Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the roadie for the rock and roll Chicago podcast coming to you live. No, I'm sorry. It's not really live.

We are recorded, but we're live and we're recording. Thank goodness. That's true.

By the way, did you hear about that Irish guy that recorded some stuff? He was dying and he recorded a thing. And at his funeral at his at the grave site, they had a speaker playing. And all of a sudden you hear this guy knocking like, hey, hey, it's dark in here.

Let me out. Oh, my God. It was hilarious.

Yeah, those Irishmen are funny guys. They sure are. They sure are.

So what's going on this week, Paul? This week, we've got Jay Geppner. Now, if you don't know who Jay Geppner is, Jay Geppner played with the Beatle Brothers and he plays in a band called Backdated. And he's got his own band, the Jay Geppner Band.

He's a busy guy. He's he's he's our guest this week. Sounds good.

Yeah. Lately, everybody we've been talking to is working with so many different groups, so many different bands. They're all very, very busy.

They're very talented. They sure are. Sure.

I'm glad that they could take the time out to talk to us. Yes, indeed. As a matter of fact, Jay is a kind of a well, I'll let him tell you, but he's kind of a soundalike John Lennon type of guy who is crazy about the Beatles and crazy about John Lennon and his music.

How can you not be crazy about the Beatles and John Lennon and all them guys? Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Well, let's get to let's get to Jay's interview right now.

How's that sound? And away we go. Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray LaRoti for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. And we're here today with with the one and only Jay Geppner.

Hello. Hello. How are you doing, Jay? All right.

Great. Great. It's an honor to be on your show.

You know, when Jimmy Fallon called and kind of canceled me for the Tonight Show. I want to thank you guys for getting me in. No problem.

Our schedule is pretty tight. Yeah, I know. So thank you.

I was kind of all dressed and ready to go and, you know, got bumped from that one. So thank you for taking me on. And thank God that you're in beautiful Frankfort, Illinois.

You know, you never think you'd come here. Yes, yes. L.A. and Frankfort, Illinois.

And yeah, geez, I was just about three weeks. I was in Frankfort, Germany on my way to Budapest. Really? Do some shows out there.

And yeah, so Frankfort, Germany, Frankfort, Illinois. There's no difference. Not at all.

None whatsoever. Nothing at all. Did you play the places the Beatles played in Frankfort? Well, in Frankfort, that was a layover.

But I did play in Germany. But, no, I never played the points where the Beatles played. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the name of it.

Oh, the Rat Cellar, all these, you know, the Star Club. The Star Club, right. That was all in Germany where the Beatles, that's where they learned their craft, in Hamburg.

Right. They went there and, in fact, the people in Liverpool knew of the band The Beatles. But when they came back from Hamburg, Germany, everybody thought they were from Hamburg.

In fact, they billed them as, here they are, the Beatles from Hamburg, direct from Hamburg, Germany. And they're coming home. And that's my forte, pretty much.

I've been a Beatles fan all my life. Yeah, we know that. Well, first of all, how did you get started? How did you get started in music? I know you played with Phil.

Yeah, yeah. And we had the Beatle Brothers. And we still kind of do things on and off every once in a while.

But, yeah, the whole thing started when I was eight years old and I sang Hard Day's Night for the first time. And I was like, wow, this is so cool. I'm the youngest of six kids.

So my brothers and sister had all the records. So I listened to all their 60s bands and they had some Beatle records. But then when I seen Hard Day's Night, I actually seen who the Beatles were.

You know, I was like... You were sold. I was sold. My name is John.

My real name is John, even though everybody calls me Jay. So I had that connection with John Lennon. He was my favorite Beatle from that point.

So just like everything, you listen to the records and you go, oh, wow. And try and sing the songs. And I just kind of developed this thing for singing the Beatles songs.

Listening to the records and how they talk and all that stuff. That's what I was doing in my teen years. Besides playing sports and doing that at Leo High School and all that stuff.

I was every day in the house listening to Beatle records all the time. So I just became a big fan and gotten several bands. I had a band when I was 14 years old called Abbey Road.

And then we had a band called Feedback. With some guys, Don Vanderbilt, who's now called Donny V. We were friends. So we were in a band together before he hit it with Enough's Enough, of course.

I always kind of give myself a little credit for what went on with Don. Because when I first met Don, he didn't sing. He didn't sing at all.

And I tried to get him to do backgrounds for a band and sing. And I even talked to his mom. And his mom said, Don can sing.

