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 that means I must be Reverend Hollywood.

You are Reverend Hollywood. Reverend Hollywood, man. How you doing, my son? I'm good.

Are you non-depressed this week? You're in good spirits? Good spirits this week, yeah. Last week was a rough week, but this week's doing pretty good. Good.

The Bears won. Oh my god, yeah, they sure did. That alone.

You know, we have to talk about that for just a second. Because if there was any doubt of a quarterback controversy with the Chicago Bears, I think that's done. I think that's over and done with.

It was kind of like, you know... Just watching Caleb play, he's a different caliber than Bajent and Keenum. I mean, they're reliable. He's unbelievable.

Right. They're reliable, serviceable. They managed the game and the whole bit, and he came out, but I mean, he just slapped his junk on the table.

That's what it was. Yeah, here it is. But that was pretty good, man.

That was awesome. I mean, they were... I enjoyed it. I had a fun time.

Oh yeah, watching it and having an absolute blast. I didn't think about... I wasn't thinking about the other shit I got to do around the house. But then my number two team, the Cowboys, they couldn't get past the Packers.

Yeah, they couldn't do it. Man, that sucks. I was hoping they would beat them.

We're going to jump right... We're not even going to do the hijinks or anything here. No, we're not going to do the hijinks tonight, because I'm going to tell you what, ever since I found out that this band was going to be in this studio and we were going to get to talk to them, I've been just so freaking excited to have the Steepwater Band here in the studio tonight, everybody. Nice, man.

So welcome. Thanks for having us. Good to be here.

So our cameras aren't working here. I don't know if Ray told you that, our cameras aren't working. So this is an old fashioned radio show.

Oh good, because I got a stain on my shirt. And we're old school, so that's perfect. Oh, that's good.

So tell everybody, who are you guys and what do you guys do in the band, first of all? I'm Jeff Massey. I sing lead vocals and play one of the guitars in the Steepwater Band. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm Joe Winters and I play the drums in the Steepwater Band. I knew that. Drummers have that feeling about them.

When you walk in, you know who's a drummer and who's not. All right. I'll take that.

I was watching a video, I think, you were playing a really cool guitar. Was it a, was it a, like an SG Junior, like a white SG Junior? The white one? Yeah, my 65 Junior. I love that guitar.

That's a sweet guitar. It is. Yeah.

That's really cool. I like that. I traded some good stuff to get that.

Oh, did you? Yeah. Is that your main accent? It's not my main, it's one that I keep in an open tuning for specific songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Awesome, awesome. But it's a necessity. It's at every show.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, man. So, but I mean, you know, we're jumping ahead of ourselves.

He's jumping right into the gear talk and the whole thing. But you know, you guys, you originated in Chicago, right? Yes. And you guys have been around for quite a while, like mid, late 90s or something like that? Joe and I are the two original members of 98.

Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.

That's 30 years. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. When you talk Chicago, we formed the band Kitty Corner from the old Chess Studios at 22nd and Michigan. Yeah, yeah.

Literally every day we'd go to rehearsal, you look across the street and we're looking at chess records where Muddy and Chuck Berry and Little Walter and everybody did their thing. Willie Dixon, everybody, you know? So, I mean, that was, it's definitely Chicago-centric South Side for sure. Yeah, yeah.

You got, you, you lived over there, over there? No, we didn't. Well, he lived in the city. I lived on the North Side at the time.

Yeah. Oh, you were on the North Side at the time. I think so.

I was around Cranian Village. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and myself and the bass player at the time were in Northwest Indiana, but- Now we've switched.

Yeah, yeah. Now, now I'm in Lombard and he's out in Indiana and we did like a flip-flop, but, but at the time the central location to rehearse was there at 22nd and Michigan. Yeah.

And being here at the museum, seeing some of this stuff with Muddy and Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry and all the chess guys, Little Walter. Yeah. It brought me back, man.

Cause that, that's important stuff. Right. For sure.

For sure. Where were you over in the Ukraine Village? Like whereabouts? I was right. I was on Augusta.

Okay. Well, well, actually at that time that I was at Cortez and Ashland, that wouldn't be Ukrainian Village. And later I was on Augusta and Rockwell.

Okay. Yeah. It might've been Bucktown where you were.

Closer to Bucktown. I lived in two different spots and it's kind of blurring together. And that area is all kind of blurring together as well because- I haven't lived there in years.

I'm in Indiana now, but yeah. No, when I first, when I first got to the city, we were, my grandparents owned a house and the first house that we lived in was like a North Avenue and Wood Street. Yeah.

Which wasn't too, wasn't too far away from there. No, not at all. Now I think they call it all Bucktown.

Do they? In a whole bit. I was always confused where the lines were drawn and what- Yeah. All I remember, all I remember the most about it is seeing the big dome of the St. Mary's, St. Mary's of the Angel Church that was over in the area over there.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

So, wow. Excellent. Excellent, man.

