Santino DeMonte and Caleb Dyer | Matt Connarton Unleashed

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We got a couple of other fine people here in
studio with us. Get those mics up here. So, one
of whom has been on the show recently, Caleb Dyer, returns. Hello, Caleb, Hello, Hello,
welcome back. It is good to see you.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, good to see you as well.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And you brought with you someone who's music. We recently
did a world radio premiere for Santino Demanti is here.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Now that I know, now that I know how to
say your name correctly, I apologize. I think the day
we premiered the song, I was saying Demante it.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Works down south, but it's Demante perfect.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yes, yes, So I'm glad we cleared that up, because
I do try to get everyone's names correctly. I know
what it's like to have people struggle with, you know,
because my last name is very unusual. So in fact,
in high school my nickname was Canarton because the first
day of school, the teachers they would, you know, they'd
do the roll call and they'd get to my name
and they'd inevitably they would all say Canarton. And so

(00:52):
all my friends have started calling me that. But uh man,
I got so used to it that even today, if
someone missed pronounces it. It takes me a second to
remember to correct them right because I'm so used to it.
But we did the world radio premiere for your your
debut single, Yes, Summer in the Sky, not only your
first single as a solo artist, correct, but the inaugural

(01:14):
release on Hatchet At.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
It's a mouthful hatchet accent saw. But yes, it was
our very first release. We're very proud of it. There's
hopefully much more to come from the company. And yeah, no,
I mean we poured our heart and soul into it.
We we finished that tune in thirty days, which was
an accelerated schedule for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, but we we put.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
In just as much time and care and attention as
we would any other project. And yeah, it came I
thought it came out excellent. I could hear every element
that I wanted to in it, and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah, the production is great.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
How involved are you so you're you're completely like do
you do do you engineer the track?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
And so for this, for this particular the project with Tino,
it was it was just Santino and myself. I was
the principal engineer and then after we you know, got
the tracks, after we recorded everything. We really sat down
and we got to you know, putting a mix on
it and getting the levels correct, and then you know,
through to the mastering process. We did everything in house.

(02:20):
Originally when the house, when the company was founded, we
originally thought that we were going to have to kind
of outsource some of the mastering, Yeah, just just to
make things easier on us. But we purchased some software
and we're imminently going to be probably purchasing some more
hardware that will make it even easier for us to
to do everything in house.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So that's something I didn't realize. So you so you
mastered this?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (02:43):
This was I mean well it was actually cooperatively I
would say, mastered by Santino and myself. He was still
involved down to the wire, right, right, so when we
finished the tune. Uh, Santino was the person who made
the final edits. So well, yes, I did apply the
the effectuation right, the compression and equalization on the main

(03:05):
you know, it was tweaked and it was dealt with
by both of us.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, okay, outstanding and uh, now what's kind of the plan,
like do you have more? Are you? Are you just
gonna release more singles or do you have an album
or an EP and the works or what.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
I would like to do? So right now playing we
have an EP for next spring probably excellent, excellent, So
we're gonna spend some time work on that and spend
some time this time.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, it's gonna be a little bit more drawn out.
And I don't know exactly how many songs that it
was four or five, five I believe, and in one
of one of those songs will be recycling of Somewheer
in this Guy, So it's four additional and then Somewhere
in the Sky will be re released with the cool
EP collection. So yeah, and there might be slight changes,
but I don't think very much will change concerning it.

