Chuck Shute Podcast
In depth interviews with musicians, comedians, authors, actors, and more! Guests on the show include David Duchovny, Billy Bob Thornton, Mark Normand, Dee Snider, Ann Wilson, Tony Horton, Don Dokken, Jack Carr and many more.
Chuck Shute Podcast
Nicholas Niespodziani from Yacht Rock Revue Talks New Album, Opening for Train & REO Speedwagon, & more!
Chuck Shute interviews Nicholas Niespodziani from Yacht Rock Revue, a band that opened for Train and REO Speedwagon. Nick discusses the band's unique yacht rock covers and their energetic, fun-filled performances. The band emphasizes attention to detail and musicianship, playing songs at a faster tempo they call "cocaine tempo." They've been influenced by Train's audience engagement and have plans to escalate their own audience interaction. The band has a new double album, "Escape Artist," featuring original songs with a yacht rock vibe. They've toured with notable acts like Kenny Loggins and Eddie Money, and their guitarist, Mark, has an impressive resume, including stints with Butch Walker and Skid Row.
00:00 - Intro
00:21 - Initial Impressions
01:29 - Energy & Performance Style
03:41 - Band Members & Vocal Impressions
04:15 - Tour with Train & Other Artists
07:15 - Future of Yacht Rock & Original Artists
08:53 - Headlining Shows & Original Music
12:24 - New Album & Songwriting Process
18:47 - Background & Influences
22:00 - Upcoming Shows & Tour Pranks
24:30 - Guitarist Mark & Final Thoughts
31:09 - Outro
Yacht Rock Revue website:
https://www.yachtrockrevue.com/
Chuck Shute link tree:
https://linktr.ee/chuck_shute
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Rock and rolling through the cool guitars. Chucks got the questions, digging so sharp, peeling back layers, hitting the heart.
Chuck Shute:So yeah, thank you so much for doing this. Uh, I saw you guys because you came to Phoenix and you opened up for train and re Well, actually, REO Speedwagon didn't come. So it's just you guys got, did you guys get an extended show on that one?
Nicholas Niespodziani:We played a little bit longer, you know, without REO there, and we had to pay a little tribute to REO In addition, obviously, right?
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that was fun, yeah? Because so my brother's his wife's sister is married to Pat from train. So my brother's like, he calls me the day of, and he's like, Hey, do you want to go to the train concert? And I was like, oh, okay, sure. And so I didn't even, I don't know if I even knew you guys were the opening act or whatever, but I'm glad we got there early, because I started here. We were backstage, and I started hearing the band. I was like, Wow, that sounds really good. Let's, let's go check those guys out. And then we came over, and I was like, Oh, you blew me away. I was like, wow, I gotta have this guy on my podcast. He's awesome, nice.
Nicholas Niespodziani:That's kind of the story of our entire summer. You know, we're out there with these two legendary bands. And anybody who gets there early, they kind of hear some smooth sounds coming from the stage. They're like, Wait, what is that? And hopefully we want them. Won a bunch of them over, like we did you. That was the idea,
Chuck Shute:yeah, because it's like, I mean, you just think, like, on the surface, it's like, okay, it's a band that does yacht rock songs, like, okay, whatever. But it's just something about the energy the songs you're picking, and then the the performance, you know, you've got the costumes, you've got the it's a fun show. It's not, you're not just going through the motions like you're actually making it like a party.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Yeah, I think that's a really I mean, the party aspect is a huge part of it, right? Like the vibe of yacht rock, you can't just play the songs. But the other part of yacht rock is that this music was made by elite musicians, like the best session players of the era were the guys who were in these yacht rock bands. And that's the part that we try to really pay tribute to, is is having that attention to detail with the musician's chip, and that intensity of approach, you know, I think that comes across in in kind of how you're describing it. Well, that's
Chuck Shute:exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, too, because it wasn't just the performance. I mean, the notes, everything is spot on. Or if it's not spot on, you play it a little faster, a little like, more rocking, but like, you're not, like, missing the note. You know what I mean? Like, if you see some of some of these original acts, you'll see them now it's not going to sound as good as the way you guys do it. It's the energy. It's all it's almost, it's perfect, but in a fun, energetic kind of way. And yeah, it sounds as good as the originals, if not better, because you've kind of, it's, does it seem like? Because to me, it seems like you've kind of sped up the time a little bit.