I don't know why he's not singing to you. And I'm like, Don, come on. So Don eventually opened up and started singing with us.

And now I can honestly say that me and my brother were a big part to try to get him out of his shyness. And to break out. And me being a John Lennon guy.

I think he kind of maybe caught a little bit of what I was doing. You know, a lot of people say that Don sounds like John. And he does.

He does. I think I'm just a kind of early influence. Don and I are still good friends.

We talk. I sang backgrounds on one of his songs on his new album. So, you know, I see him.

How did the Beatle Brothers get started? The Beatle Brothers started... It was the greatest accident in the world. But I originally met Phil at the Beatle Convention. They called it Beatle Fest.

And 1978 at the Palmer House. Okay. Palmer House.

And I met him in line for it. I seen him drawing a picture. And Phil is a great artist.

Not only is he... Oh, really? Not only can he, you know, write songs and perform great. He also is a great artist, too. So I seen him drawing the cartoon Beatles.

And I was like, hey, how are you doing? I'm a Beatles fan. Can you draw one for me? And he did. He drew some John Lennon pictures for me.

And ever since then, we've been friends since that. And that was in 1978. The Beatle Brothers thing didn't happen until like 1986.

But Phil and I were friends. And he was in a band. I was in a band.

So we would go and see each other a lot. But one morning, I was driving into work. And Jonathan Brandmeier was doing his radio show on the loop.

For some of you who don't know about Chicago radio. The legendary Johnny B, right? You know him, Paul. For all the stuff you've done.

So Johnny was like, hey, everybody out there. I'm looking for a house to do our radio, our live radio show from. So I was driving into work.

And I'm thinking, wow, you know what? My house is great. You know, my mom and dad, where we live in Mount Greenwood. We've got a big ass basement.

I figured, you know, my mom's a great cook. I'm going to call Johnny and say, hey, do the show. And offer up your house.

Your mom's awesome. Yeah, so I'm like offering up my mom's house without even asking her. I'm like, so I get on.

I'm like, wow. I'm like, yeah, Johnny, I'd like to invite you to my house. I live on the south side, Mount Greenwood.

And my mom is all Italian. She makes great breakfast for everybody. And I go, you know, my dad hates rock and roll.

So wouldn't it be great if we'd get up and sing some songs and bother him? And, you know, so Johnny goes, well, why? Are you a singer or what are you? I go, yeah, I'm a singer. I'm not in a band or anything now. But so Johnny goes, well, sing us something.

And I'm like, Johnny, I'm in the office right now. You know, I have a job as a headhunter. But I go, John, I'm in the office right now.

I can't sing. And you know Johnny. Come on, do a song.

He pushes it. Yeah, he pushed, he pushed. So I'm like, well, I mostly do Beatles.

So he goes, well, do a Beatles song. I go, well, name one. He goes, OK, Spoil the Party.

So I was like, I don't want to spoil the party, so I'll go. I will take my disappointment to show. He was like, oh my God, that sounds like John Lennon.

Oh my God, that's great. Do that again. So I did it again.

Then he got the record. And then he's like, wow, you're not in a band. Yeah, he's like, you're not in a band? He's like, I'm going to find you a Paul McCartney.

So the rest of the show, Johnny's auditioning Pauls. And people are going, oh, this is Paul. So he calls me up at the end of the show, and he goes, hey, you know what? I couldn't find you.

A Paul guy was trying to find somebody we could bring in and harmonize and you could do some Beatle thing. And that's when I thought, hey, there's a guy I know. His name is Phil.

Phil Angotti. And I go, I'm not sure he does Paul, but he sings the high harmonies. And Johnny goes, well, get him.

Come here on Friday, Friday morning, which is May 17, 1986. He goes, come here and do a few songs. So I called up Phil and said, hey, Phil, what are you doing Friday morning? I go, Johnny B wants us on the radio show at 7 in the morning.

So we met at the Hancock at 630. We ran through that spoiler party. And that was it.

We thought that was it. So we go on the show. We sing spoiler party.

And it went over so great that Johnny's like, hey, let's do some more songs. So we're just doing them. And I was looking at Phil.

We never played, even though we've seen each other's bands. Right, knew each other. So then Johnny's like, hey, let's call and ask people to request Beatles songs.

And we're like, yeah, sure. So we were on for over an hour. And people were like, oh, my God, it was great.

Phil knew the high harmonies. I knew all the John stuff. So then Johnny goes, hey, you guys, I want you to warm me up at my next show, the Leisure Suits.

So we warmed up Johnny and the Leisure Suits at the Rialto Square Theater in Joliet. And it was right after that show, Buzz Kilman says, hey, you guys, you ought to team up and become an act. Because the exposure you got this morning is unbelievable.

And I was like, oh, wow. So I asked Phil, hey, should we do this thing? And there were people calling us, like clubs. Can you guys play? So we took a gig at this Riverdale bar called Somewhere Else Bar like a week later.

In Riverdale? Yeah, in Riverdale. Somewhere Else Lounge. Yeah, it was in Riverdale.

And Johnny led us on the show again. And he brought us back like a week later to do some stuff. So we said, yeah, well, tonight we're going to be at Somewhere Else Lounge in Riverdale.

Well, the place was packed. And the power of radio. The place was packed.

Phil and I just get on the stage and we get a standing ovation. It was the most incredible thing I've ever witnessed in my life. I mean, we didn't even sing one song yet.

But it was just all the people, like, because they appreciated what we did on the radio show. And then it was great. We had them from there.

A lot of energy. Then from that point on, we went to play, you know, everywhere, you know, from festivals to warming up. You guys with the dancing noodles.

And with the Johnny. I didn't realize it was 86, man. It was 86? Yeah, May of 84.

May of 86. Yeah, yeah. And which was a crazy year.

That was the year the Fierce won the Super Bowl. It just had all that craziness. We had Steve and Gary.

We had all the Loop. We had Kevin Matthews there and Johnny. It was the height of the Loop radio.

It was right that we were all in the middle of it. Johnny would go see your band, the Dancing Noodles, at PJ Flaherty's. And I'd be there.

We'd all be there. And it'd be crazy. And packed.

Every place was packed. Those were some great, great times. Great memories.

They were definitely great memories. Definitely some great memories. And Phil, well, he has a guitar store.

Oh, he does? Yeah, and he's Avenue N Guitars. And he's still playing from time to time. He's got a band now? Yeah, well, we all got bands.

The Beatle Brothers is always in the pocket. If he ever wants to do anything, we're always open to do stuff, which is great. But, yeah, we're all in different bands.

I think I got, like, five now. I think I got the Beatle Brothers. I got this band, Backdated.

Backdated, right. I had a chance to work with them a couple of times. Yeah, and Class of 68 band.

I have my own band, which is my own music, which is called the Jay Gutner Band. Well, tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, well.

Are you doing your own writing? Yeah, yeah, doing my own writing. I've been writing for years, Paul. And I do play.

I play guitar and I play a little piano. But I never bring it up on stage with me. You know, because in the early days of the Beatle Brothers, everybody wanted us to be John and Paul, you know.

Like, everywhere they booked us, they're like, do you wear suits, do you wear this? We never wanted to be a part of, like, the whole lookalike thing. We just wanted to do the music and do it good, you know. And that was the only thing that interested us.

So every time I did pull up a guitar, everybody would be like, oh, that's great, can you dress up like John? And we're throwing all this money at it. And I never liked doing it that way. I just, you know, to me there was one John Lennon.

And it's not knocking any of what any of the other bands are doing because they're doing great and making a lot of money. But for me, I just liked being myself. Sure.

Singing the songs and enjoying it. You weren't a tribute band. You were honoring them by singing their music and you enjoyed it.

Yeah, and that's what I felt most comfortable that way. I didn't want to be John Lennon all of a sudden, you know, talking like this. The next song, Ringo, you know, come on.

I just, you know, to me it was just kind of, I mean. But, you know, a lot of money in that. These guys are doing great.

These Beatle bands, there's one on every corner. I know, there's quite a few of them. It's like Elvis impersonators.

But, yeah, so I've always been writing, and I never thought anybody would be interested in my music or any of the music that I'm writing with friends or anything like that because I was playing the greatest music around. And then you go up on stage and say, okay, here's one of my own songs. And people are like, play I'm the one.

Forget my crap, you know. But I do have like the greatest admiration for guys who can do it. And now I'm happy that I'm finally doing it because I found like five guys who kind of like say, hey man, we like the tunes.

Let's do it, let's write. And I'm like, wow, so little late in life, you know, I'm like 56 years old. But I'm not looking to make it, you know, like, you know, I just love creating.

I just love what I'm doing. I love what I'm doing right now. Do you do any Beatles in the Jay Geffner band? Yeah, yes we do.

Because that's what influenced me. So every once in a while I'll throw a song and people could be familiarized. And it's mainly because I feel like, oh, geez, I'm boring the crap out of these people.

So I got to throw in a number that they know, you know, throw something in there. Have you recorded any of that? Yes, yeah, I had done some recordings and I haven't put anything out yet. So I'm thinking about this year might be the year.

But, you know, it all takes time because of all the bands and playing out every weekend and this traveling around. Yeah, I've been very blessed and fortunate to play Liverpool, England for the last 11 years. You know, and I brought every band that I played.

I brought Backdated there. I brought Instant Karma, which was a band of mine, a John Lennon tribute band. I even brought Phil.

I brought Phil twice, you know, once with the Beatle Brothers Hole band and once him and I. Right. And when you're there in the holy land of Beatles, you know, and that's what it was. The first time I went was in 2005 and I was a little scared because, you know, I knew I sang a lot of John Lennon and stuff, but I didn't, I thought, well, we're playing with a lot of bands from England and they automatically have that voice and that sound.

So when we started playing, people were like, oh my God, and they were following us around and every crowd at every stage got bigger and bigger. Yeah. How'd you get linked up with doing that and playing it? Well, I just, I sent them a videotape and through the years I got to know some of the people that performed with the Beatles like Klaus Vorman was in town, so he put in a word for me and Neil Ennis from the band called The Ruttles and he also works with Monty Python, he put in a word for me like, hey, look at this guy or look at this band, so I sent Instant Karma stuff, the band Instant Karma, and they hired us and I work for American Airlines, that's what I do in the day, 31 years with American Airlines loading airplanes.

Well, that's cool. So I got them involved because, you know, when... You needed to get over there. We needed to get over there.

American Airlines was great, they flew all six of us there. Really? On them, you know, as the sponsors, and they've done it every year. And then you rent a gear there? No, no, they have the gear, all you had to bring was your guitar and a chord.

Right, yeah, I mean... Yeah, that's all you have to do, they have the gear at every stage, so it's called Beatle Week, International Beatle Week, and it's every year on the third week of August and they have, you play the Cavern Club, you play the Cavern Front, you play the Cavern Pumps, you play the, you know, all the old Beatle haunts. Yeah, right. Which is, it's unbelievable.

And every stage has the equipment already there, so all these bands coming from all over the world are there playing, and it starts at 12 noon and it goes to five in the morning, every day for a whole week. So when I was looking at my schedule, I'm like, three in the morning? We have a gig at three in the morning. And I was like, who the hell's gonna be out at three in the morning when we start this gig, we play for an hour, and you know what, that was the best gig, it was packed, people were, it was loaded, and people just have a great time.

What was it like the first time you stepped on the Cavern Club stage? Oh, you know, I got goosebumps, I still do, I still, you know, I always, you know, make sure to kiss the floor. You know, just the holy grail, you just get goosebumps and you just think, wow, this is, your heroes played at these places, and in the distance, John Lennon's sister, she comes to all of my shows, and that's probably why I've been playing a lot of these countries. I just finished playing Budapest, which is the 20th country that I've performed in, and a lot of it has to thank to Julia, John Lennon's sister, because she told Billboard magazine that when they asked her, like, what Beatle act do you follow at Beatle Week, and then she goes, well, I tell you what I do really love is this guy who comes and sings, he's John Lennon, he's himself, because the best thing about him is he works, he loads airplanes for a living, and then he does John Lennon, but he really brings out the character and brings out the feeling, the spirit of John when he sings.

That's an awesome compliment. Great compliment, and so people have checked out my show, and then afterwards they approach me and say, hey, we'd like you to play in Budapest or in the Netherlands, and then they go, we can't afford your band, but can you just come, so they, it's great, so they just pay me, and then I play with bands all over the world. I saw you went to Finland, was it? Yeah, Finland, yeah, that was, yeah.

That wasn't too long ago. Yeah, this, yeah, this, well, let's see, this year I had Latvia, I had Finland, I had, yeah, Helsinki, and Sweden, and, yeah, Budapest, and now in December I go to Brazil. Really? For some shows in Rio, which is great, because December is their summer, so I'll be able to get out of this cold weather for a little bit and enjoy the fest, and the band there that plays for me, they're called the Blue Beetles, and they're a great band, and they're always excited, so I just send them a list of John Lennon songs, and they get it down in the original keys.

