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 Hollywood Mike.

For sure? For sure this time. Okay. Yeah.

Last week, you weren't sure. No, I wasn't. Although, I don't remember what I did this morning, let alone.

You're not taking your Prevagen, or? What's Prevagen? Oh my God, he's forgot what it is. It's for your mind, so you remember things. Oh, no, I don't need that stuff yet.

I have a wife. She tells me everything, everywhere I need to be. That's right.

Well, good thing. Good thing she told you to be here tonight. Yeah.

No, well, actually, she didn't. I did remember that. Yes, she remembered.

So what's going on with you? Not a thing. No? Not a thing. Healthy, well, no, no, not wealthy.

No, not wealthy. But your eyes are all working and everything? My eyes are all working again. Got them cataracts taken out.

Everything's beautiful now. Oh, that's good. Yeah.

You know, my dad had, my dad had hip surgery. Recently? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah.

Like, like yesterday. Oh, wow. And, and it's absolutely amazing that, so like, like 15 years ago, my father-in-law had it done, and he was out of commission for two weeks.

It was an outpatient thing. Yeah, they are now. He literally went into the hospital at seven o'clock in the morning.

By 11 o'clock, he was home and walking. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard that.

That's absolutely amazing to me. And they start therapy like the next day. Yeah, right.

They don't mess around. Right. I mean, he, he got up out of bed.

They had him practice walking for an hour, sent him home. Wow. That's pretty, pretty awesome.

So. So it's going well for him. If your, if your hips are hurting, go have it done.

That's right. You know, life's too short, right? Day surgery. Unbelievable.

Yeah. I mean, believe me. I mean, that's my background is anatomy and physiology.

I've watched this surgery. I mean, it literally looks like they're deboning a chicken. All right.

I mean, really? It is. And then they pop that sucker back in there and send you home. It's like, wow.

Amazing. Anyways. That's cool.

So that'll be, you know, that'll be back playing softball and stuff again. Very good. The way it goes.

So who we got in the studio tonight? We got Nick KB. Yeah, baby. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You guys are too kind.

He doesn't have to introduce himself. He's the only one here. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. And he's, and he's been here before. He has been here before.

Yeah. With Two Beer Tommy. That's right.

About two years ago. It's been that long? Yeah, it has been. Yeah.

You're still with them, right? I am still with them. Okay. So, so, I mean, you're just, I mean, you're, you're still hanging with them in a whole bit, but now you're doing your own thing and that's how we got you back in here.

Oh yeah, that's right. I do a little bit of everything, you know? So I'm just here today because I've been in the process of doing my own solo act. I have a duo that I just started up as well.

We just actually had our first show last Sunday. It went great. Who's that? Who's, who's that with? That is with a good friend of mine.

His name is Kyle McMahon. Okay. He's an amazing software engineer, recording studio, guitar player.

I've known him. We've met each other at a lesson studio where we both worked together. You exchanged numbers.

He's also my gym buddy, which is great. Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Wow. That's cool.

That's cool. So how come we're not gym buddies? I don't know. I mean, we live, we live like 45 minutes away from each other.

Yeah, but still. I mean, halfway. You never even asked me if I want to be a gym buddy.

Oh, you want to be a gym buddy? No. I mean, after you're retired, you can make the drive. Well, maybe four days a week.

Yeah. Four days a week. Yeah.

Wow. There you go. Hey, you know, that's a lot of working out.

You get biceps like his. You're either in it. Yeah, that's right, man.

I'll get you in shape. I'll think about it. Go on.

Yeah. Don't, don't, don't let me interrupt you guys. So, so where were we? Oh, we were talking about gym buddies.

Gym buddies. Yeah. So Kyle McMahon, he's part of my duo.

It's called Nick and the Kaboom. I'm starting this off as a duo. I was going to talk about gym buddies for a while.

He jumped right into music. That's, that's where my brain's hardwired right now. But you've been doing it, but you've been doing the gym thing for a while because we've talked about it before.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. If we want to talk about the gym, I'm fine with talking about the gym.

I actually came from the gym just about. Excellent. Good for you.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, down, down a size pants.

That was a nice revelation as of a few weeks ago. The store couldn't find any in what I thought was my current waist size. And I'm like, well, I've been losing some weight.

Let me, let me put on the next size down and they fit nicely. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is great. Yeah.

Motivation. You go home all proud. You grab a little more of the covers from the wife.

Cause yeah, you're feeling a little spelt. That's cool. That's cool.

That's good for you, man. That's good. So yeah.

So I guess we can go back to music now. We had this discussion earlier that, you know, you know what it is. Look at all the shiny things on the top of his headphones over there.

I can't focus. Were those always on there? See, it looks like a little, like, I don't know. It's like going across the top of his head.

See how they're all shiny, like segments going over there. Oh, on the glass. No, on the headphones themselves.

Look at that. It's cause I'm a star, baby. Yeah, maybe.

Only our guests get those headphones. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So this duo was new for you. What kind of stuff are you guys doing? I showed you the set list when we were conversing last weekend at the local watering hole in downtown Plainfield.

That's right. You did. That's right.

That's right. So I have what I like to call musical ADD, where I'll listen to anything from Baroque classical music to, you know, current pop hits. Obviously with the duo group, we're not doing, you know, Johann Sebastian Bach and we're not doing, you know, Minuet and G or anything like that.

We could if we wanted to, but that's probably not what's going to get people up and dancing and having a good time. Yeah. I was wondering how that would go over so well.

Yeah. I don't know. Eric Gales, he plays, he plays Fur Elise during the midst of his guitar shenanigans and whatnot.

So you can draw inspiration from anywhere. That's true. But we do a little bit of everything, you know, as we were playing, I'm like, we're going to let's all right, let's go to the 2010s.

Okay, cool. Let's go back down to the seventies. And then we would play like a Fleetwood Mac song.

Oh, let's go to the, let's go to the nineties. You'd play a Weezer song, two thousands, whatever. And we just kind of were jumping around.

So the thing that I take the most pride in, in my setlist for my solo sets, as well as the duo is that it's hard for me to find a song that somebody doesn't know. And I say that at the start of every gig, you know, if you make it through my whole setlist one, congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the support. And you find a song that you didn't recognize or you didn't know off, off the top of your head. I need to know what you're listening to so I can listen to it.

Cause I am always looking to listen to more music and grow my music repertoire. Right. Right.

Right. So if they, if they, if you play a song, which is generally kind of a popular song, I guess if they don't recognize it. Okay.

So I guess, I guess they're listening to some alternative stuff. They're not listening to as many mainstream things that everybody else is listening to. So you're like interested.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

No, that makes total sense. That was also one of my favorite things about teaching students. There was a time where I was teaching like 40 kids a week and the kids would come in and they would have the most eclectic tastes in songs.

And now these bands I'm seeing blowing up and I'm like, Oh wow. I remember this band. There was a band called the full name.

I can't remember his, but they shortened their name, which was a smart move to IDK how, but the original name was like, I don't know how, but they found me. And then there was a whole other paragraph, but they, they put out a great record. Their first record was amazing.

I listened to it constantly and it kind of blew up at a big hit was a leave me alone, I think, which is a cool group. Obviously found that like on a, some type of a streaming service, I'm assuming. I don't, most likely that's what a lot of the kids would be like, Oh, this was on my Spotify wrapped and blah, blah, blah.

Right, right, right, right. Spotify is good for that because they'll throw in something just all of a sudden you're, you think you're listening to a, to a common or a popular playlist and all of a sudden you hear something you've never heard before. That's the thing that I like about Spotify.

That's where I get a lot of ideas from my kids because my kids will come up and say, Hey dad, you ever hear of this band? No. Where'd you hear it? Spotify, you know? Oh yeah. That's where it comes from.

Well, the more listeners you get more, more times your song is streamed. That's when, when Spotify notices that that's when it'll pull that song and start putting it to other playlists and stuff like that. Right.

Absolutely. Okay, cool. Let me continue.

Go ahead. Oh, so talking about set lists and the material that I do with the, my solo set and my duo. Yeah.

We just, you know we've got like some Hootie and the Blowfish. We have, I'm trying to think of some extreme. We have like Brian Adams.

I'm just, it's hard to describe. Just cause of the, it's random, but it all works. Which has been mind blowing.

Speaking of Hootie and the Blowfish, do you know there's a country artist that looks just like that guy from Hootie and Blowfish? Yeah. I do know that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah.

It's not Hootie. Hmm. Thought I'd just throw that in.

I heard he caused quite a ruckus though. Oh, wow. Wow.

So are you playing any original music in this duo or is that strictly saved for yourself? No, actually. So Kyle, as I said, previously said he's an amazing studio engineer and he's actually been helping me record and producing my upcoming solo record that I am hoping to have done by fall of this year. Nice.

The original end goal was fall of last year and then I severely undertook how much time goes into making a good sounding recording. Right. Right.

So. Well, if you want to do it the right way. Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of time goes into it. Yes.

You're doing like a demo thing. You can knock it out in an afternoon. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Demos are like 30 minutes, you know, if you're really inspired and you really got everything going. Right.

Right. It's like a like a full fledged album, like everything, bass, drums, guitar, everything, or just more of an of an acoustic. Bass, drums, guitar, the whole the whole sheboing.

You playing all the instruments yourself? I played everything except the drums. I hired the drummer from Two Beard Tommy. His name is Tim, I believe it's Reedy or Reddy.

He is a Craviato endorsed drum kit or drummer, an amazing drummer. And obviously I've played with him for the past two years. He's amazing.

His drum kit sounds amazing. He knows how to make it up. So I literally was just like, here's the studio we're going to be at.

Bring your kit a day early so it can acclimate, tune it up, make it up. And we hit we hit record and some of the takes were the first take. And we had him do a couple of other takes.

And then we're like, yeah, it was the first take, though. You got it. Just outstanding, really good pocket player, great feel.

And to me, I've always said this is that the drummers are what make the song. You know, you take the right drum beat, the right drum groove and put it to the song. And without it, then the song is kind of dead on arrival, you know? Right.

Well, the old saying, your band's only as good as your drummer. That is the truth. And it's the same thing.

Same thing for a song, too. The drummer is the bus driver. They set the volume.

They set the dynamics. They set the tempo. I mean.

But they're never mic'd. What's that? They're never mic'd. Yeah.

Yeah. You never put a mic. You never put a vocal mic.

No. And a drummer. No.

See, now Tim, Tim would argue with that. He's an amazing harmony singer. Oh, is he? Yeah.

It's not the singing. It's just you don't know what they'll say. Yeah.

Yeah. You have to you have to mute them when you know they're have to sing. OK, you'll unmute it when they're not.

You just can't leave that thing live. We've we've you know, we've come very close to lawsuits before. We have.

Oh, especially with Tom, right? Oh, yeah. Tom Dixon. No.

You know, Tom. Tom doesn't say a whole lot. But when he does, everybody turns around and laughs their ass off.

And then you think, God, I hope nobody else heard that. That was pretty funny. Yeah.

So is there I guess is there some continuity to the album other than the fact that it's you know, your music in the whole bit? I mean, can you can you describe it as a sound or a genre or anything like that? My original stuff? Yeah, it's I would say it's sort of a hybrid of country, a little bit of Americana. And, you know, there's I've been a blues player since I was like 13. Yeah.

You know, it's what my dad brought me up on between it was either I was either learning Alice in Chains and alternative smashing pumpkin stuff, or I was learning Stevie Ray Vaughn and B.B. King and Albert King and all those guys. So there's definitely a little bit of bluesy inflections on certain things. And I can testify to that because I think the first time I met Nick, he wasn't even drinking age.

Sounds about right. Uptown tap. Yeah.

So it's been it's been a while. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, he's got his guitar here. I know. I saw that.

Yeah. You know, unless I don't think it's just for show. I don't think so.

Because I hear he's a pretty good guitar player. Yeah. I think we should hear him play.

Yeah. Let's see if we can tune that thing up and get some songs on. All righty.

All right. Let's do that. We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. 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.

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Twenty four, seven, all music with its roots in Illinois. All right, we are back. And for the first time tonight, we have Nick KB live in the studio playing one of his songs for us.

Tell us about the song. So this is a song of mine. It's called Slow Burnout.

It was a corporate job I took, you know, it was still music related, but it was more business than music business than music in the music business. I was getting stressed out to all get out, working a bunch, going crazy. And eventually I like I just came to work one day.

I sat down and my heart rate was at 150, just sitting in an office chair. Yeah, I was shaking. And I'm like, OK, this is this is too much for me.

So this is basically a song that I look back after leaving and kind of refocusing myself, centering it around doing what I want to do and loving what I'm doing. I had the thought I'm like, oh, yeah, that slow burnout wasn't for me because it was a very slow burnout because, you know, I was loving what I thought I was loving what I was doing until I'm like, oh, my God, I'm about to have a heart attack. Until you did.

Yeah, so I didn't. So this slow burnout ain't for me. So that's what the song is basically about.

You know. All right. Yeah.

Just doing your thing, having fun and do what you love. There's a overlying consensus to the record that I've got going. It's going to be a little bit like that.

This is a song it's called Slow Burnout. And so I sit and I ponder, is this slow burnout ain't meant for me? Well, this can't be all for me. All the pain the girl gave me.

Is this really all for me? I think it's time I made my own destiny. Because I have dreams of better things. Wondering where my life is meant to be.

So I sit and I ponder, is this slow burnout ain't meant for me? All right. So I have dreams of better things. Wondering where my life is meant to be.

So I sit and I ponder, is this slow burnout ain't meant for me? Because I had dreams of better things. So I went out and I made my life for me. And so I ran and I wondered, is this slow burnout ain't meant for me? This slow burnout ain't meant for me.

This slow burnout ain't meant for me. Oh, thank you so much. Glory.

Hallelujah. That was a total, I was totally hearing, you know, Southern Gospel Choir and the whole bit, Revival Meetin' and everything else. That had a nice rhythm to it.

Yeah, it did. That was nice. I was hearing the tambourine in the background, a whole bit of hands clapping and stuff like that.

I heard the judge. Yeah, and the judge. Yeah, and James Brown doing backflips down the aisle and everything else.

That had a nice feel to it. So I got a question for you. Yeah, sure thing.

When you're writing a song, is it lyrics or melody first? Ooh. Or a combination. For me, I am always better at writing a melody.

So like, I think this song actually started off with the lyrics, because I think I said, another day, another dollar. I'm like, oh, because I'm like, that's like a cliche. I'm like, I haven't been home in 50.

It was the, oh, I daydream about my bed. I'm like, oh, that's a cool little line. I'm like, do, do, do, do, do, do.

When I'm there, I can be most anywhere. And then it kind of picked up from there. And I was like, oh, well, let's write a chorus and keep it simple.

Kiss, you know, keep it simple, stupid. Yeah, that's right. Because with my guitar vernacular, I can do a whole bunch of complicated stuff.

But I find that when I'm sitting here with just this acoustic guitar, I'll write my best stuff. And that's kind of why everything has a rootsy, Americana, bluesy kind of feel. Because to me, if it doesn't sound good with just me and an acoustic guitar, then it's, you know, I can, I, you could, I could add a million things to it and do whatever.

But if the core of the song isn't there for me, then it doesn't get recorded and it doesn't move on past. Or at least I'll sit there and I'll hold on to it for a different day. Right, right.

It's got to sound good without, you know, before you add the monkey cheese and stuff and all the sound effects and. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You have to be able to, you have to be able to perform it exactly the way you just did before you can say, you know, bring in four people in a band or whatever it is and start playing it. No, I totally get that. That's good.

I like that song a lot. Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it.

I wasn't expecting that from you, actually. Well, because I've seen you do all, you know, other things. And I've seen, you know, I've seen your solo show a little bit.

And I've seen you with, you know, in things with 2 Beer Tommy. And I've seen you do the blues things in the whole bit. But that's kind of a genre that I've never seen you play.

So let alone write. So it's interesting. Yeah.

The multi, the multi-faceted. Yes. And he's a really good guitar player, too.

I mean, right now, I mean, he's picking and grinning over here right now. But you should really see him play guitar. Yeah, he's one of the better guys around here.

Well, thank you. I'd say, listen to your guitar player and then come back to me. Well, you know, everybody's got their own style.

Oh, yeah, they do. Of course, there's some people that can play absolutely anything. But they've got a style that they like to play, right? Everybody's everybody's the best guitar player in their own genre.

Let's put it that way. Yeah, everybody's always trying to sound like a specific guitar player. You'll never sound that way.

Yeah, I gave it up because I'm not that good. I can't. Yeah, I'm never going to be as good as my favorite guitar player.

So, yeah, it's because they have their own style of doing it. Right. Right.

And you have your own. Right. You know, I have this thing that I do when I whenever I tune up my guitar and I do this really quick, like solo line just to run through all six strings real quick.

And it's and it's not boring, like playing a scale. And I actually had a guy that I think is a really good guitar player. This guy is a classical guitar player that I was playing in a band with one time.

And he was a lead guitar player. And he came over to me and he goes, how did you play that? What are you doing? I was like, really? I don't know. Really? And then when I tried to slow it down for him, I couldn't.

Yeah. Because I was thinking about it. If I'm not thinking about it, I do it.

Yeah. But if I had to think about it and slow it down for him, it's like, shit, now I don't know. Yeah.

Sorry. Dust in the wind came from a finger picking exercise. Yep.

The guy from Kansas, he was playing around. His wife said, oh, is that a new song? He's like, no. Yeah.

You should make it a song. That and Sweet Child of Mine. Sweet Child of Mine.

Was a picking exercise. Just a picking exercise. And so was the so was the intro to Life in the Fast Lane by the Eagles.

Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. Yeah.

In fact, I actually saw Joe Walsh tell the story one time about how it came about. Same thing. Don Henley walked into the room as he was doing that.

He goes, what is that? And he goes, it's my warm up exercise. And he goes, well, that's an Eagles song now. And they came up with Life in the Fast Lane.

So no, it happens all the time. Well, that's good. That's good.

When did you write that song? About what time? I would say we're now in April. I'd say it was almost exactly a year ago. OK.

If not, maybe a little bit longer. OK. Maybe towards the end of 23.

I'm not 100% certain. Yeah, but it was a little while ago. Yeah, a little over a year ago.

Yeah. And it was because of a job and you quit the job to go on a different route. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, what was the job? You said it was corporate. I'd rather I'd just rather not say.

Let's not say. OK. Yeah.

All right. Did you did you start doing something else in place of that? Are you just doing music full time or what? So the job that I'm currently at is where I went to. So my day job of sorts is I work at a school called Little Friends.

We help a population of students who are on the autism scale. OK. Or not scale.

It's not a scale. It's a whole. It's a whole thing.

Right. And so we just work with that clientele. And just basically get them to where they can be as self-sufficient as possible, which has been an extremely rewarding job, like just for us to be able to sit here right now, have these headphones on and not be freaking out, being able to converse how we're feeling.

These are all gifts that we have on a day to day basis that unless you have that sort of, you know, oversight or you have worked with someone like that or know someone like that or is living and taking care of someone like that, you don't realize how precious every second of life is. And every little thing that you can do is a gift until it's gone. Right.

Right. Do you have a degree in special education? I do not. I have an associates in guitar performance and jazz studies and stuff.

Wow. OK. Wow.

OK. Yeah. So you had to find something else to do.

Well, I mean, I could have. I actively I made the active decision of when I left the one place I was at. It was it was basically a music lesson center.

And I basically was booked there six days a week. And it got to the point where I wanted to move on in the company, move up in the company. And the one position I wanted wasn't available.

But they're like, well, we'll have you run the whole thing, though, so you can see what it's like to run your own business. And I did that. And I'm just now.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's not for me.

Yeah. Well, that's OK. That's all right.

So tell us a little bit about your evolution just so people get to know who you are. Like when I met you, you were gosh, you were barely out of high school. Right.

Maybe 18, 19, maybe 20. Trading licks with Scott Evans, the guy that we've been referring to this whole time. Yeah.

Stage at Uptown. Oh, yeah. And and but you weren't really in any kind of a band at that particular point in time.

You were kind of teaching some lessons and stuff like that. So if I was teaching, then, yeah, I was already 21 then. OK.

Yeah. You know, I've been in a few bands. I was in one group like let's go back to the start.

So how did I get my comeuppance or whatever? You know, I've been wanting to say this interview because I was waiting for this question. It's a fun fact to me that before I was even born, when my mom found out she was about to have a kid surprise, she literally went to a music shop and bought a guitar for me. Really? Yes.

Awesome. So my my loving father, he played guitar. There's actually a picture of my Michelangelo, like, you know, where on the top of the Sistine Chapel or whatever, where, you know, he's reaching out for God.

There's a picture of me as like like I don't know how many months old and my dad's Stratocaster and I'm touching the strings on it. Oh, wow. Wow.

And I'm like, I'm just like, yeah, that it's like I knew like everyone was just apparently they just knew that I was going to want to pick up a guitar, apparently. Wow. And awesome.

And I want to take this time to thank my parents for being so supportive because without them and their support, I probably wouldn't be here right now talking about this. You know, I might have picked it up, played it a little bit, got good in high school and then did whatever. But they were always so supportive of it.

Mom, dad, if you're listening to this, I love you. Thank you so much. They're amazing.

I'm going to cry now. That's good. I have a very similar story, but I'm not going to step on that one.

That's that's awesome. I totally get where you're coming from. But continuing with that, though, my dad was my first guitar teacher.

You know, he bought me a Hal Leonard book and I like learned like, you know, you're right. I learned all the Mary had a little lamb stuff and I got through the end of the book and I'm like, OK, cool. And now what? And my dad's like, I don't know.

You figure it out. He gave me a whole bunch of 80s and 90s guitar magazines with tabs in it and sheet music because he was teaching me how to read sheet music, which was a cool skill. Then I discovered how easy it was to read tabs because like for those of you not musically inclined, you can play the same note E like this pitch in one spot, another spot, another spot, another spot.

Yeah, right. You can play it in six, six different places, depending on the guitar you're playing. So it can be a bit confusing.

So I'm like, oh, I like tab and I figured out tab and this is early Internet. It's not what we have now. So I it's it was a cool, cool time to like be learning an instrument when I was like 10, 11, because like the Internet was like, you know, oh, my God, I got an email.

This is super cool. So it's not what it is now. And I mean, what it is now is crazy.

The amount of information you can get to learn from people like you have these amazing session guys with lesson courses and I am try my best to be a sponge. I purchased them and support support the craft. And then I sit there and I try and learn just one or two gold nuggets out of each lesson.

Kids nowadays have no idea how easy they have it to learn all that stuff. Remember, remember, you probably did the same thing. You mentioned like Guitar Magazine and stuff.

I would go to the to the local bookstore or wherever it was, probably the 7-Eleven actually. And Guitar Magazine was always on the rack and I would pay the three dollars or three dollars and 50 cents or whatever it was for that magazine. But first you'd thumb through it to say, OK, what are the tabs? OK, that song sucks.

Oh, that's you buy this whole magazine for one set of tabs. And then you go to the back page of that catalog or that of that of that magazine and you tear out the little cardboard thing. And then you had to punch out the the the record that you can put on a turntable and literally put the needle on this piece of paper that had a song or part of a song on so you can learn how to play along with the tabs.

That was just horrible. So going going back to my dad saying, you figure it out. I would check out my high school was amazing.

I went to Lincoln Way West. I was one of the first graduating classes there. I was technically the second because my first year or my sophomore year there, there was no senior class.

It was junior, sophomore, freshman. So I was the second graduating class. But our library was great.

We had a Led Zeppelin anthology. So I was the only one who checked it out within my time period of being at that school. So I learned my.

Yeah, I learned that. And all the. Yes, and all the other stuff that's going to get this podcast demonetized.

Yeah, and then next to it, there was the Black Sabbath books of the. So, excuse me, I just want to let you know you have to be monetized before you can get demonetized. Fair enough.

Fair enough. We can give them up. We can give them a bottle of water.

Please support the Rock and Roll podcast if you have a local business in the Joliet area or if you know, maybe you're in the world, not just Joliet in the world. I was going to say anywhere. Or if you see us hanging out drinking bourbon, buy us a drink.

We'll take it. That's right. Yeah, but I would.

So, you know, my dad got me to a point and he would still show me stuff like, you know, like he'd be like, oh, let's learn this Blind Melon song. Oh, my gosh. It's the I can't remember the name.

No Rain. It's not No Rain. It's not No Rain.

It's the other. It's the other. The other one.

This other one. What was it? Change. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he would show me the chord progression and then I'd learn to improvise over that. He'd be like, all right, here's your A minor. You know, that was a good band.

What the heck ever happened to them? I believe the singer passed. Is that what happened? Yeah. And I mean, with a voice like his, it's kind of kind of hard to, you know, continue the band name under that name.

Yeah. Well, you know, Linkin Park replaced their singer with a female singer. I mean, anything's possible.

But yeah, no, you know, and I think that was because all the rest of the guys in that band, that band's huge. It's like, you know, Chester Bennington was definitely a huge part of Linkin Park sound and the rest of it. But there was also I can't remember the other gentleman's name who did all the rap.

Yeah, right. Like it was always a dual vocal kind of thing. So I get it.

That's true. It was a it was a difficult thing to navigate. I can't I can't imagine how the band felt like going back live doing it.

Well, you know, I mean, not to totally get off subject, but my son came to me and he was a huge Linkin Park fan and he was all pissed off. It's like they replaced him with this with a female singer and it's not just not going to be the same. And then two days later, he comes to me and he goes, I heard the new Linkin Park album.

I was like, yeah. And he goes, she's fucking awesome. Yeah.

And and yeah, and we sat down and we listened to it together. You know, we had a listening party. It was great.

And yeah, holy crap. Can she sing? Yeah. Wow.

They're not going to hire somebody who couldn't do the job. She was she's she's freaking amazing. And they're hiring her not to be a Chester replacement.

No, not at all. They were hiring her to, you know, be the new sound, you know, they're going to take it into a new direction, you know, I mean, when like it'd be like when Dio took over Black Sabbath, you know, like, oh, who's this Ronnie James deal guy? Can you imagine saying that nowadays? Like, oh, I know. Well, yeah, yeah.

If they if they replaced him with another guy that sounded like him. Now they're a tribute band. Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Until they come up with some new stuff, do the old stuff. You're a tribute band. And even Van Halen completely changed their sounds, you know, when they went from David Lee Roth to Sammy Hagar.

I mean, they almost didn't sound like the same band. Right. But yeah, but anyways.

So where were we? Let's go. We were talking about my musical upbringing and all that stuff. And your dad taught you how to play a Blind Melon song.

And then we got off track. Oh, yeah. There you go.

It doesn't take much. Yeah. But from there on, like, you know, we got through the book and he would still show me songs, you know, and he the cool thing was we had a drum set.

We had a whole his basement. We had a whole jam area. So I'd plug into his Marshall stack.

He'd jump behind the drum kit and then we would play stuff. And then as I rapidly increased my playing time because I was young and addicted to playing guitar. So I was learning all the crazy, like, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson stuff.

I remember one time I'm like, all right, dad, let's jam. And he's like, OK. And he picks up the drum set.

So I start. Yeah. And my dad's like, no, we're not going to do Rush.

And I'm like, oh, I'm like, OK, what about. Oh, geez. And he's like, no, we're not.

He said, I know Rush. He said, he said, I love Rush. I cannot play Rush.

I'm not Neil Peart. Yeah. There was only one Neil Peart.

So did you ever take any formal lessons from anybody else other than your father? Yes. So as I mentioned, I have an associates in guitar performance, music education and jazz study with a minor in math education. So I'm good.

I'm good with music and I'm good with math, which is great. But I'm horrible with grammar and my wife's horrible at math, but great with grammar. So we balance each other out.

We're an awesome team. Um, so I went to Joliet Junior College, um, which is a great, great local school. Their music department rivals some of the big, big league schools.

And a lot of community colleges have great music programs. Every everyone and everyone that I know of in Illinois is great music. Well, JJC happens to be the very first community college in the United States.

Oh, oh, I didn't realize how long it's been around. Yeah, it's the very first one. Yeah.

I also go back to our program. Yeah. So I, you know, I got out of high school, um, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

I knew I wanted to do something with, with the, this piece of wood and strings and exactly what, um, I wasn't entirely sure. So when I, when I went to, went to college, you know, I took a year with the jazz guy and that was cool. And he was trying to teach me classical and he's like, you need to go to this other guy.

And I will say his name because he's an outstanding instructor and he is part of the reason why I'm so I'm even better than where I was. His name was Adam Roth. He's, I believe he is still a teacher at Joliet Junior College.

But he is a phenomenal classical guitar player. He, he, he kicked my butt into shape because I was, I guess I had a lot of natural talent, whatever, however you want to say. I hate saying natural talent.

Yeah. Cause it's, I worked my butt off, right? Like I practiced every day with like a metronome and learned all this, learned all this stuff. Um, I hate it when people say, Oh, you're so lucky.

You can play so well. Luck has nothing to do with it. No, I'm like, I sat in my base, like, you know, while other people were out talking to girls and going to parties, I was sitting at home learning how to play working man by rush or, you know, your cliffs of Dover and all that stuff.

And idolizing Eric Johnson. Oh my God. Early YouTube.

I remember when they would, all those late eighties guitar DVDs. Um, I, I found a pirated copy of Eric Johnson's one. I watched that so many times.

It's like Eric Johnson's why I can do all the crazy fast stuff that I do. Cause I love it. Um, anyways, we're going back to the middle, uh, with my instructor, Adam Roth.

He, he kicked my button to gear. He basically gave me all the names, like, he'd be like, okay, what are you playing? And I'd play a scale. He's like, so what was that? And I'm like, uh, see what, but I would get to the answer.

Eventually he's like, not quick enough. So it got to the point where he would just like, he would see me sitting in the hallway talking with buddies or whatever. He'd literally like pull the guitar out of nowhere, put in my hands and he'd be like, play me a C major scale off of your fifth fret based off the G string.

And now I can do that. But he, uh, yeah, he, he drilled the fretboard into my brain, all the triads and different kind of all the modes and all that. And he really kicked my button to shape and really got me into a good practice plan.

And he had a special pedagogy about just being relaxed while you're performing. It's makes a huge difference, especially when I'm like, when, uh, when you're playing like a classical guitar, the overall resonance of your guitar and how the guitar will breathe better. If you're more relaxed, you're comfortable, you're striking the string in just the right way.

These headphones are slowly slipping off my head. Sorry. You know, uh, he kicked my button to gear.

He got me super well-versed and educated, and I'm very thankful for him and all that he, he taught me as well as the jazz band instructor there, Rich Moore. Um, if you don't know who Rich Moore is, and you're in the Chicagoland area, you need to find out where he's playing and listen to him play saxophone or a clarinet. He is outstanding.

But he was also your guitar teacher. Uh, no, no. Rich Moore.

He was my jazz band director, jazz band director. That's where I really got good at improvising over like crazy chords and, uh, you know, stuff that's like. At JJC.

At JJC. And he's still there. He is still there.

You know, I think I actually spoke to him one time. Yeah. He's based around this area.

Yeah. I think I actually spoke to him one time because we were looking for, um, we were looking for someone, um, to kind of work as an intern, as a sound person and, and several people involved in the jazz band said, talk to him. And I think I may have talked to him on the, on the phone, actually.

Yeah. He's a great guy. Great guy.

Yeah. Yeah. He's the guy that I'm thinking of.

I'll tell you what, before we run out of time, I want to hear more music out of you. Okay. I want to, I want to put your money where your mouth is and show us where this C, you know, minor 13th diminished H flat thing off the.

The cue card. Third. Yeah.

The third string on the 28th fret. I'm just kidding. I know there's no third string on the 28th fret.

Well, there is, there are some guitars that have more than like, oh, shut up. I'm sorry. I can't help it.

I'm just, uh, I'm an information database, man. It, you asked me any question about any piece of gear. That was another thing.

Everybody knew two things. Nick was walking around with the guitar tab book and with the current, what the most current Sweetwater catalog or American musical supply catalog. I was studying everything.

I'm like, okay, so this has got this, this is, oh, by the way, because Nick is also the proud owner of a bad cat amplifier. I am. Have I told you my latest story about that? Yes.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, what a cool company.

What a cool company. That is that the owner of the company, you know, answers your emails and returns your phone calls and tells you everything that they're doing. And it was great.

And they, they sent an amplifier back to me that was just like updated. I mean, things like a jet engine. It sounded amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. I got, I got, I got the luxury of playing it last, last week on Thursday.

I had got it back the day before. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

So that was the first time I got it back and played it. Yeah. They, they did a fantastic job with it.

Yeah. Anyways. So you want to hear one more song? Absolutely.

Yeah, for sure. So this song kind of came, I'm trying to think about how it got started. This is another song.

Again, I said, there's like an overarching thing about just being true to yourself and doing whatever you can. This is a song of mine. It's called Keep Moving.

I can't wait for the record to come out. This song benefited the most from overdubs and whatnot. It's basically if, what if Jolene by Dolly Parton was a spaghetti Western song? That's how I phrase it anyways.

That's when my buddy was like, what type of sound do you want for this song? And I'm like, I want it to sound like a spaghetti Western and like similar vibes to Jolene. It's nowhere near the same as Jolene, but, you know, if you listen, once I'm done playing it, you can go, oh yeah, I can kind of hear it. You got to put a bullwhip sound in the background.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No bullwhips. All right.

Rattlesnake. Let's hear it. But yeah.

Yeah. Let me take this. All right.

Yeah. So this is my song called Keep Moving. Hope you guys dig it.

I can hear them calling my name. No sunlight anywhere. Raindrops, they fall without a care.

I wish I could be like you. I still wonder why they keep moving. Starlight, it fills the sky.

Makes me wonder why we need the city lights. They shine on any ways. They don't care if they fade away.

And, oh, I wish I could be like you. And I still wonder why they keep moving. I wish I could be like you, and I still wonder why, still wonder why I keep moving.

Yeah. Nice. Tell me that you've got the trumpets and the mariachi sound and stuff in the background in that song.

I've got a lot of just with lots of tremolo and... Because the whole time I'm hearing... Drip down. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. I'm hearing all that stuff in the background.

I mean, if you're going to go with it, if you're going to go Spaghetti Western, you got to go with the Spaghetti Western, right? I really I really like how the recordings turned out. I am, I guess I could say I'm a bit of a minimalist. I don't want to too much going on.

I agree. My songs. Yeah, I like the songs to kind of speak for themselves a little bit.

But I love what I've got on the song. I think all the parts that were played really fit the vibe that I was going for. And I can't wait for the record to be done, mixed and mastered.

It's all it's basically mixed. And we're about to move on to mastering. I just need to add a couple little backing vocals and a couple of clack tracks here and there.

Nice. Nice. How many how many tracks? As of right now, I'm at five tunes recorded.

So it's going to be I don't know if I want to call an album or an EP. I've also been kind of bouncing around the idea of like, should I just do five individual EP recordings? Because that's kind of what the trend is in music now. It's the yeah, you know, it's not no one buys a full album anymore, which to me is a travesty.

I know the art of a good album. We talk about that all the time on this. It's it's it's you're missing so much.

You're only telling half the story. I know. Yeah, exactly.

Right. Yeah. Not not so much concept albums, but I mean, every album had a concept.

Every good album had a concept. Oh, it didn't necessarily have to tell a story from beginning to end, but it did have some kind of a concept. And without the whole album, you're not quite getting the full story.

It's like it's like reading the first page in the last page of a novel. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

I miss that. I miss that. Or reading half of it and putting it away.

Right. Right. Right.

Exactly. Exactly. You know, we could we could talk for a long time because I mean, we've known each other for a while and we've told stories before, but we could talk for a long time.

But I think this was this was good to let people know who you are outside of Two Bear Tommy, because I think you're kind of getting known for Two Bear Tommy right now. That's where I mean, that pops up on my Facebook feed all the time. But that's me posting it.

Everybody needs to know who Nick KB is. I think we're getting I think we're getting to the point. Yeah.

You know, that's yeah. Again, thank you so much for having me. I really do appreciate it from both of you guys.

Do you do you have any gigs coming up? Yeah. On your own or. So I don't know when this episode will go live, but I will say the best place to find out where I'm playing next will be my website.

OK, go to www.nickkbmusic.com. You'll find where I'm playing next. I got a calendar that I need to get the rest of my gigs up for the rest of the year on. I'm good through July right now.

So. But Nick KB music dot com or even my Facebook, Instagram, social media, that's the best place to find out where I'm playing next. I know I'm excited for a gig I have coming up in a couple of weeks.

It's right after Easter Sunday. It's going to be something completely different. I'm going to be playing more of a classical choir ensemble.

Oh, nice. I'm going to be performing with the Naper Voice Choir, which is run by one of my old college directors. I was also in the Chamber Singers group in school, in college.

So it was fun. And he reached out to me. He's like, hey, I'm looking for a guitar player who can play this stuff.

I was like, OK, yeah, send me the music. And I'm like, OK, cool. Got it.

What kind of stuff? What are you playing? It is all choral music. It's brand new arrangements, as far as I'm aware. It's stuff that's been recorded before, but I'm excited to play with it.

My wife was one of the founding members of the Naper Voice Choirs. And Phil Spencer is the man who is the director of it. He's a he's got a doctorate in organ performance.

He is one of the most happy go lucky, but knowledgeable guys. Right. Like he's a great person to go and have a beer with.

A doctorate in organ performance. That that's just so I got your organ performance right here. Oh, he used to do a concert with the JJC Chamber Singers at the church.

That's just down the block here. And they have that huge pipe organ. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And every time he does that performance, he has everybody put up put a popular song into a hat and he'll pull two out. And he will arrange on the spot a mashup of those two songs. Wow.

Wow. And just the guy's a genius. And he's super humble.

You wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know it talking to him. But he's so well educated, such a wonderful person.

And I'm so honored to be playing with his ensemble. Where is this performance taking place? It is going to be at a church that I can't remember the name of right now because I'm not prepared for this. Is it in Naperville? It is in Naperville.

I know of two. Yeah, I know of none. It's not it's not the it's not one of the huge megachurches.

Let me find Phil Grace. I think it's Grace Lutheran. OK, it's by 75th Street.

OK, if you're familiar with Naperville. Yeah. Yeah.

OK. I think I know. I actually I think I know right where that is.

Well, if you're interested, check out Nick's website. It'll be there. That's right.

Absolutely. Today. So you said it's the Monday after Easter.

Easter Sunday. Let me confirm that. Yeah.

No, it is the week after Easter week after Easter. So the 28th of April. OK, OK.

Yeah, because that's actually very close to where my mother lives. I bet you'd like to go and see that. Oh, it's great.

And the whole every concert they do, they donate a majority or all of the proceeds to a charity of their choice. So they've done like Lowe's and Fish's. They've done Feed My Starving Children.

They've done. It's just an amazing cause, too. That's great.

How about poor podcasters? Yeah. Oh, you'd have to talk to Phil about that. All righty.

All righty, Nick. Thanks for coming out. It's great to see you again.

It's great talking to you, man. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, that was great to see Nick once. Yeah.

Nick KB. Nick KB, man. I can't believe it's been two years since we saw him with Two Beer Tommy.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

I'll tell you, for me, it's so interesting because like I mentioned, I I don't think he was quite 21 yet. He may have been like 20 when I first met him. But the great thing for me was, gosh, I've I've known him for so long.

I've seen him grow as a musician. I mean, he's always been a he's always been a very good guitar player. I mean, excellent guitar player.

But I've seen him grow as a vocalist and a songwriter and all that. So it's that's cool. Nice to catch up with him.

And I get to see him around town every once in a while. Man, it's great to see he's got some original music coming out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's got and he and he didn't have all of his stuff in front of him. But I tell you, if you want to see his solo shows, he plays a lot around in places. Sable Creek Winery over in Romeoville.

He plays there quite a bit. The Uptown Tap, he plays there quite a bit. So people who know where those places are and they know him.

I mean, they know him. We've got a you know, we've got a lot of people in this area that like to go out to those places. Yep.

Loyal. If any of you know the owners of those places, we are looking for sponsors. Yeah, we are.

Always. Always. OK, once again, thank you for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

And join us every Tuesday for another exciting episode. See you. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin.

Theme song courtesy of M&R 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.