Hey, this is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie. For the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Are you making fun of me, Ray? I'm making fun of you. Because I can. Yeah, I can see you, you know, right here in front of me.

Right. Because, you know, and the weird thing is my hair looks blonde. Yeah.

I was going to ask you if you dyed it. No, I didn't. It just kind of looks weird.

Maybe it's the lighting. Yeah, it must be. Because it's really gray.

It's like Malibu Ray. It's like, oh shoot, I can't think of his name. Tab Hunter? Was it Tab Hunter? Tab Hunter, yes.

Tab Hunter, yes. With the flowing blonde locks. Yeah.

So, anyway, getting off of the Tab Hunter stuff and your beautiful hair. That's right. Which I have none.

I have no hair. I'm sorry. That's okay.

Don't be. I'll get you some for your birthday. Don't be.

You know, one of these days. You're going to wake up one day. It's all going to come back.

It's going to be like. Yeah, right. You're going to be like, whoa.

Yeah. Okay. So, anyway, who we talk with today? This episode was with the Acoustaholics.

The Acoustaholics. Their addiction is our entertainment. I love that slogan.

That is really a good slogan. We talked with Len Deptula and John Dyke. I'm not sure if it was John Dyke because he does have a twin brother.

So you never know. It could have been his brother. It's true.

It could have been. You just don't know. No, no.

But we talked with them and they seem to be good pals and they have this whole acoustic show that they do and it sounds like a lot of fun. It sure does. These two guys gel real well together and I'm sure that shows up, appears at the shows, you know.

Let's give them a listen and see what they have to say. All righty. Let's go.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. Today we're talking with Len Deptula and John Dyke from the Acoustaholics.

Remember, their addiction is our entertainment, right? That's for sure. Hey, you got the tagline. Acoustaholics, that's all you need to know.

How are you guys doing tonight? Man, we're doing amazing. We're doing well. Yeah.

It's a good thing. Everything is a gift. Added to that, it is.

So tell us, how did you two get together? Okay, you want me to start or do you want to start? Yeah, you start. You're always better at this. Okay.

Well, actually, it started even before I started. He was in this band called Epic, and he was the bass player. Guitar player.

Guitar player at the time. And then, so he was playing with them. He ended up leaving to go to the Rush Tribute Band.

So he's like, well, I'll have some fun with this band while I still got the chops to do it. And he loved playing bass, so he was a bass player for a Rush Tribute Band, which the name was? Okay, so while he was in that band and doing his thing, I ended up joining the band Epic. So the one he just left.

And yeah, so what happened was I played a few shows with them, and then John came. They hired John. I didn't know John at the time.

They hired him to do sound for one of Epic's shows, and he still knew how to do sound. He knew I had all the equipment. And he's like, sure, I'll do it for you guys.

So he came in, he brought all the stuff with him, and we kind of hit it off even that night. Because I'm a pretty easy-flowing guy. I don't complain.

I just come in, I do the show, and I have some fun, and I leave. Okay, whatever. It doesn't matter to me.

So even as a lead singer, and some people think all lead singers are stuck up. Fat? No, not all of them. That's what LSD is.

Remember that. Lead singer disease. LSD, right, right.

But it turns out that we kind of hit it off. He ended up coming back to the band after a couple, and he can fill in the gaps here, but I'm just giving the overall view. And I stayed in the band, and we kind of hit it off right away.

And we just became friends. And the band Epic at the time, I was just meeting everybody, and there were certain guys in the lineup that actually I hit it off with right away. And we just kind of get along, we got along, and we just had some fun.

And that's all I really wanted to do. I'm basically, I'm a drummer. So back in the day when I was with some band called Dawn Patrol, and we had a manager that we just hired, and it was one of my friends from high school.

He's like, what I'm going to do as your manager, the first thing I'm going to do is land off the drums, put them in front of the band as their front man, and you're going to hire a new drummer. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, I'm a drummer. So that's where I started singing in front of bands, and I didn't know what the heck I was doing.

I was just doing my thing. What year was this? This was late 90s. Okay.

So that was in Dawn Patrol days. So we were a tribute to Night Ranger, which is their, Dawn Patrol was their first album. Right, right.

And we sprinkled in some of their other, some of the other big 80s songs. She's a Beauty by the Tubes. Good song, good song.

Great singer. Yeah, and we actually had a female singer at the time that we got on for a while. We had a couple of them, you know, women in bands sometimes don't mix with a bunch of guys.

So they did some Pat Benatar in between, but we did Great White and all these other big hair bands, Bon Jovi, in between all the Night Ranger songs, which the Night Ranger songs, we did all their big hits, you know, whatever they are. The Don't Tell Me You Love Me, and Sister Christian, and You Can Still Rock in America. And, you know, some of them from the other movies, some movies from the 80s.

