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 Halloween Mike.

I think it's a little bit late for Halloween Mike. Not when you got The Shining in the studio. Really? Yeah.

Are we watching that movie tonight? We can. All right. Or we can listen to The Shining talk or sing.

Oh, really? Or play the cajones, or cajon, I guess that's what it is. You know, it's a fine line between cajones and cajon. It is.

And it takes a lot of cajones to play the cajon. Yeah. But he's going to, that's not a cajon actually.

What the fuck is this? This is actually called a djembe. A djembe. Yes.

It's not a djembe. No, it's a djembe. Just a djembe.

Yeah. Just a djembe. I believe in African... Where's the D come from? I don't know.

I don't think you pronounce that. You don't pronounce the D? The D is silent. The D is silent.

It's silent, yes. That's what she said. That's right.

I gave it away too quick. I couldn't think of anything else to do. We got The Shining in the studio, everybody.

Yes, we do. Yeah. Hey, let's go around the table and tell people who you are so they know they can put the voice to a name.

Yeah. All right. My name is Mark Klopac and I am the drummer for The Shining.

Mark has been here before. He has. With Onset.

Yes. Yes. Onset was my old band that is no longer.

Yeah. It's Offset. Yes.

But now we're with The Shining and we've been together for, man, like 25 years. We used to be called Circus of Filth and then we thought it would scare people. So it's The Shining, aka Circus of Filth.

Still scary. Still scary. But we like it.

Can't get gigs. Yeah. Can't get gigs.

They don't like you. Red rum. Yes.

Yeah. I'm Jim Williko. I'm the singer, front man.

I play guitar. Yeah. That's me.

Sounds good. Sounds good. Hey, how you doing? I'm Frank.

I play bass. Bass. Rob Curnan.

I play guitar. Yeah. So I have one question.

Who's the lead guitar player? Mostly Rob, but I do some too. Kind of double duty a little bit. All right.

So when I was listening to your music, who's the one that's got the tone that is just awesome? Well, let me tell you about shredding. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about the tone of the guitar.

There was just, you know, I heard the rhythms start and I heard the drums and the whole bit. I was like, I was like, okay, these guys are like a hard rock band. And all of a sudden I hear the guitar and no, it's a mid rangey, jangly, almost Americana, almost country, almost just on the verge of breakup tone.

That just sounds so clear and crystal. I was listening to. Well, we've been told we've been like a blues based rock band.

Could be, but the tone was fantastic. We know when you asked whose tone that was, you know, they both thought, oh, that was me. That was me.

But nobody wants to actually say it. We thought it was the other guy. I think they would say it was the other guy.

That wasn't me. That wasn't my tone. Now look, I'm going to have to grab, I'm going to have to grab myself.

Was it a silver tone? Did I bring my cell phone in? Cause if I brought my cell phone in, it's going to tell me exactly what songs I was listening to. I did. Here we go.

Check this out. So I'll tell you the songs that I was listening to and you tell me, um, I hope it's going to tell me the songs that I was listening to. Yeah.

Okay. So I listened to drunk and stupid. Love that song.

Okay. Fantastic. And it has that really cool guitar.

If at the beginning I was expecting the guitar to sound really distorted, but it wasn't, it was like all, it was just a cool tone, man. It really was. That was probably me.

That was you. Okay. So what do you, what's your rig? What are you playing through? That's an old recording.

That was, uh, that was an old Fender amp with a Charvel guitar. That was an old, old stuff. That's geez.

I was going to say it. It kind of had that, it kind of had that Joe Walsh thing with just sounds of a Fender amp, just fricking cranked and just at the verge of breakup, you know, kind of thing. I changed the pickups.

They were single coil pickups. It was kind of a thing here. I don't know.

Yeah, that was, that was my tone, I guess. Yeah, no, it was a great time. That was Sam's recording studio where he put the amp in the room, a small room, turn it completely up to 11.

Yeah. Close the door. And that's how he recorded it.

That's exactly what it sounded like. That, that was exactly it. I absolutely love it.

That is my favorite guitar tone of all time. Just guitar and amp and crank it and let it naturally, let it naturally breathe the way it's supposed to breathe. You don't need to put a distortion pedal or anything or have some dual channel amp or whatever.

It's, I thought it was great. That was, that was the, that was the treat or the surprise to listening to your recordings to me was, was to hear the tone. I could like feel the air moving with the sound of the guitars.

It was awesome. So thank you for that. It could have just been gas.

