Episode #41- Singer from the band Tora Tora calls in to talk about the band's history as well his career in teaching and the band's resurgence and new album and acoustic EP.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:53 - Promoter Friend Passes Away
0:06:00 - Tornado in Nashville
0:07:38 - Forming the Band in Memphis
0:13:30 - Playing Early Shows in a Warehouse
0:19:45 - Early Demos and Showcasing for Labels
0:25:55 - Recording "Surprise Attack" Record
0:30:30 - Songs on Radio, MTV and Bill & Ted's Soundtrack
0:34:55 - Touring with LA Guns & Dangerous Toys
0:41:22 - Meeting with Fans Back in the Day
0:45:10 - Touring with Warrant and Lynch Mob
0:47:15 - Grunge and Alice In Chains
0:48:45 - Drugs
0:51:20 - Revolution Day Album and Band Hiatus
0:53:35 - Corder & McCormack
0:56:15 - Back to School & Record Label Job
1:05:57 - Tora Tora Reunion & Bastards of Beale Album
1:08:27 - Tora Tora Unplugged
1:16:45 - The Memphis Horns & Segregation
1:18:55 - Racism, The South and Uniting People
1:25:22 - Rockin Recipes for Autism
1:27:04 - Wrap Up
Tora Tora Website:
https://www.toratoramusic.com
Rockin' Recipes for Autism:
https://www.rockinrecipesforautism.com
Tora Tora Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/toratoraband/
Anthony Corder Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/anthony_corder/
Chuck Shute Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chuck_shute/
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Episode #41- Singer from the band Tora Tora calls in to talk about the band's history as well his career in teaching and the band's resurgence and new album and acoustic EP.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:53 - Promoter Friend Passes Away
0:06:00 - Tornado in Nashville
0:07:38 - Forming the Band in Memphis
0:13:30 - Playing Early Shows in a Warehouse
0:19:45 - Early Demos and Showcasing for Labels
0:25:55 - Recording "Surprise Attack" Record
0:30:30 - Songs on Radio, MTV and Bill & Ted's Soundtrack
0:34:55 - Touring with LA Guns & Dangerous Toys
0:41:22 - Meeting with Fans Back in the Day
0:45:10 - Touring with Warrant and Lynch Mob
0:47:15 - Grunge and Alice In Chains
0:48:45 - Drugs
0:51:20 - Revolution Day Album and Band Hiatus
0:53:35 - Corder & McCormack
0:56:15 - Back to School & Record Label Job
1:05:57 - Tora Tora Reunion & Bastards of Beale Album
1:08:27 - Tora Tora Unplugged
1:16:45 - The Memphis Horns & Segregation
1:18:55 - Racism, The South and Uniting People
1:25:22 - Rockin Recipes for Autism
1:27:04 - Wrap Up
Tora Tora Website:
https://www.toratoramusic.com
Rockin' Recipes for Autism:
https://www.rockinrecipesforautism.com
Tora Tora Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/toratoraband/
Anthony Corder Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/anthony_corder/
Chuck Shute Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chuck_shute/
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Welcome to the Chuck Shute podcast. Thank you for tuning in. I've got a great guest for you today Anthony quarter. The singer of tortora actually interviewed the guitarist from tortora Keith Douglas. That was actually one of my first episodes of this show. So you can check that out if you're big tour tour fan. If you don't know who tour tour is all you'll definitely learn from me to listen to that other episode or this one. But they were pretty big band back in the late 80s, early 90s. They had like five videos on MTV they had a song on the bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure soundtrack. They toured with la guns, dangerous toys, the Colts warrant kicks, all sorts of other bands too. It's interesting In the mid 90s, when they the band started declining and the grunge kind of took over, they had actually had Allison chains open up for them. They'd hung out with Soundgarden and Chris Cornell. And so, you know, it's just the way the rock scene kind of changed but Anthony's, a great guy, you'll hear a lot about the history of the band and his life, his life kind of took an interesting turn after the band kind of ended. He became a teacher started doing other stuff worked at a record label. But then the band is actually back together as of about 12 years ago. And they've actually put out new album bastards Abele and as well as a new unplugged EP, acoustic, it's like five songs. So check both of those out and I hope you enjoy this interview with Anthony quarter.
Unknown Speaker :Hello, Anthony.
Unknown Speaker :Hey, Chuck, how's it going? Good. How are you doing?
Anthony Corder :Man? I'm doing great. I'm happy to talk to you.
Chuck Shute :Yeah, thanks for calling me I'm glad that we're able to reschedule Yo,
Anthony Corder :man, guys, thank you so much. We had just the most unexpected knees. Last week, a really close friend of mine, a promoter in Memphis passed away. And it was just, we were the same age. We grew up together. I started playing and they started promoting about the same time and it was just Oh, wow. So sorry to hear that. Crazy. It was great. It was really unexpected. I mean, we just we've done so many shows together. And he created so many opportunities for the band, just, you know, he was added to the news to shed one in northern Mississippi right across the wire from episode number one over in Arkansas. And if he ever got wind of something that was coming along, that was in our, you know, wheelhouse, he would say, hey, you want to come down and, you know, we had kind of pull back. We're only doing a few shows, you know, while we're raising our families and stuff, man, this is gonna be a good one. You know, I got Leonard Skinner, Cho Whitesnake or you know, Bret Michaels or whatever, he'd be like, hey, you want to come check on this for can make some good money and jump out from a big audience and he was just really great. So
Chuck Shute :we advocate for your band then. Oh yeah, he was an advocate and he was he was just outside of just the music industry when he became, you know, really close friends just as we were growing out perfectly and in the, you know, we had some really long talks he was a really big resource to me as far as you know, I moved to Nashville and work for the record labels to work in Music Publishing, worked it as a teacher like at Belmont University and them over at SAE S T is their entertainment business program chair. So he was somebody I could call on you know, if I had a question or if I wanted him chime in on some topic I was talking about at school or something. Inside he always offered himself you know, in, Listen, man, he had a wonderful life and the celebration of his life other day was the craziest thing I've ever seen. They have a movie when they did. They had a full production where they had people running sound and coming out and said like, wow, like he, he came in, in a road case, like, you know, Paul came in and they brought the things that he would have in his office always had. They brought a baseball bat, they brought a little thing a coax in a little pint of whiskey. And his his saying was, I never enter a crowded room by making $1. So everybody walked up there lifted. A couple bucks on top of his head is a pace. And it was just crazy. It was just it was crazy. But it meant the world man that I thought it made to speak his I think his family was just so distraught. His wife and he had two brothers and I have another famous booking agent and he called me the other day and he just said, Man status. We have all that together. We just was wondering if you might want to say a few words. I was like, Are you kidding? Go ahead. So he was your band, but other other bands as well. Yeah, he was a promoter in Memphis. He grew up in northern Mississippi. He started out at Ole Miss, which is about maybe an hour outside of Memphis. And he worked with a bunch of people. He was kind of growing up, he was my age, but he started really getting into promoting stuff around the time like Dave Matthews and people like our breaking shows and stuff with them. But we still we our careers kind of ran parallel. So we kept bumping into each other all the time in just three different people. And yeah, he made trips up here to Nashville to, you know, meet with people and talk to record labels and all that kind of stuff. So I would see him, you know, from time to time and get to spend time together up here and then down in Memphis, So you had that to deal with and then obviously the Coronavirus is happening and then there was also a hurricane in Nashville right before the Coronavirus happened a lot of people forgot about that. So you've had a lot to deal with over the last few months then yeah, it was a tornado and it hits it hits some big areas and you know that people here we're just trying to recover from that and then all of a sudden it was like we're gonna close everything for a minute to make sure everybody's healthy and safe and yeah. So that I started the rebuild down there at all or is that been put on it? It hit maybe hit a snag, which is kind of like a real creative prototype a lot of musicians and people kind of live in that area. So a lot of music. It's kind of like a mid town area, older homes, kind of area that have stoops and things like that and So they're they're on the mend over there. It was a lot of rebuilding. But, you know, Nashville always comes together. That's one thing great about community people come together and help each other. And I've been up here about 15 years. So yeah, I can't believe I'm saying that. But it's just been an amazing experience. It's a lot of a lot of creative people. And I've met a lot of different people in different areas of the entertainment industry. It's got, I guess, infrastructure knows what it is. It's got a lot of managers and publishing companies and Performing Rights Organizations and all that. So right. Yeah, you actually grew up in Memphis, right? I mean, that's what the band was formed. Yeah, we are. We went to high school together. So Patrick and I, the bass player, and I went to the same high school, and then Keith and john went to the same high school. And actually, Patrick and Keith have known each other since