This is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. What's happening, Ray? I haven't been feeling too good lately. No, it's a shame.

Yeah, I know. I saw a doctor, but he couldn't couldn't find a remedy for me. Nothing simple, at least.

No. So it could be more more intense. Yes.

Not not like intent, like camping, camping, camping, no. So yeah, I'm just trying to find myself a remedy, something to something to make me feel good. You know anything that might.

I do. I do. We've got something coming up right here.

Oh, really? In a band called Simple Remedy. The Simple Remedy. You're kidding.

I think that that's exactly what the doctor ordered. Yes, it is. It's it'll be perfect for you.

Well, that's awesome. Well, who's who's joining us? We've got Laura Falker and and Ed Ryan. Oh, OK.

And Ed founded the band many so many years ago. I know Laura. Do you? I do.

Where do you know Laura from? She owns the studio in Lockport. Yes, she does. Which is not a studio.

It's a it's a club. It's a club. It's a music club.

They got food. They got drinks. Really good drinks.

They have some good bourbon there. They have good bourbon. Yes, they have good bourbon.

They have they have a signature Manhattan. It's called Mike's Manhattan. Nice.

Good friend of mine and yours from Cadillac Roof. Yeah. Yeah.

So if you're in a mood for a good Manhattan and you're near Lockport, stop at the studio. You never know. And you get some great music, too.

Yes. Yeah, they have music there seven nights a week. Just like the old days.

Well, let's let's see if the simple remedy will remedy what ails me. All right. Let's go.

Let's talk to him. Hello and welcome to the show. Today, we're speaking with the Simple Remedy Band.

No, just one simple. Not duly simple. The Simple Remedy Band.

Did I get it right that time? You did. You did. And we're speaking with Ed Ryan and Laura Falker.

Close enough. Falker. Yes.

Falker. Falker. Laura Falker.

I was thinking of the movie. Sorry. That's all right.

I get that all the time. It's OK. You're an action hero and I don't know.

Well, if you saw Meet the Parents, you'd be confused with that. So how are you guys doing today? Good. Fantastic.

Made it through the torrential downpour and here we are. We're in the coolest podcasts. You know, we finally get this nice weather and it starts, you know, monsooning.

Right. Yeah. Well, hopefully this is it and spring will be here.

So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. So tell us a little bit about the band. So the band's been around quite some time.

We. And you started a band, right? I did. I did in 2009.

So the band's been around and we've had a number of lineup changes over the years, which comes with being around for 14 years. But, you know, I feel like we a lot of that was necessary to kind of find ourselves and get to a point where we could find a great singer like Laura here and kind of take things to the next level. We're on track to be pretty well booked through this year.

And, you know, but we're we're primarily a band with our roots in country music. And we surround that with some because there's country music and everything. There was country music in the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead.

And to a certain extent, the Beatles. Yeah. Yeah.

They were obsessed with some of the old school country guys, especially Ringo. You got it. You got it.

So we take the parts of those and blend them around the country roots. And I'd like to think we're a melting pot of American music. So that's kind of what I'm going with.

I actually love country music. And I think I think it's what rock and roll used to be. Yeah.

Yeah. If you take country music now, nowadays, and you take rock and roll, what it was back in the 70s and 80s, it's the same thing, except maybe with a little twang in your voice. Yeah.

You had a steel guitar, a little violin. And, you know, you're just building on that kind of block that that was already there. And I think it's something that I think there's something for that kind of music for everybody.

I really do. And we try to make it well rounded. So if a bunch of country music fans bring their rock and roll fans or their blues fans out, we've got something for everybody because we'll do a blues dip and then come back into something else that fits.

So I spend a lot of time on set lists and things like that to make it kind of to make sure there's something for everybody. You do. So what do you do in the band, Ed? So I play guitar and I sing.

And Laura, Laura sings. We try to focus a lot on harmonies. And our other guitar player, Pat, plays steel guitar and harmonica and mandolin and lead guitar.

And he also carries our third harmony. And then he's a really talented guy. He's a he's a well-known Pat Kiner is a well-known Chicago guitar player.

I think he's made his rounds throughout the years in a lot of good bands. And then we're rounding it out these days with Mike Smith on bass and Andy Wilmoth on the drums. And Andy was in Nashville for nine years.

So he cut his chops out on Broadway. And Mike's been in some great local bands, you know. So we've got some veterans with us and we brought in a powerhouse vocalist like Laura to.

I'm the newbie. Yeah, she's I'm so new. She's our rookie of the year.

But she's killing it. You wouldn't even know it. She she came right in and just started kicking butt.

So, Laura, have you been singing for a long time? Yeah, I think since I grew up around music, my dad was always a really big music fan. So was my mom. But I think I was in my first musical when I was like seven.

And then I actually went to college for theater. But I was more interested in the lighting and the sound. And I hated the acting part of it.

So I mostly just I was in the background a lot of the time. And it wasn't until I had a project maybe about six years ago with another person. And it was kind of like an acoustic project.

