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.

Almost free as a bird, Ray. Almost, that's right. This is your last week of work.

This is the last week. Yeah, you're gonna go live on a yacht in the Mediterranean. No, unfortunately.

No, I've got two more days at my present gig. And I start the new gig on Monday. That quick.

Yeah. No vacation. Well, you know what? Yeah, let's just leave it at that.

Yeah, that's what we're gonna say. We're gonna leave it right there. And I'll report more next week.

Next week. Yeah, as soon as I can. Yes.

Very cool. When I can do that. Yeah.

Very cool. But I can tell you this, I bought a new truck. I thought I saw you.

Yes, you did. You bought a new old truck. A new old truck.

Yeah, not too old, though. 2016 F-150. Yeah.

I got it for a pretty good deal, actually. The folks at the Ford dealer were pretty nice to me. Got a big bed? Six and a half foot.

Six and a half foot. So I can haul the gear around. It's about the color of that Pepsi cup right over there.

Okay. It's that weird funky blue that some people say, I don't like. Not that Pepsi is sponsoring this podcast.

Not that Pepsi is sponsoring it, nor is Ford. No, no. But I've been driving it absolutely everywhere.

Very good. I feel important now. You should be.

Yeah, there's two things I've learned. You're obligated to do two things. When you're on an interstate and people are trying to merge, you got to ease over and kind of ride the dotted line a little bit.

You're obligated to keep people from bottlenecking like that. Keep them out, yep. Yeah.

And the other thing is you got to wave at little kids when they wave back at you. That's right. Do they pull the horn thing off? No, they don't.

But they like to look up and they like to wave. And they like to point and go, ooh, he's in a truck. And you got to wave back to the little kids.

Very good. I'll tell you some other things you can see from a truck, but maybe at another time. Another time.

Like next week. Next week, we'll talk about that next week. That's right.

Yeah. So we've got some guests in here looking at us like, what the fuck do we come here for? Yeah, these guys talk. We got a group of guys here.

Not the whole group, just three of them. Man called smells like Dave Grohl. Yeah.

I wonder what they do. I don't know. Let's find out.

I don't know. What is oh, I thought I put that on stunt. Oh, my God.

It's Ford or Pepsi calling. They want to sponsor us. Yeah.

I thought we were already getting a call. Speaking of speaking of devil, I was getting a phone call from somebody currently that I work with. Wow.

This is a I didn't realize we're going to do a call in tonight, but I guess we could do that, too. I mean, I guess we could. Yeah, absolutely.

So tell us about the band. Tell us about yourselves. Why don't you introduce yourselves? First off, I'm Josh.

I'm Dominic. I'm Dan. And which one of you smells like Dave Grohl? None of us.

We all do. College player. Have you ever smelled Dave Grohl? I would imagine he smells just as good as he plays.

Okay. Where the name? That's this guy. That's my boy.

Yeah. Dominic. I'm guessing Dave Grohl smells a little bit like money, too.

Oh, yeah. A lot of a lot of money. Cigarettes and Crown Royal would be probably more appropriate.

True. True. It could be mixed in with a little bit of leather and money.

Yeah. So the full band, I'm Dan. And we also have a bass player who's absent right now.

His name is also Dan. Whoa. But he's not here.

Yeah. But we call him Dab because he auto corrected, I guess, his name to Dab, D-A-B. And I guess they should have been calling him Dab now.

Dab. So that's like the identity difference between Dan and Dan is I'm Dan and he's Dab. So just out of curiosity, how come Dab's not here tonight? Disney World.

He's got a Disney World thing going on. You said it was an emergency vacation. Yeah.

He's got kids. School's out. And your name's Cheese.

Yeah. Also, I go by Cheese because that's what I like. So who do we have in the studio then? We've got a Dab, a Dan, and a Cheese.

All right. So we've got Dan. Yeah.

All right. You can put a little Dab of Cheese on Dan. That's just gross.

We don't talk about that. Okay. But Cheese, I play drums.

And then Dominic sitting to my right, he plays guitar. And you've got my friend Josh, who plays guitar as well, but also sings and does the actual Dave Grohl part. Yeah.

I joined the band about six years ago as lead guitar. And then we've gone through a whole slew of people. Three drummers.

Yeah. A couple of lead guitars, a couple of singers. And then post-pandemic, we all kind of... You know, our recent drummer left and Cheese here, aka Dan.

Yeah. Minus the B. He stepped in and just came right into place. And then we were like, well, we had another singer for a little bit.

