Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. What's up, Ray? I am feeling quite eclectic today, Paul. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

You're feeling what? Eclectic. Electric? Not electric. It's eclectic.

You know what that is? Yes. Eclectic. It's deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Hmm. So in other words, you're not quite sure what you're feeling. Maybe, yeah.

It's coming from a… You're feeling a bunch of different things, eh? Right, right. I'm feeling a little bit of this, a little bit of that, whatever I feel like. That's what it is.

Okay. And that's how I'm feeling today. I'm feeling quite eclectic, and you want to know why? Why's that? Because we're meeting with Frank Orle of Poi Dog Pondering, who has to be, that has to be one of the most eclectic groups out there.

Yes, they are. Yes, they are. They're very diverse and very different in every way.

I mean, every song seems to be a little bit different than the last. Every album is different than the last. And they're all good.

Oh, yeah. And they're all good. It takes some artistry and some talent to be able to put that kind of stuff together time and time again.

Well, we talked with Frank, and he said that he kind of draws from whatever he's feeling at the time when he's writing a song. That's right. And so it could be a bossa nova sound.

It could be a rock sound. It could be kind of a Motown soul thing, if that's what he's feeling at the time. Well, let's see what he had to say for himself and get to our interview with Frank Orle of Poi Dog Pondering.

Let's go. Welcome to the show, everybody. Today we've got a special guest, lead vocalist, frontman, founder of Poi Dog Pondering, Frank Orle.

How are you, Frank? Hey, Frank. Thank you. I appreciate you all having me.

Thank you. I'm doing OK. Thanks a lot.

Good. Now, a lot of people have, I know you've kind of made Chicago home for quite some time. So being this the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast, we can count you as a Chicago band.

Thank you. Proud to be counted as such. But it didn't start there, did it? It started somewhere else, right? It started in Hawaii.

Yeah. I'm originally from Hawaii. That's where I'm from.

And I grew up there, and that's where the band started out. And how did it get started? It got started just really, I was with, I'm a drummer. I've always been a drummer.

Like since I was like 13, I was drumming in junior high school bands. And then when I was probably around 20 or so, I joined kind of like a punk new wave band in Hawaii called The Squids. They were all older than me or mostly older, about 10 years older than me.

I was probably 18, 19 at the time. And they were all like art students. And they made everything themselves.

They made their records. They made the artwork. They were like, we're not waiting for a contract.

We're doing everything ourselves. So I mean, I was like a young, just a college kid. I mean, I realized I was playing drums to meet girls, but I was like surfing the rest of the time and doing badly in school.

So when I met these guys, I love drumming, but their attention to what they were doing was really inspiring to me. So then that band was called The Squids. That band only lived for a year, but it really kind of changed my life.

And then I got into the idea of writing songs, and I started to use my brother's four-track recorder, and I started to make these little cassette albums at home. And I would watercolor the cover, and I would sell them on consignment. And my sister worked at a record store, and she would let me put like three or four on the counter.

And that's how I started making records. I mean, I made the first five Poy Dog records were all cassette albums. We used to play on the street in Honolulu all the time just for fun and beer money.

And then we ended up deciding to travel across the states, playing as buskers on the street to make money and sell the cassettes for gas and bread and coffee money. And that's really how the band started, to be honest. That's how it started.

Now I understand you learned guitar from your mother? Yeah. I mean, yeah, my mother was the guitar player in the family. My father was an astronomer, and really I was born in New Mexico.

And they were there by Los Alamos, close to where they could... How do you say? Experiments on there, you know, like, oh, check the light meter on this or whatever it is. So we lived in a town that was like population 200. So my mom, it was my dad's work, but she was kind of bored.

So she ordered a guitar from the Martin Guitar Company. She ordered her records from the Smithsonian, taught herself how to play. And I grew up listening.

We all grew up, my whole family listened to my mom, learning all these Woody Guthrie Carter family, like Roy Rogers, Johnny Cash songs and shit like that. So I grew up with that, but definitely our mom put the guitar in our hands. And then we moved to Hawaii when I was about four years old.

So that's kind of a distant memory for me, but that's where the cast was laid. My brother and sister are older than me. They both play guitar, too.

So I grew up listening to the three of them playing. I didn't really play a lot. I was kind of more like just a surfer kid, you know, growing up.

But then later on, I got the hook in my mouth. Did your brother or sister have anything to do with Boy Dog or any of your bands? Have you ever played together? No. We've done some stuff.

Like, my sister was, you know, she was more like a folk. You know, she was into Phil Oaks and things like that. She's like more like a folk.

She really loved the folk stuff. But my brother loved like the other wave, like John Prine and things like that, like the next wave. And they would all be playing those songs.

