 Welcome to another episode of Let Me Talk. It is tax day April 15th. The tax man! Welcome to the show everybody. Thank you for joining me. This is episode number 746. And I do want to give you a little heads up. I dropped an episode mid-week, an extra episode in case you missed it. With me, Kevin Christie, Amit Zappa, and our good friend at Los Angeles Watchworks, Mr. Beau Gory. And that's our annual Watches and Wonders episode. So do not miss that, my friends. Patreon.com slash Dean Del Ray, where you can get all your bonus episodes of Let There Be Talk, Brand New Patreon, or Sebastian Berantis, and Kevin Muleolar are welcome to the Patreon. And thank you. Anybody looking for bonus episodes and some zooming? I do some live zooming on there. Join the Patreon. It really helps out the podcast, believe it or not. I've been doing this thing for 12 years and sponsors here and there, but mostly paying for it myself and everything. So anything helps on the Patreon. Speaking of sponsors, a lot of you ask where I get all my leather jackets? Standardandstrange.com. Great, great store. Berkeley, New York, Santa Fe, and they are offering a special deal for the Dellraisers for one week. Right now, use the code DDR10 and get 10% off Y2 leathers. Go to the website. Check it out. Standardandstrange.com. They don't ever put these leather jackets on sale. So 10% off and they'll be shipping it to your house or you can go into the store and say you heard it here. DDR10standardandstrange.com, your leather jacket shop. Believe me, Y2 leathers are the best out of Japan. All right, it's New Music Monday. It is time for some rock and roll, my friends. And that's what we have for you right now. Evan Stanley is my guest today. You might recognize that name. His dad is none other than Paul Stanley, who is on this show for episode 500 years ago and was a mind boggling guest. Kiss being the gateway into rock and roll for me. So it was great to have his son on who is tearing it up right now with his band and just absolutely fire. Amber Wild, if you saw a kiss on some of the end of the road tour, they were the opening band and he is fantastic. A killer singer, killer player is Band Rocks. They got two songs right now on iTunes and they're working on an EP that's going to be coming out real soon. So check out their tour dates. They play all over LA. Great, great human man. You never know what you're going to get when there's a giant celebrity. You never know what's going to happen with their kids. Some of them become crazy drug addicts. Some of them go on to do incredible stuff and hardworking man right here, Evan Stanley, believes in the full-on rock and roll dream and I love him for that. Candles lit for him for sure. Before we get into the episode, I just want to spill off some tour dates for you. This just happened. I will be at the Hollywood Bowl with the incredible Bill Burr. What is that? May 3rd, it's coming up here. Just got the date a couple of days ago. May 3rd, Hollywood Bowl. Few tickets left. I cannot believe it. This is the Mount Rushmore of venues and this is the last one I needed to do to complete the Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore to me other than the Cow Palace which is a sentimental and just an incredible historic venue. But the Mount Rushmore really is the Madison Square Garden, the LA form, Red Rocks and Hollywood Bowl. Now there's other venues out there that are fantastic like the Gorge. Wouldn't mind doing the Gorge. Wow, that'd be crazy. But really these are the iconic rock and roll fucking venues growing up. I mean just think about all of the bands that have played at the Hollywood Bowl. It'll make your head spin. Beatles. I just saw G&R there last year. Bruce, everybody. Radiohead. I've seen everybody in there man. Craftwork, 3D. I'll never forget that. Some of the most important gigs to me in there are historic gigs. The very last Van Halen gig ever. Very last gig Eddie Van Halen played is in the Hollywood Bowl. I was there. The very last Tom Petty gig with Cinda Williams opened. I was there. Tom Petty's last gig ever. Those are two really crazy gigs to me because nobody knew it was going to be their last gigs. Rest in peace both of those guys. They're both kings. And then you have the monumental Jim Morrison. The doors live at the Hollywood Bowl. And that my friends is one of the most incredible gigs of all time. A band that started at the Whiskey of Go-Go. A few years later their headline in the Hollywood Bowl. They have custom amps built by acoustic amplifiers. The company called Acoustic. Their whole thing was we want to make sure people can hear us on sunset strip and they fucking blasted that place. I love the Hollywood Bowl. I've drove by it many times every night on the way to the comedy store. I've been in it many times. There's been crazy shit that happened. Remember that guy stormed the stage on Dave Chappelle with a knife or whatever? So many crazy stories in there. I'm going to go there this Saturday to see Pusifer for Maynard's 60th birthday. My man Lerr Primus and Perfect Circle. Oh man. Anyway, to say I'm fired up is just a fucking understatement. May 3rd. Thank you Bill Burr. Dreams coming true. I'm telling you man Bill is just fucking not because he gets me the gigs but he is just a solid, solid fucking friend and I will tell you that right now. Just a fantastic human. May 10th. Two nights or not two nights. One night two shows. San Diego at Mike Drop. Comedy. San Diego. Belco Arena June 5th and 6th. And then Greek Theater Berkeley, California. Obey Area Stomping Grounds. Can't wait for that. Blue Room Comedy Club. Springfield, Missouri. Headlining out there. Can't wait. Couple nights. Then I'm hitting the comedy seller in Las Vegas. July 8th for a week and then back to Acme for the make updates. July 24th through I think like the 27th or 8th. DDoeRay.com for all of your tour dates. Make sure you leave a review. Some of you have been doing it and it's been fucking helping big time man. Thank you for the people that left reviews. I got some new reviews recently. I like this one right here. Dean is a great guy. I'm a fantastic comedian with a golden podcast. I'm very close in his age with him and have so many similar tastes. I love every episode of the podcast. Discovered him at the comedy store the day before COVID shut down. He had me laugh and non-stop. Saw him here in Santa Rosa headline last year. I also saw him opening for Bill Burr. Always funny. Check him out. Get a chance. Get out there. He doesn't disappoint. Keep on rocking. Podcast gold by Chris W of Santa Rosa. I'll read one more here because I think it's cool that the people take the time to leave the reviews. This one's from Benalyn Brooklyn. Love Dean's podcast. Sure makes me laugh, but tells great stories about music and pop culture that sometimes brings me back. Discovered Dean's comedy through his podcast and now I'm a big fan. Thank