#458 - Lit On The Band's Untold Story + 'My Own Worst Enemy' 20th Anniversary

Lit (@litbandofficial) sat down with Bobby Bones to reflect on their career. 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of their record, A Place In The Sun, which featured some of their biggest hits like "My Own Worst Enemy," "Miserable" and more. They share the band's untold story of how they got their start and the origin story of their massive hit "My Own Worst Enemy," and their thoughts on the NHL using it as their theme song this season. The members of Lit share their crazy experience playing at Woodstock '99, share how they got Pamela Anderson in one of their music videos, how they got their band name, and what's next for the band and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
We had a manager.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
We were shopping and just getting turned down by everybody,
even my owners sentiment. You got turned down by everybody,
including our CA who ended up signing us.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
They turned it down the first.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Time, Episode four fifty eight with Litt. That's such a
famous opening song, opening riff of a song they played
with us at the Million Dollar Show that we do
at the Rhyman every year, and the crowd went absolutely

(00:37):
bonkers just from that riff. I had never met these
guys until we played the Million Dollar Show, and they
look like what you think alternative rockers would look like. However,
they feel like they make you feel like they're just
kind guys. I don't know. At some point they must
have been stabbing stuff and now that now they're just

(00:57):
soft and cool and nice. And I don't know, because
if you were to see them just walking down the street,
you would think that they're up to no good making
music in a basement with power chords and screaming about stuff.
You know, I loved them me too. I mean I

(01:17):
loved them as far as I enjoyed that they were
cool enough to come over to the house. Through the
interview they played the Million Dollar Show with us they
were very grateful after that show, and I should have
been the one that was grateful. And then like they
were just like nice guys and they were like very
generous with their time and their answers, and I don't know, man,
it's pretty cool. It's always cool when you're a little

(01:40):
i won't say concerned, but a little uh. When you're
pregaming it, you're a little nervous that it may not
go as good as you think because your expectations may
be too high based on your life. And it was good.
I don't know how any thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
There was one question I wanted to ask, but did
it because his daughter was in the room. Because I
remember watching in the day when they were on MTV,
like all the time they played that spring break show. Yeah,
and they had Carmen Electric come out with them, and
I was like, oh man, that was like a memory,
Like I want.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
To be a rock star because of that. I mean,
and we talk about the You Make Me Come that
video You Make Me Completely Miserable. When Miserable came out
and Pam Anderson the video, they had to just be
going I mean, you know, yeah, going hard. Twenty twenty
four is the twenty fifth anniversary of A Place in
the Sun album, which includes My Own Worst Enemy. No no, no, no,

(02:31):
not not miserable, You make me completely miserable. Kelly clarkson
the breakaway cover release. What is What's that they put
out of cover of it?

Speaker 5 (02:43):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (02:44):
They did it? Got it? Oh that's cool. I haven't
heard that? Is it cool?

Speaker 6 (02:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
It's cool. My Own Worst Enemy has become the anthem
of the twenty twenty three twenty twenty four in NHL season.
They're on tour litband dot Com Slash Tour Lit Band
dot Com Slash Tour. I don't know, man, it was
just fun. I hope you like it. Go watch this one.
It's maybe a good one to watch too, because you
kind of need the visual at times because they are

(03:09):
straight ahead somewhere between like punk and hard rock visually
definitely with the tattoos and the long like beard and
the just all of it. That's all. Let's get to it.
You're better that than I am. All right, Lit band
official here, they are LIT guys. Good to have you over.
I really appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Thanks absolutely.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
It's cool because I guess I mean, I've known about
an of you guys forever, but my really good friend
Brandon Ray, who is like I'd give a kidney. I
give both kidneys too. How about that. That's that's the
absolute most you could say.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's an endorsement.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
We were getting ready to do our rhyman show and
I told Brandon he was playing with us. I said, man,
do you know the guys from LIT? I said, man,
because you guys look like rocks. You guys still look
like we're freaking rock stars. So at times maybe people
wouldn't think you were like warm, nice, lovely gentleman, which

(04:09):
is what I've learned you kind of are, which is
really cool. I was like, you think those guys from
LITT would like do the show and then like not
stab me? And Brandon was like, dude, you're gonna love them.
And so, first of all, I appreciate you guys playing
with this, Like all, it was such a blast. It
was so fun and the crowd like that was the
pop of the night as far as like the crowd
just been like holy crap and jumping up, So super

(04:30):
cool for me.

Speaker 6 (04:32):
When did you had his step children of the of
the night.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
I wouldn't say that. I would say like the hero,
the hero children, the hero stepchild that you didn't know
was gonna be cool when Mama dad first got married
and they kind of have you guys been in Nashville.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
Kind of, Well, it's kind of been an ongoing process
getting here, but he.

Speaker 6 (04:54):
Was you tell your story.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, I started coming about close to twenty years ago
to write, yeah, and probably like four as I needed
something else to stimulate the creative juices, and so I
kind of dove into country music.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Where were you living though, when you were doing that in.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Orange County, California?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Got him?

Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I would sneak away. I would still be rock
guy in California, but I would sneak out to Nashville
like a week a month and write songs with the
guys around town music row and stuff, and fell in
love with it then you know, it's a different place now,
but still loved it then love it now. Had a
couple places along the way, AG started coming out, and
we just made so many good, like lifelong friends out here,

(05:35):
and it was always the goal to I always knew
I'd wind up here, but kind of had to wait
for the young and to get out of the nest.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
And so that's what it was. So Yeah, So when
you could get free. You got free and you came
over here. Yeah yeah, yeah, what about you? When did you?
When did you move?

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Move here?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
What year? This is about four years now, so it's
still relatively new.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
It's actually twenty twenty, and it was a great time
to move for a lot of different reasons. It was
a lot of idle time for artists because we've bedn't tour,
we couldn't do much anything. We're trying to trying to write,
you know, via zoom and all that kind of stuff,
and it was just wasn't that inspiring, Not to mention,
you know, California was was super lockdown, So yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
We saw a lot of people coming me. It was
like straight like, yeah, I don old from California. Austin Andville, right,
those are the two places everybody was going.

Speaker 6 (06:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:25):
It was like for us, it was we had wanted
to anyway, and that was you know what I mean
because because of the music thing and our connections and
you know, the community was important to us. We never
had it coming up as a rock band and getting
to know these country writers and just Nashville writers in general,
it's like, Wow, there's actually people that get together and.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Write that community.

Speaker 5 (06:45):
Yeah, that love each other and want to help each
other out, and just I don't know it, just we
got an addiction to that.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
It's interesting to me to hear about people who came
from other places than Nashville. And I have a bunch
of friends and different genres who always just wrote by
themselves and they came to Nashville and they're like, what
the heck? Right, we just get in with people we
don't even really know and start so talk about you
guys writing either as a band or just YouTube and

(07:13):
then coming to Nashville where it's kind of like there's
so many good writers and is the whole idea of
writing different from what you did, you know, twenty five
years ago to now.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Well, luckily the first guy I wrote within this town
was Jeffrey Steele, and he's an LA guy kind of too.
So he likes to start around two or three in
the afternoon, which is late for Nashville.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Sure, nine amah Nashville to start right.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, we don't really roll that schedule.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
But you know, we went from being in a in
a sweaty, eight hundred square foot industrial space in Anaheim, California,
to where we would get in you know, have someone
would bring a case of natural lights and you know,
and we would and we would just jam out, you know,
rehearse the set for whatever show we had coming up,
and hey, check out this idea whatever, And that was

(08:01):
kind of our process. But then you go to write
the next record or the one after that. And we
had always grown up. Our heroes were all they would
always collaborate and cor you know, Desmond Child was involved
on a lot of stuff and all these So for us,
collaborating was always part of it. That's what the big
boys did. And so that part was number fourned. But

(08:21):
the idea of getting together at eleven or twelve in
a stale room with some random furniture in a publishing
company's basement was weird, but also the challenge what we
accepted that challenge and we got better I think as
writers to be able to just go, hey, we're going
to go do this today and you just you kind

(08:42):
of you know, you grow and that in that sense.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
And it's like a California rock band. Then if I'm
hearing you write, a lot of your writing was done
in like like a rehearsal space, like that's what you're
doing and you're like, I've also got this lick and
then let's throw some more. I mean, is that mostly
how those songs would come together.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
For Yeah loud you know, plug in, turn up to
eleven and full PA system and that. Yeah, we wrote
really as a band, making noise and just letting the
sounds drive the melodies.

