Beth-Ami Heavenstone Mixdown Master

Tue, Mar 21, 2023 10:08PM • 2:07:06

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

play, graham, band, song, graham bonnet, thought, great, called, write, record, started, bethany, alcatraz, bass player, remember, day, backstage pass, meet, tour, story, Beth-Ami Heavenstone, Bass Player, Graham Bonnet Band, Graham Bonnet, Hardly Dangerous, Toto, Tommi Rae Brown, Athena Lee, Athena Bass, Rock Wives, Los Angeles, Fender, P Bass, Autism, Autism Awareness,

SPEAKERS

Graham Bonnet, Randy Hulsey, Beth-Ami Heavenstone, Adam Gordon

Randy Hulsey  00:00

I have packed up everything but the kitchen sink and have traveled out west for the show today. It's Randy Hulsey with backstage pass radio. And today I'm coming to you guys from Los Angeles, California, where my guest today has done her time in the music scene around the world. She is the bass player for the Graham bonnet man and just came off tour in the UK. So buckle up you guys, and I will chat with Bethany heaven stone bass player and spokesmodel for the Graham bonnet band. And we'll do that right after this.

Adam Gordon  00:29

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

Randy Hulsey  00:58

I Fern, hi, welcome. Welcome and welcome Graham bonnet sitting over here at the table with us to Yes What a nice surprise.

Graham Bonnet  01:06

Yeah, I'm referee for the

Randy Hulsey  01:09

Well, glad you guys are here. And thanks so much for having my brother and I and in your home. It's great to be here. It's great to be here. And I guess I should mention that we're wearing Graham's home as well. Right I know we're here doing an interview with Bethany but we're in gramps home as well. Right so we got to give give him a little props or you're not gonna give him props.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  01:33

On it rocks. He's He's everything. The guy is just

Randy Hulsey  01:38

amazing as Superman. How long have you guys been here in this home or in the greater Los Angeles area?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  01:48

I moved to Los Angeles in 1989 under the guise of matriculating to UCLA from my college in New York City, which never happened because I got a record deal, like six months later, and that was that, that sort of derailed that, but I've lived in this house. Had my first baby in this house 20 something years ago.

Randy Hulsey  02:12

So you guys have been here for quite some time.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  02:14

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna die in this house.

Randy Hulsey  02:17

I know. Of course, you're on the West Coast now. But you, you grew up on the East Coast. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. And maybe what you were doing as a kid like was Bethany, a musician, as a young kid, or what what were you into as a young kid? And where were you? Of course,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  02:37

okay, I don't want to give my woe is me story. But I was the youngest of four kids. And I was completely neglect. So I was born a musician. But everybody tried to beat that out of age seriously, it was. Music has always been so important to me. And my mom's very musical. My dad was musical mom played piano, dad played banjo, everybody, well, not my sister. But everybody in the family had some sort of bent towards music. And because my sister was tone deaf, she would kind of make fun of me when I would sing. And I after a while I stopped doing it. It may be very insecure. And I asked my mom, you know, I want to take guitar lessons. And she said, Well, you can take piano lessons. And that didn't work for me. I had a bunch of undiagnosed learning disorders, and I'm dyslexic, and I'm ambidextrous, and that messes you up. So basically, nothing happened. And I was just a listener and an absolute lover of all genres. So I grew up listening to jazz and big band and swaying and my parents dancing in the kitchen. And my brother David was really into like, Prague. So King Crimson weather report, you know, all kinds of kooky I loved Yes. My brother Matt was more hard rock Led Zeppelin, you my first record, I think was the Rolling Stones satisfaction, like a 45 or something. And then my sister listened to like a ham radio or whatever, which I didn't really like that but I learned to love 70s soul from that. So I've always loved all genres of music. Okay, Southern rock. I love Allman Brothers. Like, I like everything except maybe not a huge reggae fan and hip hop escapes me. Yeah. Because I'm old.

Randy Hulsey  04:24

Yeah. And remind, remind me where you grew up.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  04:27

Okay, so I was born in Philadelphia, and I grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Okay. Yeah. couldn't wait to get out of there. I'm not gonna lie.

Randy Hulsey  04:37

So really, I guess the family. They love music, but we're any of them kind of where they instrumentalist.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  04:46

My mother played the piano. My dad play banjo. My brother played guitar a little bit, and my other brother could play virtually any instrument. I remember him sitting he was so wacky sitting outside his bedroom window. want like a little part of the roof? playing the flute? Okay, cool.

Randy Hulsey  05:06

So I guess it was inevitable that you were going to play something right? And was it always the bass guitar?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  05:11

Or? Well, that's always what I hear I realized that now, like, I couldn't tell you the name of a bunch of songs or what the lyrics are, but I could tell you how the bass line goes, or I started playing bass because someone left one at my house.

Randy Hulsey  05:27

Okay. And that's the only reason why you gravitated to the bass just because it was there in front of you. Right.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  05:32

I think it's the reason I was able to play it within, you know, a week of having it. Okay, but

Randy Hulsey  05:37

did you fall in love with it right away? It was an instant thing for you or not really? No, it

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  05:41

is a very visceral feeling when you play the bass. It's a really sexy instrument. It's the heartbeat of the library with a conduit between all the players. It's the mom. Yeah. So Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  05:52

And it's interesting because I, I started out on the piano. And when I moved to the guitar, the first guitar that I bought was a bass guitar, because I was always this you know, this Nicky six fan, I just thought it was like you said it was like the sexy instrument was just cool the bottom in. And then I realized, as a vocalist, you really can't go sit out by the fire or whatever and play a basic thing along with a bass guitar, it just doesn't really work out too well. So that's when I bought my first acoustic and it was kind of downhill from there. But Graham, you play multiple instruments as well, to a certain degree, right? You play a little piano, don't you? And then and guitar,

Graham Bonnet  06:31

very little piano. Yeah, I play bass also. But, you know, I used to do sessions in London, and elsewhere, playing bass and acoustic guitar, you should do a lot of rhythm guitar, people's tracks. But if I wanted to play bass and sing, I couldn't do it. Because I can't blame my brain because a word that way. It's like a drama singing. I say, How the hell did he do too much going on? I could do one thing at it. Because I was asked to join certain bands. And I was asked to play bass and sing. I said, Well, I'm not I can play bass. He said, Yeah, you know, you do sessions. But I can't

Randy Hulsey  07:07

concentrate on the basis, it makes sense because I start

Graham Bonnet  07:09

singing the bass. Like, you know, all my loving goals. The baseline flight, I get it, you know what I mean? So I didn't somebody continue with that. I continued doing sessions, but not recently.

Randy Hulsey  07:28

Okay. So you mentioned that you spent time the way you grew up in in Philadelphia, you spent some time in New Jersey, you've been out in California for quite some time. But you also spent some time and, of course, New York City and London as well. Correct. Can you talk a little bit about the time in New York City and then London short and kind of why you were

07:51

there. Anything to get out of Philly?

Randy Hulsey  07:55

It was that it was that simple, right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  07:57

I don't dislike Philly. I just it felt like I was in close. I'm a big city girl, you know, or I was okay. And New York was just a natural progression because it's just down the street, you know? So I moved to New York. And, you know, I tried different things part of, you know, the difficulties I've had in life due to the Undiagnosed learning disabilities like keeping a job. I'm not stupid, I'm just weird. And I, my brain does not function like other people. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s. And like I said, I knew about the dyslexia because I wrote in mirror images. And I could do it with either hand. You know what I mean? Because I'm ambidextrous. When they mapped out the dyslexia, you know, I learned a lot about things that I just cannot do. And I grew up thinking I was stupid, because my parents just couldn't get it. They just didn't take me to the right. People. Yeah, specialist doctors. Yeah. So now as the mother of special needs kids myself, I'm like, I'm so on it. And my kids are amazing. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  09:03

Does not to go down a rabbit hole about health care and your health and what you had going on. But I did want to ask, does, like add, and dyslexia Does that ever get any better as you age as you mature? Do you learn to deal with that? And use? Okay, okay.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  09:27

That's, I'm, I'm such a success story, you know, no one else might think so. But coming from where I came from, and what I've managed to do in all these years, I'm very successful. I

Randy Hulsey  09:40

was hesitant to ask that but my two of my three kids were add, and in school, we have them on medication, and it helped tremendously. But in their, in their young adult life. They don't take the medicine anymore because they've learned to kind of cope just cope right And so that's what that's where that question even came from to begin with.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  10:03

I have both of my kids were diagnosed with autism, it's impacts them very differently. Okay, I'm getting evaluated to see if I'm on the spectrum as well, because I'm a weirdo. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  10:13

Yeah. And I did want to talk to you a little bit about okay, autism. Okay. I think going back to the first band, and you can correct me if my any of my facts are off here, just correct me. I'm cool with that. The first band that you were in, was it bootleg? Was

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  10:30

that how did I tell you that?

Randy Hulsey  10:32

I can't tell you where I get my information from

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  10:35

in a band called bootleg for like six months or something. So what had happened, I love this story. I was out in Los Angeles. I had a boyfriend here. So it's, you know, flying out to see him and spend time with him. And he had a roommate, who's still a great friend of mine, this girl called Terry Terry was friends with the girls from hardly dangerous Tommy Ray Brown her now Tommy Ray Brown, and a drummer and then a guitar player that I like to call Voldemort because I never say her name. Because we don't get on and I won't give her any airtime. She's not a good gal. She's a good person. So anyway, so tell me anyway,

Randy Hulsey  11:16

does she know who you're talking about if she hears this podcast? Not that you care, but Okay,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  11:20

thanks. All right. She's dead to me. You're dead to me. But we Oh yeah. The drummer we actually had was Athena Lee or thena bass, Tommy Lee sister. And prior to me joining hardly dangerous I was with my boyfriend sleeping in his room when I heard this cacophony, this ruckus, and I cracked the door. And I looked through and I saw these women just having a party like they were literally they were standing on the furniture, like they were just absolutely Blotto. And they were so funny and so loud and so larger than life, I have said, you know, to myself, well, too, I said to my boyfriend, who is that and he said, Oh, that's Tommy Voldemort. And Athena. You'll meet them later. And I said, I want to I want to be them. They were so happy and carefree that it was so not a New York way of being okay, you know, for lack of a better term. So I did ultimately meet them. And I just, I hit it off with Tommy, like, I hit it off with you loved her from day one, and still do to this day, my very best friend of the world. So she was a teenager. Okay, I wasn't much older. Yeah. Oh, yes, I was. What am I saying? Yeah, I was much older. Anyway.

Randy Hulsey  12:39

You don't have to give all your information away. Okay.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  12:43

You can edit me. Yeah. But um, so I lied. And I told them I am a bass player because this

Randy Hulsey  12:51

person because you had a bass because

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  12:56

anyway, she knew I was lying. She knew I was lying. I told her at stage experience. She's She knew I was language. So she farmed me out to bootleg which had been bootleg was an offshoot of hardly dangerous to the girls from bootleg used to be in hardly dangerous and they split. Yeah, so I played with them for about six months, help them get a record deal. And then they can to me. It's okay. I'm still I'm still friends with two of them. It's all good. nothing bad to say. It's just not sure what their motivation was. But

Randy Hulsey  13:24

oh, you got no closure on that.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  13:27

I have my suspicions. I don't need it. I don't care. Okay, matter because once it happened, Tommy came to me because now you're ready for hardly dangerous. Okay, so she farmed me out to them to get my sea legs or whatever. And I did. And they lost their development deal. I remember them being so haughty, you know, we got signed, we get our deal. And they lost theirs and then we go.

Randy Hulsey  13:49

So it's safe to say that this was an LA based ban. Right? Correct. Okay. All right. never really did anything so. So from bootleg, you became the bass player for an all female band, hardly dangerous, which you spoke of. And you also spoke of a couple of members in that band, who were maybe weren't then but kind of later became pretty well known. You spoke of Athena Lee, who is this? You tell them who the cast of characters are Tommy, Tommy Right. Like who is she and Athena? Right. But because the listeners listening those names may not mean anything to these people.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  14:26

Well, Athena is Tommy Lee's sister and she's a drummer and she's stunningly gorgeous. I can't say we were so linked musically. I don't think we really ever bonded musically, but I like her very much. And she's brilliant. But you know, we talk when the occasion arises, but you know, I can't say she's my best girlfriend.

Randy Hulsey  14:51

Okay. Yeah, if my memory serves me correctly, and it's getting a little old these days, but were you on a episode of rock wall? wives are multiple ones or something like that with her. Yeah, she she

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  15:04

interviewed me for that. Yeah, yeah. And I wasn't gonna talk about farting but my dog came over.