you Brooklyn. And one more. Philly John. Dean has been in music industry 25 years and has so many great stories and rock and roll friends he's met along the way. Too many great episodes to recommend, but start with John Mayer or Jacob Dillon or Les Claypole. Thank you buddy and thank you everybody for tuning in every week. Now do yourself a favor. Sit back and enjoy my man Evan Stanley right here as we talk about rock and roll in 2024. Candles lit. All right. Here we are another episode of Let It Be Talk and we got a great guest today. Mr. Evan Stanley is here. What's going on man? Thanks for having me. You got a familiar last name. A lot of people know my dad and hopefully pretty soon they're going to know me. Yeah. It's funny. Jacob Dillon's like my best friend for 30 years and it's a it's an interesting thing you know because you got a celebrity rock star dad or whatever if the dad does anything. I talked about this recently with somebody else where like only in entertainment do people be like oh man you know where like if your dad was a plumber and you went into plumbing they're not going like look at this guy trying to be a plumber. You know what I mean? Well I think a lot of people if you're going into a family business that's a trade you still have to work your way up and you still got to have a certain level of competency and skill. I think a lot of people don't like that in their heads if you're going into entertainment when one of your parents is already in it you get sort of a free ride which is definitely not true. I mean you know I'm lucky I've gotten some amazing experiences and had a really wonderful life but I think they forget the flip side of it is the bar is very different you know knowing or for people listening who know who my dad is generally good as shit and great as all right so it's like the the the barometer and the scale that you're judged on is very different but I love it because it just pushes you to get really good at what you do and at the end of the day like there's nothing I love more than music so yeah man I mean I don't really get it you know in the case of Jake I've or with you I listen to the two songs on Amazon if you got songs it's like there it is at the end of the day it's like you can't just be you know Paul Stanley's son and then unless he's writing songs you know and you're trying to fabricate something you have to learn an instrument which is fucking crazy hard you learn guitar then you got to learn how to sing you know a lot of people just I can't sing or whatever so it's not automatic you know I think also like you definitely you'll get some ins for sure which is great but people forget like you can only call someone once so you got to be careful when you do it but on top of that at the end of the day no matter how much you got going for you it's the people who decide they decide what works and what endures I mean you listen to that first wall flowers record and like there's a reason that's endured it's ridiculously good regardless of who his dad is that record's incredible oh my god I mean you know uh you are that thing is like 20 something years old or whatever it's old now and it is classic rock now and a lot of people don't even know that Jacob Dylan's dad is Bob Dylan because the songs are so good you hear it come on the radio and you don't go like it's Bob Dylan's son but I mean one headline six avenue heartache oh yeah Elena's stuff like that is just undeniably great I bet it I bet his dad was like I wish I read that one you know you know yeah he has his fair share of classics though oh yeah of course I fucking he's a master so at one point obviously you're you're you know your dad's Paul Stanley and you're living around the house and do you eventually go like oh wow my dad's a musician do you get into it or are you playing sports or were you into hip hop you know I'm just saying because you came up in a different era yeah I mean I was never into sports I was like a chubby awkward kid I couldn't throw or catch a ball to save my life but I always knew I was interested in music but I was almost a little too close to it for a while because it was dad's work you know to me obviously I love my dad I love my mom they're great but anytime your parent does something I think there's a period of time where it's it's almost too close where it doesn't register but I always listen to a lot of music and then when I was about 10 or 11 my best friends started playing guitar and I went over to his place and he was like dude you got to check this out and started playing smells like teen spirit yeah just on his acoustic but the fact that I knew that song and he was playing and I was like this is the coolest thing I've ever seen like my best friend up here you know that's different because you see your parents doing something or yeah that's your dad that's different but then you see someone that like is your best friend someone you hang with all the time they're doing it like this is the coolest shit ever um so I went home that night I'm like dad you have to teach me guitar and I think I'd said that once or twice before and as soon as I tried was like this is hard whatever and yeah went back to but that just something clicked and uh he showed me a D and A and an E and this uh old folk song down in the valley and he's like if you remember these in the morning I'll show you a G and I did so I woke up real early I'm like you got to show me another chord and that's kind of how it went for the first few days like I just wake him up early before school and he'd show me another chord and then uh then I got a teacher for a while and uh this guy Jean-Marc Belcadie was just like the greatest he's taught a ton of people like a ton of LA guys but ridiculous player and uh and then just listen to a ton of stuff played a lot you know like that was it wasn't like uh I'm gonna be a musician it's just like I I thought that was really cool and I wanted to do it and I started doing it and I was like well I'm not gonna do anything else so it kind of just happened I love it what was laying around whether like some ice man's laying around or what were you playing not much I mean my dad did a pretty like he had some he had some cool guitars and stuff at the house but uh the first guitar I picked up when he was showing me stuff was this old guild um he had these two like guild super jumbos I think they're f-fifties oh I know one's a 12 string one's a six oh dude they're the best that six string of his is still like my favorite guitar and he'd always leave it in my room during high school and I accidentally put a kind of gouge through the top near the sound hole from strumming so my bad dad sorry but I love that guitar that was the coolest but yeah he showed me a few chords on that and then he was like okay if you're serious about this I'll get you an acoustic and he got me uh this little samik acoustic guitar yeah and that was