The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
Spinning Records and Radio Tales: A Personal Journey in Music and Broadcasting
My journey through the landscape of music and radio isn't just a job; it's a collection of moments that have defined me. Radio and concert vet, Jave Patterson and I weave a tapestry with the threads of music formats and the indelible memories they create. We'll reminisce about the rock stations that ruled the airwaves and the program directors who dared to play the untested tunes, tracing the path from early ambitions to the realities of a radio career, including a station's format change that hit close to home.
Grab your backstage pass as we revisit electrifying interviews, including Metallica's Lars Ulrich, where their stories and personalities leapt from the speakers like live notes off a guitar. You won't want to miss the revelations of radio station wars and the awkward interview hang-up that remind us that stars too, are just one of us.
So, whether you're here for the nostalgia, the laughs, or the love of music, I've got a vinyl seat reserved just for you. Get ready to turn the volume up and let the memories play on!
Hey FU.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, zzy, it's the Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein.
Speaker 1:The Fuzzy Mike podcast. Hi and thanks for joining me. I don't know about you, but music has always been an integral part of my life. It helped make good times even better, got me through some bad times and it led me to my 30-year career on the radio. I still know to this day what the first piece of recorded music I ever bought was. It was the 45 of Beth by Kiss. If you didn't grow up in the era of records, you may not know what a 45 is.
Speaker 1:Well, you know how today we can download individual songs from an album and only pay for that one song. Well, a 45 was the exact same thing back in my youth, but we had to go to the store to buy it. It was a small record with the hit song on side A and another song on side B, thus the term B-side. Back in the day we couldn't just download it, since there weren't computers back then. Yes, I'm that old that I was born in BC before computers. Now, today, in AD, after digital, we no longer have to go to the store to get new music. We can just download it from anywhere, as long as we have a capable OS or a digital device. My OS stands for Old School, because I still buy CDs, since I like reading the liner notes, the lyrics and having the album artwork.
Speaker 1:When I was young, the band yes was the standard for badass album artwork. If you're listening to this on one of the streaming platforms, thank you. Thank you very, very much for doing that. But if you want to see what I'm talking about, you can watch this on the Fuzzy Mike YouTube channel and there you're going to get the visuals of what I'm referencing. My personal album artwork progression went from yes to Asia, to Guns N' Roses, appletite for Destruction, the band one, and now it's a present day tool, cannibal corpse, lit gore and torn the fuck apart. Those two are actual bands that I listen to.
Speaker 1:The more an album's artwork pushes the limits of decency, the more likely I am to buy it, and I'm not even kidding If I'm on the fence about buying some band's music and they have a boring album cover. They're SOL. I ain't buying it. If they have a colorful album cover, I will give it more consideration, but if the album artwork is gross, crass and even repugnant especially repugnant then I'm all in. Let me give an example. All right, I appreciate every type of music. I truly do. But that doesn't mean I'll listen to every type of music. What it does mean is that I won't say an artist sucks just because I don't have a predilection to their genre. Right, for example, celine Dion, great singer, not my cup of tea. I've never purchased a Celine Dion song. Now if there was a CD for her song, my Heart Will Go On. And the cover artwork was, say, a vibrant illustration of a guy kneeling over a bloody corpse, having just reached into its chest and plucked out the heart, and now he's holding the blood dripping organ longingly as he draws it to his mouth to eat it. Oh yeah, I'll buy that shit immediately. After hearing that and picturing it, do you think you'll ever listen to that song the same way again? I know you don't have to say it, you're welcome. Anyway, back to the Beth 45 that I bought with my own money.
Speaker 1:My mom went to Kmart that night, said she was going to come back with it. I couldn't wait for her to get back home because she told me she was going to get it for me. When she got back home I was waiting at the door. When she got inside I tried to grab the bag. She wouldn't give it to me. She looked at me with a sorrowful look on her face and told me she couldn't find the one thing I asked her to bring home. My heart sank. She could tell I was disappointed. So she attempted to perk me up by informing me that while she couldn't find the song from Kiss, she was able to find something from Hug. Then she started laughing Mom always full of jokes. She gave me the Beth 45. I truly don't think my family saw me for like three days. I stayed in my room and played it over and over and over.
Speaker 1:My next music memory was visiting my grandparents. They lived in Dallas, texas. We lived in St Louis, missouri. We'd make the drive every summer. My uncle is closer in age to me than he is to his sister, my mom. I think there's like an eight or nine year difference between he and I and like a 13 or 14 year difference between he and my mom. I mean, they're both old, he's just not as.
Speaker 1:But on this particular pilgrimage I got to tear into my uncle Ron's albums and ATRAC's and ATRAC, yeah, and ATRAC. It was this diabolical cassette type thing. You couldn't rewind it. So if you wanted to hear your favorite song again after it played. You had to fast forward the entire cassette to get back to that one song. Oh, it was bullshit. The artists that I vividly remember, though, on my uncle's ATRAC collection, were the Eagles, elton John and Fleetwood Mac. His vinyl album collection had that one I distinctly remember and I couldn't listen to it enough. It was ACDC's Back in Black.
Speaker 1:I'm currently reading a book about drug addiction and how gateway drugs lead to harsher drugs to get the same effect once the body builds its tolerance. Piss and ACDC were my gateway drugs to Metallica, pantera and Cannibal Corpse today. Where I'm going with this is an introduction to my guest. He's worked with two of the bands I've mentioned, so I'll ask him to share stories about Kiss and Metallica, as well as other bands he's linked to, and we'll meet him in a moment. But first I'll look at some headlines. Princess Diana's dress sold for over $1 million, setting a new world record. The late Princess's 1985 ballerina length evening dress with illustration. It's sold for $1.148 million, setting a new world record for the most expensive Princess Diana dress ever sold. I mean, I get it. I mean she was a celebrity, very popular figure worldwide, but $1.148 million for a dress, it's just a dress. There's no reason to lose your head over it. You're a jerk.
Speaker 2:I know You're a jerk.