But my sister and I, we recorded some Richard and Mimi Farina songs together just for fun in the studio. And then my brother, I played drums on some of his stuff. And I just recently—my brother knows how to orchestrate for strings.

And I tried to get him to orchestrate my last solo record called Morning Doves. But he was actually—he had too many things going on, so he couldn't get to it. But that's going to happen one day.

That's awesome. That's pretty cool. So you guys eventually just came to the States and just traveled around for a while and then found Austin, Texas? Yeah.

We were kind of—we were just thinking we were going to do it for like a year, just rip across the States and maybe go to Europe and then go back home to Hawaii. But we ended up—because it was winter by the time we came, we ended up taking the southern route. And we went through Austin because there was this tattoo shop in Honolulu called China Sea Tattoo, which is kind of famous because it was Sailor Jerry's old shop.

So Sailor Jerry from the rum and all that. So this tattoo artist named Rolo Banks—his real name is Michael Malone— but he bought Sailor Jerry's shop from Sailor Jerry. You know, Sailor Jerry's more like a World War II tattoo guy.

Michael Malone was more like a 60s West Coast art guy. He did rock posters. He did rock and roll fanzines and shit like that.

Not fanzines. Say, for instance, in Hawaii he had a magazine called Honolulu Babylon. It was just like—I mean, it was pretty raw shit.

It was like Zap Comics. It was like that kind of thing. Right.

But so Rolo moved to—Rolo and this guy named Yikes. They were friends together in Hawaii. And Yikes is Michael Corcoran also.

He's a journalist. Yikes is his pseudonym. But they moved to Austin.

So we were going like, yeah, fuck, we're going to go to Austin to go visit those guys. Because those guys were like the cool guys we used to go hang out down in Chinatown in Honolulu because that's where they had their tattoo shop. So anyways, serendipitously, that's why we wound up in Austin.

It was just following those guys' cookie crumbs. Okay. There was no music attraction there? I didn't know anything about it.

But just like this guy Michael Corcoran was going, yeah, you should check out Austin. It's a good music town. And we were like—it was winter.

We had already been up in Canada. It was getting cold. We came down.

We're like, let's go south. So we went south through Austin. And then we wound up in Austin in December.

And it was—even for Austin, it was cold. So we just stayed there for the winter. We were there long enough to go like, this is a really fucking cool town.

Really good musicians, a lot of shit like that. We ended up traveling to New York and finishing our trip. But then I ended up getting a record contract.

And then I moved back to Austin to record the record. That's how we wound up back there. How many records did you do in Austin? Two.

Yeah, we did two EPs and a full length. Actually, I'm sorry. We did three.

We did two EPs, which are combined into a record, and then two full lengths. Yeah. And what label was that in? The first two EPs were done on a label called Texas Hotel.

They're actually out of California. It's a long story, but I have a long connection with them. I used to sell my record on—I used to sell my cassette albums in their store in California.

And that's how I knew them. So they recorded the first record. Then we got picked up by Sony Columbia.

And it was sort of like a Texas Hotel, Sony Columbia joint. Back in those days, it was like— True. If you went to a major label, it was instant death.

The indie crowd would just fucking take you out back and shoot you. So anyways, we did this co-deal. And also because the Texas Hotel people were my friends, it was like— And so we ended up doing this co-deal.

And that co-deal went for a couple of records. And then we got dropped by Columbia because we actually— There was a huge buzz on us, not to blow smoke up our ass, but there really was. It was like they really thought that we were going to be the next shit.

And so all the major labels were making pitches. And then, of course, we're kind of brats. We've done everything our own way the whole time.

So I remember making the contract with the Sony guys going, I want to make a children's record. I want to do an instrumental record. I want to do a book.

And we had all this buying power because Warner Brothers and— All these people were A&M. All these people were offering us stuff. So I got it.

But the truth is they're only going to give you what sells. They're not in a cultural— In the business of making culture. They're in the business of selling records, of course.

But we were kind of young and bratty, and I thought that we had it made. So I thought we could do whatever we want. But we ended up getting dropped because we didn't sell enough records.

Because we did do— My third record, I delivered an instrumental record, and they fucking hated it. They were like, what the fuck is this? I teamed up with this new music composer named Ellen Fulman, who has this 100-foot-long instrument. We made this great record called Palm Fabric Orchestra.

And all the bells went off at 30 Rock. And they fucking flew down there, A&R guy, and said, if you release it, we'll drop you. So they ended up dropping us, but they gave us that record.

So that was a nice trade-off. They said, it's not a good relationship, let's go. I was like, we were all happy.

By that time, you were happy to be out of there, right? Exactly. And then we moved to Chicago, and then we just started our own label, Play Tectonic, and we've had our own label ever since. Now, question.

