Speaker 1: 0:45

Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in today and I hope everyone is doing well. Today I am joined by two excellent musicians from New York, one a guest and one a co-host. Hey everyone, it's Randy Holsey with Backstage Pass Radio. My co-host today is a touring musician, songwriter, guitarist and producer, and my returning guest has toured the globe with charting artists and world-class musicians and is considered one of the top guitar players on the planet. Don't go anywhere, as I will be joined by my friend and co-host, vern Venard of the band Zack Perry and the Beautiful Things, and I will treat you guys once again to my friend and guitar virtuoso, ron Bumblefoot Thal, and I'll do so right after this.

Speaker 2: 1:29

This is Backstage Mass Radio, backstage Pass Radio, a podcast by an artist for the artist. Each week, we take you behind the scenes of some of your favorite musicians and the music they created From chart-topping hits to underground gems. We explore the sounds that move us and the people who make it all happen. Remember to please subscribe, rate and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. So, whether you're a casual listener or a diehard music fan, tune in and discover the magic behind the melodies. Here is your host of Backstage Pass Radio, randy Halsey.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Ron? What is happening, man? It's good to see you, brother. You too, always a pleasure. Yeah, vern, how are you? How are you bud? I'm doing great. Sorry about all the Zoom confusion, but hey, we got to love technology, right guys?

Speaker 3: 2:26

Zoom fusion.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Zoom fusion Yep.

Speaker 4: 2:31

Yeah, technology is nice when it works Exactly exactly.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Well, ron, I appreciate you reaching out the other day. It was good to hear from you and it'll be good to catch up with you and see what's new and exciting in the Bumblefoot world. Well, welcome man, I'm glad you're here.

Speaker 4: 2:48

Thank you, always good to be here.

Speaker 1: 2:49

Always good to chat with you. Yeah, we've had a few texts back and forth recently, but I was thinking back, I guess, yesterday, and I think you were my season, so I'm in season nine now. I think you were my season five, episode 11. And man, that was like that was a year and a half ago that you and I talked. It's hard to believe that there's been a year and a half already under the bridge. Where does time go, man? It just flies quicker and quicker.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Oh my god, I I don't know if it's uh. The I think the older I get, it seems like it just starts ticking a little bit quicker. Now I'm in dog years. It seems like right. The time is going like seven times as fast for some reason Totally. How's life for you these days, man? We haven't spoken a year and a half. What's shaking these days? How are you?

Speaker 4: 3:43

Life is good. Life has been about the new album and just supporting that thing and just doing what I can to let people know it exists and I thank you for for that as well, and that is pretty much life. You know, it's like it's my new baby and I'm living for you know, feeding it and clothing it and giving it a good life, a home and everything.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2: 4:10

I want the album to have a better life than I have.

Speaker 1: 4:12

There you go. Well, we talked a little bit pre pre-hitting the record button that, uh, the cost of shipping for all of the merch these days is is through the freaking roof right. Speak to the listeners a little bit about the trials and tribulations of trying to ship merch around the world.

Speaker 4: 4:30

Yeah, yeah, I have an interesting shipping setup where you know CDs, vinyl cassettes, they go to a warehouse in Chicago.

Speaker 4: 4:41

They do a fantastic job of getting stuff out and processing orders and shipping everything and I sent to them I guess you call them flats, which are either CD or vinyl size album covers, but it's just like the front cover that you sign and I send them a stack and they include them with the signed albums and then any kind of shirts and mugs and pit bulls and anything like that, anything you print on.

Speaker 4: 5:09

There is a network of printers that print on demand and when an order comes in for one of those things, they send it out to the printer that is closest to the customer to try and get it to them as quickly and inexpensively as possible. But even still, the price of everything is insane. Like I just had an old tablature book, a transcription book of my first album that I printed up myself years ago, and I still have a few of them and there's a dude in Australia that really wanted this book. He wrote to me so I was like you know what? I'll send you one myself. So I packed it up and I went to the post office just right before we connected and the shipping on this book was $65 to Australia, jesus.

Speaker 3: 6:06

And the guy he said, yeah, whatever the shipping is, you know, I'll cover it.

Speaker 1: 6:13

But it's like twice as much as the book. He didn't know he was going to have to take out a loan to do it right, yeah, so I'm probably you know.

Speaker 4: 6:17

I'm going to tell him you know what. Just cover the shipping and don't worry about the book I don't want him to pay three times the amount.

Speaker 4: 6:27

It's bad enough that he I hear from so many people overseas that say I would love to get your album, a signed copy of it, but the shipping is as much as the album. I don't want to pay double. So it's bad for me. I'm losing people that want to get the album and it's bad for them having to pay twice as much. So that is the challenge these days for an artist with merch. Yeah, Bands with merch, anyone with merch is just dealing with shipping. And I do have a retail distribution of the album overseas labeled, based out of the UK Cargo Records, and I have it even in stores in the US through the wonderful Deco Records great record company. But yeah, even still, shipping is not cheap.

Speaker 1: 7:17

No, well, I was going to say it's a good problem to have, but it's probably not a good problem at all. But it's good that your stuff is in demand and people are pinging you from all around the world. That's an awesome. Not a problem again, but that's a great thing. But it's sad that the shipping slows all of that down and, as we were speaking, the musicians these days rely heavily on the merch to supplement income, do they not? I mean, you educate me. You're kind of the musician doing the thing right. Is there some truth to that or not? So much.

Speaker 4: 7:56

Oh, completely. From what I have seen, most touring bands only survive and are able to keep touring thanks to merch and meet and greets and the direct support of fans. The shows themselves don't cover the costs of touring and you know, it's one thing if you're gonna lose some money but you still want to get out and tour and do that for the fans. But if it's the kind of thing where you're losing that much money, a lot of bands I've seen reconsider touring and they're not doing it because it's just gotten so expensive. So the thing that saves bands and allows them to get out there and play is that wonderful support of fans when they go to meet and greets and buy the merch Sure.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Well, I spoke to you earlier. I have a lovely friend over in germany who's who's become a nice friend of mine from the show, who's been on a couple of times, tony carey, former former keyboard player for rainbow. And you know I was talking to tony about that in the first kind of powwow that we did and I said how have things changed then versus now? And and he said, well, back then, you know, we sold millions of records, right, and we made a great living selling records. He said now we're, uh, now all we are is fucking t-shirt salesman, right, I mean, we rely on merch so heavily that we become we become, you know, t-shirt salesman.

Speaker 1: 9:29

And it was a little tongue-in-cheek, but him even saying that merch is a very important and integral part of the musician's livelihood these days. Well, let's catch the listeners up on some Bumblefoot current events. What do you say? Yeah, yeah. So, first off, you spoke earlier about the new record that's come out. Uh, it's entitled bumblefoot return. So, first and foremost, congrats on the record.

Speaker 1: 9:59

Oh, thank you so much yeah, and just to kind of kick that off, I clipped, uh, one of your songs that you sent over. Uh, this is a song called once and forever. We won't do spoiler here, but we'll come back and talk about that song in the record. Fair enough, sounds great, all right, here we go. Guitar solo, great melodic track there off the new record called Once and Forever. And you know there's some playing on that track, ron, that's hauntingly familiar there. Share with the listeners who the guest guitarist was on the track. Oh, on that song.

Speaker 4: 11:22

It is Brian May.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Formerly of Queen right Of Queen fame yeah.

