Ronnie Platt of Kansas joins Eric in conversation to discuss his early days discovering his voice, working his way up through the Chicago music scene for decades struggling through a string of bands including Shooting Star and ARRA, his near misses with both Survivor and Foreigner, how that prepared him for when he ultimately got the meeting with the guys in Kansas after Steve Walsh had announced his retirement, what it's been like for him to take the stage and record and write with one of his most inspirational bands, the new rebirth that Kansas is currently experiencing with Prelude Implicit and their new live album Leftoverture Live & Beyond, Kerry Livgren's reaction to seeing him sing Hold On, his favorite deep cuts from the Kansas catalog, what's next in terms of an anniversary tour for Point of Know Return, a new studio album in the works and much more!
Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz Picks The Essential Weird Al Originals.
Weird Al's lifelong drummer, Bermuda Schwartz joins Eric to share his 10 Essential Weird Al original songs. Also some memories and anecdotes about working on those songs, what it's like for him to perform the wide variety of styles in Al's catalog both original and parody, memories from some of the video shoots, how Al presents songs to the band, what it's been like for him on the long journey beside one of the greats.
Phil Collen of Def Leppard and Delta Deep joins Eric in conversation to discuss his early days of discovering the blues via British classic and hard rock, his early connections to the guys in Iron Maiden, first joining Def Leppard during the making of Pyromania, writing for Hysteria, how the loss of Steve Clark affected him personally when working on Adrenalize, how the band looks back at some of these records in terms of production, his work with the blues band Delta Deep, Def Leppard releasing their catalog on the streaming sites and what tracks does he think deserve a second look, hitting the road with Joe Satriani personally and Journey with Def Leppard in 2018, his thoughts on producing the upcoming Tesla record, how far along the new Def Leppard studio album is and what's next.
Stax legend William Bell joins Eric in conversation to discuss his early days of discovering music, seeing Sam Cooke as a kid, getting started with The Del-Rios as a young teenager, how he first connected with Stax Records, meeting Sam Cooke and what he learned from him, what the environment was like working with such Stax legends as Booker T & The MGs and Mavis Staples, he shares a wonderfully funny road story from his time touring with Otis Redding, what it was like to tour in the segregated South as part of the Stax family, his meeting with Martin Luther King Jr, bringing that full circle in regards to performing You Don't Miss Your Water for the first African American President at The White House, how he connected with John Leventhal, how the 2016 Grammy winning This Is Where I Live came together and what it means to his career, life on the road and what's next.
An episode that sees one of your co-hosts taking a slightly different path this year.