Could have been gas. It could have been gas. Yeah, but it was definitely, I get that air movement sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we kind of jumped the gun a little bit, so that was, I mean, but I guess I had to say that that's the thing that hit me the most. So, so tell me, so tell us a little bit about the band.

You said you guys have been together for 25 years. Yeah. We're just friends started.

It was us three started long time ago. I used to work with Frank and Frank went to school with Mark and we were working together. Frank and I didn't know how to play, but we knew how to drink.

So we were looking for something fun to do and he played drums and he was like, you know, we both had instruments. We were like, why don't we give it a try? And that was like 19, what year was it? It was 1992. 1992.

Kind of dating ourselves and getting a little bit older. So it was like that scene from the movie. I love you, man, where you had no idea how to play it, but you went downstairs and just started playing rush covers.

We kind of knew how to, we kind of knew how to play, but we were just messing around. And when we started drinking and having fun and then we just couldn't stop, you know? Yeah. It was something.

Yeah. That's basically it. And then we, we ran into Rob.

What year did we run into Rob? Rob's been with us a long time. Early 2000s. 2000.

Yeah. But me and Rob used to do business together. And we never talked about music.

And then one day we were talking about music and I said, I have a band and he told me he played guitar. And I was like, Oh my God, we are looking for the fourth guy. Like you got to join our band, man.

And then that's, he just came to practice and it just, everything hit off. I was like, what are you looking for? And he's like a glockenspiel. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I got one of those too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well that's weird.

I play glockenspiel. No way. Do you really? No.

According to my calculations, you've been together. We have a glockenspiel at my place. Yes, you do.

You got one. Yeah. They got an actual glockenspiel.

They should incorporate it into a song. That's right. But according to my mathematical calculations, you've been together 33 years.

That's probably right. But it's a little on and off because for seven years when I left. Well, for the seven years that I left, we didn't do anything.

I mean, we still, I still seen really like Jim and Frank, but we didn't play any music after I left. Oh, okay. When I quit onset, uh, you know, it is just like going in the bar and they're sitting on the same bar stool and talking about the same shit.

And then you go, Hey, you want a jam? Yeah. Okay. And then we just started all over again.

I want to start some new stories. So yeah. There's often a lot of apathy.

If we're not having fun, we don't do this. So we, we have some dark periods too, where you just kind of keep busy with work and all that stuff. Has it always been originals from all originals? You know, it kind of, I think it started that way because we were, we did, we found it easier, you know, I remember we tried playing some covers at an open mic night once, and it's still haunts us when somebody screamed out, why don't you play something, you know? So we kind of, we kind of stuck with that and we, we have fun with that.

You know, we always had fun with it. If we can't play something we know, then let's play something that nobody else knows. So they don't know if we fuck it up.

That's what it comes down to. So what's the business you guys were discussing before you started talking about music? You said you'd only get together and talk about business. Well, between you and me and Rob, I did work for Mark runs a hot rod shop.

I had to put my tail between my legs and go see Mark. Cause I fucked up his 59 Chevy. What's his name? Yeah.

Mr. Bob Delia. Well him, but who originally owned the car? Oh, Nicholas Cage. Oh my God.

So we had talked about, you know, what kind of activities might've been happening in the backseat of a 59 Chevy that was owned by Nicholas Cage. But I fucked it up. So I had to go there and hang my, you know, tail between my legs and tell Mark, yeah, I kind of fucked your car up.

Yeah. And he was like, yeah, that's cool, man. It's all right.

And I was like, there was an amp on the floor of, by his desk. And I like, you got, you play music. He's like, yeah, I play guitar.

Well, we got to get together one time. All right. And I did.

And I was tuning up to a Zeppelin song. I forget. I don't, I don't remember.

And Mark goes, you're in that's that'll do. And I'm like, all right. Yeah.

Cause we've known each other for a few years. That's pretty good. This guy can tune.

His guitar is tuned and he didn't break any strings yet. He's in. That's right.

Yeah. Well, you know, this podcast is just going to turn into like a half hour of people trying to do Nicholas Cage impersonations now. I mean, Nicholas Cage couldn't have been the original owner of the car.

He wasn't born in 1959. Right? No, no, no. I don't know.

I have no idea. I don't know. I know he's older than I am.

Right. So you've got Nicholas Cage's car. You've got Nicholas Cage's car.

I was doing some work on the car. I didn't know it was Nicholas Cage's. I knew it was Mark's 59.