And when you guys started out, you know, listening to all your stuff, and I listened to a lot of it, you guys really were, I mean, you were a blues band. Yeah, more or less, that's what we were going for. But then we figured out that it was more fun or as fun to get creative and write your own music.

And, and it's a similar story to the Stones, not to compare us to something absolutely legendary, but those guys started out playing blues in pubs and whatever, and then realized like they needed to find their own sound and write their own songs. We kind of did the same thing. We were a blues band playing, like, kind of thinking we're going for the blues club scene, but then realized that like, we had all these original ideas and that we were into a lot of rock music also.

And, and I think that it was kind of a blend of everything really. Yeah. Yeah.

But, but I mean, at one point you guys really had that blues sound because it got you into places like, I mean, you guys have played Blues Fest and stuff like that, right? Yeah. And we used to go all the jams at, at Checkerboard Lounge and Buddies. And so blues is still in there.

We still love blues. It's just, we, we don't, we don't analyze what we're writing as much. We just write and let it out.

You know, blues is always in there somewhere for us. Yeah. I mean, you guys, believe it or not, I've known of you guys for quite a while.

I mean, I've been playing in the Chicago scene myself for about 30 years and a lot of the places that you guys have played, I've also played. So we've probably picked up some DNA from one another around there on the stage and stuff. Gross.

Yeah. Not that kind of, not that kind of DNA. Some of those bathrooms, you know, some of those clubs.

Yeah. You never know. It could be something like that.

I meant musical DNA. We played CBGB's once. You've seen that bad.

Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.

Did you really? I was just thinking that. That's funny. That's a historic bathroom.

That's gross. That's gross. In the best of ways.

Yeah. You know, anytime some of those people must have spit on that floor and on that stage and everything, it's like, wow, that's pretty disgusting. But no, you know, with, in, with today, you know, with so many different sub genres of rock and roll music, right.

Everybody kind of has their own idea. But when I hear your music, that is exactly what I hear in my head. When I think of rock and roll music, I love the, I love the blues with the driving guitars that have a little bit of an edge to it.

And you can hear the Southern rock into it as well. And some songs have more blues than Southern rock. Some of them are nice, even blend, but I always hear both of them, you know, both genres in your music.

And when I, when I think of rock and roll, that is rock and roll to me. Right on. Thank you very much.

That's a huge compliment. You guys have a fantastic sound. There's a couple songs.

I get hints of Crosby, Stills, and Nash too. Yeah, man. I'm like, I'm like, wait a minute.

I've heard this song before. I'll take that as a compliment. Well, I'm a huge Stephen Stills fan.

Maybe it comes through my subconscious. Manassas, some of that syncopated jangly guitar sounds and stuff like that are pretty, pretty cool. Excellent.

Excellent. So are you the main writer in the band or is it kind of? It's always, it's always up to me to do the lyrics and the melody. Yeah.

And sometimes I'll, I'll write a whole piece of music at home, you know, a lot of times on an acoustic and present it to the guys. But a lot of our songs have come from soundcheck riffs and jams and grooves too. So it's, uh, it could come from, from a few different places within the group and we share all our writing credits.

We don't sit here and nitpick as to who did what. So yeah, there's a, as if anybody's got creative input when they usually create their own parts, even if I wrote the song generally. Right.

Exactly. You know, I think if more bands took that attitude, there'd be less breakups. Probably.

Yeah. Hence where here we are, 28 years later. Yeah.

I get that too. You got, you want things a certain way, but then that to me, that's a solo project. Yeah.

Right. Right. Yeah.

If you're telling everybody else in the band to do it your way. It doesn't mean we can't suggest things to each other, you know, but we're pretty open-minded about what each other comes up with and we bounce ideas off of. Yeah.

I always say like, you could write something on the ukulele in our band and bring it. And if it's cool, then we're going to play it. Yeah.

I better get a ukulele. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm sort of exaggerating, but if I had a, if I had something goofy that I came up with on a, any kind of instrument on a keyboard on whatever.

And if I brought it to the guys and said, like, let's check out this idea 99.9% of the time, everyone's going to be like, okay, let's work on it. Like that's, and it is to be that open and that free. It keeps the band together.

Oh yeah. For sure. Ray, do you have a question about instrumentation in the, in their songs? Should I? Usually you do.

I'm just listening. Oh, okay. Well, see, see, see Ray's having a senior moment right now, but normally when we hear something like that, he's like, what about the glockenspiel? Yeah.

Oh, I've given, I've given up on the glockenspiel. No, no, nobody has glockenspiels. We had one, we had one, we had one band that had a glockenspiel in their, in a song.

In a song that they did. Yeah. Do they play the glockenspiel themselves? They actually have one.

I don't think so. I haven't said that in a long time. I've given up.

We can't find it. We can't do it. So when was it, what about, what time was it when you guys all of a sudden decided that, okay, maybe we're destined for more than just the blue scene.