Speaker 6 (09:11):
And a lot of times we would just come back
to lyrics later.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
So melodies first for the most part. Yeah, that's what.

Speaker 6 (09:18):
Yeah, And then you know, words were always important to us.

Speaker 5 (09:21):
We always loved, you know, the art of manipulating what
you would normally say and make it somehow more not poetic,
but just you know, make people go, oh that was cool.
And then the writers out here are a lot more
you know, it's got to kind of make sense. You're
telling more of a story, whereas we were kind of
from the school of like, you know, alternative where you

(09:41):
can be a little more abstract, and.

Speaker 6 (09:43):
We've kind of gotten back to that a little.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Bit, just because it's fun to challenge yourself to not
overthink things and let yourself just sort of go off
on a creative tangent if you will, and not always
have to be so smart and just you know, let
yourself just be a weirdo.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Sometimes, Yeah, I see where you could get in your
own head here have to make it so perfect, almost
intellectual that could it could ruin a song totally. I
mean it makes a song great, but it could also
ruin a song if you spend too much time chasing
some you know, magical drag and that you think you've
got to find when actually sometimes it's just a great
melody and some words that make the song feel good.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Absolutely, it's kind of in a way like a like
a tattoo. You know, you can overthink a tattoo and
try to make it encompass everything in your life, or
you can just get something that you think looks cool
and then writing a song. Sometimes sometimes you say pretty
much all you want to say in a few lines
and a couple of melodies, and you know, two and
a half minutes and and get out and go on
to another idea. But I think it's easy to get

(10:41):
caught up in like you know, well, what color is
the chair over there? Or how did this happen? And
which is great sometimes when that happens and you really
feel like, wow, we really told that story like beginning
to end, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
When people see you in public, Jeremy, do they they
have to think you're either music guy a chef, because
now chefs are like look like rock stars too. If
I were to see you out, I would go that
guy's either in a rock band. He's either a chef
or a tattoo artist. Like That's what I would think.

(11:15):
What do most people think you do? Because even have
the braided beard like your next level one of them
like you make a means to flea or you play
a little what most people think you are?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I did own a restaurant for a long time. I
never they kept me out of the kitchen, which was smart.
I do get the tattle. We get the tattoo artists
thing a lot, like airports and stuff, and they'll say that, yo,
you guys are either in a tattoo You're either tattoo artists.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Or in a rock band.

Speaker 6 (11:40):
You're with the group of guys that teach you guys
got to be a rock band.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Did they ever say you look like the guys from
lit like, because sometimes I'll get out, you don't you
look like what's up? Bones? I don't know how to
respond to that. Thank you?

Speaker 6 (11:52):
I guess yeah, And throughout the wrong band name. You're like, ah,
I just got recognized.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Nowadays you get a lot of because you used to
get like kind of tapped and sort of like hey
are you Now they just sort of You'll look and
you'll see somebody just doing just going uh yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Look that's like matching it, like yeah, playing like a
personal bingo game. Yeah, that's him. It's be How long
How old were you two when you started to collaborate
doing music? Are you older?

Speaker 6 (12:17):
Jeremy?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
I'm two years older?

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Okay, so oh so not even that much of a difference.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Ye. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
How old were you guys when you started to do
music together?

Speaker 5 (12:24):
I mean really early at high school? Yeah, like fifteen,
I was like fifteen sixteen.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Did you start doing music first, Jeremy? And did you
start in Aga? Did you get the bass? Secondly? Because
he was head the guitar?

Speaker 6 (12:35):
No, but I actually started.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
He he kind of like he quit high school to
go on tour with the band. He joined ended up
joining the band. And I just formed a band in
high school with guys that I thought looked cool. I said,
why don't you can you play an instrumental? Like that
was just the thing to do.

Speaker 6 (12:50):
We couldn't.

Speaker 5 (12:51):
We weren't athletic, you know, we weren't on the football team.
Or the only way we were going to get chicks
or become popular or do you.

Speaker 6 (12:57):
Know, was to play music. So we formed our band.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
I was a drummer at first, and we found a
guy that looked cool, you look like a lead singer.

Speaker 6 (13:06):
And he couldn't couldn't really carry tune, but.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
He uh man, I just I would seeing background vocals
on the drums, you know what, I'm.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Just gonna try and do you feel collins it right?

Speaker 6 (13:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (13:16):
I knew I didn't want to carry keep carrying around
drums because I was paying the ass and I was always,
you know, pinching my fingers on the stands and wrecking
my car. And I'm like, I'll just I'll try to sing.
And I still I'm still trying.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Were you naturally a because you can sing? I don't
want to better think that, But were you naturally a
front man? I don't even want to say singing. But
there's you know, there's some great front men that aren't
that great singers. There's some great singers that aren't that
good a front men. But the front man part of
it were you good at that initially? Did you want
the attention that was?

Speaker 5 (13:50):
Well, I didn't know, you know, for sure, I knew
I wanted to play in front of big crowds.

Speaker 6 (13:55):
We knew that since we were little kids, shy kid
or very shy kid.

Speaker 5 (14:00):
That me on stage has always been and to this day,
you know, a completely different person, sure, the same person,
just just I just let lose. I would say that
I was more influenced by entertainers frontmen than I was vocalists,
So you're right there. I think I gravitated towards you know.

(14:21):
I think one of the things that helped me with
my career and music was small, small clubs and trying
to put on a show that was an arena show
or a stadium show just bigger than the room, and
just just kept trying to outgrow rooms, you know, until
we made.

Speaker 6 (14:39):
It to where we wanted to be.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
So what was what did you start off doing? Initially?

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Are you same guitar? And Well?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
I started playing the organ when I was a little kid,
and I used to take lessons this there was an
older lady who was the piano and organ teacher, and
then she had a couple of young daughters with long
blonde hair, and they talk guitar upstairs at this old house,
and so I'd be in there and she'd be yelling
at me because i'd play by ear. Once I learned
the song, I would just played by ear, and she
knew I wasn't following the music because I wasn't turning

(15:07):
the page, so she kind of she'd kind of get
mad at me. And then meanwhile, I'm seeing these kids
my age walking upstairs with the with the hot daughters,
you know, with the guitar cases, and I just remember thinking, man,
I'm playing the wrong thing here. And and so I
started got like a hand me down guitar and just
started out learning, like trying to learn the opening rifts
to Crazy Train or more than a Feeling and stuff

(15:31):
like that. And that was my And I started writing
songs because I wasn't good enough to play a song
all the way through, like, you know, could never play
an Iron Maiden song all the way through or something
like that. So I would just make up these songs
just so that I could play a song.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
So you could play a full song. Yeah, so if
you wrote it, you knew what you know how to
play the whole time. Yeah, right as far as music goes, Like,
what what was happening in the house? You both are
a musical? Were your parents' musical at all? Did you
were your parents together? Did you know both of them
are alive? Like, what's it? What's the deal there?

Speaker 2 (16:00):
They're alive. They live here now with us. Our dad
was actually a radio DJ for our whole life growing up, So.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
You were around music at least? Did he play music
at all? Like as far as instrument.

Speaker 6 (16:11):
No, really, he just spun records.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
What music was in the house a lot? What did
he love?

