Michael: 0:00

So sad one time we were it was kinda right after that had happened and Chris had told us we had him over and he had told us that story and like a couple weeks later my wife and I were driving in the car and we made up this hilarious like uh spoof song to like the Foxwoods theme song, but about like him shitting on the walls and it was so hilarious and we didn't write it down because we were both like, oh, we'll remember that. We won't forget that. And of course we did. So from that we birthed our we have this list that we keep anytime we come up with something that's like a gold nugget, write it down on the phone so that we don't forget it. It's very important.

Rich: 0:46

My go-to is hey Google, create a reminder for 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. This is my idea. And every morning I wake up to like ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, and then I write it in my notebook, and then I add it to my CRM, like my drop-down, my digital notebook.

Michael: 1:02

Yeah.

Rich: 1:03

So it's just like, should I just write it in there at the first? I probably could put it in there just the first time, but I like paper still.

Michael: 1:11

Oh, I love paper. That's like that's the only way to go.

Rich: 1:15

Should we start it up? Yeah. We gotta do the clap. Now, if my clap was synced a millisecond behind yours, is that gonna mess me up?

Michael: 1:24

As long as you as long as you can find it, I'll do another. Okay, yeah, that means we started. Single clap.

Rich: 1:31

A little cheers at the coffee. Cheers, my brother. Thank you for doing this.

Michael: 1:35

Not a problem. Now what are we doing? That's the question, right?

Rich: 1:38

Do you want to introduce yourself?

Michael: 1:40

Um I guess so. Um my name's Michael Harnoys. Um from Worcester, Massachusetts, born and raised. I've known this guy since we were five years old.

Rich: 1:52

This is true.

Michael: 1:53

Yep. St. Mary's.

Rich: 1:55

I wanted to bring Mike on the show. Everyone knows who I am, Richmarks the spot. I think they do. Maybe. Maybe they don't.

Michael: 2:02

Everyone watching probably does.

Rich: 2:03

Yeah, okay. I hope so. No, I hope they don't know me. So they can be like, who is this weird guy?

Michael: 2:08

That's probably better.

Rich: 2:09

But um, I wanted to bring Mike on the show because thinking about 20-year timeout and thinking about people from my past. We went to school together since either preschool or kindergarten.

Michael: 2:19

Yeah, kindergarten.

Rich: 2:20

Catholic school, St. Mary's. Oh yeah. Uh he used to like be a lot larger than I am even back then. And just like I remember you picking me up when we would play war, and there was like a jail under the metal stairs in the middle schoolyard. Yep. And you could just like manhandle me over to jail, and like there I had no chance to ever get out.

Michael: 2:44

Hey, you gotta use the gotta use the gifts you were given, right? I was gifted with a large size, so we do have a blank spot.

Rich: 2:53

Uh w do you wanna just update me as to no, first Taylor Swift's new album.

Michael: 2:58

Oh, yeah, I've already listened to it about four times.

Rich: 3:02

So are you a fan of the Taylor Swift?

Michael: 3:04

Um, I have been growing into one. Um at first when I got like brought on into this band, which is a story in and of itself, but um That's why I bring it up.

Rich: 3:16

You're in a Taylor Swift band.

Michael: 3:18

I am in a Taylor Swift tribute band, yeah. Eras, E-R-A-S, Eras, a Taylor Swift tribute, an unofficial Taylor Swift tribute, uh, to cover all of our legal bases so we don't get sued by her. Um, but yeah, it's a it's an awesome, awesome group. There's nine of us all together. We've got four female lead singers that all share their duties, um, and then a five-piece band. We do everything, everything live, no tracks or anything like that. So it's like super rewarding musically because we're actually doing it all right out there.

Rich: 3:55

I'm disappointed. I thought you thought I would see the vocals, guitars, I thought you had a loop machine up there.

Michael: 4:03

Unfortunately, I am not built like Taylor Swift, so I don't think I could get that to pass, but um I played drums in the band, if you couldn't tell by the the drum set behind me.

Rich: 4:14

We're in Mike oh, amazing last name too, hard noise, like the most hardcore metal last name ever.

Michael: 4:21

Yep.

Rich: 4:22

Um how does one start a Taylor Swift band?

Michael: 4:30

Well, um how I got brought into it is there is this bar club, whatever you want to call it, down in Norwich, Connecticut, called Strange Brew Hub. Um, and through, again, a long other story, um, I kind of fell into that scene down there because of the band that I was in. Um, it was an original band at the time, but the two guys in that band knew the owner of this club, and he does this awesome thing, which I haven't really seen tons of places do, but they do these things called album tribute nights. So the whole premise is they pick a group, whoever it may be, um, and he would collect a bunch of musicians in the area. He himself is a drummer, so I never got on the earlier ones because he would always take that. Um, but eventually, when he got to one that he didn't want to do, I got pulled into it and then kind of got brought into the fold. But we would pick different different groups and do one of their usually their most famous album, front to back, whole thing all the way through, and then like an encore set of all their hits and stuff like that. So I had been in that kind of scene down there, um, and then one day, uh actually, because of the fact that I had this thing right here, this Roland uh SPDSX, um, he gave me the call and said, Hey, um, I know you got that electronic kit. Would you be interested in doing an album tribute for a Taylor Swift group? And I was like, huh. Um, and you know, at the time I have two daughters who are now almost 11 and 8. Um, this was a couple years ago, so they were a little younger. They were, as most all little girls are, or girls, women, period, now, uh, they love Taylor Swift. So I was like, oh, that would be great. I get to do something where they can actually like enjoy it and like come and see it. Um so this was another one of those things where I had thought it was just like a random collection of the musicians that he had in his pool of talent that he just brought together.

Rich: 6:43

Um this is the club owner or the drummer?

Michael: 6:46

The club owner, who is the drummer. He's he's owns it, but he's also a drummer.

Rich: 6:50

Is he like pressing vinyl in the back and selling them out of his uh track team?

Michael: 6:54

I don't know what Jay Wallace is up to. He might be doing some of that too. He's a man of many talents. He's get he gets his hands in a lot of pies.

Rich: 7:00

That's so creative to be a bar owner and think of that.

Michael: 7:03

Yeah. Oh man, I it's it's by far my favorite place to play because he he he looks at it from the musician's point of view, which a lot of bar and club owners do not. They are looking at it from the exact opposite point of view. How can I get the most out of this? How can I do this as cheaply as possible? Whereas, you know, he's looking to take care of the musicians and the people that are actually providing the service and giving people this thing to come and see. So he gets it, so it's nice.

Rich: 7:35

I always feel for the bar musicians who like can't play too loud, they can't play certain things, no one's really paying attention. Sometimes you get like one clap at the end, but hopefully they just enjoy it so much that the crowd noise doesn't matter to them. They're just there to practice their craft and maybe advance to something better in the future.

Michael: 7:52

Oh, let me tell you. Doing I've been doing these like uh acoustic duo gigs with one of the singers from the Taylor band, and it's it's a whole different world when you're just out there playing as background music as opposed to when you're on stage and like everybody's there to see you. It's like totally different world. It really, really humbles you. It really humbles you.

Rich: 8:14

I'm sure you have to take it with a grain of salt.

Michael: 8:17

Oh yeah. Yeah, but uh what I was saying, we came together, did that tribute, come to find out they had been planning on like making this Taylor Swift project. So the band that had been put together kind of was already kind of a unit that they knew they were gonna do this after that show. Um, and then I got brought into the fold and it was like, oh, uh do you want to be the drummer? Because we don't really have one. We were gonna ask a couple guys, but if you want to do it, sure. So I said yeah, and it was a great decision because we've been going strong for we just hit our year anniversary like a few months ago, so we've been doing it for about a year. We've got about you know 15-20 shows under the belt. They are just getting bigger and bigger and it's doing great.

Rich: 9:04

How much practice leads up to like show one?

Michael: 9:08

Show one was pretty heavy duty. Um, but having done a bunch of those kind of things, it wasn't you know out of the realm of anything else that I had done. Because usually when we do those things, you know, it's like twenty-five to thirty songs you gotta learn. And most of the time it's just for that one show, and then you never have to play them again. Unless you did well and the crowd was good and he'll have you come back the next year and do it again. So it's always on the first one, it's the most work. Um, this one in particular was a lot of a lot of work because because of how like pop production and like exactly how how much like production there is, it's not just like a drum kit in the background. There's like electronic sounds and like weird footstep sounds and like all this weird stuff that I had to make essentially. So I had to go through and and do all that. So it took probably a solid like three three or four months um from when I found out we were gonna be doing it till like actually being ready and having it there for like our first rehearsal, and then you know, a couple weeks later, the the show.

Rich: 10:25

So it was it's a lot of work, but does everyone prepare separately and then you get together for rehearsals and put it together, or do you have to start from day one together?

Michael: 10:35

Well, a lot of them, this one in particular is a lot of homework on your own. You basically, you know, you gotta do your homework, you gotta get all your parts down, know what you're doing, know the structures. And then for this one, because of how complex it was and how many moving parts, we did do a couple rehearsals um beforehand. I think we had two um, you know, in the weeks leading up to it. Um whereas typically when we do those, the album tributes or anything that wasn't like you know, the Taylor Swift thing, a lot of times it's you show up and you shake the person's hand on stage, nice to meet you, let's go do this.

Rich: 11:18

And that's for album tributes or no?

Michael: 11:20

Yep, for album tributes, yeah. Several several of them I've done with people I had not met until the day of the show.

Rich: 11:28

So So is there any improv improv going on during these sets, or if you've never met them, you probably have a very structured Yeah, yeah.