And 61, 61. So he's born in 61. So.

Oh, okay. He's definitely born in 64. So he's 61 years old.

Yeah. Okay. And how'd you end up with Nicholas Cage's car? Basically one of my clients there's a, there's a, a show called the Riddler award.

Okay. It's up in Detroit at the Cobo hall. So basically we call it the millionaire show.

Okay. Because it's eight cars, like they pick eight cars and those eight cars compete. So basically Bob had some story why he wanted a 59.

So he gets a 59, but his kids lived in California. And basically they seen the car, it turns out it's Nicholas Cage. He goes out there, he buys it off his car collection, brings it to me.

I start to work on it. And then one thing led to another and we build a Riddler car. Okay.

And we compete. You built a Riddler car. Right.

Right. Okay. Gotcha.

They're big money. Riddler cars today are a million, 2 million bucks. Wow.

He spent over 700,000 on this thing. Holy crap. And we didn't win, but it was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun.

So what's your, what's your, what's your shop? You know, it's called Hot Rod Auto. Okay. Hey, if anybody from Hot Rod Auto is listening, we're looking for sponsorships.

Where are you located? We're in Schiller park. You are. Okay.

Yeah. We've been there 32 years and yeah. So, you know, something to do.

I got a cousin that owns a transmission shop in Schiller park. Really? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Small world. Yeah.

We just call him junior. I have no idea what his real name is. Oh, okay.

He's like my, you have to understand my family tree is like a telephone pole. There's a lot of inbreeding. So we call a lot of, we call each other cousins and there's a lot of cousins and there's a lot of juniors and junior juniors and stuff like that.

I have no idea what his name is, but we call him junior. And I know he owns a transmission shop in Schiller park. And he, and he, and he does like custom motorcycles and stuff too.

Really? Well, after this podcast, you can maybe give me some more info. Yeah. Maybe.

I haven't seen him in years. Okay. For all I know he's dead.

Okay. If I go in there and I tell him who you are, he's not going to go, who? No, no, absolutely not. I can see, I can see his face, but God, I haven't seen him in years.

He used to come out and see my bands play all the time. Then he disappeared. I don't know.

Maybe he got rich selling transmissions. Maybe small world. Something like that.

Yeah. Cool. That's cool.

That's cool. I don't know. What are we doing here? So, so Talking to cars.

Yeah. So who else? So continue on with the story. How did this all come together again? You guys met and I mean, you seem like you're the newest guy here.

I'm the new guy. He's the new guy. He's like, like 20 years new guy.

He's yeah, probably. Yeah. No, Frank and I were yucking it up at work and, you know, we thought it'd be fun to do something besides work, you know, and then got together and he said, he played drums.

He knew him and he got to play the, there's, you know, I don't know. You sound like you're in a band. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And that it's the infamous, where do you play? Where do you practice? You know? And at this time, Mark had in his basement, build a small room to practice and he had his drum set up in there. And Frank said, you want to go over to Mark's house and try playing over there? And I'm like, sure.

So we, we stayed there a long time until your wife, you had a kid. And then your, then your wife kicked us out. Basically.

He was not happy. My wife was not happy about us making all that noise. Yeah.

Especially we have that kid. Right. And my daughter's room was upstairs above the jam room that I built.

Right. And no matter, we don't think it's loud, but I'm sure they did. Right.

Yeah. So then she would complain and basically it was like better for us not to play there. Yeah.

Yeah. So then we moved, then we moved to my shop. How long did we play there? Oh, we play there a couple of years.

I mean, a couple of years we play there and then we moved to my shop, played there for a few years. A long time at your shop. Yeah.

A long time. And then we played then at your house. Built a room at my house.

Yeah. Well, no, no, we played, I thought at Ready Strip then, right? No, we did my house first. Was it your house first? Then we went to Ready Strip.

Yeah. So where he used to work, there was a second floor, like an office, right? That wasn't being used, but then his boss was cool, which is a rarity and let him use it. And for two years we had like our own recording studio up there, which didn't feel like a recording studio.

And that's where all this music really came from then and really polished it up, was the two years we were at Ready Strip. Right. Because we learned how to record.

We learned about sound. And yeah, we used to have so much fun up there, man. As long as we had no air conditioning, so it was fucking hot.

Yeah. You should plan a podcast for the summertime here. You guys would be right at home.

It gets to be about 100 degrees in this room. It's terrible when Ray farts. It's terrible.

