Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. What's up? What's on tap today? Ray? Wow. We are going way, way back with this one.

Way back. Way back. Almost, almost, almost further back than some other bands that we know of that have been around for a long time.

Unfortunately, these guys aren't around anymore. I mean, they're around, but they haven't been performing as a band. I'm talking about Freewheelin.

Freewheelin. Yes, I remember. I remember Freewheelin.

I know a couple of them guys too. Me too. God, maybe, maybe that's our connection.

That's maybe that's how we were destined to be joined. And like Siamese twins. That's right.

Well, let's, let's see what Freewheelin has to say for themselves. Sounds good. Let's go.

We're here in Tinley Park. We're meeting with the band Freewheelin. How you guys doing? Yeah.

Good. Good. Yeah.

No. No, but good. Yeah, that's right.

Good to see you, Paul and Ray. Nice to see you. It's, it's been a while for the band, huh? And you guys are coming out of retirement for a show here.

Yes. Yes, we are. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's true.

Yeah. We got, as you may or may not know, you know, we, we lost a, a, a member, founding member. Yeah.

Founding member of the band. The leader. And he passed away early last month.

So we, we've got his memorials coming up next weekend and a tribute, a musical tribute with Freewheelin and the Dancing Noodles, a double, great double bill at the Riley's Daughter. Right. Come on.

Cause you talked about Kevin Favich. That is, yeah, yeah. Sorry.

Kevin Favich. On the 12th. It was Kevin Favich.

Kevin, Kevin played sax with you guys. He played sax and he played flute. And he played, he played the same with the, with the noodles.

That's right. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Long time. Yeah.

You know that. Yeah. Yeah.

We, well, Paul, we brought Kevin in after, after one year of the noodles. Now I would be remiss if I didn't point out that right now, this is this Freewheelin band interview that we're talking about here. But we also have three founding members of the Dancing Noodles here because Brian Sarnoff on bass guitar.

It's right there. Say hi Brian. Hi.

Hello everybody. And myself. Hi Glory.

Myself, Ed Kammerer. And Paul Martin, who is also an interviewer today. Interviewer and interviewee.

That's right. So somewhat. Yeah.

But it happens to you a lot, isn't it? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Yeah.

So that's, that's kind of what brings us together. Plus the Freewheelin band, what was a, was a great point, great moment in, in many of our lives. We started a band back in 1973 when I was asked to go out and see this band and tell their manager what I thought of them and it was an ambush.

They had a keyboard sitting there and they're like, oh, the keyboard player didn't show up. Can you play? And so I started playing with, with them guys and we decided it was a pretty nice fit and Freewheelin started out as myself and Jonas Tchipkowskis on bass, Eddie Natus on drums, Chucky Neuberger, who's sitting to my left. Say hi Chuck.

How we doing gang? Yes, here we are. And Kevin Favich. So that was, that was the very start.

Yes. Yeah. Okay.

I didn't realize that myself. Well, let, let me just interject here in 1971 at Shop Class. Yes.

I was just going to touch on that. 1971 at Shop Class in St. Rita, Father Joe, oh man, was he great, met a drummer named Eddie Natus and he had put a little garage band together and he wanted me to come along and I went there and it was like really bad. So I said, Eddie, I got a guy for you.

And I introduced Chuck Neuberger to Ed Natus and then the rest of the like went. And that's how that came about. And that band was, was what? Freedom Rock? That band was Freedom Rock Association and that was a weird line up there.

It was two guitars. Kevin was on it and a pitcher. But that band there eventually sort of disintegrated.

Brian took a little break. The other guitar player quit and we were just kind of in limbo, not for very long. And Ed Natus got home.

He says, I've got, I got a bass player, man. I said, you know, would you consider coming back and let's, let's do this. I said, well, okay, let's try it.

Let's try it. So we did. And we, and that's how Jonas got into pitcher.

And the whole time, I got to tell you, I think this is important. The whole time I'm riding to school with Kevin, sitting on a bus right next door. Yeah.

And you guys went to Leo, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right.

But I knew he played sax because he played in the school band. So, you know, we're rehearsing with this band and I'm, the wheels are turning and smoke's coming to my, out of my ears. I says, you know, I said to Kevin one day, hey, you, you're still practicing sax? Oh yeah.

I practice a little bit. Yeah. I go, oh man, that's good.

That's good. He goes, yeah, I like, I like practicing my flute too. And I was right there.

I was like, what? Wait a minute. Wait, back up. What? He goes, yeah, yeah.

I play flute too. Now I'm, now I'm like, whoa, yeah, yeah, Paul, I'm like, hold on, so now, now, yeah, this is where immediately I was like, I got a song we got to work on immediately. Yeah.

I'm nice and white satin. Color my world. Color my world.

And all the next thing, you know, we, we started in with Jethro Tull with, with Locomotive Breath. Cross-eyed Mary. Oh man.

I mean, well, but you see that completely changed the band. It shaped the band. And then now, now we started towards the Chicago stuff, doing beginnings, Make Me Smile.