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Definitely, we play them all at what we call cocaine tempo. That is very intentional, because it brings more energy to it, you know. I mean, that's how we've been, you know, since our origins in a dive bar basement, we've always tried to bring some of that rock and roll energy to these soft rock songs. And that kind of cognitive disconnect almost is part of what makes it really work.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, and who's the now, remind me again, because the band is like, it's a big band, it's multiple people, but you've got that one guy, I think, is your bass player that does the, he does the Michael McDonald voice, and he nails it. He killed, which is not easy to do, but he kills that Michael McDonald sound.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Yeah, that was me, actually. But is
Chuck Shute:it you that does that? Okay? I'm trying to remember, yeah,
Nicholas Niespodziani:that's okay. I don't mind, yeah, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Daryl Hall, like all these guys, are very difficult guys to sing, you know. And you want to sing in their style without doing a caricature or a pastiche of it, you know. You want to pay tribute without, you know, edging into making fun, because that's not what we're about at all,
Chuck Shute:no. But so did you like when you look because it's interesting, like I've seen train several times over the years, and I feel like this time was the most fun that they put into their set. I felt like every other song had some sort of gimmick, whether it was beach balls or confetti or selfies or they always did something like every other song, there was some sort of gimmick. Did you kind of take some of that, those ideas, and kind of throw it into yacht rock review, like, hey, train's doing this. We should do something like that. Man,
Nicholas Niespodziani:don't give away my whole 2025, tour here, we just spent, we just spent two and a half months on the road with the guys who do it. The best that you can do it. What you just described, like, train makes it so fun for. Fans to be at the show. And of course, you know, all the songs, and they're amazing. And of course, the musicians are amazing, but they keep the focus on the audience, which you know, when you experience that with a band on tour, seeing them, you know, controlling the power of their audience in that way, night in and night out, like we were taking notes all summer. And we're definitely and we that's always been our approach, but it's going to be escalated next year after seeing those guys do it. Yeah.
Chuck Shute:Now, how did they? How did you get hooked up with them in the first place? I know you played the what is it called, the sail around the sun, or sail across the sun cruise with them, and so is that the first time you got connected with them?
Nicholas Niespodziani:It was on a cruise. Yeah, the first cruise that we did together was the VH one, best cruise ever. Oh, they were the headliner, but it wasn't like the train cruise yet at that point, and we were one of the bands on it, and they came to see us on that cruise, and immediately were just like, yes, these guys, and we, of course, were like, Wow, a train. And then when they got their own cruise, they invited us on it. You know, they've had us do other things with them throughout the years, and it's just a real honor that they have taken a shine to us and let us go out on tour with them.
Chuck Shute:Yeah? Because that's not very common for these big headlining acts to have a, I don't know what you call yourself, a tribute band, a cover band, an eras band, I don't know what, but this is, it's not very common. Usually they'd want to get somebody who's got a couple original artists with a couple hits or something, right? Yeah, yeah,
Nicholas Niespodziani:it's pretty unprecedented. But, I mean, it goes back to what you spoke about earlier in that they make it fun for their fans. When they were talking about this tour, I mean, describing their decision to us, they said, you know, we wanted to make this the most possible fun that our tour could be. As far as an opener, when we looked at all of our other options and then looked at you guys, the choice was clear. I mean, it's, it's a in the music business. It's an edgy choice for them to make, yeah, for the audience, it's not an edgy choice at all. The audience loves it. So I think it worked out pretty well for everybody. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:do you think that's kind of the future of some of this music? Because, again, I go back to some of these original artists are out there, and they're trying to play the songs, and they can't play them as well as a younger band, such as yourselves. And also, since you're not the original artist, you don't have, you don't just have the, you know, three or two or even sometimes one hit. You can play a variety. I think I heard you say there's three or 400 songs that you know, so you can just play all the hits and you guys kill it. So isn't that better than seeing the original artist who doesn't sound as good?