Randy Hulsey  15:11

I was gonna say I already know what your

15:13

theta started gagging and I could not stop laughing It was

Randy Hulsey  15:18

so funny. And the dog's tail was probably just wagging like they did nothing wrong, right? Yeah. Silent, silent, but deadly.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  15:26

Well, I got it first. And I waved my hand I said, Oh my God, that dog farted and, and her reaction was so pristine. It was so natural. She literally started gagging. I loved it think

Randy Hulsey  15:41

I remember that episode, and I think I remember her go and making the sound like she was gonna like vomit all over the place. So it was it was hilarious. If I remember the episodes are

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  15:53

really funny girl. You know, it's so funny to me because she's so pretty and delicate looking at but she's such a tomboy. It's like you're talking to a guy

Randy Hulsey  16:02

and she beats the shit out of the drums to

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  16:05

just, she's lanky and yeah, Tommy calls her boom, whack. Her brother Tommy Tommy re calls her boom, whack, okay, cuz she's just, you know, boom. Whap Yeah, she's boom.

Randy Hulsey  16:17

Well, you spoke of Tommy Ray.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  16:20

Yeah, so tell me right. She was like a runaway from Vegas. And when I met her, she had chickenpox. She was a teenager. She was just such an interesting person. Because she was really just not that she would invade your space, but just really got into your face. And, you know, I was telling Greg this the other day that we would be talking and I would use a word. And if she didn't understand it, she'd stop me and say, Tell me what that word means. Okay. And then a week later, I would overhear her conversing with someone else and perfectly be using that word like she's just such a smart just latched on to those kinds of functions as a seventh grade education, okay. And she's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. And she's so worldly and elegant. And it's crazy, because her I don't want to give too much of her story away. But the things this kid endured, and it's why I stand by her no matter what. And she's, you know, there was a period of time where I had to draw a line in the sand and say, You can't do this, if you want to be my friend cannot do this. And I didn't talk to her for a year and a half. And it broke my heart every day for that year and a half, because I love her more than anybody. She is my sister, you know, we are not blood, but she is my sister. She knows me better than anybody. And she's there for me and we cry together and we laugh together. We've been through so much together because she's also the widow of James Brown. So when he passed away, you know, and they locked her out of her home with her little boy. She came here,

Randy Hulsey  17:51

the Godfather of Soul,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  17:54

the Godfather of Soul, I was the matron of honor at that wedding and

Randy Hulsey  17:58

will correct me if I'm wrong. I think that you just spent some time with her over in the UK, did you not when you were on tour, you guys were on tour and I think you were at her house. Maybe while you were there you ngram?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  18:10

Yeah, she's been living in London for about five years. So every time I go we build that into part of the trip is that I need to go see my sister. That's

Randy Hulsey  18:17

great. Yeah. Was she able to get out to see you guys? Okay,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  18:21

she came to London and she also came to Wolverhampton she Yeah, she's great. I was hoping I would really love to, because I still do shows with hardly dangerous when I can.

Randy Hulsey  18:31

Okay, and I didn't know that. Thank you for educating me on that. I had no idea.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  18:34

Well, even when she was on tour with James, because she's not just the widow. She was a featured performer in his band. That's how they worked with him first for at least a year before they became a couple which is exactly how long Graham and I worked together for a year before we became a couple but she would call me from the road and say, Dude, I got two weeks off book a show.

Randy Hulsey  18:54

And we would was she just singing with him? What was she doing?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  18:57

She was singing She was a featured performer. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  19:00

And how did that how did she meet up with James like I saw her

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  19:03

performing. She was doing the dead legends at the was that called something Palace? I can't remember I'm

Randy Hulsey  19:12

not here in California in Vegas. Oh in Vegas. Oh, and he said,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  19:17

Bring me that girl. Oh, the cow palace.

Randy Hulsey  19:19

No, nope. Caesar's Palace. No, no. Wrong palaces.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  19:23

All right. It's all right. It was the Asian one. It was the Asian

Randy Hulsey  19:26

Hong Kong phooey palace.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  19:32

So he saw her and she was doing Janis Joplin in the dead legends show how metal singer she can even get that like to voice thing that says so she went to his hotel room to meet him. You know how James talks like I need an interpreter. She has an accent and he mumbles it he Yeah. So

Randy Hulsey  19:56

you're, you're my brother is here with us of course. And And I know you're probably thinking about the Saturday Night Live skit with Eddie Murphy where he does the James Brown. Too hot in the hot tub. Nobody knows what James is saying. Everybody in the band just nod their head. Yes, yes.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  20:15

About that. That's not really how it goes. Because Seamus is also so smart. And if you just nod your head and you didn't understand him, he'll go what I say. When they got married, he wouldn't let my husband stay with me because I was with Tommy said, it's not appropriate for a gentleman to be in a lady's quarters when she's preparing for her wedding. Okay, so he had to hang out with him while James got ready. Okay, while he was getting his nursing, he came back and he was like sweating. He couldn't. He said, Oh my God. He told me he must have said Excuse me. I'm sorry. Pardon me? Could you repeat that like 150 times that day? Because he does. He's a mumbler. He was mumbler. He was lovely. He was so sweet to me. He liked me. So okay, well, good.

Randy Hulsey  20:59

Did you ever see the skit with Eddie Murphy on Saturday, and you were in this band? Hardly dangerous for 25 Bishop still in that. Okay.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  21:11

I'm still in that band for okay.

Randy Hulsey  21:13

Maybe Maybe I'll rephrase what I'm saying. Okay. Because you seem to be pretty technical. You're holding me to technicalities here. So were you full time and hardly dangerous for roughly 25 ish years?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  21:27

No, I actually stopped playing music for years. married, I had kids and I had special needs kids that needed a little, a lot of extra time. And we I was only active in the band really for about maybe three years. And then after they got rid of Voldemort. I rejoined.

Randy Hulsey  21:47

Okay. And where did the alternate chicks fall in? Oh, that

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  21:51

was probably about 15 years ago, or maybe even less? Yeah, because when Graham and I met I was still doing that. And that was very brief. That's just that was the drummer from hardly dangerous. Sherry Kaplan Weinstein, okay. Still one of my closest friends. And this girl Susan Hyatt, who is a really talented songwriter, a very good singer, and she had a placement agent. So that band was created to record for purposes of placement. She had done an ad out here for Macy's and made bank so we were we recorded things like, shouted out loud, and my kinda lover by Billy squasher. We did Saturday night by the Bay City Rollers, that kind of thing hoping that would get placed and I would do that again with her with them in heartbeat. I had so much fun. That's cool. It was great.

Randy Hulsey  22:41

I preface what I'm gonna say by saying I'm horrible with dates like you talked about dyslexia and see now I forgot where I was going.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  22:53

My brother my twins separated at birth your me? God.

Randy Hulsey  22:57

Oh, wait, what was what was even gonna?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  23:02

Dang it dyslexia?

Randy Hulsey  23:05

Oh, yeah, I was. I was saying that I'm horrible with dates. That's kind of my downfall. Not not really a downfall. But it's something that I've always struggled with, is associating a point in time with a date. Right? I don't correlate that well. So that's, that's kind of my thing. But I'm only bringing that up to say that. I'm a bit conflicted on some date. So in my readings, there's some things that say you joined the Graham bonnet ban in 2013. And then there's other resources that say 2017, but I think I think your band Graham started in around 15. Right? 2015. Does that sound right? Or am I it was 2013 Was it was 2013. Okay, so 2013 is when your band started, then

Graham Bonnet  23:59

they'll ask me about your

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  24:01

contact, contacted me, I think end of 2012 or beginning of 2013 for the first time. And he said in an email, it was through LinkedIn, which I'll tell you later about that. But he said in an email, I'm always looking for new bands to work with. And I knew virtually nothing about cramp on beyond. Since you've been gone. And all night long. I knew nothing. So I thought, Oh, well, maybe that guy is a producer now. So I sent him links to the alternative chicks and hardly dangerous the two bands that I was playing with time. We had a few more back and forth exchanges about music. And then in one of the emails I said, it's difficult for me because of a single mom with a special needs child or because only one was diagnosed at that point. And you know, I said I have a son with with autism. And he said, he wrote back I said, I have a son with autism too. And I said how old and he said, Oh, he's 30 or something. I'm like, Oh, wow, I want to hear more about that. So everything shifted for music. To them, and so we just email for a while then we graduated to the phone. And then one day I knew I was getting because he was living, you know, about half hour 45 minutes away. I said, I'm gonna be in your area. Do you want to meet me for coffee? I said, Sure. And it was really funny, because I just knew the little bit I'd known. You know, I looked into him a little bit and a little bit I knew of him at that point was this, this mega star this artists that had, you know, done so much. And I was starting to learn about his catalog and I pull up to get him and he walks up into my car, so humble, like shrugging his shoulders, you know, putting his hands out, palms up like you This is it, this is what you get. And I'm like getting the car. So we went to some restaurant, we got coffee, and we were just chatting. And I even jokingly said to him, I said, have to use the ladies room. And I got up and I turn, I started to walk away. And I turned around and I said, don't look at my butt. And he said, I won't.

Randy Hulsey  26:01

But did you but did you grant just for a second, right? I was still pretty. If it was only three seconds or shorter. It didn't count as a look, right? Yeah,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  26:11

that's not the What's that? The three second rule when you drop food on the Oh,

Randy Hulsey  26:15

yeah, you can pick it up and still eat it. Right.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  26:19

So it was, you know, we just it grew from there. You know, I liked him just when we were just writing to each other. I liked him. When we talked on the phone, we just really hit it off. And so, you know, I would go visit him or he would take a train over here because he doesn't drive because he has epilepsy. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  26:38

Real quick before you continue. Where was he? Like, I'm trying to visualize this. Okay. North of where we are now. Okay. Okay. Okay. 45

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  26:47

minutes or so.

26:50

You know, we would

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  26:52

spend time together, he would come over and you know, hang out with me and the kids. And we would I don't remember when we started to play music. Actually. I do. So I had a show at the whisky in the summer of, I think 2013. And I said, Do you want to, you know, be a guest and come play a couple songs with us? And he said, Sure. And he was playing in his version of Alcatraz at the time with how we Simon and Tim loose and Bobby rock is that it was on there.

27:23

Yeah, yeah. And

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  27:24

so he did. Oh darlin by the Beatles. And no matter what, my bad finger, you know, we've rehearsed once or twice. And then he came up, and I was so blown away at how frickin loud he was. I couldn't believe I've never heard someone sing so loud in my entire life. I was like playing in my head whipped around like go, it was scary. Yeah. And it was fun. And it was really fun. And then he got offstage. And when you go upstairs to the dressing rooms, at the Whisky, and after the show, I walked up the steps, and he was waiting for me at the top of the steps, like a little kid practically jumping up and down and clapping his hands. He said that that was so fun. I want to be in a band with you. You're so passionate, and you're so you enjoy yourself so much. I had a blast. And I said, Okay, you know, not thinking he was serious. And then he I'm trying to get confused. I'm pulling a randy here. I can't remember if you went to Japan or Brazil on that next trip, because I would drive him to the airport sometimes. There's Brazil. Was it? Yeah. Okay. I don't know, because you did both of those in those first six months or so of me knowing you. But I did I pick you up from the airport? No, I don't remember. But anyway, he came back. And he said, All right, well, I quit my band. So let's get to work. And I said, I'm sorry, what?

Randy Hulsey  28:53

He said like he went he went right for the jugular 99 Yeah.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  28:58

Yeah, I don't watch you know, praying for emphasis. Yeah. And okay, so we started playing together and it was really fun. It was really fun. You know, we would have fights that are very first fights were over music because, you know, I would take notes he would be telling me what to play and I'd be writing the notes down and I would play a pass you know that he just told me what the notes were need go no, do this. And this, I said, Look, this is what you just told me to play. Why are you changing it? He goes because either one works. I'm like, well pick one. Let me just play let's get through the song you know, that those were our first fights. It was a really trying to find the right word to describe the experience. It was so fulfilling to for lack of a better term. It really touched me so deeply. When we you know, we would laugh and smile and we just sort of started to develop feelings for each other over music looking at each other across our good Tara No, it's cool. And it was just really a beautiful time in life for me. You know, it was because I had just gone through, you know, I'd gotten a divorce and you know, I didn't have I hate saying this because my ex husband's one of my best friends and I would never want to hurt him. But I didn't have a good marriage. I was unhappy for like nine out of 10 years. And he's my friend. So yeah, he Well, he's the reason I'm with Graham. He's the one said to me, why don't you with him? He's a good man, and he loves you. And I'm like, because I told him right away, I said, I'm not dating a musician.

Randy Hulsey  30:35

Boy that went out the window.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  30:38

Cried, I'm sorry, Graham. I'm out and you he was really hurt. Graham has feelings, too. From day one. He did. You know, first of all, I figured out about five conversations and that the only reason he contacted me was he liked my picture. And,

Randy Hulsey  30:54

well, it's got to start somewhere. Right? Does it not? Come on? I mean, I gotta take up for Graham a little bit. I mean, if if you were like this, if you look like a mud, then I mean who's gonna like rootless, be honest, come on. We're being we're past that point and not being honest with one another right.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  31:11

But I remember some of my some girlfriends would say oh, my god grandpa wrote to me on LinkedIn, like every day now. No, I know that story. I know what he said to know are you just really sweet? He wasn't being like Alyssa Vyas or anything. He was just trying to make

Randy Hulsey  31:29

lascivious. Can you look, can you look that word up real quick, lascivious? I don't even I've never heard of that before. Oh, I'm gonna start

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  31:36

vocabulary. Yeah. Yeah, he was a person out on me or anything. He just was being friendly. But I was pretty obvious that you know, quite frankly, he, you know, we were just friends for a year and what, when things started to turn, you know, romantic, was we were in the UK. And we're staying with one of my other best girlfriends who lives in England, who lives in Cambridge, my friend Colleen. And Collins got a bunch of kids. So they had to rearrange to in order to accommodate us. And we were, we were in her daughter's room. And I didn't, you know, I thought oh, because he was like, every night before we go to sci fi give me the best back rubs. And he's kind of I have to say Grandpa has a really nice touch, ladies. Anyway,

Randy Hulsey  32:25

well, don't tell him that. Oh,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  32:28

that's fine. I don't have a jealous bone in my body. Go ahead. Anyway, I really don't. It's weird. You know? Well, you

Randy Hulsey  32:35

had mentioned earlier that when Graham came and played you, he had this powerful voice, right. And I literally just had this conversation. Was it with? Oh, yeah, it was it was with Adam Hamilton this morning at breakfast. And we were talking about the voice and the vocals and I think I talked to you about this on my interview with you, Graham. The voice as you as we get older, you would think that the voice kind of just kind of wears out, but you said it. Robin McCauley said it. You know, as we're older, it's like the voice is so much more powerful or is or it's in better It seems to be in better shape than it was 30 years ago. Do you still feel that way? Like your voice isn't really it's still there? Right? It's

Graham Bonnet  33:24

kind of like, you know, I find why I know something better. I don't know what it is. It's the muscles in my throat have strengthened but I did have a problem. Which I have fixed. We should want my right so the vocal cords collapsed. And about how many years ago was that?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  33:42

That was probably six or seven or

Graham Bonnet  33:44

seven years? Yeah. And I went to my doctor say you know to see what what had happened. Ear Nose and Throat guy and he said Well, you're right both boards basically you know going down like a tie on the bar Yeah, it was Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  33:59

So how do you know that like is when you sing your voice just wasn't the same slightly crackly.

Graham Bonnet  34:04

You know guys, right. Not noticeable. But to me. Yeah. He said, Well, what I'll do is we can get it back to work the way it was. I saw a prompt or cortisone in there. And it's been great ever since.

Randy Hulsey  34:21

Okay, no problem. Yeah, Coach cortisone usually is not known to really last is a long lasting thing. It's a temporary

Graham Bonnet  34:28

So build up that muscle again. Okay. You know what she did? I'm kind of seeing exactly the way I did it 30 frickin years ago.

Randy Hulsey  34:39

Although it's amazing. And I never really thought too much about the the vocal cords being muscles and they do strengthen so that I guess that makes perfect sense that you know,

Graham Bonnet  34:49

of course you have to have the air is one and everything else with it for sure. I've been very lucky to have been built with very large lungs.

Randy Hulsey  34:57

Okay. You get that Big breath in the diaphragm, right?

Graham Bonnet  35:03

It's big here, narrow here.

Randy Hulsey  35:05

Okay. It's been my friend that he didn't say he was hung like a breakdown

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  35:22

so

Randy Hulsey  35:23

I knew I had a feeling that was gonna go off the rails.

Graham Bonnet  35:30

Anyway, yeah. I'm lucky. I've got a big head, a big face here, and all, you know,

Adam Gordon  35:37

and we'll just leave it at that. already seen the rest of you

Randy Hulsey  35:49

What did you use to say Andy? It was like you're hung like a bull parakeet. Oh my god. All right, well, we got it, we gotta move on kids. I wanted to share a quick clip of a song off the 2022 LP entitled Day Out of nowhere, and the song is the title track off the record. So let's treat the listeners to the song day out of nowhere and then we'll come back and chat a little bit

36:31

more miles, the sky

Graham Bonnet  36:39

dogs were barking no size.

Randy Hulsey  37:14

That was the title track off the 2022 LP entitled day out in nowhere. First of all, great song played a clip of think with you Graham. It was brave new world is one of the clips that I had shared. And I wanted to ask you, how much of the backing vocals are you part of in the recording? And in general, in that record,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  37:39

whatever grabbed tells me to that's not

Randy Hulsey  37:41

a good answer. Is there a percentage like that you sing? Like do you sing on every song? I don't I don't know what the involvement is.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  37:51

But I don't remember.

Graham Bonnet  37:55

No, I do I tell them what I actually did happen does happen.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  38:00

I just I read literally what else they will call the Indigo. We need you to do this. And there'll be something

Randy Hulsey  38:06

but Okay, so maybe maybe what it's not a great percentage. Yeah, okay, fair enough. There's no right or wrong.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  38:11

If you've got the opportunity to have growth on it sing the back.

Randy Hulsey  38:15

But that's that's in the studio. And you can do amazing things in the studio by you laying a main vocal track and then going and doing backups. But let's say let's ask the question this way. From a life perspective, you were just on tour with dead daisies, right? Like how much how much are you singing on stage and live shows?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  38:35

I'm singing okay, I'm singing on stage. I might be not singing super loud, but you're singing Wait, I was going to tell you there is one song where you can really hear my vocal and it's weird. What? It's the sky is alive. Okay. And there's this sort of throaty female witchy voice Yeah, that was me. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  38:58

Do you consider yourself a vocalist? Hell no. Okay. I guess you told me right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  39:04

No, I mean, I'll sing if you asked me to. I remember. I don't sing very much because honestly, you know, Graham is so good. It's intimidating but I used to sing a lot in hardly dangerous and I remember at 1.1 of the labels had paid for us to take voice lessons and the vocal coach said to me if anything were to happen to Tommy it wouldn't sound the same but you could easily replace her. Okay, so well that was a nice call. It was a great compliment but like you said about that muscle if you don't use it, you know, consistently Oh, no, no, no. So I'm only using it you know when we go on tour, okay, that's it. I'm not I don't sing around the house like I used to because he tells me I have too much vibrato and then that just shuts me right down.

Randy Hulsey  39:48

And when somebody like Graham says that you kind of just tend to shut up right? Yeah, just figure. You sing a lot walking around the house. Don't get grant. Oh, absolutely. Because I note I picked up on that, and you know, sitting here well as I was setting up the gear and conversation that would be kind of a singing part to the conversation like you'll, you'll insert that singing thing. Have you been doing that for like, for ROI always? Yeah, I was gonna say it's like, it's just what you do.

Graham Bonnet  40:16

Can't help if somebody says, you know, you can't do that, hey, I got something I can't stop. Me want a warm I got it. Oh, I go into the very first recording. But if somebody Sparks We got I just sing anything. I go through our little jukebox in my head on the 1950s. So that the plan was did the Beach Boys stuff. And I tried to do the harmony with myself. Well, that's impossible with the Beach Boys stuff. Of course, Beatles, and sometimes the kings and whatever. Yeah, my Yeah, my era, my generation, I should say he does a generation talking about

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  41:02

he does this thing. We're in the car and a fan comes on, especially Beatles or Beach Boys. And he'll find the Fifth Harmony. Okay, he'll do another harmony that is not on the record. It's just

Graham Bonnet  41:14

the Beatles especially they did. Like there'll be a John and Paul. And they would often leave out the middle harmony, the one that makes the sandwich or the you know, the top one, whichever. Okay, and there's always that one missing one of the tracks on the very early tracks. You know, there's always I remember first singing this, getting that idea. Named after Maurice Gibb. We were sitting in his car. He said, Have you heard this? I can take the Beatles vote vocals off this. He had this beautiful Rolls Royce. And you know, he was Mr. Gadgets. And he had this where he could turn off the track. I just held the vocals. And he said, let's sing the part that's missing. He said they always did that for you to sing along. I'm sure they did. Karaoke, but of course they didn't. It's just the sound they had. Because George was never that much of a great singer. Okay. He was a perfect harmony singer. Yeah, like Morris Morris was Morris was always the guy that made the sandwich. Yeah. So just be sure you know, it put it all together with, you know, with Robin and Barry. And, but so we'll be in the car driving along. Oh, yeah. Are you which one is it? You know, we take pictures in our hobby that I would say, but there's another one. There's another one.

Randy Hulsey  42:30

Yeah. Well, I think that that even came up in my interview with you. And I think I might have said Who harmonizes better than the brothers Gibb? No, they were amazing.

Graham Bonnet  42:41

I have you seen those only vocals? Oh, yes.

Randy Hulsey  42:43

Lollipop love.

Graham Bonnet  42:47

Nothing years old. Yeah. Nice guitar striking him away. And that's a bio man's wrestling. You're sick all these old songs. But perfect time that he gets to the tune of the twins. Yeah, they

Randy Hulsey  42:59

were like that. Yeah, Mary was this tall. And the other two were like down here I can I can see that

Graham Bonnet  43:04

perfect every frickin time. And of course, they never lost it. I made Wow. Just last time I saw him was in Australia. They did a thing. I can pull jokes out and say I Capello. And I remember being in the audience. It was at the cricket ground in Australia. And I remember sitting behind these people in the audience and when they did their acapella thing. And I've heard this before, because I've sung with them, obviously, over the years. And I just remember people going, Oh, my God, you know, they come from a magic kettle. Yeah, nothing but attitude. But it wasn't loud and blasting. blow your head off. They were. They knew what they were going to say. They were brothers and very close. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  43:47

And they there's an old saying, well, not really a saying but it's probably a lot of truth to it that nobody harmonizes better than siblings do. Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah. Really? Brothers. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. To make the three Yeah. To do the third and the fifth. And of course at the Beach Boys. Yeah, yeah. We were just listening to the Beach Boys coming back from Malibu today and talking about I was telling my brother, you know about all the famous surf places that they wrote about in surfing USA and talking about, you know, a couple of them that we went to while we were here. But yeah, I mean, that whole band was built around harmonies, right? Yeah,

Graham Bonnet  44:26

absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the most amazing stuff ever again. And a former kind of it obviously was a big fan assured that I remember when they did that song because because the world is round. They were trying to you know, try to be the Beach Boys.

44:45

Yes. And, of course,

Graham Bonnet  44:47

Brian was the thought was a great choice. But that great friends yeah, those two guys. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  44:55

I have a question for Bethany. But you spoke of the the BGS earlier they were instrum Mental or they? Did you guys write warm ride together? Or did they write that and you performed it? Is that how I was trying to remember back to our conversation?

Graham Bonnet  45:10

Robin made that up. And very good. Straight out. The demo I got wasn't like really good. Rough vocal that's rolling did and with no kind of chords or anything? Yeah, I'm very putting together and train some words, but he definitely changed the metals. He also

Randy Hulsey  45:28

Okay, yeah. Well, it's interesting that I had let my brother listen to a couple of the songs from from you guys Graham bonnet band. And then I said, Oh, check this one out, too. And I played warm, right? And it's totally like something completely. It's so 1978 I pictures, you know, Studio 54 in New York City. Total. Like it sounds much like a Bee Gees type of song. Right? So yeah,

Graham Bonnet  45:57

it was gonna go into the movie southern high fever. And it was a trap that was left over, you know, because Robin hadn't completed it. For some reason. While he wasn't putting the movie. And so I did this. And I was under protest. I did. Because I said to my manager, this is my kind of thing. So Whoa, writing that disco thing. And that's what I wasn't doing. I was doing r&b stuff and, you know, more sort of semi rocky rock kind of stuff. That wasn't me. But he says you got to do a grace. Yes. I said, Yeah, your friends.

Randy Hulsey  46:33

What was interesting that you, you know, the whole rainbow thing was not you either, right? I mean, that type of music was not? It wasn't?

Graham Bonnet  46:44

How would I fit in this man? Yeah. Now my manager convinced me directly.

Randy Hulsey  46:49

Okay, well, interesting. And I know, Bethany, you're a talented writer. And we'll talk a little bit more about your writing and what you're planning on doing and that type of thing. But I did want to ask, are there any contributions from you from a writing perspective for the Graham bonnet band? Do you have input into that? Or does Graham pretty much handle all of the writing for

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  47:11

he writes all the lyrics? Okay, you know, he'll, he'll say, I need something here. And you know, I'll give him input that way. And, yeah, I always sit in, even though Conrad is producing, and I've, I was the one that saved the mineralize. Well, we couldn't figure out what to do with that. What was that? Well, remember when you had that sort of bridge piece that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the song. And remember, we're working with Mario and he was had some suggestion, but I was the one that said why don't we do that twice to frame? The law? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I do have some creative input. It's kind. Of course you did.

Randy Hulsey  47:55

It wasn't his idea. Exactly.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  48:00

But it did it brought the song to, you know, a point where it was, yeah, us it makes sense. But ya know, he never gives me credit for anything.

Graham Bonnet  48:08

I give him credit for everything. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be on this fricking planet right now. She's kept me alive. That's your security all the time. But she brought me back to life. To be honest with you. Yeah, we

Randy Hulsey  48:21

covered that for sure. Right. Yeah.

Graham Bonnet  48:23

Yeah, I spoke about it last time. I spoke to them. To him, I should say to them, and it was because I was ready just to stay at home or to have sessions or whatever, or just chatting with dries here and there if I was wanted, but I wasn't wanted that much. And I was already kind of like sinking. And as we claim Alliance. You should be doing a bit more than this.

Randy Hulsey  48:47

The guardian angel. Yeah, I guess Yeah.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  48:50

No, I just thought why, you know, why isn't he a mega star? This guy's amazing. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  48:58

I mean, let's be honest. I mean, you talk about hallowed vocalist, right? I mean, Graham's up there with them. And shins,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  49:04

musician, musicians vocalists, but to the general public. People don't know his name. Yeah. And it's terrible.

Randy Hulsey  49:10

What do you think that is? Why do you think that what in your opinion, Bethany, I can tell exactly what this is the best of me show we've talked to Graham a bit but but but I wanted to get her perspective on why do you think RAM bonnets name is not more of a household name are

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  49:23

stuck with anything. He just kept moving from project to project and you know, he didn't give it enough time to develop, you know, and interestingly enough, Conrad pointed out to me that I am the artist that has played with him. The most consistently of anybody in all the years has played together. I played with him for 10 years. I did quit briefly. But he sort of suckered me back in a few months later, so, you know, my parents were tanking and I needed to be there and shoot them and I didn't need to again and I wasn't enjoying it anymore, because I wasn't, I didn't like our bandmates. And you know, obviously I I don't want to be around them. Yeah. And I even declined to play on the last Alcatraz record because it would have meant I'd have to see them. And I'm just like, I don't never want to see them again. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  50:09

Well, in the grand bonnet ban, you're not only doing Graham's material from the Graham bonnet band, but you're also you guys were also performing Alcatraz and rainbow stuff, right? Is that correct? Like so when you were in the UK? You guys mixed and a lot of

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  50:27

tanker group his solo stuff? Yeah, we do. It's yeah.

Randy Hulsey  50:32

Okay. Everything. And the reason I asked that is because the songs were written by, you know, before you before you came along the Alcatraz army. Yeah, the Alcatraz stuff. Michael Schenker, Rainbow, that type of thing. When we talk about the bass parts specifically, do you as a bass player, try to mimic what those players had, like written on the original songs? Or do you kind of massage that and and make it your own?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  51:07

I try to keep it as close to the recording as possible. But sometimes, especially with the Chris grant, and Chris Glenn baselines, it's really difficult because his hands are gigantic. I mean, he has some anomaly where we have, you know, 123 parts to our fingers, he has more 234. Okay, so his hands are like, it's crazy, I have a picture of him with his hands next to his head, they're bigger than his head, they're like, he could easily palm a basketball, you know. And so I try to make up for it just in speed, and still play what he plays. But you know, there's many different locations, as you know, on an instrument to play something. So even though I know that maybe he was doing this up, or down here, I'll go up here, just because the neck gets a little,

Randy Hulsey  51:51

as long as it's in key, it doesn't exactly matter.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  51:56

Okay, so for instance, when I had to learn the Down to Earth record, it was really difficult because Graham's, his vocals were so distracting. They're so good. It's hard not to focus on that. But then I found on YouTube that they had these instrumental tracks. And I started listening to them. And I realized that you know, what Roger Glover played on the instrumental track is different from what's on the record. But there were some cool things in there that I employ in a live setting because I just, I liked what he did. Sure, he's great. And he's so underrated.

Randy Hulsey  52:31

Roger Glover, of course, Rainbow, but also deep purple, as well as a

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  52:36

bass player. He's in my top five or six for sure. We'll get into

Randy Hulsey  52:41

bass players in just a minute. But a lot of bass players are finger players. And I know that you're a pick player. And there's a reason I think that you are a pick player. Talk to the listeners a little bit about that.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  52:57

I cut off the tip of my middle finger on my right hand and I have like a sort of neuropathy. So when I tried to play with a finger player it it's uncomfortable. It doesn't feel good. So I just and I and you know what I had? What's that name? Scott Henderson is that the jazz dude? I'm talking about we opened for this jazz guy who's I shouldn't know about him, I think was the same. And he was at our soundcheck. And I was playing and he he kind of walked up to the stage squinting when we finished and he goes, Are you playing with a pic? And I said, Yeah, and he goes, Damn, that sounds like it's your fingers. Fuck you.

Randy Hulsey  53:33

That's a nice compliment, right? Because usually, when you think of a finger bass player, you can play more notes because you have four fingers that are picking verses,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  53:42

but also just that that that touch that okay, yes to this string sound? That makes sense. Yeah, so I was really flattered by that. Well, I

Randy Hulsey  53:52

don't think I ever I

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  53:53

can't remember the fuckers name.

Randy Hulsey  53:57

I mean, be I mean be. I don't think I ever heard the story about how you lost the tip of the finger though.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  54:06

Oh, it's just something stupid. I had I was in this apartment in New York City on 23rd legs and a corner of the mirror had broken off and when I went to go slide it open it just went took it right off. So I picked it up and I popped it back on and I went to the emergency room where I sat for like six hours never to be seen. And so I just put it on with a band aid and it re attached but it didn't reattach in a way that was what it should have been.

Randy Hulsey  54:33

So the feet the feeling is there and it still are no Yeah, I can feel it just feels

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  54:37

weird. Just rubbing my finger across it. Like it and I wonder I just thought of something. I wonder if my fingerprint changed from that.

Randy Hulsey  54:47

Probably the minutia points. Yeah. Prior to that, you know, I wasn't right on banks yet. I don't know if the minutiae points of a fingertip actually change if you cut them off because when they when they came out with biometric straight in the computer world, that's kind of the world that I live in. There was a way to log into a computer and it was a biometric fingerprint, right. And it reads the minutia points of the fingertip. Now does that and then somebody asked, well, what happens if you lose the tip of your finger? What happens then? Right. And I don't know that I ever gain the answer of that. So I don't know if you if the minutia points. Yeah, I guess so. I gotta research that. So from a bass player perspective. Are there any bass players that come to mind that inspired you?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  55:33

Yeah, early on. My brothers used to listen to cream and I love Jack Bruce. Yeah. And later on, John Paul Jones. Somebody who has been really inspirational, but I can't say I haven't had much experience playing that song was James Chamberlain. But oh, my God, I can feel that. Yeah. Because I like to describe bass players in one of three ways. I Intuit them with my head. You know, we're really thinking about what they're playing, or I feel them in my heart, okay. Or the ones that I really enjoy. Most are the crotch players. There's, it's just so visceral like, oh, yeah, you could really, you know, I could feel

Randy Hulsey  56:16

don't tell me tell me define that. What's a crutch player?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  56:19

You're feeling it in your crotch. It's a sexy style. No, no,

Randy Hulsey  56:23

no, it makes sense. I just wouldn't use a crutch style. I was thinking did they? Do they put the base down on the crotch and play it or like I'm, I'm learning new things. I'm broadening my horizons. Well, you spoke of Jack Bruce Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 1993 I believe also played with Manfred Mann. Okay. Remember, you remember the big hit from Manfred Mann? You remember that? One gram. Miss one. Blinded by the Light. I remember that song. Yeah, you remember who wrote it? Very good. Good job. I'm glad Springsteen. Yeah. Well, he also played with Steve Winwood from traffic, okay, yeah. And okay, so who was the other one? You mentioned? John Paul Jones of Zeppelin, of course. But who was the

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  57:14

other one sure of meeting a few years ago. Oh my god. How

Randy Hulsey  57:17

cool is that?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  57:18

He is such a gentleman. He was so lovely. Because I have rock star stories. I used to be super pretty. I have Rockstar stories. Well, I'm just saying when you know, I was young anyway. Compliment. I'm doing great for my age. But anyway, I digress. I love Jimi Hendrix was the bass the recording bass player, and I love his feel. Like I said Roger Glover. I'm probably leaving.

Randy Hulsey  57:43

Oh, you you said James Jameson. Yeah, you remember any of the stuff that he did? All that Motown stuff? Yeah, your place you remember this one? Okay I'll tell you somebody I'll tell you but they had another hit song and I don't know if you remember this one.

58:27

I can tell you

Randy Hulsey  58:32

don't wait for the chorus

58:37

sky you

59:04

Yeah, it was the silvers, the silver. I was gonna say the silver connection. But it was the silver. It was

Randy Hulsey  59:09

the Silver's and I was I was telling Andy earlier that they were kind of like the the other Jackson Five. You know, it's a family of the silvers family. Yes. Yeah. And there was like, seven or eight of them in the band.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  59:22

Yeah. Because at the same time there was there was a white version of the DeFranco family heartbeat

Randy Hulsey  59:27

Tony, Tony DeFranco Yeah,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  59:29

they were they were kids. Yeah, yeah. Silver's, I remember Yes, absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  59:34

i It's funny. You just like you gave me chills when you said heartbeat is a love beat by Tony DeFranco and the Franco family. I had the 45 and it was like one it to me it was like the the song that it was just one of those songs for me as a kid growing up. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, like this epiphany of

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  59:55

the silvers you know, since I was a little kid,

Randy Hulsey  59:58

well for the for the list. nors James Jamison, of course was a session musician for Hitsville USA, you know, Motown basically Barry Gordy session bass player? Legend, you know? Yeah. So yeah, well that's that's a great that's a great someone to look up to, from a bass player perspective, talking about crotch music. I mean, that's, that's crotch guitar, whatever you refer to this earlier.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:00:25

It's for the bass. It's the head, the heart or the craps where you feel okay. I guess I like you know, something that makes you move your hips. Absolutely.

Randy Hulsey  1:00:33

I wanted to touch real quick on musical gear. Okay, what guitars Do you carry on the road?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:00:42

I only play precisions. They're the pickup trucks of the bass guitar. They're so reliable. You could drop it and it'll stay in tune. It's crazy. I love

Randy Hulsey  1:00:51

it. And there's no endorsement from Fender, right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:00:54

Well, my best friend works for Jackson. So okay, if I need anything I can get it. Let's not

Randy Hulsey  1:00:59

talk about Jackson guitars right now. I'm kind of kind of sensitive about that right now. For the listeners out there. I will mention that. I came all the way out to Los Angeles. I had a guitar in tow. And we drive from Woodland Hills to the Studio City area and we get almost pulling in the driveway. And my brother says you got the guitar in the back and I'm like no, not loved the damn hotel room. Gosh, dang it. So I like flew all the way from Texas to hear and forgot the guitar. So anyway, we'll have to come back. That's a Jackson guitar. So I wasn't bad mouthing Jackson. I'm just a little sensitive about leaving the Jackson and

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:01:42

said that I was leading you down that path? Yeah, I don't need an endorsement because I have so many. I do I have so many precisions

Randy Hulsey  1:01:49

are you using anything? From a an effects perspective? What do you talk to the listeners for the guitar? Geeks? I guess out there like what do you use in 66

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:02:02

compression slash distortion pedal, you know, it does both or, you know, one or the other or both? I have a drop D because we play in so many different tunings that rather than bring I'm not gonna bring three guitars, you know, okay, so I have that and let's see, I'm wireless now. And then I just have my I don't need my tuner anymore. In fact, it kind of misled me on the very last song of the last tour. We're playing last in Hollywood and I just it just took my whole paddleboard out we had to reconfigure Roanoke kid, just this one. You know, it's a boss tuner, the chromatic and I don't know why I did that. But my new wireless is a tuner as well. So remove that from but I have a bunch of things that I don't use that are just look cool fun. Yeah, you know that you tried over the years? It's a bass. Well, you

Randy Hulsey  1:02:54

talked about being in a bunch of different tunings. Grandma's there, I wanted to throw this back at you. When you write, I guess you get the guitar out, you write a melody line, however you write the song. Is there a favorite key that fits your vocal the best, you just, oh, anyway,

Graham Bonnet  1:03:12

how many you can write in any key? Because so use the same rows. Okay, that makes sense. All right end or bloody C or whatever? Still saying a high note or you know, you can go wherever you like, yeah, you know, because people always ask me that, you know, what key should it be in? Whatever wasn't comfortable? It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. You can you know, whatever came said you adapt. It's where your ranges okay? Because I know courts. I know courts backwards, you know, so yeah, I know where all the notes are anything about that? I'm not can put the knows exactly where I want to

Randy Hulsey  1:03:48

lay. That makes sense. Yes. Well, when when I'm playing a song that's a cover song. Yeah, in the original recording is out. either too high or too low for my vocal range. I have to rekey the song to fit comfortably in my writing. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. If you didn't play the bass guitar, do you have an instrument in mind that you're like, Yeah, that would be the one.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:04:16

Oh, I never even thought about that. I picked up a sax once and I couldn't believe that I was able to, like play a scale like, like, run through it like

Randy Hulsey  1:04:24

so you'd like pick up a sax and you can just play a

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:04:27

scale sound out of it. And actually, because most people it sounds like you're murdering an animal. So I was really shocked by that, but I never interested it.

Randy Hulsey  1:04:36

I've never had been tried.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:04:39

I think it's based Is it for me. It's just what I like it's I love it. I love it. Especially when you're lacking it with a drummer. Yeah, that's it. The rhythm section for me. Even though Conrad's my best friend. He's like my brother.

Randy Hulsey  1:04:52

I don't care about guitar. He's not the rhythm section.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:04:55

It's not even the rhythm. Say it's the drummer. You know it's the drummer. Yeah. If somebody if a guitar player was being rhythm with me, I don't care. Yeah, this is what the drummer,

Randy Hulsey  1:05:06

how many guitars roughly, are in your personal collection. Are you an avid 10? Okay,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:05:13

yeah, they're mostly they're precisions I think I have five precisions I have a non reverse 1966 Thunderbird, which is really unusual and it's in pristine condition because everybody I know that the listeners can't see this but you know that precarious position of the headstock. Everybody I know has snapped their ears and minds. Unbroken. Wow, it's beautiful. Okay, what else do I have? He got me a Hofner which is just got a lot of bells and whistles and it's, you know, I just never really took the time and it's three quarter scale, which I'm used to with precision. I'm assuming big fat neck. Yeah. What else do I have? I've got a couple of acoustics.

Randy Hulsey  1:05:49

You enjoy playing the acoustic bass.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:05:52

Not too much now. Yeah, I sold one. I had three. I'm down to two.

Randy Hulsey  1:06:00

That brings up a good question I in for either you guys. What? Could you pull off anything? From the last record? Could you do that acoustically? Could you pull something off acoustically like doing acoustic set around those songs?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:06:15

Sounds like shit. But yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:06:17

Do you think it would have I mean, honestly, I mean, you think it was because sometimes some some songs just don't. They don't work on an acoustic guitar. They just don't know. My cousin,

Graham Bonnet  1:06:29

my cousin Trevor, who I recorded with back in the 60s. He said, If you can play the song with an acoustic guitar, and he sounds good, he said it's a great song. And that's what I always heard from the BG is again, always Barry just plays acoustic I go fuck, that's great. You don't need all that stuff. I agree. To what about

1:06:52

warm right? Oh, that's right. I

Graham Bonnet  1:06:55

prayed warm right acoustically in Australia. So by myself, nobody else. I thought about what I've never played this frickin song my life chordwise song a few times, and one of the chords and I worked the chords out real quick. I didn't realize how sort of B wasn't too hard at all. But it's like yeah, okay. Well, this worked. Yeah, I'm good, dude. Jump, jump. Jump, jumped on run. You know, doing that sort of red tape works on the audio so he was terrible.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:07:36

I doubt that we had first put this band together. We were actually aiming to be an acoustic threepeace Believe it or not, but we figure it out really quick that we have to play Since You've Been Gone no matter what. Yeah. And they want to hear it electrified. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Graham Bonnet  1:07:51

I'm sorry. I was you. There already called

Randy Hulsey  1:07:58

help it bad thing. Bad finger. Yeah. There's, there's so many people that have covered that song. And I had some friends that recorded it a band out of Louisiana by the name of Lillian X. And they did an amazing and they were on headbangers. They actually had their video on MTV, doing that cover. And it was an amazing cover of that song. Yeah.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:08:23

Other than the name, but I remember the name Lily. Yes.

Randy Hulsey  1:08:26

Yeah. Hard rock act out of New Orleans.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:08:31

I've got the memory of a goldfish as we've just,

Randy Hulsey  1:08:33

I can't remember. I'll take it. That's bad, right? There's not much of a memory from a goldfish. Yeah, it's

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:08:39

eight seconds or something. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  1:08:40

Well, you're the mother of two wonderful kids. But there's something special about both of the kids and it tells tell me about the kids and to share with the listeners a little about the kids.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:08:53

Mine are special needs, supposedly, because they were both diagnosed with autism, which has impacted them both very differently from each other. Levi was diagnosed at two years, nine months, although I knew at 18 months. And I was asking my pediatrician and he said, No, I've been doing this for 30 years, I would know he's, he's developing blah, blah, blah. And so finally I put them in preschool. And there was the director to these of this preschool was so wonderful to me. And they said, go to the regional center, get them evaluated. And so we got the diagnosis. And well, actually, even before the diagnosis one night, I just knew and ice I Morant. I wept an entire night. And then the next morning, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, and I said, let's get educated. So I just learned everything I could. And we tried a lot of biomedical interventions, therapeutic interventions, and some of those were really helpful. And through his natural maturity, and, you know, 40 hours per week of behavioral interventions like ABA dTT, occupational therapy, speech therapy, or whatever I have this kid who went From not speaking, and having some wacky behaviors to one of the best drummers I've ever heard, wow, he's a great musician. That's cool. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met. He has a heart of gold. He's sweet. He's practical. He's generous. He's, he's a lovely kid. I mean, he's going to be 19 In a few days, so he's an asshole. But

Randy Hulsey  1:10:24

most of the time, not all the time. Not all the

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:10:27

teenagers absolutely be total dicks. Sure. But no, 99% of the time. He's wonderful. I enjoy His company so much. Yes, that's awesome. I, my ex husband and I took him to Peru for his birthday, last March. And it was one of the best trips I've ever taken in my life. And I couldn't imagine having done that without him. He was great. He's cool. You got to do that. Yeah. And yeah, Machu Picchu folks go.

Randy Hulsey  1:10:56

When you told me that both of your kids had autism. I responded you by saying, wow. If you remember that, yeah. Well, you have the memory of a goldfish. So you may not remember that. But but but I said, Wow. And then I explained to you that my Wow wasn't like, it was basically a while as if to say, what are the odds of, you know, first of all, one kid having autism, but two kids have an autism? And you educated me very calm. And and I didn't I didn't know that. And of course, I don't have any. To the best of my knowledge. I don't have any or Andy, we don't have you're not well, no, you're not autistic, but we don't have any autism in the family. Right. So genetic components. So that makes sense. Yeah. And so we've, I've never been, I've never educated myself on it. So it was interesting to hear you say

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:11:47

that manifests so differently in everybody. So even if you you know, like, I meet people all the time, like, oh, that dudes totally on the spectrum. Okay.

Randy Hulsey  1:11:57

Point pointing in the listeners can see what you're doing over there.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:12:01

I was waiting for that. Yeah, well, like I'm being evaluated for it at the as we speak. I've already passed round one. So there's a good chance I'm on the spectrum. So

Randy Hulsey  1:12:10

what why would you get tested? Why would either one of you guys get tested? Are there things that are throwing up red flags or alerting you to just for the sake of knowing

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:12:20

I want to know because, you know, my whole childhood I was tortured. My parents said, You're lazy. I'm the least ask him I am the least lazy person you will ever meet in your life. I work harder than anybody I know. I'm busier than anybody I know. But you know, I was consoled threatened, you know, humiliated just like everything to try to make me do better, but they never bother taking me to, you know, the appropriate doctor to find out. Well, actually, when I was nine, my they took me to this facility to see if I was as my mother put it, I retarded edge. lickable Okay, and they gave me I'm still remember the test. So clearly, they would give me a series of numbers, not single numbers, but actual like two or three numbers. And I think there were 13 series, and then I was to recite those numbers back to them, which I did perfectly, because I can visualize it. And I'm dyslexic. So I do it a mirror image Anyways, that was cake. And they helped me draw some things. And when my parents went for the results, they said Your daughter has superior intelligence. And so the kid that they thought was a retarded edge. lickable one day has now tested high and their expectation raised. I'm like, What are you freaking doing? What? You know, it was crazy. And my brother David, he's never been diagnosed. I don't even think Leo Cantor's description of autism existed. When he was a kid. He's significantly older than I am. But I'm fairly certain he falls on the spectrum. And so is he, his son is autistic as well. So it's in the family. And I think it's on my ex husband's side. And I think my ex husband is too. We're all a bunch of whack jobs. And here's the thing that I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but the word autistic and the word artistic are literally just one letter of Absolutely. And we're all artists, my ex husbands and artists too, you know, very interesting. So yeah, and the thing is, I've had people call it a disease. I've had people say they're sorry, when I talk about my kids, like, I'm sorry for you that you've got some boring, neurotypical little, you know, they're wonderful. My kids are wonderful. My daughter's a handful, like, she's socially. She never had a problem with that with social interactions. And she never she did really well in school. But she has high anxiety. She has sensory issues, you know, but she's making her way she's living independently. Yeah. And she's a musician. She plays any instrument you hand her she doesn't really work hard at it, but she can amazing. Yeah, yeah, my kids are

Randy Hulsey  1:14:56

well and I guess when you have savant, but not that your kids are savant Oh grams, a savant. Absolutely really?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:15:03

Oh my God.

Randy Hulsey  1:15:04

Are you being serious when you say,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:15:05

write the most amazing songs? He's brilliant. He's Yes, he is a savant he does he is at an elevated ability. But I'm not saying he's an idiot savant. But he does do that one thing better than anything else. And I do believe he's a savant he, he hears, you know, he hears music and everything. You know, he'll write songs from sounds that we've just heard in nature. Yeah. And, like, for me, I see. And I think other people say this, I see shapes. In music. Some people see colors. I don't know. But you know, I can visualize what I'm hearing interesting. The shape of it.

Randy Hulsey  1:15:47

I never really thought about music that way. It's just different brains. Right? Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. Well, from an awareness perspective, in your own words, can you explain autism in like 30 seconds? And here's, here's why I asked you this. Because I like to be educated. When I talk to people. And I went out and I started reading. I said, Okay, let me Google Search autism, because I don't want to look like a fool in front of Bethany and Graham, right. And oh, my God, it was overwhelming the shit out there. about autism? No, like, I mean, it was a plethora of I didn't even know where to start. There's so much to that, and so many different kinds and names for it. And I'm like, Screw it, I'll just, I'll just get I'm gonna get Bethany to explain that. And in her own words, in 30 seconds, right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:16:42

It's, you know, cognitive delays, and you know, social interaction if shoes and like, my son's crazy, he's a human GPS, it's freaky. He knows exactly where he is. He can find like, on on a map, and he can instantly take you someplace, like on the computer. he memorizes. Like, he could tell you the capital of any country in the world. He's really into his geography. That's part of it. Like I remember, we went to, we were supposed to do a gig at this place in the valley. And he came to soundcheck with me. And then years later, we're driving by he's like, Oh, we're right near that club. You played like, how much do you remember this? And I remember once we, he read he, he said doughnuts, and we passed a sign that read doughnuts. And I'm like, he can't read. How does he know that's donuts like, but yet, he's terrible with money. He's, he's not really great with like, when he was doing the math when he was a kid. He struggled with things he it's just it's hockey, it's of things that the impact of lead he can't do. And then other things. It's like, like he did statistics last semester, but he can't money bests him, which is not good. Well, I think a shitload in his wallet right now.

