Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How you doing today, Ray? I'm doing good. And how are you today? I'm doing just fine.

Thank you. Just fine. You know, I was brushing my hair.

You brushing your hair? Yeah. Awesome. I was at the store today, man.

I was walking down this aisle and I look and man, this one dude, he looked like a lady. Really? Yeah, man. It's crazy.

It's kind of weird. There's a song like that, you know, I thought there was a song like that. Yeah.

Isn't it Aerosmith? Yep. Sure is. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, then there's then there's a bunch of bunch of these guys there, man. They're a real motley looking crew.

And I wanted to stay away from them. I mean, it's like, oh, sounds like nothing but a good time to me. Yeah, it could have been, I suppose.

OK, enough of the pods. Then I went to Starbucks and went up in there. I got some coffee.

And when I was mixing it all up with the other stuff, I wound up like I poured sugar on me. Oh, did I did? That was a mess. Oh, boy, that's terrible.

We ought to talk to somebody that plays this kind of music. Oh, oh, I thought you meant talk to somebody at Starbucks. We could talk to somebody at Starbucks, too.

I don't know why. At every store. Let's do a podcast from every Starbucks.

Oh, OK. Yeah. I'm sure people would be interested in that.

Today we're at Mount Vernon, Illinois. We could just do Chicago ones. Yeah.

Now, we're talking area. Chicago area would probably take us a year or two. Oh, yeah.

A lot of them. Yeah. Well, well, today, enough of the puns, as I said, because we are talking with we talk with Brian Durbin of Hairbangers Ball, the 80s glam metal rock band who they're they're really good band.

They're really good band. And I've had the chance to see them and they're very they're very good. I have seen them a number of times myself.

They're they're really tight. Music sounds great. They definitely look the part.

Yes, they do. Definitely look the part. And man, they play a lot of shows.

I mean, when I'm looking around, who's playing where, they just pop up all the time. Now, his name is Brian Durbin. This is real name.

But maybe we should tell everybody his stage name is actually Mick Yeager. That's right. Yeah.

And people know your stage name is Paul Tequila. That's right. And I'm Ray Crown Royal or bourbon bourbon.

But yes, they're a unique band. They are an original 80s glam rock band. Yes, they are.

And speaking of originals, I think they've come up with one that we'll be playing here. So let's get to it and see what Brian had to say about the band. Let's take a listen.

How are you doing, everybody? Welcome to today's show. Today, we're speaking with Brian Durbin, who is with with 80s glam metal band, Hairbangers Ball. How are you doing, Brian? I'm doing great.

How are you guys doing? Awesome. Doing great. So actually, when you guys first reached out to the Hairbangers page, we actually thought you were the original lead singer of Hairbangers Ball because his real name is Paul Martin.

Yeah. So so we were like, when did Paul start putting on podcasts? It wasn't him. So yeah.

Yeah, I know that. And as a matter of fact, I met him once and I've actually worked with the band. But it was boy, it had to be back by 2006 or so 2007.

I had I had you guys did a show at Saks Park and I helped set up the gear because I company I work for did sound for you that day. Oh, right on. Who was Jim Morris.

I don't know if you know Jim Morris and JLM Productions. I don't. I wasn't at that show.

I've only been in the band for the past five years, so I was probably somewhere in college at that time. Yeah. Yeah.

I figured you figured you might. But maybe some of the other people know him. But so tell us a little bit about the band.

When the band got started and and then I if if you have the history, I assume, right? Yeah. Yeah. I hope I don't botch this.

But here goes nothing. Okay. So Hairbangers Ball has been around for about 20 years.

This May, May 11th will be 20 years of Hairbangers Ball. The band was originally started in Chicago and is played all across the Midwest, the U.S. and they've even done some international stuff long before I was in the band. But yeah, it's it's the the original tribute to the 80s as our graphic designer actually just named us one day like I don't know.

We got some we got some proofs back during the time that I've been in the band. We got some proofs back for some artwork and it said the original tribute to the 80s and we're like, that sounds pretty good. We'll stick with that.