Nicholas Niespodziani:Yeah, I feel like we maybe kind of, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. What we did right? Because we found this, this way of putting a show together and a performance together that is just like crack for people in the audience, because you know every word, yeah to every song, but it can still be surprising, because it's not like you know when you go see hollow notes, you know every word every song, but you can know which songs are coming right? Yes, when you see us, it could be anything. So there's that excitement, or, like rediscovery, if we do something a little bit deep, but pretty much, you know, all the words, it brings back all these memories, and it's getting performed by people that are consummate professionals and consummate performers. I mean, I feel like that. That kind of combination of things is something that an original artist can't even compete with unless you're like, Billie Eilish or train, right? You know, yeah, unless,
Chuck Shute:or, you know, I guess if you really loved, like, if you really love Kenny Loggins, and you like the deep cuts or whatever, then you guys are probably not going to do like, a bunch of Kenny Loggins deep cuts. But, yeah, I mean, I personally love the variety. Like you said, I think it's crack for the audience, like they're just like, I mean, like I said, I was in the back and I was at the bar and I started hearing the songs. I go, Wow, that sounds really good. I kind of want to check these guys out. I'm glad I did, because it was amazing. And I highly recommend anybody to see whether you're opening or headlining. I'd love to see you headline, because how long do you play for a headlining set.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Oh, that's more than two hours. Yeah, we were, that's what we do. We've only ever opened. This summer, we opened for training reo. And then last summer, we did about 20 shows with Kenny Loggins, opening for him. But up until that point, we had only ever headlined our own shows. That was it. Okay.
Chuck Shute:Didn't you do a couple shows with Richard marks as well. Oh, we
Nicholas Niespodziani:did on the in that same tour we did with Kenny, yeah? Okay, when we were out the Richard had us on a couple shows as well. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:that's awesome, yeah. So you get to see these legends up close to like, and then do you do like the Kenny loggin song when you're opening for him, or do you just leave all the. Is his songs for himself.
Nicholas Niespodziani:We definitely left them all to Kenny, but we did. We did find a song that he wasn't playing on in his tour, and we came up with our own version of it. It's a song that he and Michael McDonald wrote called, I gotta try. And he wasn't playing that in his set. And so we were like, Hey, would it be cool if we, you know, did this song at the final show in Santa Barbara, when he was having Michael McDonald and Kevin Bacon and all these special guests out. Wow. And he's like, he's like, Yeah, but I want to watch, I want to watch you play it in sound check first. And so in Los Angeles, the night before, we're, like, doing this version of I gotta try for Kenny Loggins, like, auditioning to be able to open up for him playing one of the songs he wrote. And at the end of it, he was like, yep, that's awesome. You guys can do it. It was pretty cool. That's very
Chuck Shute:cool. Do you do you do the song? Because I don't think Kenny, well, I saw Kenny Loggins, like, I don't know, like, 1015, years ago, but I don't think he did the song playing with the boys from Top Gun. Do you have you guys ever done that song?
Nicholas Niespodziani:No, but I want to he was not doing that one, really, on this tour, which was kind of a bummer. I love that song. I don't even
Chuck Shute:think he did Danger Zone, which I was like, how do you not play danger zone? I don't think he did it when I saw him, which was crazy. He definitely did
Nicholas Niespodziani:it on his final tour. Definitely did it on the tour. Was that
Unknown:his final tour?
Nicholas Niespodziani:It was, yeah. Oh, wow, yeah. I mean, he still is going to do shows here and there, but he's not doing full on tour again. Yeah, he's 75 Sure.
Chuck Shute:Do you guys have to pay some sort of royalty when you perform covers how? I don't know how that works. The
Nicholas Niespodziani:venues pay the royalties. So if you stream one of our songs on Spotify, for example, like one of our cover songs, uh, then that just automatically gets taken out. The Songwriter percentage gets taken out by Spotify. When we play live, each of these venues has to pay the performing arts societies a fee that cover all the songs that are played in their venue. You know, because train does covers too, right? Or, like lots of bands do covers, and it's, it's the responsibility of the venue to to pay for that.
