Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How are you doing today, Ray? I'm doing good. No coronavirus yet.

No, that's good. No, no, I'm doing great. How about you? I think I'm well.

That's good. I think I'm well. I'm hopefully I'm well.

I was wondering why you had that plastic bag over your head. Well, that's to keep it keep the germs away from, you know, maybe I should have thought of that. I was thinking about a body kind of it makes it a little hard to breathe, but a little bit, a little bit.

Yeah. So what's on tap this week? What we got going on? We just we talked with Lauren Bauer and Jonathan Bauer and Tony Medina of the band Midnight Special. The Midnight Special band.

And and they're kind of a kind of a blues rock and rock and blues band, rock and rock and blues, funky monkey, funky monkey, ice cream, isn't that a Ben and Jerry's? Yeah, I don't know. I think it is. I think it is.

I think it is Ben and Jerry's. But they have some interesting stories and how they got together and and they're they're spread out all over the Chicagoland area, but that they get together and do some some rock and blues every once in a while. Yes, they do.

And they got a bunch of shows coming up soon. So why don't we get to talking to them and see what's up? Let's do it. All right.

Hey, we're at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 once again. Joining us today is the band Midnight Special. We've got Tony, John and Lauren.

How you guys doing? Good. Thank you. Doing good.

Great. We're healthy right now. Yeah.

Thanks for coming out. Thanks for coming out. That's a good thing.

Yes. Thanks to our sponsors Lysol for this one. Yes.

And everybody gets a free roll of toilet paper on the way out. So it's going right on eBay. That's right.

Oh, so about a hundred bucks, right? Exactly. Exactly. So tell us a little bit about the band.

How did it get started? How long you guys been together? Well, I'll refer to John on this one because four of the members of the band, two of which can join us today, were the original group and this has been going on for over a decade. So yeah. So myself, the bass player, Barzeen Vaziri and Tom Gilman, the drummer, we got together in school, in college, we went to Western and we graduated in 07.

So during that time, we were all music majors, either education or I had business, business degree, music business. And so we were all together on that scene, you know, in the department playing in different ensembles and stuff like that. So we got together as a three piece.

It was originally myself, Barzeen and Tom, and, you know, we kind of just played whatever we felt like at the time. It was a lot of the classic rock. It was a lot of blues rock, stuff like that in that vein, straight blues, anything I could really sing.

Okay. That helps. It helps.

It's like, I can't do that one. I can't do that one. I might be able to do that one.

But that's how that started. And yeah, it was really coming from a small town going to even just a state university. I never knew a bass player and nor really played with a drummer.

I mean, I was probably one of a handful of people in the town that played guitar. So what town are we talking about? Mendota. Oh, okay.

Okay. Just west of here on 34. So, and so that was, yeah, that's where we started.

And it just, I decided when I was a freshman in college, like, well, if I'm going to play, I got to learn how to sing. And that was just, oh, that was just something that was, that was some groin pain. So that's where it all started.

And then, you know, we all get older, we graduate, we all do our own thing. And we still played throughout that time. And we knew Lauren, Lauren went to school at Western and she worked at the place we always used to play.

And she would come up and sing a few tunes with us. And then it was after we graduated, I called her, I'm like, you know what? I just don't want to sing anymore. Are you still around? Like, are you still wanting to play and sing? And I kind of just took off from there.

So I know some of you have some, some jazz influence, right? Yeah. So John started sax in high school, right? Grade school. And before that you did cello.

Oh, really? Yeah. At four. He was in an orchestra.

So like, there's been, and most of the people in the band have similar backgrounds, just very disciplined professional musicians, which is really great because, you know, I'm not. So I've learned a lot from them over the years. And yeah, I joined probably two years after college.

I had gone away abroad for a while. And then when I came back, graduated, and he called me out of the blue. And that's how that whole thing started.

And now we're married. So that obviously worked out in several ways. And then... Was that an offer when he brought you into the band? It was kind of a contract.

Yeah. I see. Yeah.

So, but, you know, I really lean on him when we're writing music because I, although I do play guitar, it's just better for everyone if I don't. So I'll tell him, this is what I'm hearing. You got to help me write this.

