Paul Sidoti, Musician (Taylor Swift)

Rock mythology is fun, but what does a real working career look like after the posters come down? We’re joined by guitarist Paul Sidoti for a wide-ranging conversation that starts with the exact moment KISS flipped a switch in his five-year-old brain and stretches all the way to the day he can email his heroes and actually get a reply. Along the way, Paul shares what those early influences gave him: the drive to learn parts by ear, the hunger for great sound, and the patience to keep getting better even when nobody’s watching. 

We dig into the gear and the craft in a way guitar players and music nerds will love. Paul breaks down why the EVH 5150 and 5150III amps became his workhorses, how he sets up clean, crunch, and lead tones for different styles, and why he still respects tools like the Tom Scholz Rockman from the early home-recording days. Then we jump into modern production with a deep look at Scarlet Sound Studio, his Carl Tatz-designed space in Nashville, including PhantomFocus tuning and why Dolby Atmos mixing is no longer optional for many streaming releases. 

The best stories are personal: Debbie Gibson as a songwriting hero, Rick Springfield moments that hit even harder because his parents were there, and the “be ready” reality behind getting called for big stages, including his Brian Adams connection. We also talk about playing for the song, why players like Neil Schon are more influential than flashy gets-credit guitar culture admits, and how humility, family, and great mentors keep a career healthy. 

If you enjoy conversations about classic rock, Nashville musicians, guitar tone, home studios, Dolby Atmos, and what it takes to stay joyful in the grind, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave us a review so more listeners can find the show.

Episode Links

• Paul Sidoti: https://www.paulsidoti.com/
• Carl Tatz: https://jayfranze.com/episode24/
• Bob Bullock: https://jayfranze.com/episode28/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Jay Franze 0:00

Welcome to 2022. Your stores are late to identify Jacob and 2019. Now, here's your host, Jay Franzi and Tiffany Mason. And we are coming at you live. I am Jay Franzi, and uh with me tonight, the Sally to my deck, my beautiful co-host, Miss Tiffany Mason.

Tiffany Mason 0:41

Good evening, Jay. Good evening, crew members.

Jay Franze 0:44

If you are new to the show, this is your source for the latest news, reviews, and interviews. And if you would like to join in, comment, or fire off any questions, please head over to jafrenzy.com. All right, my friend, tonight we have a very special guest with us. I said it once, I will say it again. We have a very special guest. We have a musician you may have heard once or twice in your life. Hailing from the great state of Tennessee, we have Paul Sidotti. Paul, my friend, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It is our pleasure. We have a lot of things to go over, so I am just gonna just jump right in tonight.

Getting Hooked On KISS Young

Jay Franze 1:19

Can you tell me the impact that Kiss had on you as a youngster?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Oh man, that's a loaded question. Everything pretty much. Oh gosh, I was a kid of the 70s, so it was about 1976 when a neighbor had KISS's destroyer album, and we were over at his house, and I think the first one I heard was uh Detroit Rock City. And actually, I don't think that was the very first time. I think the first time was some friends that were in a band that were older than me had me over to their house, and we were just listening to some records, and they uh I was I remember clearly laying on the floor of like this shag carpeting, and I hear the needle drop and this roar, and you know, you wanted the best, you got the best, and all and it was it was kiss alive. And I'm as a five-year-old kid, I'm looking at the album cover, looking at this sort of cartoonish band, and the music and the whole concert experience just it was so overwhelming, and I was just hooked from the moment that I heard it. It wasn't long after that that I started playing guitar kind of seriously, even at five years old, and my parents were so supportive. And I think back now to like what KISS was sort of like in the 70s, because you could you didn't know what they were like. All you had was like the albums, uh, there was no TV coverage. So they're seeing this guy with blood all over his face, and I'm going, Mom, I want this record for my birthday. It's funny here in my house, I have a recording studio, and in my lounge, I have all of the the stuff that they bought me when I was a kid, the the lunchbox and the game and you know, puzzles and all kinds of dolls and stuff. So yeah, a mini museum, yep, of sorts. So it's funny. But yeah, they had them they had a fan uh amazing impact on me growing up, and it was probably the right up until their heyday sort of waned a little bit, like in 1980 was when I started getting into some different music, but clearly like the mid to late 70s, it was just all kiss.

Jay Franze 3:23

Did they ever freak you out at all with the flames and the fire and the blood and all that stuff when you were so young?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

I did probably get a little freaked out with all the blood that was coming out of Gene's mouth on the album cover, but I never saw the band live, so I didn't know what they were about. All I knew was it looked like this cartoon with this great music that I loved. So that was pretty much

Meeting KISS And Working Their Tour

SPEAKER_00 3:47

it. Now you had a chance to meet them later in life, so was it all that you hoped it would be? Crazy enough, I I know them really well now, uh, especially Gene and Paul. Uh I worked for him on the Psycho Circus tour doing merchandise. And over the years, because of I've played with uh Gary Lewis and the Playboys and the Raspberries, both of Gene and Paul were big fans of uh 60s pop rock, Ed Sullivan, that sort of thing. And then uh Paul was a massive Raspberries fan. And when I did the reunion tours, that's when I sort of got to know Paul uh especially well. But then uh in later years I got to know both of them quite quite well, and it's it's still a pinch me moment, you know. That my that my heroes are, you know, I can shoot them an email and that they'll they'll respond, you know. That just boggles my mind. It's kind of crazy, isn't it? Yeah.

Van Halen Live And Guitar Inspiration

Jay Franze 4:41

Well, I know you have a another person that you looked up to, Eddie Van Halen.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

So can you tell us about that? So my first concert when I was 12, uh technically I was five when I saw Elton John, but I I think I remember two songs from that concert. But when I was 12 years old, I saw the Van Halen 1984 tour. Oh, nice. Which was just it was so incredible. Anybody that's any seen seen any uh footage of that, whether in photos or in video, at the time it was the biggest production that had hit the road. You know, back then the technology wasn't like we have today, where for instance, if you if you wanted different colored lights, you'd have to get different par cans for whatever color you wanted. So I think they were up to like 2,000 par cans on stage, which probably threw in an insane amount of heat, right? But but the the lighting rig looked like a spaceship. And I remember my my dad was really good friends with the guy that was a bartender at the old Richfield Coliseum, and he would go in for his his shifts at like four or five in the afternoon upstairs in the Lodge. So we would go to concerts with him before anybody could get through the door. And I remember going and seeing that sound check and just staring at that lighting rig, going, Oh my gosh, this is just insane. But yeah, he was definitely a huge guitar influence on me growing up, uh, especially in my 20s. I really started to dive into his playing. And then I was just very fortunate enough to to meet him and have a great relationship with with him in probably the last 10 years of his life.