But yeah, the band's been around for about 20 years playing covers of the 80s hair metal genre, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses, Poison, Def Leppard, all that great stuff. And all the good stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, essentially, the band was just started to get paid to party is really all it is really all it was from my understanding.

And then, yeah, my involvement, I've been in the band for about five years now. I sing, I play a little bit of guitar in the band from time to time. And then I've I've taken on all of our social media and stuff like that, too.

So I'm like the singer slash marketing guy for the band, I guess you would call it. So how'd you get in the band? I got in the band by playing in a bunch of other bands and just not going away. And then, yeah, I just I've been playing, you know, in this area probably for about probably for about a decade, maybe even a little bit more than a decade.

At this point in time, I'm 34. I started singing for an original band called Love Blast when I was 20. It's my band that I wrote all the songs for and stuff.

Yeah, I just I started playing in other local cover bands. I was in a band called On Fire. I was in a band called Platinum.

And then eventually just, yeah, one day I got a I got a text message from Jennifer saying that they needed a new lead singer and asked me to come over to audition. I did and I got the gig and now I'm here. Now, with the band going for 20 years, are there any original members? There's one original member left.

That's Jennifer Remus, a.k.a. Polly Pants. Polly Pants. Yeah, we've all got our own quirky little stage names.

Right. Mine in the band is Mick Jaeger. Do you like some Jaeger once in a while? Do you? I like it too much, actually.

I like it too much. That's coming from Paul Tequila. I used to be Paul Jaeger myself.

I had a fetish for Jaeger bands, but I had to quit it. I had to quit it. Yeah, I haven't had to quit it yet, but I'd be lying if I would if I didn't say I didn't pace myself a little bit better.

You learn you learn how to get in your own rhythm after five years in the band of how to do it. That's right. So Polly Pants or Jennifer is the is the only original member.

And who else is in the band? We've got I would say if we're going, let's go chronologically. Shall we? I don't know why this camera is all blurry. Is this an audio only? Yes.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So I won't bother with this.

I thought I was having a stroke or something. So we've got everything positioned for when the guests get here later. We've actually got like this multi camera switchboard here.

It's pretty cool. But yeah, this whole new setup is, you know, all sorts of fine tuning. But in any event, it just came back in picture.

All right, cool. The original is Polly Pants. And then Claire Crush has been in and out of the band, I would say for about 10 to 11 years at this point.

In time, I guess the next most recent member of the band would be me. I've been in the band for about five years. Our bass player, Rod Viper, his real name, John Maysack.

He's been in the band for just about as long as I have. And then we've got Jack Charlotte, whose real name is Seth Shulman. He's been in the band for a little over a year now.

And then we recently got a new guitar player in September named Daryl Diamond, a.k.a. Marcus Johansson is his real name. And you can check him out at JohanssonShreds.com. He's the only member of the band that has his own website. So that's the only reason.

That's why he got the plug and stuff. He's very smart. He's a very smart man.

And he shreds. What's Claire's name? Claire Crush, but her real name is Claire Andreic. Oh, OK.

I missed that one. I don't know if these people want me saying their real names or whatever, but you guys know mine. So I busted all of them.

Whoops. Yeah, that's right. We'll still call them by their stage names.

So now you said you wrote some original material, right? Or you played an original band. Did you write material or do you still write material? I still write material all the time. I try to write a song a week if I can.

I love playing covers in Hairbanger's Ball. I'm really lucky to be playing my favorite style of music for a living. I mean, what more can you ask for? But if I was being perfectly honest, my number one joy in life is writing and recording my own music.

Whether or not anybody else hears it, that's my favorite thing to do with my time. So what can, in genre, what vein is here, is the direction of your music go? It sounds a whole lot like Hairbanger's Ball, at least. There's not an ounce of me that's phony when it comes to this type of music.

This is the music that I'm all about. I'm not secretly a closet U2 fan on the side or anything. Not that there's anything wrong with U2.

