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 I'm Hollywood Mike.

How you doing, Ray? I'm doing well. A little tired. Yeah.

Yeah. It's getting to that point of the day, I think. Yeah, it is.

It is. It's our second podcast of the day, and the earlier one was rather... They zapped a lot of my energy. Yeah, me too.

Me too. No, they were a lot of fun though. And they brought cookies.

They brought cookies. So for future podcasts, anybody who wants to bring cookies, we'll take those. We will.

And I'm starting to get a sugar high right now. Yep. Absolutely.

I can feel it. Yep. And they brought us beer koozies and t-shirts and sunglasses.

Sunglasses. Wow. I always need sunglasses.

You know, my wife said we would never amass anything monetarily from doing this thing. And we already are. That's right.

Look at that. Who we have in the studio. Okay.

Today or today, this evening, we have Superfly Symphony. How are you guys doing? Good. How are you? How are you? We didn't bring cookies, but we did bring t-shirts.

Oh, awesome. All right. See? Are they that cool t-shirt right there? Yes, they are.

Oh, look at that. So where did the name come from? Superfly? That was all Ken. Starsky and Hutch.

We just thought, you know, when we were thinking of what would be a disco band name, what's more obvious than that? Right? Right. Right. Superfly Symphony.

So it did kind of come from the whole, what's the genre that we call it? Well, 70s disco. Yeah. Curtis Mayfield.

That's the word I was looking for. Yeah. Absolutely.

So is that pretty much the realm that you deal in? It's all the 70s disco stuff? It's 70s disco, R&B. We do do some like 80s R&B, like even some newer, a couple of newer things, Bruno Mars type stuff. Right.

Right. But mostly it's old school stuff, Kool and the Gang, Sheik, John Summer, Aretha Franklin. We do a lot of R&B stuff like that too.

And I'm assuming you're the founder of the band? Yes. You are. And what role do you play? I am the guitar player.

Okay. Excellent. That's got to be fun playing some of that punk stuff on guitar.

Oh, it's great. Fender Strat? Yep. Fender Strat.

Yep. I'm thinking of what, Twin Reverb or something like that. I play, well, I switch off between Fender amps, depending on the venue.

Sometimes I use a Friedman amp if it's a larger venue, but mostly Fender stuff. Yeah. You got to have a Stratocaster for that sound.

It's that tone. That Niles Rodgers sound. I love that sound.

I absolutely love that. It's the tone. You got to have it.

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And what's your role in the band? She's the real leader. Uh-oh. To make a long story short, Ken has not mentioned that he's a guitar teacher and he's been in many bands for many years and at Hicks Brothers Music that used to be in Batavia, which is now in Geneva.

He used to teach, Scott used to teach with me there as well. That's why I know you. That's why I know you because I used to go to Hicks Brothers quite a bit.

Yeah. Yes. And we were, I was there.

The second you said that. I actually was there. I started, I walked into Hicks because my mother told me when I was 11 that I could not play the drum set.

So at 33, I decided to go in there and take, I wanted to take a lesson. So one of the Hicks, Andrew Hicks' sister was standing there and I have like, I want to take this. I want to play the drum set.

And she goes, oh, you're not the first mom that wants to do that. Next thing I know, I'm taking lessons probably for only about six months. Ken is actually, they were putting together like a rock school for adults and Amy Hicks grabbed me and she said, I want you to be the drummer for the new, the first Hicks band.

Wow. And I said, what are you crazy? So next thing I know, we meet with Ken and there's a bunch of band members and they realized I had not been playing that long and I was a better singer. So I got kicked.

They brought in another, a drummer and then that's how this whole band started. Ken was actually just our teacher. And as time went on and people would leave, Christy would get upset and cry because band people were leaving.

And he's like, Chris, you're just at that point, you need a better band. So really this whole band was created from that rock school and he just took me under his wing and said, we can do this. And there's no crying, we can do this.

