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

How's it going today, Ray? Pretty good, Paul. How's Bayou? Forget about it. I'm good.

That's good. How's Bayou? Forget about it. How's Bayou? How's Bayou? Me's good too, you know? Hey, did you know that there's 29 days in this month? Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. It just so happens, so happens I do.

I'm glad you do, because I didn't realize it was 29. I thought there was only 28. Well, it happens once every four years.

Once every four years. Can you imagine that? Yes. So I got an extra day this year.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I have nothing planned. Well, we'll have to find something for you.

We'll have to maybe have some more interviews, have some more people come in on the 29th. Maybe go out and see Mike Tafoya's band. Mike Tafoya's band.

That's right. They're going to be out and about playing. Called Tafoya.

That's right. A three-piece. Three-piece.

For now. For now. But we just talked with Mike.

Yes, we did. Him and Craig, his drummer. Yes.

So let's go see what Mike has to say. Sounds good. Let's go.

And Craig. And Craig, of course. Hey, everybody.

We're here with Mike Tafoya and Craig Searholm of the band Tafoya. How are you guys doing today? Well, I'm doing great. How about you? Very good.

Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming out on this snowy, cold day. It's a wonderful day to get out.

So tell us a little about the band, the current band you got together. Well, I have Craig, and then I have drums and vocals, and then I have Leslie Diana. I don't even know how to pronounce her last name.

But she's our new bassist, and we're going to add a fourth person pretty soon, but I don't want to jump into that yet. I've been doing a three-piece for a long time. I just find that guitarists, they want to just be a big lead guitar player, and they want to do Van Halen Eruption over some slide blues tune.

I'm like, oh, no. Well, don't you like playing with other guitarists? Yeah, I used to play with Gil. Gil is my partner.

He was my peer. He was my equal for years, and everybody else just kind of comes in and clums around on it, and I just don't need it. I can play two parts at once if I need to.

I got a drummer who kicks butt, and he's King Kong over there, and on top of his volcano, and they light up, so then when he hits his drums, it's like the lava flowing up in the air. Our new bassist, she's little, but she has this voice like, on the bass, and she has a really good feel, and that's what really counts. I'm a stickler for parts, but man, if the bass and the drums don't happen, I might as well just- Right.

You got to hit the foundation there, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, always. It's crazy.

So we've been doing this. And this is the foyer, right? Yes, the foyer. Well, I had the band before, Lost Boys, but I hadn't played around in a consistent fashion for a long time, so I wanted to, and Dave Angel kept the bassist of the boys and the Bs.

Right. He produces and records my stuff. Right.

Hi, Dave. Oh, no, he's- Hi, Dave. Yeah, the M&R guy, he'd say, hi, Dave.

But, you know, and so doing this band, I was, well, the other band, I just kept playing and I was looking for something to play. Now, everybody knows that I play rock and roll, but then I did the Bs, and that was a little more, you know, song-oriented. And it was really, we played like the boys type, you know, style, but we made records that were, you know, radio-worthy, right? Not just, you know, pabbling for, you know, the masses, it was made real good songs.

Well, we, so when I started that band in 2002, I was looking for something to do, and I got reacquainted with the BBC sessions from Fleetwood Mac, and I'm thinking to myself, this stuff is really good, rock, good bluesy stuff, you know, and then they do more Man of the World and these really great songs that are real deep. But I was thinking to myself, well, these are the best songs, blues-type rock songs that nobody's ever heard, except for, you know, old cats like me, but they work, and I was trying, because I just knew if I went out doing the boys thing, people are going to go, ah, yeah, well, whatever, you know, anybody can do that, and I'm like, no, we did it really well. It's just- Yeah, you did.

And so I just went with that, and then when that band finally disbanded, well, David kept saying, call it Tafoya, and I just didn't want to be like that, you know. Right. It's all me, man.

Right. And, but then I found out that it bit me in the butt. The other guys decided it was them, and I went, well, okay, then do your own.

Get your own guitar player, and they ended up like, well, no, we want you to play. Well, no, I'm not shoveling crap for you guys, you know, I'll shovel crap for myself, you know. I'm too old, and it's starting to mess around.

And so then that disbanded, and I just kept trying to find something to go on, and I'd get with these guys that, you know, they wanted to come and join with me, but they were going, well, I played with this tribute band, that tribute band, I'll show you how to make money. I go, well, yeah, but I want to make music. Right.

It's more about trying to be real and trying to have something that people would, you know, gravitate back to. And so, and then I found Craig, and Craig and I talked for like weeks, you know, trying to figure each other out, because I didn't know him, and I wanted to make sure we have this Peckinorder thing, you know. How'd you meet him? You should really tell him how that worked out.

The Peckigood? It worked out great. Through our hairstylist, Elyse. Yes.

At Rockstyle. Oh, I see. Yeah, Rockstyle.

Elyse Hossfeld. Anyway, she, her and her husband, Bruce, who used to be with Eric Steele, the singer for Eric Steele, way back, and, you know, and they're really nice people, and she just, you know, I was kept putting out these posts, I wanted a bassist and a drummer just to come on, you know, let me take you for a ride, and they're like, ah, we'll help you guys, we'll make this happen for you. No, you won't.

Yeah. And she got us together, and that worked out great. Well, see, I ended up with him, we ended up working out well.

And like I was saying earlier, just we talked a long time about what do we both want, you know. And he owns his own company that's real successful, and it had this same premise, you know, there's a dichotomy that goes on with any kind of partnership. There has to be a funnel.

If you, if there isn't a funnel, it's a bottleneck and nothing happens. Somebody has to finally make the, you know, be the arbiter and the decider. And he does that with his company, and I said, well, I'm not going to sit around and wait for everybody to make a democratic decision and have it 99% of the time, you know, be wrong.