We wrote a lot of our own original stuff. And that gave me a little taste of the stage. But I still didn't really get the full effect until this year when I joined Simple Remedy.

So you've been with them a short time. Yeah, since December officially. That's been pretty cool.

But yeah, just been singing in the shower and in the car until now, mostly. They didn't find you in the shower. No, that would actually be probably a more interesting story.

Way cooler band story. Yes, we were in the bathroom. No, actually, Eddie and I have a couple of mutual friends, Andy and Rachel.

And Andy had been bugging him to come into the studio that I run. And he finally just came in to shut him up. And when he was there, he heard me sing at the open mic we were doing.

And he's like, hold on a second. I want to jam with you a little bit. And that's how it happened.

Very cool. Now you mentioned a studio that's in Lackport. Yes.

And it's not actually a studio. It is not. It's a small music venue.

Or that's what I turned it into. It used to be known as a wine bar for a really long time. But I actually just changed gears and made it more about the music.

How long have you been, are you owner of the place? Yes. And how long have you been the owner? So since January 1st of 2021. I see.

So right after everything started to open up again. So I figured, you know, perfect time. If I fail, I get another job.

So now, if Simple Remedy has been around since 2009, what were you doing before you had Laura? So we had our original singer, Kelly, was with us for a little over 10 years. And she got an opportunity to go out to Seattle. And it was kind of one of those things where it was too good to pass up.

Did she do some grunge rock? I don't know. Grunge country. Not even a music opportunity.

Just took her, you know, life kind of took her in a different direction. And she had to give it a shot, which is totally understandable, you know. So that kind of left me the last couple of years, you know, we've tried some things, mainly plugging in another singer just for specific events and shows and things like that.

But I've been spending that time writing music. And so Laura and I crossed paths at the right time and started working on some original music. And I've got boatloads of notebooks and charts and all kinds of great stuff.

And we just started slowly. We've already got four done and probably got another four or five in the mix. And I've got a couple hundred bits and pieces laying around to piece together.

So, you know, the goal of this, other than being that melting pot of music, was to do original music. And, you know, further to that, we're actually starting to work on songwriter nights at the studio. So original music is going to be the focus going forward.

It's kind of got to have the right people though. Right mindset. So the songs that you guys put together, are these your first originals? Or have you had originals in the past? Yeah, some of this stuff's been around, some of it's new.

You know, doing some lyric rewrites and things like that now and kind of polishing them up. So hopefully to go in the studio late summer, early fall and could be an EP, could be an LP, who knows? It doesn't matter these days. You could just release singles ad nauseam now, I guess.

That's what most people do. They release singles and put them out on Spotify. Yeah, exactly right.

So, yeah, our mindset's shifting to that kind of full-blown original. You know, we can build the rest of it around that. So, cool.

So what kind of music are you doing right now when you play a live show? It's a mix of kind of country roots, Americana music. Okay, so give us an example of some of the songs. So, you know, the other night we opened up with some Chris Stapleton that kind of moved into a song by the band.

You know, and then from there, it could be anything from Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell. And then, you know, we closed our, you know, I'm always adding new songs. So we ended up closing the first set the other night with Gimme Shelter.

Oh, so much fun. You know, that is a variety. Yes.

Yeah, and, you know, and you throw in some Tom Petty, some Mellencamp. You know, and then you got everything from the early country legends like. Dolly.

Oh, yeah, you got some Dolly, you got some, you know, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie, and all the greats. You know. So you say Americana.

What exactly do you mean by Americana? Yeah, so we're taking that and then blending all those songs in with things like the Lumineers and the Head and the Heart and Edward Sharp, all kinds of stuff. I'm trying to think of some of the newer stuff. Shaky Graves.

Yeah, Shaky Graves. So I'm finding connection songs to take us into a path like that with some of the Americana music and then find a way back out in either country or classic rock. I'm a country rocker, but the roots are always in country.

So I just try to make sure there's an acoustic-y kind of base there. And that way we can form. You could take it pretty much anywhere if you're.

I spend a lot of time on setlists. I think it's an important part of it, making sure we transition well and that the vibe doesn't fade, you know, throughout the night. So a lot of work goes in during the week to pull off a show.

We're always changing, so I'm always throwing new things at the guys that Laura and I kind of come up with during the week. So, the last couple of months have been kind of a bit of a chameleon of sorts. So, you don't call out songs as you see them? No.

I mean, and you go by settlers? Yeah. Yeah, I like to do, I mean, I know I do that. Yeah.

I mean, we will take a request from time to time here and there, but for the most part, I spend a lot of time on the list to make sure the songs transition well and we don't have any dead spots. It's a constant work in progress, as you can imagine. So, you're not playing to the crowd, then? I mean, I mean, as the crowd is saying, okay, they look like they need some Johnny Cash right now, so let's change it up.

We can't. We do that sometimes, yeah, if we notice there's a lull, which is kind of rare. But he'll change it up or he'll say, hey, Pat, we're going to do this next.

