 You know, we can bring up the couple of vinyl records. Sure, sure. Put out, you know. We're live. We're live. I'm good. All right. Welcome to the show. Stevie Rochelle. Is it Rochelle? Is it pronounced properly? Rochelle rhymes with hell. Rochelle from hell is a nickname that one of my early managers, Howie Huberman, infamous Howie Huberman, he nicknamed me Rochelle from hell. Because I guess I was kind of held to deal with that at some points in my early career and maybe still today, so. You know what? Welcome to the show. CEO of Metal Sludge as well as Singer and I guess a vital member of Tough, right? Correct. You guys have some shows. You got Rockin' Pod coming up. The band is still going. It's still going after all these years. Vinyl releases, re-releases. You just came back from Australia. I can ask you about the kangaroos in Australia. Like, what? Did you see any? Didn't see any, no. Damn. Just some pictures in the airport. Or say, airports. So we're in so many. You got sick, right? You got a little ill coming back? Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is I didn't, I wasn't sick during the run, but a couple of days after I got home, I just started feeling, I think we were all feeling pretty run down because the schedule was pretty grueling. Stevie, pause for one second. You know what? I'm just going to record this. I'm just going to record this just in case, okay? Oh, good. Record all. Go ahead. No, I was saying that, I think everybody got a little run down. The schedule was pretty grueling. It was only four shows. And I say only because it's funny. You know, in the last 20 odd years, I see things online where people are like, oh, we're going on tour and they'll post like six dates or something, you know? And when I, back in the day for us in the 80s, going on tour was like a minimum of two or three weeks, but a lot of tours were four to six weeks or even eight weeks, you know, 40 shows, two months, stretching the entire United States, putting on, you know, eight, 10,000 miles. So going somewhere for a week and doing four dates is really not a tour. But in so many ways, and I've tried to articulate this to guys per se that are in local bands. When you play locally and you play three sets a night, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at a casino or something as a cover band, there's a different element to that. You know, sure you played 35 songs or 40 songs, but when you set everything up on a Wednesday night and it just stays there for four days and you walk up and you play 30 songs and from the Romantics to 8675309 and Enter Sandman and Crazy Train, there's a different type of energy that goes into that than playing even a 30-minute or a 40-minute set on a, you know, a club stage or a theater stage, small festival stage, going from city to city to city. There's, it takes a lot more out of you, you know? So it is a continent and, you know, you are going to another continent. So that qualifies as a tour, if you ask me. Yeah, and also entering another hemisphere, you know? Another hemisphere, that's right. So, yeah, we, you know, and even to put this together, I'll just give a quick breakdown. I'm doing a Tough Diaries special edition Australia glam fest tour that I've been working on and I'm gonna publish at some point, but Todd Chase, the original bass player and founder, he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, as Billy Morris, our guitarist, who's played with us for close to 20 years and many people know him because he was played in warrant for many years and was tight with Janie Lane and did solo dates with Janie and did some stuff with Quiet Riot, Paul Gilbert, Trickster and et cetera, et cetera. There in Ohio, our drummer, Todd T. Burris in Phoenix, I'm still in the San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles. So to do Australia, everybody came into LA a few days early. We did a couple of rehearsals. And then on the Sunday, we flew from LAX to Fiji, which was about 11 hours, changed planes and had a layover in Fiji. Then it's about another three and a half to four hours to fly to Brisbane. Then we played Brisbane on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, we flew to Melbourne, Thursday night, Friday morning, we flew to Adelaide. Friday night, we played Adelaide. Saturday morning, we flew to Sydney. Saturday night, we played Sydney. Sunday morning, we got to sleep in the late 30, had breakfast, they took us to the airport, we checked in, we flew from Sydney to Fiji. We had a layover in Fiji and then we flew from Fiji to LAX that Sunday. Later that night, Billy Morris flew from LAX back to Cleveland, Ohio on the way. So in my week, I did seven flights, Billy did nine. I traveled 20,000 miles. I think Billy traveled 25,000 miles. Notwithstanding, checking into a different hotel every day, different show every day, different city, meet and greet, pack upload in merchandise, count in, count out, eat, drink, shit shower, do everything else in between. And then of course you got to go on stage for that period. That's right, don't forget about that part. But there's so many moving parts and that's just tough. So the fact that this was down under with Faster Pussycat, Eclipse, which are based out of Sweden, Wednesday 13 in his band, which Wednesday from what I know, he's from North Carolina but now lives in LA, but his band members are also like a guys from Texas, a guys from here, so they all came into LAX. Oddly, we're staying at the same hotels as my guys and we rehearsed at the same studios and then they got on a different flight on a Sunday. Tough and Pretty Boy Floyd were on one plane. Enough's enough in Wednesday 13, we're on another plane. Faster Pussycat were on a different plane. Eclipse was coming from Sweden by way of Bali and that's just my band and what we did and of course all these other bands were doing that as well. And in only 48 hours previous to that, bands like Enough's Enough and Pretty Boy Floyd were playing Rock Island, which is in the Bikini's south of Miami, which is 3,000 miles away from Los Angeles just a couple of days earlier. So they flew all the way to Miami and back in the preceding 48 to 72 hours. So how many hours to go to Australia from California? About 15 in the air. So you're, for me, from Montreal, which would be on the more the Eastern part of North America, that would be an extra five hours, yeah. That's LAX, yeah. Yeah. So triple that one way, round trip is 30. Last month I saw there was some posts from Chris Jericho and Fawzi and PJ Farley, who obviously is from Trickster plays in Fawzi. They did a run down there, a similar run with the same touring company in Australia. They did a run with Buck Cherry. And I remember Chris posted on his way, I'm going to Australia and he's on the plane, he's all excited and talking about everything. And then on the way home, he took a picture in the plane and it looked like he just got them fighting, the rumble against 30 guys. He was just like, Jesus Christ, 55 hours in the air, I'm wrecked, you know? But wow, what a great time. And that's kind of what I was feeling like about 50 hours in the air, seven flights in and out of the airport, coming and going is 14 trips in and out of the airport, 20,000 miles. And yeah, so I sound a little under the weather, a little froggy after a week out. No, it's all good. You can all come up with me. You know what? I have trouble driving for two hours. Right? Going from Montreal to Ottawa is about two hours. So I just, I get tired after two hours, I'm dizzy. So I, but I've never been to Australia and I think that's one place I'd like to visit, but I wouldn't want to do it in a few days. I'd want to take a week or two at least. I was like second time there. I went in 2007. I played Sydney and Melbourne. Great time then. Great time this time. I was stoked that I could bring the whole band. It was Todd Chase and Billy Morris' first time ever down under. And everybody got along. Shows were great. And as many moving parts, there was also two national Australian recording artists and then two local bands at every show. So there was 10 bands every day. Eight of them who traveled daily. So when we were checking in in the airport at six, seven in the morning, there was 46 guys, about 50 to 60 check-in bags. Crazy. 50 to 60 carry-ons, guitar cases, bass cases, you know, boxes of merchandise. And believe it or not, nobody missed a flight. Nobody missed a gig. Nobody ran late. Nobody canceled. There was no fighting, arguing. There was some stern words from a few of us, you know, leaders in the groups, hey, fucking pay attention, you know. We're gonna miss something here, you know. So, but yeah, moving 50 guys daily. That qualifies as a tour if you ask me. Yeah, it was. And I'm sure if this was 1989, that would be the same situation. Right. And you do a few dates in Australia and you go out. I mean, there's not much you can do there, right? Yeah, a lot of moving parts, but it worked and a lot of work. But at the end of the day, it was great to get on stage and play. The fans were awesome. The promoter was killer. I mean, he was so organized. It was scary how detailed it was, you know. But everybody had to do their part, you know. Okay, I'm getting a question here. Parents saying, Jim asked Stevie if he had to be on a plane to Australia with Bobby Blotzer or Sebastian Bach in the next seat, which would he choose? I'd love to be on a plane with both of them on either side of me. So would I, so would I. Because I know I'd make them both miserable. All right, let me show you something. So this is what I did. Before the interview, I go, I'm gonna go dig out my hit paraders and my circuses and all that stuff. And I go, was I even buying hit paraders in 1991? And I realized I did. All right, and I go, I could remember there was an issue with Tuff. So I'm looking through all these magazines. This wasn't it, right? Now let me see if, so I'm not in that one. No, you're not in this one. Okay. And then notice, this is, look how the tide is turning in 1991, where guns and roses. Right. Splash has got white line there, right? Tesla. And here, here's another 1991. This is the warrant, right? Metallica's there, right? Poison, skid roll. Look at that. And we got, on this side, we got Rat, Kiss, Striper, Billy Idol, eh? Yeah. Lita Ford, of course, River Dogs, white line, Bullet Boys. You know what's strange? You could still say these bands are relevant today after all these frigging years. All right, next. Then I found this sucker. I go, it's tough here? No. But you got, you know, Beggars and Thieves, Doro. I don't know who Heaven's Edge is and I don't know who Trouble Tribe is either, but