Speaker 4: 11:27

So Brian May is on there. Jerry Gaskill, the drummer of king's x, is playing drums on that song. Uh, derrick shirinian, my band made from how many bands now? Uh, is on keyboards. Yeah, and they were kind enough to let me jump in on some guitar too they allowed you to do that on your own record right.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Well, when you get to, you know, when you get to that level of playing, you know that you've accomplished over time. Um, how does it make you feel as a guitarist? Um, to get to play with some of the greats and and do things like the Bumblefoot Returns vinyl, or record for that matter.

Speaker 4: 12:15

Feels pretty damn good when the little kid in you is jumping for joy. The one that just started playing and listened to all these bands was a fan of them, influenced by them, inspired by them. And then, when you get to do things with those same people, you feel like you've been climbing a mountain your whole life and you got to one of the peaks of it. That's how it feels. It's like all right, good, I can die now.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Well, you know, there's always a, there's an. There was been an adage forever like never, never meet your heroes, right? Because a lot of times I think you'll be, you know, somewhat disappointed in that, or you've held them to such a higher regard for all this time, and then you meet them and it's just kind of that uh, has there ever been any of that with any of the heroes that you've ever met and I know you've met, you know your share along the way has there ever been? And and I don't want like gory details of who it was, but but have you always had a good experience meeting these people? Or has there been some truth to that old adage?

Speaker 4: 13:29

met a lot of people over the decades and I think there's only one that was a little kind of, I'm gonna say, nasty but just unfriendly only one, okay, and later on we actually became friends, good after after that first time we met. But for the most part, 99% of the time, it's just normal human beings and I think that's part of the issue is that if you go to meet someone and you place them above human and expect them to be a god or perfect or something else, and they're just human, you know a god or perfect or something else, and they're just human. You know they, you know they could be feeling very shitty at that moment and lacking sleep and a million different things, and and you may not catch someone at their best, and you know we all just do the best we can with who we are in that moment and that's it.

Speaker 1: 14:31

I love that story. But you are right, and I have been fortunate enough to talk to guys like you and some of your friends in the industry, some of the biggest guitar names in the industry and all of you guys I have to go on record to say have been just wonderful with your time, great human beings. And I think you know, as we grew up, I think, ron, you and I are probably somewhere close to the same age yeah, I'm 55. But you know, back in the day when guys like Vern and myself and you were coming up, you remember going to the concerts.

Speaker 1: 15:06

You couldn't even take a camera or a video device into these concerts and a lot of times you listen to bands forever and you didn't even know this was back in the seventies. Of course, you didn't even know what they look like, you just knew that we love their music. So the times have changed so much. But my point being is that we've elevated guys like you to oh my gosh. You know I could never speak to a guy like that, but you guys are some of the most humble musicians out there, even at the level. So I appreciate that from the role that I play here on Backstage Pass Radio and I'm sure Vern, he's met his share of guys over the years and I'm sure they've all been good to him as well.

Speaker 4: 15:50

So thank you for that oh, absolutely, and and the thing is, you know, you got to remember if you're if there's some person that you really want to meet and they're running to catch a plane that they're going to miss it bolt ass to get it. And you stop them in the middle and you're a stranger and you're just saying, hey, can I take a picture? Oh wait, my camera's not working, hold on and. And they're just gonna be like, okay, I gotta go, sorry, yeah, and run and you can't be mad at that.

Speaker 4: 16:21

No, some people might yeah, for sure and you can't say, oh, that person's a dick, that person's an asshole. It's like you just stopped a stranger from trying to, you know, from getting on a plane, and it's just not the right time. So a lot of it is also the timing and that's why, like it's good to do meet and greets, because that is a designated time where you get to hang out and shoot the shit. Hopefully, I mean a lot of times it's like they you know people get rushed through and the band would like to have a conversation and they're just getting pushed through. It's like I wish I could actually talk about this, because you know people will bring things.

Speaker 4: 16:55

It's like, oh my God, I remember that show and I remember taking that picture with you and you want to just kind of like. You know, you feel like you want to catch up a little bit, and so 100%.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Yeah, vern, did you have a thought there? I think you might have.

Speaker 3: 17:09

I was just agreeing with Ron that maybe right in the middle of dinner is not the best time.

Speaker 1: 17:18

No, that's one way to piss me off real quick if you get between me and the fork right, that's not a good thing. Yeah Well, it's great to hear that. Even you, ron, have those let's call them holy shit moments where you get to play with guys like Brian May and Jerry Gaskell and all these guys that you've probably adored and admired over the years. I think we all have a little bit of that giddy schoolgirl in us to a certain extent. Would you agree with that? Sure?

Speaker 4: 17:55

If you still love music and you're still a fan of music, no matter what you're doing career-wise, music-wise yourself that child, that wide-eyed, amazed child, never goes away. Yes, like it's always there, it's always part of you 100%. And music is like a time machine, like it does take you back and when you hear songs you can feel like you're 12 years old again and you remember exactly where you were and you can smell the air like you're there again.

Speaker 4: 18:30

Yes, so yeah, you were, and you could smell the air like like you're there again, yes, uh, so yeah, but the the great thing, is like jerry gaskell.

Speaker 4: 18:36

You know, I remember the first time hearing king's ex, uh, when the first album came out, and I was like this is just like the perfect music. Uh, this is incredible. And then it turns out jerry lives maybe a half hour away from me and my wife is a veterinarian and him and his wife take their dogs to see my wife Interesting, yeah. And we go out to dinner in Red Bank and you know that's super cool. Like every time we would go out to dinner we'd be like we should do something together.

Speaker 4: 19:10

And I was working on the album during the pandemic and all, and I said I think I got the perfect song for you. It's got this like Bonham-y layer. You go boom, boom, boom and you could do your thing. And he just came right into this room, had a drum set in here, he laid it down and that was it. Yeah, in here you laid it down and that was it. Yeah. So it's nice when the people that you love for their music, when you get to know them as people and you love them for the people they are and they're, and you find that that usually if you love the music is because the soul behind that music, the spirit behind it, the person behind it, is as wonderful as the music.

Speaker 1: 19:51

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, so Bumblefoot returns the new record. This is all instrumental, correct? You're going not too far off the beaten path for you because you've done instrumental records in the past. But speak to the listeners a little bit about this record. It is all instrumental, correct?

Speaker 4: 20:16

Yes, when I got my first record deal on shrapnel records in the mid-90s I remember I signed in 94, and the reason I signed it I was friends with Mike Varney, who owns shrapnel records, and they were an instrumental guitar record label and I didn't want to put out that kind of music because my goal was always to be in a band. You know, I grew up on Kiss and the Beatles and classic rock and old school metal and it was not instrumental music. I was always a screaming singer and that's the kind of thing I wanted to be part of. I wanted to contribute and be a partner in a band that made the bands I love. The way they made me feel so fucking good Listening to their stuff. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to pay it back to the world and do the same thing and make people feel as lifted as all these bands made me feel. But Shrapnel they were going to make kind of a branch of the label that includes vocal music. So I was like, all right, let's do it. So I signed the deal and as soon as I signed he said to me all right, right, but first I want you to put out an instrumental record. It's not what I'm looking to do, right? So I did my very first album. It was called the adventures of bumblefoot and other tales of woe. It had this kind of comic book II sort of cover to it and it had this creature flying overhead that was half foot, half bee and that was, you know, bumblefoot. And Bumblefoot itself is an animal disease, also rate of pododermatitis, and I picked up a lot of secondhand veterinary information from my wife while she was in school studying. So I named every song on that album after a different weird animal disease all scrappy blue tongue, limber, neck, fistulous withers, uh, strawberry foot rot, all kinds of weird ailments, and it was a very strange album.

Speaker 4: 22:25

After that I went back to doing vocal music, put out another album called Hermit and then I started my own record label just to put out my own music and I had distributors all around the world and was doing everything myself and put out a bunch of Bumblefoot albums and the band name was Bumblefoot and I would throw in instrumental songs here and there. Okay, kind of like the way Van Halen would throw in an instrumental intro to a song or something. So I would do the same throughout the albums. There would be just one song here, one song there, and the only fully instrumental album I ever did was that very first one that came out in 1995. So the last Bumblefoot album I had put out was called Little Brother Is Watching. It came out in 2015.

Speaker 4: 23:22

And then after that I put out a couple albums with Sons of Apollo, with Art of Anarchy. God's Destroy was producing a bunch of bands and sometimes I would play on the stuff as well. So I was putting out a lot of music. Just I hadn't put out another Bumblefoot album and then the pandemic hit. Sons of Apollo was on tour and we had to just rush home and cancel the tour and I had time.

Speaker 4: 23:51

So I put out another little instrumental song I called Planetary Lockdown and I put out a video of it, just one minute video where I played the main riff. I left the middle section empty and then the main riff again and invited people to lay their own solo over the music in between it so that they could collaborate. Very cool, and about 500 people did it and it was drummers would play to it and bass players and, of course, guitar players. Dino Jalusic the vocalist, he wrote a song to it and did vocals and there were horn players and keyboard players and lots of people did it and it was such a nice way to stay connected to the music world, keep everyone connected. And from there I did two acoustic EPs that I threw on my band cam page.

Speaker 4: 24:49

And still there was a ton of time and I'm in this chair every day for hours alone and I thought about how a lot of people would ask would you ever do another instrumental album? So I figured I already had a head start with a couple of singles I had put out. So I started working on an instrumental album and it was pretty much done by 2013. But I had another Art of Anarchy album and the debut Whom Gods Destroy album to finish up. So I sort of put my own thing aside for about a year while I could get those out and everything happening, because I was doing the producing and mixing as well as writing and the playing and dealing with, uh, label stuff and and everything. So I got that happening and then, uh, here it is.

Speaker 4: 25:42

So the album came out january 24th of this year, 2025, and and I did have a I invited a couple of friends. I didn't want it to be a whole you know variety show with a million people on it and just a couple of guests. That I thought would really be perfect for those songs. Yeah, so the main dude that's on there is Kyle Hughes. He's my drummer. He is phenomenal, he is just. He's just so great Can't say enough good things about him.

Speaker 3: 26:15

He plays on the whole album, except for that one song that Jerry is on, okay.

Speaker 4: 26:20

And then we have Brian May on the song Once and Forever, where I was recording this song and it just felt like it needed him. All I could picture was him playing those parts and I didn't want to do an imitation of him and me pretending to be him. The song deserved the real thing, and I asked him and he did it. Same thing with the song Monstruoso. I pictured a guitar that sounds like an alien screaming at you, and the only person that can make a guitar sound like it's an alien like that is Steve Vai.

Speaker 3: 26:58

So I asked Steve would you throw down a solo on this, and he did.

Speaker 4: 27:02

And then there was this song called Anvashana, and that one that was the first song I started writing with the intention of making a solo album. And the first thing I did for it is I took a song, a riff, that was sitting in my head since 1989. That I never turned into a song, that's always just been there. And if I walk into my room of ideas music ideas I see it covered in dust on the shelf, just sitting there, just like someday I'm gonna pick that thing up and do something. So that's the first thing I did is I just took that riff and just turned it into a song. And then I thought about 1989. That is the year that I got into. I got my first write-up in a national guitar magazine and it was like the start of legitimacy, okay. And there was a nice kid that wrote to me that read my write-up in there and said Hi, my name is Guthrie, I'm from the UK, I'm a guitarist, I would love to hear your demo. And we became pen pals and we would send each other cassettes and handwritten transcriptions of riffs like here's what I did in this part. And we were these little teenage pen pals in the late 80s and every time I would tour through the UK he would come hang and hop on stage and when we'd do NAMM shows we would sit on the floor for an hour just jamming. And when he was doing his debut album called Erotic Cakes that came out in 2006, I laid a guest solo on his song Rhode Island Shred. So seems like it would be good to.

Speaker 4: 28:47

As this song came together that I was writing, I pictured a good middle section of just jamming and maybe trading off. Sure, and it's the first song I'm making and one of the first people I met, from the first uh, national thing that happened, was him and it just felt, felt like it would complete the timeline and and the circle of existence of that, the timing of that riff and that song and everything. So I asked him, I was like hey, you want to do a little trade back and forth? And he said yeah, and he threw down.

Speaker 1: 29:19

Is this the same Guthrie of the aristocrats in Asia, fame.

Speaker 4: 29:25

Yeah, okay, awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:27

Awesome, so you? Yeah, there was a reciprocation of being on each other's songs, right? That's pretty cool, man. I like the story.

Speaker 4: 29:36

Cool story, guitar friends since 1989.

Speaker 1: 29:40

There you go. Well, hey, vern, there's, there's hope.

Speaker 3: 29:43

Man, you could be one of these guys with Bumblefoot here before long, man, I was just wondering if, like the, the floor in the room that you guys were in could stand the weight of talent in one room at the same time.

Speaker 4: 30:00

Guthrie is absolutely the greatest guitarist, not of generation X, our time, but but like he is just phenomenal and such a sweet guy.

Speaker 3: 30:13

He's great, he's incredible. It's funny that you have known him for so long, because one of the things and you have this as well is you can see guys that can shred Some of those shrapnel records. Back in the day had that in spades, but there wasn't a lot of. It wasn't always very tasty. And the two of you specifically, you're all you know you're, you're very individual, but your guys are so tasty. There's this sense of melody that you guys have that you know. Some of the other ones don't, and it makes the music so much fun to listen to, because it's not all the notes at all the time, you know, and as a musician, that's so much more enjoyable to listen to. Um, and, and both of you guys have that in your own individual styles, you know yeah, he went more of the the fusion direction.

Speaker 1: 31:18

I went more of the kind of metal direction, but yeah, well, how does one determine, like, whether a record is going to have vocals on it or not? Is that just a gut thing for you, ron? Is that, is that um? Or? Or is it specific? Like you, you already know, okay, I going to do this record regardless. It's going to be no vocals, it's going to be all instrumental. Or is it just a gut thing for you?

Speaker 4: 31:47

Every time I'm writing a guitar melody, it just works its way up to my mouth and I start singing and then words start happening and it's like all right, now it's a vocal song happening and it was like all right, that was the vocal song and and then the guitars just delegated to less of the melodic stuff and more of the shorty stuff.

Speaker 4: 32:06

So I just I had a big roll of tape that I would just keep over my mouth as I would be in the studio and writing, so that that wouldn't happen and I would just let the guitar be the voice.

Speaker 1: 32:21

Is this the same role? As is this the same roll of tape that your wife uses? Is uh?

Speaker 1: 32:26

yes okay asking for a friend, just asking for a friend, that's all. Well, you know, when you've written so many songs uh, whether they have vocals or not, or instrumental, you've written so many songs how do guys like you keep the songs fresh, how do you keep them from being like wait a minute, that's a variation of the last riff. That I did right Because you know there's only so many keys you can write in I mean, music is endless. Did right Because you know there's only so many keys you can write in Like there's, there's. I mean, music is endless. You could say music is endless, but how do you keep it fresh? Let's just leave it there and let you answer the question.

Speaker 4: 33:08

Think of it like a language where there's only so many words, but you never run out of things to say or how you want to say it. So it's the same kind of thing. If you you keep life interesting, you will always come home and say, honey, you wouldn't believe what happened today, and have a new story to tell, and whatever that feeling is, whatever you're picturing, whatever you want to share, uh, you just do it through music and and I've done a lot of music for TV shows, video games, indie, horror movies and I find writing instrumental songs is very similar. It's just instead of seeing it on a screen that you're writing to, you're just picturing it in your head. You're picturing this scene and you're sort of doing a score to it.

Speaker 1: 34:01

Where do the listeners, or where would the listeners, purchase this music from? You know we talked a lot about merch and the horrors of shipping, but where would the listeners go to purchase the new record or anything in the past? From you, for that matter?

Speaker 4: 34:18

Okay, well, you can go to bumblefootcom and there is plenty of album stuff and and merch there. You can also go to a Deco entertainment, deco records, and they make it available to Amazon and they sell it on their site and record stores have it through them and in Europe it would be through Cargo. They're in the UK so you can't really call them Europe. You know that part of the world. Sure, sure, yeah, merch is bumblefootcom.

Speaker 4: 35:00

Now there is a free retro video game for the song simon in space. So you could also go on my site and there's a link for that. If you go down to like the news section, it has all information about any of these things. So it is a fun little video game, old school, where that guitar, double neck guitar spaceship that my cat, simon, is flying on the front cover. So it's that ship and you just hold it down and it rapid fires and all the things from the album art, like the alien mice and their spaceships and all that stuff. They're flying and you just shoot them and and they blow up and you see a little gold coin, you get the power up points and and so it's like an old 80s space game.

Speaker 1: 35:50

So that you can get. When I talk to guys like you, I say, god damn, I am so not creative. You, you know where this stuff comes from, and not only the artists, but just it's people are very interesting in the fact that they're so creative, and you really don't know a lot of where the creativity comes from. But how did designing a video game even become of interest to you?

Speaker 4: 36:19

Well, I think back to when albums would come out, when we were younger and it was an event. It wasn't just oh, it's on Spotify.

Speaker 1: 36:29

Yes.

Speaker 4: 36:30

The end no, it was a whole thing. And the way albums would come with stuff Remember how Love Gun came with the pop gun and stuff like that, uh, so I wanted to do as much of that as I could. I wanted this to be more of a fun album release that included a lot more things and even the album itself.

Speaker 4: 36:55

What we love about physical stuff is the artwork, so I'm sure this thing had a ton of artwork in it, where it's a double disc that has art and the other one more art and the disc itself has music on three sides and the fourth side very cool, very cool clear disc with that on it.

Speaker 1: 37:29

Love that you know what's interesting about that and that's so cool, the you know, for the listeners. You we'll see about putting this up on YouTube but, ron, showing the actual album art and the album cover and the inner sleeve liner note kind of thing. But you know, ron, it kind of took me back for just a second. I remember I'm a vinyl collector now and for the longest time I didn't I didn't listen to vinyl. You know, we've been in this digital age for so long and about three years ago I bought my first vinyl and I bought a record player. Right Sitting over there I'm running it through my EV50. And I remember pulling this piece of vinyl out and putting it on that turntable and spinning it and there was this.

Speaker 1: 38:20

My blood kind of ran cold and I'm being very honest when I say this Like the hair on the back of my neck stood up because I had not touched physical music. Like where you can? I'm the liner note guy. I am the music junkie, just like my show says that I am. I love the liner notes and to be able to pull that liner note out of that vinyl and look at the pictures and hold it in my hands and read all that was nothing short of amazing to me, right? So I, when you show me that it's like we talk about the giddy school girl, I just love that stuff, man, and it never gets old to me. I don't know if you feel the same or if you mimic that, or, vern, if you mimic that too, but I love the vinyl man.

Speaker 3: 39:04

Yeah, it's. It's funny because the and I don't know, randy, if you saw this the last time you were here but the overwhelming majority of my decor, so the things that are hanging on my walls are framed album covers throughout the entire house, because they are works of art and I have those same experiences of. As a matter of fact, I'll tell a quick story. I stole three or four records from my stepmother, although permanently borrowed is the way I like to say it.

Speaker 1: 39:40

There you go. You're off the hook now.

Speaker 3: 39:42

Yeah, I have this vivid memory of taking Led Zeppelin II, putting it on the record player and sitting on the floor listening to the music. And, if you remember that record, you opened it up. There was the big painting of the Zeppelin and four spotlights, and the pedestals that you know had the spotlights had a name on it, and I sat there for the entire first side trying to figure out who was playing what, and you know it's seared into my brain and, and so those moments and and uh, you know when, when 1984 came out and I had to convince I was uh, came out on my birthday in 1984, uh, four, I was 10 and I had to convince my father to buy it for me because the the angel was smoking. But think about how powerful that is, you know, like it's just a picture, but so, yeah, I'm right there with you, man, I love that stuff.

Speaker 1: 40:53

Yeah, it's, it's amazing, it's. It's kind of like a journey. When you sit down with that record, you listen to it totally different than you do when you queue up a song on Spotify, like that's. It's almost background music from Spotify, if you will, unless you're pointed in listening to that song and and hearing that song. But when you put on a vinyl, you sit and you pay attention to that. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's me right. You just listen totally different than you do to digital music.

Speaker 4: 41:28

Yeah it demands more of you Of attention, sure so yeah, so I did vinyl and I went all the way and of course did cds and and the booklet opens up into a two-sided poster instead of having just a stapled booklet and then going back to our roots cassette, did it on cassette and the cassette even opens up and unravels into a bunch of that's cool man.

Speaker 1: 42:04

That's awesome, and you got the liner notes in there. I don't remember cassette tapes, I'm too young for that, but I have to believe what you're telling me there, ron. But I love cassette. I still got cassettes here. I don't have anything to play the cassettes on much anymore, but even CDs, you know, like the formats, just everything seems to come retro somehow, like I don't get it. I mean, think of how many years went by where vinyl was probably not prevalent.

Speaker 1: 42:34

I mean it was not listened to, and now it's. I mean I think it's coming back. It's a big thing. Now I'm a big collector, so I don't know. I digress, but you know.

Speaker 4: 42:45

You know, Vinyl has been the most in demand of everything in the world. Yeah, that's wild. So that's what's actually people are grabbing the most of which surprised me. I didn't expect that. I thought it would be more CDs, but no, overwhelmingly vinyl.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Wow. Well, I think it's more collectorish, if you will Like. There's something collectory about it. Collectory not even being a word, probably, but it is today.

Speaker 4: 43:13

It is now.

Speaker 1: 43:16

I think I would rather have that than the other two that you show, but that's my personal preference. But gosh, I mean my, I had thousands of cds in the day, no doubt, like I was in that generation for sure. Well, you know, you know, you have so many talents and and hobbies. You, uh, are most well known for your fretboard work. I know that you have some guitar tone presets from the latest record and I wanted to touch on this in case there's any guitarists other than Vern and I listening out there and I'm sure there's going to be. Talk to us a little bit about the tone presets and are they specific to the Helix products?

Speaker 4: 43:59

Yes, yes, my main thing that I use is the Line 6 Helix and it just has every possible kind of guitar sound you could ever want to make Routing, that would be impossible in the physical world of effects and everything.

Speaker 4: 44:18

So I did a lot of experimenting or I should say exploring with it and got a lot of wacky guitar sounds on the album.

Speaker 4: 44:27

And what I did is I made all of those sounds available. Like if you go to line six, they have a thing line six, marketplace and marketplace and all the sounds from every song, from every track of this album are available there. And I also did a transcription book where I have the whole album written out, uh, in digital and physical book and every single note played on that album, every backing guitar in the distance, whatever it is and it's the musical notation, it's the tablature, it is the fingers used, it is the picking direction, it is any special instructions like you know, hold your nose here while putting your thumb on this and hit that yeah and backing tracks, so that when you learn the song you can play it without having to hear a mean noodle over it and you could just play to the song and play the main parts. So this is what I mean by making it an event like an album. I have a lot of things, not just putting the music out.

Speaker 3: 45:33

I have a quick question. We can geek out on gear here for one second. One of my favorite songs on that new record is griggstown crossing. Oh yeah, that song has a fucking fretless talk box solo. It is so cool. So if you haven't, if people out there haven't heard it, it's so cool. But gear-wise, is that something that you can do straight in the box. Do you not need to have the second external speaker with the hose anymore?

Speaker 4: 46:09

For the talk box. I used a real talk box. Okay, they have. You know, there's probably a way to do it, because they do have a lot of filters in the Helix that are like voice tone type things that you could probably put to an expression pedal where you're really able to control a few things with it. It won't be able to do everything that your mouth can do. Uh, that would be something cool if helix can make a talk box somehow, if they can come up with a way that that would be something they can include it in that. Uh, but that is the only thing other than like an acoustic guitar that didn't use the helix was using the talk box where I had the tube and that, and just going direct right in.

Speaker 3: 47:11

Yeah, um, it's okay with randy, I'll, I'll springboard off that another gear question. So I was curious, um, when you were starting, what was the genesis of coming up with the fretless? What made you want to go and, and you know, before the metal neck and just making a fretless guitar? Because that's not, you know, typically guitar players, when they're coming up we don't even think about it.

Speaker 4: 47:52

Because that's not, you know, typically guitar players. When they're coming up we don't even think about it. So when I started, the thing that really what made me want to be a musician was when Kiss Alive came out. I heard that I was five years old, about to turn six, and something about that album, the hidden messages in there that said go do this. And that was it, and I was always into just the band thing and I didn't even care about being a guitarist.

Speaker 3: 48:18

I didn't want to be a guitarist I wanted to be a drummer, but my brother wanted to be a drummer, so he became the drummer and I wanted to be a bassist, because gene simmons with the spitting blood and the breathing fire and everything.

Speaker 4: 48:28

but I was too little to play a bass so I ended up on guitar and it was more important really just contributing to making a song happen than anything else. So but over time, as you know the guitarist, I was into all the modern music that was coming out, which would be ACDC and Pink Floyd and the who and you know just 70s stuff, and I was pretty much like a little Angus Young kind of guitar player, like a very hyper blues rock player. And then I remember and I was late hearing it, uh, I was 12 years old, it was 1982, and I was at a band practice and some kid was hanging out at practice and he asked me he's like you know how to tap, like what do you mean? And he showed me it's like you ever heard of Eddie Van Halen? Like no, who's that? And then he played me the intro to Mean Street which had just recently come out, and I never heard a guitar make a sound like that and it just changed everything. Like you know how there's that line of guitar.

Speaker 4: 49:50

It's like you, you know the two time periods, b, e, a, e, you know before 80 after 80 and I just crossed over the line at that point and it just changed my philosophy about guitars. Like, oh wait, you can experiment with this thing, you could. Oh wait, you can experiment with this thing, you could. Pretty much. Just, you know, there's no limits to how you could make a string vibrate and make a sound and make it speak. And right then, at 12 years old, I started taking apart my guitars and doing all kinds of weird, horrific things to them. I would pull off the frets. I had one where I took all the frets off and took coins it ended up being four dollars and 63 cents, I think and I glued all of that to the neck and shaved the size of it. So I was playing on a surface of of metal coins. So that was my metal fretboard and it was awful. Couldn't get a decent sound out of it. It was. It was just crap. It sounded like like, uh, like someone ran over a sitar and yeah.

Speaker 4: 50:59

But I would experiment, I would do things like that and I would build my own guitars. My main guitar was a modified 1983 ibanez roadstar that I just chopped up. I drilled holes in it, painted it yellow and it was the Swiss cheese guitar and that's what I would use for 13 years for touring and albums and recording and everything. So I was doing a tour, like a clinic tour in 1997, going through France, had my Swiss cheese guitar with me nothing fretless at that point and this guy was at one of the clinics and he had a guitar case with him and he said I want you to try this guitar. It's from this French company called Vigier. It's the guy's last name, patrice Vigier. He's the guy who runs the company and I remember saying I'm not looking for any endorsements.

Speaker 4: 51:53

I make my own gear. And yeah, and he's like just try the guitar. I was like I don't even want to try it. I make my own guitars and I'm not looking for any endorsements. I was like anti endorsement. Like the opposite of most people, they want all this free gear. It's like I don't want nothing. And he's like, just try it, Like all right, all right, and I tried it and my God, it played so much better than my guitar. Mine felt like a toy made by someone who doesn't know how to play guitars and this thing it just felt so good on the fingers and and just everything about it is like all right, I'd be an idiot if we didn't talk. So I met with Patrice and we had this nice conversation, got to know each other. He's just such a nice guy. I was like you know what this is? This?

Speaker 4: 52:41

is someone I would like to have in my life and we talked about just the guitars, how I always, as part of just artistic expression, you can call it, I would do all these odd things to my guitars and make weird guitars and stuff and I wouldn't really be comfortable just playing a typical, just guitar. Just you know, off the wall, just you, something that just looks like a hundred different Stratocasters and he's like, well, you know, we can make you special guitars. And they did. They made the Flying Foot guitar, the one that looks like my first album cover.

Speaker 4: 53:26

They made a guitar that looks like a human foot with wings on the side, that when you bend down the vibrato bar the wings come out. They're attached on some kind of internal lever system and it was phenomenal and the thing sounded great. It was just one push-pull volume knob for humbucker, single coil, three-way toggle for a Demarziozio Tone Zone in the bridge, the two together and a chopper in the neck, and this thing sounded really full-bodied for just a tiny little foot and the neck was killer. I was like, wow, oh my god, yeah, so I've been with Vigier Guitars since 1997, and they actually stopped manufacturing guitars. Last year was the final year.

Speaker 4: 54:18

Patrice is retiring but he's still going to make these crazy double necks for me. So I'm not going to another company, I'm sticking with him and sticking with that. But we went to our first NAMM show together it's a very long answer to your question, I apologize. And that was, yeah, 1998, our first NAMM show. And he had all these single neck. They didn't make double necks, they just had these single neck fretless guitars with the metal neck. And my eyes got a little big. I was like, oh my god, look at this thing. I was like why didn't you tell me you make these? And Patrice, he just all frustrated, just stares up at the ceiling and looks back down and sighs. He's like I've had this company for 18 years and I remember him saying that he's only sold four of them, but I think he corrected me just recently. They only sold one of them. So in 18 years they only sold one fretless guitar. Wow.