that's what I learned everything on I was like playing green day to no end and then about a year later I got an electric how old are you I'm 29 so yeah you're growing up uh like nirvana green day that was all so green day yeah nirvana and all the 90s stuff was like my friends older brother's music that was kind of like you know that's what we heard trickling down more like pearl jam nirvana all that stuff was kind of like the older siblings music and then to me I was like oh my god this new band green day is amazing I had no idea that like because American idiot was that came out when I was like nine yeah um and I was like this new band they're amazing had no idea that like dukey was this huge record and wow but then I worked my way back but you know that was the first band and first record I found completely independent of my parents which I think is a special thing you know my parents turn me on to a lot of good music but then you find something that really really connects with you that has nothing to do with them and that's like yeah that's special that's something different and the coolest thing for me full circle this has been the coolest experiences since getting the band together you know we obviously had a opportunity to open for my dad at the end of the road tour and that was amazing and we're doing our next EP with Rob Cavallo who's like a hero of mine he's produced so many of my favorite records and when I was talking to him he's like you know Billy Joseph fan I guess he saw us at one of the shows and he was talking to Rob he's like have you seen them like you got to get out there and see this band they're great and like for me to hear that it's the coolest thing on the planet because that guy's like I mean he's the sickest he's the coolest and his writing and his playing too he's a really underrated guitar player I think that's cool to them playing he plays the Billy's rock and roll relics and so do you yeah he plays he plays those and shout out Billy row making the best guitars around yeah I love those things because it's everything I love about a classic vintage guitar but with no reverence you know it's you can get the craziest paint the craziest appointments I mean mine's neon pink with leopard spots yeah you can kind of go crazy yeah yeah your dad had crazy guitars back in the day too after the ice man running stuff you gotta be like the animal eyes yeah got loud yeah I I love uh you know bright shit pink neon greens all that man well I think it just all plays until like if you're standing on stage it's because you want attention yeah and like I want the most attention so I'm gonna do everything to get it it's like I want to be the loudest I want to be the brightest I want to be the most you know and and how you dress and the instruments you play they play into that and I think that's that's something I love about so many so many classic bands that you know I think for a while people kind of got away and did the kind of sad boy thing and you know let's wear let's wear drab clothes sure gazing yeah and like and there's nothing wrong with that like I I really like some of that music for sure but like I want to be seen I want to stand out like I you know I love giant drum sets and gongs and loose sight and well that's where you it's how you grew up man you know that's cool though because that's yeah that's larger than life I I love that and like all my heroes even back to Green Day I saw them on the American Idiot tour and they were like superheroes you know shit's blowing up like crazy they have a huge drum rise or guitars are insane and like there's a huge stage set he's coming out in a cape with a you know baton and a crown and everything like oh yeah that's for king for a day and it's like that's what I love that's that's a show and that's a thing you know that's more than just a song that's inviting you into a world and I think that's the next level it's just another form of art those guys are amazing you know and it's funny because they you know started in that Berkeley Gilman Street thing but you know Kiss was one of their gateway bands and when you watch a band like Green Day you're going like oh I see some Kiss in here you know also the song writing style those songs are undeniable those those songs are crazy and I think what's so cool about them is they really pull from a lot of places I mean I know Billy Joe's way into Death Leopard he's way into Kiss he's way into Van Halen and then obviously all the punk stuff and what came out it's like okay let's make punk accessible let's make punk I know if I say good a bunch of people are like what are you talking about I mean like you know punk is an attitude they applied that to actually playing instruments well you know what I mean I mean that's a tight band that's great lyrical bass playing and really tight guitars and amped up crazy but great drums like they're great great players with a punk attitude but real songs and real well yeah and that's that's what got me as soon as I heard that I was game over all of the great punk is for me comes down to they had great songs yeah you know Holiday in Cambodia dead Kennedys great song you know Sex Pistols God Save the Queen great these are all hooky catchy songs all the stuff that lasted it's like right yeah all the punk that we still the clash you know London Calling all of the undertones too yeah that first record is there's a lot of good punk X you know anybody that had great songs we're still listening to him you know so it's it had the attitude of of you know fuck everything but the songwriting was definitely coming out of almost a 50s buddy thing played on steroids you know absolutely and that's kind of what I love when I first started playing guitar I remember my dad being like if you want to get really good at guitar you got to listen to blues because that's where all the real yeah good playing comes from which I still agree with I think all the best playing is is for sure rooted in blues and that includes jazz I mean all of that's a branch off the same tree and it's always ends at great blues but when I was younger I didn't really connect as much with a lot of the American stuff because it's a little more laid-back a little chorus but then I heard British blues I heard that mid 60s like John Mayall and oh yeah Peter Green and that's like kind of what you're talking about with punk what that did in a way with a lot of classic songwriting it's like you had these guys digesting blues and regurgitating it in their own way but it's so amped up and there's so much angst in it because instead of being sad and old they're pissed and young and it's like you have 20 year olds going at it and it's crazy and that that really opened my eyes to like okay this is this is what guitar playing can be and then through there I found like you know like Freddie King yeah is unbelievable course the way he played the guitar on the side oh he's