S5: E8 - Dave Roe (Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakum, John Mellencamp, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins) - The Legacy Lives On

Dave Roe Master

Sat, Sep 30, 2023 9:56AM • 47:39

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

record, play, years, people, johnny cash, band, big, musician, jerry reed, studio, songwriter, music, great, dave, paid, sound, interesting, upright bass, johnny, 70s, daveroe, daveroemusic, johnnycash, jerryreed, Motown, jerryroe, meltillis, chetatkins, verngosdin, marshallgrant, jimmyfortune, statlerbrothers, dwightyoakum, grammyaward, jellyroll, sturgillsimpson, slowbeats, martystuart, averagewhiteband, John Evans Band, John EvansA 

SPEAKERS

Dave Roe, Adam Gordon, Randy Hulsey

Randy Hulsey  00:00

My guest today is one of Nashville's elite and a world renowned musician. Hope everyone is well it's Randy Hulsey with backstage pass radio. My guest today is a bassist vocalist and a songwriter that grew up in Hawaii and now calls the Nashville area home. He has toured the world with artists like Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Dwight Yoakam, and Johnny Cash. Keep those headphones on, and we'll chat with bass player extraordinaire, Dave row when we return.

Adam Gordon  00:26

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

Dave, welcome to my digs here, man, my home away from home. Yeah, about that. Yeah, I'm glad you're here. It's an honor to have you. I'm glad that you decided to take a few minutes out of the day to stop by and chat. So thanks for being here. No problem. So I wanted to give a quick shout out to pass guest and Powell, Johnny Evans forgiveness connected. So hey there, Johnny hope all as well. And I'll see Johnny later on. We were talking about that in the elevator coming up. So have a little dinner with Johnny later and catch up with him where you guys go. But he said that he would try to find some legit place that had some good music for us to listen to and some good foods that will kill a couple of birds with one stone. I think it's my understanding I've been talking to John earlier. I think he might be doing some work in your studio,

Dave Roe  01:43

correct three or four projects at my place. Jason J. We just did a new record on him a few months ago and did some Johnny Falstaff stuff, one of your Houston brothers. And I think we're gonna do John John Evans, his new solo record this fall

Randy Hulsey  01:58

at my place. I think he was doing some kind of Jingle with the Luckenbach thing or something like that. Yeah, I

Dave Roe  02:03

think we did that in my place, too. Didn't Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  02:05

I think I think he mentioned that. He wants to go Yeah, for sure. Right. So it's my understanding, Dave that back in the day, you got started playing in kind of the r&b and funk scene, which is interesting. That's an interesting background to where you later became talk to me a little bit about the r&b funk days.

Dave Roe  02:26

Well, I grew up in Hawaii in the 70s, when disco and funk was really prominent, especially in the tourist industry over there. I sort of got into that I've been listening to country music my whole life because of my mom. But I really got more into the bass and r&b stuff was a lot more interesting to me to learn how to play and get a better musician. So I went downtown to Waikiki and played in the bars and stuff down there for right around 10 years before I moved here.

Randy Hulsey  02:51

So you were in a wahoo, then I was on Oahu

Dave Roe  02:53

and I also participated somewhat and then the local Hawaiian music scene, the contemporary Hawaii with a group called the beamer brothers and some other guys that were making a big splash in that scene in the 70s. Again, sort of hippie Hawaiian. Sure.

Randy Hulsey  03:05

Yeah, yeah. What so what's the story? Was that a military guy? Is that how you wound up there?

Dave Roe  03:11

He was a military guy. But that's not why he came through there when he was in the service. And he always vowed to move back there after he retired. And that's what he did.

Randy Hulsey  03:19

You know, you talked about the r&b and funk back in the 60s 70s that timeframe. If you were to pick a decade of music, that was your decade, right, what decade would you say that music was the most influential for you?

Dave Roe  03:36

I'm kind of of the mind and it's this is an old guy talk and that the 70s sort of every every genre piece to me, including country music, I think that the outlaw country music scene in the 70s and then r&b and even the Rock and Roll stuff, everything is pretty much derivative epidemic.

Randy Hulsey  03:50

Yeah, and I agree with you there. I I was gonna say the same thing. And I think if I pinpointed a year 78 was the year for me. I think, you know, my age and what was going on musically. That's kind of what shaped me as a musician. And I loved all the stuff from the 70s You know, you have the disco. That was the whole disco movement. The Beegees are one of my all time favorites. But I love bands like seals and Crofts and you know, England, Dan, and all those guys, right?

Dave Roe  04:17

As a sidebar, during the 70s. I was really engaged in just as a listener, admirer of the country scene that was going on here. And fact I wish I kind of had moved here a little bit earlier, but I moved here in December of 1980. I kind of wish I had come towards the late 70s. I think everything peaked as far as r&b and fusion and pop funk and all that stuff right around the mid 70s 7576. Sure. So what I would do is every couple of years, I take time off from what I was doing and the r&b seat and put together a country van and tour the military bases. It was like the only thing you could do one nighters should pretend you are on the road, you know, just because I was just enthralled with Waylon and cash and all thinks they were doing in the 70s was

Randy Hulsey  05:01

there never a thought for you to go to Michigan for the whole Motown thing being an r&b funk kind of guy? Did that ever cross your mind as a young man?

