Steve Roberts

Speaker 1 00:00:02 Welcome to Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. Today, I'm lucky to have, as my guest a guitarist who effortlessly wafts his way between a multitude of genrii. . . genres? genrii? genriis? I don't know what's the plural. Anyhow, he plays a lot of different kinds of music and people pay him to do it! You're gonna love him. It's Steve Roberts. Speaker 1 00:00:45 Welcome to episode six of Chicago Musician, which is actually episode eight, except I started doing those cadenzas and then I was trying to renumber them and give the cadenzas their own numbers. And so this is actually episode six, although it's the fifth interview and it's the. . . WHO CARES!!! Whatever. Today is May 5th, 1952. Oh, wait. It's not 1952. It's 2022. But some people seem intent on taking us back to the fifties. What kind of whacked-out, leaky kind of country are we becoming? Yeah, I'm talking about the leak of the Supreme Court decision that pretty much indicates they're gonna overturn Roe V. Wade. And, uh, I don't want to go too deep into the third rail of American politics here, but what. . . where to even start? I mean, it's clear 'the right' has for ages and ages wanted to get rid of abortions and you know . . . 'babies they're killing babies.' No, they're not. Women have the right to decide what they can do with their own body. You don't want an abortion??? Don't get one!! Speaker 1 00:02:17 I'm still struck by that picture from a few years ago of some cabinet meeting or a meeting of a committee of the Senate or something, um, deciding on reproductive rights. And it was a room full of old white guys. Of course it was!! Ridiculous. And now we have the Supreme Court, if this holds and it's certainly going to, um, at least three of them lied directly to the Senate committees on their interviews saying, 'oh no, it's, uh, it's settled law.' 'The precedent is set. We're not gonna overturn. . .' You know, everyone knew they were lying and now they're gonna prove that they were lying and there are no consequences. Just like there seems to be no consequences for the big orange turd, for anything he does or has ever done. So it's disgusting. It's really disheartening. I don't understand why the people crying 'Freedom! FREEDOM!' the loudest are intent on taking away freedoms from anyone they don't agree with. 'You can't read this book!' 'You can't teach American history!' 'You can't marry who you want!' 'You can't have an abortion, cuz I don't want you to have one!' I mean, uh, it's. . . I'm gonna have to steal a Trevor Noah quote here. I just thought it was great. He says, "And isn't it amazing. After all these years of the right screaming about the threats of Sharia law. turns out they were just jealous?" Speaker 1 00:03:59 Yeah. It's the same!! Foisting your views onto everyone else because, what? You know so much better? These are difficult, hard, hard, hard decisions about your own body. And if it's that hard of a decision, I think the person who OWNS that body should be able to make it. And no matter how passionate you, their neighbor, feel about what they should or shouldn't do, it's still a woman's choice what she wants to do with her own body!! For corn's sake!!! . . . Ah, get me off of this. But uh, I'm really distressed and angry about this whole thing. And um, the attempt to demonize people who aren't like you and don't believe the same thing as you. Okay. Freedom?? Let others have freedom as well. Wouldn't that be lovely??!!! Enough for today. Alright, time to get to my guest. He's a fantastic guitarist, banjoist, mandolinist and all of the "lists" that you can think of with four to six strings, his name is Steve Roberts. Welcome. Speaker 3 00:05:35 Hey Shawn, thanks for having me. Speaker 1 00:05:37 Here. It's great. I'm excited to ask you a few things about projects that I know that you did. And some that I witnessed and some that I didn't. First, I wanna sort of start back a year or two. I was in New York and you were in the pit playing Tootsie Speaker 3 00:05:54 Right, right, right. I completely forgot that I ran into you. Speaker 1 00:05:57 Yeah. I make quite an impression on people, but I mean you were playing "the Broadway!" mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. I know that you played the outta town of Tootsie here in Chicago. Speaker 3 00:06:08 I played it. Yes. In Chicago Speaker 1 00:06:09 And then how did you get to New York with it? Cuz that doesn't usually happen? Speaker 3 00:06:13 No. It's happened a couple times for me. You know, Julie and I have been talking about, had been talking about, 'do we wanna stay here? Do we wanna relocate?' Speaker 1 00:06:25 So Julie's your manager. Speaker 3 00:06:26 Julie is my wife. Speaker 1 00:06:28 Of course she is. Speaker 3 00:06:28 Yeah. Uh, and sometime manager, you're right. And I have to be honest, you know, I've played a bunch of those pre-Broadway tryouts. Yeah. And they're usually a whole lot of fun and a lot of talented people involved. And Tootsie was an extreme example of that. The music director, Andrea Grody was awesome. You know, David Yazbek. Everybody involved in the show was great to be around. And the rhythm section that came into town, Spencer Cohen and yeah, everybody. it was great. Speaker 1 00:07:06 I just that. . . Speaker 3 00:07:06 Great. It was a situation that I thought, 'Hey, I could see doing this some more.' Speaker 1 00:07:11 So are you a member of 8-0-2 union in New York? Yes. Okay. So that's the only way that happens, right? Kind of. . . ? Speaker 3 00:07:21 Well, you do have to be a member of 8-0-2 to play there. Right. Speaker 1 00:07:25 So did they ask for you? Is that how that worked? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. And how long did it run? Not quite a year, right? Speaker 3 00:07:33 Yeah. You know, we opened, we started previews. . . hmm. . . mid to late March? I can't remember the dates and uh, opened early April and it closed January 5th, I believe of 2020. So it was not what we expected. It's really, truly one of the funniest shows I've ever experienced. In the pit, the crew set up a, a video monitor of the stage for the band, at least for our side of the pit, which was the string quartet and rhythm section. And I've never had that before. Sometimes they'll set up a video screen for the drummer Speaker 1 00:08:25 Or something. The assistant conductor, playing keyboard. Exactly! Yeah. They don't usually, if you're in the pit, ladies and gentlemen, you usually see none of the show. Speaker 3 00:08:33 Exactly. So, uh, and we watched it and we were laughing from day one to the last day of the show. There was stuff that was cracking us up. So it was, it was pretty entertaining and it was a great bunch of people. So it was an ideal experience. Speaker 1 00:08:51 Yeah. I saw it. I have to say I'm a big David Yazbek fan. He wrote the score of course, with that. He's also written The Band's Visit, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and a few others in there. Really a wonderful composer. Lyricist. Is he the lyricist? No, he's the composer, I think? Just composer? Speaker 3 00:09:17 Composer, and I would be willing to bet that at least he co-wrote the lyrics Speaker 1 00:09:23 Probably. Yeah. I have to say though, I don't think Tootsie is his finest score. But I do think it was a funny, funny show. And I remember sitting there watching it going, cuz I think I was there in December or something. And I knew it was closing mm-hmm <affirmative> , and a closing sooner than people thought. And I'm like, it is a downright shame that there is not a place on Broadway for these shows anymore: which is an entertainment that's a lovely evening. It's not the greatest show ever. It's not a bad show. It's a good solid Broadway show. Yeah. And if you're not a mega hit these days, you close. And this was pre-pandemic of course. Speaker 3 00:10:05 Right. Yeah. It's it was a shame. It was a surprise. But I think early on we all sort of got the feeling, oh, this isn't gonna be the big hit that people just assumed it was gonna be, but that's Broadway! You never really know. It's such a gamble. Speaker 1 00:10:22 Well, speaking of the surefire hit that you were gonna do after that, tell me about The Princess Bride. Speaker 3 00:10:28 Well, I have to throw in one David Yazbek Story. Speaker 1 00:10:32 Okay. Please at least. Speaker 3 00:10:34 My opinion of him skyrocketed when there was a point, I think in the Chicago run where he leaned into the pit and he was talking to the horn section. Maybe it was in New York. I can't remember. I don't have a great memory for things, but he leaned on and he, he said about this particular song, he said, I really think Sun Ra when you're playing that. And I thought a composer who is familiar with Sun Ra and wants the horn section to sound like Sun Ra is amazing. He gained so much respect from me and probably from everybody there. and they made it sound like Sun Ra. They took it out!! And that's what he wanted. It was like, so out there, played by brilliant players. So it was pretty cool Speaker 1 00:11:23 I love that. They knew that and could do it. Speaker 3 00:11:26 Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 00:11:27 He's a hip guy. I should do a whole program on him. Because he's been in bands. He's wrote for Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? I mean, he's been a television. . . he wrote for David Letterman. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:11:41 As a writer! He was a comedy writer. He is an amazing composer and he's a band guy. You know, he played in bands. He plays a lot of different instruments. I think he plays cello and he'll learn whatever he has to learn, uh, for what he is, what he's composing. And he just kind of picks up on it. He plays really great guitar. Speaker 1 00:12:02 I pretty much hate him. <laugh> um, but yeah, you told me he's like also like the coolest cat in the world. He is. Speaker 3 00:12:08 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:12:09 So they were doing a reading of The Princess Bride. I'll preface this by saying when I've been in music theater workshops about writing musicals through the years, everyone and their mother and their brother and seven cousins are writing a musical of The Princess Bride. None of them would ever get the rights for it, but everyone was writing it. It's the dream property of movies that people wanna make into musicals. It seems perfect for that. So David Yazbek was writing that, right? Speaker 3 00:12:43 Yes. Speaker 1 00:12:44 And you, and they did a workshop. What was the. . . Speaker 3 00:12:46 They did a reading of it. Disney was putting it on Speaker 1 00:12:52 Disney? I've heard they're a good company. Speaker 3 00:12:54 They're kind of, they're kind of big. They have a few problems in Florida right now, but I . . . Speaker 1 00:12:59 To say the least, Speaker 3 00:13:00 But other than that, I think they're an up and coming company. Speaker 1 00:13:03 Although I heard that Ron DeSantis is up for the lead in Hunchback, The Musical Speaker 3 00:13:09 <laugh> Yeah, you're probably right about that. Speaker 1 00:13:12 I think he'd be really good. In ONLY that. Okay. Back to, Speaker 3 00:13:16 But he wrote the music, uh, they had a book, two book writers and I'm sorry, I can't remember their names. I should. And uh, we did a reading of it for the Disney execs and it was a