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 your man, Hollywood, on a Wednesday evening. Your man? My man. Your man, Hollywood.

Oh, okay. That's what somebody said to me today, actually. Did they really? Yeah.

Why would somebody say that to you today? Well, you know, it's a long story, but we have time. We got time, yeah. We have time, because there's only one other guy in the studio here, because his bass player decided to blow him off.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, you know, the name Hollywood has nothing to do with music or being on stage or doing anything like that. It came from my daytime life, where I'm a complete science nerd.

I'm a lab consultant, and I go to a lot of trade shows. And when you go to these trade shows, a lot of guys, I mean, they wear the standard uniform, which is khaki pants and New Balance sneakers and a stupid golf shirt or something like that. And I like to dress up a little bit more.

And I walked in one day wearing a suit coat and a nice pair of shoes, and I had sunglasses on, and somebody said, hey, Hollywood's here, right? And it stuck 25 years later. No kidding. And so I was at a trade show today, and I walked in, and the same guy that he does every time he sees me, hey, Hollywood's here.

Your man, everybody, your man, Hollywood is here. Everything can start. And that's what it was.

So yeah, your man, Hollywood. That's what I am. Well, I think there's something else we should start.

Yeah, what's that? How about this podcast with Yankee Cowboy? We can do that. Yankee Cowboy. He's all by himself.

Yeah, he's all by himself. Oh, I love the soundboard. We love it.

He brought his fans, though. He did. That sounds like 15 of us.

I like that. Yeah. But it's all dudes, though.

There's no female voices or anything like that. Yeah. I can't do it.

It's okay. Try it. Jaron, how you doing, man? Good.

How are you? Oh, pretty good. Pretty good. So Yankee Cowboy, I've seen you guys around the circuit a little bit.

We're insane, man. We're too insane. We average about 130 shows a year since 2022 when COVID finally lifted, and we could play whatever we wanted.

We played so much, man. And we're still doing it. How long have you guys been together? We've been together for about four years.

Four years exactly. Me and my drummer formed the band. We've had three different bass players, but the one we have now, even though he's not here, seems the most reliable out of us all.

So who's your drummer? My drummer's Mr. Gunner Jebson. Okay. That's a fun name to say.

Well, that sounds like a cowboy name. That could actually be a character in one of those old... Absolutely. Gunner's a great name.

He has a signature cowboy hat. We met at an open mic up in Northwest Chicago, and we kept in touch, and he plays a lot of different instruments, but I needed a drummer, so we made him do it. What jam was that that you met at? Fuller's Pub.

Oh, yeah. I know a lot of people that go to Fuller's Pub. Is that jam still going on? It's still going on.

Still got Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for open mics, and then Friday, Saturday, live music. A lot of great local bands, but we still go back and play there. It's a great environment.

If Fuller's Pub is listening, we're looking for sponsors. You're welcome to. We really do.

We're starving. We're starving. We're podcasters.

I'm drinking my coffee, and I have to get the select crap from Juul. I can't even afford real property for my current thing anymore, so... That's what I'm drinking. Fuller's Pub.

Special select Juul. We're running out of money here. So, okay, that's pretty cool.

And where is that located again? That's on Irving and Kedzie in northwest Chicago. Like the old Irving Park neighborhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know. Yeah, I remember that. People tell me all the time, you should go out there and check it out.

There's a lot of musicians there. A lot of great, great musicians. Some big time folks roll through there and, yeah, spread their magic and then go back wherever they come from, but yeah.

Yeah. You ever have that experience yourself where people know who you are from Yankee Cowboy, and you go to an open jam, and they're like, oh my God, I want to play with that dude. No, I still don't think I haven't had that.

I've been spotted in the wild before, but not at an open jam or anything like that. It's mostly the bartenders who know me there, and they're like, oh, what brings you here? Yeah, right. I'm bored.

And sometimes you don't want to tell anybody that. Right, right. Fame sucks, man.

Yeah, it just sucks, because then they want you to play the stuff you play when you're Yankee Cowboy, and maybe you don't want to do that. Right, yeah. You kind of want to branch out.

Because you do it 120 times. Exactly, exactly, yeah. So before Yankee Cowboy, what were you doing? Oh, that's a great question.

I was working for Bub City. I was a server at Bub City, and the owner slash music guy there, Ed Warm, was the first person to really get me a lot of gigs. He got me a lot of solo gigs at Bub City downtown.

There's one in Rosemont as well, the one that I worked at. So I was just doing solo stuff and working as a server at Bub City. And then my boss, you interviewed my boss, Bradley White of Jessie's Girl.

Oh, that was a while ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a long time ago.

Was that even me? I don't know if it was you or not. That had been pre-me, because I don't remember Jessie's Girl. When you said you worked at Bub City, I was like, first thing I went, did we talk to this guy before? But no, we didn't talk to you.

So yeah, he had mentioned it. He worked at Bub City. So then Bradley, he attended one of the shows, and he said, how would you like to head up a country act? And I was like, sounds great.

