There is a lot of stuff for me to talk about this week, including
answering some questions that our fans have submitted, so this is going to be a
pretty long entry. I hope you’ve got
some time to just sit and read; this is going to take a while.
I’ll start with some really cool news for Josh. Josh has just been unofficially endorsed by
Bergstok Guitars. They are a custom
guitar company out of Wisconsin. They
actually designed and built Josh a 5 string bass guitar they are calling the
“Watson” (yes, they are calling it that after Josh b/c his last name is
Watson. Pretty cool, right?). So, Josh worked with them to describe exactly
what he wanted, all the way down to the custom paint job. The “Watson” bass was finally ready and
delivered this past tour. After Josh
spent some time practicing in hotel rooms to get comfortable with it, he
brought it out on stage for the last show of the tour. Let me tell you, it sounds incredible. The low end that he got out of the new bass
guitar sounds fantastic. Josh is
extremely happy with it. Oh, and
Bergstok is actually also in the process of making Kevin his own custom guitar
too. The paint job was not completed,
but they brought it out to our last show for Kevin to try out. I will say this about Kevin: he knows
his stuff when it comes to guitars. He
is very knowledgeable, and knows exactly what he likes and doesn’t like when
playing different guitars. He is picky,
to say the least. I have seen him pick
up hundreds of guitars over the years and try them out. So I was actually kind of surprised when he
immediately fell in love with the new custom guitar they brought him to try
out. I can’t remember the last time he
seemed so pleased with everything about a guitar; but he loved it. Kevin actually ended up playing it the entire
show, and it sounded great. So pretty
soon I guess you’ll see half of our band playing Bergstok Guitars on
stage. Does that mean the band is kind
of endorsed by Bergstok? And if so, when
do I get mine? Ha. It is actually really cool that a custom
guitar company has taken an interest in our band, and likes what we do enough
to want us to play their guitars. For
the musicians out there, if you come check out our show sometime soon, make
sure you talk to Kevin or Josh about their new instruments. And if you like them, I’m sure Bergstok would
be happy to customize one for you as well.
Here, go check out the BERGSTOK MUSIC FACEBOOK PAGE. ‘Like’ their page, and be sure to tell them
we sent you. So, congratulations to Josh,
who now has a bass guitar named after him.
That’s impressive!
So, I’ve already started working on songs for the next album. And I caught myself wondering, ‘is that
weird’? Shouldn’t I be taking a break
and just enjoying that this album is out and doing well for us? But that is just not me. Like most other things in my life, I don’t
allow myself to be satisfied; I always want to move forward and go bigger and
get better. So the other day I was in a
hotel room with the guitar and a notebook working on some songs for the next
album. I have a few chord progressions
and rhythms that I’m really into, and a couple of ideas for songs that I really
like right now. So we will see where
those go. But I was even more excited
about some songs that we were working on for our latest album, some that just
didn’t make it to the final cut for one reason or another. Actually, a couple of the songs that didn’t
make this album would have been my favorite ones on this CD. There’s one called ‘Girls in Cowboy Hats’ that
has this really driving rocking groove; very heavy on guitar, but modern
sounding as well. Then there is another one
called ‘No Sleep Tonight’ that I absolutely love. We started laying down tracks for it last
summer as we were working on the album, but just couldn’t seem to get the feel
of the song right. It just wasn’t coming
out as I heard it in my head, so we shelved it and moved on to some other
material. Definitely look for those two
to be on the next album. I had almost
forgotten about them until I was going through my old notebook and found the
lyrics. Then there’s another song I
wrote last fall that I love; it is in ¾ time, which I’ve not worked with much
(and I have never recorded a song in 3/4).
I can’t wait to lay some tracks down for this one. Actually, as I’m sitting here writing and
getting excited about this song, I just had an idea: maybe we could record just
this one song sometime this spring and release it as a single. Maybe even just release it to I-tunes or
something, who knows. I’ll see if the
other guys are interested, and then maybe we’ll get something in the works this
spring if we can find some time during one of our breaks.
