Special Report: Dread Zeppelin - A Song of Hope (2024)

On this special episode, Mike talks with Sharif Nakhleh, director of Dread Zeppelin: A Song of Hope (2024), and producer Jason USA. This compelling documentary charts the bizarre, brilliant journey of the band Dread Zeppelin, blending reggae, Led Zeppelin covers, and a touch of Elvis for a sound and story like no other. Mike unpacks the film’s creation, its exploration of musical eccentricity, and its celebration of the enduring power of hope and creativity.

Find out more at https://www.chibson.com/blogs/blog/dread-zeppelin-a-song-of-hope-new-documentary

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh he is, folks, it's show die. People say good
money to see this movie. When they go out to
a theater.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
They want cold sodas, pop popcorn, and no monsters in
the protection booth.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Cut it off.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
This is a story.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
A story about love, a story about humor, a story
about music.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
This next song, there's a song of hope. A story
about hope. A story about fame.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Tart help, It's good to have you here in Tartan.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
A story about fortune.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
As far as where the money went.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
I don't know a story about addiction because I didn't
take nothing except for blasts.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Other than that, I don't take a damn.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
A story about struggle.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
I was created by aliens and modeled after the most
popular person on earth, who, of course, is Elvis Presley.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
A story about identity. Do we look sillier?

Speaker 4 (01:43):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Less he's going I can't.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
A story about rebellion.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hi Hi, I always wondering how this man can honestly
sit there and expect public the walyst ridiculous stories are killing.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yes, it's you know what.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
A story about perception.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
What would be worse if someone told you that you
were lousy musicians or lousy comedians. Uh, there's alwers are
saying anything about us?

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Yeah, is that you?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
But then he goes into reggae music. It's fantastic. The
story about fiction.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Gentlemen, that's an imaginary world of yours, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (02:32):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
A story about truth?

Speaker 1 (02:37):
You quit, never come back?

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I never want to see you again. You can't quit?

Speaker 4 (02:43):
Is dread Zeppelin one of the most innovative pop culture
satires or.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
A milestone on the road to societal collapse?

Speaker 4 (02:53):
This is a story about us.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking
with Sharif Nackley and at Jason USA. They are the directors, writers,
and producers of the new film dread Zeppelin A Song
of Hope. It is a documentary all about dred Zeppelin.
If you're not familiar with dread Zeppelin, they are a

(03:26):
reggae style cover band of Led Zeppelin songs led by
Toward Elvis, a Elvis impersonator or Elvis tribute act if
you prefer, and they are freaking fantastic. Been a fan
of there since nineteen ninety probably when I first heard
about them on MTV or some other place. As you'll

(03:46):
hear in the interview, I was thrilled when I saw
Just out of the Blue, a documentary about one of
my favorite bands popping up. Really helped fill in some
gaps I always wondered about what happened during the disco
era of dread Zepelin. Now I know the movie is
free and available on YouTube. I will have a link
in the show notes over at projection Booth podcast dot com.

(04:09):
Thank you so much for listening to this, and I
hope you enjoy this interview. Can you tell me individually
a little bit more about you and how you got
involved in this project.

Speaker 6 (04:19):
We're filmmakers and Jason's you know, did a lot of
stand up comedy but also a filmmaker, so you know,
we we're friends and we just kind of been working
on other things.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
But he had this show, and he I mean, you
can tell the story.

Speaker 6 (04:34):
He basically he interviewed Tortelvis from dread Zeppelin on his show,
and when I heard that, I.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Flipped out because I loved dread Zeppelin. Turns out we
both love dread Zeppelin, so that led to wanting to
do this.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, Sharif was saying. It was you know, we we
kind of didn't know that we both liked dread Zeppelin.
We kind of had like a little bit of a history.
So will of this show opportunity k up to interview
to ortelvis. It was kind of an eye opener to
all of these little stories and kind of the history.
And I knew nothing of you know what I thought

(05:12):
I knew from like the liner notes of their albums
and whatnot and what I had picked up. I knew nothing.
And so I was like, after the initial interview, I
went and hung out with Sharif and I said, you
know this, this this crazy interview I had. Do you
know this band dread Zeppelin? And he was like dread

(05:33):
Zeppelin and and you know, we both kind of just
chuckled because he had he hadn't thought of them, and
it was just something that like it just kind of
we were both like wow, And so that kind of
started to kind of we started to kind of just
talk about it there and and that kind of was
the initial moment for us to kind of take this
thing on.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, and we were like geez, I mean, has anybody
even done anything on them? You know, like is there
even a documentary there? Hell, it wouldn't be right. So
I mean that.

Speaker 6 (06:03):
It's just kind of like it was like an aha
moment of like, oh my god, we are the guys
to do this.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
How do you guys know each other?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
You know, a metful friend Darius. I was doing stand
up and.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Shout out to Darius Monday.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, And and Darius he was like, you know, when
you do stand up, there's a lot of waiting around
to go on stage, so you tend to like talk
to other comics and you you end up, you know,
with like minded individuals, cracked jokes, you're doing whatever. And
I being Darius who hit it off. And Darius is like,

(06:37):
you got to meet my friend Sharif. One day I
came over to Sharif's house and he was hanging out
in his backyard and we just started talking and it
just we just kind of clicked. We kind of were
just like, yeah, I don't know, it like felt like,
oh wow, we kind of had a lot of similar interests,
similar sense of humor. Yeah, exactly, yeah, right off the bat,

(07:00):
and so and I would I would and I don't
even know how long after, maybe maybe six months or
a year maybe after we met initially, that's when we
started doing the dread Zeppelin thing. So that's kind of.

