Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. It's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie.

And this is Hollywood Mike Esquire. Esquire, did you become a lawyer? Sure. Oh.

No, no, no, and no, and not in any way that I become a lawyer or anything. We need to put that disclaimer out there. Okay.

I'm not trying to be a lawyer or anything for legal reasons and stuff like that. Universal life church type things where you sign up and become a reverend. In 20 minutes.

That would be ministers, yeah, in 20 minutes. You're a 20-minute lawyer. Yeah, that's right.

Hey, it actually works for only $19.95. I can marry you because Google said so. I've been an official minister now for going on 10 years. I've got probably about, I probably got you like 15 or 20.

Yeah, I mean, I've actually done things. You know, Cadillac Groove plays a lot of weddings. I've actually married the couples.

That's cool. We do the whole thing. I'm there.

I'm doing it. Do the whole thing. And, you know, the marriage, you and you and they kiss and bam and throw the bouquet and I jump on stage.

So do you cut them a deal? You like you hire me for both things and then. Oh, yeah, we absolutely do. We have done things.

We have done things from marrying the bride and groom to working with the venue to helping them plan the meals when they're going to go. We do it all. We were complete wedding coordinators.

Wow. We can do it all. We can do it all.

We can even get them hitched. Yeah, well, you know, I think, you know, I'm sure most of our listeners are hearing a third voice here. Yes.

And who could that be? I don't know. I think it's somebody that you brought in. It's the Twilight Zone.

Is it the Twilight Zone? It is a young man by the name of Aaron Newsome. Aaron Newsome. Where's the thing? See, we're going to try this now, right? No, that's not the one we want.

All right, this one. Is it that there is the one we want? Thanks for having me. I don't see you guys next time.

That was good. OK, we're out of here. We'll see you later.

Thanks for coming in. Very easy. So let me tell you this.

Let me let me tell you. So I met I met this young man, Aaron Newsome at the studio of all places. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about the night that I met him.

Right. He shows up wearing a suit. He's wearing a suit.

He's wearing a black suit, complete suit, coat, slacks, you know, a whole bit nice shirt and everything. And he's just hanging out in the back, hanging out there, not saying much and stuff. And it finally comes over and introduces himself to me.

And yeah, I'm the guy running the jam and everything. And he says, oh, that's great. I can't wait to hear you.

Completely, I mean, modest, humble, complete with the, you know, I've never really done this before, you know, carrying a violin case, you know, kind of thing, you know. No, he wasn't. I was carrying a nice guitar case.

Then he gets up there and he just blows everybody away. Wow. He absolutely did.

You did. I don't know if you realize that or not, but you did. You know, I mean, every everybody just all of a sudden, you know, they stopped talking and they sat up a little bit more in their chairs and they put their drinks down and they listen to this young man.

I'll tell you a little bit of Elvis, a little bit of Roy Orbison, you know, in their country influence, rock and roll influence in the whole bit, which begs the question. All right. We're going to go back.

You're how old? 26. 26 years old. Yeah.

Okay. 26 years old. So you haven't been around the proverbial block that many times because you're only 26.

Yeah. You're only only 26 years old. So take us back.

You know, you're a young man, you know, eating your Froot Loops, laying down on the floor in front of the television. I don't know, wearing your Superman underwear or whatever, watching Fairly Oddparents and iCarly and. Oh, Jimmy Neutron, Jake and Josh, Hannah Montana, Sweet Life, Zach and Cody, all the good ones.

You're not much older than my kids. That's how I knew all this stuff. Yeah.

Right. Then what was the calling? What was, you know, what was the errand? You're going to be a musician. I don't think there was one until like recently.

But like growing up, my influence is like you hit it on the first one. Elvis Presley is my main guy. I've always listened to him from when I was a from when I was a kid.

My dad listened to a lot of a lot of oldies types of music. I mean, he was born in the early 60s. And so he grew up with the 60s, the 70s.

My mom was born in sort of the late 60s. And so she had the same thing. She's more of a country person, but that 70s, 80s, 90s country were still really, you know, storytelling oriented.

And it really hadn't done anything that was pop influenced yet. And so that's the stuff I really loved. And then, but no, Elvis and Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee and, you know, Carl Perkins, that's a million dollar quartet, you know.

So those guys, but also on the other end of things, Alan Jackson, George Strait, I'm blanking on so, you know, so many, so many right now. But yeah, but not until like this past December, did I start really performing or doing anything. As far as music is concerned, when I was in college, I, you know, had performed in theater productions at Olivet, where I went to school in Kankakee and done some performances and solos here and there.

