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.

How you doing, Ray? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. I'm doing fantastic.

Ran a little late tonight, huh? A little bit, a little bit. You know, I think everybody knows that this podcast is recorded, right? Yes, it is. So, we are recording this the Wednesday before Christmas.

Yes, it is. And I think this was the last day of work for a lot of people. I think you're right.

I had to go into the office today. Drove all the way from Vernon Hills. Normally takes about an hour and 20 minutes.

It took me two hours and 10 minutes. Wow. Thanks for coming out.

I appreciate it. I had to come back this way anyway. I live over here, right? That's right.

Well, that's great. So, what you got planned? Anything exciting for the holiday weekend? You know, just being irritated by family. I think that's the common theme, right? You might be right.

No, we have it down to a science. We've got it split up where it's my family on Christmas Eve, my wife's family on Christmas Day. Okay.

And New Year's Eve, we don't do a darn thing. No. No.

Amateur night. That's true. I'm at a bar, what, three, four, five times a week anyway.

I don't need to go out on New Year's Eve. That's true. You're right.

Sit at home, watch movies. You are right. You're right.

So, why don't we get this show underway? I think we should. We should. Because joining us tonight is John David Daly.

How's it going, John? How you doing? Great, great, great. You want to bring it into, yeah, bring it into there. All right.

So, John, JD, Big John, what do you go by? Well, I mean, my artist name is John David Daly. I guess somebody's called me Big John, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Obviously. A little bit.

Yeah. I've been, some people call me JDD, you know, or JD. I mean, just depends, you know what I mean? Where I'm at, at any given time, I guess.

Yeah, that's right. And so, as long as your head turns when they call your name, I guess they're doing the right thing, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good.

That's good. I'm really excited about this one because, like I said, I checked you out on the internet, went to your website and did everything. And I like your sound.

I do. I like your original stuff. I like everything that you do.

And you have about, what, about four-piece band for the guys that'll join you every once in a while? I know he rolls a six-piece. Six-piece, nice. Full band six-piece, yeah.

Okay, nice. What are the pieces? Steel guitar, Dennis Andreetta on steel guitar, Bill Hayden on the organ. He's from Northwest Indiana guy, but he's played a lot up here in the city too.

And got Dale Moore on the bass guitar. He's from Hobart, Hobart. Hobart, got to say that right.

Hobart, Indiana. And just me and my son, we're just south of King Key, about 45 minutes south of King Key out in the country, man, so. Okay.

All right. What town out that way? Beaverville. Beaverville.

You know what? I know exactly where that is. Do you really? You do. Not many people do, man.

Yep, yep, yep. I know exactly where that was. It's actually a funny story.

I decided, I travel a lot for business and, oh gosh, it had to be close to about 10 years ago or so. I had the opportunity to go to several places. I had to go to Indianapolis.

I had to go to Grand Rapids and the whole bit before I came back home. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do this on my Harley. I checked the weather and said, there's no rain, there's nothing happening.

Of course, on the way back though from Indianapolis, I hit some rain, right? And I said, well, I'm not going to stay on the major highways. And I got off, took a two lane highway, and I went right through Beaverville. I remember thinking to myself, if I was in the car, I'd be calling my wife on the phone right now saying, Beaverville, where the women outnumbered the men three to one.

Nice, nice. No, that's good. That's good.

No kidding. You live out that way. So what's your relation? I mean, have you always been in that area there? That was your born and raised? Yeah, I moved away.

St. Ann, Illinois was kind of where I was born and raised. But I moved away from home for quite a while and moved down south. Then I just found my way back up here.

So nothing like home. My mom, she's dead and gone now, but probably what brought me back really. And then now I'm kind of lost, man.

I got to just like, where should I go? I'm feeling Florida right now because it's cold. I got family down there in Florida. So, I mean, it wouldn't be too hard to get that job done.

But then when the heat comes on down there, it's time to get out. Time to come back. Now, what would you do? I mean, you probably wouldn't be able to bring your whole band with you if you decided to just head to Florida for a few months.

I think some would go, but others, you know, my son, my son is a guitar player. To me, that's probably the biggest thing that I love about this band is being able to play with him. I brought him up, you know what I mean? I brought him up playing.

I had one in his hand when he was a baby boy, man. And if you guys seen him play, he's amazing. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, I think he would probably roll down there, but he's a daddy himself now.

Oh, yeah. So that might be a little tough though. Might be a little tough.

Right. So we know how your son got started. How did you get started? Oh, man.

Take us back to the roots. Take back to the roots. Record players.

Mom and dad's record collections. You know, mom was a country bumpkin. She was always listening to Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings.

You know, she liked her Neil Diamond too. I didn't really get into that too much, but I can say that I haven't heard it. You know what I'm saying? My dad was more of the classic rock guy, but I remember slinging them albums all over the place, and them getting so mad at me because I just got them all over the floor.

Right. You know, but I think the one that picked me up and moved me the most was Bob Seger in the Silver Bullet Band. Oh, okay.

So a lot of people say, oh, man, when you say that. See, I got to reach across the table and give him the knuckles right there because that was one of my father's favorite performers. Every time I hear a Bob Seger song, it takes me back to about 1979 in the back of a 1971 Chevy Chevelle on the way to baseball practice and hearing stuff like Fire Lake and Against the Wind and stuff like that.