And, you know, so we sometimes leave room for that. Because sometimes you see the fans, you know, the audience sitting there, you can see them reacting a different way to a different song. You're like, let's not do that anymore.

Yeah. Let's do something towards that end, you know? Right. And you know, that habit, like we play Pub City downtown a lot.

You know, you go to places like Carol's or Joe's on Weed Street or, you know, the Firewater spots that we hit from time to time. I feel like I know those rooms, but that just doesn't always work out, you know? It's a different crowd every night. It really is.

And sometimes you're a little surprised and you got to take a left turn. I'm okay with doing that. You know, it is about entertaining at the end of the day.

So, you know, we really try to put on a good show and make sure people leave happy and want to come back, most importantly. So tell us again, the other guys in the band who... So we've got Pat Kiner on guitar and, you know, a dozen other instruments. We got Mike Smith on bass and then Andy Wilmoth on the drums.

Is Pat writing music? You know, Pat has all kinds of things going on. I think he does. He has written some music with a couple, I know in the Jim Palace Jesters, he was in a band up north that he had a hand in writing a tune or two with, and he shows up on an album from time to time having crafted either solos or, you know, some transition pieces or bridges.

I've done stuff like that too, where we, you know, help people finish songs or finish an album and come in and patch things together. So yeah, Pat's a talented guy. He can certainly add anything where he needs to.

So Ed, what is your history with music? I mean, when did you start playing music? Oh man, I remember seeing... So my mom was very much into the kind of hippie and, you know, the 60s type, you know, music. A lot of... Janis Joplin. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel.

You know, now that I look back, I think that's where my harmony kind of vibe came from. My earliest memories are probably The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and stuff like that. And some Joni Mitchell and The Who.

My dad's where I got the country music stuff from. Willie was on in the house all the time. And I remember Waylon and Merle Haggard and all that good stuff.

So and then growing up, I just had all these vinyl albums and a big turntable in the house. And then it was, you know, there was a pile of eight tracks in the basement with an eight track player. And, you know, my parents weren't really into music, per se, from a performance standpoint.

But there was music everywhere. And, you know, then I got into, you know, obviously like anybody else, cassettes and all the other forms that music's taken over the years. But I didn't come back to country for a while.

I always played it. I always had a little bit of it in a set or as I went through different phases. But, you know, when my last band, I was in a band for 10 years called Shades of Grey that played all over Chicago.

And when that kind of wrapped up, I said, you know, I'm going to go back to that, you know, the kind of roots of where the thing was. And I kind of started out this band playing stuff by, you know, the band and, you know, some Dylan and some other things. Then we morphed throughout the years into some different kinds of music and adding things to play different places.

But I would say for the last, you know, pretty, pretty much eight or nine years, it's been this kind of format. So Shades of Grey sounds familiar. Yeah, we were, we beat up the Fest circuit for years.

Most of the bands around, we'd play Fest. Mr. Plata was around and Fabulous Janes and, you know, a lot of the bands, you still see Infinity at our, like, we kind of worked our way up that circuit a little bit and, you know, played a lot of that. We were mostly a Southside band.

So if you were Riley's daughter or any of those venues, I've been there several times recently. Hey, never a bad time to visit Riley's daughters. So are you the sole surviving original member? I am.

Yeah. When Kelly moved to Seattle, that's, that left me here to fend for myself. So I'm doing okay.

We're, you know, we're lucky we got a lot of support. Ed Warm, Williams, Joe's and Bub City and Carol's has been great to us. He took me out to play at the Windy City Smokeout at the United Center last year.

We got to open up on Sunday. They're just fantastic national acts playing there. And he keeps finding spots for me.

I don't know what I did to deserve that, but he, he's just been great to us. And, you know, a lot of other venues that have just now, you know, you know, we got stuff coming up this summer at Square Kelp in Orland. We'll be at the studio as much as Laurel let me through there with the band.

And, you know, like I said, we're starting the songwriter sessions now with a lot of talent from, you know, up north in Chicago and out in Joliet and Lockport and Orland. So, you know, there's a lot of like songwriter stuff going on that's very localized. My goal with this and Laura's goal is to open that up.

So people are coming from the city and people are coming from other other places, not just right here. And we're purposely putting together people that don't know each other already. So three songwriters a night each month are going to meet each other for the first time.

And, you know, I think one or two might know each, you know, from different things and only one goes home with the prize, like Thunderdome or some cooking show. Right. Yeah.

So when they get together, do they write a song right there? No. We talked about doing like a songwriter circle where they would write that maybe in the future that it would be an option, but for now, the way it's structured is they're going to share their own originals and then I think do a cover of from somebody that inspired them. But it's more just each one of them gets their own block of time and then they get to enjoy each other's music, too.

So it's just about supporting each other as well, because I believe like the music community out here is so incredible and it's great to see, especially at my spot or even other local spots, people are going and traveling to see each other play when they don't have gigs. And it's just all love and all talents. Really cool.

I know it used to be that way back in the 70s and 80s, where you would go and see a band on a Tuesday night, you go see Off-Broadway or Cheap Trick on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at some club. I may be speaking a little bit too old for you guys. Oh no.