I'm just saying my music is 80s hair metal music. So when I'm on stage with Hairbanger's Ball, it's not an act, it's not a gig. That's what I'm all about, is this type of music.

The music that I write is pretty close in style to what Hairbanger's Ball plays in our setlist, which is why Hairbanger's Ball is releasing an original song on March 12th, available on streaming platforms everywhere. Awesome, very cool. The first one? The very first one, yeah.

We figured that after 20 years of being a band, maybe we should try to write a song. I don't know. What's the name of it? The name of the song is All Aboard the Bang Train.

It's something that everyone has called. Everybody in the circle of Hairbanger's Ball has always called the band over the years for whatever reason. It's just been called the Bang Train.

That was the inspiration for the song. The song is called All Aboard the Bang Train. It's about being in Hairbanger's Ball and Hairbanger's Ball fans.

So this will be the first time anybody's heard it? With the COVID and stuff, you guys probably weren't playing much last year. Yeah, we really didn't play a whole lot. Not as much as we normally play.

Normally the band is playing 150 shows a year just all over the Midwest. We definitely played more than most bands did. The areas that we were playing in weren't heavily hit hard.

I don't know, I'm pulling that out of my ass. From what I understand, the areas we were playing were allowed to have shows. It's kind of weird because they're all limited capacity shows.

20% seated at tables wearing masks and stuff. It's not ideal for a rock concert. The nice thing is with the type of music that we play, people will actually show up just to watch you play music.

Let's say it's a disco band or whatever, if people can't dance, nobody's coming to the show. Disco is pretty incredible music if you really pay attention to it. In any event, this type of music, thankfully the type of people that listen to it like watching a band play music, which is pretty rare that I've found in terms of the cover party scene.

We're really lucky in that with these types of shows, we've still been able to get out there and play because people want to watch us play. Speaking of people that watch you play, they're called Bangmasters, is that right? Bangmasters, yeah. I'm not sure who came up with that.

I don't know. It came about long before I was in the band. Sometimes we call the fans bangers.

Sometimes we call them bangamaniacs, but Bangmasters is the one that sticks the most. I know that you've got some swag to go with that, too. Oh, yeah.

You've got a lot of different swag. Oh, yeah. One of our favorite bands is KISS, so we've taken notes to the whole merchandise thing, that's for sure.

And masks, too, right? Yeah, we've actually got two different types of masks. We've got one mask. Actually, I might even have it in my pocket right now.

I don't. Yeah, we've got one mask with our logo on it, and then we've got another mask that has a very handsome gentleman's face on it. Yeah, I'm looking at that right now.

Oh, yeah. And you mentioned carrying it in your pocket. I mean, that's something different than what we had to do a year ago at this time, isn't it? Yeah.

Well, actually, we are just about at the year mark. Remember, we finished our last full-capacity show at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana on March 14th. And actually, the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana is actually the venue that our song, All Aboard the Bang Train, is all about.

We kind of call that our home away from home because even though we're a Chicago band, we're in Bloomington, Indiana. Every, you know, in normal times, four to six weeks. Lately, I feel like it's been one of the only places we've been playing.

We've been there like every three weeks lately. But yeah, no, we're really lucky to be playing. It's a really great historic... It's a great college town.

Oh, yeah, it's a great college town. It's a really historic venue. Everybody, not everybody's played there, but I mean, everybody from, you know, Bass Nectar to Kings of Leon and, you know, John Mellencamp has played there before.

John Mayer's played there. And Hairbanger's Ball plays there all the time. I'd love to have a bank account of the rest of those people one of these days, but, you know, we're doing okay.

So now you said you're 34 years old. So you must have just been born when this music was happening. How did you learn the appreciation for this type of music? Yeah, I was born in 1986.

So near the latter half of the decade of decadence. So I got into this music in a really weird way. I got into this music because of the movie Mrs. Doubtfire.

It came out in 1993. And there's a montage scene in that movie where Mrs. Doubtfire is like kind of just rocking out with a broom, rocking out with a vacuum cleaner and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And I just thought it was hilarious when I was a kid.

And the song in the background is Dude Looks Like a Lady by Aerosmith. And that was, I was about seven years old when I saw that movie. It's appropriate for Mrs. Doubtfire.

Yeah, yeah. And that was the moment for me where like my ears woke up for the first time. I'm like, what is that? You know, because I liked album covers.

Like my dad had a tape of Survivors, I Have the Tiger. And he had a tape of ACDC Highway to Hell that I just thought were cool album covers when I was a kid. But I didn't, I hadn't, my ears weren't awake yet, you know, or anything.

So when that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire came on, even though Mrs. Doubtfire is doing all this, you know, crazy stuff, the thing that really drew me in was that Aerosmith song. I had never heard anything like that before in my life. I had never heard that, you know, you know, loud guitars, all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, just really tight harmony vocals. You know, it was just, it was really cool. And then obviously like the guitar solo being one of the featured things of the song like really, really drew me in.

Do you guys do any Aerosmith? We do some Aerosmith. Yeah, we do. We do, do Looks Like a Lady.

It's been a while since we've done that one. That one's really fun too because my cousin will come up on stage with us from time to time whenever we do it and he's available and he dresses up in a Mrs. Doubtfire outfit and pops right in at the guitar solo and stuff. And he usually gets a really cool crowd response whenever we get to do it.

And since this is airing after the music video is released, he's actually in the music video dressed up as Mrs. Doubtfire because we based the video off of, we were watching a bunch of old videos from these bands and our favorites were Nothing But a Good Time by Poison and Loving an Elevator by Aerosmith and Lick It Up by KISS. Those were like the three videos where we were like, all right, let's make just this crazy wacky over the top 80s style video. And there's all sorts of weird cutaways in the Loving an Elevator music video.

Like there's, you know, there's a midget dancing with a professional basketball player. You know, there's all sorts of crazy stuff going on. And so we decided to kind of tribute that in our video with Mrs. Doubtfire.

And, you know, since we ripped off Loving an Elevator enough in the video, we might as well go all the way. So it is a live video, a live shoot? So I wish it was, I wish it was a live shoot. And that was the original intention when I first started writing the song was we wanted to shoot our very first music video at the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana in front of a crowd because, you know, the Bluebird is a really unique crowd in that they're just rabid.

They're crazier than any crowd that we play. I mean, we play, it's not the biggest crowd that we play for, but there's an intensity in that town that is really unique to it and really special. And, you know, you never know what you're going to get at a hairbangers ball show in Bloomington.

We always try to, that really is our home away from home. So we wanted to shoot it in front of a crowd over there, but because of the whole COVID thing, we couldn't do that. So we did shoot the video at the Bluebird on the stage in the Bluebird.

But right now our shows are limited capacity and everybody's sitting down and it would have just been a real drag if we shot it in... Right, you want people cheering and going crazy and stuff, right? Yeah. Now, to... As kind of a way around that, we're also releasing a supplementary lyric video a week afterwards just so people can see the lyrics for the song because we really want Bloomington, Indiana to know how much they mean to us and how much we care about them. So in the lyric video, there's a lot of... There's a lot of pictures from our last show there before COVID hit on... I think it was March 14th.

Right. And we were playing in front of a packed house that night. So, I mean, it was shocking actually to see how many people were coming to see us before all this happened in Bloomington.

So hopefully at some point in time, maybe we'll get to shoot a live video at a crowd over there. That would be ideal. But first, we got to see if people like the song.

I mean, I don't... It's a really weird thing with it being a cover band. So we don't know if people are going to be excited about the song or if they're going to be like, oh, just shut up and get back to the Bon Jovi. Will you? Like, come on.

Where's the poison? We don't know. Have you played it live? We did play it live one time, but it was a limited capacity crowd. And it was on a Wednesday when we shot the video and it was in front of a bunch of... Like, that's their big college night there, mainly because they sell beers for 25 cents.

Where's this place? I'm heading over there. It's called the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana. And to put it into perspective, the show sold out before they even announced who the band was.

So the people who were seeing the show didn't care what show they were going to. They just wanted 25 cent beer. So we tried the song out in front of the college crowd a couple of times.

And what was really cool about it is they knew songs like... Like, when we did Pour Some Sugar On Me, of course, they know that song because that's played in every sporting arena that they've ever been to. But, you know, certain songs, like even big songs on our set was like Round and Round by Rat, which was just recently in a Geico commercial. Right.

These kids were looking at us like, what is this song that you're playing right now? But the really cool thing about when we played this song is when the chorus hit by the second time, maybe not even by the second time, maybe even by the near end of the first time, these kids were singing the words to the chorus. It was really cool. And it was almost kind of creepy.

It was like, oh, what are we getting ourselves into here? Like, you know, could we start into something? We'll see. Yeah. I mean, it's a great feeling to, first of all, have people do that, to sing along with your song.

And it's a great feeling just knowing you're going to a venue that people appreciate what you're doing, you know? And it pumps you up, right? Oh, yeah. Gets you excited. Hey, we're going to Bloomington.

We're going to play the Bluebird. We're excited about it, you know? Yeah. Put it this way.

Like, we go to the Bluebird every three to four weeks. You know, it's a long drive. It's a really long drive.

You know, we load our own gear. We don't have any roadies or anything like that. We do all of our own stuff.

And, you know, it really does take its toll on you, especially if you get, if you indulge a little bit at the Bluebird, too, as we do. So it really does beat you up. But we still come back for more and more punishment every single time because the crowds are just so electric there.

I mean, I really think and I've been saying this on our podcast for a while now, I really think that if you're a Hairbangers Ball fan, you really should see a Hairbangers Ball show at the Bluebird at some point in time. Just make a trip out there. You know, after, as soon as we can go back to full capacity crowds, at least.

I don't want anyone from Chicago coming out there right now unless they want to watch people play their instruments. But if you want to watch a party and you want to see something really crazy, you know, actually, I just put out a press release to a bunch of different publications recently. And there was a quote that I used in there that really sums it up best.

Let me pull this up. It'll take me just a second. I got it right here.

But somebody, somebody said this to the Writer Magazine and Film Series, which is a magazine out in Bloomington, Indiana, October. On their October, November 2019 issue of the Writer Magazine and Film Series, a local Bloomington, Indiana resident told reporter Anthony Scott Piott, people talk about how great the Bluebird is. I went for Hairbanger's Ball and wasn't impressed.

There was pushing, shoving, rudeness, bras being thrown, people practically having sex on the dance floor and the bathroom reeked of weed. And then the end of that paragraph, it says, Hairbanger's Ball would like to thank Sarah for her certification of authenticity. Sorry we gave you a rock concert, Sarah.

I hope you'll recover one day. Yeah. Lord knows I haven't.

Yeah. Who knows? She may never. I don't think so.

Hey, Ray. Ray, what are you doing? I'm getting my blue dress on. I'm playing my banjo, except there seems to be something wrong with the strings.

Well, you know, Ray, GHS makes strings for all types of instruments, electric and acoustic guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and even banjo. Then I'm getting new GHS strings and my banjo will sound better. I don't think it's the strings, Ray.

GHS are easy to play with rich, full-balanced tone available in many different gauges. Great for all musical styles. So if you play... Play with the best.

Play GHS strings. Tell me a little bit about... I noticed I went back to some of your news stuff on your website and you mentioned a Band of the Month. What was that idea about? Band of the Month is something that started right before I started... Right before I joined the band.

I think they started it in 2015, maybe tail end of 2014. But Band of the Month is basically our dedication to one specific artist will do a rock block of at least four songs, if not more, depending on who the artist is. So we'll do a rock block dedicated to Mötley Crüe.

When we do Mötley Crüe Band of the Month, we'll do like eight songs because we can never agree to what four Mötley Crüe songs we should do. So we double it because Mötley Crüe just has so many great songs and people are always asking us to do different ones. Def Leppard will usually do a lot of songs of.

And then some of the... Some of the deeper bands like we did Daken Band of the Month in February, right before the whole COVID thing. And actually, I think they were the March band. I think that was the one that got cut off early.

And Daken, we only did four songs just because, you know... Right. Unfortunately, there's not really any Daken songs that are being played in sporting arenas that... Right. Right.

Or... Much as I love Daken. Love me some Daken. Or even mainstream music or whatever, mainstream radio or anything.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just... Unless you're a Daken fan.

I've got every one of their albums. So I'm a big Daken fan. So that... Anything you played, I'd know it.

And it was a real bummer for it to get... To get shut down too because those songs are really hard and we've worked really hard to get those songs together. But yeah, so we only got to play them for two weeks and then... I think we did four Daken shows and then that was a wrap. But hopefully, we'll get back to doing some Daken as soon as we can start playing a little bit more often.

So did you guys miss quite a few shows last year? You said you did play. You did some playing, but did you have a lot of cancellations? Yeah, we missed out on almost the whole summer. I mean, almost every major... big festival was canceled.

It was a real, real drag. Especially since our calendar... In 2019, the band was just steamrolling and putting on a lot of great shows and a lot of emails coming in every single day wanting to book the band. And we were like... We were looking at our calendar for 2020 that was booked a year out in advance and we're like, wow, this is... You know, obviously, I've only been in the band for five years, but Holly was like, this is... On paper, this will be the best year the band has had in 10 years.

So we were really, really looking forward to 2020. We were like, all right, this is our year again. Like we're, you know... Yeah, we talked to a lot of bands who said they were really ready to play and they had a lot of dates on the books, but then nothing happened.

I mean, obviously, we know what happened, but... Well, the nice thing for us is a lot of the contracts are just carrying over to this year. So, you know, we're still going to be... You know, we don't have a date to spare in June right now. We don't have a date to... We're booking up really fast for the rest of the year.

We're going into 2022. So, yeah, I mean, we, you know, as much as it really sucked, we're bouncing back quite nicely. You do a lot of festivals, right? A lot, a lot of festivals.

Festivals are fun. Festivals are fun. Tell me about... Absolutely.

Except for... The one thing I will say is being a band like Hairbangers Ball Festivals are just a little challenging sometimes because, you know, there's no indoor plumbing or anywhere to... Anywhere to get, you know, dressed up. You know, I'm a moron, but it takes me about, like, you know, an hour and a half to actually get ready for every single show. I mean, like, just with all the clothes that we wear, doing the hair up really big and warming up the voice.

So, festivals are a little challenging in that there's not a whole lot of places to do that. But the crowds that we play for at these festivals make it all worth it. Well, you either have to... You have to make sure you get a trailer or something.

Or change in your trailer. We've got a trailer. We change in our trailer sometimes, but, you know... I mean, a trailer from the place, a nice trailer with the bathroom in it and, you know, air conditioning and... And a lot of places we do get that, but it's not something that happens all the time.

It's a luxury when it does happen and we're always, you know, wildly grateful. And those are usually the ones that we try to book instantly for the following year. Yeah.

So, tell me about this Whiskey A Go-Go thing. You did a show at the Whiskey A Go-Go or...? Yeah, we did it. We did a live stream on June 27th from the Whiskey A Go-Go in Hollywood where all of... How did you get there? I mean, did you fly or...? Yeah, we flew.

We flew, you know, when everybody was afraid of flying. And, you know, I mean, I know, you know, it's obviously not great to be flying right now. Right.

But things were definitely a little bit more uncertain then, but we took all the necessary precautions and stuff. Yeah, we flew out there, we rented some gear, and just we were blown away by how much the production exceeded our expectations. I mean, the whole team that they have over there is just top-notch and completely pro.

And yeah, it was really exciting. Really, really exciting. It was really cool to be playing those songs on that stage where all of those bands came from.

It was kind of creepy in a little way, you know, because a lot of bands when they play the Whiskey A Go-Go, you know, it'll be a show where they're opening for someone like Kix, like, you know, a band from the 80s or, you know, Dockin or Faster Pussycat or something. But then, you know, the local openers, they have to sell, you know, pre-sale tickets and stuff like that. You know, and sometimes there'll be six or seven openers on the show before you get to the headliner.

And, you know, they have to sell tickets like I had to when I was in my early 20s, almost like a Girl Scout in a way, like, hey, will you buy pre-sale tickets to my show so I can hand the venue 80% of the money afterwards? 20%? We didn't have to do that. It was really cool. And, you know, we got the whole day with that legendary room The family over there is just absolutely incredible.

They took us, you know, to the Rainbow right afterwards when we got to see the Lair of the Hollywood Vampires that, you know, Alice Cooper and all of his friends used to debaucherous in and stuff. Yeah, it was a really, really great experience. And it's really surreal, you know, sitting on that stage looking at the walls and seeing, you know, the faces that people you're playing the songs of afterwards and knowing that you were the first band that got invited to play those songs there really meant a lot to me personally.

You guys sold tickets for that and did a live stream, right? Yeah, it was a digital event through Veeps. And yeah, we sold tickets through there and yeah, the event went quite nicely. So no one can go back and watch that now, right? I don't know that, I don't know if you can or not.

I mean, I have the file of it. I don't know if we're gonna put it on our website at some point in time. There's a couple songs are up on our YouTube page.

So you can see what the production is like on there like we did. We tried to put some of the songs that like not a whole lot of bands do up on YouTube. So we put Wild Child by Wasp up on our page.

We put It's Not Love by Dokken on our page. Just, you know, because every 80s hair metal band has a video of them doing Living on a Prayer. What are you gonna do that's different? You know? Right, right.

And everybody and their mother has an 80s hair metal band at this point in time. So yeah, you know, what are you gonna do that's unique? And we just like playing, you know, obviously we like playing all the hits like Nothing But a Good Time and Kickstart My Heart and all of those great songs. But there were a lot of great songs from that time period that were huge hits back then are just every bit as good now as they were back then.

And it's just it's a real shame for a lot of bands to be playing the same 30 songs Right. that every other band plays. To me, when I see that a lot of times I see that and I go that band doesn't really listen to that music.

Right. That band is going up on stage because this music is popular and people are paying attention to them and they're collecting you know, a nice payday for playing some local music or whatever. You know, not a bad thing but that band doesn't listen to this music.

If you don't dig deeper into the set list that to me is the most obvious factor that you don't actually listen to that music. Play the deeper cuts, right? Yeah, I mean not all of them. I think, you know, we do play to you know, the average person that sees Hairbanger's Ball we're very lucky to have a wide array of you know, we have a really devoted following but the average person that sees Hairbanger's Ball sees the band probably one time a year.

So, and we're lucky that you know because we do we, you know, we'll never turn our backs on the hits because that's what it made this band is playing the hits but we also like to change up our set list you know to just keep it fun for us and you know, so we we've added all sorts of great stuff to the set list. We've got Polly, do you want to say hello to everyone? Or actually this is yeah, you're in the shot. This is well, this is actually this is Jennifer right now.

Jennifer, how are you? The brunette version is Jennifer and then when she's blonde it's Polly Pants. I didn't realize I was Well, and also I joined I joined the call I joined the call with your username so it actually came up as Jennifer Remus on their end. I keep forgetting that I'm doing that to people.

It's good to see you. Nice to see you. Thanks for doing this.

But I can't wait to hear the whole thing. Yeah, it should be pretty cool. So let me ask you with the live show that you did the live streaming show at the Whiskey Go-Go.

There was obviously no crowd there, right? Yeah, no crowd. And so was it tough to get the energy up in order to play? I mean, when you get the energy coming back from an audience, obviously, it invigorates you. But was it tough? Was it tough doing it? It wasn't tough to do that necessarily.

What was tough was there are about five 4K cameras in this room right now. If anything goes wrong, it's getting captured. So that was the nerve-wracking part.

But to be perfectly honest, it really wasn't hard to get in the mood for it because the band was just so good. You know, everybody is, you know, playing their balls off in this band. You know, the girls included.

They're playing their proverbial balls off. Sorry, the cat is on the counter over here. He likes to make appearances on our podcast.

So he just wanted to say hello. But, you know, the band was playing really well. But there was also an added incentive to play, you know, as well as we could and get in the mood because the agent for TKO was sitting there watching the whole show.

The sound guy for UFO and Sebastian Bach was the house sound guy over there. So when you're in the room with the guy who mixes UFO all the time and you're in the room with, you know, the family that owns the Whiskey A Go Go and the Rainbow Bar and Grill, you get your act together really quick. Yeah.

Yeah. So how do we find you on Facebook and you give us your website and your important social media stuff? Yeah. So the website is hairbangersball.com. The Facebook page is probably the place where we're most active is facebook.com slash hairbangersball all lowercase, all one word.

And then our social media Instagram and Twitter, you can find our username is at hairbangersball. If anyone's got pictures from our shows or anything or videos, you can hashtag them hashtag hairbangersball. And then, yeah, I mean, everything is pretty much just on every social media platform is just hairbangersball.

Very good. All lowercase, all one word. Well, we wish you continued success with the band in another 20 years.

What do you say? I would really very much like that. I mean, the nice thing about the type of band that this is, is, you know, the, somebody said this at one of our shows, and I think it was at the Bluebird in Bloomington. They said, man, the thing I like about hairbangersball is I get older and they stay the same age.

So because of that, maybe there will be another 20 years. I certainly hope so. I'm planning on it.

In 20 years, I'll say, ladies and gentlemen, welcome hairbangersball playing the oldies. Yeah, no, seriously. Well, actually, actually, I think in some in some places we're probably actually considered the oldies now.

Yeah, because I remember it. I remember in the 90s when I when I was going to elementary school in the 90s, oldies was 50s music. So, you know, it's we're in the 20s now.

And so maybe it's a lot of time. It's a lot of time. But well, I think there's there's a resurgence of music from from 20 years pay.

Every 20 years that music has a has a resurgence. And so that means that means that the hairbangersball and the 80s stuff is going to be really hot this next decade. So I certainly hope so.

I don't know what to expect, but out of all the things that we've got going on, all I can say is I'm really excited. And even if, you know, nothing crazy happens and, you know, things just kind of keep going as the static status quo. We're still really lucky to be doing what we're doing.

And I mean, what more can you ask for? I get to sing and scream the the greatest songs of all time on stage and get paid to do it. And maybe, maybe, maybe get a couple of cores out of the deal, too. Very good.

Well, thanks for joining us, Brian. We appreciate it. Yes.

Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.

This has been a pleasure. No problem. See you guys really soon.

That was Brian Durbin of 80s glam metal rock band Hairbangers Ball. Nothing but a good time. Ain't nothing but a good time.

That's right. That was a lot of fun, man. Them guys have a ball playing that stuff.

Yes. Yes, they do. And they do it quite well.

Yes, they do. I mean, that's that's probably my favorite genre. The 80s? I like that.

I like the 80s music. I do like it. Heavy metal.

I really like that. Yes. I would say heavy metal now has actually changed a little bit, right? Yes.

Back then it was just metal. Now it's heavy metal. Now it's heavy.

Yes, you're right. Back then it was more metal. Yes.

But it rocked, man. That music rocked. Yes.

I wonder how it got the name metal. I don't know. A lot of symbol? Symbolism? It could be.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe too much glam? Maybe.

Maybe there was quite a bit of glam back then. That's right. That's right.

Hairbanger's Ball does the glam well, too. Yes, they do. They do.

They definitely played a part. And they're chomping at the bit to get back out there and start entertaining all you folks out there. So give them a listen.

Thanks once again to GHS Strings for sponsoring our podcast. And what else we got, Ray? We've got the Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois. Check them out at rotorock.org. And when you go to their website, sign up to be a charter member.

Hopefully they'll be opening up sometime this summer with their first exhibits. Okay, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week.

See you next week. Rock on. Yeah! The 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.