Speaker 1: That is such a cool vibe. I didn't even want
to talk over it at the end. That is Silicon
Kong broken Down, really really cool. This is Matt Connorton unleashed.
Of course, we are live on this Saturday morning, August
twenty four, twenty twenty four. Jenny is here as well
at the news table, present and account of our and
we've actually played a few Silicon Kong tracks so far
this morning, but we have is this the man himself
joining us via SKYPEP Hello, Hello, welcome.
Speaker 2: Oh can you hear me? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes? Can you hear us? Yes?
Speaker 2: I can?
Speaker 1: Very good, very good. Yeah. We played out England, Yes, yes,
So we played Broken Down, and we did play a
little bit earlier before the break Cosmic Groovepool, and I
also played even though the let's see what was it computer?
I'm trying to get back to it now. I played
a couple of older things as well, because.
Speaker 2: Was that do you Compute? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, do you compute? I was listening of that last
night and I was like, I gotta play this one too, because.
Speaker 2: That associated with downy Iris.
Speaker 1: Cover is it?
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that from Pittsburgh. Yes, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I really liked that song.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank Donnie Iris too.
Speaker 1: I'll have to check I'll have to check out the
Donnie Iris.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I think of Donnie Iris, the only Leah Ah Leah,
which is a personal favorite of mine, and what's the
other one? Love is like a rock? Is that? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Being that I'm a ynger and I grew up on
in Pittsburgh, you know, I'm just so used to it.
I grew up listening to Donnie Iris. I loved him.
I mean, he's awesome, He's he's king cool to us.
He's like, uh, he's like an icon. So, I mean,
so it was only fitting that I did a suitable
cover that fit him and hopefully he liked it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you know if he's ever heard it? Like,
have you ever met him or talk to him?
Speaker 2: You know, I can't say I have. You know. I
actually just released that not too long ago, maybe a
couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know, because uh, I
I do uh like my My covers are very as
you can tell, they're very unique. I'm sure if you
would go to my Reverb Nation page or my uh
Facebook page, I do covers, but they're different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no they are. I also listened to maybe
I'll play later I listen to your cover of Destroyer.
Oh yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's really really cool. By the way, So what is
a Genser?
Speaker 2: Genser that's a pittsburgher. Okay, it's it's just you know that,
it's a it's it's a form of identification for Pittsburgh, Okay,
because you know, because we uh you know uh and that,
and you know Yun's and you know, we have our
own little dialogue out here in Pittsburgh's.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently I had no idea. I don't know what
any of these things are.
Speaker 2: Well, I work with you know what. I worked with
a lady here and she's actually from New Hampshire, and
her accent is you know, I can tell she's definitely
from New Hampshire. I mean, you have your own little
dialogue accent thing going on up there.
Speaker 1: Right right, Well, we have the It's It's strange though,
because in New Hampshire we have variations of it. For example,
there's that classic well not just New Hampshire, there's that
classic New England thing of which I think with every
generation becomes less and less prevalent prevalent where people drop
their rs, you know, like insaid of park the car,
they say pack the ca ah. But but there's also
but but there's also variations where uh, you know, where
you do pronounce your rs. But but there's something else
weird going on where people can still tell that you're
from here even though you do pronounce your ours. It's
it's strange, there's different, there's there's levels to it, you
know what.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, I was traveling down south.
This is just a cool story, and I stopped in
this little mini mart. It was Bowling Green, Kentucky. Outside
Bowling Green, Kentucky, there's two in the morning, and there's
this nice little girl working the counter, and I was
looking around, say, hey, where do you put the cigarettes at?
She said, you're from Pittsburgh, ain't you.
Speaker 1: Oh she could tell huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the jinns oh.
Speaker 1: So not not just so that's that's not like a
Pennsylvania thing. That's very specifically a Pittsburgh thing.
Speaker 2: It is definitely a Pittsburgh thing, a Steel city thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right, very good, And so Silicon Kong
is from the Steel city of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: Well, suburb of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. It's about about twenty minutes
outside of Pittsburgh southeast.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, and tell us about now there's a movie
coming right, the Steel City Architect.
Speaker 2: Yes, there is. I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, it's
a movie called it's called The Steell City Architect, a
Pittsburgh rockumentary. What that is. That's a movie that will
be released in January. It's with with Drew Moreland of
Improv Chills Studios and uh Santo's or Tess Patrick of
downcast Burg. Now what that is. It's kind of like
years and years ago. I'll tell you what I guess.
I have time, I can tell you this story. Yeah,
a couple years ago, a couple of years ago, there
was a producerritter, like I said, her name is Drew Morland,
and she was a filmmaker. She's she's won quite a
few awards, and she's also an author of a couple
of books, which I'll post on my Facebook page if
I wants to check it out. But anyway, what happened
was she was looking for she was doing a zombie movie,
and I was like, well, you know, somebody contacted me.
One of her affiliates to contact me, and I was like, well, hey,
you know, I wouldn't mind doing like a soundtrack. You know,
I do some songs for a because I love horror movies.
I grew up with horror movies. And I was like,
wouldn't that be really cool? I said, well, I'll tell
you what. How about you know I'm playing this show.
It was a place called Casey's in Pittsburgh, and I said,
come out, check out the show, and you know, if
you like it, maybe we can arrange something. I can
do some soundtrack work. So make a long story short.
She came out with her constituent at the time and
she was like, I came out and had I come out.
I'm a one man show, much like grim Rock. I know,
you know grim Rock.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he's in the chat room by the way,
and yes, we.
Speaker 2: Love Grimmy, we love me and grim got a lot
of things going on, so people please stay. But anyway,
back to the story, and she came out and she
was like, well, hey, you know, I was like, we'll
come out, and I come out. I opened that particular
set with the Ballad of Dwight Fry cover by Alice Cooper,
Oh nice, yeah, and I come out in a straight
jacket and the mask and she was she lost it.
She was like, oh my god, get my camera and
she said, do you mind if I filmed this. I
was like, no, you go right ahead and cool. I
like to have a little video thing anyway and make
a long story short after the set, after I was
done playing, I was like, so, is there a chance
of me getting in the soundtrack. She's like soundtrack? She said,
I want you in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I'm just a musician. I'm not an actor. She said,
you know what you was doing up on stage, that
was acting and you should look into it to make
a long story short. We've had a long, good, uh
a long relationship with each other since then, and we've
done a couple of movies Hidden behind a Veil, which
was like by Drew Moron in Santos Patrick's Past k
as well. We also did Pizza Musical. These things will
be get released within due time, so if people just
want to stay tuned to my Facebook page, I will
be releasing the links to the YouTube in any anyway.
So I was like, we know what I had this
cool idea I wanted to do like kind of a
spinal tap movie, you know, I want to do a song.
It was basically Silicon Kong is totally a character, and
what he is is he is a guy that has
been in Yinzer, a steel city guy who's been trying
to pound a pavement in Pittsburgh and trying to get
recognition for years to no avail. So people just kind
of overlooked him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what it was was like, and I like to
kind of do tie that in. I always had this
cool idea of tying out into it like a movie,
and I explained it to him. I told her about it,
and she came back to me a couple of weeks
later she said, let's do it. I was like, dude,
what she said, Let's do this movie? I was like,
WHOA wait a minute. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, but
to make a and uh now we started filming in
twenty two. Okay. What she wanted was she wanted a
nice timeline of a struggling musician in Pittsburgh. Okay, And
we just finished the last scene I think a couple
of months ago, and that's due for release and like
I said, in the new year, it'll be due for release.
Like sa If anybody wants to keep up on my
Facebook page, I also have a Reverb Nation page, some
music page, Silicon Kong. I always put the links to
everything on that. So yeah, like I said, so that's
exciting for me. I mean, it's it's uh, you know,
it's it's it's just kind of kind of strange anoid
because like I said, I was for years. I've just
been a musician and I've all of a sudden, i
see myself on camera and I see myself on and
it's like whoa, yeah, but it's cool, it's cool, so.
Speaker 1: So so Silicon Kong is the character you Ian hemy
are the are the You're the trayer, the portrayer trade.
But do you always are you always Silicon Kong on
stage or are you okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah on stage? You know what I've been, Uh,
I've been around and pitt Like I said, this is
my home, this is my home area. Like I'm definitely
a Yen Durum from the Pittsburgh region. I've been in
countless bands, Leaping the Bull, f six Aprils Full Still mana.
You know, I've always been the singer and a bassis
in a band of some kind of band. Yeah, but
the Silicon Kong stuff. Actually, what happened there, uh, Pseudo
Aniam was another one I was in. What happened there
was I have I'm a multi instrumentalist, so everything that
you're hearing, I play everything. Oh wow, Yeah, I play
it all. I mean, I I play there's songs I'll
play mandolin. There's songs I'll play harmonica. There's songs I'll
play drum. You know. All the drums are me or
were they're drum machines, but there's some kinds sometimes I
use live drums as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the intruments, I play them all. So yeah,
that's and what happened was because I've always just had
a love for music and I just enjoy it so much, right,
So I taught myself every you know, And there's particular
songs that I could couldn't really divulge with another band.
You know. There's certain certain feelings with certain songs that
I needed to get across in my own dialogue, in
my own way. Yeah, and it just in a live band,
it just wasn't working. So I credit, like I said,
the new wave movement in the industrial metal music is
a huge influence to me, so as well as the
progressive rock. I mean, of course, let's go back to
Pink Floyd, Yes, Crack the Sky, which actually West Virginia's guys,
Cracked the Sky. Great band, if anyone has a chance
to check them out. They were kind of overlooked, very
very good progressive rock band. I actually covered one of
their songs called from the Greenhouse. They could probably find
out on my YouTube. So if yeah, family, almost go
on my YouTube. I have a YouTube channel. Ian Hemy
just pulled up and it'll pull everything up. I have
I think eighty videos around. Okay, yeah, so and that
is actually one of them. But anyway, and so I
just started tinkering around. I built my own little home studio,
and you know, much to my, much to my how
can I put it? And well, my wife's used to it,
so I've been married thirty two years. She's used to it.
She supports it. But anyway, and I would just sit
around and just you know, I get ideas. Sometimes I
start with the drum line. Sometimes it's a bass line,
a piano line, or guitar line of lyrics, and I
would just sit down and tinker with them, and they've
become songs, and they become the material that is now
Silicon Kong.
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's got to be very sort of liberating
to be able to do that. I mean, obviously I
wonder what it would be like to do that. I've
I've played in a lot of bands. I'm not currently
active with that, but I've played in a lot of bands,
but I've never done anything where it was just me creating.
And I'm not although I'm not a multi instrumental, you know,
I play bass. I can play a little bit of guitar.
Speaker 2: And bass is my actually bass is my primary primary instrument.
That's why I start playing.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, And so in the bands that you fronted,
you were the the bass player and lead singer.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I was the bassis and lead singer.
Speaker 1: Did you get I'm curious about this. Did you get
a lot of people who would be like WHOA, that's unusual?
Even though it's not that unusual. I mean there are
there are singing bass players like Geddy Lee and Tom Area.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, book foreigner, But what would people come
up to you and be like WHOA, I've never seen that. Yeah,
you know what. The reason you do that is because
I only play six string basses. Oh yeah, I'm a
huge Primus fan as well.
Speaker 1: Okay that makes sense. Yep.
Speaker 2: So and you know Steve Harris, yeah, Getty Lee of course,
uh Les Claypool. Let me see who else there's there's
a Mark Antois the who I mean I've always uh
what happened was from how I started out as I
was fifteen years old and a friend of mine who
was in a neighborhood kid excellent guitarist. This was back
when Metallica was huge. Just was during the one Yeah
Metallica and he was like, dude, we're gonna do man
oh you And I was like, dude, I could play
a guitar because at that time I could play a
little bit of guitar. And he's like, oh no, we
already have enough guitarist. I was like, man, if you're
if you can play bass, you can be in So
what happened there is my grandmother guard rust Soul. She
went to a flea market. Okay, remember keep in mind
I'm only fourteen fifteen at the time. She went to
the flea market and found this old Gibson p bass
and she brought her home. I told her, you know,
she said, you know, I was actually talking to her
about and I was like, well, you know, I wanted
to be in this band, but they need a bassis.
And she said, what's a bassis. It's a guitar four strings,
you know. Of course I had to explain it to her,
and that woman came home the next week with one
from the flea market, and I learned to play it
nice and and that's where it all started. And I
played bass in that band for a while. And the
thing about a bassis is we're as hard to find
as drummers. Sometimes I think we're harder to fine than drummers.
And so I just stuck to it. But what happened there, man,
It is like I perfected it within a year, and
then I got bored. So that's when I started turning
to Steve Harris, okay, Eddie Lee, and I started to
really really perfect the base and in ways that played.
I wanted to play it the way no one else
did and with you know, locally, no one else late,
and so I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to what you're saying about
bass players being in high demand. You know when I
was when I used to be really active. I played,
and at one point I was in three different bands
that were all actively playing out and I was I
was kind of sought after in the scene. But in
my case it was never because you know, I would
rate myself as a bass player as average, you know.
But but I had a good reputation, you know, I know,
no drugs or alcohol or anything. People knew they would
depend on me to show up and that went a
long way.
Speaker 2: I agree with you there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But but with drummers, it's interesting because you mentioned drummers
being hard to find. A lot of the guests that
we have on the show, and Jenny can attest to
this too, it's like, you know, the drummer, if we
have a band on the drummer will be the one
member of the band who's in like multiple bands, because
drummers are so hard to find. And my theory about
it is when you're first, when you're growing up and
you start to get interested in playing an instrument, when
you got to have the conversation with the parents about
how I want to start playing something. If you say drums,
that's like the one thing, and maybe the tuba, maybe
those are the two things that they're going to try
to talk you out of, Like, oh, it doesn't have
to be that because nobody wants all that noise. So yeah,
drummers are really hard to find. Like every drummer I
know is in like ten bands. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the drum I have a studio. Drummer's names Kane Cross.
People want to dig him up. He's on Facebook too.
But in the last due actually Leaping the Bull was
a due or we was in. It was kind of
like Royal Blood, but we as a more creepier, kind
of gothy version of Royal Blood. We had a run
since we started. What happened there was we started finished
our first CD in November of twenty nineteen. Okay, now
you know where this is going. I was like, oh, yes, dude,
let's get out there. We're going to get out there
and nail it. You know how many months there boom, pandemic,
no one's doing nothing, yep. So what we did is
we continued. What we did is we continued to do
some really cool videos like say, femone goes on my YouTube,
they can find them. They're Leaping the Bull videos. They're
like many horror movies. Oh yeah, they're really really actually
cool kind of both. They're cool to watch. It's like
a mini horror movie. But anyway, so we continue doing
that up until well, just recently he sustained an injury
on a bike, act a motorcycle accident, so he's unable
to play, so, you know, unfortunately. But anyway, so yeah,
I mean, and you know, we was like, oh yeah,
you know, but the pandemic came in. The pandemic, I mean,
I'm sure effect that everybody as first being an artist,
and we were all just knocked down one you know,
and it was sad. It was really sad actually in
this area. It's sad because I want to say, fifty
percent of the bands that I used to play with
and eighteen and nineteen yeah, never came back. Yeah, half
of the venues never reopened. Yeah, you know, because it
was that was really hard on everybody.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So during that time period also whenever I was
doing Leaping the Bulls, that's whenever I really started to
focus on doing a you know, releasing more Silicon klong things.
You know that I had lots of downtime because you know,
I actually in twenty twenty we actually leaped in the
bull was a schedule to play all year. I mean
we had to cancel every show. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, what can you do though, I mean pandemic.
I'm you know, I work in health field myself, so
I know that it was terrible, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and who knows, I mean you might not.
You know, we have to find these silver linings where
we can. And it did. It did kind of worse
a lot of people to be creative in ways that
maybe that and considered. And you know, some of the
projects you know that we talk about on the show,
different guests that we've had, you know, some of them
found themselves kind of in scenarios very similar to yours,
where they started just creating their own music on their own,
where they didn't necessarily have to be in a room
with anybody, and and really doing something like Silicon Kong
where you know, like you said, you know, you're doing
it all yourself and you know, which is which is
pretty cool? Is by the way, so when you play live,
because you talked about playing live, when you play live
as Silicon Kong, are you with a band or is
it all you or does it vary or.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you how I do that. I have a
like I said, I have an a home studio. And
what I do, like I said, I record, Like I
said once again, I play everything. So what I'll do
is I'll take my laptop when I have two or
three of them. And what I have is I have
those songs on a playlist. I use Sony products, recording products, yeah, studio,
and what I'll do is take them, you know, I'll
take the lyrics out or and and I'll just get
up and sing to them. Or sometimes i'll play I'll
take a guitar line out and play guitar, or take
a bass line out and I'll play bass. I mean,
it varies, I mean, but usually on stage. Yes, it's
just me, okay, okay, some kind of outrageous outfit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I'm also a very big Alice Cooper fan, so.
Speaker 1: Oh me too, me too. Absolutely. If you're just joining us,
we're talking with Ian Hemy about Silicon Kong and uh
Ian of course is a yinser? Am I saying that correctly?
Speaker 2: Yes, Matt, I just want to point out I know
you're New England. Hey, just we can still be friends man.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh, why is there some sort of sports rivalry
I don't know about.
Speaker 2: Now we're just referring to the NFL.
Speaker 1: Okay, see, I don't know. See I'm not I'm not. Bruins, Bruins, Bruins.
Jenny knows her.
Speaker 2: I got it. I gotta, I gotta stay true. Steelers, Steelers,
and speaking time.
Speaker 1: I have no clue. Jenny knows more about sports ball
than me. I don't. I know nothing. I don't even know.
I don't know how many Indians are in a football game.
I don't know anything. I'm just again, I'm completely lost.
Speaker 2: But like I work with one lady. She's from New England,
and we always discussed the football. You know, she's a
huge Patriots and you know, me and her are always
kind of going at it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So, so I'm really curious to see this movie.
I'm a huge by the way, this is Spinal Tap.
Happens to be my favorite film of all time.
Speaker 2: Wow, and you'll love it. You'll love it, you love it.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm very curious to see it. And this
is this is supposed to come out in January of
twenty five, is that correct?
Speaker 2: Right now? It's on YouTube and my producer, like I said,
Drew Moreland is working on various streaming platforms. Yeah, she's
working on those now. So by the time it happens,
and by the time she's I mean right now, the
movie is in post production, so by the time she's
done with all of that. And I mean, the woman
is awesome. I mean she does so much. Like I said,
she's a producer or director, an actor or an author.
Oh my god, like I said, I definitely. Like I said,
I can't stress enough. But I'm going to put on
my Facebook page after we're done here a link to
her book. It's called The Horrific This is Cool, The
Horrific Tales of Artificial Intelligence, and her full name is
Drew Lenney Morland. And I will post that on my
timeline on my Facebook, so if people want to go
and check it out, it's an awesome read. Actually back
to that real fast, and I'll get back to the movie.
She actually started writing the book I want to say
eight months ago, okay, and we was talking about it,
you know, me and her were just kind of brainstorming
about it because as Silicon Kong, as you can tell,
has a AI thing going some kind of AI vibe going.
And we was talking about it, and and she was like,
you know, we was discussing how it just h mankind
becomes a really dependent on u A in various in
various reasons, in many ways. I was like, well, you
know what, when you write the book, I will write
a song. So when your book is done, we'll let
people know, Hey, here's the book, and this is a
song inspired by that book. Actually, I'll have to send
that to you. It's actually a song called Cyber Jesus. Okay,
And I will be releasing it here within the next
week because her book, Like I said, you just finished
her book and just put it up for Cell last week.
Oh yeah, yeah, so I will be releasing that. It's
a brand new tune and it's pretty it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, send it to us. You know something something
that we love to do here on the show. We
do world radio premieres. Okay, So we would love to
be the first FM station to air it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I said, I have I have an internet
an internet station waiting forward to but the first FM.
Yeah you can have the first FM. Yeah, you can
have it.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, we love it. Yeah, yeah, very cool, and we'll.
Speaker 2: Back to thee. Back to so what about the movie again?
Speaker 1: No, I'm really looking forward to seeing it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I like said she's working on a Yeah,
back to that, she's working on various streaming platforms. Uh
we like I said. Her ultimate release dates she like
to do January twenty five. Yeah, and uh, like I said,
I mean, as soon as that's up, and as soon
as the information is released to me, you know, I
will be putting it up on all my social media's.
I have Instagram, I'm on x TikTok, I'm on Facebook,
i have YouTube reverb Nation. Like I said, all you
gotta do is typeing I hemy on your Google time.
It'll pull up everything, okay, and you can anyone and
everyone can find me.
Speaker 1: Hey, where's the name come from? By the way, Silicon Kong.
Speaker 2: Ah, good story, I got time. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: Oh we got time? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, cook uh on a. See my general I
grew up in the late late seventies and early eighties. Okay,
so every year at I don't know if they did
the same thing in New England, but here in Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh and NAT every year at Thanksgiving time, It was
kind of like a tradition with my family. You know.
Of course, Thanksgiving the big, a big bit, you know,
big holiday for a lot of families. But anyway, every
year they would play King Kong on Thanksgiving Day. It
would be uh, I'll never forget. It was always uh,
Wizard of Oz was first, and then they would play
King Kong. That's back when we only had three or
four channels to watch.
Speaker 1: Remember, yeah, I remember when they would play Wizard of Oz.
They might even still do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they still do, but I remember back then,
and they would always play King Kong right up the
original King Kong of course, and King Kong was always
kind of like my favorite monster movie. I mean, I
love Godzilla and Gammer and all that, but King Kong
was always the top. Anyway, back to the name. I
was sitting around, like I said, uh, you know, coming
in and out of bands like I've done, like I
was doing, and I was trying to think of a
cool thing. I was just like, well, maybe I just
released you know these songs under Ian Hemi, and I
was like, nah, it's not really that cool. Anyway, I
was sitting down one day and I was talking to
a friend of mine. Now, I was just kind of
kind of messing around and the newest King Kong with
Jack Black. Do you ever see that movie?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm aware of it. I've never actually watched it though.
Speaker 2: It's a newer movie. I mean it was like the
whole start of it all. But anyway, maybe was on
and it was it was on a Sunday, and we
was watching it downstairs, and I was just that's at
that time my home studio was downstairs, and I'm looking around,
you know, I was just kind of messing around with
my music and that nutry and I was like wow,
I said, you know, the new remake of the King
Kong with Jack Black is excellent. So if anybody gets
a chance, definitely check it out. Anyway, so I was
like wow, you know, and I just kind of reverting
back to my childhood how much I loved King Kong. Yeah,
and wow, I wish I could use that somehow. And
I was like, Kong Kong Kong, you know, I could
be like I could be King King of the Electronics.
And then my friend said, hey, wait a minute, why
don't you go with Electronic Kong? And I was like wait,
And jokingly I was Actually it came upstairs and my
son was watching something on YouTube or something like that,
and they mentioned Silicong Valley. Okay, I was going to
the restroom. I went back downstairs and just half heartedly
and I don't know where. I just said, how about I
just go to Silicon Kong.
Speaker 1: And he was like, dude, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: So I'm the king of the electronics.
Speaker 1: I can tell you. So Friday nights, I'm a co
host on a show called retro Spectrum Radio with poly
C and so during the show, Paul always asks me
to plug whatever I'm going to be doing here on
Saturday morning. And so I mentioned I said Silicon Kong,
and he loved the name. He had not heard it before.
He was like, that's great. He loved that.
Speaker 2: You know, Lass Halloween. Another local band, Jessica Bella band
a good band. Check them out. You can find them
on the internet. To Jessica Bella, She's a cute, cute
little Pittsburgh pop singer. Anyway, Uh, we work, uh have
a feel. They have a company called MP Records. Being
being an artist, you know, an actor and a musician.
We all try to help each other out here, you know,
that's what you do. You know, if we can help
each other out in some form artistically, we will. Anyway,
she was doing a show and she invited me to
come up to her show last Halloween, and h kind
of make you know, I'm kind of promoting the movie.
I've been promoting the movie probably really hard for I'd
say about eight months now, because like I said, I
knew we was wrapping it up and finishing it anyway.
So I got up on stage. Before I went on stage,
I came out. I was outside of this place called
Gerbils in Pittsburgh, and uh, you know, this one lady
came up and she, you know, hey, how are you doing?
You know, of course, you know, and we're talking. You know,
I'm dressed up almost, you know, dressed up and everything
except for my mask. So she knew I was some
kind of some kind of artist there for a purpose anyway.
So she said, oh, yeah, who you are. I said, yeah,
I'm here. I'm gonna do a little thing on stage.
She said, what what's your name is? Said Silicon Kong.
She said that is an awesome villain name.
Speaker 1: I was like, yes it is, Yes, that's true.
Speaker 2: So that just stuck to me, I just kind of
remembered that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's great. And uh, I
think it's cool that you're doing stuff with grim Rock.
But you you you awesome Graham. You kind of you
kind of hinted, but it sounds like you've you've got
things in the works that you can't can't necessarily talk
about yet.
Speaker 2: Or not right now, man, Grima, we have a plan. Okay,
all like Italians. All Italians is your listeners and not
just a state, you know, stay posted to me or
grim Rock. Uh and for for further information.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, did you say all like Italians? Is that? Uh?
Speaker 2: That's that's Pittsburgh right there, Pittsburgh Dialogue.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha. I do feel like I feel.
Speaker 2: Like I've got that in that and at N and
that and that.
Speaker 1: Well, you really do have your own dialect there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Are there a lot of are you able
to play out a lot? Are there a lot of
good you did mention after the pandemic or during the pandemic,
a lot of venues closed, but yeah, a.
Speaker 2: Lot of them just never reopened and it was just
so sad.
Speaker 1: And what you're doing is unique. Are there still a
lot of places to play, or do do you hit
the road and get out of the area and play
some places.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, Matt. I just we just recently
thanks to grim Rock. Actually, you know, I'd have to
say I have to thank grim Rock for that, but
just recently I've been racking shows up left and right back.
Now I can also say, like Silicon Kong was somewhat
around during the pandemic and that, but prior to that,
I was in a real quick story here. I've always
kind of liked it strange musical combinations, Like there's a
b I was an industrial metal band called F six. Now.
What that consisted of was me playing bass and singing
and a my friend guitarist at the time, Dustin Marx
was guitarist, and we would come up on stage with
just a computer, you know, wow, and we would play guitar.
I would play bass and sing. So years and then
after that, I also did another thing called Pseudo Ano
with Jeff Kettemy and we would do the same thing,
you know, we would he would do the singing part
and I would kind of do the rapping, kind of
creepier a rock vibe. The strange thing about that. Why
I'm mentioning that is then this is we're talking. This
is between two thousand and five, and I'd say fourteen
or fifteen, and we would go out there and people
would be like, dude, where's your drummer, where's your drummer?
Where's your band? So at first we want like this
kind of coincides with what I do. It really wasn't
well accepted. People in Pittsburgh want to see bands. They
see an old stage full people headbanging, playing ner infunts,
whatever the case may be. So for me to get
up Aaron grim could a'test this. He's he's actually had
to deal with this as well. Getting up on stage
as a just you playing something or what I back
then was not accepted. But since the pandemic, I will
say this, I mean that's nothing. Really, nothing good came
of that pandemic. I don't care what analysts. It was
terrible in every possible way. But the only thing that
did come out is we decided, you know, going out
on stage with a computer or whatever and like a
like a lot of the rappers or hip hop artists
would do. Now it's accepted. Now people are like, hey,
that's pretty cool. Now, so it kind of works out
for that. So because of that, like I said, yeah, now,
because of that, and it's more widely accepted in the area. Yeah,
I got lots of shows coming up. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, plus I would imagine too, other bands must love
playing with you, because when you get to play with
someone who like like if you're if you're opening for
somebody and they have to follow you and you're not
going to take you don't have a you don't need
twenty minutes to break down a drum set, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 2: And dat And like I said, you know, the thing
about it is, there's a few bands excuse me out here, uh,
God hates Unicorns, prime Eate, there's a few of the
bands that did survive the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And we're all really all of us are really tight
in the area. Yeah, Curshiables. There's a couple other bands,
like I said, And the thing about that is we
just all even though we may be different, different styles
and different genres, we all support each other. I mean,
there's a handful of us that support each other. Of course,
it's just like any of the big city there are
some bands that are like, yeah, great, shown as soon
as you turn around there stabbing me in the back. Sure,
you know, there's there's quite a few of those two.
But the thing about it is like these guys, like
I said, back to the God Hates Unicorns and Prime
Aid and Parcial, these are guys that are really down
to earth, excellent human beings.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we stick with that. We basically like to
stick with our low circle of various bands that we
like to play with. So yeah, and we we enjoy
playing for each other. I mean I've opened up for
God Hates Unicorns. I've done stuff with Prime Eate uh,
you know, and we always had a great time. You know,
we loved it. We all support each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's really cool. God Hates Unicorns. I've heard
that name. That name came up on the show recently.
Grim might have might have mentioned them.
Speaker 2: But awesome. I will say, I can't really prevey much
better just to be saying they'll be they'll be around
with us in one form or another. Yeah, just stay tuned.
Like I said, people just gonna have to go on
the Facebook pages mine and Grim's and Grim's website and
you know, just keep keep posted because there's some surprises coming.
That's all I got to say.
Speaker 1: Oh, very cool, very cool. Well we look forward to that.
Well listen, uh Ian hemy also known as Silicon Kong.
We're gonna have to let you go in a moment.
But it's been wonderful having you on. I've really enjoyed
talking with you.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed being here and.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big fan of what you're doing. I
love your music.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and I really appreciate uh you
for supporting you know, guys like me and grim. Uh.
It's awesome because every little bit helps. And like I said,
back to the Facebook pages, you know, going to Facebook pages,
likes are cool, shares are better, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely. What should people know about where
to find you online?
Speaker 2: Like I said, really back to what I said. You
just type in Ian hemmy and every anything that has
is affiliated with Silicon Kong in any possible way, we'll
pull up on one of the if not all. I'm
on the id MB, the actors thing on you know,
the Hollywood actors thing. I mean, I'm also a producer
and a writer, you know, like I've done things with
Mow and stuff like that. So anywhere you type in
Ian Hammy and pull it up. Just click the link
and I'm sure you'll find a link to take you
to everything that I do.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you are very googleable.
Speaker 2: Yes, very googleble I like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, very good, very good. I'm gonna close out
this segment with it. This is another track that I
found on Reverb Nation that I really like. Twitter padded,
I really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got real quick. I'll tell you the story
behind that. You know where that came from? Jen? Do
you know where I came from?
Speaker 1: Oh, she's she's actually out of the room for a moment.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well growing up you know Disney. Let's
go back to you and growing up Bamby the movie Bamby,
Remember ever Bamby's like, what's wrong with them? Oh? They're okay,
they're just Twitter paid.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I got you.
Speaker 2: Cartoons are my life. You know. I love Kromedi's and cartoons.
I'm very animated, as you can tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's also the John Burrows remix. Oh okay,
you know John Burrows.
Speaker 1: I feel like I do.
Speaker 2: Look it up.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, very good? All right, Ian Hemy
aka Silicon Kong, thank you so much, my friend. I
can't wait, I can't wait to see the movie. And uh,
I'm sure we'll what's that?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry? I select some people, ye have I said?
Just find me mainly A lot of that stuff will
be released on my mainly my Facebook pages. Okay, so
people just follow me, friend me, whatever you want to
do if you want to get more information on it,
and also on my Facebook pages, you can scroll through
it and know take you. I had to also have
a Facebook page for Silicon Kong. Okay, so I also
have another Facebook page for the Still City Architect of
Pittsburgh documentary itself too, oh on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent. All right, ian Hemy, We'll let you go
for now, but I'm sure I'm sure we will talk again.
Speaker 2: In the future, I hope. So thank you, all.
Speaker 1: Right, man, thank you, take care bye bye.
Speaker 2: All you take care now, Matt.
Speaker 1: All right. That was ian Hemy, Yes from Pittsburgh.