Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray LaRoti for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Hope everybody enjoyed our interview with Cadillac Groove last week. Best wishes going out to Tom Dixon, who had a few little medical problems, issues over the past few days.

I hope he's feeling better. Yes, I certainly hope so, too. But this week, we've got an individual this week who has made his way through the rock and roll ranks, and that's Tommy Shekel, a famous drummer for Jonathan Brandmeier and the Leisure Suits, the Buckinghams, and of course, Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Wait a minute, Paul. We don't have a horn band this week? No, no horn band this week. No, no, we'll try and get to one next week.

Okay. Oh, she threw me for a minute there. I was like, wow, no horn band.

No, but Tommy was a lot of fun. You know that we talked to him for over four hours? Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I know.

But I didn't realize it went so quickly. Now we don't have a four-hour interview for you. We've cut it down to 30 minutes or so, but we talked to him for over four hours.

It was a fun time. Maybe we could have done a series, you know, part one, two, three, four. We could have, yes.

Yeah, there was some great stuff, though. I mean, it was a lot of fun. He had some great stories.

So why don't we take a listen to him? Let's do that right now. All right. Here's our interview with Tommy Sheckle.

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

Today we're meeting with Tommy Sheckle, Chicago's very own. How are you doing, Tommy? Awesome, thank you. Now that I'm back here in the back, back, back room, what's happening with you guys? Beautiful downtown Frankfort, Illinois.

It is beautiful, isn't it? So, so I got to, I got to start off by reminding you of a gig you played not too long ago with Dave Zane at the Blue Chip. Remember meeting me at, I was running, I ran south. Oh yeah, yeah.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's right. What's the name of his band? Zane's Way? Zane's Way.

Zane's Way, yes. That's one of his bands, right? Yeah. He's got like a bunch of them.

Yeah. Right. What was funny about that gig is I, you know, that's really weird because I thought of this instance today, Dave said at one point he introduced me to, to, you know, he was introducing the band and he came to me and he said, boy, I know he's putting on a big show back there.

I wish I could turn around and see it. You know, and I wasn't putting on any show. I was just trying to, trying to concentrate and play these songs that I don't know.

Yeah. And it was embarrassing. And I don't know why I thought of that today when I was like brushing my teeth or something.

I remember Dave saying that. And that was years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a few years ago. It had to be about four or five years ago.

I'd say easy. Are you still doing it? No, no, no. I've retired from there.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I've kind of taken a hiatus from there. You've filled in for a lot of different bands though, I mean, over the years, like when you were with the Buckinghams playing those, those big shows with, you know, Grassroots and Hermits you filled in for some of their bands too, right? Yeah. Well, when I was with Buckinghams, I played regularly with the Turtles when their drummer Joe Stefko couldn't make it.

And then I did, did work with Grassroots and Gary Lewis and Playboys. And then with, with the Raiders, I got to play with a lot of people because we would go out and do tours with these bands and then we'd be the band, you know, we'd be, we still are Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels a lot of times, you know, the Detroit Wheels and then with tights and Raider boots on, you know, back up Chuck Negron and Mary Wilson. I was surprised when you walked in today and you had your whole Paul Revere get up on you.

So that kind of reminds me of the Jim Peter show we did in his purple. Well, you know, I was at the pool, so I just had the Raider boots and Speedos on and now I had to dress up for you guys. So how did you get started? Well, first of all, how did you get started in music business? I mean, I think probably like you saw the Beatles, you know, heard, I remember the first time I heard I want to hold your hand and you know, and that's, that's what made you decide to be a drummer? It seemed like the simplest, I think.

Was it Ringo? No, you know, the guy you want to be is Paul McCartney, John Lennon, but yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Something, you know, that's an interesting question, but does an instrument pick you or do you pick an instrument? Yeah.

How about you? Well, I just, I just, I wanted to play guitar and I got a guitar for Christmas one year and it was it. Yeah. Yeah.

I just thought the drums were the coolest thing, I guess. What did I know? When I was a kid, I wanted to play drums. I finally got my parents to buy me a set of drums and started playing with them.

And I suddenly realized that the drummer's always in the back. The chicks see them. They never see the drummer.

I said, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to play guitar. They're like, oh no, no, no.

We got you the drums. You want to play guitar? You buy your own guitar. So I sold the drums and bought a guitar.

Oh, you did? Yeah. There you go. Good thinking, man.

You were smart. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and I was the same thing in baseball. I wanted to be the catcher. And then I realized, you know, the stars of the team are the pitcher and the first baseman.

And here I am. Shortstop. I'm all covered in dirt.

And everybody'd be going off to the mall shop afterwards, and it'd be me, a guy, I got to go home and take a shower, and I'd be squatting. All the gear. Just like drums.

Your knees hurt. Yeah. Knees hurt, man.

And getting hit in the head with bats and balls. And the pitcher's up there. Rock's like the lead guitarist or the lead singer, you know? Oh, well.

So how'd you get hooked up with the Bucky Hibbs? Bucky Hibbs? Bucky Hibbs was your first big band that you played with, right? There you go. Actually, I got with Johnny Brandmeier. Oh, Johnny.

Yeah, that's right. Just months. Jonathan Brandmeier.

Months before the Bucky Hibbs. At least. Yeah.

Yeah, so I got with Johnny. So how did that go, then? I got a mysterious phone call one day from somebody on his team. He was just coming to town.

I don't know if you remember, they were running those Mr. T commercials with him before he came to town. He looked like Mr. T. Okay. And, you know, I pity the fool who doesn't turn into a loop or whatever.

Right, right, right. And so they were running these commercials like crazy. And so I knew his name from these commercials, but he hadn't come over from Arizona yet, from Phoenix, where he was a big deal.

Right. And one day I got a call, and it's somebody from his team saying, Listen, Johnny's coming here. I don't know if you know anything about him, but he had a band.

You know, we played for 10,000 people, these shows in Phoenix, and we're going to do the same thing in Chicago. And we asked around. We need a drummer.

We asked around, and your name came up a few times, and so here's the deal. I remember him saying, Would you be willing to, you know, play with underwear on your head if we asked you to? I said, Yeah, sure, why not? I said, What the hell am I getting into? Did you? Never did. Oh, no, okay.

What was funny is I remember he said, And the pay will be, what did he say? Something like somewhere between, I don't remember the figure, but like $404,000. I said, Wow, great. And then whatever it was, it was always $400,000.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said to his manager one time, I said, You could have said $4 million. He said, Yeah, I guess I could, you know.

I could have said, Yeah, between $200,000 and $2 million, somewhere in that sweet spot. So now, did you play with the horn guys in that band? Were Kevin Kline and Greg Hilton? Because they just played with the Noodles again. Oh, yeah, yeah.

They did the show with us a week ago. Oh, they did? Oh, great, the Bonehead Horns. Yeah, yes.

We had a different name for them. Oh, did you? We called them the Brass Holes. I like that.

That's a good one. Bonehead Horn section. Yeah, they were the Bonehead Horns.

And Paul Mertens ended up on Saks for a lot of years. And now he's with Brian Wilson. Oh, really? I went and saw the Brian Wilson show.

And the band comes out, and Paul Mertens, before Brian comes out, he sings the song, the lead singer, and sings the song. And then he does all the talking just about through the whole show. Really? And I said to him afterwards, I said, You've got to be kidding me.

Who knew you could even sing? He said, Nobody asked me. I mean, he's like a really good lead singer. Yeah, wow.

Yeah. Bizarre. That's wild.

Too much talent. Couldn't, you know. How long did the Leisure Six last? 25 years, maybe.

Something like that. Wait, was it that long? Well, it started in 83, and... So did you play with them the whole time? Oh, you did? Yeah, and there were a couple different... Let's see, it wasn't straight through for 25 years. But, you know, Johnny went, we did the TV show, then Johnny got off the loop and went to go to California for a while.

He did some stuff. And then he came back and reformed the band with a bunch of studio musicians. And so it was kind of a different band.

God, I guess that's got to span about 25 years. Because I got with the Buckinghams in 83, just months after them, after Brandmeier. And I was with them 27 years, so... Yeah, maybe it wasn't.