Speaker 1:I know You're a jerk, I know You're a jerk. Colorado Wildlife officials successfully released five gray wolves into the Rocky Mountains. Colorado Governor Jared Polis, who played an active role in the release, celebrated the news. Not celebrating the news Other animals, please start it, please. Please, start it, please. And finally, a Senate staffer was caught filming a gay sex tape inside a Senate hearing room. This is not the first time a backdoor deal has taken place in the Senate, but it does mark the first time all year that two sides have come together there. Dude, that's just wrong, yeah, it's just wrong.
Speaker 1:And now to my guest. He's had a nearly three decade career in radio and a storied career as a production assistant for Metallica, kiss, queensrike, rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones. And Jave Patterson now works in the mental health industry and hosts his own podcast called Two Dudes Reviews Dudes spelled D-O-O-D-S where he gives his opinions on bourbons, among other things. And he joins me now. What are you sipping on there? I figured, since we were probably going to be talking bourbon or whiskey. I'm doing a little. Glenn Livet Founders Reserve.
Speaker 2:That's perfect.
Speaker 1:They had a locally here. They had a Christmas sale, so it was 50% off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a novice Scotch fan for a bit and the best Scotch I ever had was a Balveny or Balveny. The 15 year double wood was spectacular. That was just a couple of drops of water in there. It turned into. It had a finish almost like French toast. It was so delicious, Wow. But I have to say I'm more of a bourbon guy than a Scotch guy these days.
Speaker 1:What are your go-to bourbons then?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, man, that's a great question. It was EH Taylor forever in a day. It was just my favorite hands-down bourbon to drink. That's back when you used to be able to find it in the $30 to $50 range. Yeah good luck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard rumors that it was going to become allocated and about three years ago it just kind of vanished from the shelves. I really love Stag Junior Again another one that is almost impossible to find nowadays. We used to be able to get it back on the West Coast around the holiday season. The different liquor stores and grocery stores would get their allotment and you could pick it up for about $50 a bottle. For the Stag Junior, I really love that. It's a hot bourbon. They typically clocked in at between 127 to 129 proof. One small snifter could take you feasibly through an entire Robusto cigar.
Speaker 1:That's Booker's type of proof right there.
Speaker 2:For sure. Yeah, I like the Booker's as well. To me the Booker's doesn't finish quite as long as the Stag Junior and finishes a little on the bright side for me. I like more of a carmely woody finish on a bourbon. Today my go-to everyday drinker is simply Old Granddad. Here in the Carolinas I can pick up a 175, a grip of Old Granddad for about $20. I've done blind tasting with Old Granddad and the Weller Special Reserve, the green label, which I think is tough to find. It's difficult to notice a difference between those two bourbons. I know all the Buffalo Trace stuff is sought after nowadays the Eagle Rare is on the Wellers and the Pappy Van Winkles, but by and large it's a lot of hype. I was a Pappy collector for a bit and I sold five bottles. I've got one bottle left. Well.
Speaker 1:I wanted to talk to you about Pappy and we'll get to that in a moment. But my go-to at home is Nelson Brothers.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know, I don't have Nelson Brothers, I'm going to be….
Speaker 1:It used to be Belmied. Okay, okay, and it's like 35 bucks a bottle and it's everything you're describing in what you like. It's got the caramel, it's got the toast, it's got the…it's a very nice finish. So yeah, nelson Brothers, you'll find it all over the place.
Speaker 2:Very cool. I'm going to get one up the next time I'm hitting the store.
Speaker 1:Are the Van Winkles worth it? Pappy Rip.
Speaker 2:Van man, that's a great question. I…i find….
Speaker 1:Because we're talking $2,000 a bottle.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, on the resale market, I mean you look, I've got a bottle of Pappy 20-year. I bought for $168 about seven years ago when I was living in Lubbock, texas, and in Lubbock because it is a college town, there were some nice restaurants there but it wasn't really touristy. The restaurants didn't gobble up all of the allocation as soon as it hit the marketplace, like happens in most every other city in America. And so I put my name on every liquor stores list and said, look, if you guys get some allocated stuff whether it's Rip or Pappy or you know EH Taylor or you know the George T Stag Let me know. And inevitably, every single year I got a call. Sometimes it was one bottle, sometimes it was two, and I always paid retail for it. So again, that 20-year cost me about $168. It's still sitting in my…my cellar to stay safe. And, yeah, it's probably an open market right now in the $4,000 to $6,000 range.
Speaker 1:Exactly So…but…but when you're in Lubbock, you're not just any Joe Schmo walking in off the street, you're in radio, so people knew who you were.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know that that really had a whole hell of a lot to do Really that didn't open doors. Well, it may have, but I never pulled that card.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awfully cool of you, because it certainly could have worked to your advantage, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:Perhaps I do have a quick story. We were in a pizza parlor in Lubbock and I noticed a bottle of Pappy 15 behind the bar. It was about a quarter of the way full and I asked the bartender. I said hey, I'm just curious, how much for a snifter is that Pappy over there? And she says I don't know, it was a gift that our owner got a couple of years back. Our owner doesn't drink. She says it's not even in our system here. She says what do you think about $20 snifter? Is that a good price? And I'm like, yeah, give me the rest of the bottle. How many snifters do you think are left in it? And we drank the rest of it. I think it cost me all of about $85 or $90 at the end of the day, but that was nice.
Speaker 1:It's fun to have knowledge that other people don't, and you can exploit that for your own pocket while being For sure how did you get into radio then?
Speaker 2:As a young child, my brain was always working. I distinctly remember laying down in the back of my parents' car I think we were driving to Houston to go to Astro World. Rest in peace. Way back in the day I was so excited to go to Astro World. I was always thinking about what do I want to be when I grow up? In my mind I came up with this plan of becoming a musician, a famous rock star, making millions of dollars, buying my own amusement park and then buying my own radio station so that I could play my music on the radio. Sure, fast forward when it came time to graduate high school and get into college. I initially was going to go to the University of North Texas and study jazz up there professionally and wanted to get my prerequisites taken care of on the community college level in San.
Speaker 2:Antonio. They had a pretty damn good radio, television and film program there. That's what I jumped into to get an associate's in. It was a radio, television, film slash, interpersonal communications. I just excelled at the radio and TV side of things. I did better off camera as a producer in a television station, running the switcher, being the director of what was going on in front of the camera.
