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Speaker 1: It's Billified, the Bill Moran Podcast.
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Speaker 2: Boy, A lot of stuff happening in the world, and
one of the things that's getting a lot of attention.
And I actually heard somebody say it's a distraction. They
don't want you to pay attention to the election because
there's always that. It's the whole Diddy situation. And I
was looking for someone who could talk about this. And
this guy you've probably seen him. He's been on every
possible news channel. I saw him on CBS New York
and all over the place. Well, what is do you
know what racketeering is?
Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if people do. Do you know what
a rico charge is? Well, a guy who does know
all that is defense attorney Eric Fattis, and he's very
familiar with what's happening with Sean Diddy Combs? Hello, Eric,
how are you good? Good to be with you, Bill.
It's good to have you here. So let me let
me start there, Eric, because I don't think a lot
of people understand when we hear these things. And I've
been told by people who have gone to law school
that your first year of law school is like learning
an entire new language.
Speaker 1: Would that be true.
Speaker 4: I think that's there's nomenclature and all sorts of jargon,
and so I've got about a quarter of that up
here still.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I also want to say, you're a defense attorney.
And I always think, like I've known, I'm friends with
a couple of defense attorneys, and I always think that
people will say, well, how could you defend those guys?
And I think I want a defense attorney. And the
reason I want defense attorneys around is they protect the
rights and freedoms. Once that starts getting trampled and there's
no one there to call hey, you know, inside the
lines or outside the lines, we wind up blurring the lines,
and nobody wants that. That's not good for anybody. So
even in this case, when we see p Diddy and
we hear the horrific things, and there's the court of
popular opinion, and we all can kind of have that
knee jerk reaction, and rightfully so I think that we
need to kind of back up and realize you need
to have somebody there to call balls and strikes.
Speaker 3: On the defense side, I think that's only fair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no question, Bill.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, these allegations are alarming and they need
to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1: Sure, But on the flip.
Speaker 4: Side, you know, he is presumed innocent. These are accusations
at this point. And I always tell folks like my
primary client is the Constitution and ensuring that the rights
in there are protected for anyone accused of a.
Speaker 1: Crime, right rights and freedom. So let's go.
Speaker 2: Because he's charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. Can you
explain what racketeering is in kind of the simplest way
possible for dumb people like me.
Speaker 4: Totally so racketeering that there's this law called RICO, and
it's a federal law. It was essentially implemented to target
criminal organizations, organized crime, mafia type stuff like that, and
essentially what it entails is a pattern of illegal activities
taken in furtherance of a criminal enterprise. So we're talking
multiple people involved and in furtherance of the objectives of
that criminal enterprise. And it's a way the government really
can loop in a lot of peripheral actors, affiliates and
other folks who may have been participating in some form
or fashion in.
Speaker 2: The direct oper Okay, so they're the abominoes will fall.
So if I'm an associate of ditties, forgive my French,
but I'm shitting my pants right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there, you know, clean up on Aisle
seven be appropriate for this because they are in the
target zone, no question.
Speaker 1: Can you also explain what.
Speaker 2: I guess the legal definition of sex trafficking because before you,
I had a video chat with my mother. I know,
sounds strange, but my mom said to me her friend
was very happy that Diddy was getting in trouble because
she's so tired of hearing the sex trafficking. And I said,
you know what, I'm not exactly sure, and I know
this sounds what sex trafficking is. Yes, underage girls being
forced to sex traffic. But I've we had a bust
in the town I'm in years ago that there were
some people who were brought over to the country. They
worked for a nal salon that was also doing hand
jobs on the side, but not the nail hand jobs,
and they got busted. And I think that part of
that was sex trafficking in that they were working off
their debt for being brought to this country. That would
be sex trafficking. So what's happening like is sex trafficking prostitution?
If I willingly go into that, that's not That would
be almost a transaction between two consenting adults, even though
it's illegal in certain parts of the country.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel you, a bill.
Speaker 4: I think sex trafficking requires a little more than that,
just sort of organized prostitution. Usually, what it entails is
folks luring in people of vulnerable populations, young women who
might not have their resources, and then essentially pressuring them
or coercing them through fraud or deception or even force
to engage in a sort of a larger operation of
sex trafficking. It's usually not limited to one instance, it's
multiple allegations over time.
Speaker 2: Okay, so now Diddy's accused of sex trafficking, but then
we also had the raids of his house. You had
ar fifteen's assault rifles found with the serial numbers scratched off.
Video evidence of some of the things that we know
went on. I don't know why. It's the same thing
I tell my fourteen year old kid, you don't need
to video everything because it will come back to bite you.
Speaker 3: And on the.
Speaker 2: Other side, then, of course, the salacious thing would be
the thousand bottles of baby oil, which I go. I
don't know whose job that was to buy, but the
only thing I can think is you probably should have
done that during the pandemic because no one would have
thought anything of it.
Speaker 1: Everybody was in size.
Speaker 2: But if you're going in, how do you buy thousands
of bottles of baby oil?
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know unless you put down.
Speaker 2: But as an organization, this guy could go away himself
for decades, oh without question.
Speaker 4: The sex trafficking by force, frauduical words and the second
charge in the indictment is extremely serious, carries potentially decades
in prison. You have the rico charge on top of that,
which can, to you know, help multiply the potential sentence.
And then the transporting someone across state lines for sexual
purposes is the third charge. All of these things are
very grave and you know, very high stakes in terms
of criminal litigation.
Speaker 2: So he would have these parties that in some of
the stuff you read, and I don't know how old
you are, you look like a fairly young guy. But
back when I was a young guy, there was the Inquirer,
and we would make fun of the Inquirer and you'd
read it in the shopping as you were checking out
of the grocery store. But they busted a lot of
stories first. They broke a lot of stories. I think
you can go back to politicians with affairs and different things.
TMZ to me has become an amazing source on this
sort of thing, and they seem to be. I think
something just came across just a few minutes ago with
TMZ about this ditty case and what's happening there.
Speaker 1: Do we know?
Speaker 2: I think they were talking about other associates. Have you
heard of others already being I don't know, arrested, brought
up on charges, something other Domino starting to fall, Bill.
Speaker 4: I haven't heard of any folks specifically being identified, which
is a little uncommon. Usually in a RICO case, when
they do the takedown, they do the arrest, They got
the kingpin who they identified, and then there's the underlings,
the affiliates, the associates. Those folks are usually roped in
from the outset with criminal charges. Here the prosecution has
not done that, and I think it's kind of a
form of strategy, but an uncommon in a typical real
I haven't heard of any folks being identified yet. There
was allegedly a high level record executive that was associated
with Ditty that resigned this week, and so there are
rumors speculating as to what if there is any connection
there at all, but no one has been specifically disclosed
by the government yet.
Speaker 2: Now he's being held without bail, right, no option for bail.
Speaker 3: I think there was. He tried to get bail, and
I thought.
Speaker 2: There was right, I won't, I won't hang out with
women or something, Okay, But he went to he ran
to and I'm going to forget. It wasn't the Bahamas,
But what was it? Like Bahama Light? I know that's
not it, but it was something some private islands. Can
we extradite people from other places like that? Or there
are laws on the local land that would prevent someone.
So I bring that up because let's say I am
the record executive and I go, oh shit, I knew
I shouldn't have gotten to that party, or I knew
I shouldn't have done that. If he takes off, is
there any way to bring that person back or no?
Speaker 3: At this point it's a solid point bill.
Speaker 4: So you know, there are certain countries with which the
US is more friendly and extradition is easier, they're more cooperative,
and there are certain countries where that's not right, and
so surely there's a risk that these affiliates could get
down and leave the country and you know, never to
be found again. There are measures that the government can
take to try to get them back, but they're not
always affected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 2: Why did he come Not that you wouldn't necessarily know this,
but were you surprised that he came back after he
took off that first time and then there.
Speaker 1: Were the raids? What brought him?
Speaker 2: I don't under stand then, or is it just hubris
you think you're really truly above all of it.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm wondering if that's playing a role here.
Speaker 4: When you listen to his attorneys, so initially they were saying, hey,
did he did none of this? And there is no evidence,
and he is one inocent and then the Cassie video
comes out and then they start to kind of back
beat on and they say, oh, well you know that happened.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but the other stuff he definitely didn't do that.
Speaker 4: I think they've been a little bit too, you know,
overstating their case, a little overconfident. Maybe part of that
is coming from their client who thinks that, hey, I'm untouchable,
I'm you know, Teflon Dawn type and this isn't going
to come down on me.
Speaker 5: But here we are this week and he is mind bars.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Any chance that he would get bail at all?
In your opinion? I mean, I know, trying twice, I
would assume the answer is no. But would there be
any case or what would you do as his defense
attorney to try to get that?
Speaker 4: You know, I think there's the pen's attorney's did a
reasonably good job at presenting their bail package. It was
they offered fifty million dollars. I think they were using
property as collateral. They offered that he wouldn't talk with
any or he wouldn't associate with women, and that kind
of thing.
Speaker 5: What more can you do? They also got a former jail.
Speaker 4: Director or something like that to say, hey, did his
life is probably in danger while he's incarcerated. That's as
much as you can really give to a court. I'm
not sure what else they could do, but due to
the gravity of the charges and some of the allegations
of witness tampering, the judge said, no go, You're stand
locked up till this thing is over.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: When have you read the entire case?
Speaker 2: I assume these are pages upon pages upon pages and
stuff in some of the accusations. You know, you try
to keep the victims' names out of things. Obviously, Cassie
has come out and she was one of the first
ones to bring charges, and I think there have been
more sense then. But are there any men? There's been
a lot of alleged and no one's stepping up and
saying anything but alleged that hey, did he hit on me?
I mean, fifty cent has not been silent about all
this stuff, saying, you know, an awful lot of things.
And then there was even this uncomfortable thing where you
saw video in the past of Justin Bieber when he
was very young at this party. And then you listen
lyrics that come out in songs. So I'm just wondering,
have you seen are there men accusing him of sexual
assault or sex trafficking them?
Speaker 4: So here's what I've seen, at least as far as
the crew goes. It's unclear whether they've identified any male victims,
but in terms of the civil allegations, there have been
multiple male victims allegedly come forward claiming that there was
sexual impropriety involving them. You know, they're above and beyond that,
there are rumors within the hip hop industry that this
kind of thing has been going on and it's involved
men and sex acts and everything else. And so is
that a piece of the entire ditty saga?
Speaker 5: I think it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's so weird because you heard all these
rumors about the entertainment industry, whether it be film, music
or whatever, for years, and it was always sort of
I guess rumors, and no one could really say unless
they were involved, and you had people who were emphatically no,
you have no idea what goes on, and then something
like this it's pretty eye opening for people because I go, wow,
how freaky do you get even to call it a
freak off?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 2: And then how do you, how do you find the
people that go all right, your job is to buy
all this stuff and then clean it all up after
a couple of days. I mean, I go boy, tell you.
Speaker 4: You know, I think for the longest time, there were
many folks who had an allegiance to Ditty. He had
a lot of power in the hip hop and so
folks were not talking on that basis. In certain communities,
it's just frowned upon to provide information to the government
and stuff like this. So I think that was protecting
him for a long time. But I think we're going
to begin to see the cards fall and folks coming
out of the woodwork becoming government witnesses in part to
protect themselves from their own potential criminal liability.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, when you hear things like racketeering and reco
charge and as you said, that's usually associated with the
mafia or the mob, you would think in some way
he's got to have a law a big reach, and
that there's somebody somewhere that you would be very afraid
of to say anything. That's why, I mean, you know,
it's very easy when we see and take it to anybody.
Domestic abuse happening. You know, people always go, well, why
why did someone stay? And Cassie was there for a
long time, and you see this, and I go, I
think that it would be almost impossible to leave in
a way that because of these threats and because of
this reach and to your point, I mean the government,
you know, to go into almost would.
Speaker 1: They put people in witness protection for a case like this?
Speaker 4: Oh sure, yeah, really certainly on the table, I think.
And you know, when you look at the sort of
bread of the allegations, we're talking some scary stuff kit
not only sexual assault, physical assault obviously, but kidnapping, arson,
we're talking about bribery, we're talking about cover ups. And
so it appears, at least according to the government, that
this is a wide ranging criminal operation that certainly had
some power to make folks do what they wanted them
to do.
Speaker 3: Man, we're not what do we see what happens next
in the case?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So next, you know, certainly from the government's perspective, there
was a press conference where the federal prosecutor essentially said, hey,
Diddy did not do this alone, and we are not
done with these charges. I think they're telegraphing to potential
affiliates and participants that Hey, you've got a short window
during which you need to come forward and give us
some information.
Speaker 5: Otherwise you're going to be next.
Speaker 3: On this, right, gotcha.
Speaker 2: So it's all okay, this is telegraphing in a way
that you become a U turn, you become the proverbial snitch,
that's right.
Speaker 4: And what the government does is they will oftentimes afford
immunity to those folks. They'll say, hey, you were engaged
in some dastardly stuff here, but if you come and
help us put ditty behind bars forever, we're gonna make
it so that you not only don't go to jail,
but a potentially protected afterwards through something like the Witness
Protection program.
Speaker 2: I heard that snitches get stitches, but I don't know
anything about that. I just wow, very interesting and great,
great analysis on all of it. Eric Fattish, thank you
very much.
Speaker 6: Eric.
Speaker 1: Where will we see you pop up next? Gush?
Speaker 4: You know I did film for Doctor Phil recently. I
was on his show that should be coming up soon.
We are in talks about a potential reality show and
then beyond that, I'll be on Core TV at one
pm Man one pm Mountain.
Speaker 2: Time, Okay, one pm Mountain time, so that would be
three pm our time. All right, well we'll be looking
for you, Eric Fattish, thank you for your time, a great,
great insight on the ditty case, and thank you for
explaining it kind.
Speaker 3: Of for dummies.
Speaker 5: Till next time, billing.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks so much. There he goes Eric Fattis.
All right, we will take a moment, be right back.
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Speaker 5: Make me feel.
Speaker 1: We're dropping this on a Monday.
Speaker 3: Maybe you need a new drug to get through a Monday.
I don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, everything starts with an idea, even if it's
Ditty and the freak off parties that he had and
you heard Eric Fattis talking about that, but I thought
it'd be fun to go back and talk to guys.
It started with an idea. If you go back to
episode two sixty six, it's Charlie Fitzsimmons' fun equal success
and that's really what Charlie was all about, and I
thought I would give you a little bit of that,
maybe some Monday motivation from episode two sixty six, where
you can hear the rest of this conversation. Here's some
of Charlie Fitzimmons, the owner of Tronta Jojo and Black
and Blue, telling you about fun equaling success. This guy,
Charlie Fitzsimmons, I met Charlie Annimo.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was that was you.
Speaker 2: You know what's so weird is so I forget who
I was telling the story to. It was Uncle Roger,
who it was the twentieth anniversary yesterday of his murder,
which I have an unpiepular opinion on sometimes.
Speaker 1: Oh, how so you're for it?
Speaker 2: No, but I I'll say, I'll say this because we're
twenty years past.
Speaker 3: I think at this point, I'm okay.
Speaker 1: So years ago, I would like I.
Speaker 2: Would drive Rogs to meetings when Stanley was the program
director and we were all there, and we would meet
at Stan's house on Harvard Street. Roger asked me to
pick him up and we'd go over and do this.
And there was a time in the studio that he
had left his sweatshirt like on the chair and he
was out doing production and I.
Speaker 3: Moved it and his gun fell out.
Speaker 2: Oh and it was just in like a zip up sweatshirt,
not in a holst or anything, just in the side
pocket of this thing just fell out.
Speaker 3: I fuck it, almost shit.
Speaker 1: I'm picking the thing up like yeah, like, oh my god.
So I said to him, Hey, I'm really sorry. Oh
your gun fell out.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do, so I just I'm
basing it on this. They've never been able to find anybody.
Nobody really knows what happened. He did own property and
he was collecting rent.
Speaker 1: But is it.
Speaker 2: Possible that the gun went off and hit him in
the abdomen? Do you understand what I'm saying, not on purpose,
but a pure accident. Could something have happened? Could he
have been startled where he had the gun he reached for.
Speaker 1: It to do something.
Speaker 2: And I only say that because and it sounds terrible
and you're blaming the victim kind of thing.
Speaker 1: That people always say with this. But there wasn't any
secure way. It was just only from my own experience.
It's just you. We had to you see what I'm saying.
And it was in the side pocket and if that's
where you kept it right and.
Speaker 2: It and he was shot in the abdomen, is it
possible that you reached inside to get it and accidentally
it went off and no one really could tell.
Speaker 1: Guy he was the nicest, sweetest guy, nicest sweetest guy.
He bound me out some. You know, he bailed you
really well, just with the morning show because I had
to get up and he'd turn over the mic to
the wei show. And I was the producer at that time.
I was twenty three, twenty four, so getting up at
that hour was you know, that was half the challenge.
So I'd come in on two wheels sometimes in late
you know, six oh five, six ' ten or something. Yeah,
and he'd be giggling and he's just so sweet. I
got you, I got you, go do your thing, and
then I come in. He'd here, he put on Freebird,
you know, a real long song, and then I come in.
Speaker 3: And wear are my notes? That's uh so he was. Yeah,
it was twenty years he died, and it was uh so.
Speaker 2: He would sing to Patamas. He'd sing Mire Animal and
then I asked you if you do it? No, it
is yeah, that's it was him. It was his thing.
And then you produced that thing and then I used
to use it all the time. But what I find
most fascinating with you is you have the might as touch.
It's like every now I know that that that we're looking,
I'm looking from the outside and we see all this stuff.
But I knew you through radio. You had produced the
Brother We Show. Super talented, very creative. You went and
started doing the production and they really wanted you to stay.
And it was around that time that you left and
you no one really knew what's Charlie going to do.
And there was talk of he's going to open a
restaurant bar and I don't know what your brother Phil did,
but the what I remember was he's from La, or
went to la he was a corporate guy.
Speaker 1: He's coming back.
Speaker 2: They're going to do this thing. They're going to open
up and it was a long time. It seemed like
a long time. And I only say that because our
mutual friend Tommy Mulay used to look for restaurants that
had opened and closed before.
Speaker 1: You even open yours.
Speaker 2: And then Tonic opens, and to me, you built the
East End. You were the anchor of what became the
East End Entertainment district for and really I think proved
that that was a viable area.
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 2: I think that the housing and everything was was kind
of you showed it.
Speaker 1: Others came down and did it as well. Well, I
thank you. We went from zero to plus one. You
know there was nothing down there. Yeah, so I guess
we were the first ones. We had success. But that
police would get you reminded me of so many stories.
I'll bounce around one thing before I forget the gun thing.
Did I never tell you about when we'z and I
went to Did you hear that story? I heard it.
It wasn't that.
Speaker 3: It's no, it is it is because you're you were.
Speaker 1: When I was producing with Weez, we got the opportunity.
Had a good friend whose name's going to escape me,
but he was the film critic for USA Today.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was Rex read Uh no no, no, no, no, no
was the party yeah, yes he was.
Speaker 3: No, this was Marshall Fine.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, Marshall Fine. So we got the opportunity
to go down and he took I was sort of
his plus one. So we went to New York and
got to go to the Rainbow Room for this you know,
kind of smallish party. There were probably it looked like
a decent sized wedding, but Paul Newman's there, Robert Redford.
It was pulp fiction time, so all those people were
in there.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was really fun. That was like that Saturday, okay,
and I forget what table we're at, but it was
really really cool. But the night before we went to
this exclusive, invite only cocktail party, like on the Upper
West Side, and at that time, I don't know if
it still is, but you couldn't have firearms in New
York City. It was a jallible offense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think even if you go back, if
you're remember Plexical Burrs, the football player for the Giants,
you need an additional license in New York City to
carry a concealed weapon, so you can have the New
York State concealed weapon and needing an additional license for
New York City.
Speaker 1: And it's no joke. It is not fine. You go
to like, yeah, Burs, he was off the teams. Right,
We're in this fancy, you know, small cocktail party. It's
like a three bedroom apartment, and we didn't really know anyone,
so sort of huddle together on this little couch, just
checking people out. And at one point he who he's
just getting up to go get a cocktail or food
or something. He's like, you know, bra, sate my seat.
So he gets up to Lenor and by the way,
there's most of the people are skewed pretty old there.
So back in that time, I'd say, you know, I'm
twenty four, twenty five, so they're all mid forties to
mid sixties. There's not many young.
Speaker 2: People, right, and and probably I'm gonna say almost blue
butt blood.
Speaker 1: It sounds like if I remember like Helen mirr U, Yes,
she was there. Yeah, so I didn't know a lot
of the people, but it was definitely it was money.
Speaker 2: People, right, you had it like and some of its
old money some of these people, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: There's a difference.
Speaker 1: We were. We were kind of sticking out well more
so while I had long hair and I'm the you know,
the youngest by good fifteen years, it seemed other than
the waite staff. And I have long hair, so like,
who's this guy you know? And then they find out nobody.
So so we's is getting up and he's leaning over
and boom boom, and I go back to that when
you picked up Roger's gun. They're heavy, Yeah, a little
compact I've never had. I hadn't really, I haven't found
that often. So he gets up and boom boom, there's
just noise and slide across on a hardwood floor is
a gun. I had no idea he was carrying a gun.
And by the way, we's in these blue buds, has
his sleeves pulled up, and he doesn't have you know,
maybe two square inches that it doesn't have ink on it,
and you know, he looks he doesn't. At that time
he didn't tattoos weren't all that big, so they were
like movie star. It was sort of like.
Speaker 3: Who's this dude?
Speaker 1: And the gun slides over, and the look on these
people's faces, they're mortified. They's not even just they suddenly
went from oh my god, I'm scared and a biker.
You know, he looked like he's got a gun. There's
somehow's angels sitting there with a gun, and and it
changed the whole mood. And it was just so funny.
He was so funny because he was so ridiculously uncomfortable laughing.
We he coul keep kicking it. There he picked. So
he picked it up, you know, and kind of stuffed
it in and you could kind of see news is
traveling pretty quickly. But we got out of there. That
was the one thing I want to come. And then
the the second thing you're talking about it opening the
rest the Tonic. Yeah, and you're saying it seemed like forever,
and it did. It did take forever. But back in
those days, well.
Speaker 2: I thought it took like eleven months if I if
I'm and I may be wrong, that's I don't know
why that stuck. Because I would argue with Tommy that, like,
because there was a place in Penfield that it opened
then closed. He goes, hey, the place you can find that.
We were laughing our asses off, and then I said
to him, well that's not really fair. And then there
was I don't look, you're building out of space. Yeah,
and I don't know what I'm doing, okay, but you
know you're hiring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I think that was it. Yeah, I sure
honestly thought, because I would tell people like about six weeks,
and you know, some people I know better than others
would be like, you should just call it six weeks
because every time I see you say, six weeks. Yeah,
but it took a really long time, and really because
I didn't know what I was doing. And I think
that was almost a blessing too. You know, ignorance is bliss.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: Because I wouldn't have if I had I known. I think,
if someone laid out in front of me, this is
how long it's going to take, this is how much
it's going to cost, and all that stuff, I probably
wouldn't have done it. But you know, you just kind
of charge ahead and eventually opened it. Oh but I
want to tell you, at that time, I was trying
to figure out a way that I could get fired
and get some money while I while I switch over
and become full time bar guy. Yes, and it was
so funny because I no.
Speaker 2: Idea what I was doing fighting with them. Yeah, okay,
so at the time we had a program director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Harry Jacobs.
Speaker 2: Harry Jacobs, and Harry was a guy that was very
into Harry.
Speaker 1: Harry did things. Now that's that's fair, and I have
to be careful. It's a hard time because he was
a nice guy. Yeah, he was a nice guy. He
was just different.
Speaker 2: He would yeah, but he would do things like we
talked about it on the podcast at one point where
he would call her nine. Basically would he would invite
her up, have her wait in the lobby, and then
have everybody tell her what she looked what she looked like.
Because he wanted a dater, he would start conversations.
Speaker 3: With women and then invite them up.
Speaker 2: They'd be in the lobby and he was only on
from four to six pm, but that was like his
dating hours, and like he would meet these women and
they would come up and some of them were.
Speaker 6: Color.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like call her nine. He dated, call
her nine.
Speaker 2: But I remember, like when they come up and see
him and be like that you did. I remember you
changed the production hours. You were there from six to
three and man at two you're it's hilarious.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what I was trying to do, and I'm no
good at it because I know it's just out of
my DNA, you know, to to to try to get fired.
But somehow I got that stupid idea in my head like, well,
if I get fired, I can still make money through
unemployment insurance, which I knew nothing about, and then I
could go jump over and start doing my restaurant or
the bar for all time because I was worried about
making making money. I had a friend, a smarter friend
in college that was in labor law at the time.
So I call him like how do I do this?
And he was you know, he wasn't an attorney for
that long, but he gave me some points. I'm like,
here's what you need to do. You know, no matter what,
you can't you can't quit, ok you have to get
fired and that's you know that that's justification for being
able to collect unemployment. So I'm like, Okay, how do
I do that. He's like, well, just you know, essentially
start being a dick, you know. And then one of
the other things he said was you got to follow
the rules, but claim that they're making the environment there
difficult for you to be able to do.
Speaker 3: Your job toxic work environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like but this is like before this is like, well,
this is I had no idea. There was just planning,
full planning, and you know, the execution was terrible. But
that was kind of building up to him. I'm like, Okay,
well listen, I'm not coming in until this time because
blah blah blah. So I'd only come in at a
particular hour, and then I would say that people coming
into the studio was making it difficult for me to
be able to do my job, So you can't come, yes, yes,
except for certain hours. Remember the sign It was like,
you can't enter. Oh god, I because I'm at my core.
I'm actually a pretty nice guy.
Speaker 2: Well you are, and everybody loved you there, well I
mean legitimately loved you, like how creative you were.
Speaker 3: So they were doing everything they could to save you.
Speaker 2: And then I remember the GM being all confused as
the one understand I had to.
Speaker 1: Have all I had to have somebody in the organization
to be kind of my foil. I don't know if
that's the right word. Yes, you know, yes, I had
to blame someone to make the environment that I was,
you know, in such an environment that I wasn't able
to do my job. So Harry Jacobs perfect was the enemy. Yes,
And it was tough for me to get that mad
at someone, you know, and I feel kind of bad.
But so I was making Harry Jacobs the person that
was making my job unable to do so, and I
remember at one point time was ticking because we're getting
close to opening. We're not so much opening the place,
but I needed to spend more time there because we
were there being the new bar, because we're hanging drywall. Yes,
you know, so you're doing all the wire?
Speaker 3: Were you doing all that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? It was you know, and I knew
nothing about it. I was, you know, middle class kid
out up bright and my dad was a single it
was an attorney, but self employed attorney. So we would
hire people to hang drywall. And then part of the
deal was we'll give you the job if you let
us work with you. So my brother would work with
like the electrician, I'd work with like the drywaller, and
then I figure out how they did it, or assumed
I figured it out, and then we'd let them go
and then we do it ourselves. Okay. So I was
getting to a point where, you know, that's like tradesmen
in school, one oh one weekend class. So it got
to a point where I'm like, well, I got to
get over there and work. So I got to get fired,
you know, I got to figure out how to do it.
So I remember, I finally we set up this meeting
with who's the little guy that he was a good dude,
and I set up a meeting with him to saying,
you know, drawing the line, I can't work here anymore.
This environment is too bad. So I'm in there with
him and he's like, dude, what's the deal. And I
couldn't let on. You know that I was coached that
way that you can't let on. And obviously, so I'm like,
this guy's just made it. He's created an environment that's,
you know, made it impossible for me to do my job.
And then that's where we went into like Okay, I'll
limit your hours, no one can come see you. You
can just work nine to five. You can do whatever
you want. And I'm like, okay, fine, And then part
two was I had to get in there with him
and he's like, what's going on. I'm like, and I
just kept reciting this line. You know, he's made it,
you know, he's created an environment work. I want to
do my job. And he's like, what are you doing?
He's like, are you talking to an attorney or something?
You sound like a complete tool. And eventually did I cracked.
I just couldn't. I'm like, I don't know, I'm just
you know, he's he he's smarter than me.
Speaker 3: He's a bright guy. He's like a very good businessman.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm not letting this, you know, hair Ball
tell me what to do. So he just eventually smoked
me out, you know, and I and and I ended
up leaving. But it was very funny. Did you so
how what I paid for it? By the way in karma,
you know, employee relations and trying to get you know,
I'm like, so you leave when you left, yeah, you
didn't get fired, so I didn't get fired. I and
I and I don't even know if that would have worked.
You know, at that point, I didn't know what he
was talking about. So he left and went over and
kind of finished building out the restaurant and got into
that stuff and figured out we didn't neither of us
knew how to run a restaurant or build a restaurant.
Why why? Why? Why this? Why the move from?
Speaker 3: I mean, you're really.
Speaker 1: No, you know, it's just that kind of guy that
I would How old are you at this point? I
was twenty seven, twenty seven when I made that switch.
I think we opened when I was twenty eight. But
you know, I never I never really had a concern
of making money or being successful or getting when getting
the things I needed, you know, in life, like and
I didn't have a high bar. It's not like I've
needed a big house or you know. I was just
sort of like someone that would, oh, this seems kind
of cool. And I and I liked creative stuff, you know,
I like being in radio, not the sales side, but
the creative side. I liked building things and I and
I really didn't. I wasn't a good student. Really, I
wasn't an applied student. You know, I do homework. I
just take people's nose.
Speaker 2: You went to McQuaid, and I have a son who
went to McQuaid. I wouldn't say the McQuaid was maybe
not necessarily academically harder than any school in the area.
Speaker 3: It just gave you a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Like my kid was in an AP English class where
they were reading and discussing a book, but you also
had to read two other books and write three papers
on each book a paper. That's a tremendous amount of
work for high school.
Speaker 1: I think that's increased though from when I went.
Speaker 2: Well, this was an ap and Jordan wanted to prove
to the world that he could do whatever.
Speaker 1: And mentioned coming into the podcast, my kid's a six
year old, six year old sixth grader.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I think the smartest time to start.
It's a really great environment for it, and I think
it's great for boys to you know, less distraction, a
little more focused. I think it breeds more competition, which
I think is.
Speaker 1: Good compete, healthy competition. Yeah, it was when I went,
it wasn't quite so uh developed, you know, like now
it looks like an academy. When I went, it was
a Catholic high school. So the workload, you know, I
had nothing to base it off of, but it was manageable,
and I got by with c's you know, c pluses
and stuff like that. And then I the only college
I got into, the only thick envelope was John Carroll University.
No offense John Carroll, sorry, but which I hear is
getting more and more difficult. That's a Jesuit school, and
so I think they had kind of like this agreement
with mcquaide. You know, they'll take us, and that's sort
of like that Catholic Christian you know, give us your week,
you're scart whatever.
Speaker 2: The Jesuit schools and Jesuit institutions are considered academically superior
to GST, you know, I mean one of the best
I think, uh in chicag is it Loyola Jesuit School
really really highly rated and like I was hoping my
kid would go on to a Jesuit college.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well there's some I applied to them, some
of the nicer ones. Yeah. And I was telling someone
because I'm at that age now where our kids are
starting to look at schools and apply to schools and
you're learning about, you know, where do people want to go?
But when I was applying, remember it was like thirty
bucks an application, which was a fortune, and I had
to pay for them through whatever, and my parents would
help me out with some of the applications. But it
got to a point where my dad would be like,
what are you doing. You know, that's a waste of money.
You're never going to get in there. Really, it was like,
can I have thirty bucks that apply to University of Vermont?
It will be like a reach for me. Back then,
So I applied to maybe nine schools and I get
in that any or eight? Yeah, I got into one.
I went to John Carroll. But and John Carroll even
I was just you know, I could I could manage
the system and get by yea, and I love the experience.
But I wasn't a student. You know, Yes, sometimes I
think I would like to go back, But then I'm like,
you know, a zebra and his colors, and you know,
I did it for a week. I go this, Yeah,
I wouldn't study. I just didn't have that.
Speaker 2: But there is but there's a there's a difference because
I think like they've done studies with young kids where
they have kids do a test and then they say
to them, Wow, you're so smart.
Speaker 3: You really did great.
Speaker 2: And they tell another group of kids to take the
same test. Man, you worked so hard you did your
effort was amazing. And then they give the test again
and the kids that were told about effort scored higher
than the kids that were told how academically.
Speaker 3: Superior or small? Aren't they work?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a psychological study I was just reading about.
So it's always about effort and when you think for yourself.
You know, one one of the things I always said
about radio was there was nothing tangible. At the end
of the day. You didn't have anything tangible. You sort
of did in production when you were doing that, you
had something you could look at. I always liked working
with my hands, and I had done construction stuff in
high school and a little bit in college that you know,
at the end of the day, if I hung a door,
I could look back and do that and there's some
personal satisfaction in that. So as I'm hearing you talk about,
you know, building out tonic, you can look at something
and see the progression, and as you get further and
further into it, it evolves. You know, now I'm not
going to have this here. It's going to look better
over here, and the bar is going to be I'm
just saying that things change along the way. Yeah, and
you're doing it yourself. And I go back to you know,
you talked about being naive, kind of going in blind
the greatest thing, and I've experienced this with with the podcast.
It has been a year no rules, there are no rules,
so that way you don't know the barrier. The other
thing I would always say to people is and a
mutual friend of ours did this without even knowing it.
But I always go, if you have an idea, don't
tell anybody about it because or just some people that
you who are going to be sort of supportive, because
people are gonna come to.
Speaker 1: You and go, Charlie, you open a bar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what happens some bars.
Speaker 2: You guys get drunk, they lose, They never last, you
lose your money, You're gotting pissed it, And so you
get all that doubt in your head. And I'll always
go to people who go al. I go, wait, hang
on a second. I'll give you a biblical answer. Jesus
used to say, heal people and go go forth and
tell no one. The reason is because they're going to go. Yeah,
I'll be back in two weeks. You'll be dead.
Speaker 1: He'll be in the ground. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2: And so I'll just tell you I'm I'm starting the
podcast and I'm thinking of doing stuff. And you know,
my exit from radio was a little traumatic and then
a little bumps. And I get a call from our
old friend Bull Yes, and he goes, what are you
gonna do? And I said, I had just ordered all
this equipment and so I'm gonna do podcasts.
Speaker 1: I was doing that, Yeah, I was doing in the
basement and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like, fuck, had I had that
conversation before I ordered the equipment, I wouldn't have spent
the money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then you're like, it's ball. It's kind of
a I always liked.
Speaker 2: But I so it was just an interesting thing, and
I would think you probably had to run into that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my dad pulled me aside and go, what
are you doing? Like a bar? Yeah, you know you
went to McQuaid, you're going to John Carroll And yes,
I just wasn't you know, in our family culture. I
don't know what so you really so this was just
something that you and your brother thought, Hey, let's try.
I was smarter that my brother was kind of like
family ties. Who's the young kid Michael, Yes, yes, yes,
Keaton or like no, but I was going to say
Michael Keith. But he would you know. He was a
go getter, so he come down, you know for school.
He had the tie on, you know, and he's already
a briefcase, you know, that kind of thing. And he
was very successful early on in life and got the
jobs and hustled and all that. And I was kind
of the goofball in the side, didn't have a path
sort of thing, and and eventually he circled back. He
was in advertising. Yeah, he was in LA working for
bb D n O. I think is an agency, and
then he was running a division of Johnson and Johnson,
the Visticon, which made disposable contact lenses. And he was
young at that time. When I go back and do
the math, I'm like, damn, that kid was successful. So
I think he had kind of had enough of that, yeah,
and was like I missed just kind of messing around
and doing stuff. So he kind of quit his job
or got fired or both. I think he used my tool.
He went in there and said job as well he was,
he said, mister Jacobs, I think he was about as
successful as I was at it. So he uh, he
ended up quitting his job and joining a rock band
down there and growing his hair out and just being
you know, kind of goofing off for a while. And
then he eventually was planning on coming back up to Rochester.
And that's when I was in radio. So I was
probably twenty six and he's five years my senior, so
he's probably thirty one around that time. So we started
looking for to build like an ad agency, a little
creative okay, that makes sense, and then I would sort
of head up I guess the radio side, well, just
the creative, which as the creative side, I didn't know
about the business side, and he had the business background
as marketing director and go that. So we started looking
for spaces. We bumped into this restaurant or this space
on Alexander on the second floor that was GUP Signs,
and prior to that it was Snyder pardon me, gup
signs is lower Snyder auto seat cushion, which no one
knows about you. And we walked in. We're like, damn,
this is a nice space. This would make a really
cool bar. And that was it.
Speaker 2: Here the rest of my conversation with Charlie Fitzsimmons in
episode two sixty six, just search Bilified wherever you get
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Speaker 3: You know it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2: And Tommy Burnet's here Iron Smoke, But I said to him,
I wanted to talk to him forever.
Speaker 1: And I hope that didn't freaky out Because you've had.
Speaker 2: World tours where you played in front of like thirty
thousand people a night with Modern English.
Speaker 1: Yep, I think did you do tours with your own band?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're a solid opener like Towny Brunette band, WI
will be playing with Like we open up for everybody
from Easy Top to the Luminears. Yeah, we opened up
for Lumineers on the roof of Whole Foods during south
By south West and Austin.
Speaker 1: And I love south By Southwest.
Speaker 2: I haven't been there in years, and I was kind
of excited now that I'm doing the podcast, I go.
Speaker 1: Shit, let's go back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, south By Southwest and the Montreal Comedy Fest where
two places always wanted to take my sons.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well it's south By Southwest is a blast.
Speaker 3: When did you do that?
Speaker 6: I went every year and then all of a sudden,
COVID hit.
Speaker 1: But like it changed a little bit over the years.
Speaker 2: Right now it's more there's film in there, and what
I don't think it's film when I was there.
Speaker 6: Film, there's like digital yeah, and then there's the music
still and then there's did I say a film? Yeah yeah, film.
It's crazy. They built such an amazing thing. But you
do like five shows in a day, and usually like
they'll do they'll have me do a corporate gig and
then like four that are like, you know, maybe a
Spin magazine party back when Spin with the thing that's fun.
So you play like and your just hues are squeaking
because you're just done sweat, you know, from playing all
those shows.
Speaker 3: So you go from when the Tommy Burnette band they
did that.
Speaker 6: But I had a pick up band from down there
that I know the musicians down there.
Speaker 1: Okay, they were.
Speaker 6: Actually living a shotgun shack. Yeah, they all live there,
and I think they were going to do a film
a TV show on these guys. But you go up
in the mountains and all you do is play, and
then they have parties after they play. At this house
and literally like the shotgun shack where there's a door
in the front and a door in the back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you.
Speaker 6: Can shoot a shotguns through the house. So we just
went there again.
Speaker 1: In the Hills area.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then yeah, it was like an old car
with grass grown over it and the toilet with beads,
like beads in it from a party.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: That's and we did a one rehearsal and then that
day like our show was like an hour after we
did the rehearsal up there.
Speaker 2: Really wow, because you know, when I when I think
about you, I didn't know that I didn't know that
the Tommy Burnett Band had opened for all those other
bands as well.
Speaker 3: I knew you had toured, but.
Speaker 6: There's oh yeah, there's more like there's like Outlaws and yeah,
you know Charlie Daniels at Fingerlicks Racetrack.
Speaker 3: How was that?
Speaker 1: Oh it was great. Do you get to meet them?
Speaker 2: Because you know, one of the things that came out
yesterday was Metallica saying how disappointed they were when they
opened for the Stones and Five because I guess somebody
walked in and said, hey, Mick Jagger's going to walk
through here in a second. He's going to his truck
that has all an entire gym in it, and he's
going to work out before the show, but don't make
eye contact.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is that really a thing? You've been told that? Well? Not?
Speaker 6: I thought I was unfortunate. Like the top when we
played the guy goes, everybody, get the f out here.
Nice you're with Howie Burnett, and I'm like, I've arrived. Yeah,
I didn't get kicked out, because sometimes they take your
pass off you when you're done and you're out, you know,
you don't get to be able to be back there.
What was a good? Oh, George, there were good. I've
played with a couple of times.
Speaker 2: And now George throw Good I interviewed and I had
somebody come to me afterwards and go, he's usually a dick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know is he.
Speaker 6: I never talk to him in the like the first
couple of shows I never could have words with, Like,
he just was I didn't even see him. I'm like,
I'm I'm looking forward to him. Maybe I can check
his guitars out and stuff. Nope, nothing, And then uh,
the last time we played with him, they said, hey,
you can hang out. George says you're cool or whatever,
and I was like, all right, I don't know what
that means, but okay. So so then he before he
walked up on stage, he's like, hey man, you know, yeah,
good job.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I'm like, well, that was cool. There's a story someone
told me that he met Bob Dylan once and Bob
Dylan went, and I love George Thorow good. I'm like,
he's his tone and some of the stuff he did.
But but he goes, he was really excited to meet
Bob Dylan. He goes, Bob Dylan looks at him, goes, yeah,
you're that guy who does the cover songs, because a
lot of his songs. Yeah, but nonetheless it's George the destroyers.
Speaker 1: They keep that oh god, you know horrible. I had
no idea. So that's got to be something about you.
Speaker 6: You realize that I don't know.
Speaker 2: No, but like that vibe you're you are one of
the most genuinely cool. I always say there's cool that
anybody can be and they're not, but they could be.
And then there's guys like you who just there. You're
a cool nobody.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: You just it's a whole lifestyle. That iron smoke thing
is a whole lifestyle.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it is a lifestyle. I really believe that lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah I see that. But when I was looking up
stuff about you, I mean one of the things that
I know you're very humble and you won't take a
lot of credit for this, but you help revitalize Fairport.
Fairport's exploding and a lot.
Speaker 1: Of that has to do with you.
Speaker 2: You took something that was a rundown area that had
nothing for decades.
Speaker 3: Tommy.
Speaker 1: You went in there and proved it could work, and
now the place is exploding. Yeah, well I know it was.
Speaker 6: It was the thing we really needed was cheap rent
and high ceilings. So it wasn't like I had a plan, No,
but my business partner, Steve Brown, found that location and
the price, and those the high ceilings for the distilled
the stills, and we also could have our grain bins
out front. They look like we call them whiskey missiles
when you pull up. Yeah, but those hold fresh grain.
So you wanted to make sure it was the freshest ingredients.
And then you know hammermill on site. See you have
the fresh crushed grains kind of like Sanca or French Press.
You want the French press before it goes into the
the mash Ton and we use all Kentucky mindome stills.
But when we first moved in there, there wasn't a
parking lot, there was no electricity we put it in there.
Speaker 3: It was just warehouse.
Speaker 1: But how do you have that vision? Like I can't.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm amazed how people can walk in to a
place and go, yeah, it's great, and I would go,
I don't know what you see, and then they remove
a wall and they do something else, and then you
got it. I think your space is one of the
coolest I've seen.
Speaker 6: It's cool. I think, well, thank you so much. Could
we work hard at it? And it's like it takes
the village to make a bottle of whiskey now, but
it's so it's it's everybody kicking in in thoughts. Like
when we were going to open the the tasting room.
We had a Christmas party and that room was full
of like washing machines, no windows falling down. There was
a ramp going into their building. Oh yeah, that's the
tasting room that we have the concerts in there and stuff,
and who's washing I don't know, said they were coin opper.
I don't know what was going on. It was the
old landlord like so probably made a deal with somebody.
Speaker 1: Store trash from here, you know, like and.
Speaker 6: Uh, we purposely didn't do too much to it because
we wanted to make it kind of feel like illegal
to be in almost. And I took Josh Miles back
there during that party and I hit his iPhone like little,
you know, flashlight, and I'm like, what do you think
he goes it's plug and play, dude. You gotta do
it because he opens.
Speaker 2: Up restaurants and I think even the one in Bushnell's
basin is his.
Speaker 6: Yeah, bitter honey.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, But I mean you have been so we
talked about that to success.
Speaker 1: But is it true you were homeless at one point?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I was a runaways a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah why they handed me do that?
Speaker 6: The fashion show of the Center for You Services is involved,
but they turned away. I ran. I used to I
used to jump.
Speaker 1: I was crazy.
Speaker 6: I don't know how my parents lived through it, and
they that's another story, but I used to they just
box car trains and just end up somewhere like and
just trying to get home and sleep under railroad bridges,
the way bridge, yeah, highway bridges.
Speaker 1: How far did you get on the box train as
a kid, I'm not, fire man.
Speaker 6: I jumped off of Batavia one time, and you know,
I tried to figure out how to kind of get back,
and then I think I made it almost to Syracuse once.
Speaker 1: But it was just what years is Jesus, I was.
Speaker 6: Probably in the tenth grade or something like.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm always saying like, what decade because she's there's no
cell phones?
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, no there was. That's another point when you're
on tour. You got to wait to the truck stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, to make a call to check in at home.
Like my parents when I was a kid, put in
an eight hundred number because we would call where I.
Speaker 1: Went to school and where I lived.
Speaker 2: It's such a jerk water town and and uh they
call it upstate New York.
Speaker 3: It's down by Rhinebeck.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's beautiful area.
Speaker 2: It is a beautiful area, hutch A Valley. But we
would have to call home from long distance. So my
parents got a call Home America eight hundred number, so
you could go to a payphone and he just dit
on eight hundred.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I remember those, yeah, and that was when I
got into modern English. I made it in the van.
That's another crazy story, but they you know, I went
from eating a Snickers bar from the gas station, cut
again in half and have that for lunch and dinner
and some combos sometimes if I could do. Because I
was making a record in middle of Pennsylvania when I
got the call audition and the singer called me up.
They said he's gonna call the studio was the label
that got me involved, and she she said, you know,
Robb's gonna call Robbie Gray's gonna call you.
Speaker 1: And it's the guy that's a singer.
Speaker 6: He wrote the song everything, and it was the phone
rang and I'm like, okay, here we go and he goes.
First thing he said was what do you like to wear?
And I'm like, I'm not afraid to mix polka dots
with plaid. I like to wear shoes that arrive in
the room of a couple of minutes before I do
answer yeah, And then he goes, did you come up?
I just was like, I'm just gonna go for it.
And then he said what kind of guitar do you playmate?
You know, I'm like, uh, what kind of guitar do
you want me to play? You know, you're the boss,
and then he goes he just hung up after like
literally like four or five minutes nothing, and I hung
up in the label called the girl from the label
called me and said he wants you in New York
City tomorrow. Can you make it? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely,
I'll be there. And I had no car, I had
no money, and I borrowed someone's car, borrowed someone's telly
and went and did it wow. And then uh Yo
Kono was in the kitchen with her son David Bowie
was rehearsing down the hallway, and I was like, this
is the shot, this is what you know. This is
what they say is don't pressure well, especially because you
got to learn all the songs and drive to New
York from middle of Pennsylvania figure all that out.
Speaker 1: No sleep.
Speaker 6: Fingers are like ride the fingers from just trying to
get the songs down for over and over. And I
played three songs and they go like, we'll be right back,
and they got out the room. They came back in
they go, so what do you what are you doing
for the next three months or so? And I'm like
hopefully hanging with you guys, and it's like they're like
you're in mate, you know, like all right, well, now
what a we do like And we went right down
to the bar and drank Boddington's for the first time.
Speaker 1: Over Boddington's.
Speaker 6: They drank the bar out of Boddingtons. And I remember going,
I don't what do I do about the car? What
do I do about the guitar? And from right then
everything was taken care of, like give him the keys,
where is it parked? Don't worry about the guitar. And
I went home and gave a check book to my
dad and went back for rehearsals, and like maybe ten
days later, it was like national television and you know,
it was ship. Yeah, it was crazy, Like Gibson got.
Speaker 2: That's the closest thing to and I don't because I
don't believe it, but that's like the closest thing to
overnight success.
Speaker 3: But it's not.
Speaker 2: You were grinded making a record. How did they find
out about you?
Speaker 6: The girl from the label knew me, you know, and
of me, and I kept just looking for like when
David Lee Roth needed a guitar player, I didn't get
the I got closer to a lot of things. No
that was done, but I'd always co like, oh deph leppards,
you know or whatever, and she would always look out
for opportunities.
Speaker 1: But I was playing.
Speaker 6: I played with Lou Graham when he did the Midnight
Blue thing, and I thought I had the gig. He's like, yeah,
you're in, and then his his bass player had uh
had a guitar player. He promised the gig too out
in California, I guess, and Lou was like I didn't
know this happened, and I'm like really, and I couldn't
really use that gig right then? Can you imagine like
playing I know my friends and ex bandmate some of
them and played for Lou Graham, but it's like.
Speaker 3: This was Lou when Lou was doing solo stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, right, so that album.
Speaker 6: I remember learning that song and sitting across from playing
on somewhere near down downtown where he's got all his
car he's got the big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah he does. He doesn't tell anybody
where that is. So I kind of got to know
Lou a little bit. But later on, right much later on,
and I used to say to him, I saw him
in a car show and I'm like, Lou, I want
to see these cars because it's all muscle cars.
Speaker 3: And then he tells me a story.
Speaker 2: Now he's divorced again, but he was married at the time,
so he was gonna play party in the park and
I walked up.
Speaker 3: I was standing there because I was going toroduce the bands,
and his wife gets out Robin and.
Speaker 2: She's like, Hi, thanks for having Lou on the radio
show today, a great interview, and I said, yeah, I go, man,
that is so cool about the car that he had
trailered from California.
Speaker 3: And she looks at me and the guy standing behind
me going.
Speaker 6: Like, Michael, you're fucking Lou Graham.
Speaker 1: Yeah she does.
Speaker 6: He say, yeah, it's your money. You earned it where
you go sometimes. But yeah, he he It was unbelievable
listening to the Timber and.
Speaker 2: His voice was just like then.
Speaker 6: Like it sounded so amazing and just like the record
with nothing just across the like sending across from movie.
Speaker 2: That's really cool to hear someone has seasoned as you
say that about Lou, because I always thought he was
one of the best voices in rock.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's got how many hits I don't even know,
Like he's play concert.
Speaker 2: Right with Foreigner and stuff, and then he always had
kind of a bitter ending there with mc. I was
gonna say, Mick Taylor mc jones, right, Jones, Yeah, Nick
Taylor was the the young guy in the Stones who
probably guitarists like you that they picked.
Speaker 3: Up along the way and then they just ruined that kid.
Speaker 2: Remember him coming on the Old We Show and then
you were trying to get him an eight ball and
he was a mess an eight pall well not him though,
whoever whatever venue he was playing, like, yeah, we gotta
find this.
Speaker 1: He was a mess. This poor guy. He looked awful.
Speaker 2: But you now have two kids. You've also done marketing
for Richard Branson, and you're in the Guinness Book.
Speaker 6: Of World Records. Yeah, and that sounds like a fish
story kind.
Speaker 1: Of No, it doesn't. It sounds fucking amazing. I'm sound like,
do you ever pause.
Speaker 3: In your life and go, what a ride?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 6: Not a ride? Oh that's encouraging.
Speaker 2: I'm just listening to you now, the Lou Graham, the
south By Southwest zz topsys were you know, Hey, he's cool.
George Thoroughgood finally comes out George Rucker probably doesn't talk
to anybody.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, but yeah, that whole there's
there's a lot. The Guinness Book of World Records thing was,
you know, I was arming from the House of Guitars.
He were on his label and there was a show
called just for the Record out of Australia that they
wanted us to break the Who's decibel level at the Yeah,
and it was one hundred and twenty three decibels I think.
And we got the Guinness Book of World Records plaque
at the House of Guitars with our you know when
immaculate Mary. Yeah, the hair, the hair hair farmer days. Yeah,
but that's all I wanted to do was play guitar
when I played hockey. And then I found the guitar
and that was it. Yeah, everything nothing else really mattered.
Speaker 3: Where did you go to school?
Speaker 1: High school?
Speaker 6: I went. I went to Carney for a couple of
years and got kicked out. On my permanent record, it
says I was a bad influence on the Karney family.
And then there's a long story and it's I don't
know if I want to go into that, but the
guy that kicked me out, the brother kicked me out,
got her busted for soliciting a minor because he used
to ask me weird questions. I'd be like, none of
your business, and my dad was so mad at me.
Then that happened years later, and my dad was like,
I'm sorry. I thought, you know, because I was a punk.
Why would you believe me I was?
Speaker 1: It wasn't your old man came and apologize to you.
Speaker 6: Well, he told me that it was years later though, no.
Speaker 2: No, I understand, But like, I've had a similar thing.
I've talked very openly, not to change things here, but
where I was molested by a babysitter. Oh you're a
kidding as a kid seven years old, and it went on, yeah,
and so it could fuck you up, you know, I
really can. I'm old now, I've worked through stuff, but
I've had conversations.
Speaker 1: My mother confronted the dude. Oh my god. Years later
I didn't know that that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there was something about that that made you
sort of feel validated. I don't care how old you're
the same thing with your old man going, hey man,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: They would lock me in a room with a bible
all day. Get out. He'd beat. He'd hit me with
this bicycle rubber thing on my hands. And it wasn't
It was crazy and it was a different world back then,
and but it was just I never got like, I
never went to no one who ever went as far
as they did with you.
Speaker 1: No, no, I understand that.
Speaker 2: But it was just what is that fortitude inside you
that you're a lot of kids would fold after that, right,
because you're going to get the pressure at school and
then you go home and you're your old man's pissed,
right because all this stuff and Carnee, But what made
you never kind of waiver on this this thing? I
mean you had like this is it a free spirit?
That is that what you call it? You were jumping
on trains, crazy.
Speaker 1: Passes. It's there's something freeing about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I guess, but I didn't. Yeah, I just didn't.
It wasn't right, and I knew it and there was
something off. But it's an adventure many it was. It
was okay, you know. But and then I went to Schrader. Okay,
I remember, I think I got a fight with the
toughest guy in school, Dom Trinshini. He plays with he's
a musician, and we ended up in a band together afterwards.
Back then you get in a fight and then your
best friends after especially guys.
Speaker 1: Yea, yeah, we were I remember the same thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there was a smoking lounge back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was. You didn't smoke outside.
Speaker 6: Thing ever, did I did a lot of dumb things
that was. That was a big one of them, smoking cigarettes.
Speaker 2: But so okay, so now you have the Tommy Burnett
band at that point, that's opening up.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: You had done marketing, you were in New York City,
and then the bubble kind of comes from.
Speaker 6: Yeah that's when. Yeah, yeah, I was. We had an
office on between Prince and Prince in Houston on Broadway.
We were cranking. I was working, like literally, I'm a
blue collar kid. My dad was a plumber and my
mother was a nurse, living in Webstern, New York. And
all of a sudden, I got a place in Manhattan.
I've got like, you know, a view all way to
Central Park from down and try back.
Speaker 1: I was cranking.
Speaker 3: What were you doing?
Speaker 6: I was doing Mark I streaking radio show called Universal
Buzz Radio, and we built that into three point two
million listeners, with three point six million listeners because of
the Internet in a college radio. In his upcoming bands,
like we recorded kid Rock at water Stream. We recorded
the White Stripes at the bug Jar. When I looked
above the bug jar and he stayed out. He stayed
above the bug jar with his his wife. That everybody
thought I was a sister bag.
Speaker 1: But oh that's right, everybody did think that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I didn't know that he's amazing.
Speaker 3: I saw Jack White on on Crossroads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's like he's I think he's one
of a fantastic guitarist.
Speaker 6: I wanted to stop cars on Monder Revenue and go
get in here. This guy sounded singing like Robert Plant
and playing like Jimmy Page. This guy, and then we
we hung out. He's like a he's an Encyclopa Pedium Blue.
We hung on at south By south West. I think
I stole a bottle off the bar at an after
party and we sat by the porter parties like drinking
that bottle and just talking about music.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you ever still talk to these guys?
Speaker 6: Nah, It'd be like when I run into somebody and
I go, hey man, this is you know. I don't
know if you remember this.
Speaker 1: You're hard to not remember yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 6: Since some people just like I don't know how what happened, Like,
you know, I was hanging out in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Guy goes.
Speaker 6: The guy owns Tutsies and like a lot of other
legendary bars there. He's like, they wanted me to go
to his girlfriend's mother's grandmother's birthday party to meet him
because he blew me off that day at a meeting
and I ended up singing happy birthday to his like
his girlfriend's grandmother. And he's like, let's go to my Tutsies.
I go, I can't go to I got a meeting
in the morning.
Speaker 1: And he go. They go.
Speaker 6: If he says go to tutsis wants to meet he
wants him to meet your his friend, you go, And
I'm like, all right, I guess we're going. And Gull
jumped in the big car and went to tuts He's
if you know, he's like three floors of music. And
we went upstairs in that big room and there's.
Speaker 1: The VIP section.
Speaker 6: There's the VIP sections behind the stage, so you're above
the stage behind it. Wow, and his friend's kid rock
No Ship. That's when we wanted me to go and
talk hang out and but.
Speaker 3: Did you did you remind Kid Rock that you had
recorded him at Water Street?
Speaker 6: I never really, I kind of I told him, I go,
you know the Devil was out there cause release in
Asia where you had the live track from Universal Buzzed Radio.
He goes, yeah, I remember that. I'm like, that was
that was my radio show.
Speaker 3: Wait a second, you you ended up on an import.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we were in corner of them, and no one
has had live tracks back then the plant the Plantum
albums and Hanging in Iron Smoke that I got from
that release.
Speaker 1: Wow, sod you made money off that?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, there's no man like we.
Speaker 6: Got lad and and and they we in an agreement.
I think we made money, but it was like we
didn't make I think it was a couple of grand
or something, not like we got paid like, oh it royalty.
Speaker 1: You know what do they call it?
Speaker 3: Mailbox?
Speaker 6: So they never do that with our Back then, we
were just like you know, a bunch of outlaw kids
trying to get Willie Nelson to Linus record him and stuff,
you know, and then that crew and then kid Uh
the White Stripes got signed the V two, which is
Richard Brandtson's baby label, and they wanted us to market
them because we were on college campuses with the radio show,
and it would it just catapulted, like I got also infused.
TV hired us for their long launch. I came up
with a concept for a campaign for the subways in
New York, and I just started adding zeros to my
you know, my quotes. And then then MTV hired us away.
Speaker 1: MTV two Moment.
Speaker 6: Had a dog thing, yeah, because of what we did
at south By Southwest. We took over south By Southwest
Refuse and then MTV and then it was just like
Disney hired us.
Speaker 1: I was on like, okay, so people go to school
to learn how to do this shit.
Speaker 2: You realize that people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars
to get a marketing degree.
Speaker 1: Dude, you just did it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, pretty much just kind of just fucking all just instinctual. Yeah,
just I was good at I didn't know how to
spell entrepreneur, by the way, and that was like would
you call me? You know, but it was it was
more about just like I don't I had a knack
for like ideas, yeah, and they then I put a
team together to do the big ideas, like when I
flew out to Disney. I'm like, wow, I'm mine a lot,
you know, like this is wild, and they're like, okay,
we're sitting down in the room, like we got a
new movie. It's it's a it's a it's Johnny Depp
playing a pirate and it's going to be called Pirates
of the Caribbean. And we need to know what to
do to like we really want to take over Hollywood
and get people engaged.
Speaker 3: So came up with he hires you.
Speaker 6: No to come up with ideas for a release of
movie releases. We were doing stuff for like ESPN, like
setting up boxing rings in the middle of Times Square.
What was the other one the house? What was it?
Hg TV? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they had something. I don't
know we did we did something, and.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of all so okay, because this is
fascinating to me. And it's fascinating because every single thing
that we have in this.
Speaker 3: World today started as an idea.
Speaker 2: Right, So now it makes sense to me because I've
heard the story of two thousand and eight. I'm living
back up here, got kids in diapers, I'm smoking ribs
and drinking whiskey. Yeah, people have ideas all the time. Man,
they don't follow it through. Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 6: I know, but I talk about that when I speak
at schools or whatever colleges, and I just speaking engagements
you once in a.
Speaker 1: While, Yeah, okay, And I.
Speaker 6: Even with younger kids, I go, don't don't give up
because you're you know it's you're gonna get knocked down.
You just got to keep going and pick pick yourself
up and have faith that you'll you know, the this
is life, this space, spice of life. Everybody goes through it.
It's not good times all the time. It's that's why
it's an amazing experience being alive.
Speaker 2: What's why I say it's like a ride for you,
Like when I start a homeless and then I find
out you're jumping on box. You're I I think it's
different for you. I think you look at everything as
an adventure.
Speaker 6: I do. I call it when we go out with Jen,
my wife, or the kids, we call it an expedition.
When we're going away. Yeah, I mean vation, it's an expedition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because and with you, I bet it is because
you'll find the coolest most you know, everybody. You're not
a tourist trap kind of guy. No, no, you'll find
the authenticity wherever you are. I dig that, I really
really dig that.
Speaker 1: And I tell the.
Speaker 6: Kids the show, you know, Okay, we're landing in Atlanta.
We gotta find out our you know, our connection and
make them do it. We take them back to New
York City because they were born there, and we had
like what trainmen to take and what you know, even
if we're gonna end up in the wrong stop, I
just let it.
Speaker 1: We let them go.
Speaker 6: It's it's really incredible. But that two thousand and eight thing,
I to tie that together in your head, because there's
a lot of weird stuff we're talking about. Two thousand
and eight the bottom fell out in New York City.
I was rocking, like I didn't worry about anything money,
like everything we were printing money with. The marketing company
had a great staff. And then two thousand and eight,
the bottom fellow of the economy and no one was
paying us. I let everybody go. I sat down and
told ten people, I'm like, this has been a great ride. Yeah,
I got two days. I can pay it for two days,
and you're gonna go out and look for jobs right now.
It's all like because it happened so fast, I didn't
have anything else and I just I owed money to
American Express. Was calm me when when Jagger's being born
would let me hang up. I'm like, I'm getting my
son from the high he's just born, and they're go,
if you don't make a payment right now, this is
gonna happen. So that's what was going on in my
world from having all this great stuff to but I
had my health, and I had chen and I had
my kids. You know, that's everything pretty. You know that's good. Yeah,
you can do anything you want if you got your
health and you got people love you and care about you.
But that's when I was in the backyard kids and diaper,
smoking ribs, drinking whiskey, and I'm like, Jen, has anybody
done a smoke bourbon like barbecue? And there was only
a couple of companies, Course Air and Balconi's, and it
was really over smoked. So we came up with the
recipe that was that was not so small.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm saying, is you realize, like as
I said, with the marketing thing, people went to school
nice the U of R. They do that and they
sit in courses and they have that and the same
thing probably with who thinks this is what I'm saying
to you, So to come up with the idea, then
I'm gonna say this.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine point nine percent of the people go no,
I can't fucking do that, or am I going to
do that?
Speaker 6: But you know when you got to think when that happens, Yeah,
dumber guys in us, Well I've done that.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. So that's a very good point.
Speaker 6: And the guys that are like, you know, it's just
doing it and found to follow through with you is amazing, dude, Well,
it's having the right people around me too.
Speaker 2: Well, I would agree that, you know, the the idea
of a self made man not entirely true because everybody needs,
you know, people around them to believe in it. But
that's the thing is you got to find the people
that believe.
Speaker 6: Believe in that they're smarter and better at something then
you're not.
Speaker 3: And you've got to be willing to put that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so where do you Okay, so you come
up with the idea, you start looking for recipes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you doing this in your kitchen?
Speaker 6: Well, we did it in friends kitchens and people help
start the businesses kitchens and backyards. And I liked Pappy. Yeah, yeah,
back when you can buy it for thirty five forty
bucks a bottle on the shelf, what is it now?
It's around there, but as soon as you take it
out of the store, it's a thousand or twelve hundred
or fifteen hundred or yeah. But yeah, that's the recipe
was based on a weeded bourbon. And that's where I
met true. Our master distiller is brilliant and he was
young and he was working on still on the finger Lakes.
I went to finger Lakes is stilling and talked to
Brian McKenzie about what we're doing and showed them the
designs for everything, and he goes, I don't have the capacity.
Speaker 1: I gotta make my own.
Speaker 6: There's a guy up the up the lake called Montezuma Winery,
and I went to them and Bill Martin and said,
I need a still. You know, so you know a
chicken smoker. I was smoking a grain, trying to figure
that out.
Speaker 1: On a chicken smoker.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was trying to I started with corn and.
Speaker 1: You literally you did it well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, with with people around me that could help me,
but I just like I knew, I knew what I
liked and like the Bernheim like kind of thing. And
then it's adjusting the recipe and one triple char on
the barrels and I didn't even know that bourbon turned
brown because of the char and the barrel.
Speaker 2: All spirits, yeah, I thought all spirits were clear until
they were like sitting in So you know more than
I know. Yeah, but I only know that because I'm
an alcoholic and I really like boo. I love brown.
I do love the brown stuff. My old man loved
the brown stuff Irish.
Speaker 6: That's what happened. Well, my Grandpa Joe and my dad Joe.
Speaker 3: Grandpa Joe too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Grandpa Joe, he's first, first and last on the
old dance floor. You know, I always had a Jenny
red eye and a cigarette cigarette. I remember fishing, and
you know, yeah, he's Italian. I'm like mostly Polish, but
I get my Italian from Uncle Joe, Grandpa Joe. Yeah, Dad,
big Joe.
Speaker 1: That's that's incredible.
Speaker 2: The so you went and smoked all this stuff yourself
and then it just kind of but then other people
are seeing this and just buying in.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It was like my business partner, Steve I mentioned Brown,
He's he said, there's not a lot of competition. I'll
I'll pay for the first, you know, round and everything.
But now it's like we're we're attached at the hip,
thick as thieves, you know, like and he's he's a
really smart wealth guy, like money guy and just in general,
really really savvy. And he that that happened. And then
when we finally came out with our recipe after trials,
we had like three hundred cases and I asked my
distributor at the time, what if we sell out? I
got the van with Scully on it. I'm in front
of five thousand people in front of easy Top without
a drop and a bottle, going, oh, iron smoke tonight,
You're gonna be healed by the powers of rock and
rolling whiskey. Can I get a name man, brothers and sisters,
you know, iron smoke, you know. And we came out
and he said it'd take a year before he sold out,
And we sold out in a week and a half.
Speaker 1: Holy shit.
Speaker 6: Yeah wow. And I was counting on the guy down
in the lake, Bill Martin, to make our stuff. We
were counting on them and that's when we found Fairport
because we had to make our own and we're a
New York State farm to still. But anyway, that's it was.
Speaker 3: So when you think about it, zz Top now has
their own whiskey.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't make it. They didn't do that. No,
they didn't go find a chicken. What did you have?
Speaker 6: A chicken smoker that he partnered with? Something I wish
he would have partnered.
Speaker 3: With us, did you try?
Speaker 6: I put it past him and then we were supposed
to talk about it, and then that other thing came out.
But he's he's an interesting guy. When you're in front
of him, you can talk for hours. But you know,
getting a hold of him after that fact, he's a
little different. But he's like, he's a great guy. You
a talented guy. And he gave me a bottle of
his tequila. So I was I think my next moment
to reach out to him to see if he'll do
our bourbon's Asian and his tequila asient our bourbon barrels.
Speaker 3: Ah, that'd be pretty good.
Speaker 6: It's a good idea, right, that's a great idea, and
he's a good guy. I just don't know if he'll
do it. Because of the bourbon thing now he's doing
I hear it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he's got somebody that he does that with already.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's got a I think it's coarse air or
about coons, I forget which one.
Speaker 2: How satisfying was it for you to have Fortune Magazine
call you one of the best bourbons outside of Kentucky?
Speaker 3: Can I read what they wrote?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: The Iron Smoke Distillery smokes its grains over apple wood
before using them in distillation. The process results in a
bourbon that doesn't have a sweet, syrupy notes expected from
the category. Instead on the palette abundant spice and smoke
joined in bringing to mine chargrilled peppered meat covered in
maple syrup. I must try for those who are delving
into bourbon but have a hard time with the sweetness
found in most expressions.
Speaker 6: It's crazy what that had to be like?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Is that the kind of the crown jewel for you
to go, hey, we really were not that you did it?
Didn't have markers along the way to show this is
going well, but what an honor?
Speaker 6: Yeah, super high ratings we got from Bill Murray's Whiskey
Bible out of the UK, but ninety five point five
put us ahead of Buffalo Trayce Blanton's, Basil Hayden, Pappy
Rye and I'm not saying this other guy said rated
us higher. But that was a game changer for the
real kind of sores of bourbons globally. And then this
the thing with with you know, the ten best bourbons
beyond Kentucky from Forest Magazine. This isn't stuff we're paying for.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I said Fortune, Yeah, Forest Magazine, but this
isn't stuff that we paid Like some people.
Speaker 6: Do an ad and they go, but we need you
to do this. It was a surprise. I was on
my couch watching some Netflix binge or something and my
phone started going off. And when my business partners around, Kirshner,
I think he was on the first he goes, is
this real? And I'm like, yeah, it's really. They did
it call us, you know, so it was legit and
it was it was Those things are game changers because
you can you think your baby's beautiful, but until like
somebody else goes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good fun.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 2: Because then on the other side, you've become like a
big supporter of local music another love of yours. Yep,
it's like you've taken two things that just kind of
go well together, right that the bourbon making. It's almost
a like you're you know, you're creating and orchestrating, and
then he got that.
Speaker 1: Do you ever miss though?
Speaker 6: I mean, I know you got.
Speaker 2: A lovely, supportive wife, a great business going, but do
you ever miss the thirty thousand people screaming?
Speaker 1: You know when you're playing, you do a little bit.
Speaker 6: It's Yeah, the more they try and throw me off
the boat, the more you hang on to the side.
And somebody else says like you never do you ever
think about giving up I'm like, do you ever think
about giving up sex? No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I'm not.
Speaker 6: I'm not. I'll still play, but I don't have to tour.
I don't have to do that, right, and it'd be
I'd love I love it's it's it sounds fun, Yeah,
like like Alvio Fernandez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got to you gotta be always his family.
Speaker 6: When you got a family and everything and you gotta
do that, That's that's a different story, right. You know,
I can pick and choose, like I'll do. I did
a couple like a Harley Davidson event in Orlando, you know,
over the winter or whatever, and fly in, fly out
in two or three dates here and there, and that's
about it.
Speaker 3: How do people find you to book those things? They
just through the website.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's a combination of just like maybe they
like the song, I like beer, you know, or whatever,
or or they're a fan of Modern English or they're
a fan of iron Smoke and they want me to
be there. And it's always it's everything's intertwined. Now my
whole story and when.
Speaker 2: It's your lifestyle, and that's what I dig about it.
It's like you walk into your place and it's just
got a cool vibe. The people that you hired are
all cool people. You never you never see you never
see an asshole.
Speaker 6: We have a zero asshole policy on both sides of
the bar, the customers, and that just comes with a territory.
He was the first guy to walk in when we
were doing our our we're going to open up our
tasting room, and he goes, this is amazing, this is
going to be great for Fairport.
Speaker 1: He was all all about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's always he was the only he was the
first one and probably only one in the beginning that
saw what it could be when he saw our you know,
I'm like, we're gonna do our own burlesque show, is
gonna produce, We're gonna with our friends, We're gonna do concerts,
We're gonna do endless community events for fundraisers, whatever we
need to do to and it's going to be part
of the brand. So it's not just a bar. It's
an extension of like goodwill and fun times. It is,
you know, hopefully people will feel safe when they're there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the music is always sad that the acoustics in
there are great. The way you've done it all, it's
kept that rustic kind of look, which I love.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think that was the only time I got mad.
Was like someone was painting over some stuff and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
We talked about this and I'm lucky enough to and
you know, fortunate enough to have people that believe in
the vision and help me with that vision and got it,
you know, because some people are like, well we got
to sand blast everything and make it clean. I'm like, no, no,
you bomb out, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it fits, it fits everything. It fits
the label of the of the bottles.
Speaker 1: It fits it all. That's it. That's incredible. Man, you've
got it. What a ride, Tobby, What don't you flip
and ride? You just got to write a book.
Speaker 2: Or something, you know what. Someone needs to do a
documentary about you. Oh geez, that would be fascinating.
Speaker 6: It'd be funny. I don't know about it. But yeah,
there's so much on the way to you know, like
it's kind of like dancing between the rain drops, you know,
like it's just kind of keep keep dancing on. But oh, man,
with all thanks, that's humbling and nice.
Speaker 1: And well, I mean, I'm serious.
Speaker 2: I've always been like I'm telling you, I've wanted to
do this with you because I I knew if you.
Speaker 1: Scratch the surface, there's a lot of layers to this.
There's so many more stories.
Speaker 6: I'm sure love to have you back sometime and stop
myself from going oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah and then yeah, but see, that'd be awesome. See
that's the thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's it's been amazing anybody doing Universal Buzz
Radio at all? No, we we people still want those shirts.
The guy from Ween loves the shirts, and a couple
of guys that are like it's a base boy. I
always wanted to be an astronaut, so I mean the
logo a kid in a space helmet for Universal Buzz,
and that was we just built a brand.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing Universal Buzz stuff everywhere.
Speaker 6: Yeah, started unbe are here. Yeah, and then that's pretty
much how I met Jen, Like my wife, Okay, the
radio program, Okay, I have a I make up a story.
We'll talk about that later when I'm traveling, Like, I
got a great made up story. They're like, really, the
more I talk about really know, but you gotta have
fun with people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, but did you meet any Was there ever
anybody who you really wanted to meet and then you
met them and it was just really disappointing.
Speaker 3: M Any rock stars or.
Speaker 2: Anything you see that have a vibe about you that
they they're very open and accepting of you. But sometimes
which I always think is a great thing, because you know,
like you meet your hero and you could you remember
what they were wearing, what they said, all this stuff,
and then if they blow you off, that's a that's
a big moment for people that that can. But it
doesn't sound like you had at all.
Speaker 1: That's good. That's good, man.
Speaker 6: I've seen them treat people of bad lee around me
like and that's a turn off, Like yeah for me,
I'm like yeah, not to me, but did somebody else?
And I'm like, man Like Gene Simmons, for instance, always
stops and listens and says hello if they're like I've
been a big fan my whole life. I've seen him
do it. He did it to me before. He always
stops and says thank you.
Speaker 3: Was ever a kiss fan?
Speaker 1: I interviewed him once. He's brilliant.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's a brilliant marketing guy. But he also knows
nice and that it's because of the kiss army. Yeah
he does.
Speaker 1: And really intelligent.
Speaker 2: Some woman spoke called up and spoke Hungarian to him
and he answered her, oh yeah, And I was like, man, yeah,
he was a guy who doesn't disappoint at all, and
I think shocks people.
Speaker 1: It was weird.
Speaker 6: Well, Sun Dance, I used to have to play for
entertainment for the celebrities, so you know, Dennis Quaid. I
had to tell Timothy Hunting he had to sit out
one song because he wanted to play drums again. But
my job was to get them, the celebrities to play
for the entertainment and it was getting images, so all
the sloves had to go there. It was like a
three story gifting house in Park City. Yeah yeah, and
then everybody, every everybody I played with was cool, like
the edge game is guitar to play like. He was
the Sherbert looking one, Matt sorm sant In on drums.
It was Pedro from Napoleon Dinam. He plays harmonica. One
time I got a call they go, the Hobbits want
you to come back to the gifting house and this
after hours, and I'm like, all right, I thought it
was a band, and it was actually Elijah Wood in
the Hobbits that wanted and where we stole a bottle
of vaka from the Vaka booth from played music online?
Speaker 1: How did you get that gig with Sundance? It was
It was weird.
Speaker 6: It was like throw and through Gibson and an endorsement
and through some friends that had friends out in Park
City that I knew, and it all just came together.
Speaker 3: Because there's a There was a guy in Park City.
Speaker 2: His name was Rich Wyman and Rich when I lived
there it was ninety three, and he would play all
the bars and stuff and he was really trying to
make it, make it, make it. And Valerie Burtinelli's brother
was lived there, was a good friend, and Eddie van
Halen came out saw him and funded the record and everything.
But I don't think it ever went anywhere for this
poor guy. And then I saw I was backstage at
a van Halen concert and I said, Eddie, do you.
Speaker 3: Know Rich Wiman?
Speaker 1: And we talked for like ten minutes about Rich. He
loved him.
Speaker 2: He goes he's a great piano player, all this stuff,
and he played all over Park City.
Speaker 3: But I bet he would die to get gigs like that.
Speaker 1: He never got it.
Speaker 6: It was I met Burtnelli at a bar in Park
City during suns and I was like, what was she
doing that? Because she wasn't really doing much back then.
Wouldn't make sense now I didn't really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, her brother live. Her brother lived in Old Park City.
Did you ever go down into Old Park City?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So he lived in Sweetheart Man, No, I never did.
I didn't. I I met a brother, but that was it.
Speaker 6: She's super sweet.
Speaker 3: But yeah, what's so? What's next now for Iron Smoke?
Speaker 6: Just keeping the making the best bourbon weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and growing.
Speaker 6: We got a five X growth plan right now. We
got a grant from the state. We need to make
more bourbon. It doesn't come out of the fasces and
we make everything there so we don't put filler in.
We make it all for the iron smoke.
Speaker 2: Everything's locally sourced. When we say New York State Farm Distillery,
it's all from our region.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 6: Farmer rush right down here in Williamson. He grows our
wheat and corn. We go out there and visit him.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: It's it's truly a really great farm distillery, great vibe.
We're part of the New York State Distillers Guild. But
next for us is the making sure we can make
more as we grow. And then we're having a Bourbon
festival in October. I saw twenty twenty. First it's going
to be music culture in Bourbon. It's called Hoochinnani Hoochinnanny
Yeah wow. And we're working with the guys that work
with Bonnaru out of Louisville. So we're gonna try and
build a franchise out of it and have some fun
and promote tourism to the thing.
Speaker 1: For a nice time of the year to do it too. Yeah,
it's a great time.
Speaker 6: Idea like having the fallow and the harvest season, which
is super important to you know, make some bourbon makers
and spirits makers and but that's gonna be a ripper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to come down to the podcast there,
do it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I really would love great. Yeah, well, thanks so much
for your time. Man.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't know what your days are like.
I think they get a little crazy. It's everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thankful, I'm busy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well that's a good thing. That's a great thing. Do
you mind if I close with this again?
Speaker 6: Oh no, I love it. I never leave your buddy
without playing the song.
Speaker 1: Really, that's funny.
Speaker 6: The guy from I'm Not with the Tory guitar Player,
They're like, no, you're the guy.
Speaker 1: You are residual.
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you, probably the coolest guy in in
Western New York, Tommy Burnt.
Speaker 1: Seriously, you gotta just go.
Speaker 2: If you haven't been to Iron Smoke, you gotta go
to Iron Smoke and you gotta, uh, you gotta make
it happen.
Speaker 6: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Thanks,