We had Color My World in there, all that stuff, you know, and that's how that came about. Kevin was super instrumental in really, really shaping the band, shaping the way, the direction the band went. Yeah.

So, so, so you guys, so you, where'd you go from there? How did, how did, when did you join the band? I came back in like 74. I came in the summer of 74. They were going through a change again, a change bass player and drummer.

And me and Chuck have always been, you know, still in touch and stuff. And I basically tried out, I tried out at the, at the shop on 55th Street, at the store. I talked him into starting up again.

Yeah. I'm like, hey, come on, man. You got to get back on the bass.

When Chuck says the store, what we did is we actually rented a storefront as a rehearsal place. And, you know, it was, it was in Chicago, just east of Kedzie, right off 55th Street. And so it's, it's glass around the front, we rented this, but we're storing our equipment in there.

One day we went, wait a minute, somebody could break this glass and steal our stuff. So I don't know where we came up with the chain link fence, but we actually put chain link fencing around the window. So nobody could, well, hopefully nobody, well, nobody ever tried to, you know, break in and steal our stuff.

But yeah. So at that time, starting back with the Ed and Jonas days and into the Brian and Johnny Eichhorn days, when Johnny Eichhorn was the drummer, we would literally, we'd play on a Friday night, we'd play on a Saturday night. On Sunday, we'd all meet back at the store to unload the rental truck or Saturday night, load our stuff back in.

On Monday, we'd show up back at the store, set up and rehearse Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, break down and go play Friday night and Saturday night. A lot of rehearsing back then. That was what it was all about.

I mean, there's, there's times where, you know, I, I was, I was hot tub roofing at the time I was out of school and, and it was really cold and I decided that after, I didn't want to go to work. So I went to the store with blankets and we had a little couch to sleep on. But that's what we were supposed to be working.

That's what we did. What were you guys playing though, when you first did this? Was it just local? Yeah. High school as well.

Yeah. I distinctly remember St. Rita for one. They had the big gym with the, with the stage.

The stage that was made out of folding tables. So that was, there was nothing Osher approved about that. So that's what we did.

We, we worked real hard in our crafts at those, in those days. So then we made the change with, with Brian joining the band and Johnny Eichhorn. And we kept up the same, same schedule.

Work in a plant. And then finally it got to the point that it made sense that we should all quit our day jobs and move down to Champaign. That's my next question is when did you, when did you make the transition to Champaign? 19, 1974.

Yeah. Yeah. 74.

Yeah. We want to say it was sometime in the summer, right after you jumped on board, Brian. Yeah.

Well, I think it's summer of 75, because we were doing some stuff around here still and we were going to Champaign a lot. Okay. So Tom Seymour really is in the picture at this point.

Yeah. Tom Seymour was, was a, was a guy that I went to high school with who was always a hustler. He just was a hustler.

And he went to a college at Lewis university and started booking the entertainment at Lewis. And at one point he was talking to this agent who, a guy who owned an agency down in Champaign and his name was Doug Bauer. And he said, Doug, you know, I'm booking all these acts for you here at Lewis.

Can I make any money doing this? And eventually he went to work for Doug Bauer at Blytham limited in Champaign. And that Champaign scene at that point was just like floating with talent. It was just live music everywhere.

Yeah. God, it was off the hook. Every night a week.

So it became a thing that we just said, Hey, we want to be part of that scene. So all of us quit our day jobs, loaded up the truck and moved down to Champaign. You know, we rented a house and kept that same regimen where we practiced in our basement Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we were playing Friday and Saturday.

That's where we got the nickname through, through Woolin. We were freewheeling, but we, we showed up with this, uh, with, uh, we bought our own truck and had somebody paint freewheeling the logo on the side. But the way they did the E's in a, in a, in a script, they looked like, Oh, they look like O's.

Yeah. So all the people down in Champaign saying, who's this Fru Woolin band? That's a stupid name. Yeah.

So that's right. Right at the time too, when I joined the band, we also brought in a singer who Chuck knew from school. Yes.

Also. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Happened to be Kenny Saterra. Right.

So he was brother of Peter and you know, Peter Saterra from Chicago. Yes. Yes.

And he came in and it was like, soon as he opened his mouth and started singing, it was like, okay, you're in the other 30 guys. We tried eyes. He's listening.

Yeah. Okay. You're in.

Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was Kenny.

Kenny Saterra. Yeah. And then he came down to Champaign with us for about a year or so.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Did he drum though too for you guys? Well, he came back to help us when we were going through a drum change. The drum change again.

Because he had a good seat. Whatever. Brian, you said, you said that best earlier.

You said that we were kind of like spinal tap. Spinal tap. And that was, that was a moment where we actually asked Kenny to come back because he drummed, he was always practicing drum, knew the songs.

And this is right before Mike came in. And I got a picture of us at Beginnings Lounge up in Schaumburg with Kenny on the drums. Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. And he kind of saved us there a little bit.

That might have been where I went to see you guys. And Mike comes to see us because Tom probably, you guys were already in a Blytham band, right? Right. I played in a band with an older brother, played keyboards, a friend from high school played bass, fretless bass, and a friend of my brother's played guitar.

