PipemanRadio Interviews Dead West at Rocklahoma 2023

0:04 Hey, you love them too, that's sure f W four C Wow, Wake up of America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four cy dot com. West pom Beats is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. Wow. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with Vinny Sky, dead West, Jay Weldy, Tommy Ray guitar, Chris Storm bass guitar, Johnny Smoke lead guitar. Nice. First, I just want to say right off the bat, you guys look fucking badass and people need to buy your merch. Just saying come on out to our merch smooth man. I mean, we got a whole bunch. We even got some bikinis over there for the girls. Oh and that logo on that shirt would look great on bikini. It is on the bikini there. You go say, yeah, that's the one that we need to do. And you know the flowers right where it needs to be on all locations. And now people

1:38 have to go check it out on your websites and stuff to know what you're talking about, because you can't explain to them Dead West dot rocks. Just go to the store. You could buy any of our merch and it will be shipped to you in a couple of days. Nice. So tell them our listeners who have never heard you, guys, what is dead West all about? Well, dead West is five guys committed to rock and roll. I mean real rock and roll. I mean we got considered as at one point, uh Ted Nugit meets Jackal you know, so that's pretty cool. Yeah, that was the recent comment. You know. So we thought that was really cool because we opened up for Jackal and that was awesome. We had a great time with them. Talk about a loud show, Jackal's one loud show. Nice. And I like that you said real rock and roll because there's a lot of not real rock and roll nowadays. Oh my god.

2:31 And I talked about this all the time, like these some of these bands they just they put in like some algebraic equation to make their music, and that's not what rock and roll is about. Man. Yeah, we're just pure rock and roll, pure energy. You know, even when going to studio live, we don't we don't really do a lot of let's add this, let's add that we straight out balls out rock and roll, you know, I mean it makes it a lot easier. Were right, That's the way we write. We you know, everybody in this band just just figures everything out, you know, and we just play it raw. And we give a shout out to Mike Ballenbeck over at full Well and he did our last album, which is Die Like a Rebel, and it just came out awesome. And you know what, See, I love that you say that because I do my show the same way because if, first of all, if you overproduce it, or if you have scripts or whatever, it's not authentic. If you're if you're gonna be in this industry, you need to be authentic. It is my opinion that comes from doing what you just said, just just playing it. Don't need to over emphasize anything in the studio like sometimes those flaws or what come out to be the best shit ever.

3:42 You know. Yeah, yeah, it's actually really cool the way we are. The chemistry in this band is just kind of one of those things. It's jels. You know, everybody kind of knows what the next person's thinking and they add their own little thing into it and it just evolves, you know, into something really cool, just rock and roll, you know, it's just raw, like adding more stuff that you don't need. It just we just like that in your face, every every groove that you hear in our songs, it's just like thumb, thumb, thumb, you know you want to bang your head or sing along. I mean that's what's missing. You know a lot of music today. I mean you can listen to a lot of good stuff, but maybe just not as catchy as some of the you know, raw rock and roll well because there's not enough in there.

4:26 It's just like I said, the formula, but what about the musicianship, what about the you know, just letting it fly man and what happens happens, Yeah, letting it go. I mean that's the one thing. It's like when we get up on stage, everything's just pure raw and the energies raw. We put on a show. I mean, we just don't go out there and say, hey, we know these five songs you know, or it's just six songs. I mean we go out there and we play our heart out and we don't play any cover songs. We play all original music, and we definitely play our hearts out. When you come to a Dead West show, you're sitting going wow, this is so cool. It was like you're just transported back in classic rock or nineties I mean early nineties or eighties type, you know, just like you're there to be entertained, and that's what we kind of do. We want to entertain people.

5:14 If you can't get the crowd into it, you know, it's why are you doing it? You know, let's have fum. It's funny you should say that because making an album and performing on stage sometimes there are two different things. The performing on stage is what you're talking about. The entertaining the performing, that's why they call it performing. Yes, and there's actually I will mention which one, but there's one band playing this weekend that I would just watch them on YouTube because they look exactly the same live as they do on YouTube. And to me, the live show is what it's all about. Man, Even if I don't like a band, like there's certain bands that maybe aren't that great musically, but the show is incredible. Now, if you can combine the two music being musically talented and the show, then you have dead West. Yeah, you have Dead West. I'm gonna let some of these guys have a chit chat with you two as well. So feel free to ask. I feel like, you know, I am a singer, but yeah, yeah, but you know, I'm still not tired.

