Guest: Robbie Meixner

Teabags, this episode has me locked in on all things music as I welcome Robbie Meixner to my kitchen table to shoot the shit about music and art being the throughline of life.  Robbie also talks about cool cobra drum pedals, why making art for money sucks, friendships rooted in a mutual love of ninja turtles, and how concerts are a connection of souls.

During our yap, Robbie and I go back to our MTV days.  And because of MTV and my own musical throughline, I have what I call “lyric brain” which means my brain autofills song lyrics (and often movie quotes) when I hear certain phrases or combinations of words.  So when I say that we “go back” to MTV – my brain also says that I went back to Cali, to the USSR, to the high life, to the grill again, to where I once belonged, and most importantly, I recognize that I wanna go back and do it all over.  Those of you who get all that, get me.  And you’ll probably get Robbie, too.

Get cozy!

This week's small business spotlight is on Umber Chocolates.

Find Umber Chocolates on Instagram / Threads: @umberchocolatespgh

Find Umber Chocolates on Facebook: \umberchocolatespgh

Order Umber Chocolates at www.umberchocolatespgh.com

NOTE: My sincerest apologies to anyone whose ears are easily irritated - it was a really windy day and I live in a fucking wind tunnel.  So for the first probably 20 minutes, I assumed the "knocking" you can hear in the background was a rattling door.  Turns out, it was the welcome sign that hangs on my door.  I removed that about halfway through the recording, and your ears can rest from that point on.  Jesus, Karen.

Intro riff by Dale Lytle (concert husband).

All content edited (I use that term very loosely) by Karen Shaak.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week's At My Kitchen Table Small Business Spotlight shines on Umber Chocolates. Umber Chocolates is a Pittsburgh-based female and minority-owned company that creates handcrafted luxury chocolates. Each piece is a hand-painted, edible work of art filled with flavors inspired by books, flavor trends, travels, and imagination. They're almost too pretty to eat, but also too delicious not to. Visit the Umber Chocolates website at www.umberchoclets.com to place an order. I promise you, teabags, you will not regret it. They are amazing chocolates. Greatest gifts, or if you're just trying to treat yourself. Teabags. This episode has me locked in on all things music as I welcome Robbie Meiksner to my kitchen table to shoot the shit about music and art being the through line of his life. Robbie also talks about cool cobra drum pedals, why making art for money? So talk is friendships rooted in a mutual love of ninja turtles and how concerts are a connection of souls. During REAP, Robbie and I go back to our MTV days. And because of MTV and my own musical through line, I have what I like to call lyric brain, which just means that my brain autofills song lyrics and often movie quotes when I hear certain phrases or combinations of words. So when I say that we go back to MTV, my brain also says that I went back to Cali, to the USSR, to the High Life, to the Grill again, to where I once belonged. And most importantly, I recognize that I want to go back and do it all over. Those of you who get all that, get me. And you'll probably get Robbie too. Get cozy. How are we doing? Doing well. How's it? Feeling good. I'm good. I'm nervous now, all of a sudden. Oh, don't make me make you nervous. You walked in with like, that is a fucking collection, by the way. Like I thought I had a lot of CDs, but that isn't all of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

I'm sure. No, I'm sure. I think I might have another one of these completely just hidden.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

That's crazy. What made you what made you start keeping those?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Uh I wanted to make like a collage. Okay. And I thought to myself, like, I could start it like at the beginning with like earlier on music or whatever, and uh and just keep it going to like as I progress into different genres. Yep. Or I thought maybe I could make something like uh you ever see those like paintings where it's like it's all dots? Yeah. When you get far away from it, it's like a face or anything like that. But I didn't know how I could do that with CD covers.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah. That okay, so that's cool because now we have a couple of other things that we can talk about. I was a massive collage person when I was younger. Absolutely. I absolutely loved it. I don't know what that was, but cutting shit out of stuff and you know, and gluing I would glue it to everything. Like I would just get old boxes and like glue it to cardboard and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

I think my favorite thing in the world is like glue, tape, scissors, and garbage.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

It's great. It's great. That's so cool. Well, I appreciate you being here today.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

I appreciate being here today.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I would love it if, for the sake of the listener, who I call the teabags, um, the teabags, yeah, if you would introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

All right. Hi, teabags. My name is Robbie Meiksener. I'm from Pittsburgh, PA, born and raised, lived around that area my entire life. I'm an artist, musician, and uh I really don't know what else much to say other than I'm ready to be heard by the teabags.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

I want to be a teabag now. I'm gonna be a teabag.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Cool. We welcome all teabags. It's amazing. So let me just also mention that I met Robbie through CJ. So for any teabag who has been listening for the entirety of the At My Kitchen Table run, CJ recorded with me back in the fall. I think I dropped his episode sometime in October or November. Um he also recorded an episode with Jason, who I also have recorded with separately. So your name popped up a ton when I had those conversations with those guys. And CJ 100% recommended as you know, people I should talk to. He recommended a number of people. And I'm just finally getting around to, you know, getting to some of the people that he had recommended. So that is how I know you. I actually met you in person at Jason's um wrestling event. Yes, his wrestling debut. Yeah. It was his debut. It was. That was like it's sort of the first time he I think was in the match.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Oh, yeah, it was. Yes. That's why we had to be there. Yes. We wanted to see that happen.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so thanks to CJ for bringing us together. And as you mentioned, you are an artist musician, and we're definitely going to be talking about music a ton today. But I think more as a through line, just as you know, growing up, like and music as sort of that backdrop. So one of the things that you had mentioned to me was that your love of music started with your family. Can you share a little bit about your family? Like what's your birth order, how many siblings, stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Uh well, there are four of us. So my mother and father, Robert and Mirian. First is my older sister. She is 10 years older than me. Okay. And then I'm my father's first. Okay. So Jamie is a different father. Okay. But then um, there's me, and then two years later is my younger sister, Kayla. And then 10 years later, no, eight years later, my baby sister, Keely. So there's four of us, but there's a 20-year difference between the first and the last.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

So, you know, growing up with babysitters all the time. So Jamie will watch us, uh, me and Kayla will be together, and then we will watch Keely. So it's like interesting to have an older sister 10 years older, and a younger sister 10 years younger.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, that is a pretty wide gap.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, I guess so. It never really never really you know bothered us. Sure. Yeah, sure. The oldest one's the coolest, the youngest one's the coolest. We're all you know, we're all cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Awesome. And then what were some of your parents' musical jobs slash passions?

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Father was in a band, and uh it was always there's always musical instruments in the house, uh, and at all times. And uh younger, like the band would practice in the house. So at any given time, we could have, and it was like a seven-piece band sometimes, give or take. Yeah, so there was always extra people, like a saxophone, keyboards, extra guitars. He was always a drummer and percussionist. So at all time, any given time, you could be hearing you would hear music coming from any room. Yeah. And if it wasn't that going on, then they'd all be hanging out, yeah. Like in the house, in the living room or in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So a couple of things about that. One, what first of all, what was the genre of his band?