Jay Franze 6:20

I know you're also a big fan of his equipment. What is it about his equipment that you like so much?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Well, it's it especially the amps. I mean, I love the guitars too, but in the early 90s when he came out with his uh PV 5150, I never in my teens in the 80s, I never really had a a dedicated guitar amp. Uh, whatever amp that I had sort of did double duty for keyboards. I had a keyboard amp, and then I would run like Rockman equipment through it, which was basically like a direct signal. It wasn't like a tube amp. So when I got my first hundred watt, it was that 5150, and it just sounded massive. It was like you could plug any guitar into it, and it sounded great. I'd I would play a telly through it, and it had this great high gain sustain, and it sounded great on clean stuff too. I would do like Beatles medleys with a Rickenbacher 12 string on the clean channel, and it sounded great. So early 90s was when I, you know, dug the the the early 5150 amp, and then uh Fender came out with their version of it when Ed teamed up with them in I think 2007, and uh the 5153 was another great amp, and it just not just for his tone, but it's the the kind of tone that I like to play where it's not overly distorted, but it gives you just great sustain, and there's so much versatility between the three channels, especially on the hundred-watt version. You have three dedicated channels that you can really tailor your sound.

Jay Franze 7:58

Now, did you make use of those three channels

Chasing Tone With 5150 Amps

Jay Franze 8:01

to be able to play different styles of music without having to go to a I did I did in uh 2011?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

I was I was touring with that setup, and my typical setup with that was my clean channel would be for sort of the country stuff, and I would use rack drawer pedals for like a tube screamer or a mild overdrive if I wanted to kick in that with you know the clean channel. Two was a dedicated crunch, you know, like a rock crunch, and uh three was my lead tone. So that was pretty much my setup. I used some outboard gear for delay reverbs, that sort of thing. But uh any of the country tones were were done through the clean channel, channel one, with uh uh some rack tour pedals. Yeah, yeah.

Rockman Recording And Early Home Studio

Jay Franze 8:49

Now you also mentioned the Rockman. Oh, we gotta give Tom Schultz some credit. Yeah. What did you think of the Rockman and what did you ever use that on?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I love that. In the 80s, it was it was a big part of my small recording studio setup that my parents, again, they took out a loan and got me uh um supportive. They were amazingly supportive. My dad's still still alive, he's uh he's 80. And uh he he's I I could we could go into a whole story about him, but he's just uh an amazing guy. But they they got me uh a 20 uh see it was like in 1985, 86, they bought me a Taskam 388 eight-track reel-to-reel tape machine, which in those days was a lot of money because you didn't have the technology of computers like you do today, where they come stock with garage band, which is a fantastic music program. Well, back in the day, if you wanted eight tracks, you had to you had to pay for it. And and and I had that kind of setup, and the Rockman was my my main guitar processor. It was a half space rack, and and again, that thing had a lot of versatility for a little guy. You could get great clean tones out of it, there was great sort of mild overdrive, you could get some some good lead tones out of it. And uh there was this thing called a notch that gave you that Boston Tom Schultz signature sound. You if you took the notch out, it made it more generic sounding, but if you hit that notch, it was like that was the signature Tom Schultz sound. Uh and I still I still have it, it's in my studio rack here. Is it really?

Jay Franze 10:26

Yeah. Now I know you mentioned at the very beginning here, you mentioned that you're sitting in your studio.

Building A Pro Nashville Studio

Jay Franze 10:32

Now, when we say home studio, we think of these smaller studios.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Right.

Jay Franze 10:36

Yours is not a typical home studio, it's a Carl Tatz design studio.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

So it is. Please tell us a little bit about that. Oh man, so my wife and I decided to build our forever home in the middle of the pandemic of all times. I mean, we had we had had it planned, and then the COVID thing hit, and it was just like we were sort of stuck. It was like, well, we're already set, we just got to move forward with it. And the basement, I wanted it to be sort of my my dream studio. I've always wanted to have a tracking room with vocal booth and the lounge and you know, a great mix room and all that. And uh she's again so supportive. And and uh I started uh poking around on the internet in Nashville looking for like you know top studio designers. And the one name that kept popping up was Carl Tatts, and I just loved his rooms, they were like very elegant looking, very clean, and then he was just so thorough with all of the measurements and the design and stuff. And one of the rooms that kind of popped out at me was uh Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flats. He had uh a place called the Grip. Yeah, and uh with him being from uh Columbus, I'm from Cleveland originally, and I went to Ohio State, so I think a lot of his uh his theme was that sort of red color mixed into a lot of his his uh uh studio design. And then uh my daughter's name is Scarlet. So I was like, that's perfect. I went to Ohio State, Scarlet's my daughter, we're gonna call it Scarlet Sound Studio. And so Carl came on board and I I gave him the lay of the land here. I said, I got this much square footage, this is what I would love to do. What can we what can we make happen? And so he got to work and he designed it, and I kind of told him aesthetically what I liked, you know, as far as the stone. I like the stone behind the the TV, and then the tracking room is is pretty much it's it's close to what Jay's is as far as the where the space couplers are and where the stone is. The square foot is just a smidge smaller than than Jay's room, but it's also got the vocal booth. And then I have a third-car garage that is adjacent to the tracking room. And as we were building it, the walls were open. And I I said to Carl, I said, Can we put hookups out here in the garage? And just in case we have like another keyboard player or another utility guy, and he goes, Absolutely. So so the garage is actually wired up for it, and I'm thinking down the line, I would love to make that uh a grand piano room and finish that out and and convert that. But um, yeah, and then actually the lounge has hookups in it too. So if you if uh if you're a utility player and uh you're playing Mando or acoustic guitar, we can set up stuff in the lounge, which is also soundproofed. Uh, I've got an amp closet underneath the staircase, which is completely soundproofed. There's a great space actually going up the stairs that we use as like a natural reverb chamber that sounds amazing. You just throw a microphone at the at the bottom of the staircase, and it's it's it's like a big cathedral. It's crazy. But um, you know, we used every square inch of the basement for the studio, and uh it's it it's really incredible. And when we were initially designing it, I was only gonna have a stereo monitoring system. And then uh my wife is uh an executive at a record label, and she's you know looking around the room and she's like, This looks amazing. And she goes, If you're gonna go this far with it, she goes, All the labels are are demanding Atmos mixes for the streaming services. So we went Atmos. So we have a 914, Adolby Atmos mix room here. And if you've ever heard it, it's astonishing. And I I literally will sit down here for hours and and just go through the classic records, my favorite classic records, and find Atmos mixes of them. And it's the most incredible listening experience. It really, it really is, especially when you when you stumble upon some of the the great ones. One of my favorites is um you know the Elton John catalog that's mixed by Greg Penny. It's it's just so cool, and and uh I'm just grateful that Carl, you know, designed this magnificent facility.

Jay Franze 15:01

Now, Miss Tiffany and I were in Nashville last week for CMA Fest, and when we were there, we were meeting up with a a few previous guests and friends of the show, and she got to experience the atmosphere for the first time. Right, that's cool. She left with a smile on her face for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Awesome, yeah.

