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
Wheatus Frontman Brendan B. Brown Opens Up About His Journey, Love of Music & More!
Brendan Brown discussed his musical journey, including the formation of his band, Wheatus, and the challenges faced. He shared his experience of starting with a four-track and drum machine, working multiple jobs, and finally signing a record deal in 1999. Brown emphasized the importance of audience interaction in live performances and the impact of cover songs like "Teenage Dirtbag" and "Lemonade" on their success. He also highlighted the significance of originality in music, mentioning artists like St. Vincent and Juliana Hatfield as inspirations. Brown reflected on the evolving music industry and the importance of maintaining creative integrity. Brendan Brown from Wheatus discussed their extensive touring plans, including acoustic shows in August, a bus tour in October, and a UK tour from November 17 to December 13, culminating at Wembley Arena with Bowling for Soup. Gabrielle Serban, Brown's partner and backing vocalist, will join as the only touring act for the acoustic run. They are also working on a documentary titled "You Might Die" and are preparing album seven, with three songs already released. Brown and Chuck Shute also shared their mutual appreciation for various music genres and artists, including Willie Nelson and Lucas Nelson.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:21 - Technical Issues on Podcasts
0:01:55 - Discussing Podcasts Topics & Success
0:03:55 - Choosing Own Project Vs. Band Member
0:07:55 - Brendan's Path, Education & Family Background
0:17:05 - Making Music Differently, Mr. Bungle & Sensibilities
0:22:10 - Sports & Music
0:25:54 - Becoming Better at Things
0:26:35 - Doing Things Differently with Shows
0:28:41 - Wheatus Payola & Radio Station Wars
0:33:15 - Teenage Dirtbag as a Later Hit & Narrative
0:37:00 - Hearing Your Song Being Played
0:38:35 - Being Able to Tour with Living Colour
0:43:10 - Time to Record Content
0:46:25 - Difficulty in Being Original & Interesting
0:50:55 - Deep Cuts & Other Singles
0:53:04 - Wheatus Band Colors
0:56:20 - Showing Vinyl
0:58:20 - Merch, Meet n Greets & Sickness
1:02:05 - Seeing AC/DC
1:04:07 - Jarret Reddick from Bowling for Soup
1:05:10 - Upcoming Shows & Opening Acts
1:06:40 - Upcoming Documentary & Projects
1:08:10 - Loving Music & Styles
1:11:57 - Outro
Wheatus band website:
Chuck Shute link tree:
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Vanity down with the heavy stars rock and rolling through the cool guitars shops got the questions digging so sharp feeling back layers hitting the heart.
Unknown:Thank you so much for doing this. No worries. I had one yesterday, and there was like, Zoom tried to update, and then something stalled in the middle of the update, so it didn't I was like, I have my phone as a backup, and I accidentally launched it on the phone. So sorry about that, but,
Chuck Shute:oh no, yeah, no worries. I've had so many technical difficulties throughout the years like, thankfully, I'm always at least able to get the audio. Sometimes, if the video doesn't work, at least the audio will be there.
Brendan B. Brown:So sure. How is the audio speaking? Speaking of the devil.
Chuck Shute:Sounds good. Yeah. Actually sounds really good. Great. Yeah, you've got a professional setup. I mean, I've had people that are outside, and there's they don't understand the wind makes a lot of noise. So yeah, thank you for putting some effort into it. You think that musicians and producers would know these things, but there's a lot of them that are like, they're on their phone outside. Like, yeah. So anyways, I was in the band. Like, what do you what's, I can't hear you. What? I
Unknown:mean, how? How often have you been excited about the topic of that you see a podcast has on the title, and you press play, and the sound is terrible, and you're like, Oh no, I can't watch this. I can't do this anymore.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's, it happens sometimes less now, because I think people were getting to I think 2020, that really is when people figured out how to use Zoom and all this stuff the streaming. But, yeah, there's still some rookies out there that haven't figured it out. Yeah, so you're doing it. You've done a lot of these. I've watched a lot of the interviews that you've done, and you've made the rounds for sure, yeah,
Unknown:I think we just kind of initially were like saying yes to the most interesting, like, non off, offbeat, kind of non musical stuff, you know, no matter what it was and, and that kind of led to, you know, More more music stuff somehow, you know. So I whatever. I don't know. I can't, I can't predict it, but,
Chuck Shute:oh, really, so you'd rather talk because I do it all. Yeah, I talk music, but I've spoke, spoken with authors and doctors, and I find just people fascinating and so many different topics. It's hard for me to just just talk music. Although I do love music,
Unknown:I agree with you. I think, I think just about everything is fascinating. What if it's if it requires some sort of endeavor, right? So, you know, yeah, I'll tell chat about anything. I'm just gonna flip this light on real quick.
Chuck Shute:Yeah? No worries. Yeah, no. I think for me, one of the most fascinating things about people is just how they make it, how they become successful, like their story, like how, you know, grinding through, like for your for your story, for instance. I mean, I think whedis Was that technically your fifth band, you know, like, how many years it took you until you had some success, or, like, a high level of success, I would say, yeah, that's
Unknown:an interesting point. I, I wasn't the founding member of any of the bands that I was in prior to wedis. That's important. I was mostly a guitar player, and in one project, I was a songwriter, and never a singer. Then, no, I sang a little bit here and there, but the and even the songwriter thing was in time I found out that it was for hire, you know. So it wait. This is the only thing I ever tried to do on my own as the sort of prime mover of the whole thing. So yeah,
Chuck Shute:remind me again. Maybe I heard the story, but maybe I didn't. I'm sure my audience has it. What prompted you to do your own thing rather than just continue to be a guitar player.
Unknown:I had been in and out of a lot of projects that had gone nowhere, even one that signed a big record deal and went nowhere, and I wasn't quite cynical enough to think that it wasn't, it was impossible, but I was sort of skeptical enough at that point to think that, like, I don't want anybody screwing this up for me anymore, anymore, you know. So it was like that. It was and that required, like a lot of you know, taking on the responsibility of being the guy whose fault it is, and and all that stuff you know. So, the So, the like, starting it from scratch and being the one responsible for for everything was. Yes, that was the first time I ever did that was, was whedis,
Chuck Shute:right? It's kind of a gamble, too, because then if it doesn't work out, like you said, like, then it's going to be looked upon as your failure.
Unknown:Well, yeah, I mean that that may well have been it, you know, I'm sure I would have tried something else, somewhere else along the line, just because I'm a stubborn fool, but I don't think it would have been great if, if the weirdest thing didn't happen, and if I'm being completely honest, it kind of didn't, at least initially.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, how long did it take from the time you started the band till when you guys had a hit on the radio? Well,
Unknown:I started alone with a four track and a drum machine for many months, demoing and working out where my voice would sit in the mix and what kind of a singer I was and all that stuff. So I was in the woodshed for a long time alone, and all the while, I had been involved in other projects and made other records with other people, but was kind of keeping the sweetest thing to myself, and got to a point where I felt confident enough to start trying to assemble a band that was, that was The, I think, around 97 or so, and bumped into my friend Phil, but if not for that time in the in the sort of laboratory, I wouldn't have felt confident enough to roll out something that I was going to be the front person on.
Chuck Shute:Did you have to take, like, a day job at that point, or you said you were doing other music things. Was there were you able to pay the bills with all music things? Or did you have to do
Unknown:I had a day job. I was working at a VPN company in Times Square. I was working fixing printers on Long Island. I was worked at a few music stores. I cleaned pools. I worked at a rest home. Worked at a fish market. I did, I did a lot of stuff. I did a lot of stuff that was subsidized the music career, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, that was, it was all day jobs, until, as a matter of fact, we signed our record deal in our Deal Memo in December of 99 and the full executed contract was signed the following February, and I kept my day job until May.
