Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Coming to you live, well, not really live, but from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. I'm alive.

Back in the studio. You are alive. I'm alive.

Thank goodness. Yeah, you are. You're still above crowd.

Oh, they say, you know, it's better to be seen than viewed. That's right. And I can see you.

Can you see me? I can see you. OK, good. OK, good.

So what's happening, Ray? Oh, we're back to doing another podcast episode. All right. Who do we have this weekend? This week.

This week, we have a bunch of people that got together and named their band after quite a famous song by Rick Springfield. Oh, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to guess.

I can't think of any other Rick Springfield songs besides Jessie's Girl. That's it. You got it.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. You win. You win the big prize.

I know. I know. I know a couple of them.

A couple other songs. But you can't remember them right now. No.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It might be. Yes.

But it's kind of wasted. So not necessarily wasted right this minute, but it's wasted most of the time. That's right.

Well, it doesn't sound right either. But Mike and Brad came down to visit us here in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois, and give us a little backstory on their band and their past history. Yes, they did.

And Mike, excuse me, Brad started out in New York City with this band. New York. And he even told me he was a New York firefighter for a while.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. He was.

And so he's brought the band, well, not brought the band, but brought the name here, moved to Chicago and started the band up again with Chicago musicians. And let's see what he has to say about it. We'll find out what the difference is between New York musicians and Chicago musicians.

Right. OK, let's find out. Let's do it.

Welcome to the show, everybody. Today we're speaking with Jesse's girl. No, not Rick Springfield and his girl, but the band, Jesse's Girl from Chicago.

We're speaking with Brad White and Mike D. We'll go with Mike D. Is that right? Absolutely. OK. How you guys doing today? Good.

Good. So. So now, obviously, there's two of you.

There's there's more than just the two of you in the band, though, right? There is. Brad, what do you play? I play rhythm guitar and I'm the lead vocalist. OK.

And and Mike. I am the other guitar player, lead guitar player. OK.

And so who else is in the band? We got Justice Marie is our co-lead and we get some help from Magida Kennedy. We have Michael Karasaty plays bass and PJ Wintermute plays drums. And Tom Brinkman plays our keyboards.

Very good. So how many people is that total? Six. Six.

Six altogether. You're not too good at that math thing, are you? No, no, I'm not. But.

But. So. So tell us a little bit about the band.

How did you get started and when? When did you get started and how did it all come together? Well, we I started this band 15 years ago in New York and I didn't stay there. Obviously, I moved away and ended up in Chicago about a decade ago. And my kids are now 23 and 28.

They're out of college and they're doing their own thing. And I said, you know, I'm going to go back to being in a band. And I like the name Jesse's Girl because it brings the branding to the 80s genre.

Sure. And so two years ago, I threw 10 grand in a bank and said, I'm doing it. And in six weeks we were playing.

So how'd you pick everybody? You said you were from New York originally. Yeah. But how did you how'd you get to Chicago? Oh, my brother was living in Valparaiso, Indiana.

OK. And I came to visit and we came into Chicago and I was like, wait a minute. I can live in the city, but I can get the heck out of it in 20 minutes.

I love this. And I moved to Chicago. Cool.

Cool. So how'd you pick the other members of the band? I mean, obviously, you didn't know anybody, right? No, no. It was a it was a long process picking them.

Pretty much online through correspondence online, you know, I would go through through a series of steps that they understood, you know, how much we were going to work, how much we were going to audition and that this wasn't a band that we were just going to play in a garage that, you know, I already had our first gig set nine weeks from the day I started recruiting. And I told everybody what that date was and we were launching that day no matter what. And so they knew coming in.

So I would audition people at Fort Knox Studios in Chicago. And Fort Knox has been great to us. I was over there today and one by one, I just kept making decisions and decisions.

And, you know, it's been two years, you know, some people have come and gone and, you know, we had some new people and I keep it going. You know, somebody decides they want to opt out. I stay up all night looking for a drummer and I find one.

So did you put ads in a paper or anything? Oh yeah, Craigslist, Band Mix, anything you can think of, you know, put posters up at Fort Knox everywhere. And where's Fort Knox at? It's on Knox Street, just off Montrose by Cicero in Montrose. And they have their, you know, their hourly studios that you can come in and rehearse and they also have showcase rooms, you know, for showcase and stuff.

It's a great place. Now we kind of jumped into the Chicago end of it. What about the band that was in New York? We were a garage band.

Okay. And that's all we were doing and having some fun. And then there was another band with the same name and they were going back and forth between having the name Rubik's Cube and Jessie's Girl and they just outgrew us.

They just got bigger and bigger and bigger and we pretty much stayed a garage band. And so we all went our separate ways. But I moved to Florida for a job for a little bit.

And then I always wanted to move back to New York, but I was like, you know, it's kind of, I like being away from the city now. And then when I visited my brother in Valparaiso, I was like, this city I can live in. So have you found a difference between musicians in New York and Chicago? No, not really.

I mean, you know, he's a politician too, I can tell that. Including myself. Musicians are flaky everywhere.

Self-included. So now Mike, tell us, you play guitar. And how long have you been playing guitar? Where did you get started at? I've been playing guitar since I was 12 years old and caught the cover band bug a little over a decade ago.

So I've played in bands that I've put together that were more classic rock orientated. I've played in 90s bands, 2000s bands, pop bands. I've played bass in a couple, in one band at least.

But I mean, cover bands are it for me. I love the experience of learning, you know, all the songs I've been listening to on the radio forever. The classics, you know.

Like Jessie's Girl. Like Jessie's Girl. You know, this is actually, for doing it for over 10 years, this is the first 80s band I've been in.

So it's a chance to learn all those classic songs that I've been listening to for the last, you know, who's the mathematician here? However many years that is. Then he Paul. But yeah.

So you said you played some other bands. Yeah. Who'd you play with? Or what kind of music did you do? Yeah, the first cover project I was in was called False Idols.

It was a band I put together with my friends where it was basically mostly classic rock. And we each sort of picked a classic rock icon. So I was Jimmy Page and Keith Richards.

We had someone who was Elton John and Billy Joel, Alice Cooper, like all the most recognizable greats. And we'd cover X amount of songs by all those artists. And that was fun.

Although we found out, like, you can't have a band that's playing a bunch of deep cuts and expect to get everyone to sing along. You know, everyone wants to hear satisfaction. But not everyone wants to hear can't you hear me knocking.

So that was early years of figuring this out. So after that, I went to a band called Word to Your Mother, which is a 90s tribute act before there was a lot of 90s tributes act acts and played everything from a handful of grunge tunes to 90s R&B and boy band material and some hip hop and some smash mouth straight ahead pop music. From there, I joined a kind of a longstanding Chicago cover band called C Factor and played with them for a couple of years for quite a. I remember C Factor.

Yeah. So I was in that project for a good while and then joined a 2000s band and a band called Beyond the Blonde, which is a tribute to Lady Gaga and Pink and Gwen Stefani. Thank you.

Yeah, we did. We did Beyond the Blonde a few episodes ago. Yeah, I agree with that.

Cool. So I was with them playing bass for a short time. And I missed the guitar like nobody's business.

So when I got in touch with Brad, that was my chance to get a look at it. So now you've been with Jesse, you've been with Brad since he started the band? No, we've been together for what? About six months or so. All right, maybe a little more.

So if you just started a band two years ago, how'd you survive COVID? Oh man, backyard barbecues. People were doing it and we were playing. I mean, we went, that's our story.

We went from June 4th to March 14th. We went from playing at a small dive bar to the House of Music and Entertainment in eight months. Like we worked our butts off.

And then the next day everything closed. Like we played our first A-band venue. And we called them that day, you're still doing it? And they said, yeah, are you guys coming? And we was like, all right, yeah, we're coming.

And we went and we brought maybe 30, 40 of our own people, plus there was people that was barely 100 people there. And the next day everything shut down and we had to start over. That was in March, probably, right? Yeah, that was March 14th, that show.

And we actually just had our show back at Home Bar about a month ago, which we were the first live band back. We were the last one there. Where was that at? It's called Home Bar, the House of Music and Entertainment.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Mount Pasadena. Yeah, the manager, Kevin, was great.

He really loved the fact that we were the last band there when COVID hit and he wanted us to be the first live band back. So they just started music back up then? Correct, yeah. Yeah, it was a tough situation, I know.

Yeah, we just played. I kind of built a practice studio area in my front living room and I just left it open to the band. If you guys want to come, you want to practice, you want to jam, you can.

No obligation, everybody's different. I think one by one we all got it and had it and we're sick and we all got better. And any opportunity we could play outside, we did.

I mean, we're talking like I produced and managed a band, Yankee Cowboy. They were playing in alleys, you know. The bar was open, but they were in the alley, you know, behind it.

So it's great. I mean, we did what we had to do. Oh, that's very cool.

But very, very scary, too, at the same time. Yes, it was. Yeah, I remember having a studio in my living room.

Remember that? Yes. Yeah, it didn't last long, though. No, not too long.

So tell us, why did the name Justice go? I just, I loved the song growing up. It was like, you know, one of the biggest hits of 1981. Oh, yeah, I mean, girls go crazy when they're playing it.

Absolutely, and I just thought that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I'm going to have a name that people are going to remember, you know, something that will brand the band to get to a bigger status quicker, and it worked. I mean, you know, we're good now.

We weren't that good when we started, but everybody thought they heard of us because, you know, the name. That makes sense. That makes sense.

Probably good publicity, too. It was. Yeah.

It was great. You know, our website's jessiesgirlchicago.com, you know, so it doesn't confuse us with the other Jessie's Girl, you know, in New York. And, yeah, we're a lot different than them, too.

They're more of a tribute theme, dress up, one place every Saturday night. We're a cover band. We go out to parties and festivals and shows and bars and, yeah, a lot different.

So where have you been playing now that you're back in action? You know, we've been so busy that I draw blanks on that. It's like, where were we yesterday? It's like, man, I know we just booked Nelly's coming up. I forget what the date is.

The old dirty Nelly's, I guess they're calling it Nelly's now, but we're playing Tribute Island this Saturday. Friday night we're at Draft Picks in Naperville. Tomorrow night we're at Heritage Harley and Lyle doing their happy hour.

There's supposed to be some swimsuit bikini thing there, I guess. At the Harley dealer? Yeah, at the Harley dealer in Lyle. So we're there, but we're playing, what would you say, on average three shows a week now, right? Yeah.

We're a really super busy band. So tell us about how you found some of the other guys in the band. Well, so I go real deep with character.

So there was a couple of funny stories where some of the guys in the band wanted to hire drummer A, and I liked drummer B. He might not have been as good as a drummer, but I liked his character a lot better. And so we brought him on. A little flashier? Yeah.

Justice, our co-lead, I knew her from the Big Break competition. That's always in Lincoln Park, every single year, the same competition, which is really great. The judges are only judges for the first few rounds, and after that it's audience participation, and they become your coaches.

So it's kind of like the American Idol but live, and these people coach you, and the coaches are people like the lead singers of other bands and vocal coaches that have been in the business for years. That's true, too. Where's that happening? That's at McGee's in Lincoln Park.

From McGee's? Yeah, it's starting late August, I think, is the first round auditions. So I met Justice there about eight years ago. I've been doing it that long.

She came to, I think, Jessie's Girls' third show, and we had my friend Catherine, who was going back to college in August, in late August, and she could only help us out getting started. We were still looking for a co-lead. She helped us out a few shows, and then at this one show, Justice came because it was also my birthday show and my birthday party.

She's a friend, so she came, and she saw the act, and she goes, I want to do this. She's been with us ever since, and we're now working on launching her own country band. Oh, really? Yeah, so we're searching for a new female co-lead, if you know anybody who sings.

So she's going country, anyway. She's always had a passion for country. Do you guys play any country? We work out some country stuff.

I manage Yankee Cowboys, so I let them handle the country. So now you said you've been in Chicago for eight years, right? For about a little over a decade now. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, okay. But the band's only been together a couple years, right? Yeah, about two years. I was just focused on getting my kids through college first, you know? Right.

I'll tell you a story about Mike, though. Okay. Oh, please do.

So we were- Sit down, Mike. Relax. This might be the first time I've heard it.

Our guitarist, Troy Donahue, just busy, busy life, and didn't really want to keep playing as much as we are. So we weren't taking gigs. His name is Troy Donahue? Yeah, and he's still kind of one of my best friends.

And we started looking for another guitar player. Isn't there a movie actor named Troy Donahue? I don't know. Yeah, I think so.

Sounds familiar. I was a little older than you, actually. I think so.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to get off track.

That's okay. So we started auditioning for guitarists, and we had plenty of room because Troy was helping. He was still playing and helping us.

And the rest of the guys in the band wanted to make decisions. I had talked to Mike on the phone. We corresponded back and forth.

We talked on the phone. And I had a really good feeling about him. But we couldn't connect with our schedules for two or three weeks, right? Yep.

And I had a couple things booked. We got through them, and I kept telling the guys they wanted to make decisions every time we auditioned the guitarists. I like him, and I like him.

Let's just hire him. Let's hire him. I said, guys, please wait.

I got a good feeling about this guy. And he walked in the room, no pedals, nothing, just a guitar, plugged in dry, and says, I didn't bring any pedals because I want you guys to hear my playing. And we all looked at each other, and he nailed it, walked out the door.

And of course, we talked about him behind his back for a little while. But we made the decision right there to hire him. And he said to me, he goes, listen, I'm going to worry about structure first, not flair or structure of the song so we can get out playing.

And then we'll go from there. So the first couple shows, we're like, all right, he's good. He's got the structure of the songs down.

And then fourth, fifth show, we were just kind of like, what was that? Wow. The flair started to come. The pizzazz started to come.

And he's still surprising us. We didn't have any tips in our show up at Captain's Quarters the other night until his Purple Rain solo. And Tip Bucket all filled up on his solo.

Very nice. Very nice. So have you broken out the pedal board now? Absolutely.

It travels separate in its own vehicle. Brinks truck. White gloves.

Yeah, yeah. Like the Stanley Cup. So tell us about what kind of guitar do you play? So I feel like I've always used a new cover band as an excuse to buy a new guitar.

Oh, sure. That's a nice excuse. I like that.

Tell your wife that anyway. Yeah, yeah. So I've played.

You are married, right? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So early on, I was altered between a Strat and a Les Paul.

Sure. And then I joined another cover band and bought an SG. And then in joining in a Tele for another band.

And then in joining Jessie's Girl. Since we are, Brad and I are both are huge Prince fans. And with Eddie Van Halen passing away, I used it as an opportunity to buy a Wolfgang, an Eddie Van Halen Wolfgang guitar in a purple finish.

That's going to be more widely released pretty soon. But I was lucky enough to get one that was at NAMM and hasn't hit the stores yet. So that's pretty much what I play for Jessie's Girl is Eddie Van Halen model.

That's beautiful. What kind of amps do you play? A Fender Blues Junior. And that's been since pretty much day one.

That's what I got. We look at it and we think time to give it up until something comes out of it. And we're like, don't ever give it up.

I'm telling you, it's a crazy little amp. It's got some great sound to it. Damn straight.

Nobody shows in nothing. No, no, never. No, it can't fit in the back of the SUV.

And I can't lift it with one arm. Yeah. Don't do it.

So do you have a PRS or anything? No, no. That's my next purchase. I think.

Yeah. I mean, there's not going to be a next band. So I don't know.

That's for sure. That's for sure. We got him under lock.

Yeah. So what are you playing, Brad? What's that? What are you playing? I have a really nice Dean acoustic that I play. Just bought a very inexpensive Fender that we both really love for acoustic.

And then for electric guitar, I have a rebuilt Tele. I don't really play that with the show too much. I really play like two or three songs.

And then, but I have the Prince Cloud guitar, obviously for Purple Rain. I started off and then Mike steals the show. So do you play mostly acoustic in your show? Yeah.

Yeah. Like, you know, some rhythm stuff just to keep stuff going during his solos. Right.

Right. And what about so many other people in the band? Do we know them from former bands or other bands? Mike Chiarassati has played all over Chicago. He's a former Chicago fireman.

He's played all over Chicago. He's a great bass player. I don't know of bands he's been in before.

You know, we've had him. He was actually our COVID saver. Our bass player was just like one of those guys.

He was just like, I'm out, you know? And I think he had an opportunity to move and stay safe and, you know, and work from home. So he was gone and, you know, Mike jumped right in and started playing with us and he's been with us ever since. And he's just good.

He still takes lessons, you know? And is just a great bass player. I think our keyboard player, I know he's been in a ton of bands because everywhere we go, people know him. He's an older guy, Tom Brinkman, but he's just, everybody seems to know him.

We played at Firewater in Edison Park last Friday and a ton of people knew him. Tom Brinkman. It sounds familiar.

It does sound familiar. He's been in the industry for years. I guarantee you probably know him.

Sounds very familiar. We had a keyboard player before him, before COVID, Rob Neumeyer. He's been in a ton of bands all in Chicagoland.

And we're still good. Like I said, nobody that's come and gone that we're just not friends with, you know, it's just, it's music. Have you considered doing any original material? I actually do have original material.

Have you written? Yes. I wrote a worship album in 2014, released it called Send Me. And then I also have, I'm working on some secular originals right now recording.

So it's a religious album? Yeah. Contemporary worship album. Oh yeah.

It went aluminum. I lead worship at Hillside Church in Evanston on Sunday. So that's my thing.

That's cool. Very cool. So you wrote music.

Did you play it in church there? Yeah. Yeah. I play my stuff.

I play, you know, the covers in church when I lead worship on Sundays. Yeah. Very cool.

You don't do Jesse's? No, I play around with it though. I'm trying to teach the band some, some 80s stuff, but they're just not having it. What about you Mike? Yeah.

I write some material and I'm in the process of recording a handful of tunes that once I get them done, I'll see what I want to do with them. What genre would you, would you say your music is? Singer songwriter. Like I, I leave all the flashy guitar stuff to the cover bands and just buckle down with the acoustic and the blues junior and you know, keep it simple for the songs I write.

So yeah. Yeah. So you said you've got a lot of bookings.

I mean, you booked through the whole summer into the fall or. We're booked into like November. So we, I think July's probably gonna end up being our busiest month, but cause I have some off days in August, but we even were off the first week of July.

So the last three weeks of July of just the last two weeks have been crazy. We have five shows this week, right? Yeah. Five, five shows starting well today we didn't count today, but we have Thursday tomorrow is the Lyle show at the heritage Harley.

And then Friday draft picks in Naperville, Saturday tribute Island and Sunday, the pavilion in bridge view. So, and then we have seen next Wednesday, the Woodbridge park concert in the park. So we just, we have a lot, you know, and you know, we have, we're using Joey DeMarco from United talent books.

Most of our stuff Tom Hartman, you know, they, he's booked some stuff for us, but we didn't use any booking companies for the first eight months. I booked everything. And I still probably 75% of our stuff.

I book, you know, so I'm not afraid of the phone. Joey DeMarco does a good job. He awesome.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

I know I've known Joey for years and, and I know that, that if you want to play somewhere more than likely, he's got his foot in the door there. So you have to go through him. We played home bar.

He called me and said, how'd you book home bar? And I said, I called them. He said, all right, well, we got to talk. So, yeah, he's been great.

So, so what are, what are some of your, um, um, what are your, what's your, what's your go-to song on stage? If, if, if you guys had a, had a date and it started to rain and you couldn't play and he said, okay, you can pick up there, play one song. What would it be? I'd have to say footloose. Yeah.

We, we kill footloose. Yeah. 100%.

It's the, it's the across the board. Like no one doesn't, you know, there might be a handful of people who don't know eight, six, seven, five, three Oh nine. And there might be a handful of people who don't know, uh, uh, sunglasses at night.

Yeah. Everyone has come across footloose. Like I got, my son is, uh, about to be 16 and he's been, he watched footloose like three years ago.

I was like, you ever see this movie footloose? I was like, yeah. I mean, the movie, I mean, kind of sucks. You know, it's not a very good movie, but that the song and the soundtrack and, and all the MTV videos that came out of it are jams.

And so somehow footloose has transcended all the, you know, the years and everyone. I mean, from, from the drums on the way we roll it out, it's Brad introduces drums first and then keys. We come, we come in layered.

Whoa. We're known as, um, you know, we tell people, you know, we're the highest energy cover band. You're going to say, I mean, we're, we go all out.

I mean, we bring it and, um, and people say it and, you know, people, you know, our, our slogan is come dance your face off. Yeah. So, you know, I, I talked to, I forget the name, uh, from the park district called me to confirm and tell us where we were going next Wednesday and, uh, in Woodbridge.

And, uh, I said, get ready for the, you know, the highest energy 90 minutes of your life there. They're all looking forward to it. Very cool.

Now, a lot of bands have like a, a closer they use all time. Is there one that you guys usually close with Jesse's girl? Okay. So we have a little skit and it never gets tired.

Does it? And there really never does. Um, I, uh, I tell people that, you know, I took some vacation and, you know, since Mike is one of the newest members of the band, we give him a job and, and that job has come up with the band theme song. And, uh, I said, what do you come up with Mike? And then he plays, uh, the beginning of owner of a lonely heart.

I just shake my head. And then he says, let's give it another try. And he plays in the beginning of it, like a Metallica song.

And I hope I'm not ruining it for people that are going to come see us. But, uh, you know, and then we, we tell him, look at the banner, look at the banner, dude. He's like, oh, I got it.

And then when he hits that riff, they go nuts, you know, chin, chin, chin, chin, chin. So they just love it. Yeah.

Pretty much anything that was a number one hit. We'll do it in the eighties. I mean, you know, for me, it was, I mean, I was born in 1970.

So when the eighties hit, I was 10 and 11, it's like, I went right along in that generation. And I love that era so much that I wanted to bring in eighties, you know, and, and an 80s genre that, you know, it never died. It's a timeless generation.

You know, it was before the internet got really popular. It was before MTV got really popular. I mean, you had to buy the album.

I mean, Thriller was in, in the billboard 200 for what? 13 years. Right. So it's like, it's crazy how timeless these songs are and people love them.

And now the new generation of people, younger people, my son's 23. He knows a lot of these songs. Right.

So it's amazing how the young kids even pick up on it. Yeah. You know, I got a buddy in the nineties, man, the seventies and eighties, I think we're the greatest, the greatest type of music as it is, buddy in a nineties band.

They're having, you know, little, little trouble drawing people to their show. I'm like, well, the people that love your music are home with their kids right now. Yeah.

You know, another five or six years, it'll be your time. Well, I believe that there's this resurgence of music about every 20 years, you know, in, in, in the sixties. I mean, the sixties music, you know, the most out of stuff hit real heavy in the eighties and eighties music is hitting, you know, it, well, you know, in the, in the, in the two thousands or whatever.

So, but, but I, I believe, I believe that that actually happens. It does. It does.

And it's probably like you said, because of the, you know, this people having kids and not being able to go out. It's true. I mean, I see people at my age coming to their shows.

I mean, all their kids, you know, my kids are 23 and 28. And I mean, their, their kids are growing. They're empty nesters.

Now it's their time to, you know, go back out into, into the world and, and go see live music. And so timing was right for us. Very cool.

So where can we find you on the internet or on Facebook or where? Both www.jessesgirlschicago.com or Facebook forward slash Jesse's girl, Chicago. We're, we're there. And then we also have a king music, chicago.com. That's a, that's, that's our music company.

We, we also managed Yankee cowboy. Yeah. Tell me about that.

Amazing. Three piece young country band. It sounds like there's 12 guys up there jamming.

They, they're just awesome. Jaren gray, good friend of mine. We actually were recruiting him to become the Jesse's girl guitarist a year before the band got together.

And it was just an idea. And a friend of mine introduced me to him and we jammed out and then, uh, our friend Steve, who was going to be the drummer, um, had some, you know, some, uh, his, I think one of his brother had some health issues he had to tend to. And, uh, so we didn't see each other for quite a while.

And then I'm at a restaurant one day and Jaren comes up to us, my waiter and he goes, Hey, you're Brad, right? Didn't remember we jammed. And I said, yeah. And told me he was doing some, some solo stuff.

And, uh, you know, I went and saw and he does covers country, Southern rock type stuff. And, uh, I said, you know, I've had an idea for, uh, for, um, a country band called Yankee Cowboy. And, and Jaren being from Vermont, he's like, I'm all over that.

uh, so it's, um, uh, Jaren Gray, Gunner, I can't remember his last name. And, uh, and Dave Errol Smith. Um, those three guys.

Awesome. so then you, you, you manage a band. Yeah.

I, I actually put it together, produced it, manage it. And, you know, if Jaren was here, he would say, just say you own the band, Brad. That's what he'd say.

So did he do original stuff? Or did he do cappy stuff for both? The band doesn't do original stuff, but Jaren and, uh, and Gunner, the drummer, both are original, amazing songwriters. They both have original stuff too. And they're out playing? They're out playing.

Yeah. I forgot where they're playing this week. Um, so you can find them at Yankee cowboy band.com. They're playing all over.

They're, they're doing the, uh, tribute. I don't know. I think the following week, how long have they been together? A little over a year now.

I think, uh, June, July was their beginning. July was one year for them. So every year I launch a new band.

Okay. So, so, so obviously that that's what you do now, or do you have another job that you, I have many jobs, many jobs. I'm a, uh, uh, compliance guy for global.

We, we do all the, uh, pro sports, aviation compliance for like TSA. And, um, and I also own a, a security and surveillance company, King King alone. Oh, so you are a busy guy.

Oh yeah. That's it. I told you, my kids are grown and I'm working.

Yeah. I love to work. That's this guy.

Yeah. I can tell by your schedule. I see the, you see, the band schedule is pretty busy.

Yeah. Yeah. We love doing it.

Very cool. Well, so, so we can follow us. If I need a Facebook, we can get sidetracked.

I think we, but we also find you on Facebook, right? At Jesse's girl, Jesse, yeah. Facebook, um, dot com slash Jesse's girl Chicago. And then, uh, Brad James white is what I go by on Facebook.

Okay. Well, thanks. Thanks guys for, for joining us today.

Thanks for having us. And, uh, and, uh, we wish you the best of luck. Yeah.

Thank you. Hopefully we'll see you out there soon. Continued success.

Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks.

Thanks. So that was Mike and Brad from Jesse's girl. And, uh, they get, uh, it's kind of an interesting, exciting way they came together, isn't it? Yeah.

And we all learned that New York musicians and Chicago musicians are just the same crazy people. I guess they are. I guess music, musicians, uh, are a breed of their own and no matter where you come from, right? They have to be, you, you, you have to be, I mean, it's just, it's a mindset.

It's a crazy mindset. Yes. Yes, it is.

Yes, it is. But it was nice talking with them and, getting the backstory on, uh, Jesse's girl, Chicago, and you can find them at, uh, Jesse's girl, chicago.com. Right. That's right.

And on Facebook, I believe it's a Jesse's girl, Chicago on Facebook or Jesse's girl band on Facebook. Yes. Very good.

Well, it was great talking with them. I want to thank the Illinois rock and roll museum, uh, for the use of the studio. And, it's nice to be back here, isn't it? Right? It sure is, but it, you know, what's really gonna be nice to get out of here.

It's a little warm. Yeah. They don't have the air working yet.

I know. And if they're doing, uh, if they're doing a podcast for an hour or so, he gets a little sweaty, a little silky, but that's okay because we are here for, for the people. That's right.

We are here to bring you the backstories on Jesse's girl, Chicago, and, and, uh, everyone else who we've talked with. That's right. That's what we're here for, for your entertainment only.

That's right. So, thanks for listening to everybody. Thank you.

We'll 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.