So that was fun to be in it. But I was singing and playing at the same time. So we rotated on vocals.

But that's how I ended up becoming a lead singer. So fast forward to the epic now. Well, Night Ranger's drummer does a lot of singing.

He does. He does. Yeah, Kelly Kiggy.

I couldn't think of his name right. Kelly Kiggy is actually a really amazing drummer singer. And I've seen him at, I've seen Night Ranger at least seven times.

He said he set up sideways so he could... I did set up my drum set for a while that way. Yeah, and people loved it. They were like, oh, I can see what you're doing behind the set.

Yeah. And that's what I really liked about it, you know, because they're the only ones that actually did something like that. Right.

And if we're going to do their songs, a bunch of their songs, I said, you know what, let's just do it this way. It was a nightmare for any sound guy. But they always complained, why aren't you in the center of the stage, blah, blah, blah.

I said, you're miking it anyway, so what difference does it make? Right, right. Sound is going to go that way. You have actually more, you have more control because all the sound is going towards the band as opposed to... Right.

Coming straight out, sure. Right. So, yeah.

So it kind of worked out at the time. You know, we all did vocals and we all sang leads back and forth. But when he put me in front of the band, I really didn't know what to do.

I was, again, a drummer that could just sing. I'm a drummer that could sing. I still book myself as that.

They're like, oh, you're the lead singer for Epic. I'm like, no, I'm a drummer that can sing. Okay, I'm... Right.

That's all I am. But now, you know, when I met John, and you could, again, fill in the gaps, as I'll cut off at some point. I'll let him talk at some point.

So when John and I hit it up, about a year later after being in a band together, I said, I said, listen, dude, I want, I'd like to start something different. Like something that not a lot of people are doing. And I heard that there were people who are doing acoustic acts, and it was really working for some people.

And I was like, that sounds like a lot of fun. I was just, I'm a music teacher. So I actually, I knew my basics on the guitar.

So I'm kind of pretty much a folk, a folk player, just chords, chords and singing. And I really wanted to do more of that. And not necessarily in a folk music, but I wanted to do it with all kinds of music.

And a rock and a little bit of reggae. And I didn't know much about country at the time. But now, like when I met John, and that year that I asked him, you know, are you interested in doing something like this, he kind of jumped on it with me.

And I was like, oh, he was interested too. That's good. Okay.

So that's where it started. It's about nine, this coming fall, it'll be 10 years. Okay, wow.

So we've really grown a lot since then. Our first show was not very good. But you stuck it out.

You stuck it out. That's the good thing. Not so much.

Yeah, he had to carry me. He had to carry me on at first. At least just a little bit.

So you fill in some gaps for them so that they don't just get one side of the story. So I'll tell you one thing. The coolest thing about when we started this, and I was always been a fan of the Illinois Entertainer, if you guys remember that.

So I always remember Ceres Falcon being, they always had a big ad in the Illinois Entertainer. And I got a chance to see them a few times a long time ago. And they were like the first kind of local band that would do acoustic stuff.

So that's what I always liked. And then you see fun bands like the Polkaholics, which I always like to see whenever I got a chance to see them. They always did rock tunes and kind of mixed it up as kind of polka songs.

And that was the fun part of music that I liked. So when Len was trying to describe what he wanted to do, he wanted to mix acoustic songs because he wanted to keep it simple and small. And he wanted to do kind of fun versions of songs.

So you always have the rock and roll versions of classics and things like that. And I'm like, there's no reason why we can't do that. And like I said, the Acoustaholics came.

I have to admit, thanks Polkaholics for giving the Acoustaholics kind of that name. But I always liked Acoustaholics. And it was from Polkaholics from that.

And the fun that they had when I got a chance to see them. And that's exactly what we do. And Len's a perfect personality for that.

And I'm kind of the straight man to that. So it's kind of that good kind of mix of personalities and voices too as well. Because he has a higher alto voice.

I have a lower voice. And that can sometimes do falsetto. So when we need that, we kind of mix it up and we have a good blend.

So we know that. And like I said, we get along like brothers. So Epic, I started with my twin brother.

I have a twin brother that plays. And when he moved out of state, I kind of lost that brother in Epic. So that's when I kind of went my own way.

Because, you know, you have a tattoo. But then Epic was doing different things. But when Len came back and I got to meet him, that's when I, you know, there was kind of like some little thing.

I know he was a good guy to get along with. And then when I got back into the band, we just hit it off. And it was like, you know, we're like brothers.

So that's the fun part of what we do is people kind of say, you know, you guys must enjoy yourself. It looks like you. And it translates to when we're playing.

And it's true. We just love playing. Whether there's five people there, we'll just have fun together.