they were eight or 10 years old. So they're each other there. Yeah, they had another likened robes that was kinda like a Judas Priest Iron Maiden thing, man, you've done your own work. They did. Yeah, I did do that. And that was before I need them. So it was kind of like two guitars. They were big fans of like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden keeps a huge Randy Rhoads fan that was kind of like his inspiration when he was growing up playing guitar. And and of course, we'd love all the classic stuff, the Zeppelin's and bad companies and cheap trick and all those kind of people. And but yeah, man, I was pretty intimidated meeting them, because I was a couple years younger than them and so they were out of school. I was liking going into 11th grade, I think. And I had kind of been knocking around with a couple of kind of neighborhood bands. I had a friend that tearing the strings off his guitar, and I met him and my family was real musical. Growing up, and I kind of just thought everybody was into music so when I met him I was like, Oh man, this is cool. We we kind of found a bind, you know. And but he was listening to a bunch of stuff which is rad and doc and and Bon Jovi and he was in there doing the shredding licks and stuff on his guitar. And we kind of started putting something together. And he kind of had a small drum kit. It was like a snare hi hat bass drum cymbal, I think what it was, but anyway, I was kind of knocked around and he goes, man, we really need one, right? Because we need somebody seen. And so I said, well, then I just start singing over the drums, you know. And we started writing. And then the next day I need we kind of played it quite a little bit out, you know, for small parties, house parties and stuff. And Patrick just had heard about me, I think we might have done something at school or something. And he just approached me and said, Hey, we're getting ready to put a band together. I was wondering if you want to come audition and it was funny minutes right straight out of a movie. We're like at the mall, with And he came up to me and had bumped into me. And I was like, Yeah, I want to go and then after I said, Yeah, I was excited when I said yes. And then I started getting really nervous. I was like, Oh my god, what did I just do? I don't know anything or anybody and But anyway, I went over there and, like, set up Patrick's house in his living room. And john at roto Tom's you know, that he says drums and key that you set up in the room, in stereo, and they were doing like 2112 like, It bounced back and forth between the amps, you know, and everything. Yeah. Yeah. We were just totally, you know, I was blown away. I was like, oh, they're on like a different level than I am. I showed up with an acoustic You know, my family's real acoustic oriented and right, they played our our mom. Your mom was musical. She played the piano and sang right is that? Yes, ma'am. She did my aunt and uncle play guitar in my aunt saying they are I do like this family harmony stuff going on. It's just kind of I don't even know how to describe it. But I thought everybody family did this. Oh, I didn't realize that at first far back as I can remember, listen to you know, Mississippi john hurt records and we listened to Ray Charles and I listen to gospel music and rock and roll and you know Skinner and former Boston and James Taylor and Neil Young all these people, they returned me on tape. And I thought everybody's family is doing it. So when my friends would come over, they would just freak my aunts were the best singers I've ever heard in my life. And, but I was like, oh, man, maybe that all 10 of us will sneak off go smoke cigarette or so you know, and, you know, when you're a little kid. And then as I got older, I started realizing I was like, Hey, man, this actually isn't the norm. Like, this is like something really unique. And it really made me realize how much of an influence and an impact on my life that they had. Just from inspiring me, you know, right. about music and turned me on to just a love of it and everything. And so anyway, I had shown up over their house with like an acoustic for the tour tour thing and I was like man, I'm gonna play like Desperado or so amigos you know, and do my singer songwriter thing. And I don't know, I played like half of it or something. And Keith and him go, Man, that's cool, but not always good at it. Or I want you to want me or, you know, can't get enough your love. And they started just naming off. I don't know, they had 10 or 12 I think they did walk this way and some and I didn't know all the words. I mean, I need the songs but I was like, ah, I think I can enjoy an attic. I was like, man, I don't know what to say. And you know, back then we had to like listen to the record got to figure it out the lyrics you know, yeah, I didn't have any crap or any and they just kept thinking on spot but as soon as we started playing and singing together we were like, man, there's some kind of chemistry or something was there where are we gonna go? Did you beat out other singer so that they have other singers have they auditioned or? I don't? They never told me I don't I don't know. I think when we did it, I think that was I never had been there. Or if they had talked to other people, but I think we went like straight into, you know, was a party. Yeah. So then yeah, you guys originally cut yourself free beer, right? But then you picked tortora off a list of like 60 or 70 names. And, you know, I heard this story. I think I talked to Keith when I interviewed him about how his dad owned like a glue factory and you guys basically set up a like a club in the factory with the barrels and you had a PA system and you should even showcase for the record labels there. And you had oldness football players running security. Now, did you have like, like a VIP section? Did you have any VIPs that came in to the shows? Oh, man. Yeah, we had great times. It was just, I we weren't thinking of it at the time that we were very entrepreneurial. Really was the guitar player. He's, he was, uh, he was business savvy. You know, he, he thought about it. There was actually two of those factories. One One was outside of town that was kind of clustered our area where we were living, that we used to rehearse that we very first started, that's when we were playing the old, you know, cover songs and all that kind of stuff. We were just kind of getting to know each other and I was screaming in a microphone trying to figure out what I was doing. But as we got a little more savvy and stuff, Keith dad had a space he was raining and it was a big empty warehouse that was in the middle of town. It was right next to the Mid South Coliseum where other concerts would happen. And I mean, keeping them saw everybody Van Halen, AC DC, all those concerts, their first concerts, they saw this building, and we could see it, you know, and you stand out of the front of our warehouse. You could look at it, but his dad was using that for storage space for these 55 gallon drums. And so Keith asked if we could miss From the place the actual workplace, physical workplace to over to that storage place and Is that right? Yeah, you can, you know, go over there get a key. And he was a real inch, he was really instrumental in becoming successful his dad invested in, just get the gear and stuff at the very beginning, because he just knew that it was something that we wanted to do together and he kinda was keeping some kind of tab on what we're up to. But when we moved in there, all those barrels were kind of spaced out or in in there and we got to work around and Keith goes, man, let's push all these things to one end of this place, and we threw some plywood on top of it in some black, like garbage bag material off the front. And all of a sudden we had like a stage it was, you know, 65 gallon drum turn up on the side and we were hanging up up in the air and we played a PA on there. And we built like these tortor letters that were kind of out of two by fours. They kind of like the kiss letters and cover them in glitter. We click glitter to them. At the time, we weren't thinking manifest things would have ever fallen, they would have taken somebody out. I mean, they were so heavy, wet at the time, we were so excited. We're like hanging them up in the ceiling, you know, or whatever. It's gonna look awesome. And I don't even know how we secure them or anything. But anyway, we through these crazy parties, man we became friends with. There was a DJ at the time in Memphis. His name was Malcolm Riker, and he did a local only show. And he did on Friday night. And it was like this coveted spot that you everybody on the scene in Memphis at time was in sane. It was great. It was a bunch of young kids. Were all kind of about same age. And everybody was playing music man, I guess it had kind of overflowed out of the West Coast like everybody was listening to watch and hearing about, you know, music and what was going on with the scene out there and how they add a strip and build streets like a real you know, touristy part of Memphis with a bunch of clubs and That kind of stuff on it. And there was one guy that was in town I got a Michael in. He had a theater that was out about 1000 people. And 18 with a radio station. And they used to do this Tuesday night. Jam, it was a sponsor about music store and they put a bunch of backline on stage a bunch of equipment and stuff. And you could jump on stage and play three songs or 15 minutes. And if you went over 15 minutes, they've unplugged you or just pulled you off stage or whatever. And so all the kids that was an all ages event, they would advertise it on the radio, talk to people and I was a place where under age kids could go and see music because most other stuff was bars and we were all high school kids you couldn't really get in unless you snuck in somewhere. And so those two guys kind of help get that thing going. So how many people show up to these these concerts in the warehouse? Man, I don't know. I would guess between Three and 400 people grow.
Unknown Speaker :Wow.