Speaker 5 (07:13):
A you're talking about this aha moment that you guys have,
how do you go about taking that We should be
the guys to actually putting this in the motion and
making it happen.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, we were not even thinking. We were thinking, well,
let's reach out to them. So we had convinced them,
you know, we had to convince them basically that they
did a documentary should be made on them because they
couldn't believe it. They were like, what, you guys crazy,
You guys must be crazy. We're like, trust me, this
is like, this is awesome material. So what we were

(07:45):
just thinking when we were maybe going to do a
sizzle or something, you know.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, we you know, we we thought very We never
were like, oh, I can't wait to do a whole
yeah ninety minute, you know, like we weren't like trying
to jump into that was more like, would you guys
be open to this idea? And then we were thinking,
all right, maybe get an interview or two. And then
I think once the word kind of went out to

(08:11):
a couple of the guys, everybody kind of was like, well, hey,
they're gonna be doing some interviews, maybe maybe we should
come into town or what you know, that that kind
of thing. It kind of snowballs. So we ended up
once once they were okay with that, we ended up
kind of coming down and they live in Pasadena or
a lot of them are centered around Pasadena, and we

(08:33):
live up in the Bay Area in Oakland, so we
would come down. We met them, and then we did
an initial weekend of just what we thought were gonna
be a couple of interviews, and then that turned into oh,
we're gonna come back the following weekend, did more interviews.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
And then people started just coming out of the woodwork.

Speaker 6 (08:52):
Yeah, because you know, they joke that there were like
ninety five people in this band, right, and but.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
We counted only ninety three.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Correct, But they started coming out of the wood where
people started flying in. It was like, oh wow, okay,
so this isn't just a little sizzle anymore. I mean,
we kind of bumbled our way into it a little bit,
you know, but then we started realizing, Okay, this is
a this is a real thing.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah. Once and once we also got the material back,
once we started to kind of start to kind of
go through it all. You start with very really really
quickly realized okay the sizzle concept. Did that turned into
like a ten fifteen minute piece. It's then turned into
a thirty minute piece and the yeah, you know, folks
are like, so, well, you know what's going on with this?

(09:38):
You know we can we can we share something on
you know, on social media, and it's like, well, you know,
we didn't really know, yeh, And to a point, we
didn't know if it was going to be a feature
lying thing, and you know, you're putting these kind of
restrictions on ourselves of like holding on to it's got
to be a short thing, and yeah, there's this story

(09:59):
and there's that story.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's like, how do you well in all the work
it would take also to do to do a feature.
But then we kind of had a moment where it's like, okay,
we we really need to do a feature on this. Yeah,
and then we committed to a full feature.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
When was this What was the timeline for this?

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I believe our first interviews were in July of twenty fifteen,
so the interview on the podcast was I want to
say February of twenty fifteen, Joe Ramsey passed away I
believe in December of twenty fourteen, so founder of the band, yes,

(10:37):
neat Jophold Joe. So it was all kind of when
we the whole, that whole concept they're reaching out to
tour and talking to him, it was all very very new.
It was all very fresh and you know for everybody really,
I mean the job all, Joe had only been gone
probably like six months. So when we started to do

(10:59):
those interviews is you know, it was still like a
very very kind of fresh wound, I think. And so
we started it then and then we did you know,
we did a handful of other interviews and other supplemental
interviews as well, and I want to say that by
all intents and purposes, the cut of it was probably

(11:24):
finished around would you say, twenty nineteen. Yeah, and then
you know, and then what the real trick of it was.
You know, we had this thing that I think we
both felt was you were very happy with it, felt
that was a pretty special thing. And then the big
issue was now how do we get it shown and

(11:47):
how do we deal with you know, licensing and music
and said that, which.

Speaker 6 (11:53):
We didn't think we were going to have too much
of a problem with because this is satire, it's parody music.
The music itself, they didn't have a problem, But the
second it ends up in a film, it's a whole
nother legal ball of axe one that we are not
able to crack.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, and I don't. And it's and it's not necessarily
that we would be able to crack. It's I don't.
It's not no crackable because of the nature of.

Speaker 6 (12:19):
You can't have that many led Zeppelin songs in any
film on planet Earth.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, getting one or two or maybe three is a
chore in itself, and there's a few films that have succeeded.
But when you're going, yeah, you're talking about fifteen and
steroid at them, being fat of them, good luck, Yeah
you're not. It's not a I believe they It was
a categorical denial.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, just a big fat no.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah. So so once we knew that, we were, you know,
once we knew that, we were kind of like, well,
there's nothing you can do to.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
You're on your owns.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, you can't stream it, you can't show it in
a theater, and you can't do anything like that because
it's not you don't have a licensing. So with that,
we were like, well, the best thing to do is
to just give it to the fans for free and
to to have it be out there and have it
be seen and otherwise. And so that took about four

(13:16):
more years. But yeah, we were like should we wait
another you know, two year. No, but we were just
kind of like, you know, figure that stuff out and
then how to release it really, because that's the ultimate
problem when you don't have any kind of real backing
or any type of budget. Yeah, budget for that. That

(13:39):
became an issue of like, well, we're you gonna just
sit it out there and let it die or burn it? Yeah,
burn it.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
So that was the whole thing. And because I in
this process, this Chips in USA brand kind of blossomed
and developed a kind of sort.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Of in parallel while we're making Yeah, while.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
We're making this thing and this popularity of it, and
it's a parody brand, so it kind of made sense
to release it through the parody brand. So it took
that kind of sitting on the scene, you know, working
on it during the pandemic, getting it, you know, sound,
getting the sound mix and getting the color correction, all
this stuff. By the time we got to hear also,

(14:23):
you know, the way that people consume film and the
way that people consume just media in general's changed so much,
so we were just like, well it's now or never,
so really it it's like at this point, it's like
what else can you just got to go, It's just
got to.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Go get it out before AI takes over.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, there a version of this has a way better ending.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
Was there somebody that was keeping all these tapes obviously
the videos, the concert footage. Was there any sort of
librarian that the band had or did you have to
go each individual member and try to dig through their archives.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
The band had some archives like for example, like you
know old magazines, rolling stones, and you know, things of
that nature. But Joe had a collection of video cassettes
I believe twenty seven in total that had a lot
of the television appearances from different countries. And this was

(15:26):
at a time too when it was a lot harder
to get some of the stuff transferred over because he
had it. This is stuff that was thirty years old.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
In his garage and in his garage.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
So we had to get all of that digitized. And
then all he had all the photographs, you know when
they were on the road. You know, they'd have a
role of film and their disposable camera and just just
years of that. So over one thousand photos we had
to scan in I want to say, you know, articles
and news clippings from around the.

Speaker 6 (15:54):
World, and that's the stuff that people would upload the YouTube,
you know, fan media.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, getting in contact with a lot of the filmers,
trying to track folks down. There was stuff that you'd
see that was used somewhere somewhere that was like a rough,
really rough copy, and then being able to actually like
there's a few a few things that we were all
track down, like right at the very end.