blast. It's funny. They had a great, great cast involved. Speaker 1 00:13:40 It was in New York, right? Speaker 3 00:13:41 Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it looked like it was a sure thing. It was gonna start up, then that pandemic thing hit. Speaker 1 00:13:51 I've heard of that. Yes. Speaker 3 00:13:52 And everything kind of changed. And I won't go into any details cuz I don't know most of them and I don't even really wanna talk about where it led, but um, if it happens now, it's gonna be a different Princess Bride. And we'll find out what that is. But I have to say that some of the songs he wrote were going through my head for a month after this reading, you know, you couldn't turn 'em off. Speaker 1 00:14:22 I think he writes really hooky things. Yeah. I love The Full Monty. I really love the score for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Mm-hmm <affirmative> both of them! Full Monty was a big old hit. Yeah. And, um, and actually The Band's Visit, which is very ethno-musical, middle Eastern vibe. There's some really beautiful tunes in Speaker 3 00:14:44 That. It's incredible Speaker 1 00:14:45 Hypnotic. Yeah, Speaker 3 00:14:45 Exactly. Speaker 1 00:14:46 So, yeah. But enough about him.Let's come back to you, uh, down to earth. Okay. So are you from Chicago? Speaker 3 00:14:58 I'm from Chicago. Grew up in Oak Park. I was born in San Francisco, but, you know, grew up in Oak Park from the time I was two or three. Or as I like to say, I was raised in Oak Park, I'm still working on the growing up thing. Ah, Speaker 1 00:15:13 So nice. Yeah. What did your parents do for a living? Speaker 3 00:15:18 My mom worked for the phone company. There was a phone company, just one Speaker 1 00:15:25 That's right. Ma Bell. Speaker 3 00:15:26 Yeah. So she worked for the phone company from maybe the time that I was six or so. She had some odd jobs before that, worked at a department store, that kind of thing. And uh, my father sort of vanished. And uh, so. . . Speaker 1 00:15:43 He was a magician? Speaker 3 00:15:44 He was a magician! Speaker 1 00:15:46 Yes. Do you have siblings? Speaker 3 00:15:47 No, I, I did discover about 15 years ago that I had a half brother and a half sister. So I went out and met my half brother. I was cautioned to not try and meet my half sister. Speaker 1 00:16:01 Okay. Seven drink story there! Right, right. So, okay. So you and your mom. . . what brought you to Oak Park? Do you know? It's quite a leap from San Francisco. Speaker 3 00:16:17 Yeah. Let's see. . . her parents lived there. Yeah. I don't know all the details. I was two. Speaker 1 00:16:26 Oh yeah. Well, I remember a lot about when I was two. Yeah. But not 'the housing thing'. Okay. So did you stay then and go all the way through high school and stuff out in the 'burbs? Speaker 3 00:16:36 I did. Yeah. I went to Oak Park River Forest high school. Then I moved, did a little bit of moving around and then ended up in the city. Probably when I was early twenties. Speaker 1 00:16:50 And so when did you start playing music? Did you start with guitar? Did you have piano lessons? Did you do other things? Speaker 3 00:16:58 You know, I started with the flute because that's what was offered in. . . you know, whatever age we are when they say 'here's an orchestra in school and here's, you know, pick an instrument.' Speaker 1 00:17:12 I was just talking about that in my last Cadenza. I think it's third grade, at least when I was in elementary school. Yeah. And you'd go and, I still remember, I somehow picked trumpet and I got a trumpet. But my brother picked French horn and they're like, 'no, that's too hard. You start on trombone.' And I remember the kids who just got assigned something and they're like, 'I don't wanna play trombone' or 'I don't wanna play flute'. Right. But most kids, we don't know. We just. . . they handed me a flute. Now I'm a flute player. Speaker 3 00:17:43 I used to date a girl many, many years ago who played tuba and her band director suggested or forced her, I don't know, to play tuba, uh, because she was the shortest person in the class and he thought it would be cute Speaker 1 00:18:04 To have somebody play like, oh, Speaker 3 00:18:05 I think that's at least that's the story. Speaker 1 00:18:07 A visual punchline. Yeah. That's a good reason to have an instrument assigned to you! Yeah. So, okay. So you played flute Speaker 3 00:18:14 For a short period of time. I, you know, the Beatles were coming out, the Beatles were out. Okay. I was all about, I wanted to play guitar, but there was no guitar offered. Eventually, I got a guitar and started taking lessons at the Lyon and Healy out in Oak Park. Okay. Speaker 1 00:18:32 You know, that' music store. Right, Speaker 3 00:18:33 Right. Exactly. Speaker 1 00:18:34 Okay. I mean the sixties, this is the sixties, right? Beatles. Yeah. So I mean, talk about the dead center of 'guitar world'. I mean, when all music became guitar based or seemed like it. Yep. So, yep. So were the Beatles your influence? Speaker 3 00:18:54 I think they were, yeah. Uh, they certainly inspired me to, to pick up guitar and mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, I thought about that all the time. Speaker 1 00:19:02 Did you have a good haircut? Or weren't allowed that yet? You weren't there mopheads? Speaker 3 00:19:08 Speaker 1 00:19:08 Right. Speaker 3 00:19:09 Yeah. It was tough. Speaker 1 00:19:12 Back when we had good hair, we couldn't even do anything good with it. Argh! Speaker 3 00:19:16 But you know, by the time you jump on the bandwagon of what the hairstyle is, it's already outta fashion. That's right. And then when you look at the pictures, they look stupid. Speaker 1 00:19:26 So yeah. I mean, I was like three years after having the Farrah Faucett big, long hair look. Speaker 3 00:19:32 I wanna see the picture Speaker 1 00:19:32 All feathered. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:19:34 Please show me them. Speaker 1 00:19:35 I mean, I had the Dorothy Hamel wedge cut for a while. and it's like, okay, why? Do you think I'm gay? How did I have those two haircuts and okay. Speaker 3 00:19:44 Nobody guessed. Did they? Speaker 1 00:19:45 No, no one guessed. No, even to this day. I just revealed it on my podcast. Yeah. Sorry folks. Speaker 3 00:19:50 I'm looking at a life size picture on the wall right here Speaker 1 00:19:54 Of me. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:19:55 In the Dorothy Hamel cut. Speaker 1 00:19:56 Yeah. Frightening!. I won't even turn around and look. Okay. So you played guitar. So you're taking lessons. Do you get in a band then? Do you like to make a band with your neighborhood kids? Speaker 3 00:20:07 Yeah, it was all about being in a band. Okay. I was never the guy, I was never the, you know, here I'm playing guitar, let me play you some songs and I'll sing some songs. I was never that guy. There are a lot of people like that, Speaker 1 00:20:21 You know? I know many. Speaker 3 00:20:22 Yeah. And I was never that guy. I always just wanted to be in a band. It was about the camaraderie, the hang, the family of being in a band, whether it was like in somebody's basement or somebody's garage. And, uh, I suppose some of the bands I in probably rarely played gigs, but it almost didn't matter. We all wanted Speaker 1 00:20:50 Playing in the garage was. . . Speaker 3 00:20:51 That's what it was about. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:20:53 That's cool. Did you play with any that actually had some musical merit? Or did that matter? Speaker 3 00:21:02 Oh yeah, especially one.I think the people I played with in grade school, uh. . . no, it's hard to remember. I don't think they went on to pursue music. But in high school, certainly I went to. . . I went to high school and played in a band with a bass player, Mike Gorman, who went on to. . . he was in a band, Off Broadway, and, uh, PE I think PE band, I kind of get those two bands confused, but they were both became pretty PO uh, popular power, pop bands. Speaker 1 00:21:39 Did you play for like school dances or anything? Yeah. Speaker 3 00:21:42 Oh, that whatever. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:21:44 All cover tunes, Speaker 3 00:21:45 Coffee houses with the band, with Mike Gorman, it was all cover tunes. And right after that, I joined a band or put together a band with a couple friends that was all original music and everything I did after that. Uh, and what was I maybe 15 or 16 or something? Uh, after that was just all original music. So I, I didn't, I didn't go down the path that a lot of people went down, which is learning a lot of tunes, learning a lot of, you know, I kind of, I, we wrote music, we played it, it was kind of vibey. We hung out. Speaker 1 00:22:27 I know a lot of guitar players who just, all they did was play Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young songs. Yeah. Because they were really cool guitar, you know, and Speaker 3 00:22:35 I was not that guy. Okay. Speaker 1 00:22:37 No, Speaker 3 00:22:37 Nice. No, back then. I think I was, uh, oh, early pink Floyd. Procal Haram. Uh, you know, when Zappa was appearing, uh, that kind of thing. It was more like a, what was on the fringe at the time. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> not super popular. Speaker 1 00:23:00 Frank Zappa was definitely yeah. . . pushing the envelope always. Speaker 3 00:23:05 And the Pink Floyd that I. . . the version of that band was before they became, they got huge before they had big hits. Speaker 1 00:23:14 Um, so, and did you also sing in these bands? Speaker 3 00:23:17 I sang some background vocals. Speaker 1 00:23:19 Okay. Yeah. Never like the lead guitar singer guy? Speaker 3 00:23:23 No. And probably left the background vocals back then in high school. Speaker 1 00:23:27 So did you write the songs or did you co-write them with your mates? Speaker 3 00:23:32 Yeah, I think we co-wrote them. We'd jam. We'd do what was involved in hanging out in a basement and jamming. Right. And probably got a lot more of that done than the actual jamming. Speaker 1 00:23:46 Okay. Kind of the point too, also. Speaker 3 00:23:48 Yeah. And we'd, you know, somebody would come in with an idea, uh, this one band I'm thinking of the drummer was the main singer and he'd come in with some lyrics and bits of a song and we'd we'd jam and come up with stuff. Speaker 1 00:24:03 So that's cool. I have a nephew now out in Seattle and he's got a band called Daphne and I think it occurred because he and his roommates also musicians during the pandemic were getting bored and they would just jam and come up with stuff. And eventually it evolved into some good songs. Yeah. And they're like, we could do something with this and they have, it's kind of, uh, it reminds me of the seventies because everyone had a band then. Yes. And it's one of my main regrets. I was never in one, I'm one of the few people who grew up in the seventies who doesn't know any chords on a guitar. Speaker 3 00:24:39 And when you were that age, like in high school, what were you, what were you playing? Speaker 1 00:24:47 I was a geek. I was in band and I had piano lessons. I have an older brother who, God bless you, Randy. . . you weren't the hippest older brother ever. So we didn't listen to a lot of popular music. My parents weren't radio listeners or so I was, yeah. On KVBR in Brainerd, they would have a