I’m sure a lot of you have heard me mention the band Wayland
before. Well they have a new song called
“Get A Little” that is just incredible.
I would love to record it for our next album as well. The only issue I have with that is finding
the key to work for my voice. Their
singer has a much higher range than I do, so re-working the song to work for me
might be a challenge. But I have always
admired their music and writing, and have wanted to cut one of their songs for
a long time. Maybe this is the right song
and the right time. I’ll link a YOUTUBE
video of the song here. Tell me if you
think it would be a good one for us.
Random Side note: Speaking of new songs, have you all heard the latest
Kasey Musgraves song “Follow Your Arrow”?
A friend of mine had me listen to that song a few weeks ago. I love the message it gives: do what makes
you happy, who cares what anyone else thinks.
I feel like we don’t hear that enough.
And I subscribe to that philosophy anyway: do what you want, not what
other people think you should do – live for right now. As long as you are happy with your actions,
does it really matter what other people think?
Anyway, I was just thinking about that song and thought I’d share
that. If you haven’t heard it, go check
it out. And how awesome of her to have
the guts to sing something that is non-p.c.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about our friend Brandon that we were
able to hang out with last week a couple times.
He lives in Superior, WI and was able to come out to a few of our
shows this past tour. Some of you may
have seen a few pictures I posted on our FACEBOOK page of Brandon on stage with
us. Brandon has been a fan of ours for
several years now, and anytime we’re in town he comes out to the show. He is actually a huge fan of country music in
general, and knows the words to almost all country songs on the radio. It is pretty impressive.
Here is what I love about Brandon though, and what I appreciate the
most when he comes out to our shows: He is only there because he genuinely
likes the music we play. For him, it
really is all about the music. He’s not
just going to the bar with all his friends and partying; he’s not there to pick
up women; he doesn’t have some fascination with a member of the band; or
anything else. His sole reason for
coming out to our show is to hear the music we play. That is the truest definition of what it
means to be a fan. And we love him for
that.
We don’t really like when people come up on our stage, and hardly ever
invite anyone up. But we’ll always let
Brandon come sing with us, because we know how much joy the music is bringing
him. He doesn’t want to come up on stage
to impress someone out in the crowd – he just wants to be part of the
music. But what I don’t think he knows
is just how much joy he brings me when he is there, or how good it feels for me
to see him happy; to know that he really had fun and enjoyed being at our
show. We don’t see that kind of
authentic enthusiasm very often. So
while people may think we’re just being nice to the kid with Down Syndrome,
what they don’t realize is that in those moments I’m actually having more fun
and enjoying it more than Brandon ever will.
So this is my public thank you from our band to him: thank you for just
genuinely liking the music we play, and for coming to see us. We
appreciate you!
Well, I have received several emails that people have sent in over the
past few weeks with questions they’d like me to respond to through this
journal, so I’d like to address some of them now. I’ll pick a few out here.
Q: To what band or musician would
you credit the majority of your musical inspiration?
A: I won’t speak for the other guys here (mostly b/c they’re not
sitting here with me to ask them about it), but I think my inspiration is a
little bit different than most other musicians.
I didn’t really grow up on country music. Sure, my mom had Kenny Rogers and Reba
McEntire on the radio, but that wasn’t what really got me going as a kid
though. (Okay, I must admit, when John
Anderson’s “Swinging” came out, my aunt and I used to sing it together in the
car) I was more influenced as a child by
80’s rock. And more than that, I was
influenced by my uncle’s rock band. When
I was really young, my mother and I lived with my grandparents. Her younger brother was still in H.S. then
and lived there too, and his rock band would practice in my grandparents’
basement. I remember sitting on the
bottom step leading down to the basement when I was 4 or 5 years old listening
to them practice at night. Thinking back
about it now, I remember how loud it was, how much fun they were having, and how
much it pissed my grandpa off. But I
also remember there being something different about what my uncle was doing at
the time. He was the rebellious one; the
one with the long hair. I even remember
the day he came home with his first tattoo and showed me, but made me promise
not to tell anyone about it. The point
is, for me he was doing something cool that no one else was doing. And he was enjoying it. They all were. He even did the whole ‘move to LA’ thing for
a while too. But I remember that being
my first true exposure to music – listening to them play loud hair metal music
in the basement. Most people ask the
question about our musical influences.