You need a better band. So it's been what, 15 years, 15 years, this has evolved into something much bigger, way more colorful, exciting and the skill level than I ever anticipated. This was just me getting out of the house to get away from kids and it became this thing that I had always wanted to do.

So he really is the founder of this entire band. And as people were leaving, we had a male singer at one point. He left because obviously there's some, there's a lot of male singers in a lot of the disco.

Once they had, those singers had left, we decided to beef up like the backup singing. And then that's when Ken had found Kelly. We were in the beginning, we weren't playing disco.

We were playing classic rock and modern country songs, just popular radio stuff. Right. And it was great.

I mean, you didn't start off playing the disco, you were just kind of experimenting. The idea was for me is that I, Christy wanted to have a band and you know, Christy's husband is a keyboard player and plays in Superfly now, but they, you know, she wanted to have a band. So, you know, it morphed out of the band class that I was teaching and you know, she's like, you got to help me do this.

And I was like, yeah, I said, I'll help you do that. But she needed a better people in her band. You know, if she wanted to do what she wanted to do, going out and playing clubs on a regular basis and doing these things, I said, if I'm going to do this, then you have to trust me to bring my own people into this group and it's got to be a good band or else we're not going to do it.

Right. Right. So we did.

And, you know, and we were playing pop songs, country songs, rock songs, so just a mixed bag of things. And it was fine. But I started seeing like noticing that, you know, people were- My skill level was getting better.

Well, it was always getting better. Not to pat herself on the back or anything. No, God no.

You know how it is in the clubs, you know, you're playing and you know, people, you know, respond well. But, you know, most of the time they're sitting there and they're having their conversations and song ends, then they're clapping, you know. But we would throw in a dance song or some kind of fun, upbeat party song.

And when that song would come up in the set list, all of a sudden people would jump up and start dancing. And it was great. And then as soon as we go back to the next song in the list and everybody go back to their table and I'm like, I don't want that.

I want more of this. You know, so one day I walked in and I said, we're scrapping everything we're doing and we're starting fresh and we're going to be nothing but 70s disco. We thought it was crazy.

We're like a piece of metal guy. They all looked at me like, you know, they were going to kill me. But yeah, metal guy goes to disco.

I mean, I would have. Yeah. Yeah.

But, you know, I told them, I said, you know, trust me on this. If we go out there and we're good, people will respond. They're going to love it.

Absolutely. And we put the time in and I brought the right people on board. A lot of time.

A lot of time. I knew we needed another good female singer. And Kelly was also a student at Hicks and she was Hicks has like a a big like ukulele band that gets together and they go play.

And she was playing ukulele, ukulele, ukulele, my retired friends. Yeah. And I walked in one day and she's playing her ukulele and singing like somewhere over the rainbow or something like that.

Because that's the song that every ukulele player plays. And I was like, I just walked straight up and I'm like, hey, you want to be in my disco band? And she's like, yes. No, I was not.

I was like, I was like, in my head, thinking like, disco, like, who's this weirdo? Disco. Yeah. Well, yeah.

That's the worst pickup line I've ever heard in my life. Yeah. Yeah.

You want to be in my disco band. I like I'd always wanted to be in a band. I think I just made it as like a little mental, like, before I die, I'm going to be in a band, even though like I've never taken singing lessons.

I had like just started singing in this ukulele band and like over the rainbow. What had only happened recently at that time, because I just went to the band leader and I was like, hey, I think I could sing that better than you. Because he's like, it's like a six year old man singing over the rainbow.

And I was like, I can, you know, play Judy Garland a little bit. And then when Ken asked me, I was like, I don't really like disco, but like, I guess I'm being asked to be in a band, so I'll say yes. I'm guessing that you were born after the disco era.

A little bit. Yes. My parents are so pleased with this.

Ouch. Yes. So, so you guys are kind of like co lead singers, I guess.

Is that, is that the way it works? Well, we have three female lead singers. Oh, OK. All right.

How many people are in the band total? A total eight. OK. Good.

OK. I can identify with that. That's why we didn't bring them all.