No, it was a Chevy Chevelle. It was a Chevy Chevelle SS, man. God, I wish I had that car back.

Those were sweet. Yeah, Bob Seger. No, that's good.

That's great. Oh, man, yeah. Bob Seger is probably one of my biggest influences for a long time and vocally, I think I probably roll after that than anybody.

I got people that tell me, hey, man, you sound like Stapleton. You sound like this. I was like, man, take it back about 30 years.

Yeah, right, right. What was it? You know what I'm saying? I'm not that old of a cat, but still at the same time, it's like, that was real music to me, man. You got the horn sections in there, everything.

You had that country feel. You had the rock and roll feel. You had, man, blues.

Everything, right. Got it all. It's all there.

It's all there in Bob Seger. Right, right. I'm at it at all.

Never got to meet the man. I wish I would have. No, I never did either.

Or could have. But yeah, never did either, but it definitely would be something I'd like to do. In fact, I pulled up here tonight and the song that was on the radio was still the same.

It's kind of ironic that we were talking about that. Oh, man, yeah. The thing about Bob Seger is I think Bob Seger made country music palatable for the city folk because he had a, I mean, yeah, he was rock and roll, right? But he had a lot of things when you listen to songs like Fire Lake and Against the Wind.

And I'm drawing a blank right now. It doesn't matter. Those two will suffice, right? Because Detroit's a big country town.

Right. It is. But it has that classic rock and roll sound, but it has a lot of country twang to those things.

So people in the northern area of the country who like country music, but you don't get to hear a lot of it. I mean, you do now because of radio. You could put on a Bob Seger album and you'd still kind of get that country fix a little bit.

And I think Bob Seger was kind of like a gateway artist for a lot of people to kind of move over to, you know, the country genre, for sure. Yeah, yeah. I feel that.

Yeah. Who else? Who else influenced you? Oh, man. You know, all the classic rock stuff.

I would have to say Doobie Brothers. I mean, Steve Miller band. We just keep on going up from there.

Head East. Remember Head East? Yeah, I do. Out of St. Louis.

Head East. You know, it's a band I really thought never got attention, man. You know what I mean? I would agree.

The attention that they needed to get. They were big in the Midwest. That's about it.

Funny thing. I don't remember his name at the time, but I was playing in a band way down southern Illinois. And it was a town called Olney, Illinois.

Trying to remember the name of the venue, but that doesn't matter, I guess. Tornado Cafe Monsoon Lounge. Oh, look at that.

Wow. It just come up, man. You couldn't remember that? I haven't thought about this.

I haven't thought about this in years. That Prevagen is really working well. And I ended up on our band at that time, which I don't even remember the name of that.

But the bass player in that band was a bass player from Head East. Okay. Wow.

And I was like, that's pretty cool because, you know, I grew up listening to them. And, you know, a lot of people say, hey, man, Head East. And they'll be like, who's that? Yeah.

You know what I mean? But playing their song, their hit. Right. Everybody will know it.

That's right. And they had the coolest sounding album, Flat as a Pancake. That was the name of the album? The album was called Flat as a Pancake.

It was a stack of pancakes on the cover. I thought that's really a cool name for an album. Right.

And, you know, talking, we touched briefly on Chris Stapleton, you know, he brought up a good point because he's so popular, you know, he's an ultra megastar, right? I'm not saying I don't love me some Chris Stapleton. Oh, no, no, no. And that's not what I'm saying at all.

But, you know, that seems to be the one guy that everybody comes back and says, oh, you sound a lot like Chris Stapleton because they don't have any other reference, you know, as to who you might possibly sound like. But you listen to Chris Stapleton and Chris Stapleton was just a product of all those folks that you named. And I'll tell you, one of the people that I hear in his voice when he sings, and this person may not have influenced him at all.

It might be the kind of thing where he's heard some music before and doesn't really know who it was or whatever. But my mother was a Charlie Rich fan, right? And if you listen to some of the stuff, some of the slower ballads that Chris Stapleton sings, he's got a little bit of that Charlie Rich in his voice. So you can start piecing together bits and, you know, bits and pieces.

Some of his inspirations, yeah. There's quite a few songs in there. I mean, it's totally Credence, Credence Clearwater Revival type sound too, you know? And he plays your favorite song.

Oh God, let's not talk about that song. What, Tennessee Whiskey? Let's not talk about that song. Yeah.

You know, God, you know, I love you, Chris. You're a great performer and everything, but I don't want to play your song ever again. And I have a feeling he kind of feels the same way, but that's the curse of writing a hit song, you know? That's right.

Can you imagine like how many times ZZ Top has done La Grange? Well, I mean, just the fact for me blew me away. It's the first time I ever heard that. Was it the CMAs or something like that, where he come out with that song? First time I ever heard it.

I think it was. Man, I'm like, that's got that touch. I'm already thinking that of James, you know what I'm saying? Of course, right.

Oh, yeah. Everybody's like, oh yeah, play it like that. Cause that's the way that, you know, dude, you know, for one, a lot of people don't even know that, you know, who sang that song.

It was, was it written by, is that David Allen Coe written by it? But we discussed this once before, I think it was someone else. Yeah. And I can't remember who it was.

I know Jordan Jones recorded it. And then. Yeah.

