Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (The Lickerish Quartet, ex Jellyfish)

Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is an amazingly talented keyboardist, singer and songwriter.  He has released music with Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, his own solo career and most recently with two of his Jellyfish bandmates as The Lickerish Quartet.  He has also recorded and/or toured with Beck, Morrissey, Ringo Starr, P!nk, Blink 182, Roger Waters and many more.  In this episode we discuss why Jellyfish wasn't more well known, how the music business has changed, musical inspiration and more!  

00:00 - Intro
01:06 - Top of the Pops 
02:15 - Lickerish Quartet 
06:05 - Popularity of Rock Pop Music 
08:15 - Working with Big Artists 
10:05 - Jellyfish Vs. Pink Floyd 
12:23 - Jellyfish & Radiohead 
15:30 - Jellyfish & Seattle Bands 
17:20 - End of Jellyfish 
18:17 - Music Business Now Vs. Then 
26:05 - Focus for Original Music & Session Work 
29:55 - Recording Music 
33:23 - Keytar 
34:45 - Moog Cookbook & Daft Punk 
37:10 - The Black Crowes & Tears for Fears 
38:40 - Music & Film School at USC 
42:38 - Indie Music & Films 
43:45 - Doing Live Shows as Lickerish Quartet 
48:01 - Pay Attention to Politics 
49:15 - Outro 

Lickerish Quartet website:
https://thelickerishquartet.com

Register to Vote:
https://vote.gov

Chuck Shute website:
https://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back if you're a returning listener watcher and if you're new, please make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a comment on YouTube or social media. Let me know what you think. Coming up today we have Roger Joseph Manning Jr. Best known for his work in the band jellyfish, of which his newest band, the licorice quartet features three members, Roger Tim Smith and Eric Dover. And Roger has also done session work for some of the biggest names in the business, including David Bowie pink Adele, blink 182, Ringo Starr, and he's worked as a keyboardist with Beck for a long time. And we had a really interesting discussion about the music business, why jellyfish wasn't bigger and the struggles of trying to grow a project in today's climate. And it's just a great conversation. So buckle up, grab something to eat or drink, sit back and relax. Unless you're driving, of course, then keep your eyes on the road. Here we go. Top of the same thing, Top of the Pops. That's like some that's like a reference to something that I and I, it's something famous and I'm lost on it for some reason.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 1:19

But that's, well, that's been the biggest televise hit trade show in England for the last four years. I don't even know if they still have it. But Ah, okay. Video footage, circulating on VHS and probably is now all over YouTube. of all kinds of famous bands from I think primarily the 70s. I don't think I don't know if it started in the 60s if it did, it was late 60s through the 80s. And I think it's still going. But yeah, it's its heyday was definitely the 70s and 80s. Lots of amazing footage. And this is probably some T Rex performance or something. And that's a shot of the audience.

Chuck Shute: 2:00

That's awesome. So were you able to see that stuff in the 70s and 80s? Or you're just saying you looked at the archive stuff later.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 2:07

Yeah, look at archived stuff later, when I got this picture stuff the internet.

Chuck Shute: 2:11

Okay. That's awesome. So yeah, so licorice Cortez. This is great stuff. I'm excited. I've heard NOSORH four songs or five because I got sent for but then there's another song that just came out, like a week ago called sad. But true is that part of the CPE?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 2:28

Has nothing to do with us. I don't know what that is saying. But true that there's really no

Chuck Shute: 2:34

it's not even a licorice quartet. What the? It's on your Spotify. That's so bizarre.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 2:39

I'm not sure about that.

Chuck Shute: 2:42

So you guys have the four songs or fortunately new days you are alone. And in the meantime then. Right. Okay. So yeah, take me through the process. I'm sure you've probably told this before. But just like in terms of writing and recording it like Well, first of all, what inspires a lot of the the these kinds of songs is it just everything or specific focus that you were going for on this album, or this EP?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 3:05

No, the beginning of 2017, we decided to get together and write. And just for fun, and we did that it was a big experiment, a lot of us have not worked together in a musical capacity for a while. So it was going to be good to see each other as friends and see if we couldn't get some fun musical ideas out of it. Which we did, which naturally led us to want to record them. We reached out to a drummer friend of ours German Stasi, who we assumed would be very excited to be the fourth member of this group, essentially. And he was and he lived in England. But by the end of 2017, I think we were able to get our act together enough to begin recording. And then between everybody's busy schedule, we completed 12 songs over the next four years. Obviously COVID slowed everything down. But by the time COVID hit and fall of the spring of 2020 we had tracked most of the music well I should say 75% of the music. And then we decided well let's release these as EPS not as a full album, because it was going to be easier to finish four songs and just kind of disseminate into that you know, power pop world for our fans, the tunes so we set out to complete them a little bit of time. And you're now receiving the third EP, which we literally just finished mixing and recording and mixing this year. And yeah, that's the that's the final statement.

