Speaker 1: Hi, this is Bobby Brown and welcome to another fucking podcast.
Kids with your loud music and your Dan Fogelberg, your Zeema,
hula hoops and pac Man video games. Don't you see?
People today have attention spans that can only be measured
in namo seconds, old legends and they just do great
like Legend.
Speaker 2: And an Adam work from with a lot of like.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello Las Vegas, Hello World, Hello, my loyal minions.
It is good to see you now, He's good to
be seeing. I'm as He Presley and this is another
f and podcast. I'm the host of the program, as
you would think, so since you know my name's in
the program, make sure you guys check out all the
social media is at real Azy Presidenty all the way
across the board to an Instagram, Facebook, and of course
the show page. Another FN podcast, got a great show
for you lined up today something that has been a
lifelong dream of mine. There was this band that I
fell in love with nineteen ninety called scatter Brain, and
a few months back I get a friend request from
some cat named Glenn Cummings and I did math, Yes,
I did math, and I realized it was the Glenn
Comings from Scatterbrain and he is on the show today.
He's on the show this afternoon. He is part of
this project that he was in in the night. He's
called Stone Deep. The album that is out now is
a reissue remaster of a bunch of the stuff that
Stone Deep did. It is called Kung Fu Rip and
it is It is rap rock. It is rap metal.
It is the best way to describe it is. Really
it's very very much down the vein of a stuck
mojo type thing, and it's really good. It is really good.
And that I only use the stock mojo comparison because
that gives you a starting point. And they were ahead
of the curve. I mean it started in nineteen ninety two,
so they were ahead of the rap rock curve. And
I think you're really going to enjoy the story. And
we're gonna get into some Scatterbrain stuff obviously, some ludicrous
stuff obviously, and we're gonna have a lot of fun.
I think you're gonna enjoy this interview. I had a
goddamn blast doing it. Probably no show next week because
I am going to be on the most as a
rock cruise. Actually we can be gone leaving on Thursday,
I get back on March thirteenth, so that is two
weeks that I am gone. I'm gonna try to do
a show on the boat, but obviously you won't hear
until I get back. Man, there will probably be no video,
just audio only because I don't have room on my phone. Whatever. Oh,
before we get into the Glenn Commings interview, please please,
please please, if you do like the show, subscribe. Get
that subscription button right there, and we are back on Spreaker.
And that is why we are not live. And it
sucks not being able to do it live, but it
is what it is, and this is the last time
I'm gonna whine about it, because fucking whatever one part
about doing it prerecorded, I can do it when I want.
You know. There's no appointment listening anymore, which sucks. But
I can do it when I want. I can put
out two shows a week, three shows a week if
I get ship lined up, because I can record when
I want, when I want and when I want, and
post it when I want, when I want, and when
I want. So we'll be on the moster's of rock cruise.
Make sure you guys check out and cruise to the edge.
Get my program. Maybe last Friday, two records came out,
two a very popular guitar players solo obviously a'ce Freeley
and mcmah Let me do it over here so you
can see so good. Oh yes, yes, I highly suggest
these records if you're gonna ask me to pick between
the two. Sorry, Ace, the mcmaarrs record is superior, but
the Ace Frayley record is good as well. And I
probably gonna have Steve Brown on the show to talk
about it at some point, because Steve worked very closely
with Ace, along with my good friend, close personal friend
Joey Cassata. Maybe give them on together. But they're on
three sides this week, so I don't know. I'm gonna
watch the show. I'm gonna watch the three sides and
the ship that they don't touch on. Maybe we have
Steve and Joey on talking about it. I don't know,
we'll see it. I will say whatever. Cool. So anyways,
without further though, Ladies and gentlemen, Glenn Cummings, scatter Brain,
ludicrist stone deep enjoy, all right, and we are back,
and part of me will I go, oh, get into
my cheesy radio voice into this. Ladies and gentlemen, it's
gonna be big fun coming up. God, I don't know
why I do that, Ladies, and Jen, I'm joining us.
You know him from Scatterbrain and Ludacrist and he has
his band, or had a band called Stone Deep. His
name is Glenn Cummings and he is amazing fucking guitar player.
And according to Wikipedia, Glenn, Joe Saturani thought you and
your partner in Scatterbrain were phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul Neder, Yeah, thank you, thank you. Joe doesn't
get any better than Joe Satriani. Right, a monster. He's
a total monster.
Speaker 1: Do you know him? Have you met him?
Speaker 2: I've never met I've seen him play strangely, and maybe
this is kind of a longer story, Joe was on
Joe's you know, two records. I can't remember what the
first one was, but the second one was what Surfing
with the Alien? Yeah, yeah, he was on Relativity Records
and all of our Ludaicrist and the first Scatterbrain where
we're basically on Relativity even though they were called Combat
Combat Corps and then in Effect Records, it was it
was the same company. So so Steve was kind of
over there and would go in and steal as many
copies of Steve's out vinyl. I mean, Joe's kind of
vinyl as possible. Every time we went into the offices
were huge fans.
Speaker 1: No, he's a he's a super nice guy, super humble.
I do this thing. I work on the Mosses of
Rockers and he's on the Monsters of Rockers this year,
and I do Mosses on the Mountain. He played there
a couple of years ago, and I ended up in
the shuttle back to the hotel from Gatlinburg to Knoxville,
and I got the stern talking to from one of
the gals in the office, just you know you're gonna
be riding with Joe sachi Ron. He said, oh, fuck up.
Speaker 2: Come on, honestly, don't bug him. He's gonna take a
little nap. Donky.
Speaker 1: Well it was him and Don Jamison had a great conversation.
I was just sitting in the back enjoying it. But
so the reason that you're here because something, something just
came out last week. You were a part of a
band called Stone Deep and it was out in Nashville
and it was a rap rock band. And I'm just
I mean, I'm just learning about this and you know,
giving it a listen. You guys were really you started
what ninety two, correct, yeah, two, and that was really
at the forefront. Yeah, we had like Anthrax, I'm the Man,
and you know they did the did the thing with
with Chuck d And that was really it as far
as rap rock goes, because I think Stuck Mojo was
after that, am I correct?
Speaker 2: You know, probably probably about the same Probably those bands
like Stuck Mojo were probably about the same time. Okay,
what yeah?
Speaker 1: What what drew you to it? I mean because obviously,
you know, you come from a hard rock, heavy metal
even though you can kind of hear a little bit
a little bit of the rap and scatter.
Speaker 2: Breed, right. Yeah, it's a kind of funny story. I
mean we so like I grew up in Long Island
and and you know, like my exposure or like my
first experience so we can talk about it later with
music was really playing in hardcore bands in New York.
And that's really right around when I started going to college,
which was nineteen eighty three, and at the same time
as the hardcore stuff was coming out, like the first
super amazing rap that had like heavy beats were coming
out like Sugarhill Gang was earlier and all that stuff,
but like the early like ll cool J and Run
demn See that actually had guitars, or like Llo cool
J didn't have guitars, but he had so much attitude
that he kind of felt like he had guitars. So
we were kind of I was gonna fan all, you know,
like or kind of a pretty extreme fan kind of
from early on. And in ninety two there was a
kind of moment where it seemed like it was uncertain
like what Scatterbrain was doing. So so I decided I
had a girlfriend. Tell me if this is too long
of a.
Speaker 1: Story, no, no, no please.
Speaker 2: I had a fairly long term girlfriend who lived in
Los Angeles and she had just moved back to Nashville
where she grew up, and I went down to visit her,
and after being in New York for so long, Nashville
was like Nashville was amazing, you know. It was like
all this music happening and none of it was country music,
and it was like there were like jazz bands and
rock bands and crazy heavy metal bands and everybody was
going like we were going to like concerts like seven
days a week and beer was cheap. Yeah, the bands
were great, you know, and I was like, I'm kind
of I was really thinking, well, maybe I just kind
of moved down here to Nashville, which I did. And
when I kind of moved down one of the first
things that happened and was I ran into these these
guys that had a band and the band the band
was called the Hardcore Corps and they had they had
a record deal with Interscope and like they had this
meteoric rise, like they got discovered, they got signed. Jam
Master J from Run DMC produced their record along with
Bill Nicolo from the Butcher Brothers. They went straight on
tour with Iced Tea during the body Count. Oh wow.
Then they moved and they went on tour with Primus
and they kind of were on tour with twenty four
to seven Spies. They did a year of that and
then they got dropped by everybody, record company, the booking agency,
and it was like what happened? So this was the
exact moment I moved to Nashville. They were like wow,
they were like what happened? And they had a bunch
of of shows still booked, like some in Atlanta, some
in Tennessee and their guitar player was like a had
like a real job. He was like he was kind
of an engineer, and and when everything fell out, he said, look,
look i'm married. You know, I got to kind of
like I got to do this. So I was sitting
in a bar and this and the bass player Kelly Butler, said, hey, man,
do you know anybody who could, like who's like fast
enough that could fill in on some of these shows?
And I said, yeah, I know somebody me right, Like,
I'm not doing anything around drinking beer, like listen to
their music. So I kind of I had I think
I had something I was kind of doing. I was
doing something together with Mucky Pop. Maybe it was like
a record they were working on. I think I was
back in New York and then I came back down
and I played a couple of shows with the guys
and we had a total blast. Like we didn't even
have a rehearsal. We just kind of I learned their
music in the in the car on the car ride
down from New York. I took notes, you know, like
I had like a note man, And I was like,
I was like, I'm pretty sure that's a the f whatever.
Listen to the CD like fifteen times, and then we
kind of we went and played the shows and we
had a blast it like hit totally hit it off.
And I was like, you guys have like a like
in some ways they had They just had like a
chemistry like that was really that was super super different
than than what we were doing with with Scatterbrain right,
and it just felt like a live and spontaneous and
so we started we said, okay, well let's do some songs,
let's do some recording. And initially we thought we were
just gonna look for We're going to just continue to
call it the Hardcore and we kind of make a
new record and get a new label. And then when
we started writing songs and we did our first session,
we were like, okay, I think it's something else, and
so we changed the name to Stone Deep. We pretty
much did it. Did the band from ninety two until
I think we took a break in ninety nine, and
then last year, like everybody else on earth, we got
back together and we started playing. We thought, are we
just like a bunch of old men that like, you know,
it's just gonna work, you know, Yeah, And we got
together and it actually it actually felt really it felt
really good. It felt fresh. We took some old recordings
and we remastered them, and we put it and we
put them online like on Facebook and and Instagram and
and in like three weeks we had like twenty four
thousand followers. Holy shit, and it's like, holy shit, And
these kind of young kids were saying stuff like, dude,
how do you get like the how do you get
the that crazy like nineteen nineties sound. We're like, like, well,
ironically be from the nineties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, recorded in the nineties, that's how you do it. Well,
you know, it's a funny that you know, you talk
about how this came came out in like ninety two,
and you know, I didn't know what was going on
with scatterin there was it was a real weird time
in the in the in the music industry because you
had that great wall of Nirvana come down, and that
not only affected you know, eighties glam rock as I
like to call it, I hate the term hair metal,
but you know, it affected metal, it affected pop music,
it affected everything. Everything changed, and so it was like
it was probably you know, it had to be something
in your mind, like funk, what am I going to do?
Now let's go see right.
