Sticking to the Roots of Nashville: John McTigue's Drumming Journey :: Ep 216 The Rich Redmond Show

Rich and Jim sit down with veteran Nashville drummer John McTighe for an intimate conversation about his remarkable musical career. From playing with legendary artists like Don McClean and Raul Malo to creating innovative drumming accessories and recording a critically acclaimed solo album, McTighe shares fascinating stories from his decades in music. Discover the evolution of Nashville's music scene, hear about his time at Berklee College of Music, and get insights into the life of a professional musician who's seen it all. A must-listen for music lovers and aspiring drummers.

 

The Rich Redmond Show is about all things music, motivation and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them. Rich Redmond is the longtime drummer with Jason Aldean and many other veteran musicians and artists. Rich is also an actor, speaker, author, producer and educator. Rich has been heard on thousands of songs, over 30 of which have been #1 hits!

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@richredmond

www.richredmond.com

 

Jim McCarthy is the quintessential Blue Collar Voice Guy. Honing his craft since 1996 with radio stations in Illinois, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas and Nashville, Jim has voiced well over 10,000 pieces since and garnered an ear for audio production which he now uses for various podcasts, commercials and promos. Jim is also an accomplished video producer, content creator, writer and overall entrepreneur.

 

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@jimmccarthy

 

The Rich Redmond Show is produced by It's Your Show dot Co

www.itsyourshow.co

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:00):
Want to get cowboy boots, like work boots. You play

(00:03):
in cowboy boots? Ever? I'venever played in cowboy boots. I
don't, yeah.
In fact, there's a band I playwith regular regularly, the cow
pokes, and we have kind of adress code where everyone has
the same boots that me, yeah,and they bought me a pair, but I
don't want to get used toplaying in high heels. And now

(00:26):
I've tried the shoes on, andthey hurt my feet, yeah, so I
just don't wear them. And
yeah, looks like they're playingin high tops. You got to have
some dexterity in the ankle,right? Yeah, yeah.
I've known a couple of guys thatplayed barefoot, yeah? And I've
tried that and that, Oh, that'sweird. That's hard, even
with socks, I can't do it, yeah?You got to have some sort of
traction, some
sort of a Chuck. Chuck Taylorhas been my modus operandi. The

(00:49):
best shoes
I've ever played, and I neverwent back to him, wrestling
shoes.
Oh, I could see that. Yeah, theywere amazing. Well, I could see
wrestling too, yeah, pinningguys whispering in their ear
from
behind. This
is the rich Redmond show.

(01:14):
What's up, folks? Yep, it isthat time. It's time for another
exciting episode of the richRedmond show. We talk about all
things like music, motivation,success, and today, yet another
brave, daring drummer has madethe trip to Spring Hill,
Tennessee, my new home for thelast five months. Jim McCarthy,
dude, I love it. It really

(01:34):
is. Have you been to the NewMexican restaurant?
El something Elle, something elmocha hectare. It's
in the old car dealership. Ihaven't tried it yet. What do
you think we had lunch theretoday? Courtney and I was it
good? Does it kind of justtastes like Mexican food?
Well, that's good because we dohave a lot of Mexican

(01:54):
restaurants in time
and mattress stores, yeah. And
what are the other things? Ijust
like that, all the stuff, thePublix, my bank, the Walgreens,
the cigar shop, everything isless than a half a mile
that cigar shop is. Is justworld class, world class. I was
there last night. Yeah, don'tmind me. I'm actually fixing the

(02:16):
background while we're Oh yeah,don't, don't
worry about that. So, so Jim,what is, what has been happening
with you since we talked an hourago. Oh, do you want to get
deep? Okay,
sure. Yeah,
you know this. You know, need tomake money and all that fun
stuff. Oh, yeah, it
is a sad part of life that is,you know, money isn't

(02:37):
everything, but we do need it,and it does make things a little
basic needs, yeah, yeah. It'salways being in that situation
of trying to cover your basicneeds.
It's fun, but you're a hardworker. I don't know anyone that
works. I don't know how youmultitask and juggle the things
that you do. Insanity. Yeah, weget a good hey, we're gonna have
another great conversationtoday. A maniacal edge. Hey,

(02:57):
this gentleman is a staple ofthe Nashville community. I mean,
if you if there's a drum set,he's going to be playing it. I
see him all the time the last 28years, playing down on lower
Broadway. He plays with avariety. He's a world class
musician hailing fromPhillipsburg, Pennsylvania. He's
a graduate of the BerkleeCollege of Music. He's called

(03:17):
Nashville home since 1988currently playing drums for
Emmy, Lou Harris, Don McClean,but he's also worked for let me
put on my readers. These arejust a few of the names. Raul
malo from the Mavericks, RodneyCrowell, Steve Cropper, Hank
Williams, the third bombshell.How Ketchum, Shannon, Lawson,
Rosie Flores, buddy, JewelMandy, Barnett, Chuck Meade. I

(03:40):
mean, this list goes on and onand on. We're talking about our
friend John McTighe the thirdWhat's up, Buddy Rich, how are
you? Dude? I am so happy to haveyou sitting here, because all
the years of knowing you,knowing of you, knowing of your
work, seeing you play, we havenever been able to have a
conversation longer than soundgreat, man, I'll see you just

(04:02):
waving.
Yeah, no red door. Time.Nothing. Yeah, I spent
way too much time mixingbusiness pleasure at a little
watering hole called the reddoor. And I don't know if you
have a watering hole, but Iwould never run into John there.
No,
I used to run into Henry go allthe time there, who
is a big week at KHS music now,yeah, running sonar, really,

(04:23):
yeah, picked, I guess, yeah,yeah, very cool. I love
him so. And you were, inaddition to all this, you were a
founding member of Brazil,Billy, that's right now is, is
that band still happening or?No, it's
still happening. Okay, stillhappening? Yeah, it's, it's
completely different than itused to be musically. Before it

(04:44):
was probably 85% Latin or Cubangrooves, yes, with traditional
country music, and now there'salmost none of that.
So it was a mix of almost likeLatin rockabilly,
yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah. HenceBrazil. Bill, yeah, that's
great, man, yeah, it's fun. Verycool. Yeah,

(05:04):
you know what? And a lot of theplaying that you do downtown, I
don't know, you might work someof the other rooms, but I always
see you at Roberts. And Robertsis the one place when I go down
there that is, like, top of thelist. It's my favorite place.
And when tourists come to town.And let's face it, they're all
coming, and they're like, whereshould I go? I was like,
Roberts. You can get the crinklefries and the fried baloney. You

(05:29):
can get a Coors and a can, andthe band kicks ass, and they're
wearing their Pearl snap shirts.And it's music from the 1950s
It's traditional. You're gonnalove it.
Yes, the quintessentialtraditional country music, Honky
Tonk, yeah, number one in theworld. Got a baby? Yes, right.
Never gone there. You haven't 20years living here. I've never

(05:51):
been
there. Jim, we're gonna do aguys night, and we're just gonna
go to Roberts, yeah, just on anyweekday. I mean, there's always
a killer band come
down on Wednesday, late shift,10 to two, okay, yeah, I'll be
there. That's your
shift. These days, that's my
shift. Yeah, these days, withthe cow pokes, traditional
country music band, we started athing on Tuesday nights that

(06:14):
we've moved up to the east sidebowl in East Nashville, yeah,
and that's worked out reallywell, but we've been doing
Wednesday nights at Roberts forsix or seven years now. Oh, wow,
it's fun. Yeah, I think you digit. Yeah, yeah, it's,
I can't believe you know, it'sbecause you, you kind of have a
an avoidance these days for

(06:35):
downtown, lower, broad, it canbe a hassle parking and
tourists, tourists, and, youknow, it thinks you can get kind
of crazy.
Woo girls, yes,
the cabs, but the
tips have gotten better. You
can make a living now you could.Yeah,

(06:56):
yeah. So, I mean, years ago,well, you know, I don't know if
I would ever want to play thismuch. I mean, I love my
instrument, but you wouldprobably be bordering on
burnout. But you know, if youwork that scene down there and
you get the right rooms on theright days, their guys are
making six figures playing downthere, that's true. I mean,
that's crazy. That is, yeah,that's a lot of schlepping.
That's a lot of Yeah. Bon Jovi,what does that mean? You know,

(07:23):
it's like Roberts is one of thefew rooms where you're gonna and
maybe laylas, maybe legends,where you're gonna hear the
traditional stuff, 5060s, 70s,country, right? And everything
else is going to be a bunch ofguys with in ear monitors and
iPads and rolling kits, andthey're playing very current
stuff, and a lot of just rockand roll, yeah, like Bon Jovi

(07:47):
place. It's got that multi, he'sgot the big stage, and it's,
like, the, you know, the sneezeguard, and a big double bass
Kent, and just everyone's got inears. And just, they're just
rocking,
yeah, yeah. They're playing,like, all the Bon Jovi hits and
stuff like that, yeah, just
top down journey rock, classicrock stuff. And we went
down there on a Mondayafternoon. Yeah, it was Monday