And so that's kind of where we're at right now. And then I want to say, has it been a year already since we've brought on Tony and brought on Andy? But Tony's got a good background too. Like there's been several people that have been on your podcast that Tony's played with in the past.

Tony? Take it away. Wake up, Tony. Wake up.

Yeah. I played with Maxwell Mojo and some of those guys are with Cadillac Groove. Okay.

Okay. And I met John maybe just in the circuit, you know, and Lauren and got to know them, befriended each other, you know, and some mutual work related stuff too. I worked, I used to work where he currently works and we just kind of hit it off and everything's been really good, you know, you guys are great talent to me and I've been, you know, they're very humble and very modest.

He's a great professional couple here and, and they remind me of your local modern, well modern cause they're still around too. But anyway, to me, they remind me of the Tedeschi and Trucks similarities because he's a fantastic musician and singer and he can sing, don't let him fool you. It took him a while though.

And she's awesome as well. So now you've got some, I see you've played with Toranzo Cannon. Yeah.

I know Toranzo. Yeah. He's a good dude.

Yeah. I shared a stage with him and Mike Wheeler and met some of those other casts and met James Cotton. He's like a mentor of mine for harmonica player, like James Cotton and Billy Branch hung out with him on numerous occasions as well.

So would you say most of your stuff is blues oriented or yeah. Yeah. That's definitely rooted there.

And that's, you know, that's Tony's wheelhouse, the blues. Like, so when we're doing some pretty, what do you call it? Low hanging fruit stuff, I mean, you know, we let Tony rip and it's great. And I think, you know, I, I really appreciate, you know, compliments, Tony, thank you for being professional.

But at the same time we're, we're having fun, you know, we have day jobs. The crazy thing about our band is we're so spread out. So Barzine now, interesting thing about Barzine, he's legitimately one of the strongest people in the world.

He's a, he's a professional power lifter and an educator. He looks like a bass player too. Yeah.

And he's an educator. So you can imagine what those kids are thinking like, oh, I better stay in line with this guy. Yeah.

So, you know, he lives in South Elgin. Tom grew up on the South side. He lives right across the border in Indiana and he's a music educator.

But the, the nice thing is since we've played so long together is we get more excited about getting a rehearsal together sometimes and working on new stuff. But you know, we can, if we ever needed to, in a pinch, it's like, we got four hours of stuff, let's just go do it. You can count on that with those type of players.

And then Andy Schultz, he was introduced to us by Tom. And he's out from, you know, out in Indiana and I was looking at his profile. I know Andy does a show on WDCB and then Lakeshore Public Radio for jazz, it's called Jazz Organic and it's all, you know, jazz performances on like organ and stuff like that.

And he was a saxophone player at Ball State with emphasis on jazz. And what I understood with Andy, it was after jazz, he's like, I'm going to try this piano thing. And it's like, and he's great.

And you know, he's, he's, you know, it's one of those players that it's like, okay, what key is it in? What, where are we going to go? And it's like, and you know, the light bulbs go off and then we're off to the races. And it's so fun because you don't know what's going to happen. It could go off the rails or it could take off.

But that's always fun, especially with this type of music, you know, it's so open and with blues, it could go anywhere. But so yeah, we're up to what then at full, full power up at six people then in the band that went from a three piece. And the cool thing about Tom as a drummer is he is like, and he's, I don't know, he'll probably correct me if I'm wrong.

If he hears this, I believe Buddy Rich is a huge influence of his and you can hear it in his wrists. And he's just, he is like lightning. It's incredible.

And you know, he, he loved drum line and stuff like that. So he's super disciplined, but he's got that trio mentality drummer. But when you throw it on top of six people, it's just this wall of sound.

And it's when we start getting going on stuff, it's like, you're always looking back at him like, whoa, what are you doing? Well, you need to tell him to check out our interview with Greg Potter. Oh, cool. Greg Potter is now the drummer in the Buddy Rich Orchestra.

Nice. Yeah. So it's a pretty good, it's actually our only two part podcast we ever did because Greg loves to talk.

One of the coolest things I was able to do, I was in college at the time and I was home for break. And one of my former teachers, she's like, we need, I sat in for saxophone, it was this big band dance music stuff. And she's like, we're doing this benefit concert for Louie Belson.

And I'm like, who's Louie Belson? And then I found out, and I'm like, are we ready to do this? Like, is this really going to happen? You know, like the guy who pretty much invented the double bass, right. And he was originally from Rock Falls. So we went to Rock Falls.

And at the time, I don't know how old he was, but you know, we had like sing, sing, sing on the chart. And as a joke, he's like, there's a 16 bar break here. We're going to do 72.

Okay. And we thought he was just joking, like just open vamp, right. And one of the trumpet players I remember after the gig, he's like, I counted, it was exactly 72 bars, did this drum solo, it was unbelievable.

So it's weird how music brings everyone together, right? It's the best, it's better than social media, like getting out there and meeting people. Through music, and everyone has that common thread and everyone's having fun. And it's, it's unbelievable through five degrees of who you might know, right? Really crazy.

Well, it's kind of in this state, too. What's really interesting is that a lot of the people we have talked to on our podcast, a lot of them have started out like you guys did, like playing cello, playing, you know, an organ or something, and then, then learning to play the drums or the guitar or something. And, you know, Joel Hoekstra, he's a lead guitarist from Whitesnake.

We interviewed him a while ago. He started at like three years old playing cello. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, I think Barzine, the bass player, he, we both took the same, they called the Suzuki string method. Okay.

And I think he was a violin player too. And you know, our son, Jack, we got him started on that, but we've kind of taken a hiatus from that and working on guitar parts. And how old is he? Just turned five.

Nice. Okay. Yup.

And then we have a two-year-old too, so. Got to pass the violin down to the two-year-old now. Yeah.

I mean, it's unbelievable how small they make these things now. We actually gave the violin to Barzine's daughter. We gave up, we got to a point where we were bribing him with candy to go to the practices and he's just like not having it.

So we're going to take a break from that, but he seems to like the guitar and it's important to us that we keep it going. So, and to John's point about, you know, just the community around our type of music, the blues, like Tony's in another band as well. He plays actually more with the Hurricane Project than he does with our group.

But Al Spears, who organizes that group, he does a jam, which if you haven't been out or heard about it, it's really great. I think it's Tony's at the third Thursday of every month. Yeah.

Except the long ones, sometimes it's five weeks. It's always the last, the week, Thursday of the week before the last week of the month. And yeah, he has those at the law office, if you guys heard of that venue.

I've heard of that. Yeah. It's in Yorkville.

And you know what? It's great because I think part of the challenge of being a blues band is like when venues hire you, you know, they want you to play a swing the whole night and they don't really expect you to go a little bit slower. And so sometimes you get frustrated because you can't play what you want to play. You know, you got to break out the summer of 69 and God, that's painful after 10 years.

You know, you're just done with it. Right. So the law office has been early.

Jesse's girl too. 8-6-7-5-3-0-9, man. So we love the law office because it's got that kind of refuge for people who want to play their original music and they have great groups that come through there and they're always really good about scheduling.

But yeah, that's where that blues jam takes place. So if you're not in the city, it's a good opportunity for you to come out and check it out. Look on a website as well.

The law office. Yep. Is it right in downtown Yorkville? Yeah.

Is it? Yeah. It's kind of cool. They took the old... Right on 47 there, right? It used to actually be a law office and they changed it and turned it into just a very modest bar with a stage.

Nice. Yeah. Real great.

So we'll be there next Thursday. But aside from some of the gigs that we have planned, which, you know, are just a handful over the summer, that's where we really like to go is we like to go to the jams. So whether it's sitting in with another artist that might be in the Chicagoland area or looking at the schedule for some of those blues events downtown, which can be rough, you know, they do open jams on Sunday nights.

It's like, oh God, I got to go to work on Monday and find a sitter and all this. So yeah, but we're out there jamming just as much as we are with gigs. So do you guys do mostly original stuff or is it, I mean, is there some cover stuff in there? Yeah.

We have a whole album recorded and it's in the can. We just have to produce it, which is half the battle, right? So we actually went back to the studio two weeks ago and we redid one of them, the one that we really liked. And we'll probably have that out here in the next week or two.

So that tune is a single we call Black Water Rising and it's really, really swampy. So a lot of slide. We like that real Southern gritty kind of blues, like Delta blues sound.

But you know, when we're playing, we like to do the obscure stuff that people don't really hear. And we argue about it all the time. Like, well, I want to do A New Day Yesterday Live, the whole album.

I want to do that. Or I want to do that new song by Marcus King. And people are like, who the hell is Marcus King? So it's kind of like you got to balance it with some of the Stevie Ray Vaughan stuff that people know.

Sure. You know, some B.B. King and Aretha Franklin. So you got to kind of figure out what that groove is before people just kind of are confused and... This is amazing.

This is amazing. So regarding like the original stuff, it's really this really unique process because I can't write a melody. My life depended on it.

This is true. I mean, I just can't. I can't do it.

And then, you know, Lauren, you know, her thing is writing. That's what she went to school for. So like a good example is the one song that's on the website.

This was years ago. We had the song for years. And I remember Lauren came home from work and she goes, so I wrote this song in the car on the way home.

And then she sang it. And I'm like, how the hell do you do that? Like, I'm the educated one, right? And she always throws that back at me. Like if I say, I got to be really careful with the music lingo.

If I say half notes, she'll be like, oh, stop it with that music talk or time signature talk, you know, like we're talking in tongues or something. But it's really great. You know, the past couple of weeks, she's been cranking out melodies and stuff and she'll be like, this is what I'm thinking.

And then it's just OK. Then we're down in the basement, hashing it out as quietly as we can as the kids are trying to sleep. And like, it's supposed to be a rocking tune, you know, it's like, I can't turn anything up.

And those kids are trying to sleep. But it's pretty funny. But what's interesting with what we have recorded and once it's finally done is I remember looking at Barzine when we tracked everything and I'm like, did Lauren write like a conceptual blues album and she's not telling us or is there something she's trying to tell us? And Barzine, like his eyes, I remember his eyes like bugging out.

He's like, he says, holy S-H-I-T, he's like, I think she is. You know, this was when we first recorded the stuff in July. She's like, I don't even know what you're talking about right now.

But yeah, this is the first of you hearing this. It was pretty funny. It's great.

We're looking forward to it getting done. I've always been terrified of doing original music because I can't write a melody. So it's just great balance.

Everyone knows where to stay in their lane. And then when, you know, Tony started playing with us a little bit more and more, you know, like I said, Lauren has some straight blues stuff that's out on the Facebook, you know, that bow down and out. And this is like, OK, this is where we need to, you know, gas Tony up and let him loose.

And it's right in his wheelhouse. So and then Tony does songs with us as well. We do a lot.

A couple Muddy Waters tunes and see the big legged woman. Yeah. Oh, Freddie King version right there.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good, too.

Good, too. So do you play anything, Lauren? In the band or? More cowbell. No, I'm just kidding.

So like I had said before, like I can play guitar, but I'm not a lead guitar player. That's for sure. Rhythm questionable.

But yeah, I can. And I play it every day. I'm just you know, when when you're around like someone like John, who's just very, very good, it's it's hard to call yourself a guitarist.

So you are you're you're you're good. You're technically skilled. And I'm not I'm not that I'm not a soloist or anything.

I'm I'm more of just a novice guitar player, but I can I can play I can hang to use it to use it in your writing or do you just write the car on the way home? So I use I use a voice recorder on the Apple iPhone, right, a lot. And then I've discovered this program online called Note Flight. And so it literally allows you to write music like notated out time signatures, everything as either piano sheet music or you can write bass lines, guitar lines, whatever.

So I'll do a lot of that. And it's very time consuming, but it's so much easier than trying to communicate what I'm hearing. I mean, you just sing it and it comes out or.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. I guess.

What's it what's it called? Note Flight. Note Flight. Oh, no, no, no, no.

You don't sing it. And it dictates you literally write the music. So although I can't play piano and I couldn't tell you where the A note is on a guitar fretboard, I can write music like using this program.

It's been great. Oh, OK. OK.

Yeah. Check it out. Yeah.

It's pretty cool. And there's a free trial on there. And so that's what I'm doing right now is I'm trying to and it teaches me a lot to teaches me because you can play it back and you can hear where it sounds right and where it needs to be adjusted.

And then you learn why you're adjusting it and it's neat. So it's helped me out a lot, just kind of organizing all the things that I'm hearing in my head that I want to get out. And it's I could give it to him and he'll look at it and be like, oh, yeah, I know what this is, which is crazy to me.

It's a total different language. So although I wasn't formally trained, it's it's helped me a lot in my communication. Yeah.

One of the interesting things Lord told me, I never thought about it. And there's a lot of us like Barzine and and probably, you know, Tom's been playing his whole life, too. It's like in musicians, it's like we learned a language before we learned how to read.

Right. I mean, it's kind of weird. Yeah.

You know, and it's universal, you know, looking at notes, it's a universal language and we're learning it at such a young age, which is cool. And I mean, I think as a guitar player to switch gears, you know, like now's the best time to be a guitar player. The amount of information and educating.

I mean, the Internet has just blown it all up. Right. You can learn anything.

Sure. On YouTube. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it is. We still reference it. Like, how does someone play that? How to play.

Yes. Exactly. There it is.

It's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. I mean.

Now, would you say, though, now that you play more by ear than you do reading? Yeah. Yes. Although you know how to read music.

Correct. Yeah. So when I decided to play guitar, I was going into high school.

I mean, it's so cheesy. It's one of these, like, moments I'll never forget in my lifetime was there was someone in town who. We all remember those cheesy moments.

Right. So why not share for everyone? So it's funny. A couple of things happened.

So when I was a kid, my uncles, both of them gave me Van Halen cassettes. And I used to have this Panasonic boombox in the living room and had the EQ across the top and it lit up. Right.

And I would sit and watch it and just crank that thing up. And I used to time jumping off the furniture when, like, David Lee Roth would say, jump. And my parents would just be yelling and screaming at me.

And we used to go over to my uncle's house. And he's a huge vinyl collector. And he had the old, is it the Allegro speakers that are made by, is that Sony or something? I don't know.

They're huge. Right. And the cops would be called because he's, like, cranking Frantham Comes Alive.

And I'm, like, grasping at my head, this guitar's talking. What's going on? So all this stuff is, like, always in my head. And then when I was in eighth grade, the local high school came by and they did, like, a little tour with the jazz band.

And this kid came out front and he did Star Spangled Banner on the electric guitar. And I was, like, that's awesome. Yeah.

And, like, in a small town, you don't get candy like that to see. And I go, I don't care what it takes. I'm going to buy a guitar and I'm going to play.

But I'm going to do it on my own terms, right? I'm going to use, I'm just going to figure it out. So I bailed hay for the local farmers. I did whatever I could.

I didn't know what to buy. I bought a, it was a Billy T Maverick Series Washburn. It was, like, a $200 guitar and a little 20-watt amp and a Zoom 505 pedal.

Didn't know how to tune it. I just, man, that sounds good. I just learned that way.

And then I remember going into high school, meeting that fellow musician that inspired me to play. I broke a string. I didn't know what to do.

I was, like, dead in the water. I was, like, what happens now? Yeah. I'm, like, can you please restring this? And he, like, strummed.

He's, like, what are you doing? Like, it was completely, because I didn't know how to tune it. And he's, like, this is how you tune it. And he tuned it.

I'm, like, I'm done. I can't do this. Like, he's showing, he showed me one time how to make a bar chord.

I'm, like, forget it. I literally set it to the side for a while. And then he's, like, hey, you need to listen to, I always said, oh, you know, Eddie Van Halen is the greatest guitar player alive because that was just ingrained in my head from the cassette, right? From when I was four years old, just hearing, you know, Van Halen one was just mind-blowing stuff.

It's, like, alien guitar at the time, right? So he's, like, you need to listen to Hendrix. You need to listen, check out Stevie Ray. I'm, like, who's the Stevie Ray guy? And it's, like, I'm, like, whoa, this is it.

And a lot of people my age, we all had that same experience, right? It's everyone who was inspired by those, those Texas guys and then, like, Hendrix. Like, I didn't even know. I thought, I used to watch professional wrestling when I was little and Hulk Hogan used to come out to Voodoo Child.

I'm, like, that's a cool song. I didn't even know who it was. And, like, I had to find out where the song came from.

And then my brother bought me Experience Hendrix for Christmas when I was a freshman in high school. And I was, like, where, where has this been my whole life? It's wild. And that stuff will always, it'll stand the test of time.

Right. So. Now you can Shazam it, you know? I know.

Yeah. Right. That's what I needed.

Yeah. At the time. But it's, it's just crazy.

Like we were saying earlier, the amount of information musicians can now acquire because of the internet. It's just an endless, you can go down rabbit holes, you know, regarding gear, musicians. It's just, it's insane.

Yeah. It's just insane. So.

So then when you went to college, when did you start to actually take lessons or? I never took lessons. I never took lessons. I still said I was going to teach myself.

Okay. So the couple years in high school were tough after I figured out how to tune the guitar. So, you know, I still played sax and the band and that, whatever, but you know, I just was doing my own thing with the guitar and listening to all this music.

So when I got into college, you know, I met a bass player down the hallway and he played with the band. And, you know, a side story with that is I played with him and another drummer who happens to be the drummer now for, what's his name? Cole Swindell. He's like a top 40 country artist.

And now Chris, the drummer lives in Nashville and it's been on Letterman and everything. I'm like, I used to play with him. Yeah.

You know, it's like, no, you didn't. Well, here's a grainy video on YouTube. Yes, I did.

You know? So, but. It's proof. Right.

But the great thing about college and granted it was, you know, just a state school is you can look at it. There was always two ways of thought with music people. And I'm, this is my theory and some people probably disagree and some won't is there's people will put themselves in a group of people who are better than them and they will force their own hand to become better.

And that's what happened with me as a saxophone player. I was terrified. Like these guys sitting next to me, I have no business being here.

So it was like, you better get your stuff together. And then the same thing with, with guitar, I met, you know, a few people here and there and it's like you ping ideas off of each other. And you know, there was, there was times where I spent hours at college putting the saxophone down and just working on the guitar.

And that's where I really, the learning curve, the bell took off. Well, if you, if you played cello at age four, right, so you must say he has some musical training there and in reading music then, right? So, so like with the guitar, I could read a chart. So there was times that I sat in for like jazz trios or stuff or jazz combos and stuff like that.

I could read a chart and know where the head of the song was and the bridge and the vamp and all that stuff. But there was, there was stuff that was thrown in front of me that was like, okay, I need to sit down and really figure this stuff out. Especially in jazz.

Jazz is a whole other language. Oh yeah. It's, it's like, I always get really frustrated when people say they're a blues, jazz player and they're really just a blues player.

Because it's like, if you go to a jazz club and you're a blues player, you're just, you're waiting for one, four and five. And then the rest of the time, everything is just completely, you know, and it's hard. It's a total other discipline.

It really is. So, so I stay away from it. Jazz, they have the nines and tens and twelves.

Right? I thought it stopped after seven. Yeah. So what kind of a guitar are you playing out with the band? What kind of gear you have? Too much.

Yeah. Oh yeah. We got too much gear.

It's, it's, you know, you know, we got a Les Paul, a Strat and a Tele. So there you go. You got it covered.

We got it covered pretty much. And what's the one thing, Lauren was busting my chops the other day. She's like, wait a minute, when you're bringing two amps to the show, you're running them both at the same time.

And she started laughing at me. She's like, you're such a, like a nerd because she's like, I thought you were switching in between. I'm like, no, I'm blending them together.

I want the Wallace sound. She's sitting there shaking her head. In disbelief.

Yes. Yeah. So definitely a nerd with the gear, like most of us and it's not a good time.

There's too much cool stuff out there. I just got to stay away from, so. Yeah.

And what kind of harmonica you play there? Electric and acoustic? Yeah. I got a different variety. I got a little bit of Seidel and I also play Golden Melody, but the Golden Melody is a Horner and Seidel's are their own.

Right. So how did the name come about? It was a vote. So I really liked, I really liked two, I really liked two band names and I felt like it was the appropriate time to change the name that we used to be in college and kind of graduate.

Right. Because now we have Tony, now we have Andy and it just felt like the right time. We were writing original music.

Let's become something more than this, this college band that kind of was for the past. So I really, really wanted it to be Mama Tried. I thought that name was awesome and I also petitioned for Midnight Down, but ultimately I wanted it to be a band decision, so we had a vote.

And so the Midnight Special, there's actually a story behind it. Yes, it's a song that CCR does and no, we are not a CCR cover band, but it's kind of a neat story about a penitentiary down South, I believe in Texas, where in the late 1800s, if you were an inmate there and the train passed by and the light from the Midnight Special shone in your cell, then it meant that your woman was on the train with your pardon. So it's kind of cool and worse.

We like that Southern, like real gritty sound and, you know, we also blend in a little bit of to John's point, the Texas blues, but that really swampy sound is kind of our home base and we thought that that was a neat little story to tell. So the name is relatively new. I want to say we've only been using it now for probably less than a year and it seems to be working out.

I mean, I haven't had too much confusion with, well, do you know that song? So, uh, so far so good, but that's kind of where the name came from. What was the name? If you don't mind me asking. Uh, the previous name, the Normal Street Band.

And the reason why it was called that was because these boys all shared a house on Normal Street and they were a bunch of musicians. Everyone lived in the same house. Did Barzine live in the same house? No.

Okay. So Barzine didn't, but Tom and John did along with a handful of others. So that was the deep meaning behind that name.

Like you said, I can't write music nor pick a band. Right. Yeah.

He's got technical ability, just not the creative side. It's not easy coming up with a name. The names are, I mean, coming up with a good name is tough.

There's only about a hundred specials out there. Yeah. We learned that the hard way.

So after that we were Googling and we're like, damn, they're out in Rhode Island and they're a big band. Shit. People are going to think that that's us.

I definitely don't play the trombone. So we had to figure out how to get clever with our URL and all that. So you guys might, I don't know if you're, you might be too young to remember a TV show called Minutes.

No. Oh yeah. Oh, we love it.

As a matter of fact, so he didn't mention this, but John also played in McComb's premier funk band for years called Flung Bung. And so he did all of the Chicago and Lesbian Seagull and all that stuff. Cause so we love funk too.

So we, we know that show very well. And we, we, we watched it before. So that's it.

I like that name. I like that name. That's not radio friendly.

He didn't pick that name. He kind of was brought in on that as it was going. I had a PA so I became a member of the band by default.

Yet you sang all the songs. So what kind of shows you got coming up? Well, we have a small little gig coming up in Indiana, I believe beginning of May. We decided to cancel all of our shows until then because of the Corona virus.

I'm just kidding. We actually never had anything scheduled, but it seems like it would have been anyway. Sounds good.

Yeah. In Cherville I see. Yeah.

Cherville. So Tom, the drummer who now lives in Indiana, got us connected with, with the folks there. And then we'll be moving on to a lot of the Ottawa and Seneca areas because we do really well with bikers.

We like, you know, the, the biker rock and then they seem to enjoy it. So we're going to go down and do Fat Daddy's, Dockside, couldn't get in the Psycho Silo this year, but hopefully for 2021. And then we're at the law office early August as well.

So that'll be probably a really good show because we'll be able to do all of our original music, which is what I'm so excited about. Very cool. And where do we find you social media wise or website or whatever? So if you, if you use the keywords, The Midnight Special Band, you should be able to find the website and the Facebook page.

So we had to add the and the band at the end, just to make sure we separated ourselves from all the other midnight specials out there. And what about on Facebook? Facebook too? Yep. Same thing.

The Midnight Special Band on Facebook. Alrighty then. Well, then we'll have to get out and see you guys.

I frequent Fat Daddy's and Boondocks and those places. We're excited. It'll be our first time for all of those venues.

So, oh yeah, Tony has played there before. Tony. Fat Daddy's has like a one pound hamburger.

Is that the place we stopped at after playing golf that one time? Yep. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. We don't know anyone there and we just, we've been doing a lot of reaching out and it'd be so much easier if you had some like a booking agent to deal with all this, but I swear to God they'd fire us in two minutes because of the schedules with the rest of the band members are so insane. No, I'm going to be at the Arnold Classic that weekend.

No, I have marching band. I have show choirs. It's just like, and then even, even myself, like some are shot for me because I work at the racetrack.

So we're always busy with something going on at Route 66 Raceway or we've got our NASCAR weekend, which occupies a good amount of time. So yeah, it's the scheduling is kind of crazy, which is why we usually shoot for one, one gig a month. This point.

I see. You said Tam was a school teacher or in Cherville or? No, he's, I don't know. It's South side.

I don't know what school district exactly, but yeah, he teaches some young kids and I want to say like third grade through fifth grade, he's a music educator. And then Barzine was a music educator as well. And now he became Dean of a school district out West or Western suburbs.

So yeah. And like I said, we, we met through, you know, the music program where we are. I bet he runs a tight shipper.

If you YouTube Barzine Mazzeri, there's some terrifying video of this guy, like bench pressing a thousand pounds. And when I say a thousand pounds, I'm not joking. I'm like, it's just, but he's a gentle giant.

And it's so funny when he's carrying our gig, our gear in, because I think people think that he's security. And then when he puts on like a jazz five string elite bass, it looks like it's made by like play school. Yeah.

Yeah. It's tiny. It's hilarious.

I remember seeing, I can't think of his name now. Mr. McQueen. Oh, Leslie West.

Leslie West. Leslie West. Yeah.

I mean, this was back in the early seventies. He was this big guy. And he had a little, he had a, it looked like, it looked like a Mickey Mouse guitar.

Yeah. Playing like the Gibson junior with the single P90. And it's like, I love Leslie West Mountain.

That stuff's right in the wheelhouse too. Oh yeah. We do Mississippi Queens on the set list.

So nice. We love it. Nice.

That's good stuff. Good stuff. Well, thanks guys.

Thanks for coming out today. Avoiding the coronavirus. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll try and get out some of your shows.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.

That was Lauren, Jonathan, and Tony from the band Midnight Special. And we'll have to get out and see them sometime. Definitely.

Definitely. They're playing some pretty cool bars. Fat Daddy's and Boondocks.

You and I stopped at Fat Daddy's one time after golfing. That's right. Yes, we did.

You had that one pound burger. Yeah. I don't think I had that today.

I don't remember what I had. I don't think either one of us did. That thing's huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course, after golfing, I was slimming down.

I had to keep my boys figured. That's right. That's right.

Yeah. After burning all them calories. I had to go off course.

Yeah. Exactly. Cussing.

I was cussing. That's right. So, yeah.

So they'll be out and about playing some nice venues and got to check them out. Great stories from them and how it all got started and just the whole development. I mean, so many people we've been talking to, you know, they start out playing cellos, violins, saxophones, and then just become rock stars.

That's right. That's right. This podcast was brought to you by Note Flight app, I guess.

I guess so. Yeah. Well, Note Flight, you know, you can send us a check if you'd like.

That's right. No. But as always, though.

But I'm going to have to check that out. I am going to have to check out Note Flight. I already looked at it.

So. Oh, cool. But as always, this podcast is brought to you by the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 and the Road to Rock Radio.

Check us out every Monday on the Road to Rock Radio dot net at six o'clock. They feature one of our podcasts and check out the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum website. Sign up to be a charter member today.

OK, I will do that. I actually am already a member. Yes, so am I. I'm telling the other people.

Oh, OK. I thought you were talking to me. Oh, no, no, no.

OK. All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody.

We'll catch you next week. See you next week. Bye.