(03:51):
You never know, you never know, right, Yeah, we're gonna obviously,
when we release any collection of works, we listen back
to each of them to make sure not only there's
cohesivity between you know, each song, but that there's you know, continuity,
right that it feels good listening to it as if.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
It was an album, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
And and now I understand EPs can be diverse and
you don't have to do that, but there is definitely
a sort of theme if you will.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, yeah, and and something too that you know, you
and Jesse when when you and Jesse Rutstein were here,
you made very clear that with with the label Hatchet
Acts and saw I did it, I do Jenny's heard
me trip on it a thousand times that that uh,
you know, you're you're really taking your time. And actually

(04:42):
we were talking about it a little bit off air
too before the show. You're really uh committed to making
sure that everything's right. It's not just because sometimes people
start something like a label or or some other endeavor
and they, uh, you know, they just kind of throw
a lot of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Very very haphazard. This this company certainly not doing that.
The first two artists we signed, Santino and then Sarah Bird,
who's actually one of Santino's colleagues, played with uh with
Santino yesterday with Dog a Dog excellent and you know
Sarah's tune. I can't wait to release that to the world.
It's so musically interesting, really and actually so in the

(05:20):
same way where I principally engineered and you know, mixed
and assisted with mastering Tino's tune. Jesse is principally working
with Bird. So this is kind of we divide the
labor right now kind of in this way, some of
the mixing and mastering on Bird's tune might be me.
I don't know exactly you know what's going to happen

(05:42):
right now because they haven't finished tracking everything just yet.
But once all is finalized, then you know, we have
the discussion of like, okay, how we move forward. And
in every instance, the artist is the principal creative director.
Of course, this is how it goes, and we have
to as produce, we have to effectuate the artist's intent.

(06:02):
So you know, if I'm brought in to do anything,
it's going to be with Bird. It's going to be
with her as kind of directing me, guiding me. You
know what she wants in the tune. I've listened to
the tune plenty, but you know I can't be her,
I can't be in her mind. So I need to
and and that that's part of doing this. I what
I consider to be the right way, where you know,

(06:25):
there are many recording companies and stuff where they will
tell the artists like, oh, you need to write something
that's saleable, you need to write something that that we,
you know, feel strong and confident in promoting and we
frankly just don't care. Will you know, if it's original,
if it's if it if we think it's good, if
we think that the musicality is there, will produce it,

(06:46):
and you know, we'll we'll follow your direction. And I
think that is something that is sorely lacking and missing
in our musical culture in general. You know, there to
some degree, once you have enough money can buy creative freedom.
Of course, there's a lot of there's a lot of
creative direction that that comes in some of these companies.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
We're entirely antithetical.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, no, I think that's that's excellent. Well, I think
we should let's play the track Summer in the Sky
for anyone who hasn't heard it yet. And of course
this is out on all the streaming platforms and everything,
and anything we should know before we play it, anything
we should know about the song itself. Santino, do you
have anything you want.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
To it's a it's a tribute to Brian Wilson. Yeah,
you know, I want to do something for him. I'm
not normally a singer, but I tried it for this one.
And you know, we'll see how that goes. But I
just wanted to I want to just make something for
him because he passed away in July. And yeah, that's
really it's just a feel good, uh tune. I don't
even know what it's about. It's about summer, my favorite

(07:45):
time of year. So I like, of course we're in
the sky right, very good.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
So without further ado, we'll give this a spin and
then we'll come back and talk with these guys some more.
But here it is. This is Summer in the Sky
Santino Demanti.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Sound gaining that's so long, but the pussion that's in
an upstad and the sound so rogating coms the world.
But the sound of the music way and updown b
they running up. That's it up sons and it's another.

Speaker 6 (08:31):
Wit s.

Speaker 5 (08:40):
S So go away with the jos Sons and brod

(09:03):
the dress the auld prefect time to dreams that the
damots me the shot streams the same season stream Woman
stone Face but bating the.

