The Minnesota Music Note

The Minnesota Music Note - Ep 39 - Studio Owner, Gear Addict & Metalhead Will Maravelas

• William McLeod • Episode 39

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0:00 | 49:15

Think running a recording studio was always part of the plan?
Think again.

This week on The Minnesota Music Note, we sit down with Will Maravelas — musician, studio owner, gear addict, content creator, and the man behind 1459 Studios. What started as a side project that was never supposed to succeed somehow turned into one of Minnesota's most respected recording studios.

From discovering Stevie Ray Vaughan as a kid, to building a career around music, recording hundreds of bands, obsessing over guitars, and accidentally eating Insane Clown Posse's backstage catering, Will shares the stories, lessons, and laughs that have shaped his journey through the Minnesota music scene.

In this episode:
• The real story behind how 1459 Studios got its name
• Why the studio was originally created expecting it to fail
• How Stevie Ray Vaughan inspired Will to pick up a guitar
• The truth about expensive guitars and million-dollar gear
• Why musicians need to leave their egos at the door
• How COVID unexpectedly helped launch his YouTube channel
• The hilarious backstage story that led to meeting Violent J from ICP

Whether you're a musician, gear nerd, studio owner, or just someone who loves hearing how creative careers actually get built, this episode is packed with great stories and honest insights from someone who's spent decades living and breathing music.

🎸 Watch the full episode now and hear the incredible story of the studio owner, gear addict, and metalhead behind 1459 Studios.

Resources:
PodcastCrew website: podcastcrew.online
The MN Music Note FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/minnesotamusicnote/
Email: william@podcastcrew.online

SPEAKER_00

Cool, man. So I know who you are. Uh you're like I said, your reputation precede you, but our audience may not know who you are. So why don't you just start by telling us who the hell are you and what do you do in this whole music world of Minnesota?

SPEAKER_01

Well, if anybody does know me, cheers. Thank you. But uh my name is Will Marvellis. I'm a Taurus, I like long walks on the beach. No, the um the the uh I am a uh musician, is what I always tell people. Um that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00

That's what your dating app was going really good at. It was going really good, yeah. So you said musician and then she just walked the other ways.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't need that right now. It's okay. I'm taking care of, it's good. But the uh anyway, my name is Will Marvellis. I am the uh owner engineer of 1459 Studios here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm also a active musician in the area region, you know, country, whatever you want to say. Um I play in a couple bands, Caustic Abyss, Death Metal Band, and Plague of Stars, Female Fronted, whatever the heck we are, metal, uh Chalice of Suffering, Doom Metal Band, Insect Death, Grindcore Band. Just I play music, I record music, I do music, I barely sleep. It's awesome. So that's that's that's the very, very abridged story of the last, you know, 35 years of my life.

SPEAKER_00

So awesome, man. Are you Minnesota born and bred?

SPEAKER_01

I'm not. I'm from Wisconsin. Don't hold that against me. Um, I moved here when I was twenty-three. So a while, we'll say.

SPEAKER_00

Which part of Wisconsin? Are you from small town Wisconsin or a bigger city or what?

SPEAKER_01

I I have a unique upbringing in the sense that I I grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin. And La Crosse is about as close to Minnesota as you can be while still being in Wisconsin. It's just, you know, I lived I I I grew up in a house four blocks off of the Mississippi River, so you know, I could if I spit hard enough, I could hit Minnesota, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I've been there a couple times.

SPEAKER_01

It is. It's a really creative city, too. Very uh uh when I was growing up, it was very welcoming to musicians based on some venues that were there. There was an all-ages nightclub um that closed a couple of years ago, but it was you know, it was open for 30 years, which is pretty unheard of for an all-ages, no alcohol music club. Um, you know, that place was pretty important to my to my upbringing and that kind of thing. Um, so that just kind of got me into music, gave me something to do on Friday, Saturday nights that you know was better for me than the other activities I was pursuing at the time. Um and uh yeah, just absolutely, absolutely love music and um played in bands, learned how to record in that city at a studio called Actual Sound Studios.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Um started a studio there initially. I interned at a studio there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there was a um, there was a you know, Mike is so humble, but Mike Von Muchau was a he's a Grammy winning uh recording engineer that's lives in lacrosse, and he let me get coffee for him for a few years and taught me how to record, and I'm still super close with him. I still, you know, see him regularly. He's still a great friend and a you know, a great mentor. Um whenever I'm struggling with anything musically, he's a really good person to bounce ideas off of and that kind of thing. But he gave a 17-year-old kid a chance, and I just kept recording and kept doing it and moved up here, worked at a studio called Bimanic Studios for a little while, uh, broke off from that, started my own studio with a friend of mine, which was 1459, and that's been open now for wow, 16, 16, 17 years at this point. You know, we're on our third and final location. I will not be moving. Um, you know, I'm I got quite a long lease there, and it's built out the way I want it, and I'm just gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00

So awesome, man. So 1459, were you 14 and your partner was 59 and you created it, or what's the story behind that?

SPEAKER_01

So it's it's you know, everybody assumes it has something to do with military because of the whole 1459 from like a military time aspect. It has nothing to do with military. So when we started the studio, the whole goal of it was to basically record our own bands, make our own music, and buy a bunch of gear on the backs of the government and be a tax dodge. That was the whole point. It was just to be like, we're gonna do this business, it's gonna fail, we're gonna buy all this equipment, we're gonna write it all off in the meantime, and all of a sudden we're gonna be able to depreciate all this gear, and all of a sudden we own it all, you know, and and that whole idea of five, you know, because we're and that's that's the that's the honest truth. Yeah, it's very well thought. Yeah, it was yeah, so it was yeah, it was super well thought up. IRS if you're watching. Yeah, it doesn't matter because we're legal and I pay taxes, it's fine. Um the the intent was the intent is well past the uh uh you know there's a statute of limitations there that's long gone by now, I'm sure. But uh the we started the studio kind of as a as a way to do our own music and record our own music. The the the kind of joke was who's gonna want to record with us. We're just a bunch of yutzes who just like to, you know, make music and be loud and you know bang our heads against the wall and you know do metal and punk rock and that kind of thing. And uh we found out fairly quickly there was uh there was a need for it. We're like, well, we better come up with a name here really quick. And uh, you know, my business partner, Zach, uh I've since bought him out, he's got family now, he's awesome. He still rents for me, he's a really close friend. He's still he recorded, his band recorded me two weeks ago. Um, you know, so even though he's no longer involved in the business, we remain quite close. But uh I will credit him where credit is due, and that is he named the studio and he said, the whole goal is to get you 15 minutes of fame. We're not gonna get you there, but we're gonna get you real close. So it was 1459 was the joke. You know, so that's where it came from.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great story.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was that was from that silly phrase is 1459 studios.

SPEAKER_00

So that's a great story. Nice.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so uh we went legal pretty quickly because we found out that punk rock and metal people liked recording with us, and and if you're a rock player or a blues player or even a country player, it's like, you know, I'll record if your music doesn't suck. So don't feel like you can't record with me if you're not a metal or punk rock person. I've done anything with a guitar in it, so you know, if it's got a guitar, I'll probably like it, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not I'm not just you do draw the line and there's not you're not doing hip hop or other things that don't quite fit into that.

SPEAKER_01

I don't, and it has nothing to do with not respecting that art form. It's like I love hip-hop, you know. It's like I grew up in the 90s, man. I love me some Snoop Dogg and some Dr. Dre and all that gangster rap. It's awesome. Um, but honestly, it just doesn't interest me as a musician. And it has nothing to do with not appreciating it in any form. It's just when you're recording rap music, you're hitting play and you're listening to the person rap over it. There's not a whole lot creatively that I can do to participate or help with at that point. And I'm not really interested in making music that I can't be a part of to some degree where I can't help with that process or help with the creative, you know, uh the creative elements of things going on or whatever it may be. And that's just kind of a limiting reality of hip-hop music. If you're not the person who made the track, or you're not the person who's doing the vocals, there's not really a lot left to do as an engineer. So yeah. And there's a lot of other great studios that do that. So by all means, please, you know. If you're uh if you're a live band, which I've recorded a lot of live bands with hip hop, uh like vocals, I've done quite a few of those, but um I'm looking I do that more traditional band thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. All right. So you you uh you've you've told me, and I I know it's it's out there that you're you're quite a into gear, you're quite a gear nut.

SPEAKER_01

I'm a total gear snob, hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So so why? What what got you into that?

SPEAKER_01

You know, uh it's I think it was that whole thing growing up in lacrosse, and growing up in lacrosse, there's a beautiful world famous guitar store called Dave's guitar shop. And um, and I'm not exaggerating that. That's a real that that's a real statement, and I would call it a factual statement as far as a world famous. Um he is the largest Paul Reed Smith independent dealer in the country, I believe. He's either number one or number two. He's the biggest independent Gibson dealer in the country, number one or number two. Um he's one of the biggest fender dealers in the country. He has a he has a personal collection that is like its own museum, and it's upstairs in the store. So if you're ever traveling through lacrosse and you just like guitars, it just go there. You can literally walk and see his personal collection, and it's I mean, there's million dollar guitars on the wall just for people to look at. Wow. He sold guitars to everybody from you know, Eric Clapton, Billy Gibbons from Z Z Top, John Mayer, you know. I went to the store one day and Mark Tremonti from Creed and Altarbridge was just there, you know, looking at guitars. So it's it's a crazy, crazy thing. So interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So if you're in the upper Midwest, it's kind of a place to stop.

SPEAKER_01

It is, yeah. And he's got four stores across Wisconsin and he sells most of his gear out the back door, you know, meaning like he ships it worldwide. His vintage collection is insane. Just insane. When he built his new wing, I think he said he sold like two of his vintage guitars to pay for the entire wing. It just was just nuts. But um, but that really got me into gear because as a you know, 11-year-old kid walking into a music store, I thought the norm was you could just walk in and play guitars. And that's how I grew up. It wasn't that way, you know, in other music stores. Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be mean, but as a mid-20s, I walked into some stores here in the city and I kind of got the side eye because, you know, I look like a dirt ball, you know, I'm long haired, I'm covered in tattoos, and you know, it's uh it's you know, I look like a rock guy, and people look at me like, oh, that guy doesn't have any money and go, screw you, man. I own like 10 Paul Reed Smith guitars, those are expensive, you know. I'd love to spend money at the store, but apparently you don't want it, you know. So, um but that's not the way Dave's was. Dave's was rule number one is you know, pick it up, play it, have fun. Rule number two is be respectful, and didn't matter how old you are or you know, or what your level of play of of player was. It's just that place was all about just be a musician, learn how to be a player and do your thing. And I learned respect for gear that way, and I uh I learned what was good and why things were good and uh why things cost what they cost and all that. Um so you just kind of become a little bit of a nerd. Why is this one 500 bucks? Why is this one fifteen hundred bucks? They look the same, you know, that whole thing. So that got me into my kind of gear nerdom was growing up there.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, so why does a guitar cost a million dollars?

SPEAKER_01

So collectability is the big thing. Um so if there's a million dollar guitar out there, it's because there's a collector willing to pay a million dollars for it. There's no guitar that that plays that much better that plays that much better. You know, it's I own a you know, I own a couple of guitars that are thousands of dollars apart, and I can tell you that the reason that the five thousand dollar guitar versus the twenty five hundred dollar guitar, they play great, they both play wonderfully, but they play really similar. But that five thousand dollar guitar looks kind of cool. You know, it's all cosmetics after a certain degree, you know. Um, Japanese-made guitars are phenomenal, you know, Korean-made guitars are amazing compared to what it was growing up and that whole thing. American-made guitars doesn't mean it's good. There's plenty of builders in America who have no idea what they're doing, and there's, you know, the great builders are the great builders for a reason. You know, people buy Fender because they know what to expect. People buy PRS and Gibson because they know what to expect. Um, you know, a Mexican-made Fender strata caster and an American-made fender strata caster. I'm hard pressed to say, as a person who isn't a total fender snob, you'll be able to tell the difference. They're both great guitars. Just depends on what you like and why you like it. So interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So you've got this whole YouTube channel thing going on. I do. And on the YouTube channel, you do what?

SPEAKER_01

On the YouTube channel, I talk about all things music, recording, and Minnesota. Um, I like to keep I kind of like to have those three things be aligned to some degree. Um, I'm very proud to be here. I'm not a uh, you know, like I said, I am a transplant, but this is home. I've lived here forever. Um at this point, you know, it's 20 plus years of living here. I've spent the majority of my life here. Um I've been most musically active and most musically air quotes successful uh living in living in Minnesota. So this is absolutely home. So it's important to me that anything we're talking about has some kind of tie back to Minnesota.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Whether it's just my studio or the people who are on the show, or even the music that we play in the background. It's somebody that I've recorded at some point or a band that I like or something of that nature. Um, you know, I do I'll do recording uh recording snippets, recording tips and tricks, I'll do gear reviews, um, I'll do uh interviews with musicians, talk about their setup, talk about their gear. Um I'll do live videos with bands coming into the studio and doing live sets, playing their music literally in my studio and doing videos for them, giving them the wonderful, important thing of content creation, which podcasts are great for. Um you know, that whole idea. Keep yourself uh keep yourself in everybody's ear holes and eye holes. Um, you know, uh I just do a little bit of everything there. Mic shootouts, talk I'm endorsed by Pierre S guitars. So if anybody's I mentioned that like eight times already, yeah, it's like I I like Pierre S guitars. I'm endorsed by them, so I you know use that as a little bit of a push for the brand because they push me in my music. Um my buddy Dave, who owns Rubin Creative, is my partner in that. He does all my video work. So if anybody needs photos or pictures or anything, Dave Rubin, Rubine Creative, he's fantastic. Hit him up.

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, so I I talked to him eons ago when I first moved here.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I come from a uh when I I lived overseas for a while, thanks to the US military, and I got out of the military and I was a uh servicing producer for the country of Qatar. So like all the big projects that came to Qatar, they hired me to like help them find stuff for sure or whatever.

SPEAKER_01

Sure.

SPEAKER_00

Uh when I first moved out here, I was looking for people that I could do business with, and David Rubin was one of the first people that I spoke to, but I've never met the guy in person. So I'd be happy to connect you guys.

SPEAKER_01

I'd be happy to connect you guys. Dave is a wonderful human being. Um I'll spare the details, but a couple of years ago I got really s I got really sick, and um I didn't really know what was wrong with me, and the doctors didn't really know what was wrong with me for a little while. And we were going through the whole like, you know, is it something really small? It ended up being a gallbladder removal, which in the long, long, the long list of things it could have been was pretty small. Um, but uh when I was actually opening my current location to the studio, Dave helped me so much, you know, um, because I could I could only do so much physically. Um he he built my desk for me, he helped me run cables, he helped me put together insurance lists. Um you know, he he he had the whole video idea of kind of keeping the studio busy during COVID and all that. Um yeah, it's he's just a great person, he's a great artist. Um we met just from the music scene, and we've become really, really close friends over the last, you know, seven, eight, seven, eight, nine years at this point. So wonderful guy. Um can't speak highly enough about him, even though he's a personal friend. He's he's a very creative genius, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, I well, I think he's he gets uh into like all the big shows and takes pictures of pretty much everything. So I I know I've followed his work for a while. I think we may have been magically disconnected as Facebook does to people, you know, after a while. But yeah, cool man. That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he's got a pretty famous picture of Scott Ian, that anthrax actually turned into a picture. So um, yeah, so it's like the there's a it's Scott Ian in his high leg kicks with his guitars as he actually Dave took that photo and that got turned into an anthrax t-shirt and poster and the whole nine. Oh wow. Yeah, so just kind of one of those kind of neat Dave stories, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, rock and roll, man. Yeah, talk talk about touch and fame, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Nice. So it's funny, you talked about so uh Dave helped you start video stuff during COVID. So did your whole like channel and idea, did that all start kind of around COVID time?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, really, it did. Um the whole idea of of YouTube for me was to just kind of be to kind of to because content. Content's a big thing, and uh whether you like it or not, or whether you hate it, or it's a reality. It's like social media, you know, a YouTube presence, your band camps, the evil world of Spotify and streaming. It's an unfortunately a it fortunately or unfortunately, it's a necessary evil. Um, you know, like coming on podcasts is fun, you know. This kind of stuff is I can sit around and talk about things for like 45 minutes. That's cool. This is great content. You know what's not great content? Having to schedule posts every three days to keep people interested in your studio and hitting that evil algorithm on the metaverse, you know, that's not fun. Um, but it's uh but it's necessary. And the whole video thing kind of fell into my lap just with with Dave going, like, we should just offer bands something. You can make a little bit of money, I can make a little bit of money too, but ultimately it's not about that. It's about giving bands something they can put on their uh you know, put on their YouTube channels, or get them, get give them a reason to get together and rehearse, or give them a reason to get together and write, whatever it may be. It's like give people a reason not to stay shut up in their houses, you know, safely, of course. Um, but the whole thing with that was just to go, we'll just film video and you'll record their songs, and they can have live video and they can have live songs, they can put it on their band camp page, they can put it on their own YouTube, they can stream it themselves and give it away to free for their followers or whatever it is they want to do to just go, hey, our band's still here, music is still important, let's do something while there isn't live shows happening. And uh that kind of started the YouTube channel, really. Was uh was doing all those. It gave me a lot of kind of content right out of the right out of the gate. Because if you record, you know, three, four songs with a band, you need to do that twenty, thirty times. That's a lot of videos. Yeah. Um and that's kind of how it started, and I went, well, maybe I should just do some more stuff. And I was endorsing PRS, and they're just I'm like, oh, it'll give me an excuse to talk about their guitars or their amps or their pedals or whatever it may be, and I can kind of you know slyly promote my own bands at the same time, and you know kind of how the gear review thing started. That's how that started. Okay. Yep. So I'm always playing my own my own band songs and my own band riffs, and at the end of every video, it's like, go check out my band, you know. So it's kind of quiet content for my own personal music, too. Sure. And then it was like, oh, well, you're such a gear head, you should have people on to start talking about like their gear setups and that kind of thing. So that took off, and then I started meeting some smaller builders, some you know, pedal builders, that kind of thing at NAM, and they started sending me stuff to review and say, Hey, let us know what you think of this, and let us know what you think of this. And then it got to a point where I'm like, I have like at the time I had like 500 followers, and I'm going, Well, technically I can start to monetize this, so maybe I should try. And just kind of said, Well, if I pick up an extra client once a year from a video, it's worth it for what I spend on videos that year. It pays for itself at that point. So that was kind of the kind of the initial goal and the initial push. So if you're not subscribed to my channel, please do it because I'm trying to get to a thousand followers right now.

SPEAKER_00

We'll throw the little slug right here on the bottom for you. Hey, thanks. And you can have uh, you know, all the video, you can have all the source video too if you want. If you want to kind of cut this up and you know, make your own content out of it.

SPEAKER_01

So I'll just I'll just share it. I'll this is your world. I'll just share this one and just say thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we usually do we usually do a reel anyway, so you certainly have the reel, but if you want to cut more reels, you you're welcome to have it and do that.

SPEAKER_01

So I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. We're we're all about content too. That's why we're out here. We want to help everybody, we want to promote everybody, want to give everybody an opportunity to, you know, at the end of every video, we typically like take one of your videos and stick it on the end, so it could be one of the content videos, or it could be one of your bands, you know, something. So yeah, we like to do that.

SPEAKER_01

So it's all a big circle. It's all a big circle of going, hey, if you like this, you might like this too. Yeah, and it's uh we call it the YouTube rabbit hole, it'll it'll it'll take you down that hole pretty hard. It's fun.

SPEAKER_00

So talk to me about uh some of your bands. So uh obviously you've been playing guitar for a long time. Let's let's go back there. Let's let's start that early journey. Like what got you into music?

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, Stevie Ray Vaughn on the old PBS show. Um God, I'm like, it's what was it? Is it the uh is not the not the grand old Opry? It was the uh I'm trying to remember what the name of the show was because I was a kid. But it was a show that have bands on every Saturday night, and you have music on every Saturday night, and they would uh And it was a it was a PBS show and I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn on there and I went, I want to do that. Wow. I want to do that. That looks like fucking.

SPEAKER_00

How old were you with then? Do you do not have an idea?

SPEAKER_01

I was nine or ten. I was young. Yeah. And and I'm like, I want to play guitar. And my dad kind of looked at me and went, Oh ha ha ha. Because I, you know, I'm a kid, right? Nobody takes that seriously. Um, so I said, I want to play guitar. And my mom and my dad said, Tell you what, it's like you can get a guitar if you stick with piano for a year. So I said, Okay. So I started out on piano. I'm still a terrible piano player, by the way, but I started uh I started playing piano. I've been playing piano for about a year, exactly a year, because I knew what day I started taking lessons. And on year plus a day, I went, I want to go play guitar. So I went and bought a guitar, you know, after I stuck with piano for a year. Um the the funny story actually was is I thought I wanted to be a drummer first. I'm also a drummer now. Uh, but uh I thought I wanted to be a drummer first, but my my family was like, There's no way we're having a drum and drum set in the house. No way. And uh because, you know, they're like, we're not putting up with that noise, and at least you can put on headphones when you're a guitar player, kind of thing. So I'm like, well, I want to play guitar. Um I thought I wanted to do both, and honestly, I did because I picked up drums when I was 20 um after I moved out of my family's house. Uh so I started doing that as well. But I've been a guitar player since I was about 11 years old, and I've been playing ever since, and it was always an obsession with just loud music. It was, you know, uh I I loved grunge growing up. I, you know, found my way to metal. Uh lacrosse and Winona area had a huge punk rock scene, so I got into that. Um, I still love blues to this day. My first rock and roll concert was BB King. Um still still pretty still pretty proud of that. Um he was amazing. And I've just always said, look, I'm gonna go see anybody who's I'm gonna go see anybody who's worth their salt as a musician, and I've been able to see a lot of a lot of great bands and a lot of great artists as a result. Um, because that's kind of always been my rule. If it's a good musician, I want to go see him play. So it's when people go, Oh, who'd you say this week? Oh, I went to go see Al Di Miola, and next month I'm gonna go see Emperor, you know. So it's just like good music's good music.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so that got me into playing, and um, you know, started a little garage band with with some friends of mine when I was twelve, and I was always kind of the serious guy pushing things forward, and uh to some degree I I learned that I was maybe being a little too serious for other people around me at times. Um, but that kept me motivated and kept me going, and I still play and I still do it. Um You still the serious guy? I think we're all a little more serious now, you know, because now at our age it's like we have other responsibilities, you know. Um I don't have children, but several of my band members have children. We all have jobs, we all have bills, we all have mortgages, um, we all have responsibilities that fall outside of playing music. So if you don't want to do music at this age, you're not going to because you don't have the free time or the luxury of choice anymore. Um so you have to be serious about it at if you're gonna keep doing it at really any age where you start to have to pay the government and the IRS, right? So yeah. Uh so yeah, I'm like just I'm I'm I can ramble for for for eons about things, so I'll just I'll just I'll segue it and say my current bands are Plague of Stars and Caustic Abyss, those are my two live bands. My other stuff is studio projects that may see the light of day on a live show one day, but yeah, Caustic Abyss and Plague of Stars are my my two my two babies. Plague of Stars I've been in for 13 years now, and Caustic Abyss, I started a couple years ago, and we're writing album number two now. So awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I've heard of them heard of both of them, and uh, we need to get both of them here on the podcast, do like a full band sort of thing. So yeah, we'd love to. I can easily get four people in here plus myself. So if that's not everybody in the band, if somebody can't make it, that might be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, there's there's some people who will just kind of sit and nod in the corner anyway in any band, so it's like, nah, you can just stay home, it's fine. Let the loud mouths take over, and I'm definitely one of those, so sorry.

SPEAKER_00

That's all right. That's all right. When there's a microphone in front of you, it's kind of what we need.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's not a great story where you just sit there and don't answer anything.

SPEAKER_01

So exactly. A lot of yeses and no answers.

SPEAKER_00

So, how did you get from you know, from from Stevie Ray Von? So very, very early blues inspiration. Yeah. Like how when when did you start hearing grunts? Like what what's the song or what where were you that kind of helped you make that transition? Not even a transition, right? You weren't stopping with the blues. Yeah. You just started adding. So when did you get to that that stage you were adding on?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I like I remember because I would start with I would start with rock and roll, you know, my and blues, because my uncle, my uncle would play a lot of that stuff for me. He took him, my dad, and my uncle Andy took me to see B. King from you know, being inspired by wanting to play music with Stevie Ray Vaughn. And then we just have our our rock and roll radio station at home.

SPEAKER_00

So you were pretty young when you saw B. King.

SPEAKER_01

I was. Yeah, I want to say I was I want to say I was 12 or 13.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, that's yeah, because I uh yeah, I think most people that would want to see B. King probably never have, and that's that's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I was able to see him twice. So I I was pretty lucky because because he, you know, he died, he died while I was, you know, in my twenties. So it didn't didn't get so buy the concert ticket, kids. There's they're only gonna be around around for a while, you know. I always see every time I see Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, I'm like, but this might be the last time I see these guys, you know. Um so buy the concert tickets.

SPEAKER_00

Rob Halford keeps going.

SPEAKER_01

Oh dude, and they both still sound amazing, they put people half the age to shame. It's amazing. Um but yeah, Rob still sounds great, Bruce still sounds great, but uh but yeah, so we made this, so I just had the rock and roll radio station, and they would play, you know, they would play a little bit of everything. And, you know, I was lucky that I grew up in a time where radio actually took chances on bands, because you know, now radio is uh radio to me is kind of a kind of a bland medium when you're talking about traditional radio, in my not so humble opinion these days. Um because you know they don't really take any chances, they just go, we're gonna play the hits, we're gonna play the same nine to twelve bands over and over again, and from those nine to twelve bands, we're gonna play the same three songs over and over again. You know. I always joke that if I turn on the radio, it's like my chances of hearing Metallica are pretty high, you know. And I love Metallica, but they have more than three songs, but yet they only play three songs on the radio. And those three songs are Enter Sam Man, Master of Puppets, and whatever their latest single is. Beyond that, they'll never play anything else. Um, and and you know, so if anybody turns on 93X or something later and Metallica pops on, have a little laugh to yourself. Um, but it's what happens. Uh but at that time they would play a little bit of everything, you know. They would uh they would take chances on a new band, they would go, oh, here's some new music from you know, Candlebox or whatever, or you know, Candle Box Great Minnesota band. Um but uh they uh but they'll play anything, they'll play the Metallicas, they'll play, you know, the safe stuff, and then they'll play some other stuff. And at that time, there was a later night radio show that they would start playing metal. So I got into so it's like, yep, I I got into Nirvana, so then of course I got into Pearl Jam, and I of course got into Sound Guard and Alice and Chains and all those bands, and I'm like, oh, this is cool. It's it's it's met it's musical, but it's heavy, you know, and then people would go, Oh, you should listen to the the the show on at like 10 30 or whatever and they're playing the metal stuff, and then you go, okay, and now I'm getting into the Megadeths, the Sepulturas, the Slayers, those kind of bands, and going like, oh, this is evil, it appeals to my it appeals to my I've been sent to a Christian school and I need to rebel against everything mindset of the time, you know, and um, and so yeah, of course now I'm just going like now I'm chasing a now I'm chasing the high of what's the heavy, what's the next heaviest thing? And then I started hanging out with my oddly enough, my drummer Aaron from Plague of Stars. I've known him since I was literally 13 years old. Um and I grew up with him. He's the he was the best man in my wedding, you know. It's like I saw him when his the day his kids were born. Now his kids are like 18 and 17 years old, and I'm just like I'm old, um, you know, but uh, you know, he would show me stuff and he goes, Oh, you like this band? Check this out. Oh, you like Carcass? Check out Morbid Angel. Oh, you like Morbid Angel, oh, check out, you know, Deicide or whatever. And that's and it just becomes this circle of like you find the next band, you find the next band, you find the next band. And then at some point you go, all right, well, I'm gonna take a break from that, and then you find something else, and you go, Oh, now I really I found neurosis. So now I'm going down like the doom metal stoner rock world. So, oh, well, I also like High on Fire, I also like Sleep, I like Mastodon, I like you know, uh bands like that. And then you get into like the noisy, crazy stuff where it's like, I like the band Today is the day, if you ever heard of them. You know, oh they're amazing, they're so noisy and gross and oh, so they're fantastic, they're fantastic. Kiss the pig is such a great album. Um, but uh you know, and then you go like, okay, well, I'm gonna listen to something, you know, that's kind of melodic and still death metal. Well, now I really like OP, and now I'm going down the progressive role of the road. I'm gonna go check out King Crimson, and I'm gonna check out Carnival, and I'm gonna check out like um, you know, Steven Wilson and and uh and you know, bands and artists like that. And you just at some point you just have this music collection that just takes over your entire office on every single wall, and people go, You listen to Paramour? And I'm like, hell yeah, I listen to Paramour. You know, and Paramour's great. Yeah, and then they're all confused because they're just like, I thought you were Mr. Satanic Death Metal and his horde of Nordic Warriors and you like Paramour? I'm like, Yeah, shit, that shit's catchy. You know? So it's just it's just kind of funny how that works. So uh it's I guess to answer the answer the question in a long-winded way. You find one band, you find the next band, and you keep going. You know, and that that was my whole that was my whole thing, and I learned how to play guitar to all that grunge music, and I just went, well, I'm gonna learn how to play metal because that seemed like a challenging exercise. So I learned how to play guitar to a lot of Slayer and Megadeth songs. That made my right hand nice and nice and fast. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That was a good journey, man. Yeah, I'm I'm terrible at this.

SPEAKER_01

You can let me ramble for years.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, it was fantastic. We just got so far into it, I I forgot to what exactly was the question? I don't remember. So yeah. Well, cool, man. Tell me tell me a funny, crazy story about something in the music world that you've been a part of or seen or not wanted to be a part of. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Uh the the the only thing that comes to mind that's actually kind of wholesome the uh because I can, you know. In the music world, and and I mean this in all sincerity, I've seen the good, the bad, and ugly of all things because of music. I've met my best friends, I've had some of I've had the best experiences of my life because of music. And I've had some of the most horrible experiences of my life because of music, and um all of them have shaped who I am and who I've become, so I don't regret any of it. Uh but I'll I'll pick a wholesome one because I find it I find it to be quite fun, and it's a story I tell my clients a lot. So I used to play in this band called We Are Legion, and we were a death metal band, and uh and we may or may not be doing a reunion show at the end of the year. May or may not be.

SPEAKER_00

Um but uh you heard it or didn't hear it for your first.

SPEAKER_01

Hint, not hint. Um but uh the uh and it's for a special reason, but uh I'll leave it at that. Uh but we were playing a show fairly early in our career as a band. I think it was maybe our second or third road trip, and we are gonna go play the Raven Milwaukee. The Raven Milwaukee's an awesome venue, has five stages, four stages, four stages in that building. Um so they can have multiple concerts going on at the same time. And Milwaukee was a destination just like Minneapolis was for me to go see bands when I was growing up. So I kind of grew up in that building too. Uh so when my own band got an opportunity to play there, I was like, hell yeah, let's go play. So we drive from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, and we're playing this black metal fest, and we are not a black metal band, but I love black metal, and I'm going, whatever, we're playing the rave, who cares? Um we're gonna go, we're gonna get paid, we're gonna have a good time, it's gonna be a good time. So we go, and we realize that there's we see a bunch of people lined up and they have their face paint on. For folks, folks who don't know, black metal's big on the face paint and that whole vibe. Uh and we we see that and we're like, oh man, these black metal people in Milwaukee really take their they take their music pretty seriously. And then by the time we start to roll around the corner with this line of people lined up, we go, that's not black metal face paint. And it's like the clouds parted at that moment, and we saw the insane clown posse bus. So the ICP bus. And we're like going, oh, insane clown posse must be playing upstairs, you know, in the big room in the big venue there. While us, uh while us, you know, shenanigans and heathens are taking place downstairs in the little room, ICP must be playing in the big room upstairs. And it's kind of went, okay, cool. So we get there, and there's a lineup of uh juggalo folks and everything, like ready to go see ICP already at this point. And um at the rave, all of the backstages are all connected. So the backstages of the rave for the big room is also connected to the backstage of the rave in the small room, it's just a bunch of stairwells and different rooms. And uh we were hungry, we're on the road, and we're just kind of exploring because we're bored. We don't play for a few hours, we can't go anywhere, our van's parked. Uh, for those of you who don't know, the rave is not in the best neighborhood in Milwaukee, so you can't just, you know, go walk around and uh go do your thing because uh, you know, you might literally get stabbed. You never know. Um, so we're just like, well, we're hanging at the venue. Uh so we're hanging out, we got some hours to kill and that kind of thing, and we uh we just start roaming around backstage trying to find where our room or our bands or our show is supposed to hang out so we can maybe like, you know, lay on a couch and be lazy for an hour or two or something. So we open up this door, it's like a movie, smoke comes billowing out, and we see a bunch of fago on the table. So fago, the uh the soda drink that is made by ICP. For folks who don't know that, it's fago is the drink on the shelves is actually made by ICP and it's owned by them. So if you go to the grocery store and buy fago, you're directly supporting ICP because that's their their thing. Like they have their fans like shake fago at each other and things like that at shows. It's like they just they're like the guar of that industry. It's just a messy show. Um but uh and and if you have not seen them, it's a it's it's an experience if you have not seen them. Um it's nuts, man. Their fans are devoted. Their fans are the the their fans are absolutely devoted to that band and that music. So we get there and we open up the door, and I'm like, oh, this has got to be ICP's room. There's Fago, there's a bunch of people in here, you know, there's food the whole nine. It's like nobody's feeding us. We're we're black metal show. We're not getting free food, we're not getting catering. It's like, and then my my drummer Chris looks at it and he goes, food. And he just sees a sandwich and he just goes in there, and I'm like, Well, we're just gonna ask for forgiveness if something bad happens because we're already here and he's already got a sandwich in his mouth. So I'm not gonna sit here and I'm I'm not gonna sit here and try and act like it didn't happen. So I'm like, well, screw it, he's already doing it. We're we're already in this, so I'm gonna grab myself a sandwich too. So I do that. A guy walks up to us who's obviously with the ICP crew, and he just goes, like, oh, are you guys are you guys like the opening band on the show tonight or something? Or what? And it's like, no, we're playing downstairs, man. We're just we're just on, you know, we're just on the road right now. And my drummer saw food and just said, screw it, I'm eating. He goes, dude, like, and I'm not even kidding, he's just super nice, and he goes, We have so much food, don't even worry about it. Eat whatever you want, have a bunch of fago, you know, have some beer, have some shots, whatever you're into, just go ahead. And we're like, all right, cool. And so we hang out and we're just you know shooting the shit with these guys and hanging out. And I'm like, oh, and you know, is ICP gonna be mad at us for like eating their food or anything? And he goes, like, I don't think ICP is gonna be very mad at you. And I'm like, Oh, you like the tour manager or something? He goes, Nah, man, I'm violent J. I'm the guy in the band. So it's like literally the dude who comes who I think is gonna yell at us is like one of the members of ICP, and we just like sat there and talked for 20 minutes about how much we all loved metal, so it's like the ICP guys are super into metal, they had Cannibal Corpse on their festival a couple of years ago and all that, so it's like, yeah, so that's a crazy story, and it was it was a little bit of a brush with fame, but it was also kind of a brush with the camaraderie of music, even though our bands are so different and our success level was drastically different, sure. Just how inviting they were and how friendly they were.

SPEAKER_00

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01

Um, yeah, and if I ever run into them again at any point, I'm gonna tell that story and see if they remember me because that was decades ago at this point. Yeah, that was so so here. There's a fun story.

SPEAKER_00

That is a great story, man. Thanks for sharing that. So uh it sounds like a couple people have heard it now. Oh maybe a couple, a couple more.

SPEAKER_01

Couple more, couple more.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01

So if you don't like ICP, it's completely okay to not like their music, but do not call them bad people because they are wonderful people.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah. Awesome. So I like to wrap this up, and then we're about the point to wrap it up. I like to wrap it up by saying, hey man, who should I have next on this show? Who do you recommend to be my next? And it doesn't have to be limited to one person, a couple of people, a couple ideas.

SPEAKER_01

So sure. Well, there's there's so many great people in the music world, so you know, I I really hate to I really hate to single anybody out. Um, but as far as as far as like great people, there's a ton of great people in in in the creative world here. I would say that Adam Tucker would be a wonderful guy to have on if you want to continue the wonderful world of studio talk. Yeah. Um Adam owns signature tone recording studios. Okay. Um he is a wonderful person. Uh people assume we are competitors because we're both recording metal music. We are not, we are very close friends. We work together regularly on projects. Adam Tucker is a wonderful person. He could tell you lots of stories about music too. Cool. Uh good old Dave Rubin from Rubine Creative would be an excellent guest. And about a laundry list of 400 musicians. So I'll just uh I'll I'll just pick I'll just pick the first person that I know just because you know he's he was my closest friend when I moved to Minneapolis, so he's gonna get uh he's gonna get the uh uh the the the takeaway here as far as somebody I didn't know when I moved here, and that person is Rob Carlson. Uh Rob Carlson uh is the second person who's recommended him as well, correct? Rob is a Rob's an old dog in the music scene, he's a wonderful person. He owns the Shredden guitar store. Yep. He uh uh runs going for punishment, he's been in a ton of bands. Um and Rob did keep the lights on at the studio for the first couple years. He was really the first person to really believe in 1459. And um with his own bands and his own label and everything that he had, he uh for the first couple years, he was the guy who kept the lights on for me, and I'll always appreciate that. And Gwen for Pushman's coming back to record next month. Next month? March or May? It's March now. So May.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to March already. Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, May. So I'm like, it's one of the M months. Yeah, it's May. But anyway. So thank you for having me on. I'm sorry, I'm just a rambler. That's just what I do.

SPEAKER_00

Not at all, man. It's great. It's great to have some stories to tell. I appreciate it, my friend. Hey there, Minnesota Music Family. If I haven't personally reached out to you yet, consider this your 100% official invitation to join me on the Minnesota Music Note. I'm Will McLeod, co-founder of the podcast crew here in beautiful Robinsdale, host of the show, and the guy behind the kit for the band Hits and the Misses. I started this podcast because I want to get to know the people who make our scene tick. Whether you're fronting a band, spinning hip-hop, running sound, booking shows, running shows, or teaching the next generation of talent, your story belongs here. We've had everyone, from videographers to festival organizers on the mic, and we're just getting started. It doesn't matter if you're playing arenas or just making magic in your basement. If you're part of the Minnesota music community, I want to chat. Slide into my DMs or hit the email below and let's hang out and talk job

SPEAKER_01

Don't have a fuck out lambs.

unknown

Don't get your fuck out. Don't win.