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 tired-ass Hollywood tired-ass. Yeah, you just get old man I am getting old you are no I was driving around all day today, man Yeah, I had to day job do stuff for I advanced up, you know band stuff to do Yeah, I didn't get to see the Sox game But I didn't miss anything I didn't miss anything Nothing at all, you know, I had that, you know for the first time in in three years.

I had a bar say yeah We need posters Really? I don't think I've delivered posters to a bar Years, but I well I stopped doing it because they don't they don't hang them up if I don't hang them up myself They don't go up and I was like, I'm not spending money and that shit isn't you know, it's not cheap Well nowadays you could do it with AI Well, yeah, I know that but then you got to get them printed nice in the hole But you can't just you know, print them off and everything and I just went to like UPS or you know Where they do the printing. Mm-hmm. It was like 26 bucks for 18 Wow 18 prints and it's like yeah, so I stopped doing it I think the price is gonna go up and I had a place a I had a place that you know You got a you got to bring posters on I'm like, wow, okay Wow, you know Jose from five guys.

He still does that he makes posters up for every show goes to the bar Hangs him up. Oh, he's ancient. He was doing it.

He is he's I mean, he's been doing it since 1940s Yeah, something like that something like that. Yeah, so he still does that stuff. Yeah, we got to pull him into the into the new century That's right.

Go digital in the whole bit, but that's right. Hey, I mean, you know who effing cares, right? Yeah, fuck if I do Pretty epic. Yeah So it is, you know, so what's so effing epic about it? I don't know Maybe we these guys that are sitting in front of us a little let us know welcome effing epic everybody.

Hey, hey Going on I'm gonna take a wild guess on the kind of music the guys play because I can tell by the shirts that they're wearing Yeah rock easy listening Easy listening yacht right now. There's something now. There's something I've never seen before So so actually so I played a gig a couple weeks ago up in Huntley and the band after us Was a yacht rock band and I love that stuff.

I love yacht rock I mean, I mean the songwriting in that in that music is absolutely unbelievable But the thing I've never seen anybody do is take like metal and turn it yacht rock style I mean in the in the day and age of all these tribute bands and you know coffee house I can see you're doing everything else, you know Can you imagine taking some Little River band and just doing in the style of like? Like like like seven dust It can be done so tell us about yourselves man who started this this whole this whole thing so I'm drew Bittner here and me and Cody kind of were the the head honchos We played in a different band. It was called encrypted and that was our first band and We had a couple of the remaining ones I'm seeing I'm seeing a trend here. They were encrypted and now they're effing epic and it's effing just you know, right? But there's several lineup changes and we just kind of landed on this F and epics our last name that we've had and This F and epics gone through a couple lineup changes, but me and drew are we're the only two Original ones Travis my brother here was gonna play drums, but then he went to College for a while.

So put that on standby. We got another guy to drum for us Owen and then Some more lineup changes Travis comes back from college and he starts drumming for us and then we call ourselves F and epic Okay. Yeah.

Yep. So is it just the three or you got another? Our bass player is not here this evening. Yeah, he's on vacation.

Okay, so what do you guys do in the band? So I play guitar. Okay Travis I play the drums. All right, and I do vocals if you can call it vocals.

It's just a lot of screaming and growling and stomping around on stage It's heavy stuff kind of a Acquired taste if you will so Do you warm up for that? You know a little bit here and there. I don't really do completely self-taught with everything man it's it's I learned it just honestly like driving around by yourself in a car and Listening to whatever music you got going and just kind of train yourself and learn how you can push a little bit and just Different techniques to it But as long as I'm not all Strung out and hung out hung over and feeling a hundred percent I just got to warm up a little bit before the show and I'm good to go So he pretty so he pretty much doesn't warm up then because no You know because you know, I mean I'm jealous because I can't do that. I really can't I've tried I've tried to grunt and growl and do all that stuff.

Yeah, I can't freaking do it How did how did you teach yourself to do that? Dude I I really I just kind of learned how to channel it and I I Couldn't tell you how it just happened. I just started happening And it like and then certain, you know, I'm 40 years old now that we started back in I was 19 Throughout the years. I've always been in at least one or two projects having at least one band practice a week for about 20 years now and it just kind of Yeah, you just learn how to channel it and harness it and figure it out and just put it on demand Before he joined up in epic.