Speaker 6 (09:35):
Sun in the snow song in the store.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
So SnO, m.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
M m.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Oh, that is so good. Summer in the Sky, Thank you.
The debut release from Santino Demanti, and of course the
debut release from Hatchet Acts and Saw Records, and we
have both the Santino and Caleb Dyer from Hatchet Acts
and Saw See.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Now that I can say, I know it is it
is a mouthful.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
No, it's a great name though. I love it. I
love it and uh, you you and you and Jesse
shared how you came up with the name and everything,
uh when you were on and that was that was
really interesting. But I'm also so I'm curious about the
production of the track because you know, it's got that
you know, it's got an old school vibe, you know,
and as you said, Santino, it's a tribute to Brian
Wilson in effect. How hard was it to get because

(11:24):
that's that's a tricky thing, right to get that that
kind of sound and that vibe without screwing it up.
Because you got it. You want to get that sound
in that vibe, but you also need to make it
sound you know, modern in.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
The wise words of SpongeBob technique. Technique technique. Yeah, it's
all about technique. And if you know how these things
were originally done, you can reverse engineer them. Okay, It's
it's pretty pretty much that simple. I will say, we did.
On some things we used more modern techniques. So for example,
the drum captures are not recorded in the same way

(11:59):
that they would have been recorded back in that time,
but that was done deliberately because we wanted to add
certain textures and overlay things. So there were certain things
that were not kind of those old techniques. But actually
a lot of what we did for the guitars, like
the signal chains, a lot of what we did, you know,

(12:21):
on the actual mastering of it, the actually the software
emulations that we use, because you know, we are working
digitally for the vast majority of everything, with the exception
of the actual signal going into the digital path. But
even on the digital side, the software emulations that we
were using were very much tools or emulations of tools
that would be from that era, and some of them

(12:43):
sounded better than others. So we you know, gravitated towards
what to our years felt right, but really it was
it was technique.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
That's really just it. If you again, if you know
how they did it, you can reverse engineer it.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Okay, is that the most challenging thing you've done as
far as recording?

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Oh no, not even close.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
No, really, ok yeah, I mean, it's of as of late,
it's uh, it's you know, it's more interesting. But I
would say the most challenging things to record was some
of my own stuff really and and and I mean
none of that's been released, but yeah, that's a that's
a totally different discussion. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, some of

(13:23):
that was was extraordinarily difficult to kind of get what
it should sound like because you know, the different techniques
available to you, the different sorts of microphones, placement of microphones,
all different manners of waves of capturing sound, and then
all of the ways to process sound, and you have
to get to get the right sound.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
You have to get both of those things correct.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
So Santino, when you did you write the song yourself?
You you yeah, when you came up with the song,
did the did what ended up being the song the
finished product? Did that match what you had in your head?

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Or was it?

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Was it? I mean I imagine it was probably even better, right, but.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Well so kind of because like I wrote it on
piano like months ago and probably okay, in my head,
i'd like, you know, one by one kind of like
imagine like what would make sense for it to be there,
or like what I imagined it to be there, right, Yeah,
and for so long, like such a long time of
having to be able to sort of like process like
what should be there. Like when we started recording it,

(14:27):
I feel like it just kind of fell in place,
and and uh, there were elements I think that are different,
but you know, a lot of it was just very good.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, it was just what are we feeling? Or actually
what Tina was feeling? Because I didn't play a single
note on this. Everything that was done was Tina And
which is interesting because there there have been people that
have you know, worked with where you know, I've assisted
of done things where you know, like hey, play bas
on it or something like that. Yeah, and you know

(14:58):
that's cool, But I try, as much as possible, I
want the artist's intent to be effectuated by whatever we're doing.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
I also think it depends on who comes in with
a specific mindset, like would you like the producer to
take more charge or maybe have someone else add some
more ideas. And I guess since I had so much
time doing nothing else to think of the song, it
was so specific and I thought that just doing it myself.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Would give it that specific touch.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, he came in with a super clear creative direction,
and that made what I was doing easy. I mean truly,
it was just it was about Okay, Now, all I
have to do is on the recording side of it,
suggest techniques that will effectuate that intent.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
He told me. He told me coming in.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Basically, it's a tribute to Brian Wilson, his life and
his memory and how it affected him.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Musically.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, and I will say that not to cut
you off, but I just think that the help that
you gave me is a singing primarily. I think Caleb
is a very good coach in vocals. I've learned a
lot singing from him. Yeah, Whereas I may have had
some of things a little more like you know, experience
just doing certain things. But like I think singing has
been a big thing that I can't look it he
up anyone with you.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Know, I certainly try. My only musical training is on
voice in ear. I never was trained on any of
the other instruments, or very briefly piano lessons. But I
stopped that when I realized that I knew more musically
than the teacher did, wow, which that is strangely, and
I tried to find I tried to find another teacher,