Chuck Shute :Listen, we get a we get to capacity and we would open the door once we filled the whole building up and people would come in, we would open the bay door of the warehouse and people would just sit in the parking lot on their cars or their cars they were throwing frisbees, I brought lawn chairs. They ordered pizzas. I mean it was I mean three or 400 even if you charge five bucks ahead and that's a pretty big chunk. We did make money we would we would pay the the bouncer guys and then we would always the next day we would throw some kind of cookout when we make enough to like cook food for everybody. And you know I don't think we're like going to the bank or anything but we would just we spent a lot and we you know, we made like what we spent like putting the shows on air trying to advertise and things like that. And but it was really fun because it was super organic. Like the kids a place to go that weren't Oh enough to get the music and it was in our practice room. So it was kind of our we got to be the master ceremonies or whatever and get up and just tell everybody, you know, do anything you want to just don't get hurt. Nobody can open for you or anything. Or we only did one time we did a Halloween thing we did, and we did it with another band. And it was awesome. It was killer. But every time after that we just did the whole night or so. Like we want to just party and then we'll jump up and play when we want to and and so then kind of and then you guys, you ended up winning a battle of the bands. And that's how you got the studio time. Right. Is that where you recorded the demo? Yeah. We started when we were working on the demo. When we were in the competition. We started out there was a guy named Steve house. He had a place called a powerhouse studios, a studio behind his house. And he was the first engineer producer that we'd ever worked with. And he was the guy that kind of brought Stan and said, You guys got to get your groove. And we were like, What are you talking about? He goes, it sounds like everybody in here is doing a solo. You know, you got a match match the bass drum and a bass together. And let's, you know, he started sitting us down, just giving us the fundamentals to me that we didn't know we all play by ear. And we just jumped in and started writing our own songs. We were kind of butchering the cover songs. So we said, Man, let's just write our own and then people don't know if we're playing them, good or bad or whatever. We used to do it. I was watching Rihanna. And it was just so fun. But he did. He was a real like teacher kind of guy. He took he took his time with us and we started cutting a few songs with him. And then we won that battle of bands and we got an opportunity to go into artist studios, which is I don't know if your listeners know about artists studios, but if you don't know it, it's a are the empty art studios in Memphis. It's really famous. There was a guy named john fried it started the studio and he became kind of a father figures are gone. We met him because there was an engineer call ever. So we won the recording time. And Paul was close to our age. And he just happened to be the guy that was on on the clock today that we were coming in the studio and we met him. And we started working on some songs with him. And he ended up approaching us after he worked with us on some recording sessions and said, Hey, man, I would like to introduce our owner, the studio, which I'll consider maybe doing a production day with us. So we can do some recordings with you and maybe shop you. And so through knowing Paul he introduced us to john and john was really famous. I don't know if you know the spam big star. Have you ever heard them? No. Okay, so you need to look them up. They were kind of a critical success. They were signed Stax Records out of Memphis. So for your listeners that don't know that that was all the soul music that came out. I was reading Carla Thomas Rufus Isaac, as always People and I mean, it was one of the biggest businesses in the United States. It was stacked and Motown. Were kind of battling it out in the soul category. And it was a black owned and operated company, which was amazing. And they were hiring all these people out of Memphis and created a ton of jobs. And But anyway, john was with john prior had started the studio in his and his family home, and he ended up moving into Midtown Memphis. He started when he was 14 when he was in high school, and but when he was older, like 20, he moved out to this place. I think he was 20. I'm not sure. But what he did, he was so smart. He bought the equipment, the same recording equipment that was in fact, he had the same board and all that and so his equipment and his tape machines, and they match. So stacks was so successful that he got the overflow there. Their CEOs had this busy and he would gather in what was really awesome. That was you We were thinking about it, do that cross pollenization kind of thing. The producers and stuff were coming over his studio and they were teaching these other engineers, the miking techniques, the equipment they were using. So he really educated they engineers and stuff that we're working with. And they were all young, he was never learning from, you know, different older guys that had experience and stuff. So it was really cool. And Jain was always about educating yourself. He's all about technology, because I mean, when I came along, if they didn't have the land to build it, you know, they'd have to go and solder the wires together and come up with the stuff. And, and he was always about finding what you're passionate about, because he had done it when he was young. So he kind of related to us on a couple of different levels. And he just came across the father figure because he had been the waves a little bit more than us. And but he did introduce us to all the record labels, they pay for the demos and we got four songs and then we ended up inviting the people To see a showcase and one of the showcases was in our cameras. So they came in, I went up, we had this bar, we built it ourselves upstairs, which was hilarious. But we put them in the building before anybody else was let in. And so nobody really paid attention to them be in there. So they organically got to stand there and watch. Like, this is what's going on with the scene or whatever. Yeah, and how people react to your band. They came in people wrote in coolers. They came in with their lawn chairs we had asked me a big five gallon buckets both hands people smoke and put your cigarettes and and all that kind of stuff to make sure we didn't burn the building them. But they were they were there to just watch it and just take it in and then we pray. We performed, you know, a set While they were there. And we ended up we got six offers. And it was so exciting. Wow. And there was this guy named Brian Hart. Power worked for a&m Records. And of all the people that were there that night that the thing about being at the warehouse was whenever the party was over, and people were believe in and stuff, we would take one of those drums that was in a building and stick in the back of a pickup truck. And we'd have to ride the parking lot and get all the glass bottles and pizza boxes and clean it up because you know it daylight big 18 Wheeler rigs was start coming in and out of the other out of the other bay doors. So we had to make sure so we didn't get in trouble for right because it's still warehouse working warehouse. Yeah. So then you got that recording contract and then or Yeah, you got the recording contract and then you ended up recording your first album at that same studio, Arden studios. And you kind of said it was almost like going to call it was like your college because your college age and you're kind of learning a ton. But talk about the recording that first album because you said that you saw like Stevie Ray Vaughan Once and REM was there a lot and Keith Richards was doing a solo album at the time. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. Well, what I was telling me is they the gaffer, me and he stayed at our warehouse that night we showcase ran in the back back of the truck with us. And so we ended up they were talking to us about the offers that we got, and we said, Hey, we really like the guy from a&m. He was the most genuine dude, he stuck around and hung out, talk to us. And he was just a joke, dude, you know? Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, so the next thing we know, we said, Man, we want to work with a&m. And it was just such a crazy learning experience, man, we have never been in that situation. We're green. We're still trying to figure out our instruments and our you know, my vocals and all that kind of stuff. And going in the studio is so exciting. We were working with all ever so he went on to work like three doors down and a bunch of other people. But the producer at that point in the in the studio and stuff or you make suggestions or how's that Cuz like, that's a pretty amazing, they let you record in art and they made you go to LA or New York or something, right? That was part of our production deal is that we would record in in Memphis is that he wanted us to do the record there. And as far as Paul, he was kind of our introduction into artists, like he had done those first sessions with us, we were comfortable with him, you know, and it's, you know, you're you spend like 16 or 18 hours a day with somebody hang around talk and kind of get to know them. It's more, you know, he was more like a family member, you know, and family member after hanging around with him for so long because we did tons of rehearsals and pre production before we went in, because we wanted to have it right when we got in the studio. And then the actual process of recording, you know, of getting the drum sounds and you know, getting the headphones picks the way you want it where it's all dialed in where we got everything just right, we like it. So he was super patient, but Paul was one of the producers on the record and then the CO producer was a guy named Joe Hardy, who had done all the CZ taught records, like the she's got legs after afterburner and all that kind of stuff. And so he was a more kind of season producer. And it had a bunch of success. So when he came on board, it gave us a lot of credibility. within the industry people took notice, because they said, Hey, Joe is working on something new. There's some young people he's found in Memphis that he's working with. So between him and Paul, they were just amazing. And when we said it was like going to college, it really was like we, they went through the processes with us, they talked to us about all the different kind of microphones and we tried all kinds of different amps. And I mean, it was just we really started learning about the craft. Yeah. And you said 16 hours a day. Yeah, it would just depend on you know, at the very beginning, it was a little bit sparse. We would go in and we kind of cut songs like they did demo sessions in Nashville. We go in with a batch of maybe five six songs in record those and then we say, okay, what's the best one out of this batch? And we say, okay, there's the bar. That's the best one we got out of this one. Put the rest of them on the backburner, we got to beat this one. Let's go write a whole nother batch. So we go in. And a lot of times, they were really nice to us to let us go in, maybe we would go in on the overnight session or something where we could go in, we go rehearse all day and something and go set up with one of the night guys in the middle of the night, and just get some sounds where we could hear it, and we'd run the tracks and stuff in the studio. And, you know, we had some access that we may have not had if we're doing it at a regular studio, which was kind of nice. And so, man, we just work. We wrote we probably wrote 60 or 70 songs for that first record. Wow. And it was just awesome. It was so fun. We were trying a bunch of different styles and sing, you know, melodies and ideas. And it was you stuff on we loved it and in price that producers really did such a great job on the record. We couldn't believe it when we heard that mixes and stuff they did. We just went oh my god, this is amazing, you know? Yeah. How did they? How did they do that? No, I love the first single off the album walking shoes. That's how I found you guys. And then I entered a deep dive and got you know, more familiar with the catalog. But that song, you know, kind of catapulted the band on rock radio and MTV. And then you guys got to go on Headbangers ball, which I was a big fan of. And I guess if originally it was Adam curry was the host of that and then later Ricky rock, but so what we like senior Yeah, senior videos on MTV and then being able to go into MTV after watching that show. Man, I'm telling me, there was like a couple of things that happened during that time. We had heard our songs on the radio, with Malcolm Riker, the guy was talking about before hearing yourself on the radio, somebody introduced me and stuff. It was nothing like it. But when we went on that television show It was so crazy because we watched Headbangers ball, like every weekend. Yeah. And then the next thing we knew we were sitting across from the guy, you know, and we went, Oh my god, I was like, look at his hair.
Anthony Corder :We were all thinking that, but Keith and I went, and
Chuck Shute :let's see, I think Patrick and I went on there first, during the first time, okay, we went, we went multiple times, sure, on there, promote the records and stuff. But um, I think we were kind of in it was kind of surreal, like, we were there talking and, and we taped it or whatever, and we really didn't think about it. And then when we got home, and it came on, we're like, oh, my God, we're on. I mean, it's just like, you're so overwhelmed with because a&m we would go to New York and depressed days and that the, you know, whole day it just sitting in a conference room and, you know, finally on a bunch of different rock writers and they would ask us about our shows, and then they say, Hey, I'm gonna come on the road. DNR review your live performance or whatever. And so we got to know a few of them. And we invited all along to Memphis every time we met somebody, we're like, please come to Memphis and hang out with us. And so we take them and show them around town. And some of those guys we're still friends with there's there's guys that we bump into that we just can't believe we've known him as long as we've known there. Yeah, and then you guys are on the.... this must have been surreal too... is having that song on the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure soundtrack. The Dancing Gypsy.
