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.

Hello, I'm Mike. How are you? I'm doing good, Ray. What's going on, man? Not a heck of a lot.

Not a heck of a lot. Been kind of an uneventful week since last week. Yeah, it was kind of uneventful all the way up, all the way up until the jalapeno cheeseburger that I ate for dinner tonight.

Oh, yeah. You had another one? You had one last time. Yeah.

Did I have one last time? You had one last week. See, I guess I just don't learn my lesson. No, I guess you did not.

No. I guess you didn't learn. I didn't believe it the first time.

I guess you had to try it to make sure. Yeah, that's right. But would you recommend the burger? Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I would. Except it doesn't come with any sides. No, that's not right.

You should always get at least fries. But burgers never come with sides, though. You can always see the meat through the bun.

Oh, listen, I wish I wish that rimshot sound effect worked. So who do we have in the studio here tonight? We are talking to Kicked Outta Choir. Outta Choir.

Woo hoo! Yeah, thank God there's no nuns in here. 80s music galore. That's right.

How you guys doing? You know, we're good. It's Dave and Coco. Actually, Coco's probably a little irritated because she wants to have, she wants to do a podcast.

I know she does. She wants to lead her own podcast. She's going to take it over.

She is. Yeah, why don't you take over the podcast. How are you guys doing this evening? We're doing fantastic.

Coco, Dave, Mike. I think they want to listen to her voice a lot more than they want to listen to our voice. Well, then let people listen.

So tell us about Kicked Outta Choir. Where do we begin? At the beginning. Yeah, so as you said, we are an 80s band.

We love the music of the 80s. There are a lot of 80s bands out there and it seems like more and more are popping up every few months. We've been at this since that great year of 2020, ironically.

And it's a great year to start a band, right? It actually was in some ways. It helped us get in places. You know, first of all, I mean, there are bars that could only have 50 people.

And the big shots didn't want, you know, it was a lot of money that bars were losing. And hey, cheap band that brings 50 people. Hey, we'll take them.

Open some doors at the time. And but we've been at this now. This, you know, will be I mean, it was it was probably late 2020 that we actually started doing real shows.

And, you know, we had compared to fake ones. But we were forming throughout 2020. And yeah, our whole band actually got COVID at the same time.

Yeah, right in the beginning. Yeah, summer 2020. So there you go.

Got it out of the way. They were hiring us because we had the antibodies and we should go out. And they're like, wow.

Well, and the whole band had COVID. Was that because like some Fleetwood Mac action was going on? No idea, man. Don't know, I'm not sure.

All I went to was Aldi's. I don't know what happened. We practiced outside.

All you had to do was cough and 10 people got it. You know, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.

Crazy time. But it was a crazy time to start a band. And it kind of it built us.

Yeah, again, open some doors. And it was an interesting time playing to people that couldn't get out of their tables. You had to sit.

You had to wear a mask. You had to stay away from the stage. I couldn't dance.

I mean, they had so many crazy things that were just like, you know, you had to be done by 10 o'clock. It's like, OK, well, because COVID comes out. Like the gremlins or something.

It wakes up. Everybody gets drunk and starts sweating. It comes out of the pores like that.

I think that was literally what some people said. Maybe that's what it was. But yeah, it was it was a very fun time.

Yeah, so let's see. You can't touch. You can't walk.

You can't dance. You can't move. You have to stay seated.

You have to wear a mask. So let's put an 80s band in there where they're going to play the kind of music where everybody wants to get up and they want to walk around and they want to touch each other and they want to dance. Yeah, that's just like torture, right? We ended up there was a few songs that we do that we would like, you know, touch me or, you know, I think I'm alone now.

Hey, welcome to 2020, you know, kind of songs. I love to add something to what Dave was saying. Amazing musicians that I play with.

This is literally my first band I've ever been with. I put it on hold for 20 years for kids and rightfully so. I had amazing sons.

And all of a sudden I took a leap of faith in 2019. And this gentleman here, Dave, had an ad out about wanting to have a lead female fronted 80s band. And I'm like, I used to sing, you know, Billie Holiday and jazz.

I'm like, I got that in my voice somewhere. So I took a leap of faith. And our drummer, Ed Cook and him started the band and it was tough.

I went downstairs all ready to rock and like, here we go. I'm going to audition. And he said, as soon as I walked down first song, he knew I was going to be the singer, but he put me through a lot, like two or three auditions.

Yeah, we'll have to think about it. We'll have to. Well, I'll just talk about faith.

Who got kicked out of choir? That's a great question. I did not get kicked out of choir, but I know a lot of people who should have. And when we came up with the name, Dave Winton, one of my good friends, one of my dearest friends, Paige said, you know, I'm telling you, he told, in fact, you know, the story better that she went up to you.

And right. I mean, we were trying as you're naming a band. I mean, you go through a bunch of how about this? How about that? How about in that? And this one just kind of came out of nowhere and it just stuck.

And then we kind of tested it and the responses we would get were like, wow, you know, it's just a name, you know, and her friend said, you know, oh, my God, that takes me right back to high school. I hated choir. They always made me sing these songs.

