 as Jimmy is playing around with his camera. Okay. Oh yeah, oh shit. Now that's too much. Now what the hell's going on there? Okay. Yeah, yeah, okay. We gotta get this right. This is Hollywood, man. We're live. We're live, and here we are. And trying to get the camera right live. Look at that. So we're live. We're live streaming on a metal voice. And you know guys, I finally have a reason to wear my shirt. As Jimmy is playing around with his camera. Hold on, we just got a loop there. I fixed it. See, I finally got a chance to wear my Alcatraz shirt that Jal sent me long time ago. Look at that. There you go. Oh cool. All right, today on the metal voice, a lot of controversy, a lot of comments, a lot of posts, a lot of statements. We need some clarification. Just wanna start things off by saying this is not, this is gonna be respectful. I mean, you know, Graeme's not here to defend himself and we're gonna act most appropriate, kind manner. I respect, personally I respect, and I know you guys respect Graeme immensely and not everybody behind Graeme. We respect immensely. And I'm here to make sure everything stays neutral, cool and clean and that's it. And I'm gonna start things off. Of course, we have Giles, who is the current manager of Alcatraz. Giles Lavery is also my friend and that's why I wanna keep it very, very neutral. And of course, Jimmy Waldo, the keyboardist for Alcatraz, founding one of the founding members of Alcatraz and still is a member of Alcatraz. So guys, what's going on? How you doing today? Okay. Doing good, Jimmy. Thank you. So good. How you doing? Thanks for having us. All right. Alcatraz, and I'm just gonna give everybody a little bit of background here. Alcatraz was formed in 1983 by Grand Bonnet, Jimmy Waldo and Gary Shee. Is it Gary Shee, pronounced Shee? Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Shee. Let's call it the, this version of Alcatraz, that Doogie White would be touring in 2021 with the band. Alcatraz is extremely excited to be able to announce that our good friend, Doogie White, will be singing with us for all of 2021 tour dates. After that, maybe a few hours later, Grand Bonnet went to his Facebook page, and I'm not gonna read everything, I'm just gonna highlight here. I will still be recording and performing with Alcatraz. I am the founding founder and main songwriter and have been since the band's inception in 83. I'm currently in the studio finishing the third Grand Bonnet band album. And once delivered, I'll be working on a new Alcatraz record, and I will announce the new Alcatraz lineup. And then we had another post by Grand Bonnet, maybe an hour ago. I've toured with Doogie White in the past, with Michael Shankar, he's a good friend and a damn fine performer. In my opinion, there is no such thing as too much music. People can listen to one or another, or both versions and choose whatever they like. I'm not interested in squabbling over a name. That's cool. I'd rather just make music and that's cool. But there's a lot of stuff in there that I didn't read because I'll let you guys sort of like get into, explain, and I'm gonna run out of breath. Okay. Just do what to say. Guys, I'm gonna start off with Jimmy, and just so everybody has context in what we're talking about. Jimmy, tell me how the band started, the inception of the band Alcatraz. Graham's manager, Andy Truman at the time, who's no longer with us. He passed away some years ago. Andy was looking to put a band together with Graham, and Andy found Gary Shea and myself, and we met with Andy and Graham, and it seemed like a good vibe. So we went over to Graham's house, and Gary and I, and worked on a couple of songs with Graham, and his garage, and one of which was General Hospital, which was on the first Alcatraz record, and seemed like a good vibe. The plan at the time was to have some other guys in the band from England, and that didn't work out. So we had to find a drummer and a guitar player. So we started auditioning people, and we had a record deal at the time. Rockshire Records had already basically signed the band, and was waiting on us to finish the lineup so we could start a record. And we auditioned a bunch of drummers, and found Jan Javina, and we auditioned some guitar players, and found Ingvei. Ingvei seemed like a good fit because he was in the right vein. We were doing like a rainbow kind of thing, you know, a heavier version of that maybe, but Graham was happy with him. We were all happy with him. So, and Ingvei was a good writer. So we immediately started working together, writing. Okay, I know Clive Burr, right? Clive Burr was considered one of the drummers. Clive Burr was, unfortunately, that didn't work out. Clive was not in good health at the time, and a real sweet guy, and we worked with him for about three days. It just didn't work out, really because of his health problems. The guy was not doing well, and he was given in his best shot, but we could see. I knew it when he walked in the door that he was not a well guy, but a real sweetheart and a real pro, and a good drummer. It just wasn't working, you know? So, and I attribute that to his health problems. All right, so yeah, and just, I'm sorry to cut you off. I just want to make sure we get as much information as possible. So there's four albums that were recorded with Alcatraz, right? Four albums in the history of the band. Yeah, three albums and a live album, yes. And a live album, and you were on all of them, and you and Gary were on in them, like you participated in the songwriting and compositions, and I mean, it was a band effort, right? Yes, yes. Like I said, no parole from rock and roll, which is our most successful record, and that's the essence of the band is no parole from rock and roll. And Inge and I, he lived with me for a while, so we put the material together. Inge wrote a lot of that stuff, and I would contribute bits and pieces. In some cases, I would write all the music, and Inge would interpret what I was writing, but the bottom line is Inge and I put all that together. Graham, like I said, it already had a couple of songs ready to go. So Graham wrote lyrics and melody to the rest of the stuff, and then his two songs, Inge and I, interpreted those, and we recorded, and that's the way the first album came together. Okay, so, and then, and I'm gonna bring Giles in slowly here. So the band comes out with three albums, the band just sort of gets dismantled, I guess, over the years, right? And then there's sort of like a touring version of the band with Graham, right, later on, but not a recording version, right? No, Graham, me and Graham have had many conversations about this now, and this is where we are gonna probably agree, have to agree to disagree with some of what Graham has said. And if you refer to numerous interviews that Graham's given in recent years, in particular in the promotion of the new album, Born Innocent, one could also refer to the Def Forever German Magazine that came out about three months ago where Graham was interviewed. He, at the suggestion of a guitar player he was working with, as part of his solo band at the time, a guy called Howie Simon, suggested that Graham resurrect the Alcatraz name. They called it Alcatraz feature in Graham Bonnet, and this took place between, I believe 2003 to 2013. Graham has told me, and he's made many, many public statements, that this was Alcatraz name only, it was not the original band, it was an effort to secure some more bookings by using the name, and he didn't consider it really Alcatraz, because there was no other original members, such as Jimmy Waldo or Gary Shea. Now, he's made those statements this year, and we would agree with him that this, that was not to be considered Alcatraz, there were no other original members at all. All right, so let's get into this now. So we've gotten the sort of recording history of the first three albums. There was a sort of an offshoot touring version of Alcatraz, and then- Graham's solo band, and they used the name. Yeah, okay, yeah. Sort of like a touring banner of Alcatraz, but then whose idea was it to sort of resurrect the name Alcatraz and to create this new album, which did pretty well, like Born Innocent? Yeah, it did. The idea was mine. We were, Jimmy was involved in the Graham Bonnet band, who recorded two records, The Book, and meanwhile, back in the garage, the first one in 2016, the second one in 2018. Touring in support of the second album, we're at a venue called Brick by Brick, which Jimmy, where was that venue? The San Diego. San Diego, I thought so. The San Diego before. It was that night, we were having a few discussions about the future and where we could go to perhaps move to the next step. And that was when I suggested, Graham, how about we have Jimmy already in the Graham Bonnet band? Most people know Jimmy from Alcatraz. Most people know the name Alcatraz, but not necessarily the name Graham Bonnet, not necessarily the name Jimmy Waldo. However, they sure as hell know who Alcatraz was. So we decided that night to reform Alcatraz properly and do a record properly, and very much reconnect with the style of the first album, which as Jimmy said, is the most popular Alcatraz album, the neoclassical direction of Ingve Malmsteen, as opposed to some of the later versions of the band with Steve Viall, Danny Johnson, which were a little bit more jazzed chords and just a little bit different, not bad at all. Just different. The first album is what resonates most with the fans we have found. Okay, all right. Do you want anything to add there, Jimmy Waldo? No, not really. Like I said, like Giles said, we did the Graham Bonnet band and we just felt that we'd do better if we move the chessboard pieces around a little bit and then started doing Alcatraz, but leaning on the heavy influence of no parole from rock and roll. Because that's what everybody wanted to hear. Even in the Graham Bonnet band is we would tour the world and people would constantly requesting stuff off that record that we were not playing. We were doing a lot of stuff off other records. And it was obvious. It was just like one of those obvious things that those were the songs that people wanted to hear. And like Giles said, it wasn't about, you know, Graham or me or Ingve even, it was about they love those songs. And so we had to be done justice. They had to be the right guitar player to pull that off. Okay, all right, all right. So now I guess we've discussed the past and how it moved. Now we're into the present, where of course we're in this COVID situation, there's no tour, can't support the album. Tell me about the creating of Born Innocent, just the creation of that album, maybe. Well, in the beginning, it started with pulling from drawing from guitar players from Graham and mine are past, which was Bob Kulick, Graham and I had a bad with Bob called Blackthorn, which did okay. And so we thought we'd get Bob involved and do a couple of songs. Dario Molo in Italy, who Graham had done a record with and toured with successfully and really liked Dario's writing and playing. So we decided to bring him in. And Chris and Pelletieri, whereas Graham had done a couple of records with Chris. Annihilator, Jeff Waters was on it, I believe. He did a solo, yeah. He did a solo. He's a friend of Giles, so he did a solo for us. But anyway, we pulled those people in, in the meantime, looking for a guitar player, because the guy we had at the current time as a permanent touring guitar player was not working out at all. And so we began looking for a guitar player. So when we found Joe Stump during the recording of a lot of this material with these other people, Joe, it became obvious that Joe was the perfect guy because of his influence, the neoclassical influence, but also his musicality. He's a Berkeley teacher. Joe is a very well-schooled writer, composer player. So he was the perfect guitar player. So once we got Joe in the band, we leaned heavily on Joe's writing. And the thing that I wrote once Joe got in the band was thinking about Joe. So we were definitely leaning way more on that direction, which it was obvious that that was the way to go. It was just, nobody had to tell anybody anything. It was just obvious that that was really working. We'd found the right guy, and Joe is this great guy and easy to work with, it really knows his shit. And we knew it, you and Giles produced it, Graham contributed, you guys, Gary contributed, you contributed. So tell me about that Giles, tell me about that. Well, we need to just back up a little bit. We did go on the road touring with Joe Stump. And at that point, we were planting the seed for what was gonna be the future of Alcatraz, the next record. We still had some dates that were contracted as Graham Bonnet banned. So we did go out on the road with Joe. When we got back, I mean, we had a particularly hard tour in the UK, it was September last year, where Graham was struggling with some real legitimate back pain. I remember that, yeah. And it was real tough on him, and he really did his best every single night. However, he was struggling. And I mean, Jimmy, you may want to elaborate here, you may have a take on this as well, your impressions. I mean, being on stage and watching him across the stage, you could see it. I have back problems myself, nothing like Graham had. Graham ended up, as you probably know, having a back surgery and plates and steel putting his back. I could see the pain every night. He would come off stage, he couldn't even walk down the stairs. He couldn't get on the van. We had to help. I mean, he was in rough shape physically. But he still managed to pull it off, right? I mean, he's like, and that's what I admired about Graham. He really, you know, no matter how much pain he was in, he just, he did his job, right? That was great. Absolutely. No, he pulled it off and it was not easy. Yeah, yeah. It was not easy at all. We got off the road and we got home and this was probably around Christmas time last year. And then earlier in the year, Bethany decided, I don't even think she decided, she had no choice. Her parents were unwell at the time and she was not able to commit to the type of touring that we were gonna do. And I'm sure as much as she would wanna be there, she wasn't able to because she had to be there for her parents. So she stepped down. What happened then is this opened the door for us to really start thinking about bringing back as close to the original lineup of Elcatraz as is possible. And that was bringing back Gary Shea on bass. So now we have the three people that started the band are now back and reunited as under the Elcatraz banner. We have Joe Stump who, you know, I'll be damned. You close your eyes. That guy is playing, if you listen to those early songs performed live, the no parole stuff live, you close your eyes and it sounds like the record. Joe can really, really deliver the goods and as well as be incredibly creative on his own and write songs in that style. So right at that point, and then we had a great drummer, Mark Bankachaya. And we still do have a great drummer called Mark Bankachaya. So we were primed now to make the Elcatraz record that always should have been the follow up to no parole from rock n' roll. And that is what we endeavored to do. That is ultimately what we did. However, this is also where things became a little bit challenging with Graham. And Graham has made no secret. He is not the biggest fan of heavy metal. He is also not the biggest fan of this type of shred guitar playing, this type of thing. He would, you know, I have text messages from him. I have emails from him. And, you know, God bless him. Not everyone, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Yeah, you know, it's not even my cup of tea a lot of the times. He said, I'm not, I don't like this little guitar shit. I don't like this heavy metal. This, you know, Graham does like heavy music. And he, and there's going to be some, from what I understand, there's going to be some heavy stuff on his solo record that he's working on. But he's not a fan of where we want to go musically. Jimmy and I produced this record. And we were just finding Graham was disengaging more and more and more throughout the making of the record. He was dealing with back surgery. He was dealing with a number of other issues that I will not go into here. And we did give him time to recover. And then we did give him, you know, the chance to come into the studio when he was comfortable, we would go and pick him up and we would drive him there or I would arrange a lift or he would arrange his own transport to the studio, whatever he felt comfortable with. But we would find he would, he just, his heart just