Anthony Corder :It was pretty amazing. That song was one of the first of four demos that we did to get shot, I think we did "Love is A Bitch" and "Dance With A Gypsy" and I think "Phantom Rider" was one of them. He did "Phantom Rider" was kind of the one that was a local, regional song that got on the radio and it got it got. Malcolm was a friend's friend of ours. And he started playing the song and the phone started lighting up and so he actually put us in rotation on the radio station.... Especially like in regular rotation, and it became like a top five song in Memphis. And that guy, Brian Huntanhower, I was talking about from A&M ....He flew into town to see us. And when he got when he landed, he went and got in his rent a car and he when he turned the radio on, our song was playing.... And he said, I knew I was going to sign you and I did that. He said, I was determined I was going to figure out how we're going to work together. Yeah. And so we owe a lot to Malcolm he was playing the song all the time. And so that had been one that had kind of got a lot of traction for us. And that one was on there, but the Dancing with the Gypsy song was part of our our master recordings that we're doing to get a shot, and it just so happened that when we hooked up with A&M, it was right the timing was just perfect where they were saying we're putting together a soundtrack
Chuck Shute :And you're not gonna be on the new one though because they're making a new movie. I haven't heard the soundtrack.....
Anthony Corder :No, We were laughing about that...
Chuck Shute :that music for that. Not, man, it was so awesome. I remember when the movie came out, I took a bunch of my friends and we went to the movie theater to watch it and see if our son showed up in it or whatever. And it's like a super quick scene. It's like maybe 15 seconds or something ... they come up in the car and we're on the radio. They pull up and they turn this song off and start talking to each other. So y'all cheer up when it comes on the in the theater? Oh, yeah, it was funny. It was. It was awesome. But they were really sweet. It was at A&M soundtrack. So Extreme was on there. I was trying to think of who else is on there. I think Shark Island... there was a few people that were on there. I was trying I can't remember off top my head right now. But it was just a timing thing. And that one happened to be one that was already done and waiting and wasn't gonna go on the record. So they were like, yeah, let's use that one and put it on there. So then you guys did a tour or Was this your first big tour was with Bonham and the Cult? Keith was saying that Jason Bonham was one of the nicest guys he's ever met. What do you remember about that tour? He was amazing. That was kind of later in the tour. We didn't. Did you do LA Guns and Dangerous Toys first?
Anthony Corder :Yeah that was amazing. Yeah. That was one of the first big ones. And they were awesome. We kind of clicked with the Dangerous Toys guys because we kind of had a southern thing going on. Yeah, I still talk to Jason. He's crazy. And he still sings his ass off and looks the same....
Chuck Shute :Yeah. No, I saw him for the first time this summer. And he was great. And then he came on my podcast, really nice guy.
Anthony Corder :Oh, God. He's nice... I mean, we had such a good time with each other that we ended up writing each other's advices. I mean, it was like herding cats. You know, the tour guides, the tour managers were trying to find a stuff and finally they banned us. They were like nobody. We keep losing y'all. We can't figure out the headcount wherever I get it. So everybody is now in your own bus. Let's go But the LA Guns guys were so nice man they were really clicking... and it was Cocked and Loaded.
Chuck Shute :And that was a great album... But what's uh what happened because I find it weird that there's two LA Guns versions right now because they split off - they got the drummer and bass player in one and the singer and guitarist in the other version. Was there a lot of fights and disagreements on that tour that you remember? Or does everyone get along then?
Anthony Corder :No, I didn't remember that. I think they really had a lot of momentum. We were doing 2000 seat theaters we did all the theaters cross country like at the Fox Theater was in the Atlanta and but it was beautiful. You would walk in and go man am I in the right building? Becuase I don't think we're supposed to be in here. It was like, you know, the nice theater from like the 1920s or something. But the crowds were awesome. They were so good live. They just sounded killer, Traci was awesome. Running guitars every night. And Phil's voice sounded great... I just saw him recently and he sounded really good. Yeah, really good.
Chuck Shute :The new song out and it's really good too.
Anthony Corder :Yeah, I saw that Fronteir's thing but um, anyway, they were so nice they I think we started in Dayton, Ohio or something. It's really crazy. But the tour manager said everybody needs to meet in the hotel bar at seven o'clock. And so we're It was our first kind of big tour or whatever. We've been doing clubs and stuff and so we showed up and we're like, man, there probably is lay down the law about this show or whatever. But what it was is they brought us in and they said, Man, get ready for the best eight weeks of your life. Threw their glasses up there and wejust all went crazy. Oh my god, it's really such a good time. Well, yeah.
Chuck Shute :Well Keith, I asked him about... when I had him on my show, I asked him if it was you know your band was kind of like "Motley Crue- The Dirt" - was there that was it that kind of stuff and he said you guys were like milk and cookies compared to Motley Crue but there must have been chaos on this tour with LA Guns
Anthony Corder :No, we were. We were totally, you're soaking in our biggest saucers, man. We had never done anything like we'd never traveled before we got the record deal. So we didn't know anything about being on the road. And when we first started out, we were just in a 15 passenger van, you know, scooting around the country lean and mean and trying to get our chops down and all that stuff, but they have really seasoned us man, like not only like playing every night and being busy with them on the road, but just about being on the road, you know, about all the people that you run into all the activities, everybody is just what
Chuck Shute :So what did you learn?
Anthony Corder :....chaotic, man. I think number one, we got really, really good at our instruments. By the time we came back, we toured for two years on that first Tora Tora record.
Chuck Shute :Okay.
Anthony Corder :And the thing that you were talking about, we were with LA Guns and Dangerous Toys. And then after the holiday, I think that was 89. And then 90 is when we hooked up with Bonham and The Cult. And we're doing Coliseums. I mean, we played our hometown Coliseum, but when I was talking about earlier that we'd seen all the concerts and and we got to go stand on the stage and look from the stage out to the audience at soundcheck, and we're like, oh my god, this is where Van Halen was crazy. Or this is where I saw AC DC, you know, knock the rafters out of this place. But I think what we learned, we just got savvy. I mean, we of course we were totally nuts. I mean, we were 20 years old, and we're doing what everybody else was doing in college except we woke up in a different town every morning. Which was awesome. It was crazy. But I think it taught us about the road. It's a lot of work. It is like the fun part of travel is there but it's also you're only there for a limited amount of time and you have to do a lot of work
Chuck Shute :You gotta do the sound shocks and everything and get everything ready and
Anthony Corder :yeah, and back then we were meeting sponsors and the promoters and the record label people with back then you know, radio is a big part of you having success. So we would go and meet with the radio people would do a performance on the radio at drive time or during the lunch hour, whatever opportunity we would get. And try to do as many interviews with local papers and you know, I guess today's equivalent, or equivalent would be talking to tastemakers and bloggers and podcasters like yourself, you know, to get to the right audience. Yeah, but back then we were doing it boots on the ground where it was like we would target that market and say, okay, man, what do we need to do? What do we have to get accomplished? While we're here? and Keith and I, a lot of times we would go Keith with probably not saying, you know, or something. So we're kind of like spokesman roles so we were busy a lot of the day, you know, we go there work. And then of course we put up a lot of steam you play, you know, for 30 or 45 minutes and then you have 20 hours or something yet to wake up again and David start today over again. So we made the most of that, but I don't know I think mostly what we learned is we just love being around people. You know, we love hanging out with the fans we love. People would always take us around the show. It's the cities and how does that work? Like they eat?
Chuck Shute :Yeah, how does that work back in the day? Because now you know, there's all these meet and greets. Some of them are free. Some of them you got to pay or there's different levels - you get a picture autograph? How did that work back in the day with fans do they line up and did some bands come out and meet with them to understand the tour buses or how did that work?
Anthony Corder :man it was different in every city. I mean, we did a lot of those meet and greet things were a lot more organized and everything to the record label and stuff. I mean, I know they still are organized like Maybe I'm saying it the wrong way. But we were not as much in control of all that stuff. We were kind of pointed in a direction. You know, we had a tour manager that had our day schedule, he would just click it off. He was like "The Dirt" movie you're talking about earlier, he was the guy that he would be the first person you see in the morning, he was the last guy you saw at the end of night. And just make sure you're going to bed and you knew what you're getting yourself into for the next day. And we were lucky we had great tour managers and people that took care of us. And so the meet and greet things were kind of interesting. We met a lot of people around outside the shows back in the day. So we just walk out everybody was hanging out, smoking cigarettes, or talking or whatever. And we love saying we went they would always have to drag us out of wherever we were hanging or whatever we were into, because we wanted to stay and see everybody. And we just loved seeing everybody and hearing about their towns and what they were getting into and the bands they were listening to. I mean, we would just talk for hours... had a great time... It was just I don't know, it was something super organic.
