Hey, everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And I'm Mike Mottoyer. Hey, Mike, welcome to your very, very first podcast episode.

Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here. And it's going to be quite exciting.

Oh, yeah, I'd say that. Yeah. So you came up with a band right off the bat to who we're going to interview.

Yeah. We're going to interview Don't Matter To Me. They are a group of young musicians local to the area around Plainfield and in the Joliet area.

And I've known them for a few years now. I met them through the COVID months playing local open jams. And they're a great group of talented musicians, talented young folks who just love to play classic rock and roll.

And I'm excited to hear what they have to say. And I love classic rock and roll. So let's see what they have to say.

Hey, everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And I'm Mike Mottoyer. For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

How you doing, Mike? I'm doing pretty good. How about you? Good. Well, welcome to your very first episode.

Yeah. Groundbreaking here. It's groundbreaking.

Groundbreaking. So and amazingly, you picked out the band for this first episode for yourself. I did.

Absolutely. And who do we got here tonight? We've got Don't Matter To Me, a band of local guys and and ladies, as you can see here, probably the youngest group of musicians that you've had on the podcast ever. So I met these guys.

What was it? About three or four years ago? No, more like probably nine months after COVID. Like during COVID even. Yeah.

Something like that. Like the fall of 2020. Yeah.

Somewhere around there. We were at Uptown in Blakefield. Yeah.

Is that the first time that we saw you guys? Yeah. It was an open jam. They were all still high school students, although I think you were still you were still in high school at the time.

Were you a senior? No, I was a junior in college, I believe. OK. You are a junior in college.

Yeah. And I saw these guys. And, you know, the first time I saw them and we should probably, you know, say and mention that there were a few different other few other members of the band at that particular time.

They all went to school together. And, you know, life happens. And one guy went to what? To the army.

And one person ended up going a couple of people went away to college. And Lucas and Madison, do you want to go by Madison or Maddie here for this? Maddie. Let's go.

Let's go, Maddie. So they decided, nope, we're going to put the band together and continue and keep going on. And over the years, they've built themselves a pretty cool following, a bunch of young people that are just playing some great classic rock and roll music.

Awesome. And and they they're they're appealing to a wide range of audiences for sure. Like we said, the first time I saw them was at Uptown Tap in Plainfield, thought these guys were great.

And I put them into the category of when you hear these these guys play their instruments and sing, you just want to go home and burn everything that you own. You really do so. So tell me how to get started.

Did the two of you start the band or Lucas is technically the original original member. If you want to talk about that. Well, I can talk about even before that.

So are me and my old drummer Dylan Glass used to be in a punk band. We did original music, played a lot of shitty basement shows for twenty dollars for the entire band. So you pay five dollars each and then you pay seven dollars for a camera guy.

So you lose two dollars and gas on the way there. And you're like, well, we like punk music, but we also want to do covers of music that we like to play because we used to be doing school rock together. So we we were like, well, we got bass, we got drums, you see a guitarist.

And we asked Justin Watt, who, you know, you've played with a lot to to be our guitarist. And then originally it was a power trio. And then a couple of weeks later, we had a Blake on keys and then we started playing open mic nights at Uptown.

I started busting my ass being a dishwasher there, aggling my my manager to let us to book us on the schedule. And and then the rest is history, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I was there for the inaugural performance of Maddie, I believe. Yeah.

And I actually was not open to Maddie being in the band originally. No, I think I bothered him about being like a social media manager at first and like running their Instagram for them because it looked like crap at first. But yeah, I kind of was bothering them about it.

And then they needed another singer because Blake couldn't do it for some reason. And they didn't want to just have the three of them. So they wanted another singer for like an open mic or something.

And Barracuda was my first song. And we did the chain, I think, as well, too. And that was kind of like the what started kind of the momentum.

And we did some Led Zeppelin with Maddie, too. Yeah, I seem to remember some Led Zeppelin. So now you mentioned School of Rock with you and Dylan.

But what kind of training did you have? I just have training from like singing in choir at school. That's it. That's pretty much it.

Or singing by myself at home. Right. Like and just singing along with like.