We had to do this. And I want to go out and, you know, get my boombox and listen to Pat Benatar and Blondie and they would never, you know, and then we'd have to go back and sing. And it just reminded me of that time in my life where I had to go sing the songs in choir.

I hated it. And then the music you guys are playing, that's what I really wanted to be doing. And then the kicker was another friend of the band said, my sister and I went to a Catholic school and they wouldn't allow us to be in the choir because our family didn't have a piano.

And we they said, if you don't have a piano at home, you're not going to be a good enough for our choir. All right. And you two girls can act up, you know, the Lord.

Because the family is not standing around the piano singing every night, right? So she said that your name literally brought me to tears when I saw that, because that just took me to. And I was like, OK, this this is something a little bigger than just, hey, we're the whoever, you know, this is something that and then other people said different things, you know, again, not just a cool name, because some people said it was stupid. You know, my kids told me, oh, my God, yeah, that's stupid.

It sounds like a sister act. It sounds like, you know, yeah, no, I don't know. But, you know, well, that what that reminded me of is, you know, almost every band that was ever interviewed on like behind the music or anything like that, there was always somebody in the band that said, well, you know, I got my start.

I was singing in choir and, you know, that didn't really work out too well because I got kicked out. Right. You hear that all the time.

So the famous one is Shakira that, you know, Shakira Grammy Award winning, you know, everything. And when she was a kid, literally kicked out of choir. Kicked out of choir.

So when she sang like a goat, which she kind of does, but she made it work. I get that. Then she starts shaking her hips and everybody forgets about what her voice sounds like.

It's like, okay, yeah, I guess you're okay. That's what it's all about. That's what it is.

It's hypnosis. That's the purpose of the whole hip thing. Yeah.

But yeah, so it's kind of stuck. And the name has actually gotten us some doors open. People are like, oh, my God, I heard you guys.

And I just, I got it. I don't even know. I don't even like 80s, but I want to see what you guys are.

And I've heard you guys. And I can't, as soon as I saw that name, I can't, you know, stop thinking about that. Yeah.

So, I mean, it's the kind of name too, where, you know, like the VH1 stories, you know, people saying that I've been kicked out of choir. You've probably heard a story like that so many times that when they hear the name of your band, they automatically think, oh, I've heard you guys. Right.

And that's a good point. You know, and it took on kind of a bigger meaning too, because what we'd like to say in our shows and stuff, a lot of times is it's not literally about being kicked out of choir. It's about, you know, everyone's had something, a job they were fired from, a divorce, being kicked out of a group of, you know, social group, or, you know, Corey gets kicked out of Aldi's kind of like every week or so.

How does someone get kicked out of Aldi's? When you're not supposed to open the wine until you buy it first. We've talked about this. How'd you get kicked out of Aldi's? He says it all the time.

Yeah. I didn't bring my own bags. I stole one.

I don't know, something like that. Corkscrew and just walks down the aisle and stealing the quarters out of their cars. That's me, man.

It's a different reason, but she always gets kicked out. So I know there's more than just the two of you who's not here tonight. Right.

So yeah, we are a five piece band. We have our drummer, Ed Cook, who is a Southsider. Another Ed, we call him Eddie.

We have Ed and Eddie, Eddie Stauber, who is our lead guitar player. And then we have our keyboardist, Jimmy. He likes to go by the stage name Dash Riprock.

It's from the Flintstones. Well, there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. Not many people catch that, but yeah. Very good.

Because he said something to us when he first came on board, a Flintstone cartoon. I'm like, okay, Riprock. And that just has kind of stuck.

Dash Riprock. I love it. Yeah.

So group of characters. But yeah, so the three of us, Corey, myself, and Ed Cook, the drummer, were kind of the originals. Another guy, Jim Vinson, who helped us start the band.

I mean, it really literally started from an idea that I had of just, I had left a band that was doing, I would almost say somewhat of what a Cadillac group does, but not nearly as good. But we did sort of Motown and some disco and dance stuff. Then we'd mix it in some rock.

We're kind of all over the map. Once that band kind of went their separate ways, I wanted to come back with something what people had told me was, you want to market your band as something. When you're just, yeah, we do that, we do that, we do that.

And it's kind of, okay, I don't really know what you do. If you say, hey, we play all 80s. Now, that's a wide spectrum of our music.

And we try to, so the idea was, okay, we're going to do 80s. We're going to keep it in that decade. But we're going all over the place.

We're going to do Prince. We're going to do Motley Crue. We're going to do- Missing Persons.

Missing Persons. Do you hear me? What was the band you were with? So my previous band was called Final Groove. Many groove bands out there.

There's a lot of groove bands out there. A lot of final ones too. But yeah, so from that band, yeah.

So that was the idea. The concept was, all right, we're going to do a band that's 80s. But no, not just a hair band 80s, not just a new wave synth pop 80s.

And there's a lot of great stuff in the 80s you don't really think about. I mean, I always say Stevie Ray Vaughan was an 80s artist. Was an 80s artist.

His entire career was the span of the 80s. And you say 80s band. You're like, oh yeah, we do Stevie Ray Vaughan.

It's like, which we don't yet, but it's on our agenda. But you don't really associate it. Oh, but you do Duran Duran and you do Cyndi Lauper and you do Madonna.