(16:23):
and I just was kind of disappointed in once that
I was seeking out. But with regards to voice and ear,
I mean as my first things that I did was
doing vocal arrangements in high school. And you know, while
I don't really sing very much now, I sing on
my own unreleased things, but I don't sing much anymore

(16:47):
in any of the groups I'm in, except for maybe
some backups. But yeah, I encourage if vocalists are coming
in and doing work with us, I can certainly, and
I'm not gonna be pushy, but somethings are universal and
a recorded context, like you need to enunciate, you know,
clear things unless you want to.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Slur your lyrics and right right.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
But but you know, I I yeah, anyhow, I I
I love working with certainly Santino and anyone else who's
coming into to do work with us, and you know,
guide them through the process of here's how we get
the sound right, because you're creating the sound, but to
get it to sound like you want on our record,

(17:29):
it requires a whole separate set of science and and
that's the part that I think a lot of gigging
musicians kind of miss.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, well, said, I'm curious to Santino about, Uh, tell
us a little bit more about your affinity for Brian
Wilson and is he is he?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Like?

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Is he? Is he? Is he your biggest influence or
is he?

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Yeah, I love Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, Oh yeah, but
I mean, uh, fellow left handed guy.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
I appreciate Hendricks very much, that's right.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
But in my last couple of year, I think I've really,
I've really been taken aback almost by Brian Wilson. Uh
and just his capability as a as a just all
around musician, I guess, and arrange your composer things like that, yea,
and yeah, like I never heard anything you know, like

(18:19):
like it before a lot of people know the Beach
Boys for kind of the surf rock thing, but there's
really really complex arrangements that he's done.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Sounds sound speaking of vocal arrangements.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Speaking of vocal arrangements, I mean, I've said this for
some time and I can't take credit. I don't know
who can take credit for saying this first. But the
Beach Boys weren't so much a surf rock group as
they were like a barber shop quartet with exactly rock
band behind them, and and it you know, that stuff
is magical. I mean, very few people are trying to

(18:53):
do anything like that anymore. And when Santino came with
this project and he's like, I want to do some
crazy is the vocal stacks as of someone who you know,
comes from a vocal arranging background.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
And I didn't even have to arrange.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
It, right, Yeah, I didn't even have.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
To do any of this.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
He just comes in there and he hears all the
notes in the harmonic series that he wants to hit
and he's just like, all right there it is.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, yeah, man, it's just it's a fun time. It's
just it's fun more than anything, you know, to put
something out there, you know, it means a lot. So
I'm appreciative for sure.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Had you ever done anything like this before, because obviously,
you know you've done other projects and we'll in a minute,
we'll talk about the other the band that you guys
have together, but had you ever done anything like that
before that? That really kind of serves as such a
fantastic tribute.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
To thank you.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
I've written tunes, you know, for this purpose, I guess
in that regard, but this is the first time that
I've recorded it with a good friend of mine in
a good studio. You know, I think I've recorded a
billion demos and stuff, you know, things like that.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Even demos with mego. We have some songs together. One
of them I think is going to get resurrected as
a song for Crank and Wagon pretty soon, when tune
called the Fugitive, which I think is gonna eventually appear
on a concept album that Paul Fry is dreaming up
in his head. It's a collective effort, but it's definitely

