Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. Pell is he here? This is another
FM podcast. Got a great show for you today. My
good friend Ted Russell Camp, bass player for the Smoking Kills,
which is the band that I'm in and plays with
Shooter Jennings. He has a brand new record that is
called California Sun which is out now. It is available.
He is on the show to talk about that album
and have a great little conversation about his life. It's
going to be great, I know because we did the
interview last week. Ah recording the interview tomorrow for the
Flip book which is called Thanks for Having Us. Bren
Aaran's from Flip and the books writer John mccolsky are
going to be on the show and I'll be co
hosted with Keith Roth from series is Exam, Ozzie's Boneyard
and Hair Nation and from the band The Dictators, who
you also know was on the show on the Metallica
the was it the Listener Summit? I believe so. Yeah.
Enjoy the show and if you are coming to Vegas
this weekend. Two great things that are happening. One at
a tribute to Ace Freeley, my Ace Frehley tribute band.
We are playing with LVDC at counts vamped. Todd Hallworth
from Frehley's comment is Playing with Us is going to
be a great show. Ten dollars at the door. But
if you are coming and want a table, call them
right now and reserve your table. Also, if you are
a metor fan you like the heavy metal music, which
I of course love as well, and you are going
to be in town for the Monto Mars show, there
is this little thing called the Metal Blade Records Museum,
so they do tours and you're going to want to
get on metal Blade dot com slash Museum and look
for Saturday because Brian Slagel will be doing the tour.
And a little birdie told me there may be a
couple special guests because there's important people in town for
that show. So get on it. It's only twenty bucks
and uh it's limited, so get on it right now.
Metal Blade dot Com, slash Museum, without further ado, ladies
and gentlemen, My good friend, my bandmate, the incomparable, the
ultimate man who he sweats positivity, he makes you smile.
His name is Ted Russell.
Speaker 2: Hi, this is Bobby Brown and welcome to another fucking podcast.
Speaker 1: My Liver's all twisted up.
Speaker 3: But you know what I did, iloaded up with alcohol,
more specifically vodka, twisty beer, tequila, more beer, more vodka,
more whisty, and more beer.
Speaker 2: Once an orange whippen hunch whip, unch whip, three orange whips.
Saw you're for.
Speaker 1: I've come here to break your monotony. Let me have
my piece because I'm shooting with this one. Folks, I
don't fare man.
Speaker 2: The unsprinted, uncensored, loose cannon of common tanner.
Speaker 1: Did you say that? Why you come out with stink
like that? Poop poop out.
Speaker 2: Sea sun Old legends never die, They just lose quake.
Speaker 1: It's like a legend and an outawork bumb of a
lot of light.
Speaker 2: Lenny.
Speaker 3: Hey, I've got a midget friend and albino friends and
another friend who thinks Lord of the Rings is real.
Speaker 2: Together we call ourselves the Unfugomtable, won is it? Let
the fun be in?
Speaker 1: Hello Las Vegas, Hello world, Hello my loyal minions. It
is good to see you, and it's always good to
be seeing the show as another FM podcast. I'm your host,
Izzy Presley, it is good to be here. Make sure
you tell everybody about the show, Share it with your friends. Subscribe,
hit that YouTube thing right down there. I'm too lazy
to or inept to put the you know they put
the link on the screen. Yeah, it's just not me.
I can't do that shit. But loick that subscribe button
and do it on the on the iTunes and wherever
you get your get your podcasts. What else have we
got coming up this Saturday night? The twenty fifth act
Attribute to a Fraili is playing at Counts Vamps. So
if you are in Vegas, come down and check us out.
Opening up for LVDC, the Sin Cities exclusive ac DC
tribute band, and we have Todd Howill from Frayley's comment
and seven oh seven and Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent
and Peter Frampton playing with us. So that is going
to be phenomenal. And also if you do like the show,
make sure you reach out. You can donate if you
like at real Izzy Presley is the Venmo dollars on
Ezzy Presley is your pay Pal or no, no, no no,
that's the cash app at Izzy Presley at yahoo dot com.
And now I'm gonna kick this off like I always
do in the words my close personal friends Stone call
Steve Austin rack one for the Working Man, Oh really quick.
Next week. Next week Keith Roth from sirius X and
we'll be co hosting and we will have uh John
Dikkowski on along with Brenarns from Flip talking about the
brand new book that is out. Also make sure you
guys check that out. But joining me is one of
my favorite people in the world. Somebody I'm lucky enough
to be in a bandwidth and plays with Shooter Jennings
and he's has a great solo career and his name
is Ted Russell Camp. It is good to see you,
my friend.
Speaker 4: It's good to see you again too.
Speaker 1: It's been way too long. I think it's been uh September,
I believe was the pool party might have been the
last time I saw. Yeah, that's right. But before we
get into the record, which is called California Son and
it's available now wherever you can get your get your music,
did you ever think that, other than being like a
mention in a Shooter Jennings article, that there would be
a Rolling Stone article about Ted Russell Camp.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was pretty cool, and that just came out
a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, it was a great article,
and I you know, I thought it was going to
be more about the album in particular, but it was
kind of a a whole kind of biography about me
and growing up and how I moved to l A
and my life here and other people I played with
and all my stuff pro shooter, uh and my solid career.
Speaker 4: So it was pretty great. It was quite an honor.
Speaker 1: It's I tell you what it's you know, even though
Rolling Stone isn't what Rolling Stone was, it's still pretty
fucking cool to say that Rolling Stone wrote an article
about you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
Speaker 2: So uh.
Speaker 1: And the album is called California Song. It is out.
It is out, It's available now, and I listened to
it yesterday finally I heard the debut on a Shooters
show was on Excellent, correct, yep, And I was like, okay,
that's this is cool. This is badass. I really enjoy
the record and the thing that I love about your writing, Ted,
and even with the smoking kill stuff, it's you still
have what I think a lot of music is missing,
and that is the art of the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for saying that. And so many
songs are about just like a moment. Yeah, and especially
when you get you know, especially as you as you
have a lot of modern dance music or hip hop. Yeah,
i'd say dance music and R and B as much
about this is what I'm feeling right now, Babe, I
gotta tell you, you know what I mean, you left me.
I need you. Let's get together. I feel so good
whatever it is. And one of the things that I
always loved about country music and even like old like
folk music is these stories and this evolution of what
happens to this person when they do the right thing
or the wrong thing and they die or their loved
one has to leave Ireland and come to America or something.
So not that all my songs have that kind of
uh level of intensity, but yeah, I like I like
it when there's the beginning, in the middle and an
end and you have or not grow or be in
the conflict and then kind of at least see tomorrow
past it. You know, well, how'd you feel that? And
hear that in the music?
Speaker 1: Well, it's that's really the art of drama. If you
I mean, if you think about I mean, you know,
Star Wars geeks, we can we can always talk about this.
There's you've got the new Star Wars, which is actually
what it really is Star Wars. Then you have the
you know, the big dramatic ending and the good guys won,
that all of a sudden, Empire strikes back. Bad guys win,
and that's the downside, that's the dark side. And then
the triumph at the end if Return of the Jedi.
It's that is the art of storytelling.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And each movie in its own, each good
movie in its own has yep epic glow, you know, like,
uh yeah, it's just human. And so much of what
we I have to deal with in life is like
when things don't go our way, we have to figure
out how to improve our world. And sometimes Bob or
your loved one or uh, you know, I've been drinking
too much. I gotta gotta figure this out. And let
you know, think about all the classic country song Me
and Me and the Bottle, you know, yeah, that's that's
a very human ancient issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, well, I mean, well, speaking of storytelling, you know,
the lead song, which is called California Son is really
that is pretty much your story?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, uh that was. That might be the most
literally autobiographical song I've ever written. And it was kind
of an experiment to do it. Yeah, and I'm happy
with how it turned out. And I, uh, you know,
it starts, I'm growing up in New York.