It just wasn't working out. So then they were like, oh, Josh, why don't you just do it? Because I was at all the rehearsals and I was filling in for the singer that was absent. And it kind of all worked out.

Yeah. We're like, you know, there's a Nirvana song called Stay Away off of Nevermind. And, you know, we were just trying to learn it, you know.

And then the singer at the time was absent at a practice. And Josh was just, you know, hey, you know, I'll do this. I'll sing it.

We'll try it. See how it sounds. And when you're in a basement, you don't really absorb fruitfully what's happening down there.

So, you know, one of us just so happened to record what was going on on the phone to just kind of diagnose and maybe tweak a few things and dial the song in really well. And in the playbacks, we were like, oh, my God, Josh, you're nailing this. What's going on with this? I was just hiding.

Yeah. And he was hiding it. And then, you know, hey, sing this one.

And then it became a no brainer. And we had a smart move on the unanimous decision to have Josh as the permanent lead singer. So are the two of you guys originals? I'm the only original.

He's Dom's the original. I joined about six years ago after your first lead guitarist. Or did you have one before that? One before that.

Yeah. You're the third. So I'm the third lead guitarist.

So I jumped in on the shift parts for probably about five years. And then, yeah, when COVID happened and everything went crazy. Yeah.

And that's where we changed it all up. Yeah. So there's three kinds of cover bands or tribute bands.

I think people might if they've never seen you before, they might say, oh, these guys have to be a tribute band simply because of your name. I'm assuming most of your music, of course, is Foo Fighters and Nirvana or projects that Dave Grohl has played on. I'm assuming you do some Queens of the Stone Age.

That's the ultimate goal. You know, stuff like that. I mean, Dave Grohl's played in so many things.

And we'd love to hit it all. Right, right, right. So you've got the tribute bands that look alike.

You've got the tribute bands that sound alike. And you've got the tribute bands that don't look like or sound like them. They just try, they just say, hey, we're going to play their music, but we're going to do it our own way.

Which category do you guys kind of fit into? We definitely don't look like them. No. And we don't put costumes on.

We're not, that's not our thing. But you could have a Shiflet thing going on if you wanted to. I did when I first joined the band.

They all, they all said that. You play a gold Stratocaster or Telecaster? No, no. I only have the black one.

Okay, all right. It's actually a Shiflet guitar. I was going to say, he does have a signature Telecaster.

Yeah, it belongs to Dominic, but for a while, as I was playing Shiflet's parts, he's like, you need this. You need, yeah, you need to take this. Yeah, he has all Pat Smear's guitars.

Okay, so you're like the Pat Smear. I'll have them all eventually, but. Okay, all right.

I got a good start going. You know, I don't think I even knew that he, well, he doesn't have a signature guitar. Who's that, Pat Smear? Pat Smear.

Yeah, he's with Hagstrom. Is he really? Yep. Okay, what is that guitar? I don't think I've ever seen it.

It is basically an SG style, but it's tilted out more like a Strat. And dual humbuckers, just punk, pretty much punk sound going out of it. Right, right.

And he's the guy, I can see his face, right? But, you know, I was not a, it's kind of strange. I was, I became a Nirvana fan 10 years after Nirvana was actually popular. You know, everybody loved Nirvana.

They jumped on the bandwagon, oh, you got to listen to Nirvana. And I was like, yep, nope. I was still in my Queens rec phase.

And then like 10 years later, I was like, yeah, okay, this stuff's pretty cool. And so Pat Smear, he was the guy that used to kind of tour with Nirvana, just hang off to the side. Because everybody knew that Kurt wasn't going to keep strumming the chords all the time, right? So he's standing off to the side.

And then he ends up in the Foo Fighters. He'd probably be most recognized for that tricolor acoustic guitar from the Unplugged. Oh, yeah.

Yep. Right, right. Okay.

Yeah, I remember that. I do remember that episode. Okay, all right.

So that's the role that you're playing then, basically. Okay, gotcha. That distinguishes.

Because it is two distinguishing guitar styles. Oh, yeah. Right, absolutely.

With the Foo Fighters, you know, they have the three guitars in there too. So he would actually, Don would do kind of like a mix of Dave Grohl parts and Pat Smear parts. Right.

Initially, we only had, we had a singer that didn't play guitar. Okay, right, right, right. So now he's strictly Pat Smear and I'll play Dave Grohl's parts.

