Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. What's what's going on, Ray? You know, I was just sitting here. I'm playing with my Apple Watch.

It's not a new one. I want to get a new one. But I was sitting here and you know, this watch can do an EKG really can actually do an EKG.

So pick up frequencies or something. No. Well, once you get your the frequency, the EKG done, you look at it and it shows you a wavelength.

Oh, really? Yeah. And it's really cool. And you can see if you how your heart's doing and stuff.

And me with a medical. How long is the wave? It depends. It depends on, you know, depends.

You want to you want to have about, you know, 60 to 100 waves. No more. OK.

Any more than that. And you got too much of a wavelength. You know, I had a heart.

Heart to heart. An exam. An exam.

One time. OK. A lady told me she said I had an elevated T. Oh, yeah.

I said, I love elevated T. She said, it seems like I hit the ball farther. Yeah. An elevated T. I went golfing today.

Yeah. Yeah. I went out and I elevated my T. I did pretty good.

Yeah. I actually shot the best I've shot all year so far. Really? Yeah, it was real nice.

Are you bragging? Am I bragging? Oh, no, not really. Yeah, I am a little bit. Yeah, a little bit.

It's OK. A little bit. I went with a good friend of ours from the Five Guys named Mo, Jose Rivera.

Oh, OK. He's a really good golfer. Is he? Yes, he is.

That's cool. Yeah. I have to be nice to be invited sometime.

You would be. You're always welcome to come. Always welcome to come.

So what about this wave thing? Well, that was kind of like my introduction. Oh, OK. Because the band we're speaking with today is Wavelength.

Wavelength. Wavelength. Not EKG.

Wavelength. They play to a different frequency. Yes, they do.

So we're going to speak with Will and Tim and Tom and Mark. And Mark, right. Yep.

And we're missing Mike. We're missing Mike. He couldn't make it because he's got to work.

Yeah, well. You know, the rest of us are all freeloaders. We can hang out together at the studio.

Yeah, exactly. So let's see what they have to say. They've been playing around for a few years.

They got a couple of newer members with them. Newer, yes. Newer members.

And they're from the South Side. Always a good thing. Not to offend any of our North or West Side people.

No, no, no. We're from the South Side. Yeah, they're South Siders.

So let's get to it and talk to Wavelength. All righty. So welcome to the show, everyone.

Today we're speaking with Wavelength. Thank you for coming. Goodbye.

That sounds just like all the crowds we've played for. But we're speaking with William and Tim and Tom and Mark. And we're missing one guy.

Who are we missing? Mike. Michael, our percussionist. Michael P. Michael P. That's a drummer for all you people out there that don't know what a percussionist is.

So tell us a little bit about the band. How did the band get started? How long have you been together? When did you get started? Okay. Tell us a little bit of the history.

All right. Way back in the early, mid 2000s, Tim and I ended up working at the same company. Okay, now you are William.

I'm William. Just so people recognize you. William and Tim.

We ended up working for this company out in Mokina. And of course, for some reason, we just kind of gravitated to each other, started talking, found out that I play keyboards and he plays guitar. Well, a little bit later, an old friend of mine brought me out of retirement to play keyboards for their band, a band called Club 44.

They were around for a number of years. And every time I did a gig, I'd come back and Tim would go, I hate you. I'm jealous.

I hate you. I haven't played in many years and I wanted to play. Yeah, sure.

Once you get it in your blood, it's gorgeous. Well, anyways, you know, Club 44 went their way and I walked into work one day and went, all right, Tim, time for us. So this had to be, what, 2009, 2008? Yeah, it was right around there.

And so the two of us, we got a bunch of audition songs together that we could play and we started trying to find people. And we went through a number of different iterations. But fortunately, Tim was really good friends with Mark.

Who, you know, because one of the people... Say hello, Mark. Hello. And I've known Mark since he was in high school from Neighborhood Kids.

And Mark's always been, you know, a very well-received front vocalist. And, you know, trying to find, you know, we can't sing for anything. Mark will vouch for that.

Not to save your life or nothing. So anyways, Mark being a school friend of Tim's, and he finally figured out who I was from those days. Decided, no way, I don't want to play with you guys.

You guys suck. And he's been with us ever since. And we've gone through a number of rhythm sections.

And two years ago, Tom joined us. And then, just a little bit after that, Tom's brother-in-law, Michael P, joined us on drums. And that's our president.

So, Tom, you have the whole backing, the rhythm section. You came prepared with the rhythm section, right? Yeah. My brother-in-law, he was waiting in the car when I auditioned.

So, yeah, that was great to play with someone. I've been playing with Mike since we were both in high school. So, yeah, way back then.

So, you know, we knew each other really well. I'm married to his sister, so I know him that way, too. So you were married to his sister, though, back in high school, were you? I see.