Or when there's 100 people there, we can feed off of that. That's what we enjoy the most about what we do is we really, truly have fun doing it. Even for those shows that are tough, when there's not a lot of people there, we still enjoy it.

It's just a night playing music. You know, and three hours will go by like that. So we truly enjoy playing.

And whether we get paid for it or not or do charity gigs, we just love doing it. And that's the thing for us. And that's what's going to keep us going until we can't do it anymore.

You know what I did notice while we were actually going through the years and the last nine years together is some of the shows, you know, everybody plays shows where you don't think anybody's listening. Okay, so you're doing your own thing. We're laughing at each other.

We're playing what we want to play until we see somebody, you know, oh, we're reading the crowd a little bit. But what I really found interesting over the past nine years, was doing an acoustic act. And I never thought, I always thought that if the crowd, they'd be like focused on you to, you know, if they really liked you, they're focused on you, they want to buy your material, they want to see where you're going to play again, blah, blah, blah.

Okay. But what I found was as an acoustic act, a lot of times you're in the background. People buy, people pay for you to be in the background.

Or sometimes they pay for you to be in the front, but, you know, to be the focus. But we played a number of shows where there's, the place was packed because of a party. And we didn't think, we're looking at each other through the whole show for three hours.

And we're like, is anybody really listening? Bueller, Bueller. And we're playing and we're looking at each other going, all right, I guess what we're doing is okay. And once in a while you get a guy going as he's walking by, but we didn't get a lot of, a lot of feedback.

So I was like, okay, well we're getting paid for it anyway. It's a private event. Or you get some guy yelling free bird or steering ahead.

Oh, we always got that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Always. Or you got a tomato. That's the album side.

Yeah. But what I found was they really enjoyed it and you can see it. If you have a tip jar out a lot of times they'll show it through that, or they'll show it at the end of the night where they say, okay, you guys did an amazing job.

I was listening to you. I was actually singing along right in the back. You know, you couldn't see me.

Cause I was, you know, working the crowd as, as the people, you know, who hired us. I'm like, we really love you. Here's 200 extra bucks.

Here's 300 extra bucks. I'm like, Oh yeah. Okay.

Great. Anytime you want us back. And then that just led into other things, you know? So.

I found that most now, most of our money that we make per year over half. Is private events and political caucuses and backyard parties. And.

I noticed that you said you, you said on your website, you play. Living rooms to backyard parties to festivals. Yeah.

What's your favorite. I like private events. I personally, because people hire you personally for the private events.

Right. And I mean, if you're at a fest, you can have half the people listening, have them have their own character waiting for the big X come up. Right.

But then you have, then you have these, these private parties that they call you specifically because they want you and they want your sound. And they already heard Eric. They already heard something that they like about you, or they figured out something that they like about you.

And they're paying money to have you listen to along with their friends. And that's a lot of trust. We're just doing our thing and people are loving it.

And. It's it just works. And we try to, of course we try to pick things that are songs that, you know, again, we're reading the crowd.

Then as the night goes on. If one genre is working, we'll just stick with it. And then we'll throw in a couple of like today's music and then we'll go back to that genre.

And then we'll throw in something else or if their kids come out, we'll throw in shut up and dance. It's just what we're doing. As we, as we, as the night flows.

People are like, wow, I didn't never thought, you know, acoustic guy could do that. And nowadays I got a foot pedal on one foot and I got a tambourine. I got a toe tambourine on another foot.

So it sounds like there's like a drummer along with us. Yeah. It almost sounds like there's a whole band.

It's like one of us is playing the bass guitar, acoustic bass. And I'm playing, or the other one's playing a guitar, you know, and then I got the feet going. It actually sounds like a three piece band.

And people love that. And now it's time to land. As I'm on my way to North Carolina.

Staring up the road, praying to God. I said good night. Made it down the coast in 17 hours.

Picked me up and gave me a call. Lounging out and hoping for a ride. I have to see my baby tonight.

So rock me, mama, rock me. Well, I noticed too that you did say that you have some, you can be a trio or a quartet. You know, COVID kind of took care of some of our opportunities.

But pre-COVID, yeah. My brother, which I said I was playing with, he still can come down and sit in with us. He plays bass.

Our drummer from our band, Epic, where I met Len, Ken, he has an electronic drum kit. He plays whenever he can. He's taking some time off during COVID to kind of focus on his family and stuff.

So we're kind of keeping a duo for right now. But yeah, as we get out of this period and COVID, so we do plan on doing that again. And we can.

We can be a full band if we want. In fact, you know, we always encourage our old bandmates since we kind of retired Epic. We encourage them.

