Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How are you doing today, Ray? I can't see you. It's dark in here.

Yeah, that derecho came through and knocked my power out. No power for four days. Really? Yeah.

I know that was a few weeks ago, but my power is still out. What? Really? So your lights are out? Yeah, my lights are out. I'm joking.

I turned the lights off in my little studio here. Here, let me flick the switch on. Oh, there you are.

There I am. Pretty cool how that works. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's physics. It is? Yeah, I think so. I think so.

I thought you had a problem with your electricity. I did. I did have a little issue this weekend when I was swapping out a fixture.

I'm no electrician. Yeah, I really have to stop this. You found that out, right? Oh, yeah, definitely.

I mean, anytime I try to do something around here, it's going to take five minutes for the average homeowner. It's a three-hour gig for me. So from now on, I'm going to go find somebody that knows how to do it before I do this stuff.

So speaking of lights out- All over Chicago, I heard when the Duration came through, it just wiped out power everywhere. They were out all over Chicago, and that's who we're speaking with today. It's who we're talking to.

It's Lights Out Chicago. I'll give you I'll give you one chance to guess what true we've been there I'm gonna say one guess the first one doesn't count I don't know that this might be a little this might be a little alien to some people but I'd have to say a UFO Michael Shanker Bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing! It's it's a they're there michael shanker era Ufo tribute band Exactly. They just play that era of UFO.

Right, but they've got a lot of songs to choose from from that era and in a lot of great songs and We talked with them and we had we talked with two of the fellows Actually, we're supposed to talk with three of them, but one of them, I don't know what happened, but we kind of lost him in our Zoom meeting here. Yeah. Zoom isn't everything it's supposed to be when it comes to the podcasting.

No. No, but let's not knock Zoom. It's kept us going for a while.

It has. It has. Thank you, Zoom.

Thank you, Zoom. We can edit that out. But we talked with Joe and Rich, and Joe and Rich, and they told us all about Lights Out Chicago, so let's see what they had to say.

Let's go. Welcome to the show, everybody. We're talking today with Joe Mazzucca, guitarist, Rich Fendi, vocalist, and we're waiting on Andy Benanti, the keyboard player, but Andy will join us soon, from the band Lights Out Chicago.

How are you guys doing? We're doing great, man. Good. Thank you for having us.

Thank you for having us. Thanks for inviting us. No problem.

No problem. So, tell us a little bit, I know you guys formed, you guys played together years ago, and you kind of broke up, and now you went your different ways, but tell us about that. Tell us about what band you came from, and how it all got back together again, in what, 2007 or five? 2007.

So, I know I have history and Rich has his history, but I'll give the history with myself and Eric and Rich, Eric's the bass player and Rich is the other guitar player, so we grew up in Burrow and Cicero, so I was in a band with Rich and Eric when I was a kid, and we just did kind of a band, rock and roll band, a band named Dillagaff, and so we did that just for fun, but it was more like a party, you know, we'd get together five days a week, but it was more like partying. I didn't party, but they'd party, everybody else partied, so we just did fun band stuff, getting together, you know, after a while, a couple years of that, we just kind of, you know, everybody gets older, they do their own thing, and kind of go their own ways, and then, just by coincidence, I just happened to bump into a neighborhood friend, and I started asking about what Eric and Rich were doing, and he put me in touch with them, and that was back in 2005. So you had lost touch with them for a while, huh? Yeah, yeah, well, I was such a, so actually, I stopped playing, I stopped playing guitar when I was about 19, so I was playing from about, I was 12 to 19, I just stopped playing, I sold everything, went to college, got a job, you know, serious stuff, and all that stuff, and so I just happened to bump into a mutual friend, and Rich and Eric were living out in Romeoville, so he put me in contact with them, just to put in contact with them, and I got an acoustic guitar, just messing around with that, just kind of noodling around, but I really didn't know how to, I lost all my playing abilities, since it's been, you know, 25 years since I played, so I started getting more, you know, more interested in playing, and I bought a V, you know, and then I started noodling around with that, and then, you know, the bug starts to catch in you, so I had to learn how to replay a lot, and then, you know, Rich, me, Rich, and Eric got together with this neighborhood drummer, and we would just get together maybe once a month, and just kind of mess around, and then I started getting more serious, and then, you know, we started looking for a permanent drummer, because the drummer we had just didn't want to do it really on a more serious basis, he just wanted to do it for fun, so we found a drummer, so November about 2007, we found a drummer, and that's when we started, so we've progressed, you know, we started as a kind of a variety band, and then we just kind of leaned towards UFO, and then we started adding Michael Schenker, and so it's progressed over the years, but from a personal perspective, you know, I'm talking a guy that, you know, back in the day type of mentality, you know, so it was kind of a technology shock to me to learn everything that was out there, as far as, you know, musical gear, musical equipment, and all the technology they had, so.