Heart was the big thing for me. Welcome to Sturgis. Yeah.

Yeah. But I have no like School of Rock training or anything. I would go to his shows and like be like, I want to do that.

And it kind of did so. Right. And the harmonies at that time were great, too.

Like you mentioned, Chains, I believe. Yeah. The harmonies were great.

And of course, you guys cover one of my favorite songs by Styx. Oh, we got to we got to bust that one out since we lost the keyboard. So we got to we can do it without keyboard, though.

Right. Yeah. Good.

What about the name? Tell everybody where Don't Matter to Me came from. I have an idea. It's kind of self-explanatory.

Yeah. I have an idea, but let me see if I'm right. Go ahead.

I told Nathan. It's a really good memory. Yeah.

I remember. Yeah. I remember.

I'm one of the I think the first time I saw them play it uptown. I remember. I said it was almost.

Oh, wait. No, no, no. But this was uptown.

I did ask you this, that it was. I said to him, so how did you guys come up with the name Don't Matter to Me? Were you guys just sitting around one day and you're going, what do you want to name the band? And one of the members says, oh, it don't matter to me. And you're like, oh, my God, that's perfect.

And he's like, yeah, that's exactly what happened. It was Dylan that said that. That's exactly what I thought it was.

And by the way, that was Nathan Liberty. Everybody. Guitar player, lead guitarist for Don't Matter to Me.

And. You said there was no buttons. You didn't tell me there was toys.

There are toys. There are toys. What other sounds are on there? We'll figure it out.

Yeah, that's right. And Nathan is, in all in all words, in the sense of it, a lead guitarist. He's just the most insane guitarist ever.

Like, if you hear him play, you're going to burn all your shit. I still hear him play at our shows and I just, my draw just drops wide open. It's insane.

It still happens. Like, I remember when we had our first rehearsal with Nathan. Oh, gosh.

I love this. I. That was like the one of the most proudest moments so far in my whole life. I'm not even going to lie.

I remember. Let me let me tell you the story of our first rehearsal with Nathan. Yeah.

So I'm like, hey, can you learn these 25 songs in two weeks? And he was like, of course. So we have two rehearsals in the first rehearsal. He comes in.

He's like, oh, I know some Van Halen. I was like, OK, what can you ask me? Hey, you know how to play Russian? I'm like, hell, yeah, I do. And then Dylan does the German show and I play it exactly like the album.

And I just remember while simultaneously and Dylan are just looking at each other with like our faces are just like shading grin like ever. I literally just remember just I'm trying to both balance being lost in the music and trying to see the look on you guys' faces. And then and then our P.A. catches on fire.

Oh, yeah. It started smoking in our basement. And of course, we rehearsed in our tiny basement.

Yeah. So it's like we're getting smoked out in here. But it's worth it.

Smells like burning plastic in here. Wow. We were playing.

We were playing kickstart my heart. I remember that too. We had just gotten to the slow part.

And I remember, Matt, you asked me, hey, Nathan, you know how to play kickstart my heart. My response. Right.

Right. Into it. We don't have a motorcycle sound.

No, we don't. However, I can call them guys back. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm imagining that was right about the time. I think you called me sometime around that time and asked me about P.A. So I'm assuming that's probably the reason why.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. I will say.

So, Nathan, your mom just recently friended me in Facebook. That's kind of my doing. So, you know, I'm sitting in my room.

I'm like, oh, look, she was. And those are when I'm like, oh, look, there's Mike Matara. That's the guy that wants to burn off his shit.

And I always tell. That's what I always tell my mom. He's like that.

He's like, yeah, yeah. He says that every time, like, I'm I'm at the studio. And that's the standard intro.

It is the standard intro. But, you know, she she friended me on Facebook. So what do you have to do? You have to go through and see if you know who this person is.

Right. And I was like, Liberty, Liberty. Oh, yeah.

That's got to be Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

So I. So I took the chance of going through looking at all the pictures of little, you know, three and a half foot tall. Jesus. Nathan just started haircut.

Yeah. Yeah. He does the same haircut.

How long have you been playing guitar? Well, I've really had a guitar in my hand since I was probably about two or three years old. I mean, my mom would always watch, like, concerts on MTV. Remember the days when MTV actually played music videos and concerts? I was like the last.

I definitely consider myself like the part of the last that last era of when before it went to shit. And my mom would always watch, like, these concerts on there. And one of the concerts, the concert she was watching, I remember, was the Goo Goo Dolls live at Breckenridge 2006.

And they were playing. It was them. They were doing like a free show and they were playing in the snow and their guitar player that was hired to tour with them at that time, Greg Saran.

At the end of the song, Iris, right? Oh, yeah. At the end of the slide guitar solo. Is that when it starts raining? That one? No.

Oh, that's that's another performance. But that is the same guy, though. Yeah.

I remember. And at the very end of the hook, right after the guitar solo, and he throws the guitar pick. And I must have made my mom rewind it like 10,000 billion jillion times.

And I really consider that my real spark, you know, igniting my love for music, you know, at the age of three years old and watching him throw his guitar pick. And also a friend of mine. Fun fact, I befriended someone in eighth grade who Sarah.

Yeah. She was a friend of mine. I remember she was she said to me like a month after we first met.

Hey, Nathan, you know who Greg Saran is? I'm just like, yeah, he basically is the reason I play guitar. It's like, oh, yeah, well, my mom went to high school with him. A year and a half later, she sends him an email and says, hey, I got this friend who's this guitar player and he's your biggest fan.

And he's and he's and she didn't think he was going to respond because he's too busy playing with Lionel Richie, the B-52s. And he's also on the house band on American Idol as well. That's what he's doing now.

He was and she and he did respond to her and he was like, oh, no way. You're so and so's daughter. Oh, man, I haven't seen her in so long.

I miss her. Who's your friend? What's his name? Is he really that good? And a few weeks later on my birthday, she comes to my house and she gives me this wraps vinyl shaped object. And it's his solo album with his signature on it.

And a personalized note that says, hi, Nathan, your friend Sarah told me about how much, how what a great guitar player I've are and how much you've been, how long you've been following my career. And I'm absolutely honored by that. And I hope you continue to grow as a musician and get everything you desire out of a musical life.

Happy birthday, Greg Soren. Wow. Very cool.

Yeah. So yeah, that's not the best birthday present in the world. I don't know what it is.

So about a month ago, a famous musician liked like one of your Instagram posts. That happens regularly. Who was it? Who was one? It was lover boy, the one that I sent you.

But I mean, I reposted this thing, this, anyone know who Phil X is? He plays guitar with Bon Jovi now. Right. Right.

Yeah. You know who I'm talking about, right? Absolutely. He does this thing.

He's the inspiration behind the, the B-Bot app that I do during a whole lot. You're going to have to come see us in concert to see what I'm talking about, but I have this app on my phone. Oh, I just kicked the table.

We do whole lot of love and there's a theremin in that. And I have this app on my phone that I put up to the pickup on my guitar and I was like doing it. I remember the first time I did it, somebody at him, uh, what the fuck is that? That'll get edited out.

Well, I'm, uh, and I'm, uh, yeah, I reposted something that Phil X did. He was talking about like Van Halen's running with the devil and the last three notes of the solo and how everyone plays around. He's like, yeah, this is what I've deciphered it to be.

And he's like, yeah, I hope that helps. And, and Ryan Roxy, who is Alice Cooper's guitar player was the person that likes my story. Now this was only like a couple of weeks ago.

Just imagine having famous rock and roll musicians like all your stuff could not be me. All right. Now something completely unrelated, Mike ask, uh, Nathan, any celebrities birthday, not even like a rock celebrity.

Anyone actually keep it rock. Just a random, random musician, Mark Wahlberg. Yeah, I guess he, he fits both.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I don't know Mark Wahlberg.

I'm sorry. I don't know Mark Wahlberg, but you know, okay. So we'll edit that out.

Don't worry about it. Let's try it. Cause usually like you can go like right, right after another one, like let's let's let's yeah.

