Guy Gelso Mastered

Mon, 1/3 8:27AM • 1:14:48

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drummer, zebra, play, drum, band, randy, song, record, called, album, good, people, new york, stay, wife, big, couple, day, new orleans, started, Guy Gelso, Backstage Pass Radio, Backstage Radio Podcast, Randy Hulsey, Randy Hulsey, Randy Hulsey Music, Randy Hulsey Podcast

SPEAKERS

Randy Hulsey, Guy Gelso, Adam Gordon

Randy Hulsey  00:00

A very pleasant Good evening to everyone tuning into the show this evening. My special guest is an accomplished percussionist that has traveled the world delivering the rhythm section for one of the greatest bands who ever come out of the great state of Louisiana. He is a session musician as well as a drum instructor, and is a founding member of a band that has mostly a cult following and an international following as well. You guys stick around because I'm going to pick the brain of guy gal. So the visual timekeeper of the rock band zebra, when we return.

Adam Gordon  00:31

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.

Randy Hulsey  01:01

Guy Bienvenue Welcome to the show, my friend. How are you?

Guy Gelso  01:04

Hey, thank you very much, buddy. Glad to be here.

Randy Hulsey  01:08

Yeah, it's a pleasure to get to visit with you for a short time here. Thank you for being so grateful with your time and joining me. I guess years ago, I was with a buddy of mine who was from Lafayette and his dad was a pretty well known urologist there in Lafayette. And we were coming back from Washington, Texas. And I think it was probably somewhere around 83. And my buddy Scott the Cody said, Dude, you gotta listen to this. And he popped in a cassette tape, a cassette tape in the van that we were driving in and it happened to be zebras debut album. So that was my first dose of zebra back in 1983. So you had basically co founded zebra, which became very successful. Take the listeners back to what you were doing maybe pre zebra before before you joined up with Randy and Felix, what was guy doing that

Guy Gelso  02:05

was getting into trouble. That's the truth comes out. No, no, I was, you know, I grew up in California and I came down here. Oh, gosh, I turned 20 Wow. It came down here when I was 20 turned 21 down here. And then, you know, I was playing around I made it clear that I brought my a suitcase on my drumset from California and just was just bumming around not doing much. I was living in the French Quarter and I was putting a few bands together. And during the Mardi Gras, they'd have special band setups and a lot of the clubs so I put together a couple times I put together a band in this club called Part Two Cosmos Part Two down there. And the club owner new Randy also from a band called Shepherds Bush that Felix was in a with him playing guitar actually. So you know, we just kind of met up I went to Felix's place where Randy was at one day and him and I just started jamming just him and I feel it's walking around laughing Addison. And from there, I just kind of you know, Ken went where it went sure for that I was in other bands. And we did shows and you know, just playing around. I've always been in bands at 17 years old and Lake Tahoe playing in bands up there.

Randy Hulsey  03:18

Yep. And I had a conversation with Randy about a week ago and he was mentioning something about you had come to New Orleans by way of California and just never left. I guess it was a after or during a Mardi Gras. I don't know if there was a female involved that or not, but something sudden, I didn't know it was just a party. Right. There you go. Well, that's water under the bridge for sure. But it's funny how the the girls can change things sometime. Right? It was fine. Yeah. Yeah. So

Guy Gelso  03:50

she's a sweet, I still stay in touch with her and, and she's the mother of my son. And I. It's a beautiful thing.

Randy Hulsey  03:58

Yeah, I was always wondering, you know, how you got to New Orleans. And that's an interesting story. But back before that, you know, pre zebra, what were you listening to? What was influencing you music wise back then to become a young

Guy Gelso  04:13

drummer? Well, you know, when you're starting out as a drummer, you don't have an idea grasp of what's what, you know, keeping time and making the song feeling good. All you're trying to do at that point is just play as many fancy chops as you can you want everybody to be impressed and go, Wow. So I was listening to the best drummers I could listen to and in particular, I started getting in. Well, I started out with Jimi Hendrix. I mean, Mitch Mitchell, his drummer was just and is still my idol. idols, saw him a couple of times, believe it or not, that's how old I am. And then I was listening to do a lot of progressive rock. You know, I was just really getting into the whole, you know, Todd Rudman. And utopia and the old Genesis before when Peter Gabriel was yes, and all that stuff, so and a lot of the English bands, and just because the drummers roll more over the top, you know, and so that's where I was going with the whole thing. And, and then when I met Randy and Felix, Randy was really into Led Zeppelin. You know, when I was growing up, I had the first speaking cassettes in my car, I had the first Zeppelin album, and I also had the first tower power album. And then I had four tops and temptations. So all over Yeah. That's listening to everything

Randy Hulsey  05:39

in that's kind of my background, too. I mean, kind of a rock guy, but love. I was always down with the Motown sound like they say it was a great, great music funk

Guy Gelso  05:49

stuff. I love when I hear a powerful drummer, like Tony Thompson, and oh, what was the band that the guys from Duran Duran, we're in

Randy Hulsey  06:01

with Robert Palmer? Oh, the power station, the power station, power station.

Guy Gelso  06:04

I love it when I hear a hard rock drummer, like that plan in a funky style. Yes. And you know, so yeah, I love the funk stuff. And that's what turned me on to bomb John Bonham because he could play really funky within Iran, for sure. You know, so it was it was great stuff. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  06:22

Well, you kind of answered. Yeah, yeah, you you kind of answered that question. I was gonna ask you specifically like Who or What inspired you to become a drummer and not a sax player or a keyboard player in it. And you kind of pointed that out with you know, Hendrix and that type of

Guy Gelso  06:43

the, to be honest, you know, guitar players. This is gonna sound kind of strange, but it it makes a lot of sense to other drummers, guitar players and keyboard players come from a very small that's a very small stroke, the fingers are moving keyboard players fingers move, but drummers are physical man and and I was a physical kind of guy. So you know, the movement of the arms and the sweeping of the whole thing you're the high energy of it, is what appealed to me. And the volume and the hitting things and all of that. And I was always banging on stuff when I was a kid pots and pans. You hear that story all the time. But it's true. Yeah, that's what I was doing. I'd pots and pans out. And pie plates turned upside down on coat hangers. On my mom bought me as a symbol. You know, anything I can do to make noise?

Randy Hulsey  07:33

That's back when times were hard, right? You had to bang on pans and stuff. And you were walking uphill to school both ways in the snow. No.

Guy Gelso  07:43

wasn't gonna buy me a drum set until I can prove I could play. That's right, for sure. Yeah, I got a snare drum out of it in the beginning. There you go. There you go. But, uh, yeah, it's just, you know, it was just the physicality of the whole thing that appealed to me as a drummer, and the motion and the movement. And it just seemed, I don't know, I just

Randy Hulsey  08:03

attracted maybe natural to.

Guy Gelso  08:06

Yeah, and seeing a lot of these guys when I was, you know, growing up some of the, there was a guy, nobody will remember this. Nobody will know this. But there was a guy that was famous in California called Lee Michaels. Now, he was a keyboard player, and he had this drummer frosty. And that was the whole band to people. And I remember seeing a concert and it was so freakin powerful, because he was loud, like a huge martial guitar amp. But coming out of a Hammond keyboard had a great voice. And this drummer was just over the top with all kinds of fancy stuff. And so that just really got me that got me motivated, seeing, you know, seeing Jimi Hendrix with Mitch Mitchell and then some of those bands. You know, when I came to New Orleans, we had a place here called the warehouse, okay, and I actually got to play there three times. And it was the premier concert hall in the New Orleans Louisiana area. And I mean, anybody and everybody came there was just a big warehouse. Yep. You had I mean, I saw the original Allman Brothers there. I saw the original David Bowie, spiders from Mars. I saw the original ELO there. Yeah, the Eagles before they can turn into something. Yeah, best bands in the world. So there was so many drummers to watch. No to go there and watch and that was all before before zebra. Yeah, guess what zebra got started it was it was seven days a week literally seven days a

Randy Hulsey  09:36

week we practice Yeah, I'm sure consumed a lot of stops consumed a lot of time and

Guy Gelso  09:41

we were just we're focused on it. Yeah, we're focused. That's the one thing about the right will say is that we were always dead serious about it. There was no playing games. We're see a lot of bands are in it for the wrong reasons. Well, wrong reasons, not wrong reasons. It's just, you know, they don't have the dedicated to it. Now, I'm gonna thank Randy for that because Felix and I were basically lazy. The driving force behind the whole thing and, and, you know, he was a perfectionist. Yeah. And he knew when something wasn't right. So, you know, he was always hounding us it took us probably still isn't there yet, but took us a while to get used to getting that perfection thing, but it certainly rubbed off on me. So yeah, it was seven days a week practicing all day.

Randy Hulsey  10:29

They say when you play with better musicians, or maybe even somebody that's just more motivated than you, you sometimes step up your game to match their perfection, right? So you didn't have a choice. It sounded like you're either gonna acquiesce to that or you're, you're good. You're gonna go find another band to play.

Guy Gelso  10:49

Start playing games. And that's it. Oh, yeah, sure. In the beginning, I was doing all that. You know, I can't play it that way. It's ridiculous. Stupid. You know, you do when you're younger? Do you realize that? If you want to be good, you got to get serious? Absolutely. I played with a lot of bands since then. And some really good musicians scares me. Yeah, you get in there and you're scared. But that's the motivating?

Randy Hulsey  11:13

Absolutely. Yeah, you step up the game? Absolutely. Well, that's kind of a great segue into talking about I guess back in 83, you guys released the self titled debut album with Atlantic Records, which went on to, I believe, become the fastest selling debut album in Atlantic Records history. Yeah. In that time at the time. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. And then it was fast.

Guy Gelso  11:41

You know, we bet we had been working that the markets and in the tri state area, up in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and through the whole South Texas and Florida for quite a while. So the time we didn't get the record out. People were just waiting. Oh, yeah. Waiting for it. So they jumped on it. Yeah. So it was fortunate. Fortunate. Yeah, for sure.

Randy Hulsey  12:03

Tell the listeners or give them an idea of, of what the response was, like, if you can remember back to 83. You know, this thing, this this record releases, and it takes on a life of its own. Do you remember what the excitement or the buzz around that was for zebra? Oh, it

Guy Gelso  12:23

was. It was exciting. For sure. It was different, though. And that for a few years before that, because we were popular in the Louisiana area. And and we couldn't do any more than what we done here. So we decided we got to go to LA or New York. So we went to New York, we knew one person there. And it didn't take us long to build up a huge following up there. So we were used to people we were used to headlining and people screaming and hollering and doing two sometimes 3000 people and some of these clubs. And we were we were it yeah, now you got a record deal. And it's a whole nother game. Now you're going out you're an opening act, you don't get what you want, you know, you get part of the PA and part of the lighting right and you get 45 minutes on the See how I don't get warmed up for 30 minutes 45 minutes and it's over with so you know, and that's not bad. It was it was a wonderful experience, but it was totally different in a club and you're playing to a smaller crowd, even a couple 1000 people's is small. And you know, when you're getting into an arena when you're playing with 10 or 15 20,000 people, it's got to be bigger, it's got to be bolder, you've got a bigger statement you got to carry all the way across that arena. And so yeah, it was it was a huge adjustment for us. Plus all the traveling we're used to traveling or not like that.

Randy Hulsey  13:47

Yes. I remember night going three four miles. Absolutely. And I've seen you guys I like I said I've been a fan for a long time. I went to USL and Lafayette I was a raging Cajun and of course the music was very prevalent and laugh yet, but I've seen you guys and places like pod nose and St Maarten Ville which are smaller than used to to the summit opening for Loverboy in Houston. So I've seen you on the big stage and and I've seen you on the not so big stage too. But that album The debut album went gold tell the listeners what it means for a band to have a record that platinum. Yeah, what what does it mean when a record goes gold gold, right or even platinum? What does that mean? For those that don't know is

Guy Gelso  14:35

a half a million records. Gold is a half a million records and so countrywide worldwide it went to half a million and it went that it did it shortly within a couple of years. You know things being what it is you don't track this stuff. We don't have people to track it now but I'm I'm just I'm just gonna throw this out there if we didn't ever want to, if we could possibly track and I'm sure it'd be more like a million and a half at this point, okay, so you know, but we're not with Atlantic anymore. So right now, it is what it is. But yeah, I have the gold album on the wall and it's a wonderful thing. You know, it's it's a it's an award

Randy Hulsey  15:14

it's an accolade. Yeah.

Guy Gelso  15:16

Yeah, it's a, you know, it's something I'm really proud of. I can I can say that, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying it's the end all of everything, but it sure is nice. And when I was a kid, and, you know, sitting around banging on my drums, telling myself, I'm gonna be a rock star and all that good stuff. Well, I don't know about being a rock star, but I got a gold album on the wall. And that is just,

Randy Hulsey  15:38

that's, that's nice.

Guy Gelso  15:40

That's a big deal. That's a big deal to me. My wife thinks it's funny. She doesn't care.

Randy Hulsey  15:46

She doesn't care about if she's like my wife. She's not a musician. Right. Do you Do you often? Do you often say honey, remember who I am? I've got that gold record on the wall. Now I'm not mowing the grass. Yeah, they don't. They don't get the sale. Yeah, there you go. You guys were supporting that debut album. And we're on the road with such acts as journey. REO Speedwagon, you know, ZZ Top, the list kind of goes on, tell me what it was like to be you release a debut album, things are starting to heat up for you guys. And you're in you're on the road with some of the biggest bands in the world at the time. Right? What was that experience? Like?

Guy Gelso  16:30

Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, you know, it was a blast. I mean, it was fun. I honestly, to be honest with you, I wish I could go back and do it again. Just so I could experience from from differently point of Yes. Back then. I was just, you know, being a dumbass and doing all the wrong things and all that stuff. And you know, I would like to go back and, and redo a lot of things and just relive it from with my eyes wide open. Absolutely. I was very focused at that point. I was focused in playing and, and all of that stuff. And yeah, I mean, it was great. And, and every band was different. I mean, we started out before the record came out going out was we did a, I think it was about a half a dozen dates with ZZ Top. And they were they were on the beginning of their eliminator tour. So they had the big setup. Oh, they were, they were unbelievable. They were just fantastic on stage that not so much what they are now, which is more kind of the standard stuff. But back then they were just a rock and blues band. You never saw them because they would never show up for soundcheck, except the drummer did. They would just the limo would pull up. They walk up on the stage and play this set. Walk right back off. Okay, man, get in the limo and go. And that was it. Yeah. And then, let's see. We went out with Loverboy on the first album for about three months. They were great guys. Yeah. They actually played here a couple years ago, I went down and said hi to them. Just really sweet guys. And they were at their peak. I mean, they were doing 10 15,000 Every single night. girl screaming and yeah, medics in the back of people passing Oh, yeah. Well, and they were, you know, you hear those records bladder. Okay. You know, they don't have that real powerful rock thing because it's the pop record. Yes. Alive. Oh, those guys. Yeah. consistently great. Every. And they were nice people, you know. And then we went out with REO Speedwagon and survivor for a while and they were great guys. Were out with cheap trick for I guess about two months. So like that. I never once saw Rick Nielsen's hat off of his head. And I don't think anybody ever else ever saw it off his head either. He doesn't, really doesn't take that really. Okay. But I remember. Never, never. And I remember sitting in a sitting in a restaurant drinking pitchers of beer with him one night, and we were just talking and he says, I said, so how's it going against? Just making a living? Making a living like everybody

Randy Hulsey  18:57

else? Yeah. Well, he, I've seen Cheap Trick, probably more times than I've seen any other band of that caliber. And I don't know that you mentioned it. I don't think I've ever seen him with his hat off. And then I saw an episode of live from Carol's house, you know, the Daryl Hall show that he does out of his house and cheap trick by Robin and Rick, and I think Peterson were there in the house. He had it on them too. So even to today, right? Yeah,

Guy Gelso  19:31

never. I don't think the band's even say anything. That's gonna take it off.

Randy Hulsey  19:35

That's certainly a possibility. Well, I think around the release of the third record, which was the 3.5 record, you guys were headlining at this time, if if I'm not mistaken, and I think you had well, we

Guy Gelso  19:49

we weren't headlining big arenas, but we always did small theaters. Even from the beginning. We would do small theaters. I mean, in the beginning on the first album, we did A bunch of see maybe it was a second album or third Eleanor not sure we're out Sammy Hagar and we took a break. And we would do, we would do headlining shows and then go out, go play his shows and then go back and forth. And I remember doing a couple headlining shows up in Portland, Oregon, Washington, Seattle, Washington at the Paramount theaters. And those are the first two shows the Queen's Reich ever did. Yes, that was the very first shows and they actually got the record deal that night. Wow, it shall we played some shows. We played a show of them. I guess a couple of years ago and we got on the same bus with him going to the to the festival. We're all laughing about it. That's where they got their deal. Yeah, well, but yeah, so we are we did go back to it. Yeah, we did do headlining stuff in small to 3000 cedars and

Randy Hulsey  20:52

and then opened up for people in the bigger places. Gotcha. And, and off of the, you know, walking back to the debut record. Did you have a favorite song off of the debut that just sticks out in your mind is Oh, that's probably my favorite one off that effort.

Guy Gelso  21:09

You know, they're all fun to play. I never find the zebra stuff. Yeah, I've been planning stuff for close to 50 years. Yes. It's not like it's not like standard straight ahead pop stuff. Randy is a very, very creative, very accomplished songwriter. Other songwriters will tell you this. Yes. And so there's nothing there's nothing boring about his songs. I mean, I would say probably the last song as is fun to play because the odd time signature at the end and I love instrumental music and, and that's basically an instrumental piece. But you know, as a songwriter, I remember we did we only did one show a journey, but it was a big festival journey. Bryan Adams and fog hat city park. And I remember Jonathan Cain was a big fan of the first album. He was standing on the side watching and he made comments that he you know that songwriting is really good.

Randy Hulsey  22:04

Yeah. Nice. Oh, yeah. Well, that's nice. Coming from somebody of that caliber too, right. I'm sure you guys looked up to them to a certain degree, right. For sure. Randy's a

Guy Gelso  22:13

talented guy. Yeah. You know, you don't meet many of these guys out there that are that, that focused and talented on stuff.

Randy Hulsey  22:21

I agree. I agree. I was also wondering if you had a favorite song off of the second release. The note telling lies, release.

Guy Gelso  22:30

Well, I like playing No telling lies. That's a fun song to play. It's not a really crazy unusual beat but it's got just a little bit of a thing in the in the studio. Jack Bogle is our producer. He said he wanted here a little on the hi hat during the beat. So I would play it and then I would come around to the Hyatt and then go back to the so it's, it's a little different, you know, but I just like it I like I'm more of a groove kind of guy. So I like the feel a good groove and that song. It's just got a really deep pocket to it. Yeah, tell me what you want. Straight ahead. Straight ahead thing. And you know, I mean, it's fun to play all the fancy stuff and I did when I was younger, but as I got older, I just really liked it. There's a song on the fourth album KK is hiding that it's just a straight out, rocking slide blues guitar thing. And it's just fun because it's just such a heavy groove. Yes, yeah.

Randy Hulsey  23:30

Yep. And I was trying to think back to after after you had mentioned the other day about the time change in the law song I was humming in my head as you were talking about that take your fingers from my hair, is there a time change in that song as well? Or is that just same same time signature all the

Guy Gelso  23:51

time we only on time we have in any song? It's just the last song just that five, four section at the end. You can hear it as a three two section 1231212312 You know as a five four, but no, everything else is there. You know at the end section. It's a triplet feel you know, it's a 6868 12 eight however you want to look at it but yeah,

Randy Hulsey  24:19

what about a favorite song off of our favorite track off the 3.5 record? Probably jogging your memory a little Oh,

Guy Gelso  24:28

I like about to make time. That's a fun song to play because it's got these dynamics and it starts really quiet and pulls up can't live without as it is a cool song. That was kind of an answer to tell me what you want and so in a way and it's kind of got that same kind of feel to it. And I really liked that one but yeah, that's got a lot of better night call is is a monster song to play. It's so busy. Yes, that sometimes when when Randy says at some point of showing because we don't write a set Listen, he just calls him out. Yes, he's just prefers that. And we go along with it because it works. Better not call sometimes when he calls it out to me, I'm going like, give me let me give a warm up. I want to warm. That one is that one, you know, ba, ll s to the wall? Sure. Sure.

Randy Hulsey  25:23

You mentioned that, like, you know, you go into a song or a busy song like that. Do you have a warm up routine before shows that you go through? Like, do you have some pads in a in a back room somewhere that your warm up?

Guy Gelso  25:37

I know, I stretch. You know, I like yoga. So I do a little yoga, just a couple of stretches just to loosen up. And then yeah, I have some warm up routines. But I probably will shoot a video on some of that today. Nice. Just just some hand stuff, you know, get the hands and go just generally. For me, it's about the third or fourth song where I'm warmed up. Yeah. And I feel it that the tension is going out of my hands. So I try and do as much as I can backstage but sure, just stand loose. Or like, yeah, and I figured the old the older I get it's just I have to stretch just to get out of bed in the mornings to take a shower. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's the one thing for drummers, they have to stay in shape. Yeah, go. And I mean, I'm, I'm going to be 70 this year, and, and I'm still playing, at least I think like, I'm 30. That's awesome. And I think the reason is, is because I try and eat right. And, and I exercise good 345 days a week, that's good for you. Oh, it's just yeah, you got to stay, you know, now, that given I've been on this pandemic thing for the last year, I have not played a gig since February of last year 2020. Well, and so it's going to be close to a year and a half, you know, 14 months, when we play in June, and, you know, waiting for two hours of zebra stuff. Well, you know, I play in a lot of other bands. And when you play, you know, you're playing groove songs and things like that. It's not I don't sweat a whole lot, zebra, it's just all out balls to the wall. And from the time I start till the time I end, and it's two hours sometimes plus. So you know, I'm used to doing that now being off for 14 months, I haven't really sat down and done it. So I've got a little over a month, and I've got to sit down with the live element. Just literally play through the live. Just keep playing it. Well, I'm also making this major. I'm sorry, no, go ahead, go ahead, finish your thought. I'm literally making a change this last year to being a left handed player. So just to strengthen my left hand and to have something new to work on. So I'm playing everything on the high with my left hand. So it's a whole nother can of worms. Interesting. And I'm trying to get ready to do that. For this gig and see how it goes. The main thing with that is getting to feel good. Yeah, you know, I don't think about anything I'm doing from the right side. But when I go to the left side, I'm thinking and that's never good. You never want to think when you're playing you just want to feel it and let it come out. Absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  28:15

Well, I played I played hockey for many years. And there's a prerequisite to being a good hockey player and that skating you can't think about the skating portion that just has to come natural so every everything else you're thinking about the passing the passing lanes the you know the hitting that kind of thing. You can't think about the prerequisite to the game. You got to be good on the skates to Yeah, you

Guy Gelso  28:38

got to be in the zone player. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, well, it's

Randy Hulsey  28:41

a great it's a little bit different for a drummer than it is like a guitarist like myself and even with with Randy, he's been real prolific with all of the Facebook Lives where he can get on there and play his guitar and sing drummers are a little bit different, right? Yeah, yeah. It's acoustic though. Yeah.

Guy Gelso  29:00

Point for him. The difficulty is, he hasn't played electric guitar in a while. Yeah. So it's a whole nother animal when he's playing getting the solos and the acoustic thing he's just strumming chords and doing different arpeggios or whatever. But actually playing lead parts in the songs and you know, electric guitar and the feel of it, you know, it's a whole different field. Oh, for sure. He plays a 12 string, which I find amazing that he does everything he does on 12 strings because that's a, that's a bit of what it is.

Randy Hulsey  29:29

It takes twice the muscle in the hands to fret those strings. Yeah, same, same concept. But you got to be a little tough in the hands there to to get it right and to make it sound good. But so when we spoke a few weeks back, I had commented to you about having a Houston cell number, and you had advised me that too. You got transplanted here to Houston after or during or before Katrina walk me back through that what was What was that experience like for you in the family? Like, I can't imagine being just a burden. I think you were here for many years to write. It wasn't just like a six month or three months. Yeah.

Guy Gelso  30:12

We tried. You know, we were there. We tried to fit it in. Well, I mean, you know, every year in Louisiana, you get hit with hurricanes. Yep. And every year you pack a suitcase, and you go out of town for for a day. And then you come back and go, Why did I waste that money on a hotel room, I should have just stayed home. So you know, we were all sitting around and and at the house, and this hurricane was here, and it was up to a three and then do a four. And I was still just balking at the whole thing. And then, you know, finally my wife said, look, it's past a five now I said, Okay, let's go. So, and I got my mother, my wife, four dogs, two cats, and a Ford Explorer, and took off on highway 90, which is the old back road, because I figured that would be less traffic. Well, you know, a drive that usually takes maybe five hours to get from New Orleans to Beaumont, Texas took us, like 19 hours, like that. And then you get there and you're worn out and you don't have a place to stake and you're waiting hotel rooms because it was jams. Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  31:21

I could imagine. And,

Guy Gelso  31:22

yeah, I mean, I had a, I had a business in town building road cases, called Big audio designs, VAD cases. And we've been, you know, I had a business partner. And, you know, when I was on tour, he'd run it. And then I'd come back and and so that was a long, a long a business for us 14 years. And then he got wiped out. The hurricane. I came back about three weeks later, we were up in Houston, staying at one of those weekly rate motels. Oh, my goodness. Brutal, huh. Getting up at all hours a night to walk the dogs. You know, I could never get more than a couple hours sleep, my wife yelling at me going it'll walk the dog. So I kind of snuck back in here, I had gone, you know, I had gone for a rental house. And I had accidentally left my license there and got in the car and got halfway here when I realized I didn't have my license. And I'm coming into a city that's locked down. So you know, I knew some back roads to get in. Because they weren't the police weren't letting you in. But I had to get in there to see where my business is at and where the house was at. So yeah, we saw the devastation down here. So we don't want to deal with this. So we just stayed to USD and rented a house for two years, bought a house. Put up $50,000 swimming pool in the backyard. And then my wife says, I'm not staying here. Going home. The grandkids are home. Yeah, we sold the damn thing took a loss. I figured Katrina probably cost me between two and 300,000 total. All given everything that I had to spend in the running of the houses and all of that. I had a house here, a small house here that I had rented out and I sold that. Yeah, I just didn't want to deal with being having a house and living eight hours away. Yeah, dealing with it. So for sure. It was a memorable experience. And we stayed there for seven years. And then we just came home and

Randy Hulsey  33:10

we've been here now for a while. Do you call Covington home? Is that where you are now?

Guy Gelso  33:14

It's right out. It's north of New Orleans across the big causeway bridge of 30 miles. And right on the north side. Yep. It kind of opened the woods is nice. It's in the country. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  33:26

Well, you had said something that was kind of funny to me the other day because we're we're different yet the same? Because you had made the comment that you had to hurry up and get out of Houston and get back to Louisiana for some real food. And that's funny, because when I was when I was going to school in Lafayette, I'm not. I'm not a seafood eater. So I was ready to get back to Texas to for steak and potatoes. That's why I say we're so much alike but yet so different as well never acquire a taste for the

Guy Gelso  33:57

opposite because I I don't eat. I didn't for years I didn't eat meat. And I wouldn't eat fish. But that was all I would eat. And I saw everything in Texas as barbecue Mexican food, chicken and fish. I stay away from red meat for health reasons. But yeah, down here seafoods the game. Yep, for sure. Paradise. They say,

Randy Hulsey  34:20

Well, my wife is from Hera hands so I know all about it. I get that all the time. You know, she'll eat. She'll eat anything that doesn't have a pulse anymore. And I'm just the opposite. So Terry and I are definitely two ships passing in the night when it comes to food but she has that eclectic seafood taste like like you do. So being a being a Cajun herself. So as a drummer, you've had a very successful career with Zebra Of course, and one is a drum instructor as well. And I believe that instructor career has spanned somewhere around a decade. Eight and a half. Is that correct? 1415 years does that sigh,

Guy Gelso  35:04

I was in New York, went through a divorce with my first wife up there. And so now all of a sudden, I have all this time, and I'm stuck there in New York, which was not my first choice, but I was there because of the record deal. Randy and Felix met girls and had families up there. So they're there for good. But I didn't I was by myself. So I went back to college for two years, because zebra kind of put the Knicks on college. When we got started, I wanted to finish that I never really did. But I was I started teaching. I'm even playing, you know, I was I was teaching and studying at this chain of music stores go Long Island drum center up in New York, which was a great place. And it was a hotbed for all of these great drummers. And so many of them that came out of there have been successful, and moved on to big things. And it was just some of the best the people that wrote the books that we study nowadays, are the guys that I studied with. So I was just like going to college for four years. So I kind of gave up the college thing and went that direction. And yeah, I taught there for about four or five years, moved down here and taught for another 10 years at Ray Francis drum center. Then business gotten away, and I got busy with my business. And then, you know, I lost a business went to Houston came back now I'm here, I'm settled. And I decided this year with the pandemic to get back into teaching. So available. Anybody wants lessons? Email me, guy. gelso@gmail.com. Thank you very much.

Randy Hulsey  36:39

There you go. You heard it first. And

Guy Gelso  36:41

we'll definitely we're available. I do everything online. I got a nice little studio setup here. And it works great.

Randy Hulsey  36:47

Yep. And we'll talk a little bit of a more about that for sure. Before we end the show, but you were at the right France and drum center is that a chain in the Louisiana area, tell me a little bit about Ray Franssen. And where you

Guy Gelso  37:03

raise a great guy, great drummer. And when I came back from Louisiana, I mean, from New York, teaching up there, I went right back, and I knew him and he offered me a position. So I started teaching out of the stores, and out of his store, and it was great. Good friends with all those guys over there. You know, it's different. It's a different teaching than than the New York the different style of teaching down here. Just you know, it's, it's kind of hard to describe, you know, they have these not to get too technical about it and bore everybody here. But they have certain certain teachers that are so influential in certain areas, that they influence the drummers and the techniques that they use. Up in New York, it was Jim Chapin, with the famous molar stroke. And then his good friend, Don Pammi, Alero, who I still study with now, who is just Damas, like a worldwide global drum ambassador, and everybody in the industry knows him. And he's got his hands and everything. He's got his name on a dozen books. In fact, I'm writing a drum book with him right now. And then down here, there was John Wooten, and a couple of other guys down here, and they were the hand technique guys down here. So it's a different style of playing but all equates to the same thing.

Randy Hulsey  38:22

But you're you're also currently working as a session drummer, where you lend your talent to bands and and doing drum tracks as well. Correct?

Guy Gelso  38:31

Well, I'm not doing I'm not doing a whole lot of it. I mean, I've had a few, a few. It's available if anybody wants it. And I have a full audio studio set up here. A video audio studio, and I just recently did a couple tracks for a Van Halen tribute band up in New York. It was on the Long Island musicians and we put this album together. I played with a friend of mine, Peter Cooper Schmidt and his wife, Kim. We did right now of Van Halen. And then zebra did a song called Well, pretty woman. Yeah, so we did that one. And they were fun. They were fun. Yeah, I've had a few offers down here, but I wasn't totally shut up. I still have some more work to do with my audio equipment, here are a few more things I need to get. And then I'll be going full force with that.

Randy Hulsey  39:18

Now refresh the listeners how they would book you for either any session work or even for drum instruction.

Guy Gelso  39:27

Well, the best way is to go to my website, and contact me there at guy galco.com It's really easy. I've got an unusual name, so it's easy to remember, and goggles, calm and just just stick in your email there. Give me your information. And I'll get right back to you. Or email me at GEICO. so@gmail.com You know, and on my Facebook page and YouTube page, I have the link. There's a link called link tree which has all my social media stuff and yeah, you know It's another word for an old guy. guy like me. But I mean, I've been in computers. I was in a computer way back. Yeah. So this is nothing, nothing surprises me with this computer stuff.

Randy Hulsey  40:13

Yeah, well, that's good that you have a background in it because a lot of people don't. I mean, they kind of let technology pass them by, and then they don't know how to work their cell phone. And, and now it's a part of us, right? You got to know that stuff. It's kind of the adapt, migrate or die mentality. I mean, you have to stay up with the world and with with technology, or you're gonna get left behind.

Guy Gelso  40:34

I'm the I'm the tech guy for the family. They all call me up, say, hey, how do you do this? How do I do that? Right? Yeah, I'm always trying to help them. But yeah, it's technology doesn't bother me at all. It's finding some of these directions. You know, nowadays, nowadays, you have to, and I haven't started doing this yet, because I want to wait when my book comes out. And I have this whole package of social media together, and then I'll start posting on a regular basis. But you have to post all the time. Nowadays, you have to do something every day, you have to keep yourself out there, you got to give a call to action for people to subscribe to, and you've got to be on Facebook. And you know, Facebook is for the older crowd. And YouTube is for everybody. And Instagram is for the younger crowd. And right now the hot one is tick tock, tick tock. Yep. Everybody's on that doing every crazy thing in the world. It's like the Wild West. But you've got to be on it. You do? And so many other ones. So the social media thing, and there's a new one popping up all the time. Yeah, yeah. So you have to stay up on it.

Randy Hulsey  41:40

I've always said they are a necessary evil, they piss me off. But on the same hand, they're, they're necessary, you have to do, um, you have to put your schedule out there, you have to stay relevant, right. And music is, of course, not what I do for a living. But but for guys like you that make a living, playing music and recording music, you have to stay relevant, you have to stay in the face of people, or you're just another another musician out there that you know, nobody hears or, or whatever the case may be.

Guy Gelso  42:14

Well, yeah, and, and a lot of it, to be honest with you, I'm not trying to be critical of anybody and what they do, but a lot of it is just, I want to use the word crap, but I'm not going to share with you, you know, I'm producing educational videos that I think are I'm going to be out there forever. If I put this stuff if you go to my website, you'll see a lot of videos. Guy also, com, I put a lot of educational videos up there. And I really try to make them useful and educational. And not just some fly by night thing. I mean, everybody can play a bunch of fancy licks. But what are you learning from it? Yeah, and, and so I feel very responsible to make sure as a teacher that I'm putting it out there teaching, education, music education has gotten me where I'm at. Yes. And and I'll you know, I'm still far, far, far from where I want to be as a player. That's why I'm moving making this move to lefthanded playing, and I'm here I am close to seven years old, I've got about a dozen books that I'm going through.

Randy Hulsey  43:19

Always try and do

Guy Gelso  43:20

something. Well, you know, when I was a kid, every electronic appliance in the house, we could take in a park and I had to open it up and find out what it was. I had to see what was in it. It was always this curiosity factor. So it's the same thing with the books. Hey, there's something sitting there in 50 pages of a book that I don't know, I got to find out what that is. And the curiosity thing is what keeps musicians moving forward. If you ever get placid and just sit on it, that you're not you're not moving forward. And if you're not moving forward, well, all you're doing you're going backward,

Randy Hulsey  43:51

right? I've been in the IT field. That's how I've made a living over the course of my years in corporate America. And there's an old term for guys like you and I, and they call us propeller heads and propeller heads are the guys that want to dissect everything and understand not only how does the cell phone, you know, why does the cell phone work, but how does the cell phone work or the computer work or whatever the case may be, or the drums or whatever, you know, whatever the widget of the day is you want to understand it? Because then you can become more one with that. I think

Guy Gelso  44:25

it solves problems. You know, it's no reason to, you know, get upset. I have an old house, it's about seven years old. So it's a very solid construction and certain areas in the house. The cell phone will not receive reception. And my wife just gets all mad she thinks it's the phone it's not the phone, right? It's the area that you're in it's you know, it's just you got to understand what happens a cell phone and video and and if I get a glitch go down here with this big system I've got sitting here I gotta know how to fix it real quick with students exactly doing everything.

Randy Hulsey  44:58

Now you were in you are in I shouldn't say we're and I think that this is still active, but you have a side project and it's a band called sledge hammer, correct?

Guy Gelso  45:09

Well, I did. I'm not in that band anymore. I had a couple of side projects. Yeah, sledge hammer. I still say friends of those guys. And at some point, I'll probably fill in a couple days form. That was, there's a great band from the 80s called Lilian X. And Steve Blaze. A good friend of mine, great, great guitar player doesn't get enough accolades out there. And Mike Max is bass player who's a good buddy of mine. And we had a friend of mine who's the music instructor joke luda of Jesuit High School here in New Orleans, on keyboards. Then, you know, singer, we were going through a bunch of different singers. We started out with Brent Graham, then we went to, we went through four singers, let's just say that yeah. And then finally we got frustrated by it. And so it kind of fell apart for a while, then it got back together, but the pandemic killed it. Okay, really. And then I had another band. I had this idea that, you know, tribute bands are huge. I've gone to clubs around the country where we're the only original ACC playing and everything else is tribute bands. And so I said, let's put a tribute band together, that actually changes its tribute once in a while. So I gathered a bunch of really great players in this town. Derek Lafave great probably the best rock singer in the city. And Andrew Oh, tan, just a phenomenal all around guitar player, keyboard player, everything. And Rod Fleetwood. He's just like the go to bass player in this town, and just amazing. And we brought Joe clue to back end, and we were doing all journey. And then we would do all foreigner. And getting ready to go out. This band sounded so good in this room. It was scary when you would play journey. I mean, it sounded like journey. Yeah, but then the pandemic happened. And, you know, they decided to get back together without me. And that's fine. I wish him the best. I just, I couldn't commit with this pandemic. I mean, everybody's got their opinions about this. And I respect everybody's opinion. But my wife and I are older. I've had some health issues, and I don't want to put myself in a position with this virus. And I'm in a little 20 by 20. Room. I can't have everybody in here. So yep. You know, it is what it is. You know, I'm sure some people are probably going, Oh, you're being ridiculous, you know, but

Randy Hulsey  47:35

Well, you're not.

47:35

I lost it.

Randy Hulsey  47:37

You're not I call my daughter is a nurse at a major hospital here in Houston. And she worked specifically in the COVID unit. And it's not a joke. It's really not a joke. No,

Guy Gelso  47:48

it's not. And, you know, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a bit of private information. And I hope nobody, you know, draws a breath and, and goes crazy over this. But my mother was 96 years old. And she was not in good health. She was going to go from something. But she got the COVID. And within a week, she was gone. Now, I'm not that upset about it, because she wasn't happy anyway. But the thing was in that nursing home 27 people died that month. Yes, from COVID. So don't tell me that it isn't. And I had a good friend in California, that died his he was Mexican. He went to Mexico to his mother's funeral. He came back on the plane. He was helping us in his mid 50s. Gone. And then a friend of mines father was a healthy guy my age up in New York, and he got it and he's gone. You know, it's killing me.

Randy Hulsey  48:44

Yeah. And I think we won't go down this rabbit hole for sure. But I think a lot of people it became a real political or real political thing. And you know, it was just blown out of proportion. And you know, you could talk for days about that. But I don't give enough shits one way or another to even go into those conversations. But I do know, because my daughter says, So when she's seen it with her own two eyes and like you have you lost a mother to it. It's not a joke. And it's not something that was made up by some. Right. It's a very, it's a very real thing. Whether you want to believe it or not. It doesn't matter real is real. You know, there

Guy Gelso  49:21

was a famous book back in the I think it was in the 40s or 50s called Future Shock. That talked about social media, and how it is going to affect this down the line. And it is so relevant. Because I mean, you take something like I got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as did my wife. And all of a sudden, you know, six people died from it out of what, 8 million people Yes, and all of a sudden nobody wants to take that's nothing but social media and the news putting it out there. Whereas 20 years ago, we wouldn't heard about that nobody cared right and what it can take just crazy.

Randy Hulsey  50:00

Well, and that's why I said, you know, earlier, the social media thing is a necessary evil. There's so much irrelevant crap on social media, but there's a lot of relevancy to it as well, you just have to weed through and find the stuff that's relevant, ie your drum instruction, positive things that people are trying to help others, you know, and then you've got other people that post this is what I had for dinner last night, and nobody cares about that kind of thing. I don't anyway.

Guy Gelso  50:28

Yeah. But everybody's entitled to it. And you know, and I think a lot of good things happen social media, I've contacted and stayed in touch with a lot of friends I would have not normally been in touch with. So a man, it's just all good and bad. Everything has got a you know, Yang to it. Everything's got a positive and a negative, you know, I'm not negative about it. I love social media, I play with it all the time. Fun, you know, but that's because I want to make it fun. And positive, you have

Randy Hulsey  50:57

to so any upcoming tour dates, or news from the zebra camp that you can tell the listeners about?

Guy Gelso  51:04

Well, we're working on a bunch of dates. Now. The we have a date, we have two dates, June 5, and six, and Largo, Florida, small theater down there. And there's a festival here, I think in August, July or August. In Louisiana, we're releasing the first album on vinyl with all new new artwork. And so we're going to do some dates in New York, and Louisiana on that. And, and there's a bunch of other things in the works. We're just not sure what it is yet. So we're just, you know, they come in and we, you know, throw it back and say, here's what we want. And you know, we just wait for them to decide. But yeah, there's, there's probably about 10 or 12 things on the books that we're looking at right now.

Randy Hulsey  51:52

Yeah, I think I saw me when you said that. We're redoing the cover art for the debut. I was just wondering if you guys were gonna, is it all gonna be current pictures of the three you guys versus the one that came back? At three, right?

Guy Gelso  52:05

I've got I had two boxes, full of stuff going. I mean, going back to the mid 70s. And a good friend of mine here, asked me if I had any of this stuff that he was going to help with the album artwork. And I said, You know what, I got two boxes given to you. And he scanned everything in. He's going to give it to me. And that's what you're going to see on social media at school the next few months, because I'm going to be posting all of that stuff. But yeah, he's been going through all of this stuff. And I'm talking like all the billboards when we are going up the charts, and we're coming down to charts and magazines. I mean, we were in all of those Teen Magazine, back then rock magazines and funny stuff. How about hair?

Randy Hulsey  52:48

Well, I was talking to Steve blaze in an interview, not a couple, I guess maybe a week or so ago. And we were talking about all the publications that he had been in, you know, the cravings and the cream and you know, all of these different rock nations. Yeah. Do you think that there would ever so you're re releasing the debut the stuff on the debut album? Has there ever been talk or thoughts around new material for zebra doing something new? And what can you say about that, if anything?

Guy Gelso  53:19

Well, there's one song on the books. Now. It's called directions. It's an older song that we've had for many years. And people ask about it all the time. And it's really logistics. Randy Felix are in New York, and I'm here, we can't go anywhere. But now that I have a recording studio here in the house, just from the last few months, now we're going to get busy with it. And our engineer, Peter Cooper Smith, up in New York, is going to help us with it. And so, uh, yeah, I just have to do the track. Soon as I send it to me, I'll do the drum track on it. And then it'll go to Randy and Felix and they'll go to get together and finish it up there. But it's just been logistics. Yeah. And I talked to him the other day. And I said to him, I said, you know, Felix says, we need to do an album, are you are you into it? And he goes, Yes, I'm into it. And I he told me he's got about six or seven new songs written. Randy is he's very, you know, there. There's guys that are very prolific. But Randy really tries to make the song Perfect for himself. And I get that, you know, he's a very talented songwriter. And so when, when he's putting things together, you know, he's going to play around with it. And he's going to say, Now, I don't like the bridge in that song. And it may take a month. Yep. But when it comes out, I mean, when I listen to when I play these songs, they blow. Yeah, yeah. It's not like there's any dead waiting songs. i He's a great songwriter.

Randy Hulsey  54:42

I talked to him the other day in great length. I think our interview went over two hours. And he spoke a lot about the songwriting and he said one of the things that he learned from the days back in zebra, you know, in the 80s, specifically is that he quit writing songs. And he should have been riding all along, I guess when zebra was moving up the charts, you know, it was easy to get sidetracked and all the, the glamour and you know what, or the busyness or whatever you want to call it, and you just kind of sidetrack the whole writing process. And then it was like the oshit moment, I don't have any material. So you hurry up and write and then the material is not quite what you want it to be because it was a rushed effort. Yeah,

Guy Gelso  55:27

and then and that's no good for anybody. I mean, there's very, very few bands that continue to put great stuff out every single album. Yes, I mean, even even bands like Rush had albums where you listen to me go, okay, that's, that's rush, but it's not their best work. But you know, there's two schools of thought on that one being, you know, every two years, release an album, go out on tour, come back, take some time off, start rehearsing again, right, another album recorded, go back out, you do this cycle over and over, and over and over. And that's what machine. The other one is, the other school of thought is, let's just make sure it's right, even if it's 10 years between albums. Now, I kind of respect that. You know, I like that. And that's kind of where Randy's out. He didn't just want to put junk out there. Now, that being said, he's right. He does have to get into that, you know, that whole thing. But I mean, I'm just as guilty of that, too. You know, I could have been teaching earlier than this. And I'm back to teaching now. But you know what, I never look behind me. You know, I don't I don't worry about anything that happened in the past. I made a lot of mistakes. But so what I just wondered, where we're moving forward, I'm teaching again, at close to seven years old, I'm writing a drum book. I'm working seven days a week. It's a great life. I'm no complaints, man.

Randy Hulsey  56:49

Well, you have to keep moving forward. And it's all about perseverance. I mean, we're all that's our humaneness. We make mistakes all the time. And if we're not, we're just not doing anything. I've always been a firm believer of that, but it's how you it's how you learn from the mistakes and make things better after that. But what advice would you give to a person that's looking to maybe play drums for the first time I'm, I can keep a beat. And I thought about putting some drums here in the studio that you see behind you. I've got everything else in here that I'd need to have a band come in and sit and record, but I don't have drums, so maybe a little electronic kit or something like that to get started. But what what would you what would you say to a person that's looking to play? Like, what advice would you give? And are there any things that they should know?

Guy Gelso  57:38

Well, if you're just starting out, really, couple of things, it's so long, and try and emulate the parts. But what's really important, if you're starting out, is to look and watch closely other drummers. How are they sitting? Power the sticks in their hands? How are they're holding it? Because a lot of young drummers miss that. And they run into problems. I mean, I used to have guys come to me and go, Oh, man, um, well, I blow out all the veins in my right arm from plan to hardness. Why I'm, I'm slamming the drums myself, I'm not hurting myself. You're tensing up. So it's just as important to just get in there and play songs. But it's also important to really find people that you really admire drum wise and watch, what are they doing? How are they doing? And how they picking the sticks up? How are they sitting? Are they sitting high? Are they sitting low? How are the drums position? That is a major thing. And that's where I've learned so much. And my technique I feel is pretty damn good. Yeah. And that's because I've worked at it every time. I think I'm doing something wrong. You know, I look at it, and I'll be out there plan. And I'll start get a little tense in my left hand, which is a weaker hand. It's getting a little tense and and why are we getting tense? Because I'm not relaxing? Not breathing. Yeah, just, it's all part about about being an athlete. You have to be not only in physical shape, but you have to think like an athlete. And this is a very aggressive instrument. You know, guitar players, they move their fingers. And keyboard players move their fingers. We move all of our limbs. Yes. Yeah. So it's very aggressive. It's just like running, exercising, you have to do it. Yeah, it's a physical thing. So cap that off. My advice would be get on a drumset. And just play the songs. try and emulate the songs and don't try and go too far. with it. Just keep the beat. The other thing is, go watch that drummer, find out where that drummer is on YouTube and watch that guy play that song and see how he's doing. That would be the best way.

Randy Hulsey  59:41

Yep. And that's great advice for the new players coming up. And if I jump into in all my spare time, if I jump into play and drums, I'll definitely heed that advice. I think there's a lot to be learned by just watching.

Guy Gelso  59:53

I'm looking at you. And I'm looking at your room there and I'm I told my wife the other day I said, Oh man, I want that guy's room. That's it. Forget the electric drums, get an acoustic drum set, put a bass drum mic, a snare drum mic and two overheads, and you're done.

Randy Hulsey  1:00:09

Okay, I got a good room, I might have to consult you. If I go down that path, I'll call you. And I'll say, hey, what do we do here? Like, because I'm the kind of guy that wants to do it one time. I don't want to do it six times and get it wrong five of those times, right, I get I'll spend the money I don't mind spending the money, but I'll do my homework and do it right. The first time is kind of the mindset with me. That's my OCD Enos and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. But it sounds like you've got a little bit of that, too. And Randy, as well. We'll have a look

Guy Gelso  1:00:41

at AC I got that guy. You know, we

Randy Hulsey  1:00:44

got all the acronyms right. Yeah.

Guy Gelso  1:00:49

I got everything, man. Yeah, well, at least

Randy Hulsey  1:00:52

they they say it's a it's not a problem. If you if you admit that you have a problem. So so we can find

Guy Gelso  1:00:59

you. I look at it as motivation diagram motivates me. Yeah. You know, it's a little hard to focus sometimes. But that means I'm going to try and focus a little harder.

Randy Hulsey  1:01:11

Yep. And that's a good way to look at it. So fill me in on where I'm missing out. So for zebra listeners out there, they can find your information at the door.com th e d o r.com.

Guy Gelso  1:01:26

You probably find more information on the Facebook Okay, zebra band. Okay. And the the website we're thinking about redoing that we haven't really kept it up, but there's some information on that. And then, you know, Randy Jackson's calm he's got his website. Felix doesn't you know, he's got a Facebook page and somebody else runs it for him. And me, I'm all over social media. You can find all of my links to social media on my website, Guy Gilson calm. And I'm asking everybody out there to please sign up for the website. Just so I have your email, I need the email so I can keep you up on what's going on. And I will post to people what the dates are and where we're gonna pay and all that stuff.

Randy Hulsey  1:02:08

Yeah, and you guys make sure to look guy up I'm sure there's a lot that can be learned from him. If you're in the the market for drum instruction, I probably can't think of a better person to to give them I've been a follower of zebra since the the early 80s and have always admired the musicianship in the band. So I think you'd be in good hands with guy if you if you guys are looking for those drum instructions. So guy let me hit you with some some quickfire questions here. They you know, just single answer would probably work and then we'll wrap up and get you back to your day for you Beatles or the stones.

Guy Gelso  1:02:45

All man it's hard one if I was forced to make a decision, probably the Beatles for the medley, but I love the looseness of the stone. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:02:52

How about Neil parrot or Keith Moon as a percussionist

Guy Gelso  1:02:57

Keith Moon, definitely. Okay, I love Neil Peart, but it's very concise, very controlled. I like the looseness of Keith Moon. He was an amazing drummer. And his lineage goes way back to Gene Krupa, and all of that, he was just, he's wild. He was so wild. All over the place. But I've played his songs, particularly in sledge hammer. Yeah, they are not easy to play. You gotta you gotta have some things going on to be able to play that stuff. Powerful.

Randy Hulsey  1:03:27

Yeah, it was kind of interesting because when I was at USL and Lafayette, there were two two brothers that were from New Orleans. Mike and Mark Yeager were their names. And there was always a dispute between myself and them. They were huge. Who fans? And we're always saying, oh, Keith Moon, Keith Moon, and I was like, rush rush. So we always had this argument. So that's why when I thought of you being New Orleans bass, I thought of those guys. I'm like, I've got to ask guy if he's a new person or a Keith Moon person.

Guy Gelso  1:03:57

Well, I am. I mean, I, you know, and we were actually playing about six or seven rush songs. And, and, you know, I go and learn one song by one band, like a foreigner song or whatever, it takes me a couple hours. I usually notate everything out in a little cheat sheet for myself. The rushed up to three weeks to learn a song, because it's all in the memory. You have to memorize all this stuff. Yes, but neil peart pretty much did the same general things from song to song. So once you knew the dozen or so licks that he did as a triplet here, or how he crossover this and that, you can relate that to every song, but then that's what any drummer when you're learning what a guy does, if you're going to learn John Bonham, you got to learn the signature things that he does. Yes, Neil Peart signature thing. Yep. Keith Moon, there was no signature while abandoned, and that was the beautiful part about yo, it's not that I'm not disrespecting neil peart at all. He's an amazing drummer. Yes. Amazing.

Randy Hulsey  1:05:00

How about summer or winter? For you?

Guy Gelso  1:05:02

Oh, summer hate the winter.

Randy Hulsey  1:05:04

Yeah, TV or radio.

Guy Gelso  1:05:06

I'm a big video guy never really listened to radio much, although I miss it now. Because you know the way things are in in our day, you know you got a record deal with a record company. And the way that was put out there is through radio. And now you don't know who the new bands are. No way to find out you can find out and I know a few bands like rival sons, they're just freaking amazing, but nobody knows you. But yeah, video for me was a big thing. And I'm having so much fun with this video studio producing videos. Because I see everybody just throwing crap out there. And I'm trying to make really movies. You know, so

Randy Hulsey  1:05:48

about acoustic or electric drums.

Guy Gelso  1:05:50

Well, I have both. I have a deep history of electric stuff. I did a tour on the second album with partial electronics, and they have their place. But I go back and forth acoustics just because you can't No matter what they do. And the Roland V drums are the best electric drums out there and I have a set of those. You still can't get the tone and the feel and the dynamics from it like you can't from an acoustic drums you have to make now I'll tell you what it is. A guitar player has frets, yep. On the keyboard. So okay, so give me an A chord, you go up here to those frets and you put it down. If you're playing violin, or stand up bass, there's no frets, you have to make the tone, you have to make the intonation. You have to do that on acoustic drum set. You don't have to do that electric drum set, you can cheat. Okay. That's a different favorite

Randy Hulsey  1:06:41

drum in the entire set, like that kit that you're sitting at there. Is there like a favorite piece of that set that resonates with you more than another piece? I know. It's kind of an odd question, but no,

Guy Gelso  1:06:57

no, it isn't at all. It's actually a very good question. And I'll go back to Neil Peart on that. He had this huge drum set, but really, the thing that mattered to Neil Peart was the bass drum and the snare drum because that is everything. Bass drum and snare hi hat, right, that's all you need. I played zebra gigs, on nothing but a bass drum and a snare drum. And maybe one time old man, we got hired for a wedding, believe it or not, and was off the aisle, it was an island off and gorilla off the island of St. Maarten. And this couple brought us down there and I had to use the local drones with one bass drum, hi hat ride cymbal, one symbol and two Tom's no floor drill. So I had to take the floor tom put it on a chair on one of the times and make it afford to so I you know, you can do anything you need. With a very simple set. Everything else is just adding more color to the whole painting. Sometimes simple is simple is better question is snare and bass. Yeah, that's it. That's all you need.

Randy Hulsey  1:07:59

Yep. And then what about a favorite place or a favorite room throughout the years that you remember that you just really enjoyed play? Maybe it's one that you've played multiple times? Maybe it was a one, an in and out kind of thing? But is there one that sticks out in your mind?

Guy Gelso  1:08:17

Well, in Louisiana, it would probably be old man rivers, which was a place that was back in the 70s. And it was just a hotbed. Somebody acts came through there. And we would do a couple nights there in a row and just pack the place. And it was, you know, it was a great time for us. And, you know, we were the hot shit around town. We were the band. And you know, it was such an empowering feeling. You felt like you know, you're powerful and all that stuff. A whole bunch of bullshit. I don't need anymore but yeah, but it was fun back then. In New York, well, there was several clubs, but one in particular that was great to play was hammerheads. The hammerheads two I think was that was just a great place to play. It was huge held a couple 1000 people and I remember one time I had a short ceiling and we used to use the old park cans. And I had a drum set that had like not a lacquer finish but plastic covering and the park and had to be instead of going across the top of the stage had to go down the side of the stage and it lit up my fourth time and you know what it happened? Just when I come around from the lawless on to start the soul I go da da da da dun dun it burn in flames. And I jumped off the drumset that's on fire as part of the act. They're carrying I'm going when this was not hammerheads, they're all men rivers down here.

Randy Hulsey  1:09:44

Interesting. Randy said the same thing about rooms to play. He said old man rivers right as well. Yep. How about fate? I think you answered this earlier, but maybe I didn't phrase it or I phrase it in a different way but favorite song to play live. Zebra wise, is it the La La song? Or is it something another song that live performance?

Guy Gelso  1:10:06

Man? That's, that's, that's a very hard one.

Randy Hulsey  1:10:09

I didn't say these questions would be easy. I just said that they were quickfire questions that change.

Guy Gelso  1:10:13

You know, I never get bored playing zebra song because I have to play so busy in the songs that I'm constantly exploring new ideas. I, I know it's probably sound to the listener, like I'm playing the same thing every night. But I'm not I'm changing things up all the time. I mean, tell me what you want. Tell me what you want is always fun to play. It's just fun, because it's just got this deep pocket to it. While a song is fun to play, because of all the stuff that's in it. Oh, gosh, you know, fingers. Fingers is a great Sonic fingers in my hair. Because of the intersection I can really let loose on the double bass. You know, there's so many of them. You know, lately, we've been playing your minds open. And we did a couple of Symphony shows. We played that. And that's really fun. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:10:57

What about formal training on the drums? Would you say you're a play by your drummer or formal? You know, is there

Guy Gelso  1:11:03

reason I kind of got it backwards. I played my whole life up in two, late 80s, with no instructions. And then, but I was always trying to learn on my own. And then I went into drum lessons. Big time for four years, I studied constantly Ania and I was studying music in college, too. So I already had all this facility. Now I understood what I was doing with it. And that was a big T for me. And then everything my playing would take off from that. Because now all of a sudden, I understood and I can go a lot farther with what I was already doing. So yeah, education.

Randy Hulsey  1:11:39

Yep. greatest drummer of all time through your eyes.

Guy Gelso  1:11:44

Oh, the key thing in my eyes, probably the greatest drummer all times, Buddy Rich. Nobody had better technique than him. You know, it's like, it's like going to a restaurant and you see 10 Great things on the menu. They all taste great. But the different, they taste different sir. I always saw no purpose and aspiring to be a drummer. That was in the middle. I always looked at these guys at the top that I know I was never going to reach. And that kept me at least moving forward. So Simon Phillips is probably one of my favorite drummers. And this guy's played on 500,000 records. He's played with everybody in anybody, you probably know him from Toto. But before that, he did all the Pete Townsend records and you played with the who and he just did every pop record came out of the 70s and 80s. He was on one of my big influences Terry bozzio played with Frank Zappa, and just huge. And then he played with UK and then missing persons and he's just a monster of a drummer. And two totally different drummers. Yeah. But for me, the the drummer that just inspired me the most was a Mitch Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix. And just just would do some things. There are some little bits and pieces on some of the records that I could point to that just just blows my mind how he did it. You know, he was great. Guy,

Randy Hulsey  1:13:08

I want to thank you for taking the time to chat with me for joining the show. I wish you all the best with Zebra, the studio thing you have going on. I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast. Also make sure that you like and follow guy and zebra on social media. Of course, if you're looking for drum lessons, guys, one of the greats out there, so make sure you go to guide galco.com and inquire how to play the drums like a professional. As always, you can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast, on Instagram at backstage pass radio, on Twitter at backstage pass PC. And then always on the website. It's backstage pass radio.com guy. Thanks again for joining me, and you guys made sure it's been my pleasure. It's fun. It's been my pleasure. You guys take care of yourselves and each other. And we'll catch you on the next episode of backstage pass radio.

Adam Gordon  1:14:12

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