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 Wade and this is Hollywood Mike Mottoyer.

How you doing? Good. How you doing, Mike? I'm doing pretty good. Great.

Great. Another week. Yeah.

You brought the band in this week. I did bring the band in this week. Guys by the name of the Lounge Puppets joining us tonight are Pete and John.

How you guys doing? Good. Awesome. Happy to be here.

Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah.

Glad you can come out. It's kind of a lousy night, but glad you made it. So tell us a little bit about this band.

How did this all come together and where did that name come from? Okay. So we'll start with the name, I guess. We started a cover band.

We thought we were going to reinvent the wheel. So we were doing zombies tunes and Elvis, whatever we want to do. We just thought we were going to be a really cool band and do really cool stuff and we didn't know what we were doing at all until we started playing some 80s hair band songs, living on a prayer.

Here I go again. Crowds started to come out. It grew from there.

The name came from my wife actually, we were driving down the highway and saw a billboard. I was going through names, Lounge Act, Barfly, Live Nude Girls, The Nude Puppets. That's a different show.

Anyway, and she saw like this marionette and she goes, Lounge Puppets. And I said, well, it's kind of got a ring. You know, we play lounges and bars and I kind of like their little puppets playing the songs that they want to hear.

That's how it all evolved. Sounds good. How long ago did you guys get together? 23 years ago, I think we started it.

Same group of guys or have you gone through some personnel changes? I've gone through some personnel changes. I think Rick Kroll, actually, no, not Rick Kroll. I think it was actually Ron Boyles was bass and John Shimmons was on the drums.

And Bob Irvine was guitar player. And then it went to Rick Kroll and Russ Kroll, the brothers. And then we moved on to Bill Dixon at bass and he's been here the longest with me and we had, God, I even forgot his name right now.

He'd be so pissed at me right now. He used to be the drummer in Jet. Phil Bolas.

Phil Bolas was the drummer. And once we parted ways with him, you know, Jason Tshichaki came in and it's been Phil, Jason, myself and Marty for 15 years, Marty Craven. And when we parted ways with Marty Craven, we needed shock therapy.

And that is John Craig. John, are you having an issue? I have no idea. Nothing's coming through.

Oh, we can fix it for you. Yeah. Kind of like his amp.

Right before me down right before showtime. Right. I got nothing.

Nothing. I got nothing. I got nothing.

I had something for a minute. There we go. Perfect.

I probably sat on the court and pulled it up. Our sound guy just posted something on Facebook the other day. It was a picture of a monitor and it said, I am a monitor.

I don't fix the problem. Right. Yeah, right.

Consider the source out to Eric right there. Yeah. And so when you first started out, it wasn't it wasn't the hair band.

You know, known for nowadays. It's not like you were going for almost more like a like a new wave or punk type kind of a rock. Well, we did everything.

We did Alice in Chains. We did Pearl Jam. We did Santana.

All I ever wanted. You know, we were just trying to find a way. We I've always been an original artist.

So this was my first crack at at the at the cover band scene, you know. And I thought, oh, nobody's doing the zombies. And, you know, no one told me about her.

And I'll do that and it'll be cool and everybody will love it. And they didn't. They wanted to hear Don't Stop Believing again.

And again and again and again and again. Playing in front of a lot of people. And so we were playing a bar.

It was actually O'Malley's on Pulaski. And as you might know, Zach, he was the owner then. And we're playing a bar and we were working on living on a prayer.

And here I go again. We're going to add some of the stuff that we were you know, we lived through and we played there was 50 people there. Right.

Right. Right. It's our headlining show.

Got 50 people there. And, you know, it's the end of the night. I say, hey, let's do living on a prayer.

I don't have it down yet. So what? There's nobody here. Let's just play it.

Right. So we played it and it was the only song of the evening that got people up and standing in front of us. Right.

And then we played here I go again. And they dug that and I was like, hey, maybe we should learn more of that. And, you know, my promise is something yesterday.

I made up my mind. I'm wasting no more time. Here I go again.

Here I go again. Light it up. Let's party.

And then I thought, well, we're going to try and build a following and, you know, nobody's going to see us. So what do we do? All right. Let's let's forget about making money right now.

Let's make sure we sound good. So we found a sound guy and let's open for all the big bands for nothing. So we open for the Fabulous Janes for nothing.

We open for our for nothing. We open for infinity for nothing. We open up for all the big bands for nothing.

But we were playing in front of, you know, packed rooms. And within a year, we were packing those rooms ourselves. And we've been very blessed and fortunate to be doing it this long and still be ringing in a crowd and, you know, obtaining new fans.

You said you were an original artist. What did you do before the puppets? I was in a band, John John. Well, we both go back to the Thirsty Well days.

So I live about seven minutes from there and I fronted a band called Feeder. And then I fronted a band called My Hero, which actually toured opened up for Warrant on tour. We were, you know, we probably had a deal in the works with Sony and Nirvana happened.

OK, so I'm not a big Nirvana fan. Sorry for all those people out there. It's just no, I feel your pain.