Gene Simmons, August 25th, 1949. Okay. How do we know he's right? I don't know.

We have to verify that. I gotta look this up. He has like a photographic memory.

Eidetic memory. Eidetic. Okay.

Eidetic. Iggy pop. April 21st, 1947.

And what she's saying is true because the first time I met Nathan, um, it was an open mic night and we were just talking about music and people would ask him, do you know this song? Do you know that song? Do you know that song? And not only did he say, yes, I know that song, but he would tell you like, who wrote it, who recorded it, who possibly was the producer, what year it was, what album it's on. He was just rattling off all these random facts about, about that one particular song. And you know, I think, I, I think I'd seen him play about two or three times before I realized how talented he was.

And I remember I always talk about this when I'm around Lucas was there too. I remember we were on stage during, uh, during an open mic. And I remember we were playing a bunch of Pearl Jam songs.

You're like, Hey, what's that one Pearl Jam song. And mind you, I know, I know every Pearl Jam song ever in their entire catalog. So I'm just like, I'm trying, I'm just like, okay, this is my moment.

What I'm like, what song are you trying to learn? And he's just like trying to figure out like black. And then right then I proceed to play the intro. Was that Mike was saying that one, right? Yeah, he did.

He did. Yeah. That's like, that was such a fun day, man.

It was, it was a good time. So before we get too into anything else, we have another member of the band sitting here, Claire, wake up, hello. Why don't you introduce yourself to everybody here? My name is Claire.

Um, I started playing with these guys in what was it like July that we started playing. Mind you we've only been playing for together four months and we've only known each other for four months. Like we started playing with one another as soon as we met.

I think like July, where did you meet? Oh, cause I remember the day you, I remember the day you said, well we found this new drummer Claire. No, this is great. So, um, one of my really good friends, her mom randomly texted me on Snapchat one day with videos of this band that was playing at double J's and Joliet.

And she was saying, Oh my God, they need a drummer there. Shout out to Jeffrey. Their drummer is going off in the army.

They need someone. I'm telling them how great you are. And she's never heard me play.

Never seen a video of me playing. She knows that I play the drums, but she was telling them how great I was without ever having heard me play. So I mean, I could have sucked.

And then we went with a rehearsal. I never heard her play before she had, we, she had her first rehearsal with us. Like nobody did a background check.

I think that's awesome, but it. Hey, beggars can't be choosy. They were looking for a band, right? That's kind of the way it goes here.

And the best thing too, I mean the best problem that, and she had like the best problem ever, like the best worst habit ever. She played really quiet and you know how most drummers are sensitive drummer to traditionally trained, classically trained, even more so than like any other drummers that we've played with at open jams. Like you actually like try to listen to the room around you and not just to yourself.

The older, the older you, usually the older you are, the quieter you play. So I've noticed. I know a few people where that could be, you know, the exact opposite.

So I'm curious, you said you were classically trained. Where, where did you get the classic classical training from? So I I took private percussion lessons all throughout middle school and then I ended up teaching them in high school. So I've had a lot of one-on-one instruction as a teacher and as a student.

So, um, in high school we had, um, I was on the drum line so I was playing the marching snare drum and then I had also played the marching bass drum and I was also the drum set player for jazz band my senior year of high school. So, uh, and our band director for the four years I was in band, he was a percussionist as well. So I got a lot of really great instruction.

Shout out to Eric Wellman at Joliet West High School. Um, so yeah, I mean I've just been in kind of, um, like a less of more just like classical stuff, like reading music and traditional grip and technique. So it sounds like you really leaned toward percussion and you became so interested in it that you just wanted to learn as much as you possibly could.

You went above and beyond whatever you were learning at the high school level with being in marching band that is. Yeah. Okay.

So, but drum set has always been like the, the, um, the foundation for me, like playing the drum set since I was super little and then actually like defining all of the musical terms that I was playing and putting it on paper with like sheet music and stuff like that. So I became a little more technical, um, with private instruction and group instruction. Um, but yeah, I've been doing it for a very long time.

Wow. You know, she has perfect pitch. Oh really? Wow.