Things have changed quite a bit, right? Yeah, quite a bit, yeah, you know, they've got technology today where you can slow the music down, slow the songs down, without affecting the pitch, and that's kind of what you use to figure out the solos, and stuff like that, so. You used to pick up that needle on the record. Yeah, you have a needle, stop, play, you know, rewind, and try to pick up a few notes, and you know, get lucky if you can, you know, so, but now it's so much different, so, you know, so things progress, but I've learned kind of the music business, and how that worked, and that was new to me, because back in the day, we were just kind of playing for fun, and playing in somebody's basement, you know, it wasn't a big serious thing, so now we want to progress more out, we want to do what we did now, is what we didn't do when we were kids, so that was a whole new business to learn, and the booking, how that works, and all that, so we've kind of expanded, you know, how to do that, and then how to, you know, expand our set list, we started doing Michael Schenker group, and so we've, over the years, we've gone through a variety of singers that just either, you know, didn't work out, or they wanted to expand, do different music, we kept wanting to say, we're just UFO Michael Schenker, so other guys want to, other singers want to do more than that, so it's kind of a, not a meeting of the minds.

So if you could play guitar when you were 19, when did you pick it back up again, approximately? Uh, so I picked it up in 2005, so I was about, how old was I, about 40, I think, four years old. You could play guitar for almost, for almost 20 years, right? Right, yeah, yeah, just 20 years, it's cold, it's just cold, it's just not playing, so. Now what about the, what about the technology of playing guitar, and, and, and, I mean, I remember back in the day, I used to have my left paw, I'd plug it straight into my Marshall, you know, guitar, but now you got all kinds of pedals and everything else, was that some kind of a shock to get used to? Yeah, when I was a kid, I just had a wah pedal, and just straight in, you know, that was it, that's all I had, I didn't have anything else, so now, you know, they've got a lot of different, they had a lot of different amps, you know, amps have got built in sounds and all the effects, but I just kind of geared towards what I was always grew up on, and that was a Marshall, so I was geared back towards a Marshall, I have some, I started getting a lot of effects, I started peeling off the effects, you know, and just run pretty much, you know, just what the amp is doing, I have a little delay going through the effects loop, and, and, and that's about it, I still have a wah, but mostly it's, it's, I don't try to color the tone too much, I try to stay straight, stay straight.