(20:19):
mostly his creative vision in terms of the story, and
we're just following that intent because we think it's a
good idea.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
We actually just did a show yesterday at Wormtown out
in Greenfield, mass We played the set and it was
space themed.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
And the theme of the Crank and Wagon.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yes, this is Cranking Wagon where I play orgon for
the listeners out there. I play orgon and occasionally some
electric piano and stuff, and mister Santina Demante plays percussion
and drums, and Paul fryes the guitar, and we had
Nick Vatruba from Bass Sabbath, which I'm wearing their shirt
for all the all the people watching out there.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Wearing bass. Sabbath.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
He's a very nice tribute band. But he played bass
with us yesterday and it was fantastic. Oh I you know,
I hope, I hope he does more with us. But
even if, even if not, even if it was just
a one off, it was still an excellent gig, a
great gig.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Well, I'm curious to know more about it, because I
haven't actually heard Crank, and so I'm curious to just
to know more about it, like what's like, what is it?

Speaker 4 (21:22):
It's a good fusion of like rock and some progressive
elements too. Oh yeah, yeah, so it makeses. I think
it blends like maybe simpler rock and roll with like
a good interesting, sort of different flair. And you're really
a big part of the music in that, So I
think you could even attest to more of that, you know,
I think.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
You know, in my view, and you know, Paul has
his own influences that he brings to the table, But
in my view, the influences that I'm bringing are sort
of that seventies progressive rock, Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Of course,
I'm a massive Keith Emerson fan. Yeah, yesterday we covered
a deep purple tune. We covered Space Truck in.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Nice, which was heavy man, absolutely heavy.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
And you know, I'm a massive John Lord fan. Yesterday
at the gig, I wore a Boston shirt. Tom Schultz
is another musical hero of mine on the organ, and
I mean, if you listen to that music, you know,
if you listen to all of that in the way
that the organ drives it and is central to the
rock and roll and the classical elements. Even yesterday we

(22:29):
opened up the show with Son Andolf Gang, but take
out stalls. We opened up a rock show with a
classical piece, right, and you know, like you you don't
hear that in like I've I've literally in the last decade,
I've not heard another band doing something musically ambitious like that.

(22:52):
And then the way that we plan transitions between songs
and everything else we do is original. We usually throw
in one cover for the people, but everything else we
do is original. And I mean we play with the
time signatures. We you know, even do some tempo play
as well, where we kind of we'll drag things and
be a little bit timmy wymy, But it's all deliberate.

(23:12):
It's not It's not like it was not meant to
be there. It's very very meticulously placed and and that
I think is what separates that musical group from a
lot of other ones that you'll hear. It's it's just
very it's very deliberate, very composed.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Now, how long has Crank and Wagon been around? How
long have you as been? Only about a year? I
mean a little over a year.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
But it's had various forms and and I'd actually like
to show appreciation to some of the past members because
I mean they you know, they did excellent things with it,
and it's just continued on. But the original drummer was
Cam Clark and he's a fantastic drummer's continuing to do
other things now not exactly sure what he's up to,

(24:00):
but Cam Clark was with us. And then for a
period of time earlier this year, we had Chris Drew
play play a number of gigs. He's the bass player
in Dog Eate Dog, which of course it's a natural
natural flowover for him to be playing with us. Then
we did a three piece gig where it was just
me left handing the bass. Really yeah, yeah, And I
mean that's the cool dynamic thing about the Wagon is

(24:22):
that you know, we can play a gig is a
three piece with no bass player, or we can add
a bass player and have all of this texture and
you know, we can do whatever we.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Want to do musically.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Really cool.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, and in that sort of creative liberty is I
think it's it's getting much more rare. I think a
lot of musicians put themselves into a box. They don't
need to. I think they they think that oh, these
odd time signatures, these different you know, ways to feel
music and to convey emotion with music. I think they

(24:55):
feel almost like, oh, it's too wacky, it's too scary
and like different, and like what if we don't execute
it right? And you know what if it doesn't And
you know, all of these things exist within musicians heads.
They just need to fite in overpower. And you know,
crank and Wagon is that it is fearless, absolutely fearless.