Chuck Shute :Yeah,
Anthony Corder :about the way we interacted with everybody. I mean, there was definitely a corporate element to it where the record label stuff, organized things for us. But I feel like we kind of connected with our fans in a different way. Like we had people that would bring food to every time we come to city, they'd show up at the bus with food, and they're like, we know you're eating a bunch of junk on the road and we've cooked dinner for you. We just had really cool people... I'll tell you what was awesome- when we first started traveling- we took a Hertz Pinsky truck that had all of our equipment that the crew guys would drive behind us at night. And when we packed it, we packed one of those 55 gallon drums as a barbecue grill in the back of the truck. So the first thing on the loaders would say when they opened their truck with this big grill, and we would throw these grill out at our hotels. So we'd be at the Holiday Inn or Hilton or whatever it was, and the record company would get the radio station people, we get the contest winners, we would tell some of the fans at a time where we were going to be and we thought these crazy cookout and we were collecting things the whole time. So we had these yard candles, these Tiki lamps. People were showing up with like cardboard cutouts. We had this this girl that she had a battery in her belt that had a hula skirt on it. We would turn it on and she was standing over in the corner like shaking her little grass skirt it while we're cooking out stuff. And it just turned into these like organic cookouts all over the country. Yeah, it was like so awesome. The record company loved it. They would help us get the supplies and everything they'd be like you know what I need to go get we tell them ahead of time and we've made them there and set up camp and
Chuck Shute :Did the other bands join you for this? with us to not not that I can recall i mean i'm sure if they were at same hotel with us. They came out but A lot of times we were just doing it on the move we're kind of on the run and we would stop in but we did a lot of things like that where we interacted with the fans and that burn and you know what about with the so then you got 92 the wild America album is comes out as pushback because the record labels trying to promote Bryan Adams record but then it does come out and you guys do a tour with Warrant and Lynch Mob. Were you a fan of Warrant and Jamie Lane? Because I'm a big fan of them. Do you have any memories of Jamie Lane and Warrant ?
Anthony Corder :Man they were amazing. They were all super down to earth... I just remember George Lynch rehearsing like warming up in like the dressing rooms and back then we would be at like the basketball arena for you know, the University of Tennessee's one of them I can think of where he would be in the area where the showers and stuff and he had his amp in there where the reverb you know just kind of bounced around and god, he would just tear the strings off at that thing.. Just doing his warm ups. He was just amazing. And the whole band Warrant everybody, they just treated so well. It was they knew that we were kind of coming back after being away for a minute. And they were having a lot of success. They were out on the road. And that Wicked Sensation song was out. I think we were with him. It was just was
Chuck Shute :What was George Lynch like? Becuase I've heard mixed stories about him....
Anthony Corder :He was kind of quiet, honestly, he was friendly and stuff ... but I mean, he wasn't like your "best buddy" or something. But I mean, he was very friendly when we talked. We were kind of all running around trying to get in.
Chuck Shute :But that was kind of at that point in the 90s the were the rock was kind of changing it was turning into the grunge... did you guys have a hard time selling out theaters at that point?
Anthony Corder :Maybe... in retrospect, I don't remember It just being like crushing the whole thing I'm trying to think I didn't ever hear anything where it was just a total bomb out thing most of the places they went they had a hardcore following shows that were there... but um yeah the grunge thing was interesting because we played some shows with Alice In Chains
Chuck Shute :Right, yeah...
Anthony Corder :And we actually became to know them and became friends with him over you know a couple of years where we're bumping into him and stuff they were recording at A&M some while we're out there and but when we played with him we really didn't People ask me all the time they're like man did you like really get upset about the grunge thing and all that but when we were in it, we just saw and just thought they were another rock band. You know, they were super nice dudes. They were down to earth. We had a lot of, you know, fun laughs with him and had drinks with them and all that kind of stuff and you know, telling people and they just said
Chuck Shute :sorry, go on...
Anthony Corder :Well, they just said you know, if you if we had bad feelings towards it or whatever look like No, I mean, I remember seeing them....they came to Memphis and Layne had broke his ankle one way or another and he had a cast on until they brought him out on a couch and he sat with his leg cocked up that the whole show. He wore a big hat and a pair of shorts and a big old boot around the bottom of his foot in but man his voice was powerful.. He was such a great singer. But they were just nice dudes, man. They were out busting down the road. They were hustling they had some big success. We saw them on their club dates and stuff.
Chuck Shute :Yeah, Keith said that he hung out with Chris Cornell because you guys were on the same label and Chris Cornell was just a really quiet reserved person. Did you see any.. because obviously we know the you know the story with Layne and Chris - both fell to the drug issues. Did you see that on the road when you played with them? Did you see them doing like the hardcore drugs and stuff? Or were they just drinking at that time?
Anthony Corder :I didn't. I mean, if they were doing it, they probably that kind of stuff was always around, man. I mean, all kind of really things. But we were, I don't know, we just weren't doing that kind of stuff.
Chuck Shute :So what happens like we were you ever just walk in and you just see like one of the bands like people like just literally just shooting up heroin right in front of you?
Anthony Corder :No, no. I mean, if they did any kind of stuff like that they were not around. Okay, that kind of stuff. I never saw any of that stuff. I mean, I think the only thing maybe that we would have known about is somebody like maybein the crew or something snorting something.
Chuck Shute :And that would be and they didn't do it around us. I just happen to see or hear it. You know, just because I happen to be in a place where they were doing it, right because I had Brian Forsyte from Kix and he was telling me how he got into that drug thing pretty deep for a while and he says you can kind of when you get into then you can kind of pick up when other people are High....Obviously you didn't get into the drugs in terms of doing it but being around it did you start to recognize the signs when someone was on coke or heroin?
Anthony Corder :Man maybe later ..... you know later on I mean but we were having a great time too... I'm not saying we were totally innocent people we were doing stuff too you but we just I really wasn't concerned with it as long as it wasn't affecting you know what they had going on and who we're dealing with and hanging around it was kind of like you know, do do whatever you want to do sir kind of mentality but I think that part when he was I got more cut around me that kind of activities and and drugs and all that was when I was home, because we would you know, they say I don't know when we were be in Memphis. Everybody wants to see you everybody wants to party everybody wants to you know, hang out be buddies with you know, and the late night at a places Hey, come back or excuse me
Chuck Shute :Late Night places where, you know, it was a lot of stuff like that going on. It was all over the place. And, you know, there's Yeah, in the in the late night. So that's when, you know, you end up having more time because the band kind of ended around what 94 cuz I know you had that you guys have that revolution day album that is that you think that recording is the official recording will ever come out of that? Because I know the the label has it. And so you released the demos in 2011. But do you think the the original masters would ever be released for that one? I don't think so. I don't think so.
Anthony Corder :That the way that we we had to just, you know, shelve it at the point where we were with a&m and we were disappointed because we'd spent about two years working on that record. Like for each one of those records, we had probably written 60 or 70 songs. Yeah. And we're working with Tom Werman who had done all the Cheap Trick records and Motley Crue. He was in Memphis. It was just that was kind of a dark period for us because we were really frustrated and we really didn't know what to do because the world had changed. You know, the music industry changed with
Chuck Shute :You said things went from your phone was ringing off the hook to all of a sudden now nobody calls you back now. Like, you seem like a pretty laid back guy. pretty positive guy. stuff doesn't bother you. But that's got to hit you kind of hard at that point, right?
Anthony Corder :Yeah, it did. It hit us really hard. We had been like, going ninety to nothing for about six years. And all of a sudden, we just went into complete stalemate. It was a pause. And in retrospect, everything kind of happened like it was supposed to. I think at that time we were trying to figure out what we're going to do as far as touring and stuff. Keith had gotten married. He was getting ready to have a son. He was like I want to pull back for a minute and be here with my family for a second. He was the first one of us to get married. And I think he was having some second thoughts. He's like, I'm not sure if I want to go right now, or if we should hold off for a minute, let me be my family. And when the a&m thing happened, it was kind of like, Hey, man, this was like divine intervention, you want to take a break? And let's just do that. And in my mind, I was thinking, Okay, you know, I'm gonna go away for a month or something, and then we're gonna get back on the road. But it ended up it was seven years until we got back on stage together.
Chuck Shute :Wow. Yeah, you end up working a record label. Then you went back to school and you got your master's degree you're in you're going to be an a music teacher, or what kinds of classes and you still do that right. What kind of classes do you teach in this music school? Is it do you teach singing, songwriting or music business or is it all three or?