And we, we had a couple of different booking agencies. One was in Peoria and we used Blytham also. So Tom Seymour would book Jaspers, but we do, we do, you know, the high school stuff.

Where was the band from? The band from Champaign? Northside. Oh, Northside. Chicago.

We're all like suburbanites. Mount Prospect. Arlington Heights.

The man speaking right now was Mike Clare. Mike Clare, say hello. Hello.

He's been talking. Yeah, I know. I tried to get it in earlier, but yeah, but Mike, Mike became the final piece of the puzzle.

Well, kind of. The final piece of the puzzle, the rhythm section of Freewheel. Mike joined because he had a band.

He's allowed to join because he had a band. I don't know how many drummers have tried out, but it's kind of funny because I had, with the band that I was playing in, my older brother, who was the main dude, the keyboard player, lead singer, just decided to take off and he drove to California, left his wife. And there were some personal issues there.

So I was still working. I was a striper and a seal coder. And I had gotten a call from Seymour and he said, you know, would you be interested in trying out? And I said, never heard of the band.

You know, can I go see them? I saw them at, I think like Bolingbrook High School. I saw you guys at Beginnings. Beginnings.

Yeah. That's cool. You know, I like that.

And so I think I went, I had to drive down to audition. Yeah. I think he drove to Champaign.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

I probably went and got the call. Drums in the backseat. Drums in the band with the dog.

With the dog. The coolest dog in the world. They didn't know anything about my dog.

I had a Whippet Greyhound. And he had a conversion van. Yeah.

And they were all like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Look at this. Oh boy, would it be nice to ride in this? You guys had just like gotten nailed by something on the highway, right? Yeah.

Spacer wagon. Yeah, the spacer wagon. Out of a vehicle.

So that's why I always think that maybe, yeah, he's got a van. He's not that good, but he's got a van. No, it was awesome.

No. No, I tell you. Yeah.

So that's Mike. And at this point, there's Kenny Cetera. That was just to interject too, and I think it was like October of 76.

Well, there you go. Oh, wow. Okay, good.

That's cool. So at this point, I think that it makes sense to talk about the freewheeling plan. Because we really did have a plan of what our future was going to be like.

And we decided through one of the other agents had this idea that maybe we kind of model like an up with people kind of thing. Not that that's the music or anything we would do. But what up with people did is they did assemblies at high schools.

And they would go out and do this assembly. And all these people, all the kids, hey, that's up with people. But our plan was to do assemblies at high school and offer them free to the school with the caveat that they would have to allow us to do a dance or a concert or whatever they wanted to do at nighttime.

And we would supply the tickets, but they'd have to have a sponsoring organization like student council that would hype the thing, that would take the tickets, they'd sell them. And at that point, this is like 76, 77, 76. Yeah, you were doing it already.

They would sell the tickets for three bucks a piece to get people to come back to see the concert. And then they would get 10% of the door and we would take the rest of the money. So that was a way for us to kind of break out of the bar mold and get to the point that we're playing a lot.

We're playing concerts. We're playing stuff in front of a lot of people. Young people buy records.

That was the ultimate plan. The ultimate plan was to take it national so that we would do this thing on a national basis, play all over the country, get the freewheeling name and the logo and the brand out in front of as many people as we could. So that a couple of years down the road, when freewheeling has the record deal and the national distribution, said Susie, who saw us when she was a junior at high school, is pushing the cart with the two kids in it through Walmart, goes to the record store.

Those were your kids, right? You had to derail me. And then she would see the end cap and there's the album, the freewheeling album. I remember those guys.

They played at my high school. Yeah. But playing at the high school really went a long way.

That was the plan. You guys kind of etched that into your… And you guys were kind of the forerunners of that for me. I mean, I never heard of that before because I was going to ask you about that, how you did the assemblies and you played at night.

But somebody was just telling me recently, and I'll be damned if I can think of who it was now, that they're doing that now. I'm not surprised. Somebody we talked to.

But they said they're doing that now. And I said, I thought at the time it was freewheeling that started that, as far as I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we were unique. We were very unique. That's when we were literally on the road minimum.

I mean, six days a week, seven. And keep in mind now, don't forget, we were still playing bars. Yeah.

We wouldn't get down to the bar at two in the morning and have to be at a school somewhere at nine o'clock. Yeah. And they're like, pass it on to Mr. Reed.

Don't let the personal smell your breath. Chuck, right on that note, it's funny that this just happened. Right before Kevin passed, I was at his house about a week before, and he brought up that exact subject.

He said, you know, Tommy McDermott, who was a sound man to the stars, to Hounds, he was a sound man for us and road manager. He says, do you remember we were playing with the place in Danville, Keggers? Keggers. I remember Keggers.

Keggers, you guys did that a lot too. We're playing Keggers like on a Wednesday night. The next day, we had to be up like in Streamwood or North Suburb and some school.

And Tommy McDermott talks this toothless bouncer into coming on the road with us for two days. Because we had lost either Lester and Grady. Yeah, yeah, right.

And some of the loud court quit. And Tommy had talked to this guy, and he's like, sure, man, I'll go. And, you know, here we are.