wearing like this strap never went it never fell yeah that guy I mean he's anything but laid back and Buddy Guy and Magic Sam and like there's so many Mike Bloomfield a ton of amazing amazing Americans but it took getting into the British stuff yeah to get me to really appreciate it you find everything uh how you find it it's it's it's it's not uh there's no right or wrong you know I found the Grateful Dead backwards yeah from the black crows and the mother hips did you really yeah then and then I mean I knew who the Grateful Dead was I hated them I grew up in San Francisco Bay Area so I was like yeah but as I listened to the black crow some orca record and the mother hips who were you know just killing in the Bay Area and then all my brothers once Warren Haynes gets in but it's it's wild how you find stuff you know it's like oh now I like this or maybe your mind wasn't ready for it yet I think a lot of times that's what it is because again like any form of art so personal and I think that's why too you know I don't know if you've had this experience but there are plenty of times where I really connect with the record and I love it and it maybe gets through through a hard time or it's kind of the backdrop to a certain period in my life and then you you kind of wear it out so you don't play it for a while and then a few years you go back and you still connect in the way that it's you know nostalgic but it doesn't hit the same because you're in a different place right I still love it and it still brings you back to that but it doesn't quite hit the same and I think that's kind of what you're talking about there have been plenty of artists that I heard you know when I was younger I was like oh this is cool but whatever yeah and then you know over the last month or year or five or whatever I rediscovered them and it's like blew my mind and and oh yeah you wore it out you know Octung Baby was my favorite record of 91 92 whatever it was there I listened to it two years straight non-stop and then a few months ago I saw him at the sphere and I was like they played octung and and the whole record as now I can't stop listening to it again yeah oh there's the best feeling though when it loops back around and yeah that's what that's what got me so so excited when I started my band um is we we got together with just let's make the kind of music we want to hear and just have as much fun as possible and I think that's why people have started responding to amber wild is like it's just about doing what we love and having fun I mean that was that was really the the prompt is Tommy the drummer and I played together and it was just like okay this is something this really there's a chemistry it locks and then Marsh came in it was like all right we got it and then Jake a little later but the main thing is like let's just have a blast doing what we're doing and obviously work hard to make it as great as it can be but like let's just have a shit ton of fun and I feel like as soon as you stop worrying about like should it be a little this a little of this how does this fit on the playlist how does this like like we'll figure all that out but we're just gonna have a ton of fun and that's like people respond to it I love that people ask me all the time we got any advice on doing comedy and I'm like the number one thing is have fun everybody's just so worried about when am I gonna start making money and and when can I tour and it's like what are you talking about like I never even thought about that all I thought about was I'm up today let's write jokes let's get on stage well that's the thing is like there's so many better and easier ways to make way more oh my god than music or comedy or basically any form of art it's like if you want to make a lot of money quick don't do this yeah but but you do it because you love it and hopefully it becomes a self-sustaining thing but it's like it wasn't a choice I love this more than anything and if I couldn't make a dime off it I would do it every second of every day oh yeah feeling let me ask you because when I was playing music the way you found musicians was the recycler you know as a or or band magazine or you'd go down and see another band and try to snatch the dude yeah but how do you find members these days that aren't you know 50 60 years old that are into playing rock and aren't already in a band it's hard and I think one of the big things now we're in a weird time which I'm excited for I love is like we don't really know what pop music is at the moment because you know what pop is changes every few years and I think coming off COVID you're kind of starting to see trap based pop I don't want to say fall off it's still big right but like with the rise of people like Noah Kahn and Zach Bryan country is huge you kid not that it ever went away Chris Stapleton man it's just the king it never went away but now you're seeing it become a mainstream thing in non-southern states and like okay people are getting back to a lot of organic live played music which I think is so cool and I think it's great great great for rock yeah but what hasn't necessarily caught up is especially in LA a lot of the great players are looking more to be hired guns you know where they play a gig they play a session which is great because you get a little more security you're getting a consistent check if you're good and playing well but you know it's a very very different thing it's not being in a band and no matter how good you are you don't really have security because you're for hire you know I I've done that but like that's never what I wanted and there's no knock on that I know a lot of guys who like they just love playing guitar that's what they want to do they don't really care who they don't care how they just want to play guitar and that's a great great great path for that for me though it was always like I want to play my stuff with my band like that's what really really interested me and always got me going it's just a different feeling and trying to find the right guys is just really hard I think you know the internet's a great thing I scour Instagram all the time it's like we all spend way too much time on our phones and might as well make it a little useful and that's how actually I saw T I I met him by chance he was playing in a friends band um and we had gone to separate shows and ended up at Mel's diner late one night but I'd seen him on on Instagram and I knew he was just like a crazy drummer so we started talking and I got his info and we were playing a couple days later um so I guess that's kind of what you're saying I didn't see him live in a different band but I saw him on Instagram was like oh this guy is crazy and then he had played with Marsh before on a couple for hire gigs and same kind of thing that's you know they were they were doing that as like a just a way to make money but they they wanted a band and we all just really