S4: E18: Zak Perry - Waking Up The Vultures

Zak Perry Mixdown Master

Wed, Jun 21, 2023 4:45AM • 51:42

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

song, playing, guitar, record, people, cds, backstage pass, listeners, france, artists, write, zach, band, music, good, bikes, zack, vern, love, studio, Zak Perry, The Beautiful Things, Zak Perry & The Beautiful Things, Vern Vennard, Waking Up The Vultures, France, Fabrice Cat, Galveston Texas, Cypress Texas, Crystal Vision Studio, Randy Hulsey, Hulsey, Backstage Pass Radio, Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, Randy Hulsey Music, Randy Hulsey Podcast

SPEAKERS

Randy Hulsey, Zak Perry, Adam Gordon

Randy Hulsey  00:00

Hey everyone, I am in the crystal vision studio today with a returning guest from season two. Hope everyone is doing well. It's Randy Hulsey with backstage pass radio. My guest today recently left the US and headed back to a second home in France. He has released a 12 song LP called waking up the vultures, so stick around, and we'll make a little memory with prolific singer songwriter Zack Perry, when we return.

Adam Gordon  00:27

This is backstage pass radio, the podcast that's designed for the music junkie with a thirst for musical knowledge. Hi, this is Adam Gordon. And I want to thank you all for joining us today. Make sure you like subscribe and turn the alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of backstage pass radio. Randy Halsey.

Randy Hulsey  00:56

There he is. What's up, brother? How are you?

Zak Perry  00:58

Hey, Randy, how are you? Man? I'm

Randy Hulsey  01:00

good. It's great to see you. As always. I guess this is the first time that I'm seeing you since you left to go back to France, huh? Yeah,

Zak Perry  01:08

yeah, I think I saw you right before I left the Creekwood bar.

Randy Hulsey  01:12

That's it. That's it. Well, welcome back to the show for the second time. And I guess the first show we did was down in Jamaica beach in the Galveston area. And you were net Evatt was with you at the time. So it's been a little while now.

Zak Perry  01:29

He he's out in LA now claiming some cats and doing really well. Nice. So

Randy Hulsey  01:33

he he finally packed up and left the island. Yeah. Well, I think you if my memory serves me correct. You're the third artist that I've had on my show that has come back for a a follow up interview. And I think the first one was Michael Sweet of a band called striper. And he came back and talked about their latest LP called the final battle. And then I had my friend Pate and how we come back to talk about her single crazy amount her so it's good to have you back. And we'll we'll talk about the new release that you just let out and see what's what's happening in your world. All right.

Zak Perry  02:16

I'm glad to be here.

Randy Hulsey  02:17

We Yeah, like you said, I think the last time I saw you, you inverne, we're playing a Creekwood. And I think the next day you were supposed to come here. And it kind of got bunched up and you had some things to do before you headed back to France. So this is kind of a catch up of what we were supposed to do right before you left. So

Zak Perry  02:38

it's much more exciting.

Randy Hulsey  02:40

Glad you're here. Well, you had mentioned back then, I don't know if you remember this. I'm gonna jog your memory a little bit. But you said that at the Creekwood show, I think you said I finally feel like I'm back in my natural habitat. Because the show you had played the night before, was a Friday night was that you said it was the most bizarre show that you had ever seen. And we never talked about that. And I didn't know if you wanted to elaborate on that at all. But it kind of it kind of piqued my interest. Like, you have all people saying it was a bizarre show. It had been a really bizarre show, right?

Zak Perry  03:15

I'm playing some some strange, strange situations with this. This one I was filling in on guitar with a band. And it was the Catholic daughters convention.

Randy Hulsey  03:28

This is funny already.

Zak Perry  03:31

You know, when your Catholic daughters, you know, first thing you think Hey,

03:36

it'd be cool if they were I'm sure they were all daughters, but they were. They're all pretty

Zak Perry  03:43

silver haired you know, and they all had pink tutus. And it was a lot of pink and a lot of flamingos and about 2500 Elderly women dancing around. And then they brought out Michael Jackson impersonator and then Elvis.

04:03

And they had a cash bar

Zak Perry  04:05

that only took credit cards. So yeah, that's

Randy Hulsey  04:10

a catch block that only takes credit cards. Go figure.

Zak Perry  04:14

And I was standing out behind the backstage door. When Michael Jackson come walking up with his manager he

04:25

and I just yell Hey,

Zak Perry  04:27

and they stopped and looked at me and I said beat it I'm sorry.

Randy Hulsey  04:36

You had to write. It was good. That's awesome. Well, I'd never got the story but that sounds quite interesting to say the least. I'm sure that was pretty excited compared to the Creekwood grill you know, not too much goes on at the Creekwood grill you know like that Not Not many people come in and pink tutus and you have Elvis and Michael Jackson sightings But I figure if anybody could find a party like that it'd be you write something else. Well, listen, where in France do you call home while you're there overseas?

05:12

I say a

Zak Perry  05:15

300 year old farm, about an hour and a half north of Paris. And it's literally out in the middle of nowhere. It's all I can hear is chickens and cows and occasional tractor. Wow. But it's peaceful. And it's a great place to write. I'm really comfortable here and I write a lot of stuff here. So

Randy Hulsey  05:39

Well, it sounds like that is kind of the perfect place. It's kind of different than the I guess. And not that Galveston is really hustle and bustle like, you know, the big city of Houston. But I'm sure that that's quite a culture change, go into an environment like that, where you're out in the middle of nowhere, right?

Zak Perry  05:57

And it's very strange, because, you know, on the weekends, or when I'm playing I'm usually in a big city like Paris or Amsterdam or wherever, you know, Germany, and then come back to the country and just kind of

06:11

chill, chill it out.

Randy Hulsey  06:13

Yeah. What is the ratio of time that you're spending in France versus here stateside? What would you say that ratio is on a percentage basis?

06:26

Well, in the last several years, I've

Zak Perry  06:27

been over here more I was stuck here during the lockdown the pandemic so I was here 15 months straight at that time.

06:35

It's been about half and half but

Zak Perry  06:40

I'm getting ready to come back to states I'm coming back in November to start recording my new CD at Sugar Hill studio in Houston. I don't know if you're familiar with sugar Hilliard. It's quite a quite a place and I'm bringing over my friends drummer Julie may you Gerben coolin from Hollinger, the rhythm section,

07:04

and Vern on guitar, and it's gonna be a good album. And we're really

Randy Hulsey  07:07

excited about Yeah, so all the material

Zak Perry  07:09

is spent in probably more time in the States, maybe three or four months in Europe each year.

07:14

Okay.

Randy Hulsey  07:16

So all the material is together for that, or you're still writing for the new record.

Zak Perry  07:21

Wow. That's a constant struggle, because I'm always writing I've got about 35

07:26

unrecorded songs. So I'm thinking about, you know, maybe doing

Zak Perry  07:34

this one in Texas and then another one in Holland with my friend, a guitar player in Holland has a studio up there

07:40

and we're thinking about making a kind of more country rock, maybe call it

Zak Perry  07:49

more of a Bakersfield kind of sounding record. Yeah. We're gonna call it the songs for Sunday morning.

Randy Hulsey  07:56

Okay,

Zak Perry  07:57

so I got a lot of material, but I'm always writing.

Randy Hulsey  08:00

So Chris and I have talked, you know, just like Chris and I do on stage, we talk about the most random things sometimes, but you always come up in conversation. And Chris said, Man, I sit there and now it's not that bad. I'm sure your ears would be ringing but but, but he said, You know, I struggled to write a song or two and Zach's got 35 in the can over there. Like, it's like he's a songwriting machine for sure. So nothing but compliments for sure.

Zak Perry  08:29

I feel really,

08:30

really blessed.

Zak Perry  08:32

That songs are still coming to me. Yeah, for sure.

Randy Hulsey  08:35

I'll jog your memory again. But I caught up with you a couple of months back for a bike ride there in Galveston and I was gonna get your take what did you think of the E bikes on the seawall there,

08:46

man? There it is. Remember, I

Zak Perry  08:48

couldn't quit smile. I love riding my bike on the seawall, but it's always you know, you got to start into the wind. Yeah, sure. So the ebike and you don't have to worry about it. So it was great. I really enjoyed it. Thank you again.

Randy Hulsey  09:05

Yeah. You know, it's funny because a lot of people I think when I tell them, but just like yesterday, I took off on the bikes with my son, Brandon. And and we wrote about 20 miles and most people say that's, you know, they kind of snicker like, I don't think they really know how much fun they are until you get on it. And you can ride like, forever. Like I can go literally almost 60 miles on a battery charge. Like, you know, you could go up and down Galveston Island 14 freakin times on float at recharge, right? Yeah. And you go places and you see things that you normally would probably not venture to go because you're either tired or the winds blowing really hard and you don't want to fight it. So it's a different way to ride but I think the misconception is people think you don't get exercise on an electric bike. And you can pedal just like you do a normal bike right so You don't have to, but you can. So you can get a little bit of exercise and have fun all at the same time. But I wanted to get your take, because there's probably a lot of listeners out there that have never even been on an E bike. And I thought you enjoyed it, but wanted to get your take on it all the same, right?

Zak Perry  10:15

I really did. I get a lot of trouble for my biker friends over there. Because I have a scooter over here. Okay. It's a call moped right. But you know, that thing, there's so many little tiny roads all through the north of France. And it's it's just easier, right? It's, it's great. It's wonderful. You know, you just see all these things you never see. Sure. The main rows, so I really enjoy it.

Randy Hulsey  10:43

How do you move your gear around? I'm guessing that you have like, a guitar like a backpack kind of case. Can you? Is that how you carry it on the on the scooter? Like you put everything you need under that backpack or take my guitar? I'm

Zak Perry  10:57

scared. Okay. Okay,

Randy Hulsey  10:58

I didn't I didn't know how far you are. Well, most of the places you're playing in different countries and whatnot, too. So

Zak Perry  11:04

yeah, we have a we have a truck we traveling. I worked with a couple of different booking agencies that supply backline and transportation.

Randy Hulsey  11:13

Okay. Yeah, I didn't know if there were some local things that you were playing like right in your area where you could just throw the guitar over the shoulder and they already have everything for you in the place that you're playing right.

Zak Perry  11:25

Now I definitely think I thrown in the scooters a 12 pack of beer my days off, you know, just to get away

Randy Hulsey  11:36

you know, back for the people that are we talked about the bikes a little bit you know, the show was sponsored by ecotric. And those are the bikes that we were on. I've got four of them. You guys make sure to check out the links in the description of Zach's interview here and there'll be links to the bikes that we're talking about. But let's talk about the record for just a minute Zack so waken up the vultures first of all, how did you come up with the title for the record so interesting? Well

Zak Perry  12:05

when I got over here in the second year I've been playing over here and the band's name started catching on and

12:11

we're starting to get getting a full head of steam and and my manager just said that

Zak Perry  12:20

off the cuff for days I know it because a lot of people were calling bands wanting to open up and this and that and it wasn't all bad and a lot of the calls were good you know but he so we're starting to wake up the vultures and that's how it came about.

12:36

Okay well there is a

Randy Hulsey  12:41

song off of that record called Mountain shadow and I'd like to share a quick clip of that and then come back and chat about the song fair enough yeah sure I'd stand by

13:22

Sweden's

13:44

guys

13:59

you stepped on

14:06

your reel most

Randy Hulsey  14:51

that was a song called Mountain shadow off of waking up the vultures was that song a quick write for us act or was that one of the songs that took you a while to craft and put together? That one

Zak Perry  15:07

came together pretty quick. That's your, you know, your basic heartbreak song I've been seeing as this girl for a while, and she traveled to Europe with me quite a few times. And she had made a comment that she didn't like being in my shadow over here. So when the when the relationship went south, the song happened pretty quick. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  15:36

It's always cool to hear the backstories not not, you know, and I think a lot of artists are they rather sometimes people not know, the backstory for the songs and just let you use the song, how you interpret it, or how you want to use it. But I think it's cool to hear the backstory, you know, because I think for myself, as kind of a connoisseur of music, I listen to the song differently than I would if I didn't know what you were singing about, or the heartbreak that you were feeling or you know, you being pissed or whatever the emotion is, right? I listened to it totally different. Because I'm that guy that gets inside the song. A lot of people just hear the song around the perimeter, right? They hear the beat and whatnot, but they don't hear what the story is the story that's being told, right? Sure.

Zak Perry  16:30

I have a great example that one of my songs is called. I've been drunk on Sunday morning. You know, a lot of guy like I am drunk. But it's actually about my mother passing away in Houston. And the things I did to deal with that, you know, so I know exactly what you mean. Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  16:51

interesting. And I think the first time that I talked to you, I don't think that song, that particular song ever come up. So it'll be nice for me to be able to go back and listen to that with that reference now, right then and never, never knew

17:04

that before. On an average, how long does it take you to craft a song? Would you say? Oh, they're all different, Randy. I mean, I've had, you know,

Zak Perry  17:21

guitar parts in my back pocket for 20 years, and they finally make their way into a saw I just wrote a song when I was in Houston called the rodeos in town, and then I'd had the guitar part for

17:35

at least 15 years. And the melody kinda

Zak Perry  17:39

and then you know, something happened. I had an experience and bam, there was a while so it's always different, but some of them come really quick. Some of them you know, I'll have the whole song written melody, but the words aren't there. Okay. And I just refused to rush that stuff. You know? Just because if you do rush it, it sounds like

Randy Hulsey  18:02

you rush. Sure. It just has to come organically, right? It really does for me, yeah, that's why I have to do it. And are you a structured songwriter where you sit down at a certain time each day I knowing what I know about you? I'd have to say that that's a dumb question. But I'm thinking that you probably just a fly by the seat of the pants writer, right? Whenever the mood strikes you, you you get an idea you write it down, but you don't sit down and say Okay, tomorrow morning at 1030 I'm gonna sit down with a cup of coffee and write for an hour you're not that guy right?

Zak Perry  18:34

No, I can't do that. I try and sit and play my guitar for at least couple hours or a day because that's when the ideas come you know before you know they sneak up on you. Yeah, if I sit like I said, if I sit down and try and write a song I think the song is gonna sound like that.

18:52

Okay. Are you so many songs on country radio today?

Zak Perry  18:57

It's

Randy Hulsey  18:59

and if you remember we joked about that on the bike ride when we were sitting over above us having a beer you remember that right? We made a go a wisecrack about a lot of the country songs sounded the same next thing you know the jukebox plays a country song and it was had all the topics that we had just talked about five minutes before the song came on.

19:20

Yeah

Zak Perry  19:22

it's kind of sad state

Randy Hulsey  19:25

Yes. shallow thinking I guess but are you kind of a lyrics first guy are you a melody first or is there no rhyme or reason to what comes first in a song

Zak Perry  19:36

was definitely for me usually melody

19:38

first and then

Zak Perry  19:41

I have to phrase the the words so the most time for me

19:45

okay. Absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  19:47

share with the listeners a little bit about making waken up the vultures like where did the record you know? Process The recording process take place. How long did it take you to record? Was this the one that went back to the pandemic? Or was this something that you completely did after like post pandemic? No, this

20:10

was all done.

Zak Perry  20:13

We were living in prasar, France, I have a song about protostars, which was our main bass when we first came here. And we had a house there that we rented a big old farm. And we brought our studio from the United States. When I say we, I mean, me and Bernard, who's been playing guitar thing for about a quarter century. When he hit my age, you can say stuff like, let's,

Randy Hulsey  20:37

let's see how old let's see, that makes you how old again, like

20:44

we were locked down. But luckily, we were locked down in a in a studio. And

Zak Perry  20:51

so we recorded that we recorded about 30 tracks

20:54

in 10 months file. And there's still, you know,

Zak Perry  21:01

15 tracks that we recorded that haven't been released yet. But that's when we did that recorded in France during the pandemic.

Randy Hulsey  21:10

What contributions you know, I know that burns been kind of your sidekick for quite some time. What contributions from the songwriting side come from other people in the band? Are they they pretty much all you? And those guys support the song? Is that how it works? Or are there like lyrical contributions? And I'm sure there's musical contributions for sure. But lyrically, I guess I shouldn't rephrase the question. Lyrically. What are the contributions from others that play with you?

21:43

minimal, minimal?

Zak Perry  21:46

Absolutely. Actually, none really? Okay. Ah, yeah, the lyrics for the music. You know, Vern writes his great guitar parts, but I usually come in with the whole song. Okay. And once in a while, you know, we'll, we'll change something a little here, chord there, you know, doesn't matter who comes up with the idea as long as it's a good one, you know, I'm sure if it's right for the song, everybody knows it. Sure. But I usually come in with the whole song. Pretty much done. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  22:15

Who were the players on the record waking up the vultures? It was

Zak Perry  22:22

myself and burn of course, and

22:25

our drummer over here, his name

Zak Perry  22:26

is Julian, may you and he's he's a great drummer. He's, he's been playing since he was just a kid went to music school and all that stuff. But he, he's a really good player. We had a guy named get

22:42

on the bass guitar. And I think maybe

Zak Perry  22:45

on one track and other guy named Lucas fleet, a little bass.

22:49

Okay. They are all

Zak Perry  22:52

French artists besides myself. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  22:56

And was it Vern, that engineered mix and mastered this record? Was that kind of he played that role in this record? Is that correct?

Zak Perry  23:06

Yeah, he's played that role in our last four records. Okay. Vern left the band for a few years back

23:15

in the early 2000s, and I

Zak Perry  23:17

did a couple CDs up in array events in the studio, abysmal and

23:22

Austin. But after

Zak Perry  23:25

Vern, rejoined the band, we decided, you know, we need a studio. So we started piecing together studio and we've done our last for in house, okay to speak. artwork and everything.

Randy Hulsey  23:38

Okay. Nice. And we'll talk a little bit about the, the artwork on this as well. You mentioned right, Benson is this asleep at the wheel? Right, Benson that we're, we're talking about? Okay, gotcha.

Zak Perry  23:49

We actually played v3 on a couple of my songs. Oh, no

Randy Hulsey  23:53

kidding. Okay. Somewhere in the

Zak Perry  23:55

morning albums.

Randy Hulsey  23:56

Very cool. Very cool.

Zak Perry  23:58

I think he was bored that day came

Randy Hulsey  24:03

that he walked in and say, Wait a minute, I thought Led Zeppelin was here today. And it's just

Zak Perry  24:07

funny story when he walked in, you know,

24:10

I've been a big fan for years. And he walked through the door and

Zak Perry  24:16

you know, I didn't realize how big the guy was, you know,

24:20

he blocked the sunlight. Yes. I just got through smoking a little weed in there. And he come in the door

Zak Perry  24:27

and he said God dammit. Told you not to smoke that shit in here.

24:33

I was like, oh man. He pulls the joy out of spy you smoke

Zak Perry  24:37

this the ship and kill it. So we got some funding green in there. We put it for a couple hours while they're getting the drum sounds right. But yeah, he ended up playing beat three on a couple of songs about junk cars and one other ones with very cool experience. That's

Randy Hulsey  24:57

a good that's a good backstory. right I'm gonna guess after that reefer y'all probably didn't make one putt the whole time, right?

Zak Perry  25:09

I don't know man, I grew up playing golf stones. So

Randy Hulsey  25:15

like you said that I grew up playing golf stones. I didn't know that about you. So it's been a long time since I played golf I kind of grew up playing. My brother grew up playing. I had a bad wreck back in 2013, where I broke my neck in the wreck. And after the wreck, I just kind of put the club's up and I stopped swinging and I'm just because of, you know, the movement, you know, and I love to play still, I just don't get out and play enough. But that's good to know that you play we'll have to get out and knock the ball around sometime find a course somewhere in between us or out here, whatever and, and

25:58

see how it goes.

Zak Perry  26:00

My dad, that was his dream for me to be a professional golf.

26:03

Okay.

Zak Perry  26:05

So he made me play every day and it paid off. I was you know, Gateway athletic camp, conference champion, I meddled in every match I had in my senior year in high school

26:18

scholarship offers. But then I you know, I

Randy Hulsey  26:23

started stones.

Zak Perry  26:26

And as a big bone of contention between me and my father. I mean, it drove us apart it actually really? So yeah, it's it's crazy. How live you know,

26:36

I used to hate to play with my dad. Yeah,

Zak Perry  26:40

I used to hate it. And you know, now that he's passed away, I used to go play golf with my dad. Absolutely. Funny how life comes round kicks you right? Yes.

Randy Hulsey  26:49

It really does. And I think every parent, you know, there's very few that aspire for their kid to grow their hair long and play rock guitar, right? It's always, you know, get be a doctor, be a lawyer be a professional athlete, but never does a dad say, Man, I hope my son grows up to be a long haired hippie looking dude that plays guitar rock and roll guitar. They just don't they don't normally say that. Right?

Zak Perry  27:16

As a matter of fact, his words were you have zero musical talent

27:26

my mother took me aside she said

Zak Perry  27:31

you do so keep with it. You know?

Randy Hulsey  27:34

I'm thankful for her. Sure. Well, that was probably his loving way of trying to steer you down another path. Sometimes dads don't articulate their feelings correctly. Sometimes they mean well, but they sometimes don't come across very well. Well, I wanted to share another clip off of the record and this one is called Make a little memory let's share that Zach and then we'll come back and chat.

28:00

All right buddy, thar man he's so

28:03

gonna get solgold Mom She said sing a song at Johnson

28:21

all these things make a little

28:44

she whispered in her sleep

28:52

she smell

29:01

he couldn't take it anymore

29:10

she said secure

Randy Hulsey  29:25

It's a great song and I'll have to say Zack probably on the record that's probably one of my favorite tunes that is on waken up the vulture so great job there. The bass lines on that song are phenomenal. Love the bass lines and the guitar burn the guitar sounds really good on the song. So congrats on the record and that song. I love it.

Zak Perry  29:46

Thank you very much. And I forgot to mention all the keyboards of the Oregon and the piano were played by Bastion, McLaughlin, another French musician and Okay. The keyboard solo at the end of that song is just

Randy Hulsey  29:58

killer. Yeah, it really is. Does love the whole song? What inspired that one? Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration behind that particular

30:06

song? I was just,

Zak Perry  30:10

of course another girl. And and that was when I just first started traveling around Europe a lot

30:16

and and it was just

Zak Perry  30:20

one memory after another, you know, just seeing all these beautiful sights and stuff. And

30:25

that song came pretty quickly. There's a picture

Randy Hulsey  30:29

in the liner notes of the record of some guitars hanging up, and they look like they look like newly crafted guitars. Is there a story behind the

30:39

picture? Well, I could, I could make

Zak Perry  30:43

one up.

Randy Hulsey  30:44

Okay, go.

Zak Perry  30:47

I just found that picture. Somewhere on I think Facebook. Okay, fair enough. We had to we had to track down a photographer and get there. Okay, and everything, but I just fell in love with that picture.

Randy Hulsey  30:59

It's a very cool picture. It was flowing of the record. So I didn't know if that was, you know, the first thing that I thought was oh, cool. That's a guitar maker shop somewhere. And, you know, France, you know, and there was some story behind it, but but I guess you don't always have to have a cool story behind it. But it looks really cool in the record.

Zak Perry  31:20

Well, actually, I was hiking through the our den forest. I've been lost out there. And I finally came upon this little old guitar shop and

Randy Hulsey  31:35

and Sasquatch was running it right?

Zak Perry  31:39

Finally found Hansel and Gretel.

Randy Hulsey  31:43

Were the breadcrumbs still out in front?

31:49

Boy, boy, boy.

Randy Hulsey  31:51

Well, there's also there's also a pic. And I don't even know I'm gonna ask you this question because you'll probably it'll probably be another Hansel and Gretel story. But there's also a picture on the back cover of the album of a of an MTC ate, or is there a story behind that? Or is that another one that was taken from another source? No, that one was

Zak Perry  32:16

if you listen to the song these days are strange. Okay. The first verses about the theaters packed there waiting for my show. And at the end of the song, I'm standing in the empty theater. And as a picture, I took the stage somewhere I played.

Randy Hulsey  32:33

Okay. Very cool looking place just kind of a an old dark theater. Right? It looks flowing. I mean, it's almost like it maybe it's the whole black and white theme, but I'm looking at the the CD here but very cool looking venue. Yeah, it

Zak Perry  32:52

was really cool for

Randy Hulsey  32:53

people to Yeah, at one time, right? Yeah. Well, what do you have lined up as it relates to shows or festivals, I know that you are going back from the US and had some festivals lined up. I don't know if the festivals have already been played or if they're coming up, but what can you talk to the listeners about as a shows coming up for you in the beautiful

33:17

things? Well, I can

Zak Perry  33:21

in about a week we go to Antwerp and play in Antwerp. And in I cannot pronounce the names a lot of these places. So it's hard for me. But we're playing in

33:31

Antwerp. And then we go to Tilburg Holland. Okay. And we have

Zak Perry  33:36

several festivals coming up throughout the summer in France and Holland and Germany. Okay. And you can go to my website zachary.com. And all it's all listed there.

Randy Hulsey  33:48

Okay. Well, in a quick shout out to Gerben coolin from Tilburg Netherlands, right. So it was nice to have met Gerben on his his us run here with you. He came over for what a couple of weeks he was here, right? Yeah. Great guy. Great guy. Yeah. He seemed very appreciative of everything and had great conversations with him. And it was interesting, you know, talk to him, like, I've known him all my life is one of those kinds of guys. You know,

Zak Perry  34:19

he's a really great guy. He's a really great bass player. And he's a self proclaimed gorgeous, man.

Randy Hulsey  34:28

Just ask, aren't we? All?

Zak Perry  34:31

Right, he'll be really happy that you mentioned him and I'll tell him for sure.

Randy Hulsey  34:35

Okay, you do that. I was gonna say I have a face for radio. So I'll go ahead and stick with with that one.

Zak Perry  34:42

I guess said he'll be coming back to Texas. November records new CD with me. So that's gonna be fun, too.

Randy Hulsey  34:48

That that will be awesome. And it was interesting. I think that I'd had a past conversation with you about a lot, I guess. Well, I shouldn't say a lot. I don't want to put words in anybody's in your mouth or anything. His mouth but like the communication there for you is sometimes difficult. Is it? Not? Like a lot of people don't speak English? They're

Zak Perry  35:10

in France for sure. Yeah. And you know, I've learned so much French, I could speak a little bit of French and I can read the menus and signs. And when they talk, it's still really hard to understand, but maybe go to Germany or Holland or these other countries. Most of the people speak,

35:31

if not good English. When you're broken good

Zak Perry  35:36

English. Sure. That makes sense. Yeah. Well, I

Randy Hulsey  35:38

guess with, with the band that you travel with, or I don't know how much for braces with you. I don't know, what are their communication skills? Like from an English speaking perspective? Can they translate it out for you? Are they are they hard? Because I've never talked to for brace of course, or Julian, even though they're friends of mine on Facebook through you, of course. But I've never had a verbal conversation like we're having now with them.

Zak Perry  36:08

Yeah, Julian, luckily speaks really good English.

36:11

And so he's designated translator

Zak Perry  36:15

and a lot of interviews, right, which he's not always happy about. But sure. And of course, you've met Gerben ters. His English is good. So we had no problems with the bank. Oh, good.

Randy Hulsey  36:26

Okay. I think I might have I don't remember if I asked you this in the first interview, but I'd like to ask you again about the beautiful things, and who the who the beautiful things are. And for those that don't know, Zach's backstory, there's a lot of artists that flow in and out of his group, right? I don't think and Zack, correct me if I'm wrong, right? I don't want to misstate anything. But there's musicians that come in and work and then they'll kind of be out and then others will come in. Where did the beautiful things come from? And am I off base when I say that, like a kind of a, I wouldn't say a revolving door. That sounds a little cold. But most bands are like a set a set group of players. And that's it. They live and die together. Right? But yours is a little different, right?

37:17

I've had run with

Zak Perry  37:19

me forever. And Jason, my drummer in United States forever. And we had Stingray on base for many, many years. But we had kind of a spinal tap thing in early years with bass players

37:33

exploding on stage, you know. But the beautiful things

Zak Perry  37:38

started. I wasn't it was the Zachary band. And when I first started going to Europe. The second tour, I came just solos.

37:50

And when I landed in Amsterdam, I did a show. And

Zak Perry  37:56

Gerben the guy we've been talking about another guy named Martin Vander Adams. They showed up at my show, and they had their instruments and they knew all my

38:07

songs. Wow, it was pretty incredible. And then I came into France and I met Julian. And then the third tour was just a crazy, beautiful thing. And we had you know, two drummers and three bass players and four guitar

Zak Perry  38:25

players and backup singers and everybody's dogs and their kids traveling with us. It was like a traveling circus. And while this big, beautiful kaleidoscope of music. And that's where the name just hit me one day.

38:41

And that's where it came from. Very cool. Very cool. I mean, look at

Zak Perry  38:46

who are we kidding, right? Things

Randy Hulsey  38:51

I was gonna say who's the spokesmodel for the group with everybody having a face that only mama could love right? Well, I was reading the liner notes sack and because I'm I've always been a liner notes freak. And I've told the story at nauseam about when I was a kid, I'd go to the record store, I bust the wrapper on the CD and first thing I'd do is pull up in liner notes and read and I wouldn't even put the music in first that was just me wanted to know who played on it where it was recorded all of the things that only people like you and I care about right. Zach and I was reading your liner notes here and you dedicated the record to pitch and gypsy who who are pitch and gypsy.

39:41

That said it's actually

Zak Perry  39:43

we would say pitch but it's for now it's peach, French Okay, that was our managers, dogs, and Gypsies my dog they both passed away while we're on tour. You know we have we have a big love affair with dogs and in our musical And we're

Randy Hulsey  40:00

sure. And you've even written songs about them.

40:03

Right? And guitar

Randy Hulsey  40:05

and guitars and dogs, right? Where can the listeners, like if they wanted to go out and purchase this record, you were kind enough to give me three signed copies of this. And I've given two of them out to listeners who have

40:24

been gracious

Randy Hulsey  40:27

enough to share my show and evangelize my show. And that's how I try to give back I'll, I'll get, you know, autographed CDs or, you know, guitars, you know, from artists and have them sign them and then I'll give them away just as, thank you for helping me grow the show. Right? Awesome. Where can the listeners go out and

40:49

purchase this music? Well, the best place is

Zak Perry  40:52

to come to a show, okay. But you can go

40:56

to Zack perry.com or bandcamp.com. And

Zak Perry  41:01

it's all available digital. Okay. Which like, like you said, I miss the liner notes and CDs, you know,

41:10

these days? So many people that shows,

Zak Perry  41:13

you know, they, they want to CD but they don't have a CD player anymore. You

Randy Hulsey  41:18

know, it's

Zak Perry  41:19

all available digitally@bandcamp.com or zachary.com?

Randy Hulsey  41:24

Okay, I'll have to say, man, you know, like, I started a vinyl collection probably a year and a half ago. And I love the story because I remember the first vinyl that I bought. And I broke the wrapper, and I pulled that record out of the sleeve. There was a chill that ran through me. Because because, as you know, if you're not a vinyl collector, when was the last time we ever touched a record? We were kids, right? I haven't pulled a record out of a sleeve in 30 plus years. And it was so nostalgic to me to see the band's picture and the lyrics and the liner notes. And just a record in my hand. It was just like a wow moment for me. And I don't know that same

Zak Perry  42:13

feeling when I try and get an eight track out of those plastic things. You remember those?

Randy Hulsey  42:21

Yeah. And you had to take a lighter or find some way to get them off? Right. Wow. But yeah, I mean, there was not a better I it was just like it took me back to my childhood because we just you listen to vinyl. Let me let me rephrase. I listen to vinyl different than I listen to Spotify, Spotify output on and I hear it. I'm hearing it but I'm not listening. I'm not attentive, right and event. It's an experience, right? The whole record the liner notes, the sleeve the artwork, and you sit and you listen to that stuff differently. I'm telling you that for the kids out there that think that Pandora and Spotify is the end all be all to music, you have no idea what you're missing from putting a piece of vinyl on a turntable and just experiencing the music not hearing it but experiencing the music. And and I don't know, I know you have a lot of CDs that you've done. Have you ever done vinyl yourself?

43:28

You know, we

Zak Perry  43:30

have not. But we've been talking a lot about it lately because you know, that's kind of making a comeback. Yeah. And I mean, that's, that's my dream. I mean, I really want to do that. So this next one we recorded Sugar Hill. I'm sure we're gonna try and release it on vinyl as well.

Randy Hulsey  43:50

Man, there would be nothing cooler. And I'll tell you the artists that I've had on my show, you know, I do local people as you know, I do regional artist I've done for time Hall of Fame artists. And it's so cool when and I tried to support a lot of these artists by buying their stuff I don't. They offered to give it to me, but I prefer to support them. Because this is a way that we give back to the artist and keep gas in your cars and get you go into the next town to play another show and I get that better than most I'm a musician too, even though I don't make a living doing it. I understand you know what you guys face but there's nothing better than that record showing up signed, you know, and then I add it to my collection. I love that. So yeah, it would be cool. If you if you guys did something on vinyl, I would I would support you on the phone. I'll support you for sure. And I'll buy a couple of extras for the listeners of backstage pass radio. Where can the listeners you mentioned Zack perry.com And I want to clarify that domain name by saying to the listeners it's Zach za K hyphen parry, p e r r ey.com. I think if you go to this just Zack perry.com The DNS name will not resolve for that website. Unless there's another Zack Perry, but you're specifically is hyphen, Zack hyphen Perry. So wanted to point that out to the listeners. But where else on social media can the listeners find you and the beautiful things?

Zak Perry  45:24

Just about every platform, Spotify, Amazon

45:29

Deezer. And I mean, some of the some of

Zak Perry  45:33

them, I don't even know how it got on there, but it's there.

45:37

It's a mystery.

Randy Hulsey  45:38

Yeah, you would be real surprised. I know that. It's an uphill battle. I did an interview with Graham bonnet from Rainbow and Bethany Heaven's Stone, who is his bass player in the Graham bonnet band. And they are constantly fighting with bootleg shirts, and you know, just merchandise that or people are printing up and selling and ripping people off and everything. It's just a it's a fucking joke. How people are these days, you know that they're ripping everybody off? And it's not so? Yeah, I

46:14

don't know where that

Zak Perry  46:17

money goes.

Randy Hulsey  46:19

Doesn't go to you. Right? Yeah. Now, and that's what Bethany said, you know, that's great that you're selling this Graham bonnet t shirt for $10. And we see zero of that money zero. And so somebody's

Zak Perry  46:34

most vans these days are making their money on the road, just selling merchandise on the road and playing live.

Randy Hulsey  46:41

Well. You know, I did an interview with Tony Carey from Germany. And for the listeners that don't know, Tony carries a phenomenal artists that played in rainbow and whatnot back in the day. But he said, you know, 3540 years ago, when we were out, you know, touring the world, we could make a lot of money as musicians. And now unfortunately, musicians are like T shirt salesmen. That's where they make their money is in the merch, right? From the T shirts, the CDs. It's not that these venues are paying people money hand over fist because they're not they're just not

47:19

gonna get on the lower level musicians are

Zak Perry  47:22

basically beer salesman. Sure, you know, absolutely the

47:25

club's it's it's it's changed

Zak Perry  47:30

quite a bit. I mean, even the respect musicians get back in the day, you know, you if you played guitar and sang the band. Your beer was free.

Randy Hulsey  47:41

Yeah. Yeah. Back in the good old days, back in the day have back in the days? Well, in a lot of, I wouldn't say a lot of places. There are several places that even I play that you also play here in the Houston Cypress area that used to have the bar tabs be open to the artists, but then there's the ones that go in and completely abused that and they shut it down for everybody. Sure. Right. So there's always that. But I think the cost of everything is just so expensive these days that I mean, you go broke, if you just gave everybody everything for free. Same way, like I know you love to give CDs away. But at the end of the day, man, that's part of your living, and you technically shouldn't do that you're a nice guy. And I'd probably do the same thing too. But at the end of the day, you have bills to pay to write and you have to capitalize on the investment because these CDs, were not free for you to make you paid somebody to do these right. And you paid good money. I promise that you pay good money to do these, right?

Zak Perry  48:47

Yeah, I'm getting I'm getting better at it. So yeah, a lot of people around me here that say no, no, yeah,

Randy Hulsey  48:54

that's good, though. You'd need that to, to kind of level set because otherwise you're just giving away your income. And that's not cool, that the

Zak Perry  49:03

artists just want to get their music hurt so bad that you know,

Randy Hulsey  49:08

well it's it's a dual edged sword. It's it's kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't, if you don't do it, they don't hear it. Maybe they won't buy it. But then if you do it, then you're cheating yourself out of money. So it's sometimes it's just a lose lose situation. And you have to decide on the balance scale of justice, which is the lesser of two evils, right? Absolutely. Well, listen, man, I wish you great health and much success in France brother, it's good to talk to you. And who knows maybe one day I'll make the trip over there and I'll get to see the the farm in the country and hang out with you and go see some shows and you know, in that neck of

49:49

the woods. Well, you got to make that happen lens. Yeah. I'll take you around.

Zak Perry  49:54

We'll see some cool stuff. And thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it and I'll be back in November. So Let's set up for shows.

Randy Hulsey  50:01

Yeah, we'll definitely do that. And I was just thinking when you said you'd take me around to see some sights and shows and whatnot. My mind just went to the Dumb and Dumber movie where the two guys are on the scooter together, you know?

Zak Perry  50:16

I gotta pee.

Randy Hulsey  50:21

Good seeing you man. I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast. Also, make sure to follow Zach on social media. Also go and buy up some of that merchandise and you know at Bandcamp and then at Zach hyphen perry.com. Also, you guys can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast on Instagram at backstage pass radio, Twitter at backstage pass PC and on the website at backstage pass. radio.com Thank you to all the listeners again for joining Zach and I, you guys make sure to take care of yourselves and each other and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of backstage pass radio.

Adam Gordon  51:06

Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of backstage pass radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at Randy Halsey music and on Twitter at our Halsey music. Also, make sure to like, subscribe and turn on alerts for upcoming podcasts. If you enjoyed the podcast, make sure to share the link with a friend and tell them backstage pass radio is the best show on the web for everything music. We'll see you next time right here on backstage pass radio