(25:18):
You know, we'll we'll we'll have like a nice rock
and groovy section one time, and then all of a
sudden we'll break into five, or we'll break into seven eight,
or you know, or will will insert a random measure
of nine to eight just because we can and in
already an odd time sequence, and and Tino knows exactly
what I'm referencing because he was the one. But you know,

(25:41):
we we just we play with every element of the
music that we can make it interesting and something that
the listener just doesn't expect. And and that's what I
value in musical compositions, and I know Santino does as well.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Absolutely, Yeah, And then what's the plan as far as recording?
Oh so well, hopefully pretty soon. You might know more
than I do actually at this point kind of.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Sort of, I mean, but we've we've spoken about it
down there, so we have our nice little whiteboard with
our plans, our evil plans. But anyhow, so coming soon
is going to be an EP. I believe it's going
to be six songs. It's gonna contain our self titled track,
Crank and Wagon, and it will have, you know, a
few other morsels of things that people who have seen

(26:28):
us live have have already kind of gotten to know.
But it's that's going to be mostly things that we
wrote in the very beginning, okay, and some one thing
I think that was written a little bit later, But
most of it is original sort of Crank and Wagon,
the founding, the genesis, of the band, Paul Frye mostly
his direction and writing in those songs, and then once

(26:52):
we complete that, once we put that out, then we'll
set work on the concept album that was aforementioned that
is mostly driven by Paul's creative direction in terms of
the story. Musically, I would say this is where Santino
and I sort of start to get more aggressive in
terms of how we color the ideas of mister fry Okay, interesting,

(27:15):
and some of the writing is is Zappa esque, some
of it is Emerson, you know, Keith Emerson and Emerson
Lake and Palmer esque, and then some of it is
more in the vein of Paul Frye and the you know,
obscure eighties kind of poland vibe that he is going for. Yeah,
and the name Crank and Wagon kind of comes for

(27:35):
an affinity from this post World War two sort of
Cold War music from the Eastern Bloc and even actually
parts of Western Europe as well, where it was unique,
like not droning music, but music that was born of

(27:56):
the despair of living in a place that was impoverished, oppressed,
where you know, people didn't have creative freedom. Really, if
you had it, it was underground. And it was not
easy to share, and that I think inspires all of us,
all three of us in the band, to varying degrees,

(28:17):
but the idea that we use this band as a
vehicle for exactly what we want to put out into
the world, and that no one's going to tell us
how we should do it.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And if you like it, you like it. If you don't,
you don't.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
But it is definitely it's not your stereotypical standards straight
up rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's very out there.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Right yea. How often does Crank and Wagen play? Do
you guys play? A lot?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Fairly and frequently really, And that's deliberate. We're trying to
what we do when we play live. We're trying to
theme our sets. So the last several shows we've had
have had different themes that we've stuck to. So when
we the last show we did prior to this, it
was Jurassic Park themed, Oh Wow, and we did the motif.

(29:08):
We played the John Williams motif in three different keys
throughout the throughout the set so that we would transition
seamlessly into other songs. But we we did that John
Williams motif and that again, like rock bands that will
just put John Williams into their sets like that. It

(29:29):
just you don't hear about that. It doesn't happen. And
we just do it because we can, because musically we
all have the ability, and we think it serves the songs,
it serves the set and delivers a creative and interesting
product to the people who are there in the audience.