Tiffany Mason 15:22

Well, when I saw all those speakers or the monitors, whatever I don't I I'm not a technical person, but I was like, that kind of looks like the other studio that we were in. So I wasn't wrong.

Jay Franze 15:33

Yeah, you're right. The benefit of this studio here is Carl's Phantom Focus System, right? So I mean, he really does a bang out job, not just building the room or designing the rooms, but it's the Phantom Focus system that dials it all in. Sure. And that's what he did for me, and I was just blown away by it. Just how you could pinpoint every little thing. Yeah. So I mean, it was absolutely amazing. And and we have to thank Bob, Bob Bullock, previous guest of the show as well, because he's the one who introduced me to Carl. It was that introduction that got me that room, and mine is not Atmos.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

It's okay. I'll tell you what, when we were getting ready to build the studio, Carl took me to like maybe three or four rooms that he had built in town, and he wanted me to just sort of get the the the feel for what the speakers sounded like. And uh I was blown away by just the stereo, just a stereo setup, the clarity. It just felt like every instrument was just had its spot, and it was like so detailed. Like it felt like the horns were right in your face, or the vocal was like right here, like singing right in the middle. It was just amazing. I don't know what he does to do that, but uh I I I swear by them, they're fantastic monitors. Yeah.

Jay Franze 16:55

I mean, I remember him sitting there with his assistant and they were measuring out the speakers and they had laser beams, and they had have have me sit in the sweet spot and put the lasers to my head and try to find the exact spots to sit in.

Tiffany Mason 17:07

I was gonna ask if they factor in your height.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, it was it was gonna I was gonna say when they were tuning the room, they literally I think they had a laptop in the lounge and they had some sort of something on a mic stand. I don't know what it was, but yeah, that so they were they were doing all of the the calculations. It was it was such a mathematical thing. It wasn't it wasn't just like oh let's just put up some speakers and go with it.

Jay Franze 17:33

Earthworks mic because it's the flattest mic you have. So the signal that goes through it is as flat as possible, and then he tunes the room like you said from another room and tweaks it out, and it's absolutely amazing. That's a process worth watching if you've never seen it before. Yeah. All right, well, let's

Debbie Gibson And Making Music Friends

Jay Franze 17:52

go on. You have worked with a number of people that we may have known, one or two for sure. But there's one that stood out to me that I really I would really like to know what it was like, and that's Debbie Gibson.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Oh wow, I thought you were gonna say somebody else, but yeah, Debbie, she's amazing. Here's a here's a great story. We're we're close in age. I think we're we might be not even a year apart, and uh she's a little bit older. But when she came out in '86 with Only in My Dreams, that's right when I was starting to write songs. And I was just like, I loved the tune, and I loved everything about her, the fact that she wrote her own songs, that she produced them, and that she was recording them at home. And I think I might have stumbled upon either an interview or a magazine article where she was sitting behind like an Akai multi-track, you know, recorder with synthesizers everywhere. And that's when I said to my parents, I go, That's what I want to do. Can I get something like that? And that's when we got the the A-track. But I remember seeing her on a teen night at a uh local club, and it was her and two dancers, and she was singing live to a track of Only in My Dreams, but it was on teen night, and uh when I got to meet her years later through a friend of mine, uh Paul Peterson, who had played bass for her, I I did something really silly. I I sent a uh one of those uh sort of karaoke like lip-syncing thing to like the song No More Rhyme, which was one of my favorites of hers. And so he sent that, he sent that to Debbie, and she was just so flattered. And then so she sent me one back doing the same thing, you know, like you know, singing no more rhyme, and and she was just so flattered that I made that video and she said it made her day or whatever. And then I think the next time we were in LA, we got together and we had lunch, and it was just again one of my heroes, and she was just so down to earth and so sweet. Then there was a time where I happened to be in Vegas for something, and she lives there, and she asked if I'd want to play on some new recordings for her. I said, absolutely, absolutely. And and I went down for an afternoon and I cut guitars on like three tracks, and it was just a party, it was so fun, and uh and she's just a wonderful human being, she really is. She's a goofy girl too. She just likes to have fun. Yeah. I remember that day too that we were we after we had lunch, we went back to the place that she was staying, and I they had a grand piano there, and I says, Can I play Lost in Your Eyes with you? And she goes, Absolutely. So she had somebody like record the video, and I'm like, Man, this is me 17 years old in high school, and my dreams at my high school auditorium piano learning how to play this song, and it was uh it was really cool. That is really cool.

Jay Franze 20:44

I met her back in 1986 in uh oh, did you? And I actually saw her perform at the mall. She did the same thing, she sang to tracks in the middle of the mall. Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, she I I don't think she gets the credit she you know she deserves.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

No, she's a great writer.

Rick Springfield And Other Connections

Jay Franze 21:03

And another one you worked with that I don't think it's the credit they deserve either is Rick Springfield.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Exactly. Yeah, well, I didn't I I I got to jam on stage with him. I wouldn't say that I I necessarily worked with them, but he he was the the guy right after Kiss for me. So it was like 1981. And uh I used to go, I mean, it was one of those things where Jesse's girl had come out. I did that in my fifth grade talent show when it was a hit. That was my first time on on stage in front of an audience playing guitar and singing, and it was just like one of those things that the next day at school, it was like I was a whole different person just because I sang a song on stage. You know, it was pretty, pretty amazing and funny. But I yeah, I was a massive fan of his. He of course, that was the time that you know he was on General Hospital. So I would rush home from school every day just to catch home like the last 15 minutes of him on TV. And uh and saw him in concert in uh 85, which was great. And then when I did the Raspberries reunion, what was really cool about that was not many people are familiar with Rick's career and the fact that prior to Jesse's girl, he was he'd actually was here in the States in like '72. That was when he first came over and had his first record deal, and he was signed to Capitol, which was also the same label as the Raspberries. And so they knew each other because they would they would do some tour dates, and Rick's success almost, you know, didn't come for another nine years after the whole 70s thing. And so when we did the reunion tour with Raspberries in 2004, he came to our show in in Los Angeles at uh the House of Blues on Sunset, and I knew he would be there, and so I wore a vintage working class dog tour shirt for the Encore. Well, the cool thing was that he was sitting, him and his wife were sitting right next to my parents in the upper deck and upstairs. And Barbara had you know told him, Hey honey, look, he's wearing your shirt. He's wearing your shirt. And my my parents who had seen me play that song were sitting next to him, and then in the foundation room afterwards, he he was talking to somebody and they were he was standing next to my parents, and he comes running up to me and he goes, Love the shirt, man! Great solo on I'm a rocker. And I was just like, Wow, how it was such a cool moment to have that happen in front of my parents. But I've gotten to jam on stage with him before, and he's he's always been super cool.

