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. Hey, me too.

You too? Wait a minute, my Hollywood mic, did we switch? Boy, that would be interesting, wouldn't it? Yeah, like face-off. Yeah, ew. No, this is Hollywood Ray.

Oh, okay. Yeah, we're a combination today. Mike the Roadie.

Yeah, Mike the Roadie. Yeah, that's who we're going to be today. That's cool.

Sounds kind of weird, but... So, you know, as we've done for the past couple of weeks, we have to start to show up by saying, what the hell on Sunday? What the hell on Sunday? You got that right. You know, who in their right mind with five and a half minutes left in a football game decides we're going to play conservative like a bunch of wussies, and we're just going to hand it off straight up the middle, and then what the hell on third and nine, we're going to throw a bomb? Yep, exactly. Yeah, and you guys football fans? Still there.

Hockey. Hockey, yeah. All I got to say is I took the points and I won.

I don't hear you guys in here, and I don't think this is on either. Oh, you know what? Let's see. Maybe your headphones are on.

That's on. Maybe that's on. Yeah, let's check that out real quick.

Oh, yeah. He pulled the plug out. Hang on a second.

Hello? Are you good there? No, it's still... It started working. Hello? There we go. Ah, there it is.

Okay. All right. Hello? Yeah, I was a big Bears fan my whole life, but I got to be honest with you, about 10, 12 years ago, that was it.

Like when they got rid of Lovie Smith, and he was still sort of winning. He was the only one winning. I mean, you can make a lot of argument, like you want to get rid of him, but the reality is he was still sort of winning.

I was like, I can't deal with this anymore. So occasionally if it's on, I'll happen to watch it, but I literally don't watch anymore unless it happens to be on. Like Thursday Night Football, a couple of weeks ago it was on, so I was watching.

But the whole franchise is a disaster. Oh, it's terrible. I mean, isn't that the truth? They got rid of Lovie Smith because Lovie Smith wasn't winning enough.

And since then, Lovie Smith has been the winning coach. Yeah, no question. So all you people out there that are wondering, who the hell's that voice? That's our guest tonight.

It's TD Clark and his band, the TD Clark Band. Welcome. We like to spell band, B-A-N-N-E-D, by the way.

Band. We've been banned from so many places. But do people actually pronounce it Ban-Ed then? Could be Ban-Ed.

Because, you know, we had TD here a while ago, not too long ago with his other band, This is the TD Clark Ban-And. He's putting the accent on the wrong syllable. He is, yeah.

He begged and screamed and cried and stuff, asked to be on our show. And I said, OK. I said, this is the best damn show ever.

I'm in. And I tell you, I got a new car. I didn't tell you how I paid for it.

Thank you, TD. You never told me you had a Swiss bank account. I mean, if you told me that, I was like, well, we got to put it to use.

Hey, Ola's alive and well in the podcast world. That's right. That's right.

And you know, we have to thank him. He brought us a fabulous gift. He did the podcast for those of you out there, you know, for future podcasts.

I don't know. You're going to have to top this when he brought us a bottle of Buffalo Trace. Yeah, that was very nice.

Yeah, very nice. Thank you very much. We're going to have to figure out how we're going to dispose of that.

Yeah, I know. I know when we could dispose of it. Yeah.

OK, that sounds good. If you ever answer your invitation. Oh, that's right.

I have to. I have to do that. That's right.

OK, awesome. That's right. So let's get back.

Yeah, let's do that. Now you owe me a Coke. OK.

All right. So tell us a little bit about this alter ego. Well, I guess it's not alter ego.

I guess Poisoned Crew would be the alter ego. So tell us a little bit about this about this project. You having some problems over there? Yeah, I was searching.

You know, I keep losing this stupid Allen wrench. Like, I'm going to tape it to my. He found it somewhere in the posterior.

I did. It was in my pocket there. OK.

So way back in 19. Way back, 1900s, turn of the century. I've been Chicago by wagon now.

So I put out my first. I was playing the circuit here in Chicago and played like the whale and all these places, the Gateway Theater. Vince's band, by the way, was the biggest band on the circuit at the time, Dear Diary.

So we would open for them if they would have us every once in a blue moon. But most of the time they're like, you dudes are way not cool. So no way.

I've been in these bands and I decided to put out an instrumental guitar record. And of course, because I always like to strike while the iron is ice cold, I'm going to put this thing out in 1995, 1996, when grunge is fully taken over. So my first record, Personalities, comes out and is a crazy story.

So a friend of mine who is now my entertainment attorney, but at the time he was just in goes back a long time ago. He was studying in Japan at Chubu University. I think it's in Nagoya.

And I sent him a case of my CDs. There's like whatever, how many fit in a box back then. And he had said to me, he's like, dude, I need money.