Speaker 4: I leave New York. I left New York in the
rear view with the.
Speaker 2: Open road ahead, and Seattle is my promised land. And
I'm gigging doing every gig I can find. And then
I moved to my apartment in Los Felis. You're the
pioneered chicken stand, so I mentioned, like the Wards Yvonne
pioneer chicken stand. Uh, And I'd like do a lot
of name dropping, I say, driving down the boulevard listening
to Tom Waits, which is one of the things I
did when I first moved to LA and I had
no friends, I would look in the paper and I
would find, Oh, this is gonna be a cool gig.
I want. I want to get to know these people, right, Yeah,
I'm fans of the people. This is the scene I
want to be a part of. And I would literally
hop in my van and put on Tom Waite's Hard
at Saturday night and then drive through Hollywood to get there.
Like that album saved me many times.
Speaker 1: You know, It's wild though, that driving through Hollywood. That
is the choice. Yeah, exactly, driving I'm driving through Hollywood
when I have my BMW, I got the top the
moon roof open, I'm blasting Ace of Spades like this
just feels so right. And Tom Waits was the choice.
Speaker 4: Tom Waits was the choice.
Speaker 2: Uh, I didn't know is show up to the place
in the best mood or most social mood in tone?
But uh, but yeah, And the song is very much
about how I uh slowly met people, how I was
drawn in by the whole myth Uh. There's a line about, uh,
you know, like when I played the Troubador and the
lore of Laurel Canyon and the Hollywood you know, and
it's like I moved here as a fan of l
A music and of course movies and film and writing.
Uh and and and so I I don't know, I
don't know. As I was as I was writing this song,
it was kind of neat experiment, and I was like,
I don't know if it should be on the record
or not. It's kind of cool. And I was thinking,
you know, the the same thing like when I when
I when I separate me from being a professional musician
or a songwriter from being a Yeah, LA as a
magic because I think we're fans of Jackson Brown and
the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, Little Feet and Los Lobos
and Dwight Yoakum and even Frank Sinatra here and Whitney
Guthrie here, like the list goes on and on.
Speaker 1: Elvis.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the the incredible music that was made here. And
so there's this mythology around LA and Hollywood that is
that that kind of spreads to everywhere else in the world.
And so I was as I was thinking about this
song more, I was like, you know, I'm and I'm
and of course we're always remember the uh the documentary
Running Down a Dream. It was like the four hour
thing about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers two years back,
and it just seems so inevitable that there are a
bunch of like high school kids in Gainesville, Florida, and
then they take the risk to LA and it slowly works,
and they have all this great old super eight footage
of them rising and rising, growing and getting better and
better and on all these great things happen, like there's
a It's just so fascinating to think, like, wow, some
dreams do come true, right, But it's always like these
stars out in the distance, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe
and Quentin Tarantino or something. And so I was like, hey,
this is kind of my story where I actually came
from somewhere else came to LA and now I've actually
been here for twenty years living here, and I'm still
inspired by the place. Dude.
Speaker 1: It's so weird because I live that big dream. Yeah, no, absolutely,
But this is the thing, Ted, It's like you're telling
your story, but you're also telling everybody else's story because
it's the dream, you know. It's that's I mean, like, yeah,
I went out there when I was forty. That's when
I went to LA. You know, I didn't go there
as a young kid. I went there when I was
forty just to live. But it was still and everything
happened just exactly like you said. Like like you just described,
it's like you get caught up in the area of
going to the rainbow and oh my god, this is
this is the this is the fucking whiskey. This is
the whiskey. You walk in there and you walk on
that stage and just think, my god.
Speaker 5: Van Halen played here, you know, you know, led Zeppelin
play it on this stage with Alice Cooper opening up,
I mean or Black Saba, one of them, they all
played there.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's totally. It's an amazing feeling and it's
you know, it's like we love music. We're sentimental as well,
you know, so that stuff. It's like it's constant. When
I get to like, hey, I got a I got
a recording session next week. Oh where's it gonna be.
It's at Sunset Sound. Oh you mean the place where
they recorded Purple Rain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the pla.
Speaker 2: Not that I'm gonna do something as good as Purple Rain,
but we're gonna try. But he'll feel it, like wow,
Elliott Smith boys. All this stuff was like in these
rooms we get to work in. Yeah, yeah, and you
know when you and you're right when you play the whiskey,
you play the tributor even the viper room, which is
kind of new where you win these places and the
stuff that we love is amazing.
Speaker 4: It's amazing, it really is.
Speaker 1: It's just like I said, there's just something about the
aura is tough as it can be, and we all
know that Hollywood will chew you up and spit you
out no matter what industry you're in. But it's like
it's just it's still Hollywood, you know, it's just so weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: And so many people move here from so many different
places and then some last, some don't.
Speaker 4: Some have a wonderful time, some have a hard time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And now that now that, I mean, I've been here
twenty years, I have no plans on leaving. Yeah, Like
I'm a lifer, and I figured it, Okay, I can,
I can. I can write this and it'll be believable
and hopefully other people will enjoy it too. You know.
Speaker 1: The think part of it is is you have a
house that you bought before it got ridiculously expensively. Yeah,
that was part of it. Was it hard for you
to write that? Did you feel like you were journaling?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, I kind of like like I I had
different versions of the verses that were a little too
just like details. Yeah, And I was like, no, I
have I want there as the imagery or some metaphors
and some you know, I have to. I wanted to
add more poetry to it, but still have.
Speaker 4: It be very direct, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And I wanted to talk about the dreaminess
of it that goes hand in hand with the details.
Speaker 4: So getting that light, you know, like I have one line, it's.
Speaker 2: Like, uh, just me and old guitar and a beat
up Chevy Van. Yeah, like I could have I could have.
I could have described the contents of my first apartment
and the desk I bought at Ikea and the couch
we got I was in the storage based on the
bottom of the apartment building because some other guy left
it there two years ago. But it's like you leave
out some of those details, right, But me and my
old guitar and it beat up Chevy Van. It's like, oh,
there's a nice ring to that, right.
Speaker 1: Well, you are a wordsmith, there is no doubt about it. You. Uh,
how long have you been working on the songs for
this record? It's I mean it seems like you put
you constantly put stuff out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I try to have a record every year or two.
Speaker 2: Uh. And sometimes I'm faster, sometimes I'm slower. I started
working on most of these songs during the quarantine during COVID,
and I did I actually did a record that came
out during COVID called Solitaire.
Speaker 4: That's right, kind of.
Speaker 2: Where Moody or introspective, a little more acoustic guitar and uh. So,
as I was writing those songs, I was actually writing
a bunch of these songs too, and I decided to
kind of save the more upbeat ones for the next record.
Not really what the next record was going to be,
but it was like, right now, everybody's stuck at home
dealing with FaceTime and Zoom calls and Amazon Prime, So
now's the time to put out a mellow record because.
Speaker 4: We're all home and we want uh you know, and
I know all the all all.
Speaker 2: The friends that I was getting together with, Uh, it's
like half of what we're talking about is just kind
of surprised, like what do we?
Speaker 4: What do we do now? How do we? How do
we live? And so I wanted so I wrote a
lot of those songs that kind of dealt with that,
and also dealt with kind.