Yeah. Yeah. I can identify with that.

The other female lead singer is Lil Capelli, which you might know from the band Lil. She has a band, like a four piece, they do like Zeppelin and rock stuff. Lil is also through Hicks Brothers.

I've taught her children for the past 15 years, 20 years. You know, I've watched all her little kids, you know, her little kids grow up to be pro musicians now. And I played with some and dabbled in some bands with her in the past, rock bands, you know, and we've had a male lead singer who was also a saxophone player, which, you know, that worked out well because it kind of took dual purpose, dual purpose.

Yeah. But and, you know, he he left the band recently at the beginning of the year, personal reasons, just kind of, you know, doing wants to do something different, you know, right after all these years of doing this kind of thing. So we decided to go with three females and the chemistry is amazing.

They sound great together, you know, right. And who are the other members? So we've got three female lead yourself is the drummer. Oh, really? OK.

All right. Yeah. And he's a youngster.

He's mid 20s. OK. Andrew Hicks, his son, another one that I watched him grow up from being a tiny little kid.

And right. Right. You know, watched him develop as a drummer.

He's fantastic. You know, the best groove, you know, he's got great feel on base is Bill Kowalski. He's another guy that I've known him since early high school days.

We went to high school in Cicero and Berwyn, Morton, East and West. And, you know, a lot of the Chicago musicians that we all went to high school together, everybody's still playing. Right.

You know, Kevin Conner and Aura, Bob Biagi and Affinity, Joe Mazuka, Lights Out Chicago. There's like half a dozen of us guys that all just we were all in high school together playing in bands. And we're still all doing it now.

Yeah, I know a few of those guys for sure. Yeah. And although Bill did say this is the last band he's going to be in.

Yeah. Yeah. He's a beast.

But our bass player, he's like, this is it for me. You know, when this if it ends tomorrow, I'm done permanently. Yeah.

I think most of the band members, most of the band members are type A. So it's good and it's bad. But it's it's good in the fact that everyone's putting in the effort. So that's why Bill said, I'm going to give you 100 percent.

But after this, I think I need to be done here. You can't give me these songs and, you know, throw these bass lines at me. So but he's working through them and they're he's doing a great job.

So anyway. Yeah. And Christie's husband is our keyboard player.

Oh, right. Yeah. Brian Sashon.

Yeah, he played classical and jazz in college and then became a dentist. But I obviously we shared the music part of it. And I just said, you need to you need to be you need to be in the band.

Right. Right. You know, if we're going to expand, we really need to be a dentist and not be in the disco.

Right. So it's because it's just a natural flow. It is a natural way of tickling the ivories.

That's the joke. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Now I get it. OK.

I thought I was going to have something to do with the sound of a drill. And the sound of disco to some people, some people, some people don't like disco. Yeah.

Some people don't like this. And it sounds like a dentist drill to some people. A lot of people that don't like this go, you know, they come to our show and they have a good time.

Right. Even though maybe it's not their thing. That energy.

You know, you can't you can't not smile when people are having a great time in front of you. Absolutely. You know, you know, I mean, I mean, your band, too, does.

Yeah. You guys get the groove going. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I think the people that say that they don't like disco nowadays are the people that are still stuck on the whole disco sucks thing from when they when they broke and burned the records at Comiskey Park because they thought it was a cool thing to do. And, you know, like like Doc in our band, you know, our our our keyboard player, he says, oh, I hate disco. But when you watch all of the videos of Cadillac Groove and we play a disco song and we don't play a lot of true of true disco songs.

Right. Maybe three. He's going nuts to that song.

But no, he hates disco. Yeah. Right.

It's something that you can feel. And it's not like you're putting a record on at home. It's right.

There's something about live music. I mean, we've put a lot of time in to make sure there's no tracks. We're trying to learn it.

Yeah. We don't use note for note. Nothing.

If we can't play it, we don't do it. No, no. That's good.

But, you know, the disco thing. My history is actually heavy metal. I played in a band called Damien Thorn in Chicago here since Damien Thorn.

Wow. Yeah. For 40 years.

Yeah. I play in a band, which Slayer, which is also from like 1982. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we're overseas. And this. Yeah.

You know, like Damien Thorn played in 14 countries. We've toured it. That's all we used to do.

People would always say, oh, you know, we don't never see you playing anywhere around here because we're we're always right on. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And next month I'm going to which Slayer, you know, to Germany and stuff, do some festivals. And we just had a album come out.

No kidding. Also, it's it's kind of, you know, I play heavy metal and then I play disco. Right, right, right.

And all the metal guys, you know, it's the same thing. Oh, what are you doing? You know, what is that? You know, musicians are musicians. I'm like, yeah, it's a music band.

Right. I go, you know, what do you do for a living? You drive a truck and you're greasy and you hate it. And all you do is complain.

Right. I play the guitar all day, all day long and get paid. Right.

Whether it's teaching or playing or playing heavy metal or playing disco or, you know, right, sitting with an eight year old kid, read music, you know, it's like, right. So what's the demographics of a one of your shows? Who's out in the crowd? What's the age? Well, it's I would say it's kind of a mix, but I'd say majority is women between the ages of 30 and 50. Mm hmm.

A lot of reason, right? Well, you see a lot of them there, like girls night out groups, OK? You know, or like somebody's birthday. So there's like 15 of them. And oh, yeah.

Well, they come on. They get in. They get an Uber.

Oh, yeah. Like they're making a whole evening of it. Right.

It's yeah. The energy in the crowd is just insane. Depends on the place, too, though.

Sometimes that even flow, you get like 20 something's walking in and they're like, I know this song. We're like, yeah, you know this song. Yeah.

Yeah. You get some young people, you know, and they might not know what they're listening to, but, you know, they walk in and the the grooves go and then the beats go and then it's nice and loud and the energy is happening and they just flow right in and they're enjoying it. You know, you know, I think they when you say 20 somethings, I think they're hearing a lot of stuff because a lot of that old 70s disco stuff is still present in a lot of modern movies.

Oh, yeah. Look at the Marvel movies. You know, there's all kinds of stuff in the in the Marvel movies in the D.C. movies and things like that, because if they're 20 something, they don't know that music because their parents listen to it.

They know that music because their grandparents listened to it. So it's either their grandparents or it's movies. There's a right.

It's a lot of media, you know, TV and movie soundtracks and stuff. Not just disco, but, you know, classic rock, right? All you hear is Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones and, you know, the Beatles and things that have been around for 50 years. Right.

And it's going strong. You know, as a teacher, I get these little kids, you know, they come in and I'll ask them, I'll say, you know, what's your favorite band? What do you listen to? Oh, I don't listen to music. Right.

I'm like, well, well, how do you know you want to play the guitar? I don't listen to music. Your dad said so. Well, my dad, yeah, my dad plays, you know, Led Zeppelin in the car or Van Halen in the car.

And that's kind of it's a weird like exposure to music now for these little guys. But my dad said it's either the guitar or the accordion. So that's why I'm here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I think, you know, the younger generation today, they're I think they're starting to recognize that the sounds that are being modeled with digital recording and and the beats that people are producing for hip hop music, they're starting to realize that those are sounds that were actually once made with an actual instrument back in 1975. Yeah, absolutely. And they're exploring, OK, what were those instruments? And they're getting into, you know, I'm seeing younger bands nowadays.

Their keyboard player is playing a vintage keyboard that you can't go to a music store and buy anymore. It's got wooden sides, you know, and they're going out trying to find those, you know, those instruments. Yeah.

It's like the circle, you know, everything kind of comes around. Well, like songs and mashups you hear on TikTok, like my boyfriend was listening to a song that like it was just a mashup. And I was like, do you know what that like original bit is from? He's like, what do you mean? And then I played it for him.

He's like, oh, my God, no way. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, you're never supposed to ask a woman this, but I have to. How old are you? I am 32. So what is the what is the who's who's the oldest and who's the youngest? Johnny's the youngest.

I feel like Johnny's like 22, 23. He's 23. He's a baby.

Oldest is our bass player. He's turned 60. OK, wow.

So you guys you guys have almost a 40 year span and age differences of people coming together in a band playing 70s disco music. Yeah, right. And the funny part is that's exactly what our crowd is, too.

Yeah, it's it's a big span. And it's just I mean, I even have 70 year old people saying, when are you playing? Right. Right.

Everyone likes to go. I joke, but my husband is like at the office talking about the band more than he is talking about teeth. Right.

And we have patients that follow us. So right. Right.

It's it's just it's just fun. And it almost feels like Halloween sometimes. Like you can put something goofy on and you're not going to be judged.

You know, people ask, what do you wear? You wear something that you would feel ridiculous wearing at the grocery store, and then you're at. Unless you go into Wal-Mart, because all bets are off. Although at Wal-Mart, Target, Jewel and Kohl's, they play disco music.

They do. They do. Whole Foods, too.

I feel like it's always disco on it because it makes you happy and you want to spend more money. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, and the funny thing was, disco at one point in time was actually the counterculture. And I think what led to the whole disco sucks thing isn't that people disliked the music. It became the counterculture.

Think think Studio 54. Yeah. You know, when when everybody started talking about this counterculture and, you know, Andy Warhol, you know, who was, you know, kind of a strange guy and all the drugs and the sex.

You know, people talk about sex and drugs and rock and roll. Well, sex and drugs and disco is happening at places like Studio 54. And it was spreading around is going around the country.

Then all of a sudden it gets to big cities that weren't really involved in that kind of culture. And disco became the counterculture. Yeah.

And then what do you do? You you label it something that people are not going to be happy with. And that's when this disco tux, this disco sucks slogan came around. Next thing you know, you have people burning records at a ballpark.

I was there and I was at that thing. Yeah. Yeah.

But the music was never bad. It's not in my opinion. It was never bad.

It was I thought it was good music. I look at it from, you know, because I'm a musician, I look at it from my guitar perspective. Right.

And, you know, when I was a I grew up in Chicago and the south side of Chicago, this little neighborhood. And when I was like, I started playing when I was eight. And right around that time, between eight and nine years old, I had an older brother who played and all his friends played.

So I was around all these older teenagers that were playing. Right. So I was getting that bug watching them.

And I'm like, oh, I got to do that. At the end of my block was a house that had a band that played in the basement of this house. Right.

And it was like a eight or nine piece like funk band. You know, they had horns. They had, you know, percussion.

And I would hear this and I'm like, wow, what is that? You know, I'm sitting in in my bedroom playing Black Sabbath records. Right. I go outside and I'm hearing this like, you know, funk band playing down the street.

And I would walk down there and I'd stand on sidewalk and like stare through the window and watch them. You know, right. Right.

And then one day, one of the guys, he goes, hey, you want to come in and listen? I'm like, yeah, you know. So from that day on, every day I was down there like watching these guys. And they had this guitar player that was just amazing.

Right. Playing this funk stuff. And I was like, looked like his right hand was about to come off the end of his arm.

Yeah, I was like, what is that? I'm like, you know, I was new to guitar and just a little kid. But that was like completely different than anything that I've. Seen regarding a guitar before, you know, the way this guy is playing.

So that always kind of stuck in my head. So, you know, all the years growing up and playing like hard rock and metal. When I had my own time, I was working on that funk stuff.

And because to me, the guitars, it doesn't matter the genre of the music, whether it's country or jazz or blues or funk, or it's all kind of like a new flavor of ice cream, you know, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. It's like you got to know it all.

And it's fun to learn it all. Right. Like, oh, I think it was Keith Richards that said, when you walk into a guitar shop, you don't see rhythm guitars and lead guitars.

No, you see guitars. You see guitars. And guitar players.

Exactly. And guitar players. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And, you know, the guys that always say stuff like, yeah, that that disco and funk stuff, though, it's really easy. It's usually one or two chords.

Like that's that's yeah, they're like, it's one or two chords. It's so primitive. Anybody can do that.

OK, then go ahead and do it. Let me see you do it here. Yeah, it's what they don't realize is, you know, those guitar players.

Well, all those guys in those disco bands in the early 70s, you know, they were jazz players. Yeah. You know, and they went to disco because they couldn't get gigs.

Right. Because the rock bands were taking all their gigs. Right.

You know, in the in the 60s and stuff. And these guys had to find a way to make money. And the only way was to play dance music because they had people in the door.

And that's how that kind of evolved. So, you know, all those guys are were educated jazz players. They're not, you know, that music is that simple.

No, it's not. It's very rhythmic. And and yeah, if anybody who says that that guitar playing is easy.

Right. Come on. You can come on.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, here you go. Do it. Yeah.

And yeah, you do it. Do you guys have a favorite song you like to play or is there something that people request a lot? I was just I was just about to ask Kelly. We do play original.

Yeah, I feel like everyone's got their own favorite. I think mine is I will survive partly because of the way the crowd reacts to it or gimme gimme from ABBA. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Oh, yeah. Wow. That was like a favorite when I was a kid.

Like, I didn't like any disco except I remember I got this 18s album when I was a kid, like and they were like, you know, like a crummy Disney ish band and they had a whole album covering ABBA songs. And I listened to it like nonstop on repeat for like a year. So I knew every song.

Now I know like every ABBA song because of that. That's good because. Yeah.

And so now gimme, gimme, gimme was like my longstanding favorite. And now we get to sing it. No, that's good.

Yeah, that's good. What about your favorite song? I always I always like to ask the vocalists that because I, I like them all. But it took probably, what, three years to get this one in the works.

Everyone. In fact, we even had somebody that quit when I pulled up the song because it has three key changes. And they were they were not going to be charting it out.

So that was they were done. But it is Donna Summer's last dance. Yeah, that one.

Again, just like Kelly, when I was a kid, I was about six years old that out those albums came out and all the remixes, everything. We had every version of the Donna Summer. There was a lot of version.

There's so many versions. And yes, they just kept remixing and remixing. And I don't know how many songs I should know that how many songs Donna Summer did, but I feel like they remixed them so many times.

But they were all they're phenomenal. But I had picked a version that was an extended version because, of course, every version I pick is the live version or the extended version because it's bad ass. But so I presented that song and they they shook it off to like, no, no, no.

We got to get some some of these probably a little easier songs under our belt so that we can grow our set list. But I kept bringing that one back and I'm like, I trust me. I've been singing this since I was six.

I could sell this song. I will own it. And finally it came together and it was a bitch.

But it's it's all good. It is just to hear it live is just amazing. So I try.

You know, I unfortunately I grew up trying to like emulate all the artists. Barbra Streisand, I always tried to sound just like them. And then later on found that like a vocal teacher had said, what's your voice? Right.

What do you sound like? So what's been great about this is I got I'm using all of those all my alter ego voices that I worked on. But we have been doing some originals. And, you know, Ken's pulling kind of pulling that out.

Well, what would you do? And I can't sound like anybody else. I'm not Whitney Houston. I'm not Christina Aguilera.

I'm not any of these artists. What would you do? So then you start pulling in all these artists that you've been work you've been working on your whole life and grabbing these things. And that's how we ended up writing some originals.

And you should have brought a guitar with you, Ken. Oh, my God. Yeah, he is.

They've joked with him where they've told him, like when he does a guitar solo, that he needs to tape fingers together because he's just he's like he does so much that it's like over the top. So, of course, we had to pull in Purple Rain. No, not Purple Rain, although that was on my list.

But let's go crazy because Prince's guitar solo at the end, he kills it. And he always puts he can put his own spin on it, but he could play it note for note. So it's just it's just been such a good combination and just pulling the best out of everybody, I think.