(08:10):
or Tuesday, and my brother hadcome to town, yeah, and my
brother's a musician from he'sin Detroit. He's been there for
last 2530 years, but he's beenplaying keys since He's seven
years old, no, even earlier thanthat. But he, he basically, it
was like a dog hanging out thewindow enjoying the air. How
bad? On a Monday, Tuesdayafternoon. And I said, dude, and

(08:31):
this is the afternoon shift.Yeah, you know, there is
no place on Earth, right, likethere. I think there's 60 clubs
or something down there. It's,it's a lot. Yeah,
there's nowhere like Nashvilleto be able to do it is unique.
What people do to make moneydowntown, yeah, it's one of
those things like you could haveVegas. Vegas is known for, you

(08:52):
know, I'm the gambling is noteven the the number one draw
anymore. It's all theentertainment. It's a city of
entertainment, yeah, butNashville definitely has a
niche. I mean, it's a uniqueexperience, for sure. For sure.
Yeah, and Robert's Westernworld, I would say definitely my
favorite, totally, for if youwant to get you know where the

(09:12):
locals go,
Yeah, John England and theWestern Swingers, that's one of
the best western swing bands onthe planet, yeah, for sure. You
know, yeah. And what was thescene like in 1988
Well, I played down the firsttime in 93 Yeah. And it was with

(09:33):
Gary Bennett from br 549 rightbefore br 549 and I'll put it
this way, I I went down there, Isaid yes to a weekend's worth of
gigs, and I never went back till95 because it was like the worst

(09:54):
place you would ever want to be.It was all pawn shops, sex
shops. Uh, prostitutes, drugaddicts. You're kidding, like
Times Square in the 70s, yeah?And like there were no lights.
There were no arc lights. Theywere either shot out or they
just didn't work. And you couldpark right in front of the club,
wherever you were playing, yeah?And there was a across the

(10:16):
street where rippies is. Therewas a club called the turf, and
that was the worst place thatwas, like, the kind of place
where people actually gotmurdered in the club.
I'm sorry, but I mean, but yeah,before the tornado of exactly
what was 2010

(10:37):
No, that was the flood
98 Okay, yeah, and that it wasthe, it was the tornado of 98
took out a lot of that stuff onthe wolfies Rippy side. Remember
wolfies? Wolfies was killer, butthere was, and there was, like a
little club next to to wolfies,Music City, the Music City
lounge in
between that and the turf. Yeah,I have a brick from the turf.

(11:02):
Was it thrown at you? No, it wasafter the tornado hit the
building. Oh, wow, yeah.
Remember hearing about thattornado. I used to play at
wolfies with, uh, buddy Spiker,yeah, you had to play. So, so,
yeah, he liked it that way forsure. So soft it was, it was a
good challenge.
I remember seeing Dirks Bentleyplay there,

(11:23):
yeah, man, yeah. And it's sofunny that that side of the
street never seemed to have thecache or the success as the side
with tootsies. You're
exactly right and all that.Yeah, I don't know why strange
deal with that. I have no idea,but that is so true.
And kid rocks was a place calledShauna Ki, yeah, and somebody

(11:44):
got shot in the face outsidethat club.
Wow. I did not know that. Yeah.I remember that club. I played
there a couple times with ablues band. And then after that,
it became like cowboy. It waslike a cowboy dress in drag.
Wow, kind of theater, yeah, thatdidn't go over very well. Oh,

(12:07):
wow. That ended quickly, yeah,can't imagine why, yeah. And
then it is what it is now, yeah,man and all
the shootings have moved up toOpry mills.
No, that was not what I wanted.
There we go. Nice, Jim, thankyou. Completely
ruined it. Should I do a taketwo? No, well,
you know, and there's also,there was, you know, Virginia's

(12:28):
market there, across from theold Omni in Midtown, murder
Mart, the murder mark, yes. And
so there's a theme going on inthis episode. People were
shot in front of that place.Yeah, how about
the Kroger east side, the murderKroger. The murder Kroger.
There's T shirts you can stillfind that have that now,

(12:51):
which now? What street is that?On Gallatin road. It's
on Gallatin road, and it's thefirst Kroger you would pass on
the way out of town towardsMadison. Yes, that was
considered the murder Kroger,because somebody was murdered in
the parking lot. Oh
my gosh, this is dark. It'sreally dark, right? But now,
so Nashville is a little bitmore new and shiny now. I mean,

(13:14):
it really is. Yeah, it'sbeautiful. They kind
of wonder, if you compared thenumbers from then and now, are
they still the same? Murder
wise. Murder wise. You know, Idon't know. No, we're not
Memphis, and that's not,
we're not Memphis. That's good.Robbery Mills, yeah,
let's pepper things with kids,yeah. So, so you, you're the
rare, one of the rare guys thatgraduates from Berkeley. But

(13:36):
when do you start playing music?Do you have a musical family,
because you are the third in alineage,
which means rich, yeah, I comefrom money. Jim, that's right. I
want
you to know that John McTighe,the
third, not much money, but it'smoney.
Good Irishman, right? Yeah, yes,100%

(13:57):
English and Irish. My mom wasfull blood English, yeah, yeah.
Dad, Irish, yeah. His father, Inever met, but apparently he was
a cement Mason and also a boxer.Wow, tough guy, yeah, and he was
a smaller guy, and my dad was mysize larger, and my dad was a

(14:19):
cement Mason most of his life,
wow, yeah, most drummers arehugging the earth. What is it
like up there? I mean, you getto see if people are losing
their hair. There's all sorts ofthings.
You know, concerts, betterpositions, you can see, you
know, more people better air,yeah, yeah. And, of course, how

(14:39):
tall are you? More expensiveclothes, though, you guys, I'm
six, four
more fabric, more fabric. Yeah,and you like the dress, what I
do? Like? I like the fact thatyou put lots of thought into
what you wear. It's very nice.
Oh, well, thank you. Yeah,
you never tell me that part ofit. Well, you're on a car heart
kick now, which is great, man.
You're so full of it. No. Ithink Rich is like, whenever I

(15:02):
get, you know, he'll if he if hedoesn't like what I'm wearing,
he goes, it's a new shirt.
Their hoodies are big andathleisure. They're very just,
you know, you just sink intothem when you're watching TV.
It's nice. I'm more
of the Steve Jobs. Okay, justsimple. I don't want to think
about it. Just put it on and go,

(15:22):
Yeah, but no, you actually lookvery well constructed. You got
the dark denim with the blackboots and, yeah, man,
the very stylish shoes. Yeah,yeah. I want to get cowboy
boots, like work
boots. You play in cowboy boots.Ever? I've never played in
cowboy boots.
I don't Yeah. In fact, there's aband I play with regular
regularly, the cow pokes, and wehave kind of a dress code where

(15:48):
everyone has the same boots, butme, yeah. And they bought me a
pair, but I don't want to getused to playing in high heels.
And now I've tried the shoes on,and they hurt my feet, yeah? So
I just don't wear them. Andyeah,
looks like they're playing inhigh tops. You got to have some
dexterity in the ankle, right?Yeah, yeah.
I've known a couple of guys thatplay barefoot, yeah? And I've

(16:11):
tried that and that. That'sweird, that's hard, even
with socks, I can't do it, yeah,you got to have some sort of
traction some summer
of a Chuck. Chuck Taylor hasbeen my modus operandi, the
best shoes I've ever played, andI never went back to him,
wrestling shoes. Oh, I could seethat. Yeah, they were amazing.
Well, I could see you
wrestling too. Yeah, pinningguys whispering in their ear

(16:35):
from from behind. They were,
you know who Neil Pierre used toplay in was dancing shoes. Okay?
He would tuck his pants, I guesshe would. He would wrap them or
bungee them to his ankles sothey wouldn't get caught out of
the pedals. Yeah, and, but hesays, because you know, you're
pretty much dancing and you woredancing shoes,

(16:55):
wow. And Steve Gadd was a greattap dancer. I heard that. I
heard he, he
studied tap Yeah. And Troy,
look at it. Is a good roofer.
What now, I know he is, no, Imade that came up
really, yeah, he does roofing.Doesn't he live in Murfreesboro?
Um, he used to or something.Yeah, Troy's always moving
around. Where is he living now?Um,

(17:18):
I love those odd stories,though. Yeah, come in these, you
know, that came out of that,that that episode with him, and
I was like, What dude, you guysshould get up on roofs and
everything is,
like, that's hard work. It
is hard work. I think he's gotcrews of people now. He's just
bossing around. Hey, I want thisdone by five. Oh, yeah,

(17:40):
slacker, what is like, you know?And that kind of brings up that
kind of a notion, even thoughyou spent a majority of life
playing, what was something elsethat you might have done, that
you were like, Okay, this couldbe something, if the drumming
didn't work out,
that I would have beeninterested in, yeah,
you know, I've had some day jobsyears ago, and one of them was

(18:03):
making vinyl tilt in windows.Oh, wow. I found that
interesting, huh?
Yeah, manufacturing them, yes,
yeah. Well, the thing, and thefunny thing is, is that you're
known as a, you know, rootscountry, Americana drummer, you
know, mostly, um, but youstudied 20th century

(18:25):
composition, yeah, which is sointeresting, you know, because I
I love that too. I mean, I have,I'm an over educated rock
drummer. I have my masters andin percussion and music
education. But, you know, Imean, I love various and I love
Stravinsky, and I love, youknow, forward thinking, you
know, avant garde music, yeah,you would never be able to tell

(18:47):
from, you know, the gigs that weget called that we like this
stuff. That's true, but it's inthere. It's baked into the cake.
It's part of the the root, yeah,you know, you're right, yeah,
absolutely. What did you have todo to get that degree? Did you
have to create compositions?Yes,
yes. We had to do fugues,motets, Choral arrangements,
string quartets, yeah, asymphony. Piece, a piece for a

(19:10):
symphony, writing,
we're scoring for a symphony.Wow, yeah, big job. Did you get
to hear it performed?
Not that piece. Some of theother ones I have, yeah,
yeah, well, there's stillthere's still time. I mean, that
would be really cool,
yeah, if I could find a symphonyto hire. Yeah, yeah,
it's Prague. Prague.

(19:31):
They're cheaper. You know what?When I first came to Nashville,
I had a friend that knew somepeople at the Nashville
Symphony, and they were doinglocal composers pieces, and he
approached me about having mypiece played. And I was like,
totally into it, and I startedwriting out parts, and it took

(19:54):
me about a month to finish allthe parts, and in the meantime,
the symphony went bankrupt. I.Completely, Oh, wow. This is
before the skirm a horn, thatwhole deal. And so when I
approached him again, he waslike, man, we're not doing that
anymore. We're sticking toBeethoven Mozart, you know, we
got to make money

(20:14):
give the people what they want.Yeah, that was a
little discouraging at the time,yeah, yeah,
yeah, man, but that's so do youremember all of the, you know,
the ins and outs of the, youknow, the ranges of the
instruments, the clarinets andall. It gets rusty if you don't
use it, it
does. It really does. Yeah,yeah. Nobody likes a rusty

(20:34):
clarinet,
the rusty trombone, rustytrombone. Yes, it's a big
one in San Francisco. Anyways,give me a Get up.
Damn Jim label, those thingsthat a good one. Damn

(20:56):
we have one of Johnny at onetime going Shazam my drum tech
from the last 14 years,
I have that on another machine.Yeah, I might have, I
have that road caster in a boxat my place, you know. But since
I come and you push all thebuttons, that's great. Do I sell
it?
So what was the first job yougot when you moved to town?

(21:18):
First music job, first drummingjob.
Let me see,
it was probably with GaryBennett, yeah, before. Br, five
Yeah, and it was on Broadway.Now
explain to the listeners, sosomebody's lit in Des Moines,
Iowa, and they don't know thelegacy of br, 549

(21:40):
okay? Br, 549 was a band thatstarted playing at Roberts
Western world, and this wouldhave been early 90s, yeah, and
young guys playing traditionalcountry music and dressing like
the traditional country musicstars dressed back in the day,
and they were doing thisdowntown Broadway in Nashville,

(22:04):
which was the one place youwould never want to ever be at
that time, it was verydangerous. And I think that's
what made it kind of exciting,yeah, because because of the
music and the way they looked,people of all ages, sizes, uh,
rich, poor would go down to thisweird little club to hear this

(22:28):
crazy little band do this musicthat you you couldn't find
anymore. Yeah, they created ascene. They did, and they those
guys, as well as Greg Gehring,uh, changed the face of
downtown. That was the, yeah,the nucleus. That was what
started it,
yeah. Man, yeah, yeah. It's kindof like, you know, our, our

(22:49):
engineer that has done all theAldean records, Pete Coleman. I
don't have you ever worked withPete Coleman over at treasure
Isle, but he was, you know, hewas the guy. He actually
recorded my Corona for theknack. And, you know, at the
time, you know, the knack wasplaying around. La, this was
probably 8081, um, six nights aweek, they were so sharp, and

(23:11):
they were so tight, and all thecelebrities and the hipsters and
Hollywood would go see them, andit was a scene, man. And that's
what I kind of park into that,yeah, yeah,
it was fun. It's a really coolthing. Yeah, it's exciting, one
of a kind. It doesn't happenevery
day. No, it's a hard thing, andyou can't force something like

(23:32):
that.
No, it just happens. Yeah, yeah.You can't really create it. You
just do your thing. And thisevolved out of that, yeah, yeah.
Now you're
currently doing dates with DonMcClean, bye, bye, Miss American
Pie. That's correct, wow. Longsong, like seven or eight
verses, eight
minutes and 21 seconds. That wasour bathroom song in radio. I

(23:54):
used to play in a band calleduh, you know, I used to play in
a band called uh, Frito pie, andwe would in then that became
Eskimo pie was in college, andwe would pass out freeze dried
Eskimo pies to all the drunks atthe clubs. And we would do,
like, songs by a lot of one hitwonders. But, I mean, this was
kind of, this was, I'm sureDon's got some other things, but
he is so known for that,

(24:14):
yeah, iconic, icon standard.Yeah, that's
so when I got in the radio, whenI was a jock, back in the day,
we were transitioning fromactually pulling CDs and
stacking your hour to everythinggoing automated. So at that
point, you know, you could, wehad 40 minute long sets of I 95

(24:36):
rock. You had entire time justto goof off. You didn't have to
really fire anything off. Buttypically that song, or knights
and white satin, okay, was wasthe song? Wow, yep, by the Moody
Blues. So
he's got to
be a good number two,
fun guy to work for, or veryinteresting. So Jerry Kroon was
playing with him. Yeah. And now,for those folks that don't know,

(24:59):
I. Uh, in 1998 I took a studioNashville studio drumming
workshop with Tommy wells Godrest his soul and Jerry croon.
And it was, like a month longcourse. I mean, we go, like
twice a week, and we'd talkabout tuning and playing house
kits and the Nashville NumberSystem and scribbling out your
own charts. And just it wasreally fun. Wow, yeah, yeah. So

(25:23):
I got to know Jerry croon alittle bit, and I haven't seen
him much really since, yeah, youknow, yeah. So how'd you get the
call? Who's in the band? Allthat fun stuff.
Tony migliorne was the bandleader, yeah, and I had played
with Tony through Mandy Barnett,yeah, and Brad Albin was the

(25:44):
bass player. And I played withBrad regularly, and had been
playing with him for 21 years.And Brad would always say to me,
like many times, he's like, man,if Jerry ever needs a sub, he
would be perfect. And I've, youknow, of course, I was like, Oh
man, let me know that'd begreat. And then Jerry needed a

(26:05):
sub and but at the time, Bradwas not playing anymore with
Dawn, so Tony approached me andsaid, Brad, always said, you'd
be great for this. You know,I've worked with you, with
Mandy, and I went to one oftheir shows at the Ryman because
I had never met Jerry, and Iwatched the show. And when they

(26:27):
were finished, I went up toJerry. I said, Hey, I introduced
myself. He's like, Oh yeah,you're Brad's friend. He's like,
look, I've got some stuff comingup. I need a sub. And Brad said,
you'd be perfect. Would you beinterested? And I said, Sure,
yeah. So that's kind of how itstarted. That's
awesome, yeah? And somethingtells me, You guys play those
delightful, you know, on thesquare of a downtown theater

(26:52):
seats 1500 people, kind of athing, yeah, yeah, a lot of
those. I love that kind oftouring, because the bus pulls
up right to the theater. You'reon this beautiful little
downtown square, and you youcould support the local economy.
There's the indie record shop,there's the mom and pop coffee
shop. I can go over here and geta martini, and it's all right
there. It's all walkingdistance.
Yeah? You get to see these coollittle towns and have more of an

(27:16):
experience. Yeah, you know totake with you, because
the sheds that we do, you know,with Aldean, are always 30 to 40
minutes outside the city limits,and you know, to do anything,
you know, you got to get arunner. And it's the whole
thing, you know, notcomplaining, but that seems like
it would be a delightful kind oftouring. Yeah, it's fun. Very,

(27:36):
very cool. And so you have moredates coming up with him. Yes,
we do. And one thing I reallylike about your playing, because
I, you know, when I try toresearch all my guests and kind
of consume stuff they've playedon, I look, looked you up on
YouTube, and so there's videosof you out there. Um, you play
very controlled, like you letthe mics do the work, and
everything's just really you gotspot when you play your crashes.