Because, you know, experience comes from full pause, and I've done, I've made more mistakes than anybody, but I did them so long ago, I lived through it. And we, you know, and we both want to, you know, create, not just, you know, regurgitate, you know, somebody else's stuff just to do it, you know. And we do things we like to do, and, you know, it still comes from, has to be one, you know, one focus at least, you know.

But Craig and I work all the time together, and then, you know, Leslie started with us a month and a half ago, but she's getting her business in order. She was in a band out in Colorado, and she just moved here, a little rockabilly group. And I'm not going to mention them because they don't have any pertinence here.

You're never going to see them. But we, we're just doing this, and, you know, I mean, I'm already working with, I'm talking with Dave about recording now, and I have an agent from Chicago, Jackie Lane, and I have another one from Chicago, in California, and one in, Dave Devina in Florida, you know, and they both book national, and they're like going, Mike, we want to push you. I go, is this like some tribute or a copy band? No, no, you're an artist.

You do, you play, you know, you still keep playing, and you seem to be very interested. I know I'm absolutely interested in these guys, this new band, because they all want to work together. We're all going for a focus.

And you guys have been together for a thousand years. How? Because you have back in order, you know, what you're doing, and you all want to do the same thing. Right.

At least you, or you, you get your minds together, and you look forward and try to get a simple, consistent vision. So, so now, so now this is all original material that you're doing? No, no, no, not yet. Well, I don't know if you took some of your old songs, and we have been in this.

Well, we're doing a, we're doing one Beast tune, and we were going to do some other ones, but you know, the boys, we might do Lean and Mean, but I don't see doing boys right now, because I, that's just so old. I mean, the only people that really know that band, and a lot of people know it. Right, right.

But it's from way back, they're not going to go out anyway. Right. And there's a couple songs, like I said, Lean and Mean, because I co-wrote it, so I can, and it's a good rock tune.

Right. But we're doing like old cover songs, but they're, we do them, we extrapolate, we take a theme and extrapolate it like they did back in 1970 and 71, where the music was back in the, that was the Holocaust, Holosun, Halcyon days of rock and roll. I mean.

Oh yeah. Beautiful music came out from all avenues and levels. And so we'll take things like Good Morning, Little School Girl, and then I take them to, I take these songs for a ride.

And, you know, Craig just, you know, we work together and they show off the guitar playing, but it's not like, you know, me just being a riffmeister, you know. There's lots of parts. Yeah.

Well, Tommy Holland used to say, Tafoya has parts. God dang it. Well, you know, singers, they want to sing.

They want to get up there and sing it. I'm like, oh no, no, tighten this thing up. Tighten that up.

You know, it's, I try to make like our live thing more like how you do a pre-production for a record. You get all those little details and nuances happening. And yeah, but we have lots of parts, right Craig? Oh yeah.

Lots and lots. So now who's doing the singing? Who's doing the vocals? Craig and I, right now. And then we get, yeah, right now it's Craig and I. Okay.

It's pretty equally split. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we even do a Foo Fighters song. We're doing, you know, stuff, but we're doing stuff of mine and we're going to be throwing stuff from the Lost Boys. Sorry, I didn't want to mention them.

No, I'm kidding. It's my band. But we're doing some of the originals and they, like Jackie wants to hear some other ones off that, you know, cause they rock, they rock songs.

But I have a whole buttload, that's a better word, of stuff. And Craig and I played through them and, you know, played along with them. We're going to do a lot of more originals, but right now I need to get the band.

You got to pick the ones you want, right? Well, it's just getting the band tight. Letting them learn how to work with me, you know, with all that Tafoya's gosh darn parts, but you know. As he shakes his head.

As Craig shakes his head. I mean, I'm shaking everything else. So is there any favorite songs you guys do that, you know, some stuff you're doing now? Well, I just like asking me, is there, you know, what's your favorite child? You know, I like them all actually.

I don't have anyone that I don't like to play. Otherwise we wouldn't play them. But we have things that are really cool jams that are like, you know, looking for somebody old Peter Green song, then good morning school girl.

We do not fade away where they just go off in these parts, but they bring it back. I remember those old days when we used to listen to bands go, homo pi to everybody, but they would just take songs and all of a sudden. Oh, there it is again.

You know, like I don't need no doctor. You know, it just has all your breakdown in the middle. And then also dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad.

It's like, that's what I want to do. That's what I hear. And I figured out a long time ago.

I don't need to do stuff to keep current because music is there's only two types of music, good and bad. And, and I'm not going to play stuff. The kids play because I don't think that way.

I don't hear what they hear. Sure. Sure.

And they will like, you know, I mean, we have a song that I wrote a drive-by Sturgis drive-by is like, is my fly me to the moon and Europa Santana drive-by, but I wrote that. And then Sturgis and young people go, I like that song. And it's like real kind of.

Melodic. It's melodic and jazzy and kind of, you know, Latin rhythmic is she almost, but you know, it's not over, nothing's overdone. It's just, it's just sort of how, how I feel about playing.

And then the rest of the guys I'm with, and now the guy and girl, but what do you think is a favorite of yours? Somebody looking for somebody. Yeah. Oh, he likes that one.

It's just an old. I'm a sing it. That's why I don't sing it.

I don't sing that one. It's just, it starts with a nice sound to be boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

Kind of a sensual kind of tune. It's a mantra. It has this flow, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

You know, but it's skin setting. It's just really cool. And then I take it.

And when you watch it, we have a video out right now of it. And we go into this whole Santana Hendricks thing in the middle, but it's not going Santana Hendricks. It's me doing our thing, but we're doing this really.

You have King Kong over here. I got a fever, but it's gonna be my only way Looking for somebody I mean, it sounds great. That's what really kind of drew me together with him was the melodic part of all these songs is really there.