you got Lynch Mob, right? Right. And you could say a lot of these bands are still relevant today, which is shocking, right? They stood the test of time. Wait a second. Here we go. Right when I was about to give up. Right when I was about to give up. Boom. You see it? Well, and I know we were in Hip Raider pretty often because I don't know if everybody knows this, but the editor of Hip Raider is Andy Satcher. He was one of the three main partners of Titanium Records, the subsidiary that we signed to. It was technically four partners. One was a silent partner. The partners were Andy Satcher, Mitch Krochevsky, who was basically part of Hip Raider and Sold Advertising. The late great Paul O'Neill, whom produced Sabotage and created the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and then a silent partner named Sheldon. Those four guys made up Titanium Records, who signed us. They also signed Badlands with obviously Greg, or Jakey Lee and Greg Cheson. Greg, Todd's older brother. So then they also signed Tough. And obviously once things took off, Atlantic took over. But yeah, we were in Hip Raider a fair amount and Andy gave us some press. So what's in there? Let's see. Look at this. Okay. I just want to point this out to everybody. We always have these arguments on the Melvoice site. What's metal? But look at this, 1991. Who's metal's hottest star? So if you transport yourself to 91, these guys were considered metal, right? Where today people say that's not metal, but this is what we considered metal back. All right. Let's flip the pages, shall we? There we go. Who are these guys? Tychetto. Tychetto. Are they still around? I have no idea. And this is interesting. The only real, look, Sepultura. This is when they were getting their feet off the ground. Look at that. Out of Brazil. You have a whole hair metal sort of or glam or hair. But then you have some Sepultura right there. Wait a second. Motorhead's coming out with all bad lines, like you said, right? Right. Motorhead. We're getting to tough. Is Jim Gillette in this one? I don't know. Are you ready? I don't know who these guys are. Singer Pat Briggs recently passed away. Rest in peace, Pat Briggs. Bullet Boys, right? Bullet Boys. These guys are all, I would say, pretty much out there. Look at this great white. Remember this beautiful cover? Yeah. Yeah, get hooked. Oh, hey, Jeff Tate's still in the band. Jeff Tate still had hair there. And you're not going to see Nitro in there, I don't think, because you know, Nitro was a favorite of Rip and Rockbeat. Nitro got a lot more action in Rip and Rockbeat. Look at these headlines. Heavy metal breakthrough. So this is the type of music that we considered heavy metal back then, right? Look at these guys here. Who's Southgang? Do you remember Southgang? Butch Walker. Okay, many guys. Did they do anything? Did they chart or? Well, Southgang didn't chart to my memory or go gold or platinum. But obviously Butch went on to produce a lot of big pop records and he's very vital in that world. Firehouse. Aren't these great magazines to just peruse today? I just love it. Of course, Cinderella, right, Tom? Yep. Beautiful. Sure, there was a lot of regurgitated articles here. How about these guys? Remember these guys? Ignorance, thrash, leaders and thrash. Don't remember them. Me neither. My guess is we're going to have a pin up in there in the back. You're waiting for it. Here it comes. I don't remember the article, but I think there's going to be a pin up. No, no, there was an article. Look and look. It was. Joe Satriani with the hair, with hair, right? Nelson adds, I want to ask you something about Hip Rater. Did you guys have to pay or did artists have to pay for these articles back in the day, like pay to play or pay to print? Absolutely not. However, I will say that, like I just said about nitro being favorited and put in rip or rock beat, it really came down to friendships. You know, Jerry Miller in Metal Edge really liked her slaughter, warrant, poison, trickster, you know, she liked tough. I mean, so there's a lot of a lot of favoritism that goes on that made somebody get more oppressed than someone else. And, you know, well, it's a given. Bantango was taken off, right? With their first like a cafe. As far as pay to play is concerned, here's the thing, if a label continued to spend their press release to say hip reader every month and said, put something in our band, put something in our band, but they never bought any ad space. Oh, there you go. That's a two page feature then that I do remember. Look at this. Look at this. That's I'm sure you have a copy of this. Do you not? I do, of course. Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it? It's nice. Is that a Neil's Lozauer shot or a William Haynes shot? I can't tell. Can you see it? It would probably say in the bottom corner, maybe somewhere. But, you know, the thing is, if a label was continuous in sending their stuff to a magazine to get press, but they never took out advertisement for that band. Might fall by the wayside. But if, you know, like when we had what comes wrong, goes wrong, come out, Atlantic Records took out a full page, full color ad in every magazine. It was in powerline, metal edge, faces, rock scene, circus, hit creator, I mean, you name it, we were in every magazine. And when the label spends that money to say, we just paid $2,000 for this advertisement, that kind of is gonna put a little pressure on the editor to go, hey, maybe we won't make tough the cover story because we're gonna do Axel or Vince Neil or Sebastian on this one. But let's give them a On the Rise column, you know, or Shooting Stars column, or who's hot to look out for in the future. And sometimes that's also just if the editor or the writer is like, I really like Outlaw Blood or I really like Sleaze Bees or I really like this guy because his brother is the producer or the guitar tech or a friend, it's a lot of that. But yeah, at some points, the labels, they gotta support the magazines with their advertisement money as well to ensure they're gonna get a little love. It's no different than any other magazine and any other genre or even any other industry. I mean, if you have motorcycle, motorcycle, you know, if you have a motorcycle magazine, for example. 100%. And if one brand is putting out these, you know, full page ads, yeah, they're gonna tend to look at the press releases of those guys, right? Even newspapers, you know, they put their ads first and then they write the stories to accompany the ads. Well, and that's what I've explained to people before. I said, you know, people contact me about Metal Sludge and they don't want to advertise on Metal Sludge. Yes. And I send them rates and tell them and they say, well, can you do me a favor? Or why is it, why are you charging that? Or can't we just be friends? Or, and I tell them, I said, listen, when you look at an issue of say, Rolling Stone Magazine. That's right. And the Red Hot Chili Peppers are on the cover. Red Hot Chili Peppers are not paying to be on the cover. They're not paying for a cover story. Nor is Guns N' Roses or Marilyn Manson or Van Halen or you two. However, when capital records or Geffen or Warner Brothers decides to put out a best of the box set, the reissue masterclass disc booklet, you can bet that they're going to Rolling Stone and they're probably paying for one page, but they might pay for two pages. They might pay for the back cover, the back insert that buy this box set from Ozzy. This is the career defining box set, blah, blah, blah. And that adds cost in a pretty penny. And then with that, they're going to put Ozzy on the cover or they're going to put the Rolling Stones on the cover because again, like you said, there's got to be advertisement dollars that are shoved into the pockets of the magazine, of the publication, the scene. Even the website, if you want to get that favorable position in their delivery. They got to eat, right? Look what, before we had websites, this is what we had right here, T-shirts, right? You could, I don't even know how legal this was back in the day. Right, probably mostly bootleg shirts there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course you had Jim Joletza singing, I don't know if he was in circus or hip raider. And then what about the lyrics? Look at the lyrics here. Did you guys get paid to print the lyrics in a magazine? We did, as a matter of fact, we were in a couple of issues. I want to say it was hip raider where they printed the lyrics and maybe even like the guitar tab for I Kiss You Goodbye. And then in the end, I remember them saying, hey, we're going to add you to this. And then we got like some kind of a company check for them sharing it as 150 dollars or something like that. Wasn't a large amount, but hey, it all adds up, you know? This was my favorite. Can you draw this guy? You'll can make like $8,000. Right? I don't know. I think my sister at the time, she tried to drew something. I don't know what nowhere though. I don't know what the hell this was about. The turtle, the famous turtle. And you know what's crazy? This is how long ago this was. It just seems like yesterday, the Doors movie came out, remember that? Wow. So is that, that's Val Kilmer, right? That's Val Kilmer, that's right. Right? Yeah, and I went to see that movie and it just seems like yesterday that it came out but not a great movie or at least not a good representation. So there you have it. This is what Metal was back in 1991. Tuff was coming out. Scorpions, Tesla, Dangerous. And you know what? All these bands, even Bang Tango is touring today. Yep. Okay, mine is David Lee Roth. I mean, he's a little older than everybody else. Well, look at that. And Cinderella, yeah, there's a vocal problem is happening with Tom, but look at that. It's amazing. All right, so we could talk about so many things. Tell me about, okay, Tuff, here's a band that kind of, one of the last bands to sort of break before the whole sort of industry collapsed. How did you get into the band? I mean, I know the answers, but the people out there, I mean, I wanna hear it, right? Well, Tuff was formed in Phoenix by Todd and George. Todd Chason, the bass player and George DeSaint, the guitarist. They kind of grew up in the music scene in the early 80s. And Todd had a couple older brothers that were influencing him, notably Kenny Chason, who was in Keel and his older brother, Greg, who went on to be in Badlands. But before that, he was in, I think, Surgical Steel, which was a local Phoenix band. And there was quite the scene there. I mean, that's where Sacred Rikas from, that's where Flotsam and Jetsam is from. Rob Halford at