clicked and then Jake met through a mutual friend just you know sending out a text blast to everyone I know being like do you know a bass player do you know a bass player but you talk to a lot of guys because you got to find someone who has the same vision and plays well and looks good and is in it for a band it's so different hard man you know I mean now you got to think to play in a band you I think it's more real than ever now if somebody's in a band because there's definitely you know nothing in it money wise yeah you know what are you doing hey join my band and and we'll cut you in on this 360 deal we may get from some fucking label that's gonna give us five thousand bucks you know oh it's crazy right so you got to figure out other ways to make money course and music has kind of become the calling card if you own your masters and have your publishing you can make good money yeah video games and and commercials yeah it's also tricky of like okay there usually comes a point where you own everything but you don't really have money but you need money to get more done so it's like that's the tricky thing of like okay trying to hang on to as much as you can without really shooting yourself in the foot if you need that upstart to get a little bit of a wider audience but I think you can do a lot on your own now and it's a really really weird time because there isn't really a set path but it's also an exciting time because of that like I had a buddy who his band put out a record a full length at this point this must have been three or four years ago and for the first year it did nothing I mean like really really nothing whatsoever uh and then a year later I think it was 13 months after release one of the songs started trending on tiktok um they didn't make a viral video or anything but that song started trending so a lot of people started using that song so that song blew up like crazy and then people started listening to their other stuff and now they've kind of made a career out of having one viral tiktok song uh on a record that didn't do anything for the first year you know really at all they were playing empty little clubs and now they're selling outplaces and that was just a really weird like they literally I remember talking to him he's like I woke up one morning and all of a sudden it's like we have a lot higher numbers today what's going on and that's that's awesome but I think a lot of people kind of set up their expectations of this will happen instead of being like that's a great bonus but you got to just be in it to play like just doing the thing is what it's about oh exactly like I mean we talked about this before we we started today but like I love nothing more than just playing shows that's the greatest thing in the world and this month we're not playing any shows because we have so much stuff coming up release wise that we're in the studio a ton which I also love but it's like damn I just miss being in front of people like that's there's no better feeling than having people respond to you when you're doing what you love yeah I think there is a there's a there's a big rock scene out there there's so many bands doing it killing it you know I had a band on a couple weeks ago called feel they're kind of like bad company yeah of course they're they're super cool yeah they're really killer Marcus King just dropped like his fucking seventh album or whatever you know rival sons like Marcus King is that guy's like frustratingly good he's so he's insane the most ridiculous singer out there right now and then he starts playing guitar and you're like and that too man come on I know it's crazy but no like you said there's so many people out there I think it's easy I talked to a lot of guys and this is what kind of got me bummed on the blues scene when I was younger because I love blues but for the most part at least in my experience a lot of it was like really jaded older dudes we'll back in my day oh yeah if it's not this if you're not using a tube amp it's like like and I use a tube amp but it's because I happen to like that I don't care what you use it's like it sounds good use whatever you want dude like what's the song is what I always say yeah it's like it was a little too much of that but it's easy to get jaded there's so much great music happening now and there's a ton of great rock there's a ton of great I'm listening to a ton of country because there's so much good stuff coming out and the coolest thing for me is like genres have become a little bit more less yeah they're super blurred yeah the coolest thing is it used to be even when I was like just starting to get really into music when I was like nine ten like and a lot of it again was from the older siblings but it's like okay like I'd listen to the love and spoonful but I'd also listen to my chemical romance and then I'd also listen to you know whoever was big in pop at the time and then the older students would be like what you like this too it's like you kind of were only allowed to like one genre but it's like that's not how good art gets made you got to take from everywhere and now it's like I listen to like my little siblings playlist and you'll have a classic like an oldies like you know a 60s like Motown song next to like the hardest hip hop next to country next to rock and they're just like oh yeah I like all of them yeah yeah they're like great awesome I think that's the coolest thing I think I think people forget that streaming has done a lot of I don't want to say bad it's done a lot of a lot to disrupt the classic model but it's done a lot of good too like there's a lot of really really cool stuff happening and I think oh yeah if you if you take care to preserve the kid in you and continually allow yourself to be inspired as opposed to getting jaded over something you can't really change like there's so much good stuff to be heard and and had did you have a band before amber wild didn't you I did so amber wilds that's that started we started this a year ago and it's the first band that really this is home base you know this is my band before that I played guitar in a lot of bands and then I had a band in New York for a little while that was actually the first band I ever sang in because I didn't start singing and writing until a little bit later I was probably about 20 so I started that band and then that that ran its course so I came out here and it was kind of working production and stuff you know just behind the scenes music then COVID hit and towards the end of that a buddy was having a birthday party is like you want to just do a cover set just play like stones and petty and acd scenes let's just have fun let's just play a bunch of classic stuff it's like yeah for sure and I don't want to say I forgot how much I loved it but you know after being locked in for two years and not seeing anyone that was the best feeling getting on stage and having a bunch of