S5: E11: Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal (Guns & Roses, Asia, Art of Anarchy, Sons of Apollo, Whom Gods Destroy) - Tremolos & Thimbles - PART 1

Speaker 1: 0:45

My guest today is a guitar prodigy and has toured the world with bands like Guns N' Roses, asia and Lita Ford. He has a new single out, called Villafied, with his band Art of Anarchy. So sit tight and we will chat with a super cool and mega talented rock star, ron Bumblefoot Thall, when we return.

Speaker 2: 1:06

This is Fact Stage 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 alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of Fact Stage Pass Radio, Randy Halsey.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Well, thanks to everyone for tuning in and joining us today. I have Ron joining us from New Jersey. Ron, what's going on, man? It's good to see you.

Speaker 3: 1:44

Hello, how are you?

Speaker 1: 1:47

I'm doing great, man. How about yourself Doing all right, good, good. Well, it's great to finally see you after a few text exchange prior to the interview. But glad you're here and I'm looking forward to sharing your story with the listeners of Fact Stage Pass Radio. And I did want to give a quick shout out to Rob Zee from the Killer Dwarfs camp for helping set this up. So what a great bunch of guys, russ Dwarf and all those guys Super cool guys, man.

Speaker 3: 2:18

They are the best. They're doing a 40th anniversary show right outside of Toronto and it was in Oshawa. Yeah, oshawa, I'm not gonna pronounce it.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Well, we talked about November 10th. Okay, great, great, great. Well, we talked about that kind of prior to hitting the record button above a bunch of Canada people we were talking about today. You got the Killer Dwarf, I know right. Well, so you are, I guess, currently a New Jersey boy by way of Brooklyn, new York, am I correct there?

Speaker 3: 2:53

Correct. Grew up in the boroughs of New York City and just moved right over the water to New Jersey.

Speaker 1: 3:00

When did you make that move? Was it as a young guy or later on in life? Talk to the listeners a little bit. When the jump happened for you.

Speaker 3: 3:08

Mid twenties. At that point I had what was? I had an apartment in Staten Island as one of the boroughs, and then to the east of it is Brooklyn. I had a studio there and my wife had an apartment. We didn't get a house yet, so we still had our apartments and she was in Jersey, so I was kind of bouncing back and forth. Then I got rid of my Staten Island place and I would either sleep on the floor of the studio in Brooklyn while working all night on albums and then drive home at three, four in the morning or whenever to Jersey.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Well, there's a common denominator with some of these interviews that I do, and it always seems to be a female that brings somebody away from their home to another place, and that sounds kind of like what might have happened with you there, right, always, yes, men will never leave their couch, unless for a woman.

Speaker 3: 4:05

Then it's all right, I'm going to go fly 25 hours to go see this person, isn't that? Funny.

Speaker 1: 4:10

It's an instinctual thing. I think that's what we do. That's exactly what we do, and it's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years now. I think. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon.

Speaker 3: 4:21

Does Og move to a different cave to be with this woman?

Speaker 1: 4:26

Well, good for you, man. Well listen, I mean like reading up on you and whatnot. Who haven't you played with? You've played with some of the big hitters in the industry. I guess Was it about eight years with Guns N' Roses and then what you spent about three years of Asia and a little timed with Lita Ford, right, how long were you working with Lita?

Speaker 3: 4:49

Ah, such interesting stories. All right, yeah, there's been a lot of people. I have jammed and played on shows with more people than I could even remember. I mean, some of the standouts were like Nancy Sinatra, this guy, alan Tucson, this, this uh jazzy piano player, lita Ford. What happened with that was 2009 and taking a break for the summer and suddenly I get a phone call from her. She's on stage in Sweden, she just finished a show and she's like what are you doing this summer? I was like, actually I'm off. What are you doing? Like well, I got a whole tour of of the US and some European festivals and I want to replace my whole band. It's like you sure you want to do that? Like well, I can visit to keep the keyboard player.

Speaker 3: 5:41

He was amazing and so it was starting in two days, so I had two days to learn 15 songs. I got the drummer from my solo band to join. Then we got a PJ Farley from Trickster and a bunch of things. He's amazing and he joined on bass and we went out and hit the road for the summer and flew around Europe and hopped around the US and it was a lovely summer. Yeah, yes, it was.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Was this the Bobby Rock days, or was this pre Bobby Rock? Like playing drums, I don't remember when Bobby Rock joined Lita Ford.

Speaker 3: 6:19

I don't know. I'm going to have to Google that.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Okay, yeah, no worries, he was not the drummer being replaced.

Speaker 3: 6:26

Okay.

Speaker 1: 6:27

At that time. No, Well, I know he's currently with them and he's kind of a Houston success story where I think you know he grew up in kind of the same area that I'm from here in the Cyprus, Texas area, and the story is, I think his sister, Pam, gave him a van and $400 to go to LA and audition for Vinny Vincent, right when Vinny Vincent had left Kiss and he wound up. You know hundreds of players out there auditioning. He wound up getting that gig and you know. So he was with Vinny Vincent for a long time, but I believe he's the current yeah, he's with the current drummer, with Lita Ford right now.

Speaker 3: 7:05

So well, good for him.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Yeah. It's always cool to hear those types of stories, the success stories, the rags to riches, so to speak. You know the garage band musician hitting the road with a, with a big couple of big acts there. So Sons of Apollo, right, is that a current? Educate me Right, is that a current project for you? Is that a hiatus thing? Talk to me a little bit about Sons of Apollo.

Speaker 3: 7:33

Sons of Apollo is a band that started in 2017. And it consisted of Mike Porno and drums, billy Sheehan on bass, derek Sherrini and on keyboards and Jeff Scott Soto on vocals and me on guitar. We did. We wrote an album, we banged it out and did that and put out the album the end of 2017, tore it all over the place throughout 2018. North America, south America, asia, europe, everywhere.

Speaker 3: 8:06

And then 2019, we started writing the next album. We put it out in early 2020. We also, in 2018, we put out a live video and album of this ancient amphitheater that we played in with an orchestra and a choir. It was amazing. And then 2020, we put out album number two and we started touring. But the world had a different plan You're getting the four shows in and then the whole world was shutting down and had to just throw stuff in storage and get right back to the US before while we still could, and we got there and maybe a week later everything was shut down and that was it. We did one makeup tour in South America from that period that we hold the promoter last year, and that's it.

Speaker 3: 8:55

So nothing after that then for theater and the band has splintered off where I've been doing work with Derek and doing work with Jeff, and Jeff is now the singer of the band Art of Anarchy, which has quite a story to it.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Yeah, Well, and certainly I want to chat about that, and it was interesting that you say that about Sons of Apollo. Do you feel like that band would have been a band that would have stuck, that would have been your primary focus and you guys just would have done everything together, or was that kind of a side project? And the reason I asked that question is because I've had quite a few guests on my show. A couple come to mind, like Michael Sweet of Striper, you know, he went out and did the iconic thing, joel Hoekstra, kind of the same thing. And then Matt Starr, the drummer for Ace Fraley, was on my show and he did the black swan thing with Robin McCauley and Jeff Pilsen from Forner. So was Sons kind of was the idea to be a full time longevity type band, or was it just a one or two and done kind of project for you?

Speaker 2: 10:55

Originally when Mike reached out to me, he was like hey, you know how we was talking about putting the band together.

Speaker 3: 11:02

Well, I got this idea and it sounded more like it was just going to be a one and done, like we make an album together and then do a little bit of touring. But it grew into something much more and for most of us it became our intention to have that be the primary band. That was our band and we all wrote everything and did everything for the ground up role founding members that were all creative pieces to that band. But Things go the way they go, of course, and yeah, so I'm glad we at least got to do what we did.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Yeah, well, the mind said it sounds like it was going to be a long haul kind of thing for you guys. But of course, like you said, the world had completely opposite plans for everybody, not just you guys, but for everybody, right, and it was such a sad time because a lot of the local musicians here that are great friends of mine, you know, couldn't even make a living. And it was a sad time, and probably you know you guys as well that relied on music for that live and for that income, because all the places where you could play music were shut down.

Speaker 3: 12:18

So yeah, but for me it's not just about going out and playing shows. That's a small part of it. Most of what I do is producing bands and mixing albums and making my own music and teaching, lots of producing and with that that actually being off the road Picked up right, it's good, yeah. So it's like when you're on the road you can play shows and that's pretty much all you can do. Of course, when you're off the road, you can do everything else in your life?

Speaker 1: 12:49

Yes, for sure, and I want to chat more about some of the things you just talked about. But quickly, I want to chat about Art of Anarchy. Share with the listeners what this current lineup looks like for Art of Anarchy.

Speaker 3: 13:03

Well, if you want, I can give you the quick history of the band, and it goes back about 25 years and it's these twin brothers, john and Vince Voda. They play guitar and drums, and I used to record their bands when they were teenagers, 25 years ago, and we always stayed friends, great dudes, great family. 2011,. They told me that they wanted to make their dream album that they never got to make and the idea was they had these 10 songs that they wrote guitar and drums for. They come into my studio, record them. I can add guitar if I want, and finish up the songs and then get different singers as guests for different songs and just treat it more like this musical project where they get to just collaborate with their favorite musicians, their favorite singers, favorite people. That was the idea, and the first person that said yes was Scott Wilde, and he did a song called Till the Dust is Gone. He did a nice video for it, everything. And after that, after he did the one song, his manager said to us why don't we make this a band? Let's make this a band. Scott will do the entire album and this will be a real thing, and we got John Moyer on bass and we all signed our band agreement and, with all the gallities, this is how the royalties are split and this is that and this is what we're going to do and this is how we'll promote and all that stuff. It was a real band, legally and in every way, and we finished the album.

Speaker 3: 14:45

Scott did the album in about a month. He would just write and record and send me stuff. Then he would record himself and banged it out and did great. So it was done and we got the album out in 2015. And, to our surprise, scott publicly kind of quit the band four hours later. And yeah, and this is after the night before we were all going back and forth on, you know, approving the bio and making changes, saying, oh, let's use the red logo instead of the black logo for the YouTube blurb. Oh, scott said let's just use two songs instead of four. On that, and I give too much away, like all the little stuff that a band does right before being announced and we do the announcement and then a few hours later, after it's really getting a lot of hype and spreading, he says you know, I wish the luck fighting a new singer. We're in the middle of negotiating with the record label and it just killed, didn't kill the band.

Speaker 1: 15:48

So no idea, that was coming at all right.

Speaker 3: 15:51

No indications like Like there were some issues before that. That got ironed out and he was on board and signed legal stuff saying he was on board. So, yeah, so we put out the album and then it was like, well, what do we do? Do we get another singer or do we just stop here? And our manager said, I think I got singer number two for you and we ended up with another, scott, and that was even more turbulent behind the scenes and every white hair in my beard Half of them were from that. And in the end, we put out a second album in 2017. And we got to do a few shows, but it was kind of the same issues of not everybody being on board and some people being rather credibly destructive. And again it didn't work out. So, all right, what do we do? Do we hang this up? Yeah, let's hang it up for a while and just let things smooth out how they're going to.

Speaker 3: 17:08

And then the end of 2019, john the guitar player gets sick.

Speaker 3: 17:14

They can't figure out what it is, they don't have a diagnosis, but he's slowly dying.

Speaker 3: 17:19

He's going blind, he's choking and can't breathe in the middle of the night. He has no energy, has no immune system. He was slowly dying and doctors could not figure out what it was and all he could do was lie in bed with a guitar in his hand and watch movies. And that's what he was doing for months, and one of the movies that kept him sane and distracted was the Joker movie, and he would watch it over and over and he would play guitar to the movie and slowly started turning into definite things that he would play as he watched the movies, like he was writing songs to the movie slowly, and the first opening scene of that movie and the first thing he wrote was the first thing after they figured out what was wrong and started giving him treatment. And over six months later, when he was well enough like the second half of 2020, he came over and said he wanted to record some ideas that came from that song. And that is the song vilified.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Wow.

Speaker 3: 18:23

So the music to vilified happened, from him nearly dying and just playing guitar to the song, to the movie the Joker, okay, or an orc. And that's what revived the band, that's what resurrected it. And every Friday John and Vince would come over and we would come up with a new song idea and by that night it would be done. We would walk out of here with a song done and we did that for the rest of the year and ended up with two albums worth of music. And during that time Jeff of Sons of Apollo, jeff Scott Soto, the singer, said to me you know, you should have just had me sing and you never would have had any of these personnel issues with Art of Anarchy. You should have just had me be the singer. So I mentioned it to the Voter Brothers said you know, jeff kind of offered himself to be singer number three and they said absolutely, he's a wonderful guy. You know, they know from me, you know just how great he is to work with and they know from past 40 years of how credible his voice is. Sure, what a great singer he is. Another Scott too. I was like, if he offered himself, he's in no questions asked, boom, now we have a singer. So he started taking these pieces of music we were writing and started coming up with ideas and lyrics and melodies and did his thing, did what he does, turn them into songs Very cool and give him a piece of music hey, look what we just made. It was like cool. And then he'd be like God, it makes me feel like this, it gives me this idea, it gives me this vibe, this is what I'm going to write about. And he would bang out a song Beautiful, done. And then we chose from a bunch of them, said this will be album number three, order the songs and everything. And for all the albums I did all the mixing, production, everything and we finished up album number three. And then we spoke with our longtime video director, dale Rage. Mestighini, who's been there from the very beginning making our videos and he's a great friend, talked about doing videos and everything, and we started shooting videos and we spoke with, on his recommendation, the record label Pavement, and they took us on board and they are a fantastic company. We just have a great team. Now we finally, after two strikes, we finally have a team where everybody is on board, the label is competent, the band is not self-destructive.

Speaker 3: 21:11

John Moyer, our longtime bass player, chose not to continue, so we had to get a new bassist. So Jeff said well, my bassist, take my bass player, tony Dickinson. I played with him in solo for years. We're both in a trans-Siberian orchestra. He's on Mike Mangini's new album that just came out and he's great and the guy is fantastic. So at that point music was done. So I just said, hey, you want to lay bass on this? He's like sure, a week later bass is done. It sounds incredible and there we go. Good, so now we're back. We're a band and, yeah, we did. The song vilified the very first song that pretty much kept John Voda sane, and it's the first song we wrote and recorded bringing back this band. And we made it the first single because of all of that, and that's why there's so many references to the Joker in the video and in the song. Like we shot the video on the same big staircase that the Joker movie was shot on the same location.

Speaker 3: 22:12

Ok, yeah it's not any fakery. Like we were there, we got the permits and went up to the Bronx and set up a drum set on the stairs of this big stairway and that's why those news broadcasts those were real news broadcasts where the media was trying to create hysteria and stupidity over the movie coming out. We're like, always going to lead to real world violence. But we took those news broadcasts and then we gave them to Jeff Tate, Queens Rockett, and he re-said all of them. So it's Jeff Tate's voice throughout the song saying these real news broadcasts scattered around the song. So that's another little thing about the song referencing the Joker, but something cool having Jeff Tate that voice.

Speaker 1: 23:02

You know, this was one of the reasons why I spun up backstage pass radio back in February of 21, coming out of COVID, right, because like you, I'm a musician and I love the stories behind the song. I've always been the liner notes junkie. When I buy a record, liner notes is the first thing I get into before I even listen to the music and I always love that. So to hear the backstory behind the Joker, I didn't get the reference like great video like, but what does the Joker have to do with this? In here You're telling us. So I love that. And then the whole backstory with Jeff Tate, who one of my favorite vocalist, you know Queens Rockett, love all the Queens Rockett stuff. And then you mentioned, of course, jeff Scott Soto from my. I guess he spent some time with, and Joel Hoekstra's 13 with him and journey for a while, right.

Speaker 3: 23:57

So yeah, good friend of mine, I love that, so the great guy.

Speaker 1: 24:01

I called him on the road. I did my interview with Joel when he was in Birmingham, england, and spent a little time with him a great guy that. He came to me by way of Michael Sweet from Striper, who we spoke of a little bit earlier, but it's funny how all you guys are are kind of connected and connected.

Speaker 3: 24:17

Yes, big web and everyone's connected, right. So I'm Jeff, did stuff together. I've done stuff with Joel. I brought Joel in on this this festival that was happening in 2016 in Romania that a friend of mine put together and Joel played Tosin and Basi. Yeah, it was just so much fun. And Joel, we have this text, this not text this email thread with a whole bunch of guitar players and Joel and I are part of it and we just send each other stupid stuff every day.

Speaker 1: 24:52

It's just a bunch of mediocre guitarists talking to one another, Right, Ron? Just mediocre guys. It's not about the guitar, it's always about just something else, Right? Yeah, I say that totally tongue in cheek, but I was going to ask you about John's illness. Now it's LOL, to be honest. Why am I here today? Was the diagnosis? Was this a public thing? Did this? So I didn't know if you were able to talk about, you know, what they found out was wrong with him. It was kind of like a cliffhanger there.

Speaker 3: 25:21

but if it's not public and it's private, I totally understand that right, it's nothing embarrassing or bad, Sure, it's just he told me a long time ago I was like I don't want too much of my health information being played out there.

Speaker 1: 25:35

Yeah, I didn't know if it's something that went out like in, like all the corners of the world, or something you know. A lot of times that happens and of course I didn't.

Speaker 3: 25:44

You could do a penile war too, anything like that.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Or reductions or nothing like that. What?

Speaker 3: 25:50

really messed up about it is that when they finally figured out what this odd, rare, unusual thing was and he had to get treatment and he had to get to a hospital, the hospitals were full because of COVID. Oh yeah, of course.

Speaker 2: 26:05

He couldn't even get in to get it, of course.

Speaker 3: 26:07

And when he finally did get to the hospital, it was a situation where if he did catch COVID from anyone, he was dead.

Speaker 1: 26:15

He would not have survived anything, that whole immune thing like yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:22

Yeah, so he was definitely. He was living a good chunk, just worried about not dying. Of course that changes the person, it does, it changes your perspective, it changes everything.

Speaker 1: 26:36

Well, you think about that. You know he's at home with whatever. It was, thinking that, oh my gosh, I'm close to death or I'm gonna die or whatever was going to his head. And, man, just think of how many people were dying because of COVID, right? But you know that first, just people were sick, sick, sick, and it was just a. It was a rotten time, but I don't wanna stay on that too long, but I did. You know you talked about vilified and I did wanna share a short clip.

Speaker 1: 27:01

It is the first single from the third record called Let there Be Anarchy, and this is a song called Vilified. Let's treat the listeners to that clip, Ron, and then we'll come back and chat about the song and the record. What do you say? Yeah, the tears that I cried, they go a time that I can't control. Let me go. Villified for the men I've become. Tomorrow's always yesterday. Yeah, I am the light, I am the rage, Won't you let me in? Villified for being who I am the clouds and fools forever in play. Yeah, I am the dark. I am the pain. Villified.

Speaker 3: 28:28

There were no boundaries, there were no limits. This is just. We're gonna write whatever we want, Sure.

Speaker 1: 28:33

And where was the record recorded at? Did you guys do tracks or write in that room there?

Speaker 3: 28:39

Okay, yeah, that rug behind me the drums were set up on. Therefore, like a year and a half, and we were just sitting in this chair and that chair over there and that's where we would record and Jeff would do his vocals in his own place. He has his own. Okay, sing in the room.

Speaker 1: 28:56

I gotcha.

Speaker 3: 28:57

The other coast and he would just send me stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:01

You mentioned this a little bit earlier but I wanted to talk about it in a little more detail. But the songwriting efforts in Art of Anarchy, it's really it sounds like a collaborative effort with you guys, right? It's not like some bands where it's just one guy that writes the songs and everybody records. It's a democracy, so to speak, right.

Speaker 3: 29:23

It is Very cool, john and Vince. They do a lot of writing. They're just quick and whatever they do musically, jeff writes his own thing to it. And while I'm here with John and Vince, I'll come up with ideas and sometimes I'll have a song idea. So I have a few. It's almost like figure John and Vince are the John and Paul and I'm the George Okay, where I have not as many songs.

Speaker 1: 29:50

You look a little like him too, now that I'm thinking about it.

Speaker 3: 29:54

Mike is ugly before.

Speaker 1: 29:57

The ugly kid brother, the ugly step brother. Yeah Well, we've all been that in the past. Well, while we're talking about that video vilified Ron, what is the tie with the Cuba Gooding Jr in the video? I was trying to understand the reference. I'm assuming that's a movie he was in. What's the connection there?

Speaker 3: 30:20

That's like a mini movie made for the video, written and directed by Dale, our video director, and how it ties in. Is that the movie, the song it's about? There's a lot about mental illness and the lack of treatment for it, okay, and how people are just treated like monsters instead of being understood sometimes.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Some situations.

Speaker 3: 30:52

I mean the hell. There's situations where people are fucking monsters, but very often someone is just struggling and instead of getting the care, they're just kicked while they're down, vilified. So it led to the story about a veteran with PTSD that's at his lowest point and he's at his bottom and he's armed in his house. Police want to get in there. They're armed as well and it's about to get ugly. His daughter, his young daughter, breaks through the barricades and gets and runs up to the house. They see each other and it just brings them back to reality in the right place and the good things. So even on the YouTube description, the first thing we say is if you're suffering, here's a number to call.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Sure Well, so it sounds like that short film was done specifically for your song. Then correct, it was like a mini movie made for the song.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Very cool, very cool. And you know I've read through your story and I know that you and I'm not gonna go down a rabbit hole here, but it kind of piggybacks on what you were just saying about mental illness, depression, anxiety, that kind of thing. We've all been through that and I've had so many wonderful guests on the show and it's amazing how you see this facade, that, oh, this musician. They live the great life, they're in front of people and people love them, but they don't know they're humans at the end of the day and we all have these challenges, including me.

Speaker 1: 32:38

I was an anxiety and depression sufferer for a long time and I've always opened it yeah, I've always opened it up on my show to make that public service announcement that says my phone is always on. I'm not a hard guy to find on the internet, right? If somebody needs to talk about those kinds of things, call me, let's talk. But so many times, like you said, you know that people are vilified. It's like, wow, they're weird, there's something wrong with them, because it's people that don't understand those diseases and what they're going through. But there is treatment. They're as light at the end of the tunnel for those things. So I don't know if you wanted to piggyback on that, but no absolutely, you nailed it.

Speaker 3: 33:18

Yeah, and no one else's life is as simple as we make it out to be. Oh, I agree Everybody else. Their life is not simple and we tend to simplify and just be like oh, there are this and there are that, and there's so many deep layers to every human being.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Sure.

Speaker 3: 33:39

And I think that's sometimes a mistake that's made is that you can look at someone and be like, oh, they have everything.

Speaker 1: 33:48

No, there's always something missing.

Speaker 3: 33:50

Look, you can look at someone teenage kid and say, oh, look at this girl, she's beautiful, she's got a nice family, she's got this, and why did she kill herself?

Speaker 1: 34:00

Yeah, something missing.

Speaker 3: 34:01

Because there's so many other layers that she's hiding and just keeping buried and just not sharing, because most of the time, people that are hurting they don't want to share the hurt because they don't want other people to feel bad, so they just live with it, they bury it, festering in them. And this is the point where you should be talking to somebody to get the help, because everybody needs help with something at some point in their life as part of being human, 100%, just one person and no one else.

Speaker 1: 34:38

I agree.

Speaker 3: 34:38

All here for each other.

Speaker 1: 34:40

I agree, and there's a healing and talk therapy, right, I think just going in a room and shutting the door is not the solution to anything. You have to talk about those things, and I think that people largely do that because they don't want to feel humiliated or judged, and you have to understand that life throws curveball sometimes, and that's OK. It's how you persevere. I believe, is what makes your character at the end of the day so. Anyway, again, we could go down a whole rabbit hole with that, but it's important that if there's listeners out there on my show that are struggling with these types of things, then my phone is readily available out on the internet and I'm willing to chat with you. And thanks for sharing your story there too, ron, for the listeners, you guys can go out to the Art of Anarchy YouTube channel and check out the video that Ron and I are talking about and make sure to subscribe and do all the things that they say on YouTube, like share, subscribe, hit the ding dong bell, do all of those things. Right, ron? That's my PSA for the the ding dong bell, the ding dong bell, the reminders.

Speaker 1: 35:54

But yeah, so anyway, yeah, you guys, make sure you subscribe to the Art of Anarchy YouTube channel. And you know, since we're kind of on the whole video thing, tell me a little bit about this double neck guitar that you're playing in the video you just happened to. You just happened to have it sitting right there, ready to go Always, always. Talk to the and the listeners of course can't see this, but I'll post a picture and if they watch the video they'll certainly see this guitar. Talk a little bit about the guitar, because the top piece is fretless for those that don't play guitar. So I'd like to know kind of the backstory of this cool instrument here, man.

Speaker 3: 36:39

Yeah, it's made by a company called Vigie. They're based out of France. It's a Voutie company. They put a lot of time and care into every guitar they make and they feel and sound wonderful. So I've been playing their stuff since 1997. Wow, and yeah, they're great. So we have our own signature bubblefoot model.

Speaker 3: 37:07

And they were making fretless guitars before I even hooked up with them or anything like that, and I would play the fretted or the fretless. And I was doing so much fretless playing that I felt like I needed to either play a whole song on fretless or not, and I was usually doing half and half in a song, like I'd do some fretless, some fret. So I really needed a way to access a fretted and a fretless guitar at once. So the best solution was a double neck. So they made this double neck and now this is my other kind of signature model double neck, fretted, fretless. Break your back weighs 10 billion pounds.

Speaker 3: 37:53

Guitar with a metal fretboard or just metal surface on top and playing on a fretless. So like playing slide guitar. Okay, or you could say is like playing a cello, something where it doesn't have the speed bumps that give you the accurate, precise notes the way a piano has keys, sure, that's like a guitar. It has precise, you know, just goes from where, fretless, you just slide, you have everything in between, okay, so with that you can make it move. The way of voice moves a little more like that, sure, and everything just drags and connects and I like it.

Speaker 1: 38:37

Where did you stumble across these guys that? Did they offer up a guitar to you? Is that where you heard about them? Like talk to the listeners a little bit about the connection with you said VGA right.

Speaker 3: 38:49

Yeah, I would build my own guitar, okay. And I was doing a tour in 97 going through France doing guitar clinics, and I had my Swiss cheese guitar, which was an old early 80s Ivan is that I tore apart and put holes in it and put in a bunch of demarzy or pickups and painted it yellow and it looked like a chunk of Swiss cheese. So that was my main guitar that I would play. And I was doing one of these guitar clinic things performances and there was a guy there with a guitar in a case and he said to me I represent VGA guitars and I would love for you to try the guitar. And I said I'm not looking for a guitar endorsement, I make my own stuff. And he's like, just try it. I was like, no, try it, no, try it, no, okay. So I tried it and the thing undeniably played so much better than my own guitar. I was like you know what, maybe I should leave guitar building to the professionals that know what they're doing. And I met with Patrice, the owner of the company, and he was just the sweetest guy, such a nice guy, and we talked about some of the things that that I was looking for in a guitar, which is self expression, not just playing a standard guitar, that's just every other guitar.

Speaker 3: 40:11

When I built my own guitars is because that was an artistic outlet also, of course, that I didn't want to lose. So they were great with that. They said, well, we'll make the strangest guitars you want, no problem. And they made one that was a bumblefoot guitar. It was like a giant foot, like a Monty Python looking foot, with black and yellow stripes and these wings that would pop out of the sides when you bent down the vibrato bar. It was incredible and it sounded great and they would do stuff like that for me.

Speaker 3: 40:41

They really they're a wonderful company and, yeah, I've been with them ever since and it's the main thing. It's pretty much the only guitars that I play and for Art of Anarchy and songs of Apollo and my own music and everything it's this is double neck guitar that I pretty much need to pull it all off, because all the songs that I write and I play they're half dragging on these little fretless things and half fretted and different tunings on one and the other. So I kind of need this guitar to play the songs that I write.

Speaker 1: 41:19

Is the fretless? Is it a whole step down? Is that how you have it tuned?

Speaker 3: 41:24

Is it standard tune just a whole step down or half, usually it's standard tuning, except for the sixth string is tuned down two and a half steps to a low B. Okay, almost like a seventh string of a seven string guitar.

Speaker 1: 41:38

And when you're playing that guitar is most of the rhythm done on the fretted portion of the guitar. Are you interchange like there's okay, so there's on the fretless, it's both okay, so there's no right. I mean there of course in your mind there's rhyme or reason, but you can play lead on either. You can play rhythm on either, right? I?

Speaker 3: 41:59

do. Yes, so if you listen to sons of Apollo and you will hear solos and rhythms that are on both, yeah, is guitar playing as a young kid.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Is that all you wanted to do growing up? When did you get into the guitar? When did it hit?

Speaker 3: 42:17

yes, five years old and turning six, kiss a live album just came out. I heard that album and that was the life changer. Like this is what I want to do. And at the age of six, had a band together with an eight year old and nine year old and we would write songs and make recordings. We figured out how to overdub using multiple cassette recorders where we record on one, then had that one play back and record on to another while we played more or sang to overdone and things like that and just never stopped. So I started then and continued, never stopped. I would cut up pieces of paper and make my own confetti, putting little cups for shows that we would do in our basement or a backyard or the school we went to so that everyone could throw confetti in the air in the last song, things like that you already knew you were gonna be a rock star when you were six or seven years old, then that's what the kid version of it doing what my idols were doing, in a way, just using what I had access to well, you was

Speaker 1: 43:21

possible for a kid, yeah well, you couldn't grow up in the boroughs of New York and not be a kiss fan, could you? I mean, that would bet you can't do that. You have to be a kiss fan, right?

Speaker 3: 43:34

if you live, if you're from New York no, they were the reason that I wanted to get on stage and be in a band like. Beatles made me love the music and production and just everything you could do in a studio and being creative with songs. But it's kiss that sure. Maybe you want to get on stage and stick blood and breathe fire and have a smoking guitar and everything.

Speaker 1: 43:57

Yeah who were like defining the guitar heroes for you growing up at that young age. What couple of guitar stood out to you as a, as a, you know, a nine-year-old or maybe an early teenager at the time?

Speaker 3: 44:12

I was young, it wasn't even about guitar players. It was about bands, songs, and I had bands that I loved, and I didn't even want to be a guitarist when I started. I wanted to be a drummer, but my brother wanted to be a drummer and he was older, so he got to be the drummer, so I wanted to be a bassist, but I was too young, too little, couldn't handle a bass, so I got stuck with guitar and I think the first.

Speaker 3: 44:34

I mean I just loved all the you know all the same names that everyone mentions from the 60s and 70s. It was hearing it even hailing, and that's what sort of changed it for me and start. I started looking at the guitar differently, saying all right, this is more than just a tool for a song, this is a whole second voice in the band, this is an expressive voice that you can get so creative with and you don't just have to play away, you're strum the strings and fret the notes. There's so much more you can do with a string.

Speaker 3: 45:05

And I started really exploring and doing things like that thimble thing where I keep a thimble on it's magnetized right magnetized thimble and magnetized hole here that I keep, here that I touch to the string to get an extension of the notes beyond the fretboard so little things like that that started doing to just see just I was exploring. It's like even hailing gave permission to the whole world to explore what you can do with strings, not just with a guitar but with the strings, because the guitar is just your assistant. Yeah to doing things with the string, but how much more can you do with the string?

Speaker 1: 45:47

is there anybody else on the planet that puts a thimble on their finger to play with? That you know of now, there is, now, there is but straw.

Speaker 3: 45:55

And there's other guitar players.

Speaker 1: 45:58

Now, 35 years ago, where did that come from? Like I mean, I'm like I'm trying to get inside your head a little bit like like why a thimble, why not a damn coffee cup?

Speaker 3: 46:11

like I need something that I can quickly access without having to stop playing, where I can hang on to the pick but still use something okay that I can touch to the string instead of touching the string to a metal fret something metal I could touch to the string beyond the fretboard, and it's just. After trying lots of different things, I used to have a 9 volt battery on a rubber band nailed to the bottom horn of the guitar. That would grab and play. But even that wasn't quick enough and accessible enough. You have to grab it and reach for it. But when you have something, when you basically have a metal fingertip, that opens up a lot of stuff you're an innovator man.

Speaker 1: 46:53

I dig that. That's really cool. And your story is cool too, you know, when you say you know I had a brother and you know I was the drummer and he was the this and we flip that. It's the Eddie and Eddie and Alex story. Right, and I just had a super cool cat and I think you guys have shrapnel records ties to Mike Varney. But Scott Little Billman was just on my show last week and and he, yeah, yeah and it was his story is the same where he was the guitar player, his brother was the drummer and they flipped and now he's the drummer and, yes, it's becoming a very common story with siblings. Is what I'm, what I'm understanding as I as these shows go on and on and on and on.

Speaker 3: 47:37

John and Vince, guitarist and drummer, absolutely Brothers and twin brothers and playing together all their lives, and they're just locked in like one entity.

Speaker 1: 47:47

You talked a little bit about the, the guitar heroes, kind of growing up, what. Who do you vibe with these days? You know you're a world-class player man. Whether you are too humble to say that you are or you aren't, it doesn't matter, and I'm not trying to blow your head up here. The fact of the matter is you're a great player.

Speaker 2: 48:04

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.