Chuck Shute: 4:55

I love it. It's great. I'm so terrible describing music but I would Call this kind of like, I mean, it's similar to all your other stuff, the jelly fish and everything, but it's like Beatles meets 80s Pop, maybe with a modern twist? Is that a good description?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 5:09

And we like all that stuff. So um, yeah, here it was, here we, you know, when we write songs, and then they pass the test so to speak. It's really about they meet all of our needs. So the songs have a strong melodic content and they lend themselves to vocal harmonies and a lyric that we're excited about. That's interesting, but fairly progressive, but not too alienating. I mean, we want we want our songs to be our songs inevitably end up being a bit sophisticated for the average pop fair, but not so. Not so heavy and gentle and hyper intellectual that we alienate everybody. Otherwise, I'd be probably doing progressive rock podcasts.

Chuck Shute: 6:02

Right? No, that's what's so interesting. I mean, when I when you listen to It's like somebody had said described it perfectly like, either people love you, or they don't know you. There's there's nobody that's like, oh, I don't like this kind of music. This is terrible. Like, nobody can listen to the songs of jellyfish or licorice quartet and go, Oh, this is bad music. I don't think I've ever heard that. So I mean, because they are, they're very poppy. But why is it more underground, I don't get it.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 6:28

Because, you know, in pops evolution in the last 50 years, you know, rock, pop, whatever you want to call it, or now now you could call it Hip Hop pop. It's obviously gone through all kinds of evolutions, and at different times, different versions that were popular as to where do you have psych pop in the 60s, and it turned into kind of classic blues rock in the 70s that kind of turned into a new wave synthesizer pop in the 80s. It was still all three and a half minute very catchy dancy kind of teenage background music. But, you know, Pink Floyd 1967 has nothing to do with I don't know. The humanly 1983 But it's teenage music. It's teenage pop music with catchy melodies and hooks and, and lots of fun arranging and musicality, you know, all that stuff was very, very musical. And now it's continued to evolve. And Billy Eilish and Taylor Swift and lots of little dot, dot, dot, hip hop rapper, people and okay. But we're drawn to and what naturally comes out of us is what you've heard over the years, through jellyfish, Imperial drag TV, eyes, licorice quartet. Those acts? Are those musical offerings we've had, and certainly our solo records. They're not too far from each other, poking our heads into slightly different road, but they would all be sitting next to each other and the same record record collection for somebody who was enjoying that,

Chuck Shute: 8:12

for sure, for sure. Now do you guys have, you must have like kind of a cult following? And there must be or should say, of the following, but you have a following of like big musicians that are fans, because you've worked with some of the biggest names in the business? Is that do they pick you out? Personally? Because they're fans of you? Or how do you get those jobs? Like, how do you get the jobs for David Bowie, and back and all these all these big time artists?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 8:36

That mostly comes through the producer? Who's putting the recording session together? So there are a lot of producers and engineers who've been fans and certainly jellyfish over the years. But occasionally, those artists will ask for my services as a keyboard player specifically, or somebody wants to write with me, or what have you. But it mostly comes through a producer who is aware of my particular skill sets. You know, I've been on five Morrissey records to this at this time, but he never asked for me personally, it's, it's come through two different producers. Now. Once he got familiar with me. Then he said, Oh, can we have Roger back as he's still available? You know, I'd like to bring him into a on a portion of this record with him. And then the producer might also have me try arranging strings on a record more CB like, I didn't know he ran strings. I like his keyboard playing, you know, so it's just like it's almost like you have to like sell yourself and hustle your name in that world. If I was, I mean. Yeah, I mean, if jelly fish or any of these musical offerings got a lot more popular, you maybe have people saying, Taylor, so With wants to write with jellyfish or what have you, but it was never. We broke through and certain MTB time for certain generation. And that was great for four years it lasted. But yeah, it made some noise. And it's all good, but it never it never reached those other tiers of notoriety. That's all I'm trying to say.

Chuck Shute: 10:24

Which is weird because for me, like, it's easier to listen to a jellyfish or licorice quartet song than some of the stuff that is more popular. Like like you like Pink Floyd. Like I like Pink Floyd. But some of that stuff is like harder to it's more prog rock, it's harder to listen to. It's not as easy on the years as, say, like a jellyfish, like immediately you're like, Oh, this is so catchy.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 10:46

Well, you know, I mean, that's a good example to bring up. Pink Floyd. Obviously, he's had tremendous success in their, what 20 year career or whatever. I mean, now they're selling legacy stuff, but it was really about those 70s and 80s records and, and yeah, they are, they are more progressive. But also they're more kind of stone a whole lot of people like to get high, chill out and veg out to some easy kind of psychic music. Yeah, and Pink Floyd has been that very thing. Even for people who don't party a lot and get high. It's almost like they can feel like they are only listening to Pink Floyd music. It provides that soundtrack and that it provides that ambience and that attitude. Jellyfish if I was going to play devil's advocate, yes, there's catchy melodies and sing along. But it's almost more heady and intellectual in a Steely Dan, kind of, well. You know, at the end of the day, we could talk and intellectualize it for years for hours. I think add more people been exposed to jellyfish. And had we had a chance to do a third or fourth record. I think I think that eventually would have happened again, to a greater degree, our audience would have simply continued to grow. Right? I mean, Pink Floyd's audience really doesn't start kicking into overdrive till you hit Dark Side of the Moon. And if I'm not mistaken, that's that's four or five records in