We talked about this once before. I'm trying to think of who the writer was on that, but because I know, I know for, I know for a fact, David Allen Coe come and recorded that as well. Right.

Right. Right. You know, the first time I ever heard it, I guess, stopped in at a local open jam.

And a friend of mine was playing it. Woman that's got a fantastic voice. She sounds exactly like Melissa Etheridge.

And I had heard at a James song many times before, cause I'm a blues fan. I'm a blues guy. And so she started playing Tennessee whiskey with, with the intro, with the baritone sounding guitar and everything.

But then she goes into, I'd rather go blind. Yep. And I had no idea.

You know, he does that live. Oh yeah, he does. Yeah.

But she started with, I'd rather go blind and went into Tennessee whiskey and then finished it with, I'd rather go blind, which everybody else does it the other way around. My Prevagen just hit. Okay.

Tennessee whiskey was written in 1981 by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove. There you go. That's the songwriter.

There you go. I should have knew that one. Yeah.

They decided to write the song together after meeting at the Bluebird cafe. Oh, see, there you go. We talk about the Bluebird cafe on this program a lot.

Excellent. Excellent. So you've put together your sound and you've got your influences in the whole bit.

Who do you think you sound like? I mean, other than yourself, obviously, of course, but I guess, do you feel you're influenced enough by a lot of these folks that you can hear a little bit of them in your, in your writing and your singing and everything else? I really try not to get influenced. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Sure.

Especially when it comes to songwriting. Songwriting for me, it's gotta be something that, that hits me at a time. You know, every morning I pick up the guitar, I'll play for a little bit.

If nothing's hitting me in 20 minutes, I put it back down. That's, that's a good, that's a good practice. Right.

I don't really try to focus on it with like a, you know, like the writers down in Nashville, which I've, I've written with Corey Lee Barker down here. I don't really approach it from me, man. Let's go off an idea.

I want an idea to hit me. Organically. Yes.

Yeah. Right. I know exactly what, yeah.

Let's, let's write a song that sounds like a Gordon Lightfoot song. Well, let's not. Yeah.

Are you a melody first or a lyrics first guy? I'd have to say melody, man. You know, I want to be picking around on the guitar and I, I, I hit this riff, I hit this chord, you know, I used to be a hard rock guy too, you know, albums that we dropped back in that day. Okay.

You know, I know what we're talking about now, but you know, it was heavy, way heavier music. And, but I don't know. I've always been that guy and kind of guy that, yeah, the building hit the, hit the chords.

Let me hear a piano or let me hear something and then I'll get something rolling around in my head and put her down. Man. Well, what do you have prepared for us? I'm hoping you're ready to do a few.

I got a bunch of tunes, man, to be honest with you, man. I mean, we can start out on that Bob Seger note. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? I'll show you that little influence. Okay. Get your stuff together and we'll be right back.

And this is a, this original, so. Oh, okay. All originals that has, that's probably what I'll play today.

So I think, I think, I think this guy might be a long lost relative of mine or something because he's, because he's playing an Alvarez acoustic and I mean, I've got like four, well, I've four, I've got four Alvarez acoustics. I just absolutely love them. Nobody plays Alvarez.

We were just talking about that before you got here. That string through body. Yeah.

Yeah. It's pretty sound, man. When I went and bought this and I own some Gibsons too.

And when I went and bought this, I had, you know, I took in the room with me over in Sweetwater and my, I probably played each one of them about a half hour each. And I had a Martin B28 in there. Right.

I had a J 200, you know, a Gibson J 200. I had a Taylor. Right.

Right. Which I'm sorry to say, it was the worst one out of all of them. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? I don't know what it was. But when I grabbed this one, it had such a solid sound to it, man, that I had to have it. Yeah.

And don't you love when you find a guitar like that and you didn't have to break the bank to get it. So speaking of, yeah, yeah. I did break the bank to get it.

Oh, did you really? Yeah. 20, $2,200. Oh, really? Wow.

Okay. So that's one of the extra special Alvarez. My guess you're going to say that.

Well, it's come with all the LR bags in it already and everything like that. Matter of fact, I went home and, you know, I gig out a lot of acoustic shows. So me and my son do together.

And I come back home and I had this Epiphone EJ200 that I just wouldn't use. I wouldn't use it. It sat on the wall for 10 years.

Yeah, yeah. I went out, got that LR bag system, same one that's in this one, put it in there. And that's my going out and playing guitar now, you know what I'm saying? And I'm not going to ruin it as much, you know? So as I would this, and I ain't going to do that to this.

Right, right. But anyway, sorry. It's a beautiful looking guitar.

It's very good. But yeah, you know, the, how do I say this without saying it? The most popular guitar store in the world sells a lot of Alvarez guitars, but they're the $350 to $500 Alvarez guitars. Right, right.

It's kind of a rare find to find an Alvarez that you would see in the same room with the Gibsons and the Taylors and stuff like that. This is a Yari though. Oh, is that a Yari? This is an Alvarez Yari.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the difference.

That's the difference. Right, right. How are we going to sound here? Stay back about the distance that you are right there, because your singing voice is going to be louder than your speaking voice.

And we can direct that over there to kind of pick up the guitar. I can even use this one as a, we can put this one on as kind of an ambient. And as long as you can hear yourself, okay, we're all good.

You let me know whenever it's go time. So we're talking about the Bob Seger, right? Yeah, yeah. And this is probably, you know, the Bob Seger alley, definitely.

It's called like Wild Horses Rome. And we don't have it on. This is something we're recording this winter, probably.

And be out in 24. All right. Along with the probably the ones I'll play with you.

I probably, I tried to ask him what his wife's, was it your girlfriend? My girlfriend. I tried to ask you what your girlfriend's favorite song was because she said she turned you on to my music. So, but anyway, we'll go on with the bus and everything.

I've been so low, I'm too high to care. Everything I've had, I've lost, disappeared. I've been broke, but now I'm alone, alone, alone now, baby.

Life goes wild and roses long. I've been first and I've been last, drink my whiskey straight from a glass. I've been stoned to the bone.

It's been a while since I've been home. I've been so low, I'm too high to care. Everything I've had, I've lost, disappeared.

I've been broke, but now I'm alone, alone, alone now, baby, everything I've had, I've Just like those wild horses roam Just like those wild horses roam Like those wild horses roam Like those wild horses roam Run along, run along now baby There's a rock and roll Chicago podcast exclusive. Never heard before. Yeah.

There you go. Very good. Was it scary? Sounded good.

Not that scary. Yeah. And that guitar has got a great warm tone to it.

I don't know. It's pretty warm. Yeah.

It sounds great. I was wondering if it was too warm there. No.

You know what I mean? No. It was okay. It sounded good to me.

It could be just, you know, all these headphones work differently. Yeah. You know.

It's kind of strange. But it sounded great over here. I was kind of working the levels a little bit and everything while you were playing as you hit it harder.

I brought it down a little bit. I didn't want it to overpower or anything. Right.

So. But are you hearing everything also okay? Because I did kind of mess with it a little bit. We're all good? Yeah.

I think I'm hearing things a little bit better now. Yeah. Okay.

Good. Good. I know.

I know a little bit about what's going on. Do you? Just a little bit. Yeah.

They don't let me touch this stuff, you know, in my band. They leave that up to the professionals. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

So, um, influenced by Bob Seger, you said where that, uh, when did you write that? Was it kind of like earlier in your career or what? Uh, I probably been sitting on that song for, oh, 10 years. Right. You know, I've, I've written a lot.

I got a lot of songs that I've written, but, uh, getting them out there is the other thing. You know what I'm saying? Uh, I feel like I, I just don't want to put them out there. I want to go do it professionally and that's why I use Nashville.

Right. You know what I'm saying? I go down there. Uh, you know, like the first, first studio album that we did down there, uh, was pretty awesome and pretty much playing with Luke Combs band.

Oh, nice. Nice. You know what I'm saying? Right.

Right. Right. Me and my son with Luke Combs.

Wow. That's cool. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. And the producer on that was, uh, uh, man, I think it was Kenny. I know his name and I'm just going to, you know, lose, I'm just going to go right out of my brain right now because I'm, I'm sitting here, but, uh, uh, direct image studios where we recorded that album and that was the highway and, uh, it was a great experience, man.

But whenever I wanted to go back down and record, I wanted, uh, I didn't want such a, you know, quick thing. I wanted to play around with tones. I wanted to play around with stuff.

I wanted to, you know, the first one was kind of like, oh, let's cut it. We're in and out. You know what I'm saying? Second one, I cut, I recorded down there.

I ended up running into a guy, uh, while I was down there, uh, at a place called the spot in Nashville, uh, down, uh, what was it on the West end? I think. Yep. I think so.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've been there. The spot.

Yep. That's cool. Then you, I liked that better than I do the strip.

I don't even like when I go down there, I don't even like the strip. No, I agree. So much cooler stuff.

Right. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And my main, my main focus is to record anyway. So, uh, I ended up running into a guy named Tom rim and then, uh, kind of oddly he ended up being from Champaign. Oh wow.

And he's a producer down there and, uh, we turned into good buddies, man. What now does he have a, does he own a studio? You don't own a studio. He runs out of Blackbird studio out of Blackbird studio.

Okay. I know, I know Blackbird. Yeah.

And I was a sweet, sweet studio to work in. Nice. Okay.

I'm saying again, you've got everything you want, man. If I wanted to, I, I did, I picked a 49, 49 J 200 off the wall. Wow.

Wow. Yeah. And that's what I use on my recording.

Oh wow. Yeah. No kidding.

Recorded a song. It's kind of like Johnny Cash with that thing, man. I figured, man, I gotta have a something old.

Yeah. Yeah. I gotta have that sound.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, we got to record that with actually Johnny Cash's bass player too.

And that's the bass player that we chose to work with us on that, on this last album, which was somewhere on the other side. And, uh, just working with that man, uh, his name was, uh, uh, Dave Roderick. Okay.

Okay. Johnny Cash's bass player. Yeah.

Well, it was for the last 20, 30 years of his life. I mean, he played with many other people, Dwight Yoakum. Right.

Uh, we could probably go into, uh, a bunch of people he played with. He's been in a lot, a lot of recordings and, uh, but I mean, he wasn't, he was one of them guys that are like, Hey man, he likes the raw stuff. He likes, you know what I'm saying? He's old school.

He likes the vintage gear and stuff like that. But, uh, he just passed away a few months ago. Oh no.