And that's what I always liked growing up, and even today. I like the melody part of the tunes. Although I'm a drummer, I can bang out this heavy stuff, but I want to hear this song, man.

And then I want to play the drums to that song and make melody with the melody. So that's kind of how we really, man, we hooked up pretty quick. It was kind of cool.

So, I mean, I get your point on the melodic thing. Yeah. You know, people get, a melody gets stuck in your head.

You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, the ear cancer. Yeah. So what's some of your background, Craig? Where'd you come from? Oops.

Where you going? Oops. I'm just a Chicago guy. We ended up in the suburbs, but I think I've been playing for, I don't know, 40-something years now.

Always in a band, always played, always played, always played. But again, it's the Chicago area. It's cover band central.

Sure. And, you know, you just got to, you want to play, you got to fit in. Right.

Well, you have to do that, like you said, to fit in and to keep busy. And keep busy. And make some money anyway.

Try and make some money. The money was never super concerned for me. I do just fine.

Yeah. But I always wanted to have fun. I always wanted to just have at it.

Right. And our local band here, you know, we played a lot. What's the name of that band? Some monkey band.

Soul Patch Monkeys. You see them all over the place. You know, and they, I didn't, when we started working together, I didn't go see the band.

I was afraid of getting involved in all this politics. You know, maybe those guys would get all crappy. But, I mean, Pat and Steve are really, really cool guys.

They're really open and, you know, they're still talking about, come on, man, we need to all just play together. Let's get both basses and both guitars and, you know, and have Craig play. And I go, whatever.

You know, we're all cool. But they're really good guys. They're more of a, you know, cover band, but they, you know, they're a fun band to watch.

Right. Sit and listen to and play. Are you still playing with them? We are.

Oh, yeah. We've, over the years, we've probably played 850 shows. And in that, you know, you learn how to handle, you know, what you're doing here with the sound.

Right. And how you handle people and how you handle a room and what you don't do and what you do. Oh, sure.

Sure. And then, you know, obviously, Mike has been the professional side of it for many years. Well, to take the thought processes I have, mix them with his because he's got the he's got more of the gaps.

Yeah. Yeah. Fill the gaps.

So and then the singing, you know, I sang a lot of our stuff. So once he figured out that I can actually sing, he's like, wow, you don't know. I get guys come on.

Hey, man, I want to sing for you. I kick your butt. Right.

Okay. Singing. What? Yeah.

Yeah. Especially coming from Tommy Holland had a great voice. Yeah.

And he played with Tommy. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the B's.

Well, okay. I was in the boys for six years. Let's go back to the boys.

I was in the boys all that time. And I was the last one to join. And the band was only together two weeks.

I had somebody go, you're not an original member. Only had a guy. It was a great guy.

I love the guy, Rich. Gilly wanted to have somebody else to play with him. They played guitar.

And I was Gilly's mentor. So Gilly brought me in the band. And the two of us, we just played really well together.

Well, the boys ended up turning into pretty much a parody of ourselves, I felt. And I dig the Midwest kids concept. But I thought it was just too self-aggrandizing.

I just thought that we needed to keep moving. And I had a difference of opinion with some of the leadership about what we were doing. I felt that we needed to keep growing.

And somebody in the band was going, no, no, we need to do what the audience wants. And I go, ooh, I'm afraid of that. That's like tail wagging the dog and we're on the wrong end of the tail.

We're right up our own butts. I see that. And I was together with the band six years.

And it was just so much fun. We had a lot of fun. We worked our butts off.

We would drive. We'd work four sets a night, six nights a week, drive 800 miles to the next town. We did it for years.

That's how we got good. We didn't stay in Chicago. Right.

And I saw that. I saw bands become the flavor of the month. And then we'd be gone for a month.

We were in town two months and we're gone for a whole month. Right. Medicine had Alberta to wherever.

Aspen, we played everywhere. Right. All night.

Well, anyway, we just, I wanted to make, you know, I was going to do the boys' second album. And we're doing these songs that are just like a parody. We're like a boys' tribute band.

And I was just going, that's not enough. I'm proud of the boys, but I wanted to keep growing. And so.

I read somewhere where you said you were kind of depressed afterwards. Right? After doing, I think it was the second album. Well, I was down anyway, but I don't know about depressed.

Yeah. I show my emotions, you know. Right.

I don't stifle myself and develop, you know, emotional cancer or something like that. But, yeah, I wanted to just let the music lead it. And we'll always go back.

You know, like the B's where we had radio-friendly songs, but live. I mean, we were doing even, we were doing like boys type stuff. We had Anatoly and me and Dave Angel.

We had Kent at first for a while, but he ended up, you know, he just didn't, he wanted to stay in town. And he ended up into luxury. But that's cool.

But, so what we wanted to grow and so live, but we wanted to make a song, you know, make a song make sense. The melodic sense. And, you know, if it's, if we feel it's long and should be fine.

But we don't need everything to be. I'm like going, I heard a melody. No, I don't want to sing that.

I want to do my own thing. I get you want to do your own thing, but it's the same thing. And it wasn't growing.

And then we decided to quit, you know, I was quitting. Actually I quit and then gave everybody else an opportunity to either stay with me or go move forward with me or stay. And, and Gilly got, got waylaid.

And he ended up staying with, with the singer. And it was okay because I, you know, I love Gil. We grew up together and I love the singer.

I looked at her, but I mean, I not going to do his thing just to do his thing. And so we, we did, we got together and the old agent from, from your prestige at Hanson. He, you know, he's like, he was sitting with us and he goes, well, you know, my gig is like a manager, manager's job is not to get you bookings to keep the freaking band together.

That's the manager's real job. And that's, thank you, Danny Davis. That's the manager of the boys and the bees who got fired because he couldn't, he didn't want to fire me.