Jay Franze 23:32

Yeah, I just don't think he gets that that credit either. I think yeah, being on the soap operas and all that stuff, I think he just never got the credit being a musician.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

But look at him now, he's 77 and he's crut he's out with Sammy Hagar now and just crushing it. Well, you say that Sammy Hagar wrote one of his songs, one of his biggest hits.

Jay Franze 23:50

Yeah, I've done everything for you. Yeah, man, it's truly amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Yeah.

Jay Franze 23:56

One more person that I saw that you had a connection to that I thought was interesting was Jason from Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah. Uh I met Jason through uh my dear friend Brian White, country artist. Oh yeah. Yeah, Brian lives not too far from me. And uh Paul Peterson again, who who's uh a friend of ours, uh his daughter was recording some originals in in uh Brian's home studio. And Brian called me up and he's like, hey, he's like, we need some guitar on this track. You wanna play some guitar? And I didn't know who was there at the session, so I I drove over and and uh and met Paul. That was the first time I met Paul and his daughter Taylor. And then uh Brian goes, Yeah, this is my friend Jason. I'm like, yeah, Jason from Jason Chef from Chicago. Yeah, I know who you are. I'm like a huge fan, you know, and and uh and Jason was so fun. He we had so many laughs on that session. It was it was really, really, really cool. Yeah, and he's he's just super amazing singer, bass player.

Jay Franze 24:59

I had a chance to meet him through Bob Bullock. We did a session for him over at Chess Sanford's studio. So I was wondering if that was somehow the connection that you had with him as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah, it was it was through Brian.

Why Guitar Chose Him

Jay Franze 25:13

All right, really quick. You mentioned you play piano, and I know you you've you play a couple of different instruments. Can you just tell us why you chose guitar and how proficient are you at the piano?

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Oh, okay. So I I think guitar chose me. It was uh I it I literally when I was two or three years old, my parents had a great record collection, and we always had music playing in the house. And I think just the the times were so different in the 70s and than today. I mean, you literally you were either a musician or you were an athlete, right? And we didn't have computers, we didn't have video games. It was like, you know, you were either like learning how to play ball or you were like listening to records, and my parents just had a great record collection, they weren't really musically inclined. My my dad didn't play anything, my mom played a little bit of piano, but other than that, they they did not have a musical background. They were huge Elton John fans, and the first record that really hit me was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and especially the title track and Saturday Nights All Right for Fighting. When I heard that at three years old, I had this toy guitar and I would do the da-da-da-da-da. And I would basically air guitar with this like little nylon string plastic toy guitar. And and my parents they always said, like, from such a young age, you were always listening to music and copying what we what you heard or singing along. And so by the time I was five, my mom took me to a music store and said, He just loves music, he loves the guitar. And uh, do you think that we could get him started on guitar? You think we can get some lessons? Were your hands big enough? Because my hands were so small. Uh, they went around the music store and they were trying on different guitars. And again, this is mid-70s. And thankfully, in a roundabout way, the Ibanez lawsuit Les Paul, which was a scaled-down version of a Les Paul, and the weight was much lighter than like I think a typical Les Paul back then was maybe eight or nine pounds, and this was probably five or six. So they they put the guitar in my hand, and it they're like, it looks like he could he could start. So that was the turning point when I started to play guitar, and I would say probably by the time I was seven, I was listening again to the Kiss Records, but my dad was also a huge Eagles fan. And I was I think I the first guitar solo that I really learned note for note by ear was I Can't Tell You Why. Again, it's not probably the most difficult thing, but it taught me to pick out notes on a fretboard, and and and even by seven, it's like you don't really know what you're playing, it's just like I've just found it out on the fretboard. I'm like, okay, this sounds like it's in the right place. Piano is a whole different thing that I've never had a lesson on. I've always loved the instrument. Uh, when I was 14, of course, jump was everywhere. I played in cover bands that we would do Lover Boy and Foreigner and stuff like that. And create bands. Yeah, the the uh the keyboard player had a JX3P. This is like 83, 84-ish. So by 85, I wanted a synth really bad, and I would go to this music store, and they were a roll-in dealer, and they had a a JX8P, which was the new version of it, and I had seen it in uh Night Rangers four in the morning video, and uh we we couldn't really afford a DX7, which were they were much more expensive at the time, and because we knew somebody that was a rolling dealer, we were able to get like a really good deal on one. So I got my first synthesizer in '85. And when I went to the high school the following fall in in '86, they had a Yamaha Grand on stage. And I was so into David Foster and his instrumental albums at the time that I started to I'd start with Elton John or Billy Joel songs and try to teach myself how to play them. And I just took the theory that I but I took the theory that I had from playing guitar and saxophone. I played saxophone and band, and I found Middle C on the keyboard, and I just said, okay, I know what this is, I know how to go up the scale, I know intervals and stuff like that, and started to build chords with, and again, they weren't I wasn't playing with proper technique, but I was just okay, this works for me, and and started to develop. By the time I had my junior year, a good friend of mine, his girlfriend, wanted to sing Whitney Houston's Didn't We Almost Have It All for the Talent Show. And she had the songbook, and I didn't really read piano music because that's two staff. You have to read the treble clef and the bass clef with your left hand, right? So I told her, I said, Why don't you get a friend of ours that who was a sight reader, he could play it like that. She knows, I really want you to play this. So I sat with it and I worked on the intro for two weeks. The first week was just this hand, because I could read trouble clef. So I figured out the the notes and the rhythm, and then I started with my left hand the next week. And then by the time I was I had both of them, I started to put it together. I'm like, I kind of see what's going on here. You know, I just went with it and and then I learned every note of that piece, and it took me probably about three or four weeks. And then what I would do is people would ask me to accompany them on their solo spots or for for whatever performance that they were doing. And I would get piano, vocal, guitar, for instance. And instead of reading all of the piano music, if it was a ballad, I would look at the chord charts and there'd be like a G and maybe a G with a B in the bass and a C chord as the progression, and I would just kind of improvise and play it on feel, and and that's where my I think my feel for piano playing really started to take off because I wasn't playing it just by what was on the page, I was I was feeling it, and I was I was also hearing different melodies in my head and and and thinking more of like voice leading rather than just playing stock chords or whatever. I I would literally stay after school from 2 45 until 7 once I had my driver's license. I would stay till like 7 at night. My band directors were amazing. They were like, just lock up when you leave, you know, it would never happen nowadays. But yeah, I would stay after school and practice because I just loved it. And uh, and to this day, it's like I love playing guitar, but piano is probably my favorite instrument to play.