Speaker 6 (16:16):
Yeah, and then of course Greg toward Telvis was sitting
on some home videos that he was taking from like
over a period of like two years of maybe just
one year, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
During like nineteen ninety ninety one, like right the height
of it all when they were to Yeah, when they
were touring the world, he had this just recording. He
had this camera and so they're on the bus there
in the Queen track goes and then they would pass
it off to say the road manager and so they
so there's this random live footage from you know, who
knows where, you know, like, oh, we went and tracked

(16:49):
down like okay, it's from this show or that show.
But we used a lot of that that. In fact,
the opening is all that opening live sequence of tor
Telva's coming on stage home. All that was found footage
from tor Telvis's camera that. Yeah, somebody was like thought, hey,
I should film that, yeah while they were on stage

(17:09):
and capture that stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
And yeah, because a lot of people would pick up
the camera. It wasn't just guy. Yeah, a lot of points.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
So a lot of that backstage stuff, a lot of them.
I don't know if you if you'll catch it, but
there's some MTV when they're filming and you see the
cameraman in the clip it cuts to it like because
we have another angle while they're the scene behind the scenes.
So there's a lot of that stuff that we were
able to get.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
I mean, to be honest, we almost had too much.
You know, it's blasphemous to say, but you know, when
you're working on it, it's just miles and miles and
miles of footage.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know, and it all makes sense and all of
it's wrong.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
It's like okay, well, yeah, you got to pick and choose.
You got to pick your battles.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
I can't even imagine the effort it took to digitize
all those photos, to go through all of that footage
and just figure out what it is, much less, what
are we going to use from this stuff?

Speaker 6 (18:05):
Documentary film teams that have a budget that you know,
have backing behind them and the resources to do it,
they do all this research before they get in.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Right, that's not the way we did it.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, we.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
Were you guys editing this or did you bring somebody
on to help you with this?

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (18:26):
We did it just us, just us. Yeah, that's remarkable.
How did you even keep track of all this stuff?

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Did we keep track of it all?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Question? You know, countless Google docs, countless notepads and multiple passes, multiple.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Passes, yeah, different edits different different yeah, different systems.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, paper add it's different. Bit of a nightmare. Yeah,
I mean, but you know that that's the thing with this,
this type of thing, is it like you know, it
started as one thing and evolved into this feature, and
so you know you do you pay just no taking
keeping track? You know, it's like it's like you're in it.
There was a point I remember where you're in the

(19:13):
tunnel so far deep that you don't see light on
either end, and you're just in the darkness. And it
was about like two and a half three years committed, right,
and you're just like, no turning back. There's literally no
turning back. And if I you know, if this thing
is gonna get if we're gonna get there, it's like
you just have to kind of keep going. So you
kind of you're using these notes and you're using it's

(19:36):
like it's like writing your name, like keep going this
way on the cave wall. It really feels like that.
And but then you start to because you did all that,
then you start to kind of peek, oh, I think
I can see some light. And that really is kind
of how it felt for a moment, and I think
I want to say, once we kind of broke through
and kind of figured out, okay, we're doing this feature

(19:58):
and we're gonna this is how kind of how the structure,
I think once all that, then the footage started to
kind of make sense to us and started to be like, okay.

Speaker 7 (20:08):
This, you know, because at one point, you know, you
get you discard stuff because you're like, we're not doing
this this format so it's like all this stuff doesn't
It's great, but we're not going to use this, and
then when we need it, we're like, oh man, we
need to go back.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Was that Yeah, so passes literally on everything, and we
had to catalog the I told you about those twenty
eight tapes. We had to watch every.

Speaker 8 (20:30):
Every our high quality ving our high quality pH you know,
had to basically go in and make you know, marks
on every every time code for every little thing.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
And this was also in a time before AI doing
transcript transcriptions. Yeah, we until like our fiber getting going
to fiver and getting transcripts really poorly inscript.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Much time code on there. We're like, oh I got.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oh yeah, oh boy. But it was fun. Oh we laugh.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
We laughed our way through the entire time.

Speaker 6 (21:09):
Yeah, I will say that it was It was very
hard to make, but we laughed our it was.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah. I enjoyed every moment of it.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
I have to say, once you guys end up actually
cutting it on like premiere, final cut.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Premiere both.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Oh yeah you did, we started it on the final cut,
that's right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (21:29):
Did you have any problems with formats because I know
they started in what ninety ninety one or even before that.
So with all of this footage, did they Oh, here's
a DV cam, here's a you know, a DABT tape,
any of those things.

Speaker 6 (21:44):
Yeah, and I can't even upgrade my premiere project because
we will lose.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Half of the timeline. Oh god, So until this thing
is done done, yeah, which I think it is.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, they were not. Yeah, yeah, I mean we had to.
We had to get all that footage, you know, wrangled
and just different. Also, I mean I remember we were
coded and even if that that high eight stuff at
towrtid shot, there was trouble with.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
That rubble out of sink and it won't even line
up properly.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, oh jeez. It was a maze.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
It's a complete maze.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
And I was taking you know, different you know, there's
clips online and some of them will have bad audio,
some have better you know, visuals or whatnot, and different sources.
So taking the best source sound, take the best We
did a lot of that, just kind of like repairing
some of the original footage and just getting better audio

(22:41):
and you know, shrif also being able to kind of
the testament to how good the band is, being able
to kind of weave in between like their studio tracks,
their live stuff.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
And you know kind of that they were always on.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
There were always some times that made it I guess
a little bit, a little bit easier.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
A little bit. It was definitely difficult.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
The idea that these guys are consummate musicians, I think
kind of surprises some people if they were to dive
into them now and hear how good they are.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
We've hypothesize about this throughout the creation of working on this,
but it's like they're you know, when you think about them,
it's so easy to take them for granted, and it's
so easy to on the surface to say, oh, it's
a it's a novelty, or it's this thing. But once
you kind of if you have any familiarity with the
music and any kind of fandom, say with any of

(23:37):
these attributes of Elvis or led Zeppelin, you start to
pick up on the nuances and you start to realize
how well placed that these things are, the music, the jokes,
and and how well crafted it is. It's to do
it flawless, you have to almost be so subtle at it,
and and it does go over a lot of people heads.