Yeah. Crazy. I have no idea what you guys are talking about, because my wife has never let me have a band rehearse in my house.

Oh yeah. There's no way. Yeah.

So actually I probably feel really lucky my wife let us do it for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

But I mean, the give and take is she has never complained about a gig or complained about me playing in a band. Just don't bring them here is kind of the way the rule has been. It's like, okay, that's fine.

I got complaint on both ends. So yeah, I don't like you doing gigs and don't play here. Yeah.

Well, it was, you know what? I'll tell you, and it was like that for a while until I went home and she goes, you made how much for four hours just screwing around with your friends? I mean, really? It's like, okay, yeah, that's the way it is. That's the way it goes. Just like, okay, keep going.

Yeah. And then it became, when are you leaving again? No, I mean, it's been great. But I've never, I've never rehearsed at home.

So, okay. I don't know what that's like. So, and always original, huh? Well, I mean, we do covers.

I mean, we got a three hour set, you know? So I think our plan was covers are easy. We really enjoyed it. And we really got off on like impressing each other of, you know, coming up with stuff.

And then to play out, you got to play some music people know, you know, to get a gig. So we were basically doing, once a year, we would do a Halloween gig. Because Jim's neighbor owned a restaurant slash bar.

And we were basically doing that. And we did some other things too. But that was like the big thing.

Wouldn't you say? Yeah. That was like the Halloween gig. And then, and we were happy doing that for a long time.

Yeah. But, you know, we played typical classic rock. There's, you know, Zeppelins and Bad Company and things of that nature.

You got to play what they want to hear. Right. Right.

Of course. Somehow we kind of worked it out to where we start sticking in our originals. You know, if you play some cover songs and then all of a sudden you stick in an original, it seems like we kind of have a hybrid set to where we play both.

Right. And, you know, nobody complains. Nobody notices.

Yeah. They're all liquored up after a while. Yeah.

I mean, you know. Some even go, oh, I know that song. No, you don't.

No, you don't. Right. You realize after a while, it's like, pay attention to me.

You know, how do you get people to pay attention more when you're doing, I don't know. Right. Were you player? Right.

Well, you know, it, you know, there's, there's several different types of venues, you know, there, you know, there's the venue where the band is literally just like a jukebox. I mean, people are having their own conversations going on. They're more concerned with the party that's happening at their own table or at the bar or whatever.

And there's a band there and it's great. And every once in a while, they look over at you and they think you're doing a great job because they tell you at the end of the show, great job. Right.

But tell me one, tell me, tell me one song that we played. I don't know, but you guys were awesome. Right.

There's places like that. God, you could throw in your original music all the time, but then there's other places that you can play. Like, like I like to play at Valley Doyles and Downers Grove because the crowd just pays attention to everything that you're doing.

And they'll come up to you and say, man, you guys played an original in this set and this set, and they're actually paying attention. So it's kind of cool to be able to have that experience every once in a while. Well, it'd be cool if we could play there because Frank's company is right next door to that.

Oh, no kidding. He works right there. Yeah.

My office is in Downers Grove. Oh, right next to Valley Doyles. Right behind it.

Yeah. Right behind it. Yeah.

Just walk in there and say, hey, have you done that yet? I've been in there a bunch of times. Yeah. Sure, sure.

I know the stage. I know the set. Right, right.

Yeah. It's a fun place to play. Hey, neighbor.

Well, I'll tell you what, though. I believe still, though, the guy that books that place, he's actually a booking agent that lives in California. And I don't, I don't have his name on me, but I can get it to you.

All right. Yeah. I don't think there's anybody at Valley Doyle that actually books the place.

They've got a booking agent. Every time we've been in contact with the guy, I want to say that he's out in California and he books all the Valley Doyles and stuff like that. But we can, we can get that figured out for you.

So who's the songwriter? I guess that'd be me, you know, primarily. But everybody kind of start, you know, I come up with ideas. And then after that, you know, if I, they evolve, they evolve, you know, I'll try to, you know, Jim will play some sort of riff and then we'll all pick up on it.

We'll try and come up with a part that fits or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Just work out a song. So when was the first, what was the first song you guys ever wrote? That would be Drunk and Stupid. Is it really? That makes total sense.

As that's, it was more about being drunk and stupid. That's basically what it was. It's that first song.

It takes nothing to. And what year was that? It's probably about 95. 95.

Okay. Wow. Wow.