was not in this music or this record born innocent. But there's nothing wrong with that either, right? There's just nothing wrong with that, right? If you don't like a star, you don't like a star. It's a little bit frustrating when when you've got a band that are kind of all on 10 and then you've got another guy that's kind of on five that's would rather be anywhere else. But doing what we're, what we're trying to do here, which is, you know, with budgets these days, the way they are record companies, rightly so cannot afford to pay the kind of money that they used to be able to give artists to do a record. This is just the modern, I guess the modern format, you know, people are not buying records like they used to. So everything is smaller, time is money. We're, you know, we're paying by the hour for studio time. And when Graham comes in unprepared or having lyric sheets and not remembering which song goes with which words that he had written the day before and just generally not really being there for us as the lead singer we needed him to be at that point, it became very, very frustrating. And at about song number eight, he told us, I think we have enough songs for this record. I don't want to do anymore. Now, as we know, eight songs on a record these days just isn't going to cut it. To me, I'm going to be honest with you guys, it sounds like you guys wanted one musical direction and he wanted another musical direction. Cause if I was in a band and someone told me, let's do this, a style that I'm not interested in, I wouldn't have my heart in it either, right? And I'm just playing the other side here, right? It just sounds like a difference of musical direction. That's kind of all it sounds like. The real problem with that is though is when you sit down with an individual and you say, this is the direction that let's just say the industry and the band want to go in. And when the singer agrees to it and says, no problem at all, I can write that stuff very, very easily. Cause he would, every single song on this record, except one, musically was written by either the band or one of the guest guitar players that we used on this album. Graham wrote one song musically called For Tony, which is the final song on the record. Everything else was composed by Joe Stump, Jimmy Waldo, or the guitar players such as Quentin Palaterio, Bob Kulick or Dario Molo, Nizumo Wakai or any of the people we used as special guests or outside writers on this record. So when Graham makes a statement and says, I was the, what did he say, Jimmy? He said, I was the primary songwriter and always has been. Yeah, and he has said those statements before and upset some past guitar players that he'd worked with. And to be honest, I mean, I don't know if Graham meant he wrote the lyrics in the melody, cause he always does, but he sort of said things to the effect that he wrote everything. And then he even said that to me about past records he'd done that I know better. So guys, is this statement true then? I mean, let's just break it down. I am still, I will still, I am the founder and main songwriter and have been since the band's inception in 1983. I mean, he has been one of the co-founders, I would say, right? Absolutely, that's true. In regards to the songwriting, that is false. He has certainly written the lyrics and the vocal melodies, but to suggest that his statement would imply that somewhere around 85, 90% of the music was written by Graham Bonnet. That is absolutely not true. Let's talk to someone who was there. I mean, Jimmy will elaborate. Well, it's just a slap in the face. And it's not fair because I give Graham all the credit in the world he writes. Whether they work for a genre or not, he writes incredible lyrics and great melodies. And I know that and we can always count on that and so on, but it should not take credit for things you didn't do. And I didn't, I mean, like I said, the first album that was primarily Ingve's writing, I contributed some. I should agree. So Graham, though, but Graham did too. Oh, Graham wrote the lyrics and the melody to everything. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Major contribution, obviously you need that. But the underlying tone of the record was set by Ingve and us. We set the tone for it and Graham just went, oh, okay, great, also I can write over that. And so that's the way a band works though. That's not unusual. I mean, whatever band. Usually it's the, if it's a guitar driven band, that's the way it works. You put down the music. The band sets the tone and like in Rainbow, that was not, that was Richie Blackmore setting the tone for that band. Those riffs and things were extinct. Jimmy, so what I'm hearing here is, this is what I'm hearing. I'm hearing like, Graham, you are one of the founders. Graham, you did contribute a lot, but so did we. But so did we. Please don't leave us out. So did we. Well, you just credit where credit is due. That's all. Okay, I got you, I got you. No, I mean, we're gonna be fair here. Like, you know. And if you look at the credits on the records, the writing credits, you'll see. It's pretty obvious. But, and Graham's a great writer, but he doesn't like this kind of music. So it is tough for him because he hates heavy metal and he hates this kind of guitar playing. And this is what it needs. This is what we do. I love this kind of music and always have. And, you know, there's been frustrating times, like with Inve at times, he was frustrating to work with sometimes, but I loved his guitar playing. The guy was just from another planet, amazing. But Graham got burned out on that kind of guitar playing. He always felt that he was getting overshadowed by those guitar players. And what the guitar player, what are they supposed to do? Is this kind of music? This is what the people want. And Graham was filling the bill perfectly. Graham had the right, he was the right piece of the puzzle, but he just was not happy being there at all. And that's fine. I mean, you know, everybody, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you guys believe this direction, he believed that direction. And that's fine. I mean, again. But you've got to look at what is right for the band and what is right. There was no sense in reforming Elcatraz, the three original members, and then not sounding anything like Elcatraz. That makes no sense at all. Yeah. No, okay. Fair enough. So, okay. So now the decision that you guys made was, you know, we're going to have, it's strange enough because I saw this, I saw your statement originally and you said, we're going to get Doogie White for touring in 2021. Correct? That is what we're comfortable announcing at this point. We are kicking the ball around with Doogie, is it creatively as well? But nobody said he joined the band. You just said, if I read it right, it just, I think everybody misinterpreted in the press saying, he's joined the band, but you guys actually just said, and I'm going to read it. We are extremely excited to be able to announce that our good friend, Doogie White, will be singing with us for our 2021 tour dates. That's it. That is correct. That is what we are comfortable announcing at this point. Exactly. And I think everybody twisted in the press that he's now part of the band, right? And there is a difference there. There's a difference in what we're comfortable to announce right now. Yes. Yes. Let's just say that there's, hey, the possibilities with Doogie are endless. And we are, Exactly. Exactly. We are keeping the door is always open for Doogie to do more. Absolutely. And we are being creative with Doogie at this point. The guys are. And that's all we're comfortable announcing at this point. All right. So here's a split now. You're going your way. Graham's going his way. Tell me about that. Okay. Well, Jimmy and I will have to back up a little bit here too. Sure, no problem. And again, we got to about song eight on the Born Innocent Record. Eight songs into writing what ultimately became a 14 song record, I believe. 16 tracks if you have the Japanese edition. Now, Graham was having some personal problems, which as I said, I'm not going to talk about here. It was becoming a struggle for him to perform live for a couple of different reasons. One of them being his back problem, which, hey, that could happen to me tomorrow. You know, so I'm not sure. And he's getting over it, right? So it's good. He did turn very negative and very dark saying, why are we dragging the Alcatraz corpse around? Why are we resurrecting this thing one more time? Why are we doing this? I'm tired of. His words to me was I'm tired of being used as a puppet for these shreddy guitar players. The shred term is a term that you're probably familiar with. I'm sick of this music and I hate this heavy metal shit. And he said those words to Jimmy Waldo as well. OK, well, we're not going to get into the he said, she said kind of thing, right? But let's let's just. You want the story. You know, like to me, it's like, OK, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I mean, Graham is not because there's context to here. Maybe he said it in a certain context. Absolutely. Maybe he was and that's where, you know, we just can't isolate. But when but when you when but when you hear it repeatedly, when you're when when everyone's trying to be making a record as tough as it is. And when when when everyone's pulling together and trying to get, you know, it's no you don't make any money making a record these days. You're lucky if you break even with the hope that the record will do well. And I always say these days you you make a record to promote your live show. You used to put on your live show to promote your record. And so when you're hearing this sort of negativity time and time and time and time again, this was not an isolated incident. He just doesn't like this kind of music, as Jimmy said. And Jimmy and I produced this record. And honestly, it was like it was like pulling teeth to get this record finished with Graham. And he may have his own reasons for that. But there was a point where he did. We did push through this and, you know, we went through a dark patch with him. But then towards the last two weeks of the record, where we still had about four songs left to do, Graham did become motivated again. And he did, you know, I thought the dark cloud had passed and we were really, you know, it felt like we're on the same page. And it was at that point that we went out to a Mexican restaurant. Jimmy and I and Graham, after a day at the studio, where he sung fantastically and we I had a copy of the contract printed out a number of actually a number of contracts, one of them also being the contract for his solo album, where he signed and he agreed to what Alcatraz activity was in store for the next couple of years, being recording and touring with this lineup. Graham's never been a contract guy. Like I would always read him the details and he would, you know, I kind of got the feeling he's kind of eyes glazing over going, yeah, you know, that's all fine. That's all fine. And he'd sign at the bottom, you know, but I made sure he understood exactly. I said, you know, please put your phone away. I need you to understand what we're about to do. We're bringing Gary Shade back. We're doing a record. We want to do more records. Here is the touring for the next couple of years. And he was 100 percent on board with all of it. He he did complete the record was actually the last four songs. That he wrote the vocals and vocal melody for were actually for the best songs on the record. So he really had a he was a late bloomer on that record, I guess you could say. And that was really, very fantastic what he came up with. And we were very happy. We were we're thinking, right, OK, cool. I mean, you know, everyone has a, you know, making a record is different for a lot of people. Some people get very dark and when they're in the creative stage or if they it's not sort of a direction they're into. But whatever, you know, everyone deals with this their own way. We did finish the album in, you know, in a good place with Graham, absolutely. And he's not the kind of guy that wants to sit and listen to the mixes. And, you know, he's just like, are we done? Are we good? Have you got everything you need? OK, I don't ever want to hear it again. You know, that's just that's just what that's just what he's like. And I'm a little like that with my records, too. So I can I can 100 percent relate to that. So we deliver the record to to our Japanese label and to our label for the rest of the world. Everything seemed to be in the right place. And Graham did initially start doing the interviews and the press for the record, as did the other members. And that is kind of where things started going south. Jimmy, you might want to pick it up from here. Well, thought everything was on track. I mean, Graham was having his back problems. I mean, he still did have some back problems. He had a surgery, I believe, in December or January. But even after that, it would it took a while before he was going to be right again. And he was in the process of he had split up with his current girlfriend and was in the process of moving back to his condo. And he moved into a hotel for a couple of weeks out in Santa Clarita, waiting for his condo to be vacated and cleaned and all that stuff. I came back. I'm living in Chicago. So I came back and worked with him every day at his hotel to help him. We were trying to do some music, but that wasn't going to happen. So I ended up just driving him to doctor's appointments to get x-rays and stuff because he had he had hurt himself again after the surgery. So we were both I was really worried about him and he was worried. And so we were going to the hospital. I was taking him for that stuff and getting groceries and doing all that stuff. We were everything was fine. And then somewhere in there, I got the keys to his condo. I went over and checked it out and made sure that was OK. Went to the bank and Giles had suggested to try to get the mortgage put on hold to give us give Graham some ease on the money since the COVID thing had just started. So we went to the bank. Giles had set up the account with the mortgage company. We went to the bank and shut it off so that the mortgage company wouldn't be taking Graham's money from him. And I sat with Graham and the officer at the bank and turned the screen around and I said, you understand what we're doing? And Graham's like, yeah, great, thank you. And everything was fine. And then within a day or two, things started to get dark. And I I don't know why, but things got kind of weird and I came back to Chicago and he stopped communicating with us at that point. And it got it was it had been really rough for me personally. I'll be honest. I I had I mean, I had enough of the negativity and it's in general, not just from Graham, but wherever it came from about the kind of music or whatever. So I was I was at Wits End, like trying to make this thing work. And it sounded like both of you. And I know you both. You really cared about the guy and his well-being and his health. Oh, yeah. And you know what? And for years, I know I do. I did. I do. We do. We really do. And this is this is this is extremely disappointing because I'm sorry to cut you off, Jimmy. No, that's OK. First and foremost, I thought we were friends. I don't I'm not going to comment on Graham's financial status or anything like that. There is a covid covid relief thing that his his finance company for his condo was offering. So like a lot of people currently in this position, you take advantage of, you know, touring musicians need to tour. When there's no touring, there's no income. So there was a covid relief thing. We were just that was what we were looking at. That's what that was about. And we were going out, you know, we were in I was I was in LA at the time. We were, you know, I was I was on holiday over there. And we were going out to dinner with Graham. It was, you know, and he was telling us, you guys are my you guys. I love you guys. You guys are like family. You know, we and we were having some it was good vibes, you know, his his daughter was helping him get organized as well, because he had split with his girlfriend who he has since reconnected with. And I'm very happy that that's happened. Yeah. But what what happened suddenly was that Graham, I mean, we were going to help Jimmy was going to actually going to help Graham with his solo record and play on that. And that was going to be a different sort of direction. That was that was something that I said to Graham. Look. Alcatraz, you don't love this music at all. You've told me how much you don't