some point was living in that area. So there was a lot of metal. And Todd and George were playing in basically cover bands and local jam bands doing mostly metal. George actually was even playing for a short period with Jason Neustead in a band called Metal Beast, which was pre Flotsam and Jetsam. So I'm guessing this is like 82, 34, something like that. Yeah. At some point, Jason, I know I read the story that he left Michigan, was going to LA and his car broke down in Phoenix and he just stayed there since he couldn't make it to LA. But Todd and George on New Year's Eve of 84 decided they wanted to form a new band and they wanted to do something a little bit more in the way of the Van Halens, the Motley Crews, the Rats. So New Year's Eve, 84, 85, they formed Tough. And they formed it and they grabbed the name when George saw a commercial for the movie Tough Turf, which came out in January of 85, I believe. They saw the commercial for the movie in like December and they basically took, if you look at the earliest Tough Flyers, they took the Tough Turf logo from the movie poster and they just cut out the word Turf. So the tough kind of goes up on an angle. And then at some point, they had an artist do a rendition of the logo. The artist's name was Tyler, who also did the original LA Guns logo that's on their debut album cover. Tyler was the one who created the Tough logo with the jaggedy lightning bolt kind of lettering. So they formed that band and then started doing their thing, playing around Phoenix. They had a singer named Terry Fox, who by all comparisons from the folklore I've heard was kind of like a Michael Starr slash Ralph Sands, like a David Lee Roth kind of guy. But he only lasted a few months because he was actually a very high-level professional ice skater and he left the band to join the ice capades, believe it or not. I remember the ice capades. Yeah, you Google old articles about Tough, you'll see that. So Terry left to join the ice capades and Michael knew of this kid named Jim, Jimmy LeMore, who was in a band called Slut. And they brought him in and he became their singer. Jimmy LeMore is Jim Gillette. So then they did a couple of demos with Jim and in the spring of 86, summer of 86, they decided to move to LA. They cut a four-track EP called Knock Yourself Out and they basically moved to the valley and they started playing gazaries and the tributor and hanging out. And that went on for a little less than a year and Jim wanted to do other more screams. He wanted to do faster music. Breaking glasses. Yeah, and he started, him and Michael, the drummer, came up with that idea, was Jim's idea, Michael helped fund it. They basically put together the metal power vocal lessons and then Jimmy left the band amicably, you know? And so then they started searching for a singer. The last show they did with Jim was in May of 87 at Gazaries and they circulated a flyer that was basically their Gazaries flyer, which had Michael's picture and George's picture and Todd's picture and then a blank square where Jimmy was, they blocked it out. It's just said wanted lead singer, influences Motley, crew, Vince Neil, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Poison, Brett Michaels, Robin Xander, cheap trick. And one of those flyers made it to Wisconsin where I'm from, I saw it and I was like, that's my jam. That's what I've been, you know, everyone's been saying you're, you know, I was the Vince Neil or the David Lee Roth wannabe. And then when Poison exploded in early 87, only five or six months before I came to LA, then everyone was like, wow, that guy from that band on Headbanger's Ball really looks like you, Steve. Like all my friends in Wisconsin were saying that because we hadn't known about Poison other than a couple little clips in the magazines until they blew up. There he is. That's a young Brett Michael, for sure. Deezing the moment, I flew to LA one way, got in touch with them, said I want to audition for your band. I did and a week later I was in the band and a month later we opened for Warwick and at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip and then it was off to the races. So the material off the first album, is that something that you're working on when you joined the band or they already had the music all ready to go? Maybe once, I think Forever Yours was an old song that we reworked a little bit, but most of those songs were written over the years. There's a couple that made one or two from 88, maybe one or two from 89. By the time we were signed, it was already the summer in 90. So I was already in the band for three years. We had done a couple of different demo sessions. We had not only played all over the West Coast but we had traveled extensively through the Midwest, even to the East Coast. We played Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Iowa, Milwaukee, Chicago, Austin, Elbekerke, Denver, Salt Lake, Phoenix. So we had already put in a lot of work and been getting press and were heralded as the biggest band in LA for a long period after Warwick got signed and then eventually we did get the deal. So had to kind of narrow down a 30, 40, 50 song catalog and say, what are we gonna record? And that was part of Howard as well. Howard Benson saying, let's do this, let's not do that. That's no good. Let's work on this one. Let's rearrange that and little by little we put it together. All right, so you sit down and all bands back then the recording contract or not the recording contract, but yeah, okay, the record label contract with you guys, was it fair? 100%, I mean, here's the thing. At the end of the day, our record deal was for $75,000. Okay. They went over budget by 15, so the recording ended up costing $90,000. Faster Pussycat's first record, I don't know what it is, I've read it, but it was less. Poisons that's been talked about, I think they've did their album for like $15 or $18,000 in a week. Motley Crews, Too Fast for Love. I mean, they probably did that for a couple thousand dollars in a week, some of the Metallica. So, I'm thinking Warrant got more, maybe 150 grand, I don't know what Skid Row spent, but there's bands that I know that got three, four, $500,000. I remember Wild Side, I think got a lot of money, Salty Dog got a lot of money, but a lot of money doesn't always mean anything, you know? Of course, everyone would like more money. Everyone would like to say, okay, we got 300 grand, we'll spend 200 on the record and we'll share 100, but that wasn't the case with us. When we got our deal, we asked if there was any advance for us and we were basically told no. So, our producer and manager decided to write into the budget some form of funding for us as the band to live off of for two months while we would record. Really, it's a month, but mixing and editing overdubs. At the end of the day, I've asked this question of people and everyone usually says something crazy. I'll ask you right now, what do you think we got as a band individually per week or per month for the two months while we record it? We're signed to it, Atlantic Records. Per week, per week, I don't know, between 50 to... Look, I've heard horror stories. 50 to $100 per member, maybe a week. $150 a week. So $600 a month. So each of us got 600 bucks for two months, which is basically enough for... I mean, at that point, our rent was probably 200 bucks each and a phone bill or whatever. But yeah, we had a couple hundred bucks, 150 bucks a week while we recorded the record. And of course, we'd go to the studio and they'd buy us pizza for the afternoon or order Chinese food. And it's not like you could have a part-time job as you're doing this. No, not really. That's right, right? Unless you're rich to begin with. So, but then at some point, we did sign a publishing deal with Sony Publishing when we got $100,000 advance. Now, notwithstanding some band debt and a few bucks owed here and there, we were able to take pay off a bunch of debt, which I want to say was in the 30 or $40,000 range. And then we had, you know, say 60 grand left. We at some point as a band said, hey, let's take 30 or 35 of this and chop it up. Everybody got like 7,500 bucks. Then we put another $10,000 in the band account. So when we were going to go to rehearse, lock out for rehearsal room for two weeks to go to work. One sec, yeah, Linda, I'm doing, I'm on an interview. I always have to coordinate with my wife. No worries. So we would like have a chunk of change in the band account that when we had a rehearsal bill due for 300 bucks or if we wanted to buy a couple of road cases for 500 bucks, there was band money. But at that point, when we got the publishing deal, we each took $7,500. And I'm getting that check, which I still have. Did you read? So, okay, did the album get paid off at the end of the day? Well, I mean, it's hard to say because at the end of the day, the publishing deal is through Sony publishing. That's totally separate. We got a $75,000 deal. We went over budget. The label spent another 15 on the record. So they spent 90 for the recording. Well, then you throw in, I don't know what they spent on the all new generation video, which ended up getting shot but then shelved. Let's say they spent 20 grand on that. 20 grand. Kissing goodbye video. I don't remember what the total was. I'm gonna guess it was in the $50,000 range, maybe a little bit more. Pretty slick production. You look at that. Then you wanna throw out every full page ad and every magazine from Karang to Burn in Japan and across the U.S. And there was times when we got tour support. Hey, you're gonna go out with Lita Ford for a month. Here's $20,000 tour support. Hey, you're gonna go out on this tour. Here's $10,000 tour support. And God knows how much they spent working radio. Hey, we're gonna try to get that single on the radio for two weeks or four weeks and never. So I don't know what the band, what the band, quote unquote, recouped or what the label recouped, but I would like to think that the label spent several hundred thousand dollars in 1991 trying to push tough, 90 into 91. I mean, they flew us out to New York a few times, press day, flights, bands up at the Novotel, taking us out to dinners, taking us here. We'll take you out to dinner, but they're actually, you're taking yourself out. Yeah, exactly. All that is being built back to us at some point. But when we get dropped, and here's where things can get tricky. We didn't sell enough records to make them go, yeah, we want tough, they went gold, they went platinum, we wanna make another one. When people say, we were signed to a seven album deal, so were we. But usually those seven, those six albums beyond the first