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, oh gosh, really? I'm sorry, but my co-host just forgot his name.

It happens, you know, get to that certain age and yeah, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. It absolutely happens. This is Hollywood Mike Mottoyer, everybody.

Oh, Hollywood's back. Hey. I remembered this time.

That's right. Man, I'm telling you, you scared me there for a little bit, man. I thought you were having a meltdown.

It was an E. Yeah. I was focused on what they were saying outside the window here. I didn't know what we were listening to.

Well, those are just our fans trying to peek inside and see us doing our job here at the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum. That's exactly what it is. Yep.

So we're back here again with another fine podcast with a band known as Meltdown with an E. Yeah. And I got a copy of their album right here. I am going to listen to this when I get into the car.

Me too. I was thoroughly impressed. I'm telling you, the track Evil Man on this thing was pretty sweet.

Well, let's hear what they have to say about Evil Man and all their music and what's going on with them. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Mike Mottoyer.

Not Hollywood Mike this week. I can be Hollywood Mike. I can be Hollywood Mike all the time.

OK, I was just wondering. All right. You know what? Call me Mr. Hollywood Mike.

Mr. Hollywood Mike. OK. All right, mister.

We got three other misters joining us tonight. We've got the band Meltdown with an E. How you doing, guys? I'm doing pretty good. Pretty good.

Pretty good. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Yeah, we got Joey Perez, who's vocals and bass and Sammy Perez, who lead guitar. And Dave Shirell on drums. Shirella.

Shirella on drums. I'm sorry. Sorry about that mispronunciation.

Everybody always does that. That was my fault because I sent the Shirell. In Spanish, it would be Chadea.

Let's not go there. Yes, not to be confused with Chipotle. Yes, there you go.

And where are you guys coming in from? You in the area or where are you from? Chicago. I'm from Chicago by O'Hare. OK, so not really from the area.

But Chicago, you know, we're like 35 miles away from here, right? Something like that. Gotcha. Good.

Excellent. I'm the farthest one. I came from Wisconsin.

Whoa. Wow. Big Packer fan coming down to Chicago to rock with these guys.

Holy cow. I thought we were supposed to vet these guys before we let them in the studio. I thought we did.

I got to check and see what happened. What happened? Sam just disappeared. I had a list of every Packer fan in the world.

Yeah, I checked it. Well, I don't know. We're playing you guys this Sunday.

Yeah. Yeah, you are. I had the opportunity to go to the game, but I had something come up.

So I'm unfortunately not going to be able to go to it. Unfortunately, we're going to lose anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But that's good.

We're going to have a good draft pick. That's right. So instead of all this football talk, tell us a little bit about you guys in the band.

How did this all come together? Well, Meltdown, as far as my brother and I, Dave joined us about four years ago. Yeah. You know, with Meltdown.

So he's our fifth drummer. A hard time keeping drummers? Yeah. Yep.

In the last 30 years, this started off as a four-man band. My brother was just the lead singer. We had a bass player.

I was still on guitar. And then with the drummer, we would kind of flip off. I would do my set, my tunes, and then I would go on drums.

The drummer would become the guitar player. So that was Meltdown for a while. OK.

It was kind of like the switch, you know, back and forth. Then one day, you know, we had a Christmas party scheduled, and the bass player didn't show up. He just woke up that morning, decided he wasn't going to the gig.

Wow. So my brother had to take the bulls by the horns there and say, hey, Joe, you know, you used to play bass before. You know, you and I are always going to show up to practice and be there.

You know, we can't rely on these other folks. And so from four, it's gone down to three. So in the last 20 years, he's been kind of the front man.

You know, he's taking up the bass and doing the lead singing. Wow. So 20 years.

You guys have been together for a while, then? Oh, yeah. I mean, we're. Well, actually.

Well, I mean, actually, we've been we've been playing together probably since 83, 84. I mean, since you guys are brothers, obviously you've been together for a while. But but the band has been, I guess, functioning and working as a band for a while.

It's not like this is something that's happened in the past couple of years. Oh, 30 years. Yeah.

