Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike, fresh from Juliet's right next door, everybody.

Oh, what were you doing there? Yeah, well, you know, what we do at Juliet's. Meat and Romeo? Eating, yeah, you know, it's Wednesday burger night. It is Wednesday burger night, that's right.

I had the Juliet, I had the Juliet burger. Why do people put Thousand Island on a goddamn burger? I don't know. Thousand Island does not belong on a burger.

So it barely belongs on salad. Yeah, it barely belongs on salad, but they didn't put mayo on it, but I had it with the mustard and ketchup. Big ass burger.

It was huge. Yeah, absolutely. You ate the whole thing? I did, absolutely.

I noticed a little bump there. A little bit. A little bit, yeah.

I didn't know you cared. I didn't know you were looking at that particular area like that. Well, when you were coming to the door, you barely fit.

What do you mean? I can't help but look. Well, you know, sometimes it happens that way. But yeah, you know, and I sampled some of the local brews.

Nice. Yeah, I came up, there's this thing called Bard and Creek. Never heard of it before.

Bard and Creek is a local- Bard is like a musician. Yeah, so that- And a Creek is like a babbling brook. Okay.

Okay, whatever. It was good. It was a good beer.

It had like the color of Guinness, but it was more like, but it's more like a red ale. I like red ales. Yeah.

I do like them. It was pretty good. So we're sitting here chatting away and we got three people here staring at us like, uh, duh.

We're warming up. It's called warming up the crowd. We're the monologue.

We're the hype. Yeah, we're like Jay Leno doing the monologue. Monologue would be one person though, but that's- Monologue.

But sometimes people think we are. Duologue. Duologue.

It's a duologue. There you go. I mean, not that I have a log, but I mean, you know.

Yeah, right. That's true. It's just a bump.

Yeah, that's a famous line from Christmas Vacation. We laugh at that all the time. You know, not that I have a log, not that I said it yesterday.

That's right. Yeah, and it's quite nipply outside. So who do we have here? Yeah.

We have tonight the Electric Cars. Welcome. So first thing, the Electric Cars, you guys do Tesla music.

Non-stop. That's what I figured. Electric Cars, they're doing Tesla.

And I would be okay with that because Tesla is my all-time favorite band. I know it is. I know.

I absolutely love Tesla. My all-time favorite band. They really are.

Okay. So why don't we go around the table and introduce each other. Tell us who you are, what you do in the band.

Hi, thanks for having us. I'm Gary, bass, guitar, and vocals. I'm Brett, and I do keyboards, vocals, and anything Tom asks me to do.

Tom O'Connor, lead guitar player. The guy who named the band, the Electric Cars. Okay.

Big Tesla fan, huh? How do we make the cars relevant to today? That was what we were thinking. And to give us some tax breaks. So if we submit that in our 1099 this year, it was a great $7,500 off the taxes.

Okay, there you go. Because of the electric cars. Because of the electric cars.

Oh, geez. The electric vehicles. Sorry, I just went real deep on that one.

I go rogue sometimes, too. It's frightening. That also means that whenever they have rehearsals and stuff, they can't pass gas.

That's right, because they're electric. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, exactly.

Plus, I mean, if gas is readily available, you're not going to be able to sell it like that. That's right. That's right.

You know, if you don't realize that, you're part of the problem. Yeah. So how'd this all come about, guys? I don't know.

We're just, I don't know. I swear I don't smoke weed. People love the cars.

They really do. They don't know how much they love the cars until they get into one of our shows. And, you know, they go in thinking they know three or four songs, and they find themselves singing along to 20 of the songs.

So it's a band that people love. You know, people heard it on the radio. It was in heavy rotation on MTV.

And the band came together. I was looking for a band right around 2020, and there had been multiple failed attempts in Chicago to make a Cars tribute band. Right.

I joined one of them. It went nowhere. And I said, how do we we got to keep this thing going? Totally turned all the members of the band over, got new guys in and renamed the band The Electric Cars.

Our first gig was one year ago, nearly today. And it's been an incredible year since. Awesome.

So you pretty much just hijacked the whole band. Not, I mean, in a positive sense. I did.

I did. I did. Tom likes to call himself our creator.

Our creator. He usually does. Not made in his image, obviously.

But you know, he's got these fresh young faces. Not his right hand at all. But yeah, I mean, the way we got in, and I mean, Gary's part of this crew that came in after Tom decided to blow the whole thing up and start again.

And it was through the School of Rock, actually, in Oak Park, where we all live, that he caught ahold of me. I was taking some guitar lessons while I already knew how to play keyboards. And he was looking for a keyboard player.

And the person that was instructing me put us in touch. And after a conversation at 10 p.m., brushing my teeth, he finally convinced me to try out for the band. And the rest is history.

Gary, we drug along kicking and screaming. Gary. So I met Gary because Gary was my son's t-ball coach in Oak Park.

And then he said to me, hey, you know, I run a... I manage a team in the Chicago Wood Bat Seniors League. Come try out. So I played baseball with Gary for about 10 years in Chicago on the Chicago Braves.

Never knew you played base. And then suddenly when I told him, hey, we're building this band. We need a bass player and a singer.

And he is our Ben Orr. Wow. Yeah.

That worked out good. Base, baseball. I see the fit.

Yeah. I see you coming together. I see it.

So we have another anomaly in here because how many times you hear about young bands. We've had several, you know, bands on this on this podcast that found each other through a School of Rock. Yep.