But anyway, in the boys, but we were like, he goes, I got this singer, you know, Tom Holland. I go, oh yeah, Dave and I met him with the pack. Cause we knew, you know, the Howlins and stuff and went and saw him.

And I saw this guy who just had this great voice. He had John Lennon and Rod Stewart, you know, in his voice. Right.

He had a great voice. And that was his favorite guys, you know, Rod Stewart and John Lennon. And he had that look like, you know, Robert Plant and everything, but he was really nice.

And you could tell by looking at his eyes, even when he was drunk, he's a smart guy. I like smart people. I don't know why I'm with him.

But I like smart people. That's what it's about. You know? And I mean, I have, I've been in bands with people that aren't real, you know, high on the food chain, but you know, they're smart enough to know how to be smart.

And, uh, when he goes, well, I got this guy on it. So I called and they go, Mike, you talk to him. Well, me, you know, I'm kind of, I can, I'm a loose cannon sometimes, you know? Wow.

I didn't know I was that funny. You're funny looking. Well, hey, oh, thank you.

And, uh, Says Craig. I don't care. Call me late for dinner.

I'll figure out a way to eat. Well, anyway, so I called Tommy up and we talked and he's like going, and I said, talked about the boys. He goes, he, cause he knew who I, we've been met.

And he goes, I know all about you guys. I hear the singer voice. So I said, Tom, I'll call you tomorrow.

And I call him. And I listened to his stuff and he was, he had these demos, like not my girl from the B's album, but it was with, um, Tony and Hunt Sales, you know, from the Super Sales Sons. They were in Tin Man later.

And, uh, I'm listening to it. I'm like, Tom, I get it. I, I, I get your pop thing, you know? Oh, no, not my gear.

You know, it's like a Cliff Johnson thing. I go, but Cliff off Broadway is like, the only band that I actually liked hearing doing that power pop that I really enjoyed. I liked Pez Man too, but it was the same style, but those guys, but everybody doing it, it's, you know, you're stuck on the same nipple and it was dried up a long time ago.

So when Tom came and I called him that next day and I go, Hey, Tom, he goes, Hey Mike, how you doing? I go, well, I listened to your demos. Oh, cool. And I go, I think you suck.

He goes, what? I go, I'm kidding. Get your ass over here. He goes, I like you.

And we became fast friends. We found out later his stepson is my cousin, his wife of 30 years, Tammy. Love you, Tammy.

She grew up right around the corner from where I lived in Aurora. I moved from Chicago. So we had this familiarity thing.

And then us two, we were the Bert and Ernie of rock. We could just, we had fun and we both could meld our thing together. Cause we both grew up in the Beatles and then went to the stones as soon as we figured out girls, you know, and how to pee on a wall, you know, Charlie Watts.

And, uh, you know, we're going, okay, this is great. And then we just started playing and we took like, like my band took a bunch of the old Fleetwood Mac and you know, the Lost Boys stuff to, to move on. We had to start somewhere.

Right. And, uh, we, we, we were doing, you know, too wild and tame, mean and mean, drive me crazy from the boys. But we went to the bees and we made a real record, you know, that each song was had its own entity.

I mean, I remember a record president, a record exec from Epic back in 82, flew out from New York came out to take us to eat. I'm recording. I don't have time for this.

And went to had a big $900 meal at Beverly Hills. And he goes, Hey, Michael, do you think that the bees on was really good, but do you think it's spread too thin? And I knew what he was asking. And I go, what do you mean? You know, because when you hear something inane like that, you go, where are you coming from? He goes, well, you know, the audience thing, I go, it's the same singer, same drummer, same songwriting crew, same lead guitar, you know, that's the voicings of the singer and the guitar player and the drums, what you hear.

And I go, you know, of course the bass and keyboards are the same guys on each song. It's going to work. When it came out, it was right when the second, uh, how do you say a recession, music recession, 78, late 78, 79, or to happen is when even CBS had to fire half of their sales force.

You know, they were making people do double duty, which they should have been taking away, you know, weren't buying t-shirts and silk coats for every, every band, every new guy and, you know, just to give away to everybody's promotion. And it just didn't, you know, and then, and then printing, you know, coming out with a brand new album, printing a million. I remember see Boston second album, uh, don't look back, came out the same day the boys did.

I remember being in record stores to having to do sign things and you see cutouts don't look back in brand new because they have so much stock, all those things, you know, the convolution of all these elements just really wrecked it. So then in 83 happened again and our record came out and they didn't want to release a rock record. I mean, they, they kind of threw out Ted Nugent's album, you know, um, what was it? They were more into pappy stuff.

Well, no, it was just that when punk came out, these writers would say, well, this is just a, uh, you know, pushback from the audience. They don't want corporate rock, you know? No, he's just a bunch of eggheads with loud mouths wanting to hear, you know, something they can play, which is cool. Cause I like good music when it, even if it moves me, even if it's played simple.

So we, um, and when we did our album, I mean, they were like going, well, this is not going to sell. And so they released it in the middle of January, which they don't do anything. I mean, nobody even goes out of the house until the third week of January to sell songs to radio people.

Radio people had our stuff and they were playing it all over the country. Casey in Kansas, I mean, in St. Louis too, um, um, in Denver, they were playing five deep of these, um, everybody's and they're just going, this gets me where I live. And there's this tip sheet radio tip sheet calls those Monday morning quarterback and they're going, this is great.

Scott Daniels right day. Our first day was playing at four 30 in the afternoon on his drive. And then we were played all over, but everywhere except for Chicago, they didn't, they just sent the flats, the front of the album covers.

This is back in the 82 or 83 where people are going, I got, I got kids and stuff and I got bills and I want to buy a record and they get there. And then, you know, I have Pac-Man and stuff, you know, everybody's spending money. Their entertainment dollar was going everywhere.