Chuck Shute:So do they do? They don't pass that along and Bill you. They just play a flat rate for the year or something. Or they pay
Nicholas Niespodziani:a flat rate for a year. And, I mean, you know, the like when train plays a train song, you know, Pat gets money from that through the songwriting society that really paid Yeah, definitely 100%
Chuck Shute:Interesting. Okay, so then let's talk about so you guys have this new album, though, which is really cool. So you did originals that sound similar to yacht rock. It's a, this is a double album and just came out. It's called Escape Artist, and it's awesome. Like like these songs sound like those. They fit right into your set. How many originals do you do? I think you did at least one. When you open for train,
Nicholas Niespodziani:yeah, when we are playing shows, we generally just do one or two originals, because we know what people came for. We're just hoping that we can slide in some of our music and make some new memories with them, you know. And I think on some of the songs, it works, like this summer, the song that we were playing for the most part, it was called Tropical illusion, and we wrote it with the guy that wrote brandy, you're a fine girl. And so it's, it's like a legit yacht rock song, and the whole audience gets to play in the shakers with me. And it's pretty fun. It works,
Chuck Shute:yeah? Okay, that's yeah, because when I listen to the album, I recognize that song, and it's probably because I heard it over the summer. That one was really good. I like the what is it called San Junipero every night, like tonight, that's really catchy.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Thanks. Yeah, that one's fun. That's, like, the kind of disco number on the album. We had fun with that one, yeah.
Chuck Shute:And then, like, the song, I love that, how you have a song called bad decisions, and then the next song is called worst decisions.
Nicholas Niespodziani:That's the it's the jam after the bad decisions, we were in the studio and the song was over, we kind of got into this little instrumental jam afterwards, and everybody just kind of contributed. And we knew bad decisions was going to be one of the singles, so we didn't want to include it in the song. We were like, we'll just make it, you know, just chop it right there and call it worst decisions.
Chuck Shute:That's awesome. Yeah, the Lyric, I love the lyric. I'm making does bad decisions, but they don't really affect me, making bad decisions, waiting for you to correct me. I'm like, Oh, I love that. What inspired that lyric? Well,
Nicholas Niespodziani:I was thinking about, like, the idea of behaving badly to get attention, because it's something that I do. It's something my kids do. It was something that at the time, a person very close to me was doing a lot, and that can like be for a variety of reasons and come from a variety of different places. It can be entitlement, it can be obliviousness. You know, there are all sorts of different ways that that behavior can show. Itself, and that's kind of what the song is about. And kind of just giving everybody, you know, when you're honest about it, and saying, Yeah, I make bad decisions, like, it kind of gives everybody license to not be so hard on themselves about it. You know, yeah, I take on. Do you? Would
Chuck Shute:you play those ones live occasionally? Like, are you going to mix up the originals? Is it always just going to be like you said you did tropical illusion. You'll probably just do the same original song every time. We'll
Nicholas Niespodziani:probably mix it up some in 2025 brings Yeah, flavors to the table. Yeah. Well,
Chuck Shute:that's cool. And then I think, I don't know if there was multiple covers, but I know steal away is a cover, and that's a very different version. You've got one of the the female vocalists in your in your group, doing that, and I think as a ukulele it's really cool.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Yeah, it's just me on Courtney, me on ukulele and Courtney singing. And then I had our keyboard player, Ben Kuya, was using his synthesizer and creating, like the synthesizer waves in the background. I don't know if you might not be able to tell, but we were trying to make it sound like it's just Courtney and I out on a beach. Oh, I
Chuck Shute:have to listen closer. Yeah, I didn't notice those. But there is some fun sound effects throughout the album. I feel like that. It's like synthesizers and like, you can tell, I mean, it does have a very cool yacht rock vibe. I don't know how else to describe it. It's very, very like the fun, you know, like, even the bad decisions, it's got that kind of, like fun bass line and stuff, like, just fun jams, like four in the mornings kind of a jam song, and it's just got a fun, kind of easy party vibe, I don't know,
Nicholas Niespodziani:yeah, I mean, we were having a really fun time making it because we, we had this studio, and we had all of our synthesizers set up, like in a giant circle, and we use all in, you know, when you're touring, you use modern synthesizers because they don't break. But in the studio, we were using, like the legit old like Prophet and Moog synthesizers that they used on these yacht rock albums. And I think that kind of synthesizer fun you're hearing is because we were actually having so much fun playing with these old instruments. Oh, that's
Chuck Shute:awesome. So how did you write the songs? Did you write them all separate, or did you write them as a band together? Or
Nicholas Niespodziani:variety of different processes, some of them like bad decisions. I wrote all myself and brought in and said, Here's how the song goes. But San Junipero, the other one that we talked about, monkey boy, our guitar player had one section, and then I came up with another section, and then knackers, our drummer said, Oh, I've got the verse to that. And so, you know, it was a very collaborative process. We we didn't go in with like, a preconceived notion of, like, this is what the album is going to be. We were kind of just letting the creativity show itself in the process. And it was really fun. That's
Chuck Shute:so cool. Yeah. So it was recorded at this studio or and it was produced by, was it one of Zach Brown Band, one of the member from that band? Right?