I'm in the I'm in the same situation you are. Yeah, absolutely. About that time I was on the, you know, Queensryche and got Tesla.

I'm still a huge Tesla fan. I see them every time they come to Chicago. Yeah.

And all my favorite bands couldn't get radio play anymore because here comes Nirvana, followed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And, you know, and the depression and the depressive music. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, definitely. And thus started the whole, you know, the issue that that all bands have is, OK, do we play the music that we really like? Do we play the music that's going to put the asses on the barstools? Yeah. Right.

And you end up playing the music that puts the asses on the barstools. But hey, at least you're playing right now. And I know what you say, asses.

I'm going to say asses. How about you, John? Asses. Yeah.

That's one of the perks of playing in bands. There's a lot of asses. A lot of asses.

Yes, there are. Yes, there are. So how long were you doing that? That was how long? Oh, God, since I was a kid.

I mean, I've been writing music since I was 15 years old. And I did that up until I was about 28. OK.

So, you know, when I came back home, I had to get on with my life. You know, I met a girl that I really love, my wife, Sandy. I've been married for 26 years.

She's a huge supporter. I mean, it's it's difficult being in a band, as you know, women. She's the only girl that's ever gotten it.

You know, it tells me you put down that piece of pizza because those little teenagers aren't going to want you anymore. Yeah. And she gets it.

I wouldn't be able to do it without her. So I've actually met your wife before. Yeah.

And your wife and my wife would be cut from the same cloth because she's the exact same way. Yeah. You know, she she used to come out to every single one of my shows and watch girls go up on stage and go absolutely nuts.

And she gives looks and she points and she laughs. Yes. She knows I'm going home with her.

Mine laughs, too. Yeah. I mean, like laughs like, oh, isn't that adorable? Look at him up there.

He thinks he's somebody. And that's how we know we have a winner, right? That's how we know. That's how we know.

I was very fortunate because I've got three ex-wives. And it didn't work out for me that well. And every one of them laugh at him constantly.

They laugh at me. That was me. Most definitely.

You still doing that? You still doing any writing, any original stuff? You know, it creeps in to my head. But no, no. Other so often, I'll pick it up.

It's not something that you lose. It's something that you just either have or you don't have. I would love to, you know, write again.

But, you know, you get old and still rocking. So that's all I can say. What are you playing the band? I sing.

Oh, you use the vocals? Yep. OK, very nice. And John.

Yes, sir. How about you? You're so quiet over there like a little mouse. I am.

I'm just listening. I'm learning about the band that I'm in. I had no idea about any of this.

I got to rethink everything. How long have you been in the puppets? I think it's five years in April. OK, four or five years in April.

It's one or the other. So they just shoved them in a closet. Somebody brought it up the other day.

I think it's five, four. Wow. It's a it's a five or four glorious.

It's been glorious. It's been great. It's been great.

He saved the band. You know, you get when you're when you're on top, so to speak, and you lose a key member of that lineup for 15 years. I mean, as far as I know, I had the longest same running same lineup than any of the big bands.

Then the hours, the infinities, the high infidelities, you name it, hairbangers, any of them, same guys for 15 years. And then we parted ways with one of them. And that's why I say I needed I needed a guy like John.

I needed, you know, to go out and grab the best. And that's that's John. He's one of the best there is.

And you play what? Lead guitar. Lead guitar. Yeah.

What's your background before the puppets? I did the Thirsty Whale thing, too, back in the day, you know, in the late 80s, mid, mid and late 80s. I was a young pup, you know, and did the original thing and did it for a long time. You know, I was in a band called Odette and had a lot of success with that group.

And when that ended, it ended at a strange time. Same with Pete. You know, we were I was 22 years old, 21 years old when it ended.

And everything changed. But my heart didn't change. You know, my my love for that music was true.

So fast forward 30 years. Here we are, you know, and it it feels good to be able to play that music again, you know, and play it with such great musicians and a nice crowd. And it's awesome.

It's it's really it's been a good experience, but a good four years, five years, whatever it is. In April. Yeah.

In April, of course. I know it was in April sometime. He said no at first.

And I was like, John, what are you going to do when you and your kids are growing up, you know, as John time? What are you going to do? And he's like, you're right. And now he's stuck with me. Yeah, I don't I can't believe that I said no.

You know, you get different points in your life. You know, my son was just getting into the baseball. And I mean, he was into it heavy.

It was every day. Pete went through a two with his son, Frankie. It's it consumes your life.

He was a good ball player and it was every day. So I I owed that to him. You know, I was off doing my music when he was a younger kid and his mom took up a lot of the slack.

My weekends were play, play, play. And then the weekdays were work and play, you know. So Pete was right.

I'm glad I did that because I'd be regretting it now. But now that it's over, it was a good move. I'm enjoying myself.

I love it. So are you writing original stuff back in the day? I was all it was all original. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was hard for me to get away from. It took me later.

Like, yeah, like it was really and it still burns me. You know, covers were taboo. Yeah, they were.

And in our day, we played a we redid Barracuda by heart. And Pete remembers it was such a different scene in Chicago back then. Covers were, like you said, taboo.