Anthony Corder :Yeah, so what happened was after Tora Tora, I hooked up with another friend of mine in Memphis, Hal McCormick, he was out on the road is a hired gun with Survivor - The Eye of the Tiger guys and yeah, he kind of looked like Jimmy Page and he had this long curly black hair. He walked out with a pedal board about his, you know, big enough to launch a space shuttle and all these pedals and stuff on it. And I've always been a fan of he has he played in a band called Driving South. That was from Memphis when he was doing his original stuff. And he and I hooked up we started talking, we said, hey, let's just write a song... we see each other out. We said, we've been threatening to do this for the past six years and I was like, I don't I'm not into anything. I'm playing local, you know, playing some gigs around town. Let's go get together. And we ended up staying together for about six years, five or six years we wrote records we played we had a couple of different lineups. And it was really fun because it was super different than Keith... Keith was like super heavy and distorted and Hal was like real clean and had like a bunch of effects and stuff on his bluesy, a little more bluesy kind of sounding stuff. And so I really enjoyed it. We kind of got rootsy and we had a lot of fun. And while I was working with, with Hal I ended up bumping into my wife, and we had our first son and I was traveling with Hal- we went to Seal Beach in to do a record out in California. And man, I don't know what happened. I was like on the beach, I had my guitar in my lap, the wind was blowing in the boats going by.... the sun was out... the sky was blue. But I was sitting there and I just said, Man, my family's not with me. And I just had this really weird feeling. Like I said, Man, I'm thinking I'm just kind of fried. I think I just need to take a mini break. And so I did that trip. We did our recordings. And that's, you know, since coming out and all that kind of stuff....
Chuck Shute :What is that band called?
Anthony Corder :It started out as like a little local thing called Homemade Flavor. And it ended up that the project was called Corder/ McCormick and can find it on YouTube and all that kind of stuff. It's really fun. It's really good. And I'm still happy that we work together. But, I went back to Hal, I said... Hey man, I just need to take a break for a second. I'm, you know, we were kind of just doing some acoustic stuff around town. I was like, I'm cool with that. But I don't want to do any more traveling or anything. And so I was trying to talk to my wife and we just got to talking about how much the entertainment industry have changed us and man, maybe I should update myself.. this digital realm is resting on. It's kind of a whole new world. It's not anything I'm familiar with. So I went and got my degrees at the University of Memphis. And while I was doing that, John Fryer, the guy that owned the studio in my first manager, Richard Sanders had written me some letters of recommendation. Based on my life experience in the industry helped me get into college, I'd left high school, his high school senior to go do the the Tora Tora stuff. And so they based on their recommendation and stuff, I got into school and starting to
Chuck Shute :have a high school diploma or GED or I had a GED when I went to did a tour tour thing, cuz I mean, listen, man, I grew up. I'm from the Delta, Mississippi. My family's like Southern Baptists. And I walked in and said, I'm running away with a rock band. That was, that was kind of a heavy cover. Yeah. But they because they were musical. My mom's side of the family was very musical. So they were really supportive. They said, Man, if this is something you're passionate about, they love music, and they were like, this is something you want to do. You know, and at the time, I just said, Man, I really feel like this is something that I'm gonna miss out on something, and I don't want to regret not taking the chance to go follow this. See what happens. And so anyway, later in life, I was 30, you know, and I went back to college. And but I realized in my mind, I said, Man, you know, I had these guys, Richard and john prior know that they were in my life. And I just said, Man, I want to be that somebody else I want to, you know, I don't have the end all be all experienced, but I have some, and I have one perspective. And I was like, maybe I could help people that are just entering into the business. Maybe that would be something I was thinking about doing entertainment law, you know, maybe or something and then I was doing my degrees, I was talking to Richard and he said, Hey, man, you know, what are you gonna do when you get out? And I said, I don't know, man, like, I'll be a booking agent, you know, maybe I should get away a Morris or something. And he kind of laughed, and he said, Well, he goes, man, we have this training program, executive training program, where you go in to RCA Records, and you can go anywhere in the world that they have an office, and you learn operations from the ground up. And it was like a two year program. And so I started weighing that against going to law school. I said, Man, I really want to do this. I'm gonna go work at the label to see how everything works. And man, it was like another couple years of school, I went in like as an artist and walked into those meetings where they were doing the scheduling. They were having the marketing meetings, they were doing the radio, programming meetings, I went to every meeting in the building. And man, it blew my mind. I didn't know any of those conversations were going on. When I was into our tour. We were alone. I'm in survival mode, we were out there making sure we had strings and that were showing up to the right place. But inside of here, I learned the back end of it. And I learned how important it was to have one champion, one person say, yes, man, I was in a meeting one time. And they were talking about an artist in abstraction. And I said, well, man, we got 15 other dudes behind him, you know, go ahead, pull the plug on that. And I don't know, it was it was a roomful of, I don't know, maybe 15 or 20 people sent in a conference table. And this one lady raised her hand and said, Hey, can I ask alpha? We believed in this guy. We made a commitment to him. Can we give him two weeks? on the charts, his his thing was stalled. And this discussion started and I was in the corner. Yeah, just taking some notes or something. And then all of a sudden, it was like 12 Angry Men. I'm not kidding. Like she sets up and then all of a sudden, the PR person goes, You know what, I could go back and do At my selling so contacts over it. So in the sales guy goes, let me go back to the sales reps. And the radio guy goes, let me make all my guys make one more push at it. And they looked at the CEO and he said, let's do it. And I just thought about it. I said, Man, she just saved this guy. Like, because everybody else was scared to say anything. You know, that was a risky move that if it didn't work, it would probably come back. 200 but actually, it happened. It was okay. The guy survived. And it was just crazy. You I saw that happen. And I was like, Wow, this is amazing. And they really thought about the artist and cared about them. And, you know, they made a difference. And so anyway, that was kind of my switch over into the entertainment business side. And so I worked there and worked at Music Publishing, and man, I just stumbled into teaching. I didn't ever think I'd be a teacher. I quit school. I left. Yeah, I think I would ever be a teacher. But I really had this drive in me to pass on. Any information I had if it was somebody excited about being in music industry and so I ran into a lot of people in Nashville that had worked at or went to school at at Belmont University. And so I applied over there, and I never heard back. And then one day I was working in Polish. And then this guy called me out of the blue, and said, Hey, man, I've had your resume sitting in my desk for a couple of years, and he said, My daughter is graduating this year, and she has something going on the day that I have class, would you want to teach this class? And it was just the most random phone call and it was a block from my office. I was on Music Row and Belmont Street. And so in a set I've been teaching this class for 20 years because I'll shadow you don't have to. I'd love to do it. When does it start? He said in like two days. Wow. So I said yes. And I went up there and man, listen, I played everywhere in the world, in front of people, I think Right in bars like Blues Brothers that needed chicken wire in front of me where people were throwing stuff and nothing scared me as bad as walking in that room, really, my freakin my knees are knocking, I walked in and looked at this room is about 30 kids and their eyes bigger and the saucers and they said we want to be in music business, you know, they're looking at me. And I said it was a marketing class it was at at when I worked at RCA, I was an artist development marketing. And I work there and got some experience for about two years. And then I worked at a Christian rock label that was part of Sony. So I kind of went back to my rock race. And so I got some insight I've been on the inside is as an executive, and then I had this experience as a singer in a rock band. And so I just took that and brought in real life application in my teaching. I said, Hey, man, I'm gonna talk to you about the business side, but I'm gonna bring in like some of the creative aspects of this today that I want to talk to you about. I can relate to that way. And it was just cool because I kind of was in the mood. So I started doing an ad teaching and then this opportunity came up at SAE Institute, I was teaching part time and working in publishing. And actually working as an independent consultant with a bunch of artists, you know, they had investors and stuff like that. I'd help them put together their plans and stuff. But this sad thing was a full time teaching job. And it's a it's an Expedia ad program. It's a, it's 15 months long. And I teach everything from survey which is about roles and companies for management and attorneys and business managers and booking agents and all that to entrepreneurship to, you know, social media marketing to advance into earnings. You know, everything so, it just depends on what semester we're in and what class I'm dealing with. But it's really fun because the classes are small. They don't have spent a fortune on their education and come in and do what they're passionate about. A lot of People are just musicians and they're just trying to figure out the business side of the entertainment industry. So I talked to him a lot about intellectual property and copyright. You know, when you're asked before about revelation day, no bones about who owns the masters. So that's a good case study in my classes, you know, we were little kids, we signed a contract where recording these records and we have licensed the rights out to this record company that has the rights to those master recordings. So unless we have a reversion clause or something like that in there, then they have ownership and we have to negotiate it is there going back to that is there ways to get those things back because I just had the guy from I don't know if you know the band sacred right, but they're like a thrash metal band and they have an album yet they can't get the rights to whatever like the same issue or they just can't get the rights I think you can get on iTunes, but they want to get the physical copy so they can, you know, sell it to their fans. And yeah, and they can't they just can't do it. So is it just like, is it is there any sort of legal way around that or is it pretty much to the record company owns it? There's not much You can do. I think with the revolution, they think it would have to get license out from them. I think they have the ownership. So yeah, it's just not a priority, right? Because they have bigger net daily. I wouldn't think so. But I mean, I've had people approached us about wild America, like doing a reissue on that. And I think even a couple years ago, there was a company lemon records that went in and they re mastered wild America just to one track and then put put it out, which was kind of cool. And they put it out on vinyl. But eventually, Revelation day could get you know, released on vinyl or something like that. We could go in and do something like that. But it's it's really depends on the contract. So in our contract, if there's a reversion clause, there might be a window of time, after a certain amount of years that we could go back and say, Can we claim this, you know, just like you do on a, on a publishing deal or something like that, where you get your rights to your songwriting or it's back or something. Well, so and then your band, your band Tora Tora then you guys got back together. In 2008, you did the Rocklahoma that was kind of your first big show back and now you still do shows and you have to you basically have two new albums out because Bastards of Beale is only what like a year or two old and then you have this new five song acoustic EP- Unplugged...