No, I love Cheap Trick. The great Cheap Trick from Rockford. At least you didn't say Moses.

We got time. I was at this place on a Tuesday night one time and Moses walked in. Wow.

What instrument did he play? The staff. The great staff. The great staff.

I just think of Moses because I just saw the Ten Commandments, so. Charlton Heston. Tis the season.

Yes. Yes. Tell me a little bit more about your songwriting.

Okay, so the songs definitely have that kind of American feel to them. You know, my goal with the songwriting is always to be able to take people on a little bit of a journey. It's funny, I hadn't heard it in a while, but I heard Hotel California the other day and you can literally visualize what he's saying in that song, you know what I mean? That's always my goal.

I wanted people to be able to live through it and be able to take a little bit of that and hopefully find their own experience in it. So songs just come to me though, I don't spend, if I spend longer than 10 or 15 minutes on a song when it's kind of in its infancy, I move on. I don't spend three hours trying to beat it up and make it something that it's probably not going to be.

I wrote two the other day and in like a matter of 20 minutes, they were just there. I don't know how that happens or why that happens, but you know, verse, chorus, a little bit of a bridge, you know, more and more these days, if I do have some verses, I just stop with the first verse, put the chorus together and then let it sit. Then I might write 20 more verses later that are kind of in that first verse structure and then keep the best little pieces of them that I can, for whatever reason, I could do that pretty quickly.

But it's a gift. I mean, almost every song I have probably came in less than 10 minutes. So they're just somehow there.

It's a beautiful thing. I know a lot of people, I've heard a lot of people talk about how they struggle with songwriting and they spend two hours a day on it and all that. You know, I spend a lot of time kind of cleaning them up if I'm going to get them ready to do something with them.

But we actually had fun. I just started tracking them and she'd come in and sing over stuff and we'd try it. She'd come back the next week.

Maybe I'd change the key if we found something that clicked and, you know, try to get a demo done pretty quick. And these days you could do that in all kinds of formats. You can record, you know, I'll record a quick drum track and some bass and maybe a little piano or something else and, you know, we've got a pretty good frame to take in.

It makes that makes it a lot easier to show it to, you know, some other musicians and try to make make something out of it. Have you ever thought of something while you're driving and recorded it to your phone? Oh, I do that all the time. I have like 200 and some voice memos.

I was going to mention it because you mentioned earlier that you have little bits and pieces. Oh yeah. This is just literally lyric pieces.

I mean, it's never ending and which is great. If I ever go back and use any of them, it'd be great, but new stuff comes and then I actually flesh that out. But I mean, I've got, yeah, and then I've got the mic app thing where you just sing right into it and I've got probably a hundred of those too.

And then you scroll through and you see this one set of lyrics grocery list. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I forgot. Coming to you to a theater near you.

Yeah. It's a, do you write the music first or sometimes it's all just there. You know, I hear the melody and then I, I, the words just come pretty quickly.

So it's just a matter of, you know, I know Laura's got a lot of lyrics too. It's like, I kind of do reverse. Sometimes I'll think a really cool lyrics or like an idea and I'll write it down.

I remember I sent you a bunch. You're like, well, this is weird because he works the opposite way. So now we're just trying to figure out how to kind of music to those lyrics.

Sometimes I'll get melodies or a melody with a cool harmony in my head, but I'm like, I don't know where to go with that. But then words, words come easy for me. So you're just, he's always sending me stuff like, Hey, what do you think of this? I'm like, that's great.

Let me put some harmonies to it. And he always ends up having all the lyrics done by the time I get over there. So yeah.

And I think what will happen, and we're only a few months into this really, and so much has happened. We've played a bunch of shows. We're finishing some songs and, but I think what'll happen as we go, rewriting lyrics will be the, you know, the whole thing, getting the verse to match the actual overall theme.

And because sometimes it comes out a little bit of garbage, you know? So, you know, I think where we're going to have fun building out songs now is taking melodies and making lyrics and doing all of that. And I'm actually purposely stopping. If I've got a good chorus, I just stop now and leave us something to work on, you know? Because even a line or two here or there could change the whole song.

So I'm actually trying to stop myself from going too far in so we can come up with some new stuff that's a little bit different than I would write on my own. Yeah. I'm aware of writing something, you get in a zone.

Yeah. I've gotten in a zone and I've had a pen and paper written down words and played something and all of a sudden, 30 minutes later, I've got a whole song and I don't even know where it came from. Isn't that great? It is great.

It is great. I'll never understand it or why it happens, but it, you know, they're almost fully formed and you just have to get it out to make sure you don't lose it. I have gotten up, you know, you hear that.

I've gotten up at three in the morning and just for three minutes, record something in the phone real quick. So I don't, you know, so it doesn't leave. I've had plenty walk away in the darkness of the night.

Oh yeah. Off they go to somebody else's head. Yeah.

Actually you could cut this out, but one of all songs on the last seminar rush album is in the darkness of night. Why would we cut that out? Yeah. Everyone knows.

