- 5 months ago
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00:00Kip Winger is a bona fide classical composer now.
00:05The guy that, when I think back to like Beavis and Butthead making fun,
00:09Kip was chosen as the poster child of all things to make fun of.
00:13Unfairly treated as like a talentless hack, but he's having the last laugh.
00:18Rock, metal, frog, and everything in between.
00:22Welcome to this episode of Talkin' Rock with Meltdown.
00:25Don't forget to follow the audio-only Talkin' Rock podcast on all podcast platforms.
00:30And now, it's time for today's conversation. Here's Meltdown.
00:35Rod, good to see you. You know, I've been in this business 36 years.
00:38I think this is the first time I've had a chance to talk to you.
00:40I think I might have met you once decades ago, but I don't even remember, and I'm sure you don't either.
00:45So, good to see you.
00:47Great to be here.
00:48You know, I grew up in Buffalo, and it's kind of funny because I've been in Detroit now for the past 30 years.
00:55And where I come from, it's a little bit different than a tool for drummers, I suppose.
01:02But that seems to be everywhere, man. That's taken off for you, eh?
01:05It's very exciting.
01:07You know, I'm probably going back 40, 50 years where I had my first idea for a product, and then it never came to pass.
01:18But then when my ears started ringing full-time after, it was almost near the 100th concert of Winger on Tour with Cinderella and the Bullet Boys back in 1989.
01:31I came off stage.
01:32My ears were ringing like they always ring.
01:35And I woke up the next morning, and the ring was still there.
01:39So, this is 1989.
01:41The ring never went away.
01:42And so, one thing led to another, and I started using shooting range headphones.
01:47And then I discovered that the sound was so good having like a 24-decibel drop.
01:55And then when I had to learn some new music for the next Winger record, I was using a Walkman, if people remember that.
02:02And I put the speakers upside down on me and with the isolation phones, and then I was able to listen to the music super quietly instead of blasting how it always had been, you know, in a recording studio with a traditional headset.
02:19And one thing led to another, and I brought the idea of isolation headphones to, oh, my God.
02:26Like, I can't remember how many companies.
02:29Everybody said, Rod, there's no need for an isolation headphone.
02:33And ultimately, I sat down with Vic Firth, the owner of Vic Firth Drumsticks, and sold him on the idea.
02:40And they've become, you know, this ridiculously popular item.
02:45And so, I realized, hey, you know what?
02:47Maybe you have a knack for products.
02:48Like, so, I'd say about 30 or 40 years ago, I had the idea to come up with like a drummer's survival tool kit.
02:57And then as the years passed, I finally found someone to partner up with and sold him on the idea of having like specialty tools for drummers.
03:07And so, here we have, you know, the Wink thing.
03:13I mean, it's unbelievable how much time and effort, blood, sweat, and tears it takes, you know, just to get a product like that, one, conceived and manufactured.
03:24And then, you know, when you're just two people trying to take care of every aspect of running a business, it's insane.
03:31But at this point, you know, a couple years in, we have so many drummers using it and praising it.
03:38It's very flattering.
03:40Recently, we received a photograph of Rush's new drummer, Annika Niles, smiling for the camera and holding the tool.
03:50Well, how did that happen?
03:51And, well, Neil Peard's drum tech, Lorne Wheaton, somehow he came across the tool, loves it.
04:01And now he's working with Annika for the upcoming Rush tour and sent me and my partner a photo of her holding it.
04:09And he said, use it as you wish, you know, we're fans of the tool.
04:14And so, you know, little by little, getting other people using it, Jimmy Clark, Lars Ulrich's drum tech, he's got a dozen of them, because on the Rush, on the Metallica tour, there's like four drum sets or something.
04:28So he has one parked by each drum set, and then he wanted 12 of them.
04:33So, and Mike Portnoy's drum tech, Jose Baracchio, and on and on and on.
04:40Mike Mangini, Ray Loser.
04:42It's great.
04:43It's great.
04:43So we're doing everything we can to just get the word out there.
04:47And it's very exciting.
04:48It really saves your hands and your fingers.
04:52I don't know if you've ever played drums, but as a drummer, if a long time passes before you loosen a wingnut, you can't.