And I saw one of your videos, you're playing a V, right? Yes, so, so I've got, that's an IT, that black one I have is a 1980, yeah, it's a 1980, you know, I've, I've, it, I bought it, and then I, I've made some updates to it, it had, some of it had original, it had a lot of original gear on it, but, you know, some of that stuff is just too old, it's just not, I buy vintage guitars because they're made nice, I just, I like to play them, so I'll take out the gear, I keep the old stuff, and then I put the current, you know, modern, better pickups, and bridges, and things like that, but I still have all the old parts, in case I ever want to sell it, I can put it back together, so yeah, yeah, but I've gone throughout, I've gone through several V's throughout the years, but I've even had a Michael Schenker Dean V, you know, they came out with the Dean V's, and he signed like 50 or 100 of them, so I had, I had one of those, but too big of a guitar, too heavy, and too big, you know, it's big for him, and for me, I'm, you know, he's six over six feet, I'm, you know, five, six, five, seven, so the thing looked like a big, you know, holding this big guitar, you know, so, so it was just an adjustment, so, you know, there's just, just finding the right gear, the right sound for our band, so that's kind of, that's the important thing, too, having that right sound, we're getting the right sound, and all, and all that, so, you know, like I said, we had different singers, and then we were looking for a singer, and then I met Rich at UFO show, actually, actually, the same day, coincidence, right, yeah, I was at a show, and then I got a text from our singer, our current singer, saying he didn't, you know, he was going to be leaving the band, and then I happened to bump into Rich, we started talking about music, and, you know, I was in a UFO tribute band, he started asking, hey, I'm going to, I like UFO, always grew up, and we need somebody to sing, I said, yeah, like, I just, I showed him a text, I go, I just got a text right now from my singer, he's not going to be playing, so you come on down for rehearsal, for a rehearsal in time of tryout, so, so that was in March of 2017. April, the first, we met in March, the rehearsal was in April, the first show was in April, you're right, you're right, yeah, so, so Rich, you were in, right, you were in, well, you know what, it was really cool, because the whole time, it, you know, like, Joe had been out of music for all that time, I'd actually been off the stage for 27 years myself, and I started getting back into music again in 2012, started going back to singing, singing with my church choir, working with the vocal team, going back to a vocal coach, just getting myself restructured, because I've always been a big UFO fan, and I was always, that was my goal, was to put a UFO band back together, put a UFO band together, and that's when I met Joey, which is really funny, because we went to the UFO concert, and my wife was actually like, hey, you know this guy over here, you've seen him before, she was actually pointing at Joe's friend, and I had recognized Joe, so I had walked up to him and started talking to him, like, bro, I've seen you somewhere, I've seen you at the Hellgators, I know you play, and he's like, yeah, I'm in a, you know, a UFO band, like South Chicago, in the meantime, what I was doing, I was playing with my buddy Jim Pop's band, Two for the Road, and he was bringing me in to sing the UFO and the Judas Priest music for them, because he didn't want to do it, so I was doing that, and I was actually with Jimmy at the concert when I met Joe, and Jimmy was just like, oh man, well, you know, if you never knew your singer, Richie's like a UFO, this is what he loves to do, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and so Joey's, and that's like Joey said, he's like, man, you ain't gonna believe this, he showed me the text message from his singer at that time, and he's like, wow, this is definitely fake, so that's the rehearsal for us, and I go down there, and part of the thing was, he's like, all right, what do you want to do, and I'm like, well, let's do anything, anything Shanker, let's go, he goes, no, what do you want to do, he goes, I've had guys come down here before and be like, you know, I'm like, bro, let's just do the Strangers album, and he just looked at, we all looked at each other, and for the next 73 minutes, we went through the entire Strangers album, and nobody said a word, we just played it, did it, performed it, and when we were done, we just all went out in the garage, it was just like, you got the gig, I'm like, all right, cool, thanks, and it's been just a blessing, a fun time, you know, it's just been a great ride so far, I'm getting to, now at this age, I get to experience music at a whole different viewpoint than I did back in the late 70s, early 80s, back then, it was more about the women, the partying, just, you know, play with, you know, I played with my first band was Stargazer, no, I don't know, I don't know, so explain to me, okay, well, yeah, my first band was a band called Stargazer, and that's when I was with Steve Crane, and that was me and him together, he was my drummer, and that was with Efton Lee, Tiaga, Tony Gehrman, who is now the head of Animation, runs the Glee Guitars of Animation, Tony was a rhythm guitarist when he started out for us, and now the dude is just beyond unbelievable what he can do with that band, and then, like I said, we had, and then we had Tom Santoni on bass, and that was our first band, and that was really cool, we were fortunate, we had back then, we hooked up with a manager through a friend of mine, Jimmy Tallick, I don't know if any of you guys know him, but he was doing for a gentleman named Tommy Trumbull, who was actually a manager for a band called Landslide back in the day, sure, I know Jim Tallick, as a matter of fact, I just talked to Jimmy a couple of weeks ago, really cool, when you see him, tell him I said hi, he's in Florida, okay, cool, I have to get him, I have to look him up then, but yeah, so he hooked us up with Tommy, and his wife, Tommy's wife ran for Landslide, she took me under her wing, and just kind of trained me, got me going as a singer, we were, by the time, I mean, I'm 16, 17 years old, and I'm already playing Havenmakers, Haywires, and stuff like that, I'm opening up for Tommy Holland back in, you know, in the, you know, 79 and 80, and stuff like, I mean, I was, we were having fun time, then I went out and left them, was with Frank Tionis, and with a band called Exodus for a couple months, that lasted, Scotty Blackman, me and Scotty Blackman were in that band, and then left them there, and we moved on to the, to Cicero, and like, probably my coolest band, I'll say, and that was when I was, I was with Unleashed, and I was with them for about maybe four years, and we were doing all the jamming, all the playing out with Paradox, and Damian Thorne, and War Cry, and all those awesome bands from back in the day, and playing with them, and then the partying became a little bit too much, by 1989, Rich thought it'd be best to quit music, and take a step back, so I took a step back, and had my life go its way, and stuff, and then came back, I started music in 2012, and just in the meantime, before I met those guys, trying to put a UFO band together, and then meeting Joey, and then the rest is just history, and it's just, now we're on this ride, and it's just unbelievably fun. Now, Joe said that him, and Rich, and Eric were from Irwin, where are you from? I'm actually originally from, I'm from Oklahoma.

Oh, okay. Yeah, we were a bunch of Richards High School kids. We first saw, you know, back in the day, watching them, and I rushed, and stuff like that, but then seeing, you know, bands like Dottie Buscemi's band, Stargazer, once we saw Dottie Buscemi and Stargazer, man, I think that pretty much is like, all right, if they can do this, we can do this, and that's, you know, that's, and that's when we started going, and stuff like that, and it was just, it was just a fun ride from there, but definitely having the most fun in my life right now, performing with the guys that I'm with, it's just a whole different feeling, a whole different attitude, and it's, it's now, it's just all about the music, and performing for the audience, and I'm just loving it, so pretty cool.

So, so some of you guys, you guys have families? Yeah, I'm married, no kids, so I don't have to worry about that in this, in today's world, thank God. I'm living in San with my, my, the girlfriend, but I am divorced, have a son, he's in college now, so. Isn't it kind of funny how, as a kid you grow up, you have a son in college, you said that, that as the kids grow up, and they kind of move out, or they kind of go do their own thing, that the music comes back in your life, how it, how the tables kind of turn back around.

It's interesting, as I was, you know, learning songs, and playing songs, I'd always have my guitar with me, so I'd, you know, get my son, and bring him here, you know, to my house one night, and then next night to my parents' house, so they could visit, but I was, I always bring my guitar, be playing all the stranger songs, through the earphones, earbuds, and, you know, figuring the parts out. So, my son has watched me since, you know, I first started learning these solos, and playing them. Now, he hears them live, and he knows the solos, so he knows, oh yeah, oh yeah, he knows it all, you know, every time he hears the live, so he goes, I remember even learning those songs, and playing them, you know, watch me play, you know, he'd be doing his thing, I'd be doing my thing, you know, then we put everything down, and let's go watch a movie, let's go watch a movie, or do something, you know, so he's had a history watching me throughout the years.