(27:58):
It's like this little whippingmotions This is great. You know,
that's fun. It just makes me,like, want to play like that
sometimes, and say, Wow, uphere, like, must destroy drum.
It's just, yeah, you just gottons of dynamic control and a
great feel. And
thanks. You're very kind, man. Iappreciate that. Oh, yeah, very,

(28:18):
very,
very enjoyable. And, well, let'slook at this list here. And if,
as I'm naming some of thesepeople that I named before, you
know, the Rodney crows, theSteve Cropper, Hank Williams,
the third I did that job in 1999Okay, yeah, and it was what I do
remember about. This is a thisis bosephus son. That's correct,

(28:41):
yeah. So you know both Cephas.Where did that come from? Monday
Night Football. How did he getthat name? I do not know,
because they actually,
I think when Sammy joined VanHalen and it was on the live
without a net VHS, their firstlive video. He calls him Alex

(29:03):
bosephus mode, heylon, huh, didyou not? Did you ever catch
that? I didn't catch that, man,yeah, if we ever get Sammy on
the show,
I'll have to ask him that dude,Sammy, yeah, he seems like a
very approachable guy, 58 yearsold, killing it crazy. Wow, I
know. Well, he goes. I mean, hewas in Montrose. Yeah, that was
Sammy man, going way back. Whata voice? Yeah, he's like a Paul

(29:26):
Rogers, where it's like, God,Paul Rogers, you've been around
forever, like David Coverdale,they like he was in rainbow
before, White Snake, yeah,
yeah. Did you ever, did you guyssee that? You, I know you didn't
go see them, but did you see uh,Sammy, when he came through here
in the summer, it was in August.No, no, what a show was Kenny?

(29:46):
That was the second show thatKenny did. Nobody was the first,
either the way Kenny had the subwith 24 hours notice, yeah, for
a two and a half hour show, wow.
Well, he's the guy to do it. Hecan thrive. Is on that. He loves
that kind of stuff, but I doremember Hank Williams the third
not never wanting to rehearse.He's like, no, that's just gonna
mess us up. Yeah, let's justkeep it raw and real, baby.

(30:09):
Never rehearsed. Neverrehearsed. No. And he would
record every show, and then we'dlisten to it on the bus. Oh,
wow,
yeah, that's nice, yeah. Well,so when did you work with him?
If I played with him in 99 itwould have been like 97 part of
98 Oh, yeah. He seems like hewas going, going through
drummers me at that
time. It seemed like it's funnybecause he he listened back to

(30:30):
every single show, yes, wow,yeah. That's crazy. You don't
hear that too often, yeah, butit's almost like, uh, you know,
Aaron Rodgers, quarterback. Hewatches all his game tape. Game
tapes. Oh, really, after everygame, yeah, that's how you get
better. It is good. That's
true. I get sick of myself. Youever get sick or something?
You're like that. Phil, again,yeah, damn.

(30:55):
Anymore. Are there any originalfills anymore?
But the ones that don't get youfired and are appropriate? Are
there's only a couple of you got
to use the standards. You can
put your little little slant onthem. You can add a drag here,
or a flam there. That's true,but Dutch Ducato is always going
to work, right? Yeah, I've been

(31:16):
actually employing the floor tomcrash,
okay, oh, the floor tom with
a China is a nice color too.
Yeah, right, yeah. What
was that in the Huey thing,where he Jim's
in a gym, is in a Huey losetribute band, and they're gonna
play the city winery on May 28we
don't do your the housekeeping.Oh, we

(31:38):
didn't do the housekeepingbecause it towards the end,
yeah. Was it towards again,sure, but
in heart and soul, yeah, here welose in the news, there's a
there's a breakdown in themiddle of the song, and it's
like a got a hand clap goingover, and it's and he goes like
that. You know, into the mic. Ihit the China on that. I'm

(32:00):
hitting the cowbell, and they
see this Jim, because I'venever, you know Jim and I talk
drums, interview drummers. I'venever seen him play in a musical
setting. Get
ready to be disappointed.
Gotta be self deprecating.Somebody has to.

(32:22):
It's fun. Humility is a goodthing. That's right, yeah. I'm
just trying to think of anyexpectations, any fun stories
from working with the, you know,the rosy Flores, I mean, legend
Mandy. I'm curious
about the Raul. Yeah. Here's thething is that I wasn't really
familiar with the Mavericks upuntil recently. My in laws have
friends, and these people aredie hard. I mean, they, they,

(32:47):
they're borderline doing theGrateful Dead thing and
following the band around. Wow,you know, I never realized that
existed, that people had suchfervor, you know? And I just
it's probably my naivete, but,you know, it is just
because you've been calling meout on my SAT words I've been
using. That was really goodbuddy.

(33:10):
So what was it like with him? Imean, he's, he's a prolific
artist, you know, yeah, yeah.
It was a lot of fun. He's greatto work. Great musician, yeah,
phenomenal bass player. I mean,he can play drums, keys,
obviously, guitar, and there'sno better singer. Yeah, he's

(33:32):
probably one of the best singersI've ever worked with in my
life. Yeah, and just the musicthat he does, I've always leaned
towards the Latin, yeah, rightgrooves and stuff and so. And I
think he recognized that rightaway. So we did a lot of that
stuff. My first gig with withhim was at the skirm a horn and

(33:54):
it was with an 11 piece band. Hehad brought out a lot of the
trumpet players and some of theplayers from the Mavericks, not
the main core of the band, butlike the horn players and
percussionists and so it was, itwas cool. It felt really good.
And super guy nice to work with.Lot of fun. And when we

(34:18):
traveled, man, he knew, like thebest local restaurants in every
city to hit. So, man, we got tocheck out some amazing places.
Just by his memory. Was heGoogling them? No, by memory,
really? Yeah, this is like,before cell phones, before Yelp,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you
worked with him before cellphones, yeah, so I got my first

(34:42):
cell phone in 99
I started working with him in ohsix, wow, I don't think we had
cell phones,
yeah, in 1999 I had one of thoseVerizon flip phones, the star
tech,
okay, yeah, I might have had oneof those. Yeah,
yeah. Remember the first timeyou were able to get your email

(35:02):
on your phone? Yeah? I thoughtit was the
coolest thing with my littleBlackberry. Yep, you had her
pagers. Oh, yeah, I remember allthe pagers.
The codes used to if you had alike Courtney and I were dating
at that time, and she she foundit challenging to say, I love
you, but she was good withsaying it through the pager. And

(35:25):
it was done by saying 143,
Wow, I love you. Oh,
one letter, four letters, threeletters, oh yeah. They're like,
the t9 texting, yep, oh yeah,yeah. You ever see that
documentary on the death of theBlackberry? Yes, pretty good. It
was pretty it was interesting.Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, they
had the world by the, you knowwhat, and then Apple came
around, Steve Jobs came and justcrushed them.

(35:48):
But I think they had, there's alot of hijinks that went on too,
right, yeah, lot of corruptionstuff like that. Because it was,
who was it come it was a Gosh.
I liked my Blackberry because itwas tactile. Yeah, I remember
the first time I got the iPhone.I was like, This is awkward,
yeah, because there's not realbuttons. Now the kids are like,

(36:08):
and
you still miss the buttons,yeah, yeah, you know, because
they're virtual. But theblackberries, I think you came
when you and I were beginning tobe friends. You were in the
production studio at the radiostation. You had just got the
BlackBerry with the roll ball onit, yeah? And you described it a
certain way. I was like, this isnot, yeah, no, you liked it
because it was, it was a kin,yeah, God, the man in the boat,

(36:30):
right? Yeah, you were flickingthe beam
the man in the boat.
Jeez. I was like, that's reallydescriptive.
Hey, so you got, you gotsomething there is, then you
take us a trip down memory lanewith your invention, yes, oh,

(36:52):
the webs, yeah, so that. So wewere both Johnny Rab artists in
the early 2000s and you createda product that would allow you
to play brushes, but very loud,
very loud, yes, is where youcould do rim shots and crash
cymbals. Is one of the firstbrushes, I believe, with like a

(37:13):
heavy wooden handle, yeah. Andit was great, like working on a
snare drone, doing a groove,like for train beats and
shuffles, you could get morevolume, you know, out of the
brush. And one thing, when Iplayed with Brazil Billy, I
would tune my snare like a TimBali, Oh, yeah. And when I

(37:34):
played these brushes on thatsnare, it made you sound like
you were an old recording whileyou played like it sounded like
an old record. While you wereplaying, the sound you were I
was getting, yeah, and that'sone of the things that I think
Johnny Rabb thought was cool. Hewas playing next door at laylas.