top 40 show or the top 10 on Saturday nights or something. And, you know, everyone listened to the same top 40 back then. Right? And you would have the countdown of the most popular songs. Sure. And I knew them because we all knew what was popular in that day. Cuz there weren't that many choices. But I wasn't a hip kid and I really missed the boat on the, on the band thing. I was a reader Speaker 3 00:25:34 Uhhuh Speaker 1 00:25:34 <affirmative> You know, I could read music. I learned how to play piano and read. That, and I played trumpet. So I was a band geek. Not a rock band geek. Right. Regular band geek. Right. Which I remained for a long time. And it's kind of ironic, my first professional gig was Pump Boys & Dinettes where I had to learn my entire piano part. . . was just chord charts. I had to learn how to groove. Play grooves, play fills, play. . . and I was not an ear player. I was, I went to college then and I studied trumpet and I, you know, played classical whatever. And I, yeah, I didn't play jazz, which I should have. So yeah, I wasn't in that world. Speaker 3 00:26:16 So quick question: So in Pump Boys, they gave you chord charts. Did you have to come up with more elaborate parts based on what basic court part? Speaker 1 00:26:25 I mean, I learned it Speaker 3 00:26:26 From that's a big stretch. Speaker 1 00:26:27 Yeah. I was an understudy, first out in L.A. And so the guy that hired me, Joel Raney, was/is a fantastic piano player. And he would show me like this, the outlines of a groove. But he's like, 'oh, just make up this.' And I'm like, okay, what does 'make up this' sound like? So most of what I got was from him and listening to the show and finding out where it fit. You know, I could play this stuff. Yeah. But the stuff, you know, but him playing different stuff every night, I'm like, okay, I gotta do the, so when I came to Chicago, it was a different show, um, a different production with different kind of musical grooves, a little bit different. And Malcolm Ruhl was the music director and he goes, 'this isn't a piano show. It's a guitar show here in Chicago.' I'm like, okay. So I had to figure out a different place to live. Uhhuh. And it was a really great education really quickly. I mean, looking back now, I'm sure I was terrible at it. I learned what I learned and I kind of stayed there for three years. Mm-hmm <affirmative> because I didn't know any better. Speaker 3 00:27:31 But what you learned on the west coast was a different approach from what was going on in Chicago. So you learned two different versions of how to play Speaker 1 00:27:41 Joel on the west coast was the music director: pianist, Malcolm in Chicago was the music director: guitar player, bass player, Uhhuh. Speaker 3 00:27:51 It's all about guitar. Speaker 1 00:27:52 It's all in control. Yeah. So yeah. Cool. To get different. And then through the years I've done it across the country with other people who have other grooves and, and that's ended up being the fun of Pump Boys. You kind of write a part of it yourself. You arrange. You're given the raw materials, but you're given the freedom to do a different turnaround. Or 'we do this with a more of a two beat feel' and a, you know, right? And it's a mix of gospel and country and swing and all kinds of genres. So, I was a very naive, you know, band member then, but boy, I got a great education! Sure. Just thrown into the fire Speaker 3 00:28:33 That's how you do it. You do it every night or most nights of the week and you just get Speaker 1 00:28:38 Out there. Yeah. I don't know if I succeeded, but I didn't drown, so yeah. And that's not a fire metaphor, is it? I was thrown in the fire and I didn't drown ??! Speaker 3 00:28:46 And here you are! Speaker 1 00:28:47 Here. . . I am talking with my own podcast. So all other instruments were gone for you now except for guitar related things? Speaker 3 00:28:57 I just played guitar and it was mostly electric guitar. Speaker 1 00:28:59 So when you're in high school, then did you have a music program? Speaker 3 00:29:05 No, they didn't even have a jazz band then. Or they might have put one together at some point, but you know, uh, I was just about playing in these basements and the little gigs we did. It didn't matter if there was a music program. I didn't know anything about that. Speaker 1 00:29:24 But you did go to college, right? Speaker 3 00:29:27 Eventually. Speaker 1 00:29:28 And did you study music there? Speaker 3 00:29:30 Eventually? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:29:32 Yeah. But bands first Speaker 3 00:29:34 It was about bands. And then, you know, by the end of high school, uh, I was, oh, I was still playing guitar, but I think it's sat under the bed most of the time. And I was just interested in other stuff. Speaker 1 00:29:52 Like, Speaker 3 00:29:53 I won't go into it too much. Okay. You know, but it was certainly things that took me away from music. Mm. And eventually I kind of went, 'huh. You know, maybe I should go to college.' And eventually I ended up studying music. But in the meantime, I had a job at the post office out in River Grove. I had a job making stain glass lamps at a place called Stain Glass City in Chicago. Stuff like that. Speaker 1 00:30:25 You're like the Tiffany of guitar players in a whole different way. Speaker 3 00:30:27 Yeah. If you had walked into Stain Glass City, you wouldn't maybe describe it that way, but yeah. I'll go with that. Speaker 1 00:30:35 So did you actually do the physical part of like cutting glass and soldering it into. . . ? Speaker 3 00:30:41 Yeah, it was piece work. The job that I had, the glass would come to me already cut, and then I would put it, I'd take lead pieces and, and solder it all together. Speaker 1 00:30:54 Oh, so you were breathing lead fumes?? Yeah. That explains Speaker 3 00:30:57 a lot. Doesn't it? Speaker 1 00:30:58 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:30:59 There were characters at this place. Yeah. And many of us were musicians. But it gave us the opportunity to make some money. Right. And also to be incredibly irresponsible <laugh>, uh, to show up whenever we could make it. And that Speaker 1 00:31:21 Was your job? Show up when and Speaker 3 00:31:22 If you can make it? Great. I mean, we were getting paid piece work, so, you know, they'd take whatever they could get from us. But there were some wonderful musicians who worked there and, uh, just some other just characters. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:31:40 Fantastic. I had a really shitty job like that. Well, it wasn't even as good as yours. I worked after college. I had no money and I wanted to go to New York with some friends. So I'm like, I gotta go to one of those temp agencies and get a job. And even I had standards. I turned down one where I was supposed to go to a meat packing plant and be the one who like sprayed down the guts and everything. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna do that. But I did make weed eaters at Industrial Plastics in Minneapolis. Really? The midnight to 8:00 AM shift. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:32:15 Speaker 1 00:32:15 Like opening a door, pulling out the plastic mold thing. It was just thing. And, and I did that until once I got my fingers caught in the mold and I'm like, okay, what am I doing here? I'm, you know, I use my fingers in a very specific way and it shouldn't be for making weed eaters. So that was my brush with greatness. So, um, I love that you're making lamps. So how does making lamps lead you eventually to college? Was it sort of like, 'I guess I should go.'? Speaker 3 00:32:45 Yeah. I think that was what it was. There was a point where I decided I'm, you know, I had to kind of pull things together and figure out what to do. Speaker 1 00:32:54 I'm still working on that. Speaker 3 00:32:55 Yeah. Still working on it. But, you know, went to school eventually, started studying music. I ended up at a, uh, I was interested in jazz at the time. That's what I wanted to work on. Speaker 1 00:33:09 So, so did you, because you played flute, did you know how to read music Speaker 3 00:33:16 From taking, uh, from taking guitar lessons more than flute? And I, I don't know how long I took guitar lessons maybe two years. So I wasn't a brilliant reader, but I was probably a better reader than, uh, a lot of the other guitar players back then. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, which was not, you know, today people are in college and, you know, reading all the time and, and the skill level has come up considerably. But, uh, back then, I, I guess I, I thought I was a pretty good reader for a guitar player. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, putting it that way. But, uh, so I ended up at a, at a college, uh, called governor state, which was way out in the south suburbs mm-hmm <affirmative> because they had a jazz program, sort of an award winning jazz band. Uh, they had toured Brazil, won some festivals and they also had a new music, uh, electronic studio based composition department. So that was, you know, the two of those, that was what I was interested in. So I, uh, ended up out at that college eventually after skipping around, um, I had a composition teacher recommend I go to this place. And so I got, uh, couple degrees Speaker 1 00:34:26 So out there. So I had a composition teacher. How does that occur when you're, when you were just wondering, Speaker 3 00:34:34 I, I seemed to go to some colleges that folded, so I was going to the American conservatory of music for a while, and I was teaching guitar for percussion it's it's complicated. And I'm not really sure I understand it, but there was a, a percussion instructor there who had a music studio where he had guitar teachers and, and I had gone there taking lessons, and then they hired me as a teacher. So I taught there, started going to the American conservatory, took counterpoint and all that stuff. And then it was not what I wanted to do. It was very traditional mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so one of my teachers said, here's this place you should check out. Okay. So I went out there and I think that was the beginning of my, uh, using air quotes, you know, professional music career, cuz I met some really amazing, uh, musicians out there and started playing some jazz gigs and writing some, you know, Wacky music in the, in the electronic studio. Speaker 1 00:35:38 And so did you end up writing more music then? Speaker 3 00:35:41 Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's more of what I was about at the time now I don't write much of anything, but for a few years, uh, that was my, my thing. Speaker 1 00:35:51 Yeah. I wanna explore that a little bit more when we come back, we're gonna take a short break, but, uh, Steve and I will be back after the already legendary interval. Speaker 3 00:36:24 There's a lot of resonating going. All of that other stuff is, you know, it would go away if I muted all of that, I suppose it's just two notes of, So you wouldn't hear all that resonating if I kept playing Speaker 1 00:36:46 Well, a major, second stolen from a much more elaborate Aude or piece. Um, but nonetheless serving as our interval today, it's sponsored by our normal sponsor. No one that's right. Chicago musician is ad free and revenue free, but that's another issue let's get back to Steve. We were, um, sort