We're showing up at the high school, like Chuck said. Sometimes we went right there. Yeah.

You know. Oh, my God. Same clothes on, you know.

Oh, my God. With the toothless bouncer, man. And Kevin was like, do you remember that? And I'm like, oh, my God, I barely remember that.

But yeah, so him, Kevin, and the toothless bouncer loaded in. And then we would do that. And the school loved it because we made it like an educational thing.

So that's history of rock. History of rock and roll. A very loosely based history of rock and roll.

And you had to do something. How long did you play the assembly? 45 minutes. Yeah, like a classroom time.

And they would get everybody in. And it was great for them. We ran the gamut.

I mean, Glenn Miller. You name it. We were in the mood.

We'd start up. We'd start it up. Yeah, yeah.

The Beach Boys. The Beach Boys and just take it on up. Because we had the saxophone.

We thought we could do anything. It was crazy. Yeah, we were doing Glenn Miller.

Yeah. And then we'd end up. The end song was always something real current.

Yeah, real current. Just on the radio. Yeah, whatever's on.

Like the Kansas. We'd do Kansas or Sticks or something like that. You know? Toto line, whatever.

Yeah, just to say, well, this is what you're going to hear tonight if you come back to the concert, to the dance. So what did you do with the millions you made off of it? That's a good question. We gave it to the road crew.

And honestly, I remember, you know, Tommy was so special for us at the beginning that Tommy McDermott that I remember at one point when he was trying to leave that we were paying him more than I than I ever made because he was, you know, he was a guy. He was a very integral part of getting all the bullshit done, you know, for us to get there. I mean, he could he could talk you into opening up your electrical box and wire, you know, to, you know, 250 volts and like, oh, you got to be OK.

And then we have good lights. Yeah. But getting back to the assembly, the thing that really catapulted the band was the first time we did the National Student Council Convention in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Right. We had rented a motor home and had a truck and had Seymour and, you know, our booking crew, our agents came out with us, too. And we set up at this at this convention, which which is student councils from all over the United States.

So it's all the different activities student councils get involved with. Yeah. Even like the army dudes over there trying to recruit.

We all had matching jackets. You guys, you guys are more organized than we are. So we played at their closing night dance.

We made sure that we were around everywhere they went. They could see us, which which led to some fun stuff, you know, because it was so they were in Boston. Yeah.

So we go we knew where the kids were taking their tours. So we would meet one group over here. It's going to be over here.

Let's go. We run over there and do it. Then finally.

And this is this is the fun part. We ended up at Faneuil Square, which is, you know, the big big thing on the waterfront in Boston. Found a piano.

Right. Got it. Got the outdoor bar to open up the piano.

So I'm playing a piano. We're drinking Pina Coladas, getting loaded, singing. The kids are coming by.

Oh, my God. News camera showed up. Oh, that's right.

That's right. News camera showed up. We watched ourselves on TV that night.

Yeah. So that was it was in many ways, it was right place, right time, you know, and that's what took us. We ended up going traveling the country twice.

38 different states. Right. Played in 38 states.

Probably traveled through 42, 43. Now, how long did this assembly thing last? For us, as far as. I'd say 76, 77 for sure, 78.

Maybe by 79 it was done when we were back in Downers. Well, we were still doing the assembly then, but it kind of faded out maybe into the 80s. Yeah, 88 went a long time.

Probably a solid four years. But at that point, at that point, we were able to keep moving our musical agenda. And we had written and recorded our first single.

At that point, our lead singer, Kenny Satara, left the band. We had brought in another guy. His name was Ron Zielinski, who goes by Ron Austin.

And he was our singer, and that was good. You know, we were traveling with Ron. So writing songs with him and stuff.

So our first single was Reality that I wrote. And another song called Out in the Clear. And I'm telling you, that single is on my father-in-law's jukebox.

And Out in the Clear stands up today. Now, Out in the Clear was written by the new guitar player, Chuck Finally Had Enough. Chuck, in all honesty, we worked our ass off, right? Chuck met this wonderful woman, fell in love, and decided he wanted to start a family.

And knew that a rock-and-roll lifestyle wasn't going to make it for starting a family. And oh, by the way, I think it's Mary Jo's birthday, too. His wife was Mary Jo Harum, and today's her birthday.

She's left us now how many years? Oh, man, 12 years. Oh, man. Yeah, boy.

Mary Jo, if I could digress for a second, Mary Jo is just the sweetest woman on the face of the planet. And Chuck married way above his station. And they had two wonderful kids.

And she's missed even to this day. Oh, yeah. So Dave Curry came in to replace Chuck.

Right. I was going to say, when did Dave Curry come in? And when did Chuck come in? Probably, like, 77-ish. My last show was New Year's Eve, 1976.

That's what I know. Wow. So, 76.

That was like, I literally ended 1976, leaving the band, moving back to Chicago. Did we have the white tuxedos for that show? Oh, I think we did. I think we did.

But at that point, we were rocking it up. It was like, just go to Jack and I in T-shirts. You know, it was crazy.

I mean, like you guys, too, Paul. We did a lot of prom season. Oh, yeah.

It was huge. High school dances. Big money, man.

Oh, yeah. That's why I wanted to propose to Evan R. Rush and to Marty that we do some shows in the summer as Evan R. Rush and Freewheelin' and to call it, Who Played at Your Prom Tour? There you go. Because if it wasn't Evan R. Rush, it was Freewheelin'.

Oh, man. Oh, man. Yes, yes.

Yeah, we'd be on the road, but we'd have to come back for prom season. From April through May, we were playing at the Hilton or the Palmer House or the Drake all the time. Now, you mentioned Donner School.

You guys had left the champagne business. We had left champagne. Tom Seymour decided to start his own booking agency.

Oh, yeah. He got a place in Oak Park. It was called Elite Entertainment.

Right. Because he was moving up here, we had to move, too. Oh, I see.

And we found a house in Donner's Grove. Yep. And trying to write songs and trying to, you know, travel and still do the same thing.

And Dave was definitely a force at that time. Dave Curry, singer-songwriter extraordinaire. Yeah.

And if I can interject right here in the middle that next Sunday, January 12th, we're doing the celebration of Kevin Fabish's musical life, of which, you know, he was a huge part of Freewheel and a huge part of the Dancy Noodles. Dave Curry, who currently lives in Florida and works as a musician, will be flying in to be part of that. Let's go.

Part of that show. Yes. And also the singer I mentioned earlier.

Yeah, Ron will be there. Ron's coming, also. But Ron's an interesting thing, where he was telling me earlier this week that he's now a sax player.

He actually, after he left Freewheeling, he spent a lot of time taking sax lessons and going to the College of DuPage and learning to play sax there, mainly because he was inspired by Kevin. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right.

And Ron will be out there. He's going to sing a song with us. He's going to play sax with us, too.

Dave Curry's coming out, flying up from Florida. He's going to be, you know, part of that. Ron was in on our Red Lion reunion, 50th.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And Ron was a big part of that show. Yeah, he came in and did all the Kevin parts. He's got a fabulous voice.

And then, you know, he played sax on all the Bruce stuff. And then, you know, we did some Edgar Winner. And, you know, he's a top show.

Yeah. So let's slide back to where we were. We were at Downers Grove.

Yeah. Well, then how long did the band actually last? I think what was it? 82. 82? Yeah.

82, 83. So 74 to 83. Like the Beatles, nine years, right? Or 10 years.

Yeah. So we're living in Downers Grove and working and doing that, and playing, you know, clubs around there, and still playing at the assemblies. And actually, we moved into Downers Grove in 1979.

Actually, 78. 78. 78, because we had been working on recording the Freewheelin' album.

And we started when we were in Champaign, started recording at Pyramid Audio, Rob Vukolic's place. Right, right. And we ended up finishing the album at Tanglewood Studios.

That was Larry Millis. Larry Millis. Larry Millis, who's a guitar player in Ives & March.

And so we finished up the album. We sent it out to mastering, where we actually recorded half the album live at Chicago Fest in 1970. I want to say 79, but I think it's 78, maybe 79.

Yeah, because it played a couple years. Yeah, we played every Chicago Fest there was at Navy Pier. And for the last year, we played like twice or three times or something because we were living back in town, and we were so tight with the guys who actually booked it.

They would call Tom Seymour and say, Hey, so-and-so's not showing up tomorrow. You guys want to play? And we did the thing with Tom Bishop there. Right? Oh, yeah.

Tom Bishop was a singer-songwriter, and he produced our record. And we did Telephone that song. So we did a show with him doing all his music.

Yeah. We did a lot of shows with him. Yeah.

Yeah, he was really inspirational. Also, I got to just interject this. They came across, they re-recorded some of the songs, some of Tom Bishop's material.

What's the name of the record? Oh, Little Bit of Physics and Travel Locked or something like that. Yeah, and brought that back. And we were lucky enough to record a couple of the songs on it.

Up in Lake Geneva. Up in Lake Geneva. And, you know, just speaking of Kevin and playing flute, I mean, it holds up today.

What's the Beatles song? I can't think of it. I'm Only Sleeping. I'm Only Sleeping.

Tom Bishop does a phenomenal version of I'm Only Sleeping. And it's funny. It's angry Tom at the end.

You can feel it. But instead of the background vocals, he said, hey, Kevin, maybe you could play the flute part on this. And that and the flute solo that Kevin does, I'm telling you.

It makes your hair stand. I'm telling you, it holds up today. It's like 40 years ago when we did that.

And the quality of that, because when they pulled these tapes out, Jeff Wallach, who was helping them out, another sound man to the stars, he was saying that these tapes were literally disintegrating because they were 40 years old as they were redoing them. So thank God they did that because it might have been lost. But a little bit of physics and a lot of luck.

Yeah, there it is. There it is, Ray. Thank you.

All right. I'm Only Sleeping. I'm telling you, I'm Only Sleeping.

And he's got a couple on there that stand up really good. What's the one? The woman in the yellow dress or something. Oh, yeah.

Black-eyed. So there you go. Find that one for the, you know, play a little of that.

Interject maybe right now. Some guy sitting in a bar room, talking trash and drinking beer. The bartender finally asked him, what are you doing here? Then he said, I'm trying.

So far with no success. You forget a black-eyed lady in a yellow satin dress. But I'm Only Sleeping, it's just, I'll tell you what, it is really, out of a lot of stuff that we've recorded, and the Freewheeling album sounds really good now, too, you know.

That's it. That's the song right there. But I'm Only Sleeping, it's really.

Black-eyed lady with the yellow dress or something. In the yellow dress. In the yellow satin dress.

Yellow satin dress, yeah. Tom's a great, he was a great inspiration. And a great songwriter.

Yeah. A great fun. The one that he would not, I don't think he wanted to record again or play again, was The Future Has Just Happened and The Worst Is Yet to Come.

Oh, that's right. Remember that? Yeah, he was just awesome. Man.

He was just. Sounds heavy. Yeah.

Yeah, that's why you don't want to play it again, you know. Yeah, so Freewheeling Band, we've kind of followed the timeline, you know, quite a bit here. I would say in 79, because we actually left for, we left for a West Coast tour.

I want to say January 7th, January 6th, something like that. That's right. In 1979.

If you remember the blizzard of 1979. Yeah. We were all marshaled at our offices in Oak Park.

Yeah. And we all met there and like, okay, guys, we're getting ready. This is it.

We're ready to go. We were driving from Chicago down to Dallas. Right.

To pick up the very fresh copies of our record to take them on tour with us. We're driving to Dallas, then going to Albuquerque, then going to Phoenix. The radio, the television, everybody said, the roads are horrible.

If you don't have to be on the road, don't get on the road. I'm telling you, they were shutting down I-55 like behind us. Yeah, behind us.

They were shutting the ramps down and everything. So here, now think about this. We got a road crew in the truck with a sleeper, you know.

Yeah. And then us in the van, and we tandemed out and hit the road. We're 25, 26, and bulletproof.

You can't. Nothing is stopping us. We're fucking getting down there and getting our record, and nobody better get in the way.

Now, I'll tell you a quick story. Mike Drake pottered this thing, and it doesn't get out. But we're getting close to like Morris or something like that.

We got the CV out. We're all CVing back and forth. And all of a sudden, hey, anybody can help me? Help me.

My God, I'm in a snow drift. And I might have been driving or riding shotgun, but I said, where are you? What's your mile marker? And the guy comes back. I'm at mile marker so-and-so.

And we were like almost right there. He says, hold on. We're right there.

And as we pull up, here's a van that's blown off the road. And into a snow drift. So here we are.

Like I said, we're 25 and we're bulletproof. So we all jump out and go over to the van. It's a guy with his wife and his baby.

And the baby is sick. And he's driving to Houston because he's got a job. And he's got a couch tied to the top of the van.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And you're on I-55. This storm is coming in from the west.

So it's a wind from the west 30 miles an hour. We were following the markers. That's all you could see were the mile markers.

We couldn't see the road. You could just see the snow and the mile markers. And just like, okay, let's go.

So we tuck this guy in between our van and our truck. Says, okay, stick with us. So we manage our way down to Bloomington.

Get off in Bloomington. Go to the truck stop there. And we're all on the same page.

All the guys in the van and the truck. We actually switch CVs. Okay, go over here.

Listen, we're not taking this. Yeah, we're this guy's son. So we got him over.

And I don't know who all went. If I went up to him or Ryan. Kevin, this is our leader, Kevin.

Leader Kevin was also. And he goes over and he says, hey, buddy, listen. Glad we were able to get you out.

But this is as far as we go. And he says, I got to go to Houston. I've got a job waiting for me.

Yeah, you can get there tomorrow morning. We're moving on and we're not taking you with us. So that was that was it.

We gasped up, coffeed up and got back on the road. And within 18 hours or so, we end up in Dallas. And we're getting boxes of our record from the place.

And then on to Albuquerque and started that tour. And those people met you in Albuquerque and saw the show that. No, no, no.

I just thought there was a happy ending for these people. No, there's. Well, we don't know about that.

We left them alone. So. So, OK, so the band and the two.

Eddie, I know you started another band, right? You said Eddie and that. Well, yeah, that's. Well, here's the noodles then, right? Right.

In a nutshell. That's a story in itself. Yeah.

Freewheeler fizzles out. I'm printing T-shirts with a friend of mine. One of the guys that I'm printing T-shirts with said, hey, teenage radiations, a keyboard player.

I call Roman. I got the job with Steve. Just teenage radiation, which is the best gig in the city.

Yeah. But he was only playing, you know, four times a year. And I was used to playing 320 days a year with these guys.

So we started a little side thing was Eddie and the hot rocks with Brian and Chuck and my brother, Matt. On the drums. Right.

And then. And Kevin. And was Kevin in too? Kevin most definitely was in the original hot rocks.

Yes. I thought he was. No, he was living in California at that time.

Yeah. Because he left Freewheeler. Yeah.

We continued playing. Are you sure about this? Yeah. We continued playing.

Kevin left the band. Yeah. Kevin left the band and moved to California.

Kevin moved to California right before the end. Yeah. Oh, I got a promo picture.

We didn't. He was working. He never came on board with the Eddie and the.

No. No, not as a full time. He might have been.

I'm mistaken about that. Might have been in for a holiday. And played something with us.

Probably played. But no, it was Eddie and the hot rocks. And we did a lot of the noodle.

Right. We were doing a lot of the noodle stuff. Sushi stuff and.

The premise was at that point. I just wanted to play songs that we didn't have to practice. Right.

Kind of like the noodles. Yeah. So that.

It was a little short lived. Oh yeah. But it was fun.

Yeah. But, but, but one of the gigs. I think we were playing brew bakers over on Western Avenue.

And the Roman saw check was there. Right. Yeah.

Okay. So, you know, Roman was like, at this point is Steve. I was producing.

And I was playing with Roman. And you were playing with Roman. And I distinctly remember we came, we came off after the first set.

And I had never met him. Eddie introduced me to him and he goes, Jesus Christ. What a concept this is.

This old, this old stuff you guys are doing. He says. He said, what a concept.

Well, yeah. You know, and yeah, yeah. That's what we figured.

You know, it's all stuff that'll go over. Right. People just rush to dance floor.

Right. You know, and. Cause we were playing Motown.

That was what it was. We were playing a lot. But I was, I had a day gig.

I mean, I mean, I mean, I was working. Weekends and I could not stay doing what I was doing, doing with these guys. You know, so.

But that's delayed. Yeah. That was.

And then. I think I'm fair to say that was pretty much the birth of the noodles. Right.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Birth of the dancing noodles was right there. So what can we expect Sunday when we see you at the Riley's daughter? And by two o'clock, the show starts. Yeah.

Well, the thing begins around two, but I think we're going to just socialize for a while. And maybe open mic, talk about Kevin and stuff. And then the dance noodles is going to play.

And then we'll, after that free wheel is going to play. And we're going to come out and play. Saw some songs that we, that we did play cover songs in the noodles saw that we should have played in a little doobie brother saying, and then we're going to play four songs from the free wheel and album.

Oh, two of which haven't been played in front of people at 37 years. And then, and then we're graciously going to be joined by Kevin Klein and Greg Helton, the brass holes are going to play some songs with us. And we're just going to rock out.

It's been just great rehearsing with, with these guys. Again, Mike and Chuck are just. Glenn's been learning from the record.

And you have John, John, Johnny, Johnny is sitting over here. Oh, wait, what was the other name? John Johnny, Johnny is interesting. Johnny, I'd like you to speak up on this because you and Matt, my brother, Matt, who's the drummer in Eddie and hot rocks and also Chicago six.

You guys are best buds forever. And we're big free wheel of bands when you were in high school. And my first freewheeling show was at Bogan high school in 1974.

And I think it was Chuck. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That was awesome.

And then I witnessed all the incarnations that you just talked about. Yes. The big show at St. Rita.

I remember one year was with CB and, uh, and Kenny Satara. And I just remember Chuck, you were playing a, you had a talk show. You were playing rock box and you were doing a Peter Frampton thing.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of Peter Frampton back then.

And, you know, Joe Walsh. Yeah. Yeah.

But Johnny Paravich hacked. I mean, it was like, wow. Yeah.

People see your heads, you know? Yeah. That's amazing. The St. Rita community loved us.

They truly believed that as we did, that we were going to be the next big thing. Yeah. The next, the next aerial speedway.

Right. That's the next sticks. Next area speedway.

As we did too, you know, uh, and, and Johnny was there to be a part of all that. And, uh, that's why it's a natural thing for Johnny, such a great guitar player. Johnny is a force in nature.

Johnny is a, Johnny is, is a great guitar player and played with my brother, Matt, in a band called the myth. Well, actually you were first called crystal myth. Wait a minute.

That won't fly these days. Started doing the high schools with elite entertainment with Tommy Seymour. You know, that was not a name that you wanted to high schools.

So it was the, uh, late seventies, early eighties. You had the kind of cars, everything. So it was like, it became the myth.

Right. The myth. Yeah.

With Jim Miller on guitar. And every now and then they get together and they do it again. And this was a, this was a big deal.

And it was, uh, every weekend, the same kind of deal that, uh, you know, those high school gigs are playing, paying great money at that. Play more than bands get today. So John's going to be playing guitar with us.

And as it turns out, since Dave Curry's coming in and Chuck's playing, we're going to have like Lynyrd Skynyrd on stage. Noodle Skinner. It's going to be a guitar army, but it's going to be a lot of fun.

So you got this gig next Sunday. Everybody knows about that. What's your other schedule? Where else are you guys playing? Uh, well, that remains to be seen.

I think we'll be back in the basement. Last Saturday we rehearsed here. Yeah, nothing, nothing, nothing pending.

I mean, uh. Last Saturday we rehearsed here and Ed said, you know, this might be our last gig. And I looked at him and said, no.

Right, right, right, right, right. Who knows? I'm telling you, we go out. This band can surface at any time.

Who played at your prom? Well, you know, Mike Clear had the band. That's how he got in the band. I've got the basement, so that's how I got in.

So you never know. And the amplifiers. And we're probably going to be telling some stories Sunday, right? Oh, definitely.

Maybe Saturday, too, they might ask someone for some stories. I have one that I'd like to share now because I've never forgotten about this. Was it Downers Grove? No, no.

We were on one of our West Coast tours and we were in Seattle. And the one thing with Kevin was that when he would get upset or pissed, he'd get this strawberry in the middle of his forehead. Yeah.

And it would just turn red. Yeah. You could tell there was something bothering him because, man.

So anyway. Is this the haircut? Yes. Now, let me just interject real quick.

Kevin Fabish. We can edit this. It doesn't matter.

Kevin Fabish had beautiful blonde hair. Yes. He wore long blonde hair.

And, like, women were just envious of his hair. But he also had a goatee and he wore octagon sunglasses. It was quite often that we were out at, like, the Red Lion or someplace in Champaign, and some drunk guy would come up and tap him on the shoulder.

He'd say, hey, honey. And he'd turn around and, ah! Yeah, like, what? And the guy would go, oh, god. So anyway, we're on the road.

And there was a place that I think you and Kevin had. It was like a haircut college where people that wanted to be stylists. And they were given, like, these great discounts on haircuts.

Or maybe, you know, for free. Like five bucks. Yeah.

So Kevin decided to go in. And I thought you did, too. So we were all outside.

And, again, we were in Seattle. We were just having a good time. And waiting and waiting, I see Kevin come out.

And he's got this frickin' straw on his forehead. He says, look at me! I look like fuckin' Captain Kangaroo! And he kicked a parking meter. Half of it.

And bent that thing. Yeah, he was powerful. He was a big, goofy-looking man, you know? Oh, I swear.

I just told that story to Clara and Nick. Oh, god. Oh, I totally forgot about that.

He was spinning around. He was so mad. But Kevin would get really, really mad.

He truly became the Tasmanian Devil. It was a zzzzz. Yeah, definitely missed.

Gonna be missed. But, you know, he was a driving force. Oh, yeah.

Him and Chuck at the beginning, for sure, man. Yeah, oh, yeah. For sure, for sure.

Yeah. So this is a free musical celebration. There's no cover charge or anything.

Anybody wants to just show up? It's kind of a voluntary thing. Right. You know, pass the hat kind of thing.

There's not going to be anybody standing at the door, you know. Right, no. You know, charging.

Yeah, yeah, it's a voluntary thing, you know. Yeah, I mean, yeah, as far as donations, yeah. And all that, any proceeds is all going right to the GoFundMe page, you know, for his family, for his kids and that.

So, yeah, thanks to everybody with the GoFundMe page, too. That's been a great help to the family, I mean. That was a driving force by Kevin's niece, Colleen Baggy, who actually was raised pretty much as his sister.

Yeah, they lived in the same house, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Colleen's great. Yeah.

And she, you know, took care, helped take care of him at the end. And after he passed away, took care of all of his, all the legal stuff. And, you know, it crossed the T's, down to the I's.

So here we are, remembering Kev. So is there a Freewheelin' Facebook page or anything? Yeah, there is. Is there? Yeah, it's actually called Freewheelin' Facebook.

Yeah, Freewheelin'. Okay. Yeah, you'll see that.

Okay. Is there a website? No. No.

There's not a website, just Freewheelin' on Facebook. If anybody wants to follow you, get some more information, just go to Facebook and look up Freewheelin'. Freewheelin', one word, no G. That's how we always had to say it, one word, no G. All righty, guys.

Thanks a lot for taking the time out to talk to us. Thanks, Ray, Paul. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Look forward to seeing you guys next weekend.

All right. Thank you. Well, that was some great stories with them guys.

You know, they went back a long time. I'm glad to see that they're all still working out there on different projects. Yeah, yeah, they are.

And it's a shame Freewheelin' is not together anymore. But you can actually see them, as I said, on the 12th of January at Riley's Daughter. They're putting together, putting the band back together, I guess, for a show.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Going to honor all of our friends, Kevin Fabish, who just recently passed.

Yeah, it's a shame about Kevin, but this is going to be for a good cause. Freewheelin' is getting back together for Kevin's memorial. And it'll be, like I said, June 12th at Riley's Daughter at 2 in the afternoon.

So come on out and have some fun with them. Definitely. If you're free, then start wheelin' over to Riley's Daughter.

That's right. And thanks for listening. Just want to remind you, you can catch us every Monday night on Road to Rock Radio.

That's the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66 radio station. Check them out on Facebook or their website. Yeah, check them out and listen to them.

Listen to them in your office or in your car or wherever you can get... Your Apple Watch. Sure. Really? Yeah, you can.

Gotta have earbuds, though. Okay. Well, that's cool.

So listen to Road to Rock Radio whenever you get a chance. They've got some great, great Illinois music there, all Illinois music. All righty, then.

That'll do it for this week. We'll be talking with you guys real soon. Thank you.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye.