Speaker 1: Missed Opportunity. I love sharing conversations. Hosting them requires a
lot of show prep. My podcasting platform features thousands of guests.
What you don't have access to are my missed opportunities.
The show prep was completed, the conversation didn't happen. I
keep all of my notes, mainly because paths will cross again.
Let me explain missed Opportunity. It's my questions and statements
without their answers, So I'm gonna leave open enough space
at the end of each question, hoping they'll download the
talk and insert their answers. Missed Opportunity is a lost
piece of history, like a message in a bottle. It's
been tossed out to see I hope to locate the destination.
This week, we're putting focus on my missed Opportunity with
the band Bad Mary. Here's something you should know about
this edition of Missed Opportunity. Before production, there was no conversation.
It happened after this was completed. Okay. The group is
called Bad Mary, a New York based glam rock band
that was about to release their debut sixteen track live album.
Think about that. The debut album of a band is
a live album. It's called Live on Long Island. The
mission was to get the band on all major streaming platforms.
Their first single is titled Mars Attack mar z ATTAQX.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I love it when they do stuff like that Bassis.
Mike Stobb says the band loves live albums and has
always wanted to do one. They physically believed listeners would
get the full band experience listening to the sixteen tracks,
and yes, it does feature videos. The band members are
Amanda Mack, David Henderson, Mike Stobb and Bill Mack on drums.
The invitation to share a conversation with Bad Mary arrived
on April ninth, twenty twenty five. I instantly wrote back,
I gotta do this. Please, let's do this. They replied,
The band was available after April fifteenth, anytime on the weekends.
Uh oh, weekends are never available for me because I
perform on a stage. They responded, May seventh, eighth, or twelve.
I chose the seventh because that's my brother's birthday. They
wrote back, can you do Sundays? Not's that's my day
of church. They then said how about Saturday May twenty fourth?
After I said I'm not failable. On the weekends, they
rode back, can you do eight pm Monday through Wednesday?
Kind of tough? Kind of tough when you get in
the studio at seven am in the morning. But we
worked it out. And here's the thing. I do have
the questions that I prepared for before knowing we actually
were going to do this. So I'm going to ask
those questions and then and then you'll get the full
one hundred percent conversation that took place. This is every
bit the reason why I wanted to create Missed Opportunity,
because things happen when you put it back out there
in the future. And once again, this is the reason
why I don't throw anything away, because there's always that
opportunity that things will come back together. So coming up
next the questions that I originally prepared, and then it'll
be followed by the actual conversation. Hey, welcome back to
Missed Opportunity. This week, Missed Opportunity is the group Bad Mary.
Your first song is Mars Attack. Am I saying that right?
Because look at the way it's spelled m A r
zatt a q X. Designing the sound of the band required,
what challenges and changes and where were your victories. Each
live cut leaves every listener with an opportunity to pick
something up and say, I really like this experience. Putting
focus on glam rock is such an amazing expression in
twenty twenty five. There's something about the art of it.
So what does it require to make a live album today? Now?
I've been with the Sex Pistols and they told me
that punk is the blues. Arrow It's the blues. They
were very honest with me. What about you. You've actually
created a podcast that supports your musical journey. So with
so many strong options available, do you need record reps
to get your music spun? Do you really look at
you yourself as being a modern day punk band? You
are a true live experience. It's about to ignite those
who want to feel something and you give it to
us inside your videos. Seriously, a debut live album, listeners
want that true experience. How is it that you were
bringing it to them? And it's something that's very unexpected.
You've got merch. We want merch. It doesn't matter where
we are in this country. How do we get our
hands on it? And there you have it. The original
questions for Mike Stobb from bad.
Speaker 2: Mary.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. After production things came together. We got
the conversation Hello and good afternoon. Hello, how are you fantastic?
How about you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing aokay, just.
Speaker 1: Aokay, not a double a okay or a yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't want to get too ahead of
myself here, you know what I mean. They still relatively young,
so we're gonna leave it at just the single A.
I haven't graduated to double A triple AA.
Speaker 2: And hopefully they'll make the Mavies.
