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 Hollywood Mike. How you doing today, Ray? I'm doing good, how you been? You know, I'm doing real good. Yeah, are you worn out yet from your new job? I am.

I'm a little tired. I spent all last week just doing all kinds of training and stuff and didn't have a break because I played Friday and Saturday and yesterday and... You're a busy man. Yep.

Celebrating my daughter's birthday. I saw that. Went out to dinner.

I wished her a happy birthday. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I did see that.

Yeah, we just went out to dinner, which is why I'm kind of rolling in here just right at the nick of time. I dropped them all off, came over. You know, I had Lake Michigan whitefish.

Oh, okay. I figured it's local, right? Yeah, it's full of mercury, but that's okay. That's right.

Just can't eat a bunch of it. I noticed a little glow about you. No, we went over to that crafted place over on Route 30, Crafted.

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Yeah, home of the giant pretzel. We ordered this appetizer pretzel thing, and it was literally on a pizza pan, and the pretzel was the size of a pizza pan. And that's all you needed to eat.

We didn't need to order entrees after that. I was going to say you shouldn't. No, my daughter posted that though, and her friends recognized the pretzel.

And friends of hers came in to wish her happy birthday at the restaurant, because they knew where we were because of that pretzel. Very nice. So she has stalkers.

Yes, she does. That's cool. That's cool.

Well, maybe not cool. Well, they all know me. And you were there.

Yeah, I was there. To protect her. All righty, enough dinner talking.

I'm getting hungry. Yeah. So we got another group, duo of the group.

We got the Rosedale Ramblin' Band here with us tonight. Oh, they dropped their own fans. Man, they bussed them in.

I saw the bus out there. That's right. Hey, guys, how's it going? Hey, pretty good.

How are you guys doing? Great, great. Yes, we are talking to Tom and Jim. That's right.

Don't mix it up, Tom and Jerry. We've got that all set and ready to go. Yeah.

So tell us about this. I'm going to ask your question. Where did the name come from? I'm curious.

Well, I think we were looking for a name that kind of summed up the band a little bit. But we didn't want anything too overly serious. So I thought Rosedale Ramblin' Band.

We kind of just, you know, you go on forever. So I said, how about the Rosedale Ramblin' Family Jamboree Band or something like that. And we sort of shortened it to Rosedale Ramblin' Band.

That won't fit on a business card. It won't fit on a business card. It's a little long, you know, but people kind of remember it, you know.

So what's Rosedale? Is it like the street you live on or something? Yes, that's a park. See, OK, all right. That's a park across from our house.

Located where? On the northwest side of Chicago. So Norwood Park or like Gladstone Park area. OK, yeah.

Kind of near Superdawg. That's what most people know. Oh, great.

Yeah, right. Absolutely. That's what everybody knows.

You didn't bring any, did you? No. No, you know, you don't go there as much when you live there. It's weird, right? You live next to something, you don't go to it.

But it's good. It's good. So during the pandemic, we started playing on the lawn right across the street from Rosedale Park.

And so that's where we kind of stuck with the thing. Right. From there, so.

OK. So and what about the other members of the band? Who else is in the band? Since there's only two of you here, I know there's more than that. Right.

Tom, you want to take that? Sure, yeah. So I'm my name is Tom, and I do vocals and harmonica. OK.

OK. Jim is our bass guy. And we have Reva Goodman, who is we call her the queen of the honky tonk.

All right. He's been around the country scene in Chicago for decades. She's our rhythm guitarist.

OK. All right. And our drummer is Dan Tomczyk.

Well, we kind of we're kind of we're maybe a little bit in between some drummers. But basically, Tom, Reva and I did it. We all Tom, Reva and I all sing.

And Reva came from a band. She still plays with this band called Diamondback. I don't know if you're familiar with Diamondback, but they were the Carol's Pubhouse band.

OK. Which was kind of like the last remaining honky tonk, you know, from the whole in Chicago. This is in Uptown, which is was an Appalachian area.

Not to get too punched in the weeds on it, but it was really the last remaining true honky tonk there. So they've been that band's been around since the 90s. So I started playing with her and we both when Tom knew her as well.

So the three of us did it. We had a different drummer. And then we had this guitar player, Lee Bork, who was just a beast.

He went to the school, Berklee School of Music in the 60s. He was a real true. But he had some issues lately, medical issues.

So we bring a new guitar player. Reeva, Tom and I are the three vocalists and the three that were kind of the basis, the foundation of the band, you know. Right, right.

Bass, harmonica and vocals. Reeva's rhythm guitar and vocals. And then you kind of got to shuffle between maybe a lead guitar player and drummer kind of working that out right now.

Right. Yes, basically. And that's the current formation.

That's the current formation. And then like last week we played, we had a pedal steel in there, too. So, you know, nice, nice, nice.

That's always good. The lead guitarist and drummer know that they're kind of like, you know. Now they do.

I was going to say, because if they don't, you just, you just told them. It's a tough one, you know, right in the transition. You know what it's like.

You're in the transitional period and then you're just trying to figure it out. We got a great, we got a guy, Bobby Goins, right. And Mike Conroy, both they've been in different bands and they're both great.