Speaker 2: Of more of a dreamy what happens after m you
know energy, So it wasn't solitary, It wasn't entirely a
downer record, but I did want it to be a
moody album that was kind of more acoustic. H Like
I said, I always loved like early Tom Waits and
Nick Drake and like early Joni Mitchell, so.
Speaker 4: I let that record be the folky mellow one.
Speaker 2: And knowing that, okay, well, in a year or two,
it'll be time to rock and party and we're going
to be back in clubs and musicians can get back
on the road and people are gonna want to celebrate again.
So that's what the Second California Sun evolved into.
Speaker 1: And it's just so growing up in New York. So
are you from like northern New York or where in
New York I was?
Speaker 4: I was Westchester County, So I was a suburbs north
of New York City.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Hartsdale, uh, and then moved to
Chappaquah and for like middle school and high school. So
it was like, if you leave Manhattan, you get to
the Bronx, and then the next thing is Westchester.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: My parents actually met in Brooklyn and then suburbs when
it was time to have the kids.
Speaker 1: Did you get the did you get the pizza snobbiness
that comes with being an East Coaster?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't get agro about it like many
people do, but I can definitely tell the difference between
great pizza and okay, pizza.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. How do you fuck up pizza?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's great pizza everywhere there really is. It's like
so many East Coast Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: But like like anything is, like Duke Ellington said, it great,
there's two kinds of music, good and bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's not exactly what I it's not New York style,
but it could still be pretty great.
Speaker 1: Pretty damn good.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: See, I like growing up in the Midwest. I like
the Midwestern tavern you know, the square cuts and the
thin craw Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, beautiful. It's beautiful. It's
good stuff. But so growing up where you grew up,
where did your where did your love of country music
come from?
Speaker 2: Country came later growing up? Okay, there was absolutely no
country music in my life at all.
Speaker 4: I grew up.
Speaker 2: Actually, one of the great things about growing up in
the suburbs is had MTV before the rest of the
world got.
Speaker 4: It was a local thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So when I was like ten, eleven and twelve, I
could get home from school Arthur Quinn and like the
new Police video and take on me and I remember
Money for Nothing video the first time that came out
and was like, oh my god, this is some weird
new digital technology.
Speaker 4: What's going on here?
Speaker 2: You know? And this is also like a lot of
the videos were like really cheaply done. Of course they
would get you know, the band in a room and
I'm thinking of I'm thinking of Tony Basil. Oh oh, Ricky,
You're so fine.
Speaker 1: You're dancing around.
Speaker 4: In front of a wall, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But so my my first music that I got to
like was just like the pop popular stuff that was
on MTV.
Speaker 4: So it was like Phil Collins and.
Speaker 1: Men at Work yep.
Speaker 4: And I loved Boston.
Speaker 2: I loved Boston Ario Speedwagon.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Police.
Speaker 2: I was very excited because the Police East was the
first band that I owned all of their albums. It
was only five, but I thought that was in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, dude, it's so weird. Look, it's so weird
that you say the Police, because usually the band that
people brag about that is Kiss.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 1: I had, I had, and I had all the albums,
and I had the comic book. Everything is. People never
brag about having the entire Police catalog.
Speaker 2: I got the Police catalog. Uh. Then uh, let's say
even before that, my first instrument was trumpet. So I
was always brilly bands and school bands, and I was
in a few bands that were like big bands, like
doing Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller and count Based.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 4: And my dad my parents were pre Beatles.
Speaker 2: My parents, my dad was jazz, my mom was in
classical uh, and like they were not really rock and
roll people at all. So I would go to jazz
concerts with my dad and get into stan Getz and
and I never saw Miles Davis when I saw stan
Getz when I was young, Jerry Mulligan and Doc Cheatham,
so I.
Speaker 4: Was I was really into that.
Speaker 2: Then. Let's see, when I was in high school, I
got an electric bass and I joined the band with
some friends of mine, and we were doing like ah Genesis.
We did some Stones tunes, we did any way you
wanted my journey, Uh, we did, We did some we
did some Van Halen. I remember being really bored by
Van Halen songs because the baits parts were very boring
and kind of one note over and over and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a zen thing that comes later
with age when you realize, wow, that was absolutely the
perfect thing Michael Anthony could so like he wasn't really
good or couldn't keep that's like, no, that's the perfect thing.
He eat it down so that everyone else could go crazy.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, what what was it about the bass
that drew you to the bass? I mean, could you
not figure out how to run the lights? I mean,
what what was it about the bass?
Speaker 4: You know? It was funny. I just loved the bass.
Speaker 2: I had my my aid an eighth grade music class.
It was like one houry other day or something like that,
and the teacher would have acoustic guitars and she would
she would teach us like take me home, country roads
and where have all the flowers gone? Like folks songs,
and in retrospect, she must have been a real like
woodstock hippie and so now this.
Speaker 4: And so that's that's what she loves. So that's what
she taught us. And so we're learning all this like, uh,
this land is your land kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I showed up. I showed up one day to class
early and there was a guitar case in the corner
and I said, missus Barnes, what's that. She's like, Oh,
that's my son's electric I said, Wow.
Speaker 4: Can I Can I look at it? Can I play
it for a second?
Speaker 2: She said, yeah, just be careful, way before most of
the other people get here.
Speaker 4: Right opened up the case and I was like, oh,
this is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And I played like six notes and it was the
coolest thing I had ever experienced, Like, I just immediately
loved it.
Speaker 4: And I don't know why. I don't know how, but
it was cooler than the guitar.
Speaker 1: It was, and so it was just meant to be.
Speaker 4: It was just meant to be.
Speaker 2: And then I told my parents about it, and I
did a lot of lawn mowing, and then that that
combined with Christmas the next year. That was my first
electric bass was my Christmas present.
Speaker 4: Oh and check this out.
Speaker 1: You have it, ladies and gentlemen. He is running that
all the shit. You You are one of the few
that still have their very first yeahstment.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh it was a big guy, your real fender. It
wasn't that wasn't.
Speaker 4: No, this is this.
Speaker 2: This is from nineteen eighty three, so it had been
sitting in the store for at least a few years
before I showed up. Wow, and the guy and actually
and actually, strangely, you know how those sam Ash stores
are closing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I got it at sam Ash Plains, New York.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, And so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got Sash and and my mom and I
come in and we're like, we'd like a bass, and
this is the one you want.
Speaker 4: It's really good. It's kind of a slightly older model.
Speaker 2: It's not that sexy, but it'll be good for you now,
and if you get better and really stick with it,
it's still going to be a good instrument for you.
And they literally had this is a a specific you remember,
you remember, like, uh, Eric Clapton pretending, pretend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so that was the same era as this, and
it used to have active pickups and I hated the
sound of these active pickups and apparently everyone else in
the world did to, except for Eric Clapton, so it
didn't sell. So I got there and I got this bass.
And then a few years Actually it was embarrassing. I
didn't really realize that you were allowed to change the pickups, right,
are you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So it wasn't until years later I was like, I
hate thee I love the feel of this bass, but
I hate the sound of this bass.
Speaker 1: So it took you that long to realize you hated
how it sound.
Speaker 4: Well, Uh, you know, when.
Speaker 2: You're young, anything that's loud enough is great. You're not
really true really get tone yet you know right that
that gets subtler as you go along in your years
of listening and playing. Uh. So it was, it was fine,
but then as I as I got into cop and
I started getting another couple of bassess like this one
doesn't play as well, but I like how it sounds better. Right,
And then later on I realized I just I just
put a vintage p bass pickup in it, and then
now it's still one of my favorite bases I play.