Chuck Shute: 12:22

so isn't it more marketing and stuff? Because I know for me, like, I never heard the name jellyfish until Eric Dover joined slash Snake Pit and then they're like, Yeah, Eric Dover is the new singer of Snake Pit X jellyfish. And I was like, jellyfish was like, what? I've never heard of this band. What is this? And like, I don't think I heard your music until years later. Because I was like, why would I buy a jellyfish record? If I've never I've never heard on the radio and never sold MTV. And you could the back in those days, if you didn't, that's the only way that you like learn of music.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 12:52

Correct. And the fact of the matter is, we were on college radio, and on a lot of MTV, but it was only for about a window of a year and a half. We did quite we know we weren't we didn't cross over to pop radio. But we did quite well on college radio. Which bands could do and they could sell records. MTV helped, definitely. But often it came through repetition, right? I mean, you could look you could look at Radiohead, and go Well, the first album, made lots of noise it did. And it sold through a little bit, kind of put them on the map. They weren't the Radiohead. Everybody knows now is a household name. second album, bumped them up a little bit more, but it was still kind of in that college indie rock world. Then by the third and fourth record, that's when it starts getting way more colossal. And their their, their fan base starts getting just out of the kind of the college kids high school kids starts going to all kinds of age groups, a lot more countries, it's just more far reaching well, that that aren't to get them to their third or fourth record where they're like, on the cover of Rolling Stone on the cover of spin. Everybody knows about them, who might not have known about the first two records. And you know, the first few records didn't find that source happening by the fourth album. And again, we'll talk about the 90s band, it's but you know, they're a good example of that. Have they broken up had the record company dropped them? Yeah, they would have had some notoriety and fame off the first two records. They wouldn't be the household name is Radiohead now.

Chuck Shute: 14:33

Right? Well, I think. Yeah, when I was a kid I remember in the 90s like Radiohead, it was a song creep that was a song they played on the radio that was the MTV hit that the it was like you're right it's like the repetition and then the you don't realize like later they they come up with these albums that like once a month okay computer that ever one of the Rolling Stones like this is the greatest album One of the greatest albums of all time, and, but a lot of people just know,

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 14:56

creep. That's right. And creep was like You recall that stepping stone one? Yeah. And belly buttons building that was stepping stone one for us. Well, Radiohead, and the record company continued to capitalize off that and they didn't break up. Right. I mean, they, they, after their second album, made even more business for them. Then they just came with the home run, which was okay, computer jellyfish broke up. We couldn't do album number three. That might have been our home run.

Chuck Shute: 15:29

Yeah, he kind of reminds me like kings axe, it's like, I feel like that's another band is similar to jellyfish in the sense that a lot of when you ask musicians, like what do you listen to? Or what are your favorite new bands? That I remember that was the one that was like everyone was saying kings x Kings x, but they never really broke. Huge, but they still have a pretty big following. They can tour and they can play shows.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 15:52

Yeah. And they were they were a lot of people kind of refer to them as like, more of like, the metal edged hard rock jellyfish. Because they they, they kind of attracted more of that audience. And that's what they started to build.

Chuck Shute: 16:08

Yeah, I think it's a lot of marketing. I really like where you guys like because I grew up in Seattle. And we had to rock stations there. We had like the hard rock and then we have the alternative rock. They play on the alternative rock there. Do you know do you were you played on alternative rock stations?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 16:21

Alternative Rock is what is the only arena that jellyfish was played on? We never we never broke through to top 40 regular radio. Yeah, we got lots of play on alternative college, college rock radio, it was referred to I can't speak specifically to the Seattle market. But I

Chuck Shute: 16:39

don't remember hearing I feel like I would have because now when I listen, I go, Oh, this is the shit that I love now, and I would have loved when I was 15. But I don't remember hearing it on the end. That's one of the radio stations Seattle. That's like where they first played Nirvana and stuff like that. A lot of those Seattle bands.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 16:53

Yeah. And but Nirvana, Alison, Shane Sandberg they all broke through to that next tear of more commercial pop, rock radio. So there's nothing wrong with the college radio. That's a great start. That's a great entry point. They went past that.

Chuck Shute: 17:13

So we remind me again, what happened then. So it was the you guys did to jellyfish records, and then did the band breakup or the label drop you or both or

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 17:23

we broke up the label fortunately, did not drop us they were talking about it. And maybe even even if we stayed together, they might have dropped us before a third record because Spilt Milk did not sell as well as belly button did. And I know for a fact, the president of the label, Phil Cordero, was getting pressure from his colleagues to drop us. He refused to do it. Wow, you've had that much faith in us. Now, again, unfortunately, we broke up and ended it. But he stood by us, when a lot of his colleagues were like, now they aren't selling enough. The second record is gone down from the first that's not good. We don't have time for this, we got to focus on the next Lenny Kravitz record. That was very real.