Yeah. No, that's fantastic. And it's a song that I wrote with, um, it's just a pen and paper in front of me and my guitar.

I was sitting at my dining room table and it was like all of a sudden 20, 30 minutes later. So then I come out of this fog and I've got this song, you know, that might be the best way I've ever heard that described. Like you're gone for a little while.

Yes. Yes. And then you're back and you're off to do something else.

Really? I mean, I mean, but they're, they're a classic rock band, you know, and he calls me up. He's like all excited. He says, Ray, I want you.

I guess I wrote this song. I want you to listen to it. And he sent it to me and I'm listening and I'm like wanting to hang myself because it sounded dark.

It was very dark. So yeah, it was like nothing I ever expected. I was thinking something happened, moving and I'm like, I want to hang myself, man.

It's like, yeah, it's funny. That's, that's actually a good point because, uh, you know, I found myself for a little while trying to write in a specific kind of siloed way. So I sounded a certain way.

Songs weren't that good. You know? I mean, they, they sounded like I was trying too hard. Right.

And then when you just let it all go and you leave for a little bit and it's, it's all there and you come back and you've got this thing, it's, it's real. I mean, that's, you know, I don't think you can force something like that. No, I think if it's forced, it's not, it's going to sound like it, it's not going to be fun to play during the pandemic, you know, we're all quarantined at home.

Nobody, you know, nothing to do. And I'm sitting around the house and I don't know, watching TV, listening to music or something. I was texting him.

I says, you know what, I'm going to write a song. And he's like, you are, go for it. On an hour later, I said, I got done.

And it was basically the same thing. I just started writing. I had some ideas and I started going and there it was.

And then I said to him, I said, tell me what you think of the lyrics. So I figured I like the lyrics. I'll work on the melody or try putting something to it later on.

Well, by the next day, he had the melody down. So we're going to be the next Bernie Taupin and Elton John. Yeah, it's the lyrics.

It says to me, I read it. London and McCartney. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's it. And I think you have to, when it comes, when it comes like that, you have to sit down and just do it.

It doesn't matter what else you're doing. I think you're, if you're, you know, you're smart, you'll just stop, get, get it done and then go back to your. Oh, yeah.

And then I, I figured that sounded like that worked out really well. And then look how quick it happened. I got to do something.

I got to do another one. Then it's like, I got nothing. Yeah.

Now it's like I'm forcing myself. And I don't even try anymore. If I'm, if it's not there and there's not something to go on, I feel like I, I'll end up wasting an hour because it's, you know, you gotta have a theme or a place to start or something has to be in your head already to, to actually make it.

Well, there was a way I was going to ask you, do you come up, come up with a thing? Like, I'm going to write about this. I'm going to write about that. No, I, I find though that something while I'm writing, you know, you might not keep all the lyrics, but something while I'm writing shapes the theme.

And then when I go back to start rewriting lyrics, I build around that the best part of it. Right. Um, that, that helps me kind of, you know, the melodies are usually what's there, not necessarily the words.

So if I can get that onto paper, that way I can get the phrasing down. And then a lot of times there will be something there. There was a reason that came to me.

So that usually ends up forming what I end up, you know, finishing, uh, with the lyrics. I see. It's very interesting.

Very interesting. So, so Laura, tell us a little bit about your songwriting experience. Oh, goodness.

Um, I think back in the day when I had that band, uh, we were a comedic band. So we wrote, we wrote songs and we would just be hanging out in a garage drinking PBRs, jamming. And, uh, I think the first song we wrote together, uh, it was like an idea that he had and he sent me a bunch of lyrics and a melody, and then I kind of built onto it.

And it was about an internet dating site. Cause we were both like single at the time and go through that. And then we would hang out in his garage.

Um, just like I said, drink PBRs and I'm like, Hey, let's write a song about tacos. Okay. Let's write a song about Christopher Wagon.

And then beyond that, I started to understand what goes into songwriting. Cause he was very, very talented. And, uh, um, I started to write prettier songs, but it didn't really fit in our band.

So I have a bunch of stuff in my phone still from back then. Uh, but for me, lyrics just always came first. I always wrote a lot of poetry.

I always was obsessed with like dissecting lyrics and stuff when I got into music, when I was younger. So for me, that kind of comes and flows out first. So, and then I go back.

When you dissect the lyrics, um, Just, I really love, um, my, my dad was really into Zeppelin and the Beatles. And my mom was really into sticks and queen and just how beautiful the lyrics were that they put together on top of the already amazing music. It was just, you know, I kind of always was obsessed with the, the lyrical, uh, writing.

How many songs have you listened to though, that are very popular songs that you go, what the hell are they talking about? You know, it's a lot of newer songs for me. I kind of, I get the energy sometimes behind it, but when I go back and look at the lyrics, how are the, how did they get away with some of this? You know, but there's, it's an art form for everyone. I guess.