Speaker 1: Speaking of tone, TED Beater Amplification that's two Easbeater Amplication
dot com. You can see that bad boy right behind me. Yes,
one hundred watts of testicular fortitude, pull two tubes. You
have a fifty ted. You've heard this this amp on
stage before. It sounds great.
Speaker 4: With that amp, and it sounds I have.
Speaker 1: I have Beater Amplification dot Com. That is to ease
as you can see on the amp face right over
there there and the sumbitches on top and uh, grocery
store gals right behind there, and uh so, yeah, it's
sitting right next speaking of tone as well by vinted
USA V fifty two telecaster back there, which is another
great instruments, so check them out. Vinted USA Guitars phenomenal
nominal instruments. So you always have you always been a
Fender guy. Did you ever like veer off into like
the Gibson grabber?
Speaker 4: Yes, I actually got it.
Speaker 2: I actually ended up getting a deal with Gibson. Actually, uh,
we we got caught up in my middle school. In
high school, we didn't really get to discovering country music.
But we'll get there soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll get there anyway.
Speaker 2: So I'm gigging all through high school and college. I
got into the jazz with the acoustic bass in height
in college, and then I moved to Seattle to start
to play.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, now, hold on what year is this
that you're there? You went to Seattle?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well you were just ninety three and ninety four.
Speaker 1: So you you went to Seattle right after the Great
Wall of Nirvana hit when all the bands out of
Seattle were getting signed. Was that one of the things
that made you go to Seattle?
Speaker 2: Actually, know what made me go was my girlfriend from
college who wanted to. She'd been there on a road
trip and loved it. And I of course heard about grunge,
but I was not a big fan of it. I
wasn't as hard rock as that, you know, but I
respected that music right, and actually, as an adult, I've
gotten to really love it much more. You know, it's
it's awesome and heavy and soulful and yeah, weak, profound music.
But I actually found one magazine article about Seattle and
it talked about all these great bars and that there's
a night life aside from grunge, and I was like,
I think I could do this. I see at least
twenty bars listed in this article. And there was a place,
there's a place in old town of Seattle called Pine
or Square where there would be like one cover for
nine clubs. And so you could go to any of
these clubs and pay your ten dollars cover and then
you see blues in one place, reggae at one place,
jazz at one place, rocket, one place, ska plunk, you know,
a second jazz group, a second.
Speaker 4: Blues group, you know what I mean. And so I
was able to move anyway.
Speaker 2: We sold everything we could bought an AMC Concord and
drove across country to Seattle. Got an apartment I got,
I bought an acoustic based within the first week, and
I just started like playing on the street and answering
ads and going to blues jam sessions and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: So I started.
Speaker 2: I started playing music for a living in Seattle and
every gig and I was there for maybe six seven years.
It was great, it was. And the thing is, I
had some friends. I went to college in upstate New York,
and I had some friends that had moved to New
York City. And I was like, Okay, they're all waiters,
they're all bartenders. One guy works in a freight store.
It's incredibly expensive, and they all get to rehearse once
a month, or they rehearsed once a week and gig
once a month. And I was like, I need a
smaller city where I have a chance to play more
and Seattle. Seattle was exactly that. It was great.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 2: I was immediately kind of freelancing and playing in like
nine different bands and wow.
Speaker 1: And then that's the things like if you would have
went straight to LA you would have been one of
those guys as a waiter.
Speaker 2: Yes, I would have. And you know, and also I
like I went to college in Bingham to New York,
so it was like a medium, small sized city and
I was the big fish in the musical pond of
Bingham to New York, and I I kind of knew
that I wasn't good enough to go to a big city, okay,
you know, like you like you read about like like
Charles Mingus showed up in New York and he started
playing with like world class people the Sect. The first night,
like I got off the bus went to the jam session,
and then Miles Davis asked me to join.
Speaker 4: The band that like you hear stories like that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, And I knew, I kind of knew
I wasn't cool enough or good enough to do that, yeah,
you know. And so having a smaller city where I
could kind of grow and learn, and then after a while.
Speaker 4: I realized I had. It was one of those plateau moments.
Speaker 2: I realized, like I've done every hundred dollars gig I
can possibly do in this town.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And I and like Sound Garden and Pearl Jam and
Nirvana are already bands. They're not looking for a new
bass player. No, you know what I mean. And there
were some national acts that would come through and pick
up some guys from Seattle. So I had some friends,
like I had one great bass player I knew played
with G Love and A Special Sauce and some other
Bill Frizel lived up there, so I knew some people
that were kind of in his world. But I was like, Okay,
I'm not ready for that. I'm not right, not necessarily
my world and I love it, but I'm not That's
not what I do. So after a while, I after
a after a while, I was okay, I need to
I need to go to a bigger place with more
industry and more options and more studios.
Speaker 4: So that's when I that's when I chose.
Speaker 2: To move to La.
Speaker 1: Did had you visited La? Where you went?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And actually, by by the time I was in
my late twenties, I had been to LA to play
with a bunch of different bands and had a handful
of friends down here, yeh. And I actually had more
more contacts in professional music in LA than I had
in New York, you know, because some of my buddies
from high school and college were not playing full time,
or they cool band occasionally, or you know, and I
was like, Wow, I have more I have more contacts
New York and so. And it was also easier to
just drive our car down I five right right right
and get to LA, you know it, And it felt
more tangible in a way.
Speaker 1: Do you do you feel like you like when you
got to La? Do you feel like you hit the
ground running?
Speaker 2: Uh? I was? I was. I was in a I
was in a kind of a lug, a local bar band,
and so we would go down to Orange County and
find an Irish bar and play every Friday night, and
then we'd find another place in oh Hi for Saturday,
and then we'd play in Burbank on Sunday jazz brunch,
and then we'd buy somewhere else, you know. Like, so
I was working a lot with this one particular band,
but not It's not like we were in the middle
of this team, right right.
Speaker 1: But I guess what I mean was that, did did you?
I mean because I felt like when I got to La,
just because that was when shit was starting to I
guess quote unquote happened for me, even though nothing really happened,
but you know, I had just you know, started doing
The Master was a rock cruise, so I had, you know,
I was in with like I met the you know,
the bands that were on the cruise that live in
LA and I got to know them and YadA, YadA, YadA.
That's why I started hosting the thing a Lucky Strike,
and so I felt like I hit the ground running.
But I'm such a slow runner that it took me
until I joined the Smoking Kills to finally get in
a real band. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I started to
the podcast and all that stuff. But that's kind of
what I mean is like, did did you have did
you feel like boom, like all right, I'm here, this
is it, let's roll, or did it take you a
little while?
Speaker 2: It took a while. It definitely took two or three
years to get get things to a place where I
was like beginning to get comfortable and I was really
like I can and actually now I can get to
how I got into country music When I was my
last couple of years in Seattle and then my first
year in LA I was discovering like the band and
Whiskey Town and the ninety seven's I was discovered, and
Grand Parsons and of course the Stones where Grand Parsons
met the Stones, and they did like Sweet Virginia and
tunes like that, like you like, through rock and roll
that was country leaning started making country music sexy and
exciting and relevant to me. Yeah, like when I you know,
like when like as a kid, if I heard Hank Williams,
I'd be like, why what? Who is this? Who's this country?
Speaker 1: I think, Look, I think it's It's like I didn't
feel relevant to me right well, I was just saying,
like I think, as a rock fan, sometimes you need
that bridge. And once that bridge is there and you
get it exactly, That's what happened with me.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had grew up on Willan and Willie and
you know, Kenny Rogers and all that shit, but it
wasn't until like I got older and that bridge was connected.
