PipemanRadio Interviews Red Reign

0:00 Hi, you have unto censure? Wow? Were you young? Whycoume America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four c HY dot com. West Pompeas is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the hpe Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And say it about our next guest, who has some killer new music for a very good reason, especially during this month.

1:06 But I think every month matters, not just one month. So let's welcome to the show. Sammy Lee from Red Rain. How are you? I'm fine, Nan, thanks for having me. Hey, my pleasure. So, yeah, what I was referring to is you got the second single out here, I Am, from the forthcoming album Don't Look Back that'll be due out October twenty seventh through Deco Entertainment. But this song here, I think hits home for a lot of people, especially in twenty twenty four because you know, here we are in May mental Health Awareness Month and this song fits right in with that theme. It certainly does. Thank you. Yeah.

1:47 Basically, when the song was written, it was due I'm sorry. It was written over the period of COVID. Obviously, when everybody was, you know, sort of having some breakdown as far as you know, not socializing and being isolated. And there's also other people who have mental uh sort of mental issues or disabilities that you know that that that they think the only way out is the one way out, which I don't like to say the word, and and that's just not true. We feel like there's if somebody would just take time to reach out to their friend or reach out to somebody and just talk. And of course I'm not in that space, so I've never been to that level, but we we would hope that somebody would just reach out and and not take the unfortunate path that unfortunately a lot of people take. Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, not only reach out, but other people listen and pay attention, because sometimes when people are reaching out, it's not that it's not that in your face. You know, you have to really be paying attention, and some people just it doesn't even cross their minds, not even a matter of you know, they're not caring.

2:58 They just they're not picking up the clues, absolutely absolutely, and you know, for and again, uh, luckily for me personally, I don't think I've ever fallen to that depth mentally. But and so I don't know when somebody falls into a sort of a downward spiral. I'm not good at reading clues either, so you know, you don't want to put it on them and say, hey, you know, it's up to you to reach out. But if I think if somebody could realize that there are people who care about them and understand that they care about them and be willing to help, because again can't always read the clues, that's what the song's about. So that's why it says, here I am. You know, just look over your shoulder and here I am exactly. And you know a lot of people that are in that dark spot they don't realize that here I am type of thing they exactly. They think they're all alone in the world, you know, and nobody would understand. And you know, then there's the other side of it is that you know, and you probably go through. We all go through where people look at our lives, whether it be on social media or what we present to people, and they think that's representative of everything.

4:06 So they think everything's okay because somebody doesn't wear their heart on their sleeve or share everything or puts on a good game face, and especially especially in music. Okay, so we've had lost a lot of great musicians even recently. It's been a big thing. And people look at them like, oh, what a great life they have. Look at their life. They're living a dream life, and sometimes that dream is a nightmare. Sure, sure I have a feeling and again not personally speaking, but you know, I guess sometimes people feel trapped or they feel that there's no way out. Yeah, and that's sad to me. It just really is, because you know, everybody in this world is important. I don't care what walk of life you are. You know, everybody has a purpose, everybody has a point of view, everybody has likes dislikes, and and also you know, and believe it or not, some people don't feel like they're liked or there, or they're in this crowd or that crowd, but they are, you know.

5:06 And I just I just hope and wish that people who have fallen again to those depths would just again, I don't want to put it on them, but if they could just find a way to reach out and say, hey, you know, I'm feeling this way. I just feel I feel like and again, this is all personal because I'm not there, but I feel like there would be not one, not two, but ten people who would be willing to help or be there to listen or be there to do it. So that's what the song is based on, and it's it's it's a great song, of course I'm going to say that, but but I think if people, if people really listen to it, I think they'll like it and they get the message. And that's the beautiful thing about your song too, is that for those people, which is a lot of them, that think nobody's there for them, this is sending them a message hopefully that those people are for them and and they you know, here I am, you know, letting people know that what prompted you to begin with to write a song like this, because it's a very deep song. You know, it's a great song, but it's a very song and especially you know a lot of times people write stuff like this because of their own experiences. But as you've said a couple of times in the interview here, like it's not that you're there, but the good thing is that you understand the people that are well. So first of all, let me truss that I don't know if I understand the people that are at that depth. I think when you're when you're you know, it's always are you inside looking outside or outside looking inside?