And then gave me a lot of freedom to do the things we want to do here. And I think Yankee Cowboy is pretty unique around here. It's not totally country.

It's not totally rock. But it's party music, but with a little country bent. Right.

So are you guys in the band together? He's not. No, he's just in Jessie's Girl. He's also in Keep the Faith, which is a Bon Jovi tribute.

But he's more of our band manager and puts us together and gives us rehearsal space and all that. Gotcha. OK.

All right. And then what do you do in the band? I sing and play guitar. I'm the most boring person in the band.

No, I sing most of the songs. I play the guitar. We're a trio.

So I play rhythm and lead. And we all sing three-part harmony, all the good stuff. Gotcha.

Gotcha. And yes, you are a trio. I know that because if he's listening, I have a very good friend named Al Littlebarski, who absolutely loves you guys.

I love Al. And we love the whole Littlebarski family. Yeah.

How'd you guys meet? I don't know. He was out. He attended one of our shows.

In Michigan? Was it Michigan or someplace? He invited us out. We played at his friend's house in Michigan. Yeah.

His whole family's got like cabins. Yeah. They got a great little lake house up there.

Fantastic. But yeah, before that, we must have played a Southside gig, man. And then he showed up.

So yeah, he's been a great supporter of us. So and you guys too. They say they're big fans of you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, God, I've known Al for quite a few years.

I met Al at another local jam out in Plainfield probably closer to 10 years ago because it was several years before COVID hit. And he started following my band around and everything. In fact, if you're not doing anything later, we could really freak the hell out of him because normally I don't because we get out of here kind of late.

Yeah. But he's got a bunch of guys shooting pool at his house after this. And he asked me to show up tonight.

Oh, my God. He would freak out. Absolutely.

I'll do that. That would be so cool if I showed up with you. He'd be like, get the hell out of here.

Oh, my God. You need to expect those. You guys got your guitars with you? Screw you, Al.

I got the one. Yeah. Yeah.

No, that'll be awesome. Yeah. He's been such a great supporter.

Him and his whole family have really supported us. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool, man.

Every time we do this, I find a common thread with everybody that we're talking. Yeah. It's just kind of the way it is.

Yeah, absolutely. And so what's your bass player's name again? I know you said that. His name is Eric Spencer.

Gotcha. And he's out of this area, out of the Joliet area. Yeah.

Played in a few bands. We just love him because he's got a range like nobody's business. He sings the Arlo, Josh Turner, Toby Keith style songs, but then he hits all the high harmonies.

So he's got quite a range and really an invaluable member of the band. So when you hear me sing without him, you're gonna be like, this is kind of bland. Well, at least you know that going in.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. No, that is kind of a unique thing.

So tell me about, you know, what kind of music are you guys playing? What's like part of your normal setlist? I mean, we do everything from 90s country, modern country, and then a lot of classic rock. My drummer is really a classic rock guy. So we add a lot of... And he's got a nice belty voice too.

So he sings like some Zeppelin. We do Boyz R Back In Town, some Thin Lizzy, things like that. But anything just to like throw somebody off the trail a little bit.

We don't want people knowing what's coming next. Yeah, yeah. There's got to be a little bit of maybe some reorchestration going on with some of their songs because there's a lot of stuff that you guys probably play where there's, you know, four, five, six.

I mean, if you do any Skinner, you got to... Exactly, exactly. Yeah, you try not to... It is a challenge to like find the riff that you want to play the most that lends itself most to the song or try to do two guitars in one. I end up playing a lot of comped parts.

And then real guitarists are looking at me like, what are you doing? What the hell? But there's people on the dance floor. So that's really what we're doing it for. But yeah, I do end up... I would love to play in a multi-guitar band one of these days, but my ego is too big right now.

And it's a lot of work because you have to know the actual parts. It's not going to get any small. No, it's not.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're kind of enjoying that three-piece thing right now. I really am.

And it's easy to mix as far as when we're doing our own sound. It's... Yeah. And I think I don't want to speak for them, but like engineers seem to enjoy mixing us too because we're not like all crazy.

Like, well, can we have more horns in the list? But I do have a solo project, the Jerry and Gray Band that does have a keyboard player and he adds a lot to it and some more vocals too. But... Yeah, no, that's cool. I get that.

I've got a couple of projects too. When you're a lead singer, automatically you're like, okay, you're rhythm guitar. Right.

Even though I could play lead, they're like, no, you're rhythm guitar. Right, exactly. And our lead guitar player is one of the best guitar players I've ever heard and most people have ever heard.

He's a true professional. That's awesome. And so I have to have something else so I can blow my load occasionally.

Exactly. Right. For lack of a better term, so I totally get that.

Yeah, I get to do, I get to blow all my loads with one band. I want to let that out. No, actually, we're going to leave that in.

Perfect. Yeah. This is a loaded podcast.

We're going to keep that in there for sure. That's not going anywhere. Perfect.

Well, Eric could have been here. Yeah, he could have been, he chose not to. So were you in bands prior to this where you had, you know, four or five guys or... I never, I was in such, I was in bands that really didn't make it anywhere.

And I was usually the only guitarist. But I've played with other guitarists and it was difficult, especially at like Fuller's Pub and the other places I do open mics. Everybody wants that spotlight.

Everybody wants the solo. Everybody wants... So it is hard to, with another guitar player who, especially at an open mic when you're not really trying to serve the song. You're trying to show what you got and everything.

So, but yeah, I never really played in a band with other guitarists. Unfortunately, I would love to. Rhythm is so important.

Like drum and bass is way more important than what I do. I can screw the whole chord and it still sounds good because somebody else is holding it down. So it's... I think his problem is some teacher when he's a little kid said he does not play well with others.

That's why you... Yeah, there it is. No, I totally get it though. Being in every band, I mean, if you got four people in your guys, it's like being in three different marriages.

Oh no, absolutely. So the less people that you have to manage and work with, everything goes a little bit easier. It is smoother, yeah.

I do tend to think whenever I do play with a three piece, it's like, God, can somebody else just come up here and play this solo for a little bit? That's the only thing about it. Everybody has to think, oh, you must love doing all that soloing. No.

No, yeah, yeah. I forgot this whole solo, but I'm just going to vamp it, I guess. Yeah.

So right out the gate, look, I'm not going to play this solo note for note. I'm going to hit the key points, right? And or I might just decide to go screw it. And I'm not going to play a solo here.

We're just going to keep the rhythm going. Right. Like it is.

Absolutely. Sometimes it does go that way. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm dying to hear you play, you know, rather than sit here and just talk all the time. So I'm thinking, you know, it's about time we start whipping out the guitar and... Sounds good to me. We're going to play some solos all by himself.

That will be right back. All right. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. If you've been joining our weekly program, we have great news for you.

Just tune in to Road to Rock radio on Mondays at 7 p.m. Central Time, and you can hear a rebroadcast of one of our past episodes. Then again, on Thursdays at 7 p.m., you can hear our most current episode brought to you by the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. So go to RoadtoRock.org, scroll down and click on radio station.

That'll bring you to the Road to Rock radio, a station committed entirely to the great music from Illinois, from Chicago blues born on Maxwell Street to today's rock and roll and everything in between. 24-7, all music with its roots in Illinois. And here's Jaron from Yankee Cowboy all by his lonesome self.

All by myself. Excellent. Beautiful.

Thanks for that. That was fantastic. We love that.

And we'll see you next time. No, seriously. Here's a tune I wrote.

It's called Home to Me. Sometimes we play with the boys. Sometimes I play with my solo band.

I know a guy with three DUIs and I bet you he's drinking tonight. Stories are spread at the local gas station where the floors are covered with the scratch off shavings. All these fathers with baby mama drama could be don't know how to treat them right.

But I miss that place and all the faces that made me who I am. The rolling fields and mountaintops, the divey bars and the mom and pops, the milky way in a late night summer sky. The helping hands at the hardware store, the smell of bonfires by the shore, hippies and rednecks living in harmony.

That's still home to me. For sale signs where the factory was. It'll be empty for months and months.

Everybody's ready to head for the city and leave that place behind. But I don't think I'll forget the charms of the winding roads and the dairy farms. I can almost smell those rundown bars tonight.

I miss the rolling fields and mountaintops, the divey bars and the mom and pops, the milky way in a late night summer sky. Helping hands at the hardware store, the smell of bonfires by the shore, hippies and rednecks living in harmony. That's still home to me.

Take me home, folks, to change my world. And I'll show you all the views. The town of 3,000 isn't much, but I can't wait to show you.

The rolling fields and mountaintops, the divey bars and the mom and pops, the milky way in a late night summer sky. Pizza pie at the pizza house. All those places I told you about, hippies and rednecks living in harmony.

That's still home to me. Nice. Excellent.

Excellent. Great song. Yeah, it's called Home to Me.

It's about growing up in Pulteney, Vermont. And who? In Vermont. Yes, I lived in Vermont until I was 25.

I moved here when I was 25. Hence the Yankee Cowboys. Yankee.

Yes, we're East Coast guys. Even Gunner, our drummer, he's from the Philly area. Wow.

So that's about as Yankee as we can get. That's right. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And here I thought it was a combination of baseball and football. That's right.

Those are both America's teams, I guess. I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know if we can have you in here, though, if you're a fan of those teams. No, I'm a Red Sox guy.

I mean, a White Sox. I'm a White Sox fan. I'm a Bears guy, but my number two team is the Cowboys.

The Cowboys? Yeah. Always has been. All right.

Well, everybody's got... You got to have a number two team when you're a Bears fan. You have to have a number two. And then the one that's successful.

Yeah. I think it's... Yeah, but unfortunately, not so much for me anymore. You know? I mean, they made some good moves.

Ever since Drew left the team, they've been having troubles, but, you know, that's okay. We'll see what happens. Yeah.