Dave Roe  05:10

I never thought I was good enough to really compete on that, that level. Good enough to do it later. But recent years, we'll probably light upon that. I did do some heavyweight font recording with the guys from the American recorders in Memphis. What are they called? They drawn a blank to have a nickname. Anyway, they, they played on all of the Dusty Springfield stuff and all that when I was making records with Dan Auerbach in the last few years. I played, I got to play with them. They were all 1015 20 years old with a VA that was real experienced to sit in that spot

Randy Hulsey  05:42

where they like studio guys is, guys. Yeah. So they were like the Swampers out of Muscle Shoals and kinda if you will, right. Exactly. Well, sometime, I think back, you know, like you mentioned back in the 80s, you made the move to Music City. Why Nashville? Why not New York or LA? You know, there were big scenes going on back in the 70s and 80s. In the New York and LA. Why Nashville?

Dave Roe  06:06

Well, I had a couple of relatives that were in the music business there. And it just seemed like a logical progression. I didn't want to go to a big city. I didn't want to go to LA or New York. I just want to live in a nice quiet small town, which it no longer is.

Randy Hulsey  06:18

We as we were talking about that.

Dave Roe  06:21

But it just seemed like a logical thing to do. I had a place to stay if I wanted here. And it worked out perfectly for me, which would

Randy Hulsey  06:29

save you a whole lot of money was one of those other places, you'd have to go find some deals to pay for. And it's not cheap to be in New York or LA as we all know. And then it was No, and it's not getting any cheaper for sure. Well, I think when when you arrived, you got hooked in with Jerry Reed. Are my facts correct? There? Yes.

Dave Roe  06:47

I was really lucky. There was a I'm sure you're familiar with the Louvin brothers. Sure. When I first got here I my cousin who worked on the Grand Ole Opry, he was a ventriloquist comedian. I was staying at his place. He took me out to the opera and I picked up a gig that night with Charlie Leuven and left town a couple days later. I mean, that in itself speaks a lot to my luck, because usually takes months and months to run into something. So my connections there really paid off. And then about a month into that I went to a jam session. And there were some heavyweight players sitting in and they recommended me to Jerry Reed and I got that gig within a couple of months. Man, it was a miraculous.

Randy Hulsey  07:23

That's an interesting story. Because there are some people that of course, have taken up residency here in Nashville and have been here for decades that have never gotten a break. And I was doing my homework on you and whatnot. I'm like, man, it seems like he got hooked in pretty quick error with what I'm reading. I'm comprehending you must have got that break that you need it right. Yeah, my background

Dave Roe  07:45

paid off with Reid, because he was sort of an interesting combination of country and blues and r&b and I fit right into his band really easily. Yeah, it was really a remarkable time to be playing with him because at the time, he was a huge star. And he was also just funky as hell and really, really good.

Randy Hulsey  08:02

What a picker that guy was. As a sidebar

Dave Roe  08:04

to that he ended up being my father in law for 13 years. Yeah, married his daughter. Okay. My son is his grand grandson. who's now the number one session drummer in Nashville. He plays on every record you hear on the radio now it's amazing genealogy there that worked out for him

Randy Hulsey  08:20

while in his name is Jerry row. Unbelievable. Yeah, that you know, I never really thought too much about Jerry Reed back in the day, but then the whole Smokey and the Bandit thing came out and you know, the Eastbound and Down and it's like, wait, you know, I started correlate and Jerry Reed was and I'm like, Oh, that was him playing well, gosh, that guy is a picker. So then I got really more into his style of play and and realize what kind of a world class musician design

Dave Roe  08:47

class songwriter I realized how deepest catalog was writing for songs that were hits for other fish or cash, and it's just a phenomenal musician.

Randy Hulsey  08:56

And when I think of him, I think of guys like Glen Campbell, who was an OEM. They were good friends. Over the years, I guess you played with the likes of Chet Atkins and Mel Tillis comes to mind. Would you say that back then? Your chops were that good on the bass guitar? And I'm sure they were but a lot of people hone their skills over time. And I was wondering if you getting hooked in with players like that was all skill for you? Or were you networked? Just that good, where you were getting some sub looks that maybe the average person wouldn't get

Dave Roe  09:35

I think it was a little bit of networking and a lot of just where I was as a player because that's sort of where the town was evolving to the playing level was getting higher. You couldn't be a dumbass hillbilly musician anymore. It was. Chronologically I went from gig to gig us about a year a piece and was really lucky and being a singer helped to do you know, it's playing bass and Samsung the same time was a major thing. I did Charlie Leuven than Jerry Reed and Melville a chat for a little while then Mel Tillis that I've worked with ver ungasan for five years. And then I got the gig with Johnny Cash, which lasted from 92 until he passed away. And it was all pretty interesting. Well, like

Randy Hulsey  10:14

you said, the 90s roll around and you find yourself in that rhythm section for 11 years, with one of the biggest country artists we've ever known. How did you get connected with Johnny specifically?

Dave Roe  10:28

Well, I had a friend that worked for him as a publicist, and he was a drummer, and we did a few gigs together and when the gig came up, and China decided he wanted to go back to upright bass goes back to his sound in the 50s and 60s and which was unfortunate for me because I didn't play upright bass, but he liked me, I guess, and I ended up I have a really pretty strong relationship with a family and stuff still, but they liked me and they let me learn on stage played upright bass. I never picked up an upright bass in my life until I got the gig with him. And not much less play slap bass, yes, was an absolute requirement for that gig. But I just put my head down and woodshed it and made it through. Yeah, it's part of what I do now.

Randy Hulsey  11:06

Isn't it great to be a likable guy, though.

Dave Roe  11:09

It was like it was more than I was kind of interesting.

Randy Hulsey  11:12

I was gonna say was it the good looks or the legs or what was

Dave Roe  11:15

fascinating, for some reason, for probably all the wrong reasons?

Randy Hulsey  11:19

Well, whatever it takes, they say, right. If my memory serves me correctly, when you were in your iteration with Johnny, this was the Johnny Cash show band error. Correct. It

Dave Roe  11:33

started out being that and it was the Carter family and cluding June and Helen and Anita and a couple of the other kids were in the band and it was a big show that it was you know, 1012 bases altogether including the vocalists right. And then what were they when Rick Rubin came along Rick wanted to go back to the strip down Tennessee three three and and that's what we ended up doing because of that. Route. 94 Five, okay, so

Randy Hulsey  11:58

you technically played in the Tennessee three? Yes. Right. Okay, let's

Dave Roe  12:01

call that readopted that name. Okay. I didn't retire that name. Call it the Johnny Cash show band. And then when that happened, they went back it was really cool because it just opened things up. It was wide open sound like a freight train calm. Yeah, yeah, it was a really, really a cool place to sit in the pocket of that because WsL on the drummer on that show was easily the best rockabilly country slash country genre that I ever worked with. He was just phenomenal. And it was it it sounded just right with the slap bass.

Randy Hulsey  12:32

I didn't realize that the Tennessee three name had come out of retirement I was thinking that you know, it was retired than the Johnny Cash show band and then that's where it died is the the Johnny Cash show band, but I'm glad that they educated me.

Dave Roe  12:45

That's what that was a Rick Rubin idea which was really smart. Well, I think what before that Tennessee originally was the tendency to just slap bass and guitar Okay, Luther, and you were talking earlier with me about Jimmy fortune and the interesting thing is is the bass player in the tendency to and the Johnny Cash Chauvin before me, ended up being their manager. He just covered them got us so he interesting Marshall Grant was his name Marshall grant is the guy that had the big boom Chicky on the upright bass and Statler brothers open for them somewhere and he just drifted off and took control. The salad brothers had a phenomenal career.

Randy Hulsey  13:19

Yeah, wow. What a group I remember as a kid my dad happened. I think it was the Statler brothers greatest hits on an eight track cassette tape and they we wore that damn thing completely

Dave Roe  13:31

out. Right. So the fact of us all of the drummer from cashes Band Played On those hits like flowers on the wall with those big hits in the mid 60s And he joined the Johnny Cash show in 1960. I think somewhere around there right out he was right out of Carl Perkins. His band went right into the Johnny Cash like fat Carl went with him. Carl ended up being a part of the Johnny Cash show band for years and

Randy Hulsey  13:53

years. I remember we'd be driving down the road and my dad would be singing Harold's parts. And you know, I tell you what, like I told you I had Jimmy on the show. What an angelic voice. This guy's has the tenor voices. There's nothing better than that is just it's breathtaking to hear realize how big and popular they really were. My gosh, it's unbelievable. Well after Johnny passed, and also if my memory serves me correct, I think what was that? 2002 ish 2003 or something? Yeah, okay, three got off the he got

Dave Roe  14:23

off the robot 9899 And I continue to record with him until he passed away. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  14:27

Well, it was after that, that you went on to play with Dwight Yoakam. That one

Dave Roe  14:35

five year five year 2000 to 2005 I played with Dwight. Okay. And just another phenomenal band situation. The late great Keith Gaddis, who was a tax on you know, I'm sure he just passed away a few weeks ago but in a tractor accident, unfortunately. That was phenomenal. Yeah, great band. That was Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  14:51

well, I guess Dwight Yoakam comes from that Bakersfield sound kind of.

Dave Roe  14:57

That's what he looked at

Randy Hulsey  14:58

wasn't Buck Owens. I think Paul Out of the Bakersfield,

Dave Roe  15:01

Buck and Merle. Yeah, when I got the gig with the white. I was quite surprised when I showed up that he wanted me to play up, right play slap bass, because it was all electric bass on his records, but he wanted that bone Chicky you know, so I started playing, playing with him. And I ended up playing more upright with him that I did a lecture.

Randy Hulsey  15:19

And we'll talk a little bit more about the bass, but I was reading somewhere that you have over 500 album credits to your name. And I know, you know, some of my listeners are not musicians, and they're not in this industry. Explain what that mean that you know, if if Bob or Jim have or Dave have 500 album credits to their name, what does this mean in lay terms to the people that are not music? The

Dave Roe  15:45

reality of it is it's not all glamorous, a lot of those 500 were just local records, songwriter records, and, you know, you keep working to make a living and so you're trying to work every day, if you can, a lot of those records were that but I did plan on probably 100 label records somewhere there.

Randy Hulsey  16:03

I think you probably under glamorize that a little bit because I think of those 500 There were some of these that went gold and platinum and were Grammy Award winning not to be you know, not for you to undersell yourself there

Dave Roe  16:20

like I was on seven Grammy records. But like I said, a lot of it's just workaday stuff that we do around here we share with our friends and just acquaintances and get recommended for stuff and song. It's just people making records for themselves. And a lot of those are some of the best records I've ever played on here are some of those things.

Randy Hulsey  16:36

But I just went to a writer's round at the bluebird last night. First time I've ever been to the bluebird cafe and one of the guys that was there has a number one hit out with jelly roll right now. And it's interesting to see those songwriters in the round like that. They're just your typical people that just love to write with friends. And sometimes things blow up for them. And sometimes they don't. But that's what they love to do. And that's a is an interesting thing.

Dave Roe  17:04

Referring back to what we were talking to her about. I think my kid played on the jelly roll record so

Randy Hulsey  17:08

interesting. of some of those, like the Grammy Award winning records or the platinum records, who were some of the artists that you were working with that went on and won Grammy Awards.

Dave Roe  17:20

Well, Johnny and June she won ostensibly her first solo record Sturgill Simpson, I plan on is that what grabbed me 2070 Just things like that.

Randy Hulsey  17:30

I guess it's a who's who of people that you played with, you know, you mentioned a couple of them. You know, John Cougar, Mellencamp or Mellencamp was

Dave Roe  17:38

one of records with him. And that was a good record. Boy, that was really great. Yeah, TiVo produced that, you know,

Randy Hulsey  17:42

I've always loved a Mellencamp and you know, I guess Carrie Underwood and Faith Hill are some of the names that that you've worked with over the years. And I'm wondering, as you look back, have you ever stopped to pinch yourself and say, you know, I'm a lucky guy. I not only made music, my career, but I've played with some of the biggest names.

Dave Roe  18:02

My thoughts are that when I look back, sir, I'm a lucky guy. And I'd have been luckier if I had to bid so silly. During part of it, you know, because there's some decisions I made. I wish I had. But you know, we all have that.

Randy Hulsey  18:14

Well, I think that that's what makes us who we are. I came from a great upbringing, but I went out and did some really dumb things growing up, it was all good trouble back in the day, you know, it wasn't meant to hurt anybody. But I look back and say, Man, I don't know how I didn't wind up in jail or dead from some of those decisions that I made, right. I

Dave Roe  18:33

mean, I was in a fog for a long time. Yeah, sure. Like a lot of us were at our edge. We were boys.

Randy Hulsey  18:39

I guess at the end of the day, there was some history, I believe, and maybe you can share the background. There was some time that you had spent with Dan Auerbach of the black keys somewhere in between, I guess 2016 and 2021. share with the listeners a little bit about that time. Yeah,

Dave Roe  19:00

this just reverts back to some of the guys from American recorders. Some of the older session guys, he put together a band with all of us all the guys and we got a lot of records over there. We cut jolas record and early James's record, we did a pretenders album with Chrissy Hind. And my favorite record we did over there was CeeLo Green, who, who I still think is the best singer I've ever been in the studio with, and mostly rhythm and blues based stuff. And that's where I got to rub elbows with those older players. I mean, I'm old, I'm 72 but they're all in their late 70s, early 80s. And it was just like going to college at a late stage in life and going back to school and learn how to play that kind of stuff with them.

Randy Hulsey  19:42

I think CeeLo was with Gnarls Barkley I believe that was his group and I remember seeing him on live from barrels house and it was great cash dang it man, you know, of all of the artists that I think Darrell had come through To the whole show live from Terrell's house. CeeLo was one of my favorite ones, Man, that guy can get up there and he can can sing

Dave Roe  20:07

anything anywhere in the vocal range you want. He's just, he's phenomenal. We he was one of the easiest people to work with the nicest guys for a big star. A pretenders record really stands out too. Because Chrissy Hein was I mean, one of my big heroes growing up, playing rock and roll when I was really young, and pretenders were just so good. And she was really great to work with too. We did some country stuff over there, too. We did a couple of tribute albums to John Anderson. We did we did. Tony Joe whites last record from tapes that he put together before he passed away, we strung that together made a record out of it. And that was fun, too.

Randy Hulsey  20:43

That just made me think if you were to define three artists or groups that had the most impact, or were the most influential to you, as a musician, who would you say the top three are for you as a listener when I was, let's say, from a listener perspective, but then as a player perspective, a bass player perspective, I

Dave Roe  21:08

think Paramount would probably be the Beatles. Okay. And then and then country music in general, would be the second one. The third one would be rhythm and blues in general. Okay, but the Beatles were reason I'm sitting here like a lot of us

Randy Hulsey  21:21

forced the whole British invasion. Yes.

Dave Roe  21:24

All that was just, that's what got me into this.

Randy Hulsey  21:26

Yeah. And what and what about from a player perspective, who would be like you spoke to James Jamison earlier is are there a couple of others that come to mind that were just it for you? They were the they were the cat's meow for you back in the day. Yeah. Especially

Dave Roe  21:41

including James Jamison because he was on most of his records as Marvin Gaye, those apps like what's going on from the 70s? And just great stuff. Jesus, man. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. And Sly Stone is a big influence on me. He took r&b into the Rock and Roll world, which was really cool. I remember going to see that and just being blown away by that. And Zeppelin, you know, we're all influenced people our age are all and that's another great bass player, John Paul Jones. Sure. I sat down and ripped everything off. He did you know, it's just, it's just a variety of,

Randy Hulsey  22:12

well, I've got my Led Zeppelin for Herman. Oh, they're so big Zeppelin fan? For sure. Yeah, I

Dave Roe  22:19

got to see them. When I was 16 years old on the first American tour it it was, it was life changing. I can't say that I ever privileged, the one that comes to mind. I got to see him growing up in Hawaii like I did, we got to see just about everybody because everybody wanted to come and play at Hawaii. So if you had five bucks back in those days, you could go see the biggest acts in the world. Bowering somewhere, you know, well, it

Randy Hulsey  22:40

kind of makes you think back to the Woodstock days and like, what did people pay to go see? That shows pros? Yeah, it was like probably cheap. You know, like, now you can't go to a show. Easy, easy. I think I saw the last big show that I saw was cheap trick opening for Aerosmith, because always said Aerosmith. being probably the greatest American rock'n'roll band. I've got to go see him. I was always a Steven Tyler fan, but I think I paid like 180 bucks for a ticket. But it was one of those bucket list things for me.

Dave Roe  23:14

My wife and I just went to Chattanooga a few weeks ago went to see Ryan Adams. I love Ryan Adams. Yeah, we paid 200 apiece plus hotel rooms. I mean, that's, that's a lot of money. A drop in the sea. Somebody says to half a

Randy Hulsey  23:27

year's worth of work you got to do to go save. It's not affordable anymore. You know, I think there was a big hoopla with Kid Rock about selling tickets for dirt cheap because he wanted to keep it affordable for the people to be able to go out and he's an

Dave Roe  23:42

interesting guy played on some of his stuff. I liked him. He's, he's a really savvy studio guy. Don't let him Don't let him fool you about his bluster and he really knows what he's doing. Yeah, studio.

Randy Hulsey  23:53

I've always liked his stuff. Well, I think right now, and correct me where I'm wrong. There's a current project with a band called Slow beats. Is this current for you? Yes. Right now

Dave Roe  24:04

we're on a little bit of a hiatus for a bunch of different reasons. Kenny vana plays with Monty Stuart's the guitar player, he and I have had an original project going for over 20 years now. It manifests itself into a little band called The slow beast, which is sort of a funky rock and roll band. Okay. And the drummer, Pete Abbott from the average white band. Yeah, he's really, really good. We've had a lot of fun doing that fact. We're getting ready to fire it back up and just play. We just play around. We've met a record that we just still sit down really, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's a lot of fun.

Randy Hulsey  24:35

That's super cool. I had an interview. I think it was in my season four with a guy named Elliot Lewis and Elliot played with Hall and Oates for 20 years and I think he was the second either the first or the second longest tenured guy on the whole life from DeRose. House. Daryl Hall has going on. Yeah, no, that guy he's good. But Elliot came from the average white man he was with the average white band for almost two decades fans. And you know, I really never paid too close attention to them before Elliott. And then I got to listen to them. And I'm like, Wow,

Dave Roe  25:10

good guy was playing some of that stuff in the mid 70s When they were huge and and it's interesting to be playing with Pete because he's so good.

Randy Hulsey  25:17

Is there any recorded music out there for the slow beats? Where can that be found

Dave Roe  25:21

can't be found anywhere, we haven't released any of it. We made a record, we cut about 15 songs a couple of years ago, it's still just sitting there because we're lazy musicians who don't know what to do with ourselves. But we can be seen around town down then usually at a place called DCE. And Madison, we can we play there every now and then. I was gonna

Randy Hulsey  25:39

say all these years and you can't figure out what to do with your stuff on

Dave Roe  25:42

I know what to do. We just can't figure out why we're not doing it.

Randy Hulsey  25:45

Just Can't Get motivated to do it. Right. In that funny how, when we when we get up there and age are a little bit older. Things are certain things are just less important to us anymore. You know what I mean? I'll be 58 in January, and I look back even even 10 years ago, I was like, wow, I've changed over 10 years. It's amazing. It's amazing how the mind changes and you can certainly feel that in the bones to start over. One wanted to chat briefly. And I was talking to to John Evans a little bit earlier today about the seven deadly sins, duty to give the listeners a rundown what is it? And what how did it come about?

Dave Roe  26:29

Well, I'm I moved out of the city to about 20 miles north of town to a place called Goodlettsville. And this property that I bought had a couple acres and three buildings and one just a barn. One's a house and one was a garage. And I had the opportunity to turn that into a studio that I did. It's a full service fairly, fairly high tech sort of retro kind of studio and it's served me well, we get to do our stuff in there for free. And I get to do projects with people like John and just whoever wants to use the studio. And that's been a real blessing. Yeah, it's been a lot of money on it, which is, you know, what you do with studios? Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  27:04

absolutely. Now, I don't know if I misread, but can the people that come in to record also stay at your place to

Dave Roe  27:15

the studio that it's set up for maybe two people you know, okay, couplers, but it's not a full service like bunkhouse, or anything like that.

Randy Hulsey  27:22

Gotcha. What do you have shakin in the studio right now that you can speak of? I know John has done a little work in your studio. But what do you personally have,

Dave Roe  27:32

there's a great drummer named John McTigue coming and doing a solo project here. Pretty soon, I make a little piece of my living on doing internet sessions. Coming in, I hire an engineer, they come in, I put this sudden, cotton send tracks off to different places in the country in the world. And I got a French project. I'm in the middle of now and one Jamaican thing and just a bunch of just a real diverse palette of stuff that I'm lucky enough to be a part of.

Randy Hulsey  27:59

Yeah, I wanted to pick your brain a little bit on that. You've seen the whole technology thing over the years, morphing to what it is now, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, everybody physically got up and went into a studio and recorded, I had a great band called Saxon on my show, huge world renowned rock band. And I was talking with nibs, Carter, the bass player. And he said when they wrote their last album, carpe diem, there was five people in five different countries. And they were just sending files back and forth to one another. Talk to me and the listeners a little bit about your take on the way technology is and the capabilities of the technology now, versus back in the day when we didn't have all this.

Dave Roe  28:48

I think it's opened up opportunities for people who couldn't afford to go to the studio now you can get most people for a couple 1000 bucks, you can get a rig, maybe even cheaper 1000 bucks and a compete if you got a computer, you can record at home and send tracks out to other people to play on it. And you can make great records for next to nothing. And I think that the opportunities that that opened up is what's really changed everything. And I also think that for a long time, we used to talk about how digital didn't sound as good as tape. Well, at this point in time. I beg to differ. I think it's it's evolved enough to where it sounds better, it's cheaper. It's more flexible, easier to store not so cumbersome. I think it's sort of a golden age right now. I think we'll look back on those and see that

Randy Hulsey  29:31

do you feel like you've adopted and kind of adapted to the technology change over the years because I think a lot of guys were not 20 years old anymore at the end of the day, right? And I think a lot of people want to be stuck in the past like Well back in my day. We did it this way and we don't want to acquiesce to the now times. What's your take on are you have you adopted it?

Dave Roe  29:57

Yeah, I have I think I got drug kicking Streaming originally, but as a sideman, whose role is mostly peripheral at times, I just had to go what are you going to do make a big scene in the studio that you don't want to record on? On a hard disk? You know, sure. Kenny Vaughn has a great take on it. Our guitar player, he just said, you know, people come and get in my face and say, Hey, I cut this on tape, and then he'll go, Well, let me ask you this. Does it sound good? If it does? Who gives a shit? Or no, I agree. It's just helped. It's helped a lot a lot more people get in, I think there's a downside to that. I think a lot of people who would never have gotten in the business absolutely probably shouldn't have, yeah, can do that. Now, there's a lot of ways you can fake things. Now, most of the big bands, for instance, are carrying tracks on a computer, that they flesh out their sound with onstage with vocals and string parts and things like that. And there's a real debate going on within the industry on how to get people paid when that happens. And it's one of the key issues that the union hears talking about, you know, cutting with a world class bass player and taking his tracks instead of hiring a bass player and playing it on stage and playing along with it. And some of the finally, we started putting our foot down on some of that there's there's some issues. In other words, it's, it's still working itself out.

Randy Hulsey  31:11

This has been going on forever. I mean, you think about going back to the whole Napster days when Napster came out. And Lars Ulrich from Metallica, and some of the bigger musicians started making a big deal about that, because they felt like they were getting cheated out, or royalties were, of course, they were, of course they were. And there's there's a constant bitching in the community. And I say this from the Houston area about all of these artists who have recorded and put their stuff on streaming media, like the Pandora's and the Spotify 's of the world, and are not even getting pennies on the dollar for the shit that they're spending copious amounts of money to get it recorded. And only the return is not there. With the stream, they literally have to go out and sell T shirts to supplement their income, they traveling T shirts, so

Dave Roe  32:01

kind of get to ourselves because we let them get away with it for so long. And it's a political issue too, because the government with their changing of the copyright laws and screwing around with that. And being at the mercy of these big corporations, they've allowed some of this to happen. They've actually caused some of it to happen. songwriters in particular are getting screwed more than anybody because they changed the laws. So people they don't, people don't have to pay for songs anymore. It used to be you could write a song and if it got on the radio, you made a lot of money. You don't do that anymore. Even mainstream land base radio doesn't pay anymore. I think it's pretty clear now the only company that is actually paying artists and songwriters is Sirius XM. I have especially in the indie scene, I have people telling me all the time, but they're just all they're trying to do is get on XM so they can make a little money while getting paid per rotation, you know,

Randy Hulsey  32:47

well, and I think that's great insight. I'm a musician in Texas, and I play professionally but I don't use that as my primary source of income so I don't get into the weeds about hey, somebody's stealing my stuff. I'm not getting paid this or that I haven't had to worry about that. But for guys like yourself who are out making a living I mean, that's that's a problem. You know, some

Dave Roe  33:10

things people five sag AFTRA has teamed up with the musicians union and they're going after overseas royalties and split per spin and stuff like that. We've all started getting checks fortunately, if you've been on records that make it on the air or whatever, you can make a little money because of people like that. But you know, like I said, we did it to ourselves in order to make it big people sacrificed everything just to get their stuff played and recorded. And in the end, they lost I for one just to finish that story up I for one don't participate. You know, I've never been on Spotify. I wouldn't never do Pandora or Spotify. I still run around on a Honda Element because I get Sirius XM on and that's what I listen

Randy Hulsey  33:50

to gotcha that have toured the world and of course they made the money on the touring and the records that they sold this that in the other but is the money really with the songwriter now in the rotation in which you know the song gets played

Dave Roe  34:11

it's been dissolved dissolve down to hardcopy status which is like the only way the songwriters really make money anymore as if it's hard copies sold like CDs or vinyl. I think the last big record that really pay it out was a Dallas last pick record that sold 35 million hard copies if you're still selling hard copies like that you can still make some money okay, but if you're making a record and putting it on streaming services nobody's making money including you.

Randy Hulsey  34:39

But I bet you they are a bunch of the companies or companies aren't going back to your studio for just a quick minute. What can Dave row be hired to do in the studio you spoke attracts but is there tell the listeners like if they come to you what what services do you have to offer? For them,

Dave Roe  35:00

oh, I can provide a fun place to record and access to quality musicians, I can set up the project for you book it and carry it through to fruition and just sort of be a mediator between you and what you want to do.

Randy Hulsey  35:14

I would think that that would be a huge value that is in your value propositions, especially if you don't know how to do that. Sure. And with all the musicians that you're connected to over the years of being in the industry, and that regard, absolutely you are, what what the big difference and I'm a guitarist. But what is the big difference when you compare an upright bass to an electric bass? Talk the listeners through I'm sure they're familiar, of course with the electric bass, but the upright bass, what different sound are you getting out of that, that you don't say get out of the electric bass

Dave Roe  35:50

in simplest forms, electric bass and an upright bass are both bass instruments, and they both occupy the same space in the track when you're recording. But they're completely different animals. When you play electric bass, you're basically playing a guitar and you use guitar technique and guitar technology. When you play an upright bass, you have to use old, old school methods like microphones and things like that to amplify your instrument. And you have to learn a whole different set of technique. You know, it's there's no comparison except where it sits in the track and the notes that you play.

Randy Hulsey  36:21

Is it safe to say that most uprights are fretless instruments? They

Dave Roe  36:26

all are. Yeah, interesting. And that's another battle that you have to learn to fight you know, because no for us, you got to get your intonation correct. And make sure you're not playing sharp or flat. That's interesting.

Randy Hulsey  36:35

I will have a guest coming up in his name is Ned Abbott and Ned. It has been the opening act for a guitarist named Joe Satriani for several years overseas and Ned plays homemade glass neck fretless guitars and he has a slide that will the slide will just move up and down as he's changing the basically the slider the capo in the middle of a song to get different sounds and it's it's a really interesting thing, but I can't wrap my head around the whole no fret thing right? I understand no fret markers but not having frets on the on the neck of a guitar is is foreign to me.

Dave Roe  37:18

That's that's a that's a whole nother world. He's doing it on guitar that's even more intricate. Yes.

Randy Hulsey  37:22

Yes, I'll have to send you a link of some of his being a guitarist, you would appreciate a couple of minute video of what he's doing in the sound that he's getting out of this thing. Because it almost sounds like a steel guitar, if you will. Yeah. No, do you have a brand preference when it comes to upright bass is is there a go to brand that that is kind of the world renowned brand, or the brand that you call something that that you prefer to play on? It's been a

Dave Roe  37:48

transitional thing for me, I've played a lot of K bases old vintage case, and my number one base right now, and I hope doesn't make anybody mad. But number one recording bases the Chinese based on no name, Chinese base, that it just happens to sound phenomenal, really. And I pick that up. And my live bases are different. They're a little thicker and a little more feedback resistant, that I use blast cold, they're called blast cold. And they're they come out of Los Angeles and I use a couple different things.

Randy Hulsey  38:16

What about from electric perspective? Is there a go to for you? Yeah, I

Dave Roe  38:20

started out as a Fender bass player. And I went through a whole genesis of 15 to 20 years of trying all the latest high tech, you know, Olympics and war weeks, and all kinds of stuff like that. Now I'm back to playing my main bases in 1960, Fender Precision Bass, and I use that on everything. I sort of come full circle with that, it's probably

Randy Hulsey  38:38

safe to say that that's the de facto standard, right? Would you agree with that?

Dave Roe  38:42

It is, especially in the recording business. So you know, you walk in with a P bass, you won't get any raised eyebrows? And yes, I hope people will figure you know a little bit more about what you're doing.

Randy Hulsey  38:51

Absolutely. Who inspired you kind of a two part question Who inspired you as a young bass player. And as you move through the years of life in your 50s, or whatever, who inspired you later in life?

Dave Roe  39:06

Well, at first I was inspired by the British invasion. So it was Paul McCartney and also the Motown guy, James Jamison. Those two are my guys. I sat down in practice and stole all their stuff as much of their stuff as I could. And then as time went on, it was just a bunch of studio guys. And the more I realized that there were people playing on records that weren't necessarily in the band, I just still got a studio musician became I started really look into Nashville. And that's another reason I moved here because those guys lived here. Bob Morris, another big one, you know, he played on almost every hit record from the late 50s all the way up to 1980. Sure, his last big record was he stopped loving her today. Those guys are really my heroes session guys, and that's where I ended up. I ended up really liking the guys that were behind the scenes playing on records.

Randy Hulsey  39:53

Well, James Jamison, if my memory serves me correctly, he was he was a Motown session. He was on the show. He was the guy who worked at the famous was at Hitsville. USA factory. Yeah. With with Barry Gordy. And he also played bass on some of my, I guess you could call them r&b, funk, a band called the silvers. They were you know, Boogie fever and hotline. They had some hit songs with him, but yeah, great stuff. James Jamerson. Yeah, for sure.

Dave Roe  40:26

That stuff has served me well, because I get called for that as much as I do my knowledge of country music. So it's like, I'm lucky.

Randy Hulsey  40:34

Where do you think your love is? It just made me think of this question. What do you think your love, from a genre perspective? Like? What if you throw away every genre but one? If you asked me that question, I'd say I'm a rock and roll guy at the

Dave Roe  40:49

idea that I'm a rhythm and blues guy. And I like real good, strong real country music. I think there's a real relationship between them. You know,

Randy Hulsey  40:57

what is coming up for you as it relates to new music projects, new music in general shows, stuff in the recording studio, anything that you can share with the listeners that you're excited about

Dave Roe  41:12

a couple of things happening. I'm playing in a band called The Tennessee four which is four of us who have we're in Johnny Cash his band at different points in his career. It's, it's ostensibly, it's a tribute band, and his grandson Thomas Gabriel's the singer. He's a young guy about 40 years old, and he sounds like cash without trying to sound like in the blood. He just says like, we're just starting to do a few dates. So look for the Tennessee for come and see us and hear those songs done correctly. Absolutely. And I got to do a couple records coming out that I played on the new Bahamas record. Are you familiar with Bahamas, I'm not Canadian singer songwriter, it's more of a rhythm and blues funk. That should be out in the next week or so. So that's what's going on there.

Randy Hulsey  41:57

The shows for the Tennessee for those will just be local type.

Dave Roe  42:01

That's just getting started. So you just got to listen for where we end up. We don't even know what's going to happen with that. And we all resisted the notion of being an attribute bad per se, because I don't really care for that genre too much but, but when Tom was in the van, it made it a lot more legit. So it's cool.

Randy Hulsey  42:18

Well, it seems like there's a big invasion of the tribute bands right now in Houston. They're all there. They're huge. And I you know what, some of them are amazing. Some of them are very much amazing. I've had two of them on my show personally. And one is a Fleetwood Mac tribute and the other is an Ozzy Osbourne tribute. And both are phenomenal. They get the job done. They're top shelf musicians. And but I'm also of the mindset that you can either do a whole lot of justice for the person that you're doing a tribute for, or you can really screw things up. Right. And rarely is there a happy medium in there somewhere. Right?

Dave Roe  42:58

The interesting thing about it is we as boomers, we make fun of all these acts and that's what they are. We're an oldies act when you're doing that. Used to be you would play Elvis Presley songs, and now you play like you said Fleetwood Mac and stuff. But who are we kidding? They're all these bands. Yeah, we are. Absolutely, absolutely. One other thing I didn't mention is Johnny Cash. His son, John Carter Cash, discovered a cache of like 10 or 12 tunes that Johnny had demoed on the road, they don't even know where he did it. Just having a guitar and we went in and put bass drums on it and being painted actually from the average white band and Marty Stewart played guitar and so there's a new Johnny Cash row record coming out there's one more coming down the pike so keep listening for that come out this fall.

Randy Hulsey  43:43

Wow, that's interesting. I've always heard not not to get off on on Johnny too much here but I've always heard that he was a really good man to work for. Talk to the listeners a little bit about the

Dave Roe  43:57

nicest person I ever met my life. I work with some real bulldogs are very tough to play with and erratic and mean and all the different things that people can be I never saw Johnny raise his voice to anybody ever not once and he was in your on your it was almost like you were on had his back. But he had yours too. He was just really a really fine person. Really amazing.

Randy Hulsey  44:22

He was the musician's musician was yes, absolutely. You don't hear that too much. Because there's a lot of a lot of pick piss and vinegar in the music industry was specially with the alpha males, right? We'd like everybody to know that we're the king. And you know, there's an arrogance that comes with that. A lot of times,

Dave Roe  44:42

I won't tell you the shirt, curl your hair, you know, they're pretty amazing stuff.

Randy Hulsey  44:47

That's good to hear that one of the legends was that type of man and you don't hear that. That's a certainly an accolade to him. Because when you get to that level, and you rise to that kind of stardom, that's rare. plead the case. Right? You know what I'm saying? And you get it far better than I do because you've been around in the industry and have been with those world renowned types of musicians, right? Yes. How would the listeners of backstage pass radio find you Dave on on social media? Are you a social media guy?

Dave Roe  45:20

have a Facebook page? It's David Ro rohrich. Ro is my middle name actually. Okay. rohrich is my last name R O ri CK. I don't stay too active on Facebook anymore. I kind of got got over it. But I have a website, Dave row.com. You can reach me if you want to get some tracks done. I can You can hook up with me there.

Randy Hulsey  45:37

Okay. Very good. Well, Dave, it's been an absolute treat to catch up with you. Pleasure to meet you. And your musical treasure. It's probably makes it even more cool that we're doing it right here on Music City, USA. This this interview, which is rarely the case yet, so very cool. So thanks for your time and for joining me here in Nashville. You guys, make sure you go out and follow Dave on Facebook and make sure to visit Dave roe.com Also wanted to call out John Evans records in Nashville. Also, if you're looking for some help with recording and John can also be found on Facebook and Instagram at Jeb rocks, Texas. That's Jeb, John Evans band rocks, Texas. And, of course don't forget about Dave Seven Deadly Sins studio. So if you're in the need for those recording services and tracks to be done, that's a great place to go to get that done. I ask all the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast. You can find us on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast on Instagram at backstage pass radio and on the website at backstage pass. radio.com You guys take care 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  47:02

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 Hulsey 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