(24:00):
But once you kind of understand what you're looking for.
It's such a it's it's so impressive. It's just very impressive. Yeah,
it you know, for lack of a better word, it's
just it's kind of like, wow, it makes it.

Speaker 6 (24:16):
Yeah, because they're performers, they're doing a stage act and
they're also musicians, so they're like, you know, it's a
spinal tap thing, right, but they're right, well.

Speaker 5 (24:27):
Yeah, they didn't realize how grueling their tour schedule was either.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
They blew up. They were so they got so big
that they just started playing you know, hundreds and hundreds
of shows everywhere.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, the Blue Nuts. That was nuts. That's the funny
thing that we and we kind of try to highlight
that in the film. It's like it was a joke.
It was this kind of afterthought, and you know, some
of the guys in the group, like Bryant.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Did not think it was going to go anywhere.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
No, he was he was the guy that made the
graphics for the band. He did like the ed Zeppelin, Yeah,
ed Zeppelin, the first ad Zeppelin, So he was not
even considering that this was like it was just a
joke that they were doing on the weekends, right, and
then six months later it's on MTV, and then there's
record labels want to put them on tour and all
this stuff, and so it's it overnight became something like, Wow,

(25:20):
we got to do this, and you know.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
But that's what did it. It was that MTV thing that
did it.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, because once it was on MTV, that concept was
out there and I remember seeing that when I was
a kid. I remember seeing that and then the album
being out like yeah, six months later and just being
like what is this?

Speaker 6 (25:38):
You know, I mean IRS Records who ended up signing them,
they were blown away too. Yeah, they couldn't. They were like,
we're gonna take a chance. You know, it's a novelty thing.
It seems to be pretty cool. But then they were
just they couldn't believe how popular they became.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, the Unlighted blew up and then and then Lulah
and then the second record continued that success, and so
they were able to go.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
All around the glow, all over the multiple multiple times.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
And also was in that era of you know, record
they were they were very very marketable. You know, you
had this export of the United States, you had this
fat Elvis guy, right, and they would have all these
pretty bad crazy different you know, shaped records with like
stereoy to Heaven shaped record you know, or do you

(26:23):
know I have an inflatable blimp that was like unflayable
Zeppelin that had read Zeppelin and it hung in like
Japanese guitar record shops and like, you know, all this
kind of promotional stuff lended itself to the band and
so kind of.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Just there's a lot to tap, a lot of angles
to tap into.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah. So and then of course, you know that's going
back to the original point of this is that you know,
they were everywhere, and so they were doing all these
radio shows opening or you know, doing these headlining basically
headline arenas around the world nonsp. So it's kind of shocking.

Speaker 6 (27:02):
Yeah, And there was a time, you know, we were
asking about going through all the footage when we had
to go through and look at much later in the process,
we had to go through and look at all of
the shows, you know, and start to be you know,
make notes on the shows where we can pull things,
and just watching all.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Those shows in chronological order was just wild. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
It took it took a week. Yeah, we it took
a literal week. Stuff that we had yeah, and that
was probably and I'm not no exaggeration, you know, it's
like about eight I would say about eight hours just
going through and then you know you're watching full.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Shows and it's just masterful.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, and we laughed. I have to tell you, we laughed.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
It's still the same jokes over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Because it's done so well and it's so funny. But
then as they evolve, as time goes on, years of
thed riff, and they they're more you know, the other things,
like other pop culture events would slide in, like, for example,
glove the glove Sure shreifaurring to Sreifans seeing him in
ninety four ninety five somewhere in that era and OJ. Yeah,

(28:11):
during the OJ and he we we had interviewed tour
and tref is like, do you remember doing the glove?
You were running around stage, You're trying to get this glove.

Speaker 6 (28:20):
Trying to get a tiny glove onto his big hand, right,
and he was running back and forth and it was
just so funny and brilliant at the time to didn't
even remember it.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
He didn't remember and considered you were and I was like, okay, dude,
but yeah, you know, what, what are you talking about?
And then finally that week we're going through all the
foot and we found it found and he's doing the glove.
We're like what. It was a lot of that, you know,
it's a lot of like, you know, just exploration and
kind of like what do we have here? What is

(28:50):
And there were so many little moments like that that
just kind of made it entertaining, you know, medic gold. Yes,
what was.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
The biggest surprise for you when you guys were making
the film.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Well, watch to it.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
There was how long they had been going for, how
many iterations that there were of the band, how it
evolved over time, how tort started getting more and more
crazy and wild, and his performance stage performance, which is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
I would say that another interesting thing. It's maybe something
that we you know, making this film, you kind of
place it to the side or you take it for granted,
but you know, you kind of realize how real this
thing actually was. Like you watch it as a spectator,

(29:40):
you see all this footage and you see all stuff
as a fan, and it's entertaining, But the responsibility of
telling the story and to that there's real people involved,
that they lived this, that they're still living it. It's

(30:00):
that to me, was it was something that was kind
of surprising, not that it existed, but by the weight
of the responsibility. And and I still feel that to
this day of just like you know, in a even
though Shrief and I sat in a room for years
agater or whatever you know together working on it, I

(30:22):
feel so close to everybody involved because.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Of close, closer than they even know.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh yeah, but that that it could even possibly not,
I thine some of.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
The people don't barely even know, barely even know us,
and we feel like we know them intimately.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, And that's probably the biggest kind of surprise. It's
like I feel very you know, just connected to everybody
and connected to the band in this really intimate way
that I never thought I would. If you ask thirteen
year old V about it later, no, I wouldn't have known,
but you know, it's yeah, So it's that to me,

(30:57):
it's probably the biggest surprise. I think.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
I'm so curious. Was everything in the documentary real?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Just well, I mean, how do you define real? What
is real?