And I said, I'm going to send you a case of CDs, just sell them and keep the money. He told me he sold all 50 CDs in like a day. Yeah.

And one of the CDs, a girl who bought it, her sister was the personal assistant to a record guy at, what was it? I'm trying to remember. It was a big label. I'm trying to think, of course, I've told this story 5,000 times now.

I don't remember the label, but it was like a huge label in Japan, like Sony, Virginia, Virginia, my Sony, my something. So anyway, I get this phone call. This, this is crazy.

So the phone rings and this is before cell phones and whatever, this was like 1995, 96. The phone rings at like three o'clock in the morning and I answer the phone and there's some guy with what kind of sounds like a British accent. Now keep in mind, we constantly speak like spinal tap.

So I thought it was one of my bandmates or something drunken calling me at three in the morning and this guy's like, Hey, mate, it's TD Clark there. And I was like, yeah, okay, buddy. What are you calling me at this? I'm like, which one are you at? Which one? Can I swear on this show? Which one of you assholes is calling at three in the morning? I don't know if that's a real swear word.

So yeah, no, that's a modern day thing these days. So the guy, the guy's like, no, mate, like, yeah, my name is Jimmy, Jimmy Parrazzo. I'm calling from and I forget the label.

I can't believe I forgot it, but it was like big, like label over there. He's like, I got your record. And I'm like, who is this? Yeah, I'm like half asleep.

And it's literally some guy. His name was Jimmy Parrazzo. He's an Australian guy, I guess.

He didn't sound like it. I couldn't figure out what the heck it was. And he had gotten my record from his assistant and he loved it.

And he wanted to talk to me. And he goes, he goes, you know, who's your management? And I'm like, you're talking to him. He's like, that's not going to work out.

He goes, can you find some real management and have them call me back? That's what he said. Wow. So I was like, you know, it's still it's early.

It's three, four in the morning and I'm still kind of just blown away. So he told me he loved the record and he, you know, he really thought they could do something with it, whatever. But he wanted to talk to some people other than me.

Probably a smart move. And so long, short story long, the keyboard player in my band, his father was he ran, he ran his own business, but he also did like promotions, concert promotions down in Cincinnati. And he had done a show with Jimmy Page.

So he knew Stevens Weiss, who was Led Zeppelin's attorney, and that he was kind of handling all the stuff with Jimmy Page when he was on tour. And so I talked to him, Tony Scalia, and I said, I just got this call from, I think it was Virginia, my Atlantic, maybe that's what it was, but it was Japan part of it. So anyway, I told him what happened.

He goes, why? He goes, I sensed Weiss, your record, like, you know, a month ago. He goes, but I haven't heard anything back. I'm like, well, he deals with Jimmy Page and Richie Blackmore.

I'm sure he doesn't care what I'm doing. So Tony calls him and says, hey, he just got a call from Japan for a label. I got a call from this guy within probably 45 minutes, maybe half hour.

He's like, I just listened to your CD, blah, blah, blah, blah. So next thing you know, they're all talking. And I'm kind of laughing because I put this thing out as kind of just like I'd been in these vocal bands and they weren't really going anywhere, you know, and I was like, well, I'm just going to do this guitar record and no one will listen to it.

And suddenly, you know, Steve Weiss, who he passed away some years ago, but I mean, he did my whole career and he represented Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Richie Blackmore, pretty certain Jeff Beck in there. He represented the greatest guitar players ever. So I know your next question is, is why is he wanting to represent me? I don't know either.

Like I was like, well, what are you doing? Are you deaf now? What happened? So they put me out on tour and I had my band at that time was different, but they put me out on tour. My first record with Ten Inch and Bad Company, we did three months or something on the road with them, two months, 26 sheds all over. And it was like how I broke into the business.

So then I came back and I was playing my own stuff and I was doing these shows all over the place. So over the years, you know, band members come and go and whatever else. So I need some players in my crowd, put a couple of records out at this point.

I run into, Barry, you could pick it up from here. Well, what I recall was it was a chance meeting in the Chicago O'Hare airport. So Vince and I were playing a show in LA.

And I thought he was going to say in the Cook County holding. Well, when you said they got my record, I thought you meant your arrest record. We'll get to Canada and my arrest record in a minute.

So, yeah, we're playing a gig in LA. TD is on our flight and, you know, give him cards. We talk a little bit and we go our separate ways.

And it's about two years later, I get a call. It's like, Barry, yeah, man, you know, I got four shows. This new record I just did and I need to do like a showcase.

So, you know, do you have time to do like four shows? I'm like, sure. So that was in 2008, you know, and here it is. What, 2023? And I think we've done pretty much every show with the TD Clark band since.

Yep. Yeah. And Barry knew Vince.