(37:56):
He would come over on break, andhe heard me playing, you know,
these these these songs, withthese brushes and more of a
homemade version, yeah, yeah. Istarted making them myself, you
know, with, like, milk cartons,pieces of plastic, yeah. And,
you know, he was like, Hey, man,what are you using? I said,
Well, I'm making my own brushes.And he wanted to get together,

(38:19):
and I was doing, like, a certaintype of technique. He's like,
Man, I want to, want you to showme that technique. But we never
did get together for that. Butat one point, he's like, Man,
I'm putting together my owndrumstick company, and I'd like
to make your brush. And so overa few years, we ended up making
that happen together. It
does take a little bit a whileto bring these things to

(38:39):
fruition. Oh, yeah. So did itcome to you one night you woke
up in a cold sweat, plasticbrushes, giant wood handle, no.
What had happened was
br five was playing Roberts andBrazil Billy was warming up for
them. And the owner of Roberts,Robert Moore, older gentleman,

(39:03):
when we were playing, therewould be nobody there yet, and
so you had to play soft, yeah,you know, he wanted to hear
country music, and that's whatwe were doing. And by the time
br five was getting ready toplay, the place would be packed,
and brushes were not enough. Youwere lost. And so I was
thinking, Man, how can I makethis happen? How can I make

(39:25):
these louder? So I just startedmessing around with stuff at
home and bringing it in andtrying it and it, you know, it's
like, wow, I can be heard, yeah.And I remember Donnie heron, the
fiddle player, steel player forbr five. He would sub with us
sometimes, and after a while,he's like, Man, those brushes

(39:46):
need to be heard. You need tomic that. So I started putting a
mic on it. And, you know, Ithink that's what attracted
Johnny, because you could hearthis sound. Yeah. It was
distinctive,
yeah, I man, so, uh. With themnot being, you know, Johnny Rab
went out of business,unfortunately. So with them not
being manufactured anymore. Doyou have, like, a nice cachet of

(40:08):
them where, you know, you gotthem still? I
have a few. I don't have a hugesupply. Talk about the rhythm
songs, uh, no, the webs, okay,yeah, yeah. Are you looking to
kind of bring them back? I
would love to do that, becauseyou went to ProMark after that
for a little pro Mark approachedme, said, We love your brush. We
don't want to make it. We wantyou to make it. We want to

(40:29):
distribute it. Yeah, and so Idid that for a few years, and
then that that kind of ended,and I haven't done it since, but
I would like to do that again.What
would be a good angle is thereis this musical drumming,
auxiliary product distributioncompany, Big Bang distribution.

(40:52):
So if you they don't do a lot ofmanufacturing, but if you have a
niche product like that, they'lldistribute it. So they might be
the guys to talk to.
I need a man of manufacturer,yeah, sure, yeah,
yeah. Who do you like? Who,gosh, where do you begin with?
Is
it a China thing? I
think so China.

(41:14):
Well, then you got the tariffsto worry about. Oh, god, that's
right,
yeah, that's true, yeah.Nowadays.
I mean, is there a market forit? And was there any sort of
proof and proof of concept?
Did it sell? Well, it was JohnnyRABs best selling accessory
product. Look at that really,yes. And, and Greg could affirm

(41:36):
that. Greg Lowman, yeah, he wasjust in here? But anyhow, and
I've seen videos of like HarryStinson playing them with Marty
Stewart, Johnny Barber, I don'tknow if you remember him. Sounds
familiar. He played with LorettaLynn, and I supplied him
throughout his entire life. Restin peace, but he loved them.

(42:00):
Yeah, yeah. I
think it's a great thing. AndI've got some somewhere, because
I I always take, you know, LeeHoward Stevens, the marimba
player. He's always got these inthese giant mallet bags, right,
that you would hang on thebottom of the marimba. So, so I
stick all of my keltnerism type,shaker, brush, hybrid things

(42:23):
into this bag. And I alwaysshows up at the session. And
usually the, you know, the stuffI get called for, it never gets
on opened, but it's there, yeah,if you need it, which is, it's a
great thing. They're awesome.Man, congratulations. Thank you.
Yeah, I think you could, youknow, the thing with
manufacturing is, is, is thewood being the wood part being
assembled somewhere, and then isthe plastic coming Great, or is

(42:44):
it? How does that likemanufacturing? Just it's so
mysterious. Yeah, I learned alittle bit about it from my gal,
because she's a fashiondesigner, and so she was always
over in China and sourcingfabrics. Oh, wow. And then Los
Angeles, downtown, Los Angeles,has tons of factories, you know,
making, you know, overpriced Tshirts. Right now, you could

(43:05):
probably find a place. Lewisburgseems to be turning into quite
the manufacturing hub. Oh, yeah,really, yeah, yeah. There's a,
there's a company we use for abunch of our products down there
that they do, fabricatingaluminum stuff like that. Yeah,
okay. But you know, for this,you you'd need some sort of a,
you know, plastic manufacturerwith the wood combo. You have it

(43:28):
here, yeah, yes, it looks good.You want to take it out of the
bag.
You could actually, I'm sure youcould buy, like I used to buy
the plastic separate, and Iused, I had a die cut made to
punch out this plastic. But youknow, you could buy your plastic
at one place, get your wood fromanother place, and just have

(43:49):
someone to put them together.Yeah.
Where'd you? Where'd you getthem done last when Johnny was
doing his thing, you said it wassouth.
Johnny had a company. They didthem. Yeah, was he actually
doing?
He was doing he was doing hisown manufacturing.
No, he he had a guy in tuneTennessee that owned a lumber
yard, right? And that's wherethey got all the wood from, and

(44:13):
they hired people to put to dothe rhythm saws and put these
things together. Yeah, they'rehard to get out of this bag.
Yeah,
man, it's worth the wait. Needto get a case for him. Yeah,
look at that. Yeah, that's
great, man. It's
funny upon like, just seeing italmost like

(44:34):
a got a nice double stroke roll.Jim, that's right, yeah, see,
that's what happened. That'swhat he did with his youth
practices. Rudiments,
yeah, they're great, man. Imean, I have to say, even though
I invented them, they did a goodjob at making these at Johnny's
company, and they last a while,and it's something, you

(44:55):
know, kind of unique. I thinkyou put that on the to do list
to like, you know. Don't abandonthat, because I think it's a
really great thing. And, youknow, there's just so many fun
little bells and whistles. Now,everyone's attaching things to
their drums and muffling theirdrums in so many different ways.
Now, yeah, you know, it's
so crazy just to try and, youknow, introduce a product into

(45:18):
the marketplace, because you seea lot of them at the Music City
drum show coming up in July.That's
right, Jim is going to be thereon the Saturday, and I'm going
to be there on the Sunday. We'regoing to have a little booth.
It's going to be awesome. Yeah,we're going to sell you stuff.
Have you been to the drum showin the past? I have,
it's the one suggestion I have.And I've told the powers that
be, Landon and JC, I, you know,I just said, when you do the

(45:40):
clinics, you got to have a moremoratorium on all the booth
noise, yeah,
because they're going to dothat, yeah, because, uh, if I
was doing a clinic and all thatwas going on, I would have a
really hard time. It's acacophony.
Just like, anyways, this partright here, come up, young man,
I want to show you this. Like,

(46:01):
it's like, oh my God, it is purewhite noise.
Yeah, have you? Have you gotteninto the clinic thing? Ever have
done it? An interest in it? Ihaven't
gotten into it. Yeah, still, youshould,
because you have so much toshare. Oh, much knowledge, so
much experience.
I would be into talking aboutstuff. You know, do you have

(46:22):
such? Do you have endorsementstime? I do have a few. I don't
have as many as guys likeyourself. Yeah, that I've got,
like, stick drum head. Yeah,
those are the what do they? Callthem? The Expendables, the
consumables, consumables.
I would love to have drum andsymbol, and I've tried before,

(46:46):
years ago, uh, but I'm not, Idon't really chase that.
Well, what drum manufacturer Areyou passionate about? Like a
Ludwig or
I like sonar, okay? And I likeLudwig. There you go. I like old
Ludwigs. Yep, that I like sonarand and I like Pisces symbols,
feisty. There is something toPisces, man, yeah, yeah.

(47:08):
Well, we know all the people.It's pretty easy. It's just to
be an introduction. You're like,Hey, this guy has been here for
since 1988 crushing it. You knowwhat I mean. He's playing, he's
playing American pie with DonMcClain, like Hello, because if
you crack a symbol and you don'thave any support, you know, it's
400 bucks. 500
bucks. Man, yeah, you know,well, if you can help a brother

(47:30):
out, yeah.
I mean, Ludwig is, is very andsonar is like, Chris McCue just
signed up with sonar. MattNolan, who's coming in from
Lainey, Wilson band is withsonar right now. Todd Superman
near Z, they're having anothergigantic resurgence. I mean, and
their stuff is wow. I mean, I'vehad the I've had the S Class,

(47:51):
I've had the SQ twos, I've hadthe delights. I've had the all
the different series, and it'sjust such well made stuff. Yeah,
it really is, yeah,
that one kit you had that was ared and black sparkle, yeah,
gosh. I think it was a beast. Iknow. Yeah, those are tubs. They
were
good. And the SQ twos it was, Iit was a 26 inch bass drum. It
was supposed to go to Mickey Dwith, with Motorhead. And he

(48:16):
some, he's like, I know hedidn't like it, so they ended up
giving it to me. It was 26 Wow,by 20,
how much did that weigh? Peoplewere, like, compensating.
But, I mean, it's like, it's acannon it.
I had a huge case made for it,with all the lining, and you put

(48:36):
it in there, and then, you know,it had like, stereo knobs, like,
like, dot you dial really?
Yeah, to tune it very unique.Oh,
yeah, that's right, because theyhad little instead of drum keys.
Wow, that's right,
we'll have that drum. No, I, Iwas with I stayed with sonar for
about a decade, and then when Imoved over to dw, I kind of

(48:58):
cleared house and I kept onedrum set, the s, the s class kit
that I recorded with Kiefer andShauna on that, are you gonna
kiss me or not? Song from 2011 Iwas like, Wow. I was a little
piece of, you know, countrymusic history. Let's keep the
kit, right, you know. But Ithought
you'd use the one you gave me onthat was that not it? Did I give

(49:18):
you a sonar kit? No, you it wasthe the one for the spasmatics,
oh, that was a
little mom and pop operationcalled DMR custom neuron. That's
right, that's right. They'regood sounding room. Yeah, they
are, dude. They really are, youknow, ever I think a lot of
these companies are gettingtheir wood from a lot of the
same places. So it's reallyKeller shells and stuff. Yeah,

(49:38):
it's just kind of what they dowith the the number of plies and
the wraps and
you gotta, what does it make adifference?
You know, you can take a pearl,you know, vision or a entry
level $600 drum
set. It sound like a million.Sounds. Great. Yeah. What

(49:59):
is the. Kit. What's the housekit at at Roberts sonar? That's
sonar kit. Really look at that.Yeah,
of note, like a good one.
Yeah, it's the, is it thevintage series? So
it's a more it's a newer kit.Yes, okay, because you remember,
you know, all of lower Broadwaywould go through a phase where,

(50:20):
for a while, like all the clubshad may picks, then they had
tie, and then they had, let'ssee Pearl, and then now we're on
a
is sonar supplying drums for
a lot of the a lot of theplaces, yeah,
they're really, they're going onthe offense.
They're going to, yeah, man,right. And then, of course,
we're here to take back somemarket share. There's a bunch of

(50:42):
Roland kits, and I'll end thecorporate then the corporate
clubs.
No, weren't the D drum kits.Back in the day when they made a
coup, they weren't bad. Have youtried the D drum kits?
I don't think they were good,
no, but they weren't bad. Yeah,they were good value. They were
definitely a good value. Yeah,yeah, no. But kind of like how,
you know, PDP makes a good it'sa value priced kit, but it's

(51:05):
like, when you're buying a PDP,are you really? Are you buying?
Gosh, I don't what, what's themetaphor we can use? I think the
thing with PDP is they're makingthem they I don't want to speak
out terms of production. I thinkthat they're, they're more
product, and they might makethem
in Mexico. Okay, yeah, that'sthe only real legacy. I mean,
dude,
I have a PDP kit with the woodhoops, so affordable, so sexy,

(51:30):
and it's just got a gorgeous,warm sound. It's be great for
Americana singer songwriter,because it's got the wood hoops,
you know, it's just mellow. It'swant to
hear something so like, patheticthat I could never wrap my head
around makepex drums. They makegorgeous drums. They I think
they were the first ones thatkind of spearhead the bird's eye

(51:51):
maple. I like the Saturn series,right? Yeah. And every kid I've
played that maypex, I can't getthe name, just sounds so cheap.
And I actually put that up on aFacebook like one of the
Nashville drummers, somebody wastalking about kits, or maybe I
even put the post up, I said, Isaid the same thing. And I got a
lot of, you know, hate for it,but it was, it was one of those

(52:12):
things. But I just, is it me? It
resonates either the company andthe product resonates with you,
you know, or it doesn't. Butthat was one of the, also one of
the, also one of the companies.So there was a tie period, there
was a pearl period, there was amaypex period, and now we're
running this sonar kick with allthe clubs downtown, yeah,
even, uh, the East Side bowl hastwo or three sonar kits.

(52:34):
Wow. The sonar is, like theMercedes. It's German, yeah? So
well made you kind of look at,you know, dw is, I guess, a BMW,
yeah, right, sure. Sonor kind oflike, you know, getting into
that exotic level. As far asprice point, you know, Tama and
Pearl was like your Ford andChevy for the longest time,

(52:58):
right? Jim was in car sales fora while there. But that's, I put
that equation on it because youhave luxury to, you know,
baseline and stuff like that.Sometimes
the baseline is the workhorse.You know what I mean, if you
just, like, sometimes you play,like, budget kits, or like the
midline I sometimes I prefer thesound of those.
Yeah, yeah. That happens, yeah.
But I mean, a lot of these guys,their marketing game is getting

(53:21):
the that, that brand logo, andDW did that in the 90s. I mean,
they just crushed it and gottheir drums. And everything is
getting on television as much,television movies, movies the
whole night, all the awardshows. Because you remember when
they first came out with drums?You're like, all right, you
know, yeah, that's and
then 40 something years later,you're rocking.

(53:41):
They're the 50 years later,yeah. But, I mean, they were,
they were a hardware company.They made the pedals, yeah, they
were known for, and then theystarted making the drums. And it
was one of those things where itwas like, you know, when I first
saw them advertised in ModernDrummer, I was like, okay, you
know, it's like, when Remo madedrums, oh, they were like, I had
those.
Did you ever have any of those,the acoustic cons? Yeah,

(54:05):
I remember seeing those. I neverhad any. Well, what
do you show up to the studio?Say you got a recording session?
What do you take it to the tothe studio? It's
funny, everyone has their ownhouse kit, so I don't take show
up snare drums and, yeah, Ibring some snares and some
percussion stuff and just usewhatever they have, because

(54:26):
usually they have it tweaked in,yeah, but I have a Yamaha cherry
wood recording, custom,beautiful that I like to use a
lot if I'm going to take a kit,yeah, but it depends, like, if
you know if it's something like,if they want the music to if it
calls for vintage drums, I'lltake something different, like

(54:47):
that. But yeah, yeah, what rooms
do you find yourself in? A lotthere a couple of rooms where
you're like, you're on the calllist. A lot you had you end up
in these certain spaces. No, no,no. It's the luck of the draw.
Luck of the draw. We're justwaiting for this thing to go to
light up.
You're just, like, free flowingthrough life in a way with that.

(55:08):
I mean, you kind of, you're notplanning anything. You just
things just happen, because it'sa great way
to live. Last Yeah, I was 88let's do the math. That's, uh,
35 that's you've been here 37years? Yeah, I've been here 28
years. Happens fast. That's alot of presidencies. It is. I
you know what? But I neverthought of it. But we are, we

(55:31):
are we're Hashtag blessed. Imean, we are Hashtag blessed.
Uh,
very thankful, yeah, yeah, forsure,
I'm kind of digging theconversation about the drum
manufacturers, though, yeah, doyou
remember PV drums? Yeah, yeah.Bobby rock.
Bobby rock. They had thesuspension like that that,
yeah, he had the Sistine Chapelpainted on his shells of his

(55:54):
kit, yeah? But
they had the, they were likereinforcement hoops around the
edges, yeah, yeah, that we'resupposed to give the shell more
reverberation, yeah. And then weforget about, you remember
premiere, Premier? Premier's a,you know, a British drum
company, and they were alwaysknown for having slightly
smaller diameters, like youcould put a 22 on there, but it

(56:17):
would just be, there would be alittle bit more overlap. Ah,
wow. Did you know that?
No, but premiere, it didn't,didn't Keith Moon play Premier?
Yes, and then who else, I thinkmaybe Rod morganstein with the
Dixie Driggs,
okay? And, and winger, yeah, allright, but you have Premier and

(56:40):
all these different things liketama, they need to make a
comeback.
Yeah, they've got their theirmarquee guys, your Kenny's and
your Simon Phillips's and yourCharlie Ben
says, All metal guys. And evenknowing Pearl, back in the 80s,
I remember just coming up, andPearl was just the pinnacle
crazy icon, the best reason toplay drums. I never liked the

(57:02):
hardware first. I know that wasthe fan either, yeah, yeah, the
tube that stabbed into the yeahdrum,
you know, it's, it's, you know,it's, uh, you find your thing,
but yeah. Man, you should, youshould have some drums and
cymbals.
Man, you need some drums andcymbals. John, we
gotta get Ludwig on it, man,yeah, yeah, you

(57:24):
scream Ludwig. You know what? Imean, like, yeah, vintage, you
know, okay, you know thepsychedelic, oh yeah, that'd be
cool. The
finish, yes, yeah,
and the VISTA lights, I haven't
I have a set of those. Oh yeah.Which ones? Clear? Just totally
clear. Yeah, I used to take themout with Raoul. One of the
things I loved with Raul was heloved vintage drums. So every

(57:48):
tour we did, I would take adifferent kit nice. And for
Christmas, I would take theVISTA lights, and we'd put
lights in them, ah, and he wouldbring, like, vintage Christmas
lawn ornaments, like these treesfrom the 50s. They're worth a
fortune now. And we, you know,we'd have the stage full of this

(58:09):
stuff. Wow, yeah, it was, it wasreally cool. I
think it'd be cool to hear himsing Christmas music. You got to
bring your sleigh bells. Bing,Oh, yeah. The thing, yeah. Now
we can't not talk about thisamazing solo record. Do you This
is really inspired me. JohnMcCarthy, the third it's about
time tell us about this awesomeproject. Alex
man, I,

(58:31):
this is a few years ago. I was,I was playing somewhere, and I
started thinking, like, Man, whydid I get into this in the first
place? And I just thought backwhen I was young, like I liked
playing drums. I liked gettingtogether with other people when
I was a kid. And it didn'tmatter if you were in a band or
not, just you'd find somebodyelse in the neighborhood that

(58:52):
played something, and you'd, youknow, go over to their basement
or whatever, and jam, and youyou weren't even good enough to
play cover tunes. You would justmake up songs, yeah, and you'd
memorize them, and you'd do themall the time, and it was fun,
yeah, man,
that's, I mean, that's going wayback, right? And,

(59:13):
and I was, I had a conversationwith Kenny Vaughn about that,
and I said, Man, I would like todo an album, and I would like to
capture that on the record.Would you be into it? And he's
like, yeah, man, that's a greatidea. And so some time went by
and I was doing another gig withKenny, and he approached me.