His voice was kind of like Mickey Mouse And it's turned into what it is right now It's weird to have this conversation because but I mean, I'm a vocalist Yeah Have a little bit of instruction and the crazy thing is once you've had Vocal instruction and you go back and you listen to somebody like the one that everybody always talks about is like Brian Johnson from ACDC or sure or anybody like that and you're like I couldn't sing like that if I tried and you think you'd be able to because you if you're formally trained you think you can Find the element within yourself physically to be able to do it, right? Right, but I can't and I found that most people can't it's like how do you how do you come up with it? You know, it's you have to find a way to do it. Isn't he essentially using a mix between head voice and vocal fry? Sure, yeah Which I I couldn't tell you if that's easy or hard. I sure as hell can't do it I'm sure and I just get tears out the eyes and start coughing.

I've got You're hearing my speaking voice. I have my singing voice is higher than my speaking voice So in order for me to duplicate that my voice has to get extremely high. I actually I actually have to get higher than Brian Johnson in order to make my voice do that and Now it sounds like Tiny Tim singing metal That's cool so I just stay away from it the area and the if I had to cover AC DC music that That area that range right there just doesn't work physically with my body To be able to do what he does in that area like it's I'd have to go even higher It's kind of weird.

So he's a master of his craft man. That's Yeah, crazy crazy. I know that was a that was a that was a That was a what am I looking for? Just because I know that there's some young kids out there going god, I've been trying to sing that way, too To all your young kids out there number one reach puberty first My mom keeps coming in saying are you okay? You have to go to school.

Don't pretend like you're throwing up. Yeah sore throat And by a pack of unfiltered camels, yeah Yeah, no crazy, but where were we going with this? Okay, so you guys decided to put together this band Is this the kind of music that you always listen to when you always wanted to? To get in this and or have you always been in bands like this? Yeah At least for for myself. Yeah, man, every that probably five or six different bands over the years But it's always always heavy.

It's death some some genre sums up genre of Death metal heavy metal, however, you want to describe it. There's so many different Branch down of sub genres and heavy metal right now That's it's hard to pinpoint what it is. Like even if you were to ask us what we are.

I couldn't pinpoint it Yeah, I couldn't even tell you what the hell we are. We just we had a Phrase for a while. I think gore our guitar player for a while He wanted to call it like shrapnel metal because it's little pieces of all kinds of different genres You know and it it kind of stuck for a while and then it kind of just got swept under the carpet and we just Kind of moved on and we just call ourselves heavy metal original heavy groove metal.

Mm-hmm. However, you want to define that, right? And I mean pick pick a genre really I mean, you know, yeah, you know Ray and I are a little bit older than you guys So when I was in high school, I was in high school in the 80s, right? Okay, so back in the 80s heavy metal was poisoned, right? Right, right, you know Heavy metal was docking, you know, it was the Scorpions for me. Yeah, it was Black Sabbath.

Yeah Yeah, right. Yeah, right exactly Iron Maiden was big I was in high school just on the cusp of bands like Megadeth Megadeth was starting to become popular when I was in high school Metallica was definitely becoming more popular But it was you know Guns N' Roses kind of paved the way in the whole bit And there's a lot of stuff nowadays like if you if I listen to like Paradise City by Guns N' Roses Back in the 80s considered to be metal if I can compare that to what's considered to be metal nowadays That's like that's like Dan Fogelberg Yeah, I mean I mean literally Guns N' Roses is almost like pop now, yeah, yeah percent it's it's it's come such a far away and like I said, it just keeps advancing and it's So to someone that doesn't really listen to all the like the most modern new heavies heaviest shit out there It could be a noise I can see how it's just noise to some people because I'm but I'm like telling you man come like especially to some of my Friends that aren't into it and we're trying to get them to come out to shows and they say like why don't I just don't like Listening to it. I can't stand it and then they come out to a show and they're like, you know what? I get it.