Chuck Shute: 18:15

It's such a weird business. But now it's like you don't have to worry about getting dropped from a label. For the most part, I mean, you'll always be able to make music.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 18:23

You'll always be able to make music, but you're you the odds of making the amounts of money and doing the amounts of commerce that you could back then are completely one in a million. Now, see back in the day, right or wrong? The record company, the major label that they were the loan shark, they would advanced you millions of dollars. And then you would pay that back through sales, touring, right. And then there's a certain point where you're no longer in the red, you're in the black, and then you actually start making money. So you remember back in the day when you hear a band would go gold. Yeah. Okay, so more or less just to give you an idea. So gold was 500,000 albums, right? If an artist sells 500,000 albums now, it's a goddamn miracle. And they're a big, big deal. Yeah, back then. Even if you are in college radio, like Radiohead, we could name lots of bands right now, if we looked back at the 90s chart that were just on college radio, some of them sold gold between that and a little bit of MTV planes and touring. So basically, when you generally when you hit gold, that's when you made so much money that you could pay back your loan from the record company. And that keeps going now you're actually making money. So when you hear a band, like Black Crowes would come out, their album sold 1,000,002 million. Well, that safe bet they've paid back the loan, and now they're actually putting money in their pockets.

Chuck Shute: 19:56

Right. Okay, so that's a good indicator. Yeah,

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 19:59

yeah. There were a lot of bands like jellyfish that didn't quite clear goals. So for example, our first album Oh,

Chuck Shute: 20:05

money then.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 20:07

Correct. But I don't have to pay it because we got dropped. Ah,

Chuck Shute: 20:12

so if they drop you, it's just the deals over.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 20:16

Say, say 10 Out 10 jellyfish albums sell next week. If people can find them, they're not they're not rented anymore. But those 10 records. Still don't go to me because we still have money.

Chuck Shute: 20:30

What if what if, like, I mean, just hypothetically, this is crazy. What if like a million jellyfish record sold, then would it eventually go back to you? Or is it still go back to the rep

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 20:38

would eventually go back to me, but you got to convince the record company that's worth pressing them up?

Chuck Shute: 20:42

Yeah. Well, what about the Spotify plays? That's still just goes to record company? Until you recoup. Okay, and that's you will probably never recoup in your lifetime on that one. No, no, but like licorice quartet. That's all you right, you guys are, do you want to label that?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 20:58

Yeah, it's all DIY. So yeah, so we have we pay for our own production costs, manufacturing costs, right, we have to pay to print up our own vinyl. And then we sell X number of vinyl. When we have to just like a record company, we have to pay the people that helped promote it distributed helped us manufacturing, do all the coordinating, ship it. And then did we make any profit? And if we did, we split it three ways. And typically, if any money comes in, we've just been putting it back to the recording process. Pay for a mixing engineer, all the other people that help some press addition, you just keep forwarding. Nobody's getting rich here. But we've had a lot of fun making these records.

Chuck Shute: 21:41

Yeah, well, because you know, you don't have to write because you have the back stuff and all the big name artists that you work with. That's like your bread and butter for money. Now, this is just like, you could just do whatever you want, which is kind of nice, right?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 21:54

Yes, but I'm a free lance musician. So I'm constantly hustling work. Some jobs pay well, others not so love the music business in last 30 years, although there can there continue to be people who become superstars and make a ton of money. Music Business as a general money making enterprise continues to go downhill because of files. CDs being sold, there's no product being sold, the live touring business, that pretty much has stayed the same.

Chuck Shute: 22:31

That hasn't that hasn't grown.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 22:35

Not to my knowledge. In fact, tickets keep getting more and more expensive.

Chuck Shute: 22:38

Alright, so well, in terms of money bringing revenue is the revenue grown from from that? Because that's how you guys have to make your money now. Right.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 22:46

Right. But what I'm saying as far as I know, and I'm no expert on it,

Chuck Shute: 22:49

yeah. In terms of audiences cost to go on the road.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 22:54

Yeah, generally the same. Hotels, gasoline, or whatever the overhead is, for a band to go on the road. And then you're only making profit based on whatever the ticket price is. And sales, what I'm saying is that part of the business would seem to be generally unchanged from 2030 years ago. whatever level you're at, you play a certain size club theater stadium. And then there's money that comes in from that after your overhead is paid. That hasn't changed versus bands don't sell CDs and vinyl anymore. And cassettes. There's no product. In fact, they're trying to make money off files, which is a joke, because you can't just people share files. So yeah, this as a whole. So even even the record companies have had a harder time making money off of artists they sell. So like, licensing is a way that artists make money now, which means if you get your music and film to commercial, that's so small, right? And the number of bands have increased. So back in the day, if Atlantic Records had 50x, right and trying to get their x on a movie, where you'll have 50x to worry about. Now there's 50,000 True, there's some crazy statistic like 60 plus 1000 songs. From everybody from Taylor Swift to a million people. We don't know whose names we'll never know. Because we're making music out of their mom's basement on the computer. Every day on Spotify. 60,000 new songs released. Dang, you want to get one of those in a movie or a car commercial? Good luck.

Chuck Shute: 24:46

Yeah, that's competitive for sure. Well, you can also sell it more competitive than it's ever been. But selling merch is also is not a big way to I mean, I had one guy say that. We're just a T cell we sell T shirts and we We play the music the jingles to sell our T shirts. Like that's a major part of the revenue.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 25:05

Sure, but that's still that. Absolutely. But that still means your music has to reach as many people as possible. So then go, Oh, I like this song. No, I'm not I have no I don't have to pay for the song, because I'm subscribed to Spotify. But maybe I'll buy their shirt versus the new band or the or the band was even been around for 10 years. Who doesn't have a million plays? They've got 30,000 plays. They're gonna sell less T shirts.

