#264 - David “Duck” Burns

0:01 Hey, here's episode #264 with David Duck Burns. And so the whole duck thing, we had to get into that. I had to ask him where it came from. You know, I'm a big fan of of people who have these funny names in our industry, funny nicknames, and so had to find out where Duck came from. I found out and it's funny. We actually even have an image that he shared with us. So, you know, Duck has done a lot of really cool stuff, owned his own lighting company, worked with Robert Roth and survived and went through the whole world stage.

0:43 You know, worked there for a few years, learned a lot of stuff and then watched it crash and we talked about that a bit and lots of fun stories. So very enjoyable episode. I hope you love it as much as I liked recording it. Have fun. Hello, episode #264 is brought to you today by AVL Media Group. AVL is your premier North American distribution partner committed to developing a long term, mutually beneficial business relationship with its dealers through professional products at competitive prices, backed by excellent sales service and Technical Support.

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3:36 For more information on Graphite GP and other LED solutions, please visit rowvisual.com. I'll tell you, it's been an interesting week so far. Yesterday, of course, I recorded with Jake Berry and Jake and I had an offline conversation that I can't share much about, but very disappointed in in something that he told me. And I mean, if you want to hear a personal story, you can call me or reach out to me, but I'm not going to share it on the podcast.

4:36 But yeah, very disappointed in what I heard. And I'm sure there's thirteen sides to every story, but this one I didn't like. Some other news that came out of Plaza this week is that SGM has been purchased by Golden Sea out of China. And so this is interesting for a number of reasons. And I will admit right now I don't have a lot of facts yet. I do have some, I guess, information through all kinds of different sources and stuff. You know, there's been a, a Facebook group post that, you know, for me, that group tends to be sketchy at best when it comes to its sharing of information.

5:19 Sometimes there's really good information coming out of it, but usually it's a lot of opinions and propaganda and, and stuff that isn't always necessarily 100% true. So make sure you check in with the sources, make sure you listen to reliable people, talk to reliable people. I generally won't share information unless I have some facts on it. So I won't usually share opinion or I will share opinions. Certainly everything I share is an opinion, but I won't share information that that, you know, I've sort of heard through the Grapevine unless I think it's true or I think I have some foundation to share that. So this is true. You can look it up gold and see has purchased SGM. Some of the things that I've I've sort of heard or talk to people about and I can't necessarily tell you who those people are.

6:12 Some will be competitors to SGM, some are employees of SGM, some are maybe even former management or ownership of SGM. And So what I'm hearing so far is basically, yes, Golden Sea has bought SGM. What I do know is that SGM had made the decision either to file bankruptcy or to sell the company. They were shopping the company. I am told that the pricing was fire sale pricing. You know, the company was under a fire sale. So basically emergency, we need to sell it before a certain date. And therefore the price was obviously at at rock bottom for a company with their history.

6:55 And certainly SGM has some great products, some great people and some great history. So that is very important when you're looking at a brand like that. The things that I don't know are well, so let's stay with what I know for now. What happens to Denmark? I guess that more falls into the what I don't know. From what I understand, they have hired back employees. They are fully functional as a factory right now since the SGM purchase or since the Golden Sea purchase. I have been told that Golden Sea have had people inside the factory for since probably early August, both poking around, but then since the purchase also just looking at how better to manage that facility. You know, there's a lot of things there that I'll talk about on the I don't know side.

7:47 The other things I know is that the US location in Orlando is fully functional, is selling product. They have been taking orders, they never did shut down in any way. And now for the things that I don't know, I don't understand exactly the ownership of the the sort of subsidiaries of SGM, the US included. I am under the understanding or belief that it is owned separately from SGM. So it's owned by, you know, AUS group or people or whatever. It is a separate entity and therefore was not wrapped up in any of these bankruptcy discussions or anything. Obviously, you don't need a USSGM office if you don't have SGM to sell.

8:34 But aside from that, there was no disruption to the US office and I think some of the other global offices as well. You know, what I don't know is what Golden sees plans are. And so I'm going to try and find out information and as I do, I'll report that back to you. Here's where I'm going to interject my own opinions or thoughts. It seems or feels like SGM maybe is looking to start expanding their manufacturing outside of China. And that will have everything to do with not just the US taxation or or you know, whatever you want to call it, but basically the tariffs that have been imposed on on some of those products coming into the US. And so I would expect that they're looking to manufacture in other areas and expand their manufacturing capabilities. I don't know if this is one of those ideas. You know, Denmark, I've got some experience and some knowledge. It's not the least expensive place in the world to manufacture.

9:42 And to offset that, I remember Peter Johansson when he was at Martin, not when he was at SGM, but I think he probably used similar principles in setting up SGM in Denmark. But one of his principles was that he never wanted labor to be more than, I believe it was 10% of the cost of a product. And if he was manufacturing something in Denmark, he wanted 10% or less to be the labor cost. And the thinking behind that was at that point we can compete with anyone in the world. It doesn't matter how little they pay their employees. As long as we have good automation in the factory and we're able to manufacture very efficiently with less labor cost, we will be able to compete with any country in the world. That was partially true.

10:30 You certainly saw that companies, including Martin went to less expensive areas to manufacture. I think most of them, the Martin products are either made in China or mostly in Hungary, I think at this point. And so, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting move. I, I don't know exactly how SGM will fit into the picture with Golden Sea. I haven't yet talked to a lot of key people that I would like to talk to and get some information from them on that. So that instead of interjecting with opinion and, and Marcel's thoughts, I'm interjecting with facts and, and backed up information.

11:10 So congratulations to the employees of the company. You are not only saved, but you're now part of a larger group that is well funded, that is a public company, publicly traded stock in China. And they're a great company. I mean, Golden Sea have done amazing things. And I would expect that it's going to be a positive change for SGM. And you know, for people who think that they're just going to pick up and move everything to China, that hasn't been how they've done things in the past. And yes, Ayrton products are manufactured in China, but they're still designed, developed, supported in France. And I've been to the facility, so I know it exists. I know it's not just a fake made-up thing on social media.

11:54 They do actually have a facility in France where they support their products. They design their products, they engineer their products. It's where Chris, the CEO, Chris Ferrante's office is in Paris and or just outside of Paris. And so, yeah, I mean, I think this this is obviously a good thing for a brand that struggled for a while. SGM hasn't had the easiest run for a long time. And remember, SGM is a very old brand. It's not like they've they've only been around for 15 years or something. I remember SGM in Italy a long, long time ago, and I'm talking like 30 years ago. And so, you know, I think this is potentially a very, a very positive thing for SGM for its employees anywhere in the world, certainly in America. I think they're going to put on a harder push. I just don't know how fits, you know, does SGM stay separate from Airton, You know, is SGMA competitor to Airton or is SGM different than Airton?

12:56 Does SGM as a brand go away and does that manufacturing facility just become part of Golden Sea? And it makes all kinds of products, not just SGM products. None of these things I have answers to yet. I don't know what their vision or or their future holds. I will let you know more information as I hear it. So today's podcast we have David Duck Burns who is an experienced account manager and technical director with a demonstrated history of working in the events services industry. Skilled in production management, stage management, lighting, sound, video, LED and rigging. From opera to country, hip hop to metal, dance, theater, television and corporate events.

13:45 David, sorry there was a typo here. Sarah. David has worked them all. He has loved living abroad and traveling the world over the last 40 years. The friends, knowledge and business contacts he has gained are beyond measure. So please folks, join me in. Welcome David Duck Burns to the podcast episode #264 Well, I see a duck whack, whack, whack whack. Never heard that one before, I bet. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, most. Most of the time it's Goose. Oh, really? That's funny. Yeah. Yeah.

14:26 Yeah, yeah, get the ghost a lot. You know, we're absolutely gonna get to, to where that name came from because I've got a, I've got a, a love for sort of the history of people's, you know, funny names in our industry. And, you know, like some of the funniest, like poop. I'm sure you know poop. Oh, I know James. Yeah, I know James. Yeah. I'm like, that's what I use. An example is like. I'm glad to have the duck nickname because there's a lot worse with. Ring Dick. Exactly. You know, poop. On the there's some. Yeah, there's some bad ones out there. What are some other bad ones? Come on Cher. Ring Dick. What ring Dick? I've never heard. That one Sean Webb, I think he used to work with audio analyst a lot.

15:08 Yeah, with the Lucchesi brothers. I don't know Sean though. There's. Ring Dick. I don't even want to hear how. Yeah, I think, yeah. I don't know the channel. The channel might ban you if we tell that story. But I don't know. We've told some interesting stories. There's some bad ones out there, but yeah, Duck is a good one to have. I tried to shake it a few times over the years, you know, as especially when I move from touring into corporate. Yeah. And then you find out that the corporate people think that's just the coolest, funniest thing ever. And so, yeah, now, I guess now you just call it a brand, right? It's your thing. That's how people know you and. But you never went as far as legally changing your name or anything.

15:49 Because some. People. Have like some people have taken on their their their stage name and. Monikers. Yeah, yeah. But we used to check into hotels like, you know. Oh, really? Yeah, you used to go in, you know, you, you roll off the bus and you roll up to the front desk and it's like, hey, I'm Duck, I'm Scooter. And there's your envelope with your name on it, right? You're talking. And it's like. That's fantastic. I love it. So yes, yesterday I I had Jake Berry on and like most people in the industry, I'm sure you've worked with Jake at some point in your life. Been fortunate enough to cross paths with Jake. Yeah, I mean, I got one of the. I think he's one of the the PM.

16:31 Oh, geez. Right, Like he's, he's got to be up there on the. List. He's the He's the benchmark. Yeah, I think so. He's like, he's the, he's the top of the mountain. Well, plus, if you're going to do something massive, like if you're going to go and break barriers and just here's the conventional, here's you know how we're going to do it. And you know, like yesterday as an example, he said Bono came to him one time and I can't remember the whole story. You have to listen to the podcast. But he said Bono came to him and said, hey, Jake, I want to do the stadium thing in the round and can we do that? Is that possible? And Jake said B, if you ask for it, it's possible. You know, we'll do it.

17:17 If you want it, we'll. Do it. And and so they did, you know, and so I mean, the sphere thing for him was just another challenge that he needed to tackle and all that kind of stuff. So I love the guy, but. That that show looks so good in there. That's so amazing. Yeah. And, and, and industry people get it. Like, we know what it took to get that show on the stage, right? Yeah. And all the all the players, everything had to fall in line the the amount of pre production that goes into something like that. Well, it. Was almost a year. It was almost a year for them planning for it. It was insane how much time and effort you too.

17:58 And and you should really listen to it because it's super interesting the things like how even just how they did rehearsals, like how do you rehearse for a venue that you know, has never existed before, a format that's never even just the audio, like having the band with this wacky surround audio. And, you know, and he said Edge would say, hey, I want, you know, my guitar in that one song, I want it in the top right. And then in this other song, I want it in the bottom left or whatever. Like he'd because you could position it wherever you wanted it, right. And but yeah, just talking through that was was incredible. And you know, I'll tell you one thing he did is I've been a fairly regular naysayer of the whole sphere thing. Like I've, I've used Led Zeppelin as the example. If I see Led Zeppelin, like if God forbid, Bonham wherever to come out of the grave and say, OK, I want to do one more gig and they put it all together and I got to see Led Zeppelin because it's my one.

19:00 Like, God damn it, I never saw Led Zeppelin, right? I never saw The Beatles either. But Led Zeppelin for me is the big one. And so would I want to see him in the sphere or would I want to see him in a in an arena or even a stadium stage? And to me, the sphere is very distracting. It's hard to see the band. And Jake changed my whole mindset on that. He said. It's a very different experience and you have to look at it as that. It's a different way of experiencing that music and you can't compare it to an arena show. You just can't and and. That, yeah, that's true. It's a fact. And it's just the, yeah, the complete immersive nature of that.

19:49 Same word he. Used yeah is incredible and I think that but I'm as you're telling me that I'm thinking man could you imagine seeing the song remains the same like the. Footage. Just like completely surrounding the band. Yeah, stages like. You know the John Bonham piece where the dragster is going and he's doing the drugs I love? I never. Thought of that. You're like. It's a good point. Yeah, it's a good point. Or even Stairway to Heaven, you know, like, what would they do for Stairway to? You know, I never thought of these things. Yeah, that would be incredible. But again, I'd still rather just see the band. Like I wouldn't even want LED screens except for for, you know, IMAG or whatever. Like I just would want to see the band, just the guys in the band and hear it great and all that kind of stuff. I don't know if I'd.

20:38 Want all that immersion getting an old school show? Yeah, maybe for your 10th time seeing them or something. You know, it's like all these dead heads that went for dead and company. Oh yeah, and the fish and all. That yeah, like those people to see it in a different way for them was like life changing, right? Like I've got a friend who's a crazy fish van like to the extreme. He's seen 200 shows or something, right? And, and he said it, it, it changed his life, you know, seeing them in the. Visuals pretty amazing. I I leave for Vegas tomorrow. I may try to sneak over there on Sunday and see. Oh cool. Cool. Oh, they're, they're in the sphere now, right?

21:18 Yeah, I think they, yeah, I think they start this weekend. So if I, oh, do they sneak over before the show I'm working on starts? That would be cool maybe. Isn't this weekend because UFC is in there in a couple weeks? Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a quick turn. Around. That's going to be crazy. Well, I heard they're having trouble, I read yesterday that they're having trouble selling like tickets that were I think the cheapest seat was $3000 for nosebleeds. And those are down to like 7 something now because you can't see the, the sphere screen stuff from some of these Nosebleed seats. And so it just takes away that whole experience.