So, yeah, we've got, we're kind of waiting to see how things end up eventually. Right, right. But those guys play with us currently and hopefully they'll keep playing with us.

After this podcast. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, no, I listened to a couple of videos that you guys have online.

So everybody should go and check out their videos. But, you know, I was thinking, you know, Tanya Tucker might want to arm wrestle Reva for that name because didn't they call Tanya Tucker the queen of the honky-tonks or something like that? Well, she's, Reva's the queen of the Chicago honky-tonks. OK, there you go.

We have that as our disclaimer for, you know. OK, there you go. Perfect.

You're right, it is. Yeah. So a little bit more kind of outlaw country style from what I, from the videos that I saw online, would that be a true statement? Yeah, I think so.

I think that's kind of was a big influence. You know, we wanted a foundation in classic country, which really, if you look at like Chicago now, there's a lot of classic country bands out there. It seemed like maybe there weren't.

But we just know so many that rotate in between these bars, you know. And so that was kind of our foundation. But, you know, Tom likes blues, Tom likes everything, classic rock.

And then we like, you know, like a lot of Americana, too. So we would kind of stretch out from there. But we always say the foundation of the band is kind of like these outlaw country guys, Hank Jr., Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, you know, George Jones, the greats, you know.

Yeah, I agree. And then we go from there. That's my taste in country music.

Is it? You know, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. We have that conversation on this podcast all the time.

You're obviously not the first country band we've had in here, but it always seems to go to, you know, a lot of the modern country stuff. Yeah. You know, when I start hearing dubstep beats and country music, I don't know if I can really call that country music anymore.

I want to hear that outlaw swinging type kind of rhythms, you know, that country music is known for. You know, for sure. It's kind of refreshing to hear that stuff.

You know, it's refreshing to have a band that comes in here and they're not just doing Luke Bryan covers. So, yeah. And honestly, it's the stuff that we know.

It's what we grew up listening to. Yeah, right. I grew up in Alabama.

Okay. Alabama has a lock on the market. But yeah, my grandparents listened to that kind of music all the time.

Right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

I met my wife in like it was 1992. Wow. I can't believe it's been that long ago.

I met my wife in 1992 at the Cadillac Ranch in Bartlett. And we stopped going there right about the time that we used to go every Tuesday because it was ladies night. Right.

And for several years we went. And then when 1995 came around and we got married and realized, well, we don't have to meet at the local honky tonk anymore just to hang out. You know, we get to see each other all the time.

We really stopped going. But it's also about the same time that we really stopped listening heavily to country music because it was during that time when they started taking stuff that sounded like Britney Spears and throwing a fiddle in it and calling it country. Yeah, that's really what it is.

That's really the wall for me. It's like 1995 to current stuff. I'm not really up on.

But yeah, I know every single Clint Black song and every single George Strait song. And yeah, absolutely. So as a harmonica player, Tom, it's really easy to have somebody in here that plays in a blues band and say, you know, who are your influences with harmonica? But I mean, you're in a country band.

Yeah, there's harmonica and country, but it's usually not a driving instrument in a country. So like who influences you, who gives you the ideas when you're playing harmonica in a country band? Well, my favorite is Mickey Raphael. OK, he's the harmonica player for Will Nelson.

Oh, and has been for 40 years. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when I started playing, which wasn't long ago, I started when I was 48, almost 53.

OK, so so I started late and, you know, with harmonica, I thought that I was going to play in a little folk band with my church. Sure. Right.

And then I started learning it and listening to blues guys. And it just wasn't really my thing. Country kind of was.

And I would hear some country harmonica from time to time and some folk music. And then I dove a little deeper into Mickey Raphael. A lot of Willie's stuff has harmonica all the way through.

So that became my my influence. Right. OK.

Whenever I think about harmonica and country music, I think of that song by Clint Black. I love the harmonica intro. I think the song is Put Yourself in My Shoes.

OK, give that a listen. What a great country harmonica intro there is. And I don't know if that's him playing it himself or we bring somebody in.

But there's there's just this great, almost haunting sounding harmonica throughout the entire song. And it is the intro to the song. So give that a listen.

I just give you guys a song idea. Yeah, I like it. Yeah.

Free of charge. Don't worry about it. We'll go into some.

We could do Clint Black. You know, I'm just going to send him an invoice. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Take that off the list. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right. So and, you know, I guess, you know, a fair question.

Same thing to you, you know, you know, bass players, right? I think I think one of the most famous bass players and people don't even realize he played bass was Waylon Jennings. You know, people don't realize Waylon Jennings played bass with Buddy Holly and the Crickets, which is absolutely incredible. You tell people they're like, no, you're full of crap.

And they look it up. They're like, no shit. Here, I owe you a beer.

It's pretty cool. But Waylon was supposed to be on that plane, too. Yeah, he was.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always felt guilty about it.

Because he said, I hope the plane crashes because they didn't flip the coin or whatever they did right on the Buddy Holly plane. Yeah. And that's the last thing.

Yeah, my influences are more, you know, the music. I just love the driving kind of train beats, you know, and that's what I think the bass is real for me. It's real simple rhythms, you know, straightforward with a walk stone in there and just like just laying down the foundation.

I'm not going to get overly fancy when I'm playing, you know. Right. And so it's really just the classic country songs that were, yeah, that was a big influence for me, for my playing.