Yeah, we do some of that too. But there was a lot of great music. And then like what Corey is saying, we do what we like to call our forgotten favorites, which is sort of those either artists like a Missing Persons, which was just an amazing band.

Underrated. Should have been bigger than they were. We do Motels.

Motels. Love the Motels. Bow Wow Wow.

We do, gosh, I mean, a bunch of songs. And then we do some songs by artists. You know, like we do Prince, but we do Take Me With You from the Purple Rain album.

That nice, you know, deep cut. I mean, that's a great song. Should have been a hit.

But that one's like, wow, holy crap. I've never heard a band do that. So we're trying to be different.

We don't want to just get out there. You know, we do. I love rock and roll and walking on sunshine and all that.

You know, the crowd favorites, you know, like everyone does. We like to throw those curveballs, you know, and do some different things. And, you know, and we get a lot of comments that say, man, that was a great set list.

It was just different songs that you don't hear every single band do. But they're still not so obscure that it's like, what the hell was that? You know, it's like, you know, there's songs you remember. So the Forgotten Favorite thing is kind of where we go with that.

You know, it's a lot of those hit songs that you don't really hear as much. You know, I call them the Walmart song. You hear a lot of them in Walmart soundtrack and like living on a prayer.

You don't hear that enough. But if you listen, you'll hear like the motels and you'll hear, you know, other stuff. Which is kind of freaky when I'm walking through Jewel.

I'm sorry, the Jewels. The Jewels, the Jewels. And I'm hearing this music.

I'm like, whoa, this is what I listen to. And yeah, we're a demographic now, unfortunately. Def Leppard is now elevator music.

Yeah, exactly. I've heard Def Leppard in an elevator. That's elevator music nowadays.

That's crazy. That's a little scary. Yeah.

I think that. Watch out where the husky is going. Don't you eat that yellow snail.

I don't think you'll hear that at the Jewels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just saying.

Yeah, but you know, when you're going, when you're in like a high rise building and you're going down in an elevator and they move pretty fast because there's like 70 floors to it and you hear. I think the love in an elevator would be better. Yeah, there you go.

But you know, so let's talk about the 80s a little bit because nobody talks about it enough. You know what, at least, honestly, at least the people who actually lived through the 80s don't talk about it enough. It's actually coming back with a younger generation of people, you know.

Cindy Lauper is cool again. And who's making her cool again? 16-year-olds, you know? Because of their parents. I have to share something with you.

Maybe, but maybe even not, because a lot of 80s music is being used in video games and things like that nowadays. That's one of the reasons why. Netflix and Hulu and all of these other streaming services that are creating their own television shows are using a lot of 80s music.

There's several programs that my wife and I watch and the music that they use is from the 80s. Stranger Things, I think. Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, Stranger Things. They took that Kate Bush song and re-resurrected that thing and turned that, you know, that was a forgotten, talk about a forgotten favorite. That was not even a favorite, just a great song, but a very artistic kind of song, not a hit.

And they turned that thing into a, you know, a hit. When we do I Want Candy last, oh, I can't remember, this past summer, summer four, we did a fest. And I'm telling you, there was like 20 kids came running up and just was mouthing the words.

And I got done with the song and I'm like, first of all, you guys rock, but you parents, thank you, thank you for teaching them some cool music. But they're like, oh, it's on my video game. And I'm like, or it's a show, because I'd love to sing I Want Candy.

And they're like, oh, I know that, but I was. Yeah, there's a lot of remakes, like the series of Teen Wolf, which the original music took place, or the real movie is from the 80s, right? So they used a lot of 80s music when they re-imagined the whole concept of it and turned it into a television series. They used a lot of 80s music.

And my daughter has watched that entire series three times. So a lot of that's coming around. But you know, the 80s in general, I lived through it.

And I remember, so I was probably about 10 or 11 years old at the beginning of the 80s, in 80 or in 81. And that entire generation began with like blue-eyed soul performers like Robert John and Dan Fogelberg. And who was the guy that did the Pina Coladas? Right, I can see it, Rupert Holmes.

Rupert Holmes, right? And then it migrated from that. In fact, I believe, wasn't it in 1980s? I think Dan Fogelberg won a Grammy or something like that. And then by the time we get to the end of the- Longer than.

Yes, for that song, exactly. And by the time we get to the end of the generation, you've got the anti-hair band, Guns N' Roses. I mean, all of the genres that went through the 80s.

I don't think we're ever gonna see that ever again. I mean, like you mentioned, Stevie Ray Vaughan. We have blues, we have jazz, we had folk music.

The new wave. We had, yeah, we had new wave coming. Started with disco.

Yeah, yes, right. Well, it started with disco socks and cracking other records. So then it became modified disco, which we started to call pop, you know? And Michael Jackson came around.

Right, and Michael Jackson came around, and Prince, and gosh, I'll never forget. At my high school, the war was between the people who liked Michael Jackson and the people who liked Prince. And if you liked Michael Jackson, you couldn't like Prince, and vice versa.

Yeah, and that's a funny thing. So as a band that does Michael Jackson and Prince, we also played, we just played with Hairbanger's Ball, one of the biggest metal, you know, hair metal bands in this area for 20 years or more. Great band, great people.