Chuck Shute:Wow, yeah, I mean, so there was the time that you thought this could not work out, because I think I read, or I think you said an interview at one point you were, you were, like, two years into pre med, which is, like, that's like a very different route,
Unknown:yeah, well, I finished college before I got into trying to be a professional musician. Oh, okay, I didn't really understand that I had been trying to be a professional musician the whole time, just by virtue of the fact that was the majority of what I spent my time on. Right? So you the college thing was I went in pre med and was at the University of Scranton, and got through two years of pre med before I failed organic chemistry. It was the first time I'd ever failed any class. It kind of freaked me out, because I had been applying myself, and I found out I had a reading disability rotated nystagmus, which makes the long peptide chain equations in organic chem really difficult to get through. So I was making these little mistakes everywhere because I was losing my place and I couldn't do it. I failed. So I switched over to psych and history, and pissed my father off big time, and started to start to think about my own life the way that I wanted it to be. And I guess I was about 19 or 20 when that happened so and that was the beginning of getting the Village Voice every Tuesday or Wednesday, when it arrived at Scranton, Pennsylvania, day late, and reading at six o'clock in the morning and calling as many people and leaving as many voice messages as I could on answering machines, trying to get into a band, and then auditioning on the weekends and in New York City and coming back and doing class again, and it was like that was the beginning of me becoming a professional musician. And I wasn't. I had no designs on being a doctor. Mind you, it was just I was on that conveyor belt from from high school, you know,
Chuck Shute:was there something that you said your dad was disappointed, so. Was your dad pushing you to be a doctor? Or was there interest?
Unknown:I think so. I mean, he, my father was an orphan, and he didn't go to college, so he he, I was the first male in my family to graduate from college, and it was like a big deal for him, even though, in fact, he did not know what he was asking me to do or what path he had put me on. He had no knowledge of. To himself. And I think, I think parents who grew up without resource often fall into that where they're putting, putting their kids through something that they think is the right thing, but they don't have any experience of it in themselves. So they're, they're, you know, so your dad didn't go to college? No, he did. No.
Chuck Shute:It's interesting. My dad went to college, but he would say he used to always tell us, when we were kids, like, you better go to college or you'll be working at McDonald's. And it's like, and it's funny to see how the world has changed, because I think maybe that was true in his generation, but now it seems like there's so many people that are not college educated, that are very like, there's a lot of people I know that are my friends that have less education than me, have a master's degree, and they don't even have a college degree, and they're making more
Unknown:money than me. I money than me, right? I mean, I don't think that. I don't think that college degree thing correlates to success. I know that there no but I agree, at least not in every case and not for every person. And I, if I had to do over again, I would have gotten a job right out of high school and saved up for all the gear that I needed to make records and started that process. But, or,
Chuck Shute:Do you think there's any sort of music school? Because I've interviewed some guys that there was one in LA, I forget what it's called, but there's, there's kind of some it's almost like a way to network, though, more so than you, you know, learning about music, it's better just to, like, meet other people who are trying to make it music
Unknown:business. Yeah, that that is, that is the important part. I believe I would like, I would like to have been sent to some sort of conservatory as a kid, a younger, younger kid, because I showed a lot of promise on guitar and in other realms. But I my parents didn't know anything about how to be a professional musician. They didn't understand any sort of career path. In that regard. They had some friends who were music industry adjacent, but they didn't really know how any of it worked. So it was, you know, it's tough for them. I think that they were scared of a music career, you know, really dying in the gutter, all that. And the truth is, that's what you sign up for. You know, they were, they were kind of right about that, but I just had, I was on every other college career path that you could be on, aside for music, and wound up doing music. So,
Chuck Shute:yeah, no, but I mean, is it interesting taking the psych classes and the history? Because my major was psych, and I got, I got a master's in Psych. I love psychology. In fact, I love it probably more now than I did in school. And I feel like a lot of the classes I took in psychology were not really what I wanted to learn. I want to learn about what makes people tick, like, like I said, their path and all those kinds of things.
Unknown:Yeah. Well, for me, that was history. My My minor in Psych was because I had accumulated so many science credits as a pre med major that I didn't need them anymore. But psych philosophy, after the fact, was really interesting, not quite as interesting as a Russian revolution for me, anyway. So Russian
Chuck Shute:Revolution, yeah, see, and now history is so fascinating to me.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's always been to me. I've always been fascinated, you know, it's how you learn about human nature, really, yeah,
Chuck Shute:you're right. It's fun. It just worked. Because I remember being in high school, and I hated history. I thought it was so boring. I remember, like, cheating on my friend, you know, on his test, and, like, you know, just did not give a fuck. And then now I just, I could watch documentaries about history. I could listen to podcasts. I could I read on just for fun. It's weird.
Unknown:Yeah, it is. It is a little strange. As you get older. I think that that happens, but I was interested in it early, early on, strangely. But, you know, I found
Chuck Shute:you were a good kid. Were you not out, like, smoking weed and stuff in high school and like, party?
Unknown:No, I went to a boys Catholic school that was about an hour and a half train ride from my parents house. So I commuted on the Long Island Railroad back and forth to high school, and it was at some total of three hours a day on the train. Damn What
Chuck Shute:do you do on the train that was before, like smartphones or whatever? Sometimes
Unknown:your homework, sometimes you daydream. Sometimes you write weird, absurdist poetry. I mean, like, if you have a Walkman or a disc man or whatever, no, well, yeah, sometimes, but you weren't really supposed to have that in school, so it was tough to bring truth. Matter is that a lot of the energy on the train was spent trying not to get beat up by construction workers. They they weren't crazy about kids and ties, you know what? I mean, Oh, gotcha. So it was, it was an odd, it was an odd thing. You know, it's funny. There was a perception that my school was sort of hoity toity. But the majority of people who sent their children there were civil servants, cops and firemen, you know, people who, back in the 80s, didn't, didn't make a ton of money. So, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't this like posh school. It was like a working class commuter boys school, you know, in on the outskirts of New York City, close to the border of Queens and. Uh, you know, I was, I was like, an adult commuter kid at 13.
Chuck Shute:That's so, yeah, that's really crazy to think about, because I grew up in Seattle, and I remember, like, going from my small suburb to downtown Seattle, taking the bus, like that was a big deal, but taking an hour train, I mean, every day, that's crazy.
Unknown:Yeah, it was, yeah, it was a long time. It was about three miles from my parents house train station. Was about an hour and a half train ride with a couple of switches in between, and then it was about a two mile walk to the school through, like, hostile territory. Yeah, local high school kids weren't crazy about us either. So, and there was, did
Chuck Shute:you have some buddies that you could, like, buddy up with, or were you just mostly by yourself? There were two or
Unknown:three other people who in my grade who, I said, only two other people in my grade who went from my area, and both of them drove frequently, either in their parents car. Or because they were a little older, they got worker drivers permits earlier, so I was mostly on the train, quite often by myself, but sometimes with others, sometimes with others. Do you
Chuck Shute:think like your dad sent you there because he thought like this was gonna like, help shape you and like you agree with that? Or do you think like it wouldn't matter if you want
Unknown:he was wrong. He was wrong, but he had no way of knowing. You know. He picked something that he thought he would have been benefited from in his own life, and he was he was doing what he was could do with, with what he knew. You know. So no, he was wrong about that. I didn't really benefit from that place. As I said, I would have preferred to be in some sort of conservatory for music. That would have been a more appropriate place for me to learn what I would eventually be doing, but with my life. But you know, the result is that I come at it from a very different angle, and I'm sort of self taught, not all that. So in the same in the same breath, that I would say I am incapable of making music like other people do, I would also have to say that I don't know why or how, because I don't understand the process from a learned perspective. I understand it the process from a doing perspective.