Right, right, right. You've got the computer in front of you, Ray, because I should know this guy's name. And I really should.

I should know more about this because I absolutely love the band. But I saw that you guys cover a Sawyer Brown song. And I always thought from bass wise, I always thought that the bass player from that band, Sawyer Brown, is fantastic.

Everything that Sawyer Brown does, I mean, the bass almost drives everything that they do. And it's kind of, you know, ironic or coincidental that you guys actually cover a Sawyer Brown song. It's pretty cool.

You're thinking of Six Days on the Road? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a great song. I think he's actually covering it as well.

Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know who sang the original. There's so many versions of Six Days on the Road.

And it's funny, like that version, like there's so many different styles to that song, you know. Yeah, yeah. They were like, well, when you introduce to somebody, which one are we going to play? You know, but he had the driving song, the driving bass on that.

But Sawyer, that would be Jim Sholten. Jim Sholten from Sawyer Brown. Yeah.

Another interesting band. They got their start on Ed McMahon's Star Search. Yeah.

Yeah, they were like the season one winners of Ed McMahon's Star Search. Yeah, that's how Sawyer Brown got discovered. I was a pretty young kid.

I didn't know that. I think I was pre-teens. I think I was like 12 or something like that when that show was on the air.

And I remember Sawyer Brown being on Star Search. I wonder how many bands came out of Star Search. I didn't know if anybody made it.

There must be other people, right? There's got to be. Well, there was another, there was a guy, Sam something, which was a fantastic vocalist. And now he's one of the most widely recorded vocalists for like movie scores and stuff like that.

He came off it. And I just found out the other day that Dave Chappelle was a winner on Star Search. I heard Norm Macdonald was on it.

And maybe the Canadian version. He always tells a story. I think it was Norm Macdonald, which I thought was interesting.

Maybe that was the predecessor to American Idol. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it definitely was.

It definitely was. It's amazing how many careers that that show actually launched. But Ed McMahon, though.

Who would have thought? We're sitting here talking about Star Search all these years later. Why Ed McMahon? Couldn't they find any other personality? Somebody more, you know. Oh, hey, Johnny.

It worked. I guess it did. It absolutely worked.

I guess it did. So tell us a little bit about some of your other influences. What do you guys listen to when you're not playing the music that you play? I mean, I, you know, I listen to everything.

I love like 90s alternative rock. You know, I like classic rock. I like, you know, this new Americana, this new old country that comes out.

Because that's what I was doing. I got back in the country. I used to love it.

And I was searching for country music. That's when I walked into this Carol's Pub. There's a guy named Mike McKeon that was the bass player for this band.

And I heard him sing. I'm like, I feel like, you know, we would end up hanging out. I'm like, I feel like I'm hanging out with Merle Haggard here, smoking cigarettes outside the bar.

He was so real. I'm like, it's just amazing how good you could be. And you're still playing, you know, the bars on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

But that was, it was that classic country that just totally influenced me to start playing the bass. That's when I started playing him. I heard him play, this guy play.

So that was kind of where we started. But as far as like, but yeah, that's what I listen to. I listen to Avett Brothers.

That was the old pro medicine show on the side, you know, the Dead South. I don't know if you guys remember Dead South. Those are the bands that I love.

But then, you know, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen on the car and that kind of stuff too. You know, Grateful Dead, Love the Dead. How about you, Tom? I don't know.

I used to go way back. I mean, I'm more of an 80s hairband guy. I love Def Leppard.

One of my first concerts, GNR. Right, right, right. All those guys.

So then, so then you said you were 48 years old when you started playing harmonica. What makes a 48 year old man just say, well, shit, I'm gonna learn how to play harmonica? Well, so I played trumpet in high school. Oh, okay.

Have a little bit of musical background. After high school, I'd never played anything at all. And one day at church, there was this folk band that came in and I thought, I would really like to learn how to play an instrument and play with this band.

Trumpets not going to work. But so I bought a banjo. Okay.

And I thought I would teach myself to play banjo. Thank you for not bringing a banjo with you, by the way. Lasted about a year.

And I realized that I just don't have the fingers for that. And then oddly, I gave my dad a harmonica for Christmas. He left it on the mantle.

I picked it up and thought, I'll learn how to play this. Okay. And started taking some classes at Old Town School of Music, School of Folk Music.

Started taking some online classes and just kind of taught myself over the last couple of years. Let me guess. That first harmonica came in a red, white and blue box.

Did it? That would be a great guess. It was a golden melody. Okay.

Okay. In the key of C. But in the key of C though, because that's what everybody starts off with is the key of C. And most people have that honer in the red, white and blue box. The blues band, I think it's called.

It might be. It might be. That's the one I started with.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the second one that I went to was the marine band in B flat.

Okay. It was marine band in B flat. And I liked that because it was actually made of wood.

Yeah. And instead of plastic. So I was like, I moved on up.

Yeah, I started on special 20s. Bought a bunch of those in the different keys. Right, right.

And because I was a beginning harmonica player, I blew them all out. Right, right. You over bend them and you play them too hard and the reeds crack.

So as I got better, I graduated to the marine bands. Right, right. With the pear wood.

