Ep 238 Feed the Machine

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, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Ecstatic Mike.

Ecstatic, yeah. I'm going to be different every week depending on my mood. Okay.

Yeah. Well, when I shook your hand, I did get a little shock. Well, no, my kids have graduated.

Nice. Yeah, unbelievable. They're finally freaking done.

I can stop sending all that money to Bloomington. One's a lawyer, one's a doctor. Yeah, I wish.

Okay. Yeah. You're just entering a new phase, brother.

I need to tell you. Yeah. Oh, no.

I know. There is no crossing the goal line and spiking the football in this game of life. No, absolutely not.

But at least I'm not writing checks anymore. Very good. Now they can go to work.

Yeah, that's right. They're going to start feeding the machine. That's right.

That's right. Oh, look at you. You are one clever mofo.

We got feed the machine in the studio tonight, everybody. We do. There we go.

Brought their own fans. It didn't. How come I didn't hear that? Did you hear that? I didn't.

I didn't. I heard it. Wow.

See, there's something else going on with this thing tonight. I wonder why. I heard it fine.

That's all right. Whatever it is. You know, whoever comes in here before is always kind of fucking screwing her up.

They do. All right. So how's it going? How's it going, guys? It's going good, man.

Thanks for having us. This is going to be a great podcast, I think, because we were all just kind of hanging out next door at Juliet's because, you know, we got blown off by the first one. Circumstances beyond our control.

Our control. Yeah. So, yeah, we got to know each other.

That's right. Yeah. So a Nickelback tribute band.

Yeah, believe it or not. Yeah. You know, we're just going to get the 800 pound gorilla out of the room right now so we can continue on with this, right? Excuse me.

I kind of don't like that talking about. Oh, you weren't talking about me. I wasn't talking about you.

No. Okay. Or I wasn't talking about that.

What's what the idiot's talking about? Can a hundred people take a gorilla on the Internet? Have you seen that show? No, I've not. Have you seen that? Are people freaking idiots? Yes, I have. And yes, they are.

What is that? They will kick every single one of those. Yeah. And eat them.

Actually, they're herbivores, so maybe not. I don't know. I know.

I mean, you know how stupid. Anyways, let's not talk about stupid people. Let's talk about let's talk about this band.

Care for a Tide Pod? Yeah. I'll pass on the Tide Pod, but let's get the 800 pound gorilla, you know, out of the room right now. First of all, has there, I guess this is kind of a rhetorical question.

Has there ever been a rock band in the history of rock and roll music that has been more polarizing than the band Nickelback? Can you think of one? Not really. And, you know, I did some research on this. Yeah.

And, you know, who knows, you know, how accurate it is, but there's something to it. I don't remember what the sitcom was, but do you remember it is a tall, bald guy, very nerdy. I think his name is Poulsen.

Brian Poulsen. He's right. Yeah, that's a name.

Yeah. And he's totally into metal. One episode, I forget what show it was, but Nickelback came up.

That metal show. He what was that? That metal show. Oh, yeah.

Pilsen, Brian Pilsen. Is it Pilsen or something like that? Yeah, I know. Brian Poulsen.

Thank you, Jake. That's it. And he made a comment on that episode.

Nickelback sucks, they suck. And it just it kind of blew up. And so the theory, one of the theories out there is that that just took a life of its own.

And so it was cool to hate Nickelback. I don't know. I never heard that.

But there was there was a very distinct point in there. I guess I guess somewhere around the height of their popularity where I remember thinking to myself, OK, I don't need to listen to this anymore. And it wasn't because I thought they were bad musicians or a bad band or anything like that.

They just became, well, part of the machine. And they were producing music that started to sound the same over and over and over again. And what did it for me was Rockstar.

Is that the song where it was so overproduced? And you heard all the voices in the background with the tell me what you need and all that bullshit and everything. I was like, OK, yeah, you know, I'm kind of done with this. But I will admit when they first hit the scene, I was a pretty big fan.

I was actually in a cover band at the time called Static, and we covered some of their stuff and had a blast doing it. But then somewhere around the room, I don't know, six years, seven years, eight years later, whenever it was, all of a sudden people like, yeah, I don't need to listen to this anymore. And they became very polarizing because you can have 100 people in a room and 50 people are like, I love Nickelback and 50 people are I hate Nickelback.

So I think that's true of anything when it becomes popular, though, like you reach a point of saturation to where you can't escape it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's happened with all popular pop musicians as well. And if you think about the people that like like the theme to Titanic, that Celine Dion song, like people wanted to like just like throw her off the Titanic.

I still want to peel my face off when I hear it. Yeah, I just want to. Yeah, it's like think about it like Taylor Swift as well.

Same thing. There are people that like literally wear diapers to her concerts because they don't want to miss a single minute of it. And other people that like we're so sick of seeing her on Sunday, you know, football that they like, you know, just the things that they were saying.