OK, now, I own every Poi Dog Pondering album, CD, whatever you want to call it. Albums to us, CDs to the younger crowd. But I've got them all.

I've even got my own custom-painted, picking up the, what was it, off the floor? Oh, yeah. Cutting room floors? You got one of those? I got one of the hand-painted ones. Oh, that's awesome.

I've got them all. But now when I listen to them, just about every single one is different. How do you describe your music? Yeah.

I mean, it's definitely, I know it's all over the place. The way I think about it is that, you know, I fucking love the Ramones. I mean, I fucking, I mean, I cut my, I didn't, I mean, I just came up with, before I was even playing music, I heard the Ramones, and I was just going like, I mean, they blew my mind.

You know, Rocket to Russia. That record just, like, blew my mind. I'm trying to think of who else.

New Order, amazing. You know, like Echo and the Bunnymen. They're very niche-y.

You know, they have their fucking sound that they do. Or Nick Cave, you know, or something like that. They have their sound that they do.

And I totally get it. I mean, like, especially with the Ramones, because it's like they're like, they're completely like, you know, they're in their world. But really the way I feel as a musician is that you, like, I'm constantly inspired by, like, African pop music.

Or, like, I moved to Chicago, and I hear, like, African, I mean, I hear, like, Chicago house music. Or, you know, like, you know, like, I mean, I go to New Orleans, and I hear Second Mind music. And I go, wow, that's amazing.

So I end up using that. To me, it actually feels more natural as a musician to be eclectic, because you're listening, you're doing stuff. It feels less, it makes less sense for me, for a band to have the same sound forever.

It makes more sense for the sound to evolve over time, because we're musicians, we grow, we listen, we're, like, creating, we're making stuff. And so I don't want to diss any bands that sound the same, you know, but I feel like, you know, like ACDC, they're mining a certain shaft, you know, or Ramones. And I fucking love that shaft.

I don't want to diss it. But I guess when, which awful, the charge has often been leveled on us that we're too eclectic, I don't know where they're coming from. And my only defense is that, like, you know, we're just listening, we're being inspired, we're creating, we're making, we're moving forward, and, you know, whatever.

That's just the kind of band that we are, you know. And we're also, like, 15 people, so there's a lot of, like, you know, there's a lot of influence. I was going to say there's a lot of people on stage, yes.

Yeah, yeah. So you can kind of say, like, whatever was influencing you at the time for that album, that's what the album's going to be like. That's totally the key.

I mean, that is exactly right. And a lot of times we will be, you know, like, making a record and we'll start it and we'll have an idea, like, it's going to be this kind of record. And then halfway through the record you can feel it veering, like, this other way, because, you know, all these things, the songs are going this way, and you just have to go with it, you know.

I also noticed you've got a number of songs on different – the same songs on different albums. Yeah. But they're different.

Each song is played differently on each album. And to me it seems like sometimes it improves, sometimes it's okay, you know, like an earlier version or something. Like you did – I can never pronounce it, Tate.

Tabouche-Tabou? Yeah, Tabouche-Tabouche. I can never pronounce that. You did that in French.

I just heard the French version. I thought that was great. Yeah, I mean, that was the original.

Like back in Hawaii, like back before we even left, I met this French kid at a club in Hawaii, and he was traveling. And he was like, you know, he didn't have a place to stay, and I asked my dad, hey, can this guy stay at our house, you know. So this guy stayed at the house, and then we ended up like writing Tabouche-Tabou together.

And then he was part of the original formation. He was a photographer really, but he also wrote and sang. And then so we formed the first version of the band that would go out on the road and travel, and he was on the road with us, you know.

But he got picked up in Arizona for like, you know, overstanding his visa, you know. He went through his random immigration checkpoints and got nabbed, you know. And so, you know, he got like non-forcibly – basically my dad had to put up $10,000 so that way he would leave the country.

He didn't get ejected, but they said like, you know, my dad put up $10,000 so he could finish the trip with us two months. And then he had to go back, and then my dad got the $10,000 back. But he was basically like, what do you call it, getting kicked out of the country, you know.

Deported? Deported. Deported. Yeah, but like in a gentle way, you know.

They put on the slippers to kick him out. But so I was never able to record the song with him doing it in French, so he helped me translate to English. So for a rollo-rollo version, I sang it in English.

But I was bothered that it wasn't done correctly, you know. And he had a 10-year – he couldn't come in the country for 10 years. You know, they – boom.

So I asked around town, and I recorded it with two different people, and that's the version that you heard, the French version. Right. ♪♪♪ And I was happy.

It was like kind of bringing it home. Like that's the way it was supposed to be, you know. Right.

I mean, it gives it a whole new sound, a whole new feel to it. It's crazy. It's really a good song.

