PipemanRadio Interviews Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol at Shaky Knees 2023

0:04 Hey, you love them too, that's sure from c WOW for you. Why up of America. It's time for the Adventures of pike Man on W four cy dot com West Pompass number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the pike Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pike Man W four c Y Radio and I'm here with Rickshaw. Billy is Burger Patrol. You know, I gotta love that name. It is a mouthful too, just like a burger. You thought Corn was a dumb band name.

1:08 Oh that's great, so you should since you said that you should go like out on tour with Corn, that would be that would be insane. Yeah they are. They are. They always played at Danny Wimmer festivals that I do, and man, they're always badass live. I don't even care if you like them. They're badass. Oh yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I know. It was like fun to make fun of New Metal for a long time, but that shit is also so good, you know what, And they hate that, Okay, like what they did in the beginning the New Metal Ye thought it was stupid as shit. Now they're like whatever, you know, But back then it was like you know.

1:52 They they hated that people call them that. They didn't call themselves that, right, Yeah, I don't know who coined that term. Uh, I don't know either. I had to do with okay, because I'm a metal head from going back to like I was at the first Metallica show ever, the first Slayer show ever, and then like grunge killed us, yeah, and then metal came back. So maybe that's why they went. You know, yeah, it's dumb, but hey, dumb metal great music. Yeah, not dumb music, just a dumb genre name. Yeah, but I hate genre names anyway, They're pretty silly. Which that brings me to what I'd like to ask the artists. Okay, so instead of stupid genres, because there's so many subgenres, microgenres and stupid shit like that, how do you, as the artists describe your music, not as a genre, just how you describe it? Um, It's like, I don't know.

2:49 Sometimes we say like party metal, but it's not that either, because I think a lot of people assume like in New WK or something like more like knuckleheadshit, which I guess like it kind of we kind of are that. But like the lyric, the lyrical content is pretty extreme and grotesque at times, but it's all about being relatable to the fan base and having that those like singalong moments and everybody just like starting to pit and having fun. And it's like not it's not a it's aggressive sounding, but like it's it's just fun and more inviting than I think a lot of people would assume about like a metal band, Like I we're heavy, We're a metal band. But like also people are like, you're not really a metal band, or people are like, I don't even like heavy stuff, but I like you guys, and it's like so I don't really know. Like we kind of like to say, like doom wop, so it's like just like dancy like du wop music, but just tune down to guitars and heavier, like because groove.

3:42 So that's that's I guess what we call ourselves. But um, yeah, that's a cool way to put it. Doom wop. Yeah, yeah, I love it, you know. And it's funny you mentioned Andrew WK because yeah, you know, like when you interview him, all he talks about is party, party, party, party, party. Yeah. I'm it's what is it five o'clock and I'm exhausted, like I don't know, Yeah, I don't where It's definitely not like maybe from the outside perspective it seems like that, but it's it's it's work, it's our it's our full time jobs. So you know, it's only so much time in the day, So I do have to ask. I never talk about band names, but in the day where everything's like shorter and shorter, you guys went the opposite direction. Had that come about? It was not by design and by complete accident. When I had started writing songs for this project. Um, the name just kind of came to me out of nowhere, and I wrote it down on a post it note, and then we started playing shows and the name just kind of stuck. So it was more just like I wanted something to release it under, and I guess just got lucky with the branding opportunity with the word Burger in it to have you know, the goofy merch that we have, and um, we're able to do a lot of stuff, um like locally and even I guess well that New Orleans show like with the Burger, A lot of a lot of food pop ups will do stuff with us, which is cool. So it's kind of a lot of cool crossover shit that we're um that we're lucky to be able to do that.

5:12 I think a lot of metal bands don't get to do. But um yeah, I mean the name is is complete bullshit and it still is and it doesn't mean anything. It just was, um yeah, we have the it's any any iteration of those words you can find us. It's just a matter of remembering the whole sequence. But you don't have to call us Rickshaw and we'll call us RBBP. You can call me Shirley. I don't give a fuck. And what's cool is okay, you're you're link tree or whatever it is. I don't know when I went to I'm like, how did they get that user named burger links? Like I would think McDonald's would get that. Yeah, I don't know if that was me or if that was maybe our manager that just grabbed that. But um again too, like the name being so just like off the fucking cuff, like making sense that like we could get all our websites and everything, like no one's taking the names like that, you know, the LC or the the yeah, like it's all just there. Like I know, I just thought Wow, that's pretty cool they got that. Like that's the perfect link right there. Yeah, yeah, just go to burker links. Yeah. So, and I am glad that you don't do stupid shit like okay, like I could see some other bands with that band name, like getting up on stage and dressing up as burgers, and I'm glad you don't do that. We don't really like, yeah, no, that's we did. Like the very first show we did, we had someone grilled burgers on the side of the stage. It was like and even then it felt like this is we've leaned in too hard on