That's cool that you get to share something like that with him too, though, that's really cool. Yeah, so he's come out to our shows, you know, and seen him play, and go out to the fest, so it's just, he's seen the whole gamut, he's seen me doing it individually, and then he sees the whole band live, do it actually live, so it's interesting that he experiences that, so. How was this year looking for you guys, booking wise, did you have a lot of shows before this crazy thing hit? Yeah, yeah, we lost four.

Four shows, I booked four right in a row, I mean, like I had them going, we was on a roll, and boom, it all just, all just dropped out of sight, you know, so. And I've been booking shows for us during the summer, where I can, stuff like that, you know, we've already played, what, three shows, we got two more coming up, and then try to get one or two more on before the Christmas end of the year, and then probably for the end of the year, I think. Yeah, we're looking at, we're looking at maybe doing a Toys for Tots thing for, with getting that set up, but we'll see how that works.

Yeah, it's, it's very tough right now, it's, it's extremely tough right now, I know, just, just bands are starting to get back into playing, but then you have no idea what's going to happen, you know, and I mean, I have a show in two weeks, and who knows what's going to happen. Exactly, exactly, we don't even know if the shows, you know, the shows are booked, they're ready to go, we're promoting them and putting them out there, but we know at any minute they could get shut down just like that, and it's definitely, that's the one thing to worry about. Yeah.

Well, not, because everybody, you know what, there's no reason people can't come out to shows if they want, wear masks if they have to, whatever they want, we could be on stage doing what we have to do, and that's fine, but I feel that just like kids need to be back in school, we need to be back around music, because that's such a healing force around us, with everybody, and even when we did our, when we did our show at Hobart, we got off stage, and you know what, it was probably about maybe 90 people through the show, which was cool, the whole night, we're fine, Hobart, you know, they had us downsize it, you know, so it was probably 90 people, it sounded like 200 in there, the way they were all screaming and yelling, it was amazing, and then when we got off stage, this one guy comes up to me with his buddies, and he just grabs me, he's like, man, thank you so very much, man, I'm like, no, man, I'm glad I could be, he goes, no, you don't understand, we really needed this, this was, thank you, I was like, man, I mean, and that's, that's what I, that's what, for me, that's what sets me off, that's what gives me the best chills, is when somebody can come to me after a show and say, man, I really needed that, and thank you, it's like, wow, dude, that's humbling to me, very humbling. Yeah, you want to, you know, we try to recreate, now, obviously, I don't look like Michael Shanker, you know, Rich looks more like Phil, the younger Phil, well, but I don't look like, we don't look like the UFO, but we try to replicate, you know, the music as close as possible, that's why I'm painstakingly, you know, figuring out these solos for every note I can, you know, so it's, so over the years, it's progressed towards, you know, not, you know, you learn the solos, you can learn them, but then you've got to be, actually, feel them, too, and then be able to play with more feel, as opposed to just getting the notes, so you go from more mechanical playing to more feel play, you know. Right.

That's really got to work on after a while, it's, as you can see, as the years progress, you know, you listen to the music, how it's gotten more, as we all play together, we'll feel comfortable, and then you get the feel more of the song better, so. Well, look at how it's, look at how it's changed just in the three years since I've been with you guys. Yeah.

I mean, we listened to recordings from the very beginning, which sounded very, very good, but now I listen to those recordings compared to now at all. Yeah. You know, with me, anyway, I mean, the band's always been tight, but it's just, there's more, now after three years of being together as a unit, now when you step to the stage and it's all feeling between us, it's, you know, there's no second guessing, it's, you know, everybody's right there where they need to be, and there's no spots missed, if there is a spot missed, it's picked up right away, and it's just, we work as one tight unit, and that's what I love about our rehearsals, because if we mess up in the middle of the song or somebody, we don't like the way something's being played, especially you, you know, if you do something on your lead that you don't like, or if you even happen to just go a different way, you stop and go, all right, I didn't like that, I'm gonna redo it.

Yeah. I thought it sounded pretty damn good. Damn good's not good enough.

I'm like, all right, that's cool with me. Well, tell me about some of the other guys in the band now. We had Andy out here for a little while, but now we've, yeah, I saw, I noticed that, I saw he was on, he dropped off again, so tell me, tell me about Andy.

So Andy, so we were going through several keyboard players, you know, we go forward, they're not, UFO's not keyboard driven, you know, it's guitar driven, so with Raymond being a dual function, he's always had something to do with the guitar key. So, so, you know, some of the keyboard players we had just kind of would lose interest because there were some certain songs that don't have keys, so what are they doing during a song? So, so I ran across Andy, Andy was actually filling in for another UFO tribute band at the time. He was just filling in for one show, and I saw a video of him online, I looked him up, and I traced him down, and so I shot him a, you know, a text, or I think it was a, not a text, email, or through Facebook, and he came out in 2012, and, you know, so Andy's been around playing with bands, and then as Andy got, so Andy got in the band, I think it was, yeah, 2012, so Andy's been with us since 2012, and then he's progressed into playing with other bands, and he's, he plays for, what's the Beatles band, Rich, he's playing with now? American English.

American English, yes, yes, he's been playing with them, yeah, he's been playing with them, so he's got some, a lot of things he's been really busy with, so, so, and he's a seasoned accordion player, actually, and he plays the accordion, so he's a, yeah. I see in his bio, he did some country stuff too. Yeah, he's, yeah, he's all over, he's kind of, a variety of stuff he's doing, so he's really busy with, with this stuff, and he's got kids, a family, you know, so he's keeping busy with it, all that, so, and, you know, Eric, bass player, singer, but Eric's Eric does our video, our audio, our technical stuff, Eric Pricely, the comic of the band, the comic of the band, yeah, Eric is the book of knowledge, he knows, he's, he knows everything about everything, so, I always, we always tease him, like, what chapter is that, Eric, is that chapter 3000, verse 7, chapter, sub-chapter 3, you know, about this, but he is, I mean, he's really knowledgeable about stuff, so he's, he's, he's very versed, but he's a really, in rehearsal, he's a really perfectionist, as far as getting the sound dialed in, because we could really get everything dialed in at rehearsal, but we're so used to hearing everybody, so then, we got out in another setting, and we're like, well, making sure we can hear, because that's really important, that especially a drummer can hear me, and certain parts, he's got to be able to hear the guitar solo, so when to come in and out, so, but, but Eric's the type of guy that, he'll set the board, everything's perfect, perfect, everything's mixed great, and rehearsal, next time we come down, he's sitting there, turning, twisting knobs, Eric, we just, nothing changed, nobody touched anything, so don't worry, you don't have to re-adjust the knobs, let's just leave it, yeah, the gremlins came in and took care of everything, yeah, you know, so, so we got to kind of just pull them away from the board sometimes, like, Eric, just leave it, everything's fine, you know, sometimes your ears are different on different days, so, you know, so, so, you know, so he's, so he's really, you know, that's great to have, but it's, it's, it's almost, it could be your worst enemy at times, you know, sometimes with that, but, well, I love it, I love it, we're getting ready to go to the stage, and we're right, as soon as we're getting ready to walk out, he's like, oh, wait a minute, I gotta go set the video cameras, yeah, you know, he said, oh, he said the whole time, he said the whole time before, an hour before, to do all that, he's like, you know, wait a minute, I'm like, oh, come on, let's go, because he had another, he had a half hour to do all this stuff, let's go, so, you know, yeah, well, we love him dearly, and he's our brother, and he's hysterical to be with, and stuff like that, like Joey says, he's, he's a technical genius when it comes to audio, and everything like that, but we, we had a call, we couldn't let him do the interview tonight, because he'd still be talking, and none of us would even know each other's names by now, I mean, yeah, you played, you played a band with him earlier, you said, right, Joe? Yeah, so, I, yeah, when I grew up in, when I was growing up in Berwyn, and he was playing in a band with Richie Leonard, Richie's our, the guitar player, and so, I, I kind of, I just, You're from Berwyn, right? Yes, yeah, so, Berwyn, so, What's my rubber jacket? Yes, so, I was like 15 at the time, 14, 15, just playing with these guys, so, but, you know, at that time, it was just playing ACDC, and UFO, and, you know, whatever, whatever the music was at the time, we were just having fun, you know, so, it wasn't, it wasn't a real serious thing, but just established the roots there.

I have to ask, I have to ask, you had to go into DJ's music, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, DJ's, sure, DJ's, for my first sound system at the DJ's in Orland, oh my god, in 7-7, yeah, I used to travel, I'd drive all the way up to the DJ's, just to get a gross of picks, you know, yeah, yeah, DJ's, yeah, DJ's, that's where I bought my first guitar, my first amp, I bought a V there, my first V was there, actually, it was a, it was a German made, it wasn't a V, it was called a flying arrow, they couldn't call it a V, because of trade right, for Gibson, it was a Hoyer, a Hoyer, a flying arrow, yeah, it was a, it was a thinner neck, you know, and it fit my hand perfectly, it was thinner, it wasn't like the Gibsons that fly here, so this is a real thin kind of a flatter, so it really fit my fingers, I mean, a hand perfect, but that's something I just, you know, when I stopped playing, I literally just sold it, it was a rarity to find those guitars anymore, so. What, what were the two, what were the two brothers, there were two brothers at Randolph? Yeah, Dan and John.

Dan and John. Yeah, and then, and then, and then the, the old, they used to call him the old man, he always used to sit in the chair with the suit on, three-piece suit with the glasses. Yeah, yeah.

But Dan, I think, I used to deal with Dan, he always seemed like the grumpy old pissed off guy, and John was kind of a flamboyant, kind of rock and roll, rollish. Yeah, yeah, he ran the Orlin store, yeah, John ran the Orlin store. Okay, all right.

So it's kind of a, kind of a Pawn Stars thing with the, with the kids, and the, and the old man, the grumpy old man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I used to trudge in the, I used to trudge walking for like a good hour from my house, all from 24th and Gunderson, all the way down to, you know, by Laramie down there. Right.

In the snow, and just to buy a set of strings, you know, one pack of strings, you know, Ernie Ball Slinky 9-gauge strings, right? That's right, that was it, that was the one. That was it. And I used to stare at the guitars and just like, wow, look at that guitar, look at that guitar, look at that guitar.

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How about we go, we got Rudy left, right? Rudy? Yeah, Rudy? So, Rudy, what's his last name? Rudy Shemlech. Okay. So we, Lamar, we had a drummer, Lamar, and he was, you know, gave us notice he was going to leave, so we were auditioning drummers.

So Rudy's a friend of Richie, Richie Leonard. And so he came down for an audition, so did the audition, we brought him in, and that was, I think, 2013. So we had to work around a schedule.

So we set up, you know, he was nice enough to set up actually a Google calendar, so I can keep everybody's day straight. Everybody puts a calendar when they're not available, what they're doing, so I can progress to that point to try to keep six people's, you know, calendar straight. Before it was the old texting everybody, can you do, what day are you available? I'm not available this day, I'm not available, I can't do this day.

Oh, I'm going on my mind, you know, so. Yeah. Put up a calendar, I tell them, just put the days you can't work, you're not available, what you're doing, and boom, I can go right to the calendar, something comes up, I can see right away.

So getting back to the music end of this, I mean, with UFO, I looked up, they had 22 studio albums, 14 live recordings, 16 compilation albums, and one album of cover songs. I guess you guys got plenty of songs to cover. You guys know all of them.

You know all that stuff. You know what? We know a lot of it, but we specialize, and that's the thing with us, we specialize in the Michael Shanker era. With UFO fans, and you know what? Chapman was a great guitarist, Lawrence Archer was a great guitarist, I actually think Lawrence Archer, when he stepped in, was closer to Michael Shanker than anybody else.

He went on to play with Pete Way's band, and they've been jamming until Pete Way passed away, unfortunately. But that way, but we stick to the Michael Shanker era. For some reason, diehard, diehard UFO fans are just more drawn to the Michael Shanker era, and so a lot of UFO fans, for some reason, once Shanker was gone from the band, UFO didn't seem to exist anymore, when you talk to a lot of people.

And they have so many great albums, and so much great music, and it's just, you have those diehard Shanker fans that would just be like, nope, Shanker's not in the band anymore, UFO's gone. And they don't listen to anything past that. Yeah, well, I was surprised you had 22 studio albums.

I mean, it was like, wow. I think they just recently came out with a new one, didn't they? Was it the last couple of years? Oh, they came out with what's called the Sol Solito Cuts, and that was the cover album, where they did all these cover songs and stuff like that. And actually, it got some bad reviews from some hardcore fans, but if you really listen to the songs, the way they structure them, and the way they did it, I think filled every song on that album justice, and I think it's a beautiful album.

I mean, seriously, the way they did it, beautiful album. What the heck, man? They got so much music, I mean, it's crazy. We may pull a couple Chapman songs into the mix, like Mystery Train, or Letting Go, and stuff like that, but like I said, more or less, we stick to the Shanker era.

That's because that's what Joey likes to play. Well, UFO's got so much material, but there's some core songs you've got to play when you play out. You've got to play certain songs from Strangers, and you've only got an hour and a half or two hours to play, so you try to stick to some core material, so that takes up maybe an hour of time, and then you've got to be selective in the rest of the show, what you want to play.

And then you've got to do some Michael Shanker stuff, and then you've got more current stuff off of Walk on Water. So it's always, we might have 35, 40 songs on a set list, but we might not play one song for a year, because it's just the way the set list is structured, or where we're playing, or who we're playing with. And then you don't want to go too deep, because then some people just don't recognize the song, you know, what album is that from? So you've got to kind of, and I always look at, what is UFO playing when they tour? You know, what are they playing when they go out there? Yeah, right.

It's always, to me, kind of a gauge as to what should we be playing, since what they're playing when they tour, you know? But they're playing stuff off of Vinnie Moore, but they're always playing the core songs of UFO, you've got to play those. And that's what I was going to say, is after the Obsession album, you think about it, really, there is no, well, actually, the Lights Out album, there's really no hits that ever went to the radio after the Lights Out album, you know? You think about it. I mean, radio, standard radio airplay back in the day, like on the loop or anything, like, you know, Lights Out was played, you know, Love the Love God played, Too Hot to Handle, but once those albums were finished, that was, you didn't hear, you don't really hear, you never really heard Letting Go, or Mystery Train, or anything from Wild Willie and the Innocent, or from any of the other albums on the radio.

You never heard that. Everything you hear from UFO is all structured in the Shanker era up to that, you know, Strangers in the Night album. And that's basically what's played on the radio, you know, those four songs.

And then when they did Walk on Water, and that's a great album, there's so many great songs off that album. But, you know, even when they toured on that tour, they came back, they only played, I think, three songs back in 94, 95, when they were touring, that album came out. You know, they played Venus, Push to the Limit.

Sometimes they even played Self Made Man. They didn't really go too far on that album. Even though, I mean, when you listen to that album, every song is such a great song on that album.

You know, so. But they stay in that early. It's challenging.

It's challenging to do a set list in the environment we're in with the time we have. And so, you gotta take the time and use it well. And then the songs you play, you've got to really be spot on with the songs and the music, you know, so.

So have you guys done any traveling as far as as far as moving, going, reaching out into different areas with the band or you stick mostly around the Chicago area? Stick around the tri-state area, basically. With everybody's schedules, what would these guys do for a living, stuff like that. It's really hard for these guys to just pick up and to basically go.

So it's everything we try to do is within the Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois area, stuff like that. We try to keep it within like two hours possible. You know, leave it like that.

I think last year we did Tribute Island Fest. That was a real bomb burner. It was like 105 degrees out at seven o'clock at night with the sun on us.

You know, 118 on the stage. Yeah, it was. Wow.

That was a, you know, I don't think you'll play guitar when you play in the heat with a nitro finish guitar. That's just like stick. It's like, it's like honey, you know, you're sticking.

You know, a lot of the finger ease, you know, you got to spray that. But that works actually very well. You know, spraying that on the guitar, on the neck to keep it moving.

Or else you'd be just, you'd be sticking all night on that neck. Your hands get a little clammy, huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It's just, it's just, it's just sticks to everything. So is there any original music that anybody's come up with? Nope. We are strictly a UFO, Michael Shanker Tribute Band.

It's really cool because it's all this band wanted to do. And when I joined the band, that's what Joey had said to me. Hey, we've got other guys in the band.

You know, we're a Shanker Tribute Band. You know, UFO, Shanker Tribute Band. We don't want to be doing this.

I'm like, bro, this is my own genre. This is what we want to do. And this is where everybody's at.

Joey and them guys apparently tried doing some different stuff back before I got in the band. But it didn't really work out the way they wanted it to. So they went back to just the regular UFO, Michael Shanker.

And, you know, we understand with us, we have a niche group of bands that come out to see us. But those niche group of bands that come out to see us are coming out to see where we live, their childhood from the 70s. So like I said, so we just stick with that era and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think, you know, we tried before Rich came to do different types of music. But everybody had a different variety, such a wide variety. We couldn't really focus.

Nobody had a common interest outside this. So it was like, well, what exactly do you want to do? It was kind of all over the place. I think we even tried, at one point, we even tried to do a foreigner tribute band.

So we got maybe eight or nine songs. But getting the vocals to get that right, because it's really vocally driven, is really, you really got to be spot on with doing that. So speaking of vocals, who does, what about background vocals? Anybody else? Yeah, you know what, I'm very fortunate that stepping into this band, I've got two great backup vocalists behind me within Eric and Richie.

These guys have been singing together for a real long time. And, you know, I always say, these guys make me sound better. I mean, that's how good they are.

I mean, really, I mean, the three of us together, their harmonies, the way we harmonize together on songs, the way they just step up to them. I mean, they really got their stuff down. So yeah, we, and that's what's cool with us too.

Because when we are in rehearsals, we've got to make sure that everything, the vocals, everything, the harmonies are right spot on. You know, they're not where we need them to be and stuff. We're never going to step onto a stage in a live concert without having our harmonies right where they need to be.

And doing three part harmonies in a band, it's, you know, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. But everybody, and that's another thing with Eric though too.

Eric could also, if ever needed to, God forbid, if there was ever a situation where I couldn't step up to the mic for an evening and stuff like that, Eric could actually step in and carry the mic with the band and just play bass and play all night and sing. At one point we did have Eric sing. One of our previous singers just got up and left.

Sent us an email saying he just quit. So we had a show come up. So Eric stepped up to the plate and just filled in.

You know, was able to sing. So he's very, you know, he's very versed in that area. So, but they've got, you know, they add with Rich and Eric doing the harmonies, but, you know, they're adding some harmony parts where not normally you would hear it in a song, but when you hear it, it sounds really good that they're really putting certain things into the songs vocally.

So where can we find you social media wise? Well, you can find our website at lightsoutchicago.net. And then of course, you can just look it up. So look us up on Facebook at Lights Out Chicago, our Facebook page. Yeah.

And then our next show is right behind where Rich's poster right there, Thirsty Beaver. So this is going to be a solo show, which is kind of a rarity for us. We don't do solo shows, but it's going to be like a three hour show we're going to be doing here.

So it's just kind of the whole gamut of everything. UFO, Michael Schenker group, everything. So we're just going to run through everything.

So by solo show, you mean just your band, right? Just us. Just us. Normally we would pair up, you know, we do an hour and a half with one band and then an hour and a half with us.

So, you know, but this show, Rich gave us this opportunity, they want us to do a whole afternoon. So where's that at? At the Thirsty Beaver. And what's the date? September 20th.

Sunday, September 20th from three to six. That's in Crestwood, right? Crestwood. Yeah, that's going to be like I said, that's our show on Sunday afternoon.

It's basically, it's the last day of summer. It's a Sunday afternoon fun jam. And so we're going to close out the summer for the Thirsty Beaver, three to six.

Have a great afternoon. And then we have a show scheduled. Is that outside? It's outside, yeah.

The Thirsty Beaver really, you know, I'm going to throw a cool shout out to this bar because this bar is cool. It's basically an outdoor pavilion bar. So you have the stage inside where the bar's at, but the sides of the bar end up on the side.

Now the back behind the bar are double garage doors that open up. Now this turns it and then turns, opens up to the beer guard. So now you have it basically, it's now an outdoor pavilion bar.

And that's how they are allowed to have bands there all summer and play with what they're doing and doing what they're doing and just, you know, and having them. There's bands there every Friday Saturday and Sunday. And everybody's playing there.

And we've been, everybody's been there all summer and everybody's having a ball. So we're doing that. So that show, that show then September 20th, end of summer, that's just going to be an all out UFO, Michael Shanker jam day, having fun, playing with the audience.

We're going to let them, we're going to put songs in a hat, let them get involved, pick some songs out of the hats. You know, what do you guys, you know, hear a pick, you know, just get them involved with fun. But then because we have a show that's coming up a couple of weeks after that on October 10th at Public House, we need to do something a little different.

So what we're going to do is we've done it once before, but we're going to kind of do it a little differently this time. We're actually going to go back and recreate the entire evening from the Chicago amphitheater in 1978 when UFO was there on October 13th. So these guys will be recreating the music and we'll be recreating the music and I'll be recreating the banter and we'll be taking everybody back to that 1978 that was there.

So we're basically calling that show a night from the amphitheater at the Public House. Yeah, and you'd be surprised that, you know, you hear when Strangers came out, it started up a natural thing out in the street, but people were there going, wait, I don't think that's how they opened up. And that's not how they opened up.

They actually opened up with Hot and Ready. You know, they expanded Strangers, went to Hot and Ready and then Sherry. But if you actually listen to a bootleg copy of what they actually did that night, they did Ain't No Baby in that setlist.

And they did it. They did it in a different arrangement, too. So we're going to actually play in the actual order and the actual songs they played that night.

So it was different. So, yeah, so we got those shows booked and stuff like that. As I said, I'm going to try to get something booked back at Hobart Theater and then we'll be looking down the line what's going to be happening.

You know, don't want to get too far out because we don't know what's going to happen as we all know. Yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame.

But but like I said, it could be things can be called at any minute. You know, it could be. It could be.

Well, I'd like to I'd like to thank Andy for joining us. How briefly he did. I don't know what happened.

I didn't get a text from saying what happened. I don't know what happened. Sorry, guys.

No, if Andy, if Andy couldn't get back on our feet, Andy's usually the guy that if something pops up, it's one good thing I can say about Andy. Andy always puts family. His family always comes before everything and anything, no matter what it is.

So if something popped up with his son or anything like that at the house that took priority is probably what happened. He probably said they got it. Thank you guys for joining us.

This was a lot of fun. Thanks for having us. Thanks to Karen.

Thanks, Karen, for getting us hooked up with you guys and everything, man. My love to her. Longtime friend for Mrs. Crane there.

So give her my best, Will do. All right, Jonah. All right, guys.

Very much again for having us. You guys have a blessed evening. Take care.

You too. Thank you. Bye.

So that was Joe and Rich from Lights Out Chicago, a UFO tribute band. Michael Schenker tribute band. Yes.

Excuse me. Remember, it's that era. Yes, it is.

And so they have some fun stuff to say, and they're really knowledgeable about UFO, aren't they? Most definitely. And it's interesting to see that they're going to be doing a show from, was it 78 that that UFO did at the amphitheater? Yeah. Recreate that show.

That sounds really interesting. Yeah, sounds like fun. Yeah.

They've been keeping pretty busy. Well, I mean, as busy as they could be, before COVID. Yeah, because right now it's pretty much lights out for everyone.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But they've kept pretty busy over the last few years, and hopefully they get back at it here before too long and get playing just like we hope for all the bands and all the music to happen.

That's right. That's right. They got a couple of shows coming up and hopefully they'll keep on coming.

So thanks for listening, everybody. That will do it for this week. Lights Out Chicago.

Check them out. Check them out at lightsoutchicago.net or on Facebook at Lights Out Chicago. And check us out at rockandrollchicago.com or rockandrollchicagopodcast.com or rockandrollchicago.net or on Facebook at rockandrollchicagopodcast.

That's right. We're everywhere. And then don't forget to you can catch us every Monday at six o'clock on the Road to Rock radio from the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 every Monday at 6 p.m. roadtorock.net Okay.

I'll go listen. All righty. Go now.

Okay. Thanks for listening, everybody. See you next week.

Bye. Bye. Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music that's played on this podcast.

The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed.