Backstage Pass Radio

S2: E2: Adam Hamilton (LA Guns / Joey C. Jones & The Gloryhounds) - Guns & Gloryhounds

January 19, 2022 Backstage Pass Radio Season 2 Episode 2
Backstage Pass Radio
S2: E2: Adam Hamilton (LA Guns / Joey C. Jones & The Gloryhounds) - Guns & Gloryhounds
Show Notes Transcript

Adam Hamilton was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, and began playing drums at the age of three. As a child, Hamilton began aspiring to a professional music career through listening to both his father's records and to the music on the radio. While attending Captain Shreve High school, he experimented heavily with production and engineering and produced demos for local bands in Shreveport. After graduating from high school in 1988, Hamilton moved to Dallas, Texas, and then to Austin to pursue music.

While Hamilton was performing at a club in Austin, he met Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille, who invited Hamilton to move to Los Angeles. Hamilton lived in DeVille's home for a time, and played drums in DeVille's post-Poison band The C.C. DeVille Experiment. Other members of this band included Joey C. Jones of 1980s glam metal band Sweet Savage, and Christopher Torak of Liquor Sweet. During the time they were together, The C.C. DeVille Experiment also went by the name The C.C. DeVille Experience. The band, minus DeVille, ended up leaving Los Angeles, relocating to Dallas and Shreveport, and renaming themselves Joey C. Jones and the Glory Hounds, with Hamilton's hometown friend Craig Bradford replacing DeVille on guitar. Joey C. Jones and the Glory Hounds released one self-titled album on Tony Nicole Tony (TNT) Records in 1993; the album featured songs written by C.C. DeVille and by Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick.

His production work includes many titles released by Cleopatra Records, including albums by Leif Garrett, Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons, Vanilla Ice, and George Lynch. Hamilton also produces and writes music for television, and his work has appeared on Family Guy, The Simpsons, The Osbournes, Six Feet Under, Saturday Night Live, Numb3rs, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Bones, America's Got Talent, and many others.


 

Adam Hamilton Master

Sun, 1/16 3:12PM • 1:22:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

record, song, people, absolutely, drums, joey, play, band, literally, music, drummer, called, producing, backstage pass, shreveport, sound, day, kid, guitar, studio, Louisiana, Adam Hamilton Interview, L.A. Guns, Leif Garrett, William Shatner, Los Angeles, Billboard, Billboard Charts, Adam, Hamilton, Joey C. Jones, Glory Houds, Randy Hulsey, Randy Hulsey Music, Randy Hulsey Podcast, Backstage Pass Radio, Backstage Radio Podcast

SPEAKERS

Randy Hulsey, Adam Hamilton, Adam Gordon

 

Randy Hulsey  00:00

Hey everybody, it's Randy Hulsey here with backstage pass radio and the show today is going to be jam packed with some great stuff. My guest today hails from Louisiana, but now resides in the Los Angeles area. He is an ageless music producer and a multi instrumentalist, and has put his talents to good use over the years. With some of the biggest names in the business. We're gonna pick the brain of the one and only Adam Hamilton when we return.

 

Adam Gordon  00:26

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

 

Randy Hulsey  00:55

Adam, welcome to the show. How are you? Good, man.

 

Adam Hamilton  00:58

Thanks for having me.

 

Randy Hulsey  00:59

Yeah. Good to see you, man. Glad we were finally able to reconnect. And again, thanks for jumping on. Yeah, man.

 

Adam Hamilton  01:07

Thanks for being understanding. Sometimes, you know, those family things come up.

 

Randy Hulsey  01:11

I know those are all too well, like, yeah, life strikes sometimes. Oh, yeah. Life keeps happening no matter what. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, so I know that you and I have a mutual friend. And Joey C. Jones. Yeah. And I guess I've known Joey since the the probably the late at some times, but have certainly become closer. Friends with Joey over the years. When did you guys originally made I learned

 

Adam Hamilton  01:39

of Joey when I met CC from poison back in the 90s. And he had already met CC and become friends with them. And whenever poison would come through town, they come out see Joey play. And so I went to a club to see Joey's band play with CC and thought they were fantastic. And then when I got a call from CC a year later saying he was going to start a band and he wanted me to be his drummer. He said, Joe is going to be the singer. So I knew who he was right away. Okay. And I actually met him for the first time when we both went out there right after the holidays. I think it was 92. Maybe it was CC to start that project. That's when I met him.

 

Randy Hulsey  02:22

So Joey actually knew CC a little bit before you did that, right? Yep. Yeah, he knew

 

Adam Hamilton  02:27

him before and I think he knew his wife. At the time. Dina was friends with Bobby dolls wife, Michelle. So they had other relationships within that band as well. I got Yeah, you knew that camp.

 

Randy Hulsey  02:41

Gotcha. Yeah. So you originally come out of a small city in Louisiana call Shreveport. Right? I do. And I guess Freeport it's probably not one of the more the bigger cities I guess in Louisiana, but there's been you know, there's been a lot of music legends that have have come out of Shreveport. I think a couple that come to mind are like Ricky Nelson was from Shreveport and then

 

Adam Hamilton  03:10

that but I know, you know, obviously, my buddy Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Yes, sir. Yep. And James Burton, guitar player from Elvis. Yeah. The famous bass player for the Wrecking Crew and he played with everybody. Joe Osborne. Yep, it was from there. He just passed away not long ago. Shreveport where the Louisiana hayride, started and and was and started Elvis, his career. I mean, it's Shreveport has a incredible rich history of music. Yeah. In the water down.

 

Randy Hulsey  03:46

They do it right. Right. As

 

Adam Hamilton  03:48

a week. Yeah. It was an amazing magic place to grow up being a musician.

 

Randy Hulsey  03:53

Well, I think that I think Brooks and Dunn come to mind from a country perspective. They're from there. And it was amazing. I played a show in Nashville back in October of last year. God I suck with dates. But it was I think it was over of last year. And I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame for the first time and I was I was really amazed at how much stuff they had in there for Brooks and Dawn. Just tons of Brooks done stuff in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

 

Adam Hamilton  04:21

Yeah, kicks is a real nice guy. He kind of helped mentor me early. We have a family friend. He was married to a friend of our families. And he was real nice about talking to me on the phone and kind of giving me some career advice and telling me that you know, you might want to check out Nashville, you might want to check out Los Angeles to do what you want to do. You know, either place might be might be cool. And he was really helpful. Yeah, really nice and willing to to talk to me and give me some give me some you know, when you do like when people do like that for you, and you're a kid and you're dreaming about you know, becoming a famous musician and playing music, you know, you never forget that That's the absolute magical phone call. Yeah, like that you never forget it it just it's like wow I agree living in this is so cool when people take the time to do that you just never forget.

 

Randy Hulsey  05:11

Absolutely not. Absolutely not because they don't have to do those things for you.

 

Adam Hamilton  05:15

You know, it would seem like it's so easy but you just don't know what a huge mark you can make on people's life. Yeah, absolutely right by taking the time to do that, you know,

 

Randy Hulsey  05:24

I agree. Uh, I guess jog your memory a little bit but how long were you in Shreveport as a kid and as a kid there what kept you busy? What kind of kid were you? kind of grow were you a sports kid? Were you always a music kid? Let me what was going on with Adam back then

 

Adam Hamilton  05:40

everything and I was growing up I mean, be an entry port. Everybody's in a sport. So you know, we all played sports growing up and wrote our BMX bikes and you know went swimming at the lake and skiing and boating and fishing and did all that stuff. But then once I discovered music i i became a one track mind with it, you know, I mean, obviously when you get your teens then you start discovering girls and then it's girls

 

Randy Hulsey  06:04

gotta get the priorities right right.

 

Adam Hamilton  06:06

I mean, I I pretty much all but flunked out of school because I would be playing gigs in high school, you know, and during the week and right and setlist out during the class and figuring out what we're going to do about running lights and sound for the show. You know, I was just consumed with music. I was ready to go. I tried to drop out a few times my mom and dad, they said stick it out more years, then you can do what you want to do. And you were doing

 

Randy Hulsey  06:30

all the things you shouldn't be doing in school, right.

 

Adam Hamilton  06:34

Just talking at the bit to get going. Yeah, I was ready.

 

Randy Hulsey  06:36

That makes sense. Well, I spent some time in Louisiana. I went to school and Lafayette It was then USL and that's where I went to college. Of course, they've changed name since then. And then my wife is from Harahan, which is, you know, in the New Orleans area. So I've had quite a few Cajuns on the show up in one of them. I had Randy Jackson and Guy gal so from the band zebra on the show, and yeah, Lillian x all the

 

Adam Hamilton  07:05

time. Yeah, I love Stevie. Stevie is my rock and roll brother. Yeah, yeah. And then go see him. And he was another guy that was just so nice to us when we were younger musicians. And when we started playing shows, you know, go see him and always sweetest guy you made?