Yeah. We go over it real quick, or sometimes we don't even have time to go over it. You just do the shows, and it works out great.

It's great. I have to say that just truly, I don't know, the lucky face, or lucky whatever, they're truly blessed, and so thankful that, you know, I can do this type of thing. I'm a church-going guy, I go to church every Sunday, and that's from my Catholic upbringing in Rio High School and everything.

I thank God every day just for the opportunities that are coming and the people that I'm meeting. It's just, you know, I didn't know what I was going to come and tell as far as story, because to me it's just all kind of boring and stuff like that, but when I look in hindsight, it's pretty great, because I was a 12- and 13-year-old just singing in my garage and never, ever thinking that, oh, wow, look at all these different places that I've been around the world. That's awesome, that's awesome.

Tell me about Backdated. Yeah, Backdated's just a cool classic rock band, and it's just cool. Were they together, and then you joined them? No, no, no, we all just formed it together.

Oh, okay, because I wasn't sure. Yeah, yeah, and it's just fun. A lot of different songs, you know.

I've been so beadled that, you know, there's great songs like I'm Easy by Lionel Richie. You know, geez, great song, you can't do it. Like Sunday Morning.

Yeah, Easy like Sunday Morning. You know, just love to do all those fun songs that I don't usually get that much time to do, and it's a lot of fun doing The Doors. I love the music, I never did The Doors, and now I'm finding out that, oh, wow, this is great.

This is a lot of fun, you know. How long has that band been together? It's about like four years, four years, and it's been fun, it's been fun. And now I'm doing a duo thing called 2J Way.

Met this gentleman in one of the bands that I was playing with, Class of 68, is another band that I play in. And yeah, so I met this guy named Jay, and he plays piano, and he's like, man, I'd love to like do a duo thing. And I thought, okay, you know, it'd be fun doing Elton John and Billy Joel songs, and we do Elton, ELO, we do Bee Gees songs, and it's just the two of us, and we play all different types of wine bars, coffee shops, these little places that, you know, you just set up the piano and you do these songs, and what's great is I'm not out till 2 in the morning anymore.

I'm playing these things from 6 to 9, all these great different hours that are like, wow. So always cool opening yourself to different ideas and things. And that just started up just a few months ago.

I think we finally got like 3 hours of material to do that. But then, yeah, that's always a lot of fun. But yeah, very blessed and fortunate.

One of the highlights of my career is when Cheap Trick asked me to be their background singer for their Sgt. Pepper shows. Oh, okay. And that was cool.

One day I get a phone call from Robin Zander, and I'm like, oh, Robin. He's like, hey, Jay, we're doing our shows, you know, in Vegas and New York, and we know you know the Beatles back in your hand. Can you be our background singer? And I'm like, he's like, we're doing a month of shows.

You might have to be in Las Vegas for a month and a half. I'm like, I'm there. Robin, I am there.

Just, yeah, don't even, you don't even have to ask, brother. Just, I'm there. Count me in.

Like, you know, send me the info. Click. I get off the phone, and my wife is looking at me saying, we're supposed to go to Lima, Peru in September, you know, for two weeks.

And then I'm thinking, oh, good. I got two weeks of vacation. Good, I can really do this now.

I tell her, I go, I'm sorry, honey. That was Robin Zander. He just asked me to be their background singer.

There's no way I could go to Lima, Peru and do this. He did a Sgt. Pepper thing? He did the Sgt. Pepper album in its entirety in Las Vegas. For a whole month at the Hilton, which is the same stage that Elvis Presley played 837 shows on.

And I was like, oh, this is cool. And the guys, some of the people at the Hilton were like, this is where Elvis stood before every show. So I'd be like, okay, I'm going to stand there, too, right before the show, and then Rick would look at me and throw his picks at me.

There we are again. Get out of there. But so much fun.

And I always think back of, you remember how great Chicago Fest was at Navy Pier? Oh, sure, yeah. Navy Pier was just before it got revamped. Yeah.

When we had the Chicago Fest, I remember seeing Chief Trip there in like 77. And Rick holding up his guitar, and on the back of it it said Beatles, and they cranked right into Day Tripper. And I was like, so cool.

I was like 14, 15 years old at the time. I mean, if somebody whispered in my ear and said, hey, kid, you're going to know these guys and be their background singer, I would have said, yeah, what the hell are you talking about? Get out of here. So I always think of that, and I always pinch myself because it's just like, wow, I can't believe that just happened.