Getting this whole feel for what happened. Yeah, they're long timers. She was still in high school.

She had just graduated from high school, and I was out a couple years. But it goes away. We've been married 41 years.

God bless you. Good for you. So, actually, what really happened is... Here's the truth.

Tell us the story, Mike. Playing with Will and Tim, we lost the drummer and bass player. So I just happened to make a suggestion for Tom joining the band as playing bass.

And his brother-in-law, Mike, and I go way back to the early 80s. We played together in a band called The Heat. So, you know, Mike and I have years and years of history together.

So it was an easy fit. And don't forget the fact that we were playing a reunion gig, a high school reunion gig. And our drummer at the time was having some health problems, and his legs and stuff were starting to give out right in the middle of the show.

And he couldn't play anymore. So Mike just happened to be out in the audience. And we said, Mike, come on up and sit in with us.

And that was his audition in front of about 300 people. Yeah, he walked up cold. And we don't really play stuff that he just can jam on.

And he just nailed it for the rest of the show. And it worked out very well. Never thinking that somewhere in the future this guy was going to actually be with us.

Had he seen you before? No. It was the first time he actually saw that lineup of that band before. But like I said, I mean, him and I go back, you know, 40 years.

He knew if I was in the band that he wasn't going to be joining a bunch of nitwits. He was wrong. So, Tom, you were the newest member, right? No, no, Michael P is.

It's kind of strange how it happened. I brought Mike to that show. He came with his sister, my wife, and I to see them.

And that was the bass player's last show, the one that was in the band. Apparently it was the drummer's last show, too. Pretty much.

Yes, you're right about that. It was a couple months later, Mark called me up and asked me if I wanted to be in the band. And about six months after that, Mike joined.

But, you know, because of COVID and everything, we hadn't played a show until this August. So you're only a couple of years in, right? Right. And so when did the band actually get started? The core of the band, Tim and I, back in the late 2000s.

And we've been hammering ever since. We used to be called Frequency. And a little history on that was both me and Will here are electrical engineers.

So we kind of called ourselves Frequency. But then with all these changes, we decided to change our name to Wavelength, which actually is the same as Frequency. Can you say nerds? So, Mark, how long have you been with the band? They bothered me.

It's been about seven years now. Longer than that. Eight years? At least.

Can't be no more than that. About eight years. I happened to be in a conversation with a friend of mine on Facebook.

And knucklehead Tim over here decided to sneak in on it and say, hey, do you still sing? I was like, tentatively, yeah. Why? And so the guy that we were having the Facebook conversation with, he's like, why don't you guys talk on the side and finish this off there? So Tim messaged me off to the side there and said, if you wouldn't mind, would you like to come check us out? Yeah. So I went and I was really bored.

So I said, sure, I'll stick around. All right. So Tim tells me that Mark is coming.

And the old friend of mine, I'm like, that Mark? You're kidding me. I can't stand him. So Mark comes over.

Wait a minute. Wait, just supposed to be about to be in that by breaking up the band now. Well, then Mark comes down.

He sees like an old seventies picture of me, you know, back somewhere and he goes, oh, you're the guy from that band. Oh, I couldn't stand you guys either. So it was a mutual agreement.

Yeah. Well, you know, back in the mid seventies, you know, it was band against band. It was, it was.

And I agree with you 100% because it was, it was, well, my band's better than your band. My band can do that song better than your band. But now, but nowadays you get so many guys who are at their job and, and playing, you know, playing in two bands or three bands or, and it's, there's really no competition because you know that they, that they're out there just making a buck.

Right. Yeah. Well, and, you know, when you consider back in the mid seventies and later, well, yeah, you're doing battle at a bands and, you know, at the time you're writing your own material, you know, you're not just a cover band.

You're trying to get your own stuff out there and get noticed. And so, yeah, you know, you're, you got some animosity towards the other bands. I mean, you know, it's not like you want to get into fisticuffs, but you know, if you had to, you would.

Fair play competition. So Mark, what's your connection to Johnny Winter, Grant Funk and Fog Hat? I happened to be in some, some groups at the time that opened up for, for those acts. So I was, I was pretty fortunate to, to work with them, meet them, you know, talk with them, get, get to know their history a little, a little better.

So, yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun. So now you guys are from South suburbs, basically. And so, but we haven't talked about what kind of music you play.

So, so, so let's, let's, let's talk about the music a little bit. Well, who wants to describe this? What it's, it's real simple. It's, it's yeah.

The music's simple too, because we're a bunch of simpletons. It's just classic rock. We're, our musical tastes are all over the place, but we do try to pick songs that people know, you know, and, but we also try to pick songs that we enjoy playing.

Right. So it's, it's, it's hard to balance that act. Right.