Right. And then I bought a bunch of marine band crossovers. Okay.

Okay. That use a different kind of wood. I think it's a bamboo wood that they don't swell as much.

Right, right. They're actually a higher end harmonica that I probably shouldn't be playing, but they make it easier. Yeah.

No, there is a difference. You know, it's very, it's a very rare occasion that we actually have somebody that plays harmonica and it's a very integral part of the band. You know, usually the harmonica player in a band has a harmonica in his pocket for one or two parts here and there.

But I mean, you're playing the harmonics. So we get to ask those cool questions. Like, instead of asking the guitar player about his guitar rig, we're asking you about harmonica.

So I learned how to play basically in this band. Oh, okay. When we started in the pandemic, in his front yard, I was not very good at all.

I'm not saying that I am now, but certainly wasn't then. So I'm teaching myself basically how to play while we're on the front yard. We didn't have a guitar player.

That's where I was going with this. We didn't have a lead guitar, so I was learning all of the solos on the harmonica. Gotcha.

Which gave me ample stuff to practice while I was at home before we went out into the yard. So for all of these songs that we play now, I was the lead guitar soloist doing it on harmonica. Right, right, right.

And then when we finally got a guitarist, it's like, let me pull out. I don't need to do these solos. Obviously, we have a guitar doing it.

And then I learned how to sort of pepper in when I needed to. You know, take a listen to a guy. We interviewed a band on this podcast a little while ago.

They're called The Hurricane Project, all friends of mine. The harmonica player in that band is a guy named Tony Medina. Go to Facebook or go to Google or whatever and look up The Hurricane Project and listen to Tony Medina play harmonica.

When you said that you were playing, you were kind of emulating guitar solos with it. I have never heard anybody play a harmonica and literally plays this thing like it's a guitar. It's absolutely amazing.

You should go and check him out. You'll want to see what he does there. It's interesting because like we'll have time.

So we play ripple, you know, we don't have a mandolin or anything like that. But so Tom just kind of does that. I don't know how.

You know, I'm not a harmonica player. Because with the harmonica, you kind of got to be careful. You know, like you said, you don't really get a lot of bands where that's like a lead instrument.

So not to be critical of the harmonica, but, you know, a little could go a long, long way with harmonica. So that's what Tom, I think, is real good at. He just kind of peppers things in where he could play the lead.

If you need something, if you need a mandolin, if he needs kind of a different sound, he'll do it. You know, right. So I call him taking care of business, you know, TCB, like whatever you need, he just he'll do it, you know, the same thing.

He did harmonies and he started doing vocals. So he started off doing the harp. But then before you knew it, he was singing a third of the songs.

He was playing the harp. He was doing the harmonies. He was playing lead and the lead harmonica.

So it's kind of cool. We get a lot of people and like I said, we do have some really good guitar players, but a lot of people come up and talk about the harmonica to me after the show. So you don't get it a lot.

Every band has a guitar player, but not every band has a harmonica. Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head.

I think the secret to being a good harmonica player is you have to be comfortable with the space. You know, there's so many harmonica players that are not comfortable with the space. They feel like they have to be making some kind of noise.

I played with a guy for a few years and he was not comfortable with that kind of a space. He would find out whatever chord we were on and he would just draw out the root note on their harmonica. And there were so many times where I thought maybe something was feeding back.

But all I'm hearing is the from his harmonica. It's coming through the monitors. I was like, geez, stop.

There are some songs that I'll do a chug. Like it's a rhythmic chug. Sure.

But not every song. No, but I think it works, you know. But it's true.

You got to know how to play within the confines and also just with each other. You know, we're all kind of making sounds together. It's some of the parts, you know.

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But that's what I'd say. But before that, I wasn't playing any bands. So this is your first band? This is our first band that we're getting paid.

Well, that's good. Yeah, it's good. But I mean, no, it is because, I mean, you said you were 35 and you were you were 48 and to discover later in life that, hey, this is something we want to do.

And you put it together and do it. I mean, how cool is that? Yeah, it's pretty exciting. Yeah, it makes you appreciate it, too, you know.

Yeah. So tell us about Reva. She's not here.

She can't speak for herself. Tell us a little bit about about her. Where'd you find her? You said you just started playing with her at Carol's Pub or something.

Well, so, yeah, so I went in there. I saw this band. It was a week before Reva started.

This is 1999. And there's some stuff on. So I'm a camera guy, too.

So there's some stuff I've done on Carol's Pub. I'm like, I'm going to I want to make a documentary about this bar. It was so unusual.

It was such an authentic place. And it was a dive bar, but it was great. And then a week later, she started in this band right around 99.

And she, you know, they put her in there and then she just she kept playing before. You know, she was the leader of the band by the time, you know, 2018 came around or whatever. She's just a great guitar player, great rhythm guitar player and great singer.

Just an I don't know, kind of an unusual force, I think. But but so we were just kind of friends. I'd written some song after a friend Mike died about him.

And so she's like, I'll come over, we'll play it together. And then we started playing together. And the next thing you knew, we just kept playing and and then getting together, which I thought was great.

I was like, wow, this is this band I followed for 20 years. I'm playing with this band now. And then we just were like, why don't we get together and play? And we had a drummer friend on the lawn.