Chuck Shute: 25:35

Yeah, well, it seems like you're on that stuff. A lot of that is like you're selling. You're making money off the diehards. Like if there's got to be a select group of people that are diehard jellyfish, liquors, quartet fans, they're gonna buy anything you guys put out, you could put out the liquors quartet coffee mug, and they're like, I'm on it. Like, I'm getting that,

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 25:52

that that's correct. However, figuring how to grow that audience is the eternal conundrum for not only us, but any band in our situation, Pastor president,

Chuck Shute: 26:04

right, and you and you have you guys all have your other stuff that you're doing. You're like you said, you're a freelance musician, you're doing all this other stuff. This isn't your you don't have time in the to put everything into this.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 26:14

Correct? Correct. I would love to put all my time and energy into original music for fans, both with quartet and continue to do my solo records. And I'm currently working on another solo EP right now. But but I don't get up every day and do that. I work on it a few days here this month, few days here that month. Because yeah, I'm continuing to hustle a freelance musician. You know, what you mentioned back earlier? Well, he's one of the artists I've worked with. He's fairly known. He's continuing to do business. But my involvement with that is only dependent on what Beck's career is looking like in any given year, he may tour a lot, he may not tour at all, he may record a lot, he may record hard, hardly at all, he may take a year off, you know, I mean, it's all over the place. So I can't go or back may change his sound from album to album and not need my services as much as he might need another gentleman or person service. Right? Because he's, he's always, his sound is not one dimensional. Sometimes his music has a lot of keyboard activity. Sometimes he uses my vocal background vocal skills. Sometimes that's not necessary. So I can't bank on anything. I'm always free floating, and putting myself out there, trying to make sure people know about my services, my skill set, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I have people I work with now who are now discovering jellyfish stuff. I didn't know you did that? Well, that's great. Well, we should try to do something like that next time we work together or whatever. This is constant education process. You know, because because people's attention spans are 10 seconds long, because everything in the world is fighting for their attention. So I've been very, very, you know, and as dire as that can sound, I've been very, very blessed over the years and continue to be. And it is what it is, you know, there's this stuff they don't teach and they can't teach in music school. This is this is get out in the real world. start falling down, picking yourself back up and learning from your mistakes. And just you just, you know, why do you have success in this business because you don't stop and you don't give up? And just keep keep keep, keep going. And then at the end of the day, you can only do what you do. I roll out of bed in the morning. And as you've seen, I'm kind of predisposed. And enjoy. And my skill set is kind of writing the songs in the style that we were talking about earlier. Yeah, I don't get up out of bed in the morning. And naturally, very organically write stuff like Billy Eilish or Taylor Swift. I could if I put my architect cap on and analyze all the components to their music, I can certainly do that. But it would actually be wouldn't be natural for me. That's not how I think. Nor do I have any interest in thinking that way. In fact, I don't it's hard for me to even relate to it. It's there's speaking a language that the machinist and architect and in music school graduate part of me can absolutely dissect and understand and I can reverse engineer no problem. It's not an extension of my soul at all. The extension of my soul is what you've heard and what what people will bring me in on on session recordings or whatever. Yeah, the keyboard Mr. arranger.

Chuck Shute: 29:55

Do you like? Obviously you like writing the music obviously. I like playing the music It sounds like obviously, I mean, clearly, most musicians probably don't like a lot of the business stuff. What about the recording process? Because you guys recorded this on your own? Are you into the gear and stuff? And like, I gotta use this guitar and this through this amp and all this? Are you just like I just want to play music. Somebody else do that?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 30:16

Well, twofold. I mean, I enjoy when other people engineer for me take care of capturing the sound into the computer on the tape. I'm fascinated by that. And I like being informed by it. So I can make intelligent decisions and comments to the, to the people doing that to the engineering side of that. And simultaneously, I am fascinated by all kinds of musical equipment past and present, including software. I mean, I have a huge vintage keyboard collection, because I love the history of keyboards, and giant sound palette, that the last 50 years of electronic keyboards. And acoustic keyboards can can provide for me as an arranger, but I'm just as fascinated by guitar pedals and all the sounds of guitars can get and what different plugins do to different sounds when you've got audio on the computer. But I'm not. I don't go super deep on that. In fact, I'm fairly ignorant about a lot of things. Because I'm more interested in just the art of the song, song craft and how I can create better melodies and grooves and fields and riffs quicker. And in a more, I'm just gonna continue with fascinated by that process. And fascinated by the other processes. Yeah. Okay, but you kind of you kind of, you kind of have to pay attention to all of it. Because you got to be able to talk intelligently about it, otherwise, you're gonna be at the mercy of other people's crappy ideas won't be better. You know, you don't know how good a stereo guitar sound can sound. If you get stuck with an engineer who doesn't do that very well. You can't comment on it intelligently until you hear somebody else's record and go, Why did their guitars so much more bigger and present? And fantastic than my guitars do? It's basically because of who engineered it?