Speaker 2:This is back in the days of the VHS tape and the big old VHS recorder. Some of your projects would be making a mini movie or making a mini commercial or whatever. I did that, being a musician, some of the music that I was playing at the time caught the ear of the lady Debbie Alcacer, who still works in Dallas as a prominent on-air personality. Debbie did Texas tracks and knew of my music. I began an internship at the radio station. This is kind of a long story. They ended up flipping the radio station after 20 years of rockin' San Antonio and breaking bands. You look back at documentaries on a Rush and Judas Priest and Getty and those guys will say, hey, a lot of our success in the South started in San Antonio at this legendary rock station, kiss FM. When you say breaking bands.
Speaker 1:Tell our audience what breaking a band means.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, back in the day the program directors would get 45s or LPs in the mail. These two guys, lou Roney and Joe Anthony, would get this product. They were pretty fearless and adventuresome and would jump onto something back before everything was controlled by charts. They heard something. They just start playing it on the radio. They'd play it a lot. Then Houston would take knowledge or Dallas would take knowledge and go hey, wow, oh my God, this little band of Rush just played in San Antonio. It was sold out, crowd of 1,800 people. Something's going on here. People would catch on.
Speaker 2:Back then it was all very word of mouth and there were pockets where these new rock bands would start having success around the country. It wasn't like today. Something gets served up and there's multi-million dollar budgets with marketing and promo, guys Fans looking at charts and don't play it if it's not a top 20 or whatever. All this malarkey. When something takes off, they're hustling the ad game. How many stations have added the song to a playlist? A lot of radio stations will go well, we're not going to play it until it has so many ads or so many stations are already aboard. But back then it was a wild, wild west, yeah.
Speaker 1:How much does it cost to get a hit these days?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. I'm probably not the greatest person to answer that. You know, in the internet age probably a lot less expensive than it used to be 15, 20 years ago. You know you don't need to sign away your life to the devil and do these crazy 360 deals anymore. If you're a kid with a studio, you know which. You know it's pretty inexpensive to build your own studio nowadays.
Speaker 1:Well, you look at what Oliver did with Richmond north of Richmond, I mean that was, that was all internet based.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's lightning in a bottle for sure, you know, I think it still does. There's seed money coming from some place, you know, and these promo guys even if you're, you know, an independent artist, there's somebody out there who is funding some of this stuff to you know, to get the promo people, the independent promo people, to talk about these indie bands to radio stations and hopefully they get put on the radar somehow. So it definitely costs money. Occasionally, very, very rarely, something completely independent A band will release a video. It'll go viral and then the record company will jump on that based on how many Facebook likes they have, or how many TikTok followers they've got, or what type of content they're producing, or how many people are coming to their shows in a given region, or what have you, you know, or if the product looks good or sounds good, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a country artist that I'm very familiar with because we played him a lot in Houston, texas when he was an independent artist Cody Johnson. Cody built up his audience to such a degree that there was a bidding war between record labels to get him to sign. That doesn't happen. That doesn't happen often, very rare, very, very rare. Yeah, so when you got into radio, did you want to be on air, did you want to be behind the scenes as a program director? Cause you said in television you, you, enjoyed being behind the scenes.
Speaker 2:No, you know, I totally wanted to be on air.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this the station ended up flipping format. This is 1989. They flip format overnight from this legendary rock station celebrating 20 years of rock and San Antonio to flipping to oldies Right.
Speaker 1:Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the station went from number one or number two or number three, 12 plus, which is an inside radio term. It's just like the large umbrella, right? Yeah, like 17th in the marketplace, like that in a flash.
Speaker 1:So how fast did they lose their jobs for doing that?
Speaker 2:Well, the, the, the backstory, and this is unconfirmed. So forgive me if I, if I screw up this backstory, but the room. It's mostly true than if it's unconfirmed, it's definitely true, yeah, it's a company called Adams Communications who had a their flagship big biller in the country was a cool gold and Phoenix, arizona, and Adams wanted to buy a magic 105.3. I think it was in San Antonio, which was also an oldie station from the Rusk corporation. A couple of guys out of Houston KLO L man, you know.
Speaker 1:Can Anthony. He was one of my first bosses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they wanted, they wanted to buy this oldie station San Antonio, the Rusk corporation, small independent owners. They said, no, we're not going to sell it, we're making too much money off it. You know, go pound sand, whatever. And so Adams communication and their you know infinite wisdom didn't have a sales staff. I guess it could sell kiss, for you know what it, what it should have been valued for. And they ended up flipping for me. They said you know, if we can't buy him, we're going to try and beat him at their own game. And they got washed out. Well, fast forward, a year and a half later, rusk corporation ends up buying kiss from Adams and then putting it into a closet and bringing it back as a rock station.
Speaker 2:And I was the first guy to hit the button to switch from this Elvis Presley song to party on the patio, from ZZ Top, nice. We built this radio station artist by artist, song by song. The first, I don't know, week, I think it was nothing but ZZ Top. And then we added Led Zeppelin to the mix. So it was a ZZ Top song and a Led Zeppelin song, and that went on for about a day and a half. And then we added, you know, ac DC to the mix, and then we added Metallica to the mix, and we added this and that and the other, and that went on for the period of you know, two or three months. I was a board out behind the scene working in six hour shifts of just pushing buttons back before the day of automation, Yep.
Speaker 2:And then the air staff started to get added. When they started adding some personalities, the program director, virgil Thompson at the time told all of us interns and part timers, hey, you know, I need to hire some weekend part time talent. I think there were six or seven of us that were in the RTF program at San Antonio College. You said you guys, you know, submit me an air check tape, do it over at KSYM, the public radio station, and I'll, you know, I want to pick a person or a few to jump on the air.
Speaker 2:And I was the guy who got the golden ticket. And I did, you know, overnight, you know, sunday, midnight, monday, or like Monday, zero hundred hours to Monday at 0500 for a couple of weeks, and literally it took three or four weeks, I think, my third air check session with Virgil. He just writes great on a piece of paper and it goes man, you're sounding awesome. And a week later he's like hey, the seven to midnight guy is taking a vacation day. Can you jump in here on Saturday night, seven to midnight, on this legendary station? I'm like, oh my God, shaking in my boots. There's more to that story. 30 minutes into my first real on air shift, real on airtime, he pops his head in the door at 730 and goes hey, by the way, are you familiar with Dave Mustaine and Megadeth?
Speaker 2:I'm like oh yeah, I love Megadeth. Well, dave's down the hall. He flew in from Phoenix. This new record, symphony of Destruction is coming out.
Speaker 2:Will you interview him and play the new song? I said, yeah, sure man. So of course I get all nervous again and Dave Mustaine comes in and we talk for three and a half minutes. I play the new song, we talk for another three and a half four minutes and I jump into a commercial break. I thank him for coming in, right, yeah, and he goes.
Speaker 2:What the hell, man? You know, I traveled all the way from Phoenix, arizona, to come here and hang out on the radio station. You're going to give me all the 10 minutes and I'm like, oh, that's fine, we can hang out longer. I didn't, you know, I was given no information on Dave Mustaine coming into the studio. He goes Well, let's take some phone calls. I'm like Okay. So I hit the first line on the phone and I say, hey, kiss, radio, what's going on? And the guy goes hey, man, play some Metallica. Dave reaches across the control board and goes Fuck, you Clicked and hangs up on the guy. So things went south really quick, I would imagine. I said, hey, dave, I'm going to use the rushing, I'll be right back. And I took off outside the control room, walked two doors down to my boss. I said hey, dave, just told the listener to fuck off and hung up on it. Just wanted to give you the heads up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're not familiar with the Dave Mustaine story, dave was the guitar player for Metallica, had a massive falling out with them, so it goes out on his own with mega death and if your first question you ask is place in Metallica, yeah, he's going to say Fuck you.
Speaker 2:There's no question about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so he's notoriously a tough interview, though, isn't he?
Speaker 2:He is a notoriously tough interview. That was my first introduction to Dave. The next time I saw Dave, I think it was a year later, they were touring through San Antonio and I said, hey man, you, you divergenize me. I was the. You know, your the first interview that I ever did with you. And he's like, oh great, you're a great virgin and. And he was really cocky. And then, 10 years later, we did a promotion in Reno, where I was working at the time, and and David agree that he was trying to, you know, revitalize his career, to come in and do a big dinner with a bunch of listeners. So we hung out for two and a half hours, ended up playing after the show and he was great. We had a great time just hanging out, shooting the crap.
Speaker 1:Isn't it funny how age mellows us for sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, he still doesn't like Metallica.
Speaker 2:But he's mellowed a little bit more on the other side of things, he certainly has. He certainly has.
Speaker 1:You were mentioning ACDC, you mentioned Metallica. Before you came on I was doing I always do an introduction as to how I kind of equate to the guests that I'm having and I knew that your music background. I knew that you worked with Metallica and I want to talk about that. But my formative music was this into ACDC. Then ACDC became Pantera, then became Guns N' Roses, then became Morbid Angel in Cannibal Corpse.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that. Yeah, I mean your arm-measure friend, john Lenick knows all about how deep I go with death metal, but it's funny how this band can lead to this band can lead to this band. So what was your progression in music, as far as your personal taste?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's part of my personal taste, you know. I discovered kill them all and ride the lightning at a pretty young age. You know, initially I was in the top 40. I used to love listening to Casey Casey in the American top 40, right, right. And then in, you know, about the age of 12 or 13, all of a sudden I recognized, oh, emotions. And then I also recognized, oh, all these pop songs are really sappy and they make me sad. And my brothers at the time were listening to, you know, black Sabbath and Steve Miller band and Led Zeppelin and all these great bands. So, and rush, and I got turned on to rush permanent waves. I'm like man, this is the coolest thing ever. And I got turned on to the early Zeppelin and stuff like that. And and then the first time that I heard Metallica, kill them all and ride the lightning I went, this is my music, right here, you know, and I and I got stuck on to that and Really started identifying with that. That flick in high school, right, the heads, the headbangers, sure, and and I Considered myself a bit geeky in middle school I was not incredibly popular, you know, when parachute pants are in man, I wanted to go and get some parachute pants when, you know, beatboxing was in.
Speaker 2:I tried to learn how to beat box when people were break dance and I tried to learn how to break and I was sucked at all of it and at the same time got ostracized from this. The only group that I really identified with which is the metal heads, and I distinctly remember walking home from school one day and thinking you know, I'm not gonna be like that, I'm not just gonna be Metal up your ass and metal till you die, I'm gonna have a respect for all types of music. What? Why do I just want to zone myself up on this? So you know, I started to explore blues, bb King and Buddy Guy and you know, grown up in San Antonio, willie Nelson played a floor country store on Sundays, right, he was right down the street, so really got a healthy respect for country music.
Speaker 2:I played in a my. My first real Professional band was called exit. Oh, we were the North American version of manudo at the time, all white kids playing Polkas cumbia's lambadas. We won the 1992 Sanon or 1982 or 84 something like that battle of the bands in San Antonio against all these metal bands and our set list was Seek and destroy you be 40. Red red wine, george Straits the chair, the lambada song, because the lambada movie had just come out a polka, a cumbia and an original rock song called Goldilocks. And Augie Myers and Freddie Fender were some of the judges pretty vendor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of that competition and we ended up getting top honors and, and you know, getting a $2,500 Recording voucher and got to go into a you know real recording studio and do a song. And our our rehearsal space roommate was Selena Quintanilla Get away. Lina, he lost dinos at the time. Yeah, selena, yeah, the legendary Selena.
Speaker 1:Did you work for her?
Speaker 2:I didn't work for her but but we our paths crossed Often because she was just a Tejano singer at the time. You know she was playing the bars and the nightclubs and the weddings and the debuts and you know playing primarily cover songs and occasionally some of her own original. She didn't really blow up until until they they put the pop music polish on what she did and she became a solo artist as simply Selena and dropped the elos dinos from from her list. Yeah, so I'm sorry I kind of deviated away from your initial question there. I got into Metallica and and everything else at that. It just started flooding in. But my passion, you know what I was most excited about, was bands like Metallica, fates, warning, slayer, exodus, morbid Angel, dri, fearless Iranians from hell. You know some of the hardcore punk metal stuff that was out of the time, yeah.
