My name is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie with the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How's, uh, how you been Ray? I'm doing well. I'm nice and tan.

I'm very excited about what's coming up. It's just, I, I just can't believe how excited I am. Well, well, calm down boy.

Really? We're, we're, we're interviewing the guy who wrote good. Yeah. You said it's like, I mean, we did the Pez band band with the candies and stuff.

And you said we're going to be doing choo-choo Charlie, right? No, no, no, I was, no, you may have misunderstood. Oh, we're interviewing Sean and Charlie. Oh, oh, well, I feel stupid.

I thought for a minute that we're interviewing the guy who wrote the choo-choo Charlie theme song. Oh, I thought we were interviewing choo-choo Charlie, man. He was one of my faves when I was a kid, that good, good and plenty candy is awesome.

It was disgusting. I thought. Did you? Well, to some, it's an acquired taste.

I guess so. Like scotch. Oh yeah.

I can't drink that either. Not like tequila. No.

You know what? I think to some people, tequila is an acquired taste too though. Yeah. I like Jameson too.

I like Jameson. I think Sean and Charlie like Jameson. I'm pretty sure that they do.

Yeah. As a matter of fact, we talked about it. Jameson came up in our conversation with them.

Yes, it did. I guess they were known as the Jameson band for a while. The band that drinks Jameson.

The band that drinks Jameson. That's right. So let's find out what they had to say for themselves and just see how many shots we could do while we're talking to them.

Yeah. Let's go grab a bottle and sit back and listen to this. Okay.

Sounds like fun. Well, welcome to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. We want to welcome in, well, first of all, let me say if you've ever been to any of the bars on the south side or the southwest side of Chicago or in the southern suburbs, then you've probably partied with Sean and Charlie.

How you guys doing? Hey, guys. How are you? We're doing great. That's good.

That's good. Good to hear you. Good to hear you.

Good to see you. So you guys have been around for quite a while. Tell us how it all got started.

When did it get started and how did you guys link up together? Wow. Nah. That's a complicated question.

Charlie, you go ahead, man. You go ahead. It started back in the Bennigans days.

Yeah, absolutely. I met Sean when we were 16, I believe. Yep.

We are now in our mid 40s. I won't say what, but we met at Bennigans and we were in a band where I played drums and Sean played guitar and sang and we were doing the whole grunge scene. We were doing all the covers for that and then, you know, progressed later on in life closer to the last 12 years, I think, that Sean and I have been playing now.

We just started doing a two-man thing and it was just something where when Sean had his first son, he needed a part-time job and I was doing some solo stuff and he said, hey, man, you want to play? And I said, sure, let's do it. So then over the years, we've gotten fiddlers and some bass players and we've grown the band to more than two of us, so. Let me jump back a hair there.

So I remember when we met in Bennigans, way back in the day, Charlie and I were both like busboys and hosts. We met each other there. After about three months or so, I had a band that just started in high school that was just, we were just getting out of high school or just in our senior year and we started at Moraine Valley Community College and I was walking through the courtyard one day and I had a word from our bass player, guitar player at the time, that our drummer wasn't going to make it.

And I remember seeing Charlie and I remembered from Bennigans that he was a drummer and I thought, hey, man, you're a drummer, right? And he said, yeah. And I'm like, you want to be in a band? And he said, yeah, I guess, man. What do you got going? I said, we got practice today at like 530.

You going to make it? Give me the address. Here we go. And that was it.

And Charlie showed up to practice that day and he was the drummer in our original band when we were 19 years old, 18 years old. And he just showed up and then that was it, man. Like we've been playing music together ever since.

It's been about, what? 30 years. Yeah, 30 something years. Which Bennigans was this at? This was at Chicago Ridge Bennigans, 6400 South Bridgeland Avenue or 6400 West Bridgeland Avenue in Chicago.

Right, right. I know where that is. Right in the corner right there.

We were blues busters, man. We were blues busters back in the day when Bennigans was all about flair. We had to have a little bandanas and pins tied all over us.

It was great. So what did you call the band back then? Blue Collar. Yeah, it started off as Blue Collar, right? And then I'll never forget when we went in to record our first three song recording at Star Trax with George Lewis, we went in there, recorded, and we found out halfway through the recording session that there was another band in the area called Blue Collar.

And they were like a Styx tribute band. That makes sense. And of course we were all talking about like, well, what if they got the rights to the name? We had no idea.

We were kids. What if they got the rights to the name? We better come up with a different name. And then immediately it drove us into this spot where we had to try to figure out what we were going to call the name, what we were going to call the band.

So our bass player at the time, we were big into grunge, right? And a lot of the songs that were coming out at that time were really emotional. And we thought we were right on the cutting edge. And one of our, the bass player at the time, Pete Johnson, he said, how about The Crying? That sounds like it would be a shame.

So for about, oh, I don't know, four months, we were known as The Crying. And then when we got so much shit for being The Crying after so long, I think Charlie out of nowhere decided we should be called Wishbone Taylor and the Freak Out Seven. Now there were only four of us.

We figured, hey, that's a way more uplifting, catchy name than The Crying. The end of that band was the Wishbone Taylor and the Freak Out Seven. I love it.

I love it. So where you guys were playing? Parties and some clubs or whatever? Yeah, I don't think we did too many clubs. There's more like, you know, American Legion halls and, you know, kind of at scene backyard parties and doing that sort of thing.

But yeah, we weren't even 21 barely. So I think there was a bar called Brewskies in Blue Island that we used to play. And we would play Bailey's and, you know, some of those places down Western Avenue, but not a lot.

Yeah, we had a guy named Kevin Davis, who was into or had relations for many, many years with our bass player, Pete Johnson's daughter, sister. And he, out of the kindness of his heart, allowed us to rehearse in his basement. He had a house in Mount Greenwood with another one of his buddies, two more of his buddies, Marty and Vinnie.

They would, he totally like basically gave us free run of the house. And we would practice all day while they were working. And as a result, when it came down to like, they would have parties, they were like, Yeah, we're going to have a party and you guys, which Bone Taylor and Freakout 7 or BMC or whoever we were at the time, you guys are going to perform at the party.

So we had a lot of parties that were kind of, you know, these guys were about, oh, I don't know, eight or nine years older than us. But they had taken us in and allowed us to do such awesome things where we didn't have the resources to go practice anywhere, anytime we wanted. So we ended up playing all these parties for these folks that were a little bit older than us.

But we were like their, you know, we were like their little brothers that had a band. It was really cool. So it was like payback for the use of the house and use of the practice space, right? Exactly, exactly.

I mean, and a priceless commodity at that time. So you've evolved from then, right? And so let me ask you this. How are you guys surviving right now with COVID-19 thing going on? And I'm sure you didn't play much in March or April or May, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because the amount of times that Sean and I play have condensed to not much.

But at the same token, those shows that we have played have been so much more magical and so much more fun because we don't really have that outlet that we normally were having probably every Friday, every Friday and Saturday for every week. You know, that's what we were doing. Now it's kind of like maybe twice a month, maybe if we're lucky.

But we had some great, amazing people that play with us. You know, that's what Sean and I, I always say, Mike, the only way to be successful is to play with people that are better than you. And the people that play with Sean and I are way better than both of us.

I mean, I don't deserve to be standing with the fiddlers and the bass players and the people that we have playing with us. And it's just like, hey, you know, the more that we get this and what's happening right now is a lot of these people aren't playing as much as well. So we're getting more opportunities to play with more people because they're just looking for work.

So it's a blessing and a curse because it's like, well, it's terrible that you're not making that money. But now we're getting opportunities to play with a lot of really cool people because they're just looking for, you know, hey, we'll give you $150 or whatever the case is. Sure.

Sure. And they come out and play. So it's cool.

Who is in the band now or how many are in the band? Or do you have a rotating fraternity of guys or how does that work? You know, that's a good question. For years, for like, you know, for like seven years, the first seven years, it was just me and Charlie. It was just Sean and Charlie as a two piece band.

And we played just about anywhere. And the blessing of that was we could play any place like we could play. We played at Beggar's Pizza, like next to the bar, you know, because we fit in that four foot by four foot area that they had to spare.

And it was great. And after we did that, you know, for six years and we were playing back in the day, we were playing 250 shows a week or a year. Rather, we're playing every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and occasionally Sunday, every week, all week.

After a while, both of you just play guitar or what? Charlie was playing guitar and kick pedal and singing harmony. And I was playing tambourine and singing lead. Yeah, and it was funny that you say that because like the first four shows that we played, we both played guitar.

Yes. And then it became very apparent that my job in the band was not just to sing, but to like go around and entertain people at their tables and run around and do stuff while we were performing. And it just was pointless to bring the guitar out anymore because I never played it.

And then I suppose that gets to the really the core point of, you know, that hits on something. Sean and Charlie, there's been a million two man bands, three man bands that play in these bars. And some of these guys and some of these acts that you see, they're amazing musicians and amazing singers and things like that.

But the thing that has really made Sean and Charlie stick out over the years is the performance aspect of it, not just the singing and the music performance, but the showmanship. And really, that's what made us us. I keep saying blessing, but I'm lucky enough to work for Shure Incorporated.

They're the manufacturer of these great microphones and wireless systems and things like that. And throughout the years, I've been able to test and use these wireless systems. When we went wireless, I was able to walk around the room.

We were getting up on the bars and performing on the bar tops for people and they ate it up. We were nowhere near as good as some of these other two or three man bands that came out that were amazing musicians. But that interaction with the crowd and that showmanship just it made people want to come back out and see us again, because it wasn't about how great the music was.

It was about how much fun they had when they were out. I agree with that 100 percent. I've always been a proponent of that school of thought.

A little entertainment goes a long way. I haven't noticed, Paul. Are you still shaking and shimmying? A little bit.

Not as much as I used to. What do you feel has kept you guys together all these years? Being able to forget how much I can't stand Charlie every night. Honestly, we've been through so many ups and downs.

I was talking earlier about playing 250 shows a year. During that time, we were best friends. We will always remain best friends.

But during that time, after the first year of doing that many shows a year, we were both working full-time jobs at the time, too. We would show up to a show, we'd pull up, we would silently empty our cars with the gear, go in, set it up, get ready to play, and the first words that we said to each other other than, hey, was, all right, what do you want to play? What song? Yeah. We immediately would go into the show.

It's an alter ego, if you will. It's a separate personality. But no matter what craziness happened that night, or no matter if Charlie did something that pissed me off, or I did something that pissed him off, or we blew the world away with our brilliance, no matter what, whether it be good or bad, the next day was just another day.

It was just a new day that we're starting. Last night was a lot of fun, and it was an interesting experiment. And let's see what we can do next time to make it either different or better or whatever it was.

But having a short memory, I think, has blessed us throughout the years. We never take anything to heart. It's about having fun, and it's about performing.

And if you get too tied up into egos, it's just going to eat you up and kill you. So you've got to have a short memory. Yeah, and I'm going to add, Sean, I mean, the ego thing, to me, and I think anybody that has played music with other cats knows that egos is what kills bands.

I mean, that's what kills relationships, but especially with bands. And that's something that Sean has never had, and I don't have. And I think that's something that works for us.

You know, I'll never forget people asking me, like, Sean had some stuff going on, and I forget what it was, in his personal life. Or someone asking me, like, hey, what's going on? And I go, I have no idea. And they're like, what do you mean you don't know? Didn't you just work with him? I'm like, yeah, but we don't talk.

So I think that we really don't. And Sean already referenced it. But yeah, I mean, we're all about the music when it's about the music.

And if I'm hanging out with Sean, then we'll talk. And if Sean needs me, he knows. I'm there for him all the time.

He can call me whenever he needs to. But if he don't call me, then we just go about our business. Yeah, I see that.

And guys in general, I think, are sort of like that. You know, we're trying not to be too much where we bicker and stuff. And if we do, you know, we go out in the street, we punch each other out, and then we go back inside to have a beer, right? Exactly.

That's right. Or a Jameson. There you go.

So getting back to the band aspect, like Paul said, do you have a set group of guys now? Are you rotating people in and out? Yeah, I think right now we would love to have a set group of people. But, you know, we referenced it earlier that there's so many musicians. So we have this gentleman by the name of Phil Roach, and he's a fiddle player in Chicago.

And people that know fiddle players, they have said to us, he's the best fiddler in Chicago. And it's like, well, he's not playing with us because Sean and I are awesome. He's just playing with us because it's a lot of fun.

But he plays with Dave Matthews' cover band, and that's where we actually took him from. We do an event called The Witch Fest, and we do that every year. And that's where they were playing with us on that bill.

But then the same thing, we have Garrett with Ron Burgundy, he's playing bass. I mean, so we just – and then we also have – who's with us this Sunday? Or this Saturday? Eitan, Eitan and Dave Ganz. And Dave Ganz, which was from the Flapjacks.

I mean, he's a phenomenal player. And Eitan, who's a wonderful prodigy on the keyboard. I mean, he's with us.

And then we actually have Hannah playing fiddle with us. Yeah, Hannah Watson. Yeah, we just had so many people that just – we continue to cycle through.

So if we're able to keep people, we would. But it just – it doesn't seem to go that way because everybody that plays with us plays with several different acts. They're a jobbing musician, right? You got it.

Yeah. And what's great about that is so many of these acts that have these great musicians in them, like the Chippenbillies and these other excellent bands, they're very structured, right? So they know exactly what they're going to go play. They're going to play note for note everything that's, you know, maybe not note for note, but close to it.

They've got a particular thing that they need to be a part of, and it's held together by some management system or something. And they really appreciate when they come out with Sean and Charlie because you never know what the hell is going to happen at one of our shows. I mean, we have Phil come out to play with us, and we might play Four Non Blondes, and we might play ACDC, we might play Frank Sinatra.

You never know what we're going to play. And he is going to do a killer job no matter what it is, and I think they just love this freedom that comes from playing in a band that you never know what might happen, and the stakes are fairly low, right? We're not going to hold them. He's great, but we're not going to hold anything against them.

So I think there's a certain amount of freedom with playing in Sean and Charlie that comes with the fact that we're out there to please the crowd, and whatever they might want on any given night is what we're going to try to give them, and they love that feeling. So it's been great for us to be able to play with some of these great musicians that otherwise would be playing with some top acts throughout the area, but it's more structured on that side, and it's amazing. Total loser and home free.

If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? Cause I must be traveling on now Cause there's too many places I got to see We've never played with a set list, ever. There's been twice, two or three times. I mean, we've played maybe 3,000 shows.

There was two or three times when we had a set list, and it was interesting. But that's more like just piggybacking off what Sean said. There's no set list, so we just literally go, and Sean and I know which songs we can do, and then the crowd may call a disco tune that nobody knows how to play, and we just go, all right, G, A, what key, and then we just figure it out on the fly.

So you mentioned some of the songs you might do, and it's quite a variety of stuff, but what would you consider your genre of music, or what are some of the songs that you guys do that you enjoy doing or that have a great response? You pick two, Charlie, and then I'll pick two after you. Okay, I was going to say, Sean references, I heard him talking to somebody at our last gig that people refer to us as an Irish band. Sean and I are not an Irish band.

However, Sean's family is from Ireland, so, I mean, the amount of songs that Sean knows for Irish type stuff, we can play Irish all night long. So we will play on Western Avenue and St. Paddy's Day parades, and we will do all that kind of stuff. But we're not really typically an Irish band, but I would say we do a lot of Irish music.

In that bog there was a tree, A rye tree, a raglan tree. Well, a tree and a bog, And a bog down in the valley, oh. Oh, oh, the raglan bog, And a bog down in the valley, oh.

Oh, oh, the raglan bog, And a bog down in the valley, oh. From that tree there was a limb, A rye limb, a raglan limb. And a tree, a tree and a bog, And a bog down in the valley, oh.

Oh, oh, the raglan bog, And a bog down in the valley, oh. Oh, oh, the raglan bog. So, uh, you know, Wild Rover, Whiskey in the Jar, Sean, those will be my two that I'll take.

Yeah, that's a good point, Char. And it's funny, because on any given night, we would play, like, if we played 35 songs on a show, we might play two Irish songs. But then people would call us up and be like, Oh, hey, we got a St. Patrick's Day show we want you to play.

You're an Irish band. And then we're like, well, I mean, we're not, right? What's it pay? What's it pay, baby? But it was really funny that those couple of Irish songs that we played really stuck with people, and that's what they remembered us for. But I would say, like, for a long time, when we were coming up, when we were just starting off, we would play Kiss by Prince.

And Charlie, Charlie would sing this song. And when it got to that, that crazy high part, he would just nail this, and the whole place would fall down and go, No way, I can't believe he nailed that. That's one.

And aside from that, and the Irish tunes that Charlie was talking about, I would go with, I think the one that we've had for longer than any other has been Piano Man. Yeah, oh yeah. It says everybody knows every word to it, and we don't have a piano in the band.

Other than every once in a while when A-Town plays with us. But we would sing, we'd play that song and bring the crowd into it as hard as we could, and everybody absolutely loves every second of it. And that's still, when we play Weddings, that's the request.

We want the last song on that to be a version of Piano Man. It's crazy. You say sometimes you play me a memory I'm not really sure how it goes But it sounded sweet and I knew it complete When I wore a young man's clothes Oh What were the three songs that you guys recorded at Star Trek? Do you still play them? So, there were several of our bands that recorded at Star Trek.

The first band that George recorded was called Blue Collar at the time, and that was Away, Plaid, and Uniform. Which, oddly enough, those were the three names of the songs. And after recording them, realizing that there was Away, Plaid, and Uniform, we decided, or I decided as a joke to tell my people that were listening to the songs that it was a tribute to graduating from Catholic grammar school for a girl that was like, Away, Plaid, and Uniform.

That was very grunge-like, those three songs. I still have them. It was recorded on 16-track 2-inch.

And we got tapes. We got cassette tapes of them. Yes, we did.

We got DAC. And DAC. Well, we got DAC Masters, right? But we never got ADAC multi-track or anything.

So I, every once in a while, will have somebody send me a recording that they were given 30 years ago or 25 years ago or whatever it was of this. And it's them having taken their single cassette tape that they were given and recorded it and transferred it to some digital format where they then email me an MP3 of a cassette tape of those songs. They will forever be some of my favorite songs in the world.

But man, after all that money we spent. So they were original songs, right? All original, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then my band, so after Blue Collar, or after Blue Collar kind of split ways, Charlie went off and recorded some music with another band and himself, he did Charlie Lyons by himself and did an album with that and did another album with a band called Gray Flower.

I went off and did an album with a band called BMC. And that we also did at Star Trax with Jeff, Jeff Lewis, who I think you probably know. Yeah, I know Jeff.

And that album was that we were in that perfect age where we were traveling around to college town to college town to college town and playing a lot in the city but as an original band, I mean you guys know, I mean you guys are coming up in a great age but by the time we were coming up as an original band, it's really hard to A, find the places that want to hire you for performing for the night and you're not going to make any money doing it. You might get $100, $200 a night as a regular original band playing at these places. So Jeff's recording of BMC probably sold the most albums of my world before we went to a cover band with Charlie.

How about you, Charlie? Yeah, I mean, I did my solo album with George and then Gray Flower, when I was playing drums in that band, they actually, we recorded with George as well. So yeah, I mean, we've gone to Star Trek, what, four or five times to record and we were big fans of George. I never recorded with Jeff but I know he was usually the studio B or the other studio but yeah, George was always helpful to help, you know, to kind of help us with, oh, that's not the right key.

The first experience I remember with that, exactly what you're talking about, is during Away, which was one of the first songs that we ever recorded there, George, I was in the vocal booth singing and he's like, all right, now hit the harmony and I hit the harmony and then he goes, hit it again. He might've made me sing this like 15, 16 times and the whole time I'm thinking he's going, no, that was wrong, try it again. But the whole time he was just ping ponging, multi-tracking and ping ponging this together.

So when it came out, it sounded like a hundred people singing this part, I'll never forget it. He tricked me into it, but it was a brilliant move. Yeah, George and Jeff are both pretty good engineers and Jeff, even to this day, has a great ear and he's a master at Pro Tools.

Which is an art in itself, yeah. So now, what about original music now? Are you guys doing any original music? Have you written anything? Still writing, but not performing. Yeah, I know for me, you know, Sean and I have gone back and forth a few times where I'll send him chords and, you know, back in the day, I would write the chords and then Sean would be able to improv lyrics and sing stuff.

And I think right now for me at least, I'm too old and I feel too old, you know, to really talk about it. So I'm more like, hey, let's do Johnny Cash or let's, you know, I'd rather spend my time learning, you know, let's do Hotel California or something like that. So I don't really write anymore.

On my side, I still write. I still write, but I don't perform them at all. Like I've got songs and songs and songs that I write, but they're not the kind of songs that Sean and Charlie would perform.

They're more heartfelt. It's more like poetry set to music with a cool melody to it. It's as much as I absolutely love doing it and it's a great outlet for me, like psychologically, to have that, but it's definitely not stuff that people want to go out on a Saturday night at some local bar and listen to.

Let's take a time out here for a second. 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. So what do we have coming up in the future? We got anything booked? We do. We've got about, we've got, this weekend actually, we're at a little place called JJ Shortstops, I think it's called, in Worth.

It's a little bar, roadside kind of joint with a lot of fun people in it. JP Shortstops, right? Isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's at 111th Street.

You got it. 111th, in Worth, yeah. Or Chicago Ridge, one of those two, Worth, Chicago Ridge.

Really cool place, you know? So let's try to think of some of the places that we have shared. Like, I assume, when I went BMC, when our first original band was starting off, one of the first shows that we got to play was for, opening up for Gorilla. It was a Jimmy Gorilla? It was a, he was a guitar teacher for players for a long time, Gorilla.

Anyway, we played at Stingray. Do you remember Stingray? On 105th and Cicero. Yeah.

It was right in the days of the Thirsty Whale, way back in those days. Well, I don't remember Stingray. I'm not saying we didn't play there, but we could.

You guys were probably far above that at that time. That was, we're talking about, how long ago was that show? We were, what, 18, 19? Yeah, it had to be 25. That was like 25 years ago.

And now, call me vain, call me hopeful, call me whatever, but I, you know, as Sean and Charlie has been now for 15 years of playing throughout the southwest side, particularly, but the south side of Chicago, I always hope that, you know, if we ever decide to hang it up, we'll be remembered along with bands like the Dancing Noodles and the Five Guys Named Mo and all these bands that were around for so many years just doing such great things. We still have a long way to go, but man, that's always in my head that those guys that will be considered in the same chapter as some of those guys, some of those bands. Well, thank you, bud.

Thank you, bud. I think you guys have, you guys have really made it in for yourself. And that's why when I got ahold of, I just sent something to your email the day Charlie responded.

And I said, that's good. I said, I'm glad you responded because I love talking to you guys. Same, same.

And I think you guys really made it in for yourself. Like I said, when we started out, you know, if anybody's been on the south side or anywhere in the south suburbs, then they party with Sean and Charlie, you know? Oh, yeah. Every marquee you go by in the south suburbs, you've seen Sean and Charlie up there.

Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'll still never know. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it's good, though.

I remember driving down the street, down Cicero at one point years and years ago, and I drove past three places within, I don't know, four blocks. It all had Sean and Charlie on their marquees. I think maybe we're too narrow of a demographic chart.

You might want to spread it out a little bit. Well, I'll tell you too, which is funny because people always ask, how did you guys come up with the name? Obviously, there's obvious, you know, obvious. We got real creative.

No, but it's funny. The story is, Sean and I played, I want to say, was it, I don't even remember, but it was when we first started playing, and the guy that owned the bar said, well, I got to put it in a paper or something. He had to put it in there.

And I'm like, he's like, what's your band name? And we're like, we don't have a band name. And he goes, all right, well, I'm just going to call you Sean and Charlie. And that's how the name came.

We were just like, okay, whatever. I remember saying, I think Charlie and Sean sounds better. And Charlie was like, no, man.

So, have you guys played anywhere else besides the Southwest suburbs? Have you ventured downtown, up north, out west? Oh, yeah. We had standing gigs at places like Fiddo in the city and we've done so many, well, if you don't count private parties, we've done private parties across the tri-state area, if you will. I know that's not that big of an area, but it's big when you don't have to go that far to play a show.

But in the city, they ate it up and it was great. But we found that bang for the buck, if you will, was better in the suburbs than it was in the city. The city was, all right, go down there, try to find a parking spot, load your gear in, up three flights of stairs, play for the night.

And the crowd was loving and I love the crowd. And even the management of these places was great. But what they didn't realize was we could make the same or better money every night playing at places that didn't put us through the heartache of going through all that bullshit.

Yeah, we'd go to our daughter and just pull up right by the stage door and just load our stuff up. Yeah. And even when we were playing 250 nights a year, it was all within 20 minutes, maybe half hour drive.

I think the furthest we really went was out to Shorewood. And that was one of my favorite stories. So I had a Wednesday night pool league that I played in for a long, long time.

And my whole family, it was like a tradition. We played in. My older brothers were still on the team and I was joining the team and we played for years.

And one night, Charlie and I played, it was right at the very beginning, out in a place in Morris called 312, 3-12, however you want to pronounce it. And we played that night and we played to the crowd. And there was a couple that came into the bar and they walked into the bar out of, I think it was a wedding anniversary or something.

And they owned the bar, but their whole goal was they wanted to go someplace that they could just hang out. And they walked in the bar and he'll tell this story. He says, I walked in the bar and I saw live music and I thought, oh crap, like I hate live music.

It does nothing but sound cheesy and take away from the night. And he hung out at his table and about halfway through the evening, he came up to us and he was like, I have a bar in Shorewood and I hate live music, but I want you guys to play there. Can you play there on a Wednesday night? And we said, well, we both have real jobs and I've got a pool again Wednesday night, but I guess, okay, what? And he said like, all right, two weeks from now, whatever, Wednesday night.

And we said, all right, cool. So we go there and we play. That's the first time we walk into this place.

It's out in Shorewood and you walk in and it's kind of like Country Bob's Bunker, right? It's like, it's not something that we would expect it at that time to do well at. And we walked in the door and I remember like, oh shit, head down, I'm setting my gear and I'm thinking they're not going to dig this at all. And halfway through the set, everybody's totally into it.

By the end of the set, my pool team that was in the south over here in Oak Forest ended and drove out there. And my brother was on the pool team and he came up to me and he goes, did you see the banner that he hung up behind the bar? And I was like, no, I didn't see it. And I look up there and it says, Sean and Charlie every Wednesday night.

And I thought, well, he didn't clear that with us, but I guess everything's going okay. Go ahead Sean. We did play every Wednesday for years.

We did for almost two years. We played every Wednesday night there. And then we had another gig that was every Thursday night.

And that's how we ended up playing 250 shows a year. But people often wonder, when we play now, people call us up and say, hey, Sean and Charlie wants you to play the show. How much does it cost? And we'll tell them and they'll say, okay, cool.

We'll have lots of Jameson there for you. I don't know. This was never a plan.

We never wanted to be that band that drank a lot of Jameson. But what happened at this place, the place I'm telling you out in Shorewood, every Wednesday night is Charlie and I would get there. We'd set up our gear.

The show starts in 10 minutes. We would go up to the bar and we'd have a quick shot. And we just chose randomly.

What do you want to have? Let's have Jameson. Okay, we'll have a shot of Jameson. And then for the night, we would drink pints of Kettle and Red Bull.

Right? Do you remember those days, Charlie? Oh, yeah. We were like, ah, it's a wonder we had so much energy at the end of the night. I couldn't fall asleep.

I don't know why. But those pints of Kettle and Red Bull, they would last us like two hours, right, because you're playing songs, you're going the whole time. And we would play four-hour shows with no breaks back then because you could smoke in the bar, so there was really no need for a break.

So we would just keep going. Anyway, people would come up and request a song. And one guy comes up and requests a song, and we'd play it for him.

He goes up to the bar and says, I want to buy the band a drink. And she says, well, they drink these Kettle and Red Bull, but that drink they already have there is going to last them two hours. And he says, oh, okay, well, do they do shots? Well, yeah, well, they had a shot of Jameson before the show.

Get them a shot of Jameson. So then we played his request. He brings us a shot of Jameson.

We do a shot of Jameson. No big deal. Ten minutes later, guy walks up and requests a song.

We play his song. Five minutes later, a shot of Jameson comes up. Before you know it, so many shots of Jameson are coming up that people are like, wow, these guys drink a lot of Jameson.

And for the first two years of our thing, people would come up and say, Charlie, I heard – I've seen you guys. And they would never say, oh, you're really good or you're really entertaining or any of that. They would just be like, you guys drink a lot of Jameson.

And it became this unrequested aspect of the band that really served us well over the years. That's funny. But people would also say, that's iced tea, right? There's no way you're drinking that much.

Well, you could have been like Dean Martin. He used to have apple juice in his glasses. Good point.

You're right. And I – betrayal that he had was that he was drunk and I was like, nope, he never drank. He was sober as a judge.

He's the only guy that could get away with it. That's right. That's right.

And for all my nieces and nephews coming up that saw shows, that's exactly what I told them I was doing. I was like, oh, no, no, that's not really whiskey. Don't ever try to do that.

This is all fake. So is that one of your favorite places to play at or do you have some favorites that you really enjoy playing at? Yeah. You know what, Charlie? You take this one.

I'll join in afterwards. No, no, I'm fine. I'm just saying, but Riley's is one of my favorite.

And I'll tell you the reason why Riley's is one of my favorites. When Sean and I were probably 16, 17, 18, we used to have fake IDs and we would go into this place and we would see bands like Mr. Blotto, which I love Blotto. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? So we would go see these type of bands, Hello Dave, and just like all these cool bands like when we were younger. So now Sean and I have become something where we loaded all these underage kids, you know, and would pack the bar.

Obviously it's people's parents that know Sean and Charlie, but now their kids are like coming over from college or whatever. But it's just cool to me. Like it's a nostalgic thing to be like, man, we used to come, like we have Dave Gans who's going to be playing with us this Saturday, but he used to play with the Flapjacks with Mike Brown on drums.

You know what I mean? You know, Blotto, like all these different people, we used to go to Riley's. So now it's cool to play there for me. I don't know, Sean, for you if you have a place, but that's my favorite.

You know, I have so many places throughout the years that have been favorites. There's so many shows, but you hit on a point there that was something that's one of my favorite points to talk about when people ask us about that today because everybody always say, oh, what's your favorite place to play? What's your favorite song to play? You know, this and that. One of my moments that I now enjoy that I never enjoyed back in the day was when we're playing at a place called Lake Riley's where, you know, it's Black Wednesday and there's a thousand people there and they're just tripping over their own shoes.

And these girls will come up to us or these kids will come up to us and they'll be like, oh, my gosh, Sean, Charlie, it's so nice to see you. My parents love you. And all I can think is I probably played shows before you were even born to your parents.

And to piggyback off that, Sean, I'll never forget, I had this young girl at Riley's come up to me maybe five years ago and she said, do you guys play any Rod Stewart? And we really don't, but I'm like, well, you do Maggie Mae or whatever. So I said, sure, yeah, we'll do some Rod Stewart. She goes, I have no idea who that is.

My mom wanted to hear it. And I'm like, you don't know who Rod Stewart is? I'm like, oh, God. Wait till you get to the day when they tell you to your grandparents or grandparents that saw you.

That's coming soon. That's where I'm at. That's where I'm at.

Have you guys had that? Have you guys had that? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, that's awesome. God, that's such a goal.

My grandma used to come see you guys. You know that's coming soon, man. It's coming soon.

My grandma said she used to date one of the guys in the band. I don't want to hear about this now. So going back to the Irish music, you guys do some Irish music.

You've got a song on your website. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we do lots of Irish.

Yeah, probably, girl, yeah. Well, I took a little stroll on the old long walk A-I, A-I, A-I With little old girls we stopped to talk On a fine soft A-I, A-I Asking them what the fellas do Because their hair was black and their eyes were blue And after I did I picked up a little word From a song called What's odd about that song, Galway Girls, it was very popular in the States, a little popular, and then we were playing it when it was just a little popular in the States, of course, we were doing it before it was cool. And then it became very popular in Ireland, and a guy named Mundy, who's an Irish performer, did a version of it.

That song was written by Steve Earle. Yeah, that's the version we always played of it. So, if anybody wanted to find out where Sean and Charlie are playing, how do they find you social media-wise? SeanandCharlie.com All one word, yep.

S-E-A-N-A-N-D Charlie.com Yep, and I think that's pretty much for the Facebook, Sean and Charlie, one word as well. So, yeah, those would be the two best places to find out where we're at, and we love to hang out and meet new people, so we'd love to see who's coming out and what they want to hear. Well, hopefully you get to playing some more soon and doing some more shows now, but you never know what's going on with this crazy world.

You were talking about playing Wednesday through Sunday, I says, those were the good old days, you know? Yeah. I don't know if that's happening too much anymore, at least not for a while, so it's just a shame. We'll take what we can get at this point.

We'll throw the occasional recording up on Facebook or something, but coming into September and October, I think we're going to be playing at least once a week, so that gets us back to going. A lot of that is private events, weddings, and things like that. We've been doing a lot of that over the years, and then a few bars here and there, and once things start opening up, man, we'll be jumping right back on it.

That's right. All righty, guys. Thanks for getting together with us tonight.

This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Great time.

Great time. Yeah, and thank you for the invite, for asking us to do it. I mean, super appreciative.

Thank you. Well, thanks a lot, guys. We appreciate it.

It's been great talking to you guys. Have a good one. We'll hopefully see you soon.

Thank you so much. Sounds good, guys. Peace.

We're going to keep those cards and letters coming in, folks. I think I had too many shots of Peterson. I'm sorry.

I dozed off. I think I had a few too many. It sure didn't be Gora.

It sure didn't be Gora, I'll let you know. Well, that was fun. That was fun.

That was a ball, man. Them guys are crazy. Yes, they are.

And I failed to mention that Sean was actually driving while we were interviewing him. Yeah, the first half of the interview, he was driving home from work. Yeah, so that was kind of fun.

Some great stories. Some fun times some guys have had. And you know what? They're just rip-roaring.

They can't wait to get out again and keep doing it. Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, they're playing.

We've got some shows coming up, a couple of shows. It's just about a show a week coming up. So hopefully they get all those shows in and get to play them.

And I'll tell you, if you haven't been out to see Sean and Charlie, you're missing a lot of fun. Now, it's not just Sean and Charlie. They have a whole band.

It's called Sean and Charlie. And they are a lot of fun and very entertaining. So be sure and get out and see them sometime soon.

Especially if you like table dancing and bar dancing, they will perform for you. And who doesn't? Exactly. Exactly.

I mean, a place I used to go to, the owner used to tell the people, if it's round, stay on the ground. If it's square, get your ass in the air. And people jump out of the tables and they'd be dancing away on the square tables, man.

Nice. Yeah. Well, it's good to be back and talking to people.

Yeah. And good to be talking to you. Yeah, hopefully we'll get some other things lined up here coming up real soon.

So, sorry we missed a couple of weeks there. Yeah, and then we had a derecho come through. I had no power for four days.

All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you soon.

See you next week, hopefully. No more derechos. No, no.

Thanks for listening. Thank you. Thank you.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music that's played on this podcast. The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed. The Rock and Roll Chicago.

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