27 years, that led me up to 2010. 10, right. So maybe it was with Johnny, 21 years, something like that.

So how did the Buckinghams think of that? Oh, I did a session for, like, a jingle session. And two of the guys who were on it were Carl and Mick from the Buckinghams. They were on the session as well.

And I got the session through a keyboard player, Tom Taylor, who was a keyboard player for, I don't know if you guys remember Faith Pillow. She was kind of a jazz, she had a couple albums out. And I was playing with her for a while, and so he got me this session, and it was two guys from the Buckinghams.

So I was on the session with those guys, and they liked the way I played, and they said, hey, listen, we're going to do this album, and would you be interested in playing on the album? And I said, yeah, sure. And it's funny, because I went home and I was telling my wife, it's really kind of funny, it's kind of cute, these old guys still wanted to play rock and roll. They were 32, maybe 33.

These old guys, they're still doing it, they're still going to make a record, and then they're talking about going out and supporting it with a tour and everything. And here I was, you know, 20-something, 20, 28. Well, I wasn't that much younger than them.

I was maybe 28, 29, maybe 34. But to me, I'm thinking, these old guys. And now Carl looks way younger than I do, you know, after all these, lo, these many years later.

And Nick is like, no. Nick's buff, yeah, he's still in great shape. He's got to be, I think he's 9, 10 years older than me, so I'm 64, he's 73, 74.

Still in good shape. Yeah, and Carl still looks great. We all got older.

They used to say, oh, come on, there are no original members in this band, because everybody looks so young. And then later on it was, oh, you guys are all original, huh? We all aged appropriately. Well, after 27 years, you're a drummer longer than the original ones.

So then what made the switch to Paul Revere? Oh, well, Carl and Nick, in 2010, were going to go out, they were asked to do the Happy Together Tour, which we had done in 1985, the second one that ever went out. And so they were asked to do that, but they were doing it differently. They had one band that backs up all the bands.

Carl and Nick would be the only guys going. So, you know, I was looking at a whole summer of no work, and usually traditionally with the Buckinghams, that's a busy time. So I was kind of like, ah, this sucks, what am I going to do, who am I going to play with? And right then Paul called and said, how would you like to be my drummer? I said, you know, I kind of like that.

You couldn't have timed it more perfectly. So there was no animosity. I see Carl all the time, and I see Nick whenever I'm in Vegas.

Carl and I are still really good friends. So they understood. It was like, yeah, well, we knew we were taking a chance that the band wouldn't stick around, but that was that.

Bruce stayed. Bruce stayed, yeah. Bruce is now the longest reigning member of the Buckinghams other than Carl and Nick.

He's, what, he would have been 36 years, so he's 35 years with the band now. I saw Bob playing with a British guy, I can't remember his name. Oh, a British guy? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I play once in a while, do some jobbing days with Bob and a guy who used to play with Herman's Hermits, Mike Broccolari, and they have a duo. And they blend real well together.

I forget who it was, I saw him somewhere, and this guy was playing there. He's kind of famous. An older dude? Yeah, an older guy.

He might have been one of the original Herman's Hermits guys. I think they did a record with him. Yeah, was it Peter Asher? Might have been, no, that's from Peter Gordon.

Oh, Peter Gordon. Yeah, but he was, I went and saw him, and there was Bob playing. Whoa.

Peter Asher was supposedly the inspiration for, what's his name, Austin Powers. Oh, really? Yeah. I saw him and Chad, Jeremy.

Oh, yeah. They were at the city winery, they did a show. That's fantastic.

Really? That was excellent. Yeah, I saw that, that they were going to do that. I don't know what happened to Chad and Jeremy.

I forget, one of them died, either Peter and Gordon, one of them died, or Chad and Jeremy. Oh, I hope it wasn't Chad. And the other guy just retired.

I got a funny story that Chad told me. He said, man, I love the way you play. I'd love my son to hear you play sometime.

And I said, oh, I'm thinking a little kid. And he said, no, no, my son's a professional. He's a grown man, and he's a really excellent drummer, and I think he'd get a kick out of you.

And I said, oh, yeah, I'd love to meet him. And he said, well, actually, I say that, he said, now I don't know if he's a drummer anymore. He came to me a while, this was a while ago, maybe in the 90s, and he said, he came to me and he said, hey, Dad, I don't know if you're going to be upset or not, but I don't think I want to be a musician anymore.

And he says, I said, yes! What are you going to do, son? He says, what are you going to do, doctor, lawyer? He said, I'm going to be an actor. I said, no! You've got to be kidding. And he said, but he loves it, and he's good at it.

So I don't know if I've ever seen him in anything since. I hope he's doing all right. And I hope Chad's not dead.

I haven't seen him in a long time. Which one of them did pass? The show was just last fall, I saw it. Yeah, I saw that that was coming, and I would have liked to have been there.

I think I had a gig. If they come back, I'd definitely go see them again. So it was Peter, Peter Asher? Peter Asher and... And Jeremy.

Jeremy, yeah. Jeremy's also an actor, you can tell. Yeah, right, right.

He's up there, he's... Oh, he's got a great voice, and he's so personable. He tells great stories. Good show, good show.

I remember we were talking about that concert for George. Did you guys see that? The concert for George Harrison, Big Star stuff. Oh, yeah.

And I said to him, I said, Hey, did you see that? And he said, See it, I was in the balcony with George's wife. I said, Oh. That's where he's at.

Yeah, yeah. I saw it on TV. I bought the DVD.

He was in the balcony with George's wife. Why does 60s music? Oh. I mean, is it just something you gravitate to? Yeah, just something you gravitate to? I mean, I knew you grew up with it.

I did. No, I got with the Buckinghams and stayed with them all those years. So through that channel, that's how I met all these guys, you know, all the other bands.

You know, once you get, you know how it is, people would always say, drummers, other drummers, How do I get, I want to play with the grassroots or something. How do I do that? It's those people, it's like hiring from within, you know, at a company. So once somebody knows you, they're comfortable with you, they see you play, then it's, they hire you to sub or whatever.

And so I ended up playing with all these bands just based on me being there. I saw you play with the Guess Who too, right? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry.

That's a 70s band. Yeah, that was a trip. We do this cruise every year.

It's a rock and roll cruise and we have all these different bands. And a lot of times I'm running around doing things on the ship that, you know, that are related to the bands, question and answer sessions and things like this. And this one year, a few years ago, I said to my wife, I just really need a vacation.

I just really want to just chill. Let's just, you know, we'll hide out on the ship. We'll do our own thing.

And tonight, you know, the first night before you get on the ship, I said, let's go get a steak dinner. We're on vacation and let's just really have fun. And I get a call right as we're getting ready to walk out of the room.

Listen, I need to see you in the lobby. There's our manager. Guess who's got a problem? They're down here.

And I said, oh, what kind of problem? They need a drummer. Their drummer is not going to make it. And I said, oh, no, no, no.

Are you seasick or what? No, well, what's funny, their drummer, Gary Peterson, the original Guess Who drummer, he's got some, he had some health issues. He had knee surgery, but he was, his knee was screwed up for so long. You know how that goes? Then it affected his hips and now he needs hip surgery.

So they had a sub, the guy, the drummer, Slash's drummer is their sub. He blows a retina or something the night before the cruise. And the doctor says, you absolutely cannot get on a flight.

Right. No time to drive down there. So I said, man, there are lots of other drummers on this cruise.

No, no, no, no. You gotta be the guy. I said, oh, no, no, no.

You know, it's a 90-minute show. And it turns out they were playing the second day on the cruise ship. And they, because of the way this cruise is set up, they share the ship with other, with Princess and their things.

So there was a cooking show going on. The day they were supposed to play. So we didn't get a sound check.

We only got a line check. And no rehearsal. We never got a chance to have a theater.

So I had to cram and learn night. So that, I mean, for two days. You knew the songs, come on.