One of the one of the songs I had sent to you, Soldier, for example, that song is about 20 years old. Wow. And if you listen to the lyrics, it's about Saddam Hussein and, you know, that whole, you know, during the Kuwait war, you know, quite some time ago.

So that song came from that inspiration. As the time went by, you know, we just kind of just couldn't get that drummer to really put it all together. You know, we had all the the right ideas with the music and some day drummer, which drummer, which now it was me.

But, you know, and I actually met them like 30 years ago with Cato. We we actually were in the same rehearsal building together. I had my own room.

They had their room. But, you know, I met, you know, we passed by a few times in the hallway. And and then so that was way back then.

And then like 10, even 12 years ago, I would like go to rehearsals. You know, they'd have parties. And then I'd go with a mutual friend, Cato, and, you know, go to the party.

And then sometimes it would turn into like a jam session. Yeah. But because seeing them before and just like listening to him play with the other drummer, I was familiar with the stuff.

And then on the jam nights, you know, you just sit in and then I just, you know, play my take of it, you know, how I interpreted it. And so that's how that came about, actually. And you've been with him, what, four or five years now? Yeah, four, three years.

About four, four years. Yeah. Yeah, because we had another drummer.

He actually just passed away in November. Actually, we got a picture of him. Yeah, he was really good.

Yeah, he was he was a he was our drummer for a lot of years, like 30 plus years. You know, but his problem was the drinking, drinking and playing drums do not mix. Well, you guys, you guys must have had the only drummer that that liked to drink, because I don't know any drummers that drink a lot.

Or many musicians. Alex Van Halen. Wasn't he known to drink a little bit? This is my cousin, which is this guy here.

Very instrumental. So, you know, when we talk about influences. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we grew up with the classics, you know, Eric Clapton and things like that.

Right, right. He was very instrumental. He died about nine years ago.

OK. Accident down in Puerto Rico. Wow.

But he was very, you know, so he was about maybe seven or eight years our senior. So he would have been about 60 years old now. But, you know, he was my guitar teacher.

And I just, you know, mimicked a lot of the stuff that he did and learned a lot from him. So he was your cousin? Yeah, so this is my cousin. This is my dad's nephew.

OK. And they call him Hollywood Pete. So that's when you said Hollywood.

I was laughing in my head. This is Hollywood Pete right here. See, he has his autograph and put Hollywood Pete.

Oh, no kidding. Oh, that's great. And of course, this guy here was Drac and his real name is Edwin.

OK, but he's Drac. So you call him Drac. He was a phenomenal drummer.

I'm saying like, like a Neil Peart kind of style. Oh, really? Yeah, really good drummer. But when you start drinking, you know, you're out of focus.

Right, right. And we had so many arguments. And I think I have fired him because my brother's the one who goes, Joe, you deal with the fire.

He goes, you are good at that. With the personnel issue. Yeah.

Wow. Well, so so take us back, because I know we're going to end up probably sharing some war stories here, because like I said, I played in all different kinds of bands and I have a feeling we're going to start talking about similar venues. So take us back like the first gig or the first few gigs and then tell us about some of the places that you played the most in your favorite places to play.

Oh, my God. Wow. I mean, you know, locally, you know, in Chicago, you know, live wire.

Well, before Foundation, it was nightcaps, nightcaps, nightcaps. Yeah, absolutely. Nightcaps there.

Richie's, you know, Landmark. Yep. Right, right.

You know, right there, right by the airport. Quencher's. There's Quencher's, Fulton, Western.

I mean, Betty's Lounge in Granite National in Chicago. Yeah, Betty's. Absolutely.

Thirsty Whale's got to be somewhere. Thirsty Whale. The Mute Me.

Yeah, right, right. Mute Me. The Mute Me.

Yeah, so but yeah, you know, the venues that we play now are, you know, Foundation and Richie's, you know, we're still kind of playing those local venues. Right, right. What kind of music were you playing back then? Were you doing most of the covers or when did you guys start? Actually, you know what? Actually, we've always been an original band.

Really? Always, always an original. Always. But we'll always have copies within our originals.

OK. You know, I mean, because people have to. You got to keep them.

Got to keep them in the groove. Right, right. So but we've always been in an original band, even before Meltdown.