But you know, even like the Black Crows, you wouldn't
think country when you hear the Black Crows, but there's
this influence in there. You know, you can hear it
a little bit, and there's a lot of the music
that I love, a lot of that influence comes from
country music. And then you're like, oh, I fucking get it.
And then like I just discovered this guy the other
day on Friday, I was in the fucking to get
the new Sebastian Bach record. It was They're out of It,
and I heard this country song like, what the fuck
is this? Hit up the Shazamas? Who the fuck is
Sturgil Simpson? And then I listened to and I'm like,
where has this been all my life? You know, it's
just weird anyways, So yeah, so I apologize. I go
on tangents every once in a while, which you.
Speaker 2: Know that's okay, no, but no, but you're very right,
like there had to like I slowly put together the bridge.
Speaker 4: Yeah, is like all American music affecting all.
Speaker 2: Other American music, and you start realizing the line between
country and soul and rock and gospel. And I discovered
guys like Leon Russell was a huge one for me.
Deliman McClinton was a big one. Of course, Ray Charles
with modern sounds and country western, right, you start realizing
that if you like, if you start with the Black
Crows and you shift it over ever so subtly, it's
less southern rock and a little country ish, and then
you keep going and then it evolves over to Vince Gill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: They can actually play together right too, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1: You know, Skinnard Skinner is the same way.
Speaker 2: It's like Duds and Skinnard has some really country moments,
right And Dire Straits, I mean they're British, it's a
different thing, but like they have songs that are blatantly country, right.
But when I was a kid, I didn't realize that.
I just thought it was like Dire Straits rock music.
You know, you hear some classic good Mac and it's
like it's their country tune on the record.
Speaker 4: But I didn't know that at time anyways.
Speaker 2: But so when I was in LA, I started realizing
that this kind of rootsy country songwriter Bob Dylan and
the band thing is what I loved, and so I
started finding people that were doing that, and there were
a couple great, great kind of monthly scenes.
Speaker 4: One was called Sweetheart to the.
Speaker 2: Rodeo, named after the famous Birds album, And I started
getting and started playing with those people. And actually one
of the things that really started changing my career is
when I started realizing this kind of country roots rock
thing is what I really want to do, you know.
And that related to the Counting Crows, the Wals and
Sheryl Crowe as well as to Dwight Yoakum and Lucien
to Williams, like, I.
Speaker 4: Was like, somewhere in this rootsy songwriter world is what
I love.
Speaker 2: Some of it has more soul and swagger, some of
it's a little bluesier, some of it's a little more heartland.
But this approach to stories and bands is what I'm into.
And so I started less kind of pop gigs and
other eclectic kind of gigs, and I started honing in
on the roots rock world. And then actually a pivotal one,
Shooter Jennings was putting together a new band and we
had never met, and at there was one at one
point his bass player was kind of getting flaky and
not really working out, and he started saying, hey man,
I need a bass player, and and and two different
of his good friends both.
Speaker 4: Said you got to call Ted. Ted's perfect for you.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And then one of them called me and was like,
hey man, I just gave your number to Shooter Jennings.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what goes to your head when
you hear that?
Speaker 2: I was like, that's awesome. Let's hope it works out,
you know, because I knew that Shooter Jennings the son
of Whaleen Jennings lived in LA but I had never
met him, played with them, or seen his band or
anything like that.
Speaker 4: So I was like, that's great, awesome, you know, let's
let's let's hope for the best, you know, And so
I did.
Speaker 2: Uh and so so two people recommend one one guy.
I played both guys I played with that Shooter knew.
So he called me up and was like, hey man,
we got a rehearsal studio in Hollywood, like Hollywood and Vine, Uh,
you want to come down on Wednesday night?
Speaker 4: It was that great.
Speaker 2: So I came down and I just kind of started.
I just kind of jumped in and started playing, and
I knew, I knew the guitarist it was. We had
done a bunch of gigs together, and he of course
helped me feel a little more comfortable right away. Shooter
was like a really laid back, unassuming kind of guy,
so it's not like it was a high stress scenario,
right right. I just I just immediately understood his songwriting style,
and he was throwing some covers at us and some
songs that ended up on his first record the next year.
I loved the drummer Brian keeling was a real kind
of like tight power Kenny Aaronoff kind of drummer. Uh,
and it just immediately felt good. It was really it
was one of those great moments when it's like, wow,
it feels like within within eight measures it felt like
a band.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And and then and then, uh what Shooter was friends.
Speaker 2: With the people who were in the Viper Room, so
he did a monthly set at the Viper Room. Okay,
and I didn't know this at the time, but basically,
while he was trying to put together a band, he
would get new people together and do a different show
every month at the Viper Room. Oh wow, mostly the
same songs, but just like new people and see how
they all feel, you know, right. So so then we
did one of those, and then it just started feeling
better and better and better, and it was perfect. It
was It was a really kind of a magical time
and it was not It was probably within two or
three months after that that we started recording for Actually
a cool thing about that moment too, is after I
kind of joined, we all went drinking after maybe at
Bordener's one.
Speaker 4: Of those places that was right in Aphtle area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: We're all hanging out shooters like great.
Speaker 2: Now, all we need it is a good looking guy
to play acoustic guitar and saint killer harmonies and then
maybe a pedal steel player and then we're and then
we're set. And and I thought, you know, Shooter, it's
your it's your band. You should really do what you want.
But I think we should just be the four of us,
because if we're the four of us, each of us
will we'll be allowed to have more personality and will
be like the led Zeppelin of country music if we
get part of part of the sound of big more
modern country, maybe not ultra super modern current pop country.
When you think part of the sound is a big band, right,
so that everyone plays very safely yep, And then there's
a little pedal steel.
Speaker 4: And then it leaves. Then the vocal sings again, and
then the cargo.
Speaker 2: And then it leaves, and then there's a piano fill
like you have so many of these little instruments as textures.
But everyone plays very safely.
Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I was.
Speaker 2: And if it's just the four of us, you've got
four bad ass musicians in this band, and all of
us can have more personality and the space is what's
going to help us all play a little more and
have more uniqueness, right, And he was like, that's that's
interesting anyway. So he thought about it and the next
week he came back he was like, A ten, I
think you're right. I think we're at four piece.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And this is what like, this is like why I
wanted to have you on the show is because we
never had these conversations. I've never asked you any questions.
I didn't realize that that you weren't just like you know,
a hired gun you know, part of the band, but
you know, but the hired gun guy that's been in
there for forever. I mean, I didn't know that you
were part of the original, the original Shooter band. And
so it's like now that makes it even cooler that
it's it's not just about of hire guns. It's the band.
Speaker 4: No, No, it was it was one. And when we started,
it was really it really felt like the band.
Speaker 2: It was realy one. Of course, we I mean we
all know, we all knew, like it's Shooter's name on
the market, and like I mean and check this one.
Speaker 4: This was a this was a really magical one.
Speaker 2: Uh uh, you know, like We're rehearsing one night and
Shooters like, oh, I'm gonna leave town for a couple
of weeks, so let's skip next Thursday and do the
next week. We're like okay, So we get back together
the next week and he's like, I got us a
record deal. We're like huh, Like it happens, and he's like, yeah,
I flew to Nashville, I had a bunch of meetings,
I played a bunch of people are.
Speaker 4: Recordings, and I got his record deal.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wow, you know, well that you know,
it's like that's that's that's something that you know his
parents are are whaling and Jesse Culter, Yeah, he grew
up knowing all of these people in the music right now,
if the music wasn't good, he wouldn't have gotten signed.