people just having a good time and playing stuff I love and that was it it was like okay gotta get a band together and I dropped everything I stopped taking sessions I basically I love the guys I worked with but I'm like hey I gotta figure some stuff out didn't go back to the studio and it's just like I'm gonna start the sickest band I can and have a shit ton of fun and I did and I love it it's just the best feeling and you know I think any musician you know like played a million shows to nobody yeah I played so many shows to no one it's such a good feeling we're the first show we had people and then the next one we had more people and like we haven't had the show of no one yeah and uh when we were in New York when I lived there we used to play Bowery Electric a lot oh yeah and I love Bowery Electric but dude I played that place so many times to like four people all of whom I could name Jesse on set right yeah yeah so and he he was so cool he really he really liked me and liked us so like even when the draw was nothing it's just like dude just play it's all good so like they'd give us cool slots and like you know if we were lucky we'd have 30 people or 40 people or if we got like crazy one night it might be 50 and then we went back and we sold it out and it was way over capacity and it finally got to a point where they were like hey like you're like 50 people over capped you really cannot give anyone else list you can't get anyone else in like it is so capped out you just you can't it's a fire hazard there's one stairwell down to this basement like no more people and that was the coolest feeling because I played that place to no one yeah crickets I played that place literally I played that place to Nate Leah Lara and cabin and now those were my roommates so like there's nothing worse than setting the that's the weird thing about music it's like you know your hearse and then you get the gear there your sound check and then you go eat or something you come back and there's no one there but the thing is you gotta play like everyone's there because yeah one you never know who's there and two what are you gonna punish the one dude who came out for the people who didn't like no if there's so we played when we were on tour with my dad and them when we were up in Canada we were playing our own headline shows and clubs yeah and that was fun and also that you know a good a very good reality check because we went from playing Seattle which was sold out at like I think it was 18 or 19,000 and for us I think because of the connection people were very I don't want to say they were inclined to like us but they were inclined to be curious but it was great because you know we'd start and the lights go down everyone starts cheering you walk up and then lights go up and you're not kiss and they're like uh oh yeah so like you don't have to tell me open for burrow we're doing arenas yeah so I think the quickest way to stay grounded and and keep it real is you do the arenas and you you know you take that experience in but the next day man you gotta do your own thing and it's going to be 20 people 50 100 whatever yeah that's what we were doing and yeah one it was so cool to see because you know you can even in arenas you still see the first 15 20 rows of faces and the first couple songs they're all kind of what is this what you know by the third song invariably every show everyone was in and like we we won everyone over people were standing and screaming by the end and it's like okay that feels awesome and you do that for a bunch of nights and it's amazing and it's 19,000 20,000 17,000 and then we got to Vancouver and it's our headline show Rodgers oh I got it it's like 50 yeah and then we then we worked our way in so it was like okay Vancouver was 50 which for a Tuesday night at 11 p.m. we've never been there and we put the music out like a week before I'm like I'll take it and they were and it was a good crowd like they were 50 but they were into it you know and then the next we played was uh I think it was Calgary and that was actually really good that was pretty full and they were really into it and young crowd super fun and then we got to Edmonton and there was fucking nobody there that was like I hated Edmonton I counted I counted I'm like if you're not counting the bartender or the guys who work there there were eight people yeah but we put on the exact same show because I want those eight people to leave and tell their friends dude what the fuck I saw this band how were there eight people there this was the craziest thing I've ever seen and you want to leave them talking and also it was freezing and they came out to see an unknown band like let's make it worth their while yeah I've I've never got the like oh it's a small show so let's you don't want to shrink to a venue you want to blow the roof off yeah yeah and like and again I think what really helps is we love what we're doing we have a ton of fun like when we're in the studio or when you know the other night T call me it's like what are you doing it's like midnight it's like let's play so we just started jamming it's like if it's two of us three of us four of us if we're just turning up and playing we're having a great time regardless of who's there so it's it's pretty easy I think to get that to translate just because it's a ton of fun it's like you know you watch people having fun and you want to part in that when you're out with kiss how are you guys traveling on a bus we were really lucky so we we were on a bus with a bunch of the crew guys right right so we just throw the gear and the bus space or whatever yeah so we had there was a little bit of space in one of the trailers that we were able to keep here because we we went pretty light in terms of what we of course um and then it was awesome because the I mean I know all the crew guys well but our our bus was so fun and it's a ton of the people I go really far back with so it was a blast dude it was so much fun just a great great group of people and got nothing better than a bus man because if you were following kiss around in a van you're not going to make it to the gigs because you know because they were they're doing overnights yeah there were there were 16 hour drives yeah times 14 hours or it's like we wouldn't have made that yeah not at all no so now you guys are going back in the studio you got two songs on the stream and you got uh what is it uh you got silver silver and break out yep our next single get and started comes out may 8th cool and then we got another on I think it's June 14th and then I think July 18th uh I might be off by a day or so but May 8th getting started then another in June another in July and then in September uh will be the first EP which won't be those singles so we're gonna do you know we have a lot of stuff and we're just dying to get everything out so we're gonna do a few singles and then we'll do an EP of uh