You know, because. Well, what's the, what's the process that you guys go through? I mean, we can pick your song. I mean, does somebody come with the songs and say, Hey, I'd like to learn this one.

Well, somebody else says, no, I don't want to do this. Yeah. Pretty much.

Pretty much that. Who can sing it. Unfortunately, I get the final say.

Yeah. Because I got to sing it. Regardless whether we agree with them or not.

I mean, you know, we could love a song, but if you can't vocalize it, it isn't worth, you know, putting out there. We do have a couple of rules though, is we won't pick any more than two songs that any artist does, because we don't want to become a tribute band. That's we don't want to do that.

We also don't. Tribute bands are big nowadays. Yeah.

We also don't. Okay. Which is why we're not working.

We also, we try to pick up pick songs that other bands don't do. Okay. And usually if we find something that we like and we find out three other bands are doing it, then the number one, number one rule is we don't play Beatles.

Right. Really? It's an accident. No, it's not.

All right. Yeah. When we started putting songs set, you know, set lists and songs together and what we're going to present, you know, as our product, one of the things it is, you know, as Mark could even, you came up with this is we don't want to be so esoteric that nobody knows what the hell we're doing.

Right. But the other half is we want to be one of these. Oh, wow.

I haven't heard this song in, in, in blah, blah, blah. And I, I really liked it. Right.

And like we played last Sunday and we got a lot of that. Like people were just like, wow, I haven't heard that song in ages. And you know, they're singing along with it.

Right. I haven't heard a band play that song. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Exactly.

Cause everybody does the Bon Jovi and those, that type of stuff. And, which is fine. That's everybody likes that stuff, but we try to avoid it.

But in some of the chicks dig it. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. How far back you go? What's that? How far back you go or you're set? Oh, we'll go all the way down. We go all the way down in the sixties.

Yeah. We had a couple of bad fingers songs. Yeah.

Yeah. Do a couple of bad fingers. Sugarloaf.

Yeah. We, we hit pretty much, you know, like the early mid eight, mid seventies stuff. Of course, deep purple.

Right. You know, and we do some current stuff too. yeah.

A bit like, yeah. Or somewhere close. Just like Dada.

A lot of people haven't heard it there. They did. Well, they heard, when they hear it, they remember it.

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, black keys and things like that.

White Reaper. Yeah. Ooh, yeah.

I haven't heard of them. Yeah. Is that the one you don't fear? Yeah.

There's no cowbell on that one either. Yeah. But I, I see you all play cowbell.

Yes. Yes. Who would ever think you'd get five guys together that can all play cowbell? Right.

Well, they had to teach me. Oh, did you? Yeah. Are you still using the music stand and watching? Yeah.

Oh, I, I, I couldn't even dance around and get the belly moving now. A couple of years ago, I don't know who, somebody gave him a present, and it's this little cowbell. A little teeny one.

So, I got this little itty bitty cowbell with a little itty bitty junk drumstick that I could play cowbell with. Is it acoustic or electric? So, what are some of the past bands you guys have been in? Well, me, myself, I played with a band for many years called Afterglow. That would be Tim, the guitarist.

That would be me, the guitarist, yes. I played with a band called Afterglow. We did the circuit around Chicago.

We played with the Kingsmen once, Louie Louie. Right, right. Is that a Genesis cover band? Well, yeah, we did kind of do a lot.

Again, it was a cover band too, and we did do a lot of Genesis stuff, but it was fun. It was fun. We eventually kind of went our own separate ways, and everybody's doing their own thing now.

Then I kind of went off. I didn't do any music for a while. That's when we got together.

I was doing some other small band stuff, but then we started this one. When you were with Afterglow, your opening band, was that Climax? That sounds familiar. Well, we had a female singer.

My mind's always working, Paul. That's too bad. Feel the love with us too? This is William again.

I'm a keyboardist, and that's about all I know how to do. You play cowbell? That's questionable. You play mini cowbell.

Yeah, the mini cowbell. Way back when, we were in a number of four-piece guitar, bass, drums, and me. Kind of heavy, loud copy bands, but then we were doing a lot of Purple in Your Eye of Heep and stuff like that throughout the 70s.

We called ourselves SRO. Oh, okay. Standing room only.

Is that really? Not really. When people would come up and go, well, that's kind of neat. We'd go, no, suck rotten oysters.

But when that went its way, then myself and the guitar player, we actually hooked up. Hooked up then with an old friend a little bit before we turned the mics on, an old friend from high school and pre-college, Bob Moreta, who also brought in his friend, Jose Rivera, for a number of years in the late 70s, early 80s. It was called Willie Cash and the Prophets.

And finally, after about like 82, I had to quit that. And work was getting too intense, family too intense. I had little kids, and that was it.