And I think really, we've all just really grown as musicians. And, you know, I not all of us, you know, went to school for this. But we just are embracing this because this is like, you know, one in a million chance that you find those right people that you click with.

And when that chemistry is, you have to like you have to just dig your nails into it and go with it. And that's really what Ken has shown me. You know, just stick with it.

Don't get up in your head, work it out. And that's why the band's been successful. And we were getting booked.

And, you know, they said, oh, these bands won't make any money. Well, I own a business. I'm like, this band is going to make money.

I make money. I will show you this band will make money. So and between me and then kicking him, say, what else can we get? We need more.

And and he's like, all right. So, you know, he stepped up and made this something big. Right.

Right. So very grateful. It's good that I mean, we can we can tell that the three of you are excited and passionate about the band.

You know, my my Donna Summer story, this is actually kind of funny. The reason why I smiled when you mentioned that song was I was at an open jam one night and the piano player starts playing that song. Literally starts playing that song.

And the the bass player knew the song. And I was just standing on stage. There were two other guitar players up there.

And I know the words to that song. So so and the funny thing was the keyboard player didn't know that there was a key change coming up. The bass player did.

And then the other one of the other guitar players knew that there was a key change coming up. And it was just like you said, it's not an easy song to learn, not an easy song to play. But we had the people on stage that night where it just came together and nobody could believe that we played that song in an open mic.

Right. That's fantastic. Awesome.

I'll guarantee we could never duplicate that again. We would have to have those exact same guys up there on the stage. And chances are they're not going to remember that it actually happened.

Right. Oh, that's great. No, I'm I've got to go out and see you guys now.

I bet you my wife would absolutely love you guys. She she my wife won't listen to anything unless it's disco. I mean, really.

Or country. She'll listen to country, but she loves. Well, you know, we got to go.

We need to do a Cadillac Groove Superfly show. That would be that would be really good. That would work.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to need a huge place.

You know, we can we can make that we can actually make that we can actually make that happen because we are we're actually playing this Friday night at tailgaters with Strung Out. So if we can Cadillac Groove and Strung Out can play that place, then we can. Yeah, we can work something out.

That'd be great. Yeah. So turn out Tom Dixon, I hope you listen to this podcast every single week because, you know, we're in the band together.

Give these guys a call. That's right. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We like tailgaters. Tailgaters are great.

Yeah. And people come out for that. They that's that's like a big that would be a huge evening.

Right. Right. They make plans.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think that's the great thing about having a wide range of of of ages that come out because everything's different. You've got the group that want to get there early and have dinner.

Right. And they dress up and they're ready to dance right away. Right.

Then you've got the younger crowd that have to have a few drinks in them before they're going to get up and dance. And so they straggle in a little bit later and you watch the place fill up. And it just makes for it makes for a better night when it's a large demographic.

We're lucky that we have a couple of regular fans that come to every show and they kick stuff off. Right. Right.

Off the bat. Yeah. Like Spider, Spider, Spider, Spider, because because of the way he dances, right? He's a great dancer and he's like a, you know, martial arts guy, so he's really limber, flowy.

And he's not he's not scared to do anything. So he he has no shame. Yeah, he'll the dance floor could be completely open and dead and he'll get up there and do his thing.

And and it's like a magnet. Right. Right.

Right. A magnet. Wow.

Wow. So what do you guys have coming up next as far as dates so people can go out and see you? You got an even flow date coming up, right? I already put my calendar down. Hey, that's why I told you guys to take it out.

I did not keep it out. OK. Yeah.

You've got an even flow date coming up and then you've got something coming up. The even flow is Saturday, May 13th, which that's a that's a great place. I don't know why, but but even flow reminds me of the club in purple.

I don't know why, though, maybe because it's two stories and, you know, you can be up high looking down at the stage. Even throw throws down that that place always gets wild. And you do.

And that's our hometown. OK. Right.

Right. Right. That's our like that.

And the roundhouse, you know, that's our neighborhood. That's right. The two brothers roundhouse is coming up on the 24th.

June 24th. June 24th. One day after my birthday.

So I'll be trying. So, yeah, we'll be throwing down. OK.

Oh, that's going to be good, then. Yeah. She just got engaged.

Ooh. Oh, wow. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I'll keep him.

And he'll keep you guys. We don't like him. You don't like him.

Was he a fan of the band? We love he's a fan of the band. Was he a fan and met him at a show? No, he was. I did not meet him on a show.

OK. Yeah. But you met him at the gym, right? Yeah, I met him at the gym.

I heard the story. Yeah, she's a black belt in karate. Nice.

Excellent. Excellent. So we were multi multifaceted.

Yeah. Yeah. So how can people find you on social media? I assume you're on Twitter and Facebook.

You got a website and a whole bit. Superfly Symphony dot com. All of our other social media is just Superfly Symphony.

OK, so you can find us on Facebook. Facebook's mostly where you're going to find stuff. We post occasionally on Instagram, but we spend a lot of time on Facebook.

Right. All our show dates and everything you can find right on our website. If you want to hear our original music, Spotify, Apple Music everywhere, you know, just look up Superfly Symphony.

Now is your original music the disco genre? Yes, it is. OK, interesting. So there's actually a band writing new disco music.

We put four singles out this past year. And we're probably going to do some more coming up pretty soon. But, you know, we try to stay pretty retro.

So we'll have to we'll have to put that stuff in now in the podcast. I'm curious to see what that sounds like. Nile Rodgers needs to be scared.

Yeah. Because they're doing new stuff, too. So.

Yeah, right, right. They got to watch themselves. Although I think Niles is doing OK for himself.

Yeah, Niles is doing OK, man. Kent did contact him to ask him if he wanted to play on one of our songs. Oh, wow.

That's great. That's great. You know, did he respond? No.

Yeah. I wrote Garth Brooks one time, too, and he didn't respond to me. I asked him.

I asked him. Yeah. I asked Garth Brooks if he wanted to come and speak at a youth conference.

But he never responded. But he was a little busy at the time. He was right in the middle of, I think, the rodeo tour or something.

Right. I think that's where you have to be persistent and just keep bothering them. And eventually, you know, you'll either get a cease and desist order.

It'll show up. It'll show up. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Either way, you'll get an autograph some kind of way.

That's right. I'll put that right up next to my restraining order from Leonard Nimoy. I love Leonard Nimoy.

I'm just kidding. There's no restraining order filed against me from Leonard Nimoy. Yeah, it's awesome.

I love it. All righty, guys. Well, thanks a lot for coming out tonight.

We hope to get out and see you guys. Thank you for having us. We do have some merch for you, too.

So you got to have a Superfly shirt. Got to have a super shirt. I own is a Superfly shirt.

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Hollywood Mike's in the building.

My nickname is Mother Bling. So I get it. Mother Bling.

All right. That's right. All right.

Thanks a lot, guys. All right. We'll see you.

Thanks for having us. Well, there we go. Disco's back.

Superfly Symphony. Superfly Symphony. Bringing disco back to your town.

I think I love the name of the band. I do, too. And we have T-shirts that say Superfly.

Yes, we do. We're going to wear them at every podcast episode now. That's right.

It's like a name tag for me. Superfly. No more Hollywood.

So it's still got to be Hollywood, because that's on my motorcycle. That's the only change. All right.

I thought maybe like Superfly Mike. Superfly Hollywood. Yeah.

Who ever thought that disco would be coming back and people are still getting into it and digging it? It's coming back and I'm into it. I'll I'll go see him. I definitely see them.

Sounds like a good time. So I hope you enjoyed that episode with Superfly Symphony. Make sure you go out and see them somewhere this upcoming summer season.

They'll be all over the place. And thanks again for listening to our podcast. And as always, we'll see you next Tuesday.

Later, the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of M&R 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.