you know unique stuff uh and then just a lot of shows yeah you guys were doing a uh residency at the bourbon room right yeah I love the bourbon room there's great great sound great people great room yeah great room and also like so many venues in LA don't treat bands super well and bourbon room is just that it couldn't be farther from the case you know they're so nice so cool always looking out um everyone from like security to the bartenders to great people great great people what's the load in there fucking stairs man through the front so brutal luckily there's an elevator tucked to the side oh good people don't see yeah but yeah no it's it's right because i'm a comedian now i never think about loading anymore nothing i've been there dude i should i just play the ibeam in san francisco hate street straight up stair load in well that's how awful b3 oh come on places i think it was in edmonton the load in was like a really really long super narrow hallway up a bunch of stairs turn around on a very small landing up a bunch more down a hall down a couple stairs stage there's like oh no off and like you know we have four 12s and we yeah yeah what are you playing uh hues and kettner's oh wow oh cool two two hues and kettner grandmeister 40s wow i just love them they sound great yep um yeah they're they're easy they sound really good they travel well and i throw both of them in a pelican and then p90s on your rock and roll relic right i love to me a good p90 is just the best pickup killer i have a junior a les paul jr that it's a 2001 but i had it read it always sounded great and felt great and i had it refinished to look like an old one yeah and my buddy who did it recommended a company for p90s and i tried them out and then he was asking me like what do you think of women's like i really don't like them i think they missed the mark they're really shrill they're just because everyone tries to make a good p90 and like i feel like a lot of people just overthink it and they try and crazy magnets or this or that it's like uh they didn't sound and he was like here try this and he had a hot 1956 gibson p90 just an old one best and it sounds incredible it's ridiculous and i never really found one that sounded quite that good until i got my rock and roll relics and my rock and roll relics it's just slightly slightly cleaner sounding than that you easily sounds as good it sounds ridiculous as soon as i got that guitar i haven't picked up any of my others and then i got two others from them that have humbuckers in it but uh yeah i love i love the p90s oh good humbuckers are great too yeah yeah p90 is great but yeah good because it's the in between of a telly and a les paul yeah just get this fucking dirt oh if i had to choose one if i could only have one it would absolutely be that and yeah and that guitar also just it's perfect it was made i it was literally made for me so it's the perfect guitar and all their guitars just great great stuff it's again it's kind of what i what i talked about in starting amber wild it's like getting back to what got you into music as a kid because it's there's so much other stuff and you know when music becomes a job like i've been really lucky that i worked retail when i first moved back to la and that was a good motivator of like get your shit together man because i don't like this at all where do we work at i worked at kitson for a minute which oh yeah i know this star yeah uh the one over there by ivy yeah man that was dude oh god owner but then um then i i was complaining about it to a buddy of mine in new york and he was like oh a friend just opened a shop in silver like you should go work there and uh i went and talked to them and they were like why are you quitting and i was like well honestly because the guy who runs the place is like really mean to me it's just like he's not nice and they're like well that doesn't make sense you're nice dude you should come work here as i started working there and i will say as far as retail goes that was as good as it gets they were so sweet um it was great because i was single and there are a lot of hot girls coming in and like it was a fun time but i was going to the studio at night so i was sleeping like maybe like five nights a week and only for like two three hours so i told everyone at the store at ibs and i'd just go to the bathroom and take like naps for like 10 minutes here 10 minutes there um luckily i was able to transition into like a bunch of you know whether it's i got a bunch of instrumentals i do and then i do a lot of sessions and then i teach and then but you know all thankfully was able to make all my my day job stuff music but i think it's easy when when what you love becomes work you kind of forget the parts you love and chorus with the band it's like let's let's just do the stuff we love and i think getting back to that is everything and that's what i love about billy's guitars is like you know they're not overthought out they're just amazing really cool looking great sounding guitars and when you pick them up you want to play you want to write and it makes me want to get together with the guys and do more who is your vocal teacher um a lot of trial and error yeah a lot a lot of trial teachers i i briefly saw this guy don laurence in new york and that was more really i think we're good vocal coaches come into play is figuring out how to not hurt yourself longevity yeah it's like i think a lot technique yeah and like well you got to be careful with that because then you'll technique is a yeah for longevity but you don't want to come out sounding like a theater yeah but i know not on that you want to warm up exactly like a lot of people warm down now there and you know there's no key yeah there's and there's no knock on that there's a lot of great singers in theater but um i think for a long time that was kind of the type of singing that was taught and that's really really great if you want to do broadway not really great if you want to sing in a rock band um and now there's some guys and girls out there are men and women teaching you know longevity and how to maximize your voice as opposed to changing it so i briefly saw don laurence in new york and he was great at just teaching me kind of how to like hey if you're having a trouble with this this is how you can approach it this is how you um and then i ended up actually getting really sick a couple years ago um and trying to sing through that for a while trash yourself which is trashed my voice and i saw amy chatman in la and she is like a wizard that woman is the craziest most incredible vocal coach what was it what kind of stuff was she doing so she has a medical background as well as musical background i think she went to school and did a joint degree in like some like ear nose and throat shit yeah yeah she worked at cedars for a long time but also had a degree and i think she sang opera like you know and she'd scope herself while she was singing so she could see everything wow so she comes at it from a few vantage points and oh she's so great because she doesn't change your voice she's like looks at what you're good at and just figures out okay how do you not hurt yourself doing that and uh but she's really really great i mean but weird stuff like i remember the first lesson with her uh because you know my uh my idea of what a vocal coach was was very different oh yeah and then i start doing something she comes up and she's pressing on my forehead i'm like why don't she's like press lean into my my hand she's like okay do you feel the muscles in the back of your neck and your lower back kind of tense something like yeah she goes that's what you should be feeling when you're trying to sing this no that's how you got to support it this is how like what that's crazy so crazy stuff that totally works right i i think i only saw her three or four times and completely changed how i practice completely changed how i take care of my voice like she is killer yeah um but the great thing about her is like you know i think most great teachers they teach you how to work on yourself by yourself so i saw her three or four times and i i've seen her since just as a friend but like um yeah i only took three or four lessons with her but it really shaped how i approach things now and it's allowed me to branch out and teach myself a lot more without hurting myself yeah i mean you know before i do the bond scott thing what's here i start getting ready like a month out oh for that stuff yeah and it's you're singing so high that'll that'll get you well that's kind of in my range that and ozzy you know yeah those are kind of a range i can do but you know starting from now on it's i gotta go to in-ear monitors because it's just that you know we use in ears for the first i'd never used in here yeah how do you like it and that was crazy because at first you're like whoa what it's very weird um and it's really weird to not hear the audience because they really block out all the sound of course but as a singer man right whoa right it's crazy i could sing so high effortlessly forever right and here because i don't have to sing loud i'm not trying to fight anything it's right there yeah i loved it yeah it's like singing in the studio yeah occasionally i'd pop one out if i was soloing and i want to hear a little crowd yeah and just feel a little because we we were running amps on stage i like a little bit of stage volume yeah so occasionally i'd pull one out but like no i loved it it kiss using in ears yeah so no audience mic so you can hear the audience there are yeah and i ended up bringing some of those in right it was just the first couple nights it was the first time i ever used in ears so let's keep it simple let's just get the band yeah and so without even practicing with them at gigs you're just arena it was it was literally we rehearsed uh in LA for a few days because we were playing a lot before but then we did but i mean with the innards no no we didn't know rehearsals with that so we were right playing a lot around LA then we did three days of like really focused rehearsal for the tour but yeah the big wild card is we don't have ears at rehearsal because it was gonna cost so much to bring it like we'd have to bring in a we had to rent a board yeah i'm like we we can't afford that so we're like all right so luckily the very first day of tour there was a tech rehearsal day one and the first night of the show um which was i think it was october 18th i want to say or 19th right um we were able to get to the arena really early and do like an hour with the ears but that was all we had like i never used ears in my life so wow and then it's like okay you get an hour to try and set them and try and get used to them and then dark stage everything and later it's like okay 17 000 people yeah ears don't fuck up yeah i've never used them but i i'm singing the studio for years so i know once you get used to it i mean because with barn it's all the nuances and the little thing you know it's like see me right out on that sunset it's like he's not you know you can sing at that low yeah on your cat a tv screen you know so you can if you can sing it like that and do the the style of barn with it because once you start screaming over amps you're losing lose all the nuance yeah and also i think for a long time when i was younger i thought okay singing higher naturally it has to be louder right that's not the case at all like i've realized so many of my favorite singers some of them are loud singers but a lot of my favorites you watch you're like wait a second you're not singing loud you're singing right on the mic and you either have any ears or monitors blasting but they're not singing loud and that that also changed how i how i approach stuff where we have a couple songs now that are really really high but it doesn't feel high because also the way i'm singing it's not loud right but it sounds full voice it is full voice but it's not yelling it's uh right it's i think i remember my dad telling me there's a interview he heard with Steve Marriott who's just ridiculous and he's like if you can't put a candle in front of your mouth and sing without blowing it out you're doing it wrong wow wow i never heard that that's why so that that really opened my eyes to okay Steve Marriott with that voice is saying you're not screaming or blowing enough air that it would blow out a candle like all right i gotta look into this i gotta try that's wild i've never heard that yeah all right man well thanks for doing the podcast dude thank you so much for having me on instagram uh amber wild ban easiest place to find us it's at amber wild ban it's across platforms uh instagram is probably the easiest we're all on all the time but we got tiktok twitter x whatever it is now yeah all the others and then uh we're playing a leoton next show is may 9th at the viper room for the release viper room still open dude it's yeah it's it's hanging in there it's hanging in there like where this gone three years ago no literally i was gonna say the last three years you know it's closing it's closing i don't know man i've been going there for like the last three years it's great i think they're going on there 20 20 they're 23rd year whatever it's oh they're they're they're here and yeah i'm stoked because it's a good room it's a fun place i love it yeah may 9th we do the viper room for getting started our next singles release and then just a lot more shows but yeah find us on instagram and uh keep up with us all right guys there you go evan stanley amber wild check it out listen to their two songs on all the streaming platforms follow them on instagram and subscribe to my podcast on youtube and uh anywhere else that you listen to podcasts and leave a review thank you buddy dude thanks so much for having me you got it