And that's kind of what happened. And then we just started. First, we had she was playing acoustic.

I think I had a little amp, no vocal, no mics. And then we just kept adding things. The drummer came with Maracas.

Then he brought a snare. Then he brought a full kit. And then we had a PA outside by, you know, within a couple of months.

So it all started from there with Reva. And then Tom knows Reva two separately. Tom and I worked together.

It was weird. 20 years ago. Then we ran into each other.

But he was we had this mutual friend in Reva. So she invited him. I don't know if there's more to the story.

I'm sure. Yeah. Just a small world thing.

I think we were connected on Facebook and she saw that I was, you know, poking around on our harmonica. So I'll bring Tom over here. Sure.

Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Yeah.

Just to see, just to add guys, people. So what you say is out of the three of you is Reva the most seasoned musician out of the three? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Does she play guitar? And she's in another band as well. Does she play guitar as well or just singer? What does she do? So she's so she plays guitar and sings. She's in Diamondback.

She's another band called Honey Bee Three. The Honey Bees. DB3.

Oh, DB3 is a short of her. And I'm like, yeah, the Honey Bees. Yeah.

Anyway. So yeah, so she's in a few different bands. But yeah, she's a pro.

I mean, there's you could look her up. There's write ups about her in the Tribune. Like that's where I got the name, the Queen of the Honky, Chicago Honky Tonk.

So the Tribune, I think, referred to her. Oh, no kidding. OK.

And it was always in the reader for the best dive bars and country bars that are still around. So, you know, she's had some exposure, you know, in the music scene. Everybody knows her.

If you when you go around, you know. OK. Other musicians and stuff usually, especially country, you know, they know her.

So she's definitely most seasoned. Yeah. So the other bands are also country bands as well? Yeah, they're all country or bluegrass leaning, maybe one of them.

But but basically. OK, is it any any of them more of a modern country or are they both kind of the same? No, I don't think there's too much modern country going on there. I think they play a little more 90s, which is kind of the last bastion of I thought was a classic you could still find, which I never realized.

But you could still find some like I never realized, like Clint Black and those guys were still kind of country, you know. Right. Who else? There's some other guys, too.

Who does? Anyway, but so there are those guys, those guys still were coming around, I think. But that was the end of it. Right.

For me, I thought, you know, the 80s and the 90s. And then that was so. Yeah, but but none of these have a sign that said, you know, the Ghostbusters thing with the slash with Garth Brooks and Shania Twain.

Right. This was back in the late 90s. Now you're kind of like, oh, Garth Brooks, he seems kind of country now.

Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah.

People think of him and they're like, well, he's actually kind of one of the cool guys. Yeah, he's one of the cool guys. You know, they gave him a bunch of crap for it, you know, because he they said he was a sellout, but I don't see where he was a sellout.

There was a lot of people, myself included. I mean, I've always been influenced by country music. My entire family's from the southern part of the United States or around central Louisiana.

And I mean, I grew up my mother loved Charlie Rich. I mean, Charlie Rich was always being played on our on our stereo. And she loved that.

My father loved guys like Charlie Pride and Kenny Rogers and stuff. I love all that, you know, that old country and the whole bit. But, you know, all of a sudden along comes Garth Brooks.

Right. And he suddenly made country music palatable for everybody. People who said, yeah, no, I'm not going to listen to country music.

And then all of a sudden they hear this Garth Brooks guy where this kind of sounds like southern rock, you know, more than anything. And then they found out he was a crooner, you know, because, you know, he gets I think what was it? The Thunder Rolls, right, was like his first big hit, but that was his second album on his second album. So after that album went, you know, quadruple platinum or whatever it did, they went back and re-released his first album.

And then he started hearing, oh, my God, this guy's a crooner too. And he had like crooner quality, just like guys like George Jones and George Strait. And really, you know, you can probably put the entire weight of the country boom of the late 80s to mid 90s on his shoulders, along with guys like Clint Black.

Alan Jackson would be another example of that. I mean, you know, they brought it all around. That was great.

That was great music. And I mean, and didn't they at one point, wasn't Patsy Cline too modernized at one point when she came up? I'm talking back in the day, you know, so there's always going to be people like that. And in a way, they're right, you know, in a way.

Well, maybe that's the downfall of the country of Nashville, you know, the Nashville sound that took over. Now you have to search out what you think is authentic. That's how I feel.

And they're out there, you know, like Pocky Lafarge, right? Those guys, there's guys out there that, you know, Hank Three. I found Hank Three. Oh, yeah.

And he's a nut. He is, he's totally crazy. He's a nut.

But he's cool. You know, you can catch him at martyrs. And he's like, well, that's kind of like what, you know, that's really what country is.

It's this rebel, you know, and this outlaw. So they're out there. But the thing is, I don't want to ramble on about this, but we were talking about it.

What I think the difference was, was like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, there's authenticity that you cannot create there because they grew up, you know, Merle Haggard used to watch his father get on a freight train and go to work and then come back, hop in the freight train. Well, a lot of these guys now, they grew up in the suburbs, listen to country music, nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is.

Things are different now, you know, people don't grow up with the bathroom in the middle of the apartment or the outhouse in the back. And that, you know, there's something to be said for comedians and people that have some sort of struggle, or I don't know, that creates this, breeds this authenticity. So maybe we're not going to get that same type of country music anymore, but I don't know.

You got to keep it alive somehow, right? No, I mean, it's definitely out there. There's still guys that are out there working the fields and picking up guitars and playing. But no, you're exactly right.

There's a lot of people that, yeah, they lived in the suburbs, but they just know how to tell a story. Yeah, and they're good, you know, they're definitely talented, skilled musicians and vocals and everything, you know, but it is like, it is a little more on the pop side where you add the fiddle or the pedal steel and then you have a country song. I think, you know, not that I'm not trying to, you know, mess with the whole genre of music.

I respect these people, you know, but. I love the, I love the crossover that country music is starting to produce with a combination of like, like blues and rock. You know, you got, you know, Chris Stapleton.

Okay. Yeah. We were, we were talking a little bit earlier.

Is Tennessee whiskey way too overplayed? Yes. I mean, it's, it's still, it is still probably to this day. It is probably the most requested song of the last five years.

You know, you, you have to play that song, but you listen to his other stuff. It's fantastic stuff. Sometimes is it blues? Is it country? Is it rock? Right.

Who the heck knows? Lucas Nelson, you know, you were talking about Willie Nelson, his son, Lucas Nelson is fantastic. I got, I love everything that he's ever, that he's ever put out. And I, I consider it to be, you know, crossover.

You don't know. One day these guys wake up and man, they sound as country as Hank senior. And then, then they'll write a song the next day and it sounds more, it's kind of sounds like the black crows, you know, it kind of has that feel to it, you know? Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's good, right? Because music is whatever you, whatever you're getting out of it. And, you know, we try, I try not to judge it. Whatever anybody likes is fine with me.

If you want to listen to Britney Spears, whatever, if it does something for you, I think that's great. Right. But, but that's what it's created.

Like it has created these different, it's, it's kind of gone in all these different directions. I think, yeah, I mean, it's cool. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, on the way here, I was listening to my favorite country band ever is Shenandoah. Remember those guys? You remember anything like they had the church on Cumberland road, two dozen roses, another one that are songs, gosh, they're just, just a fantastic band.

And it was a terrible reason why they're not around. If, if what I heard about it is true, they're the name Shenandoah, there was a trucking company named Shenandoah, and they were pretty much given a cease and desist letter, I guess because of the name or something. And so the story goes, they just decided, I'm tired.

That was it. That's kind of dumb. I mean, for the trucking company, they're getting free advertising.

Yeah, yeah. Who cares? It's a band. They're not a trucking company.

Yeah. I saw a truck pulling in front of me one time. I was listening to Wilko's in Florida.

It said the Roseland rambling band. It did not. I like that story better.

Forget my, I was going to say Wilko. I like that better. I've seen Wilko trucks.

Right. And you're like, oh, Wilko. I'm surprised that they would put a cease and desist.

Yeah, yeah. But then again, that was, I mean, you can Google that. You can't read, you can't believe everything you read on Google, but yeah.

You can't? Yeah. No, you can't. I believe everything.

You believe everything on Google? Yeah, because it's on the internet. It's got to be real, right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Yeah. John F. Kennedy says so. Okay.

Some of the other bands we do, um, we do, um, we do some music by Trampled by Turtles. Durious Rocker. We do a Durious Rocker song, you know, like Troubadours, Bottle Rockets.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what you would consider those.

Maybe All Country or something. Yeah. We like the All Country.

Maybe Rockabilly. I don't know. Yeah.

Something, something like that. I like, uh, there's a band. Everybody thinks they're a country band, but no, they're a Southern rock band.

I love Blackberry Smoke. Oh yeah. What a fantastic band they are, man.

I mean, they are fantastic. Yeah. And their, and their live show is great.

And they're, I mean, they just, their live show, they just sound raw. You can tell it's because guys plugging guitars into amps, no fancy gimmicks or anything like that. It's just raw.

What a great sounding band they are. Yeah. Seeing it, like you're saying Durious Rocker started out in pop.

Yeah. Then went to country and was successful there too. Then you got a guy like Kenny Chesney that started country and he still is kind of country, but he's like the heir apparent to Jimmy Buffett.

And a lot of country fans don't like him for that. Yeah. He went to this beach thing and stuff.

Hey, if you're making money doing that stuff, more power to you. Right. Yeah.

Oh, and you know, Kenny Chesney was one of these guys. I didn't even realize that he actually came out in the nineties, had a couple of hits in like 97, 98. And then he kind of just kind of, I don't know, floating on the breeze for a few years.

And I, it was beyond any time that I really cared about the music anymore. I hate to say that as when he started. Music died.

Yes. Yeah. But that's when he definitely started to become more pop.

But if you go back and listen to his first album, you're like, yeah, this is definitely a twangy. Oh yeah. It was straight out country, man.

Country performer. Yeah. And I liked him.

I liked him as country. Yeah. And then he just switched over.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

But hey, it works for him. That's right. And you know, I asked you before, are you guys doing any original stuff or planning on writing anything or? Oh, we've got some.