Randy Hulsey  1:17:59

I think I think that all different types of servants have this special thing that they're good at, whether it's musically or whatever. And I don't know if you guys have seen the YouTube video of this guy in Rome, in that he's a savant. They put him in a helicopter flying over Rome. I heard about, okay, no, this is a trip flying over the city of Rome. And they bring him back and they give him a canvas. It's a like a concave canvas, probably, let's say it stretches from that wall, to that wall. So it's that big, right. And I don't know how long it took him. But he literally goes and recreates the whole city of Rome, on this canvas. And he not only recreates the city of Rome, but he does it with the exact number of windows and every building where every car was parked on the street, street lights on the right corners, and they went back and they looked at this. And they said this cannot all be right. And they said with the exception of maybe five or six things to scale, this thing was spot on. It was like he went up in this helicopter and took a snapshot in his mind and recreated it. And I was flat like I was like, holy shit. That is that is I mean, I don't even know how to describe it. It's amazing how anybody could do that. I don't remember what I saw on your kitchen when I you know what I'm saying? Like my memory doesn't work that way. I didn't get his name right two seconds later. Sorry. Well, so the autism thing is quite an interesting thing as well.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:19:51

It was a handful man it was and just a wacky things they do. Oh my God. He cracks me up though. He cracks me up. In fact, we had tore shirts that use that said, How do you like the new attitude? Because?

Randy Hulsey  1:20:05

Oh, really? Yeah, you're a wonderful bass player and you continue to hone that craft with Graham and the band. But you're also a talented writer, share with the listeners a little about your love of writing, where did that come from? And how much do you really write?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:20:25

Okay, it started when I was doing horribly in school. Instead of doing schoolwork, I just read books, I just read and read and read, I read so many books. So I have a pretty good vocabulary. When I went on tour with, I used to go on tour with the band toto because my boyfriend was in the band. And I would bring, you know, a lot of downtime while they're doing their thing. I would bring these vocabulary building books and New York Times crossword puzzles or whatever, to help him prove my vocabulary. And I, when I went to college, I wanted to study Asian languages. I'd started learning Japanese on my own, and I realized I needed help. But I thought I should really learn my own language first. So I studied the English language. I couldn't tell you what a gerund is at this moment. But I did study. And I took a lot of creative writing classes, and I had a professor who he liked me, you know, like labor and he likes me. But he pulled me aside and he said, you really have a remarkable ability and you should. So I never got the A but I did get a B. Okay,

Randy Hulsey  1:21:29

well, you pass the class. He got the credit, right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:21:32

I still remember saying I'm not going to add him but I felt that was funny. Yeah, my professor hit on me because you couldn't do that in high school. Although we can do that. Now. We had the ceramics teacher that used to get like go like for frottage on you're rubbing against

Randy Hulsey  1:21:46

kind of like from the movie Ghost where

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:21:49

he looked like a homunculus. Like he was not, you know, he was like a little, ya know, guy. Like a wish, Nick. Actually, that's what he looked like, because he got that head of hair. Yeah. But anyway, so I love to write and, you know, when we do our social media, Graham is always right next to me and telling me what to say. But I'm fixing punctuation and spelling and, and maybe rewriting it for syntax or whatever. But you know, we do that together, because it just works. And he tells me stories. Like we just did an interview. I'm pointing to my couch. We were sitting on the couch. We did an interview at a written one, which they don't happen that much. And he'll start to tell me. I'll read the question. He'll start and I'll start typing it instantly. It's I'm saying the exact same thing he said but just maybe in a more okay. melodious,

Randy Hulsey  1:22:46

I get it. Yeah. Like making boy. Yeah. Okay. I get it. Do you have anything that's published? No. Public? Oh, published?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:22:57

No, okay. No, I've never even attempted that. Till now. I decided when my parents died, I had so many epiphanies, about my childhood and about the relationships with my parents and my my siblings, and how it impacted my life until this day. And it's some of it is so painful, I can't even tell you, I need that catharsis. I need to write and, and get it out to the to just get it out of my body and my brain and out to the world. And I'm gonna write a memoir, I'm gonna write, you know, my, my autobiography. And because I want people to actually read it, I'm going to include a salacious Rockstar story component, because I've always worked in the music industry. And I've met everybody and I've got some really good stories. Yeah, but yeah, like really good stories.

Randy Hulsey  1:23:52

So you're, it's gonna be like the dirt, you're gonna give the dirt.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:23:55

Not on everybody, because some of this would really like, potentially sink somebody and I don't, nothing harmful. Yeah, I don't want to be harmful. But it's again, like don't do the crime. If you can't do the time it happened. I'm going to tell the world you didn't. I didn't sign a nondisclosure. But I mean, some of it, you know, I plan to do it from a loving standpoint and a humorous standpoint, you know, because if I had if somebody did something really mean, I don't want to tell that

Randy Hulsey  1:24:26

story. Yeah. Well, we'll grant Graham's autobiography would be a good one for you to write. That's next. Yeah. And didn't you mention to me like you would make where you're going to do Tommy raises?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:24:37

Tommy raise. It's hard because I can't write three books at once and I can't. I'm so busy. I do. I handle so many aspects of his life, my life, my children's, you know, it doesn't leave a lot of time to do anything. I just I you know, I don't know what will happen from it, but I know him better than anybody. I've spent 10 years just listening really carefully to all these stories and his story is amazing. You know, his parents were farmers and he came from this little beach town in the East Midlands and just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Also having insane abilities like, you know, his voice is just incomparable. There's no one can do what he does, but he can do what other people do. He does an excellent Tom Jones, by the way, Oh, yeah. Oh my god, it's great. And I catch him. You know, I've recorded him 100 times when he doesn't even know I'm doing it. I have great gotcha videos. But

Randy Hulsey  1:25:35

the mic is on Graham. If you throw us some Tom Jones. You're not gonna do that. Okay, beautiful. It's beautiful. He refuses. Okay, what do you want me to say?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:25:48

But um, yeah, he, you know, he happened to be in the right place at the right time. You know, his cousin was really pivotal for his story, because he taught him how to play guitar. And they had a band together. And the they happen to be in a club, his band with his friends and his cousin performing when the Beegees former manager or somebody was there, were like, oh, you know, I'm still in touch with him. Let's bring you buy. I mean, it was a rags to riches story. It was like, everything changed overnight. I love it. And I want to, you know, I want to write it in a way I want to be able to use the words to paint the picture of of

Randy Hulsey  1:26:24

it, you know? Well, I mentioned to Graham on the interview with him that, you know, he certainly formulated and picked up adoring fans from all over the world, right? I mean, there's plenty of people that would love to hear the story. So that would be a probably a good starting point for you to get going to do something. Yeah. For Graham.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:26:46

I want to do that. I mean, there is a biography that our friend Steve Wright wrote about him, but it's very informational. More than creative. Do you know what I mean? Like he just literally tells us from day one until whenever he finished writing that five years ago. Yeah, it's a great place. Starting point. I don't need it because I already know everything. Yeah, he's gonna you know, I want it actually to be his autobiography that I'm ghostwriting

Randy Hulsey  1:27:12

that made me think of something you know, in this kind of is the certainly is a question for you, Graham. Like, did you ever have a photographer that chronicled a lot of the things that you were doing back in the day, like, you know, we look back at the sight of the Beatles, for example, they had like somebody chronicle pictures taken picture after picture. There was nothing like that with with you. Right. Okay. Do you ever look back and think that you wish that would have happened? Oh, yeah. Okay. I didn't know. I mean, so I would think some people would say, Man, I could care less about that, or, yeah, I really do. So I didn't know what your thought process was.

Graham Bonnet  1:27:53

Back in 96, I have some great things happen between me and the, you know, the new job I had, suddenly I was in the music business professionally. And I'm thinking How the hell did I get here. And the big has been my, you know, the guys that put me there in the first place, but he was my cousin really, because he was in the B's, US and Australia. So Trevor coordinate, the Bee Gees, which we're playing. Last slide is the third patch from 13 years old when I made these little singles on the lead and label. And it was really my cousin that introduced me to the PGS. And then from then on, you know, the big cheese helped me and my cousin got a career in in England, to hit records in the church and by Barry Gibb, and I thank them for that forever. Yeah. And then, later on, I got a job with rainbow because of that song that Barry Gibb wrote for me and my cousin. So because he said, they were looking for a singer, you know, that's odd. They're a singer. And when they played the tracks, COVID was playing the track that having a game, you know, small these tune, spotlit, who's this, you know, on the cassette machine, and our song came up, and she said, Where is this guy now? Well, Roger Glover said, Well, I'm working with Mickey moody at the moment. He's managed by Graham's manager, I talked to him and we'll get in touch. And that's when I went over audition. To have the, my self put in front of rainbow going What the fuck am I doing here? Get this one song called mistreated. And that was my audition fix. And I you know, but that's how that happened. So kind of like,

Randy Hulsey  1:29:45

you know, yeah. Did you think from the audition that you landed the gig or not?

Graham Bonnet  1:29:50

Well, they told me they told you right there as I said, well, but in fact, it was cozy. I remember from behind the drum kick toys. Well, what do you think? Yeah. He's sort of set it for everyone. Yeah. Because he knew how the rest of the band felt and if it's very nice cozy.

Randy Hulsey  1:30:13

Yeah. Well, we were I don't know, my brain drifted a little bit and I just had this conversation with Adam Hamilton this morning about some of the guitar players that you've played with over time. I mean, Ritchie Blackmore, Steve. I mean, Bay Malmsteen. Like, these are the top players in the world. Right. And it's, it's amazing that you've been associated with all of those guys over the years.

Graham Bonnet  1:30:37

Yeah. Well, he was. I had never heard him before he gets off a flight Alcatraz together, none of it. I thought it is cakehole Bay Malmsteen. So this is one day who watches swords hold. One of our guys that was in the band know who you're looking for a guitar player. I know this guy. So we met up with this kid, we'd call him up. I called him up. He was like at MIT. And I said, you want to come over? And he said, You're not really Graham, I think Yeah, cuz Ritchie Blackmore. And he said, Oh, no, who's who's who's having a job? Women, he'll know, nice grandpa to hear Can you come over an audition for this place? And I'd like you to listen to some of my music or whatever, you know? And he said, Okay, so we got he got called back to us again. And he said, why don't why do I have to audition, and I asked him to audition with a song that wasn't one of those. It was a recital on a song called SOS, one of mine, one of my solo albums, and I wanted to hear how he would play. I'd heard how good it was. Really jazzy stuff. I was told he was like Van Halen sort of thing. And Van Halen, Richard l'amour. And so I got him to come over and rehearse and with us, we just said Fucking hell. He played like, I've never really played before he was just get on. Perfect. And then we said, let's do a bit rainbows or something. And it was dead on with that, of course, because ratios. And then of course, they became even more incredible as the years went on, and it became a solid light switch. We all kind of knew would happen. Sure.

Randy Hulsey  1:32:26

Well, Richie was always one of my favorite players of all time, but it was just a great player. And I love him with Blackmores night with Candice. Gad, love that. Yeah, the medieval type Renaissance. love that stuff. We shared some chats before. Me showing up here bear with me. And we talked in those chats, we spoke a little bit about your ears. And that and that sounds like Randy, why are you talking to Bethany about our ears, but there's a story behind the ears when you came off tour with the dead daisies. something crazy happened with the ear shirt, share your story there with what happened and where they are now fill us in.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:33:06

Okay, so after the dead daisies portion of the tour ended, we went to Spain. And we had, I think four or five shows, maybe six I can even remember now in Spain, and I got sick. This was the third time since I left the states that I'd got sick on this tour. And I had a sinus infection. And, you know, I'm just one of those people that powers through pain or whatever. So I really didn't pay much attention to it. And I did not take a decongestant when I flew. And I didn't know that by doing that what I what I was doing was trapping all the fluid in my sinuses behind my eardrum. So up until well, even currently, I'm still not hearing to full capacity and about three days after we got home my right ear drum punctured. So I knew I knew it was going to it hurt. It hurts so badly. This isn't the first time I've punctured my eardrums. And in the middle of the night, I could feel moisture. And I went and looked in the mirror and there was like blood coming out of my ear. So I knew, you know, I just didn't know how bad it was. Yeah, it was a bummer. And I just been going crazy and trying not to let it you know, ruin my life that I'm going through life like I've earplugs in. No, it's awful. It's awful. And Grandma doesn't have the best hearing said the two of us are just constantly yelling what?

Randy Hulsey  1:34:27

Speaking to my good ear did it ever cause vertigo with you?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:34:33

Well, I'd had Oh my god. I don't know if they're if the episode that I just had, you know, was linked in any way to what happened a couple of years ago, but I was I don't know why I went to Conrad's chiropractor, but it was the very first time I called to this guy. And the first thing he does is take my head and crank it super hard to the right. And I'm on this table and it was summer and I'm wearing like a really short dress No sir dockings it's just so mortifying, it felt like like I looked at it looked like a helicopter rotor just came down in front of my face. And I got so violently ill it like threw me off the table and I just started vomiting uncontrollably in the office of this chiropractor who freaked out and he leaves the office. And he sends the front desk girl, and I guess she worked as a nurse somewhere. And for like, 20 minutes, I'm hurling on their floor. And finally I managed to get out the words, call an ambulance, because it's not going away. So I'm in the ambulance, and I can hear them talking, you know, on their little whatever. What is this thing called their walkie talkie or thingy? And they're talking to the hospital and I'm not going to say the age I am but such and such aged woman presents with stroke like symptoms. And I thought, oh, that poor woman. And then oh, wait, wait, I'm that age. Yeah. So I can't open my eyes. Because if I do, I puke Samar. And they open the ambulance doors. And this doctor comes in and he forces my eyes open. So I puke. And then he says, ma'am, we and my left eye is looking to the right. Like it was crazy. He's a man, we think you're having a stroke. And I'm like, Holy shit, I just went to the chiropractor, I bought a sandwich, I haven't gotten to eat it yet. He said, we have a drug that if we administer it, within three hours of the onset of the stroke, it will greatly reduce the impact. But if it's a hemorrhagic stroke, you'll bleed out. So do you want the drug or not? And I'm like, I can't even see you. This person is giving me a life or death choice. And I can't even look at it because I'll throw up. And I didn't know what to do. I had just dropped Graham and Levi off at his daughter's house to hang out. And I you know, I just I didn't know what to do. And I said, What would you do if you were me? And he said, take the drug, which automatically lands you in ICU. So I spent the next three or four days in ICU with tubes coming out of everywhere, catheter everything, like somebody coming in every half an hour to take my vitals it was it was an awful experience. And prior to that chiropractor, so I can't blame him. Because the night before I'd had my first bout of vertigo I, you know, you don't know what Vertigo is until you have it. It's like, I remember when I was pregnant. I called my doctor and I said, I think I'm in labor. He said you're not. And I said why? And he said, because if you're in labor, you would know it not think it. Yeah. So Vertigo is not the same thing as being dizzy. It is completely different. And I was sitting on the bed talking to Graham and all of a sudden I'm on the floor because I had to I had to, you know, change my position. It was the weirdest thing. And it only lasted for a few seconds that I even said to him. Do you remember that? Yeah, so that was really weird. I just had vertigo. And about a week prior to that I had an experience that I mean, all of this, I should have gone to a doctor. I was getting this line that would come down my eyes. Do you know what I mean? Like an old fashioned TV where the line and then it jumps back up to the top. And I was like, wow, that's cool. What is that, you know, like an idiot. I didn't do anything about it. So what had happened is I was starting to get something called Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo BPPV for short, and I didn't know that. And when he cranked my ears, all this kind of vertigo is very common. And it's caused by naturally occurring crystals in your ears getting knocked into your semicircular Canal, which is your vestibular system. So it sucked so hard. I can't even tell you it was one of the worst experiences of my life. And then I got out of the hospital, they actually throw threw me out, like, you know, like you say, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here like last call. They said we could take you to your insurance hospital, but you can't. I was at the Henry Mayo Clinic and my insurance, you know, obviously it covers it. I looked at the bill it was $100,000 for those three or four days in there, which I obviously was not responsible for. Anyway, I went to the physical therapist is the first place I went and I said before I left Henry Mayo these ladies tried the Epley maneuver, but I wasn't on a proper table. Do you want to try that? They told me to ask you that. And this lady said I'm not going to do that because you don't present with BPPV I'm not going to waste your time or mine. And I'm like, okay, and I spent the next seven weeks being shuffled between neurology Head and Neck Surgery, getting MRIs, like crazy, you know, all kinds of scans and stuff. And I was writing to them constantly going, I can't live like this because I would literally stand up for 10 minutes, and I'd be so nauseous. I couldn't function you know, and seven weeks like that. I finally paid out of pocket and I went to this place called the dizziness and vertigo Institute where they put these, you know, goggles on where they're looking in your eye and they're having you fall or something and they said you've got PP feet BPPV again On the table, we'll give you the Epley maneuver, which is, anyway, it costs me like $1,500 to get the diagnosis, which I made my insurance company pay for, because, you know, there was a threat of me asking and mentioning that and refuse to do it. So that's all it was. But you know, Vertigo is no joke. And until you have this experience, like when people go, I'm suffering from vertigo. I'm like, oh, suck it up, buttercup. Now, it's the worst thing ever. Yeah. And because I was left to languish with this for so long, I've never fully recovered. So I sometimes have to tell people, I'm not drunk, but I stagger, because my vestibular system, I'm like, on a boat.

Randy Hulsey  1:40:39

Sometimes, like you don't have your sea legs. Exactly. Yeah,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:40:42

that's exactly what it's like. And it's and I feel dizzy. Often. I don't feel well, I've never felt well since.

Randy Hulsey  1:40:50

And it's a bummer. So what's been done to get the hearing back?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:40:53

They said, You have to wait for the fluid to dry up. They said there's a procedure, but you could potentially lose, you know, hearing and I'm not willing to risk. So just organically. You just wait. I'm just waiting. And it's starting to happen, but it's agonizingly slow. And you know, I think that the my right ear, which is shockingly, the one that punctured is doing much better than my left ear, but

Randy Hulsey  1:41:15

interesting. And what's the prognosis?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:41:18

I should be back exactly as I was, but I didn't have perfect hearing in the first place. I have tinnitus, or tinnitus in both ears. Yeah. What a bummer.

Randy Hulsey  1:41:27

Well, you're a wreck.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:41:29

You're right, I need to go to the glue factory.

Randy Hulsey  1:41:31

Well, we'll edit that out. Now, it's all good. Well, what do people that maybe, maybe they've never heard of the Graham bonnet ban, either play live or maybe never experienced a song from the Graham bonnet band? I know that's hard to believe. But if there was one or two, what would you tell somebody about the band? In your own words? Like if I had never heard of Graham and the Graham bonnet band, specifically, not none of the rainbow stuff for arbitrage just the current thing, right? What would you tell me? Why do I need to listen to that band? Because we're awesome.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:42:16

No, it's a great band. I mean, it's fronted by a Legendary Vocalist, songwriter, you know, player, and he and Conrad really bring out the best in each other. And, you know, there was a period of time when Conrad had left the band, for the same reason I left the band. But when he came back boy was that sublime. When the three of us started playing together again, oh, my God, it felt like home because the three of us are a family. And we always were we, you know, granted, I started it, I brought Conrad and I had been playing, he was in hardly dangerous with me, I brought him in. And I'm not saying that was his only gig, he just had done that for a favor for me, because he was a friend of my ex husbands. But when we started together, it was magical. It just fit and it was good. And the book is evidence of that, that I were really proud of that album. I that song, welcome to my home is so beautiful.

Randy Hulsey  1:43:10

And you and Conrad, agora and Graham are of course, the core of the Graham bonnet band, there's really, you know, you get what a drummer and, uh, you know, drummer to fill in or whatever from

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:43:24

we do that now, because it's, you know, the topography of the industry has changed. And it's, you know, I would love to have a permanent keyboard. Driver, but it's hard, because right now, the two we're using, you know, they're perfect. If we played in the UK, or the EU, they're right there. You know, we're going to Japan, and I don't think we can take them because it's just financially not really feasible. We really need people here.

Randy Hulsey  1:43:50

So when you go to Japan, you pick up somebody in Japan, is that how it works for you?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:43:55

That's a potential because he knows some great players. Well, we don't know, because we could also it's all up in the air right now. We could also not. Yeah, and that might happen. Yeah, we would like to have somebody who lives here. And so we're talking to different people. And we'll see, you know, the core is us. And really anybody who joins here on you know, probation really, you got to prove yourself because we've let people we've given people the wrong people, the keys to the kingdom too many times. We're not doing that anymore. Yeah, that's done and gotta guard the keys. Sometimes. You know, I'm a different person than I was 10 years ago when I started this and I let myself be bullied by people who never should have had any power in the first place. Unfortunately, our former manager heaps like a fanboy that I met backstage at one of his shows when he paid played with Axel Rudi Pell. And he was very sweet, you know, initially and he knew Graham's catalog better than Graham knew it himself. And I had invited he and another guy I met on that trip to come meet us. We were doing the UK portion of our tour because they could do merch for us and help us drive and things like that. And he was dead set against it. He's like, don't you can't let them get that close. You don't know them. You don't know them. And I insisted, and I, you know, we would sit at breakfast. And I thought this guy knows the current touring situation better than Graham does. And I don't know what I'm doing, you know? So I said, Would it be okay? If I asked him to manage us? And he was like, he didn't want him? He's like, No, and I'm like, oh, yeah, because I was managing the band. I was tour managing, tour coordinating. I did everything at first. And I, you know, it was okay, we're, we're on a very good level, when we first started, it just started to tank, you know, with this guy, he was nice. At first, it was really when he and the keyboard player got really tight that they sort of were, you know, I described them as being like two serial killers that was like an alliance, it was an alliance. And it was, they just started getting really mean to me, I was going to talk about this. And if you end up editing it out, it's not a big deal. But I'll stay lady like, but I even said to them once, because they had invited Gary, to perform with us. And I don't disparage other musicians. But I will tell you, Gary is not better than I am. You know what I mean? So it was just a component that he was an OG member of Alcatraz. So and I said to them, Hey, if you want to get you know, Gary in here full time, you know, we can discuss that. They're like, Oh, no, no, no, no, because they were so passive aggressive. And I think maybe a little afraid of me, because they know that I was the only person that had Graham's ear and could get Graham, you know, he would have an idea. And he would present it to Graham and Graham would shoot it down. And then he'd say, can you ask Graham, you know, and if it came from me, he was like, oh, yeah, let me think about that. So they needed me that way. You know, and they resented before. And I remember, there was one particular gig that was just abysmal. It really was bad. And something had happened. And it was definitely nothing to do with me. But I took the brunt of it. And I and one of the things, the manager said to me was a new look like a girl up there. And I'm like, you know, I have a uterus, right. But yeah, he just didn't. He just wanted a guy. Yeah, you know, but they weren't. They weren't cool enough to just go look, we really, but they also knew they needed they tried to drive a wedge between the two of us and it actually started to work at one point and I, I didn't just quit the band. I quit him for a little for a hot minute. But you know, I don't know, again, because I know it can be edited. I'll tell you these things, because you can take them out. But he it was so stressful for him, he fell off the wagon 2019. And it was one of the worst experiences of my life was seeing the man that I had been so in love with reduced to like Rubble, he was a protozoa. I mean, he was just a blob, he was, you don't want to see this man on the booze, you really don't. And he had worked so hard to stay sober. And he just couldn't take the stress of what they were doing. You know, I can't hold them entirely responsible. But I know it was a big part of it. You know, the two of us were, you know, at odds and it was really hard. And then I, you know, I quit. I quit the band and I quit Graham. I quit them. And when I went to bring him because he had been staying living with me for so long, I went to go bring him things so that he could live comfortably, because they weren't doing it and looked in his eyes because it was during a time of COVID. And we had masks on. And I remember him kissing me putting his mouth on my with the mask. It was very strange. But I looked in his eyes and I thought, you know, I think he's starting to die. I think he's gonna die. Because I knew he was still drinking. You know? I knew he was

Randy Hulsey  1:49:00

Did you feel like that Graham?

Graham Bonnet  1:49:02

Yeah, because I was living in fear. I was on my own. And I started drinking. I thought this COVID thing is gonna get me. I call the ambulance to come to my home. Three times. I thought I was going down. And you know, 911 So they checked me out, you know, they came to my door that the fucking thing ready to take me into the ambulance at one point? And they said no, I think you're okay sir. You'd be okay. Okay. But I really was scared to death of getting this thing COVID thing. And I was actually quite I was so weak, so weak and so distressed and depressed. To go to the bathroom. I had to crawl, crawl along the floor and tried to get it up but I couldn't because I was too dizzy, or dots call again to get there and then crawl back to the bed and lay down and just just I just lay in bed all day. I felt terrible, absolutely awful. It was, it was very frightening. And I was getting when I had a little bit of strength, you know, in my body to go to the liquor store, I would do it and drink myself to sleep, basically. And it was terrifying because I really thought I don't care anymore. I just want I still want to feel like this, which was,

Randy Hulsey  1:50:30

you know, depressed and scared. And yeah. It's a matter of feeling

Graham Bonnet  1:50:35

lonely. I've nobody. And that was that was a duck.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:50:42

That was my duck.

Graham Bonnet  1:50:45

It was eroded by time. I never felt like that's why I thought I was dying because I couldn't walk. I thought

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:50:54

it was, too. He looked terrible. Yeah. And so he, he called me one day and he said, Would you play on my solo record? I wrote a song about you, and I want you to play on it. And what I came to find out was, it wasn't a solo record. It was the third album in the three album deal that we have frontiers, that our manager was trying to kill it. Because he'd signed the band to silver lining as Alcatraz. He's such an unscrupulous person. It was such a shitty thing for him to do to those to that label, for one thing. And he was saying, you can do all ballads they don't care for cheers doesn't metal label like they you know, so we had to peel away the layers of BS or whatever. But we and we put out a great third record. But it that's how he started one song at a time. And he's like, oh, and I wrote a song about your friend Susie, my friend Susie passed away at the beginning of COVID. It wasn't COVID Ironically, it was a seizure. Which really scares me because I can't tell you how many seizures I've seen of his and there. It's so scary. Well, yeah, I've had to call an ambulance twice. And yeah, I don't like it. So I'm really on him about his meds. And we get tested regularly to make sure they're titrated properly. Anyway, yeah. And then he said, Well, who are we gonna get record and produce the songs? And I said, Well, what about Conrad? That was always who we've done in the past. And that's what I said. When the three of us got together. It was like, it just we all felt it. You know, it's, you know, I congrats, the nicest guy. He really is. He's so funny. He's such a weirdo. He's perfect for us. Yeah.

Randy Hulsey  1:52:31

Where does he live?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:52:33

He lives in Hollywood. Oh, he's here. Where is he from? He's from Brazil. Yeah, he's actually in Brazil right now. Okay. And his visa. But yeah, he's, yeah, he's, he's great. He's so smart. Yeah. And great player to Great player is so creative, like, you know, I've been watching him over the years with the different people we've had, and it's so easy with Conrad, you know, whereas the other guys he's constant complaining, like, they write everything in IE, they don't change the keys never change it. So you know, the manager tells me that he's got this great song and he's just given me this little you know, lick and it's nothing it's not a song at all. Yeah. And he struggled with you know, especially I don't know if I should drop names or whatever but you know, they've had a lot of guests on there. Let's Alcatraz record for recent Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  1:53:24

because I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Conrad but he follows the show on Instagram. So I connected with him like that. So yeah, what's coming up for the Graham bonnet band as it relates to new music upcoming tour what can you and Graham since you're both sitting here what can you guys share with the Graham bonnet band fans and the fans of Graham bonnet and Bethany headstone right well

Graham Bonnet  1:53:55

go ahead.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:53:56

He was looking at me when he asked me this is my interview get out

Randy Hulsey  1:54:06

or should I go he's from you.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:54:09

So you know, we're always creating I feel badly because he's sitting in there and just going I need something I need something he's even reached out to my friend Mike tempesta who did a song that he wrote when we're asleep on the last record which is about me he'll tell you it's not but that song is about me. We confirm

Randy Hulsey  1:54:27

that Brave New World was not about

1:54:31

it know I've moved past that okay. All right. All right. We've covered that no, he

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:54:37

said that so he got that song from watching. What is

Graham Bonnet  1:54:43

not Black Mirror stories

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:54:45

or something stories about divorce American horror stories. Yeah, that's where

Randy Hulsey  1:54:49

he we talked about that on our

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:54:51

but I love that song. I think Rosie is amazing. I frickin love that song. And I wish we had done a video for that. Not that I'm too old now to get away with it. I'm interested in that stuff. But I would have loved it when I was younger. That's how I dress, like a dominatrix. And in fact, I have a very funny Jimmy Page story about that, but I'm gonna save it for the book. Anyway, we are always creating good, you know, so we are definitely going to do another Graham bonnet band album, he's been working with Jeff Loomis and has already got six songs completed and they're working on four more, which he's going to do his version of Alcatraz come hell or high water, you know, I am writing and I don't want to give it away exactly this other book that we're we're doing, but it's going to be very interesting. It's going to be something that will hopefully tie in with maybe a spoken word tour, you know, the three of us acoustically may be doing something like that,

Randy Hulsey  1:55:45

will you give me the exclusive when you can talk about it?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:55:48

We've started I mean, we've actually started compiling it, it's going to happen, so absolutely. But that'll probably the first thing I do. Because I had planned to after this last tour, I was going to turn around within a two or three weeks of coming home, and I was gonna go to Peru again. And just like rent an Airbnb in the Andes, because there would be no distractions other than I need to go get something to eat and start writing there. But because I'm home, I can't write here. There's too many too much going on going on, you know, I'll find a way. It's just not going to happen necessarily with the timeline that I wanted. But my story isn't going away. It's always there extending. So I think that's it. As far as you know, we have, we were just asked to do a tour in Japan in June, we have a show in the United States, although it's not confirmed. So I'm not going to give you any details. But I'm very excited. We have a show in the United States in early June. So we do Yeah, yes. About that. Yeah. And then we may be doing something I'm not going to drop any names here. But there's a guy who puts together bands, you know, from pieces of other bands, and then whoever the singer is that that band does that. So we got asked to do that. And that would be I think late summer and then can't nothing has confirmed. So I can't tell you. There's some really exciting stuff at the end of the year we're doing. We've been confirmed for Planet Rockstar at the end of this year. So that's happening. But yeah, there's, there's stuff coming.

Randy Hulsey  1:57:19

I'm not asking you to say but do you know if there'll be any? On the US tour? Will there be any shows down south? Can you even say that? You know,

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:57:31

no, I can't say this is the one market I really struggle with. We can't get arrested here. And I don't know why. Because when I look at I hate to use the word fans, but there are 60,000 plus people on the band page. And there are a lot of American people that love gram that love our band, you know, and we would love to play in but because it's such a huge area. You know, it's such an expansive geographically as accidents. You know, it's just the we've, we've tried it a couple times we've, we had one that was started in Florida, and made its way up the East Coast and then through like Chicago, and then we flew home from somewhere around there, I can't even remember. And that did pretty well. But we also had one where the booking agent is actually I believe in prison now. He was like the Harvey Weinstein of music. And I think he's actually in prison. But he put us in there was this one place like in bumfuck, Minnesota. It was like a pizza parlor. And we walked in, they didn't have a proper sound man or even system. And this guy's trying to set it up. And I'm looking around going, where are you kidding me? And we were basically wanting to let the owner know that we were not going to be doing this gig. So we walked over to talk to him. He was sitting at the bar and he was drunk and he began to fondle my buttocks. I'm not kidding. I was like, we have to leave. This has grabbed my butt. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

Randy Hulsey  1:59:19

What? I heard, right, somebody lose a limb.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  1:59:26

Yeah, that whole tour, there was another show where I walked in, and I looked and there was an acoustic be 100 on the stage, like a little practice amp. And I said Wednesday gear getting here and they're like, it's here. I'm like, where's the bass amp? And they're like, it's that I'm like, that's I have that amp at home. That's my practice app. And I felt so bad because I was I wasn't being angry. I was just being incredulous. And this like 17 year old kid said, Well, I'm sorry, but I'm just a kid and that's all I have. Wow. It's not your fault, sweetheart, but passing grade shows. Yeah, so. So you know, it's not like we're rushing to come back here. This The One Show we do have is really great. It pays well. And it's in a place we've played before. That's beautiful. I'm so excited. I remember playing there going, God, I hope I could play here again. I love playing theaters. It's okay. And we did we had some theaters in Spain that I was like, Oh, this feels great. Yeah, you know, proper

Randy Hulsey  2:00:27

those are yeah, those are great venues for sure. Where can the listeners find you guys on social media if they wanted to go out and check out all things Graham bonnet band, and

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:00:37

I think it's grant Bonnett music on the Facebook page. But if you Google grant bought it music, it'll take you to the Alcatraz page because that's that's what our that's the kind of stuff our former manager does. He checks things like that. So grab on it music. We'll take you to Alcatraz and take a listen. You'll hear it's not grandpa on it. But there's grandpa on it music I think is our Facebook page. A grandpa that music is the Facebook page, but I haven't artists page. Bethany haven't stone or Bethany heaven. So music. I think Conrad has Conrad pensionado music page. I think it's called grandpa and it has an Instagram account. I have an Instagram account. We've never really done a grandpa on IT band Instagram account. And I think I should put that together. You know, because his numbers on Instagram are growing. And that's, you know, not something he necessarily likes to do. So I have to take pictures and go here. Let's put that on Instagram. Yeah. We had a Twitter page. But our former manager took that to well, they took the Facebook page, but we got that one back, which thank goodness we did. And I've grown it. You know, I'm the one that I'm I work that like crazy. We have, you know, people that are doing it, but I'm the one that's any spare time I have I'm like inviting people. Yeah, you know, and it's really grown a lot.

Randy Hulsey  2:02:03

We have to be real careful with the friends you choose. It sounds like there's a Yeah, you think that they have your best interest. But a lot of times they just like they show their true colors. Right? And you're

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:02:17

the same person? Oh, yeah. It's funny, though, because they used to make fun of me because I kept stressing social media. And they're like, in our age demographic, it doesn't matter. And you're an idiot for making a Twitter page and all this stuff. And then they take it. Yeah,

Randy Hulsey  2:02:31

yeah. Yeah. That's totally contradictory, right?

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:02:33

Oh, that's just there. Just know that the world is full of them. And I always try to see the good in people first, and, you know, lesson learned about this. So, you know, it's okay. It's it. You know, honestly, my mom used to say that the best revenge is Living Well, yeah. And we're really living well, I mean, the fact that the Since You've Been Gone version that rainbow did is being is in that Guardians of the Galaxy movie is in the trailer and what debuted at the Super Bowl to millions upon hundreds of well, millions upon millions of people. Yeah, is I mean, that if you're a bad person, stuff like that doesn't follow. No, I agree. Guy. That's why that happened. And he's a great singer, and it's a killer song, but whatever. I agree,

Randy Hulsey  2:03:25

and I mentioned to you Graham, before we kind of hit the record button here that I had a wonderful interview with Russ Maillard and a gracious guy I asked him how much time do I have with you how much time can you give me Rusty said as much time as you need you take your time and you do what you do and I thought that was so cool because he's an amazing songwriter and we spoke of my chat with you we spoke of the song since you've been gone and he said gram and rainbow you know there's been other bands that have recorded that and covered it but those guys got it right you guys got it right with Since you've been gone so he spoke very highly of you. And he would like to get in touch with you to do that interview which I've mentioned so we got to get you get Yeah, to reach out to Ross

Graham Bonnet  2:04:15

great voice can come up with any I say I've got a song for menial, so yeah, well wait a minute let me my catalogue all right. So make special it's always been an absolutely fantastic Yeah. And yeah, I'd love to be on his

Randy Hulsey  2:04:29

good good. Good. Good. Yeah. And I will edit that out

2:04:41

meanwhile

Randy Hulsey  2:04:51

oh my god, I should have followed that with some Tom Jones. Best me, it's been a pleasure to chat with you finally. And it's yeah, I appreciate you having myself and my brother in your home, you and Graham, both your wonderful guests, and thanks for sharing your story with backstage pass radio. I want to make sure that the listeners follow you guys on all of your social media outlets. And probably the easiest way to do it is just google search Graham bonnet band, and that's usually the way that most people will get to you anyway. So thank you guys for your hospitality and for having us and I think you made a

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:05:35

cake. So we're gonna go ahead, so I did make you love it. I

Randy Hulsey  2:05:39

love it. I guess I just pushed you so much. And you're like, I gotta get this guy off my back. I'm just gonna make the cake and just get this shut him.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:05:48

You did mention it about four times

Randy Hulsey  2:05:49

I did. But I was it was in love. It was I was playing. It's just my humor. It's my guess.

Beth-Ami Heavenstone  2:05:55

My pleasure. And I'm so happy to meet you in person because I feel like I've known you forever. And yeah, and I'm hungry. Yeah. Well,

Randy Hulsey  2:06:04

I asked the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast, and to the YouTube channel. You can find the show on Facebook at backstage pass radio podcast, Instagram at backstage pass radio, on Twitter at backstage pass PC, and on the website at backstage pass. radio.com. Thank you guys for supporting the show. Take care of yourselves and each other. And we'll see you right back here on the next episode of backstage pass radio.

Adam Gordon  2:06:29

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