Well, I'm just talking about electronic games and it's a quarter game. And, you know, and, uh, they come in, I had people from all over. I mean, every, I mean, California, you know, Phoenix to Florida, you know, East coast up the beltway going, I went to the store to buy it.

And then you have your flats everywhere, but they don't have your record. So I bought something else. And I was, you know, then they don't remember next week they want to buy the next thing.

And we were, we were screwed without getting kissed. And it was really, really a tough thing for us, you know? I don't know. That's just what happens.

Yeah. You just have to accept it and move on. Yeah.

Well, I've heard so many stories where, where the because of the music industry changing and going to something else that, you know, bands just get shut out. It wasn't the music industry as much as a suit trying to figure out what the audience wants and they weren't, and they would rather dumb down, you know, and it could be safe to give you something that you wanted to hear. Right.

Which had changed, turned the music industry around, you know, changed, changed it, I should say. Well, it may have turned it around for the good or not, but well, I mean, they're not in control right now. No one's in control.

So you get these little kid bands come out and they can sell a lot of merch and sell, make their CDs and they're keeping things moving, but they don't go anywhere. First of all, they don't know how to make a, they don't know how to make a song. The boys, we wrote most of that album and it came out in 78.

We wrote most of it in 76. We're playing four sets a night, six nights a week and only playing two or three of those songs. We didn't come out and just play all that stuff because we're trying to figure out our craft and how to do it.

And I remember me and Kenny was, I went and saw him in 84. I was after the bees broke up and I walked and went down to Melos in Aurora. Yeah, I went to high school there and I didn't live there, but I came down there and here, here he's there.

And Ken and I are talking or going, what happened to this music thing? I go, well, I go, you get all these new bands coming out and they're all wanting to be original and you're just playing a bunch of crafted people. We're not giving people a chance to, you know, assimilate it or anything. And the club started going from, you know, we used to have to play Tuesday to Saturday.

And then if you wanted to break it up, you get Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then Thursday or Thursday, Friday, Saturday, but you had to play. But the, uh, the locals get to walk in and see a band and by the end of the week, I mean, we'd played Monroe, Louisiana. I mean, the first day there, they're going, y'all from Chicago, huh? I hear you guys are wild.

So we get up to our first, our first night and we're, you know, we're blowing the room up, you know, and we're like just wild. And they're going, well, there's no, but he ain't going to have that later. And by Saturday they're going, we love you.

I mean, cause they're friends and the place would pack everywhere. We played Burlington, Iowa, you know, medicine had Alberta by the, by Saturday, the end of the week because people were at a mouth and I know that Ken and I talked and I'm going, yeah. So we're trying to book, you know, on Friday or Saturday and then I don't come back for another six months.

Right. And then the rest, the rest of the time is all these other little bands coming on. Nobody wants to take it and they have to take cover.

Nobody knows if it's any good. Right. And I think that really did a lot to it as well.

It was the way the clubs ran it, you know, and like the record company, it's how they screwed themselves. You know, the clubs just turn into well they don't care as long as people come in and pay. I'd see a, I remember back in early nineties, I went with my guys.

I worked with Gibson guitar and went and saw a tribute band, some band to heart, which is in Aurora. So I was living in Elgin came down, they had a girl, they did like two songs by heart, but they were called a heart tribute band because they had a girl just to bring people in. Right.

Isn't that great? And I go, they're just playing songs. They might as well just be whomever snake in the armpits. And I was, I was just thinking, man, this is music is people are, you know, and then after that, subsequently all these tribute bands are going, well, we're laughing all the way to the bank.

I go, yeah, but you're, you're, you're boxing yourself into a salary ceiling. You're making a lot of money now. Well, who cares then? You don't care about playing music, making art of any sort.

Right. And that's what I'm about. You know, he doesn't need the money.

So he's willing to go and ride with me. I'm, I just found whenever, I just knew drug dealers and people that get into a job and they hate, but they don't want to lose, stop making the money. Right.

So they keep doing it. Right. And I just knew not to do that, you know? And so they're going to have to fly.

He's not doing anything, just playing. I'm trying to grow. And I was still looking at the big prize.

All I wanted to grow musically. So what was the last time the Lost Boys have played? Oh God, October 2016. Oh, it has been.

Yeah. I, uh, well, the other guys in the band decided, and that was the thing. That's why Dave Angel said, don't call it to play.

They thought they were, they were carrying the band. I don't like going, I was singing 99%, 90% of the stuff. And the other ones were just, I'm letting other guys sing it.

And they're all coming to see me anyway. And I'm not acting like it's all me, but I'm going one, one kid goes, well, I should be the front man in the, in the lead singer. I go, uh, listen, you want to just want to take over my van? He goes, no, no, you gotta be a little more open.

You know? And he's like, thinks he's rolling. You know what I'm talking about? My erudite. Anyway, I'm going, he's like going all this stuff, except saying, you gotta need to be pragmatic.

I was waiting for that. I'm going to go pragmatism. I get, but do you just doing that? I go and I told him, I go, when you first joined the band, I watched you.

I thought maybe you could really take over for me and help me with that. So I can just be the lead guitarist and it didn't happen. So I'd go to Foyer's lost boys.

All you guys do that. Cause I'm deploying the boys. I go, you guys aren't in it.

I let it, I moved away, went out to Iowa a little bit, tried some out there in Burlington. I went to St. Louis and met some really great cats and recorded down there. And they want us to come down there and play.

Well, I was going to add here. That's why we got along quite well, right off the bat. I'm always in charge.

I have my own company. I'm used to being in charge. Listen, dude, it's your songs.

You're in charge of your songs. Let's work them out. It's still your show, right? I'm going to play the drums.

And then when we're done practicing or playing, I'm going to go back to work and I'll be in charge for you. It's exactly what it is. It's a break for me.