of in the middle of a discussion about, um, bands he was listening to in the nineties, mid nineties. Speaker 3 00:37:26 Yeah. I, I fast forwarded about 25 years <laugh> to like the, the bands that I was listening to in the, in the mid to late nineties. And I'm thinking about it because I just watched a documentary of one of 'em, uh, a couple days ago. It's like, there's a similar vibe to the music from 19 that I was into from 1970 to 1995. Speaker 1 00:37:52 So who were the 95 bands that were in that? Speaker 3 00:37:55 Um, well anyone who knew me back in, you know, mid to late nineties, the band morphine was my favorite band ever. I saw them six or eight times, uh, in Philadelphia, in Minneapolis, in Chicago. Speaker 1 00:38:15 Um, and so I don't know morphine. So what kind of band were they? Speaker 3 00:38:18 Morphine was a band that was, uh, made up of a bass player, mark Sandman who played a two string bass with slide two stringing electric base with slide. Uh, Speaker 1 00:38:34 So like a, on his, would he wear something on his finger and, yep. Speaker 3 00:38:38 Yep. Okay. And, uh, baritone, sax player, Dana Colley. Uh, he played sometimes he played tenor, but it was mostly baritone and, uh, a drummer, Billy. I'm gonna forget his last name. Uh, it was just a tri and mark Sandman sang Speaker 1 00:38:58 And no Speaker 3 00:38:58 Guitar, no guitar, no nothing. Speaker 1 00:39:01 So what was it about morphine that got you? Speaker 3 00:39:05 It, I think it was, it was the attitude. It was, uh, it was swamp rock. It was low rock. It was low, all low instruments. Uh, it was swamp. It was, it was pensive, you know, mark Sandman wrote some, uh, lyrics that made you wonder there was, there was nothing that slapped you in the face and said, here we are, it was all something that brought you in very introspective, um, like music Noah, uh, Speaker 1 00:39:38 If did, did he sing, did they all sing? Speaker 3 00:39:41 Sing? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, the reason why I'm thinking of them, uh, in addition to just talking about pink Floyd was that, uh, a friend of mine, Rick Vick just the other day mentioned that there was a documentary out about morphine that had come out of, I think it might have just come out a month ago. So I sat down and watched it the other night. It took me right back to all those times going to hear them and the music completely held up over time. You know, sometimes, you know, you hear bands that you were, you loved back, you know, 20, 30 years ago and you go, boy, that was crap. And not the, not the case with them. That's cool. And, and they, they created the music through just kind of jamming. That's what I learned through the documentary. Uh, they'd come in with some ideas and they'd just sort of jam and they'd come up with stuff and they'd record everything. And, uh, mark had a lot of lyrics that he'd try out. And there was, Speaker 1 00:40:36 So you said there were several bands in the nineties that had seventies, early seventies vibe, Speaker 3 00:40:43 Not I, or calling it an early seventies vibe is probably not the description, but there was a similar kind of an, an attitude. There was a whole trip hop movement. Um, Speaker 1 00:40:59 What D what is trip hop? Speaker 3 00:41:01 Yeah, it's, it's, it's hip hop. That's slowed down and it's kind of eerie vibey. Sometimes Portis head was a, a big band in that, uh, genre, a massive attack, a DJ named tricky. It all had the feeling of people doing lots and lots of drugs and sitting back and recording. Uh, okay. You know, PJ Harvey kind of, you know, this sort of dark attitude, emotional without, without hitting you in the face with their emotions, Speaker 1 00:41:39 You know? So did you, you're listening to this, but did any of that become what you were playing? Speaker 3 00:41:48 Nope, Speaker 1 00:41:49 <laugh> no. <laugh> okay. So then during that time, what were you playing? Speaker 3 00:41:53 Yeah, uh, at that time I had already sort of fallen into the musical theater world. Speaker 1 00:42:00 Okay. That's a talk about swamp rock. Speaker 3 00:42:02 Yeah. You know, and I did have, uh, there were a couple different bands that I might have been in back then, but we were already discovering that we were approaching an age where it was harder to book gigs. You know, we were dealing with, uh, with club owners who were maybe half our age or, or, or people who booked the music into the clubs. And we'd the thought of groveling, uh, for someone for a gig that paid $20. Uh, and the person would be half my age was not that appealing. Speaker 1 00:42:36 So you thought it would be better to be in musical theater? Yeah, Speaker 3 00:42:39 <laugh> I was, you know, I was making a living doing musical theater at that point. Speaker 1 00:42:45 Well, uh, yeah. Well, I found that with a lot of, of jazz musicians, it used to be, you would never take a musical theater gig until jazz musicians who don't get paid, anything in this country, at least for the most part found out like, oh, regular paycheck. Yeah. You know, with benefits. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:43:04 It, it kind of, it kind of changed my life. Uh, cuz I, I was doing a lot of jazz gigs back then. Uh, there was a band I was in with Jim gall Reto and uh, Paul Mertons and Lloyd king, a bunch of other people called portable Quinte that had kind of a residency at orphans, I think a couple Thursdays a month. Speaker 1 00:43:27 Oh orphans. Yeah. On Lincoln. I missed that place Speaker 3 00:43:31 Those days. Speaker 1 00:43:32 Yeah. Speaker 3 00:43:33 Those were the days Speaker 1 00:43:34 Everyone played there. Speaker 3 00:43:35 Everyone. And you played right down the street. Yep. Speaker 1 00:43:37 Pump's was on the end of the block or two blocks down. Yep. And it on Lincoln right over there by DePaul. Speaker 3 00:43:42 Right. And everybody would hang out at, there were probably what, seven, eight clubs within walking distance of one another. Speaker 1 00:43:51 Uh, there was Irish eyes, there was the V Speaker 3 00:43:55 The V Colette was across the street. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:43:58 Um, this was an eye opening thing for me coming into poboy. So you of pump boys. So, you know, having a new to Chicago, new to musical theater and really, really new to bands and bars. Yeah. And you know, all those guys played in bands and, and country swing or Western swing. And, um, I had a, I drank a lot of beer and I wasn't a beer drinking person. So, Speaker 3 00:44:23 Um, it was, it was a wonderful scene. I, I think, uh, you know, that was the era and those were the places where I met dozens or hundreds of other musicians in town. And it was, it was a real, uh, it was a real family. Speaker 1 00:44:39 Yeah. I've met a lot of, of theater musicians now who are like, oh wait, you were the drummer in that I saw you guys back then had no idea who you were. But I remember talking to you back in the day. Yep. Yeah. It was a that, does that scene exist at all anymore? Speaker 3 00:44:56 I, I don't think it exists to that extent. There are some other clubs where people hang out. Yeah. And, but Speaker 1 00:45:04 I mean, I just taught, heard Oche at Marty's mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, which he sounded like fresh as the Daisy Ollie was in poboy with me, but he has a, a long history of countries, Western swing out, out country. Do you play at Martys? Speaker 3 00:45:21 I have a gig. I I've played there. Uh, the number of times, not regularly, I have a gig coming up there in a few weeks that maybe Speaker 1 00:45:30 Oh, cool. What kind of gig? Speaker 3 00:45:32 It's uh, there's a, an amazing guitar player singer in town, Phil and Gotti. He's been for a couple decades playing clubs. He does a lot of album nights. Uh, he's a Beatles authority. Speaker 1 00:45:50 What is, what does album nights mean? Speaker 3 00:45:52 It means, uh, they pick an album by the stones or by Elvis Costello or, Speaker 1 00:45:58 And they play the whole Speaker 3 00:45:59 Thing and they do the whole thing. Yeah. Okay. So it's, it's kind of a thing it's popular thing. And Phil, it is one of those guys. He, he knows every song. He, he remembers songs easily. He's a wonderful singer guitar player. And he's been on that circuit for some years. And a lot of people know him. He's incredibly talented. We did, uh, uh, during the lockdown, uh, he was one of the people that, uh, I brought together to play some porch concerts at our house. And, uh, it was Jim McClowsky and, and Phil and Rob Kissinger playing bass Speaker 1 00:46:35 And, uh, crap. That's a Speaker 3 00:46:36 Lineup right band. And, uh, we played in front of our house. We played in front of Jim's house, um, a few other neighborhood kind of things, but, uh, Phil's amazing. Anyways, Phil is, he's recorded an album, a record and he's doing a record release night. Speaker 1 00:46:57 Okay. What's the record called? Speaker 3 00:46:59 I don't know what it's Speaker 1 00:47:00 Called. It's Phil Bill's new records. Speaker 3 00:47:02 He just sent me the MP three S the day before yesterday to start learning. Okay. So I don't even know. I couldn't even tell you Speaker 1 00:47:10 The, are you on the record? Speaker 3 00:47:11 I'm not on the record. Scott Bennett in LA produced it. He's a former Chicago one and it's incredible. It's really, I've never heard Phil's original music before. They're it's fantastic. Um, so I'm really excited about doing Speaker 1 00:47:26 It. What day is that at? Martyr's Speaker 3 00:47:27 I'd have to check my calendar, but it's at the end of may. Okay. I wanna say it's the 28th, Speaker 1 00:47:33 Like a Memorial day weekend, Speaker 3 00:47:34 Right before that? Speaker 1 00:47:35 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Check it out. People. Yeah. Phil and Gotti. Yeah. With featuring Steve Roberts. Speaker 3 00:47:41 And, and unfortunately, I can't remember the names, the rest of the names of the musicians. Well, Speaker 1 00:47:45 That's why field left to go and see it. Yes. And Speaker 3 00:47:47 Hear it find out who's gonna be there. Speaker 1 00:47:49 I was really impressed. Just this last weekend, hearing all and gang, it sounded great in the room. Speaker 3 00:47:55 It's a wonderful room. Speaker 1 00:47:56 It really, yeah. Mix it really well. I don't know who the mixer guy was, but Bravo, Speaker 3 00:48:00 Well, Ray Quinn who owns the place. I think he still does. Um, you know, I haven't been there in a few years I guess, but, uh, you know, he's a musician and so the people he gets in there to work, if they're doing sound, I'm sure they're gonna be really great sound people because Ray has some ears and I think Ray does sound as well. So, you know, it's, Speaker 1 00:48:23 I'll have to come and check that out. Yeah. Um, so how, how did you get into musical theater? Speaker 3 00:48:29 That's a good question. Speaker 1 00:48:31 Oh, thank you. Finally. I got 1 45 minutes in now. I got a good question. Speaker 3 00:48:36 You know, cuz I was, I was basically playing in some pretty creative bands. There was a band I was playing called called D section with uh, oh, we were all pretty young, but, but Mark Walker who played drums and pat Fleming who played was the other guitar player. They were both, I don't know, 18 or 19 or somewhere at the time Steve Hashimoto was in the band. Um, a wonderful singer named Robin