Speaker 2: You know, we had with with I'm gonna jump back
and forth between we had like Scatterbrain had left in
Effect Records, which was, you know, kind of part of
the same family as Combat, Combat Core and Relativity, like
sort of towards the end of the arc of here
comes trouble because there were two guys from Elektra Records
that were like huge fans and they were both like
senior vice presidents, and we thought and basically we were
ending the we were ending the tour cycle. So basically
our tour support budget and our label support. They had
done a fantastic job, Steve Martin and Howie Abrams had
done like an amazing job kind of pushing stuff forward,
but there was like still some life left in it,
and so Electra wanted to like buy out that the
remainder of that buy that option and then then get
our next two options. And there were all sorts of
kind of like legal weirdnesses there, but we were like, yeah, okay,
let's do it. So we put out one album on
Electra and well, first we weren't sure if we should
do it right because so we kind of left and
we put one album out on Electra. That's a longer story,
but basically, our two senior vice presidents got fired almost
like as soon as the album came out, and we
were like, uh now what, so basically tour support fell off,
and when you know, back at that moment, everybody was
get everybody was selling their labels. You know, if we
even if we would have stayed at in effect like
later that year, in effect sold everything to I mean,
Relativity sold itself to Sony, so that whole label disappeared.
Electra kind of did its own kind of weird transformation,
so it was like the whole thing just shunk down,
and I don't think anybody really had a context for understanding,
you know, like the other guys and the men were
maybe more of the mind of like, let's wait until
stuff kind of settles a little bit and we can
see what the landscape is. And I was more of
the mind like I got nothing to do, you know,
like yeah, so like let's let's let's rock for like
two hundred bucks a night or whatever we got to do.
But like, yeah, it's about kind of it's about momentum,
and that's what kind of led me to kind of
head to Nashville in some ways.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's so funny just to touch on
that for you know, for a second. Is that you
know you said the two guys with the rush got fired.
There was a lot of that happening around the industry
at the time because oh you work with those hair bands,
we don't need you. Boom, you're done. You know, like
you hear that story, I think I think that's what happened,
is Tom Zutat right, you know, it happened to a
lot of guys, so yeah, that it makes sense that
your guys at that time got shit canned.
Speaker 2: Right, And they were like they were kind of funny
guys too, like Howard Thompson like signed like a bunch
like some really a crazy range of things from like
from like Byork to like the Pixies and you know,
or like there's a bunch of things too that were
like they weren't even alternative, they were just more like unusual,
unusual groups that they were just like you know, it's
like old school A and R like hire the hire
the weird band and then just support them through twenty
years and they'll do amazing stuff. Except except we sort
of got like maybe a year out of it before
before they kind of.
Speaker 1: Went yeah right right.
Speaker 2: Before they're unconditional love just sort of you know, like
the whole economic world changed, so you know, it wasn't
any but it wasn't their fault. It was like more corporate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, for sure. So the so deep things.
So you said you got you guys got together bout
a year? Are you? Were you out playing gigs again?
Were you just kind of jamming?
Speaker 2: Well? I mean so yeah. Part of the funny part
is like everybody else is still in in Nashville and
I wound up in in New York. So so we
made a couple uh weekends where I go down to
Nashville and like we'd run through songs and build back
some of the repertoire and have dinner and talk and stuff. Yeah,
and then after like two or three times, maybe two times,
then we're like, Okay, we probably should do promo photos
next time, and then we probably should start shooting videos,
and then we figured we would remaster and re release.
The funny thing is we made like five albums during
that nine year stint, and one of them got like
acknowledged by the Grammy Foundation as like best independent recording
from nineteen ninety six. We won every regional award we
could kind of win in Nashville, and there were a lot,
so it was like, regionally, we've kind of had this
incredible success, but like nobody outside of like Nashville or Kentucky,
Tennessee actually heard anything. So we thought, Okay, let's put
some of this stuff out again and just see. Like
so once we started doing that, we just started getting momentum.
And then we started playing a couple a couple gigs,
and so we've been gigging, but only in Nashville. Okay,
well Nashville and Memphis.
Speaker 1: I love Memphis, Yeah, well I love Memphis when you
stay in the decent parts of Memphis. When you get
you get like behind Elvis Presley Boulevard.
Speaker 2: Year But it's like saying I love New Orleans and
you're like, which part of New exactly? Some parts that
are still really really struggling, you.
Speaker 1: Know, well I suppose, I mean, it's like, you know,
I equated to There was an eighties band out of
Minneapolis called Slave Rat. I'm from Minneapolis, and they were
big in the Upper Midwest, but it was pre Internet.
It was pre and like you guys. They were on
the Headbanger's Ball or whatever, and they were on a
licensed to drive soundtrack. But that's really the height of
where that went. You know, they were a regional band,
and it kind of sounds like Still Deep was the
same thing, especially because it's pre Internet. You know, do
you think it do you think do you think it
could have been different had it been Internet times?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, Yeah, I think maybe because at
that point we were still really really trying to like
we did everything ourselves, right, we kind of, yeah, we
did our own recording sessions, we put out our own
uh our own release, and we booked our own tours,
we uh we made our own merchandise. We kind of
we basically did everything, and but we still kind of
had the idea that eventually, at some point we would
we would get a label involved and we get at
least enough financial support to like build out a team. Yeah,
and and that just sort of like it wasn't where
the where the rest of the music world was, and
so we had a great time doing it ourselves. And
then you know, as the guys got a little bit older,
everybody started getting married and having kids and was like, okay, well,
let's put it on hold for a while, you know,
but now it's kind of been fun to go back
to it. In some ways, the music sounds well, here,
here's what this is. This is really funny. We when
we were playing the same music back in the nineties,
people used to say, oh, this music it's over, like
like your your style, and we're like, well, what style
is that? Exactly? Yeah, this style is over, say okay.
And then when we started just playing again, people were like, oh,
this sounds like, this sounds fantastic. So it's like the
things that were the things that were over twenty five
years ago are not over any I guess they're not old.
They weren't actually over, they just weren't of that moment.
Speaker 1: Well that that's always how the cycle seems to go,
and it's it's always after twenty years that's when the
comeback drums, you know, because then the two early two
thousand US when the eighties stuff started coming back, right,
you know, seventies in the nineties, it's like boom, It's
like clockwork.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like clock It's literally like clockwork. It's amazing.
So many great, so many great bands are back, you know, which.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, like even with like the resurgers of
Limp Biscuit, you know, even though it's a different style
inside the same style, you know, it's got to help
a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's fantastic and and like all
of us have kind of friends in different bands and
things over the over the years from from touring, so
you know, it's it's great to see those those those
folks kind of like friends and people whose music we
love like out there kind of doing it and and
hopefully we'll connect to do some shows together with some
of those some of those acts along the way too.
Speaker 1: How close did you guys come though, as far as
like to possibly getting a label and all that stuff, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I mean we we allegedly had label deals like
six times. You know, like there were different you know,
it's like people they got the they got the recordings,
they loved it, they came in, they saw a show,
they were blown away. We said another you know, we
said another time for them to see more shows. There
was a phone call where they said they're hoping to
get support from the rest of the team. That's always
the like super key word, and then things would kind
of peter out. So it happened. It really happened like
five or six times. And then after you know, the
first three times we're like okay when we're like sending stuff,
and then the last two times we were like, okay,
well you just come we're playing and just come on
down and stay at my house. And you know, see
the gigs and the band was always fantastic live and
and because it was Nashville in the in the nineties,
the stud videos were and still are, you know, like
world class. And basically, you know, the people who are
kind of working on the high end projects like the
Garth Brooks Records or whatever, they weren't necessarily country fans.
They were audio fans, fidelity fans, and so it was
very easy. Like there were some really great, great guys.
We worked with a guy named Mike Griffiths who had
like tons and tons of hits and another guy named
Rob Earls who had his own studio for years, and
they were both like world class guys, and they'd be like, yeah, yeah,
we got we've got plenty of empty studio time. Let's
work out a deal. And you know, it was like
it was, it was fantastic. It was very easy to
live and kind of make music and record in Nashville
at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nashville was cheap then. Oh yes, I mean especially
compared to New Yorker. I mean I was in LA
for eight and a half years too. It's like, and
that's where everybody they're going to Nashville. I'm in Vegas
now or Austin, which is basically turning into LA. You know.
Speaker 2: I remember going from New York and we went to Nashville,
and I was splitting an apartment with my girlfriend, and
I think we had like a we had a nice,
like two bedroom apartment. I think, like I don't know,
maybe it was like six hundred dollars a month and uh,
and we were outraged that we were paying so much,
so we bought a house. We bought a house, like
really close to downtown because the mortgage.
Speaker 1: On the house was cheaper than rent.
Speaker 2: Would only be around three hundred dollars a month, holy shit.
And it was way cheaper than rent. So we were like,
why are we paying so much for rent when we
could just pay half the price for kind of the mortgage.
Speaker 1: Of course, now you're thanking God. I should have held
onto that house. Oh house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the around two in the early two thousands,
like the like real estate like houses that were like
thirty thousand dollar houses became like four hundred thousand dollar houses,
you know, just like in like two years. It was
like insane. So people who invested in real estate in
Nashville and everywhere across the US did did you know
had a real bump there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well I saw that. I don't remember the TV show Scrubs,
but I think I follow the guy that played the
todd and he's like, he's a real estate guy. I
just saw him. He was all proud he sold a condo,
which means he sold an apartment or nine hundred thousand
dollars in Santa Monica. And it's probably the size of
my apartment here.
Speaker 2: Much great, exactly exactly what it? Oh, yeah, it's an
article is last year, maybe about a year and a half,
that in New York that the median, the median apartment
in New York hit one million dollars in apartment. Now,
most medium doesn't mean the average, right, it just means like,
if there's a thousand, you basically take the one in
the middle, and what does that cause? But most apartments
are one bedroom apartments. There's only like a very smooth
you know, like the very few apartments like in certain
parts of town that are that are two or three
bedroom apartments good because who can who can afford them? Right?
Speaker 1: It's just insane. I mean I live on the Strip
and I'm paying eleven hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 2: Huh not some bad.
Speaker 1: Vegas, Baby Vegas. But Vegas is starting to get out
of control too, So so you're gonna do some gigs,
you can have some fun. That's kind of what you're
doing with Stow Deep right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been having a great time. We released a
new album called Kung Fu Grip. That's a well new album,
a remastered version of the album we put out in
in Uh in ninety six, and in some ways it's
kind of my favorite album because we kind of switched
from like guitar based drums, DJ vocal ur our DJ
second vocalist got just busy with work and things, so
we had this like strip stripped down version of the
band and it was like it was like a super
energized time. So I think the albums are really really great.
It's like on all the streaming services now. Yeah, and
that's the way to do it, and we'll play some
gigs this fall, I mean this spring. Sorry, wrong time
of year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, and then and we'll
have a great time. So so we got to talk
scatter Brain. We got to talk a little scatter Brain.
So so Scatterbrain originally started out as Ludachrist. Yeah, I mean,
the gist of it.
Speaker 2: Well, this is kind of funny story around it because
you know, like at the time, the second Ludicrist album
it didn't really like, it didn't really sell very well,
and and so there were a lot of like this,
it's this weird thing in the world of music that
if you have one one album that doesn't sell, it's
very hard to kind of jump start the next one. Yeah,
so we were we had written the whole third Ludicrist
album and tell me if I'm going into too much detail,
no no, no, the more the gooder. And and it's
just around the time when when Howie Abrams and Steve
Martin had been charged with, you know, heading up this
new version or this new imprint of Inside Relativity called
in Effect, and they had already put together like it
was like Agnostic Front twenty four to seven Spies Nuclear Assault,
Limbo Maniacs, some other things. They kind of moved over there,
and we knew how we from shows. We didn't really
know Steve, but Steve had previously played an Agnostic front
and he was like also like a pretty savvy promo guy.
And so Howie and Steve came out to like some rehearsals,
Like I think there was a big question mark whether
the label even wanted to make the third Ludicrist album,
like this is like and so we were like, okay,
because let me tell you, the album budgets weren't really
you know. It's like like you could have afforded to
be the record label for well.
Speaker 1: Let's get ahead of ourselves here. That's funny.
Speaker 2: I could have whatever, Like we could get like five
guys in any bar together and fund the second Ludicrist records.
So there wasn't a lot of money at stake. So
Howie and Steve came down to see the rehearsals, say
what the hell are these guys doing anyway, and and
they both kind of loved the new material and uh,
and so they started kind of like coming to rehearsals.
It was the first time we kind of had an
a and r presence at all, and we went through
I mean, we can go back to this with the
more detail in how we developed the songs and recorded
them up at Normandy Sound with Tom Sores and and
we got through the whole thing. I think we I
think we even had artwork underway, and and Howie and
Steve were like, we're running into all sorts of block
and promotional blockades already. We think like, this is a
this is an incredible album, and we're going to sort
of get cock blocked out of the start with it
being a Ludicroust album. So we said, okay, like what
are we talking about. They said, well, if you shift
the name like that kind of freeze up a lot
of a lot of the problems. So the record company
held a contest to rename us, and that's awesome, and uh,
the entries are like they're they're absolutely hysterical, you know,
they're like, yeah, everyone is X rated and kind of
more absurdist than the next. In the end, I don't
think I think we we we gave somebody a prize
and then we just picked the name scatter Brain, and
uh and it was like became scatter Brain. So then
the since the story was that basically the story became
like it was a new band because that was part
of like how we could kind of how it could
break from the previous thing. But if you go back
to videotapes or even like search YouTube, you're gonna see
all these Ludicrist videos where we're playing Don't Call Me
Dude and uh and all the songs from the new
Ludicrist album, which is pretty which is is pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Were you, well, were you doing the the costumes and
all that ship in Ludicrist.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. You know, we kind of we
weren't because we well with the first record. I mean,
you have to remember this is like nineteen eighty five
eighty six, So touring was a lot more rough and
like heart like the first album. We were considered a
hardcore band, which meant we mostly played at in storage
spaces like you know, billiard halls, people's parents' house, We
slept in clubs, we slept in the van, you know.
So we toured a good amount, but it was really
rough and ready. And by the second album, the world,
like the music world was getting more like crossover. Basically
there was like heavy metal stuff meeting hardcore stuff. And
so the shows tended to be like there was more
concentration in like bigger venues, so we would go and
actually pay play real venues on that tour. But it
was like we'd have like five shows in a row,
and then we come home for two weeks, and then
we'd have another five then we drive to like Michigan
and like play like six shows kind of in a row.
Like we were really like we didn't really have proper
tours except for a European run. And I think the
costumes only really started when when we were months of
five shows a week, six shows a week as a
way to just stay.
Speaker 1: Stay entertained. I mean, you can't really wear a chicken
outfit in a hardcore show in the corner of a.
Speaker 2: It would rule. The precedent for me always was we.
I was always a big MDC Millions of the Cops
fan and uh and we played with them in Berlin
before before the wall came down, right, so it was
like heavy crazy police presidence. It was like military zone
and in this giant squat we kind of we we
played a show together with with MDC and I hadn't
seen them in years and Dave Dickter the singer. We
were like hanging out backstage I get ready to play,
kind of like he dresses up in this Elvis costume,
just going what the hell is going on? Like like
NBC like such an intense, intense act. I'm like, what
the hell's he dressing up like Elvis? Like it's not like, uh,
what was that band? It was a band in like
the Zeppelin, yeah right right, doing the Hey like reggae
kind of Elvis Zeppelin tune. And it was the same
thing like like like Dave was just like they're just
like keeping the absurd spirit alive, like doing doing whatever
they're gonna do. And I always felt like that was
like an extension of Tommy's move into the Chicken suit,
and and there are many chicken suit stories, but the
nun suit, the chicken suit. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think that that stuff might
have hurt you in the long run?
Speaker 2: You know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean because I mean you look at the videos,
you look at you know, obviously you've seen the live
stuff of the band, and it's just all this ridiculous, absurd, funny,
awesome stuff going on. But do you think like you
got maybe put into all their just a comedic band,
they'll go away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. Like me, I think it's
a really good question. I was on some video thing
I did a kind of interview thing and together with
Howie Abrams and Howie who is like the record company
guy during here Comes Trouble in effect, and how he said, Yeah,
you know, you guys, you actually just never had an image,
you know, like even when you were ludicrous, like you
were just like guys that rolled out of bed and
and got on stage in sweatpants or like, you know,
like whatever. And and I think we were kind of
really into that, like we were really into not like
we were just we were into not you know, like
not having any barrier in between, like like we're just
like guys in the audience who like got on stage
and kind of played it. And how I was saying, well,
I'm not sure that like I ever kind of worked
in your favor, like because because people, you know, it's
like now people would say, oh, that's like the look
is no look right. Yeah, But like at that point,
like nineteen eighty five or nineteen eighty six, eighty seven,
that was like somehow the world didn't get that yet
and then if you take that forward into the chicken
the chicken suit or like pigtails or kind of wearing
dresses or whatever, I think, uh yeah, I think in
some ways like there was like there was there was
still this, there was like a music business expectation that
you would have that your image would be sensational. In
some ways that wasn't like a fuck you, right. I
think our presence, whether it was silly or whatever, it
was always sort of like a fuck you to the
whole thing, like like, listen to the music because he's
in a chicken suit and and I'm a nun and
uh and Paul's where you know, he's in in his
underwear because he just is. I don't even know why.
So yeah, I think like in some ways, like a
whole portion of the world probably just said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't like that, what is that? And then I
think there's a whole other section that that that got
it because that was the like a good A good
example is at some point we got this. We got
a phone call and we thought it was a prank
phone call from this promoter in Australia and he said, hey,
you guys have a he said, this is I'm going
to forget the guy's name. He said, yeah, this is
blah blah blah. And you guys have a number three
hit in Australia. I want to fund a tour, you know,
like a month long or month and a half tour
in Australia. He said, Mom, is that you? Yeah right,
I'm like, who is this? You know? And the funny
thing is the whole, the whole no image lobster suit
as image thing like it just one hundred percent connected
in Australia and people are like, yeah, fuck that image shit.
I want to see a band where where somebody's dressed
like a giant hot dog and everybody else has a
sunbarn because they fit, you know, like and like they
like it just like made sense, Like the whole piss
take on everything made sense, and the music kind of
made like don't call me dude was that and then
the visuals were that too, And it's so funny. But
in the United States, we had a lot of like
we had a lot of support from like Ricky Rackman
or MTV and kind of like various radio stations in
different cities. But but in general, I think what you're
saying like that people didn't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well I think I think Scatter Rain though,
is very ahead of their time, not just for the theatrics,
but I mean, like you take you take a song
like Goodbye Freedom, hell a Mom, and it's almost like
that's what's going on nowadays, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like it could be a contemporary song right,
no matter where you fall on the political stress spectrum,
moving from the model of I mean people literally, like
people who talk about like critical economic theory literally use
those terms like like big big mother instead of big brother,
because it's become like a like manners and kind of
these other things which used to be more free kind
of free zone are kind of more politicized thing at
the moment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's like, you know, I was just listening
to the record again for the first time in a while,
and it's like, oh fuck, it's relevant. It's fucking relevant.
It's all relevant again.
Speaker 2: God bless, it's the thirty year thing again coming back
at It's.
Speaker 1: Like exactly obviously in the Cheech and Chong that was
a that was a beautiful choice. Is that something you
guys were doing live and just decided to do it
on the record or was that like, oh, fuck, we
love this, or you were you were high as fuck
watching Cheech and Chong said fuck it, we gotta do
this on the record.
Speaker 2: Well, there's certain songs we kind of always loved, you know.
I feel like I feel like as the album or
as the other songs kind of took shape, I think
we kind of added in Cheat, you know, like that
it was the kind of Alice Bowie scene in in
Uh Up and Smoke Up in Smoke where where where
Cheech Cheech Maren is like he's in the two two,
you know, and he's like got like some crazy mask
on and he's doing some stage moves. But like the
song is like the song the riff is is is brutal,
you know, so it's like this thing that's like a
complete joke, but then it's kind of awesome at the
same time, and we thought, yeah, yeah, that's like somebody
wrote a song for us, you know, it's like that's
our song. You know. In some ways it's the same
as like the early you know, we used to do
a bunch of classical tunes and people say, oh, were
you kind of like a Mozart fan. We're a Sceni fan,
and it's like we're like Bugs Bunny fans, you know,
like the moment where Bugs Bunny is like massaging Elmer
Fudd's head pretending to be a barber. Yeah, he's like
and he's going doom Doom, Doom, doom doom. Like we
watched that like a million times and like fell on
the floor laughing like a million times to be like
that's what music should be, right, Like in some ways,
Carl Carl Stalling, who did the you know, it's kind
of completely under underrated musical genius because he's thought to
be a cartoon soundtrack guy, and he was like he's
more influential than Stockhausen or or any kind of you know,
like Concrete composer or anybody who John Cage or people
like who took those same concepts more too in a
high brow way.
Speaker 1: So yeah, to fucking Sonata, I mean, what more do
you need?
Speaker 2: Was brilliant. We had a history of weird cover songs
like Ludichrist. Ludochrist did the first Ludochrist album. We did
Last Train to Clarksville. Really the reason was I think
I knew the Last Train to Clarksville Riff. But we
it's not much of a reason, but we thought it
would just be funny as hell to like play songs
from a TV band, you know, like they weren't even
a real like the Monkeys were, you know, like a
you know, they were like the Partridge Partridge family. So
we thought, yeah, yeah, that's kind of what we are.
We're like, we're like the Monkeys or like the Partridge Family.
And then, uh, I can't remember. We did some weird
stuff on well, the Rossini's actually on the second Ludicrist album,
which is My Fa which I which I always liked
better than the Mozart, although we got better at playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah a little bit.
Speaker 2: There's also this very weird take that's probably only on
the bonus version of Power Trip. It's called Girl from
Ewo Jima. And we used to, like when we had
nothing to do or we were waiting for Tommy to
finish his cigarette. In between songs, we would like, whatever
song we heard on the radio, we would do a
version of We would just play it like we were
playing a real song. And that was like one of
the tunes. Like I guess we were in art. We
were in Tampa and we thought it was really funny.
Like I mean, the song was probably popularized by who
Beibell Gilberto right right.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, you know the most famous thing it's in
when Jake and Elwood are in the elevator. That's the music.
And actually if you when you listen to this show
the intro right after the intro ends, that elevator version
is behind me. As I'm talking, I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it, absolutely love it. Yeah, I mean kind
of we really loved like like movie bands and like
TV bands. I thought that was like amazing, Well it
really works with what you guys.
Speaker 1: Did you know it just it just did I mean
with the whole presentation. It's like fuck it movie and
TV shit, why not?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I love it and I'm gonna tell you this, this
is really cool. So when you know, we discovered the band,
me and my friend Jeff Coldest and going. It was
probably the summer before because it was nineteen ninety and
we bought we bought the CD and in the CD
there was this merch card, so we ordered T shirts. Now,
we thought we were being smart by not getting the
Don't call Me do chrit because we went to a
Catholic high school and everybody's a dick, and I'll we're
getting hey dude, Hey dude. So we got the white
one with the scatterbrain orange thing on it, right, and
now I regret not getting the Don't call Me do
Chert shirt. But when Big Fun was coming out, you
guys sent me a package that had an autographed photograph,
this a whole bunch of press clippings, and the Big
Fun CD single. It's like, that is the coolest thing
ever you made. You made a kid's kid's day. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always felt like, you know, I mean, I was
like I grew up like we're like getting stuff, Like
getting music stuff was like a big deal. You know,
like if you've got stickers, like you think about it.
You just think about it for weeks, like putting on
like whatever you love most, and like play the album
over and over again, staring at the artwork. Yeah, you know,
it's like maybe it's like being an old person now
and it's like back in the day when we had
lots of free time, like we were kind of like
music just was like basically everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean it's like that's one of the
reasons that it was such kiss geek because all the
shit that you got. There's this band out of Minneapolis,
Flip same thing. It's like Kiss meets the sex Pistols.
He's cheap trick. It's like the same fucking thing, you know.
And I just wanted to take a chance to personally
thank you for that, cause that's that's cool.
Speaker 2: You're you're welcome, you know. For years, it really wasn't
until like the Scambogerie moment where where we started to
have somebody else do merchandise. I started doing the ludicrous
T shirts probably in probably right at the beginning eighty five.
Tommy had designed like the little logo it's like Christ
with punk rock hair and and praying hands. And then
after that he was busy with other stuff, so I'd
make flyers and T shirts and and when we changed
his scatterbrain, we just kind of made all sorts of crazy,
crazy stuff. I think at some point we got it
was either Tommy's mom or my mom that would do
the fulfillment, you know. It basically we send it to
this address, and at some point it was all going
to Tommy's house, and at some point it came to
my house. And there was a really funny part where
where I guess we were on MTV and like we
were popular and uh and so they were. They were
like a range of of fans who were women who
would like send naked pictures or they send like sexy
pictures to themselves to like to the band, and and
my mom would open them up and like answer the
so like when we got back from tour. We got
back from tours, there would be this pile of envelopes,
you know, like there would be like the answered answered mail,
and I'd look through them and there would be like
some sexy note and then they would be like I
think she used to make copy like photocopies of what
she because people use photocopies of her reply, and there
would be like some sexy note, and then she'd be
like do your francine, thank you for your lovely picture
and for being such a loyal fan to the band.
In closing, six stickers, if you enjoy them and use
them to cover whatever you need to cover.
Speaker 1: Mob I could have sex.
Speaker 2: What do you doing? This is wrong? Trap?
Speaker 1: Do you still talk to the guys?
Speaker 2: I talk to a guy a bit because he's more
like online h Tommy's kind of just seems to be
busy with the things. He's not a kind of digital person,
so I haven't talked to him in like many many years.
Guy I talked to occasionally because he's sort of like
the the Well guys, like part owner in a music
store out in Long Island, so he's kind of like
out and about and kind of talking to people all
the time. So he's sort of like the mouthpiece that's
like available to talk for the for the other guys.
And Paul like chatted with online, but I haven't spoke
to him in person a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, And do you remember the lesson you guys are
in the same room as a band, like playing or
just kind of in the show, just in the same place.
Speaker 2: Well, when the Guys, when the Guys played their first
reunion thing, they played a show here in New York
at BB King's and I kind of went to go.
I it didn't line up with my schedule, but I
went to go see them, see them play, And so
that's the last time we were in the in the
same place. But the last time we played honestly had
to be like I was trying to I was trying
to go through the listing of shows and figure out
when the last show that I played was and I
still haven't figured it out because it might have been
at streets up in New Rochelle or I'm not exactly sure.
I think I was living in Nashville. I came back
to play one show and then there was a then
I lost track of what the what the guys were doing,
and I am they might have like taken a break
for a while, and then they then they put it,
they got it things moving again and put another album
together that they that they kind of released, and I
think there was a bunch of shows to support it.
But that's the one part of Scatterbrain history that I'm
the most blurry. Well I'm blurry on many things, but
I'm the most blurry on that.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose if you weren't on it, Yeah, that
would you know? Has there been any talk about I mean,
you guys brought the idea up about doing a Scatterbrain
show here and there.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it's like the thirty or what is it,
thirty fIF Oh my god, is that right?
Speaker 1: Next year? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Right, So guys brought it up a couple of times,
you know, like if there's some kind of some but
they would have to be like some reason to for everybody.
I don't think anybody is like opposed to it, but
I don't think there's anything concrete plan to do it.
There isn't. There's another like unreleased set of demos that
it basically was the album we were working on when
we got dropped from Elektra. Okay, so there's like twelve songs,
twelve Scatterbrain songs that nobody's ever heard. So there was
some discussion about trying to get it together and kind
of do a real release of that and then but
it's all kind of just speculative at this moment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well that's that's cool, Glod. What do you do now?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. After I Well, what I do
now is I run a design studio. I have a
design studio design all sorts of stuff, and I do
some teaching in New York at a school called Pratt Institute,
which is like a art slash design school, and that's
kept me busy. Like after I after I moved to Nashville,
I basically worked as a musician, like my own thing,
and then I would pick up gigs like playing playing
for other bands or whatever to pay the bills. And
then after a while, I started working and publishing and
then advertising. Then I moved to I moved from Nashville
to Chicago, and I worked in design in Chicago, and
then I went to grad school on the East Coast
and then I moved to New York in two thousand
and two, and I've kind of been doing design stuff
since when you.
Speaker 1: Were in When you were in Nashville, did you try
to get on with with one of those bigger bands
like in Nashville, Except look, a lot of those guys
are rock players.
Speaker 2: Man, there's a lot of good guitar.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, but you're but you're in that echelon. I mean,
you're that fucking good.
Speaker 2: I would say going to Nashville to play, like, play
guitar is like going to like Alaska to like shovel Snow.
It's like, like the people that are there actually, like
the country players, actually are really really good there, the best,
super good players.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Okay, I I have an anecdote from when I first
moved to Nashville. I had a problem with my car,
so like I was like, where can I go to
like and so like a friend of a friend was like,
go to the sky. He's good. So like down some
street whatever, the middle of nowhere, dirt road. Some guy
you know, he's in overalls whatever. It's like, I'll fix
your car. So I'm like he's like, yeah, let me
give me like half an hour, just hang around, like
let me take a look at it. I'm like okay.
So he's like looking at the car. I walk around
the block or something. I come back and he's like, yeah,
I can fix it. It's going to be like fifty
bucks and whatever. And I'm like okay, and he's like,
what do you do. I'm like, I'm a musician. He's like, oh,
that's cool. You play. He's like, I got a guitar
over here. I'm like, oh, that's cool. You play a
little bit. He's like, not really play that much. I'm
like okay. So as I'm like counting my money up,
he picks up the guitar. He was an incredible, like
a world class guitar player, like but like everybody was, yeah,
this is just like the like the just standard random
guy on the street was like a good like a
totally solid guitar player who could also sing, could also whatever,
and almost everybody is. So the problem is, you know,
if you're a studio guy or you're like touring guys
are different than studio guys. And so touring guys like
they have their gig, they're out on the road like
three four months a year, five months a year or
two different runs. And then basically they just have their
own little bands that play and their their side gigs.
The studio guys, there's like ten studio guys. It's always
those guys, you know, and they're fucking monsters. And like,
so the gigs that are available, like for a New
York guitar player, are you know, like you can play
with a bunch of bands and hope that one some
of those bands go, but it's much harder to like
get like a pick up. Yeah, I mean I sat
in with a kind of a bunch of people. The
stuff that I did were like tended to be more
with like guys that I knew, like like Mucky Pup
would need a guitar player, like go out on tour
with them for a month here or there when we
weren't so busy, and we had a blast. You know,
it's super fun playing playing other you know and other
people's set up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well dude, that's that's why I do the a
is Raeli tribute thing. You know, I'll play two three
times a year. I get to play Kiss songs with
my friends and get paid for it.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Did you ever fall into the Kiss geek t them?
Being a New York kid, I.
Speaker 2: Was always a I mean I grew up like a
Kiss fan, like like I mean, I feel like I
had every Kiss album and like even when I was
you know, I think of like hanging around with my
friends in grade school, we would like we would put
Kiss records on and like jump, you know, totally jump
around there Whoever's house, like imitating you know, the songs
on Kiss Alive one and then Kiss Alive two, and
you know, it was like we just kind of stayed.
And I guess I was a Kiss fan. I really
followed pretty closely through maybe Animalize. Maybe I saw maybe
I saw the Animalize. I mean I saw them a
bunch of times. I think Animalized. They played Radio City
Music Hall and we went to go see them.
Speaker 1: That would have been with Queen's Reig opening.
Speaker 2: That sounds right, Yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 1: I'm a dork, I know these things.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Yeah, And they were great and they were great,
and then I just got to you know, I never
stopped being a kiss fan. I just got dragged into
other stuff that was more like.
Speaker 1: I always say that we as kiss fans, we are
the scientologists of rock and roll. You think about it.
We worship these gods from outer space. They take all
of our money, and if you say anything bad about them,
we will cut you. The only difference is scientologists do
not talk about scientology. Kiss fans never shut the fuck.
Speaker 2: Up space space space. I mean I was always like,
I mean, who isn't an Ace f Reely fan? I
got almost I met Ace really once, only once for
like thirteen seconds. We were at some point I was
in I had a guitar endorsement. We were indorsing. I
was indorsing Paul reed Smith guitars okay, and Paul would
do this thing where he would like he would like
go to New York and he had his like combo
which were like you know some guys who were set
players and they play like the hard Rock Cafe for
like one or two nights and invite people up and
they were like, hey, come down and play like you know,
like sit in for a song or two, like a
blue song. It's like Ace Reely's invited. Ace really says
he's coming. I'm like, holy shit, I could like be
one music in the mix with Ace Reely. That would
be like amazing. So like everybody's hanging around, and like
eventually the band's like, okay, whatever we're playing, got to
sit in with those guys. They're really super nice guys
and amazing. And then everybody like cleaned up and like
had their drink extra drinks and like move their stuff
out right, And I was just like, I can't remember
what it was. I had somewhere to be like later,
like much later at night, so I was like hanging around.
Everybody had left, and I was like, all right, I'll
get the fuck out of here. And I was walking
towards the door and this guy comes in, Hey, man,
where's the where's the fucking band? I was a band?
And I was like, uh, you mean the band that
like stopped like two and a half hours ago. He's like, uh,
this this place, you know, this is so stupid, like
this place socks or something. Well, everybody playing in the
afternoon or it was already like two in the morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I wasn't going to play a fucking afternoon. I was like,
well they're gone. He was like, all right, thanks buddy,
and I was like, hey, I medic is freely Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. That is a perfect place to end, Glenn.
I could, I could keep talking to you for hours.
Thank you so much for doing this. This has been
an absolute pleasure. Make sure you check out Still Deep.
Hit him up on all of these streaming services. Uh
and it helms out now. It's kung Fu kung Fu Grip,
Hung Fu Grip. Thank you, thank you. I only had
I have a fucking prol I mean whatever.
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure man, so good to hang with you.
Let's do it again.
Speaker 1: Please, man, you are welcome anytime we do one of
these kiss shows. We'll we'll get you on and have
some fun.
Speaker 2: Oh please, please man, I love it.
Speaker 1: That'd be fucking great, Glenn, Glenn Cummings, everybody. Well there
you go, kids, Glenn Cummings, Scatter Brain, Luda Christ and
Stone Deep. Make sure you guys check out the latest
Stone Deep remastered reissued kung Fu Grip stuff from the nineties.
It is very cool. You will thoroughly enjoy it. And yeah,
I had a blast. Glenn Cummings. What a great guy.
I could have sat and talked to him for a
couple more hours at least. I hopefully he gets out
here to Nashville Las Vegas at some point and we
can sit down and have Bever Jason have a good
old time. Maybe get him in studio. I don't, I'll see,
but he has to come to Las Vegas first for
the app and uh be back in a couple of
weeks obviously. I leave on Thursday for the Masses of
Rock Cruise, which I am a host on every year.
Not any trunk level host, but I am there. God
damn it, I am there. Love you, Ed, can't wait
to see you, can't wait to see everybody. It's going
to be a blast as frail. He's on the ball.
Speaker 2: I can't wait.
Speaker 1: And so there, Cruise to the Edge. I get back
on the thirteenth and hopefully post a show that I
recorded on the Masses of Rock Cruise. We'll see, maybe
it will happen, Maybe it will happen. All right, love
you guys, I say, good day.