Speaker 1:So so then, how cool was it you growing up liking and listening to Metallica, then you ended up working with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that was. That was quite a trip. I had a drummer in the second band that I was in. He was All the guys in the second band called Dina that I was in were all five or more years older than than I was and and I was a competent and Pretty damn good bass player because I played guitar in all my other bands and switched over to bass because they had a need for bass. And To find a competent, not addicted Good playing bassist is a lot easier than than finding a guitar player who knows how to rip it up, I guess.
Speaker 2:And so my drummer worked with some of the local concert promoters in San Antonio, stone city attractions, jam productions, pace concerts, which became live nation, yeah, back in the day. And and he said, hey, man, I can probably get you on the local crew to do, you know, a stage handwork, loading, unloading, stuff like that. And so I did that and I was very, very competent at my job there and I was so fascinated that you know, when they would cut the entire crew at four or five o'clock because the loadin was done, they would say, all right, you guys, you know loadout starts at 1030, be back here at 1030. I Would hang out and talk to the sound guy that I had been working with the entire afternoon Hooking up his stuff or the LD, because I was helping, you know, put and put and focus his lights on there. And so I developed some relationships with these guys and eventually a Sound guy said hey man, you're pretty good at what you do. We need somebody to run monitors for Bob Dylan. And that was the first real big tour that actually went out and Did more than just the local show in San Antonio with and ran monitors for Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2:And then the met Metallica and justice for all Tour was out. They needed somebody who was going to be a production assistant, slash runner, and runner is somebody who has an all-access pass, knows the city very, very well, has reasonable Transportation and they don't have any baggage, you know. So you know you're not gonna get any drama from the runner. And. And so I just kind of springboarded all of that into this relationship and and I didn't do long touring with Metallica, but I did Austin, I did San Antonio, I did Dallas and a couple of others that go around, same thing with Queens rike, same thing with test life developed a relationship with a guy named Howard Undeleager and Howard did the.
Speaker 2:He was the LD for iron maiden in the power slave tour. He did Tesla's mechanical resonance. It was a double-header tour with great white and Tesla a brilliant stage show. He did rush moving pictures. He did Queens, rike and the Empire tour, where they did they did. I think the first part of the set was operation mine Entirely, and then the last part of the set was songs from Empire and other stuff. I I fondly remember hanging out in a lazy boy recliner at the lighting table eating Popcorn from an air popcorn machine in Austin, texas after we had set up that show with Howard under leager, the the LD. It was a just a blast working with those guys when you said you ran monitors.
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 2:That means I'm the whipping boy behind the monitor station on the side wing of the stage. And when, when Bob says it's needs to be louder, a little bit louder. Or softer, a little bit softer, there's too much 3k and it turned down the treble. Or there's too much mid-range, turned on the mid-range, there's not enough mid-range, turn up the mid-range. Every single song Bob had something else to say, glaring at me and screaming while the you know audiences is looking on, of change, this change. That that's just the life of a monitor tech, I think wow, it's every song with Bob Dylan, huh.
Speaker 2:He was pretty incessant. There's some guys who said it and forget it. You know I did a lot of shows with Clint black. He was super solid to work with. Great, great band, great bunch of guys, highway 101, another big country band I used to play, you know the South Texas scene and that run all the time who were just really easy going. Pretty much said it and forget it. There were a couple of tweaks here and there throughout the show. You know you have to be cognizant. You know when the guitar player is doing his solo, crank up his monitor a little bit. You know. Yeah, if the singer is moving over to stage, right, maybe put a little bit more of his vocals and stage right as he walks over there and then turn him back down so the guitar player can hear himself as he walks back to the center. There's little intricacies like that that go into being a monitor tech.
Speaker 1:So when you're working with these bands, do you, do you get to hang out with them, do you get to know them a Bit?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, a little bit the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stones. I was just a stagehand for that. That was a three-day load in and a two-day load out. It was the voodoo to the new, voodoo to voodoo. Who do you?
Speaker 1:who do?
Speaker 2:you, yeah, with like a big scorpion tail that came up. That one happened at the Alamo Dome. That was a great show. I I worked as a, as a stagehand and a runner for that one, um, so I didn't get to hang out with Mick or the guys on on that. Occasionally you would see them in catering. Um, however, those big guys like Rolling Stones I worked with Rod Stewart. They would have their own catering company on the road with them and I remember One catering company in particular called Eat your Heart Out. I did both the Stones and Rod Stewart at the time.
Speaker 2:Um, so it was like the agorame chef that was out on the road with you and as a runner. You know, first thing in the morning at you know 9, 30 or 10 am, they'd give you a grocery list and 500 bucks cash and go grab all this stuff. You know fancy bottles of wine. You know 16 loaves of fresh french bread and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was always funny, this long-haired, you know 21 year old kid roaming through the high-end grocery store getting organic. This sat in the other back and you know the late 80s, early 90s and people looking at me like who is this kid on a random tuesday with 400 bucks getting all this expensive food.
Speaker 1:Speaking of uh 400 dollars in organics, as a runner, do you have to know where you can get weed for the band?
Speaker 2:Um, some people would say yes, I uh, I was, I was.
Speaker 1:You want to start your fifth member at privilege.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. All I can tell you is that the country guys Tended to party and ask more of the runners when it came to extracurricular activities Than the rock guys. And there was one band I picked up from the airport san Antonio international airport Then on the drive to the venue said, hey, where can we score some cocaine? I'm like I don't have any idea, man.
Speaker 1:So the country musicians were hardcore partiers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know I worked with uh kiss and the hot in the shade tour and that was an interesting Opportunity to meet gene Simmons. I took his laundry back after the show. He was staying at lamence on del norte on the river walk, and I come over and Knock on the door. Shannon tweed answers the door and negligee Uh, gene is on the bed on the phone wearing nothing but a uh, a bath towel. He puts the phone down to the side, looks at me and says well, what do we have here? And I said, jean, we have your laundry. And he looks over to Shannon, looks back to me and says you wanna stay awhile? And what flashes through my head is oh, my God, I can have a threesome with Jean and Shannon Tweed and never work another show in my life. My career is over, yep. Or I can say, man, I gotta get back to the venue. Thanks for the offer. I did the latter Good for you, but, man, what a story.
Speaker 1:Huh, what a predicament. Uh-huh. What are the shows that you've worked? Are you able to watch that show? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So what are the?