And I didn't do anything from about 82 until about the mid-90s, where some of the old band members from there, we decided we started writing a musical about having kids and all that. And it was actually going to be funded and put on at Roosevelt University. The funding was coming from the two building developers that that guy, Coonan or whatever, he killed one of them and stole his car.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and went down and then killed Versace. There's an idea for a musical.

Yeah, really. Well, anyways, the guy that was going to fund us ended up getting, you know, that was it, and that was the end of that. That must have been fun, though.

It was kind of interesting. I mean, you know, the Roosevelt University, you know, like their drama department at the time, they were going to actually take our thing and actually turn it into a whole production, whatever, and everything. Was it a rock musical? Yeah, yeah, and it went through all sorts of like, you know, rock and roller stuff to, you know, a little bit of loud, crunchy stuff to, my God, I think I even, you know, like wrote up like a bebop, you know, bebop stuff in there and some really sweet, you know, nice sweet songs and all that and lullabies and whatever.

And it turned out really it was kind of cool. But after that it was, you know. It just never happened.

No, it just never happened. Do you still have all the music and everything? I don't even know how to play it anymore. I mean, I got it all.

I've got it. We never scored it, but I've got all the lyrics. He didn't know how to play it then.

Oh, yeah, really? So, and then, like I said, you know, so basically I was in retirement for a number of while until, you know, this Club 44 pulled me out. And then I played with them for a little bit until they kind of imploded and that was the end of that. Then I ended up with Tim.

And what about you? Tom? Oh, okay. Tom, you still here? Yeah. So there's, I haven't really played in a band since I was in my 20s.

I played in a couple bands with the guy who's the drummer now, Mike. We played, mostly all we did was battles of the bands at the Bremen Town Mall. So we did three years of that.

And then I was in a band with, he goes by the name Larry Dean now. He was in this, he has this band called Triton. It's a Christian metal band.

At the time, we weren't a Christian metal band, but I was in a band with him and he was doing some recording. And then I found out I was having a son, so I said, I don't want to get that involved in a band. And he was paying for all the recording and everything.

So I felt bad. So I said, before we get too deep in this, I'm just going to quit. And I hadn't played in a band then until this one.

So then I took my 40 years off. I was also working. I worked nights, so it was really hard to do gigs on weekends when you have to work overnight shift.

Did you have to go out and buy new gear? I did. Did you have a bass, an old bass? I had a bass I bought in 77 of the BC Rich Suite. It's a Mockingbird.

But I had just like a little eight-inch amp cabinet, and I brought that to practice. And these guys looked at me like, where's the rest of it? So I had to get another amp. And I've gotten, you know, now I always have the excuse, I'm in a band.

I have to buy this bass. That's right. That's right.

So three years doing bad old bands at Bremen Town Mall. Did you ever win? No. We were too cool.

Three years. Come on, man. We played Halo of Flies by Alice Cooper.

We played War Pigs by Black Sabbath. We'd be like into our third 10-minute song, and the guy would be touching his watch like, that's it. You only have 20 minutes.

But you kept going back. Yeah, we just did it for ourselves, you know. And Bremen Town Mall was on Halston, wasn't it? No, 159th and Harlem.

Right. We're between Harlem and Oak Park, where Menards is now. Any voices here? Did anybody else play a battle of the bands at Bremen Town? No, we were playing clubs by then.

I would just go there and watch you. Yeah. I never said anything to you, but yeah.

That's actually where I learned how to play guitar, was there was a little music club. Same there? A guy named Tom, Big Beard. There was, yeah, I remember that.

Yeah, I learned. That's where I learned how to play. He gave me my first real bass lesson.

Yeah, nice guy. Real good guy. I had this guy, Ernie, and the first thing he did, he taught me, he goes, you got a pick? I go, yeah.

He goes, takes it from me, throws it in the garbage. Nice. Then he shows me a bass line.

He goes, do, do, do, do, do, do. And he brings out an acoustic guitar. This guy never played the bass with me for all my bass lessons, so I didn't learn anything.

And about six months in, Tom DeFires, the guy that owned Bremen Music there, Bremertown Music, he taught me how to tune. Six months in, I didn't know how to tune. Taught me how to tune, and he gave me my first real lesson.

So that guy was pretty cool. He taught you too, huh? Well, the actual teacher that taught me, his name was Casey Jones. Really good guitar player.

Not the same Casey Jones. Not the engineer? Not the engineer. Watch your speed.

He was a really good guitar player. He played a nice Les Paul and taught me everything I knew. He was really into theory and stuff like that.

And then eventually, after I left there and stopped at it, I started teaching music at Middle Eastern Music, teaching guitar and stuff. I did that. That got me through college.

But, yeah, I learned a lot from them. They were all good people over at Bremertown Mall. His name was Tom? Tom DeFire.

Yeah. I have a Tom story, which is kind of low on the funny side. Should we check with our attorneys? No, no, that's all right.