Anthony Corder :So Bastards of Beale was amazing. We did it at Sam Phillips studio in Memphis. your listeners don't know who he is. He found Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison... Johnny Cash, Howlin Wolf. He did all these amazing things he sold signed to RCA, the studio, the physical place, and then in the record label, and then he moved down the street and created Sam Phillips recording. And that's where we went in. So everybody from Bob Dylan to Robert Plant had recorded in his place, and it looks like 1960s when we go in there. And we did it with Jeff Powell who was the assistant engineer on wild America. He was like our age. He's like another family member. Made it super comfortable.
Chuck Shute :He's worked with Stevie Ray Vaughan and BB King and Danny Elfman... and all sorts of people. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just a great dude. He's super talented. And he said, Listen, man, I'm gonna make this super easy. And basically, we cut the record live, we just went in the guys were in the room live, they put me in a vocal booth. And we counted the record off and just started going to the tracks. And it was awesome. It was so fun. It was such a cool experience. And, you know, we just we thank frontiers for giving us an opportunity and a platform to connect with the audience. And we did about 25 shows last year, so we had a ball. The record has been out since February of 2019. So so little over a year, yeah, maybe a year and a half. But it was so fun and we were nervous. We didn't know what it's gonna sound like we walked in with a clean slate we didn't bring in any oh right is rethinks, rehashed anything we show us just do all the stuff. And honestly, man, all the people. We had jumped on the Monsters of Rock cruises and met a bunch of people and we Just got to thinking about all these experiences that we had, we reconnected with people we had seen in years and talk and and we saw the bands on there that really inspired us for the record. You know, they kind of helped us which we started thinking about all this, you know, experiences when we're younger and all that and it inspired a lot of the songs on the record. And so it's your turn into great memories, a good way to kind of look in, you know, the tour stuff. And in this acoustic thing is, man, honestly we owe it all to that Jim Green, my friend passed away. He was actually promoter on the show. We did it last gene seven. So about a year ago. We went to a little tiny venue in Memphis, it was about 300 people. And we did an acoustic set and we've never done that. We've always been put on band. We've never sat down and done anything. Keith likes to have distortion. He likes to be cranked up. And but we said you know what, let's do something that's fine and we kind of did a deep dive. We went into some Have the records and songs that that people wouldn't expect. Now, why is deep dive What? Why not because like you didn't do walking shoes or biggest head or some of the other hits, it was mostly like more of a deep dive. Why did you I think it was just some of those just felt better on acoustic. Like they fit that the mood that we're trying to create. There's a song called candle in stone as a revelation. It was always one day that one and do it live, and we had never done it before. And so that was fine. And then we did sort of a practical side, which was this thing about the new record, we did that one. But uh, it was just so fun. We wanted to kind of mess around with some that we didn't normally. I mean, they put in a lot of practice time keeping them with the arrangements and all that stuff. And it was just fun. You know, we did five songs on this release. And I think maybe eventually we might have like a part to that at some point. I think we're just gonna go back and look at it make sure they're okay. As far as our performances and everything, are you happy with the response for these last two with the acoustic EP in the bastards?
Unknown Speaker :That the bastard Hello?
Chuck Shute :Sorry about that the bastards a bill. I'm really happy we were so nervous because we didn't know what anybody's gonna say we're like, man, does anybody even care anything new or they just want a rock cheese or, you know, and we didn't know it was gonna sound like either we were like, you know, but I just when the four of us got together and we just walked in and we just hit the chord, you know, in the gym and we're like, Man, that's, that's us, man. That's the tour. So we're just gonna pick up we felt like we picked out right where revelation day left off, which is really crazy. That was 94 you know, that last record that we're working on. And we went out some previously unreleased like little demo records that were surprised at wild America. And then the revelation a record that was around two Thousand 11 I think. But, uh, but the bachelors avail, we were really happy. I really think that it was, you know, as a creative person. And I don't know, as a creative type, you're kind of your own harshest critic. So I mean, I could nitpick and pull a bunch of things out and analyze things that I think I could do better or whatever. But for the experience, and for the speed that we did it, we were kind of limited in a couple of ways on that record. Number one, I'm in Nashville and I wanted to do it in Memphis, so it's got to be a Memphis record. And so it was a time issue in a budget issue. We didn't have a ton of money to spend on the record, but it worked out perfect. I mean, we went in, we pick the songs that we like. And we did it just like we did in old days. We took our old cardboard paste paper, stuck it on the wall, listen to songs, and check it off, like we did when we were little kids. It was so fun, and we would rehearse it at our drummers house. He got like a, you know, a rehearsal space for his drums and we went over there. And we just, you know, bashed it out. And we went in and we sat down and we went to arts and Jeff came over and ran through the arrangements with us. And we got like a little skeleton of our sequence in our arrangements. And we went in the studio and just it was so cool. We did basic tracks together. As we did everything in about, I think it was eight days, eight or nine days. So I would just run out of there on the weekends. In Taran, I had to come back to teach, you know, yeah, it's different, but it was a different approach. But Keith and I went in and and i saying, and he did solos and stuff. And the coolest thing of all was in this in the building at Sam Phillips, is this three story building? So the first quarter of the two studios. The second floor used to be their distribution centers got like thread shag carpet, these weird lights and stuff that stick kind of storage right? We shot for the prodigal son video. In that room and I'm talking about when you watch it, you'll see it's got red carpet, so and then the third floor is all the offices. And you're not allowed to take any pictures or anything up there at Sam's office, the doors always shut. And there's a bar that was decided that his office on that floor is decorated like 1950s. You know, and so they, you could go out there and catch a drink or something and hang out and it's just this cool, cool atmosphere. But I went down the scene, and it was only weekend I had to go, my children were getting ready to start school. And I was taking my son to college and stuff and I said, Man, I gotta do it this weekend. And we were planning our calendars there. That was the weekend that I wanted to come this really famous Stax solo singer wanted to see do and can you say who was like what I'm drawing a blank Hang on a second. It's a you don't miss your water tillery Give me just a second. I just had his name. I know him. I'm trying to think of it his his name just went out. Oh, William bell. Sorry. I was like thinking about Bill together in. His name's William about man. He's like 80 years old, but he was saying it's like going to church and his voice is still so I walked in. And I could hear that the three organ and the guitars right in. And it just put yo books all over me right now telling me it was just so it was like going to church. But anyway, they told me they said he wants it and so I don't care. And they said we're gonna send the tracks to Nashville, and he can sing up there. And I said, No, I want to come to Memphis. I don't want this to be cut in Nashville. And I just, you know, let's just figure it out. I get down there. And I walked in and they took me up the steps. They said, We want to show you something. So I thought we're going to do Distribution room or whatever. And actually, I know they turned the second set of steps in, in Sam Phillips office is open in my microphone is sitting in there and I was like, Oh my god, and I go you're gonna sign your record in Sam's office and I walked in I couldn't believe it man his desk is still set up in the chairs or at least white leather chairs and each one has a stand up ashtray next to it like from the 70s. And in his desk, when you look at it, it's like the world's first iPod is a desk and it's got a it's got a jukebox built in it in low 45 I think we sit there make phone calls and try to sell his records. And so Jeff had all of his equipment set up on his desk, and they had me out in the middle of the room is that red shag carpet again. And then right behind me was this box TV. It was from like the 50s or something. They're standing on some legs up off the ground is heavy as lead you know, but the front of it had a drawer In the journalist pulled out, and it had a Roy Orbison record sitting on it. And I just looked down, and I said, Oh my god, man, I'm in Santos office. And Keith said in there when he signed the record, I was like five songs when they do five songs next day, and I drove home about 10 o'clock at night. And that was it. That was the record. It was done. in that office, I mean, is it meant for recording though, or no? Oh, it was fine. I mean, it was the room was just to get the performance and they, you know, everything in the mix as well as other stuff that we needed. But yeah, it was fine. I mean, Jeff had all this stuff on his laptop. I mean, it was set up I could put any kind of effects and everybody does everything in a box anyway. But You've collaborated, I guess I should say with with some some great people, Stan Lynch from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers the drummer you co wrote a couple songs with him and Taylor Rhodes and the Memphis Horns. You had an interesting story about The Memphis Horns... I heard you tell that when you first started working with them they were telling you about segregation that they had to deal with that
Anthony Corder :Oh, yeah.
Chuck Shute :Growing up in the in the south that it sounds kind of like that movie Green Book where they would, they would drive down to town and there were some places they they were scared to pull over get some to eat because they thought they'd get killed.
