Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How's it going today, Ray? I'm doing good. I'm sitting here.

I'm filling out my application. Application for what? I'm going to get on The Voice, man. Are you? Yeah.

Yeah, me and my banjo. Man, I got some nice songs I wrote for me and the banjo. I'm going to get on The Voice and I'm going to win it.

Yeah, that's cool. Maybe Blake Shelton will pick you because he likes the country music. That's right.

That's why I'm going with the banjo. Okay. I think he's got the best record of all the judges.

Yes, he does. And I'm sure he'll pick me right away. Well, it's funny because the band we talked to today, Semple Band, it's S-E-M-P-L-E, Semple Band, Keith Semple, the lead singer, was on The Voice back in 2015, I believe it was.

Yes, he was. And he wound up being in the top 20. But we also talked to Johnny and Josh and Valentine from the band, Semple Band, and they got some great stories and some great guys to talk to.

Yes, they were. Yes, they were. I think everybody's going to enjoy this one.

So let's get to it. Let's get to it. The Semple Band.

How you doing, everybody? Today we're talking with The Semple Band. We're talking with Joshua Patterson, Johnny Giannotti, Valentine, is that correct? Valentine. Valentine.

And Keith Semple Band. From The Semple Band, how you guys doing today? Good. Good.

All right. Thanks for having us. Good.

I just celebrated your holiday there, Valentine. That's right. Yep.

That's right. I get a whole day to myself. It's pretty beautiful.

That's awesome. Well, so tell us a little bit about the band. When did you guys get started and how long you've been together? So I put the band together in about 2012.

Johnny was with me from the start there. I was still in Seventh Heaven at the time and I gave the band about, I know, six to nine months notice. And then I basically said at this point, I'm going to be moving on.

And then I talked to Johnny and a couple of other guys and we basically practiced that entire time until we were ready to go. But between me going back to Seventh Heaven to help them for a year and then getting on The Voice, basically, we really only got started as a band when Valentine joined, basically. So like about, what was that, like 2016 or 17? Yeah.

Yes. You guys owe it all to me. Here I am.

Yeah. I was 17, I think, Keith, early in 17, my guess. So when anybody asks, that was the long answer, but short answer, 2017.

I see. So now, okay. So let's go back a little bit and tell us your history a little bit.

Keith, I know, like you said, you were on The Voice and we want to hear about that experience. But going back even further, tell us, how did you start singing and playing guitar? Yeah, Paul, I started back, I learned piano when I was nine and then I got the bug for music and then my dad bought me a guitar at like 12 or 13 and I was pretty much it. I was like, I don't want to learn piano.

I want to play rock and roll, man. My uncle was, yeah, I know, right, Johnny? My uncle, he still looks the same now, only with white hair versus black hair. He looked like John Lennon's brother.

He had hair to his waist and the circular glasses and he taught me the first few chords and then from then on, I pretty much played drums and guitar in his blues band for the next few years. And then I got on a TV show at home and actually won that show. I'll not get into details there, you can always YouTube it.

And then after that, I ended up getting to go on some big UK arena tours. And that's how the band in America found me, 7th Heaven, through the videos of that. And then I moved here and I've been gigging ever since and, you know, the happiest I've ever been has been in this band though, because I actually like these guys, which is nice.

It helps, doesn't it? It helps. So now, where's home originally at? Northern Ireland. I grew up in a place called Larne, which was famous for absolutely nothing except now it's where they filmed all the Game of Thrones movies.

So every time you see that ice wall and or you see the big, lovely green mountains with the dragon flying over, that's literally like over my house, you know? It's become famous now, but before that, it was pretty much, yeah, didn't matter at all, you know? So you came here to join 7th Heaven? Yeah, they find me in August of 06, I got an email saying, hey, we'd like you to consider joining our band. And they sent me their videos and they said, we saw you doing the UK arena tours. I got to do some cool Queen covers as well as my own originals live.

And actually, I got to take the band with me. Val and Josh weren't in the band at the time, so I wish they were. But I got to take these guys, well, Johnny home to do the London O2 arena for five nights sold out in a row.

So a hundred and what, a hundred and fifteen thousand people total over five days. Wow. A packed arena, five nights in a row.

Me and Johnny still reminisce about it. It was just the most amazing moment. But I got to do that for about seven years total.

And that's where they saw me over here, 7th Heaven, and Richie asked me to join. And yeah, I was with them for about seven years and we did like about two hundred freaking shows a year. And I was so burned out.

I was miserable. I, you know, I mean, as anybody will tell you, it doesn't matter what I'm feeling when I get on stage. I give a hundred and ten percent regardless of what's going on in my life.