Yeah, Barry is the catalyst here. So everybody you see sitting here is because of Barry. He thought he fathered them all.

He did. I did. No, well, Vincent, he was the milkman, the electrician, the handyman and massively handy, apparently.

Wow. So a quick question. So did you ever find out or get a reason as to why they didn't want to deal with you directly? They wanted to go through management.

Well, I think there's a good reason for that. Yeah, for legal reasons. And also, I got to be honest with you.

While I have managed my own career and done OK, I don't know if it's necessarily the best because it's a business deal. And as a musician, like I'll take certain things personally that aren't personal. A manager, he knows or she.

Of course. Or whomever. And I think they're better suited in many cases, especially early.

Now, someone who's older and has been doing it and had some success, they can manage themselves because they understand what the deal is. And I've done OK managing myself. But I can tell you there has been times where I probably got a little aggravated more so than I should have over certain situations.

Yeah. And I also think that if they have to spread bad news or tell you something bad, they don't want to tell the artist because they're going to be more pissed off than if they tell the manager. No, it's because you're the product.

Yeah. You know, they don't want to deal with the product. You know, it's a peanut butter jelly sandwich.

I don't want to deal with that. I want to talk to the guy that made it. Exactly.

Yeah. I don't know. That might bother me.

You know, it's one thing because I because I know it's peanut butter and a jelly sandwich is a no, not at all. Not at all. I actually like I enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

In fact, that's my after gig food. I get home after a gig. Creamier, crunchy.

I've had a couple of cocktails in the whole bit. I really like crunchy half a loaf of bread and eat peanut butter and jelly. Oh, crunchy, crunchy.

Yeah. Skippy or Jeff? That doesn't matter. OK.

Yeah. But the Peter Pan. But I toast the bread, though.

I toast. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. OK.

But anyway, what are we talking about? Yeah. But I mean, I would just be like, yeah, OK, kid, that's not going to work. And I'm thinking, OK, yeah, I can probably get where you're coming from.

But you know what? I'd like for you to tell me first what you're thinking about. And then I'll then I'll have you present all this stuff to my management again, because I think at first they would just kind of piss me off. Well, I think, you know, I'm not an idiot.

I think that in this particular case, he was like a big wig at this label. And I think it's actually Virgin EMI Japan. That's who it was.

Virgin EMI Japan. And I think at this point, he's like like he's the kind of guy who's the guy who goes signs everybody like who is that? Like he's one of the ones who works with the seniors of the label to get people signed. So I think you want to you know, yeah, he's yeah.

Thank you. Right. So he wanted to speak to someone who he could speak a little more business.

Sure. I was twenty eight. I was, you know, I didn't know anything.

You make the argument. I don't know anything now. Maybe he didn't understand your accent.

I don't know what you're talking about. You know, and it could also be that sometimes I'll push artists to be like, you need to get some management. So and who could that be talking? Who could that be talking right now? That is Vince.

That is me, Vince. Yeah, I'm the drummer. Well, maybe we should just go around the room.

Yeah, probably. Well, now there's only one more person. Barry plays bass.

You didn't say you play bass. Did you? Barry Clyber bass. Ryan McKenna guitar.

I cover all the difficult parts. He is our music. Yeah, he is.

He plays all the leads. I just stand there. This is how we get away.

Not using tracks. I just stand there. Look like I'm playing.

And Brian back here lays down. There you go. Our next tour is going to be the hologram tour.

Also, we have a TD Clark tribute band and we do TD's parts are. So because the solo band draws so well that the spinoff actually draws better. So the tribute to me sells better than the actual one.

So I don't know what that is. Who dresses like him? Nobody. Oh, my goodness.

So, yeah, we got we got through that that first four show run. And it was a different drummer at that time. Say, Fred.

Yeah, Fred. He was great. He played in my Shred Time Stories album.

So I had. OK, yeah. So I just on my Shred Time Stories album.

Fred had played on there and I flew a bass player who I jam with at NAMM show to do it. But obviously, he can't come. That's when I met Barry.

So and then. Yeah, it was like through a studio we were working at. And, you know, they got a hold of him and said, hey, I got this guy's card.

How do I, you know, whatever. So we get to a point where we need a drummer. So Vince and I had worked together and used to open up for his band back in the 80s and.

Everybody opened up for Vince's band back then. And then Vince was like the damn godfather. He's like, hey, maybe I can let you open for us.

Well, me and Barry done a lot of session work together. Yeah, but prior to that, we we were on the road together with Not The Joneses, which was that was another label act. So when we needed a drummer, I said, I got the I got a guy.

I got a guy. I got a guy. You cheat.

You know, you feed him a beer and weed and he's good. Oh, my God. So I'm like, OK, well, that works.

That solves a couple of problems right there. Well, next step was the rhythm guitar or or a second lead, whatever you want to call it. And we had tried, I don't know how many people over a period of three years.

And there was another chance encounter where I was doing just, you know, a four hire gig for one nighter at the Cubby Bear with an artist. And and Brian McKenna over here was the guitar player on the gig. And the second he plugged in at the rehearsal, I'm like, oh, my God, I got to call T.D. This is the guy, you know.

So we get to that show. And it's one of these deals where we're supposed to be, you know, headlining or whatever. But then the opening band called it off.

They couldn't make it. So Brian and I are sitting at a table like with a piece of paper and a pen. He's like, what songs do you know? I don't know.

What songs do you know? And like that that night, like solidified it. So he called T.D. and somehow T.D. didn't blow it. And he actually, you know, got together.

And the rest is kind of history. You could take it from there. But yeah, that that really is that we're doing a trio for.

Yeah, we're doing a little trio. I never like doing the trio portion because on the record, like there's some pretty cool riffs and stuff. I should have probably sent you guys some MP3s to play for that.

But there's also some harmony guitars and stuff. Oh, no, I had the hardest time as a bass player. Yeah, you had to cover a lot of ground.

No matter how good of a bass player you are, you just can't cover that harmonic structure. And there's so many intricate parts that, you know, with with just awesome chord extensions and stuff, no matter what I did, I couldn't do it. So Brian like stepped in and just turns out he's a fantastic guitar player.

And, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah, yeah. So so you guys put this whole thing together based on that original album that the guy in Japan had got his hands on. Well, so since then, I had done my first record, which is Personalities.

Then I released my second record. That was in like 96. I released my second record in 2000.

That was Perspective. Then I released Next Big Adventure, like 2005. I'm apparently like Tom Skulls from Boston, like every five years.

Except for my records don't sell 20 million units, sadly. And then I did another record in 2010 called Shred Time Stories. And I kind of had, it was kind of always a moving thing.

You know, I was doing this, you know, I do instrumental guitar mainly. And I've done some vocal tracks on my records, but it's mainly instrumental. And, you know, it's a difficult thing.

But what the weird part is, is that I was getting constant supports for nationals. Like, and since we've been together, we've done tons of national supports like Ratt, Striper, Firehouse, Faster Pussycat, Neil Morse, Rick Emmett, Mike Ritchie, Michael Shanker, a bunch of times, Yngwie Malmsteen, we toured with him. Which, which his impersonation of Michael Shanker from the other podcast is still the best.

Hello, my name is Michael. Yeah. Hello.

Hello. This song goes like this. And no, my brother did not write this song.

Why does he want to look like me? 16. Well, why don't you guys do a song for us? All right, you guys, you want to do so? I have a Christmas record. We have a Christmas record.

It's called we all played on that Christmas record. It's called Under Your Tree. And there's a little bit of tongue in cheek there.

We want to be under your tree, ladies, for the holiday. All right. So we're going to do Feliz Navidad from there.

All right. We'll be right back. 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 someone you should know podcast dot com. That's the someone you should know podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time.

All righty, everybody, for the first time tonight, it's the T.D. Clark Band. You want to convince? All right. Well, with that, we want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas, a happy Kwanzaa, a happy festivus and a happy Hanukkah.

That is going to go through my head for the next two days. Now it is a very subdued version. If you hear the album, it's a full shred.

Oh, yeah, it's crazy. I tried. I brought this guitar today.

This is a river song, beautiful guitar that they gave me, and I love them for it. And this one's a little easier to do some shred on. But yeah.

Yeah. And I saw it warming up for like an hour out there, too, in the rain. So you said this is off your Christmas album.

Tell us about that. Yeah. So the album.

The album's out of tune. So yeah. So the album is called Under Your Tree.

It's available on like I think it's a I'm not exactly sure what it is. I think you can download it from Apple if you still do that. I have this massive thing against streaming.

So it's not in any of the streaming services for this whole purpose. And it's this simple, you know, streaming services just rip you off. They give you like a half a cent, two tenths of a cent, you know, and I got I see people posting all the time.

Oh, I got a million plays. And while on one hand, I'm like, that's great. On the other hand, it's like you're making somebody a lot of money and you're getting nothing in return.

And you would never do that in your regular work ever in your whole life. No one would ever go to work, work like crazy, put something together and then not get paid for it. So if my whole thing is like, if you want to come by the record at a show or you can download the record.

I don't know if they still do that, but I don't have it on streaming. Now, if someone from streaming came to me and said, we're going to give you 10 million dollars up front, I'd be like, sure, you can put the thing on the moon. I give zero.

But, you know, right. So that but it is called Under Your Tree. And we do have a Christmas show coming up on December 3rd at Rookie's Rock House in West Dundee.

It's a Sunday afternoon, four o'clock, and it's a matinee kind of show. It's for the kids are welcome. And we're going to do the elements in entirety.

We do versions on the album. We do, as you heard, Feliz Navidad. We do which child is this? Greensleeves, right? Barry is technically Greensleeves.

And then then we do Carol of the Bells. Oh, wow. There is a Little Drummer Boy, but we don't just do like the versions that, you know, whatever, like Little Drummer Boy.

We do this totally upbeat, funk version of it. Funky Drummer Boy. And then like we kind of mix some of them all up.

Yeah, we do. Carol of the Bells. Yeah, we'll probably do that one.

So we do Carol of the Bells, but we mix in there's a little bit of Led Zeppelin in there. Oh, nice. It's that'd be interesting.

Yeah. So we'll do that one in a little bit. But yeah.

So please come out. It's December 3rd, 4 p.m. All Ages Show at Rookie's Rock House in West Dundee. I think it's $10 at the door, but it's going to be a great Christmas rock and roll show.

We've got our friend Nick Barth coming and singing with us, and we're going to be doing all the songs. And we have some other things that we're going to do. We're going to do a new version of Your Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

And we've got some money. As a matter of fact, tonight, when we're done with the podcast, we got rehearsal after this. Oh, good.

But if you're a big T.D. Clark fan, which we do actually have some raving, snarling, raving, white hot balls of T.D. Clark fandom. Well, you know, we are going to be doing some of your T.D. Clark favorites, which, you know, augment the festive holiday spirit with a little bit of rocking out, too. So how long have you guys all been together as a band? Well, I think I think Brian's first show.

Surprisingly, Brian's first show was a sold out House of Blues supporting Yngwie Malmsteen. Yeah, that was pretty funny. His first gig, I call him like two weeks later.

Two weeks later, we're playing sold out House of Blues and we slayed it. That was a really good show on many reasons. So we were supposed to do the show and we're all set and they cut our set time.

And then Yngwie cut backstage passes. And there was a bunch of issues where we had people coming back. We're doing interviews because this is a big deal.

And some stuff happened. So we were extra motivated to do extra well that night. And again, there might have been perfectly good business reasons for all these things, but it would have been nice for them to tell us that before we're standing there.

That would have been nice. And I know that you guys, I know that you have you've toured with. Yeah, we did.

Was it was that part of the tour or was that years before? Yeah, we've done. So we did, I think, 10 or 12 shows on that tour, and we've probably done 17 or 18 shows all together with Yngwie. We've done similar amounts with Michael Shanker.

I did a bunch prior to having these guys in the band, and then I did a bunch after they were in the band. And we also did Whiskey A Go-Go with Michael Shanker Group two nights. And we did Uli John Roth at the whiskey.

Twice. Yeah, so Uli was with the Scorpions for like, he's a woman, she's a man, Fly the Rainbow and Trance and stuff. I mean, Metallica was at that show.

Surprisingly, they're massive Uli John Roth fans. Oh, no kidding. Which one? They were talking to you.

Yeah, yeah. Get up to the mic. And he was like, what do they open up with? I was like, I don't remember.

You turn around. You look familiar. Well, so I was like, you're scoping it out, right? He's got a guy next to him.

And he's a Kirk Hammond too, right? Yeah, Kirk and James both. James are both there. What did they play? What did they play? So at first I see these other guys go up to him and they're like, oh, and immediately they get taken down.

I'm like, I'm not going to say a word. I'm just standing next to the guy. And then, yeah, he's what I will tell you is James.

We could see him on the side and he was singing along to every single song. Like he's a massive fan, like for real. Like I could tell you some Uli songs, but I can't tell you the words to Uli songs.

He was singing along to every song. Wow. There was also Chuck Milley from Testament was there.

So it was during NAMM show. So NAMM is this big product thing that goes on in LA. And so we would go out and play out there all the time during that.

And at one point for about 15 years, I was demoing gear at all the booths. I would go to different booths, demoing gear. And so I would always set up a date out there.

And so we had so many people at that show. Like all of the greats were there. It was so crazy.

And it was crazy coming off stage and seeing the dudes from Metallica wandering around. There's like stardom, right? And then there's like super stardom. It's like at NAMM show, you'll see like guys from Poison.

You'll see guys from certain bands. But there's a certain higher level. You're just not going to see those people.

Like Eddie Van Halen, he was there every one, but I don't think I ever saw him. Right, right. You know, he's in and out.

He gets in, he does his thing, he's out. We saw Bono. Actually, no, we met a little Stevie Wonder.

Yeah, that was awesome. Vince and I were doing some stuff with Kurzweil, with Frank Lucas, another keyboard guy. We did a lot of, we were invited to Ray Kurzweil's party.

And Stevie Wonder was his entertainment in this like suite, you know? It's like, but we also got into, we were invited into some ceremony. And there were like 15 people there. And Stevie did a, it's like a religious experience, man.

You can't even imagine like that kind of, that's like otherworldly next level. That's so weird. Because I met Stevie Wonder at the Beverly Center in LA.

I went to the Grammys in 2000 for the 1999 Grammys. And Supernatural from Santana was the massive record going on at that time. Smooth, you know? So I'm at the Beverly Center looking for clothes to wear to the Grammys like a night later.

And we run into, literally run into Stevie Wonder. That's so weird. I didn't know you guys met him too.

That is a religious experience. You know, we walked, I don't know if you guys were at a party with him. We just happened to see him.

And I didn't want to bother him so much. He was with his brother. He was like his helper.

But I got about five feet away in the mall. I'm like, hey, Stevie, you are awesome. Thanks for the great tunes.

And all of a sudden, he stops walking. And he had like a cane or something with him. And he's like, hey, hey, come here.

And I'm with my friend. And we start looking around. Who's he talking to? We're like totally looking around.

And he's like, come here. So next thing you know, we're standing in the Beverly Center, which is a big mall. And we're talking to him.

And it is a religious. It's like you're talking. This is super great.

Like this is no way to explain his presence. Yeah, like other world. I mean, dude.

So he's this massive superstar, right? He's blind to top it off. Right. Like he plays like 40 instruments, whatever his deal is.

You're just like, this is just greatness, you know? Yeah, yeah. And you can feel you can feel the energy coming off of guys like that. You can.

One of my favorite NAMM stories with TD, though, is when we were at an EMG party, I believe. And TD was sitting at the piano with the drummer from Slade Lombardo. Slade Lombardo.

And they're doing We Are the Champions. Yeah. And there may or may not been some adult beverages involved.

But I wish I had a video of that. That was one of my favorite moments. Yes.

Like 15 years ago in a NAMM show. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. We're at so EMG is a pickup company.

And I was endorsing them forever. And they're great people. They had a special part.

It's like 30 years in business or whatever they were doing. So we walked in, and they had a piano player. And the piano is surrounded by all these chicks.

I mean, already, I'm like, hmm. So Dave Lombardo is over there. So we start talking about beef sandwiches or something because he's a beef sandwich fan.

And they were opening up Portillo's right down the road from there, like in Garden Grove, which is about 25 minutes from where we were at in NAMM. So the guy at the piano is playing. I go, hey, do you know We Are the Champions? He's like, no, I don't think I know.

I go, do you mind if I sit in? And I turn to Dave. I go, you know We Are the Champions? He's like, of course. So here, I start playing this grand piano surrounded by all these girls with Dave Lombardo leading a chorus of We Are the Champions.

Wow. It was so crazy. And the reason he was there was because all the guys in Slayer were endorsed by EMG Pickups.

So Kerry King is a big endorser. And was the other, was Jeff, was the other guy too? But anyway, but yeah. So it was just, that was, that's so funny.

That was, you know, we've met so many great people. And I mean, you know, you think like rock stars or whatever. But when we were out with Yngwie, it was also with Bumblefoot and Gary Hoey.

And I got to tell you, those are two of the coolest dudes I've ever met. Like we were, we were running behind for a show in Buffalo. And this is no joke, man.

We were running behind because we all had our moments of driving. And we got a trailer. Barry doesn't want to tell you he got on the expressway after lunch, going the wrong direction to the gig.

So he drove like 35 minutes in the wrong direction. I wasn't the only one that went the wrong direction. I digress, as they say.

So anyway, we roll up and we got time, but we're right on it, right? So we dropped the trailer. We're like running stuff up onto the stage. And here's, you know, Ron Thal, Bumblefoot is like hauling gear out of our trailer.

I'm like, dude, you don't have to do that. He goes, no, man, we're all in this together. This is serious.

We're all in this together. If you go late, I go late. So let's just do it.

I was like, oh my God, like this is like not some local show. Like this was a, you know, big venue in Buffalo. Yeah.

Brian wanted to talk about how he drove the wrong way too, but that's it. There's a lot. Did you want to chime in at all? I feel like you haven't said much.

All good. He always gets the zinger. Brian is the quiet one, but he always gets the, like the perfect zinger.

He's waiting. He's waiting for his moment. He's silent, but deadly.

You gotta somehow get the hotel story in here, man. Well, that was a classic Brian moment though. That was.

So that, I think we did 16 nights on that, on that Yngwie tour. And we only had a hotel two nights. So one night was, um, like it was an outdoor, you know, like, uh, with the outdoor balconies, like in a semi-circle.

So, uh, TD's like running around, like, you know, it's really late. Where's my room? I can't, the key doesn't work. And he's like shoving it into the keyhole.

I'm like, I'm pounding on the door, you know? Well, wait, wait a minute. You gotta back up and say, so first I went to my room, but the way that this thing was, it was like an L, but the building was exactly the same. Like it was the same looking.

So somehow I went out, it's dark. It's like two o'clock in the morning. We parked the trailer in a certain spot.

So I'm walking out and I got disoriented coming back to the building. I ended up in the wrong wing. So here I walk over to the wing and I don't know if the room numbers were, I don't know.

He's pounding on the door. I'm pounding. Yeah.

Brian, let me in. Cause I was bunking with McKenna. So, you know, the funny thing is he's pounding on this door.

We don't even know whose door it is. Vince and I are watching him. Meanwhile, if you look over to the right, those are, those are friends.

We're just going to watch them. I'm not going to stop them. About 10 doors down.

It makes the turn and McKenna's got the door to their room wide open. And he's standing there just watching him pounding on somebody else. He can see me pounding on someone else's door.

That's what I'm saying. That's great. So, but it gets better.

So I'm pounding on the door, this guy walks up and he goes, excuse me. And he steps right in front of me, puts his key and it walks into the room. True story.

So it was their room. They just hadn't gone in yet. So they didn't even realize I'm pounding on their door because I had, I think what it was is they gave me two room keys and I thought they were next to each other.

So I got confused. And then I thought I was in their room, but I didn't have the key because they had the key. So I will tell you, we made sure like between all of us driving, because that's how we do it in the TD Clark band.

Everybody gets a chance to drive, right? We made sure it was TD's turn when we got to New York City, the very first time he had been there and we had been there for other stuff. But so we were heading right down the center of Manhattan, right down midtown and we make the turn and we catch the tail end of a Hare Krishna parade. And I swear to God, I'm not kidding.

It went on for 40 minutes and we parked the sprinter and we're all sitting out there just watching this parade. There's like hundreds of cars sitting in like a parking lot and I was losing my mind. And the reason was because we had traveled a long way.

We already got, the van got searched when we were going through the toll booth just to get on Long Island or no, get on Manhattan. And the bridge was interesting. And it was like 30 bucks to cross the bridge or $28 or something because we were towing a trailer.

So we finally get into New York and then we're at this standstill. And we're four blocks from where we need to go, but we can't go there. Like, look, if it had been like a real modern, I mean, you know, I'm an atheist, but if it had been a real modern religion, I would have been like, okay, fine.

I'll wait for that. This is like, these guys beg for money at O'Hare for God's sakes. Like you want me to wait in a parade for them? Like for real? I was like, they gave him a parade.

I'm like, what the hell's the matter with these people? It was a long parade. It was going on for like forever. But we get back in the van when it finally is cleared up and they open the streets again and TD is steamed and he's pretty mellow, dude.

Like I gotta tell you, this isn't like normally his character, but New York does this to everyone. So we get back in the van, we start driving and it's still going really slow because the parade's just ahead of us. And I'm like, I know TD loves history because we've done a bunch of that stuff.

That's like a passion of ours. We've been there other times, you know, with Joe Taylor and other artists, whatever. So anyway, we're like creeping along and I'm like, dude, like, you know, this is your first time here.

This is awesome. Like there's the Flatiron building. Like this is going to be great.

And this is where the expletives come in. He like looks at me, he goes, take a fucking picture. We're never coming back to this.

Well, with that, we're going to take a little break here. We're going to come back to your next song. Okay, right on.

Yeah. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Yeah, when we when we were working this one out, there was like this little revelation that man, this sounds so much like a like a Zeppelin song.

So we kind of started it like this. Well, there was some notes in there. All righty.

Ho, ho, ho. That was good. Very nice.

Very nice. Yeah, that's that was an interesting rendition. Yeah, very nice.

They're like interesting rendition that we don't ever want to hear again in the flesh tonight. But that was really good. No, that was a little good.

Once again, December 3rd, gentlemen, if you're not doing anything, please come out. It's at Rookie's Rock House in West Dundee, four o'clock matinee on Sunday. It's a matinee kind of on purpose so everybody could bring their kids and family, bring mom, whomever, but T.D. Clark Band doing a Christmas show.

So when people are looking for T.D. Clark, where can they find you? Well, some of the earlier albums after I was talking about Spotify, when I signed up for CD Baby years ago, some of them are on Spotify. As far as there's a tdclark.com www.tdclark.com. If you want to learn more about the band and things of that nature and see some dates and stuff like that, you can check me out, Brian T.D. Clark on Facebook because I always have things on there. And obviously you can check out Barry Clyburn, Vince Consolo, Brian McKenna.

Brian has a band with his wife called McKenna. Great band. They have a record out and Love Remains, great track.

Absolutely. Did you want to talk about that a little bit? It just whips out a CD. Bam.

Yep. And we'll be on your podcast next weekend. Looking forward to it.

I'm just kidding. No. Yeah.

So but no, but seriously, we just have a great time. All of us have played in different bands. And what makes this band last so long is just the friendships.

It's all about the friendships and doing music. It is weird. I've had this same thing for years, the same core guys.

It really is true. We hang out together. We've been involved.

We've been not only the gigs, the gigs turn into vacations. We actually go on vacations together. We've been in Puerto Rico.

Well, and our kids were about the same age, too. Yeah. So all the kids kind of grew up and we all dealt with a lot of stuff in that way.

So I think to finish the timeline, I think it was around 2007 that we met you at O'Hare. And I think it was around 2009 you called. I think Vince.

Well, Brian, 2011, Vince, 2011, 2012. And we've been out there doing it ever since. Yeah.

I mean, it really is fun playing with the same dudes. And we're all pulling in the same direction. And like Brian said, like everybody likes each other.

I know it's surprising. I'm surprised they still like me, quite frankly. That's the thing.

I think the funnest part is when we get a call and we're like, hey, guys want to play Arcada? I'm going to be there tomorrow. What's up? Yeah. Opening up for Striper.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the thing.

It's always a great show. And as hard as it is to jump up and try to do something last minute or whatever without preparing for it, there's 100 other people that would die to do one of these shows. And it really motivates you to keep going and doing it.

And not everything we do is last minute. But that kind of stuff does actually happen. Yeah.

And you know what else is cool? Something about this that I'm particularly proud of, all of us, is that it's instrumental music, right? Which is not exactly the easiest to sell. But somehow, and I'm not exactly sure how, the music falls into this niche where it's super accessible. It's the melody.

It's the melodies that the TD writes. I mean, whether someone's singing it with their voice or playing it on the guitar, it's just exciting, fun, and happy, you know, good time music. I mean, the crowds love it.

I've seen instrumental bands that it was like listening to calculus, you know, with TD stuff. Listening to calculus, yeah. My stuff's like listening to kindergarten finger painting.

Yeah, listening to calculus. But yeah, it's like whenever I- We've got odd meters and we've got stuff like that. But I mean, and they're not easy parts to play.

But ultimately, that's it. It's the melody. Yeah, because we'll play.

We did a show with Warrant not too long ago, sold on Arcada Show. I sold like 26 CDs after the show. I've sold hundreds, thousands of CDs at this point.

And most of them are after these supports with like these stripers and whatever. And the people are like, this is great. Remember when we were at your- Barb was in the bathroom with Bev.

We're at the Whiskey. Puddle of Mud. We were playing with Puddle of Mud.

Yeah, we did a show with Puddle of Mud at the Whiskey. Yeah, tell that story. Yeah, so that was another packed show.

Great show. And you figure like nobody there is like looking for instrumental music, right? And most of it's all girls, but they're in the bathroom and they're all like, man, that band without the vocals or without the lyrics. The band without the lyrics was awesome.

His wife was in the bathroom with her sister and there's two girls talking. The band without the lyrics was incredible. Yeah, good man.

It was awesome their singer didn't show up. Yeah, they called us the no words band. Yeah, the no words.

Well, all right, guys. I hate to cut you off right here in the middle of this, but we got to get going. Now, I want to thank you all for coming out here tonight.

Thank you for having us so much. Enjoy the Buffalo Trace. Somebody loves you.

Yes. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Well, there you have it.

Wow. T.D. Clark. T.D. Clark and the band.

And the band. And the band, man. And the banded.

Man, they got quite a history, don't they? Wow. A lot of stories. A lot of stories like it could have kept going.

I would like to see their live show because I didn't realize when we were talking to them. Well, we're talking to T.D. Clark when he was here with Poison Crew that his band was an instrumental band. Right.

I didn't realize that. I didn't realize that either. They probably sound... What's that? God, the name is... It's escaping me right now.

The instrumental, hard rock, heavy metal band that tours a lot around Christmas time. Oh, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. There you go.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I get the sense that they'd sound a little bit like that, electrified. With Christmas music, definitely.

Yeah, because before your day, we did Joel Holkstra. He plays with Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Yeah, I know Joel.

Yeah. He plays with them. So yeah, it's a very cool band.

And they sound good even acoustically. I'm electrified. Really good.

Right. Yeah. For sure.

Well, that was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I definitely suggest going to see them at their Christmas show.

Starts at four o'clock, so you can bring the kids. So otherwise, as usual, thank you for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. And as always, tune in every Tuesday for another new exciting podcast.

See ya. Rock and Roll Chicago.