Ben Vaughn: That '70s Show & 3rd Rock Composer

This is a Lebanese artists, music business insiders and more. Mr. Ben Vaughan, how are you doing today? Hello, I'm great, I'm great. So you're coming to us from, I think you said the Mahave Desert, you're out in the middle of the middle of nowhere, is that correct?

Essentially isolated, is how we go. Yeah, I'm in the Mahave Desert where I am right now in my house is about one mile before electricity ends for another 80 miles. I'm at the very end of the grid. Yeah, and that's very isolated out there, but it's actually, it's cool, like, you know,

“if that's what you want, if you want that lifestyle, it's awesome.”

That's a great place to be, it's very pretty out there, actually, too. Most beautiful, yeah. It's beautiful. So you have a big story, you've been a composer for several big shows, music, a music

person for the third, for a third rock for that 70 show, we'll plot a little bit about that.

But also you have a podcast that just started on January 22nd. You and a co-host, Laura, and I'll let you pronounce your last name. We'll go to Delo. OK, Delo, there you go, who is also a Nashville music artist or professional radio DJ. I think you've done some radio DJ stuff for yourself.

Yes, yes I have. So yeah, so to me about the new show and a little bit about your background and how

“you got into, not only podcasting, but being a musical, music, working music on those”

kind of shows, because that's a big deal, as we know. Well, I was discovered, well, I guess the way I got into doing TV music is pretty simple. For some reason, during a time when surf music couldn't have been more dead, it was a dead language. I decided that like age 15 to become fluent in surf guitar.

I love surf music, starting with Join Eddie, which is not really surf, but then going into dickdale and everything else, I spend many, many hours perfecting surf guitar, which had no value in the marketplace at all, until, until pulp fiction. Right. Yep.

Over night, I had the coin of the realm. I had a talent at everyone wanted, so I came to Hollywood, and I got hired almost immediately

to do the music for third rock from the sun.

They wanted something different outside of typical sitcom music, and I arrived exactly the right time, fluent in the right sound. So finally paid off. Yeah, and I, you know, so one of my gigs I've had a lot of gig is I used to play a thank you avalan at the beach, the beach music stuff, and I played with a champs too, the

group of the decila. This was, I love the champs. They were all old guys. I was the young kid, but I kind of grew up and also being at something California kid, and I grew up with surf music, really hearing a lot of that, I guess, Dick Dale and all those

guys. What really drew you to surf guitar was that just something that just kind of captured you? Well, I sort of would join Eddie when I was six years old my uncle worked at, you know, I come from Camden, New Jersey, and Camden is where RCA Victor started, and Victor actually

owned almost all the, all the entire town, it had something like 35 factories there, one point, and then they RCA bought Victor, and so I grew up in an RCA Victor environment. Everyone on both sides of my family worked there, and some capacity or another, and my uncle worked there, and he, at the end of this shift, when you work there, they would, they had a box of free records, RCA records to take, and he grabbed a joint Eddie album and gave

it to me, I was six years old, so it was the first album I ever owned, and I played it

a million times, and it's all guitar instrumental, so it started there, and this is before

the Beatles, I mean, 1962 maybe, so I'm a rock and roll fanatic at age six, but instrumental music, like vocals and lyrics didn't, I didn't care about them yet, so it started there, and then when I first time I heard surf instrumental music, I thought, wow, they're adding reverb to it now, a lot of reverb too, yeah, that was sort of the sound, right, the big reverb all of the, yeah, as much reverb as you can put on it, and I fell in love with

“up too, so that's, it was kind of, I almost don't remember life without that sound in my”

head, or in my life, you know, yeah, and it's the, I mean, obviously too, it's kind of known as a Southern California, you know, sound, I guess, in a way, but yeah, so guitar, it led

and they were looking that kind of for that sound, what was it like working on those shows? 'Cause those are both very popular shows, I'm sure you've done others as well, but how did you get specifically, like, with the 70's show, how did that happen, did they just

call you out of the blue or, same creators, so we're working on third rock from the sun,

and then they say, we have an idea for a second show, and you're already the composer, so start coming to the meeting, so I was there from the very first meetings about what that 70's show was going to be, I was there for the casting sessions and the table reads, they wanted me to be part of the team, awesome, because, you know, 70's music, you can't do that 70's show without, you know, without caring about the music, right? And if you're going

to show that, that's titled that, obviously, the music, he component to what you're doing. Yeah, yeah, and I have the same love for rock cliches that the creators of the show did, like,

“I believe the creators of the show are the ones who wrote that skit with Will Tharrell with the”

Calbell, on Saturday Night Live. Oh, okay, and they also, they wrote for Saturday Night Live, and they were teamed up with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and they helped them create Wayne's world, and then they co-wrote the Wayne's world movie. So that Bohemian Rhapsody thing, that was Bonnie and Terry Turner's idea to have the kids singing along to a hit record in the car, which led to that 70's show, they wanted a song in the beginning of the, they wanted the theme song

that the kids could sing to, and I pitched in the street by big star, and they loved it, and we did a re-record with the chute trick, and that became the theme for, like, I guess, was eight seasons, I'll think we won eight seasons on that show. Yeah, and I must be loved, show. I mean, but both those shows are great show. Yeah, they have a long, they have long legs, the temperature is good for royalty style. I hope, but, well, you know, I, you know, I don't need

much money out here, but when I do, yeah, it's good to have. What's, what's the, you know, not to just focus on those shows, but what's the, a lot of people are curious about how that works? What, what's the schedule on a show like that? It's got to be very intense. Growning would be the word. At episodic TV, you are on real deadlines, because especially if there's a specialty scene where they want you to underscore something,

you know, I would get the cut, the final cut of the show on a Tuesday, and then we would be doing the final mix on Thursday, and then it would be on the air within a few days. So we, and both shows, so I'm doing two shows like that. It was intense, but the great thing about it

is any neurosis I might have had as a composer or as a writer are gone, because your first idea

is the only idea. Yeah, you don't have to either have time, right? Right, it's like, it's like your job, you know, like, you know, if you're writing for a newspaper or your own episodic TV, you don't have time to think, you know, to second guess anything. They fire you if you do, actually. And so yeah, and what do you find too, like, I mean, and obviously we're going to,

“with the podcast, we're going to talk about that, but do you find it's important to build a good”

team around you to make that, to make that happen? And obviously make any of the connections that have been important part of that process. Yeah, why did I, you know, I built my own studio, and I had a staff of people around me, engineers, and music editors. I got so busy, at one point I was doing three shows at once, and I, I had a music editors leave my studio with with our dries, and they would go to the mixed-down sessions, because I didn't have time, I didn't have time anymore.

Right, you can't be everywhere. I was in a building with no windows, just hacking out music, you know. And I loved, I loved it. It was romantic, because, you know, as a creative person,

I always created from inspiration, and which meant it was sporadic. Like there might be a month

goes by where I'm not inspired to write a piece of music, and it was cool, you know, nobody cared. I had a record deal, but I didn't need to deliver more than 12 songs per year, you know.

“And that's actually after what you're doing. That's actually easy part of the day, right?”

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And when I got into TV, what was really cool about it is I found out that I, I'm not only a creative person, I'm also a craftsman when necessary. And I was curious about I was curious about whether I had what it takes. One of the reasons I came to California to do music for TV and film is I wanted to see if I had it, if I had that talent, because I admired all these composers, you know, and songwriters, drill building songwriters,

for the drifters, you know. It's like, it's like a magical scene if you're a songwriter that

“whole like, you know, that whole thing. And also to being able to, like, you mentioned to be able”

to deliver one after another consistently for years. It's not just one album. It's the, it's the grind for eight years, however many, if you're lucky. Yeah, if you're lucky, if you're lucky, if you're lucky. Exactly. I worked on a lot of shows that only made it like one season or a season and a half. Sometimes they didn't make it out of the pilot. Like we would do a pilot, and that was it. It didn't get picked up. So working on two shows that had a longevity,

it's, it's every composer's dream, really, you know. And we kind of talked about this before we started. It's working on shows that you're proud to say, hey, that's my show. Yeah. And because

not, not everybody can always say that. And those those are both those shows, particularly are very,

very, very loved, right? Oh, they're funny. They're really funny and they're really funny and a smart way and they hold up. Yeah, they're timeless, actually. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So tell me

“about your new podcast. Again, to start a January 22nd straight from the hat with Ben Vaughn,”

tell me how you came up with that idea and what motivates you to jump into this crazy podcasting thing. Well, I was brought in to do a project for some records. It was a 70th birthday. Of son records. And I was brought in to compile a collection to put out on vinyl. And I was teamed up with Laura Pogadelo who worked at the label. She was helping me through a lot of this stuff. And we started talking and we realized we had the same taste in music, like we really loved the

same music and had similar record collections. Even though she's much younger than the her record collection is very, very similar to my eerily similar, like people like Rod McHugh and and you know, Bob Lynn and then we realized that we both really love Sonny Bono. You know what? Yeah, exactly. Because he said to a legend in many ways, that's just the singing thing. But yeah, go ahead, sorry. Yeah, we know we're like, like we both, and this is not ironically like, oh, it's a joke. It's a

“kitsch kind of thing. Like, oh, Sonny Bono, you know, no, he had a career before Sonny and sure that”

last had probably, you know, he probably had like a decade of experience in, you know, with a lot of really great R&B stuff done in Doe and Larry Williams and he worked with Phil Spectre and all this and he was

always starting labels. I actually played with Don't Doe. Did you really? I really did. Yeah,

that was a lot of, not that this isn't about me, obviously, but yeah, you said as well. Well, when I was 18, when I was 18 years old, me and my buddy Tracy, who lives in Finland, he's a songwriter of Finland. We got hired to play with Danny Flores, who was the guy that was the sax player, the guy that says to Keela on the record, Keela with her chance. And so, Danny knew everybody in the world. He was an Orange County guy and there was a lot of artists that lived in

Orange County, lived up in, and obviously in LA. So he would do like a Thursday night gig where he would bring all of his buddies. So we played with all these old guys that were still living in LA. And Don't Doe was one of the, yeah, one of the groups that we played with. And he was really best, he was great friends with, you know, the Richard. He was, he just knew everybody, the right

just brothers. So I kind of got, I got exposed to that music first before I ever did, like anything

with rock and top 40. I was playing old these stuff. And that's when Peemey Irma's movie came out. So we were, we were, you know, Tequila was a theme song. So we were doing all these huge fair dates, all these shows. And we're like eight, two years old. We're kids playing with these guys in like 65. So that, that's almost identical to Pope fiction coming out when Peemey Irma used to Keela boom, that was the song and you had the guy. Yeah. And it was just, you know,

because I, I grew up, I mean, kind of like, you know, it probably in a way. I grew up with my mom having a huge singles collection. She had boxes and boxes of, of singles. And I listened to that stuff first, which was like blah, blah, blah, which was all that stuff. My dad was, what my dad was, you know, kind of a hillbilly for markets saw. So I also got the Tammy, I got the Tammy wineette, I got the, you know, so that's my weird story, but anyway. No, no, it's very, very similar to

mine. I grew up in a do-off neighborhood. Okay. Yeah, right. There were guys singing on the corner, like it's, it's, it's not, I did not invent that. It actually happened. There were, there were four guys singing on the corner in my neighborhood. I grew up with, would do up in a mashed potato and all that stuff. 'Cause Philadelphia was the dance capital of America because of American bandstand before they moved LA. And so everyone in the country looked to fill it, to see what dances

are happening. And, you know, records were broken on that show. And, and dances were invented and caught on based on on that show. So I grew up in an environment where what people call

you could turn the radio on and hear a record from 1959 and this jockey would not call it an oldie. It was just a favorite song. Well, you know, guns and roses now are, is it all these classic rock band? It's just, oh, it's as hilarious because I, I guess that's, that's kind of a universal

story. You know, people like I've never done a stop, and I'm like, at some day, they add down the

road if you live long enough, you're able to say that about your favorite bands when you're a teenager. Well, I'm already nostalgic about band bunny. You know, I'm ready. Because that was a couple, that was a couple days ago. So that's an oldie. You know, yeah, well, hey, it's fast at the world works these days. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So you're doing the show, you're doing the podcast. And part of the, the idea with the podcast is you put a bunch of names. I, well, I mean,

this is my perception of it. You put a bunch of names that people that you worked with in the past and, and Laura will pull out a name and then you basically just go and you start talking about your relationship with that person. Is that kind of the idea? Yeah, yeah, because we were talking and when she was getting to know me, she realized that I had met and worked with a lot of these people in her in her record collection. You know, oh, yeah. Awesome. So she's like, you hold a Jean Pitney,

what? You know, and so I kept happening and then finally, together, we came up with the idea,

you know, let's throw these names in a hat and you pull them out and I'll react and we'll see if we have something. So we decided to record a demo. But we ended up recording for three hours and pulled like 21 names out of the hat. Wow. So we thought we might have something here and then we played it the results for some other people and we were encouraged. They were all like, oh yeah, if you

“edit this down into episodes, you know, you have something here. So that's what we did. Right. And the”

thing is, and it kind of, it's similar for me too. Like, what I found is if you don't keep those stories alive, that history gets lost and it actually is music history, especially when you're

interacting with people that that are much below, like, you know, like a little richer or those

guys. Do you find that that's an important part of what you're doing with the show is kind of memorializing some, because some of these guys are not with us anymore. Oh yeah, that and also, you know, my interaction with them is one more piece of information about those people, if you're curious about those people. You know, here's one more element to who they were. And and also I think what surprised Laura and I was, you know, we went in, you know,

whimsical, but it got deep pretty quickly because we're talking about creative people and it's not easy being a creative person. You know, the intersection of art and commerce is really hard to navigate for sensitive people. And most people, most people who make great music are sensitive. So we quickly realize that some of these stories are really funny, but some of them are actually emotionally deep. And it's, it was a surprise how sympathetic to the artists the episodes ended up being

yeah. There's a lot of people that, um, one of the people I used to work with, actually I worked at Billy Preston, but we did a tour with Phyllis Hyman. I don't know if you

“remember Phyllis. Oh, she was, yeah. Yeah, she was much beloved. And she's not necessarily a household”

name that a lot of people would know, but in the R&B world, she was a huge legend. And, you know, we worked with her and we worked with her right before she passed. And she was having a lot of problems. And I had a lot of, there was a lot of super fans that wanted to know her history that they didn't really know that stuff. And I thought I actually, somebody was doing a book on Phyllis and they contacted me to talk about that. And I was thinking, as I was talking to them, I'm like, you know, this,

this history unless it's recorded, unless it's kind of immoralized, it gets lost. You know, people don't, they don't know the history. What's a person that you've worked with in the past or you've had interactions with that, that comes to mind that, that, that it's important to tell their story that maybe you've talked about on the podcast. Well, before our podcast was released,

“no one knew that Lalo Schiffran had a stalker. Oh, okay. Wow. I believe we, we broke that story.”

Look, we have an exclusive on that. No, I, I guess, you know, someone like Alan Vega, you know, of suicide, a misunderstood person because of the aggression and anger in that music, you know, you would think that he, he was maybe a different person than I knew. So me telling his story or, you know, the story of, of he and our relationship, Alex Chilton, very misunderstood person. I'm trying to think of who else, Charlie Feathers, the rockabilly, meant this rockabilly

genius or some genius. He, knowing him and working with him, that episode is coming up and that's

I, I, I, I love meeting and working with all these people and circumstances, sometimes get odd.

As you know, you know, there's just something odd about show business where you're going to have certain moments where you're like, wow, this is a bizarre situation. You know, you know, show business or at least rock and roll, you know, I'm a rock and roll musician. I started playing drums when I was 12 and was good enough to get work and then I learned how to play guitar. So I played in a lot of bar bands and music is the only occupation where you're encouraged to drink on the job.

Yeah exactly. And not only that, it's assumed that you will accept a case of beer in lieu of payment. Of course, like a ball of pasta, whatever. Exactly. Right. Yeah, free, free food

from the kitchen and a case of beer and you'll play. It's the only job where they actually any

other job, they do drug testing on other jobs, but in rock and roll. It's almost a currency rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, like you kind of mentioned to like, you meet these people that are really famous and you have a perception of who they are. And then when you meet them,

“you go, oh, they're completely different. Do you find that that has happened to you many times?”

Well, I think the thing is we, as fans, listen to records by our favorite people and we feel like we understand them, but we don't realize isn't there actually human beings. Right. And all human beings are flawed. Every single human being is flawed. And so, you know, I think that what you're kind of alluding to is as a surprise at their human, right, exactly. Yeah. And they are, they're human beings. Yeah, and they have pressures and

you know, like sometimes they don't want to give the autograph, maybe they're with the family and they want to be, they want to be left alone eating dinner. That's when they make them a bad person. It's just like, hey, they have a life and outside of show business, which is sometimes it's challenging for fans to deal with that, right? It's challenging for the artists to, you know, like our shipman's a great example, big star means so much to certain, there's a certain

audience for that that the big star records saved their life, whether they were an awkward teenager or they were going through a relationship and that they put big star on and that, and when they would meet Alex and start telling him that he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know,

“that's too much for me. That's too much, it's too much. It's heavy, right?”

It's heavy and if you're not in the mood, you're just like having dinner or, you know, you just did a gig and come off stage and somebody wants to come up and tell you that you saved their life. It's a shift that's really hard to make and Brian Wilson had to deal with that two pet sounds. Seeing thing that kind of fanaticism, emotional fanaticism for that music and there were other artists I'm sure, you know, that like Leonard Cohen probably got that all the time

of course. Yeah, and important and important artists that we've all we've all grown up with and love like you mentioned when you listen to their music, you kind of feel like give a personal connection with them and, you know, I'm sure you've had this too where people walk up to like, hey, I know, you know, I know you from so, so I know you from social media and they feel like they know you and it's like, it's nice to meet fans, but it's also, it's a weird boundary

deal issue to deal with, right? It is a strange, it's strange, luckily I'm not famous enough for to be an inconvenience in my life. It's just a, well, yeah, you're a, you're a, well, no, guy,

“but that's what I understand. It's a surprise when it happens, which takes me out of wherever”

I was, you know, if I'm walking down the street by myself, all of a sudden, I'm taking a selfie that is immediately being uploaded to the cloud or on, you know, over live Facebooking, like when I was just looking in a store window, only a minute before that. Right, yeah, do I have something on my face? How's it like? Right, yeah, I should have shaved, I should have shaved, I should have shaved. Yeah, I shouldn't have won out in my pajamas. No, exactly. But luckily, you know, I have a great

balance, the amount of that in my life is perfect for me, but other people, especially if you're introverted and you're art, there's just an imbalance, it's like, you know, you're sitting, you know, it's, it's tough for people. And that's, that's what when we started going through these

names and pulling them out, it seems like every third one, there was some kind of emotional

element or some kind of sympathetic, you know, sympathy with their plight that would come up.

actually speaking, Don and Doey, Doey came and got us one day and took us up to the,

“well, I was used to be known as a riot house up on, I guess, Hollywood Boulevard. And”

Richard was actually living there. He lived at the hotel. He had kind of a ranch and he gave it to his family. He liked living in hotels. So he had this room set up with all of his food. I know, it's really weird. Well, all of his photos, all of his photos and stuff, but we spent three hours with him one afternoon and him just telling stories. And I, I was sitting there thinking, even at a young age, I was 18. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, man, this is gold. You're like, these guys all have,

it's such like something like that, you know, Karl Perkins, those kind of guys that they have such deep stories. You find like the podcasting format is at a great place to kind of to share that with fans and kind of like your personal stories with them. It seems like that would be

so interested to hear that. It's great. It's great. And I've never done a podcast before. You know,

I have a syndicated radio show that is available as a podcast, but it's recorded, you know, I do the show for Terrestrial Radio. And then it becomes a podcast, an archive podcast out there. So this is my first time. And I love it because the idea of getting these stories down in a book is something I would never do. I just, I'm not a writer in that kind of way where I would uh, and also uh, being co-hosted by Laura is great because she knows as much about all these

artists as I do. So there's a, she, she, she really knows when to ask a question. It kind of prod a memory out of me or point out that something I just said is weirder than I know. Yeah, you know, we should use this kind of take it for granted. She's like, no, wait, stop. Yeah,

I'll say something and she has to go hold a hold at least rewind for a second here. What did

you just say? And, and then I'm, I'm aware. Oh, yeah, that is not normal. Because it, it all feels normal to me, you know, your memories are your memories. And you don't realize that an outside perspective might be able to shine a light on how unusual or unique, you know, that memory is. Yeah, exactly. And it's, I mean, also to the podcasting is a part of a long, long, form content. It's not, you know, a 30 second one minute blurb on a story. Yeah. So you're able to really

dive deep and explore things that are a kind of in a different, a different way. So you have so much experience. What's some advice that you would give to people, not only just, I mean, obviously doing, if they want to get a whole TV show music thing, but also just interacting and building

“teams and connections and life, how important is that? Wow. My career. Yeah. My career is so”

customized and odd that you would almost have to be me for any of what I did would work. I don't know how else I explained it. Because I was told that I was too weird for the record business. You know, like my first goal was to be a recording artist who wrote his own material, and performed on stage. That was it. And I got a record deal in 1985 or '86. And I made albums

and I was on tour a lot. And I was always being told that I was too weird for the record business.

That I, my taste, I, I needed to pick a lane and become one thing. And I, and I just couldn't do it. I was incapable of it. And I had a lot of sympathy for the record label. Wasn't like, you know, oh, they're killing art. I was like, no, I'm weird. I know it. I've been told, I've been, I don't know my way. Yeah, I've been told this my whole life and I know it's true. And it looks like I'm not playing ball, but it's actually an incapable of playing ball. I'm not doing it in an arrogant, you know,

anti-capitalism way. I'm like, I've, and I, I had sympathy. I had real sympathy for the record label. It was like, I wouldn't know how to market me either. So how can I be mad at them? And then network TV decided that I was not too weird. We're talking mainstream NBC, musc TV in 1996. They said, no, your perfect don't change. So the only advice I would give someone is stay true to who you really are and someone in a position of power will recognize that and value it for exactly

“what it is and that's what happened with me. Surf guitar. Like I'm over there. It was like speaking”

Latin. Not even just reading Latin. I was walking around speak. I would show up in a band. I would join a band and I would start speaking Latin on my guitar and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, for years, for years that went on and the president of the production companies that her name was

for third rock from the sun. And no one could talk her out of it. And so someone out there is going

to recognize who you are. But my voice would be stay true to yourself. Don't keep trying to change your style of music or your haircut or your clothes or whatever it is. You know, because when I was coming up, I played with a lot of musicians who were better than me, but they were willing to who narrow things down. We are a heavy metal band. We sound like little feet. We're country rock, you know, whatever it is. And they would buy the clothing and write the songs and buy the musical

deer and pose, you know, in the photos that necessary for that one lane. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. And every time I would play with musicians, I would get booted out of the band

because when one of my songs showed up, we sounded like a different band. So I had to be a solo artist

and I stayed true to myself through a lot of poverty. Actually, you know, just staying true to the sound I heard in my head and the expression that I knew that I was naturally meant to to express, you know, and it worked out for me. So now I don't know if that would work out for

“other people or not. I really don't know. But that's how it worked with me. I didn't have a master plan”

on how to have a Hollywood success. That was a total surprise to me. A complete surprise to me that they were fine with me exactly as I was. And that's that's everything changed for me, you know, in like the rear, once the right person heard me. I think that that's, you know, such an important advice. And I, you know, through my music career adventures, I've seen that. I've seen guys chasing it, chasing it, willing to do anything to chase it. And it's sort of like I quit it to dating. Eventually,

you'll find the right one. You just have to give it time and just be, like you mentioned, be who you are. And if, and people will find you, and it's going to be way more authentic. And it's having success with being somebody you're not is not very fulfilling, right? No, it could be financially good for you. What depends? Well, how much you care about being yourself, you know? Yeah, it's some people don't. So, but exactly, I kind of, I kind of envy them. It's a simple life. I mean, having, having

no, no compass and no morals. Yeah, just going with the wind. But I'm very, I'm very aware of who I am. And I can't escape it. You know, it's, you know, I know who I am. And what I'm capable of and what I'm naturally drawn to do is a creative person. Yeah, and you got, you had a very big, huge lucky break, but then you did the work. And that's the thing. Because some people have, they get the break, the big break. They got to be on the block in and get it done. And not, you know, like I said,

it's not just one album, it's years, years of grinding, years of getting it done at a high level.

“So, that adds to the amazing story. And I think it's very inspiring. I really admire what you do.”

Again, those shows that you work on and the artists that you work with, it's all quality. And it's all people that people that still love, they're going to be loving, it's timeless stuff. So, that's, that's really, I think, very exciting. Ben, tell people how they can find you and find your podcast and all that stuff. You can't find me. I'm out here in the middle of nowhere.

Well, well, we'll send it. We'll send the team out to get you. You'll never find me. GP GPS dies

ready before my house. Yeah, I know. I don't know what you mean. Well, the podcast is straight from the hat.com. And let me see, I have a list here of where you, let's see, uh, here we go. Since we're on video. I should do the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Apple, pod beans, Spotify, pocket cast, I heart radio, boom play, and other places. And no ads, which is really, which is really

“important because if you listen to podcasts a lot of times, you queue it up and it's like three or four”

ads for everything from banking to pet food, you know, sheets, you know, comfortable socks. And then you finally, well, customer socks is important. They are important. They are important. Yeah. But we know ads. We just go right into content and it's all content all the way through and then we're out. So, um, um, I'm happy not to have ads because it interrupts the flow, you know. Yeah, I agree. And I don't do that either. I'm fortunate to have some very nice sponsors that are

our friends. So, um, that helps. And I have to, I have 10, 10 other jobs. It's so, it's not not so important for me. But, uh, Ben, thank you so much for joining me. Like, you have a huge story. We could probably go on for hours. And I'm sure we actually probably know some of the same people in LA.

You got a lot more ahead of you. But, uh, thank you for joining me. I really appreciate your time.

“You're your base player, right? You're right. Yeah. I'm a base player. Yep.”

So, if I, uh, funny oldies asked me if you do need an 11th job because if an oldies asked me, if I know a base player, should I give me a number? Oh, yeah. You know what? Actually,

so what I'm doing these days, uh, music wise is we have a lot of tribute acts that we do.

So, I was just in Florida with what the Queen show that we have, uh, we had a team of

“Turner rods doing all that stuff. But, just been, for me, it's fun because you go out,”

you do a 70 minute show and then I fly back home and, and do all my other stuff. So,

I, I, I said that the play, but when I play now, I look forward to it. It's not just a job for me.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. That's the best place to be. Yeah, and I, because I did the, I did the Vegas. I was a research just the way for 10 years. I did a bunch of different things.

“Wow. So, these days, I'm, I'm mainly a lot of people know me as a sports illustrator for”

talking for with the Raiders. Um, but, uh, you know, I kind of, I like to do different things. I don't get bored. Twitch is, yeah, which is good. Oh, I can relate. And totally, really. I'm sure you don't get bored. You got, you got a lot going on. But, um, I do. Yeah. The band, thank you so much for joining me. I'm shout out to Laura, your co-host on the podcast. And I'm sure I actually would be listening to talk with her because

the sun record thing is also really fascinating. Of course. You know, yeah, they just want to grab me for best blues album. Yeah. I mean, obviously a legendary label, but the, but the cool thing with them is they still, they, they've reinvigorated that whole thing, the whole label. They haven't, she, she is a major part of it, too. Yeah. It's, it's really awesome what they've done. So, um, so maybe we'll hook that up down the road, but hey, have a great day out

in Mahave and, uh, tell all my friends out there if you could find them. They're, they're hiding too. Yeah, exactly. I don't know, but, uh, awesome. I have a great day and I appreciate your time. Great. Thanks, great talking to you. All right, YouTube. Thanks. See you. Thanks for joining us. And please consider subscribing to our podcast and follow us on our social media pages for guest announcements.