And how many songs do you guys have written? Oh man, I think we're in the neighborhood of 25 or 30. Okay. So enough for a couple of, a couple of CDs, if you wanted to put them together.

Albums, I should say. I don't know. What do you call it nowadays? Since you don't buy a record, you don't buy a CD.

Everything's downloaded. You can, or you can buy vinyl. Yeah.

You can still buy CDs. Yeah. Yeah.

I guess you can. Albums are making a comeback. They are.

Absolutely. And you put it on Spotify or something like that, which we don't have a presence like that. We're too lazy, but someday.

You know, I'll tell you, however, you can listen to it on your website. You can. Yeah.

On our website. Yeah. Yeah.

It's kind of, we always think of that as some kind of a reference thing for us, I guess. Cause you know, I mean, trying to get your songs right to where you can perform them and get them to where you're, they're show quality. Right now, I think we got about nine or 10 that we, we keep sharp all the time.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But you know, and I'll tell you, you know, go talking about Spotify, just put it out there. It doesn't even have to be good.

It doesn't have to be radio ready. It doesn't have to be anything is raw. Cause that's what people are downloading nowadays.

I think so. Oh, absolutely. It's crazy.

People, I can't tell you how many times I hear people say, I like to hear the raw. I like to hear the mistakes. You know, it's kind of going back to that again.

You know, back in the nineties. We're a little anal retentive. I think we'd like to make sure it's all polished before we present it to someone.

Yeah. I think we're, you know, we're really concerned about how well we never presented then. You know what you're saying? You know what you're saying is that then? Yeah.

Well, you know, we're, we're probably all close to the same age. I don't know, but I mean, I graduated from high school in 1988. Right.

And by the time the nineties came around, you know, we were into that nineties rock. Right. And that was the decade of perfection.

Every, you know, CDs were at the, at the height of their popularity. Everybody was buying CDs. So everything had to have that CD quality.

Couldn't have hearing any scratches. Didn't want to hear any mistakes in the notes. You know, everybody started using auto-tune and literally CD sounded perfect.

Right. And it just became sterile and vanilla and, you know, the white bread of music at the time. The underbelly of that, I'm, I'm a little older than you.

Yeah. And you know, I, you know, I went to art school and during the early eighties, I mean, the punk and the new wave and all that stuff was kind of bleeding over into the early eighties, but from the late seventies, a lot of that stuff was guttural. It was rough.

Right. You know, you could find, I remember going to Rolling Stone records downtown and you could pick up a lot of cutouts. Oh, absolutely.

And you could pick out, you know, some, you know, there were a lot of bands that were doing just quick down and dirty recordings. Oh yeah. There definitely was.

Yeah. I mean, the seventies and especially in the, in the, at the height of the eighties, it was a lot of raw type recordings in the whole bit. Right.

But when the nineties came around, everything became digital. Everything became digital. Yeah.

That was the CD. The CD kind of turned everything digital and then kind of changed things. Right.

But, and you know, it goes in waves because we're going back to that. I mean, look at one of the most popular people on the planet right now, Chris Stapleton. Listen to how raw his recordings are.

Listen to how raw his guitar sounds. There's no auto-tune on that voice. You know, if you listen to his recordings closely enough, you'll hear mistakes in almost every single one of his recordings if you're looking for them.

And he's just like, let's leave them in there. You know, it does, it doesn't sound perfect. And that's what sounds so good about it.

Yeah. You know, now if there ever was a time within the last decade to just record something and put it out there, it's right now. I spoke, you know, Frank and I keep talking about AI.

I mean, we started messing with it a little bit just to see what it was about. And that's just kind of. The use of and how to, you know, can we use it to help us master or clean up songs or do something better with the recordings that we have? But I don't know.

We keep debating back and forth. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you tried to do it? We've messed with it just in the last week or so, just to mess with it a little bit. It's pretty interesting what it does, you know? Well, it's also kind of scary because you can put in, like, I, I got in a mess with it a little bit myself at home, but I just put sex, drugs, rock and roll, and it spit out a song in five minutes. And it was actually like, wow, that's really good.

Yeah. Opposed to trying to sit down, write lyrics, you know what I mean? Come up with harmonies, et cetera. AI makes it so simple.

So we used to joke, well, we were joking where if we had an idea, let AI come up with a song and we'll just learn that. Yeah. Because nobody else would know that we did that.

You know, I think we wrote it. I'll tell you what, you know, I'm willing to bet that that's what close to half of the people on the radio nowadays are doing. Because why else would it all sound exactly the same? I mean, if you listen to, I haven't listened to mainstream radio in years, but on the rare occasions where I've heard it, it's like, there is no distinction between one song to the next.

They all sound exactly alike. That's either AI or it's somebody in the studio using a formula over and over again, but there's no individuality in a lot of that stuff nowadays. Well, I think like recording, um, when you're using like click tracks, it seems like if you're going to record or professionals record, everything's got to be done to click track.

And I think when you do that, you lose the energy because when we play, you know, I think it's all about emotion. So when you're playing, sure, there's times where the song speeds up, but because it gets at a certain point of the song where there's so much emotion and so much feeling in it, you can't help but speed up. And then naturally, maybe you start to slow down or you start off at a certain speed, but then by the time you're done playing that song, you have sped up.

Yeah. But I've even listened, you listen to anything on YouTube recorded wise, like old concerts, watch Van Halen. Oh yeah.

If you watch Van Halen, old, um, recordings of them in concert, everything they play is fast. Oh yeah. Faster because it's live.

Well, it's probably drug induced too, but it's also when you play live energy, you just happen to speed up a little bit. Absolutely. You know what I mean? But I think that's where the feeling and the emotion come where if you're absolutely told you have to play to that click track, it's animatronic.

There's no feeling anymore. Right, right, right. Yeah, absolutely.

I don't like to record to a click track. If you're going to use AI to write a song for you, I think that's bullshit. Yeah.

You know, if you're going to take credit for a song that, you know, they came up with the lyrics and now you're going to record it and call it yours. That's not right. If you're going to take one of your songs and you're going to upload it into AI and you're going to tell AI, I want to master this.

Right. And you, and the thing with AI, the more information you give it, the better the, you know, outcome they'll be. Is that going to replace sound engineers and, and... It could, it could.

You know, it could. I'm not saying it wouldn't, it could. Yeah, because I keep messing, you know, I have some DAW, I have a recording software, I mess with it.

But I mean, you end up dicking around with it for like hours and I don't necessarily want to do that. Well, this is your music already. So this is your choice that you want to, you want to clean up your song.

Right. You know, you're opting for AI rather than going to a real engineer. Maybe.

I don't know. It's, it's, it's around and, you know, just looking at, you know. Like doing it through AI, like our, our original songs.

Right. Only for the fact that if you can figure out how it works and you can put it in through AI and it cleans it up or makes it a little bit better. We're just thinking like cost wise.

Like if you go to a recording studio, you know, you can spend thousands of dollars trying to record this stuff where maybe we could just do AI, improve our own song and it's technically kind of free. Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I have mixed emotions about it because I don't want to put a sound engineer or a producer out of a job because those guys are, those guys are artists in their own right.

Right. They're talented too. And you're right, there's a, there's a sterility to, to the sound that AI is going to make.

Is it going to change your stuff now? But, but the other side of that coin is I like the fact that you don't have to rely on a record company anymore because let's face it over the years, record companies have notoriously gained the reputation of screwing their artists, you know? So, you know, if, if I can put out an LP and not need a record company to do it, then heck, I'm going to do it. Why should I give some record company $10 for every $12 that I make, you know, and they've done nothing. And if you're going to try and make money at this, you're probably going to go out and play gigs and you're going to make money doing gigs.

You're not going to make money selling. No, people don't buy music anymore. They don't buy music.

They don't need to. Right. They, they, they, they absolutely don't need to.

Yeah. They don't need to. Right.

So we've got to that. We've gotten to that point now. Okay.

Before we get too far in this, we've got to get some music out of these guys. All righty. Well, let's take a short break.

Sounds good. You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. Your Sunday nights just got a whole lot bluesier.

Get ready for the Bus Stop Blues, the show that takes you deep into the soul of the blues with classic hits, road stories, and live jam sessions. Hosted by blues man, Kevin Purcell and me, the one and only Road Bill. The Bus Stop Blues is two hours of nonstop blues, banter and badassery.

Check out the Bus Stop Blues podcast at thebusstopblues.com, where you can listen on Spotify, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, or any other major podcast platform. Hop on board the Bus Stop Blues, where the blues never stops rolling. All righty.

And for the first time tonight, The Shining. All right. This is called End of Time.

Ready? One, two, three. Do you hear me? As I move, I feel it in my feet. Do you see me? There's nowhere else to be.