like it. So here's a solo album. Here's a chance for you to. This is your direction. This is your record, Graham. This is not a the band. This is your record. You can have whoever you want on it. And again, we, you know, I'd print the contract out. We sat at his daughter's place yet again. We went through the contract. He understood exactly what was going on. We we always do a budget for a record. Always write it out, you know, make him aware of what's going on. Graham doesn't sort of retain numbers and statistics and things like that. He'll quite often come back and say, what was that? And, you know, I'm happy to explain everything again. No problem. But all of it and then mark our drama during the COVID thing. Graham was living in his condo by himself. It was it was very extremely scary for anybody, especially people over 60, you know, the COVID-19, you know, the pandemic, the thing we're all living with right now. So, you know, I may I rang up one of our former guitar players and asked him to go check on Graham periodically. I asked our drummer to go and check on Graham periodically. He and his wife went and actually brought Graham some groceries. I I helped Graham in in a couple of, you know, different ways as well. You know, from from, you know, I was back in Germany at that point when the pandemic thing really kicked off. And I, you know, I cared about him. I said, I sent him a text message, which I still have to this to start. I've got all the text messages between me and Graham. I said, don't worry, Graham, we will take we've got we've got you. You know, we were your friends and we've got your back, literally, you know. And he said, thank you so much. You know, once again, you guys, I mean, he he he said, Jimmy Waldo was an angel. He wrote that to me. He goes, oh, my God, Jimmy's an angel. I can't believe it. You know, I think he was talking about me. Maybe it's about you. Maybe that's why this that could be the that could be the cause of this whole misunderstanding. It's me, Jimmy. Me, I was. But anyway, I just a little comic relief there. Sorry, it was good vibes. All of a sudden he stops communicating with us. I understand that he had gone back together with his girlfriend. That's great. But we had an album to promote next. I mean, I had and I had a couple of mutual friends and I was, you know, I'm like, have you heard from Graham? I haven't heard from him in two weeks. You know, I was legitimately worried. I mean, worried because as far as I knew, I didn't know if he was at the condo by himself. And if he had, you know, a guy that's just had some back problems fallen over, hurt himself or whatever COVID, I didn't know. And I finally got him on the phone one time and I said, I am worried sick about you, Matt. He goes, oh, I'm OK. Don't worry about me. I'm fine. All right. OK, well, you know, we've got some interviews for next Tuesday. Are you OK with them? And he said, yeah, OK, then he missed. He did miss some interviews, which gave me once again, cause for concern. And then that's when the communication stopped. He would not reply to any communication from myself and very sporadically with Jimmy. Now, I understand he did have some phone problems at one point, but I mean, here, you know, you've got to stay in touch with your band and your manager and he did get a new phone, but we did not. We didn't we didn't hear from him. He stopped communicating with us. And next thing you know, we hear that he's doing he was doing a band with with his girlfriend, Bethamy again. And hey, that's that's great. And and Conrado Pesanato, the guitar, original guitar player of the Grand Bonnet band. And since they've recruited Mark Zonda to play on that record, my my good friend, Mark Zonda. So he was doing the only way that he would continue to do interviews for this record was the record company had to get involved and and give him his interview schedule. He was not responding to me or to Jimmy. We couldn't. There was just radio silence. So finally, the record company got involved and gave him his interview schedule and Graham was happy to do what he was, you know, fulfill his obligations press wise, as long as the label were asking. However, he would not respond to anything I was sending him any anything any sort of friendly greeting or professional email at all. And then during these Alcatraz interviews, he started interviews that were meant to be promoting the Alcatraz record. He was talking about my new band with Bethany and Conrad. And that kind of went, oh, OK, hmm. All right. So he's talking about a solo album. Well, what about Alcatraz? So and again, it just became very, very frustrating. We could I could I could not a month went by and I was having to get information from mutual friends. It was all a very, very frustrating situation. At that point, I decided to send my resignation to Graham because this, you know, this was just when I thought the dark cloud of making the record had lifted and we had two dates. We had all kinds of things. I said, I can no longer personally represent you, Graham. I still manage, you know, I I still manage the rest of the band. Now, bands can have more than one manager. I mean, Black Sabbath had three managers. You know, Tony had his manager and Ozzy had his manager and he's a butler had his manager. I mean, that's just that's just a fact of life in bands. But I could no longer do this, where I was worrying sick about Graham every day and wondering if he's going to do an interview or not do an interview. And I just said, look, Graham, this is perhaps it's time where we have to call it a day. You and me, you know, we've had a great six years. I'm very, very proud of what we've achieved. And but, you know, we do have some unfinished business. And you know, I'm going to tell you something, Giles. I'm just going to toss us toss that out there. I know you're saying it's sincere because I've known you for a very long time. And I've known your passion of working with Graham and the excitement. When you first started when you first started working with Graham, it was like off the charts. You were like the happiest guy in the world. And you know how much I care about Graham and you and Jimmy. When I met you, I mean, I know you're you're you're your passion for it all. And you know what? I've got to really say thank you to Bethany. She is the one that brought me into the into the Graham Bonnet fold, you know, and that's something I never said to her. So that's that's definitely, you know, something I've got to I've got to add there too. But I did resign. Graham's statement is true. I did resign out of frustration. I have other clients. I cannot have all my time taken up by. I mean, let's face it. Graham Graham Bonnet does not make. It doesn't I was not not getting rich managing Graham Bonnet. Let's put it that way. And you know, it's more of a passion or should I it was it was I cared about him and I do care about him greatly as a person. And I love his voice and love his. Oh, I know that. I know that come to my place. You got every albums on the shelf there and always will be. Absolutely. But he stopped communicating with us. But we did have unfinished business. So I said, Graham, we do need to have a phone call with myself or myself from the band or forget me, just the band. We do have some business to discuss. We can't just, you know, sever and never see each other again. There was some financial stuff to finish. There was some stuff we had to get in order because we were kind of midstream here as far as records, touring commitments, contract stuff, commissions, et cetera, et cetera. He did. I did after my resignation two weeks later, I got an email saying not written by Graham, I can I know it was not written by Graham. However, it came from Graham's email. It said, send all the social media logins, contracts, agency contacts, record company contacts, send it all to me. Thank you for all you've done. I'm paraphrasing, but that's that's what he said. I said, hang on a minute. No, no, I'm not just handing over the whole store here. Like any business relationship is a little bit like a divorce. There is always going to be some loose ends to tie up and, you know, make sure everything's in its place so we can then, you know, settle and move forward. He did not want to jump on a call. I again invited him and I copied all the band guys in and I said, we need to talk about upcoming Alcatraz touring. I do still represent the guys. We have stuff booked. It's stuff that I've contracted stuff that I've signed my name on contracts and obligations that I have to fulfill for Alcatraz. We, you know, you as an individual can go and get any representation you want. But as far as Alcatraz is concerned, we do have some stuff we need to deal with the right way. I'm not just going to hand over the Facebook page when we have a record company that is, you know, admitting and doing stuff and uploading content in promotion of the Alcatraz record. I cannot put marketing campaigns in jeopardy just by handing over social media login. And your ass is on the line, right, Giles? Oh, yeah, absolutely. The company is looking at you saying, hey, man, you got to deliver. Your name is on this contract. So is everybody else. A number of different contracts. So I need to I need to I need to hold on to some. I need to hold on to the rain still a little bit. Here, we need to I can't just hand this over to God knows who. And we're, you know, that's that's just that's just business. But it seemed like he or whatever advice he was getting at the time felt that it could just be, you know, real, just clean, clean break, you know, which is unfortunately not how it works. He so I thought, well, OK, I will. I'm happy to provide the info you're asking for. But what you need to do for us is we need a little bit more information here. You need to get on a conference call, at least with me and Jimmy. Or Joe or whoever, or at least him and Jimmy and give us. Let us know what's going on. Are you still in this band? Are you and he he wrote an email saying, OK, who's up for the touring? And Jimmy wrote back to Graham and said, always into touring. But where are you at? And what about, you know, Giles is still our manager. You can't tell us who our manager is or isn't. So let's all get on a conference call and let's figure this out. Like, you know, a Zoom call like we're doing right now. It's there's nothing that after six years of managing Graham and 37 plus years of Jimmy knowing Graham as a friend. That couldn't be figured out just with a Zoom call or, you know, just hearing each other's voice and just going, look, OK, there's been a misunderstanding here. There's been a misunderstanding over there. There's been some hurt feelings here. You know, anything that needed to be apologized for. Absolutely. Let's just let's talk about it. Let's let's figure it out. However, it was just radio silence. That's all it was. And again, I sent another email saying we've got some great offers for Alcatraz, some great things happening. I got another email back saying this sounds very interesting. But once again, please just send all information to Graham Bonnet. His email and please send social media logins, etc., etc. It's like, no, hold on a minute. We need to talk about this. We have to we have to have a conference call. All businesses operate this way. And this is a business. Jimmy, you may want to jump in here. Well, I emailed Graham several times and tried to convince him to call us. And let's just let's just talk about this. And I knew I was actually thinking, well, this will we'll just talk about this and figure this thing out. Exactly. And I wasn't about to like just because someone tells me hand over all this material to us, like who's us, first of all, to me. And Graham's not a business person. I know that. And so that's my career. They're talking about there, too. I don't want to mess up my relationship with labels and agencies and stuff. So like Giles said, let's get on and talk about this and figure out a way to go about this. And I've been in a couple of pretty heavy bands with more than one manager and it worked fine. So that could have worked. Also, Graham's forgetting about what Giles brings to the table in this kind of music, which is the booking, the direction, knowing about the song direction, and knowing where to play, and when we should be playing and touring and went to the right promoters, the right agencies, and in some cases, literally booking the gigs and knowing how to run a tour on the road as a tour manager. So all that just seems to be forgotten. And that affects me when it's assumed that I'm just going to, oh, well, I'll get rid of Giles. It's like, no, Joe and I and Mark are extremely, and Gary are really happy with Giles and the direction. This is the direction I've always wanted to go. And everything was going great. It was like, yeah. And I'm not going to upset all that because I'm going to toss something out there. And I think this COVID-19 has played on a lot of people's brains in the past. It's really disrupted a lot of people psychologically. And I know it's hit a lot of families and it's turned everybody's world upside down. I'm just going to toss that out there. It's just not easy, confinement and dealing with problems. And especially Graham was sort of like an older guy. And I hear all this. I hear everything you guys are saying. There's contracts. There's musical direction. There's COVID-19 happening in the background. There's a lack of motivation. So at what point did you guys go, okay, let's get doogie and let's continue on? You really are missing something. Just in the timeline, I will let Jimmy continue. Go ahead, go ahead, Jimmy. Sorry to cut you off. About, you know, Graham said some pretty nasty stuff about me. Very hurtful things that came out of left field. I have no idea why. And that kind of, that was really, that cut deep. And there was no reason for that. I'd never said anything bad about the guy and always been a friend and try to help. And for him to turn on me like that, that's when I thought, you know what? I don't hate Graham, but I need to put my efforts and my time into something that's a going thing. Like be smart and get with people that want to do what I want to do, which I was already with. And I got really tired of getting by second hand, hearing these comments that were being made about me. And I heard them from all over the world. It being leaked out. I would say they put it on Facebook or whatever, but and that really, really upset me. And I just, you know, it's just worked on me for months. And my brother passed away a few months ago, and that was a huge turning point for me. And I'm not trying to throw that out there as a sympathy card, but I'm just telling you personally, that was like, I stopped and really thought about my life. What the hell am I doing with my life? And who do I want to be involved with? I want to be involved with positive people that have fun that want it. We all in the same direction. And really, I really feel that Graham took a left somewhere way before this. And as Giles said, and I'll tell you, and you can read it in the press, that he dislikes this kind of music and dislikes this kind of music immensely. And has said that to me for a long time. And I kind of never took it too seriously, but it just got worse and worse. And so that just is, when you meet a guy like Dougie, and you see how positive he is and what he's a workhorse and a great singer. So you're like, well, why would I not want to be involved with people that are going in the same direction? Very talented. And we can all do the same thing at the same time and make this work and do well and make money. And I'm kind of thinking, you know, a Graham would be happy doing the Graham Bonnet thing and you guys be happy doing the Alcatraz thing. I think it's a perfect sort of situation. Well, it does seem very strange because I heard for months and months, I'm tired of hearing about Alcatraz. I'm tired of, quote, and I can back this up with text messages, et cetera, et cetera. I'm tired of dragging the Alcatraz corpse around. Can we just let it die? Yeah. Can we just not motivate it? That's all. He makes a statement that he's going to put together another Alcatraz, which is the same thing he did in the 2000s with no original members. The same thing he said was never Alcatraz in the first place because it never had any other original members, something he was saying earlier this year. It's very confusing, but there was no good reason why this had to go the way it had to go. It was lack of communication, lack of what we're doing right now. I'm on Zoom and I can see Jimmy and I can see Jimmy. I can see two Jimmy's right in front of me. So you know what? Anything can be worked out. Van Halen can work it out. We could have. This Fleetwood Mac can work it out half a dozen times. We could have. His way of working it out was send me all the contracts, things that I'd signed on behalf of, things that I'd signed, not on behalf of anybody. I'd signed them. Things that had everybody's name on them, not just his. Send it all to him. Boom. Hey, happy to send it, but we need to have a conversation, a proper conversation first. Because that's key. I think you're right, Giles. You know, once you've got all that information that you want in the social media logins, hey, how do we know where we're never going to hear from you ever again? You know, we have unfinished business. We still have unfinished business. It's strange how we were using this conduit to talk to him. Isn't it weird? It might be that we should have done this six months ago, but this is really just setting the record straight, because a number of comments where he marginalizing the talents of the other members of the band past and present, and implying that it was, you know, this is not a David Coverdale white snake situation as much as some people may feel that it is, this is really is not. Okay, so what I've been seeing, Sartacachov, I've been hearing comment after comment, and I heard a lot of this. Graham Bonnet is Alcatraz. Like, what does that mean to you guys? When you hear a comp scene kind of like that? I'll tell you what it means is is usually the lead singer is perceived, you know, if it's a real lead vocalist, not just the guitar player is one of the singers, but a lead vocalist typically is perceived as, oh, it's his band. I mean, that's pretty normal procedure. I think through history, in most bands that had a real lead singer, that's, you always perceived it as, oh, well, that's those guys. I mean, except for Led Zeppelin. But most bands, you know, were perceived as that's it. The Beatles, they had three singers and everybody wrote, and so that was not perceived that way. But most bands like ours, the singer, then it's perceived as his band. And the interesting thing if I could just add is that Alcatraz never had a fixed guitar player. Why did, and there's four Alcatraz albums now, including the new one, Born Innocent. But let's talk about the three in the 80s. Why do they all sound different? Totally different from each other. Because the guitar player dictated at the time, the guitar player dictated the direction of each album, not Graham. Graham certainly did his thing. There's no bigger fan of what his vocal melodies and his lyrics than me, really. But the musical direction was always guided by whatever guitar player was in the band at the time. Currently, and Jimmy was certainly a songwriter as well. But currently, Joe Stump is our man. And that is bringing that direction right back full circle to the way the first album sounded only heavier and more powerful. And we want to keep going in that direction. And that is exactly what we're going to do. And Jimmy's, hey, I'm not to say, because he's right here in front of me, but Jimmy's input on Born Innocent was immense. And Jimmy's input on the two-gram Bonnet Band albums was immense. Jimmy is a real get-up-and-go-and-make-it-happen guy. He is the, Jan Juvena, the old Alcatraz drummer, wrote me recently. And he said, Jimmy Waldo is the, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, Jimmy Waldo is the engine room. He's the make-it-happen guy. And I've sat right next to Jimmy, 12-hour, 14-hour days in the studio for three months. And I've seen he will stop at nothing. He won't sleep. He will keep going around the clock to make everything the best it can possibly be. So it frustrates me when I see people getting large ones. Alcatraz was a four-man band. And recently it was three of the original members, right? Correct. Correct. I mean, no, it was a five-man band. Sorry, what am I saying? Keyboard. Yes, man. Five-man, sorry. And you had three out of five. But you can hold on to the five-man band. Which is more than most bands today, right? It's a five-man band, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess when someone says, that person is the band and you guys aren't, it could be hurtful. And I get that. It's a little hard to take when you're in a van on two-hour sleep. And one of the guys that's had two-hour sleep is driving the van. And when you're humping gear, because we're not in a position to have elaborate crew and techs and people like that. And when you're putting in, you're doing a show every day for 10 days, there's no side men. There's no marginalized members. There is, everyone is pulling together. And it is a band. And that's what Alcatraz absolutely was. And that goes for Graham as well, absolutely. I guess at the end of the day, the music will do the talking, right? It will. The music will, the music. Because that's what it is at the end of the day of doogie waiters fronting out Catraz or not. If the music is fantastic, people will gravitate towards it. And if it sucks, people won't, right? It's not going to suck. If you're a fan, of course I'll say that. But if you're a fan of the Born Innocent Record, get ready for more just like it, only heavier, darker, more powerful, more melodic. It is going to be, you will love it. And you know what, come and see us with doogie and you will totally get it. Doogie is, I've been all over the world with doogie because I would travel with the, as Graham's manager and essentially personal assistant on the Michael Schenker tours. I've seen doogie on a good day. I've seen doogie on a bad day. And doogie doesn't have bad days. Doogie is a fantastic singer. And Graham's a doogie fan too, as he said in his recent statement. So I thought Graham was very gracious towards doogie. He wishes us well and we wish Graham well. I'm going to be, I hope someone sends me a pre-release copy of the new Graham Bonnet solo album. Otherwise I'm just going to go out to the store and I'm going to buy it because I am a fan. I love Graham Bonnet. Doogie White. As a musician. Graham Boe. Okay, go ahead. And as a person. Good, that's nice. That's no lie. That's nice. I know you're sincere about that. I know you're sincere. Graham should do the Graham Bonnet. It should be Graham Bonnet. I mean, I personally don't think, I know he thinks that it's his band, Alcatraz his band and all that. And I won't even argue that. But Graham has a name and the people that are supporting him online now, all the supporters, the hundreds of, so I understand support that he's gotten. And which, by the way, it's really a shame that a lot of these people are being very nasty towards myself, the rest of this band and Doogie and Giles. It's really a shame because these are all really good people. Anybody that knows me, I've been around the business for 40 some years. Anybody that knows me knows that I wouldn't be hanging out with a bunch of losers and a bunch of assholes. So these are great people and it's really disappointing that people feel the need to do that through social media and all that stuff. So there's no need for that. You can, if you're not intelligent enough to speak your mind properly and be a gentleman about it or a lady about it, then you shouldn't be posting. But anyway, Graham should be Graham Bonnet because that's the support he's getting is for Graham Bonnet, not for Alcatraz. That's what he should do. And he should do what he does best. And that's, you know. Yeah, you know what? I think they're all fine. All of you will find happiness. You guys doing your thing, him doing his thing with his people and you guys doing things with your people. Probably it's the best solution, you know. And I'm sure he just said he would start Alcatraz just, and again, I can't prove this, but just to sort of get under your skin, you know. We don't know what he's got planned. But we wish him well, we wish him health, we wish him strength. I still consider him a friend. I know that if I bumped into Graham on the street tomorrow, it might be awkward for the first couple of minutes, but we'd be laughing and joking about something within about 10 minutes. He's just that kind of guy, you know what I mean? I mean, maybe it just got to the point where when you don't speak to someone for a while, the ice kind of hardens and then it becomes