6:19 We got another show coming up tomorrow. We're playing bad Ass for Names tomorrow, So I mean, we're gonna have a good time. But I'm gonna let these guys have some fun with you too. So here we go. Let's do that, because you know, the singers always like to take over monopolize the mic. The singer always does that, right, I'm gonna ask a question that will require everyone of you to answer because you may have a different answer. What's the craziest shit that's happen to you in this musical journey? Oh? I do? I do want to know? Should we talk about it? Should we talk about navajo apples? You don't need, you don't want to know. I do want to know this trip. Let's talk you about this trip? Okay, So I think I'll handle the mic to our bass player Troy and because he could probably first person experience, uh dog runs. Yeah, here we go. I'm just gonna say it was it was a long trip to get to rock Lahoma. I'm happy to be here. I hope it goes a lot smoother going home way to leave him hanging right. We need to expand on that. You know, I've known Troy for like thirty years, so I'm m bust his balls because why not.

7:34 This is what we do, dude. You know I can ralph or night command. Seriously, he can hurl command. Because man, I was feeling a little I was feeling a little green, so I went over to the dog run. Yeah. I took care of it. It's so much better now. So anybody walking your dog, just be careful dog runs because Troy might have Troy might have been there. But we stopped. We stopped in on the way up, stopped through page and he got these apples and it's a novel. Whole apple, that's what we call it. We think maybe it had a little bit of something something on it that that upset his stomach, so like psilocybin or something. You never know. I don't know he was he was seeing something. So that's a second interview today. That's somebody like saw ship that the rest of the Abandon's say, well, you know, it's funny you should talk about ralphing because I haven't had that one before. But one of the questions I sometimes asked is one story good or bad? When you're like eighty yet you're gonna tell what will it be?

8:41 I can tell you four times I have had the answer ship my pants on stage? Oh yeah, no, No, there's no as there's been on stage ralphing because maybe like you could do like a guar thing well grow, that's a whole different story. Yeah, you could do a guarth except it's throw up instead of blood and come, yeah, let's do that, like everybody does an enem on stage, and you could like do a song with Marilyn Manson. Opt out on that one? Can you really opt out? So what band are you most excited to see besides yourself at Rock Oklahoma?

9:28 Yeah, I think that might be the That might be the key of the day. Yeah. Even their newest music is so badass. Like sometimes when you're a band that long, your newest music is like okay, But their new music, I'm like, holy shit, that's even better than the old ship, you know. And that's the test of true musicianship. If you can write new music over and over and over again, that dead's better than before, you know. Would you say you guys are like that? Yes? I think every I think everything we do just keeps keeps growing and getting better, which is what what? What is what we wanted? Yeah, like the new the new record, the Die Like a Rebel, the uh, the songs on it, they're just you hear them and you're like, yeah, I get it, I feel it. It's got that. It hits your soul. Yeah yeah, yeah, and you know that's important.

10:24 The drums kick your ass. The guitar riffs are just one point right and left separations on point and then Vinnie's vocals. Man, it's just it's so cool, sounds great, great writing. Uh. It takes you back to when music was fun, nice and that is key, you know, like listen if you're not having fun in this industry. Oh I love that we have a motorcycle in the background for this interview, right, because you guys look like you could be a biker club when you walked into this press. There might there might be a couple of us with them, right exactly. That's say it. You know, one of us is an accountant, but but you could still be a biker, Like how many of those Weekend Warriors accountants lawyers? That's why I live in Florida. I got rid of my bike as as I moved to Florida because there's a bunch of those Yahoo's on the road that might kill me. So how does everybody reach out to you guys on socials on the web by your merch We've mentioned it a little in the beginning, but let's cover it all. Well. We are Facebook, dead West Rocks, Instagram, dead West Rocks, Reverb Nation, dead West Band, Twitter, dead West Band. Uh, we're on Spotify. It's called Oh yeah, what the fuck is that? I can't even feel Twitter?

11:50 Sorry, I can't. I can't understand me. All right, if you want to read tweet something, call me so. Uh but uh yeah, so, Deadwest dot Rocks is our website. You can catch our music on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, any streaming device you can. You got, We're on it. Yeah. You can download all our music, purchase our music from our website, nice, all of it. Yeah, you can just go to our website, Deadwest dot Rocks. That's what they should do to direct your website, so, you know, yeah, because we actually make a little bit more money that way. And for the streaming part, you know, right, that's ridiculous they did, But you know, I wish people would learn a little bit more about supporting bands instead of trying to get everything for free. I mean, we appreciate all the fans that support us and take the time to you know, buy our merch buyers records, you know, even download it. I mean, we still appreciate it. We just make more money if you buy it personally from us than a streaming device. And that's why I always ask about merch because that's the only way band survived nowadays. And like you said, edge people they think because you have like millions of streams that you're like a millionaire rock star, that shit don't exist no more, man, you know, yeah, I mean I made a whole twenty cents in one month for all the streaming, you know what I mean? Yeah? Come on, does even by Brahmin

13:22 noodles anymore? Right? Yeah? You know, Sorry, guys, we're gonna have to split this canatuna I know right right? What was her name? Oh? Man, I didn't quite get it. I love it. We got comedians in this band, I'll tell you. So here's the most important question. Based on what you just said, does dead West Rock? Was that? Does Dead West Rock? Oh? Yes, yeah, we do. I mean we put on some pretty good shows. We played with some really, really good national acts. We've been on tour with Jack Russell's Great White Nice, which was awesome. Jack is just a stellar guy all the way around. He is the rest of the guys. They always every time we open up for him. They watched our you know, set, and they watched this warm up and I think it's great. And we've opened for Slaughter La Guns, uh, Tom Keefer, Kingdom Come. My first show with the band, was it the Whiskey Go Go opening for Autograph and Hurricane Nice, two bands that you know I watched on MTV growing up, right, and I'm talking about a trial by fire. It was awesome.

14:31 Wow, that's awesome. So do you guys have that Maybe it's different for all of you. A favorite band that you you played with? Do we have a favorite band that we played with? Honestly, I could say that almost every band we played with was really cool. Uh. The funnest band we played with was Steel Panther. Oh yeah, well, Uh, Michael Starr was off to the side and he was headbanging a whole time we were up on stage, and he was like pointing at it. I mean, he's such a great guy. They're all really cool guys. It was really fun. The most recent show that we did was with Lynch Mob George Lynch, Gabriel the new singer He is Stellar, Jared playing the bass. I mean, they were all really nice guys. I mean, and Jimmy.

15:26 We got to do that at the Whiskey a Go Go and we were direct support and it was an awesome show. I mean, we had a great time. They were really nice. I mean, so you want to talk about down to earth people, they were really down to earth. So we've had some really good experience with musicians over the years, even you know, as this band. You know, I started back in twenty fourteen. It took me until twenty seventeen to kind of get the lineup, and we've gone through a few changes here and there. But each time we go out there, I mean, we lay it on the line like it's our last show. And you guys look like you have the recipe now, Like you look like you should be a band, meaning you know, I don't see any drama. You can tell like, yeah, I can tell why I do interviews and look at people in their eyes, I'm like, oh, they don't find it's funny you say that because I mean when it comes down to drama, I mean, for this tour, it's actually been really good.

16:21 And with this lineup, this has been the best lineup of this of Dead West recent you know, members. I mean, there was so much drama. You know, Don't invite your ex wife in front of your new wife. Uh, don't, don't get naked and run through the fucking van, you know, and thinking you're cool. Don't start fights and don't break down, you know, hotel room doors because your your girlfriend locked you out because she was out cold from drinking too much. You know. So for the first time, I mean, as this group right here, I mean, we've had a great time from the from when we started heading out from Phoenix. There's no drama. We all have a eight time. We pull out the whiskey and the scotch and have a good time and just relax. And these guys are on it. I appreciate Jay, you know, Tommy guitar, Tommy over there, Troy and John. I mean, these guys, they they helped me out one percent and I couldn't do it without him.

17:19 So I love that. And you know what, when you were saying that, you know what, I was thinking, like, your previous lineup was the eighties version of your band, and this lineups the twenty twenty three version of your band. Well, because the eighties was a lot of drama. I was. I was there on the Sunset I don't remember much of the eighties. Well then you were there, No, yes, I was. Oh, yes, I'm because I'm a lot older than I looked there because if you were, if you remember the eighties on the Sunset Strip, you weren't there. Yeah, oh yeah, Well, I mean I wasn't in on that the West coast when in the eighties I was on the East Coast, and I mean drinking two fifts to jack a day and being on tour waiting one hundred and twenty pounds and don't remember what city you were in.

18:06 Yeah, that was kind of forgetful. I mean I remember some places. I don't remember all the girls. How could you? Back then? It was an endless list, right, Like I hung on Sunset Strip end. I used to just get the overflow. I was fifteen, sixteen years old, like hanging out at the Motley Crew parties and the ones they weren't banging, I got to bang. Yeah, you got the leftovers, and it was even the seconds because they didn't get them. Yeah, they were to turn they were turned down. But you know, you're a sixteen year old. You don't give a fuck exactly, you know. And that is one thing I've noticed too. And and to your point what you were saying about the bands, Most of these bands you were mentioning, I hung out with in the eighties and they were dicks then and they're the coolest people now.

18:59 Like they definitely evolved the record companies or who ruined them, but now they are just cool as shit because they don't have that record label drama that they did then that caught the record labels used to cause the controversy between the bands, like what the fuck? One of my favorite things Ozzie said was be cool to the people on the way up, because you meet the same fuckers on the way down. Yuh. You just kind of gotta live like that, Like we're all brothers. We may not be in the same band, but we were doing the same job. And you want to bring your thunder and for me, it's whiskey. I know most of the band's scotch, but bring you, bring your whiskey, bring your guitar, bring a damn good guitar and just rip it, just rip it. I was born in Hollywood. On Halloween Day, people were wearing costumes from my birth. Uh that's great. Well, depending on which girl you saw, it might have been yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And you know I lived there when I was older too, playing guitar in Hollywood, so I know the places you're talking about really well. I lived on Franklin Lebrea. Even if I was drunk, I could still make it home walking right. You know, I was four minutes from the Seventh Veil. May or not have been there quite a few times, cannot confirm, nor deny, and too many other

20:30 strip clubs to even remember. Back then, with all the guys, I was jamming and playing with man, be healthy, that's right, Strong, and carry a jacket. I thought you're just gonna say carry jack whatever works, right. Any final words all you guys want to give us. I want to talk about commitment, the things that the people do and the things that brotherhood that takes to make a unit work. It starts with it starts with Vinny. I mean he he books the gigs, he helps with the promotion. Uh, he takes care of anything. He's our social media director or artwork guy. You know, he took care of everything. He's like, hey, I got us, I got us lined up on the tour, and this is he tells us where to be and how to be and where to be there and and it's not telling, it's hey, this is what we're doing. And you guys on board, and we're like, fuck, we don't even have to make that decision. That's awesome, it's so cool. But but when you have somebody that does that, you want to help and you want to you want to be a part of it, and you want to try to take the load off for him so he doesn't have to work so hard. Uh. You know, we we make commitments, we make sacrifices. I'm gonna I'm gonna go out on him. Yes, we we're all married. Sorry ladies. Uh you know wenk wenk wrink.

21:52 I mean we are out of our zip code, but still talk about commitment. Today's Tommy's anniversary. Yeah he play in Oklahoma instead of being with his wife on his anniversary. Appy anniversary, And you got the most amazing wife that that's the thing. You know, We've got a great support system all around with friends and family and then the brotherhood that we have. So life is good, man, Just fucking play rock and roll and have a good time and enjoy every moment because you never know when it's gonna go away. Like that, live life to fast every freaking day. You know, you could plan for tomorrow that never comes. Yeah, plan for today. I love it you guys, Rock. I'm so glad you're here at Rock, Oklahoma. And thanks for being on the Adventures of play Man. We're glad to be here. You take care of them. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of plate Man on W four CUI Radio.