Well, you know how it is, you know them, but you don't know them. But you don't know them, yeah. You know, for instance, one of my favorite songs by them is an obscure, they did a version of do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

What's that? Shaken All Over. Shaken All Over, yeah. So they had a hit with that, like their first hit, you know.

And so I go, oh, Shaken All Over. They're, phew, a two-minute song. I can blow through this.

They do a ten-minute with a whole Led Zeppelin thing. They break it down. Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee.

It's all that kind of stuff. And I mean, it's complicated. And so it was a lot of work.

I mean, I was up until three, four in the morning for two days. And then we get the sound check. They said, okay, we get to do one song.

It's up, it's you. What do you want to hear? I said, well, let's do the first song. Bus Driver.

It's Bus Rider. He doesn't even know the names of the songs. I went, oh, my God.

I said, yeah, I'm sorry, Bus Rider. So we did that song, and then the crowd came in, and like, you know, ten minutes later, 15 minutes later, we played that song. So I got through the first song, and I was like, eh, cool.

So it was fun. I mean, it was great. I mean, what a set list those guys have got.

Oh, yeah. I just saw they're coming to Rialto. Oh, are they? Yeah, a couple of months from now.

It's a good show. It's really good. I'd like to see them, especially if they're all mainly originals.

You know, that's... Yeah, yeah. Mainly. Some.

Well, they got the drummer. Okay. And they did have the bass player, and I don't know if he's still with the band or not.

But the bass player, the Q&A thing, he was getting bombarded with, you know, well, how come there's no Randy Bachman or... Right. What's his name? So he finally said, look, I get this question all the time. No, the singer.

Yeah. Yeah, keyboard. Yeah, you're right.

Turner. No, this is... What's his name? Oh, this is terrible that we can't put together the singer of the guest. Who's his name? Well, yeah.

It's because we're all about the same age. It's... I don't know anything. Yeah, you all know.

I missed my tapioca today, so... Everybody knows. We'll edit this in. Yeah.

And put in the name. Joe Smith. But he said, he said, look, we own the name.

Look it up. Yeah. He said, we own the name.

And don't tell us. Maybe give us initials. He said, you know, we own the name.

It's a recipe. It's... We are presenting this. We're presenting Guess Who music.

We were there, you know, we're presenting the guest. Burton Cummings. He got it.

Burton Cummings. Yeah, good. Neurons connected.

So anyway, you know, I mean, they play this stuff. It sounds like the Guess Who when you hear it. It's live.

And it's... This stuff's, you know, heavier live than you think. You don't even remember the records, you know. It's cool.

So how many shows a year are you doing now? Well, now we're not doing that many. We just changed managers. Okay.

Changed agents. And so, you know, when you change agents, you know, the general rule of thumb is, man, when you change an agent, you better be prepared to do nothing for a year while the guy gets all the ducks in a row and goes to the conventions. And we just changed our agent just after all the group of conventions.

So now... So I talked to him the other day. I said, hey, you know, don't worry about it. I'm going to be gone.

I'm going to do stuff this summer. I'm going to write a summer's letter. Take the summer off.

You know, let me know if you come up with anything. But so far, we only have, like, a few dates right now and books for the year, so... We're all cool. So now who's singing with Paul Regere now? Well, it was Darren Dowler, who used to be with the Lettermen.

And... Darren's the guy that I met when you guys... when you guys... you rehearsed at Blue Chip. Oh, yeah, that's right. Right? Darren's the guy.

Great guy, great guy. Great singer. Yeah, great singer.

Oh, yeah. Great voice. And he did some acting, too, I think.

Yeah, and he's an actor as well. He's got some movie coming out where he plays Billy Graham or something. Really? Yeah.

There's a lot going on. I heard you hate guys like that. Oh, man.

And he wrote a novel and he did, you know... He plays guitar and... He sings his ass off. Oh, he really sings great, yeah, yeah. But anyway, maybe you guys don't know this, that he's not with the band anymore.

No, no, I didn't know that. I said on the cruise when I was introducing our new singer, I said, you know, Darren Dollar's no longer with us, and everybody went, Oh! Yeah. No, no, he's with us.