Speaker 3: 55:18

That's terrifying for a guitar player.

Speaker 4: 55:21

So I said give me one. Give me one, I will take it home. I will use this thing for everything and immediately I started writing all kinds of songs and it's like learning a different language. You take a different approach because you can drag notes that you normally wouldn't be able to and just the phrasing of everything. It's like having a slide, but on every fingertip where you're backing that you're playing on is the slide. So you can be doing chords, you can do all kinds of stuff with it.

Speaker 3: 56:07

The first time I ever heard that, I thought that you were playing slide. I thought that this was like the greatest slide guitar player ever. And then I found out what it was and I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 1: 56:21

Well, I think there's one thing to point out there, ron, and I'm sure this one has it too. I don't know, vern probably is already familiar with the thimble because he's just that into the guitar, but is that one that has the thimble in it, or is that another guitar Do?

Speaker 4: 56:37

they all have them.

Speaker 4: 56:39

That is the other thing Once I crossed that after any line of guitar and was given the license to experiment, yeah. So I started looking for more ways to get notes beyond the fretboard. Because just because the frets end, the notes don't end. So really you can keep you know you have, but then after that the notes could keep going. So I wanted to find an efficient way of accessing those notes.

Speaker 4: 57:17

So instead of pressing the string against the frets on the fretboard, I keep a metal thimble on my smallest finger of my picking hand that I reach over and just hit it and you hit it into the right spots and it's like a mobile fret that you're touching to the string. So you can get notes that are beyond the fretboard. And also you can use it in front of the bridge, where the string won't vibrate all the way to the bridge, so it's showing the length of the string from the other end and by doing that now your frets aren't matching the length of the string and they're not going to give you the notes that they were supposed to give you. Instead they become higher notes. So give you the notes that they were supposed to give you. Instead they become higher notes. So if you normally have Once you put this in front and as you move it closer to the neck so you can play from both directions of the string. Let's say you want to go on the fretboard 12, 15, 17, 19. And you want to go.

Speaker 4: 58:40

And you could tap it there Instead you could take that same distance that you would be adding that extra finger on, and do it from the opposite end of the string and do it from here. So you can play from. I play it from both directions of the string using this thimble and it is in a hole in the bottom horn of my I guess signature guitars that's magnetized and just holds it in there that you can quickly grab it and put it back.

Speaker 1: 59:17

Yeah, You're a weird guy, Ron man. Yeah, I'm a fucking weirdo. That's me In a loving way, that's like you told me that and showed me that in the first interview that we did. I don't know if Vern, if you kind of knew that about the thimble and how it parked itself into the body, but I always thought that that was really cool and so innovative, right.

Speaker 3: 59:40

I just want to know when the signature model, thimble, is coming out.

Speaker 4: 59:45

Yeah, that's what I should do. I should sell thimbles Probably be the only thing that doesn't cost 30.

Speaker 1: 59:54

You just got to figure out a way to sign it, right. You got to have small handwriting. Well, you go ahead. Vern, you were going to say something there.

Speaker 3: 1:00:02

I was going to say that I saw a video of you explaining that and it was all. It was a lesson kind of, and I was struck by so I'm not a very good teacher when, way back in the day, when I was still living in new york and new jersey, uh, I could get students to a certain level and and then beyond that, I was useless because I could not explain to them how I did things. And you, my question is is you're such a good teacher, which is an art? There's a science to being a good instructor. Did you consciously have to work on being able to, you know, convey these intricate technique things you're doing in such an approachable way?

Speaker 4: 1:01:07

You know, I just always felt like whatever someone taught me, I should teach it to someone else. You know, it's the best thank you you can do, and I guess, the more you do, that that's it, the better you get at it right. Yeah, if I explain the thimble a hundred times, by the 100th time I'll probably be explaining it better than the first time. Uh, so I think it's just that, yeah it's uh, yeah, where in?

Speaker 4: 1:01:40

jersey were you uh, I was born in morristown okay, yeah, yeah, I'm maybe like 45 minutes south of that right now yep and uh, I know it well very nice yeah, so you?

Speaker 1: 1:01:55

you spoke a little bit, ron, about the transcription book. Where can the listeners find that as well? Is all that found out on bumblefootcom? Is that kind of the the place? To go for this type of stuff. Can you speak to that for?

Speaker 4: 1:02:09

the transcription book that you get right from the publishing company. It's this great company that puts out all kinds of just good guitar-oriented stuff and they are called Sheet Happens Publishing. So if you look them up, go onto my site. I'll have a link and everything down in the news section. It's like, hey, transcription book and backing tracks, get them here. But yeah, so Sheet Happens Publishing, they make the transcription book. They have the backing tracks as well. You can get the guitar tones, you can get uh, the, yeah, the guitar tones you could get from line six and everything else you can get from me yeah, for all the uh, the players out there guitar players make note of those websites and go check that out.

Speaker 1: 1:03:05

um, ron is, let's talk real quick about futures for you and what the bumblefoot fans can look forward to. I'll throw out a few topics and you can just kind of bring us up to speed with information around it for the listeners tuning in. So the world of hot sauce A lot of people may not know that you have a world-renowned line of hot sauce out there. Talk to the listeners about the hot sauce man.

Speaker 4: 1:03:31

Yes, I have a line of hot sauce out there. Talk to the listeners about the hot sauce man. Yes, I have a line of hot sauces Bumblefoot's Hot Sauce Easy name to remember and it started off in 2013. It was launched and I was taken under the wing of a very good company called K-John's and yeah, wing of a very good company called K John's and yeah, and then I went solo in 2019, got my own manufacturers and everything and distributors and resellers and all of that and yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:04:05

So if you just google anywhere bumblefoots hot sauce, if you go to hot sauce stores and do a search, hopefully you'll find my sauces. I have an all-purpose everything. Leave it on the table for anything you wanna add more flavor to and a little kick. That one is called the Sauce, two-time award-winning first place in its category at Zest Fest in Dallas, texas, the biggest food festival for spicy things, and one in 2013 and 2020 when I relaunched.

Speaker 4: 1:04:41

So the sauce it is the sauce you want to use with everything from your morning eggs to your dinner at night, and then, when you want something more barbecue because we all love barbecue, gotta have some barbecue. So I have one that has cherry and bourbon and chipotle and it goes great on steak and on chicken, any kind of meat and any kind of stir-fry basically anything that you want to have a little barbecue-y kick. That one is called Bumbalicious. And then for people that like pain, for people that like to cry when they eat and sweat and their nose to run and to run around the room looking for milk, I have one of the hottest sauces in the world and the show Hot Ones. They did a blog in 2016 and said that this is the third hottest sauce in the world you can get right now, and the name of this saucely named is bumble fucked. Yes, and I have so many people that try the sauce. They'll just take a dot of it, put it on their tongue.

Speaker 4: 1:06:00

And within a minute they are just freaking out and they they're bubble.

Speaker 1: 1:06:05

They're bubble, fucked right.

Speaker 4: 1:06:07

Yes, and it is really insanely intense. The other two are pretty mild.

Speaker 2: 1:06:16

If anything, you could take the Bumblefucked and you could add a little bit of that to the others to kick them up from mild to medium.

Speaker 4: 1:06:22

But yes, one drop of Bumblefucked on your plate of food will heat up that entire plate to a pretty serious place. It is serious chemistry.

Speaker 1: 1:06:34

What's in it that makes it that hot? What is that magic ingredient? Can you speak to that?

Speaker 4: 1:06:40

The capsaicin molecule. That is what makes hot stuff hot, and there is a fuckload of it in that bottle. It is measured on a scale where 16 million is pretty much like the sun and zero is a glass of water. Now habaneros are maybe in the low hundred thousands. Jalapenos are in the thousands. The hottest peppers in the world, like Pepper X Everyone knows the Carolina Reaper those get up to maybe 3 million. This sauce is 4 to 6 million. And there are sauces that are hotter where. There's this one that I still have a jar of it in my fridge. It's this ugly, dark brown paste and it's called Satan's Shit and it's 11 million Scovilles. So my sauce is not the hottest, but it's as far as a sauce in a bottle that you're going to pour onto your food. It's up there and should really be used with caution.

Speaker 1: 1:07:51

You know I'm one of liking spice to certain things, of course, but don't you get to a point with the hotness where it's just like mildly stupid to be eating shit.

Speaker 4: 1:08:05

that hot, no, absolutely Basically it's like you know the show Jackass. It's like putting that show in your mouth. Okay, yeah, it's for people that want to test the limits of their mortality, and interesting thing about it, though, is you get a nice rush from it, because you get that, that endorphin, dopamine, kind of. You know, I'm in pain, I need to put the pain out, and uh, yeah, that's a very real thing.

Speaker 1: 1:08:42

The endorphins and the dopamines are very, uh, very real things for pain, uh, especially for for somebody that that gets tattooed, right, because all of those things start flowing as you're putting your body through that tattoo trauma. All of these things kick in to protect you, right.

Speaker 4: 1:09:00

So the next time you're getting some work done, take some bumblefuck and stick it on your tongue and you won't even feel the tattoo.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

You just you just opened up a whole new market for yourself. You understand how innovative you do what you just said, how innovative that is.

Speaker 4: 1:09:22

Think of it as as pain deflection.

Speaker 1: 1:09:24

There you go. So we don't even need the cream to numb, we just have a drop or a little dabble. Do you write like like Fred, have a drop or a little dab will do you right, like like fred flintstone would?

Speaker 1: 1:09:33

say a little dab will do you right. Yeah and uh, and there you go you're. You're off for a good eight hour session there in the chair. Yeah, I don't know, man, I don't know, I don't know if somebody will try. Now that we've said, somebody listens like, yeah, let me get a bottle of that and give that a try. Right, somebody will do it I want to try that.

Speaker 4: 1:09:53

I want to see a video of someone getting a tattoo while taking some bumble fuck, just to see what happens too funny the tattoo still, or not? Well, so I do plan on doing some, some more sauces, adding to the line for this album, maybe a limited run, naming them after songs on the album, like Moonshine. Hootenanny could be a nice Louisiana hot sauce, absolutely, and then maybe Monstruoso could be something that's really over the top hot yeah, thinking about it.

Speaker 3: 1:10:27

There needs to be that.

Speaker 1: 1:10:28

The music keeps getting in the way of the hot sauce. I know what a concept, what a concept. What a concept, right? Well, innovative ideas. Talk to us about the comic book man, comic book 2.

Speaker 4: 1:10:38

Yeah, so that is something. Just looking at the artwork, it really looks like it could easily transform into some kind of comic book. And the folks at Deco Records they're in that world. They do comic book stuff. So that is a plan that I'm working with them just to make the most fucked up weird comic book. And they have so many ideas about besides just the book itself and maybe sticking in QR codes and things that will open up on your phone, but also digital versions that are more animated and have links to things, and maybe we could put in some like secret stuff in there. You get a different song or something or something, I don't know. There's a lot that could be done, so that's another thing I need to get on. Those are the next two things I need to do for this album.

Speaker 1: 1:11:35

Well, nothing but time, right, you got to get going on that stuff. And the interesting thing about the three of us on this call yourself and Vern and I we all have a mutual friend in Ned Evett who just did a comic book or something of the like. I think it was a comic book with Joe Satriani, right, and I think they called that. I think it's a sci-fi comic book kind of thing and it's called Crystal Planet, I believe is the name of it.

Speaker 4: 1:12:06

I had no idea.

Speaker 1: 1:12:07

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:12:08

Wait, Ned Evett did that.

Speaker 1: 1:12:10

Yeah, so Ned, you know, because he's out on tour on the Satch Vi tour with Joe Satriani and Steve.

Speaker 4: 1:12:16

Now he is the friendliest guy.

Speaker 1: 1:12:19

Yes, yes.

Speaker 4: 1:12:21

So Vern has a play in.

Speaker 1: 1:12:24

Yeah, for sure, vern. What's your background with Ned? Ned's been on my show set in a couple of times with Ned and Zach, but you know what's what's your background with with Ned there.

Speaker 3: 1:12:37

Yeah. So Zach told me one day that this guy came to one of his gigs you know, solo acoustic gig and and I had to see this guy, he's got this glass guitar and you know he frets it and he plays a slide on it and he just has this capo and he moves it during the song and you know and I'm like is are you okay?

Speaker 3: 1:13:01

because I know a lot yeah, and I know a lot of the players on the island. You know this was galveston island and uh, that doesn't exist. And so he's like, yeah, yeah, you gotta, you gotta, check this guy out. And uh, zach was actually not in texas and I drove down to the island. I had been hearing all this stuff about this guy, ned, and I drove down to the island and I went to one of his gigs and I went up and I introduced myself and I said you know, I've heard a lot about you and he looked at me, he went oh Vern and I'm like you know who I am.

Speaker 3: 1:13:39

He goes oh yeah, I've heard a lot about you. So he and I hung out and, um, it's, it's quite something to see that you know. Um, like I was asking about the fretless guitar getting to that level of having that concept and then building it and then learning how to play it in a in a functional fashion is is really something uh to watch.

Speaker 1: 1:14:23

Um, so yeah, that's how I got to know Ned. He has so many variations of that multiple of those types of guitars, but it was such a cool dynamic to hear alongside just the raw acoustic guitar. Very, very cool. What a treat. It is For you, ron? Festivals, tours, what's coming up for you by way of music? I'm not sure that you have anything, but talk to the listeners about what they can expect music wise coming up.

Speaker 4: 1:14:55

Well, as far as playing live, the next show I'm doing is this big festival out in Jakarta, indonesia, on September 6th. It is with the band Dewa 19, which is like the biggest rock band of Indonesia, and we have this sort of all-star thing that we've been doing for a couple of years where we do songs together, these collaborations with Derek Sherinian and Dino Jalousek and Jeff Scott Soto and Billy Sheehan, so pretty much like almost all of Sons of Apollo and Dino and me on guitar. Sometimes Phil X is joining too, and yeah, so we're doing this big all-star show. It's going to be Day 119, me, derek and Dino, and it's going to be Billy and Eric Martin from Mr Big, and it's going to be Nuno and Gary from Xtreme and we're all going to play together a bunch of songs and do this big stadium show.

Speaker 4: 1:15:51

So that's September 6th. In November, november 6th to 9th and November 13th to 16th, I believe. I think I got the dates right. That's going to be in Phoenix, arizona, rock and Roll Fantasy Camp with Alice Cooper and Rob Halford, and there's going to be more people joining, I'm sure. So I'm going to be one of the torturers, the counselors, and that's going to be happening. And that's pretty much it as far as getting out with a guitar in my hand. I'm sure more things are going to happen. They always do things pop up. That's the main stuff that's out there.

Speaker 1: 1:16:37

Derek Cherenian. I know he was tied to you with Sons of Apollo. Did he not correct me where I'm wrong? Wasn't he tied to Dream Theater and Alice Cooper as well for a while? Maybe Joe Bonamassa Am?

Speaker 4: 1:16:53

I right there. Okay, he has played with everybody. He was the keyboardist on Kiss Alive 3. He was an offstage keyboardist, so he's played with Kiss. He's done Alice Cooper. Did he do Billy Idol? I?

Speaker 1: 1:17:09

don't remember, I'm not sure. I think he did actually. But yeah, I mean yeah and some stuff with.

Speaker 4: 1:17:14

Whitesnake, he's done. Yeah, he's the keyboardist of Black Country Communion with Jason Bonham and Bonham Massa and Glenn Hughes. We just did some stuff together with Glenn Hughes it was Dino Glenn Hughes, tony Franklin on bass and Glenn's drummer, ash Sheehan, was phenomenal, and we played out at this festival in the Canary Islands in April.

Speaker 1: 1:17:39

That was really nice man, isn't? I just love Dino Jalusik. That guy, just he's so right, he's like a great bass player, he's a great keyboard player. He can, he can sing his ass off like I.

Speaker 4: 1:17:51

Yeah, what a, what a what a talent, that guy is he is so talented and just such a great dude.

Speaker 3: 1:17:58

Yeah, yeah ron, do you go ahead, go ahead, verne, you connect with joe bergamini at all anymore oh no, not in 25 years. Because I saw he played on that one I guess it was a full record that you did, but it was only out in Europe and he actually gives my oldest friend's kids lessons.

Speaker 4: 1:18:28

Oh nice.

Speaker 1: 1:18:29

So yeah, I just wondered if you saw him been a long time, yeah ron, where can the uh listeners of backstage pass radio find you on social media? Where can you point them to anything?

Speaker 4: 1:18:46

bumblefoot xcom. Bumblefoot facebook. Bumblefoot instagram. Bumblefoot threads. Bumblefoot youtube. Bumblefoot except for tiktok, somebody stole it. So bumblefoot official on tiktok. But tiktok, I'm too old for tiktok, uh yeah that's that's pretty much it. Yeah, uh, bandcamp, you know bumblefootbandcampcom, what else? What are we missing? Not a lot of storage out there.

Speaker 1: 1:19:16

One last thing, I just thought about it now. You mentioned Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp. Speak to that in general, like, have you been tied to that before? Is this your first run at that? And tell the listeners what they would expect if they attended rock and roll fantasy camp.

Speaker 4: 1:19:34

I first jammed at rock and roll fantasy camp. Uh, just as a guest. It was 2012, I was doing a residency in vegas and they were doing one of their camps in vegas. So johnny a and popper and a bunch of people were doing this jam at one of the venues and I so Johnny A and Popper and a bunch of people were doing this jam at one of the venues and I came and hung out and jammed and got in the loop at that point and so, yeah, I've been doing it yeah, 13 years, I guess, Wow, okay.

Speaker 4: 1:20:07

Technically something like that and so that, and School of Rocks, rocks I do a lot of things with and just love doing that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:20:16

yeah, yeah for the listeners out there the uh, the the um rock and roll fantasy camp. Is this really cool concept? You pay money, you go out to la I think it's still in la right, uh, they do them all over the place they do them all over the place they do uh.

Speaker 4: 1:20:32

They do them all over the place. They do them all over the place. They do uh. They do la. They do florida. This one is gonna be yeah in arizona. Okay, uh, which I'm excited about, because phoenix, scottsdale, is like one of my favorite places in the entire country. Uh, absolutely so. What can you expect? So here's how it works.

Speaker 4: 1:20:48

You sign up for rock and roll fantasy camp. You are thrust into a band with strangers and a counselor and I help organize the band and keep you from killing each other. And there are the special guests like alice cooper, and he gives a list of songs. So we pick songs from that list that we're going to play with Alice Cooper, songs from Rob Halford that we're going to play with Rob Halford, and then we do two live shows at venues where we could play whatever we want. So we come up with a set list and we get down all of these songs. So it's four days of just getting down songs and jamming and getting to play with different people and playing shows and a lot of food, a lot of storytelling, just all kinds of cool when a bunch of people that don't know each other and there's this nervous energy before it all starts because we're all just doing an email thread trying to figure out songs and just you know, there's that anxiety.

Speaker 4: 1:22:06

You don't know, is everyone going to get along? Are you going to get to do the songs you want to do All that kind of thing? And then there's also these jam rooms at night where just anyone could play with anyone and you could just do anything. So it's just four days of really living music for a good 12 hours, sometimes more, because we'll just have these lobby acoustic jams that go on like 1 30 in the morning. It's awesome, uh, yeah, it's so great. And by the end of it, everyone is hanging out and has like a WhatsApp thread and like sharing things and giving each other gifts and mailing each other stuff and staying in touch, and I just love seeing how the friendships come out of it all the time.

Speaker 1: 1:22:44

That's super cool and I know that's really cool to be a part of such a thing. I remember when they started out and I think they were only in LA at the time and it was like that. That was the pinnacle to get to go and do something like that and to do it with guys like yourself that people have looked up to these artists for so many years, right, and? And you're the counselor, right, you kind of you're corralling these guys, right? This is how we're doing it, this is what we're going to do, and just being the musical industry sounding board for these everyday musicians like myself.

Speaker 1: 1:23:23

Vern's at another level than I am, so I just classify myself down there with. These are the everyday lovers of music that have a little bit of musical ability, that just can kind of go do just that, live out their rock and roll fantasy, as Bad Company said back in the day, right? Well, listen guys. Vern, thanks for jumping in with Ron and I this morning. I'm glad we could finally get you in, ron. Thank you so much for reaching out and working with me to get this set up. It's always super cool to catch up with you, man, and I wish you the best and if you're ever in the Houston area, text me. You have my number and we can go get some food and put some bumble fucked on it and see what that's all about. What do you say?

Speaker 4: 1:24:07

That sounds real good. And speaking of Galveston, I always think of this one place where they have all these candy apples. I don't remember the name of the place, but they have all these elaborate candy apples. It was wow.

Speaker 1: 1:24:18

Uh, it's probably down on the strand the little fancy spot of galveston.

Speaker 1: 1:24:25

I think they call it the the strand the strand is what you're probably referring to. They have all kinds of cool little boutique shops and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, very cool. Well, listen. I ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe to the podcast on Facebook at Backstage Pass Radio Podcast, on Instagram at Backstage Pass Radio and on the website at BackstagePassRadiocom. You guys make sure that you take care of yourselves and each other and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of BackstagePassRadiocom. You guys make sure that you take care of yourselves and each other and we'll see you right back here on the next episode of Backstage Pass Radio.

Speaker 2: 1:24:56

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Backstage Pass Radio, backstage Pass Radio. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained some new insights into the world of music. Backstage Pass Radio is heard in over 80 countries and the streams continue to grow each week. If you loved what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave reviews on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us and helps us bring you even more amazing content. So join us next time for another deep dive into the stories and sounds that shape our musical landscape. Until then, keep listening, keep exploring and sounds that shape our musical landscape. Until then, keep listening, keep exploring and keep the passion of music alive.