I mean, I mean, when you look at some of the, some of the Aerosmith stuff or even six, we love an elevator. You know, it's actually the first thing I thought, but if you look at even Elton John and you go, Oh, what the hell, what did he, what is he talking about? You know, but that's another thing that's cool about it too, is, uh, how it's open to interpretation for everybody. I like sometimes when they leave it open like that.

So everyone gets moved in a certain or in a different way. So, so do you like when, when someone comes in and says, this song is about this, I think it, well, I think it depends, leave it open to interpretation. I think it depends on my mood because I, I'm a big fan of so much music.

I mean, I know you, you know, uh, I have a lot of blues bands that come through my spot and, and, uh, like downtown Charlie Brown, when he talks about, Oh, this song, uh, crossroads wasn't actually about him selling the soul to the devil. It was about the sundown laws and people are like, wait, what, you know? And that's just something like when you learn what it actually was about and then what you thought it was about, and you kind of try to piece together both. It's, it's just, it's just fascinating to me.

So I guess it really depends on the mood. It's kind of cool to learn what really, what it was really about, but then sometimes I don't want to know either. Don't like to be told what it's going to be.

Yeah. Yeah. The song is about a grasshopper.

You're going to like it, like it. You know what? We should write a song about a grasshopper. Oh, little green one.

You bringing a guitar? Yeah. What's that? Did you bring a guitar? Maybe I have one in the car. Uh, I did not bring it in.

He asked if, uh, you should bring it. I'm like, maybe in the car, just in case we've got one nearby, we could pause this. Oh, technology is part of the podcast, but brought to you by sweaty balls.

Oh my God. That's an old classic. You want to pause it? Are you far? Okay.

Cause I don't want to get soaked. You might play it. Oh, not at all.

Okay. We could play an original if you want. Sure.

I see. We got a little performance here. Uh, what's the name of this tune? Uh, so this is a song called waste of my time.

And, uh, we're going to feature Laura. I'm sorry. If we wouldn't have had you, if we were wasting your time.

Oh, no, certainly not about this beautiful setup here. And the blink of an eye, it was all over the words were so strong. I might need another minute to do something wrong.

I think I could have loved you better than waiting so long. Why don't you just take it away? Don't you walk away? I'm not done talking hurt all of your lines. Now I'm the one walking.

Maybe if I close my eyes, it'll be all right. Tonight. I can't wait for you all day.

You're driving me crazy. I wanted you to stay. Don't try to blame me.

If it's really over, I won't even put up a fight tonight. Is it just a waste of my time? In the back of my mind. We were forever.

The tears I have cried. I really couldn't keep it together. I stayed up all night.

Maybe I'll write you a letter. I heard all your lies. Don't try to make me feel better.

Don't you walk away? I'm not done talking hurt all of your lines. Now I'm the one walking. Maybe if I close my eyes, it'll be all right.

Tonight. I can't wait for you all day. You're driving me crazy.

I wanted you to stay. Don't try to blame me. If it's really over, I won't even put up a fight.

Tonight. Is it just a waste of my time? Take your time. Just don't waste all day.

Don't you walk away? I'm not done talking hurt all of your lines. Now I'm the one walking. Maybe if I close my eyes, it'll be all right.

Tonight. I can't wait for you all day. You're driving me crazy.

I wanted you to stay. Don't try to blame me. If it's really over, I won't even put up a fight.

Tonight. Is it just a waste of my time? Is it just a waste of my time? Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast, exclusive first.

Definitely didn't waste our time. It's very, very, very nice. Laurie, you had a great voice.

Thank you so much. Yeah, you guys sound great. I got a little taste of a little little Lady A in there.

Yeah, I got that feel from that. Lady A or a little big town, maybe. It would be.

It's all in there. It's all in there. Have you ever thought about selling any of your stuff? You know, I've a couple of things I was working on, you know, with the music and so now your guitars are, you know, not yourself.

The babies, the babies stay, the guitars stay. Yeah. You know, I actually that's where I was going a couple of years ago.

I was thinking of just, you know, starting to try to shop songs. But something in me, I knew I still had that, you know, desire to work on original music of my own and actually put it out. And, you know, if that doesn't work, you can, you know, the songs aren't going anywhere, I can do something with them, you know, and certainly if somebody approached me with the right situation, I would definitely look at it.

But my my primary interest right now is to record my own music and see where that takes us. You know, a couple of I feel like a couple of new songs we have are pretty good. And I I think they fit what we're trying to do anyway.

So I think it's the best place to start. But, you know, I do have stuff that doesn't really fit what we're trying to do. And, you know, I would definitely consider that just showing that to people that are writing new albums or looking for original songs.

So, yeah, I just want to be in that space, period. I don't I don't know if I necessarily care in the long run how I stay there or get there. Very good.

Yeah, another one in here. Yeah, we could do one to have them help me, maybe. OK, let's do that one.

That one. Yeah. Or either that or under the weight.

We'll just do this. I sing, you sing. What's this one called? This is called Haven't Helped Me.

So this one came out of this one started with kind of one of those things like, you know, when somebody is leaving your life, sometimes it's a good thing. And, you know, haven't helped me if you ever come back is the tagline. So.