If you played a cover, you better bring it. If you played two people would I mean, you'd hear it. You'd hear what are you guys doing that for? What are you doing that for? It was actually it was a poll.

It was polar opposite of what it is now. Absolutely. It really was.

And, you know, looking back on it, you know, when you talk to people that, you know, weren't in the scene at that time, they can't even imagine that. But it was it was a big deal for us to just play when we caught hell for it, you know, for from the diehard musicians. Oh, you can't do that.

You're copping out, you know. And we had great we had very, very good original songs. You know, we were just two years too late.

Yeah. Otherwise it had been a different story. But so it was hard for me to break.

I've never truly broken away from it. But there was a time in my life where I was never doing the cover band scene. And, you know, I'm sticking to this and I did it for a long time.

But it was silly. It was a silly stance. You know, get out and enjoy yourself.

Enjoy the guys you grew up playing with. Make some money doing it. And don't sit home and get old, you know, get out and play.

Right. And I've gotten to play in front of huge crowds with this band. Festivals that are just, you know, beautiful festivals and met some incredible people, lifelong friends, you know.

So it's all been worth it. It was it was I'm glad I'm here. Right.

You know, I really am. I get to play my Jackson guitars through Marshall amps on 10 next to a tremendous singer. It was great musicians and a beautiful summer night.

You can't beat it. Still carrying great songs. You know, still carrying those marshals around.

No, no, no. I was using that as a figure of speech. That was smoke and mirrors.

You know, it's funny you said that. I was talking to my son the other day, you know, about loading gear in and out. And he sometimes helps me.

He's a guitar player, too. But he was carrying some of my stuff down the stairs and he was huffing and puffing. He got the bottom of stairs like, man, that sucked.

You know, I'm like, that was once you just carried something that's the size of a guitar case. I said I used to carry and this is no joke for 15 years, four Marshall cabinets, three, three Marshall heads, a rack, every guitar I owned and and do it, you know, after a few drinks at two in the morning, loading that downstairs, freezing 20 below the Avalon. Oh, my God.

How do we not die? Seriously, how did someone not die on those steps? We found an old flyer and he was there, too. I found an old flyer from the 80s. It was, you know, an eight by 10 piece of paper.

And I says, hey, you know, he's looking at he's like, oh, this is so cool. And I said, you know, we used to go to Kinko's. We used to run off five thousand five hundred copies.

And the whole band would go to malls. We go to high schools. I mean, that was our job to flyer.

It was work. We didn't sit behind our computer. We had to physically go get the copies made.

We had to get in a car and get locations that were hot, you know, and walk through parking lots when it was 95 degrees, putting them on windshields and getting run out of places. And it was a lot more physical work. But, you know, back then it was we were happy just to be in a great popular band.

It didn't it didn't feel like work. Right. You know, now it would kill us.

Kill us. Thank God for computers. Thank God for XFX and little cabinets that sound great.

Technology is amazing. Yeah. A little jump drives, things like that, bringing that stuff around.

Yeah. Not having to print out the folders with the CD. They have it easy.

Remember that? Oh, that was terrible. Yeah, it was terrible. I used to drive around with a box of these things in the back of my car.

And I said, you know, I slam on the brakes and stop as fast as I could and find a parking space. Oh, there's a bar I've never played before. And we'll try and walk in there with a promo pack.

You know, getting posters made. Yeah. Oh, guys, we got to we got to do so many shows to save up money so we can get posters, so many shows so that we can save up money to go into a studio on two inch tape.

All right. You know, and and and there's no auto tune. Right.

You know, we had to track it and we had to nail it. Yeah. Right.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a lot of there was so much.

I'd like to take somebody that's, you know, half our age that's really pushing their band and take them back in time with me and see if they could handle it. I don't think they could. I really don't.

And I don't mean that in a in a negative way. Flip side. I'd like to see what we would have been able to do had we had all that extra time sat in our bedroom and just recorded a whole, you know, right in your bedroom.

No, all you need is a computer and a dining room table. Yeah, I go. Yeah, you don't.

Yeah, but my mom's not coming. Mom's not coming in my bedroom. So that's true.

She's going to come to the dining room table. That's right. Yeah.

So I'm going to stay in the bedroom. So different. And it seems like it's in the blink of an eye.

Things have changed so drastically, you know, and some of it not for the better. You know, technology is beautiful. But, you know, I sure miss going out buying records and looking forward to that release date for that next Kiss record or that next Ozzy Rock, you know, and you're sitting in October 10th yet.

You know. Yeah, I miss that. I miss all of it.

Kids nowadays, kids nowadays, they don't they don't understand the fun of having a listening party. Remember when your your favorite band would drop an album? One guy would go out and buy it. And there'd be like eight people laying on your bedroom floor or wherever you were.

And you'd be listening to that album. You listen to it over and over and over and over. Yep.

You read every single letter of every single word song. Yeah. Everything in order.

Right. It was an event. It was.

It really was an event. And if you didn't have the album, I wonder what the next thing was going to be like on the radio. Right.

But I will tell you this, though. Right. Right.