Tom somehow was involved in some gig somewhere. It was on Wolf Road, that's all I remember. And this was during my SRO days.

And he asked if we would play this gig with this other band. And we're like, okay, fine. He goes, you need to do a favor for me.

What is it? Well, after you unload your equipment, you got to take your truck and pick up a popcorn machine. On wheels. So after we got done unloading all our equipment out of our truck, we ended up going somewhere and picking up this stupid popcorn machine for him.

That's the only reason why you need to play, right? Yeah, we got to pick up a popcorn machine. He had nobody else to pick up his popcorn machine. Yeah, nobody would.

So we ended up playing, and then the second band came on, and they ended up playing. And then nobody wanted to leave, so we all ended up playing together, the whole bunch of us. It was kind of fun.

Garage band days. We're both club season bands, but still, it was kind of fun. Yeah, but it's like getting everybody to get a bunch of guys together.

Hey, guys, you play this, play that, play that. And it was a lot of fun. That actually started, it was a two-story place, and everybody was upstairs on the second floor with the bands, and downstairs was the bar and all that.

So we got done playing and went down, and me and my guitar player were sitting at the bar. And all of a sudden, we hear all this trashing going on upstairs. We go up there, and it's our drummer.

Our drummer and their kid. It was all time's fault. How was the popcorn? Yeah, how was it? I do not know.

All right, Mark. What? I got lost. Wake up, Corn.

The popcorn took me away. The popcorn machine. Well, God, I don't think we got that much time, do we? I've been around a long time, guys.

I've been doing this since I was 13 years old. So, God, the number of bands that I've been in. Maybe he's going to name the bands you haven't been in.

Well, this band is your last one, right? Oh, yeah, after this, I'm done. Put me in the box. So you sing and play keys, too? I sing, play keys, a little guitar, some harmonica.

Cowbell. Absolutely, cowbell. So my first band, my first paying gig, I was in eighth grade, and I happened to play my eighth-grade graduation dance.

So it just so happened that I was going out with the class president, and she pulled some strings and squeezed my band in. Nice. Well, problem being, we only knew ten songs.

So you do them over and over again. So we played the same ten songs for two and a half hours. Did it get better? No.

But they paid us $50. So in 1973, that was a big change for us eighth-graders. You got $50 for that? Yeah, we got $50.

Quick, we sign up. In fact, if not each. Not each, William.

In fact, somebody posted, I don't know, some time ago on Facebook, our graduation itinerary and stuff. And so the band that was supposed to play was called Zeus, and they got bumped for us. And they were a pretty big band at the time.

That was with Neil Holmquist on drums and some real big characters at the time. They weren't eighth-graders. No, they weren't eighth-graders.

But yeah, just because I was dating the class president, she said, I want these guys instead. But yeah, so then after that, got into high school, started a band called Shipton and Company. What did the cheerleaders commit? The cheerleaders? Yeah.

Can we not mention that? Oh, sorry. No, we. Oh, you had cheerleaders too? Well, the band Shipton and Company, after I graduated high school, one of the guys that was in the band happened to get a call from somebody who said they needed this baton company, twirling company, baton twirlers, they needed a live band to back them up during their performances.

Okay. So we're a bunch of crazy kids at the time. Sure.

Me and the drummer were the only ones that were out of high school. All the other guys were still in high school. And so I'm like, what the hell? Let's do this.

It pays, right? So, well, they paid us per diem for every show. We got seven bucks for meals, but all the alcohol we could drink. So they were underage.

I wasn't. I was of age. I didn't drink.

So, yeah, so we did that for a summer. I thought you were going to say they lost their asses. Yeah, we did that for a summer.

And I'm actually a grand national champion. And I'm listed somewhere in something. We did a show in.

The National Baton Twirling. Yes, we did a show at Notre Dame University in their basketball stadium. And we opened up for the Starland Vocal Band.

And, yes, it was right after they had that hit. And we opened up for them. And there was, like, 3,000 people in the crowd.

And it was a good time. They could have opened for Afterglow. Yeah, they could.

Afternoon Delight. So, yeah, so after that fun summer in 77, we went on to start another band called The Heat. And so we were doing nothing but original music at the time, you know, slapping our tapes out to anybody who would take them or listen to them.

We happened to win Jonathan Brandmeier's Battle of the Bands. Oh, okay. It wasn't at Bremertown Ball, was it? No, it wasn't at Bremertown.

It wasn't at Bremertown. No, it was just strictly over the air. You know, we submitted our stuff to him.

He had a segment, Battle of the Bands, at the time. At the time, you should have checked that out instead of Bremertown. Yeah.

So, yeah, so we won that. And, you know, it really helped, I mean, immensely to push the band forward. We got some inquiries to come record some other stuff and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But nothing ever came about, you know. It fell to the wayside and, you know, on to another band, you know. A band called All Access, a band called Hustler.