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Uh like blues and rock and roll. Okay. You know, like not like anything heavy. Okay. It was mostly like a lot of blues influenced stuff and a lot of like popular like rock and roll.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Like from like the top 40s, maybe in the 80s, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

And then so what it what I'm hearing is actually not just that, oh, my dad was in a band, but you grew up with that kind of as a culture. I was like if it was always in the house and you're always around musicians, and because that's a little bit of a different story, right? Because like I love music growing up. Music's great, and it's a through line for me too. But I didn't grow up with like that culture all around me.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

We had to move the drums to get you know on the porch or something.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah, it was always surrounded by that. So like I started picking it up early on. And I can't exactly determine when I started wanting to do it, but I did I did start late. Like, I think I feel like I was at least in my like I was 10 years old to 11 years old.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Most people that I know start a lot earlier than that, by five or six, or maybe something like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

But why did it take you that long to pick it up?

SPEAKER_02 8:01

No idea. I always I was just a late bloomer, I guess. I think like my father used to take me to the drum stores, and we would go all the time. There was one like McKee's Rocks, there was one in like Castle Shannon, and then we went, whatever, like musician friends or whatever, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

And I remember getting into art more first. So I wanted to draw and paint and do clay. And uh, I think we were in um Waddell's music, which I don't even think exists anymore. And I seen a cobra type of drum kit, but like pieces, like it was a pedal. And the cobra is made out of metal. And I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. I want to draw that. So I started drawing it more and more because we got like the pamphlets, and like now looking back, I like I wanted that cobra thing when I after I started playing. I still don't have one. And now I'm saying it out loud. I don't know why I don't have one, but it was just a pedal. Yeah, but the the advertisement was a metal cobra and it was cool as cool as hell. Yeah. So I wanted it. And so that was your sort of intro that bridged me into it from yeah, from being just doing I was I was just drawing the drum stuff, then I was wanting to play the drum stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah, but you had also mentioned that you didn't just play drums. Can you talk a little bit about the evolution of you picking up instruments?

SPEAKER_02 9:21

So I'm not good at anything but the drums, but I will play the other stuff. But like I feel like I have like an understanding of it. So like I started playing the drums, and when I finally got into a kit and was able to hold my own on a kit, I think I was given a guitar by one of my cousins.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

So I just started playing the guitar a little bit, and then I started getting more into uh the band Primus. And I love the bass guitar. So I was like, I told my dad I want a bass guitar. So then I had the bass guitar, the guitar, the drums, and then uh got a keyboard. It was a specialized keyboard, it was like uh Yamaha DJX. It was like at the time, it was like tier top tier, yeah, absolute stuff for like home playing, and so I would mess around on the keyboard and record, mess around with the drum kit and record, or mess around with the bass and the guitar and record, and try to make like my own music. Yeah, and it it never worked out very well on the tapes, like when I was first started playing. Like I had a little tape recorder, handheld tape recorder. I got in like my Spanish class where we were learning how to speak Spanish, and I just stole it. I said, I need this for home. And uh I would make little mixtapes, and I would get like CJ to like being on, but he never wanted to do it, or like my cousins are friends. I'd be like, someone play a guitar riff, and I'm gonna record it and we'll mess around with it. I said, It doesn't have to be good. I've I'll chop it up and mess around with it because I had like a double tape deck. Yeah, I would go back and forth from record to chop, record to chop. So it started with the drums, and then now I end up I I play on uh a Fruity Loops program. Okay, it's like where I do like studio recording or whatever. It's I mostly just use the digital samples already. So like it's like mixing and messing around with like almost like a Daft Punk type thing where they just take stuff from other places and just and uh assemble it. Okay, but I'm not that good at that either.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

But so while you're picking up instruments, you're that's sort of where you're now also picking up putting things together sonically. So you're recording at from like what how old were you?

SPEAKER_02 11:28

We started messing around with that, like 10.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

At 10. Yeah, that's insane. Oh yeah that's awesome. Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Yeah, but I always kind of had access to those types of things, right? You know, so like watching my father play and watching them the band play, I was always like I kind of had an understanding, yeah. Helping them put their equipment together of like how does an amp work? How does the keyboard work, how does that, how's that louder than the drums? Yeah, I was always like, how does that work? And so I think I had an understanding from an early age about that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

That's really cool. Did you play in any band yourself, or were you just doing this for you as like a like you're listening to different sounds, you're mixing them, putting them together, you know, and playing with it that way. Did you ever have the drive to be like, you know what? I'm gonna go do what my dad does.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

I had played with a couple of guys like in the high school times, like like, hmm, like at a couple of friends that played guitar, everybody I knew was really good. Like a couple of guys I knew from high school were really, really awesome. And it was like three or four guys that we would like kind of rotate around. And during that time, we were getting in like Pantera, and like I was like obsessed with like white zombie and stack X and stuff like that. So I wanted to incorporate in like Fear Factory, I wanted to incorporate like the keyboard in like mixing or like scratching or computer parts in there. So I'd make a computer part and the guys would come over and we'd all jam out for a little bit, and I'd have to reach over from the drum set and hit play on the keyboard or whatever. And I always felt that was weird because I was like, everybody should do their own thing. Why do I have to do extra? But then uh I realized in later years, like I want to do everything anyway. Yeah, like I want to be the band, basically.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah. Before I I because I want to jump back because you were talking about, you know, Pantera and Static X, and I want to start getting into like some of your actual musical interests. But before we do that, just want to understand a little bit about the influences, like your the early influences of your dad, because you talked you speak very highly of him in in our background session, and you kind of talked a little bit about how you felt like you didn't really develop your own musical identity until you were a little bit older, like high school. So, can you talk about um did you join band in high school or orchestra? Did you do any of those instruments? And how was it that that musical identity developed outside of the stuff your dad was doing?

SPEAKER_02 14:01

So, like dad was really influenced by like blues and like you know, like the rock and roll coming over in like the 60s and 70s. So he was very much like like the old school blues as you hear, like I can't even think of like a good like BB King and stuff like that, anybody in that genre, and then the later stuff on, like you know, like into like Led Zeppelin or whatever. And uh, I always had a love for that kind of stuff, but then like what I got into like later on, like I started really, I liked that stuff. I always did. I never was against any of that stuff, but then I think that my influences became like more like 90s, Dion Snails was a big influence, stuff around that time. Like, if you're watching, like we were talking about MTV, like White Zombie. I was like, I watched that drummer play the first time when I watched them play Thunder Kiss 65, and it was just the look of those guys, I said, that's what I want to do. Yeah, I don't know. I want to be in that video with those people, and it didn't help. I mean, it helped definitely that uh white zombie bassist was female, and I thought she was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen in my life. I was like, oh my god, I love her. Yeah, and uh I was like, Oh, I'm gonna be in a band to meet her, but stuff like that. But like uh when it comes to like my history of musical, like playing with the orchestra or anything, I kind of was always like, I hands up, I was like, I want to do my own thing. I don't want to be set in a class and told this is how you play this.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

I never wanted it to be, I wanted to be more punk.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

I was like, no, I'm not gonna follow your rules, I'm gonna do it my way, and then hopefully one day I'll be in a band like that, but it didn't happen.

unknown 15:41

It didn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Did you ever have lessons like outside of learning from your dad or the band or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Um from my father, I had lessons, and I always had the influence of like my father had his good friends in the band. Where to the front, the fact of where I would call them my uncles, but like they would sit me down and say, Look, this is how you play this guitar like line or whatever. Like, I've never really got into, like I said, it was always like I'm not gonna learn it your way, but I would watch them and I had a knack for recreating what I'd see or what I'd hear. Yeah, so I kind of learn, like if I hear someone play a riff, I can emulate it in a way. So if I listen to a song once, I can break it down in my head, like the different the bass lines, the chords, or whatever. But like if I had to try to tell someone what I'm doing, I'm not good at that. Okay, but if I had to show you, like, okay, I'm I'm going, I'm playing this, or this is how fast it should be. I'm good at that.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah. I have such a deep respect for people who can do stuff like that. Like, um, like I said, I grew up in a in a family who loved music. My mom was really the musical one she could sing. Nice. And she picked up guitar for a brief time. She could do some chords and stuff. She wasn't like a guitarist by any stretch of the imagination. But for whatever reason, it was almost like it skipped a generation. And my my one brother is self-taught on guitar, self-taught drummer, picked up harmonica, like, but can play and and play like pretty decently. So actually love that a lot. Um and it's always to me very inspirational to hear people say, like, no, I never took a lesson. I just wanted to play what I heard and you know, you know, kind of noodle on it my own way. So that's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Like I said, but that I mean there was influence from like my father would show me like how to hold the drumsticks or how you know whatever. But like he did give me step by step through how to do it, but like yeah, I was never like sitting at actually funny enough, he we had two drum sets in the house. So he'd be in one room and he would play something and it would stop, and then I would mimic it.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And I feel like I excelled in that.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Because I would just listen through the wall and go, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

And then playing it back at him. That's so cool. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

It was cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So one of the things that we had talked about, and I think even with respect to some of your musical influences, was we had like that entire conversation about MTV because you really because you call yourself an MTV kid, and and again, for the teabags, like you all basically know approximately what my age is. We don't like to talk about it too much, but you are a solid 10, 11 years younger than I am.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

I'm 40 right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Yeah. So you're 11 years younger than I am. And so I always called myself an MTV kid because I was there sort of at the inception, right? Like watching from a very young age.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

When it was good.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

When it was I didn't want to say it, but yes. I don't want to rub it in.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

I'll say it.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

But you also were an MTV kid in that you kind of from a young age were watching it until it's demised, right? Talk a little bit about what that was like as another influence. Like you've got your dad and the band and all these instruments and this musicality going on around you, and then you're spending like a lot of time in front of the in front of MTV.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

And we videotaped a lot of it, honestly, too. Yeah. I feel like it was like late at night after like cartoons were done, and me and CJ would be having a sleepover, and we'd be staying up all night playing magic cards or whatever, or just drawing, or whatever we were doing. We'd have MTV going, and I'd go, what the hell is techno? Yeah. Or like, what is what what is like I remember seeing like uh a square pusher video where it's all it's all electronic and it's all static and weird, and like the video is like alien. And I'm like, I love this. Yeah. Why don't we see this more during like you know the regular hours? And there was like headbangers, ball, and stuff like that. And I got into more into like heavier stuff, but my my I had a wide spectrum because I would love like Bjork and Apex Twin and stuff like that, but then I would still love Alice and Chains and White Zombie and like Marilyn Manson when back then, not now.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Right. Noted and heard.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Yeah. But then, you know, like a lot of that stuff was big influence. I'm trying to think of like white zombies a giant influence. Nine snails. When I seen Trent Reznor hanging from the ceiling covered in tape and still playing a drum, I was like, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

I would like to do that too.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

There's something really surreal, I think, when you're introduced to music through videos, yeah. That changes how you're experiencing music, right? Like it's different. Like I grew up with my aunt playing records for me and you know, very much in the sticks and Ario Speedwagon, and like that's what I grew up on, right? Um, I think I had one of the REO Speedwagon albums memorized lyrically by the time I was like three. That's awesome. Yeah. And but you experience music differently when you're listening to it than you do when suddenly you've got this what the fuck is this coming at you from from the TV, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, like a whole nother medium added to it.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

And it changes, I think, how you view some of the genres too. Like, do you I mean, do you have thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Absolutely. I mean, like, I feel like if you have great music in a terrible video, no one's gonna watch the video. Yeah, you know, or like whatever, like now it's so much different. But like back then, if you had an amazing video, a song could be trash. Yes, and people would still love it, but then you had stuff like White Stripes where the music was amazing, and the videos were even just as good, yeah, if not better sometimes. And like there's a lot of like directors that put out like DVDs during those times too. But like all that stuff that was on MTV was free. You didn't have to buy the DVD and watch like you know the weird videos that they never played, they only played at night, or you know, even seeing the good stuff during the day. Like I remember like Allison Change Rooster was on like every day.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

And I would stop what I was doing, I would sit down and I would sit there and watch it because it was an awesome video, an awesome song. It really got me into that like genre with like Nirvana and stuff like that. I think it has a lot to do with like. You see, you know, what these what these characters are looking like. Like I said, with like White Zombie with Sean Yulis was the base. I was like, she's got it going on with like and with all the patches and like they're wearing, like, I always had little accessories. Like you got my chain wallet and all that stuff. It's like I always thought I want to look like that. I want to, you know, that want that to be a slice of my life.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yes. Yeah. It like it 100% informed even fashion in in a weird sort of a way. Like, I don't even know how aware I was of that at the time. But it's easy looking back and hearing you say that. Like, yeah, you were watching stuff, and like I that's the look I want.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Or yeah, like in the 80s, when like you see like the Madonna clowns walking around and they would all be have the same thing going on.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Right. Again, something that never happened in the 70s before. Nobody intentionally wanted to look like Ario Speedwagon.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

No.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

That was not a thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

The only people that looked like Areo Speedwagon were Aureo Speed.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

That's exactly right. It's interesting too because I also was attracted to um sonically, that is, more of the late night MTV stuff. So I was definitely, I would watch during the day. Of course, you watch like whatever was going on in the top 40. I think there was a lot of MTV that informed how radio stations were playing music at the time too, right? So it was stuff you were hearing anyway, and that was fine, but not really my like my jam necessarily. But I was definitely a 120 minutes kid and I was a headbanger's ball kid too. And it always used to bother me that it was like this late night thing. Like, why, like, why can't I just watch the shit during the day? But there was also a little bit of a I kind of like that too, because it's almost like that was their way of gatekeeping the really cool shit, even though that was not the intent, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Yeah, I think it was just about sales and writing.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Totally. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Like if you turned it, if you turned in during lunchtime and they were playing some ambient techno that you know was avant-garde or whatever, that they just turn it off. Yeah, we would have stayed, but most people listened that. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Well, I wasn't on the radio, so yeah. I don't I don't think a lot of the stuff from 120 minutes or Headbangers Ball made it to mainstream unless the band themselves had crossed out kind of crossed into mainstream. Yeah. Like I definitely had been listening to you know, like Susie and the Banshees for a while before, you know, Kiss Them for Me came out. And then suddenly that video was all over the place, not just on 120 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