So I think that's part of it is that you reach because even going back further than that, like people, the hatred for Bon Jovi and things like that. It did get to that point. Yeah.

You know, so it it just happens to where like this one just kind of like there was nothing quite like it at the time. And again, you had that level of like it got picked up by Top 40. Because prior to that, like the first album, when they came out with it that had like leader of men, things like that on it.

That was just on like rock radio. Right. Because I remember I had that first album and that's where I first heard it was essentially just rock radio.

And they were more kind of like post grunge, kind of like alternate rock. But then once they released like How You Remind Me. Well, that was the springboard.

That was the springboard because that was that's what brought them to the show. Yeah. And and that song became so popular that they ended up, I believe they ended up re-releasing that first album again, which is the album that leader of men was on.

And that's the era that I thought they were great. I really did. I thought they were they were they were great.

And I liked them all the way up into Rockstar. It's kind of where it ended for me. What's interesting is and it'd be cool if we all shared our perspectives about how we ended up in this band.

Right. So first of all, the guy you just heard talking, that's Jake Pearson. He's a he's our lead singer.

And we've got Nathan Van Dyke in here with us. Guitar. Greg Peterlin on drums.

And Greg, this was his brainchild. And he can go a little bit about the history there. My name is John.

I'm a guitar player as well. That's correct. Paisan.

And so I'll start and we maybe we can go go along. But the perspective, everything that you guys just noted, but then looking through the lens of the musicians that we've been for a long time, for me, I'm a metal guy. Right.

I mean, I had 25 years of playing Megadeth in high speed dirt, tribute band in town. Right. And then an original progressive metal band, Sacred Dawn.

So that's what I cut my teeth on. So if anybody had asked me or said to me, you know, even two years ago that I would end up in a in a Nickelback tribute band, I was like, what are you smoking? Please pass it over here. Post haste.

Right. But here's the thing. And then I'll just make it short for me.

I was looking for something different to do. You know, some of these other bands were, you know, we had really good, good legacy long, but they are kind of winding down. I was looking for something else to do and never a big Nickelback fan, not fan, but not really exposed to them.

We all know the hits. We certainly know the radio hits. And, you know, I was aware of them as well.

But beyond that, nothing. I was off doing different things when I came into this band and these guys started sending me songs to learn. And this touches on your point.

I was blown away. I could not believe the level of musicianship and and some of these songs, these guitar tones are hard and heavy, which is not a stretch from the world that I came from. Right.

So I've been having a hell of a great time learning these songs and performing them. Yeah. We touch on the hits and the people love them.

The girls love to sing to them. And then we grab people's throats and we just rip. And and and, you know, the reaction is one, holy shit, that's Nickelback.

Yeah. And two, I'm going to take a look at this band and get into some of their other songs and hopefully they'll come back to one of our shows. So that's how I came into this band.

And I kind of still can't believe I'm in a Nickelback band, but I'm really happy that I am. No, as long as you're having fun with it and you kind of hit the nail on the head because I think we talk about this all the time. The first thing that came out of your mouth was, you know, the girls were loving it.

OK. Yeah. Girls love it.

Guys hang out. They buy drinks for the girls. Bar owner happy.

I mean, that's the way that's the way it goes. One more thing and then I'll pass it to Greg. I mean, you know, the bottom line is at this stage of my playing career, you know, in my age and what I've done and, you know, it can be pretty stressful to be in a band at times unless you get that rare gem where everybody's just rowing the boat in the same direction and the work ethics are really cool and there's no egos and you just get after business.

Right. So if I was going to do something new, it was going to be if I'm going to put time and effort into this thing, I don't want to deal with that stuff if I can help it. Right.

There's some of it always. But I think we're on to something really cool here because we don't have a heck of a lot of that and we're still a newish band. We're just getting rolling.

But so far, it's been very, very encouraging. So and very little competition. You're you're exactly right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We are the tallest midgets. So I don't know. I don't know if we can say midget.

We'll have our legal department check into that. OK. Yeah.

OK. So I had this brainchild and what I've known. What was his name? Feed the machine.

Yeah. Anyways, I noticed that there's a whole bunch of Nickelback fans that are in the closet. And then once they walk out of that closet and admit.

Wow. Look at that. Because I've noticed like a stop sign.

You hear it's jamming the radio to do it. And then you get to the stoplight and then they turn the radio down. And then it turns green and they turn it back up.

Yeah. So that's the weird thing about this. Yeah.

Yeah. We're not. I mean, we're not picking on Nickelback.

We're just talking about reality. Really. We're talking about a reality.

You know, whenever anybody mentions Nickelback, I don't care what channel or streaming service, whatever you're, you know, Nickelback. Ah, that happens. And is it justified or not? We don't know.

That's kind of what we're you know, we're not going to solve that problem tonight. But you're right. That's I see that happen all the time.

Yeah, sir. So what do you do in the band? I'm the guitarist, one of the guitar players. OK, cool.

Yeah. So, like, I remember when how I got involved with this was I remember seeing the initial post who wants to start a Nickelback tribute band. I'm like, that's genius.

I'm like, that's genius because it's everybody kind of likes Nickelback. They're going to say, oh, I hate him. But like like Greg was saying, like, there's people that won't admit to it.

I'm like, this is going to be one way or another. Yeah, it's done right. This is going to be cool.

And I reached out to him. I was like, I have to try to get into this gig. And when I got I was told, well, we already got somebody.

I believe it was John by the time by the time I got into it. And I was like, oh, well. And then John reached out to me again.

He's like, join the band. I was like, I was like, OK, let me see if I can get all my ducks in a row because, you know, I get all my scheduling. And when he finally convinced me to do it and we got we got in that room, this was I was like, this is going to be awesome.

Yeah, this is going to be one of the coolest things that in my music career thus far is going to witness. So I was like, this is cool. Right.

So their music is fun to play. Oh, it's great. There's no doubt about that.

And like what John was saying earlier about the musicianship, I was blown away. And like the cool part about Nickelback in my life was when I first started playing guitar back in like 98, 99. Leader of Men was like their hit at the time.

That was like the original OG song for them. And that's still my favorite. And I was like very, very new to the guitar.

And when I figured out how to play in that tuning, I dropped detuning and I was able to play that song with I was like, this is awesome. And then when the tunings, the tunings and then when like How You Remind Me came out, like I watched Chad, you know, play on the music video. I was like, this is awesome.

I'm actually learning something from this guy. And then when I learned Too Bad, I was like, this band's awesome. Now, if you were to ask me back then, are you going to be in a tribute band, Nickelback 25 years later or so? I'd be like, absolutely not.

No, but this is one of the greatest experiences I've just far had in my career. And I'm blessed to be here. So this is a really cool opportunity.

And here we go, guys. Yeah, no, that's no, that's good. And I agree with that because, you know, do I want am I going to go out of my way to download some Nickelback stuff or go to Spotify and listen to Nickelback? No, but I'll tell you what, though.

If some friends of mine said, hey, we're going to go out, we're going to see this band. OK, that's cool. Let's let's go.

And we get there and it's a Nickelback tribute band. After I've had a few cocktails and the places is packed and everybody's having a good time. Yeah, I'm probably screaming at the top of my lungs, along with everybody else singing the songs, you know, and everybody else in that bar or that club is probably in the same boat than I am.

Like they wouldn't give it a second thought. But once they're there, they're having a good time. I get I totally get that.

So that's what we've been experiencing so far. Even at this early stage, we've got about four shows on our belt. And we're building on every single one of them.

And that that's happening. And that's exciting. Yeah.

For all of us. Right, right. So you're the singer.

I am. Yeah. How are you enjoying this ride? You know, I approached it.

So essentially, I'm in several other bands. This is my fourth band. And so kind of my bread and butter typically is more 80 centric.

Wow. But the thing that I liked about this is that I also like challenges and I like to continue to evolve and push myself as a musician. So part of that was that.

Oh, there we go. And I see. There we go.

Get some ASMR now. So tell me what you need. But that was the thing is that it was it was something different, essentially.

And kind of like it's a different demographic as well. You know, to get into as well, broadening the audience that I play for and just kind of. And the other thing that it kind of came down to is I got into the catalog a little bit more is that essentially Nickelback is very similar in a lot of ways to a lot of the 80s bands.

It's basically just modern hair metal in a lot of way. Yeah, I would agree with that. It's about the same stuff.

A lot of the guitar riffs are the same in a lot of ways. It's just down tuned in some cases. Right.

You know, so there's there's a lot of similarities there in that regard. So, yeah. And at the end of the day, the other thing, too, is that, you know, you're not trying to change the world with it.

You know, it's just Nickelback. Yeah, you know, it's just a good time at the same time. So and the other thing that I like as a performer is, you know, as a theater kid, I like to perform for people.

So that's the thing, too. People are having a good time. They can leave their worries at the door.

So if they're having a good time, I'm glad that I can give that to them. Right. Right.

I'm Ray. I have nothing to do with this band. Yeah.

I'm going to make some enemies and some friends right now. Yeah. Let's hear this.

I like Creed and Nickelback. OK. Yeah, I mean, I don't.

I always have. Disagree with that. I like them both.

They're both phenomenal bands. I mean, they really when it comes right down to it, across the board, the songwriting is solid. But there's a division.

You got your Creed lovers and Nickelback lovers. And yeah, but I like them both. I go both ways.

Yeah. Yeah, we heard that. Yeah, we did.

That's OK. That's all right. No, I mean, I was a I was a big Creed fan.

I was that I mean, that that band that I was in static pretty much almost started as a Creed tribute band. Like the first 12 songs we learned were like Creed songs. And he was like, yeah, we can't just do Creed songs.

So so so we did a lot of other stuff as well. Talking about just doing Creed songs. Yeah.

Is Nickelback all you guys do as of right now? Yes. OK. I mean, when it comes down to it as well, like there's so Nickelback has such a big catalog.

They're one of those bands that, you know, as being in other tribute bands, it can get tough to keep people for more than a, you know, a 50 to an hour set for the most part. Right. Because people think it's great.

They're like, man, I really like that band until you sit in a place and listen to it for an hour straight. And you really got to like that band. Yeah.

Now I'm ready for something else. Yeah, exactly. So there's attention spans.

The handful of bands you can get away with that is like the Metallica's of the world. You know, weirdly enough, Guns and Roses. They got three albums with people.

Well, you can do that when your songs are like 15 minutes long. Yeah, exactly. So you've got some of those bands.

Nickelback is actually one of those bands when you dive into it because you can easily get about 90 minutes and most of them were actually they were all probably in the top 40 or at least they were all you can go to YouTube and look up the videos. There's millions, tens of millions, you know, if not in some cases, hundreds of millions of views on them. Right.

So that's that's the thing is that it's one of those bands, too, to where like you can actually fill a 90 minute set of just Nickelback. Right. You don't have to dip into some of those other kind of related artists, in this case, like, you know, Creed, Your Three Doors Down, you know, those kind of things that are probably in the same kind of like era.

Right. Like Sean. Yeah, I guess you guys would be related songs.

You guys would have to start doing like some Avril Lavigne and stuff like that. Are they still together? Related by marriage? I don't know. Are they? I used to work with her.

She's a she's a peach. Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah.

And, you know, to Jake's point, you know, 90 minutes said, I mean, we we have a really nice balance so far. And the catalog is small, you know, comparatively speaking to where we're going to get. But it's a really nice mix of, yeah, it's the hits.

Yeah. They love singing to them. And then there's several in the set that are just rip your face off.

And some people will know them and appreciate it. And others have no idea. But then they're like, are you kidding me? Right.

And then they go back and they get deeper into the catalog and hopefully come back and bring some friends next time. So we're kind of capitalizing on all of that. But yeah, it's all covered.

So are you guys you guys aren't doing like full nights of entertainment at clubs by yourself and you're maybe a closing act or an opening act or something like that? Is that pretty much how it's going? Yeah, currently right now, I mean, we're doing like right now we do 90 minutes for the most part. I mean, we have not because I mean, what is this? I mean, the fifth show, something like that. I mean, again, we're really early on in the stages of the of the project for the most part.

So, OK, yes, we've done right now headlining 90 minutes so far. I mean, would we do I don't know if we would ever do like three hours of I don't know why we would ever want to. I don't think I don't Nickelback doesn't want to do three.

There's no reason to. There's no reason to when you play the clubs around here, you're you're you're you're getting a 45 minute set. You're getting an hour, maybe, you know, a buck and a half.

Yeah, right. You know, we've got some fests that were just closed here just recently. One of them that, you know, I can I can announce we're going to be playing West Chicago Railroad days on Saturday, June 28th in the evening.

Be a really nice opportunity for us. You know, a lot of people out there, really good exposure opportunity for us and people love it. That works out great since today's June 17th.

Yeah. And we got we're going to be playing Tribute Island on Friday, August 1st. So, you know, we're dipping our toes into that area as well.

And, you know, those are, you know, 90 minute sets as well. I hope that we don't have to really cross that bridge where someone's wanting us for three hours. I mean, we'll consider it.

But why? I just I don't I don't see the necessity. Yeah, right, right, right. So let's take a step back.

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Is that what you said? Roughly. So you guys haven't been together that long. Back up a year.

This month. Configuration year. Got this year.

So you made the first phone call then to put this band. Who was the first person you called? Well, it's funny. I was in two bands at the time.

Right. And they were not really active. So I just went on Facebook in December of 2023 and made this random post.

I'm thinking of forming a new band. It will be the most hated cover band around. And then everybody knew who I was talking about.

And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I had a bass player within the first 20 minutes. Wow.

Guitar player. About an hour later. Yeah, it was crazy.

Right. Oh, I can contest when I saw that. When I saw that first thing, I was like, I got to jump on this.

Right. I don't want to miss out, you know. So if you knew if you knew it was going to be the most hated cover band ever, what made you do it anyway? It's different.

OK, yeah, but I'm tired of being glorified. I want to suck for a little while. Yes, but if I was a guitar player, there's absolutely no way I would be doing this.

Right. There's like what? Nine tunings? Ten? Yeah. OK, you're you're surrounded by two guitar players.

So what do I know? As of now, the lowest we've gone with Nickelback is drop A sharp, which would be drop B flat, however you want. Yeah, however you want to look at it. Two whole steps down.

We're at six different tunings right now. So it's just what they do. And so we've adapted and, you know, we make it work.

We make it work. What's the one song that you're tuned differently to him? Someday, I believe that's the one. Everyone's tuned differently.

He's in drop. John's in drop B and I'm still in drop C. So it's Nickelback. Is Nickelback the band that started all that bullshit? I mean, I mean, people say, let's go to drop C. They can write really great music in that tuning.

I can tell you that. Yeah, they're really great songwriters when it comes to that drop tuning for sure. Yeah, yeah.

And like really, to be honest with you, like 98% of their their writings isn't that those tunings or drop tunings at least and then whatever. To respond to your question, you know, I think why Greg has been persistent over a lot of years to try and get this kind of a thing going and given everything that we've said about, you know, they're the band's rep and, you know, warranted or not, you know, we certainly saw it as an opportunity. And especially as we started learning these songs and we just started opening our eyes going, we had no idea.

I mean, Jake, I know you did. You're much well versed in more of the 80s stuff, too. But I had no idea.

But, you know, as we started doing this, we knew that if we delivered the goods with the musicianships and the history that we all have, and we've all been doing this a long time, that if we delivered the goods and turn some heads, that there there is what regardless of what people say, how they feel about the band, there is a big market. I mean, yeah, you can go out as a Slayer band. Yeah, you can.

And I mean, good friends of mine are reigning blood in this town, and they are really, really good. In fact, I told the head guy, I said, if you guys could fit it in your life, you guys could tour nationally. And they're that good.

But it's a limited audience, right? But with this, it's potentially massive. And regardless of what people say, because there's more people that like the music than pretend to hate the music. And we just want to capture as many people that like it and come along for the ride as possible.

So from just from a logistics standpoint, like logistics question, I guess, with so many different tunings, how many guitars do you guys have on stage with you? I mean, you're not tuning them, but you're not tuning one guitar at the end of every song. With modern technology. For me, I got one guitar.

OK, you know, because I got the you got you got a roto tuner or no, it's a it's a down tune. It's a down pedal, drop pedal. OK, I can go, you know, if I stay in standard drop tuning, I can go in between, you know, E flat, C, B, A, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

So you're not click of a switch. So you're not touching your tuning pegs at all. You're just stepping on a pedal.

That's Nathan, though. I got a different story there. I can tell you, I struggled with it for a while.

I really had to think long and hard. Let me finish this real. Let me finish this thought real quick, though.

So when you're talking about being in, you know, drop B flat or whatever it is, are you just tuning that low E down or are you tuning across? It's just one. Yeah, the low E will go down. OK, like, you know, to the musicians out there down a whole step.

Right. And then everything else is standard tuning. OK.

And then with the technology, with the drop pedal, like it takes that that semitone down. OK. So I guess the same as if I did it, you know, one half step, you know, a half step down, drop C sharp, which would be, you know, one semitone down and so forth and so forth.

So like being able to have that ability to have like one great guitar and be able to go from, you know, this to that to this to that is quite nice because you don't have to carry the load of having, you know, five guitars on stage, which would be crazy. But and forgetting which one is which and grab the wrong one. But the more the more that we're getting into this, you know, I'm starting to kind of teeter totter, having at least one or two more just there just to tighten up the tones, because sometimes, you know, when you're in the one tuning and then you can use a technology, it can be a little bit weird.

So like I'm starting to think now I might go and have a couple extra guitars just for flavor. Yeah, because even that digital stuff can sound a little squishy. Right.

You know, you want to try to keep it more the closest to authenticity as possible. Yeah, it's basically it's a basically a pitch shifter for a guitar instead of a voice. So it can have that effect on it.

And another reason to buy a new guitar. Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah.

Well, first of all, let's get this straight. You never need a reason to buy another guitar. No, no, you don't.

No, sometimes you have to sometimes you have to account for them. Sometimes it's just like going to the hardware store and buying that bag of beef jerky because it's there. It really is.

It's the way it works with guitars. Yeah. So you were going to say something about your tuning.

Yeah. So, you know, I gave this a lot of thought. I own a lot of guitars, not as many as Jake here.

Jake's got an illness. I own a lot of guitars. And as I was ramping up into this band, I really gave a lot of thought about how am I going to tackle this? You know, what guitars am I going to use? What am I going to set up to what tuning and this and that? And and I resisted the drop pedal.

I mean, I've never had it on my board. But as I got into this, I recognized pretty quickly that it was going to be needed. So through the evolution of my thought process of how in the hell am I going to handle? I don't want to carry five, six, seven guitars around to rehearsal and or or live.

But you could with this band. So what happened with me is I've ended up and this is going to answer part of your question. So I have a guitar that's standard E and the tunes that are in E flat.

I just transpose. I don't want to deal with another guitar. I got a guitar that's tuned to drop D. Now I can use that one with the pedal and go down further if I want.

But I have a third guitar. So it's a three guitar rotation for me. And that third guitar is tuned in drop C already.

And then I'll use the pedal to go to B and then got a on this new tune that we're learning. So it was really an evolution with me and a lot of thought about how in the hell and which guitars actually am I going to use and get set up and do some maintenance and this and that. So I've kind of settled into a three guitar rotation.

Sometimes I only bring two to practice and just use the drop pedal because I just don't want to lug three guitars around. But live, I bring them with me, bring them with me. So we're up to six tunings.

It's a pain in the ass. But we, you know, we're doing we're adjusting and making it work. And thousands of dollars worth of money spent on setups.

Right. You know, man, I can't I can't imagine that you're going to drop C sharp and all of a sudden you're you're the neck of your guitar isn't where it's supposed to be. No, I have it lucky.

I'm tuned to E flat as a drummer. So it works out for me. Yeah.

We've already established many times we don't give the drummer a microphone. Be quiet. Wow.

That's interesting. That's good. So where have you guys been playing? You've only done five shows, but where have you been playing? So let's see here.

We have played. We just did a show at the Piazza. What was that last week? Nice.

That's a fun place. How was the turnout? How'd you how'd you guys like that place? It was great. Yeah.

And so going along, talking about my sacrifice and the Nickelback and the Creed band. So we had a little bit of a cradleback action going on there. Cradleback.

Yeah, that's a patent pending cradleback. I think that's a species of turtle, actually. The cradleback turtle.

We are a species of turtle. That's we are slowly rising up. There you go.

Is that of the snapping? Yes, it is. So we've played there. We played out at Tony D's more on the north side.

So up by Elmwood Park. Yeah. Thank you.

Elmwood Park. We're doing JMO's at the end of the month here. So we're playing there.

That's up by you. Yeah. In Mokino on the 91st Street.

If they're listening, we are looking for sponsors. We are looking for sponsors. Absolutely.

Bourbon Street, which is another great venue that we played at. That's the perfect venue for Nickelback. I got to jump in here.

Also, Davern's Tavern. Davern's Tavern. It was their 13th anniversary.

Is the place really called Davern's Tavern? Yeah, it is. I got to jump in here with Jake, you know, letting you know what our shows are. He mentioned Bourbon Street and I got to share this story.

So Jake was not a part of the original lineup of the band. We had another guy who was helping us out. Didn't know if he was, you know, going to be the guy, but was very valuable as we were learning these tongs, these thongs from the beginning.

It was very helpful to have him involved. Had some health issues and decided to take a step back. And we had talked to Jake about, hey, man, we got this show.

It's at Bourbon Street. It's really our first inaugural show. And it's going to be a big one for us, right? We got to do this right.

Do you have any interest in maybe helping us out, you know, and filling in for us? And by God, he did. And it was a very special night. We won't have to go deep into this.

And we all have our different perspectives on it. But for me, it was a very special night all across the board. The performance, the crowd reaction, the promoter, the venue, the reactions, the feedback that we got afterwards, it all kind of came to a head.

And a lot of that was directed toward Jake. And that was the night, you correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the night that he decided to jump in and be the guy. Now, I don't know if I've ever told you this point blank, but, you know, I had been talking to Jake prior for months.

You know, we're doing this thing, you know, we'd love to have you involved. Lots of, you know, all good reasons. And I knew we were going to play that show with Jake, but I still was of the mindset, you know, he's a busy guy.

He's got these other bands. You know, we don't know, you know, can he fit this into his life and this and that? And so I was of the mindset that we're going to play the show. You know, we're going to do a good job.

And, you know, hopefully things will go real well. And hopefully, you know, Jake can even see more of the picture of what this band might be, you know, capable of, you know, the potential of it. And so I just thought that, yeah, we play the show.

And after the show, I'd follow up with Jake and, you know, hey, you know, you had fun and this and that, you know, thank you so much for filling, you know, you know, filling in for us and this and that. I really had no idea that that night and what happened that night would cause him to jump in. And we were kind of blessed by that.

I don't want to embarrass you. And this was at Bourbon Street. This is Bourbon Street.

So that it was a very magical night. And that really ultimately all those cool things that happened that night really opened the door for Jake coming in to the band on a full time basis. And we can't be, you know, more thrilled about.

Well, you know, that that that place just breeds that type of attitude. That's a really cool place to play. Oh, yeah.

Thank you for joining us for Confessions of a Rock Musician. Yes. Tune in next week.

Yeah. Oh, I thought you were going to comment on that. Oh, no, I can't.

So, yeah. Don't leave me hanging here. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was the thing is that like like John touched on, you know, it was one of those things that I was jumping in to help him out. You know, I knew that that was going to be a great kind of springboard for the band.

It's a great stage. Good draw. Good audience.

And also just looking at it from a standpoint like you want to put your best foot forward. Right. Like this is really going to be kind of your you're showing out to the to the public.

Right. And also, like anytime you get to play a stage like that, you want to like any pictures, any video that you have, that stuff that you can use in promotional. Right.

So that's, you know, I wanted them to have their best foot forward. They're, you know, great people. So and then from there, you know, it was one of those things to where enough of the feedback and thinking about it again from a standpoint of like I talked about before, a lot of my bread and butter is, you know, I'm an I'm an 80s guy.

A lot of that stuff. Right. But I also like a challenge in regards to where, like, I mean, I'm in a Wasp Tribute band.

OK, I mean, that's the thing, like if we're talking about bands to where that is a whole other discussion. Yeah. Yeah.

I do the full. I do blood, the saw blades. I do.

OK, so what you're going to do when you go home tonight, you're going to look up our calendar and you're going to book that band on his body. That's right. A Wasp Tribute.

OK, now I've heard it all. Yeah, I thought I've heard it all. I didn't hear it all until just now.

And let me interrupt real quick. You know, I'm glad you brought up your wild child. And my girlfriend and I, it was several years ago, High Speed Dirt was playing and we were sharing a bill with with Jake's band and we were blown away.

Yeah, I had not met Jake prior and we were just blown away by the band and blown away by Jake. You know, he plays guitar and he leads in that band. And, you know, and this was long before I even got, you know, the post about, you know, trying to put a Nickelback band together and my interest in it.

So this was long before then. But as that started to happen, and I know Christine Stocks, you know, I apologize a thousand times for that. She really creeps on Jake, but that's OK, Christine.

Don't worry about it. We all have those. Right.

And it was like it was like when this was starting to happen and we knew that we had some vocalist issues that was going to have to be addressed. You know, Christine and Jake, I'll be very transparent with you. We were like, that's the guy.

And what if I mean, wouldn't that be great if that guy, you know, could come along for the ride? And many, many months later and many conversations and and, you know, and that show at Bourbon Street made it happen. Yeah, to to bring it kind of full circle to how that relates also then to the Nickelback thing. So coming, it's a very similar thing, right? Because a lot of people like with a band like that, they're like, you know, they might know a song or two.

I view it as a challenge to win over the audience. So it's the same thing that I view with a Nickelback band. Is that like so I've never had like I'd be amused if somebody ever threw a tomato at me.

Nobody ever has. So like, you know, go ahead, bring your produce. You know, like you are not a real singer yet.

If you've never had shit thrown at you yet. No, honestly. Yeah.

I mean, egg costs have gone down now, but back when they were high, I invite people to throw your eggs at me. But that's the thing. It just makes me work harder.

Yeah. Right. So that's the thing.

And that's one of the other rewarding things about it is that like if I can convert you regardless, and then if my job essentially as kind of somebody that is like a tribute artist or somebody like that, that's paying homage to these other artists is that I'm not ripping them off. I my goal then is to make you then go home and then listen to them and go and get into that. It's like if I am your gateway into going in and being like, man, that was actually better than I thought, you know, then that's my job.

Yeah. Right. In that regard.

So then it's more so like, especially as more and more of these artists age out a little bit. Right. So that's still like you're keeping the music alive in that regards, because I mean, none of us are doing this to get rich.

None of us are doing this to get famous. Right. We all do it for different reasons.

Sure. You know, you know, it's a couple bucks in your pocket, maybe, you know, for the most part, but also you're doing it for whatever reason. For me, that's what it is.

I get satisfaction from that going out and performing, bringing that to people, making people happy. You leave your worries at the door, you know, and then you go home happy. Once you're on this, once you're on stage, it really isn't about the material.

Yeah, the truth. So, you know, let's wrap this up. We, I feel like we opened to this whole thing.

We, we had to talk about that 800 pound gorilla. We had to. I mean, you, you can't have, you can't interview a creed tribute band without talking about that aspect of it.

I don't want to end it like this. I'm sorry. Nickelback.

I don't want to. The cradleback, it's the cradleback turtle. But you're right.

So let's not, let's not, let's not end it on that note. So I'll go first. Let's go around the table.

I'll go first. And I'm going to say something positive about Nickelback. Right.

And this is, this is the God honest truth. So I'm in a, I'm in a band called Static 20 some years ago or whenever the heck it was. I can't even remember.

And we're playing some crappy bowling alley in Schaumburg. And it was the two guitar players that decided, Hey, this song leader of men is really cool. Right.

And I think we can do it. It's, it's pretty easy. We got to figure it out.

Do you know what I said? Yeah, I guess I actually happened to know it. I was just the lead singer in the band. And so we get to the middle of the song and everybody's kind of looking at each other like, okay, what do we do now? It's kind of like that story with the Beatles in the studio where John Lennon would always say, well, what are we going to do with the middle eight? Right.

So we're kind of there in the middle going, okay, what are we going to do? I grabbed a harmonica out of my pocket and put a harmonica solo into that song. And that song became a regular part of our set list with the harmonica solo and everything. That's wow.

So it was, so it was pretty cool that it was, it was that song. I mean, it was just, in my opinion, it was crying out for something like that. And I did it and we played it that way for years.

I would have gone Glockenspiel. Yeah. Glockenspiel would have been good.

Would have been good. Harpsichord for me. Anybody jump in.

Anybody, let's, let's end it on a positive note. Well, again, to be a little bit repetitive, you know, I shared the school of guitar that I came from, but playing this material is not that much of a stretch from where I come from. And really, and, you know, Jake said, you know, he is a performer and he is the quintessential front man in his job.

And he won't be happy until he brings those people in and they get it. And away we go. Right.

I just love playing guitar, man. I mean, I know that, you know, the days that are behind me are, you know, a lot more than the days that are in front of me. And I just, I just love playing guitar and I've loved learning this material.

The guys in this band are great. I really do think we have some potential to, to achieve some really cool goals for ourselves. And so that's what motivates me.

And just, I just enjoy playing the material with these guys. And yeah, we are four or five shows into it. So we're still in the beginning stages of this band and the reactions have been great.

We're getting promoters in our camp. We're getting venues to take notice. And, you know, so that's already mission accomplished and that's just something to build on.

So, so that's, that's why I'm really excited about what we're doing. I mean, yeah, you know, my background a little bit before, like with the whole Nickelback thing is like, I come from like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Dream Theater, you know, virtuoso guitar players like that. And, you know, I've always been, you know, in that styles of music.

And then when I started playing this Nickelback with this, with these guys, I think this is the one, some of the greatest, you know, and people probably have their opinions, but some of the greatest songwriting I've ever come across and it's, it's got the simple, but it's got the rock formula and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, Chad, that dude, like give him credit. He's one of the, in my opinion, he's one of the greatest songwriters.

That's going to be in our lifetime, you know, so it's been, it's been such a great experience being able to play this music. And like I said earlier, it's like from my early beginnings, I started with Nickelback a little bit, you know, watching Chad on MTV, how you remind me learning how to make a power chord, you know, correctly, you know, and so like, there was a lot of, you know, back early Nickelback for me. So, you know, and being able to have an opportunity to be in this, you know, with these great guys and seeing something like this grow into something, we're hoping that it's gonna be great.

It's just a blessing, you know, so it's all of the above. This is just awesome. I hope everybody gets a chance to come see us.

You're not gonna regret it. I can promise you that. Yeah, this band is actually my wife's fault.

100%. Back in the nineties, I'm listening to CDs of Dream Theater, Symphony X, whatever. When we're in a car, she would put on Nickelback and then, you know, I'm like, oh God.

And then eventually it grew on me and then she took me to a Nickelback concert and then boom. And well, here we are. Yeah.

Awesome. I think that about wraps it up unless you guys want to tell us. So how can people find you? Websites, you know, stuff like that? Home phone numbers.

Yeah. 1-888. No.

Feed the Machine Chicago at Facebook. Is that it? Yeah, I think so. That's it.

Very simple. Yep. No website or anything yet.

Just Facebook and going by it. Which is still a great way of doing it. It really is.

Yeah. Okay. And what do you guys got coming up? You got any shows coming up in like end of June, July, stuff like that? We got May 30th at Jamos.

May 30th at Jamos. Yeah, we'll be with My Sacrifice. Well, that was a good show.

That was a great show. That was a fantastic show. We were there.

This doesn't air until June 17th. Yeah. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

It was great. They rocked. They did.

It was awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

So, hey, check these guys out. You'll see them. Right.

It was great talking to you guys. Likewise. Appreciate you being here.

Thanks for coming in. Thank you. Thank you, boys.

There you have it. Feed the Machine. The Nickelback Tribute Band.

You know what? That was actually fun. That was a lot of fun. Yeah.

Like I said, I like them both. Yeah. You know, at first I didn't know what to make of it.

But, you know, they're absolutely right. It's one of those bands where every song that you know of is in the top 40. And, yeah, I bet you'd have a good time.

And they're going to grow on people. People are going to realize that, you know, I really don't hate Nickelback. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like their music. Yeah. All you do is put your little, put the tough side away, you know, and the eagle away and the whole bit and go hang out at a place, listen to some Nickelback.

And there's probably going to be hot women there. That's right. Hot chicks like Nickelback.

That's right. So get out there and see these guys. They're going to be all over the place.

That's right. And thanks for listening to us as you do every week on the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Check us out every Tuesday for another exciting new episode.

See you next week.