We want to do a show with all those guys. And it's just four of us. Well, I was going to say, if two of you left Epic, did you leave any hard feelings with the guys? No, not at all.

We were playing during Epic for nine of those years. So we were doing it together and we were sometimes playing more shows than Epic. So there was really no hard feelings because we always played around Epic.

And Epic being a full band, you know, that's fun too. So it's like being a duo because you get a closer relationship with the audience. I mean, they're literally feet from you and it's quiet enough.

So they can always say something to you. But with Epic, it's a rock band, you know, it's something a little bit different. So loud in your face, big energy.

So it was always fun to have that balance. You know, one weekend we're doing a, you know, a festival with 5,000 people and next week we're playing a bar with 20 people, you know, so it's kind of that juxtaposition of audiences. So that was kind of fun.

So John, you said your brother sits in with you guys sometime. How do we know right now that you're not your brother? He is a twin. You know what? That's right.

Some of this COVID weight, I look a little bit more like my brother every day. You might be right. Might not even be you.

But he's single. So it's a little different. So when you guys first got together, did you have an idea of what type of music you wanted to play? You know, that's a really good question.

One of my main ideas when we started, this was that we would play like big hits that people would know to sing along with. And we were getting, we actually set up an extra mic. So if anybody ever wanted to come up and sing along with us or sing for us.

Yeah. Like a live karaoke almost, but it was acoustic. Right.

And it didn't really work. Because people would want songs that we don't know. And we can't, we don't like to like fake through things.

We do. We will go on an edge if someone gives us a, you know, a hundred dollar bill or a $20 bill or whatever it is. Of course.

But I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you that. If, if, if you guys pull out, you know, somebody comes up and request something you don't know, do you try, try and try and pull it out of your. Out of your head.

We've done it. I've I've hold lens. I have lens phone up for lyrics.

Actually, I was playing a, I was playing a, just to go along with it. I was playing a show solo one time. Cause he couldn't make it over in Naperville at a country club.

And it was right after, in fact, it was right after the inauguration of our, well, he's not our president anymore, but right after his inauguration, one, these guys came back from a golf outing and they said, listen, you know, I want you to play, what was his inauguration song? We are the champions. And I'm like, well, I know the song, but I've never played it before. He's like, here's a hundred bucks.

Play it for me. Okay. And his friends are all in the back here in the background going, no, no, don't play it.

I'll give you a hundred extra. If we don't play. $10,000 later.

But they were just messing around. He put the a hundred right in front of me. I'm like, okay, give me a second.

Okay. So I actually looked it up on my phone and I put my phone on it on my, on my little shelf and I'm like, okay, no, no, no. I sing a little bit.

And then I, then I scroll down and I sing a little bit and I scroll down. I knew, I knew the, how it sounded like. I just, at the end, the guy was like, man, that was really good.

And then his friends actually gave me an extra 20 or $40. Cause just for trying it, I was like, it didn't sound bad. It wasn't great, but it didn't sound bad.

I was like, I've never played that in my life. So he's like, he's like, oh, that was perfect. Of course they were having a bag cause they were golfing, golfing all day, but that's, it's all good.

You know, but that's the kind of fun stuff we've always encountered with this, especially with the, what we do with the acoustic thing, because, you know, it's, there's always that group of people who, you know, whether they're out just for a night to kind of end the week or, you know, work gathering after work, trying to allow some steam, you know, we get those people and, you know, they can, we have fun with them. And if they're having fun, we're having fun. We're interacting with them.

So it becomes kind of a party we're part of. So, you know, that those kinds of things happen more often than that. So, you know, even with a group of a small group of people, it could be five people there and it's the five coolest people you'd ever, you know, hang out with for a couple hours and get paid for it.

So that's when I go to John and say, let's play some rush. Let's just do something out of the box. Yeah.

Do you do any? Yeah, we do. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, being in the rush band for a year and doing that, even though I was playing bass, I know how to play guitar. So I always wanted to do that because a couple of times the singer have come up, seen us play, and I had them do a couple of songs. So, you know, Closer to the Heart, Limelight.

I've been doing Crucifixion, Fly By Night, which is one of my favorite songs. This is Paul Martin. And Ray the Roadie.

And we're here to talk to you about GHS strings. That's right, Ray. Whether you play electric guitar, acoustic, or bass.

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Play GHS strings. You guys don't start out with a playlist or just a mental one? Well, nowadays, I started with it years ago, nine years ago. I had a playlist for every show.

And nowadays, we've got over 180 songs in our book. And I'm just like, let's do this one. Let's be Read the Crowd.

Okay, let's do this one. And sometimes he's like, okay, yeah, let's do this one. I imagine what you're doing, you really do have to read the crowd.

If you're more in a rock band and you just kind of play what you play. But in your situation, you have to read the crowd. Yeah.