That story doesn’t apply then; but I like that this question was about
inspiration. And that’s where I was
first inspired by people playing music.
Q: if you could add an amenity to
your van, what would it be?
A: Changing it to a tour bus!!! Okay, besides that. For those reading
this that don’t know, we drive a Freightliner Sprinter cargo van; one of the
tall white vans you see more and more of now.
It has the two front seats, a bench seat behind that, and just open
cargo space behind that where we store some of the gear. I’ll say two things that would be equally
nice to have in the van: a bed (or a couple bunks) and a toilet. The beds would be nice b/c sometimes we drive
overnight; or really early in the morning.
It would benefit us to have somewhere comfortable to lay down and get some
sleep while still heading down the road.
We sometimes create a makeshift bed in the back on top of the speakers
with sleeping bags and blankets; but it is not the most comfortable thing to
sleep on. And while I have learned to
sleep sitting up, it is most definitely a restless sleep at best. So yeah, beds would be a nice addition to the
van. Now for the toilet: you have no
idea how much it sucks having to stop every time someone needs to pee. I make sure that I hit the bathroom every
time we stop, just so I won’t be the guy 20 miles down the road needing to stop
again. But still, it would be nice to
not have to stop so often. It turns into
a 10 – 15 minute detour every time. Once
I even thought if we just had a funnel with a hose that somehow ran out of the
bottom of the van, that would work. I
know it wouldn’t be sanitary though; more disgusting than anything else. So for those reasons, the two things I’d most
like to see added to our van would be some beds and a toilet of some sort.
We could skip this entire question if someone out there would just donate
a ton of money so we could buy an old tour bus or something. Then the sleeping and bathroom problems would
be solved!
Q: Favorite movies?
A: If you read my entry from a few weeks ago, I talked about not really
having a favorite song, but having songs that were my favorite at different
times in my life. I think that might be
true for movies too. I have some movies
that I’ve loved over the years; or that I’ve just seen a thousand times and
know all the words too. But I don’t know
that I have a favorite, or even a couple favorites. Here are a few that I’ve seen a million times
and know every word by heart: Tombstone (b/c I’m a guy, and all guys have seen
and know all the lines like I do), and Dazed and Confused (which probably says
way too much about me from when I was younger).
There are probably dozens more that I know by heart, and that I thought
were my favorite movies at some point.
Here are a few movies that I think all bands should have in their
collection: ‘Walk Hard – the Dewey Cox Story’, and ‘This is Spinal Tap’. We quote these movies all the time. ‘Walk Hard’ is a hilarious parody of ‘Walk
the Line’, the movie about Johnny Cash.
Every band or musician has to see this movie. I used to carry around a copy with me every
tour. And ‘Spinal Tap’ is just a classic
band comedy.
Maybe some of you out there can help me think of other great or classic
band/musician movies. Let me know which
ones you love. EMAIL me your lists.
Q: What is the best prank you
guys have ever pulled on each other?
A: Two things immediately come to mind with this question. The first is a prank within the band, and the
second is something I did to another band.
1: A prank Kevin pulled on Aaron
(for those of you who don’t know who Aaron is, he played bass guitar in this
band for the 5 years prior to Josh joining us): We were all walking into a
hotel room one evening and as Aaron (without looking) shut the door, Kevin put
his hand up to the door making it appear that his fingers had been shut in the
door, screaming out in pain. Aaron just
stood there for a second stunned and not able to move – like “oh my God, oh my
God, what happened?”, and then rushed for the door to try to open it to free
Kevin’s fingers. At that point Kevin
opened up his hand showing that his fingers were not actually smashed and that
he was fine. I thought Aaron was going
to have a heart attack. We thought it
was hilarious, but Aaron was fuming. I
think to this day Aaron still vows to get his revenge. (I was going to send you to a Youtube clip
where Kevin describes the prank, but I cannot seem to find the video online
anymore. I’ll have to dig a little
deeper and see if I can find it for you.
Kevin tells the story much better in the video than I do writing it
down.)
2. Mike writes a Parody to Third Gear’s song “Breaking my Own Heart”:
(Here's something you should know about me: i enjoy messing with newer bands that are just getting started out on the road. I consider us the old men of the road circuit by now, so if newer bands have questions or need advice about the road, they should feel like they are able to come to us. That also means if I think I can get away with it, I'm going to mess with the new bands some) Anyway, Third Gear is, uh, was a rock band out of Wisconsin. They were a newer band with some younger
members, and kind of looked up to us old road dogs a little bit. Both bands would give each other shit, but
out of mutual respect and all in good fun.
I would send fans out to their show wearing our band shirt (things like
that). Well they pulled this one prank
on me that was actually pretty good, but went pretty far too. I won’t get into the details, but it demanded
appropriate retaliation. At the time
they had an acoustic song that was pretty popular with their fans, so one night
I wrote a parody of it, just making fun of the band and their music. The parody was called “Being in Third Gear”. Not only did I write the parody, but I
recorded a bad quality audio version of it and made a funny video as well. Then I posted the video on the band’s
Facebook page for all their fans to see.
I will try to LINK THE VIDEO HERE.
If I can’t, just go to Youtube and type in ‘Being in Third Gear’. It should be the first video to pop up. The great thing was that they couldn’t top
what I had done. Trust me, I’m sure they
tried to come up with something. The
song was so good at trashing them that they even had people asking them why I
hated them so much. That band broke up a
few months ago, and separately all the members have told me that they blame me
and my parody song for the break up. Ah,
the ultimate prank: destroy a band!
Well, I think that is enough answering questions for one ‘journal
entry’. And I’m sure you’re getting sick
of reading by now too. If you don’t
already ‘like’ our FACEBOOK page, now is the time. I have posted several ‘retro
pics’ this past week from some old pictures I found, and will post a few more
next week as well. I found some old
photos from early in this band’s history, with some with different members most
of you don’t know.
Also, make sure you ‘follow’ us on TWITTER. I have a feeling I will continue to use
Twitter more and more very soon. Make
sure you check out www.themichaeldband.com
for tour dates, etc. And if for some
crazy reason you don’t already have either of our 2 albums yet, go to I-TUNES
right now and pick them up. We hope
you’ll love them.
Lastly, like I have been doing per your suggestion, below are lyrics to
another song off of our current album. I
hope they help. Thanks for reading this
‘extended’ version of “The Road Is My Needle”.
And don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page to receive email
notification when I post each entry.
“Friends Like These”
I’ve spent all these years out on the road
From town to town and show to show
But the one thing you can’t get back is time
I’ve got a wife at home I never see
Hope she don’t end up leaving me
But if she does I guess the blame’s all mine
I’ve lost touch with my best friend
It’d sure be nice to spend some time with him again
But when the lights come up and I hit the stage
It all just seems to fade away
For a little while I can finally be free
when you sing along to the songs I write
you want an encore at the end of the night
I’m glad I get to be with friends like these
Another sleepless night on the interstate
Don’t know where we are anyway
Is that Omaha, or am I north of Tennessee
I’d give anything for my own bed
Or a home cooked meal but like that song said
“I’m right where I need to be”
Guess it’s part of paying your dues
At least I get to share these moments with you
So when the lights come up and I hit the stage
It all just seems to fade away
For a little while I can finally be free
when you sing along to the songs I write
you want an encore at the end of the night
I’m glad I get to be with friends like these
So just sing along to the songs I write
You’ll get an encore at the end of the night
Yeah I’m so proud to be with friends like these
Friends like these
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