Kay, who passed away, uh, a few years back. But, and it was, it was the kind of band where people would come into the club and they'd turn around and leave. And we, we considered that, uh, the badge of excellence <laugh> because if we could get people at the west end or, you know, wherever we were playing the Avalon, I, I can't remember all the places back then, but if people would come in and go, what the hell is this? Then we were on Speaker 1 00:49:33 A, so, so tell me what the hell was it? What, what was the turning around motivation? What, what made them flee for the exits? Speaker 3 00:49:43 Um, Robin was intense. You know, if somebody tried to get up on stage, she would've knocked them off on the floor and they would've like run away with their tail between their legs. Uh, she did not take any crap from anybody. And uh, and, and there was that, uh, there was that vibe if you walked into the place and you saw her on stage and we were, we, we were taking it out. It was not pleasant music, uh, to listen aggressive. It was really aggressive. It, you know, I won't say it was punk because punk was a little more simplistic, but you know, we had, you know, our influences were like king crims and you know, maybe the punk thing, maybe some kind of Zappa stuff, captain B Hart, absolutely. Uh, captain, Speaker 1 00:50:34 But you guys love playing it. Speaker 3 00:50:36 We love playing it and it was intense and, and you know, that's what it was. And Speaker 1 00:50:42 How did it pay the bills? Do Speaker 3 00:50:44 You? Well, that's a good question because it didn't at all. Yeah, Sean, uh, yeah, it really didn't, but it was a whole lot of fun. And we had dreams of stardom, even though we never made any concessions to make the music, uh, accessible to, Speaker 1 00:51:05 To anybody could've made it more commercial Speaker 3 00:51:07 In air quote. And that was the attitude back then, you know, nobody really was in, in the punk scene. Post-punk I guess we might have been, we just played what we needed to play. It just came out and if people wanted to pay us cool. Not a whole lot of people wanted to pay Speaker 1 00:51:24 Us. So who were those theater people that wanted to pay you? Speaker 3 00:51:26 Well, so there was a point where I needed some money. Speaker 1 00:51:31 Yeah. I, I call that Speaker 3 00:51:33 Life. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I needed some money and um, I had, I was doing a lot of different gigs as we all do. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, somebody calls for this wedding or this kind of whatever it might be. And one gig I went out on was a, a fairly large band or small orchestra, whatever you want to call it. Um, and there was a conductor doing the gig. Oh, it's the Jeff awards. It was the Jeff awards one year. I, I don't remember the year and there was a conductor named Kevin stits. And for me it was another gig I went in, I read the music, I went home, I got a paycheck. Um, and Kevin, it turns out was I wanna say up and coming, but he was already more coming than up on his way up. And, uh, he was music director at the Marriot, uh, Lincoln Shire theater. And he called me a couple times about playing some shows up there because he liked my playing from this one gig. And I didn't really, I, I was playing in a lot of bands. I was doing a lot of stuff. I couldn't see like playing eight shows a week doing something, but at some point I really needed some money <laugh> uh, and I called him, I probably and said, Hey, if you need somebody and anyways, they ended up hiring me and I ended up loving it. Speaker 1 00:53:00 Were you a MUN? A union musician? Speaker 3 00:53:03 I was in the union. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, you know, I was doing some union work, some non-union work, uh, whatever, Speaker 1 00:53:11 Whatever did you play jingles or anything? That was the era of Speaker 3 00:53:14 Jingles. I, I was on the outside of that scene, you know, I would do some once in a while. I might do like one a month kind of thing, but not like the, uh, the Craig macres or the Richie Davis's Speaker 1 00:53:27 Who did seven a day. Speaker 3 00:53:28 Yeah. Those guys, and those guys were just monsters of doing that coming in. And, you know, I would do them just often enough to, to keep getting called, but to stay seldom enough that I was really nervous every time I'd go Speaker 1 00:53:41 In there and not making enough money to live on. Speaker 3 00:53:44 Right. Exactly. Speaker 1 00:53:45 So do you remember the first show you did out of Speaker 3 00:53:47 Marriot? Yeah. Yeah. I played, um, uh, the Wiz, Speaker 1 00:53:53 Oh Speaker 3 00:53:54 Yeah. The Speaker 1 00:53:54 W pretty fun way to start. Speaker 3 00:53:56 It was really a fun way to start. And, uh, and I didn't, well, oh, one of the things that Kevin told me, which I didn't realize is that you could sub out, so I could still, I could play the Wiz and I could take off and do whatever other gigs I had. I didn't realize that. And so that was kind of life changing, getting a steady paycheck was life changing. Right. Um, it, it also, uh, it forced me to get some things about myself together. Um, some responsibilities, some, uh, some stuff I won't go into. Well, I, Speaker 1 00:54:39 You know, but I think it's, I don't think it's an uncommon struggle if you're coming from the gig economy band stuff, and suddenly you're on an eight show a week schedule. Yeah. There's no kind of like I overslept, oh, I forgot about the mat. NA I'm oh, I was late. Sorry, you won't last, Speaker 3 00:55:02 Right, Speaker 1 00:55:03 Exactly. You will be done. Exactly. Speaker 3 00:55:05 And you know what? It, as much as I didn't wanna do those kind of shows when I was first called for them, when I finally said yes, and it was a bit out of desperation. Right. Um, and I enjoyed it, but the benefit came over the next year or two, where as you just described, there were, there were a whole lot of reasons where I was not the guy who would be able to make it there, uh, regularly. I had to, not for that show, but a show a little bit later, I had to have a sub on hold for the mat NAS because there was a pretty good chance. I wouldn't be able to make it. Um, and I would call up my sub and he would try and talk me. And he said, Steve, you can make it. You can, you know, I won't go into details about that, but it was, it was life changing. And over the next year or two, I turned some things around and, uh, you know, here Speaker 1 00:56:05 I am. And so now, um, is musical theater, your main source of income? Speaker 3 00:56:14 I think it was my main source of income until, uh, you know, the last few years. Speaker 1 00:56:20 Wow. Yeah. <laugh> okay. A pre pandemic. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:56:24 But I've done a, a few shows at this point. Speaker 1 00:56:28 You've done some good ones. Yeah. I mean, I've done. Have, am I wrong? Have we only done rent together? Is that Speaker 3 00:56:36 I think, Speaker 1 00:56:37 Or did one incarnation of wicked? Did you play wicked ever? Speaker 3 00:56:41 I played wicked the last time it was through town. Speaker 1 00:56:44 Yeah. So that was you, Speaker 3 00:56:45 You were on there, were Speaker 1 00:56:46 You? Yeah. Yeah. But I think of all the times we've crossed paths. Maybe that's the two we've played together, Speaker 3 00:56:53 Maybe other than you, or I maybe subbing on something, right? Yeah. But that was the, the, Speaker 1 00:56:59 But you've played some biggies book of Mormon comes to Speaker 3 00:57:02 Mind. I played book of Mormon. I played Speaker 1 00:57:04 First national of rent. Speaker 3 00:57:05 Yeah. Um, I played totsy showboat LA LA MIS was the first, you know, big downtown conducted show. I played. Okay. And, uh, and Kevin, yeah. Kevin stits was, and is one of the better conductors. Oh, he's I've ever worked Speaker 1 00:57:27 With, he's a brilliant musician. In fact, this is his second appearance already in Chicago musician. In an earlier episode, we were talking about Kevin. Oh really? I think he's LA based now. And he like conducts at the Hollywood bowl. He's still got his fingers in a lot of Speaker 3 00:57:41 Pots. Well, I, I have a story because, uh, we just played a show together. Uh, I was outta town for about a week, week and a half playing a show with him. Okay. And, uh, it was a reunion of sorts. It was, it was wonderful. Speaker 1 00:57:56 What kind of show? Speaker 3 00:57:58 It was a, he has moved out of New York. Um, he's not doing the show week Broadway thing anymore. And he just, he flies around he'll conduct, like say at the Hollywood bowl, he'll go out with Christian Chenoweth from time to time, he's doing a, a Sondheim concert with the Chicago symphony in August at RIA. He does those kinds of things. You don't have to live in the city to do those. Right. Speaker 1 00:58:26 And, and he's brilliantly qualified for them. Even when I first came to town, he was established. And, and I know from playing auditions back in those days, you would get a Kevin stits chart. Like he would take show scores, but fix them up and make them readable. And you're like, oh yeah, this is so, so great to play. Yeah. So he, he's a brilliant musician. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:58:48 I, I can't rave enough. And, uh, I learned to follow a conductor from him. He's Speaker 1 00:58:53 He a very good conductor Speaker 3 00:58:55 Get gets you spoiled because most conductors, they might be fantastic, but he's, you know, he's a step beyond a lot of, yes. A lot of the conductors, cuz that he's done that for decades. No, Speaker 1 00:59:08 There are a lot of really good music directors who are not good conductors mm-hmm <affirmative> so stepping onto the podium is a different equation. He's both of them. Exactly. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I'm speaking of conductors, who are the best ones you've played with with the Chicago symphony orchestra? Steve? Speaker 3 00:59:22 Well, Muti is pretty damn good. Speaker 1 00:59:24 I've heard he's he's proficient. Um, Speaker 3 00:59:27 I played, uh, Moler seven with, uh, I think Bernard did you, um, who was wonderful? Um, Speaker 1 00:59:39 I was at the, the CSO this season, the, the day after, or the day that Bernard high tin passed away. Oh. And he has a wonderful connection to the CSO. So they played, um, a B uh, something in G that pretty classic thing that in memory of Bernard high tin and a cop, obviously it wasn't rehearsed, but it was so heartfelt. Yeah. And musical. And um, and you could tell it, it really was personal for those people on the stage. Speaker 3 01:00:12 They truly did love, uh, working with him. And, you know, he, he had a I'm for a guitar player. I work with a lot of conductors for a orchestra musician, not at all right. But my, uh, my take on it was that there was just something about, he conveyed the music through very little motion or physical motion. And you just, you, you felt it from what he was doing and you knew how to interpret. It was almost like mind reading where he would just convey it. And you just, you would play beautifully also because he appreciated the beauty of the musicianship. And when you feel that from up on the podium, you just wanna make it more beautiful and it makes you wanna play at your highest level. And he was that guy Speaker 1 01:01:05 It's way harder to do than you think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. How do you, how did you first play for the CSO? Do you Speaker 3 01:01:15 Remember? Um, I think my one of my first, well, first of all, I sort of got a reputation as somebody who can follow conductors from doing a lot of shows. Speaker 1 01:01:29 And that list for guitar players is short. Yeah. Or it was, Speaker 3 01:01:33 It was Speaker 1 01:01:34 It's better now. Speaker 3 01:01:35 And when I started doing shows, it was all about the con, they were the, you know, the miss Sagon, the, the lay misses, the show boats, you know, it was, they were conducted shows. It was more that than, Speaker 1 01:01:45 And you're playing an exact book. It's not a lot of just STR the guitar stuff. Right, Speaker 3 01:01:51 Right. Yeah. It took me a little while to realize that, uh, you know, cuz when I first started playing shows, I thought that that was just a guide. Right. You know? Uh, and then I realized, no, I should probably stay a little closer to the ink than, uh, Speaker 1 01:02:06 You either realized that or someone told you kindly that you should play the ink. Speaker 3 01:02:11 Yeah. Uh, I think I realized it Speaker 1 01:02:14 Yeah. On my Speaker 3 01:02:15 Own. But uh, so I got this ability to follow. I like to put it as I got the ability to follow people wa waving sticks. And uh, so I got called for something with the symphony and one of the first performances I did with them was, uh, Jim Abbot came through town, uh, Speaker 1 01:02:39 Another good Broadway piano player ranger Speaker 3 01:02:43 Guy. And he was uh, doing something with the CSO and he, he mentioned my name to them and they knew me. I can't remember if I had worked with them already, but they called me for that. And uh, and then just kept calling me Speaker 1 01:02:58 Even I saw you this year playing banjo on a Gerwin oh program. Right. You Andretta were on that one. Yep. Right? Speaker 3 01:03:07 Yep. Speaker 1 01:03:07 That was wonderful saxophone. Speaker 3 01:03:09 Yeah. And I can't remember the, I can't remember the conductor, but he brought out of that piece or those pieces things I had never heard before, you know, sometimes Rapsody and blue it's like play it once done, move on to the next thing or pogi and best play it once, move on. And he spent some time with it and with both of those pieces and it was, it was pretty great. Speaker 1 01:03:32 It was good. I might have told you when I saw it, I didn't love the piano player in Rapsody and blue, but then in the second half of the program, he played the Ravel piano concerto in and blew it. I mean, it might have been the definitive performance. The orchestra was astounding. It's so delicate. Speaker 3 01:03:52 Wow. And what was that other piece that, uh, there was some other piano concerto that he played. I sat in the audience cuz I only played the first half my mind sat in the audience and it blew me away. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:04:06 Oh yeah. That was he totally redeemed himself. I'm sorry that I don't have his name in front of me, but he was, that was pretty wonderful. Yeah. So is it, um, does that feel like a different world? I mean, aside from the obvious, do you prepare differently when you're playing the CSO than when you're playing book of Mormon or Speaker 3 01:04:27 How I'm pretty hard on myself with anything mm-hmm <affirmative> now. And uh, so I prepare, I put a lot of time into it, no matter what it is. Uh, some of the things with the CSO, like if I'm playing mandolin, uh, it's such an exposed part that even if it looks easy on the paper, um, I, I put a lot of time into it because you never know exactly what it's gonna sound like in the hall. You know, sometimes it's especially with mandoline again, it's you you're you feel like you're playing by yourself and sometimes you are Speaker 1 01:05:08 And you don't get tons of rehearsal. Speaker 3 01:05:10 No, you really Speaker 1 01:05:11 Don't. You've also played with lyric, right? Speaker 3 01:05:13 Yeah. Speaker 1 01:05:14 Yeah. Like on stage, Speaker 3 01:05:15 Did you play I've I've done some onstage things I've I did a vote check, uh, playing acoustic guitar. Um, Speaker 1 01:05:25 That must be wild. Speaker 3 01:05:25 There was something, uh, uh, Speaker 1 01:05:30 Did you do the Jesus grace superstar? They Speaker 3 01:05:32 Did. I played that, which was a blast. Yeah. That, oh, that was in, you know, hearing that with a full, you know, with that orchestra. Yeah. Play on that. Oh, was incredible. Uh, and they did a wonderful production that was sort of brought over from, was done in, uh, in the UK. Um, so Speaker 1 01:05:52 The, I know several people in that band who just thought it was the most fun gig they ever played. Yeah. Speaker 3 01:05:57 I loved it. Uh, and I love playing with the lyric and the CSO, the musicianship it's it's so high. You have to bring it to the highest level imaginable. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:06:07 Yeah, absolutely. Speaker 3 01:06:09 I don't wanna have one note that doesn't come out. Right. Which puts the stress on Speaker 1 01:06:14 Yeah. The time. Yeah. But that's my amazement at the CSO. It's like the level they play at every concert yeah. Is it's pretty cool. Yeah. So kudos to you. Speaker 3 01:06:24 I, I have a, uh, a story that I like to tell about a piece that I might be playing again this summer. Um, there's a little, two and a half minute long mandolin, uh, bit in Don Giovanni. Speaker 1 01:06:39 Okay. Speaker 3 01:06:39 The opera and which, uh, the Speaker 1 01:06:41 Lyric even. And I even, I knew that was an opera. Yeah. Okay. There Speaker 3 01:06:45 You go. For the listeners Speaker 1 01:06:46 That's oh, I see. Yes. Thank Speaker 3 01:06:48 You. And I don't know much about opera. I, Speaker 1 01:06:51 But we know there's a Speaker 3 01:06:51 Play them when they, they hire me, but I don't sit around the house listening to opera. Uh, and this two and a half minute mandolin thing is, uh, you know, if you play mandolin all the time, it's not really that difficult. It's short mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, but the first time I played it was with the CSO at Ravinia and James conman was conductor and they had me sitting at the back of the string section. Now That's a not a great place to sit. Speaker 1 01:07:28 No. Could you challenge, could you move forward? Speaker 3 01:07:31 I guess I've done it long enough that, that you know, that, uh, James, uh, Myro came in and he, he came up and introduced himself to me. I was kind of sitting in the chair looking around and he said everything okay. You happy with where you're sitting? And I, and I knew that this mandolin thing was very soloistic. And I said, I wouldn't mind just sitting a little more in the, in the section so I could hear better. Not that I wanted to sit at the front of the section, you know, or be visible. I don't really care. I'm up. Speaker 1 01:08:02 You wanted to hear better. Speaker 3 01:08:03 I wanted to hear better. And he goes, oh, I'll tell you what, why don't you let's see you have a strap. So when it comes time to play, why don't you walk out to the front of the stage with the singer and just play it? The piece with him, This was the most terrifying Several performances of my life. And I was kicking myself like, oh, Why did I ask for that? It was that two and a half minutes. And it went fine. You know, is Speaker 1 01:08:38 It, uh, soprano or who sings it with you? Speaker 3 01:08:41 Uh, Speaker 1 01:08:43 Man or woman, man, Speaker 3 01:08:44 These Speaker 1 01:08:44 Are easy Speaker 3 01:08:45 Questions. Okay, Speaker 1 01:08:46 Man. It was Speaker 3 01:08:47 Okay. And I think he was a tenor. Okay. Speaker 1 01:08:50 See you and I know opera. Speaker 3 01:08:52 Yeah. That's uh, but, uh, yeah, so I would, when it came time to play, I would, you know, get up from the chair and walk out to the front of the stage. Speaker 1 01:09:03 But it also meant you had to memorize Speaker 3 01:09:05 It. No, they had a music stand. Oh, okay. I do have it memorized at this point, cuz I I've played it with the lyric, but I would be even more terrified to try and play it without music. Uh, yeah. But you know, that's not to, if it guitar would not have been a big deal, Speaker 1 01:09:24 But man to play all I Speaker 3 01:09:25 Play, you know, I take it outta the closet when I have a gig coming up mm-hmm <affirmative> uh, for mandolin and I practice for a little while and I play, I learn the piece. I'm not a Don Sternberg who can just, you know, play anything on mandolin. Um, I have to learn the piece and every time I take it outta the closet and work on things, I think I'm gonna just sit down and practice this thing every day, just the sing every day. And I do that for a while and then eventually it ends up back in the closet and I kick myself. Speaker 1 01:09:54 Um, so segue here. I know you do fulcrum point music, contemporary music. Yeah. Yeah. Um, is what do you play there? Is it all your instruments, any of your instruments Speaker 3 01:10:07 I've played? Um, Speaker 1 01:10:10 This is the contemporary music ensemble Speaker 3 01:10:13 Fulcom point is a, a amazing, uh, yeah. Contemporary music ensemble based in Chicago, Stephen Burns, wonderful trumpet player and conductor is, is the, the, the head of Fulcom point, you know, the Speaker 1 01:10:27 Creative I've heard him a couple times. Speaker 3 01:10:29 Yeah. Guy, guy can play. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So, and he, he, he curates the concerts, I guess you could say. And uh, Speaker 1 01:10:40 So are you just a side man in that? Or are you Speaker 3 01:10:42 A, yeah, I'm a, when they need electric guitar, I'm the guy. Uh, and if they need, maybe I think I've played acoustic and some banjo and maybe some mandolin with Fulcom point, but it's mostly electric guitar. Um, we just did a world premiere of a Jacob TV piece, uh, uh, called, uh, four freedoms, uh, in Netherlands back in November. Uh, which was, if, if you don't know Jacob TV's music, he's kind of known for this, uh, this way of syncing video people's words, uh, people on video talking and he, he makes them into music and inter uh, <affirmative> uh, weaves the music, the actual musicians parts into that. It I'm not describing it so well, Speaker 1 01:11:39 No, but everything you just described totally reads Netherlands to Speaker 3 01:11:43 Me. Yes, it does. Right. And, uh, so yeah, we, we did this, uh, this world, premier, uh, Cynthia, ye who plays percussion with the CSO, uh, uh, came over in Steven. And, um, I'm gonna forget the singer's name. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:12:02 Anyways. And how often do you play with them? Is that a regular thing? It, Speaker 3 01:12:06 It varies. It, it could be like two performances a year. It could be five performances a year. Uh, we just did a, a little concert at elastic a couple weeks ago, uh, which was really wonderful. It's Steven likes to do a piece of music once and, and it's always very difficult music. And so it's, it's a, it's a fascinating experience. I, you have one attempt and you, you, you do it as best you, can you work your butt off and Speaker 1 01:12:44 What, what an adventurer, Speaker 3 01:12:46 It's an, yeah, Speaker 1 01:12:47 It's kind of the opposite of our music theater gig, where we, we repeat it. And the goal is to have the perfect show today. I'm relaxed. I'm really gonna do it, but we get a lot of shots at it. Speaker 3 01:12:58 Yes, yes. And, and, and you, you perfect it over time of doing it again and again. And sometimes you in, in theater, the more you play it, you start almost imagining things that are wrong that need to be fixed. Right. And over time you can, there's a point where it gets better and better. And then sometimes it gets worse and worse because you're fixing what doesn't need fixing. Or Speaker 1 01:13:20 Sometimes when you relax and you're, you're so relaxed, you actually hear the stage or understand your part in the show in a way that you never would, if you hadn't sat there for three months playing it. Exactly. Speaker 3 01:13:33 Exactly. Speaker 1 01:13:34 It's a, that's a cool place to be also Speaker 3 01:13:36 It's, it's a, it's a real interesting way of doing music. I, I realized some years ago, uh, I used to think, well, this musical theater thing, it's so different from anything else. And then I was reading a, an article with a, uh, amazing nationally known keyboard player whose name I don't remember anymore, who at the time had been touring with Michael Jackson and, you know, and his gig was playing the exact same thing, the exact same way every night. Speaker 1 01:14:08 Interesting. And I never made that connection before. It's Speaker 3 01:14:11 Like, Hey, he's doing musical theater. He's getting paid 10 times more. Or Speaker 1 01:14:15 If you're the stones, what songs are you gonna play? Speaker 3 01:14:19 Right. Exactly. The Speaker 1 01:14:21 Same ones. Speaker 3 01:14:21 Yeah. And you're gonna, maybe in the stones, you might take some liberties with the parts, but if you're playing with my Michael Jackson or some, some biglls like that, you're gonna play it exactly. Speaker 1 01:14:31 If you're playing Beyonce. Speaker 3 01:14:33 Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 01:14:34 I bet you play your part. Mm-hmm <affirmative> Speaker 3 01:14:36 So Speaker 1 01:14:37 That's an interesting sort of thought. I, I don't wanna get too geeked out on this, but I always wanted to ask guitar players when you start talking electric guitars, how do you figure out I've I've got this setting and I have this amp and I've got 14 pedals, and I'm gonna fuzz out on this and use the whammy bar. And is that just like, Speaker 3 01:15:00 It's learn, it's endless. Yeah. It, it, it, it's learned, we all come up with our version of that. Uh, as, as you know, you listen to this band and this kind of sound, and you listen to this band and it's this kind of sound and you learn how to do those things. And now with, uh, the technology of the, the modeling systems and, and, and all the programmable pedals and what, what have you, it's it, it's so vast. It's so deep, uh, I've owned, you know, probably four different modeling, maybe five different modeling things. What, whatever the, the description of them is Speaker 1 01:15:46 Like a, a pedal Speaker 3 01:15:47 That does everything. They, they, they create the sound of different amplifiers, you know, all the effects you might want and you program all that in there. And in, in musical theater, especially now they don't want live amps in the pit. Speaker 1 01:16:03 Yeah, I, yeah. Well, Speaker 3 01:16:04 Which, which I, I get, because it gets pretty loud. One of the wonderful things about, uh, about the lyric, uh, production of Jesus Christ superstars, they wanted amplifiers real amplifier. It was, it was heaven playing. Speaker 1 01:16:19 You can play out loud, Speaker 3 01:16:20 You can play out loud and you hear yourself. You don't have to depend on headphones to hear yourself, right. Yeah. Uh, which is the way we grew up playing music. Right. And, uh, but, but now with all the, the modeling systems, you, I will program a whole show. Uh, I'll step through the show. And I program the levels of each song if I have time. Um, and that's kind of the thing, and they just run that through the house. And Speaker 1 01:16:47 There you go. So here's a music director question then. So you and Tom and Jim and Craig came and played rent with me out at paramount. Yes. And all the four of you had played the first national company here that sat down in Chicago. Right. Did you decide your own sounds for guitars for that? Were those put on you? Speaker 3 01:17:09 Oh, um, Speaker 1 01:17:11 Because when I, when you came to me, I don't know guitar, and I assumed you guys knew it way better than I did, and I left you to your own array of pedals. And this is the sound, I mean, yeah. Mostly because I don't know what you could or couldn't do. Fortunately you did. Speaker 3 01:17:30 Right. Speaker 1 01:17:31 Uh, in rent. Do you remember, remember that process? Speaker 3 01:17:34 Yeah. I think in the music of rent, uh, were some instructions of this should be distortion. This should be some chorus or there's one song in particular that it needed a certain kind of delay at a certain, Speaker 1 01:17:48 Oh, added exact tempo, right? Yeah. One, one song glory. Right, Speaker 3 01:17:51 Exactly. Yeah. Boom. Um, but you know, when you say distortion on this song, that could mean a thousand different things, right? So that detail is often left up to the guitar player. Some orchestrators might be in, uh, total control mode where they want this exact distortion, this kind of pedal, this kind of thing. You know, whatever it is, uh, most just want distortion, neither heavy distortion or light distortion. And then it's up to the guitar Speaker 1 01:18:26 Player. And when you go and do the Wichita community theater production of it, there is no orchestrator sitting there telling you what that means. Speaker 3 01:18:35 I look at it like I've been playing guitar longer than them. <laugh>, uh, both of them don't play guitar, but, you know, and so I know a little bit about playing guitar. So I'll make some choices because I know how to make those choices. It's just what I do. It's just what any musician does. Who's been playing their instrument for more than six months. Speaker 1 01:19:02 And I bet that's why David jazz Beck is into you. He's like, Steve, I like that. Or is this not true? Speaker 3 01:19:10 I think it is, especially with him because, uh, in that princess bride reading during one of the rehearsals, uh <affirmative> uh, he, he enjoyed hearing what people came up with. Right. You know, uh, there were some specific things, you know, you're reading piano, vocal parts for those things. And so it's like, uh, play this, maybe I'll come up with something here. And at one point he said, can you do like an Adrian Belu kind of thing here? Now? I, he was Adrian Belu was a hero of mine back in the eighties. Uh, when I used to have long hair, I actually used to get, uh, mistaken for him a couple times, but Speaker 1 01:19:56 I really only knew his sister cat. Speaker 3 01:19:59 Right. Thank you. Well, Adrian was, uh, he played with Frank Zappa, um, a number of years ago, like in the eighties. And then he went on to play with talking heads and he, I think he really became a name in talking heads and then went out on his own. Uh, and with king Crimson was where he got really huge. He joined up with Robert Fripp and bill Brer and king Crimson, a new version of king Crimson. Speaker 1 01:20:25 So then, so yasic comes up and hits you exactly in your wheelhouse. Yes. Speaker 3 01:20:29 Yes. It couldn't have been better because I, I learned what Adrian did back then was one of his things was animal sounds and I would work on these animal. Sounds like, okay, here's how, you know, here's his, his whale thing and here's his elephant thing. And, uh, and then I would expand on that to, there was a, a point when I was playing a lion king and there was a little bit of freedom and, you know, they wanted something and I would try and do like a roar, you know, you know, with the combination of Wawa and, and, and phase and whatever with the guitar. So anyways, Yasun said here, uh, like an Adrian blue thing. And for me, it's like, give me 10 seconds dialed in a thing. And I could, I could do an elephant sound right then. So it was, you know, that was a good feeling. That's if, if he had said, you know, I want you to do a, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, well, and any Halen thing here, it would've come out sounding fairly lame, you know, not great on the spur of the moment. If I had a day or two to practice, it would've been a little better, but Adrian blue, right. Then Speaker 1 01:21:43 This was harmonic. Convergence. Speaker 3 01:21:45 Yeah, it was, it was perfect. Speaker 1 01:21:46 Yeah. Which speaking of, of animal sounds, I know you're a big dog person, quite literally a big dog person. Speaker 3 01:21:54 Yeah. Speaker 1 01:21:55 Yeah. Current dog. Speaker 3 01:21:56 Well, our, our dog now is a standard pood. Not as big as the great Danes that I had, but he's a sweet dog named Phil. Speaker 1 01:22:04 Phil. Yeah. Oh, Phil succeeded. Lester. Yes. Speaker 3 01:22:09 Well, Julie, my lovely wife has some bad allergies. So we started dating when Lester was a puppy and, uh, Speaker 1 01:22:20 Lester's a great day. Yeah. He was a great, Speaker 3 01:22:22 He was a Speaker 1 01:22:23 Great, great Speaker 3 01:22:24 Day. He was, all of them have been wonderful, but Lester, he is the most recent and he was so sweet and Julie was scared of dogs when we started dating. And I have a picture of her petting Lester standing about as far as she could stand in my old kitchen. Um, but she fell in love with him. And he toured all over the country. Speaker 1 01:22:45 You traveled with him? Speaker 3 01:22:46 Yeah. I traveled, uh, with Lester, I was doing a Mary Poppins tour and he was all over all over the country and I've done some vacations with him, but, you know, we were in, you know, probably 20 different states, uh, staying hotels and my previous dog, Frankie, great Dane, uh, traveled all over the country. I was playing a Mamia tour off and on. And, uh, yeah, the best Speaker 1 01:23:11 Travel. How did you, how did you get into great Danes? Speaker 3 01:23:15 Uh, in 1988, I was leaving my house one day. I was living in a coach house and, uh, I walked out, walked towards the front of the house where there was a gate and inside, inside the gate was this huge dog lying there? I was terrified. So I turned around and I walked back out the back gate and left. I was going to a gig at, uh, Navy pier. When I came home, the dog was still in the yard. I don't know how he got in the yard. You know, there's a gate. Right. You know? Um, so I thought I gave him some water, went out, bought some food. Um, eventually I called anti cruelty, uh, said, Hey, there's this big dog. Um, I turns out my landlord said it was a great Dane puppy. Um, I didn't know what he was. He was just Speaker 1 01:24:14 A big dog, but it wasn't your landlords. Speaker 3 01:24:16 No, Speaker 1 01:24:17 No. He was just Speaker 3 01:24:18 Appeared. He just appeared, you know? And uh, so anti cruelty picked him up. They try and find the owner mm-hmm <affirmative>. And my landlord said to me, you know, if they can't find the owner, why don't you adopt him? My landlord said that mm-hmm <affirmative>, isn't that? It's kind of strange. Speaker 1 01:24:32 Yeah. What was wrong with them? Yeah, I'm a landlord. I wouldn't, yeah, actually I have tenants with dogs. Okay. Speaker 3 01:24:37 But, so anyways, I ended up adopting, uh, this great. Dan was this Frankie, this was Henry Henry. I've had four great Dans. So Henry was my first Henry had some issues, you know, he had been, um, Speaker 1 01:24:50 Well, he was homeless. Speaker 3 01:24:51 He was homeless. Yes. Um, and, and I had never had a dog before. Okay. Especially one that weighed 150 pounds, which is kind of what he grew into. Um, so I had to learn a lot about training and work with a lot of trainers and, uh, but he was, he was wonderful. He was not a good travel dog. Okay. I took him, uh, uh, I took him to, uh, many <affirmative>, uh, Minneapolis to play Joseph. He wasn't to play Joseph. I was playing Joseph. He was accompanying me and I had to hire somebody to stay with him. Oh. In my apartment when I wasn't there. Cause Speaker 1 01:25:28 He would freak out. Yeah. Speaker 3 01:25:30 But, uh, that, that set me off on the great day. And uh, so I had, uh, Henry then Curtis, then Frankie, then Lester. Now I have Phil, Speaker 1 01:25:41 Phil you're into boys' names. Speaker 3 01:25:44 They've all been boys. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:25:46 And are they, are these like band members from pink Floyd that you're, or they're just names you like Speaker 3 01:25:51 They're names that you just look at the dog and you go yep. Like when I got Lester, his name was Manny Speaker 1 01:26:00 And you're like that ain't right. Speaker 3 01:26:01 Yeah. I knew it wasn't right. And I was like trying out different names and, and then one day I just looked at him and I went you're Lester. There's no question. Your name is Lester. It wasn't like I had to think anymore. That Speaker 1 01:26:12 Was it. Yeah. Uh, they're good for the soul aren't they? Yeah, Speaker 3 01:26:17 They really Speaker 1 01:26:18 Are. So, um, you and Julie, what, um, what do you guys do to relax? Do you have, do you like to cook? Do you stream Netflix? What's the, Speaker 3 01:26:30 You know, we're trying to figure that out. Okay. Because she retired a year ago from, Speaker 1 01:26:37 She was a flight attendant. She Speaker 3 01:26:38 Was a flight attendant. Yeah. So when COVID hit, we knew like, no way you're gonna be up in the sky with Speaker 1 01:26:45 Fighting those crazies Speaker 3 01:26:47 Fighting. We didn't know that they would be crazies at the time. We just knew it wasn't gonna be a safe environment. Right. Um, and so she took a long leave of absence and American, you know, all the airlines, they had to get rid of employees. They had, right. They Speaker 1 01:27:01 Didn't have no one was flying. Right. Speaker 3 01:27:03 And so she took a long leave of absence and they offered a couple different retirement packages, but she was, you know, a little young to be retiring. Yeah. Uh, but finally they made a, Speaker 1 01:27:16 An offer. She couldn't refuse. Speaker 3 01:27:17 Yeah. You know, had she been a few years older? It would've been a no brainer, but it, we figured out that it, it could work. And so she has a lot more time right now. And she's, you know, trying to figure out what do I do with my time. Right. Um, Speaker 1 01:27:33 And well, I know she likes to travel still. Yes. Yeah. Um, she just, do you, are you a traveler or Speaker 3 01:27:42 I like going on driving road Speaker 1 01:27:43 Trips. Okay. Speaker 3 01:27:45 Uh, Speaker 1 01:27:48 Not a flyer. Speaker 3 01:27:49 I don't love flying. She doesn't love flying at this point. You know, she will mm-hmm <affirmative> but, uh, it' Speaker 1 01:27:54 To get some, Speaker 3 01:27:55 She made her living bouncing around in a tin can right. For years and she doesn't love it. It's it? You know, the air is not good. The pressure changes it's uh, so I think she would rather not fly if she didn't have to mm-hmm <affirmative> um, I'm kind of the same. Speaker 1 01:28:11 It's a lot of cool places to see in this country. Speaker 3 01:28:14 Yeah. There's a lot to see in this country and you know, uh, there's a lot to see in other countries, so I need to get over my, my travel thing. And Speaker 1 01:28:22 Do you have, um, high on your list? United States? Places I wanna drive to, Speaker 3 01:28:28 I always love, uh, going out to going out west into the Southwest, you know, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, but Utah, you know, if I'd go there tomorrow, Speaker 1 01:28:42 It's the greatest array of national park all in a row. Yeah. Just Speaker 3 01:28:47 Absolutely. Speaker 1 01:28:47 Yeah. I mean, and even though it's in Utah, you still want to go mm-hmm <affirmative> imagine exactly. Imagine how good it is. Exactly. Yes. I love New Mexico too. There's something about the air, the space. That's just, yeah. It smells different. Right. And Speaker 3 01:29:02 It's, it's wonderful. Some mountains. Speaker 1 01:29:05 Yeah. Which we don't have here. Right. You know? Right. So, yeah. I, I, I love traveling. I try to, the pandemic blew everything out of the water, but I, for a while I was like, I have to go to two new countries every year. If I do that by the time I'm so and so old, I love that, you know, there's a lot of world left to see Speaker 3 01:29:24 What are the last two you went to? Speaker 1 01:29:26 Um, I went to Scotland and Ireland. Oh, fantastic. In 2019. Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, I've went to Mexico this year, but I've been there a few times, but I'd never been to Dublin. Loved it. Always wanted to go to Edinborough. Loved it. But the surprise was I started in Glasgow, Scotland, and that's maybe it's cuz it was first, but that was a, a great discovery city. And you can't understand a fucking word, a Fu can word because they're like they have grown to the priest and you're like, yeah, medium rare. Yeah. Speaker 3 01:30:05 Sounds kinda like English, but Speaker 1 01:30:07 Uh, but beautiful. But you don't know what they're saying, but they were the friendliest people on earth. I had a cab driver from Kazakhstan and I was asking, I love the, the cab drivers out of place or Uber driver, whatever he was. Right. So I'm like, how did you get here? But I'm like this, everybody here seems like they're so nice. He goes, yeah, they're super nice. Or they're or they'll murder. You <laugh> it's like when they flip, they flip. Speaker 3 01:30:34 Yeah. It's figuring out who's who and what? Speaker 1 01:30:37 I mean, he said it in like a really kind way, but it was like, okay. Yeah, they are the nicest people on earth until yeah. Speaker 3 01:30:43 Boom. And it's good to know. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:30:45 Yeah. I always interrogate my cab drivers. I just had one from Somalia when I was in Minnesota and I'm like, okay, how long have youve been here? Can you travel now? What, you know? Yeah. I can't go there now, but could, can you, so Speaker 3 01:30:58 I love hearing the stories of people who Speaker 1 01:31:01 That's sort of why I'm doing a podcast, Steve wood. Oh yeah. Good tie up for the end of our interview. It's like that's yeah. It's good to hear people's stories. I've loved hearing yours. I heard a lot. I didn't know, was like rattling around in that brain of yours. So I hope people enjoy Speaker 3 01:31:18 It is rattling. Speaker 1 01:31:19 Yeah. I mean, there's a lot more we could talk about, but I'm gonna end it for Bey's sake here just as we are. But um, very pleasant to talk with you. I'm hoping we still have more than a few shows left in this. Yeah. And some cool gigs. Speaker 3 01:31:34 Yeah. But I think, I think the, the pandemic has given us all a sense of, you know, what, what do we wanna do yes. From now on and, and you Speaker 1 01:31:43 Know, and who do we wanna do it with? Speaker 3 01:31:45 Yes, exactly. What are our priorities in life and, and maybe, uh, searching for the next eight show week gig. Maybe that's not high on the priority anymore. Speaker 1 01:31:56 Right. Or if it has to be the right eight show gig. Exactly. Yeah. Not just anyone. Yeah. I mean, we all need to survive, but you and I are also at an age where we are like, okay, we, we need to make some life choices now, what Speaker 3 01:32:11 Exactly, Speaker 1 01:32:11 What is important? Speaker 3 01:32:13 I have to throw out one name here. Okay. As you talked about conductors mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, that I like working with Marin EP, who is now, you know, uh, Speaker 1 01:32:23 Sort of isn't she in charge of her Vinia now. Speaker 3 01:32:25 Yeah. With the CSO and she's wonderful. She's funny. She's tough. Uh, she's brilliant. And you know everything about her. She's a cool person. Well, Speaker 1 01:32:35 She's gotta be tough to survive in that man's world. Yeah, Speaker 3 01:32:38 Exactly. Exactly. And I've done a bunch of performances with her over the last few years. Well, Speaker 1 01:32:44 You have any stuff with her this summer? Speaker 3 01:32:47 I think so. Yeah. Uh, the last, um, you know, we, we did the mass, um, I've lost track Speaker 1 01:32:54 The Bernstein mass. Speaker 3 01:32:55 Yeah. We did that. Um, and, and some other, there were a couple things we did Muller eight. Was it last summer? I think so. Um, and there'll probably be something this summer. So Speaker 1 01:33:08 Aside from that in your, um, album release party, do you have any other stuff coming up that you know of? Speaker 3 01:33:14 I'm uh, I'm subbing on rock of ages out at the paramount, oh, Speaker 1 01:33:19 Paramount theater. Do you have to wear wigs? Speaker 3 01:33:21 Uh, I don't know. Uh, I wear a headband or a, you know, something like Speaker 1 01:33:26 Or any like spandex, Speaker 3 01:33:28 No spandex they're with the swings or the subs. They're pretty loose. You know, we wear, I wore a vest, a, Speaker 1 01:33:35 Are you, are you on stage invisible though? Speaker 3 01:33:37 I'm visible, but not super visible. The main guitar player, Dan Peters. Who's brilliant. And he does that whole shredding thing. He's very visible, uh, guitar two I'm subbing for Scott tipping. Uh, it's more in the background. It's not, I don't think it's that visible. Speaker 1 01:33:56 How big of a band is it? Speaker 3 01:33:58 Two guitars, bass drums, keyboards. Speaker 1 01:34:02 And do any of the actors actually play or are they acting like they play? Speaker 3 01:34:06 They're acting like Speaker 1 01:34:07 They're they're holders more than players, Speaker 3 01:34:10 But the, uh, the, the main guy who plays drew and I've only been out there. I was just out there last weekend, so I don't know people's names. Right. Um, I was just trying to get through the show, but, uh, the main guy who plays drew does play guitar. And I think he's probably really good. He's an amazing singer. I think he plays drums and does all that stuff. Speaker 1 01:34:31 So he is a real rock and roller. Speaker 3 01:34:32 He's one of those guys. He plays a bunch of instruments and does them well? Yeah. Speaker 1 01:34:37 Excellent. Well, it's been a pleasure to speak with you Speaker 3 01:34:40 Likewise Speaker 1 01:34:41 Hi to Julie. Let's get together for a barbecue this summer. Speaker 3 01:34:46 All right. Speaker 1 01:34:47 Thanks Steve. Thanks Shawn. It's Steve Roberts. I want to thank him so much for stopping by. It felt like we could have chatted forever (and we nearly did!) Check him out at that album release party at Martys on May 26th. Until next time on Chicago Musician, I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. Thank you, Shawn. Excellent. Oh my God.