And you, and you, and you worked with him in, in, uh, you said Champaign? Uh, no, I worked with him down in Nashville. In Nashville you worked with him. Okay.

With Dave, uh, Tom Vrim was, Tom Vrim was, uh, the, you know, he was the producer on that and, uh, we turned into buddies and, uh, my buddy Joe Aslan too. You guys ought to get him in here, man, uh, give him a look, look at, cause, uh, great blues guitar player. Nice.

Okay. Writes his own songs. And, you know, he's been recording down there too, but, uh, drawing out Joe.

Yeah. But anyway, but, uh, anyway, yeah, I mean, that was a great experience, you know, with some great players down there, Joshua Hunt on the drums and, uh, uh, Eddie Dunlap, uh, on the steel guitar. Right.

Of course, me and my son. Right. Right.

So, yeah, we, I mean, I love that studio. I love the room, you know, it's got the reverb chambers in it. Of course.

You know what I'm saying? Right. It's like, uh, well, there's a difference between building a studio and making a studio, right? You know, anybody can make a studio, you know, we can, we can put up some walls and some sound deadening material and do it in the garage, but then, but then you've got guys that build a studio and they build it specifically for just, okay, we need everything to sound the best it could possibly sound in this room. Which I've done.

I've done in my house. Right. And that's where I do my, that's where I do my demos and everything like that, you know, but I'm, I only got a drum room and then I got the control room basically, you know, but am I going to put that out? Do I know the ins and outs of recording like them guys do? No.

Right. You know what I mean? So. Right.

That, that, that's always a fantastic experience to actually, to, to go into a studio in Nashville, you know, it's, it's like, cause you almost, you almost feel the ghosts. You know what I mean? Yeah. You do.

Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, talking about this, Chris Davidson thing again, I mean, I was sitting right in the same spot.

He was recording traveler. Right. You know what I mean? I'm like, nah, that's pretty cool.

Right. You know, not only him, Paul McCartney. Oh yeah.

Right. You know what I mean? So it's like, who else has sat here? Yeah. Many.

Right. Right. Right.

You know? Yeah. And it, it is a, it is an overwhelming feeling, you know, like I was, I was literally standing, my two feet were standing in the same spot that Smokey Robinson's feet were standing in in the original studio in Motown, you know, stuff like that. Right.

And I was like, wow, this is just really cool. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you might be a one take kind of guy, but nope, now it's going to take like a hundred.

Right. That's the way I just felt about that song I just played. Right.

Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. So you've got two albums out now? Two albums.

Two albums. Good. I mean, if you want to count the rock stuff, then I think we're here talking about that today, but you know, I was, we had one out when we had that and then we were sitting on two and then the band broke up.

You know what I'm saying? Which I record, that was called Redneck Remedy back in the day. I don't think we've really played anything for probably about 10 years now. But it was harder edged, Black Label Society meets Clutch meets them influences, you know what I'm saying? So it was, we did some pretty cool things.

Man opened up for some pretty big bands. Wow. We played over here back when it was, what was it? Before it was, it's been a couple of things.

Mojo's? There was Mojo's. Mojo's. And then there was something, wasn't it called The Tree at one point in time? It was called The Tree.

For a little while, yeah. Well, you know, we used to tour out, in that band, we used to tour on out to Dallas and we'd play The Tree out there in Dallas. Okay.

Man, there's a specific place, Reno's Chop Shop. Oh, yeah. Pantera.

Yeah. They had all their cups, you know, that when they get done with a shot, they throw them up over. So they got them all.

I don't know if the place is still down there, but they'd have them all barbed wired and stuff. So people couldn't pull them out. Right.

Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right.

But yeah. They'd have to go through a DNA test every one of them to figure out who's who. So going back to influences, man, I mean, I run from blues all the way up to, you know, metal like that.

You know, so. Yeah, exactly. So your next album, you got everything, you got the songs you're ready to record on that or are you still working on some? No, I probably got a couple albums lined up.

Okay. And. What do you which ones are you pushing like right now? Like if.

Song wise? Yeah. I'm still pushing. I'm actually like I released the album, but I'm going to go back and release Mistakes I've Made off of the album.

It's just an EP. I'm just recording EPs, man. The attention span, like back when we listen to the music, man, or when I come up and maybe you come up to, we listen to a whole album.

Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Both sides. Another topic of conversation on this show that we talk about all the time.

Yeah. You know, it's like gone are the days of, you know, your favorite band would come out with a new album and you'd call over a bunch of friends and you'd all, you know, lay around on their bedroom floor. Right.

And listen to that album and pass the album cover around. Everybody takes a chance reading the liner notes. Right.

For sure. I mean, I was talking. I was talking to Tom about this, you know, down from Nashville, Tom Vrim.

And he was saying, yeah, you know, he's in the middle of trying to get this independent record label going. Right. Doing it right.

You know. Right. Right.

And I don't know. Is that gone? Or is that is that is that still there? I mean, are you better off these days to go ahead and start your own label? I mean, it seems like all these other guys are doing it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, but.

Certainly. It certainly makes sense to me. I guess that the money, you know, I guess that the money's there.

Right. Right. You know what I'm saying? You know, I got to have money back in some kind of label for distribution.

Right. I mean, really, you can distribute. I guess it all falls down into a name.

How many people is listening to your stuff? Right. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And whether you can kind of front that whole thing.