And it was great. It was because people now, you know, that's gone, what you're talking about. That's everybody, you remember all of that stuff.

All of it brings you back. And yeah, people love the, you know, to your point, the Living on a Prayer, and the Motley Crue stuff, and the Ozzy, and all that, you know? The anthem songs. The metal stuff.

But we had them with, you know, the Prince, and the things we were doing as well. And I've had a number of bands, we've worked with a number of metal, hair metal type 80s bands. And most people say the same thing.

It's like, I love the Go-Go's, and Cyndi Lauper, and I love, you know, Ozzy, and Iron Maiden, and you know, I mean, so high school was high school. And if anybody's interested, Hairbanger's Ball is episode 81 of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Great people. That had to be a good one. And you know, so many people.

Oh, you don't listen? Uh, uh, yeah, actually. Dave, that's the one you were talking about, just only here, what are you saying? Yeah, yeah, and so many influential musicians came out of the 80s that, you know, and I guess I say that because, for some reason, for a very long period of time, the 80s, you know, people would shit on the 80s. You know, they would say, God, the cars sucked in the 80s.

The music sucked in the 80s. The food sucked in the 80s. You know, you hear all that stuff.

You weren't in the 80s then, man. You weren't in the 80s. We had the coolest pants in the world.

Parachute? It was 90 degrees out, and we wore parachute pants, and we had to keep pouring baby powder down our pants to keep our legs from sticking to the inside of the fabric and the whole bit, but it was great. We did it anyway. That's right.

We created our own paste wearing parachute pants. Hair out to hair. That's right.

I loved it. Out to hair, man. And I loved the big hair.

Yeah. I loved the big hair. When I was, man, when I was in high school, a five foot Italian girl with dark brown hair and just piled up with Aquanet.

Right, Final Net was my thing. Just did it for me, so I married one. There were a few guys that had that also.

Right here. You did. And don't anymore.

But that was also a secret in the 80s. To get famous, just borrow your mom's clothes. Right.

That's all you had to do. Wasn't it, it was our guest last week that said that, what was his name? The drummer, drummer from the Buddy Rich Project. Oh, Greg Potter.

There you go, Greg Potter. That's what he said. That was his key to success in the 80s for him was to just play the drums and wear your mother's clothes.

Right, right. And I mean, the thing that brought all of that was MTV. I mean, MTV, and to your point about the Dan Fogelbergs and the Christopher Cross and the, Didn't that station used to play music? I think so.

Music videos and stuff, I think. That's one of Corey's lines. Right, exactly.

Because yeah, it's funny. But what that did, I mean, it took, there's a comparison to like the silent movie era. And when that became, it changed the whole medium.

It changed the whole, when you put sound and music into a movie, and a lot of the stars, they didn't have good voices. And so they dropped out. And that's sort of what happened with a lot of the, you know, Christopher Cross types that were big in the late 70s, early 80s.

And then when you saw them, it was like, oh my God. And now it's called Yacht Rock. Yes.

So now, yeah, good for him. Exactly. Yeah.

Which is fine. I like that. But the point is that the visual took over the medium.

Right. Some of these songs, like we do the Voices Carry by Till Tuesday, which is a great classic one hit wonder. And I can never hear that song without picturing that video with the girl with the spiky blonde hair, standing up in the auditorium.

And every time I hear that song by A-Ha, with the animation, with the guys jumping into the cartoons. I always remember that one. And it was just like crazy.

Nobody did something like that back then. I mean, so to me, music, from a music standpoint and a culture standpoint, that changed the whole game. Because now these songs have a visual component to them.

Some of the songs we do were not really radio hit, like Voices Carry was really not a big radio hit. But if you were, and as a kid that grew up with MTV, I mean, you rushed home from school to watch MTV when you got home, you know? Or go to somebody's house with cable. Yeah.

Who had MTV, right. Yeah, who had actual, you know. Right, right.

People with cable. And what was it that started it all, was Friday Night Videos. Oh my gosh, Midnight Special.

Yeah. Oh, Friday Night Videos, I'm sorry. Friday Night Videos was great.

It opened up with the intro to, was it to Bob O'Reilly? It was the opening and the intro, and it was when they first debuted the Beat It video on Friday Night Videos. And it was on, I believe it was on at 11 o'clock. Probably, yeah.

On Fridays, and it was the only time that I was allowed to stay up late and I was allowed to have friends over. To watch that. Late, and they, okay, they could sleep over.

Because they're, you know, Jim's coming over, we're gonna watch Friday Night Videos. Oh, sure, tell Jim's mom he can sleep over. Right.

Because we'd be there until, I mean, it was like a two hour show or so. Watching videos. My favorite video was Touch Me by Samantha Fox.

Of course. For obvious reasons. Yes, yes.

But for obvious reasons. But you know, it got to be at that point. How about the Divinals, Touch Myself? Oh, yeah.

But you didn't, back then they weren't writing music to be music, they were writing a song that filmed well. Well, yeah. I mean, that was the whole idea.

It sort of took a life at the time. Right, it did. It did, it changed the meaning, again.