Chuck Shute: 32:18

Ah, that's interesting, because like, some of these bands that some of the newer bands will sound kind of retro, like the black keys. I'm like, how do they get that? Like? That's completely sound? Yeah, no, it's really cool.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 32:31

I know those gentlemen. And they are you do? Very smart. They're very aware of what they're doing. And they're very studied. When they started out, they may have had other people in taking care of the technical engineering part of it. Yeah, they they have learned that world inside and out in a very in command of what they want, what they don't want. And they've spent a lot of their wealth, buying up vintage equipment to help them make it sound that good. Or hurt them that way that you describe.

Chuck Shute: 33:02

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting, because that's one of those bands that's like, you're like okay, this they're doing it. They're they're they're like a big rock act in 2022. That's hard to do to be to play arenas as a newer act or not a vintage like 70s and 80s. Band. They were formed in what 97 or something like that like that. Yeah. Yeah. No, they sound great. You said keyboards, you have a vintage collection of keyboards. Yeah. Do you have one of those? What do you call the guitar type keyboards from the 80s? That,

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 33:33

well, they didn't really have a name other than you could strap them on? Yeah, my friends. My friends, and I used to call them strap ons. And then somebody referred to them as a key tar, which I think is a much funner and cooler name. Yeah. A key tar I've owned guitars, move put out a guitar in the 70s 80s called the move liberation. And I've owned that in the past, but I've never performed with them. I don't I don't enjoy performing them. They're awkward. And I think they look. They're just too damn goofy for me. And extension of my personality. I'm not opposed to it. Yeah, I've actually, I actually used them we perform with them in the mood cookbook, which was kind of a it's a serious musical act, but we did a lot of comedic music. And when we performed it was to make people smile and laugh. So we put those on, and many people smiled and laughed.

Chuck Shute: 34:27

I started when I was a kid, my dad came home with one of those one day and he gave it to me and I was like, I could never frickin play the thing. Um, I don't have any musical talent, but I just thought it'd be funny. I always thought they were cool looking. And they were like, kind of comical. But I remember getting one as a kid in the 80s. I wish I could have learned how to play it. But yeah, so you mentioned the mood cookbook. That was the one where you guys were the spacesuits, right?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 34:47

Yeah, that was my partner Brian key here was a duo we had during the Imperial drag

Chuck Shute: 34:52

days. It was okay. I love Imperial drag to do Daft Punk. Did they rip those spacesuit thing that they ripped that off from us? I just quit. So don't you think?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 35:00

I have no proof of that. But do you know the French banned air? No. So the French banned air was an instrumental group. And they had a little bit of both was mostly instrumental. They came out in the late 90s. Same time Daft Punk did. Okay, that was what a lot of the world was paying attention to French pop music. That was how they were kind of having a renaissance, a lot of cool and a lot of dance stuff. But air air wasn't really dance. There's a lot of synth oriented music anyway, we became friends with them. In fact, to the point where we we toured me, my friend, Brian and Moog cookbook, and some other gentlemen, we were the backup band for air who were French guys. When we we toured the states and toured Europe in 1998, promoting their first album, which was on Virgin Records, it did very, very well for them. Anyway, so we got to know them very well. And they told us that the Daft Punk guys did not put their masks on until we played Moog cookbook for them. Really, now, perfectly clear. Is not the first band to do that. There were bands in the 70s that were spacesuits, we didn't know about them. We found out when the internet started getting more popular, and you could do research and YouTube started having those videos. We discovered oh my god, there was this disco band from France. In the 70s called they were called space. look him up right now. They were spacesuits with space helmets. Okay, we didn't they never did any business in America. Yeah, we've seen their record. So we didn't know. So I'm not accusing Daft Punk of ripping us off. I'm just saying. It was it was in the air. And the timing is very interesting. And the air said they weren't doing that until mu cookbook came out. He

Chuck Shute: 36:54

may have inspired them in some ways. Yeah.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 36:59

I love that band. And that's fucking compliment if they if they were inspired by our space outfit. Well, there

Chuck Shute: 37:05

must have been a lot of bands that you've I mean, the black crows loved you enough to take you on tour when you're in jellyfish. for six weeks. It was like during the peak of their success. Right. And you guys had not really broken. I think you had just come out and they were like, Yeah, we're taking this band. That's a huge compliment. There must be tons more like stories like that, right?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 37:25

Oh, that was a goddamn miracle. I mean, we are indebted to those guys to this day. I'm still friendly with them. I don't see them very often. But I spoken to Steve Gorman. And last year Chris Robinson, his brother. Yeah, that was an incredible gift to come into contact with them. World party had us open for them. Tears for Fears had us open for them. There have been scattered things here and there. In the brief time jellyfish tour. Wonderful compliments from people we might

Chuck Shute: 37:59

Yeah, what was it like to worry with Tears for Fears because you weren't you grew up with that band like you were fans of them as, as an 80s.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 38:07

It was it was great in that not only did I enjoy the music, they were still making it that time, or at that point they'd broken up it was just rolling. Just wanted one of the two original members. And you know, got to tell them to their face. Thank you for all the great music. Thank you for inspiring me wanting to be in this business at all.