This is an experience that I had one time that I absolutely loved. It happened a few years ago, but I tell this to people all the time. And it fits from what we're talking about here.

My son had a bunch of friends over. They were in his room and I know they were playing video games because that's all that's all they were doing. Right.

And I'm hearing just really cool music coming out of his bedroom. And here's here's how old I am. I immediately thought, oh, they're playing Guitar Hero, not realizing that Guitar Hero hasn't been in production for like 10 years.

That's old now. That's old. It's already old.

So they're not they're not playing Guitar Hero. So I open up the door and yeah, they're playing video games, but they're listening to music on a computer. But they're listening to David Bowie and mop the hoop.

Oh, yeah. Black Sabbath and stuff like that. And I said, I can't believe you guys are listening to this.

He goes, oh, this is cool music. And one of them one of them. This is funny.

One of them actually says to me, you hear about this new guy, Santana? Yeah. That's great. That's great.

It has technology has introduced a lot of the old music to a younger crowd. That's a bonus. You know, that's a plus.

I know when Guitar Hero first came out and we had my kids were eight, nine, 10 years old. And I remember standing in the bathroom, my son walked down the hallway and I heard him singing. I heard him walk by and generals gathered in their masses.

Go away. I said, hey, wait a minute. Come back here.

Yeah. What'd you just say? He said he's saying the words of I says, where did you learn that? Yeah. Right.

Black Sabbath. That was my that was my band. Yeah.

Oh, Guitar Hero. That's great. Yeah.

Right. Oh, my God. I'm my dad.

I am my dad now. You know, so. So when everything started to change, right, Nirvana comes out and everything changes and the music that you were playing is starting to go away and you guys are still writing originals.

Was there at any point in time where you said, you know what? I'm going to try and write some stuff that sounds like Nirvana. Yeah. I wish I'd I wish I hadn't done that.

I I wish looking back. I did. I wrote about twenty five, thirty originals that all had the Alice in Chains vibe.

It did. It did. You know, and I was confused, dude.

I was twenty one. Yeah. Yeah.

The music that I believed in, the Zeppelin, Sabbath Deep Purple, Doc and Motley Crue, Ozzy was gone. Right. It wasn't cool.

I had straight blonde hair down to my ass. There's that word ass again. You know what I mean? There it is.

That music was in my heart. It was a it was a bad age to be confused. You know what I mean about your direction in your guitar playing and your vocals? And, you know, it was it was not it was.

I did the same thing. Yeah. I wrote in that vein.

Yeah. I tried to to mimic it, but I just for myself, I couldn't get away from the commercialism of my style of writing. It had to have a big chorus.

It had to have a very, very hooky melody line or pre-chorus. And I just I couldn't get away from that. So, you know, it really wasn't natural to me.

It was more forced. Yeah. Now, even the name, the band, you try to find something that's along those line.

It was nine cents. Well, yeah, something like that. I was a penny short of a dime.

I ended up in a band. That's a great name for a band. Let's do it.

Yes, that is hilarious. That's that's your next band. I actually ended up in a band and goofy names.

We called ourselves Mesa Guru because our guitar, our guitar players played Mesa amps and they were good. So they were gurus. That became the name of the band.

And we did the same thing. It was it was that dark metal. Everything was in drop D. Everything, everything was in drop D. Everything.

And I became a horrible guitar player during that time because I became a great guitar player because of it. It was just so different to, you know, playing in drop D. It was it was absolutely terrible to. Yeah.

But we all went through it. And I think that the music at that time on the radio also reflected the same thing, because if you remember bands, the band that sticks out in my mind the most was Three Doors Down. And they tried to walk that line.

Yeah, they did. They had a little bit of a of an 80s, early 90s sound. And they also had songs that were in drop D and the heavier chords and the whole bit.

And you kind of felt like there was a struggle in what they were writing. They managed to be OK for a few years. Yeah.

But, well, there are some bands that I did like that were that kind of still held on to it, like like like I don't know if you remember Audio Vent. Oh, yeah, absolutely. OK, right.

Audio Vent was one of them. I liked Tonic. Oh, yeah.

You know, Tonic was another one. And there was one other one I really, really enjoyed. I'll spit it out later when you guys are talking.

I'll talk over you. Just blurt it out. But, you know, you found out there were some bands.

Fuel. Oh, I like Fuel. Oh, absolutely.

Fuel was a great band. That was that band had a little bit of everything to it. There was hooks.

There was melodies. The guitar work in that was it was those were good songs. I covered a lot of a lot of fuel, a lot of fuel.

It was a decent band. You know, I look back now like there was like it was Fuel and I liked Candle, but I liked anything. I gravitated towards anything with a guitar solo because they just disappeared.

Or a guy that wasn't eating pizza while he was figuring, you know, it's just they just disappeared. And I was I was a shredder. I was a Yngwie, Steve Vai type of player.

And I had nowhere to go. That was it was you know what I mean? Yeah. So a band like Candlebox, somebody that actually, you know, they they gave the guitar players were good.

Right. There was get it seems like so much of that music. It was intentionally bad.

You know what I mean? Or the sloppier, the better, the worse the production was. It was intense. It it had to be intentional because things from the 60s to the 70s got better production wise from the 70s.

There was this progression. And for the first time ever in music, it stopped. Right.

Think about that. It was cool to be bad. Yeah.

And sloppy. And maybe not such a good player. Maybe your guitar, not perfectly in tune.

The presidents of the United States of America. Yeah, I remember. Yeah.

I wish I personally wish if I went back, I wish I just kept doing what I was doing, you know, and stayed who I was, you know, instead of wasting them two or three years. Who are you? I don't even know. Looking back now, you know.

Yeah, but you look at it, you look at that time when this all happened. Yeah, that was kind of the dawning of the computers and stuff. And kids weren't learning to play instruments properly.

They're getting tabs on the computer and sitting in their room and correct and plucking away. And they were really they were building. No, no, Siri.

No, no, no. They were just plucking away. That's how they were learning.

So, yeah, they could be sloppy. Yeah, it was it was cool to be, you know, I always felt blessed. And he grew up.

I think we grew up around the best musicians, the best year. We got a little bit of the 70s and a little bit of the age. We got the greatest singers and the greatest guitar players of all time.

You know, they really were. Yeah. At some point, you walked into Guitar Center in 1995 and that 13 year old kid was playing the Nirvana song over and over and over badly.

His own. That's that was his family. That was his perception.

He had no idea who Randy Rhoads was or Eddie Van Halen. His his John Sykes or John Sykes. But everybody, you know, he only knew Kurt Cobain.

That was his. I don't know what I don't know what the right word is. That was his level of, hey, if I can play this like him, that was it.

You know, that was his standard. That was his altar. If I can play these two strings at the same time, I must be I must be a guitar.

I must be a good one. So I'm going to stop practicing because I can do it. You know what I mean? And it sounded like it.

You know, one of my jokes that I say on stage a lot. And I always say, you know, he'll certain songs become part of our set. Like we always do eruption into you really got me, you know, and especially since Eddie Van Halen died, which he's a pioneer.

Everybody plays guitar and rock music because of Eddie Van. He changed everything. He just did.

He made sounds come out where people are like, what is he doing? What is going on here? And, you know, so he pays a tribute to him. And every time he plays it, he's done playing it. You know, I joke around.

I say he was a very lonely teenager because he can imagine the hours you need to sit in your room with that instrument and do it over. You don't just learn that. That is the muscle memory, the practice, the skill and to do it so clean.

But it's big fingers that he's got. I mean, I don't I have no idea how you even how you're so it wasn't supposed to happen later. No, it wasn't.

I'm like, Jesus, he practiced so much. They wore down to the nubs. Yes.

His tips are gone. And and there's a lot of got you a lot of ass. There's that word again, the ass word again.

Yeah, I remember right after that, he passed away. You know, there's all kind of tributes, all kind of stuff on TV, online and stuff. And I saw an interview with him and his brother on some program in the Netherlands.

And they're Dutch. Yeah, they are. They were sitting there and the two of them are just going at it and speaking Dutch.

I never knew that they could speak the language. And they were just like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. I was like, holy crap.

They're crazy. That was nuts. That was nuts.

A lot of people don't know that about them. No, no, they were they were both born there. I still can't believe he's gone.

It still hasn't set in. It's kind of like Walter. So weird.

Yeah. Oh, I know. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's like, no, Walter's still here. He's somewhere, you know, somewhere around here. Yeah.

He's hanging out with Elvis and Marvin Gaye. You're right. It's crazy.

It's crazy. You're right. You're right.

Well, everybody, everybody, the older you get, the older you get. So if you're not carrying Marshall stacks around with you anymore, what are you playing these days? I'm using the fractal stuff, the X eights. Uh, uh, I'm still carrying around more than I probably should, but I, I'm carrying around what I think's the minimum I should, you know, right.

Um, and I love it. I, I'm, I love it more than as the best thing I ever did was transfer over to that. It was the best move that I've made in a long time.

It took me a long time to do that. And you know what, even in the early eighties, I was the last kid in Bell, Bonham was from the seventies. I'm always just a little late.

Hey dude, straight legs are in now. It took me a long time, but yeah, I'm using the fractal, the X eight stuff. Yeah.

And you're, you're, you're still getting the same tone that you're getting a better sound than I ever have. And I always was known for having a great true Marshall guitar tone. Sure.

Right. This is more, this is that. And then some, you know, excellent.

It really is. I love it. It's, it's been really, really good for me.

And you said you're playing Jackson guitars, mostly 90, 90% of the time, you know, Jackson's you're a, the ones you've had all your life or you got some new stuff. You know, I've got a, I've had them for a long time. I pick one up, I get one a year or more, you know, it is a sickness.

It is. It's bad. You know, it's like I got to pay the mortgage and I got, ah, God, you know, the mortgage can wait on the way home.

You're, you're going through your head. Okay. I paid, I tortured myself 1500 bucks for what? Let's see.

What's my wife going to believe? Right. The guitar is a wife. Yeah.

Spoken like a true musician. I went through the, the Ibanez stuff. I started off on Jackson's the Randy road stuff.

Right. And then, uh, the eighties really exploded and they were just too heavy and pointy and big from my little ass. They carry around.

They did get obnoxious in the eighties with some of the Jackson's. They did. They didn't.

And you know, then I went back to them and that, you know, I revisited them all. So, yeah. And, um, aren't they owned by Fender now? We were just talking about this yesterday or today as a matter of fact.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So, uh, where do you guys normally play, uh, up north or were you playing all over the place? Everywhere. We used to play Harrah's all the time. I mean, all the casinos, they're not having live music, although we're getting into the hard rock and all, we just got into the hard rock in Indiana, which is a great venue.

It's amazing. It is nice. It is real nice, but we play all over, you know, South side, North side, West side, you know, and don't venture into the city too much.

Although we do play North side up there, we play the Edison park in and people are like, why do Edison park in and you show up and it's like you go upstairs and it's like this old room and, and we show up there and the next thing, you know, by the time we start playing, the room is just filled and everybody's screaming out all the words to the songs. You're like, this is fun, man. Yeah, absolutely.

Even back in the eighties, the scene wasn't downtown for us. No, it never was. When everybody talks about the Chicago music scene, it really wasn't Chicago outside of the Avalon.

It was all the suburbs. It was everything wrapped around the city. And it was really, it was more toward the South side, more toward the suburbs as well.

You're right. You're right. You're right.

And I was happy. I didn't want to go downtown. I didn't want to play there.

I didn't want to drive there. I didn't want nothing to do with it. And I still don't.

No place to load in, no place to park. They don't pay you well, horrible. Yeah.

Carrying cabinets down the sidewalk. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Playing at mother's and having to go down. People just seem to get drunker in the city. Like they really can't hold their alcohol.

Every gig that I've ever played in the city, drunks and puking and fights every single show. It's like, my God. Yeah.

I'm trying to think what was the name? There was a, there was a bar. I can't remember if it was division. I can't remember if it was North Avenue.

I want to say it had like the name pig or hog in it. And I can't remember it. And the outside was painted all black and it was only open.

It would only open starting at like 10 o'clock at night and it was open until like four o'clock in the morning. But it was, it was just this metal place and I can't remember the name of it. And where was this? Oh, that's on North Avenue.

That was the, I think it was North Avenue. It's on North Avenue right off, right off the expressway exit. Yeah.

And it was, yeah. And it exit, I think it had like the name pig or hog in it, like flying pig or something like that. It was a different place.

But I remember like I was saying, when you went to mother's, you had to load it in downstairs into the basement. And then it was way up North by Loyola. There was Huey's.

Oh, I remember Huey's. Huey's you went upstairs. Like about three flights of stairs.

Yeah. Yeah. It just seemed like every club, like when you did, we have to play downtown was something like that.

Upstairs, downstairs, the cubby bear, the cubby bear. Yes. You used to have to go in through the back door and you'd go down into their basement through the cellar and then you'd have to go back up the stairs saying it was insane.

And they don't want to pay. No, they don't want to pay you. By the time you did play, you were gassed.

Right. So bar owners in Chicago, if you're listening to this, if you want a $400 band, you're going to get a $400 band. Exactly.

Take that as you will. Yeah. So you guys do your own marketing, your own booking, your own bookings and stuff.

Yeah. I have, I have agents that help whoever's willing to get us a gig. You know, I work with Joey DeMarco.

I work with Bass Shuler. I work with Wolf Entertainment downtown. I, you know, Richie from Seventh Heaven.

We all, we all go way back. I mean, I actually filled in when they were bridging between their singers, Keith and Adam, you know, they needed a singer. So I did a bunch of shows with them.

I use anybody who wants to book us and I do most of it on my own, but I get calls from everybody because, you know, people reach out, Hey, are the launch puppets available? And, and we'll, you know, you guys are busy every weekend or? Uh, I would say we average, average about 40 shows a year. Okay. Uh, maybe 50.

Yeah. I would say it's closer to 50 now. The last couple of years, it's really picked up.

Yeah. I've seen you guys a lot. I've seen you around.

Were you guys playing during COVID at all? We did not stop playing at all. I, uh, I went out and, um, it was, it was, uh, for me, it was difficult. Um, you know, my views are different than other people's views.

So it was a difficult time for me. I, uh, I wanted to keep on playing and I, I was looking around and, uh, I saw, you know, places like Nico's Red Mill Tavern in Woodstock that I never played that was having bands and Jamie's Outpost out in Unico was having bands and, and I, and Captain's Quarters was having bands up in it. So I, I went out to all these places on say a Sunday afternoon.

I said, so I want to book my band here. And, um, Evenflo in Geneva, we're a staple there now. And, and that was one of the good things about COVID because I, Evenflo was having a mess.

So I went out there and said, listen, I want to book my band here. I want to go, uh, Poopy's out in Savannah. I went to all these places where these people were continuing to have live music and I got in all of them and we play them all the time.

Now they're, they're a part of our, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that was a crazy time.

None of us knew what was going to happen, what was going to be left when it was over. If it was ever going to be over. Right.

Yeah. Right. That was scary.

I don't think it is over. I think it's still, oh, it's still hanging around. It's still going to hang around.

It's not going anywhere. It's just, you know, yeah. You know, life's got to go on.

You know, we, we took some time off. Some people will never get past it. No, no.

Even if it's over. No, they're, they're scarred for life and they've changed their lifestyle. They're, they're completely done.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a shame.

No, we we've actually, we've done shows and we've actually seen people come out to our shows and they're wearing their masks in a bar. I mean, they're going to, they're going to, they're going to, that's the way they are now for the rest of their life. I kind of, I kind of think that I do.

All you got to do is do a little research, right? It's out there. Yes, it is. A lot of, a lot of clubs and stuff closed down too, because you know, what is, that's a shame to a lot of, uh, you know, clubs, small businesses, I'm a devastated outside of the health side of it.

Losing family members. If you lost it, destroyed lives and businesses, you know, business, 50 year old businesses, it crushed. Oh yeah.

And that, that was heartbreaking. That more than anything, you know, people losing their, then they lose their homes. Then they ask not your livelihood and their livelihood.

There's all kinds of people right around here in this area. I know three people that lost their business because during that time they couldn't hire help. Yeah.

They, they, they did everything they could. They did. They all got to the point where they were by themselves.

Hire help. Oh yeah. There's, there's still places closing today.

They're still shut down because they don't have the client. And there's help wanted signs in every single window everywhere you go. And people just don't want to get out there and go to work.

Right. You know, with us, I noticed with all the clubs closed and a lot of people, our private, private events really skyrocketed. Right.

Oh yeah. People, there's people that they, they had to have their music and you know, if they had to pay to have it brought to them, then they would have it at their house. And we've met a lot of people that way.

A lot of close lifelong friends now just put it like this. There were some good things that came out of it. Right.

For us as a band and as, you know. You know, for people that, for bands that kept working during that time, I think the story is very similar. And, and then the same is true for the bands decided they weren't going to do anything.

Yeah. Because I, what you guys are saying is literally a conversation I was having with guys in my own band about how, yeah, we didn't play as much as we, you know, could have. And we took some time off, you know, a few months.

I think, I think all of us were forced to. Right. Right.

I never stopped solo gigs and my other guitar player in our band, he kept playing. And then we eventually came back and started playing together as a band and we were better because of it. Sure.

And, and, and made, made contacts because of it. And look at how many bands are no longer in existence anymore because they decided, well, we're not going to play. And then when they could play again, they just decided, well, you know what? I kind of like being at home.

Yeah. I suppose if they were doing it a long time and they had been away from home for a long time. Right.

And didn't think about, you know, what it would be like to be at home. And then all of a sudden they got a taste of it and they were like, you know, I'm 50, I'm 60. I, you know what? I'd like to be in at home.

That's cool. If it worked out for them. I think, I think, I think they'll come back around again.

I feel like that sometimes before the show, I get home from work. I got to run and share. I'm like, oh man, I don't feel like doing anything.

It's just real good right here on the road. Pizza, crack open a few beers and I am good. There's a, there's a lot of bands I've talked to and they've said after the COVID thing, when they tried booking their band, they couldn't even get booked because they were honoring contracts from the previous year, you know? So they already had all the bookings and these guys couldn't even get into places.

They did that with the fests. I didn't run into that much as far as the clubs because the clubs, they didn't know if they were going to be open, when they were going to be open, what they were allowed, if they were allowed to be open. Right.

Right. You know? But the fests did that a lot. They honored the contract and we had a bunch of those contracts as well, where they said, you know what, we're just going to move it.

Push it, push it up. Yeah. Push it to the, to the next year.

But it's a weird time. I feel, you know, I feel like we're living in the land of, of Oz. It's it's, it's a weird time.

The world is weird. Yep. It is.

And by the way, he said Oz, not ass. That's right. It was Oz.

He just said ass. I said ass. Yeah.

And we like ass. We've come to that. Yeah.

We all like ass. You know, and by the way, shout out, shout out to Bass Shuler because we work with them as well. They were awesome at that about, okay, you got canceled this year for this festival.

We're just going to put you in on the same weekend or the same day of the following year. And they honored all those contracts. Yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. And a lot of the, a lot of those places were, were, were like that, you know, everybody's got their people that they like, or they don't like, or they run into this person or that person is like, listen, it, for me, it's simple.

I'm going to base all of my relationships on my doings with you. Right. You know, so I never listened to anybody out there and I've never really run into anybody that's, that's done me wrong, you know? Right.

Right. So all of them did a great job, I think, in handling that and, and honoring it. You know, I worked with so many different agents that they were all really cool.

So. Very good. So if all our listeners out there want to know where they can find you or where can they find you guys? New Year's Eve, we are going to be rocking Evenflowing in Geneva.

It's kind of like our home turf. It's getting to be that way. Yeah.

It's kind of like our home turf. We love it. I mean, it's a smaller club, it's a smaller venue, but what it, what it does is it has a much larger vibe than many of the clubs that you will go and, and frequent.

