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 once again.

Once again. Once again. I'm glad you're again.

And over and over and over again. Yeah. So what's new? Yeah.

Well, not much. Same old, same old, I guess. Any bridges stop you on the way here today? No, no bridges.

No bridges. Actually, it was a pretty cool, pretty clear sailing for me today. I was working from home today.

Oh, nice. Jumped in. Came out.

It's a beautiful day. They keep trying to, they keep trying to, you know, keep me, you know, to like 530 and stuff like that. I was like, I got to get the hell out of here.

Yeah. Especially from home. It's your home.

Yeah, I know. I gotta, I gotta leave work so I can come to work. That's right.

Well, this ain't work. This is fun. This is fun.

This is fun. When it becomes like work, I'm not going to do it anymore. That's right.

Yeah. And that would be evil. It would be evil.

Yeah. I knew a guy. I knew a guy who was really evil one time.

His name was Jim. Evil guy. Really? Yeah.

Oh, not that evil. I think we got him here. We do.

Yeah, we do. We got evil Jim and the culprits. How you guys doing? See how we did.

See, see, see, are we? I mean, I'm telling you, we are segue superstars. We are just nerds. You suck nerds.

Those are the best kind of nerds. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Yeah. So how you guys doing? Good. All right.

So Tom, which one is Jim? I am Evil Jim. How you doing, Evil Jim? Yeah. All right.

And what do you guys do? Well, I am the singer for the culprits. A culprits is a band I started. It's like I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play.

Mostly I started the band. So I started the band. Exactly.

So I mean, I wouldn't say it's, you know, I like I'm a dictator, but I do. Wait, wait, wait. I do think about 90% of the music.

So, you know, and when people argue, I say, you could have started a band. So, yeah, well, I can do that. Oh, you didn't.

That's right. You know, it's like when you make fun of people's kids artwork on the refrigerator, right? I can do that. Well, you didn't.

But I mean, we've had the same guys going now for 20 years. Even Jim himself's been in the band eight years. Well, yeah, I joined.

They were a quartet at the point. And you had you and a rhythm guitarist, female singer. You guys shared the duties right before I got there.

Right. Yeah. Lydia.

Yes. Yeah. And then I got on board and we've taken off.

We've unfortunately lost Lydia along the way. She went off making babies, you know, started her family. Crazy women, you know, they go and start the family, you know, but OK.

So is it always evil, Jim? Or is it evil, Bill? No, it was actually just a culprit. It was the culprit. And it's still the culprits.

But when I joined up, I joined up and I had a little bit of following. And I said, hey, just so my people know that, you know, I'm in this band. Can we just temporarily make it evil, Jim and the cult? So we tag it so that his his crowd knows where he's at.

Very good. But over time, it's really I mean, we are the culprits. The culprits.

Yeah, that's that's our that's our that's our main name. But then we branded ourselves on Facebook with Evil Jim and the culprits. So it's right.

But that wasn't a bad move, though, because the most successful bands or I should say bands that that get booked a little more for some reason, venues like the something and the something's, you know, that always that seems to work for some reason. What isn't working nowadays is like one word names, you know, which is big in the 90s. I thought of a band name this morning.

I don't know if it's in use or not, but the cat calls. Yeah, that's not bad. That's not bad.

All one word cat. And then what? Another capital C calls cat calls. So you're thinking like Morris Day in the time now from the rain movie where he's thinking, you know, the cat calls and it's an all girls group that was using the movie.

Well, what will he put together? He he put together an all girls group. To compete against Prince's band, the revolution. Right.

And the owner of the club liked that idea of having an all girls group. But you didn't use them. You didn't call them cat calls.

But I was thinking if you can have a band called Cat Calls, it would probably work with them as an all girls. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's the hardest thing to do, though, is when you get a band together and you get things rolling. All right. We got our direction, blah, blah, blah.

What's the name? Oh, it's oh, my God. And you sit there and it's like everything else you can agree upon. Everything's running smoothly.