I mean, I was in a band called Lost Angels. OK. And you were in that band with us, too.

Yep, yep. That was when him and my brother. Well, you were with Exotic Rage.

We're talking about 1987, 1986. So before Meltdown. Yeah, there was other bands, you know, that we but, you know, eventually my cousin kind of did his own thing, went in his own direction.

We couldn't keep it together with him anymore, again, because of his vices of things, you know, alcohol and all that stuff. So my brother and I just kind of went in a different direction. And, you know, then that's where we started off with that one guy that didn't show up with our Christmas party.

So we kept that unit together for a while until that incident. And that's, you know, it's been pretty much us, you know. So it's like saying Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen, the two brothers.

Right. Yeah. And so what were you doing at that time, Dave? Local death metal bands, if you know any of them, like from Chicago.

Local death metal. Dissenter. OK.

I don't know if you heard of them. Nope, nope. Can't say that I have.

With them for a while. Usurper was another one. And then just those were like really the two big, bigger death metal bands.

Right, right. And I was in. OK.

And was that going back to about that time period? Are we talking like 20 to 30 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. 1996.

Good. With Dissenter. A Funeral Nation was another one before them, even just death metal thrash.

Right, right, right. And then before that was just original bands. You know, and I did covers, too.

You know, everybody has to. You have to. Right, right.

He had to put the covers. Never Say Die, you know, and just or just Def Leppard covers. Yeah.

I mean, especially nowadays, you have to sneak in the original stuff nowadays in a lot of venues. You have to. You have to.

Because, you know, people just look at your music. They're like, OK, they're just bopping their head. But, you know, they want to hear that.

Something they can relate to, you know, relate to. So, you know, we you know, we can put on a probably about a two hour set. Right.

You know, we mix it up. So, I mean, some of the copies we do, Wasted Years, Iron Maiden. Different venues, different nights.

And we do ACDC. One night, these chicks just start dancing like they want us to play all ACDC. You know, well, we can't do a lot, a lot of ACDC, but we'll do what we know.

Right. But it's just the crowd reaction is always different. And, you know, we try to original copy, original cover and keep our song, you know, keep our originals out there.

Um, but try to keep the audience there with with the copies as well. Right. Right.

So speaking of your original music, um, I start I started listening to some of your stuff. Tell me about Evil Man, the song Evil Man. Something tells me that there's going to be an interesting story to this, but I'll tell you the reason why, because I listened to several of your songs and I liked Evil Man.

That's the one I picked out. That's the one that I like the most. And you're the singer, correct? No, you're the singer on that.

I'm a singer. And he's a singer on all of them. I'm all of them.

Yeah. So so here's here's the amazing thing. And this will be a compliment to you.

The reason why I gave it a second listen is because my kids were home from college over the weekend for the holiday. And I had it playing on, uh, on my speakers from college. Yeah.

Can you believe that? No, we're that old already. Don't don't tell anybody. Well, I'm a grandfather.

And my grandkids. And somebody somebody actually thought that I was listening to Queensryche. Wow.

Well, that's a nice compliment. Honestly, your voice sounds a lot like Jeff Tate from Queensryche. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. It's funny you said that because I have a friend that I got it on video where he was playing in the car for his daughter. So she was like, Gianna, listen to this song.

And she's so he's he has the phone like this and he's facing her. And she's she's a diehard rock fan, you know, and she goes, Dad, I don't know who is. But it sounds like I am made in Bruce Dickinson.

She goes, No, it's Joey from Meltdown. Who? She goes, Really? She actually knows us because she's come to our practice with he actually brought his daughter and she loved our band. Right.

And she's like, Oh, my God, he sounds like Bruce Dickinson. But you know what? You're not the first person who told me that before about Jeff Tate. Very similar.

But a lot of your tracks, I guess there's a there's one album that's on on Pandora. So I chose to play the whole album. That's what I was listening to.

And I'll tell you that there's it's not very often that I get super excited about a band. The last time that happened to me was probably sometime around 2010 or 2012 when I really got into Shinedown. And there was a period of about three over the course of about three years where I think I saw Shinedown about six times.

Right. There's a lot of tracks that reminded me I hear Queensryche, I hear Shinedown, which makes sense to me because I always thought that Shinedown reminded me of Queensryche. So it makes total sense.

But the tracks that I listen to really reminded me a lot of both Queensryche and Shinedown. I have to give you props for it. And when I found out you guys were just a three piece band, I was like, wow, because the guitar playing is is amazing as well.

It sounded to me almost like there was two. I said, there's only three of them. I said, I wonder if they do any ZZ Top.

Yeah. We actually do because we do Tush. That's actually on our playlist.

Tush. You mean bands actually perform Tush? Oh, yes, they still do. People still perform Tush? You know the meltdown where we do a little twist on it.

Yeah. I think at this point in time, that song has to go on the list of songs you're never supposed to perform again. I thought that.

I thought that a few times as well. Believe me, my bands play it, too. But what are you going to do? You got to play it.

So who's the songwriter? Yeah, most. Yeah. I mean, yeah, a lot of this is my brother.

I actually wrote Evil Man and I wrote another song that is it on the second CD? Or did we put it on the second one? No, it's not under yet. OK. Then I wrote another one called it's get up.

That's interesting. How do you spell that? Got to get up. Yes, I put most of the music together, you know, come up with the most of the, you know, the rhythm and the lyrics and stuff like that, and then come together with these guys.

And then let's put this puzzle together. Yeah. And just draw from, you know, real life inspirations, you know, pandemic.

You know, obviously, we were caught up in that, you know, the height of the pandemic. Within that time, we're kind of locked up at home, started writing, you know, pulled out the bottle of vodka. The wife went to the casino with her friend.

I think I was home alone for almost that whole afternoon. I can literally remember the day I said, start writing. I'm just getting the ideas.

A couple of more drinks. Let's keep writing down. Yeah.

By the end of the evening, you know, have pretty much the, you know, pandemic. Right. Are you lyrics, music or music lyrics for a little bit? You know, it can start off with, yeah, it can start off with maybe lyrics and that I can kind of get a rhythm to it or it can just be the opposite.

I've got this rhythm, this riff in the head. Let's try to draw something to it. Okay.

All right. So, you know, work both ways. Yeah.

Yeah. And the other thing that I noticed about as a guitar player, I noticed these things. You don't have the traditional scoop mids tone that a lot of heavy music has nowadays.

I noticed a lot of mid-range, a fatter sound, you know, in your tone. What do you play? What's your guitar? Actually, I've got a Gibson Epiphone, you know, so it's not a Gibson, Gibson, Gibson Epiphone, but it's just as heavy. I mean, it's a solid wood.

It's got, you know, removed the original pickups and it was actually a guitar from Pete that passed away. I bought it from him many years ago. He took out the pickups and puts the Marshall pickups and Seymour Duncans.

So I've got those, you know, not your typical humbuckers. As far as my Marshall, I'm, you know, I'm 53 and I've been playing the same Marshall half stack. It's a 1974 tube.

So, you know, it's not that processed sound that you're getting today. It's just a nice, clear clarity. The Marshall pickups, just an overdrive and some chorus.

That's pretty much it. That's my sound. Well, that makes all the sense in the world.

You know what cracks me up? That when we're playing at these gigs and you see all these, you know, these guitar people or people, you know, that know about music and they come up to my brother and they're looking at Don and his pedals and see. And so after we play like the show, they're like, what do you have? He goes, really? It's just these three or four pedals and this Marshall. That's it.

Right. That's all you need. Right.

You know, and that's how Meltdown gets that sound. Right. We get that sound.

Kind of, you know, work on that sound and do not try to over process it. Uh, kind of like try to do something the opposite that my cousin was doing. He had all these different rack mounts and it's like, God, it just sounds so compressed.

Right. There's no clarity. Right.

But I mean, if you have a, if you have a vintage Marshall like that, why would you want to put anything in front of it? Right. Right. Nice too, man.

Right. And then, and then what I play off is a GK, Gullion Kruger, you know, top and bottom. I got the four tenths, you know, the Gullion Kruger head.

I got a jazz bass and just direct. That's it. You know, I get my nice fat sound.

Yep. You know, yeah. That's all you need.

And I just play drums. You just play. Doesn't matter.

You know, where we did our CD, those songs that you heard that this guy just, he just kind of freaked me out a little. Because he, you know, I went in there with like new heads and tuned. And he like, couldn't care less, actually.

I mean, if they were even, because he's just, he has his way of just getting his, a good sound and it didn't matter to him if the heads were older or new. He really did like the floor tom though. But it's a Vista-like kit, what I use.

Just acrylic shells. Okay. It's actually from 76, one year only that they wrapped it in a chrome wrap.

So it does have a little different tone than just a Vista-like. Right. Right.

I mean, it's still a Vista-like and has, but it's just a slightly different tone. Just because of the wrap. Interesting.

But other than that, you know. Yeah. Play drums.

Not only that, but hey, David's a lefty drummer. That's no big deal. Lefty.

Lefty. Okay. We did the recording.

He was mentioning the recording. We did it actually. It was Phil Collins.

But I like to play on righty kits. I mean, if I have to, you know, you go to these jam nights and they don't want you to touch the kit. Right.

They don't want you. Now, as long as it has the double pedal, that's fine with me. I just dropped a hi-hat and I used the secondary pedal as the main kick.

And then I can just get by with that. Yeah. You know, just keep time.

So how much you guys gig nowadays? Well, the last one we just did was at Livewire, which was a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, lighting things up for December. But, you know, we're also back into the studio.

We did this first EP in Wisconsin. You know, we tried recording out here with, you know, over the years with some folks out here. We just couldn't get, just couldn't find the right engineer to, you know, to even care for the sound.

So I just want to give kudos to Eric Labros in Cherry Pit Studios. Menomonee Falls did a record. I think he did a phenomenal job.

You went all the way to Menomonee Falls? Well, it's not too far from where he lives. Where I live. OK.

We did go out there. Yeah, we have to try. So they would have to, you know, camp out there for two or three days, you know, and really hit it.

That's right. So you live in Wisconsin. So you're driving like two hours and stuff to get to gigs.

For the last 30 years. Wow. I've been driving back and forth for 30 years.

No kidding. Wow. Yeah, you got to want to do it.

That's for sure. Yeah. No, it's a dedication that I'm always seems to be the first one there.

You know, the farthest one out. Right, of course. I'm the first one there.

Yeah, yeah. On time. So second podcast in a row.

If you own a recording studio. That's right. We're looking for.

That's right. These guys are looking for you. That's right.

So they don't have to drive to Menomonee Falls. Yeah, but he'll have to drive down from Menomonee Falls. Either way, somebody's driving.

Right. Somebody's gonna be driving three hours right here. So when's the next gig? Well, whoever offers us a gig.

Yeah. I mean, if anyone wants us to open for them, we'll open up for them. Well, you, anybody, whoever.

How can people find you then? Meltdown on Facebook. So, you know, Meltdown Chicago Rock Band. Meltdown with an E. They can, once you get there, you can, you know, what is it? Messenger.

Or you hit that message button. I think part of the way we've been communicating. Yeah.

And then if they're interested in us opening up for them or booking us, you know, we can. Contact us on Facebook. Yeah.

And just check out our music out on meltdown.herenow.com. It'll be on Pandora, Deezer, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon. Yeah. And then further down on the website, then you have our Facebook link, our YouTube, you know, to that pandemic video that we did.

And then we also sell merchandise. In fact, we brought some merchandise for you guys. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So from Menomonee Falls. Actually, actually from Delafield, Wisconsin.

Actually, the merchandise from New Berlin, Wisconsin. Wow. Antime Apparel.

It hasn't touched any Green Bay Packer stuff, has it? No. Just the hands who has it right here. I think that should be a prerequisite from now on.

Yeah. We need T-shirts. Oh, there you go.

That are untouched by Packer stuff. That's right. That's right.

So you guys, do you guys do any gigs up in Wisconsin? We did we did at the Brat Stop, you know, on Highway 50, further up there, Route 20. Route 20. Route 20, which is so these are closer venues for them so they don't have to travel so far into the city.