05:00And so usually drummers clumsily take their two sticks, they put it over the wingnut and, you know, crank it to loosen it.
05:07And then when you're setting up a cymbal stand or any kind of stand, if you don't crank it hard enough, I still had this happen, not cranking things down enough.
05:19You know, you slam a cymbal, and then either it starts spinning if it's on a, you know, on a cymbal stand that has the, what am I, a cymbal stand?
05:33A boom, a boom, a boom, boom, Sam.
05:36And so instead of like clumsily using drumsticks or really hurting your hands, you just put this beautiful tool over the wingnut and gently crank to tighten or left to loosen.
05:53Right.
05:53No, it looks great.
05:53I mean, I am not a drummer, by the way, but man, that's a lot to unpack right there.
05:57You just brought up a lot of things.
05:59But Annika Niles, I mean, do you know anything about her?
06:02Are you going to go see these, any of these Rush shows with her?
06:05Yeah, I'm going to make every effort to go to at least one of the shows.
06:11They're doing four in New York City, so I might go to that.
06:15I'm not sure if they have a Long Island show playing.
06:18I've never met her or seen her play live, but I've seen a lot of video clips.
06:23And she's amazing.
06:24She's like a fantastic fusion drummer.
06:28OK.
06:29So, so many chops and very well versed in polyrhythms and, you know, odd time and playing over the bar line.
06:37Amazing.
06:38Yeah.
06:38And it's like the way I've been talking about on the radio, too.
06:41It's like if Alex and Getty give her the seal of approval, I suppose that's good enough for me.
06:47Yeah.
06:47And in fact, it's so funny talking about Rush.
06:50Back in, I think it was November, December of 1985 and January of 86, I was, the Dixie Dregs had disbanded until further notice.
07:03But Steve Morse, our guitarist, asked me if I'd like to continue playing with him.
07:07He wants to start a trio called Steve Morseman.
07:10So, so I started playing with Steve.
07:13We did two records.
07:14The second album was called Stand Up and it had a couple of vocals on it.
07:19We had Alex Lidgetwood, who was the singer with Santana at the time, and Albert Lee, the great guitarist.
07:25And we, we got three legs of the Power Windows Rush tour and we wanted, we wanted to do the vocals.
07:37So we brought, you know, a local singer guitarist on tour with us and did like 45 shows with Rush.
07:47So we all got to know those three guys extremely well.
07:53And in fact, the first time I ever traveled on a tour bus, this is before I was in Winger, right?
07:59Winger happened in 1988.
08:01So I'd never been on a tour bus.
08:03And when we got to know Neil, Alex, and Getty fairly well, one day they just put out the offer.
08:12They said, hey, if, if one night as we travel to the next city, any of you guys want to come on the bus with us, you're more than welcome.
08:19So I traveled, you know, on their tour bus, which was just the three of them and their tour manager.
08:27And got that whole experience for the first time in my life.
08:30They're three of the nicest gentlemen, forget the musicianship, or in addition to just being the musicians that they are.
08:40They went out of their way to make us as their support band feel special.
08:47And, and I just like two days ago finished reading Getty Lee's My F in Life.
08:53Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:54Autobiography and knowing him, you know, or having gotten to know him like I did on tour, I can feel every word that's coming off the pages.
09:08I, I feel his personality and I hear him speaking the words.
09:13He is such a lovely human being.
09:16Yeah, I would interview, obviously, I've interviewed Getty and I've interviewed Alex.
09:20I've never met Neil.
09:22Of course, Neil was always kind of an enigma, but wrapped in a mystery.
09:25But I did get to read his, his book, Ghost Rider.
09:28Did you read that one?
09:29Yeah, I sure did.
09:29I, I was somehow, I got on a, on a mailing list of getting a lot of his things or Rush's recordings and Neil's books, you know, the side projects that they do.
09:42Yeah.
09:42So, oh my God, I have so many Neil Peart stories because, you know, I, I got to spend a fair amount of time with him too.
09:53He shunned being in the spotlight.
09:55He was, I don't want to say he was a shy human being.