I played with The Web. So, like I said, probably been easier to name the bands you ever played with. Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, that experience with the Heat, you know, like I said, because we got the big push from Brandmeier, we were opening up for, you know, Headline X. Well, at the time, there was nobody bigger than Brandmeier. Yeah, and this was mid-'80s, you know, so. Right, and I know that just him behind something or pushing something is great.

Well, you know, Buzz Killman, we stole a quote from him. And so all our promo that we used to put in The Entertainer and wherever else we advertised, it used to say, come see the Heat. Buzz Killman says, chicks dig the Heat.

Because that's who pushed us over the top with winning the Battle of the Bands was the women calling in. So, chicks dig the Heat. I've been jamming ever since.

I took maybe a year or two off, you know, in between, but I've been going for the past 40 years. Well, I know we all took a year off, a year, 18 months or so last year. How did that affect you guys? Well, when that hit, of course, every gig that we had scheduled throughout the spring, summer, and into the fall and all that, that evaporated.

Yeah, we took it seriously. So, for months, we didn't even get together because we weren't going to, you know. Did you do any simulcast shows or anything? No, we didn't do anything.

We just, you know, kind of laid low until all of us are, you know, vaccinated now. And, you know, everything's opening up. And we even were a little leery about the summer stuff, like June and July of this year.

Right. But by August, we started, okay, that's it, we're done, and we're going to go out and make some noise. Right.

And then, you know, fortunately, you know, regardless, we've done pretty good for the last three months. We've been fairly steady, you know, getting steady gigs and stuff like that. So, we're doing all right.

None of us, you know, got sick yet, so, you know, that's a plus. You know, we're not in our 20s anymore, so we have to take this stuff seriously. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, this stuff, this shit was killing people, you know, whether you want it or not. Well, you know, there's two of us in the band that have heart ailments. Or three of us, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I forgot about. Yeah. We were playing Cheers on Cicero, and I had a heart attack on stage.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was not good. How long ago was this? This was two years ago.

Two, three years ago. Just before COVID hit. Yeah, yeah.

And then, so I had to go in through, they cut me open in triple bypass surgery. Did you guys continue out with the song and finish the set or anything? No, we finished the gig. We finished the gig, and I. Pushed him off stage.

Yeah, I told him. That's right, just kick him to the side right there. Pretty much.

Step over him. I told Mark, I said, dude, I can't carry any equipment, man, I'm done. Because I really didn't know what was going on.

And then over the next couple of days, things were getting really bad. And then I went into the hospital and blah, blah, blah. I got admitted and stuff.

And then we were going through some changes in the band right at the beginning of COVID. And then, unfortunately, I had another health issue that I had to deal with. And so that's another reason why we kind of backed off a little bit.

But everything's good. We're back in. You're good now? I'm good now.

We're ready to jam. Mark, you said that you had an original band back in the days. Anybody else do anything original? Anybody write? Well, like I mentioned earlier, we did just the musical thing.

Right. But before Tim and I really started hitting the classic rock band thing and all that, I spent a number of years in the independent music community writing songs, adding keyboards to other people's material. I'm on a number of CDs.

I kind of backed away from that. It seems like you're making music for other musicians, and it still doesn't get out anywhere. Even though there's some awesome material out there by independent people, there's limited marketing for them.

Yeah, you could talk about YouTube or put it on here, put it there. But still, it isn't like getting radio promotion. Right.

And there's some people that I've come across and even played with, not just doing rock or this or that, but ambient stuff. I've actually got to be able to play jazz stuff and all that, do some jazz Hammond and things of that sort. And even Tim and I did a couple independent songs together before we started doing the band thing.

It's just the record company. There's no record companies out there. No, you do it yourself.

If you're going to put out material. You can put it on Spotify or something. Yeah, you can put it on there.

And you make smittens, nothing. Fraction of pennies, whatever. And there's still old friends from that era that still think that it's going to happen.

And I don't know. So my whole area where we practice now was originally a home studio, so I could actually do music and all that. I still maintain my personal website with my homegrown stuff on it, I guess.

Kind of really backed away from that. And any plans of playing any original music? You know, it's kind of funny, but Tim and I were talking about that on the way up. The one thing that we kind of talked about, personally, I'm terrible at writing music, but I do do good arranging and stuff.

And I know someone in this room here does some really good, talented music stuff. That's our bass player. And that's probably going to come out.

It's probably going to come out. We've heard some of his stuff. I thought you were talking about me.

I thought he was talking about me. What are you talking about? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, Tom's got a lot of talent.

Somebody already wrote, leave your hat on. So I'm sure that's probably going to be in our future. The biggest thing about it is there isn't really a playing market for that stuff.

If you go to some place and say, oh yeah, we play original music. Oh no, we want stuff people would know. Especially not for a bunch of 60 year olds.

Who are you going to play to? You can take some of those originals and mix them with one or two. And then they say, who was that? I knew that. I've heard that before.

I've heard that years ago. You can't even hand out CDs with your stuff on it anymore because nobody has a CD player. MP3s on a thumb drive.

Yeah, on a thumb drive. Exactly. But even then, online they're selling them 99 cents a download.

Somebody's making money when the band's making a quarter of a penny. I've been on some private projects the last couple of years with some old friends of mine. Don't you worry about it.

And I walk into the studio and you see all these bands that are up on the engineer's walls. And I'm like, I mean, there's hundreds of all these independent bands out there dying to get picked up by somebody. And you listen to the stuff and you're like, okay, I can see why you're still on the wall.

Maybe they should head over to Bremertown Mall. Yeah. They'd have just as much luck.

Yeah. I told myself a long time ago, when I hit 35, I was going to get out of writing original material. Are you still planning on doing that? Yes.

When you're 35? Yes. I'm starting to go backwards. I mean, if these guys wanted to write some original material, God bless them.

I mean, I don't know where it would go or what it would do. But you wouldn't sing? No, you can't. No, the nice thing about it is if you do this, I mean, we're all over 60.

We're not going to be rock stars. We'd be doing it for fun. And hopefully for the audience would enjoy it too.

Right. For charity. For charity.

Yeah. Our charity. For the kids.

Empty pockets. This is why I do this podcast. I'm becoming a millionaire.

Exactly. You are? I wish. You are? Oh, wait a minute.

Sharing the wealth, dude. So I got to ask you, Tim, what kind of guitar do you play? I have a couple of them. I have an American Fender Strat 92.

That's the one I played this weekend. I haven't played it on stage in a long time. I've been busting his balls about pulling it out.

I don't know what he was waiting for. The guitar, you mean? Yeah. Yeah.

And his balls. This is a family show. It's a family show.

Yeah. So then I got two Ibanez's. I got an Ibanez JS1000, which is a Joe Satriani thing.

That I don't really put on stage too much. It was too much money. Then I got an S-Series Ibanez.

And then my other guitar, my last guitar is a really old one. It's an old Guild SD. Really? Yeah.

It's an old Guild. I bought it from Tom at the music store. There's this little story about that.

I bought it when I was just a senior in high school. And I bought a different guitar. And the one that I have, it was a top-of-the-line model.

And I bought this real cheap one. And I paid it off really fast, a lot faster than Tom thought I was going to be able to do. And when I came to go pick up the guitar that I bought, he had sold it.

And I'm like, so what do you do? And he gave me the top-of-the-line one, just the same price and everything like that. And I still have that guitar today. Nice.

It's just a – It's one of those sweet deals that rarely happens. Yeah, yeah. And it's – It's like going to a garage sale and finding that 59 Les Paul there, you know.

Exactly. That the woman went to sell for 50 bucks. I don't know why.

I want to get rid of this, you know. Well, the case is a little dirty. I'll give you 50 bucks.

I'll give you 40. Yeah, so out of all my guitars, that one's my – I'm still hoping for that too. It's the sweetest one to play.

I just love playing that guitar. That's what you learned on it. That's the one I learned on, yeah.

So what kind of gigs you got coming up? Anything? Any special gigs coming up? Any place? The Black – We're playing out. Yeah. The end of this month on the 23rd, we're playing down in Manteno at the Back 40.

That's the October 23rd. At the Mental Health Center. Yeah, really.

It's October 23rd, right? Yes. Yes. And about a month ago or whatever, we played two doors down at Copeland's on the same street.

So you know where you're going. Oh, yes. Yeah, we do.

Awesome. We are all in our 60s, you say. They have more parking down there in Manteno than in Joliet.

Yeah. I've been canvassing trying to get somebody to want to pay us for November 6th, the first weekend in November, but I'm not having much luck lately. I do a lot of the bookings and stuff.

He does all the bookings. No, I do not. Oh, there usually is one guy in every band that takes care of all the bookings.

I'm fully retired and I have nothing better to do, so why not? Somebody's got to do it. We won't go into any of that stuff. Somebody's got to do it.

But I do a lot of – I take care of a lot of the management, management part aspects of things and try to keep everybody kind of focused, which is tough because these guys all think they're comedians, except Mark. And then after, we're going to have to go on hiatus for a little bit. Michael P., our drummer, is going in for some kind of surgery, spinal surgery or something on his neck.

Spinal tap. Yeah, spinal tap. So I'll be back out then maybe mid-January or February, trying to book us up through the spring.

Perfect time to write some original stuff. There you go. Our first song is going to be named Bremen Town Mall.

