Ep 259 The Omnitones
Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock
and Roll Chicago Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike.
Hello. How are you, Ray? I'm fine. I'm not ill.
I'm healthy. Not wealthy. Not too wise either.
Not too wise either. Neither is the guy laying on the sidewalk outside. I thought it was a piece of
luggage.
I got a little closer. It's a guy sleeping on the sidewalk. The luggage is breathing.
I think there's a fine line between sleeping and passing out. He's not sleeping. Sleeping, you put
your hands like this together underneath and make a nice pillow.
He's like all twisted up and contorted and his head is against the planter and his tongue. And
you don't lay in the middle of the sidewalk. You're off to the side.
He could come into the vestibule. But I saw him breathing. His stomach was moving because I
did check.
He's alive. We're just going to let him be for a while. He's like Chernobyl.
Something bad happened. But now we just got to leave it alone for a while. I didn't go to that
extent to check him.
You know, I used to be a paramedic. Yeah, I know. Yeah, you could have.
Well, you're smart. You realize I don't have gloves. Yes, that's right.
And I'm no longer licensed. So I could have diseases from anywhere. Anywhere.
But the good news is my dog no longer does. No, it has no diseases. Shout out to the dog.
Well, you know, I got we got Archie from a shelter. So he had, you know, the kennel cough. Oh,
yeah.
He's already and stuff that you get there and everything. And then you got the clean bill of
health. He's all cleaned out.
His poops look the right color and everything. So I can get him in the class. Good.
That's good. Oh, no. Wonderful.
Shout out to Tony. Who's talking? Who the heck is that? Well, joining us this evening is the
Omnitones. Yeah.
Thank you. We are honored to be here at the museum. This is awesome.
Yeah. So wait a minute. Your cat has diabetes.
Possibly. Yeah. He's he's being a lot.
Sounds like a good name for a song. Or they should be. Yeah, they're concerned.
I'm concerned. Yeah. Yeah.
He's a little bit older. So he's a little bit older. But we're going to we're going to make it work.
We're going to we're going to push him through. We're going to make it work. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. How long have you had him? I've had my cat for about six years now. Yeah.
And then I he was a little obese at one point, such as myself. And we got him a little kitten. We
got him a little kitten.
And I thought that would maybe slim him down a little bit. Yeah. Shout out to Jack and Tony, my
cats.
And I thought that would slim him down a little bit. But it really hasn't. He doesn't like to play
with him much.
I love the fact that your cats are Jack and Tony. I named him after frozen pizza brands. OK.
His next cat is going to be lots of matzo. Yeah. Matzo the cat has got a ring to it.
OK. You know, I mean, you're the one that brought it up. So I'm just going to say that is a total
fat guy move to name your cat.
Yeah, 100 percent. It is. But I but I actually did.
I actually did something that was terrible like that. You know, like earlier today, I was just
looking for a coffee shop and I came across this bakery that, you know, had like dollar 50
croissants, croissants. Right.
And they're like, so you want one is like, what do you want on? I said, no, I just want you to toast
and put some butter on and give him a cup of coffee. Right. And so I ate it and it was absolutely
delicious.
And then I got to the appointment that I was going to, which is literally like a mile and a half
down the road. And there was another bakery with a sign that hung in the window. It said
croissants, you know, like a dollar 50.
And I was like, oh, I got to try these two. A and B. Which one's better? Been there, done that.
Been there, done that.
Yeah. Got to try them both. Yeah.
But I. So which one won? But I got, I got the ham and cheese on the side. You can't, you can't
get, you know, a sweet one and then you can get it like offset it with a, with a hearty one.
Exactly.
Right. Right. Because they balance out and it becomes healthy then because now there's
protein with the carbs.
That's right. Yeah. So how are you guys doing today? We're doing awesome.
We, we sat through the hour long traffic to get here, but we were super excited to see the
place. And like, I mean, this place is amazing. I'm going to have to come back here on my own
time and like, just look through all the cool history that's here.
And yeah, we're just super excited to be here overall. This is, this has been awesome. We can
give you the 50 cent tour.
I mean, you get 50 cents. That's the, that's the privilege of coming in and doing the podcast and
hold it. We'll take the tour after.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it literally is just this floor because I mean, it's the whole thing is
still under construction, but, but yeah, I did notice they, they added something else.
There's a church pew in front of the buddy guy display. I'm wondering, I'm wondering where
the church pew came from. You got a church? Go check it out.
Well, of course, blues gods. Yeah. Maybe they put in your time where prayers, maybe that
church down the street that they're renovating.
Yeah. Yeah. Turning into a party house.
