MN Music Note - Ep 49 - The Dedication Behind Eric Trombley's Musical Journey

What does real dedication to music actually look like?

For Eric Trombley, it meant teaching himself keyboards to better serve the band, driving four hours each way for gigs after moving out of state, and treating every performance—no matter the venue—as if it were an arena show.

Eric shares the story behind his journey with Anthem, the lessons he learned from opening for Hairball, why professionalism mattered more than ego, and how passion—not timing—can lead to an unforgettable music career.

In this episode, we talk about:
🎸 How Eric went from guitarist to keyboardist—and taught himself along the way
🚗 Driving hours for every show to honor his commitment to the band
🎤 The hilarious microphone mishap during Anthem's very first performance
🤘 Opening for Hairball and some of the biggest milestones in Anthem's journey
🎹 Recreating iconic keyboard sounds and the obsession with getting every song right
❤️ Why Anthem's fans convinced the band to reunite years later
🎶 Eric's advice for musicians chasing their dreams—no matter when they start

Whether you're a musician, a live music fan, or someone chasing a dream later in life, Eric's story is a reminder that success isn't always about talent—it's about showing up, putting in the work, and never cutting corners.

🎧 Watch the full episode and discover the dedication behind Eric Trombley's musical journey.

If you're part of the Minnesota music scene—or know someone with a story worth sharing—we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us and let's shine a spotlight on the artists, bands, venues, and creators that make Minnesota music special.

The Minnesota Music Note is always looking for the next great guest!

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We've discussed who you are. I've met you through the internet, but I don't know much about you. Why don't you tell me a little bit about who you are and a little bit of your background?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Um, yeah, I'm Eric Trombley, uh, best known for being a member of Anthem. Um you may have seen me before that in a band called 10 to 1, but that was pretty short-lived, only lasted about a year. Um 10 to 1 disbanded, and I think it was literally the next day this guy named Keith called me and said that he was starting a band called Anthem and was interested if I maybe uh wanted to come and audition. Um he had found me on a band mix and saw that I was a uh guitarist and a keyboardist, and he thought that would be a good good fit. So through many trials and tribulations, we got our foundation of the band, which continued to change over time, and so on.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

So how long was Anthem a band?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Oh uh, as far as actively gigging, probably about 20 2014, 2015. Okay, 10, 10, 11 years or something up until about 2021. Okay. Um, and then I had moved to South Dakota. So what drove that? Um, my wife's family is from South Dakota, okay, and we always planned on retiring there. Um, but right at the start of the Great Plague in 2020, um, just some things came up that made that be the right time to uh buy a house there and make our gradual transition to South Dakota. I still had a number of well, we had a gigs were canceled um because of the situation in 2020. Um, so I actually stayed in Minnesota for that was the plan, is I was gonna stay in Minnesota for a year because I knew that the gig, you know, eventually things would lighten up, we'd get back to gigging. We still had lots of gigs on the book. Um and my youngest daughter, I mean, she was I think she was like 20 or 19 at the time, not a not a toddler or anything. Um, but she wanted to stay in Rogers with me. So my wife and oldest daughter went to uh South Dakota, and my daughter was going to university there, which is one of the catalysts for us. Sure, us moving there. Um, so I continued to do gigs with the band while uh while I was living in Minnesota. Then I moved my daughter and I moved, but but we still had a like gigs on the books, on the books, like through the end, pretty much through the fall. And I had moved out there uh in July of 2021. Um, so yeah, for those last gigs, I was driving four hours away and doing a gig and getting a hotel room and driving four hours back to uh to South Dakota the next day.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Well, I'm sure the band appreciated that professionalism and dedication to it.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

That's uh yeah, not everybody's gonna you know pony up and be the professional that they need to be, yeah, in that case.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So and I enjoyed it. I mean, I those were just some of the best best times with with Anthem and such a good group of guys, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Well, tell me some stories about that. I mean, let's let's unpack that a little bit. You have some great times. Tell me about some of those great times, like what yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Well, I'll I'll give you a little more more backstory on on Anthem. So so Keith and I, Keith had asked me to come and audition, and it was so it was him, a drummer, and another guitarist. So I was joining, I was gonna be kind of a keyboardist slash second guitarist. Um, so we needed a bassist. And before we could find a bassist, uh, the other guitarist left. So then we had to find a guitarist and a bassist, which we eventually did. Um work hard learning all your songs and everything like that. And then um we had a gig at uh, well, it was Pickle Park at the time, and then it became uh Route 47. Yeah. So that was our first official gig we were opening up for old voltage, it's an ACDC uh tribute band.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Um, so we opened up for them. Um, and that was that was great. That went great. The um the funny story with that gig was we were starting with uh separate ways by journey, of course, and uh get through the intro, and we we just get to start the first verse, right? And the chords are like dun, dun, dun. And it's like, where are the vocals? And like I look over, and Keith's like trying to figure out what's going on. So, like the whole band, we just keep doing dun dun dun, and I'm like, great, this is our first gig, this is how things are starting out. This is awesome. But uh eventually Keith realized he had the switch turned off uh on the microphone, and he came in with the vocals. And actually, the funny thing was that um, you know, throughout after that, we went through some uh various lineup changes. Stun came and auditioned for us when we were looking for a bassist at one time, um, and he said that he saw that video and he saw how uh professional the rest of the band was. Like the vocals not coming in, like didn't train wreck us or anything. We just kind of kept kept playing the the chord progression until building the suspense, building the suspense, as as Keith Keith sorted out what was wrong with the microphone. But he said that you know that was one of the influencing factors of him coming to audition with us was that he could see that we were, you know, we may have been uh young as far as a band goes, but we were still, you know, carried ourselves professionally.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Ours outstanding, man.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, so but um stun joining was uh really the start of us getting our classic lineup. So it had been me, uh Keith, and then uh Dale Bukowski on drums and uh Mike Costello on guitar, and we needed a bassist, and so we had put the call out, and uh John came and auditioned and like immediately got it. And we we had a gig, I think it was like Rock Fest was coming up in like not just a gig, but a gig. Yeah, okay. So yeah, I think he had like it was like a month or six weeks to learn all of our songs so that we could still do Rockfest. And no, he did it. He's you know, he's a consummate professional, so of course he he nailed it.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Um but we an anthem is cover, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Okay, yeah, 80s arena rock. So we were doing nice.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I I think I may have seen you guys play years ago, but yeah, just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Well, we did a lot of uh Journey, Def Leopard, um uh Night Ranger and uh things like that. We tried we tried to keep things not every song didn't have to have keyboards in it. We tried to keep as many keyboard songs as we could. Obviously, we wanted to do you know do some ACDC and stuff, and I would I would sit out on some songs where there was no keyboards and there was no reason to have three guitars up on stage. I I would just uh sit those out, which I didn't I didn't mind, right? It was it was a team effort, it wasn't about trying to showcase or highlight any one person in particular, it was just it was a team effort and and so on, but yeah, so we got stun and then um Wes joined us shortly after, and he had actually came and seen us play, and he's like, Oh, I want to be in that band. So we were looking for a guitarist, and he came and auditioned, and and he got that uh he got the position, and that was the start of like what I would call the classic anthem lineup, like things started happening after that. I mean, we we were playing gigs before then, um, certainly. Um, but I remember like scraping to try and find gigs, and like once we got the classic lineup there and everything just gelled, and all of a sudden, you know, we we wanted to play like two, three times a month, you know. We you know, we didn't want to do it. We all had you know full-time jobs and sure like that. So um, you know, we would end up you know turning down gigs occasionally because it's like, well, you know, we'd do we would do four gigs in a month if we really, you know, there were really good, you know, good gigs and stuff, but yeah, we we tried to keep it around two or three. We had our venues that we played a lot, like the doghouse and route 47. Um, we played serums quite a bit early on. Um so yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Nice, Brian.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Yeah, yeah. So we we had a we had a good time. We were usually in pretty good agreement on the songs that we were playing, you know. We always I always found that to be kind of a challenge, right? You always end up playing on some songs you don't really you don't really like all that much, but I just considered that uh part of the job, if you will, right? Sure. I always said or always say you you have to suffer for your art. And so sometimes that meant learning uh I'm trying to think of what song. Oh, Runaway by Bon Jovi was just one I just like did not your jam did not enjoy playing it. Um so yeah, but um yeah, yeah. Then try you counter that with stuff that you really enjoy, like uh the Night Ranger stuff. I really like playing keyboards on. Feels like the first time was uh was another one of my favorites to play. So yeah, it's all good. So yeah, very good, very good memories. Um you know, we one of our I don't know, probably one of our moments where we were like really starting to feel like we were okay, like we're really getting some traction here is um we opened up for hairball at the uh the Medina uh entertainment center on 55. Um, and that was that was pretty cool. That was like that was kind of a goal of ours. It's like you know, we want to open up for hairball. And um, so we did that. We ended up doing that three times. I was gonna say was that the first of many? That was it was yeah. Yeah, actually, so that was the first, and then we had kind of in 2021, we had kind of wrapped things up, but then in 2023, we went out and we did uh a handful of more gigs in the summer and the fall, and we actually opened up for hairball twice during that time in 2023. One of the fun things was we played Rockin' Rogers, uh and we opened up for hairball, and I lived in Rogers. Yeah, so I had always wanted to play there, and they had actually asked us to play there before.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

That would have been where I saw you guys there.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Um, but we had we had turned them down, uh we had to turn them down in the past because we had other other things uh scheduled. So but the funny thing was was we didn't open we didn't play at Rock and Rogers until I had moved out of Rogers and moved to South Dakota. I was really looking forward to that gig that was you know a mile down the road.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Right, right, right kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Um, but that that was good. That was our first show when we kind of came back in 2023. So I was getting up on stage in front of a lot of people, and we hadn't hadn't done a full-on gig for for two years. So, but that uh that was that was great. I remember it going really, really well, having a lot of fun. Surprise guests showed up in front, some family of mine that like I had no idea were gonna be there and stuff like that. So uh yeah, yeah, that was good. That was one of the my wife will ask me sometimes, you know, what were what were the best shows that you ever did? And right, so I always say that one. And we would also play up in uh uh St. Cloud at Pioneer Place, which is uh yes, right? So it's uh for those who don't know, it's a theater, it's like 200 seats, yeah. Um, you know, reserve seating though, kind of a kind of a deal. So we played, I think we played there three times. Um you like that venue? Really did, yeah. Okay, it was it was nice. I it was a good place for me to invite family, right? Because you know, it we weren't playing until you know 1 30 kind of a thing, right? We were starting earlier doing an early evening show. So some it was kind of easier for some of the family to come and see us there, and then um, you know, I don't think there was any age restrictions at those shows either. So, but yeah, no, we all we always like playing there. And uh, I think that was I think that when in 2021, I think that was the last show we played before we put things on hold. And I think it was also the last show that we played in 2023 when we really that was really our last show. So yeah, nice nice when you can close it out at at some place that you really like, that you really like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, I got fond memories there already. Yeah, that's fantastic. So uh if I can ask, in 2023, what was what was the reason? I obviously I know you're living really far away, yeah. Probably had some emphasis, but can you get into that?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, sure. Um it was really fan demand. Like we have Anthem had a really hardcore group of fans, and um, like as soon as we you know, we and we had told them it's like, yeah, you know, I'm moving to South Dakota, and after we get through the fall gigs, I'm gonna, you know, that's kind of gonna be it. Well, then like there was just a constant request, like, are you guys gonna get back together? Are you guys gonna do some more show? You guys should do some more shows this summer. And um so we didn't that first summer, but then I don't know, we they were suggesting it, and you know, it's like, well, if we, you know, if we can think we can land some decent gigs, then you know, I was game, and it turned out everybody was game. So yeah. So we ended up doing it was like five shows we did between the summer and the fall. Like I said, two of them were opening up for hairball. And um, but they were they were a lot of fun. I was glad we could get back together and relive some of that uh the fun and the energy and stuff from from before.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So But at that point and you were like thinking about getting back together, was it always limited? And it was always just like, hey, let's just do a couple and then and then hang up our our hat.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there was there was no there was no plans then. Okay. And one of the reasons is because you know, I'm I'm four hours away, but above and beyond that, you've got the winters. So like having a gig and me having to get to Minnesota, but yeah, we're getting dumped in the window. No, it just wasn't gonna be yeah, wasn't gonna be feasible. So yeah, uh, I know Stun always would would tease me on even on stage sometimes about uh breaking up the band, but and that's certain that certainly wasn't my intention. Uh I really felt bad. Um, but you know, you had to do what you gotta do for yourself and your family, sure stuff. So um, yeah, and I would I would have been just fine if they would have found a replacement for me. I had no issues at all with those guys going on, but I just kind of decided, yeah, maybe that was a good time, good time to wrap things up.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Everybody had probably had other projects going and other things that maybe they wanted to spend time on. Yeah, okay, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, yeah. Um, but as far as like like my origin story, um I was way into music as a kid. I mean, I had I had the little uh record player, you know, like you lift the lid up on it, and it's got the speaker that's the space. It was like you know, the kitty, uh the the kitty record player, and I was uh The Night Chicago died by Paper Lace was the first 45 I ever bought. And the second one was Fox on the Run by Sweet. And then I think the third one was Ball R and Blitz by Sweet. And this is like you know, first grade, second grade. So I mean, I was you were really early. I was real, I mean, I was still listening to like you know, Snoopy and the Red Baron and stuff like that, but but no, I should just do there was something in this other thing, yeah. That's cool, yeah. And then um I was in third grade and I learned about KISS, and that was that was that was it. I was just I was like huge, huge KISS fan. Um I got uh destroyer, the the destroyer uh vinyl album for Chris uh Christmas when I was in fifth grade from my godparents and boy, that was that just kind of cemented me as a lifelong KISS fan. Um as I got older um got into Def Leopard and um I actually first started playing guitar when I was 16. Um and people who come and see Anthem probably say, Oh, look, that keyboardist plays a little guitar. But the opposite is actually true. It's like I I didn't start seriously practicing keyboards until a couple of years before I got in with an anthem. So I was always I was always much more comfortable playing guitar on stage than keyboards. I would always tell the I would always tell the light men when we were playing, I'm like, do not kill the lights on me on when I'm playing keyboards. Like, and if there's a ballad, absolutely do not kill the lights on me. I said, I don't care what I don't care if I'm lit at all when I'm playing guitar, because I don't need to see. But keyboards, and eventually I did buy a couple of you know little lights that I could have on, and then I didn't have to worry about about what any of the lighting, lighting guys were doing, but yeah, so um kind of learn learn keyboards along the way. I was mostly mostly self-taught. Um when I was starting with Anthem, I did take some piano lessons, but I I I told the instructor, I said, I don't want to learn to read music, and I want I want to bring in the things that I want to learn. I don't want you to like give me a repertoire. So I would literally go in with songs that I was learning for Anthem and ask, you know, what's what's the best way, what's the best fingering for this? And and and it was like, you know, Sammy. Very, very Sammy Hagar stuff. Yeah, exactly. And did it work? It did, it did because I one of the things that I didn't realize learning keyboards coming from the world of guitar, is you're not always gonna necessarily play a chord with the same fingering. And it kind of depends where you're going and where you're coming from. So that was that was one of the big things that I had to learn was you know, to do that. It's like, you know, I'm playing these three chords, it's like, well, no, that's actually not the best way to to do it, or now you can use this inversion, and then you're not moving as much. So it was interesting, learning learning that, yeah, it was like a whole different world, whole different world for me. Um but I loved it. I one of the parts of uh playing keyboards that I really liked was like the sound design aspect of it. I had just started with with Anthony. We didn't even have the full band rounded out, and he goes, you know, if if you if you want to like, you know, buy some patches or something for the songs that we're doing, and I'm like, no, actually, usually it doesn't really work that way. You can sometimes do that. Uh, but it's like, no, I'm just gonna have to like figure this out and design this stuff myself. And that was that was one of the things that the guys in the band really appreciated because as a band, we always strive to reproduce the songs as accurately to the studio version as possible. Okay. And part of that for me was creating those keyboard patches that sounded exactly like the albums. So like we'd bring up a they'd bring up a new song that they wanted to do, you know, okay, next practice, let's let's have this ready. And I'm like, well, do you want the patches done or do you want me to be able to play it? Because I'm not gonna be able to get both done in one week. Because it can take a lot of time because you're layering different sounds and you're making your own sounds out of like, you know, filtered. And so that's that's kind of what you that's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah. But it's it's kind of like that engineering aspect I liked. You know, coming up with little uh little MIDI sequences for some songs. Um there was a part in rock rock in America, like right before the right before the two verses. There's a little like a quick descending keyboard part. And it's just like a uh I just programmed it with MIDI. Um, and then I could just just trigger it from one key to hit. Um, but you know, kind of gotta figure out how to do that. Uh turn me loose. You got that big cre you know, it holds a sustained sustained chord, and then it goes, you know, and it does this chromatic walk up to uh two octaves. Um but it's a chord, it's not just one note. So like figuring out how to get a chord to do a chromatic walk all the way up two octaves, you know, bit of a head scratcher, you're like, okay, that's gonna be like a portamento or a glissando, but it's not a it's not a smooth slide. It's more, you know, it's more of a chromatic slide. And then you just start digging into your keyboard and hope that it can do it.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

So I mean, that's one way to be self-taught, right? You're really getting quite a bit deeper than I think even many people that play keyboard get into.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

So yeah, but that was one of the more enjoyable aspects of it for me. Yeah. Yeah. Um but getting back to guitar, um I started taking lessons when I was 16, and the first thing that my uh guitar instructor was having me learn was Red Bar Chetta by Rush. And I'm like, Rush, well, I know Tom Sawyer, I don't really care for that song all that much, but I borrowed the Moving Pictures cassette from a friend of mine so I could hear what this Red Bar Chatta song sounded like. And that was, you know, that that was like a game changer. And I was a huge, huge Rush fan after that. And I think it's pretty safe to say that for guitar, for keyboards, and for bass, uh I did a lot of my learning right from Rush. It was just playing Rush songs and uh getting some of those some of those chops under my fingers.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

So I mean that's a high bar to hit, so yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

But um, yeah, then after Rush, I started getting, you know, more into progressive rock, like uh Queen's Reich and Dream Theater. Images and Words by Dream Theater was another life-changing album. You know, I listen I listened to that and I didn't think that it was they were playing things that I didn't think were humanly possible. And I'd I'm not exaggerating. The uh the Kevin Moore was their keyboardist at the time, and on the song Metropolis, he doubles the guitar solo. And I I was absolutely floored. I never could have imagined that a keyboardist could double one of John Petrucci's solos. Um so yeah, big big fan of theirs. Um I was in I went to I went to school in uh Hutchinson vocational college uh for audio and electronics, right? So I've kind of got that live sound studio background and it was a two-year course. And I ended up uh getting in a band with some of the members of my class and we had played one or two gigs, but you know, it was my first introduction to you know having to learn a bunch of songs from from memory. Um I was in that band with Dave Farber, if anybody has used Farber sound for any pre PA rentals or anything. It's Dave that owns that. Um not a plug, just uh trivia fact. Fair enough. Um and then yeah, after you know, after that there really wasn't in any kind of a band. I mean just sitting play my guitar by myself at home. Um ended up becoming friends with a few guys in probably around 2010, 2012, some no, this would have been before then. This would have been like 2006 or so. Became friends with a couple of guys and they were multi-instrumentalists and um so we'd just get together Friday nights and we'd drink whiskey and eat pizza and k jam. And one of the guys was a huge Foo Fighters fan, so I learned tons of Foo Fighter songs, and I again not not the biggest fan, but like that's fine. It's just f just fun, fun getting together. Yeah, sure. But but yeah, and after a little while I had I joined 10 to 1 and then ended up in Anthem. But so I don't have the uh you know the pedigree that you know someone like like Stun does, where you know long history of being being in bands. I was kind of a kind of a late bloomer if you look at uh you know my my career with Anthem. Um it was fun. I was it was at a good time for me. You know, my kids were a little older, so I had a little bit more time to commit myself to something like that. And heck, you came to some of our gigs. You probably saw my kids selling merchandise or my wife selling merchandise, but it's good that they're supportive and and into it with you. Oh so much fun like bringing my girls to a show and um them just kind of being part of the part of the scene and you know, except I was occup occupied during during the shows, and so I had told them, I'm like, anybody starts getting weird with you, I'm like their stage mom. And I pointed to uh Dale or drummer, his wife. I'm like, anything goes weird, you need to go to someone, that's your person. So um yeah, yeah, like I said, my wife would come and some nights and sell merchandise. We did really well on our merchandise, actually.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah, yeah. Um I designed almost all of it and had had it made for for the shows. Um I I'm actually in product marketing for my my day job.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Oh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So I handled kind of the the merchandise aspect of it, the the Facebook postings and the website and and all of that. So got uh got to make use of some of my my day skills on that.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

So w what's next?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Well So after Anthem wrapped up in trying to think it was 2021 after Anthem wrapped up. I actually took uh four semesters of classical piano instruction at the university.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Which was it wasn't now you're learning how to read music.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

No. No, no, really, um I I was I took the class as a non-degree seeking community member and I was able to convince the the professor that I didn't really want learning music to be part of it. And he was gracious enough to actually allow that. There was actually other parts of the class too. There was um there would be a listening exer uh exercise that you then had to write about. Um there were concerts you needed to attend, and the professor actually told me, he goes, You can do as much or as little of those as you want. Um I actually did. I did I did all the assignments and things like that, and tried hard to you know get a good grade, even though I wasn't doing it for any credit or anything. But I w he said he had never had a community member do that. So I kind of wanted to set a good example so that if future ones did, he could say, Well, that Eric, he couldn't read music, but he sure did.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

He sure tried hard.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

He sure did show up.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Well, very good, man.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, so that was good because that got me into you know a bit more learning a bit more about proper technique, um, gained me a huge appreciation for you know classical pianists and you know, learning more about you know, expression and tempo and uh things like that that I hadn't necessarily given a lot of thought to. He was always he was always on my case about dynamics, right? And I'm like, well, yeah, yeah, here's the reason I don't use any dynamics is because I play keyboards in a band. And the sound, the sound guy, he doesn't want me to have any dynamics, he wants me to be at that level the entire song. I said, I turned dynamics off on most of my patches. He's like, Well, if you're here, you're gonna learn some dynamics. So but that was really, really fun. I ended up having to stop taking those lessons. Again, that was you know during the great plague. Um, and work had had slowed down, but um kind of when I was wrapping up my fourth semester, work was ramping back up. And for me, that can mean travel and things like that. So I ended up having to stop with the piano lessons. Um, and then uh I kind of played video games for the next year and a half for for my entertainment.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Um you don't have any uh you know ambitions right now of doing something again.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

I want to I do want to do some recording. Okay. Um, but just recording as in your writing and yeah, doing doing writing and recording with um with our drummer, the anthem drummer, Dale. Um but I just reached a point where after you know, or it was 13, 14 years, it's like kinda it started to feel like a second full-time job. Yeah, you know, and I just kind of took a break for a while. Um but now I'm yeah, I've been picking the guitar up and playing some Molly Hatchet and some camelot or progressive progressive rock band. Power more kind of like a power metal band. Um so I've been playing some of that, kind of getting back back into it.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

But you're not sure where it's gonna go yet. Don't don't you're not holding any specific goals of just kind of letting it flow?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Not yet, just kind of let letting it flow.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

When we first moved to to Brookings, I had asked around, I'm like, you know, are there any like venues here that have music? Oh yeah, you know, Skinner's up there. They all have a live band sometimes. So I go into Skinner's and I'm like looking around and up to the bartender, I'm like, I heard you guys will have live music. He goes, Yeah. Like, where do they play? He goes, Oh, usually we just move the t the pool table and then set them up in the corner. I'm like Okay. Anthem won't be doing any gig any gigs, any gigs here. You know, because I and I will say that we were we were so fortunate. I mean, I know other musicians, you know, uh friends of mine and from across the United States. You know, and there's some good guys and talented guitarists and stuff in bands, and you know, they're playing in the corner of a VFW with a tree stand with four lights on it. You know, and I just I just feel that we were just really blessed. I mean, almost all of our gigs, there there was house lights, house sound, you know, nice stages. I mean, one of the things that I found kind of re rewarding. Um, you know, when I was a kid, I never would have guessed that I would have, you know, played on the same stages as, you know, sweet. Or but they played the Medina, uh, you know, Medina Entertainment Center, and we played the Medina Entertainment Center, or the same stages as uh Queens Reich. They played uh there was a casino that they they had played at, and we ended up playing at that casino. Um we were actually the first band, St. Michael, Minnesota. They'll they have they call it they call it the outdoor amphitheater series. Yeah, we were the Anthem was the first band to play.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

For the very first year that they did that. We were the first band to ever play on that stage.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

And then uh a couple years later, um the band members and a whole bunch of our fans uh we went and saw Night Ranger there. And we all wore Anthem shirts. So like we're walking, like walking through, and the tick ticket people are like, we've seen so many of those shirts come through.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Um That's good that your fans are still pretty loyal and out there ready for you to have another reunion tour.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, well, one of them schedules uh a yearly dinner for for the band to get together and stuff for us and some of the some of the classic fans that have you know always came to see us and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

So that's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Well, cool. I better wrap this thing up because I do have some other guests coming in in about 15 minutes or so. So I always like to wrap it up with the same exact question. You might be prepared for this if you watch any episodes, but who do you recommend should be next on the podcast?

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Oh in Anthem, I always call Dale my wingman. And I I I tried to always be set up next to him, and we just had this rhythm down. He knew where I needed a hi-hat. He I would I would throw on a click track for the intro of Samsons where there was just keys, so he so he would know when to come in. And we kind of just really had this this groove. Nice. So um, yeah, I would definitely, definitely recommend Dale. I think he's in River Falls, Wisconsin. But I think he'd like to do it a lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Okay. Dale was his last name.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Bukowski is his last name.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

All right. Anyone else? Is that the guy you thought of?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

That's the first one that came to mind. I mean, that's awesome, man. There's always, you know, Mike Costello from uh from Anton. They had uh they both, you know, have more of a history as far as being in various uh Twin Cities bands and stuff. Um but yeah, yeah, I'd I loved Mike. He was just I was just always felt so comfortable when I was on stage playing, you know. If I was playing guitar, we were towards the end I was just playing acoustic. Um but for a while there uh Wes would step off stage and I'd play like a half a dozen of our songs on electric, and I just uh I was always giddy standing up front playing with Mike.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Nice, nice. Yeah, you definitely feel a lot of uh solid camaraderie in that band and the level of professionalism sounds like it's just you know something that most bands should aspire to.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

That was the if I can make one more final comment here. Um one of the things that we strive for is we we never looked at our gigs as it's just a bar gig. Part of our practice was not just running through songs, it was eliminating any dead time between songs. Um and you know, you know, Keith would have his his crowd banter and stuff, but I always tried to keep that in check. I'm like, man, I'm like, people don't come here to listen to us talk. I'm like, you know, transitions between songs gotta be short. We can't stand there looking around at each other, wondering if we're if we're ready. If if you you know if you start the next song, and if something's not right and you're not able to, you just gotta walk over to whoever does start that song and say, whatever, I broke a string, or you know, my my freaking G string's way out of tune. Hold on, right? Um, but otherwise, it's just you finish a song, you start the next song, you finish that song, you start the next song, and yeah, we really treated those as you know, as close to a big stadium performance as as we could.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Awesome. Awesome. That was been great having you on. It's an honor to be here.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

I really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, it's nice that you're here in town and great to be able to hear your story. So thanks for sharing it with us.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Yeah, yep. I kind of came up through a different path, but you know, you can still be in your uh late 40s and j start up a new project.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

You're not the you're believe it or not, you're not the only one. There's a couple of other very, very well, you know, uh very impressive musicians out here that I've seen that didn't start till they were 40 or 50. Yep, you know. It's uh it's interesting. So you just need no right path, just an inspired path.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

You just need the drive and determination, and you know, if you if you want it, if you want it to happen bad enough, it'll happen. But it's kind of uh it's kind of true.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

How about uh one more bonus question? How about your kids? Are they have you inspired them into music at all?

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Uh my oldest uh played flute, which actually I used to play flute as well when I was when I was younger, post-high school, but um pre pre anthem. Um so she played flute and saxophone in uh high school and uh jazz jazz ensemble at uh in her high school and then a little bit into college. Um my youngest uh tried learning guitar. I thought she was doing doing great, but just kind of kind of wasn't for her, and that's just the way it is. But nope, never tried to never tried to force it too hard on them, but they they just thought having a dad that they could, you know, go and see up on stage and playing songs, they did they did think that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

And there's nothing Papa's a rock star.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Nothing better than having having your kids admire you and want to hang out with you.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Absolutely. Well, cool, man. Thanks, thanks so much for doing this, brother. Yeah, you bet. 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 show. I'm Will McLeod, co-founder of the podcast crew here in beautiful Robbinsdale, host of the show, and the guy behind the kit for the band hits in 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 to you.