Really good song. Thank you. I love it, too.

I appreciate that. Thank you. So when you guys finally ended up in Chicago, that was about, what, 92? Yeah.

Was there a reason you came to Chicago? Was it because of the music, like you said? Yeah. I mean, we would come – we were touring from – I would say from 88 to 92, we were touring hard. You know, we had two vans pulling a trailer, no seats in the back, just beds.

It was like everybody laying down like sardines. And we toured the states like that for a long run. And we'd always go through Chicago, and we'd play at Lounge Axe, you know.

Or we'd play at Cubby Bear back in the day when the gals from Lounge Axe, Sue and Julia, used to be like – they were like the buyers for Cubby Bear. That's how we met them. And then, you know, so we played there one time.

And then we met Joe Shanahan from the Metro. And we just like – you know, Chicago is just a real nice town to us, you know. And then at the end of the Volo Volo tour, Columbia dropped us.

And we'd been touring for a really long time. There was this feeling of like – kind of a little bit of a washed-out feeling in the band. Like everyone thought something was going to blow up.

You know, even the label thought it was going to blow up. And it never blew up. So when the label dropped us, there was just this moment of like, all right, let's take a pause.

Some people went off to do their own thing. Actually, everybody just kind of went off to do their own thing. And Max and I just looked at each other and said, let's go to Chicago.

Actually, I don't know who said it first, but one of us said it. We were like, that sounds great. I'll do it.

Let's do it. So Max and I drove up together in a little box truck. And I was friends with Bridget Murphy, who has Millie's Orchid Show at the time, which is kind of like a performance art, beautiful orchid show.

I mean, like Blue Man used to play there, David Sedaris, all these people. Very interesting. They would have knife throwers and flame twirlers and poets and musicians.

It was like a variety show, but in a performance art context. Anyways, through that, through her, I met like a really beautiful part of Chicago, like Mark Smith from the slam poetry stuff from Green Mill. I met all these icons, like Fitzpatrick, Tony Fitzpatrick.

I met all these people through her. So also in Chicago, it turned out to be just a beautiful move for us. It's like a vibrantly creative city where you can afford to live.

It's a working city. People roll up their sleeves and get down to work. And so it turned out to be a great move.

And personally, I actually really always wanted to live in a big city, like coming from Hawaii or coming from New Mexico originally. And then Hawaii is kind of like I always wanted to experience a big city. So it was nice to come to Chicago and feel that big city feel.

Now, throughout the history of the band, you've gone through a lot of different people. There's been a lot of people that have played. You're the only constant, correct? I mean, I saw that Ted Cho was with you in Hawaii, and he's here again.

He had a little time where he wasn't with you, but it seems like Ted followed you here. But besides him, you're it, right? Yeah, I mean, I started in 84, rather, and then I put a band around it in 86. And Ted was a part of that one, and so was John Nelson, our percussion player.

And then we came over, and both of those guys kind of come and go. Sometimes we were in San Francisco, and John was like, I'm going to stay for a while. So we continued on to Austin.

And then when Max and I moved up here, we asked Ted to come with us. But Ted was like, no, I'm going to hang out in Austin for a little while. And yes, it's absolutely true that there's been so many people that have come through Poi Dog.

But what is really astounding to me is that if I go through the roll call, it's like John's been there since he's been there 33 years. Ted's been there 33 years. Max and Susan have been there for 30 years.

Cornell has been there for 28 years. Everybody's been there, like Doug, 28 years. And then the person who's been in the band the least amount of time is our drummer, Ryan.

But he was our drum tech for 15 years, and he's been there for five years. So really, sometimes people go, oh, the band's totally different. And I was like, no, actually not.

But there is this movement. Some of the band members joke, they go, nobody ever quits Poi Dog forever. Right, right.

It wasn't until you came to Chicago that you finally added the horn section and all that. That's when you basically became an orchestra. Yeah, there's a couple of things that happened when we came up here.

Before we came here, I heard Nick Drake's Brighter Later, that album Brighter Later by Nick Drake, which blew my mind, the orchestration stuff on it, and mostly the strings, stuff like that. And then when we got to Chicago, I heard Tyrone Davis. So Tyrone Davis's stuff from the 60s and 70s and stuff like that had that great horn stuff.

And we already had these elements. So Susan was already playing violin, Max was already playing trumpet. So then we went after that sound, and we met this guy, Paul Mertens, who played clarinet and saxophone.

And then we met this string section called Parallax String Section, and we worked with them a lot on the first record, like on Pomegranate and things like that. Then really, at that point, we really opened this door. Paul Mertens and Susan Bells and Max Crawford really walked in that door, and they embraced the arranging thing very much.

They took the baton and ran with it, and their shit has been really beautiful. I'm really proud of their work on the orchestration stuff. Well, a number of people in the band have their own music out, too.