Anthony Corder :Exactly. Yeah, it was just like, we felt like we had known them our whole life. Right. We met them. They were just so cool. And it was funny. That was during the wild America record. But I ended up I stayed friends with Wayne until he passed away. He actually moved up here to Nashville, and I saw him up here when I was working in Music Publishing, and he was living out kind of near my office. But they were just great. And they had been around they probably played on 300 number one records by the time we met him, but Wayne was just the kind of guy that was just like, Hey, man, I'm a day from Arkansas. I'm grew up in a cotton field. You know, the average Joe Joe, and we just play it down like he didn't play with Elvis or Sting or Robert Cray....Wilson Pickett songs and all that stuff. Ottis Redding... everything from Dock of the Bay to Al Green records. I mean, think about all those things you listened to growing up- that's them on those records- it was just crazy. He was really funny. When I was dating some girls, when I need him. He would say, why don't you come over for dinner? And I mean, he would make me look like a million bucks. I mean, I was a little kid, you know, and trying to make a good impression on somebody and he would invite me over and you'd walk in, there was gold records everywhere. And he'd get his trumpet out at the end of the night and kind of tap around on a little bit. You got it. You got this.
Chuck Shute :Hello. Hey, man. I got you. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. You broke up a little bit there. But yeah, so you were that's okay. Yeah, you were... But so do you hear a lot of those kinds of stories like that they were telling about the segregation? Because I know there's I know, I like to get political on my podcast, but I'm I feel like the racism thing is just like it's not even a political issue. It's more like a social thing. What is it like growing up in the south? I mean, you've spent your whole pretty much your whole life down there in the south. Is there is racism still....I mean, have you seen it things change over your lifetime? What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I feel like you can't get away from that in the news right now.
Anthony Corder :Man, yeah.... that's a hard question. Because to me, I was in the music industry. You don't really think of racism.... like I'm inspired by people.... I love them and hug them and see them and think about any you just don't think of it that way... Where I grew up in Mississippi, especially when I was young in the 70s. And, you know, that era, there was definitely a lot of heritage and things that I don't know from from a social standpoint, I felt like that it wasn't really moving forward. People were hanging on to some things that.... you don't want to treat people different.... you don't want social injustice going on. And you could feel that growing up, but I think what happened to me is I moved around the country a lot. My dad worked for an airline. And so we left maybe when I was going into middle school, I'd probably done Elementary School in the south. And then I moved away to South Dakota and into Houston, Texas, and then and back into the southern area, Mississippi. But those moves and stuff introduced me to so many different cultures, different ways of thinking, even just moving from the south up to the north, you know, we made like 3000 miles away from home. And it was a whole different mindset in groups people. But, man, I just I don't want to be political on your podcast either... But this is kind of what I think is that I think that the world is very hungry for us to be unified, and for solidarity. And then I think it just needs love man. Yeah, I'm serious. I know this sounds cheesy and like I'm trying to be a hippie or not really, I think people are hurting and they're reaching out. And the the actions that we're seeing the protests and all that thing are people that need their voices need to be heard. And it's, it's really important for us, especially from my standpoint, as much children are going to inherit what we created... And I have three boys, they're, they're 15, 17 and 19. And I just think about what kind of experience they're having throughout this from the pandemic to all the protests. My middle son, he's graduated this year, he didn't do prom, he didn't have graduation.. he's going to college, hopefully if they let him come to the campuses and stuff and where he will be leaving, you know, home for the first time. But as far as from a cultural standpoint... is we've always tried to pass along the mentality that You treat everybody equal. I think from a musical standpoint, I mean, there was one I'm one of my dear friends was on Beale Street with a guy named James Goman. And he was a soul singer. He was about as big around as a matchstick, he wore a captains hat and he threw beads out to the audience. And he just always had women around him all the time. He'd have a booth and there'd be five or six of them crawling all over him. I just thought he was the coolest dude the world. And we didn't think about race. We were talking about music. We were like, I was telling how much I loved him singing, sets that he was doing, the songs he picked, a horn player he just picked up.... and I think we were kind of mentored the kind of the people that were around us like John Frye, I talked to you about he worked with Stax.... He worked with Albert Bell. Yeah. And I think they were there supporting each other and saying, Hey, this is something amazing. We can had all this diversity in the room together, look what happens. Look at the songs that transcend time. And the songs are timeless the things that they've created, the different perspectives that different cultures. And we saw it in Memphis horns when we were with them Wayne and Andrew, were totally different. I mean, they couldn't have been physically any different - Wayne was a short little white guy.... And Andrew is a big tall black guy. But they traveled the whole world together. And they talk to us about their experiences. We laughed and loved them so much. And you know, there's definitely from a historical perspective, there's definitely things that about growing up in the south that there's parts of your heritage that you're not proud of. And that's hurtful. And, but hopefully we can be united and talk... I think that's the hard part is people just are uncomfortable about talking about it to each other.
Chuck Shute :Yeah....
Anthony Corder :it's really as cheesy as it sounds. It's just this is about human beings. It's us and we're only here for a little while together. I mean like this, and maybe it's because I'm older, I'm kind of in a reflective mode or something. But you realize how quickly it goes by? Absolutely insane it is to think of
Chuck Shute :the place we are right now. It is it is just Yeah, no, it's definitely a crazy place. And, again, I don't like talk politics. I don't like to divide people. But what you're saying about bringing people together, I mean, that's kind of what I try to do with I think music, I think Tora Tora. I think Tora Tora has fans of probably all different people from all different kinds of backgrounds. I mean, you've toured the world... all over the world, and it's so amazing. But listen, that's the one thing about music. It's a universal language. It's, it's a community. It's a culture. It gives you a sense of belonging. And this is the most loyal fans, that people that love music, depending on whatever genre you're in. And it's just amazing. It's such a powerful force. I mean, I can't even tell you how On the phone how much it's affected my life man there's nothing in the world that's affected me like that. Well what's so cool that you can that you can share that not only with your band and your music but also now i mean if you're a teacher you're obviously influencing young people as well with and helping them influence now what so excited now what else I always like to end with a charity so I don't know if you had that's another thing I like to do is tell you talk about being cheesy while I'm real cheesy because I always end with a charity that the artist is passionate about. Is there something that a charity that you work with or something that you're passionate about? Yeah, well right now it's something that I'm I'm really so happy I got part of his the rocket recipes for autism. Oh, I haven't heard of that one. I don't know if you've seen it. And I it's volume one book. It's got people from Ozzy Osbourne Whitesnake quiet right stone sour. Weren't poison. Great White, Queens right Skid Row todo doc in Nova RX And I submitted recipes. Yeah. So it's online that you can go to and find it. There was a friend of mine that reached out to me that was quickness together. And his name is Kenny Wilkerson. And if you guys would like to find it I'm trying to find it's www rockin recipes for autism calm, okay, go there and order the book. It's for a great cause. We wanted to raise awareness for autism. And anytime that we can be a part of anything that's charitable, we definitely we've worked a lot with St. Jude and over the years out of Memphis, there's somebody that's really close to heart. And the Ronald McDonald House course that helps the children that are in the hospital there is their families places to stay so with this rockin recipes for autism was something Kini approached me about. And so I put in the southern recipe. It's round steak and gravy. So you guys don't have to go check out. Okay. Yeah, great. That sounds great. Well, yeah, you've done some amazing things to the world and played with some of the biggest bands and you've had five videos on MTV. I mean, is there anything else that you have lined up for the future? I mean, I know it's gonna be tough doing concerts with the Coronavirus going on but yeah, well, we're still I'm doing some live streams right now. Okay. There been Sunday sessions that are eating in find me on Facebook during that where I want to stay in touch with you. I just did the monsters iraq livestream out of Cincinnati. So that was an hour set of some of the song Yeah, pulled out some I've never done before. So sighs like that. But we're working on new material right now new record and it will keep the the EP going. We're going to be promoting that to the end of the year. So okay, you guys, just keep keep in touch with me. I'd love to update you, man when we get in the studio or something. You're another conversation. Okay, sounds good. Yeah, appreciate it. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Take care of your stuff. It was great talking to you, sir. All right. Thank you. Bye bye. Well there you have it Anthony core singer of Torah, Torah. What an amazing career. What a great band. Check out all their back catalogue. And check out the new album bastards a deal and the new acoustic ep tortora unplugged. And definitely follow Anthony on Instagram, and social media and the band is on social media as well. They have a website Of course, and follow them for updates. It sounds like there might be part two to their acoustic EP. So check that out for updates. You can follow me on social media as well. I hope you enjoyed this episode. My goal is always to entertain, educate and inspire. So I hope that you learn something hope it was entertaining, and maybe even got a little bit inspired to do something go out there. Make a change in the world. Make a change in yourself. Maybe you want to be a musician or a teacher or a lots of things that Anthony did. Were inspiring so I think good talk with him. What a great guy. Thank you for listening. If you like this, share it with a friend or hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any more episodes. Until then, shoot for the moon and have a great day or night.