Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Good evening, everybody. This is Ray LaRodi.

Wow, you're so serious and solemn this evening. I am. This is Hollywood Mike.

How you doing, Ray? I thought I'd change it up. Every week it's, hey, everybody, it's Ray LaRodi. I sound like a clown.

So what's going on with you then? Oh, I don't know. Just trying to change things around. Oh, okay.

Life's too short. Gotta try something different. What'd you do this week? I was gone all last week.

What'd you do? Yeah, me? Nothing. Nothing? You just kind of hung out and did a darn thing. I do a lot of podcast work.

Oh, that's what you do? When I'm not here, I am working on these podcasts day, night, all the time. Constantly. Constantly.

I edit them. Paul edited some. I get them.

I edit them again. I send them back down to him to edit them some more. We edit them.

We make videos. We get rid of videos. We make more videos.

And it's crazy. You mean that guy that's got a 70th birthday coming up soon? Yeah. Yeah.

That's coming up in just a couple of weeks. It is. Less than a couple of weeks.

I think you know the band that's playing at his party. Yeah. Some band called Cadillac Groove.

Yeah. They're a pretty good band. The singer's an ass though.

I mean, he has no talent whatsoever. He just gets up there and shakes his ass. That's true.

And throws beads out. But he does do a great Tennessee whiskey. Oh, God, shut up.

I know you love that singer. Gosh, you know what? No, no offense there, Chris Stapleton. But if I never hear that goddamn song again in my life.

Well, then don't play it that night. I hope these, you know, that's probably what these guys are going to play in the studio. Yeah.

I was just going to tell you, we've got some people joining us. We've got Tyler, Kevin, and Jim. And let the people out there figure out what band they're from.

That would be kind of mean. Yeah, it would be. Yeah.

Plus the slug for that episode would be like blank. Yeah. That's right.

Considering all these guys have probably played with about three or four of the most popular tribute and cover bands. That's true. That's true.

Yeah. Please welcome Aro. Oh, yeah.

Great to be here, guys. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm excited to have you guys in here. This is going to be this is going to be fantastic.

Thanks for having us. Yeah. Why don't we do all the kindergarten stuff? Let's get that out of the way and just go down the line and tell everybody who you are and what you're doing.

Then we'll get to the questions. OK. This is Jim, better known as Jim Blaze.

Stage name, whatever. Been with the band from the beginning, 1989, and just keeping going. We got four out of six original numbers and Tyler's second time in being lead singer.

Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Tyler Holcomb. I'm lead vocals.

And of what Jim said, this is my second kind of foray back into the band. I was a singer back between 2006 and 2010. Yeah.

And then came back late 2021. So starting, I guess, altogether my seventh year in the 35 year history of this legacy here. So it's great to be here.

Great to be back with the band and great to be here in this historic site. This is awesome. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. That's great.

I'm Kevin. I'm the keyboard player, Kevin Christ. I've been with the band since 2400 B.C. I believe it was early February.

Something like that. Yeah. But yeah, I'm one of the original members.

And this band has one heck of a history. We've had a number of different players. Some have made it big, some not so big like me.

But yeah, glad to be here. Looking forward to this. You know, it's always the keyboard player.

You know, isn't it? You know, it is. You know, they don't let me sing. They don't let me have a microphone.

That's enough. Take the microphone away. You just look at him and you can see trouble.

You know, Mike, I could go home and get treated like this. You do know that, right? Thanks for coming, Kevin. The door.

You know where the door is. We should probably pause this. Yes.

We're there. We're there. There we had a little technical glitch there.

Yeah. See, that's what happens when you let the keyboard player have a microphone. I know.

Knocked it completely off the stand. In our band, it's the drummer. We don't let the drummer.

You never know what he's going to say. I know you're a drummer. I can see why.

If we wanted to say something, I hold the microphone back by him and I take it away before it gets too dangerous. That's right. Just when the hand comes out, he's going to go for it.

Right, right, right. What do they call a guy that hangs out with a bunch of musicians? Oh, that'd be a drummer. There you go.

How come all of our podcasts turn into telling musicians jokes? I don't know. It's fun. Especially if they're not here.

So I don't want to breeze over what Kevin just said because when I found out that you guys were going to be on the podcast, the first thing I said to myself was, gosh, these guys epitomize a subject or a topic that comes up on this podcast all the time. People don't realize how influential and what it's like to be a musician in the Chicagoland area. People don't realize that, okay, you never hear the city of Chicago mentioned in the same sentences as places like Nashville and LA and New York when it comes to music.

But when you look at the Chicago music scene, you can have guys like all of us in this room right here. I don't know. You can call us local hacks if you want to.

We all play in cover bands. We all play local venues and local bars. But at the same exact time, all of us sitting around the table here, I'm sure we have a whole heck of a lot of stories about people that we've played with who are famous or we spent some time playing in their bands, recording with them, talking with them, hanging out at their house the whole bit.