And that's, you know, people love that. And if you read the crowd, they start singing along, even if they get up and dance, you know, and then you know you're doing something right. And you're just like, okay, let's keep them up moving.

Or let's keep them. Let's keep them singing along. I love sing-alongs.

You know, like what's the Garth Brooks one we do? Friends in Mobile. Friends in Mobile. It overplayed forever.

But I will tell you this, you know, it still has the effect it did way back then. Everybody in the bar stops and starts singing along. They're like, oh, you guys are awesome.

And then we're just doing our thing. We just keep doing our thing. But everybody loves it.

And then you back it up with like, you know, American Pie. And you're just like, whoa, they're rocking. And then you jump into some Journey, Don't Stop Believin'.

And people are like, what? These guys do everything. Yeah. So it's those kind of songs.

You know, you play the hits and you do them, you know, as best as you can. People can see that. And it's fun.

It's the hits. You know, you can't go wrong with songs like that. Like John has always said to me, you know, he doesn't, it doesn't matter if we played the song a gazillion times.

He actually doesn't get sick of those songs like Jessie's Girl and that stuff because he sees the crowd and how they respond to it. And it just, it blossoms. You know, the whole room blossoms.

You see the whole, well, except when we do Kung Fu Fighting. And then when we do Kung Fu Fighting, everybody's like, and they're trying to kick each other. And I'm like, wait, no, don't kick each other.

But yeah, there's a funny story about Kung Fu Fighting. We were playing one of our first festival gigs in Stager, Illinois. And they did a, what was it? Friends and Music Festival.

It was a music festival, I forgot what it was called. But we met the guy somehow and he asked us to play and he wanted us to play at three o'clock. And they rented this big, they have this big field.

They put us on a trailer. It isn't the first year they did it. The first year they did it.

So they didn't advertise it all too well other than through the town, which Stager isn't a big town. So, but there was probably about 25 people in this three football field size area. So we start and it was like three o'clock and we're like, and I'm getting up there.

I'm like, Glenn, this is going to be a long afternoon. I don't know if they're going to dig what the acoustoholics are going to do. So we were playing and people were just sitting there and just kind of, you know, whatever.

The sound guys were totally disinterested. They just sort of just like. So Glenn's like, what do you want to do? I'm like, you know what? We have only played Kung Fu Fighting a couple of times.

I'm like, let's play Kung Fu Fighting. He's like, yeah. I'm like, what the heck? So as we start playing that song, the sound guys.

They didn't really care about us at all. Nice guys, but they just weren't really getting into what we're doing. The minute we do that, they were having fun.

And even the crowd kind of perked up too. So, you know, it's just those kinds of moments where even though there's only 25 people in an area that held 5,000, they were having a good time just with that one song. And of all the songs, Kung Fu Fighting.

And I didn't want to play it. I'm like, really? But now I'll play it all the time. They don't expect it.

And that's what we want. We won 500 bucks. We did.

Playing that song. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

That was really fun. We were playing Joliet Casino. Hollywood Casino in Joliet.

And we were just playing, doing our thing. They played pretty well. And the sound guy comes up.

I knew him from other shows and other bands. And he's like, you know what? We're having a contest with all the acoustic acts this month. We're recording four different acts.

And then we put you on the website. And the people that go to the website, they vote on you. And then I'm like, oh, that's fine.

He's like, can I record you guys? I'm like, sure. And John's like, what song? I said, what other song? Kung Fu Fighting. Nobody does it.

And at the time, we still weren't really that good. We've only played it a couple months. But we played it.

I said, give me one more time. That was a rehearsal. He's like, no problem.

Yeah, no problem. So he actually recorded us twice. He took the better recording.

He put it up on the website. And not seven days later. And people were voting on it.

There was two other acoustic acts. Three other acoustic acts that were performing. And I'm pretty sure they put a lot of thought and effort into what they were doing.

And here we come in. And everybody voted for us. So sorry, guys.

It's awesome. Yeah, it was really fun. I'm going to do a wax on wax off moment.

There you go. I'm supposed to show you that sometimes, it has nothing to do with how good you are or whatever. It's what kind of song reaches somebody or touches somebody or how much fun you're having or whatever it may be.

That's really important of what anybody does playing music. Some people lose track of that. I feel bad for them, but for us, we just love to play.

We love to play together, so it's just a cool thing. So how are you guys surviving COVID? Have you been playing much, or did you play much this past year? You know, it's surprising. It's hard to find a decent gig.

If you're willing to kind of take a pay cut, you can find some work out there. There are very good tippers, though. Right now, everybody is really, really loving the fact that there's still live music here and there.

So when they find live music, they stay all night, they like you, they're tipping well. So we don't worry about how much we're getting paid during this. We make $100 a piece.