I'm like, that's what it takes see it live, you know So as a drummer what's the element what's the element that that makes it heavy metal man Going balls of the wall fast as fuck just yeah that's I was when we were talking about what music got us into doing what we're doing out of all of us in the band I'd say I'm I Wouldn't say I am without a doubt, but I would think that I'm the most Diverse and well-rounded and in a bunch of stuff, right? Country pop. Yeah alternative a little bit of everything. I definitely started off and hung with the lighter stuff longer Throughout my life here in Nile Venom all that stuff blasting from my brother's bedroom because Cody is my older brother, right? At first I was like, what the fuck is this? Like I initially didn't like it because I just didn't understand what the vocals were It just literally did sound like growling and barking to me.

I'm just like I know I'll stick to my creed and nickelback and You know, whatever I listen to ICP, I'm gonna know you're Crazy because in the 90s I was in bands and we covered all that stuff We we did all that stuff and the thing that changed a lot for me is because you know You know as a musician you have a drummer in your band and you're just you're used to hearing the boom But no in metal nowadays you could just have a dude going nuts on his Tom's Dude Right keeping the beat keeping the rhythm and you're listening for the snare and you're like boy, he's barely hitting that fucking snare You know, it's you really break down a lot of the metal beats. It's still has it. Oh, yeah Just way the hell faster and a lot more shit in between.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, but you know what you were saying I think is true.

I I had a An incident personally myself is as I was working with a drummer and we were trying to learn the song manic depression by Jimmy Hendrix nice and he just could not get it. He's like I can't get this I couldn't figure it out and the rest of the band is playing and he couldn't figure it out And finally, I looked at him and I said, what are you playing and he goes? I'm just playing a straight rock beat and I said, that's the problem. Listen to it again, and it's a waltz.

That's Yeah, it's a waltz manic depression by Jimmy Hendrix is a waltz and so he just started going boom He's like, holy shit the whole song came together and he's like, yeah, it's a waltz and we've learned from there for this guy He started off playing. I think drummers more than you don't think about as a guitar player You probably went to your guitar teacher and said, yeah, I'm not gonna learn how to play Mary had a little lamb I want to learn how to play, you know, this Ozzy song or whatever, but drummers got to learn all that basic All that basic stuff. They have to yeah for the most part.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean outside of drumming I dab long guitar myself at home.

Yeah, but My love of metal came I would say probably from my older brother and sister Hearing the shit coming from their bedrooms. I didn't get into it at first, but it's weird because as I Was stuck listening to it long enough. Yeah, I Actually did build an ability to understand what was going on in the vocals, right? And now I laugh because I've got friends, you know You're always trying to peddle your music off to buddies and spread your sound and everyone's like dude Instrumentally you guys kick ass.

It sounds great. But I just don't tell your brother. I just can't get into his vocals.

Yeah I'm like, I I get it. It's not for everybody. It's it's a niche, you know, not everybody's cup of tea, but Metals my shit because as a drummer What instrument typically stands out the most in metal, right? Right.

Yeah Yeah, absolutely. So just to give us a basic idea like like what's what's like if you guys had to play a 30-minute set What are you playing? What's what's what's that? What's that set list look like? I Mean, we are an original act. So oh you are you're probably not gonna hear any covers unless we're playing in front of a show that we know is gonna be Kind of a festival party atmosphere with a lot of friends and they they've been doing up for shows and don't want to hear our stuff Again, so we were to rattle off our music right now you guys or a bunch of people wouldn't know what the hell we were Talking about.

Okay. Okay, and you're gonna play that for us later. We're gonna get to that awesome, right? Yeah, we have one version of a song Acoustically, okay Our music is not made for acoustics.

So we're doing this one song. We're trying it out. We're gonna yeah rock it up Back in 2015, so yeah, well, I don't know, you know, Allison change, you know kicked ass on that vh1 unplugged series, man They were is by far the best on blog.