They'll just be on a rebuild like the Bears since 85. Yeah. No, I hope not.

I think they're going to get it together a little bit before that. But no, that was a pretty cool song. Thank you, man.

Thank you. And I wanted to make mention of that guitar. I took a couple of pictures of it, actually, while you were playing.

Yeah. That's a pretty neat contraption that you got over there. It is.

It's about two pounds, and it's super easy to haul around and do things like this. And I have a private show on Saturday that I'm going to use it with. Just super easy to... And it's made of polycarbonate.

Yeah. So it doesn't lose its tune, or you can store it in your car in the cold and the damp. So this is an Enya.

It's an Enya, yeah. It's Enya. It's got a battery.

Is it a wooden neck? No, all carbon fiber. The whole thing is carbon fiber. And there's a speaker in it, and there's reverb built into it.

Yeah, I put the reverb setting just to make it so it's not as dry. Just because it does have a smaller body, so you want a little bit more sustained reverb. Hopefully, Pauly puts the pictures that I took in a little montage or something like that.

Because I mean, I'm looking at it, and I swear to God, it looks like the guitar that comes with the Guitar Hero. No, it does. It does.

It looks like the Guitar Hero guitar. It's his little, tiny, Les Paul-shaped-looking thing. Wow.

It makes me look bigger, too. So that works. Anything that helps with that.

So you use that when you do your solo acts? Yeah, when I do a solo show, acoustic gigs. Duo shows, I used to use it, but now we're doing a full electric duo. So I have a drum machine, and then we have Eric on bass, me on the electric guitar.

Try to keep a little higher energy, keep the people wanting that. So when you said that you guys are doing about 120 shows a year, is that full band, or is this all kinds of little side things? It's mostly full band. I'd say out of the 120 shows, about maybe 15 of them are duo shows, and maybe like five are solo.

But it's mostly all three of us, yeah. Yeah. When did everything kind of hit for you guys? Because I had heard a little bit about you guys.

It's probably going back to like 2020, 2021, somewhere around there. Yeah. And all of a sudden, it seems like in the last year to year and a half, it's like, poof, Yankee Cowboys all over the place.

Yeah, we got lucky. We worked hard, and we got lucky, a little bit of both. But yeah, come out of COVID, I just was so motivated to play.

And I was done being a server. I really didn't want to work in restaurants anymore. And every Friday, Saturday night, I wanted to be somewhere.

So I just emailed a lot of people. We got hooked up with a nice talent agent, and he gets us some pretty nice gigs. And then we just try to get our name out there.

I've sent so many emails for the past two or three years, and most people don't respond. That's okay. It goes right to spam because I have so many links about all our stuff.

I'm sure it went to spam. But we got enough folks, and we let the show speak for itself. We kept getting better.

Yeah, and we just got lucky. And Chicagoland is one of the best places for live music, man. And if you're willing to travel, we travel about an hour and a half from to two hours at our base rate.

And if we want to go farther, we'll have to get lodging and things like that. Sure. Yeah, that's the only way to do it.

So when you first started out, I mean, were most of your gigs being played on the northern side? Because you come from the north. Yeah, and our manager was a northsider too. So we played a lot of small bars in the north side of Chicago.

And then we just kept kind of growing it out. We had a couple shows down south. We really liked Darien.

I guess that's not quite down south. Darien's actually north of here. Right, exactly.

North of 80. Right, right. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, from the north side of the city, right? We're down south of Darien. But I really enjoy playing southside show. We played like Worth.

I guess they call that south. That's still north of here, but still like around the southern Chicago suburbs. And just met some great people and made some connections.

And here we are. I don't know what happened, but here we are. Right, right, right, right.

So I mean, you obviously probably started out playing covers. But when did you guys start talking about original music? Are you doing original music? Yeah, we have. Cowboys? With Yankee Cowboy, we do one.

We have one song at night. Right now, it's called Damn, I Think I'm Country. Me and my- I love it.

I absolutely love it. Me and my drummers share a verse about just when we realized what country means to us. And what makes us like country folk.

Coming from Vermont. Coming from Vermont. That'll do it.

Yeah, we see a chicken every once in a while. I know, the land of cows. No, it was- No, that's where we were.

So we have to explore that. So how long were you in Vermont? How long was your drummer in Philly? He was in Philadelphia area for, I think, the first 13 or 14 years of his life. Then he moved to Oswego.

And now he's in the north side of Chicago. I lived in Vermont for... Okay, so 21 years, I lived in Vermont. Then I moved to upstate New York.

My wife's from upstate New York. What part? Amsterdam. Okay, yeah.

Okay, close by Albany, the Saratoga area. About an hour south of Albany. We fly into Albany.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, very cool. So I moved to, yeah, Granville, Whitehall, New York area, which is a little bit north of that, of Albany.

But still, they call it the capital region, I think. Right. Do they? And then I moved back to Vermont before I moved to Chicago.

But so I moved out because I was in a religious cult for 21 years. And so I moved out, I was sort of kicked out. This is a rock and roll podcast.