Now, you met Paul McCartney. Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah, Paul McCartney.

I met him close to like 15 times. I always thought, whenever Beatle comes to Chicago, I'm going to be there because it's like, this is our backyard. And that was very exciting for me, yeah.

In fact, it was 35 years ago, just the other day, that was the first time I met Paul. How did that happen? How did that happen? Well, Paul McCartney was coming to promote his movie, Give My Regards to Broad Street, and I heard that there was a press conference with Ritz-Carlton. So I was like, oh, God.

In Chicago. In Chicago. I was like, okay, he's coming to my city.

I got to plan this thing. And I went a week before, kind of scouted out the whole Ritz-Carlton, knew every door, because I was going to be a stalker. I said, geez, if a Beatle is coming.

At least you admit it. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Well, you know, I'm a big fan of his.

I went to, let's see, I was 21, you know, 21 years old. Now, if you think of it, Paul McCartney hasn't visited Chicago since 1976. This is 1984.

Okay, that's how long it was till Paul got up and started going again. And then, of course, he didn't come back till 89 when he formed the whole band. So I knew he was coming, so I had to plan.

So I knew the room where he was going to be in. I just knew everything about Motel. So then the day of, you know, everything's going down there.

I figured, Ritz-Carlton, I got to put a suit on. I'm going to dress up real nice. And go there.

Well, it was a good thing that I did that because I put the suit on, and I sat right in the lobby, right, you know, with my, you know, I think it was the Wall Street Journal. I just, you know, reading it, you know, just kind of, I wasn't doing any reading. I was just kind of closing it and looking around, looking around.

It was last week's cover, right? Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. Upside down. Yeah, exactly, upside down.

It wasn't even up. So, but what was funny was there were people there, you know, guys in Sergeant Pepper suits and stuff like that. And, you know, with Paul T-shirts on and this and that.

And the security just, you got to leave. You got to leave. You got to leave.

They're kicking everybody out. I'm like, oh boy. So I'm sitting there with the Wall Street Journal, and the guy comes up to me, excuse me, I go, yeah.

He goes, well, you're going to, we're clearing this area. I go, hey, I don't care whoever this MacArthur fellow is. I have a meeting here at 930, a business meeting, okay? And they're like, oh, excuse me, sorry about that.

Just go on. Yeah, yeah, MacArthur fellow. Yeah, yeah.

So what was great was when Paul came out and then there he is, and it's just me and him and that security guy. Of course, I'm going up, Paul, welcome to Chicago. The security guy's looking at me like, you slipped through the, you know.

And, you know, said hello to Paul, and then, you know, it was, it was just a great, great feeling. I didn't ask him for anything, and somebody clicked the picture, you know, and I was able to have that picture. But then every other time Paul come to Chicago, I'd know where he was at.

You know, one time I had my Hoffner base, my brother's, you know, my brother Dan and I had a Hoffner base, and he's a bigger Paul fan than I was. So Paul was coming through in 89, and I always had flowers for Linda, because whenever Paul would show up, Linda was there. Everybody would attack Paul.

Paul would be, and Linda would be there just standing. So, okay, I brought Linda, bring Linda flowers. Hey, Linda, you know, give it.

She said, oh, thank you. This is so beautiful. And then, you know, everybody's attacking Paul.

But then Paul comes around. Okay, all right, who's this guy? All right, you know. Hey, Paul, I'm Jay.

Nice to meet you. Okay, nice to meet you, Jay. Blink, blink.

Hey, Paul, can you autograph my base? Yeah. He goes, oh, where is it? It's under the couch. I had to hide it.

They would have threw me out. He goes, okay, go get it. Yeah.

Signs the Hoffner base. Oh, that's cool. Thank you, thank you.

So then every time I seen him after that, he'd always go, how's the band? You know, and every time I'd have flowers. That's cool. And I had flowers for Heather and everybody else.

And I'd go up to him and say, hey, Jay, I'm Jay from Chicago. Jay, I know you. I meet you every time I'm here in Chicago.

And then he goes, this is Heather. He introduced me to Heather. And then I met Nancy a few years later.

So, I mean, what a really cool. Pretty slick move, though, bringing her flowers. Oh, yeah, well, you know, because from the first time, I saw what was going on.

And I learned that, you know, oh, poor Linda's in the corner. Everybody, oh, boy, she's right there. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try this.

Has he ever seen you perform? No, no, I don't think so yet, no. He hasn't. But, you know, it was a great run and a great ride.

And, you know, had the great fortune of meeting the Stones and meeting the Who and, you know, just. Who else have you performed with? Performed with Roger Daltrey. I did a show with, two shows with him in Seattle and Dave Matthews and Heart.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, it was Alan White was in Liverpool, England. And he seen me sing and he came up to the stage and said. Who did? Alan White, the John Lennon's drummer.

And I invited him to our show. And he came up and said, hey, can you play that song? So we did Instant Karma and Imagine, which are two of the songs he played on. So then he invited me to Seattle to do some shows with some of the guys from Queen and from Heart and Roger Daltrey, Dave Matthews.

And we did a Lennon tribute out there. It was really cool. So I got to meet Roger a few times.

And that was a thrill. Yeah. It was a thrill in my life.

Just some great, great, great people. You know, I'm truly living the dream. Oh, yeah.

Because, you know, with the whole music thing, I never had, like, expectations. You know, always when you're doing cover songs, you're like, oh, jeez, how big can you get? And I always thought, well, who cares how big you can get to measure success is if you're playing all the time and people are coming to see you. So I never thought of, like, oh, I got to get out of this, playing the dirt hole in and on to bigger and better things.

I still play the dirt hole in. And any hole that asks me to come and play, I will be there playing because I just love it. And I'm just very happy to still be doing it.

I'm 56 years old. And what's great is, like, these opportunities just coming out of the blue, especially these international shows that come in and sing in these different countries. It's just really been fun and just having a great time.

So to me, I'm living the dream because I'm doing it. I work at the airport. I do that by day.

And then by night, I'm singing and doing what I really want. So now back to you, you took them to Liverpool, right? Liverpool, yeah. Last year, yeah, it was great.

And we did a great... The Backdated band did a great job. They're a good band. Yeah, great band.

We had a great time. And what was fun for me, it was my 10th time playing in Liverpool. What was really fun for me was seeing all the guys in the band their first time.

It was all their first time. And just watching them and just having them have that experience that I had the first time I was there. And we're playing at places like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.

And then you're seeing these places that we grew up listening about or seeing pictures of. You're actually there. So you're still keeping busy around here? Yeah, still keeping, still doing it.

I'm booked every weekend, whether it be with Backdated or Class of 68 or the 2J Way or the Jay Gepner band. So I kind of corner all markets and just keep myself busy. And then also have time to... I'm married and I have a family.

I have a daughter who just moved out to Los Angeles. Her name's Amanda, and she works for The Voice now. Oh, great.

What does she do for a living? She's on the production team. And now she got a raise. She's now doing all the booking.

Oh, really? For all the hotels and the travel arrangements for the guests, for the stars, and for everybody. Oh, very cool. So she's doing that.

Now I have to thank Jimmy Vivino, who's with the Conan band. He's a good friend of mine, and he kind of invited me to the Conan show, and I got to go backstage and meet Conan. Danny Harrison was there that day, George Harrison's son.

I got to meet him and Weird Al and Sarah. Just so many great people. And Jimmy took my daughter and took her all over Warner Brothers Studio and introduced her to different people.

He said, have your resume. What a sweet, sweet guy he was. And I knew Jimmy from playing together in Beatle bands.

He's in a band called The Fab Four. Him and Will Lee. And both of them guys have been great.

Will Lee, geez, he brought me to the Letterman show. He introduced me to Elvis Costello. He put me in the green room.

There I am at the Ed Sullivan Student Theater walking on the stage saying hi to David Letterman. Who the hell is this guy? And, you know, just so many dreams. So many cool things have happened.

Someone says you ought to write it down and write a book or something like that. Well, maybe sometime. I'm too much into just day by day right now.

So before we leave here, tell me what your favorite song is. Your favorite John Lennon song. Favorite John Lennon song.

Well, you know, with the Beatles, you know, it's so hard because of the catalog. But just in my life, I kind of, yeah, when I think of just the words and I think about how John is reminiscing at the age of 24 about Liverpool and about the, you know, there are places I remember. Just a beautiful, beautiful song.

George Martin doing that piano bit in there. It's just, I think the Beatles did it a little fast, you know, because they had to record everything fast during those days for some reason. But, you know, I just love that song.

That's good. That's probably one of my favorite ones. And as a solo John Lennon, of course, I love Imagine.

But I really, Mind Games is great. I have a different one every week. That's cool.