And then I'll jump in with leads. But we trade off. Like he takes a solo and smells like Teen Spirit.

Gotcha. Okay. I'll take some other, we'll just, whoever can play it first.

You got it. Yeah, yeah. I already knew that.

I was playing that one 10 years ago or whatever it is. And okay, it's yours. Yeah.

That seems to work out. Yeah. Well, okay.

All right. So I didn't mean to interrupt. I think that's important for everybody to understand.

What kind of band are you? Are they going to see you guys in costume, so to speak? Or are they going to hear something a little different? Do you put your own spin on the tunes? Or do you try to play them the way they're recorded? Definitely as to what they're recorded. Okay. But we also put little splashes here, mainly cheese.

Yeah. We'll put some little splashes in the drums for sure. Okay.

But for the most part, instrumental is pretty much spot on. Right, right. So you're just drenched in sweat by the end of the night.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I grew up a metalhead, so I can't do anything musically without that double kick, just chugging along and adding a lot of depth to the performance.

Right. Because let's face it, we're not playing arenas. So you can't have your sound EQ'd to get that chest thumping deep bass going on.

So the only thing I could figure out to do is the parts that actually call for it, is to add that double kick, regardless of if it sounds cool or not for what the song calls for. It just gives the person standing in the audience the added depth, the repetitive... The physical effect. Might not be a lot of those boom, boom, boom, boom, but it'll be a whole bunch of... Right, right, right, right.

I saw a band years ago, and I can't even remember the name of the band. This was probably back around early 2000s that I saw this band. And I wasn't even here, I think I was on a business trip somewhere.

But their drummer did something that was so unique and so ingenious. He had a regular drum kit, right? But his kick drum was the only electronic drum that he had in his kit. It was actually electronic.

So he ran that thing through the PA, and he could make it sound like anybody's kick. So the way they would play small rooms when you can't get that booming sound that you're looking for, he just did it digitally. He just kick and it was boom, like in an arena.

And I thought how brilliant to think of that idea, because I've never seen another drummer do that since then. Either they have a full electric kit, which I hate the sound of that, or they don't do it at all. But I thought, man, was that ingenious to get that sound.

Yeah. It was pretty cool. Well, even so with today's modern music, you know, in the metal and rock arena, you know, everything is so overproduced.

Everything is so digitalized that it's real hard to tell between what's an acoustic drum set versus what is triggered, what is electronic. To just go and try and replicate that live, you lose so much of that substance that's on the record. That's the thing I get, you know, especially, you know, joining this band, you grow such an appreciation for the rawness that they contain in Foo Fighters recordings and Nirvana's recordings, because it's all there.

It's not going to be something that, you know, you go to a live event and you see this band that you've listened to a thousand times and then you just walk away from it being bummed out that it didn't sound anything like you had listened to a thousand times before on that album. And then today's music, especially, it loses so much of that rawness. And I definitely got a new appreciation for trying to keep true to that element of, you know, recording versus performance.

Right, right. So take us back. How did this whole thing start? How long ago? Myself and the missing bass player.

Okay. We spent probably 10 or 15 years just writing songs in a basement. We never had a singer.

We never played shows, obviously. And one day I was just like, I want to get out and play some shows. Both of us really like the Foo Fighters.

You want to start a Foo Fighters tribute band? And then I'm thinking, well, why hold it at that? Why don't we tribute Dave Grohl himself and be able to cover more genres? And it just kind of ballooned from there. And we were full on into it as soon as we came up with the idea. Right, right.

So how long between the idea and the hiring of musicians or the finding of people? Um, it was probably about two weeks. Yeah, really real quick. And then we played a show like three weeks after two weeks of practicing.

Yeah, it was about three weeks or so. We played a first little just a little show at a stupid little restaurant. But sure, it was just good to get out there and play in front of people.

What year was that? That was 15. 2015. Yeah.

All right. So what was the set list back then? I'm assuming it hasn't changed a whole heck of a lot. Yeah, I mean, we play the hits because that's what people know.

Right, right, right. But the cool thing about, you know, starting a band like this is you get to play, you get to dabble in some songs that maybe people haven't heard or maybe have heard and didn't know they were the Foo Fighters or Nirvana. Right.

And then you kind of pique people's interest that way by hearing different songs that they would have never heard on the radio. So that's that's what I that's what I like about playing in this band for sure is getting ears on Foo Fighters songs that, you know, the average person hasn't heard. Right, right.

My question hasn't been answered. What was that? How did the name start? Yeah. Oh, I was I was at I was at a restaurant with now my ex and I was kicking around these band.

She didn't like the name of the band. She didn't like it at all. She's like, I'm done with you.

She was actually the singer, the very first singer we had. Oh, wow. So we had a female fronted Foo Fighters Nirvana.

OK. But that didn't work out because we split up and we continued for a little bit after we split up. But yeah, that was not going to happen.

But yeah, we were just sitting at breakfast one day and I it all of a sudden popped in my head because of wanting to do more than just the Foo Fighters. We figure, well, Smells Like Teen Spirit was a monstrous hit for Nirvana. Mm hmm.

And then we're attributing Dave Grohl. Why not? Smells Like Dave Grohl. Yeah.

And right. We actually we're actually called SLGG attribute. Yeah.

To the music of Dave Grohl. Oh, OK. Well, we're naming rights.

We've lost a couple of Facebook pages. Oh, oh, really? What? Because of the proper name and our name. That's what we're guessing anyway.

We never got confirmation on it, but we're guessing because it had smells because smells like Dave Grohl had his name in it. Right. That we got struck down.

Gotcha. Yeah. It took a while for them to catch on because we got up to like probably six thousand followers or something like that.

And then it was just all completely weird. All over the world. Yeah.

Every country almost. And then. Yeah, we had we had fans from live streams on every continent except Antarctica, obviously.

Right, right, right. Well, that's kind of strange because you can go on to Facebook. I'm just going to make something up because I'm pretty sure this is one of them.

You go on to Facebook. There's a page that says Muddy Waters. That's not Muddy Waters Facebook page.

It's just some guy that created a fan page for Muddy Waters. And people like the page and they follow the page and has one, too. Yeah.

And but I mean, but, you know, Muddy Waters, I mean, unless they found a way to project to him astrally, Muddy Waters didn't give them permission to use his name to create that fan page on Facebook. So that's kind of weird that I'm not too sure. Yeah.

Who knows? Well, whatever. It was just a guess, really. Yeah, yeah.

OK. At least I didn't get a cease and desist. Yeah, yeah.

I can imagine you guys are just sitting around going, geez, Dave, you got to record something else so we can get like a new song to the set list. We're tired of playing anything else. So do you guys follow him? Like, when's he coming out with this? You know, yeah, I'm the man for that.

Yeah, I'm I've been a hardcore Dave Grohl fan ever since I heard that first intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit. I mean, OK, I just knew this was a guy to pay attention to. And I've just loved everything he's done ever since.

And I know exactly where they are, what they're doing, what's going on with the music. Yeah, right, right. So do any of you and even the guys that aren't here, do any of you have any other projects going on except this band here? I do.

I actually have two other projects going on. Um, I'm in a Blink 182 tribute called What's Our Age Again? But don't get it confused with What's My Name Again? Because for some reason, like three out of five venues decide to promote us as What's My Name Again? And that's not it. And it's in like, you know, how with the Smells Like Dave Grohl thing, you know, being consolidated to an acronym like SLDG.

Right. Ours is WOAA, W-O-A-A, WOAA. OK.

So that's how, you know, we go by. And then another one that I'm in, Tom DeLonge, the singer and guitar player for Blink 182. He was in a side project he did and made this wonderful little gem of an album with the band he calls Boxcar Racer.

Oh, yeah. And we have a group called Cat Like Thief, which is also hard to remember. So we, I guess, made an acronym for that.

We call it CLT. So we tribute. We're not going to pronounce that acronym out loud.

Yeah, believe me, the jokes I've heard about that whole thing. It's in our group chats all the time, so I get it. And but yeah, we do.

Those are the two other projects I have. OK. And that's actually how we met this guy, because years ago.

My first show. Yeah, his first show. Yeah.

Years ago, his band played with our band at a little Oak Park Lounge in Johnsburg. Oak Park Lounge in Johnsburg. And I was running about two hours of sleep and I was severely hung over.

And I know when I got done with the set, I wound up passing out in the lawn for like their entire set. Right next to our PA. Yeah, right next to our PA just out.

I'm Christy from Crime Cave podcast. I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons have snapped back in the mid 90s. I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time.

With each episode under 20 minutes, I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years. Join me in the Crime Cave. I'm going to ask this question first, and then I'm going to circle back and we're going to we're going to kind of answer it from the from the back end in a way, because the one thing that I hear a lot, being a musician myself and Ray and I being out in the music, local music scene quite often, you're going to hear you hear a lot about tribute bands and and not to put anybody on the spot, but sometimes we ask difficult questions on this on this podcast.

Why a tribute band? You know, I hear people say all the time, why would somebody want to stand up on stage and play somebody else's music? They're millionaires already. Why do you they don't need your help getting getting their music out? Don't you have your own music? Don't you have your own thing you want to do your own thing you want to accomplish? You're in three tribute bands, right? Yeah. Why? So that's the question.

Now let's circle back and let's find out how you got to where you are right now. Because the works already cut out for me, my friend. All I got to do is just listen to it and play it.

That's it. I don't have to do no deep, you know, sit in a dark room and, you know, contemplate my life to come up with something original and creative. You know, it's all there mapped out for you.

It's really you get to a certain age, you know, and I'm not saying this is a recipe for every human being on Earth. But some of us, we choose to go down this path where, yeah, let's let's have some fun. Right.

You know, let's let's get down in the basement. Let's have a little bit of fun. And, you know, that turns into one gig.

Then one gig turns into two, then two and a four. And then you kind of you realize that, you know, yeah, you're playing other people's music, but you're also building a community out of it as well. You know, because it's not like, you know, when you're in an original band and you're playing clubs or you're playing, I don't know, what's what's the next tier down from an arena like a theater, like a small theater? Yeah.

Like, you know, you're playing like a theater and then, you know, you spend an hour sound checking and then you go and you play and then you tear down and then it's on your way to the next gig or whatever. But with this, like, you know, you kind of build a community of people who find the same common interest as you do through the music that you're playing. So not only do you have this little community, but you also have these new friends you can make.

You know, it's it's it's a much more equalized spectrum you're walking on when you're in a tribute band, because these people are here for the same reason that we're up there playing it. I totally get that. Fair enough.

Yeah, absolutely. And I totally get the thing about, you know, it's already drawn out, you know, just listen to the song, learn how to play or go out and do it. It's you know, it's no more difficult than actually having to learn the song.

It's the fun of it. It's early. Get that.

Yeah, it's just just playing music. Like you said, just getting out there to play music. I mean, I was I had I don't know.

I know Dom never you didn't really have an original band. Yeah. Like I said, that played out, started in a basement, writing a bunch of songs, but it never really progressed anything.

So that's why we jumped into the tribute thing, because we just wanted to get out and play some shows and make some people happy and dance. So that's really about it. Other than the I guess other than the combined interest, you know, everybody going to your show there, you know, you have this community.

Everybody's going there. Like you said, every you know, everybody knows what you do. So everybody in that crowd is there to hear some Foo Fighters music or some Nirvana music or whatever it is.

But as far as having having everything, you know, laid out there for you as far as learning new music, you can do that without being in a tribute band. You can just be in a cover band, pick pick 90s rock and be in a cover band. So so what's the so what's the other than the the common interest? What's the draw to say, OK, I want to be in a tribute band, not just like a 90s cover band or something like that? Is there is there something else that drew you to it? I've always talked about like, oh, I think it'd be cool to play, you know, a little bit of everything.

But at the same time, it's kind of like what I asked that same question. Why do that? You know, why do that? Everybody else does that, too. So I think the exclusivity of too many bands.

Oh, yeah. There's too many cover bands. There's not.

I mean, I agree. There's a lot of tribute bands. And in particular, I think there's in the local area, there's what, two other Foo Fighter tributes close to us.

And that's fine. You know, we're we're we all get along. We all play.

I think there's a all gals. Yeah. Foo Fighter.

Yeah. Yeah. Foo La La.

Foo La La, that's what they're called. Yeah. And what's and there's another one that's right around in his area.

I think they're called Two Fighters. Two Fighters. Yeah.

And I think they're Dave Grohl. Their lead singer is literally just lives a few miles away from here. Yeah.

One one of Two Fighters guitar players came out to one of our shows at base camp in Lyle. And it was cool to talk to him because he's like, man, you guys sound good. You know, so it's like you're getting a compliment from another established tribute act that plays the same music over there.

You know, you would you would you would think that a situation like that would present itself as being almost like two dogs staring at each other, you know, they're looking at each other like that. But no, it was it was a total camaraderie in that scenario. Yeah, it was awesome.

We've actually even talked outside of shows and stuff where I I almost actually sat in for their Pat Smear while they were in a bind. It didn't happen. But right, right, right, right.

Willing to do that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

I know a couple I know a couple of those guys for sure. So is it strictly Foo Fighters Nirvana or do you write a few other things right now? But we definitely want to dive into some Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah, the catalog is so big with Foo Fighters Nirvana that, you know, we can I mean, we we practice, we rehearse, you know, maybe once a week.

We all got jobs, busy lives and stuff. So we get in when we can. And it takes time to learn a song in detail and then get together and go over it a bunch of times.

So we're getting to that that point where we're like, hey, let's start looking into this. You know, them Crooked Vultures and even Tenacious D. Oh, wow. Yeah.

I mean, Dave Grohl was involved with so many so many things. And technically, he played drums on one of Tom Petty's live performances on SNL. So we could do that, too, if we really wanted to.

He declined the invite to join the band. Yeah. Oh, really? No kidding.

No kidding. To start the Foo Fighters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I totally get where you guys are coming from. I've never been in what I would call a tribute band. I've been in cover bands, never been in what I call a tribute band.

But I think that tribute bands are kind of providing something that your standard cover band is not providing. It's opening another door. If you start off as a tribute band and like what you guys are doing, you're kind of branching out with the different projects that Dave Grohl is involved in.

Now you've got a different catalog of music because I think what we are falling into in the Chicagoland area is everybody's playing Don't Stop Believin', everybody's playing Every Rose Has Its Thorn, everybody's playing these same songs over and over again. I can't tell you how many times I've had a bar owner come over at the end of the night and give us an extra 50 bucks and said, I heard somebody request Bon Jovi. Thank you for not playing any Bon Jovi.

That's great. If I had to hear Wanted, Dead or Alive one more time, I was going to go in the back and yeah. I've heard that.

So I think it's kind of opening up the doors for a couple of things. I think that's why we stay away from the cover band thing too because there's so many of them and they all play the same stuff. And it's like, well, the exclusivity, the difference with joining a tribute, being a part of a tribute makes it, well, we're just going to focus on this because it also gives people the opportunity to go see the Foo Fighters as long as you do it well.

You know, like it's that experience as well because not everybody goes to a Foo Fighters concert. I think I was at my first Foo Fighters concert with Dominic here, what, two years ago? And, you know, like, I, well, prior to joining the band, I, I could care less about the Foo Fighters, to be honest with you. How do you feel about them now? I love them.

Yeah. Absolutely love them. When you, when I, once I joined the band, you know, I really dug into the catalog and I was like, oh my gosh, this is a lot bigger than I knew.

You know, you hear all my like, best of you times, like he's on the radio and I'm like, yeah, it's good. Right. But no, you've heard it a hundred times.

What's on the, what's on this album that wasn't commercialized? Give me something that's not, you know, I can imagine yourself, you know, saying to yourself, which one of these songs isn't three and a half minutes long with a hook? You know, a brand new one actually that came out. We were just talking about that on the ride here. He says, what, 10 minutes long? Yeah.

The teacher they just released yesterday. Okay. And it's over 10 minutes and it's just this saga of a rock song.

Wow. Yeah. No kidding.

We've talked about playing a play. Yeah. That Dave Grohl wrote.

And it's a 20 minute song. 24 minutes. He plays every part on it.

And you know, so it opens us up to the ability to learn all that stuff. Right. And hearing it as what I consider myself an outsider, cause I was always a jam band kind of guy.

I was into that kind of music, but you know, I'm a rock and roll lover in general. So, you know, joining the band, I was able to kind of be like, okay, well, I have to learn these guitar parts. Let me hear what else this guy's written and played and stuff.

And I love it. I think he's one of the best musicians in history. And who makes up the set list? Kind of share it.

Yeah. Yeah. Y'all kind of just throwing it together.

So, I figure, you know, just having done it before, you need probably about what? 36 songs to get through three hours of music a night, maybe a little bit more than that, if they're shorter songs. We typically play about 90 minute sets. So it's about 20 songs.

Okay. Usually. All right.

Are there any in that 90 minute set that wouldn't be a hit? Wouldn't be a mainstream song? Which one is it? And I guess, which one surprises you the most that the crowd reacts so well to it? Lowe. Yeah, Lowe. Lowe's a big one.

Hey, Johnny Park. I mean, that was kind of a bigger hit. But not everybody knows that.

Right. Everybody knows, like, All My Life and that type of stuff. But we definitely play a lot of other ones that.

Hey, Johnny Park is my one true love. So I pretty much demand that it's in every set. Okay.

All right. Okay. So are you guys, so are you pretty much doing opening acts now or closing acts? You're not doing full nights, like the eight to midnight yourselves just yet? Or is that the ultimate goal? That's the ultimate goal to get a one band bill with us exclusively.

Even the idea in its infancy of just it being a Nirvana and Foo Fighters split. Right. Let's do 90 minutes of Nirvana, and then we do 90 minutes of Foo Fighters.

It's kind of hard to pitch that off first when you don't have any evidence that it's been a successful thing. Right, right. So right now it's just more like paying your dues.

We've got tons of friends in the scene. We've even kind of mixed our tribute acts joining together in different sub genres of the rock category. There's a buddy's band that I have.

They're called Sugar. We're a Fall Out Boy tribute. Oh, okay.

You know, super easy to remember. And they do Fall Out Boy, Super Poppy, and we paired up with them and did a show last Saturday, and it went pretty well. That sounds like a good pairing, actually.

Yeah, it really, really was. It was a good, diverse crowd. Everybody was super into both sets.

Where was this? Where'd you play? Side Outs in Island Lake. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, and it was nice because it was outdoors, too, and a beautiful night. God, I haven't been to Side Outs in forever. This podcast is not brought to you by Side Outs.

Yeah. But it could be Side Outs if you're listening and you're looking. Yeah, we're looking for sponsors, Side Outs.

Yeah, it's been a while since I've actually been there. So what's the favorite gig or what's the best gig that you guys have had so far? Oh, I think. All right.

Can I speak on behalf of the Tuya's? Yeah, absolutely. All right. Tribute Island last year.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. That was pretty pinnacle, for sure.

So where was this? This was in Simmons Island in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Okay. And it's exactly what it is.

Tribute Island, it's before. Twinkin' tribute bands. Yeah, just a bunch of tribute acts that play.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Right. Okay.

And you have like five stages going on at the same time. And it's going on for hours and hours. They were at a previous location and the pandemic happened.

And now they relocated it for a second year coming up that we're already signed on to do over by the Windham Hotel. And it's literally at a hotel site. And it's right along the lakeside.

Okay. And you've got five stages that you could just walk along this path to. And Mosey, you're way along to check out these tribute acts.

But last year, I actually played two sets that day back to back with these guys. And then prior to them, I played with Whoa, the Blink tribute. And, you know, the crowd was a little, you know, it was a little dry, you know, that one.

But once the sun, because it was so hot. Yeah, right. And, you know, the sun started going down, you know, SLDG goes on and you just see this crowd emerge.

And, you know, everybody was into it. When I say every, you know, I mean, you played in bands, you see you see people just kind of sitting there with their arms crossed. Right.

I'm telling you. And then they have a few bears. And yeah, I'm telling you, everybody was in it.

Kids jumping, old people jumping. Wow. Everybody.

It was a great energy. Yeah, I'd have to agree. That's probably the best one.

And you guys are booked to play that again this year? Yeah. When's that coming up? Are you really? When's that coming up? We're on August 5th, Saturday night. August 5th.

And it's called Tribute Island. Tribute Island at the Windham Hotel in Kenosha, Wisconsin, specifically on the beach side stage. Sounds like a motorcycle destination for leaving in the summer.

There are a lot of bikes there when we go. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It sounds real busy that weekend. It's a it's a good time.

It's a really good time. Yeah. Okay.

What else you guys what else you guys have coming up in the next couple months? Um, we've got, you know, tentatively our next gig, you know, from from tonight till June 17th, we play an annual charity benefit. It's called Angels on the Moon. And our friend Carlos Perez, his wife, Tracy, they unfortunately lost, you know, one of their children.

And they organized this charity benefit that they do every year called Angels on the Moon. They hosted it at, you know, various establishments. You know, this one being the second year at this place called the Thirsty Horse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

But yeah, they you know, they get a bunch of, you know, other tribute acts. And, you know, they play music, they do raffles, you know, you donate to this, you know, nonprofit charity. It's for a very, very good cause.

And that's the next one we're going to be playing at. And then we've got a few more. But I've got a big one in July.

Oh, yeah. Up in Milwaukee. Okay.

Shank Theater. Yeah, Shank Hall. It's called Shank Hall.

Okay. And it's the night before the actual Foo Fighters play at the Harley Davidson Fest. Oh, wow.

No kidding. So we're hoping that there's going to be a lot of Foo Fighter fan in town that are going Friday night show. Right.

Green Day, I believe. Okay. And we're going to make some noise and try and get some Foo Fighters fans going in there.

Wow. Green Day one night, Foo Fighters the next night at the Harley Davidson. Correct.

Don't hope you don't get shanked. It's always a possibility in a place like that. Wow.

So so we talked about your Facebook page. Where else can people find you guys if they want to learn a little bit more about you and see your schedule? Instagram. That's another one.

Um, we do have a website, too, but it's under construction. Yeah. Yeah.

So mainly Facebook and Instagram. I mean, you look up SLDG on Facebook. You look up SLDG on Instagram.

It's the same thing. Okay. You know, it's yeah, you'll find all you have to do is put the acronym in and it'll pop up.

We don't have an official YouTube, but I I don't know, I have my own YouTube that I upload a lot of videos from show you I get like a GoPro and, you know, set it up on a stand and, you know, get a get a drum cam going and, you know, it's on there. But mostly it's it's only Facebook and Instagram. Yeah.

And then just word of mouth. Yeah. Yeah.

Excellent. Alrighty. Well, thanks for coming out, guys.

That was very interesting. Yeah. And I guess I can't call him smells like Dave Grohl anymore.

I got a call. That's the deal. That's SLDG.

God, I can't even spell. Yeah. But thanks for coming out, guys.

Hope to see you around somewhere at some festival this summer. Yeah. Yeah.

We're going to try and get out this way. You know, try and find somebody who holds jurisdiction over the bars and clubs in Joliet. And, you know, we do, you know, I got I got your guys's emails.

I believe I have yours. So, you know, I'll hit you up. You know, we'll get down to figure it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can make it up to the Tribute Island. Yeah, yeah.

It's definitely a good sound like a phone. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. And it being at a hotel.

It's perfect night stay. There you go. You feel like boogie in the window.

Yep. I'd have to do that. Yep.

You're getting your own room, though. This podcast is not brought to you by the window. Yeah, or Harley Davidson or Harley Davidson or Dave Grohl, for that matter, or side out.

He's the kind of guy that would probably join you on the probably would. No, absolutely. He would.

He he probably would. You're exactly right. It would you know, see if you can work on that for us.

Yeah. Well, when we run into him up in Milwaukee, we'll we'll mention it. Yeah, let him let him give his name.

That'd be great. All righty, guys. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Well, that was smells like Dave Grohl. They didn't really smell. They didn't smell.

That's LDG. SLDG. Yeah, there was no odor whatsoever.

No, none at all. No. But, you know, I think I'm going to have to figure out how I can either go to that.

What were they talking about? The the Tribute Island Tribute Island in Kenosha. That sounds interesting. But I'm really interested in the Harley thing.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Harley Festival.

Yeah, it must be. I don't know. Is this an anniversary? It is an anniversary year.

I don't know. We have to check. It's 120th year.

Wow. OK. So, yeah, I went I went to their hundredth.

That would have been 2003. Yeah, absolutely. I went there.

But this sounds interesting. So they're playing the night before the actual Foo Fighters. At Shanks.

Yes. Who also does not sponsor this podcast. Does not.

Right. And neither does the Foo Fighters. Right.

But but they're playing the night that Green Day, the actual Green Day is playing. So that's that's interesting. And there's going to be Foo Fighters fans.

So hopefully they'll show up to Shanks and shake them. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I think I think we might have to plan that.

And now that, you know, people know that they they really don't smell. No, they don't. No, I did.

I brought some Vicks just in case to put in the nostrils. I stayed back a little bit, but no, they were they were OK. They were clean guys.

They were clean guys, definitely. But you got to be careful these days. Yeah, because you don't know.

You never know. It could have pig pen with them. Yeah.

No, Charlie Brown. Well, they had Pap Smear. Pap Smear.

You know, the nice thing about that tribute island, I noticed Dan said he says, you know, you can go. It's outside the hotel along the lakefront. Right.

He says you can mosey along the lakefront. I don't remember the last time I moseyed. You know, it's just I think I'd have to practice mosey.

I'd have to try it. I mean, is it along along the way like sashaying? No, I think sashaying is almost like skipping. OK, OK.

Mosey is a little bit subtle. We've totally gone off the tracks. People are like, are you guys going to get to the point or whatever? Well, yeah, the point is we hope you enjoyed this episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast, and we will see you next Tuesday with another exciting episode.

Good night. No, or goodbye. You could be listening to this during the day.

Oh, that's true. That's right. See you later.

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.