When did you make that, that transition? Well, we're not, we're not knocking the blue scene. I mean, it's like, yeah, we just realized that we had the blues as an influence, but we're not, I mean, we're, we're, we were white dudes from the suburbs, you know, and I'm not knocking that either. I'm just saying we, we didn't feel like we were ever going to be a legit, I mean, John Primer was playing around here at Little Ed.

We just felt our path was like, use the blues as our influence, but write music. And it's probably a few years into the band where we were like, well, the blues covers are great, but I got these ideas, you know? And they just kind of started pollinating together, you know? Right. So there was no, there was really no sense of, you know, maybe we need to reinvent ourselves a little bit.

No, it wasn't that, it wasn't analyzed that much. Okay. Yeah.

It just, no, but I do agree. Like, I think there is a point where you realize like, we're a bunch of white kids that grew up in the suburbs listening to hard rock and, and the blues and Johnny Winter and all the, all of it. And you just let it be what it's going to be, you know? And we're not trying to convince anybody that we're, we're Junior Wells.

I mean, that ain't going to happen. And at that point, you're like, just let it all be what it is. Like, if it sounds like the Allman Brothers or the Stones or Neil Young, or, or maybe if you're, if you're really getting on a groove, maybe it sounds like something off of Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter record from the seventies or whatever.

If it's real and it's what you're feeling and what you want, what you're really going for, then it's cool. You know? Like, I just think that you never want to try to like, be something, like try to fake anybody out on anything. Right.

You know what I mean? Right. Force it. Exactly.

Don't force it. Just do what you do. Yeah.

I mean, being from Chicago, you know, you've got a very, you've got a Southern sound too. So I'm guessing none of you have spent much time, you know, much time on a farm either. Well, that's funny because people will ask us on the road, if we're from the South, like pretty often.

And we're like, no, we're actually from Chicago. And we do have a lot of relatives in the South. Him and I both have, have roots in Alabama, have family from Alabama.

We have had people ask us if we're from the South. Yeah. On the regular.

And we're like, no, actually, no, we're from Chicago and we love blues and we love British rock and we love Southern rock and we love a lot of hard rock and whatever, you know, it's just kind of whatever it's going to be. Yeah. So when you guys started putting this new stuff together initially, performing it, what kind of response were you getting? Oh, well, there's three, there's three songs on the new record.

We've been performing live, one recently. I'm talking about, I'm talking about back from the first album, like when you first came out. Oh, when we started just playing.

Cause you went from like a cover band to actually doing original. Well, we always, we always had a, a ridge. We were never like a total, well, it's hard to remember.

But if you think about it early on, there were only a few, there were only three or four hanging around and the rest were like Chicago blues and whatever. I think the good reaction to the originals is what probably pushed us. Yeah.

Nobody was like, Oh, I can tell that's their song now. It's just, you know what I mean? It just, it blended in with the covers we were doing and just kind of blossomed from there. And you could feel that people like that just as much as the blues covers we were doing.

So yeah, it wasn't, it didn't feel too foreign to go that route. Yeah. And when we'd be playing a blues club, like Buddy Guy's Legends, we would just play, like we every third or fourth song, we might play one of our own songs for better or worse.

Here it is. You know, and I never, I never heard anybody complain about it or say like, No, a lot of times people don't even realize that it's your song. They might even think, Oh, I've heard the song before.

It's like, no, you haven't. And some of the covers we do are kind of obscure, but they think it's our song too. It works both ways.

That happens. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

We had a, we had a discussion one time here a while ago talking about original music. Yeah. And what I said was that I felt that most people are too lazy to listen to new music.

They want to hear what they already know. Yeah. So they don't, they don't want to listen to your new stuff.

That's totally true. And as a, as an artist, when you get on stage, it can mess with you if you think about that, because there are, I mean, even when you go to like big, big concerts, if somebody starts playing something new, like, like by a really popular established classic band and they start playing something new, people go to the bathroom. They're like, I'm out of here.

I'm going to get a beer. I got to go to the bathroom. I think the bigger artists probably have more of a hard time with it than the mid-level.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. They're used to their original stuff from years ago and that's what they want to hear.

Yeah. It's kind of crazy that people go to shows just wanting to hear what they know. That's why I have so much respect for somebody like Robert Plant.

He's a legend, but he refuses. Yeah. Yeah.

He'll play a couple of Zepp tunes, but he'll play them all different. He refuses to rest on that Led Zeppelin legacy. And he pairs up with Alison Krauss.

It's crazy. Yeah. And his current band.

Yeah. And they just make beautiful, like their voices blend and it's just beautiful music. And he doesn't think about like, Hey, I got to make sure everyone that comes to see me here stairway to heaven tonight or whatever, you know, like a lot of respect too.

And yeah, he might be playing the Chicago theater instead of the United Center, but he doesn't care. And as a fan, I don't care either. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And crazy.