Chuck Shute: 38:31

Yeah, no, that's really cool. I heard you say, speaking of inspiration. So you were going to music school? It was it was it? It was next to the Lucas Art and Art and Film School or was this all one school combined?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 38:44

No, it was at USC. And I'm sorry, I'm just looking at the clock. I can make sure I'm off in 10 minutes.

Chuck Shute: 38:48

Oh, okay. Sure. Just yeah, just 10 minutes, we'll make sure you're off. Yeah, no, I just remember you saying that. The people from the film school part of that had the best ideas and they had the best parties. And that was the most that was more inspiring. Because the music people were all classically CIT trained and very by the book, whereas the film people were more free. I guess.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 39:08

You nailed it. I mean, nothing wrong with the musicians at USC film school. It's just they were a little bit more by the book a little more uniform. And meanwhile, the film school which just happened to be physically located all of its buildings next to next to the music school. And I had roommates who were in the film school. I found I was hanging out at third parties. They were the ones putting together college rock party bands. They were the ones turning me on to music that I didn't know about. They were the ones turning me on to film and visual stuff that I didn't know about. They were the ones being hired to make low budget videos for local music bands. So it was just like, wow, it's way more interesting over here with these freaks. You know, my mind is being opened up more by them than anybody Get the music school. That's all. Yeah. So

Chuck Shute: 40:03

whatever happened to that? Yeah, that's cool. Did any of those guys go on to make cool movies or TV shows or anything like that?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 40:11

Oh, both of my roommates who were roommates in mind for at least three of the four years I was in college. I've got one is basically focused much more on television, Steve Turner. He's been with HBO forever. I mean, he was he was Martin Scorsese's right hand man on Boardwalk Empire three years ago. Nice is his his career list of projects would blow your mind when this was like, you know, I go to parties get drunk with and wish we could have the courage to go talk to that girl standing over in the corner of the room, you know, and we were totally like, just partners together. The roommate became one of the most to this day. He's one of most successful screenwriters in Los Angeles. He has named David S. Goyer. He did Batman Returns, he did a lot of the superhero movies. One of his main jobs from his main jobs is he's kind of like the script, emergency repair me. So say that film is in Australia, or New Zealand, on this big budget production. And they're filming according to this screenplay, right. But they've run into some financial or logistical situation that they couldn't afford and seeing, well met, you're halfway through the film, you can't just stop you got to fix the challenge. The challenge may involve rewriting some of the screenplay, like how are we going to get ourselves out of this mess, it's got to have continuity, right, we need to bring in the professional. So he may get flown in New Zealand to start talking to the director, the heads of the studio, here's the assignment, here's what I think we should do. I'm going to go away for a week and see if I can't write you guys out of this shitstorm that you've gotten yourself into? I don't have to tell you, there's not too many script surgeons in Los Angeles, you know, who are equipped to do that? That's got to be a tough job. Yeah. So he's really risen through the ranks of his profession in a way that none of us could have foreseen back then. And you know, interestingly enough, that gentleman was the guy that spent money on the most clever, eccentric weirdo records. We were all in college he loved like Australian pop records, and a lot of underground stuff that none of us knew about. And he would buy these records. We'd like what the hell is what is this? You know, and he was, you would turn us on to a lot of music.

Chuck Shute: 42:35

That's awesome. I love that kind of stuff. And musician. That's funny. Yeah, that's the that's like me, I can't play music, but I love music. And I love it's funny. You bring up movies, because I think the same thing with like licorice quartet and jellyfish. There's a lot of like, mainstream stuff that I'm like, it just sounds the same, and then want to hear that kind of stuff. I go, Oh, this is awesome. And it's the same with the indie movies. Like, I'll watch movies, and I go, Oh, this every movie is the same. And then I'll find this amazing indie movie that I'm like, blown away at the plot and the acting and no one's heard of it. And it's so frustrating.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 43:05

Yeah, you have to dig. I have to dig harder than ever now to find new music that inspires me. Yeah. But you know, and it's worth it when you did.

Chuck Shute: 43:14

Yeah, there's so much out of them. And that's one of the reasons I do the podcast expose people to all the good stuff that they're they're not aware

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 43:20

of, but they should be. Thank you in advance. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 43:24

My massive audience of like, 200 people or whatever, but

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 43:28

their podcasts keep growing and they get bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, that's the people love these private environments. Oh, I love I love doing it belong to a club.

Chuck Shute: 43:37

Yeah, I want to have insert in studio and a few years, eventually, eventually, that's going to be the goal. Now you guys gonna tour? I think I asked Eric this. And he was like, Oh, I don't think so. Because it's just hard to tour is licorice quartet? Or would you do some one off shows? Because I think that's the thing now is like people do these flying dates. And I think they told me like somebody told me that they don't even bring their own drum so they can fly in and they just use the drums at the casino.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 44:03

Well, that, certainly. And with drums, you can do that. Yes, different guitars.

Chuck Shute: 44:09

Could you you could fit a keyboard on a plane, right? Yeah, carry on. But you could check it.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 44:14

But so the only thing that you're talking about that would prevent licorice quartet tomorrow from doing even like a mini tour of the states. And shows.