So tell me about the band who started this whole thing. That was me basically. I'm kind of
around the, the time of COVID is when, you know, bands either made or break, you know, at
that point.
I'm sorry. I guess tell everybody who you are first. Oh, we're the Omnitones.
I'm, I'm Nick Tantillo. This is Justin Wintroth. We also have Sean Reggio here, trumpet player,
backup vocalist and lead, lead guitar over here.
And then I'm rhythm and vocals and stuff like that. And basically the weird way that this band
came together is I used to be kind of more of a side guy. I used to do sessions.
I used to be like a jobber and I used to be in all these different bands and sometimes they were
collaborative and I'd be like, Oh, check out the song. And they would be like, cool. And they
would either go the complete wrong direction to the point where it didn't even sound like my
song anymore.
Or it would go a direction of like, well, if I was in a country band, it would be a country song. It
wouldn't be what it was originally. So I would just kind of sit in my room and write all of this
material.
And it ended up kind of coming out to about like maybe a hundred to 150 songs or so. Wow.
And I would, you know, I went to SIU Carbondale as you did.
Sometimes you just sit in the middle of a cornfield and there's really nothing to do. So you
would just sit there and say, Hey, well, I don't know. Let's try to fuse these two artists together.
Let's try to do this weird thing. And of course, like I said, during COVID bands were either like,
all right, we're going to push through this or they were going to break up. And basically at that
point, I was in a bunch of bands that all decided to be like, eh, nah, no more.
Let's just move on to the next thing. And basically, yeah. So you were, you were playing all of
this, all of the music, all the songs that you wrote were being played in these other bands.
Oh, not exactly. Most of the time they would either get denied, they would go some direction
and never get played live because they were consistently being worked on and nobody really
got a chance to hear a lot of it. Sometimes I'd sneak a demo out on band camp if something
was really good, but it never got to the point where things were getting released regularly or
like I was in a band where I was fronting it or something.
I was always playing drums, bass, guitar, backup vocals, keys, whatever somebody kind of
needed at the time. And, um, you know, overall to kind of get back to where I was, um, all these
kinds of bands started to kind of like all the people that wanted to stick in the scene and the
local scene and just keep playing all kind of snuck into this band. We all started doing it.
And I looked around and I said, oh God, I'm the lead singer. I'm the lead songwriter. This is the
time right now.
Okay. Well, here's, I don't know, guys, you want to listen to 30 songs that I wrote and everybody
said, all right, these four, let's, let's do these four or five. And I started working with a musical
mentor of mine, uh, Max Dombrowski, who kind of said, Hey, like this is your chance, like get off
the couch, start doing a lot of this stuff.
And, um, that's how I kind of hooked up with, um, Greg Abel, who's our drummer now and, um,
started working with him. And then we had kind of two side guys that we kind of recorded with
for a while. And then we brought in Justin, Justin was in one of those bands that I was in.
And he was this amazing trumpet player who the way you will eventually see, he plays the
trumpet, like a guitar. Like he plays it like a, like, like there, we almost have another guitar in the
band because he kind of does that. And then he's an amazing singer as well.
He does a lot of covers on Tik TOK and stuff like that. And I was like, well, that's a perfect
backup vocalist. And if I want the Chicago sound, we need, we need fricking horns.
Like we need something really cool to kind of set us apart from other bands. So how many
people are in the band then? We have six right now. Okay.
So this is half and you got the two goofballs and then the really serious quiet one, George
Harrison over here. So you got a bass player, you got a drummer, right. Who are you? We have
a keyboard player, two guitarists and a trumpet player slash backup vocalist.
Gotcha. Okay. Excellent.
Yeah. Nick and I go back, uh, actually about 10 years. So I used to, I didn't even go to SIU, but I
had to commute down there for the, um, the parties.
Yes. He went to party with us. No, no schoolwork was getting done when Justin came down.
I was taking off work going down there just to have some fun. And coincidentally, Nick was
roommates with my best friend who, uh, my best friend and I were, um, in high school band
together. He went down to SIU, went down there to visit him and then got introduced to Nick
that way.
And throughout the years we've stayed in touch and we've been playing a couple of bands
together and, uh, yeah, now here we are. So crazy times, crazy world, you know, kind of slid into
one project, which is cool. Yeah.
So, so when did the quiet guy come into this? Uh, basically we had a guitarist and he decided to
move to Europe in the middle of our record. And he, he kind of told us in advance, he said, Hey,
that was the last note I played on this song. Um, I'm gonna go to Norway and I'm gonna go live
out there and work on a farm and he's doing awesome out there.