Speaker 5 (31:13):
The movie takes a turn about an hour in and
I was not expecting where it went with toward Elvis
with their manager some of the way that real life's
mirrored parody, should I say, with some of the things
that went on with the band during that period of time.
I don't want to give everything away to the audience,

(31:33):
but I was just curious because it felt like, Oh,
is this real or is this parody? Now? Did we
suddenly shift into that? But that it's real is even
more remarkable.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Well, we played with the parody. We were working with
the satirization of their sa satire. So there were levels
to that. I mean, we did say in the very
beginning there's a little disclaimer that's just based on a
true story and thought that we wish where to go,

(32:04):
no where to God. We know, we definitely took liberties,
but at the same time, their story is so wild
that it almost becomes true as well.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
As to Televis says Greg every everything, and it's true,
that's how it happened. But I would say that there
are some things that are a little bit more there.
There are a few things that we had to take
some liberty, some creative liberties to make the story work,
because there are kind of elements to it that are

(32:40):
with any story where there's just a lot of like
nuance and there, and it's not necessarily important or interesting
to the to the whole story at all really, but
so you kind of have to take some type of
liberties there.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
With one, Let don't let the truth get in the
way of a good story.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, And then then the other the other thing is
is that they left a lot of footage that that
is the footage when we get into the Colonel Caine footage,
that is the footage around the Spicy Beanburger area that
leads into the Corey Feldman footage. There's early footage where

(33:20):
there's a chroma key footage that was never keyed right,
and we keyed it for the first time and with
that stuff, and so a lot of it was set
up for us and and and to be honest, there's
so many other details that we, like I said, like
we you want to include him with how do you

(33:40):
you know, like they there was a guy on tour
with him for like six months to a year who
was going to write, who wrote a screen keyp. I
had a copy of it, and but it's like, how
do you include this? You know, There's things like that.
So when we get back to what you were speaking about,
with the tor televis. You know, he'd he'd always talked

(34:02):
about the placidyls and the demarole, and that was always
a part of it. So everything that he laid out
was it was just there, and so how do you
sum up that?

Speaker 2 (34:13):
So we ran with it. We ran their mythology and
played We tried to adhere to their jokes as much
as we could while still trying to keep it rooted
in reality.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
But that hera Phillips thing that I'm still unclear about
whether that or that's real or not. That's, you know,
the strange answer you'd make.

Speaker 6 (34:34):
I mean, you know, the documentary form is a weird
slippery thing because everybody expects it to be the truth.
But as we know, document everything is a construct.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Right where you put the cut is the comma is
what what you include in the sentence and what you
take out? All that kind of stuff. So, you know,
we were trying to tell the story honestly from a
from a human, true to the characters. But you know
we did it was kind of a hybrid of truth,
fact and fiction.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
Were there any people or did you know of any
footage that you were trying to get your hands on?
But never could.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
The only footage that really escaped us was the disco era,
which which we mentioned in the narration, which is is
that no one was so bad, Yeah, that no one
cared to pull out a camera and witn't you film it?
And we don't.

Speaker 7 (35:26):
We don't feel that way, no, yeah, just the way
that's the way iOS records felt about Yah.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
They were still also the way that history played out.
But there is no footage, so that would have been
really amazing to have seen. I have to say the
one I wish there was more, but the recording Michael
Hawkinson's audio interview of Joe. Joe was kind of like good, Yes,

(35:52):
I can't even tell you how huge just to have
his voice by itself saying the things that he said.
That was probably the biggest.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Not having Joe in general. Yeah, missing Joe, you know,
not having the opportunity and not having the opportunity to
interview him, would you know, that's a huge deal. Yeah,
that we had. We said that all the time.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, And so by having that that was probably it.
And I think we mentioned some of the that early footage.
There's some footage that we got that some live stuff
and some of them in the studio. A lot of
that early studio stuff where you see Tortal was kind
of having a little bit of a fit in the studio.
All that footage that came right at the very very end,

(36:34):
So that was we were really kind of that was
the stuff we were hunting for and then just came through.
But as as at this point anything that pops up
now we're like, oh wow, that's awesome, Like I wish
we would have had that, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
And I I have a question for you back to
the sort of the parody, the truth blending of factions fiction.
When you watched it, what did you think you were watching?
Did it feel straight to.

Speaker 5 (37:03):
No, it felt like we shifted into more of a parody.
And I was like, Okay, this feels more like they're
their legend than anything else. And so I was watching
I rewatched it again and I was just like, Okay,
is this real? Is this not? Are there flavors of truth?
Did they really have a manager run away with all

(37:24):
of their money or is that just part of the mythology.
I mean, it feels too much like the real kernel
to have this colonel do the exact same thing. And
I was just like, it's gotta be parody and they
have to be somewhere have one foot in parody land
with this.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
That's good. Yeah, that's a good assessment, I think, and
as and using all of those devices such as like
the dread Talk which was a real newsletters put out, Yeah,
and all those it's like, you know, going back to
talking about these nuances, it's like presenting it in one
way and you can only get so far, but than

(38:01):
presenting it in a different way. And also truthfully too,
when you have a band that we're presenting sort of
in this decline sort of era, when we're leaving the
focal point era of the band it, you know, you
you kind of have this obligation to the viewers who

(38:22):
were on this ride to kind of like, you know,
how how do we get from point A to point B?

Speaker 6 (38:27):
And then and also to parallel it with Elvis, you know,
towards Telvis and Elvis.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
I mean, we all know what happened with Elvis, and so.

Speaker 6 (38:34):
He was the irony is I mean he's playing Elvis
like the last two weeks of his life.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, right, and that's where they start, that's they're starting
for it, right, So you know we're gonna even deeper
than that, you know, just even even more over the you.

Speaker 6 (38:50):
Know, plus it's you know, it's a rock doc, so
we were we were trying not to make a straight
rock doc.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
You know. We went back and forth on that, should
we just dock it tell this story straight, or should
we also play into But you can't just tell a
straight story about dread Zeppelin because nothing about them is
straight right. Even their interviews, even the things that they
remember are like all over the map.

Speaker 6 (39:12):
So it's like, what even we didn't know? Yeah, you know,
and sometimes they'd be blatantly joking with us.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
And we didn't even catch it.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
Right, we're so straight about it, oh yeah all the
time because we weren't in on the inside jokes.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah, I mean. And there's there's stuff from their later
period too, where they would intro it. I'm sorry, it
bring up Spice on playing on drums and they're like,
he used to be in Kaja Googu, the band for
the eighties whatever, and we were blown away by it.
You're like, what, I looked it up online. There's nothing,
there's no cogit. He's not related, there is nothing. And
then we got to ask about it. He's like, oh, yeah,

(39:45):
we just made that up, like, you know, so there
was there's a lot of that, you know, there's a
lot of like because they were.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Always in character. They never ever went a life character ever.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Our interviews did Rag was kind of nervous because it
was literally the first time you'd done.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
An interview or unmasking everybody.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, without the math or without the outfit hair and
the cidebirds.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
I remember seeing them live and just how mean toward
Elvis was to Charlie Hodge. But it's the bit, you know,
and I love the bit.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Right, like when did you see them live?