Michael: 11:37

That's I mean the the good benefit of that is you have it all. That's it's recorded. This is what we're supposed to do. Okay, let's do it, let's just do it as accurately as possible. And you know, the people that I typically do it with is, you know, my my bandmates, my singer and guitar player and my bass player from my original band were, you know, how I got into this. So with them, you know, I had been playing with them for years and years, so we don't really need to rehearse per se, but because of our personalities where we all want to get it to the T as perfect as possible, we would get together and have a couple rehearsals. But some of the other ones I've done with like other people is you just show up and pray. And knowing that owner, Jay, he's only gonna pull in people that he knows can hang. So you're never worried that like this guy's gonna suck and he's not gonna be able to do it. You know that whoever's on guitar or whoever's on bass is gonna be good. Yeah. It can be stressful for sure. It's definitely a pucker up moment when you're when you're about to hit and you're like, oh, I hope this goes well. But as long as you do your part and you know what you're doing, everything usually goes.

Rich: 12:58

So the goal is to do a note-for-note rendition of the album.

Michael: 13:02

That's how I approach it. Some some other um some other people don't, you know, sweat the details as much. You know, they'll go off and do their own guitar solo or something if it's like that. But for the most part, when you're doing like an album, it's laid out for you, and that makes it easier because you don't have to make anything up. You can just rely on, oh, this is how it goes. I'm gonna play it like that.

Rich: 13:24

Interludes too?

Michael: 13:26

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much everything that's cool. Everything that we do. We did one for I'm not sure if you're familiar with Queens of the Stone Age, but one of their albums is it basically like a concept album. So in between each song, there would be the whole concept is you're in a car driving through the desert. So in between each song, there's like radio static and like stations coming in and out. So we'd have to get all of that and put it on a sample pad, and in between each song, you'd trigger that to give it that experience of like this is the album. We're doing the actual real album, the whole thing. All of the little bits and pieces in between. We try and do that because that's what makes it fun, because otherwise you're just playing covers, and you play covers, playing covers is great, but this is like the next level of covers, though.

Rich: 14:17

Well, yeah, like some ultimate cover.

Michael: 14:19

Exactly. When you're trying to like replicate an album, that adds a whole different level of like, whoa. There's a lot more that goes into this than just learning how the song goes and trying to reproduce it.

Rich: 14:32

Yeah, I can't imagine trying to wrap my brain around getting sounds on that USB stick and loading it in and then like having to program song after song and like just trying to remember your presets or whatever you got going on.

Michael: 14:44

Yeah, I mean this thing, this thing is great. Greatest purchase I've ever made. It's it's led me to where I am, literally. Like if I did not have this thing, I wouldn't have got the call for the Taylor band, which wouldn't have led me to you know quitting my job and pursuing music full-time, because you know, before that, being in like an original band is great. I love it, and it's very fulfilling, but you don't make any money on it at all.

Rich: 15:14

Well, I was thinking too with these cover bands, like you're basically working for free up until your first performance, right?

Michael: 15:20

Yeah, yeah.

Rich: 15:21

So that's gonna be a struggle too, because there's you could sit here eight hours a day probably preparing for show night.

Michael: 15:28

Many, many times I have done that, and that's the thing that people don't see when you're up on stage and you get that three hours of performance and then you get paid for it. You know, people who look at sometimes, you know, on the good shows where you get paid well, it's like, wow, you made that much for just three hours? It's like, yeah, but below minimum wage. This was basically for free. Yeah, basically I'm making like 28 cents an hour if you break it down to like how much time I actually spent doing it.

Rich: 15:58

Or if you break down the years it took to get to where you are musically to be able to actually it would be negative.

Michael: 16:03

I'd be getting paid negative money if you account for all the time I have to put into it. But I love it. So I, you know, until this past year where I went full time, like I didn't do it for the money. I was doing it just because I loved doing it and I would have done it for free. I was getting paid when I would do it. Sure. Uh, but you know, nothing, nothing to write home about, and barely sometimes enough to buy like a set of drumsticks. Yeah. Which I broke.

Rich: 16:34

It's expensive. Um what was the first cover band? First album cover you did front to back?

Michael: 16:41

First album cover I the first album tribute was um Mad Season. The Mad Season album.

Rich: 16:48

I've never heard what is that.

Michael: 16:50

Mad Season is basically Mad Season's like Pearl Jam and uh Alice and Chains together. It's like a super group. So you probably have heard the song I Don't Know Anything or River of Deceit. Those are the two hits that are off that. If if you played them, you'd you would know the songs. WAF classic. All over it. Yep. It's yeah, classic rock now. Yeah. Unfortunately.

Rich: 17:15

90s is classic rock now.

Michael: 17:17

Anything over 25 years. Anything made that doesn't start with the number two is classic rock now.

Rich: 17:23

Apparently, Nirvana is popular based off of t-shirts in Target, but I don't know.

Michael: 17:26

Yep, they are. I mean, it's it's the equivalent of us wearing Led Zeppelin shirts. That's the same thing. That's a good metaphor. Is basically kids today wearing nirvana shirts are like when we would wear like a Black Sabbath t-shirt or a Led Zeppel t-shirt. Which they're still wearing those too.

Rich: 17:43

That was me. I did that. Yeah. So that makes sense.

Michael: 17:46

Time keeps coming, man. Doesn't stop. We're getting old.

Rich: 17:51

Wanna just fire off all of the albums you've covered in the tribute?

Michael: 17:55

Yeah, I mean that was the first one. I can't what's the name of that album? It's Mad they only have one. It was just one album. So Mad Season was the first. Um then we did Faith No More, which was awesome. That one I think was the best one we ever did, because we we nailed it. We did it like as perfect as you probably could have gotten it. Um Faith No More, King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime was the name of that album. Then let's see. Then we did Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf. Um System of Down, Toxicity. Ooh, that's a good idea. We do that, yeah. We do that every year, and I was like super bummed because they did it at that place, and it was like one of my top three albums of all time. But the owner is the drummer. So he does that. He did it, he did it there. But um, you know, my my buddy Ryan and Adam, the my singer and guitarist and bass player, um, they were the ones that did it with my other buddy, um, Mike Shavone, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Um after they did it there, we kinda took it around to play it in other places. So I got to do drums when we did that, so it was awesome. We he we played, you know, several shows of that. And then, like I said, unfortunately, my buddy passed away. Um at Strange Brew, where they do it every year, um, it was the first album tribute night that they had when they moved locations. So it was always like the hugest one of the year because it's like a celebration of like everything. It's always the f black it's always on Black Friday. So like everybody's back home, everybody's around. So it always gets filled. And he had passed away, so you know, they were kind of bummed because they obviously didn't want to replace Him because you know it's not the same thing. Luckily, I also play guitar. Um, I wouldn't I wouldn't tout my skills. I'm not a great guitar player, but that album in particular was the last album I learned how to play on guitar before I realized, oh no, I'm I'm a drummer. I'm just gonna play drums. Um, so I had learned it way back when it came out, and I approached Jay, um, the owner, about it at another show. Um, and I said, Hey, you know, I know we don't nobody wants to replace Mike, but this would be the closest thing to not having to replace him because I was in the band. It's not like we're adding another person, I'm just gonna do a different instrument, which that was a whole level of like stress on top of everything else, because I'm like, fuck. I can't fuck this up because this is like really important. So I dove headfirst into that and like learned it. And we've done it this this coming year will be the I think the fourth, third or fourth time that we'll do that album where I'm on guitar. Um so that's that's fun, that's always good. Totally different than drums, which is cool and makes me glad that I'm a drummer because I'm like, oh man, if I had to learn like 35 songs and remember notes and shit instead of just how things go, I would not be able to do it. Oh, every every year, and I'm I gotta try and figure it out this year, but every year, like the last within the last three songs, I get like this insane cramp in my left hand, and it just locks in place, and I can't open my fingers, I can't do anything, and I'm like, ugh! I just have like a three more songs a banana on another mic stand, and you're like eating the banana while you're I know I'm trying, I'm trying everything I can to it's definitely a dehydration problem, but there's only so much water you can drink while you're while you're playing.

Rich: 22:09

So whiskey only, Molly Crew, rock and roll.

Michael: 22:12

That'll do even worse. Trust me, yeah. No, definitely not that. Um, so where were we? System of Down, Queens of Stone Age, Mad Season, Faith No More, Um, Paramour, Done Paramore. Um, I've done that one on drums and guitar. That was another weird one where I kind of had to fill somebody else's shoes. Uh, let's see, with the Taylor Swift one. The what else? What else? What else? I think that's it for album tributes, and then we do other ones like where it's like a genre idea. Like we just did a girl pop one. Where it's like all the it's basically the Taylor Swift band did it, but it was just like not not that new. It was it was more like a it wasn't really a girl pop, it was more like a ladies, ladies of pop, because there was a lot of like Moulin Rouge. Yeah, we did do that song. Yeah, we did that. Some Whitney, some Mariah, and then you know, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, that kind of stuff. So sometimes you do that, but the albums are really those are the fun ones.

Rich: 23:20

I always knew when you were throwing me in jail in kindergarten that you were gonna do Taylor Swift pop song someday.

Michael: 23:26

Even before she was born.

Rich: 23:28

Yeah. Would it be weird to do incubus, Morning View? Is that like are there challenging albums that you don't even want to try?

Michael: 23:40

Because they have actually done that one already. Yep, they did Morning View. Uh I didn't do the drums, like I said. When the guy that owns the place is the drummer, you can't really be like, hey, I'm gonna do this one. You just have to be at his mercy. But they do that one every year, and that one's always awesome. Some of them are challenging as all hell. Like uh one that my band has done, I didn't do the drums on, and I'm glad because I'm like, whoo! But I don't know if you know uh the Mars Volta, if you've heard of them.

Rich: 24:11

Yeah, yep. I had a couple of burnt CDs from maybe Limewire or something.

Michael: 24:15

Oh yeah, but they've done um D Loust and the Comatorium, which is like insane if you're familiar with that album.

Rich: 24:24

I don't remember it, but I remember it being very like technical and beautiful and genre switching, time signature stuff, all over the place, and they did like an incredible job.

Michael: 24:36

So it's it's stuff like that where you get down into these songs that are like, How the hell are we gonna do this? And then on the other side, like knowing what because it's one thing watching people do something when you're in the audience, but knowing that like those guys, that's like the third time they've ever played that song together, yeah, and that's what we got. It's like holy shit, that's incredible.

Rich: 25:05

Do you have some albums that if you got to pick and direct the tribute, would you want to do?

Michael: 25:11

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's there's a ton that I have on the back burner, and it's like Fire some Moff Tell us. Uh let's I I'd always wanted to do a uh a Smashing Pumpkins tribute. So it could be a couple different albums. Um, but the Smashing Pumpkins one would be good, but it always comes down to like the singer, and it's like Billy Corgan has a really weird voice, is very unique, and it wouldn't really sound right unless you have somebody that can like do that. So that's the thing, is like musician-wise.

Rich: 25:47

Sorry to cut you off, vocal-wise, are they trying to match vocals too, or does the artist take the perspective of the singer and just do what they can do with their voice?

Michael: 25:56

It's it depends. It depends on who the singer is. Um like Ricky, the the band leader of the Taylor group, she does, and I'm actually playing on it this year. We're doing Tragic Kingdom by no doubt. And that's like it's like Gwen Stefani. It's like watching her. She got she has it down because she's the same age as us, so you remember when Tragic Kingdom came out, it was like everywhere, everybody was obsessed with it. Um, so as was she. So she developed like she can sound just like Gwen. Still obsessed with it. Yeah, put it on every now and again. So she does things like you know, she'll do pull-out moves that were from a video, and like she sounds just like Gwen. Um, and then on the flip side of that, like my singer Ryan, who is an incredible singer, can do like anything. Ricky's an incredible singer too, I don't mean to say it like that. Yeah. But Ryan, because of who his like idols are, which you know, one being Mike Patton, the lead singer of Faith No More, who, if you're not familiar with him, is like probably I'd put him as one of the greatest vocalists of all time, without any question, can go from everything from doing like Frank Sinatra to like screaming and like demon screaming, sings in multiple languages like perfectly, has like just such a wide range and of vocal ability. My buddy Ryan developed that from kind of mimicking him. So when we did that Faith No More one, it was like, oh my god, that's fucking Mike Patton up there. Sounds just like him. That's awesome. But he is such a like a he has his own thing. Like he sings like Ryan. He sings like himself. So when we do some of these other ones, he's not trying to sound like Surge from System of a Down, for example. But he still does it all. It's just it's that's Ryan doing it. Yeah. But he's still hitting all the notes and making all that everything sounds right. But it's he it's like he's not trying to copy how Surge sounds, he's just doing what is needed to make all those noises.

Rich: 28:15

Also, it's not like America has talent and there's a hundred thousand people lined out coming in and auditioning, and you're picking, you know, you gotta find people within the area and who can actually do it.

Michael: 28:25

Then that's like the strangest thing, because this is we're talking like Norwich, Connecticut, right? Which nobody probably outside of the Norwich area is really familiar with Norwich. It's a small, it's a city, sure, but it's compared to like Worcester, it's like a a tiny town.

Rich: 28:45

I don't think I've been there.

Michael: 28:46

Right. Nobody it's like on the 395 signs. That's like probably the only time you've ever even seen that.

Rich: 28:52

On your way to vacation.

Michael: 28:54

Exactly. But for where it is, like this stable of musicians that just happens to be in that area, it's like it blows me away every time I think of it because I'm like, why the fuck are all these people in this little tiny area so incredible at music? Because there's so many, like guitar players, there's like five or six of the best guitar players you've ever heard that all congregate around here. Same with singers. There's like so many incredible singers and bass players and drummers, and it's like, what the fuck is in the water down here that's making these people all good? Because I look around, you know, our city, and yeah, we have great musicians as well, but it's like the density of quality of musicians is like so dense down there for some reason. It's weird.

Rich: 29:46

Maybe Nashville already does this, but it feels like you could put a a record label together exclusively for the city, you know, and uh and that's all the only people who are allowed to be on the label are that and then you could create compilations and all like original pieces, throw it up on a website. I don't know if it would work. I'm just like griffing here, but yeah.

Michael: 30:06

No, that I mean that would be an awesome thing to do. I wish I wish we would still do that. And it's funny you said that because I just came across this uh compilation uh record, which is a compilation of like Worcester punk acts from the 70s. It was like Wormtown 78, I think was the name of the album. But uh it was one of my uncle's old old records, and I had been going through something the other day and saw that, and that's exactly what that is. It's just a compilation of all local Worcester punk bands, basically, from the 70s, that somebody was like, Yeah, let's just throw this all together and put it out.

Rich: 30:41

Or like in-house they just hit like record on their cassette through the PA or whatever, and they've got all these tapes, and then they're like Oh yeah.

Michael: 30:49

I mean, I the technology we have nowadays is pretty sweet because I do it all the time. Get straight up multi-track recordings right out of the board that you can go back after and mix and make sound as good as you want. The technology is it's there, we can make it all ourselves and do that. It's just you gotta find the time to do it because it takes takes a lot of work after the fact.

Rich: 31:11

So run me through like a life, uh your life as a musician. Like, where do you start? Do you get lessons in kindergarten? Were you playing that early? You know what I mean?

Michael: 31:21

I didn't start playing music proper until I was about I would say probably like 13. I remember Chris, Chris Parks, um, was the first you know kid I knew that like played an instrument. He played guitar. Um and I remember him having his stuff and I was friends with him. I'd be over there, and I was like, oh, this is cool. I wanna I wanna do this too. Um so you know, my mom was nice enough to get me a little cheap guitar, cheap little amp. Um, and I would, you know, mess around with it. And then a couple years into that, I started guitar lessons. Um, probably had about seven or eight of them. And then one day in gym class, I stupidly like punched a wall because I missed like catching something, and I was like running full speed, punched a wall, broke my right pinky knuckle the day of a guitar lesson, and I was like, Mom, I can't go to lessons. I get my hand hurts. She's like, Well, we gotta go to the hospital, or you're going to this damn lesson because I paid for it already.

Rich: 32:29

Did you have a red cast?

Michael: 32:31

Yes, yep, I did. You remember that? I do. I don't know why. Okay. Sorry. Um, so I broke my hand, and that was the last music lesson I ever took. And I'd never have taken drum lessons. Um, I give drum lessons, actually. I teach drum lessons, um, which is funny that I've never taken one in my life, but um, yeah, never never took more than those six or seven guitar lessons, which kind of you know taught me the basics, and then I was in band class. So I played guitar in school band, so I was kind of forced to learn how to like read music and stuff.

Rich: 33:11

Yeah, like how do you get into band with like out the you just could play, so they like saw value in letting you in?

Michael: 33:18

Yeah, I mean back back in school it was kind of you know, you didn't have to like blow anybody away, you just had to be able to play. And like luckily, Chris was the section leader, so you know, my little workaround, because I wasn't I know how to read music, but I don't like I can't sit there and play it while I'm reading it. I'm not fast enough to do that. So even back then, what I would do is like when we would get it, um, Chris could read, so he would learn it, and then I would just have him show me how to do it, and then I would play it from memory, so I would pretend like I was reading, but I just knew what I was doing. I was also like third guitar, so like it didn't matter if I was doing anything, I just turned the volume down and mime what I was doing.

Rich: 34:07

They're like, Mom, that guitar player, he's looking at me and playing. I don't think he's reading it.

Michael: 34:13

Yeah, definitely not, definitely was never reading it. But you know, I did like I said, I'd know how to read music because of band. Yeah. Because you had to, you had to take tests, so every now and then I'd have to go in there and be like, oh, okay, you know, this is how to do it.

Rich: 34:29

At what moment and like what age roughly were you like able to play a full song?

Michael: 34:36

Um, it's I would say probably like fifteen. Fifteen, I would say. And that's like I was thinking about this the other day. The first time we ever like played four people, uh, me and Chris and Eric Heddle and Mike Bolis. We had like a little band that we put together. Mike Bollis was the drummer, Eric played bass, and then me and Chris played guitar, and Chris sang. And we somehow, I think it was Eric's cousin, was having like a 13th birthday party, and like his uncle and aunt like hired us to like play for the birthday party. Um, so we were doing that. We, you know, had practiced and gotten everything, and mind you, I went into this, like, I was gonna play guitar. Um, and it was just a bunch of like Green Day songs and like Blink 182 things, like easy, like just power chords going through it. Easy for you. Well, I mean, it wasn't like Steely Dan or anything like that, it was pretty straightforward stuff. So we get there, we load all our stuff up, get everything set up, and then out of nowhere, I don't know if it was actually he was sick or not feeling good, or if he was just really nervous, but Mike Bollis was like, I can't do this, and like went home. So his drums were there, still set up, and we were looking around at each other, and we were like, What are we gonna do? So I I was like, Well, I guess I'll try and play the drums to this. So I had maybe sat down at a drum set once or twice, like in Mike's basement when we were practicing, just to like, oh cool, I've never sat at a drum set, you know, sat down, play a beat, and it seemed to like come natural to me, because I was able to do it right away without like too much trouble. So I knew that I could so I said, hey, I'll just I'll just play the drums, we'll get through it. So the first time I ever played for anybody, like earnestly, was probably at that party. Oh no, no, no. Actually, the first time was seventh grade talent show. Seventh grade talent show was the first time. Because you guys played blind. We did, yep, by corn. We played that. Um, and then that must have happened a couple couple of months after that. So but that was the first time I ever played drums. So I faked my way through about 10 or 15 songs that I knew because I had learned on guitar, but luckily drums aren't that hard. All you need to know is how the song goes, and you can kind of fake your way through it.

Rich: 37:16

If you say so.

Michael: 37:18

I think so at least. It's a lot easier than having to fake your way through something on guitar, because as long as you know how the song goes and you can play drums, you can pretty much get through get through anything. But that was the first time I remember sitting and playing through like a bunch of songs in a row together. So it's probably about 15, which was nice. And then that also made me realize like I'm a I'm a drummer. I'm a I'm not a guitar player. I'm just gonna play drums now. Which was not the easiest thing when you live on the third floor apartment in Worcester. I couldn't exactly have a drum set. Uh but luckily my mom was nice enough to get me an electronic drum set, which is quite a bit quieter, still banging on the ground, but I was able to at least, you know, practice and get going. And then as I went along, got older, I got, you know, my when I turned to 18, I opened a guitar center credit card to buy my first drum set. Uh still have that. That's at my buddy's house set up. Sounds awesome still. Uh ruined my credit for it, but that was so long ago that's worth it. It doesn't matter anymore. It's recovered.

Rich: 38:32

Do electronic drums translate to real drums pretty pretty well?

Michael: 38:37

Nowadays they're pretty good. Um nothing's ever gonna be the same as the as real acoustic drums.

Rich: 38:45

There's just there's no way a rubber pad versus hitting a drum.

Michael: 38:48

Right, yeah. Even like the the mesh heads that they have now, which I have one of those over there. Oh yeah. Those are close, but it's still just not it's not the same. It's you know the same difference between like analog music and digital music. You can compare them. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, though, there's just there's there's a difference, and there always will be. What you like better, you know, that's up to you.

Rich: 39:15

So what you said you left, I don't know if you had a corporate job, or did you go to school for a specific thing and then do that after college or well I went to school actually for video and audio production.

Michael: 39:28

Oh, sweet. Um, so I wanted to get into like making movies. Uh because as you you might remember, I would always be the kid that like made a video for a school project.

Rich: 39:39

No, I don't I don't remember, but oh yeah. You were in much more advanced classes than I was, I think.

Michael: 39:46

I don't know about that, but we were in different classes. But you I always would like default to instead of writing a book report, I would ask the teacher, can I just make a video for this and do it? You know, and I loved it and I wanted to get into that. So I went to school for that. Um media studies was the major what it was called. Media studies and digital communication.

Rich: 40:08

And Fitchburg or?

Michael: 40:09

Um Sacred Heart University down in uh Fairfield, Connecticut. Okay. Um so at the time this was back in 2004. So this was pre-social media and all that stuff. Um you know that was kind of like a you're going for that that kind of like useless major. Um you know fast forward to today that that specific major is like very useful in the digital world knowing how to do all that stuff and you know we were right on the forefront of social media. So in all those classes we were you know learning about it and going over all that stuff before anybody even like knew about it. So it was like super helpful. But I focused mainly on like film and video production. So I did a lot of that stuff. Um and I was planning on you know getting into that industry and going into that field and graduation time comes around and it's 2008 and what happened in 2008 happened and everybody was like ooh we're not hiring shit's hitting the fan like uh and I'm there I'm like I got I still got bills to pay so I gotta get a job so were you living in Mass or were you thinking of moving to LA out of college um my wife who was my girlfriend at the time we stayed around down in Fairfield for a year after college so um you know I was going back and forth it because it's not that far from New York down there. That's very southern Connecticut so it was only like you know 40 minutes to New York. So I did know some people that I I would have probably progressed and gone down that that way um getting into the film industry in New York but I kind of just like lost stuff happened in life you know and I just kind of lost the momentum that I had and then you know you open your eyes and it's like five years later and you got a d a job and like you just have to pay the bills and you can't do that stuff anymore. You know regrettably I didn't pursue it and I wish I would have but um you know that's life.

Rich: 42:30

You don't see that coming it's not that glamorous as they make it out to be a it's gritty.

Michael: 42:35

I'm it's probably very similar to being a musician gig work and very similar there's a lot of a lot of crossover between you know the hours that you gotta work the places that you gotta go the the shit you gotta do that nobody sees.

Rich: 42:48

Just holding a gaff like this for two hours. We're a soft we're a soft uh community now now they have straps that they it's like it helps you hold yeah I know plus all the all the equipment is like pounds and pounds lighter than it used to be. I'm guessing they probably had you cutting film in 2004.

Michael: 43:13

Well no luckily that was still we were we were digital we were digital it was like I I still remember the professors regaling us with the tales of like you guys don't know how good you got it. And then I sit here now and look at the programs and like the technology that we have today and compare it to like what I had to do in 200 you know five and six you know sitting there for like three and a half hours waiting for a two second video clip to render because I put like seven filters and did some motion on it.

Rich: 43:50

And then it sucked.

Michael: 43:50

Yeah that's what happened and then I'm like fuck it didn't it fucked up I gotta do that all over again just to move this like a quarter of an inch to the left and now it's just like you click click get here get here and in 13 seconds that whole thing is done nowadays.

Rich: 44:07

I think that mindset is embedded in the way I create because often I don't want to go back and like tweak things. Like if I make something I just re I export and it's done. It is what it is I move on to the next project maybe I don't have the attention to go back but it's always like a a creation like I'm doing something for the first time and that's when it's fun and then if I do it over and over again it's not as fun anymore.

Michael: 44:31

So you're telling me man just the the processing power alone to get through that kind of stuff. Because this is back, you know, this is before YouTube was a thing. Like there was no export to YouTube button. Yeah. It was like you had to know the specific size of the file and like how big the video had to be to export it so that it would even upload to YouTube.

Rich: 44:59

And I remember like tweaking my machine so that After Effects could run just a little smoothly to like render very or just to work. Like working was frustrating because that rendering and just to watch back so you like try to pre-plan what you're gonna do but that's why the originators are the greats because the people who did motion sequences for movies like in that analog realm.

Michael: 45:24

Totally different world man.

Rich: 45:26

How did they think you had to see it. And plan it out and then do it because you can't go back and fix it.

Michael: 45:34

Nope.

Rich: 45:34

You're moving forward no matter what.

Michael: 45:36

Yeah there is no back there that's the what the one thing at least I did have was the undo button. Yeah you could always undo it. It wasn't like when you were working on film where if you made that cut wrong that's gone. You can't you can't piece that back together because you fucked it up it's gone.

Rich: 45:54

So after like did what kind of odd jobs did you have or did you move right into something that was a career?

Michael: 46:02

Yep so from from there I worked at I just had a bunch of like weird random jobs. I worked at Hollywood video like right out of college. RIP Yeah I know every every job I had is like no no longer like my high school job I worked at Sears gone college Hollywood video gone. They're all gone um so there I worked Hollywood video then then we moved back up to Massachusetts after um 2009. So 2010 we came back up here uh I forget what I was doing oh I was working at Radio Shack I was I was actually the manager of a Radio Shack. I'm not just saying that because there's no proof I did manage a Radio Shack. Um so I worked there for a while then I moved into working for a sign company which was actually like one of my favorite jobs it was like great it was just literally installing signs. So like handicap parking posts you know you had to dig the hole fill it with concrete I loved it because it was like a very physical job which I had not had in like a long time. So it was like you didn't need to work out I got to drive cranes and like go up in bucket trucks and like do a bunch of cool stuff and it was great. I loved it. It didn't pay that great but it paid me enough for what I needed and I you know didn't have to go to the gym. But then uh funnily enough on April 1st my wife comes up to me and says hey I'm pregnant and um I thought she was totally kidding because it was April Fool's so I was like good one good one and she's like no look I'm pregnant. So at that point I'm like oh shit I I need to get like a real job now so this is back in 20 2014 I was driving the bucket truck back and I heard an ad online for that Geico was looking for uh they were having like a job fair so I was like oh insurance that's like that's like a real job right that's like one of those things where you can have a family and do that job um so I I went into that and hired they hired me had to go for like a 14 week training down in like New Jersey and Virginia so I was away for like 14 weeks while my wife was pregnant which wasn't the greatest but I was like I gotta do it. So I got into that being an auto damage adjuster um and I had been doing that ever since. So from 2014 to 2024 I was an auto damage adjuster. Mainly for Geico and then I switched companies and worked for um this company Mobilitas which did like the lift they were they covered like lift vehicles. So if you were ever in a lift that got in an accident I then had to go out and look at that car. But it was terrible and soul sucking and anxiety like I had never had a panic attack in my life until I started being an auto damage adjuster. Just because it's very stressful. Because pretty much everybody you interact with hates you and it's like the worst day of their life and they're taking everything out on you. And then the shops are trying to screw you out of every cent. Mainly because the insurance companies screw them but you're the face of that. So you get into screaming matches and I've had knives brandished and guns shown and all that kind of stuff.

Rich: 49:40

It's very sketchy places you go to and you're not the repo man, you're just the insurance I'm just the insurance guy exactly.

Michael: 49:46

I've got really no say over it. I've got bosses I've got to appease and rules you gotta follow.

Rich: 49:52

And you're trying to help the customer.

Michael: 49:54

Right I mean that's what I always did. I would always lean towards like my whole mindset was like always is just like fuck corporations like go eat a dick you know they are always trying to screw us so being that guy on the inside I was always trying to like if you say this I can give you that you know like wink wink like this is how it happened right yeah yeah that's cool you know and like same same thing with shops as long as long as they weren't being as long as they weren't a dick to me I would always try and help out the shops and stuff like that because it made my life run smoother. The fewer conflicts you have and the less um less bullshit that you have to deal with it's better. It's just easier to go through life that way instead of trying to always like find a way to make a conflict or to make a problem or to be um you know that kind of person is just like ugh why why spend your time and energy doing that you can just go with the flow and make it easy. Not saying you would ever but that's nice you could fall back on insurance right back into the game if you needed to for sure like I still have my licenses in Massachusetts luckily you have to be licensed to do it. So as long as I hold on to that license which just costs 50 bucks a year no big deal you just gotta make sure you remember to do it when it's when it's due it's there so at the end of the day you know that's the fallback plan is I could just go back to doing that provided that AI doesn't take over that job which it hopefully they would need you to hold the camera right for the AI or not nope not anymore. They already have they already have stuff that's like I I highly doubt Massachusetts will ever do it because of the way that our state is but even like now every most all other states in the country you could just take have the customer take photos of it and send it in and then you can write the estimate top to bottom you never have to look at that car. But in our state any damage over I think last I knew anything over fifteen hundred dollars which nowadays is like a headlight is fifteen hundred dollars. So it's basically any accident an actual physical human licensed human has to go and look at that car. So it's good for Massachusetts auto damage adjusters because it's they're not going to take over our jobs because there has to be a human there to see it. But for a lot of these other states they already have stuff where it's just like a kind of like the uh blow dryers at the end of a car wash something like that. You just drive the car through takes 360 panoramic camera pictures of it puts it through the system AI spits out an estimate in like 10 minutes.