Yeah, yeah. He just ain't with us. Yeah, so when we were going through... You have to choose your words carefully at this age.

At this age, exactly. Yeah. I don't know how this came about, but I think it was through our manager, but we ended up getting Dave Huizenga.

Yeah, okay. I saw something about Dave Huizenga. Yeah.

Right, right. And he's from Chicago. He's a Chicago guy, yeah.

He's got a band, Generation. Right, right, right. Yeah.

And like you said, it was kind of a mystery to me how it came about. You know, we were looking at different guys around the country, and Dave's name came up, and then we met with him when we did the Arcada show, and he's a great guy. Yeah.

Everybody loved him. And next thing I know, it was kind of just like, it all just kind of happened automatically. There he is on stage, doing a show with us in Biloxi, Mississippi, and every time I looked up, the guy was about four feet in the air.

You know? Yeah, yeah. It's like, wow, well, this guy fits. It's good.

So yeah, so we've only done a few shows with him so far, so he's still kind of in a breaking-in period, but he's got it down. So tell us about Paul Revere. And obviously, he's no longer with us.

No, no. It's too bad. I feel bad for Dave that Dave didn't get a chance to work with Paul because Dave's so enthusiastic, and Paul would have loved that.

But Paul, did you meet Paul at Marty's wake, Marty Bilecki's wake? No, no. You know, it's funny. Paul came to Marty Bilecki's wake.

He did. Yeah, I was there. Were you there? Yeah, I was there.

So I was introducing Paul to everybody who came around, and I can't tell you how many people still to this day come to me. That was, what, 12 years ago, 11 years ago, something. And they come up to me and go, Hey, man, thanks for introducing me to Paul.

That was really cool. Yeah, yeah. Because he was such a down-to-earth, super cool guy.

Right. I kind of remember just meeting him at Blue Chip one time. Oh, did you? One time you played there.

I can't imagine that you didn't walk away thinking, Oh, nice guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Funny.

Yeah. And he had some great stories. Great stories, man.

Yeah. And we, for some reason, I don't know why, we clicked right away when I got in the band, and we just hit it off, and we were like thick as thieves for the rest of the time. It was a lie.

Right. You know. How many years did you get to play with him? Four.

Four. I thought it was a real short time. Yeah, four out of the nine years I've been with the band.

Is his son still with the band? Jamie? Yep. Jamie was there. Yeah, it's with Paul, it's funny, when I joined the band, he kept saying, How'd the Buckinghams take it? And he said, You know, here I am stealing a drummer.

I said, Oh, they were cool. He said, Man, they hate me. I said, No, no, no.

They understand. Yeah. They get it, and they understand it's an opportunity, too.

You know, Raiders had like 18, 20 hits. Sure, sure. And just the way he kept saying, Well, don't burn any bridges.

Nobody should burn any, You never burn any bridges in this business. I said, No, no, no. Everything's great, man.

We're going out to dinner with Carl in a couple nights. Oh, great, great, great. So I kept thinking, Well, he'll be 75 in three years.

I've got a feeling 75's a round number. I'll bet I get three years with Paul, and he'll retire. But he had no intention of.

No, no intention of retiring. He kept going. The last year we played with him, he was sick, and he had a brain tumor, and he still went out and did shows for a year.

You couldn't stop him. That's a shame. Yeah, man.

And it's funny because he saw Dick Clark. They went and had lunch together at Dick's home maybe a month before Dick died, and he said Dick was, you know, Dick had a stroke and everything, and he said, But there's Dick still talking about doing the Rockin' New Year's Eve show and doing some other shows. And he said, Man.

He said, I don't think so. He said, If I had a stroke, I think I'd. But that wasn't the case, Paul.

Paul was showbiz 101, you know. He was going to go until he couldn't do it anymore. How's it being treated now? He did a lot of the writing, didn't he? Of the songs? Yeah.

No, Mark Lindsay did some. Mark Lindsay. Paul wrote a couple, maybe two, three songs.

But Paul's main thing when the early Raiders were together was he was the keyboard player and the leader of the band and the head clown. And so after the Raiders stopped recording together, after the Columbia, the last Columbia album was pretty much it for them. I think Mark and Paul did some things.