Speaker 5 (40:20):
Oh gosh, must have been like ninety two, ninety three
something like that, And I could have sworn that they
played it feels recently, but I know it couldn't have
been recently because what they quit in twenty sixteen because
they were like right down the street from my house
where I live now and played a small venue around here,

(40:44):
and I'm like, oh, I would love to see them,
but it was like saw the venue as I'm driving
home to work and I'm like, I can't go out
right now. I'm too freaking about.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
The ghos too. Yeah, Yeah, we're kind of surprised to
I don't want to say surprise. I don't think that's
the right word. It was just kind of like, I
don't know. It was a little bit sad too.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Is that is that the end?

Speaker 1 (41:08):
You know, that kind of thing, And and you know
that was something while we were making it, We're getting
to look at all of these this footage and stuff
and be like, wow, no they haven't played if they're
not end any more shows to their website, you know.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Well.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
I also I also couldn't believe how long they had
gone for because you know, when Jason did the interview
with Greg.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah that was twenty fifteen.

Speaker 6 (41:33):
Yeah, And I was like, I was like, what you
interviewed toward Telvis, right, and he's like, yeah, they're going
to play in San Jose where I was like, what
They're still playing?

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Like I thought, you know, I thought.

Speaker 6 (41:45):
They were done after the mid nineties or so after
I saw them, after I saw them, And I will say.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Just to add to what he was saying, we did
so once we kind of agreed to do. We hadn't
met Greg and we didn't meet him at the show,
but they played in Santa se and we drove down
to go see it, and I remember laughing so hard
at this show and just like being so thoroughly entertained
by it, just still like just being like as an

(42:12):
adult still held up. It just still held up. And
it was just kind of it that I remember that
being a scenario like because we just kind of you know,
got signed signed on to do this and then we
went and saw it. It was like a reaffirmation of my God,
that that there's just you know, some type of magic.
You know. So it is a little sad that you know,

(42:34):
we may never see that again, but you know, hopefully.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (42:38):
Yeah, but it's like I saw them in nineteen ninety
because that's when they were playing Oh it looks like
they played Saint Andrews Hall a couple of times that year.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, yeah, that was you're right there, right at the
right at the start of it.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
Yeah, like the I remember buying one of those shirts,
the one that Robert Plant has wearing. Ye, having that
same shirt. Of course that's long gone by now.

Speaker 6 (43:05):
When I saw them, I immediately when I was first
introduced to them, I was in high school, and I
immediately thought, oh my.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
God, this is this is the most.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
Amazing pop cultural satirical expression of America, you know, all
these ingredients. It wasn't just the before I even heard
the music. I just saw the name and then I
saw them and I saw Tor Telvis in the suit,
and I was like, oh my god, this is brilliant satire.
And we talked to them a lot about it, you know,

(43:35):
but they and they're not dummies, but you know, they
they spoke to it. But for them, they were just
like they were kids and they were just caught up
in being a rock band. Yeah, that exploded well beyond
their means. So we're asking them questions about, you know,
the things that we experienced as fans.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
And they're like, wow, we didn't even really know it
was on that level, right.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah. I was living in Georgia when they first blew up,
and I was rural outside out of Savannah, like the
middle of nowhere, and so if you didn't have cable,
and I we didn't have cable for a while, and
I remember getting cable seeing that stuff for the first time,
and you know, reggae wasn't a thing in rural Georgia,

(44:14):
like you just there's no record stores that were like
blasting reggae, and you know, so it was it was
the furthest thing from where I grew up. And so
years later have an opportunity to interview to where tell us.
I was like, anyone ever told you that you may
have gotten people into reggae like drugs up, that's the responsible, right,
And that was there on what No, I never hadn't

(44:37):
considered that one, but crazy crazy, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (44:41):
So there's because I was in I lived in Geneva's,
Switzerland in high school, and so I saw them at
like my last year when five million came out, I
think it was ninety one, yeah, right, and there was
a cardboard cutout of Tortella was in the music store
in Geneva, Switzerland, of a of a you know, just

(45:03):
like shocking.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
And that goes back to like the market marketability, you know,
and I r S and just having this thing that
was of a cover band. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, right,
and being able to do that, you know, and then
you know, flash forward this many years now, it's like
it's it's it's it's hard to explain to people who
didn't witness it. It's very very hard to explain the impact,

(45:29):
you know, just to also just in ninety eighty nine
and Pasadena to sell out a show based on the name.
No one had ever even heard it. No, they didn't
even know about the Elvius, right, They're like, dread Zebel,
that's great, let's go see it. Like that's incredible to me.
You know.

Speaker 5 (45:45):
Yeah, there's a band down in Toledo called Polka Floyd
that I'm very excited to see because they're supposed to
play up here in March.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Right right, And I know, and then we think about
all of that.

Speaker 6 (45:56):
Kind of that whole matter band the Masha, which today
we take for granted because all of all sorts of
pop culture is just more and more and more.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Being mashed up right in our face.

Speaker 6 (46:08):
But at the time, you know, I mean people were
doing it. There's a tradition of it, but but I
don't know how much it was being done in music.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
I think that third element of the Elvis, on top
of the reggae and Zeppelin and cryptic, it really kind
of separates it from everything else, you know, and like
kind of this perfect weird.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Elvis really brings the critique, you know, because you if
you have and they're not even really a reggae band,
let's be honest, you.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Know, there, I'll see you in the comments.

Speaker 6 (46:41):
You know, they're they're scawing it out a little bit
for sure, but you know, but but that's enough that
that would be enough. But then when you bring Elvis,
when you bring a late stage Elvis on to as
the front man, it just at it opens the world up,
just like, you know, exponentially, Yeah, for the satire and

(47:01):
the level of critique of what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
And also when you add into the time base of
when this was also in the nineties and going into
the two thousands, when that era of Lisa Marie marrying
Michael Jackson, all the tabs, all of that tabloid stuff,
and I remember the dread Zeppelin had the they had
references to all of this kind of tabloid stuff. So
they were compliment you know, commenting on on kind of

(47:27):
it's a bizarre yeah, you know, a construct of like
tabloid upon tabloid, and it's like this, and they would
show this stuff in their live shows. It was just
such a you know, it's just such an interesting era too.
And this is also like you know, in the time
of cable news really sort of taking off and and
you know that's that preed era of CNN and all

(47:50):
that kind of stuff, So they're kind of right in
that window. So it's kind of interesting to see them
in those you know, in the lens of like on
a news show.

Speaker 6 (47:58):
Or quicks felt like we were just watching Okay, this
makes sense. This is a tabloid. This is a tabloid
news show. People are calling this mainstream news, but it's
actually pretty tabloid. It's like a news magazine. The way
they're handling everyund so dread Zeppelin coming on, you know,
just feels like they're just it's just a natural sort

(48:20):
of expression of the of the nudge of how everything
how everything has become tabli sized, you know, across the board.
That's what I think is so genius about it, you know,
not to mention that the music's great. They can play
it exceptionally because they're professional musicians, right for Telvis is
like one of the best singers on the planet.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
And dare I say, a comedic genius.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Comedic genius and never lost his singing voice, just like
oh yeah, never, you know.

Speaker 6 (48:49):
And then and on top of it, here they are
just and they're just playing the stick and that's all
they have to do is just come on and just
again it's like situation.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
It's situational comedy.

Speaker 6 (48:58):
They're literally having somebody a news anchor person interviewing them,
trying to ask questions about the satirical thing, where like
they're tab they're reflecting back what they were asking.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
So they were like a mirror to the to the
whole mess.

Speaker 6 (49:16):
Which which that's what I think is so incredible. Like today,
you know, we you know, Hugh Brown, the art director
for IRS Records, who was responsible for a lot of
their materials, visual materials and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
He you know, he sort of talked about it. He's like,
back then, it was really hard. You didn't expect that
people would just blatantly lie to you or be disingenuous
or that irreverent. You know, you'd see it maybe in
a punk show. You'd see it in theater. You'd see
you know, a theater troupe, a satirical outfit somewhere. But
you wouldn't just always see it in the mainstream, you
know that much at least I mean I personally, I

(49:54):
don't know, because I think it's always been that way.
I think it's just gotten more and more and more
and more absurd.

Speaker 6 (49:59):
And more and more mashed up and stacked on top
of each other. And I think they were just they
just jumped ahead a little bit, you know, they saw
the future and they were like, Okay, we're just gonna
stack it all in there.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Because at that time it was it was I won't
say it was shocking. I mean, obviously there's like gg
L with things, but there are but for say, you know,
I don't know, families watching dinner and or you know,
run the dinner table and this goofy fat Elvis guy
with the towel boys on CNN or whatever. It's it's

(50:31):
it broke through those kind of mainstream layers. And and
I think, like, you know, the Elvis thing kind of
you know out on Greece's makes it makes it easier
to get on stage. But then you're yeah, but then
you're also you know, when we're reanalyzing this stuff many
many years later, it's also kind of funny to see
how newscasters play, like how do they play towards Elvis?

(50:54):
Some people are like some people are playing along, some
people are like have contempt and yeah, and it's it's.

Speaker 6 (51:00):
Yeah, some people a lot of people didn't like you know,
the because they were taking on these sort of sacred
you know, pillars.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
And just going right after, which is what satire is
born to do. Right you go after the sacred symbols.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Do you get Some people are like, well, I gotta
ask this guy. I gotta ask this guy in the
Elvis outfits some real questions. Yeah, so let me ask you,
Let me ask you about your album. You think he's
gonna give you a straight So you could already feel
or see some of that in, you know, in these
these interactions, so it's interesting to kind of look at
it all, you know, from this lens.

Speaker 5 (51:36):
So the movie's been out at the time of this
recording for ten days. I think over one hundred thousand
views so far. What's next for you guys?

Speaker 2 (51:46):
A red carpet award ceremonies.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
I just ordered it.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Just ordered some order them the order to or.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
I got three? Oh cool? Yeah, No, what is next? Verus?
You know, that's that's a good question. I think for
this particular project, it's going to be a little bit
difficult because of the you know, we're going to New
Landscape for releasing it and having to give it away
in a in the sense of like is it good

(52:17):
or bad? To put it up on YouTube in twenty
twenty five, twenty four. I don't know anymore. So I
think I think part of it is just trying to
see where this goes and just to see what where
the audience. You know, there's audiences out there beyond you know,

(52:37):
the few people that experienced it, and so that to
me is kind of the exciting part of, you know,
seeing where this all goes for the film beyond this
film with you know, Sharif and I've over the course
of working on it, We've had a few other little
opportunities here or there for some great stories, and I think,

(52:58):
you know, if I'd love to be able to like
get to a pointed to share some of those of.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Her stories because dive back into the editing room for
another ten years.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Yeah, for another tenure. But that's I mean, that's without
being too big, but that's that's you know, I'd love
to continue to keep telling stories and and do more
projects like this.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
And you know, at the end of the day, this
was a fan film.

Speaker 6 (53:26):
I mean we you know, I mean, Carl Jah, the guitarist,
famously said, you guys are crazy.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
You guys must be crazy, like literally crazy. If you
think you're gonna you want to make a documentary about this,
and we were a little crazy, you know. It's it's
a little nuts to take on this material.

Speaker 6 (53:44):
It's I mean, I still think it still holds up
as a strong bite, you know.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I think all the elements still hold up. It's like
they were.

Speaker 6 (53:55):
It's it's it's prophetic, you know what they were doing, right,
you know, for from a pop cultural point of view,
and you know, we haven't like gotten over that, like,
oh right, that was just a special, specific time. I've
heard some people say that, you know, it was a
unique time that that sort of thing could exist in.
But I think actually it still holds up as a
you know, because actually that's what the whole world has

(54:17):
become now even more so.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Right exactly, Like as I mentioned Polka Floyd, I'm like, oh, well,
what about you know, the Black Sabbath Band with the
McDonald's characters, or Ac Dixie or Luther right and the Wrongs.
Just there are so many bands that are doing that,
but to your point, they're doing them on two levels,
so they're not doing the third level and not having

(54:39):
this quote unquote clueless older Elvis who's hanging out with
these reggae guys and has no idea what the hell
they're doing, and questioning, oh is this double on tundra?
Like what are you doing here? Like you know, like
getting offended by ed Zeppelin on stage. I love those
kind of things.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah, that is hilarious, it's it. Yeah. He always was
sort of at more with the rest of the right,
you know, as part of the shtick. Yeah, you know,
because he's he's the diva. He's the Diva's They would
take a van and of course I would jet set
over to why.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Yeah, it's those it's those things. I mean, that's yeah,
turt t Elvis is that dynamic and that character is
just like I don't know, it's such a winning Yeah.
It gives so much and there's so much doing well
in the celebrity warship.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah right, you know that is now just like even
more than ever. I mean, you know, obviously Elvis was
obviously the king of that, but you know now it's
like there's Elvis is everywhere.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah, you know. Yeah, that's one last you know, other
thing to think about too. When dreads up what happened?
You know, led Zeppelin had only been broken up for
you know, nine years. Elvis had only been dead for
like eleven years. It was a very even that stuff.
It was in the pop culture world like that, you

(56:03):
know that tabloid is Elvis still alive and all that
kind of stuff was really just starting to kick up then.
So in that era of like nineteen ninety when to
see Tortelvis, you know, and there's Elvaz and there's like
a lot of that. It was just such it was
so permeated in the culture at that time too, and
so it only made sense that you know that Elvis

(56:25):
was underrepresented.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah, completely.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
You remember when they did that vote for like the stamp,
Oh right, bring Elvis that Elvis was like no, Yeah,
So that's in a sense, it's like that's what Greg is.
Greg's that other stamp. You know, Telvis is that other stamp?

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Any committed?

Speaker 5 (56:46):
Yeah, did they ever hang out with Mojo Nixon? That
feels like such a natural.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
I mean, Mojo Nixon opened for them for a good portion,
I want to say, for at least like a year.
I think he was their opener. There was a doc
recently done on Mojo Nixon and there's a couple photos
of Joe that we sent over to them. When they
were working on that, because there's Joe was a big
fan of Mojo and then he would give perform like

(57:12):
some of their like en course, and come up on
stage with them and stuff.

Speaker 5 (57:17):
Well, as a fan of dreads Uplin, who's been a
fan since the first cassette that I bought, you know,
all those years ago of them, I have to tell you, guys,
you did a fantastic job. It really is everything that
I could hope for as a fan and as a
film fan as well. So hats off to you. I
really appreciate that you made this. I'm sorry that you're

(57:39):
not making jobs and gobs of money like all documentary
filmmakers do, but I really appreciate the effort and just
that you took so long to put this together and
I can see the blood, sweat and tears on screen.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Well you yeah, thank you very much. That really means
a lot, especially after to taking this long to finally
get get it shown.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
I mean, we you know, there was always that we
always ask these questions, you know, is this actually funny
on one level? Is this is this actually interesting on
another level? Is it relevant in any way?

Speaker 6 (58:17):
Or are we just literally a couple of fanboys here,
and I feel like at the end of the day,
you know, we still don't totally know the answer to
all those questions. But at the end of the day,
we are ultimately fanboys, and that is what we always
landed on. We're just going to keep making this thing
the way we want to make it and do do
you know, just do as much justice as we're capable

(58:39):
of to the material and hopefully make you know, make
them proud and make ourselves proud, you know, because it's
it's not it's not every day that you get to
make a film about a dread Zeppelin.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, it's it's serving the material, serving the material and
making something that, you know, making everybody, you know, wanting
to make everybody proud. And you know that you that
you told the story and you serve the material.

Speaker 6 (59:09):
And yeah, we didn't just want to phone it in. Yeah,
and you know, Tortelvis it's very easy to phone it
in because he can just you just put him up
there and let him go right, and he's just like,
it's it's incredible stuff. But we're we're we here trying
to tell the story, you know.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Yeah, and the.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Story got a little wacky.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Yeah, I mean, it's me but I think, I I
know it's it's it's almost hard to like I said,
we were kind of kidding. It's like it's almost hard
to even believe that it's out, you know what I mean,
because it's it's taken that long. So to hear the
words and to hear that level of appreciation means a

(59:49):
whole lot too.

Speaker 6 (59:50):
So and and seems like people are watching it so far,
and the comments seem to be over generally pretty positive.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Yeah, which is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
You know, so many of them. It's so interesting.

Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
A lot of the comments are you know, people just
put in their stamp of where they saw them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
It's like this weird pop cultural reference point, right, you know,
of people sort of in the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Like I saw I was there because and it really
is that because if you and that's I was gonna say,
that's the one hope with this thing. And it's like,
in some way, can it do that for other folks
who didn't get to experience it and and going through
all that footage talking about that like we did earlier

(01:00:34):
and getting to actually feel that and see that and
try to represent that. That's what I hope this film does,
is like it's able to like, you know, scrap a
little bit of the pretense and able to present the
band to people who've never heard of it and be like, ah,
I get that. Oh, this is this is good. You know,
this is interesting, This is dare I say, genius, This

(01:00:56):
is you know, something.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
That's ahead of its time.

Speaker 6 (01:00:59):
Yeah, it's to be taken for granted, you know, yeah,
not just a novelty right right.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
Well, Sharif and Jason, thank you so much for your time. Guys.
I really appreciate you taking the time and letting me
talk to you about this. I was so glad when
you reach back out, Jason. I was thrilled to have
this conversation, just like I was thrilled when it just
suddenly showed up in my Facebook feed that there was
a documentary on Dread Uppelin that was coming out like
that day. I saw the countdown and everything. You gotta

(01:01:27):
be kidding me. This was like the best Christmas gift
that a little boy could want.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
That's awesome. Well, thank you, yeah, thank you so much
for having us. We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Thank you, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
That's one of the hotspring.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Thrill of the call.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I shift to a new land.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
I'm a holeman singing cry follow.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
I am fuming for.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
So we see so pushing off. I don't want to
go where we see.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
The sendas that nesson on a hot spring, I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Shall feel so free, whispered tears of tall of HOLLI
call tied to sweet pr see shoupon b golay me

(01:03:23):
missing tonight, you better stuff reeping?

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
You formten.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
The sentence can win the game, small poo user.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I'm on.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Tonight, have better stuff reefing or ever the SENSLS camping
is a small pot.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
WI ready have bunny

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
If you have come on, have they Bundy