Of course, I've never seen Zeppelin live because I was about, I think four when they broke up, but I have seen Robert Plant live. Sure. Me too.

And just from watching old concert videos and things like that of Zeppelin and then looking around at the crowd of the people sitting and watching him now, it almost seems like they're, they're two different fan bases. Like the Zeppelin's fan base wouldn't be there. And then fans of his current music wouldn't go to a Zeppelin concert.

Maybe. And it might be by design, but the music is so different in some regards that I can, and then you got the Zeppelin purists that are like, Oh, screwed. He's not going to do that.

He just doesn't want to be trapped. He's trapped in that cycle, having to do something. Definitely not.

So what, so what happened to you guys? What was the, what was the first thing that happened to you guys? And you're like, Holy shit, we're actually good at this. And we have a chance of making it. What was like that? What you considered to be your big break, I guess.

I mean, as, as much as I, we love playing here. The first time we got invited to Europe. Yeah.

You had to play at a big festival in Spain. That was a big moment for us. Yeah.

We got invited to play at the Esquina Rock Festival in Spain in 2005. And, and the other bands on the bill were Wilco and Deep Purple and Government Mule and Social Distortion and Queens of the Stone Age. And we're like, we're like, what, what? So, I mean, that was like, Oh.

They should have known me in Stillwater band from that movie. No, I know. We had to double check.

They're looking for Steve Waters. Yeah. And I have a moment.

Like stuff like that. Yeah. That was, that was a big turning point.

I mean, since 05, I've been going to Europe and that, I agree with that, but I have one even a little earlier than that. We had a band house in St. John, Indiana, and we got a phone call from someone who had been at the station, who was the manager of the North Mississippi All-Stars and Cracker at the time. His name was Mike Lembo.

And he said, I was at WXRT today and, and somebody by the name of Richard Milne gave me your CD. It was our very first full-length album, Brother to the Snake. And he said, I'm on my way to Milwaukee to do some more radio work for the North Mississippi All-Stars.

And I listened to your record and, and I, I let it repeat a couple of times. And I want to talk to you. I want to know about what you're, what do you want to do? What are you trying to do with this? You know, like, and he, he was someone who worked with an early version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, their, their, their band Mud Crutch back in the day.

And had a lot of history with, with a lot of people, a lot of, he managed a lot of producers. He managed Jim Dickinson, who was part of Muscle Shoals and, and, and, and then the North Mississippi All-Stars who are Jim Dickinson's sons and just getting connected to him. And he did end up managing us and signing us and took us to New York and we played CBGBs and showcased for a lot of labels.

But to me, that was like a big turning point where I thought, well, wow, that was quick. We made, we made one EP and then one full-length album and sent it around Chicago to a lot of contacts. And the next thing you know, I got like somebody like that on a national level calling our band house.

So that was, you agree that was kind of a turning point. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

But I still think we're crazy enough that if we never got that phone call or never invited, we would still be making records and playing because we love it. I mean, we're name dropping right now and all that, but I mean, it's, that's, that's, but we love playing music. That's what, yeah.

Now fast forward to today, would that have happened today? I mean, you know, with, with how music is all electronic and everything's on the internet nowadays, you think you got some guy calling you up and saying, Hey, I got your CD. Probably not. Yeah.

Yeah. Today's different. There's, and to speak in a positive light, there's so many great bands.

I can't keep track. Oh, I know. Yeah.

And, and, and, you know, when the negative of that would be like, anybody can throw something online and then, you know, any, it's cluttered. There's a lot of, there's a lot of static to get through, but no, it was a different game back then. I mean, you were, you're, we were still sending press kits with CDs in them to radio stations and managers and putting flyers under windshields.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I would go to the post office every Monday with a big pile of press kits and the people at the post office would be like, do you think you're going to make it? You guys live in the house over by the railroad tracks, right? I heard, I heard, I drove by there.

I heard a bunch of loud music coming out of the basement. What are you going to do if you don't make it? Continue to annoy you. Exactly.

Play it louder. Yeah. So I noticed here in the first decade of this century, six albums came out.

The next decade, two. Is that right? Well, I mean, are you counting the EPs and live records? Yeah, there's a live record. There's some stuff in the nooks and crannies there.

Okay. You've got some EPs. But to be fair, they've done a lot more international tour.

Yeah. Well, that's what I was, I figured you're probably more on the road. Don't have the time.

That's what it is. I mean, especially recently, just time gets away from you and we're doing, we're playing 150 gigs a year and then you start working on songs and then you get an offer to do this. And then, yeah, I just, we just can't keep up with time, I guess.

That's why you hear things like Stone Temple Pilots wrote interstate love song while they were on their tour bus, you know, kind of thing, you know, when else are you going to do it? There's no rhyme or reason to any of that. Yeah. I would like to put stuff out faster, but we're old school.