Nicholas Niespodziani:Yes. We made it at our friend John Hopkins studio, and he, he's the low, low guy on, like tonight on San Junipero. He's the guy doing that vocal, okay? But actually, I produced the album,
Unknown:but it's his studio, right? Or, yeah, he,
Nicholas Niespodziani:we had done some studio work for him. We actually played on and produced an entire Christmas album for him. And as a trade, he said, Well, you guys can just use my studio to make your next album. And I said, Okay, sounds great,
Chuck Shute:nice. So what does he do with Zach Brown? Is he the drummer, guitarist, or
Nicholas Niespodziani:he was the bass player for a while, but now he's kind of like multi instrumentalist, and back in vocals, he plays a lot of guitar and sings a lot.
Chuck Shute:That's cool. So I don't know. I want to talk about your guitarist, Mark, but before we get to him, I don't know, what is your background before this band? You must have come from something else, right? What did you do before this?
Nicholas Niespodziani:Peter, the other singer, and I had an indie rock band called y, o, u here in Atlanta that was, like, not very successful. I mean, you know, we got a song on a coke commercial and did some touring, but never really, like, like, made it, made it. You know, we kind of whatever we're struggling along, and this club gave us every Thursday night to do anything we want. And you know, I was in law school because I was like, I'm not going to make it as a musician. I'm just going to go to law school. And you know, everybody was kind of splintering off to do different things. And then we were doing these Thursday nights at this club, and it one of the shows was yacht rock, and it blew up. And next thing you know, we're quitting school and quitting jobs and buying bands and becoming a yacht rock band. It was not on purpose.
Chuck Shute:Wow, that's crazy. It kind of reminds me of Steel Panther, because it's kind of a similar path, like those guys were in other bands. It didn't work out, so then they just did this, like kind of tribute cover band of. 80s rock for fun. And I think they played, I think it was the key club back then, or whatever it was, and they had like a residency, kind of in LA and then it just got this, like, huge following. And now, I mean, they're, yeah, they're touring, they're opening up for Judas Priest and all sorts of big bands, and it's kind of a similar path. Do you think of yourselves? Is that a kind of a version of that funny?
Nicholas Niespodziani:You should mention it. I love Steel Panther. I saw them back in the day when they had that Key Club residency, because when we were when we started out, and we started to see, like, right around the time I was quitting school, or like, Okay, this is what we're doing now. So we need to see who's doing it the best. And Steel Panther was definitely doing it the best. So we went out, saw them, took notes. I mean, those guys are incredible, huge fan.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I just love because I've seen them, I don't even know, like, maybe 20 or 30 times I've dragged my girlfriend, just, I've dragged my friends, like, I just, like, you got to see this show. It's so fun. And I think what's so cool about them is, like, every time you see him, it's different. Like, it's never usually the same set list. And it used to be more covers, and now it's like a lot more originals, but the the banter in between is always different, which I always wondered, do they rehearse that at all, or is it just completely made up? Because it's always different, and they know they always come up with original stuff.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Man, they've got they've come up with good characters. And when you when you have a good character, know how to play it, then the improvising gets a lot easier,
Chuck Shute:is that something you thought of doing like characters and doing banter in between
Nicholas Niespodziani:at our headlining shows, there's a lot more banter. When you saw us opening for train, you know, we were on a strict 45 minute set list, so no time for messing around. So, yeah, usually we're making jokes and hanging out. It's a lot more loose. But when you have 45 minutes to make an impression, you can't spend five of it improvising about the lady in the third row, you know?