09:59He just didn't want to have to just sort of talk gibberish or things of non-importance to him.
10:11Well, he seemed like the kind of person, having never met him, that didn't, didn't enjoy the adulation.
10:17No, no, no.
10:18He, he was not in, in it for that reason at all.
10:21It was just to push himself.
10:23But I, but since we're talking about him, I just have to tell you like a quick story.
10:28So a typical day on the road with Rush back then, again, I'm telling you, it's 40 years ago.
10:35Neil, in later years, he got into the motorcycle.
10:39But when I met him, he was riding his bicycle.
10:43He was a serious cyclist.
10:45And if, if the next show was within 150 miles, he would not go on the tour bus after the show to the next city.
10:55He would sleep in the town that we played and get up at the crack of dawn to get on his bicycle and pedal upwards of eight hours to the next city.
11:08So I would typically be in the arena throwing a baseball with Geddy Lee because, you know, Geddy is a insanely, you know, insane fan of baseball.
11:21And, and you would see this figure come riding into the arena and then the bike would be put down and then it was time for their sound check.
11:32So they would do their sound check and then immediately following the sound check, a local French tutor, a French teacher was waiting for Neil to give him a one hour lesson in conversational French, French, because, you know, sadly, he lost his, both his wife and daughter within the same year or within a year's time back in 97 and 98, I think.
11:57Um, but his daughter was a young girl then, and they lived in Toronto and his daughter learned to speak, uh, French as well as English.
12:07So Neil wanted to be able to converse in his daughter in both languages.
12:11So he would do that.
12:13Then they would do their two plus hour show.
12:17And then after the show, Neil would, he'd hang out for a little bit and then he'd excuse himself to the bus because he was in the midst of writing his first literature.
12:27So that was a typical day, uh, in the life of Neil Peart.
12:32Yeah.
12:33I can imagine.
12:34Yeah.
12:34Yeah.
12:34The other guys were into partying a little bit more.
12:37Yeah.
12:38Did, did you ever sign a baseball for Getty?
12:41No, you never did.
12:43Okay.
12:44But, um, I had, this is packed up.
12:47Um, a lot of celebrities would come out to the rush shows.
12:51Right.
12:51And, uh, uh, one of their fans, his name was Warren Cromartie.
12:55So he was a professional baseball player.
12:57He played on the Montreal Expos and then he was a troublemaker and he ended up being sent to Japan and he became a baseball star there.
13:05But, um, on the last night that he was coming out to hang with the band and watch them play, he gave me his baseball glove.
13:15It might've been his all-star glove and he signed it with a pen and that has since kind of disappeared.
13:23It's faded away.
13:24I have that baseball glove.
13:26It, those three legs that we did with them were life-changing for all of us in the Steve Morris Bandit.
13:34But for me, it put me on the map as a drummer because if you think about it, what other environment will there be thousands of drummers in the same place?
13:46So at any Rush show with, say, 12,000 people, you're going to have 2,000 drummers, if not 4,000 drummers.
13:53And they're all air drumming every note of every song of Rush's.
13:59But I won Best New Talent that year.
14:05And it was because tens of thousands of drummers got to see me play.
14:10I mean, that's what I attribute it to.
14:12Did, you know, the movie, I Love You, Man, Rush was in that movie.
14:16Do you know what I'm talking about?
14:17It came out like 2009.
14:19I know I saw it.
14:20And, you know, I need to watch it again because he talks about it in the book.
14:24Yeah, because what happened was I got to go, I went to New York City and I interviewed Paul Rudd and Jason Siegel who were in the movie.
14:30And they told me this really funny story about where they were watching the band and they were explaining this to the guys from the band.
14:35They're like, we're going to be watching you guys, but we're kind of mad at each other.
14:38And so we're going to be standing there with our arms folded watching you guys.
14:41But we love the band, but we're mad at each other.
14:43And I think it was Getty or someone said, oh, so it's going to be like every Rush concert ever.
14:49I thought that was the funniest line.
14:50But so was that one of the best tours that you ever been on in your life, do you think?
14:55Hands down.
14:56Of course, like, well, certainly, you know, first off, meeting people of that stature and, you know, I've always been or fashioned myself, you know, a serious musician.