We want people to have the vinyl in their hands and the CD in their hands. Not just, I mean, I know it's a streaming world, but there's still a fan base that wants that stuff. If it was all just streaming, we could do it faster, but, uh, I would love to put out material more often, but it just is what it is.

It's just, we wanted to, we wanted to make a splash with this record and we wanted to have those physical copies in people's hands and just time, you know, recording it, mixing it, figuring out the artwork, the marketing, getting it out. It's, you know, and you're like, wow, eight months just went by. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was just a little information seeking and ball busting. Yeah, no, no.

Actually, it's interesting to me. I never really thought about it like that, but. I look at stupid things like that.

I don't know why. No. Well, part of that's probably promoters going, we want to come back to Europe and do this.

We're like, we can't bring you back till you have another record. And we'll be like, well, we better finish our record. You know, there's all kinds of weird incentives.

Yeah. But in 2018, our original bass player left the band and kind of, he, we actually took like almost a year break because he wasn't, he was kind of like wanted a break and then he ended up leaving. And then we got a new bass player who's with us now, Joe Bishop.

And, and then as soon as we got Joe and we were rolling, COVID hit. So 18 to like 22, we're kind of like, it was, it was crazy. But I'm not making, that's the same excuse we all have for whatever productivity we didn't, you know, whatever we didn't have going then no one did, you know, but, but I, it is interesting.

And thanks for pointing it out. Yeah. Asshole.

No, no, no, no. I didn't even think about it. So why don't we take, how about we take a little break here and then you can come back and do a little ditty for us.

Oh man. I wanted to talk more, but that's okay. No, let's talk.

No, we can, let's do it. Let's take a break. This is a special extended first.

Yes, it is. All righty. We'll be right back.

And we're back for the first time tonight, the Steepwater Band. All right. We're going to do the title track from our new record, Down and Divine.

High on a mountain, head in the wind, feelings of grace. She wanna swim deep in a fountain, way up in heaven or some beautiful place. She wanna bask in all the glory, got to hold the love in her hand.

And when trouble lays on the line, she getting down, down and divine. To be free and never to leave, never to want, only to see. Got to follow her heart into faith, into the world she carries away.

She gonna stand right in the fire, she gonna burn away all her desire. And when trouble lays on the line, she getting down, down and divine. To be free and never to leave, never to want, only to see.

Got to follow her heart into faith, into the world she carries away, carries away. She wanna stand high on a mountain, head in the wind, feelings of grace. And when trouble lays on the line, she getting down, down and divine.

All right. Very nice. Very nice.

Now, I think I heard that. Did you guys make a video with that song yet? We did. That's our latest release.

Yeah, yeah. I've heard that before. And man, that sounds way bluesier like that.

Yeah, yeah. That's why I said the blues is still in there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I really liked that. That was great. Man.

So let's talk about Down and Divine, this new album. When's it coming out? It's coming out November 6th. Right around the corner.

Right around the corner, yes. And we have the first two copies. That's right.

We're showing them to everybody that can't see it. We've got the first two copies. I am one of the lucky people that still has a CD player in their truck.

I got one in my car. There's a certain amount of people, hardcore music fans still want CDs. Absolutely.

I know, it's crazy. And vinyls back. Well, for sure.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would have brought you guys that.

I didn't know if you wanted it for sure. But I could have brought it. They're a little bit at a premium.

They're not cheap. We got some orders and stuff. But yeah, I didn't know if you guys... Do you guys spin vinyl? Are you into that? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

You are. Yeah, I've got a vintage stereo system at home that I assembled. Yeah.

Nice. A quickest story on the planet. I had this... Remember Lloyd's? Was it Lloyd's or Laloids? I don't know.

It's Laloids. Laloids, right? So I had this thing when I had to have been like 10 years old. I don't even remember where I got it from.

But I was 13 years old and I took the initiative. But I went to this Hallmark store in a little strip mall where I lived. And I just wanted a job.

And I didn't want to deliver newspapers or be a caddy at the Medina Country Club, right? So I went and said, hey, you need anybody to work the register for you here? And this lady gave me a job at 13 years old working the register. Nice. And even at that young age, I had some carpentry skills because everybody in my family's a carpenter, right? So it kind of rubbed off on me.

So I stopped working the register and then I spent like a month building a bathroom for her, building cabinets and stuff in the back bathroom for her. At 13? Yes. So as I'm telling the story, I'm remembering where I got the stereo from.

Overachiever. It's when she, it's when she, it's the stereo that she had in her store and it's, it's the radio that I was listening to as I was building these cabins in her bathroom. Then I finished the bathroom in the whole bit.

The store was struggling. She says, I've got to close the store, right? We built the bathroom in the whole bit and she's got to shut it down. She goes, I can't pay you.

She goes, but I'll take you out to lunch and you can have that stereo. So fast forward, I get married, move out to the suburbs. I'm working out one day.