Yeah, that was pretty darn. That was pretty darn good I liked I liked watching that and I liked seeing bands like Allison chains And Nirvana come out and do there's their shit unplugged, you know, that was pretty cool so the other thing that I like about metal is the difference in tones There's there's a huge difference if you're playing blues Your guitars pretty much plugged into your fender ramp. Don't even need an overdrive pedal if you don't want one, right? Guitars all kind of sound the same but in metal you've got the You've got the mid scooped school of thought which I'm not a huge fan of It I think it fits if you've got the right right other right instrumentations, but then you've got You know some some of the music where the mids are like super heavy I mean you're hearing the mids because it's adding to the grit.

So what I guess what's your sound? What's your school of thought on that? So I got Two orange Heads and two separate cabinets and I run an ABY pedal Yeah, so sometimes like if we have a like a slower intro or more acoustic I can run like just the clean Yep Yep And then boom stop it in with one amp just doing distortion and then stop it in again with with both amps on Distortion and that one's got a little bit of a delay on it, right? So it just gives it just this extra fullness Yeah, so, I don't know. I just like to make the tone as full as it can be. Yeah, and just Right does one amp have more gained than the other Or the identical no, I think the one does it's actually the smaller amp.

I got this little orange dark Has it dark terror? I think it's like it's only like a 25 watt head All right, right, but it has like the most over had room on any amp I've ever had The other ones like a hundred watt head and it's like it's still good. But right the tube or solid-state It's like a combo. It has like one small tube, right? But then there's only three knobs on it like it's super easy to yeah dial in Yeah, is it a tube power amp and a solid-state preamp or or do I have it? Probably I'm techie.

I geek out. I do I'm techie because I've always what you said I've always liked that for high gain applications to have one amp That's you know, I think the mistake that a lot of young guitarists make is they think oh, it's metal You got to just you know, crank the gain to 10 No You really want that punch? You want to back the gain off a little bit and it helps a little bit more if you've got the two amps where you Can run one kind of clean because that's actually where your thump comes from Yeah, and and then the because once you get the high gain in there It kind of smooths everything out a little bit and most amps the bass is gonna go away Otherwise it gets muddy right so you add the you add the the thump back in with the cleaner amp I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, you got an overdrive pedal in front of that as well Are you just I'm just using the distortion off of the amps.

It's nice I do run Like a gain limit yeah puddle Okay, usually use a little bit of wah not much pedal wise Not really a whole lot going on. I just kind of keep it standard switch between cleans and Habbies. Yeah.

No, I get that. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool I mean if you're playing your own music, you can be your own sound all the time.

That's that's not copying anything, man You're you're laying your own tracks. Yeah, exactly So, I mean you don't have to sound like Alice in Chains, you know, yeah, because you're you're doing your own stuff Yeah, what kind of what kind of guitar you play? I got a Jackson Soloist yeah, and it's really good. I like the neck.

It's like the best neck I've ever felt. Okay Cool, it's fell in love with it. That's that's awesome.

Awesome. So who's the main songwriter? Probably me Okay, yeah Riff riff first. I'm assuming there's some pretty cool riffs.

Yeah, mostly Mostly, it's riff first Sometimes there's been a couple times where like I had a vocal idea and then wrote the riff around it But yeah, usually it's rest first and then we all kind of collab on the vocals It's a big collaboration But you just start it's you know in between when we're not we don't have a lot of shows booked up because usually when you have Shows, it's we're practicing. We're running the set getting tight on the set run the set when you have some downtime That's when we start writing and it's we just start bouncing ideas and just kind of all Throw in a little input here and there and eventually you shit out a song. Yeah Since I joined back in 2011 that All the band members we all knew each other obviously Cody's my brother, but knew each other before the band Okay, so the chemistry has always been there as far as writing like there's no walking on eggshells when you're coming up with an idea and Scared that somebody's gonna get butthurt and try and change your idea like we go with the flow right when it needs to change Yeah, there might be a all right Well, we'll maybe do it this way or whatever But right other than that the ease of writing if he's got riffs ready to go or if I've got a drum idea every once in a while, I think I've maybe That I'm a riff or two throughout the years that I just say I've got this Tweak it whatever way you want like right you can completely change it, but this was just grounds of an idea, right? Right, right.