I'm digging this. Wait, don't we have one of those... Religious cult noise. Here we go.

Where's the religious cult noise? Yes, that's it. Nope. Nope.

That all works. I thought we had one. That's not it.

So tell us about this religious cult. Oh, don't mind if I do. No, so I have a page on... Whoa, I just disconnected my... Oh, my headphones pulled out.

I'm so excited about this cult. Oh, boy. There we go.

I did it. All right. I had this.

Okay, so I have a Facebook page called Escape the Camp. And it kind of details what I've gone through. But so my dad founded this website called OutsideTheCamp.org. He does it no longer exist because of several emails that were written to him.

But yeah, my dad founded this religious cult we had. I was homeschooled my entire, like, all that. And I went to college.

But my dad regrets that because I met people. But yeah, we were like an isolated religious fundamentalist Christian cult. And all the stuff that goes along with that.

Didn't watch movies, didn't watch TV shows. Very supervised, very isolated. So what did you do? What was entertainment? Oh, we could listen to some Weird Al songs.

So parody was a big thing for us. So you could listen to parody. Right, right.

The original songs are usually a little too graphic. So we listened to the Weird Al parody instead. So that's how I learned about pop culture was Weird Al, I think.

Wow. You know, that's what he did. He really did.

Bringing people in. Yeah. And there's a lot of weird things.

My dad was a metalhead, but he liked a lot of Christian metal. And then some secular metal, as long as it wasn't, like, graphic and overt. As long as they talked about the winds and the leaves.

So he liked a lot of Swedish melodic death metal and stuff. So I learned to play guitar. Wow.

Playing Swedish death metal. Wow. Yeah.

So yeah, interesting musical background. I listened to Country in secret because he didn't want me to. So I had to listen with the earbuds in.

I had an old cassette slash radio player that I would, like, plug my earphones in and listen to Country music when he wasn't looking. I didn't know I was. Is that what you were able to sneak in as contraband? Or that was your choice? That was your genre of music? That was my genre of choice because I related to it.

The songs were really honest. They were simple. I could sing them because they're usually, like, the baritone voice, like rock and roll.

Like, guys, I couldn't sing it very well. Right, right. So I just learned how to sing from secretly listening to Country music.

Man, a lot of songs had to have come out of that whole experience. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's still songs coming out of that.

Yeah. I am speechless. It is very rare that you find me to be speechless.

No kidding. I mean, you hear about stuff like this. Wow.

So at 21, you said, I'm done. I'm out of here. Yeah.

So I was in college at the time, and I was starting to sort of lead two lives. I couldn't really tell my father about what I was doing because then I'd be reprimanded. He found conversations I had on Skype on my computer.

And then it was a huge blowout. He saved. He still has them.

They still hold this against me, saying they have 715 pages of Skype conversations saved, and they're ready to blackmail me with it whenever they're ready. And it's just normal conversations. There's nothing terrifying.

But I mean, there's some explicit stuff because I was trying to date the best I could or try to meet people. So yeah, that's out there. And once that happened, he started these counseling sessions with me.

We don't have to go into detail. But eventually, I was like, I'm done with this. I got to leave.

So on nine days before my 22nd birthday, seven days, seven to nine days before my 22nd birthday, I packed all my stuff in my car and I left. And I was homeless for about 20 days. But I was in college.

So I could sleep in the dorms. And then my trunk was my wardrobe. And that was my senior year.

I graduated, moved in with my girlfriend at the time afterwards, and tried to build my life up again. Mike Atencio Wow. Wow.

So I mean, I don't want to bring up anything darker, you know. But I mean, I'm assuming that you don't really have a relationship with your father. Chris That's a good assumption.

Yeah, no, I don't, unfortunately. And there's still three of us have already gotten out. And they all live in the Chicagoland area, which I'm so grateful for.

My brother, Seth, and my sister, Geneva, all live pretty close. And they all escaped in their own terrifying way. And then there's three are still there.

And they're all adults. But they're still, they think we're evil. They think we're bad people.

So they won't talk to us. So like I have three siblings still in it. But yeah.

Mike Atencio This would make a great movie. You've got more than a podcast or a series. Mike Atencio You've got a Netflix series.

Chris I know. I'm trying to start a podcast or at least one with my brother and sister so we can talk about all this because it's important. And I'm trying to like create a network because this happens a lot, unfortunately.

Mike Atencio And this was a Christian based cult. Chris Yeah, so yeah. So it went pretty extreme.

Mike Atencio Was this something that your dad founded? Chris He founded it. Yeah. So he like his, his upbringing was pretty extreme, but nothing like this.

He ended up casting out his extreme parents as not extreme enough, all that kind of stuff. Mike Atencio Wow. Wow.

So I mean, he was his parents were here and he grew up, he became here. Yeah, you're not extreme enough for me. And here I thought he was going to say he was a Scientologist.

Chris No, it's very similar means of control to Scientology. Mike Atencio Sure, sure. And I mean, did it all start up just very innocently like a church and it snowballed out of control? Chris Yeah.

Well, I think, yeah, in 97, they had this epiphany and they started like cutting everything, everybody out of their lives because they want to take everything to the logical end. So you're not saved. You're going to hell.

You have to believe this. So they just started pushing everybody away. And that was I was five years old.

So I don't really remember anything else. But yeah, they just had. Mike Atencio Yeah, yeah.

You shall not judge, but we're going to judge you. Chris It was a whole, it was a whole judging was like the main tenant, I think it was. But it was like the excuse like, well, you have to judge.

Mike Atencio We're a cult. We got to judge something. We got 200 beds.

We got 300 people. Some people got to go to hell. So what brought you to Chicago, the Chicagoland here? Chris Yeah, so my brother moved here first.

He moved here in 2014. He went to Illinois Institute of Technology. He's continuing to have a successful career in IT.

So I moved out here. I have a biology degree. I heard you're in science.

So that's pretty cool. But all my interviews kind of fell through. So I started working like as a busser in restaurants.

And I was always a nighttime guy. So it always worked out bussing, food running, serving, and then transition into music. I always played trying to get good at singing.

I was so bad for so long, but a few voice lessons and almost there. Mike Atencio So how did you learn how to play guitar? Chris I taught myself when I was 16. My dad got me a guitar.

Not all bad. And I learned like the heavy metal stuff. I learned riffs before I learned chords.

I learned all backwards. And it was... Mike Atencio As most of us do. Chris Yeah, no, we want to do the cool stuff first.

Mike Atencio Right, right. No, I mean, I was asking that question because the entire time I'm thinking to myself, this is like the town in Footloose. How do you sneak a guitar in town? Chris Right, right, right.

Mike Atencio But I mean, obviously, that was, I mean... Chris Music was accepted, which I am thankful for, for sure. Not all music, but some of it. Mike Atencio So did that kind of become like an escape for you? Yeah, yeah.

And I wrote my own and found communities of people who also wrote music. And yeah, my brother is still in the cult, makes great music. Yeah, instrumental tracks.

Can't make songs about love or anything. You can't, you couldn't do it. Mike Atencio And that's like, and that's like every single song.

That's most 99% of songs are about love. Whether it's good love, bad love or whatever it is. So we're going to sing about, I don't know.

Chris Wow. Mike Atencio Candy today. Mike Atencio Yeah.

Wow. That's, that's, wow. Okay.

Chris You're singing about cows, okay? Chris Well, it depends on what you do with the cows. Wow. Chris Well.

Mike Atencio I have to say, you win the award for most interesting background. Chris No kidding, man. Mike Atencio I mean, we have other guys in here.

We talk about, yeah, I like to hunt. Or yeah, I like to play baseball. Or yeah, you know, I'm a wrestling coach and stuff like that.

No, I grew up in a cult. That wins. Chris Right, right.

No, I don't want to. Not a competition. But it is interesting.

Mike Atencio No, but that's the reason why people listen to our podcast. Because, you know, like the people that you know, we were talking about Al earlier, right? Mike Atencio Al wants to see you play. You can go and see you play.

And he knows who you are on stage. But I bet you when Al listens to this podcast, he's going to, holy. Chris Oh, yeah.

And any of your fans that come to see, they see you on stage. They just know you as a personality up on the stage. Chris Right, right.

To them, you're not, you don't have a normal, you know, livelihood. You know, you play and that's it. That's the only way they see you.

Mike Atencio Right. Chris They don't see you like at the bar. They don't see you at home.

They don't see you, you know. Mike Atencio Right. Yeah.

It's just, it is cool to uncover all that. But yeah, I try to be transparent with my, with the people who come to my shows. But you can't talk to everybody.

And yeah, so. Chris Right. Amazing.

Well, that's something you wouldn't really bring up at a show. Mike Atencio Yeah, yeah. Hey, thanks for coming.

I used to be in a cult. Yeah, I tried it. I tried.

I still haven't found a way to incorporate it, but I'm trying. Chris But, but, but that would be cool just to wear a T-shirt one day that says, I used to be in a cult. I mean, that's something that will work on stage.

Mike Atencio No, it would. Chris And people would think it's a joke. Mike Atencio No, I know.

Chris Nobody would. Mike Atencio It'll be a talking point. Yeah.

Yeah. I think we need to hear another song. Mike Atencio I believe we should.

Chris We are so blown away right now. We need to hear another song. Mike Atencio Definitely.

So we'll be right back. All righty. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Rick Anthony 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.

For the second time tonight, we got Jaron here, everybody. You know, I like my chicken fried cold beer on a Friday night. A pair of jeans that fit just right.

And the radio. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh A stone and some new ground And some better chicken fried Cold beer on a Friday night. A pair of jeans would fit just right And the radio, like to see the sun rise See the love in the woman's eyes Feel the touch of a precious child I know a mothers love, oh,u-h.

It funny, how little things in life That mean the most, not where you live, or what you drive, or those price tags on your clothes. There's no dollar sign, or peace of mind, this I've come to know. So if you agree, have a drink with me, raise them glasses for a toast, to a little bit of chicken fire.

Cold beer on a Friday night, a pair of jeans that fit just right. And the radio, I like to see the sunrise. See the love in a woman's eyes, feel the touch of a precious child.

I know a mother's love. God for my life, for the stars and skies. May freedom forever fly.

Letting her ring, salute the ones who died. The ones that gave their life, so we don't have to sacrifice. All the things we love, like our chicken fire.

Cold beer on a Friday night, a pair of jeans that fit just right. And the radio, I like to see the sunrise. See the love in a woman's eyes, feel the touch of a precious child.

I know a mother's love. Yeah, nice job. You know what, and you did it right too.

I can't tell you how many bands I go and see and they play that song and nobody gets the rest or the pause right before the chicken fry. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody gets it on the one and plays right through it.

Yeah, he did it. I was like, as soon as I heard him do it, I was like, is he going to do it? And you nailed it. So that was cool.

Very good. Very nice. I love that band.

Actually, I got something stuck in my throat. Do you? I don't know what it was. Oh my God.

There was a tear. Yeah. I'm going to see them this summer.

Who? Zach Brown. With Kenny Chesney and Uncle Cracks. Oh, out in Soldier Field.

He's not a real Chicagoan. Soldiers Field. Oh, this is a Soldier's Field.

No, I'm not a real Chicagoan. It's Soldiers. Have you ever been to Willis Tower? No, that's in Sears.

I don't think I've ever said, and I can't, I can't bring myself to say, I don't think I've ever said that ever in life. And it will always be Comiskey Park. It's Comiskey Park? Yeah, I know.

Yeah. I don't even know what it is now, what it's supposed to be now. It's changing like.

Some stupid. Yeah. And the other classic, it's no longer named the Hancock Building.

It's no longer the John Hancock. When did that happen? Within the last year or two they dropped it. Really? It's 875 North Michigan.

Oh, yeah, yeah, terrible. I still call it Hancock because I've been here for five years. That's right.

Six years. Six years, wow, no kidding. Yeah.

Man. So. No, go ahead.

Go ahead. No, please clear your throat. No.

Okay. Wasn't it? Yeah. Wonderful.

No, there really was. I don't know what the heck it is. I didn't do anything.

I haven't been eating anything or drinking anything. Maybe a moth flew in. I don't know.

I get it all the time. So what do you guys got coming up? Yes. Gig wise.

Oh, we got. June, July, August. We got a lot of.

That's the busy month. That's festival season. It is festival season.

And we have a few of them right now at time of recording. But I think we have some people working on some things right now. July 5th does appear to be July 5th in the real.

I think July 5th. It's a real. We have a festival in Glen Ellyn.

One of their concerts in the first Friday concert in the park. I'm really excited about that. We got.

Oh, I don't even. I don't even look that far ahead in the schedule. I'm trying to figure it out.

But yes, definitely check out Yankee Cowboy Band dot com for all the dates. We might be playing a show late June. The opening for a couple of national acts, too, but we haven't gotten word yet.

But we could be. We could be doing that. We opened for Sarah Evans last year.

That was an amazing show. Nice. And what was that? Was that at a festival? Yeah, it was Prairie Fest in Oswego.

Oh, yeah. And we opened for Sarah Evans. It was very.

Couldn't believe how many people were there. It was a little. It was a mind blowing experience.

But that's fun. And that's that's where they hold that festival in Oswego is a lot of fun. Yeah.

Big, big field, big, big grounds. And and that's why they call it the Oswego Prairie. It is a prairie.

You wouldn't want to hold that in Naperville. Yeah. No.

Oh, there's a couple of places in Naperville. But it would cost. Yeah.

But it's not the Oswego Prairie Fest. Right. No.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. But we're we're continuing to book and I'm taking a little bit more easy on booking this year just because I missed out on a lot of good shows because I was booked up. So I'm going to I'm going to be a little bit less of a mean like anal about getting all like meaning like shows that you wanted to go and see or just you'd book yourself and then something cooler would come.

Right. And I didn't want to I didn't want to screw over the venue or maintain good relationships. But yeah, a lot of cool things came on.

We had to say no to last year. So we're going to we're going to keep things a bit more open. Well, you guys have exploded.

You have you've reached the point where you got to start looking at quantity of shows and not quality or what's the quality of shows and not quantity. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Like that past two years have just been like, oh, they want us. We're there.

Yeah. But we're going to. Yeah, we're going to pick and choose.

Sure. Your backyard backyard party. Yeah, absolutely.

We'll do that. Yeah. We've done a lot of those.

And we still have a couple of them. Yeah. You have to when you're first.

Yeah. Best way to get your name out. Yeah.

Is there any venues that you play regularly? Yeah. Well, we used to play Bub City all the time. This year has kind of trailed off just because their their pre-COVID model was a lot of Nashville acts.

