Joining me on the airwaves of Backstage Pass Radio is none other than the remarkable Con Delo, founder and maestro bassist of the Hindley Street Country Club.
We wade through the melodic waters of Con's past, where a fusion of Macedonian and Greek influences concocted a profound love for the soulful rhythms of Motown and American classics. His tale is one of musical alchemy, from pillow-stuffed drum kits to stirring the hearts of millions online with his band's cover hits—a journey not to be missed by anyone with even a whisper of a tune in their heart.
As we peel back the layers of HSCC's serendipitous rise to YouTube fame, it's clear that the road to viral success is paved with both intention and chance. Our conversation unearths the dynamics of their weekly musical odyssey—where Adelaide's finest musicians unite for the love of the craft, polishing and perfecting each note to resonant perfection. It's a testament to the band's dedication that artistry trumps predictability, ensuring that each performance is infused with an authenticity that listeners across the globe have come to cherish.
The sonic journey doesn't stop there; we traverse the intricacies of setlist creation and the thrills of taking our sound on tour. I open up about the subtle art of song selection—a dance of personal vision and collective input—and the excitement of bringing our music to life on stages around the world. Whether it's discussing brand endorsements that fine-tune our presence or musing over the universal language of music that captivates both young and old, this episode is an anthem for the power of timeless tunes and the unbreakable bonds they forge. So plug in, tune-up, and let's hit the play button on an episode that's all heart and all soul.
Joining me on the airwaves of Backstage Pass Radio is none other than the remarkable Con Delo, founder and maestro bassist of the Hindley Street Country Club.
We wade through the melodic waters of Con's past, where a fusion of Macedonian and Greek influences concocted a profound love for the soulful rhythms of Motown and American classics. His tale is one of musical alchemy, from pillow-stuffed drum kits to stirring the hearts of millions online with his band's cover hits—a journey not to be missed by anyone with even a whisper of a tune in their heart.
As we peel back the layers of HSCC's serendipitous rise to YouTube fame, it's clear that the road to viral success is paved with both intention and chance. Our conversation unearths the dynamics of their weekly musical odyssey—where Adelaide's finest musicians unite for the love of the craft, polishing and perfecting each note to resonant perfection. It's a testament to the band's dedication that artistry trumps predictability, ensuring that each performance is infused with an authenticity that listeners across the globe have come to cherish.
The sonic journey doesn't stop there; we traverse the intricacies of setlist creation and the thrills of taking our sound on tour. I open up about the subtle art of song selection—a dance of personal vision and collective input—and the excitement of bringing our music to life on stages around the world. Whether it's discussing brand endorsements that fine-tune our presence or musing over the universal language of music that captivates both young and old, this episode is an anthem for the power of timeless tunes and the unbreakable bonds they forge. So plug in, tune-up, and let's hit the play button on an episode that's all heart and all soul.
I am joined today by a wonderful bass player who hails from South Australia and has put together a group of musicians who have taken a range in and performing classic songs to a whole other level. It's Randy Halsey with Backstage Pass Radio, and I hope you all are tuning in today happy and healthy. I am going to take you down under today to talk to one of the hottest cover bands on the planet. Their rendition of classic songs has yielded, then, millions of videos on YouTube, and they are quickly approaching a million subscribers. The project is called Hindley Street Country Club, so stick around and I will talk to the founder and the king of the four-string, mr Condelo, in 321.
Speaker 2: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 alerts on for this and all upcoming podcasts. And now here's your host of Backstage Pass Radio, randy Halsey.
Speaker 1:I am here with Condelo Conn. How are you, man? It's good to see you.
Speaker 3:Hi Randy here. Why are you and how are you? Everyone in America and all around the world is listening to your awesome podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm doing great man, and thanks so much for joining me. I know that we are in a big time difference here. I think what? 16, 16 and a half hour is the time difference. So it's 6 30 Houston time, 6 30 pm Houston time, and 11 o'clock am the following day in Australia, where you are right. So it's Wednesday here in Texas and Thursday, where you are right, indeed. Well, I wanted to talk to you a little bit, of course, about the project and I wanted to get to know a little bit more about you, and I know the listeners who are familiar with the project Of course want to know more about it and yourself. But were you born and raised there in Adelaide, or was it another part of Australia that you were born and raised?
Speaker 3:in. No, I was born and raised in Australia, in Adelaide, and I come from a Macedonian father and a Greek mother, so my lineage is continental Europe.
Speaker 1:I was wondering where the name Delo originated from right. Was the family musical? Did you come from a musical family? Did you have siblings that were musicians, or did this just happen organically for you like somewhere down the line growing up?
Speaker 3:There was no one in my family that were musical per se in the sense of musicians. But when you grow up in, you know in European culture music is up there with food and love and family and it's ingrained in what we are. So I think I was the one that took the mantle of the family. It's actually perform and play, but to say that any of them were musical, no.
Speaker 1:Were they lovers or intakeors, just casual music fans at all? Or was music just not a big part of them?
Speaker 3:No, music was huge in our house. You know my father used to play all those great deon records and I remember mum having, you know, motown stuff going on and it was always music in the house. You know, whenever mum was cleaning there was music going on or dad had had it in the radio and the car. But and then you have the family get together and there's always music going on. So intrinsically it's formed part of how I, how I hear and produce and arrange music. A lot of that. So them having music in the house certainly shaped a lot of what I've become, certainly.
Speaker 1:You dropped some names there, which is kind of cool, so it sounds like there was a big influence on music that was coming out of the United States. You know you talked about, you know Motown and things like that, right, deon, was that the case?
Speaker 3:I think anyone in modern society, in modern musical society, has to acquiesce to the fact that 99 percent of what you go up listening to, in any genre, has come from it's come from the United States. It was predominant what was on our airways. Of course there's Australian music I'm talking Western, western style music, of course. But yeah, I think the impact of the you know, the black soul and R&B and the Motown, for me personally had the greatest influence, even more than the cultural music that I grew up on, and the reason that it had that impact was because it was just fantastic and still is fantastic.
Speaker 1:I agree with you 100 percent. We always say here, we're down with the Motown sound, right, and it's such a, it's such great music and it's music that you know that you listen to it in the 60s, 70s, 80s. It just never gets old, man, and it's always, it's always a feel good thing when you can listen to some good R&B. You know some good groove and I think you can concur there right.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's really true too. I tell you why, randy? Because if you listen to a lot of mainland European music, that was very, you know, orchestrally based. For me anyway, not you know, right, wrong or indifferent it's almost a little bit mathematical and and clinical, whereas what you said earlier is exactly right the Motown stuff, it felt good, it was never overplayed and it was more about a groove and a feeling than it was about it being mathematical, and I think that's why that's why it will always resonate with people.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. Do you remember when you got your first instrument and what instrument it was Khan?
Speaker 3:My dad somehow got his hands on a pair of drumsticks and he brought them home from work or something like that, and I remember laying the pillows out like couch pillows on the floor and then watching TV and the music shows and playing along to those tunes as a drummer on those pillows that was the beginning.
Speaker 1:So they were like your toms there, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, snares, sure, I started on drums.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that all parents who would want their kid to learn drums would probably prefer that you practice on pillows, right?
Speaker 3:Would you agree to that? All that, all that ruckus, all that ruckus, you know could call for the end.
Speaker 1:Well, what you can't see in my studio, down in that side of my studio, I I'm not a drummer, but I did pick up an electric kit, an Elysis kit, and I always wanted to learn to play. And people come into the studio and rehearse and play and I thought, okay, this is going to be the best of both worlds, because not only can I kind of learn to play the drums, but I can put on the headphones and mute myself where only I can hear it and I don't disturb anybody else in the house, right?
Speaker 3:And it'll probably keep your marriage together too in the long run.
Speaker 1:Well, I say, 37 years later, I don't think I can run Terry off now at this stage, but I don't know. You know, I mean I think it's probably possible if I work hard at it. Well, who influenced you? You know you talked a little bit about Motown, but who was influencing you as a formidable teenager? You know we're hitting that teenage stride, we're really getting a girl. You know we're getting girl crazy around that time and falling in love like and we're about the same age, I believe, right. So I'm just curious, like, who was doing it for you when you were a young teenager? What bands were you gravitating to back?
Speaker 3:then Earthworms and Fire and Toto El Jero, that whole West Coast LA sound. You know the 78 to 84, that period, boss Gags, george Benson, that's what shaped my playing and that's all.
Speaker 1:I listened to Luther Vandross all that really cool soul and groovy stuff, a very eclectic mix of different types of music.
Speaker 3:For you, then, Amongst those names, the white artists that I'm mentioning. They're still very, they're still soul. They're blue-eyed soul. So its roots are still in black American music, no doubt.
Speaker 1:What bands do you feel like you're into these days? Is there I don't know that anybody? As a musician myself, I don't know who's really influencing me. I have some really cool favorites right now, but is there a couple of bands that kind of stick out to you that you're really gravitating to these days?
Speaker 3:You know that, saying that everything that's old is new again, yes, yes, yeah, I'm listening to all the same people. Still, I'd like to expand my horizons, and there are. There's been a few artists over the last 20 years that I've gone oh, you know that's, and one of those is an independent guy out of England called Lewis Taylor. Okay, that's just fantastic and it's really something special. But outside of him, randy, I can't, really, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think I'm so ensconced in what's happening with HSCC and I'm in that genre and in that era, of course, that I'm always searching for tunes for us to record that somehow not necessarily mimic, but somehow have that same taste and same flavor. So, you know, I'll always love, you know, steely Dan. Any musician with his soul does. But I can't really say there's a lot out currently that I go, wow. But I've been getting in lately into some of the southern rock stuff. You know I'm a I'm still an awesome fan of the doobies that goes without saying, you know and for me, sublet to Desi Trucks and a lot of that southern rock little feat. And I've been listening to a lot more of that lately because that's that's again, blue-eyed salt. That's where, that's where I go.
Speaker 1:I agree with you and I've always said this kind of tongue-in-cheek that I turned off the radio in like 1989 and I didn't turn it on for years afterwards. And and here's what happened to me, con is, I went out as a solo artist Somewhere around 2016, and as a solo guy, you know, acoustic singer-songwriter guy. Then I said, you know, you're gonna have to play more than the old rock classics. You're gonna have to know a little country, you're gonna have to mix it up a little bit. So I was kind of forced to step outside of my comfort zone, which I'm an old rocket classic rock guy right, 70s, 80s, classic rock, like that was my thing and so I was forced to go out and learn some Americano stuff, some different things to kind of appeal to To all different people. But kind of like you, you know, I think we're kind of stuck with what we love and and that's kind of where we are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but that's also endemic, randy, because of what you said earlier. You know, turn the radio off in 1989, it's nothing's come through of late that's worth turning the radio on for, yeah, and that is why you have a situation for our genre and our demographic, while the big record companies are paying hundreds and millions of dollars for the catalogs of poor Simon, of steam, fleetwood Mac, of the Eagles, the doobies and stuff. Today just doesn't hold up, but it literally just doesn't hold up, because the kids have got an attention span of if you don't hit them in the chorus in the first 30 seconds, forget it wiping, you're gone.
Speaker 3:The body of work has no time to build, has no time to tell the story to. I could be wrong and I'm probably am wrong tend to agree with you.
Speaker 1:I often told my kids as they were growing up with some of the music that they were listened to. I Said, 20 years from now, that stuff, you will not hear that on the radio, but I promise you that you will hear cashmere by Led Zeppelin for the rest of your life on the radio, like there's no two ways around that there's another fantastic example Led Zeppelin.
Speaker 3:you cannot, as a musician, be not affected by what some of the stuff that they've played and they buy their own admission have taken a lot of their influences from black American blues very much so again, we're both talking about an artist that you know, someone like Led Zeppelin.
Speaker 3:We're talking about an artist or a band that None of it. Not only have they been influential on pop culture, but they've been influential to musicians, of course. So, yeah, what a great situation for those guys that the public love you, and then you have the respect of your musical peers. I mean that's a gift.
Speaker 1:Well, they were hugely influenced by Robert Johnson and and what he was doing with the blues, right? So well, I think sometime around and you correct me if my dates are off, con okay sometime around 2017 you started a project called the Heinley Street Country Club. Talk to the listeners a little bit about what this project is all about. Give us the 50,000 foot view and then we'll dive in a little bit deeper on HSCC.
Speaker 3:Okay in a nutshell, november of 17, we went in there, just started recording some songs that I liked, that I arranged and I bought the people in for, and we recorded them, we dumped them onto YouTube and we did one song and it was fun. You know, it's a bit of fun. Then we did another one and they went on for four, five, six weeks and there was nothing, nothing really to write home about. They were just just recording some tunes. And then it became a bit of a just, we just all got together, we just kept on doing it, and so we'd record a couple of tunes in a day, which means we wouldn't have to record again, you know, for a couple of weeks or whatever, or record two tunes a day over two days, and the process is very quick. It's all over and within three or four hours and people think that we're there for days and rehearsing, getting everything. No, it happens very, very quickly Because the guys you know, most of the guys involved can play, you know. So we just kept on doing it.
Speaker 3:And then and I've not missed the release now Randy, with HSCC Since that, since November of 2017. I've not missed a Friday in all that time. Come, I'm covered, come whatever, I've not missed a Friday.
Speaker 1:That's all of that time and it's paid off for you. Look where, look where the project is now. How great is that?
Speaker 3:The project. The project has become not what I expected it to be. But the beauty of that, you know, is you know you get to our age, you kind of know where things are going because you kind of been there and been there, done that scene, of course. And now this it's just, you know, it's just taken everyone by surprise because of the scope, and so we just kept on releasing tunes. And then we released just the two of us, an arrangement, I did a vat of the bill withers global Washington song and I think it's just sat there for a month or two, I think, just innocuously.
Speaker 3:And then bill withers sadly passed away, and then people went down the rabbit hole looking for bill withers tunes and then that version just went mad. And then, literally, people started liking some of our newer stuff and they just kept on watching and kept on watching and then, brother, all I can say is it just went, boom, it sounds like it's about being in the right place at the right time, con, and it sounds like with bill withers piece, it sounds like that's it might have been what happened a little bit right.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, but it's also. I'm a firm believer to that. You know, Hard work and luck are only two of two of the ingredient of success. That third bit of success is being ready, absolutely 100%, you know and it is 100%.
Speaker 3:I refuse to accept any other answer or opinion. For me, anyway, it was, it was. Hcc has been an absolute gift from God because it's attached so many people during an awful time, during the pandemic. It's just touched and reached a lot of people in a very, very positive fashion and that's evident because you know, I get countless emails and countless messages saying how HCC has helped them really live. You know the soundtrack of their youth and it really we've gone from in May of 21,. I think, yeah, 21, yeah, may have four years later were a hundred thousand subscribers and a hundred million views, and People think that the people that are doing their own projects similar to this, you would think, after a hundred thousand subscribers and a hundred million views, that your phone rings off the hook with offers. That's not the case. That's not the case at all. But what does that mean? You start getting into that half a million subscribers in half a billion views. Well, yeah, then the phone really starts to ramp.
Speaker 1:Well, I know there's certain. There's all kinds of demographics. There's people that listen to this show backstage past radio around the world. The age groups vary, of course. Musical taste varies. Some are musicians, some are not musicians, right, but sitting in the musician seat it's interesting that you mentioned earlier. You kind of go in on a Friday with a group of musicians and you record and it's a straightforward process for the most part. But your stuff and this this is speaking from a musician and I didn't even think to ask you this question until you mentioned it but it sounds so polished, con, like like you could have been in the studio for days and I think it's a testament to the caliber of musician that you're pulling in there and Adelaide, right, I mean these are top-notch people that can come in and Kick these songs in the ass and get in and out of that studio and still sound like you know maybe you did a thousand takes and just got it perfect, but I mean they sound so polished on the internet, so kudos for that.
Speaker 3:What it is is that, from when HSCC started to where it is now, a lot of the faces that, because I bring in different people all the time, a lot of the faces that were around, say, three years ago, are not around anymore because they just weren't where we needed them to be. The last two or three years especially, have been. They're real good players. Or you know, we've all done a ton of studio, a ton of session work and you can tell, because whatever you see online, we generally the way that it works is that I say to the guys here's the two tunes or three tunes for the day. They learn them and I saw them once. You've learned that's great at home. Then when you come to the studio you forget about it. Then I say, listen, we know how it goes. This. I want to change this here. I want to put a chord substitution here, I want to change the arrangement here, or I want to add a solo here or take something out, and it's all done on the fly. We run the tune maybe twice, three times, and then we press record and then we do two or three takes and that's the best take and then we move on to the next one. So it was. I think it was only about a month ago. We know we knocked out in Not doubt four tunes or five tunes in six hours worth of content, and so the musicians out there that know when you're recording live like that, randy, as you know, there's nowhere to hide. You know you'll know your stuff. You've got to know your notes. You know if you make a mistake book, start again up to the top. So they're good players. There's not a whole lot of stuff going on that people don't a lot of smoke and mirrors and stuff. It's not like that. And if a proper musician can listen to it and also hear it, not just listen to it, they'll go yeah, that's the real deal there, or whatever. Now, of course, by the time it comes out of your amp or the drums or the mics and everything and it goes into the desk, of course it's gonna sound cleaner, because it's not.
Speaker 3:We're actually going through digital equipment In principle. We know what you're saying. Yeah, we're fortunate, we're very it's a very polished out and our engineer, who's based in America, is Pete Souther Just a fantastic, fantastic engineer, really really something special. So we record the tunes. It's all done through. We've got a really fantastic arrangement and endorsement with shore microphones. They've given us just so much stuff to record and then we record it within an hour after the session finish. This is Jordan, my senior, but also who does the recording on the day. He's already got an email off to Pete in New York.
Speaker 3:Pete comes back to me with a rough mix, then I produce it accordingly, like I've done from the get go, and what you get is to what you get, and for people that have heard our older stuff to our newer stuff, you can hear the golf. It's from stuff we recorded when we first started. To me it always felt very, a little bit template-like, whereas now we've got a proper world-class engineer engineering it and that's why, sonically, you can really really hear the difference and you're much more able to hear the nuances in what we're doing. It's all done very, very quickly. We actually flew Pete out from New York to be involved in some of our sessions to actually see how it goes down. He's playing guitar on a couple of tracks as of late, but even he said to me he says man, I knew you guys were quick and I knew you guys were good, he said, but until I actually came all the way from halfway across the world to see. I would never have believed it.
Speaker 1:Well, the studio that you guys say you've recorded some of the latest stuff in, is that a home studio or is that a regular studio that you go to?
Speaker 3:That's actually a great question. Normally when we record, randy, the way that we're set up because with our microphones again I say I've got to give Shaw a big, big plug we record it into an Apple Mac. We can actually come into anyone's lounge room what you think you guys call it living room Into a living room. We can come into your garage, we could come into wherever and we can record. We don't need monitors, we don't need a PA system, it's all done with in-ears. We come in there and record, we dump it onto the Mac and we're off.
Speaker 3:That is a studio that's called the House of SAP, sap in Adelaide. A guy by the name of Reno Caffone runs that place and it's just sonically, it's just a great space. We've just been recording there lately. Soon, we're going to be recording some more tunes back in one of our favorite cafes. We're very fortunate when we eventually hit the road into America, we're not going to be stopping our recording. We're actually going to be recording on the road. We could do it in a hotel lobby. That's awesome. We could do it in a hotel room.
Speaker 1:Well, that would be a cool little take to have. It's kind of like chronicling your journey across the world right Recording in different places all the time, and not just Adelaide all the time. I think that would be cool, absolutely correct.
Speaker 3:One of our biggest markets is obviously it's America. It accounts for, I think, 18 or 20% of our global market, but of that, texas is our. Is it first or second? One of the one of the biggest markets in America Go?
Speaker 1:Texas.
Speaker 3:I kind of understand why yeah, one of the interviews that I've given, what I'm finding Texas just have a real, genuine appreciation for music. There's a lot of good Not to say that anyone else doesn't, but it just seems to be. A lot of our fans come from Texas.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of good music here and it's very diverse. It's very diverse. Talk about the name. How, hscc, how you came up with the name?
Speaker 3:Okay, so I'm. The street in Adelaide is a street where all of us used to do a lot, a lot of gigs back in the 80s and it is the nastiest, dirtiest, filthiest street Full of back then. It was always fighting, it was drugs and all manner of vice. So, cause we used to do a lot of our gigs and we'd be there at three or four in the morning doing shows, it was anything but a country club. So it's a play on words. It's like saying you know the Sahara, the Sahara Desert Yacht Club, right.
Speaker 3:You know, or it's just a play on words, of course, if anything but a country club.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:One of the best things about it is when I named the band or the project, I was confident that, no matter in a trillions and trillions of names you can put into the internet, there will only ever be one Hindley Street country club. Of course, it's the only one.
Speaker 1:And that's important, to be unique and to be to not be lumped in with 18 other projects with the same name. Right, which one are you kind of? Well, there's only one, you know. I don't have to fight over who we are.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, why is it important to you we talk about the class of musician that you guys are right. Why is it important to you to cover songs versus that of writing and recording material that you guys would call your own? And I'm sure I'm the 8,000th person that's asked you that question. Right, and it's not a slide. I love cover music, I love tribute music some of the greatest musicians in the world but I'm curious kind of your thought process around. Will Hindley Street always be that cover band or that kind of tribute project to the music of our times?
Speaker 3:Or will you write your own stuff? You've now asked that question for the 8,000th and first time. Right, I'm a big, big proponent of say, in your lane. If people say in their lanes there would be no accidents, it is just my calling, or whatever it is. This is my lane. To do reimagined versions of songs that have touched me or felt me, that I've felt something for growing up, or even currently, that is my lane. Most people in my situation, with such a massive, massive subscriber base and massive viewership, I could write an original tune, so to speak. Not that that's an easy thing to do. Write an original tune and I could say, hey, everyone, we're about to release our first original tune and I'm pretty sure we'd get into the million views very, very quickly. And if I was to sell it on iTunes to like a bucket track or whatever, and there'd be some money to be made. But that is then me pile, laying something into something that wasn't its intention, and there I'm now driving out of my lane and that's when accidents are gonna happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very nicely said, and it sounds to me like this was never, never a project to recognize an income. This was for the sheer love of doing music with other, like wonderful, talented musicians. It was all for the love of music, right, con?
Speaker 3:That is 100% correct and you'll see other projects that have happened as a result of HSCD. And the motivation is not the integrity, the motivation is not the music. The motivation is not the sharing of music and the sharing of stories and the sharing of brotherhood and camaraderie. It's not. It's purely designed to make money. It will never work Because that isn't what it was intended to do. And so if all the people that have been involved in HSCD that have come and gone it's always been like a floating roster, or let's call it, of singers or musicians, because I, like certain people, can sing certain songs in a better fashion, certain players play certain styles better than others, and I bring people in, but some of the faces and names that were involved are no longer with HSCD because it's not their journey.
Speaker 3:Of course, it's not what they're supposed to be doing, and most of my guys, like Danny, my lead singer, brad, my drummer, dave Ross, my keyboard player, who also the cat and singer, and Jordan, who's a bit younger, but the rest of us we've done covers our whole life, all around the world, and for me this was the culmination of doing the songs that I want to do, re-imagining them, changing their grooves, giving them the HSCC muscle that we call it and just doing songs that we like and not trying to reinvent the wheel. There's a reason why Led Zeppelin is Led Zeppelin and there's a reason why the Doobie Brothers are the Doobie Brothers and so on and so on. It's because that is their lane. Their lane was to write music and for every massive star we hear that's made millions of dollars out of it, 99% more. That never did and I wasn't prepared to take that punt and start writing original music. What to hit the road and be sleeping in people's couches?
Speaker 1:No, thank you. Well, thank you, and I totally, 100% respect that and can understand why and where you're coming from, because, kind of like backstage pass radio, it doesn't have near millions, hundreds of millions of listeners, but for a podcast I do very well. But it was really started for two reasons and this was my lane. I'm a musician, so I wanted to do two things. Number one I wanted to expose my peers that play around here locally, in other words, give them a platform to tell people about what they have going on. The second part of it is I'm a music junkie myself. I want to know the stories behind the songs. I get inside the songs. I want to know about the artists where they record all of the things that most people find boring, right? I?
Speaker 2:find it very interesting.
Speaker 1:And money. Money was never a third thing of why I started this. I could care less about making a dime from this, but it was just the love of hearing. The stories really is where backstage pass came from right.
Speaker 3:Let me just say Diagrithic, that's a great name. Backstage is a great name. Look at someone like Rick Beardo, right, yeah? So there's a guy who's obviously a trained professional musician. Of course he knows exactly what he's talking about. No one is going to tell me. He sat downstairs in his studio one night and thought you know, I'm going to go online, I'm going to critique some songs and talk about the songs and how great they are, and then I'm going to make, I'm going to become Rick Beardo. No, he's huge, he's massive and people listen to the man Because everything he does, of course he is there. You know, going to be trying to monetize what he's doing now, but he's turned that into a business because he remained, true, he remained, he had integrity with what he was doing. Yes, but again and that gets back to what I'm saying If that is his lane, yes.
Speaker 3:That is his lane, this is your lane, this is my lane, all the wonderful people that are listening to this podcast and when they get to a certain age, like you touched on earlier, you start to understand really what staying in your lane is. Of course you do. Well, I think you have to acquiesce or bend over and not fulfill your dreams. The trick is just to realize that there's a reason that you're on your path.
Speaker 1:And I think the common denominator is the love for what you're doing. And I think you'll agree with me, being a guitarist, that you can't. You can't just go to the music store and buy a guitar and say I want to learn the guitar and get past the whole callusing the fingers. You have to first want to love the instrument and the music in order to put the time into play. If there's no love, there's no learning the guitar. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And you say that look at guys like yourself and there's my and I'm sure like a listening of musicians that are listening. So I'm looking at your screen and the public can't see it, but I can see three, three or four or five acoustics, couple of electrics and all of that kind of stuff. But most people and I've got I just reckon I've got 12 or 13 bass guitars, Randy, I'm always playing the same one, yeah, and all of your listens out there, we've all got that go to instrument. Of course that's because that instrument was what we're supposed to be playing. Yes, we're called to that instrument. We're called to that piece of wood with strings on it or whatever, or a set of drums or whatever, that keyboard. We're called to that that instrument. And it's the same way we're called to play music. It's not necessarily good to make a living out of it, but you're called in a certain way to do the things that you do.
Speaker 1:But, Khan, do me a favor and set the record straight for my wife, Terry, and tell her one guitar. You can't just have one because they all sound different. When I tell her, she doesn't believe me. So please just say what I just said.
Speaker 3:What you've got to say is I've got six or seven guitars, honey, and you don't may not understand, but they all sound different. Unlike you, I only want one wife, because that's the sound I want to hear.
Speaker 1:There you go. I've never heard it put that way. Thank you, this whole interview is worth that piece right there. I appreciate that. I don't know if it was the first song. It was one of the original ones. But what was the first? Was it the Bill Withers tune that was the first one that HSCC ever recorded, or was that was? Was that one of the early ones? What was the first?
Speaker 3:song. No, no, that was remember when I said earlier I'm not Mr Week since November 17. That was about a good you know 15, 16 months in. Things were just plotting along and we were getting you know musicians saying, oh, this is good, but that was the one that broke it.
Speaker 1:Why was it that song? Why was it not something else, right, was it? Was there something that drew you to that song to be the first one?
Speaker 3:No, I didn't really plan on it being the first one. I've picked every single song that HSCC has ever done from the get go. I've picked all of those songs and that one was a case of. It was different enough to get people's attention, but ultimately the passing of Bill Withers. But because it was played well and performed well, it was enough for people to think, well, this is good enough for me to keep on. What else have these guys got? That's pretty much how I see it. I got you and it's a song I played six nights a week growing up in pubs and in clubs and I just wanted to do a different arrangement of it. That wasn't as because the original is very original Just fantastic is what it is and we just gave it a bit more of a, laid it back a little bit, made it a bit more fast.
Speaker 1:Are you a theory trained player Like do you, do you know theory, music theory? Are you a by ear player?
Speaker 3:I've never had a lesson in my life. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:Some of the best artists are that they don't know what a quarter note is or a dotted half note. They just go and do it right. I think that's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been doing sessions and so forth. I've learned reading charts and stuff like in the core charts on a problem and obviously the odd dot here and there. But to put all that, you know we call it fly shit here in Australia. But all that fly shit in front of you and read it from 30 paces.
Speaker 1:No, it's no, it's right.
Speaker 3:There's a bunch of yeah, there's a couple of guys here, some really really good bassists, really good basis that they can read fly shit at 30 paces and read it like we're talking as we are now. But no, I certainly wasn't like that. Yeah, but I never got booked for my sessions and documentaries and movies. I never got booked for my. Put a chart in front of me, let's press record. I used to get booked for those for my few and I said a few notes here, a few bits of fly shit here, there, no problem, but I think most of the time look at someone like Lewis Johnson, you know, did all those massive Quincy Jones sessions can't read, you can't read, courtyards whilst he was alive and the Pino Paladinos of this world. That monster, monster plays quite a. I don't read, but you don't get booked for your ability to read on those kind of jobs.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we have to rely on our good looks Khan. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Oh, but how I wish I did have a lot more theory and be like the Nathanese and the least class of this world that can read well and play well and do everything well.
Speaker 2:But again that gets back to.
Speaker 3:That's their lane. They're the kings. That's why they are at the top of the mountain.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree. Well, I know you've had many great players that have come in and out, like it's been a little bit of a revolving door for the project. They've been intentional though, of course. Of course it is. Are there several artists that you consider core members of HSCC?
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretty much what you see on the videos at the moment, but the main core guys which I'd say like there they are.
Speaker 3:It would be, you know, brad Palane on drums, dave Ross on keyboards, jake Millich, my guitar player, his wife Kat the singer she's just, she's well classed, she just, she's just unbelievable, literally to be in the room when she sings, when we're rehearsing for the tours or when we're recording. She's just ridiculously good. And then obviously Danny, the older statesmen of the band with me, danny LaPresto and Jordan, and probably my saxophonist, jason McMahon. They're the core guys, but wherever possible we like to go out with our horn section. Yeah, in principle, that's the core group.
Speaker 1:You've kind of answered this, but is it always you who ultimately decides what songs you're going to do? Do you not solicit any input from maybe quote unquote some of these core members, or do you just go in one morning or one afternoon and say this is the one, get prepared. Is that kind of how it goes down?
Speaker 3:When you're running a show, or sometimes in these sessions, randy, there's a horn section percussionist who we use by the name of Steve Todd, who's just the most wonderful man, and a couple of guitar players on track, some tracks, some backing vocalists. If one person doesn't call the shots, it's just chaos. So that's endemic of how I pick my tunes. If I let everyone pick their tunes, whilst they may love the tune, whilst they may think that they do a great job on the chain, it isn't necessarily a tune that is remaining true to the lane that we're in. So I always listen. Of course it's cost nothing to listen on or respect my guys immensely.
Speaker 3:But, I've got the next and I've always had, even since day one. I've got a master list of songs that are still still have 150 to go and I'm adding to them all the time. So as we go down, we pick them, we pick them, we do them, we do them and I pick them and that's what it is. Some of the guys that made some suggestions on songs which I, like, I never, never, thought I would do and I thought, okay, it's on the list, but it was way back and I said, oh, let's give it a go. And I've done them and they've worked. Some work, some don't. But having said that, we're blessed, randy. Like, if a song for us doesn't work, that's like quarter of a million views. You know most people would be screaming to get quarter of a million views on something. That gives you an indication of how blessed we all are.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I would say that horn section and we talked about Motown and you know the horns are very much a part of that Motown sound and when I listened to I think it was the song you guys did, was it silly love songs by wings? Yeah, yeah, oh shit.
Speaker 3:That's the horn sound, it's so good man.
Speaker 3:That was the same day that we recorded something happen on the way to heaven as well. Whenever they got the horn section, I'll record, say, two or three tunes that have got the horn man. The Eads is our, he runs our horn section with along, he plays trumpet along with Luke White man. When those guys are in the zone and, like you know, it's a lot of times horn players as a section they fart their notes or they're not tight. And you know, there's one thing I can't handle is the sloppy horn section and that's because I've grown up listening to Quincy Jones's horn section. Yes, now, jerry Hay, gary Grant, bill Reaconback, larry Williams, that's a horn section. So I'm really critical on those guys, but they're so, so good and you know what man, funny as shit, so funny to be out in the road with you. Just good, good guys.
Speaker 1:Well, I can tell you. Sometime back, actually early on when I started the show, I did an interview with a guy that was a friend of a friend, basically a great musician, and he just happened to know Steve Howard, who played horn and wings with Paul McCartney, and he lived in up in the Dallas area where Michael Lane Hildebrandt lived. And I said man, I am a huge wings fan, I just love wings. I said you think there's any way that I could ever get you to call Steve Howard and have him? I mean, he was on 74, 75, 76, wings to a right did played on all of those records.
Speaker 1:And I talked to Steve several times on the phone. He was like, so excited to do my show, absolutely, let's set it up, blah, blah, blah. And then one day, out of the clear blue, he said, randy, I'm not going to be able to do the show. And I said, okay, no worries, we'll reschedule. And then I, and then I never heard back from him and I never had closure and I usually don't share that story, but it was. It was kind of kind of odd. So hopefully Steve resurfaces. But like when I heard you guys do the whole, the whole wings thing, it was like wow, and you and you did it spot on. I mean congrats and kudos to that. That's a, that's some of the.
Speaker 1:That's some of the stuff that formed me as a musician back in the day. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Silly love songs. We actually, out of the 300 songs that we've got to pick from Randy, that actually makes a live show and we do a medley of live and let die and into that one. Wow, good stuff. Yeah, we're pretty lucky man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got a YouTube popularity done for HSCC as it relates to booking shows for the band. I mean, from the guy that sits over here and kind of look as the outsider looking in and I book all of my own shows and that type of thing. So I'm kind of in that business with you, but I have to think that that had to have opened so many doors for you guys to go in and play, you know, at some of the prime spots. Would you agree or disagree with that?
Speaker 3:Definitely in Australia. We've done. We're about to embark on another tour in April, another, I think, two or a half month tour. Then we've got some other stuff and then we still are not the rest of the country and a repeat of the country in September. But it's got to the point now.
Speaker 3:Well, I used to book everything and take care of everything, book the rooms, and it was a logistical nightmare. Like it's exhausting. It really is dealing with, you know, 14 flights and then hotel rooms and high Car cars and backline and sound guys, and then you know ticket sales and marketing. It's got to the point now where it's become too big and I just I don't, of course I watch it, but I don't do it anymore like I used to. But I'm still watching over the books, as you have to.
Speaker 3:But we've done some private shows.
Speaker 3:We couldn't do it, take any photographs because they were high end events and stuff.
Speaker 3:But we've been flown all around the world to do one nighters, you know, just a beautiful thing, and not really not that long ago we were flown to the south of Italy, you know, to do this event, and Asia, and I'm getting calls now from all over the world to do this, this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:But you know what it is, randy, it's really good and I'm so grateful to wake up in the morning these days and I'm not a prolific sleeper at the best of times but the phone's pinging all night and there's. You know they're interested in doing this, they're interested in doing that, Like it's so encouraging and such a blessing to be relevant again when I'm pushing 60. So you know, all of a sudden I'm dealing with things that I would have given my left leg to do in my early 20s, to be being recognized by a lot of the people that I've played on these original songs, or the artists themselves, or you know, it's just, it's hard to explain and no one could have ever told me as recently as three or four years ago this would morph into what it's to come.
Speaker 1:Do you ever look back and say, man, why didn't these calls come 30 years ago, when I was a young stud and had the energy to get out and just go to all hours of the night? You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like oh, it's funny because that's because we finish a gig. Randy, Some of the gigs were done on a big gig.
Speaker 1:We're back at the hotel.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 1:I get it no party and no, nothing, right? I totally know.
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm not interested. You know we get to meet some wonderful people, some really influential people and all of that, but we're all back. You know, we're back at the hotel resting.
Speaker 1:Totally understand. I totally understand If you're anything like me. I'm a wake up early kind of guy. I'm not a night owl. I'll be up in the studio editing, do stuff, doing stuff for my podcast at 435 o'clock on a Saturday morning. That's when I'm fresh. That's odd for a musician, because most musicians are creatures of the night.
Speaker 3:Right, they're up all night, but isn't it great to wake up, like you say, at 435 in the morning, and come down and be just so enthused, hit what you're calling work, you know getting the podcast and even what we're doing with this chat.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic. It is. It really is. What about plans to come to the US specifically? Is there anything lined out for you guys right now for some dates in the US?
Speaker 3:Just prior to COVID really taking a foothold, paperwork had been signed for a residency in Vegas. It was signed and done, and then the promoter there rightly so was concerned with COVID and ticket sales, and it was the right decision. So now what's happened is we're now in negotiations with a couple of promoters up there to look after us through North America, canada and South America. So that's in its not in its early stages, probably a bit more than that, but we were at the moment. For us is probably one of our main focuses to get up there, because that's the majority of our market. Yeah, and I don't exaggerate, randy, I get 20, 30 messages a day. When are we coming to America? When are we coming to America? So a couple of promoters that have been privy to all that information. I think their attitude is we're a product enough that, even if we only did say initially, four or five shows in America and spread it from coast to coast, people will travel to the show.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a great problem to have you know where you're getting 20, 30, 30 things a day. Well, you spoke a little earlier about a sure endorsement and I think you picked that one up along the way. Talk to the listeners a little bit about the endorsements that HSCC has not just sure, but I think there might be some other ones as well. Correct? Yes, there are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, primarily sure sure came on and gave us so much stuff I had to go and buy cases for it, Randy Like every conceivable recording mic you know, from the SM spoons to the 58, still the drum pack mics or the guitar mics, condensers, everything so that when we record we're giving the best possible, you know, output of sound. And in terms of sure themselves, they get quite a bit of mileage because most people now are buying products to record at home. We've been great for them and they've been great for us and they've been so good to us, especially with all their in-ear monitoring. It's just world-class stuff. Then I initially got endorsed by Lainey Amplifiers over in England with all their new range of gear and as a result I'm one of their artists. And then Jake and Damien now are both with Lainey, so whenever we hit the road or we record it's all Lainey gear for amplifiers. And then our keyboard players got just finished signing up a big Roland endorsement. So they gave us half a dozen of their latest keyboards just world-class stuff and their electronic drums.
Speaker 3:The Roland electronic drums are frightening. They actually look like a real kit. They've got the shells and everything and you can get any sound you want out of them. They're our principal endorseees, artists and so forth, but there's just talk at the moment. There's a couple of companies looking at having some brand placement with us as well to promote their product, because we cater to that 45, 50 up to 70. That's our sweet spot of demographic and those people drive nice cars or have more disposable income because the kids are gone. There's alcohol companies, red wine or lifestyle companies. So I think 2024 is already in the first two weeks. It's just been huge with what's happened just in the first two weeks and I think it's that whole plant, seed and cultivate and I think it's getting to that point where, when I say getting to that point, it's getting to a point where it's now becoming increasingly out of my hands and I've got to let the big boys come in and do what they do.
Speaker 1:Too big for your britches now, aren't you?
Speaker 3:Oh man, I feel like just when you think you know something, there's someone that knows all of it, oh yeah 100%, 100%.
Speaker 1:Well, it's nice to have the manufacturers back you guys like that and believe in what talent you're bringing to the table. I'm a big. I don't have a sponsorship or an endorsement, but I'm a big sure in-ear monitor guy. I use the SE535s, I love those monitors and, yeah, for sure, the PSM 300, I use that and that's what I use in my duo shows these days, but have always been a big sure fan. You know specifically, they make a world-class product.
Speaker 3:Well, if your podcast continues to grow, they'll come and knock.
Speaker 1:For sure, con. What comes to mind, like because there's people that have coined this of you guys and you seem like a really humble guy and I don't know how you think about when people say this about you or the project. But what comes to your mind when you get dubbed the greatest cover band in the world I'm sure that you've heard this at some point in time, right. When somebody says, hey, I heard that you guys were the greatest cover band in the world, or of all time, or whatever their coin, what does that mean to you as a performer and what appears to be a pretty humble guy, right? What does it mean to you?
Speaker 3:Well, one at our core. We are exactly that. We are a cover band. Yes, we reimagine them and do rearrangements of the songs, but we are a cover band. So if you are going to be a cover band, then own that. You're a cover band, I am a cover band. Are we the world's best cover band? I don't believe so, because there's a lot of. Like I said earlier, when you think you know something, there's someone better than you. We are a good cover band and I guess half a billion views can't be all wrong in the respect that they keep on coming back and you know more than a million subscribers if you add up all our social media platform.
Speaker 3:And I would argue that to some people, the greatest basketballer in history is Michael Jordan, but there's just as many people that saying someone else is better. It's all subjective, Of course. If people want to call me that, you can call me that. If you want to call me humble or you want to call me arrogant, you can call me both of those. I'm not going to lose any sleep either way. Sure, what anyone thinks of HSCC or me, that's their business. That's not mine and I respect that. That's your opinion, but at the end of the day, you cannot please everybody Never.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure you've heard the old saying you can call me arrogant, you can call me whatever you want. Don't you dare call me late for dinner. See, you've been around the block, man, You've done your homework.
Speaker 3:Boss, I say we've got to get to Texas. And I said I know why? And they say why. They say just to eat some barbecue, riyals, Riyal, that's right, that's right. It'll be a tour in Texas like a great meal in Texas, rudely interrupted by a show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, Well, listen, I have to think that by doing such great covers, this has been, you know, these things have been seen by younger people and this has opened up, you know, a whole new fan base for you guys, and I think it's really. I guess these songs are being heard by a younger generation now because you guys are so popular on YouTube and YouTube is an old person's platform, but it's a lot of young people out there and they're hearing you guys do these songs and I have to think that it's opening up a whole new audience for these songs that you and I grew up loving. Do you think there's any truth to that assumption?
Speaker 3:That is 100% true, because we're noticing on our, at our live shows. Parents are coming with their kids and that is so cool for me. You know, when, as a as a 19 or 20, 22 year old, that you're going out with your parents and you're both enjoying the same show, it is so heartwarming, so heartwarming. And a lot of young, young kids are getting turned onto HCCC and these covers because they're listening to their parents play in the car or at home and they're going what's this? And they say, like, what do you mean? What's this? This is what we grew up with. And a lot of the younger kids are realizing that old you know the best.
Speaker 3:I say in my monologue and in part of the show, randy, I say you know, the best new music is old music.
Speaker 1:I agree with you there. Well, even my kids. If you ask my kids who are all grown adults now who who are the greatest songwriters on the planet, the first thing that would probably come out of their mouth are the brothers give right. And that's the group, and that's the group that I listen to in the house and I think are the most magnificent songwriters on the planet earth. And they would, they would agree with that, and it's all because I instilled that in them.
Speaker 1:So when these young kids come to your shows with their parents, you have to think that they're. Their parents did a due diligence of instilling this great music into their ears as a young kid, right? What better gift is that? Monetary gifts and toys and all that is is great, it's shit. But man, putting that music that lasts a lifetime in the ears of a kid man is. There's no greater gift on the planet as far as I'm concerned and you could argue not you, but people can argue that with me until they're blue in the face and it's undisputed, Even when it's funny, you mentioned that the brothers give.
Speaker 3:Like a couple of weeks ago, when we released Too Much Heaven, it just went mental, it just went crazy. I mean, we did half a million views in the first I think three or four days and of course, like anything, it slows down. But I then I put it on a Facebook on a reel, like just a 90 second grab and in the space of I think six days it had done 1.3 million views. And there's a reason for that is because it's a great song.
Speaker 1:Really con hands down one of the best songs that they ever wrote. In my opinion, like in. You guys said you did such due diligence to that song, it was. You know those guys bury with that falsetto voice. They're not an easy band to cover by any stretch, but you guys did such a nice job on that. Kudos on the performance you know when we recorded.
Speaker 3:When we recorded that, Randy, it was so quick, we did it in two takes and we just knew there was no point in doing any more. They try and make it better or try and clean it. It just had something about it and in the video, there's sections in it where I'm smiling my ass off, yeah, when we're hitting certain little accents and little anticipations, because it just that particular track just took over. It had its own energy and even though I'm out there, you know, directing it all, it called all the shots and it basically said play the song, sing the song and just leave it alone. Yeah, and it's exactly what we did and let it take its course.
Speaker 1:Isn't it? You said you smiled at some of the accents of the song which a lot of listeners of music would never. First of all, they probably don't know what you're even referring to. But I know exactly what you're talking about because it's pieces, it's small tidbits in a song that are not the song if they're left out in. If you think about the BG's and Barry Gipp, it's the, you know nobody. You know it's certain things that have to be in that song to make them like the original.
Speaker 3:So I know exactly the lengths of the notes. Yes, the lengths of the everything. Yeah, it's a lot, it's quite a science in that respect.
Speaker 1:Well, wonderful job, and I know that you're the head Indian there calling all the shots on what songs are done. But if I have any input, man you got, you guys have to do some more BG somewhere down the line, right, there's got to be another song in there by you guys, with the BG's for sure. Are there any plans to ever press any of this material onto a format like a CD or vinyl? Has that ever crossed your mind at all?
Speaker 3:We're on Spotify like everybody else, but we're in the process now of picking out best and that's a that's a really hard call to do that too, randy, with that many songs. But we're looking at probably getting out not our probably I shouldn't say ours, not fair for the guys. I'm probably going to pick our best, my, but I consider the best stuff that we've done and doing an album of that on vinyl and that would be a limited release maybe, maybe 500 copies or something like that, and we'll ship, but definitely on the album. But I want to go for old school, the album with the liner notes, photographs, who played on what, who produced what. I want to make it like an old school where you take out the sleeve and you read it. And it was an experience for us growing up. The liner notes were just as important as the vinyl.
Speaker 1:Man you like. You're hitting the nail right on the head here. You know, a year ago, a year and a half ago, I said I had a I don't know what relationship he would be to me, but he came in and was collecting vinyl and he just talked about it a lot and it kind of created this interest like, hmm, I wound up going out and buying a turntable and starting a vinyl collection and con. I can remember the first piece of vinyl that I bought in forever. Like you know, the last time I listened to vinyl I was a kid right, and I remember busting the wrapper on this piece of vinyl and sliding it out of that sleeve and I got the hair on the back of my neck. Man, I'm telling you, it stood up Because it's an experience to pull it out and, oh my God, read the liner notes. I would read the liner notes before I even put the stuff on the turntable over there. Right, that was just as important to me as the music that was coming out of there Like, oh, that's great.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you why. Because because you loved music, even when it's not like now, you press a button on your phone or your screen and the song comes up. You took out that black piece of vinyl with care. You held it on the edges so you wouldn't put a finger smirk on it. It was a ritual in the sense of there was a process. It took it out of the plastic. You didn't want to get the cover or crease it. Out came the track and if you were really lucky, you had him in plastic inside its own white case inside it and then, you opened up and out came the notes.
Speaker 3:Oh, it was an experience.
Speaker 1:You know, I had I don't know if you remember a band called White Lion from the 80s. I had Mike Tramp, the lead singer of that band, on my show and we talked about the very thing. It was magical to sit down on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and just pull a record out and, like you said, grab the edges and put it on and then kick back with your coffee and listen. It was an experience to listen to the music. It wasn't just noise in the background, like Spotify. You can cue up a bunch of shit on Spotify and listen and you're not paying any attention. But, man, when you put a record on the turntable, you were inside of the songs, or you should be inside the songs at that point.
Speaker 3:And how about the warmth, the warmth of sound of vinyl? You put the needle on it and you're like, and on it goes, man, and the warmth.
Speaker 1:And the fat and rich and lush. I throw it on that turntable right there and pipe it through that EV50 right there. Gosh dang it, it sounds amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's the plan. I mean. The funny problem is, we'll do an album and all that that entails. The only problem is that you just never get it like I said earlier, with so many songs, the ones that I pick, I've even contemplated doing, you know, hscc the Rock Tunes, or HSCC Ballads, or HSCC Soul or whatever. But I think I'm just going to do just ones that I know have got a good cross section of appeal and do just the one album and we'll sign it for people and all of that.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that somehow I get notified on that, because I want to be in that line man. I want to be in that line, Conn, Don't forget about me. In your opinion, Conn, what makes a good cover band?
Speaker 3:in your opinion, the right people for the right song, that they not just sing the song but that they dig the song, that they like the song and they come there with an open heart. And the musicians play the song, not their instrument. That's where HSCC is blessed. All my players, my drummer doesn't come and play the drums on the track, he plays the song he serves the song they call it serving the song.
Speaker 1:That's what they say here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the serving the song is excellent analogy. But also, just what am I looking for? It's not obedient, but it's being respectful to the person that wrote the song or the person that performed the song. The reason we're covering it is because it was a good song.
Speaker 1:I agree, I don't know about Australia, but here in the United States there is this tribute band wagon that people are jumping on and they're hugely popular, probably more so than cover bands, right, Because it takes, they specialize in a, an artist, if you will like. It's an Ozzy Osbourne tribute band or a BG's tribute band and they and they've honed that craft around that particular artist. If, if you, if, Heinley Street Country Club became a tribute band, who do you think the tribute band would be? Who do you think of all of the artists that you've done, or all of the artists that you'll do, who do you think you guys would serve the best right as a tribute act?
Speaker 3:I would just never go down that road, randy, okay, that would just never. It's too much of we that we do that we've paid, you know, paid our respects to to then define it into one. I mean, if I had a dollar for every fleet would make tribute band every Queen tribute band, every like they get all the bit, not? Not, it's not that they become tiresome, because that's not the right answer, but back in the day when tribute bands first came out, there was one or two and they but now there's just they become so weekend warrior-ish a lot of them that they don't give the due respect to the, the bands that they're supposedly paying tribute to. Sure, to me, that's only my opinion, yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess, if I rephrase that question, con, I don't. I don't think that you would ever sell out on what you do well, but I didn't know if there was an artist that you feel like you guys do better than any any other right. Is there one that comes to mind?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a big call, wow, I think. I think we we'd certainly, you know, we'd be good at doing. You know, maybe a you know a boss gags, slash, todo slash, that kind of doobies kind of thing Again gets back to that era of that 1978 to 84, that yacht rock period.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:I think we'd be all right with that, yeah.
Speaker 1:What can you share with the listeners as it relates to the upcoming shows or upcoming tours in and around Adelaide or Australia, or even outside, that's that are on the books that you guys will be getting out and doing?
Speaker 3:It's all killer and no filler. Okay.
Speaker 1:Where can the listeners find you guys on social media?
Speaker 3:They can get us on, obviously, youtube at the Hindley Street Country Club. They can get us again on that on Instagram. They can get us on that on Spotify, on Facebook and otherwise. They can go to our website and that's continually getting updated with new dates and content. That's just wwwthehscccom.
Speaker 1:Well, con, listen, this has been a super cool treat for me. I really appreciate you quickly responding to my request to chat. This just went down a couple of days ago, so thank you for that From my end. You never know what you're going to get from each artist, but you've certainly been responsive, which is a treat to me, and this makes my life so much easier, so thank you for that Also. I wish you and all the artists nothing but success, now and in the near future, with all of the HSCC endeavors, so I wish you the best there.
Speaker 3:Thank you, my friend, and to all your listeners and to the time that you put into your podcast. The people do listen and people do care, even when you think that they don't. My friend, persistence speaks, resistance yes.
Speaker 1:I agree. Well for the listeners. I ask you guys to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at backstagepassradiocom. You guys take care of yourselves and each other and we will see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.
Speaker 2: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 R-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.