Speaker 1 (16:17):
He was? He was?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
He was on Kiss FM in l A for a
lot of years when in our formative like you know,
early years, and he would bring home vinyl records almost
every night from the station, and we had stacks and
stacks of them in our living room kind of like furniture.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
And so Kiss was the top forty station.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, so had it.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
They played everything I rocked, They played the So what
shift did your dad do?

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Do you remember all of them?

Speaker 6 (16:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Really he was ten.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
He was tended to two in the morning to the
afternoon for a while, then he was tended too at night.
He was actually the guy who passed the Mic to
Rick D's on his first shift when he first started
at Kiss of him back of the day. My dad
was the guy that like handed over the torch.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
What was your dad's name? His on air name AJ?
And so was that was that his real name too?
Because I have bones is in my real name obviously,
and that I had to pick it When I was
a kid, I thought that was stupid. I still think
it's pretty stupid, but it is a sign to me,
So sore A. J. Martin was not his name? Did
everybody know him as dad though? If they knew? And
so you were you the mar Martin's kid, AJ's kids,

(17:19):
Like what was that kid?

Speaker 6 (17:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (17:21):
And was that was that weird to have your dad
on the radio then? Whenever? That was like a real
celebrity thing. It was a pretty big radio back then,
especially Kiss FM, that's probably the biggest radio station in America. Like,
how did your dad even get into radio back then?

Speaker 6 (17:35):
It's so crazy.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
If you met my dad today, you would ask the
same question, like were you really in radio? Because now
it's like, you know, and even then it's crazy because
like I used the you know when I talk about
myself being shy and on stage, I'm a different person.
He was sort of that guy on on the radio.
You can't you know, you ask him a question, it
will take him five minutes to give you a you know,
a quick answer.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
It's just like he's just always overthinking.

Speaker 5 (17:58):
He used to stutter when he was younger, and when
he was on the radio, he just cured that for him.

Speaker 6 (18:04):
And he was just I remember cause personality.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
We would call him we were last key kids, you know,
and we would come home and he'd be on the air,
and so I could call him up like, hey, yeah,
we're gonna come we go over to so and so
his house whatever, and he would go.

Speaker 7 (18:17):
Oh well, and then he'd be like hold on one second,
and then you hear one or two pause, and he
would just rattle off this whole thing and he'd get
back on the phone go.

Speaker 6 (18:28):
Okay, like we know you got it in. Your dad
just shit it out.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
That's funny. So you guys are playing music, your dad's
in music. But he did not play music. Did he
encourage you guys to learn music? Was he a supportive
because he had to be around a lot of artists
and he would see a bit of what that last
style was. How was he in the relationship with what
you guys were trying to do?

Speaker 5 (18:49):
Very supportive parents, Yeah, both of them. I wouldn't say.
I would say more encouragement, you know. Never were like,
oh you should, you should take lessons, never pushed into
lessons or you know, we're both just self taught anything
we did. So it was just, you know, lived at
home maybe a little longer than we should have.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
How are you guys as brothers? How was a relationship
from like twelve thirteen on? Were you close?

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Really close?

Speaker 6 (19:11):
Just the two of us always?

Speaker 5 (19:12):
Yeah, I just did everything together, like concerts and you know,
then the band thing.

Speaker 6 (19:16):
It's it's crazy still this this many years later.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Who are your favorite artists growing up?

Speaker 6 (19:23):
Man, it's the influences run the gamut so far.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
Like I would say, everybody from Iron Maiden, you know,
some of the metal stuff.

Speaker 6 (19:31):
Elvis Costello is a big, big influence.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
As we got a little older and lyrics became really
important in songwriting, The Eagles, you know, bands like that.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Who do you think you've seen the most in concerts?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Jeremy, I've seen the Eagles probably five times on this
last go round.

Speaker 3 (19:49):
Just on the last core.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, we've seen iron made. Many said, I was like,
are we were metal kids when we were teenagers, like
early teenagers. And then man, I would say that I'm
at the point now where when there's somebody playing, I'll
just I pull my credit card out and I buy
great tickets, and I buy the all the extra stuff,
and I go to the merch and I want the

(20:11):
full concert experience now because so many of our heroes are,
you know, either retiring or falling out, you know, and
it's kind of like, I've just finally come to this
thing where we go.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
I'll get on an airplane, go travel, go see somebody play.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
That's cool.

Speaker 5 (20:25):
But Adobie Brothers, like our mom was like a big
like Michael McDonald, all those sort of yacht rock stuff,
you know, but we left out. I would say real
quick that before that was our grandfather was a big
band jazz guys. So as far as instrument goes, he
was always we were little, you know, we're real little.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
We'd stay over there on.

Speaker 5 (20:46):
Weekends our parents were still young enough to go out
a lot, and and we would just he would just
sing standards and play piano.

Speaker 6 (20:53):
We just always thought that was so cool. So we
still have a lot of love for that.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
Touring anywhere versus Nashville touring is so different, and I
if I'm doing stand up, I'll definitely tour like Nashville
artists tour. I'll do Friday Saturdays, come back Sunday. Sometimes
do Thursday Friday Saturday. But I would just imagine you
guys would get in a bus or a van and
just be gone, like there's no two or three days
to come home, like three or four months, right, I mean,

(21:16):
is that mostly how you guys toured when you were
coming up?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yeah, until the kids were born early on, I would
say we probably did. We probably did three hundred shows
in ninety nine, probably did, probably did another three hundred
and two thousand and then and then we wrote the
Atomic Record, and then like kids and marriages and things

(21:39):
started happening, and then we kind of say, hey, you know,
and we thought like we were cutting it.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
We were like no more than two hundred this year,
you know, but we.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Would we would leave home, and you know, AJ and
I both it's funny we talk about it now. I
don't know that we talked about it much then, but
just the anxiety that we would feel we were loving
what we were doing but we would look at these
you know, before the head Master tour and all that stuff.
We would just have these books and we would see schedules,
and you know, you're out on the road in March
and you're looking at what's happening next February and and

(22:11):
and every day you're just getting further and further from home.
And then you then you stop somewhere, and then you
go to Europe, you know, or then you go get
back and then you go to Japan, or you go somewhere.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
You just never getting towards the house.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Did you ever not have a house? Because if you
were going to be gone a long time, maybe it's
a transition. You're like, you know what, I don't need
to be by a place until I come back.

Speaker 6 (22:30):
We didn't.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
Yeah, we were gone, like I would say, a place
in the sun record our first like commercial or dabbling,
you know, radio and doing all that stuff. But we
left the house and didn't come home for literally about
two years.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
So why haven't have a house?

Speaker 6 (22:42):
Right? We did it. Yeah, we just we.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
Had like I think you might have an apartment to
come home to the apartment, yeah, and yeah, I think
maybe you know, we had like a couple of days
off home. I think I rented a guest house just
so I would have something, you know.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
At least a route to feel like you had a
root of some sort of route.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Yeah, and we rent cars too. We'd come home, we
just rent like, you know, expeditions. We thought that was
when SUVs just came out. We're like, oh, we're gonna
rent ance car.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (23:07):
I feel like at least we had some accomplishment, you know.
And yeah, it was trippy times.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Did it feel like.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
When you would come home, did it feel odd to
not be on the road because you had grown accustomed
to that road lifestyle? Like Willie Nelson stays on his
bus a lot on his property because that's he's on
the road so much. At times that bus feels like home.
Did that kind of flip up happen a bit where
you're home for a few days you're like, man, this
feels totally bizarre.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Hard the first couple of nights I always found it
was the weirdest thing. We'd finally be home, and inevitably,
that first night home, we'd wind up at a club
or at a concert or somewhere, and it was like
we're familiar, you know, It's kind of like I can
remember like having just regular menial jobs growing up, you know,
and and you know, so it was somebody's day off,

(23:56):
but they'd still show up at work and like pop
in because they just don't. You just don't know what
would else to do with yourself, you know, because.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
You're just so programmed, like I got to be here
or be there.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
But a little different now, I think we've we've embraced
the Nashville touring schedule, and when we come home, we're like.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
I mean, you you do a lot of road stuff too,
so I'm sure you. I don't know if if you're
the same way a lot of guys I talk to
you are, like your your suitcase or carry on bag
will stay somewhat packed for a little too long, or
like I still say, I live.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
Out of a tolltry bag. You know, I keep I keep.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
All my stuff, and I keep my basics underwear socks,
Like if those don't get used on the trip, they
stay in the bag. Yeah, because I know I'm about
to reload them again anyway, exactly. And so if I'm
gonna need four or five underwear socks, those always stay
cleaning and in the bag. Because I mean I have to.
I'm probably on the road, I mean twenty weekends, which

(24:47):
is a significant amount when you have another full time job.
And you also get really good at traveling, right, you
get really good at packing. You get really good, but
it's something you really don't want to be good at
because it kind of sucks to be gone. Because now
I have a house I like, Yeah, growing When I
first to do it, I didn't ever want to. This
is like, I don't I don't want to really want
to be home anyway, This is totally But now that
I have a house that I like and like, I
have a wife and stuff, so it's like, man, I'd

(25:07):
like to be home. And that's what I think about
a lot.