I can see them sitting at a rehearsal going, you know, we need we need a vocal line here We need a lyric here But he's trapped with you he trashed us in there It that goes a long ways being able to get along with each other because a band You're pretty much in a relationship with four or five other people Yeah You got deal with everybody's bullshit everybody's schedule and if someone's an asshole or just kind of hard-headed with stuff It really makes it hard for everybody to want to go to band practice to want to enjoy this shit You know like it's it becomes another job then and like a task and it's like why are you doing this if you're not having? Fun, right and you're always button heads and arguing. I'm Sorry, like I said several bands in the past. I'm not gonna name any names, but there's a couple I think about So yeah, I'm glad I'm not jam with you anymore I'll tell you what you guys are hitting the age where you're gonna where That's gonna get easier for you because I you know, how many bands I got I couldn't count I couldn't count on appendages how many bands I was in until I hit the age of 40 and then when I hit the age Of 40 I started playing with a bunch of other guys that were my age as well and we were just done with the bullshit We're just like go up and play.

If not, I can do this without you And that's and that's all of a sudden when I started being in bands for like five years ten years, you know the whole bit so Our first what drew? At least that gores original house we used to you know back before we got all of our big boy jobs and all that and families and kids and Twice a week was practice. I think we generally started somewhere around 6 or 6 30, right? The first two hours was just doing shots and drinking beer and bullshitting about our day at work or whatever. Yeah now It's show up It's still the same Whatever have a beer will bullshit for 510.

Yeah, but then it's it's get down to the jam room Get the business. We usually I mean after This many years. We already kind of know what we're doing for the night.

We get in we do our shit Once we're done satisfied, okay amps are off we get up we go upstairs We'll enjoy a couple more beers and bullshit some more in the garage, but now it's more business oriented not just Let's get fucking wasted. Yeah. Yeah, because we've had some nights.

It's harder to get up in the morning now because we're 40. Yeah Wake up calls. I think it's a perfect time to take a little break I think it is a perfect time to come back and do us a little ditty.

Sounds good. Alrighty. We'll be right back All righty, 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 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 non-stop blues banter and badassery check out the bus stop blues podcast at the bus stop blues Dot-com where you can listen on Spotify iHeart Apple podcast or any other major? Podcast platform up on board the bus stop blues where the blues never stops rolling All right, we are back with f-in epic and that's one word by the way like epinephrine That's kind of how we started F an epic you guys want to tell us a little bit about this song This is gonna be interesting because we're gonna we're gonna like acoustic So, yeah, this is gonna be completely different from how it usually sounds Just you know, we're kind of doing it for the podcast and just it was me and drew practice a little bit last night It's like, all right, let's roll with it and should be cool.

But this is one of our very first songs It's on our first album. It's probably you could say our first single. Okay that we ever recorded and Just and we just recently started playing it again live for shows and it just we never missed a beat on a man and people What's the name of the song two ashes two ashes, yes, sir, and that's one word no Two ashes right so we're back with their coffee house cover two ashes take it away guys you bet Not dwell on the past Burn it down forget its worth Return it now Back to the earth as it burns Watch as the world still turns Watch now as as it burns watch as the world still Turns Ashes nothing sacred will remake Now is my time I cannot dwell on the past As flames blaze Great pain Don't let sacrifice Be made You Say is irrelevant What you stand there keep telling it with every word You say further pushes me away further pushes me Give me a growl, man He's been holding that in the whole time Might need some tongues Really out of our element Yeah, I can I can I can see that but but I heard I you know I can I can totally imagine what I think the drums would have been in that You know Parts where it's kind of tribal ish.

Yep. A lot of floor kick going but For the most part a lot of our a lot of our songs. I just stay in the pocket.

Yeah, I don't try and Go off the wall doing my own shit right all those in the middle of songs just stay groovy hit right with the bassist and Keep everybody's heads of bouncing. Yep, totally. I totally heard Where the tribal drums would would come in? I was totally hearing that it's very uh, I'm not the one I was hearing that I was like, yep right there.