He's like living his best life, having a great time. Um, shout out to Jesse. He played some great
stuff on the record.
And the best part is Sean did not know he was in the band. He said, Hey, guess what, Sean,
you're just going to fill in me for this gig. And then all of a sudden, like he was going to every
practice after that.
He's like, am I, did I get the, we're like, yeah, did Jesse not tell you you're in the band? And he
was like, no, I did not know. But he obviously, it's like that scene in the movie, the blind side,
you know, we'd like to have you, we'd like to have you join our family. What do you think? I
thought I already was exactly.
It was kind of funny cause there was absolutely no conversation to be had. Jesse was telling us,
Oh yeah, he's good. He said yes already and things are fine.
And then all of a sudden bang zoom, there he is. He's in the band hanging out with us playing a
bunch of shows in a row. And, um, also we have a basis, Chris, Chris Moylan.
He's awesome as well. He kind of came in after, um, we were kind of shifting around some
people and everything and he filled in great. He's been awesome as well.
So since then we, so now that we kind of have the group together where we've been recording
a record, um, in our basement and we've been working on, I believe five songs as well. We
already put out an EP, uh, self-titled the Omnitones. And that was another one we recorded in
the basement as well.
And, um, yeah, we're just excited to put some new music out with this, you know, now that
we've kind of gone through our growing pains and people coming in and out and trying out
different people. Um, now we're kind of ready to kind of show what we got, which is really fun.
Yeah.
Good. So describe your sound to me. Uh, it's kind of interesting.
We, we all like different things. We all like different kinds of stuff. Justin's more kind of pop, uh,
you know, Sean has more of kind of a jazz country background and some other cool indie stuff.
Um, you know, everybody kind of comes from a different place, but the thing that we all agree
on is we really like music that we can almost kind of improvise and do kind of cool, you know, if
we can kind of sneak a little bit of jazz or blues or country, or just kind of roots, Chicago-y music
into it. Um, that's kind of the thing that kind of sets us apart where other bands are kind of
pushing into, we're strictly indie, we're strictly alternative rock, but we're kind of trying to kind
of push that together instead of pushing like, you know, rock that we've heard vintage-wise and
stuff like that. We're trying to push a lot of the newer indie alt scene kind of stuff that we really
grew up with in the early 2000s, like, um, you know, Foster the People, Phoenix, stuff like that.
And then kind of combining it with like a lot of the roots of music and just kind of singer
songwriter stuff. And we're trying to, you know, if we find something really weird in a song,
we're like, okay, we're going. We're just pushing things.
It's a lot of collective, you know, music nerds. We're all music nerds. Music theory is like a big,
you know, um, factor in this band.
You know, if you ever sat in on a rehearsal, we have the stuff that these guys are saying, it
blows my mind. It's like, it's like a different language. It's like, whatever.
I'm over here like, yeah, I'm just going to listen to it and see what I can make and go from
there. But, uh, no, I think it's just a collection of music nerds who, who love like rock music and
really just want to create something different and unique. And, and hopefully people, you
know, it falls in the right ears and just see what happens.
Yeah. There's like, there's almost a, there's like a formula and the formula is if it's weird, we like
it. Let's go.
Let's see what that's about. Most of the time. Like, um, and we're also like, we also respect each
other a lot as musicians.
So sometimes someone will come up and say, Hey, I'm about to cross the line. Um, you should
try this. And everybody's like, Oh, okay.
And then we try it and we're like, Oh, that's really cool, dude. I didn't think of that. You know,
we're always kind of throwing ideas at each other, but we trust each other to kind of do it.
But like the main thing is it's a band sound, right? We don't want to be overproduced. We don't
want it to be like one guy records the whole record and then gives it to another group of people
to, okay, just study this and come and play. We want it to sound like the band.
There has to be equilibrium push and pull. There has to be kind of a, we're more about the
energy. If the energy is good, there's, we've done our job.
We can take our hands off the song when it's done. My music theory is strum string music
come out. Yes.
A lot of it is caveman style. Like, boom, we tried it. Let's try this thing.
Or the drummer starts going a certain way. We just, we just kind of trust each other to serve
the song. I think we're all, we have all, we all have good musical ears to the point where we
know we're one person's not playing too much or too less.
We're always trying to just get it to serve that certain part. And it's a huge collaborative. And
most people don't want to be in bands like that, but we, we love it.
We just go right into the fire with it because at the end result, we all get something, you know,
like at the end of the day, like I've been saying lots of demos that I've made, none of them
sound like it by the time the band filters through it. And that's what makes it so fun. I write this
goofy song about my cat or I write this weird song about like advertising.
We love cats. Yeah, we do like cats. To my cat Basil, but basically we have a cat song funny
enough, but we're not playing it today.
That's going to be a surprise. Thank you. Exactly.
We got some cooler stuff coming up. But basically we wanted to, what was I trying to say?
Either way, we just, we just want to, we, we always, we like taking a song from the bare bones
and just kind of pulling it apart and just trying to see what can happen with it, speed it up, slow
it down. Hey, what if we put this cool beat right here or something like that, you know, it's a
conversation.
And at the end of it, it sounds like something that not one of us can make it. It only happens
when we're all in the same room. And really they kind of like just sum it all up.
Like one thing Nick did when I joined the band, I was actually like the third or fourth member. It
was him, Greg and originators of it. But, uh, what, what Nick does is he sends his demos, it's
just him and his guitar.
And then he just sends them my way, those little demos. And he's like, you know, do what you
do, what you want with this and come up with something next practice. And then I was, I was
working and I would go in my car and my lunch break and I would bring my trumpet out in my
car and my lunch break.
I would listen to the demo like a hundred times through. Make sure you're picturing this, a guy
in a car with his trumpet. Yeah.
I got one hand up on writing notes. So yeah, he would just send me demos. And ultimately
that's how it really started was all of our songs were, you all work on it separately.
And then we eventually all came together and now it's a lot more collaborative. By the way, he,
that's, I mean, that's literally, he was sitting in the car with his trumpet out. Not figuratively.
Nice title for something. Sitting by the forest preserve in my car by myself. I like that.
That will become a song very soon. I just whipped out my trumpet. Yeah.
Well, I think it's time to whip out your trumpet. Let's do it. You talking to me? No, let's hear
some music.
They just said it's a sound that they can't make unless everybody's there and present in the
room. So I want to see, I mean, everybody's not present. Yeah.
I was going to say, so then we got half. So I'm just going to tell you, this is probably going to
sound like shit. Yep.
Yep. Terrible notes coming through here. All right.
We'll take a break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.
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24-7, all music with its roots in Illinois. And we're back for the first time tonight, live in the
studio, we have The Omnitones. Thank you, this is Deep End.
Off the deep end This crazy talk We crash together Now we can walk together To and from
Forever back and forth Singing harmonies We're song together No, no Toss it on the bathroom
floor Shove it all under the mattress Forget what it all was for I didn't want to let you go But I
never want to float apart Float apart, no, baby Singing harmonies We're song together No, no
To singing harmonies We're song Holy shit. Wow. That is some songwriting, everybody.
Let me tell you. And there's only half of them here. I'm sorry, I'm over here coughing up my
lungs, everybody.
I'm sorry. Wow. Fantastic.
First of all, that lead guitar part over there. I mean, if anybody, has anybody ever dangled
anything shiny in front of your face while you're playing? It's like, it's like, it's like over and over
and over again. You get car, I got carpal tunnel watching him play.
This guy is a, this guy is a, like a genius. And he just, he practices his ass off. Yeah, he's great.
Yeah. Once the horn came in, I got, I had notes of Poi Dog Pondering, Max Crawford. I mean,
it's, they could have played that song, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a song.
We'd love to hear that. And what I also thought it sounded like a lot of the, it sounded like a lot
of the deep cuts, like from Sting's solo work, especially, especially your voice, especially your
voice when you were hitting some of the high notes. I heard, I heard sting in the voice there.
We love Sting. We're just going to write a musical. He wrote a musical, so we should write one
too.
Yes. The cat musical called Cats. Oh wait, we can't do that one.
No, you can't write a musical called Cats. Dang it. Darn.
What else do they call cats? Oh, yeah. Felines. I bet you get a lot of people to go to a musical.
Feline frenzy coming to you November 3rd. Kind of like the philosophy of, you know, your
band's play, you know, Bare Naked Ladies. How brilliant was that to call their band? Bare Naked
Ladies.
And they sing about nonsense. I like this. You know, I mentioned Poi Dog Pondering.
Some people who don't know, but episode 59 was Frank Orle from the band. Ah, no kidding.
Shout out.
So Frank was here. You've interviewed somebody from Poi Dog Pondering? Wow. And Dog
Julen.
Oh, you are famous. He's from, he's episode 20. Yeah, you are famous, man.
You've interviewed some cool people. We're honored to be here and be a part of it. Thank you.
You interviewed Poi Dog Pondering. And I brought the Omnitones. They are going to be the Poi
Dog Pondering of the new.
Of the future. Yeah, future. That's right.
Can't wait. No, that was a great song. So you wrote that song.
Yeah, that one was. Yeah, there's a lot of this song is this song came together kind of weird and
it was written kind of weird, too. Basically, the entire song is about the fact that I got into a 60
mile an hour accident in southern Illinois.
I was basically on the back roads of it and there was a stop sign. This guy did not go. This guy
did not yield or even know that there was a stop sign there.
And me and my partner were kind of driving. We didn't even know what happened. We were
just kind of driving and this guy blew a stop sign.
We were going about 40. He was probably going about 60. And we basically got lucky,
according to the police report.
They were like one second forward, one second back. Yeah. You know, maybe you wouldn't
have made it.
And they basically got the front part of our car, which is good because then we kind of went
together into one area. And then we went into a light pole and then this guy got knocked out
on impact and went into the cornfield and kept going. And they actually had to go find his car
because his foot got stuck on the gas.
Oh, my God. Yeah. So we got rushed to the hospital after that.
And basically me and my partner at the time, like when that happened, we split into two
different people. It was kind of like, whoa, that was traumatic and weird. And right.
Right. Right. Did you survive? Yes.
I believe I'm here. I was on the edge of my seat. Unless I'm not.
But every everybody was fine from it. Everything got sorted out. Shout out to, you know, all the
medics and stuff like that.
Everybody came out. OK. And yeah, basically, me and my ex-partner kind of looked at each
other and I was like, you're not the same.
And she's like, you're not the same either. Yeah. And we're like, whoa, that was kind of a crazy,
like trippy moment.
Like it was, you know, it was kind of out of our control. It was just kind of spinning everywhere.
And basically, I we looked at each other mutual decision.
I was like, I kind of brought it up. She was like, all right. Yeah, fine.
We're done. Yeah, we're done. We're out.
And I basically went home and flow state wrote this all the way through. There's probably a
recording somewhere of me kind of like almost from top to bottom, kind of singing what I was
feeling at the time, broke it down, did a few demos. And basically, the band at the time was kind
of looking for an easier song to play.
Stop giving us this complex crap. Let's play something that's right down the middle. Right.
Right. Right. Right.
There are there are some songs that we just give us a simple breakup song. It works for Lionel
Richie. It'll work for us.
Exactly. Yeah. Lionel Richie.
Shout out to Lionel. But basically, he we I showed them this song and they were like, great,
that's easy. Let's let's learn it.
Let's do something with it. And at the time, you know, Greg was like trying to book places and
they're like, well, what do you guys sound like? We will we have some jams online. At the time,
we were just kind of jamming and putting up stuff that we were making at the time.
They're like, no, a song. What kind of what do you sound like, damn it? Yeah. You know, we
were like, OK, well, we need to get together and put together a demo right now.
Like we need to just like doesn't matter. Let's just put something out. No one's going to take it
seriously.
And basically, I came and did some bed tracks. Everybody came in and nailed their takes. And
we all kind of looked at each other like, Justin, you did your trumpet solo perfectly.
You did backups before anybody got there perfectly. There was even some spots where I didn't
have vocals and you did like a little solo part like we just kind of like clicked and the entire song
got recorded in like an evening. So this song is one of those songs that came out of a weird
place and also kind of was made in a weird place.
So the demo that we made is what we put out. It ended up being mixed and mastered and put
on the EP when it was supposed to be a promoter. Can you please book us? Here's a song.
You know, we weren't even taking it that serious. And the coolest thing about this song, too, is
that this was really like my reintroduction into like playing again. I had taken a few years off.
I didn't even have a horn. I was using his mom's 1970s cornet. Yeah.
Yeah. My parents met in band. A cornet.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit smaller than this one.
I finally upgraded and I bought myself a nice little beauty. But yeah, cornets have valves.
Correct.
It's much. It's just simply like small. It's like half the size of this trumpet.
So. Right. Yeah.
I was playing a little cornet and then that was what you actually hear on the original track. If
you go on Spotify, you hear that me playing a cornet. Sounds pretty great.
We made it. We made it sound good. Yeah.
I think it sounded pretty good. I miss it actually sometimes. But yeah, no, that was my
introduction back into playing again.
You know, I kind of like put it away after a couple of years and, you know, Nick's always been
around. We've always kind of messed around making songs here and there. But yeah, I was just
so grateful for the opportunity to get back in and I've been playing with them for two years
now.
So it's been awesome. So when you wrote the song and you went into the studio with it and
said, here, guys, here's the song. Right.
Yeah. And did everybody kind of add their own parts or did you have every single part written
out already? No, I mean, there were some people that came in that had like, you know, maybe a
draft of what like I think I'm kind of going this way with it. There may be like was a quick few
conversations of, oh, actually, it's more boom, boom, boom, boom.
Or it's or, hey, can you kind of get that? Can you do this? Fill into that? Can you use the ride
instead of this? Like we would just kind of like throw things back and forth at us until it started
kind of sounding even. And we were kind of pushing and pulling good. So a lot of people came
in with half baked ideas and then they got full baked by the end of it.
And it's kind of funny because like over time, we've been like, oh, no, like what if we wanted to
add this? Like we've never said that. We were like, all right, that's what we wrote. That's what we
got.
You know, always been happy, always been happy with the final product. We've never had a
song where like, oh, I did, I missed out on this. Always happy with the final product, which is
like, I think it's a blessing and really and it's really we're not nitpicking too much there.
So did you have to change the way you played the rhythm of did you have to deviate from the
way you actually wrote the song by yourself to accommodate for things that other people may
have added to it? Yeah, I think there was like a key like I had to bring it down a few keys. It was
actually higher up than it actually is, which is insane. I don't know.
I'm not sure how I was singing that high, but then there was like an adjustment like that, like,
hey, man, bring it down a few notches and hey, you know, maybe this tempo is a little bit better
for your voice. Like they kind of found the center for me and then I just recorded that. And since
I engineer everything, too, I was kind of like, all right, I need to get my hands off of the music
part of it and just kind of play the engineer role and just make sure that we're recording
everything.
And again, like we while I was doing it, I wasn't really thinking of like quality or like all this other
stuff. I was like, we're just making something. So and Nick is such a Nick is such a gifted like
engineer as well.
Like with producing, yeah, with producing a lot of the stuff that we do, what happens a lot of
the time is there's just magic when we go to record these songs. There's actually things that on
recording day that we've never tried or practiced before. We we literally we play something
accidentally and it's like, oh, my God, that actually sounded really good.
And then we record it that way. And I don't know how, but for every single song that's
happened, all of the magic gets made on the day we record the song on on my trumpet solo.
Nick, actually, there was a background guitar part that Sean plays now.
But but Nick had originally played it in our recorded track that you hear on Spotify and whatnot.
He somehow changed the setting to the to the banjo sound through the guitar and he just and
he picked it up one take and he played just the most beautiful, you know, subtle complimentary
lick to my trumpet solo. It's just like things like that that just happened with us, which is so
great.
I love it. Isn't that amazing when you get together and you record a record and there's real
musicians in the room? Yeah, that's the that's the thing that we love doing the most is just let's I
don't know, let's trust each other. And if somebody starts doing something because like we all
love to say that again.
What did I say? Yeah, I don't know. But I don't know what you said, but say it again. I remember
what I said about loving each other.
I think we just love each other so much with with your trumpet in your hand. Yes, I'm in the car
pressing my trumpet. Yeah, because I mean, I mean, I've got a lot of friends that are studio
musicians or musicians for hiring the whole bit.
And all I hear, you know, I talk to them all the time while I'm going to work. What do you mean?
You know, what do you what does that mean? You're going to work. Well, somebody sent me
tracks and I got to lay guitar tracks down and I'm going to sit down on my computer all day and
I'm going to record guitar tracks and I'm going to I'm going to send it back to them and
everything.
And like so often nowadays, you're you're part of recording an entire record and you never lay
eyes on anybody else that's putting down those tracks along with you. It's just like, all right,
here's your part, you know, send it to send it to the next guy. After that, it's got to go to the
background singers.
And yeah, we got to be in the same room. Yeah, something something weird happens where
music gets made well. So we just found out recently that, you know, with with Nick and mine,
our vocals, we found out that the way we've been doing it is where Nick lays down, you know, a
long or his, you know, his his verse, whatever the case may be.
And then I come in and I record my part, you know, after. But we found out that we need to do
it together because who we have producing it says we blend much better live. So we actually do
our singing takes live now when we record them.
That's cool. Yeah, that's good. Well, I'm ready to hear another one.
I am, too. I mean, that one's that one sounded so good with half the band here. I'm wondering
what the next we've made it to the next song.
We've been given the thumbs up. That's an honor. Honestly, I know what I know what the levels
are and everything now.
So we're just going to I'm just going to adjust it right here. That's all I had to do with these two
right there. Let's do it right there.
And this one, we're going to back off a little bit here. You're listening to the Rock and Roll
Chicago podcast. And we're back in the studio.
We've got the Omnitones for their second song of the night. They made it to the second song.
Now, now this one, if this one's good, you might make a third.
I mean, no pressure or anything like that, but we can do three. There you go, gentlemen. Take
it away.
Oh, the last thing you think of before I'm trapped in the game as I chase the flames of a
heartbreak of a first time love as I've killed a character bleeding next to her another quarter for
the pop machine. I want to be your lover. I want to be your best friend.
I want to be your last thing you think of before you go to bed. Oh, would you play me? And I
love it twice as much, but it all dies with me. Too fast, too slow again.
All sadness looks embraced. The bitter love falls to death. Now it all breaks down forever when
you can't find another phone from Greece and then get back up again, another quarter for the
pop machine.
I want to be your lover. I want to be your best friend. I want to be your heartache.
The last thing you think of before you go. Would you play me? And I love it twice as much. I
want to be your lover.
I want to be your best friend. I want to be your last thing you think of before you go to bed.
Would you play me? And I love it twice as much.
Oh, yeah, man. Oh, it's called Galloping Ghosts. You guys, you guys, you guys can write some
music.
You know, I got to give you credit for that. I was getting notes of a band and a band from
Milwaukee called the Love Monkeys. The Love Monkeys, Love Monkeys.
And I was getting a hint of raping. And they also they also play with their trumpets in their
hands. They play with monkeys, monkeys, they play with their monkeys.
I've actually heard of them before. They are good. They've been around about 25, 30 years.
Yeah, they're good. We got to play with them then. Shout out, especially in Milwaukee.
We have yet we're actually trying to get in the process of booking a Midwest tour. We're going
to do college towns and stuff and definitely love to hit up Milwaukee. Milwaukee is a beautiful
place.
I love it up there. Love it. Yeah.
No, there's a lot of cool bars in Milwaukee. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Well, Madison, Madison's even crazier. You got the college nearby and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Madison's pretty Madison's pretty cool. But then if you can get anywhere north of there, like
around New Glarus, where they make spotty cow beer, there's a lot of cool little breweries and
stuff around. My mouth is watering.
I don't know if I was a college football fan, but they just came out with a poll with Wisconsin.
Madison sports is is leading drinking in the stadium by over a million dollars. Whoever's in
second place, which is Nebraska.
You're you're you're kidding. They drink a lot. And I know.
I know it's crazy. I know the drunkest state in the union. Yeah, I know a lot of people from
Wisconsin.
And every single time I talk to them, it's every story starts with. Yeah, we were drinking beer.
Yeah.
No kidding. Love beer. Yeah, absolutely.
Nothing wrong with that. Got to stay warm. Every town's got a microbrewery.
Yeah, everyone. Absolutely. So where are you guys playing? You're talking about trying to put
together a tour.
Where are you playing presently? Currently, we're still working on the record. So we've kind of
taken a step back from a lot of gigs right now because we're just trying to push the last few
songs through. That's that's one from the new record.
This is kind of people have heard it before, but it's kind of a little take on what we're doing,
Galloping Ghost. And yeah, we're trying to start shows probably next spring and all the way into
the fall. What we've decided to kind of focus on right now is our social media presence.
We've really tried to up the tick tock game, which, you know, I'm sure you guys are aware that's
like really where you can make an impact. We've been trying to post a couple of things here and
there, some covers, but mainly our newer stuff and our original material. See if that catches fire
in any way.
But yeah, just trying to focus on social media right now and just getting this record finished up.
I think that's that's what the main focus is going to be until the end of the year, for sure. So
before this, where were you playing? Yeah, we had some we had some we had some really cool
shows last year.
We opened for the Wanted 2.0, which is super random. Yeah, like that's not even remotely what
we play. But yeah, they're a boy band from the UK.
They actually got really big. They were on Ellen for a while. Everyone knows who they are.
Glad You Came was a huge song. Oh, yeah, yeah. We can't cover them without getting sued.
But yeah, yeah, yeah. Justin gets a huge check in the mail. Yeah, we're saying.
But either way, yeah, we opened for them. That was at the Piazza and we played there out in
Aurora. We played the Burlington in Chicago.
We also played help me out here. We play my place, Ohio, my place, Ohio. What I want to say
about that venue.
Yeah, what I want to say about that show was it was legitimately like a basement show and it
was like a DIY kind of basement show. And that was something I had got booked for us through
the promoter I knew from outside, you know, music. But I was like, I was like, I don't want to do
this.
Like, I don't want to go play in a basement, you know, almost 30. I don't want to do this. But let
me tell you something.
It was such a legit setup. The sound was amazing. And it was the coolest show that I think we
played all of last year.
I think it was such a great time. And then coincidentally, the week after our set there, the All-
American Rejects played a backyard show there. No kidding.
I swear. Is that maybe a hundred people showed up to somebody's house? Oh, no, it was more
than a hundred. It was more than it was more.
And this was. Yeah. And after they did, maybe at least a hundred.
Rumors are after they did that, they stopped doing shows there. God forbid. Holy crap.
Whenever you feel like that about a show, and you think, oh, I don't want to do this. It always
turns into something spectacular. You're correct.
You're 100% correct. Yeah, it's usually when we either play our best, or there's more people
there than anticipated. I mean, we, you know, when you start out, you play at these, you're
grateful to play anywhere.
You play at some really small, weird bars that we hated. But, you know, we look back on that
now. We're like, man, like, we really improved.
It's really just a way to look back and say, wow, I improved so much since then. It's really all
about improvement. Then you did the gig before.
Right, right. Right. We also like multi-cam the shows.
Our drummer, Greg, at one point, actually, like he was kind of, he would kind of work with like,
you know, going into houses after something happened. Sometimes he'd clear the stuff out,
and sometimes he'd land on something. They'd be like, yeah, just like take this full camera or
something like that.
We got like a camera, and then I sold that camera and got four GoPros. So then we pretty much
throw GoPros up. If you go on our YouTube page, the Omnatones, we have like multi-cam
recordings of us playing.
We have the My Place Ohio show. We played the Arcata Theater. But hold on.
We didn't play the Arcata Theater. We played the Italian restaurant inside. Inside of the Arcata.
Rockin' Ravioli. Rockin' Ravioli. Rockin' Ravioli was awesome.
The food's great. The staff was awesome. And yeah, we played there.
But yeah, we played all over. We're trying to extend into being kind of more of a touring act.
We're trying to get lights and projection and cool stuff.
So we're on a cool show. I think we're really just trying to focus on, you know, being able to put
out this content and make it look like we are putting on the craziest show of all time. There's
lots of people there, whatever the case may be.
But we want to make sure it looks good for social media. But first and foremost, it's about the
music. But we definitely want people to hear our music.
You know, that's the biggest thing. So however we can do that, we're going to make it happen.
And how can they? You're on Spotify? Yeah, we're on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
We're all over the place with that. At the Omnitones is the way that you can find any of our
usernames overall. And you can kind of check us out on social media.
We're always posting some fun stuff. Maybe it's a cover. Maybe it's like a quick, you know, bit of
a song or something or something.
We always like to cut parts of what happens at our shows. Sometimes we have crowd work that
just randomly goes wrong. And we like to post that or something like that.
To like kind of go into a quick story or sidebar. I did write a song about my cat. It's called The
Fox Can Talk.
It's coming out next year. And I made the whole crowd meow. Yeah.
And you know what? That got the crowd pumped. Once you start getting people meowing, like
some part of their brain goes wrong. Like every cat.
And it just, it was kind of a weird thing. But yeah. I'm going to have nightmares about
everybody just going meow.
Oh yeah, you can find it. Yeah, we're sorry. Okay.
Right, right. Yeah, we like doing some weird stuff sometimes. Well, I'll tell you what.
Why don't you take us out with one more song? Sure. This next one is New Drugs. All right.
New Drugs. All right. Not Old Drugs.
New Drugs. Yeah, you go ahead, buddy. Put that one as close to him as possible.
Because I had to crank the volume to get the guitar last time. He's got a solo on this one. Oh
yeah.
And you can probably back that microphone up a little bit. There we go. All right.
We're rolling. Two, one, two, three, four. New love, the same trends.
I don't want this to end. New drugs. The cross is bare, the stone's been rolled.
I resurrected my mind. Don't search for questions until the answer is dead. Momified and put
to rest.
Be kind, rewind, but never look back. Your message flashed, but I'm not there. I want that new
drugs, the same friends.
New love, the same trends. I don't want this to end. New drugs.
New drugs, the same friends. New love, the same trends. I don't want this to end.
New drugs. I want that new drugs, the same friends. New love, the same trends.
I don't want this to end. New drugs. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, guys. Man, I've never heard a song with dopamine repeated that many times in it.
No, no.
Dopamine. No. I'ma need some dopamine tomorrow.
Yeah. Yeah. Guys, thanks for coming in.
I'll tell you what, that was a pleasant surprise. It was a treat. Yes, it was.
It was a pleasure. It was fantastic. I really love what you guys do.
Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you, guys.
Good luck to you. We appreciate you. Appreciate it.
The Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of Eminar
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.