(29:49):
And we don't want to we don't want to be
delivering just sets where it's like stopping in between every
song and you know, we're like leaving dead air. We
want to be really making people surprised. It's like, oh,
they went into that song immediately, like what, how do
they even do that? And we want to create that magic,

(30:12):
and to do that we need more time in between shows.
We need to be able to construct the sets really meticulously,
get them where we want them to be. And it's
the same as recording. It's like, you know, Santino is
well aware of this led Zeppelin as a band, and
I would argue that a lot of it is much
more musically simple, especially the earliest stuff. But there is

(30:34):
a lot of the stuff from led Zeppelin that they
took a long time in between to really get what
they wanted for a musical idea, right and feeling the
way that they want to convey that emotion, and that
is so important when you're doing something that is musically intricate.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
But now that's really interesting to the concept of, you know,
making every show, you know, have a and have it
be different because that I don't I can't think of
anyone who really does that. Yeah, there's the top of
my head. I can't think of anything.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, there are some some bands that do themed shows
and things like that, and you know, bands that will
dress up and costume to do it where where maybe
the show itself, the music itself is not themed. But yeah,
but just the idea. I forget when it was when
we kind of started doing that, but it was earlier
this year, for sure. It was at the beginning of
this year, and I think Paul just are just like, hey,

(31:27):
let's do this theme for Strange Creek, and we just
dressed up that way. We didn't really do much musically, Yeah,
I guess we We put take Me Out to the
Ballgame as an intro for our first song called America's Pastime,
which which is a little bit of a play on words.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
But but anyhow.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
So we do things like that where we you know,
we inject interesting ideas and we try to make the
listener and the person who's in the audience think a
little bit more about the music because we've thought a
lot about the music.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Yeah, now that's fantast When is the next Cranking Wagon show?
Do you have something coming around?

Speaker 3 (32:04):
So the Wagon? The Wagon is coming to I think
we're playing October tenth and eleventh. I think tenth is
in Rhode Island. I forget the exact venue. Sorry, sorry
to the listeners.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
October eleventh, though, is at Ralphs Rock and Diner in Worcester.
And I believe we're going to be playing with Bass Sabbath.
That show is actually not going to be super themed. However,
we are going to be doing some of the music
of Pink Floyd.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
We One of the covers we used to do, which
we've kind of left out of recent sets was Sid
Barrett Eric Floyd.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
We did what was the name of that to in
the it went, I forget the name, got the name,
Oh my god, something? No? Yeah, lyric, Yeah, it's in
F sharp. I know, I'll the notes something but like

(33:03):
a devil, No, I forget what the name of it is.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
You're not thinking, I can't, I can't even quote the
song and I can, Yes, yes, Lucifer Sam Yes, early
sid Bear at Eric Floyd. So we're probably gonna reincorporate
that along with some other Pink Floyd classics that you
know well.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
But uh so that that show.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Is a little bit of a one off where we're
doing more covers than we would normally do, but we
will still play originals and uh you know that the
focus is always on the original.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Yeah, so excellent. And what about playing Summer in the
Sky out like, do you if you had a chance
to play that out live? Or what what's their plans
to or.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
I haven't thought about that.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Yeah, so, I mean I would like to assemble the
band of some time next year and maybe do some
some stuff like that. But for now, I'm just really
enjoying the recording of it and make sure it's a
good polished thing. And yeah, you know, in time, I
think it's totally possible.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
You know, there's there's a lot of elements on that
and to do it, to do it live, to do
it live without horns or strings would be would be
very difficult thing.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
As possible, but definitely, uh, something to plan out, and
you know.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
It'd be hard to you know, I mean if if pressed,
you could pull out an acoustic guitar.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Exactly, but to do the harmony vocal stacks on it,
and to really to really get the feel to.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do it justice.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
Yeah, I think getting a band together to do it
somewhat justice. It's totally possible even without things like you know,
vocal stacks or or strings or horns or whatever. But yeah,
it's just it's finding the groove of it and finding
everyone's place in it, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
So yeah, totally something that could happen for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Certainly know people who are musically good enough to make
that happen out doubt so absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
One yeah, uh.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Well, the time goes quickly, guys, and I do want
to play I think we're going to play that song
once more once more to end the segment.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
O great, great, thank you?