They did a couple of records after the Columbia thing, but that was kind of the end. Our guitarist, Doug, who's been with the band 45 years. Oh, really? He just had his 45th, 46th anniversary.

He was on the last Columbia record Raiders did. And bass player, he joined the year after. One of them was playing with Merrilee Rush, and Paul stole him.

I think the guitarist. Yeah. After that, Paul kind of revamped the band.

Well, I don't know if he retooled it. He just took it more in his direction, which was total whack-out. Almost a comedy show.

A major comedy show. And fast-paced. Boy, those guys.

Paul was younger, and they had, I'd say, the original drummer and singer that I, when I first met the Raiders, when we were playing with them, we'd always do, the Buckinghams would be on a show with the Raiders, say there'd be five bands, like some all-day thing, and we'd be like the first or second band, and then the Raiders would be way ahead of the line at night. So, you know, I'd always try to stick around and watch those guys. Man, they were good.

They were fast. A lot of real fast-paced. Yeah, just super-fast.

Everything was, and Paul, the things coming out of Paul's mouth were hysterical and fast. And by the time I joined the band, Paul had slowed down, but it was like... He was still pretty quick. Yeah, he was still pretty quick, but it was like fine wine.

Now, the whole thing was refined, and it was really, I think, his best. The best he was. How's it been changed since he's been gone? Well, now it's all music.

Yeah. With Darren, we had a little bit of comedy stuff that we kept, but like I said, with Dave, Dave's like an unknown, other than we've done a few shows, real high energy, super nice, crowd loves him, and, you know, sings well with the band and everything, and so, you know, we just haven't done enough shows to where we've developed any kind of a show. So right now, we're just a band playing with a new lead singer, you know.

But as soon as we do some shows, we've got a couple shows coming up, one in Canada and one in Wisconsin, I think, and that'll tighten us up a little more. Poor Dave, you know, he's been... Thrown into the fire. Oh, my God, and did he come clean.

He's got a teleprompter. He's got his own teleprompter. It's really cool.

He showed up with a teleprompter. Yeah, so I don't know how he managed to read that thing when he's, you know, leaping across the stage. So there were some people that weren't... Very few minority of people would come to a show and go, oh, man, it was too much comedy.

You know, it was... Right, right, right, right, right. I came to see the Raiders. Every once in a blue moon, we get that comment.

So for those people, we say, well, now come and see the band because it's all music and a little bit of... Well, you probably get a few people that go, where's the comedy at? I'm sure. But, well, they know where the comedy's at. It went with Paul, and there's no way we could... There's no way we could try to reproduce it because it was all, you know, it was all him.

And, you know, he... So much of his comedy was interacting with the band. You know, he'd say something about, yeah, you know, I'm 72 years old, and that's not old, is it? And he'd point a gun at the band. Oh, no! You know, so it's all that kind of stuff.

You know, it was all Paul. Right. And then the band would react.

Oh. You know, like we were doing a play or something. Right.

It was like a play. Yes, it was. Yes, it was.

What was funny is that playing with Johnny B really prepared me for playing with the Raiders because Johnny was so... Off the cuff. Yeah, and comedy, high energy. Right.

And a lot of comedy, a lot of sets and things like that. So I think maybe that's why. It's stuff that happened spontaneous.

A lot of spontaneity. And I think that's probably why when I got with the Raiders, Paul kept saying, oh, God, you're a perfect fit. You know, it's like you've been playing with the band forever.

And I said, well, first of all, I've seen the band. Yeah. I've watched you guys every single time we've played with you.

You know, I've seen them a thousand times. And then I think Johnny was a good training ground. But you could always sell a good drummer.

And he doesn't have to be technically proficient. No, no. But there's something about a guy who's... Yeah.

Yeah. Who's confident. Who's in control.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, I love that.

And I got to say, you were always in control. Oh, thanks. Because I'm the loudest.

Well, you were pretty loud. Yeah. I remember standing behind you at a sound check.

And it was when you guys were rehearsing. Oh, OK, yeah. And I was standing behind you, you know.