And then COVID comes along and they wanted to they still wanted music, but they couldn't bring a lot of folks from Nashville. So we got in. We were lucky enough to get in quite a bit at Bub City.

We played 30 shows last year at either downtown Rosemont or Carol's Pub owned by the same gentleman up in uptown. Great, great venues. But they're having bigger acts there now.

So I understand. Yeah. But we used to play there quite a bit.

It was a place that books us a lot. This year is like kind of wide open as far as we're getting new places in Highwood. Teddy O'Brien's are playing end of June.

Yeah. So we're getting quite a bit of new venues this year, which I like. We played Tin Roof in Wrigley just opened up.

They have a great crowd there. Nice. They opened a Tin Roof in Wrigley.

Yeah. I wonder if that's part of because I know there's a few Tin Roofs and I'm wondering because I know there's one in the first one I ever went to, I think, is in was in Louisville, Kentucky. Yep.

No, I'm sorry. Lexington, Kentucky. There's one.

I figured a place like that would just play B-52s all the time. Ray has a question for you. Okay.

I do. Yeah. What is it? It wasn't me.

You don't know? No, I don't. Any plans to add a Glockenspiel? Oh. Yeah.

The Glockenspiel. Well, you can't say bring out the Glock anymore in Chicago. That's true.

Considering you see today the mayor is suing the Glock firearm company. Yep. He's suing the Glock firearm company because it's saying it's that it's it's their fault that.

Yeah. You can modify. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like they purposely designed it. Yeah. To be modified.

Yeah. That sounds fun. No, I think somebody figured out how to modify it.

Right. Anything's modifiable. But yeah, you're right.

You can't say bring. Yeah. Can't say bring out the Glock in Chicago anymore.

Yeah, that's true. There's probably some, you know, some type of an injunction. All right.

For our next. For our next number, we'd like to bring out the Glock. And everybody's just creeping in and diving.

Oh, I miss the Wild West. Diving under tables and stuff. No, no, no.

Get up, everybody. Get up, please. It's the Glockenspiel.

The Glockenspiel. Our keyboard player might have a Glockenspiel sound. He might also have a Glock sound, too.

Yeah. He's on a quest to find a band that has a Glockenspiel. That's right.

Anyways. Anyways. I'll tell you what.

I absolutely loved talking to you. We could have had this conversation. This conversation could go on for hours.

It sure could. Absolutely. It sure could.

Now, first off, I want you to tell people out there, anybody that's looking for a Glockenspiel It's the Glockenspiel. to talk to or tell them where they can find you, your site, your website. Yeah, absolutely.

Right now, it's facebook.com forward slash escape the camp, or you just search escape the camp on Facebook or my personal Facebook, Jaren Gray, G-R-E-Y, has some of my solo shows and definitely talk to me about all this, too, because it's very interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Cool.

Wow. That's very cool, man. Thank you very much for opening up with us.

Absolutely. My pleasure. Who would have thought public service announcements on the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Oh, yeah. We do it all, man. Yeah.

We do it all. Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks for coming out. I think it's time to say goodbye. Hey, I appreciate it, man.

Thank you so much for having us. I love this little setup you guys got. And yeah, I always see like bands that I love, bands that I know, folks up and coming.

They're all here. So I knew it was the right place to be. So I appreciate you guys.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Wow.

Holy shit. Oh, man. Oh, man.

Literally. Holy shit. No kidding.

I'm just I'm I'm without words. It's it was amazing. See, I think what our listeners experienced here tonight was the difference between amateurs who interview people and professionals who interview people, because I became speechless.

Me too. I didn't know what to ask him. I didn't know where to look.

I didn't know what to say. It was just amazing. That he just took me completely off guard.

You know, I wanted to dive so much more into that. Because, I mean, that had to have formed his interest in music. I mean, you know, using music as a way to kind of escape all of that.

Yep. That's unbelievable. Yeah.

I mean, so I mean, and his writing is influenced by all that. Yeah. You know, it's it's pretty, pretty wild, man.

And, you know, he said he wanted he'd like to do a podcast. I definitely listen to podcasts. I would listen to it.

And I mean, yeah, when while we were breaking and he was preparing the next song, he had mentioned that, yeah, I've got a bunch of songs that I wrote about my father and relationship and the whole bit. And it's like, wow, I I'd pay to hear that. Yeah.

No kidding. I'd go see that solo show. Yeah.

That's it's pretty amazing. Wow. And yeah, we want to thank Jaron for opening up and, you know, really letting us know what's going on with him.

He definitely didn't have to open up. But when he did, it was like he'd been holding his breath for a half hour. Yeah.

And he was like, yeah. And I lived in a cult for years. Like, it's like, OK, yeah, I need to talk about that for me.

Exactly. Wow. Yeah.

Hey, you know what? Here at the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast, we get you the backstory. Yeah. All of it.

All of it. I'm gonna need that bourbon tonight. Yeah.

No kidding. Well, as always, thanks for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast and tune in every Tuesday for another exciting episode. 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.