And it's fantastic because I know you guys have some great stories. And just looking at your bio on your website, I was like, man, this is really cool. These guys are not what you would consider to be a Chicago area cover band.

You guys are professional musicians with a lot of experiences. I'm going to shut up and let you guys just start talking about that. Well, I wouldn't consider myself a professional musician.

I play by ear pretty much. You can be professional and play by ear. It worked for Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Yes. I am not in that league. I assure you.

But that also brings up another question. Are we going to call somebody a professional simply because they make their money and that's the only thing they do? Or are we going to call somebody a professional because they can pretty much play with anybody and they have that level of professionalism that comes along with that title? Well, I'm just honored to be in a band that's got the level of skill that these musicians have. So they carry me, you know.

Like Mr. Classically trained keyboard player over there. He is. I do carry the band.

There's no doubt. Those are some broad shoulders, man. To me, what it comes down to is who is performing at the top of their game, right? So what's always inspired me and made me such a fan of ARA was that they were always at the top of their game.

So, you know, sometimes we'll post, we'll go around about this cover band, that cover band, but it always comes back to a couple of bands that started it all in terms of the cover scene. And ARA was one of them. And I would say that for 35 years consistently, what defines a professional band? ARA has been at the top.

And, you know, we continue to, you know, have a huge fan base. We continue to play the music that we love. And to kind of see this come full circle, I would say the last, you know, 15, 20 years with, you know, Journey kind of making the comeback that they made.

It's all come full circle. And I would say that the one thing that's remained the same for 35 years, depending on who's been in the band, who's been singing for the band is that ARA has been on top, one of the top cover bands, one of the top drawing cover bands, whether it's in the club, whether it's in the festival circuit, to me, that defines professional. You can do this and you can bring people out and you can connect with an audience.

That's the definition of professional success. I think you guys kind of walk the line a little bit too, because I don't know if I would call you a cover band because, I mean, yes, you are. But when I think of cover band, I think of a band that's out there, you know, every band is a cover band if you're not playing original music, right? But in my mind, you guys are the first band that said, you know what, we're going to cover music, but it's going to be from this era right here, right? You know, you guys weren't doing Chuck Berry and the Stones, right? And then you weren't really doing a whole heck of a lot of the modern stuff when we started to get into like the 2015 and stuff like that.

You kind of have your area that you're working in that regard. You're kind of a tribute band to the era. Yeah, in a way, you know, in a way.

But you definitely have a specialty area, I would say. Over the 90s, you think about how tempting it would have been for this band to dip into Nirvana, Pearl Jam, you know, Soundgarden, that stuff, which kind of, in a way, buried a lot of the bands that we loved. You know, I mean, ARA kind of always to me, crossovered into a little bit of the 80s, hard rock, glam rock type of feel.

But the fact that the band stayed true to that all these years, I think, is something that should be recognized, is that the band was never swayed away to what was happening. You know, every once in a while we'll do a wedding, we'll have to do Jessie's Girl, we'll have to do something like that. You know, but if it comes in by request, you know, I look over and the guys are turning green.

But I love that song. But again, you know, I think the key to that all is staying true to what the band was good at, and quite frankly, the music that we love. I mean, we still love the music to this day.

That comes through in the performance. Another thing about, you know, being in that, like you said, in that area, it's always vocal, strong music and harmonies. That's what we're kind of known for, is doing three and four part harmonies.

At one time, Dave Nielsen was our drummer, and he also sang. So at times we had five part harmonies, which were kind of a pain to figure out. But it was cool when it came together, because we used to rehearse just vocals in Ronnie Platt's living room, you know, and once everybody had their part and we had no microphones, nothing, just acapella in the living room, get the key either from a note on the piano or an acoustic guitar, and then do everything and drill it.

Right. And then, you know, you'd get to that point where you had it and just look at each other and like, that's it. And you can tell the difference.

I mean, you can literally tell the difference. I mean, you guys were actually doing the five part harmonies that Def Leppard does using effects. And 26 channels.

Right now. And you can hear it in your performance. I've seen you guys so many times.

I was a senior in high school in 88. And I think the first time I saw you was like in Schaumburg sometime around 89 or something like that. You know, I'm not exactly I know it was an outdoor festival.

And I'm like, I'm like a little school kid right now, because I've also played in bands and opened up for you guys several times, mainly at 115 Bourbon Street several times. So you guys are literally like, this is really cool. This band is awesome.

Right. And then somebody calls me up and says, hey, you're opening for Aura. And I was like, no fucking way.

That's cool. That's cool. I can't take the smile.

And it was the it was the pastor from the local church talking to you that way. Yes, father. You know, actually, I think it may have been.

I think it may have been. But where the heck were we? We were talking about five part harmonies in the whole bit. That's just kind of like we were known for.

And it's just amazing now that a lot of the bands that are doing great around in the same circuit that we are, both festival and clubs, they used to open up for us. Yeah. You know, Seventh Heaven, High Infidelity, Lounge Puppets, all them guys used to they used to open up for us.