Chuck Shute:Okay, well, that's cool. Definitely have to check you out on the headlining set. Because I think you're coming to Phoenix and playing the Van Buren on St Patrick's Day, which is the day after my birthday. So I might try to make that that could be or and I think you're playing Vegas like the next day. So I'm like, either one of those could be epic shows.
Nicholas Niespodziani:The Van Buren is awesome. I love that place. Yeah? So much fun playing there. It's really quite cool.
Chuck Shute:That is a cool venue, yeah, so it's funny, like, when you played with training Phoenix, was that the last show of the tour? Because I, I'm told that the last show of the tour, there's always some sort of prank or something. And I think you guys dressed up as, like, Halloween, I think somebody dressed up as a banana or something, you came out and kind of crashed. Want to train songs, right?
Nicholas Niespodziani:We did. We did that was a bit we were excited about that. We we had the monkey boy, our guitar player. Had the idea that they have these giant suitcases on stage, and so we need to come out dressed as things that are in a suitcase. And so, I mean, I don't think anybody, zero people, got what we were doing. Oh yeah, right. I mean, because it was like a giant toothpaste or something,
Chuck Shute:and it was a
Nicholas Niespodziani:toothpaste and a toothbrush, and there were some a pair of flip flops, I was a loot. I was a loofah, like, we were all like, different things that you might pack in your suitcase.
Chuck Shute:I didn't get that. But now that you say it, that's actually brilliant. It's like, too smart for me.
Nicholas Niespodziani:And the train. Guys were all like, what is this? What are you even doing? Like that? It had to be explained to them afterwards, too. They just were like, You guys are weird, no,
Chuck Shute:but it makes sense now that you say that thing. Because I was like, why is it a toothpaste? I don't I don't understand that makes sense. It would be something in the giant suitcase, which, yeah, that would actually be really smart, but too smart for me.
Nicholas Niespodziani:What we found out later, though, is that, you know, REO wasn't on that show, but Kevin Cronin had planned to do a tour prank on us, where he asked us to play role with the changes. And so we're like, all right, man, if you want us to, and we start playing, and he was going to come out in his bathrobe and like, be like, no, no, you guys gotta stop. What is this? His road manager told us he had this planned, and then, you know, he ended up getting sick and not being able to do it. It was such a drag. That would have been so awesome.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, yeah, that's it sucks, because I didn't get to see REO at all. But that was cool that you guys got a longer set, because I was really I was loving your set. I was having a great time. Sing along. Having a good time is a lot of fun.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Thanks. Thanks. It was fun for us too. That was an incredible tour. Yeah.
Chuck Shute:Oh, but, yeah. So going back to I wanted to ask about your guitarist, Mark. I mean, just to explain to the audience, like the lever level of musicians that are in this band. I mean, this is a guy who who's played with Butch Walker, who I love. And if people don't know who he is, you got to Google him, because he's played with every played with everybody. He was on a skid row record, which is one of my favorite bands of all time, and actually filled in for snake during a brief hiatus. And he had, I read that he had invitations to audition for Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Nicholas Niespodziani:Uh, yeah, all true he, I mean, he's that kind of player. He's from, you know, he's a Berkeley guy, total music nerd, and his original, like, lane of choice was heavy metal. But you'd be surprised how many uh, dovetails there are between yacht rock and heavy metal. Like heavy metal dudes always love yacht rock because of the musicianship and precision that is required to play it, you know. And that's why monkey boy fits our band so well. He'll, he'll put a little, like, heavy metal pinch harmonic in the solo, like he'll, he'll put some little metal elements in just to show him off. But, but, man, he's a great player. He's fun. That's
Chuck Shute:awesome. Yeah, I can't wait to see a longer set because so you said three or 400 songs and you'll just mix it up. Is it do you choose the set list ahead of time? Or is it just like, whatever you feel like, you just say, hey, let's play this song and then everybody knows it.
Nicholas Niespodziani:No, it's not really. I mean, every now and then we'll call an audible like that. But these days, we usually get like, 50 or 60 songs ready for a tour, you know, and like, so there will be songs that we'll play this summer that we weren't playing at all last summer. And the same, you know, holds true every year, but we'll, we'll kind of have a few like, at the forefront of the brain, and be trading those out each year. That's something I learned from from being out with train and reo, is that the consistency, like there are some songs we do play every night, and the consistency of that, and the way you're able to deliver the performance when you're doing it that way, you can, you can just give people what they want in a lot more pure form when you're having some consistency, as opposed to just winging it every night. What's
Chuck Shute:the most like obscure song that you guys do that just, it's just, it's a cover, but you guys maybe wasn't a huge hit, but you guys love it, man,
Nicholas Niespodziani:let me think about that. Maybe answering machine by Rupert Holmes, or Key Largo, by can't even think of his name now, you know Key Largo? We had it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't do a lot of super deep ones. The thing about yacht rock is, like, there are so many hits, so many songs that people know, like, we can keep in the top 40 and still have hundreds of songs to choose from.
Chuck Shute:Oh yeah, for sure. So what you guys played with Eddie money before he passed? What was he like? Because I've kind of heard that he's kind of a character, like, he's a funny guy, or he was rest in peace
Nicholas Niespodziani:dude. He was, I love you, Eddie. He was amazing. I'm looking in my studio. I have a record that he signed for me up on, like, like, Eddie was an amazing dude, like, the kindest, funniest guy. And he's one of these guys where, like, when you meet him, he's just like the guy you see on TV. He is that guy. It's not an act. He is that guy. And he calls me up. He's like, I never talked to him before. He calls me up on my phone. He's like, Nikki baby, hey, how you doing this? Eddie? I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about this set, and here's how we're gonna do it. I'm thinking we go in, you know, with two tickets. We hit him hard with two tickets, right? Like, he just goes at you, like that, with that kind of energy, like, he showed up to the first rehearsal he ever did with us, and he comes flying through the back curtain. He's like, Hey, does anybody have a Tums? Like, like, he's that guy. He was amazing.
Chuck Shute:Was he? Because I interview a lot of musicians and, like, rock stars and stuff, and I feel like they all go through this thing where they, like, they're young, and they party, and they go crazy, and they do a bunch of drugs and alcohol, and then they sober up, and then there's, they're dead sober. But wasn't he still drinking, like, up until his death, or like he was, I don't he was, like, doing drugs, but he was still drinking,
Nicholas Niespodziani:right? I think he was sober. I know I never saw him drink. Okay? I think he, I think he had to get sober to Oh, he did, okay, yeah, I think I could be wrong on that. Maybe
Chuck Shute:he was just his personality was just like, he was just like, you said he was like the party guy. Some people are like that without drugs and alcohol, like, they don't need it. They just, that's just their personality,
Nicholas Niespodziani:yeah, I mean, he, he was definitely still the party guy, but I never saw him take a drink. My friend. Jeff carlisi, you play with 38 special toured with with Eddie money, and he had some great Eddie money stories of when he was drinking and doing all the drugs. But he was still a party guy, and just a really nice guy, but just wild,
Chuck Shute:really like, what, how? What do you do? Anything?
Nicholas Niespodziani:Can you say? Oh, I'm probably gonna get the story wrong, but they were supposed to go out at one time, and they showed up to Eddie's room, and he had, like, taken the sheets and covered all the windows and, like, dark this entire suite out, and it was like this little drug den. And he invited. Them in and I can't remember where the story went from there, but, like, just, you know, had been up all night from the night before, like, all the classic rock and roll kind of vibe.
Chuck Shute:Oh yeah, there's so many of those stories around it's crazy. Well, awesome. So the new album is out now. Again, it's called escape artists, and I listen on Spotify. Is it? Are these? Are a hard copy that people some people like the vinyl or the CD. Can they get that? Oh,
Nicholas Niespodziani:yeah, we got the vinyl. We've got the double album vinyl. It opens up and it's
Chuck Shute:pretty beautiful, I gotta say, yeah. And people could follow you on Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff. Your website. I'll put it in the show notes, and then people just click it check for tour dates. Definitely, highly recommend seeing your show. It's a blast. It's really fun. You don't have to worry about, oh, like, you know, like I said, some of these original artists, it's not gonna sound the same this. They like, you said, cocaine, speed, or whatever. They're rocking versions of these songs. It's a lot of fun.
Nicholas Niespodziani:We have a great time doing Yeah. Well,
Chuck Shute:thanks so much for I appreciate you doing the show, and like I said, I'll try to catch you In March sometime. All right, thanks so much. Bye. Bye.