That's cool. So where can people find you? Yeah, just go to jgeppner.com. Okay. And there's a page there and, you know, same with backdata.com, jgeppnerband.com, you know, so.

G-O-E-P-P. Yes, yeah, J-A-Y-J and G-O-E-P-P-N-E-R. And how about you guys? This is great, this gig you got here with this, you know.

It's kind of fun. Rock and roll. Because you guys have seen it all, too.

I mean, Paul. Yeah. I first met you back, you know, with Eminem and Rush back 30-something years ago.

Playing a recreation, well, yeah, 40 years at the recreation center in Kettymet Park. I remember you guys. I was real young then, but then, you know, growing up and watching your success and seeing all your bands.

Right. Well, my two bands. My two bands.

I kept it to two. Yeah, well, yeah. And I'm still playing in both of them.

Yeah. But Ray came up with this idea about a year, year and a half, couple years ago maybe, and he presented it to me and said, we should do a podcast. And I'm like, what? What's a podcast? Right, right.

And so he says, we call it Rock and Roll Chicago, you know, because the name fits. Right. And he says, we just talk to people and bands and individuals and musicians from the 60s, the 70s, up to currently, and see what they're doing and see how they're, you know, tell us a little bit about their band.

And so I said, sounds like a good idea. So we started doing it, and we've got 20-some in the camp already. That's beautiful, man.

Best of luck. You know, I'll go through my card dial and send you some guys I know, maybe hopefully Rick Nielsen or something. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Give you guys a call, too. I can help you out with some of the Chicago musicians that I've worked with. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But this is a real cool thing you're doing. Yeah. Well, now we have a studio, too.

Yeah, yeah. That Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. Oh, really? Okay, good.

They just got us all the equipment. We set it up last week. Actually, this morning we were there.

Oh, good. Now are you going to be recording there, or are you going to do mainly your show there? We'll do the podcast there. I mean, we're still going to get out.

Yeah, good. People can't make it down to Joliet. We'll go out.

We've got all the affordable stuff. But we've got a new studio, which is really cool. That's great.

We've got people down there, too. Plus, once the museum gets going, they're not open yet. But once they get going and people come down there and see the museum and stuff.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then next time I'll bring the guitar and we'll do a song or two. Yeah, there we go.

We'll get you down to the museum for sure. Oh, yeah. No, definitely.

Yeah, thanks. This was fun. I came here not knowing what to say or what this was going to be.

That's our job, too. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks.

The museum also has an internet radio station called Road to Rock Radio. Okay. We should play nothing but Illinois music.

Yeah. There's a lot of great musicians here. And they rebroadcast our podcast every Monday night at 6 o'clock.

Oh, wow. They play all of our podcasts. There we go.

That's beautiful. Oh, man. So good.

So thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it. All right, cheers. Let's have a drink.

All right. Here we go. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Yeah.

Father Jay's an animated fellow, isn't he? I'll say for sure, Paul. I don't sound like Ringo, though. I'm still a little nasally.

Well, you've got the looks for Ringo, though. Oh, I thought it was more Richard Branson. Yeah.

Well, you heard about the guy who walked into the barber shop and said, No. He had long, unruly hair. Yeah.

And the barber took his brush and broke his nose. Oh, douche. Very nice.

Very nice. Paul will be at Zany's all week. I don't mean to diss Ringo.

I shouldn't diss Ringo that way. So what? We had a great time with Jay. Yes, we did.

Yes, we did. Great time. Guys had a really great career doing this Beatles stuff, man.

It was amazing. And all over the place, all over the world, really. All over the world, yeah.

How many people get to stalk Paul McCartney? Well, he did that. We talked about that. He did do that, yes.

On a number of occasions. Yes. Nowadays, you'd go to jail, so.

Yeah. Well, and he got to play with the Beatles in Cavern Club and some of those great spots in Liverpool and London. And he's also been all around the world.

Yes, he has. He's still doing it. He's still going strong.

Yes, he is. So I hope everybody enjoyed it. Make sure you guys check us out on Facebook and on our website.

Make sure you're tuning in to TheRoadToRockRadio.net every Monday at 6 o'clock for one of our podcasts. And you know what? Just don't tune in on Monday at 6. Listen to it all the time. That's right.

It's great music. It's all Illinois-based music. And it's a great, great station to listen to.

Definitely. And check out the Illinois Rock & Roll Museum on Route 66, opening soon. All right.

Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.