I was drifting after a bottle of wine. And I caught you one last time. I was hoping we would work out fine.

Maybe I'll see you at the end of the line. Now I'm rolling like a train on a train. Haven't helped me if you ever come back.

Haven't helped me if you ever come back. Living down above the sanity line. Thinking about you, well, I'm out of my mind.

I first saw you, we were walking the line. Now I'm just waiting where the sun don't shine. Somehow you always turn my blues to black.

Haven't helped me if you ever come back. Haven't helped me if you ever come back. I'm turning back, I wasted all of my time.

It ain't easy, but I'm doing just fine. When you leave, it's still the perfect crime. Got your message, but I ain't got a dime.

Always feel like I'm under attack. Another Rock and Roll Chicago podcast exclusive. If you don't subscribe, you don't know what you're missing.

Very nice. Very nice. That's great.

That was great, guys. Going for you guys. That's quite a couple.

I appreciate that. Very cool. So you say you got quite a few bookings this year.

What you got coming up soon? Say in like two weeks. Yeah. So Friday, actually, we're at the studio.

We haven't played there much yet. So we're starting to trying to find some good spots to do that. And then May six, we got a big show up of city downtown on Clark Street.

So then we're ready to tear the rest of the spring in the summer. Yeah, I think we're at Girl in the Park. Yeah, we got in May a couple of local things coming.

And then Uptown and Plainfield in the end of May. And so those are going to be new for us. It's a festival is coming up.

Yeah, we're actually going to be at Homegrown Music Fest this summer. All original, all all original acts and that's a lie. I think it's going to be in Lyle.

We're more focused on that right now. So we're trying to find spots where we could take the original stuff and do half hour or 40 minute sets. And, you know, rather than just anchor onto the cover stuff all summer.

And, you know, I actually thought about just taking a deep dive into the original, some would call it the dark side because it's hard. I mean, I appreciate these people that are out there doing it every weekend. And it's so hard and they're doing great with it.

A lot of people have spent the years driving that up. But what we've been doing is slipping three or four of our own songs into some of the bigger venues while we're doing sets and just finding spots where they kind of match up good with a couple of songs in a row. And at least we're playing our stuff to a lot of people.

Then, you know, if there's a couple hundred people in there, they're hearing our stuff. So we're picking our battles between playing original shows and doing the cover stuff, but then just keep slowly, you know, slipping our stuff into the first set. So we're getting in front of more people.

So while they're a little sober, they're still semi-sober, you got to make your own stuff in there. You got to mix it in it. You know, we're pretty determined to do that now.

And it's we're getting some support for it. You know, I don't think we could play 15 of those in a row with some of those bigger venues right now. But some bands are in there.

You know, we're just hoping a couple of them catch on where we could keep slipping a few more in here or there. So I know, Laura, you said you've only been with the band a few months. Yeah.

But what did you do to survive COVID? A lot of live streams. I was surprised all the different people that reached out pretty early on. We raised I was doing a couple of months where I was doing some live streams with a group called Live Like Roo, who helps families with sick animals and, you know, that need major surgeries or treatments or things like that.

So we raised a bunch of money during COVID doing stuff like that. I did some stuff for, you know, different organizations, you know, where they wanted to do happy hours for their employees and things like that. So I actually ended up just filming like a couple hour long sets and just sent them out when people needed them.

So I didn't even have to keep doing them live. But they could launch them when they wanted to. Sure.

They could do it at all. You know, call it a day at noon on a Friday and have a happy hour thing. Sure.

It was really different. I mean, I I was so happy when I got out of the basement for the first time to play live music again. It was you look like Moses.

Oh, yeah. The beard was, you know, super long. And I had tablets and all kinds of stuff, you know.

They were just different kind of tablets. You know, we came out with the iPads hot and ready to go. Did you say you're a reference to Moses? I know, I know.

You got to slip it in where you can show today. You know, we're getting close to Easter. It's right.

There we go. Tis the season, Ethan. Yeah.

And like similar to our friends from the band, The Secret Lives, we're doing a podcast called Three Feet Deep. So we did it. I did a couple of those, you know, slowly but surely people started having little events with a ton of restrictions.

The most interesting thing I saw the first time we had played in a place in a while, they finally let the guard down a little bit again. And people would get up as they got drunker and started to dance and they would escort them back to their seats. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever, you know, people, because you feel that lift, right? And then people get up and they're trying to have fun.

And they've been cooped up. And yeah, you got to sit down, put your mask back on and try to drink through it. You know, it was and I listen.

It was all probably had to happen and all that good stuff. I get all of it. And it was a, you know, for it to stretch into here to then.

And, you know, you know, it feels like things are going to be kind of open again. And going forward, it looks like we're going to have a summer. Yeah, I think I think we're there.

I hope it stays that way. And we don't latch, you know, back onto this in the fall. So can we go back and look at any of those live streams? Absolutely.