There you go. I like it. I lost at Bremen Town Mall.

I think it's a hit. At least on the south side. So how do we go about finding you guys on the Internet or on Facebook? We have a website called – it's wavelengthschicago.com. We try to keep it updated as much as we can.

It has fallen behind in the past. We have a calendar out there that shows where we're playing in the future and stuff. And then we also have a Facebook page, which he pretty much manages.

Instagram too. Facebook and Instagram under Wavelengths Chicago. I do the Facebook page.

When everybody sends me pictures and photos and videos and God knows what else, I try to plaster it all over the place. Of course, you got to keep your name out there. Oh, yeah.

Then you got to pay for the event stuff. So I pretty much pay for that. Anytime we advertise through Facebook on their advertising event mechanism and all that, people think it's free.

No, you pay for that stuff. It costs money. Well, we thank you guys for coming in today and talking about – Well, we talked some more.

Well, one thing I'd like to say before we close is all through the lockdown, all you heard is, oh, we're locked down. We can't wait for live music to come back. We can't wait for live music to come back.

All right. Well, live music is back. So anybody who's within earshot of this, go out and enjoy it.

Don't just sit there and go, well, I can't do it. No, because eventually if nobody shows up at the gigs, we're not going to get paid and they'll be the end of that and you can go put on your MP3s and that'll be the end of it. I've seen too many clubs already shutting down or they're gone.

One of our favorite clubs was Cheers. We played nearly three if not four times a year. They're gone.

I mean, no more big stage there and that's it. Slapshots. Slapshots, yeah.

They used to host bands. Now all they do is DJ shit. Other places have gone down.

They're trying to come up and then they disappear. So people, support your local musicians. Live music is where it's at.

Otherwise, it will be gone. And if you can't get live music, listen to our podcast. Absolutely.

Go out and see Wavelength. Yeah, come out and see Wavelength. They're a lot of fun.

Yes. They're a different kind of frequency. I like that.

You know, what was our original logo? It was Gramps with Amps. And, you know, our poster moniker stuff is, you know, classic rock with a difference. Because we're all different.

We are different. Well, thank you guys for coming out. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. And I wish you the best of luck in the future with the band. And get some people out there and go out there and see Wavelength.

I'll be keeping an eye out for the noodles that come out. Yes. Absolutely.

It was a pleasure. Thank you very much. No problem.

Thank you. Thanks. So there you have it, people.

That was Will and Tim and Mark and Tom. And we're missing Mike, like we said, but that is Wavelength. Yes, it is.

It got my heart going, got my Wavelength moving. It did. It did.

Yeah. They're fun guys. We had a fun time talking with them.

Yes, we did. And I really wish Bremen Town Mall was still around. I'd go there.

Yeah. What's there now? What was it? Oh, Menards. It's a home improvement store that does not sponsor, does not pay for sponsorship on the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

But it's a home improvement center. I see. A big box store.

A big box store, yes. But I don't think they're having battle of the bands there anymore, but that would be cool. Now, what was the mall? I was thinking of the one in Halstead where the other big backstore is, the initials HD in Homewood there.

There was a mall there too, wasn't there? That was Washington Square Mall. Washington Square. Yeah, that was on the east side of Halstead there.

That's the one I was thinking of. Yeah. And there was also the Dixie Square Mall.

That didn't last very long. And then now Lincoln Mall. I mean, they're all gone.

Yeah. Well, that's because everybody orders everything online now. That's true.

Including you. I do. I do.

I spend way too much time on these different places to buy stuff, whether it's clothes, music, heck, shampoo. I've bought toilet paper and paper towels. You told me you were up until 2 in the morning the other night.

I was. Just shopping online. Well, I'm getting ready for Christmas.

Oh, I see. Where'd you get me? I can't tell you. I can't tell you.

I got prime, so it'll be here in two days. Okay, good. Good.

All right. Well, that was Wavelength. So go out and check them out, would you people please? And they're playing around.

They're playing Moments, right? Mantino. Mantino. Mantino.

They'll be there on the 23rd. I get Mantino Moments, Manuka. Midlothian, Mount Prospect.

I get all those mixed up. Yeah. Anything that begins with an M. Right.

Well, thanks for listening, everybody. Go out and check Wavelength as soon as you can or check them out online. You can check them out right here on the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Coming to you live. Not really live from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. Route 66.

Route. Okay. All right.

On Route 66. It's at 9 West. Is it Cass or Cos? No, it's Cass.

It's Cass Avenue in beautiful downtown Joliet. Opening soon. Get on their website, RoadToRock.org and sign up for a charter membership.

You too can be a charter member like me and Paul. That's right. So thanks for listening, everybody.

We'll see you next time. See you next week. Bye bye.

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. Rock and Roll Chicago.

Rock and Roll. Rocking City, Chicago.