Do you feel it? Cause you won't mind, feel sorry, cause you're wrong. Till the end of time, I'm floating high. It's so easy.

My head is in the clouds. It's never going to end, just know it. This love is over, cause you won't mind.

All right. All them guys are here again. Yeah.

Very nice. Thanks. Grab my microphone back over here.

Wow. I'm kind of speechless at that. Yeah.

That's pretty freaking good. Yeah. When did you guys write that? Boy, I can't remember.

You know, I got a bad memory. You see, I'm older than you. I bet you that's, that might be like 10 years.

10 years. That's like early 2000s, man. Is it that old? It's pretty old.

Wow. It's pretty old. Man, I don't know.

So who's the Tesla fan? Tesla. Yeah. Tesla.

Cause that sounded like a Tesla song, man. I'm telling you that totally had like a Tesla feel to it. I remember that band.

Tesla is my favorite band of all time. Really? Yeah. So that is, that is, I'm paying you the highest compliment.

That's a compliment. Thank you very much. I love freaking Tesla.

I've seen them in concert like six times. I, I, I mean, I love them so much that when I first started playing guitar, my guitar rig was what it was because Frankie Hannon from Tesla had that guitar rig. Right.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. That totally had that, you know, something off the five minutes.

I was hearing that. I was hearing it. You know? Yeah.

That's exactly what I was hearing. Really good. So what inspired you to write that? I emptied my mind.

Yes. I don't remember. I thought he was going to say that.

I don't remember. Did I write it? Yeah. Yeah.

We were, uh, this, to prepare for this podcast, we did actually, uh, we've never practiced or play a lot of acoustics. That's the first time we've ever done that. Yeah.

I was going to ask you if you've ever done anything. No, we've never done that. So, cause we were.

Kind of fun though. Yeah. It's kind of fun.

Yeah. It is. Kind of changes the way you think a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. And the way you play a song for sure.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

When you play an electric, it's quite different. Yeah. Mark's kind of a, he's Bam Bam, we call him.

He's an animal. I mean, he's, he's a pretty intense drummer. A little bit of a basher, huh? He is.

Oh, but he's just, he's, he's a, he's a heavy drummer. So, I mean, it changes the context of things and we like that. That's part of our nature, you know, but, uh, it does change the songs.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure.

You got your own style now though. I mean, you, you, you do your own thing, you know, but it's a, it's a flavor that we have. So we, we have a hard time being light.

So this is kind of cool actually, that makes us pay a little bit more attention to details. I think. Maybe, maybe, maybe, uh, maybe an acoustic album is in the future.

Maybe, or maybe a couple of acoustic versions. Yeah. You know, yeah.

Yeah. No kidding. Wow.

Interesting. We're going to ask AI to take care of that. And then we're going to drink.

Yeah. There you go. So have you guys booked that one show you do a year yet for next year? No, no.

But we're, we're playing a little bit more lately. So we're going through, um, the channels like Onset went through. Yeah.

So Joey DeMarco, um, so I called him, told him who we were and, you know, it was with Onset and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, he's been, uh, giving us gigs. Uh, so we did pretty good.

But the problem comes in is that, um, being winter, I don't think any band likes to play and gig out in the winter time. It's cold. You know what I mean? So we really haven't done anything.

So we're kind of hoping maybe after new year's, maybe get back into the playing out thing. Yeah. You know, trying to learn some new songs and cover tunes and things and whatnot.

Just having fun. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because the whole thing is, you know, like when I was with Onset, it was all gig, gig, gig, gig, and go out and play and all that.

And I realized, yeah, it was fun, but it ain't everything. Right. You know what I mean? So what we have now playing out once in a while is like just enough.

You know what I mean? And we have a lot more fun just in the jam room. Just, you know, playing. Plus you guys are, you guys are creating your, you know, you're, you're putting together your own music and the whole bit.

And there's, yeah, there's an enjoyment in that. Oh, absolutely. There's a total high on that.

And playing for people every once in a while kind of fulfills that. Like we're talking about like playing music and playing like songs that maybe people want to hear and stuff. There's plenty of times I've seen bands play.

And if I'm not into their genre of music, I don't know. Is that a cover tune? Is that something they wrote? I have no idea. Right.

So I feel like when we play and we're playing live, you know, like a good song is a good song. I don't care who writes it or who does it. I mean, if you actually have a good song, I think people will enjoy it or you'll find an audience that'll enjoy it.