So it's really cool. Like you said, you know, if you influence somebody. So, you know, a lot of them said, hey, let's go out there and do this, too.

Yeah. And, you know, one thing that we don't do that a lot of other bands do that I'm certainly not knocking anybody else, but we don't use any tracks, any mistakes that you hear from our. Those are all ours.

We own every single one. That's right. You don't charge for them or anything.

We don't. We'd all be rich by now if we charge for them. We dock it out of their pay.

But, you know, it all works out at the end. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's another topic that comes up on this program quite often is about all the backing tracks that are being used. What are your thoughts on it? Why not just get into it? What do you think about it? You know, I have two schools of thought.

It's like the first school of thought is I've put a lot of time into practicing and honing my craft and being a live performer. Right. So that's what I want to do.

Right. And then the other side of me and this is kind of a different perspective. I've never heard anybody else say this before.

But like, for example, the band that I'm in, we've got nine guys on stage. We've got a full horn section. Right.

We've seen guys where they've got a saxophone player and the saxophone player is plugged in through some type of effects. Right. And the one saxophone player sounds like there's four other horns on stage with them.

And I'm sitting here thinking to myself, you know, somewhere there's a trumpet player that would have liked a gig tonight. Right. You know, you know, get us get, you know, get a trumpet player, you know, for that.

Or or you go out and you see a band play. Right. And you've got the opening to, you know, some song that's got a saxophone and there's no saxophone player up on this up there on the stage.

And I'm thinking the same thing. You know, saxophone player would have liked a gig tonight. Or you got a four piece band up there and you're hearing you're hearing music by bands like Asia and Europe and stuff like that.

And there's not a single keyboard player up there on that stage. Where's that coming from? Yeah. God, I hate that.

Yeah. You know, we could save some money, man. Yeah.

What it kind of reminds me of is like when you're watching a movie and then you realize that it's a foreign movie and their lips aren't moving to the words. Yeah. Like clutch cargo.

Right. You can save the money, but you can't save face. And I think and I and I, I get it because I've been on both sides of the coin.

I've played with bands that use tracks, a lot of tracks, some tracks. And obviously with Aura, zero tracks. Right.

But, you know, I think obviously it comes to the band that you're with and you're going to tout the strength of your band. And the fact that Aura doesn't use tracks, we're all about no tracks. So I think we've all at least these guys haven't, but I've been on both sides of the coin.

So I think I'm I'm torn a little bit. I see both sides of it. But certainly if you guys if you can if you can get away with not using tracks, you should be doing that.

Right. I mean, that that's my that's my opinion on it. Now, if you're a two piece or a three piece and that's kind of what you are, I think it's a different deal.

But if you are a five piece and you're using tracks, yeah, maybe that's a little bit iffy. Maybe that's on the line. Or even if you're just doing one song that has a keyboard part in it, maybe for that one song, you will let you go on.

There you go. And then you go back all night. Right.

Right. So how did you so how do you sell, you know, because, OK, let's say you're in a band and you're using tracks and all of a sudden people start to know it. So what becomes your sales pitch then? You guys suck.

You use tracks. I'm not sure anybody cares. That's that's the weird part of it.

Right. I mean, because there's clearly a lot of bands doing it. Right.

And they're not hiding it. Right. I mean, there's bands out there that big bands that, yeah, their guitar solos come up and it's pretty obvious those aren't even being played.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. But it doesn't seem like anybody gives up. You know what? Right.

You know, so the only thing that we we try to do now and what we try to say is this is an all live show or is an all live show. It has been for thirty five years. And the other bands can do what they do.

They can use whatever tricks they need to use. But we are staying true to what ARA does, which is a pro live show. All our mistakes are ours.

And that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And there are a lot of you should get that on your T-shirts. We're not knocking anybody.

Yeah, of course. It's just ARA. Just we just prefer to play live.

That's all. But, you know, and it's but, you know, it's a topic that has to be discussed. And that's the reason why we do this podcast.

It is a topic that has to be discussed because nowadays, I mean, I know I know two kids right now. They're both music majors. They're in college and they are studying electronic music.

It's a major in college, right? Is it really? It is. It's a major in college. And it's becoming that way where guess what? That's part of our that is part of our artistry.

Now, you're going to have bands that play completely live and you're going to have bands that create mega hits at their kitchen table with a laptop. Yeah. And there's nothing and there's nothing you can do about it.

It's here. Wow. So let's get used to it and talk about it.

Yeah. You know, thanks for making me feel really old. I hate to tell you this, but that's been going on for about the past 20 years.

I just get off my lawn. I hate the fact that I can be replaced so easily. Although my wife says the same thing.

Well, I would say that Howard Stern probably says the same thing about this, about a podcast, right? He probably hates the fact that anybody now can, you know, jump in and, and create a thing, right? And get out there. Right. So there's a balancing to it all, right? So any idiots can do that.