Where do we find them? They're on my they're on the Simple Remedy page on Facebook. And I think Instagram as well. They're definitely on the Facebook page.

So you can go back about a year to right about now. And, you know, then the year before, as well, when it was, you know, we were all locked up and yeah, there's quite a few out there. So where else can we find you? So we're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

The website is www.thesimpleremedy.com. The Simple Remedy. And and coming to a venue near you. And Laura.

Yes. The studio you speak of the studio. Where is this located and what what sort of events do they have there? 900 South State Street in Lockport.

I have music every night of the week, pretty much one Saturday a month. We do comedy shows one Sunday a month. We do a drag show brunch.

We have. That sounds like fun. Oh, there's so much fun.

Starting June 10th, that will be our first of many monthly singer songwriter spotlight nights. And then I also do private events during the day if people just want to come out and have their parties there. I host for them as well.

So do all sorts of different stuff. I try to change it up. So we find you on the Internet as well.

Yes. So the website is the studio lockport dot com. And then you can find the studio on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, which I still haven't figured out how to use.

And then Facebook. It's only welcome to the club. I don't understand it.

I'm trying real hard, though. I place you can find Mike's Manhattan. Oh, yeah.

And it is to die for. It's Mike's Manhattan named after Mike Matoya. Cadillac group.

And it's a cool place. I was blown away the first time I walked in there. It's a real music venue, which you don't see a lot on the South.

Side. I mean, you see it in the city a bit. But to be hosting original music and have them, you know, they only have one big TV.

And I think it's only, you know, it's not a spot where it distracts from anything. Right. You know, and it's sat right above the stage, right? No, that's my biggest pet peeve.

I don't like when there's TVs behind a stage because it should be about the people playing. So there's literally a piano tucked into one spot of the bar. Right.

The bar. Yeah. I mean, it just gets better and better.

And the vibe is great. The people are great. More and more.

I'm seeing all these posts about how much people appreciate the place. So you've done amazing things there, Laura. Thanks.

I love. I recommend it. I love that everyone lately has been donating their music or booze artwork for me to hang in there.

So everyone's Jesse Perez gifted me. He drew it. Frank Zappa, when he was 18 or 19 years old and he framed it and he goes, can I hang this there? You know, he's like, I think it would it would fit in here.

And it does. And everybody's just been kind of putting their own flair. So I feel like everyone's playing in, you know, my basement or something.

And I'm just grabbing a beer from my fridge. It's the people's music. Yeah, it really is amazing.

So I've never, you know, really in Chicago. I've been to places in Austin and Nashville and Memphis that feel like that. I don't know that I've been to Carol's is a bit like that, you know, and Joe's.

But they're few and far between, you know, that really are dedicated to it. You know, and they're not a sports bar trying to be a music venue or, you know, another kind of bar trying to be a music venue or an Irish pub trying to be something, you know, I mean, and they're all great. I don't I love all the venues, but this is just, you know, it's meant for music and the people know it.

And it's starting to the word starting to spread. And it's pretty cool. And it's housed in an old, old bank building that I swear Moses.

Yeah, I think he had an account there, too. Number one. Yes, number one.

I say we end this and go there for a drink, please. That's right. Sounds good to me.

They're open. Actually, Jesse Perez is playing tonight. So there we go.

Yeah. Well, guys, thanks for coming out. That those songs are awesome.

I can't wait to hear some more. Yeah. Thank you for having us.

Yeah, I really appreciate you guys. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks for joining us.

Appreciate it. See you soon at the studio. Yes.

I'm feeling better already. That right. It's a miracle.

It's a miracle, I tell you. Yeah. So that was Laura Falker and and Ed Ryan and the pretty talented and I like their stuff.

They they're very good. Those two songs they did for us were fantastic. Like I mentioned, I heard a little bit of Lady A in that first one.

So did I. But you get used to it. I'm pretty quick. I'm pretty quick on the draw there, especially now that I'm feeling better.

You know, like I said, I think I think it's a miracle. It's really a miracle. I should go tell my friend Moses.

He may have had something to do with this when he went up on the mountain. Yes, maybe he did. Maybe he did.

That's right. But I'm feeling better now. That's good.

That's good. Good news. Good news.

So we should get out there and take a look at the simple remedy. They sound like they're going to be everywhere this upcoming summer season. Yes.

Be sure and check them out, folks. You go to Simple Remedy dot com or find them on Facebook and Instagram, Instagram and wherever you find wherever you're apt to go on social media, wherever you're apt to go. That's a pun, isn't it? I didn't mean it to be bad.

I guess you're right. If you're apt to go. But otherwise, thank you all for listening.

Once again, we're coming to you from the Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois, from our. Beautiful, pristine studio. And if you like this podcast, go check us out at Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast dot com.

Why should Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast dot net and listen to some of our past performances. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter.

We're on Instagram. We're on. I think we're on TikTok.

You know, I don't remember. TikTok's fickle. I well, we're not so fickle.

No, we're not. But thanks for this, everybody. We'll catch you next week.

See you next week. Thank you. 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.