There's no radio. So I went home and I got the stereo out of my garage that I still had from the store and we put it on the shelf or in the, in the, yeah, in the, in the weight room. And that became the stereo that we all listened to while we were working out.

Then they, then they redesigned that and they knocked the building down and nobody told me. It sold it. The building came down with my stereo.

I lost this stereo. Oh no. So I went on the eBay and I found an exact one.

Nice. Like it. And from there it just snowballed.

I started buying, I bought a vintage turntable. I bought vintage speakers. I bought a vintage tape deck.

I even have a reel-to-reel. So that's my stereo at home. It's this vintage stereo.

Wow. That is awesome. Vinyl sounds freaking awesome.

I think he wants a vinyl. Get me your address or I'll send it here. Oh man.

Absolutely. We'll get it to you for sure. Absolutely.

I would love it. I would love to have vinyl. So let's talk about this new album.

Yeah. How did this come about? You or me? I talk too much. So our friend, Tony Mack, Tony McQuaid, a longtime friend of ours, musician himself, has, he put a studio in his, in the basement of it.

He lives in like this really cool historic house in the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago. Yeah. And he put a studio in the basement and he mentioned to us that he was doing sessions and asked us to come over, I think under, you know, no pressure.

That's how these things get started, right? No pressure, no guys, you know, and there's no, or no, you know, with no expectation. But of course, as soon as we started recording there, we're like, when we heard some of Tony's mixing and he's a music freak and really thorough with tones and he's really into it and kind of guy that'll stay there and mix your record all night. And we're like, yeah, this is cool.

Let's just keep recording. And it just blossomed into, I don't, I don't remember how many sessions we did. It wasn't one session.

It was several weekend sessions. And we just kept writing and going over to Tony's and ended up having a record. Yeah.

Yeah. The Music Mansion. Yeah, exactly.

Tony was, he's in a, he was in a group called Loudmouth that was on Hollywood Records back in the late nineties that they toured with like Megadeth and Ozzy. Wow. He's got a long history as someone in Chicago that has done a lot of rock, some blues.

He played with Frank Bang and Frank Bang's Secret Stash. Frank was Buddy Guy's other guitar player for a while. So he's really well versed in a lot of music and he's a friend and a fan and someone that's been around us for a long time.

And like Jeff said, it was kind of, it wasn't really planned to be for sure a record. It was more like, let's see what happens. But by all accounts, it came out great.

We've been friends for so long. It was just a good hang. Yeah, it was.

Right, right. But we were pretty productive. It wasn't, you know, we could easily just turn that into a hang and have been lazy, but we stay.

That's the way a lot of these things are though, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you have the songs written before you went in or did you guys just kind of mess around with some stuff when you got there? Some, mostly.

Mostly written, but probably some lyrics getting written at last minute. And then there's a song called Ain't No Love In This Town that popped up last minute. And we were kind of done with the record, but me and Joe went in and cut that one.

And then Eric and Sailors and Joe B and Chris Grove played keys on it, came in and finished that one. That was kind of an afterthought and ended up being on the record. That was the only one that we kind of piecemealed.

Yeah, Jeff and I did drums and guitar. And then, yeah, but everything, the other sessions we did, a lot of the songs that are on there are like literally live right off the floor. Like we were all set up, had amps mic, had drums all mic, and we were just going for it on all of them, except for the very last song, Ain't No Love In This Town, which ended up coming out really cool too.

It was just a different approach. Yeah, yeah. I'm assuming that some of the songs that I heard online from you guys, because there was this, I listened to samples from everything that you guys put out.

Okay. And I noticed that there was one, and I didn't really pay attention to dates or anything like that on it, but I noticed that there was one that had a distinctly different sound than the rest of them. Like production-wise, you mean? Yeah, like it was done on a tape machine rather than digital.

And it kind of had that Black Keys, Jack White kind of sound to it more so than some of the other stuff. I don't know. Because we don't know what era it was.

No, I don't. We've worked with a lot of different producers in a lot of different studios, and every record sounds different. Yeah, but we made a record in 2011 also on the South Side, actually in the Bridgeport neighborhood called Claiva at a studio called Claiva Studios.

It's gone now. But that record kind of, at the time, 2011, the guy, the dude that produced it, him and our original bass player, they were really into the Black Keys. Yeah, so maybe that's it.

That could be, there's a song that's really popular on that album, I mean, in our realm called Come on Down, and it might be either that or High and Humble, one of those. I think it's Come on Down. I think that might be it.

Yeah, it had that sound like we recorded this whole thing on tape, you know? And we did have a tape machine on that. I think we ran through a tape machine, but not actually on tape. Yeah, okay.

We ran through a two-inch tape machine, but the warmth of the machine, but we didn't actually hit the tape, or did we? I don't think we were buying tape at that time. We've done it in all. We were, we were recording over.

Yeah, yeah. These days, it's kind of hard to find a place that's actually going to hit tape. It's, by the time you do three takes or four takes of a song, you need another reel of tape, man.

And that's expensive. It's expensive, man. Yeah, absolutely.

But we love being around tape machines and old gear and old amps and all of the analog stuff, and if we can help it, we want to play as lively as we can, live as we can, and mix as hands-on as we can, not automation, not anything to do with AI or any kind of automatic anything. We want to mix it, what we're hearing, what we're feeling. Right, right, right.

Was there a time where you made a transition with your gear as you decided to maybe not be as much blues and kind of made a change? Because I noticed in some of your videos, you're playing an orange amplifier. Uh, it wasn't that conscious. Yeah, again, it's just like, it's cool.

I probably played an orange amp somewhere, and I was really into it, and I think there was a guy at Orange that was, well, I know there was, that was hooking me up with a good price on Orange, so I was buying Orange amps for a while, and I still love Orange amps, but now I've gone back to Fender amps. Oh, have you really? This is always, you know, you play guitar, right? Yeah, yeah. You get, I don't want to say bored, but you're like, I'm going to switch it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, there was a period where I was playing, but it wasn't like I'm playing Orange to get away from the blues. In fact, if you go on YouTube, in England, Orange was like the backline for everything.

Right. And there's actually a clip of Muddy Waters in like 69, and the whole band's playing out of Orange, because you know it was the backline at the TV studio, and I thought it was the coolest thing. Yeah, it's cool.

So you can still play the blues with Orange, right? Oh yeah, you know, you definitely, you definitely can. No, and I know completely what you mean, because it's like you've got a British-voiced amp. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden one day you're like, man, I miss the American sound. Yeah, the Fender's just, we're getting into gear land though, but the Fender's just have so much headroom. Yeah.

And you plug a pedal into them and they always sound great. And I always end up going back to Fender's even when I get away from them. But Tony had this cool amp called a Sewell that I used on a lot of tracks on this album, along with the Fender.

I have heard, I have heard of those. It's almost like a Marshall, really killer sounding amp. Yeah.

Yeah. When we're in the studio, a lot of times, whatever is there, like whatever's available or there, we're pretty open-minded. Like if a producer or an engineer says, man, I want to hear you rip a lead out of that, out of this UT camp thing, or play this guitar, like we don't really get like, we're okay, cool, we'll try it.

Yeah, we experiment, especially in the studio. Yeah. Yeah.

Just to give it a different sound or a different layer or something like that. Absolutely. Yeah.

Excellent. You mentioned Sewell, isn't it, and this is a segue, it is, because I thought, I saw an interview with Charlie Starr one time when his, his Marshall style amp, isn't that a Sewell? I thought it was. Jarmino or Jermino.

Maybe. I mean, Charlie has played everything. Yeah.

Very well could. Yeah. I saw him on that, what is that, that premiere guitar video or whatever it was.

He was going through his gear or something like that. And he was saying that was his Marshall amp really isn't a Marshall amp. And he said the name of it.

I thought that's what he said, but I don't, I, I'm not sure. And of course I'm saying that because you guys have played with like. Yeah.

I thought he was playing with some other Marshall. We just played, I just gotta say it. We just played three shows with them in September.

Yeah. We played with them in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Virginia. Yeah, it was a blast.

We've known him for years and, and, and crossed paths many times. Yeah. And yeah.

Talk about tone. Yeah. Forget about it.

Oh, it's amazing. All those students get incredible tone. Yeah.

We have a full-time sound guy in Cadillac group. Oh, cool. Eric, Eric Kuhn.

How you doing, Eric? And he actually toured with Blackberry Smoke for a while too. You guys, you guys may have even run into him. I don't know exactly when it was, but you guys may have run into him.

I would not be surprised. Yeah. Long hair pulling a ponytail.

Grumpy as hell. Yeah. That sounds like a typical house guy or something.

I know I'm just kidding. Guys, please give us a good mix. That was a joke.

Yeah. It's like you just described every sound guy. Yeah.

Just kidding. Where's Eric from? He's up North. He lives around, like around the North Barrington area and the whole bit.

Oh, okay. He had the house system and did, did sound for years up at Penny Road. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's, he's got the house system in over at, at Freak's Place over there in Braidwood.

That's still there? Top Fuel Saloon. Oh yeah, absolutely. And Freak's still like the... Still, still the owner in the whole bit.

Yeah. Yeah. You guys should go check it out.

He's there every, he's there every day. He, he does his radio show. His, his studio for his radio show is right there in the bar.

So you go there any day or you just go hang out with Freak and drink a Jesse James bourbon with him all day long. The last time I was there, the last time I was in that building, I saw Stephen Adler from Guns N' Roses doing like a, a GNR set and, and Chips N' Off was playing bass in the band and, and Freak was there and we were hanging out. Steve and I were there and Steve, our, our, our manager that passed away in 2019.