But not a single one of them is over the age of like 25. Wow. I had to take singing lessons, basically.

You know, there's so many backing vocals on the car. So I started taking singing lessons. I told my instructor that I'm looking for a keyboard player and she put the ad out there.

And then one day I got this message from Brett saying, hey, I'm not convinced I'm your guy, but I'll give it a shot. And I guess I convinced you one night while you were brushing your teeth, right? Isn't that the way the story goes? So, yeah, it was. You guys are weird.

We are weird. We're very intimate. We like each other.

So I'm just here right now. It nearly went that way. But, yeah, I mean, listen, we're not 25 years old, as you can see.

I know that the people on the line can't see us, but we've got a hardened voice here. But what's been great about School of Rock, and I think that you may hear this from the others, is it's just a meeting ground for a lot of people who are either trying to get into it or have been in it and just want to freshen up. And like Tom said, I think all three of us are in School of Rock or have been in School of Rock.

I had my kids in School of Rock, and it's just a cool place to find other musicians who have common interests. And that's sort of the birth of a lot of what we've been able to do, which is great. So big shout out.

Maybe they'll advertise on your podcast. We are looking for sponsorships. We are looking for sponsorships.

There's like three of them all within a stone's throw of this place. If any of them hear us, you know, actually now there's four because we know about the one in Oak Park now. Yeah, see? Yeah, no, I was I mean, I was totally just, you know, kind of, you know, giving you guys a little bit of shit over it.

But I think School of Rock is fantastic. I host a lot of open mic nights and open jams and things like that. And I can't tell you how many people walk in right off the streets and they say, oh, yeah, you know, can I just get up there and sing? And, you know, you have to always ask, well, are you any good? You know, well, yeah, you know, I'm at School of Rock.

I mean, and it's always nine times out of 10. It's adults that are going to take singing lessons. It's very few younger kids that are there for singing lessons and things like that.

And some people get up there and just sing their ass off there. They really can. They really can.

So there's two other guys in the band who aren't with us tonight. One is Jim Ventus. He's our drummer.

I found Jim on Craigslist. You know, we were looking for drummers. We just put an ad out there saying Cars Tribute seeks drummer.

And I had a lot of guys audition. And he's a great player. And Pete Hermes was another guy who was in one of those failed Cars Tribute bands.

But he sounds exactly and almost looks a little bit like Rick Okasik. He can maybe be another five inches taller, but he's got that dark, you know, that dark, mysterious look about him. He's our Rick Okasik.

Wow. Very cool. So that's the lineup.

So that leads to the question. You know, there's several different types of tribute bands out there, right? Are you the guy in the tribute band where you try to look like the band? Or are you more focused on trying to sound like the band? How do you guys do this? I'm going to let Gary answer that question. We have a theme.

We have a color theme. We wear black and red, which the Cars didn't do. And we don't try to look like them, like some of the national acts.

But every measure has to be exact. Everything has to be exactly like the original Cars played it. And I think we do a great job at that.

Everything has to be perfect. If not, Tom will let us know. Right, right, right.

I think what's funny is, like, we've been out a lot of shows. And you get the people who, like Tom said, didn't remember that they knew the Cars. And then they suddenly get into it and they're out dancing by the end of the night.

But we get some people who are there because they are deep, dark, dark fans of the Cars. And they want to hear certain things. And when they're done, the thing that we love the most is they say, I closed my eyes and I thought I was listening to them play live.

I've seen them play live. And I thought I was hearing them play live. And that's the coolest thing to hear when we finish up a gig.

Yeah, no, that's pretty cool. I think a lot of rock and rollers from back in the day, when they came out, they liked them, but they didn't want to admit it because they were too new wave-ish, alternative a little bit. So they didn't want to admit that.

I was one of them. I was like, oh, these guys are great, but I'm not going to tell anybody I like them. Sort of like the Backstreet Boys.

I never want to admit, but I do like their time. Oh, yeah, yeah. They call that a moped.

You know, the friend that rides, but you never want your friends to see that one. Exactly. But yeah, I can't remember what year it was, but what was the album called, Candio? Yes, that was the second album, 79.

Okay. And what was the big hit off that album? Let's Go. Let's Go.

That's it. That was the name of it. I can hum the song in my head, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was because that had a very, very disco feel to it.

And that was way early 80s, wasn't it? Wasn't that like 80 or 81? It was 79 when it came out. Yeah. I mean, the band started in 78.

Right, right. They were moving very... I mean, they had one album per year with Elektra. Yeah, yeah.

So... But they've got that thing because I think your point is like any band, you know, they had a short life, right? They were only there, what? 78 to 87, 85. I guess you could call it 87. But, you know, like through that time period, music transformed a lot.

And you hear these guys transform a lot. It goes from sort of that very rocky with a little bit of synth kind of stuff in it to a very produced, you know, John Mutt Lang style kind of oversynthesized thing. And it's fun to play all aspects of that.

Yeah. You know, I actually, I don't know if you can call me a Cars fan, but I really do enjoy their music, except for early on, you know, with the song, Let's Go, because it was during that era or whatever, everybody was still like, disco sucks. And you'd hear that song on the radio and you'd pretend like, I don't really like the song, even though you did, because it had that aspect to it.

But there was one thing that I wish I could go into the studio with the Cars, bring them all back together again, right? Put them in the studio and say, you guys got to change this because every time I hear this, I can't listen to it. And that's, you kept it going. I mean, really? We couldn't have come up with something more interesting there? When we play that live, when we play that live, people are screaming it.