Speaker 1 (34:52):
What is there anything you guy? It's got a lot
going on. I do want to make sure though, is
there anything coming up that you want to mention that
we didn't talk.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
About or well, I will say if you're local to
New Hampshire and you want to come see me. Tomorrow
I'm gonna be in Milford, New Hampshire doing a blues
jam something totally different. Wow, open, open everyone. I do
that with Craig Thomas the second Sunday of every month
out at Riley's Place in Milford. And it's a fantastic jam.
You can pretty much come and play anything, though it

(35:20):
is more blues focused, and I would love to see
people there and play with you because I love meeting
all kinds of local musicians, especially people who are passionate
about crazy and wild music. But yeah, come on out
have some fun.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
That that's me. I know Tino's got his own schedules.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
So yeah, after yesterday the show we played we were
talking about earlier, we're finally getting nice break. So as
of now I can't think of anything, so I get
to maybe sleep a little bit or record some more.
So yeah, but maybe I'll check out that blues jam
that CAB's doing too.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
You know what's funny as on a side about Milford,
So Milford for for people listening online from other parts
of the country, Milford, New Hampshire, it's just this town.
It's not like a big metropolitan area, right it's just
a small town in New Hampshire. But for whatever reason,
like Milford comes up on the show all the time,
and it sounds like like there's just a lot going

(36:17):
on there's musically, it's so weird.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
It's like there's so many there's so many places in
town in that town that have live music. And it's
because the people in and around that little kind of
part of that valley, sow he Can Valley just they
love local music and they love all kinds of different stuff.
But I will say they do it for proclivity to blues,
no question. Yeah, the age and the demographic there's a

(36:41):
lot for blues musicians there, but yeah, for just about everything,
they have so much diverse wild doesn't.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah it's great. It's awesome to see.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah it is. Yeah it is. Yeah, you don't expect it,
but yeah, Milford comes up all the time on the show. Caleb,
where is the best place for people to go online
to keep up with everything that Hatchet Acts and Saw
Records is.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Doing Hatchet Action Saws on Facebook.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
We do not yet have a website, but you can
find us on Facebook Hatchet Action and Saw Records, And
I believe we're getting some other social set up where
you know, we're a little bit slacking on the socials,
but we are.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
We're not slacking on the music.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Oh that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
That's for sure.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, yeah, and uh, Santino, where should people go? Well,
the single, of course is on all the platforms right,
all the streaming platform somewhere in the sky. Where else
should people go to keep up with everything that you're doing?

Speaker 4 (37:30):
I have, I have a Facebook page, Instagram page.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Is my name? Yeah, yeah, it's basical things. For sure.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
You want to spell your last name for people who don't.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yes, D E, capital M O N T E.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Very good and now I know how to say it tractly. Guys,
this has been wonderful. Thank you bouth so much.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Great.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Absolutely, we'll definitely do this again in the future. And
I think too, we're gonna We're gonna see Caleb on
the podcast version of the show at some point in
your future too. But we will end this segment with this.
We're gonna play this again. Summer in the Sky, the
debut single from Santino Demonti as a solo artist on
Hatchet ACS and Saw Records. So this is really good.
If you missed it earlier, we're gonna play this again,
and if you are listening live on Saturday. Coming up

(38:12):
next hour, we have Keith sam Land and his project Alienstone.
He's gonna be joining us via Microsoft Teams, so really
looking forward to talking with him. He's got a really
interesting sound. Uh so uh. There is plenty more to come,
but right now here it is summer in the sky.
This is Santino Demante.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
The sound of the music in its.

Speaker 5 (39:03):
Mother.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
It s.

Speaker 6 (39:12):
The SnO.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
Score, So.

Speaker 6 (39:30):
Do away with the dream. The sunset rode the dress,
the Indian.

Speaker 5 (39:38):
Perfect time did dreams that the day abouts did the
shoe streams the same season stream nd Stone Satan so

(40:01):
sun stock.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
So the storm.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
So stop so stop.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
So spot

Speaker 4 (41:05):
So