6:45 this. Well I'll tell you where it would be good. Okay, So like I do the dimebag barbecue, you know, and you know, um, but Dave gold as the barbecue. He loves the barbecue is really good, got it? So that would be cool if ye had Dave grow. Yes, And if there's a lead on that, you can call us and we will accept that. So what was that moment in life where you're like, damn, this is what I need to do for the rest of my life. I mean, i'd say for me specifically with this band, is after we got back from our first tour and I got home and I slept for a few hours and I woke up and I was like, when do we leave again? Like I'd like that. After that, I was just like okay, like nice, this is what I'm I'm into this now, like and how about you. I grew up playing music and just being around it, so I was always obsessed with it, and when I got my first guitar, everything else very quickly fell by the wayside um and started playing in bands like after I was like in college. So I think I knew it was the only thing I'd ever known or like obsessed over to such a high degree, and I was kind of willing to do whatever it took to make it happen in whatever capacity. Yeah. So I think I just you

8:18 recognize you have like a gift or a skill set or something that you work really hard towards, and there was not ever even close to another option. And that's usually the case when musician, I find and I love the word obsessed, because how can you be a great musician if you're not obsessed being like it ain't the kind of business like you're like, oh I'm gonna do this so I can make a living. You do it because you're obsessed with it. You have to live and breathe at twenty four to seven, with all the other backhend stuff that goes into it and the business side of it. It's like you can't turn it off, and you shouldn't want to turn it off either. You have to know that obsessed. I still just I love electricity and distortion and it just takes over everything and there's not another option.

9:05 I like to use distortion because I love distortion. It's always what pisses everybody off that gets in my car. But no, it's supposed to sound like this, Yeah, exactly, that's a big crushing wall of comfort. So I play I played drums, I played guitar, I sang thrash metal. I sucked at all three. But the point of that is was when I was playing guitar, I would make up like these sounds that would probably annoyed the fuck out of everybody else, and it definitely annoyed my days, Like how is that? You better get a real job. You suck at that? And like I did suck. But he didn't stop. No, he didn't get what I was doing there, because you know he's from me, Frank Sinatra. Days like Yeah, Fright's good, but he doesn't use distortion or feedback. It's just like, Okay, So the night before I came here to cover this, I live in Florida. I was covering a show back home a friend of mine, Susie Moon, and she's a punk rock chick. She's really really good and she's on tour with Angent Orange, and so basically at the end of each song as punk has feedback, Yeah, and I'm like sitting there, like most people would be like, oh, they need to learn blah blah blah blah blah, and I'm like sitting there, Gone, that's a badass. That's the best part of the show

10:37 right there. Yeah. I think watching like you know, early footage of Husker Do and like her Dinosaur Junior was just like, uh, it was just this noise that uh just swallowed everything around it, and it's like, how can you not be Or even like Pete Townsend, you know, watching as a kid watching like live it leads and like, oh, that's how you're supposed to do that, and you know that's that was the ultimate example of Yeah. I just like, yeah, so what would you say, each one of you? What show did you go to before doing shows yourself that had the biggest impact on you. I guess the first like proper, like large show I went to was Rushow and that was just again to be so in love with them for so long, but I never ever tried to emulate or like copy that at all, right, But then to see that live and it was so perfect it, I mean, everything was Yeah.

11:41 I just remember it being like, uh, I'd never heard anything live that sounded just like the record and to just be the three of them and it was just so much sound and that was like that really knocked me out. Nice. How about you? You've been thinking about this? Yeah? I saw him the band, I asked a question. His eyes went up and he's looking in the in the brain of all those cotton shows he went to, which one would be? I mean, my first proper show was oz Fest two thousand and four, two thousand and five, which was original Black Sabbath lineup, Iron Maiden, Macedon when they were just getting started off there for Off Remission, Black Level Society as LA Dying in Flames. So like that was like the first like whoa like because it was at an outdoor amphitheater with two stages and so that was like when I was starting to like be like a real hardcore metal head kid like in high school, growing my hair out and all that kind of shit. So I was like, that was like ninth grade maybe, And then I'd say probably the most religious experience is going to seem a Sugar play live, which I saw them play. Last time I saw them play, I think was with Animals as leaders opening up for them before they exploded, and that was wild. But yeah, I mean watching the how calculated and mathematical Ma sugars and the lighting and like just that whole Like I'm a huge Machugar fan. Um, so that's probably my They are pretty technically, yeah, it's and it's it's funny. Like I

13:13 listened to a lot of like Bill Burr, like co meet the comedian Bill Burr, and Um, he's a drummer and like he's just like talking about going to seeing my Sugar shows and trying to explain it but he can't even explain it. But he's like but like, um, who's the drummer from Tool. He's like Dandy Carry is right next to me like laughing and be like, what the fuck is this guy do? Is like the best drummers in the world are just standing watching Thomas Hawker like do his thing. So yeah, I don't know, um, but yeah, anyways, you're And my favorite drummer of all time ever is Dave Lombardo. Oh, Dave, Dave's great. I saw a Testament with Exodus and Death Angel on this last run the like was it the bass tracks back and did Georgia was back in the band, Chuck Billy on vocals and then fucking Lombardo playing drums and that was it was in Testament and allis in the original Misfit Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's picking up those gigs and that was like yeah, like Bay Area Royalty, that was insane to get to see. So yeah, I always have a hard time with this one because I didn't go to a lot of like really big concerts growing up, Like we'd go Leo and I grew up in Boston, so we'd go to like the local stuff, but I didn't wasn't as great with the big stuff. Seeing a CDC at the Twitter Center on my eighteenth birthday that it was definitely huge. And then I always do like to mention my first concert ever Huey Lewis and the news Cape cod Melody ten nineteen ninety eight lovely experience. No, but the ACDC one was wild because it's just you see an a CDC and they sound so good and like another than that, I mean, seeing King Crimson a couple of years

14:43 ago, it was ridiculous. See, I love hearing this stuff because of the progression. Like for me, the first concert I ever went to I don't even considered the first concert because it wasn't really them, but it was nineteen seventy eight or seventy nine Beatlemania at Madison Square Garden. But then after that seventy nine it was Journey and Lover Boy Yeah. And then I stepped it up a notch and then I was going to the Then I got into the metal stuff. I went to every ods vestor ever was. I've seen Ozzie every year since nineteen eighty. I had Blizzard of Oz on eight track.

15:24 Yeah. And then the one that changed my life, believe it or not, was nineteen eighty. I moved out to California and I hung out the Sunset Strip. Now, as you know, that was the height of the start of the whole Sunset Strip era, and I lived it all and the first club show I ever went to, I was like, I'm never going to a real concert ever again. It was that the Roxy. It was Motley Crue before they had an album, when they weren't lamb yet. They were like horror yea, and they were trying to burn the Roxy down to bring Satan in and I was like whoa. And then you know, you mentioned the Bay Area. So then one slayer of Metallica left LA and left us with all the hair metal, glamshit. Me and my bro used to hitchhike up to the Bay Area from LA to go to the real shows.

16:22 And that's when that's when I was like, now this is because I'm a total thrash metal head. Oh all of it. All of it was insane those shows, Like I've been to some insane shows, but the Bay Area thrash shows in the beginning, like you're lucky to be alive getting mad those shows. So yeah, I'd like to hear where it comes from and how it progresses goes, like you know, you do have a progression, especially you know as music progresses, Like I look at metal now and it's like we could have never imagined this. And when me and my best bro we were going to We're driving up the Aftershock because I covered that festival, and and we were playing something and because man, I thought this was faster when we were growing up. And I'm like, well, because that's the fastest or was then. Yeah, ye you know. But I'm like, here, let me play you something from now. He's like, oh, yeah, that's more like it. But we didn't have anything like that then.

17:26 Yeah, you know, So that's what's cool now, you know. And it's cool that you guys can sit here and play at Shaky Knees because that wouldn't happen back then. You know. As soon as Motley Crup became glam like, my friends were like, you gotta burn all that Monty Cruise ship. Fuck that. You couldn't like it. You couldn't go to a punk show as a long hair. You couldn't go to a metal show as a punk. I got your ass beat, So I thought it was stupid. Always, you know, we should all just be together. Told me, I think that we've always been super welcome to anyone who wants to listen to our music or come to our shows, and I think that's become very reciprocal, and that like we get welcomed and invited to a lot of different places now and get to do a lot of really really fun shit, Like yeah, see, it should just be It's just we're just all music, you know, and that's it, Like we're just all trying to have a good time, no doubt. So what you guys got going on after this?

18:23 So we're touring for that. We'll be on the road for the next eleven days, going out to the East Coast, and then we're basically out two and a half weeks, home, two and a half weeks out, two and a half weeks all summer. We'll be tracking our record early July before we head out and then just be grinding on that, doing the music videos, and then hopefully out on the road again in the fall, staying busy cool, traveling cool. And how do people connect to you guys on socials on the web? By your merch because that's most important? Yep. Okay, because I say this all the time, because I don't think listeners realize that it's the only way you guys can make it to the next gig, much less be a band. Just make it to the next gig.

19:06 Yep. But yeah, and our merch store is on our website. It's just Rickshaw Billiesburger Patrol dot com or on Instagram, Rickshaw Billy and the Boys, um, Spotify, you know, all the all your streamings, Rickshaw Billy's Burger Patrol usually pops up by the time you get through Rickshaw like nice and you do. You guys do have some cool ass merch. So everybody's got to go check that out and buy some merch. Because I checked out, I'm like, that's some cool ass march. You know, some people, some bands they have like unique good merch. Some have the same as everybody else. You guys got that unique that people have to have. It's the lifeblood of the whole. Like you have to have when you travel, you have to have good merch. It's just absolutely yeah, dope T shirts there you go. So then eventually we're all just selling dope T shirts exactly exactly. So is there anything we haven't talked about that the listeners need to know about? You guys? Uh? I don't know. I mean, we'd like I said, you know, we're gonna be on the road all summer. We've got a new record coming out by the end of the year.

20:08 Um, We've got a couple of presses of vinyl coming out over the next couple of months. Should be cool. Um yeah, I think that about covers it yeah cool. Yeah. Well you guys rock. I'm glad you're here at Shaking Knees and thanks for beating on the Adventures of Thanks for having us appreciate it, you got it. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pate Man on W four CUI Radio.