And I was like, man, he's a lip sucker. I got paid by the beat. Yeah, yeah.

Paid by how loud I played. Yeah. I got to say, out of any drummer I've seen, you seem to have the most fun up there.

I do have fun. I mean, you really project that. Well, that's important.

That's a good thing. Well, when I found out they were paying me... That means you had even more fun. Even more fun, yeah.

Yeah, you know how that happened? I used to play really intense. I mean, I think I still play intense, but I used to play intense like... But now you're in big stadiums. You're out of the tents.

Yeah, I'm out of the tents. But when I used to play intense, I'd go home with a headache every night. I thought, well, it's part of the thing, you know.

And I remember seeing Billy Cobham from Mahavishnu Orchestra. And he's an amazing player. But he would smile when he played.

And you could tell he was having fun. This wasn't hard for him playing in 9.8 and 5.4 and those weird signatures. He was just having a good time being amazing.

And I thought, you know, that's how I feel when I'm playing. But whenever I see a video of myself, I look all angry. I look all intense.

I thought I should just loosen up a little bit. Maybe I'll have a better time. And man, once I did that, it was like I took an acting class or something where they taught you how to free up your emotions.

And then I was myself. That's awesome. That's a good story.

Yeah, and thank you, Billy Cobham. You wouldn't think of him as being some rock guy who's having a great time. Well, yeah.

Thanks for joining us. Well, sure. Thanks for the compliment.

Anytime, anytime. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun.

I'm definitely going to have to come out and see you guys once you're in the area. Once you get back on the road again. Yeah, man.

God bless us, please. Get back out. For Dave Izinga's sake.

He learned the whole show. Right. So can anybody find you on Facebook? Yeah, Tommy Shekel.

You know, facebook.com slash. I should just say slash Tommy Shekel. Yeah.

And it's just stupid stuff. And of course, Paul Revere. And Paul Revere.

Yeah, I think our Facebook page, I don't know why we set it up this way. I think it was a corporation thing, but it's Paul Revere's Raiders slash Paul Revere's Raiders. But we do own Paul Revere and the Raiders, but I can't remember why we never, I don't know.

It doesn't matter, but we're active on Paul Revere's Raiders. And Paul Revere and the Raiders.com. Oh, okay. Cool.

All righty, thanks a lot, Tommy. Thank you, man. Good to see you, buddy.

Thank you. All right, well, that sure was fun talking with Tommy, wasn't it, Ray? Yeah, it sure was. Almost makes me want to go and put one of my Revolutionary War outfits on.

Yeah, I bet you look good in that too. Yeah, you ought to see the pants. Yeah, I think the boots are hot, you know.

They are, they are. But that was a great, yeah, that was a great interview. Tommy's a great guy, loves to talk.

Yeah, one of the parts we talked about that we didn't get to put on the podcast was a book that he's come out with called Sticks and Skins, a book that he's part of, I should say. That he helps design websites and whatever, and he was the, what kind of, he was the designer of the book, right? Yeah, he was a designer and he was kind of the impetus to get the book made. Talked with the author, well, he's the author, and he got her to actually go forward.

She came up with the idea, didn't know what to do with it, and he kind of pushed her forward. And it's a book about drummers and all kinds of famous drummers. So Tommy was, like you said, the inspiration for it and got her started at it, and that's what that is about.

Sticks and Skins is the name of that, so be sure and check that out. Yeah, Sticks and Skins, a photography book about the world of drumming by Jules Follett and Lisa Wales. There you go.

There you go. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it all over the place.

All right, well, thank you very much for listening, everybody. We'll see you next week, and until then, be sure and subscribe and check out our page. You can like our page, right? Yeah, you can like the Facebook page.

There's a group, too. There's a Rock & Roll Chicago podcast group where you want to join the group. We can talk about anything you want.

You can join that. You can find us on iTunes, on TuneIn, on iHeart, on Google Play, on you name it, Tunity, wherever there's a podcast, we're there. All right.

Sounds great. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a safe week and a good time, and we'll talk to you next week.

See you next week.