Right. I think what it comes down to is the quality of the content, right? If it's an overall, you know, the, if the, if the content's good, if the entertainment's good, you know, people are going to buy it, whatever shape or form that comes in these days. So it's just about putting out good quality content, whether it's with tracks or live, which is the way we prefer it.

Right. Right. That's right.

That's right. And you hit the nail on the head with that one as well, because I'll tell you the other thing that I've noticed recently is in this day and age where we are, everybody's texting or everybody's doing a, I saw one of you guys is one of you guys does a, is like a salesman during the day or something that I read all your bios and everything. That's you.

I mean, how many, and I am as well during the day, I hardly ever see somebody face-to-face it's all video conferencing. It's all, you know, it's all emails, it's text messages and things like that. And that is being reflected in live performances.

Nowadays, you go out and you see a band and they play great. The music is fantastic. It's awesome.

Nobody's getting up and dancing. Everybody's sitting there listening to them because the people on stage are pretty much just standing there. They finish the song.

They don't say a thing. They don't talk to the crowd. They don't look up.

They look at each other. Okay. Next song.

Okay. Yep. And they start the next song.

Well, even the crowd is half distracted now. Yeah. So we had the Superbowl yesterday, right? I know maybe I should I date the podcast or dating the podcast, but the Superbowl yesterday.

So and I saw some clips on Tik Tok where Gwen Stefani was like yelling at the fans, like, hello, wake up. She would she played the pre-show to the Superbowl and she sounded awesome. And I'm using tracks, whatever.

But it was like everybody was asleep. Are they distracted? Are they on their phones? Are they doing other things? It's like, she was like, hello, this is awkward. You guys, we're rocking up here and you guys are half asleep.

What's going on? Right. My other question is what percentage do you think of the Superbowl show was pre-recorded? Was anybody singing live? I don't think so. What do you think? You know, there was, I watched almost all of the halftime show and it really seemed like they were singing.

I don't know who was playing, but you notice there wasn't a lot of musicians on stage. They would, they would like move a trailer over and then there'd be a band there and you'd see him for about two minutes. And then they would sink behind the stage.

And then the guy would be up there dancing and singing completely by himself. But there were a couple of times in the middle of the song where Usher even stopped singing and he waved and said something like, Hey, how you doing? And he went back to singing his song again. He was singing something.

There were some live vocals on top of whatever. Right. There was something going on there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought that was better than in years past because in years past there were some things where, I mean, you could tell they weren't even moving their lips and their sound was coming out. Yeah. Oh boy.

I mean, the dancing was unbelievable. I'll say that. I mean, that was, Usher was pretty good.

Yeah. When, when, what's her name? That her, that chick came out and I was watching, I'm watching her play and I'm like, I don't think she's playing. Oh yeah.

I thought she was. I don't know. I thought she was.

I love, I love her by the way. I think she is so talented. I absolutely love her guitar playing and the tone of her guitar is amazing, but I was good.

I was glad I wish she would have been on that a little bit longer. She was literally about 30 seconds and then she was gone. That's it.

The fact that we're having the conversation that we wish she was playing live is frustrating because I wish it would just be obvious that she was playing live, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point.

Yeah. That's a good point. Wow.

So I got a question. Sure. Palindrome Ara, what's the name? Doesn't really mean anything, but a guy I used to work with when I worked in the machine shop, he came up one day and he goes, Hey, how about American rock and roll association? I'm like, that's pretty decent.

Okay. Yeah. Well, there you go.

You just got the answer. I just thought maybe he wanted to be able to pronounce it the right way. And when you're drunk backwards, still good.

Ronnie came up with the name. Um, he, he just felt that we should have a short name because he didn't like, you know, bands at that time that was nobody's on the internet. So Illinois entertainer with that's how you got your gigs out in a, the bands had long names.

It would be printed really small. Right. And he's like, let's get a short name so that they print it with a larger type and it stands out more on the page.

And so he came up with Ara. That's for years. I kept trying to find that band.

I wanted to join them so bad. TBA. I wanted to join that.

They play everywhere. And one of the most brilliant names for a band free beer. Or no cover.

I think there was a no cover band. It worked for bare naked ladies. Yeah.

Tonight, bare naked ladies. Bam. Yeah.

Lining out the door. So let me, let me ask you a question. Cause I, I wasn't hearing the start.

I was much younger when this band started. Bring that up. Um, so do you wish that you could go back and change the name? Cause I think to me, one of the things that this band always had to overcome was the fact that it wasn't a word, a word, right.

Or it wasn't, it wasn't tied to like, you think about high infidelity, right. It kind of, you know what it is or infinity, right. Immediately, you know what the band is.

And we, we talked about it, but then we're like, so what are we going to like cut off our nose, the spider face, because we're already rolling with our, and people know our name and like what, what good would it do to change the name? I mean, we did arrival when we were doing the journey tribute thing. I mean, we were about 12 years in with our, uh, when Kevin Connor decided that maybe we should change the name of the band because of the very reason Tyler's talking about. And we just thought, you know, we got 12 years of our, everybody knows who we are.