Speaker 1: No, no, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: So he so there was like Shooter very often would
never kind of take advantage of the name or the reputation, right,
but that was one of those rare moments when he
was like, you know, these people are going to return
my phone calls. We got something good, let's share it.
And it's like it happened kind of, it kind of
happened that fast, and then we did. We did. We
did one kind of showcase show at a small cool
bar in Nashville called the Sutler, and we did another
showcase show at kind of a side stage at south
By Southwest where a bunch of the executives from different
labels came to come see us, and they and those
two shows kind of cemented the deal. And of course
I was I was like, you know, I'm just happy
to be there, and I'm part of the band, and
it's my job play my ass off and not say
anything offensive. I was, I would just like just just
be supportive.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Shooter really kind of put all that together, Shooter, and
and I got to know, well, just kind of how
how how how kind of smart and focused he is,
Like he really is. He's a soulful friend, very loyal, uh,
very creative, you know, in terms of combining all this stuff,
all these genres, and his love of nine inch nails
and his knowledge of classic country and his love like
it's it's it's uh, it's wonderful, how eclectic his tastes are,
and how how he can be so smart and focused
but also so soulful and instinctive at the same time
mm hmm. And but he really had a kind of
a vision for what it could be and kind of
led the lad let us lead the band wonderfully and
fearlessly into a into a you know, a major Nashville
record deal. He was.
Speaker 4: Another thing he did which was really.
Speaker 2: Impressive is he said, I don't want to get the
record deal and then record the record, because then they're
gonna they're going to control it and affect the sound
of it. He's And one of the things he did was,
I want to make this record in l A with
us mm hmm, and then show up with a finished
product and say who wants to put this out?
Speaker 1: Smart?
Speaker 2: Which was which which was great, which was great?
Speaker 1: It was Did that end up happening on uh on
later releases?
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I believe. I believe Shooter kept artistic control one.
But but then one of the hard things is are
I think we did three records for Universal self and
they kind of it's it's I I was on the
band's side, not the business side. So I'll just talk
about my perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's all you should talk Walks.
Speaker 2: That's it felt like it felt like they put less
money and less care into each progressive album, they realized
it's less commercial.
Speaker 4: And it's and that's that, and that's what.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've heard about it from friends, read about
it in autobiographies, and see it about it in like movies.
It's like the closer you get to the label wants,
the more excited they will be about it and the
more money they'll put in. Now, the risk of that
is singing these songs I don't even like, right, or
I'm singing I'm singing these goofball pop tunes or whatever
whatever it is, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean, right.
Speaker 2: And the other extreme is Neil Young making trans or
his rockabilly album something like that, where it's like yeah,
yeah for the labels, still Neil Young, but we don't
know what to do with it. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like that. It's like that famous line
and uh Eddie and the Cruisers they want on the
dark side. They don't want this when they did. Yeah,
you know, it's like like how do you how do
you please them with still keeping your musical integrity?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, totally, and so so Shooter was able to
keep making and we were all able to keep making
the music we wanted to make but they but the
but they can't saying, oh, there's this not the magical
hit on this one.
Speaker 4: We'll do our best.
Speaker 2: And so they would do their best and it would
kind of do slightly less of the first record, right,
the same thing happened to the third. Uh. And and
I kind of seeing seeing how that worked. Uh, and
the and the the the record people and the radio
people being.
Speaker 4: Like, well, we tried.
Speaker 2: I guess we'll just go to Texas radio with the
next single and national radio. Texas radio is pretty powerful
and and there are many and actually I now can
go to Texas and and and have for years, partially
because Shooter. That music helped be my introduction into the
Whalen and Shooter legacy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Right, So it's it's awesome.
Speaker 2: But but when the Nashville label said we're going to
go to Texas radio instead of national radio, that's in
a way, that's them saying, Okay, this is smaller money
we now carry.
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, how has playing outside of Shooter? Did
did you think, because like like when somebody leaves a
big band, you know, they playing arenas, they're playing stadiums,
that all of a sudden they're playing a fucking club,
you know, it's half full. They don't realize that that
whole crowd is not going to follow you in there.
They want to see the fucking stones, they don't want
to see you, you know. And obviously this is on
a different level. But so when you started doing your
solo stuff, did you how was the response outside of
do you kind of know where I'm getting at here?
Speaker 2: And and it's it's and I and first years when
I was really kind of seriously touring, they own music
outside of shooters, it was it was definitely a shock because, uh,
you know, all these friends that would come and see
us play in Dallas and I would hang out with them,
I'd let them all alone. I text them and the
Facebook messages and and then like three out of the
ten would come. I was like, but this, but I
need you now? How could you write me? But but
I also realized, well, part of what they want is
the whole experience of the big show and the excitement
and the cool for drinks with the band, and it's
like everyone ever, everyone's coming at it from a different perspective.
And so I realized, Okay, there's some some automatic momentum
I will get from my playing the Shooter, but I
really do need to just kind of build this up
and do what I can and not you know, like
not take advantage of the relationship with Shooter, right, You're
like Ted Shooters bass player when like when I'm touring
and stuff like, let figure that out and let it
be mentioned in the press release, but not be a
big thing about it, you know, Right.
Speaker 4: So, but and and also and also like you know.
Speaker 2: My music is there's definitely an over love a lot
of the same stuff, but our.
Speaker 4: Music is different.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I was like, okay, where to
find my own audience, knowing that there's going to be
some great overlap, but not you know, I'm not not dramatic.
I'm not entitled to like the same clubs and the
same all that stuff, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right, the same marquis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's it's great. I'm I I love doing
both and I'm proud doing both. And it's like, I
really do believe if you've got a thousand people in
front of you as opposed to fifteen people in front
of you, our job is to make music and to
care about what we're doing and to communicate.
Speaker 4: With people.
Speaker 1: Let's go to let's go to a very important night
of your life. What do you remember about the night
you might make Dawson? Okay, great, because Ice told the
story many times, where I don't think I've ever heard
you tell this story.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I was playing the troubadour and Mike was
there in the audience, and the way the truebadoor is
for those of you who have never been there, it's
kind of a longer, thin room. But the stage is
along one side of it, like you don't. It's not
like you walk in at the far side. The stage
is on one side and then the bar is one
so there's probably place for like two three hundred people
to stand in the middle. Now, if you walk straight
through the audience, you get to the door that brings
you upstairs to the backstage or the green room rather.
So I left, and I was going to go to the.
Speaker 4: But I had to walk through the audience to get there.
There's another kind of catwalky way to go, but I
wasn't doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so Mike was right there, and maybe I
decide I did to stop and get a drink or
he recognized me and said hello, So we started talking
for a few minutes, and of course Mike that great
deep voice and d and I don't know if he
mentioned right away that he was in radio, but he
obviously was a music lover. And we're talking about bands
and life and the show and no, no, no, d
what's in the set? And then he was he was
with Tyler. He was there was a drummer for the
Smoking Kills, and Tyler obviously said something. But he was
a much quieter guy. Mike is very outgoing. Yeah, man,
let me tell you a story, you know. And so, uh,
after I'm talking to Mike for a second, I'm like,
so are you guys in a band? Because I had
just assumed, you know, half half half of the audience
when guys in bands play is other guys in bands, right,
you know what I mean? And they were like, I
don't know, but maybe we should be well.
Speaker 1: And the way Mike tells that they had met that.
Speaker 4: Night, I didn't know that. I didn't know that they
just met.
Speaker 2: I assumed they came together, yeah, buddies, because they were
just standing together with a beer in their hand, you know.
Speaker 4: Uh, so they had just met.
Speaker 2: So anyways, so then after our conversation, they start talking
and they start forming the smoking kills, like, oh I
know a guitar.
Speaker 4: Player, let's do this. Oh I know this bass player
and so's.
Speaker 2: It was totally awesome that they start forming this band
and it evolves into a great friendship for them. Yeah,
and then a two years later I end up joining
and working with you with with you guys on on
a great record, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I wasn't part of it yet. I wasn't
part of it.
Speaker 4: You joined after that record was done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they joined after the record was done, just mostly
because Mike's my best friend and actually guitar player on
stage and whatever. I don't give a fuck, I'm in
the band.
Speaker 2: You know, no, no, And it worked out great. Your
Your Your Edition really helped because we did a lot,
you know, because the band originally was just electric guitar, drums, bass,
and Mike playing acoustic and singing. And then as we're recording,
we start overdubbing and getting creative with the second electric guitar,
and we realized we wanted to rock a little harder
and have a stonesiness on some tunes, and a we
need barkchords going on another tune, and so that's all
on the record and we needed to find another person.
And so it was perfect that you were already tight
and good friends and had a great attitude. Ah, and
just like learned all those great rhythm parts we got together,
and it just like it just helped it be fuller.
Speaker 4: And and it's it felt more like a band.
Speaker 1: When did you When did you get the call from
from Dawson about doing the Smoke and Kills?
Speaker 4: Check this out?
Speaker 2: He So, Mike had his own podcast, he probably still does,
but he was doing it out of the garage.
Speaker 4: And he had had done over one hundred episodes. And
so we somehow met again a.
Speaker 2: Few years after that first meeting, and he had started
the Smoking Kills and was working with Tyler and Kevin
and they were doing occasional shows and I didn't know
about it, and then he called me up.
Speaker 4: Maybe a friend of mine was a guest on his podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, friend recommended that I do it next right, And
then later later when I did the podcast, at the
end of it, he's always like, hey, and if you
have any other friends who are cool and that you recommend,
you know, I'd love to find more people to interview
who are friends of yours and get and kind of
like spread through.
Speaker 4: The LA scene in that way, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: He interviewed me.
Speaker 4: Oh no, how it happened. There's a woman named Emily's music.
Speaker 2: And I produced her record Okay, and she was a
guest the podcast and I was her bass player for
that day and gotcha. And so he does the interview
with her and me and our friend the percussionists are
playing along, and then at the end and EM's like,
Ted produced my album, and we told some stories, but
it was basically her interview, and then at the end
of it, Mike was like, hey, man, will you come
on the show. It was like, I'd love to you
start talking about me and my music and Emily's record
and another record that I was producing, and I started
just talking about my philosophy of producing. You know. It's like,
my job is to help you make the rest of
the best record you can make, and you're you're paying
me for my instincts and my taste. But I don't
want it to sound like my album. I want it
to sound like your album. It shouldn't sound like my
album with you singing, you're the one who's gonna live
with this, you know what I mean? I can help
you edit or streamline or go in a direction that's
going to help, then let's work on that together. It's
it's your it's your baby, and it's my job to
help you do that, you know what I mean. And
so I was just saying stuff like that, and he
was liking it more and more. And then the second
we ended the podcast, he was like, hey man, will
you produce my record?
Speaker 4: Easy because you know, because the interview.
Speaker 2: Is about me, And he was being a professional and
not saying, oh, well, I have a band too, and
let me tell you about totally just being a great interviewer.
And then the second he the second we pressed stop
for recording, he was like, hey man, let me tell
you about my band. You got to produce my record.
And so then we kind of hung out and had
a drink and started talking about it. And that's that's
the night we started talking about. I was like, great,
well send me some of your songs and let's get
together and play me what you got, uh. And they
had some preliminary demos and stuff like that. Yeah, and
and then I and then I started work. I started
working with them and doing some rehearsals, and that evolved
into the producing.
Speaker 1: The when did you start producing?
Speaker 4: Who was it?
Speaker 1: Was it yourself? Or can you? Are you able to
produce yourself? Because a lot of people, because there's a
lot of people that they think that they don't need
a producer, but it doesn't help, you know, they being
a producer. Having a producer there is there's a there's
a good reason to have a producer there to tell
you when something's not right, and if you're producing yourself,
you don't have that. Somebody going no, don't do that.
Speaker 4: You're right, You're right.
Speaker 2: It's a hard thing when you're producing yourself because you
have to be artistically doing what you want right, but
then you also have to kind of be looking at
it from the outside and saying how effective is this?
Is this working?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I've been I feel like I've
been good at producing myself because I have had so
many years of playing in other people's bands and just
and you know how it is when you haven't when
you're when you're playing with someone and you're like, wow,
they're working too hard. This woman is trying too hard
to be a blue singer. She loves Choplin, but she
doesn't sound good doing that. And then every time she
gets mellower or sweeter or whatever she does better, You're like, oh,
now you're in your comfort zone. Now the whole band
feels better, right, you know what I mean? And you
and and actually that was a really big thing I
learned in Seattle, and it got more exaggerated when I
moved to LA And my first year or two in LA,
I was like just playing in nine million bands and people,
we're getting my phone number, and I would like, I'd
have to go by h I'd have to go by
the Roxy and pick up a CD from the guy
because and then and then I would go home and
learn it. And then two nights later we'd have a
gig at Molly Malone's, and I was just like getting
millions of uh not millions, but like dozens of new
acts and new music. And some were focused and rocks,
some were modern, some were retro somewhere this and that.
And I very quickly started to notice like it's much
more about how the whole picture fits together.
Speaker 4: Rather than is it struggling with itself.
Speaker 2: Like one of the one of the funny things that
I'm sure you saw this is when you've got the
girlfriend who is either a stripper or a waitress.
Speaker 4: Or slash out of work actress, yep.
Speaker 2: And her boyfriend is a musician who has been in
another bigger band and so and and he's now the producer.
And so they get together and now they're trying to
make an album and have a band and get signed.
And she's beautiful and talented and he's talented, but he
wants it to be one kind of a project and
she wants it to be another kind of a project.
And so I show up as the bass player, and
I'm kind of torn between which.
Speaker 4: Direction do we go in?
Speaker 1: Right? Right, right?
Speaker 2: And and I was like, okay, And then it's my
job to kind of be the bridge as the sideman,
you know what I mean. And then but and and
in some and then and then some In some of
those cases, you stick you stick it out, and then
they break up and you keep working with one of
the two, and then they can more fully realize the
band they want. The talented guy finds another singer who
really is more in the bullpark with what he wants
to do music, And now I'm like, oh, this is
kind of a stone temple pilotsy kind of band with
maybe a little bit of a bad finger overtone.
Speaker 4: Or or oh now I'm in her band.
Speaker 2: Oh. She really wanted to be a little more singer
songwritery than the boyfriend was allowing her to be. She
didn't want to be as rock as he did. So
I'm like, okay, great, Now, I know I'm a fan
of the you know, I'm a I'm a fan of
the Indigo Girls, and I'm a fan of Melissa Ethridge,
and I know what rocking female singer songwriter music like
she doing should sound like.
Speaker 4: So I can help her do that, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look for my.
Speaker 2: Many years as being a bass player before I really
thought of my in my own records. It was very
much about even if I'm not producing, thinking like a
producer to support and help it become what it wants
to become. Was a big important thing for me, you
know what I mean. And so I think the fact
that I waited so long to start really making my records,
like I didn't start making my own records since I
was in my early thirties, and I think the formative
years helped.
Speaker 1: I thought you were still in your early thirties.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm still so I had. I had fourteen records
in the last six.
Speaker 1: Weeks, perfect and great, perfect, perfect.
Speaker 2: I do think one of another reason I've never another
reason I haven't had a producer is because I've spent
so much about in our first five or six years
with Shooter, where we were touring a lot. I was like,
I just want to make my own music so I
know what it feels like and I can enjoy doing it,
and it's a departure and I don't have to cram
all of my ideas into the Shooter Jennings band, you know.
Like I very quickly realized I'm a bigger fan of
soul music than everybody else in that band at the time.
So I would come in doing like a Jamie Jamerson
thing and they would all kind of kind of accept
it because I was the bass player, but they didn't
want to play with me and make it a groovy.
Speaker 1: Or right right. They didn't want Duck Dunn.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then I realized, oh, I should just do.
Speaker 2: My soul music influence stuff over here, so that when
I show up and play with Shooter and Lee Roy
and Brian, I can then kind of just like support
the whole situation more. I'm not trying to like cram
I'm not forcing my ideas into the pot, you know, right,
So that was that was that was part of that.
Speaker 1: Kind of like when I first when I first my
Ace Frehley looks into the smoke and kills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes they work great and sometimes you know, but
you got to find the right time and a producer
help you say this is the song to do that,
not this other one, but right right, And so I
probably I think I started producing about twenty years ago,
so it was shortly after the shooter time, and I
was working with a friend of mine and buddy from
Texas named Shi Blakeman, and uh, he was a younger songwriter.
So I was doing some solo shows and he would
be the opening acts and we would do stuff together.
And then he started working on a record and he
didn't like his producer. The producer would make him a
little too kind of like cheesy in Nashville sounding, And
I was just kind of advising him like a like
an old like an older brother or cousin, be like, hey,
you know, you don't be afraid to ask for what
you want. If you do if he's doing this, Play
him three records you love if you love the Black Crows,
play him the Black Crows, and say I want my
music to sound more like this. Give him tangible things,
you know, I don't want a big drum machine drum sound.
I want it to sound like more classic or whatever.
Speaker 4: The analogies were, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: A couple of these conversations, this producer was not really
listening to him, and so then we had another conversation,
and then finally I was like, he's like, Ted, don't
you realize.
Speaker 4: I don't want your advice. I want you to produce
this record.
Speaker 2: And so that was the first That was the first
production I did for Shi Blakeman, and it was it
was a great ended up being a great experience, and
actually we ended up bringing in Mark Ford from The
Black Crow.
Speaker 4: To play lead guitar on three or four songs. Oh
wow yeah yeah, sh I flew out and.
Speaker 2: He had a good budget, and so we put together
this great all star band of different friends that I had.
Do you remember Jason Sutter, No, great great drummer, still
lives in LA but he played with Chris Cornell and.
Speaker 1: Like okay Foreigner, like all we probably crossed paths at
some point, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so he played drums. I brought in this kind
of all star band of all these great friends of mine. Uh,
and it was a wonderful experience. And that was And
the thing is, I hadn't really thought of myself as
being capable of producing, even though I kind of was
right and a good band leader. Yeah, yeah, and always
had good ideas in terms of like, hey, let's extend
the outro. Hey, let's make this a double chorus. Hey,
why don't we start with just acoustic guitar and vocals
and save the entrance so the other guys for later.
Like I always loved arranging and and a lot of
the bands I was in an artist I was working with,
they trusted my arranging ideas, but I didn't. I didn't
have the confidence yet to think that that was actually
kind of a part of And so when Shy finally said,
just produce this thing, you know exactly what it should
sound like. You know me, you know the players, You
speak the language of all like you know how to
play really well, so you know the language of music
theory and can kind of and love American music and
be like, oh, Let's make this one more Gospelly. Let's
make this one more country, Let's make this one more Tulsa.
Let's make this more of a Texas sweaty bar band thing.
And then he's like, you know how to how to
change your playing and instruct other people to do the
sound you want, So this is gonna be perfect.
Speaker 1: Ted you sound. You sound like you just described your
current album. See how I brought it all back around. Well,
because you do like you said, like you were just
talking about, I know how to do this. I do
know how to do this, and that's kind of what
the album is. It's like, it's not just one straight
country sound. It's kind of all over the map, but
all in the country vibe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, totally, and I really want it.
Speaker 2: I really love it when albums are eclectic, and of
course this one was shaped around Shy, but the having
it be eclectic, like like with this new record, I
really wanted to have some songs that were that strummy
Great Birds, Eagles, California Country, jack Down influence. I wanted
some to be a little more Texas bookie. I wanted
some to be a little more folky and sing a songwriter,
acoustic but but uh, but I wanted to retain this
overall California l anis and the sounds that I love
from living here, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so some of the songs, like there's a song.
Speaker 2: About it's called High Desert Fever. It's about going out
to Joshua Tree. Ye. I got one called Miracle Mile,
which is about that section in LA with all the
museums and back in the day it used to moving
more bars and cafes, but now it's a different thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: And I got songs like just about my.
Speaker 2: Life, the Ballad of the Troubadour A One Word at
a Time, which is about the struggle of songwriting and
figuring out what your song is going to be about.
Like I realized about two thirds of the way through
making this record it was becoming this autobiographical Yeah, I
like here, and I was like, you know, let's just
let's just let it be what it wants to be.
And so California Sun the song is one of the
last songs I wrote for it, and it ended up
being this new centerpiece, you know, to just to to
kind of sit in the middle of all the other songs.
Speaker 1: You know what, It would have been the perfect closing
moment on the record, though, just because of the way
it's been the last last couple of years of the pandemic.
The last line on the record should have been you
can go to Hell. I'm going to Texas because everybody's
either getting going to Texas here or Nashville.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, you know, you're right, a lot of
LA people are moving out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I understand why. I understand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough, man, it's tough there. But Dad, you you,
you put together an amazing record. And uh, I'm glad
that I was able to finally get you on the
show because my.
Speaker 2: Pleasure and thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm glad we reconnected again and could do this awesome.
Speaker 1: All right, Oh, just hold on, we're gonna say goodbye
off the air. I have to hit my outro music
here just so I can hear it. Oh. I should
probably turn it up so I can hear it. Oh,
I'm gonna start it over one, two, three, four. All right,
ladies and gentlemen, Ted Russell camp check them out, check
out your friend your record. California's Honey. Can get it
anywhere where you get your music. It it's physical product.
As well. I would assume you get CDs. You're froze,
get CDs, vinyl, anything like that, all of it. Feel
free to talk and it's okay you can talk by it. Yeah,
but CD, I got a.
Speaker 2: Little assumed thing that said questionable internet connection.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you've been kind of a little bit. No,
it's all good. It's all good. So you get ten
Russell Camp dot com is your website, that's right. Yeah,
check that out. You find everything you need know about Ted,
and check out Smoking Kills.
Speaker 2: Hold on, well, I got it because I got one
in my hand.
Speaker 1: Why not check out Smoking Kills dot com. You can
cant you also Ted out with Shooter Jennings and there
it is. Look at that. It is beautiful. So yeah,
check out his new record and follow him everywhere and
we will see you next week. Brian Aurans and John
McCosky talking about this flip book My second favorite band
of all time bar none uh, hosted by Keith Rob
I'm serious XM. My name is Izzie Presley. I'll be
after Ted Russell Camp. Uh. Something about a cock
Speaker 4: Awesome