Rich: 52:55

Even some home service companies now like electricians, plumbers you can literally just send them two pictures in the request estimate form and they run it through Chat GPT and the estimator has all the information from the company pass work pricing Home Depot and Lowell's pricing and then they just create an estimate 24 hours later send it to you without even going there. So that's the world that we live in now.

Michael: 53:18

It's convenient and good and there's lots of good things to it just like a lot of things you know there's good but there's a lot of bad you know and it's that's the navigating what you're gonna use it for is it going to be for the net benefit or the net detriment of the people in your life and the people around you and society as a whole that's where we're at right now is we have to figure that out. It's the wild west and we're just kind of going with it but there's a point where there's not going to be any coming back and hopefully we don't go off the cliff before that point. So was having your first child like a a changing moment for you like Oh yeah how did that affect your hobbies and your creativity and yeah I mean that definitely was as any parent knows it's like you were one way before and then you're another way after. It's completely life changing. Just you know emotionally mentally it changes you as a person. And then obviously like the time the time that you need to spend uh as you know you're you're in the throes of it right now with a young one yourself it changes everything. Uh luckily I have an incredible wife um who you know knew that I love playing music and doing all that kind of stuff. So it didn't really take away anything that I was doing before. Like I didn't stop playing like I know a lot of a lot of my fellow musicians were when they had a kid, you know, they took a couple years off they like set they stopped playing to focus on that. And I luckily never had to do that. Again because I had an incredible supportive wife who would you know take over when I was gone and not that I was I wasn't like going on tours or anything like that. I was playing you know having a practice once a week and playing a show every now and then it wasn't that much but she was super supportive and awesome so I was able to just kind of keep basically doing everything that I was doing. I just then had to factor in all the other stuff that I know you do it around their schedule now. Exactly. I built this very room for that purpose so I could have sleeping children above me while I play loud rock music downstairs.

Rich: 55:47

But also you bring your children into your world and you share with them what you're passionate about and that shape that affects them. So you know if you love music and playing and you just stop you know something inside dies a little it sure does. And I true and I'm a firm believer in like a hobby is your way to like having a healthy mental state. Even if it's stressful because I I look at stress as a good thing because someone who doesn't have stress probably doesn't have that fight or flight response. Right. And I think there's studies like in psychology where you study you know a mom who has three kids a single mom and works two jobs and like if you if you measure her happiness there is a certain happiness to her life and fulfillment versus if you have like a perfect life with no responsibility of bills and and what do you do with yourself? Yeah you can run into problems if you don't have a hobby or an outlet. Oh yeah so I you know school's great for the kid like I want my kids to do great at school but I also want them to pursue their own things and you know if they like building Minecraft or something go for it. Like dive into it 100% you know just it but I only I have a four year old a three year old and a newborn so that might change when they become teenagers.

Michael: 57:14

I don't know I'm gonna come to you and be like they want iPads all day yeah don't get me started on that it's uh that that's one of the things that you know my wife and I talk about too because looking at it when we grew up we didn't have that that didn't exist it wasn't something that anybody had to worry about. I mean like parents were like don't sit in front of that damn TV all day playing Nintendo. Right playing video games and it's like yeah true yeah we shouldn't do that and I didn't you know I went outside I played outside I did a whole bunch of different things I did creative things that weren't screen related um but you know the internet for example that came about when we were coming of age nobody knew what that was so nobody had the thought of like don't be on that damn internet all day like it was like if you had were lucky enough to have like an extra phone line that you could just be online and do stuff you would do that and I was online all the time doing wild shit that parents were like oh my son is so smart he's using the computer there's nothing bad on that. Exactly they had no clue that there was some like 48 year old pedophile trying to like pick their kids up in a chat room somewhere um and like and we would be uh what's it called instigating them exactly that's what I would do deliver taco that's what we were laughing about is how we used to like troll on chat rooms when they first came out in like second grade and I'm like wait second grade I'm like you we had to have been in high school and he's like no bro second grade or third grade I remembered be at 10 I think I we got our first like computer and from there you know there's like Windows 3.1 and like AOL had not come out yet at that point but as soon as AOL came out I was on that shit all the time and then you know fast forward to now it's like yeah the millennials we all do know how to use computers really well. We could do whatever there is on there. Like you need a PDF I got you like because we had to figure it out that like we used to have to type code to run shit. You know that's like how we were there from the beginning of it. So now you know the kids nowadays it's it's funny because they have so much technology and so much access to it but they don't really understand how it works per se. Like I see like I'll have to do stuff for my kids like figure out how to do something on the iPad where it's like when I was That age, I had to figure out how to do that. Like my parent had no clue how to do any of that. And it's like with no resources either. No YouTube, no nothing.

Rich: 1:00:11

Maybe a book at the library or a friend who kind of knows. Yeah.

Michael: 1:00:15

If you were lucky, yeah, you had that. And it's like where I was going with this is like the world we grew up in, totally different than the world nowadays. So looking at it the same way of like, get off that damn iPad, like that is gonna be their life in the future. Like everything is gonna be on a screen. They're gonna have to constantly be on screens when they're adults. Like we are now. Like, yeah, I it's so hypocritical to like tell your kid to get off the screen while you're doing this. Yeah, you know? And it's like, yeah, I might be doing something work-related or like important, but it doesn't look any different than what they're doing.

Rich: 1:00:57

It makes me think like maybe I should try to, and I don't know how to do this yet, but how do we transition from don't be a user, be a creator? How are you gonna create with this gift you have of technology rather than you know, are okay, you want Facebook? What are you gonna create to share with your friends on Facebook rather than are you gonna just scroll and like? Right. Maybe that's the way to go. I don't know.

Michael: 1:01:22

I was I was a big proponent of that when my oldest daughter first got her iPad, you know, and again, like so jealous that she's got like iMovie on there. I'm like, yeah, go ahead. You could use this all day. Go make some stuff, go make some videos, go do this, and I'll show you how to do it, I'll help you with it. And you know, they that lasts for all about like six or seven months, and then they're like, Oh, but uh my friends are all playing Roblox, so I'm gonna go do that. I'm like, oh Discord chat. Yeah, it's like at least you're interacting with people. That's cool. That's like I said, like that's gonna be their life when they're adults, is everything's gonna come through that screen. So to sit here and say, like, we never had that, don't do that, don't be on your screen all day. I don't want to be that person. Yeah, it's like in 20 years, that's all everybody's gonna be doing, you know.

Rich: 1:02:13

I like this metaphor. And why, and it's changed. Things are different, like you said, and I'm not being negative, but take the original Nintendo and the difficulty of trying to play those games, and it only lasts for so long. You can only sit there for a half hour, an hour, and play through ten games because you can only get to the second level.

Michael: 1:02:32

Yeah.

Rich: 1:02:32

Now games seem to be this never-ending, like you could sit there for four weeks and you're not through the game, and you're still in this online realm. It's like virtual reality. So I let Miles play Mario and a couple Nintendo games, and he's, you know, he can get through the levels, but it's like I'm kind of scared to let him play something that's more like never-ending open world, unless it's like building something. Right.

Michael: 1:03:01

Yeah, that's that's the double-edged sword.

Rich: 1:03:03

It's like luckily I'm not there yet. You're already there, buddy. I don't have to worry.

Michael: 1:03:07

Well, look, my girls aren't I mean, they they're into like Roblox and stuff, but it's more just like they they go on and they play with their friends. Which is uh something super cool that I wish like when we wanted to play with our friends, you had to go over their house or they had to come to your house and you sat next to each other on the same screen. Um so it was like the the amount of time you could do that was very limited. Now, you know, they wake up on the weekend and like 10 o'clock, I can hear them like screaming with laughter in the other room because they're like making jokes with their friends.

Rich: 1:03:41

That would make me feel good inside rather than like the creepy image you get of people playing games online.

Michael: 1:03:47

Right.

Rich: 1:03:48

There's a positive to it. And that's what I try to guess. Like, let's how do we remove the negative out of it?

Michael: 1:03:56

Yeah, that's that's a key, because there everything in life has both sides. So you just gotta learn a way to navigate and find the best side of whatever it is that you're doing or your family's doing. You gotta find a way to get that because everything has its negatives. Being a parent is an easy Oh, that's the hard it's the hardest thing.

Rich: 1:04:17

Do you ever think back to times growing up where you gave your parents a hard time and you're like, oh my god, like Yeah, yeah.

Michael: 1:04:25

Some I mean, I'm not gonna brag or anything, but I I thought I, you know, I was a pretty good kid. I kind of got it, you know, I had a single mom. I was the only child of a single mom, and I kind of like early on, I kind of understood, like, oh man, she's doing a lot. I should probably not be a dickhead. Because she, you know, she sent me to uh Catholic school. She did everything she could to give me as much of an advantage and like all the best things that she could. And luckily, you know, retrospectively looking back at how I behaved and like the things that I did. Luckily, I was I was a pretty good kid. I didn't, you know, get into trouble or cause too much ruckus, or at least get caught for it, I should say. I didn't get caught for for a lot of the stuff that I could have. Um, so I feel like I'm kind of getting that karma back now because I have like my two girls are like great. I couldn't ask for they're gonna be like their dad and their mom, so yeah, and it's so apparent. Like it's so apparent looking at the two. It's like my older one is my wife and my younger one is me. And it's very frustrating at times because I'm like, oh damn.

Rich: 1:05:38

Isn't it funny how it's frustrating that they're just like you?

Michael: 1:05:41

I'm like, damn, I'm an asshole, huh? Because this kid is driving me nuts. But she's just like me.

Rich: 1:05:47

And they're so smart too. Uh we can't like talk not condescending with I'm not saying we talk condescending to them, but like they just understand. Like you talk to them about a uh deep concept and they're like understand. Even at like four, you're like, I think he knows.

Michael: 1:06:04

Yeah. And that's that's a a key thing, too, is I've always tried to do it because that's kind of how I was raised. I don't think any of my family planned it this way, but because I was an only child and I was just around adults all the time, they never talked to me like a kid. They would just talk to me like I was another adult.

Rich: 1:06:22

You never knew you were an only child.

Michael: 1:06:24

Yep. Yeah, so I never I didn't I mean I had friends, but it's like when I was at home or when I was over my aunt and uncle's.

Rich: 1:06:31

Well, you get an idea of the family with uh only one kid is not what you pic like I don't picture you as that.

Michael: 1:06:39

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard from a couple people on the stereotype of an only child.

Rich: 1:06:44

Stereotype of an only child. Suspenders, bow tie, and like just shows up to play sports after school and then goes home homeschooled.

Michael: 1:06:52

Yeah, nope. Luckily, well I was not homeschooled, but they they always you know talk to me like an adult, whether they did that on purpose or if that's just how they were.

Rich: 1:07:03

And isn't that every kid's dream to be talked to as an adult? Like that's when an adult talks to you like an adult, you just feel so like confident, empowered.

Michael: 1:07:11

Like you can, oh yeah, I am, I can be talking about it. And so I try to do that, you know, to my kids because I find a lot of value in that for those reasons that you were talking about. It's like if you give them that mentality of like, oh, I am mature, I am kind of not grown up, because I obviously don't want them to grow up. I wish I could keep them at eleven and eight for the rest of their life. That'd be great. Um, but I know that that's not gonna happen. So giving them that kind of confidence and mentality of like interacting with the world at the same level that an adult would from childhood on, um I think that's super beneficial. And that's not to say you're you you want them to be kids, you want them to act like kids and and be kids, because you only get a few years of that, and it's very important. But you gotta juggle like I don't want to treat them like a kid, but sometimes you have to, and sometimes you don't want to treat them like a kid, and it's like a tough love scenario.

Rich: 1:08:17

So and it's scary to like, oh, I'm gonna go let him get the mail by himself. I'm gonna let him cross the road uh uh when they get out of school to go to their soccer game.

Michael: 1:08:25

Yep. And that's that's another thing, like talking about when we grew up, it's like my mom would leave me home alone when I was like nine, ten years old, and like Sam, luckily, I'm still here to tell you the story about it. But now I look at like leaving my two home, and I'm like, no, absolutely not. Like maybe for like an hour if I have to run out to the store and there's just no other way about it. Um side benefit of screens is like, yeah, here's your tablet. I'm gone for an hour. They don't even notice that I'm not there.

Rich: 1:08:59

Information, too. You just hear so many stories, it gives you anxiety.

Michael: 1:09:02

Oh my god.

Rich: 1:09:03

It's like everything gives you anxiety about their kids, at least for me.

Michael: 1:09:08

Like the world wasn't wasn't that different as far as all the scary bad stuff that happens, uh like when we were young. It was all still happening, but you didn't know about it.

Rich: 1:09:19

The algorithm wasn't listening to you and showing you it ten minutes after.

Michael: 1:09:23

Exactly. Like you didn't hear, you know, five stories of children being abducted every night or scroll past it on Facebook. It's like that was still happening.

Rich: 1:09:32

But and then we should our age. I'm like, when I was in sixth grade, I was taking the city bus with a crackhead next to me, someone with a gunshot wound bleeding on my sister, and I was talking, and the bus driver was giving us uh comic books every day, like and no one batted a nine that he was a nice guy, and he really was. But like nowadays, if you I feel like someone would be like, what's going on here? He's talking to the kids.

Michael: 1:09:55

Exactly. Yeah, you gotta be weary, you know, and it's unfortunate because it's better to just look for the good in people and think the best of everybody, but unfortunately, that's how you get into trouble.

Rich: 1:10:10

I mean, we could talk about that back and forth too. Like, do you go to church?

Michael: 1:10:15

No.

Rich: 1:10:15

See, I don't either. And my wife is like, should we? Because someone told, like, we have friends that do go, and they're like, Oh, the kids there are all great, they have great families and structure, and it's just a different vibe than the public school kids, and there's nothing wrong with the public school kids. It's just overall the friends that they have at church are a little better. And it's like, I'm just I've never been a church person, even though me and you grew up in Catholic school.

Michael: 1:10:38

Yeah, I literally went to Catholic school my entire life, from kindergarten through my bachelor's degree in college. Every every grade of school was Catholic school, and I am not religious at all. Like, in in fact, like very anti-religion. I believe in God, don't get me wrong. I definitely believe in God, and I have like a set of moral values and all of that. And yes, it was all framed off of the teachings that I got at Catholic school, but absolutely vehemently against like organized religion of any sort, because it's just it's just a way to control people, in my opinion. But it's not like the people wrote that book. God didn't write it. Yeah. You know, like a person wrote that. And then the people changed it to make uh rules to control other people.

Rich: 1:11:35

And then the m the deeper we dig into space with uh James Webb makes me more on the way you think because I'm like exploring like what is out there. There's a something is God, but you know, like you said, a written book or you know, it's just like these ideas of what it could be. Right.

Michael: 1:11:54

So yeah, it's nobody nobody knows. And anybody that tells you they do is full of shit.

Rich: 1:12:00

Yeah. And it's a feeling.

Michael: 1:12:02

Yeah.

Rich: 1:12:03

That's what you're going on.

Michael: 1:12:04

You know, religion, the idea of it and like the teachings of it, the the the you know, the bare bones of it, you know, the golden rule is really all you need. And that's pretty much in every single major religion. That's really all you need. Anything more than that is just trying to control people.

Rich: 1:12:22

And then I'm get I get too deep in my thoughts about like, okay, what is the future if we are all in our basements on our devices all the time? Is it important to get out into community to talk to others and to and and then as the only place we're gonna be able to do that is church? Or can we like, are people gonna schedule like community meeting hall, like let's party like it's 1970, you know, we're gonna get together. Not for church, but just to get together and get away from the basement or the remote work or whatever we're doing.

Michael: 1:12:53

And that's an another like big thing is like the when you look into like the Native American cultures and religions there, or like uh Eastern religions, a lot of it is just centered around nature and like be outside, connect with everything around you. It's like that's all you need, it's just connect, connect to the things that are in this world. Um, and you know, the devices they're supposed to connect us all, but they're actually pushing us further away from like what we all should be connecting to, which is like the real world and like people instead of like devices.

Rich: 1:13:33

Why does our gut tell us that this is wrong? But you touch a tree and this is right, you know. It's just like our intuition is telling us that.

Michael: 1:13:41

Yeah, I've never once regretted like being outside for several hours. But I've often regretted sitting here doing this for even an hour. So it's like make with of that what you will. What do you see in the future, you know, with music and projects and family and uh I mean hopefully just keep on keeping on, really, just making music and trying to enjoy enjoy life, because it especially with the way that the world is today, it's like at any moment this could just not be possible anymore. You know, it's like the one push of a button away or anything like that, and you don't have this anymore. So I just try to live life day to day and enjoy it as much as I can, which is a struggle, you know. We all we all have those problems of being able to sit and enjoy like the little mundane things in life, but you gotta, because like that, it could just be taken away.

Rich: 1:14:52

Do you have a project that you've always been working on that you've never released to anyone that is like your opus magnum? Is that a word? Opus magnum? Magnum.

Michael: 1:15:00

Magnum opus, yeah. Um not I guess right now we are, and I say we, me and my two bandmates, Adam and Ryan, are like finally getting down to like actually recording all of the songs that we have. Um the you know, the band, the original band I was in, um, the name Influenza, that was the name of the band. And we've got, you know, and I say we, Ryan is the one that writes all the songs. He's like an incredible songwriter and just super prolific. We have probably like in total that we could, we probably have like eighty to a hundred songs like that we've all that we fleshed out and have we have like a a jam recording of to remember like this is how this goes. Um but we're finally getting down to actually like recording it like an album, like full you know, production-wise. So I I'd say that's probably the most magnum opus thing that I've got on the books right now, and it's gonna take a while, but the beauty of being able to have all this stuff like in our basements now is like we don't have to go to a studio and pay money for it and like rush through it because we only have so much. We could take our time and do it perfect, just the way we want it, and there's like no hurry about it, other than like we we're just trying to get it done before we die, you know? Just so we have that stuff um recorded for posterity. Yeah, basically just like put it away and it doesn't it doesn't have to see the light of day, but as long as it's there that's all I'm worried about.

Rich: 1:16:50

What is your soul like if you are gonna pr truly just make music solo, what is your vibe and your style?

Michael: 1:16:59

I don't know if I really per se have a certain vibe and a certain style, because I have like a lot of different influences. Um you know, drums-wise, it's one thing. Like I'm a I'm a huge like John Bonham fan, Dave Grohl kind of like that just beat the shit out of the drums and be loud and raucous. Uh, but then I have a whole other side of like lyricism and like rapping. Like me and Chris we used to be before we had instruments, we would, you know, we had two rap albums out, you know, before we were like 16. So like that is a whole other style. And then like the style of instrumentation and music I like is is all over the board. So it's not really you know, that's a it's a hard question to answer because I don't have the answer to it. Um, because it can be anything. It's just really whatever sounds good, what feels good, that's that's what I go with. It doesn't necessarily have to fit one genre or another.

Rich: 1:18:05

Would it like if you were to just sit down and organically make something without thinking, would it lean towards more of the comedy side, like where you would get on the bongos and all of a sudden you got like a 70s riff going and you're like versus like if you're like okay, I'm gonna be I want to do something serious because it's emotionally driven or I have a lyric in mind.

Michael: 1:18:26

Yeah, I mean that I can answer perfectly because back when the Because I you're funny for I maybe you're not.

Rich: 1:18:34

I remember you being like this super funny.

Michael: 1:18:36

I think I'm pretty funny.

Rich: 1:18:37

Yeah, me too. Okay. So I did that's how I picture you like like making these really beautiful songs and and like rock based stuff and like being with your band, and then I just picture you down here like throwing like a loop on a bongo, and then I'm like all of a sudden you're like playing and making everyone laugh.

Michael: 1:18:53

That's exactly it. In fact, when uh 20 uh COVID-19 came around in like 2020 when everybody got locked down, um, that's when I kind of like dove into like getting the recording stuff that I have and doing all that. So at the time when I would you know come down here and do stuff, um the first few things I did were like actual songs that I had, you know, like real songs with real words, and you know, the first couple were about like lockdown and like things that were actually happening. Then, you know, I ran kind of out of the songs I already had. So I'd come down here, you know, have a few drinks, and just like mess around and make stuff up, and I'd make beats, you know, electronic beats, or like I'd record a drum part and like do loops, and I had this whole I had this whole thing where I had this collection of songs because I would come down, make like the music to it, but then I would just make up some like ridiculous shit. And like rap it or like sing it over it. So it would be like a legit song. And then like one of the first ones I did, it was the the whole idea of this album ended up being I wanted to make a bunch of short, like 30-second minute-long songs. And this is you know back 2020, so it was kind of like, oh, I could see like TikTok thing exploding, like all music's only gonna be like 30 seconds long in the future. So I was like, I'm just gonna do that. So I made like a bunch of these songs, and for some reason, they all ended up being like snack food related, unintentional at first. Like it's just like what happened. I would write the song and then I would sit down and I would have the melody or like the cadence of the words, and I would just make stuff up as and it just all ended up being like about snack foods, and like the perfect example of that is this one song I had where it was just a short little you know beat with a bass line over it, and the whole verse of it is like a pretty serious thing, like commentary on like society and like what people are doing and like things that are like happening and like some real serious stuff, and then like this the ending of it is like basically says, But all of that's happening, you know what everybody really needs? We need to bring back 3D Doritos, you know. That was the answer to all of these horrible problems that I just like spelled out in the verse, and then it's like, but if we just bring back three D Doritos, and it fucking happened too. That song made three D Doritos come back.

Rich: 1:21:39

That reminds me of like uh the old Apple commercial that was like 45 seconds long, like a movie, yeah, or no, like Orson Wells uh 1840, Orson Wells, I think, the uh where everyone I think is communist or something. They like that. 1984. 1984, they did that theme and then they released the Apple in like the 90s, I think.

Michael: 1:21:59

Yep.

Rich: 1:21:59

But me and you are in the same wavelength because when I create organically like music and stuff, it always I'm like, this could be a commercial for a bank. Yeah, this could be a commercial for a car. It's like always is product related because it's like so funky and like it's not mute, it's it's music, but it's more like a jingle. I just love that style of. I love jingles. Me too. I'm a big fan of jingles.

Michael: 1:22:20

That's like we need to bring back jingles. Yeah, nobody has jingles anymore, and that's that's really sad.

Rich: 1:22:26

And they could really flood TikTok. Uh TikTok is all jingles, it feels like they're like 30 seconds, 60 seconds, like you just get the hook and the chorus of a song, that's all you need.

Michael: 1:22:35

That's a jingle.

Rich: 1:22:37

So I know your wife's home working.

Michael: 1:22:41

Yep.

Rich: 1:22:41

Do do we get to hear like a drum solo or something at the end? Oh no, no, no, no, no.

Michael: 1:22:46

I'm I, as a drummer, I am not about drum solos.

Rich: 1:22:51

Or just like uh uh it doesn't have to be a drum solo, it could be like a Taylor Swift intro or something with the roll in.

Michael: 1:22:59

Uh I mean I can play if you want, but I don't know.

Rich: 1:23:02

Um throw a mic on and let me do so we could do some punk.

Michael: 1:23:06

Yeah, we could. We could do that. I got I got some stuff loaded up I could just pull up. Um but yeah, that's that's one thing about me, is like as a drummer, like there's two schools of thought. It's like to me, the drums is like the bedrock of a song. Like it's their it's the most important part. Like nobody dances to a guitar lick, nobody dances to a vocal melody, nobody dances to a bass line, they dance to a drumbeat. Like, that's my job. I gotta get people to dance. Most people aren't good at dancing, so you gotta keep it pretty pretty straight and easy to follow. For the most part. Like, my original band is not like that at all. It's very chaotic and lots of different time signatures and like not danceable music.

Rich: 1:24:00

So I say that being Or I should say it doesn't ha so Chris like read a poem at the end of his interview.

Michael: 1:24:06

Yeah.

Rich: 1:24:07

So I was like, that's kind of cool. Like, I don't want people to like have something prepared, but I was like, maybe you've got a guitar riff or something, but I'm putting you on the spot, so you can just be like, no.

Michael: 1:24:17

I don't have anything like ready. I could play you that Dorito song if you want. That'd be cool. I got that going. Um yeah, let me let me get that loaded up. I'll pop it on the speakers.

Rich: 1:24:31

I'll just play the drums.

Michael: 1:24:33

Yeah, go for it, baby.

Rich: 1:24:35

I can seriously if you want, yeah. I mean, I've played drums like three times in my whole life. Once with my old roommate because he's a drummer. And then my tenant now has a drum kit in his basement. Oh, nice. And you are a nice landlord. Uh he he doesn't really he's got the electronic one, so I don't know. He tries to play when we're not home. It was like it is loud. You know, it's oh yeah, it's like we it goes through your head. You know, same with making beats. When you're just hearing the same beat over and over and over again, it starts to get to your if you're not the one making it.

Michael: 1:25:13

But even when you are the one making it, yeah, trust me. It gets to your head.

Rich: 1:25:18

That's how I started with uh video, is I used to make beats, and then when I started working at a media company, I was watching them edit video and I was like, yo, that is like making beats.

Michael: 1:25:29

Yeah, it's very, very similar. Um there's a lot of the same skills and things that you need for both. Let me see if this is still where it should be.

Rich: 1:25:43

I love your uh file management, by the way. It's nice.

Michael: 1:25:48

Uh I am trying to keep it as organized as possible, especially now that I have like a lot of different projects going.

Speaker: 1:25:57

It's like I have to Are you running everything on that huge machine? What is that? That's your computer? Yeah. What the heck is that?

Michael: 1:26:04

Oh, it's just a regular desktop. Oh, it it's your own case? Oh, okay.

Rich: 1:26:08

Yeah, just a regular Oh, I thought it was like an old vintage machine. Oh, I see.

Michael: 1:26:13

Nope. Just a fancy little case. Sweet. I had that thing made luckily like right before um COVID hit. So I had it, which was nice. What am I looking for?

Rich: 1:26:26

I still use my uh 2009 iMac. I just have it bare bones. Yeah. The oldest iOS it can load up, and then I have Pro Tool uh not Pro Tools, Logic and Fruity Loops. Yep. That's all you need. It's still fast enough to do vocals, guitar, mixing. You know, you can't load it up with a million compressors.

Michael: 1:26:46

Yeah, you don't want to be that's that's where you need the processing power. What's the name?

Rich: 1:26:52

But even when I do have a bunch loaded on, it's pretty fast for 2009.

Michael: 1:27:02

It's not in that folder. Which one was I looking for?

Rich: 1:27:05

Um Doritos 3D. Yes. Which I'm sure you didn't label it as that.

Michael: 1:27:10

No, it's definitely not called that. That's why I'm like, uh, what was it called?

Rich: 1:27:19

Oh, 3D? Up at the top.

Michael: 1:27:24

Oh, this was a video I made for it, but the song is probably in there. Yeah, I actually put it to that old 3D Doritos commercial so I can just play it. I'm just like a ball. They fucking did it. And I swear this came I did this song before they actually brought it back. I made it happen, everybody.

Rich: 1:28:52

Wow. So that just happened organically, right? You just threw some drums in, bass or keyboards or whatever.

Michael: 1:28:59

And yeah, I basically came down here and actually my cousin, who who is a rapper, Stees, he was uh I was just talking to him, and we were like, Yeah, I should just do some beats for you one day. So I was just like came down here and was fucking around and came up with that beat. And then, you know, I was just messing around. I had the bass over there, and I just picked it up and I was like, ooh, that's kind of cool. I like that. And so I just recorded that, and then I had it, and then I had like the first first couple lines just like popped into my head. So then I was like, oh, that's cool, and then I just sat down and wrote the whole the whole verse, just kind of like freestyled it in my head, like, oh okay, yeah, that works, that works, that works, got the whole thing, and then like I didn't know what I didn't know what the song was gonna be, what it was gonna end up, and then like I was listening to it, and then that line just popped into my head, the bring back 3D Doritos, because I was like probably drunk, and I was like, Oh, I wish I had some of those jabanero 3B Doritos, and then it just like came out and I was like, yes, that's how that song's gonna end.

Rich: 1:30:10

That's amazing.

Michael: 1:30:11

And then, like I said, I had made like several others that all happened to be like snack related. I got my wife in on it too. She came down and made one. Um, which was funny. I I'll eventually like put a bunch of them together and like put it out somewhere, but for now, they're just like the funny little things I have on my computer to Is she a musician too? Yes, she actually is also a drummer. Um funny story, we were sitting one day and she came up to me and was like, Hey, um, do you think you can teach me how to play the drums? Because I uh have an audition for an all-female Green Day tribute band in three months. So I was like, whoa, okay, sure. Uh she, you know, she's she took piano lessons and like can play the piano and took guitar lessons and stuff. She's definitely a musician, but she had never like played the drums other than like sitting down at my drum kit every now and then. So I basically took her from like ground zero to she got the the gig. So I took her from ground zero to being good enough to get in the band in three months, just down here during it was like at the tail end of like COVID, uh, that very end of 2020. So she just would come down here, I would give her, you know, lessons, be like, work on this, work on that, do this. And it was nice because like we had very specific songs, like she had to know how to play. So I'm like, Yep, yeah.

Rich: 1:31:50

So like funk stuff is yeah hard but simple. Yes, yes, hard but simple.

Michael: 1:31:55

The coordination and the speed is hard, and the endurance definitely hard, but you know, the techniques that you need aren't particularly tough. So it was it was nice, but she kicked ass.

Rich: 1:32:08

Where do you share your stuff? Do you share it like on a YouTube or something?

Michael: 1:32:12

I'm terrible with that. Like I have a bunch like a lot of those, you know, tribute nights we had, I like filmed because I had like the stuff and I had the know-how. So I did like multicam shoots of like the tribute acts that I really liked. So I have a bunch of that stuff up on YouTube, but um I I really need to start doing a lot more of it now, especially that I'm like full-time musician. I gotta just like start putting stuff out there because that's where it is now. It's online if you don't have an online presence, like a lot of these uh uh you know, gigs that are like looking for looking for a drummer, blah blah blah. It's like send video links and all of this and that, and I'm like, oh I don't really I don't really have much um in the way of that. So I gotta get better at that. But yeah, usually YouTube, Facebook, prolific over perfect, I guess.

Rich: 1:33:05

Because you could just throw a GoPro up and might not be a GoPro in an H6, you know, at least it's something.

Michael: 1:33:11

Yep, that'll get it done. And I mean that's that's the thing, it's like just of your face while you play. Nobody, nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see that. I've got like full resting bitch face, and I have to fight it constantly because I watch back videos and I'm like. Do you watch Dancing with the Stars? I've seen I've seen episodes, yeah.

Rich: 1:33:34

Remember Carl Winslow? Oh yeah. He was on last season, and he's like, couldn't move at all, but he just had this face on, like, oh, Jim Carrey, uh, who's plays like he's like does a monkey? I I don't know, but anyways, he's just got this smile, he just looks like he's like in a whole nother world. Yeah. And he he would just throw his hand up. And I'm like, Yeah.

Michael: 1:33:56

See, I'm the exact opposite. My body is going crazy and I'm doing a bunch of shit, but I look like I'm just miserable. Yeah. Even though I'm having like the time of my life. So I have to like, especially like in the Taylor group, because I'll I'm in the background of like all of the pictures, because the girls are all in front of me, so you could see me, and I'm like, oh god, I look like I'm so miserable. I gotta like smile. You should remember to smile. A thing that's just like uh the guy from a route five.

Rich: 1:34:26

You should just paste his mouth on your like mouth so you're just like no one can see you, but you just look like you're smiling the whole time.

Michael: 1:34:32

Yeah, I've I've come to realize that the secret hack might be to just like aggressively chew gum the whole time. Because then I'm just at least like this, and I don't just look like I'm miserable. Because I'm not, I promise. I'm having a great time. Anytime I'm behind the drums.

Rich: 1:34:47

Have you tried cocaine?

Michael: 1:34:48

No, I'm just not anymore, man. No, no chance I'm even I've never done it, and I probably never will, because it's way too dangerous nowadays.

Rich: 1:34:57

I've never done it, I can say that.

Michael: 1:34:58

Yep.

Rich: 1:34:59

A lot of people from high school are always like, oh, Rich is a partier, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm I'm not.

Michael: 1:35:05

No, I'm I'm I guess I am.

Rich: 1:35:07

I'm drinking, I don't know.

Michael: 1:35:08

Yeah, I I gave up drinking about a I gave up drinking a year ago, but I was that was pretty much it. That and weed, that I didn't give up.

Rich: 1:35:18

I force myself to drink once a year. Yeah. I'm like, alright, I need to do this. This is what people do.

Michael: 1:35:23

Yeah. No, you don't need I'm a coffee.

Rich: 1:35:26

Like we go to tree house and we skip the beer line and go to the uh cold brew line. Yeah, there's never a line there. So that's like our tree house hack. We get in there with the two, three kids, get our coffee, and then go back outside while everyone's waiting in line for beer.

Michael: 1:35:39

Yeah. Oh man. I love coffee. I I I say I love coffee, but I always drink like real shitty coffee. Like I don't care how good it is. As long as it tastes like coffee and there's caffeine in it.

Rich: 1:35:51

Yeah.

Michael: 1:35:51

That's all I need.

Rich: 1:35:52

It's nice to have a nice cup of coffee, but we don't need to fancify coffee.

Michael: 1:35:56

Right. Yeah.

Rich: 1:35:57

It just just nation of pussies over here with all your oat milk. Yeah. Like I put a little milk in my coffee, no sugar. Do you do that?

Michael: 1:36:06

See, I'm I I would be I use like coffee mate. Okay. Basically. So it's like I put a little of that in it. Because I like my coffee sweet. So if I didn't have that, I wouldn't need to put like cream or anything in it, but I would put a little sugar in.

Rich: 1:36:21

Coffee mate is where I'm okay. It's tiptoeing the line, but I'm okay with it.

Michael: 1:36:25

Yeah, I like it just a little flavor.

Rich: 1:36:27

If you're getting like a caramel swirl with ice cream and cold foam, it's that's a dessert. That's not coffee anymore. Thank you.

Michael: 1:36:35

Yeah. No, it's gotta just be coffee, little cream, little sugar. That's all you need. If that, you know, unless you're one of those psychopaths that just drinks black coffee.

Rich: 1:36:46

I I tried it for a couple weeks and it was staining my teeth.

Michael: 1:36:50

Right. It's like so like harsh, gives me heartburn.

Rich: 1:36:53

Yeah, and then with the little bit of milk, it doesn't stain my teeth.

Michael: 1:36:55

Yep. Just need a little lighten it up a little, you know. So that's what I like.

Rich: 1:37:00

Well, I appreciate you doing this interview. Absolutely. This was wicked fun. You answered all the questions that have been sitting in my head since I thought about this show. Like, even setting up. It's funny, I gotta let the people in on the setting up process. You like don't want to talk to the person you're about to talk to, but you haven't seen them in 20 years or more, and you would just have question after question, so you're like making small talk, and it's not awkward, but it's like don't want to ask the questions you want to ask because before you get the cameras rolling, yeah. And I'm always nervous before because I'm like, what if we don't have something to talk about? But the third episode in, and you and you just find you jump, it's like you jump back into where you were before, and you just there's new stuff, obviously, and families and hobbies and stuff, but yeah, it was super fun. So I much appreciate you uh allowing me to come here and do this.

Michael: 1:37:55

Anytime, anytime.

Rich: 1:37:56

And I look forward to like hitting you up randomly. Oh, absolutely, and saying, What's up, what are you doing? You know, we gotta get together, we gotta get together, do some stuff family hang out and stuff, get some more things done.

Michael: 1:38:07

Uh absolutely, man.

Rich: 1:38:08

And the random and the off chance that like we have a night free too, just like getting together and like trying to make something or fucking around down here.

Michael: 1:38:16

No, this place is always open. That's I shouldn't say always, but yeah. When I'm home, it's always open.

Rich: 1:38:21

Yep.

Michael: 1:38:22

Hell yeah. Hell yeah, man.

Rich: 1:38:24

Nice catching up.

Michael: 1:38:25

Same here, same here.

Rich: 1:38:26

Oh. Should it should I try to play drums real quick? Go for it, dude.

Michael: 1:38:30

Oh my god.

Speaker: 1:38:31

Go for it. Are we let me see if we got the recording still going? Oh yeah, we're good. An hour and 38. You're like, it's always scary touching someone's instrument, like this beautiful. Were you touching my drums? Are you touching my kick drums? Nope, that thing is made to be beat up, so don't worry.

Michael: 1:38:58

So this is my kick drum, this is my symbol, right? Yep, yep. This is the snare.

Rich: 1:39:03

That's the rolling. Can you put it on a side, like turn a kit on this or no?

Michael: 1:39:08

I can, but there it's not like hooked up to any speakers right now. It's just for headphones for practicing. Actually, yeah, you wouldn't be able to hear it. Yeah, so basic a basic beat, you would you would probably be able to do. So you're gonna do four on this. So one, two, three, four on the hi-hat. Yep, there you go. And then kick on two and four and snare on the high. Am I kicking on two and four or no? Uh well actually kick would be one and three. Two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one. Okay. Yep. This is the minebender is trying to get all this coordinated. Yep, and then just do the snare on the times that you're not doing the kick. I'm doing it on the same time. Yep. There you go. Got it. That's it. Right there. More punk.

Rich: 1:40:15

Uh I played like a couple other times with kids.

Michael: 1:40:18

Yep.

Rich: 1:40:20

But I just do that the whole time.

Michael: 1:40:24

Yep, punk is a lot faster than that. Yep. And even faster, even faster. I like get a weird like. Yep. I want to move my body. You gotta. That's the important thing. You want to move your body when you're doing it.

Rich: 1:40:52

Yeah, because once I start thinking, I get off rhythm. Yeah.

Michael: 1:41:14

Nice. Sweet. You're a natural.

Speaker: 1:41:18

I feel like if I was to play an instrument, it'd be drums. Oh, it's the best instrument there is. Can I bring Miles over here and get lessons and pay him? Hell yeah.