Right. So we try to keep it maybe to the borderline and then, you know, they can come to the border or come down to Chicago. We actually played here in Joliet with Drag, our drummer.

With Drag, the one who passed away. I couldn't even tell you the freaking bar. But yeah, I think we've had one Joliet gig.

No, we had two. Well, we had two. Yeah, yeah.

We had two. We had two. With our old drummer, Drag.

Penny Road Pub. You remember that place? Oh, yeah. We played there.

Penny Road Pub. Yeah, I've played Penny Road many times. The last time I played there, I think the stage was still the pool tables.

Yeah, they used to push the pool tables together. I think it was four pool tables. And then they just throw plywood on top of the pool tables.

Oh, my God. And then they put a set of stairs off to the side. And so you climb up to the stage and they put a skirt around it.

And then about halfway through the gig, you know, it was a little wobbly, right? So we're putting stuff underneath the stage, you know, putting our gear underneath the stage. And we finally realized these are the freaking pool tables. But yeah, I played there.

I played there many, many times. I haven't been there in a while. I mean, actually, they are closed down.

That was it. Really? Yeah, they closed the door. Yeah, I think we played one of their final.

Yeah, we did. It was a 10 band, like a 10 band farewell. So whoever was in a band, they had it on Facebook.

Come down and play. And you'll play maybe like two or three songs. Like, give everybody a chance to play.

So we played three songs, like three songs, three or four songs. And then we were out. And then the next people come up and they play the next one, the next one.

When was that? It was in... Not even a year ago. January of this year. So it wasn't that long ago.

Wow. Yeah. So January, they closed the door, end it.

No more, no mask. Now, I'm actually surprised I didn't know that because our sound engineer in Cadillac Groove had the house system there. He was the house sound guy there.

And he wrote for years and years and years and years. Okay. Maybe that's why he's with Cadillac Groove now.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Interesting.

See how that works? Yeah. Deductive reasoning. Wow.

No, that's an interesting piece of information right there. I didn't realize that. I didn't know that.

But I thought that they were still around. Yeah. So, all righty, guys.

So we know where to find you on Facebook and on your website and on all the music venues out there, Spotify and everybody. Yeah. Check you out.

Are you selling your CDs and stuff on your website, too? Correct. If you want to get physical copy. Yeah, so if you go to Meltdown with an E. With an E. Dot hair now, like H-E-A-R, hairnow.com. You know, then you'll get all the links to the merch.

Okay. And our, you know, Facebook page. Great.

Excellent. Well, thanks for coming out, guys. It's been a lot of fun.

Yeah, appreciate it. Great learning about you guys. Thanks for coming all the way from Wisconsin.

Holy cow. Yeah. Rock and roll.

Can't believe it, yeah. Rock and roll. Happy holidays to everybody out there.

All right. Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Ooh, you seem kind of like an evil man. Who, me? Yeah.

I'm a very nice man. Oh, okay. Yeah.

That is a good song. Some great tunes on that album of theirs, or EP. Absolutely.

And very happy to see that Sammy came all the way down here from near Green Bay, even though he's a Green Bay Packers fan. Yeah. And, but you know what? That's okay, because he brought gifts with him.

You know, the t-shirts and the hats and the guitar picks and stuff. I'm just worried that the stuff touched Green Bay stuff. I got to, I'm going to have to take it home and run a scanner over it or something, just to see if there's any green or yellow thread on it.

Just wash it. Yeah, I could do that too. But then I got to sanitize my whole, you know, water system and washer and dryer and stuff.

Right. You know, I don't know. Maybe I'll stop at the police department.

They do a DNA test on it. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe, maybe. That was an interesting interview though. That was kind of like a VH1 behind the music with the history of the band.

They've been together for, geez, over 20 years. 20, 30 years. At least the brothers, Sammy and Joey, they were together.

And Dave's only been with them recently. But yeah, they've been together a long time jamming out there. Yeah.

That's, that's been the fun thing about this. Everybody's got a story. That's right.

It starts somewhere. So, okay, then I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Meltdown with an E. Join us next week when we bring you another fine episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Bye-bye now.

Bye. The Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of Eminar 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.