Teaching Himself Piano By Feel

Tiffany Mason 32:01

That's so awesome. Well, you said your dad introduced you to the Eagles, and so you have a tribute band that you're part of

Starting An Eagles Tribute Band

Tiffany Mason 32:10

now. Can you tell us a little bit about the band and how it got started?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, I started it in basically when I moved to Nashville in the fall of 2000. I I was just coming off the Gary Lewis and the Playboys gig that I played bass for for Gary from '93 until basically the end of the summer of '99. And then I moved here in the fall of 2000. And it was more of like necessity because Broadway back then isn't the Broadway of Nashville now. There was literally maybe a handful of places that you could play, and it was all really traditional country. So I'm thinking of like, well, how am I going to support myself? I'm in a new city, I'm back to square one. One of the uh the the people that that booked Gary, they had a uh a tribute band. It was like a brand new agency. Like the tribute bands really weren't a thing back then. I mean, they were there were a few around, but not like today. But she goes, you know what I need? I need an Eagles band. And I'm like, man, I'm in Nashville. What a great city to put this together in. So by 2002, I had a pretty consistent lineup, and we were by 04, we were selling out House of Blues venues, and we were big on the fair and festival casino circuit. And then in 2007 was when I made the jump to where I am now. But it was uh I I wanted it to be completely authentic. Where you know, I play the Joe Walsh guy and I sing all the Joe stuff, and I imitate him when I sing, and I play all his parts, and same with our Don Henley, he sounds just like him and plays drums, and it's uh and everybody kind of looks the part too. I mean, if you saw our our Timothy B. Schmidt, he's you know, long, long brown hair, he he kind of looks like him physically, and and uh so we're we're really about the authenticity and the arrangements, and so uh we've had some downtime and and I reformed it, and uh I wanted to create not just an Eagles band, but also make it so if people wanted an alternative or a double billing, the same band functions as uh a Tom Petty band that I front. So we we call that Petty City, and I I front it as Tom Petty, and and it's the same guys for the most part, just our our our Don Henley will switch to guitar, and then there's a good friend of mine who's not pictured in this picture, that's an older picture, but uh he switches to drum kit and uh and it's it's uh it's a lot of fun. We we did uh our first double billing in Frisco, Texas last year, and it went great.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

That's so fun. That's fun to be able to explore both bands.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah, it is. It's such a great catalog, and I and it's like a you can't miss sort of thing. We do an hour, pretty much an hour of each band with an intermission, and it's it's like the the best hits of both bands, and yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Tiffany Mason 35:09

Yeah, I'd

Running A Dual Tribute Night

Tiffany Mason 35:10

buy a ticket to that.

Playing Broadway To Keep Learning

Tiffany Mason 35:11

Well, it looks like you guys were playing at the stage a lot. Can you tell me how that got started?

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Yeah, all right. I mean, the same guy that that uh plays drums in my petty band, he was playing at the stage. This is probably, I mean, right after we got off tour in a couple months, and the guitar player who kind of runs the band, it's uh it's called Nashville Cover Band. They had a regular gig at the stage every Friday. And he goes, you know what, we really kind of need another guitar player. I'd love to have another guitar player that could sing. And he goes, Do you know anybody? And uh my friend Isaac said, We can call Paul, and he goes, You think he'll come down here and play with us? And he goes, I can ask him, you know. And uh, and I was just again, I just love to play. And I'm always asked, You're playing on Broadway? Like, you know, like you've you've sort of you know accomplished a lot. And I said in your own broadway. Yeah, exactly. And I said, you know what?

Tiffany Mason 36:09

I love with the music.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

I exactly, and I go, you can never stop learning. And one of the main reasons I started playing down there was I grew up in a rock and roll town in Cleveland, Ohio, and um was not exposed to Alan Jackson or George Strait or Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson or Wayland Jennings, and it's all music that I really wanted to know and learn how to play, being in Nashville. I mean, this is a sort of a country town, it's Music City, but the country roots are here. I almost felt like obligated, and then I owed it to not only myself, but like to audiences to know that material. It's it's it's great stuff. So I initially started playing down there doing bass gigs, and then slowly started going into the guitar thing and was working a ton the last couple years. And so when when Isaac called me and says, Hey, do you want to do it? And I said, Yeah, I'll I'll come down and check it out. Sat in with them one night and played, and it was great. It was a six-piece band, everybody sings, everybody's a fantastic musician, and that's a great vibe. Like we all have a great time on stage, and it's infectious. I mean, when when we play in front of audiences, I also tell people this too that when I was in when I was in the Cleveland area in the 90s supporting myself as a musician, I would I would do solo gigs, I would do duo or trio gigs, and a lot of times they were at restaurants or places where there might be 20 people there. And you had to play from eight to midnight, whether there was a hundred people or nobody. And you know, a lot of those were kind of lonely, not not as much fun, but hey, it's like you're a working musician and you do what you can to pay the bills. So now we're down on Broadway in front of packed houses. Everybody's there to hear the band. They're not watching TV, they're they're there to watch live entertainment. We're on state-of-the-art equipment. That was another thing. Like when we were 14, 15 years old putting our first bands together, we wanted to sound like the records. You know, we we tried valiantly. Sometimes we were kind of in the ballpark, sometimes we weren't. But, you know, we didn't have the gear back then. Well, now getting to play all of those great songs that I grew up on with a fantastic band behind me and lights in production and a killer sound system and intermixes that sound absolutely perfect. It's like this is so fun. Like, I mean, it really is. And it's better than they what they had. Exactly, right? Yeah. And uh, and it's such a and and I really love the the Broadway community. There's a lot of wonderful people I've met down there. It it just reminds me, it's like you just you can never stop learning. And part of the fun for me is when somebody walks in and they go, Yeah, yeah. And I love the fact that that you know, somebody that might be from out of town, I just created a great memory for them that they normally, you know, maybe not wouldn't have had prior. And uh, and it's all about making memories and having fun.

Tiffany Mason 39:27

So yeah.

Staying Humble And Raising Kids

Tiffany Mason 39:28

Well, with all of your success, you seem like just your pictures online, you seem like a very nice, kind person. Speaking with you now, like your aura, just kindness, niceness. Yes. And so how do you how do you keep that in check?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

That's my mom. Um, rest her soul. She was she was just always be humble, you know. That was like her her biggest thing. I still hear it in the back of my my head sometimes, like, you know, don't ever act like a hot shot. Like that's not that's not appealing. Just be you, smile, have fun on stage, just just be be my Paul, you know. So that's yeah, but I that's what I try to remember. And I just try to try to be a good example, and kindness is you know, I think goes a long way. And try to try to have fun and put a smile on people's faces, you know.

Tiffany Mason 40:22

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, speaking of parenthood or parents, you just became a a new daddy. I did. So congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

That's the third, that's the third one, and it's amazing. It's so funny. I stop at three. I know. I well, yeah, it would definitely stop. My wife said so. Um no, it's it it's the greatest thing I could ever imagine. And for years I thought I would never get married or never have kids or any of that, and it's the two greatest things I've ever done. It's my proudest achievements over everything else is uh is the is the family and the kids. I'm just I'm so proud of them, and and they're just they're so fun. Every day is an adventure, and uh yeah, now with another little one, it's uh it's quite the challenge, you know, navigating okay, who's gonna pick up who, and you know, that sort of thing. But it's it's it's the best, it's the best, absolute best. How old are you, kids? So I have eight, uh, eight-year-old, a two-year-old, and then Rocky who's a couple couple months. So I think like right now, going to a restaurant is probably the most challenging with Sammy because he's like in that stage where he's almost too big for a hate chair, but he can't necessarily sit in a booster seat because he doesn't sit up high enough. And Rocky's, you know, he's not so much like hard. You know, it just depends on if he's gonna be awake to to have to to eat or whatever. But most of the time he he's he's asleep. But we've been we've been going out less and eating more at home lately. So it just makes it easier.