But yeah. Wow. I can't believe that place is... No, it's, it's still, it's still there.

Next time you have some time, go swing by and just go, go check it out. Cause there's always stuff going on there all the time. He's got national acts that come through all the time and they're just like, Hey, we want to play a gig.

Yeah. Yeah. Go, go talk to Freak.

Absolutely. Never know. Yeah.

Yeah. No kidding. Man, I could talk to you guys for, for freaking hours.

I really could. Yeah. When somebody sent over an email today saying, it's just a laid back conversation, hang, there's no live format.

This is it, man. Like I said, this should be the extended, extend-over version. We could sit here until 10 o'clock tonight, just talking music.

Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it's not even that.

Sometimes we get in here and we start talking about fly fishing and the show's about fly fishing. Oh yeah. You never, you never... Whatever you got to do, man.

No, man. But I was, I was... Don't worry, Paul. We're not staying till 10.

Yeah, we're not, man. We're not doing it. We're not.

I'd like to hear another song though. Really? Yeah, why don't you take us out with a song? I want to hear another song. You want to do Pass It All Around? Well, then we'll come back and make sure everybody knows how to find them.

Exactly. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. Let's do that. Cool.

All right. Another new one. Pass It All Around.

Pass It All Around. Yeah. I knew a girl like that.

I'll let you, your imagination do whatever you want to do. It's too easy to fool ourselves and say that we don't care. When in times of losing faith, when in times of doubt, you can choose to run away or you can stick around.

When in motion towards the light, you can't slow it down. This momentum feels right, pass it all around. All those thoughts inside your head, when they take a turn, we don't need to follow them.

That's just a chance to learn. All those thoughts inside your head, they're gonna circle around. Well, you better think twice about what you're putting down.

In times of losing faith, when in times of doubt, you can choose to run away or you can stick around. When in motion towards the light, you can't slow it down. This momentum feels right, pass it all around.

Yeah. That is Steepwater Band, everybody. Wow.

Very nice. All right. So it's pretty easy to find you guys.

All you got to do is do a Google search or anything. But I would say we're not hard to find. But I'm assuming you guys have a website.

I've seen that, right? Steepwater.com. Yep. Excellent. Excellent.

You guys are on Facebook too, I assume. All the stuff to use. Well, I mean, nowadays, I don't know if we're on all the stuff.

There's so many others. But Facebook, Instagram. The major ones.

The major ones. Yeah. So what started at TikTok this summer? How about that? We're a little behind on that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we're all over the age where TikTok is kind of a new thing.

TikTok or SpickSpack or whatever the heck it is. That's probably 10 years old. Whatever it is.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is on TikTok. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I know we are. Absolutely. We will be on there.

Yeah. We're everywhere. Yeah.

We're moving and grooving. All right. So what do you guys, what's the rest of the year look like for you guys? You going to be around? Are you heading back to Europe or what? Well, we're doing, we're playing.

The album comes out on the 6th. We're playing down Indianapolis. And then we're playing the Hard Rock in Gary, Indiana.

Big show on the 7th. And then we go down to Atlanta and Nashville and down into Florida. Okay.

And then when we come back, we have a bunch of Midwest shows. We're playing Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, December 11th. Minneapolis.

Milwaukee. Sheboygan. Sheboygan.

Yeah. All kinds. Rockford.

Rockford. Yeah. Milwaukee.

Bunch of stuff in the Midwest up till Christmas. And then we break for the holiday. Yeah.

And then January 13th, we start in Europe and we go to February. We come home. Last I saw, we come home on Super Bowl Sunday.

Oh, really? I didn't know. Yeah. The 14th of February.

So a month in Europe. A month in Europe, which is UK and Spain, Germany, Denmark, France, Belgium. Yeah.

Netherlands. Y'all on your own? Are you opening for somebody or part of a show or anything? I don't know. No, I think they're all our own club dates.

Nice. Yeah. We're headlining.

There might be some bands we're sharing with, but it's our own thing. Excellent. That goes till mid-February.

And then I guess there's some trip going down to South Carolina when we get home. Yeah, down to South Carolina. And then spring, we're sorting it out now because last we heard, we're going back to Europe in May.

Wow. Wow. Eastern Europe to Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia all of May.

Nice. So busy, busy, busy. Yeah.

November, December, January, February. Well, if we want to see them, we better go to Fitzgerald on December 11th. Yeah.

There you go. Yeah, please. Anytime or the Hard Rock.

And if you guys want to come, let us know. We would love to hang. Straight down I-80 to Hard Rock, man.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Either one.

That sounds awesome. All righty. Cool.

Thanks for coming out, guys. Thanks so much for having us on, man. Thank you.

Yeah. Awesome, man. You guys are both great, man.

Great voices. You guys got this. Thank you.

Thank you very little. Yeah. Thanks a lot.

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.