21:59 And now it's just a fight from far away and I might as well just go watch it on pay-per-view, right? So. But back back to Jake. You got any of your own Jake stories? Have you ever worked with him or anything? So I I've had the privilege of being on a couple of his teams over the years, but the first, my first interaction was him was probably my favorite one. And this was pretty sure we were out doing it was glass spider, right? Oh, Dave Roy. Yeah. And we were in Van, I don't think we're in Vancouver, up in BC. And I was out there with the opening act, right? So I'm out there with the Georgia satellites. And I had only been in the business a short amount of time at that level, right?

22:49 Like on that national touring, I've done the bar circuit stuff, worked for the local small company when I was in high school, that kind of thing. But I'd only been in the, the, the, the big time there for, for a very only a few years at that point. But I knew who Jake Berry was, right. And I'm sitting and catering and he just, he came in and he sat down and he was eating his supper. And I'm just, I'm just sitting there like I'm like 1819, you know? I'm just like, Oh my God. Guys, the OG. And so I was just, I said something along the lines of man, how do you, how do you do it?

23:29 How do you, how do you do this? And he just looked right up at me and very just calmly said, Hey, is it it's really easy. You don't have to be an asshole all the time. You have to have the ability to be a complete one when the time comes, but you don't have to be nice to people. And I'm just like, I really, that was like the coolest thing, right? So simple. Yet so powerful, right you know, and don't be a Dick. Don't be a Dick. It's some of the best. Like it's how do you survive on a tour bus? Don't be a Dick, you know? Yeah, don't be a Dick and you'll be fine, you know. And gosh, it's, it's amazing how far that can carry you in so many different parts of life.

24:10 But in touring life, it's massive because you literally become part of a forced family, you know, for however many weeks and you live in very close quarters and, you know, you're together all day, every day and, and. All night, every night, especially in the old days, dude, Yeah, when we're doing 5-6 cities a week and then you get a bus ride for a day off and then you're, you're pounding out, you know, up all those one nighters with these massive rigs. The level of trust that has to be instilled very quickly. The teamwork that gets in gets developed very quickly. I miss those days, man. I miss those, those because that's what touring was, right? And I was lucky enough to start in the industry about the time that most of the cats who figured out really how to do it in the 60s and 70s were starting to retire a little bit, right? So I still had.

25:07 When and how did you start? So I mean it really just years, years are horrible for me, doesn't. Matter. Mid 80s, I would say, yeah. So started out doing some of the regional bar band stuff with a lot of the Atlanta had a great music scene there in the 80s. I mean, we had all these just incredible, incredible bands. So I'm working with local bands like the Swinging Richards and Bareback PG13, which would some of those guys would evolve into Jackal. Oh yeah, Jesse Dupree and those cats. Yeah, yeah, my ex-wife worked for Geffen and was part of the team breaking Jackal at the time. Yeah, so I saw them way too many times. Illusion, which was one of MO from Mother Steinus side projects.

25:59 Incredible musicians, right? We just had the best music scene here and so doing a bunch of regional stuff with them and then I ended up the big break was Kevin Jennings. I had been helping out a band called The Hell Hounds and working at a couple of the local venues, working with a couple of the local sound companies and stuff. And I started off in audio and then doing backline and Kevin Jennings ended up managing the Satellites. When they reformed, he had taken their demo. They couldn't get any traction here, so they kind of split up. Dan Dan was doing something else. And then Rick, Rick and Morrow had the Hell Hounds and it was just Chucka, Chucka 145, you know, just pick up rock'n'roll stuff. And so we were doing a bunch of dates and then Kevin took the demo back to Europe and got them a deal. So they got back together and then Electra picked them up. I think Electra picked them up and then so that's kind of how I got kind of thrust into the national touring. Thing so they dragged you along with them. Yeah, so it was me, me who was a dude. I was so young and stupid and I just, I knew nothing and thought I knew everything and knew nothing. A guy named Steve Winstead out of New York was was a guitar attack and kind of stage manager who I believe is still working with Mike Campbell of I know for sure from Tom Petty. Steve's Steve's kind of a legend

27:32 in the guitar tech world, but I was young and and just. So what was your gig? Maybe not quite mature enough. So I was doing I was doing drums, I was doing back line. Oh, OK, right. So I was doing drums tomorrow and then taking care of stage left during the show. And the way I got I got thrust into the lighting is we were out doing Oreo Speedwagon, opening for Oreo and Hartley was on Brian was on that tour, Robert Cooper was on. That was I think it was life as we know it. And getting to tour with those guys was like the that was like the All Star of All Stars, right?

28:17 Like, and everybody had a nickname, right? So it was Motor, Liz Sluggo, Porky, like all these great guys who are fucking legends, right? And they had their own roadie band called Hotel Bill and the Incidentals that would open some of the shows getting a tour with those guys. And at one point during that tour, Kevin Jennings comes over and he goes, hey, man, can you do lights for us? And I'm like, sure. You're like thinking like, of course I can't kidding me, right? So I walk out the front of house. This is big less avo like 8100 or something, you know, 180 channel 3 scene pen matrix thing.

28:59 And I'm just like, oh shit. And it was the LV for them. I think I want to make sure I get this right because he deserves Jim Stevens. Jim Stevens was the LD for REO and he just happened to be sitting out there and he goes, no idea, no idea what you're doing. And I was like, absolutely not. And so for like the next 5 weeks while we were out there opening, he, he said, all right, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to teach how to do this. And he every night I would sit there with a headset on and kind of the first few nights just kind of watched him listen to him call the spots and watch them run the show. And then it at a certain point he let me start banging the. Bud handed you the wheel.

29:44 Handed me the wheel, but he kept calling the spots for another few days and then he kind of just handed that off to me as we went. So about 3 1/2 to four weeks in it because we're doing what, five nights a week, right? So you get to practice your craft. And I absolutely fell in love with it. I fell in love with the just kind of visually representing what was happening, kind of helping control the the mood of the audience with what you're doing and seeing that, seeing how everything all interacted together. It was such an awesome learning experience. And Motor and Liz and all those people really took me under their wing, dude. Because I would show up for rigging calls, right? I did the same thing on Seger when we were open it for Bob Seger.

30:32 I would show up for rigging calls. I just jump in and help the sound guys fly their PA or help the lighting guys fly their trust. Just to be around those people and to learn and putting in that work ethic kind of got me opened up some doors, right? Yeah, what a great. I mean, what a that's alone is such a great lesson, You know, my God, that is such a great lesson like. So Jim, if you watch this, thank you, brother. Thank you. No kidding. That that too. Like, you know, these days, I think the only people that are really doing that still are the old school people, you know, like I could see, you know, you, I could see Cosmo.

31:12 I could see like a lot of those types of people saying, hey, kid, come over here, watch what I'm doing. Let me show you, let me help you. You know, let's help get your desk set up properly or whatever, Mark. Does that a lot. Mark Thomas, Yeah. He's doing that a lot, too. We need. We need. Those younger people, man, we're, we're timing out in the next 10, five to 10, right? We're timing out, but we need them. I don't want to pick on young people, so I don't want this to sound wrong, but I see less young people who want to share information in that, that way, you know, and that's problematic because I think again, this industry is one that you know, where, where people work together and somehow, you know, the rising tide sort of scenario, you know, and when people just kind of want to like, go, don't look at my, you know, don't look at my cues, what I'm doing over here, you know, that doesn't help anyone really. And I mean, how many secrets really are there? You know, it's not like none.

32:14 You're doing something. All ripped them all off. Of course, Yeah, of course. And by the way, guess what? If you're hiding yours, AI is going to get it anyway, so yeah, for. Sure. For sure, Oh my gosh, dude. But that's, that's kind of how I got started the, the initial push and then that the REO thing was being done by Nocturne. And Val D was kind of, I don't know if Jim said something to him, but Val was like, Hey, you know, when you get done with this, when you get done with these guys, why don't you give me a call and let's let's get you out on some get you working some more. Wow. And I mean, they had a stellar crew, I mean, Jim. And then of course, Robert Cooper was the crew chief and was on that.

32:58 Yeah. All that to work. That was the first time I saw moving. Moving. Which was it in the air? Life as we know it. Oh, OK, this was Aria. And this big like, yeah, big triangle kind of cloverleaf thing that they would fold in the sides, right? I mean, it was, it was really beautiful, really well done. But being from Atlanta, we, a bunch of the shows the satellites were doing, we ended up using RA and Jim Chapman. Yeah, ended up getting the gigs from, you know, from Live Not Blows, Southern concerts at the time, I think, which was Alex Cooley and Peter Conlon. And those guys, they were, they were kind of the kings of promoting in the Southeast.

33:42 And so that's how I got hooked up with Robert and Jim. And when my when my time with the Satellites came to an end, I called, I called Jim and he's like, hey, come to the shop. So I went to the shop the next day and they put me out on the road like two days later. Oh wow. On on that tour with Martin and which and all those guys. Oh, that was. Sorry, Peppa. Oh, that was on Peppa. Yeah, right. Where I got the nickname. So tell me that. Tell me the story. Tell me the nickname story. We're at that point of the podcast where we need to learn where. How the hell did Duck happened?

34:27 So Tom Marzullo was the production manager on that. Martin Thomas was the LB. So actually how it happened, it was, I'm pretty sure we were in Hartford, CT, we had just finished, slowed out. We get on the bus and it was August 25th, which was my birthday. And I don't, somebody found out it was, I don't know or what. But the next thing I know, you know, there's a lot of this going on, a lot of this going on and the next thing I know just blacked out. Like I don't remember what happened anything. But years ago, Martin was moving. I found a bunch of old.

35:16 Polaroids and sent me a picture of a picture. And I don't know how to be good. I can see it pretty good. Yeah, it's got a duck bill on the hat. Basketball goal stapled in my chest. And that's Jack Adams, who we'll talk about some more. That is funny. In the background. And the next morning everybody's calling me Doctor Duck, and I got no, no clue. Like, I don't, I don't remember anything. Oh, you don't even remember wearing the hat? No. So when you saw the picture, you were like, uh oh. Dude, I called and I'm like, Oh my God, yeah. And so it was just one of those things. And yeah, there there are a lot worse ones to have.

35:59 So is that? And. And so it just couldn't go away. Like probably initially you were like, please stop calling me that, you know? I. I don't remember ever having like an adverse. Really. Right. You were just like, OK, that's my name now. But I will say when I, when I stopped the touring full time and kind of moved over and I went to film and TV 1st and then moved into corporate. And when I started doing the corporate stuff, I was like, you know, tried to just go back to the David thing. And and then I found out that the corporate people, they just don't get exposed to, you know, rock'n'roll people.

36:41 And so they thought that was just the bee's knees. So yeah, I was like, all right, so we're now we're just gonna milk it and use it. Once a duck, always a duck I guess. Huh, that's that's how I got the name. Yeah, I love it. What was Looney on that tour to Bob Looney? Bobby was on that tour. Yeah, Bobby and I were roommates. Oh my goodness. I don't know, Bobby, have you had? Bobby on yet? I haven't, but you know, I don't think I have his current number or something. I remember trying to reach out to him and. We'll get you hooked up. We'll get you hooked. Up please cuz I want to get Bob. On I've. Mentioned it to him before. I think I saw him at LDI once or something a couple years ago. And I'm like, dude, you got to come on the podcast. Yeah.

37:26 And it's just never happened. Yeah. He. Him and I were roommates on the 1st like fistful of tours that we were all doing for RA. And so this is probably 878889 right? And we are all just out of our minds as that's how touring in the 80s was. And you're talking about an elite group of the most high functioning addicted personality people that you could ever. Assemble. Yeah. Yeah, who are operating at the highest professional levels in the questionable. Somehow conditions. Yeah, well said.

38:09 That's a word salad, but it's really well, well described. Yeah, well, with a leader who's who's no better, you know, like RA, come on, you know, Oh my God. You know, he's, he's a year clean now, right? Like completely clean and sober. Quit alcohol completely. We still do. This year was the first year we haven't done it on minute, but we every summer we try to get the Roth guys together here in Atlanta. Oh, that's fun. That's really fun, at least a little bit of a meet and greet. We did not get to do it this year yet. I mean, it's not. An idea though, that's cool. Yeah, but it is really cool to get everybody together and just see, you know, just catch up. And RA shows up to most of them. Most of them, Yeah.

38:52 Robert comes in and hangs out with us, and I'm sure we'll talk about in a few. Minutes. I love that guy. He's been instrumental through my career and we always say if you never worked for him, you don't ever get to say shit about him. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the guy was an innovator, you know, like a lot of the things he did, you know, and, and I hate to say the square park in because I know what's going to happen. You're going to see. How to prop sitting there ready to go the square parking, Yeah. The OG square parking. Unreal. Unreal. These things vent better than the round ones. Yeah. You would get 6 cuts of gel perfectly out of a sheet as opposed to four, and not enough scrap to do a liko frame.

39:37 So there was actually some thinking involved. Oh yeah, so and the the bulb was held in by two springs. Yeah. That would never bind, so you could always rotate it and that you know, not like those clips we had in the tonic scans. And stuff like that. Pain. In the ass. So these things were amazing. And we built our own trust in house. We wired our own trust in house. Oh, Speaking of which. That that's just how it used to be done too, you know? On trust patching. Oh my God, you just have this shit laying around your office or you brought it in because you were doing a podcast. So I. Called. My buddy Brian Beck. Ah, he said.

40:19 I need to borrow some props. That's funny. All the guitars and stuff for yours though, right? Yeah, yeah. That's all. Those aren't props. Yeah, no, those aren't props. That's awesome though. Like it's true. I mean RA and. Team. Our AN team really did some cool innovation and, and you know, their tours in the in the 80s and and early 90s and stuff were amazing. You know it. It was. I got to tell this story. So one of the first things I go after we finished up the the salt and pepper thing, they sent me out to do Hank Williams Junior. OK.

41:01 And Hank was on a roll of winning these Entertainer of the Year award things. And so he the rig. The rig was a KISS sized rig for a country guy, right? But it's rock. It's straight up rock'n'roll except for his like solo acoustic thing in the middle of the show. So we had these huge pods that broke down into two rectangles with a hundred of these square pars in each one of those, right? Oh wow. And then we had a thing that went on the back with a Ruger. Ruger firearms was a big sponsor of his. So we had a rope light and velour drape. It was a rope light of a Ruger Eagle and and it was velour. And so we, we fabricated that and then had we had a way to mount it to the back of these huge square pods that sat at angles in the back of the on the rig. So we had upstage, mid stage, downstage. We had a bunch of torms hanging off the up stage had these 100 lamp pods that we would start the show with them flat down low.

42:09 We had our own Steve Dunaway, Wookie, Peter Magdars, Jerry Higginbotham honeymoon, these guys, Lynn Wheeler, ETC, one of ET CS top cats. They custom built all of our control, motor control patching for the consoles. All this stuff was all built in the house. So we had high speed, low speed motors in our own custom motor controller and to do the moves that we were doing with these things, which we would like I said we would start down low and then bring them up and tilt them out. You know, just. Yeah.

42:50 So awesome. And this is like 8088. And that was for Hank Junior. Yeah. For Hank Junior, because I mean in the 80s, in the 80s and even early 90s, country acts were like, you know, pretty small rigs and, and a dozen Intela beams if you're lucky, you know, a dozen Intela beams if you're really good, but. They got pre. This is all. Pre This is all pre Intela Beam 4 hundreds, right? Yeah, so, but it was cool as shit to see Steve Dunaway over there with his fingers on the motor controller like this and honeymoon standing there with a stopwatch. That's how we that's how we did the motor movement. And we? Would take these things and as we did the show we would turn them and stuff like that.

43:34 But when it came time to do the acoustic set. We'd do a. Full invert and then light up those Ruger eagles on the back. I mean this is the kind of shit we were getting exposed to. And here I own like 21 at this point and LD in this stuff. 22 years old and LD these, you know, these massive rigs. Yeah. And nobody, nobody in Hank's camp had any input at all. But when you did a tour like that with Roth, was he overseeing the design? Like, you know, were you? You were designing it sort of in tandem with him, and then you were going out and directing. When I first started like those, those first ones like Hank and stuff like that, that was stuff that him and Jim did design. OK, Yeah.

44:18 Would come up with the designs. I didn't know enough at that point. I see. To. Do anything. Yeah. Yeah, that, but. I could, but I had AI, had timing, I had a feel. Yeah. And really good thanks to Jim Stevens. I got really good at calling spots. Yeah. And that was one thing I always really took pride in was, was being really good at that. And. Which is a science unto itself. Oh my God, But it was so much fun. And you just get in the cadence and you're just, you're just in a rhythm, right? And you've got the audience in the palm of your hand with the artist and you're just killing it. And so to get out there at that age with a rig like that with no instructions, right? None.

45:03 That's wild. Was. Incredible. And yeah, here you go. Here, here's the keys to the race car that you're about to go out and drive at 200 miles an hour, you know, go for. It Oh, we got to talk about that too. Oh yes we do. I'm using racing analogies already. Yeah, I know. Dude, we got to talk. I just. We'll get the racing, don't worry. I just renewed my 30th year at SCA. Yeah, that's awesome. No, we'll definitely get into that. Me and Jake talked about racing a bunch yesterday, too, because, you know, he's a big, he's a big formula and NASCAR and racing guy. There's some really weird stories that I had no idea, like he sponsored Scott Speed. I don't know if you know who Scott Speed is, but yeah. Yeah.

45:43 So Scott was one of my son's coaches and his brother Alex and his dad, Mike Speed, owned the the karting team that my son raced on for a few years. And, you know, he built our engines for a long time and stuff, and it was just weird when he goes, yeah, Scott Speed. And I'm like, wait, you know Scott Speed? And he goes, yeah, yeah. I said, do you know his dad? And he said, yeah. And I'm like, Oh my God, I've been through the ringer with Mike Speed. So really funny. But anyways, we'll get into that all. Right. So, yeah, so just getting the keys to the Kingdom like that at that age. Was so cool. Was nuts. And but again, you're really getting to practice your craft like 5-6, seven days a week, right.

46:28 So you're, you're you're honing your chops at a very high rate of speed and you're just absorbing. I was just absorbing all of this stuff while going through some serious, like character development stuff too, like, right. And so here you are. You get turned over the keys to the Kingdom like that. You, you know, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, and all the other. Stuff. Is being thrown at you at the same time the the partying and the the girls and you know the the unbelievable glamorous Rockstar lifestyle that you're living you know and so that's all being thrown at a 21 year old kid that's wild like it's. Oh, yeah, I I got reminded of that one day when when evidently I was acting inappropriately.

47:17 I'm not sure exactly what I did or said, but I had longer at the time. And Kirk Marks, who owned Rock'n'roll Audio, got me by the back of the hair, whistled for Dunaway, dragged me off into one of those little bathrooms off the side of the entrance there in the arena, slammed me up against the wall. And they started, you know, and basically telling me that my behavior was not going to be tolerated. And that's not how professionals act on the road, right? You don't remember what you did. I don't remember. What I said, but evidently I don't think I said anything directly to somebody, but I think it was more of a comment of of something that was happening. And the wrong person overheard the wrong thing. And it.

48:09 Had the wrong result, yeah. No, it had the right result. Yeah, yeah, it had the right result. I Oh yeah, it did. I never forgot that, you know, and and that was that was a good reckoning to have those guys fucking legends in the business. Did they throw? You on the show or or no? No, no, no. No. Oh. So they just. Gave you a good wake up call 0. Yeah. Because he knew. I think they knew that I was, you know, yeah, I just, I made some clip about something and it just rubbed Kurt the wrong way. But I'm glad it did because I needed to hear that in that situation. I needed to hear. That. And so again, just luckiest man alive have had these all these awesome experiences working with the top people in our industry. I just try to learn as much as I can from them. Yeah, you know, well, I mean, again, Roth provided like if you think of the people that went through RA Roth, you know, I saw a picture too.

49:12 I was looking for you on Facebook because I always like to before we have a guest on, you know, I like seeing the personal side of things too, you know, do they have kids? Do they have a wife? Do they have, you know, what are their hobbies and things like that? And I couldn't find you, but I found a post by by Rod Gibson read and and it was a, a, a picture. And I don't know if you remember the picture. I could actually find it again and share it with you. But, you know, but that made me think again, like of yeah, Red was that RA Roth too? Like all these guys, all so many people went through that shop. It's unreal. I dragged. I was the one who dragged Red across the border on that STP tour.

49:54 Oh, were you? Oh, interesting, I was. The stage manager on that tour. Interesting. Well, you know, I grew up, I grew up in Western Canada with Red, you know, and, and I quit playing in, in bar bands before he really got big into doing that. And my bands were always shit and we couldn't afford a real crew anyways. But you know, but we knew each other just through the, the channels and stuff. And I went to work for a music store selling guitars back to all these bands and stuff. And so, you know, we ran in the same circles basically. And we knew each other, but didn't really have much of a relationship, and certainly not from a lighting standpoint until later on.

50:39 But he's a great guy. There's a couple of stories I'll tell you offline. Oh yeah, yeah, some of those, some of those can't be shared online. We can tell a couple of those now. He might have told it on my podcast. I don't know. Yeah. About the dry ice bomb. I don't remember, Tell me. Oh my God dude that. Was another one speaking. Of red real quick. Here's a here's a good one. You'll love this. Yeah. So that salt and pepper R Kelly tour that he mentioned on his, on his interview, that's where I met my wife. Oh, Kelly and. What?

51:19 What was she doing on the tour? She was doing wardrobe. She was. Doing wardrobe? For the girls and for salt, Pebble and Red introduced me to Kelly. So the first time I get called out, the tour is already two or three weeks in and I get called out to stage manage. Robert sends me out there to stage manages and I flew. The guy flew to Gulfport, Ms. I walked down in the in the arena there and I see Kelly at that time, she's pushing a a cart of clothes, wearing knee high motorcycle boots, Daisy Dukes in a sports bra with her long black curly hair and I'm. Like, damn. Yeah. All right.

51:59 Yeah, that's why in the production office, first thing I say is, hey, who was that? Bill Reeves, You know, another bloody legend who I've had the the good fortune to work with. Bill looked to me, he was like, no, hello. No, nothing. I was like, no, not till I find out who that is, right? Yeah. So anyway, we get the tour going we're you know get get on the road there and and Red, red introduced me to her and then took about 8 weeks to get her to go out with me on a day off and and we finally did on in on Canada Day in Toronto. We've. Been doing the. The Tall Ships Festival and everything down there in the Bay, in the harbor. And so, yeah, Kelly and I spent the day doing that. And that's, that was it, man.

52:42 We've been together since, yeah, since 90. What was that, 91 or whatever it was? Yeah. That's wild. That's got to be tough though, you know, being, well, I mean, first of all, having a relationship with somebody who's on the same tour as you has got to be tough. Awesome. Really. Yeah. There's not a lot of like, turned up eyebrows and like, what are you doing? You know, kind of stuff like, oh. No, but the she did, she did make the, she did make the sound guy pay up because I think at one point I told her I said, well, I can't remember his name, ultrasound image. He and he said, he said, I'll bet you 100 bucks that yeah, you don't. You don't get her really.

53:26 And like we, yeah, it was like the end of the tour party thing. And Kelly walks over to him and says hey up. Oh, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. So when did you get married? So that was what it you said that was in 89 or 91 or something? 91 we got married after our first show which so we didn't get married until 96. OK. And you're. Still, you survived 95. Survived all those years of touring and shows and yeah, so is it better when somebody is in that lifestyle? 1000% because you just said you just hit the nail on the head and I've heard you go over this with other other guests on your show. This isn't a job, this is not a career. There's no trajectory, there's no ladder. I mean, to a certain extent there might be, you know, there from from trust monkey to tour manager, there's a progression, but it's a complete lifestyle.

54:27 And unless you're willing to commit yourself to the lifestyle, you're going to have a miserable experience treating it as a job. And because I think one of the keys to our success anyway, and there's been other successful ones where people one wasn't in the industry and one out. But definitely one of the keys is she understands, she gets it. She knows what's she knows what it takes to do the job. And therefore, if I have to leave town or if I had to go do this or go do that, I didn't get nearly as much crap as people who were in relationships with people now who didn't understand the business. But the flip side of that is they also know where the bodies are buried.

55:11 Like they know, they know the flow of girls in and out of tour buses. They know, you know, they know the parties, they know all of the stuff that's going on. So that's the downside of it is you can't lie. Like, you can't, you can't bluff and say, no, no, you know, I just went to sleep at 9:30 and, you know, read a book, you know, like they know that's probably not the case. But Kelly's also the cool one that would You know, when you're at the strip club at 2:00 in the morning with all the roadies in the band, she's going in the back and dragging them all out. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, I mean, at first with my ex-wife, it was kind of like that, 'cause she was in the music business, I was in the lighting business, you know, similar industries, similar people, similar, you know, debauchery.

55:58 And neither one of us complained about what the other one was doing or, or there was number mistrust or there was number no, and there was number breached trust either, you know, and, and and then it just shifted and it was like, you know, you're going to do what you're going, where you're going to Las Vegas again, you're out till 2:00 in the morning, what are you doing? You know, and I don't know, maybe that's age. Maybe that's just when you hit a certain point in the marriage where it starts getting a bit iffy. But you know, one of the things about this lifestyle industry is that I think you either love it or you're going to hate it. And you know, it's it's like, again, using Cosmo as an example, like the over poster, you know, Facebook spammer that he is the one thing you can see through all of his posts.

56:49 And I love his post by the way, so I'm not putting it down, but but he does post a lot. And the one, the one thing you can see though, is that he friggin loves it. He loves the lifestyle. He loves every bit of it. He loves. And that guy lives every day. Like he, you know, if he's got a day off and he's in Austria, he's going to go out and see stuff. He's not going to sit in his hotel room and watch Netflix. He's going to go out and see stuff. And I love that. Like I love people who say I'm the luckiest man on earth and and I get to do this. Not I have to do this. I get to do this. I get to do this and I have gotten to do it for pushing up on 40 years, like 383738 years now, right?

57:33 Like all of the world, we're all about the same. It does. But you know what? All those experiences, and I will say going around the world with Kelly was great. Yeah, on those days off, yeah, I got somebody to go hang out. Yeah, no kidding. That's. Perfect. And do that stuff. And it's just been great. Our kids were brought up in the business, in and around the business. There are no strangers to tour buses, you know. But how did that work? If you were both touring and you had kids, like how does that work So. Good segue. Come around 97, Aiden. Aiden was almost 2 at that time.

58:16 And I was getting a little tired of the being away, right? Also hearing all the stories from all your peers about, you know, their kids growing up without them and they're not being at home and all this, all the stuff they miss. And I was like, that's heavy for me. So there was an opportunity that came through through Turner Broadcasting. Got it. It's so you're trying to put this story in order. It's hard. A lot of things have happened. We'll we'll go into more detail about it, but the the synopsis is I have an opportunity to start my own lighting company, yeah, here in Atlanta, a very. Was that East Coast lighting east? Coast lighting and.

59:04 Design, Yeah, because I remember that company. I think we've done business over the years and stuff, yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And so Kristinati Donut, another Roth alum who has had a stellar career as well. Donut really helped me and gave me the like the comfort, like you're not doing it alone, right? And so we were able to acquire like a bit of equipment and really kind of start this thing. And as this whole thing happened in like a 72 hour period, 96 hour period, Robert was RA came to the rescue. I called Robert and I was like, I may have just stepped on a landmine here, right?

59:57 Like, I don't know what to do. And he he sourced me a warehouse. So what was the challenge though? What what made you call Robert? What was the? So I had I had been working down at Turner Studios with some rock guys, John Halden, Thomas Branch, Tony Newman. Halden was the guy who kind of opened the door for everybody down there at Turner because they were a little fed up with the union, quite frankly. And John didn't want to tour much anymore. So he started doing TV. So he was pretty in pretty heavy down there. And he says, hey, I know these Turner, because they only had the one studio at the time, they would they would have NBA on TNT, which do the West Coast games. And so they would have to turn around between like, 2:00 AM and 8:00 AM to do Turner Classic Movies that next morning in the same room, in the same studio.

1:00:55 And so the union, these guys weren't getting to shoot until like, noon or after lunch. And it was just a bad situation. And John convinced the powers that be to let him bring a bunch of roadies in and a bunch of people who didn't know shit about TV lighting. And we did it in six hours the first couple of days and then we had it down to like 3 hours after. That Wow. Yeah, right. That's cool, yeah. And so that's how a lot of Doug Lloyd, Thomas Branch, Tony Newman, John Halden, a lot of these guys started gravitating down toward Turner Studios and getting a lot of work down there, right? And John opened the door for us and for them. I had mentioned to the guys that I had wanted to kind of probably start my own thing so I could stay home more, control my schedule a little bit more.

1:01:47 John hooks me up with one of the higher ups there at Turner. And this was kind of when WCW was being bought by WWE. And so all that was going away, which was a huge Roth account, all those pay per views that we used to light, you know, 2500 park hands flying dimmer beaches, all that crazy shit. Anyway, we ended up acquiring a lot of that gear. And so that's how it started. So now I've got all this equipment and I'm like, where the hell do I put all this? I think a bunch of that gear came from Frank Santoro in Orlando, didn't it? It did.

1:02:29 Fla Productions, yeah. Fla Yeah. A. Lot of that. There was some of that in there, that guy. Saw some old. Bash boxes some. Bray. Boxes Frank did so well 'cause he, you know, he, he made a lot of money off of Fla for a number of or off of WCW for a number of years as their lighting contractor or whatever. Then he sold them his entire inventory and just worked for them as production manager, lighting designer, whatever he was. Yep. I mean, it was just such a great gig for him. He made so much money from that. He was, yeah. I'm glad for him. I always like Frank, you know, he got along with him. Frank was a good dude. He reminded me of Frank Zappa though. It was always so interesting.

1:03:11 Yeah, I mean just real laid back attitude. But the way he talked, yeah, like that cadence, that cadence that Frank Zappa had. Yeah, the turtle had a lot of that that. One a similar mark, you know, with the facial hair and the long hair and stuff like he the manners little sat down stuff. Yeah, I, I really like Frank. I haven't heard, I haven't spoken to him in a few years, like probably five years now. Last I spoke to him, he had a a Harley-Davidson detailing company and had created all these products. Wow, Harley-Davidson licensed to clean your bike and stuff. And he was doing really well with that too. But I think he was going through divorce at the time, as I recall, and that was killing him. And yeah, so anyways, sorry, back to your story. There's all these.

1:04:00 Sidebars that. Yeah, because he reminds me of things. I know. It's so awesome. Yeah. So I called, I called Robert and I'm like, hey, I've got this thing and I need some help. And he's like, thanks, give me 20 minutes, I'll call you back. So you had a you had a bunch of gear that you'd acquired and you had no shop? Yeah. Nowhere to put it. And so where was? It was it still sitting with the people you bought it from or was it in a truck? Or it was still, it was still in like 3 or 4 various locations, right? And so Robert calls me back and he goes, I got you squared away. It's going to be like 600 a month. Here's your new address.

1:04:42 And I'm like, so I drive a doughnut and I drive over there in the car, go check it out. Sure. It's, it's a one day, you know, just a little one day shop. So we went and rented some 20 fours and went and start picking this stuff up over the next couple of days and just got it all in there and then spent like 2 weeks sorting it out. And then we're just fortunate enough, you know, just all these great people that I have had in my life. Right? Yeah, Jin St. was the production, Dave Jin St. and Dave Scruggs and Kerry Glenn, and we're all kind of running the Roxy Theater here in Atlanta. Yeah.

1:05:22 So was able to convince them to let us put a house rig in there under a contract, right. And from that spawned a contract for the Tabernacle for a period of years. Nice. And did a lot of stuff at Chastain. Was that your idea to do that or did it just happen by accident it? Just kind of happened. Because what a great way to cover your payroll, you know what I mean? Like to have recurring weekly revenue that you don't have to go fight for every week, right? And you know that you've got at least 10 grand a month coming in or whatever it is, right?

1:06:03 Yeah, That's that's such a good idea. You're providing the LDS, you're doing the services on the weekly or every other week. It's the Roxy thing. Started because I had a buddy come through on a tour and needed like a, a support package and we just showed up. Donut and I showed up, did it ourselves. And like our fear was in good shape. You know, we were all pro about it. A new dinosaur Dave, who was the LD down there at the time. And he hooked me up with Scruggs and, and Jen and, and Carrie. And they were like, Oh yeah, we like, we like what you, you know, we like you, we like what you guys do. And I said, well, hey, well, let's put something together.

1:06:44 And we made that happen. It took about six months to get the deal. Well, it was probably really logical for them too, because they probably looked at A, the the pain in the ass that it was to keep getting different gear from different places. B They probably looked at their average and went, OK, we're paying normally 3 grand a week and if we can get him to do it for 2500 a week and it just stays in here the whole time, it makes a lot of sense to us. You know, and we gave him some bang for the buck, right? We gave him some bang for the buck and, and so those that worked. And so that's how I was able to be home more when Aiden was young. And then we had Kieran, our youngest son, who actually just came into town. Today, these are not.

1:07:27 Millennial names at all, by the way. Kelly Keeridge. Kelly Patridge. OK, there you go. Yeah. So, yeah, so I was able to kind of control the schedule. Now we had opportunities to grow the business, but that wasn't the plan. The plan for the company was a, I didn't want to grow it into an RA Roth or a whatever, right? I just wanted to maintain controlling my schedule for a certain amount of time. And then when we felt like the kids were old enough, sold the company off, which was almost 10 years, sold the company to Magnum, to Eric Magnuson, which was great. Another character lesson happened. Six months later, Eric passed away and he turned the the company was now in Todd's hands, his stepson, who has done an amazing job with that.

1:08:26 I did not handle that whole thing very well. So hence another character development lesson. I was not, I did not handle that situation very well and Needless to say, ended up parting ways with them and obviously has done an amazing job right and. Sometimes you know what? It's not anyone party's fault. Sometimes it's chemistry, sometimes it's. Whatever, this was 100% my fault. I was trying to, I was trying to rescue a little bit there. You know it's OK.

1:09:09 I'm trying to rescue you. Then I went to work for one of my clients who ended up doing a lot of corporate work. So that's what got me into the corporate arena was going to stage and directions interesting and working the working the corporate thing. And, and that was right when corporate was starting to really mimic Rock'n'roll like they wanted. Bigger shows, yeah, They wanted these big rock. Show looking things, yeah, yeah and so. Well, didn't a lot of that start with the the E3? Like the game Conference, The big game trade show, E3. What we used to have here, was it E3? Yeah, E3.

1:09:50 Was the big one. Yeah, yeah. The Super show. Super show, Yeah, yeah. So which used to come here in Atlanta, and Atlanta just doesn't have bupkis now? Yeah. Yeah, cornhole championships, you know. Well, you know, it's so hard to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to these convention centers and stuff because everyone keeps demanding more, more, more, more, more, you know? And so Orlando had to build a whole new convention facility or lots of them. Vegas obviously keeps building. You know, it's crazy. It's like some of the biggest conventions, you either have the facilities for them or they they go to Las Vegas, period, you know, or Chicago or New York. But yeah, so as you grew bigger into the the industrial thing, the corporate thing, you eventually made your way into world stage, right?

1:10:46 Eventually made my way into world stage which was an epic eye opening moment. Right. Like I'm working with people who I consider amazing and they. Are. Yeah, they are, but. World Stage exposed me to a completely different level of production. Production, product development, execution, logistics, labor, how you manage labor. It really opened my eyes to a a different level right on the corporate side than I had. Just because of the scale of it or or did they do something? Share differently the sheer size of these events. Yeah, incredible, right?

1:11:36 Yeah. They were doing like Google size events and stuff, Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it was and and the level of technician that you're dealing with, the level of engineer that you're dealing with was was eye opening and amazing. Well, the quality and size of the gear and stuff like that, like the equipment lists thousands and. Thousands of panels of custom LED, you know, Yeah. Yeah, crazy. So yeah, just completely nuts. Just the people that I got to meet and work with and do shows with have just been incredible. Partnered up with a few of those guys now on a couple. Of yeah, yeah.

1:12:22 And I want to get to that too. But before we get there, I wanted to ask it. So you were you there when it crashed, Rock? No. You were around a lot of crashes, weren't you? No. World Stage. Yes. So let me skip back one first. I'm going to just say something out here and I'm just going to put it out there and it's going to be what it is. Cool. The entire landscape of touring would look completely different in North America right now if the accountant hadn't stolen all the money from Robert. Interesting. I don't even know that I've ever heard that story. So I'm.

1:13:05 Well. I won't I won't go into details, so let's just that's fine to say that somebody going to ask him in the cookie jar. You know, I'm sure I've had that conversation with Robert now. At the height of Roberts, you know, at the height of RE Roth, we had RE Roth source point design, night moves transfer. We had the design, we had the gear in the execution and we had the transportation. We were doing 75% of all the things shows dude. We. Were doing all the. Tours big. It was big. Right. It was massive and it was growing, and even with the whole Cinderella thing falling apart and all that, that we still took that gear and put it right out on other stuff. Yeah, we had other things to do.

1:13:52 If if that hadn't happened, the landscape of North American touring would would look so completely different than. It's so true. Well, I mean, there's so many different events like that that if that hadn't happened, this wouldn't happened and all of those different types of things. And but yeah, I don't know that I heard exactly that one. I don't remember, you know, because a lot of the times when I had in depth talks with Robert was well before this podcast and both he and I were sitting at a bar with frickin martinis in our hands or whatever. And you know, Robert, the whole conversation with Robert's eyes closed the whole time, you know, talking to me, you know, like I, I had so many conversations with Robert when I'm positive he was asleep and just answering anyways, you know? He was a great teacher.

1:14:41 He knows more about lighting than everybody else will ever forget. Well, and guess. What? He remembers most of it today and he's almost 70. I think he's 70 this year. And he remembers most like my memories shot. And I've never drank or done as much of the bad stuff as as Robert and as most of you have in the industry, right? Like I'm, I'm a wimp compared to most of you because I never toured. Like I never lived that lifestyle. I toured in a band for a while, but I never toured for a band or with a band. And, but I still can't remember so many things even from 20-30 years ago, let alone, you know, the very beginning of my career.

1:15:22 So I always appreciate it when guys like you and and certainly like Robert's memory is photographic in some, in some cases, you know, yeah. He's a wealth of knowledge. He's he was a great teacher. He was a great supporter. We gave him 100%. And I will say post, post my time working for him, he gave me 100%. Yeah. He helped us out at East Coast lighting so much. Some of these small, some of these smaller tours he didn't want to deal with. Yeah, he would. He would say, hey, call these guys, they'll go. They'll help you out, you know, and it's. Always great, you know, when somebody like Forwall or PRG or whoever named the Borg, you know, as people love to call them, but when when they come in and rescue companies by purchasing them or whatever, you know, it looks beautiful on the surface and stuff.

1:16:14 But the thing that I always find that's sad and and you know, I love Jerry Harris. I'm good friends with Jerry Harris, so I'm not knocking anything that he's done or or that four wall have done. You know, there's there's loose capital laying around. People are going to buy up companies with it. And if your company shows some glimmer of life in it that we could build upon, you're going to be bought, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. But when you lose the attitude and you lose the character and you lose what made RA Roth great to begin with. And, you know, production arts, like, nobody remembers production arts. I do. You know, I remember sitting at design tables with with Steve Terry and John McGraw and OK, what do we need to do to get some product on to this design, you know, and trying to work a way to sell them some gear or whatever. They were the gold standard production arts. And so when you buy it in a year later, the brand disappears. That sucks.

1:17:14 It just really, but it's hard to buy all these companies and and continue to promote all the brands. Like they even just tried keeping light and sound design as the touring division at PRG and it was just confusing. So finally they just had to drop all these brand names, like production arts was going to be the theatrical division, and light and sound design was going to be the touring division. It didn't work, you know it. So they just had to drop it all and become PRG, you know? Yeah, but it's always been in the 80s that was happening, you know, with a. 1. And task. And electric back and all that, all that stuff coming and going, yeah. That's how. I I had met Peter Clark.

1:17:57 Super Europe, yeah. Super Mick. I remember people bloody. Legend, right? Yeah. Bloody legend, that guy. Funny as hell too. I. Had some great experiences with all those guys. That's where I. Met Dizzy Gospel. That's where I met Rob Steele. Met Rob Steele before he came over, before he came to the stage. Wow. Yeah, I think I met him right after a lot. Yeah, hanging out over there a lot and doing a lot of work over there. Yeah, but but World St. stuff goes. Oh yeah, dude, that guy was a trip. Yeah. Is he still around? Do you know, like I, I, I that's a guy I'd love to have on this podcast, by the way. So if anybody knows Peter Clark and has contact details for him, let me know if he's, if he's still around. I've had Dizzy on a couple times. He was just on recently, like maybe a month ago. Get a hold of him.

1:18:45 Dizzy might. Yeah. I should ask Dizzy. So, Sarah, if you're listening and not. Napping if if Sarah's listening and not napping right now, please reach out to Dizzy and get information to get Peter Clark. Get Peter Clark. Oh hell yeah. Yeah, the other one that we're trying to. To get in touch. With is is Chipmunk. You know, I'd love to get Chipmunk on, on the on the podcast. He last I heard he's in Australia. He's he's. Retired in Australia and but I don't know if that's still the case or whatever, but at some point Richard Kadina, who, who follows the podcast pretty closely. I don't know if you know Rich, but Richard's pretty close.

1:19:26 Richard's pretty close. Yeah, he's pretty close with with Chip. So we're trying to get him on. But Australia, shout out to Pip Robinson and the boys you know there. You go. There you go. So back to. Back to world stage. So you were there when it went down and you know, yeah, I guess some of the questions I have and I've. Had most of these. Answered by, you know, some of the people who were in very top management and stuff at the company. But I mean, what was it like? Like, did you know it was coming? Were you looking around going, hey, there's something wrong. It just happened quick. Not at all. So the plague hit. And it was like the middle of March.

1:20:07 I had like 3 shows going on. I. Had flown from 1 show. Down to Orlando to SAP, which cancelled, but then we ended up taking the rig that we had down there for SAP and basically just taking the ballroom down there at Marriott World and making a giant studio out of it. Redesigned the LED with everything we had on site. Set up a bunch of cameras, did the. Thing so they ended up doing it. As a as a webcam, that's basically right, which some people had experienced in at that point, but not a lot. You know, this is beginning second week of March of 2020. Yeah. And that was a very new concept at that. Point right? I get that show.

1:20:48 That show's under control. Great. I need to go up to Nashville and check on the boys up there. We have something going on at Opryland. Get up there. And I'm just. In time to. See Don Felder was the entertainment and so got to see Felder and it was. Awesome God, he. Was rocked. He was so good that night. Voice was great, playing was great, band was tight. I'm just like. Standing in the back of the room with a couple of the other guys and I'm just. Going. Yes, that's cool. So the next. Morning. I get. A call from my boss at World Stage. And he's like, hey, we're. Something's going on.

1:21:31 We're not sure. Stay by your phone. I'm like, OK, so my buddy Brian Beck, who I got the can and the WE Mailer box from, we drive back to Atlanta the next day. Your credit card's not bouncing for gas or anything yet though, is it? OK, good. And that was on a Thursday and that Friday. Michael calls me and he says we just laid off like 250 people, he said. We're putting you on half salary for whatever month or two months or whatever it was. And I'm like, OK, OK. Because all all of a sudden, you know everybody's. Calendars are just. Disappearing, all the shows are cancelling everyone, all these mandates that are going out and you just, everybody just cancelled. And so we I sat there on, we would do our weekly meetings, you know, a couple days a week, we would get online and and hang out and talk about all the shit you should be doing. But can.

1:22:24 Yeah, yeah. Or what can we try to do? Yeah. What can we how can we spin up some virtual studios and at that point they about 6-6 to 8 weeks. Into that the half. Salary thing. I get a call and I'm saying I told I'm being furloughed, you're being furloughed. We're going to cover your, your half of the insurance so you stay insured through this blah, blah, blah. OK, great. And then they internally, they were still trying to spin up one in California and one in New York, some of these virtual studios because we had all the equipment, right?

1:23:05 You've got all the LED, you've got all the cameras, you've got all the. Technology, yeah, You guys. Were well positioned to do something all the people. That's 100% right. Yeah. So they they started. They got those set up and then started to do project product development, software development for a lot of these because there weren't a lot of streaming. Platforms to use at. That time, right now, there's a billion of them. But at the time. There weren't that many. So the guys who were were left there were holding it and that went on. My furlough went on until like February of 21 when I finally got a call and said, hey, we're just yeah, you're done. Yeah, you're on your. Own there, tough guy. The whole thing is pretty much done at that point, yeah. Yeah, pretty much that that.

1:23:49 Point it was, it wasn't. Much longer before the the rest of it. Interesting. Yeah. It's amazing though, like. You you'd think that was one that's that's too big to fail, you know, But yeah, debt, debt is a debt is a killer. Debt's a killer, I think. We had a lot. 2020 was already going to be a banger. Year and I'm pretty sure sales wise if you talk to the guys who are running the sales teams, we were probably in Q1 alone, we were already 30% over the previous year. I mean, we just came out of the gates just storming like. Like I could see.

1:24:32 It adding. 15 to 20 million to the bottom line over the course of the year, right? Like you're just, you're just really making a huge, a huge jump. And I think they had invested in the technology that was going to be needed to get that done. I saw a lot of that CapEx went out at the first of the year and so, you know there wasn't that money hanging around. I don't know any of the details of any of that. Stuff. It'd be pure. Speculation if I I mean usually usually when a company. That size crashes its debt, you know, and I mean some of the companies in our industry and I won't mention any names, but some of these companies are operating on between, you know, 4500 million and, and a billion dollars in debt. And so when shit goes bad like it did in 2009 or 8 or whatever and it did again and during COVID and you're carrying that debt load, something has to give. And usually you either find a buyer with very deep and patient pockets.

1:25:42 So in other words, they'll put all that capital, the billion dollars that you need, they'll put that in play and be very patient waiting until Covid's over and and, you know, not pulling any triggers to implode the company along the way or or, you know, something has to give like it. It's just, you know, banks aren't going to sit patiently usually like banks are. Banks will weigh A versus B. And if A is a better choice, you know they launch. You know, the way it was explained to me is and. This makes a lot of sense. If you and me go to the bank and we borrow $10 million, if we don't pay it back, we're in deep duty. If we can borrow $100 million, that's their problem. Don't pay it back.

1:26:24 The bank, yeah, exactly. They will restructure whatever. They need to restructure they'll. Write off. They'll do whatever they do. Yeah. And that's how those. Larger. Organizations. I know a very particular set of talks that. Happened and let's call it, you know, a couple $100 million and they sat at the table with the bank and they said, you know, the bank was putting pressure on them and they said, look, if you don't pull this pressure off of me, I'm going to bankrupt this fucking company and then you're screwed. And so, you know, the bank had to basically back off or they were going to hit the nuclear button, you know, and at that point it was over. So, you know, it's a challenge in our industry because there is a lot of capital being injected into our industry and there's a lot of debt being taken on by our industry. And that's going to become even more prevalent, I think, as interest rates drop and there's more money being put in play and all of those things.

1:27:22 And you know, it's great as long as things are going as they are today, but right, you know, when things aren't going as well as they are today and the pressure comes back again. And banks, like I heard, you know, banks were pulling notes on people that had their houses on the line, small businesses in our industry. And, and I know several, many of them because I was consulting with many of these companies, helping them, you know, to stay in business as much as I could just because I know a lot of people and I know where all the bodies are buried in the industry and stuff. And, you know, it was always, it wasn't because they were missing loan payments. Usually it was because of covenants built into these agreements that they had with their banks. And it's these covenants are usually the leverage that the bank pulls out to, to put you out of business or to force you to start selling off all your gear or whatever. And they're the 1st and only ones that get paid. Nobody else gets paid in those situations. So it's brutal.

1:28:21 It's just brutal. It is, it is. And it was such a shame, man. I mean just the. It was funny. We used to joke. Because I worked out of the Nashville. Nashville is a sales office, right? And so there's like four of us up there. And so we called ourselves the Middle Coast because you always got the New York guys, you know, the old sharp Weisberg guys, right? West Coast guys and the West Coast guys, The old video. Labs guys, I. Love working with both. Teams. Right, it's 2. Completely different business. Models, right? Yeah, definitely. Like, literally, we called ourselves the Middle Coast. We. Called ourselves the Middle Coast, Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, if it were an. Election, you'd be the independence. Yeah, yeah, I miss it.

1:29:05 It's it's awful. Man, we had such. Like I said, I got. Exposed to a lot of really great people technology processes and procedures it just all Oh yeah, it's that's the cool thing about. Getting involved in. When you're a small. Business guy like you were and, and I am when you get exposed to some of those big companies, I think you learn a lot about methods and processes that you would never get access to as a small business, some of which are really brilliant and some of which you're going man, why are these people doing this stuff? They're losing so much money because as a small business, you operate, you know, and you and I both come from racing and, and, you know, it's like a. It's like a.

1:29:53 A race car compared to a school bus driving on the same racetrack, you know things happen a lot more quickly in the race car. So you can go out of business more quickly, you can get things done more quickly. And as a result, you, you just have to be smarter with how you're using that power, how you're laying the power down on the track, right? Versus a school bus, you don't have much power and it takes forever to turn the thing and all of that. So you're, you're moving more slowly and gracefully perhaps, but much less efficiently and things don't happen as quickly. So, you know, it's a very slow burning death as opposed to boom, you're dead, you know, and but anyways, so, but it's interesting because you met your future business partners, right? Yeah.

1:30:39 So. I have a couple of different projects going on right now. My day job, one of my day jobs is I have Source Point Collective. And yes, I did call Robert and ask. That's myself, Bob Foley, Josh Johnson and John Orchard. I'm sure you know Orca from the old days. And so we do technical direction and project management. We do some production design still. John is Orchard is really active in doing a lot of the production design stuff that we're doing. But mostly we're doing show management kind of things, technical direction and stuff like that. And then so who are your clients for that business so? For that agencies, right?

1:31:22 So agencies call us. I'm working. For invent this. Next week INVNT has one of the TDs on a show that they have coming up here out in Las Vegas. So we'll be out doing that starting tomorrow. But we have so agencies call us up to come in and help them project manage cool. We and producers call us and and we do have two clients that we work directly with that we've had guys that work with us bring to the table. So we kind of almost act as producers for some of those smaller shows. Is that a? Is that like a real company or is that?

1:32:02 Like a collective. It's it. Well, it is. I mean it's. All under one. Umbrella, The four of us are equal partners in the company and and we take on all the responsibilities and the task as a group. OK, which which is actually kind of a selling point for that because now you have multiple threads of eyes on your project all the time, of course. Yeah, you know, and so we're always working together. To. To streamline those processes and stuff like that, Yeah. The downside is you have to get along, you know which. Could be looked at as the upside, but yeah, Jo and I have Orchard and I have known each other for 30. Plus years. And then, yeah, Bob, Mark Rabinowitz hooked me up with Foley. I needed an LB for something. And I.

1:32:44 Called Mark because I was down. In Orlando, you know, Mark, of course Mark, you know, and of course Mark is like Christopher Walken. If you say something that Mark said, you have to say it the way he said it. So it's like, hey, you picks a shirt, call this guy. Bob Foley, he's a good guy. You'll love him. So I called Foley and then I met Josh through Foley. And so we've all been. Together for 20 plus years, a couple of decades and then and then the other other. Stuff we have going on is we have. Future FUTR and Better BETR and these are two product development companies that I'm partnering with Josh Perlman and Jason Mullaney from World Stage and so we are.

1:33:27 The better. Project is the one that's kind of got all the the heat right now and what we've done is we've just really come up with a very slick modern using some AI driven. Capabilities. Break out in the box, right? More or less. Except our break out in the box isn't the size of a refrigerator or a lectern or A20 space rack. It's the size of A4 space rack unit. So we are, we demoed the big kit last summer. We did demos for the ECS, the event control system, the ECS Light kit we did about a month ago out in Vegas. We've had some investors step in and give us some money to go into production.

1:34:11 So we are building the 1st 25 units of the ECS light kit, which has an incredible range of capabilities in a very small powerful package, easy to deploy, consistency of equipment across the board for your small meetings and things like that. These personally, I mean, we call it break out in the box, but to me, I think this thing would be incredible for trade show boots cause space is it's such a premium all the time yeah, when you can control audio, video and lighting out of one small unit and you can access it remotely and you can update it remotely. We put 5G modems and all these things so we have access to them from anywhere all the time yeah.

1:34:55 So you're not relying on house Internet and things like that. So is the is the business model to rent those or to sell? Them to AV companies the business model is to rent them OK right so you're going. To own all the inventory, no. Well, let's. Well, let's. Let's clarify inventory, yeah. The control system. That we have built the ECS kits, Yes we will. On those we will not. That's what I meant by projectors, screens, displays, drape, staging. Yeah, all that. Speakers. No, I was just curious if the business model was a A. Manufacturer and distribute model or a manufacturer and hold model and it's manufacturer and hold. Yeah, yeah. We, we have had some interest from a couple. Production companies to do.

1:35:39 Long. Term lease deals for like 75 to like verilite model. Verilite model, yeah. So that is definitely conversations. That can be had, yeah, as we're going, yeah, we're having a couple of those now. Yeah, we've been very fortunate. SO3 smart partners or 4? Is it 4 total or? Three in that business, it's three, OK, it's 3. So 3 Really. Smart people and I guess you. Divide and conquer. So do you have two really smart guys and you hanging? Out. I knew that was kind, but do you? Do you have to get involved in the investor side of things at all? Like is that an everyone gets involved or is one partner dealing with we're all, we're all out there trying to bring money in?

1:36:21 Because that's all out there, isn't it? Raising awareness. You know it is, but I. Have found I found some enjoyment. In it because. When we did. Those demos a few weeks ago. And the look on the people's faces, these are all seasoned. Yeah. They all know what they're looking at. And. When they walk. In the room and go, holy shit, yeah, that's it. Yeah, and they've seen what? We've been able to do with technology. Yeah. And shrink it. Literally. Honey, I shrunk the kit. Yeah. You know, that's what we kind of joke around with. It is game. Changing things.

1:37:02 Come around generationally and I honestly believe that. This is one of them. Yeah, it is a. It is a. Solution. Yeah, that is desperately needed. Well, I. I watched. You I watched a couple of. Reels that were on, I don't even remember where your website or LinkedIn or something. And it definitely looks interesting. It's an interesting product. You know, I had talked with, I think I talked with Josh at one point about what he was doing early on like a year ago and you know it, it definitely sounds interesting. Like that whole AV industry side of things seems to be continually growing.

1:37:42 And I had a guy on a couple weeks ago with a really cool bit of technology too. I forget what it's called or else I'd tell you right now, but you know, it had to do with Wi-Fi audio getting around all of like his challenge was all of the budget at A, at a, a keynote address, for example, was being spent on these headsets for translation was one of the big things. And so with their system, all you have to do is you go to a website, which they got their code up and you just scan the code and go to the website. And once you're on the website, you basically can just pick a language. And so through your headphones, on your iPhone, through your, and you don't have to download an app and you don't have to sign up for anything and all of that stuff, right? So, and it can be branded to whatever that keynote is or that convention is or whatever.

1:38:41 And so you just go to this website and, and you can either pick a language or a feed. It could be different feeds of different information, whether you're an engineer, a tech or a this or a that or whatever. And really super cool software. And I mean, it's like AI think it's A1 Rackspace unit for for for every four channels. So 4 languages for feeds for whatever. Oh my God, Really inexpensive to use. Really, Sebastian and. Don't ask me his last name. He's. French Canadian. I'll go back and I'll find it. Well, no, but if you want me to. Connect you. I I can connect you. Directly to Sebastian. Super smart guy, really very well positioned product. Like it's it's not going to change the earth, but it is going to change how some people do some of these things because like he said, you know, he was spending at some of these things. He was spending 75 grand for headsets and then having three people use them, you know, Oh my gosh. And it's like.

1:39:39 It's. Because you don't know how many people are going to need translation, and if only three people use it, you've wasted $74,000. You know, so it sounds like just the thing we need for the press room on this show. We're doing probably, it's gotta be multi language, yeah, probably multilingual. Gosh. And he gave me some of the pricing and it's, it's very reasonable. Considering, you know, what these people are spending today, it's it's incredibly reasonable. So yeah, you should definitely look into it. It's cool. But one of the big, one of the big driving factors one. Of the big driving factors on this is, you know, coming out from the pandemic, we've had labor issues, right? Like it's hard to find. A lot of people left the industry and it's hard to find if you've got a.

1:40:22 Show that has. 50 breakout rooms or more. Finding 50 qualified people is hard. It's tough and you can't do it. So taking some of that burden out and making it more presenter focused platform make it easier to plug and play for them, right. So we're out there. It makes so much sense. You've got an iPad, you've got a dashboard up that's. Monitoring the. Health of all the systems that you're responsible for. You can see what's happening all the time. So you've got a float you you know, you're you're more effective use of Labor rule like a floor manager, couple of floaters, floor manager, couple of floaters and you're able to and then you have a guy down in master control watching all the systems, watching the records how it all works. It's just it's a great solution.

1:41:18 You have IP on this. I would. Expect some. Yeah, yeah, some. Some some. Some. I mean some of it. Does help me to be. Careful. Yeah. All right. Well, we won't go too far into it then. But no, I mean it's exciting. Like to me, you know, sensible solutions for big dumb problems that have never been addressed makes a lot of sense. And, and it's why I got so like, I remember I was looking at this podcast with Sebastian and I was thinking, this is going to be so boring. It looks like such a boring technology. I'm not interested in this audio thing for, for AV or for, you know, keynote presentations and stuff. And I was blown away by it.

1:42:02 I was like, it's the genius is in its simplicity is really what it comes down to, and it really is. I love solutions like that. Really. Really. And guess. What you and I both find a lot of those solutions or dream a lot of them up based on Motorsports. You know, Motorsports is always looking for easier, less expensive solutions to to complicated problems, right? And the people remind me of our industry very much. You know, they're very passionate. They're usually underpaid. And you know, they do this because they love it and it's a lifestyle and it's, it's my passion and it's all of those things.

1:42:42 And so I don't think we're done with the lighting and sound stuff yet though. So we can't get into racing yet. Racing is our reward for finishing all the boring stuff. I was going to say, I was going to ask you what your favorite. Racing saying is, I don't. Know. I don't have any favorites. My favorite racing. Saying is, Yep, your bills paid. Don't worry, you don't owe us anything. You know, at the end of a weekend, that's what you want to hear. Yeah, your bill. Is 0 perfect when? I first started racing Atlantic. The guy told me he goes speed is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how hard you hit the wall. That is awesome. I love that one and I'll never. Remember it? I'll never remember it, but that is awesome.

1:43:25 That for the lighting stuff, man. Yeah, no, I mean. Congratulations on this. Business and good luck with it. I mean, I you're still basically in start up mode and and that's exciting, scary, frustrating, challenging, fun. You know it's all of those things wrapped into one. I call it excitingly terrified. Yeah. Yeah, because dude, at 60. I'm still learning. Yeah, me too. I'm still grinding. Me too. I still get up. Every day and grind, right? And I love it. I love. Can't wait. Can't wait to get up and grind work with. And I've been, I've been so looking forward to this, right. It's like so hate to disappoint you. Yeah. You don't have it. This is awesome.

1:44:06 Yeah, no, yeah, I just. I love talking about this stuff. Yeah, I love talking about this. Stuff, you know, we, we skipped over a lot of your stories because I actually got some little hint pointers here on some of your stories. So tell me the one about gold toenails, because I need to know this one. It just sounds like a story I need to hear. I'll try to make this quick. Yeah, so it's all right. We. Got time. We're out with Hank Junior. And I committed the. Cardinal sin of falling asleep. That boy in the front lounge, Doc. What are you doing? Well, we only had. A front lounge we did. Eddie Pleasant. Grant had the back lounge, that was his office, his bed. OK, yeah. Then we had the bunks in the front lounge for for the. Team.

1:44:46 I fell asleep and of course we stopped at a truck. We're on like a 2 day drive and we stopped at a truck stop. I've got long hair. I get off the bus, I'm not even paying attention. You know, I've got one eye open, still probably feeling the effects of all the stuff. Yeah. All the booze. And everything that was a heavy. That was a heavy crew bus rider. That would get destroyed. Every night, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, we were, we were pros and I, I go walking in this truck stop, my long hair, I've got probably a tank top and some shorts and flip flops on and I'm getting all the, you know, these guys are like, hey, sweetie, blah, blah, blah.

1:45:28 And I'm like. And I thought they were just. You know about what state? I don't even remember where we. Were we were just at a like a union? 76 You know, back when they had the restaurants, you know, and I thought it. Was a whole turn the page. Moment, you know, Bob Seger, turn the page. Moment, you know, is that a woman or a man? You know, they're just giving me shit. So I just keep walking, right? And I sit down. And it's when I sit down with Kirk and Kirk Marks, who we mentioned before, and I'd sit down with them and I look down and I see that my toenails are all painted. They. Did that it dawned on me till years. Later. Where the did anybody's people have nail Polish?

1:46:11 Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So I looked at Kurt and I'm like. Who the fuck did this? To me he goes. I am not telling you to set. Carpenter's name. That's hilarious. It was. A guy named Fred Coats. Yeah. Fred Coats and so. Fast forward about. Two weeks, we're playing the the State Fair down there in Sedalia, MO. You're on this big stage in the middle of the racetrack. And I knew it was time to get Fred back. And so I had gone. There was a bunch of like Missouri State Patrol guys all hanging around, and we're just sitting all shooting the shit with him and whatnot. And I said, hey, you guys want to help me pull a pull a joke?

1:46:54 And they're like, yes, great. So I recruit. Like four of them. And. These guys are like. Big yeah, Just Jack, right? And. And so I go and I get a bunch of T-shirts and stuff for. Them and just swag. Them down right and So what I ended up doing Fred is sitting on a road case with a bunch of. He's he's got nothing. On but like some running shorts and and and A and a Fanny pack. Yeah. And I didn't want it to get out of control. So I sent Bud Phillips to his guitar attack. I said go tell Fred that there's some cops looking for him, you know, and tell him you'll hold his Fanny pack because I didn't know if Fred had anything on him or whatever and I didn't want the Yeah, I didn't want the joke. You didn't want it turning into a real arrest. I didn't want it turning.

1:47:45 Into a thing, yeah. So what I. Told the cops was I said tell Fred that you're because I know Fred had hooked up with these girls in Oklahoma like 3 days ago, four days ago. And so I said tell him. Tell him you want to. Talk to him about some. Statutory thing out of Oklahoma City. And so these cops go over and they pick Fred up, and Fred is a small, you know, 80 lbs. Soaking wet in a burlap bag, right? He's not a big guy and these. Guys, pick him up. He's just sitting there with his feet dangling and he's like Kurt, Kurt, help me, help me. Somebody help me? And they just start. Parading him all around, backstage, all out.

1:48:28 At what point did he? Realize it was a joke. When they went to go put him in the. Car and one of the other. Cops steps up and he goes, boy, don't you need to know? You need to be this. Tall to ride in the. Missouri State Patrol and he turns, they turn him around his. Feet never hit the ground the whole time. They turn him around and we're all standing there and I'm going. I got you, mother. That's a good one. That's a good one. That's a damn. Good one. Oh my God. You know, it's funny because. Again, I never got the. Opportunity to do that. On the road with. Lighting people, although some of my employees and stuff, like every once in a while we'd have some fun if we were in a hotel somewhere. But playing in bands when I was like, in my late teens, 18/19/17, you know, touring in Western Canada and really junky little towns with, you know, terrible places. But we did all those same things. You know, some really, really bad practical jokes were played. And it was always so much fun.

1:49:29 But, you know, you had to be careful how far you pushed it because you know, there's going to be a response. Yeah, Yeah. And it's going to go further and next. Thing you know. Unfortunately that that that capped it. You did it. That's. The one we were even knew we were. Yeah, you shook hands and said. OK, we're done. Oh, yeah. Oh. Yeah, he was just like, he was so relieved. He was so relieved. That's hilarious. So. There's a couple. Other good ones here that I've got. Apparently you were like deported at some point or almost deported or something. Deportation is the code word I got here. What's that about? Maybe? Oh, was this in Czech? Czechoslovakia. There's a couple of those that's pretty funny. You know, right?

1:50:14 There, that's a pretty. Funny statement before the wall came down before. The Wall. Came down. Doing. Doing. A gig for Peter. Yeah, right. I was working. Not directly, but. Kind of indirectly. For, for Clark, I was over in Europe before the wall came down and you used to have to sneak over into like Czechoslovakia and you know, OK, you should have to sneak over there and play daytime shows and then haul ass back across the border before nightfall, right? The same thing in in. Germany. Right, you you try to. Get into East Berlin and go do some shows and then hop back across. What if he got it was we did?

1:50:56 There is stuff we did. And so. We're coming back. Down these back roads and once you've. Got these. Guys that don't speak, I mean, speak no English and you've got to hook somebody on your team, somebody in the band or somebody in the crew. And this was with a German metal band called Victory. OK, right. And we had snuck over. We were. In two vans. One with, you know, like four of us crew guys and some back line and the band and the other. And so we hauled ass over did like this noon show in the basement of a basically the basement of a whorehouse. There and. Just outside of Prague, and we're hauling back, hauling us back, and we get blipped on one of these little back roads. And did you ever see Stripes?

1:51:42 Do you remember the movie Stripes? Those two guys with the little guard shack and the little thing that came down? That's exactly what it was, yeah. That's. Exactly and. It all it is, is a shakedown, right? But this happened to be a Friday. Yeah. And so they needed weekend cash. They needed something. And so they're like. You know, one of the guys on the cruise spoke enough whatever to communicate with these guys. So we don't have any money. I mean, I've got a fistful of Deutsche Marks and some lira and some, you know, whatever pounds, you know, that I've got floating around in my duffel bag.

1:52:23 But I don't yeah, I don't really have got what, 50 bucks on the total, right. And so there's it's not a lot of money. And so you can't call anybody in London because it's. Like 6. PM 7:00 PM on a Friday night, you know they're gone. This is way before pagers and cell phones and in any of that, you know it's hard to. Remember that. Isn't it like when you actually had to catch people? While they were in their office, so they didn't think this through, right? So now they can either. Let us go but. The nearest town is like. Another 3030 clicks. Back the other way, Yeah. So they're not going to take us there because then they won't get their money. But they didn't think it through because now they got to house us and feed us for the weekend.

1:53:12 Oh boy, till somebody opens on Monday. And so. We end up going. To this guy's mom's house. Who the the. Guard One of the guards. There's two of them. Takes you to his mom's house. And we go, yeah, we go to their mom. 'S house, which is like a click. Down the road. And that's where we hung out for the weekend. You're kidding me it. Was more way. More like Mayberry than Midnight Express, right? That is insane. The craziest thing, of course, come one day. They get a hold of somebody at the label or at the management office and the next thing you know, there's somebody driving over, you know, it's a few 100 bucks or something. How much was it? I don't.

1:53:52 Even remember? Yeah, I don't even remember that is. Hilarious, the. Guard gave you to his. Mom's house, basically. Holding you for ransom? Yeah. Yeah, isn't that crazy? And I I think I remember. Giving. Like I. Had a a denim jacket from another tour that I gave one of the guys. Yeah, you know, but they were so clear. I mean, they were really cool. There wasn't we probably, honestly, we probably could have just gotten in the car and driven off and they wouldn't have done shit. Yeah, but who wanted to take that chance, Right. Yeah. But plus you were eating nobody. Probably having a good time. Probably drinking vodka with these guys or something, you know? And the band was just sit around and play music all. Day you know that's the color of the acoustics and the band was with you too for this whole thing Oh yeah they they. Oh God, nine of us total 9 or.

1:54:38 Ten of us. I didn't. That's why all I think is through. Yeah, that's what they didn't think. We're all sleeping on the floor, sleeping on the couch, in a chair, whatever couple of us sleeping in the van, you know? Sleeping out in the van. Yeah, but it was it was kind of funny by. But after lunch on Monday, we were we were rolling back across the border into Germany there. OK, so there's just there's one called gummy bears and. Jolt Cola. Which, who hasn't tried that one? My God, dude. Robert Mcteague. Me and Big House, when we were doing the satellites thing, OK, We were driving around the country in that 15 foot Ryder van, you know Van. From you on the. Back and and Steve Dunaway, not Steve Dunn. I'm sorry, Steve Winstead and that we were living on that. We were living on Cope and gummy bears and Joe Cola and you put all the gummy bears.

1:55:32 Up in the dashboard. And let them all melt so they just come out of the sheet and then throw them in the cooler. Joe Cola and we, we would take 3 Marshall cabinets in the road cases and turn them over as the first part of the truck pack. And you had that little sliding door that you could go to the back. Yeah. And we'd rig up a hammock in there over those cases. Then you put the drum cases behind it, so you had a little wall. Yeah. And so we had a little hammock back there. So you had two people up in the front. And one of us was always OK. Yeah. Driving around the country. Yeah, we did that, except. With with a. Converted school bus where the back half of the school bus was the gear and the front half was where you sat. And then again, you'd rig up beds somehow on top of all the gear in the back of the bus.

1:56:15 But. Oh, I thought you were going to say, like, isn't it? Is it gummy bears that if you drop them in Coke, you can, like, the Coke blows up or something? What? What is it that you put in coke and it blows up? I forget. Or is it Alka seltzer or something? I don't know. I thought there was something to do with gummy bears and coke or sometimes whatever. That might be it. Yeah, That might be, yeah. No the gummy bears, but you'll strip the. Color out of them, yeah. Yeah, well, neither of those. Things are very good, you know, dietary items. I don't think Jolt Cola, I remember that. That was only around for a little while, but it was, it was pretty, pretty solid sugar in twice the caffeine, Yeah. That's what it said. On the can, yeah, it was like 80.

1:56:56 Grams of. Sugar. God knows it was insane caffeine. It was insane. Just imagine. What that was doing to our? Hearts, you know. But we were young enough to recover. We were playing all these gigs in these small towns a lot. Of colleges and just these, it was all bar like bar gigs when you weren't opening for a, for a national act. So we literally got to see America, man. Like. All of it. Like all. Of it, it was. So yeah, that was me too, but just. Western Canada. You know, like Western. Canada I. Saw every dumpy little town and you know when you were saying with your pink toenails? Hey sugar, every time we'd walk into the Tavern that we were going to be playing in for the next week, you know, you'd walk in and you're in like 2 day old leather pants and hair down to the middle of your back and stuff, right?

1:57:48 And it never failed. You know, there's a table of rednecks and and they just look at you and go hey, faggots, you know, And it's like, oh man, we're going to have to fight. And we're starting to look for bottles or chairs or something that we can use to fight these guys off, right. But yeah, we got, we got into a few. We got into a few, Yeah. It happened. We weren't afraid. It gets scrappy. Yeah, I mean, hair. I think when we got. Into the probably in the 80s, like in the mid 80s, perhaps maybe even the early early 80s, you know, it was just like this thing like if. You had long hair. People who didn't called you faggots, you know, And I was like, you know, but all the time.

1:58:31 But your girlfriend likes me more than you. How can I be a faggot? You know, like, what are you saying to me? You know, just. Crazy stuff. Crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, we got all. That stuff, we got all that stuff. Most of the time you just keep walking like whatever, that's usually, but we definitely got in. We definitely. Got in some scraps. Occasionally, yeah, but it's it's you're in a bad way. If you've got. Two or three rednecks or whoever it is, you know, townies up north, if it is what they call them, but you get two or three of those guys and they're picking on one. Of you or. Two of you, Yeah. The next thing you know, when the rest of the squad finds out, you've got a dozen big King roadies. Yeah, we'll just RIP you to shreds, yeah. Yeah, there's.

1:59:16 Always. Somebody that's got your back, you know? And so you. Know we're going to have to venture. Over to racing here, so I'm warning everyone who's listening, if you hate my talks on racing, you're about to hate this one because Duck and I are going to start talking about racing. So I think you have been into it a lot longer than me, so I'll give you my short history of racing. I had sports cars and they were starting to get a little faster and a little more elaborate. And so I got to a point where I was like, hey, I don't want to have a problem driving on a local street. So I don't want to drive fast and stupid on local roads in South Florida. So I'm just going to start doing these. The, you know, HPD ES, the high performance driving events, right?

2:00:06 And there's so many different clubs in Florida and I'm sure at Rd. Atlanta and and Rumbling Rd. where I've been a bunch of times as well. And you know, you guys have some tracks around there, but you know, so in South Florida, the Homestead, Palm Beach, which is now closed, you know, we used to always have places that we could go and it was pretty cheap and, and I would go and take my sports car and just get better and better at it. And then I bought a NASCAR and converted it over to Rd. racing and took out half the roll cage and put another seat in. So I, I labeled it all up for my company.

2:00:48 You know, we wrapped it in my company logos and stuff. And actually what I did is I went to five of our suppliers. I, I got a price for wrapping this NASCAR. It was 2500 bucks. I went to five suppliers and said 500 bucks to put your logo on my NASCAR and they were like hell yeah. So I put like 5 logos on the. NASCAR it paid for. The RAP and, and I would just use it to take customers out for a few laps, you know, and, and just scare the shit out of them. And so now my son was like 6 and he'd go to the track with me and you know, I could take him for a lap or two every once in a while. They'd let me, you know, if if there was nobody else on the track or whatever, they'd let me take him out for a few laps.

2:01:32 And he loved it. Like he loved the smell of exhaust. He loved the smell of racing fuel. You know, he loved brakes. Like, he just loved the whole experience, right? So he kept bugging me, Dad, I want to drive something. I want to drive something. And at Palm Beach, there's a go Kart track right attached to it next door. And so we went over there and they wouldn't let him on the rental carts because he was only 6, but they would let him on a professional cart as long as he hired a coach to do. He'd follow with him. And the dogs attacking. Yeah, killer. Sit down, killer. So. We put him out with a don't worry about the background noise, by the way.

2:02:14 We put him out with a coach to do these lead follow things and he did a couple sessions and that was it. He was like, since that moment, he's never wanted to do anything else in his whole life except race. And so my racing stopped at which it wasn't racing, it was just driving fast. It was never wheel to wheel. Like I never, I, I got an SCCA license, but I've never used it. You know, I've never actually joined a race and gone out and started a race and all of those things. I've just done high performance things or high speed driving events. And so you know, he started in karting and it started as just we'll go to Palm Beach and you can just drive some laps and have some fun.

2:02:55 And then they had a club race. They convinced us to do it. He was hooked and you know, so then we joined one of the Florida series. It was called Florida Pro Karts something or other and on and on next. Thing you know we're. Racing nationally, internationally. He did karts for about, I guess nine years and then got into cars at 15. And actually Roebling Rd. was the first track he did. We we booked it privately for a couple of days and we bought a formula, Formula Four and went up there with it for a few days and got it prepped and got him fitted into the seat and all of the different stuff. And he went out and did two days on the track and and yeah, so that's a great track to learn on. He hated it.

2:03:46 He still hates it you. Know it's. A good place to learn because it's flat, it's wide, and there's mega. Runoff. Yeah, right. Like the only thing I have. Ever hit up? There was a pig running across a track in the middle of a race. That's a bit weird. Yeah, Yeah. But yeah. That's a good place to learn, yeah. Well, and it's inexpensive to to rent. It on you know yeah compared to other tracks you can rent that track for depending on what's going on like you know 15102 grand a day something like that so if you get one or two other drivers to share it with you it's not expensive at all 100% and and yeah so his career. Has just. Gone on from there and he's done a few different formula series along the way and spent two years in or a year and a half in England racing over there and now he's doing mostly coaching cuz at the end of last season basically I pulled his funding and and said hey you're fully sponsored by somebody else now if you want to keep going and you know he's he's a very good driver he's won a lot of races but you know you can't compete anymore like the money is just so ridiculous so yeah yeah the the other one is how do you. Make a small fortune in racing.

2:04:59 Yeah, start with the big one. Yeah, but I mean. It's gotten like at. His what he's. Doing, you know, the next level is is, you know, one step under Indy, one step under Formula One and we're talking about, you know, several $1,000,000 a season to race those right now. And you know, it's not like Mercedes or McLaren just go, hey kid, you're real good. We like you come and race for us because they can get paid seats in those cars. You know, they don't need to pay people or to give them away. And so hard, it's really hard right now. But the problem is it's watering down the talent in those big league series and it's happening in a lot of the GT series to the the, you know, what do they call them tin tops, the cars with doors and stuff? Yeah, the GT cars, Yeah.

2:05:46 So he's done a bit of that. He's done some Miata. Stuff he's done, all that kind of stuff, but I haven't been in a race car in a long time myself. So how'd you get going? Was it a dad and son thing or no? It was actually a friend and his dad. Derek and Gordon Stennis got me hooked. Gordon Derek's dad. Derek was my friend in high school. His dad ran a 65 Shelby GT350 with the SVRA and HSR. And so we were always at Rd. Atlanta, especially for the Walter Mitty, but we were always at Rd. Atlanta, you know, doing that. And then when we got of age, you know, we could drive. Yeah.

2:06:28 What was that age back then though, 16? Because now, I mean, it's like 13. Year olds can get in. Cars it's crazy now because of the money you know nobody, none of these organizations are turning away from that cash no, no. So I just renewed my. SCCA membership just renewed. I think this is year 30. Yeah. Wow for the SCCA. That's wild. Rent it. We're in Atlantics for a while. Started with an RT5, then an RT 41, then my last one was a swift double O 8. You still had to find them. And grind them. There was none of this paddle shifting crap, so yeah, you had to actually match RPMS.

2:07:11 And do stuff. Yeah, we just, you learned so much, change the gear stats, all that stuff. Yeah, Jerry just did a bunch of F 1600 stuff and. Same thing, you know, he had never driven a stick in a car, streetcar or a race car. And somebody threw him into a somebody threw him into a Formula Atlantic, I think, and then said, hey, we want you to run the F 1600 series in England. And yeah, And so he did it. And you know H. Pattern had. No trouble at all. Like he stalled it a couple times in the very beginning, but not in any races or anything. And his big problem is he's 6 foot 4. So you know, I don't know if you've ever been in an F 1600 car. They're not very big and he needs a bashing against the, the, the top of the cockpit.

2:08:01 You know, we had to make a lot of adjustments to get into the Atlantic because I'm. Wide. Oh, OK, yeah, yeah, but the the last. Problem too. Yeah, the last car was an 83 Van Diemen Formula Ford. OK, Right now it's a Club Ford because it only runs regionally. Don't run the Nationals with it, but that was much more forgiving. In the comfort. Department, yeah, but yeah dude, here in Atlanta we're. Lucky because we've got. Rd. Atlanta, you got Roebling Rd. Savannah, like you said, Carolina Motorsports Park and Kershaw is only a couple hours tow. Charlotte's only a 5 hour tow. Barber's a 2 1/2 hour tow. Yeah, yeah, we did the car track.

2:08:44 At Roebling Rd. a bunch of times but I we never did the car track there. But Rhode Atlanta is one of one of my son's favourites. He won a couple of SCCA races there that we were practicing for the Formula Four series or or USF series. I don't remember what it was, but I do more flagging or OR. EV or you know, pit and grid, I'm all over the place out there. Yeah, I don't have the time or the the again the funding, but mostly it's a time. It's a time constraint now. Yeah, no, I get it. I completely get. It, you know, it's for me, it's more money, you know, it's just because, I mean, I think people would be sick to their stomachs if I told them, you know what, I've got invested into my kids racing at this point. Just keep that between us.

2:09:36 Yeah, it's. It's, you know, I don't want Kelly finding out. You know, it's a silly amount of money. You know much money gets spent. Like people will tell me. You know, you know. Like who told me recently, somebody said, you know, my I've got, oh, I was talking with Greg Jones from Martin yesterday, Martin lighting and he was telling me, yeah, you know, I've got my daughter plays tennis and you know, we're spending sometimes as much as 1500, two, $1000 a weekend to be at these tennis tournaments, you know, for her. And and I'm like, dude, hold my beer. You. Know. Like, I mean, drop another couple of zeros on there. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's it's it's like. You. Have no idea and like I'll give you an example. USF Junior We got to be the first race series to race on the Lake of the Ozarks, Ozark International Raceway which funny Side Story so.

2:10:36 I'm on the NAV. Going from like Saint Louis airport to the Raceway. So I put in, you know, the name of the Raceway which they gave me, which was Ozarks International Raceway. So we get there and I'm at the gate and the gates locked and I'm looking inside and it's a drag strip and I don't see any trucks or anything like cuz there would have been tons of transporters there. And I don't see anything. And I call our team manager and I'm like where are you? And he goes we're at the track waiting for you, where are you? And I said I guess we're at the wrong track. I don't know. And he goes, oh, I forgot to tell you there's 2 tracks. And I guess even some of the team transporters had showed up at this wrong track man. Like why would you name 2 tracks Ozark International Raceway? Why?

2:11:24 Why change one of those names please? But anyways, so this was the first real race event at this track. It's a it's a club track for rich, rich old guys, right, right. And it's the first time they had a real event in there and it was us and Porsche car or Porsche Club of America or no us. And it might have been Porsche GT3. I don't remember. It was one of the Porsche series and but a big series and so we get there and and the. 1st. Race. Well actually no, the first practice like half the cars went off the track.

2:12:05 So it's a it's a blind down. Turn 1 is a blind downhill off camber, left turn, hard left 90° left downhill off camber with no runoff. So imagine how many cars got wrecked in that first turn. Like lots of cars, Porsches were being destroyed. Like, you know, 2, three, $400,000 Porsches were being destroyed. So we're in race one of the weekend and my son's fast. I think we qualified third or something and we're in race one. A kid in front of him, I think we were lapping the kid if I remember correctly. But a kid in front of us spins highest speed part of the track. We're doing 160 probably and he spins in front of us and goes off the track, doesn't hit his brakes so he rolls back onto the track right in front of my son.

2:13:01 And so my son had to make a hard left real quick and there was a bunch of runoff, but the guy behind him also followed us to do the hard left, hit us and basically helped push us into the wall. Totaled the car, like snapped our freaking, you know, gearbox off the engine and you know, snapped the the fiber, carbon fiber chassis in half the tub. You know, I mean, it was just a disaster. It was like a it was $100,000 wreck in race one. We'll get this. The very first time I ever bought insurance in a race ever. Like, I had never bought insurance, but as soon as I saw this track, I just went, this is going to be bad. Like nobody's ever been here.

2:13:48 It's a disaster. There's going to be problems. How much was that insurance again? And so I bought the insurance and we totalled the car in the first race. Crazy. Just. Lunacy. Where's Jeremy now? Is he here in the States or is he still over in New York? No, he's. In the States now, he's actually this week. He's in Homestead, he's coaching somebody in USF 2000 and I believe then he's coaching karting kid on the weekend or something. I don't know. He's got two different things going on this week in Homestead. But yeah, he travels around. He's he's doing a bunch of coaching right now. He likes it. He wants to be in a car racing. He really wants to do that.

2:14:29 But you know, who knows what, what's going to happen? I don't know right now. Like he, he's got a lot of friends, He's got a lot of people who like him. He won a lot of big races and, and you know, he's got a good name. He just doesn't have a billionaire dad, you know, So has he has he is IMSA on his radar at all? Yes, but. You know, IMSA is another one where, I mean, the first you got to do a couple of paid years in IMSA and it's, you know, four 500,000 a season, you know, so it's real money, you know, it's real money. And so you know, yeah, he's in line with everybody else looking for cash right now.

2:15:13 And if he finds it, if he finds it, great. If he doesn't find it, I basically, I've bankrolled him for 10 years and that's over because now I'm 60, you know, and now I really need to focus on the rest of my life too, right? Yeah, yeah. And also I want to leave him something when when I go, you know, and I'm not gonna if if I just keep spending it all on on Motorsports. So. Well, you and I both know what the commitment it takes to to. Get a car out there and to do this thing right, and all the learning that goes with it and all the crash damage that goes with it and all the the stuff that you can't control because some guy thinks he's Mario freaking Andretti. Yeah. And he's not.

2:15:53 Yeah, that that was a thing with with the HSR and the SVRA guys, with the vintage racing guys. They have 0 tolerance for the trust fund babies, right? Because these guys get out there and they've got some Mac daddy ungodly fast machine and they have no idea what to do. With it except you. Know skinny pedal down and they just there is a flip side to that though yeah there is a flip side to. That because we bought a, we bought an F2. 1000 car which I. Still have just to practice in, right? And so we'll join any SCCA or we would at the time when we were racing big series, we would join any SCCA race because you could, because SCCA was the governing body of some of these race series like like Formula Four and stuff like that.

2:16:47 You were able to do SCCA races even on competitive tracks a couple of weeks before you were gonna be racing the big series at that track. So we'd look for an SCCA race a couple weeks before we were at Rd. America or Rd. Atlanta or wherever. And the problem was like all these old guys would always have attitude right away. Oh yeah, young kid, you know, coming into our series and thinks you're going to take it. And you know, I remember one at, at Sebring, it was terrible. Like Jeremy won by almost 2 full laps in rain. It was raining bad. And he had just come back from spending a few months in England. He was unbelievable on a wet track.

2:17:27 Like in England, you're racing different levels of, of wet every damn time. You're every day. Like you go from dry to wet to cold to warm to hot to wet again to damp to you know, it's just insane the the experience you're going to get wet racing in England. So anyways, he comes back. He's a lap and 1/2 he won won this race by and so we had used some shitty old dry rotted rain tires that were in the trailer for the guy who managed Jeremy when he raced here. They were in his trailer. And you might even know I'm a guy named John Betos. I know who he is. Yeah. Yeah. So. Anyways, he had these. Old shitty tires.

2:18:10 They were probably about seven. I think they were 6 or 7 lbs heavier than the spec tire for SCCA for this race. And they were old and dry rotted. I mean, they were a probably second or two a lap disadvantaged they gave us, right? They were just disgusting these tires. So anyways, we win the race by a lap and a half and half hour later a tech guy comes over to our our tent or our truck or whatever and says, hey guys, I'm sorry, but we have to disqualify you. And we're like, what? You know what? Are you talking about? And he says, well, the purse, the two guys in second and third have have filed a protest over your rain tires because they're not spec rain tires. And we're like, take a look at these things, will you, you know, like, please just take a look. You know, they are not only a disadvantage, but a big disadvantage.

2:19:06 And we weren't going to buy brand new rain tires to race an SCCA race with a bunch of old guys like for one day, man, if we had the right tires, we would have beat them by three laps, you know. And, and so they, they actually took away his first place trophy and went and took it to to this guy. And Jeremy had to stand like in 3rd place behind first and 2nd on the podium. And I made him do it, you know, because he was like, F that. I'm not going in on the podium with these clowns. And he actually almost got in a fistfight with like this 70 year old guy who was talking smack to him on the podium like fucking cheater and all this bullshit, right?

2:19:49 And he's like, what are you talking about? Like, first of all, you can keep your trophy. I didn't even want it. Like I'm here to practice. I'm not here to beat up on old men. And you know, secondly, you're so fucking slow. Like you shouldn't be worried about me. You should be worried about you. You know, don't worry about me. Like I know what I'm doing. You might want to worry about your own racing lines and stuff, right? So I've had the complete opposite experience with. With with the guys, because it's like, you know, anytime the car gets bent, by the time you get back from medical, the other Formula four guys have already got your front. You know, the front corner off and of getting the spare parts out of your trailer and putting the shit back together because there's no money in it, right? We're all doing it for fun.

2:20:32 They just want to be on track. They want everybody to be on track, get as much track down as we can, get as much fun as we can. That's how it should be, and that's been my experience. So that's why. I try to, that was our experience sometimes, but the problem is when a. When a 17 year old kid, yeah, beats a bunch of old guys who have been racing for friggin 3040 years badly by a couple of laps, they get upset, you know, and and they get these egos. You were running. This was, this was FX, they call it in SCCA. It was Oh yeah, because it was AF2000F2000. Yeah, it was an F2000. So basically AF 1600, same same body, but with arrow with wings on it.

2:21:19 And that's a that's a shame. Man, I'm sorry you. Had that experience, yeah. No, I mean overall I'm not. Giving shit to the SECAI, like the SEC, they're nice people and and you know, we talked to them once a year to get his international FIA license because it's easier getting it through them than it is going straight to the FIA. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's expensive like we just had. To get it. To go over for one race, he had somebody pay for him to be in the car for one race and it was a $1100 I think or something to get the license for one race, you know? So yeah, but you know, I love it. I have a love hate. I actually miss go Kart races, you know, because go Kart races, the camaraderie among dads.

2:22:05 I have great friends still from our our time racing karts and neither one of my kids were interested at all. Try to get them into. Quarter midgets. To me, Kart racing is the greatest thing on earth. Like. As far as motorsport, it to me is some of the most fun racing to watch. It's some of the most competitive and professional racing to watch. Like people again, they think go karts and they're like, Oh yeah, you race little go karts. We're we're on transporters that are as big as some. IndyCar. Teams, we're in tents that are as professional as IndyCar teams and you know, many of us are spending ten, twelve, $15,000 a weekend to be in a go Kart race, you know, 100% and, and so like this stuff.

2:22:50 This. Stuff's seriously professional racing. Jeremy. Fortunately for the last couple years he raced in karts, was fully sponsored, so like Tony, Cart was giving him a free chassis every two races and you know, we were getting that's. Pretty much the. Battle Man, the mechanic. Was on my payroll, but other than that everything was. Was, was was sponsored? The team, the tent, the the. Yeah, it was all sponsored. So. So. Yeah. Well, man, it's been fun. I'm hungry. It's past my lunchtime. And, you know, it's been amazing. I feel like we could talk for two more hours. And I do hear all your stories. I would love to. We'll have to do it again for sure. We'll have to do it again.

2:23:31 Please, if you, if you hit that spot, call me. I would. Love to jump back on with you. No, we'll bring you back on again and we'll come up. More tough to cover. Yeah, we. Do, but you know, I mean the other thing. Is that Eric Loader from Elation is one of our sponsors and he always complaints. Marcel, you gotta keep it at an hour or an hour and a half. Anything more than that, you're gonna lose listeners. And I'm like, Eric, hit pause, listen to the other half later. That's what I do. I mean, we'll listen to three hour Joe Rogan episodes over a week, you know. Hey, real quick before you, before we sign off just. Do you listen to the Dale Junior download? No, you need to check that out.

2:24:11 Really. I'm not a NASCAR. Guy though. But here's the. Beauty of it, when you go back through all he. Has such a an affinity for the history of the sport. Yeah. And when he gets on people like Leonard Wood or Harry Gant, I hear, but he gets a lot of these old school guys who were like crew chiefs and drivers and mechanics in like the 70s and 80s. And they talk about the the innovation you were alluding to earlier with racing the downright dirtiest cheating SH ever, man, right? And it's really cool to hear those kinds of stories. I'm not a massive NASCAR fan either, but I love Dale. I've loved what he's done for the sport. I love what he's done with the podcast and his respect for all these different generations of owners, drivers, mechanics and people in racing.

2:25:03 I love that stuff. You know, it's like this guy, John. Batos who's what's his company? Jesus Christ. I can't remember the name of his freaking company that sells parts and stuff in in racing. Holy shit I can't believe I forget it was the name of his racing team forever. But do you know Henry Gilbert down in South Florida Hollywood? Florida. He has a Corvette. Racing school. He does. He's got a Daytona Prototype car that he drives once in a while, but he rents it out a lot and he's been around racing forever. Or John, the SCCA guy from South Florida. John, Italian last name, I forget his name. Great guy.

2:25:48 I've known him for 100 years. Can't remember his last name. I don't know a lot of those cats outside of my region. Yeah. Yeah, well, John. John was pretty famous. He died a. Couple years ago, sadly, but he was pretty famous in the SCCA ranks. But anyways, yeah, no, let's let's do it again and talk more about lighting, talk more about racing and, and, but I've enjoyed it. It's been fun, man. Thank you so much. Two hours went by like nothing. Dude, I'm so grateful. Thank you very much for having me. I'm grateful. To you, this has been awesome. Yeah, this has been awesome and good luck with. Both of your new businesses. Thank you very much. I like what you're doing and I think there's some legs there, so hopefully it works out. You're doing something at LDI, right? You're gonna have a booth there or something. I think we're gonna have a presence. We may be off site and.

2:26:38 Do a We might, We may host an evening. Don't tell them that. Don't tell them if they're gonna do anything else. We may host. An evening, Yeah, somewhere and have an off site. Yeah, good, cool. And the same thing within AB and and some other stuff. It's. Expensive to do all those shows when you're first starting out. Trust me, I get it. It is, it is, but it's we need to, we need to go ahead. And make the presents. Yeah. So we'll have some experience by the time those are all around, have some field experience and some feedback. So that's all good. Yeah. All right, buddy. Well, thank you so much. And we'll see you. Cheers. All right.