Speaker 8 (25:09):
Hang tight, The Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
When did you two start to play together?

Speaker 6 (25:28):
Man? Like eighty eight or something. I mean, we're price
sixteen and eighty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
And did the band? Did both of your bands not
work out? Or did one of your bands not work
out and the other one go over to play with
the other.

Speaker 6 (25:39):
One I had.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
I was kind of like the you know, I was
the kid that like was too and I dropped out
of high school because I was playing in bars two
or three nights a week and then rehearsing and all that.
I was showing up to school just with two or
three hours sleep. I finally was like, I'm already kind
of doing what I want to be doing. And of course,
back then, you know, I thought I was gonna a
record deal by the time I was eighteen and all

(26:02):
that stuff. So, but I was in a band with
guys in their twenties and I was sixteen seventeen, and
I was, you know, the kid, but I was just
observing and learning. And then he was jamming with the
guys from our band and they were getting better, and
I just felt like, hey, you know what I want
to Let's let's start this. Let's really do this, and
like let's let's be a band together and all that.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
So it was kind of an within you, an announced thing,
like you're doing this these older guys. It wasn't forever,
because that wasn't your plan to be with them forever.
And you were just starting. And so you guys said,
let's just start this together. And what did you call?
Were you just a duo? How'd you find the other guys?

Speaker 1 (26:39):
From from the school. Yeah, yeah, from school.

Speaker 5 (26:42):
Really, we haven't he Actually, I think I think you
booked our first couple of gigs.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
What was your name did you have? What was your
first name? You ever had?

Speaker 6 (26:50):
The band name Razzle?

Speaker 3 (26:51):
And how long was Razzle existent?

Speaker 5 (26:53):
We're a band for a good while, I would say
a few years.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
What did that?

Speaker 3 (26:58):
And did did Razzle fizzle or change the name?

Speaker 5 (27:02):
We actually we we just flipped the script a couple
of times because we were in a band together so
long and we were so young when it started that
we're you know, literally like went through puberty in this band.

Speaker 6 (27:14):
So it's like, oh, well, Razzle's too sparkly and cute
for now. We're men, you know.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
So we changed our name the first Uh, we changed
our name the first time, the Stain, So.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
I mean there's a big difference in Razzle and Stain, right.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
Yeah, it's like we're now men, but we also smelly
armpits and we might punch in the face, yeah, you know,
and it did.

Speaker 6 (27:35):
The music kind of shifted and it got pretty heavy.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Did you get any any looks at all while being
Razzle or Stain? Like from let's do a showcase or
so and so's watching the band. What in those times
did you get any looks?

Speaker 2 (27:51):
We did well because the thing with Razzle is we
got pretty popular in southern in Orange, there was nowhere
to play in Orange County as high school kids, and
so we have to go to La. So we played
the Troubadour, the Whiskey, the Roxy, all those famous clubs
because they were all ages. And so we would promote
and we would bring, you know, one hundred kids from
our high school and make enough of an impact that

(28:13):
people started coming. But we got to the point where
we would sell out the Whiskey, sell out the Troubadour,
and and people knew who we were. And when we
when we sort of said, hey, you know, this isn't
really what we want to keep doing, and we went.
So we we took about six months off and then
came back out as state and we didn't use any

(28:33):
of our contacts. So we started completely from scratch and
we're playing like random places on Tuesday night, first slot.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
You know, just we built it back up.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Why was that important to do it that way and
not use contacts and not use the relationships you already used.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I think we just didn't want any preconceived ideas of
what we were going to be.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
You know, we wanted to shed shed the skin of
what it was in it.

Speaker 6 (28:59):
Like he said it.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
We had built it up to a point where like
just on the verge, you know, like we had some interest,
there was eyes and management and all kind of stuff.
Then we were just like, this is going to be
hard to sustain because we're already outgrowing it and we
felt it happening. So we're like, we need to sort
of hit reset. And that was a tough thing to
do after building it.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
When Stain exists, what was that music? Like, how many
of you guys wanted the band then the same guys? Yeah,
And so what was the different? Was it tone? Was
it instruments?

Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, the first Lit record is that it was That
album was actually we were we were staying when we
had all those songs and the first record was was
going to be called Lit.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
So what constituted the change from Stain to Lift or
was it stained?

Speaker 6 (29:50):
No, not different.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
But the guy the band stained that people learned to
know sure got sued by the same guy that sued us,
and they ended up just overcoming the you know.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
So the own stain. It was like the green jello,
green jelly type thing.

Speaker 6 (30:07):
Weird.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
It was a weird thing.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, he was asking for pieces of merch rights and
different goofy stuff. Some guys, some random guy in Ohio,
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
He was a journalist who it wasn't even like his
full time day. He wrote for a thrasher magazine. I
think one of those.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
So when you decide to go to lit, which it's
funny how that became like a popular phrase saying twenty
years later, that's kind of funny itself. But what did
you can vote on lit? Was it one of the
many that you thought about? Why Lit? At the time,
it was always it was.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
I mean, it was agreed on as an album title,
so we already knew we love that. It represented what
our band, the feeling that we had.

Speaker 6 (30:48):
And you know, live it was. It was an energy.
We were lit.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
And that funny because back then people knew lit as
like you're lit, like you're hired. You know, sure, it's
a party word, but for us, it was an energ
g in a room. It was like, this is a
bomb about to go off.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
As funny is now the album it's it's a it's
an album that you named after yourself. It wasn't at first.
At first it was just you, we're gonna name it Lit,
but then it turned into you know, an album, what
do they call that? A self self titled album? And
now is a self titled album when it came out.

Speaker 6 (31:18):
It's so hard to name your band.

Speaker 5 (31:19):
I mean, it's all the names are used that and
I feel bad for bands that are trying to name
their bands nowadays.

Speaker 6 (31:24):
It's like you got to come up with something.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
People a lot what it meant back then and now
it's become such a commonly used tournament. And another funny
word that is pop off. There is another word that
got popular.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Wife is like pop off off. If I do something
pop off, pop off.

Speaker 6 (31:41):
The would pop offs?

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yeah, and the band LIT people now that can show
them your idea and they go pop off.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Oh that's a cool name. No, well it did used
to be.

Speaker 6 (31:49):
I mean when we were little.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
It's been twenty five years since my ow Worst Enemy.
I did not know that. It feels like it feels
like fifty years but also like three years at the
same time. Totally like that's song. Was it in a
was it in a movie first? Or was it just
a straight radio single that they just put out as itself.
Did it then exist in every movie after that?

Speaker 6 (32:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (32:11):
It was a quickly yeah okay, because for a while
it was in everything and then like five years ago
it started popping up in everything again, which is really cool,
cool life of a song to have. So was that
the first single from Lit, my own worst enemy first?