So now we decided to keep it, just keep it. Yeah. Yeah.

There's a lot of band names that the word really doesn't mean anything. So, I mean, everybody knew it at that point. Right.

Yeah. But I, but I think if, if you're a new band starting out and you can come up with a name that encapsulates what you're doing. Yeah.

I think that's, there's an advantage there. Absolutely. Well, yeah.

People know where you're coming from. Hairbanger's ball. Right.

Right. Hair nation. Like, you know what that is right off the, right off the start.

Right. Yep. Yeah.

Nice plug. We're playing a show with them soon. 24th.

Oh, I thought, I thought, I thought you meant he had plugs. Yeah. Yeah.

This is what I think, this is what I think should happen. I think they should play us a song. I think so too.

And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about some of that stuff. Alrighty. Let's take a little break.

We'll be right back. All right. Great.

Thanks guys. You're listening to the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Hi, I'm Rick Anthony.

I'd like to thank my radio brothers, Ray, the roadie and Hollywood Mike, for allowing me to tell you about my podcast, the someone you should know podcast. We spotlight musicians, authors, and interesting people. And we like to say we're making a difference one artist at a time.

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And for the first time tonight, live our, Oh, two, three, four. Whoa, dusty road. Yeah.

Nice. That's all right. Everybody right there.

All right. That's it all together. You didn't want to tear the calluses off your fingers and doing that.

You know, it's all about the rock and roll, man. No pain, no gain. I was waiting to see if he was going to do it.

They had to switch singing roles. If he started doing that, he'd be like, that was by request for me. That's that's one of my favorite songs.

Thank you. Absolutely. Love.

That's all. So this Ron Platt guy, he's probably sad he left you guys or he's hurting. You can tell.

Yeah, he is a poor guy. How do you wind up getting that? Actually, he had been touring with the band shooting star for a while and they opened up for Kansas a bunch of times. So I understand he never had to even audition.

They just called him up, saw if he was interested, flew him down to Georgia, where Kansas is based in Georgia. Yeah, in Georgia. Of course.

And he met the guys and hit it off with them. And you got jobs. Wow.

Nice. Awesome. Well, I was in a band called Forget Hannah, and I can't remember exactly when this was, but we opened up for you guys and it was his final performance with ARA.

Oh, wow. And I think it was at. Westwood? It may have been.

It may have been. It may have been Burr Ridge or something like that. Yeah, it was an outdoor festival.

I think it was Burr Ridge or something, but it was his last performance with you guys. And it was literally like three days later, somebody had said, oh, yeah, you know, that guy's singing for Kansas now. And I was like, yeah, bullshit.

I just saw him. I just saw him a few days ago. They do a couple of Kansas tunes, but not really.

An interesting story is our original drummer, Neil Holmquist, he was our original drummer with ARA. His son was the drum tech for Kansas, and now he plays drums for Kansas. He does about three quarters of the show now.

So we got a big connection with Kansas. He actually met Kansas when he was 10 years old. We had opened up for them at Synergy in West Chicago.

OK. And so our drummer, Neil, brought Eric and Eric, and Eric got to meet the band, you know, like 10 years old and he was mesmerized. And then here years later, he goes and he ends up being their drum tech.

Yeah. And now filling in for Phil when Phil leaves it. Yeah.

Wow. Nice. Yeah.

Nice. Pretty cool. Not a bad gig.

We were here. We were here two years ago, I think about right at this time when Ronnie was officially inducted into the Illinois Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So.

No kidding. It comes full circle. So he's an official inductee.

Yeah. And we're just writing his code. We are totally right.

I'm still waiting to get the call for a keyboard player from Kansas. Yeah. I got the call for Ara.

He got the call for Ara and now I got the call for Abba. You know, so I'm not sure how that worked out. Oops.

You got the job because you fit into the skirt. There you go. That's right.

Thank you. But, you know, that's not true that you guys are all writing his coattails because if, I bet you, if we sat down here with a notebook and a pencil and started drawing a timeline and like a family tree of all the bands that you guys have been in and kind of shared members with, because I mean, gosh, High Infidelity, probably Infinity. Definitely.

Chaser. Didn't you guys share some? That was Ronnie. Ronnie was in Chaser.

Hairbanger's Ball. Hairbanger's Ball and Lounge Puppets. We just had the Lounge Puppets in here not too long ago.

In about a year now. Was it a year? Was that that long ago? That's right. It was the discussion about whether or not we could curse for the first time or something like that.

I remember that. I think I think Pete Greco was the first person to say the word ass. He might have been.

The whole night was full of ass. It was. It was.

We kept saying ass every time somebody said a word that rhymed with ass. He said glass ass. I remember that.

It was great. Whatever works. So I will say this, and I've said it before and I've said it again, but the two guys that I idolized in high school.

I think we're a lot younger than these guys. I think I'm judging by the description. Maybe.

I don't know. What year did you graduate from high school? Ninety four. So I was 13 when these guys started.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I graduated in 88. Okay. So you're a couple of years, six years older.

So, but the two bands that my good friend from high school, Andrew Blake, who, who sung in a bunch of local bands in Chicago and cover bands and does original music too. But we used to sneak into Toto's all the time. Right.

And the two bands that we wanted to sneak in to see all the time were ARA, of course, because we loved Ronnie Platt and we love what these guys are doing. And we, we vowed one day that we would be the next ARA in Chicago. And then the other band was Cedar, which was Pete Greco's original band.

And they were awesome. So, you know, the fact that, you know, I got to share the stage, share musicians and friendships with my two vocal idols is really gratifying and rewarding, you know, and kind of brings it all home. I didn't know that about the theater part.

Andrew Blake and I drove to Hammond, Indiana, and we got our fake IDs at the flea market and they worked for a lot of years, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

That's right. And that was way before iPhones. That was before MapQuest.

It was like this myth. You go to, you find your way to the flea market in Hammond, Indiana, and you will get your fake ID. Now, I don't know if that still exists, but that's the way it was about 30 years ago.

Yeah. I doubt if that's happening nowadays because you can just do it on the internet. Well, there you go.

There you go. Like everything else. Yeah.

You don't need to have a brick and mortar store for your fake IDs anymore. That's right. Back in the day, there was the Hammond Civic Center that had a lot of big name acts there.

Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yeah.

I mean, the building's still there. I don't think it's working. They're using it anymore, but yeah, a lot of big names played at that place.

Yeah. And by the way, if anybody's interested, episode 119 was the Lounge Puppets, and that came out December 27th of 2022. That was like 50 some episodes ago.

Something like that. Well, this is episode 179. Holy crap.

We must be doing something right. We've been doing this a long time. Yeah.

Since six o'clock, I got here about 530. That's right. That's right.

So what's next for you guys? I mean, it seems like you've done absolutely everything. I mean, are we on cruise control right now or autopilot? Are you looking to do more stuff? We're just going to, I think, stay with the formula that seems to be working. I mean, Kevin's been working hard, booking our summer schedule already.

Kevin Conner has. It's tough. It's got to be a logistic nightmare trying to fit all the fests that we're used to doing and get some new ones.

And sometimes we pick up a last minute one if somebody cancels or whatever. So for me, it's like the most fun is doing those summer fests. I just love it.

What we're trying to really do is just keep this thing going. And I think we came off probably our best summer ever last year. This club season's been one of the best of all time.

We sold out the Arcata, Dirty Nelly a few times, Austin's Fuel Room on New Year's Eve. We're just on a roll right now. And we're doing a lot with media, video, Facebook, recordings, just getting the word out there to the folks that maybe haven't seen the band before.

And it's paying off. We're working it. We're getting the different media things cranking.

And we're seeing it pay off. It really is. To say that you're not working hard would be a mistake.

He is really working hard putting these videos together. And we'll have like three or sometimes even a four camera shoot going on. Nice.

And he bought this cool tripod that follows him. Oh, wow. It's got an electric eye.

Only him. Only him. It's his tripod.

He paid for it. It's a gimbal that will kind of follow me. Every once in a while, like Steve, because he moves a lot, it'll drift away from me.

And all of a sudden it's stuck on Steve. And I gotta take it and I gotta move it back. That's mine.

All of a sudden you hear him go, hey, he comes back. Steve is a great guy and he's an incredible bass player, but he's kind of like watching a squirrel try to get across the road once in a while. Love you, Steve.

And he'll knock you out with that bass. He's got this big heavy five string bass. And that thing is flinging around.

Watch yourself. There's this old video. We were doing Darien Fest.

You're on the other side. You're lucky. We're doing Darien Fest.

And you can see he's behind me. And you can actually hear it in the And you see me. I got one square in the middle of the back.

He's got me in my elbow. This last gig, last Saturday, got me twice in my right shoulder. Yeah, I'm a target.

Yeah, but there was one time where Steve fell off the stage and it was about four feet high. And you'd have never known that he fell off the stage. He just kept on playing.

He's a pro. He is a pro. Well, he's a bass player.

He didn't know he fell off the stage. Exactly, yeah. You know how you know the stage is level? Yeah, yeah.

Your bass player drills out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. We've seen Steve do that. We've seen him.

Oh, man. I've got to get them sound effects in here. So how many shows did you guys play for in 2023? We did about 57 shows.

Nice. That's good. So we've kind of been following the formula.

We'll do two or three in the winter months doing like sort of the club scene. Yeah. And then in the summer, we just load them up.

You know, the big fest, the big Friday, Saturday, Sunday headlines. Whatever comes along, we'll take it. We had 41 scheduled.

I think we got rained out. Algonquin, we got rained out, but yeah, we had 41 scheduled. So that's just in the summer.

Yeah, you know, we didn't have a lot of rain last summer because I don't think we got rained out once during the festival. Some of them I was wishing we were because it was like 98 degrees. And I was like, oh, my God, please rain.

We got hit in Shorewood. It's during the last song. All of a sudden, you just saw the crowd dissipate.

And then we look and you could see in lights and the rain was coming in sideways. Wow. We had our stuff pushed as far back as we could.

And we're still getting wet. Yeah. I just looked at my pedal board.

I'm like, I just I grabbed the power cord, pulled it out and flip the board upside down so it wouldn't get so much water in it. But I ended up staying up until like four in the morning. Yeah.

Screwdriver. Take everything apart. Compressed air.

Drying everything. It needed a dusting. I saw that.

It was a little bit nasty. Yeah, but I can think of better ways to do it. Yeah.

So the question that I have is playing specific music, right? Or I should say from a specific era. How do you overcome that whole thing that every band goes through? You know, we got to add new music. I'm getting bored with this.

Right. How do you overcome that when it's like, okay, well, we've got to be in this area right here. Right.

We add stuff here and there, especially, you know, when you had a new member, a key member, a lead singer coming in and he brings some tunes with him that he'd like to do and eliminate some of the other ones and stuff. There's a lot to choose from. Oh, sure.

Yeah. We try to keep sort of the same formula, what we've been doing all these years. Really focus on the vocals because what sets are apart from the other bands are the vocals.

Right. Yeah. Right.

And that's why we need you in there. Yeah. We got to get you a microphone.

All right. So you heard it here first, everybody. They're going to give their keyboard player a microphone.

That's right. We're not going to plug it in. Not approved.

This is not a sanctioned event that's happening. Yeah. So watch for it at the next show.

The first time that they had me sing when the band first formed, I remember Ronnie Platt, he said, sounds like somebody's torturing a cat. Kevin, you are never singing in this band. And he turned around and he goes, what do you mean? I'm pretty sure I went rare or something like that.

Decision made. Yeah. So I think they should play another one.

We're going to have them sing. I think they should. So why don't we take a break? Be right back.

They got to teach him a song. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. And for the second time tonight, Aro.

One, two, three, four. And wasting away Another place Where the faces are so cold I tried all night Just to get back home I'm a cowboy On a steel loneside ride I'm one head Dead or alive Sometimes I'm steep Sometimes I'm fatigued The people I meet Always go their certain way I'm a cowboy Sometimes I tell the day by the bottle that you drink. Sometimes the air is low.

All you do is say, I'm a cowboy. On a steel roadside ride, I wanted the light. On a steel roadside ride, I wanted, wanted big streets.

With a six ring on my back, I played for kings. Cause of my number, I'm standing tall. I've seen a million faces, and I rocked them all.

And I'm a cowboy, baby. On a steel roadside ride, what I wanted. Wanted.

On my side. And I wanted. And I still try.

Tyler, you have too much fun with that song. Give it up for Aura, everybody. Yeah.

Very nice. Thank you. And I didn't pay a cover.

Yeah. That's right. You will never pay a cover if you come to see us.

You just let us know. I tell you, payola in podcasting is not dead. Quit from payola.

Old term. And they're right. They didn't charge us for the mistakes.

That's right. They didn't charge us. There was plenty of them.

I don't know. Maybe we'll just leave all three takes in. It was that Martin again.

Put that in tune. Yeah. So, I mean, there's probably like, I don't know, five to ten people in Chicagoland area who don't know who you guys are.

So, how can people find you? Well, you can check us out on Facebook. Just search Aura and AuraWeb.com on the interweb. And we have all our dates posted up there.

We do a blog where we talk about a song of the month, or we talk about a live video that we posted with some of the video work that we've been doing with some of our live shows. And check it out. We've got a lot of content up there.

And we've got the big show coming up, Dirty Nelly's on the 24th, Hairbanger's Ball. Nice. It's a great collaboration because you kind of get the full spectrum of 70s through like early 90s before grunge killed it all.

You kind of get it all in one night. And so we've been doing a lot of shows with our friends from HBB. Yeah.

It's been really great. The last time that we did a show at Dirty Nelly's, I understand we set an attendance record for the whole time that the newer building has been there. Wow.

Nice. Nice. It was a lot of fun.

Hairbanger's was such a talented band. Holy cows. And they've been around for a while, too.

So we've got some seasoned musicians that are going to be on stage. This guy used to be an elite singer. Yeah.

No kidding. Yeah. Yeah.

I used to put on the wig and spandex and do 80s hair metal. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You know, you looked familiar to me. I think I saw you at CD in May. Yeah.

Yep. Absolutely. I was going to say, because I thought I remembered you with longer hair, too.

Yeah. It was a wig. Yeah.

It was longer. Yeah. So when you perform, is wearing a wig like using backing tracks? Oh.

Hey, now. It wasn't back hair. It was on his head.

Oh. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

No kidding. So you guys got anything coming up toward the end of March, beginning of April? We do. He's going to look on his calendar.

We got Bannermans on March 9th in Bartlett. We're going to be at the Hard Rock Casino in northern Indiana. It's a great new venue.

Up there, we're playing up the northern suburbs, if you guys live up there, at Sundance Saloon. And that's going to be kind of it before we transition into our spring, summer calendar, which will be jam-packed. Right.

Right. When the white shoes come out and stuff. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. It's okay to wear white shoes again. Only after Memorial Day, I think.

That's right. That's right. You can look for the white shoes if you want, but I look for the halter tops and the shorts with the cowboy boots.

That works, too. That works, too. Whoever invented that look, and you know it was a guy.

Oh, of course. Thanks for that. Of course.

I appreciate that. One of the other things that's really exciting nowadays about the Internet and social media and everything else, that's a young person's game. If you want something done on social media, you call somebody who's between 18 and 25 and say, do this for me.

And because of that format, you've got a younger generation of people discovering the music that you guys play. I'm hearing more and more about how, yeah, we had like a crowd full of 20-year-olds that were here to listen to 80s and 90s hair metal. That's right.

Because they realized that people were actually playing guitars and stuff back then. Yeah. It is really cool to see.

You're right. I'll never forget. It was back around my 40th birthday, and we're playing at this club, and I spot this cute girl.

So during our break, I go up and start talking with her. I'm like, you seem like you know every word, every song that we do. And she goes, yeah, my parents listen to this.

So fast forward another 20 years, and now I'm sure she would say, oh, my grandparents listen to that. Now she's actually of age, Jim, so maybe. She was in a bar.

She was 21. Yeah. Yeah.

She maybe got IDs in Hammond. Nicely played. Nicely played.

Let's go get you a fake ID and some daddy issues. Come on. Now, we just recently had a band in here, young guys.

It was a trio. And they played all, like, 50s and 60s. Yeah, yeah.

They were from up north. Yeah, they took, like, 90s, you know, like, punk stuff, like Green Day and stuff like that, and played it, like, in the style of Chuck Berry. Imagine if Chuck Berry wrote a Green Day song, and that's everything that they did, and they were actually really cool.

I know he's going to pull up the name of it right now. That's a pretty funny idea. I mean, that's great.

They're fantastic. They really are. They actually played the throwbacks.

The throwbacks. That's it, the throwbacks. They played a – Episode 158, for those of you wondering.

Yeah, they played the night before us at a barbecue festival up north around Crystal Lake area, something like that. And I'm sorry I missed them because I was sick that weekend, but they were freaking awesome. You should check those guys out.

Three-piece band, man. Yeah, doing stuff like Green Day and Three Doors Down and stuff like that in the style of 50s rock and roll. That is a great original idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe we should start doing some Sammy Davis, a junior or something like that. In the style of hair bands.

The style of hair music. Right. Yeah.

I could just see Candyman done in the style of Queensryche. I'm trying to, like, hear that in my head. Yeah.

You don't want to try too hard. Yeah. Well, you could easily do Journey in the style of Sam Cooke because, you know, Steve Perry's just a Sam Cooke kind of impersonator, you know, with his different flair on it.

But you could easily do a Journey, Sam Cooke combination there if you wanted to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, you definitely could.

I love Journey, so I'm going to have to look into that. Everybody loves Journey. I never even thought about that because, you know, my band, I'm more of a Southern rock blues kind of guy.

I never even thought of something like that. Take a Journey song and do it, like, in the style of Sam Cooke. Yeah.

That would actually be really cool. You could do it very easily. Trust me.

Yeah. We'll talk after this. Yeah.

I'll send you some links to some stuff on YouTube that's eerie. Yeah, oh, I bet. A lot of those vocal runs, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Oh, yeah. All that stuff is Sam Cooke to the T, you know? All right. Interesting.

Yeah, we're going to have to look into that for sure. All righty, guys. Well, thanks for coming out.

This has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having us. I know from my end, I've been trying for a long time to get you guys here.

We finally, we got lost. Thank you. We got lost.

Yeah. Well, thanks a lot for coming out. Appreciate it.

Thanks for having us. Come back and see us when we're open. Sounds good.

Everybody's coming for something. Someone has a man band crush, I think. I do.

Anara. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that was kind of cool to have them in the studio.

That's cool. You know, and talk to them and everything. It's fun when, you know, somebody you liked from way back when.

Yeah. You know, and they've been around 35 years, man. It's a long time.

People know who they are. Yeah, they've gone through, you know, some different personnel. And like they said, they've had members go on to stardom, which is pretty cool.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Having served in a lot of bands.

Yeah. Go check those guys out. Because, you know, it's a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun. I'll tell you what. They are fantastic.

They are. And they put on a really good show. Yeah.

They really do. They don't just stand there behind the microphones and don't move. I mean, they're a very exciting show.

All right. And Kevin, the keyboard player, they're going to make him sing now. Yeah.

So watch out for that. Watch his. He's going to be singing before you know it.

Yeah. It's like, thanks for the warning. That's right.

And it all happened here. Right here. Right here at the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast, where you can find us every Tuesday with another exciting episode.

So make sure you tune in every week. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of MNR Rush. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show.

The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.