Chuck Shute:Have you had that issue when trying to make music with other people, where they're like, What are you doing? You're doing it
Unknown:wrong. Yeah, I had a keyboard player, one of my favorite people on Earth, guy named Mark Palmer, was in the studio with me. This happened a few other times with other people as well, but I was asking him to play some harmonies on the on the on a keyboard, on on a Rhodes piano. And he just said, That's wrong. That's the wrong chord. Man, that's that's not right. And I was like, Well, I want to hear it in the song, you know? I want to hear how how it clashes. I want to hear what it does. And we kept quite a bit of what he thought was wrong in the final take. And I love it. But which song is that song called tipsy, which is inspired by Liam Payne conversation I had with him back in 2013 or 14, an inspired song. We released it in 2016 or 15. I can't remember which, but yeah, so one of the singles from our seventh album, but has these kind of weird roads layered with church bells, harmonies in it, on the keyboard. And I was kept pushing mark to do these odd harmonies, and he was getting frustrated. That's not how. And he's an educated musician. He knows what he's doing, he knows the circle of fifths, he knows what he's talking about, but I preferred what I was hearing in my head to whatever his teacher taught him was right and wrong. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:that is an interesting yeah, because I remember having this discussion when I was in high school, and, you know, I was more into, like, the hair metal and, like, heavy metal and stuff and, and my friends would be like, it's too perfect. It's, it's, you know, music isn't supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be more. And like, you know, we both like me and my buddy. We both like Faith No More, though, and the Faith No More. Like their angel dust record. I don't know if you've ever heard that one is very like or like, Mr. Bungle. That's another like, that same singer where, and if you've heard that one with Project
Unknown:Mike. Mike is in a million different projects. Yeah, that is the
Chuck Shute:exact perfect example of not conventional. Yeah,
Unknown:very much. So yeah, he's, it works. He's one of those guys who just seems to never, he never stops moving on his creative force, it seems, yeah. But Mr. Bungle was a touchstone for me in in incredible ways, primarily because it was, it was, it was funk and R and B at the same time. So Mike is like an R and B singer, like in a lot of ways, and the sensibilities in bungle are like that. Of course, it's absurdist. But. You know, Frank Zappa pornography, but it's, but it's really, really very interesting in its in its approach to R B and metal. So it has a little bit of metal, but it also like, this is an underpinning of R B in there.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I appreciate it way more now too, as I'm because when I was a kid, I was like, I just want to rock. And I remember there were some songs on there that were very metal. But then some were like, yeah, it was more like saxophones. I was like, what? I don't understand this, but now I go back and I go, Oh, this is actually, like, really brilliant.
Unknown:Yeah. I mean, it's almost like he, then they do that Commodores cover. They do easy, like, Sunday morning. You can't you think that one's faith. No more, right? No more, right, right. Sorry, but, but he, you can't even tell it. It's not the Commodores something, but both come on the radio. It's kind of like, is that, which one is this that to honor that the different musical forms that way, bungle being the primary format for platform for his experimenting with different formats is will always be this thing where I'm like, you know, Mike Patton taught you, man, anything's possible. Anything can happen in music. I mean, you know that song, the bungle tune, um, squeeze me macaroni, yeah, face with my belonging. That's a that's an art that's like a soulful R and B, like, love melody,
Chuck Shute:squeeze me back, yeah? Not necessarily lyrically, maybe, but no, that's
Unknown:my point. That's, that's the irony of, right? That's juxtaposition of these two forms in one. And it's like, it's two lines, but it's, it's the encapsulating, like, almost the whole history of music in there. Somehow, you know, yeah, he's, he's a genius,
Chuck Shute:yeah, super smart guy. Like, he would be really interested. I don't, or he would, that's like, one of those interviews where you're like, it's either going to be, like, an amazing interview, or, like, he just some people like that. They can't really verbalize, you know, how they they just, they're like, assets, like asking, you know, Da Vinci, how did you, how do you paint the Mona Lisa, or whatever, you know, like, they just, they just
Unknown:do it. It's not their job to tell you how it's their job, exactly. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:well, that's what I'm saying. That's why it's kind of sometimes like, and especially for me, I'm a big enough you're a sports fan, but I'm a huge sports fan and, and sometimes those guys, yeah, it's just like, like, I'm a big Seahawks fan. Marshawn Lynch, like, he would just say, like, I'm all about that action boss. Like, he would just go out there and just roll over guys. You're like, how do you do that? It's like, he doesn't think about he just does it.
Unknown:And basketball is, like, jazz. I'm a bigger baseball fan than I am a basketball but basketball is actually physical jazz, right? Is there's an imp, is an improv. Every minute there's an improv, you have to reset the whole like, you know, a whole charge. So it's like, I love
Chuck Shute:jazz and basketball. Yeah, there you go. I mean, it's an interesting analogy, though.
Unknown:The guy who told me that made me think about as a guy named Michael bellar, who's a keyboard player, has played with just about everybody, Art Garfunkel and all kinds of people, Lauren Hill, and he told me, he's like, he's like, he's like, how can we into baseball? But not, but not basketball. I was like, I don't know. I just baseball is democratic, and the defense starts with the ball and like, it can be really slow, and then suddenly it'll explode into this really complex problem for both teams. And I just find it fascinating that it has that energy underpinning it. He's got, yeah, but basketball is jazz, and he said it while he was pointing jazz chord on a rope. Okay, you got a point there,
Chuck Shute:man, you know, that is really cool, yeah. So then I wonder, what genre of music is baseball,
Unknown:metal and progressive
Chuck Shute:rock? Progressive? Yeah? Because there's a lot of slow and then fast,
Unknown:yeah, and it also requires some serious Motown smoothness. Like, you gotta be smooth, right? You can't, like, you can't be abrupt, or Herky jerky. I mean, a bunt actually represents the most Herky jerky thing that happens in baseball.
Chuck Shute:But it is weird, yeah, bunting,
Unknown:but everything else has to be this, like, like, Grace matching, perfection movement thing, where you just kind of think about what it takes to hit a major league pitch.
Chuck Shute:Well, yeah, and just in the fielding too. I think the fielding is something we take for, like, they catch the pop fly like, it's no big deal. But if you've ever played baseball like you don't catch every pop fly and grounder that comes to you.
Unknown:No. I mean, I remember when I was in Little League, it was like, Oh no, they hit it to me, these guys, these guys are like, you know, and I, I have had that experience, the experience of sort of turning off your guidance computer, like Luke, and just catching a ball without really looking at it, because you kind of, because you've been paying such subconscious attention to the play, right? And you just there. You're just that you know where to be when it's when it when it unravel, when it unfolds, just pop. And that's the grace of baseball, right? That's like the the smooth Motown of baseball.
Chuck Shute:All, yeah, I think it's all with sports and music and all this stuff. I feel like it's also mental, like you got to be kind of in the zone, and if you think about it too much, then you can screw it up
Unknown:exactly, exactly. You got to do a ton of learning. You got to work, do your 10,000 hours, right, and run every base a zillion times, and swing the bat a zillion times. But when you get to that point, you're right. It's like, you got to turn the machine off and just feel it. And music's like that too. You know, this is an interesting sports music conversation.
Chuck Shute:You're right. Well, I love two things. I love, but it's fascinating. But I love the psychology behind all of it too. Like, I think that is, I think that's something that doesn't get talked about enough with, with sports and and also, I think music too. I think that that is the psychology, the mindset, is huge for both those things. Yeah, I don't know an interview, I guess, podcasting too. Like, I remember when I first started this dude, I was so, I mean, maybe people say I'm still bad, but I was really bad when I first started. And I remember, like, I think it was in my first 100 episodes I had Ann Wilson from heart on and I was like, I mean, it's, I It's cringy to listen to some of those older episodes, but it's a, I mean, it's a learning process. And like to look back at that and go, Wow, okay, I've come a long way. I'm sure you feel the same way about music.
Unknown:Yeah. I mean, what's watched some interviews and some and some videos of us playing back in the day. There's a lot of it that I'm like, Oh man, I'm so glad I don't do that anymore, you know?
Chuck Shute:But what, like, what did you do? What would you do differently?
Unknown:I would go, if I could go back, I would pay a lot more attention to the audience. Because we do, we do all request sets. Now. We don't have set lists if we're headlining, if we have to play a festival where it's timed, we have to make choices. But when we do headline shows on tour, we put it to the audience, what do you want us to play every night, that night, and we set up our own gear. And while we're doing that in front of the audience, I'm kind of walking back and forth saying, what's the first song? What's second song? What do you want to hear tonight? What you will any deep cuts? Well, you know, like that kind of thing. And you know, all the deep cuts, yeah, we, we've worked as hard as we can to have the whole entire catalog. Now it's been, this is the 25th anniversary, so I should put a little asterisk here and say that the first album has to be played in its entirety. So there are corners to which the deeper cuts have been shoved for the for this year and this year only. But okay, um, we hit the road in 2026 The goal is to know whatever we have on streaming, I think it's 80 some odd songs, and be ready to play any of them if somebody calls it out. So it's a lot of rehearsal, as I was saying that the 10,000 hours, and just keep swinging the bat and and then you get up there and you can do whatever the audience is in the mood for. And the upside to that is that you're not imposing this tyranny of the set list onto everybody, right? You're not rolling up and saying, This is the set list we've been playing and promoting all year. This is what you're going to hear tonight, the exact same one that you can watch on YouTube from last night. Like, no,
Chuck Shute:but there's certain songs, obviously, that you're you have to do, right?
Unknown:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll always do teenage dirtbag. I don't think, I think there's only a handful of shows where we didn't play lemonade.
Chuck Shute:There's a little respect that was a cover of an erasure song. We
Unknown:sometimes skip that song. It depends on what the audience wants. If somebody's calling in the audience, and I will play it if something, if it's not getting a lot of calls, we won't play it. Was
Chuck Shute:that the one that was a you had a couple songs that were bigger in Europe than America. Well, even teenage dirt bag was bigger there. I'm always fascinated by that. Why is something a bigger hit in Europe than America? I don't get it.
Unknown:Well, I I know specifically in our case, why? Okay, and that was because the American record label tried to cross over teenage dirtbag from rock radio, where it had been moderately successful respectably. So they try to cross it over to pop radio before it was, I think, before it was time, and then paid the whatever we had earned at rock radio disappear because they don't want to fight for the same market. So they dropped us, kind of when they found out that the label was hustling it to to to pop. Really, I never knew
Chuck Shute:that. I've done like, 500 of these episodes. A lot of musicians never heard there was a conflict between pop and rock radio at the same time. In
Unknown:2000 there was that. And that's a little, I mean, I'm bringing you under the hood a little bit here, right? Yeah, I love this stuff. This was the pay all the days. And we did find out that we were doing the way that it all started was that the label wanted us to do acoustic performances on more and more and more radio stations. And we were like, Yeah, sure, but we realized that those radio stations, as we went about doing it, were not the ones that were currently supporting. Banging the teenage dirtbag single. They were other radio stations, and we were kind of curious about this, and say, Why is this hat? Why aren't we doing like, you know, the X station across the city has been banging teenage dirtbag 30 times a week. Why aren't we there doing an acoustic why are we here at BCN where they're not playing us at all? And and they would be like, Oh, well, they're going to add you, if you if you do this. This is how it works, you know. And we did that for a few, a few weeks of like, you know, grueling 4am wake ups to play on morning radio acoustic versions of teenage dirt bag. And we found out that we were being those acoustic performances were being traded for ads for another pop act. So are the our the currency there was that they this pop radio station was getting something that the rock radio station really deserved. So they burned their they burned their competition across across the way with our acoustic performance, and then another act would get added to the pop station on that favor. So we were being traded. We were being traded for, for ads, and it all happened. We found out when we were we were this radio station in Boston confronted us on the air because they accused us of having been across the city, on the other side of the city, at another radio station. But the fact is, is that that radio station had just canned that performance for a month that we had done it a month earlier, so they held on to it and played it the day that we were supposed to be on the rock station. Also, it's like a competition. Wow, like we made it looked like we were due time in the rock station. That's so crazy. And we and we, we got confronted on the air, what are you guys doing over at BC? You got heard you were over, you were on the air on BC. And I was like, we weren't we just got to we just got here. We came from New York. We didn't stop anywhere else. And wow, that was what kind of blew it up when we got into this big, heated sort of argument afterwards about what could possibly be going on. And the guy who was with us, to his credit, he broke protocol, and he told us he was like, All right, guys, I see that you're kind of getting heated with each other. This is what happened. This, like your manager that explained this, or, Oh, it was somebody who was working promo at the time. Promo, okay, yeah, radio promo guy, and we kind of, once we knew what would happen, we were like, holy shit. How many times have we done that? We've done this so many times. Is that why this is all is that why every time we do an acoustic performance, the rock radio station stops, you know? And it was like, it just, it kind of all hit us at the same time, like they had tried this maneuver with using using our performances as currency. So we were kind of really pissed and frustrated and didn't know what to do. And it was a few months after that that it blew up in Australia and then Europe, because none of that happened over there, they went with their own plan and their own sort of straight to rock formats, thing and states eventually caught up after one direction came over and played dirtbag here, in these in our football stadiums, but, but the we or the first decade of that song's life in America was as an obscure, non hit.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it's weird now to think of that because you hear it. I mean, I think that's what prompted me to reach out to you in the first place. Was like, I heard it on a commercial. I was like, Oh, I love that song. I wonder if those guys would do my podcast. And then I heard it, I hear in karaoke, and I heard it, uh, covered of a few weeks ago. I tried to record it for you, because it was the coolest version of this. It was like a reggae version of your song. And I was like, Oh, I would love this, but I didn't. The the audio was terrible on that. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's all over now, so
Unknown:it's an egg. What's that you need? Ska bag.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it was kind of a slow, like, a Yeah. It was, it was cool. I was like, wow, this is a cool version of this. Do you do you enjoy that, like hearing your song covered and karaoke, I mean, hopefully not butchered in karaoke, but if it's done, well, it's kind of cool,
Unknown:right? I I appreciate a different take on it. I really, I'm really into that. I've never, I've never recoiled from anybody changing it up. I've approved a ton of interpolations, which is when people change the lyric or change the perspective, or something like that. So, um, I'm kind of game for for people using it as their own in their own story, you know, because the truth is, it's like what I was saying before, the fact that it wasn't successful in the states, if it survived at all in America, for that first decade before one direction gave it a push, and it wasn't even it was more, more than decade was like 13 years. Then it survived because people had it in their hearts and in there as the part of their own story, of their own life, right? And not, not because they saw it on TV or whatever. They might have downloaded it from Limewire and just held on to it in their in their psyche for some reason, and the only continuing currency that the song has is its ability to have people see themselves in the narrative and see themselves in the song currently. So I feel like, in some sense, the author me is dead, because it doesn't really matter what my intentions were for the song. It's had its own life in the lives of other people, people who, you know, lift it up so or claim it. So I feel like, what if they want to do something with it, and it isn't offensive or stupid, even stupid stuff I've approved. But, you know, like, like, I'm cool. I'm cool with with people doing something with teenage dirt bag. I'm not precious about it in that sense, because that's the that's the sustainability of it is people's take, people's other take on it.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, I just remember, like, I said I was a metal head, and so I just remember at that time in rock, metal was not cool. And then here comes the song that's really catchy and fun to sing along to, and you're talking about Iron Maiden. And I was like, Oh, that's so cool iron I love Iron Maiden. And it's like, and you put that in the lyrics, did you? Is that just because it sounded right, or because I thought you said something about it was it was kind of more about AC, DC, or my first, my first
Unknown:favorite band is always going to be ACDC, right? Rush
Chuck Shute:that doesn't rhyme as well,
Unknown:but AC, DC doesn't have quite the vowel movement that Iron Maiden, right? So, it's, it's really, it's a, really, just a, just an esthetic choice, really like how something is sung and whether or not it contributes to the hook or subtracts. So, you know, I mean, yeah,
Chuck Shute:that's true. It wouldn't listen to AC, yeah, that wouldn't, I don't think that would work as
Unknown:well. It's a mouthful, and it's a lot of consonants and a lot of siblings, you know, you don't, yeah,
Chuck Shute:no, that's, that's really cool, though. Yeah. I mean, so do you you hear the song? Have you ever just walked into a bar and heard someone else covering it, or heard them singing it to carry out
Unknown:many, many times, is that that'd be a huge ego rub, right? Um, it depends on what I'm walking into the bar for. If I'm looking to, like, sit and have a quiet beer, that might not be the place that I, you know, we don't really drink beer. But if I'm, if I'm, if I'm looking, if I'm looking to sit down and just have a quiet convo with somebody, that might not be the environment I might turn around, not out of, like, I'm not cringing away from somebody covering it. I'm quite happy that it's happening. Like, I don't want to disrupt that energy with, like, oh, the guy is here, you know, make him do it. You know, I like, it's that kind of feels a little bit like on the rare occasion that has happened. I have done something like that, but really, yeah, I've played it impromptu in public before for people, if I get like, so like, weirdly discovered somewhere. You know, it's rare, but it's happened a handful of times.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I saw a video of the band lit, and they were in Nashville. I don't know if it was staged. I should ask them, but they were walking by, you know how Nashville has those like, open stages, you know, and the there was a cover band doing their song, and they just popped on stage and sang it with them. It was pretty cool, but I don't know if it was staged.
Unknown:That is cool. I saw all American Rejects do that Ooh somewhere. I saw that on Tiktok.
Chuck Shute:That's cool. Have you ever performed with them? No,
Unknown:no. Unfortunately, I love that band. I haven't. I haven't actually performed with them or bumped into them anywhere. I don't think Yeah,
Chuck Shute:cuz you played with some like, that's got to be one of the coolest things about To me, being in a successful band and having a good song on the radio, and being able to, you're able to tour with all these legends. I mean, like, you know you guys, you've performed with almost every good band, at least if you count the festivals and stuff.
Unknown:Yeah. I mean my FA, my favorite Tour, where we weren't headlining, was opening for Living Color and Everclear and Hoobastank
Chuck Shute:on I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, that's I had the singer from living color. I love that band. I saw him play with extreme, and they actually, extreme is good, but they blew extreme off the stage. They were
Unknown:living you don't want to come on stage after living color. Yeah, bad idea, yeah. I mean that they're, they're the they're so the real thing, you know, Doug, the bass player, was in the fucking Sugar Hill gang. I mean, like, like, it's, it's, it's, so they're so seasoned that, yeah, and they're all jazz dudes too. That's the other thing fucking around with the heaviest hitters in town, right? So,
Chuck Shute:yeah, because they were just, they were jamming at some point, and they were, I think they did a print song or something. I was like, Oh, my God, they're killing their singers. He, this is, like, this is recently. He can still nail all the notes. Oh,
Unknown:absolutely. He's in, he's in prime form. Um, no, he did that. And they and they show no, a. Each in any sense of the word, and they're and they're also, they happen to be four of the nicest guys I've ever met in my life. I mean, they are really, they were like, they took an active interest in what we were doing. We had conversations. I made them breakfast from time to time, because I'd make breakfast on the bus, you know, and really, and it was a humongous honor to not only get to go to this side stage School of living color, because that's like, a rarefied space, right? Like, who the fuck gets to watch them figure it out every night. And you better believe that I wasn't looking for anything else to do on that tour. I was like, living color sound checking yet, like, and I just be hurt lurking in the curtain, you know, like, was we just just soaking it up and and listening and watching a group of guys who are at a level I'll probably never get to. I don't, and I don't mean by notoriety, I mean by skill set and, and,
Chuck Shute:yeah, and that. And I talked to Corey about that when I had him on, like, why are, well, your, why was your band not bigger? Like, what? Because they had all the tools. It's just really interesting. I guess they just never had that. I mean, they do have some hits, but, you know, I feel like they should have been bigger.
Unknown:Well, um, look what they did. They came, they came out in the in the Reagan, late, late Reagan, early George Bush, 1980s with songs about urban renewal being a failure and and, you know, just this incredible perspective that they had also, also they injected it right into The veins of, like white metal kids, yeah, me, yeah. So, so, it's like, it's like, I they got nothing to prove to me. I mean, like, they, they got him, they got a meme, ified, you know, viral song, and they're all there from the 1980s you know. So, I mean, I don't, I mean, what can, what else can we hope for? You know, I mean, yeah, sometimes you
Chuck Shute:don't know if it's gonna hold the test of time, because at the time, it's like, okay, they're kind of moderately successful. But then now, if you listen back to those old albums, like even the like the deep cuts, they hold up. They sound great.
Unknown:Oh yeah. I mean, look, man, if I was, if I was Green Day, or if I was, you know, Ed Sheeran, or if I was Taylor Swift, or if I was Justin Bieber or Olivia Rodrigo, I'd be trying to find a way to get living color to be on my tour, you know, like, I'd be like, I'd be like, how did it, how do we get this like, how do We inject this into these kids ears and get this at part of it too.
Chuck Shute:That's noble of you. I like that kind of stuff.
Unknown:Well. I mean, it's selfish of me, because I want to learn. I want to learn and benefit from like, you know, like, this is, this is, this is the real thing. I mean, there's not a lot of the real thing going around that much these days. I think that chapel Roans band is a real thing. I think that Olivia Rodrigo is the real thing. I think Taylor Swift is a real thing, but, but like when he with these, this crop of of kids who are coming up on tick tock are not being given a chance to develop their real thingness, right? They're just being like splattered out there by companies really quickly, and then they're having to stay on the hamster wheel and make content, content, content, content, right? And it's like, that's not how seasoning happens. That's how emotional breakdowns happened. Like, like, seasoning happens from stewing in your craft without a deadline with it, with you know where, you're where you're interested in it, and your drive to create something that you've never heard before yourself, which is every living color record I've ever listened to, or fishbone, you know, or helmet, or quicksand or Everclear, that comes from the work itself, right? Not and not night saying, Oh, I at four o'clock this afternoon. I gotta drop this tick tock. I gotta go, guys, I gotta, you know, that's, that's, that sucks, you know, um,
Chuck Shute:so you're saying, what, like, the the other side of that would be like, I'm a big Guns and Roses fan and, like, you know, the Chinese Democracy thing, where they took, like, whatever it was, like, 1520, years to make that record. I mean, that's like, or, I think Boston was also, I think they took long time in between albums. Like, sometimes you could take too long.
Unknown:Yeah, I mean that, I don't, you know, I don't know what kind of emotional stuff was going on with Chinese Democracy. I take a long time to make a record because I'm trying to find something new. But it's not a Chinese Democracy situation. I don't know. I can't, I can't pretend to know what goes on in other artists heads in the process, you know, because I have my own weird one that I came up with with pop, seems
Chuck Shute:like with the Axl Rose in the Boston I know those. Guys are really like perfectionists, and it seemed like they were just trying to, no, that's not good enough. Let's scrap that. We got to redo it. And they just kept over producing it and changing things. And I think, in the Boston case, I think maybe it worked, although I don't know if the earlier versions of the record would have made that big of a difference. You know. I mean, the songs do sound great, but,
Unknown:yeah, I mean, well, you know, you got guys, engineers in the band, and you also have the state of contemporary music is reminding you over and over again, oh, it's shifting. It's moving. The target is moved because you're trying to do something. That's why it's, it's, that's why when I, when I'm in the studio, I I don't try. I try not to listen to other stuff because I'm trying to do something that is and this is how you can really swing and miss doing this, by the way, because if you're not comparing yourself to like, what is the latest queen of Stone Age record sound like on Spotify? If you don't do that, you could make something that doesn't sound like it competes or it doesn't go, it doesn't go with the rest of rock or some such thing. But you can also come up with something that was not responding to contemporary trends, right in any way, and therefore is trendless, and the hope is timeless, right? Like, that's, that's the that's the hope. So I think prince did that. I think Prince succeeded at that,
Chuck Shute:yeah, Prince was amazing, for sure, that's got to be hard to be original in this day and age, because I feel like almost everything has been done. It seems like to me, rock is almost like frozen in time, like around 2007 ish or something. It just it like never really progressed. I mean, it has, in some ways, but in terms of popularity, a lot of the sound of like 2007 is kind of still a lot of the if you look at the, you know, the charts of rock, or whatever it sounds like that kind of 2007
Unknown:rock. So I, I have found that, with a couple of exceptions, the vast majority of interesting rock post 2007 has been done by women.
Chuck Shute:Well, that's, yeah, there's definitely a lot to be said for that also, and also a lot of the the retro sounding stuff, like the struts and, you know, bands like that, that kind of like Greta Van Fleet do kind of a throwback, and the kind of add a modern twist. I think that is another thing that's been cool for me, sort of,
Unknown:that's a, sort of like, oh, a sound like, you know, respectable sound like, situation. But then you have St Vincent, you know, Annie Clark, who, I think she makes a record. She reinvents music like that, that that shit is unassailably original. And it's,
Chuck Shute:I don't think I've heard Who is this? Annie Clark,
Unknown:yeah, she's the, she's the sort of locomotive behind
Chuck Shute:St Vincent. Okay, I guess I'm probably an idiot, because people are gonna go, Oh, you don't never heard
Unknown:of that. Fine. I mean, like, there's a lot of music out there. Nobody's responsibility to find it all. But I would say, check out a song called birth in reverse. Okay, is it? Are these big hits, or I would call it a, sort of, like a well known song of hers,
Chuck Shute:okay, maybe I've heard and I just didn't know that's who it was, or whatever. Yeah. And
Unknown:then you have boy genius, who also have a, sort of, almost a grunge record, you know, there's a song of theirs called satanist that you should check out. Okay? I love, I love getting recommendations, yeah, and then I would say my favorite of all of it so far has been Juliana Hatfield. Do you remember her? Yes,
Chuck Shute:I do remember that. That's more like when I was really paying attention to music,
Unknown:right? So Juliana Hatfield dropped a record in 2020, called Blood. I am still not even close to scratching the surface of being sick of this record like it is so fucking great. She outdid herself orders of magnitude. And there's one song on there I would recommend you start with, called dead weight.
Chuck Shute:Oh, I love this. Yeah, when I listen back to this episode, I'm writing all these down, yeah,
Unknown:but as you were saying before, but with Boston, that that's the case that some people take a really long time to make a record, to hold off forever and ever. But then you have, like deep purple, who I listened to one of their records again, from 2020 seems pandemic. Was a sort of a pregnant space for creativity, but, but deep purple dropped a record in 2020 that's just incredible, man,
Chuck Shute:really? Yeah, who's the singer in 2020
Unknown:let me just check, because I'm talking out my face right now and I don't exactly know the answers. It's just something I listen to on Spotify a lot.
Chuck Shute:That's, that's, I didn't know. See this. The problem is, like so many bands, so many records like I can't even keep track of them all. And I mean, you'd be surprised at how many, or maybe you're not, how many publicity notices I get every day, an email of bands promoting something that, and a lot of the bands I've. Never heard of but they're big enough to hire a publicist. Yeah?
Unknown:Well, the record is called whoosh, spelled O, sh, exclamation point, and it came out in 2020, and it's just fucking smoking. There's this one song on there called throw my bones. It's the opening track. That's a great
Chuck Shute:title. Yeah,
Unknown:it's just, it's like, I don't even listen to it. I listened to it because we were supposed to open up for them in Australia last year. Oh, wow, that would have been what they've been up to lately. And I was like, Holy shit, they're still dropping, like, sick Rock Records. What? How old are these guys? You know, it was just, it's one of those moments where I felt like I really slept on something.
Chuck Shute:Oh yeah. It's like, it's still like a lot of the original members, Ian Gillan and Steve Morse on guitars. And, yeah, okay, wow.
Unknown:Off to check that out. Serious, serious stuff. That's what's
Chuck Shute:so sad about doing these interviews, is like, when I listen to a band's newer stuff and I go, Oh my god, this is so great. And then I try to promote it, I try to help, and it just doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I mean, Living Color, perfect example yourself. I mean, I was listening to because I did all the deep cuts, and I was listening to so much of your catalog. I was like, Oh, why aren't more people hearing these songs? These songs are great.
Unknown:Yeah. I mean, people discover us in their own time, right? Teenage dirt bags like a gateway drug, sure. And I had somebody say to me, somebody once told me, yeah, you guys are one hit wonder status, but it's a little bit more like no one's gotten over your first song yet. And I was like, yeah. Like, is that? Is that what it is? It's just like they get stuck on that one, you know? And I feel like we have a little bit of that going on. We did have a second charting single in the UK and in other territories, a song called a little respect the cover, the erasure cover that we did on our first album.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, and wasn't there? Was there a third, I know there was a music video for wannabe gang Starr, and that was funny,
Unknown:worst music video ever made. I might ask. No one holds that title, but us, we hold that title. We're not giving it up. Yeah, it was a, I had a pitch to me that it would be the, it would be Stanley Kubrick meets brother from another planet, which I thought was, oh, man, yeah, let's see what happens there. And they, I don't think we got either of those in that video, not even close. I think we got a person in a in an ET costume, sort of just really strange. It's a mess, but, but I think, I think some people do like it, which surprises me. I will argue that it's unironically bad.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it was entertaining, you know, like, well, I don't think I saw it when it came out, but, like, you know, preparing for this interview, I went back and watched it, and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. And you know what I want to ask you about is, like, you always had that, uh, what is it? The it's like, the blue and yellow checkered. That was, like, a big, you know, that was the album cover. I think that was in that video. What? Why blue and yellow? Like? What? How did you come up with that? I don't know if I know the story.
Unknown:Blue, yellow and red are Superman's colors, right? Okay, and I just always felt like there was something global about those colors together, and that they weren't flag ish, that they were just sort of world ish. And also, our original artwork was done by a guy named Malcolm Emmerich, who was a anarchist and a graffiti artist in Manhattan. I worked with him in my day job, and he painted this, I want, I said I wanted, I wanted to be about a frog theme, you know. So he painted our logo with a giant frog hanging off it. And it was oil painting. It's gorgeous. I have it upstairs, and I thought it was beautiful, but the label absolutely hated it. They thought it was too dark. So my next idea was, well, why don't we do the logo that's been sort of graffitied onto a diner placemat, because, like a cloth diner placemat that's blue and yellow, because Long Island is like a diner capital of the world, and that's kind of what everybody ate and everything. So I just wanted to tip the hat to the diner world out there, and so that's what we suggested. But that, I think that when they got to their cheesy Photoshop department, they kind of missed the point on that, but we recreated it for our 2020, version of the first album that we re recorded. So if you buy that on vinyl, that's got the sort of proper diner place mat on the front, and then on the back is the
Chuck Shute:frog. Oh, okay, I was gonna say I want to see this frog picture. I don't think I've seen this.
Unknown:Yeah, it's, it's on the vinyl release. Yeah, it is.
Chuck Shute:So the vinyl that's kind of a new thing that's coming back after a hiatus. And does that help you guys sell record, official records? Because, like, that's obviously a struggle for bands today to sell
Unknown:music. Yeah, I think the vinyl audience is the vinyl audience, right? So that's if you make something, you're making it for them. You're not making it for people who otherwise don't buy music. That's not a thing like so we, you know, we service that, that sort of subculture, because we ourselves are in it. I like vinyl. I collect vinyl, and listen to vinyl. So, you know, it's something we want. We want our own product on, on the thing that we like the most, right? Obviously, there's nothing like dropping a needle on like a very crisp, original cut of Highway to Hell. I mean, when you hear that come out of the fucking speakers, your heads gonna blow off. It's so much better. Hmm, it's the real deal. So that's kind of, that's how I feel about it's the best way to listen. Really,
Chuck Shute:I should start listening to, I want to. I should hear it, because, you're right. It does sound different.
Unknown:Yeah, man, it's very different. I think I actually have, might have a copy of, let's see. Oh no, that's not it. I think we have copies of our, of our new vinyl upstairs. You want me to grab one and
Chuck Shute:show you Sure? Can we play that or is it? Are we gonna get cognitive?
Unknown:I can't play it here in the where I am, but I'll show you that. I'll show you the cut. Hang, hang tight for a second. Okay, yeah, we'll do
Chuck Shute:just take a short break here, and I'll think I can pause this recording. Actually, turning back on the record. I paused it for us. So people have to listen to dead air. I know that's the one thing I know about recording is, don't know dead air. Sorry. No, I can always, I can always edit stuff out too. But
Unknown:hope I gave you a nice, clean edit. So here it is. This is the reissue, the 2020, version, nice. And it's a, there's the frog on the back with the that's the that's the scary, the scary dark frog.
Chuck Shute:Oh, that would have been so cool, damn. It's fucking record labels. Why do they
Unknown:always fuck up? They know they fucked it up. Man, like this would have been. This would have been way cooler to find teenage dirtbag on than this.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that is badass. Man
Unknown:history. So it's a double it's double record because we recorded 10 additional songs in in addition to the first 10 that, you know, because we had a bunch of tunes from over the years that had been sort of demoed or recorded that sounded like they belonged on the first record. And that was the reason we didn't release them, because they were like, Nah, it's like, that's first record, shit. So we kind of felt like that was the move to to make a double record, make it twice as long, 20 songs in 2020 you know. So that's, that's the vinyl. And we, we sell this on tour and on our website, and we just calm forward slash merch or forward slash store. Sorry. But anyway, that's the story. So,
Chuck Shute:yeah, no, that's cool. Like, do you feel like you kind of have to almost be a businessman now to being a musician, like, you can't just go out and do shows. You got to figure out creative ways to make, not only necessarily make a profit, but just make it make sense for you to go on tour, because otherwise you can lose money if you don't have all these
Unknown:there's a million ways to lose money and music, but basically, like looking for something that you would want as a fan, right? You seems like you're always a fan. You always like, I'm always myself. When I'm thinking about our stuff, I was like, I'm at the ACDC show, and I want to buy something really special. What do they got? You know? And so this was one of those. And then, of course, Joey, our backing vocalist, and she's one of our art directors. She did this, like, beautiful collage of, like, through the years. Everything has a little symbol from over the years of our records, and there's all kinds of, like, Easter eggs in there and stuff. So I love shit like that. Yeah, that's like, we try to try to make it like, almost like it's a comic book, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:no, that's great, yeah. And then did you guys, I'm assuming you do the, I'm not sure if I remember if you do or don't, but I'm assuming you do the meet and greets.
Unknown:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, as as safely as we can, because, of course, if I get sick, the show's over, you know? I mean, I'm 51 years old now. I've been, I've been on the road for 30 years, and I I got to start being careful about because I don't bounce back like I used to if I get pneumonia or COVID or whatever it is, you know, you just, you wind up cheating people, because you're phoning it in a little bit, because you can't. Do you just don't have what it takes to do a full show, right? Because, yeah,
Chuck Shute:no, it's so crazy. I remember in March of 2020, right before, I think the guy had COVID. It was one of the singers, and I'm spacing on the band. It's a big
Unknown:what mountains of Wayne? No, no,
Chuck Shute:it was a but, yeah, I know that story too. Yeah, but yeah, they were at this concert, and the guy was singing, he only did like, two or three songs, and he goes, sorry, guys, I tried and he just and the band quit. I've never seen that happen, but it's because his throat was just wrecked and he just couldn't sing, and so they had to cut the show. And I was like, it was a big festival, so they were like, Weezer was headlining, and whatever. But yeah, that's crazy.
Unknown:There's no sense in pushing through if you're in that condition. And the reason because, you know, if you, if you get to the point where you're you're that ill, and you're singing through it, you're damaging your vocal cords, right? So it's like, never come back. You may do actual permanent damage. You may, like, permanently alter the way that your your your your instrument works. And no one show is worth that, you know, so you got to, like, really be careful about that kind of shit. I mean, you know, it's, I know a lot of people would think, Oh, come on, man, just fucking sing, you know, shut up and sing kind of thing. But we all know who those have been on the road. Know that it isn't just, isn't that simple, you know,
Chuck Shute:right? No, for sure. Oh, I think it was, oh, AR. I think that was the band I had. Okay, I know, if you remember a few, yeah, but so they, because that was a big bit, there was a lot of people, I think, that came to see them specifically, you know, like, that's the kind of interesting thing about festivals, is, like, there's so many bands, and you might some people are there just to see their favorite band, and then the guy, they had to cancel after like two songs. But,
Unknown:man, I mean, you know, I, I was in a I was in Nashville last month to see AC DC in and they canceled the show we booked for for weather, because there was, like tornado weather rolling in, postponed until the next night, and we were still in town, we were able to move, move a flight. So we got lucky there. But, man, if I, if I got rained out, on, on, like, seeing a CD AC and AC DC is not easy. Man, like, they don't play a ton, you know,
Chuck Shute:yeah, how was it? Because I've heard that every review I've seen of this, this tour, current tour is they still sound amazing.
Unknown:Oh, they're smoking it, dude. They're fucking totally smoking it was killer, man. It was so good. And you know, like the thing about ACDC, I don't know if you've ever seen it. Have you
Chuck Shute:ever seen him before? I saw him in Seattle in 1995 on the ball breaker tour. And it was probably the coolest entrance I've ever seen for a band. They had this big, giant wall, a brick wall, and then this crane with a wrecking ball is swinging back and forth, and then it goes boom, and it knocks the wall down. They jump out, and they start doing back in black. It was the awesomest entrance I've ever seen for Rock Band.
Unknown:They know how to do that, man. They really do that. They, you know, like it's just, it's just fucking AC DC. Man, yeah.
Chuck Shute:I mean, it's funny, because you'd think that somebody, for me, and I've seen a lot of concerts since then, somebody would have topped that by now. No, I don't think so. That was the coolest entrance ever.
Unknown:No, no one's ever top an AC DC. That's a lost cause, man. You
Chuck Shute:know, yeah, are they your number one favorite band,
Unknown:yeah, yeah, hands down, yet I saw rush more times. Oh, I've seen rush 28 times, but, oh, but I, but I, I've only, and I've only seen ACDC six times. So first time I saw them was 1988 blow up your video tour.