You know what? You know what I liked about it was um There's a line there's a line in the song Repeat the repeat the first line of the song Everything must turn to ashes Nothing sacred will remain right all I have now is my time I cannot dwell on the past right there see Right there, you know because it was so that was so appropriate to me because it feels like if there's if there was a narrator To that story right that that's the part where that person just falls off the deep end Just just you know, kind of like right there, right? Sure, and I was I was reminded of the the grade school poem roses are red violets are blue some poems rhyme this one don't But it was I mean it was completely appropriate I was like I was expecting something to rhyme with pain and it don't I Remember the first I was at a bar one time Very long time ago and they were doing this poetry reading. I'm like, what the hell's that all about? So I went there and they're reading the shit. It's like I'm saying nothing rhymes.

What the hell's with this poetry is a poetry story Spoken word, right? Bongo in the corner That That's like the 60s man, that was a long time ago. No, I don't think it was a 60 You're not that old. It was more like the 70s 70s or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. So what were some of your influences growing up? So cuz I mean this music wasn't around in high school for you guys.

No, wow Fifth and sixth grade. Yeah, I was wearing Metallica shirts Yeah, but I'm thinking when you were in fifth and sixth grade. I mean they were already on the black album, right? They already loaded Yeah, they already quote-unquote sold out at that.

Yeah So I say that with all the love in the world cuz I'm a huge Metallica I didn't really honestly growing up like Dad was oldies and like Beach Boys. Yeah all the time. Listen to that Johnny Cash and he was like, yeah I'm listening to Bob was a big mom was kind of all over the place But a big one for her was Michael Jackson, and I remember listening to him so much being younger Yeah, and then my cousin came around.

He's like check out Metallica and then this Metallica and Rob Zombie I really got into Rob Zombie right away. And then I want to say it's like freshman year or eighth grade My sister showed me death metal. I'm like, ooh, I like this Yeah, the heavy heavy stuff and I'm like, yep Metallica pushed to the side right who's older he's older So what were you influenced by them other than hearing him scream through the bedroom wall as far as Drumming goes or just music in general.

He's now more Metallica everything, but I mean Metallica, you know There's a lot of haters out there. Like oh my god, one of your influences is Lars he is I Don't know what else to tell people, you know Is a big one. Why do people give him shit? I don't understand.

I don't understand why they give him shit I mean, he's the drummer in front and one of the biggest bands in the world ever. Why do they give him shit? the same anger tone Okay, so maybe his tone all right cuz I mean his snare does kind of sound like a cereal box a little bit But so so did Charlie Watts You know, I'm For the most part all over the place. I mean Morgan Rose seven dust.

Mm-hmm James Sullivan event sevenfold Yep, Portnoy. I mean the list goes on and on. I don't really stay to any niche.

I mean Chad Smith Chili Peppers. I'm You said those two guys because I mean because Portnoy and and Chad Smith, I mean those guys are jazz drummers Yeah, they are. They're jazz drummers that can play metal.

Yeah, and I I love playing other styles music I was years ago in another band that was more or less like a rockabilly rocked up almost like a Metallica meets Volbeat meets Elvis. Yeah, I type deal called reckless. I think that was I Enjoyed it a lot of fun to do But my pride and joy is metal getting to go nuts because I mean I can only sure Yeah So long and right a little bored.

Yeah, have you heard have you heard Chad Smith playing on those chicken foot albums? I know of the super group, but no, I couldn't really tell you that I've heard Listen listen to it because he's all great drummer. He is he's fantastic He really he really is because everybody knows him from Red Hot Chili Peppers and stuff but now, you know, he's playing with Satriani and and and and Sammy Hagar, there you go There you go, and they're doing Michael music. Yeah.

Yeah And I mean just the videos of him laying down like wasn't necessarily a drum battle, but him and Travis Parker yeah going to town and it's like Barker's got the tightness and the basic chops and speed but yeah. Yeah, I think Chad Smith's got a little bit more that funky Off the wall timing stuff going for him. Yeah.

Yeah, you know who's a you know, who's a fantastic drummer and not everybody knows it I took my son to his first concert at I Still call it the world music theater As do I yeah, and that place Comiskey Park. Yeah. Yeah the Sears Tower.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right Yeah, I still call it the world music theater But the place in Tinley Park and we saw we saw shine down in God's Mac. Yes Yeah, and Sully comes out the a drum set slides out from the back and Sully comes out and he does a drum battle with His own drummer with Shannon.