(59:34):
He's like, dude, what about thatidea you had to do this record,
and what's going on with it? AndI was like, oh, man, you know, I
I'm looking for a studio. I'mtrying to find something on the
east side that I can afford. Andhe's like, dude, Dave Rowe, I'll
call him today. And Dave's bassplayer had a great studio out in

(59:55):
Gallatin, and I'd played withDave for years. And so can he
call. Them, made thearrangements, and we started
recording there. And most of thealbum is built off of duets, and
it's between myself and anotherartist, and I always liked old
school blues, like Hound DogTaylor T bone or T model Ford.

(01:00:19):
Or is this like a guitar playerthat sang and a drummer, yeah,
and so I based the whole recordoff of duets, and I got
different people that I playedwith over the years, that I
admired, that I thought had theright energy to go in and do
this. And then some of it iscompletely arranged, string

(01:00:40):
arrangements where I'd play adrum pattern to a song that I
wrote, like a piece that I wouldwrite. And one of them, one of
the pieces on there, BillyContreras played. He brought in
four different fiddles andbasically did a string quartet
arrangement that I hadcompletely written out to a drum

(01:01:00):
part, yeah,
yeah. And the one that seemslike the biggest, if I was a
record company suit with mycigar, keeping time, ah, with,
uh, Tim Carroll, yeah, I lovehis rock and roll. Man, me too.
His, his ver, his version ofrock and roll. He, it's just
great. Yeah, that's a cool tune,man, the cool video. Thanks.

(01:01:22):
Very, very cool. So how long didthis take to do it? You just not
like you just went into thestudio for a week and locked
yourself. You just did it overslowly, yeah,
probably took like, a year and ahalf doing bits and pieces here
and there, yeah, but, uh, andyou mentioned
Dave Rowe, God rest his soul.This was right before he passed.
Right, yes, yeah, yeah.
And it was kind of ironic to dothis, you know, I went out, we

(01:01:47):
went out there to do to startrecording, and Dave's a bass
player, and it's like, Hi, Dave,I want to, I'd like to come to
your studio and do a record withno bass guitar. What do you
think now? And he was totallycool, yeah, yeah. I used some of
the drums that he had, like thehouse drum kit that he had

(01:02:07):
there, and supplement it withsome of my gear. But yeah, and
he was, he was, when it wasfinished, he was kind of proud
of it. He's like, Man, this,this ended up really being a
nice record. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.So
it's definitely a publiciststream, because there's such an
interesting story there was it?Were you able to get some nice,

(01:02:29):
like, reviews and good magazinesand stuff
I did the Wall Street Journal?Holy, did it write them? Holy,
wow, yeah. And it's like, I'm adrummer. I'm not even on a label
that is great press. It's kindof unheard of, yeah, wow. So
your publicist, she's goodKaren, like Zeger. She opened
some doors there. She totallydid. That's great, yeah, and had

(01:02:53):
a lot of other nice The thingis, it's like, because I'm not
Springsteen or Elton John,they're not going to write
anything bad about me. If theydon't like it, they're just not
going to not gonna say anything.So for them to say anything at
all, that's like a good thing.And I think we there were
probably, like, 10 or 12magazines that said something

(01:03:15):
about it. Very nice. It's verycool. Yeah, congratulations.
Thank you. Thanks, Rich. And whoknows, there might be some more
down the line that is true. Um,for sure. I've got one that's
finished, and it's going to bereleased the end of May. Okay,
yeah, and yeah, and I like howyou did music videos for all the
tracks. Thanks. Yeah, very cool.Whoever that video videographer

(01:03:35):
was, I noticed it was the samevideographer in all the videos,
I guess. Joshua Smith, yeah, putall that together. Very good,
different footage that I had,some that he would get off the
internet,
like, like,
stock footage. Yes, exactly.Very cool, yeah. Jim,
yeah, I was thinking about goingto the Fave Five. The Fave Five,

(01:03:57):
yeah, you
want to do the the, like, newquestions, like we did in the
last one. You want to stick towhat you want to
stick to? My old boy, to my old,boring ones. Then you hit them
with the new ones. The new ones.
Okay. What's your favoritecolor? Blue.
We are on a Why are we sosurprised 10
drummers in a row? But for awhile, we are getting the
weirdest things. You know,Indigo. Yeah, we're getting some

(01:04:17):
strange stuff. Oh, wow. What'syour favorite food or dish?
Pizza. You can't screw it up,right? Even the Red Baron is
gorgeous, yeah,
yeah, you know what I mean. Likethe frozen pizza, bread, cheese,
sauce, sauce, yeah. Do you thinkthey cover complicate pizza
sometimes? Well,
yeah, I don't. The meat loversis like, that's gross. I don't

(01:04:38):
want all an amalgamation of me,amalgamation, yeah. What is the
what's your favorite? Like,what's your go to for pizza in
Nashville? Yeah, five points.Yeah. There's also another
place, Roy's tavern. It's anewer place. It's by the
Inglewood post office, and theyhave killer square cut. You.

(01:05:00):
Pizza.
Oh no, is it like Detroit style,where it's like a It's
not super thick, yeah, but ithas air pockets, oh, and crispy
crust, like flaky. And myfavorite there's the tavern.
It's like a sausage andgardenia, so it's a little
spicy. Oh, wow, yeah, it'sreally cute. It's kind
of like a pasty sound edge. He'sgot pockets. It's got air

(01:05:23):
pockets, nice.
Or Sapiens Sabians have thattoo. Sapiens,
no, the pasty sound edges theyhad, like the little, yeah,
I have a set of hats like that.Yeah, that's, those are
cool. What is your favoritedrink?
Uh, you talking alcohol or, Imean, it's usually more fun. But
yeah, anything I like matcha. Ohyeah, like a matcha tea, yes.

(01:05:46):
Can you make that at your atyour house? Like, yeah, okay,
yeah, boil water and you get themix,
yeah. And I use almond milk, ohyeah. And
I'm highly lactose intolerant.That's, I don't know. I say, do
you do it for health reasons.The almond milk,
yeah, it's just, I think it'sbetter than regular milk, yeah,

(01:06:07):
yeah, yeah.
Now this is a tough one favoritesong of your lifetime, or at the
moment,
it's a John Lennon song.
What's it called? I was justthinking of it the other day.

(01:06:27):
I just saw Ringo Friday. So allOh, did you go to the Ryman or
Grand Ole Opry? Grand Ole Opry,yeah. So right now I've got,
with a little help from myfriends, in my mind, yeah, this
is another song by John Lennon.Oh, in my life, okay, yes,
amazing. Love that song. And
so what is it about it thatresonates with you?

(01:06:49):
Just, I think the lyrics, yeah,what he's saying, yes, and the
fact that he's passed away,yeah, makes a difference, yeah,
yeah. Are you a lyricist? Do youlike to write lyrics? First song
I do, but I don't do a lot ofthat. Yeah, I
don't know if you ever jump intothe deep end of the pool and CO
write for you know, traditionallyric songs.

(01:07:10):
Do you not do that? But on mynext record, there's a song that
I have written with lyrics, andI'm singing, oh, that's I was I
was about to ask, it's my debut.
So are you nervous about this,or because it's something?
No, it's something that I liketo do. And I'm making records

(01:07:31):
because I like to do this stuff.Yeah, if somebody else doesn't
like it, or, you know, doesn'tsell a million copies like it
should. It doesn't matter. It'sit's fun for me. And I like
making music, creating things,so I think it's cool to do
something, to be able to dothat. Yeah, I feel very again,

(01:07:54):
blessed.
I'm very motivated because I,it's Jim, this has been on my to
do list. It's like, I, you know,I did a 120 high definition
videos as a part of a trainingcourse, you know, for drummers.
But I haven't done a solorecord. I gotta do a song. I
gotta do it. Yeah, you'vetotally inspired me. What's your
favorite movie of the moment orof all time?

(01:08:21):
I don't know about all time, itis a tough question, but I like
how you're just facing itbravely, and you're just like,
because a lot of people arelike, Oh man, you really caught
me off. You're just like, I gotit.
Give me a second. Well, there'sa there's a movie with Anthony
Hopkins, and I can't think ofthe Thor, hmm. Thor, no, but

(01:08:44):
this is about the ninth train.It's, it's kind of a dark thing.
It's a, it was a he. It was astory about a gentleman. I can't
even think of his name rightnow, but he was helping children
escape during the Second WorldWar, and there was a had gotten

(01:09:04):
away with eight trains, and theninth train didn't make it. And
it's, I saw this the last time.I was flying to a dawn gig, and
it's like, wow, this isheartbreaking, but a beautiful
movie.
Well, he's such a great actor.Oh my god, and he's composer, is
he? Anthony Hopkins, has writtensymphonies.

(01:09:25):
I did not know that, really. Andhe paints,
you know what movie became, theprominence in what silence of
the layer?
Yeah, fava bean, that's right.
Yeah. So Jim, ask your newquestions that you got going
on, okay, what's the mostuseless talent you have? Useless

(01:09:46):
talent.
I'm very good at growingvegetables. Maybe that's not
useless.
Useful. That's great in yourbackyard. You got a little
garden? Yeah?
Nice. Yeah. I'm really good atit.
I guess that's not useless.Yeah. Know, I don't know about
useless,
tough question. Yeah, I don'tknow what I would ask or answer

(01:10:07):
with that. Oh,
so if you had to play anattribute band, if
you had to play in a tributeband for the rest of your life,
you couldn't do anything else,and you had to play the same
songs over and over and overagain until your dying day, what
band would you be covering?Rush? No, wow, that was out of
left field.

(01:10:28):
So you're a rush coach.
I was, yeah, I was, so
you went from the idea of a lotof drums, now you and I play
four piece drum sets. Yes,
a lot of that because is becauseyou have to carry it, or you
used to, yeah, now all the clubsand the studios have their own
kit so, but, man, when I first,when I was younger, I would

(01:10:49):
bring every drum I owned. I'dbring a Glock and spiel, you
know,
yeah, it's and why would why didwe do that?
Because we admired guys likeNeil Purdon, yeah, you know, I
had a pearl red satin Neil pertKitt, even though I don't think
he had ever used pearl at thatpoint. But it was like, from the

(01:11:09):
666, inch tom down to a 16,yeah, one bass drum. So you
had, you kind of had the nickelMcbrain kind of thing going on,
I guess, yeah, yeah, from IronMaiden. But he's just retired.
He just retired. Yeah, he's donethe Yeah. That's, I had a pearl
export, similar setup, and itwas, I didn't have a six inch

(01:11:32):
drum. I had an eight, 210s, 12,1316, looked like a roller
coaster. Yeah, yeah, wow, yeah,I would, I would bring it
around, and I packed everysingle drum of that kit I
probably had like nine symbolson it, wow, into a Suzuki
samurai. I think
my favorite record of theirs wassignals. Okay, I like that,

(01:11:56):
subdivisions and all that. Yep,boom. Just great stuff in the
press role, man, yeah, great. I
like power windows. Yeah, thatwas a good album. I
forgot to ask you, who did youstudy with at Berkeley? Who was
the teacher back then private

(01:12:18):
lessons? Yeah, I started withBill Coffman first year, and
then John Ramsey, therestaurant. Ramsey, yeah, John
was the shit, yeah,
yeah. And I love that you loveLatin rhythms, because it's
like, who says that a goodEnglish Irishman can't play Cha
Chas song goes Samba, Bossanovas.
Man, when I was in Berkeley, Iwould come home and I my parents

(01:12:40):
were great dancers. They didn'tplay instruments, although my
dad, when he was young, I guesshe wanted to play drums, and his
mom bought him pieces of kits,wow. And he would try, yeah,
nothing ever happened. But theywere dances. And I used to ask
her, like, Did you guys everlisten to Latin music? Because,
for some reason, I have thisheartfelt thing for it. It's

(01:13:05):
like, it's, it's verydistinctive towards this kind of
music. And she's like, No, wewere ballroom dancers. And, you
know, your daddy likes a littlebit of swing, but not even
hardcore jazz. So I don't knowwhere that came from, but it's
there. Yeah,
my dad loved that. Gene Krupa,yeah. And then my grandparents
would go, and they would danceat the Savoy Ballroom in New

(01:13:26):
York City, really, to GeneKrupa. Glenn Miller, Tommy
Dorsey, Chick Webb, wow. Yeah.Where are you from? I'm
originally from Connecticut,okay. And then when I was 11, I
moved to El Paso Texas, and so,you know, I played in cumbia
bands, and, you know, kind ofkicked around. Got my education
in Texas, and I moved here in1997

(01:13:49):
crazy. What was your nicknameyou played with the guy who
called you certain. Oh, yeah,thunder.
Thunder, right? Yeah. He was a,he's a Puerto Rican coro Tim
Bali guy, and he said, I solo,you play time. And I was like,
you know, it's like, 19 yearsold. It was the summer between

(01:14:10):
my freshman and sophomore yearof college, and I just wanted to
get some real work experience.And man, did I get it. It was
like, he's like, stay out of theway. Too complicated, simple
play time was like, wow, it wasgood, yeah, it was good for me.
You know, yeah, really was.
He didn't break the cycle, huh?He didn't break the cycle.

(01:14:30):
I had a great time. Man. Isanything else you want to
discuss in a public forumthat'll be captured for all
time? No pressure forever. Youwanna say anything to your ex
girlfriends or anything outthere? No,
I certainly do not. Yeah,
kids that you may or may nothave. Yeah, no,
I don't think, I don't think Ihave any unknown children. Yeah,

(01:14:53):
I don't have any children, do
you No, I've been so busy doingthis thing. Yeah, you know,
yeah. Takes
time. To do this, I always
pull out, okay, Jim mark, thatwe got to get rid of that. But
no existing is all encompassing.It's really,
it's hard, you know, it's notthat I've avoided that. It just
hasn't happened,

(01:15:14):
yeah? You know, never seen ever,yeah, yeah, man,
it's never too late. It is nevertoo late. But I met a chapter in
my life that I I don't I don'tthink I would want to chase a
kid around a house. I want toslow down, if I can. Yeah,
I know what you mean, just alittle bit. You know, smell the

(01:15:35):
roses. Be comfortable. I get somuch joy
with my cup of coffee in themorning. It's the I just look
forward to it so much, thesmell, the aroma, the ritual
that is my time. Love it.
I totally understand. Sure,
yeah, what's that like?

(01:15:56):
Jim wakes up to a house of justscreaming
energy. No, we're weird. It'spretty chill. Just, you know,
got to get off to work. There'sa lot going
on. Yeah? Well, you know howthey say, try to, you know,
ground yourself, put your putyour feet on grass or in the
dirt. Try to meditate. A littlebit exercise every day. Read a
couple of pages of book ofevery, you know, a couple of

(01:16:17):
pages of a book, you know, justfor your mental health. So,
like, if I can in the morning,and I don't have to go running
out to get drum sounds at ninein the morning, I'm gonna have
the coffee and just a couple ofpages of a book. You know, yeah,
nice, yeah. And
I'm watching adult cartoonsright now. I highly recommend
primal on
so you probably shouldn't saythat publicly. HBO, Max adult

(01:16:40):
cartoons, wow,
yeah, I'm like, Adult Swim.Adult Swim. It's totally
an adult room cartoon.
Okay, yeah, wow. It's weird.Jim,
thank you, as always for You'rewelcome for your natural
inquisitiveness
and big vocabulary. Yeah, youhit me
with two big words today, buddy.Now, what were the issues I

(01:17:01):
don't forget, but ambiguity. Hesaid regularly, yeah. He did
several times. And that's
a tough word for him. That's abane of my existence. That word,
okay? John McGee, the third.com
Yes, everybody, check that out.And then do you go? Do you do
the Facebook, Instagram thing?Yes, okay, yeah. We're probably
friends. We are, yeah, see, it'slike, no these 5000 people that

(01:17:25):
follow you around for the restof your life. It's pretty
amazing. It really is. But hey,thanks for doing this, man,
thanks for having me. I'm reallyglad we got to chat, and I think
that the record is fantastic andcorrect. Congratulations. Thank
you so much. And bring thosethings back. Good to meet you.
It's a pleasure. Jim, yeah,thanks for having me.
Thanks. John, thanks, Jim. Heyto all the listeners. We really

(01:17:47):
appreciate you guys and gals. Besure to subscribe, share, rate
and review. It helps people findthe show, and I mean it. Please
take the time to leave us a nicefive star review. It really does
help. We'll see you next time.See you folks,
this has been the rich Redmondshow. Subscribe, rate and follow
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