Speaker 2 (32:28):
The first that was the first song that went to
radio with us? So the album that was called you
know Lit whatever that was before A Place in the
Sun got it. So A Place in the Sun was
our first major label record. Enemy was on that.

Speaker 5 (32:42):
We might have got a little bit of like college
radio love on the album before A Place in the Sun,
but yeah, I was it was minor.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
It was like it was building block.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
So LIT the record still stayed the name Lit. It
was self titled.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Right at that point we changed it to Tripping the
Light Fantastic.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Yep, Okay, that's a lot different than Lit. And yeah,
so is that the one though that was heard that
got you guys the big looks that then created A
Place in the Sun? Or was it all the music
from A Place in the Sun that somebody heard and
that really was it?

Speaker 6 (33:12):
Yeah, it was the new batch of songs, and so
who here's those?

Speaker 3 (33:15):
How does that work?

Speaker 2 (33:17):
We had a manager and we we were shopping and
just getting turned down by everybody. Even my unerstentiment got
turned down by everybody, including our CIA, who ended up
signing us.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
They turned it down the first time.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
What with what reason? Or did they not even give one?
All you got back was in.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
The I mean back then they would just say, we
don't hear a hit, we don't hear a single or whatever.
And two of the four songs on that demo that
everyone passed on ended up being huge hits.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
So who heard it? As it later? Was it somebody
different that worked with the radio guy at RCAA Records
heard it? And at the time what was on the
radio was it? Was it other rock stuff or what?
Because my years get blittery at this point, was that
sound a lot different or was that sound just growth

(34:03):
of what was already starting to be popular because it
was after the nineties grunge stuff.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yep, it was a lot different. At the time.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
It was really mixed up and you know, wait, like
Blink was getting big around the same time. We would
tour together like a warp tour and all that we
were both kind of bubbling over. We were sort of
the first I guess alternative rock band to start kicking
doors open at like pop radio.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Was it boy band time?

Speaker 1 (34:28):
But then that was pretty huge then too.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, but on alternative radio and rock radio, it was
a lot of you know, it was creed and corn
or chili peppers, biscuit, biscuit corn, those guys, Limp biscuit
was coming up.

Speaker 5 (34:42):
Moby Oh yeah, Moby dang mob in a long time.
And I mean that's when M and M was like
an alternative.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, yeah, you know why because it was white, yeah, crazy,
I mean so and I worked in pop radio forever
worked in alternative radio. So did you guys get was
say service to alternative radio first? Were they like, you're
a rock band, we're taking the rock band to the
rock stations. Or were they going this is so universal,
like we believe we're going to pop. Where did that go?

Speaker 6 (35:08):
Well, pop wasn't really messing with a lot of rock.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
So it wasn't so it killed it at rock first,
alternative Before.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, it kind of went to pop because it was
so big and it didn't have anywhere else to go.
But at first it was it was alternative rock and
like whatever they called the other one active rock.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Sure, it was all rock at first, and so you
would be on those festivals. Did you guys ever play?

Speaker 1 (35:31):
You're right?

Speaker 6 (35:31):
You good?

Speaker 3 (35:31):
You know I've got Oh no, you're good, You're good.
Even if you are, we'll enjoy the noise together. Did
you guys do any of those.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
The Woodstocks we did ninety nine, you know, the one
everyone's talking about now.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
The one that all the trap went wrong? Well, what
was it as bad as the documentary shows with what
you guys saw?

Speaker 1 (35:52):
No, we saw because there was no water.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
I mean from what I saw, it was like everybody
was like dying of thirst and everything was burning down.
That wasn't your experience.

Speaker 5 (35:59):
We got in and out first day, so we just
I mean it was it was awesome for us.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
We were on tour with Offspring at the time, and
so both bands played day one and then we kind
of when all hell broke loose at Woodstock, we were
already like two shows later, you know, playing amphitheaters.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
And in the sud.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
That would have been good for the documentary. You got
the stories kind of fun and boring. You're like, yeah,
we had a great time. It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
I mean, we know there was there was a lot
of Shenanigans going on, but it wasn't like, yeah, from what.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
The theme of that that documentary was. Because I remember
part and again, I was a big alternative kid. I
was like country of marketsas so country music talked about
where I was from, but alternative music talked about what
I felt. And I was the first generation of napster.
So when Napster hit like I would just hit the
letter L down on every song that started the letter
L in every format and just have the ability at

(36:49):
the time I thought was my rightful mind, I deserved
every song for free. I'm an idiot because we all
thought that, or least I thought that. But you know,
it was a a download streaming kid. I was also
a CD kid. I was also a tape kid, so
I was able to have really all of that type
of culture. I guess the only thing I missed was vinyl.

(37:09):
But was a big alternative kid. And so when they
showed that festival and they would show the front like
all the bands playing it, it seemed like a pretty aggressive,
harder rock festival than maybe what the original was. Did
you guys feel that at all or was that just
the music of the time. Was it just like this
is ninety nine or ninety six, This is just what's
popular right now more than it is we're trying to

(37:30):
create some rock fest version two.

Speaker 6 (37:33):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
I feel like a lot of the heavier stuff came
out at night. But there were some you know, Elvis
Costel actually played. I didn't get to see him.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Like Jewel played too.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
I think they were cool and like Cheryl Crow and
it was like g Love and Special Saw.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
I mean it was.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
But the big ones were you know, your Corn and
Limp Biscuit and Chili Peppers and and Offspring and it.
You know, we were playing a lot of big radio
festivals in those days, and they were all kind of
like they all had a lot of those same bands,
which really is kind of hasn't been like that since

(38:10):
there was massive, massive artists on these radio festivals back then.
Still probably now more so in pop, but I mean
just an alternative.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Back then, it was wild.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
The bands that we got to play with we were
huge fans of, and it was it was it was
pretty cool.

Speaker 9 (38:27):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Cast, who was a band that you were a fan
of that you got to play with, you thought, Man,
they're as awesome as I thought, or maybe even better.
I don't want to I don't even care about the
other version because I've had bad experiences in those who cares.
Sometimes people just have bad days. But the other side,
like who was awesome and you met him and you
were like this freaking rocks.

Speaker 5 (38:57):
I would say most most bands we looked up to
and with were We didn't have many bad experiences.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Like they were lending lending hand if you needed it.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
Yeah, like the Offspring, we toured with them and they
just right out of the gate.

Speaker 6 (39:10):
It was like we were lifelong friends.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Dexter.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
Dexter's great. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
I did a deal with him once, you know, like
fifteen years ago. That was awesome.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
Yeah, he's just such a good guy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I think the band that really blew my mind with
we did a radio festival in Chicago and we played
our set, went back, took showers, got dressed, went into
the crowd, and watched Stone Temple Pilots play like at
probably the best that they just when they were just
firing on all cylinders and I just remember going, this

(39:43):
is like like the Aerosmith of our generation. You know,
this is like one of the best bands I've ever
seen in my life.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
You know Scott Wiland's vocals were they that good live?
I mean during at that point it was at a
different level.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
They were great and he was one of the best
front men ever. I mean, it was just like it was.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
It was mind blowing that record.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
I mean, he's that one of the voices for me
of like my childhood as far as like rock singers
and just this said, uh smelling lack a ruse like
that record. That song is one of those rare songs
you go, oh, I know exactly where I was. You know,
music has the ability to do that to kind of
when it leaves an imprint when you hear it again,

(40:23):
you kind of feel and can remember everything that was
happening around you and that record in that song. But
like Interstate Love song like STP was such a big deal.
One of my friends got a tattoo and he got
an STP tattoo, but it looked like the oil more
than it did the band, and I was like, that's
a mistake. That yeah, it looked it looked very much.
He got oil tattoo more than the band. Give me

(40:45):
another one somebody else was super cool to tour with.
I like the good guys stories because it gives me
it's like I like cool people.

Speaker 6 (40:52):
I mean no doubt.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
We became real close with them. We toured for what
like eight or ten weeks together. And then Adrian Young,
the drummer, he just he played on our most recent record,
really he played on one of the tracks. But Stephen
Tyler we didn't tour of the RS Smith, but he's
one of those guys that just was such a such
a sweet guy, just so cool to work.

Speaker 6 (41:12):
He's sang on one of our songs too, and.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
So warmly like that guy would be one of the
rare people that I was. I'm not cool, but you
tend to when you meet a lot of cool people
not cool. Well, I think you're pretty cool. Well I
appreciate that, but I'm not like, so I'm not so
cool that things aren't still cool to me. And so
the first time that I was gonna meet Stephen Tyler,
I was like, this is wid. This is like as

(41:35):
far as music goes, royalty, Yeah, like American rock royalty.
And he comes in he's like Bobby and it's like
every version of him in your head, but just nicer
and warmer, and he's like hugging you and he's like,
what's happen?

Speaker 6 (41:48):
Man?

Speaker 3 (41:48):
He was telling stories about Freddie Mercury being on the
tour bus with them and I and so I remember
meeting Steven Tayler a couple times, and he was just
amazing that we were at Disney World. And at the time,
I wasting American Idol. I did four seasons on that show,
and that is a Disney property because Disney owns ABC.
And they were like, we have a day off if
you want to go to Disney.

Speaker 6 (42:08):
Let us know.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I've never been to Disney before, and so they I
go to Disney and they're like, you can get one
of these tour guides and they'll just take you and
make sure that you know nobody bothers you or you
can get on rides quickly. So I'm like, why would
I say no to that. That's what nobody's gonna bother me.
Nobody cared, but I was like, yeah, I'm pretty famous.
I'll probably need all the help I can get. And
so I go and this person is in like some

(42:30):
sort of like Disney suit and they're walking us like, hey,
we're gonna walk with somebody else who's also using a guide,
and it was Steven Tyler and some other folks. I
didn't say anything. I don't want to bother him, but
he comes and goes Bobby bo. I'm like, dude's crazy,
Steven freaking Tyler. Yeah, really cool on the people that
you think are awesome actually are awesome. Yeah, Like that's

(42:53):
that's a that's a fun memory that I have at
him just being so freaking cool when he really cool
didn't have to be.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
We were doing a soundtrack song kind of at the
peak of what we're talking about, doing three hundred days
a year. We were spread so thin. We had to
record this song for this movie. We do drums in
La guitars in Boston, vocal or guitars in New York,
vocals in Boston. And it was on the only day
off that we had these weeks, and so we were

(43:19):
basically going a month now with no days off, and
we're in Boston. We're doing this song with the legendary
Glenn Ballard, and and we're huge, you know, with such
an honor to be working with him. We're waiting around
the studio in Boston, waiting and waiting, and you know,
we're supposed to start at like two in the afternoon,
and like six o'clock rolls by and we're like, dude,

(43:39):
this sucks. Man, We're out of here, like this is
you know, this is bullshit, and here comes Glenn with
Steven Tyler.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Until walking into the studio.

Speaker 6 (43:47):
We're all just like, sorry, I'm late. I was with
Stephen Tyler.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
And next thing you know, they're ordering enter in and
we haven't even started work yet.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Now it's eight o'clock.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
We're sitting around eating Italian food delivered and drinking red
wine and we forgot we were bummed, and Tyler is
like telling stories, you know, and we're all just sitting around,
going like tell us more, uncle Steven.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
You know, we didn't care about working, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
And the next thing you know, we're in there doing
vocals and he came in and jumped in, sang back
of vocals.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
On the stot, jumped in and backup vocals. Yeah, that's awesome.
When my own worst enemy was starting to cross over,
they said, hey, we're going to this thing's going to
cross over. It's so big. Was it like a rocket
ship or was it a much slower process where you
were just kind of like living it a week to week,
watching the crowd slowly get bigger.

Speaker 5 (44:32):
It was I would say it was the closest thing
to a rocket shit ship I've seen since Yeah, I
mean I was, I saw, you know always.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I always kind of feel like it was a summer hit,
and it was. But it was number one for eleven weeks.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
That's unheard of.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
But it went number one in like six or seven
weeks from the time it came out in January. It
was like by March it was a number one hitting.
It carried to the summer, so it was. It was bizarre,
but we were on the on were so much that
and visiting radio stations every day. But and and like
we heard that it was number one, but you know,

(45:09):
we didn't really know what was happening. We just were
going and going and going.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
I was talking to Adam Durat's County Crow's lead singer,
and he was talking about a similar thing where he
really didn't know how popular the band was. And when
he realized that there were populars, he went into a
movie in the movie theater. He went in by himself
in the daytime, and before the movie ended, they were
like three quarters of theater fol because somebody had gotten
to a payphone and called and been like, oh my god,

(45:33):
and then there were people outside of waiting and it's
like what is happening? Yeah, because he they tried, he
wasn't stationary enough to actually understand the traction. And but
that was like the moment for him where he's like, Okay,
we're living in a different space now at this point,
where was that realization for you guys?

Speaker 6 (45:50):
I mean, I think it.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
Happened too back then. You got to remember there's no
social media. So you're on the radio and you're on MTV,
but no one's like we're not monitor ring not only
ourselves but other artists. You're not able to, you know,
unless you go to the show. You meet people there occasionally,
but you're not like as accessible. So I think you
start noticing when you go to the mall, you know,

(46:12):
and you have a day off on tour and you're like, oh,
I had to go get some socks or whatever, and
then people recognize you from MTV because it was a
bigger deal. It was no YouTube, Like kids went on
from school and like we're glued to t RL because
that's the only time they're going to see these artists
in their new music videos, and so we got to
sort of watch that explode and how it affected our

(46:33):
you know, people recognizing us because it was like the
late night TV and.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
First big t We're like, this is crazy.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
We get to go beyond such and such show. Which
one Yeah that or Conan, I can't remember one of
what was that like the first time.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
That was like, put me in front of one hundred
thousand people, no problem, put me in it. You know,
imagine you've done those like it's lighting like this and it's.

Speaker 6 (47:00):
It's forty degrees, You're just shivering. You're just like, damn,
do is it to be this cold?

Speaker 3 (47:03):
They're like, yeah, did you ever go back and watch
those performances after or would you just do them and
move on?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
We would sometimes we would go after the first one,
we started bringing our own sound guy to the TV
shows so that he would mix and he would mix
it on the little TV speakers so that we because
we wanted it to sound as rock as possible when
it would come through people's TV sets.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah, did you not find the first time you did
it that that that happened? Did they mix it?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Not?

Speaker 7 (47:29):
So?

Speaker 6 (47:30):
Much.

Speaker 5 (47:30):
Yeah, it sounded like it's a pretty vulnerable thing in
general television sound. There's an art to that they've gotten
pretty good at, but it's taken a while for them
people to figure it out.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
You did Leno, you did ConA Digeberty. Letterman never did Letterman.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
The couple of times that we got that it was
a possibility to do, we were just so far from
New York that it just it wasn't possible. And that
was that's one of my you know, that was always
my wed. We ended up doing Leno like five times,
and he was always so great to us, and we
did several of the shows. But my dream, as from

(48:06):
being a kid, was always to be on Letterman and
to have Paul Schaeffer playing with our band.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yeah, you know, and it never happens.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
That's Letterman is like my hero. I got to go
to a show. I went to one taping. It was
the coolest thing ever. But you're it was twelve degrees
and that theater, though, did at least feel like a
real theater because they used in New York theater where
the TV sets are so small, like you're talking about
like Conan. The only reason it looked halfway big is
because the camera angles were like the cameras were cross

(48:33):
from each other, so they would just switch angles and
look at this huge room. It was this TV set.
It was a small studio where I could see playing
shows versus playing that where it feels like I got
seven people looking at me, and it's weird because it's
not that one shirement. Yeah, and they didn't really come
to see you. It's like if I'm playing the Opry
and I go up and I'm gonna do comedy, they
didn't come to see me. They came to see the Opry,

(48:54):
and so hopefully they're entertained by me, and hopefully I
get it. But there have been shows before where maybe
the crowd's a little older, or and I'm up telling
jokes and they're not. I've got a couple of pop
culture references they don't get, and I'm like, I'm like,
oh man, like they came to see Conan or they
came to see the Operation. Now, if you can crush
one of those, you feel freaking great because you're like,
I just impressed and entertained people that did not really

(49:17):
know they were coming to see me, which is always
super cool, and that has to be kind of a
similar feeling to play a talk show because they didn't
buy tickets to see you guys, they came to watch
the whole show. And now they have a lip playing there.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
And comedy's got to be tough because you're it's just
you that sucks, and man, that's it's vulnerability.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Is it all sucks unless it's awesome. They're only two things.
They're only two ways. You know, if we do if
I'm doing, you know, and we'll do comedy music some too,
and you know, it's a bigger version of a band
that you guys played with. But if we do comedy music,
we can kind of hide mind our music a little
bit where if it's not going right, you can't really
tell nobody it's not entertain because we're playing music. I
got acoustic guitar and playing stupid songs. Dude, when you're

(49:55):
doing stand up.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Yeah, you can't, like anyone.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Doesn't go over that like you hope you can't like
go back and rock out with the drummer for thirty
seconds so you get your thoughts back.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I saw that the NHL had taken my own words.
I mean they made it a thing again, like it's
like the like there's season song or something.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
It's crazy, right, Am I.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Wrong about this?

Speaker 5 (50:13):
We've been getting cool indvites. We just actually just went
it sucks. I wish we were obviously really rooting for him.
But the last night of the playoffs and we got
to play, we played two songs live really yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
For the Preds.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
Yeah, it's cool.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
It's always played like they've always played it as one
of the crowd sing along songs for like like Detroit
has always used it. There's been a few teams that
have used it, but for some reason in the last
couple of years, even more so this year, and even
to the point where ag just did an interview with
The New York Times a few weeks back, and the

(50:45):
question was like what all of a sudden, like why
how did this song become like this unofficial NHL anthem theme?
You know, And we get we get sent videos all
the time from different teams of the crowd just singing
it as the you know, the puck drops and they're
doing their thing but their crowd is still singing the
rest of the chorus or whatever, and you know, that

(51:07):
song just worked. Just at this point stewards of that
it's like that song could almost have its own manager
and its own staff of people just kind of figuring out,
like what's happening next with it?

Speaker 1 (51:21):
We just sort of go like sweet, all right, cool.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
You know there have been a bunch I'm thinking about
that song being play to games. I feel like where
they play a lot of that in between, like plays
right between. It's always it. They started it, please tell me,
and then everybody goes, please tell me, like it's such
a it's such a sports anthem.

Speaker 6 (51:40):
Now it's crazy, it's so cool, and like in the
past five.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Years though, You're right, that's when it really feels like
it started to be played a lot in games. I
would imagine never thought that would be a sports song.

Speaker 10 (51:49):
Never, We never really imagined it was going to be.
But that's about as athletic as forever do. I remember
watching MTV Big tro O kid Pam Anderson was in
the video for Miserable right right, like she was small,
got it?

Speaker 1 (52:08):
That's what I did. That's how you know.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
I'm not lying because I didn't rewatch it. I'm just
going for a memory. You guys were small, and you
were like on her, like on her body, but that
you guys were such in the middle of pop culture
at that time, Like you had gotten so big now
you're you're able to recruit basically the you know, the
biggest pop culture bay Watch, you know, hot person at
the time to be in the video. Yeah, what was

(52:31):
that like to be like that on and that in
and to work with somebody like Pam Anderson when she
was like in her prime or did you get to
work with her?

Speaker 6 (52:38):
Was it all?

Speaker 1 (52:39):
We did know? But we had done. So she did
a show called VIP after I remember that.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Yeah, she was like a like a detective or something.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, yeah, and they it started out they asked for
like a couple of songs to be used, and it
turned into they wrote an entire episode about us, and
you're he gets kidnapped, they got to save him so
he can make the show, and we're all acting it's terrible,
that's funny.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
But so we were on the set of.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Her TV show for a week and in the makeup
chair next to her, and we got to like we
got to know her on the set, you know. And
the video concept for Miserable was being talked about, and
the label kept sending us this idea of this giant
model with us walking around and we thought it was
the cheesiest, most terrible idea we'd ever seen, and we
said no a bunch of times, and then one day,

(53:33):
just to sort of shut the label up to stop
sending us this idea, we said, like, how about this.
If Pam will be the girl in the video, then
we'll do that. And then the next day in the
makeup chair, she's like, hey, guys, I'm gonna be in
your video. We're like, well, you got to be kidding me.

Speaker 6 (53:47):
She was another one of those people, like a Steven Tyler,
but in you know, this.

Speaker 5 (53:54):
Pop culture, she was like our Marilyn Monroe, really of
our generation and just the sweetest cool She's so awesome.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Uh that when you wrote the song, I mean obviously
like you got your chuckles and it's like you make
me come, You make me complete when you do you
make me Come? Does the label ever go, hey, we
have to do something about this, and we're gonna if
it's gonna be a pop song because I don't know,
you can't yo You make Me Come?

Speaker 6 (54:20):
Was it ever an issue we thought it would be.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
It never was not, as much as you saw it. Yeah,
that's pretty funny, I mean really how many songs go
you make Me Come at the beginning, and nobody says
a dang thing about it.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Yeah, it was kind of crazy, and no.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Pushback from like MTV, nothing because she because Maryland, because
Pam Anderson was in it.

Speaker 5 (54:40):
It just because it was it was actually the word
here I come, you know what I mean, it's spelled
that way, it's not. Yeah, So what can you say
if they try to say somebody like that's weird, You're
gonna yeah, you're.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
That was crazy too because then because we went from
Enemy and then zip Bloc was after that, and we
were doing t r L and we had all the
all those videos where there was tons of colors and
people and things happening, and it was just like a
visual stimulation and an here it is just abandon her
on a blue screen and but it it. We knew

(55:14):
that this was gonna be a kind of a game
changer because Entertainment, Tonight, Access, Hollywood, like all those magazine
shows were there, and that's the debut of our video
that time. And yeah, we did TRL, but it was
also his debut on whatever network that that her show
was on, and it went worldwide. You know, we were

(55:36):
it was on Japanese television and it was on it,
you know, in Italy and all these differ, and it
was just say she took that song and you know,
the record, that album at that time was probably getting
ready to wrap up, and then that song just carried
it for another year.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
It just charted. It stayed on the charts for another year,
and just stayed on the road another year. It was
kind of wild.

Speaker 8 (55:57):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Where do you play I'll just be cool like you guys,
where do you play enemy in your set? I'm just
gonna say enemy. I normally wouldn't say that, but see
I'm taking the liberty. Yeah, yeah, where do you play
that normally?

Speaker 5 (56:21):
Is it the very last songs? Because where we played
the first and last? First and last We've actually talked
about it awesome.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Right, like play it first across like what the we
didn't expect it first, and at the end, you like
like go back into it at the end of another song,
right and have them We did it again.

Speaker 5 (56:41):
We were on one of those music cruises and we're
gonna be playing pretty late on the first night, so
just to kind of like as a teaser.

Speaker 6 (56:49):
What was it a were we getting up with someone else?

Speaker 5 (56:52):
Whatever we did, we did like a teaser. We just
played like the opening riff and then went into another song.
There's a way to do it. It brought people over
immediately to the stage, like, oh that man, that opening riff.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
It's one of the most legendary rock riffs of Again
in the last thirty forty years. We just were open
in the studio way a guys playing guitar and we
were like, play the riff of your top five famous song.
We only did sixties and seventies, but then I started
thinking some of you guys were coming over. I mean
maybe under the bridge. There's only a few that I
would immediately go to as far as like opening riffs

(57:27):
where you're like, yep, let's go. And this is definitely
to me it's in that top five just because how
many bad Like for me, I can't I can't really
mount mouth licks and it actually sounds like it is
bound down, down, down down, doom, doom doom. Don't that's
me trying to do chili peppers or.