Tiffany Mason 42:02

Tis the newborn days.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yes.

Liner Notes And Old-School Music Love

Tiffany Mason 42:05

When you used to get a record or a CD or cassette.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

Eight-track. I never had eight-track. I mean, I have eight tracks now, but I didn't have them back in the day. My dad did, I think.

Tiffany Mason 42:18

So I want to know, you got the liner notes out, and would you be more interested in the pictures, the lyrics, who put it together? What would you catch your eye?

SPEAKER_00 42:28

All of it. And especially a kid of the 80s, any musician will tell you, we were all about the liner notes. I mean, I would read some of the lyrics, but I would always go straight to the bottom of the lyric page who played on this record. Uh-huh. And I think like uh at least a lot of my musician peers that were not in sort of marching, you know, symphonic band or whatever, or you know, if we played drums or guitars or bass or keyboards, I think we all prided ourselves on, hey, who can who can go dig deep and tell you who who played on this record, right? It was like obscure trivia. It was like a like a trivia thing. And um, yeah, I remember like, you know, guys like Prairie Prince and you know, like like just really obscure, yeah. I mean, I I think I was like so at one point I was so proud to know like, you know, what tracks Michael Landau played on or Steve Lukather or Tristan Bowden on drums, you know, that that sort of thing. It was uh not the usual suspects, right? You had your Jeff Picaro's and your David Page's and all that stuff, but it was like, can you really tell me who played on this this record? And we we did that a lot, and that was that was kind of fun. I missed that, the the physical copies now of music, CDs and albums and cassettes. You know, it was uh again, that was a great time in music. I think like seventies and eighties were the absolute pinnacle for uh for music.

Tiffany Mason 43:57

I agree. I think we all miss those physical products, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

And the styles of music that came out, especially in the 80s, because they're so experimental with with technology, with drum machines and sequencers and synthesizers, exactly. And uh the advent of more tracks, you know, like in the 70s, I think you were kind of at your peak with like 16, and then the early 80s you started getting into 24, and that's it. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, they're they're tying them together and getting 48 and 2 and 16 track at the studio I worked at. Oh, really? We thought we were hot for having that. Well, my first my first recording session, like professional one when I did original stuff, it was uh engineered by this unknown guy named Trent Reznor. Oh, yeah in Cleveland. Yeah, that was a great of him. Yeah, he uh he was great. I didn't know too much about uh sequencing at that point, and uh I I had like the the the Elisus MMT 8, but I didn't do anything through a Macintosh. And the first thing that I saw when we were recording my keyboard tracks, Trent had a monochrome Macintosh running just regular performer, it wasn't digital performer yet. This was just MIDI information, and I think it had a maybe a 40 megabyte hard drive, you know, and you had to put floppy discs in there to save your save your session on information or whatever. And he was very patient and he showed me how to use it, and he was like, This is you know, we're not we're not recording any audio, we're just gonna record the MIDI information. So if you make a note a mistake, I can fix it. And he he pulled it out and showed me how to quantize and and limit velocities and stuff, and I went out like the next day and and got a computer and got performer and and started doing it.

Tiffany Mason 45:44

Do you think because your parents loved music so much, that's why they were so supportive? Like even though they couldn't play an instrument or they couldn't sing or whatever, I think so that that played into it.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

I think so. And I think they recognized how much I loved it and how much I was really into playing music. I I think that was a big, a big thing for them. One of the things that I love about my dad in high school, he could have been a pro ball player. He was one of those athletes that was just just super, super talented, like could have been the star quarterback on the team. He was this one of the star baseball players. He was a left-handed first baseman who hit with power. And his senior year, his his coach really was pushing him because he he knew that he could probably get have a scout come out and have him signed or or whatever. And and so I think you know, he he he still to this day said, you know, he took some constructive criticism kind of like the wrong way, and he just he just quit everything. He was just like, I don't need this, I'm gonna, you know, and it and again, it was like the early 60s, and he was like, he had a group of friends, and then he enlisted in the Navy. So every, I mean, everything sort of happened for a reason, right? But when I was pursuing music, one of the greatest things he ever told me was, he goes, I gave up my dream in baseball. He says, I'll never let you do that in music. And he goes, Mom and I, mom and I will be here no matter what you need. We're we're gonna support you. And there there were plenty of times that yeah, my I I would come home and whether I, you know, was coming back from California after I moved out there and it didn't work out, and I came back home and I stayed with them and until I sort of got back on my feet again, and they were always there, and I owe everything to them.

Tiffany Mason 47:35

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Do you have any kids following in your footsteps yet?

SPEAKER_00 47:44

My daughter loves to play drums. She's very musical. That yeah, she loves it, and she's got great rhythm. And I and I just got a brand new DW custom Don Henley 1994 Hellfreezes Over kit. Like the exact dimensions, finish, everything. That that arrived today, and we were we set it up.

Tiffany Mason 48:07

Like Christmas morning.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

Yeah, it was definitely my my my buddy Isaac, who's uh who's a drummer, he was over here just getting giddy with the whole thing. He's like, Yeah, this is so cool. And then we had to take like a million pictures of it because he wants he wants to do kind of like the rig rundown, like you know, the the sizes and the finish, and you know, we're gonna do a like a recording video with it and uh put it out there.

MTV Concert Memories And Neil Schon

Jay Franze 48:34

So well, let me fire a couple more things at you before we bring it to a close. What made Live in Houston in 1981 so special?

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Oh man, it was the first MTV concert. Like, really. I mean, I saw it the night that it aired, and I remember it actually they at the time we again being a kid of the 80s, our neighborhood got cable right when it came out. I I was I was home when MTV debuted in August of 1981. I saw Video Killed the Radio Star. It was like life-changing for me because my parents had gotten a uh Betamax, and I would literally record MTV as soon as I left for school. It would just run all day, and then I'd come home and I'd watch it, and then I'd watch it again, you know, the live stuff. And I have so much stuff archived. I have like I remember like the Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest. I have all of this footage with all the the commercials and stuff from the the era, but MTV was such a huge thing, and that journey concert was so amazing. I mean, and that was like even like it was like incredible, and that was like before Don't Stop Believing really was a major hit. I mean, that's right when it came out. I mean, I think open arms was pretty huge when that concert aired. But then there was like you know Huey Lewis in the news, the picture this tour, that was also an early MTV concert that I loved. But it was it was so cool because you didn't, you know, having grown up in the 70s, you didn't know what any of the artists look like, and now all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's what they look like. Right. Or that's what I want to be. I want to play like that guitar player, you know. Didn't know. As a guitar player, do you feel that Neil Sean is underrated? Absolutely, but I think he he's underrated, but I also think that he's he's been around enough I think he's underrated by the fans, but he's yeah, a little bit he's respected by the musician, absolutely, yeah, and the guitar circle because he he was started with Santana when he was 16. So you have that whole thing. So I don't think it's it's one of those things where oh he he just kind of flew under the radar. You know, I I think probably part of it was having the greatest vocalist in rock history fronting the band. Right. But but like you know, like like Steve Perry said at his induction, he was he heard this guitar soaring over the Hollywood Hills, and it was it was Neil Schoen's guitar when he first saw the band and when he ended up joining them. Well what I love is not it's not so much again, and I and I as a guitar player I've never been focused on the speed or the acrobatics of guitar playing. When I was really entrenched in original stuff, I was more worried about how the guitar solo fit the song around whatever keyboard parts or vocal parts that I was arranging, way more than oh, I gotta show off here for like eight bars. Like that was never how I approached guitar playing. In a sense, I kind of went in my teenage years, I was studying jazz, but I went sort of backwards in the sense that in my teenage years when I was writing songs, I was writing simpler, more melodic guitar solos. Then when in my in my early 20s, I really wanted to learn like the Van Halen catalog, and I had um, of course, I I remember how the the songs played in my head, but I also had uh music books that had tablatures, so it I had two forms of learning the the material. I could read the music, but then I could also figure out the tabs of like, oh, he's playing this on the 12th fret, or this is a this is a hammer on, this is a harmonic with a dive bomb, and so that stuff came together fairly quickly, but I never I never aspired to be that. I always would rather play what was good for the song. And Neil, a lot of the times when people say they get overlooked, it's because those those players are the ones that know how to show restraint and play and play for the song, and they're not you know the Joe Satrianis or the the Eric Johnsons of the world, they're the guys that are are playing stuff that complement the song. And that man still practices every day. Oh, yeah. I mean it's amazing. I love his little videos where he's just like flipping through pedals and stuff, and he's just going to town.

Jay Franze 53:02

Yeah, he's awesome. All right, well, one more quick question.

Late Night TV And Telethon Stories

Jay Franze 53:05

Um you've had an opportunity to play the late shows. What what's that experience like compared to being on stage?

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Um, I mean, it it's it's a great thing. It's it's uh especially when I was growing up. I mean, I watched the tonight show all the time. I was I love Johnny Carson and uh in the 90s I not so much. I didn't watch a whole lot of television because I was so busy with my music career, but definitely growing up, it was uh the tonight show. I think that was my very first gig. To do that like right out of the gate was kind of a cool kind of a cool thing. How did that come about? How's that your very first gig? It was that just so happened. It was we were doing promo. That's the first first thing that I that I did when I joined. So um but television's great. So and then here's another great one. When I was I just turned 22, and uh Gary's dad was Jerry Lewis, famous comedian. Yeah, and we did the telethon two years in a row. I'll never forget that was funny because you know, we were up all day the prior day, and we went on at three in the morning Vegas time, which was 6 a.m. in Cleveland. And so my parents were watching and they were recording and everything, but uh I I stayed up that whole day, and I was I was actually you want to you you're saying like what was it like playing on a TV show? So they filmed it at the Sahara. They remember the water slide park that was right next door. I was on the water slides all day. I was like burnt to a crisp. I stay I stayed up all night, and then we went and did the the three the uh 3 a.m. performance. Holding that guitar over your shoulder, burning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Oh, mercy.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Yeah,

Unsung Heroes And Career Philosophy

SPEAKER_00 54:56

yeah.

Jay Franze 54:56

It was fun though. All right, sir. Well, we like to do this thing here we call unsung heroes, where we give you a moment to shine the light on somebody who's worked behind the scenes or somebody who may have supported you along the way. Do you have anybody you'd like to shine a little light on?

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Oh, definitely my parents. I mean, that they they definitely supported me. Give a shout out to Ken Mahalco and uh Eric Richardson, my two teachers in high school. Ken was my band director and Eric was my choir director. By my senior year, I was in every music program, and they they really let me excel and let the spotlight hit, you know, that sort of thing. My principal, Ted Bartow. I mean, I remember my senior year, our marching band was was really good, and we ended up doing the hundredth anniversary of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. We went out to to uh Pasadena that January, and I ended up hanging out with my band directors and the principal more than my classmates. Probably because I just I gravitated to people that were older than me just from a I wouldn't say like from a maturity standpoint, but it was just I I always carried myself with the older crowd. And uh even when I joined Gary, I was so young, but you know, part I think part of the reason that I ended up getting that gig was because they recognized that I had a maturity at that point that was not indicative of a 21-year-old when they met me. So, you know, I again the I always gravitated towards people that were my role models. And of course, I could, you know, all all the famous ones, uh David Foster, who has now become a very good friend, who's again the reason that I taught myself piano. I could be here all day. My wife, my kids, my dad, my mom, my grandparents, even like when I was first growing up, you know, they they didn't again have a uh musical ability. And I remember my grandfather saying you should go to college and have something to fall back on. And so I did that, you know. I was the first grandkid to go to college. And what did you take? I was a jazz study major on guitar.

SPEAKER_05 57:09

I mean, when they say have a backup plan, I'm thinking business or engineering or something.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

No, no, I was gonna get like a it was supposed to be like a teaching degree. Okay, that would make more sense. Yeah, and uh I went to Ohio State for the first half and then I transferred to Western Michigan, and uh that summer I ended up auditioning for unknowingly for this resort in northern Michigan uh that we played six nights a week, and I was the the music director for that, and I realized right then and there that I did not want to go back to college. I was gonna make a living being a professional live musician, especially. You know, I I I always liked doing studio work and I love working on my own stuff. I just didn't see myself being locked up in a room five, six days a week just doing song after song after song of like whoever the artist is and not having anything like really invested in it like emotionally. Like, of course, the the music is you want to be emotionally invested in for for whatever you're working on, but I I I love the connection of performing in front of a crowd and seeing somebody smile and getting that feedback, like that was more important to me. Well, maybe if you practice a little bit more, you'll have the opportunity to do that.

Closing Thoughts And Keep Playing

Jay Franze 58:32

Maybe. All right, folks. Well, we have done it. We have reached the top of the hour, which does mean we have reached the end of the show. If you have enjoyed the show, please tell a friend and Miss Tiffany if you have not.

Tiffany Mason 58:42

Tell two.

Jay Franze 58:43

You can reach out to all three of us tonight over at jfenzy.com. We will be happy to keep this or any other conversation going. Paul, my friend, we cannot thank you enough for joining us tonight. We would like to leave the final words to you.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Thank you so much for having me. And uh man, just uh if you're a musician, keep playing. If you're not pick up an instrument, start playing. It's fun. Alrighty, sir. Have a good night.

Brian Adams Moments And Big Breaks

SPEAKER_00 59:11

One thing I I thought that you were gonna ask about was the Brian Adams thing. I thought about it, but I would I'd rather go with um Debbie Gibson. Debbie Gibson, yeah. Yeah, the Brian thing was great, man. I mean, I've known him for gosh, I mean, the first time I actually got to jam with him on stage was in '96. He pulled me out of the audience. And I played uh Summer 69 with him, and it was one of those things where everybody in the band were looking at each other like, wow, he could really play, you know, because I think it was something he did like in every city. And then the next time it was right after uh did the thing with Eric Carmen, and uh and Brian was like, Oh man, I love Eric's you know songs, he's such a great writer, and this and that. And he's like, tell him I said hi. And and then in uh 2015, yeah, in 2015, we were on tour, and that was the year that he did the 30th anniversary of Reckless, and uh did the whole album in its entirety, did some bonus tracks that weren't on the record, and my wife knew like what a huge fan I was. So we the one break in the tour that we had, I was able to go to Atlanta. We drove down to Atlanta, she surprised me, and I knew somebody in his management, and so we got got back and we were talking to him for like 20 minutes before the show, just the three of us. I said, you know, man, I said, you're like one of our dream artists to have as a guest. Because we'd that's that particular tour, we had like 62 guest artists, and we were like, you know, you're like high on our list. I go, ever since I joined the band, like you know, we've been huge, you know, that's like part of our bus music. And he goes, Oh, that'd be fun. He goes, Yeah, let me know. And so we were in Toronto in 2018, and I just happened to look to see what was going on, and he was at the arena right down the street. We were playing the stadium two nights Friday, Saturday. He was playing Friday. So I I texted his uh his uh tour manager and I said, Hey, I'm in town. I go, Can I come see Soundtrack? And he goes, Sure. He left me credentials and went down and we were hanging out with him, and and he says, I you know, I'd really love to come see the show tomorrow. And I go, Absolutely, man. I go, that's not a problem. I go, but you know she's gonna probably want to do a song with you. And he's like, No, you I don't want anything like that. He goes, I'd just like to come see it. And long story short, he ends up doing summer 69 with us. Right. And then in 2021, when COVID was happening, I get a call from him because he and I kept in touch. And he's like, hey, he's like, you know, I need a guitar player to play at the win. I got like six shows. He goes, Keith doesn't want to travel with COVID. Do you want to do it? I'm like, absolutely. And I I knew his catalog on virtually every instrument backwards and forwards. Like he was he's always been my guy, like hands down, the top of the list as far as singers-songwriters. And um so it's all set. It's like two weeks before I'm about to go. He FaceTimes me, and I'm like, before he could get a word out, I go, Keith wants to do it, right? And he goes, Yeah, and he's like, he's like, I'm so bummed because I want you to do it. And I said, We were talking for a bit, and I says, Well, he goes, What could we do? And I says, Well, I my my mother-in-law and my wife and my kids are coming out, and I I go, I know what you and Keith play on everything. I go, what if I jump in with like those extra guitar parts you can't cover and jump in with some like background harmonies? And he goes, Absolutely, let's do it. You're you know, you're doing it. So I did those shows, they went fantastic, and then uh and then the next call I got was last this was last year. We were in uh Dublin. He so Keith had to go to his uh daughter's graduation from college. So I Brian needed me for like three shows. So I flew over, did the whole Dublin run, and that was like crazy because when I played with him in Vegas, there was three there were three guitar players because Brian still had a bass player then. Well, he's since gone four-piece, where he'll play guitar half the night, and Gary will play bass on keys, or Brian will play bass, and Keith will be the only guitar player. Well, Keith was gonna be gone. I was gonna be the only guitar player carrying the load. So I was like, not like freaked out, but I was just like, I can't screw this up. And they the shows went really, really well. And then this past March, he uh he reached out and said, Hey, I need I need somebody to go with me to South America for for like three weeks. Can you do it? And I said, It's so close to the baby coming, like I really want to. And he goes, Oh, he goes, No, you should be home with Ashley, and you know, but uh it's the the biggest thrill to have him call me out of anybody that he could call. You know, he's just but he's just such a great guy, and he's he he's uh he's really really fun. And uh in the catalogue, and he sung he sings better now. Oh it's incredible in the work he did with Mutt Lang, yeah. He can't even do half his his hits. I mean, he he basically cuts most of them to like a verse and a chorus and then hits the bridge to get it all in. It's crazy.

Jay Franze 1:04:19

Yeah, no, he's super talented, and I I do love the work that he did with Mutt Lang and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

Oh, yeah, it's amazing. Have you ever had a chance to work with him? I have not, but I know the guys in Def Leopard really well. Joe's yeah, good. So I went to Dublin, Joe lives in Dublin, and so I went up to the house and we spent the day together and barbecued or whatever. And and uh between him and Brian and Keith, the the mutt stories are just they're so cool, but they're insane, yeah. And even Brian White when he did the duet with Shania Twain, it was uh he he he was like he goes, That was such a great experience for him when they when they flew him over to do that.

Jay Franze 1:04:58

And Bob did the Shania Twain records right before I worked for him, so I didn't I didn't get the opportunity to work on those records, uh-huh. And I would have loved it. That would have been the highlight for sure. Absolutely for multiple reasons, but to get to work with Mutt Lang would have been the the highlight there. Yeah, I mean Shania is great.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

That's his cover story, yeah. That's his cover story.

Jay Franze 1:05:22

That's awesome. Awesome. Oh, hey, real quick.

Vintage Gear Then And Now

Jay Franze 1:05:25

Um, you mentioned that Taskam machine you had, the A-track. Yeah, it's a 388. Was it the one with the built-in A-track?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

Or was it uh yeah, it's a built-in A-track mixer. I had the same one. Oh, you did?

Jay Franze 1:05:36

Yeah, I had it in my apartment in Boston. Wow, I still have mine. Do you really? Yeah, I do not, but it was the A-Track built in right into the machine itself.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

Yeah, I'll never forget going to uh the the music store that carried them, and I still have the brochure, and back then everything looked so like space age, right? It was like the photo was like on this black backdrop, but it looked like lights glowing underneath it, like and it just looked so cool, and I was like, I want that thing so bad. And I remember it re it retailed for like $3,800, which was an enormous amount of money for my parents back then. Yeah, and in 1985, that was like half a car, you know.

Jay Franze 1:06:19

Yeah, see, I'm so I'm two years older than you, so I was in high school at that same time, and for me to get that machine was a big, big deal. Yeah, but now look at behind you and think of that task cam.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Oh, right. Yeah, this is the the big uh S6 console with lots of and I got a whole bunch of rack stuff here underneath me, like tube tech and 1176s, and a few toys.