Are they really? They are. Because everything goes quiet and Pete owns that moment. And this is in the song, You Might Think.

It goes silent. He says it. And these are the Cars junkies that Brett was talking about.

Yeah, yeah. These, I mean, a guy, we played in Three Oaks, Michigan in February. A guy drove from Iowa with his wife.

He wanted to see a Cars tribute. He never saw the Cars live. Huge drive.

This was in a beautiful theater. So it was a great place to see a band. People, I mean, there was the guy with the beautiful wife from Indianapolis.

I mean, that was a three and a half hour drive. What I love about a gig like that is not only you get those people, they all wanted to hang out and talk to us afterwards, which was great. They wanted to talk about the music and they wanted to talk about the time they either got to see the Cars or didn't get to see the Cars, their favorite songs that we did play because we play them all.

And then my favorite moment was when the promoter for the next show or the talent buyer for the next show that we're going to play in Michigan came up to us and said, You guys are too damn good. I'm writing you a new contract and paying you more. I said, I'll take that.

Yeah, we'll do that. That was crazy. Yeah.

Every day of the week, we'll do that. Wow. Interesting.

If it was me, the groupies come up and start talking about that, I'd say, listen, I'm sorry. I just play the music. I don't know anything about the band.

But some people do. That's crazy. So going back to their start in 78.

I was living in Boston in the time. And so the first Cars song I heard was Good Times Roll. OK, yeah.

Which that was one of the first times I really heard. I mean, I know bands like ELO in Boston are already out there with a lot of synth and keyboard, but that song just grabbed me. And they, you know, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, they were my favorite band.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, that song in particular that you were talking about, that also sounded like a lot of the new wave stuff that was coming out of CBGBs at the time. Sure.

Because that song sounded a lot like something that the Talking Heads would have been doing at that time, too. So they were right on that sound. So I can totally understand that.

Two of the two of the guys in the Cars went to Berklee School of Music, you know, so there and Steely Dan and Velvet Underground were big influences on them. Oh, yeah. And so there's a lot of dynamic forces coming together there.

And when trying to learn this music, you develop an appreciation for it that I never had just listening to it. Right, right. Like, well, you know, like there's a couple of songs that I actually know myself and people think, oh, God, it's a two chord song.

Who's going to drive me home? Right. Drive. Right.

Well, play those chords the way he's actually playing them, because there's different sounds to them, right? Right. Yeah, it is. And it's and it's and it's not super easy to play, actually, if you're going to play it the right way.

There's you know, there's you've got the some bands that will come in here and say, well, you know, we like to put our own spin on the song. Right. Well, there's a fine line between putting your own spin on it and not playing it right.

You know, so a question for you guys, when you when you sit down and talk to some bands, you've talked to the tributes. What's what's sort of the the lay of the land? Do you get people who are like all in at the wigs and everything? Do you get people who are more like reproduce the sound? Exactly. What's the what's the mix you hear? There's there's two schools of thought, right? You know, there are there are some there are some bands that try to look like the people in the band, whether they do or not, but at least they'll dress like them.

Yeah. We've interviewed other bands that have that put the wigs on and everything. I could never do that.

How could you do that as hot as it is up there? How could you have a head full of wool strapped around your forehead? Yeah. But there are a lot of people that do that. They they literally become a character on stage to to be in a tribute band.

But then there are other people. What was the band we had? And we had a we had a tribute band in last week that was of, you know, the other school of thought that they don't look like them at all. They don't try to look like them at all.

But but they try to sound exactly like them. It's more important that the music sounds like the recording than they look like the people. I would have to assume that it's it attracts two different audiences at that point.

You know, you know, one crowd, one one type of band is going to attract the purest, you know, fans of that band. And then one, you know, the other crowd is going to, you know, they want to go and they want to pretend like they're looking at these guys standing up there. Yeah.

You know, there are a few enough of the Cars tributes out there that there's a mix of these. And I'd say that there's a pretty healthy mix. I'd say half and half.

Like, there's a couple out there that look exactly like them and try to play like them as well. There's the group likes us that are like, hey, it's all about the sound. We want to produce it as much as possible, make it sound exactly as we can.

And I mean, playing keyboards is just a dream in this band, because the types of sounds that are coming out in that sort of era of the late 70s, early 80s out of the keyboards, then they're like Greg Hawks, the keyboardist had usually surrounded by like five or six keyboards, like multi levels. And every one of them was for a different sort of set of sounds that he was doing. And I've got it all sort of programmed to a Mac now, which is a lot easier.

I can tell you, I don't tell Greg, I told you that because he'd probably get pissed off. Right. No, that's okay.

No, that's that's interesting. Um, you know, nobody's ever asked that question before, but there's there's definitely two schools of thought over the over the whole thing. I think personally, I'd prefer to go and hear a band that sounds like the band rather than it looks like the band.

Well, you better come see us. Well, yeah, I think we're gonna have to we're gonna have to do that. So what's what's home base for you guys? Is there a place that you guys would normally play like most of the time or Oak Park is really the the center of, you know, we most of us live, two of us live in Oak Park and other guys in River Forest.

So that's right around there. But probably I mean, what would you say our favorite venue is? It's probably got to be Robert's West Side, right? There's a new venue in Forest Park. Robert's West Side is by a guy named Donny Biggins.

