That's very Midwest. A lot of welps and hopes. Yeah. Was it Puff Daddy? How's he doing?
Producer Chris might be the most interesting person you've never met. I don't think I like being touched by strangers. Yeah, he had shingles. I don't know if that's into or not. So, what do you do?
You can't possibly do this FOR A LIVING. HEY EVERYBODY, welcome in to the Hamco Live Hot Ticket Podcast. I'm your host Josh Cecil. I'm the editor-inchief of hamcolive.com. It's a great little website for all you live music fans out there.
Go check us out and check out that online calendar. You can find all the live music happening everywhere across Hamilton County. Of course, you'll want to sign up for that weekly newsletter and uh follow us here on YouTube. Subscribe, like, all that good stuff. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram as well.
Bit of a unique episode today. As you can see, if you're watching here on YouTube, I am not in studio. I have no global icon/national treasure Tyler Meechum with me. And producer Chris is also not here. Uh, I'm just sitting here on my porch and introing this special edition.
And of course, we've got TradeUp Fest coming up. Uh let's see, Saturday. So, this is Tuesday as I'm recording this. Uh Saturday is Trade Upfest. Again, if you haven't heard, um it is a it's kind of like a a music festival similar to Farmade, but where Farmade is meant to help farmers, uh Trade-Up Fest is meant to help the skilled trades industry, right?
We want to get excited and get people excited about uh the incredible career opportunities. I mean, just incredible career opportunities in the skilled trades uh world. Um so, we hope that you'll come out for this uh what we think is going to be an annual event. Uh we think it's going to be incredible. Um super excited.
We've got the daytime portion from 11:00 a.m. to 5 5:15 I think is when I actually told uh our last act Aiden Brown to finish up. Um, but we've got two stages, two outdoor stages, um, food trucks, we've got uh local vendors, we've got the most exciting thing about this is our trades village. And this is where our sponsors are setting up interactive booths that have yes, they've got like, you know, information on career paths, on apprenticeship pathways, um, you know, how much money you can make in a career as a welder, as an electrician, etc. All of that will be there.
Sure. Recruiting? Sure. But what's also going to be there in these booths are these interactive um like maybe demonstrations. So I'll give you an example.
Um we've got uh Lincoln Tech is bringing welding masks, virtual welding masks. So you put the welding mask on and you've got virtual welding tools, right? Um so that's really cool. just interactive things that uh students, families, job seekers, uh people looking at like job transition in in in like the age of AI, you know, um just really cool opportunities for you to explore what it means to be a skilled trades person in today's society, right? I've talked about this with countless people and we all kind of have the same story.
I graduated high school in 1997 and when I graduated it was like you got to go to college. You got to go to college, go to college. And it was like, oh, the skilled trades are are fine if you can't go to college. And I've told this story. Um, but I I had a a former student, I was a high school teacher for eight years.
Um, a former student came up to me one night at uh SIDS here in Noblesville, and I was like, "Oh, hey, Alec, man. What are you up to? How's life?" Whatever. He said, "Yeah, I uh just got back from Texas. I was on a welding gig." So, he was a welder.
And uh he said, "Yeah, you know, it's interesting with with overtime. I was sleeping in my truck, but with overtime, uh you know, I was there for 6 to9 months. I made $120,000. That's Hey, you know what? That's pretty good for 6 to9 months or uh a year uh or two years.
um my my last year of teaching I was making 54 a year and paying off student loans. So, I don't know. Take that information and do with it what you will. All I'm saying is that a career in the trades can be um very rewarding um both personally and financially. um you can earn while you learn in a lot of cases.
And um I it's just I I want people to understand I want my kids I've got seven. I want my kids to understand all the options that are out there. So that's what Trade Upfest is about. Today's episode, um let me just back up there. You can learn everything you need to learn about Saturday's uh big festival uh by going to tradeupfest.com.
tradeupfest.com um is where you want to go. You'll see the lineup. Well, let me just run you through the lineup. During the day, we've got eight bands on two stages. As I said, um we've got Hank Ruff, we've got Jay Baker trio, we've got Fousey, we've got Kelly Ray Gates, we've got Aiden Brown, we've got Lost Anchor, we've got the Failers, we've got Distant Soundwaves.
Um, they'll all be performing on those outdoor stages from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Doors to the Arena. Now, remember, this takes place at Riverview Health Arena at Innovation Mile. Um, we rented out the arena, we rented the property, and we're going to blow it out.
Doors to the Arena open at 5:00 p.m. Show, the arena concert starts at 6:00 p.m. Opening up is Norah Reese, um, who recently moved to Nashville, but she's from, uh, Pendleton originally, I think. Um, incredible singer, songwriter. Um, she's got a bright future if she wants it.
Um, then we've got Wilder Blue. The Wilder Blue taking the stage at about 6:40, I want to say. Um, they are a great band out of Texas. Most recently touring with Luke Combmes. Um, just one of my favorite bands.
I'm so excited that we got them. Um, but you are going to be blown away. I promise you, promise you, you will walk away from TradeUp Fest a fan of the Wilder Blue. Um, and then closing out the show, we've got Larry Fleet. Larry Fleet had a a good hit with uh Where I Find God.
Um he also wrote Morgan Wallen's song um Man made a bar which featured Eric Church as well. Um and he recently just got back from a tour of Australia where he was crushing it. Um they're on the road right now, but they'll be closing out the show. Uh Larry Fleet is our headliner. Uh it's going to be an awesome night of music, an awesome day of music.
You're going to learn more about the trades. Again, this takes place Saturday. Gates to the afternoon portion open at 10:00 a.m. Music music kicks off at 11 a.m. You are not going to want to miss this uh this first year.
I I I think you're going to be telling people, you know, 10 years from now when we have uh you know, Trade Up Fest 2036, you'd be like, "Oh, yeah. I remember when I went to the first one." and uh saw the Wilder Blue and Larry Fleet and Norah Reese like this is going to be a great event. You're definitely going to want to be there. Now, today's episode of the Hot Ticket Podcast, uh I had the opportunity to sit down and interview the Wilder Blue. Uh they were on their tour bus.
Um I want to say they were in Wisconsin at a festival there. Um, but I I got a chance, they were nice enough to uh take a little bit of time to talk to me and uh join us here on the podcast. So, without any further ado, make sure you go to tradeupfest.com and uh right now, enjoy this interview with the Wilder Blue. Hey, we're back and I've got the guys from the Wilder Blue joining me. We've got uh Zayn and Sean.
uh lead singer, although everybody kind of sings. There's a lot of singing going on. You gota swap around a lot. Uh but Zay, you're probably That's fair. And uh Sean, bass player.
Uh you guys said you're in Wisconsin right now. Yeah. Yeah, baby. It's beautiful. Planning on eating some 20-year-old cheddar cheese.
That's right. They said when anybody shows up from Texas, they bust out the 20-year-old cheddar. That's right. Roll it out for the Texans. Um, hey, I I kind of wanted to start off.
Here's how I came across you guys. I want to tell you this story. Um, I was just scrolling one night and, uh, your video of Wave Dancer at Red Rocks came up in my feed. I don't remember if I had the sound up or I just something made me turn the sound on, whatever it was. Um, but it was like everything I love about music was right there in that one song and I was like, who are these guys?
I got to find out more. So, I did the deep dive in Spotify and uh just had Hill Country playing pretty much non-stop for a couple months. Uh, and then, uh, turns out you guys were going to be in Indiana. I was like, "Well, I got to go see him." So, this was last year at uh, Turntable and you guys up there. Yeah, I bought those pants that day.
Is that right? Yeah, I remember those. That's some of those uh, tight fitting jeans you're talking about in Texas Women off the new album. So, uh, yeah. So, I kind of came across you guys that way and when I was putting together Trade Upfest, I was like, man, I wonder if I can snag Wilder Blue and I just kind of went down the road and we did it.
And so now you guys are playing our festival here in Noblesville, uh, the Trade Up Fest. Question for you guys. Trade-up fest is about we're kind of billing as the farm aid for the skilled trades. Cool. Have you guys been doing music your whole lives?
Have you done any sort of construction or anything that maybe fall into the Have any of you? Uh, I mean, you know, my parents forced me to help retile a couple bathrooms. I think that counts. I went willingly into the into the tile work. Very nice.
Just home projects, drywall, I think. Yeah. Paul, our guitar player, recently like built did a lot of the building on his own house. Um, I was my my only non-m musical jobs were substitute teaching and uh and uh working a weed whacker on a landscaping crew. All right.
Day. Well, I'm a former high school teacher, so I salute you in your substitute teaching. No easy gig, I'm sure. Uh, let's get a little bit into tradeupfest. So, yeah.
Um, what do you think or what would you want people to know about the Wilder Blue before they see you or before they hit play on that Spotify playlist? What do they need to know? Dang. See, I don't like to uh color people's expectations too much. I'm always trying to think of what what can we say to people to make them want to listen and give us a chance but without you know telling people too much of who we are or telling people like I I read Bruce Springsteen's autobiography and he said it's the show business you should show people what you are.
That's right. Um, we do, you know, what people tell us sometimes is that we sound like kind of a cross between the Eagles and Alabama. Or one guy said, uh, if the Eagles had Ronnie Dunn as their lead singer, one guy said he thought we sounded like Steely Dan Fogleberg. Oh, yeah. We do have That's pretty good.
There's a lot of travel between those two just those two examples, you Yeah. Yeah. It's it's in that it's in that borderland between, you know, that kind of acoustic folk rock from the 70s and and and kind of a Texas country, 90s country type thing. A little blue a fair amount of bluegrass thrown in as well. Yeah.
Well, I've been telling people as I've been talking about the fest, um it I tell them it will be like seeing the Eagles before the Eagles blew up. Um and especially I mean you guys do uh Seven Bridges Road off the first album, I think it was. Um so it was the third album. Yeah. Yeah.
Third. That was that was Brent Cobb's idea. Um because Luke Holmes wanted to sing on a track with us and we didn't honestly we didn't have any songs that we thought Luke would Yeah. It was that would fit his voice so we came up with that one. Yeah.
Well, that's a great one. Um yeah. So you guys opened for Luke a couple of tours ago. Yeah, that was 2024. Yeah, we did 12 stadium dates.
We were just the first of four openers on the Friday. So he he's got a problem. He he draws too many people. So he stadium is not big enough. So he has he he had to do two nights.
And so we were on the Friday night lineup at all the stadium shows. Yeah. Poor guy. What a problem to have. Yeah.
No kidding. 60,000 people again. Did you guys do uh indie on that tour at Lucas Oil Stadium? Do you remember? I don't think so.
Okay. I think the closest we probably got to Indie was Cincinnati. Okay. Well, I would say I mean your harmonies are definitely what drew me to your music. Um I'm curious as someone who loves singing harmony.
How much how much effort goes into that? Is it natural at this point where you guys are just picking your parts or how does that work for you guys? Well, all the guys in the group are natural singers and natural harmony singers. Um, as far as actual arrangements, we put a lot of time into that that gets complicated. Yeah, I would have to imagine.
Yeah, you there's so many permutations to try, right? There's there's uh different people doubling different parts and then there's doing this same part an octave up and see how that sounds and we're always saying hey well you know we'll work out parts and then we'll be like well Andy you and Paul switch with each other and okay well y'all double each other but then at this part split off and and do something different and do a suspension and and sometimes we work all that stuff up uh together. Sometimes either Lyndon or I will um record a bunch of stuff at home of of like ideas and kind of map it out and then we'll tweak it when we get together and basically figure out who belongs on which part. But uh yeah, it's um it's a process. It's a whole process.
Yeah. I mean, I imagine something like uh the conversation, which is this incredibly intricate like it's like the Beach Boys, you know, it's like pet sounds if the Beach Boys grew up in Texas. Yeah, it's incredible. That was weird at home. I I I did a little demo of that song and I and I kind of did that vocal thing instead of uh where you would normally put like a guitar solo or something.
And uh and then I brought it in to the dudes and I was like, "Okay, this is weird and this is gonna take us a really long time to learn." If you hear the if you hear the parts by themselves, they just sound like garbley good. It's like Yeah, there was a lot of It was a It It was a couple hours of standing around the table in the control room and being like, "Okay, let's try it again from this." Yeah, you'll do this and we'll do that and maybe we just move this note a little bit here. And eventually it does come down to kind of like needing to be a little bit precise. Yeah. Well, I remember uh as intricate as that.
Yeah. Well, I was going to ask I remember seeing you guys last year uh here in Indie and I was like, man, I hope they played the conversation because I can't imagine how you would even do that live. How do you do that live? Did we play it? No, you didn't play it.
No. Oh, dang. Well, we'll have to put that on the list for trade up fest. Yeah. Yeah, we could totally do that.
Um just to prove ourselves. Um, well, you know, we there it's five parts and uh we all know our parts, so we just we just do it. Just do it. Yeah, that's great. Well, let's get in a little bit here to the uh to the new album.
Um, what struck me, the word I kept coming back to was throwback. And then, you know, if you look at a song like Texas Women, there's the line 90s country cage and fiddle. Uh, doesn't get better than that to me. This has like an an old country feel to me at least. Um, a song like that even that has sort of a spoken word rhythmic spoken word with a a singable chorus like feels very much like a throwback.
Is this intentional? Was this what you wanted to do going into the studio or did it just kind of develop as you're playing around? I think a lot of those things develop as we start choosing what songs we're most excited about recording, you know, and that was one of them. So, it's like if that's one of the first ones we decide to do, it becomes a little bit the load load star of that thing. you know, we all have fairly um throwback sensibilities in the music that we listen to.
I wouldn't say exclusively that, but we're a lot of us like to listen to uh I don't know, I'd say from the 70s to the 60s. I I started 60s to 90s. And uh so I guess that's just kind of the music that we love the most. So when I'm in songwriter mode, you know, I tend to write stuff in that vein and then musically speaking, the guys are good at and taking it to that place. Um, so I I don't know if it's really intentional.
It's more like just it's kind of what we like and what we're good at, I guess. Yeah. Um, so speak a little bit to that. you're kind of touched on it. Who's what artists kind of have their fingerprints on the Wilder Blue Sound?
Would you say you grew up listening to XYZ? Well, we're all different. So, we'll we'll say that our our two stories. What did you grow up listening to? Oh, grow up listening to I mean, a lot of the Eagles, Aerosmith, um a lot of Latin music, Gypsy Kings.
What else I grow up listening to? My parents had weird tastes. Uh, Van Halen, you two, the Smiths. Um, and then I mean I when I started listening to music, it was all classic rock related. Zezy Top and Led Zeppelin and uh I guess at the time the Chili Peppers weren't classic rock, huh?
But uh, you know, and I grew up in a college town in Texas where there was a lot of country music around. So those were the L love it years kind of being popular around there because he's a alumnist. There's a lot of Robert Earl Keen played a lot as a kid. Okay. I grew up listening to everything from classical to like Enya um like kind of new age to like easy listening Gloria Stefan and Michael Bolton and stuff.
But I discovered country music when I was 16. Started getting into Gar Brooks and uh just all all the ' 90s country guys. Allan Jackson, George Strait, Randy Travis, Travis Trit, um Tracy Bird. Yeah. Makes an appearance on uh all the nice stuff.
I'm a I'm pretty much an encyclopedia on and and my wife even more so. And then, you know, the the Dixie Chicks, I was a big fan of them in their heyday. And I liked, you know, by that time I was getting into a little more of the bluegrass sound and I started getting into um I've never been a hardcore bluegrass guy, but I but I really love acoustic instruments, mandolin and fiddle and um so and flat picking. So Tony Rice and Tim O'Brien and Daryl Scott and um you know singer songwriters in that blueg grassy vein. And so um I kind of bring the country and the bluegrass and Andy our banjo do guy.
He comes from a bluegrass background but studied uh jazz bass at so he's and he was in he quit that to be in a rock band. So he's a he's a bluegrass guy but uh he also is very uh diverse. And then I'd say our drummer is more into um you know the Beatles and Bruno Mars and uh a little bit more into the like quality pop u stuff. And then our guitar player Paul um definitely grew up on the the Texas country, the Pat Green, the Robert Oeen um you know Terry Allen um people like that. And then he's a he's a big Brad Paisley guy.
So he, you know, got a lot of his guitar playing licks from that. Um, so we're And then my my goal when I started this band was for us each to just do what we love and what we're best at and then whatever that whatever it sounds like when the all five of us are doing that, then that's what we are. And that's that's why some people say our albums kind of sound like mixtapz because, you know, we we'll flip-flop sometimes from a something that sounds more like a Tom T. Hall, Don Williams thing to something that sounds like a Fleetwood Mag. Yeah.
Tom Petty thing and uh it don't bother us none. No, I love it. Yeah. I mean, when I was listening to Hill Country for those two months and uh Hey Susanna would come on, it was like, man, that came out of nowhere like such an such a great song. Um, I wanted to ask about Last Chance for Dancing off of the new album.
Um, to me, I heard that and I heard like 80s Alabama. Yeah. Um, in the guitar tone, but in I don't know, just I guess the production of it. Um, how much Alabama are you guys listening to growing up or even now, I guess? Yeah, I'm I kind of missed out on 80s country growing up, but I've gone back and listened to all the Alabama stuff and um they are one of my faves.
Gotta love the the harmonies and everything. Especially when I'm when I'm when I'm getting inspired to write for this band. I listen to Alabama, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Eagles, Diamond, Rio, Dixie Chicks, any any kind of harmony harmony driven type stuff that can kind of because sometimes you got to when you're writing the song, you got to like leave space for that stuff and write melodies that give room have lots of harmonies on them or or have like call in response. type things. There's all kinds of cool stuff you can do.
Um, but but sometimes I get into just singer songwriter mode where, you know, I'm just writing something that works better as just a single voice. And I'm when I'm writing for this band, I I try my best to get inspired by those vocal groups and go down that road more. Yeah. Well, since you mentioned it, I I do want to ask uh two songs that really stood out to me on the new album, Only the Years. Incredible.
The Hunt is another one, but those feel a little more introspective. Um it's a little more like you were saying, a single voice. Um Right. Tell me about those. Where did I mean golly man only the years I had to sit down take a breath listening to that one.
Well yeah that one is an example of what I was just talking about where I I wasn't really imagining the band so much and they they usually let me sneak one or two of those on per record that are you know a little bit more singer songwritery. But that one I I I just remember coming up with the idea one night when I was driving the bus um late at night and thinking, you know, I don't really want to write a song that's like a hookup breakup song. I've been happily married for 26 years. I'm 49 years old. I'm not trying to write, "Hey girl, what's your name girl?
I'm up in my truck girl or whatever." and and I was just thinking man I like but at the same time I want to write you know songs that people can relate a lot of people can relate to. So it's like how do I write a song that only I could write um from a point of maturity and I then that gave me the idea of like there's some things that you learn that you know only the years can teach you and then uh then I got that first line. I've been I've been cheated on. I've been proven wrong. Thought my world would end.
But then it moved along and I was like, "Oh, okay." That's so good. Yeah. Do you do you find yourself writing a lot when you're driving? Yeah. Polishing, coming up with ideas.
Um, and then, you know, always got some tunes that I'm not happy with the second verse and I'm just always trying to fuss around with it. And it's if you got like a three-hour drive in front of you, you know, that's a good time to do that. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks or podcasts and stuff, but sometimes I I force myself to um think about music and and um you know, I I get some stuff done. Sometimes my my phone is full of voice memos with engine noise in the background and like I'm singing ideas and over the over the you know Yeah. the den of the air and the the whatever.
Yeah. Well, those are two incredible songs. Um I hope people will go listen to those immediately. Uh, one other one I wanted to talk about is Chasing the Sun, which is so fun and feels like it's right out of Laurel Canyon in the 70s. Just another right here.
There he is. Rogers. You wrote Chasing the Sun, right? Yes. With Paul E and Phoenix.
Yeah. Ah, it's great song. Great song, brother. Turned out real good. Love it.
Yeah. I was just saying it sounds like it's right out of Laurel Canyon. out of the 70s. Oh yeah, totally. Yeah, that's Phoenix.
Most of that then the weird corpse. That's me. That's Phoenix. The Phoenix he's talking about. Phoenix Mendoza wrote Last Chance for Dancing by himself and then co-wrote Sinners and Strays and Chasing the Sun.
And he's definitely got that Laurel Canyon vibe. And that's part of why I invited him to the writer retreat. We did like a two or three day retreat and and Phoenix ended up being um not only a a good musical fit, but he's just he's become a friend, man. Friend of the band. He's super cool guy.
Yeah, we all love Phoenix. Yeah. I read somewhere that this on this album you guys brought in some outside musicians and songwriters for the first time. Is that correct? Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. We had um our first four albums we played all the instruments. Um, and then this one we kind of felt like some of the songs were just begging for fiddle and steel and uh and some better keys than what we we kind of all play keys, but a real keys player. So, we brought in those three from uh from the Texas music scene.
Steve Auburn on fiddle, Harrison Yunt, and Cody Angel played steel, and Travis Bishop played keys. And for me, it was it was a blast because it was like I've always loved Fiddle and Steel. I've got that all over my solo albums and stuff. So to have the Wilder Blue plus those things, I was kind of in heaven. Yeah, I noticed it felt like there was a ton of pedal steel on the album, more so than it stood out to me more so than some of the others.
But, uh, yeah, it's beautiful. Well, I want to start wrapping up. I know you guys are probably getting ready to do a sound check or you hitting the road. What are you doing? What's next?
Yeah, they're they're loading in right now. So, I mean, as long as you want to take that, you know, we're just getting a skip load in here. Yeah. Okay. But now they're set setting up the stage here at a beautiful farm here in Wisconsin.
So that's great. Um, you mentioned that you were driving the bus. Everybody drives. Everybody take turns. Just about everybody.
Yeah, everybody. Most everybody. Uh, we just do like three or four hour shifts and turn it over to the next guy. And that way we can drive straight through the night if we need to. and not wear ourselves out too bad.
Who's in charge of the music then? Is it the driver or does someone else or everybody just listen to their own thing? Separate cab. Um, so I I can show you that's the There it is. That's the cab there.
And it's it's blocked off. And so cab, you get to do whatever you want up there, man. And uh and then our phones back here will just always say, "Do you want to join so and so's jam?" And we say, "No, no, always." So then I I know better to interrupt someone's jam with just repeating look, you know, what's new pussycat over and over again. Did you pull that specific reference from uh John Malany bit? Uh, not necessarily, but it probably must have been the thing that my rocking around in my head.
Yeah. He does this uh he tells a story when he was in middle school going to a diner and putting like a $100 worth of coins on f the Tom Jones song. Um, that's funny. Um, okay. I want to play this is a game I like to play with some of my guests.
Um, first concert, best concert, worst concert. So, for me, my first concert was Ronnie Milsap. Um, my probably my favorite concert was uh Bruce Springsteen in St. Louis. I'm also reading the uh biography as well.
Um, and worst concert, Ray Laontaine. Um, I won't trash the guy, but I had high hopes and was let down. But Bruce was cool because we didn't have tickets when we went. We just showed up, scalped tickets, and ended up like 10 rows from the stage for 40 bucks on the rising tour. Incredible.
And then Ronnie Milsap was I was a kid. My parents were taking me to Branson, Missouri in the 80s and uh went to Ronnie Milsap. Must have been epic. Yeah. So, uh, what about you guys?
You want to go first? Okay. Uh, I think first was Dave Matthews maybe with my college buddies. Um, best might have been uh maybe Gar Brooks Reunion Arena. We also scalped tickets for that one.
My buddy and I drove over from Abalene. We didn't have tickets. drove to Dallas, found a scalper, got some tickets, went in there, uh, got to see G and it was awesome. Um, worst. Dang, dude.
I have seen so much bad music. F, famous, worst. Um, you you you go and I I'll think of one. I'm still struggling. Let's see.
First concert that jumps out at me is Aerosmith. My parents took me to see Aerosmith in San Antonio. Lenny Kravitz was supposed to open but he got the flu and they got some local cat to open who sounded like just like Santana basically. It was awesome. Oh, cool.
Best concert is probably uh it's one of the last two Steelely Dan concerts I saw probably hands down. I mean they're just they were musicians. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then Yeah.
Worst. Worst is tough. I mean, yeah. You don't want to trash anybody that you like might run into. Well, I don't want a festival or anything.
I just also just like I don't know. There's just I stuff I don't like. So, the one that jumps out at me most recently is probably Gavin Adcock. Oh, I I thought of it one Excuse me. one.
I mean, I' I've seen Pat Green put on some pretty like really drunk and like angrily berating the audience, telling them they That's true. There there are some of those in memory now that I'm thinking about it. Okay, Pat Green, let me get my tickets as soon as I get off here. You won't regret the story regardless. for you guys.
What's one of the weirdest shows you've ever done? I'm sure you guys have been playing together for how many years now? Since six and a half. Yeah. So, in all that time, is there a weird the weirdest gig stick out to you at all?
The weirdest gig there was good or bad? Just like you remember that festival that we festival that we played? It was, I think, in Iowa. It was kind of in a corn field and they had just a little low tent with the bands in the corner. Yeah.
And you had to hike up to the house where the green room was and back down. That one was kind of weird. Yeah. Feel like you were playing in someone's backyard. Something like that.
Yeah. Which we're doing today, too. So, but this one feels substantially less weird than that one. Yeah. My all of the gigs I've done with Wilder Blue have been great compared to the crap I used to do.
Uh I did a gig once where I was a solo act at a college and the only microphone they had was uh it was attached to a podium. It was a podium mic. One of those gooseeneck microphones on gooseeneck thing. And so I ended up luckily only like 15 people showed up. So, I just uh I just they we all sat in a circle and I just I just played acoustic for him.
Um I was hoping you'd say you put the guitar down and just gave a lecture instead. Yeah, exactly. Give a motivational speech. Reading of all my songs. I've had all kinds of weird solo gigs.
Oh, dude. Once my booking agent calls me up and he's like, "All right, Zane, uh, solo, you know, you you told me to book you some solo gigs on these dates. I've got an offer this one date. Uh, it's going to be this one lady by herself." Yeah. And I was like, "You know what?
Freak yeah, let's do it. Dude, this this lady has balls. She's booking me to come serenate her all by herself." So, I go to this lady's house and it's like for her, it's this is her present to herself for like her 55th birthday or 60th birthday, something like that. And so, we sat there and and she fed me some more derves and we we talked for a while and then I went and sat on her back porch and just played whatever she wanted me to play for about an hour. And u that one was pretty weird.
I'm I'm I'm pretty comfortable with awkwardness, so I I I was fine. But uh I got to say, as far as weird gigs go, just playing for one person was pretty interesting. I feel like that wins. Yeah. Yeah.
The pinnacle. That's a good one. Well, hey guys, uh thank you so much for taking time out of your day to uh chat and uh can't wait to see you guys next week. You are in Bloomington on Thursday, Bloomington, Indiana on Thursday the 17th at the Bluebird and then you're in Springfield, Ohio, uh Friday and back here to Noblesville, Indiana for Trade Upfest Saturday. Um man, I'm so excited.
Can't wait to see you guys. can't wait to hopefully introduce you guys to uh some of my my friends here in the audience and expose them to what I think is just some of the best music out there. Um I'm a huge fan and I'm thrilled to death that you're going to be a part of Trade-Up Fest. So, thank you for saying yes and thank you for saying yes to the interview as well. Appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you all for having us. You know, absolutely. We'll wait and see if it turns out to make your best or worst list later. Yeah, someone's first. Hopefully.
Maybe first. Yeah. Well, just don't get drunk and berate the crowd and I think we'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Piece of cake. Awesome. All right, guys. Hey, I appreciate it.
Take care. Uh, safe travels. All right. Thanks. Bye.
Hey, I want to thank the Wilder Blue again for taking some time to uh chat here on the podcast. Uh great guys, man. Uh so nice um of them just to take a break and and and join me in in this nonsense that we call a a podcast. Can't wait to uh see them at TradeUp Fest again. Get your tickets.
They are moving. Um I don't want you to miss out on this. Uh it is Saturday, September 19th. The arena concert uh starts at 6:00. Doors open at 5:00.
You do need a ticket for that. The portion during the day completely free, open to the public. Um so come for both. Come for one. Uh whatever your uh situation accommodates, do that.
But don't miss it. Do not sleep on this event. It's going to be incredible. And like I said, you know, I think you're going to walk away from Saturday Night a fan of The Wilder Blue. I think you're going to walk away a fan of Larry Fleet and a fan of Norah Ree.
Um just some incredible, incredible music that night at the arena, uh Riverview Health Arena at Innovation Mile. You're not going to want to miss it. We can't wait for it. Um come say hi. I'll be at the Hamco booth.
Uh come say hi to me. comes to How to Tyler. You might even get a look at producer Chris's face. Remember, we will reveal Chris's face once we get to a thousand subscribers. So, make sure you subscribe here on YouTube so we can make that happen.
Again, we'll see you Saturday. Uh, get those tickets. Go to tradeupfest.com. You'll find all the relevant links there uh for the Hamco Live Hot Ticket Podcast. I'm Josh Cecil saying we'll see you at the next show which will be Trade Upfest.
Over and out. Sticky floors buzzing years I've seen for years. Tiny stage big time sound. Every lost kid. Turn it up in the light bar.
Light bar. Scream along like we're going to be star every night. Scream along like we're going to be star. Everyone, every shot, every score. This is our night for life.