Yeah, awesome. First time I saw that was Oh for at Allstate Metallica and God's Mac Yeah, I was like Sully plays drums. Yeah and damn good and damn good at it.

Yeah, really good at it Pretty amazing Also speaking of jazz drummers. Yeah when he wasn't rolling stoning Charlie was in a jazz band Oh, I bet. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and and what's his name Steve Smith from journey, right? He left journey and he became now He's like the first call drummer for any jazz musician in the world Yeah, and I mean he made his money with journey and now he can do whatever the heck he wants to do He's a session player. He's fantastic. Yeah, pretty amazing.

So no good. So your first album came out in 2015 How many are there? Two full-length currently 2015 was ignite that was the title of the album 2020 was exploit this and then now instead of waiting Extended periods of time to like hey, let's get nine tracks 11 track, whatever Let's just say because everything's just digital now and on the computer So to stay in the limelight and stay relevant, we just figure you know, we just dropped What did we end up calling that you will die? Yeah, we call it you will die it's a three track One of the songs is called dad. It's light hearted.

It's an easy listening thing. It is, you know uplifting. Yeah It's usually gravitate towards it.

Yeah Get the explicit lyrics stick around the bottom That is true though. You'll see a lot of like metal bands now instead of doing like a full-length album every few months You'll see him release a couple singles and just kind of run with that and just kind of stay and everybody's mind set You know, that's because if you stay quiet for too long, man, this this stuff's a revolving door You can be on top of it one day and then forgot about the next day You know You got to stay current and stay active active on the social medias and everything and just show people that you're still doing shit you know, I Keeping hearing keeping your name out there. Yeah Yeah, I think I think one of the I guess For lack of a better term complaint that people would have about this particular style of music as they say, you know It's always so dark, you know, it's you know, if you listen to the lyrics and read the lyrics in the whole bit It's always doom and gloom and there's nothing happening, you know, you know good.

I mean, is that true or We definitely want that line, but there's some that just there's something positive uplifting stuff that we've wrote before But it's and it's just kind of it is kind of just like a cliche with metal, right? it very much is it just kind of be either aggressive with something or Going back to all the different genres the doom and gloom that's that's like a lot of stoner doom and like just sludge metal you know just But it all depends on what you're gunning for man cannibal corpse is all just gory stuff killed, you know But roots for the most part. We're a bunch of nice guys Yeah, I mean you're I mean lyrics are you drawing on personal experience or are you fitting the genre just fitting a genre? Yeah, any genre some stuff personal experience not like going on mass murder sprees, right? hopefully We are not condoning Activities or anything like that? But yeah, you're so you're you're kind of creating a story a fictional story a little bit to fit the genre more or less I saw like Punk style but with metal behind it. Okay a little bit.

I guess that makes sense Ah, a lot of stuff's anti-government anti-establishment, you know I keep the keep your hands out of my pockets kind of shit like that, you know, and I get that. Yeah Yeah, it's not always just streamlined into the gore and we're definitely don't touch on the any of the satanic shit We don't do any of that There's enough of that out there. Yeah Your stuff out on the streaming services like Spotify and no one Apple music Oh all major platforms to my knowledge.

Yeah, even like Google Play and Kids can even get it. I believe Xbox whatever there. Oh, wow.

Really? Yeah. No Yeah, so what kind of places are you guys playing because I mean this would this would definitely fit This is definitely a category music where it's like you can't walk down the street and every single club is gonna be inviting, right? No, no, so we're from Kankakee. We practice in a Roman Park over at Jewish place, which is right by Kankakee It's it's it's kind of tough so with metal bands It's a lot a lot of times when we talk you'll book three four five bands for one night.

Sure, you know, and it's kind of Depending on the area if it's not like a metal bar You have that you almost have to go a little bit harder on it and make sure you get people to show up and make sure all the bands bring their crew because Say a bar books. Yeah, and it's a dead night and then all their regulars leave because they don't want to hear it You're not coming back, right, you know, we played the forge several times. We played up in the city Those are we were talking about that when you guys were out on your smoke break and stuff We were like they're candidates for to join across the street.