 

Randy Hulsey  07:23

Yeah, he was a super guy. And then just recently also had a nice long chat with Tony Hazleton from Louisiana as Uluru who was on the, on the show as well, you know, an amazing songwriter out of Nashville that wrote for some of the biggest names out there. But so you left Shreveport and you headed west to I think it was Austin. And that's where you ran into CC was in Austin. Correct. That

 

Adam Hamilton  07:50

was man it was was one of those cases of being in the right place at the right time. And you dream about that moment. You know, like, I used to lay in bed going went, you know, I just need to get a break. I just need my big break. And everybody says that in quotations. And, and I hit that was my moment. You know, I since then have realized that, you know, success is a series of break that you're blessed with along the way. But that was the one that opened the door that got me into the you know, quote unquote, the big leagues. You know, it was meeting him that night in Austin, Texas, down on Sixth Street.

 

Randy Hulsey  08:23

Yeah, I guess it was the music that was that is what took you to Austin in the first place. Correct? Or was there something else that that drew you there?

 

Adam Hamilton  08:31

Nope, nothing more. It was just Austin was a great music town. And it was still kind of a small town back then it was before it it had blown up before the South by Southwest and all that stuff. And I just wasn't really ready to move out to Los Angeles or New York or someplace like that, because I didn't know anybody out there. It was just way too overwhelming. So I just kind of touched kind of slowly moved my way out west you know yeah to live in Dallas for for a while then I lived in San Antonio and Austin and I just kind of gradually made my way out there. And then finally when I met Cece, he just kind of scooped me up and brought me out. You know,

 

Randy Hulsey  09:08

you kind of went from the small city and kind of inched your way to the bigger cities until you wean yourself out. I guess la I guess is the way you'd say it right

 

Adam Hamilton  09:19

you know, I mean it's it's a it's a culture shock no matter how you look at it, you know, I mean, I come from a place where you know, there's not even a quarter of a million people in Shreveport the nearest large city is you know, a million people is Dallas, which is three hours away. You could always go over to Dallas and go to the big city if you wanted to but reports pretty small place.

 

Randy Hulsey  09:37

Yeah. Is there still ties to Louisiana for you like family wise? Yeah, a lot of family.

 

Adam Hamilton  09:43

I'm still there. Okay there and sister in law and their kids. So I haven't been back in a long time and it hurts my heart. But hopefully, once that now things are kind of calmed down with the little COVID things. Yeah, able to start you know, feeling a little more comfortable. We're traveling and and not really worried about so much of that. But that's really the only reason I haven't been back in a while. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  10:07

It's been a mess for sure. Yeah. Now when I think it was, I don't have all of my CC fax probably straight, but I think it was poison split and then CC form the band. Was it called CC Deville experience or was it

 

Adam Hamilton  10:24

the CC Deville experience experience? Okay. It was kind of a knockoff of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I'm sorry, cc Deville experiment. It was a knockoff of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Well, he said, Well, this is just my experiment. Okay. You see, the real experiment? Wasn't really our first choice of names, but it was his band. So he's gonna do whatever you're right. Yeah, I was just like, just call it de Ville. That'd be so cool. No, it would look great. It sounds great. You know, I guess he wanted to try things his own way.

 

Randy Hulsey  10:55

And I guess I really never, I never really thought too much about his name until till recently, when I started digging a little bit and I guess he named himself after. CC is what a Cadillac coupe. DeVille. Right is where the name came from.

 

Adam Hamilton  11:10

I think part of it also was he's such a smart guy. And so well read was Cecil B. DeMille, the film director, you know, uh huh. The old Hollywood director. And so he took that CB DeMille and changed it to cc DeVille. That's cool. Other people kind of adopted the Cadillac part of it. Okay. Like a nice little side thing.

 

Randy Hulsey  11:29

You can't believe everything you read on the internet, but that's what I was. I was gonna say, Well, if it was on the internet, it must be true, right? Something like that. That's the old adage. But now you were playing drums for for that project. Right. Joey was saying, You were on drums, who was playing bass in

 

Adam Hamilton  11:49

the player was Chris Torah. He was from a band called liquor suite. And he was ready out there in LA. He's originally from Cleveland. And so they pretty much had the band. I guess I was kind of the last piece that fell into place. Okay, I was at that time I was full on drums. That was my main instrument. Gotcha. First for first instruments. So

 

Randy Hulsey  12:12

yeah, a little of that conversation came out with with Joey and my interview with him. And he said at the time that he was living out in LA with with Cece, and we won't go into stories about that. But you know, with Sam Kinison running around out there in the house, and I'm sure you know all about that, like, we won't go down that rabbit hole, but I'm sure that you've got some stories in your mind

 

Adam Hamilton  12:35

this night. And his wife came up and hung out and didn't didn't go home, you know, for days. And yes, it was surreal. It was like a strange Fellini film every night with somebody different coming up. While it was strange, a strange place to live for sure.

 

Randy Hulsey  12:51

I bet if the wall if the walls could talk. Yeah, it

 

Adam Hamilton  12:55

was exciting. And it was amazing. And was such a rock'n'roll fantasy. But at the same time, after three months of it, you know, the same thing every day. And we got our pictures in every magazine, and we were on all sorts of TV shows. But we couldn't really get a record deal going and we could get a whole hours worth of songs and there was just too much partying going on. Yeah, three months, I started to feel like kind of topsy turvy. I was like, I don't even see the daylight anymore. Doesn't seem like anything's really going. Going to happen with this thing. And I remember watching on TV One afternoon when rainy Hollywood afternoon and watching Nirvana on the TV and I had this epiphany. And I was like, wait a minute, I think that we're a little too late for all this, I think without knowing what it was grunge was crunchy. And we were just we missed the boat. You know?

 

Randy Hulsey  13:45

I mean, it seemed like you were aligned with some big names out there that I guess that could have been movers and shakers for the whole thing? Did it just get partied party down the tubes? Or was it something else that you missed the boat? I mean, of course the grunge thing. But was it something else as well? No, timing

 

Adam Hamilton  13:59

is everything man. And yeah, it was in cycles. And and I remember Janie Lane telling a story one time he said, You know, I remember going in my record company. And when I walked in to the front desk warrant was the whole wall giant word poster. And then two years later, after a couple of records, and grunge was coming in, he walked into a meeting his record company in the whole wall was Allison chains. And he's like, wow, things have changed. Times have changed and that's what happened man we just we caught the tail end of it and timing is everything.

 

Randy Hulsey  14:31

And it literally seem well it probably didn't literally sing it probably did. It seemed it just seemed like it happened overnight. Like the glam the hair metal was gone. And here we are with Pearl Jam, Nirvana and the likes. Yeah, it was an interesting time. It really

 

Adam Hamilton  14:47

did. It was definitely one of those scenes that definitely seemed to change overnight. It was strange. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  14:52

Well, how long did the whole CC Deville experiment lasts? It wasn't very long was it? No. I

 

Adam Hamilton  14:58

mean, we were probably living with him. Trying to put the band together for about three months. That was it. That was a long road. Gosh, Joey went back. I went back. And I think Chris stayed in Burbank because he was living with his girlfriend out there. But it was just kind of over with like that.

 

Randy Hulsey  15:14

Yeah, around this time. I know you were playing drums with him. But you were an A, you were a guitarist at this time to write or did the guitar come later for you? You know, I mentioned multi instrumentalist. Well, I

 

Adam Hamilton  15:27

always played guitar and bass, as well as drums just not quite as well. And I was just pretty much had all my eggs in one basket focusing on drums, because that was really all I ever knew. But later on, you know, when the LA guns get came up, it was for the bass gig. And when muddy called me to see if I wanted, I was interested in doing it. I had actually just been playing in a punk band for fun with some buddies of mine, playing bass, and I was having so much fun doing it. And I'm like, I'm getting getting all right. I think I could do this and feel feel confident about joining another band of real band to do it. And so that was when I joined La guns the first time was, I just was like, I needed a break. Yeah, drums, I needed something to get me excited about music again. And playing drums is a lot of work, man. It's physical Rhodes drums, expensive instrument to play. You know, you're the last one finished packing up and setting up and I just kind of got tired of it all. I was like, too many parts and pieces and I need to do some I need to jump around and have a little fun for a little while. Absolutely. And that's exactly what I did get

 

Randy Hulsey  16:34

a workout a different way versus banging on the kit, right? Even even guy gelSo said that in his interview. He's like, with all due respect, and I love Randy and Felix like my brothers and zebra, but those guys don't work near as hard as I do behind that kid. And he said, and I'm 71 years old now, you know, and that's a that's a hell of a workout that I get behind that thing every night.

 

Adam Hamilton  16:56

For drummers man, they just come off stage and they're just soaking wet.

 

Randy Hulsey  17:00

Yeah, but you don't get it. But but the drummers don't get paid a little bit more for having to work a little bit harder. Do you get the same? All right. No, we're perfect. We're all they certainly should. Absolutely. Now which instrument came first for you was it the drums was the first instrument and then then the guitar came around after that is that kind of the chain? Okay, it was

 

Adam Hamilton  17:23

drums first when I was three or four. And I played that until my little brother got a guitar for Christmas. And I just kind of took you know, would pick it up and play around and make some noise on it. And then I started to love the guitar. So I just kind of gravitated toward that but I never left the drums I just kind of added another art, you know, added another instrument in and that way I could you know, I could record stuff. Yeah, do it all myself. I didn't need somebody else you

 

Randy Hulsey  17:48

know. Now if you kind of rated yourself on a scale of one to 1010 being the best on that scale, would you say that you're a better drummer technically than you are and then anything else that you blow?

 

Adam Hamilton  18:00

Yeah, yeah, I think that as a drummer, I'm, I'm more of a natural you know, as a guitar player. I mean, I can't play leads to save my life. But I kind of focused on what I what I could do well was play rhythm and that's what I just kind of zeroed in on and I love to do and I kind of try to hone those chops, you know, like bass and rhythm guitar, but I'm no I couldn't you know, joke about even playing leads.

 

Randy Hulsey  18:25

I'm with you. I'm with you on drums is number one. Yeah. Well, you would think that the rhythm guitars beat you know, having the drumming background you know, you've got the timing down. So you would probably make a damn good rhythm guitarist if nothing else, right. It's the same clock at work. Absolutely. The internal tick. Yeah, well, I think my first exposure to you was when you were drumming for a band called Josey Jones in the glory hounds. And I think the video was wait all night is the one that I saw you guys in from a chronological perspective. The glory hounds come after CC It was after CCS band that they came along right

 

Adam Hamilton  19:10

was once the CC thing kind of splintered. Joey and I stayed in touch. And Chris and Joey and I, the three of us stayed in touch and we kind of regrouped. I went home to Louisiana. Joey went home to see his family. Chris stayed out here in Burbank. And we just said, Hey, listen, this is ridiculous. We had a we had something good going. Let's try to put something together. You know, Joey was the first one that said, you know, let's grab a guitar player. Let's start. So we actually started working on a project even before we had a guitar player and we had a record deal and we're in the studio. And we had Pete Kameda who was actually in Cheap Trick. He was going to come down and play some guitar on the record before we actually had that get the glory on his guitar player. But then it turned out as we were literally laying down tape for song, I just had this moment where I was thinking about my buddy Craig Bradford who I played with and was a friend forever. Craig was already in an amazing band called nobody's children. But I knew that if we were going to try to get him out of that band, it was going to take a lot of persuasion, because those guys were amazing. And they were brothers. And they built this great thing regionally. And they were just, they were amazing. But I also knew Craig had been out to Guitar Institute, he'd been out to LA before me, he knew the ropes out here. And I knew he had aspirations to to make music, you know, and to make records. And so I got on that phone and I said, Hey, man, what do you do? And, and he said, Oh, we just been just played some shows, somewhere down in South Louisiana, Mississippi, and I said, you want to come out? Make a record? And he just kind of laughed at me. Do you want me to quit my van and come out there? I'm like, yeah, they're gonna hate me. I know. And he's like, yeah, they're probably gonna hate me too. And I'm like, he's like, Alright, let's do it. And you know, yet it had that phone call where he had to talk to his family. And sure, he was literally on a plane coming out and cutting tracks that day. And that was that was our player literally happened to that, that organically. We just were trying to figure out who to get who to get who to get. And I just was like, my buddy, who we played in our high school bat talent show. We want all these talent shows, and we just were so great. Craig was amazing, because back then it was when Steve I was in David Lee Ross ban. And Craig would do all that he spin his guitar around and flip his guitar and he could do all those tricks. He was just a showman. And I'm like, I know. I know, we should get. And so he came out and joined the band. And Joey hadn't even met him. It literally just like came in our visit. Yeah, and the rest was history.

 

Randy Hulsey  21:43

I think there was a song. I think it was called Broadway. I think CCWC did CeCe right. Broadway and did the glory hounds. Were you on that recording? Or was that some a different time?

 

Adam Hamilton  21:56

That was the glory hounds album. But that song originated from Cece and Joey, that was one that they had written even before I came into the picture. And they played that for me, and I was like, oh, man, this is amazing. And I guess, you know, just worked out where, you know, Joey said, hey, I want to put this on the record. And I talked to him and he's okay with it. And we're gonna put it on there. So we got to record it. But yeah, that was prior to me. That was Joey NCC.

 

Randy Hulsey  22:21

Okay. Now the video that I saw you guys in the glory hounds where you did wait all night. Yeah, that was written by Rick Nielsen of cheap trick. Was that a Rick Nielsen song originally? Or how did that one come about?

 

Adam Hamilton  22:35

That was actually when Joey had a chance to work with Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander from cheap trick. They were trying to produce him and get him a record deal. And, you know, they believed in Joey and wanted to try to help him. So when they were working with him, they presented a song to him. And it was one that Robin Rick Nielsen had written with fi waybill from the tubes. And it was called wait all night. And they had done a recording of it. And it was incredible. And so Joey brought that into us and said, Hey, I got our first single, it'll be like a cheap trick slash tube song. And he played me the demo of it. And I was like, it's one of the best songs I've ever heard. Wow. And the problem was, was the demos that he did with with the cheap trip, guys, they were so good. That I just was like, we've got to beat this demo. And the problem with having a great demo is you've got demo itis it's like if you don't beat that demo, you're always gonna feel like you lost show and I just don't feel like you know, as great a version of of that as we did. There was something magic about you know, treat you know, when you've got cheap trick guys playing on the demo, you pretty much got Josey Jones and cheap trick and it was it was magic, but I think we did a great version of it. I love our version of it. But that the version that he played me that he had with the Cheap Trick guys, I still to this day, there's something so magic about it. A lot of the songs that they had from that air we did on the glory house record, so we had to write some but we also had some that we just were like well, these are obviously going to go on right now. Only song we didn't put on the record that I felt I felt like I had wished I had made it was summer song because I felt like summer song was all Joey song. Yeah, he didn't have any to my knowledge already co writers and I felt like that was just the cherry that was a diamond in the in the middle. You know? Yeah. When was the was the if there was going to be a song that could break an artist or radio. Yeah. You know, it was what it was and didn't end up making it on the record because we thought well, we'll save it for the next record. But you know, I've learned in my in my you know, 20 plus years in this business you never save it for the next record because you don't know if you're ever going to get a network. Absolutely.

 

Randy Hulsey  24:43

That song kind of stems way back from the sweet savage days with Joey doesn't right? Yeah, that's

 

Adam Hamilton  24:48

that's an old old song. Yeah, just goes to show you like a timeless classic song transcends the age. It's longer, right? It'll all it'll live on, you know, forever.

 

Randy Hulsey  24:59

You're right. And you know, you just mentioned something a minute ago that kind of solidified or drove the nail and what uh, you know, whatever, whatever analogy you want to use, but when when I started backstage pass radio, I was always the trivia buff. I always loved the liner notes and records. I love to know who was playing on the records, you know, things like that. And when you said, I had no idea that fee waybill had a hand in writing that song I just had fee on my show two weeks ago, the the episode hasn't dropped. But I spent an hour and a half talking to fee and I had no idea that there was an association there.

 

Adam Hamilton  25:38

Yeah, I'm not sure what his contribution to the song was. But from what I understood, it was Neil Rick Nielsen wrote the music and fee will wrote the lyrics to that. That's what I had heard. That's what I understood it to be. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  25:55

Well, and I guess, you know, they had the tubes had a couple of videos on MTV that were popular back in the day. But I've listened to a lot of feasts, solo stuff. And I guess I never really understood how good of a singer and a songwriter he was, you know, and maybe maybe I was just my brain was somewhere else back in the 80s. But, yeah, very, I mean, even in his older, not older age, but I mean, you know, he's not 23 years old anymore. He still his voice is still very, very powerful. And sounds amazing.

 

Adam Hamilton  26:27

Yeah, he's incredible, man all the way around. Yep. When

 

Randy Hulsey  26:30

did the whole producing thing get started for you? So you go from from musician, and then you get into the whole producing thing? How did that transition happen? And when did that kind of start happening? How long ago did that start, but

 

Adam Hamilton  26:45

that kind of started happening when I was a kid, because when I was young, I would literally take two cassette decks. And I would take a little Radio Shack mixer and play them together. And then I would record the drums. And then I would bounce it down and play the bass to it. And I would bounce it back and forth. And I would make these little multitrack recordings. And so I was always doing studio recording even before at a studio. So then I got a little four track later when I got a little older. And then with that, that just blew my mind because then I'm like, I would invite all my friends bands over and I'm like, come on, I want to record you. Yeah, so I would do their demo tapes. So it really just kind of started with I loved recording music. I love recording other people doing music. I love being able to help other people in their artistic vision. I love seeing people get excited and get chills when they listen back to something they did. And it sounds great. I love the nuts and bolts of it all. I love the you know, I hate math and science. But I love. I'm a nerd about all of the what makes it all work. Yeah, all. It's supernatural magic. And it's a lot of really cool technology. And I just love all of that. And so I guess I just kind of just slowly it was just something that was just always there. And I knew that I enjoyed doing it. And at some point, I knew there was kind of three pieces of the puzzle to me there was being a musician, you know, in a band, and writing and recording and doing all that the second one was producing and recording bands. I love to do both of those. But I also always would, would turn the TV down when I'd be playing guitar. And I would actually write music that I would say this is for that scene that's going on. So I would or music interest, I think would be good for what was on TV, I would just kind of practice doing it. I always knew I wanted to do that as well. And so I just kind of put that out there, I guess and you know, kind of God showed me a way to kind of do all three of those every day in my life now. So that's kind of what I do. It's kind of a it's like a I wear three hats. Yeah, it's stuff I don't tour really anymore. Or in the band. But I you know, it's mainly those two these

 

Randy Hulsey  28:56

days, it almost seems like a natural transition in between all three, right? You know, one one kind of morphs into the other one very, very seamlessly. Yeah,

 

Adam Hamilton  29:07

absolutely. And there's some days where where I have to work on this project, which is, you know, I'm doing a record with that, that singer, actress and Margaret right now and we're doing her vocals over here and I'll have to work with her for the afternoon. And the next day, I might wake up and I have to do some music for ESPN like real, you know, seven string high energy, corn sounding rock, you know, so it just really you just really never know in a day. What its gonna be and that's what's exciting about it. I get to kind of go okay, that's that's the hat we're putting on today. Cool.

 

Randy Hulsey  29:37

Absolutely. That is really cool. Now you challenging. Yeah, I could imagine and you spoke a little earlier about a mentor. But I but I think there was also possibly a mentor for producing to What does Dawn West is that name come to mind?

 

Adam Hamilton  29:56

Yeah, yeah. I've had a lot of a lot of people that have been really, really kind and mentor me along, you know, Kix Brooks was really sweet for talking to me and giving me some great career advice. I met Brian Setzer, when I first came out to LA. And he was really great. He gave me his number, let me call him all the time. And I would talk to Him about everything from, you know, publishing to, you know, writing, recording every just so nice. So nice and so helpful. And so great. So full of grace. And I got to make a couple of records with it with Andy John's who recorded, you know, Led Zeppelin in the star. And he recorded some of the LA guns records I got to make with the guys. And you know, he was another one that he just would, he was so willing to teach me everything. And I would just be like, how did you do this on this record? Tell me how this, what is this? And he had a really great sense of recall. And he would just tell me exactly what you how you remembered it. And you know, how to apply that today. And it was also interesting to because he was learning Pro Tools, we were on that Pro Tools curve, but it just came on the scene. And he was an old school producer guy. And so I was kind of watching him be a student, to learning from the engineer learning how to run Pro Tools. So it was an interesting time learning from him and also watching him learn as well. But I made a record, I got to go in in the studio and assist on a record that poison was making. It was a cover record years ago, and Don was was the producer, okay. And he was fantastic. Man, he was the same way he saw that. That's what I wanted to do. And that's what I loved. And he, you know, he would let me on breaks he got take me in a studio down the hallway. And let me play him stuff. We put them on the big speakers. And he would give me critiques. And he was so nice. He, he actually called up I told him, I wanted to try to get a producer manager and he hooked me up with somebody and got me a meeting and got me a producer manager, he was so nice. And so helpful. Man didn't have to do any of that. So kind.

 

Randy Hulsey  31:53

That's an interesting story. Would you say that? Pro Tools is probably the de facto tool. And for the big productions, I mean, I know different people like home studio kind of thing. They use a little bit of everything. But is ProTools still kind of the standard for

 

Adam Hamilton  32:13

you know, a lot of there's a lot of people who look, you know, it's not really the end all be all now. Now, there's a lot of different options, which is great. Thank goodness, because I hate when people have a monopoly on any feature. But yeah, I mean, that's what I use Pro Tools. A lot of people use logic, you know, a lot of people use Pro Tools, but I never go in a big record and see I'm using anything but Pro Tools. Okay. To my to my, you know, to my eyes these days,

 

Randy Hulsey  32:37

so Well, I think, you know, you talk we were talking about producing it, there's a pretty extensive list of artists that you've, I guess produced and mixed for, I was going to maybe name a couple of the people that you might have worked with. And if there were any accolades that kind of followed the work. I mean, I'd love the listeners to hear about that, too. And I know, there's probably accolades because I see the billboard records on your on your wall, right. So George Lynch did what did you do with George, and how were you guys matched up there?

 

Adam Hamilton  33:12

George, I got placed with George to do a record for him. And it was going to be an instrumental record. And it was going to be like an orchestral instrumental records gonna be raw with like orchestra and him doing solos and everything. And so it was just one of those gigs where, you know, I got to do all the basic tracks, and then he came in and put the leads down on it. And we did it all here. And it was funny, because, you know, our studios get, you know, as time goes on, and things get smaller, you know, you kind of start to I've kind of started getting rid of some gear. I'm like, Well, I don't need 20 amps anymore. I kind of you know, I use my Marshall, I use my fender and I use my fractal for for digital stuff. Yeah, I really don't need anything else. And I've kind of gotten rid of some of that. But sure, we're still kind of in that old school set, where he literally pulled up with a truck and literally unloaded apps and crates, like I might say,

 

Randy Hulsey  34:10

at this is pretty historic, dude.

 

Adam Hamilton  34:13

Yeah, it was like the old days, we just tested all these amps and all these cabinets and all these things. And then literally, the whole record, we used one head,

 

Randy Hulsey  34:22

no way.

 

Adam Hamilton  34:26

You know, I could have saved him all that time and energy and just said, Just trust me I have that you don't need to bring anything but you know, when you don't when you don't know somebody? It's hard to trust them, you know? So of course, yeah. So you know, and I also want to try and indulge people's musical ideas, you know,

 

Randy Hulsey  34:43

would you say that? I mean, because I think you're the perfect person to ask this question of the fractals and these you know, I mean, I've got a pedal, pedal board sitting over there the line six pod do you feel in your opinion? Do those patches. Do they really sound like what they're saying that they sound like? Like, I don't know what like that, like you would write, you know, like you said, Georgia and loads, you know, 20 amps off the truck, can you really get the same sound out of the fractal that you could get out of those? Or is it really a big difference?

 

Adam Hamilton  35:19

It's a complicated thing, but I will say this up until now. No, I my ears have never said that sounds like a real I can't tell that. That's you haven't fooled me yet. Okay, until now. And it wasn't until two amps that did it. The amp Sims, my buddy got a camper. And he played me that and I'm like, Absolutely, I cannot tell if that's a Fender you know, combo or not. But the fractal I think does the heavy stuff better. I can do a couple of really heavy fractal tracks. And then I could do a couple of heavy, you know, Marshall JCM 2000 tracks, and then blindfold myself and I can't even tell him. So finally, now that close to where you still can't get the science behind like a roaring cabinet pushing air through a microphone. Okay, but they've gotten it so close now. But I think so many people use them. And they're just so convenient. You know, when I'm composing. I just don't have time to miking up different apps and different sounds and doing this and running all around, I need to be able to like hit a patch, and have it sound just like that app and be able to, you know, compose? Oh, sure. I really wish I could. And I got one of those fractal FM threes. And it changed my life. Yeah, it, I have literally have it plugged in a wall of vintage amps. And over a year, while I'm finally on board with it and sold. Yeah,

 

Randy Hulsey  36:44

I have a buddy that I interviewed. They they're not Ozzy tribute band here in Houston. And he's a fractal artist, and swears by that thing. But I have to also believe that, you know, the producer, of course, is going to be anal about the sound as well as the musician. But when you put that music in the hands of the consumer, out of 100 people, they don't hear what you hear, right? They're not saying now Wait, that sounds like a fractal to me. And not that you don't have the real app. Right? So so you're because it's so close. And it's almost so precise that I mean, just the the simplicity of not having to lug all that gear and you can have a nice studio like you and I both have, you know, we can see each other studios. You don't have to have this big, you know, 7000 square foot studio to do everything that you need to do anymore. No, I

 

Adam Hamilton  37:39

mean, I do my drums, literally drums, setup and miked up right there. And I literally can grab a cup of coffee, come in and turn on the lights. And in 10 minutes, I can do rolling tape anytime a day. And I don't have to go into Capitol Records or absolutely GE or you know, or go to somebody studio who has a rental kit. Absolutely. I can do it in my pajamas right now do all the work I need to do and do sessions for people all around the world and turn in the record. You know, it's it's it's good and bad. I missed the camaraderie and the magic of making records with everybody but nobody has that, that the budgets to do that anymore. And who's got the time, you know, to spend three months in a record now?

 

Randy Hulsey  38:21

Well, that and who who would know something like COVID would hit that would shut the whole freakin world down. And thank goodness, you're able to do what you do in the confines of your own home. You know, like you could still, in other words, is that the same? No, but you can still work and you can still somehow make some kind of living still working during a pandemic like this.

 

Adam Hamilton  38:47

Amen. I mean, I literally barely slowed down a bit. You know, the first thing that happened when the pandemic hit was everybody kind of locked down. I literally ordered a couple ordered a couple of books off Amazon I had read and I just chilled out and breathe for a little bit. Yeah, for a couple of weeks. And then Tracy guns called me up and he said, Hey, I want to I want to start doing a record and I'm in Denmark but Phil's gonna be in Vegas Johnny in the guys are in LA you're I'm like 20 minutes outside of LA. I'm literally in the suburbs. And we just literally all work from our places and stuff making a record you know, so coming up this month, but that was a product of you know, like we were all locked down and we were like how are we going to do this and we're just sent files and we made it work. That's

 

Randy Hulsey  39:32

awesome. Another name that comes to mind life Garrett. Yeah, what were you doing with life?

 

Adam Hamilton  39:38

I got brought in to produce a couple of tracks for him years ago, maybe like 1213 years ago and he's super sweet guy. Sing great. You know life is very old school. He comes from that old school where they have people have to there they have to know how to sing in tune. They have to they know that craft. You know which there there is that word doesn't even exist anymore. I'm sure we'll edit it and Pro Tools and kids today don't embrace a craft. They don't know what that is, you know, and life is like that man. He just knows how to sing in tune and singing pitch. He's a great guys. So rock and roller. Yeah. He said his share problems, but you know, hey, who hasn't? Right? We are who hasn't, you know, he is been, you know, with the law and in the press, but I love him every once in a while. I'll see him. We'll have a little chat. He lives out here in Topanga Canyon. But yeah, I just had a blast produced a couple of an EP for him

 

Randy Hulsey  40:33

what a huge sensation. He was back in the day. Right and, and well so talented. And some of the some of the covers that he did like the launder and put your head on my shoulder and, and a lot of those songs are still at 55 years old are still some of my favorite songs and it sounds kind of cheesy, like, really, you listen to the cute little heartthrob, you know? Bubblegum? Absolutely, I did. Right? That was that was my time. And 1978 1979 when that stuff was just unbelievably popular. You know, those songs are still stuck in my mind. There were great songs to begin with. But he put a really nice spin on those songs. Surfing surfing USA by the Beach Boys and things like that.

 

Adam Hamilton  41:20

timeless, classic.

 

Randy Hulsey  41:23

How about your pal Bill Shatner talk a little bit about Bill and what you've worked with Bill, I guess he just got back from outer space to write. Yeah, I

 

Adam Hamilton  41:31

texted him the other night. And we usually go over to his and Liz, his wife lives his house and watch Monday night football with him and his family and a bunch of their friends. And he always has some food, great food. And we always bet on the games. And it's always such a fun time. But then once COVID You know, we stopped doing that. And so I usually will text him on a Monday night and I'm like, Who you got? And you know, he'll text me back and say, um, you know, Broncos buy something. Sure, sure. We're gonna have a laugh. But I texted him last Monday. And I said, now that you're back from space, are you in your bed watching Monday Night Football? And he said I am? strange thing to say, isn't it?

 

Randy Hulsey  42:07

Yeah. Did he give you any feedback on on the trip? Or what did he talk about? There?

 

Adam Hamilton  42:13

You said he, you know, he's a very spiritual guy. He's a very, he's just, he's one of those guys that you could just sit down and talk about God and the universe. Yeah. What does it all mean? And all the stuff he's very into that he loves exploring, you know, talking about stuff like that. Sure. So for him to get to do that. It was very emotional for him. You know, he said, really put things into perspective. You know, he's like, looking back at the earth. And you see how small it is. He's like, I just got suit. So welled up in with emotion of being able to do this and just looking at how small Earth is and thinking about how big the cosmos is. But how small we really are. We're just like, little neutrons on an ant there, you know, that it's just it was an interesting perspective. And he said it rabbits over

 

Randy Hulsey  43:00

well, I could have I could imagine it is something that you know, guys like you and I would all think about because I haven't ever been in the space. I don't know if you have I mean short of an airplane ride somewhere. But

 

Adam Hamilton  43:12

think about the number of people you can count on hands. That happened just absolutely. I mean, it's pretty slim number. It's pretty crazy. Yep. Now you're

 

Randy Hulsey  43:21

working with a Golden Globe recipient right now. And Margaret, are you are you able to share a little? Are you able to share a little bit about what you're working on there with? And

 

Adam Hamilton  43:32

yeah, I think she said three times global Golden Globe and she got nominated for an Oscar. She's won pretty much everything. There is the win. I'm having a blast working with her. She's doing a record at eight years old. And she sings incredible. She's absolutely amazing. And she's she's wanted to do a lot of these songs from her whole career that have been really important to her. And also songs that were just important to her personally that she loved. So it was kind of hard for them to pick the songs. But we've been tracking her songs out here in LA and the producer of the record is a guy who I do a lot of CO producing with his name's Juergen Engler. Now he's in Boston, and he's just incredible. And he's doing these amazing orchestral tracks that we were singing to and it's just making it so much fun. But she's a blast. Yeah, you know, she comes in and we hang out. She comes with our assistant and her system will be taking notes and do whatever we need to do and we make the first thing we do is make some tea and just kind of hanging out, you know, and just kind of I was wanting to get loosened icebreakers. Yep. Yep. And still not not feel pressure because when she was making records, you know, back in her day, you know, it was the old studio system and you had a bunch of guys and coats and they're all going Come on. Hurry up time is Mama's money. Yeah, yeah. And you're spending too stuffy. Yeah, orchestras. You're paying orchestras for the hour and you send it she's just like, I've never I've never done it like this. And she's like, I almost have to to kind of remind myself just relax and breathe. And I'm like, exactly what a

 

Randy Hulsey  45:04

stressful way to work back in the day, you know, like, with all the suits in the room and all that, and

 

Adam Hamilton  45:09

yeah, well, the good thing is, is it kept people who shouldn't be making records away from making records. You know, that's the problem, you're right tools done is it allows a lot of people that don't need that really are talented enough to be artists to be artists. And if you look at the charts, you know, you can pretty much you know, that pretty much proves itself that say, I don't want to sound like an old man saying, you know, back in my day and everything, but you know, I finally understand, the further I look back, you know, that now I listen to stuff like Sinatra and classical music, and I'm like, oh, that's the stuff I just never I didn't get that I get further back we go how amazing music is and how much more rich and sure, like anything back in the day, people spent way much more time crafting things, you know, painting and, you know, now it's just about Hurry. Hurry Money, money, money. Yo, hurry, hurry, hurry, and

 

Randy Hulsey  46:04

we start to slow down a little bit. You know, I, you know, I think the older I get, I take the time to listen to things that that I didn't listen to before I find myself in my studio, Saturday mornings, and purposely I will listen to stuff. Of course, I've heard of the bands, but I never paid him any attention in my 20s or 30s. You know, I I was never a huge Rolling Stones fan growing up. But I've grown to love the stones. And I play a lot of the stone stuff in my shows these days. Right? So it's a new appreciation for stuff that you just never took the time to just Just breathe and listen to.

 

Adam Hamilton  46:42

Yeah, man. There's nothing better than having those aha moments when you get a little Absolutely. Right where you can receive it. You're like,

 

Randy Hulsey  46:49

yeah, yeah. So great work on the poisoned record. I love that. The covers are great. I love all the poison covers that they did. Especially the song choices more than anything. Some of my favorite songs. But speaking speaking of and, Margaret, what's your you're actively working with her? You're also working with? I was reading Clem Burke. Right. Are you? Are you current with him right now? Or?

 

Adam Hamilton  47:15

No, he came over to play on a couple of records. He had a producer named Danny B. Harvey. From Austin. We do a lot of work together and Danny produces stuff and he'll have either me play on it or if it's a guest, he'll have them come in here and do it. And Clem was going to play on his record, rockabilly ran called the rock cats. And so he asked if Clem could come in here and do it. My study I said, Absolutely. So he came in last week. And we tracked that and a couple of songs. He came in and he knocked out almost the whole record and after that afternoon, it was Wow, really good. A really good. What would you say a good. It was one of those good moments of seeing a really stand up for a season pro come in, and just like

 

Randy Hulsey  48:01

when you know what you're doing, you know what you're doing right.

 

Adam Hamilton  48:03

Wow, that's impressive. That was impressive. Well, I

 

Randy Hulsey  48:06

guess for the listeners that don't have a clue who may be Clem Burke is he was the drummer for or is the drummer for blondie. And I guess also spent some time with the Ramones, The Eurythmics? I think Iggy Pop, maybe comes to mind. And

 

Adam Hamilton  48:26

he plays drums sometimes for the Romantics now, okay. Do some tour dates with them. He he's just one of those in demand. You know drummers that, that he says sweet, nice guy easy to get along with and he's a great drummer great air. You know, you could put him in any situation. It'd be great.

 

Randy Hulsey  48:43

Yeah, but you wouldn't you wouldn't call him a hard gun. I mean, he's stationary with with, with with blondie. Right. But what is he considered a hard gun to like, No,

 

Adam Hamilton  48:53

you know, I mean, he would be considered a hired gun if say, you know, he pop hires him to go on tour with him. No, he hires a band to go out. I know, he's a blondie band. Okay, you know original originally from way back but yeah, I guess technically you know, if if any of us go out with a with an artist or a band you know, we're being hired for them Sure. Considered a hired gun. Gotcha.

 

Randy Hulsey  49:15

Now, along with producing and playing bass and rhythm guitar for LA guns. You're also very active in television and movie work and I had and I really had no idea that side about you know, your your business. But there's been shows like what the Family Guy The Simpsons the Osborne's talk will talk to the listeners a little bit about how that transition and I remember you telling me earlier, you know, you turn the volume on the TV down and you play along with it, but how does this work come about? And, you know, talk to us a little bit about that.

 

Adam Hamilton  49:55

Well, you know, a lot of people will go to school to study scoring and I never Did that I just kind of like I said earlier, when I would see a picture on the TV or on a movie with the sound turned down, and I would just hear music in my head, you know, I would imagine what music would be playing right there. And so that's kind of how it started for me. And I did a couple of little films for people like student films and stuff like that, you know, coming up, just to kind of get experience and learning. But I met a guy at a wedding reception, I was seated right next to him. And we were talking and chatting. And he asked me what I do. And I told him, and he said, what he did? And he said, Well, I, I think I might be able to help you get some songs of yours into TV and film, if that's something you might want to do. And I said, yeah, so that's kind of how it really started was, was I had a guy who was pitching my stuff. And he was landing them in TV shows. Wow, you know, 20 years later, and I've had my stuff in over 100 different shows 12 different commercials, but 13 movies. And the great thing about that kind of stuff is when it airs on TV, you know, you have a movie at it airs on TV, and all the movie channels will hopefully if it's a successful movie, like I had a song on the Bourne Identity, the first Matt Damon movie, and that's will be airing forever, you know, because that's always on TV. It's always on. So a successful movie will literally pay you the rest of your life, which is great.

 

Randy Hulsey  51:24

Oh, that's some good. That's one of the one of they call that mailbox money.

 

Adam Hamilton  51:28

Yeah, royalty checks are made money. Yeah. That's awesome. What you want to do is hopefully rack up as many of those as possible that way you get those really nice surprise checks. You're like, Whoa, this is a nice surprise.

 

Randy Hulsey  51:41

Absolutely. For us. You mentioned the word scoring. Yeah, I technically have. I mean, I kind of have an idea because we're on the subject. So so how does this come about? Is this songs that you've already written? And there's a movie and somebody finds? They listen to this song and say, Oh, this would fit the movie? Or is it the other way around? Where you watch something and then write a song based on what you've seen? Is that the cart before the horse or the horse before the cart?

 

Adam Hamilton  52:12

No, you're right on both of those. It's the, it's both of those things. I've done a library music, which people shot companies will shop around, and they will, they will say, Oh, this song will feel fit great in this scene. And a lot of the usage that I get does like that. And then again, a lot of times I'll get a call from ESPN. And I'll say, hey, we need like three songs for this spot for this game. And it needs to be like this. And that's a fun on what I love to do. And they'll send me I'll watch the and literally scored a picture so that scoring means isn't actually writing the picture. Yeah, that's a little more challenging, obviously. And there's a lot of back and forth, you have to You're literally in the service industry, you have to you have to serve your client and make them happy. Yeah. And a lot of times, by the time you get to so many revisions, it's it doesn't even feel like it's yours anymore. Yeah. So there's good and bad in both, and I love both of them. But yeah, it can be a little exhausting. Because a lot of times the people you're talking with really don't know how to talk in, you know, speak the same musical language absolutely can be hard to kind of decipher what they're talking about. So I've kind of found that what usually works best for me in a situation like that is I don't get too far down the road on a project without sharing it with them. I like to get about 20% there and then say, Hey, am I on the right track? Is this going in the right direction? And if they say, Absolutely, then I'll start adding to it, send it to them to see what it sounds like tomorrow. Gotcha. I found that that I kind of, you know, roll the dice and came up losing by trying to bite it off the whole project often say, here it is, what do you think? And they're like, it's not what we want. And you're right. I just did all that work for nothing. So you definitely kind of learn to do it in steps and phases. Yeah,

 

Randy Hulsey  54:02

I don't speak that language. But I'm going to try to speak the language to you. But if you take a show like I because I think you had some involvement with like, let's just use Gene Simmons Family Jewels, right is this could this be something as simple as and again, I may not be using the right terminology but let's say a scene cuts from one to another and there's a musical transition and it's a five or 10 second clip is this something this is this could be your stuff right? And it could is it just is it a longer song or is it literally something that you wrote for 15 seconds? Right and they just clipped it

 

Adam Hamilton  54:42

it could be anything okay for like for example that Gene Simmons show. There was a lot of little comedy song pieces that were in that so we would literally get an assignment they would say, hey, we need some little comedy thing some funny little things to go from commercial to little to seen with Gino. Look at The camera and do like a funny look, you know. So it definitely was a little bit of that, okay. And then again, they would use some songs from my library where they just like some kind of rock song that worked for a scene, they would cruise through there. And I just had a song from the WWE, this new wrestler named Trey Baxter, they picked his new theme song, and it's one of my songs. And I didn't even compose it. For him, it was just a song I did for like high energy TV, you know, for like ESPN, and sports and stuff. But it, it really turned out great. And they ended up hearing it and they go, we want that to be his song. So I got to be his, you know, his theme song just by, you know, happening to be at the right place at the right time. You know,

 

Randy Hulsey  55:42

so So how does that how does that even come about? Like, let's, let's just say for example, I write something like that. Here in my studio. Is it really just knowing the how to market that and to which people to market that? Or is this is there like this repository? In the sky? Where where these, these movie and TV people go and just pick what they want? Say, Oh, I like that one? No. Oh, and it just happens to be Adam Hamilton stuff? Or how does that work? Is it really just knowing somebody in the industry? Yeah, okay. It's

 

Adam Hamilton  56:15

like, you gotta get you got to know somebody, and you got to have an agent to get you in, touch and represent you and, you know, make sense. You pointed in the right direction and bringing gigs to you. And, but yeah, it is a lot of that is, you know, putting together a music library, but at the same time, you know, you could sit there and write a bunch of songs, and they might not get used in anything, because they're just not right for, you know, there's a very specific format, you know, and there's a very specific way that you score things. And, you know, you really have to know what you're doing. Otherwise, you're kind of doing a lot of work in vain, you know, yeah, might never get used, and it might never be in that right form. But yes, sometimes they'll use songs of mine, and they'll use 10 seconds of it a 10. second snippet. Sometimes they use the whole thing, sometimes they'll even loop it twice. Yeah,

 

Randy Hulsey  57:04

well, I had no idea. This is cool, because I had no idea how prolific you are. And all of the all of the catalogue of stuff that you've you've written and done and I'm sure consumes what on a, like, in a day in the life of Adam Hamilton, is there? Is there time that you set aside during the day to do things like that? Or is it just random when you feel like, it's probably random? Yeah,

 

Adam Hamilton  57:31

yeah, it's random. You know, there, it's like anything. Usually, when it rains, it pours, and I'll have a lot of projects going at once. I don't have to really try to juggle and balance things, too. I can make sure. But a lot of things I have to do are deadlines for TV and film. So I really have to work under those deadlines. Okay. And that that's not my favorite, because I don't like working under pressure. Stress. Yeah. And you got to you know, sometimes you got a deadline, record deadline or release date, or, or a TV deadline, you got to get it right. I prefer the more laid back and, you know, writing music in the more organic way. Yeah, you know, that Adams pace, right? Yeah, yeah, that's my job. So there you go. Well, you know, there'll be weeks where I, you know, I may have one project going on, and it's nice and, you know, laid back and it's not real stressful, but then I know, okay, it's probably gonna get

 

Randy Hulsey  58:25

calm before the storm. Yeah, you

 

Adam Hamilton  58:27

just have to appreciate when it's, you know, I can spend more time with the family and do some things I want to do around the house and take care of some business. So you know, it's just, it's just balanced, man. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  58:38

I hear you. Jumping back over real quick to La guns. How did that gig come about for you? How did you get how'd you get roped into LA guns?

 

Adam Hamilton  58:49

My friend. His name was muddy. He was the bass player. At one point. Mark Dutton, muddy Stardust is his name. And muddy is a great producer. He was in a band called Burning Tree years ago in the 90s, with Mark four from the Black Crowes and muddy was was engineering some record I was working on and he and I hit it off, and we just became friends. And always stayed in touch and worked with each other since then. And muddy had done a couple of years with La guns. And then he had started a band with Gilby Clarke and Slim Jim phantom from the street. And he said, Hey, I'm thinking about when I'm making this record. I think I've got a bow out of LA guns now because they're getting ready to go on tour, would you want to go do the tour? And I didn't even really think about it long. I'm like, Absolutely. It was perfect timing for me. I had just kind of come to the end of a band that I've been in for years and things had kind of wound down and it was definitely time for us all to do something else. And so it just literally fell in my lap at the perfect time. And he called him up and he said I got your bass player. My replacement don't look any further and I think they wanted to see a few other people. And they they did. And then they didn't find the guy. So they finally called them back and said, Okay, who's your guy? And so he said, call out, um, and he called me and I went down and played with him. And that was that for cool. Good day.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:00:14

And What years were you active with La guns?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:00:17

Gosh, I can't even tell you, I would have to look it look online,

 

Randy Hulsey  1:00:21

wasn't it like a five or six year span or something like that? Does that sound right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:00:25

For like, maybe six or seven years? Okay, first time. And then I started producing and doing a lot of the TV stuff. Problem was was I was I was going out on tours with those guys. And I'd been out with them for years. And I was just missing out a lot of of TV and movie gigs, that were really going to be big opportunities. And I was having to turn them down because I was going all the time. And that was one of the reasons I just said it's I think it's time for me to maybe focus a little bit more on producing and composing and during the TV thing. And that was when my first my first chapter with those guys came to came to an end. But then I went back out and toured with him a few years ago, in 2018. I did like a few months with them. We toured the US and went over to Europe and did a European tour. And that was great fun. I got to play rhythm guitar. And that was amazing. I loved every second of it. But I have a special needs daughter. And so we quickly found that it's just too hard for me being away from home. You know, one of the blessings of being able to work at my studio every day is I can be close to the family and I can you know, help that village, you know, with that little girl. Absolutely. And being away for a month at a time. It's tough is too much to do. And we have had a nurse for her and it's still just too much for mom.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:01:46

So I can imagine. Yeah, it's a full time.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:01:49

It's a full time job but raising a kid and then when you when you when your kid has special needs. It's even tougher, right? Oh, yeah. It's crazy. So I realized that as much as I love the road life, it's just not. It's just not a good fit for me right

 

Randy Hulsey  1:02:04

now. And that's a great segue. I wanted to segue into that. But before before we do, I wanted to ask you one more thing about another project that you might be working on. Do you have something going on right now with Michael Sweet of striper? Or is that something you had going on with him or

 

Adam Hamilton  1:02:20

that was a record that Tracy and Michael Sweet did and it was called Sun balm? And I ended up playing drums for it and mix the record for them. And they put it out last year?

 

Randy Hulsey  1:02:30

Was that a solo effort for him? It wasn't striper, right.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:02:33

It wasn't stripe. Okay. Okay. It was Michael and Tracy writing the song okay. And and Michael sing and Tracy doing all the guitars and I did drums. Okay. Yeah, it was fun. It was a real metal record, almost like old school Iron Maiden metal. Very cool. They really wanted to do something kind of different than they normally do. And they got to kind of be kids again. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:02:53

Well, I you know, I'm a longtime striper fan from way back. And Michael is one of I think probably one of the best vocalist in the business. Would you agree?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:03:02

Oh, my gosh. Any and it just couldn't you couldn't meet a nicer guy. Yeah, we we were all sad because we were all you know, when you're making a record, even though we're not all there. We were talking every day, or we're texting every day. And toward the end of it. We were like, What are we gonna do when we're done with this? I'm gonna miss texting with you guys every day. Yeah. Kind of a sad thing gonna be the end of it. But Michaels just, he's incredible.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:03:27

Some people were just blessed with that angelic voice. And he's one of them for sure.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:03:31

I can't say enough good things about him. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:03:35

So Yeah. You mentioned earlier special needs daughter and in me, is her name. Correct? And is it cerebral palsy? Do I have that correct? That's correct. And I was gonna ask you, if you're, you know, if your line of work was conducive for you to be a good, you know, like, I think there's some dads that they have this job where they have to get up, they go off for 10 hours a day, you know, with a commute and eight hours of work, and then they have to commute home. I would have to think maybe your job is real conducive for you to be there and be in the moment if needed, right. I understand that. Your wife probably says, Adam, go do your thing. I don't want to bother you. But you're always there, right? Yep. Yeah. What a blessing that is

 

Adam Hamilton  1:04:22

that my place? Mom is is her primary caretaker. And she's, she, you know, take her to school and all her appointments and all that stuff. And that's when I I do my work here. But yeah, but um, it's just, you know, it takes definitely takes both of us and she you know, she has a seizure disorder too. So, you know, we're always kind of under alert, she has seizures, and that can be kind of scary. You know, it's it's pretty crazy. You know, we were coming back from Orange County this weekend, and she had one of the car and we were like, Oh, really on the, you know, four or five. One you couldn't pick Doors Please? God bless her heart. And it's scary and it's scary for us and everything, but we, you know, it's what's that thing that you know, you just, you just kind of human beings have an amazing ability to just kind of figure it out,

 

Randy Hulsey  1:05:14

adapt, migrate or die, right. It's kind of the kind of, what are you gonna do?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:05:18

You know? Yeah. And you know, we couldn't do it without mom, she's, she's the key element and all this, you know, I always kid a lot kid with her and I say, you know, the, the freight trains running down the tracks, and I'm just literally hanging under the, you're alive.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:05:34

But at least you're still on the train. Right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:05:36

Yeah. Because her mom is amazing. She's on all sorts of advisory commissions for special needs in the state of California. Wow. She's gotten appointed to all sorts of stuff. She's on the board of her school.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:05:48

She's amazing, inclusive school.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:05:50

I mean, she's, you know, when you say getting involved when this happens, your child that the definition of that is her office done, she's just you know, it's given her purpose, you know, well,

 

Randy Hulsey  1:06:03

she absolutely now now she started a web a web blog on Facebook that I believe anybody can follow it, I follow it and Isn't it called in correct me if I'm wrong, me as a star, is that correct? Okay. Yeah. So for the listeners out there that are interested in the the journey, Emmys journey, and just or maybe have special needs, family members of their own and want to be in the support group, me as a star on Facebook, I've read some of the blogs, I've seen the pictures, they touched me as a person because I have a life my wife, Terry takes care of special needs children every day and in the school district that we're in. And I've always told her that, you know, God broke the mold when he made people like you because I couldn't do that I'm the most compassionate guy in the world and have the biggest heart for the you know, the less fortunate the special needs people, the underdog, right? But I just don't know if I have the patience to do what she does. She has the patience of Job like she has the patience of a saint. And you have to take your hat off to people like her and your wife Dawn and even you being the dad you know that even though she's the primary so to speak, you're still very involved in that and it's Listen,

 

Adam Hamilton  1:07:26

it takes it takes, you know, a real special person and they're few and far between and you know, Michael sweets wife does that too.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:07:34

I had no idea that well, we have that income another thing in common. Yeah. Very cool.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:07:39

Is an exceptional woman. It's amazing to watch your work. No.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:07:45

Well, they they are amazing. And I wanted to give you the platform to talk about any charities that you might be involved in as it relates to to me, or any any charity for that matter. Because I think you guys are possibly involved and some Is there any that you want to share with the listeners that

 

Adam Hamilton  1:08:04

I think, you know, anything involved with cerebral palsy is is good with me because I know how it's fascinating. I just never knew how many people that really affected were really even what it was, you know, and the fact that it could affect any of us, you know, I mean, if we had one car wreck and suffered a brain injury, we could have cerebral palsy to absolutely literally that easy. So I think any of that is great. You know, whatever charity just just find a charity. Yeah, man. We just got to try to love one another love our brothers. Yeah, you know, love your neighbor. That's the key here. Absolutely.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:08:38

Backstage Pass will make a donation to a charity. Just based on this conversation. I'll do that post show. But, you know, speaking of family, it's also my understanding that you might have just had a speaking of Dawn, your wife had a anniversary, right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:08:55

Yeah, we just had 15 years to eat big ones. This past week. We got we got a rare night out by ourselves. It's all very strange.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:09:04

It's a lot of the right.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:09:05

Oh my God, it was like it's okay. We are we is this illegal?

 

Randy Hulsey  1:09:09

Yeah. Right. Are you looking over your shoulder all night like I am? Why am I here?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:09:16

It was great. But it was really weird. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:09:18

Terry and I are going on 33 years. And that's probably about 32 years longer than I thought she would put up with me. So I'm way ahead of the game at this point in time. So So Adam, how do the listeners how would they find information about you? Do you have you know, Facebook, Instagram, where you add on social media that people can maybe see what you're doing?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:09:42

I've got all that you can find me Adam Hamilton one. That's Twitter, Adam Hamilton on Instagram and Facebook. I'm easy to find. Yeah, my pic come up and none of those are locked. They're all like

 

Randy Hulsey  1:09:57

public so awesome. gone and see what's

 

Adam Hamilton  1:09:59

going on. trouble if you want.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:10:01

So, let's do if you have a couple of minutes left, let's, let's do a couple of quick fire questions. These will be fun simple answers. If you want to elaborate on any of them certainly feel free to do that. But single answers are perfectly fine too. So are you a Beatles or stones guy?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:10:18

God, that's a hard one. Depends on the day. Okay. What about these stones lately?

 

Randy Hulsey  1:10:24

Stones? Okay. Yeah, that then that's usually not the case. Most people are like Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, so

 

Adam Hamilton  1:10:31

I know Ringo. But don't tell him I said.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:10:35

Write about Neil Peart or Keith Moon. Ah, god, that's

 

Adam Hamilton  1:10:40

another man. It's apples and oranges. It depends on the day. You know,

 

Randy Hulsey  1:10:45

Neil Peart. Okay, summer, winter. Summer. I was gonna say I mean, Southern California. You got to be a summer kind of guy, right? You don't get too many winters there. I don't think

 

Adam Hamilton  1:10:57

winter is 80 degrees and flip flops. Exactly.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:11:02

TV or radio.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:11:05

I'm gonna say unfortunately, sadly these days TV. A lot more TV than radio. Yeah, sure.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:11:13

Cool acoustic or electric drums. Oh, acoustic. Okay. Do you feel like oh, I mean, I guess well, electric drums have their place. Oh, yeah.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:11:23

Yeah. And I love it. I love them love electric drums. And I used to have a set. I got rid of them because I they were gathering dust. Like a lot of stuff I don't use anymore. But yeah, they have their place. But you know, it's just like, you just can't get the real thing from but from the real thing.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:11:41

I guess this would be a great time to ask this question. Because I've always wanted to get a kit for my studio. I can keep a simple four four beat right. I'm not I don't consider myself a drummer. But I always said it would be nice to I mean, I've got bass guitars and pianos and all that I have everything but the drums right? You

 

Adam Hamilton  1:12:00

get you one of those. It's called. It's by Gretch who make the best drums Charlie Watts played gratis. Okay, it's called a Catalina kit. 800 bucks. No, and you got to buy cymbals and stuff like that short drums are 800 bucks. Best kid ever.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:12:16

So from a spec? I think for me, it's not really I would love to have an acoustic set myself because I would probably agree that, you know, well, part of it, too, is learning to play. Um, I can put headphones on and not run Terry out of the house and get pissed off at me in a real rolling kit. Okay, rolling. That's what that's the one that I've been looking at. But

 

Adam Hamilton  1:12:36

absolutely the best. They got the best sounds of all the other companies. They don't really sound close those rolling ones like they have real acoustic sounds and you're like, Oh, that's a real snare drums.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:12:47

Okay, great. Yeah, I think for me, it's just it's space constrained or anything, right? I can't have like a 20 piece acoustic set in here. So okay. I'll, I'll heed your advice on that. So I asked a guy Gil. So from Zebra this question, and I didn't know at the time when I was coming up with a question if the question even made sense, but he said no, it makes perfect sense. So he's validated the question for me that I'm going to ask favorite drum in the entire set.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:13:18

I guess it would be a snare drum. Okay, just you can do everything with a snare drum. You know, you think about the old Elvis days you don't have the brushes and Sandra. Yep. You don't even need anything else

 

Randy Hulsey  1:13:28

that's served as kind of like you could use that as a ride like a rock, you know, like you're doing everything on just the snare, right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:13:35

Yeah, I mean, you know, snare drums the heart of it. The heart of kit. Yeah. How about

 

Randy Hulsey  1:13:40

performing or producing for you for you these days? Without a

 

Adam Hamilton  1:13:45

doubt producing I love to perform but something changed in me and I don't need to be out there hamming it up anymore. I love being behind the camera. Now, you know, sort of

 

Randy Hulsey  1:13:59

it's interesting that you say that I had an interview with with a guy named John Evans, who is a successful performer here and Michael all over but kind of a rockabilly roots guy and he's produced some some number one records for guys like Roger Krieger, and you know, some some local Texas artists here. But he said the same thing. You know, he loves playing. He still loves playing live, but he get he said, I think I get more enjoyment. making other people sound their best, like bringing that out of people and it's in it's kind of along the same lines when people ask me, do you like to play your shows? Or do you like the podcast and said, You know, I really like just talking to people. I'm a people person. I love conversation, and I love the stories behind the music while I get great enjoyment out of delivering a song. I get just as much enjoyment talking to people like you and hearing your story. So it's interesting. Maybe I wouldn't say it's an age thing. But you know, I think that if you were to ask me the same question or maybe even yourself or John, you know, 2530 years ago, you'd say, oh, no, man, the stage is where it's at, you know, this kind of a mindset. Absolutely. How about early bird or night owl?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:15:18

I guess. That's tough. I am an early bird these days, just out of my little girl gets up early, but I used to be a night owl. So I like going to bed at eight o'clock. If I could go to bed at eight and get up at every every day at eight, I'd be the happiest man alive, right? That ain't gonna happen.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:15:38

You notice I was sitting here drinking my coffee for this interview, because I'm way past my bedtime right now. About favorite la guns song to play live. Or la gun song in general. What did you have a favorite that stuck out in your mind when you were doing your stamp with La guns

 

Adam Hamilton  1:15:57

I loved and still love over the edge. I think that is one of my favorite songs. I love wheels, the fire. That was another one that we just got. I just love to play so many of them. I mean, there really wasn't a song in the whole set or the whole catalog that we would do that. I would be like, Oh, we gotta do this again. I just loved playing that that catalog of music videos. It's a pleasure. So much fun every night.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:16:24

Would you say you're formally trained on the drums and guitar or you just a play by ear kind of guy?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:16:30

I'm 80% play by ear and I took a few lessons. So that's we'll call that the 20% I wouldn't say formally and anything. Yeah. Okay.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:16:40

And sometimes that's the greatest. It just comes out organically, you know. And you Yeah, you know, sometimes those are the best players. You don't have to be classically trained on anything to be good. Yeah, no. Through Adam Hamilton's eyes greatest drummer of all time.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:16:57

That's a hard one. I mean, my favorite rock'n'roll drummer of all time is is probably John Bonham, but a greatest drummer of all time. That's hard to say, man, because everybody's so great for what they do. Sure. But

 

Randy Hulsey  1:17:11

the questions are sometimes a little hypothetical. Like the answers could go either way. It's just kind of more conversation than anything, right? Yeah.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:17:19

I mean, I think John, John Bonham and Neil Peart, you know, so many great ones. So many great rock drummers a man you know, then again, Charlie Watts, nobody, you know, I love Steve Job about I listened to him playing with the stones now, and I'm just like, Man didn't have that. Charlie magic.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:17:36

Yeah. Were you ever Buddy Rich guy?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:17:39

Oh, he's one of my kid, one of the foundations of my drum. Okay. Yeah.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:17:45

What about in your eyes? Is there is there a greatest bass player of all time? You know, you're a bass player, too. I didn't know if you had one that stuck out your mind is maybe an influence that somebody that you know, like, like for me when I bought my first bass guitar, the guy that drove me to even want to pick up a bass guitar was Nikki six. I just thought it was cool. I thought he was cool. Right? So I didn't know if there was some bass player for you that kind of said, Man, I gotta go out and get the the bass guitar. That's a sexy instrument. You know?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:18:12

So so many of them, man, so many of them. I wouldn't even know where to start. But yeah, man. Absolutely. All those guys

 

Randy Hulsey  1:18:20

are cool. I was gonna ask you about drum manufacture of choice, but I think you mentioned that earlier. Gretch. Right. And they make a great guitar as well. Great musical company.

 

Adam Hamilton  1:18:31

I love them. Yeah. And, I mean, I have all the fenders, and Les Paul's and all that stuff. But what I've been playing lately is I got I got a Schecter guitar. And it was one of those Pete Townsend guitars that Pete Townsend tallies, and I fell in love with it. I saw Pete Townsend playing in a video in the 80s. And then I got another sector, like Les Paul Jr. And that's all I play now every interview like records and TV and all that stuff. Those are my go to plow my mate to the Les Paul's gathering dust over there.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:19:02

I had somebody recommend that brand not too long ago to my son, who's who's a phenomenal player himself. You know, if you didn't want to tell her a strat, you know, the, you know, that brand is certainly one you should look

 

Adam Hamilton  1:19:15

at half half as much and they stay in tune better and sound. Yeah, I mean, like, I when I weigh it out, I'm like, well, there's no, there's just no, you know, no choice.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:19:25

Yep. And the last question I had for you, is there a kind of a number one influential musician or band in your mind? That's just kind of been it for you over the years. You know,

 

Adam Hamilton  1:19:39

there's been there's been a few I mean, we know when I was a kid, you know, I had that kiss. Everybody loved kiss when I was a kid. So that was huge. And then I got into Van Halen, and that was still huge. And then I got into rush and that was huge. Then later on, I got into YouTube. I thought they were like, pretty huge, a pretty huge, inspiring there's just been So many, you know, there's so many that I just I just love so many different types of music.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:20:07

It's tough to answer that question. You know, when there's so many influences out there, right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:20:11

It really is such a hard part and then you know, and then I get off on to the alternative stuff, me and my life like that's what she loves that we love, the cure and mickleton New Order and all that the Smiths and all that. It's just like, oh, man, you know, all fall. That's all we listened to. Yeah, sure. So it's just there's just so much great music out there. If there if there was never a new song, it wouldn't matter.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:20:36

Exactly. However, there's plenty of good old stuff, right?

 

Adam Hamilton  1:20:38

We'll never be able to even scratch. Discovering it all.

 

Randy Hulsey  1:20:42

Absolutely not. So Adam, thanks again for joining the show. I wish you continued success with the TV, the music and and the production and producing endeavors. Thanks for the time. It's been a nice chat for sure. Thank you and I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast. Also make sure to follow Adam on social media. And don't forget me as a star there if you guys care to follow the blog of of Adams daughter. As always, you can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast on Instagram at backstage pass radio, Twitter at backstage pass PC and on the website at backstage pass. radio.com You guys make sure to take care of yourselves and each other and we'll see you right back here on backstage pass radio.

 

Adam Gordon  1:21:33

Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you enjoy today's episode of backstage pass radio. Make sure to follow Randy on Facebook and Instagram at Randy Hulsey music and on Twitter at our Halsey music. Also make sure to life 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