even harder to kind of reach out and whatever. But we all love Graham. He is our friend and he was our bandmate and he was our, literally, I mean, I don't say this lightly. He was our brother. We care about Graham a lot. And that is not going to change. Where we're moving on, I wish him strength, I wish us strength. And we're going to continue making the band, the guys are going to continue making the music that we started with the Born In Us album. It is going to be absolutely a continuation of that style in that vein and watch the space and live, we're going to do some damage with Doogie. I mean, and again, it's maybe Graham's doing the kind of music he's happier with, he's more comfortable. I kind of see this a little bit similar to the Queensrack situation, where Jeff Tate really had a direction in mind that just didn't jive with the Queensrack what they were known for and where they wanted to go. And eventually it came to a head and Jeff Tate can go and do his music the way he wants to do. And then Queensrack can get on with being Queensrack and we're going to get on with being Alcatraz. So I see it as very, very similar, perhaps without the spitting and whatever went on between those two camps. But that's a different. I mean, just to give Doogie a plug, you know, he's played with Rainbow. He's auditioned for Iron Maiden, right? Didn't get the gig, but still to audition for Iron Maiden. It's better than that room. You've got to be pretty good, you know? Yeah. Tank. I'm trying to think of all the bands he's played in. You know how I put it best? Doogie White. He's sung with Rainbow. He's sung with Ray Malmsteen. That's right. He's sung with Michael Stryker. Sounds like someone else we know. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, no, no. I think Doogie White, if you're going to choose anybody to go on or move on with, he would definitely be the voice to move on with. I met the guy, great guy, a great talent. Anything's possible. And we're just taking baby steps right now. We're looking at just, you know, we've got some, we've got a tour booked with Girl School. We have some other tours. I was just on the Zoom today, talking to a couple of agencies about some very exciting stuff. We're just, we're looking forward to this. We're, you know, what the band want to do is play heavy metal in that. And that's okay. And that's okay. In that original Alcatraz style updated, like I said, I keep repeating myself, but like what you heard on the last Alcatraz record. And I just, I want to do, I mean, I want to be happy. I want to work with people that I want, that are nice people and fun to work with. And I met Doogie a few times and hung out with him, but instant connection. I just, I love the guy. And he's got an amazing reputation as a person. And that's really important to me. After doing this for all these years and playing with some hot shot singer or player is one thing, but playing with a good person that also happens to be an amazing player or singer. That's just a plus and writer. So I'm looking forward to it. I just want to, I just want to have fun playing music. And I want to get on with it. And I want to be able to work. You know, Jimmy, I think when you play a certain type of music, that's kind of like, and you love playing that certain type of music, you're very, you're more motivated. Like I said before, and when you're sort of being dragged into maybe a genre of music that you're not so happy with, that's kind of like, when you feel like you have to push yourself, you're not motivated. I mean, that's just, that's the whole problem right there, you know? And perhaps, you know what? Maybe he signed those contracts because he felt, you know, like he didn't want to disappoint everybody. But, you know, we've all kind of had that kind of thing, you know? Well, I get it. I mean, in this business, there's a saying, say yes till you have to say no. But, you know, what the key is communication. And we could have, we could have worked, we could have worked this out. I really believe we could have worked this out. Well, any last, sorry, because we got like just a few minutes left, any last closing remarks sorry to cut you off, Giles. I don't know. I just say it's funny because Graham and I share the same musical influences. Nobody loves the Beatles more than me or the Beach Boys more than me. So, Graham, that's all Graham would talk about. We'd be cutting vocals. And Graham and I both were talking about the Beach Boys and the Beatles. He'd do a harmony and I would say, oh man, that's like a harmony off of yesterday and today or whatever, Rubber Soul or Sergeant Pepper's or, you know. You're guising your Beatles. Yeah, well, I know we both shared the same thing. It's just that I also love extremely heavy music. And I love these kind of guitar players. I think Joe is as good as it gets. And I love Inge, when Inge was playing, he was amazing. His personality when we clashed, that was no fun. But as a musician and a player, I loved it. And then it just kind of dissipated from that. And Steve was an amazing player. Steve Ly, it was a little different direction. And after Steve left, I could sense that, boy, we should have stuck with that no parole direction. And we didn't. That third album, through no fault of any one person in the band, that was a completely directionless album. And I'm not blaming any one person. But that was the downfall right there. That's when we should have regrouped and thought about what the hell we're doing. But we didn't. Maybe this interview today and these statements and clarifications will heal the whole sort of situation. There's no wound here. I mean, it's just all good vibes from our side. But we do want to do what we want to do. And I think it's pretty simple. I think this is easy peasy, very simple. Everybody's going their own direction, be happy and be friends. You know, and I respect Graham and respect everybody in the Graham Cab and Bethany and everybody else. They're wonderful. They're great musicians. Absolutely. You know what? And Bethany is she put up with a lot. You know, it's not easy being. And I'm certainly not a comment. There's a lot of women and a lot of bands that are kicking ass and doing well. And she's she's absolutely one of them. You know what I mean? She it's tough being on the road with no sleep. And no, you know, bunch of Pena's guys. Yeah, I get. Oh my God. I mean, she put up with so much crap. And she put up with a perpetual smile. It's funny. I used to always look forward coming down to breakfast in the morning because she was always there. She'd be up early and, you know, in the hotel. And we'd always have a good chat. It was, you know, we had we certainly had some moments. You know, she damn near kicked my ass one time. But that's, you know, that's that's something for the book. You know, all right, guys, it's been a pleasure. Thank you everybody for watching. And I wish you all the luck in the future and looking forward to whatever, you know, whatever the outcome may be, you know. Thank you. Hey, by God, we come up there with our chainsaw. Get on your ass. Huh, Jimmy? Do I talk like that? Son of a whore, we come up there for your snow, huh? Oh, yeah. Do I talk like that? Well, you know what? There's no parole from rock and roll. Yeah, exactly. Finally got to wear the shirt. I was going to, but I decided to go with the possible fate myself. All right, guys. I have a black old Navy shirt on. Oh, look, you're stripping. And I got a hoodie. I mean, shit. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, you don't offer. Oh, let me just tell everybody what's coming up here. What's coming up on the metal voice? Do I have it here? Let me just see if I could show everybody. Michael Shanker. Michael Shanker is coming up on the metal. So stay tuned. Our old friend, Michael. Yeah. Got an interview coming up with him. Stay tuned. Also want to plug Luke Carveras' son. He, for all of you out there who have not seen this, he's come out with a single, a video, a beautiful song dedicated to Luke Carveras who passed away during, I guess, it was March about due to COVID-19. Wonderful, wonderful song. Go check it out. It's called Lack, L-A-K, like Lou A. Carveras. So great song, guys. Thank you again. We will talk soon. Okay. Thank you, Jimmy. All right. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye.