually did
the same thing. My grandfatherplayed bluegrass and country

(28:54):
music, wow, in South Louisiana,and got married and had kids,
and so he got a regular job. Mydad, same thing, got married,
started having my brother and I,and so he got a regular job. It
became a hobby, but that saidmusic was important in our
household, both through mygrandfather and my father and
the I have a lot of vinyl, muchof which I got from my parents.

(29:15):
They were record collectors, notto collect records, but just
because of the music to enjoy,yes, and so the turntable is on
in our house more than the TV,you know, it's great. And we all
there was a piano in the house,and dad played guitar. And so we
would, my brother and I, both,you know, learned a few chords
as kids and bang around thepiano. And even long before I

(29:37):
played drums, you know, Iremember my dad talking about
music, you know, like, forwhatever reason, I've cited this
example before, I remember thisconversation probably three or
four years before I ever playeddrums, of him saying, Okay,
listen to MC Fleetwood in themiddle of this verse. He's just
gonna play a fill out ofnowhere. Like, it's not what
drummers normally do. It's sointeresting, but it works. It's

(29:59):
cool. It's where, you know. He'spointing that kind of stuff out.
I'm not a drummer at that point.My brother or I aren't, you
know, it's just that's what'sbeing talked about in our house.
So it's great, it's cool. It's amusical household, even though I
wasn't pursuing an instrument asyet, and so I think around 14
ish, I decided, after playing alittle guitar, and my brother

(30:23):
had done the same thing. He's acouple years older than me, I
decided, I think I want toactually try to play bass, and
because it's similar the guitardad could teach me, but it's
something new, because guitarwas boring, because we had
always heard it around thehouse, yeah, bass is easy. Yeah,
bass is easy or so, right? So Iprobably thought and, but my
brother, being older and oldenough to get his first job, he

(30:44):
said, Well, I'm gonna play bass.And of course, as brothers, you
think, Well, of course, we'll bein a band together, so I gotta
do something else now. And sokeyboards, whatever, you know,
drums seemed more exciting. Soreally, that honestly, is what
set got me turned toward drumswas because my brother was gonna
play bass. Now, what now? Whathappened to your brother? Did he
would go into another career?Yeah, he's an attorney

(31:05):
in Washington, DC, works. Oh,
my God, holy cow.
But his his declaration that I'mgonna play bass and I'll be able
to buy one, because I have a jobnow, it's like, well, crap, what
am I gonna do? And so it got myhead thinking about drums, and
so I bought, right around thetime I turned 15, I bought a
crappy little piece together,you know, mismatch made in

(31:28):
Japan, drum kit. That was
a 1984
Yes, because Jim and I's gatewayrecords were synchronicity in
1984 Wow. So you go, what wasthe record for you? For
me? Because before I could buydrums,
I knew I was I was saving up forthem. I knew I was going to do

(31:50):
this. So I'm watching drummerson TV and seeing what they do,
and I'm air drumming, right? Andyes, the first concert I went to
that I chose and bought a ticketto was synchronicity tour. And
so it was Stuart Copeland, andit was, and I was a huge Duran
Duran fan. So I was, I was airdrumming to, and you two early.

(32:10):
You two as well, those threebands I was air drumming to, and
the first day, I brought thosedrums home and set them up. Dad
got his amp out, and we'replaying songs.
It was at the Smoothie KingArena in New Orleans. No, it
was at that point in high schoolmy family had moved to Phoenix.
Oh, so yeah, I saw them at a ata minor league baseball park in

(32:32):
Phoenix. Police madness and theThompson twins. Wow, Thompson
told me now, yeah, yeah, that'sthe heyday of MTV. Absolutely.
Martha Quinn, or the girl thattalked like that, Nina
Blackwood,
Martha Quinn
was just a Hartley. Nina Hartleywas a porn star. No, no,
yeah, she was, she was totallyBut Martha

(32:57):
Quinn, she was
giving VJ, you have a fetish. I
think short
hair? Yes, my wife has shorthair, yes. I mean, I like women
with short hair for whateverreason. I don't know
the like an androgynous, weirdthing, but yeah, no, it's been
my thing the my entire life.Well, I was gonna say I like
your My ex wife, yeah, yeah,okay, yeah. Now I dating a girl

(33:18):
with flowing Yes, blonde hair,it's good, yeah, you had to
adjust, yeah.
So we mature and our tasteschange. So you're playing along
these records, yeah? Andliterally, like, not even
headphones, at that point, I putmy drums are set up in with my
back to the window in mybedroom, and the speakers are on
the window sill right behind myhead, and shit is cranked,

(33:41):
right? Yeah,
so you could stay with it, yeah?Sometimes the needle would skip,
yeah, because I bet by
that point I'm using cassettes,probably, yeah.
And then here's like, your firsttouring band is just
the wipers, the wipers, yeah,are they on Spotify? Yeah,
they're on spot Okay, so this isI'm putting, I'm circling that
Yeah, and I'm circlingvigilantes of love, yes,

(34:02):
yes, beggars, beggars, yeah, andthe beggars. So the beggars
were, it was, they were on wesigned Island Records. I was the
old guy in the band, and I was23 or four. There two guys were
21 one guy was 16 or 17, oh mygod, yeah, and he was in the

(34:24):
front man. Was he? No, he was,he was the bass player, and
there he goes.
Oh my gosh, we're supposed to bewinning people over, just
kidding.
And unfortunately, one of thoseguys used the publishing advance
and to sadly, get hooked onheroin. That band broke up

(34:44):
quickly, even though it was abunch of young guys who had this
major label record deal, but itjust kind of fell apart. And it
was right at that time that thatband broke up. If I had that's
when I got the call aboutauditioning for Ezra. If that
hadn't happened, I probablywould have stayed with. The
couple other guys from that bandstarted a new band, which is, I
don't know if you're familiarwith black rebel motorcycle

(35:05):
club. Oh, wow, yeah. So that'sthose are the guys in the
beggars. Cool, yeah. So, so
here you are. You're doing your,you know, your DIY touring,
taking shifts, driving the van,playing rock clubs, yep. So you
were ready for that with Ezra,but Ezra was like some big boy
shit. There was one drummerbefore you the first big radio
good. And there was,

(35:28):
like a China heavily featured
yeah on the on the upbeat, yeah.Fine, yeah. And I've played that
song so many times in my lifethat I still find myself pulling
that move out on certain like,it'll just come at the end of a
song. It hasn't been a theme ofthe song or anything, but on the
out, yeah, here comes one ofthose, like, oh yeah. It's just
automatic
in the DNA. It's in the DNA.It's in the roof. Yeah. One year

(35:50):
without Dean, I did the doubleChina,
yeah, way up there, yeah. Inever did it the outfield thing,
yes, yeah.
Well, I, I remember thatoutfield songs because I had my
$40 Wuhan and I couldn't wait.I'm just counting, just waiting
in the garage.
We all had the Wuhan and the theroto toms.

(36:13):
Yes, the funny thing is, is,Jim's got, Jim's got a Wuhan
upstairs that's in, it's inpretty good shape. And the funny
thing about rototoms is youdon't want to get rid of them,
because no place for them. Well,the thing is, is once you get
rid of them, then you're in amissing persons tribute band, or
you're in the spasmatics, right?Because I was in the spasmatics

(36:33):
for a while, and we dressed uplike nerds, and my kit was kick,
snare, floor tom, and then twoof the larger mounted roto tops,
which
I still to this day, have two ofthe larger mounted roto toms,
and I use them from time to
time. Yeah, there's any you canget into Alex Van Halen mode.
Exactly,
remember the Remo spokes it was,it was mounting the

(36:53):
pieces of playing, yeah? Terrybazio, yes. But the man the Alex
Van Halen, the 84
Oh, wait, yeah, oh yeah.
So good, right? How do you howdo you not? That
was the most iconic of his snaresounds in that song, the driest
bone. It sounded like a bone tome, covered with tape.

(37:16):
Have you seen the video onlinewhere they, they mimic they?
Yeah. It's amazing. Beato Rick,yeah, and it's the tone, man,
did you do the
I play that song at the tribute?Which one
did you play? Oh, wait. Oh,really, I did Mean Streets,
nice. Oh, and at the end, thething that I loved, that I had

(37:36):
the the presence of mind to doat that, by the way, if anyone
didn't know what we're talkingabout, it was a Alex Van Halen
halen tribute show, naturaldrummers. Natural drums, 15,
yep. So there's a house band,and then all these different
drummers just hop up and play,which they do at all these
drummers jams. But at this one,Alex sent his tech in his kit,
so we all got to play Alex'sactual giant bass drums, so and,

(37:59):
and, man, that the tones. It'slike, oh yeah, those are the
tones, yeah. But the really funthing was, at the end of the
song I played, I had the itwasn't, I don't remember this
being predetermined, but I justhad the presence of mind to play
every dang thing on the kit. So

(38:20):
as long as I have thisopportunity,
were you able to bury the bassdrum beater in that on his
that's a good question.
I probably did, just becausethat's how I play. But I bet it
was a bit of a he's got, what,26 or 12, yeah, and they're
pretty open. You really got todo it. Otherwise, if you don't
fully commit,
you get to, yeah, that ain'tgonna work.
And I know I don't do that, so Iguess I must let off. You must
let off. Yeah, well, we're gonna

(38:41):
go. We're gonna find outupstairs. Yeah, Jim is, you
know, Jim, I would say the Jimabandoned drumming, but he had
to press one of our minds. Maybethat's
one of our things that we'vetalked about for merchant
earlier. Start asking all, Iguess so you want to see my
drums, because that's what I didthe last time
radio. He got into sales. Nowhe's, he's a podcast host, you
know, doing producing 20podcasts, but once, once a

(39:03):
drummer, always a drummer. Andso he, I love him for this. He
had, he had, there's this Huey,little Huey lose trivi band in
the area. And he said, that gigis mine. I said, when I
met the guys, I said, I'm goingto be your drummer. And I love
it. He just
made it happen. Oh, that'sawesome. He just manifested. So
he's got a gig coming up at thescene. Gig coming up at the I

(39:24):
want to go. I want to see this.Oh, boy, because there's no
pressure at all now. It's goodthing. Yeah, do your thing.
Seriously,
the Huey Lewis stuff is so good.It's a lot harder than you
realize. It is. Man, they were agreat band, yeah, and it's, it's
funny you talk about, you know,you mentioned getting lessons
for the first time. You know,not too long ago? Yeah, Bill
Gibson, we had him on the show,what about six months ago or so?

(39:46):
Never taken a lesson. Never,okay, he's starting to take
lessons now. He's in his 70s.Wow, that's amazing.
Yep, he's working crazy. He's
working on his left foot, claveand his song go and all that,
all that stuff. Yeah,
it's funny. You know, forsomebody like you, you got to go
and. I would imagine it's, it'ssimilar to me, because I've
done, been doing voiceover for20 plus years, and at some
point, yeah, I know, I know mystuff, but where can I take

(40:07):
this, right? That's right.
What else? What else? What aboutwhat I do? Yeah, what might I
change if I could? But
how many people did you gothrough that? Be like, Dude, I
don't know what to do for you,you know, because I had to go
through that.
Did you? Yeah, for me it was, itwas fairly simple, because if,
for me, it was a very specificthing, it's the bass drum beater
thing. And Elitch is sort ofknown in the drummer community

(40:29):
as the drummer, the teacher tothe pro drummers posture.
They'll find something, yeah,
well, and it's very much, it'svery specifically about posture
and technique. And, you know,
is he kind of like a FreddyGruber? Yes, he's the new
Freddie Gruber, really? Yeah,yeah. Because Freddie Gruber is
all about keeping that snaredrum level with your navel and
well. And I think, I think his,maybe some of his approaches and

(40:52):
particulars might be different,but it's the same notion where
he has a very specific ideaabout what the best physical
approach to a drum kit is, andthat's what he teaches,
ergonomics, ergonomics, yeah,
because that's, that's kind oflike, that was always my thing
was, I see guys, mostspecifically the drummer, and my
brother. My brother's in twodifferent tribute bands, and

(41:14):
they kind of share a band, butwith two different singers, Bob
Seger and a journey tribute pin.And the drummer's got, like, I
say, it looks like somebody'ssetting up drums for
the first time. Look
in the Craigslist ad
right, right now. You ever seethe Facebook group called badly
sold drums? No, yeah, Jim,
I gotta say you are, you are amember of every Facebook group.

(41:37):
Every time I go to join one, youare in it already. Member Jim
McCarthy,
Facebook group, want to see mydrums. Pretty
much. I love Franklin. I loveSpring Hill. I love Cool
Springs, because this guy'ssmart. He wants to do business
with everybody. Speaking ofdoing business, tell us about

(41:58):
the tenure in Better Than Ezrabeing a rock star looking back
at the the glorious 90s, thevelvet rope cocaine era of the
music business, you know,because I didn't hit my stride
and find my success really,until I was 34 years old, with
which put me in 2004 2005

(42:19):
so I really only know, you know,
navigating the Nashville musicbusiness, sure, I lived in Los
Angeles, yeah, but you lived inand worked in the New Orleans
scene, the Nashville scene, theAtlanta scene, and and the Los
Angeles
That's right, yeah, all those itwas. I feel so fortunate to have
gotten to do it, because Iabsolutely love what I do now as

(42:42):
a, as a side man, as a, I alsodo some producing. I do some
mixing, so but all of thosethings are, you're an
embellisher or hopefully animprover of somebody else's
material, and so you're part ofa team, and you're collectively
trying to make something thebest it can be. And I really
like that role. And I was neverone. I didn't start playing

(43:03):
music to be in a spotlight, andgenerally, drummers, don't I
mean, we're sitting behindstuff. We were sitting down, you
know, it. But you all, but youhave so much sort of control
over really, what's happening,you know? But, but, but the role
isn't a look at me role, but,and I really like that, and that
is more attuned to mypersonality. But that said, the

(43:26):
reason I started playing isbecause I loved the police in
Duran, Duran, and you know,whoever I loved at that moment,
and I always wanted to be in aband where it's your you have
ownership, you have creativecontrol, blah, blah, blah, you
know, and so having gotten to dothat for the early chunk of my
career in a band that had realsuccess, I'm very thankful for

(43:49):
because I do know players thatI'm envious of, that play on
huge records and tours, but thatthey'll lament a bit I wish, but
I wish I could have gotten to dothe band thing. And so I'm just
so thankful I got to do that,and it has its own pros and
cons. You know, you got to doevery meet and greet. You got to
kiss every program director'sass. You've got a radio visit at
430 in the morning. Absolutely,you know, and you're worried

(44:10):
about ticket sales and you'reworried about the new single.
How's it doing? We don't reallyworry about that stuff in what
we do now and so, but at thesame time, we're putting the
songs together, we're producingthe records, we're making the
decisions about what the tourwill be, you know, and so each
again, each role has its set ofpros and cons, but I am very
thankful that I got to do it.Yeah, it always kind

(44:30):
of eluded me. I tried many, manytimes, but there's I. I cannot
complain at all, because everygroup that I've been in has been
a quasi democracy, in the sensethat I was in that band, Rush
low. And then, of course, withJason, it's very much presented
as a collective. It
is like a band. Yeah, it's likea band. And that's, that's, I

(44:52):
think that's cool, you know, Ithink that's a cool thing about
what y'all have going withJason. It definitely, as someone
outside of it, is always a.Weird that way, you know that it
is a band, nice,
yeah, yeah. And, you know, let'stalk about this. Megan Maroney,
wreck, tube record, yeah, yeah.And an EP. She's great. Now,

(45:13):
Christian Bucha is the producer,right? He is so speaking of, you
know, relationships,relationships, relationships,
yeah, I just look at, I look atyour resume, and I look at all
the threads and the tentaclesthat connect everything, and
this begat, that begat that youhave so many relationships in
your life in multiple musicalcities that you will never be
out of work. Yeah,

(45:34):
and I think that's important toyou know if, if part of what we
do here on a podcast like thisis is hopefully give folks some
insight into how we've gotten todo what we how it works. Yeah,
anything, any gig session, anyrehearsal, anytime you show up
somewhere and play, you don'tknow where that might lead. And
so I think it's always importantto remember a as a human, just

(45:57):
dealing with other humans, justbe kind and be pleasant and get
along with people, and if you'reproud of what you do, be
prepared as best you can. And,you know, just do the best job
you can do, partly just out ofpride of taking on this thing,
this endeavor, this thing we'redoing, especially trying to make
a living out of something thatnot a lot of people get to make
a living out but, but also justwith that in mind that even

(46:21):
whatever you're doing at themoment doesn't pay a thing, but
you just don't know where it'sgoing to lead. And so I think
every situation and you'reright, that's, you know, and
that's most any journeyman. Iguess you could use that term,
but at this point, for peoplelike us, if you look at their
career, that's what it is. Allof the wide range of things I do
now all stem from earlier,things that originally were

(46:44):
fewer, yeah, and you never
mailed it in, and you gaveeverybody your heart and soul.
And people can see that, and yousweat for them, and you're a
professional. You know to be ontime is to be early is to be on
time. And you can take directionwithout being offended. And
you're you're a problem solver.You got all the tones and
everything together. And wouldyou, I don't, I wouldn't
consider you an introvert.

(47:05):
I by nature, I am. Yeah, it'ssomething I had to kind of work
on. And I mean, honestly, I'mdriving here, I felt a little
anxious. I'm not, I'm not superinto public speaking or going to
parties. I you know what? Imean. It's just not my nature,
but partly, one thing that Ithink helped me, inadvertently,
maybe my family moved around afair amount when I was a kid,

(47:27):
because my dad would gettransferred. It wasn't military
anything, but just in his job.We would move to different
cities, and so I would have tomiddle of the school year, I'm
in a new school. Those kind ofthings sort of forced me, to
some degree, to learn how tomake new friends. Make new
friends, limit the shark. That'sright. And then, and that's
exactly what we do on differentgigs all the time, whether it's
different sessions every day ora new tour you're going to be on

(47:49):
or whatever. Yeah. And so youcome into the room, and so much
of it is, is reading the roomlike, you know, who's really
running the show? What's thechain of command? What's the
chain of command? How open arethey to ideas versus they know
exactly what they want. You knowall of those things matter, and
you're trying to just, youlisten more than speak

(48:12):
initially, to really see what,what the scenario is,
yeah, what do they say? We havetwo ears, one mouth. There you
go. I've never heard that, butthat's that's exactly it, man,
that's right,
yeah, that's right, yeah.There's some things that come
out of my extrovert mouth thatsometimes I wish I could just
take back and put in the mouth,but no, I I would consider you.
You're like, A, you're a verypolite extrovert. You know what

(48:36):
I mean? You're a very polishedextrovert. Like, I'm a mad man.
I'm like, bordering on KeithMoon. I'm not gonna put, I'm not
gonna take an elephanttranquilizer before I play,
yeah, and I'm not gonna putexplosives in my bass drum and
blow out Pete Townsend's ears.Right? What it's, you know, you
know,
I there's, they're kind of along ish, or it's really kind of

(48:58):
a couple stories I'd love toshare with you, please, yeah,
because they relate to whatwe're talking about now, in one
way, what relationships mightlead to, and also the aspect of
personalities within what we'redoing. When I was in my early
20s, still living in Georgia,before I so the band I was in
the beggars that was in SanFrancisco. I was there for about

(49:19):
a year. Oh, my god, yeah. Andthen after that is when I joined
Ezra and got to move home to NewOrleans. But before that, I was
in Georgia for my early 20s, andI was in a band called
vigilantes of love. But I wasalso,
gosh, there's so many asideshere.
Sean Mullins was Sean Mullins onthe picture. He or Billy
Pilgrim, Billy both,
they were part of this scenethere. That one thing that

(49:42):
helped me there is I was a bandmember in this band called
vigilantes of love, and we hadto deal with Capricorn records
and just kind of sort of makinga living, you know? But I had, I
knew this is what I wanted to doonce I started playing drums. So
I didn't want to go to college.My parents asked me to go. Just
try semester. It's different.Then high school, at least give
it a shot for us and out ofrespect for them, I did that.

(50:03):
Yes, in that one semester, Itook a recording course, which
was a lab, like at a studio,hands on. So at 18, I'm learning
recording engineering, signalpath, microphones, yeah, and so
that in my early 20s, thenallowed me to while I'm kind of
making a living as as a guyplaying music, I'm also working

(50:26):
at a studio as recordingengineer. And this is pre
digital. This is analogrecording, so like eight hats,
and even before that, just liketape, straight up tape, straight
up tape, because this is like9192
90 so you're learning how to cuttape, yeah,
yeah,
free Pro Tools days, yeah, yeah.I had a good time cutting tape.
I liked it, yeah, but don't messup. It was half inch tape, not

(50:50):
two
inch tape. Well, and that's it'sthe same thing with doing tapes.
It's like, well, yeah, you canpunch in, but really you're
trying to get it's a differentkind of pressure. You know, if
you recorded in that era whenthe recording light goes on, or
when you know you're cutting atake every note top to bottom,
everything you're playing,you're trying to nail the whole
thing, because you don't. Now,you know, when I'm tracking

(51:11):
stuff in my house, I'll do twoor three passes and I barely
know the song, because I know Ican then edit together the best
bits and whatever, you knowthat's not what it was. And so
that that teaches a differentkind of intensity and focus. But
anyway, so I'm working at thatstudios recording engineer. I'm
playing in a band, but I'm alsoplaying with a lot of these

(51:31):
singer songwriters that havesprouted up after the Indigo
Girls success in Decatur,Atlanta, Georgia and so Sean
Mullins was one dick atula. Yes,exactly. Very nice. And Billy
Pilgrim was another, andChristian Bush was one of the
two guys in Billy Pilgrim. Sothat's our original connection.

(51:52):
Christian, well, Billy Pilgrimsigned a deal, I think, with
Atlantic, one of the majorlabels, and I had recorded their
whole record before, andrecorded their demos. And they
were a duo. I wasn't a bandmember, but I was doing anything
they were doing with a drummer,and then they get their record
deal, and they hire their hero,and Kenny arnoff comes and plays
on the record, right? And I'm 23or so, and it, of course, it

(52:15):
hurt my heart, it hurt my ego,you know? But thankfully, all of
five years before that orsomething, I had read Kenny
arnoff In Modern Drummer talkingabout himself being replaced on
Mellencamp. And he talked about,you know, he said to Mellencamp
was Rick slasher. Is that who itwas? I remember, okay, and and
he said, But Am I still yourdrummer? Because they were gonna

(52:37):
send him home. And Mellencampsays, Yes. He said, Then can I
stay? I want to learn. I want tosee why I'm not the guy. I'll
sleep on the floor. You'reright. And I remembered that
story, and it so happens thatguy's coming in to replace me,
and I'd been doing sessionstuff, you know, so I'd replace
somebody else. I'd been on theother side of that. I knew that
feeling, and so I decided, okay,let me learn from Kenny's
example, and do the same thing.Yeah. So I hung out at the

(52:59):
studio, watched him do his thingand and he was very gracious,
very kind to me, whereas, youknow, first thing here is, if I
if my ego gets better, I mean, Igo, I'll screw you guys, man. I
played on all your stuff, andthen you get a deal. Now you use
them, Kenny, then that now, thenI don't get Sugar Land 15 years
later, you know what I mean. Sothat's the relationship. That's

(53:21):
part of big humility too, rightnow. And don't burn the bridge.
Don't burn the bridges. Put yourput your pride
in your pocket, where you yourmoney. That's pretty good. I
like that for my dad,
I like it so and Kenny was sokind to me. He pulled me aside.
You guys keep in touch. We notoften, but we run across each
other at a festival or everyonce while, maybe a call or text

(53:44):
every few years or something,you know, but, and he's always
been very kind, ever since thatthing 30 years ago,
whoever swears
he's very blue, yes,
well, and I do remember thatfrom that, from that initial
Meeting. And I also, like, Iheard him getting sounds up, and
I heard him doing takes. And I'mlike, okay, because this is the

(54:06):
first time I've seen a real dealthat level guy work, right? And
I'm in the studio watching ithappen, and I realize, okay,
he's really good, but he's justhuman, like, he's screwing up,
and he's finding the feel of thetrack and what, you know what I
mean, it's like, okay, sothere's not magic that I'm not
aware of. He's just dude doing athing on a high level, yeah. But
the other thing I noticed abouthim was that he was a, you know,

(54:30):
you have much in common withhim. He was a big ball of
energy, of a very positiveenergy, you know. And that was,
that was the thing that Iremember thinking, man, if
that's part of what gets you tothat level. I don't know that
that's not built into me, youknow. And I remember kind of
thinking about that aspect, ortaking that in, at least, not
anguishing over it, but beingaware of it. And then roughly a

(54:53):
year ish later, when I'm out nowin San Francisco, I've joined
that day on the beggars, the I'mgetting to play. Play on a
record that, coincidentally, JimKeltner is the other drummer on.
So we're, I'm playing on four orfive tracks. He's playing on
four or five nice, pretty cooland, and he also was so kind to

(55:14):
me, this 24 year old drummer,and he's Jim Keltner.
Ring goes, favorite drummer,Jim, yeah, Keltner, yeah,
really. And, and he so I got towatch him do his thing. And
there's a great story from that,but, but talking about the
personality thing, the thingthat I learned there was Keltner

(55:36):
is so much more chill, and Irelated more to his personality.
And I thought, Okay, well, he'sJim Keltner, and he's
successful. He's successful, andso it's and that's when I had
the light bulb of, okay, whatare the two guys have in common?
Aside from being great drummers,just positive energy. It's not
about if you're a big fireballor you're Zen, it's, it's just

(55:59):
bringing positivity to the room,you know. And so that was an
insight for me. But then therewas another moment that was
maybe even a bigger insight thatI love. He was so they had
already done scratch, piano orguitar, whatever it was for the
given song and vocal, and theywere just getting drums, because
they had Jim for maybe two days.And so they were just getting
drums and they were going to doeverything else after and so

(56:20):
they're focusing on drums. Andon this given song, they played
him the work tape or the whathe's going to cut to, and talked
about a couple ideas, but hesays, let me just go in and try
some stuff. So they run it. Heplays a take. They talk a little
bit about it. He plays anothertake, the engineer, the artist.
People are throwing ideas. Whatif you try this on this part?

(56:42):
Blah, blah, blah, okay, youknow. And he does maybe three or
so, three or four. Okay, comein. Let's talk about it. And
then I think we'll, we'll beable to map out what the right
drum arrangement is for this,right? And so he comes into the
control room, and after a coupleof listens, of a couple, you
know, here's, let's listen towhat you did on the pre chorus
on take two, whatever you know,and either the artist or

(57:06):
producer, somebody you know,who's sort of declaring, says,
Okay, I think I know how itshould work. If you did the
verse like you did on this take,and you did the chord and then
the bridge I loved when you wentto the toms or whatever you
know, maps out what the I thethrough line should be I as the
fly on the wall and the drummerand paying taking all this in,

(57:28):
know that they've just told himto do what he did on the first
take, like he already did all ofthis. It was his first instinct,
and it was right. And whoever'ssaying this doesn't even realize
that that happened. Yeah, theythink this is their idea of of
frankensteining. But does Jimhave a little smile on his face?
Like, well, that's the beautifulthing. Is, because I knew at

(57:51):
that moment, I knew my instinctwould be to go, Well, that's
what I did. Let's listen to takeone. It's there. Not out of I
told you so, or I know what I'mdoing. Why didn't you just
listen? Not that, but like,we're simpatico. We're on the
same page. Yeah, you know, Ithink the same thing. We've
already even got it. Jim didn'tdo any of that. Jim heard that
whole thing, and he's got hisshades on, and he's just been

(58:14):
chilling on the sofa next to mein the back of the control room.
And as they've told him, thisrundown of what it should be,
and I'm having all thesethoughts of the he already did
that, and he just kind of leansback and goes, kind of smiles
and goes, Yeah, man, that's agreat idea. Let me go do that.
And a, it's kind of a, it's agreat idea. I already did that.

(58:37):
Yeah, you know, but it's, it's,ultimately, we're service
industry. Yeah, doesn't matterwhose idea it was, where it came
from. He doesn't have to claimit, yeah. He just is gonna give
them what they want and makethem happy. Amazing, but, but to
do it and handle it in that way,I was just like, wow, it was
such a yeah,
those are two amazing lessons.Oh, my God. What about what's

(58:58):
the thing with Billy the pill,the Billy Pilgrim song
California stars was that, didhe write that and then Wilco re
recorded it? Or is he guestingon the because if you pull up
Wilco on Spotify, the firstsong, the most played song that
they have, is called Californiastars, okay, but it's Billy
Pilgrim, really?

(59:18):
Yeah, I'm not. I wasn't aware ofit. Okay, cool, interesting,
because that might have happenedlater. You know, one because
they Billy Pilgrim carried onafter I moved away, and then I
was in Ezra, and they were stilldoing there, yeah, so that's
just, I'm not, I'm not familiarwith that, yeah, aspect of it,
that's pretty cool. I have tolook
into. So all these differentmusic scenes. Uh, back to Megan
and Rhodey. Had to be fun. Greatsongs, great
songs and and we did so we didan EP, then we've done now two

(59:43):
albums. And is
it the typical one song every 90minutes? It's
it generally we're doing one anda half or maybe two, but
sometimes one in the 90 minutes.It's not a hurry, but it's not
snail pace either. You know. Andit's very much all that stuff is
band in a room, kind of playing,you know? I mean, and then when

(01:00:05):
I hear the records back, theyhaven't chopped anything up or
done anything different thanwhat we did on the floor, yes.
And so to me, that's a prettycomfortable pace. I was so much
of my recording experience wasthose early days in Georgia with
those singer songwriters, thenas a band member in Ezra, then
Sideman work as a hired playerin LA I did a lot of stuff with

(01:00:28):
Warren huert on records he wasdoing. And all of that stuff is
different than once. I came hereand started new Nashville
sessions first, like I did one.I don't know if it was good idea
or not, but I was trying tolearn the number system, so I
went into one demo session anddidn't tell them I had never
really done it, other than athome, trying to learn it.

(01:00:48):
So when you're listening to thedemo go down, you're trying to
figure it out. Uh huh, yeah. AndI had, I
mean, I'd read, I'd read JimRiley's book, and had some
understanding, but I hadn't doneit on a session, and in
hindsight, like Steve Mackey wasthe bass player. Like it's
people you want to impress, andI just test myself with I'm not
going to tell them, I'm justgoing to try and do this. And,

(01:01:10):
man, I was blowing it. I was, Iwould be, I would because the
thing that I've learned about,about numbers charts and is to
if you're in that role, if it'sa record, and you have time to
talk about arrangement andfigure things out. Great. You
can present ideas and generallyat that level, things are
probably pretty well written andsussed out already. But on some

(01:01:31):
of those demo sessions, I wouldjust not believe the chart. I
understood what I was reading,but it seemed like such a bad
idea. I just wouldn't want to domy body wouldn't do it, you
know, like, like, three bars inthe pre chorus, we're gonna do a
push and then wait a bar and ahalf. What? That's dumb, you
know? And so I just wouldn't doit and a five bar bridge, right,

(01:01:54):
right? And so I learned mylesson on that. That was like,
okay, you know. But, andeventually, in that session, I
told him, Look, I've never donenumbers charts before guys. So
they were like, okay, okay, it'sall
works. Yeah, that's what I wason, a, you know, traditional
national tracking thing. And theit was, you know, Jimmy the

(01:02:19):
keyboard player, you know, theaward winning keyword player
that played with, like, FaithHill and all. He's big records.
He's like, Yeah, he goes, yougot this kid? It's just, every
time you see a number, it's fourbeats. When you see the accent,
it means that it's the ion oftwo or the N of four. You see
the diamond looking thing. It'sa ta, da, it's a whole note. You
got this LA, oh, okay, yeah. Youknow, it's
so funny. Some of that stuffthat the way, it'll stick with

(01:02:40):
me, because there's still anytime there's notation written.
I'm like, as soon as I gethanded a chart and I see some
notation that's going to be aline that everyone hits, or
whatever, I'm like, okay, whenwe get to that moment, if
they're playing a work tape ordemo, yeah, I'm making sure no
one's talking to me, because I'mgoing to have to either memorize
or make my own little chickenscratch of what that is, because

(01:03:01):
I can't read that notation. Oh,you don't read the room. No, no,
no, no. Wow, you have donereally well for man, I'm, I'm
really, literally, the onelesson I've had was that one I'm
talking about, about not bearingthe beater. Otherwise, no
lessons, no music school, no.I'm just like homemade when
you're
when you're doing a track with,with the Indigo Girls, or Better
Than Ezra. You

(01:03:23):
don't make your own charts. Yougot to memorize it.
Well, it's mostly memorization,but it's also I do charts,
because I do so many differentkind of gigs now that, but it's
my own language. A lot of itbased on numbers charts. A lot
of it like I remember, you know,I used to put an X meaning a
stop, but then at some point, onsome session I was doing it
Schoenfeld, somebody said, Oh,the Dorito, you know, and it's

(01:03:44):
hard stop, yeah, yeah, oh,that's so now it's a Dorito. Now
I use that and I call it aDorito, like, I remember that,
you know? Oh, my
God, dude, that's reallyinteresting, because we all have
our unique gifts and talents.Because you're probably five
bajillion times the engineer Iam, but, I mean, you are, wait,
wait, you are 5 billion timesmore the engineer than I am.

(01:04:09):
Yeah, you said it right. Oh,yeah, but, but I have this, like
weird sickness with rhythmicnotation. If you could just sing
me a rhythm and I will write itdown. I
wish I had it. I wish I had thatkind of just never it's amazing.
And at this point, like, I wouldlike to learn it, and I don't
really know the best way oflike, every once in I'll dig
into it for a minute. Andadmittedly, it's my own problem.

(01:04:30):
I won't have the patience andcommitment to continue learning
it, but I'll spend a half a daylike, okay, so what does this
mean? But, but anything? Man,you know, when we were coming
up, there was no YouTube tolearn anything. So, so now, if
I'm trying to learn somethinglike that from online
information or even from a book,you can't ask the book
questions. You don't getfeedback from the you know what

(01:04:51):
I mean? Like, I need to actuallygo to someone that will teach
me. It's like
the universe is confirmingsomething Jim wants me to. Do my
we're gonna, you know, it'slike, you need somebody's
methodology of charting musicout or something. It's weird.
Came up with that
idea. Yeah, it's our goal tohave this product by

(01:05:12):
sometime this year, Christmas.Okay, but hey, let's,
let's, let's look at like you.Surely you've got to have some
stories about these people thatyou're working with because you
said recording work with JamesBlunt, she's beautiful. Marshall
Crenshaw, rock star, you know,my God, Indigo Girls, there's
got to be a story with LadyGaga. Daniel powder, like, what

(01:05:36):
was this one song? Beautifulday. Suzanne. Vega, yeah,
some of those are
things where I played on arecord and that person was also
on that record, you know. Sosome of these people I didn't
work with directly, Oh, gotcha,you know, like, like, J Lo, it
was a Jennifer Nettles, and sheand J Lo did a song together,

(01:05:59):
yeah, and Dan Huff wasproducing, and I did the drum
track, but I didn't see J Lo,Oh, yeah. So some of the things
are like, Oh, you could claimthat, dude, it's valid it, you
know, and with the live thingtoo, because that's like on
recording. But I'm on the samerecord as them. I feel like I
can name them. We're on, I'm ona record with that person, with
the live because everybodytreats the credits thing a

(01:06:20):
little different from for me,the live whether it's toured
with that means I toured withthem. Otherwise, I'll usually
have something that's like liveperformances, yes, you know,
specialty performance or liveperformance, something where
it's it wasn't a tour, it was aone time thing or maybe a few
time thing. But in how I dothat. If there was a rehearsal,

(01:06:43):
I'll claim it. If they jumped onstage and sang a few backup
lines, I won't claim it. That'skind of how I if they
jump up on stage and sing awhole song or five songs, yeah,
I'm claiming that. No, that'strue. Because people are like,
Garth Brooks. I'm like, Yeah,motherfucker, he jumped up on
stage and we did two songstogether. Did you play friends
in little places with GarthBrooks. That's what I thought,
right? I'm claiming

(01:07:03):
to a big audience, I'm sureexactly. Yeah, no, that's true.
So I think that's valid. So
there's this level of like,claiming? No, I think there's,
there's probably a little bit,like, if there's a scale of
integrity, there's a there's amiddle line, you're probably
more on the more Integris sideof things. I try to be. I'd
rather
not. I'd rather leave it offthan claim something that then

(01:07:24):
someone would call me out andsay, yeah. But so they kind of
like, at one point when they rerebooted, Lilith fair back in
maybe 2010, or 12 or something,you know, Sugar Land was on it
for a portion of it. Sheryl Crowwas to at some point she got up,
and because both bands have asong called All I want to do,
right? So she got up during ourall I want to do, and kind of

(01:07:46):
sang a couple lines. Well, Idon't have show crow on my
resume, you know, that didn'tcount, yeah, you know. But I
played, I was part of a houseband at a benefit at the Ryman,
and Jack White, we hadrehearsals at sir that Jack
White came to and, yes, weplayed a couple songs with him.
That's on that I list him, youknow,
let me ask you this, though, isit one of those things that,

(01:08:07):
like, is it something you wouldcall somebody out for? Like,
Well, come on, Dick, it's thepeople you apply. It's like a
rule you would apply. You wouldhave for somebody else, but you
apply
to yourself. So although,generally, I'm not one to dig in
and try and know, but I haveseen things that rub me a little
wrong, where I know that, like
you notice we were the samefestival together, but they

(01:08:27):
never actually played the sametime or in the same setting.
That is a stretch. No,
yeah, shared the stage withmeaning open for No, that's
where, that's not. You can'tclaim that, you know, yeah.
Well,
I mean, you know, we played withnuclear assault.
Everyone's like, hold on.Crickets on there, buddy. Yeah.

(01:08:48):
No. Jim. Jim. Jim. Nobody.Nobody
remembers nuclear assault. Wasit like a, really? Was it like
a, like a pop punk rock bandwhen I was in the renowned and
esteemed band Connecticut, whitebread, yes, yes. Our first gig
was opening for nuclear assaultat the briar patch in Carmel,
New York. Oh, yeah. We'vementioned that before, yeah. And
we also played for, we playedwith overkill. At one point. I

(01:09:09):
remember urge overkill. Iremember urge overkill, yeah. We
played with overkill. Theoriginal, the OG overkill, yeah.
So like, you know, two yearsago, I was in a CMT house band,
and I got the backup, slashBilly Gibbons, Leanne Grimes,
Winona, writer Paul Rogers, theband leader from the Rolling
Stones. Man Warren, I'm puttingon the resume. Oh,

(01:09:31):
yeah, you know, Pilsner was onbase on that. Yeah, I saw
whatever show that was. I waslike, You know
what? Yeah, of two. That's allvalid for those people. Yeah,
that's the thing.
You rehearse that stuff? Youplayed with them. You are a
professional who belonged thereand did a good job. Yeah,
absolutely, it should be on yourresume.
Now we're in Detroit two nights.Kid Rock jumps up on stage with
us and sings cowboy with us inhis hometown of Detroit. I mean,

(01:09:56):
I'm not gonna lead with KidRock, right? I'm gonna lead
with, you know, two. 25 yearswith Jason
Aldi, I shared the stage withtype of credit, right? I put
it on there, dude. I because mything is, is that we have
different ways of listing. If Iput, I put recorded toward or
performed with, Okay,
gotcha, yeah, yeah. And that's,that's all, I think the Yeah.

(01:10:16):
The only distinction I made isjust make it three categories,
yeah. But I don't have aproblem. You know what? I mean?
Like, it's Yeah, yeah. To me,everything we've talked about is
sort of common sense about beingreasonable about what you've
done or haven't done
in your days of Ezra, did youplay at a place called toads
place? Oh, yeah, absolutely,we've played Toad place.

(01:10:38):
Rich. Have you know, Yale,right, that was New Haven is it
isn't in your Yale, I've
played in toes place. Many atime, yeah, many a time. It was
good.
That's a good rock club. WillHoke, did you go out with
him for no, I there was a pointat which I we talked about me
maybe touring with him, but Inever have. I worked with him on

(01:10:59):
a there was a record I wasproducing for a singer
songwriter named Steven Kellogg.And Will is a they have a duet
on it. So, yeah, but I loveWill's music. You know me too.
Yeah, that's so American
rock and roll at its finest.Absolutely, one of Nashville's
treasures. Two other gigs thatcome on come to mind that you've
done more recently. And one oflike is like a triple A type

(01:11:21):
singer songwriter, artist. Youwent out with Gavin Dick Rob,
but then there's another guy.Oh,
let's see, because I was gonnasay that Colby Calais was the
is, but you said another guy.That's awesome. Colby Kelly, and
that was just, I subbed a fewshows, but she was lovely. Had a
great band. Musically, it wasvery satisfying. It was really a
fun experience. Yeah,

(01:11:42):
there's another, there's anotherguy. He's like a singer
songwriter, triple A rocker, guythat you will go out and do
things with, recorded with liveperformances. B 52 is Butch
Walker, Beyonce, Howie, oh.
Patrick, droning. Patrick,drone, yeah. Patrick, droning,
yeah. He's so talented, man.He's, he is just great. And he's

(01:12:03):
a guy that he's put out a couplerecords now. And, yeah, it's, it
is kind of triple Aneighborhood. It's, it's in the,
you know, for lack of a betterdescriptor, a lot of people will
use the John Mayer sort ofreference on him, in that he is
a wonderful blues based, but notblues songwriting. Guitar Player

(01:12:24):
strat plays strat with a reallysoulful voice, and it is on its
Yeah, it's sort of pop rock. Andyeah, I've done some touring
with him and recorded with him,and just such a talent, and he's
actually working on a new recordnow we, I may wind up playing
some stuff on that. We'll see.Yeah, yeah, but played on his

(01:12:46):
last one and and just love his,him as a person and as a town. I
mean, he's somebody that I don'tI think has so much potential to
be so much bigger than he is asyet. Oh, and also a hell of a
songwriter. I mean, I know KeithUrban's cut a few of his songs.
I don't know if they've come outyet or not, but like, he's Aside
from his talents as a player andsinger and producer, I mean, he

(01:13:09):
definitely has his own kind ofsound production wise, too, but
it just purely as a songwriter.He's gotten a lot of attention
in town. Yeah. Yeah. Two other
things I wanted to ask youabout, so much stuff to talk
about the Frankie Ballard band,is that still Eddie and Robbie?
And
it's not at this point. It wasthat band initially came back

(01:13:29):
after COVID, but Eddie, we knewbasically, oddly enough, Frankie
was planning to be off the roadat the top of 2020 because his
daughter was due to be born inFebruary or March of 2020. So we
knew we'd be off the road for awhile. And of course, that's

(01:13:50):
when COVID hit. Butcoincidentally, since we knew
that was coming, Eddie wound up,he got the gig with Florida,
Georgia Line. Oh, okay, yeah.And so ever since then, he's
been doing that thing. And thenRobbie, Robbie, bass player,
bass player who is around ourage, and sort of journeyman,

(01:14:10):
who's done so much cool stuff,everything from Keith Urban to
Joe Satriani. Yeah, we did MindyMcCarthy together. Okay, yeah.
So you know all his, yeah, andhe's just such a character, and
I absolutely love him. Socialmedia less. Social media less.
Yes, unfortunately, because he'sa very unique and entertaining
and some would say love it, orlove him or hate him kind of

(01:14:31):
guy, but I absolutely love him.Yeah, handsome as hell. Yes, he
is and, and, and for being a Mr.Rugged dude, he's a little too
worried about his fashion, Ithink. But there's a focus.
There is focus there, yeah,yeah, but, but he is a
sweetheart and a great just likerock and roll bass player, you
know, pick, yeah. In fact,recently, so he's not out with

(01:14:52):
Frankie anymore, to answer yourquestion, because initially
after COVID, Frankie wasn't thatbusy, and so Robbie was doing
some other stuff as well. All,and there started being
scheduled conflicts, and so hewound up. Now, there's a
wonderful guy named Reno Bo, whocomes from the rock and roll
world, who's playing withFrankie, but Robbie recently
filled in, I think, about eightshows with Skinner. Yes. I mean,

(01:15:17):
he's just built for that. Yeah.I mean, Robbie, he has a shed in
his backyard. And when he andhe's in this neighborhood here,
he's not far from here, becausehe's in
Spring Hill, yeah, yeah, yes,Evan Hutchings is here. David
Santos is here.
Oh, Santos is a little thingnice. But Robbie, when he's
preparing for a gig, he goes outin his shed, he stands up and he

(01:15:39):
has a microphone, and he has aPA, and he plays like he's
playing the gig. That's likehe's not sitting there just on
his own, a stool at the housewith a performance. That's
right, yeah. And he is all in onit, you know, I think it's cool.
That's a really cool
thing. That's cool, Robbie. Andthen the last thing was gonna
ask you about is that you'vebeen doing this David Bowie
tribute
thing. Yeah, man, that has been,

(01:16:02):
I've felt so honored to get tobe a part of that, because it's
numerous heroes of mine are apart of it, you know. So it's
the show is, it's like a overtwo hour show spanning Bowie's
career, and it's in so it's all,it's such a variety of music,
you know. So that part of it'sfun, just from a musical

(01:16:24):
standpoint. And it's generally,we're playing theaters. So it's
like 2020 500 seats, beautifulold theaters, you know. So
that's, I love, those kind oftours, just Persian rug tours.
So, yes, exactly, just bigenough to have bus and crew,
but, but you're not at a shedoutside of town somewhere.
You're at a beautiful, oldhistoric theater, and you're

(01:16:45):
downtown, and you can walkaround and see stuff. And
there's so many things aboutthat level of touring that I
love. And so they have newthere's a band that's the band,
and then they have these variousfront people that sing different
songs of his Gary Oldman. No,Gary Oldman has done it before,
but I didn't get to do it withhim on the touring I did. Todd

(01:17:08):
Rundgren was part of it. Yeah,
the
Royston Langdon, who was thesinger for space hog, oh, he was
a huge fan of and is the mostBowie like, voice wise of the
bunch. Did you ever
work with my friend Jeremylittle? He's like a background
singer. Well, he's a composer,but I could have one. He used to

(01:17:30):
do it with old men, okay, yeah,
because they have, they've,they've done various tours, and
it'll be a different collectiveof people, you know. But also
Adrian blue? Yeah, he was, hewas on the stuff I've done, and
he was such a hero mineoriginally from the King
Crimson, sort of mid 80s. KingCrimson stuff is

(01:17:50):
Adrian on here? He better be onhere. Man. Oh, yeah, I might not
have him on Saturday liveperformances with Adrian. If you
pulled
from my website, my website'sold. A lot of the latest stuff
isn't on there.
But yeah, and you know, you havea wiki.
Did you start that? Or someoneelse? I didn't start it's, it's
the weirdest thing.
I'm pretty sure that it's a guythat was a big Ezra fan, and

(01:18:12):
he's a drummer and a singer andthat I'm friendly with, and I
think he's the one whooriginally started it.
That's the thing about the wikiis so I don't know why I don't
have one. I don't have one, butif somebody starts it on your
behalf,
Your fate is kind of in theirhands,
I know. And so thankfully, itwas this guy, Jim, who has

(01:18:33):
always been a sweetheart, andone of those rare in my world
fan that becomes a friend, youknow, like he was a real Ezra
fan, but it was alwaysrespectful, and it was always
very much about the music. Andso eventually, like, Hey, I'm
coming through with Sugar Land.Do you want tickets? Like we
became friends, yeah, yeah. Andso thankfully, from for me, he's

(01:18:55):
the, I'm 99% sure he's the onethat initiated it, and so he
knew enough about my history andmy and you know what, it's
respectfully done, although, ifI haven't looked at it in a
while, but I think it sayssomething like, you know, best
known for Better Than Ezra,because that's how he knows me,
you know, whether or not that'show I'm best known at this

(01:19:15):
point. Who knows? You know. Butthat's it reads that way because
of who wrote it, you know. Sothat is part of the thing with
wiki, yeah,
I love it, Jim, you're awfulquiet is, you know, we got a
world class trimmer here.Anything that's under your mind,
top of mind,
I'm just still thinking about,you know, the studio credits and
all that stuff, yeah,
then, and how people listening?Like, I have a question about, I
was gonna say, on my side, ifyou go really deep, I'll have a

(01:19:37):
thing called limitedengagements. Okay, so that's
where you got, like, your SteveAllen, Phyllis Diller, Randy
Brecker, you know, just like thestuff for you, like, one night
only, okay, yeah, most peopledon't know who these people are
unless, like, they're jazzers,right, or very old people.
Phyllis Diller, two weeks withPhyllis Diller, I got cool, and
I almost went, I went into herdressing room. I shouldn't.

(01:20:00):
Knocked, I opened the door, ah,I saw without her wig. Oh, wow,
yeah, she was close to that. Itwas just frightening. Yeah, that
must have been terrifying. Shewas an older woman. This is a
dangerous job, with zero hair.She had no hair and a big old
wig, and she was the firstcelebrity ever to get
liposuction. Is that right?Yeah, crazy. Crazy factoid.
Okay, Jim go. Well, I

(01:20:21):
was gonna go back to the youtalked about the Aronoff when he
came in and recorded, what wasthat? You know, that was the
early 90s. That was the early90s, so that he was
transitioning out of Mellencampat that point into the Smashing
Pumpkins, right?
Yeah, that was pre SmashingPumpkins. Yeah. It might have
been post Mellon camp, or hemight have still been doing
Mellencamp. I don't recall forsure.

(01:20:41):
He was kind of get into that.Into that, dare I say,
alternative space, yeah,
yeah, yeah. And, and sort ofreally making his mark at that
point as, like, session or tour,just dude for hire, as opposed
to being, before that, beingknown as mellencamps guy. Yeah.
So you
and I have been with ourrespective ex longer than he was

(01:21:01):
with Mellencamp, and it seemedlike he was there. He was there
17 years. Oh, wow. No kidding.Okay, 18 years. Yeah, yeah. How
long have been plowed? Jason, 26years. 26
years. That's amazing. I gottasay that.
You know, next time you seeJennifer tell I said, Hi. I was
no idea who I am, but I just sawher about a week and a half ago.

(01:21:23):
She seems like a sweetheart. She
is a sweetheart. She is, she is.She is such a talented singer
like way beyond what most peoplerealize, super consistent, takes
it very seriously, does all herwarm ups. She has done a lot of
training, but she also is. Andthe thing I recently did with
her, aside from the Sugar Landtour in the fall, was we just

(01:21:45):
recorded a record. She's beenfilming a new series. Her and
Kevin Bacon are a couple in it.And there are musical elements
to the show. Their charactersare musical. It's not a big part
of the show, I don't think, butthey have some. So they wrote
some songs for the show, and afew of those were used in it.
But then they decided, becausethey wrote more than were
needed, they said, well, let'sjust make a record in the voice

(01:22:07):
of these characters, you know?And so I just went up to New
York and we tracked that, whichwas awesome. And I think one of
her strengths, along with herjust her vocal ability as a
performer, is she comes, she'swound up transitioning into
acting and because she comesfrom a musical theater
background. So even as a singerwith Sugar Land, when you know,

(01:22:28):
most nights, the band leaderScott Patton and I will often on
the bus, watch the show afterthe show, the imag like your
Aaron Rodgers, yeah, like gametape. Totally, yeah, and, and
so, of course, so much of thetime the cameras on, so I'm
seeing her perform in a way Idon't get to see when I'm
playing. And she is not onlysinging wonderfully and

(01:22:51):
connecting with the audience ina real way, but she's acting
every lyric almost not in anover exaggerated way, but
emotionally, she's deliveringwhatever she's saying. You sense
that she's feeling that at themoment, whether that's whether
she really, she's, she's, Ithink that's part of what's
compelling about her as aperformer, you know. And also,
as you say, she really is just asweetheart, and she's really a

(01:23:13):
very sharp, savvy person, youknow.
Well, it's funny because, Imean, she's got, what do you
say? She she sings, like with arubber band in her mouth. She's
got that Southern drawl, yeah.She definitely does, yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, and that
is authentic to who she is.She's from South Georgia, and,
you know, she, like anybody thathas traveled the world and has,

(01:23:34):
you know, educated themselvesand that kind of thing, yes, she
can turn different accents onand off or whatever, but, but
that is what you hear her do inSugar Land. Is not, it's not,
it's what she it's who she, it'swhat she comes from, coming
from, like a Broadway, you know,show tunes, background and,
well, and, but she was doingthat originally in South

(01:23:54):
Georgia. Yeah, it's just nowshe's actually done it on
Broadway. And in a way, herturning on the accent. That's
not that is the is the acting.You know what I mean? Because
that's what the role requires.It's the whatever she's acting
in Chicago or wicked. Thatperson's not from South Georgia,
so she's not going to sound thatway. But when you talk to her,
especially if she's giving you alittle sass, it's gonna get

(01:24:16):
sassy. Yeah, that's that she
projects too. She's got a bigvoice. She does have a big, vast
Tina Turner. That's a big,
vibrating chasm, they do. I gotthe I got the back her up on a
couple songs on that show,American super group. It didn't
make it to TV, okay? She was oneof the celebrity judges, and I
got the back her up. She wasvery nice. You saw smiles. We
saw her in a movie. I can'tremember what it was, good

(01:24:38):
actress, yeah. And it was one ofthose people like, why do we
know this? But she was sofamiliar and all of a sudden,
like, oh my god, right, right. Ican't remember what it was,
yeah, yeah, she's but she'sstill doing anything with Bon
Jovi at all, or anything likethat.
No, he came and did. He's on myresume because he came and did.
He would occasionally come anddo, who says you can't go home
with with Sugar Land, you haveevery right to do that's right.

(01:24:59):
We have a. Theme. Now, yes, onthis episode, but, but I don't
think they've other than him,maybe occasionally performing
that song with us. I don't know.I'm not aware of any other you
know, them working together, oranything else, but,
well, getting to, like, evenit's fun because I followed you
for a while on social and stufflike that, and you and a button

(01:25:20):
like, kind of like a cadre ofother people here in town. You
guys hang together, and it's alot of fun to watch all the
Kevin Murphy click. And it'sfunny because I did see you guys
do your drummer's lunch one timein SAM. Zoe, oh yeah. And, you
know, I read, I recognized allof you, Ben, from Kevin Ben, and

(01:25:40):
you got, yeah, Keo, definitelyyou were, you were the four most
recognizable people, and Ithink, but you had like, seven
or eight people at the time,yeah, and I had gotten lunch,
and I'm like, I should justintroduce myself. And I'm like,
No,
well, next time. Well, I willnow, but you know,
yeah, I gotta see Kevin Murphy,being like, Who the hell
is this guy? Well, salmon Zoe'sis a very small place. There is

(01:26:00):
a meeting. That's true.
You're right. It is. It is kindof unusual. We probably took the
holding place over. It was aboutsix
guys, I think, okay, there's
no privacy in that place. No,you're gonna be sitting next to
someone. You be like, hey, so mydivorce repeated proceedings are
going to,
I know it's like, yeah, it'sthinking about
burying the body. I'm
thinking about burying thebeater.

(01:26:21):
By beater, I mean body,
right? Yeah, and any of thosethings. If Murphy's present,
he's gonna be the ring leader.
Definitely a strong person that
he is just so willing to justfucking say it.
He is absolutely willing. Iremember back maybe the first
year or so I'd been playing withSugar Land. And I, after Sugar

(01:26:44):
Land was done for the year, Ifilled in for Little Big Town.
They were out with CarrieUnderwood, and just needed to
finish the year whatever hadhappened with their drummer
situation. And so I was out withthem. And so they, I was sort of
discussing with them, as theywere looking for who would be
next, you know, and they were,some guys were some guys were
coming out and auditioning atsound checks and stuff. And I

(01:27:04):
recommended Murphy. And so thisis whatever, 2008 or something,
maybe, and, and I feel like Igot word back. Well, maybe I
didn't even get word back. MaybeI just looked for myself at the
time would have been Facebook,probably. And then it's the same
as now he was posting whateverhis opinion was at the moment.