I mean, let's give a perfect example. Cody Jenks. I don't know if you guys listen.

Oh, yeah. Jenks at all. But perfect example.

Right there. You know? I don't know who was funding that. I mean, I think I read somewhere that his wife was funding it.

And then. Yeah. You know, then he's able to fund himself.

Right. So. Which that's cool.

Right. Ain't too often that you get a female is going to support. You know, I'm lucky to have that.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think, you know, a lot of stuff has happened over the years. And unfortunately, some of it's good.

Some of it's bad. The good thing that came out of, you know, all the, you know, downloads and gosh, it's all started with one Napster, you know, 20 years ago or whatever, whatever. The good thing about that is it.

I think people realize that they can produce their own product. They can do it. I mean, it can be done.

And people have proved it by sitting at their dining room table with a laptop. For sure. Now, a lot of the stuff that they've produced is just swill, you know, all that, all that, you know, electronic, you know, type kind of music in the whole bit.

But it, but it can be done. You can do it. The bad thing about it is it's really, I think it's kicked musicians back about 50 years to the point where we truly are starving artists once again.

Right. Because nobody is making money off of that recorded product that they're making. And if you want to make money, you have to go out there and promote it.

And oversaturated. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Right. And, and, and the fact that somebody can download one song, you know, I, I like this one song by that, by that person.

So I'm going to download that one song and to hell with the rest of the album. Right. I hate that because man, you're getting, you're getting one percentage, your small percentage of the story that that artist is trying to tell you.

Right. So true. And then, uh, I mean, let's, let's talk about that for a minute, you know, Spotify.

Yeah. And, uh, you know, which I, I, you know, know what you should say at this point, besides the point that, you know, I read here in 24, if you don't get so many plays on something, all that's going is like, you know, so wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. I still made that right.

Music that money should be kind of mean, but they're going to give your royalties to the bigger artists that are, did you read that? Yep. Absolutely. And I'm like, man, that's like, uh, you know, every, every little bitty 10th of a cent that I make is what I want to.

It's like a pyramid scheme is what it is. For sure. You've got, you've got all of these nobodies, you know, unheard, you know, and then you've got at the top of the pyramid, you've got the mega stars, right.

And the mega stars are promised X amount of dollars for their downloads and whatever. Well, it's a pecking order. If you're down here with the masses that nobody's heard of, well, we're not sending out a royalty check because of your 300 downloads.

It's not worth the ink, you know, to sign the check. So they take that money. Well, you know, we owe this guy up here a little, you know, so it's like all these guys down here are helping to pay for the royalties for the people that are all the way at the top.

And if you want to get any kind of residual out of your, out of your product that you're producing, you've got to figure out a way to get up here because you're not getting it down. I've gone as far as saying, who's to say, you know, is that the real place? You know what I'm saying? Is that, is that the real play? You guys holding back some money on me or something like that, but that's the way it makes you feel. Now, if you go down the road, like you guys like Garth Brooks, I mean, what Garth Brooks done is, is pretty smart, man.

You go to, is you either go to his website or you're going to Amazon. Right. And that's where his deal is direct.

Right. Right. I mean, so I kind of took that and figured I'm going to just go to my website and make sure every song that I got out is available for download.

And when I posted online, I posted to Facebook, I posted to this place, that place, whatever that my, I'm always going to tag it with the.com. Right. You know what I'm saying? So, Hey, this is available here. You can listen to it there.

Right. You know what I'm saying? But it's available here. Then you can listen to it there or whatever.

And then you're getting the full 99 cents because when they buy it on iTunes or something, you get like a quarter of a penny. Right. And that's your, that's your stuff.

Yeah. You know, and they're making all the money. Yeah.

Yep. So, I mean, you guys are musicians. I'm sure you've been gigging for a long time and I've been gigging for a long time too.

You know what I'm saying? Just like the work that goes into it. You know what I'm saying? I can't think about it. Oh yeah.

You know, it means like, then you got these clubs telling you, I'll give you, you know what I mean? I'll give each of your guys a hundred bucks or something. I was like, well, then I ain't coming. Yeah.

Then I ain't coming. Yeah. I mean, ain't worth getting out of my house at that point.

Right. Right. I can sit and play and have a good time by myself.

That's right. Here in my house. You know what I'm saying? At the same time, you almost got to do some of them, you know, cause you just want to meet that audience.

And I think we've been pretty fortunate. I mean, sometimes you have to do that. I mean, let's face it.

Sometimes you have to do that, but. Do I think I'd be on a bigger playing field by now? You know, you always wish for that as a musician. Right.

You know, if I don't never get there, then I'm, I'm happy. I'm doing, I told my son, it's like, dad, you know, I play, I'm playing with my son. He's like, dad, you're probably going to die doing this, aren't you? Yep.

And I said, you know what son, if I was to die tonight up on that stage, you just know that I died loving what I love to do. Right. You know? So, and it don't get no better than that.

I mean, what's that, you know, what do you want fame? You want fortune? No. You just want to be able to, you know, at the end of the day saying, Hey man, I gave us a good old college try or whatnot, you know, and go down the road with it. Right.

You know, so. Well, why don't you do what you love to do. I was going to say that sounded like a song.

Did anybody write that? Well, I've been pushing, I've been pushing, uh, my song mistakes I've made, which I'm just going to turn around and drop as a single. And I've found since we're talking about all this, uh, all this, you know, album stuff, like nobody's got the attention span and listen to the album. Well, if you ain't dropping singles.

Yeah. They ain't listening. You know what I'm saying? So I want to go back.

Got to be your own radio station. And even though I've dropped, you know, I've dropped this song already. I'm going to go back and I'm going to drop every one of them as a single.

So it gets its own play time or whatnot. And, and, and a spotlight. So, but anyway, this is called the mistakes I've made.

Everybody makes their own mistakes. Some broken glass is sometimes all it takes to realize the honest truth. I realize that everything you ever said was fake.

And I believe the mistake I made was ever trusting you. And I believe the mistake I made was ever loving you. Ever loving you.

Can't escape a broken heart. Sometimes it comes along to tear you all apart. But you'll be stronger when it's through.

Someone will come along, love you like you never knew. And I believe the mistake I made was ever trusting you. And I believe the mistake I made was ever loving you.

Ever loving you. The mistake I made was ever trusting you. And I believe the mistake I made was ever loving you.

Ever loving you. Ever loving you. Very powerful.

I like that. Very nice. Very, very nice.

Excellent. And what album is that on? That's on somewhere on the other side. Somewhere on the other side.

Yeah. So it's a little bit more bluesy, you know, bluesier type song, actually. I mean, I can only do so much here with an acoustic.

But, you know, I tell you what, man. Willie Donaldson. You know, I remember when we was recording that song.

Me and my son was going through guitars. Uh-huh. You know, I like, you know, we had a pick of, I own some Telecasters.

You know what I'm saying? But we tried a strap. We tried this. We tried that.

And I looked over at this 67 Mustang. Oh, wow. It was hanging on the wall.

You know what I'm saying? I'm like, there we go. And isn't that what Chris Stapleton plays, I believe? He plays a jazz master. Jazz master.

Yeah, close. I mean, close enough, you know, kind of thing. Yeah.

Because it had that, it definitely, you heard that sound. For sure. In that song.

If you listen to that song, you know, wherever you listen to it at, Spotify, wherever, you know, if you listen to that song, you'll hear that. And it's pretty ratty. We put it on a JCM 800, cranked it up.

I love that sound. I love that sound. I mean, so, yeah.

You know, I love that sound. And I've been getting into it more and more and more is that raw sound. I don't like that digital sound.

I can hear the digital. I can hear the digits. What's the word I'm looking for? I can hear the digital in the digital.

And I don't want to hear the digital. It's processed. Yeah, right.

It's not a natural sound. I feel you. But for all these live shows that we do, man, I've come pretty dependent on that head rush.

Yeah. You know what I mean? The head rush, I don't feel I get a digital sound out of it at all, really, because the way I've gone through and I've EQ'd everything and the way I got it EQ'd on the outboard, I don't really feel like it's, I got it sounding pretty tubby. Then I got the new Prime, too.

Okay. Okay. And I started messing around with, you know, I'm a Fender Junior fan.

Okay. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Of course.

So I can pull some pretty downright heavy tones out of that Junior with that head rush. A blues Junior? Blues Junior. Well, see, I mean, you've got the tubes and the whole bit in the amp.

That's exactly what I play through. That's definitely helping out. Fender Junior, I love that thing.

Chinson speaker. Love it. Love it.

Yeah. When I say I can hear the digital sound, I mean in recordings. Oh, yeah.

And it's, I mean, let's face it, it is so darn expensive to go in and say, you know what? I want to record everything to tape. No, you can't do it because it's hundreds of dollars for one of these reels of tape. Before you've even put down a note, you're into it for at least $500.

Our keyboard player's got a couple of them. He's got a couple of reel-to-reels. Yeah.

And, you know, he's got some old school equipment down there. I mean, man, dude. Pretty awesome.

It sounds great. And you can hear, because years ago I went into a studio and I was with a band that had a couple of guys that were older than the other two in the band. And ironically, I'm their age now.

So, geez, I just aged myself. Wow, you're old. Yeah, but they insisted that we record it on tape.

And I was like, okay, whatever. I didn't care, man. But when we got that finished product, I was like, I could hear the difference.

Man, I could hear it. Because the recording sounded like we were just all together playing in a room. And you didn't hear the – it didn't sound digital at all.

And I was so glad we did it that way. But, yeah, it's very difficult to do. I mean, even to find a studio that's got a machine that's worthy to record reel-to-reel.

I don't even know if they make them anymore. I've never been down that road myself. But would it be cool? Yeah.

It would be cool to do it one time. Especially if you're a fan of the vintage type, everything. You know what I mean? I highly recommend if you can find a studio to do it one time just to go through the experience.

Because it is a different experience. It's not like, oops, I made a mistake. We'll just keep going.

We'll fix it later. Right? Nope. We got to do it over again right now because there's no plucking that note off the computer screen and putting it over here and duplicating it 12 more times to make it perfect.

There is none of that. So, yeah. So being February now, you got any gigs coming up? Are you planning on any kind of stuff? We got some stuff going on in the calendar.

I mean, we got some summer stuff already booked up. We got already end of the year stuff booked up. So trying to keep it.

I want to be hitting the studio. So I'm trying to make time to make sure that we're getting in the studio. Like I said, I've got a lot of stuff to record.

I want to make sure that I make some time for that. This year, I didn't. I mean, this past year, I didn't really do that.

You know, it was show, show, show, show, show, show, show, you know, sometimes five nights a week. And then you're burned out. You're rehearsing one of the nights of the week.

I mean, if you listen to my voice right now, it's scratchy. I need some heal time. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? And it's been like that for, you know, it didn't help that, you know, colds running around and whatnot. But still, it's just like trying to sing through that and still work through that. And, you know, I need to kind of need a break here and there, get it back.

And I also kind of feel like I fell short of writing very many songs this year, this past year. I want to try to, you know, make that something that I'm doing in 24 years. Make it more of a priority.

Right. Yeah. I mean, you can lose track of that pretty easy, I think.

Right. And I don't care. I don't care whether my songs ever go anywhere, man.

It's just a personal goal of mine. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, if I can, you know, like my son, you know, say he takes that and does it, he's got all them recordings.

You know what I'm saying? And speaking of a songwriter, he's a songwriter, too. You know, so no doubt that he can take that and, you know, Pops kicks the bucket going down the road tomorrow. You know what I'm saying? You know, goes ahead and does that, you know.

So, yeah. Yeah. So if somebody wanted to buy an entire album, can they do that on your website? Yeah.

JohnDavidDaily.com. Perfect. We'll send it right out to you. You know, merch-wise, that's something that I kind of want to focus on bringing up, too, this year.

Different ways to grab attention, I guess. You know what I'm saying? Like I said, you can go on there and you can download. If you hear the song that you like and you want to have it, singles.

I mean, I got singles there. They're all available there as singles. You don't have to buy the whole album.

But I prefer people to kind of go there and buy it off the website and support the artists that you're listening to. You know what I'm saying? Amen. Don't just go and, oh, man, I got Spotify because, man, we ain't making no money.

Yeah. Ain't none of us making no money, man. I was like, I got a buddy, man.

I ain't going to name the cover band or anything like that, but he used to be out here in Chicago. He's out in L.A. now. I will tell you, he's doing a Tom Petty tribute.

Okay. And it's working good out there in California. They got it going on and making fat, fat cash.

Rolling. You know what I'm saying? I'm like. Tribute bands are raking it in right now.

Yeah. It's big. Almost every state now has their own summer festival where it's just tribute bands.

Right. It's like, man. Don't get me wrong.

I like to see a good tribute band. I do. You know what I'm saying? But at the same time, it's like, man.

Somebody do a tribute band of me. Man, I just want to get out there and be heard. But then again, we could talk about it all night long and talk about how it's oversaturated and stuff like that, man.

But I'm still a firm believer in a song. It's a song that somebody is going to hear and then it's going to go, wow. You know what I mean? And it's still like that, though.

It's still like that. You're still hearing songs that, man, that's crap. I was able to go back to Stapleton, that White Horse song.

Yeah. Right on there. I was covering it that week.

Right. You know what I'm saying? Right. But anyhow.

But yeah. You can go to johndaviddaileyguy.com and all the merch is there. All the ways to book us and everything.

I got an EPK page right on there. Alrighty. Which I probably need to update that.

And Facebook, too. I'm not a wizard, man, at that stuff. I do it all myself, though.

So I don't got nobody doing it for me. And have a hard time with trust in this industry. That's another song.

That's another song for another time, everybody. Another song for another time. For sure.

So John David Dailey. Thank you very much for coming, everybody. Well, hey, thanks for having me.

And yeah, go give me a listen. And if you dig it, share it, you know. And if you dig it that much, bring me to your closest town, and we'll come jam for you.

There you go. You know where to find him. Thanks a lot, John.

Thank you. And there we go. John David Dailey.

That's right. And his son is John David Dailey Jr. So he's J-D-D-J-R. A lot of initials there.

It certainly is. You know, I hate when people compare me or compare other friends that I know who are musicians. I hate when you get compared to somebody, and people say, oh, you sound like this guy, you sound like this guy.

You'd like to think that you sound like yourself. But man, you could hear the outlaw country influence in him. The Bob Seger and the Chris Stapleton.

I mean, literally all the people that he named. You heard bits and pieces of every single one of them. Yes, you did.

My wife would absolutely love his music. She loves those gravelly voiced, you know, medley men. Rocking country, whatever.

It's becoming like its own genre now. It is. I mean, rock, country, blues.

It's a conglomeration of a bunch of stuff, and it's becoming a genre. Yeah, it's like, what are you going to actually call it? We don't know. We should figure something out and trademark it.

And we should answer. That's a good idea. You know what? I think we're going to go next door, and we're going to have a few Christmas bourbons, and we're going to figure out what we're going to call that.

We're going to figure this out, and we're going to make millions. That's right. And we're going to hook him up.

We're going to use his name in reference. That's right. That's right.

We'll cut him in on a piece of the pie. Yeah. All righty.

Well, that was a lot of fun with John. Thanks for joining us, as you do every week. I hope it's every week.

Join us every Tuesday for another exciting episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. See ya. I'm Christy from Crime Cave Podcast.

I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons of 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. 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 someoneyoushouldknowpodcast.com. That's the Someone You Should Know podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time. The Rock & Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin, theme song courtesy of M&R Rush.

The Rock & 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.