Infield Fly: Ruhl #2

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. We're going to continue our conversation with Malcolm Ruhl. If you haven't listened to Episode 1 yet, a quick recap of Malcolm's life: He was born in Ohio, moved to Brooklyn, went to college in Iowa, and now he's back in New York about to make his Broadway debut. I mean, I think I left out few details. I hope so. It took an hour, but those are the broad strokes of Malcolm's journey up till now. And now he's going to be on Broadway. Can't wait to see how that turns out. Although I have a pretty good idea. A little insight into the title of this episode, which is Infield Fly: Ruhl #Two. Back in the Pump Boys era at the Apollo, (which hopefully we'll get to eventually in this episode. I'm sure we will.) I can't remember if Malcolm was about to have a child or if we were just speculating on whether if he ever had a child, what the name should be. And we were all pitching the greatest ideas like 'Slide' and 'Golden', but the best one, the consensus in my memory, anyhow, was 'Infield Fly'. Now, for those of you who aren't baseball fans, this was late 80s, we were all into the Cubs. It was the heady days of Ryan Sandberg and Andre The Hawk Dawson. And anyhow baseball was on our mind, so we thought it'd be hilarious if you named a kid infield Fly Rule. Didn't happen. But hey, people like what they like. Anyhow, let's get back to Malcolm. He's going to be on Broadway. [00:01:58] Speaker B: So I don't know, maybe a month later, they called me back and said, we're going to Broadway. You want the gak. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Holy wow. [00:02:03] Speaker B: And I said yes with the footnote. That I'm not Mark Hardwick and I don't know. I can do that. Don't worry about it. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Did you cover Mark on? [00:02:15] Speaker B: I did. When the show opened on Broadway, I covered, actually, three of the Pump Boys because John Foley, who played the role of Jackson, was an internal cover for Jim. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:26] Speaker B: Who was Jim Wan? I think because I had no acting experience and Jim was kind of the spokes. Um, and John Foley had already done so much of this kind of theater, musicians theater, they used to call it back before it was now what they call theater. [00:02:48] Speaker A: Right, exactly. [00:02:48] Speaker B: I mean, it seems like there's so. [00:02:50] Speaker A: Many well, I was just thinking about they're looking for understudies at the Colonnade. Right. That was back in the era when people like, this isn't a show. No one will ever do this. It's just these. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Right, right. And they thought the same thing. I think that when they got a deal to go out and film a pilot in La. There were some of the cast members that said, so we're going to close the no, no, we're going to replace you. Wait, that's not a character. I mean, it is a character, but it's one that built around me. And what I can do, we can do it. And to their credit, they did what they had to do to find those people who were not as easy to find as they are now. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Well, but I've made a living because we're not easy to find. Right? You've spent your life casting the damn show. So you're like, I can't do this. Oh, Broadway. Sure. [00:03:49] Speaker B: And at the time, nothing was written down. So they had each of the people made a cassette of what they sang and played. And I got four cassettes, or four sets of cassettes to learn what each or three, I guess, to learn what each of them played. And so I studied real hard from those cassettes. Eventually, while the show was running on Broadway they hired somebody to do a transcription that became the score that, you know right. Which is still very bare bones and. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Fairly inaccurate of what we were doing. [00:04:27] Speaker B: I found this to the case with lots of shows like that. Now, it's funny. You go through the score I'm not saying Pump Boys in particular, but there are other shows that I've done where you go through the score and you go this is like, note for note. They really did their self edge homework on this. And then you get to a part where it's like it was like 02:00 in the morning and they had to get this done. And it's like, yeah. I think these are the chords in. [00:04:51] Speaker A: The E 70 77. Right? Well, and as we're talking about Mark, heidwig the original LM piano player. He never played the same thing twice. So the tape they transcribed was some version that he doesn't even remember anymore. [00:05:05] Speaker B: But still, it was really good that I could learn one thing that he played. [00:05:08] Speaker A: I did the same thing. I'm like, what is this lick? [00:05:12] Speaker B: They were the same things. [00:05:13] Speaker A: No, whole barred. That groove is so weird. But having the notes was okay. [00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So I took the gig and they had, like, a week, if that, of rehearsals when they moved to Broadway to restage it. And I remember sitting the first or second day of rehearsal they were no longer in this intimate, quaint little fun, little space where the stage was almost the same level as the floor. They were now in a larger theater which was still barely, literally, a Broadway theater by two seats. [00:05:47] Speaker A: Okay? [00:05:47] Speaker B: I mean, they barely made the cut. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Which was what, 600. Yeah, maybe some had to be at least 600 seats to be considered. [00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And the stage was now a stage and it was four foot rise. And so I'm sitting in the back watching the rehearsal and they have stairs coming off the stage which was slightly wasn't a thrust, but it was slightly rounded. But the stairs were at an angle. And Mark goes for the stairs and misses. This is four days before first performance and I am his and he goes down. And I was mortified. And I mean, I was worried for him, but I was also like, did. [00:06:37] Speaker A: They say, Malcolm, jump back up here? [00:06:40] Speaker B: No, he got up and he was, I guess, okay. But as it turns out, I worked my ass off on piano. The tap dance for fakers. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:56] Speaker B: And the accordion stuff for that role. But I never went on on Broadway as LM. I did go on quite a bit as Jackson and I went on a few times as Eddie. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Do you remember your debut performance? [00:07:11] Speaker B: I had a couple of days notice, which was good. And back in those days. So I should also say one of the shockers was it was a Broadway show and like but it wasn't a production contract. [00:07:24] Speaker A: Oh. [00:07:25] Speaker B: It was this new thing that Equity had come up with called a cabaret contract. And hats off to the Dodgers, the producers, for doing this. Maybe none of this ever would have happened if they hadn't but all they had to do was make sure there was a certain number of tables. So the front six rows of theater were taken out and they put half no, maybe a dozen tables. [00:07:50] Speaker A: That's how the cabaret tables came into. [00:07:53] Speaker B: Oh, wow. But it also meant that I did not have to be at the theater. But I also wasn't on a union contract. I would get paid AFM, pension and welfare each time I went on. But being ready to go on and being available and learning all the music was a letter of agreement. [00:08:17] Speaker A: But it was musicians union. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Musicians union? Yes. The pump boys were musicians union. I don't know that this was true of the entire cast. But when they hired understudies, that was the deal they made with the unions. The Pump Boys would be musicians union. The dynasty would be Actors Equity. Crazy. Yeah. So the money wasn't quite what I was expecting. Especially when you consider what the doubles right. [00:08:40] Speaker A: Right. Crazy. [00:08:41] Speaker B: And on stage, talking, singing, moving in costume memorization. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Right. Acting. So was your first show as Jackson? [00:08:52] Speaker B: Was as Jackson. Jim Wan's mama died. I had a couple of days noticed he was going to miss a show or two to go down to, I want to say, North Carolina. So that was great that I had the heads up. But it also was the role that I felt aside from the bass, aside from Eddie was the role I felt most comfortable. You know, I'd been singing and playing on stage and being a frontman for a long time. So it was just remembering the words. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:31] Speaker B: And the biggest thing I learned really early on was whatever you do, don't. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Try to act right. [00:09:38] Speaker B: Just deliver the words. Because that was with the charm of the show. The characters were not caricatures. They felt like real people. And I could model myself off. John foley. Right. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Who never acted. Was it fun, the first performance? [00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. It was nerve wracking. It was fun. I did blow one, so I had some family there and a couple of friends, because for all I knew, this was the only time I was ever going on. [00:10:15] Speaker A: Right, exactly. [00:10:18] Speaker B: But what was really interesting and didn't dawn on me until a few days after this, that I have never used I'm named after my father, and I have never used Junior professionally. I think it was partly originally because I didn't ask to be named that, and I just didn't want to use it. It wasn't any disrespect or any statement. I just thought, My name is Malcolm, and Malcolm Rule, that's my name, so I didn't need the Junior. So on May 20, 1982, malcolm Rule finally made his Broadway debut. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:01] Speaker B: And I know they were thrilled, even though it was not, as Frank Rich said many times, not really a Broadway show. [00:11:09] Speaker A: That's right. So was Senior there? He was cool, yeah. [00:11:17] Speaker B: But again, it was like, that was what he always wanted to do, and it was not what I wanted to do. And at that point, I thought, this is the only one of these things I'm ever going to do. But I started hanging around and realizing that, oh, people are going on auditions, they have agents. Oh, I'm in a Broadway show. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:39] Speaker B: So I started getting hooked up with casting agents. I never got an agent for myself, but I started doing other auditions. And the funny thing is that half of them, I never really saw it, but people would say, man, you and John Foley look so much alike. And that's part know why the understudy thing? But he would always be at the same call I was calling. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Well, that's true of any if you're in a community, you're always at the same auditions with the same people, so. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Nothing ever came of it. I mean, there were some shows that I got callbacks, like I would sing, and then I get a callback, and then I would have to read, and that was it. I'd never hear anything. And one where I had to dance, and that was clearly not going to happen. I all of a sudden sort of more immersed in theater community, and a few weeks before Tom Chapin was playing Jim at the time, numbers were, hey, we're going into summer, maybe it's time to pull the plug. At least however much longer we can run is not worth paying a Tom Chapin or a Loud and Wainwright. The people who had been because Jim Wan was not doing the show at that point, so basically they said, well, why don't we finish? I had done maybe 50 or 60 performances because Jim Juan had actually taken. He would do four show weeks, and so we would do that internal cover thing, and I went on, which was perfect. Four show week playing in all these bands. This was perfect. So they basically said, for the rest of the run, we want you to be Jackson and John Foley will be Jim. I don't know what to this day, I have no idea what prompted me to ask, but I said, well, if I'm going to be cast as Jackson, could you put me on an actor's Equity contract? Because I still had no sense that. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to be an actor, right? [00:13:50] Speaker B: I said, well, we have to have the Equity rep come down and approve and whatever. And they said, but as far as we're concerned, that's fine. I also have a really checkered past with the musicians union, but I'm so glad that I did. [00:14:08] Speaker A: So eventually Pump Boys closes in. Did you was your next thing Chicago, or were you ever in any of the national tour sort of worlds? [00:14:19] Speaker B: I went back, know, playing the bars, playing the clubs. We played some really nice we were like one of the bands I played in was a regular at the Lone Star. Oh, cool. Lone Star Cafe. And we would open up for big names that came through and also on the weekends they had local bands usually, and we were paired very often with Blackwater, which was Ali O'Shea's band. And that's how I first met him. [00:14:44] Speaker A: Was in that doing what was your band's name? [00:14:47] Speaker B: Peachfish Pie. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:51] Speaker B: And for any Tom Robbins fans out there, the author, I'll let you figure it out. [00:14:59] Speaker A: Okay. Because my eyes are crossed just at the title Peach Fish. [00:15:10] Speaker B: Know. Now, the show had closed on Broadway, so there were other productions going on and there was a national tour. I was not asked to do that. Little hurt by that. But there was also around the same time a sit down production in Cleveland and they asked me to do that and also to be the assistant musical director because Mark Hardwick was the musical director, but he was leaving opening night, so it was up to me to keep it in shape to maintain the show. So I took that gig and that was my first real music direction experience, which I quickly discovered one of the reasons that I got that offer was because I knew all the parts, right? So little of it was written down. They thought, well, he can do that. [00:15:57] Speaker A: He can tell you all four people. [00:15:59] Speaker B: What to do, right, and actually do one of them himself. We don't even have to worry about that. [00:16:05] Speaker A: Were you Jackson? [00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I was Jackson, but I learned very quickly that, oh yeah, it's a lot about the music, but it's really a lot about personalities. [00:16:19] Speaker A: It's about oh, actors egos. [00:16:21] Speaker B: It's about playing in a band. Except that now all of the band drama and it's all up to you to fix and the stage manager. But certainly from a musical perspective, if somebody's not playing what they should be playing or not listening the way they should be listening or stepping on other people's, whatever. All of a sudden, that was my job. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Right in between the acting and how long did Cleveland run? [00:16:53] Speaker B: Cleveland ran, I think, four months. And then the understudy who went out on the national tour left or was let go. I'm still to this day not and it was somebody that I knew from New York, but they needed somebody for the second half of the know, they still had like three or four months of dates all over it's. A bus and truck, occasionally a week sit down, but mostly it was one or two nights at a, you know, do I want to go out and understudy? So I found out a little bit. [00:17:27] Speaker A: More about because you were already a. [00:17:28] Speaker B: Broadway star, but actually the tour was going to pay me more money than I'd made anywhere doing Pump Boys yet. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Even as an understudy, because was that a production contract? It couldn't have been if they were doing one or two nights. [00:17:41] Speaker B: I really don't know. I don't know the answer to that. But I was on an equity contract, and at that point, if you came into if you weren't Equity and you were a musician, most of it like Cleveland, the musicians were on AFM contracts but paid local. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:18:01] Speaker B: And if you were already in Equity, you get to pick and so I was on an equity contract from Cleveland onwards, but I decided that at this point, I was still trying to ultimately be a rock star, record my own music and do that. So I figured out I got a corg what do they call them? Poly. I don't remember what it was like. Early SIM, three and a half, four octave keyboard that was small enough you could actually put a strap on it and wear it. And my little tascamp Porta studio. [00:18:44] Speaker A: All right. [00:18:45] Speaker B: And I would actually on the long bus trips we had the births for when we had to sleep on the bus. I would sit in my birth and I would practice and record. There wasn't enough room to do guitar, like, to have a guitar neck sticking out without tripping somebody. But I also sprung for for my own hotel room most places we went so that I could just I said, that's what I'm going to do. That's what I'm going to do on. [00:19:11] Speaker A: This tour and get paid to do it. Did you go on much? [00:19:15] Speaker B: I went on a couple of times, and that was the first time I went on for LM again, it was a death in the family. Bill Swindler was the LM. And that was sudden. I found out, like, day of or maybe the night before, and I went on for one day, I think, a couple of shows, and then they flew Mark Hardwick out because we were in Denver and we had a week there, and I was like, really? Because I'm looking at, from my know, one of the hardest things. And now that I sometimes am on the other side of this, I try to be very sensitive to it. But there's one of the worst things you can say to somebody is you're just too valuable as an understudy. I get it now. They're a week in Denver. I'm on for LM. They got no covers, right? And of know, what am I going to argue? You say, Mark Hardwick, why don't you just let me do it? [00:20:13] Speaker A: He created it, but it is him. [00:20:15] Speaker B: But they were I don't know if this was Mark's request or it just worked out this way, but I thank the universe and Mark and the Dodgers, whoever made this possible. The very last Sunday he left. And I did those last two shows in Denver because I had lots of family and some friends in Denver. So they got to come and see me do it. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Pretty cool. [00:20:37] Speaker B: But I went on as Eddie. I don't think I went on as Jackson, but we had weekly understudy rehearsals. So I got to learn that version of the show from all of those. [00:20:46] Speaker A: Different so then how do we get to, uh I mean, this is called Chicago Musician. We should get here. [00:20:55] Speaker B: Sorry it took so long. [00:20:57] Speaker A: No, it's an interesting journey. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Well, there was a producer in Chicago, Michael Cullen, who got the rights to do the show, really wanted to do the show, was sure he could make it a hit. None of us knew him at that time, but he came to Cleveland. He saw the show in Cleveland and mostly came to Cleveland to see to learn about the show. I'm not sure that he thought he was going to hire any of us, but that was the only production that was running at the time. Or he could have maybe flown out to Spokane and saw the national tour. But he came to Cleveland and we met him and he actually one of the first things he did was offer the stage management gig to the stage manager in and he's a really good friend of mine, Jack Doolin. And he started talking me up, saying, if you're going to do the show, you got to have Malcolm. And to this day, I am so indebted to him for that. And lucky and consider myself fortunate that he talked Michael into that because I'm not sure that would have been the case. He probably would have gone back to the Dodgers, who may or may not have said, yeah, he's the guy, or. [00:22:07] Speaker A: Just would have said, have Mark Hardwick said, you know. [00:22:10] Speaker B: So through a whole bunch of show business kind of things that ended up happening that I still don't know understand to this day. Jack did not get hired to be the stage manager, but I got hired to be the music director. And the Dodgers, who had approval over that, signed off on it. And what was really interesting was that in that production, john Foley, who originated the role of Jackson, was playing Jim, I was playing Jackson. Mark Hardwick, who originated the role of LM, was playing LM. Gary Bristol, who had been the music director of the national tour, who I had played under him in that capacity was Eddie. So here I was now being charged with the director. And then the dinettes were Maggie Lemay, who I had done it on Broadway with, and Susie Von Rainey, who had done she did a production in Texas that I understudied for a couple of weeks. I don't know if that was the first one she had. You know, it was like none of us really wanted to go. We were like pump boys out. And it's funny for me to say that now because I had maybe at that point done a couple of hundred performances, but a couple of hundred performances? Why do people just keep wanting to hire me to do Pump Boys? No, I'm not going to do that anymore. And everybody else was kind of the same way, and he didn't let up. He came to New York and literally badgered us. And really, the truth of the matter was, I don't remember how much negotiating went on, but the bottom line was we were all saying no, but none of us were working. I mean, none of us had a steady gig. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:03] Speaker B: But we didn't want to leave New York again because that's where everything, you know, that's when I learned that you live in New York, in order to pay rent, you got to be out of town. Unless you're doing a Broadway show, a long running Broadway show, you're out of town half the year, but you got that gig because you were in New York. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. A catch. 22. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So ultimately, I don't remember who caved first, but I want to say that for me, when Maggie said she would do it, I said, okay, I'm in. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Were you guys like, friends? There were six of you? [00:24:41] Speaker B: Only that we'd done a show together. We were show friends, but we didn't hang out a lot together. [00:24:45] Speaker A: But you weren't negotiating as a no. [00:24:48] Speaker B: No, we didn't think we were. [00:24:49] Speaker A: I don't know if we were. Yeah. [00:24:52] Speaker B: And didn't know it, but all of us said, because he made this clear, he said, I only need you for six weeks. I only need you to get the show open. Six weeks, that's it. Then you're done. And that was a lot of it, too. It was the fall, and none of us had anything lined up for the fall that fall. And so it was pretty much, which. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Was, as we said, four and a half years. So 85, 80. [00:25:18] Speaker B: So it ran from 84 to 89, end of 84 to the middle of. [00:25:22] Speaker A: 80 to July of 89. And I came into it January of 87 by way of so I did like almost I did two and a half the last two and a half years of that a lot of history there that we haven't even and that only gets us we're not even to the 90s yet, folks. Man, we better do our interval now and then speed dial through the rest of Malcolm's life. So let's take a listen to one of Malcolm's alternate takes of his memorable harmonic bend interval. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Oh, I know there's one time I don't know when they are. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. Today's interval is brought to you by no one, sponsored by no one really listened to by almost no one. So let's do one more good swoosh with Malcolm rule. So try to remember. Let's reminisce shortly on pump, boys. I come in in the middle of this, there's a whole bunch of changes going on. And I remember when I came in, you gave your notice and I don't think they were related, but maybe they were, but you were done. I mean, you were done two years three years before that. You thought, I'm done with pump boys, right? And it was a little bit tired when I was getting there. There was some cast happiness. [00:26:48] Speaker B: It was not the happiest Pump Boys. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Family at that point. That point, yeah, it's still booming, popular three years in and it's one of. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Those things where I go home thinking, oh my God, this show, I can't even believe I'm on stage. It must be horrible. It feels horrible to me for one reason or another and it doesn't look that way if you got professionals on stage. [00:27:15] Speaker A: The audience doesn't know, the audience doesn't know. They think, that must be so much. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Fun and I will say that's a tough space to get away with that because you're right in their faces and we're right in each other's faces for the whole thing, right? And it wasn't like it was horrible, but it wasn't like the cast that first went there came together or even. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Some of the other incarnations. But for me, I was just starting showbiz, so I'm like, hey, great, I. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Heard one of your episodes and I did not realize that Pumpboys was your first professional gig. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Well, see, you thought he'd had no professional contraire. [00:27:58] Speaker B: I was really surprised to hear here's. [00:27:59] Speaker A: What'S funny though, this is what I remember so I come from the La production of Pump Boys that I'm understudying, but the music director there is a piano player, Joel Rainey. I come and I'm going to BOP in for twelve weeks was my gig to come to Chicago transition. I think that's what I was offered anyhow so limited run. I come in and I remember the first thing you said to me, you said, this is a guitar show. [00:28:27] Speaker B: I don't remember that, but I will take your word for it. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Well, but you knew that La was quite different in its arrangements from what you guys were know, I saw the La. [00:28:37] Speaker B: Production because I went out mean, it was different, but I didn't think it was vastly different. [00:28:47] Speaker A: No, but in learning parts, it was vastly different in what you like. So I only knew one version, the one I barely learned in La. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Right? [00:28:57] Speaker A: And I come out to you and you're like, okay, this is a guitar show. Oh, we don't play that here. We don't play that here. But I remember do you have any memories of me? It's all about me on Chicago Musician, I was just enthusiastic, and I was happy that I was thrilled I had a gig. And I was thinking it was I didn't know anything. As one who knew something, I don't know if you knew that I knew nothing. [00:29:24] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. I did not know that. And you did a really good job of pretending that I well, you came across as very professional, and the thing to me was you could play. It was clear that you could play. And in fact, then my biggest surprise was that you were a trumpet player, because I thought, this guy's a pianist through and always. I guess. Now, looking back, I attribute this partly to Joel, but he being your piano mentor, Pump Boys was that you fit in really quickly and really easily, and there was no for someone who had as limited experience with the show before as you had had, as opposed to somebody who'd done six productions, I thought, wow, this is easy. And it wasn't always that way. [00:30:24] Speaker A: No, but here's what I think happened. The luck of the stars in my behalf. I had good training. I'd done a lot of theater. I was an actor. I'd played harold hill in the music man, and I'd done a lot of roles. I'd been on stage a lot. I'd always directed every show in the basement of my house. If I didn't know the professional world of it, I'd done plenty of performing. But my training that even though I didn't know how to play a groove or how to read, I joel walked me through it, and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, I can do that. And one of the greatest notes he ever gave me is like, oh, if you hear something great, steal it. I mean, steal whatever you can if it fits you. He goes, that's what I did with Mark Hardwick. I would watch him play, and I'd go like, how does he do that? And if it didn't work for him, he wouldn't use it. But steal what if it's good? Try know, grab it. And that's especially true in a show that's not written out right. But I remember coming in and going, you know, you're an excellent, you know, playing bass. And it was well, the end of Jason Edwards, but then I don't know Mark Ross, but like all really good singers, players, and I. Remember know, I'd sung in choirs like you, so this the harmony stuff. But it was like it was really easy coming in to a place with people with good ears, so I just thought it was just fit in with your musical part. That's all I knew anyhow, even though I didn't know anything else beyond that. Somehow I fit magically into the slot I was assigned. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I wouldn't say magically, because what you just said, it's okay. I've got some basic ideas here from some really good sources, and I'm listening. And that was the thing that's when I would lose my musical director tempo, temper, is when people wouldn't listen. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Well, but I had the advantage. I didn't come from with a lot of baggage. You had people who'd done it six times, and I'm like, I do this lick, right? I mean, I've run into that plenty of times since, right? Oh, the definitive version is this. It was fun to have no baggage. I'm like, sure, whatever you want, Malcolm. Oh, don't play for eight measures. Great. [00:32:55] Speaker B: That's my did. I think that I had a little bit of by the time you arrived, before Maggie came back, I was the only person in the room had done it on Broadway. So even the people who've done other productions said, oh, we did this. It was almost always presented to me like, what do you think of this? This is something we did, rather than, this is the way I do it. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:18] Speaker B: Which, with one exception, and I'm not going to name names. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Oh, we could name names, but there's too many stories. So let's say that pump Boys. That was great. I mean, I had a ball. We knew at the time. I knew it. It was my first professional show. These don't come along often. The show is fun. We're knocking it out. It's a hit, but we're having more fun off stage even than we're having on stage and hanging out and getting to sing for the Cubs and the Bulls and doing all kinds of shit. But we knew at the time it was a good time. [00:33:56] Speaker B: Absolutely, I knew. Yeah. And that was the first show no, I guess Cleveland sort of we bonded as a family, but to me, that was the first time that had happened for me in a theater sense. Right. And because some of us were there for so long. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah. You had actual families by the time it ended. That was a magical gathering of people through the years. And then we made quite a living since and did it out at Oakbrook, you and I. Oh, my God. We haven't touched any of what we need to cover. So that's how we started, ladies and gentlemen. That just gets us up to 1990 with Malcolm and me. [00:34:42] Speaker B: But that was a lot of my life. [00:34:46] Speaker A: We joke about it, but it's a huge rock for us in the careers that we've had and our entrance into this world, it can't be overstated. That said, I want to say so when that finally was over, and from then till now, you've done a lot of different again, kind of crazy amount of different kind of musical things. You've taught you've music, directed, you perform more. Has it gone in any way as you imagined it would? [00:35:22] Speaker B: No. And the older I get, the more I realize that, wait a minute, I didn't set out to do this at all, right? But I also realized it, but I was open to it. And that's why I've been able to make a living. [00:35:37] Speaker A: I think that's for all these years, for me, it's the Pumpboy's secret. It's like, okay, for Pumpboys, I had to pull together every skill I had ever had and plus add a couple new ones, but just, like, put them together and be open to the fact that I don't know when I'm going to need this, but I better learn it because I will need it eventually and do everything. And it sets you up pretty good for musical theater where you're like, okay, you want me to do what? Okay. [00:36:06] Speaker B: I feel very fortunate that this happened to me because it doesn't happen to everybody. But I was certainly, even from the time I was at Co College, is like, I was so scattered, and I love this and I want to do this. Oh, yeah, I want to do this. What does it add up to? I'm not a virtuoso on any instrument, but I've got all these and then I don't know, it was maybe the second year I was doing Pump Boys, and I went, oh. And when I started as a music director auditioning Pump People for Pump Boys, I went, maybe this is a unique skill set, and there's no way, especially in those days before, once before a million dollar quartet. There was no way to plan for that. There was no way to say, someday I want to grow up and be a musician in a show on stage where we play and sing and we're the actors and tell the story and. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Where I can teach guitar, piano, and bass to the cast. And I mean, I have famously had a high school band director who says, jack of all trades, master of none. And I think it's the opposite. You got to learn everything you possibly can because you don't even know when you're going to need it, and you're going to need it if you want to survive in this crazy business. [00:37:25] Speaker B: If you start that early enough, then you can do the part that okay. So now I have to devote myself for the next two weeks to learn how to play accordion, right? [00:37:36] Speaker A: Or I have to tap dance a lot better six weeks from now. And you can pick out one of the skills and zero in on it. But it sort of opens you to the fact that I can learn that maybe I can't, but you know what? I think I can. And if I got the right people helping me, yeah, I don't know. My problem after Pump Boys here when it closed in Chicago was then I'd only worked with Pump Boys. [00:38:05] Speaker B: That was all of our problems. [00:38:06] Speaker A: I knew no one else after four. [00:38:09] Speaker B: And a half years, I knew nobody in musical theater right. [00:38:11] Speaker A: In Chicago, even though we were an institution in town, half of the actors in town were like, oh, yeah, I always meant to get to see or I saw that, but we weren't kind of part of their community. [00:38:26] Speaker B: And when we opened, certainly, and I didn't get it at the time and I totally understand it now that there was a little bit of resentment. Wait a minute. You went to New York to find this sit down company in know so I think now that there is a lot of underrepresented talent in Chicago that could there's theaters in town that are constantly hiring New York actors. Yes, I understand. There are reasons for doing it, I think maybe but it is it's tough when you chicago is a great theater town and there's a lot of really talented people and it's still easier to make a living doing theater in Chicago than it is in New York. If it wasn't, those people wouldn't be coming from New York to do the exactly. [00:39:19] Speaker A: It's a it's it is a know post pandemic. The theater world is so turned on its ear still that sort of I'm sort of happy that I'm sort of at the tail end of it. I hope not done, but it's crazy now there's so many more. Maybe every generation the challenges just change, right. We think our age was the golden age. We got to do this, we got to do that. [00:39:46] Speaker B: Well, Puff boys, like I said, for people like Frank Rich was okay. Broadway's over, right? It's the end of the golden age of musical theater because this is not musical theater. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Well, Chris Jones is treated much the same, right. Like he'll, quote, the longest running show in Chicago history was Forever Plaid, but never mentioned Pump Boys. He never really liked the so you're you stayed planted in Chicago like you said. You got married, you have two children. [00:40:20] Speaker B: There was six and a half years in Branson, Missouri, in the middle of that right. [00:40:24] Speaker A: With a boy you tried hard on Pump Boys in Branson. On the surface, it sounds like the perfect did. [00:40:32] Speaker B: And in fact, friends of ours all banded together to be producers. They said, we're going to do this show. And I was like, what about? [00:40:42] Speaker A: Right. I want to be part of this. [00:40:44] Speaker B: And I think now, and I've never really talked to any of them about it, but I think that one of the reasons they didn't ask me was because they knew what the stakes were. They knew the risk were. And I had kids, and it was like once I saw what ended up happening at certain parts of that run and how hard they worked on everything. [00:41:01] Speaker A: From it was almost not about the show. The performance of the show was. [00:41:10] Speaker B: I probably had the best Branson experience. [00:41:13] Speaker A: So did you have a good Branson. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Experience with the show? I did Branson itself again, that's another, uh and I got in trouble for saying some things in the Bible Belt that I probably it's a pretty conservative. [00:41:34] Speaker A: I went there once. I never saw Pump Boys because I was on tour with Cats at the time and I was traveling between Kansas City and Little Rock and I drove in what seemed like a car wash for 4 hours, like downpour in the dark. And I was sick, I had a cold. So I was on, like, NyQuil driving. I couldn't see the road through the mountains. That nearly killed Ollie later and made it to Branson. And then Maggie showed me around must have been on a Monday. So there were still shows running and I saw half of Andy Williams and part of the Lawrence Welk Show. I got to see Joanne Castle. But every time every show started with like the national anthem and the flag came down the aisle and everybody stood up and saluted and it's Bible Belt patriotica to me in an uncomfortable yeah. [00:42:28] Speaker B: It was always packaged and any producer at any theater, even the most sincere ones would tell you, we have to do that. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Right. You'll be out of business if we. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Know. So we were not a Branson show in that way, but the audiences, because of what we were musically and because of the whole downhole nature of it and the fact that they felt like they were in the same room with. [00:43:01] Speaker A: Know but in essence, that's not why people go to Branson. They go to see Tony Orlando and dawn or they you go to see a headliner almost like not even almost like poor Man's Old Vegas. It's not Elvis, it's Tony Orlando, you know, or Shoji Tabucci, wasn't he the big violinist? [00:43:26] Speaker B: And actually that's an amazing story because Shoji Tabucci was he started in Branson he was nobody and then became the star of Branson because of his gold. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Pictures in his bathrooms. That's how I understood it. But I never got to see the so okay, so you survive six and a half years in Branson. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah. I also played with the Lenin brothers there at the Lawrence Welk Theater. [00:43:50] Speaker A: They were sisters, the other liberals and the other six. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And our kids went to school with them. Their kids. That's right. [00:43:59] Speaker A: They went to school. [00:44:03] Speaker B: Mean, they were a big family. I mean, there were so many Lenins living in Branson, vladimir and they were all from California. They were people I could talk to honestly. For real? [00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:19] Speaker B: And they would know what I but that was one of my favorite gigs of all time was they had a morning show, which was a thing in Branson. We did a morning show at the Pump Boys Theater for a while, too. But their show was it was all, like, big band swing era music. And they would do four part harmonies. Three brothers. And Gail, who was Bill Lennon's wife. And we were a six piece I should know this because I did arrangements. Six, seven, I think sometimes we were six, sometimes we were seven piece band. And literally, I would wake up, drive my kids to school, show up and play an hour long set of big band swing music playing upright. And they were really good musicians and great singers. I was like, this is pretty cool. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I heard the Lenin Sisters as part of that. Lawrence Wolfgang like, okay. That's real singing. They sound the blend know, related voices. And the were they weren't just TV singers. They were really good musicians. [00:45:29] Speaker B: And their show is I don't know when you saw the show, but I remember going to see it and going it's all the TV show stuff. [00:45:37] Speaker A: I just remember Joanne Castle was sort of garish by that point. The piano was way over amplified, and it's like she almost, like, put her feet on the keyboard, too, in the big climatic moment. So a little disappointing. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Very showy for a big theater as. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Opposed to a TV camera, but funnily. Maggie told me, Joanne Castle, I think she was still drinking at the time. She goes, oh, man, she talks like a truck driver, and she's a wild. And I'm like, okay, there's something perfect about that. Joan Castle was a big star on Lawrence Welk as sort of the ragtime, blonde piano player, at least for certain. Maybe that's how she got her start. But Mark hardwick of Pumpboys loved her. One of her that's where I first heard about her influences. And she was famously on Lawrence Welk show, like, nine months pregnant, playing her ass off on playing if you look at those old episodes, she's playing crazy, ragtime, stride stuff. She never looks at the keys. She's sitting sideways, she's smiling at the camera, and she's a monster. She plays amazingly. So no wonder he loved her. But let's get you out of Branson. Branson. But you knew Chicago was still home. [00:46:49] Speaker B: Is that I came back to Chicago occasionally to music. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:53] Speaker B: Like, I went back to New York. [00:46:55] Speaker A: I mean, you have connections. I mean, they used to do quite a bit of Northlight. [00:46:58] Speaker B: Yep. And that was sort of what the first few things I came back a lot of the like, my first show at Northlight was because of Peter Glaser, who directed the Pump Boys in Chicago, the Apollo. [00:47:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:47:10] Speaker B: And because it was a similar kind of show musically, stylistically. [00:47:15] Speaker A: Oh, that was the Woody Goths. [00:47:16] Speaker B: Woody got three's American song. And also because musicians were on stage. And so that was my first show at Northlight. And then I did two or three. [00:47:26] Speaker A: More. [00:47:29] Speaker B: A couple of which I had to come back for, or at least one of them. I came back. [00:47:34] Speaker A: This was when you were currently living in Branson and you came back? I forgot that part of it. [00:47:41] Speaker B: But, yeah, when we came back, I really felt like I was starting all over again. I mean, most of the people I knew who were doing what they were doing at various theaters weren't doing it anymore. There was somebody else there still even still, even with the Northlight shows, my resume wasn't huge as a music director anyway. Right. [00:48:04] Speaker A: And plus Chicago, I think it's still true. Things get hired a long time in advance. I found this when I finally left Cats in 99. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to stay home and work in Chicago. And like, okay. The next year was already booked, right. So it's like, you got to stay around for a while and keep showing your face to hopefully get something a season and a half out with your name on it. It's a hard nut to crack, so I'm sure that's what you're feeling, too. [00:48:37] Speaker B: And also, I was known for a specific kind of musical. [00:48:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:40] Speaker B: So it was like, if that came. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Up right, then, they call you. [00:48:43] Speaker B: But it was years before a lot of people knew I was back in town. [00:48:46] Speaker A: Well, this is my joke. I stopped touring in 1999. There's still people who say, like, oh, you're back in town. I'm like, thanks. Yeah, we're tight, right? Yeah. 1999, I haven't toured since 1999 and like, oh, you're back in town. Yeah. [00:49:04] Speaker B: But my wife at the time had found us an apartment in Highland Park, which is not probably where I would have picked to live, but we were living in Highland Park. And I said, well, I don't know anybody at Appletree Theater, but let me just go down there and say hi. And I did, and that's where I sort of started. Oh, he's back. [00:49:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:28] Speaker B: And then met so many people. I mean, as small as that theater was and as far from downtown as it was, everybody worked there. Eileen Bovers made a point of getting the and she was a really good arm twister. [00:49:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I worked. Know Hollis worked there. Guy Atkins. [00:49:49] Speaker B: And because of that, it had a reputation where people go, sure, I'll work there. [00:49:54] Speaker A: Really good stuff. You didn't get paid, you know, but people are it was it was pretty smart on Eileen's part. Where do you think you are now? [00:50:11] Speaker B: Retired. [00:50:12] Speaker A: Are you? [00:50:12] Speaker B: No, I'm not. [00:50:13] Speaker A: I mean, you've had a good run. You've done Christmas carol at the Goodman. How long? [00:50:18] Speaker B: Actually, I'm doing it again this year, and it will be my 19th year. I have this thing for long runs. [00:50:25] Speaker A: But not has it been consecutively? [00:50:28] Speaker B: You've done it okay. And are you hey, man, to have a gig that lasts 19 years and you get 42 weeks off a year. [00:50:38] Speaker A: I mean, I usually require 50 weeks off a year. How many directors have you been through then? [00:50:48] Speaker B: 1234, I think. I'm on my fourth, maybe my fourth, I think. [00:50:57] Speaker A: And is any of it your do you have any original music in this? [00:51:00] Speaker B: I do not. Well, not exactly. So for almost the entire time I've been doing it, andy Hansen has composed the music that is composed. A lot of the music is traditional holiday fair that I always try and make sure it's period appropriate, that it would, you know, was is actually from the 19th century or earlier. And so there's a lot of things that happen that aren't original music, but all the original music is Andy wrote. And then I have a lot now that we've both been working together for so long, I do arrange some of it, but the music is his. And a lot of the music for Christmas Carol, a fair amount of it is pre recorded and is played. And so it's virtual orchestras with some live instruments thrown in just to make you believe it's an orchestra. Right. And then there's the stuff that happens on stage, which is what I am responsible. [00:52:05] Speaker A: Like, Maddie's been in that, or was has been. Is. [00:52:09] Speaker B: Dellen is their name now. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:52:11] Speaker B: Yeah, my youngest. And they got the gigs fair and square. There's no nepotism, except I shouldn't say there's no nepotism because this business is who you know, and I realized this a couple of years ago. I can't think of a single gig that I got with a resume that I got from Answering, an ad that I got from and everyone that I did, and I'm talking about things I auditioned for as well. Nothing. [00:52:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:52:44] Speaker B: And so it's really frustrating to young performers to hear that because it's like, how do you cart before the horse? And it's like, I don't know the answer to that. All I know is do the best work you can, and somebody from that show you finally got somewhere down the road, they're going to give you a call. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:53:01] Speaker B: And if you do it, as long as you and I have, that adds up to fair number of people. [00:53:06] Speaker A: Yeah, well and you don't know that the person in the box office isn't the artistic director to be of some place, you better be nice to as many people as you can stand, because everybody around show business wants to be in it, and maybe some of them are going to be in it. And decision makers, I've enjoyed that. I've got know out at Paramount and many other places where I got to be casting to be on the creative side of the table is so, you know, so when we cast Pumpboys out at Oakbrook, it's so interesting. And you wish you could tell the other side that you've been them and what you know, like, relax, do your best. So much of it isn't in your control, but you being nervous. [00:53:58] Speaker B: Don't dress the character unless you're Hollis. [00:54:02] Speaker A: For into the woods. But yeah, you wish you could impart to them. [00:54:09] Speaker B: And the thing I always say is, and some people disagree with me on this, but this is just me sitting on the casting side of the table. Every person who walks through that door, I am hoping, wishing, wanting them to blow me away. Exactly. I'm not sitting there in judgment going, Another one. No, it's like you and that in itself can be exhausting. [00:54:34] Speaker A: It is. [00:54:35] Speaker B: But I also know that it's intimidating people you don't know sitting behind a table. New York, it's actually almost 25 people. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Well, you probably know that this is true. It's more intimidating with a table full of people you do know. [00:54:49] Speaker B: There is sometimes I've been casting when people have come in and told me that, and I'm like, Wait a minute, that's not the person I know. Do the thing you do. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Right. [00:55:02] Speaker B: But for whatever reason, when I'm auditioning, when I audition for people I know I don't have that thing that some people have. It's like, oh, my God. Were they even more nervous? [00:55:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen it. But my feeling now, having seen a lot of people come in, is no matter who they are and what level of realism there is in them coming into that room, they deserve our respect for the bravery it takes to put yourself out there like that. [00:55:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:55:33] Speaker A: Some of the pros don't deserve my respect this day when they didn't do their homework and they come in with the wrong shit. But nonetheless, there is no place in this world for humiliating people and demeaning people. It takes guts to show up, sit out in that hallway with all the other people who are actually going to get the job and then come in and put yourself out there. Yeah, you're right. It's hard to watch people fail or tighten up and clench because we not. [00:56:07] Speaker B: Do their best work. [00:56:08] Speaker A: Right. And especially when you know they can do but it is exhausting on our side, too. Like to present positivity. I don't know if I've been in some of the big rooms for national tour auditions where the person comes in for the chance of a lifetime and the table is all ordering lunch during their audition. And you're like, what is you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, I'm going to have the chicken salad. No, keep singing. It's great. Or they're all trying to get a plane booked to go back to New York and you're like and for the. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Open calls, it's literally 16 bars. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker B: That's barely enough time to they used. [00:56:50] Speaker A: To tell me in New York, Order a sandwich. That's right. It was eight bars. Do you have any goals left of a thing or a thing that you still want to get done in your life. [00:57:06] Speaker B: Yes. So I feel so fortunate to have been able to make a living as a musician and for all the grand dreams, the rock star, and making a living as a songwriter and composer and whatever, that didn't happen. I set out when I left college, and again, I hand this to my mother because I said, if I can't make a living as a musician, none of the other stuff, it's not even worth trying for the other stuff, because I don't want to go for broke and end up selling insurance. I got into this because I love to play music. I love to put notes together, figure out how all that works as an arranger and composer, that's what I love. If I can continue to do that even though I'm doing what someone else is asking me to do in a particular situation rather than what I might have created on my own, that's fine. Because I get to play and I get to sing and I get to be with other musicians. Because these are people who understand me, and these are people who I understand. And we get along. And so if anything bigger than that happens, great. But I want to make sure I can do that first. And I feel like I've been successful doing that. And most of the people I know like you and like, the other people that have been on your podcast, it's the same, like, yeah, you know, would have been cool to do a stadium tour or two, but. [00:58:40] Speaker A: That'S four people on Earth, right? Beyonce taylor Swift pink. [00:58:46] Speaker B: And I also now know more about that world and know maybe that's not what you know. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Because there's a whole nother thing that goes along with that. But the thing that I haven't really done and that a lot of people even don't know about me, is that composition you want to direct, I am a compulsive songwriter. That all the stuff I've written, all the original stuff I've written. Now that I have some financial retirement help, even though I know that I'm never going to retire from music, now I'm going to do the music that I've wanted to do my whole life. [00:59:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:59:29] Speaker B: I can I love that. My whole life, it's been like, oh, I'm on Social Security, I'm retired, now I'm on a fixed income for freelancers. That sounds like a dream. Fixed income, give me a piece of that. [00:59:44] Speaker A: Right? [00:59:44] Speaker B: And so now I'm sort of taking advantage of that. And I just built with the support of my wonderful, lovely wife Jane, we built a soundproof recording studio in one of our garages. We have a house with two garages. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Within spitting distance of O'Hare true. [01:00:05] Speaker B: But we have done all the soundproofing that you would not know that. And it's the quietest place I've ever owned to record in. And even though I lived a half a block from the Apollo. This now is the shortest commute right. [01:00:24] Speaker A: To the second garage. It must be quite a palatial place and dreams of recording. [01:00:33] Speaker B: I have years of things, songs that I've written, pieces that I've written that I want to record, so if I could probably do that with all of the time that I have left, but that's not necessarily what I think I'm going to do. I mean, I also have produced albums for singers and I would like to do more of that. One of the big complications always is finding the budget for the recording studio, studio time. And the truth of the matter is, for a lot of the stuff that I've done and the albums that I produced are like the musicals I do, they tend to be acoustic, they tend to be smaller kinds of productions, and we end up going to a studio where we're paying for stuff that we're not using. And so this studio is built for me and for the kind of stuff I love to do. So now I'm in a position where I can go out and say, I love your voice. If you want to record, come and we'll figure this out. Because I don't have to pay I don't really have to pay musicians either. But depending on what you're doing, you're. [01:01:33] Speaker A: A version of your high school guy with the real to real recording audition tapes. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:40] Speaker A: If you want to do it, I got it. [01:01:42] Speaker B: Right. And I do feel like that as you get older, you do feel like I have been pretty fortunate. You got to find a way to give back, even if it's really driven by some self centered I want somebody to remember me when I'm gone. Well, but it is more than that. It's like, no, I'm in this and we're all in this, because people have said, oh, I like what you do, or you really got talent. And I want to be able to because I see that, why not act on it? Why not be able to help somebody who's maybe young and doesn't know all the people yet right. Or who just had the brakes haven't fallen the same way they fell for me. [01:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a pretty great goal, actually. [01:02:40] Speaker B: And the other part of it is that I feel like once it's really complete and once I'm up and running and everything's, I'm going to start creating stuff that I can't talk to you about now, because I don't know what it is. That's where I want to be again. I want to be in a place where I'm actually really feeling like, yeah, but what is this for? I don't know. [01:02:59] Speaker A: I don't know. It's coming out of me. Right. [01:03:03] Speaker B: That's right. Because I still feel that's really, when we do our best stuff, at least as creatives, that's when we are doing what we don't even plan to do or ask to do. This is what I did. This is what came out of me. [01:03:21] Speaker A: I don't know what it's for. I don't know what its use is, but that's pretty exciting. [01:03:28] Speaker B: So I'm really looking forward to that. [01:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:31] Speaker B: And I'm still doing Christmas carol. Don't know for how many more years. [01:03:36] Speaker A: Well, it's like cats. It's forever, or some version of it is. It's a pretty cool gig. [01:03:45] Speaker B: It is. It's a great place to work. They're on the cutting edge of not only what they do. Before I ever worked on A Christmas Carol, I'd never seen it, and I had an idea in my head of what it was. I knew many people who had played it, and I thought, someday I'm going to do that. But it's not what I expected. It's a play where we go through every word in the script and find things we didn't know last year or ten years ago with some of the best Chicago actors. I mean, I've met so many of the top of the crop of Chicago actors through that gig. [01:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And you think they're slumming it doing Christmas Carol. It's like, oh, no, they're not. It's a good gig, but it's still the work. [01:04:33] Speaker B: Right? [01:04:33] Speaker A: It's still the work. I do like that. [01:04:37] Speaker B: And I have to give a shout out to Larry Yando, who I have learned so much from him, from watching him, and he just continues this is maybe his 15th year, something like that. [01:04:52] Speaker A: It's close to that. [01:04:54] Speaker B: I am blown away by him every single performance because he brings it for straight 2 hours. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah. He's an amazing guy. Well, that's going to wrap it up for us here. I hope you weren't in too much pain. I thought that was fascinating. [01:05:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel weird talking about myself for that long, but that's what I. [01:05:18] Speaker A: Ask you to do. [01:05:19] Speaker B: I know it is. [01:05:20] Speaker A: It's one of the few times you've ever done what I asked you because usually you're the boss and I have to do what you say, so turn the tables. But no, I think it's clear if people can tell we're friends and colleagues for a long time. I hope we didn't talk in too much shorthand. That's only between you and me. But there's lots of those colors. I had no idea. And it tells me about you, or I guess confirms what I know about you. You're an excellent musician. Unusual skill set, really, like a wide set of tools. And I'm glad that you've been utilized as much as you have in this town, even though it should be more. But you've also found your way into some you've made up situations. You're like, I can do that. You need a chair player, a banjo player, and a single read oboe player, and I can arrange that. I think that's an amazing set of and you have the temperament part of the reason Pump Boys was so successful here was you were cool even when you were living your 36 hours day. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Days, which we never got to talk about that. [01:06:42] Speaker A: That's its own Pump Boys, its own episode of podcast. In the shortest version of that, malcolm went through a phase when I was doing Pump Boys with him at the Apollo, where he decided that a 36 hours 36. [01:06:56] Speaker B: I mean, I experiment with a few different things, but I landed on a six day week, which comes out to 28 hours a day. So instead of 24 hours day, I have a 28 hours day. And if you used to sleep for 8 hours, now you sleep for I can't remember the math. [01:07:17] Speaker A: Let me say this, it was hysterical. So Malcolm might be showing up for the 08:00 P.m. Show, but it's his morning. [01:07:25] Speaker B: That was the best part of that experience. Because we had matinees, there was only one way that would work, like one literal one way. And even then I ended up abandoning it when we had to rehearse somebody new. But my favorite thing was wake up, eat breakfast and walk into the Apollo on a Friday night, which was always so electric. And to have that be the first thing in your mean. And the whole point of the idea was that if you wake up at a different time every day, literally a different time, like nighttime, like four in the morning or two in the afternoon or whatever, you see something in the world that you never see on a daily basis. Everything looks different. [01:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I bring it up now because it reminded me that you think differently about the world in a lot of ways, like that that I've always really liked. And I think it makes you open and a really great creator because you're willing to try to intentionally look at things differently and not worry about whether I think you're the weirdest guy I've ever met. Well, maybe you did, but it's a great trait as an artist to me. [01:08:43] Speaker B: That'S what being a creative artist is all about. And I do those things to make sure that I'm in my H show week or in my teaching schedule or in my just day to day life. I look for those things to make sure that I keep that part of myself engaged. [01:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm glad you're super engaged for the next part of your so. [01:09:08] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Sean, for having me. This has been great for me because I've talked about things today that I haven't thought about for a long time. And sometimes when you tell some version of your life story to somebody, you all of a sudden see it in a different way and you go it's interesting. [01:09:26] Speaker A: Sometimes interesting to say it out loud. [01:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:09:30] Speaker A: But in any case, that's our journey for today. Please check out all my previous episodes of Chicago Musician this season. And before yes, do that and come back for there's a whole season. I think pretty soon you'll be able to see the theme that I've landed on that even I didn't know until about this week that I've come up with a theme for this season. So you'll have to keep coming back and see. Whoever can figure it out will get a prize. Although I have no budget, am I eligible? Sure. Yeah. Even the players get to guess what the theme is, and then we'll reveal it at the end. So keep listening to the whole season and see if you can be our big winner. Thanks for listening to Infield Fly rule number two. I want to thank my guest, Malcolm Rule. It's been a real pleasure. This is Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Sean Stengel. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you again next time, but say something that we won't use. [01:10:42] Speaker B: Okay, so when I first.