I mean, Susan's got CDs out, a lot of people. Well, Abra Moore. She had a great career after a point on.

She keeps sending me. We communicate. Abra's like my fucking soul sister.

We go back all the way to Hawaii. She's one of the original members. But she left really early on.

Before we finished the first record, she was out. But creatively, we're bound at the hip. But she's always sending me stuff.

She's been playing drums lately, so now her songs become something else because she's on the drums. It's all this funky, trashy, rocky stuff before she used to be an acoustic guitarist. It's just beautiful to watch her explore all this shit.

Tell us a little bit about some of the other bands you're involved with, some of the other groups. They play drums with Thievery Corporation, right? Yeah. About 20 years ago, I got a random call out of the blue.

Actually, my manager, Chaka, got a call. They were like, we're wondering if Frank would be interested in playing percussion with Thievery. Chaka was like, you mean Letty, who was our percussion player at the time? He said, you must mean Letty.

And they go, no, Frank. And it's because Garza, Rob Garza, one of the main— there's two guys in Thievery, really. And so one of the main guys, Rob Garza, when he was a young man, he used to travel around with Poydaw cassettes around Mexico when he was traveling there.

So he had an affiliation with that. And I was so proud to get that call because I grew up as a drummer. But I've been moving over to guitar all that time.

So it was so nice to be in somebody else's band and play percussion for somebody and be a band member rather than a band leader. And also, I was a fan of their music already. So I was just like, wow.

So yeah, it was a beautiful kind of like a thing for me to play percussion for those guys. And we did that for 20 years. Still going now, but they're taking a break for this year, obviously.

But yeah, it's been really fun to be that. That's my opportunity to be a band member, which I feel like— it's kind of like for me, being a band leader, I feel like I know what a band leader needs out of their band members. So I love being a good soldier.

It's just really like show up on time, make sure you know your songs, have a positive attitude. And I love—it's almost like a monk activity for me, to be honest. I love to do that.

So how are you surviving right now with the whole COVID-19 thing? Yeah, I mean, you know, I started out right out of the bag with kind of like a very proactive attitude. I was like—I thought like, all right, I'm going to go— I'll get a little ring light. I'll get a tripod.

I'll get, you know, like, you know, I'll get something so I can fucking do some home, you know, home projection stuff, you know, and I can do things like that. And I tried, and then my neighbors were complaining because I was playing music at 8 o'clock at night. And it was like, you know, it was fun.

I enjoyed doing it, and I'll probably still do it. But I also meant like this is not really going to happen. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to focus on some other stuff.

And I also cook for a living too. Like how I make my living is I play with Thievery or I play with Boy Dog, and I cook for people in their homes. That's my—I couldn't survive without one of them, you know.

I was going to ask you about Chef Frank. Yeah, so all three of them kind of like triangulate together, you know. So all three of those are out the window now.

So I was like going like, okay, maybe I'll do some guitar lessons at home or maybe I'll do some things. Yeah, just it wasn't really working. So what I've been doing really is like I just decided I'm going to sell my place here in Chicago.

I'm going to be more of a gypsy. I have some friends who live in different places. I'm going to stay with them, and I'm going to write and record a new record.

And me and the Poi Dogs can record virtually or in small groups very easily together. You know, my guitar player Ted's going to come over on Friday night, and we're going to like work through some stuff and have some dinner and, you know, catch up. But not everybody in Poi Dog wants to be, you know, careful about being in the same room, stuff like that.

We're trying to like be careful about social distancing, everything like that. So I've just been writing it out by like selling my stuff, selling my apartment, going a little bit more gypsy, hoping that like this shit will like arc over in some place where I can come back and do a show like at some point. And I'm okay with that.

Like I've actually most of my life I've been pretty living out of the suitcase, you know, like that's been pretty much my M.O., you know, whether it's been on tour. Like I'm pretty happy with my acoustic guitar and my suitcase, my computer and my little recording device, you know. That's what's great about technology nowadays is that you can record and send a file to someone else and they can add their part and that's a great thing, you know.

True. Yeah, and it works pretty good for us. We've had good luck with that.

Like I'll come up with a song and I'll send it to like Paul or Susan or Max for orchestration and then they'll just live with it for a while and they'll send back something and it's like Christmas, you know, that thing. Wow. Okay, well.

I understand you're a collector of some instruments as well. Yeah, yeah. And are you selling those as well? No, I've kept all my jewels for sure.

I sold things that I knew. I buy a lot of things and some of them are tourist instruments, you know, like I might be in Mexico and I'll buy a little viola, you know, which is like a small body guitar. But I realized later on like the intonation is not very good, the things, you know, so whatever.

But I can still tune it such a way to use it so it adds a texture for recording, but now I recognize that's now not a real instrument. It's more like a sonic thing. So, you know, I've kind of, you know, sold those or given those away.

But anything that I recognize as being a solid tool, I'm not selling it. Yeah. So your dinner show is a Chef Frank.

You do it all, right? You buy the food, you make the menu, you buy the food, you do it all. Yeah. I start early in the day.

I go shopping and then I show up at the house early in the day, like in the early afternoon. Cook so that way I'm prepped when the people get there and then I serve dinner and then I play music later on. It all kind of comes out of like when I was a kid and we were in our New Mexican town where like it was only population 200, so like my mom would play guitar after dinner.

Like there'd be like two families over for dinner and the guitar would always come out. I loved that as a kid. It was like, you know, like hearing all those, you know, Roy Rogers songs and just like, like, so for me, it was never about a performance.

It was about for the Chef Knife things. It was like, it's not like, okay. Sometimes people would set up like a bar stool for me.

I'd be like, no, it's not like that. We're going to sit on the couch, you know, or we're going to sit at the table and we're just going to drink and I'm going to play some songs and we're going to talk story. You know, yeah.

It's kind of like trying to recapture that thing. What about some of the other side projects? I come up with these monikers, you know, because Poydog's pretty eclectic musically, you know, and sometimes it gets too eclectic musically. So I've sort of made this decision to come up with these different monikers that I can record or aliases that I can record these different things.

So, so I, you know, I have like, kind of more like elect, all my electronic stuff. I put through a thing called a fat, fat eight. I have all my sort of South American Brazilian stuff.

I put through something called morning doves. And then I kept kind of like a thing that I do with Abra more and money goes to either. So more like, kind of like cocktail twins.

That's called soft explosion. So I just kind of put these, you know, these, this music through these things. So that way, if people are into this thing, they don't have to weed through the whole point of catalog to get to it.

You've got a new album CD out now. Don't you just came out? Yeah, I have a two one at one is morning does, which is the debut for this thing, which is basically like I've been carrying the acoustic guitar around with thievery on tour and then being around all this bossa Nova and Bolero, Mexican Bolero stuff, Brazilian bossa Nova. So it has a lot of that quality to it.

And then I just released all my, my first cassette albums from when I first started in Hawaii, there was five cassette albums and I released those just about a month ago. Something like that, which are very good from firsthand experience. Oh, cool.

Yeah. You heard them. I got them very good.

Again, some, some, some records, some songs I've heard of before and it's in a different way. You know, that was what, you know, like when we, when I, when, when I got the record contract with Texas hotel and we started, we moved to Austin and started recording that made it so, you know, most bands suffer the sophomore slump, you know, like we had like five cassette albums worth of material. So even though we were touring, we could still like cherry pick songs out of those things and record them.

So we were able to come up with like the, you know, the second record easy. Right. Do you do most of the writing for the band now or.

Yeah, I always have, like, I do it like I'm kind of like, I sort of look at it like I write the skeleton and, and the band puts like the muscle and the meat and the flesh on it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But I, you know, I, for the most part, I also team up with people.

We never really just sit down and jam and write a song because it's too much. It's too chaotic, but really good in, in, in one or two, three people at a time clusters, you know, oftentimes I will just, I will send people like, like, like here's, here's, here's an idea or a whole bunch of ideas on a cassette or on a CD or now, you know, on a file. And then I just say, if anyone hears anything, let me know.

So sometimes some of the singers will come back with some lyric ideas or somebody who's in the arranging mode and come back with some arranging mode ideas. And then I'll just blend those together. Tell me about a little stint you had in LA.

It was a movie called Breaking. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I was still living in Hawaii and I was like, I came over to, I came over to LA to actually to play music. You know, I remember trying out for different bands over there and playing with different bands. Like, you know, like, and that was around the time of like Walla Voodoo and stuff like that.

They were all, they were playing, you know, at the Whiskey A Go Go and shit like that. But I, you know, I really couldn't make anything happen. I had a friend of mine from Hawaii also who worked in films and he said, I can get you a job as like a runner on these films.

So like, you know, I would, I would be going out buying batteries and, you know, you know, you know, and, and then, then I worked, I kind of worked my, you know, the way that work is, is that it's seasonal. Like you work on a film for like two months or whatever, but you start to know the crew people. You start to know the art department people and you start to know the, you know, the production people.

And so you start getting people go like, Hey, we're gonna start this film. You want to come over and be like, you know, an assistant on this thing or an assistant on that thing. It's kind of like a stepping stone work way.

So I ended up like getting invited. I worked at, I worked on a lot of films that have never seen the light of a projector, you know, a lot of bad films. And then I got called in on break and I was like assistant to the assistant of the prop director.

And, you know, and, and, but I was, it was the three of us that did all of like, you know, like the, you know, we, we like, you know, dress the sets and we did all this stuff. So, I mean, I ended up doing like a lot of the graffiti for that film, even though I knew nothing about graffiti, you know, I had to learn it. I had to watch it, but I had, you know, I did, I did, I was a painter before in Hawaii, like art school and stuff like that.

So I kind of pulled it up, but that was super fun. You know, I mean, I, yeah, it was, you know, it was, it was, I felt like I got to see LA, you know, like that club that was in the movie break and that they call Radio Tron. I forget what it was really called.

I think it was just called the radio in LA, but I mean, man, it was exciting as for a little white kid. And I go there and also I see his kids in like nylon windbreakers with the hoods up and the, you know, fucking do, you know, doing windmills on the floor and I was just like, you know, it was pretty fucking amazing. Yeah.

So you said you were, you were in art school. Did you want to be an artist at one time or? Yeah. Yeah.

I, you know, I paint, you know, a little bit and I, I, I, I definitely did want to be a painter at one point and yeah, I wasn't really an art school, but like, you know, at Kapi'olani community college, cause I wasn't smart enough to get into UH. So I went to Kapi'olani community college first and I took drawing and painting, which was super fun. Cause it was super cheap and, you know, I didn't, I didn't have to worry about it.

You know, actually it's very, I'm going to tell you a very fun story. Cause like, you know, that was like kind of, I was worried about my dad paying, you know, like, you know, for school and stuff like that. But I went to Kapi'olani community college and then, and then I went to UH and then I took all the prerequisites.

My dad's an academic, you know, he's an astronomer. So he's like, oh, you gotta take, you know, economics. You have to take world history.

You have to do it. That's your first, later on you can get to your secondary courses, you know? Right. So for two semesters, I took all this stuff and I hated it.

And then, so for my next semester, I only took the courses I really want, which is like drawing and painting and short story and prose. And I fucking loved it. I could have done it, that shit forever.

But like, you know, that was, but the irony was is that back in those days, University of Hawaii for a resident, $250 a semester. Oh, wow. Wow.

Incredible. Incredible. I feel bad for like, you know, kids now, you gotta fucking, you know, pay out the nose just to gamble on your education, you know? But you, I know I've got two of them going now.

What you learned in that year you were there with the art and writing and stuff, that's carried on through your whole career. You know, collarbone, you know, I wrote, I wrote that, you know, after being in my, in my short story and prose class or like, in comes the night, which is off our last proper studio record called, I forget what it's called now. Everybody's Got a Star.

That shit was written in my University of Hawaii short story and prose class, you know? It was just a poem, you know? Yeah. So speaking of your songs, do you have any favorites? You know, it changes all the time. Like sometimes people, you know, like, like they, they rotate around, but, but I, but I do, I can, it would be easy for me to pull a few favorites, you know, like.

Is there something that you always wanted to setlist? Yeah. Pulling Touch is one of the songs that I always wanted to setlist. It's off of the first EP.

And to me, it's, it's, it's kind of like, I think it holds the DNA of Poy Dog in a certain way in my mind, you know, what I think of Poy Dog, it holds the DNA, which is kind of a new order based melody structure, a little bit of like a, like it's, you know, all but yet a little bit of melancholy. Those are the things I think we're sometimes given a short strip as being a bright band, but I think there's a lot of like, you know, there's other things going on in there, in the music. I also really love Bury Me Deep, or Everybody's Trying, or Collarbone, Catacombs, Big Constellation, In Comes the Night, all around.

We have this, you know, and it rotates around. Sometimes I'll go back and I'm just like, you know, I haven't played Big Beautiful Spoon, which is like kind of a country song off of our second record. I know that it's true.

I'm romantic to melancholy. You know that's true too. The past is a shoebox of old songs and photographs.

I dig in and wade through. And I just like, when I played it the other day, I was like, oh, I love this song. It's cute.

You know, you kind of forget about some of the songs for a while and not, we can't do all of them now. Like, you know, it's like, there's like, you sort of realize, I love to mulch the set list, you know, like bring in surprises, you know, because we have, we're really like a, our following is more like a cult following. It's very much a cult following.

You know, there's people who, there's no, like, there's no, you know, it's rare that anyone new comes in unless they were birthed into a family of like old boy dogs. So for me, it's like, I recognize I'm playing to like, people who have loved the band for a long time. So I do really enjoy pulling in unusual songs that, you know, we haven't done in a long time.

And, and knowing that, you know, a few deep fans are going to be like, holy shit, I can't believe they played that song. I like that feeling. You know, it's like kind of like a feeling that I love it.

You know, I've gone to enough shows in my life where like I've watched an artist not play anything from like a certain whole decade, you know, of their stuff. And that makes me crazy. So I'm really careful about trying to make sure that we touch on each of the records and we, you know, like through the course of the record.

So everybody feels like, you know, they heard something from a certain record because people are very era oriented with this thing. There's some band, you know, some people who hate the more dancey stuff that I was drawn to later. And there's some people that just don't relate to the more kind of like folky or world aspect or rock and roll stuff that was earlier on.

So it's like, you know, it's like, but I, but I, but I know that they do like the eclecticism of the band. So I definitely were making the set list. We're trying to, you know, fan that out.

Yeah. Trying to get a good set list together. It's complicated.

Yeah, exactly. It is. Now it's your, yeah, you really, uh, I, myself, I like all of it.

I like, I like, you know, the dance music. I like the rock. I like the folkiness.

I it's great stuff. That's what I, that's what boy dog is. That's, that's what I like about the band myself.

I appreciate that. Thank you. You know, we, we love having that latitude, you know, to like, just be able to kind of explore and, you know, then, you know, and you know, it's interesting watching, even like the band members, you know, like, you know, folks like, you know, like different people, like, you know, who like, maybe like Cornell who like never listened to, you know, maybe, maybe also there's songs that he loves from the early catalog that I'm surprised that he likes.

Cause he's more like a temptations guy. Right. And then, um, and then we get, you know, Ted, who's like a total rock and roll.

He loves Tom Verlaine, television, stuff like that. And then there's other times where we love like, you know, like something else that's going on, like, you know, in the more dancey side. So it's interesting to watch all that dance go on.

So where can people find boy dog and Frank Orle? Yeah. I mean, we're, um, you know, sonically, you know, we have our website, which we actually, any, any one of our identities, you know, like whether it be boy dog or palm fabric or morning does. And so they have their own addresses.

So, you know, did it.com and it will lead you to our label, which is called play tectonic music. Um, and then, uh, and then we're also on like Spotify and Amazon and Apple music and stuff like that. We're not distributed by any, like we don't have any physical distribution.

I mail everything out of the house here, you know? Okay. So anyhow, all your CDs and stuff are available on the website. Yeah.

On our website. We can purchase them there. Yeah.

Vinyl and CD. Yeah. Excellent.

Is a new, uh, is a new album going to be in vinyl? It's not the new album, the new album, uh, the, the, which is the collection of the old cassette stuff is just going to be, um, available on CD and digital. Okay. The last record that, that I released, which is a morning does, um, I may release it on vinyl.

You know, if we can afford it at some point, I really do want to, I want to make a double pack with it, but we'll see if I can afford to or not. Alrighty, Frank. Well, thank you very much for joining us.

It's kind of you guys to invite me. I appreciate it, man. Thank you.

That was a ball. There's a ball getting into the backstory of, uh, you and Poydog. Yes, it was very interesting stuff.

Thanks fellas. I appreciate it. Okay.

Hopefully we'll see you out and about soon. Uh, playing again. Okay.

Thanks. So that was Frank oral, uh, from Poydog pondering, uh, also from, uh, Beavery corporation. Right.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no.

He's, uh, he's involved in quite a few endeavors, including chef Frank chef Frank. Well, that's what this says online. It says chef Frank, but, uh, which, uh, I would recommend people try that out.

I, I, I want to do it myself. I want to have them out at the house, have them cook for us, play a little music. Sure.

Have a few cocktails. Maybe we'll do a live podcast. Sure.

There you go. Yeah. So, but that was a great, uh, that was a great, uh, talk with Frank.

Very, very interesting guy. Yeah. A lot of backstory all the way from, uh, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific to the Midwest and Chicago.

Yes, indeed. Quite a circuitous route. Yes.

He did think that, didn't he? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I mean, he, uh, once they got to Chicago, they seem to really hit it off well and they're still sounding great.

There are new albums out. Uh, and that sounds great. And hopefully there'll be something new coming out.

As Frank said, uh, he's going to work on something while he's, uh, going to his, his little gypsy, uh, phase right now. Alrighty. Well, thanks for listening to everybody.

And, um, we'll, uh, we'll see you soon. We'll talk to you soon. And don't forget to listen to us every Monday on the road to rock radio from the Illinois rock and roll museum on route 66.

Check us out at 6pm every Monday night on road to rock.net. Okay. I'll do so. Please do.

Thanks for listening. Thanks. See you next week.

Bye. Road to rock radio is proud to welcome Paul Martin of M&R Rush and the Dancing Noodles and Ray the Roadie, the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Join Paul and Ray as they bring you weekly interviews from bands that have rocked Chicago.

It's the rock and roll Chicago podcast. Monday night at six on road to rock radio. 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.