So if we play and we play cover tunes and we slip in our originals once in a while, I always thought any band is for the most part, um, uh, background music. Right. You know, cause people are at the bar talking and, and maybe they tune into like, oh, that's a good note or, Hey, I know that song.

And then they go back talking to their friends, you know? Yeah. So I think we get away with what we do very well, uh, by playing some covers and playing some originals. Yeah.

So, yeah. But you know, there's a certain part of what it is that you're doing that, that is liberating because really, if you want it to, you don't need to go through the channels with Joey DeMarco or anybody, because you know, if, if, if you're not concerned about the money that you're making, if you're not concerned about how often you're playing or how long you're playing, you know, with a night or whatever, you can contact all those little bars. Like, like Ray and I were last weekend, we're just downtown over in Wrigleyville, right.

Just walking around there and gosh, you can walk into almost every door and they've got three or four bands scheduled and they're all original bands. Right. So they're throwing, they're throwing 50 to a hundred bucks at each band.

Right. Everybody's making about 25 bucks, but you get up there, you play for an hour and you play your original music and play your own stuff there. They, those places do exist.

They really do. And if you're not, like I said, if you're not concerned about, well, I got to make a thousand dollars or I'm answering my phone or I have to play every Friday and Saturday, you know, night of the month. Now, if you're just looking to play once a month or whatever, and just show your stuff to people, start, start looking at those places.

Yeah. We've been finding these venues. Like we played up in the Displains Theater and it's essentially a invited open mic night.

Sure. You know, they do it on Tuesday nights in Displains. We also played the Arcada Theater.

Yeah. You know, but they're both run by the Onseti. Is that the same? Onesti.

Onesti. Onesti. Onesti.

Onesti. Onesti. Onesti.

Yeah. I got Onset on my head. Well, there's, I mean, there's a ton of, there's a ton of open mics around in the area that would love to have you guys.

I mean, you can, you can certainly go out and do that. But what I liked about those venues is that it's, it's, like I said, it's kind of invited. They know you're coming and there's, they only invite like four, three or four bands.

So you get to play 45 minutes to an hour. Right. And you know, I'm not in that for the money, but we, they, they pay you for it.

If you get people to show up, whatever, they're collecting 10 bucks at the door or whatever. Yeah. But you know, it's fine.

Yeah. It's, it's a good time. We don't have to, we don't have the stress of coming up with a full two to three hour set.

Exactly. Exactly. You're getting your music out.

We're doing that right with the Montrose Saloon. Where are we playing? We're doing the Montrose Saloon. Yeah.

What date is that? Well, Montrose Saloon is December 28th. Oh, say that to the mic. Montrose Saloon is December 28th.

And then I cannot. Underground Lounge. Yeah.

Underground Lounge. Oh, that's a cool place. That's going to be, oh, what is it? December, January.

January 10th. January 10th. Yeah.

So. Yeah. So I found those two places and then inquired and they were more than willing to have us.

Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds like it's going to be a good time. That's exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah. That hour we're going to be playing. Yeah.

45 minutes, man. Perfect. You know? Yeah.

Right. Right. No, that's, those are two good places.

Actually, what are the dates again? What are they? Montrose Saloon is December 28th. Okay. And Underground Lounge is January 10th.

Nice. Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Cool. Yeah.

Everybody go out and see those guys. Where can people find you on social media? Yeah, Frank. We are not that active in the social media space, but we do have a Facebook page.

You can find us at The Shining. I'm sure if you just look us up somehow. I found you on Facebook.

Okay, there you go. We got you on Facebook. Montrose Saloon insisted that we have a Instagram presence.

Yep. So they, I did just get that up and running. Yep.

You got to do that for sure. Yeah. You got to, you got to do Instagram.

You got to have, Facebook is still the best way to get your shows out. It really is. And we do have a YouTube page and all that, that has a lot of music and videos.

Yeah. Right. Right.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, I'll tell you what, before we take off, why don't you give us one more? All right.

Sure. Yeah. Alrighty.

I guess some of these songs that we're playing tonight are a little bit more happier because when we were a circus of filth, everything was scary. So maybe some of the songs are, are not so scary. As you get older, you, you calm down a little bit and you write happier songs as opposed to scary songs.

And you changed the name of your band so that people aren't afraid of you. Cause we're not, we're not scary. Right.

Right. Ladies and gentlemen, the shining has left the building. The rock and roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin.

Theme song, courtesy of MNR Rush. The rock and roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show. The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.