It's always been my thing. And I think everybody would vouch for that. But it got to the point where I was like having to go from, you know, here on an absolute low to like an absolute high on the stage.

And that was the only time I was enjoying myself was when I was performing. So it was about time I moved on and made my own choices. And here we are, seven years later, doing awesome.

Of course, you know, minus covid. I still I still think they're doing 200 plus shows a year. That's the irony is that they absolutely not.

I mean, I'd never say a bad word about anyone, but they absolutely dropped the ball on the whole live streaming covid type scenario. They could have actually made a pretty good penny and stayed, you know, like kept themselves afloat, you know, like the way we were able to do live streaming. But I think they maybe did like one live stream in a year, like or close to a year.

And I was I was very surprised by that. But you know what? I haven't really thought about Seven Heavens since until you mentioned them. To be honest, it's like so past tense now, like we're I think it's a bummer because I'm sure these guys I'll tell you, like we were on such a roll coming into last last year.

We had last year's schedule was absolutely like what I call the perfect schedule. It wasn't Seven Heaven big, but it was it was compact and it was exactly what shows we wanted, minus a few, you know, like we were really close to getting our perfect schedule. And then, of course, you know, basically the world stopped.

But I try to remind myself that, you know, we're musicians who aren't able to do, you know, perform for a year versus people who are seriously like, you know, literally, you know, people have died. So I try to remind myself, like, hey, you know, when you sound like you're making a sob story about it, it's really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. But, you know, for a musician like ourselves, like we love getting out there and performing.

It's what we do. You know, it's it's it's tough. It's very tough right now.

I mean, not being able to play or maybe getting a few gigs here and there. But like you said, and what was your perfect schedule? How many times a week or how many times a month were you playing or were you scheduled to play? We played to like every Friday, Saturday, and then we would do our corporate business stuff and our weddings and our private parties. And then on top of that, and then our summer schedule was about three shows a week.

But again, it was it was more of our choice of exactly which ones we wanted, if you know what I mean. And then we had some really big corporate stuff booked throughout that year. And the big thing that we were working on, which is a real bummer, is right before literally right as COVID hit, I did a show at the, is it the Arie? Arie Crime? Arie Crime Theater down in Harmacles with the NXS lead singer.

And he asked me to come on board to his like big, huge business, corporate event package thing that he does. And he was going to have basically my band, have Simple Band, these guys slowly become the local area band as in the sort of essentially the East Coast, all the way out to sort of, I don't know, Iowa type area of the Mississippi. And then, of course, we did the United Airlines CEO changeover show.

So it was a huge, big thing. And it was going really well. And then, of course, that meant that they they're from Australia.

He lives in Australia, so they couldn't even come here anymore. There wasn't even an option for this to even happen anymore. So that that was one of the big things that we lost, at least in the near future, of course.

But for the last year, we've lost out on. Have we gotten any? Did you do get to do any shows over the summer or this past past 11 months or so? Yeah, we did one. We did the Bowlingbrook Fest because they had sort of like the big area to sort of cordon everybody off, you know, in a good way and the bands and stuff.

We actually have a cool video. If anybody wants to check it out on the Simple Band website, just simpleband.com. They recorded, you know, with the big jumbotrons and everything. It's a really high quality video.

They recorded our video and audio of that performance. So that's up on our thing. And we're very proud of it because we it was a beautiful day.

It was a really good performance. And the stage is actually, I think, disturbs old stage. So it looks really badass.

Johnny's on this big four, four step, five step riser of his own and everything. Right. So, so, Johnny, so now you, you, you followed, you kind of followed, you worked with Keith early on, you said, right? Did you play with 7-Eleven as well? No, I did not.

Excuse me. Prior to Keith giving me a call in May of, I think that was 2012. I, I was playing in a band called Chasing the Day.

And we were doing all right. We were also under a subsidiary of MTD Management at the time. So it was Chasing the Day.

He said, she said, let's see. It was the other good guys. I think it's Hi-Fi Superstar and Serendipity.

So we kind of all knew each other. I opened up for Keith for 7-Eleven and Chasing the Day. And then prior to that, I played down the city, you know, on an original band called Lucius War Baby.

I was also a roadie for the Fabulous Janes. I don't know if you, yeah, that. So I, I've kind of been around the scene for a little while and stuff.

But it's, I'm having a lot of fun playing with Keith. So I've been with him since the beginning. And yeah, it's going great.

The funny thing about like how after I got the call from Keith, I literally called, called my guitar player or he called me because he wanted to have band practice again. And he's like, yeah, we got to go practice. I got to go over my solos.

I'm like, guess what? I quit. I'm out. I'm done, son.

You're going to have to go over them solo, right? Yeah, yeah. You do that at home. You know, I don't, I didn't, you know, it's just that kind of, there were, there were good guys.

They're businessmen during the week. It was their weekend warrior kind of mentality, you know, but they still put it in 110%. We had great gear and stuff.

We, I mean, we got to open up for 7-Eleven, so we were doing something right. But yeah, it's, it's, you know, and prior to that, I also, I've been a luthier for a long time. My father was a guitar maker.

He went to the Chicago Conservatory. I mean, I grew up in this, like, from the beginning. Right.

I was going to ask you about the luthier thing. I saw, you saw your, your video on the Semple website. Ah, that makes him look way cooler than he really is.

Man, you haven't even explored the depths of my coolness yet. So hold on, I don't want to give you it all at once. You know, I got to say, have a little something in the gas tank.

The last three minutes, Johnny can go. Well, that's very cool, though. I mean, you, you're a drummer, but you work on guitars.

Yeah, I went to Chicago School of Violin Making as well. Oh, really? So I was under tutelage of all the great masters there. Well, T-Shun Ho Lee is the guy there.

He has trained in mid vault. He's originally from Korea. I got to inspect Strad's, Guarneri's, Steiner.

Yeah, it's something else, man. I tell you, it's, it's a good foundation, at least to get into musical instrument making, just because, or I do more of the restoration. I've been building a little bit more often right now.

But it gives you such a high standard to when you go to the guitar. It's, you're a lot more, some things are a little easier, but you need more machines when you make guitars because, you know, it's just way easier to do that. So how'd you get from, did you start out playing guitar? No, I was a drummer.

My cousins, all my cousins were in bands. My, you know, we always had family jams growing up and, you know, seven part harmonies, the whole, whole family singing and stuff. Eagles and Beatles, mostly.

Yeah. And my cousin was, my cousin, Mike Panaccio, who plays in Son of the Clones. He plays keyboards now for him.

Him and the lead singer of that, those are my first cousins. So that was my first influence. And Dave used to come over when I was like, you know, seven or eight.

He'd bring an amp and we'd jam out. I had a drum kit at that time. We're just playing like hair metal tunes because it was, you know, late eighties, early nineties.

So yeah, I've always, my dad played in a series of, you know, cover bands and more wedding bands actually. And I mean, they would have rehearsal at the house and I was one or two going to sleep with that going on in the living room. So that's cool.

So how about you, Joshua? I was sick with the rhythm section here. Bass player. Oh, yeah.

And tell us a little bit about your back story. I am the newest member of Semple. I was a full-time musician.

I started on guitar playing in original bands, doing a little touring and recording. And I think around 2010, got into the lovely cover scene. So I started playing in a nineties cover band.

And I ended up playing bass for Gina Gonzalez, which timing couldn't be better because she used to tour with Gary Sinise and the Lieutenant Dan Band. Right before I got the call from Keith, actually, the true story is I got the call from Gina. Gina was the one that called me and told me, Hey, Keith is looking for a bassist, wants to know if you'd be interested in auditioning, which was only a couple of years ago.

So like Keith was talking about, I was launched into the greatest shows that I've ever played. Just thousands of people right off the bat. Festivals.

We were traveling the country, played Mexico, California, all within the first six months of me being in this band. Yeah, man, that was fun. And then it's like, I woke up from the dream.

I know it's not exactly music related, but I think Josh has to tell the sushi story. Oh, don't do that to the poor boy. I mean, you got to laugh at yourself.

You don't tell it, and he's going to tell it. It's where you got your namesake from, King. Yeah, I embrace it now because this is right before we were literally grounded.

We got to play a great corporate event to a rented out hotel resort in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, right? Yep. You know, we had one day where we worked our butts off and got the job done, even more so than we thought we were going to need to sweat and trying to fix the technical issues before the gig. But we had about another three or four days of letting loose and letting our hair down.

And one of those days, I got a little drunk and made a good relationship with one of the guys that worked there. And when they went out for the big band meal, it was, what, an Italian spot? I requested that Alfredo. His name was Alfredo.

Alfredo. I requested that Alfredo go get me some sushi from the neighboring restaurant and bring it over to the Italian restaurant. And that's where I got my nickname, The King, which they still call me now in Semple.

He was a king. He brought it to you? Yeah, yeah, he brought it over. I was generous with him.

I'd like to say by the end, he was my friend. We had some good times with Alfredo, but he had my back. He hooked it up for me there.

Very good. We were spoiled rotten on that trip, to be honest. It's a whole week, all expenses paid, and we're getting paid to do the show, but it's only a one night show.

So basically, it's basically just whatever you need, it's taken care of. And Josh would just be like, you know, I'd be like sushi right now at 4 a.m. or whatever, you know, but we're sitting there and we're laughing so hard at the fact that he's ordered this sushi and it's arrived, takes a bite of sushi and we make him laugh and he literally like chokes and then he takes a drink to wash it down, but he can't control himself and he literally throws it up and like takes it back down and swallows it because he thinks nobody's seen. And we are all absolute because it was like running out his nose.

He was like we had so much fun on that trip. And this is on video, too. This exists.

This entire scene that Keith described. There's video evidence. Can we see it on YouTube? I honestly, I think it's on the simple Facebook page.

I'm pretty sure it's still there. If it isn't, Paul, we'll send it to you. You know, it was fun trip we did.

We went up on the end of the San Francisco Hills and played for a wedding on top of one of the big wineries. Now, the day of was a nightmare because of the rental equipment. So the guy didn't understand the difference.

I'm not kidding you between an in-ear monitor system and a microphone lapel system. So we kept on saying, oh, I've got those in there. No, you've got me a set of four lavalier microphone wireless.

I need the in-ear monitor. That's the opposite way around. I need it to receive the signal.

Right. Instead of sending a signal, right? And he just could not fathom this. And we went back and forth to the guitar center there maybe five or six times.

And so stressful a day from 10 a.m. We set up. We started expecting to be done at one. Just in case.

We even gave ourselves like an extra hour. We ended up not getting done. Guys, what was it to like 430 or five? I recall.

Yeah, I recall it being more towards five o'clock. Yeah. And at that point, we were then just they were just arriving to start their night.

And that was it. We had to just go. I think we went home to the place we were staying, got changed and came right back.

And that was it. That was our entire day. We were starving, miserable.

I don't know what I was fine. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know what these guys are talking about. We were playing on a vineyard, so I just drink wine the entire time.

The drums worked well. I was like, oh, my God, no, go to the car center again. I'll be fine.

I'll hold down the gear here. Sounds like you guys have done some traveling. Yeah, we have.

Yeah, we've had some fun. We even lately, we before COVID hit, we were starting to do some nice casinos within a sort of four or five hour circle. And we'd like to think we do a good job at what we do.

We're entertaining. And I think because our repertoire is so wide, like Valentine does a great job on the country stuff. Josh has all the 90s stuff covered.

I pretty much do everything else, all the from the 80s right through to today, all the different styles. So as long as we vary it up enough within every 30 minute period, we please the old farts and the young kids and everybody in between. There's always some old guy shouting for Elvis or something.

We can do that. Free bird. Free bird.

And then there's pro action for the weekend. We got that covered, too. So, yeah, we were doing well.

And it's slowly coming back now from about St. Paddy's Day coming up. We're sort of getting a schedule of some sort. And then I think we're at Valley Doyle Downers Grove for actual St. Paddy's Day, which is a Wednesday.

So at least we have some shows that are, you know, coming back again. I mean, we've waited basically a year. So, Valentine, tell us your story a little bit.

Well, geez. You said you said you now, Josh, you're the newest member, right? Yeah. But then you said you you brought the band together, right? In 2017.

Yeah, I wish I could take credit, but I didn't really do anything. No, I have to admit, when he joined, we like I kind of knew I'm like, this is the vibe. This is right.

Because we went through a few guitar players. All of them had like their own thing to bring to the table. But he was.

Love you. Sorry to interrupt. Continue, though.

Stop. But please, please keep talking. Yeah, I mean, it's it seems like by the time I came on and originally I just came on to, you know, I was I was in a project for about three years that I had started.

You know, it's I basically came on to kind of help the guys out. They were in between players. They had a busy schedule.

I was gigging at that time, playing solo shows, playing my other band. I was gigging like crazy. And that a young me five years ago now was open and willing for the challenge.

Like, sure, I can take on another 30 shows. Why not? Terrible idea, by the way. But basically, just, you know, initially was, hey, can you come on? Just play whatever shows for us you can.

And, you know, if we decide that, you know, you're a good fit for us, you know, we could offer you the full time position. And so I played probably three or four months with them and the position was offered to me. And at the time, I was reluctant to take it, not because I didn't like the guys and I didn't like the project, but it was just I was very much in love with the band that I had created from scratch.

You know, we were about three years in, you know, the people in the band were my friends. You know, we were we were starting to get busy and we were doing really well. So it was kind of hard to walk away from that.

But, you know, Semple, even though it was kind of the infancy, they were just, you know, with keeping on the voice and and just everybody's experience. We the band, the project, which is miles ahead where my project was, just better shows. The money was better, more opportunity.

So it was hard to say no to that. And, you know, here we are. Five years later, we've done a ton of shows, traveled a lot, had a lot of fun.

So it's been it's been great this year. We've done a pretty good job of, you know, pivoting and trying some some different things. I was kind of already on the Facebook live thing.

I was doing I do a lot of acoustic solo shows and I was doing them for about two years. And then right when, you know, COVID happened, kind of everyone, you know, was forced into that realm. And I feel like we did, especially from a band perspective, you didn't see too many bands doing it.

It was a lot more of like solo acoustic things. And with being able to utilize our individual skills, Keith's studio and Keith's skills in the studio, we really kind of put together. I feel like a standalone project product this last year with our lives.

So it's been pretty good. On that note, I just want to make a point. I don't want to sound like I'm pandering here, but I really do want to thank our fans for the last year, because I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say that they have essentially kept us afloat with their generosity.

Like, I mean, we've done, you know, about two shows a month in here and we live stream it to Facebook, you know, and they've literally been so generous with tipping some. Obviously, some people are in better situations than others, but even people that have been struggling financially have found a way to help us out and send us tips. And we try to work very hard to give them something different every time too.

You know, like we've done some themed nights. We just did a love song night for Valentine's there. That was a lot of fun.

And I just think they've been amazing. We give away, you know, like guitar giveaways and things like that to give people incentives to tip. And it was awesome.

I went and hand delivered the guitars to these lovely folks. And yeah, I mean, it just gave me this warm, fuzzy feeling, considering the horrible year that this world has had. It was the cherry on top of at least keeping them at something to look up to, you know, something to feel positive about was the fact that these people were they were missing us.

You know, they like to them coming out and seeing us is their way to get away from their daily lives and daily routines. You know, then they felt like they were saying thank you for them, for their memories, almost by by helping us out and tipping us during the time when we couldn't do what we do. And I just I just wanted to get that in there because it has been a humbling, you know, thing to experience the generosity.

Well, I think we all we all appreciate our fans and and and without them, you know, you'd be playing to nobody. And and obviously you're doing it when you're I know. And it's probably hard to to get the energy and the enthusiasm that you would at a live show.

But but if you're doing it and and and knocking out and people are enjoying it and tipping in, then then that's very cool. The only good thing about being on the live stream is you can at least scratch your butt when you're not on the camera, you know. The one the one challenge, though, of playing live, like how we do is like you're almost under like it's like live studio session.

Like there's not much room for air. Just speak to yourself, Johnny. Hey, I'm just saying I'm playing pretty good, I think.

But you know what I'm saying? I want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to our our sound guy, Rob, who's had a crazy year. His wedding plans were, you know, busted up. And then all of a sudden he'd gotten so accommodating of like our live sound.

And now here we are in this confined studio. And Keith and Rob spent a lot of time really learning how to adapt our sound and dial in a totally, totally different sound. I'll show them here.

I know you won't. I know it's just audio, but at least the guys can see this is my soundproof vocal booth. Oh, nice.

And it has the amps in there, too. I can crank the amps up to like 100 decibels and you can barely hear it right from where I'm sitting. And so Rob would sit in there with the headphones on.

No ventilation. Well, we're the drum kit and everything set up for performance here. He would sit and mix on his headphones what's going out to the live stream.

And he's absolutely a genius. You know, anyway, sorry, Josh, go ahead. No, just that.

Exactly. Like to be thrown into that, you know, the entire band, we had to, you know, learn how to still give that performance to nobody while basically looking at each other. But more so than that, Rob and Keith spent a lot of time learning how to like, you know, do something that we had not that much experience in the live streams and the video.

And, you know, I'm very proud of where our sound, you know, evolved from our first streams to where they've been lately. Well, a sound engineer can make or break a band. And he's like the extra member of any band, you know, and to have a good one is good.

It's always good. Hey, Ray, what are you doing? I'm getting my bluegrass 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 balance tone available in many different gauges. Great for all musical styles. So if you play.

Play with the best. Play GHS strings. So Valentine, we were talking with you.

So your musical background, where did that start? Family musical, musically inclined or? I'd like to think I'm musically inclined at this point. It only took 30 years, though, right? A little bit my family, my little fun fact, my great uncle, I guess it would be was a famous trumpet player in the 30s. Johnny Valentine is part of my namesake as well.

He's not as famous as like, you know, Louis Armstrong or whoever. But the name is gold. Yeah, yeah.

Why couldn't mine be as cool? I don't know. I mean, it's not too late. You could change it.

I don't know if I inherited any of that or not. Probably not. But my my dad played guitar and my mom.

We had a piano and my mom had my brother taking classical piano lessons. My brother is about five years older than I am. So I looked up to him and she got me into taking lessons as well.

So I was classically trained on the piano. I started about eight and I did pretty well. I mean, I was I would say I was excelling.

They started putting me into like some local competitions. I remember getting a silver medal at one of them. And, you know, my teacher and my mom was applauding me.

And I was like, is this good? I don't I didn't even know. So the second loser in that scenario. But it wasn't until about, you know, I turned 10.

And like I said, my dad played guitar that I was kind of starting to get really passionate about wanting to play. And I asked for a guitar for Christmas and got one for Christmas. And basically, I remember sitting at the dinner table Christmas day, still holding the guitar, just plucking one string, you know, didn't know what the hell I was doing.

But I probably held it for six hours that day. And that kind of sums up my guitar playing life. I probably should have stuck with the piano.

I still play piano, but I just I couldn't. There was something about the guitar. I just it's just a part of me.

I can't put it down or let it go. And then just, you know, throughout the years, I had some other education, if you will, some guitar lessons, a lot of time in different bands in school. I played sax for a minute.

Couldn't get in on that jazz band in high school. Went to college for just local community college for a minute to play music and realize that they were basically trying to the education I was receiving was pushing me in a direction to be a teacher. And once I figured that out, I was like, oh, that's not what I want to do.

I want to be playing music. So I dropped out and not too long after that, entered into a situation where I was got a record deal with Universal Records playing Spanish music, if you can believe it. I don't speak Spanish.

Well, yeah, I'm like, yeah, it was kind of like pop rock. But in Espanol, you know, these guys were are about 15 years older than I am. I'm like 19 years old at the time, and I just saw an ad in the Illinois Entertainer responded to it.

And that kind of started my journey in the Chicago music scene. I was already playing some, you know, like some small gigs random here and there. Acoustic, you know, started with open mics.

And then maybe you play someone's birthday party, and then maybe you get a gig at a restaurant or whatever. But once I joined, the group was called El Guapo. Once I joined them, we started playing fasts and we started, you know, opening up for large rock and Espanol groups.

And Valentina's. That's right. Valentina's Benoit.

OK, I was in Menudo, so I get it. So what's your go to guitar? Uh, I've been playing. It's actually the band I was talking about earlier before.

Before I joined Semple, it's actually my bass players from that band's guitar. He's also a phenomenal guitar player, but it's a it's a Telecaster. I can show it to you guys if you want.

I just have to get it out. But it's it's like mustard yellow and it's a parts caster. It you kind of put it together.

And it's cool, though, because, you know, Keith was talking about in Semple Band. I mean, we really hit everything. And in being in a project like that, really, you know, you need a versatile instrument.

And this Telecaster, because it's got it has a really thick, heavy body and it's got dual humbuckers on it. It really is very versatile. It can clean up nice and it really has some balls if I need it to.

So that's that's been my go to. But besides that, I've always been a Strat guy. I've got a G&L Legacy that I got for my 16th birthday that just, you know, it's got Eric Johnson written all over it.

So that's kind of I would probably play that if it if it wouldn't make me sound like such a wimp on stage, you know, just Strats are great. But man, you can only say once you go to it. Once you go to a telly, it's hard to go back, you know? Yeah.

I mean, it's just especially that one with the humbuckers. It almost is too. It almost screams too much.

But, you know, when we play our Zeppelin or, you know, when we play the rock medley, like, yeah, you kind of need it. Yeah, yeah. Now, Keith, you said that you I mean, you do some shows, too, right? Some shows on your own.

Some some solo shows. Yeah. I mean, I was I would do, you know, one or two.

Well, maybe, yeah, two or so a month, you know, on top of the band stuff. I mean, this is all I've ever done. You know, music's all I've ever made a living from.

You know, I would do some extra ones if we had a light week or whatever. Or I knew, you know, we were going to take this weekend off or something. I would, you know, do some unplugged solo stuff at the end of the day.

Like everybody, all the guys know, like, full band is my only like, what would you say? It's the only priority. Well, tell us a little bit about you and the voice. Yes, it's funny.

I've been on three TV shows now, and I didn't enter myself for one of them. So I'm really not I shouldn't say this, I guess, but I'm really not a big fan of reality TV. Actually, especially reality music TV.

But I have very, you know, amusingly nice friends and family who keep entering me for things because they think I'm going to, you know, do well in them. And and I've done pretty well, I guess. I got entered for the voice by our friend Leanne that works for the band.

And I got a call to basically skip the lines, you know, so I didn't have to stand in the 10,000 people lines. And I got through and I ended up, you know, doing the blind audition. I got through that.

I ended up getting, you know, through to the knockout or through to the, you know, the battle. I won that. Then I was in the knockouts.

I won that. And then I ended up making it all the way through to, you know, the next round of top 20. And all the time, I'm just like, oh, this is cool.

You know, just like I'm getting through. So I'm going to stay in it and get some publicity and get my name out there. And it was it was fabulous.

I mean, it's nice to see how a show like that works behind the scenes to, you know, because those guys make it look like this stuff happens all in one continuous thing. But it happened, you know, one minute of footage is like a week long of recording. I think the younger kids were more affected by the whole thing.

But obviously, I've played stages and things that are, you know, at an even another level than than that. So it wasn't like I was intimidated by walking on a stage in that environment. You know, I've played arenas and we've, you know, Semple Band has played some amusing festivals.

And it was just that, you know, that on the other side of that camera, there's about close to 10 million people watching. That's the intimidating part. So tell us a little bit about some original music.

Now, you've got a few originals, right, that you do. We try to put a small EP every year, like a four or five track thing that we can sell throughout the year at our shows. And we do, you know, two or three at each show, spread it out throughout the covers.

And I really love that side of Semple. We haven't had much chance to bring this next CD that we're working on to fruition, but it will be done at some point. It's just I have another project that is entirely original, and it takes up so much time because it's progressive rock.

It's like, you know, Rush and Dream Theater and stuff like that. The production and the recording and the writing takes two years from start to finish. So it's like, right now, I'm just finishing up.

It takes about that long to listen to one song, too. So the new release is just one song, you know? Yeah, well, actually, ironically, that's what we did for our last record was we released a 21 minute, 12 second long song as a kind of ode to Rush's 2112. So it's called the Butterfly Effect.

Anyway, my point is, is that we Semple does EPs and then we try to make the music. We sort of decided like a couple of EPs ago that we should make the music we write reflect the music we play in the shows. Like, we can't take ourselves too seriously on the original side.

We should just write really fun stuff. So we wrote this really cool song called Five O'Clock, and it's an Irish drinking song. And it's so catchy.

And from the first time we've played it at any show, it went over so well because people don't even know it's ours. Sometimes they ask us, well, who sang that? You know, and it sounds like Dropkick Murphy's, like, I don't know, almost like Meets Bon Jovi kind of like as in like it's got rock, but it's got that real Irish-y side to it. So Johnny was awesome on the drums on it.

You know, Irish drumming is right in my wheelhouse, you know, from my upbringing, you know. So it's good to kind of lay it down for everyone to hear. Yeah, well, we, we actually have to do that with your family, right? Oh, yeah, this is totally all the Puerto Ricans.

We're all that's all we do is Irish music. Yeah. Well, it is a very green country, Johnny.

So this is true. Very true. So who does the writing? Who does the writing? You, Keith or the whole band? It used to be all me, but that was before I had these guys involved.

So the last we've actually finished an EP. We have it sitting here. As soon as I finish this one up, I'm able to actually make the product.

But Josh came on board and had some great ideas. And we've worked on a whole new thing. So ironically, we actually one thing we never really write now is as a good ballad, because we can't really perform it live in the middle of doing some big, huge medley or, you know, we just like the killers and then we're going to do this ballad.

It just doesn't really work. But this time we wrote this killer ballad. It sticks in my head.

And we haven't even really finished writing it yet. But it's one of these things where I keep thinking it throughout the day. And I'm like, I can't wait till that product is out.

And we can, you know, for a change, we can break it down, maybe during the summer fest, you know, when it's 90 degrees and let everybody have a rest and say, all right, here's our new song, you know, and just let everybody rest for one. I really have to say I like working with Ballantine on stuff because he he has a completely different works like flow than me. And so it just is good when we get together.

We tend to work on the nitty gritty of it really well. And we sat on a one trip, remember, Val, on our way home from somewhere. It was like a six hour drive or whatever.

And we listen, listen to our little clips and wrote down lyrics and melodies and recorded them. And, you know, and all of a sudden we have a whole new CD waiting to go. We just have to, you know, physically record it.

I think that was the our last EP, Five O'Clock. We basically wrote almost what's probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite track on that army of one. I think we wrote almost that entire song, the lyrics, at least.

Yeah, just on that trip. You know, we first we have a melody and then, OK, what's the song about? I seem to be really good at just picking song titles. And then he helps me fill in the rest.

Yeah, well, I mean, the song Five O'Clock is just so catchy and the lyrics are so clever. Valentine came up with this line. It's it's hey to Jack and Jim.

They're my favorite friends, as in like Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. You know, and it's just so clever. It's true.

He's just speaking the truth. Yeah. And it's super catchy.

Yeah. I mean, we just figured why not write what what the style that everybody that we're doing when we're actually performing anyway, we should make it flow endlessly and nobody would even know it was an original. But nobody has lost the interest in the band either.

Right. So Five O'Clock is your most current EP? Yeah. Yeah.

That was after that was after learn how to fly. Yes. And learn to fly was just something I put together personally.

So I did all the instruments on that. Every like guitars, drums, piano, bass, everything. I still love to me, not for radio, which is the big full length album that me and Johnny basically put together.

I still love all the songs on that, but they're really serious rock songs like they're not the sort of thing that really fits in our set. Johnny has a song that he wrote on there called This Letter, which is incredibly personal to him. I mean, I know that I've been moved to tears listening to that song.

And I know she likes. No, I mean, I have. And one of the biggest compliments I've ever received was from Johnny when Johnny said that he had sat on that song.

He had somebody sing it once to hear it, and he liked how it was done. But he said he'd sat on it for so many years because he wanted to wait till a vocalist could do it justice. And that was like my biggest compliment that or one of my most favorite compliments that I've had in my career was Johnny liking how I interpreted what he had written.

And then the first time I heard it, I was we were in London at the O2 and I was like, like Niagara Falls. But on that track in particular, I played all the music on it. I think maybe there is one other thing added in, but the whole the bass line, the drums, the guitars to me, when all this gets together, especially on this next news, EP is really going to be something different.

And there maybe might be a horn section on this one ballad. We will see. Johnny, funny you were mentioning that because that that ballad I was talking about that we've written sort of a I think Valentine played this kind of like sort of John Mayerish type guitar riff that he plays regularly.

It's just his little thing that it is like a bit of this thing. And I had a groove and we just started I was like like that. I was like, what is that? What is that? And we we just started jamming.

Johnny, just this unbelievable groove. And Josh just comes in and he's like, oh, here we go. Here we go.

And all of a sudden there's this beautiful groove that that became this song. And it's moments like that when I remember why I do this for a living, you know, those those magical moments when everything just and what science is, you know, we don't actually have a title. Yeah, it's just groove.

It's groovy as MF in tune. All we know it as at the moment. We will.

We will name it. There's one there's one that sounds very Imagine Dragons ish on this next record, which I think all the guys are really digging. And then there's one that sounds completely different again.

And they all have a different twist. But they're all, in my opinion, sounding like anything that's out today. Well, I look forward to hearing it and seeing you guys.

I see you've got over a million hits on YouTube and and over 25000 followers on Facebook and Instagram and what have you. As a matter of fact, where can we find you on Instagram and and on Facebook and stuff that you you can find us at your business? You can find it at Simple Band on Facebook and Instagram. Also, Keith Simple is still a couple of the URL.

So at Keith Simple on Instagram and YouTube, I think is still Keith Simple. But if you type in either Simple Band or Keith Simple on Facebook, you will get the pages easy. And the website is just simple band dot com.

And that's that includes everything. So that's the good starting point. We would always say go to the website and all the links to everything else are on there.

So they would take you to the Facebook and the Twitter and all that stuff. I see. Well, appreciate you guys joining us today.

And thanks a lot to be. That was fun. Definitely a lot of good stuff.

Yeah, guys. Yeah. You'll just edit it, edit it down to us saying, you know, that we're going to get much out of it.

Johnny. Wow. Wow.

Good night. I'm leaving the sushi story in there. Oh, definitely.

Most definitely. Well, thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

All right. Good luck on the upcoming season. Cheers.

Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Yeah.

Continued success, too. Thank you. Thanks.

So that was Keith Simple and Johnny and Joshua and Valentine. And it was it was some fun stories there for the from those guys. It was.

I mean, those guys are right. A lot of fun. I can't wait to get out and see them once they get out playing again.

But I'm kind of kind of bummed out. Why is that? Well, I sent in my application to the voice and they already turned me down. Oh, boy.

Yeah. I sent a file of my singing and banjo playing, and they said, no, I have no room for me. Maybe maybe maybe you could try again next year.

Maybe I'll try. Maybe I'll try one of the other shows. Practice, practice, practice.

Yeah. Maybe I'll try American Idol or America's Got Talent or something like that. But I'll keep trying.

But in the meantime, you guys got to get out and check out the simple band. They got some great music. So they they've been practicing and they've been playing.

At least they've been doing some virtual stuff, some some live streaming, live streaming separate on Facebook. Right. And so check them out.

And don't forget to practice. Keep practicing. But you know what? I put new strings on my banjo, and I think this is going to work for me.

Good. Good deal. Yeah.

So anybody that is in the market for some new strings, check out strings that they make them for the for the banjo. Of course, the guitar, the bass, the mandolin, you name it. If it's got strings, they probably have them.

Right. Right. So thank you very much for listening, everybody.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the rock and roll Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. Be sure and go to their website and check out what's going on there. Go to their Facebook page and check out what's going on.

They've always got something happening there. And hopefully they'll be getting that place open soon. And while you're there, sign up to be a charter member.

Lots of good stuff you get with that. OK, thanks for listening, everybody. Until next time, I bid thee farewell.

Bye bye.