Exactly. Cause I, people come up to me and go, well, how the boys, you guys are the bees and stuff, you know, things I was in. Right.

I can't speak for other bands and they're going, I don't see how. So who was the type A? I go, all of us were. No, you can't have all the type A. I go, well, that's why you have one person in charge.

Then everybody's in, he's in charge, you know, he, he's, he's the boss of how he's slamming the drums. If I ask him to do something, you know, to a different feel. He enjoys that because he goes, oh, I get to do something.

I get to think. I'm in charge. That's what I was in the boys.

I was in charge of my parts. Right. Well, you're more of the conductor really, really.

Now I am. But in the boys, it was, it was a big, it was a big cluster. But I mean, it was cool, but you know, we, and we decided a long time ago, we're going to, the audience needs to have a handle.

So we gave, let Dirk be the guy. And then the guy decided it was all him, which was too bad because we were too good for that. And the bees was the opposite.

You know, the manager insisted everybody be in control. Right. Oh my God.

Again. Yeah. It's a type A's, you know, one guy in charge because I don't care if somebody has ideas, I am good with it.

I'll flow with it. I play with the cave dwellers, you know, I'm helping them guys out and a bunch of old, old 60 songs that I started playing in 63. I got my first, Oh, for 64.

You know, I played all this stuff and I'm going, okay. And people come and see me and they're going, wow, Mike, I thought I was going to see it's a four year show. And you're just up there supporting the songs.

You still look great and you do your thing when you play. I'll be it. You're in charge.

You're in charge then. Yeah. Well, when you play, well, me and the drummer, Rick and I, I remember saying, I go, I don't do any solos in this band.

You should do. I go, they're not solos. Those are cops.

You know, you're playing a three minute song. And I'm back down to play. I love doing that.

Now I'm in charge of my own thing and that's cool, but it's not creating and they weren't right there. But you knew that going in. Well, exactly.

Right. You knew that going in. Right.

Which is cool. Right. So you just, my eyes are still on my prize too.

Sure. What I want to do. I don't care if we, I mean, I want to make money, but money is a way to keep a score also, but I would love to be able to, uh, you know, bring home fat paychecks.

But now it's looking like, I mean, even you guys asked me to come here. Right. I mean, I'm getting people all over the place.

I'm like, Mike, we're interested in you. You know, I go, why? Who's the one who got ahold of me? I go, what do you want? What do you want? You're still trying to talk us into the boys and to get me back together. I'll talk to you about it.

I just don't see it. And, uh, and he goes, no, no, you've just been doing this so long and you actually not just, you know. But your name too.

I mean, you know, we know your name, everybody knows your name and, and, and so that's why, you know, the whole show's about rock and roll Chicago, you know? Yeah. Well, I know, but I mean, it's also, I, I thought maybe I would, maybe I'd polished my apple. I should have paused it.

Well, I did. I did go back. I did go back in my record, see if you owed me any money or anything from years ago.

I couldn't find a thing. So there's a reason. He's my sponge master.

No, I, you know, but I, I was hearing from people, you know, that, uh, well, you, you are actually still, you play better than ever. You look great for your age. I don't make jokes about, you know, I don't say I'm chip chips enough going, Hey Mike, I hail you.

You know? And I go, it's back in the nineties and we did a boys redo. And, uh, and I was like 36 or something at the time. And he's like, don't talk about your age.

I go, what I want to say. So I made the boys when I was eight. Yeah.

I'm proud of who I am. I've done it, but I just, that's what I think anyway. I mean, I may be wrong.

I've been around a couple of times the last two minutes. So, you know, I'm used to it. So, so are you guys, have you got any dates booked with the four yet or anything? Our first show with, with Les, Leslie will be the 29th in February, February 29th.

There's no 29 days in February. Okay. Baby tomato ketchup.

Actually, that'll be a good one to get her revved up and see. Oh yeah. Where's it at? I'm sorry.

In Elgin. Okay. The old Dieterle's it's right down the corner on corner of the old Gibson's on the clean and 20.

Okay. But it's a cool place. It was fun.

We played there with our old basis, Ron Laskin, but, uh, and, uh, we're going there and then we play a week later. We're up by the Sycamore Speedway on a Sunday afternoon, which is really good. I was going to be our first one and then Craig popped this one out and got this fun.

And then, uh, Brower house on the 13th and then we're playing at the end of the month. On the 22nd up in Antioch for the Al Wiseman birthday party podcast thing. They have all, I'm going to, I'm going to jam with Maggie Eliota too.

And, um, and, uh, we're going to bring it land Quinn, come up and play with us. And, uh, we're going to do our set there. That's what we have so far.

That's next month. That's four dates. Let's go.

Let's go. That's all we can remember. So if people are looking for you guys, where can they find you on, uh, Well, they can find social media or whatever.

Yeah. We're going to get out. We're, we're working on a website now.

Um, but you know, I, I, I have 5,000 people on, on Michael Anthony to FOIA on Facebook and then ma to FOIA is 3000 and I post out all kinds of crap. And then what's your name again? Jack. Mr. Me off over here.

I thought it was Richard is India, but anyway, no, you're walking. It's too cold. It's too cold.

But you can check on Craig Cedar home and then, uh, we, uh, we're in his wife, Angela Gambino. She does the, uh, what's it called? Kick lids. Kick lids.

They do all the drum head stuff and, uh, you know, and he does our drum head and, you know, and that was original concept from me and Kenny Hartman. Yeah. Kick lids.

Guy named Ken Hartman who wrote and his brother Chuck wrote through Chicago biker bars book and the Milwaukee biker bars book. Well, Ken and I, we got into a, I'm trying to figure out what concept to FOIA thing. Yeah.

Here's a cool, here's a kick lids and I'll see like my, my card there has a, it's actually my hand on my guitar. And to see the drum head is, is translucent. So it lights up his drums light up.

So it really stands out, but it was like, it's going to be called to FOIA. No, no. Everybody goes, what's it to FOIA? I get it.

Yeah. You know, what's a moron. No, but, uh, that's right here, buddy.

I know he's sitting there. He's one beat off. He's a drummer.

He's smart. He switched hands, a game of stroke. So we're, you know, we, we got this thing going.

We, we have, we have a common goal and now all the, you know, we're filling gaps in the right place. Picking order is right. It's not a, who's on, you know, who's better or anything.

You know, it's what, we're all pragmatic about this. And Leslie came in now, she played this rockabilly band and she'd got her, she got her, you know, her music degree and all this. And she plays the pick.

I love the sound of guitar picking on the bass. Sure. Sure.

Dave Angel, he started off in double bass and tuba. And he knew, you know, it was French Boeing and German style Boeing and all that. But when the boys, you want to have that thing come out, he was a guitar pick.

Right. It's like John Bonham. I was in a band with Bobby Caldwell from Captain Beyond.

Remember them? Yeah, sure. Well, Bobby's one of the best drummers in the universe anyway. And he knew Bonham and I'd listen to him and he had his, that same old single floor or two floors, you know, single rack and, you know, old Ringo drum set.

Right. And he could make that thing happen. And he played me all the Captain Beyond.

He did it all. Right. And, you know, and I learned groove is king.

First off, just make sure it has the right feel. Don't tell everybody, you don't have to, I don't have to teach a drummer, stick hits, you know, or, and the bass player, all the, it's get the groove. My thing is about the groove and play in there.

And, you know, cause I get drummers and I go, well, you got two bars to fill. So you do 64th notes. I go, it's correct, but not right.

You know, guitar players are just like. It's how fast they can play, you know, they're playing, you know, they're playing C rancid in the acid Lodi and mode, you know, it's like, doesn't do anything to me for me anyway. You know, I understand people want to hear that, but it's not melodic.

And at least our hairdresser, you know, her husband goes, Mike, you're like a blue shredder. Well, yeah, I play the, I, I, I like to go fast, but I don't, I like to bend, you know, tweedly-deedly, I'm wrangly dangly, you know, I bend those strings around, but we're trying to do stuff that makes sense musically. And, you know, and I have songs that are real fast too, but I have other songs that don't do that.

And then as long as I say something and another song is about cars and girls and she sucks on love, like fuel injection, you know, I do that too. But it's, it's about being serious because rock and roll is about cars and girls and about your angst bug growing up. And as a teenager, that's what happens.

You get that explosion of your frontal cortex, you know, all these brain things happening and you don't know what's going on and you're trying to fit in and you're trying to find yourself. And so you have all those things and that's what we're going to be about. It's not going to be one style.

So I've seen some videos of yours, I've seen you playing the Les Paul, so you've been exploring what's your go-to guitar now? Yes. Yes. All of them? Well, my guitars were stolen.

I had a 59 flametop, you know, historic six Les Paul juniors that were stolen in Florida. And when I was playing down there and down there, like in California, if you're no matter what you are, you don't have your tools and you just another love in the sun. My guitar was stolen from me.

I mean, I've had, I've had my soul. I know what that's like. Yes.

I had Mike's floor in the, in the, the boys. And I had to read that in the bees. And Mike Charvel was originally in the garage in San Dimas, which was before the factory.

Oh, okay. And they were stolen in the bees, you know, and it's like, and so in Gibson in 2000, I came back and Dave Timmons from the Elgin, you know, he was general manager there and he gave me an Explorer. It was out of his, it's one of his, but it wasn't, it was Gibson's, but you know, I changed the pickups.

I put in PAFC on the 57s instead of them, the high output ceramic ones. But anyway, and then in 2007, a guy named Hank Edel, he was a sales guy from Gibson, or he was the head of, you know, for the strings accessories division. He was a sales manager and he called me up and goes, Mike, can you come out to the Blues Fest and we'll give you a, one of the new Chinese Firebirds, you know, I got one of the humbuckers.

And I go, okay, yeah, I'll come out anyway. You know, just, and all I was to do was give a strings away, talk about strings for them. You know, I was a little giant, you have to see the strings for them, but also bring guitar.

So these kids from six to 60 come up over to a little, a little box or these, uh, line six little modeling things. And I saw that let's fall there. I didn't ask for it.

You know, I'm going to get this other thing. And so I did third, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with them. Right.

I was there all day and doing this stuff. Last day I go, okay, me, me, me, me. And he goes, well, we don't have one here.

And he goes, well, do I have to take that let's fall? I go, yeah. There's no case for it. I still have an old Gibson gig bag, you know? And so I use that.

And the next year I came, I worked all four days and they gave me a, just a case. I got the guitar and it's the, you know, the flame top. It's a faded flame top and it's all fifties, you know, um, you know, the binding and everything is all right.

But, uh, uh, but I liked the guitar. I played it. I, I, both of them, I played, play the crap out of them, you know? And I, when the Gibson gave me the Explorer, that was the only thing I had.

I do four sets. I broke a string in the middle of song. I just stopped putting all the bands going and I get up there and I start playing.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you do that? I go, you think about it, who plays, you play guitar.

Yeah. Well, you know, you, the strings don't stretch. It's, it's the, um, it's the rap.

Right. Right. Right.

You got to pull that, get that rap pulling out of there, you know, all the looseness. And so I, and I ruined the first out of that one. I mean, I had a guy out of Aurora who plays really well and he picked up my guitar and he goes, he goes, how do you play this? I go, well, live, I can't, but it's like it was so flattened down and there was no crown.

And then the edges were sharp. I go like this ago. I said, I can feel it when I'm not gigging, but I'm getting, I just do it.

And so he got me, you know, he got me a set of frets for it. And then now like my less fall, it frets out a little places, you know, cause I don't play in one position, you know, I'm playing all over. And, and so, but live it works, but I mean, I need to get that fretted now.

Yeah. I gotta get ahold of John Gray. What about you, Craig? What kind of drums you play? I got a Pearl kit, uh, Chrome, uh, seven piece and pasty cymbals and for the show part of it, they all light up.

Oh, okay. Cool. And with Angela's help with the pro player, our kick lids, all my heads on there are translucent.

So. Okay. So the lights come through it, they come through and then whatever head I have on the bass drum just accentuates the songs.

Cause I'll put a color to a particular song, purple, green, blue, red. And it just sets a mood for that song. Sure.

And then when the stage lights come on, they actually gravitate to what I'm doing. So if they, if I got red, they'll run the reds or the greens or the blues. So even if they don't, the contrast works.

And like I say, he's like King Kong, he's up there banging on a volcano. And you hear it, you see the lava go lights going up and it's like, it works. It works really well.

I mean, he's a strong hitter. You know, he plays a straight and like that, looking for somebody he likes. I've been playing that song for now since 2002.

And I figured it out when I played with Craig, I was like, he isn't, he's playing his part. I can do the swing. Cause that's what I'm good at.

I don't need somebody else to support me and all that crap. And then, and then I just asked him to, you know, this and that, but he can do that. And he likes that, you know? And I started realizing, oh, like that, looking for somebody that video we have.

And it's like, he was going, well, it's 10 minutes, you know? Yeah. It's about six songs in that 10 minutes. Yeah.

But it takes you for a ride though. It doesn't make you feel like, oh, there's no pillow coming out, you know, getting their nightclothes on. It's just the old, old mentality.

When you don't know what you're doing, keep the beat till you, you know, keep it simple, right? Keep it simple till you know what you're doing. Well, once you know what you're doing, you're still stuck. You got to keep the beat.

The groove is king. Your job is, my job is to keep the beat and then enhance from there. Exactly.

He's the, he's the king of enhance. So once he's going off on a tangent, I'm going to, I'm going to go with you and then I'm going to come back and then he comes back and then all of a sudden we're back to the original part of the song. And I had to remind him stuff.

I grew up listening to from Humble Pie to whoever that extrapolate to all the brothers, you know, when you're playing there, there's a cycle that happens, you know, every four, four bars or eight or 16 bars or, you know, then you get down, well, the jam's going down, you break it down and make it, oh, I'm going, yeah, that's, well, that's human nature. We always want to put things into categories and try to make sense out of chaos. Right.

That's what life is all chaos. Anyway, you know, entropy, they call that. And, uh, and he does that well.

And this new bassist, she, she just lays in there. I mean, my thing is, and he reminds her, Mike's got parts. You got to learn those parts.

Always going to be on your butt forever. But when in between all that, I said that to her, just learn the parts and he'll, he'll get off your case. Yeah.

I told her, I love her. I love what you're doing, but you know, and I hear and I, but I always tell her, I go, it's the stuff in between. You have a good feel in there.

You play in it. And, and she, she concentrates on Craig, you know, she concentrates. And, but I also know what she knows how to put on a little show and do her thing.

And she's free and she's cute and she's whatever. And that's all great too. But she's a player.

Yeah. Like I said, I guess what you base you on, what a feature they're listening to. And she does that.

But it's in between this she's in the pocket. And that's what a band is about is getting us all to play together and work it together. Well, thanks guys.

Appreciate you coming in and spending some time with us today. I'm talking about talking about everything and especially the new band to play, which will be out playing February 29th. So they say the 29th, there's only 28 days.

I'll find out. I got to look into that. Then you woke up from a stupid dream.

No, and we got a few gigs coming up. Some cool stuff coming up through the whole year. Yeah.

We're going back to Dave angels to record a song because our agent Jackie goes, yeah, you release a single. I go, I know it's now singles day. So we're back to that.

David angels been pushing me for years where you just, he goes, I know what you want and you want to do a whole album, but then we should just still release singles. And then I'm going, okay, well let's just, it's all new anyway. We have to go one step at a time.

And it was my old lady's, my old girlfriend's mom, bless her heart. She's still around. She was tiny bites, baby steps.

I go, Oh yeah, that's what, that's true in all our things. That's what you're doing here at this museum. It's baby steps, man.

It's a big deal, but it's like, you want to, you want to keep control unless you want to have some corporate takeover, you know, you got to do these baby steps. Well, thank you. Thanks guys.

Thanks a lot. That was Mike DeFoya and Craig Cedarholm. Cedarholm.

Cedarholm. Yes. Like a, not, not like a Cedar home.

Home. Cedarholm. Home.

With a little L on there. Yes. So, but it's interesting and great talking to Mike.

Yeah, it was. He, he played with the boys, the bees and, and. The Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys. He's been, he's been kind of busy and it's good to see he's still out there rock and rolling. Yeah.

He's out there with his band Tafoya and then they're coming, they're coming out the 29th. Good thing there's 29 days this month. They're coming out the 29th.

They're having their first show. And then they got a few shows scheduled through like, it looks like March into April. So it's good to hear from him and hear from, hear from them.

Yeah. Definitely go out and check those guys out. Look up, look them up on their Facebook pages.

You get more information on where they're playing and when. Be sure and share our podcast. Be sure and let everybody, let all your friends know and your relatives and we still want to thank the Illinois rock and roll museum on route 66 for allowing us to do these podcasts and bring them to you here from the studio in beautiful downtown Joliet.

And don't forget, you can catch us on the road to rock radio road to rock.net every Monday at 6. PM. They'll feature one of our podcasts. Very good.

So thanks very much for listening to everybody. We'll talk to you next time. Talk to you soon.