one are options in their favor. Now, an example would be like, when Vince Neil left Motley Crue and Warner Brothers said, we wanna sign you, his lawyers could go, okay, we want three albums and this guaranteed and this and this and this, because he's got that position. Top is a band off the strip that said, please give us a record deal, we'll do anything. So when they signed us, if our record blew up, we would have been making a second record. And then we could have said, well, hey, we sold 3 million, you're only gonna give us $95,000 the next one. How about you give us $295,000 and another $100,000, Vince, based on what we had sold, then they would have went, here you go. Kind of like, I think Sebastian Bach pulled a power play with Skid Row. He came into the band, they put out a record, they go huge, now it's time to make the second record, which he had no publishing or songwriting, first record. So he kind of said, hey, Doc, hey, Snake, Rachel, let's talk or fucking right here. Which is the way to do things, I mean, if you wanna make money, right? But let's turn the tables here. Everybody complains, I talk to musicians all the time and sometimes they complain rightfully so. And other times, people don't realize that an entity, like a record label is a business, they give you money and they expect, if they give you $200,000, $300,000, they expect to get that money back, they're loading you that money. And then just like a bank, you buy a house, they give you money and you gotta pay it back with interest. Is it fair to say that that is the fair weight? What's unfair about the record contracts? Well, I mean, I don't know that that's unfair. It's a gamble, it really is. I mean, I know that quickly, going back to the tough, have to pay it back. When we got dropped, they're basically saying, ah, see you later guys. Thanks, but no thanks. So we walked away from that. I read online where some people said, oh, you had to pay Atlantic records back. We never had to pay them a cent. I mean, at that point, we were dropped and I was back to working at a moving company. What am I gonna tell them? Well, here's a $500 paycheck. Here you go towards the $50,000 video. We never paid anything back. So whether they recouped or not, who knows, we sold about 100,000 units. It's safe to say they might have been close to recouping because they didn't spend millions on us. That's right. Maybe three, four, or 500,000. But when you say is it fair, when a band starts out and they're basically in no words, Bill, like poison, poison got a very small record deal. I wanna say it was like $20,000. They recorded in a week. They probably had no points. There was no money that, you know, they had their publicist Deb Rosner singing backgrounds. There wasn't a lot of money. Then they sell two or three million records. Now they're in a position of power. So their record deal was probably not fair. But poison can say, we're not making another record until we restructure this deal. Because it's not fair. And their lawyer comes in and goes, yeah, you remember when you guys gave us 20 grand and said, you got six days, give us a record? Well, we did. Look what it did. You made a fortune. Now it's time to pay the piper. So by the second or third record, poison got a much bigger advance, a much better point spread. They probably even renegotiated the points and some of the things that happened with the first record because of their position after they had been successful. So, I mean, nothing in life is fair. There you go. You just nailed it. It's just like you said in any industry when a bunch of guys line up at the Columbine in Indianapolis to say, I can run the 40 fast or I can do a lot of 225 pound bench presses. And this is the reason why I should be drafted as the best receiver or in the first round or the second round. And now I don't even get drafted. And wow, I thought I was good. Maybe you're not, you know? Is it fair? It also comes down to this. If you asked me for $200,000 to start a hot dog stand and you don't sell any hot dogs, why should I give you even more money to further invest in your hot dog business, right? It's just, that's what it is. We tend to get very sensitive because music is a passion of all of ours. And when you mix it with business, it just, it doesn't feel right. But that's like- Well, here's the thing too, what happens with talent, you know? Most rock bands, most artists, entertainers, you know, the window of opportunity comes, you know, even in athletes and entertainers, most of those people, their opportunity, the window of opportunity comes early in life when you're not very experienced, when you're not very smart, you're not very worldly. And at some point, there's a bunch of industry folks that are 35 or 45 or 60 sitting in a big office in a tall building in New York City and somebody goes, this is the hottest band since Guns N' Roses. Okay, let me see him. And now you got a 19 year old and a 21 year old with a 22 year old with a record and a 23 year old who's already got a kid and he's divorced and he's off drugs, but everyone thinks they're gonna be great. And then you get him in a room and you start talking to him and you're like, this guy's an idiot. This guy's a pain in the ass. This guy didn't even, you know, he's looking at his fingernails where we're trying to talk to him about a $100,000 advance. So at some point, the industry, the managers, the agents, the producers who start to deal with these young 20-somethings and say, hmm, do I wanna put my energy into these four problems? And is it going to work? And you've heard the stories, some of them are probably true, some of them are probably folklore where Axl Rose said, oh, you wanna sign us? Okay, we want your A&R girl to take all her clothes off and walk from Geffen records down to the 7-Eleven and back and we wanna watch it happen and then we'll think about signing a contract. You know, I mean, did he really say that? But at the end of the day, when you sold 30 or 50 or 100 million records, you know, the stories kind of take on a life of their own. But that's where, is it fair? I know myself, I managed a band for Sweden between 2005 and 2011 called Veins of Jenna, which I plucked from the whiskey when they were 19, 19, 21 and 23. And I did everything under the sun to try to make things happen. And within a very short time, two years later, they were on tour with Poison and Rat, playing amphitheater, signed to Bam Margera's label on MTV. And then they said stuff like, we don't wanna go on tour again unless we're in a bus. We don't wanna go on tour unless we're playing big places. We don't wanna do this unless this. We're not gonna go there until this happens. And I'm like, hold it. Two of you guys just started to be able to drink, you know, a month ago. Now they're 21 and 24. And now they're making all their decisions about what they're going to do and what they're not going to do. And, you know, at some point. How much course? I got it. Okay, you see, the labels gave these bands money, right? And yeah, sure, they got shitty publishing deals. And maybe they got shitty contracts and shouldn't be lost money. They never really made money. But you know what? These magazines were imprinted in young kids. So look at these pictures. You couldn't ask for more publicity to the point where today, that's what a brand name is. It's from the 80s to the 90s to today, these bands are still playing. Toph is still playing because of the money that was invested that maybe didn't get as much return. But people never look at that aspect of things. That's, so you have the bands who came from the 80s and 90s, even the 70s that were imprinted in everybody's brain and they could still successfully tour release albums. Whereas the young guys are trying to make a name for themselves that just can't get anywhere. At least most of them can. Well, in every situation, it's different as well. Like for instance, when you say the 70s, in the 70s, there was a lot of bands, even though there was magazines, there was no MTV yet. No. There was a lot of bands that people would refer to as faceless bands. Like when you think of Motley Crue, you think of Nicky Six and Tommy Lee and Vince Neil. When you think of Poison, you think of Cece and Bret. And when you think of David Lee Roth or Van Halen, you think of Dave and Eddie. You think of Foreigner, you think of the song Jutebox Hero. Even Pink Floyd was a faceless band too. Yeah, but now how crazy is it that 40 years later, 45 years later, Foreigner is selling out 1,000, 1,215 seat theaters with basically no original members. The music is doing the talking there. But again, everything is different. Guns N' Roses is different than Lit Biscuit. Marilyn Manson is different than Poison. Slaughter is different than Metallica. But at some point, there's no one right way to make it or to get there or to continue to do what you do. Like, tough, obviously, we didn't sell millions of records. But me and Todd, 35, almost 36 years later for me, 38 going on 39 for him, even though it was a break in there for him, to go around the world, to be able to play in Australia, play in Brazil, play in Germany, it's wonderful. Three monsters of rock, whatever. I feel very blessed that we're still able to do this. And it wasn't without challenges and putting forth some thought process, articulating a plan, a plan of action, whether it's for three months or six months or a year. And even that logo, I look at through Facebook and I see those hairband sites with 50 logos or 30 logos or 20 logos. And that purple one, that makes it on a lot of those. And I'm like, you know, we made a little footprint, you know, it's still, it's jumping out and... Show me your album. Do you have your vinyl there? I got a couple of them. So obviously I signed a deal about a year and a half, two years ago with Rhino Entertainment Warner Music Group to reissue, remaster and reproduce the debut on vinyl. Now this was only released on vinyl in Europe. It was not released on vinyl in America, just on CD and cassette in America, on CD and vinyl in Europe and just CD in Japan. But we wanted to step it up a little bit. So we made it a gatefold. Hey, look at that. And it's got color options like purple vinyl, white vinyl and black vinyl. It's done great. We also recently just put out the glam years on vinyl. And both of these come with like multi-page, full color inserts with classic photos. They're all remastered, they sound great. The reaction has been great. And, you know, the vinyl craze is there. We've done three vinyl pieces in the last 10 years and I'm kind of mad at myself for not doing 10 in the last three years instead because