It's not a sports bar. It's a music venue and the acoustics in there and the vibe in there. It's all about the music that is being portrayed up on stage.

And what did you forget about that place? Oh my God. Tell him. Steak tacos.

Best. Ridiculous. I mean, legit.

I've been there and had them. Yeah. That sauce that he puts on them.

I want to put that on my Cheerios. Oh my God. Yeah, no, it's great.

It is a cool place. And Mike, the owner's awesome. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Great. The whole place. I don't know.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but the place reminds me of fifth Avenue, the club that was in Purple Rain. It kind of, I never thought about that. It has that vibe.

It was an old state bank. Yeah. Right.

Right. So Mike from Evenflow, if you happen to be listening to this podcast, we are looking for sponsorships. Yes.

I've done, I've done podcasts. We've done a podcast with Mike over at Evenflow. Okay.

Yeah. You know, going back to the, the, the bands, like some of them stopped. I was actually, I actually had a band that wanted to play and I was in ARA at that time and they shut down completely.

So they didn't want to go out and play. And I didn't know if we were going to play again. Right.

Right. You know? So when they came back, I had a ton of shows for the lounge puppets are like, dude, you got all these shows. I didn't even know if you guys were going to play again.

Right. Right. You know what I mean? So then we parted away and I, I, I started the classic rock version of the lounge puppets, which is LP vinyl.

So I want to throw a shout out there for that. So, um, I it's, you know, it's different guys. Well, Mike, who helps out with drums, a shout out, let's put a shout out to Jason Shichaki, to Bill Dixon, to Mike Gurbitz.

Right. And then I got, um, Lenny Vertucci and Gino Bonamici and Jet is a bass for LP vinyl. The man with one name.

The man with one name. Do you even know what his real name is? I don't want to, it'll ruin the magic. I was going to tell you it's Jet.

But, uh, so that, you know, LP vinyl, classic rock too. It's like, it's like Led Zeppelin when they came out, I never saw them, never saw a picture of Led Zeppelin. I mean, I'd listen to their music.

I just really get into their stuff. Never saw them. And I didn't want to see them.

I didn't want to see what they look like. Cause once I put a face to it, I knew it was going to ruin it for me. It went years before I even saw who, what they looked like, you know, it was just really weird.

And did it ruin it for you? No, I still love them. I won't mention the bands that it did ruin it for me. There are some of them, but Led Zeppelin was not one of them.

They're cool. They look cool. So social media wise, worldwide web, people find you somewhere out there.

You got a loungepuppets.com. You got lpvinyl.net. We got Facebooks for both. That's about it. We're not much on any Instagram or Twitter, which we probably should be.

Right. I'm going to leave that up to you, John. I do the Instagram thing.

I've got it connected to where it shares it on Instagram. It does. Yes.

Are we going to get Bill to wear that hat from now on? I gave him my hat. Did you? That's a bad ass hat. I know.

And he looks great in it. I said, Merry Christmas. Yeah.

Did he say, thank you? No. Or did he say, can you buy me a beer? Bill doesn't say nothing. He says, buy me a beer.

Huh? He says, Greco, go get me a drink. Buy me a beer, Greco. Greco, I need a beer.

Greco. Give me a beer, Greco. Greco, stop giving me tequila.

And that was it. Greco, I don't like tequila. I want Jameson, Greco.

A man of very few words, our bass player, Bill. Oh, if you've never heard Bill do Metallica, though, you swear to God, he was in Metallica. Wow.

Yeah, he sounds just like him. Well, we'd like to thank you guys for coming out. Thanks for having us.

Thank you so much for having us. Got to get out, get out and see you guys soon. Yeah, absolutely.

All righty. Take care. Thanks.

Get up and play too. Yeah, absolutely. We need a break.

We like breaks. Yeah, we can go to the bar. We're really good at the bar.

We are. We're the best. We are the best bar band ever.

And one more for good measure. Ass. Ass.

This episode brought to you by the word ass. Thanks, guys. Take care.

Well, that was the lounge puppets. Fantastic. Man, I'll tell you what, that was a lot of fun reminiscing about the changes in the late 80s and early 90s.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. You don't realize and you start talking about it. And I'll just kind of that's what happened.

That's what happened. All these guys. Absolutely.

It sure did. You know, I thought I was thinking that they're going to have like a puppet show or something that they were going to bring on. No, no, no.

That's in or something. And no, no, no, absolutely not. I'll tell you what, I have seen them.

I've known Pete for actually several years because it just so happened a few years ago. I was in a band called Forget Hannah. And for some reason, whenever we played a festival, we seemed to be opening for the lounge puppets.

OK, so we walked in and shook hands and said hi for the first time. We were like, oh, hey, man, good to see you. Yeah, that's cool.

It's a lot of fun. That's cool. Yeah, it was a lot of fun learning about them.

And at least we got another podcast in the can. Absolutely. Yeah, keep them coming every week.

So I want to thank everybody out there for listening and make sure you subscribe so you never miss a podcast. And we will see you next Tuesday. See you.

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.