15:10And I went to college and I have a music degree.
15:14And so to be touring with a band of real musicians and I mean, serious musicians that took their art, you know, to to another level.
15:25And I had so much respect for them because they didn't play by the rules.
15:30You know, radio didn't accept them for years and they never did what the label was trying to get them to do, which is write three minute songs.
15:40It was like, no, this is what we do.
15:43And in the book, he's talking about it, too.
15:45It wasn't just the record label is their own management that that just kept trying to pressure them to do things.
15:53You know, you got to play the game.
15:54You got to play the game.
15:55No, we're not going to play the game.
15:58We're going to do it our way and we're going to succeed or not.
16:02Yeah.
16:02Getty told me that, you know, they really broke through with 2112 and that was hardly an album with three minute songs on it.
16:09Yeah, right.
16:09Um, I'm just reacquainting myself with a lot of their music.
16:14So I've probably listened to about 50 songs so far.
16:18So when I do my 30 minute power walk, you know, I go to YouTube and I bring up one of their albums.
16:25You know, you say serious musicians, but, you know, Winger, they were there were serious musicians.
16:30I mean, Reb and Kip and stuff like that.
16:32And do you think that sometimes maybe the seriousness of the musicianship was maybe lost in the world that was the 80s back then?
16:40Totally.
16:41Yeah.
16:41Totally.
16:42Um, Kip Winger is a bona fide classical composer.
16:50Now I sat in the San Francisco Opera House and watched the San Francisco Ballet dance to his first classical piece called Ghosts.
16:59It was choreographed by a world famous dance choreographer, Christopher Wielden from the New York City Ballet.
17:05And then six months ago or nine months ago, I sat in Symphony Hall in Nashville and listened to Kip Winger's first violin concerto.
17:18And they had a world famous concertmaster violinist perform the piece.
17:24I'm not sure if he's from the Chicago Symphony.
17:26Um, and, um, two or three years ago, Kip was invited to Berlin where it was the hundred year anniversary of the Rite of Spring by, um, um, um, oh, who's the composer?
17:40The Rite of Spring.
17:40I couldn't tell you, but I know what you're saying.
17:43Uh, oh, I see his face too.
17:45And the conductor said, Kip, um, we know you've written a piece called Conversations with Nijinsky.
17:54Nijinsky being the dance choreographer for the Rite of Spring, uh, we're playing your piece before the Rite of Spring.
18:02And we'd love to have you fly over to Berlin, uh, uh, to be the guest of honor.
18:06So this is Kip Winger, the guy that when I think back to like Beavis and Butthead making fun, you know, Kip was chosen as the poster child of all things to make fun of it with the, the hairband, so-called hairband movement.
18:22And, uh, you know, he was so unfairly treated as like a talentless hack, but he's having the last laugh because he's probably the rock musician who has taken the jump into the classical world further than anybody.
18:39Yeah.
18:40Now there are bands or artists that, you know, have an orchestra, you know, uh, perform some of their music.
18:48So you have Deep Purple playing Smoke on the Water and then a hundred piece orchestra going, da, da, da, da, da, da.
18:55But this is a whole different thing.
18:57Kip has been up for Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, you know, uh, it's a whole different kind of music.
19:04This is not Winger with Strings.
19:06It is modern classical music.
19:10I'm so, I'm so proud of him.
19:12And so, um, we're still a band.
19:15We, we played what might have been our last show, um, in LA at the Rainbow.
19:21Right.
19:21Ron Brill, the infamous birthplace of heavy metal in the United States.
19:26And they've started putting on one or two concerts a year where they build a stage in, uh, the parking lot and let a bunch of people in.
19:35So we did that August 31st.
19:37We thought what a fitting way to maybe play our last show.
19:41But instead of saying, this is our last show, we said, uh, never say never.
19:45So, um, in April, we're playing the, is it called the bangers something festival in, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
19:54And in October, uh, the, I wrote it down.
19:58What's it called?
19:59Um, where did I write it?
20:01I can't even remember.
20:03Oh, rock ween in Cancun, the rock ween.
20:06Oh, okay.
20:07Rock festival.
20:08And then we have a couple of shows in the United States.
20:10And, uh, yeah, so we're doing occasional shows, but, um, uh, you know, we've been a band for 37 years.
20:19We're in our 38th year.
20:21We're starting to wind things down.
20:24Yeah.
20:24And, you know, you know, you're, you're 72 and now you got this other project you're working with as well.
20:30Um, tell me about voice of extreme because that fan has been around for a while, but did you just join the band?
20:35Yeah.
20:36Yeah.
20:36Yeah.
20:36So, um, Don Chafin is, uh, the vocalist and the guitarist.
20:42And several years ago, I was contacted by a guitarist whose name is Joe Canjemi.
20:48He's a, he's from my area, Long Island.
20:51And tragically, he and his wife lost their four-year-old son.
20:57This is going back about, it's probably six or eight years now.
21:00He was playing on their front lawn and someone who was texting on their phone and driving their car went right up the curb, ran him over, killed him instantly.
21:09They didn't even know it.
21:11So, Joe, I hadn't met these guys until I got together for this project where Joe found, like, a year later that writing music was his escape from the horrible, dark thoughts he was having.
21:27So, uh, he contacted me and Billy Sheehan.
21:31Oh, yeah, I know, Billy, yeah.
21:32Yeah, to, um, to perform, uh, a bunch of music that he had written.
21:37And Don Chafin was the singer on it and everything was recorded at Don's recording studio.
21:46And that's how I met Don.
21:48And so that was several years ago.
21:50We ended up playing one concert, um, as a band, which was great.
21:56Uh, and then about a year and a half ago, Don contacted me to see, uh, if, uh, I'd like to work on some Voices of Extreme music with him and, um, his partner, Paul Ranieri.
22:13Paul's an amazing fretless bass player, like, uh, a la Jaco Pistorius.
22:20Jaco, yeah, yeah.
22:21But in a rock context.
22:22And so I've recorded a bunch of music with them.
22:25There's one video online right now called Stoned Babies.
22:29And we're getting ready to shoot a second video called Pain and Love and, uh, record maybe three more songs to have an album's worth of material.
22:39And that record will come out on, uh, Brave Words records sometime later this year.
22:47All right.
22:47I was going to ask you about a date, but I guess, uh, the record's called Faith in Action.
22:51Yes.
22:52Yes.
22:53And, uh, yeah.
22:53So sometime, uh, this year, yeah.
22:55Voices of Extreme, like I said, uh, you know, um, did you, did you join in with this band?
23:01Cause you could see that winger was going to start to wind down or you're just looking for something to do.
23:05Is it just another project?
23:06Tell me, tell me what your thoughts are about joining another, another project in your seventies.
23:10Yeah.
23:11Um, no, it had nothing to do with winger winding down.
23:15It's just, you know, throughout the years, um, you get called, uh, by people you may never have met to see if they could hire you, uh, to do something.
23:27Um, but now with winger winding down, I've got, I'm kind of going through a whole soul searching period myself.
23:34Uh, uh, you know, being at the age that I'm at and trying to decide, do I still want to tour, you know, playing is still fine.
23:45I mean, good physical shape, knock wood.
23:47Um, and I love, I love music.
23:50I love to play drums and I'm still playing at a pretty good level.
23:55Um, but I hit my 50 year as a pro back in September.
24:01And, um, so I've, I've put in a lot of time.
24:07I'm not sure that I want to throw in the towel yet.
24:10And music's not like a regular job, you know, it's like, uh, and also you, I kept, uh, hearing Getty, uh, in his book, you know, kind of making remarks.
24:21Like, you know, when I grow up, well, you know, you, there's that joke where the father says to his kid, cause the kid says, dad, when I grew up, I want to be a musician.
24:30And then the dad says, son, you can't be both and Getty kept alluding to that in the book.
24:37Like there's always a child inside you or that young, uh, kid with that burning desire to play a musical instrument and have a band and make it somehow, or at least to make a living.
24:53And so, um, that's how I've never had a regular job.
24:56I've been a musician my entire life.
24:59The closest I've come to having a regular job is when I was a professor of music at Berklee College of Music.
25:05I mean, I worked my way over the 20 years that I taught there, uh, in person in Boston, commuting from Long Island.
25:14It was like a 535 mile, uh, trip, 30 weeks a year for 20 years.
25:24And sometimes having to fly from Boston to do winger gigs or Dixie Dregs and then fly back to Boston to teach the next week and then come home for a couple of days.
25:36It's, it's, it's a crazy life, but, um, if you're able to have some success at it, it's a very fun, enjoyable existence.
25:47Yeah. You talk about never growing up. It's like, like I said, at the start, I've been in this business for 36 years.
25:53There are things I do in my life and my daily life that, uh, in, in, in the world of rock and whatnot, that my father would never do at my age.
26:02Wouldn't even do 25 years ago, just because I think it keeps you young.
26:06Um, I just saw Avatar. I don't know if you know who they are. They're a Swedish metal man.
26:10And I'm like, I, I couldn't, I couldn't get enough of it. You know, you know, that kind of thing.
26:16Yeah. I mean, some people rock till they drop. In fact, I mean, we're losing so many, you know, big name musicians.
26:25Uh, I remember, um, in May we played some shows and then we were not going to play another show from the beginning of May until the end of August doing two shows.
26:39The last one being, um, in LA, right, uh, at the rainbow.
26:44So, but, um, in the middle of May we were called, um, by the, like the biggest sausage festival in the, in, in the United States, like in Wisconsin, Ace Frehley just canceled.
27:00Uh, he fell or he has a cold or we didn't know anything about how bad his situation was, you know?
27:08So we filled in, we kind of did that show.
27:12And then, uh, in August, I forget, I think maybe Warrant canceled the show opening for Joan Jett in Pittsburgh, which is Reb Beach's hometown.
27:22And so of course we had to do that show, especially for Reb.
27:27And, um, my sister is like best friends with Joan Jett's wife and really good friends with her husband, the husband, who's the manager.
27:37Okay.
27:38I didn't mean Joan Jett's wife.
27:39So the manager and his wife of Joan Jett, my sister is like best friends with them.
27:46You know, she's like, you gotta do it.
27:47Cause I I've never been in a band that played with Joan Jett.
27:51I've met Joan at my sister's house.
27:55Um, but that was really good because, um, the tour manager, someone in the, in the road crew, uh, like has been a fan of mine for years.
28:06And so it was really nice to meet him and chat with him.
28:10Well, I just have to tell you the way it came about was my sister was at the manager's house.
28:17It was Kenny Laguna and his wife, Meryl.
28:20And, um, she was just talking about her brother, Rod, you know, and something about drums.
28:28And then this tech or road manager, he said, Rod as in Morgenstein.
28:37And she said, yeah, cause her, her name at the moment is Harris, her last name.
28:42And he had no idea for all the years that he knew my sister, that I was her brother.
28:48So she said it was just a hilarious moment at Kenny Laguna and Meryl's home.
28:54It's a small world thing.
28:56Of course, that's why I said, well, when we first started, I can't believe I'd never interviewed you before I talked to you before.
29:02But, uh, uh, last thing here for you, Rod, and we'll, we'll cut you loose because I could talk about stuff and, you know, for, for hours with you, but, um, real fast voices of extreme.
29:10Really want to get a plug in for that.
29:11That's coming up.
29:11Stone babies.
29:12We'll put that in the story and whatnot.
29:14Um, it's, it's spurred my memory.
29:16I saw a video of, um, of Kip opening up a winger box set.
29:20And to me, uh, one of my favorite records from winger was pull a record that I think came out at the exactly wrong time.
29:29Oh my God, this is heartbreaking.
29:31And I have to say, um, every show that winger does somewhere in the show, Kip comes over to the drum riser and we have eye contact and the melancholy that we feel about if only so winger came out.
29:50You don't know about history until it happens.
29:54And then you look back with 2020, right?
29:56So winger's album came out in the latter part of 1988 and nirvana came out a couple of years ago and it was over.
30:06And so pull kind of came out when the whole hair metal thing was, you know, on the downward slide.
30:17And we feel in our hearts, if we had come out maybe one or two albums earlier, more in the mid eighties than the late eighties, we would have been a huge force to reckon with, you know, like some of the bands that are still around and like a song like, um, spell I'm under the ballad.
30:39And I, you know, it's like, it would like equals any Def Leppard song to me.
30:44I mean, I think Def Leppard's an amazing band, but I'm also so proud of winger and the pull album, which was the third winger album was so mature and kind of different than the first two where, you know, in order to get a record deal, you're talking, we're talking about, you know, rush going, we don't care what you're telling us.
31:05We're not doing it. So in the case of winger was kind of like, okay, Kip and Reb wrote demos for years and kept getting rejected and rejected and rejected from every record label in New York. Right.
31:19And so then they, you know, Kip was just studying the charts and saying, okay, so like, who's in the top 20? Let me listen to their music. What is it that are some of the elements that just have to be there to maybe even be lucky enough to get a record deal?
31:37But in addition to that, he always wanted there to be elements in the band that sets it apart from all the other bands of like Cinderella, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Kiss, Poison, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's how I got in the band.
31:56He had a list of 20 or 30 of the rock drummers in New York. And when we had this inadvertent meeting in an office, it was a Japanese management company that was trying to help Kip and Reb.
32:09And I was up there to meet about maybe doing a guitar tour. He was a new age artist. And when we were introduced just by chance, Kip didn't know who I was, but Reb was freaking out because the Dixie Dregs were like one of his favorite bands.
32:26And Steve Morris was him and George Lynch were his two favorite guitarists at the time. He was going, Kip, you don't know who this guy, you know? And so we ended up and jammed.
32:39Like the next week. And I was so concerned about, you know, turning him off by playing in my fusion style. So I intentionally just hit the drums hard. I didn't do any drum fills. I just played, you know, those couple of basic rock beats because he walked over to me and started pumping on his bass.
33:00And after about 10 seconds, he stopped and he said, what are you doing? I said, what do you mean? I'm doing what I think is appropriate. He said, great.
33:11I see you hit the drums hard and play simple. But Reb said you could lose me. You know, I said, I'm intentionally not doing that.
33:20And he goes, well, I'm looking for ways that when we get a record deal and make a record, we could be a little bit different than everybody else.
33:28And one way is to maybe have a drummer who comes from a different background and can do things that you don't necessarily hear on rock records.
33:36And so case in point, when we cut the song 17, when we cut the drums for it, after the guitar solo where the dirt, that riffs happening.
33:46I cut the track and then they said, hey, Rod, can you do something that you'd never hear on a rock record in those two measures?
33:56So I went, all right, you're probably going to hate it. And so I turned the beat around.
34:00You know, it's a it's a fusion concept. So I I delayed by an eighth note.
34:08And I went one, two, three, four, two measures.
34:17And when I looked through the double panes of glass into the studio where, where the, you know, all the recording gear was like Kip and the producer, Bo Hill, they disappeared.
34:29They fell off their chairs and they were laughing and they loved it.
34:33And that's what's on the record. And hundreds and hundreds of musicians have asked me what's going on there.
34:40What time signature is that? Why did the bottom drop out? And I try to explain.
34:45And back in the day, I would rattle off a lot of my peers from the fusion world.
34:51So I would say, you know, Dave Weckl, Vinnie Kaliuta, Steve Smith, Simon Phillips.
34:56They'd go, who, who, who, who? The only jazz drummer they knew was Neil Peart.
35:04You know, or some of them maybe knew Mike Portnoy because Dream Theater had their images and words album out.
35:12Right. Yeah. And it always goes back to Neil Peart.
35:14Well, I'll tell you what, Rod, I got to cut you loose because this thing is going to this thing is going to end on me.
35:18But really great talking to you. Awesome stories.
35:21I wish you nothing but the best in our voices of extreme.
35:24And maybe next time you're in Detroit, you come by and say hello.
35:27That'd be wonderful. Thank you, Meltdown. Pleasure.
35:29Check out Talkin' Rock with Meltdown on all podcast platforms and WRIF.com.
35:35We'll see you soon.
35:42We'll see you next time.
35:43Bye.
35:52Bye.
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