MN Music Note - Ep 50 - The Highs, Lows & Comeback of Scott Zimmerman

What happens when a musician loses everything... walks away from music for 10 years... and decides to come back?

Scott Zimmerman has lived through nearly every chapter of a musician's journey—from teaching himself guitar and building his own instruments, to playing major festivals, opening for legendary bands, surviving devastating setbacks, and stepping away from music entirely. Now, after a decade away from the scene, he's back with a fresh perspective and a brand-new mission.

This episode is packed with unforgettable stories, hard-earned lessons, and an honest look at what it really takes to keep chasing music after all these years.


🎙️ In This Episode We Talked About...
🎸 Teaching himself guitar and building his own custom guitars from scratch.
🔥 The homemade guitar that survived a house fire when everything else was lost.
🎤 Playing Moondance Jam, opening for Boston, and life in Minnesota's music scene.
🎵 Why he stepped away from music for nearly 10 years—and what brought him back.
🤘 His journey through original bands, tribute bands, and unforgettable performances.
🎛️ How the music industry has completely changed over the past decade.
🚀 His exciting new Bryan Adams tribute project and what's next in his musical journey.

Whether you're a lifelong musician, a weekend warrior, or someone chasing a dream after years away, Scott's story is proof that it's never too late to come back to what you love.
Watch the full episode to hear the stories behind the music, the setbacks that shaped him, and why his next chapter might be his best one yet. 🎸🔥

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_03 0:17

Just you know, introduce yourself. Um, I'm Scott Zerman. Um I'm just uh nobody trying to be a somebody. But sounds like the life of a rock star. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you know what? I owe you a story. Okay. Before we get talking about me, I owe you a story. Because the whole reason I'm here is because of that cute little comment I made on Beth Hill's Facebook posts when she posted about her interview about the karaoke smackdown. And you're like, what's that about? Yeah, yeah, I can't tell you. So the story is Beth used to live like an hour away from the cities. Okay. She used to live pretty far away, and once a year she would throw a party, and the attendees of these parties were basically former and current sugar buzz members. And there's been a lot of people in that band. Is that right? Oh, yeah. That band goes way, way back. Okay. And there's been a lot of people. So, you know, there's like 20, 25 people at this party, and we'd show up and we'd have we'd eat and we'd drink, and then we'd drink more and we'd eat. And then we would all, as a group, walk down to this little VFW hall that was a block away from her house, and we'd go in there and we would sing karaoke until the place shut down. Hmm. And then as a group, we would all crawl our way back to her house, and we would eat and drink and have nightcaps, and then we all just it turned into one big slumber party, and it was a rager. They were great, great parties.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Sounds like a good time, yes. And how many years ago was this?

SPEAKER_03 2:05

This is going back. I I'd say like 10 years. Okay, maybe a little less than that, but yeah, no, yeah, yeah, it was about 10 years. Yeah, she's moved. Um, you know, she got divorced, gotten remarried, so a lot of things have changed since she hasn't. And now that's why I said, I'm like, oh, I thought you were gonna announce a new karaoke smoke down uh SmackDown party.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Because those were fun. Those were fun. Now it all ties together. I like it. I like it. I think there's another uh is it Shad? Somebody, somebody throws no Nate Gerard, who was also a guest on air, is a uh uh bass player, horn player, okay playing with a couple of different people, minimum with the open gyms. Now he does that, I guess, every year. He has this big uh uh summer party with uh by the pool and invites all the musicians that he knows. Yeah, yeah, those are good times. Yeah, those are really real. What a what a better group of people to hang out with, right? People that that uh are adults, you know, doing different things, but on the weekends or even on a weeknight, you'd rather do nothing but make some beautiful music. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

And that's what's you know, that was fun about this party is it it it was basically all just you know, musicians and their girlfriends or wives or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

So I mean, when we would go sing karaoke, this was this was quality karaoke, man. This is good karaoke. So what's your go, what's your go-to karaoke song, man? What's the first one you pull up? You know, I can I can belt out creep by Radiohead pretty easy. That's not too hard. Um, I have a strong falsetto. So um what's that? Uh fine young cannibals, which drives me crazy. Okay, I can do that in a pinch.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

So, yeah, but that's get some dance moves to go along with it, or I depends on how much depends on how much you drink, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Yes. Yeah. But I've never been comfortable in being, even though my very first position in a band in high school was singer.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Uh, I've never been comfortable being the the the the the lead guy. I can do it, but I'm not comfortable doing it. I discovered very early that I can't remember lyrics. Hmm. I have a hard time remembering lyrics. I can I know all the little places to put my fingers on fretboard, but I can't remember lyrics. So you're a guitarist. I'm a guitarist primarily and uh and a and a backup singer. So that those are my strengths. Yeah. Awesome. And um I I got in is like my very first guitar was a tennis racket, and I played the hell out of that thing.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

And then it's funny, you might be my third interview where get uh specifically a tennis racket. Oh, yeah, your guitar of choice.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Tennis rackets are perfect guitars, yeah. And I'm a Florida transplant.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

As am I. Where are you? Where would you come from? I'm I was born in West Palm, moved up to Jacksonville, joined the military, and I've been all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Okay. I was born, I I well, I I grew up in Miami. Okay. I grew up in Miami.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

Uh so I've always seen Florida man memes. Does it really identify with your uh you know?

SPEAKER_03 5:19

I've I've been in Minnesota longer than I have been in Florida. I think I've been in Florida like 20 years collectively, but yeah, I kind of Minnesota's my home. Um, but I I grew up in Miami, and we had we lived in a rough part of the neighborhood. Um, we lived on a dead-end street, and at the end of the street, everyone would throw their garbage and their junk and stuff, and then once in a while the city would come take it out. And so my brother and I, that's where we would go digging through to find toys. And one day I found a completely gutted electric guitar. I had no pit, no, all the electronics were gone. Huh. And I was like, sweet, I don't have to use the tennis racket anymore. I can use this. So I brought it home. I got my dad spray paint and I painted it really cool. And I remember seeing a guitar in the music store that had fishing line on it for strings. It's a classical acoustic, but I didn't know that. And so living in Florida, we were big Marvel family. We fished a lot. So I went downstairs in my dad's tackle box, and I got all the different like pound tests, and I strung it up with thick, the thick ones all the way to the thins. And I strung it up with my dad's fishing line. Uh-huh. I didn't know all I could do was play the top string. And I could play the bass lines to ACDC songs just by ear. And my mom caught me doing that one day, and she's like, she's like, Scott, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm playing A C D C. And then she says, she yelled to my dad to come and look at what her son was doing. And usually that meant I was gonna get the belt. But instead, they bought me an acoustic guitar. Awesome. I was 10 years old. They saw the talents early, huh? And this thing was a full dreadnought. I could barely get my little arms around it. Is that right? Action was really high. It was so hard to play. Um, and then once a week, my mom would take me over to this guy's house that she knew from her church, and he taught me how to play like um uh like uh what's the uh no, I'm drawing a blank. Uh Puff the Magic Dragon, some Dylan songs, you know, basic open chords. It was super hard to do, but I was but I was doing it. And like every guitar player of my generation has their eruption story. And so I went for one of my lessons, I brought my Van Halen record. And I and I popped it on the guy's turntable. I'm like, I want to learn how to do this. And I played Eruption, and I'll never forget the look on the guy's face because he looked down at me and he goes, I don't know how to do that. I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, what do you mean? You're a guitarist, you're the teacher, yeah. What do you mean you don't have to do this? And so driving home that night, I told my mom, I'm like, I don't want to go back to this guy. I'm like, he can't teach me what I want to learn. So we never went back. And from that point, I just started teaching myself really just by ear, just by learning how to play. Yeah. Just started playing learning, just fighting for it, learning how to do it all by myself.

SPEAKER_04 8:47

So, how long did it take you before you could play eruption then?

SPEAKER_03 8:51

I still working on it. I know bits and pieces of it. I was like, oh, okay, this is how he did that. All right, how did he do this? And I've learned that, but I've never played it all the way through. I've never been a huge soloist. Okay. Um because I was never, I don't know. Scales. I'm self-taught, I know how to scale. So if you see me play a solo, brother, I've worked for every one of those notes. So yeah, I'm mostly a rhythm guitar player and backup singer. Those are my strengths. I can't do solos every now and then, but I I gotta work for them. Um we moved from Miami, we moved up here to Minnesota. And I started hanging out with the with the guys in school, the rock and roll guys. And uh my friend Mark Williams, he let this the first time I've ever touched an electric electric guitar. It was a Kramer Focus 1000, I'll never forget it. Candy Apple Red. And um when I picked that up, I was like, oh my god, this is so much easier. Like, it's barely any effort. Remember from 10, I've been I had incredible hand strength at that time from playing this crappy acoustic that I got. And so playing an electric, I was like, oh my god, well, I I couldn't afford an electric guitar. And so my high school wood shop project, I made a guitar.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 10:24

And um I was I remember seeing um right after David Lee Roth left Van Halen and he teamed up with Steve Vai in one of the videos. Steve Vai played this guitar that looked like fire, and I was captivated. Now, this was the 80s, so forgive me. But um I wanted that guitar so bad, and I looked it up and I was like, no, this is a one-off. You you can't buy this. So I made it. I made it in Wood Shop. Awesome, and it was the only guitar that I played for 15 years. Really? Yep, wow, and I've got some clips.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

So you ran the electronics for it and tuning pegs and everything, and yeah, wow, did the whole from scratch.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Wow. I bought the neck okay, because I'm like, that looks complicated. So I bought the neck from warm off, and I just bought I didn't know anything about neck shape or radius, I didn't know any of that stuff. I just wanted a unfinished headstock so I could cut it out, make my make it my own. So I did that, and um I yeah, and that was the only guitar that I played for 15 years.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

That's pretty fantastic. Started started like we uh we moved from Miami and we're in Minnesota now. Like, what kind of age were you at at this point? Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

No, I I kind of skipped ahead. I cut my teeth in bands. Uh well, okay. The first time we my my whole family we moved up to Minnesota, and I got my very first band in high school, and we played the high school talent show. Um and I played that Kramer guitar that Willie let me play. It was before I had my my flame guitar. So he let me play that. Um and then after I finished high school, I I wanted to get away from mom and dad. So I went back to Florida, and that's where I really cut my teeth. I got in my first real band while I was in Florida.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

You back in Miami at this point?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

No, I was back in central Florida in Ocala.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

That's where my grandparents lived, so I stayed with them for a while. So I got my own place.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

Yeah, I've been been to Ocala a few times myself. Sorry to hear that. Well, it is a small, small town, it's just horse racing and retirement community. That's where it was when I was there. So it didn't have a big music scene. It kind of sucked for music. But I I teamed up with some great guys, and um on a four-track task cam recorder, we made like a five-song demo that got played on the the college stations. That's cool. The Battle of Bands night.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Yeah, we were like we what style what was the what were you styled the music after?

SPEAKER_03 13:18

You know, I listened to it now, it's very like fusion, it was like rock fusion, it was kind of funky stuff. We had a lot of different influences. I was at the time, you know, still am, but I was a big living color fan. So that influenced a lot of my songwriting. Um, but I also listened to a lot of radio and a lot of classic rock and stuff, so yeah. Um but so that band ended up dying off, and then I moved back to Minnesota, and I've been here ever since. So moved back to Minnesota, and I started my first original band, which are called Factory Black. And you were kind of the brainchild behind this? I was, I put it together, and we made we made an album, and I I learned that you know, really good art comes from a in most cases, and there are exceptions, but I think really good art usually comes from a place of pain. I haven't had enough in my life to make good music. It was not good. It was not good. I'm a great collaborator, right? But like I wrote the bass lines, the drums, I wrote it all. And yeah, you can tell. It's very, very one-dimensional. So that band, I mean, we played a lot. Um, but then in '97, I suffered a house fire. And I lost everything I've ever owned. Really? Everything.

SPEAKER_04 14:57

Whole house burned down, huh? All your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

It was it was most of it burned, but a lot of it smoke damage. And for people who have been through it, smoke damage is that's a complete loss, too. It's just like I brought my gear home, but then over the years, like the knobs will get scratchy. It just that smoke just destroys things over time. So I lost everything except the guitar that I made in high school. The guitar that looks like fire is the only thing that survived the fire. And how did it survive? You have it with you, or so after I after I built it, this was my pride and joy. And I don't know if it still exists today, but there was um, there was a custom case company over in West St. Paul. And I I I found them through the yellow pages. Huh. You guys could look that up.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Yeah. Yellow pages? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 15:49

And um, I went in there with my guitar. I'm like, I'll I'll need a flight case. Because again, I'm like, I'm gonna be rock star one of these days. I'm gonna need the I need a flight case. And so they built me a monster. The the case empty weighed 40 pounds. Hmm. It was I hated that case. I hated it, but it was the case that saved it. Because the case on the outside was just blistered and charred. I remember when I when I opened it up and the guitar inside was pristine.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

And I picked it up, I grabbed it, I carried it out of the house, and that was the only thing.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

That's fascinating. You have a picture of this guitar by chance on this. It's in there. It's in there. I like it. I look forward to seeing that.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

So, yeah, there's a picture of the guitar, and then there's a clip of me playing it in my band in Florida. Very cool. So, um, so yeah, I lost everything, and that really took the wind out of my sails. I cut my hair.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

Was this the beginning of the 10 years of not playing? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

This is way before then. Okay. This is uh like 97.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

97. This is 97 when my house when the house was. I won't tell you where I was in 97.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

I graduated high school in 97.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Yeah, yeah, I'm old. I know, I know, I'm old. Um, so yeah, that I I you know, you kind of go into a depression after that. So that sucked. Um, but eventually I started getting more gear, and I was looking through, I was reading through the city pages, and I saw a band named Affix of Seagulls. And I was like, oh man, I like I like a flock of seagulls. Yeah, I wonder if these guys can pull it off. And so they were playing at a place called a tribute band back then, they were in 80s tribute bands, so they just played everything from the 80s, but it wasn't the hair metal stuff, yeah. It was like the Duran Duran and the new wave, and it was all that, which I always liked.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

But at the time it was popular, I you couldn't admit to that. Is that right? Well, because there were, I don't know, from my experience, at that time in like the early 80s, there were two paths you could go down. You could go down like the ACDC, Dockin, yeah, Iron Maiden route, or you could go down the the British New Wave, the Duran Duran, and and and that. And I mean, to put it mildly, if you went the other way, people would question your masculinity. So I went I get I went the hard rock route just to save face.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

You seem to wear the hard rock t-shirt and nobody knows what's in your walk, man.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

I went in there and watched them, and they were all dressed up in the in the makeup and the hair. Really? And I'm I was a metal guy, yeah. And I was like, man, I don't know. I I walked in while they were on a break, and I was like, I was gonna turn around and walk back out, but I asked the bartender, I'm like, hey, are these guys any good? She looked at me and she goes, they're very good. I was like, all right. So I watched them play a couple songs, they were nailing it. Wow, it was so good. So I got a perfect synth and everything. Perfect, really. Dude, the dude had a uh a Jupiter 8. Wow, he had the 80s keyboard, so everything they did sounded exactly right.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Huh. Um I wish a bit there, I wish there was a band out here that would redo that stuff now. Because now you can get away with it, right? Right. I'm old enough, screw you with my masculinity cuts.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Yes. I and that was at that point. I was like, I don't care, I don't, I just want to I want to play this stuff, it looks so much fun. Yeah. Um, did you get in that band? I got in that band. We're going okay. I got in that band amazing, and we were killing it. We we got in the moondance jam and we had the Friday night at 11:30 slot at Moondance Jam for five years. Really? Wow. And played in front of thousands of people, and it was awesome. It's the first it's the only time I felt like a like a rock star because we got full access passes. We could go and meet and talk to whoever we wanted to. That's cool. It was really cool. In fact, the members of the fix, we talked to them for the show, and we're like, hey, is it okay like we do in your music? And the and uh it was Rupert, the synthesizer player for the Fix. He he turns to us, he goes, he goes, mate, you're keeping us alive. He's like, keep doing it. He's like so. He was he was cool with it.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

So yeah, I got to do that.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Uh so you get to rub elbows with a lot of cool people at the moon dance, then I guess.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

I did. I got to meet a lot of really cool people. Um, and um my flame guitar, I wasn't playing that anymore because after the fire, for some reason I was afraid to touch it.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Huh.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

I it just I've like it survived that, and I'm now it just hangs in my wall. It hangs on my wall at home. You haven't played it since? I haven't played it. Really? Yeah. Like since. Since. Wow. I don't and I don't know, I don't know why that is, but for some reason I was just like, okay, well, you're done. You're hanging up an era anyway.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Putting an era on the walls.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

You've been through hell and back. You're done. And uh and I've I always liked Paul Reed Smith's guitars, but I could never I could never afford them. And right at the time when my house fire uh is when they started coming out with the SE models. And I picked up a I picked up uh an SE, that that's the very first one, the Santana, and I felt that chunky neck, and I was like, oh my God, this feels so good. But it's gonna be hard to play, but it wasn't. And so now I'm I only if I either play my own guitars or PRS. That's it. Um so And by your own guitars, you mean you still make guitars? I've made three. Okay. I lost one in the house fire. Okay. I still have the flame guitar. I remade the one that I lost in the house fire, and I made it out of aluminum. Carbon fiber. And it looks like the one that I lost in House Fire, but it sounds like shit. There's a reason guitars are made of wood. I learned that the hard way. So that's another piece of wall art that I have. Um so uh Fix of Seagulls was doing great, but eventually all bands fade away. And some of the members went on to be a part of uh Sugar Buzz, and then three of us um decided to keep going, and we called ourselves three seagulls. And it was always a dream of mine to be in a three-piece band because brother, three-piece bands don't suck. Three-piece bands are always good. And so we kept our moondance jam gig with the three seagulls, and I got a little clip. I played bass and sang for that, and that was awesome. So I got to check that off my bucket list that I was in a three-piece band. Um and then that that went away, and then I kind of floated around for a while. Um I ended up being in a band with Eddie Creckler, who you had on the show. I was in his YouTube band for a little while. Okay. I started running sound for Sugar Buzz, okay. Um and I did that for a while. They would have me come home on stage and play a song or two. Uh and then I answered an ad on City Pages and I met some really, really good musicians that were doing some original music. Um the original music was good, but um they weren't very professional, I guess, as far as their stage performance is going. Anyway, I ended up leaving that band, but the drummer and the bass player came with they wanted to stay with me. They wanted to do a side project with me. And I always wanted to do a uh a tribute to King's X.

SPEAKER_04 24:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

He was another three-piece now? At the time. Okay. Started as a three-piece. Right as a three piece. That's all that's all we had. But we knew we were gonna need more people. Because you you have to if you're gonna do it uh if you're gonna do the recorded versions live, you gotta have more members than three. Um so did the started with the the Kings X band. And um I said, Is anybody we need a singer? And one of the one of the guys was like, I work with this guy and he always wears Kings X t-shirts. I'm like, bring him in. So in comes this guy, long red hair, King's X t-shirt, never been in a band before, never sung in front of anybody. And he was incredible. Really? He was incredible. And we're like, and uh, you know, we we were playing a lot of songs, and I couldn't help. We get done playing a song, and I told his name is Matt, Matt Nornberg. Is he still around? He is okay, and uh I told Matt, you know what, you don't sound anything like the singer of King's X. I said, but you are pitch perfect. And that's when the bass player, his name's Tom Trenka, rest in peace. Um, he said he kind of sounds like Lane Staley. And at the time I was like, I've heard that name. Who is that? And he's that's the guy from Alice and Chains. And I was like, really? I'm like, think we can fake our way through Man of the Box, and we did, and when we got done playing that song, we were speechless, huh? Sounded exactly like him. Huh. So no more King's X, and we went full hard into Alice and Chains. Okay, and we were in Alice, we were the best Alice and Chains band in the Metro for like six years. Really? Called ourselves Junkhead. There's some clips. Um cool, and that was that was great. Um, yeah, it was it worked out good because of the the part of King's Ex that we loved were all the vocal harmonies. I'm a big singer. I mean, singing is the most important part of any band for sure.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Absolutely, you can nail harmonies, yeah. You can get away with a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Well, you can have you can have mediocre musicians and have a top-notch singer, yeah, whole band's great. Yeah, you flip the two, whole band sucks.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

You can have virtuoso musicians and a crappy singer, whole band sucks. Truth. Yeah, so singing is always the number one thing in any band I've ever been in. And uh and we had four singers in Junk Head. So all those weird, complex harmonies that we're doing in Alice and Chains, we nailed them. Yeah. So that was really cool. And then um, and then my focus went elsewhere. Um the other guys in Junkhead started doing their own thing, and that kind of fell away. Um, and then I was out of the scene for 10 years.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

So that was about the time after the Allison Change.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

After the Allison Chains band slowly died off, okay, and this other project of mine took over my life, I was out of the music scene. Um and now since this other project has you know kind of faded away, I'm getting back into the scene. Okay. And man, I uh I was hanging out with my old sugar buzz friends. They were open up at the up at the uh the dog house seeing one of their friends, and I looked at I looked at Mark, the keyboard player, and I was like, the the stage to me looked empty. And I was like, Where where are all the amplifiers? And he looks at me and goes, Oh, they don't do that anymore. And I'm like, what? And he goes, Yeah, everything's digital now. And I'm like, you mean like modeling amps? And he's like, Yeah, I'm like, those things sound like shit. Yeah, they're so good now. And he goes, Do you think that sounds like shit? And I'm like, well, no. He goes, Yeah, they don't, they're they're good now, they're really good now, and I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

Um you don't have to bring your 412 cab up on stage anymore.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

You don't. It's weird. That's a hard thing for an old guy like me to to swallow. But I've recently done it. I got rid of a lot of 90s gear, and I'm kind of learning the digital thing.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

And when you throw those in-ears and in and you can hear everything crystal clear with not too much or too little of anything else.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

I've never done that. Yeah, I have not done that. I have not done that. Um, I'm finding out that most of the places that I played throughout my life don't even exist anymore. Ogere's is gone, Pav's is gone, um, was it Star Central is gone. Like all these really awesome places, A-list clubs are gone. So it's like, oh, this this is rough.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

That's fascinating that the big festivals like Moondance are still around.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

No, Moondance is done too. Is it really? Yeah, I thought it was, yeah, it was around until just a couple years ago. Yeah, it was recently. Okay, yeah. It was a recent thing because Sugar Buzz was doing Moondance Jam. Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that died out. That's too bad. I think it did.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

Huh.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

But um, yeah, it's there's only a few places now. Hmm. Um, and so now I've now I'm starting a another project that I'm excited about, something that I've always wanted to do. And I've got Matt on board and I've met some pretty good people. Uh one of the guys that I work with is um he's a bass player and he's decided to join. And we were supposed to have our very first practice yesterday. Oh, is that right? Yeah. But because of the blizzard, uh we postponed it.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Yeah. Um we usually practice on Sundays too, but yesterday was not happening. Nothing was happening. It wasn't worth it. So um Are you allowed to tell me more about that band yet, or is it still a little hush-hush until you kind of I mean, I'm not, I don't care about I don't do secrets of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

I'm doing a tribute to Brian Adams. Oh, really? Okay, and I'll tell you why. A lot of people laugh, right? The guy's been on the radio every single day for like 40 years. He's had what is it, 15 top 20 hits? Hmm. A big part of his fan base are women. Brother, they made Ladies' Night for a reason. That's right. And so I can't believe nobody's doing this. This seems like low-hanging fruit to me. And I and you know, I grew up on that stuff. So it's fun for me. Yeah, if you I just gotta find a bunch of old guys to help me do it. And so far, so good. Still looking for keyboards. Those guys are so hard. Very hard to find.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

Yes. I ran into uh on the weekend I did a shoot uh uh for a customer of the testimonial shoot in the fireplace company. Anyways, the lady was like, Oh, I mean I want to. I was thinking about being in a band. I play keyboards. I was like, oh my god, you literally could be in a band tomorrow if you play keyboards. Not that good, is it? Doesn't matter. No, if you can play a couple chords, you probably got your let you catch up. Exactly. We'll bring you. That's right. Yeah, you got the gear and just the wood. OJT, come on, bring the bring your gear.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

We will we will help you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. Shout out to any keyboard players out there. Um yeah, so that's what I'm doing right now. And yeah, like I said, it's so much has changed in 10 years in the in the industry and then in the in the equipment and stuff. Like I said, I've never done the in-ear monitors. Yeah, that kind of scares me. I've heard pros and cons to it. Sure. Um the digital stuff, the digital stuff. I know like all the pros use fractal, but I looked up fractal and like the interface for that thing is not fun. And so I was like, I kind of made an analogy, like, okay, if I'm gonna learn how to fly a plane, do I want to learn, do I want to learn on a like a seven, like a passenger airline jet with passengers? Or maybe just this little tiny plane. And so I bought a Helix and I'm learning that. And uh that's been it's been fun because it's it's a challenge. I get to I get to play with I get to play with amps that I could never afford in my life. So that's been fun.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

Uh and I know with a lot of the pedals, being a drummer, I don't know that much about them, but I hear this from my guitar player friends. I mean, you could dial in the set list, literally press a button, uh pre-program your tones, and it just changes the tone perfectly for you.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

You can be one man band with this thing. I like I'm just scratching the surface. It's it's almost like option overload or option paralysis, wherever they say, you know? Yeah. So um, so that's what I've been doing. That's what I've been doing now.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

Well, look, I I got two things that you talked about that I kind of want to unpack a little bit. First one is just look at yeah, so it's been 10 years, you haven't been in the industry, and you say there's a lot of changes. Let's talk more about that. That's pretty interesting. Like, what what what really have you seen change in this Minnesota music industry? I know we talked in ears, we talked, you know, stage setup, that sort of thing, but what else?

SPEAKER_03 33:36

Uh I mean, uh the biggest thing is all the venues that have fallen to the wayside. I think COVID did a lot of that. But um, yeah, I because of because of my tenure with the Fix the Seagulls, the 80s band, like I could call up Ogera's and I could call up, uh, you know, I could call up all these plays and like, hey, I got a new band. They're like, bring it in. No problem. They're all gone. All those things. I'm like starting from scratch. My only hope is kind of like maybe ride the coattails of my friends, let us open for them. Sure. I'm hoping. Sure. Hey, Beth. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

So when you're it I've seen it happen when you're a good player and people know that you're a good player, they know you're gonna put something together. Yeah, and the tribute thing is huge, like right.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

That I've all I love tribute bands because people it's it's a lot easier to fill a room because it's people know what they're gonna get. Yeah, you have like an instant fan base.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

Yeah, so as long as you don't call yourself something obscure, you know, it you it's a lock-in, you know. So um, yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to that. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Cool. Yeah. Well, one of the other things that you had talked about was uh being able to play Moondance so many years in a row, even when you changed and kind of had went to a three-piece band. So you I bet you met a lot of very interesting people and probably had some interesting moments. Take me, take me back to some stories.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

I I was talking to ah God, what's his name? Keith uh Keith. It's a singer for Cinderella. Okay. Um I met him backstage and I told him, I was like, Man, I'm like, I'm I'm really glad you're still doing this. You know, this is awesome that you're still, after all these years, you're still doing it. He looks at me and he goes, What else am I gonna fucking do? I was like, okay. I was like, I'll I'll be over here. Yeah. Um Huey Lewis, really nice guy. He's got a case of nothing but uh bowling shirts, racks and racks of bowling shirts.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Um who else? Uh Pat Benatura and her husband. When they play Moon Nice Jam, they come up like a week early and they go fishing around the lakes in the area. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

Are they are they upper Midwest originals? Is that they or they just love the lakes in the area?

SPEAKER_03 36:14

They like she goes, we can go up here, we go fishing, nobody knows who we are. Oh I don't have to have like special security or anything. We just go rent a boat and go fishing.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

Oh, that's nice. So just yeah, just the anonymity to do that.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

Just the anonymity, yeah, being that far up north and then you know, in the woods and stuff. Um, except for the people that go there to Moondance Jam and like and camp out or whatever, the rest of the community, like they're they can walk wherever they want to go. That's pretty neat. So and I talked about meeting the members of the fix, that was cool. Um yeah. Yeah, it was it was Moondance Jam was one of the best times of my life.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

So I'm just imagining you when you you got into this uh 80s new wave band. Did you have to go real big with the with the hair and dye it black?

SPEAKER_03 37:08

They told me they're like if you want this gig, you gotta come up with a with a look.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Really? And do we have pictures of that? Unfortunately, yes. That's important.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

I gave pictures. Okay. And um, I was like, they're like, you can do whatever you look, but it's gotta be like 80s. And you gotta remember, like, I was a metal guy. This was like against the rules. But I'm like, well, if I want this job, I like I gotta I'm gonna go all in. Um so um I dyed my hair black, and I was a Misfits fan. And they do their hair called the the deadlocks or whatever like dread no something like that. They call this. Oh, they had a name for it, they had a name for their hair interesting, yeah. Um, and so I grew my hair long in the front, and I just had that point, and then I put black lipstick on and blacked out my eyes. Um, because I I you know I had to do the 80s, but I didn't want to look like I don't want to look like poison, those guys, you know what I mean? So, and I did not show them what I was gonna do until like 10 minutes before we were gonna go on stage, which by the way, we were opening for Boston. Really? When I went to audition for the band, they're like and your first gig, they're like, Okay, if you want it, you got the job, you gotta learn 60 songs in two weeks as we're opening for Boston. Holy crap!

SPEAKER_04 38:45

Talk about pressure.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

But I did it, I did it, and 10 minutes before we went on stage, I came out of my little tent because we were tent, we we were camping. And I because I'm like, if they don't like my look, too bad. It's too late. And so that was my that was your plan and it worked out, I and it worked out okay. They looked at me and they're like, whoa! And I'm like, this is this is it. And you know what? There, and I was I was kind of cool with it because one of the things that I learned about kiss when you wear stage makeup, you are immortal. Any one of those guys could put that face paint on, go on stage, and they're 20 years old again. Nobody's gonna know the difference, not the audience. You are immortal.

SPEAKER_04 39:36

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

But on the flip side, my friend Tom Garneau told me this. He goes, Yeah, but it also means that anybody can take your job. I was like, oh, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

Yeah, I mean, they've got some newer, newer bands now that wear complete masks or whatever. Yeah, they they the band member has a stage name and they literally could just change that person out with somebody new and gore as long as long as they gore has been doing it for decades, right? Yeah, as long as you got the chops, you got the gigs.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

That's right. Yeah, so doing getting up in that that whole getup gives you a certain uh I like you've created a character, and that character can live forever. That's interesting. So um, yeah, that's that was one of the things that like helped me get over the fear and apprehension of wearing stage makeup.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Because that was like, oh no, I don't know, man. I don't know if I want to do this, but it's okay now. I was all right with it.

SPEAKER_04 40:33

Very cool. Well, so you came, I think you had a couple of stories you wanted to tell. Did you get a chance to kind of share everything that you wanted to share? Great, because I want then I'm gonna wrap it up. We're all up to date. We're all I'm gonna wrap it up. Yeah, yeah. And I wrap it up with the same question every time. And I guess you did you did your homework, so you know this is coming. Yeah, I did. Who should be next on the show? I want to hear Lee Underwood's story. That's a fantastic uh recommendation. I would love to hear Lee's story as well.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

Just ran into her over at Route 46. Route 47? Route 47, yeah. See, it again, to me, it was Pickle Park.

SPEAKER_04 41:05

Yeah, I can't keep up. Yeah, I didn't know it was Pickle Park, but yeah, people told me JB Leighton's Pickle Park. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

You know, the big, the uh if you look up at the on the roof, that big guitar on the roof of the on the ceiling of the place, uh-huh, they left that from when it was when JB Leighton owned it. Interesting. It used to be called Pickle Park back when I played there. Uh-huh. So anyway, I ran into her when she was doing her Deft Tones band.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Oh, yeah, yeah. I've had a couple of people on the show that were in that band, but not Lee yet. So uh Yeah. That's uh there's a new Deft Tones band called Swerve City out there.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

That's them.

SPEAKER_04 41:41

That's them? That's them. So Lee's in that band?

SPEAKER_03 41:43

Yep. Okay, cool. Yep. I just saw him with uh with Stone and Echo. They played over there. Oh, nice. The A Perfect Circle.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Ah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

It's just 10,000 days. Yeah. I mean, you got to get Sal on here, too. That guy's incredible.

SPEAKER_04 41:57

Yeah, I've been trying. I bet. I've been trying it. Uh Sal and is it Ho Jose? Jose, the guitar player? Yeah. Both those guys.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

So I just had um we opened for them uh several times back in my junk head days. So is that right? Was funny because we uh those guys, their equipment, their pedal boards were massive, and they would set everything up, and then we would have to come in afterwards and like play like this. And after the third gig, finally, like, I think they we earned their respect. But I told the guys, I'm like, you know what, can you can you just we don't we would like to enjoy the night too? My band doesn't want to suck. I'm like, can you just give us some room? They're like, All right, we'll move it to the side. I'm like, thank you. But we had to like prove ourselves, I think, to the guys. So, yeah, I was after through Dieg, and they were like, All right, you guys are cool, we'll move some stuff out of the way. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 42:52

Awesome. Yeah, bring Lee in here. Yeah, I would love to have Lee in here. I want to hear her story. We shall do that. So now now you've she's been officially nominated, and uh yeah, now we've got luck put hooks in, huh?

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Because she's a busy gal.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Yeah, that's right. Right. Yeah. Well, maybe hopefully she doesn't practice on Mondays. Right. We'll see. Hey, thanks so much for this.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

This was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

I'm glad you had a good time. And I've been too. It's nice to get to know you. 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 Robinsdale, host of the show, and the guy behind the kids with the band, It's in the Mistes. 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 shop.