I never complain about that. And we might make $300 in tips. We might make $50 in tips.

It doesn't really matter because, like I said, we enjoy it. It's an outlet for us from our day jobs. We don't have to make a living doing this or anything like that.

And yeah, I mean, we can play. If you're really willing to bargain and deal with it, you can play almost every weekend if you really try. And we get at least two to three gigs.

And if we have to take a day off, we do. Around Christmas, it got a little slow for us, but we ended up playing New Year's Eve. You know, that worked out good.

And, you know, we still play enough, you know, how far we travel. Oh, geez. I've gone as far as Milwaukee.

Yeah. And then we've gone as far south as what was the Seneca. Oh, Seneca.

We've been out to Seneca. I'm down to Mantino. You know, we'll we'll go up to Galena.

I think that was fun. Yeah, Galena. So we stayed a night there and did Kenosha.

You know, it's weird if it's a decent gig for good people, you know, we'll do whatever it takes. And that's what we've been doing for some of the bars that had to ask us for a pay cut because they're 25, only 25 percent occupancy. Will you do this? And, you know, no problem.

They're the bars that will give you, you know, a meal or a beer afterwards. And that's all we need, you know. And for those kind of people, we'll do whatever it takes, because like I said, most of the people come to see us.

We'll make up that difference. And even if it doesn't, we're having a good night playing. So that's probably a little bit easier to with just the two.

I mean, seven, two guys as opposed to having a band with five or six guys. Scheduling, too. Let me tell you, I feel I feel bad for bands like Seventh Heaven, High Fidelity, you know, bands like that who, you know, been at the top and now, you know, you're struggling to find a decent gig.

You know, they can do the online thing, which is awesome. But, you know, for us, you know, we're still doing what we're doing. And, you know, we're doing we're doing all right.

It's not so bad. And we're still meeting some cool people and still having some fun with maybe only 25 percent of the people that will come out. But those 25 percent are coming out to have a good time.

So it's still fun. And are you worried at all about getting sick or catching COVID? The places that we've been playing actually have been very respectful overall. They've given us at least 10, 12 feet between us and the first table.

They've made sure that, you know, that anybody that's around us, that there's it's blocked off or we have a way in and way out if we need to get in and out. They did tell us in the beginning when, you know, if you do go in the building, if you do do that, if you do go in this area, make sure you wear a mask. So we we we follow the rules and we I feel safe, at least while I'm playing.

And most of the people that are there, they pretty much I think they respect us, you know, so that to the point where we're professionals and we want we want to make sure that, you know, we're giving them and we're entertaining them. And they're and they're giving us enough respect or they'll give us enough room. And even people that are tipping us, you know, we'll keep the tip jar somewhere where, you know, it's located where they I know they know they could find it, but they won't get in our faces.

It won't, you know, although we've had one or two, you know, fall into our equipment because they're too drunk or whatever. And we've had bar owners come up to me and say, OK, why don't you take a break? Yeah, you started 10 minutes ago. But why don't you take a break for a minute so we can get these people away from you? Yeah.

Could you please stop playing dance songs? I'm like, well, we haven't really played anything. You know, that was a fun day. But yeah.

But I mean, everybody has been pretty respectful. I mean, out of the maybe what about 20 different bands we played or 20 different bars we played since then? I think only one or two did we feel kind of we looked at each other and we're like, you know, I wish these people were like walking a little bit further away from us. Not that we were worried, but still, you know, we have to go to jobs.

And if I'm if I test positive, I'm out for two weeks. And if Len test positive, he's the same way. So there's we have to be careful not only for us, but for our families, too.

And my wife gets concerned all the time. But we've been fortunate to kind of been playing for some good managers in the bars that really do do well. And we just played Valley Doyle's this last weekend and down his grove.

And they were amazing. Right. Well, you know, the type of music, the type of band you guys have to there's two of you.

You don't have a ton of equipment. You know, it's easy to set up somewhere and keep distances from people or some of the larger bands like you were saying, like a seventh heaven. It's just got enormous equipment and stuff out there.

And it's hard to stay away from, you know, from people. Yeah. And the bars that are going to hire them.

If you're going to, you know, you're going to do that, you still want a lot of people there so you can try to do your best. But the people still have to be respectful. And I'm not saying they're not.

But when you get that many people there, you can only do so much. What about what about original material? You guys do any original material or have either one of you been have either one of you written any material? I've done things over my over my time, especially with my brother. We really tried to back when we were just out of high school a long time ago.

We tried to get out there and form some original music. But you know what? That was the prehistoric times. Yeah, we had bones.

I'm kind of prehistoric and I come from that age when when people used to come see bands and wanted them to play original stuff. Oh, yeah. People have asked us if we have original material that we sell a CD or whatever.

And we just don't. We play what people know. We play what people like to hear.

And that's that's works. It works. You know, in my in my in my rush tribute, I had a bunch of people come up to me and more so in that band than any other band I've been in and say, you know, you guys really should be doing your own music and doing it.

I'm like, you know what? I go, I'm older. You know, I'm well past the kind of, you know, the band age when you're trying to do that. I've always from the start been someone who just loves to play songs.

And if I had that in me to write original music, I mean, I still do original music. I still have a goal of doing a set of my own material somewhere in some bar in the middle of nowhere or whatever. I will do that at some point.

But doing this with someone I enjoy so much playing these covers with and seeing the people react to the music. I mean, you know, that's what I like. And that's just what I'm built.

That's what I'm built for. And when people come, you know, and say something, oh, you should be doing your own music. You know, you guys seem so well together.

I'm like, you know what? I'm doing exactly what I enjoy doing. So I can't ask for anything more than that. As much as some people might like it or not doing covers, you know, I talk to people who love it, talk to people who don't.

But I'll tell you, that's just what I love doing. That's why this works so well for me, because I enjoy taking original song, I mean, cover songs and mix them up a little bit. That's kind of fun.

That's what I enjoy doing. But playing these songs and being in a Rush band, you know, you try to get them to the T, try to get them perfect. So that's what I love doing, too, as well.

So I get to mix it up pretty well, you know, because I got a guy who can sing really well with some of these songs that very few people can sing anymore. So I also love taking advantage of that, too, as well, you know, playing songs people don't get a chance to hear. And especially in a small setting where they don't think they're going to hear some of these songs from us.

I've written some stuff, too, in the past, but I'm so busy with life that I just don't have the time or the energy to keep up with the recording and all of that, you know, and putting everything together and tweaking it and redoing it and rewriting, rewording things and figuring out what I want the bass player bass to do. Honestly, I just don't have the time to do it. Life happens.

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, it's I love I always I always loved writing my own music. That was one of my amazing things when I was growing up.

I was in this band called I forgot what it was already off the tip of my tongue. Karen, I can't remember whatever. Yeah.

But we played a couple of our own material and we used to play Brixie's in Brookfield. Yeah. If you guys remember Brixie's in Brookfield.

And they would accept that. And maybe we'd be like, oh, Simply Complex. That was the name of the band.

And then we play some Beatles songs or whatever. And then we throw a bunch of our songs in there and people would love it. And well, half the crowd was people that were related to us.

But still, it always helps. When you play like five shows in a row and then you're like, OK, where's my sister? She's supposed to be here. She's drunk still from the last night.

You know, they loved her last night, but she's not here tonight. But anyway, whatever. It's after a while, you know, you find out and this has to go with following.

And you find out, you know, that people as much as they love to see you nowadays and they want to see you play. It's hard for people to get out because you said life happens. Well, it seems like you guys get along great.

Has there been any disputes over songs? Like, you know, hey, I got a great song I want to learn. And the other guy goes, no. I'm fighting.

Come to my room. I always question the song. But let me tell you, I always will try it once.

But no, you know, and I look on his face. I've been along with this guy long enough to know that, you know, you try anything because you don't know what's going to work. I, you know, American Pie.

I love that song. Listening to it long. If I listen to WXRT, you know, and they play it or WCKD back in the day, I always play it.

You know, but I'll tell you one thing. There's there's not one song that you can play longer and be in a rush band. I played some long songs.

Yeah. One song you can play that long that people will sing along that whole darn song. I'll tell you.

And they'll just love it from you when you start. And and I'll just be playing along because he sings the whole song. There's really I'll do the choruses.

But for the most time to sit in your plane, I'll just and I'll just sit back for a couple minutes and just let him do his thing. And I'll just watch. And I'm a people watcher.

So seeing those people enjoy that song from start to finish. I'll never get tired of it. I'll play the song.

I'm like into it. And like Kung Fu fighting is another one to see people respond to that first note. And it's just it's just interesting to see those people light up for those songs.

And it's that's the coolest thing. You don't know what they're going. We always try to find those little songs.

And in every era, there's a few of them. So we're trying to we're trying to pick and choose. We try to pick and choose.

And we're trying out. Sometimes we try this one and try this one. And then we never come back to it because it didn't really do it.

Or we come back to a different crowd. Sometimes a different crowd will react. Sure.

Oh, yeah. Well, that goes back to to play in the crowd. And, you know, reading the crowd.

That's super important for anybody out there. That's playing. Yeah.

Yeah. So how do we find you guys on social media? We have a Facebook page. It's Acoustaholics.

We Acoustaholics with an I. Acoustaholics. If you have Acoustaholics with an A, you're going to find our brothers up in Canada. Yeah.

Yeah. Hey there. We found that out right away when I got it.

We got a message on Facebook after I put up our Facebook page. He's like, I think this message is for you. It said Acoustaholics, but it's it's down by you.

It's like a one town over. Yeah. From Chicago.

It's one town over. Not Toronto. And then I started chatting with them.

And they're good, good, good guys. They're nice guys. But I've been actually we've been we've been chatting back and forth.

And every time he puts on a live stream, I'll jump on. I'd be like, hey, what's up, dude? And he's like, oh, my buddy. I'm going to, you know, this is Len.

This is for Len down in down in the U.S., you know. That's awesome. When right right before COVID hit, we made we made a pledge that one of their shows we're going to drive up there.

Surprise them. And unfortunately, we can't do that now, but we are going to. I'll guarantee you.

Like I said, it's all about fun and doing things that, you know, we've always wanted to do a road trip during this. And we're going to get your passport ready. Yeah.

Mine's good. We're good. You said we have a website called www.theacoustaholics.com. So that's a good way to get us to.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you guys would be perfect down to be like down in Florida, down in Key West.

You know, they all them bars down there got acoustic guys down there. And the two of you together, I think, would be great. Oh, yeah.

The lineup that we've got, the songs that we play, nobody else does. Well, some people do. But I mean, not the collection.

Yeah. And that's the coolest thing is that is our songbook. It's very, very eclectic.

It's very eclectic and very wide. And it's all songs everybody knows. I think you guys need Ray to start booking you.

All right. Come on, Ray. Let's get this on, man.

Let's go to Florida. Let's go to Florida, man. We need to rent a car and a hotel room.

That's it. No hotel room. We'll just sleep on the beach.

Under a palm tree. Right. Under a palm tree.

Yeah. As long as it's not hurricane season. Yeah.

So do you guys got anything coming up in the near future? We're playing tailgaters next, the 5th of March. That's in Ballingbrook. Yep.

And then we're playing Old Republic the 6th of March. I'm sorry. February 5th is tailgaters.

Yeah. And then March 6th is Old Republic. And I think we're playing Moretti's in.

What's the other one that we're playing? No. Where's Old Republic at? Old Republic's in Elgin. Oh, okay.

Yeah, I just added that today. So we're good. Yeah.

But we got a few shows here and there. After a while, and when these things start opening up, and they are starting to open up, I think we're going to get a lot more shows. So keep checking our social media.

And we're all over the place. Yeah. Thanks a lot for joining us.

Thank you. I'm sorry I talked your ear off. Hey, that's what you're here for.

Okay. The more you talk, the less we do. That's a delight.

Hey, call me anytime. And remember, their addiction is our entertainment, right? Hey, that's twice he got it right. He can't even say it right.

All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much.

All right, guys. Have a good night. So that was Lendip Tula and John Dyke of DeCoustaholics.

Maybe John Dyke. I still don't think it was him. I think it was his brother.

Could have been. Could have been. Impersonating John.

Impersonating? Exactly. You don't know. Well, I was going to say I want a DNA test, but that won't work, will it? No.

They'd be identical. But they seem like a bunch of a couple of fun guys, don't they? No kidding, man. They've been together for quite a long time and played with Epic prior to that.

And they've just been getting along. And it seems like they're just happy to go anywhere there's a gig. And they keep pretty busy.

Yeah. Even with the COVID thing going on. Yep.

And it seems like they feed off the audience. I mean, that's got to be quite a bit of fun. You don't have a set list.

You're going to go out there, and you're going to play. And you play something. You just see what the audience reacts to.

And then that's the direction the show goes. That's right. Well, it was fun talking with them because they seem to have it all together.

And what they're doing there. And like I said, they seem to be pretty good friends, too. Yeah, it was good fun talking to them today because we didn't have anybody else to talk to today.

Well, they're fun guys. That's right. Like mushrooms.

That's right. All right, people. Thanks for listening.

Thank you. Make sure you check out the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 in beautiful downtown Joliet, Illinois. I will.

Check out their website at theroadtorock.org. You know, even better, sign up for a charter membership. There you go. Charter membership.

It gets you into the museum. It gives you all kinds of great little benefits. Check them out at roadtorock.org. Home of our studio, which we still can't use.

Yeah, which we haven't been here in 10 months. Yeah, something like that. Over 10 months.

But it's understandable, I guess. Well, yeah. You know, I haven't had to see you either up close and personal.

Thank goodness. Yeah, no kidding. I haven't showered.

I have noticed. Because your hair's changed colors. That's right.

All righty. We'll see everybody next week for another exciting episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Okay.

Thanks. See you then. 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.