Speaker 1:best shows you've ever seen.
Speaker 2:When the show is happening. Yeah, you've got an all-access pass. You can roam around wherever you know God. That's like asking a chef what the best food he's ever had is. Yeah, I have to say.
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe it's not a show that you worked, maybe it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, grand Siberian orchestra, their light show, their stage show, is really, really hard to beat. Going way back over the span of about two months, I saw the Kiss Creatures of the Night tour, I saw Iron Maiden's Power Slave tour and I saw Ronnie James Dio the Last in Line. The best show of the three hands down easily was Ronnie James Dio. He had some pyrotechnics and some laser beams and some cutting-edge technology that I had never seen before in a show, and he was Ronnie was just such an amazing frontman too. He made everybody in the audience think that he was singing and looking directly at them. Really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:And I heard he was super nice.
Speaker 2:Super, super nice guy. Yeah, yeah, like really humble, I used to roll times over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the guy that I used to work with on the classic rock station in Houston, texas, scott Sparks. He said he's one of his all-time favorite musicians that he got to hang out with. Yeah yeah, what do you miss about radio, because you're not in it anymore. What do you miss?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm not. I left Reno for family reasons back in March of 2023. What I miss most is being surrounded by music all day. I have super bad tinnitus, being a musician for a lot of years and I've always had an aversion to earplugs, and so there's complete dead silence in my office all day long and the ringing in my ears just goes louder and louder, and louder and louder. So I miss being surrounded by music all day long with a radio or something playing. I miss that discovery of music. I do it as often as I can, just surfing YouTube while I'm here at the house.
Speaker 1:Do you miss the battles?
Speaker 2:Battles. As far as the promo battles with the competition. Because they can get nasty man. Yeah, I always came out victorious on that. I can't tell you a single time that I was burned. But again, when I got into radio, I learned from Virgil Thompson and Kevin Vargas Kevin's still in the game running on the rock station for town square media. These guys were superb at what they did, and so I learned a lot about radio battles there and man do. I have some stories I could share with you.
Speaker 1:Well, I definitely want to hear them, because I want to see if it stacks up to the worst one that I was ever a part of.
Speaker 2:OK, I'll give you two quick stories. One we were presenting a Metallica show in Reno and the competition got out there. They came in a limo and the afternoon jock had all these strippers around him and thought he was hot to trot. And they have all this banner on a roll and they had the large banners like foot tall or foot wide banners, and so they were putting up their banners on a roll everywhere on the outside of this arena and my promotions director immediately starts freaking out. This is about two or three o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 2:No one was there aside from the radio station setting up and she goes this is our show, I'm going to go tell them to tear it down. I said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just wait, just wait. So I went and waited for them to go through probably three rolls at about $250 to $350 a roll of all this banner around the entire place. Let them set up their booth with their strippers and stuff and let them get their egos pumped up before pulling out the paperwork showing that we had presents and showing it to the venue manager and escorting them off-site at about 4.30, right before people got off work and started to get to the venue and they had to tear everything down. That was embarrassing for them. They were really upset about it. And then the other good one Did they try to enact?
Speaker 1:revenge at a future show.
Speaker 2:They did not Wow.
Speaker 1:And you schooled them, brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other one was we had a corn show at another arena, the Reno Event Center, and it was a sold out show. And this particular show, I guess corn was trying to evolve their sound a little bit. So they were playing Nicie Nice with the rock station and the alternative rock station in the marketplace. So the show was a neutral show. And I said, well, why is it neutral? I mean, I have championed this band since before day one. I have a copy of wow and the lyrics that have the coffee cup stain on it that Jonathan gave me when that song first took off. And they said it's a neutral show, neutral show.
Speaker 2:So I had the foresight to contact the city of Reno and bag all of the parking meters in the front of the venue and we had an ambulance as a station vehicle, a van as a station vehicle and a giant A-frame. And so I put up all three of our vehicles right in front of the venue, leaving no other place for anybody else to park. And these guys come out there and they're looking for a place to park. They're looking for a place to park, they're bitching to the promoter, they're bitching to the venue manager. The promoter and venue manager come to me and said hey, you guys have got to move. This is a neutral show, you've got to let them park here. And I pull out of my back pocket no, these are public parking meters that I rented for the night and show them the paperwork. And both the promoter and the venue manager smiled and got a kick out of it and they went. Oh my god, that was good, that was good, that's brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then these guys started spray painting with washable spray paint their logo and stencil on the sidewalk and on the concrete of the venue and I pointed that out to the venue manager. The venue manager blew a gasket, kicked them off site, but not before he handed them a mop and a bucket and had the program director start washing it up. So as the program director is out there scrubbing the mop and the bucket, I send my promotions guy over there with a digital camera and just was photographing him like the paparazzi and laughing at him. Oh my god was he embarrassed. And again, this all took place at about 5'5'30, before the big crowds had even gotten there, so most people didn't even see it. But man, that was a kick in the ass.
Speaker 1:Man, you played clean. You didn't play dirty at all, you played clean.
Speaker 2:No, I never sent dead chickens to a program director's house or a horse's head or anything like that. The guys in Minneapolis I saw a radio battle there during the conclave. That was just brutal. I mean it can get really, really dirty, but I never shot that dirty of a pool.
Speaker 2:Aside from sending a competitor a bunch of faxes from a foreign state when he first started at the station and every fax I sent him, one a day for the first 35 days he was there, every fax was hey blah, blah, blah. I'm not gonna give you what his name is hey blah, blah, blah. The station sounds great. Just one thing Pick it apart. Every single day a new fax, but just one thing, and just pick it apart. And I know it got under his skin. Yeah, he probably assumed that it was from me, but the fact that it was coming from a different state the fax number back when everybody used faxes all the time, you could see where it was coming from. He was probably scratching his head like what in the hell is this? And of course, this is long before streaming right.
Speaker 1:Oh right, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah. So the one that I was a part of happened in Denver, colorado. We were KNRX and our competitor was KBPI, and after we were only on the air for 11 months before we got bought out by a Spanish speaking company. But in eight months nine months time we had cut into KBPI's ratings by 50%, and so their program director, bob Richards, had one of their interns go over to my program director's house on the morning of Thanksgiving and impale three turkeys in his front yard that said enjoy this Thanksgiving, it's your last one in Denver.
Speaker 2:Was that Brian Shock by chance?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you know?
Speaker 2:Shock. I know Shock very well. I've heard that story and yeah, Brian had kids like family there. Yeah, that's a little much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, brian ended up taking him to court, taking the BPI and Bob to court, and I was a character witness for Brian because I was over there that morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brian's a great guy. He's here in the Carolinas as well now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no he's an amazing friend. Yeah, I was this seven to midnight guy at KNRX.
Speaker 2:Okay, very cool, you talk about early, you know.
Speaker 1:Getting back to what you were talking about, about breaking a band. They did that, he and Malcolm. They did that a lot. They didn't play the chart game at all.
Speaker 2:Malcolm Reicher was on our competition in San Antonio for a short spell before we forced them to switch format, and we would haze him in air check sessions. We would, you know, our PD would play some of the competition. And I remember one break Malcolm did because their studios were literally like across the street and down an alley from the Alamo and so it was always broadcasting from the front steps of the Alamo and he was coming out of a song that was a new song from a band and he said you know, I pulled up here to the station today it's Malcolm Reicher and there was this hot looking Corvette out front and it left so fast it left skid marks. Here's new skid row. Oh God, what a terrible break. I love Malcolm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Malchish man, it's Malchish. There you go, good, malcolm. Well, here's the thing in radio especially, but I think it's probably in every business. It's such a small world man that you know. You know Brian, you know Malcolm, I worked for Brian, I worked with Malcolm. You know Lennyk, I know Lennyk. I mean it is really small when you think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure man.
Speaker 1:Your list of people that you interviewed is so long, but the slash conversation was really cool.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Yeah, I screwed up an interview with Slash and at Rock on the Range once, and when I say I screwed it up, we had a great conversation. The first five and a half minutes of the interview were incredible, and then I asked him toward the end of the interview. I said okay. I said I know you get hot and sweaty on stage. You have to have more than one top hat. Where do you keep all your top hats and how many do you have? And Slash looked at me and he gave me a look of disdain and said man, this conversation was so good Up until that question. I went oh, I felt like an ass for asking him that. Did he answer it though? No, he didn't answer.
Speaker 1:He didn't even answer it.
Speaker 2:No, the interview was pretty much done at that point in time. It became awkward.
Speaker 1:We talked about Mustaine earlier, but who was the most difficult interview you ever had?
Speaker 2:David Lee Roth. Why? Yeah, without a doubt. You know David Lee Roth. He's so hokey and always all these terrible one-liners and always trying to be the butt. You know everything David Lee Roth says. He's got a joke and a smile at the end, but the guy, guy and a little chicane and a guy you know, and it was just awkward, because you can't, you don't see the smile when you're talking to somebody over the phone. There's not the mannerisms, he wasn't able to, it doesn't translate, it didn't translate and and I was I wanted to get kind of into the nitty-gritty. You know, I come into an interview, extremely well researched, mm-hmm, and, and I think he was just, you know, he, he was just looking for a platform, I get it, but I had to go into a commercial break and he ended up hanging up on me. Wow, yeah, cuz I wasn't laughing at his jokes, I was just like, uh, whatever was this with you when he was with Van?
Speaker 2:Halen or was A solo? No, this was solo.
Speaker 1:I was working in Iowa at the time, yeah so who's somebody that you always had a great conversation with and would talk to him in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's so many. There's got quit. There's quite a few, I mean, as as of late, let's see James LeBrie from dream theater. James and I are on speed dial and he is a fairly reclusive individual. I, I know he's not the, you know, the biggest front man or rock star on the face of the planet, but man, he's an intellectual. I love talking to him about stuff. Yeah, there's, there's a ton.
Speaker 2:You know, I hung out with Lars Ulrich and once at his house, we had dinner at his place in Marin and there was a whole slew of people, but Lars and I got along so well that you know, and there were shuttle buses taking people back to their hotels back in in San Francisco and in the city, and, and, and they were going in shifts, starting at about 11, 30 or midnight and Finally 2 30 in the morning.
Speaker 2:Lars and I, he's, he's going, hey, let's check out this. You know this whole UFO concert that I have on, you know, on DVD or VHS, in the theater down here and I'm like, yeah, and you got this and you got this. And he's like, yeah, check this one, have you seen this one? And his handlers finally had to come and grab me and go. Hey, you know, lars, it's gonna be three o'clock in the morning. You know we're not with. This is the last train into in the town and Lars like, oh sorry, man, I guess you got a split and so. But you know, every time I've talked to Lars or any of the guys in Metallica it's just been a great conversation, so easy get along with that cool when they can let their guard down and you see them not as rock stars or musicians, but just as people.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when you know you've done a great job in a conversation or with it, you've made a real impression on somebody was when they do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, re, it's all to me, it's all about the research man. Yeah, you know, same thing with Don Felder. I got a chance to interview him when he did a solo show in Reno several years back and I was working on the classic rock station doing mornings. We had such a great conversation that after the interview he stayed on the phone and and said man, that was one of the best interviews I've had. He ended up inviting us backstage for, you know, the, the after the meet and greet, hook up and and chat and we hung out with Felder for an hour after that With his wife and, and his kids were there and, just you know, hung out and shot the shit. Man, it was great.
Speaker 1:That is the highest compliment you can give somebody who's asking questions is you. That's the best interview I've ever had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've had some nice ones. That's really cool. I like I don't know if you heard the Cindy Lauper Interview that I did. It was Cindy and Rod Stewart on a combo. They were out doing the tour together, uh-huh and, and Rod is dropping his kids off at soccer practice in the morning. But that was a great conversation and I asked Cindy if there was any sexual tension between the two of them, because she's such a Hottie and Rod was known for, you know, his flashy dress the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, being a good-looking guy, and Cindy's response was, oh god, no, I, he always wears such ridiculous stuff. I always have to tell him you can't wear that on stage. And three octave higher Cindy Lauper voice of course of course but yeah, funny, funny interview.
Speaker 1:The interview that got away, one, one person that you wish you could interview, that you have, you never have.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know, I mean if it was not genre specific? No, it doesn't have to be. You know, I think it'd be fascinating to speak to Taylor Swift. I think it'd be fascinating to speak with John Mayer. I have a lot of respect for both those artists, especially Taylor because she writes all of her own material, or at least most of it. She's a savant, she's brilliant. Madonna has kind of gone off the cuckoo deep end, but I bet she's got some great stories. Obviously the King, michael Jackson. I don't know if, if I could, you know, take his voice for an entire interview, but I'm sure he would just be a fascinating person to Kind of dig deep into a little bit you know and and get you know beneath the psyche.
Speaker 1:How do you define?
Speaker 2:a great interview Um somebody who who has really thoughtful answers and also knows when to shut up.
Speaker 1:Not going to silence, no, I was learning how to shut up. Yeah, I, larry King, was the guy that oh yeah. I kind of modeled my my conversation style after and he said if you go into an interview with three questions and you have to use two, you're not listening.
Speaker 2:That's true. Yeah, and I always went in with 10 to 15 questions and if I use more than four or five of them, it was the. The interview was either really really good or it was. It. Was it the conversation was? You know, was was died, was dynamite yeah?
Speaker 1:and and it's just you can't for people that have not done it before. You really can't describe how it cool and effortless conversation is for sure. So what will you be enjoying this evening after we converse?
Speaker 2:You know, probably tequila.
Speaker 1:You are a big tequila fan. I saw that on two dudes review.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I've got a couple of videos up there comparing the Costco and Neho in the in the round tall bottle. It's one liter and it was priced at 19 bucks a bottle, like three years ago, I think it's about $29 a bottle now. I've done a B taste test with that tequila up against Don Julio 1942 and you almost can't tell the difference to. Don Julio is a little smoother, a little sweeter, but it's $80 more a bottle, right? Yeah, yeah, that Costco tequila is incredible. It's my go-to sipper when I'm not looking for you know something?
Speaker 1:Are you a Blanco repositor or on Yeho guy?
Speaker 2:and a ho. Yeah, if I'm making margaritas, it's a Blanco.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, what have you had, kodigo?
Speaker 2:In fact, I think I have a bottle of that in my collection here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really good. It's really good. Yeah, did you ever meet him when you were in San Antonio?
Speaker 2:George straight. Yeah, yeah, I actually did the George straight concert festival. It was like six or seven bands. The promoter was either jam or pace at the time sold out the Alamo dome at about 75,000 people and Got. It was for his birthday and and I had I was responsible for delivering his birthday present, which was a Jurassic Park pinball machine in his dressing room. Yeah, george was super cool. George lived in the Dominion which was about 15 20 minutes away from where I grew up in San Antonio, right right up off of 35 or I?
Speaker 1:can you talk about people that have had Immense success? He's obviously the standard bearer for country music. I've never met anybody more humble for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my guitar instructor growing up, his brother His name is Bobby Jarzombeck is George's drummer as George's drummer in his band.
Speaker 1:If, you really.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you're a fan of amazing drummers, but I am. If you get a second, look up Bobby Jarzombeck. Okay, he's incredible, and his brother, ronnie Jarzombeck, is just as crazy on guitar as Bobby is on drums. It's strange to see, because they're both hardcore prog rock players, like like they would make Um Horton away blush. Really, yes, as far as drum technique and style and accuracy and Prog worthiness. But yeah, check those guys out.
Speaker 1:How would you compare them to Danny carry?
Speaker 2:Cool, wow, comparable, a little bit of a different style, you know, danny, I don't think is quite as percussive and Goes quite off the beat, as much. You know. Yeah, anti-sync opation and, and you know, the beat within the beat, within the beat, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're talking about Portnoy and and Danny being two of the five names bantered about for a rush tour.
Speaker 2:Oh, that totally makes sense, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they're saying that people that are drummers, current drummers, that would be able to capture Neil Kurtz, essence, and those are two of the five names. I can't remember the other ones.
Speaker 2:I love Portnoy. There's just the one critique I would give Portnoy is occasionally he overplayed. How so those too many fills to?
Speaker 1:me and he's from dream theater.
Speaker 2:Yes yeah so dream theater, and then event seven fold for a short spell, and then he'd. He just replaced Mike Manjini. You took his spot in dream theater. This happened a month or so ago. Manjini was the drummer for extreme Mm-hmm. Yeah, a great drummer too.
Speaker 1:You know, you know, benton court was from extreme, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, yeah, guitar player. Yeah, great guitar player. Who'd you model? You're playing after.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm not a. I don't consider myself a great guitarist, you know I I like Kurt Hammett. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was. I was shocked to learn, you know, pretty early on in my music playing, you know how much blues was involved in Kurt's style and playing and his theory and his philosophy which you can hear in the later albums. Yeah, I didn't hear much in the blues arena in kill them all and ride the lightning and you know master puppets Well, isn't it. Definitely here reloading and to current isn't all rock derivative of blues.
Speaker 2:It is, however, real solid blues riffs there's. There's a distinct difference. I think if you listen to, you know the solos and, granted, that fuel had a lot to do with that too. But if you listen to the solos from Ride the lightning and listen to the solo work on load or reload, to me there's a lot of difference there.
Speaker 1:Some of it's something for me to listen to you now, because I never even thought that you know you could hear anything but rock out of those guys. So I will definitely be checking that out.
Speaker 2:Well, brother, man, it's been a great time kind of conversing with you and likewise, likewise I would cheers you, but I here, I'm just cheering, for I'm just sharing water. I got fillets to make upstairs.
Speaker 1:The wife's giving me the evil glare right now my thanks to jave Patterson for joining me Am I deep gratitude to you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating and review. Doing so may very well lead to your comment being mentioned in a future episode. Please share the fuzzy mic with your friends. As our fuzzy following grows, the more indebted I am to you. And to stay connected with the fuzzy mic, you can follow me on Instagram, facebook and Twitter for video. Mentioned it before. Please subscribe to the fuzzy mic YouTube channel. The fuzzy mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein, production elements by Zach Sheesh. At the radio farm. Social media director is Trish Klein. Join me next Tuesday for a new episode of the fuzzy mic and thank you.
Speaker 2:That's it for the fuzzy mic. Thank you, thought. Fuzzy mic with Kevin Klein.