That whole concept. How good can your video be? I mean, to me, some of the best videos were ZZ Top. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, they had fancy, but they had a lot of money. Yeah. Right, right.

They did. And it was creative. I mean, for every great video, there were 20 really crappy, ridiculous ones.

But you watched them anyway. You did. You did.

You had no choice. And some bands really, like from the metal world, Def Leppard was one of the first ones that really jumped on that, you know, before it was sort of cool. And you look back, they made videos for, you know, album tracks and different songs, and not all of them were good.

But I mean, they really captured it. And Michael was really the first R&B artist. Because the videos kind of came, a lot of them came from Europe.

A lot of them were like the new wave bands and the punk bands and stuff. And, you know, the police were big, you know, before anyone knew who they were. And a lot of those weird, you know, bands.

Devo. Yeah, Devo was sort of in there. And, you know.

Talented musicians. Yeah, I mean. Oh, yeah, right.

But it wasn't, you know, R&B type artists. And he was the one who really took that. And that the Billie Jean video was his first one when he did the moonwalk and all that stuff.

And that kind of opened another, you know, whole new. Now, not only just the music, but now dancing. Right, yeah.

You're dancing in this thing, you know. Thriller, thriller. I mean, that's like a whole stage production.

Oh, yeah. I mean, then he just, yeah. Then he just took it.

I mean, Quincy Jones produced that. Produced that, right, right, right, right. And then they made, yeah, like a 20 minute video of that one, you know.

So, I mean, that's how far they took it, quickly, you know. But just amazing how this thing just, one weird little channel. If you ever watch like that first, it's out there on YouTube and stuff, that first episode.

Where it looks like, you know, just a guy in his apartment talking about music and. I can see him right now. All these videos are coming back to him.

Pat Benatar was another one who kind of embraced that before she was really that big. And, I mean, so there were certain artists who saw this, saw kind of the writing on the wall and really ran with it. And it worked for a lot of them.

Right, right. Talking Heads. I mean, what a, their videos and their music was just sight and sound.

I mean, how many times have we done this, you know, hit ourselves in the forehead with the base of our palm from watching that video, you know, and the big suits. There's actually a really, there's actually a really good cover band called Real Big Suit. They're a really good Talking Heads tribute band.

Thank you for letting us know that. Really good, really good. But yeah, you know, a lot of sounds came out, you know, that classic 1980s keyboard sound that you don't hear anymore.

Yes. Keyboards just translated digitally so much better than guitars did. And where was the music coming from? Your little tiny television speakers.

And so all of that, all that synthesizer digital stuff coming through your television with the music videos created a whole new phenomenon. Think of Yas. Yeah.

You know, keyboard man. Right, right. Yeah.

Come out to one of our shows, you'll see some crazy keyboard going. That's what we try to encapture, some of that excitement of, you know, we're not, you know, we're a visual band, we're an energy band, but we're not the big, we don't come out with costumes and wigs and what people kind of, the stereotypes or the cliches of the 80s, you know. I always kind of say, you want to go, you know, you see a lot of these bands that do that and it's fun.

I mean, I get it, I get the point of it. And it's all stuff that was from that culture. But when you look back at the bands of the 80s, the Pretenders and Blondie and the Ramones and you know, whoever else, the Romantics and stuff like that, there's guys in leather jackets and jeans and hair, you know, long hair or whatever.

And I mean, they weren't all wearing, you know, big spike, you know, wigs and spandex. And so we're kind of trying to go for that. We're just a band, we love the music, we celebrate the music.

We try to, you know, recreate it with authenticity. I mean, one of the best compliments we received was that this is a band that really reminds me of the energy that bands, if you think back to those bands, I mean, they had a lot of energy on stage. They weren't, you know, they didn't just stand there and then, you know, kind of, you know, they were interacting.

And that was one of the best compliments we ever got early on was that these guys remind me of what that was, that energy that, you know, there was a lot of frustration and stuff in the late 70s and in the 80s, you know, it wasn't all, you know, even as kids or, you know, whatever age you were at, there was a lot going on underneath, you know, a lot of, you know, I mean, if you think of the, just the times and yeah, that was a release for a lot of that, you know, and that's why a lot of people related to it. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. 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. So no original music? No.

No, yeah, we've dabbled, but yeah, it's just that's so hard. I thought of that myself. Yeah, yeah.

You're very original, get it? So what was your, so you can only name one. Oh, please. You can only name one.

What was your favorite band or artist from the 80s? Prince. Prince? Very good, that's a good answer. Oh, forgive me, Pat Benatar.

She's like, oh, she's a solo artist with her amazing husband. Sure. Oh, we'll talk about that later, but Prince, hands down.

I love her blues album. Have you heard her blues album? Oh, I'm sure blues, hello. I was blessed and got to meet her and stand and talk to her for 30 minutes.

I'll start crying if I talk about it, but I was, it was unbelievable. Dave, same question. Oh, sorry.

No, go ahead, Dave's turn. I'm all up. I'm trying to find an answer because I mean, I was, going back to that time, I was more.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were thinking. I thought you were having a stroke. Yeah.

So. We're kind of one in the same sometimes. But thinking back to that time, I mean, I was definitely into the hard rock band, so I don't know that I can name just one.

I suppose I'd say Ozzy Osbourne. He was just, you know, again, that kind of just craziness that as a teenager was cool, you know? Some of it, looking back, it's kind of, oh, okay, yeah, biting the head off a bat probably wasn't the smartest thing. Snorting a line of ants.

You know, all that stuff. Yeah, that's probably not a good thing to do. In high school, it was like, oh my God, did you hear what Ozzy did? Oh my God, you know? It was like, you know, it was just, yeah, it just gave you like a larger than life sort of, you know, that's what those kind of thoughts is what made me want to pursue music as a young kid.

Because it was just this larger than life sort of just, you know, creative, fun, you know, energetic outlet that was so opposite of school and home life and everything else you were dealing with. And yeah, and that's, and to a lot of people. I mean, obviously that was just spoke to people, especially at that age, you know? Kids that were growing up during that time and seeing it on your TV, that was the other thing.

You never really saw, you'll go back and see like these old Midnight Special things they have on YouTube and stuff, these old bands. And yeah, that's cool, but you didn't have, you had to wait until midnight to see that, you know? You didn't just flip on the TV and see, you know, bands just one after another, after another, after another like that. And so again, the combination of the visual and the music was just, yeah, that was just a spark.

That really changed a lot. I don't know if I asked this, so no originals? Oh, I already asked that. You already asked that.

You were very original about asking that, remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. Great question.

I knew that was gonna probably be coming, but I saw Purple Rain 37 times, if not more. 37 times? Yes. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of times. But you know what, I said that was a good answer because man, you know, you could listen to Prince.

You could have, you own every one of his albums, right? And if today you felt like you were in a pop mood, guess what, Prince has something for you. Right. If you're in a rock mood, guess what, Prince has something for you.

If you want a ballad, Prince has something for you. I mean, you know, you can't go wrong with Prince, man. No, you can't.

And Ozzy was awesome too. You know, I was, you know, I went to Catholic school. Ozzy scared the shit out of me.

You kidding me? He's biting the heads off bats and he's got upside down crosses hanging around his neck and he goes, oh my God, we're gonna go to hell, but I can't stop looking at this album cover. Yeah, yeah. And then when I started hearing the music, I was like, oh, well, I guess I've been seduced by the devil's music.

That's all there is to it. And seen, that's right. Yeah.

What was the name of your first band, Beelzebub? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Actually, the name of my first band was called Grouper.

Grouper. Honest to God, it was Grouper. That sounds kind of fishy to me.

Yeah. But I'm pumped. Why, because you played the scales? The bass, oh, jeez.

We're just, I'll be here all weekend. We apologize, everybody. We, you know, you know, no.

Would it cause the fin to get in? Now, was it a bass player or a bass player? All right, you know what? I'm out, I'm out. I think that. And there he goes.

Mike is driving away. No, the bass player was older than everybody else. We were, we were all in high school and he was the only guy old enough to drink and drive and stuff.

He was, you know, thinking back on it, it was kind of creepy. Was his name Gil? He was like a 23-year-old hanging out with a bunch of 15-year-olds. It was kind of, kind of creepy.

Was his name Gil? Oh my gosh. We're still on it. We're still on it.

John Wayne? We're still on it. Yeah, no, but, but no. Okay, I'll take my medicine now.

He was a fisherman and he named the band and that's literally, it was Grouper. But anyways. I love Grouper.

I digress. Sea bass, just like that, okay. Actually, is it sea bass or sea bass? That's right, but I'm, I don't know, man.

Are you speaking of the Chilean sea bass? The Chilean sea bass. Yeah, well, you know what the real name of that fish is? Please tell me. It's the Patagonian toothfish.

They changed the name because they didn't think people would eat it being called a Patagonian toothfish. So they changed the name to the Chilean sea bass. And they never, ever serve, you can never go into a fish market and buy a whole fish.

No. Because it is the ugliest thing. You wouldn't eat it if you saw it.

Man, the things I learned today, man. Another good one is a skate wing. What's a skate wing? It's a fish.

It's weird looking. It looks like a wing. I mean, to see the fish, it's ugly.

But it tastes so good. Okay. Thanks for joining us on Restaurant Talk.

Talk in the 1980s. You weren't kidding when you said we go into fish for about a year. No, we talk about absolutely everything.

That's right. For sure, yeah, yeah. So you guys got some favorite places you like to play? Sure.

Or where have you played? Well, Tailgaters over in Bolingbrook. Not far from here. That's been kind of our home club.

It's sort of close to us. We do well there. We get a lot of people that come see us.

That's where we just were with the Hairbangers. Base camp. Yeah, base camp over in Four Lakes.

That's one that's been around a long time. We try to spread out. And we're trying a sort of a different strategy where we're not just playing one area all the time.

So we have some great bars up north, like the Broken Ore is one that's right on the Fox River, the Sundance Saloon is a great stage, great room. Side outs. Blarney Island is a great one.

That's kind of a crazy one. You gotta get on a boat. Yeah, that load in, I hate the load in there, but I mean, it's, yeah.

People watching time, tell you that. It's fun, but yeah, it's, yeah, you gotta, you're riding on a boat with all your equipment. It's boom, boom, you're bouncing up and down and water's getting everywhere.

And it's like, oh boy, are we there yet? We were privileged to play Gallagher Way at Wrigley twice, a Cubs game, twice at the White Sox. So Comiskey, I always call it Comiskey. It is Comiskey.

That's okay, it is Comiskey. It's Comiskey, man. It's Comiskey.

Comiskey Park there by the Jewels. I don't even know what it's originally, what it's officially called today. Guaranteed rate, I believe.

Guaranteed rate field. Oh, that sucks. Okay, yeah, Comiskey.

Comiskey, yes. Sox Park, I always say Sox Park. People actually don't know.

When you say we're a guaranteed rate field, they're like, oh, where's that? It's like Sox Park. That's like the little community soccer field. Exactly, yeah.

By the bank. It's in the shadow of the Sears building and the John Hancock building. There you go.

That's right. So what's coming up next? You guys have any shows? I think this is gonna come out probably, what about? Beginning of February. Beginning of February.

You guys got anything coming up? So yeah, by then, I'm not sure. I mean, we'll probably be back at some of these places. Tailgaters.

The regular stomping grounds. Yeah, there's about six or seven right around here. Bally Doyle's another nice one.

Oh, yeah. Bally Doyle's, yeah. Yeah, so we kind of do a circuit around this area.

You know, the west suburbs, southwest suburbs, and then we try to get a few up north, a couple closer down here, actually, to Joliet. You know, we're trying to just sort of spread out a few different, you know. You know, what's cool is that all of us are in so many different areas.

Our lead guitarist is in Chicago, drummer's south side. Our Dash Riprock is right over here in Aurora, right? I love that. Dave is either in Foxtrot Grove or Woodridge, and I'm Wheaton.

So it's like we can pull in great people. And we're at Broadstop, right over the border. There's the legendary Broadstop.

The Broadstop, yeah. You know, we've got Wisconsin peeps, but cutting up north, we're getting a great fan base. And that's the thing.

Back in the day, you were kind of, you formed a band with the guy who lived next door, the guy that you went to school with, and the guy you work with. And now, you know, what you just said, I mean, we have a, you know, we're in five different counties, basically. And, but yeah, with the magic, again, a new medium of Facebook and social media.

You know, we can draw a following at a bar up north, and we can have a band of people. You know, we were all kind of through some sort of either a Craigslist ad or a band mix ad or some type of, you know, social media brought us together, pretty much. And that's what happens.

You get people from all over. Location is no longer as important. And that's, you know, especially as a band that's playing, that's why we're trying to play.

Because if you're on Facebook, it doesn't matter. People don't know where you're from, actually, you know? Do you do the bookings, or who does the bookings? Yeah, I do the majority of it. 99.

Okay. So that's what I've been trying to do for, you know, instead of being, you know, because there are people who like to pigeonhole, and oh, you guys are a Naperville band, or you guys are this band, or the South Side band, or you, and we try to, no, you know, everything's about, you know, an hour away from each other, you know, and then. Another, to say that, Dave, they've added, this is gonna be the third or fourth time, Blue Chip Casino, Michigan City.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's a fun place, too. Yeah, a fun place. Talking about loading, though, that's.

Oh gosh, you're hauling your gear the length of a football field. Yeah, that's a casino of smoking gamblers. And that's what was crazy, they still smoke, and you're allowed to smoke in Indiana.

I'm like. God bless. I was just like, okay, as a singer, you're like, can you just move that cigar just a little bit over there? But, you know, the first time I played that, though, it was so nostalgic to me, because.

I felt like it went, right. Because, you know, it's, I felt like I was back in the, I felt like I was back in the. Back in the 80s.

In the 80s and early 90s. Someone's basement. It was about 95, right? No, no, it was early 2000s.

Early 2000s. Yeah, you're right, you're right, it was. Yeah, you're right, it was.

Yeah, but yeah, I got home and got undressed to get in the bed, and I took my shirt off, and it's. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Who's bringing the Mad Dog 2020? Zap, I was back in 2005, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. That was a lot of, but it's a fun crowd, and people are just, you know, and you notice, and I'm sure you notice this too, when you play certain places, the crowds are different.

You know, sometimes you get a. Oh yeah, of course, yeah. You go here, and it's the same people, and then you go down, you know, at the south side, a lot of people, you know. Right.

There's usually a bar fight. There's usually a, you gotta have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When I was at the, when we played the casino, it was like, so it's like nine to one, okay? So it's about midnight now, and this huge fight just breaks out, a girl and a guy. Oh wow. And she just, boom, and I'm like singing, you know, and I'm like, security! You know, like, I'm singing, seriously, security.

Oh my gosh, I'm like, what did we just get into, man? So, and then Reno 911 dudes came out. Yeah, right. That's when you get behind the drummer, behind that fishbowl.

He was, you know what, he was safe, man. He had that plexiglass thing, and he was laughing like, ah, that's funny. Duck, you know, I was gonna turn into the Blues Brothers a little bit.

I wasn't sure. Also, the fight broke out right there in the bar where the bands are. Absolutely, that's what I'm saying, right? So she was right there, and no one was there, and they're screaming, so that's why I started singing, security, on the microphone.

No, that's great. Good times, good times. Yeah, fantastic.

No, that is a pretty fun place to play. Yeah. And to load in.

It's so weird that they can still smoke in the casinos there, but you can't smoke in the casinos in Vegas. No. Did they change that? I was just in Vegas.

You couldn't smoke in the casinos? Really? Initially, I thought you could. Well, you could, years ago. Well, yeah, but I thought when they changed the law, they still allowed, because they don't want them to leave the tables.

Right, no, there's no smoking in the casinos. Okay. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, I'm not going to Vegas. I'm gonna go to Indiana for my gambling and cigar smoking.

We'll come see us on March 26th, okay? Right, there you go, March 26th. March 26th. March 26th.

See, you do have one, March 26th. March 26th. All right, perfect, yeah.

Where can people find you, socially, media-wise? So we do have a website, like everybody, kickedoutofchoir.com. We're very lucky to actually get our band name as our website. And then we have a big Facebook presence. We're, you know, that's where we like to, Facebook, love it or hate it, is really a great tool for a band.

I mean, the people you can reach with one post and one set of pictures, and we work it. My girlfriend Angela is kind of our sixth member, and she's, while we're playing, she's in the crowd taking pictures, and taking pictures with people, and shooting videos, and handing out cards. And so, but everything ends up on Facebook, usually by Monday or Tuesday.

And that's as important a promo tool, even after a show, you know? And especially the people who are there, it's like, oh my God, there's my picture. Yeah, people like to see themselves. Oh, they do, people love it.

You always get the one guy that wasn't supposed to be there, but. Where were you, where were you? I saw this picture, but, you know. He will tell, hey, we're posting pictures, so if you're not supposed to be here, don't get in the picture.

Don't get in the picture. Yeah, right. Disclaimer, dude.

This is a public venue, right? But yeah, that's so, yeah, those are the main ones. I think our drummer kind of keeps a presence on Instagram. Yep.

MySpace. Yeah, I mean, he does so much. You're kidding me, right? He's kidding.

Oh, God. But I mean, since you're an 80s band, you figure it's true. This is true.

It predates that. It does. Back then, everything was still in DOS.

Hey, I've got my little note thing. Commodore 64. You know that little thing there, right? And just to kind of go on what you're saying, I mean, we were talking about this one time.

I mean, the way we used to have to promote our bands in the 80s, I mean, we literally had a mailing list where we sat and stuffed envelopes and spent $200 in stamps to send a bunch of, you know, and then half of them came back with, you know, wrong address or something and- Flyers on the windshield. Flyers on the windshield. I was gonna say, I post too much albums.

Did you keep them in a Trapper Keeper? That's all I want to know. Trapper Keeper in the 80s, man. You're talking about MASH, Trapper John? Oh, boy.

Please, Mike, tell, you know what a Trapper Keeper is, right? Yes, I know what a Trapper Keeper is. But yeah, the way we had to promo compared to now and when you can just post, I mean, I just posted a show today, you know, it's just, boom, you just did it, and it's out and it's there, and three seconds, there's eight people that already say they're going, and it's like, wow. I mean, imagine that, you know, what we used to have to do to really call, literally call people, hey, man, we're playing Friday, man.

Can you make it? No, you know, I mean, it was nuts. I used to have a box in the trunk of my car that had about 100, you know, demo CDs in it and 100 folders and a photo of the band and a printed out bio of the band, and you'd take the CD and you stick it in the sleeve with the folder and you'd go in and you hand that whole thing, that was your promo pack, right? There you go. Now, here's my business card, go to Facebook, look at all the videos and everything that you wanna see.

Yep, or we have a little jump drive, you know, jump drive, here you go. We actually had cassettes back then. I mean, I used to walk around with a cassette.

Hey, can you play this? Yeah. Okay, that'd be great. Yeah, CDs are kinda like, you can't even get a CD on a computer anymore.

Yeah, right. Right, no, you can't. You gotta do the flash drives or a QR code or something that they can find your stuff.

Yeah. Or I'll just tell me where to download it, basically. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Alrighty, guys, thanks for coming in. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, a lot of fun.

You guys rock. Beautiful place. This is, I can't wait.

Thanks, and thank you for supporting the bands. I mean, this is a great medium to, you know, like you said, to get a chance to just talk to the members of a band, you know, other than just seeing them at a show or whatever. So appreciative.

Yeah, thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a good one. Well, that was original. Kicked out of choir.

Kicked out of choir. I tell ya. I could've talked about, I could talk about 80s music all the time.

I love 80s music. I know, maybe we should do just an 80s podcast. Just an 80s podcast.

Yeah, the ladies of the 80s, or. You know, that could be interesting. You know, the Hades of 80s.

Yeah, you know, we could do that. Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. Like we have time for another podcast.

Yeah, I don't think so. No, I don't think so either. I could barely make it to this one.

Yes, how's that jalapeno burger working today? It's making its presence known. Is it okay? On that note, I think we're gonna end this show for today. Please join us every Tuesday, as you always do.

I know you do. Every Tuesday, we got another new exciting episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. So we will see you next Tuesday.

Bye-bye.