Chuck Shute: 44:25

I'll come out and see Yeah,

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 44:26

it's all money. So we have we would have to have some machine involved that says if you play this small club in Ohio, for X amount of people, I can I can guarantee those ticket sales. Then you will put this much in your pocket which pays all your expenses to rehearse not only yourself but the other band members. You're going to have to pay to be in your band because you're only three people. Get yourselves out to the show. Put everybody up in a hotel, pay a crew to help you with all your luggage All your heavy equipment, I mean, you start getting into this logistics list. That is crazy. At the end of the day you go, guys, we're actually going to make some money, we're going to go out, we're going to rehearse, for, you know, a month, do the tour, blah, blah, this is going to be about a three months thing, this much money is going to come in or should come in should much money is gonna go out, well, we already know it's gonna go out that that's guaranteed. Versus over three months, at the end of the day, we're probably going to make money, you probably gonna go home with that you divide that by three people November, you probably go home with about 1500 bucks, maybe $2,000 in your pocket, if you're lucky. And we go. Is $2,000 worth three months?

Chuck Shute: 45:43

Oh, that'd be for the whole three months.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 45:48

Now maybe more like, we're lucky, we probably would lose money. Well, maybe a better option

Chuck Shute: 45:53

would be either playing some of those festive those giant festivals where there's like 100 bands or something and they pay they think they pay everybody well, or, or some like

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 46:04

they pay people well, at the top. And then towards the bottom. You're lucky to be even getting invited. Well damn it. So So I'm not saying there's not ways to do this. For example, if some somebody came to us tomorrow and said, I'm putting together the Beach Boys cruise, and I want you guys to be one of the opening acts on the Beach Boys cruise, and it's going to be whatever it is all I want to know about. Now, obviously that will be fun to play for Beach Boys fans who might know jellyfish want to hear pop music, one of your vocals, harmonies, I already know the audience is going to be cool. They're going to be into it. That's great. All I really want to know is what is my guarantee for the three of us. Because then that's gonna tell us the promoter that's just going to put it all together the promoter for the for the pop cruise, the powerpop Cruise is going to be able to guarantee us X amount of dollars. And then I look at Tim and Eric and we discussed, here's all the work we have to do to take these very involved songs that we've given the public and try to recreate them live, including rehearsal. Dude, I can't even remember the lyrics to my own song. A million things. So I don't spend time memorizing my lyrics. Right? So there's gonna be a time investment, all that stuff. And then me and Eric and Tim go the promoters Garrett guaranteeing X amount of dollars in our pocket, we go home with X amount. Is it worth all the work in time for that amount of money? Gotcha. Well, that person hasn't shown up and there's no power group powerpop crews going out as far as I know. And they're not knocking on our door.

Chuck Shute: 47:41

Well, I have faith I have a feeling that someone's gonna either the new Black Crowes type of band is gonna want to take you on the road or festival. something's gonna happen. I have a five faith, it's gonna I'm gonna see you guys live. I know it. But I know you gotta get out of here. So my last thing?

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 47:54

Was that a love your faith? Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 47:57

Because you guys are so good. Um, is there a charity that you want to promote here? I was promoted, chaired at the end as just, you know, some quick shout out to cause that is near and dear to your heart.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 48:09

I don't have any specific. But for God's sakes, everybody pay as much attention politically as you can. Particularly if you're like me from the past, you didn't pay attention to politics, you didn't give a damn right? The country is up for being sold out. And we have to pay attention to this. And the best way to this day. Obviously, we can protest and make our voices heard peaceful protests, but voting in the midterms coming up and then voting locally. Anytime something's happening locally, on city state. Now more than ever, you basically have no choice. If you if you don't participate and get your voice heard. The country will be sold.

Chuck Shute: 48:52

Yeah. Okay. registered to vote. Let's get people to do that. Because I think it's always weird when I see these election results. And they're like, Yeah, only 40% of the country voted. And I'm like, why did why would you not vote? I don't understand.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 49:02

It's so bizarre, but okay. That's what I said when I found that.

Chuck Shute: 49:05

Yeah, it's crazy. So Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna gotta get running. So appreciate you doing this. And everybody gets a new licorice quartet stuff. It's amazing.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: 49:13

This has been great. Chuck, thank you for your time. All right. Moving on your show. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 49:17

Thank you. All right, talk to you later. Bye. Roger Joseph Manning JR. He's one of those creative geniuses that is really good at expressing himself and explaining his outlook on things. Some guys are just quiet geniuses. But Roger is just so interesting to talk to definitely the type of guy you'd want to talk to at a party and I wish we had more time. But hopefully we're gonna have him back on. So check out the new liquors quartet, their music, and if you haven't already, make sure to do a deep dive and check out some of his old stuff jelly fish, Imperial drag his solo stuff, and make sure to follow Roger and the licorice quartet on social media. And then check out my podcast page on Instagram or Tiktok for short clips, and I'll post the full All episodes of the show on Facebook and Twitter. Or if you just subscribe to the show on Spotify or YouTube or wherever you listen, you can cut out the middleman that way. So your downloads, listens, likes, comments, shares, all that stuff that helps support the show and help the show grow. We don't have a large corporation backing us up right now. So this is all just grassroots. So any help you can give us to help the show is greatly appreciated. Have a great rest of your day and remember to shoot for the moon