Donny used to book at Fitzgerald's. He had a place downtown called the Golden Dagger for a while. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. He also books Acorn, which we were lucky enough to make the connection on. But Donny and we got connected.

We stalked him a little bit, to be honest with you, because we knew he booked and he told us before the new venue opened that it was coming open. It's literally like 10 minutes away from all of our houses. And it's a fan like he's a musician who owns a place.

So he's it sounds amazing. He's just there to make sure the musicians are taken care of. And we've played there in various forms like three or four times at about two months or three months.

And we're lucky to do it. But it's been amazing. And like what we love is building that sort of fan base.

But it's you know, we've got the fan base that comes because their family and friends and they can't believe we're old men doing this shit on stage group that comes out to see us. And then there's this this growing base of people who are just super excited to hear the cars music played live. And they haven't been able to do that, especially here in the Midwest.

So we're the only one in the Midwest. And I think that's what's been a great thing. So we've been now out on the road, not just here.

We've you know, we travel all up and down Illinois. But and Michigan, as he said, Indiana is upcoming and we'll be playing in Wisconsin as well soon. So hitting a lot of the sort of Midwest Territory to spread the love.

And the cars are one of them. Like you said, they were here for a short time. People forgot about them.

And then all of a sudden they know them, but they forgot about them. And then all of a sudden they hear there's a cars, you know, tribute band. They're going to go.

They're like, oh, wow, I remember that band. Right, right, right. So if you're only sold, we started Oak Park as a center.

And so we started to connect with venues right there. And really, we started to build a relationship with the promoters to prove like to let them see how hard we work to, you know, not to just sound like the cars, but to make the night a success for the promoter, for the bartenders, for the fans, you know, bring they can see the effort we make to bring a lot of people in. And that started to open doors to more and more venues.

So May 17th, we're going to be at Humo's Smokehouse. That's the Brower House, which is which is a popular large venue in Lombard. It's been bought by a new owner and, you know, renamed Humo's Smokehouse.

So we're opening for 7th Heaven there. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

Yeah. That's May 17th. And then to the point Brett made, we've got a lot of festivals and we've got shows in Illinois and Indiana.

In August, we'll be in Milwaukee. We'll be playing with Animation, a fantastic Rush tribute. Yeah, right, right.

We did them. We played with them at Brower House back in November. It was really packed.

Yeah. So we're just we're basically approaching it that way. Building a fan base, building relationships with promoters and venues.

They realize that, hey, this is something different. There aren't Cars tribute bands around. So they want to get us in.

Reggie's in Chicago has asked us to play the whole first album. Oh, wow. That's a new thing they're doing.

So we'll be doing that in the fall. That's a new that's a new thing, because, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of bands that are going back on tour again and stuff. They're promoting themselves as they're playing, you know, a certain album in its entirety.

And that's a new thing with tribute bands nowadays is, you know, it's very, very often now. I guess I'm seeing that, you know, such and such band playing this album live. That's pretty interesting.

Yeah, the one that we're having to play the first album, almost every single song on that album is a hit. So if you looked at their their first album, you'll see it. And we play all those.

We there was one song we weren't playing, which is a complete freaky, weird ass song where I have to play like 17 percussion instruments like cranks and whistles and all kinds of stuff. And we've learned that one so that we're going to be performing that this weekend for the first time. We're super excited to be able to start to play those types of things.

And you're right. I think this new cool trend, I love the trend. It's not just for the tribute bands.

It's for like the real bands are coming back. I don't know. I just see recently like Psychedelic Furs or somebody else from the old times, you know, and they they were like playing literally end to end one of their first albums.

And so fun to watch because that's like you how you listened to music back then. Right. You listen to an album.

You listen to the whole thing. And that was the experience you had. And so it almost recreates that experience for especially bands in the 70s and 80s.

Yeah. There was no jumping around on Pandora and Spotify looking for your favorite cuts. Yeah.

Listen to it from end to end for sure. Yeah. So being that they were not around very much, how are you guys filling on filling in an entire night? I mean, you know, you got to you got to have three hours of music with like two 30 minute breaks in between your three your three sets like every other band.

Right. So, I mean, is there enough music for you guys? Are you just playing the cars or are you the cars? The longest gig they ever played was it was in Houston in 1984 and they played 24 songs. OK.

Most of their gigs, 22 or less. And that's two hours. Right.

So to your point, venues are asking us to play for three hours. Right. So we are we know 35 car songs.

OK. There's 70 in total. All right.

We know 35 of them. Most people wouldn't know more than 24. Right.

That could even be a stretch. So we have a second band. OK.

That we transform ourselves to a 1980s party band. If a venue wants us to play a third hour. Right.

So we'll go two hours cars and we call ourselves Cameron Goes Berserk. OK. And we play songs from songs that anyone who watched The Breakfast Club would love, whether they're in the movie or not.

It's a long that not the breakfast. I'm sorry, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. OK.

As in James Cameron. Exactly. No, as in Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Oh, Cameron. He was the buddy who wrecked his dad's car. Oh, gotcha.

Got that Cameron. OK. OK.

He freaks out at some moment in the movie and he's they basically this is the moment where Cameron goes berserk. And we're like, oh, that's a cool reference. And pick that up for our little cover band.

So how do you make that transition? You just go back for your final break and then you come out as like a different band or? I come out different, different wardrobe, you know, come out usually just a little bit drunker than we were the first two sets. Oh, of course. And we try to make it go berserk as well.

So by that time, it's a perfect combination of a completely set of music that are just rocking dance hits. And the fact that the audience is usually by that time, very, very drunk and ready to dance. And so it does.

I think those things go in perfect harmony. See, I would just slow the songs down. I don't think anybody would notice.

Oh, yeah, I think they'd notice. I mean, you know, that sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. Well, you know, as some of us do get older, we tune down a half a step or so just to be able to sing.

This would be the same thing. Just slow it down. Right, right, right.

We actually did have, believe it or not, several months ago, we actually did have another band in the studio that was a Cars tribute band. But it wasn't all cars. They were actually the band was called Cheap Foreign Cars.

Sure. Yeah. And they were cheap trick foreigner in the cars.

But yeah, you're right. There isn't. I haven't heard of anybody that just does the cars.

Yeah. So I think we should let the listeners decide if they sound like the cars or not. I think so.

Want to let them get their stuff together and we'll be right back. Let's do that. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Hi, I'm Rick Anthony. I'd like to thank my radio brothers, Ray, the roadie and Hollywood Mike for allowing me to tell you about my podcast. The someone you should know podcast.

We spotlight musicians, authors and interesting people. And we like to say we're making a difference one artist at a time. The podcast is heard twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

And you can check it out on your favorite streaming platforms and on the web at someone you should know podcast dot com. That's the someone you should know podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time. I'm Christy from Crime Cave podcast.

I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons have snapped back in the mid 90s. I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time. With each episode under 20 minutes, I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years.

Join me in the Crime Cave. All right. And for the first time this evening, we have the electric cars with one of my favorite songs by the cars, by the way.

Who's going to tell you when? Who's going to tell you things? Are so great things wrong? Who's going to pay attention to your dreams? Yeah, who's gonna put their ears when you scream? You can't go home. Who's gonna drive you home? Tonight. Who's gonna come around things wrong? Who's gonna drive you home? Tonight.

Oh, you know, you can't go wrong. Who's gonna drive you home? All right. Like I said, that's one of my favorite songs by the cars that that had a that had almost like a Dexys Midnight Runners feels.

Not everybody's heard that acoustically before. That's incredible. Oh, that's a rock and roll Chicago podcast.

Exclusive, exclusive. Yes, it was. I mean, we've never had a guy in the studio playing his nose whistle before.

You have to explain that instrument. This is called a melodica. Yes, yes, it is.

I think I dated her. Yeah, I knew a melodica once. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she sounded like a nose whistle. Every time she opened her mouth. That thing's freaking loud.

Yeah, it could have some volume. So yeah, we overpowered. No, there's nothing.

There was absolutely nothing I could do to tame that thing. It was that was like that. Wow, that's pretty interesting.

So you obviously don't play that when you guys are performing live, right? No, we we've we've just picked this up in the past. Like, literally, we rehearsed this last night for the first time. Yeah, they're like, shit, we need something to play on the podcast.

So, yeah, I ordered this and played a little bit over the holiday of the spring break holiday. It was there. But yeah, it's a lot of fun to play it this way.

We actually played this song very last night right when we came in and it gave us chills. I was like, wow, it's really cool to hear it that way. Yeah, it is.

So it's been fun to sort of tune around with these things. And like you said, we were going to try to do this live, maybe as an encore thing and get to get the audience revved up on it. We'll see.

We did. Our drummer, Jim and Pete, walked into the rehearsal room wondering just like, what the F? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're out of the band.

Yeah, yeah, we're going full canal. You know, you had the opportunity to participate, but you chose not to be. That's right.

We did it without you. So you get the bluegrass version of that song is what it is. Oh, actually, a banjo would sound really cool in that.

Oh, there we go. Yeah, yeah, that would kind of bring that out a little bit. No, that was good.

I enjoyed that. That was real good. You guys might have another another part of your show.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for helping us get there. Oh, yeah, we're going to give you the podcast, all the royalties for the extra tips we get.

And you heard it. Wonderful. You heard it.

You don't have to give it to us. You can just donate it to the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. In our name.

I did not agree to that. I just I just would like to have the cash myself. Well, I would, too.

Beer money. This has opened the door to so many coffee shops for us. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the cars never played coffee shops. No, I mean, if Potbelly ever brings back entertainment at lunch. But, you know, that is, you know, but you kind of hit the nail on the head.

There are so many venues nowadays, not really coffee shops, venues like that, that are actually paying very well. And they draw, you know, you know, pretty good amounts of people in to listen to quieter music like that. COVID.

That's one thing COVID did for everybody. I'll tell you that, you know, right now it's like I'm one of the people I I never missed a gig. I never stopped playing over COVID because anybody that had a coffee shop or an outdoor patio or something like that, they were still hiring musicians.

And now places are popping up like that specifically for, you know, acoustic versions of of whatever it is that your band does. So that's awesome. Yeah, we're looking forward to finding a new venue every day.

Yeah. Oh, of course. Every day.

That's very ambitious. Yeah. Yeah.

So so who's I guess are you like kind of like the music director? You the person that kind of works everything out for everybody? And well, I guess I probably have the most time I've spent the most months, you know, years, hours focused on the cars. Okay. But even though we joke around a lot that I'm the guy who fires everybody.

Yeah. I am. We try to do things.

We try to do things in a way that's that makes sense for everybody. So we try to we try to bring agreement or consensus. Right.

To the big questions, things like the set list, things like which song to learn next. Sometimes when the cars played live, not often, but there are a few times when they improvised when either it would either be Elliot or Greg. So Elliot, the lead guitar player, Greg Hawks, the keyboard player, they would improvise and they would extend a song.

So we talk about that stuff like which songs should we do that on? And if we do it, how can we do it in a way that feels a lot like the cars? So as opposed to just having a guitar player improvise, doing something more coordinated where the whole band is playing the guitar solo. Right, right. You know, like where the rhythm locks in and the drummer locks in on it.

And we're all we know what we're going to do. It makes it more powerful and the crowd gets into it. Right, right, right.

So we I mean, I'd like to say things are democratic. I'd say we all have our strengths. You know, no weaknesses in anybody in the band at all.

But, you know, I mean, like Gary is obviously the best looking guy and the one that looks like a rock and roll. He's shaking his head. Quiet leader who really brings a lot of sort of, you know, when things can get tense at any time.

Gary is always a way of sort of breaking through that tension. And, you know, it's also great, great, great, great talents with with coaching people. Let's just say some people do need coaching, including myself.

And I think his years of coaching have actually allowed himself to help, you know, get people in the right direction without having to feel like you're being told by Tom, get your shit together. You know, Gary, you know, I feel for you, man. I really I mean, it's hard work being a token member of a band.

It really is. It's hard work being the eye candy. I know.

I know exactly what you mean. I know, but you're awesome. But Jim, our drummer, is the most amazing looking guy.

In fact, we put the drum set at the front of the stage just because Jim is so attractive. Oh, really? Yes. OK, all right.

Wait, do you really do you guys put the drum set at the front of the stage? A couple shows we have. Really? Wow. It's a fun setup.

It's a fun thing. I mean, Gary is the guy who's been buying the right threads for us on stage. OK.

I never owned leather pants until I was in this band with Gary. Now I've got if you look on our Facebook page, you know, the article of clothing that gets the most comments are my red leather pants. Red leather pants.

And those are all courtesy of Gary. Red leather pants. Well, let me guess.

Leather pants, black blazers with the sleeves pulled up just a little bit like a thin leather tie, white collared shirt. You're almost there. Is that pretty much the look? You've got the mix of what we're wearing.

So, yeah, it's a lot of black, a lot of red. And a lot of leather. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I haven't worn leather pants on stage in a long time. You've got to do it. It's so much fun.

Until it's time to take them off. Oh, man, that's interesting. I mean, I've been known to wear assless chaps on stage.

I and I have pictures of that. I have pictures of that. Yes.

Very disturbing pictures, but I have them. Yeah, but it has to be done. Somebody's got to do it.

Otherwise, you know, who's going to keep the leather pants? That sells a lot of coffee in the coffee shop. It does. It does.

Yeah, it's been fun, though. I think the whole learning experience of being a tribute band versus being an originals band. And we've all been in sort of different bands over the course of our lives and coming back into it in this stage of our lives and doing a tribute thing and trying to figure all this out.

I mean, and trying to figure it out again, like, you know, I used to play in high school and sort of college stuff. And it was it was that vibe. And now you're like, we're all professionals.

We have got jobs. We like sort of work this in in between things. And then how do we still, like, aspire to keep getting better, aspire to keep getting better gigs, you know, present ourselves as as as cool as we possibly can at the age of 50 plus.

So I think we're doing a pretty damn good job of it so far. Absolutely. Yeah.

You guys are having fun doing it, right? That's we're having a ton of fun. So yeah, that's that's the main thing. That's the important thing.

So what's the what's the next one you got for us? We'd like to hear something else. Let's do let's go. Let's do let's go.

Yeah. Yeah. Acoustically.

Acoustic. We're going to do it. We're going to give it a shot, huh? And you're going to dance that your disco days.

Yeah, that's what we're going to do. Yeah. You don't want to see that.

You guys will start laughing and forget what you're playing. Hey, it's Ray and Mike, and we got some great information for you. Yeah, we just wanted to remind you about the fundraiser for the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, which is taking place on October 27th at the Renaissance Center in downtown Juliette.

You'll be able to get tickets at Cadillac Groove shows. If you see Mike or myself somewhere, we'll have tickets. You can get them at the museum.

They're only five dollars. Also at Cadillac Groove dot com, you will be able to purchase them online as well. Very good.

They're going to cost you five dollars a ticket. There's going to be a ten dollar cover charge to get in the day of the event. And for your ten dollars, we will give you two more additional tickets as well as some Cadillac Groove swag.

And the lucky grand prize winner will win the band Cadillac Groove. And winner must be present to win. And so remember that.

And Cadillac Groove will play for whatever event it is that you would like for us to play for. You know, conditions do apply. That's true.

We do have to get out there and get your tickets right away. Chicago. She's driving away.

With the dim lights on. She's making her play. She can't go.

She's a frozen fire. She's my one desire. I don't want to hold her down.

Don't want to break her crown. When she says, let's go. I like the night, she says.

She says. Let's go. She's laughing inside.

Cause they can't refuse. She's so beautiful now. She doesn't wear her shoes.

She never likes to choose. She's got wonderful eyes. And the wrist and mouth.

Can I ask a bit more? She's holding back. She's a frozen fire. She's my one desire.

I don't want to hold her down. Don't want to break her crown. When she says, let's go.

She says. She says. Let's go.

Let's go. All right, let's go. Wow.

Acoustically. Acoustically. That means not electric.

That means not electric cars. Yes. So that wasn't the electric cars.

No, that was the acoustic cars. See, that's a whole nother thing going. Oh, look at that.

Appearing tonight. The acoustic cars. The acoustic cars.

Man in our in our showroom. Yeah, you can trade market here. We'll also give you royalties.

Thank you. We will be looking for that money. Yeah.

Yeah. As the other two members of the band are listening to this going. Oh, shit.

We should have went. I told you we should have went. We get a lot.

We get a lot of comments. Going to fire us now. People love the name of the band.

Yeah. You know, for a tribute band. Yeah, yeah.

That part of it works. So a lot of people like in the tribute space and we've had to like explore all this. They'll get into like names of some offshoot weird ass song like and like, you know, they've they or an album that only the fans would know.

And so Tom was a genius in picking this one based on like sort of like it was a cool thing going on and sort of the current state of things. And it also has the car's name in it. So we actually don't get a lot of mistaken like, well, who do you play? Yeah, we don't use their logo either.

A lot of bands insert the actual band's logo into whatever their name is. Right, right. You're inviting problems.

So we don't do that. If you look at our not that I mean, I think some have actually asked, you know, if they could, which is fine. But ours people, you know, people like the name of the band even before they realize it's a tribute band.

Right. Which makes us wonder, hey, should we try to write something? Oh, I was going to ask that. Is there any anything original? We haven't we haven't done it yet, but there's several of us who have written music before.

So yeah, I wouldn't rule it out. Yeah, OK. Something in that vein.

Yeah. When you're playing something super deep in the in like when we're on the 37th song of the cards, like, you know, by that time, people won't know whether it was an original song or whether it was one of their shit. B side.

Yeah. So like, you know, we might as well throw a couple in there and just see. And what's funny is you'll go to to apply for festivals and sometimes they're like, yeah, well, we don't do tributes.

We don't do cover bands. We'll be like, oh, no, we've got original songs. Right.

So we'll sort of mix it up. You know, maybe we can tick the boxes as we're an original band as well. I mean, you strip everything down.

Right. The cars are pretty much playing blues. I mean, they're pretty much playing blues.

You could easily throw in an original song and people are thinking you're doing some kind of B side. I mean, you've planted the seed in Tom's mind. He said he was walking his dog the other day.

He's like, Brad, I was walking my dog and I and I was just creating this song in my head that's like about the cars and sounds like the cars, but isn't the cars. I mean, it was going into total meta meta space. Right.

He was like, then I picked up the dog shit and it really came to me. And I was like, OK, well. When I walk my dog, any melodies that come into my head, I just record them on my phone.

So I've got all these ideas. It's got to string them together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's all it takes. You have to. You know, as you were playing that, I was I was listening to you play the riff because you don't really get to hear the guitar riff when you hear the when you hear the original recording in a song.

It's the same guitar riff as too much time on my hands, my sticks. Wow. It is.

There's that there's that whole set the bumper bumper bound up and it just keep doing that over and over and over again. I was like, wow, I was totally you could totally transition in that song from there and do a medley. Oh, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. It could be that could be like the last song that you do before you switch over into the Cameron Cameron goes berserk and you go right into when we when people say, did you guys throw in a stick song? No, no.

Why? What did you hear? One of the songs we do, we do cars by Gary Newman when we're playing. I was going to say you almost have to. Yeah, we do a we do what you call a mashup in that song.

We insert Rocket by Herbie Hancock. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Which is like a big song in the 80s, like MTV. So we sort of stick that into it. Right, right.

Yeah. People who know freak out when they're like, what you're doing that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so when you guys switch over to Cameron goes berserk, what are some of the things on that set list? Well, we usually always start with just a crowd pleaser.

Working for the Weekend by Loverboy is always a really good one to just get people riled up. But we do try to play stuff that would feel like it comes from the same genre and era of that. Whip It by Devo.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Sure, of course.

People go nuts for that. We play I Ran by the Flock of Seagulls, which is a ton of fun to play as well. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, we get we get we get to explore some other territories and get into some other things. And it gives me a chance to relieve Gary from all of his amazing vocal duties occasionally. And I'll I'll get out.

I sing what's the Billy Idol song? I sing Dancing Dancing with Myself, which is a fun one. So New Year's Eve, we played Blister in the Sun. Oh, yeah, yeah.

People went nuts. I've done that a few times. Yeah, people go nuts over that song.

They really do. And we also played that song by the Proclaimers, I'm Gonna Be. Yeah, I know.

Everybody knew it. Everybody was stomping around. Please don't play that in the studio.

We were going to play our next song, I'm Gonna Be. Oh, gosh. Listen, you said you're out there performing.

That song is so much fun. Oh, gosh. People go nuts.

I've had to do that song a couple of times in my life. And I would always introduce the song by saying, you know, I hope this is one of your favorite songs because it's not one of mine. Hey, we did.

There was one cover song we played. The only time we've ever been booed. We played a cover song that the crowd was not expecting.

It was towards the end of the night. And it was a song that has a little bit of drama to it. I guess I should say the name.

It's Where the Streets Have No Name. Yeah, right. By U2.

Right. And U2 is probably the most popular, most successful band that people hate. Yeah, I know.

If you look up, somebody does a post, 1980s bands that you wish didn't happen. Yeah, U2's always at the top. I love U2.

Anyway, so we started playing it at this great venue in Palatine. And people started, people who were like all over us the whole night, they booed. Yeah.

I think in the end, they loved it that we progressed. We kept going. What did we close it with? Then we ended with Surrender.

Oh, that's right. Cheap trick. They were all over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No kidding. Cheap trick.

Yeah, it's funny you said that about U2 because I was just having that conversation with somebody. People just love to trash U2, especially The Edge. I mean, somebody keeps putting him on the list of one of the best guitar players of all time.

And I'm like, are you listening to the same songs I'm listening to? Well, he's unique. He brought something to guitar playing that didn't exist. But he's not, you can't compare him to a Jimmy Pager or Eddie Van Halen.

What is that, excessive use of delay pedals? It is, but the way he uses it. I mean, so many other people copied him afterwards. Yeah, that is true.

I mean, he's got like a delay pedal at the front and the end of his pedal board. It's like, wow. That's just insane.

He's not in any hurry. No, yeah. There's no hurry.

Well, you're on tonight. I am. Well, so what do you guys have coming up? What do you guys have coming up in like July and August? In August.

We're going to be playing in... Bourbonnais. Yeah, Bourbonnais. We're playing the festival in Bourbonnais.

It's all right. It is in Illinois. Yeah, yeah.

And Brett's from Oklahoma. Yeah, sorry. I mean, not currently from Oklahoma, but originally from Oklahoma.

Bourbonnais, Illinois. Yeah. We hope to get something down.

At least you didn't say Illinois. Bourbonnais, Illinois. We're going to be... There's been a few bands we've talked to recently that are playing there for that festival.

Yeah, we're going to be in another festival in Bluffton, Indiana. We're coming back through and playing probably in Indy that same weekend. There's a lot of festival work over the summer.

And then back into the fall, we're going to be out again in New Buffalo at the Four Winds Casino playing there. Tell me, where else are we playing around here? We got a lot of gigs in the Illinois area, man, and the Chicagoland. Yeah, I'm trying to think.

August. We're playing in DeKalb. DeKalb, yeah.

Okay. And we've got another show. You know, this is a good opportunity to talk about our website.

That's the next thing we're going to ask about. We've got all of our shows listed on the website, theelectriccarsband.com. Right. We are playing a wonderful gig in St. Joe, Michigan.

We're going to be playing Alpine Fest. Is that right? Oh, that's right. Lake Zurich.

Oh, up in Lake Zurich. Okay. All right.

And we're playing the Warehouse on Park as well. That's in late July. So for the actual dates, you can go to your website.

You can, or our Facebook group, if you just look up, or our Facebook page. Okay. We've got people joining them every day, which is pretty cool.

Right, right. Electric Cars Band, just search it, Electric Cars, Cars Tribute on Facebook. You'll find it.

Excellent, excellent. We'll put a donate button for the Hall of Fame and the Route 66 Rock and Roll. That could be for the podcast.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Payola is still alive and well.

It is, it is. Payola is still alive and well. That's right.

So why don't you take us out with one more. Sure. And then as you guys finish that up, we'll say goodbye.

It was great having you guys here. Thanks for it. Thanks a lot.

With all these hidden innuendos, just waiting to arrive. It's such a wavy midnight, you slip into insane. Electric Angel, Rock and Roller, I hear what you're saying.

It's an orangey sky. Always hits some other guy. It's just a broken lullaby.

Bye, bye, my love. Bye, my love. Substitution, mass confusion, clouds inside your head.

Involving all my energies until you visited. With your eyes opposed to the meadow blue, they shot me into sense. You think you're so illustrious, you call yourself intense.

It's an orangey sky. Always hits some other guy. It's just a broken lullaby.

So there you have it. The electric cars. I can't believe I thought they played Tesla.

You know, that might be just what I needed. Yeah, might have been. Might have been.

You didn't catch that. I did. I did.

I couldn't. And suddenly just draw a complete blank on any other car song that I ever even known. Gosh, you know, I don't mind you coming here and wasting all my time.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Now I can't get any of those songs out of my head.

Yeah. Because you're there. They're right.

You don't realize how many hits that those guys had in such a short amount of time as they're as they're doing those songs in the studio. I thought of like 10 more. Exactly.

That's what they say. People like they don't realize that. I do know all these guys, you know.

Yeah. It's like, you know, I'm going to have a little bit of candy. Oh, and there's some more over here.

Yeah. Oh, geez. But yeah, it's one of them bands that people have forgotten.

You know, people remember them, but they forgot them. Yeah. Nobody plays them on the radio very rarely.

And then you hear a Cars tribute band. You're like, oh, I like them guys. That's right.

Let's go check them out. Yeah. And they do.

They sound good. Yeah, they sound fantastic. Wish them all the best of luck, man.

Seems like they've got it together. Yep. They kept it going.

Oh, we're out of here. Yes, we are. Okay.

Thanks. As always, thanks for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Check us out every Tuesday for another exciting new episode.

See you next week. Hey, everybody. It's Ray the Roadie.

And this is Hollywood Mike of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. If you've been joining our weekly program, we have great news for you. Just tune in to Road to Rock radio on Mondays at 7 p.m. Central Time, and you can hear a rebroadcast of one of our past episodes.

Then again, on Thursdays at 7 p.m., you can hear our most current episode brought to you by the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. So go to RoadtoRock.org, scroll down, and click on radio station. That'll bring you to the Road to Rock radio, a station committed entirely to the great music from Illinois, from Chicago blues born on Maxwell Street to today's rock and roll and everything in between, 24-7, all music with its roots in Illinois.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of MNR Rush. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show.

The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.