6:39 I would say that I and I think I speak for my bandmates. We are on the outside looking into trying to say, hey, come on, just reach out to somebody. I know it's not that easy, trust me that. As far as writing the song, I don't do any of the writing. So I do. I do a lot more of the business aspects. Bubba McMichael, who's the lead singer and guitar player, does all does all the lyrics and and does a lot of the uh and does a lot of the the writing. As far as coming into to rehearsal and saying I've got this idea, and then and then the other two two guys will jump in and really that that mix will come into how the song goes, and I'll throw in something here there. I'm not I'm not very creative on that aspect. I mean, I'm creative enough to add the drum parts and figure what I like and what fits. But I think what it was is a lot of the album. If you listen to it, it's it's basically written over the period of COVID, and I think Bubba was feeling certain things for not only himself but for other people. And again we'll probably touch on this, but we also have a song on the album called bury Me Up to My Eyes. That song is also COVID driven. It was he wrote that song now that COVID was out and everybody's wearing mask. It's now looking through life through the mask. You know, remember we never read a wear asks. So so I think in that time period where it was a dark time period for everybody, not just people who were already in that state of mind, but you know, everybody was isolated and we couldn't go out and

8:11 we couldn't do the things we want to do. And so a lot of that has come from his experience of just being I think isolated and a lot of there's a lot of darkness that was in that period and there was very little. But some good does come from, you know, some bad things as well. The good for us, and when I say good, obviously it's not good good. But the good for us was it did let us slow down to actually write a full length album. You know, it's so funny you should say that because I've been saying in so many interviews since COVID. Glan just one yesterday is that if you can't pull the one positive out of COVID, especially for an artist specifically, is artists have been on such a hamster wheel for so long that they really can't sit down write an album.

9:01 They can't get creative. They got deadlines that like, let's just put this out because we gotta get done, opposed to really like clean out what you really want as the artists. And I think it gave artists a chance to jump off that hamster wheel and get creative again, something that I think a lot of them forgot what that was even like. And and now they've changed their lifestyle as a musician, you know, in their career to go back to what they used to do. That they forgot that that's what they used to doing, and that creates a great album like this one. Yeah, thank you, thank you for that. And yeah, I think that is true, you know. I mean, like my favorite bands that I listened to younger, I would read they'd be on tour for eight nine months, they'd be writing on the road. Yeah, so and we just you know, we weren't constantly on the road so we didn't get a chance to write. But we would go do two or three shows, we'd come back home and then it's like, oh, you know what, we have another in a month. Well, you know we what we do is we actually rehearse our set for at least three to four weeks prior to our show.

10:07 So that didn't give you a chance to write, you know. And so yeah, it did. Like, and I've said this in other interviews, there there is no good that came out of COVID. Let's let's just be honest. It was nasty, it's you know, right, but if you can find that one little weed that you call a flower, you know, right, that was it. That time did slow down enough to be able for at least for a rock band to sit down and write an album. Yeah. And then the other thing is, to me, music some of the best therapy there is, both for the artists and the listener, and that was what was taken away from us in COVID. I think, you know, maybe they should have kept live music because I think that's why we have more problems with mental anguish and depression and suicide and anger and frustration now because of that couple years with without live music. Of course there's other factors, but I think live music is our escape. So if you don't have that escape, you know, then what then you're stuck in your own thoughts that you know there is no escape from. Unfortunately at that point in time, right, I agree, you know, I agree with you. You know. Luckily for me though, I just throw on, you know, the music I like, and I would just crank it up, and you know, you find a way to keep yourself busy. I through COVID, I still worked because in my job I was able to isolate everybody else,

11:41 and so I was able to come to work and in the building I'm in the building that my company's in is where we rehearse. So I was still able to come in and sort of bang out some drums and get some frustration out that way. But you know, after a while, after a while, it does get a little lonely when you're just playing drums by yourself day after day. But but yeah, you're right, I think that you know, music and and just getting together in festivals. Yeah, it's just it put people in a completely different mental aspect than what we're used to. Yeah, you know, it's funny, you mentioned the drums because I think of all instruments, that's probably the best instrument to get your frustrations out on.

12:26 It is. It is, I can tell you it is. You know, I came home a couple couple of nights, couple couple of bloody fingers because you just I mean, you see this snare sitting in front of you, and it's like a golf ball. If you ever play golf, you know, you get up to the golf ball and you know that the theory of playing golf is to swing easy and follow through, but you just want to kill that golf ball. I'd like, happy gilmore Man. It's funny for the radio station, the last of me to do these golf tournaments, and I do ask them, I'm like, can I bring my hockey stick? Because I hate golf? Well, you know, but you know what it's like. You got to have that. You know, it's it's all these mechanics and you swing it. And it's same thing with drums. But you know, you see this snare head sitting in front of you, and you know, instead of playing like this, you're bringing your hand all the way up and coming all the way down. And I could relate because okay, so well, as a kid, I played drums for nine years.

13:24 I still sucked. But you know part of that was for me. I didn't want to just do the you know, I wanted to bang the hell out of those drums. It was like the driving force of being the drummer to me. Well, and you know, and that's not even good because you know that's why I never became good. Well, listen, I'm not that great of a drummer either, to be honest with you, because all I just want to hit things hard. But you know, you know, obviously you read articles and sound and you don't want to hit it too hard because you know there's a lot that goes in that too. But there's just some times that you're just like, you know what, I'm gonna beat the hell out of you whether you like it or not. You know, take it out on your kid, right, It's kind of like too, Like I was a big Ringo Star fan when I was a kid, and you know, he always played with the brushes. So I had to have these brushes. You know. I told my dad like, I need these brushes, and then I get them. I'm like, man, this is no fun. Give me the sticks back boring, but such a great what a wonderful, great drummer though, that's the problem. I mean, you said, right, yeah, amazing. So what else do we want to tell the listeners to look out for for this album? The album's out, but the way you so we did? We did? Uh. We teamed up with Deco Entertainment. We were on we're on that label. And if you go to Deco Entertainment, uh and then slash red rain Band, you can

14:56 get the album there CD there there's some merchandise there as well. And if you want just to stream, we're on every streaming site, so we're on Apple, We're on Google Music, you know, every downloadable site. I don't know all of them, so Amazon, Spotify, so and there's ways that you can just and if you just want to go on Facebook and find red rain and it's our e I G. N as you have on there on your your backdrop, it's red rain Band on Facebook, all the social media, and our website is redrainband dot com. So through all those those outlets you'll be able to find the music as well. Beautiful, Is there anything else you want to let the listeners know that we haven't covered yet that they need to know that's going on with you guys. Well, so we just actually got off tour. We just uh we were on tour with Nazareth for ten days. Yeah, uh, and we just got off the road last week. So it's decompression time because it was grueling. I mean we were here, here, here, here, here. It wasn't city city city, it's here, and then you go all the way over here and then back here. So uh, it was a great tour. It was fun. We ended up in Chicago, Illinois, which was great. We were very excited about that, and then we drove home. So uh, usually we after something like that, we've been on a couple of those, we usually take a week maybe two weeks to decompress and then we get right back at it. So we're working on shows that we usually announce on our

16:26 social media when it's time. So that's the next move. How was it going on tour with Nazareth? Because that that must be like a an oh wow moment. It really is, you know, I'll be honest. We we've been lucky, we've we were Our very first tour was with Tesla. Wow, I can shoot that, and you know that's a wow moment too, because you know, you know, I just remember years ago you turn on MTV and Tesla was everywhere, and you're like, oh, this is great, this is cool, That's what I want to do. And then a blink of an eye and you're standing on stage, you know, setting up your kid, and Troy Laketta walks over and goes, hey, you know a nice drum kid, I'm Troy, and you're like, this is like surreal, you know, it's just unbelievable. And then and we've done with other bands as well. I mean, we've I don't want to be a name dropper, but I'll give you a couple just so you know.

17:22 But we've been out with Docin and Jackal and Winger and Slaughter and Why and Tea. We've been out with all these bands. But and they're all great. Everybody's equal. But when you go with an iconic band like Nazareth, who has probably one of the greatest i'd say love songs or melodic songs and love Hurts and Hair of the Dog, which everybody knows, I mean that's I don't I don't even know if I have words describe it. It's it's iconic. A is what I think is probably the best word, and it's and and and what makes it even better and and for a lot of the bands that we play with is they're all just nice guys, you know, and they don't treat you, they don't talk down to you, they don't treat you, and it's just it's it's it's a great feeling. And Nazareth was very welcoming from day one as well. So that's very cool. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because I find that too, Like it's the iconic bands that have no clue that they're icons and they're just the nicest people in the world. Yeah, and you know, and you know, and I've read articles, you know, I try to. I just read a little bit and everybody's like, ah, you know, it's not the real Nazareth. It's not this well you know what, you say, what you want. But they're touring under that name, and there is an original member and the other guys have been in the band for years. But you know what, to me, it's Nazareth because they were they were they sounded like Nazareth. I mean, you know, Carl, the lead singer,

18:53 I mean when they opened with Miss Misery, which is probably one of my favorite songs from Nazareth. It sounds like it sounds like Nazareth, you know. Yeah, you know I hate when people do that too. Yeah. Maybe with a lot of bands. Yeah yeah, And I will tell you I am I have a fine line between that because my favorite band, I want the original members, you know, right, you know, I'm a Van Halen fan, so I want to see the original van Halen, which we now know isn't going to happen again. But you know, but uh so I get that part of it. But with when when you have members who have unfortunately aren't here anymore, and you do have members that want to carry on that, I get it, you know, I understand that.

19:38 And the music's the same. Yeah, now here's what trips me out. I interviewed once the Grassroots m H and none of them were the original members. Really like, at least if you have one original member, I'm down with that because it's an original member, Okay, right right, you get that least exactly, and they can make it. Like you said, it sounded like Nazareth. You know, you mentioned Van Halen. To me, van Hagar and Van Halen are like two different, completely different bands, you know, and absolutely it's one of the few that has succeeded by doing it that way. You take Iron Maiden, Well, Bruce didn't sound that different from Deano in the beginning, so it you know, And I'm a Paul Deano fan, and say, have ac DC, how do you find somebody that's close to bond Scott And you did it with Brian Johnson. But still I'm on team bond Scott. But it doesn't mean I don't like team Brian Johnson either, so you know, you're like both, but at least it has that familiarity to it, you know, right, which is what you're saying about what happened with Nazareth. Well yeah, and I mean, but they were you know, you know, it's you know, sometimes you get some of these bands that get like a new lead singer and it doesn't really sound like the old singer. And I get it, you know, not everybody, and I get that, but the you know, the music's the same and it's changed. But I mean I listen to Nazareth and it sounded point on Nazareth nice and you know that's even better, and uh yeah,

21:11 I mean, but listen, man, everybody's just trying to go out there and play some music, which is awesome, and I think that's the greatest thing in the world because but you know, you know, as well as I do everything subjective when it comes to music, you know what I mean, and uh, you know what I like, you're not gonna like, and so on and so on. And that's the great thing about music. We can have a debate about that. It absolutely one. And your music is badass. So everybody that hasn't has to check you out, has to get the new album, check out future tour dates, buy your merch all that good stuff. And you know, thanks for giving us great music, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Well I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, and thanks for helping us spread the word of the band. We need all the help we can get it like everybody else and and I can't thank you enough. Hey, my pleasure anytime. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemen on w for CUI Radio.