But that name like he I just thought this morning, like, well, where were you when I was trying to name the bands before the culprits? It took months. Yeah. And I mean, the drummer were just texting back and forth the craziest names.

You know what I mean? You know, the crowbars, you know, whatever. Yeah. And finally, he texted one the culprits.

And when I just read it, I was just like, oh, that's that's perfect. And totally sounds like rock and roll. Yeah, yeah.

I've joined many bands and I hated the name. I was like, oh, my God, really? Is this the band I'm going to be in? OK, whatever. When I joined the culprits, I'm like, this is a cool name.

And he's going to the drummer's got a really cool drum head on it with the name on it. And like it was like a newspaper lettering, like a ransom note. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, this is cool. So I had no problem with the name at all.

I was like, I'm happy to be in the culprits. Yeah, you know, I was I was in a band 20 some years ago. And I was I was the I was just the singer in the band.

Wasn't playing guitar, wasn't doing anything else. I was the late comer. I was the last piece of the puzzle.

Right. And the guy got the name from the band. He was doing pull ups in the rafters of his basement one day, and he pulls himself up and he looks at the water pipe that's running along the bottom, you know, right.

Three inch freedom. Referring to the size of the pipe that was running through the ceiling. And they said, hey, you got the job.

You're in the band. I said, yeah, that's great. But guess what? If you want me in this band, we're calling it something else.

Call it 12 inch. I was going to say. Because because I mean, I don't care what it means.

I know what it means, but I don't care what it means. But nobody's going to think that we're referring to the size of a water pipe. We're going to be referring to the size of something else.

Right, right. So then he decided to go with days of freedom and spelled it D.A.Z.E. And I was like, OK, maybe three inch freedom isn't too bad. Wasn't it like a K-Tel collection back in the 80s? Hey, man, it's days of freedom.

You know, I'll tell you what, it's so funny because the logo looked like a K-Tel album cover. It was like this circular thing with like, you know, like psychedelic colors going through it. No, but I was like, OK, we're we're done with that.

But no, you're right. You know, you have to, you know, try and find your identity. So let's go back 20 years ago.

How did the culprits form? Where this where this whole thing start? Well, I I think some of you guys know Ted Phillips, right? Well, I was in a band for a long time with Ted called No Obligation. You know, we we used to play like Haywires and, you know, thirsty, wet, you know, all the regular places. And just again, people start their families.

You know, one guy moves to Florida and blah, blah, blah, this and that. Well, I've never not been in a band. So I had to get something going to, you know, to keep playing.

And the guy I play with, the drummer I play with, I played my very first gig with this guy when we were 14 years old in high school, Revis High School. And we played for born Belgium foreign exchange students. Oh, all girls.

And they spoke French because that's what they speak in Belgium. Right. And we played like Proud Mary, but they called it rolling on the river, right? And they kept requesting it over and over.

We must have played it a dozen times. But that was my first gig. Wow.

Playing Proud Mary 12. And I still play with that drummer now to this day. Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. So, I mean, there was a gap, but, you know, right. A lot of personnel changes over the 20 years or just just like second guitar players or and singers.

When I don't have a singer, I'm the singer, you know. Sure. And second guitar players, you know, guitar players have to be able to work together.

And, you know what I mean? They both can't be the, you know, the star. Right. And obviously, I'm the star.

So other than Proud Mary, what kind of music did you start off playing in the early years? Oh, I remember Cars tunes and Springsteen. I guess like the River album, I think was big at that time. You know, I remember what was Cadillac Ranch.

That was the Springsteen tune that we did. And we did some Seeger. We had this guy, Ron Hayden.

He was the second. He's the guy who came. They approached me in the hallway of school and said, we got these gigs.

And once they said gigs, I was like, yeah, I'm in it. Yeah, right. So and it was his band.

You know, I was just the second guitar player. So right, right, right. And has the music evolved at all over the years? Are you still playing basic classic rock kind of stuff? Yeah, with this band, Classic Rock.

Yeah. Beatles, Stones, you know. Right.

The good stuff. Okay. All right.