(01:27:25):
I'm like, well, he's not gonnawind up playing for a Little Big
Town, if that's what he'ssupposed you know, if they look
at this at all, and I told himthat I'm like, just so you know,
this is a thing. Be aware of it.You know, not maybe not care. He
does not care. And at that time,he acknowledged it. We talked
about it and, and, but I thinkhe has just decided, whatever it
would, you know, he just is letthe ships fall. That's right,

(01:27:47):
and I admire that about
he's still working. Yeah, he'sfun to watch, man. Yeah, he's a
solid player.
He's a great player, greatplayer, and a great friend, you
know, yeah? Well, at
this point in time, you'll beable to proudly say that to you,
you shared a podcast studio
with me. There you go. It'sgoing on my resume.
You You have every right, everyright. I will not judge you. So

(01:28:08):
you and
I could if we wanted to, Ludwigdrums, pro Mark sticks, Remo
heads, zillion symbols. Well,I'm, I'm a DW and Sabian, but
ProMark and Remo and extremeisolation headphones, we could
do a clinic together. We coulddo a clinic.
We could totally, totally,should. Yep, I've done, I've
done one or two clinic likethings in my life, and I just

(01:28:29):
can't bring you joy. No, it'snot that, it's not that I just,
I feel, you know, I guess allpeople have some measure of
imposter syndrome or whatever.But, but I there is something in
me, partly because of, you know,and I don't wear it like a badge
of honor, the self taught thing,because we all learn from so

(01:28:49):
much of what we listen to andsee and hear and whatever. But
because I wasn't given lessonsand I didn't learn notation, I
did. There was no academic partof my coming up, I always feel
like, well, then I don't knowhow to start. I don't know where
what I have to share. But, youknow, slowly, I'm shifting my
thinking and doing it well I canjust share my experience. And so

(01:29:13):
I have started thinking more interms of trying to do more of
that stuff,
because academia can really hurtyou. You know what I mean? It
goes other way. You know what Imean? There
are people with business degreesthat, you know, there are people
that have run businesses, thatcan think and talk circles
around people, and
college is becoming less of athing. And you were a you were
ahead of the curve. There youwere like, You know what? Yeah,

(01:29:35):
this is working for me. I knowthat how this works. I'm gonna
go down this path. But
I mean all those valuablestories, as you told just on
this podcast, having humilityand, you know, putting your
pride in your pocket. You know,that's Dude, that's that's
invaluable. Yeah,
yeah. What are, how about thoseextreme isolation headphones?
Those are great, aren't they? Ilove them. Use the ex 25 or the
ex 29 I don't remember.Honestly, I use the 25 seems

(01:29:57):
like the 20 nines. Are toobright. Okay,
I'm trying. The ones I use mostof the time are the ones that
for. I don't know if they'restill doing it, but for a minute
they were making some that theythen one or the other licensed.
They say Telefunken on them. Oh,god, they're the Telefunken

(01:30:19):
branded ones, but, but they'remade by extreme eyes. I missed
that period. Yeah. So those, Ihave a few of their headphones,
but the pair that I go to allthe time are those. It's the
more squared looking ones,whichever model that is, like
back in elementary school, andyou put the record player on,
remember those, thoseheadphones? Or was it just me,

(01:30:41):
bulky headphones, yeah, likethey were square. I never I
didn't have, we as a kid, we hadthe radio shack, kind of round
ones, but they were big andbulky and kind of greenish,
like what Ben Stiller waswearing, and, uh, Starsky and
Hutch when he's jogging on thebeach. Oh, my God, that's
fantastic.
I miss Radio Shack, man. Well,you can get your male female

(01:31:01):
applicators, yeah?
Well, actually, fries kind oftook their place. But we don't
have a fries out here, yeah?Fries, California everywhere,
yeah, Nevada as well, yeah. But,man, this is, this is really, it
was a pleasure getting to knowyou. Man,
yeah, yeah, well, you're just soaccomplished, yeah, you know, I
mean,
yes, I like that. You can youswim equally in the studio and

(01:31:26):
live, and I love that, becausepeople always like, I was like,
Dude, I just told myself Ididn't put limitations on my
mindset. I said I am going to bea touring drummer. I'm also
going to be a recording drummer.I'm also going to be an
educator. If I do all thosethings, they will cross
pollinate and I'll never bebored, right? Yeah, you
know what I'm going to proposehere, based on what we talked
about earlier, about drumclinics. Well, you and I have

(01:31:49):
been talking about doing roundtables. Yeah, you know three
guys, or, you know, ladies inhere as well, yes, and having
fun conversations, just whatevercomes up,
yeah? Because the other drumpodcasts are not doing round
tables. No,
we can do that. Wouldn't that becool?
I think it'd be awesome. Yeah,yeah, I did one of those. It was
like a special certain numberepisode for national drummer

(01:32:13):
podcast,
was it Nashville drummers orworking working drummers?
Podcast with Matt Krause, yes,with
Matt Krause. And it was, it wasMcHugh, and maybe was it Hubert,
I can't remember, but it
was three of us, Oh, yeah. Andit was over at the drum
paradise, yeah, yeah, yeah,upstairs,
yeah, yeah. And so that's theonly time, you know, it's not a
regular thing anyone is that I'maware of it. I think it's a

(01:32:35):
really
cool Yeah. Matt is our nextepisode because in it timed out
perfectly with them. 500th
episode. He'll be out tomorrow,tomorrow. Oh, cool. But, I mean,
that's amazing. We need to startlooking at that. Okay, so every
now and then getting some ofthese guys that are that have
just, you know, you're all inthe same kind of fraternity,
yeah? Well, but also, go ahead,yeah, in a drum clinic sense,

(01:32:58):
why not have three or fourdrummers in the same clinic,
like star power. You
know I did, I did a couple withum, Troy, lachetta and Sandy
Gennaro. Okay, so both childhoodheroes, because I would sit with
my cereal in the morning andwatch these guys on MTV, sure.
And then later in life, theybecome friends. Wild. What kind
of cereal? Um,
Wheaties, corn flakes, Cheerios,Honey Nut, Cheerios, honey

(01:33:21):
and cherries, Captain Crunch. Ilike having crunchy cuts the
roof of your mouth. It
does. I really love, I loveCaptain Crunch, and I never buy
it. Because, literally, two daysago, I was looking at the
groceries like, those look good,except That'll hurt, and I
didn't buy the
thing you got to do. You got tobuy the Malto meal version,
okay? Because not familiar theCal like the mainstream
versions, they've completelybastardized them, okay? And I

(01:33:43):
think the Malto meal, they'recalled the mom brand. Okay,
don't ask me how I'm such aserial expert. But anyway,
they're the ones that come inthe bags. Oh yeah, but they're
not generic. They taste like howthey you remember them? Oh,
okay,
nice. Interesting. Okay, don'task me how good to know.
Interesting.
But we're gonna hopefully bekissing all these like additives
and GMOs and stuff, goodbye,that's what they say. Who knows?

(01:34:05):
Yeah, is it time for the FaveFive? Yeah, favorite color? Oh,
wow,
wow. Oh, man, it varies. Yeah,
because you're, you're a welldressed man. I'm gonna guess
red.
I don't know. I don't know.Really, I lean into kind of
blacks and grays and moreneutral stuff, blacks and grays,

(01:34:27):
bro, yeah. So
somewhere between black andgray, yeah, I suppose Blay
favorite food or dish, wow, wow.As
of late, I
would say, I think if you know,occasionally, there's the
conversation of, if you can onlyeat once you know ethnicity or
style or whatever of food. Forme, it either be Mexican or

(01:34:49):
Italian, nice,
not Cajun, huh? No, but I loveit. I mean, I do love it. I
absolutely love there's a placedown here that maybe it's in
Colombia. I'll give her a shoutout. Go. Gosh, what
do you do? Like when you go toNew Orleans? Do you still are?
You know, is Cafe Du Monde totouristy? No,
man, I you know what? We have.My wife and I've been going back

(01:35:10):
there more in the last coupleyears, more frequently than we
were for a while, and in sincethe in that couple of years,
since we've been doing that, Ihadn't been to Cafe Du Monde,
and every trip we were there, Iwould want to go, and we just
wouldn't fit it in. And sofinally, this last time I was
there, I went, and I was like,Yep, it's as good as I remember
when
I was chicory hot, black chicorycoffee. That's that melting in

(01:35:34):
your mouth
I make. That's the drip coffee Imake every morning in my house.
Is chicory coffee.
What's the brand?
CCS. CCS, do they have it at,like, your public's and
Kroger's? At Kroger? Yes.
So it's a red bag cc's, which isfor, it stands for community
coffee, which is a Louisiana
brand, yeah, that's right. Waita minute, community coffee,
community coffee, New Orleansbrand, I met their owner, and

(01:35:56):
just their regular flavor ischicory.
No, they have a bunch ofdifferent flavors, yes. And so
it's a red bag with a yellow thespecific, because all the
flavors have a different littlesquare, and it's a yellow square
and it's chicory, but it's
typically their brands are,like, it's a it's a white and
red brand,
nice, yeah, you know, we drinkis Don Francisco, oh yeah, it's
a night. It's, like,
very specific, is it in the can?Yeah? Yeah, yeah, vanilla nut or

(01:36:20):
Hawaiian. Okay, just like thegraphic design of that brand,
yeah, look,
I met the CEO owner of communitycoffee when I had to do some
video shooting in Baton Rouge.Oh, cool. Okay, and she was,
she's delightful, and I wastrying to think of, they
actually have it at the Mercedesdealership up in the Music City.
Okay, so cool, yeah.

(01:36:41):
As of late, favorite drink? Ooh,
well, really, back to coffee. Ifwe were talking alcohol, lately,
I've leaned toward maybe gindrinks. Wow, that's a relatively
recent it eludes me
so like a gin Martin, yeah, yes,because I always go with a vodka

(01:37:02):
martini.
Yeah. In fact, I would say a,whether it's vodka or can be
done with gin. A Moscow Mule isprobably my son go to,
especially if you have the realthat's, yeah, if you have the
copper mug, because it's socold, which, I love that, and I
love the fizz of the of theginger beer.
Nice. Yeah, that's, that'sreally good. This is so tough as

(01:37:24):
of late. Or it could be, of alltime favorite song. Oh,
it's, I'm not big on favorites,but I do. There are a couple of
few songs that definitely youcan name a couple. Always speak
to me if I, if I had to nameone, I might say the Beatles in

(01:37:45):
my life. Wow, yeah, that's justso good. And I am, you know
that, speaking of my dad beingsort of an early musical
influence on me, my dad wantedto be John Lennon. So Beatles
were the thing very most playedin our house. And so I've heard,
I can't remember. There's noBeatles song that I can remember
the first time hearing it,because I've heard it all since

(01:38:06):
before I can remember, you know,so that is built into my, into
me, from from him and so andwithin the Beatles, although
it's difficult, if I had to namea favorite, it's John and John
songs. And to me, that one in mylife is is just
beautiful. Remember what
best net said Ringo
is if you take the drums

(01:38:27):
and isolate them in any Beatlessong, uh huh,
there you go. How do you feel
about the Apple thing? Did youwatch the apple 10 hour? Peter
Jackson, yes, I did. Yeah,
fascinating. I'm such a for me,the the top drummers are Bonham,
Ringo and zigaboo from themeters,
wow, that's a great

(01:38:48):
mix. That's why you work everyday. That's the, those are the,
you know, and it comes from, Imean, Bonham is just, just the
touch, the tone, thateverything. I'm a rock and roll
drummer at heart, and he's theultimate rock and roll drummer,
I think. And then, you know,growing up in New Orleans and
just the meters really representthat musicality and that feel

(01:39:09):
that vibe. There's no songsthere. It's just riffs. But the
way the stuff feels
Baba do about the
band, yep, so good.
Nice. But then growing up withon the Beatles, the song, craft

(01:39:30):
and the melody, all that is soimportant to me and so and even
the uniqueness of Ringo tonesand feel and creativity of
parts, you know, so thecombination of those two things
is what I think of as my sort oftouchstones, dude, you know
that?
I mean, I think that's why Ijust see, not secretly, I'm here
in a very public forum, going, Ilove you. Travis McNally, I love

(01:39:54):
Travis McCarthy. You know, youput all those things in a
blender, and it's like, I think,you know, Ringo. Favorite Phil,
but the tea towels, right? Ithink that Phil has been on
Sugar Land Records. I feel thatPhil has been on Megan Maroney
records. That's definitely beenon Jason Aldean records, you
know, yeah, um, yeah, I'm anovereducated rock drummer.

(01:40:17):
You're a rock trimmer at heart.Um, what was in Oh, one time I
was hanging out with Zig Uh huhat Nam Oh, cool. And I had just
started acting, and he goes, hegoes, Oh yeah, I could see you
doing that shit.
I really took it to heart. Niceguy.
That is awesome. I've met him inpassing only a couple of times,

(01:40:40):
but he's such a hero. You knowStanton. I'm good buddies with
Stanton. I've known him for avery long time. We
have so many millions of mutualfriends, and really, I'll just
see him at like pace and I'llgive him a quick hug. We have
not spent any time together. Ilove what he does. He's so
great. I love what he does too.I love you know, he has that
passionate educator thing thatyou have, which is wonderful,

(01:41:03):
but then he's got a band, andyeah, that's he does so many
different things musically andwho he is as a player, I love
that he is the representation tothe current learning people of
New Orleans drumming, because Ithink he does it in a really
aside from as an educator andhow he explains things, but his
playing, it's very authentic.It's the real deal. You know,

(01:41:25):
Johnny
Vida COVID passed the torch.Yes, totally, totally, yeah.
And so, yeah, I love him.
Earlier talking mentioned, mywife has done so many different
things. One of the thing thingsthat she did is, when we were in
New Orleans, she had a couplemen's clothing stores, and so
they were, it was called StyleLab for men. And so she had this

(01:41:47):
series of ads of different knownpeople in town doing whatever in
their clothes. And it would say,whatever in style. And so there
was one ad that was drumming instyle, and it was Stan and I
playing together, you know. Andso for the photo shoot, for
that, we're both just in on veryminimal, like, kick, snare hats,
kind of kit, all crowded inclose, you know, you guys are

(01:42:08):
dressed, yeah, yeah. And we'redressed in all the, you know,
clothes from the shop. And sowe're trying to figure out, you
know, at first we just startplaying a little, but then the
photographer was like, Well, youknow, I'm trying to capture
whatever movement and stuff. Andso Stan said, Okay, so I've
learned this. If you just playthe the wind up monkey thing, it
winds up good in photos. Sowe're just sitting there going,

(01:42:30):
boosh, bash, boost, bash. Like,really, yeah, just the dumbest,
simplest thing you'd think thesetwo New Orleans drummers would
be getting all because, you
know what, some of the greatestpress shots I've ever gotten
were from pretending to playsame because we have the worst
face. It's true, yes, yeah.Like, you have a press shot
right now where you know, you'vegot the Ascot on it, you're in

(01:42:51):
your studio, and it's, you lookgreat, yeah, you know, and, but
it looks like, I think you postit comes,
it's great. It's both, becauseyou're right, that is
ultimately, otherwise,
you make stupid faces and we'resweating there.
Every once in a while, there'llbe some live shot that almost
looks like a photo shoot, but, Imean, it's like, once every five
years you get something back.It's like, oh, that's actually

(01:43:12):
really cool. It's well lit. AndI'm not making a crazy face. I'm
not stupid sweaty and I'm like aneedle in a haste. It is, it
really is. Mostly it's justlike, exactly this is
going to be difficult for you.Same thing as of late, or just
of all time, favorite film, ohman,
wow, yeah, that's gonna be toughfor me. Gosh,

(01:43:38):
it comes on. You could sit downand watch it
start. I was gonna say I haveone of those lately, because it
has been coming on lately. Andevery time, my wife and I'll
stop and watch it and talk abouthow great it is. Moneyball. Oh,
okay, yeah. So that's, yeah,that's an as of late answer, but
at the moment, that's just onethat has struck us. Every time
it comes on, we're like, ohyeah, this is great. And we just
watched the whole
now, do you guys have similartastes in films as a couple?

(01:43:59):
Like, you know, sometimesthere's couples are like, one
person loves horror films, oneloves romantic comedies. But
mostly
we're in pretty much the sameneighborhood. Once in a while
there's something one of usmight want to see the other is
not interested in. Butgenerally, TV movies were mostly
on the same page. Thankfully,decor at our house, all that
kind of stuff, we're just on thesame page, yeah? Otherwise, I

(01:44:22):
mean,
sometimes you're married to awoman for a long time, and she
really could be in like, youknow, doilies and BRIC a BRAC
and all that kind of stuff. AndI'm like, Oh my God, right, but
I've been lucky that every womanin my life has had almost like,
masculine, you know what I mean.
So that's worked out, yeah. Sowhy Moneyball? Are you a
baseball fan? It's,

(01:44:43):
I am a baseball fan. I don'tfollow it currently. As a kid,
growing up, I was a big baseballfan, but it's not as much about
the baseball. It's really justabout the just the it could, it
could be set in almost anyindustry, but the inner workings
just the nature of therelationships and and the acting
and the right. I don't know.It's just, it's a,
I don't know it's a funny movieto watch because of the strategy

(01:45:07):
he devised to really kind of,you know what? I don't need to
have the best players. I justneed to get them on base, right,
right, right. Yeah. What's themathematical Well, right.
That's the thing. It was theembracing of the of the actually
using stats as opposed tointuition, or that guy likes,
like, yeah, exactly. And, butthe thing that part of what's

(01:45:28):
intriguing about, I think, isthe, because the what's his
name, the younger actor in it,no, oh, it's, gosh,
he's the he was heavy at thetime. Uh huh,
gosh, what was his name? Thatdude?
Yeah. Anyway,
he's the one really, with thestrategy. But the Brad Pitt

(01:45:51):
character is the one whoembraces it, yeah, and, and just
is absolutely, are we doing itthis way? Are we not? Because if
we're doing it this way, we'redoing it all the way. He was
taking the big risk. Yeah, hewas taking a big risk. And, you
know, I've read, I got intriguedenough about it recently to do
some reading, and it wasn'tquite as heavy handed or as much
of a problem within the team asit's as they portray in the
movie, because, of course,they're going for drama, but,

(01:46:13):
but just and again, so not eventalking about necessarily the
real thing, but just that movieas a movie. That's part of what
I think is compelling about isthat he's just like, nope. We
believe in this concept. So nomatter what anyone else, the
general manager of the team orthe press, what anyone thinks,
Screw him. We're doing it this.We're going for committing.
Yeah. Jonah Hill, Jonah, thankyou. Thank you. Thank you.

(01:46:35):
Chris Pratt was in that movie.Oh, wow. And God rest his soul.
Philip Seymour, yeah,
one of our greatest actors
right now, which is awesome.Just saw the other day that he
passed away much longer ago thanI really Yeah, was it like 20
years? Was it heroin? I think, Ithink
it was. It was really sad,because he was great. He was
great. He was great. I
think he was you, I don't thinkhe was shooting it, he was

(01:46:56):
snorting it, or somethingshorter, because he was in The
Hunger Games, Movies, okay, sothose were, I don't know if
those were a decade, yeah,
with Elizabeth Banks, yeah,she's on my list. Give a list,
what's your hall pass? It'sfunny, because that movie
reminds me a lot of one of mymovies is The Big Short. Oh,

(01:47:18):
yeah, sure, yeah, I can watchthat movie, anytime, yeah, with
what's your name the well, it'sBarbie. Robert was in it. Oh
yeah, right. Steve Bucha, notBucha me. Steve Carell was in
it. Brad Pitt was in it. Bigcast, totally. And Batman,
Christian male, yeah, Batman. Ohmy gosh. Hey, what's your
question? Jim? My question, asalways, is, you know, if someone

(01:47:40):
holds a gun to your head andsaid you got to pick a band, a
tribute for the rest of yourlife. You can't do anything
else. It's this, is it, man,it's gonna, it's gonna cover all
your basic needs, but everysingle day, playing the music
over and over and over, probablythe Beatles.
There you go. Yeah,
fairly easy ones, nice, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you
were born five years after EdSullivan,

(01:48:03):
yeah, that's right, ladies and
gentlemen, The Beatles. I
had a conversation the other daywith some people here who don't
have the appreciation of theBeatles, and I said, Yeah. I
said, I understand that, youknow. I said, but you gotta
think, like, oh, it was anindustry driven thing. They were
very well marketed. I'm going,Yeah, but they wouldn't be as

(01:48:24):
popular still if that were thecase. I think that's
true now, early days when theyfirst came out, yeah, I think
they were doing what they weredoing very well, but it was very
much what other bands of theirspace and time were doing. But
it just so happens that thetalent, the unique individual,
you know, songwriting skills andabilities and combined with the

(01:48:49):
success they had, allowed them afreedom to pursue what they
wanted to pursue along the moneyball ideas, just, we're just
going to do our thing. And youknow what? Maybe didn't. I don't
know if it was a consciousthought, but the but the basic
notion behind that was they'reso successful that they can kind
of do what they want and even ifit doesn't work. So what I think
they felt that a little bit, butI don't think it was like

(01:49:11):
they'll take whatever we givethem. It's just we we're gonna
do what we want and but theywere so popular that people were
open to it, and it turns out itwas really good. But
we'll look at also their yearsof productivity. Yeah, it wasn't
very long. No, yeah,
a high, large body of work in ashort period of time.
Yes, very much shorter than Ithink most people realize. Yeah,

(01:49:32):
I love
watching that Peter Jacksonthing. And you know, Ringo is
just smoking his cigarettes.He's got his tea towels on the
drums, he's got his teeth. He'sjust waiting, and then they're
ready for the count the songoff, and it's just, they're in
just what to do. It was alwaysperfect, Yep, yeah, incredible.
We've got, we've gone so longthat my photo reset. Look

(01:49:54):
at that. So Sugar Land tour isthis here?
Not sure. Haven't heard you.Okay, yeah, yeah. Did the fall
tour, and then I don't knownecessarily what the plans are,
but
someone's gonna call you Yeah. Imean, right now, thankfully
that my session thing is, ispicking up more, yeah. And so at
the moment, I'm just, I've got anumber of things on the books

(01:50:15):
for session stuff, which islovely, both at my place and on
the road.
What do you do for Cartage yourstuff's not a Trump paradise.
It's not partly because I likehaving my stuff available to me,
so I have it come to and from myhouse every time. So I use Larry
firkins. Oh, Larry. I likeLarry's awesome. But he comes

(01:50:35):
out all the way out to Franklinfor me, that's nice. And so,
yeah, I don't have to commitanything to to being unavailable
to me, other than if it's aMusic Row session, you know, all
my stuff comes back to the houseand, yeah, so that's, I love
that, that, and that's the mainreason I've kept it that way.
And he's been okay with goingall the way out there every

(01:50:58):
time. Yeah, you
gotta, you gotta figure out howto work that stuff. I mean, I
pay $75 a month to keep a pileof gear in Burbank, and I'm not
using it, yeah. But hey, 75bucks pretty cheap. That's
pretty cheap, so I gotta figureout what to do with all
that. But, um, you gotta keepthat stuff, or
I'm always giving my gear toJim. We
made a video one time where Ijust walked around your studio

(01:51:20):
at the other place, and I waspicking up. It was you filming
me going, you want this? Youactually, you still use this.
You need this. I'll tell
you. You do take it, Jim, wow,
not as much as I should. No, butWe barter, because Jim is the
brains behind this operation. Hedoes all the file management,
all the editing, all themarketing, like, right? Thank

(01:51:40):
you, Jim. So the one lastquestion I was gonna ask you is,
as a fan, as a fan of vintagedrums, but not I don't have a
sick amount, like some peopleget into. What are those Ludwig
drums that have, like thesunburst in the middle? Oh, you
record them a lot. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So those are,
that's actually, I have a ton ofvintage drums, and those are

(01:52:04):
actually relatively moderndrums. They were sort of a
reissue that I guess maybedidn't really work for Ludwig,
because they only did them forabout five years, and they're
called club date series. And fora minute, for like, a year,
maybe they did a inexpensive,made overseas club date series,
but then they did ones made atthe factory

(01:52:24):
in on road, North Carolina.Yeah.
And I have two kits of those,actually. One is I had them out
with Sugar Land in the fall.It's the same drums as the ones
you see in my studio, justdifferent finish. And I have
wood hoops on the ones I had onthe road. But, but it's, uh, I
don't I'm so bad aboutremembering, like which woods

(01:52:45):
and how many plies and whatbearing is, whatever sexy I like
that they are, and I love theway those kits sound. And they
made them, I want to say, forabout four or five years. And I
think they stopped about four orfive years ago. So you can buy a
muse club, you can buy used clubdates. And the, they always have
the single or the single lugwith the, you know, and a lot of

(01:53:08):
them will have that duco paintfinish, you know, what I
have is the 1974 pro beats, ohyeah, with the kind of Ringo
esque, oh the finish, yeah,
black oyster, pearl or blue?Yeah. I have a Gretsch kit that
that I used early days, thefirst couple tours, with better

(01:53:30):
Than Ezra round badge kit. Butwhen I bought it, it was, I
think, one of the it's like,2413, 1618, and the floors
didn't match. And I don't knowit didn't all match. So I had
them re wrapped, and this waseven before I joined Belize, or
had them all rewrapped to match.Not knowing, not having the

(01:53:52):
knowledge of that Gretch neverdid a black oyster pearl. So I
did them in that because I'm abig Ringo fan, yeah. And so I
have this black oyster, Pearl,round badge Gretch kit that is
not a thing, but I've got one.And in fact, the biggest feature
I ever had Modern Drummer. I'mplaying those drums. Yeah,
did you ever, has your stuffever found its way to, like the

(01:54:14):
hard rock cafes or whatever? Ido
have one small kit that hardrock bought from me that was a,
it was part of a DW kit that Iused for a long time with Ezra,
and I used on one Sugar Landtour. But at some point I was
using two elements from it as acocktail kit. It was, it was a
14 floor tom on a stand, doingupright with one of those

(01:54:38):
backwards, you know, cocktailbeaters, yeah, and then a edge
piccolo snare above it, off thesame stand. So it kind of looked
like one big contraption, yeah.And I used that for our acoustic
set for a long time with SugarLand, including an appearance we
did that. It was Beyonce, firstforay into country music, which

(01:54:59):
was a. I remember, I wasAmerican Music Awards, one of
the TV shows, Beyonce, and SugarLand did a duet, and used the
Sugar Land band, and I'm playingthat kit on it. And so when hard
rock approached me, they wereinterested, you know, they just
approached me about, what do youhave that you might want to sell
that has some kind of, you know,his interesting history, and I

(01:55:22):
told him about a few differentthings, but I said this was, you
know, it was used with BetterThan Ezra, it was used with
Sugar Land, and it was used onthis TV performance with
Beyonce. And they're like, Oh,well, then we'd have that
playing next to it in on alittle TV. So they wanted that.
That's awesome,
buddy. That's pretty cool.Please tell me they paid good
money. They paid
crazy, dumb, ridiculous, goodmoney. Wow, yeah, I

(01:55:45):
wish they would call me, becauseJason's rock and roll enough
that surely, yeah, I would thinkhis. But I've, you know, wind up
in one of those places. Youknow, I played sonar for a
decade, and I sold like, 10sonar drum sets. I figured, hey,
they got a decade of marketingout of it. Oh, you know, yeah.
You know, grassroots marketing,yeah. And then I use the money
to pay for drumming in themodern world, that thing I

(01:56:07):
filmed 10 years ago. So, yeah,but now I'm with dw, and I'll
just probably die as a DW, youknow, it's funny, because
I remember talking to you. Idon't know if you remember this.
We talked on the phone when youwere considering selling, when
you're considering going to dw,yes, because I was a DW guy at
that time, that's right? And soglad I did, yeah, and I remember
encouraging it, and there, youknow, there are reasons I made a

(01:56:32):
change, but it's nothing to dowith the people there or the
quality of their stuff. I mean,they're amazing company, right?
You know, so and Garrison, infact, is, I don't know, is he
still artists relations over?Yeah, such a great guy, and he's
the reason I went with themoriginally, you know, it was
really for me, mostly about thatpersonal relationship with him.
He was so great to me, you know.And I still value that

(01:56:54):
relationship, even though Ihaven't spoken with him a long
time, but I have so much respectand love amazing. Yeah, he's,
he's the professional model ofhow to return a email promptly.
Because, before you, I mean, assoon as you send it, your
response is back, and it mightbe only two words got Yeah, all
right, right, but he's got thatmeans, yeah, 4000 global, you

(01:57:15):
know, endorsers, yeah, indifferent languages. That's a
big job, right, right? Jim, dowe have fun? We had fun.
A total fun. Did you learn?
I learned that I'm a TravisMcNabb fan. Even more, I'm gonna
have a shirt. I heart TravisMcNabb. I just know I think it's
a, I think it's a, I think thatshould be a shirt. It's like

(01:57:36):
marcism. It. You know what Imean? And I have the same hair
that you do. We have Senatorhair right now? I just, I have
just spackled it, yeah, yeah,because I love it, yeah? Rocket
Man, yeah, I can own it. Looksgreat.
Yeah? Well, you know, it'sfunny, because for me, the gray
came kind of early in my 20s. Itwas starting, and at that time,
like, I'm in an alt rock bandplaying, like, college festivals

(01:57:58):
and stuff. And the guys werelike, Yeah, we can't be, you
know, you're 31 but you can'tlook like you're 40, yeah. And
so I died it for a long time,and at some point when I wasn't
doing the Ezra thing anymore,and I'm on Sugar Land, and I was
still dying, and after, I think,coming in for rehearsals for a
new tour, so I hadn't for awhile show up at rehearsal and

(01:58:21):
nettles goes, Oh, I like thegray. Like, permission, okay,
yeah, it's not really gray. It'sgot, it's this, the chicks love
it. Steve Martin kind of thing.You got all your hair, you know,
if it were, well,
that's talking about Robbieherring earlier. He has a great
quote. He says, I don't carewhat color, what color it turns
long as it don't turn loose. You

(01:58:44):
know, it's funny. I hear peopletalking about, you know, losing
their hair and everything. Andit's like, okay, well, you want
to see mine. I've actually justrecently grew mine back. I have
a lot more
than I remembered. Oh, okay, wasthat a nice surprise? I guess,
you know, my wife was like, youknow, the bulb looks kind of
played out.
Jim. It's just so important tome. I'm so close to the Earth. I

(01:59:06):
mean, five seven, I telleverybody, five eight, I gotta
have my hair,
right? You know so well, guyslike, we have hair everywhere
else but our I know. I go, I waxall the other I sit there, and I
sit on the couch at night andpick hair out of my ears, for
crying out loud. It's like, Ihave one that's like, so deep
inside my ear I have to go inthere with like, tweezers, and
I'll let it go for like, twomonths, and all of a sudden it's

(01:59:28):
like, and you're like, Oh myGod, this thing's like, makes
you cry. It
makes you cry. No,
I just, it's just like, it'salmost, it's got a satisfaction
to it when you pull it out. Ohyeah. It's like, that long
amazing Jim. It's freaking we'velost our viewers and our
listeners at this point, this
is what I like, casual though.This is fun, super casual.
But really, one of the reasonsto start the show was just to
like, you know, shine a light onall of our friends and and

(01:59:50):
everyone's like, Hey, when areyou gonna get Steve cat? Hey,
when you get Terry, like,they're on the list. We're gonna
get Steve Gary. We're gonnaTerry buzz you. But I want to
interview my friends first. Youknow, all the folks in Nashville
that we can be. In a roomtogether with because, you know,
and then we did quite a fewepisodes during the pandemic via
zoom. I was in Los Angeles, hewas here, but we got a lot of
guests. That was fun. It's muchbetter being in the same room. I

(02:00:11):
agree. I prefer it, you
know, I've done a handful ofpodcasts, and more often, I've
sometimes been in the same room,but then it's audio, in those
cases, audio only. And I havealso done online where it's
video and audio, but, yeah,this, to me, is the best
experience. Just, just like, youknow, recording or anything
else, when you can do it in thespace with the actual other
humans, you get the energy,yeah, it's just a different

(02:00:33):
totally,
and it's like, you know, thedigitization happens where
people are going. Oh, you goahead. No, no, okay, I'll go
Yeah. Delay, yeah. Oh, youdropped out there for a second.
Oh, it's horrible. Totally
horrible. Thanks for doing this,man, yeah, thanks for having me.
Yeah, it's so great. You know,to celebrate you and I heart
Travis McNabb, we're lucky tohave you. We're lucky to have

(02:00:55):
you in the national musiccommunity, and I'm lucky to know
you. So thanks brother, thankyou for doing this. Really
appreciate it, Jim, thanks foryour time and talent, man, it
was a great day. Jim and I gotto go run an errand together
today out in Smyrna. We got tohave break bread and have some
Chinese food. Nice. That's agreat day. You know, might even
smoke his car at some point.Maybe amazing. Hey to all the
listeners, we really appreciateyou, guys and gals. Be sure to

(02:01:15):
subscribe, share, rate andreview. It helps people find the
show and really try to take thetime to do it's 30 seconds. Just
give us five stars and a thumbsup, maybe a couple words. Love
the show. All right. Well, weappreciate you. We'll see you
next time. Thanks, guys.Appreciate it. Thanks. This has
been the rich Redmond show.Subscribe, rate and follow

(02:01:36):
along@richredman.com
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The Legendary Travis McNabb: A Nashville Juggernaut :: Ep 212 The Rich Redmond Show

On Purpose with Jay Shetty