Speaker 6 (57:47):
Start me up the stones?

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Oh for sure, Like you can't compe with that. But
that's that's like in a different generation. I'm talking are
Time like really one of them the more legendary openings
to any song, I think, Michael be some other newer
ones that you would think of and I don't. I
would also get not a red love song, it's not
really a riff. Yeah, and unfair. I was gonna do too.
It's a vocal. It doesn't count, but got to keep

(58:12):
them separated. But still that doesn't count. There just aren't
as many legendary guitar lick songs that when you hear
it from the late nineties, two thousand teen Spirit.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Yeah, well that was our the school kind of that
we I mean we grew up and again going back
to the whole, like starting to learn how to play guitar.
That's the only things that I could learn.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
At first.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
I would just learn openings to songs and they were
you know, I mentioned Crazy Train, but like that song
is one of them.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Back in black No no no, no no no no no, yeah, terrible,
I said, Like I said, I'm terrible at it.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
But that kind of thing where the song starts with
the riff. Even a lot of Boston songs are journey
or when you think of don't stop Believing, you know
you also you hear the solo in your head too.
That was that was what inspired me as a guitar
player much more than just some fast, like shredding solo thing.

(59:08):
I always wanted to write memorable hooks that you know,
you get you get the title and the chorus, but
you also get this riff, you know.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
So it's almost like another chorus.

Speaker 6 (59:19):
It's like a the hook, big hook.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Yeah, it's a big fat hook at the very beginning
of the song, was it Bowling Alley with the video
the first one?

Speaker 6 (59:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Yeah, dude, that's crazy. You still like playing live? It's
still fun?

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (59:31):
I mean did it ever not get fun? And they
get really fun again? Yeah, Like you get a little
burnt out and then you have to kind of rEFInd
it and now it's amazing. Is that kind of how
it feels again or no.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
There's a Yeah, there's definitely a little burnout factor that happens,
and if you can't recover from that, I think it's
It's usually not the live.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Part though, that gets cumbersome or whatever the word is.
It's usually everything else around it. So traveling, you've heard
people say like we don't get paid to play the show.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
We get paid for the other twenty That's the part
that can really, you know, wear you down.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Did you ever resent the success of Enemy that you're like, God,
I don't want to play the song again, not even
for a few years.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
No, because the crowd just erupts every time we and
they were and they were erupting in ninety nine when
it came out, and they just haven't stopped.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
So that's always a thrill.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
I saw it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
It got in the way for a minute.

Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
It just it was kind of getting in the way
of other songs that we thought were great, maybe even better,
just because eleven weeks on the radio taking up that
small you know, there's not a lot of space for
songs that it was like, oh no, we're we're spinning
this song way too much, so we're not ready for
the next single.

Speaker 6 (01:00:46):
So it kind of like postponed some of that.

Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
But luckily, you know, Miserable broke through, and we did,
we still got we kind of broke through. But it's
crazy because like you're talking about Enemy now, like right
now on the radio, it's getting played as much as
it wasn't nineteen ninety nine, and it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Just crazy, like I'm back and everybody, everybody screams it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:06):
It's so cool, you can't back.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Everybody screams that freaking song.

Speaker 5 (01:01:11):
I love going down the Broadway and just watching the
dronk people's scream. You know, it's like here in a
country music town and it's just so cool to hear,
you know, our little rock song that came out twenty
five years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Like I could hear the song in a bar, I
could hear it in Kroger. Feel the same way about
it because it doesn't feel it doesn't feel cheesy at all,
but it's like such a part of just the fabric
of that song, of the music in the past twenty
five years that it doesn't matter where I am. That
song just feels normal. It's funny. My wife didn't know.

(01:01:47):
She didn't know Miserable and I was playing it because
we were learning the guitar parts and stuff to play,
and she goes, what did they just say? What do
you mean? She goes, that's how you make me come.
You're singing a song you made me come. No, No,
they're singing it just She's like, is that what it said?
I said?

Speaker 7 (01:02:01):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Keep then it goes you make me complete, and then
it goes you made me completely miserable. She was like, Ah,
I never heard of that one before.

Speaker 6 (01:02:10):
It's all the stages of marriage.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
I didn't say that. I didn't say that at all. Okay, Look,
here's what we were talking about, you guys before you
got here, just talking about some of you know what
you guys. You know the shows that you're doing, but
a lot of the cities that the radio shows in
from Orlando. I mean, you're playing Arkansas, South Dakota the
nineties Cruise twenty twenty five with Blues travel Or Collective

(01:02:33):
Soul Jim Blossoms. Ever, if this wasn't a cruise, I
would love to go. I just get so sea sick.
I can't do it because this sounds awesome. Blues travel
or Collective Soul, Jim Blossoms, Okay, I've seen Collective Soul
in the past couple of years. I've seen Jim Blossoms
in the past couple of years. Ever clear, So Art
Alexis play solo, that's Sparkling fade Out. I mean, that's
one of my favorites. Great, I mean, that's that's that's

(01:02:54):
one of my favorites. Color me bad, that's funny. Hired
them once. Lisa Lobe I Love had the biggest crush
on as a kid, watched her reality show Love nine Stories.
Loved like Fastball the way when I worked at the Marina,
that song the director of Bob then you want it?

(01:03:16):
That great song, great song, sec Music Factory. Holy crap,
that's the thing. Still, huh, who knew? We'll see who knew?
Digital Underground Sophie Bee Hawkins. Well, the first like five
or six I really love and you guys, And so
you guys check it out, go see him live. You
guys are so good live. You're so energetic, you're such
nice guys.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
We are going to be in Orlando too, by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
Yeah, the Orlando wants to be twenty fourth.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Yeah, is that what it is?

Speaker 6 (01:03:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Oh that's super cool. It's like the Gardens.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:03:45):
And we are going to do the tour guide thing
that you were talking about because we don't want people
to freak out on us.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
You know, absolutely, I'm a big fan. It was so
cool that you guys were cool, Like I was relieved
by that and I wanted to come by. I think
maybe during the show two times after I kept going
thank you, I just wanted to. I was so grateful
that you guys did that, because again I talked about fabric,
like you guys' music was a big fabric of my
life whenever you know, I was a teenager. And so

(01:04:11):
to have you guys not only play but also be
cool and also have my friends go. I've spent a
lot of time with them. They're super cool. Like that's it, right,
and that's what this whole thing's about so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Well, and and I, you know, want to just compliment
you on what a what a first class show that
is done not only the cause, but the team that
you have that puts it all together and does all
the behind the scenes stuff. I mean, just we we've
done enough things where when you get to one where
it's done the way you do it, it's we appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
And it's really just a good group of people you
have involved in that. What's the deal?

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
I know you guys are put up music. I don't
want to keep it too much longer, But so when
you do music, now, like what do you what is
your what is your music about? Like what do you
want it to sound like? Now? Because I don't feel
like you're pursuing a traditional country sound. But I feel
like what was music made that was like rock in
two thousand could be considered country now anyway, Like this

(01:05:04):
is a foggy line, like what music are you making now?
And why are you making it?

Speaker 5 (01:05:09):
We're just we're back to making lit music. Yes, he's
just right, and lit music is all those things. And
country has left the mark on us as writers and
as people, so it makes its way into songs that
aren't country songs. But there's definitely a huge impact that
this town has had on our music.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
So I think that's just that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
That's awesome. Well, I love you, guys, and I appreciate
you coming, and you guys can follow at litband official,
litband dot com. Before you guys came in again all
those shows and we'll put a bunch of this information
down on the show notes as well. I appreciate you, guys,
Appreciate you

Speaker 9 (01:05:44):
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.