The MTV evolved, like you said, with the radio. It's like in the beginning, they were testing the waters. Yeah, just throwing out, there was like, we have a music video from a band that's not well known. Maybe that'll give them popularity. Like, like I know I've read up on like a I keep I'm gonna refer to this a lot because it's a huge influence, but like White Zombie wasn't that big. And I read an article about Rob Zombie talking about like they got on um MTV, they got on Beavis and Butthead, and then people start really paying attention to it, and then from there their sales went up, and then they are what they are now. Well, they're they're shut down now. Sure, yeah, but Rob Zombie's still playing. Yeah, just looking at seeing him again in August, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Nice, yes. I know. I just saw him for the first time last year.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

It's a great show, yeah. I've seen it a handful of times.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, I never did get to see White Zombie in concert.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

I know when they when it broke up, I did cry. I might have been like 11, and I was like, no, I'll never see them live.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

I will say I think even artists like Michael Jackson at the time probably did wouldn't have maybe he would have eventually because he was so incredibly talented, but would maybe not have broken the way that he broke had they not pushed and pushed and pushed to get because MTV didn't want to play him.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

And like I I was reading somewhere that like it took his team a shit ton to get like them to even play the thriller album when it came out.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

That's wild because that's one of the top records that ever existed. It's so isn't it crazy? And they didn't want to play it. Yeah, which musical television, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Well, but corporate musical television. Like, not that we understood that back in the day. We definitely didn't, but yeah, I mean, there was a lot of stuff that we got to see because that was corporate backing, right? Is is what allowed us.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Which is the crazy thing about it is like he would have been on like all that stuff in the early 60s and 70s and whatnot, where he would have been like the an American bandstand or shows like that genre, or like he would have they would have dominated that.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

And I don't see why MTV won't see like, oh, we should take it from them.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah. Absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

It is weird.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Corporate, like you said.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Well, totally. Yeah. I which is why obviously the stuff that we did like to watch wasn't on until late at night. Because again, corporate. Like it's just no, there's there's a bottom line to achieve, and we're not going to achieve it with tool. Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

You know, which I was gonna wear my tool shirt today, but I thought about it too. Um mine one has a giant wrench on the back, it doesn't look like a wrench, it looks like something else. Of course. And I didn't want to be like, hi, nice to meet you. You live in a nice neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

That's okay. I've got a closet full of concert shit upstairs, so no worries. But speaking of, because they're always who I think of when I think of bands that I was introduced to visually, yeah. Before I was introduced to them sonically, and so not to put you on the spot, but can you think of something that you ended up seeing that drew you in in the same way that like a tool did for me? And it's okay if I was also tools.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

No, they definitely did. Yeah, yeah. I remember like I had that cassette tape for undertone, and I want to still want to get that album cover tattooed on my arm.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Let me look in my little box.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Black Sabbath. I've seen a Black Sabbath video and Ozzy with his hair down and then like in the trench coat, and I watched all the band, like you know, Tony Omi playing the guitar, and it sounded like it was there from hell. And geezer Butler like playing the bass like a badass, and of course, one of my favorite Bill Ward, the drummer, yeah, was a madman. And when I just seen that, I was like, okay, that just drew me in. It wasn't even they just it was just them. It was just them playing on the stage, just being just like with distortion, and you know, like seeing that compared to like again, well, see my father's band playing, they were playing like like stuff like Tina Turner, like you know, sure, like or like fancy popular music to get like to get a following. And then I seen that, and I was like, okay, that's the completely in a different zone.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah, they're doing what they want to do, and it's like that who gives a shit.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yeah, this is yeah, and this is before you know Aussie was on TV just complaining about you know his life or whatever, but like but like this before Aussie had reality television, yeah. Like so, like I think the one I flipped to was like actually an Aussie one where it was uh hit him by himself from the 90s, it was like the big one. What was that big one called?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Oh shit. I can picture it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

Where it's just like black and white movie, Ozman comics. Yes, that's fine, yeah. And like I remember watching him on the video and thinking like that dude's cool as hell. Yep, the music's cool as hell. Yeah, and he, you know, if he could do it like that, I want to do it like that. We can all do it like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

What's interesting to me too about you know, just thinking about your dad and and the band, I had uh talked to another friend of mine like back in the fall for the podcast, and he's also a musician, and he's been in a band like for 20 years, and they mostly like it's I don't even want to say mostly it's hair metal, it's it's not a lot of it is like 80s and 90s, you know, popularized hard rock, heavy metal. But one of the things that we talked about was when they talk about their set lists and and what are they going to perform is just what you were talking about. You have to have an element of popularity, danciness. His whole thought was the way that you get people in the bar and listening to your stuff is you have to appeal to ladies, like the girlfriends, and because that's what's gonna keep people there and and listening. And so I'm sure your dad had that element of that as well. Because his band was like a relatively popular band in Pittsburgh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah, they had a record deal, they made they had a record on and everything. And uh they were well known. Like I remember that like they would play every weekend. Yeah, and I remember there was times where I would help them put the drums up, take the drums down, put them in the truck, take them out of the truck, roll the van. And uh there'd be times where they would play to like to the last car or whatever, and they didn't have time, so he would just leave the equipment there, and we go the next day, and I would help him carry it stuff. I was like a roadie at a young age, too. So, like learning and understanding it at a young age was cool, but then I was put to work, yeah, taking it apart, putting it back together.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah, which also gives you just a completely different insight into the business and the industry.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I would have never thought about how long it takes to set up, you know, just wiring and recording, and then you had to just mic your drums, and then you had to mic the microphones and everything and putting mix, putting them on a mixer. Yeah, that's so much, there's so much more involved than people would ever think.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Okay, so I want to circle back to MTV really quickly before we kind of move on. One of the things that we talked about was the fact that again, you were sort of in MTV in the era before its utter demise. And and you did mention Beavis and Butthead, which I thought was one of the more brilliant MTV productions. But but it became like you couldn't watch it anymore. And it sort of shifted then how you're experiencing music. So can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you? I was in an era where I was like having kids at that point, so I was a little bit less connected to MTV, but it was also to me, I was like, oh, well, there's no point in putting on MTV anymore because it's like a shit show of reality TV, is what it felt like to me.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Which wasn't reality whatsoever. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

No, like I remember like we would watch, like you said, like with my sisters and my best friend CJ would be around all the time too. And uh younger cousins that would live with us and stay with us, and we'd all have a genre of music that we'd like. Yeah. And MTV was it had a wide spectrum, so we could watch it all day long and be fine with it. You know, my sisters liked the poppy stuff, like like Britney Spears and stuff like that. Older sisters maybe more into like I mean, she loved like LL Col J and stuff like that, like hip-hop and RB, which I love as stuff too, because of her.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Yeah. And then also find me one girl who didn't love LL Cool J.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

How could you not?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

How could you not?

SPEAKER_02 32:57

I mean, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Ladies love himself in his name.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Oh my god, how did I not remember that? Yeah, so we used to do Beavis and Butthead for like me and CJ and my younger cousin Jordan. We would love like we'd watch that and think, oh, this is funny as hell, and then we'd see like black flag play, and I'd be like, this is cool. And like, you know, maybe CJ would be like, maybe no, my my my little cousin will love it, but like as the years progressed, it turned into more ratings corporate. You know, Beavis and Butthead was never gonna beat out, you know, the reality TV nonsense that became like the and I hate to like say things like Jersey Shore and stuff like that, but like you could turn it on in '95 and watch it and be amused, at least, or you know, hear something new that might not be, you know, relative to your genre of music. But five years later, it was just not worth even putting it on anymore.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

For people who were looking for entertainment that wasn't just your base level reality television, it's like it's boring.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:05

And that's it's happened quickly, though. I feel like I feel like after a while, like even being young, I was like, we're gonna turn on VH1 instead.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Isn't that okay? I'm so glad you said it because when I say it, it's like, oh, okay, boomer. But I think that was real for us. Like if you were searching for music and music videos, that was what you had because MTV was a lost cause.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

I and I I mean, I hate to say this too, but like I feel like we we all get older, obviously, and then we all kind of age out of certain things. Of course. I remember when I was younger, I was in a slipknot, and my mother was this is crazy. This is this is a phase, right? I'm like, well, you've never heard the D side and the slayer and the stuff. I'm like, that's stuff that I keep to myself. But like if I'm playing Slipknot on the radio, I'm like, okay, it's socially acceptable now. And like that slowly crept into being acceptable as it slowly crept out of being on like MTV, but VH1 was playing it at later years, and they were playing stuff that was still along the lines of like what we would consider decent music or whatever, and then when it was encluttered with the reality, right? Nonsense. Right. What was it? Pop-up video. Yeah, that was that was towards the end of it, though. I think.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, and even that though was kind of okay because it was still rooted in music videos, so it was trivia around the music and the music videos. Yeah, it had like a yeah, it was background following people around a house where they all got real, whatever. I have a lot of disdain.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

I feel like the the best one ever was when they went like they were doing MTV cribs and they did Red Man from Wood Zang Clinton and whatnot, and he was like, This is my actual house, and it was just a normal house. It wasn't like a mansion, and it had people, he was like, My cousins living here and sleeping on the floor on an air mattress, and they were like, We can't do this. And he's like, No, this is this is how it really is. I feel like there were two versions, like they like made him go to a fake location and they faked it, like he was like rich and famous or whatever. He's like, and even like put out later on, he's like, There's two versions my real version and that bullshit version, exactly, and that's what they wanted was the bullshit version.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

They didn't actually care about the real version.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Like I was saying about Ozzy, like the Ozborne's TV show, I could not watch it. Because I was like, he was such an icon to me of badassery. Yeah, and now he's just sitting on his recliner screaming about where the fuck are my poke stats?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Yeah. It made me giggle a couple of times. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah, I mean, like when it was on, I'd I'd leave it on if I was like cooking dinner or something, or when I get ready for work, and I'll be like, oh well, and then watch it for five minutes and go. I can't do this.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

I can't make it.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Well, because then you're like watching this person who was this god for, you know, he's the Prince of Fucking Darkness, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:02

What the fuck is up with the bubbles?

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah, I don't I don't know that I want to see him, you know, puttering around his house in his fucking slippers and shit, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Moan is grass.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Moan is grass, exactly, exactly. So I wanted to go back a little bit because CJ, I chatted with CJ a little bit. Yeah, and he was like, you gotta ask him about what his dad used to do on Saturday mornings.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

It's funny that he remembers that because I mean I definitely do remember him. So dad would come in and he would have been playing the night before or whatever, or he would go out and see other shows, and he would bring us a song or two or a tape or something. And I remember he ended up going, he my uncle was younger than him. So my uncle was into some other music that was like a maybe like a half a generation before me. So they would go together to go see these shows, and my dad came home with like a pitch shifter tape for me, and that's like very much drum and bass slash heavy guitars. And he would be like, Here, you guys listen to this, and we'd sit and listen to like whatever he whatever concerts they went to, and it's like free demos. We still had cassette tapes that were free demos, right? Which sucks that that doesn't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

I know.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

I wonder if we just start doing that again if we just circulate them. Maybe we could like maybe we'll bring it back.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Yeah, like they have like vinyl.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yeah, maybe like yeah, little vinyls, but like he would come in and he would be like, You gotta listen to this song, because he was on it before we were on, because he had the radio on, and he would. I think I got a lot of this from him too, and my mother too, but like they would hear something that maybe they didn't like so much, but they would be like, Oh, Kayla would like this, CJ would like this, Robbie would like this, yeah. So we all kind of knew of each other's musical branches. Yeah, like if I hear something, I know like a dad doesn't want to hear that, but CJ might want to hear it or whatever, right? But um, yeah, he brought in. I remember he would bring us in tapes, or he got us like he'd be like, Oh, listen to this Alice and Shane song, it's new, and he'd hear on the radio going to the show or going from work or whatever, and he would just barge in and be like, sit down and listen to this with me. And that was kind of a ritual that I had kind of forgotten about.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Yeah, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

That was something that was just such a part of my experience that like when CJ said that it was it stood out to him. I was like, I even said to my mother, I was like, Do you remember dad doing this to us? She's like, Yeah. I was like, I I didn't think nothing of it.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah. Well, I think I think that's interesting too because it speaks to something that I I definitely want to make sure that we get to, which is sort of the influence that you end up having on your friends, right? Like your peer groups. And for CJ, experiencing that at your house, of course, is going to stick out as a core, as like almost like a core memory for him. Yeah. Whereas for you, you're just like, well, this was just Saturday. It's just, yeah. It's this is just my everyday existence, like, you know, with music in the house. Absolutely. Yeah. Before we kind of get into some of that stuff though, I do kind of want to talk a little bit about. So the demise of MTV also kind of coincided with the rise of the MP3. Yeah. And we had kind of talked about that a little bit. And I know you were like, I hadn't really thought about it like that, but I was already, so again, being a little bit older than you, I was already, you know, had graduated from my cassette collection, then I had to collect CDs. And from CDs, then it became like a fucking free-for-all for like a really long time. And I think for me, MP3s were, I did play around with like the pirating for a little bit. Like I, you know, I had lime wire and you know, causa, and I never napstered, which is hilarious. But same, same thing. I did that for like a little bit, but I I'm a physical ownership person. So CJ or um CJ, Jesus, Karen, cut that. Robbie just indicated believe it. Robbie just was indicating, so he brought his this little crate for inspo. Can you share what is in that crate?

SPEAKER_02 41:16

Okay, it's a like a dollar store milk crate. So it's like uh a third of the size of a normal milk crate, and it's absolutely filled to the brim with the CD packages and like pamphlets and the even the backing of almost every CD that I think I've ever bought from like day one.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

And it's filled. I mean, you could see.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

I know. I love this so much, so much.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

I had to dust it off. It was it was just been sitting on my counter. And like I just always thought to myself, it's just I like the art and design and the layout of the stuff. Like I went to school for graphic design and looking at all this stuff, like it's all graphic design, right? Yeah, but again, but it's more musical to me. Yeah, like that it could be just blankets to say, you know, cannibal corpse.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Cannibal corpse. Love it. I love it. What I see when I look at that is history, yeah, right. And so, and for me, this resonates because so, first of all, I have all my CDs. I still have all my cassettes, I have them in boxes downstairs. I have refused to get rid of them even though I can't, I cannot, even though at one point I took the time to rip all of my CDs to have them in digital format, and you know what's really fucked is I don't ever listen to the digital format ever. I never pull up my digital library and listen to it from my computer. But I do still have a CD player because anytime I go to concerts locally, there's always like some local band that is like the first opener. And they always are selling stuff at the merge table, and it's usually in CD form. They're never like, oh, here, buy this link to my SoundCloud or buy this. So it's always a CD. I know, and and and I do too. And so I still buy CDs. Like I'm it's 2026. So so I love it because I am a physical music owner. I'm back to collecting vinyl again, too. Yeah, and so I love that you brought that, and I love that you had an artistic reason for why you kept these things because what did what were you thinking about doing at one point?

SPEAKER_02 43:30

I wanted to make a collage. So with all the the different bands, and wanted to come up with an idea, like a layout with like maybe go make uh it's called pointalism or type of like I think that's right. I just wanted to come up with a collage of all these different bands and have it all on like one wall. But if you stood back far enough from it, it wasn't just a fear factory, it was actually like a face, yeah, or like something yeah artistic.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

I still feel like you're gonna do. Something like that.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

I'm I now looking at it again.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

It's in it's inspirational. I love it. So you did you and you just mentioned it before, you did go to the art institute.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Okay. And what was your goal at the time for that? What did you think you were going to to do or learn there?

SPEAKER_02 44:21

I didn't learn anything.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

I think it would be hard to after growing up with the experiences that you grew up with. Like, not that you can't learn anything. We can all learn things.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

I don't mean to say that, but I say that, but I actually I mean like I obviously learn how to use like Photoshop better or programs like that better. Or like maybe more into like the uh the corporate side of the art, which I was like, again, I hate this. But yeah, once our institute from like 2003 to like 2007, then I left and uh it was bad because even the instructors were saying leave this place, it's not really good. Yeah, because it wasn't accredited till I was like two years in. Oh, okay. Okay. That's that's all technical stuff, but like the art stuff, art was a big part of my life, just like music, but I wasn't as driven to do art as I was to do music, so I was like, well, maybe I should make a job and art and I'll do advertising you know, like like the CD layouts or maybe like labels for products or whatever. And I thought, okay, maybe I could do that. And then after you started doing that for years, and that's where I met Jason Hill at.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

And we worked Jason and I worked together at a company where we delivered pool tables, but that's a different thing. But he and I met, and I met another friend of mine, uh, Eric Pappanel. I don't know if he's come up in the other ones either.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

I've yeah, I've heard his name for sure.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

He and I were roommates and everything, but we all did art together, and we're all in the art institute together and a couple other friends. But the uh doing art every day for you know, forcing it out of yourself, you just you begin to not want to do it anymore. Sure. It's like any other job you'd have. Like you can't go to the same job every single day and think, unless you really want to do it, yeah, like this is what this is what is in store for me forever.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Yeah. It's I think commercializing art gets really tricky for people who are super creative and need inspiration. If you are passionate about it, it can be, I think, a little bit harder to then do it for money because then it's not anymore about your passion. It's more you have to be passion, passionate about the like the form of it and less about the inspiration to actually create it because it's really your paycheck is your passion at that point. Yeah, I can see how that could be a little bit difficult.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Yeah, it's like a but like I said, my friend Eric, he he's still doing art. He's going on, he goes on the road and sells art at different art uh festivals and stuff like that all year long. And like he asks me all the time to come with him. He wants me to jump in the truck with him and sell, and we've made art together. Okay, like we've collaborated on different things, but uh like he's still doing it, he's doing it, he's he's it's whole enough for him. But like for me, like I would I wouldn't want to get back into doing digital media and trying to sell myself to companies where I could be like, I could do your layouts, I can make like even they were still magazines were still popular when I was and that's just no longer a thing, right? Even print as much, I don't think is yeah, we're killing it.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

We've we just killed it.

SPEAKER_02 47:32

I have an uncle, he works for the post gazette, and they've been on strike for like three years, yeah. And they uh occasionally go back in and negotiate and stuff, but I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 47:41

And didn't they just didn't I hear that they sold?

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah, yeah. It's just it just became over with like within the last couple of months.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Yeah, that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Yeah, yeah. And he was uh he was a part of the sports column. He did he wrote up the sports columns and that, yeah. Like that died out, you know, with same with these, buying CDs, like you said. Like they're coming back. We'll we'll make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

We're gonna make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

I'm gonna put this on social media.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

But to go back to the commercialization for one second, you did like so you're you don't sell your art, you make it for yourself, but you did say that there were a couple of instances where you collaborated on some things that got used in a corporate setting, you don't sell your art for money, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

No, no, no, but like I had like uh a friend that was working for a company that they were making like a commercial, they might have used some of my music or I might have helped develop some graphics or stuff or like friends of friends, sure, like there was nothing ever where I thought like I should write this down and like memorize who did what with what. Sure. But I did have friends that had uh like art exhibits and just a random abandoned warehouse, and they were like, I need a soundtrack to this. And I had a couple of songs, I was like, I'll burn them a CD. And I said I said burn a CD the other day to a kid at work, and he was like, Why did you set it on fire?

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yeah, I love that. It's it's honestly like this week, and uh these kids, yeah, and uh so they just think music appears in the in the cloud.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

I was like before everything was digital, we actually had to rewind our music to start it back over. It's like be kind of rewind.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Yeah, but yeah, that for when it comes to like corporate stuff, like I never really had anything of mine be like predominant where I could say we could pull this up on this website, yeah. But it's just stuff that was like it's kind of in passing. But did work for a company again with CJ and again with my friend Eric, and we did a lot of artistic development around Pittsburgh, where we did uh art shows, art galleries. We built the galleries sometimes. Really? Yeah, it was called uh Clear Story.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

But it started out with a lot of us working at City Theater.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

And we just went from working to theater, and CJ's older brother, Doug, is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my entire life. He just ran this company where we just were able to work with artists from even out of town that were coming into town and we'd set them up like the plays that they would have. We would build the sets or whatever, but like some of the artistic stuff they would have was more I was more involved in, and uh we would be involved in like art all night. Ever heard of that before? No, it's just uh a bunch of artists get together and they rent out like an abandoned warehouse, usually in like Lawrenceville, somewhere like that, and it's just 24 hours of art where people just display their art and they sell it. I've been in, I've had pieces in there before. Really?

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Yeah, I didn't even realize that you had such a connection to city theater.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Yeah, I worked for City Theater for years with uh with CJ and Doc. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Wow, yeah, that's like a whole other podcast episode. I should have you and CJ on together.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

He wanted to be here today. That's so funny. So you know what? Let's do it again with uh yeah, totally. And then we can get I I know that you said suggested someone I've my friend Eric, his name's Eric Papanow. He does he did City Theater with us, he did our institute with me, and uh uh we live together. Yeah. So it'd be funny to sit across the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

It really would.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

It'd be fun.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Which is actually a really interesting segue too. Now that I'm you're talking about like these friendships and these these long-term friendships that you've had. One of the things that I learned from speaking with CJ is how much he values your friendship and how much you and your family mean to him. He's also mentioned that you are a natural connector of people. And a couple of things that I've explored on this podcast that absolutely fascinate me are connectors, building community, things like friendships and how we how we alleviate sort of loneliness and things like that. Yeah. And I've really started to believe that these things are important beyond just ways to combat loneliness, right? I mean, it's just we're people, humans are social and we we need people for as much as you know. I I know I just told you before, I'm like, yeah, I'm not a people person. I don't know anybody in this neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

But the reality is we we need people. Right. And so what does having strong male friendships and being able to be vulnerable with your friends mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 52:18

It means the world to me. I mean, like to have my close friends, you know, like like CJ and I have been friends since preschool.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

I think he would he tells the story better. But like he we were in school together and he goes, Do you like ninja turtles? I'm like, Yeah, I have a pool in my backyard. We could play ninja turtles and then get in the pool.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

I like I can't stop laughing because as soon as you said it, I was like, Oh my god, I can hear CJ. I could hear 40-year-old CJ going up to somebody and asking them, Do you like Ninja Turtles? So that's fucking hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

And I think it's what started a friendship that's lasted since we were five.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

We were both in our 40s now.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

And yeah, I mean, to have I was thinking about this because I know you had sent me like ideas that we were gonna talk about. And I kind of wanted to make it funny.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

So like we got all the friends that we met at the R Institute, and all our friends are friends, like all in a close realm of each other that who all spend time together, all hang out. Like I was with CJ and his wife the other night. I haven't seen much of my other friends as much recently, but everybody's got so much going on with work and you know, home life and everything. But uh, I think in a way, I got everybody together. It kind of selfishly, because I wanted to start a band.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

Always comes back to wanting to start a band, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 53:48

I mean, I just thought of that this morning and I thought it'd be a funny joke. But no, like I think really a connection between people, like it does matter. And like it's what you said earlier about like not wanting to see your neighbors. That's because I don't want to deal with talking to them every day.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

But like if you have your friends that you see once every like month or so, like it really matters to think of like mental health, like you're saying. Like, like if I know I'm going home and meeting up with my friends, I'm gonna be way more ecstatic than if I'm going home, I'm like, I'm just gonna go out to eat and I'm just gonna sit there and you know, whatever. But I feel like it's just it makes it just makes it makes it more enjoyable to just have the daily experience other than just like saying, like, okay, I'm gonna go home, do laundry, and then nothing. Like I was more, like I said, I was kind of nervous about coming out here. I was nervous about doing this, but like I was still excited. I was like, yes, at least something to do. Yeah. You know, and like you know, branch out and get to like know you better, and like, you know, so I was like, this sounds just like a fun thing to for us to do. And I think it always comes back down to around being involved with uh my father and his band and my mother, and she has a large family too, and everybody's close. Yeah, like I'm really close with all three of my sisters, yeah, and I'm close to my nieces and nephews too, yeah. And I feel like it's not just about family, and it's not just about friends. You look into those MTV bullshit reality TV, and you if you think that's real, you're mistaken, you know, because there's if you go out into the street and make friends or just take with your family and go out and go to a concert or whatever, that's real. Yeah, I'd rather watch a reality TV show about like people who actually like have a good time, not all the time, but like, I mean, but then again, now I'm talking about the Osborne's.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

I was just saying, if it was my family, right? But do you agree that you're a connector of people?

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Yeah, I think I a lot of my friends, it's been funny because we've had friends of friends who didn't know each other who we knew through the core group of each other. I've been like, wait a minute, you know this person? Like, I've known this person since 1999. And it's funny that when I would bring enough people together, the people that I brought together were bringing more people in.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:15

So it's just like a like a magnetic ball, it just kept on bringing more and more and more in. Yeah. And so I know CJ would say that about me, but I think it's just like I had stayed in contact with enough people that enough other people that I stayed in contact on the outskirts were able to just keep on joining in. But like, I think it was I think he would say in a way, like, I was friends with him, and he lived down the street, and I had friends from up the street, and I brought us all together, and that started at a very young, young age. I'd be like, Well, we like Ninja Turtles down here, but they have a PlayStation up the street, and if we go up there, we could play Ninja Turtles and the PlayStation, and I got a pool. And I think that has a lot to do with it too, because we had a lot of people at the pool, but the backyard was you can see Grandview Avenue from our house. Like we don't live on Grandview Avenue, but we don't leave to have to go to fireworks, yeah, yeah. So not only would we have the band playing, we'd have all the friends from the general area, and CJ and I grew up a street away from each other, but then on nights like that, there'd be a hundred people on the streets, 20 of them belong to us. They would be at our house. Yeah, and we'd be swimming.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

So for the the teabags who are not Pittsburgh familiar, no, no, no, that's okay. We I do this a lot um just because like I love I love my city. Like it's it's awesome. So what Robbie is talking about is an area that is called Mount Washington and it it overlooks the city. And so while Robbie was not on the main drag that you could see, you could basically see all of downtown Pittsburgh from almost any point on Grandview Avenue, his backyard, uh, he has explained to me, sort of faced downtown. Like you had a really amazing view of downtown. And so it would be a prime spot for 4th of July, for light up night, for you know, all of all of the downtown shenanigans. Any event. Yeah, that that were events. I gotta ask now that I'm thinking about it. When there's like a concert at Heinz, you can hear it.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

You can hear it.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

We sit in the back porch, we could listen to. I think the last the last funny one, it was like one that we didn't even care about. It was like Motley Crue or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

And it was like maybe two, it might have been during COVID, or it might have been between now and then. I get my nights under the back deck kind of mixed up. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Well, everything's a blur since COVID. Time time is this weird loop.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

It has absolutely changed. Yeah, there's almost no meaning anymore to time. Not at all. But we were on the back deck and we were listening, and like it's funny because like my father, my mother, and I all hanging out together on the back deck, and my sisters or whatever, we're like, who is that? Well, like we'll be like, oh, that's that's you know, Leonard Skinner, but like none of the original members still exist, so it's just it's just Leonard or Skinner.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Or Skinner. That's so great. I never thought about that until just now, though.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

I could I could watch the Steelers games, which I care nothing about. Okay. But I if I go up, I could probably, you know, watch him kick a field goal from right there.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

That's so crazy. And the only reason I'm saying it's so crazy is because I know we spent like uh an ungodly amount of money on Ed Sheeran tickets.

SPEAKER_02 59:28

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Who I do love. And I've seen him now at PNC Park and at Heinz Field was his the last time he came through Pittsburgh. He was at mine. Yeah, but totally worth it. But I'm like, oh, you're right up on the hill. You could probably have heard that entire concert. That's amazing to me. Wow. Speaking of concerts, before we rap, and I want to make sure that we touch on concerts because you said that you've been to like hundreds, and then I I mean I've been to a lot, a lot of, but I I never as many as you have. Also, because if I'm honest, I was not allowed to go to shows until my first concert, and this is no shit, was I was 17 years old before I was ever allowed to go. And it was Metallica. Could you imagine seeing Metallica as your first concert ever? Like you almost don't even have to go to concerts anymore. It's pretty good when you start with this. It's a pinnacle, right? It's a pinnacle moment. But yeah, I definitely have not been to as many. Uh so I was thinking it could be fun to do like a rapid fire. Um, and I I just have one, two, three, four, five rapid fires. Okay. All right, so let's let's see what you got.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

What was your first concert?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

My first concert was obviously gonna be my father playing, but my first concert that wasn't him, I think, was would have been uh Ozfest 1999, which had multiple bands in it. Okay, might not have been the first concert, but it's the first concert I really remember. That you remember.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

Okay, fair enough. What's your most recent concert?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

We went to go see Lord's Acid in Cleveland, Ohio with a few friends, and uh it was insane. And Lords of Acid is actually coming this week, and I'm going this week.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

That's so funny because I'm pretty sure I just saw an ad uh for that as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Friday.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

So that's the next concert I'm going to.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

Nice concert that most surprised you good or bad. It could be in a good way or a bad way.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

You ever hear of Electric Six?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:24

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Electric Six is a band from Detroit, again, with my friend Eric. He uh he he loves them, but uh they're like a six-piece band, hence the Electric Six. I just thought that I'm sorry, that I just realized that's a thing. But um they're goofy, okay, but they're straight about it. It's so funny how like it's like it's like almost like like they have a lot of songs that are just wild, but they're so good at it that like seeing them live, I thought they would just be all over the place, not caring, but like it is really regimentally really good. Electric Six has a great show. You know, seeing them we've seen them in between six to eight, nine times, somewhere around there.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Wow, yeah, they're like your steel panther for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

Oh, that's not even nothing compared to other. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

I'm just saying that's how that's where my head goes where I'm like, they're actually talented musicians, but they're doing like this pair metal parody, and you expect it to be like almost silly, and yet they're quite good. And I've seen them live like seven times.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Like you know, when you go to Ciguar, you know what you're in for. It's it's a spectacle, but I mean the music's good, but it's not gonna be like spot on as the record, you know. Yeah, so electric six was one of those ones.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Okay, band or performer, you're most regretful that you never saw or still haven't seen.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

Godflesh.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

Okay. All-time favorite concert, and what made it the best for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

I was fascinating. My when my father told me it was my like 13th birthday, and I was introduced to a lot of things like Rob Zombie, Slayer Primus, uh, bands like Static X, uh, Slipknot was there for their first album, System of Down was there for their first album. I remember Fear Factory was there, and I love Fear Factory, and I played in like with guys who we played Fear Factory, but I don't remember seeing Fear Factory, but I remember seeing like God Smack, and I'm like, ah, yeah, they're all right, but like their next album I didn't like so much. But like that, Oz Fest 99, 1999, still have the t-shirt. When the father took me out there, I'm 13. Uh, there was a woman that was just in body paint next to us. They lit the field on fire, and we were watching Black Sabbath play. Wow, and I didn't know what to pay attention to. Sure. Yeah, and I was like jumping through the fire and I looked over and I was like, Dad, she's naked. He's like, Yeah, it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:47

But also, listen to this.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

In Black Sabbath, I mean Aussie like sprayed me with the hose, I think. That wasn't we weren't on the field, so like when I sprayed me with the hose, I was like, This is the best, this is the best day of my life. Yeah, that will never change. No, that I don't think it'll ever go to another show with anybody, less you know, we have Auss Fest 2027 and I go with my dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

Right. There's there are moment in time, I think, performances, and it's one of the things I absolutely love about concerts. I love experiencing, I'm one of those people that refuses to look at set lists ahead of time.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:27

Like it actually never no, I it bothers me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:31

I don't want to know going in because it used to be, it's less so now, but it used to be back in the day. You got what the artist wanted to give you, and your response to that is part of the whole experience. And I still sort of like live by that concert experience-wise.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

So I don't want to know. I don't ever want to know. But yeah, there's something about everybody who's there is like coming together for common purpose. It's like we all might not agree on much else outside of you know being in that space listening to that particular artist, but we are for those couple of hours, and we're all there for common purpose. And it's like that's one of the most amazing things to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

That's that's the meaning of the concert. It doesn't even matter if you know concert's on mute to you. You go in and be hearing impaired.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

You're just there with all the people having a good time. That's that's the connection of souls.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

That's it. I love that. All right, before we wrap, three good things about your week. Um, I like to do this at my actual dinner table uh with my family. Um, it used to be just a way to get the kids to like say something beyond just how was your day? Fine. And so I actually used to make them say like three good things about your day. So yeah. So this is three good things about your week, rolling seven days. So you've got seven days to work with.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

Three good things about my week. We'll start off with this was really fun. Yeah. This was out of my realm of normal things that I would normally do. And preparing for this made me like think a lot about like my past. In my history, and I was like I said, I was like excited to get to know you better, yeah, to do this type of thing, and and to see it from your perspective, too. Like being in your your house, and it's just something different. Another connection.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

Yeah. So that to me was that's gonna be the pinnacle of the week so far. So other things the the well, I got something coming up. I've been talking to my friend again, my uh my buddy Eric. We're gonna go see Lords of Acid again. And I'm just looking forward to going to do that. And I think it's just gonna be me and him this time. Okay. I'm not sure who else wants to go. So if you guys are listening, Lords of Acid's gonna be on Friday night. And then uh other than that, I was just got to spend time with my uh friends and family a lot this week. My uh my niece, a couple of my nieces, but uh spent some time with my youngest and youngest niece this week. And uh I got to hang out with her father and my sister, and we had a great time. We all went out after a while. We left the baby at home with the grandma and grandfather. Nice, went out, had some drinks, and got to hang out with my sister and you know, her boyfriend had a good time. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:18

That's awesome. Those are three really good things.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

All good things.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Thank you so much for doing this. This was a ton of fun, and I'm really glad that you decided that you weren't gonna let being out of your comfort zone like get in the way because it's one of the reasons why I do this. Like I like connecting with people, and I I feel like post-COVID, I struggled with that a little bit more. I struggle to like find spaces that I want to be in and and like ways to connect with people. And so this gives me like this really amazing way to connect with this is cool, my friends, friends of friends, and I'm I'm getting to experience new people now too, which is really fun for me. So I'm very grateful for you for doing this. Awesome.