Speaker 1: I love the sound of your band. I mean, we
are starving for some great rock right now. And I
swear to God you you fit right in there to
where you can go. Yes, I can play this outside
and people are gonna go, who is that?
Speaker 3: Well? I I appreciate that, you know, we're always going
out of our way as a band to make music, that.
Speaker 2: We always want to make music, that.
Speaker 3: Hm, that we have fun playing and that people can
have fun, you know, enjoying. It's it's it's that, it's
it's our roots, you know, our roots is we want
to make music.
Speaker 2: You know, there is a party aspect to what we do.
Speaker 3: And I think that's really really important for pretty much
our entire you know, the entire mood, you know what
I mean?
Speaker 1: Ye yep. Is that the reason why you've got the
live sounds in there? Because I mean, there's nothing better
than a live concert. And instantly I was shot back
to kiss a live one as well as Peter Frampton
Comes Alive.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean those are two, I mean, those are
two incredible live records, right, two of the most memorable.
You know, with the with the live record, we wanted
to do something that finally like really captured that. And
we've been a band now for you know, as Bad Mary,
we've been a band like probably about twelve years or
so as Bad Mary, and we've been a band, the
four of us have been a band for about fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So we have you know, I can't even geez if
I win, I'd have to go to like I'd have
to go to like my files to see all of
our records. But you know, we have like nine or
ten a combination of like nine or ten EPs albums
and all that stuff. And we've been playing these songs
a lot of them live for you know, some of
them more than ten years.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So we figured like we had this opportunity this really
great club here locally on Long Island that we wanted
to we had we had a great opportunity to maybe
put together a live album. So yeah, that's why we
left all the live sounds in there, and we wanted
it to be, you know, as raw and energetic a
live album it could be.
Speaker 1: So how is it that you were able to get
such a quality sound? Were you using the zooms? What
were you doing but to get that real feel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, we had some help from the venue.
Speaker 3: I reached out to the venue and I told them
that we wanted to do a live record, and when
I booked it that night, I was like, Okay, we
want to do a live record. It was it was
an album released party. I actually was an EP release
party earlier this year. February of this year, we released
a split seven inch vinyl EP with our friends Mega Infinity,
who are another local band here who are also another
great band on a record label called Skotpunk International, And
we had this release party set up in February to
release the physical version of the the EP. The digital
versions of the songs came out late last year.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So it's a really good venue, this great spot it's
like this rock club artists collective art installation kind of
plays here in Huntington, New York, which is kind of
like a it's like a like a main street kind
of area, and we had the name.
Speaker 2: Of the club as Industry.
Speaker 3: The current location of Industry actually just closed and they're
actually moving locations and hopefully they'll be up and running soon.
Speaker 2: But it's a great room.
Speaker 3: We love the sound in there. So we reached out
and yeah, we got we got the stems from the board,
we got audio from all the different cameras we had
to do the videos with. And our guitar player David,
who does all of our mixing, mastering and a lot
of our production, he just you know, worked with it
and really I think did some incredible work on making
sure that the whole album, you know, the whole album
live on Long Island all the I think there's sixteen
there's gonna be sixteen songs on the album, all of
them are as true to what we do live as possible.
And that's that's another thing, you know, to not be
too long winded about it. Over time, and you'll see
this with every band right that puts out any live record.
Speaker 2: Over time, it's.
Speaker 3: Almost like the live version of the song is almost
it's it's almost like a different song almost, you know,
with the with the intensity that goes into it and
the little live bits that you do. You know, we're
a band, we love our bits, you know. It's a
thing that that's become part of who we are as
a band, and we've always really appreciated, you know, a
good bit, and we wanted to have all that in there,
all the crowd callbacks, all the you know, the haze
and the hose and all that stuff. So you know,
between everything, we had room mics in the room picking
up the freaking up the crowd. We had mics on
the cameras, we had, we had the mics from the board.
So we mixed all that together and obviously put it
together with the video as well. So yeah, we wanted
to have this kind of combo product of like live album,
live video, all that.
Speaker 2: Stuff that we can put out the same time.
Speaker 1: It's the type of music that you know, first of all,
I have to check it out first with my earbuds
to see how if you know, how intimate it is,
God almighty, it was unbelievable. And then I want to
hear it on a radio station. I want to hear,
you know, shoot through the air on an FM signal,
just so I can pick up on the vibe on
that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and that's what we try to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We we have a lot of our stuff gets played
locally on a really good radio station here locally on
Long Island called ninety four to three The Shark, and
I know we've sent them all the stuff, and we
also get played on this is satellite, so it's a
little different. But Little Stevens Undergroand Garage, yes, on a
few of those few of those stations quite a bit.
We're played on Rodney's Bingenheimer Show quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Excuse my Long Island accent.
Speaker 3: We're played on Rodney Bingenheimer's show quite regularly that that
team has run our music quite a bit. But we've
also been played on they have a station specifically for
quote unquote coolest songs in the world. So we have
to thank the folks over at Little Stevens Undergroand Garage
for putting our songs. And our friend, a friend of ours,
Kelly Agden and the Dolly Rots has also has our
own show which is a great show, which I try
to listen to as much as possible, and she's actually
premiered a few of our songs as well, and has
uh you know, has has has been awesome. So that station,
we love that station, Channel twenty one on Serious XM.
So a big fan of their that too.
Speaker 1: You aren't afraid to jump on streaming platforms. I mean,
I mean you're you're everywhere, dude. I mean, that's the
greatest thing about what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are.
Speaker 3: You know, we realized in today's today's age. While it's
hard because I know there is major pushback against the streamers,
and rightfully so, because musicians aren't being compensated what they
think is a good or fair rate for what putting
the music out there, but we've also as a band
have realized that it's one of those things where it's like, well,
if you're not there, then no one's going to hear you.
So while it is a little bit of like, hey,
you're playing first exposure, we know that we can reach
so many more people through being on all these different
streaming channels, whether it is Spotify, Apple Music, you know,
Deezer band Camp, Amazon Music, YouTube, all that stuff. But
at the same time, that philosophy also follows us to
the other social media avenues that we have to be on.
Speaker 2: And while it.
Speaker 3: Is absolutely a ton of work to keep up with
all this.
Speaker 2: Stuff, We're on.
Speaker 3: Whatever they're calling Twitter these days, We're on you know,
Facebook for the people that still use Facebook. We're on Instagram.
We're on TikTok, and we're on YouTube. We're on Blue Sky,
and we're on Twitch. And Twitch has been some of
the most fun we've had with Twitch because I'm naturally
meet personally outside this world of rock and roll and
all that stuff. I'm actually a pretty avid gamer. Wow.
Speaker 2: I'm also like a little bit of a gaming historian.
Speaker 3: So Twitch has always been something to me that's been interesting,
but it's always been so much more tailored towards gaming
and I when we started doing stuff on Twitch, it
was really cool to kind of add that kind of
game the sphere attitudes to what we were doing. And
it also allows our listeners and anyone who wants to
tune in on Twitch. If you want Twitch dot tv,
slash Bad Mary Band, We're a Bad Mary band on
every single social media platform, so it's easy to find.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: But you know, people who come there, you know you're
getting a live show. Granted it's in our studio, but
you're getting a little bit of everything there. So yeah,
you know, that's all part of it. You know, you
have to be in all these different places so that
people can hear your music. And we've also had a
really great time streaming to stuff like TikTok as well,
where TikTok has been great for us for discovery, Like
we've had a lot of people find us through TikTok
because we posted a fifteen second clip of one of
our videos. So it's good, good places to be. I
guess you know, it's exhausting, but it's we're out there.
Speaker 1: I love the lettering for Mars Attack. I mean, you
guys really put a lot of thought into this because
it instantly gets your attention, especially with the way you're
spelling Mars as well.
Speaker 3: So that's funny.
Speaker 2: So I appreciate that we really really do.
Speaker 3: So. Mars Attacks was a song that was originally released
on an EP we had put out called we Could
Have Saved the World, which came out, and that's actually
one of the lyrics in the song which came out
and in I want to say twenty sixteen. Wow, Yeah,
and that's on an EP called We Could Have Saved
the World. But it's become our the second song we
play live every single time. It's always the second song
because we kick our first song, whatever our opening song
is for a show, we kick that right into Mars
Attacks and we get that whole thing with the haze
and all that stuff. And you know, when we were
coming up with what to name that song when it
was written, I put together I'd written, I had written
the majority of that that song. You know, obviously, everything
we do is super collaborative. Everyone brings their ideas into
the into the rehearsal space and then were working on
and we hash it out together. But that was one
of the songs that I had brought to the table.
And you know, I'm a big sci fi guy. I'm
a huge nerve, so you know, it's just it's just
is what it is. And we as a band are
really like I joke around all the time if like
I do, these people know that we're just a bunch
of dorks, So you know, we I always want to
write stuff about robots and aliens and all that stuff.
So we'd written that song and then Amanda just kind
of threw it out as Mars Attacks with the Z
and then we started laughing and she was like no, no, no, wait,
and then she did Mars Mars Attacks with the M
A R Z A T T A QX. So you
know where where where. We are definitely a braddy, sarcastic
kind of band. But that's all part of the charm,
I think, and part of what we do.
Speaker 1: Well, it's all about the attitude because I mean, you're
a glam punk band. I mean, you've got to live
up to that title.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, we we we we started calling
ourselves that because we were getting into these these things
where you know, we were not punk enough to be punk,
and we were not pop punk. We were not poppy
enough to be pop punk. So we were kind of
lost in this kind of like see of whatever the
heck we were doing. But we really wanted to ensure that,
you know, there is a glam aspect to what we do,
whether it's you know, David with his pink fuzzy straps
and his Hello Kitty guitar, or you know, I wear
you know, sometimes they've been there. I've been known to
wear a you know sparkly, you know, leather biker jacket
that you know, I sprayed down with with with with
spray paint, and you know, and and or you know, uh,
like a glitter covered suit jacket and things like that.
And Amanda always just you know, she's always just been
her her whole kind of ouva, if you will. It's
kind of this, you know, this kind of glamorous, you know,
impeccable makeup, you know, impeccable, impeccable style, right, and that
kind of feeds through it. But also in the end,
you know, we as a band, we're a New York band,
and we've always we've always wanted.
Speaker 2: That to be part of it.
Speaker 3: And you know, what is glam if it's not New York,
you know. And that's also why we named one of
our records Trash and Glamor, because we wanted that to
really be representative of who we are and where we're from,
you know. And I think New York in general, you know,
is like in a nutshell. I think that's the vibe, right.
You can you can be in New York City, you know,
you could see someone in New York City, you know,
wearing a five thousand dollars suit eating a you know,
dollar slice of pizza next to a one hundred thousand
dollars car. That's you know, got a two foot high
pile of garbage next to it. And that's kind of
what makes New York beautiful. It's all that stuff is there,
and that's the attitude, you know, the attitude of it too.
We want to make fast, loud, fun music that really
represents that. So you know, when we have a song
called It's All Trash, that's kind of, you know, kind
of part of the fun.
Speaker 1: You know, dude, you got to come back to the
show anytime in the future. Every time you guys drop
a new song, we got to talk about it and
get the word out there.
Speaker 2: Sure, I am down.
Speaker 3: We are down. We're working on a new EP right
now as we speak.
Speaker 2: We don't have a name for it yet.
Speaker 3: But we definitely have a couple of songs that are ready.
We will have new singles out this summer, and we
should have yeah, we should have a we should have
a new EP out this fall. We're also going to
do a Halloween cover.
Speaker 2: Single, Nice and Yeah.
Speaker 3: We got a lot of stuff we work on.
Speaker 1: Something well, we got to talk about it. In the
future then we'll book it, all right, Please do reach out.
We're always happy to chat and talk about anything. Will
you'd be brilliant today? Okay, you too, Thank you so much,
thank you. Please do not move. There's more with Mike
Stob the basis for Bad Mary coming up next. Hey,
thanks for coming back to my conversation with Mike Stobb
from the group Bad Mary.