And where were you before you came along? Well, actually, when I joined the Culprits, I was in another band that actually played around in the Joliet area quite a bit called Speedball Zombie. And I know those. I know that band.

All right. Yeah. So we had a really nice run.

So you were the singer in Speedball Zombie? I was the singer in Speedball Zombie. The, you know, that band had about a six year run. And like I said, we played, you know, we played Prada Brew, Joe's all the time for, you know, for a dive bar.

Joe's was a fun, fun place for a band to play. Oh, yeah. And there was a few other places around in the area, which was really weird, because before that, I really had no experience of coming down to Joliet at all.

Right. And then all of a sudden I was down here regularly, which was great because I, you know, I got a little seen, you know, knowing the people around down here. So at that point, that band was mostly hard rock.

Yeah. And alternative, you know, 90s alternative. So I wanted and well, also I got a little stagnant, you know, as a band.

Gets on, you know, after many years in that. Maybe everybody doesn't have the same kind of motivation to keep things rolling. So I was getting a little bit frustrated with that.

And I was the guy booking the gigs. And so it took on a if I'm going to be doing that, you know, we need to go and push ourselves a little more, especially since we had a nice following. And I feel so guilty going out and playing, you know, being a cover band, going out and playing for the same people regularly who come out your show after show and playing the same songs.

Right. I like to mix it up, you know, and that's what I love about the culprits. I mean, I think I counted our song list and it's over 200.

Right. And, you know, some of those songs we haven't played in five or six years, but they're there, you know, and it's like we often pull things out from the past and recycle it in. Sure.

So that's why I love it. So that's what happened. Keep a rotating list.

And of course, the people that come every week, you know, they, you know. And we'll go in a practice and learn five songs off the bat. Okay, let's just do it.

Hey, what about this song? What about that? And then, all right, let's listen through. I say no to most of them. And then, yeah, the ones we pick turn out.

And you can usually tell through the first run through if it's going to work or not. You know, if everyone got it on the first run through, you're good to go. That's a keeper.

That's a keeper. So I was doing a little harder stuff. And so I was looking for a second band.

I had the time. I had the wherewithal, you know, wanting to do it. And I forget.

I think I found you guys on Craigslist. Craigslist. Yeah, I remember setting up an audition with you.

And I had like two or three auditions the same day. And you were the first guy. And you showed up and killed it.

Right. And then, unfortunately, I said, okay, well, I got another guy coming in. And then this next guy comes in.

He's terrible. You know, I mean, the worst. And so I'm trying to call him back.

I'm saying, hey, come back over. You know, I think you were on your way to another audition. No, I was outside.

Actually, I at least saw one of the guys leave because I stood outside for a while. And I kind of listening in. All right.

Because they were practicing in the drummer's space when I was listening in. And I saw the one guy come out. I'm like, oh, he wasn't very good.

All right. That's no good. No, no threat there.

So then he had another one. And they had to. But then, yeah, right away, he gave me a he was sitting out.

Yeah, he was sitting on the driveway, you know, crying. You know, that's good. So so are you.

So are you doing any more that 90s rock in this in this band? Well, that that's the little bone of contention because the drummer and the bass player, Bill and John, who are not here tonight, they they like that kind of music. Right. Even though they're the same age as Ricky.

Ricky's a. They should start a band. Well, honestly, it's right. A few years ago, they kind of got it in there.

Come on, you can't. We want to do this stuff. Get Ricky to do it.

Boom, boom, boom. So I'm like, all right, you know, I'll start taking a little bit of the lead and start throwing these songs out there. And this guy over here is having none of it.

I think we did a Pearl Jam tune. All right. No, there was a few here.

There's smatterings here and there. But I think the other thing is they wanted to go a little bit further. And there was one practice for Ricky.

I don't know. He just gave me that look. And this is my band kind of thing.

Like, all right, I don't want band drama. I've had enough of that. And this is my fun band.

You know, like I said, I mean, I've had these guys together 20 years. And if they're not having fun, you know, why are they still here? Because it's very laid back. We're all, you know, just having a good time.

Because I think if it's not fun, I'm out of here. You know, so. Yeah.

But you know, that's not a mistake. I mean, that's not a bad thing. Because I think 90s, like 90s rock, that whatever that means nowadays.

God, it's crazy to think that that was a long time ago. Right. But you know.

I get up on stage to say, oh, here's a newer one. I'm like, oh, that's 30 years old. That's right.

Well, you know, 90s rock, you know, it was so big and it was so popular for such a long period of time. Believe me, I was in bands myself back then, you know, covering all of this 90s rock music and everything. And then all of a sudden, you know, more like electronic music started coming around.

Then, you know, the regurgitated swell that you hear on most radio stations today. And it started to kill that 90s rock genre. A lot of bands had to stop doing that and back away from it and change what they're doing.

Maybe go back to classic rock or southern rock or, you know, whatever for a little while. And now the 90s rock is starting to come back again. You're getting bands that are coming back.

We just had a band in the studio last week. They're a Creed tribute band. Who thought anybody was going to come back with Creed tribute bands and things like that? I can't name a single Creed song.

Yeah. Well, I do the same thing still now. While the culprits, I always say, I'll always be a culprit.

I always have a second band to fill that side of it so that I don't get frustrated with this. I can just enjoy this for what it is. So I always try to find that 90s band, hard rock, classic hard rock, you know, maybe even a little touch of metal.

So I always try to do that. Yeah, Creed. I just had the last show I played, the last show I played with this band.

They just actually ended their run a couple of Saturdays ago. And this girl, all she was asking for was Creed. And I'm like, we don't do Creed.

I've done Creed in other bands, but not this one. And she said, come on, please. And she's like, what? You don't like Creed? I'm like, Creed's okay.

They're cool. But oh, yeah, she wouldn't let it go. They haven't had a record out in almost 20 years.

But yeah, right. And being a musician, you're supposed to know every single song out there. I told her, I've always told them, I'll sing it.

They got to play it though. So you got to go talk to them. So what is it about the band that keeps you around? What's so fun about it? Number one is the guys are very cool.

And that became very important to me through my years of being in bands. Unfortunately, especially on the cover scene, some of the musicians are a little bit more full of themselves than I think they should be. Just meaning like, if you were such a hot set superstar, you wouldn't be just playing the local scene.

You'd actually be... Unless you're one of the chosen bands. If you're one of those chosen bands out there that are playing these festivals and just packing the place, all right, they're special. But for most of the cover bands that are doing it, in my opinion, we're doing it for fun.

Okay. And so I respect all the people that I'm in a band with. I believe in respect.

That's the Italian in me. I believe in respect. I don't always get it back.

And that's where it would be a problem. Sure. And I can only take so much.

So joining the culprits, it was four when I joined, but now it's the three other guys are fantastic human beings. And I love getting together. We get together almost every week on a Tuesday.

That's our practice night. We go there, chill out, talk about music, play songs and have fun. And we get out and we play when we can.

But we get together on a regular basis. So that's the main thing that draws me to this band. I look at it, it's called playing music, not working music.

It's supposed to be fun. At least I think so. I mean, I went through all that, the dedication and the original music.

At least if you're trying to be a successful musician, you got to go that route. But I mean, once cover music starts coming into the band to play these gigs, you got to have X amount of cover tunes if you want to play at this place and that place. And before you know it, you got one or two original songs in your set list, and the rest is all cover music.

And I mean, you can sneak it in if you want to. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I don't mind the cover music and having a good time with a crowd of people.

So, you know. Yeah, right, right. So you're making the decision basically on the set lists and the stuff that you're playing then.

I let Jim put together the set list. Oh, yeah. As far as the running order and things like that.

And I mean, you can tell that he puts work into it, too. You know, the way things flow, you know. And I remember when I used to do it, I was glad when someone took over the job.

Yeah. Oh, God, yeah. I can't tell you how many times I've told people, you know, they're like, hey, Mike, we're waiting for the set list.

We're waiting for the set list. And I'll say, well, then write one, you know. Anybody complaining about how timely you are with the set list has clearly never sat down and put one together.

Because there's a lot of thought that goes into it. Definitely. It's all about flow and how the evening goes.

You know, you don't want to come out of the gate just, you know, all your best stuff, boom, boom, boom, burn it out. Yeah. I have to consider another reason I like to take it over to as a singer.

You know, I like to we do some challenging stuff at times. You know, and it's like, all right, well, I have to give consideration when I'm coming out of this song, can I go into this song vocally? You know, and sometimes they'll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And a lot of times I'll discover in practice when we're doing something.

I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I'm going to have to take a little bit of a break before I, you know, jump into a song right away. So it's got to give me something where there's a little bit of, you know, musical interlude before the vocals start, you know, kind of thought going into it. And you've got to you've got to think like a master of ceremonies.

You have to think like a DJ, you know, build them up, build them up, build them up, drop them back down again. You know, you have to have a flow. Well, that was a big bonus with Evil Jim.

I mean, when he came to the audition and, you know, he blew us away. So we obviously wanted the guy. But then when we played the first gig with him, this guy goes all through the audience, gets in people's faces, stands on tables, you know, sings right to the girls and gets them to pull their tops up.

I mean, he's he's the best front man we've ever seen, you know. Well, we know where Ray's going to be. So I'm in a band, you know.

Hey, Lasham. Well, yeah, you know, yeah, you know, the front man of a band, right? Right. And that's and that's half of my job is singing.

But just as important is is putting on a show, making sure that everybody else feels part of the party, right? And then reading the crowd. Exactly. You know, you have to know when to call an audible.

You know, hey, I have a feeling this song isn't going to work right here. Let's swap this out. We're going to this song for a minute or keep the song going.

Get it going. Keep it going. They're dancing, you know.

You see what he did? That's the universal symbol. Keep it going. That's the universal symbol.

Yeah, excellent. Excellent. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

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. 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. So what do you guys have? What do you guys have coming up in September? You guys got any important gigs on the night? Not yet.

Not yet. And a lot of our stuff comes up just kind of haphazardly. Um, that's another thing.

Maybe if we had a stronger booker in the band, um, I can only do so much, you know, so it's like I like getting in a band where there's a strong guy who's just going out and doing all the business part of it. Um, I don't know if any of the guys in this band, unfortunately, is business guys. So it's like, oh, this gets thrown our way that gets that thrown our way.

Um, so right now nothing is on the schedule at that point. I mean, I get calls. So, you know, I don't really have to go out and look for anything.

And, and, but my new thing is I only, I like to book places that have a PA so we don't have to bring one. Even though John, our bass player will bring his PA and really doesn't complain about it. I just, if I can avoid it, I try to avoid it.

Yeah. What are some of the places that you do play? Well, we like playing at this place called Little Frank's Pizzeria in Burbank. It's like 79th and Narragansett.

And it's exactly, it's a pizza place. Right. But I mean, it's a bar and it's a pizza place.

Sure. But it's a lot of fun to play there. And it, it, there's always a crowd of people there.

And, you know, even, uh, it's like a regular house crowd too. And another thing that helps is the, you know, the slot machines and all that stuff. Oh yeah.

There will always be people at the place. And if you could play at gas stations, you know, you'd have it made because all the slot machines at gas stations these days. Right.

And they got jam nights on nights. They don't have bands too. So they have a regular inflow of local musicians going in there.

So it's, it's a music venue. It's not like every once in a while they have a band. People know we're going to, we're going to go to this place and there's going to be a band or a building crowd for you.

Okay. You guys play mostly on the, like the South side area or. Pretty much.

That's where we've been, but I mean. Yeah. The Midway area, you know, around there.

Yeah. There's a place out in Naperville that I hit up every now and then called Danny's. But sometimes, you know, to get people who are so used to seeing us on the South side.

You're talking about Danny's over in 59. Yeah. I've played there a little bit.

That's a, that's a, that's a pretty decent place. Yeah. And it's run by a musician, him and his wife own the place and they are street legal is the name of that band.

So they treat musicians really, really great and a lot of respect. Can I go back to that respect thing? And, uh, the best thing is the, when the owner's there, uh, George, he's walking up with 20s and throwing them in the tip jar, every other song. And it's like, all right, this is the kind of love I love from an owner of a bar.

Okay. Perfect. Yeah.

Right. And the greatest thing about it is it's down the street from a guitar center. Cause the last time I played there, um, my amp blew.

It literally, it literally, it literally, I mean, we all, we were just setting up and warming up and tuning up in the whole bit and lights not coming on. Yep. So went down the street and got a new amp at guitar center.

So it literally is right down the street. So interesting. So when you got, and when you guys play, you guys got enough songs, you get, you're not an opening act.

You guys are doing it all on your own. You're playing all night long. We got her all, you guys are all seasoned and doing it.

Yeah. We haven't done that since I want to say that, uh, the gig we played the toys for tots gig. Oh, that, I wouldn't say that was an opening act.

That was just kind of like a multi, you know, yeah. And Bill, it was a toys for tots thing. Yeah.

So I don't, I think anytime we played, we played either for like a festival thing. We played a Canaryville, uh, fest, uh, Canara, Canara Palooza. Was it, what was that for 20 gig that we did? Oh, we did a four 20 gig for, uh, greenhouse, um, dispensary with it back, uh, just a couple of days ago.

No, no, this was a few years ago. Yeah. But no, we're just trying to think of gigs where we played that wasn't Saturday.

That must've been great. But yeah, ours was like on a, you know, Thursday or something, you know? No, no, actually it is. Um, yeah, we played, uh, my band played on, on four 20, right.

And it was great, but no, we, we had, it was, it was such a fun gig. We were at one 15 Bourbon street, right. But it was a fundraiser for Chicago Christian high school.

So there wasn't a lot of, there wasn't a lot of activity going on based around four 20 day on that particular day. But, uh, but it was still a lot of fun. So I always ask people, you know, uh, with guitar players, with drummers, bass players and stuff, it's real simple.

You know, you pick up a guitar and you start playing and think, yeah, I like this. This is cool. But it's usually pretty difficult for singers to come up with the day and the time and the reason why they decided they wanted to sing.

And if they even knew they could sing, when, when was that for you? I actually pretty much tell this story every time I sing the song that is one of my favorites to sing. And it's, it's really the one that kind of pushed me over the edge was I, I grew up, um, loving classic rock. So I grew up in, you know, uh, in the eighties when I graduated in 1989.

So, uh, I love mostly classic rock. And in high school I was totally obsessed with the Beatles. Okay.

Now I love singing and I always just, I would sing along with songs, but I mean, the Beatles vocals are just otherworldly. Right. So I never felt comfortable as a singer singing those things.

So then I went through high college and bands like, uh, Pearl jam and Nirvana and all these bands started hitting. And then, uh, song plush by stone, double pilots, that song, just great song. It just sunk into me.

And all of a sudden I just had this kind of light bulb moment. Like, oh, I can do this. I can sing, you know, the Eddie Vedders and that, and the Allison chains.

And I, I, I found my voice through them. Meaning like all of a sudden I had a confident, you know, a presence about what was coming out of me. Right.

And so then I started, uh, investigating and this was back in the day when, you know, uh, the only way I see that my Ricky had, it's so lucky where he had a, uh, a musical base of friends who could pull them in and say, Hey, we have a gig, you know, you want to join us. Right. I didn't have that.

I didn't have musical friends growing up or any kind of contact with bands. So when I finally decided, oh, I want to do this. I mean, I'm looking in the back of the Illinois entertainer once a month, I'm going to the local record shops and pulling the tab with the phone number on it when they were saying, looking for a singer.

Right, right. So ultimately that didn't lead to a lot of opportunities. So it really took me a long time to get my footing.

And I'll be honest, when I first started, I wasn't very good. I can admit it. I was not very good.

And, uh, it took me some time to get my footing going. And then, uh, I, I blew my ears out at a kiss concert. Yeah.

Yeah. So I had to take a break for a while. Um, because I, any kind of loud noises really was like very painful.

How? Well, not, not to, not to drag out this story, but this was the second kiss concert. I went to the first one. We got our tickets the day of the show and they put extra tickets on when they had put the stage up and everything.

Right. So we were literally, I'm not kidding you. We were 15 feet away from the pyrotechnics on the side of the stage.

Yeah, right, right. And I mean, they would go off and you would jump. Oh, of course.

Yeah. And then after a little bit, you'd, you'd kind of look on down in the side of the stage and the roadies, when they put their hands up to their ears, you knew it was coming. You knew it was coming.

So you'd cover up. Yeah. But even knowing it was coming, I would still like, oh, that didn't blow my ears out.

I went to see him a few years later and now this was like at the Rosemont Horizon at the time. So I was like, you know, they had set up like the basketball. So it was on one end of the court was the stage.

So, you know, I was almost, you know, let's like say a football field. I was at least at the 50 yard line in the 200 level where we got moved up to. We had security guard friends, but it was better than the seats we had.

Right. So I'm sitting there and I could feel my ears rattling. Right, right.

And I was like, oh, okay, this is uncomfortable. But again, it wasn't like we were right in front of a speaker or anything. So I'm like, and they weren't our seats.

So I couldn't go and leave the section. So I'm like, all right, I'll just, I'll talk it out. No big deal.

All right. Now, biggest mistake, because afterwards, any kind of a loud, sudden noise was just like ice picks in my ears. Yeah.

So I had to give it up for a while. And the funny thing is I went to the doctor about it finally, because it was concerning me and he said, we see a little bit of loss in that, but nothing too alarming in that. And he's like, here's your diagnosis.

You've got a third of a chance of it getting better, a third of a chance of it getting worse and a third of a chance of it staying the same. And I look at him like, you just told me absolutely nothing. So luckily over time, it did finally fix itself.

I'm very careful about it now. Sure. And I've been with bands before where I was like in the room and I had to step out of the room and I'd even be singing from outside the room just because I'm like, I'm not, I'm not pushing it.

I feel a little bit there. But luckily, knock on wood, that's been several years since I've had to really even think about it, you know? I've gotten used to wearing earplugs. Okay.

If I go to a show, I'll definitely bring the earplugs, but I can't do it as a singer. I can't get on stage. I did try that briefly for a bit, but it just threw me.

It does throw you, but I'll tell you, work with it. There's some good products out there now that it's amazing how you can still hear everything crystal clear, you know, even if somebody is just talking to you and it's a lot better than just taking those industrial spongy things. Right, right.

It's taking it, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. That's, I've never heard of anybody that actually blew their ears up before like that. Long story short, then I got back into the swing of things and then really started to take off.

And that's why I always feel my wheelhouse is kind of the 90s stuff, just because it's, even though my passion is all different kinds of music, I really feel my strongest suit is that kind of music. Yeah, yeah, well, I can tell, I mean, just by your speaking voice, your range is probably higher than mine. I'm a natural baritone and it took a lot of vocal training and stuff to get to the point where I am now, which is about a mid tenor.

And that era, that time period and the bands that you had mentioned, what it, kind of what it did for me was, okay, here comes Eddie Vedder with his baritone voice, right? And Scott Weiland, really more of a baritone voice, you know, all these guys, because when I was in high school, the big bands were, were like Guns N' Roses, Queensryche, you know, loved all these, loved all these bands. And of course you had bands like Cinderella where the guys sound like a Muppet, right? You know, I mean, just, I mean, all these super tenor guys, right? I was like, well, I'm never going to be a singer in a rock band. There's no way I'm going to do that.

Then along comes 90s rock or grunge rock or whatever you want to call it, where the singers were all baritones. And I was like, okay, yeah, I can do this now. And that's what gave me my confidence.

See, we got a kitchen there so you can understand what I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely. I totally get that for sure.

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 Joliet. 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 $5.

Also at cadillacgroove.com, you will be able to purchase them online as well. Very good. They're going to cost you $5 a ticket.

There's going to be a $10 cover charge to get in the day of the event. And for your $10, 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. So get out there and get your tickets right away.

So what's next for you guys? What has to happen? I like this question. What has to happen in 2024 for you guys to say, this was a successful year for our band? What are you guys looking to do? I'll probably get a few more gigs on the calendar. And recently we started working up a set where we play a bunch of songs linked together.

It was just kind of fun thing to do at practice to link a bunch of songs, you know. We got five songs all linked together. Well, now it's up to nine.

So I'm thinking maybe we do a whole set of nothing but linked together songs. It's just something fun to try. So you never get to take a breath then.

Right. It's not necessarily a medley or anything. Right, right, right.

It's more of just keep hitting them with them over and over and over again with the transition that seems to work, you know, for the song to be like boom, boom, boom, you know, and that's it. We sort of practice and we throw things around like, hey, that would sound good. This song would sound great going right after this, go right into that boom, boom, boom.

So we've been focusing on trying to do that a little bit more. And that's pretty cool. It's just a fun challenge.

I mean, you're not the only vocalist. I mean, you can sing and give him a break every once in a while, right? Yeah. Yeah, he does a few like stone songs and that.

Yeah, but those haven't been on the set list even now for a long time. But I'll do all the backups. I don't I don't mind.

Like I said, when I don't have a singer, I'm the singer. Sure. So when I do have a singer, let him do the work.

Yeah, right, right. Exactly. So how can folks find you guys? You guys website? How you how you getting the word out? Mainly Facebook, even Jim and the culprits.

We left it at that. So follow us there. We like to promote it there.

And then I know the bass player has a email chain that he sends out when he gets emails. He sends out our information on that. No website, though.

We never did have that. Never did. You hardly have to put up flyers at places anymore.

Facebook covers everything. Yep. Yeah, it does.

And we have that conversation all the time. The social media outlet, right, is Facebook. You got younger people that say, oh, you know, Facebook's like the old man's social media.

But I mean, you can't manage a band on Twitter. I don't see how you can do it. You know, that's the older crowd that's coming to see us anyway.

So yeah, yeah, right, right. Exactly. And they want the invites that show up right in their inbox.

Boom. Oh, they're playing and you get to see it. And they can, you know, they can RSVP right there and tell you if they're going to be there or not.

And your reminders then when it's coming on, you know, so. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

All righty, guys. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming out.

This is a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Thanks.

Hopefully we'll see you somewhere out and about the south suburbs. Definitely. That'd be great.

No doubt about it. Little Frank's Pizzeria. No, yeah.

No kidding. And if Little Frank's Pizzeria is listening to this podcast. Yeah.

We're looking for sponsors. We are looking for sponsors. Little Frank.

Yeah, maybe we can get some pizzas out of them. And that's right. Yeah.

And we'll talk about them. All right. Sounds good.

All right, guys. Thanks a lot. Well, there you have it.

Evil Jim and the culprits. And the culprits. He was real evil.

Yeah, he was. He was. It's amazing.

He was actually one of the friendliest people that we've had in here. I know. He wasn't evil at all.

I was actually kind of worried when they were coming in. I was like, Evil Jim? I'm like, oh, my God. What's going to happen? He wasn't evil at all.

They weren't evil at all. And the band's been together for going on 20 some years. Yeah, that's awesome.

I love when you hear that about bands. They've been around so long. It's tough.

It's tough to stick together. It is difficult to keep a band together, for sure. Yep.

Yep. It sounds like they're still doing it. Still doing it Rick's way.

Yes, they are. It's his band. Yes, they are.

Oh, hey, do it my way or the highway, man. Yeah. So make sure you get out and see these guys.

Apparently, they play at Little Frankie's a lot. So hopefully the pizza is good there, too. Yeah.

So we'll have to check it out. Otherwise, thanks a lot for listening. Check us out every Tuesday for another exciting new episode of the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

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.