Well, you know, there's a, there's an old joke that said, what do you call the guy that hangs around with musicians or drummer? You can't say that. No, not in this case. No, not at all.

Wow. Wow. Didn't you go to school of rock the same way? Oh yeah, I did.

I did. I went to, um, I still think that's crazy how like Lucas and I, we missed each other. We just completely the same, the same building, the same school of rock.

Was it, was it the one right there in Plainfield? Yeah. Right on Lockport. Yeah.

Okay. I was in there. Um, I said, yeah, I joined us the season after they were established.

So I think I was with them for like three or four seasons. And then I was in their house band and I think at this one I was like nine or 11. And that's really good.

Usually you don't get in the house band until you're in high school. Usually like right as you get in the house band, you're like 15, 16 years old, but then you're like, you have to leave. Like right as you turn 18 cause like they, then you can join the adult band, but that's like, right.

Yeah. But yeah, I was doing that when I was little school rock. I don't know.

I don't want to talk crap on the podcast. Let's keep it positive. I have a question that I guarantee that every single one of your fans wants to know, because it's, it's been the question that people always ask whenever I'm present at one of your shows or you guys show up at an open mic night or whatever, they always want to know how do these young people play such great classic rock and roll? Um, listening to you talk, you all have some pretty eclectic influences.

Um, I guess individually or as a band, what made you decide that? Okay. You know, Fleetwood Mac and heart are the way we're going to go. And we're going to leave, uh, Britney Spears and whatever else you young kids are listening to today alone.

Uh, share that a little bit. I think the main consensus among us all is our parents. I think we've all talked about that.

Shout out to parents. I get that totally. But like I have a, like a vinyl record collection.

Like I don't feel like that's something that my people, like people my age do. It's more like a trend, but it's like, I genuinely like doing that. I, that's definitely my music taste.

It's not really like the newer stuff I should say. Well, our dad will come in to my room at like 1130 at night and be like, and play something on his phone. Like, can you do this song? I totally see your dad doing that.

Yeah. I mean like the stuff that like if you've ever been to one of our shows, if you see like Nathan jumping or Maddie, she's dancing and Lucas is standing there. So, you know, in regards to that, you know, you know what I hear a lot.

Um, I've had probably two dozen people, mostly women come up to me and say, Oh my God, he looks like a young Duff McKagan from, uh, from He does. I said that like when I first joined too. Do you know if someone at Ramble Jam said a few weeks ago, he said, when you were there a while ago, he said, someone said, Hey, I met your Tom Petty guy.

And I'm like, what are you doing? I met your bass player that looks like Tom Petty. I'm like Lucas. And I'm just like, yeah.

Yeah. They say Daryl Hall. No, that's my mom.

When I first met, she thinks I look like, uh, I don't even know Fabio. When I, when I first met Lucas at, uh, Zalmo's, when I first wanted to come out to see don't matter to me shows. I mean, I arrested him.

Is this, do you get, you look like Draco Malfoy a lot. He's like, yep. Wow.

Yeah. Well, here's the, here's the, here's the, uh, the, the, well, first of all, I think Claire, you were finishing a statement and we jumped over to how Lucas looks like a celebrity, but I don't even remember this. Something about everybody standing there or seeing Nathan jump and Lucas standing there.

Jumping in. I mean, we're all visibly having a good time. Right.

And it's because like, we wouldn't be as, um, present wherever we're playing. If we were playing, I don't know what, what's some music today that people listen to that is boots, cats, 21 pilots. We, we wouldn't be having fun playing that.

Nobody would have fun listening to it. So like, it's just like a perfect blend of like enjoyment for the audience, but also we are having a blast. And we can get people away from mainstream stuff.

I mean, it's all mainstream. Is that the type of music that you listened to as well when you were younger? Um, it's the type of music that my parents wanted me to listen to. So same, so same kind of a story.

But me and Maddie actually listened to that all the time. It might not be the case for Claire. She might.

So these past four months I've started to my, um, like what I listened to has definitely been sculpted. I know we all like have a slightly different music taste, but they all like mold all together. Yeah.

We're all more classic. They're kind of a little bit newer. So they kind of push us to do more like pop music or even like in the 2000s.

But like we find balance and all that. We try to find a balance. I think that's what people also appreciate is like we still do classic rock, but we have a good balance of like, like more disco or like seventies or sixties.

Like we try to have, we have a little more, we're trying to, I don't think I've ever heard you guys do anything, um, newer than about 2005. Honestly, I don't think I don't think I, that's kind of like your threshold. I think the newest song we have is so what by pink that was 2009 that came out.

Okay. Um, only I know that the band's repertoire for like the past two years has stayed like, obviously it's changed, but this, the general idea has stayed the same. Yeah.

Um, I mean, other than that, like we used to do a lot more rush, um, before cause we had keyboard, but now we don't. But also why would we do rush when you can do Van Halen? Cause Nathan can play it. Right.

And he can, I've seen him do it. Yes. Yes.

What about original music? You guys have any plans to start doing some original stuff? Uh, I think we're, um, going to start the writing process and winter over winter break and hopefully have some stuff down probably when everybody gets back for college in the summer. Definitely around summertime when everyone's like in the area, we can like collaborate more often. Yes.

Yeah. We probably rehearse maybe once a month to, to at most. Right.

So it's so it's hard with like, cause Claire is only coming down over the weekend if we have a show and then I have work and Maddie, we all have jobs. So. So you're away at college right now.

Yes. Where do you go? I go to North park university. Oh, I know right where that is.

Right, right. That is the first time anybody has ever heard of North park university. Yeah.

I mean, I'm on the North side a little bit. So, um, coming down every other weekend, it's a hundred percent worth it. Right.

I'm glad I'm so close, but I'm not like. Close. Close.

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Do you guys have problems? Um, I mean, it doesn't seem like you have problems getting booked, but do you come across any situations where people just won't hire you because of your ages? Yeah. Yeah. They just won't respond all the time or they think like, because we're a younger band, like we don't know anything.

I mean, we're still like, we're still young and we still don't have a lot of experience in like this music area or just like music in general. Yeah. Yeah.

But like, there's the assumption that because we're young and like, we just don't know anything and who's doing most of your booking. It's kind of like Lucas and me. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, my mom helps out a lot actually. She told me not to mention her, but I think she deserves them.

Uh, I appreciate your honesty. Uh, some big ups. Yeah.

She helps us kind of like keep it moving too. Cause she knows that we're all busy too. So she helps with like the organizational kind of stuff cause I'm not very organized.

Um, we're teenagers. We're none of us are organized. A lot of, uh, a lot of, um, venues will, they won't have a problem booking people under 21, but, um, they'll say like, um, since you guys are so young, you're not going to be playing good music and you're going to attract a younger crowd.

And the big thing I think is the younger crowd, like they think they're going to hire because young people are going to be 21 and that's where they get their money from. Or they bring in a fake ID and they lose their license. Some people have to learn the hard way.

Yeah. I mean all of our fans are like thirties or older anyway. So it's like, I don't know.

I just got to look at our Facebook. Our main demographic is women in their forties on Facebook. No, you're right.

I, I've seen, I've seen your Facebook posts. Cause a lot of the people that go out to see you guys regularly come out to see Cadillac or Uber, one of the other projects that, that I play with. And it's, it's the same group of people over and over and over again.

It's, it's the crowd that originated from, you know, the uptown and other, other local venues that have seen you guys playing, seen you guys performing here. So it's a new setting. I try to break out in Naperville.

It's hard. I mean, I love Joliet, you know, my dad calls Joliet his people. Right.

But it's just, we've tried probably eight venues in Naperville and haven't gotten a word back. I don't know. It's like impossible.

We'll get there though. It's just, it's just that one place that I'll be like, okay. We just need our foot in the door.

We haven't had that opportunity yet. And I just got my hardware, the big long hardware case and the drum case. It's been a struggle.

Yeah. Having to move my, a lot of money. Having to move my drum stuff.

Drum stuff is very expensive. It's way more expensive than a lot of people. I just spent $80 on a cable.

They were about to buy a $300 voice pedal. $600 maybe? $300. That's how much, 300.

How much was your guitar? You just bought anything? I traded another guitar, so I got it cheap. It was 500, you know, but Hey, it's still a great guitar. $500.

It's $500. What do you play Nathan? What guitars do I play? Well, my main guitars are, well, my main guitar is a Schecter DJ Aspa signature model. And my other main guitar, I have two main guitars, is a line six JTV 69 Variax, which has all these modeling presets and it's got like different, all these alternate tunings on it.

Like I know for some songs, like the chain, I have to tune my guitar too. Is it open G? No, it's actually E, B, E, A, C sharp E. That's what I have to tune my guitar to for the string. I mean, cause it's basically, it's basically drop D with both the E strings tuned down to D with a capo on the second fret.

But I, I do it without the capo and I just, and then during the solo, I just switch it back to standard tuning. That's what I do. That's my secret.

One ear out the other for me. Any guitar players that will, they'll understand though. I just play the tambourine.

What kind of drums you play Claire? Um, so we are working on a Frankenstein kit right now. So at home I've got a, Oh my gosh, my grandma's cousin used to play in a band in the seventies and he had a Tom Imperial start. It was an eight piece.

So there's four mounted Tom's and two floor Tom's and then just a bass drum, snare drum, and then just a boatload of cymbals. Um, so that's what I play at home. I don't prefer to play with all of the mounted Tom's right now.

I'm only playing at shows. I'm only playing with one mounted Tom and a four Tom. And I definitely want to increase that.

Definitely get some more stuff on our, um, in our arsenal for playing wise. Like I definitely want to play at some point I'd been listening to the song all day. I do want to play Tom Sawyer at some point.

Oh, I mean without keyboard, I mean, Nathan's going to have to figure it out. I'm not, well, he's got this, he's got 20 pedals. I'm sure he can figure it out.

I'm sure. Yeah. So yeah, we're doing the Frankenstein kit with drums right now, but my sweet water wish list is like over $4,000.

It's it's something, but yeah, I just, I love playing all different kinds of drums, still developing my own personal sound and taste. And Maddie, a favorite tambourine brand. Uh, the one I got for Amazon.

Acoustic or electric? Acoustic I'm assuming. Yeah. Cause I don't plug it.

Stop making fun of singers. You know, she has an SM58. Oh, there you go.

See, there you go. There you go. And your bass, what do you play through? I play, um, uh, music man, four string, um, Stingray, um, active with, uh, the, um, the active EQ.

Um, and then I have a, um, Squire P bass that I just, that was actually, I just got that one. Um, it's custom order from Chicago music exchange and I play, um, a, uh, Fender Aerodyne jazz bass, PJ set up. Yeah.

And, um, Mike one time I was at Uptown and it's like, uh, super like sleek black finish with like a white, um, bind on the binding, on the side. Um, and he was like, Hey, uh, next time you get on stage with that, make sure it doesn't look like you just had chicken tenders. I think that every single time I see it, I'm like, well I like wipe it down right before I get on stage when we play like a, like a actual gig.

And then at the end of it, it's just like covered in like, every, every black guitar looks like that. And not to interrupt, but I've been trying out this, uh, other guitar that I have to this, uh, Fender, Tom Morello, soul power Stratocaster, which has a lot of fingerprints on it. Cause it's like, kind of like Lucas's bass where it's like, yeah, that's how it, how it looks.

And I was going to ask him what do you guys have? You guys have Tom Morello like memorabilia in the museum, right? Uh, he's from Chicago. Yeah, we, we may, we may. I'm not, I'm not sure.

It said Tom Morello on the front side in the front of it. Yeah. Yeah.

We do like to cover some rage. Yes. Yeah.

Well, good. I've got to make it out to the name is like Claire's favorite. Oh my, I've been waiting.

I was hoping you would make it to the studio, but I was sad when you weren't there. Yeah. I, you know, I, I do have to make it out to one of your shows cause I haven't seen you guys with this particular personnel.