But that was more classical oriented and hadn't really found my true voice yet. But I've always known I could do it. It wasn't until recently that I started to be like, all right, dude, you can do it by kicking into gear.

And so, you know, December, you know, I got to call bullshit on that because there's no way you get to all of a sudden, you know, December, I'm going to do this. Well, I started, I started writing music last year is when I really like, I'm going to start writing songs that are not just songs, but like stories to me and mean something to me. And so after I started writing those and, you know, sending them to the people I trust to listen to and give me that, not like, oh, it's good.

Really, you know, give me that true friendship feedback that I was like, okay. The friendship, the friendship feedback or the real feedback? That real friendship feedback, that real friendship feedback where it's like, sounds good, but you should probably get rid of this. Or you should probably add something else in there.

You know, the stuff that, you know, not everybody's going to tell you. But everybody has always said, you, why aren't you doing anything with this? You should do something with this. And so I always sort of pushed that to the side and was like, no, I don't think I want to, you know, a lot of it was also nerves to, I get nervous before I go on to do anything.

But at the end of it, it's like I do an hour show and it feels like it's been 10 minutes. And I'm like, this is what I really like to do. I think more than anything.

Right, right. So it's like, I need to follow it. I need to follow it.

But I'm still, I'm still missing the, I'm still feeling a gap in here somewhere because, you know, like I said, all right, December, a few months ago, right? That didn't just happen in December. Like, when were your first guitar lessons? When did you pick up the guitar? When did you decide, okay, I'm going to play this instrument? Um, I was in college. I probably like my sophomore, junior year in college.

So we're looking at like 20. Yeah. Something like that.

You decided you're going to pick up the guitar. And I get that because that's about the same time that I did. And it was, was that just solo mission in your dorm room? Or were you playing with people at that time? I wanted to learn guitar, but I didn't have anybody.

I didn't really like the idea of having to go and have someone teach me the ins and outs of music theory so I could learn how to play. But I was like, I still really want to learn how to play. So I bought a guitar and I was like, if I do it myself, if I buy it myself, I'm going to be, I'm going to have to teach myself how to use it.

So that was a big like selling factor for the guitar for me. And a lot of it was because I like, I really like to sing Elvis songs. I really like to sing all these other songs that have a really cool beat to them.

But it's like, I don't know how to do that on a piano or anything. I think I could do it on a guitar. So I learned that just for the fact of, you know, accompanying myself in my bedroom when I wasn't doing this for anybody.

But yeah, that's, you know, around that sophomore, junior, 20, 21, you know, just so I could have something else to do that was not go to work, play video games. You know how it is in college. Like for me, I knew that I could sing from a very young age, but I didn't pick up the guitar until I was like 20.

Same, same story as yours. So when, when was it in what point in your life did you decide, you know, I can actually sing people don't mind listening to my voice. Probably in like junior high or high school.

Okay. I always had a really high voice. And I was like, I went to church and did a lot of music in church, but I was also good at it to the point where like people were like, Oh, like I, you know, you do a church song and sometimes it's like a couple of claps.

And like, that was really good. And then I would notice that when I went up there, people were like really like affected by it and like moved by it. And it also depends on the church, by the way, because there's some, you're not allowed to applaud.

That's right. You should leave. Yes.

We don't celebrate the Lord that quite that way. Yeah. No, but, but then other places you can applaud.

Yeah. So like church was when I, you know, okay. People are noticing stuff.

People are telling me I'm good. I didn't really do anything in high school because I was really shy in high school and didn't really know what I fit in with. I was in the FFA program.

And so I was like, it can't be an FFA program and also be in choir. That's kind of weird. What's FFA? It's the future farmers of America.

Oh, no kidding. And agriculture. I knew that, but I couldn't put two and two together there.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, so you didn't do well in math in school, you're saying? No, definitely not. Okay. No, it's not clarifying that.

No, no. But, uh, yeah, high school. I mean, I, I joined my high school choir, my senior year, a friend pursued, you know, persuaded me to do it because she had heard me, um, do some things in high school, as far as solos, um, here and there.

I thought he was going to say she heard him singing in the shower. I was going to say, whoa. It's some things.

There's nothing wrong with that. Some things in high school that I had done that friends had heard me, uh, seeing it and it was like, Oh, you know, if you're thinking about it, you should do it. And, you know, I, I credit that to why I'm doing that today.

Um, is for those people who encouraged me that long ago, even though it took me so many years to realize that. Yeah. Okay.

I should. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Church is a big, so church was a big influence. Friends, big influence somewhere, somewhere around junior high.

And you said there was some musical theater that was involved in there as well. Yeah. That, that influenced the part of me that was like, I like being in front of people.

I like doing something in front of people. I like to ham it up a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Like if I can have a stage and people are laughing at me or paying attention to me, then I'm going to give it all I got.

Right. Right. Right.

So did you, did you know, do you think that there was some type of a crossover in between the person that you are on stage versus the person who you're, who you're just, just when you're, when you're just walking around, you know, did you, did musical theater kind of influence kind of like the persona that you play? Because I'll tell you what your actions remind me of Elvis, remind me of Johnny cash, you know, remind me of all those names that we've just talked about, the way you dress, the way you talk into the microphone, everything. I mean, how did, how did that come about? And where, where'd that influence come from? That, that is very like a stage Aaron Newsome is, is like, I'm not, I'm not stage Aaron Newsome in real life. That's very, that's very much like influenced by the hours of watching Elvis, the hours of watching, you know, those concerts from those old times and just like how they could capture an audience and also spend five, 10 minutes talking to an audience and still be just as captivating as entertain me as they would if they were doing some of their like solid number one hits.

Right, right, right, right. So it's like, I, you know, I just put it all together. And like I said, I sort of black out when I'm on stage and I don't really, not really black out.

Not really, not really. I was getting worried there for a little bit there. That's right.

No, I, I sort of just like. Medic. Oh, well, we've got you.

So if he, I no longer have my license. Yeah. But in the middle of his performance, if he does black out, he's okay.

I give you permission. You can help me. But yeah, that's sort of a mix of just that musical theater as well.

You know, you're always going to be a little bit extra of a person when you're being hyped up by, you know, friends and family and people who are there to see and want to see, you know, excel at what you're doing and be energetic. Absolutely. It's food.

It really is. I mean, the energy that they're giving you, I mean, you know, a lot of people say, well, the crowd is going crazy because, because you're, you're performing well. But, you know, I kind of think it's the other way around.

If the crowd is sitting there just, you know, sipping their drinks and not paying attention to you, your performance is going to reflect that. I mean, it's going to, but no, that's, that's fantastic. So the influences, I mean, this came from your mother and your father playing Elvis and doing all that stuff.

My mom. Yeah. My mom, my dad, like my, my grandparents.

I remember being in their place when I was younger and, you know, talking about Elvis with them, you know, because they're from that generation. They grew up with them. You know, I, I always love talking to older people because it's like, they grew up in a world that didn't have Elvis, then had Elvis and now doesn't have Elvis, but he's still somehow bigger than he was when he was alive.

And so it's like. I've never heard it put that way before, but there, but that's exactly what happened. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and it's, it's just like, it's, it's fun and awesome. And so exciting hearing the, hearing those stories from that era of people, because it's like they didn't, we had never experienced that before.

They had Elvis as a, almost a teenager, as a young man for several years. Then he disappears. 10 years gone.

Yeah. Done. And then he comes back.

Unless you watched his terrible movies. Yeah. Right, right.

And then, and then he comes back and he was back again for how many years? I just under a decade. He came back in 68. Yeah.

Yeah. He died in 77. Right, right.

You know everything about him. I tell you, I had, I don't know if you remember, but there was a newspaper called the star newspaper. And I can't remember when they stopped publishing that, but that was kind of like the inquirer when I was, when I was younger and it was in newsprint.

I mean, it wasn't a magazine, it was a newspaper and it was in color and it was newsprint and it was maybe old, about 50 pages long. And it was a tabloid newspaper. But I was a huge Elvis fan.

There was actually a woman in my life that influenced me very much. I called her my aunt, but she wasn't really my aunt. I had an uncle of mine through marriage.

It was his mother. Okay. And she was a huge Elvis fan and she had a giant poster in a frame of Elvis doing the Hawaiian concert where he's got the white jumpsuit on, but he's got the laser on his neck and the whole bit.

And that's how I discovered Elvis. And I fell in love with Elvis's music. I just absolutely loved it.

And I had this picture the day that he died. I had this picture on my wall. I was seven years old and we lived in that house until about 1980 or so before we moved.

And I had that poster. It was, you know, it was unprotected, you know, newsprint. By the time we left, you couldn't even tell it was Elvis anymore.

All the colors had faded out of the newsprint, you know, but I knew that was Elvis's picture and it wasn't coming off the wall. Boy, that's great. That's amazing that they had him.

They didn't. They had him and now he's gone, but he's still around. Yeah, that's an amazing way of putting it.

His daughter's gone. His daughter's gone. That's a crazy thing.

Yeah. Yeah, but he's got grandkids that are still alive that look exactly like him. He had a grandson who passed away who looked almost exactly like him.

Yep. He's got his granddaughter's an actress in Hollywood and she's like, I think, running the estate now. Yeah.

Priscilla doesn't even have it anymore. Right. Oh, she never did.

No, I don't think she did. It was always Lisa Marie. Oh, yeah, it was Lisa Marie.

She passed away and they sort of had a little conflict who's going to get it. Yeah, right. Her daughter or Priscilla.

Wow. Okay. Yeah.

And I didn't follow that as much. So I don't know where that went. Maybe we'll do another podcast on that.

Just delve into the Elvis files. You want to talk about Elvis for an hour and a half. Call me in and I'll be your historian.

I'm starting to get that. I was thinking we need to call in a medium, but I don't think we do. So, I mean, kind of off subject a little bit, but let's freaking talk about it because I loved the movie.

I loved the movie. Elvis. Most people that I talk to about it hated it.

Me too. But I think that they went into it because they didn't. They went into it thinking that the movie was about Elvis, but the movie really wasn't about Elvis.

It was Colonel Parker's story. Elvis was just the vehicle by which Tom Hanks told the real story of Tom Parker. Real.

And I say that because remember, at the very start of the movie, before the story even starts, they put Colonel Parker on a morphine drip. Yeah, right, right. And then he starts telling the story.

So it's like all those things that are in there that as a true Elvis fan, you're like, this is preposterous. Yeah, right. How would you include this in this movie? What creative liberties did you take? Right, right, right.

And then it's like you see something like that and you're like, okay, okay, I'm going to cool down a little bit and just take it for as it is. I liked it as an Elvis fan. It's one of the better representations of him that we've gotten as far as a film adaptation.

I think Austin Butler did a really good job portraying the several eras that he had to portray. He absolutely did. I wish there would have been so many more songs and so many more concert footage and so much more of the Elvis in action that I really want to see.

A lot of that had to do with who owns the rights to the music. Yeah. So you have to be very selective with it.

But what I liked about it was, okay, the story of Elvis is always sunshine and rainbows, right? And then the tragic end of his life, right? But then you see this movie and you realize there was a lot that led up to that fateful night. The king was on the throne though. He was.

When he went. And then he wasn't. And then he wasn't.

Yeah. So now I've got to add this to my list of things. Never been to Nashville.

Never saw the Elvis movie. Never seen that movie. Okay.

He's never been to Nashville, but he's going soon. I am going soon. Check that out.

While you're in Nashville, go to Netflix and watch the Elvis movie. It's on Netflix right now. Is it? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So now that you have that information to go in and watch the movie, because, you know, don't be one of those people that starts watching the movie thinking, well, this sucks.

This isn't true. Well, yeah, it is. It is.

And the more I thought about it today, actually, while I was getting ready to come over here, I was like, there's quite a bit of his early discovery that wasn't added. And then you realize it's like, well, it's because it starts when Colonel Parker met him. Right.

And that wasn't until after, you know, That's Alright Mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky and his Sun Record days. Right. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Well, don't give too much away.

I got to still see this movie. Yeah. I don't want to spoil it.

Yeah. You don't have to. But it's the Colonel Tom Parker years.

It's not his. Yeah. It's exactly what it is.

But, yeah, you know what? You're going to watch it, and then we're going to do, like, a live book report on this. Okay. We're going to talk about it.

I'll come back. I'll come back. We'll grade you.

Yeah. So what was the first guitar you bought? It was a Mitchell. Yeah.

Hey, the most popular brand in Guitar Center right now. Yeah. I've talked to a bunch of people, and they're like, yeah, I never heard of that.

And I was like, it's probably why. Like $170 guitar. And I was like, this will get me by.

I was like, I'm not trying to perform for anybody. I'm not doing any concerts. I'm just trying to learn.

I loaned it to a friend since I got my newest one, and then he recently just gave it back to me. And so it's been sort of nice to see it. It's pretty in disheveled shape right now because I just haven't used it in a while, cleaned it or anything.

But it's nice to have it back. Yeah. So what do you have with you today? This is an Epiphone Hummingbird.

Okay. That's what I have. I got that several years ago in college.

I think my junior, senior year in college. And it totally looks like an Elvis. Well, you know what? Why don't he let's have him whip it out and he'll play it while I whip this.

Right. So while he's getting situated, we'll be right back. 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. The podcast is heard twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. And you can check it out on your favorite streaming platforms and on the web at someone you should know podcast dot com.

That's the Someone You Should Know podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time. I'm Christy from Crime Cave podcast. I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons have snapped back in the mid 90s.

I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time. With each episode under 20 minutes, I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years. Join me in the Crime Cave.

And for the first time tonight, we have Aaron Newsome playing his Elvis-esque Epiphone guitar. I can't wait, everybody. Here we go.

Oh, yeah, there's Aaron Newsome, everybody. Man, that's a fantastic song. I love that.

I don't think Elvis cursed quite as much like that. That was good. That was really good.

I thought Elvis was here. Yeah, yeah. We did summon him.

Yeah, I heard a little Waylon Jennings and Johnny Paycheck in that as well. Yeah. Man, that was a great song.

So when did you write that one? I wrote that one in August. August, September time. Actually, going back to answer your question of what really, you know, made me get into I'm going to do this.

Back in August, I did a fundraiser for Futures Unlimited, a group that helps with individuals with developmental disabilities. I did a fundraiser and sang and I had a group of people who worked at Futures but volunteered their time on a back line. And we put a band together and did a couple of those oldie types of songs.

We did the Temptations. We did some Elvis, you know, did some Tina Turner. It was a really good time.

And I did that and I was like, oh, okay, I need to do this. So that was probably the one big thing that was like, all right. So yeah, right after that, I was like, I have one song that I'm working on.

I have another song that I'm working on. My roommate at the time was working at a sort of a place that helps with teenage boys who have done some terrible crimes that probably should be in jail but can't go to jail. And so they are at this developmental institution, whatever it is.

And she would always be scheduled to be off at like 6 or 7 or 8. But she'd get home at 11 or midnight and 1 o'clock. And it got to the point where she'd come in the door and I'd be like, rough day? What happened today? One of the boys got out. They hit me with a stick.

Threw a brick through somebody's car. Not to laugh at that, but yeah. Well, those are factually the types of stories.

And that's me like underplaying it for podcast audience. And it just got to a point where it's just like, yeah, everybody's having, you know, everybody's had a shit day. They just really have.

And it doesn't matter what it is. But that was just one of the first times a song had come to me as opposed to me trying to get it out of just spending time on pad and paper. It just sort of started writing itself.

And that took me probably about a month. Yeah. Putting all those things rhymed.

Yeah, yeah. They kind of fit right in. A wonderful iambic pantameter.

Amen. Okay. Shakespeare.

I understand that. I took a class on that. That was good.

So do you collaborate with anybody or do you have a band or are you just performing solo? How's that going? Right now it's solo. I have one song that I'm in the process of writing with a friend from college. She does her own singer songwriting sort of in the same type of situation that I'm in.

I knew she really wanted to do it. Finally getting out there, finally doing it. We're in the process of writing a song.

She lives in Michigan, I believe. So it's just sort of whenever we can get a FaceTime going. Yeah, that's a long commute.

I'll be there in 10 minutes. But yeah, right now it's just me solo and going to open mics, finding gigs if I can book gigs. But yeah, just a lot of what I can find, what I can scrounge up.

If I can spend an hour to drive there to do three songs right now in this point of my music career, that's extremely worth it. Sure. I'm looking for exposure.

It's always worth it. It's always worth it. Yeah, because that's right.

If I remember, you live out in God's country somewhere. Pontiac. You're in Pontiac.

I'm in Pontiac. Which isn't too far away. He's Pauly's neighbor.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Pauly's down there.

Yeah, our guy that does our editing lives out that way. Okay. Yeah, which isn't too far away.

Everybody thinks Pontiac is like forever and a day away, but it isn't. It's not too far away, but it isn't a huge town. No.

So it's like, I mean, I can imagine trying to put a band together out in Pontiac. It's like, okay. It's the people that I know of who can play either because it's so, I don't want to say secluded because it's right on the middle of 66.

People are coming to Pontiac just as often as they're coming to Chicago, just as often as they're coming to Joliet because it's such a Route 66 and let the good times roll oriented town. And so, you know, the people who can do stuff are associated with other groups out of Bloomington or Champaign or they have people, you know, and have dates and have already established things up in Chicago or because it is that type of, you know, secluded musically type of town, which not anymore. And I'll get to that in a little bit, but those people are like, yeah, I'd be interested, but I don't really know.

You know, and it's just because there's, I don't think there's that opportunity yet for stage time in that area. There's a really cool place right now. And these guys have been helping me out a lot with setting things up.

The Guesthouse, the 202 Guesthouse in Pontiac. 202 Guesthouse. 202 Guesthouse.

If you're listening, the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is always looking for sponsors. The 202 Guesthouse. Mike and Steve are the guys that own it.

And it's their home. It's their home. It's not a business.

But, you know, they're really trying to get artists to come to Pontiac and do things in Pontiac. And they're also very local and community help oriented. And so they're always trying to, you know, better things in the community help out.

You know, if there's a fundraiser we can set up, we can help raise money for you. Let's do it. But let's do it by the way of getting some of these cool, you know, unsigned and small time starting artists into Pontiac to sort of get these crowds here.

Are they looking for like singles, duos or like full bands? I think they've had some solo artists, some duo artists. They've got the space, I believe, for, you know, a full band if they want to do it. They're in an old funeral home.

They bought an old funeral home and they live in the upstairs part of it. And the downstairs part of it is completely usable for you need to record something and you don't want to do it in your garage. Come on by.

We'll let you have the space. We'll let you use the space. Super, super awesome facility.

Super awesome guys that run it. And that's one of the places they've got an open mic every second Monday in Pontiac. And that's where I started playing when I moved back to Pontiac.

Send me that information. Yeah. Send me the information on the place.

I will. I will for sure. Yeah.

These guys are super awesome. Mike is a local firefighter. He's on Pontiac, Pontiac Fire Squad.

And Steve was a restaurant GM for a while down in Bloomington, Indiana. And I don't know if he did anything in Pontiac, but, you know, he's always, you know, if there's happening in a committee in Pontiac meeting to help better something, he's a part of it. But yeah, these guys are super awesome.

And one of the main things in Pontiac that's helping artists get at least, you know, started or if they just want a way to do something in Pontiac that's not necessarily in Bloomington or anything like that, they're like, by all means, if we can't have it now, let's make it happen sometime. I've always loved the town of Pontiac. It was great.

I've been going to Pontiac quite a bit when back when a buddy, buddy of ours by the name of Freak, I don't know if you remember, he used to be on the radio quite often with the man cow morning show. And then he ended up on a couple of hard rock stations and all that. And he owned a place.

He owned a place out in Pontiac for a little while. And I think now he's more like around the Braidwood area or so. But same kind of thing.

He's got live bands there all the time because of his relationship and radio. There's always tour buses outside of his place. That's awesome.

Yeah. You can go there and see some pretty famous people performing at this place. Lee DeWise, he won American Idol a couple of years ago.

And he's played at their place a couple of times. Michael's been on a lot of these rock boat cruises, music boat cruises and stuff, rock concerts and stuff. And just the connections that they've made and how just generous they are is what's bringing these people into.

You want us to come play Pontiac? I've never been. Let's do it. It's like a house gig.

It's such an intimate. I think I told you when we were at the studio, it's you go in there and it's not, you know, it's not a bar. It's everybody's in.

It's sort of like a comfortable type, a chair. Yeah, right, right. And they're just wanting to listen to you sing and listen to what you have to do.

It's super encouraging as well. I've got to check it out. I've got to check the place.

I love places like that. Like, you know, the reason why I love the studio. It kind of feels the same way.

Yep. Yeah. Excellent.

Oh, I'll tell you what. We've got all kinds of stuff going on here at the... We've got all kinds of stuff. That was... I don't know my glasses on.

That was Patty, wasn't it? That was Patty Romero, Ron's wife, CEO of the museum here. Before everything gets too loud and out of hand, because I'm starting to hear the other musicians start to perform, let's get something else from you, because I know everybody wants to hear you. I know I want to hear you sing.

All right. And with that, we'll be right back. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

And here's Aaron Newsom for the second time tonight. She was a flyer on the high school cheer squad. I knew a stranger, always said hello.

Her smile lit up the darkest room. The light at the end of the tunnel so blue. Fly high, little flyer, fly high.

You won't be forgotten by those you leave behind. A beautiful soul, a heart pure as gold. Time has stolen you.

A pain so familiar, but this time it hurts like hell. Your smile and your kindness live inside of my mind. I've seen them over and over a thousand times.

Fly high, little flyer, fly high. You won't be forgotten by those you leave behind. She was a flyer on the high school cheer squad.

Never knew a stranger, always said hello. Her smile lit up the darkest room. The light at the end of the tunnel so blue.

Fly high, little flyer, fly high. You won't be forgotten by those you leave behind. No, you won't be forgotten by those you leave behind.

I'm almost afraid to ask what that song is about. A firefly. Not a firefly.

A friend of mine who I mentioned earlier who persuaded me to join choir about a week ago passed away. And I wrote that song for her family first, and they gave me permission to post it. And it's helped a lot of people.

So that song is literally a week old? Roughly. Wow. Wow.

So that was for Brittany. Her name is Brittany, and she spread a lot of light wherever she went. And that was for her.

She was a cheerleader. If you can't talk about it, but I understand. But I mean, what happened? I'm not really sure.

OK. I'm not really sure. There's some things that have been said, but that's up to whoever.

It is what it is. Yeah. Well, to Brittany, what an amazing tribute.

Thank you. Definitely. The second you sang the first line, I was like, oh, gosh, this isn't going to end well.

Man, what a beautiful song. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Beautiful tribute. Wow. I almost want to cry.

That was fantastic. Feel free. Go ahead.

I am perfectly comfortable. Believe me, I ball. I do.

That's the good thing about music is that I don't think I would have been able to have grieved what had happened properly if I wouldn't have wrote out and did what I needed to do to write that song. That's just as much my emotions coming out on page as it is my creativity. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow. So when you do write, you do lyrics first or melody or both? It's 50 50. Sometimes I'll get a melody.

Sometimes I'll get lyrics. I don't want to. I never want to write something that's just to fill time on a potential CD or anything like that.

I always want it to have some type of meaning. And I don't want to ruin that credibility by just having a filler song because I need three minutes on a record or three minutes here and there at a gig. Recently, with the ones that I've written and the things that I've been performing, it's been a story of creative liberty about my growing up.

Or my friend came home said she was having a rough day constantly. That type of thing where it's brewed out of things that are happening around me. And sometimes a melody comes to it.

Sometimes I have the words on a page forever and don't know what to do with it because I'm not as proficient on guitar as I would like to be to sort of pluck things out as much as I want. But yeah, I'd say 50 50. Sometimes I get a melody that fits lyrics that I've already got written.

Sometimes I write a song with a melody and then write another song that doesn't have a melody, but those lyrics fit with the melody of the song that I was previously writing. And I'll just transfer that over. And you're going to find now that you're doing this, you're going to have bits and pieces of stuff.

I already do. I carry this thing. I've got my notebook with me.

I carry it with me everywhere I go because, you know, I was in the car driving home from Lockport yesterday. And, you know, I've got four notifications or memos on my phone, voice memos that just say I-55. Because it's like, you know, you're always thinking of something.

You always need to have something to write down, whether it's a phone memo or, you know, something on a page. So that I've had too many instances where I've gone to sleep thinking, oh, that's awesome. I'll remember that in the morning and wake up and go, what was that? Did you go to the studio last night? I didn't go to the studio.

I was in Lockport and then on my- I got to Pontiac and saw that the studio had a backline going on last night. I was like, are you kidding me? I was so mad. I had my guitar with me and everything too.

Every Tuesday, every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. I knew about the Sunday. I knew about the Sunday one.

I hadn't been able to make it out yet. So I was like, dang it, I was free. Yeah, that's right.

Wow. Always check it out when you're in the area. You never know.

Yeah, man, that was, I'm still thinking about that song. That was a really good song. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Yeah, there's, you know, I've got a couple of songs that I've written that I can't, I can't perform them live. I can't make it through without crying.

I can't because they mean so much. And just the other day, I started working on a song. The lyrics, I used the lyrics from something that I wrote over 20 years ago.

Yeah. And same thing. I've got, I've got like two dozen of those books.

Yeah. Look exactly like that. Because you just write stuff down, you know, and you have to, you have to always be writing because you know that it's true what they say.

You've got your entire life to write your first album. And then if you become famous and you get a record deal, now you've got six months to write your second one. Yeah.

Six months. I wrote, it took me one year to like do one song. Right.

You know, I'm still working on it and I'm just like, come on. But then you're going to get some, it'll be like a 45 minutes. You got it done.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And then you have some that sound like an Adam Sandler song. I mean, you'll talk, you'll, you'll talk about eating pickles in a shoe. All right.

You know, or you'll be writing something and then you'll also, you'll think, Hey, wait a minute. I have something in my book. And you go and you look in your book from five years ago, something, this, this, what I wrote five years ago would fit with this.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Yeah. Or it's like, I'll write something and be like, this is nobody is going to like these lyrics. These lyrics are horrendously bad.

And then you hear something on the radio from a multi-platinum selling artist. And you're like, you know what? I think I'm doing just fine. Yeah.

Yeah. But even if you think they don't sound good, keep them. Don't, don't just throw them away.

That's something I've had to, I've struggled with and recently just been like, don't even think about that. Don't, the only thing setting you back is yourself. Right.

You know? So it's like, I, the, the least, the less I am in my own head, the better. Right. Right.

That's exactly right. And you'll, you'll find out that certain words go away for a while and then come back again. Like, um, back in the nineties, you couldn't write a song that had the word crazy in it or going crazy or something like that.

Cause that's such an eighties term to say, you know, like I'm going crazy. Right. And it went away.

And now there's so many radios or songs on the radio right now where somebody is using the term, you know, it's going crazy. So the, the terminology, it's coming back again. So yeah, it doesn't sound, it doesn't sound old anymore.

You're going to use the lyrics from like 20 years ago. Right. That's exactly right.

It's the same type of concept. Exactly right. So, you know, Hey, time flies when you're having fun.

I mean, we've had a, we've had a great time. I've enjoyed talking to you a lot. So before we run out of time, what I want to do is let's talk about where you are playing.

Right. Where, where, where are you playing? Where do you play the most? What kind of stuff do you have coming up here? So everybody knows how to go and see you. Yeah.

Right now where I'm playing the most is in some repeat open mics. You know, I'm, I'm always in Pontiac at the Pontiac open mic. And if I can make black dog up in Plainfield, I'm going to try to make a black dog.

It really, it's another intimate type of setting. People are there to listen to you. Same with the studio on Lockport right down the road here.

My buddy Patrick hosts a open mic at the Chicago street pub, street pub. I think it's every odd Tuesday. He's going to be on a couple of weeks.

Your friend, Hollywood Mike hosts one every Sunday. My friend, Hollywood Mike hosts one every Sunday at the studio. So just if I can get out to open mic, I'm, I'm getting out to an open mic.

As far as dates go coming up, I've got a July 25th. I'm going to be at the Kankakee Valley Boat Club with a friend of mine, Jake Vaughn. They've got a Thursday night summer jams going on from seven o'clock to 10 o'clock.

We'll be split in that timeframe. And then I'm going to be at the local tap June 13th in El Paso, seven o'clock to 10 o'clock there. But other than that, I'm just, I'm still booking.

If you want to go ahead and book me, you can reach me in my email, Aaron.Newsome.Music at Outlook.com. Or, you know, all my updates and things that I, that I keep people in, in, in touch with are on my Facebook page, Aaron Newsome Music. So that's where no website or anything yet. Not yet.

Working on that, working on, working on some things to, to get that going. You know, Facebook works just fine. Everybody comes in here, you know, like young guys like yourself, you know, everybody, I always say, you know, Facebook's an old man's, you know, you know, social media, but it is still the best for musicians.

I know I, I hit, I just hit 300 followers last night on my Facebook page. And so it's, it's, that was less than a month ago. I was at 200 followers.

Hey, Rock and Roll Chicago podcast fans, go to our Facebook page and like Aaron Newsome. That's right. Like his page.

And like our page. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah.

You'll meet, you'll meet friends through there as well. I've been listening to it nonstop. I was just talking with Ray about the John David Daly episode that released a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, that was pretty good. He's awesome. He's awesome.

Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you take us out with another song? For sure. Oh, what am I going to do here? This one's about Pontiac. This is called, uh, uh, hometown song.

All right. Nobody gonna see me at home till those street lights come on. And the stands cheering on a team supporting our band.

I don't remember a lot of those days, but I sure do miss them. Now Jacob, he was a neighbor boy. We'd go around town stealing all the toys.

And rock side of people's gardens thinking they were crystal. No, my mom and dad, they didn't care where we went. So we hopped on our bikes and on the cruise we bent.

She said, you better be home by seven or you're getting a whooping. No, small town living don't get that big. Just ask me and all the other neighbor kids.

Nobody gonna see me at home till those street lights come on. Friday night, we're in the stands cheering on a team supporting our band. I don't remember a lot of those days, but I sure do miss them.

Let's go. These songs and following the light that guides me to wherever I need to be to get on the radio. Around me getting brand new day.

Oh, small town living don't get in the stands cheering on a team supporting our band. That's Aaron Newsome, everybody. Thanks for coming in, young man.

Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. Good luck to you. Absolute pleasure.

Wow, that guy, he's really good. Man crush. Yeah, that's true.

You and your man crushes. I mean, and he hasn't been doing it that long. Not at all.

And he seems so mature in his songwriting for his age. Yeah, great. And he's got a great voice and some really great songs.

I mean, it's amazing. I mean, I'm flabbergasted. And I've seen him live.

Great, great stage presence the whole bit. He's held the entire audience in his hand. Well, I hope he's successful on getting some gigs up here and getting out there and getting people coming out and seeing them.

Yeah, so that was a lot of fun. So as usual, thanks for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Check us out every Tuesday for another new episode.

See you next week.