Chuck Shute:That was kind of like, they were kind of like, on the downside, a little bit at that, right? That wasn't a very popular album,
Unknown:still selling out Madison Square Garden. But, yeah, but, but they that was like, there, you know, Malcolm was in rehab. The first time I saw them, it was, it was Stevie, who was on Malcolm's position. So, yeah, it's, it's shit. I was just getting a text from Jared Reddick from Bowling for Soup he wants, oh
Chuck Shute:yeah, he did my show. He's super nice guy. Great man. Toured with them tons.
Unknown:Oh yeah, yeah, he's lovely guy. Yeah, we love what's he up to? He wants me to do. Well, I can't, I can't give it away, but we're gonna, he and I are gonna discuss our aged medical condition as part of a promo video. And of course, you know, with him, everything is always hilarious, right? Because he's like Johnny Carson, who many plays guitar. And you know, I mean, it's going to be whatever Jared is involved in. It's going to be great, like, you know, yeah,
Chuck Shute:no, I wish. I need to see what I should kind of seen some of those tours that you guys have done together.
Unknown:Oh, yeah, they were both overseas. They're both in the UK. Oh, we did one in the States. We did one in the states in September. Of last year, just just under a year ago. Yeah, and
Chuck Shute:you guys have some shows coming up, but I think it's just your headlining shows, right? You're not,
Unknown:yeah, we have, we have a bunch of touring in the States. If you go to wheat Comm, forward slash shows, you'll see all this information. But we're touring a bunch of acoustically. We're doing a bunch of festivals in August, then acoustic tour in September, a couple of festivals in September as well. Oceans calling is one of those. Yeah, I saw that's a huge one. Yeah, it's awesome. Then we're doing a bunch of bus touring in the states in October, and then we take a couple weeks off to rehearse for the UK tour, which is going to be happening November, starting November 17, I think, and we're going to be touring all the way through to December 13, and that's we're going to wrap it up at Wembley Arena with Bowling for Soup.
Chuck Shute:Oh, nice. And who is this person that you're taking out on tour? Gabrielle, is it stubborn? Gabriel Serban,
Unknown:she's one of our backing vocalists. She's my partner in life. And she's a singer songwriter in her own right, and she gets up there and does her sort of like Americana set. She's kind of like a cross between Paul Simon and Linda Ronstadt, okay, yeah, with a little bit of Emmy Lou Harris in there and and a little bit of rock guitar, so like that. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:nice. It's just the and that she the only opening actors or
Unknown:other. There's a few. There's a handful of other opening acts, but they're locals, okay? The only touring acts are myself and Gabrielle. That's the acoustic run, but the the electric run is all the full band, okay?
Chuck Shute:And then any other future plans that haven't you want to announce on the podcast, there's a
Unknown:couple of guys in England trying to finish a movie about us called, you might die. Oh yes, I was gonna ask you about the documentary. Yeah, it goes through some of the darker periods it was, was filmed during the darkest periods of our existence. 2010 2011 2013 those are really that was like every tour we thought was going to be the last. And I must admit, is not my finest moments captured on there, but, you know, it's a sort of warts and all documentary, so we're going to figure out how to tie it up and put it out. The problem is, we keep having a new chapter of gets written for this, but the the touring after that, we're going to try and make a record, album seven. There's three songs from album seven. I mentioned before that, tipsy. There's another one called lullaby, and another one called Michelle, and they're all streaming right now. So there's three songs that show the direction of album seven, where it's kind of headed. And yeah, we're going to, we're going to try to wrap that up and get that out in 2006 but lots of touring, lots of recording, all of it, some guest appearances that I can't talk about, but stuff, yeah.
Chuck Shute:Okay, fine, yeah. Well, I look forward to that. And then, yeah, if you ever come to Phoenix. I'll try to try to catch it. That would be, I've never seen you guys live. It's now that I've really gone into the the deep cuts and stuff. I'm like, Oh, this, this would be, because, like, You've so many catchy songs.
Unknown:Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. That means a lot coming from a guy who has what you have on your wall back there.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, no. I love, I love, I love catchy stuff. I love pop metal, but I love, I love all kinds of stuff you talk about jazz. And I remember taking a history of jazz class in college because I thought, Oh, this will be an easy credit. And then the guy made me fall in love with jazz. I was like, Oh, this is I love jazz. I love the blues, like, I love all that shit.
Unknown:Yeah. I mean, Willie Nelson, for me, was the gateway to jazz. For me. He's just Willie Nelson. Yeah, Willie Nelson is an incredibly hard hitting jazz guitar player. He's never thought of that. Oh, my god, yeah. You ever, you ever seen him live? No, no man. He can just medley in and out of any jazz standard from 3040, 50 years ago. I mean, he's, like, he's, he's the best in the world. You know? He's just killer.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that's another thing. Like, I used to hate country music, and I still think I kind of don't really like the era of the 80s and 90s pop country. I think it's not the greatest, but some of the new country stuff, like, like Oliver, Anthony and those kind of guys that it's almost like, I don't even know what you would call like, folks soul or it's like, more emotion and more raw. That stuff is amazing. I think. Familiar with Rustin Kelly? No, but I've got another one to add to the list now. Yeah, I
Unknown:find out about I found out about him because he did teenage dirtbag. But he's a guy that fell in love with the rest of his catalog. You know who else is killer? Lucas Nelson, Willie's kid is, oh, just, just got so many killer songs, man, he's got this one tune. I'll tell you. Hold on. Oh man, what's the name of that? Lucas? This song you gotta hear to believe this is just, you're gonna be like, What the hell
Chuck Shute:yeah. I'm trying to think I always forget the songs that I like, but there's some songs that I've heard. That there's a guy, Brent Cobb. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but it's almost like 70s, like James Taylor kind of stuff, but it's with a country twist.
Unknown:Did I say Lucas Wilson? I think I screwed it up. Lucas Nelson. Hey, no, you said
Chuck Shute:Lucas Nelson, yeah, Willie's
Unknown:kid. Willie's kid, yeah, that would make sense. So he's got a Oh, man. These tunes he's got are just so sick trying to find this one
Chuck Shute:I love that you still love music. That's always disheartening to me. When I interview a musician and they're like, I don't I don't listen to new music, or they don't listen to any music, because they live music so much that during their free time, they would rather hear silence or a podcast. Hell no.
Unknown:Oh. Find yourself. Listen to find that is a tune. What a tune. I mean, it's like it sounds like a fucking Otis Redding wrote it, or something like it's so it's so cool. It's so cool. Find yourself by Lucas Nelson, check that out.
Chuck Shute:Okay, I will do sounds like I got a lot of homework? Yeah, man, I like it. It's fun. Homework. Okay, cool. Anything else you want to promote? No,
Unknown:man, I think we're good. I mean, just go to we just calm and check out the shows. We just come forward slash shows, and we just calm store. And I'll
Chuck Shute:put the website in the show notes so people just don't even have to type. Have to type it. They just
Unknown:click it. Yeah? And when you come see us live, you shout the songs you want to hear and we'll play them. That's, you know, that's how
Chuck Shute:I love that. Yeah, I'll be there front row when you come to if you come to Phoenix, don't come here in the summer, though, obviously, I don't think you have that schedule.
Unknown:Made that mistake before, yeah,
Chuck Shute:you're like, oh, wow, this is they're giving me such a good deal on this, renting out this place in Phoenix, like the hotels are cheap, we should go to Phoenix in August. Yeah, that'll be a
Unknown:good idea. Oh, my God, there's a hair dryer in my face.
Chuck Shute:It's rough. All right. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, no worries. Thanks for having me, man. All right. Nice to meet you. See you later. Take care from
THEME SONG:the rockets to the wise men, soon as men soon and Fauci.