Tom is really the one that kind of brings it up a lot, you know? Does he stamp his feet and stuff? He gets mad. You have some aspirations to write. But no, so we, I think, so we've talked about doing, you know, doing it.

The reason for me, and then Tom, I don't want to, you could explain. For me, I was always like, well, we're starting out. We actually have a lot of songs that are familiar, that people are familiar with, you know? And we were just talking about this on the way here.

I was like, well, if we're going to play something that people aren't familiar with, it has to have something that draws them in, you know? Either the rhythm of it, the riff, the lyrically. I try to be self-indulgent because I'm like, we're playing bars where people are just trying to have a good time. And a lot of times they're using you as music to just kind of drink and you're at a party, you know? Right.

Which is fine. Whatever you want to take, use it. Sometimes people are staring at us and sometimes people are hanging out, which is fine too, you know? So I was always like, well, but now we're like, well, why don't we like, why don't we sneak in a few? We could easily sneak in a few originals.

So anyway, I've got a few waiting. I don't know. But go ahead, Tim.

I know you've got a punch. Well, real quick, do either of you play an instrument that would lend itself more toward writing? Because normally you don't pick up harmonica and a bass and write a whole song with a harmonica and a bass, which would be awesome, though. Which would be awesome.

Yeah. Unless it's Big Bottom by Spinal Tap. I could send you guys many videos of me playing originals just with a bass, you know, in my basement.

That's how I do it. I don't. And then I'm like, you figure out.

I thought that might be a good way to do it, though. Yeah. Give it over to the rest of these awesome musicians and let them kind of put their own signature.

Then you'd have a real organic band making a song together, you know? So yeah, I don't. And for the last year, no, I don't. I'm not sitting down writing music, but I'll have a melody will come to mind and I'll just grab the voice recorder on my phone and record those.

I've probably got a couple dozen of those. Same with lyrics. I might write down just a few lines, but nothing has turned into verse yet.

Right, right, right. You know, they say it's kind of an old stupid joke. It's really easy to write a country song.

What you have to do is you have to have a wife or a girlfriend. You know, you got to have a pickup truck and you got to be drinking something. Right.

So you say, OK, OK, is it wife or girlfriend? You flip a coin. All right, girlfriend. OK, now the next one is, is she going away or is she coming back? OK, she's coming back.

OK, all right, good. Next, is it a pickup truck? Yes, it's a pickup truck. You just go through the line.

You got a song written. But, you know, it's so true. There's how many there's barbecues and there's barefoot and there's certain things that just aren't every and especially new countryside.

Yeah, with self-driving cars, your truck might leave you. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one.

You know what? I think that's your next song. I think that's your next song. Yeah, right.

Bringing up to the current date with old themes. I like it. Yeah, it's a song about the Dixie truckers home and my truck left.

Yeah, yeah. Talk about the time your truck left you with no one with nobody in it. Boy, that's that's a country song.

If I've ever heard one. Holy crap. That's awesome.

That actually wrote itself. It did. Yeah.

Hopefully nobody steals it. No, but you know what? That's you know, I watched I have actually watched it a couple of times, but I don't know if you remember several years ago, the Foo Fighters did this like eight part miniseries on Showtime. And what they did is they went to each one of their hometowns and talked about their influences and they would record a song in each one of these cities.

And they ended up going to Nashville. And the producer that they were working with in Nashville said that, unfortunately, the way a lot of modern pop is going is it has to be a party song. You know, every girl's butt is a sugar shaker.

You know, the parties have to take place by the river. Somebody's got to pass out drunk in the water. I mean, that's that's what every single country song is becoming about.

Right. And it started to get a bad rap. And I think, you know, when people started to realize that, I think we were starting to get these country crooners come back.

I think that gave birth to the guys like Chris Stapleton and Lucas Nelson. And there's a lot of other guys out there where you listen to some of the lyrics of these country songs and you're like, wow, that's I mean, that's a poem. I mean, poetic.

And the guy's not just singing about a party song or anything. Yeah. It's like Cody Jinks or something, I think.

Right. I've listened to a lot of work. Yeah.

And what was the guy? Oh, Cole something. Anyway. But yeah, there's that's the thing.

I don't want people for me. This is just my thought. I hate when everybody's having a better time than me.

Like, I love the fact that George Jones was talking about a guy who loved a woman until he died and was miserable. It made me feel better. I don't want to you know, that's what people went to the music for.

Right. But now it's like and I don't want to talk an old guy and complain about it, but it's a lot of it is like everybody's just having a good time. Everything's working out.

It's party music. It's like this. Does tequila make everybody's clothes off? Come on, give me a break.

There's got to be tequila's got to do something else. For me, it never worked like that. But, you know.

Yeah. Although we did. Keep practicing.

Keep practicing. Yeah. Well, definitely.

I like to hear that electric truck song. It's a self-driving truck. Yeah.

Self-driving truck drove away from me. Yeah. We're going to have to work on that.

Yeah, for sure. So, last question. Question.

Question. Something like that. Like the amazing Kreskin.

Yeah, something like that. So, I guess within your band, within your music, whatever it is, and both you guys can answer this. What drives the passion? What is it? For me, I love the music, number one.

Number two, this is maybe a weird one, but I just want to show my kids that you don't ever have to quit doing something. No, that's not weird at all. You learn something new and you can keep going as long as you want.

Yeah, absolutely. That's not weird at all. That's a good reason.

You know, for me, I just like, you know, you sit at home, you sing in the shower, you play. How many guys, you know, just play in the basement and they never play out, but they enjoy it? You know, that's, I never, that's what I did. I just played with friends, you know.

Right. You went to studio or you play. I just like playing.

Right. So if there's an opportunity to play out, I mean, I just think it's a natural, I think you have to play out, you know, you want to be in a band, you want to go out. So I just think it's a natural, for me, it's just natural progression.

I'm like, I'm just going to take it as far as I can go until somebody tells me they don't, they don't want to hire me anymore, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that's where we went.

We just, these bars, we started in a couple bars and we got a couple more bars and we're like, all right, well, we're, we're playing and not that soon as you get a call from somebody you don't know at all, which is great, you know, and they want to hire you or they want to hire you for a festival or something. It's great because that's what I think that's what I'm doing. I'm just like, as long as you're having fun, let's just keep doing it until somebody tells you or nobody wants you anymore.

I mean, I'll still play it. And then still do it. Right.

Yeah. In the front lawn. In the front lawn, yeah.

So how do people find you? Well, we have a new website at rosedaleramblinband.com. And from there, you can check us out on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, see some of our videos, a little information about the band and our schedule. Any merch or anything on there? No merch. We have t-shirts and then we sold them out or we gave them away probably.

Yeah. So now we got to get them back. Tattoos.

We had tattoos and we had tattoos. So yeah, we'll get some merch, but yeah, right now we don't have merch. Wait, like you have tattoos.

We made little fake tattoos. Gotcha. Okay.

All right. Okay. Of course we have nothing here.

We should have brought something for you guys. Okay. Yes, you should have.

Yeah. Is that customary? Did we offend? No, not at all. Every once in a while, people bring out some merch there.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, we're going to send you something. We just got to get it.

You got to buy them in bulk. You got to buy them cheap. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

15 bucks a t-shirt. Any big dates coming up in like July or August or anything? We actually have three dates in July, which is more than we typically do. We're playing now.

And yeah, we play. So we play the Thirsty Tavern. So we play a lot of Northwest side and we're playing the Schiller Park.

So we play Thirsty Tavern in July. What is that? It's a Friday, July 7th, I think. And then we play the 15th at Philonyx on Milwaukee Avenue.

Then we go to Schiller Park to this place. These are all great bars. Richie's, July 22nd.

By the way around. Actually. I'm sorry.

Just so we get it right. July 7th, we're at Thirsty Tavern. Okay.

On Milwaukee. July 15th, we'll be at Richie's Restaurant on Lawrence and Schiller Park. And July 22nd, we'll be at Philonyx.

On Milwaukee Avenue. Nice. Did you get that order? Because don't show up at the wrong floor.

That's right. In the wrong time. They're waiting for you and you're like, where the hell is he? Can you imagine that? Yeah.

There's a guy here with a bass guitar and nothing else. Is he in a band tonight? I don't think so. No, we just got a solo bass performer.

Nobody wants that to happen. Nobody wants a solo bass performer. Everybody's eating their dinner and you hear.

What is that? Is somebody doing construction? I think somebody got a flat. Oh, we only pick on bass players because you have to. Because you have to.

That's right. Because we can. Yeah, you know, my favorite bass player joke is, do you know how the stage that you're standing on is level? How? Because the bass player drools out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.

Wow. All right. What was that? Thank you guys for coming out tonight and being ridiculed by my co-host here.

I appreciate you guys having us. Absolutely, man. You guys are a lot of fun.

Hope to see you soon. All right. Thank you guys.

We appreciate it. There we go. The Rosedale Ramblin' Band.

Yeehaw. We just rambled on for about 45 minutes there. You know, I enjoyed talking to those guys.

I did, too. You know, they had a pretty good history of or knowledge of the history of some old country and they're passionate about playing. I absolutely love the fact that they were older.

Right, right. You know, 48. And he says, oh, what the heck? I'm going to pick up the harmonica.

Yeah. And he's and Jim said he was one. He was 30 something.

35 or something when he picked up the bass. I'm going to start playing the bass, you know, and doing that. And playing my basement, playing the yard, play with my buddies.

And then one day say, you know what? Let's put a real band together and go out. Yeah. And do it.

Yeah. And it's like, we're not going to stay in our bedroom and do it. I mean, are you really a musician if you're, you know, playing in front of the mirror? Well, if you know, if you have that one fan in front of you all the time.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, that was very cool.

Very knowledgeable in their country, the country music scene and what's happening. And I'm really happy for them that they're making it. Yeah.

You know, and they mentioned a couple of new clubs to me that at least the clubs that I'd never heard of before. We may have to check them out and see what's see what they're about. Yeah, because they're all the way on the northwest side and stuff.

So we don't get to see that much. But yeah, we should check them out. Absolutely.

So I thank everybody for listening once again. And check us now. Snout.

Check us out. Check us out next week. Next Tuesday, when we have another exciting episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

See ya. We're snouting here. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin.

Theme song courtesy of MNR Rush. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show. The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is produced by MNR Rush.