the vinyl things, you know, it's a collector's item, people like it. And while everybody doesn't have a turntable, some people say like, why would you buy a vinyl record? Who's gonna use that? And I go, well, that's the, you know, ask the same question of the Kiss fan who buys the lunchbox. That's right. Do you think the 57 year old guy who likes Kiss that buys a lunchbox, do you think he takes that to work every day? He eats his lunch out of that? No, it's sitting on his desk. And when his buddies come in to his job place, he's like, dude, look what I got. He opens up the service with the Gene Simmons on it. And that's kind of what these vinyl records are. They're kind of a showpiece and... They could buy them on your site, a metal sludge, is that right? Yeah, they're on the metal sludge store or you can go to the toughcds.com website. There's a store link there. They're on eBay. And, you know, I'm on all social media. If you look under Stevie Rochelle or Stevie Tough or just search Tough, we're on every platform somewhere somehow. So I'm very concerned. All right, let's quickly dabble into this, all right? Yeah. So I see glam metal, hair metal. And then you kind of like Michael Sweet who I love, don't get me wrong, I love the guy. I think he's great, great musician, great artist, been chugging away so many years. He doesn't really consider himself a glam music wise. Right. I mean, what is the difference? Okay, we could all agree to this. Glam is a look, right? It came from glam rock, glam metal. It's a look. It was the big hair. I mean, you know, it's all of this. And Skid Row was involved and Tough was involved and Striper was involved in that sort of look of glam. When it comes down to the music, what is glam music? Is it just simple song structures, melodic, two-minute songs? I still can't figure this out. What's your opinion on this? You know, I saw Michael's post today and I replied and we're touching on this because he did mention Tough. It was an article that was listed and it said, you know, seven great glam bands that should have been bigger or were affected by Grunge or something. And they named Cinderella, Striper, Winger, Faster Pussycat. I think they named Faster Pussycat. Nitro they named. And then at some point Michael said great article, but Striper's not a glam band. Poison, yes. Faster Pussycat, yes. Tough, yes. Striper, no. And I replied and basically said, you're wrong. And here's why. And if anybody wants to go to Michael Sweets Facebook, you can see my two replies. I don't know if you've replied yet, but you know, Michael, Michael's saying that is very similar to what Sebastian said. But let's be clear what he said. Okay, cause I read it. I read your response and I read it. He said our look was glam, but our music was not glam. Okay, so let's just go on that premise. Correct, but I still don't agree with him. It's like Sebastian Bach did something similar. You'll remember this. When he went on the Canadian music show and the guy asked him in interviewing him, this is 10, 12 years ago, and he brought up poison in the scene. Oh yeah, it was a great interview, actually. That was a hero. And Sebastian lost his mind. And he got up and got mad, yanked the microphone up and started saying, do you think in a darkened room sounds like on skinny bop? I don't, we're not the same. You know, and he was furious that poison and skid row were lumped into the same category. Now, what Michael just said, yeah, we looked glam, but we didn't sound glam. I disagree with that because here's the thing. They didn't sound like Nine Inch Nails. They didn't sound like The Smashing Pumpkins. They didn't sound like Megadeth. They didn't sound like Henry Rollins. They didn't sound like- They didn't sound like Priests. There's more Priests than Queens. They didn't sound like Kintu or Bjork. You know, I mean, they were a hair band. All elements of them. They came from the same scene on the Sunset Strip, played Ghazaris with Rat and Motley Crue and Poison and Black and Blue and Dawkin. They came up at the same time. They were featured in all the magazines at the same time with the same exact bands. They toured with the same bands then. And you know what, 40 years later or 35 years later, they're still featured and prominently displayed on the Monsters of Rock Cruise, the M3 Music Festival. And there's some guys in some of these bands who somehow, they might not wanna say it, but they're offended by the fact they're lumped in with it. They don't wanna be the hair band or they don't wanna be the glam band. And my next point, as I said this in my second reply to Michael, he's thinking about his talent. Now is Michael Sweet a talented singer? Absolutely. Is Sebastian Bach a better singer than Brett Michaels? I think we all- 100%, yeah. Is Michael Sweet technically a better singer than Tamey Down, a faster pussycat? I think we agree. Is there arrangements of most of their songs more sophisticated than I want action tonight? Let me interject here, okay? Actually, I kinda see your point and I see his point and I'm gonna tell you what I see. If I never saw a picture of Tuff and if I never saw a picture of Striper, I would not categorize you guys as glam, both of you. That's just my opinion. It's just music subjective, right? I would put Striper more of a Judas Priest meets Queen and I'd put you guys more of a hard rockin' band. But I wouldn't, if I didn't see your pictures, I wouldn't associate it with hair and glam. But because the pictures are there, they just kind of, it sort of inspired the senses to think that there are. And I would also say that the first two Striper albums were more metal, then they kinda went glammy with the third and fourth albums and now they're really heavy band. So, but even Tuff, I would say the same thing about Tuff. But that's just my opinion and that's subjective, right? A lot of people that come to see us, they hear the sound live or they see the band live. And a lot of times we'd get guys that would come with their girlfriends. And for years, even way back in the day, and as recent as in Australia, I'll get guys that go, wow, you know, my girlfriend wanted to come here. I really thought you guys were gonna be posers and I thought you were gonna suck, but man. Exactly, that's my point. It was heavier than I thought. Like your songs, like, are these all new songs? I'm like, half the show is from the debut record. But what happens is when you get pigeonholed, and I'm not saying we were, but when MTV puts out a ballad of me with an acoustic guitar singing, baby, and times are changing, I see it in your eyes. They're like Mike Tramp, Nelson, Hoyzen, Warren Heaven. You know, they're immediately just like, it's another ballad, it's another guy with a headband. But most of those people didn't hear good guys were black or spit like this or lonely Lucy or some of the deeper tracks that are a little bit more metal and a little bit more heavy. Skid Rowish or Judas Priest-esque in their delivery. So, I mean, here's the thing. Queens Reich is a band who was clearly in a different league. Very sophisticated, very thought out, you know, the empire and the operation, mind crime, sophistication of how that record was written and the performance and Jeff's amazing voice, they were not like Hoyzen or Warren or Slaughter. However, Silent Lucidity kind of brought them into this point when right when our ballad was out, Silent Lucidity, extreme more than words, Mr. Big to be with you, which was the last song in the record. And meanwhile, I mean, look at the talent in there, Billy Sheen and Paul Gilbert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super crazy guitar skills and timing signatures and, you know, Eric's an amazing singer with feel and soul, but it was just a simple three-chord ballad that really propelled them to sell a couple of million records. And all these years later, Queens Reich is playing with these hair bands. They're playing on these cruises. And Jeff Tate is as well, even as a solo artist. So the blurred lines like Sebastian, you know, they went to the next record, Slave to the Grind, Monkey Business. They're playing with Pantera. And they were definitely a harder band, but it was really those three or four songs that, you know, made them who they were in their look. I think you nailed it. It's, you nailed it. It's, you guys have been pigeonholed. Like the promoters of let's say called glam and hair, they just kind of lump everybody in there. And in a way, it's unfair, right? Right. Like Dof and Striper, because they can't get the tours opening for priest because, you know, it's not good to put a hair band with. I think it's just a stereotype. And I think you guys are unfairly pigeonholed into this, locked into this group of bands. But that's just my opinion, okay? I mean, it is subjective at the end of the day. But in as much as like you said, Striper's new stuff is heavy. There's some metal. There's some great riffs. Oz plays great. Michael plays great. Obviously they both can sing like birds, but Striper is not getting booked on the 70,000 tons of metal crews. They're not getting booked on the mega crews with mega death and anthrax and Slayer and five finger death punch and Pantera and Metallica and the stadiums. And it's funny. Something else I noted in my very reply to Michael is he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He's been sensitive to certain things when people talk about him or if he gets questioned or put on the spot. But here's the thing, he's saying right now, we're not a hair band. We're not Motley Crue. We're not poison. We're not faster pussy yet. We're not tough. However, two years ago, you can Google this. He was saying, these are the reasons Striper should be on the stadium tour with Motley Crue and Death Leopard and Poison. Now, all these years later, does Michael think he should be on the stadium tour with Metallica, Pantera and the five finger death punch? No, he shouldn't. Cause he doesn't fit there. He could have fit on the stadium tour with Poison and Motley Crue, but they didn't get at it. They took Joan Jett instead. But again, he wants to fit into that pigeonhole if it would suit him or benefit him. But he doesn't, if he doesn't want to. You know what I'd love? I'd love if Michael was on the show right now. It'll be a great debate. It'll be a great, because you know what I love about Michael Sweet? I'll tell you, he's just like you, very opinionated. And you know, whatever the case is, he's very opinionated and he has a really strong opinion. And I really respect what he has to say, just like I respect what you have to say. So it's cool. You know, it's funny, you know, Top has played a few shows with Striper. And I remember we played a show with them in Florida and they were doing soundcheck and he's on stage in this 1,200 seat room. And they're going through the songs and then they stop and he tells the soundman. He's just like, hey, can you do me a favor? I need the 5K to be up just to pinch and do this with. And he started going into all this engineering kind of gibberish ever talk. And I've also read where he's like, I'm super anal to the point where half my, you guys think I'm nuts, where he's like, hey, the backdrop is off two inches. Can you guys go up there and move it? You know, and he wants to certain amps set an exact distance from the drum riser. He's very detailed like that. And he is a very smart guy when it comes to, you know, I'm sure he knows plenty about music and theory and signature and recording and engineering. As does Tracy Guns. Tracy's a real studio nerd that way. You can bet that when Brett goes up and does soundcheck, I'm guessing, I'm going to go out of the way. Or me, or me, and we're not going, hey, can you turn down the 5K in the monitor a little bit? I might say, hey, that's kind of feeding back. Can you muffle that? But Michael is a very smart guy when it comes to music. And his talent is clearly he's a better singer than faster Pussycat singer. He has way more range than I do. But it's not just about range. I mean, let me ask you, are TNT a hairband? Oh, that's a tough one, man. That is such a, that's a tough one. I mean, those vocals, that, that, that. Yeah, but, but they're a hairband. I mean, see, this is my point here. This is my point. This is my point. The lines are blurred. The lines are blurred. 10,000 lovers. Those songs that they're singing, that killer riff, almost like a, you know, just this chunky, crazy, Ingve riff, you know, and then him hitting those notes, but they're a hairband. So a skid row, you know? I mean, arch enemy is not a hairband. No, no, no. And they'll never be, they'll never be. That's a blue hairband. Misrepresented. They're not going to, you know, even though everybody in the band has more hair than most, or more real hair than most of the 80s bands here. That's bad. All right. So let's, let's go off in different directions. It's all good. All right. So, you know, the band, right? Where were we? Okay. So tough. You assigned your label. Yep. You guys went on a tour, I would assume, right? With your debut album. You went across the country. We did two full tours. One across the U.S. on our own. We played the occasional gig with Sweet F.A. one night, Dangerous Toys one night, Dockin' one night, Aldo Nova one night, The Romantic one night. Aldo Nova's from here, by the way. Yeah. Saigon Kick one night. We played with everybody one night. Then we did a tour with Lita Ford. That was Lita Ford with Tough. Went across the U.S. We also went to England. We played in England during the Atlantic run. So there was two full tours and then some sporadic one-offs. And then, I guess, you know, I guess the grunge thing happened. What is it? Like 93, I guess? Well, technically, I mean, Nirvana's record came out in, I think, August of 91. Our record came out in May. We were on the countdown in late July, August. We were on MTV, on the dial MTV. And at some point we got up to number three, as I've told everybody, behind Guns and Roses and Metallica. And the day that we were number three, Nirvana came in at number nine. And their record was only out for a couple months. And obviously Pearl Jam had been out for a little bit and was bubbling under. But when Smells Like Teen Spirit took off, which was in the fall of 91, that's when everything just became a train. Because Soundgarden had already been out. And if everybody remembers, Allison Chains was out from 1990 and they went on the Van Halen tour. That's right. They were getting booed every night. Yeah. People were throwing shit at the stage and Eddie Van Halen came out at one of those shows. He stopped the show and says, if anybody booze this band, if anybody throws anything on the stage, the show is over and we're all going home. These are my friends. Stop it. And he did that. And Allison Chains was fighting their way through that first record. But once that Smells Like Teen Spirit hit, then everything, you know, and obviously all the, there was the Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Allison Chains. And then what was that super group they had? Smashing pumpkins. No, no, no. Oh, mother love bone. No, that came out of the dog. Temple of the dog. And then that started getting played and then tad and then screaming trees and it seemed like, you know, then the hula hoops are out of fashion, right? And they're just moving off to the next thing. A lot of those guys were all intertwined. Like, you know, we used to be in this band and we did this as a side project. And yeah, mother love bone came out, but Andrew died, I think. Yes. Or it actually came out because he was, everybody was thinking that that kid was going to be a superstar. And obviously, sadly, he passed away before they had the chance to experience it. At what point do you remember when the term, and this is rambund saying, at what point do you remember the word hair metal or hair band first appeared? Because I'm trying to remember this. I don't even know if it was in the 80s. It must have been. I don't know. I know I've read somewhere where Eddie Trunk is, you know, he's obviously, he's not favorable to it. Some people aren't. Obviously, I penned a song called American Hair Band. Yes. Which came out in 2001. It's a great song, by the way. Yeah, it got a great reaction. It still does to this day. But I never looked at being called a hair band or hair metal as being derogatory. No different than back in the 80s when people would go, you're in a heavy metal band, you know? Yeah. Metal dude or crash. When you were on tour, what did they call you? What do you remember? Oh, you're in a metal band? Oh, you're in a metal band? I don't even remember. Yeah, I don't remember either. But what happens is for the younger fans, and I did this as well, when I was a kid, I would go to the music store and I'd look through the albums and if somebody had a warlock, I bought it. Yeah. You know, somebody looked a little bit like Nicky Six or Vince Neil or Robin Crosby. I was like, well, that guy looks cool. This must be a badass record. Like Diamond Rex. I remember seeing that and the guy had like a warlock or whatever, Flying V and this light bulb. I'm like, these guys have to be cool. Look at his guitar. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just know that I liked all those, you know, those influences, those things that made me just go, I like that for this reason. And when we went out on the road, I think fans were like, they kind of remind me of poison. They kind of remind me of Motley Crue. There's, you know, and by this point, being compared to Van Halen became old, you know? Because this is, you know, now 86, 87, by the time I joined Tough, David Lee Roth had already left Van Halen. But, you know, two or three years earlier in 1984, when I started screwing around with bands and garages, any girl that ever saw me and my hair was touching my shoulders, she's like, oh my God, he looks like David Lee Roth, which I looked nothing like David Lee Roth. But because I had blonde hair and it was kind of shaggy and I was, you know, singing jump at a bar, like David Lee Roth clone, you know? And then shortly after that, I started singing looks that kill in red hot. So I was a Vince Neil clone, you know? And then a couple of years after that, when poison came out, I was suddenly a Brett Michaels clone. I think the term back then was glam. You know, it was glam metal. It was hovering, I think hair metal must have been in the 90s and 2000s. Or just heavy metal, you know? In the 80s, Raven, Metallica, Armored Saint, Motley Crue, Ratt, Bon Jovi. It was all just heavy metal, at least to me. And I was in Wisconsin in the Midwest, you know? Things might have been different in a bigger city like LA or New York or Miami, but where we were from, and we got a lot of Canadian bands too. We got a lot of Rush, Triumph, Loverboy, Aldo Knorr. They called Triumph and Rush metal back then, right? Yeah, so. And if you think about it, they're really not metal, you know? Like Iron Maiden was metal. Judas Priest was metal. Saxon was metal. And then like when Queenswright came out, everybody was like, oh my God, these guys are like Iron Maiden only. It's faster and the singer goes even higher and more sophisticated time signatures and you know. We had Killer Dwarfs. Yeah, Killer Dwarfs. Which was more leaning towards tough, excuse me, more of that sound, right? But they weren't metal traditionally, you know, like Iron Maiden metal, but you know what, they kind of started and they kind of went a little more climbing. Well, that's why when you listen to our records, when you listen a little bit more in depth past the two or three singles, Todd and George grew up on metal. You know, like I said, George at one point was playing with Jason Newstead in Metal Beast. George's influences were Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhodes first. You know, Todd's influences with his brothers were Judas Priest, Staxon, Motorhead. You know, Michael, our drummer, he loved Motorhead. He loved the Ramones. I grew up really singing and liking, I guess I should say, New Wave first. I was just a fan of MTV stuff. You know, Devo, The B-52. Get the knack. Billy Idol, Missing Persons, anything that was weird, different hair colors, hairstyles, it wasn't until late 83, 84 that I started getting more exposed to Ozzy, Rush, you know, Van Halen, then Motley Crue and Rat, Black and Blue Bon Jovi and all of it from 84, 85. Then it just became, I became obsessed with anything that was heavy metal, you know, was what I thought of it as. Well, Wisconsin would consider a Canadian anyways. I mean, if you have a question on that. Fastway, I loved Fastway. Helix, I loved Helix. Used to play heavy metal in one of my cover bands. Another Canadian band. Did you like April Wine? Yeah, they were a little older. I mean, they had some people. They were, they were, they were. Anything from the 70s, 38 special, Kansas, Super Tramp, all great bands, but a lot of those guys had mustaches and, you know, that long straight hair, like seals and cross looking, with Motley Crue and Rat and Bon Jovi came out and they had those shaggy haircuts and they were, you know, 22 and 24 and looking like rock stars, you know, and they had memes. It wasn't like, you know, Leroy Gilmore, you know, it was like Nikki Six, you know, those were the kind of things that made me go at 18 years old, I'm going to do that. Now I don't want to do it. I'm going to do it. So tough slows down. And then you start thinking, you know what would be a great idea if I have a website. Now, I guess what, years later, I guess not too many years later. What's six, seven years later? Well, the band ended at the end of 95. In 96, I decided to do my little football cheesehead thing, which was basically kind of a project about the Green Bay Packers. I did three CDs in 96, 97, 98. Spent a lot of energy. It took off. It was a big thing regionally just in Wisconsin, but it was in the summer of 98 where I was just like, I had done a solo record and I was trying to get press. And it was hard because all the magazines were covering Marilyn Manson, Lynn Biscuit, Kid Rock, you know, Power Man 5000, Grunt Truck, just all this stuff, you know, that so far removed from what I was as a solo artist just trying to do some songs and some rock pop rock stuff. And I couldn't get any press. So at some point I just said, you know what? I didn't know anything about the internet. I just got on the computer and, but I knew the internet was kind of coming and the future was going to be. Yes, yeah. And I just said, okay, I have this idea. I want to create a website and talk about the music from the 80s, where I came from, meaning the sunset strip and everything related to 80s hard rock, 80s metal, hair metal, hair bands and do it with a tongue in cheek, kind of a Saturday Night Live meets Howard Stern meets. No, that's close enough. You know, Second City TV, you know, like just gimmicky kind of stuff and stuff that was kind of quirky and snarky and smart assy. But at the same time and create a little place for people that we could, everybody could talk about, you know, their favorites. And we had these like chat rooms where people would log on and go, I love Sleaze Bees and somebody would be like, oh my God, I love Stranger Than Paradise. That's awesome. And then somebody would start talking about Kick Tracy or Nitro or Rhino Bucket and it would be somebody in Denver and somebody in Brazil and somebody in England. And just, it kind of took on a life of its own. And then we just started adding little articles and comments and opinion and started doing interviews. And it just little by little took on a life of its own. So if the press doesn't cover you, do you become the press? 100% that was exactly my thought. If I can't get press, I will be the press. And I wanted to not only pimp myself, but I also wanted to pimp and give love to people that I thought deserved it. I liked Bang Tango, I liked Rhino Bucket, I liked some of the bands that were working hard. And what happened is when Metal Edge would cover the era or when Spin Magazine would do a once a year article, it would be on Poison, Warrant, Slaughter, Cinderella, Firehouse, Faster Pussycat. It'd be the same three or four bands every year on tour that would get anything beyond small press. And I was like, I want to find out what the guy from King of the Hill is doing. I want to know what the guy from Johnny Crash is doing. You know what, strange enough, the Metal Voice 12 years ago, we had that same contemplation. We go, you know what, it was a little different. It wasn't the hair metal, it was more classic metal guys. Why isn't anybody covering Saxon? Why isn't anybody covering Except? And back then there was no coverage. You're talking about 2012 here, 2011. So there you go. So yeah, we wanted to cover the obscure and just kind of drag stuff out. Slave Raider out of Minneapolis, Outlaw Blood, Pariah out of Austin, Ticaddo, Brittany Fox, Heaven's Edge, stuff that not everybody had heard of in literally 10 years, like what you just opened that magazine, that hip Raider. Anything that didn't sell a million records, I mean, most of those guys like, where are they now? So we kind of wanted to do our version of that with the site. So the site was always known as an edgy site, it still is, right? You're always on the edge of, so where's that line in journalism, right? Is it journalism? Is it just, is it blurred? Like between ethics and sort of comedy, right? Like, where is it? When you say that, like what do you mean though? I'm trying to say that it's edgy. How far do you bring it? How far do you go edge-wise? Well, here's the thing. I'm trying to rephrase the question in a proper way. Right, for starters, what we did in 98 in 2000, 2002 and five is different than we can do in 2020 or 22 or 23. That's right. The Me Too movement alone changes a lot of the game. And that doesn't even have anything to do with me. That has to do with Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Ron Jeremy. There's guys that are going to prison for something they did or said or actions they behaved with 20 or 25 years ago or 40 years ago. So the fact that we would make jokes on Metal Sludge or make snarky comments that might be a little below the bell, the internet in 98, 99, 2000 was the wild, wild West. Oh, pleasant. Little by little, things had to be reined in. So, but at the same time, I've had people say to me, Paul Gargano of Metal Sludge at some point has called into question the content of my site or what real journalism is. And here's the thing. I never set out to be a journalist. We're not Time Magazine. We're not Rolling Stone. And you know what? If Tommy Lee shows his penis on Instagram, we're going to talk about it. Just like how we sternwood. And Paul, if you're listening, buddy, he would kind of make it like, they're not going to do that kind of low end hanging fruit. But this morning I saw an article on Metal Sludge. They're talking about Tommy Lee's nuts. Well, I guess the Tommy Lee's ball bag gets clicks on Metal Sludge. So that's why Metal Sludge is covering it. So we set out to do something that would kind of raise awareness or be water cooler talk. Like when Saturday Night Live would do a skit and they'd make fun of, I don't know, Donald Trump, Britney Spears, whoever, Elon Musk. What happens on Monday at work? Oh my God, that was fucking hysterical. So at some point we used to do that kind of stuff with Sludge. We would push the envelope. We would do stuff that maybe Howard Stern would do. And you know, even including like, hey, let's come up with a Sludge at the month, which was going to be like a sexy girl. But then the Sludge of Hall, it would be some guy that would have, you know, he'd be 300 pounds with one arm. Like the one arm metal dude from fucking Rhode Island or whatever. So we kind of wanted to, we had a little bit of a whack pack of people that would support the side or talk about the side. So people like, oh, your site is clickbait or your site is this, but at the end of the day, tell me anybody when Metal Sludge printed something that was false or a lie. We've broke countless stories. I personally have broke countless stories just in the last handful of years that were world news. We broke the news, sadly, that Tawny Cotain had died. And I got destroyed for almost 24 hours because it was nowhere else. It wasn't on any other sites and people were like, shame on you, Stevie. This is clickbait, this, that, and the other. And everybody kept saying, I don't see it anywhere else. It's not on Blabbermouth. It's not on Eddie Trunk. And I'm like, well, hold it. So if Eddie Trunk reports it, it's true. But if Metal Sludge reports it, it's not. You sent me a text, okay? I'm going to tell you, you sent me a text saying this is what happened. This is the article I'm thinking. I think there's two sides here. Yep. As this is an example. I think a lot of people want to report it. It's just, they just feel that if they do report it, it's kind of goes against the people that want to report it, like the family or the family members, right? I mean, there's two ways you could look at it. You could break the news, which is fine and dandy. But then some people, like myself, I kind of, I'm worried, I don't know, I don't want to hurt the family members, right? Or I don't want to, you know, I don't want to step on someone's feet, right? Well, here's the thing. And that's a fair question, right? But, but here's the thing too. I'm not always reporting news. I'm breaking news. That's the difference. Some guys wait for the press release to come from the publicist. Break, you know, for immediate release, Joe Blow is releasing his solo record. Joe Blow has quit this band. So and so has done that. We're breaking a story to say, this has happened. Now, I can guarantee you that Tawny contains daughters did not read about her, did not read about their mother dying on metal sludge. They knew. But nobody had put out an official statement. And the same thing happened with Brian Howe of Bad Company. Unfortunate that he passed away, but we broke that story. I broke the story that DJ Ashba was going to be the guitarist in Guns N' Roses. I broke the story the last time Janie Lane was fired for more. I broke the story the last time Stephen Adler went into rehab. I broke the story that Randy Castillo told us he had cancer. So these are not always stories that are great or great news, but they're part of our world. And if I report it at seven o'clock and everybody else reports it at nine o'clock, not saying you're saying this, but does that make metal sludge wrong? Did we push the envelope? Because we were there two hours before Blabbermouth or four hours before Eddie Trunk or three hours before TMZ, you know? So I will give you this. I don't think you've ever been wrong about any of these stories, you know? That's, that's, that's- They did it again? I don't think you've been it wrong about any stories- You don't think? I can tell you I haven't been wronged. Okay, I'll say it like that. Okay, you haven't been wrong, okay? How's that? Yeah. Is that a good, fair statement? But you know, here's the thing. You know, I don't want to report that someone died. I think that's the only, that's the only one it's very sensitive for me. Now, if somebody joins a band, that's okay. That's a wild west, right? Anybody, but it's always that sensitive subject of somebody dies, you know? That's, at least for me, that is. Okay, that's all. Well, and here's another thing. The world is different in 2023. It was different in 2020 and 2010. You're old enough to remember as was I. I loved Van Halen. I loved David Lee Roth. The 1984 record was one of three that changed my life. Jouted the devil with Motley Crue, out of the cellar with Rat, and 1984 with Van Halen. Those three singers made me go from professional skateboarder wannabe to a rock singer. But at the end of the day, I remember in 1986, when there was just a trickle of information. David Lee Roth has left Van Halen. Van Halen is fired, David Lee Roth. Patty Smith might sing for Van Halen. What? No, like Van Halen can't exist without David Lee Roth. How long did we have to wait before we fucking knew that? It went on forever. It was like a year or something, you know? Because at that point, hey, here's some information, let's publish it. Okay, what's the lead time? Six weeks, eight weeks? Now, in the age of computers, and social media, and cell phones, and TikTok, and Twitter, and Facebook, and guess what? I just saw a concert, and so and so fell off the stage. He's being taken away in an ambulance right now. How long ago did that happen? Two minutes earlier, I reported that Jimmy Chocolate Chelfon of Kicks had a heart attack on stage. And somebody very close to me that was at the show, backstage, side stage, was basically giving me play-by-play. And I communicated to some people in the camp who confirmed what was happening. So within literally minutes, he's on stage playing cold shower or whatever about to go into cold shower. He falls over, and within a minute, everybody's rushed, and now somebody's texting me, Stevie, you're never gonna believe this. And I'm glad this isn't true, but the thing the guy messaged me, he said, I think I might've just seen the kick drummer die on stage. Wow. And my heart sank. Yeah. I was like, fuck, no, dude, please, you know? So within a few minutes, he's like, they're working on them, they're taking away the ambulance, but Jimmy's okay today, but that's just the world we live in. So in Metal Sludge is a site that I created, that I founded, that I started, and I'll continue to do what I do. And of course, there's a lot of fans, there's a lot of supporters, a lot of people that back it, but there's also my detractors, and I'll accept it because it is what it is, but it's not an easy, it's not always an easy road to navigate. That's the word I was looking for. So it can be tricky at points, but I've released and broke some really amazing news and some good news, and I broke some sad news, and it's never with any ill will, it's just information. And that's part of what we've done, just like TMZ telling us about prints or Michael Jackson or Bobby Bryant. Sure. I mean, it's just- I wanna know what your take is on Madonna. Sad. You know, I was a fan, I liked her as a kid, but I think, man, you're over 60 and you're still wearing mini skirts and tongue-kissing- I mean, it's the overhaul of the face here. Like, do you think, and there's a people who are defending her, and okay, fair enough, if you wanna defend her, you can defend her. But when you look at her and what she's done sort of- She probably looks like Mickey Rourke. I don't know, he was a woman that sort of was aging gracefully. Right. And she kind of like, is it an attention thing? Is it just- Yeah, I don't know. I mean, cause she's obviously worth, she's probably worth a half a billion dollars. She's done everything out of the sun and why she wants to come out in a bikini and high heels and do the splits and say crazy things and, you know, stick her tongue in people's mouths on the red carpet and getting all the plastic surgery. I guess it's her life, you know? But I just, you know, I think it is a little, to me, it's sad, you know? But she's not losing any sleep. No, no, she's actually probably pretty happy that everybody's talking about her, you know? Yeah. I don't think, you know, a lot of people saying while she's aging, she wanted to fix her face. I think this is not a little nip and tuck here. We're talking about like, you know, complete transformation. She looks like she's had a lot done just in the last six months or years since photos of her from a year ago. Like I was like, wow, what did she do? You know, she's starting to look like that one woman from New York that's known as like the lion woman where her face features, they don't even look human anymore. She almost kind of looks like an animal, you know? It's, I think, I think you're right. I think it is sad. And I don't think she sees it. She's just more, I think she's, she just wants the attention so she'll just do anything for the attention, you know? And it's kind of sad in a way. It's, I don't know, I don't know. All right, so, Metal Sludge. All right, what's next for Metal Sludge? You know, it's funny, people messaged me, you know, when things get slow for a while and I was, dude, what's going on? What's happening? And sometimes nothing's going on. That all of a sudden in two days time, there's this guy quits, that guy gets fired, this guy gets a DUI and suddenly there's all kinds of crazy sludge going on. So sludge is just something that happens, you know? And often it's information that comes in from people actually closer to the subject than they would like to believe. And sometimes it just comes from obscure places. I remember one night I was online and some guy started messaging me from South America. And it was kind of broken English. He was writing, he was like, you know, Jeff Tate did this backstage. The band's fighting, you know, it was somebody pulled a knife, blah, blah, blah. They're fighting. It just sounded so crazy and over the top. And of course then a week later, and I didn't do anything with it. Then a week later, we start reading about the band is ready to fire Jeff and he attacked the drummer backstage and he was spitting on him during the songs and there was a knife pulled and people had to separate. I was like, oh my God, this is what that guy was telling me about, you know? So crazy, crazier stuff has happened, you know? So after doing it for a long time though, I can usually tell if something is real or if it's not. We were one of the first sites to report on Dimebag. And it's because we have the message board and there's a community there and people are going to shows and texting their friends and literally, hey, I'm at the Damage Plan show at El Rosa. There was just a shooting. There's ambulances here. There was police, you know, a couple of people are on stage, Dimebag got shot, you know? And we're like reading this and like, oh my God, is this even real? And of course we start doing updates and then, you know, by the next morning, the report are that, you know, Darrell was killed. And it was just like, I actually got a call that day from Time Magazine and they wanted to talk to me about Metal Sludge and, you know, covering this. I mean, this is one of the greatest rock guitar gods of our era from the 80s and 90s who was essentially assassinated on stage by a crazy fan. And so how Sludge happens, of course, there's sometimes we just do random interviews and random fun articles, but sometimes it is edgy. As you said, you know, it pushes the envelope. I don't wanna report on deaths or DUIs or drug addictions or firings, but, you know, and I know most bands today are very, keep a lot of things close to the vest. I mean, Skid Row is a great example. Rachel and Snake, they pulled off an amazing feat because now we found out after the fact, they see these videos, they reach out, hey, Eric, you wanna sing a track for us? Let's just see what you got. They send him a track, he sends it back. They're both like, holy shit, what the fuck, this is fucking insane. And then another one and another one, and at some point he records almost an entire album. They've never even met the guy other than passing in the hallway when he met them or opened up to them on a few shows. And then the first official real meeting is in Vegas at rehearsals and they're opening up for the Scorpions five days later and now they put out this record. And all of that happened under the cloak of darkness. And you can imagine there was probably very, very, very few people who knew. Eric, Rachel, Snake, probably Scotty, maybe one or two others, but they had to keep that like this because they still were, I think they were doing shows with ZP. Yeah, yeah. And that band is watched pretty closely with Sebastian still out there. And Sebastian must be looking at them and saying, you know what, I'm not who I was. I don't have that leverage like we first talked about at the beginning of the show. But that kid, you know, he's not a kid. He's in his 30s, but Eric is an amazing singer. I put him and Dino Jelousic as the top two rock singers that I've heard in the last 20, 30 hours. Yeah, yeah. But they put that record together, released it and it's amazing. I mean, he sings that old stuff amazing. The new record's great. The new record sounds like, you know, some B-sides from the first record. You know, it's kind of like between the debut and extension. Yeah, yeah. Really, really well done. But to put that together, a lot of bands, when they're doing something, they're moving a member, they're bringing someone in, they're even recording, they have to be extremely tight-lipped and cautious because, you know, a leak can turn into something on Blabbermouth on the internet, something on Sludge. And you know, that's how those stories get out there. All right. On that note, tell me where you're going to be next. And we'll continue this conversation on the next show. I think we've been talking for an hour and a half. An hour and a half, my friend. Going to lunch with my son and to the gym. I'm flying to Thailand on Tuesday. I'll be playing at the Rock Pub in Bangkok, Thailand next Friday, February 17th. I'll be hanging out at the Rock Factory in Padia, Thailand as well. I have a feeling I might be at the Rock Pub the following week as well. I'll be there for about a week and a half. I'll be at the Rockin' Pod in Nashville in March. I'll be at the Rare Hair Jam the Friday night before the Rockin' Pod. Then in the summer, Tuff is going to play at Waterfest with the amazing Hair Ball from Minnesota, which is going to be in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, June 22nd. We'll have some other dates around that. And we'll have some other dates throughout the year in the fall. We're going to play Rock Timber, which is up in the Twin Cities. That's always a great event. That'll be our second time there. Minnesota? I think it's Minnesota. And anybody wants stuff, tuffcds.com? Go to the Metal Sludge site, visit the store, find me on eBay. Thanks for supporting and Stevie Rochelle and Stevie Tuff on all social medias. And thank you very much, Jimmy Kaye and the Metal Voice. I really appreciate you. Buddy, thanks very much. And we'll do it again. I know all my meetings out there. I had a lot more questions, but I think we'll save it for next time. We might be here all night. All good, my friend. All right, man. Thanks for everything. Thank you. We'll talk down the road, Jimmy. Okay, bye.