Oh, yeah, very much Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah But Chicago is usually a pretty good spot a lot of metal bars up there and up there It's kind of like you don't even have to promote like live wire lounge up on I want to say that's Milwaukee, right? Where it's located you're gonna have the locals coming up no matter what the hell is going on Yeah, right, you know and it's and it's and it is kind of a more of a metal bar metal themed bar You know, but it is kind of hit or miss when you're more of the South areas, you know We played freaks plays top fuel saloon quite a bit.

That's that's usually good turnout but yeah, wait when we're playing in Kankakee, it's it's In all the pads man, everybody's got to do their work and promoting it all the band Everybody's got to get their whole crew out there and make it worthwhile. You know, yeah Yeah, yeah, Kankakee is changing a little bit. Yeah Yeah, see it used to years ago when we first started there was there's a pretty good metal scene there And then it's kind of died down.

But now it's definitely coming back right there. There's more bands popping up a lot of younger bands It's kind of cool to see like these younger kids Coming up doing it that aren't even allowed to sit at the bar because they're not 21, you know, is that cool? That's good to see you coming up and do this, you know, yeah, it's a good feeling Yeah, I hear there's a few places over the border in Indiana that that are welcoming to metal So my other band just did shenanigans and portage. Okay, which is that was pretty good over there There's JJ Kelly's and Lansing.

Yeah, that one's usually pretty good. Yeah, I've played there. Yeah Played there back in the 90s when I was when I was in my Stone Temple Pilots Creed, you know face Played my shirt tool and stuff like that.

Yeah Yeah, no, it's pretty cool pretty cool So how can people find you and other than other than streaming services and stuff like that? You guys have a website you on Facebook. How can people look you up? Yeah, mostly Facebook. I think we have an Instagram too.

We're not on there as much Yeah, mostly Facebook and we got YouTube we got you know, all our songs are on YouTube, too We got a couple lyric videos out there and occasionally we'll put it like a live, you know basement Video on there or something. Yeah. Yeah you guys going any concerts? This year you got anything coming up that you're going to see bands that you like I was just recently at two within like a four-day span at the world or Twitter.

Yeah, or whatever it is. Yeah the first one was Breaking Benjamin, okay. Yeah Well, she's on that star set With the house Got it It was one of those the mind is the first thing to go Strung out nights.

Yeah Just a couple nights later. I was at the the maiden and Megadeth show and oh, wow That was the first time I've ever had to park in the overflow parking lot over by CarMax Yeah, walk about a half a mile. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah That makes sense maiden still got it. They're killing it.

That makes sense to me Dave's voice was in rough shape and he addressed the audience that he's going through stuff I don't think it's anything related to the throat cancer that he was dealing with. Right, right, but he addressed the fans and he Kind of hinted that they're possibly gonna be hanging it up soon because I guess he's always told the fans If you're getting Megadeth you get a hundred percent Megadeth and the day I can't do it anymore is the day we stopped playing But then he went on to Joe cuz he was ripping it up. He said but I can still play a pretty damn good Yeah, yeah, he was shredding it but his voice wasn't there on the higher range Right, right mustang vocals, but he could still hit the low stuff, right? Right, right I said no you like we talked about earlier I can imagine the draw for that concert was great because I listened to that same in 85 when I was in high school Picture the place I I took a photo that I can show you guys later of I kind of captured the pavilion But I mainly wanted to capture the lawn because there wasn't a spot of open grass in the lawn It was filled and there were still people in Lines trying to get in that were making posts days later that they were pissed that they missed Megadeth because well I don't know if it oversold or what? I don't think they did but maybe they just Tailgated too long in the parking lot.

Yeah. Yeah, that could be it. Yeah.

Thanks. Excellent. Excellent Well, alrighty guys, thanks for coming in.

Yeah, you bet you bet. Thank you guys really interesting and yeah, we're talking to you guys Thanks The rock and roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin theme song courtesy of M&R Rush the rock and roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show The music is used to promote the guests that are featured