Um, and that's mainly because whenever you guys have a show, I have a show. So, so we're all, we're all busy musicians. You got a little taste of us once, but that was about it.

Right. That was just an appetizer. A little, are you guys playing this weekend at all? Yeah.

And where's that? That's the crowd around me on Friday night, Saturday night to midnight. There, there might be a possibility. Okay.

All right. Where's a Cadillac roof on Saturday? Um, nowhere. That's why there might be a possibility that we have, we have a couple of days off.

So nice. Awesome. So where, uh, social wise, where can people find you guys? You can find us on our Facebook don't matter to me.

And you can also find us on Instagram also don't matter to me. Um, I should get a YouTube or like a tick tock or something. Maybe tick tock.

Oh my gosh. We have tick tock. I think we hit our nerve here.

My partner has been trying to convince me or she's been telling me to tell you guys that we need to do a tick tock because you see these bands on tick tock, they post like four videos and they get like 50, 60 views and then they, they get this really good one idea that goes completely viral and they get like half a million views on one video and they have like 10,000 followers just like that. And all it did, all it takes is just one video. And then people, my old band, my punk band, I'll just say this, even though it's not about, you know, um, we had, we had a tick tock account, like a, for our band, we had one video and then we blew up.

Now we have like 13,000 monthly listeners and shit like that. Because I think on tick tock, if you have a song that is like trending as like a used sound on tick tock, people will go then listen to it or I don't know if it's like you stream it through tick tock, then you get streams on Spotify too. So one of them is like over a million streams, like one song on their album.

We better hurry up and get better looking so we can do a tick tock. You got that right. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm calling tick tock right now. As soon as we're done.

Yeah. You just need like once you, once you exceed like a certain amount of views, then the algorithm like helps you out in the, in like the trending section. So, and then, and then it's like nowhere but up after that.

You just got to have one stupid idea. And that's how, that's how Facebook is. Once you, I think once we got over 800 followers, we just started getting like, for like the rest of the year, we almost have a show.

We almost have a show almost every weekend. Right. Right.

No, Facebook and Facebook. Once you, once you hit a thousand followers, it tends to, it could take you two years to get to a thousand followers, you know, or likes I should say on Facebook. But then after you hit the thousand, it all of a sudden just becomes exponentially.

You're at, you're at 3000 and half the time it took you to get to a thousand. So. Well, all righty guys.

Thanks for coming out. It's nice to have you here. Yes.

Thank you. Hope to see you guys out, out and about very soon. Thank you.

And I was, I am very proud of the fact that you guys were my first interview. I'm proud too. And I'm proud that I got to be a part of your first interview.

Thank you very much. We're all very proud, aren't we? Thanks a lot. Well, that was don't matter to me.

I guess they kind of matter. No, they absolutely do matter. And like I said, you were probably drawn in by these guys and what they had to say and learning a lot about their musical influences and how they came together as a band.

I was very impressed by Claire, you know, being a, what was it? A classical drummer. I mean, yeah, that surprised me. They had told me very little about her, but that was very surprising to find out she was classically trained as a drummer.

You don't hear that very often. No, no, no, no. I just been banging drums in my basement since I was a kid.

That's usually the way it is. No, you really need to go out and see these guys. And Nathan as a guitarist is probably the most electric performer.

I mean, he is so into what he's doing and you can tell he is a fantastic student of that instrument. He plays everything note for note. When he covers a song, it sounds like somebody who's playing a backing track.

Well, he knows everybody's birthday. He's got to have a photographic memory. Oh yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Like I said, I've played with him on several occasions and he's so good and knows so much music that there was one time where I was supposed to host an open mic. I had known Nathan for about three weeks.

I'd seen him maybe three times. And I said, you know what? I'm going to ask this kid because I know he's going to be able to cover it. And he said, sure, no problem.

You got to be sure of yourself. Yeah, absolutely. I look forward to seeing him sometime.

Yeah. So that was great having them and thanks everybody for listening. We're as always, we're coming to you from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet.

Make sure you sign up to be a charter member at roadtorock.org and we'll see you next week with another episode. Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music that's played on this podcast. The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed.